The Choiring Of The Trees Part 18

The three men of the governor's commission stood around in Nail's tomato patch and asked him all kinds of questions about life in the prison. Warden Yeager stood there smiling, and his smile got bigger whenever Nail told how much things had changed lately, and how much better the food was, and all.

"Mr. Chism," said Governor Donaghey, "you have been, and still are, under sentence of death. Don't you think it's remarkable that you're allowed out here on the grounds to work in this garden?"

"Yessir, I reckon it is," Nail replied.

"Do you know the Reverend Lee Tomme?"

"I've met 'im."

"Do you think there is any substance to the charges he has made against this prison?"

"Well, sir, there was. Things was pretty bad around here before he spoke up. Of course, Warden Yeager was already doin his best to make 'em better, before the Reverend come along."

Later that afternoon, after supper (everybody got chicken and dumplings), the warden provided a little entertainment for the visiting inspectors: he turned Ernest loose. Nail didn't see it happen, but later Ernest told him about it. First thing, of course, they told Ernest that he would be pursued...and caught. They gave him a couple of extra pairs of pants (as protection, they said, but possibly also to impede his running) and opened the gate of The Walls and told him to take off, not toward the city but southward toward the swamp out behind the pen. They gave him a half-hour head start, and then, for the benefit of Governor Donaghey, the Reverend Monk, and Sheriff Hutton, they pursued him with the warden's pack of bloodhounds: Driver, Slim, Gloom, Dopey, Fetch, Nosey, and Lady. They had suggested the location of some telephone poles that Ernest could climb to get out of reach of the dogs' teeth, but he chose instead a sycamore tree beyond the swamp, a mile out, which was the farthest he could get before the hounds caught up with him, and he was returned, unharmed and unbitten, to the inspectors. The whole business was designed to prove how difficult it was to escape, and every inmate was told about it.

After dark, Nail was called out to help Guy Dempsey give the inspectors the "lighting ceremony," as Dempsey called it: a new searchlight had been mounted on a motorized swivel atop each of the four guard towers so that the guards could focus them on any spot inside the grounds or within a half-mile radius outside the grounds, and nothing within the reach of those lights remained in darkness. A half-dozen black trusties, dressed in prison stripes, were turned loose on the understanding that they would voluntarily come back after this demonstration. Apparently, the inspectors were greatly impressed and told the warden they would report that it was impossible, between the dogs and the lights, to escape from The Walls.

After the inspectors were gone, Warden Yeager invited Nail up to his office again and thanked him for the nice things he had said to the inspectors. "Is there anything else we could do for you to make you happy?" the warden asked.

"Yessir, there is," Nail said. "You know there's a awful lot of gra.s.s out there on the west side of the powerhouse. Could I maybe get a couple of sheep and put them out there?"

Warden Yeager laughed. "You used to be a sheep rancher, didn't you, Chism hee hee?" The warden shook his head in wonder at the idea, but also in refusal of it. "No, it wouldn't work. We can't even keep a flock of chickens here in The Walls. Now, if you were down at Tucker..." The warden snapped his fingers. "I got an idea. How about I get the governor to commute you to life and send you down to Tucker to start a sheep farm? I don't mean no two or even three sheep hee hee but a whole big flock of 'em. How about that?"

"I hear it's pretty bad down at Tucker," Nail observed.

"Not since that G.o.dd.a.m.n preacher, Reverend Tomme, started stirring things up. h.e.l.l, ole Tucker Farm is a country club now hee hee."

"Could you let me think about it?" Nail requested.

"Hee hee? Think about it? What's to think about? I'm offering you a chance at life instead of a fourth chance at the chair."

"Right now, Warden," Nail said, "I would have to tell you no, because I'd rather be dead than spend my whole life in prison."

"Aw, it don't mean your whole life. You'd be up for parole in fifteen, twenty years, maybe sooner if you did a real good job raisin them sheep hee hee."

"Let me think about it?"

"Better not think too long. I need to send the governor a list of names early next month."

That night Nail tried to tell Ernest about the warden's offer, but the other three condemned men in the hole overheard him. Nail and Ernest had no privacy anymore. The others jumped in on any topic that came up for discussion, even if it was the number of c.o.c.kroaches keeping them company. The guy Sam Bell, who had murdered his in-laws, said he'd a lot rather die than go to Tucker for even fifteen months, let alone fifteen years. The two kids, Clarence Dewein (whom they called Dewey) and Joe Strong, were both of the opinion that a whole life of even eighty years in Tucker would be preferable to the chair, the thought of which gave them nightmares every night-apparently the same ones, because they screamed at the same time in their sleep.

