Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [216]
Campbell had been an LDS missionary in Korea, then a Chaplain in the Army with an airborne outfit. He taught seminary for six years after he got out. Also worked as a weekend cop. He would pick up a patrol car at six on Friday night, and turn it back in Monday at 8 A.M.
Since he had grown up in the boonies on a Utah ranch, he never needed any training in firearms. He had carried a gun as a boy, and was pretty quick with it. From the hip, he could hit a gallon can fifty feet away in a quarter of a second. Grew up thinking of himself as a second Butch Cassidy.
He was not too tall, but he would have considered it on the side of sin not to be in good shape and well groomed. He stood real straight, shoulders back, and looked like a marksman. He had the patina of finely machined metal. During those weekends when he used to work as a cop, he was on for 24 hours a day, taking all calls. Of course, it was a small town, and he usually had time to go to church, but he carried a beeper so he could always be contacted and actually made more arrests in Lindon City than the other two officers put together, since on the weekend you had to handle every drunk and fracas.
The last time he had seen Nicole was one of those weekends, at two o'clock in the morning. He was driving down a road in Lindon and there she stood hitchhiking. He said, Get in the car, what are you doing out here? It's dangerous.
He had heard she had a child, and now she was obviously loaded on drugs. He had every reason to take her to jail, but she trusted him, and he saw that she got home. He kept thinking of all the times he had counseled her once a week from five to thirty minutes, and knew what a bad situation she had at home. She had told him about Uncle Lee. It was a touchy thing, however. He could not really get her to go into it. Sometimes she would sit in his seminary class looking dreamy, and have no idea she was there.
Now, on this morning that Campbell went over to find Nicole for Gary, she was asleep on the couch and her two children were asleep on the floor with a blanket over them. After she kind of combed her hair a little, she let Campbell in. Didn't even know who it was.
Cracked the curtain. Didn't recognize him. He said, "How are you, Nicole, do you remember me?" She looked hard and she said, "Sure, come on in." He said, "I'm Brother Campbell." She said, "Yes, of course, come in." They exchanged a few courtesies, and he said he'd come because Gary wanted to see her.
She dropped the children off with her ex-mother-in-law, Mrs. Barrett, and on the way out to prison, Campbell discussed her situation. She just said to him without any particular ado, that if Gary died, she might also.
It was quite a remark for Campbell to keep to himself, yet he could hardly turn it in. His life at the prison consisted of holding secrets.
Sometimes a convict would come in and say a particular man was after him. Campbell wouldn't go to the Warden and discuss what the man had said. The action taken would enable other inmates to pick up that the man was snitching. They'd be after him even more.
So Campbell didn't disclose a thing unless it was a matter of life and death. Then he would get the man's permission.
Now, even though he knew Gary and Nicole were thinking of suicide, he could not speak. That would only increase the pressure.
There'd be a guard sitting in Gilmore's cell every minute after that.
He could hardly pretend his mind was easy, however. The quiet way Nicole had discussed it worried him most of all. Except for those occasions when he was angry, Gary had the most relaxed eyes Campbell had ever seen-they looked at everything with no strain, graceful as a good outfielder sitting under a fly ball he would never fail to catch. Nicole's voice had something of the same. It never stumbled when she