The Choiring of the Trees - Donald Harington [147]
“Mr. Chism,” said Governor Donaghey, “you have been, and still are, under sentence of death. Don’t you think it’s remarkable that you’re allowed out here on the grounds to work in this garden?”
“Yessir, I reckon it is,” Nail replied.
“Do you know the Reverend Lee Tomme?”
“I’ve met ’im.”
“Do you think there is any substance to the charges he has made against this prison?”
“Well, sir, there was. Things was pretty bad around here before he spoke up. Of course, Warden Yeager was already doin his best to make ’em better, before the Reverend come along.”
Later that afternoon, after supper (everybody got chicken and dumplings), the warden provided a little entertainment for the visiting inspectors: he turned Ernest loose. Nail didn’t see it happen, but later Ernest told him about it. First thing, of course, they told Ernest that he would be pursued…and caught. They gave him a couple of extra pairs of pants (as protection, they said, but possibly also to impede his running) and opened the gate of The Walls and told him to take off, not toward the city but southward toward the swamp out behind the pen. They gave him a half-hour head start, and then, for the benefit of Governor Donaghey, the Reverend Monk, and Sheriff Hutton, they pursued him with the warden’s pack of bloodhounds: Driver, Slim, Gloom, Dopey, Fetch, Nosey, and Lady. They had suggested the location of some telephone poles that Ernest could climb to get out of reach of the dogs’ teeth, but he chose instead a sycamore tree beyond the swamp, a mile out, which was the farthest he could get before the hounds caught up with him, and he was returned, unharmed and unbitten, to the inspectors. The whole business was designed to prove how difficult it was to escape, and every inmate was told about it.
After dark, Nail was called out to help Guy Dempsey give the inspectors the “lighting ceremony,” as Dempsey called it: a new searchlight had been mounted on a motorized swivel atop each of the four guard towers so that the guards could focus them on any spot inside the grounds or within a half-mile radius outside the grounds, and nothing within the reach of those lights remained in darkness. A half-dozen black trusties, dressed in prison stripes, were turned loose on the understanding that they would voluntarily come back after this demonstration. Apparently, the inspectors were greatly impressed and told the warden they would report that it was impossible, between the dogs and the lights, to escape from The Walls.
After the inspectors were gone, Warden Yeager invited Nail up to his office again and thanked him for the nice things he had said to the inspectors. “Is there anything else we could do for you to make you happy?” the warden asked.
“Yessir, there is,” Nail said. “You know there’s a awful lot of grass out there on the west side of the powerhouse. Could I maybe get a couple of sheep and put them out there?”
Warden Yeager laughed. “You used to be a sheep rancher, didn’t you, Chism hee hee?” The warden shook his head in wonder at the idea, but also in refusal of it. “No, it wouldn’t work. We can’t even keep a flock of chickens here in The Walls. Now, if you were down at Tucker…” The warden snapped his fingers. “I got an idea. How about I get the governor to commute you to life and send you down to Tucker to start a sheep farm? I don’t mean no two or even three sheep hee hee but a whole big flock of ’em. How about that?”
“I hear it’s pretty bad down at Tucker,” Nail observed.
“Not since that goddamn preacher, Reverend Tomme, started stirring things up. Hell, ole Tucker Farm is a country club now hee hee.”
“Could you let me think about it?” Nail requested.
“Hee hee? Think about it? What’s to think about? I’m offering you a chance at life instead of a fourth chance at the chair.”
“Right now, Warden,” Nail said, “I would have to tell you no, because I’d rather be dead than spend my