Nail hated the thought of Tucker Farm, but it would have to be an improvement on this crowded death hole. Would Viridis come down to Tucker to see him? It was fifty dusty miles from Little Rock. Would she keep coming for twenty years? No, she had provided him with the means for escape, and he ought to try to escape, even if there was a severe risk of getting caught, as the warden had demonstrated for the inspectors. But maybe Nail would even lose his chance at a life-commute if he was caught trying to escape.

The next time the Reverend Mr. Tomme came to see him, Nail informed him of the choice the warden had offered him and declared he was having some trouble making up his mind.

Lee Tomme nodded. "I know. Yeager told me he wants to send you to Tucker. It would be a feather in his cap if you did a good job on a sheep farm down there."

"He says you've improved Tucker the same way you've improved The Walls," Nail said. "Is it really better'n it used to be?"

"For a while," Lee said, but sighed. "I'm not optimistic that the improvements will last. That governor's committee you talked to-Donaghey, Monk, and Hutton-they'll probably submit a report that things aren't nearly as bad as I said they were, and then everything will go right back to h.e.l.l."

Nail frowned and considered that. "I sure hope I didn't say nothing to 'em that would make 'em do that."

Lee waved the thought away. "I'm not blaming you. I've got a suspicion these improvements are largely cosmetic: they pretty up the place for the benefit of inspection by the governor's committee, and as soon as the committee reports on how nice everything is, they'll take away the improvements."

"You think Tucker will fall back to what it was?"

"They'll have to fire me first," Lee said, "but I wouldn't be surprised if they did that too."

"'They' or 'he'?"

"Okay. 'He.' Hays."

"And one of the first improvements they'll take away from The Walls," Nail conjectured, "is me and Ernest having jobs and a little bit of freedom. They'll try to put us in the chair again."

Lee looked sorrowfully at Nail. "I hope not. But I'd be a mealymouth to deny it could happen."

Nail debated with himself whether to tell the preacher he wanted to attempt an escape. He knew that Lee Tomme, who detested snitches would not snitch. And maybe he could help. Or at least give him some spiritual advice. So Nail lowered his voice and said, "Lee, I don't think I'll take the warden's offer. I don't aim to spend any time at Tucker. I reckon I'll just go over the wall."

Lee smiled. "I wish you could."

"I can," Nail said.

Lee studied him awhile before asking, "Didn't you hear about that show they put on for the inspectors? This place is escape-proof."

"Not to me," Nail said. "I'm fixin to-"

"Don't tell me how." Lee held up his hand. "I don't want to know. I'll take your word for it. I don't want anybody accusing me of conspiring with you." The preacher smiled. "But you could tell me when you plan to go."

"Soon as I figger out a way to get upstairs in the middle of the night," Nail said. "That's the tricky part, as they say."

"Do you want me to let you know if I can figure out something?" Lee asked in a whisper. "Or would that be conspiracy?"

"Yeah, I reckon it would, I reckon you better let me figger it out by myself."

"Okay. Shall we change the subject, and speak louder? Do you know, when I worked in the Colorado prisons, instead of beating a man they would punish him by taking away his privilege of seeing the weekly motion picture."

Nail smiled. "That's nice. I aint never seen a motion picture."

"I thought as much. My next improvement to this facility-possibly my last improvement-will be to have movies shown, each Sat.u.r.day night, and to suggest that violators of prison rules be punished not by the strap but by being forbidden to attend the picture show."

"The picture shows will be done at night?" Nail asked.

"Of course. The barracks will have to be dark."

"And somebody who knows something about electricity will have to help 'em run the projector?"

"You catch on very quickly, Brother Chism, but shall we change the subject?"

"Yeah. Tell me what it's like in Colorado. Do they raise a lot of sheep out there?"

A general prison announcement was made that the following Sat.u.r.day at sundown there would be a performance of The Absentee, a great allegorical photoplay. The movie was projected onto four bedsheets sewn together on a wall of the barracks, from three reels on an old Edison donated by The Crystal, a Little Rock theater that was updating its equipment. It was the greatest event since Christmas. n.o.body from the death hole was allowed to attend, but midway through the motion picture all of the power went out, and the old Edison began to smoke, and Fat Gill was sent down to get Nail and see if he could find out what was wrong. Nail was taken up to the engine room, without handcuffs, and guarded as he checked the generator and the fuses and the circuits. After replacing one of the fuses that had blown, he was taken into the barracks to check the projector. Nail found a wire loose in the Edison and twisted it back onto its contact, but not so tight that it wouldn't come off and short again before long. Then, because of the service he had performed, he was permitted to watch the rest of the picture show, in handcuffs. The show was difficult. As near as he could figure, it was about some character named Might, who took over a factory and lowered the wages of the workers, pocketing the difference for the betterment of his daughters, named Extravagance and Vanity. It was real strange, watching the people actually run around and do things, and move their mouths like they were talking, only their words would appear in letters when the screen went dark, and their words didn't mean very much. The workers went on strike, led by a man named Evil, but Evil got a heart attack and the strike fizzled out, and in the end the owner of the factory, Power, came home and discovered what a mess Might had made, and had him arrested.

