The Choiring of the Trees - Donald Harington [2]
The warden, Mr. Burdell, stepped up beside Jimmie Mac and said, “Okay, McPhee, you can say a short prayer for him.”
“He aint repented,” Jimmie Mac told the warden.
“Skip the prayer, then,” Mr. Burdell said, and turned to Nail. “Chism, you got any last words?”
“Yessir, I do,” Nail said. “How come there aint but nine witnesses?”
Mr. Burdell looked around the room, moving his lips and his index finger as he counted. He spoke the last two aloud: “…eight…nine…” He hesitated, then grinned. “Ten, counting you, Chism. Aint you gonna witness this yourself? And if you want to count Ole Sparky hisself, there, that makes eleven.” Fat Gabe and Short Leg laughed at their boss’s wit.
“That’s still one short,” Nail protested.
Mr. Burdell stopped grinning and looked tired and irritated. He said, “It don’t make no difference.”
“It aint legal,” Nail said. “Also, it aint legal to have that lady there.”
The warden turned to the woman and smiled. “Miss Monday,” he said. “Are you legal?”
She did not return his smile. She shook her head.
The warden glowered fiercely at Nail and said to him, “Okay, Chism, it’s cold in here and the sun’s fixin to go down, and it’s gittin real cold. Let’s git this over with. You want to say anything important? You been actin like you’re just out on a stroll to a picnic or something. You gonna be a real good boy and take this peaceful-like and easy, huh? Or do you want to start hollerin a bit and git it out of your system?”
Nail looked down at his hands. The trees were singing, Stay more, stay more. His hands were still bound together with cuffs. They would have to unlock the cuffs in order to strap his arms to the chair. In the instant between, he would reach inside his shirt for the razor-sharp dagger. He was conscious of the woman sketching his picture in her drawing-pad. With his head shaved smooth as an egg, he wasn’t much of a sight. The picture she’d drawn of Skip had made him look old and scared to death, although he was just sixteen and real brave for a colored boy. Nail wondered if the picture she was drawing of him was honest.
“Any last request?” Mr. Burdell asked him. “You aint got time for a cigarette.”
Nail inclined his head toward the woman. “Could I see the pitcher she’s drawin? That’s all.”
Mr. Burdell walked over and leaned down and spoke to Miss Monday. She said something to the warden. He returned and spoke to Nail: “She aint finished with it yet.”
“Could we jist wait jist a second, till she’s done?” Nail requested.
Mr. Burdell grunted, and hauled out his pocket watch and opened the gold cover of it. He stared at it for a time. He glanced at Miss Monday, and then at Nail. “Law says you got to be dead before the sun disappears,” he said. He walked back over to where Miss Monday was sitting, and stood behind her chair, watching her draw. He looked back and forth between her drawing and Nail’s face, as if he were comparing the two. Nail tried to look pleasant. He stared straight at Miss Monday, and from time to time she raised her head from her work and looked him right in the eye for a long moment. She was a pretty girl, even if she was cold as ice. Her eyes were sort of greenish…it was hard to tell in this light. Her skin was the palest, whitest flesh he’d ever seen. Red hair, green eyes, white skin: she was a picture herself.
While he posed in the last minutes of his life, he planned every move that he would make, trying to guess exactly what they would do while they were still able, before he took over. Fat Gabe would unlock the handcuffs. Short Leg would push him down into the chair. Fat Gabe would commence strapping his left arm while Short Leg would reach for the strap to do his right, and at that instant Nail would whip out the blade and slash it across Fat Gabe’s throat in one left-to-right motion that, continuing, would bring the point of the dagger in line with Short Leg’s heart, where Nail would thrust it forward, reaching in the same blink of an eye for Short Leg’s holster…
Oh stay more! sang the trees, and