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can keep a person locked up too long just as you can keep them long enough. What I am saying is there is an appropriate time to release somebody or give them a break. Of course, who is to say. Only the individual himself really knows, it's more a matter of just convincing somebody. There have been times when I felt if I had had a break, right then I would probably never have been in trouble again, but like I said, I don't feel that I have ever had a break from the law. Last September, I was released from the Penitentiary to go to school in Eugene at Lane Community College and study art, and I had every intention of doing it. One day I'm in the pen for nine years, and the next day I'm free, and I was kind of shook. I had a couple of drinks and I realized that this was a pretty stupid thing to do. I just got out, and I was afraid to go to the halfway house with booze on my breath. I thought I would be taken back to the pen immediately and to be honest, I guess I kind of wanted to continue drinking, it tasted kind of good. Well, anyway, I split. It wasn't long before I was broke, and I spent a couple of days looking for a job, but I couldn't find one. I didn't have any work background. When you are free, you can afford to be broke for a few days, and it doesn't matter, but if you are a fugitive you can't afford to be broke at all. I needed some money. I am not a stupid person, although I have done a lot of stupid and foolish things, but I want freedom enough to realize at last that the only way I can have it and maintain it is to quit breaking the law. I never realized it more than I do now. If you were to grant me probation on this sentence, you wouldn't be turning me loose right now. I still have additional time, but like I said, I have got problems, and if you give me more time, I'm going to compound them."

The Judge sentenced him to nine additional years. "Don't worry," said Gary to his mother, "They can't hurt me any more than I've hurt myself." Mikal shook hands with him through the handcuffs, and Gary said, "Do me a favor. Put on some weight, okay? You're too goddamned skinny." Mikal would not hear his voice again for close to four years, not until he made a call to Utah State Prison in the middle of November 1976. By that time, Gary Gilmore was a household name to half of America.

BOOK TWO

EASTERN VOICES

PART ONE

In the Reign of Good King Boaz

Chapter 1

FEAR OF FALLING

On November 1, the day that Gary Gilmore first stated in Court that he did not wish to appeal his conviction, Assistant Attorney General Earl Dorius was at his desk in the Utah Attorney General's office, in the State Capitol, Salt Lake City. It was a monument of a building with a golden dome, a rectangular marble palace whose interior had a parquet marble floor from the center of which you could look up to the stories above with their polished white balustrades. Earl liked working in all that marble. He was not averse to working there for the rest of his responsible life.

That afternoon, Earl received a call from the Warden of Utah State Prison. Since Dorius was legal counsel for the prison, the Warden talked to him frequently, but this time Sam Smith seemed nervous.

His transportation officer had just taken an inmate, Gary Gilmore, to Provo for a Court hearing, and Gilmore apparently told the Judge that he didn't want to appeal his death sentence. So the Judge confirmed the execution date. It was only two weeks away. The Warden was concerned. That didn't give a lot of time to get ready. Could Dorius verify the story?

Earl called Noall Wootton and they had quite a conversation.

Wootton said it was not only true, but he was trying to figure Gilmore's angle. The statute called for execution in not less than thirty and not more than sixty days. Now that Gilmore had no appeal in, what would happen if they didn't execute him by December 7, sixty days after October 7, the last day of his trial? Gilmore could ask for an immediate release. The only sentence he had received, after all, was death. That was not a prison term. Technically,