The Glorious Prodigal (17 page)

“Right here. You look at this. My father, Silas, your grandfather, had a brother who was one year older. His name was Maylon. He married Harriett Moore in 1828. They had one son named Henry. He was my first cousin. He married his childhood sweetheart, Nellie Atkins, in 1850. Sadly, she died giving birth to their only child, named Richard. Maylon and Harriet raised Richard after Henry was killed fighting for the Union at Gettysburg.”

From far off the sound of a coyote sounded. It was a sad, plaintive sound to Tom, who had never liked it. He saw his father look up for a moment, take in the sound, and then continue.

“When you were one year old, Tom—that was in 1876, of course—the bottom dropped out for me. Lanie was nine, Betsy was three, and I bought this place mostly on credit. I got into the worst financial mess you can ever imagine.”

“I never knew that, Dad.”

“Well, I ain’t proud of it. I overextended on it. Bought too much land, but I wanted a big family, and I wanted to give all of you something when I left. Well, anyway, I was going down the drain. Then you got sick, Tom, real sick. Medical expenses were high, and it just about scared me witless.”

“I remember Mom talking about that.”

“She was scared, too. And then she got sick. It was the worst time in my life, Tom. Worse than anything that happened to me during the war. I was a believer, but my faith got shook pretty good. For a while it seemed as though God had forgotten me.”

Tom listened carefully, his analytical mind clicking. “What happened, Dad?”

“Well, we just reached plum bottom, your mom and me. We had you three kids, and we were gonna lose this place. There wasn’t any way out. I’d been to every banker . . . everybody I knew that might lend me money. No luck.”

Tom saw that this moment from back in time was very real to his father. “What happened, Dad?” he asked quietly. “Obviously you didn’t lose the place.”

“Your mom never gave up. She was a praying woman, you know, and she kept telling me, sick as she was, that God was going to help us. Well, it was just four days until we were about to lose this place when all of a sudden a knock came at the door. Your mama was too sick to get out of bed, so I answered the door, and when I opened it, there stood my cousin Richard and his wife, Diane.”

Tom smiled at the expression on his father’s face. “What did they say?”

“Richard said, ‘Cousin, I’m here to take over. You just sit back and I’ll handle it.’ ”

“And you say you didn’t know him all that well?”

“No. But Bronwen had been writing to his grandmother, Harriet Winslow, who was still alive at the time. They knew how bad off we were. I’m telling you they just took over, Tom! Richard had some money from his grandfather, Maylon, and he had a lot of business sense. They paid our bills and got us back on our feet. Richard somehow just handled it. And Diane nursed you and your mother back to health.”

“That’s a wonderful story, Dad. I’m glad you told me.”

“Well, as you can imagine, Tom, I’ve never forgotten that. I paid Richard back the money he spent, of course, but that didn’t change anything. I’ve never ceased to be grateful. Been one of the sad things in my life that I haven’t been able to be with Richard and his family very much. Now read the letter.”

Tom opened the letter and began to read.

Tom looked up and said, “What trouble did they have with Stuart?”

“He killed a man and got sent to the state penitentiary. That was about seven years ago, I think. Go on and read.”

Your loving cousin,

Diane Winslow

Tom read the letter again quickly and then looked up at his father. He saw the disturbance in his father’s face and said, “This bothers you, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it does, Tom, and I can tell it’s not going to get any better. Richard and Diane did everything for us. I don’t know what would have become of us if they hadn’t come.”

“Do you know any of the details of their son’s crime?”

“Not really. It was open and shut, I think. Probably he was guilty. If I remember correctly, he did shoot the man.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean guilt,” Tom said quickly.

Zach looked up and reached out. There was a surprising strength in his hand as he gripped Tom’s wrist. “Tom, we Winslows have got to stick together. The world’s falling apart. You’ve got a nephew that’s putting his life on the line every day.”

Tom put his hand on his father’s hand. “What do you want me to do, Dad?”

“I want you to go and talk to Stuart, talk to his family, talk to the warden, talk to anybody you can. I know you’re a busy man, but if you’d do this one thing for me, Tom, I’d consider it a personal favor.”

Tom’s eyes suddenly grew dim with tears. It was the first favor his father had ever asked of him. He did not even pause for one moment but shoved all of his busy engagements out of the way. “Of course I’ll go, Dad. I’ll leave tomorrow. I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you, son.” Zach looked fondly at this tall son of his and said, “Remember how in the book of Esther she had to take a chance and risk her life for her people, and Mordecai said, ‘Maybe you’ve come to the kingdom for such a time as this.’ Maybe, Tom, you’ve become a lawyer, a defense attorney, for just this one thing.”

****

Tom left early the next morning. First he needed to go back to Springfield to see his wife, Helen, and children and
get his appointment book cleared out at the office before he left for Little Rock. His father was not up yet, but he spoke to Lobo and Lanie about what he was planning to do. “It’s the first thing Dad’s ever asked me to do, and I’ve got to go.”

“What about all your work?” Lobo asked.

“My partner will just have to take a double load. I’ll make it up to him.”

“Do you think you can do any good?”

“I have no idea legally, but I’ve got to give it my best. You two do the praying, and I’ll do the lawyering.”

Tom finished breakfast and left, and Lanie waited until her father was up. She gave him his breakfast and told him what Tom had said, then she came over and put her arms around him. “We’re going to win this one, Dad, you’ll see.”

