Prayers the Devil Answers (28 page)

“Got another sack here,” said Roy, slinging a canvas bag on top of the reception desk. He mopped his brow with a dingy cotton handkerchief. “Good thing you don't pick up the mail yourself, Sheriff. When the postmaster handed this load over to me just now he looked like he wanted to spit in your eye.”

“Did you sort out the ones for me?”

He grinned and pulled a handful of envelopes out of his hip pocket. “Those in the sack are
all
for you. This here's the department's share. I'll look through them and leave that batch to you.” He ambled back to his desk, still laughing.

I loosened the cord on the mailbag and pulled out the first dozen letters. Some of them had been sent to
THE COUNTY SHERIFF
, with only the name of the town and the state written beneath it, but the postal officials had no trouble figuring out who the letters were for. There had been a couple hundred just like them beginning a few days after Lonnie Varden arrived. Practice makes perfect.

The ones addressed to
MISS ELLENDOR ROBBINS
(spelled forty different ways) were usually marriage proposals. The rest didn't want to rescue me from widowhood; they just wanted to save me from the unwomanly task of executing a prisoner. I suppose they meant well, but it was hard to see how, for example, a professor from Bloomington, Indiana, or a plumber from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, could think they were more qualified, much less legally authorized, to execute a convicted felon for a state they didn't even live in.

I tore one open. I don't know why. We had been getting piles of letters for more than a week, and they all said pretty much the same thing.

Dear Madam,

I read of your present troubles in the newspaper, and I was shocked and saddened to learn that a poor widow woman with no experience in law enforcement was expected to dispatch a dangerous
killer in a public execution. If anything could make this prospect more terrible, it is the knowledge that you are also the mother of two young children whose images of their gentle mother must surely be tainted by this deed. My horror at imagining this appalling scene leads me to offer my humble services so as to spare you from this fate. Thus, madam, although I live several hundred miles from your little mountain county, you may consider me at your disposal . . .

The ones from the doctors and professors mostly sounded like that. The ordinary farmers and mill hands and such usually said something like:

Dear Lady Sheriff

I heard about yore having to hang a man in public. It is a turrible thing, and I would gladly do it for you . . .

None of them asked for any money to take my place at the execution. That surprised me. People these days were looking for a way to make money out of anything, because nobody seemed to have any, but these self-appointed knights appeared to be set on rescuing a fair lady, with no other catch to the offer. When the first couple of letters came in I thought about answering them because my upbringing had given me strict rules about thanking people for offers of help, whether you had wanted that help or not, but before I could work out a civil answer, the trickle of letters became a stream and then a flood, so I gave up the idea of responding at all. If I had tried to answer—or even read—all the correspondence addressed to the office or to me personally, there wouldn't have been time for anything else.

I did wonder, though, how Eddie would take the news, and I knew he would hear it at school if I didn't tell him first, so one night after Georgie had fallen asleep I sat Eddie down in the kitchen with a glass of milk and tried to explain.

“I guess you heard about that man who threw his wife off The Hawk's Wing last spring?”

“Some of the fellers at school talked about it. They were talking about hiking up there to see where it happened.” Just as I reached for the dishcloth he wiped the milk from his lips with the back of his hand. “Could I go along with them?”

“No. If you didn't get nightmares, you'd go telling Georgie, and he would.” I'd had nightmares myself a time or two thinking about it.

“Why did the man do that?”

“He hasn't said. And he doesn't have to.”

“Bobby Hardesty said he reckoned the man's wife had another sweetheart.”

“That's nobody's business, Eddie. Least of all the pupils of the fifth grade. And you can tell them I said so.”

He hung his head. “Yes, ma'am.”

I knew he wouldn't tell them, though. I may have been the county sheriff, but to Eddie I was just his mother, and he wouldn't want to deliver any scoldings from me to his friends. A sheriff for a daddy is one thing; a mama who's a sheriff is something else again. It didn't matter to me, though. I didn't want to be important—just independent.

“It doesn't matter why that man killed his wife, Eddie, and it doesn't matter what she did or didn't do, because nobody has a right to take another person's life. The fact is he did it. People saw him do it, and they gave him a trial downstate, and the jury found him guilty. After listening to the witnesses, the jury decided it wasn't an accident, and he wasn't crazy at the time, so they sentenced him to death. Do you understand?”

