The Gardener's Son (9 page)

Exterior. The Gregg home. Mrs Gregg is in her garden, bonneted, cutting back the dry winter shrubs. She raises up. She listens to the silence. She looks toward the mill. She takes off her bonnet and starts for the house, calling for the boy and telling him to get the carriage.

Exterior. Mill. Silence. There are faces at the windows and figures standing in the doorways. Six or eight members of the board of directors come down the steps from the mill office with James Gregg on a litter improvised from the balustrade dividing the inner and outer office and ease him into the bed of a springwagon. They are furtive and they regard the mill and the watching workers fearfully. Two of the members climb into the bed of the wagon to attend him and the horse starts off at almost a walk with the other members following like mourners at a wake. Gregg is alive. He looks at the faces at the mill and they look back with a variety of expressions, from apathy to mild interest to genuine sorrow. The mill blurs away. The train whistle blows.

Exterior. Mrs Gregg's carriage coming along the road. She is sitting very erect, worried but stoic. The black driver is worried and urges the horses along.

Exterior. Mill. Silence. Mrs Gregg's carriage comes into view with the horses still at a smart trot and stops in the road before the mill office. She climbs down from the carriage and crosses the open space and enters the office. The workers watch her go. The train whistle calls in the farther distance. The horses whinny and stamp. In a few moments she comes to the door. Her face is stunned. She looks down the front of the mill to all the faces that are watching her. They stare back. She comes down the stairs. She stumbles toward the carriage. A man appears at the mill office door but he doesnt know what to do. Mrs Gregg crosses to her carriage. All watch her. Her face is crumpled with grief.

M
RS
G
REGG
Dear God please dont take him. Please God dont take him.

Interior. Aiken County courthouse. There are nine black and three white jurors. The blacks wear light-colored clothes, the whites dark-colored. There are two black lawyers and one white lawyer for both the prosecution and the defense. Sheriff and judge are white. The prosecuting attorney, Mr P L Wiggins (black), reads the indictment to the jury. Robert McEvoy sits with his lawyers.

P
ROSECUTING
A
TTORNEY
That Robert McEvoy, not having the fear of God before his eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil on the twentieth day of April in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventy six with force of arms at Graniteville in the county and state aforesaid in and upon one James J Gregg in the peace of God and of this state then and there being, did make an assault and that he, the said Robert McEvoy, a certain pistol of the value of five dollars, then and there loaded with gunpowder, and divers leaden balls, which pistol he the said Robert McEvoy then and there had and held to, against, and upon the said James J Gregg, then and there feloniously willfully and of his malice aforethought did shoot and discharge and that he the said Robert McEvoy with the leaden balls aforesaid out of the pistol aforesaid then and there by force of the gunpowder shot and sent forth at aforesaid the said James J Gregg in and upon the chest and in and upon the left side of the abdomen of him the said James J Gregg, then and there feloniously willfully and of his malice aforethought did strike penetrate and wound, giving unto the said James J Gregg, then and there with the leaden balls as aforesaid sent forth out of the pistol aforesaid, divers mortal wounds of the depth of six inches and of the breadth of two inches each, of which said mortal wounds he the said James J Gregg, from the twentieth day of April in the year one thousand eight hundred and seventy six until the twenty first of April in the year last aforesaid at Augusta in the county of Richmond in the state of Georgia did languish and languishing did die. And so the jurors aforesaid upon their oaths aforesaid do say that the said Robert McEvoy the said James J Gregg in manner and form as aforesaid feloniously and willfully and of his malice aforethought did kill and murder, against the form of the Act of the General Assembly of this state and against the peace and dignity of the state of South Carolina.

Interior. Courthouse hallway. Day. A press of people in the hallway. Mr McEvoy comes along with Robert's attorney O C Jordan. Jordan has a briefcase in his hand and he is talking to the dazed father of the defendant.

J
ORDAN
Chin up McEvoy, chin up. The boy has every confidence in us and we want you to feel the same.

M
R
M
C
E
VOY
They're trying to hang him.

J
ORDAN
Tut tut, McEvoy. Tut tut. Far from being hanged we have every expectation of getting him off scot free.

M
R
M
C
E
VOY
I dont see why Bobby caint testify for hisself.

Jordan tucks the briefcase up under his arm and smiles at some of the people who are edging along the crowded hall past him.

J
ORDAN
Worst mistake in the world, McEvoy. Worst mistake in the world. We wont get anywhere in an attempt to blacken the Gregg name. People dont want that. We’ve agreed with Mrs Gregg to call no female witnesses and I dont have to tell you that we have exacted every consideration from the family in exchange. Her anxiety to protect the family is one of the things most in our favor.

He nods and smiles to a man passing.

J
ORDAN
Doctor.

He turns back to McEvoy.

J
ORDAN
All the law dont go on in the courts, McEvoy. And I’m sure I dont have to tell you that.

At the end of the hallway they are stopped by a constable.

C
ONSTABLE
MrMcEvoy.

McEvoy and Jordan halt.