CHAPTER NINE

A Table in the Wilderness

Tom Winslow had always liked the early-morning hours. He sometimes called them the cobwebby hours of the day for no real reason that he could think of, except it seemed to fit. He had gotten up before dawn and left Springfield, heading for Tucker State Penitentiary outside of Little Rock. Now as he drove along the almost deserted two-lane road south, he watched the fall color sweep across the land. He always took pleasure in the vigor of the morning changes. For one moment it was almost pitch black with only the stars glittering overhead in the sky. Then over in the ebony east the horizon seemed to split, and a pale violet fissure divided earth and sky as long waves of light began to roll out from the east.

Draping his right hand over the wheel, he watched for the space of half an hour as the world came alive, bathed in morning freshness, but it was very cold. Yesterday’s Indian summer warmth had soaked out of the earth, and fall’s chill flowed over the land and lay in the still air, its thin edge cutting against Tom’s face and hand. He had the habit of dramatizing scenes that he expected to happen, sometimes acting them out in his mind almost as if they were flashed on a screen at a movie theater. He did so now, imagining his interview with his relative he had never met, wondering what kind of man Stuart Winslow was. He had gotten little information from his father, for Zach had known little of Stuart, except what he had heard from Stuart’s parents. His mind shifted abruptly as he took a big sweeping curve on the road, outlined by the
skeletons of trees now devoid of their fall color that reached upward with bony arms. He thought of his interview he had arranged with Warden Armstrong, and like a good lawyer, he had tried to find something out about the man. “Tough but fair” was the word that he had been able to get from an associate who lived in Little Rock. This was little help, for it would apply to most wardens, at least the
tough
part.

After driving for four hours, he stopped at a small café and went in for a big breakfast. He ate a tall stack of pancakes drenched in maple syrup, three large sausage patties that were spicy and bit at his tongue, and a bowl of grits liberally laced with butter, salt, and pepper. With that meal filling his stomach, he wouldn’t need to stop to eat again until he got to Little Rock late in the afternoon. He left the pretty young waitress a quarter tip, which brought a smile to her face, then went out and started the Hudson.

On his last leg toward the prison, he took pleasure in the automobile. It was a new Hudson Super Six, and the seventy-six horsepower engine was powerful enough to propel the vehicle along at a brisk fifty miles per hour with no trouble, provided he had open road in front of him. He passed most cars, swinging wide to the left, then cutting back in on the narrow two-lane road that was paved for the last part of his journey nearing the capital.

He found a hotel for the night, ate a hearty meal of fried catfish, turnip greens, and fried potatoes, followed by chess pie, and settled in for the night.

At ten o’clock the next morning he pulled up to the gates of the prison and was greeted by a guard with a square, hard face and a pair of suspicious gray eyes who demanded to know his purpose.

“I’m here to visit a prisoner, and I have an interview with Warden Armstrong at eleven o’clock.”

The guard consulted a clipboard and reluctantly nodded. “Go on in. Visitors park over there.”

“Thank you.”

Pulling the Hudson over to a line of cars and trucks, Tom shut the engine off and sat there for a moment. As was his habit before he began any sort of work or started any project, he bowed his head and prayed quickly. “Lord, give me favor with Warden Armstrong and open up the doors to this place in the name of Jesus.”

Grabbing a large paper sack stuffed full of items he thought Stuart might appreciate, he jammed a notebook into his pocket and moved across the yard. He passed a group of inmates carrying shovels and noticed the old, lost faces. Their hardened features seemed to be closed doors that had shut out the world. He heard not one sound as the men trooped along, flanked on either side by guards carrying shotguns. A shiver ran through Tom Winslow, and he gave a quick prayer of thanks that he was not locked up here. Like most men, he had a fear of losing his freedom. As a lawyer, he had visited several prisons, and it always brought a mixture of fear and compassion for those who had brought themselves to such a place.

“I’m here to see Stuart Winslow,” he said as he approached a guard standing just outside a door. The guard was a tall man with high cheekbones and a broad slash of a mouth.

“Do you know his number?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Go on inside.” He stepped back, opened the door, and nodded. “That guard over there will take care of you.”

“Thank you.”

Stepping inside, Tom saw a long hallway that extended the length of the building. He went at once to an open door where a guard in a dark blue uniform sat at a desk. A wood stove glowed with a cherry red flame that sent off heat waves throughout the room. The guard looked up and nodded.

“What can I do for you, sir?”

“I have an appointment to see one of the inmates.”

“What’s his name?”

“Stuart Winslow.”

The guard pulled out a notebook, opened it up, and said, “You’re all cleared.”

“I also have an appointment to see Warden Armstrong at eleven.”

“You’ll have to go to the administration building for that. Go out the front door and turn to your left. Just ask anyone.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll have someone take you down to the visitors’ room.” He called out, “Jenkins, take this gentleman down to see a prisoner.”

Tom followed the guard, a short, stocky man wearing his cap pushed back on his head in a jaunty air. He was shown to a large room with tables scattered around, and the air was filled with the murmur of conversations.

“Have a seat over there. I’ll get Winslow for you,” the guard said.

As soon as the man left, Tom moved over to one of the vacant tables. A large stove took the chill off the air, and what appeared to be a husband and wife stood close to it, the man holding his hands out to catch the heat. All of the inmates wore a dull, striped uniform, roughly cut and ill fitting. Their hair was cut short, giving them a rather sinister appearance.

As Tom looked around the room, he felt a great pity for these men whose lives had now, more or less, ended. Many of the visitors were wives, he supposed—some young, some older—and most of them looked like poor, hardworking women. The majority of them wore cheap clothing, and their hands were red from the cold and hard work.

“You got family in here?”

Winslow turned quickly to see a woman seated at the next table. She was in her sixties, he supposed, a small woman wearing an imitation fox fur that had lost a great deal of its substance. Her hands, which she kept folded on the table, were rough and worn, and the backs were dotted with liver spots. She had a pleasant, sweet face but looked very tired.