The Choiring of the Trees - Donald Harington [135]
“Sometimes,” Nail said, and then asked, “Which one of us are ye aimin to do first?”
“Good question, Chism hee hee,” Yeager said. “I really aint given it no thought. Got any preference hee hee?”
“I’d ’preciate it if you’d do him first,” Nail said.
Nail heard Ernest agree. “Yeah, do me first. I don’t want to watch you’uns do Nail.”
The warden looked back and forth between the two of them in their separate cells, trying to stand midway between them. He leaned toward Nail and asked, “You scared to go first? Or you still think somebody’s gonna save you a third time hee hee?”
“Nossir, I jist don’t want Ernest to have to watch me.”
“Let me think about it,” the warden said. “I caint promise nothin hee hee.” He went back upstairs.
Later in the afternoon Jimmie Mac came, but he was still pretending that Nail didn’t exist. He only wanted to see if Ernest was ready to be baptized. He had been working on Ernest all week, trying to baptize him. Jimmie Mac had even got to the point where he was willing to go ahead and baptize Ernest even if Ernest would not confess and repent. He wanted to make one last effort. “Son, just a few more hours and you’ll stand there at those pearl-studded gates and they won’t let you in,” he said. Nail couldn’t hear what-all Ernest was replying, but it took him a while. They went on talking in the next cell. Ernest had told Nail that up around Timbo where he came from everybody thought you had to be totally immersed in water to be saved, and there wasn’t noplace around this pen where they could totally immerse you, and he didn’t care to be sprinkled, although he didn’t exactly mind it neither, it probably wasn’t any worse than getting your head shaved. Finally Nail heard Jimmie Mac saying, “Son, you’ll never regret this,” and then some more talking, and then Jimmie Mac said real loud, “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, amen,” and then it was silent for a while before Jimmie Mac asked, “Don’t you feel like shouting?” Nail didn’t hear what Ernest answered, but it wasn’t a shout.
At suppertime, sure enough, they brought Nail a platter of chicken and dumplings, and Ernest an honest-to-God porterhouse with all the trimmings. Those prison folks in Tennessee, or wherever it was, sure had the right idea. As Ernest put it, “By gonnies, I’d let ’em ’lectercute me ever night if they’d feed me like this aforehand.”
They weren’t given any time after supper to sit around on the porch and shoot the breeze or watch the hound dog chew his tail. Warden Yeager returned, accompanied by Fat Gill, Short Leg, and a couple of armed black trusties. Was it time already to go upstairs? Warden Yeager said, “Well now, gentlemen hee hee, not that I don’t take your word for it that you’ll be orderly during these proceedings, but just to be safe hee hee we are going to have to search you. Take off your hee hee clothes.”
They opened the cell doors and made Nail and Ernest strip down naked. Of course Nail had anticipated this and had nothing around his neck except the tree charm. Warden Yeager fingered the tree charm, turning it over and even squinting at the inscription on the back of it. He decided to let Nail wear it but nothing else. They took away his clothes and turned the cell upside down looking for his blade. They tore up his Bible and ripped up the bed. It was Warden Yeager, maybe not so numbskulled after all, who realized it was inside the harmonica, where it had originated; he took the harmonica apart and removed the dagger and held it up in front of Nail’s face and said, “Mister, does this belong to you, any chance hee hee?” Nail did not answer. The warden began to shake—out of checked anger, Nail thought at first, but then decided the warden was shaking the way you do when you’ve had a narrow escape. “Maybe we’ll make you go first hee hee,” the warden said, and Nail realized something else: whenever the warden made that sound “hee hee” it wasn’t because he didn’t know