Eddie stifled a yawn. “Uh-huh. Can I have that last biscuit from supper?”

“No. You can have it with breakfast.” I tried again. “The state believes it has a right to execute that man for being a murderer. Do you know why?”

He shrugged. “Stop him from doing it again?”

“That's right. And we hope that it would make other people think twice about killing anybody, too.”

“Can people go and watch the hanging?”

“Yes. The courts think that seeing such a terrible thing will convince people not to risk such a fate for themselves, and so the execution is done in public.”

“Here in town?”

“Yes. You know that empty lot over next to the train station? They're building the gallows there.”

“Can Georgie and me go and watch?”

“Watch what? The carpenters building the platform?”

“Naw. The hanging. Well, I reckon Georgie is too young for it. It'd give him nightmares for sure, but I wouldn't want to miss it.”

“You'd better get used to the idea then, son, because I forbid you to go.”

His face crinkled with disappointment. “Awww. Why not? I'm plenty old enough. Anyhow I'll bet Daddy would have let me go.”

“He might have tried, but it wouldn't have made any difference. I would not have let you go. Such a thing is not fitten for a child to see.” Nor for most adults either, I thought, but there wasn't much I could do about that. Maybe I should have a word with Falcon about making sure none of the town's schoolboys tried to sneak into the crowd. Human nature being what it is, I knew that some parent might be fool enough to bring the child themselves, but we couldn't help that.

chapter fifteen

I
had been called on the carpet, not for anything I had done, but for what I would be obliged to do.

When the trial was over, the attorney general's office sent word that Lonnie Varden was being sent back here to the county for execution, and it suddenly dawned on the local commissioners that their newly appointed sheriff, whose job it would be to hang the condemned man, was a woman. The day after we were notified, I was summoned to a meeting in the boardroom at the courthouse. They invited me to sit down, and I did, but I still felt like I was standing. I wore my blue swearing-in dress and my long-brimmed white hat with the black ribbon trim because I knew that this was likely to be an important meeting. I might even have to fight for my job. Even so, I made myself smile at everybody when I went in, and I tried to act calm and unconcerned, but I kept on my white cotton gloves because my hands were sweating.

Vernon Johnson, in a white linen suit and string tie, chaired the meeting. Despite its big windows, which were shut, the upstairs room in the courthouse was hot and stuffy, but even if it hadn't been, Mr. Johnson might have kept mopping his brow with that big silk handkerchief because I think most of the heat he was feeling was coming
from the accusing looks of his fellow board members. After all, he was the one who insisted that they appoint me. I bet he was regretting it now, which was a shame, because nobody ought to have to regret doing someone a kindness.

I sat at the head of the scarred oak table facing two rows of stern-looking gentlemen: the railroad executives in dark suits, and a couple of the county's more prosperous farmers wearing their shiny Sunday suit jackets over work clothes and suspenders. One of them had a shaggy brown dog sprawled out next to his chair. Looking at that line of scowls, I started to feel like the condemned prisoner instead of like the sheriff.

Vernon Johnson sighed. “No good deed goes unpunished, I suppose, but heaven knows I meant well. Providing for a widow lady, giving her a paperwork job—and now this.”

One of the farmers smiled. “You couldn't be expected to foresee a murder, Mr. Johnson. Nobody blames you. The question now is what's to be done about it.”

“We could send him somewhere else, or get somebody to do it as a volunteer. Maybe there are experts in execution procedures.”

“I have a suggestion, sirs,” I said.

They all turned to look at me with much the same expression they'd have had if the farmer's dog had spoken up.

“I think you ought to let me get on with my job. There haven't been any complaints so far, have there?”

Vernon Johnson sighed. “You have done well, Mrs. Robbins; nobody is saying otherwise, but this business of performing an execution. People are horrified. It's not something we could expect a woman to do, any more than we could ask one to join the army and fight battles.”

A few of the other commissioners chuckled politely.

“Do you
want
to hang a man, Mrs. Robbins?”