C
ONSTABLE
Mr McEvoy you got to see to your affairs at home, sir. Your wife . . .

Jordan looks at McEvoy

C
ONSTABLE
I dont want to have to get a court order, but those people are entitled to some consideration. They can detect her four houses down. I hate to be so forward, but they’re your neighbors. Not to mention your Christian duty . . .

M
C
E
VOY
I’ll tend to it.

C
ONSTABLE
I know you’ve had all this trouble . . .

McEvoy fidgets with his cap and then suddenly puts one hand to his face. Jordan nods to the Constable that everything will be taken care of and takes McEvoy by the arm and they go out the door past the crowds.

Interior. Aiken County courthouse. Prosecutor Wiggins is listening with his head bowed like a confessor, nodding sagely, hand at his mouth. On the witness stand is Captain Giles.

C
APT
. G
ILES
No sir. He fired the last shot from the door. I saw Captain Gregg cross the room towards the safe. I accosted McEvoy and he said that he’d shoot any man that drew a pistol on him. He ran out the door and Captain Gregg came to the door and fired once after him and then there was another shot from the street and Captain Gregg collapsed.

M
R
W
IGGINS
Captain Giles, did you see a pistol in Captain Gregg’s hand when you first saw him in his office after McEvoy fired?

C
APT
. G
ILES
No sir, I did not. I believe he must of got it from the safe. Dont know that Captain Gregg was in the habit of going armed.

Interior. Courtroom. Dr Campbell on witness stand.

D
R
C
AMPBELL
He asked me what I thought of his condition and I told him, James, I said, you know gunshot wounds in the abdomen are very uncertain, and he said: If
you
say so, I will die certain. Then I asked him if he meant his statement about the shooting to be a dying declaration and he said yes, said he did. He said he had two policies of life insurance and he wanted to show that he hadnt started the difficulty. I was present on the train when his declaration was read back to him. He was in pain and very weak but he was able to sign it under oath.

Robert McEvoy at table with his lawyers is chewing tobacco. He leans and spits carefully into a spitoon at his feet and continues chewing.

Interior. Courtroom. Stark Sims (office boy) on stand.

J
ORDAN
Who do you work for, son?

S
TARK
S
IMS
I work for Mr Giles. I dont know who was there fore me. I do what he tells me. Otherwise I’d get turned off.

J
ORDAN
And what are your duties?

S
TARK
S
IMS
I go for the mail when the train comes. I bring the freight bills. Eat my meals at home.

J
ORDAN
And you saw Robert McEvoy shoot Captain Gregg.

S
TARK
S
IMS
Yes sir. Just like I done told it. I’d done eat. I’d been back about twenty minutes.

J
ORDAN
And when the shooting started you just stood there? You didnt take cover?

S
TARK
S
IMS
They wasnt nobody shootin at me.

J
ORDAN
I see. Thank you.

W J Whipper (black counsel for the defense) rises.

W
HIPPER
I’d like to examine the witness if I may.

Jordan looks at him with surprise, gives a slight bow, not quite disdainful', and relinquishes the platform to Whipper.

W
HIPPER
Master Sims, did you also run errands for Captain Gregg?

S
TARK
S
IMS
Yessir. For him and Captain Giles both.

W
HIPPER
Did Captain Gregg ever give you messages to take to any of the girls in the mill?

Counselor Jordan, sitting at his table, raises his eyebrows. The prosecutor looks toward Jordan.

S
TARK
S
IMS
Yessir.

W
HIPPER
And what did those messages say?

S
TARK
S
IMS
I dont know.

W
HIPPER
You dont know.

W
HIPPER
Were the notes sealed?

S
TARK
S
IMS
No sir.

W
HIPPER
And you never looked at them? Never even peeked at one of them?

S
TARK
S
IMS
No sir. Wouldnt of done me no good to.

W
HIPPER
And why is that?

S
TARK
S
IMS
I caint read.

There is a long silence. Whipper looks from Sims to the prosecutor to the table where McEvoy sits with his lawyers and to the jury. All look back with no expression at all.

Interior. Oil lamp-lit kitchen in a negro shack. The kitchen is the temporary law office of Mr Whipper and there are lawbooks in a cabinet behind him and books open on the table and legal pads and a quill and inkcruse. Mr Whipper s black face is lightly beaded with sweat and he speaks to the man across the table from him, who is Mr McEvoy.

W
HIPPER
Mr Jordan says that your son wont hang. What do you want me to tell you?

M
R
M
C
E
VOY
I dont know. I caint be satisfied in my mind. I got no friends to tell me right. Folks turn their head in the street. I know my boy done wrong. But he aint like they’re tryin to make him out. If my boy were a Gregg he’d not even be tried.

W
HIPPER
If your son were black he’d not be tried.

M
R
M
C
E
VOY
If they was to send him to the penitentiary that would be hard. But if they was to hang him. I dont believe I could live with that. My boy is no better and no worse than most any boy in this town. I know he must of had some reason to do what he done. If you’d just let him get up there and tell it hisself.