The Choiring of the Trees - Donald Harington [122]
“Nor will you lend an ear to anyone’s protestation that Nail Chism is innocent.”
The governor sighed again and leaned back in his chair and regarded her for a few moments before saying, “Let me ask you. You seem so convinced of the man’s absolute guiltlessness. Would you want to find yourself alone with him in that child’s playhouse, or wherever it was he raped her?”
“I would feel perfectly safe with Nail Chism.”
The governor snorted in disbelief. “You would? I’m going to call your bluff, young lady. What if I threatened to throw you into his cage?”
“Do you mean put me alone into his cell?” she asked.
“Not just that,” he said. “The man is occupying the so-called death hole down in the dungeon of the powerhouse out at the pen. It’s like solitary confinement. And it’s very dark most of the time, Miss Monday. Very dark and scary. Would you want to be locked in there with him?”
“For how long?”
“Long enough for you to beg to be let out. Long enough for you to realize just how ‘innocent’ he is. Long enough for you to cease and desist this humiliating campaign to save him from the chair.”
“Are you saying that if I shouted, somebody would come and rescue me?”
The governor chuckled. “Not quickly. Not too quickly,” he said, and let the implication sink in. “When Nail Chism tries to harm you, it will take a while for you to summon the guards. We hope. Yes, I am going to call your bluff, Miss Monday, and I am going to have you locked up with that man.”
“When?”
“I’ll talk to Warden Yeager in the morning, and—I think it probably begins to get very dark in the death hole about the middle of the afternoon. Can you go to Warden Yeager’s office at three P.M.?”
“Yes.”
The governor was startled by the quickness of her reply. “Are you absolutely sure you want to go through with this?”
“Are you sure you would let me?”
“You bet I am. I just want you to promise me that as soon as we let you out of there, you’ll leave us alone. I would even be willing to wager that you’ll be so changed in your opinion of that hillbilly pervert that you’ll gladly attend his execution, which I intend to carry out at the earliest opportunity, if I have to pull the switch myself.”
Viridis stood up. “Three P.M. Warden Yeager’s office,” she said, taking her leave.
At the door he said, “You won’t need your nightgown or your toothbrush. Good night, Miss Monday.”
She did not sleep that night. Her insomnia made her confront the question: what if she had been deluded about Nail? What if he actually was a rapist? She even imagined a scene in which he confessed that he had raped Dorinda and that he couldn’t help himself. She anticipated that he was only an apparition of the man she had loved: he smelled abominable and the cell was the filthiest place she’d ever been. Such sleeplessness forced her eventually to picture (or did she actually sleep, and dream?) the act of love they tried to make, and it was not good at all.
In the morning, as she dressed and got herself ready for the day, and then as she baked three dozen cookies (oatmeal, chocolate, and pecan) to take with her, she told herself that the dream, or the conscious fantasy if that’s what it had been, was just an attempt to consider, and dismiss, the worst contingencies. It would not be like that, at all. She and Nail would not even consider sex. It would defeat their purpose. They would talk, and talk, and talk, and possibly hold hands, maybe even, yes! they would kiss, although Nail himself would be very self-conscious and ill at ease because of his appearance (but it will be dark, remember?) and the fact that they hadn’t let him take a bath in ages. She would do a good job of ignoring the unsavory atmosphere.
She told no one where she was going. She told her mother that she wouldn’t be home for supper and might be gone overnight. At 2:30 P.M. she telephoned for a taxicab and rode it to the