I waited for a moment, sorting out my words. “I want to do the
job I was appointed to. Every job in the world involves things you'd rather not do, doesn't it?” I looked at the craggy old farmer on my left. “I'll bet shoveling cow manure isn't your favorite part of farming, but it's got to be done, doesn't it?”

He smiled and nodded.

“I'm saying that I am willing to do what would be required of any sheriff during a term in office. I'm sorry that an execution has to be part of those duties, but I am satisfied that the prisoner is guilty as charged, and the court has decided what ought to happen to him. Somebody has to carry out their orders, and I am the one sworn to do it. I am willing.”

A railroad executive spoke up, addressing the others as if I wasn't there. “But it's a public execution. What if she backs out at the last minute, or makes a hash of it?”

They all looked at me, some looking stern and a couple with pity in their eyes, but nobody looked convinced that I would be able to do it.

I took off my cotton glove and pushed my sleeve up a little. I held my arm out straight so they all could see it. “Do you all see this here scar on my wrist? Let me tell you how I got it.” I think Albert fell in love with me partly on account of the fact that I was brave enough to put a red-hot poker over the bite of that mad dog, but I never talk about that time if I can help it, for I nearly drowned in the pain of it. But if I had to show I was brave, I reckon that was the best proof I had. When I finished talking they were staring at that shriveled scar on my wrist, and most of them had gone greenish white.

Before they could recover, Vernon Johnson called for a vote. It wasn't unanimous, but the farmer I spoke to about shoveling manure cast the deciding vote. I would perform the execution, and thereby keep my job.

The clattering went on. I laid down my pen and pushed away the paperwork. I couldn't keep my mind on it. “I wish we could get a radio brought in here,” I said to nobody in particular. In the main part of the office Roy was typing up a report, and Falcon had gone out on patrol, but even if anybody had been close enough and paying attention, they wouldn't have heard me. The noise of the hammering outside drowned out everything, and I felt myself beginning to flinch in time with the pounding.

The carpenters hired by the county were building a scaffold.

The hanging was only a week away now, and preparations were well under way. The newspapers were already running stories, and a dozen or so big-city reporters had already arrived in town to cover the event. They passed the time waiting for the hanging by pestering us for interviews, because public executions were becoming increasingly rare. I wouldn't be sorry to see them disappear altogether. We had to keep someone on duty all the time to keep the journalists from trying to get into the jail to interview the prisoner. Some of them offered bribes, too, but fortunately my deputies caught on to the contempt and condescension in the reporters' attitudes toward them, which made them so angry that no amount of money would have tempted them. I had thought long and hard about the offer from the magazine reporter for an exclusive interview with me, but it became easy to refuse the money when I thought of how I'd feel if Falcon or Roy accepted an offer like that. I called the fellow and declined the offer. I suppose he'll write his story anyway, making up quotes and getting someone to take pictures of me when I'm not looking, but at least I'll know I did the right thing as I saw it, and that, I decided, was something I owed Eddie and George more than I owed them new clothes or fancy food.

If the county had given me a say in the decision, the builders would have been constructing the contraption a mile or more outside town instead of practically on our doorstep, but everybody was full
of reasons why the vacant lot on the street behind the jail was the ideal place to construct a gallows. Something about the soil and the drainage and the size of the parcel of land being good for limiting crowds. I was wholeheartedly in favor of that last reason, because the fewer spectators we had to contend with, the better. We were likely to have more people attending than the usual hanging because of the novelty of having a woman perform the execution. If in fact I did end up performing the execution. That had not officially been decided yet. Someone in the state government could overrule the county's decision, for all I knew. Still, judging by the phone calls and the letters we were getting, almost every big newspaper east of the Mississippi was planning to send somebody to cover it, and even a couple of radio stations intended to have reporters on hand to broadcast the event. I wondered if their presence would make the ordeal any more terrible than it already would be. I couldn't imagine even sparing them a thought: they would be like flies on a battlefield, annoying but insignificant.

It couldn't have been easy for Lonnie Varden to have to sit there in his cell, listening to that pounding day after day, knowing, as he must have, that the hammers measured out the span of his life same as heartbeats, and that when they stopped, his time would be almost up. Falcon had asked the carpentry foreman when he reckoned on them finishing, and he said they planned to be done by sundown on the day before the execution. The construction boss said they knew they had to allow us enough time to test the mechanism before the ceremony itself.

