Part 19 (2/2)

”Next week I'm interviewing for the position of chaplain in the Tennessee prisons,” Lee said. He smiled wryly. ”I seem to keep moving eastward, in the direction of civilization.”

”I imagine you'll stir things up over there, too,” Nail observed.

”I hope they won't need it as much as Arkansas does,” Lee said. ”This place really begs for help.”

”It's too bad Hays wouldn't keep you,” Nail said. ”That governor can't seem to make up his mind about anything.”

Lee laughed so uproariously that Nail wondered if he had unintentionally made a joke. ”You've put him in a nutsh.e.l.l. Governor Hays is weak and indecisive. He changes his mind constantly. If only he could reverse himself just once more about executing you this Sat.u.r.day, but he's changed his mind so often that now he lets other people change it for him, and the other people, this time, are the judges and the politicians who are raising a fuss about his clemency.”

”I reckon I'm gone, this time,” Nail allowed, and then he asked, ”Lee, you believe in heaven, don't you?”

”Oh, yes, certainly,” Lee said. ”But not with clouds and pearly gates and golden streets and all that.”

”But with trees?” Nail said. ”Are there trees in heaven?”

”A tree,” Lee declared, ”has just as much right to go to heaven as a man does.”

Nail decided that Lee Tomme was even a better man than he had already figured him to be. ”I don't have no reason to go to h.e.l.l,” he declared, ”so I imagine come Sat.u.r.day night I'll be amongst them trees, and all of us singing.”

”A cappella,” Lee said.

”Pardon me?”

”No harps, no lutes, no mandolins, none of that,” Lee said. ”Just the trees singing as the voice of G.o.d.”

Nail smiled and narrowed his eyes. ”Will G.o.d be singin shaller or deep?”

Lee laughed. ”Soprano or baritone? Now, that, Brother Chism, is a very knotty theological problem. But let's observe that in the very best of choirs, when all voices are loud and together, you don't notice the pitch of any one.”

”I like that, Brother Tomme,” Nail declared. ”And maybe what you're sayin is that G.o.d aint a woman after all, nor a man neither, but G.o.d is all s.e.xes, of all kinds and pitches.”

”That's it,” Lee said. ”A pitch is a pitch. It's all the same to us.”

They both broke up with laughter.

”Brother Tomme,” Nail requested, ”will you be around Sat.u.r.day at the goin down of the sun to lead us to the chair? I'd 'preciate it if you could. I might even let you pray for me.”

Lee Tomme abandoned his jovial face for a very sad one, and shook his head. ”I promised the warden I'd be out of The Walls by sundown today. I think that for the executions they're planning to restore my predecessor, what's-his-name?”

”Jimmie Mac.”

”Yes, I believe Reverend McPhee is returning Sat.u.r.day.”

”I hate to hear that,” Nail said. He offered his hand, and when Lee took it, he said, ”Well, Reverend, I want to wish you good luck and happiness wherever you go. When I see G.o.d under those trees, I'll tell Them to be sure and love you and keep you on this earth for a long, long time.”

For once Lee was at a loss for words, and his eyes got moist. He did not let go of Nail's hand. Finally he looked down at their hands, which were just holding, not being shaken, and he placed his other hand on top on the two joined hands and said, ”Look, this is my last day here at The Walls. But I think there is one thing more I could do. Yes, before I'm gone for good, I think I could persuade the Little Rock theater people to tell Warden Yeager that due to previous commitments they will have to move up the loan of Tillie's Punctured Romance from Sat.u.r.day night to Friday night. How would that do?”

On.

And behold, that old Edison shorted out right in the middle of the picture show. From his cell Nail could hear the three hundred men over in the barracks hollering, whistling, clapping, and stomping for several minutes before the lights came on in the death hole, and Fat Gill came down and said, ”Okay, Chism, there's one more little job for you upstairs.” He opened the cell door, then put the handcuffs on Nail.

Nail protested. ”I aint fixin no electrical equipment with these here cuffs on me.”

”Warden's orders,” Fat Gill announced. ”He says if you can't fix whatever's wrong with the cuffs on, we'll just have to forget it.”