Although the plot was confusing and the names of people ridiculous, the movie held the audience spellbound, and at the end the men applauded and stomped their feet and hollered and demanded another showing. Warden Yeager himself, who had enjoyed the movie along with his prisoners, got up and made a little speech and told them that if they all behaved themselves there would be another movie the following Sat.u.r.day night. Almost immediately Nail could detect the men beginning to behave themselves.

Back in his cell, Nail reported to his fellow death-holers on the movie. None of them had seen a picture show before either, and Dewey and Joe said it sounded like one of their nightmares, while Ernest was somewhat apprehensive that motion pictures could make art obsolete, while Sam Bell said it sounded very interesting and tempting but he would probably see heaven or h.e.l.l, one, before he saw a motion picture. But all of them, Nail knew, wished they had seen the movie and could be allowed to behave themselves too.

Nail spent a lot of time thinking about the way he had fixed the Edison projector and wondering if he had given the wire on its contact enough twist to hold it in place until the next movie started shaking the projector. He also spent a lot of time thinking about what Lee Tomme had told him of Colorado: a truly beautiful country with big mountains and lots of s.p.a.ce, and thousands of sheep of all kinds.

He had pretty much made up his mind to go to Colorado when he broke out. Then he got a letter from me. Much, much later I learned that it was one of the few letters they had let him read, uncensored, in the original envelope. I have promised not to put myself into this story any more than is absolutely necessary, but I have the feeling my letter may have changed Nail's mind about going to Colorado.

Dear Nail, Viridis told me I should write to you. She writes to me all the time and tells me everything that is happening, or not happening, to you. And then I tell everybody else in Stay More. It makes me feel important to stand around on the porch of Ingledew's store and tell everybody the news about you. You know, the Jasper newspaper doesn't say much, and that's because I guess Judge Jerram and them still run everything in Jasper. But that is changing. Which is what I'm writing to you about now.

Judge Jerram likes to sit on his brother Tilbert's storeporch as if he was still somebody important around here, but there is not one of us does not despise him and sneer at him and even his brother Tilbert does not like him because he's bad for business, Tilbert says to anybody who will listen. There's room on Tilbert's storeporch for Sull and Sheriff Snow and a deputy or two, and that's all, because n.o.body else will bother with them.

Your brother Waymon is not the least bit afraid of those fellows.

He will go right up to the edge of the porch, and turn his back to Sull and say over his shoulder, "You want to shoot me in the back again?" and Sheriff Snow will tell him to go away or he will arrest him for loitering, and Waymon will say, "It sure looks to me like you fellows are the ones who are loitering."

And they know they wouldn't dare try and arrest Waymon or they wouldn't be able to take him out of Stay More and put him in the Jasper jail. Your brother is fine and strong. I am sorry about your father, but I guess you know his health has not been good for some time. Your mother and Irene and Luther and all are just fine.

They all miss you, as does every one of us. I think your land misses you too. Yesterday I took me a long hike up through your sheep pastures. The weeds have taken over pretty bad. There's brambles too. From a distance those pastures are all pretty and green, and rolling, you know, and it's all so nice and peaceful up there, but when you try to walk through it, it's overgrown and lonely. The trees sort of sigh.

There's this one place, way up against the corner of your upper forty, where the two tree lines sort of converge at the edges of the pasture on what looks like a dead corner up against the mountainside, and is a real dark shade of green, like the mouth of a cave, and you feel sucked into it, or drawn up thataway, and when you get into it you see there's an old road there, just a trail, if you know the spot I mean, and if you follow that trail up through the woods for quite a ways, a mile or more, with the woods growing deeper and darker, you come to this glade where a waterfall comes down off the very top of the mountain, as if it was gushing up out of some powerful spring up there. The glade is sunny, with the sun shining right on the waterfall, but it's dark all around, and dark in these several sort of half-caves where it looks like Indians must have lived. It was kind of scary, and I didn't stay up there very long, but while I was there I thought of you, a lot, and I had a strange vision as if I could see you just living and dwelling in that hidden glade.

Of course I've had to look up some of these words in my dictionary to spell them right, and some of them to find out just what they mean or how they came to mean what they did, and I have to tell you that "glade" and "glad" are sister-words.

I'm glad that they haven't killed you, and I don't think they ever will. The glade and all of us are waiting for you.