“The foreman called it a ceremony?”
I'd asked Falcon.

“Well, I don't think he likes to say the word
execution
,”
said Falcon.
“It casts a pall on his honest carpentry.”

Penned up and listening to his death coming closer by the hour . . . I felt sorry for the prisoner, which wasn't the same thing as believing that he ought to be set free. He hadn't shown his wife an ounce of pity; I was mindful of that. I thought it was all too easy for
people to see a sorrowful doomed prisoner and forget all about the poor victim who never had a chance to appeal for mercy. I figured it was our job in law enforcement to remember those who couldn't speak for themselves anymore. But I did think that the forfeit of a man's life was punishment enough. He should not have to listen to the building of the gallows to disturb whatever peace he could find in his last days. I went back to his cell to tell him so.

“I'm gonna go check on the prisoner,” I told Roy. I nearly had to shout to make him hear me.

Roy glanced up from his typing and nodded to show he had heard me. “Maybe I ought to check the manual and see if the town has a noise ordinance!” he called back.

Even if they did have a noise ordinance I didn't see what we could do about enforcing it. Roy was joking, though. The din would be worse back in the cell corridor, which was at the back of the building, only a few hundred yards from the construction site.

Roy motioned for me to stop. “Are you sure you want to go back and talk to that fellow?”

“Well, somebody has to look in on him every now and again.” I smiled. “He doesn't seem dangerous to me. I know what he did and all, but I think he's safe enough now.”

“That wasn't what I was getting at. When I was a kid my daddy let me raise a piglet, the runt of the litter. I had to feed it with a knotted cloth soaked in milk so's it would get enough to eat. When it got bigger, that little shoat followed me around like a puppy dog. Smart too. I was going to teach him to do tricks.”

“And?”

“You were raised on a farm. You know, don't you?” I nodded. “I thought you would. Come October, when my piglet got to be a good-sized porker, my daddy rounded it up with the rest of the surplus hogs and killed it for meat to see us through the winter. I flat-out cried for days.”

“When we lived on the Robbinses' farm, I never would let Eddie make a pet of something we were planning to kill. Not even a baby chick.”

“I'm just afraid that's what you're doing now. Making a pet out of some pitiful creature that you're going to have to kill one of these days. And I remember how much it hurts when it's time to let go.”

I shrugged. “Reckon I'm used to letting go by now.”

I found Lonnie Varden sitting on his bunk, staring up at the ceiling. A dime novel western lay open facedown on the blanket beside him. When he saw me he tapped the book and sighed. “Just killing time, before it—”

Before it kills me
, he almost said. I nodded, glad that he hadn't said it. “I can go if you'd rather read.”

“I've quit reading. It doesn't provide any distraction at all. You're supposed to care about whether the cowboy can escape the marauding Indians who are chasing him, but somehow I can't work up any enthusiasm for the fellow's troubles. At least he
has
a chance.”

“Yes. I can see how you might think he was better off than you are. Maybe you'd be better off reading something else. Would you like a Bible?”

“I might, sooner or later. But I'm not sure I'd find it very comforting right now either. They're pretty definite about those Ten Commandments, and I think I broke the big one—being a murderer and all.” He rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Maybe one or two other important ones, too.”

I nodded. “I suppose most people have. I don't have any other reading material to offer you right now, though. I just came to check on you and to apologize for the noise.” I had to raise my voice a little to be heard over the clamor.

He shrugged. “I don't suppose you care for it either. Nothing you can do about it, is there?”

“No. They've got to do their jobs, same as the rest of us, and they
can't very well see to do it after dark—that wouldn't help anyhow, would it? Then it would just keep you awake all night.”

“That wouldn't make the neighbors very happy.”

“No. Hammering is not a quiet job, so I guess we'll all have to put up with it as best we can.”

“If those are the only choices, then I'd rather have it quiet at night. But it's not much of an improvement. At first, the quiet is a welcome relief, but I don't sleep much, and when it's been dark and silent for a couple of hours, there's nothing I can do but brood about my situation and how it's going to end. I almost miss the hammering then.”