”Well, s.h.i.+t, let's go,” Nail grumbled, and let Fat Gill lead him upstairs into the engine room. Nail had to get Fat Gill to do things for him because his hands were cuffed. ”Reach up there and open the lid on that box...Now jiggle that little k.n.o.b there and let's see what happens. Nope. Must be the other box.” Purposely he led Fat Gill on a false trail of increasing difficulty until he was in a position to suggest, ”If you'd jist take these cuffs off of me, we could git finished a lot faster.”

”Sorry,” Fat Gill said. ”I'm just doin what the warden told me.”

”Well, give that there k.n.o.b-no, the next one-give it a sort of one-quarter turn anticlockwise.” Fat Gill did as he was instructed and loosened the fuse to the projector's circuit, and of course nothing happened, not then. ”I reckon we'd better go look at the projector,” Nail suggested, and Fat Gill escorted him out of the powerhouse and up into the barracks, where the men were fidgeting until the show resumed. Warden Yeager himself was there, with Short Leg and some of his best black trusties surrounding his seat.

”What's the problem, Chism?” Warden Yeager demanded. ”What's takin so long?”

”He put these here cuffs on me,” Nail protested. ”How the h.e.l.l can I fix anything when I have to explain to somebody else what to do?”

”Take 'em off,” the warden told Fat Gill. ”He aint gonna try nothin with all of us around.”

Fat Gill removed the handcuffs, and Nail went to work on the old Edison, opening it and fanning away the remaining fumes of the scorched short. Sure enough, it had shorted exactly in the spot where he had twisted that wire before, and the wire's end had dissolved. He turned to the warden and guards. ”Any of you fellers got a pocketknife I could borrow for jist a secont?”

The guards looked uncertainly at the warden, and Yeager said to them, ”Well if y'all have one hee hee then give it to him hee hee.” Short Leg produced a pocketknife. ”Just take it easy with that thing hee hee,” the warden said to Nail.

Nail sc.r.a.ped the ends of the wire and twisted it tight and firm around its contact. He stepped back dramatically as if expecting something to happen, but nothing did. He jiggled the projector's switch. He pulled out the plug, turned it around, reinserted it. Nothing happened. ”Must be still a fuse or something down in the engine room,” he declared.

By now the prisoners were whistling, clapping, and shouting, ”Put a nickel in it!” and ”Crank it up!” and ”Turn on the steam!” and ”Spit on it!” and they were stomping their feet and jumping up and down.

”Well, go fix the fuse hee hee,” the warden said, and Fat Gill escorted Nail back downstairs.

Back in the engine room, Fat Gill wanted to put the cuffs on him again, but Nail protested, ”The warden didn't tell you to.”

”Aint takin no chances,” Fat Gill said, and was holding the manacles open with one hand while he summoned with the other. ”Come on, hold out your hands.”

”Well, s.h.i.+t, here,” Nail said, and brought his wrists together and thrust his hands right at Fat Gill, then suddenly raised them under his chin, snapping the guard's head back and stunning him long enough to throw a punch that caught him on the side of the head and slammed him against the wall. Nail didn't want to get into a boxing match. Before Fat Gill could recover from the blow, Nail picked up a length of lead conduit and brought it down on the guard's head, knocking him out. Then Nail took away his key-ring and opened the door leading down into the death hole. There were so many keys on the ring, and he didn't know which one would fit.

He turned out the lights in the death hole, groped his way down the stairs, and counted past the cells of Dewein and Strong and his own empty cell to Ernest's. He found the keyhole with his fingers and began inserting one key after another. A long moment pa.s.sed, and Ernest knew he was there, and he knew Ernest was there, and apparently the other men in the death hole began to guess that something was happening.

”Nails?” said Sam Bell. ”Is that you, Nails? What's up?”

It seemed it was the very last key on the ring that finally opened the bars of Ernest's cell. He felt Ernest's arm and gave it a tug. Only after he pa.s.sed his own empty cell did he remember he'd intended to pick up the copy of Fletcher's poems, but he did not turn back for it.

”Nails!” hollered Sam Bell. ”Is this a bust? Are you coppin a lam? What's goin on? Take us too! Dewey! You still there? Joe? Timbo Red? Who's bustin out? Who's stayin?” Dewey's and Joe's voices joined in and followed them all the way up the stairs. Nail shut the door on them.

Ernest looked at Fat Gill lying on the floor. ”You kill him?” he asked Nail.

”Naw, I jist give 'im a knot on his head.”

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