Your friend, Latha It was almost, Nail reflected, as good as getting a letter from Viridis. He considered that the letters Viridis was writing to me must have taught me how to write a good letter, or even infected me with some of Viridis' way with words. But his main reaction to the letter was one of shock: that I should mention the very spot, the waterfall, where he had considered hiding, where indeed he thought about "living and dwelling." If I had discovered the spot, wouldn't other people discover his hiding-place? Not necessarily, because I had accidentally stumbled upon that trail whose beginning was almost concealed in the remotest corner of his highest pasture. The glen (and now I have to admit I was wrong: it was not so much a glade as a glen) is hard to get to, and it was the most secluded spot I'd ever been in, myself, and Nail knew it didn't lack anything he'd find in Colorado.

But what had I meant, he wondered, about his father? I realize I didn't word that part too well. I shouldn't have left it open like that, as if his father was already dead, not just on his way to the hereafter. Nail wanted to ask Viridis what she knew. Had she heard anything about his father dying?

And he got a chance soon: Viridis came for another visit. Once again they leaned across the table, meeting their lips above the dividing-board, and greeting, and sitting, and then Nail said, "I had a letter from Latha. Bless her heart. But why do they let me have her letter and won't let me have yours?"

Viridis smiled. "I suspect her letter wasn't nearly as bawdy as mine."

"Bawdy? You mean you used blackguardy words?"

"Blaggarty?" She laughed. "What kind of blaggarty word is 'blaggarty'?"

"Black-guardy," he p.r.o.nounced it more carefully. "Aw, it just means s.m.u.tty, you know. Dirty."

"My letters to you are very white and clean, but also very lurid."

"I wish I could read them."

"I'm saving them for you," she said. "I'm saving everything for you."

"It won't be long," he said.

Her eyebrows went up. "How long?"

Nail glanced at their tablemates, a couple sitting a few chairs away and engrossed in each other. Bird wasn't paying any more than his usual bored attention. Nail whispered, "Probably next Sat.u.r.day night."

"Really?"

In a normal voice he asked, "Viridis, what did Latha mean in her letter when she said she was sorry about my dad? He's not left this world yet, has he?"

"No. Did Latha say that? He's very ill and ought to be in the hospital, but he won't go. I think the only thing keeping him alive is he wants to see you again."

"He'll see me soon," Nail whispered.

She whispered too: "No, Nail, his house is the first place the lawmen will watch for you."

"I'll find some way to see Paw," Nail reaffirmed.

"And me?" she said. "Will you find some way to see me?"

"I'll see you," he said, and realized it sounded as if it were just a polite leave-taking, and he didn't mean it that way. He said it again as if he really meant it: "I will see you."

"You were going to draw me a map, remember?"

He smiled. "No need of that. Just ask Latha."

"She knows?"

"Tell her she knows."

Viridis laughed. "I love the way you put that: 'Tell her she knows.' We would all like to be told that we know."

"Be told, then, that you know."

"Thank you. Now, here is something you should know." She lowered her voice to the point he had to watch her lips and try to keep one eye on Bird. "One mile southwest of The Walls, beyond the swamp, is a great big old sycamore tree. The newspaper mentioned it in connection with that awful story about how they demonstrated the bloodhounds on poor Ernest. That's the tree Ernest climbed to avoid being bitten by the dogs, but it's where they treed him and caught him. That's how I know about it, and that's how I found it. It's the only sycamore tree in the neighborhood, and it's so tall you'll see it silhouetted against the night sky, so you can't miss it, even if you don't hear the beautiful song it sings. At the base of that tree there is a flat rock, not too heavy for me to lift. Next Sat.u.r.day afternoon I'm going to place beneath that rock a canvas bag containing a Smith & Wesson revolver, a box of bullets, a hunting knife, a harmonica, a pocketknife with a can opener attachment, and a few cans of food, corned beef and beans and such. I thought of including some sandwiches with fresh meat, but the scent would attract animals who might take the bag away before you got to it. I will also put in a hundred dollars in cash. Is there anything I've forgotten?"

"My G.o.d, Viridis!" he exclaimed. Bird looked up at them. Nail lowered his voice and asked, "What do I need all that money for?"

"You never know," she said. "You'll run out of food and need to stop and buy some more."

Nail thought of something. "Yeah, I might have another mouth to feed. For a while. You don't think I would go off and leave Ernest, do ye?"

"I didn't think you would," she said. "That's one reason I'm going to ask him, when we visit this afternoon, to give me all of his finished drawings, to take with me, since he can't take them with him, or leave them behind."

"But he don't know, yet, that I'm plannin to go," Nail pointed out to her. "I aint even asked him if he wants to go with me. I caint talk to him about it because of them other fellers down in the death hole. I don't want them hearin us, 'cause then they'd want to go too, and I sh.o.r.e don't aim to take everbody."

"You wouldn't want to take Sam Bell," she said. "He's a psychopath."

"A what? No, I don't want to take n.o.body. Just me and Ernest, and I wouldn't even take him except I cain't leave him here to die or rot, whichever came first."