The Choiring of the Trees - Donald Harington [24]
“Who?” demanded Mr. Burdell. “Which telephone?”
“The governor, sir. That telephone in your office.”
“Don’t he know we’re doing a execution?” Mr. Burdell said. “What’s he want at a time like this?”
“Wants to talk to you, is all I know, sir,” said Mr. Shoptaw.
“Caint it wait till we’re done?”
“Sir, I’m just tellin you what Williams come and tole me. He says the telephone is ringin in your office and he answers it like he’s sposed to, aint he? and it’s the secretary of the governor, and says the governor wants to talk to you right now.”
“Right now, huh?” said Mr. Burdell, and seemed to be deliberating. “Governor Hays himself, huh?” He looked around at the others in the room, waiting for someone to advise him. No one spoke. “Well, I reckon I better go see what he wants.” No one objected. The warden turned to Bobo. “Bobo, you just cook him real slow till I git back, and make sure he aint done before I git here.” Several people failed to laugh at the warden’s wit, and he realized his joke had fallen flat, and retracted it. “Aw, I’m just kiddin you, Bobo. Stand back from that switch till I tell you. I’ll be right back.”
The warden marched out of the room. The turnkey followed. The condemned man opened his eyes, which had been closed as though in meditation. He stared right at her, at Viridis. She didn’t know what to do or say. She smiled slightly, and wanted to say, See, you get a few more minutes of life, not just from me. The trees she had been hearing singing, perhaps just in her head, had changed their tune: it was not a mournful carol but a hymn of joy. If it was the trees. If it was only inside her head. She wished Nail Chism would stop looking at her. Was he going to look at her the whole time they waited for the warden to return?
The others did not seem to know what to do. Gabriel McChristian and Short Leg Fancher chatted, too quietly for her to hear. Jimmie Mac was rubbing his hands together as if he had a bar of soap inside them and was washing them. Irvin Bobo reached inside his coat and produced a flat glass bottle, which he unscrewed and tilted up to his lips.
“Now, I wonder,” said Jimmie Mac, “what-all that is about. Could be something important. Could be, even,” he looked down at the convict and spoke the rest of the sentence to him, “could be the governor has granted you a stay, or something.”
Nail Chism did not appear to hear him. He continued to stare at Viridis, seeming to see her for the first time. His eyes, she realized, were not as dark as she had rendered them. She put the drawing back on top of the pad and used a kneaded eraser to lighten the pupils of his eyes. His eyes were a kind of hazel-tinged blue. She wasn’t too uncomfortable staring into them as long as she was examining them for the purpose of her drawing.
Suddenly his eyes grew enormously large, and his whole body jumped, and the green-shaded overhead light dimmed. Bobo had thrown the switch! She heard a frantic screech, and realized it was herself. She had thrown down the sketchpad and jumped up from her chair and lunged toward Bobo and the switch, and she found herself clawing at Bobo and the switch and protesting as fast as she could talk, too fast to be understood.
McChristian and Fancher were restraining her. “Take it easy, lady,” the obese McChristian was saying to her. “The switch aint on. It aint on. Bobo was jist foolin! He jist give it a teensy little spark, jist fer a joke.” To the executioner McChristian said, “Okay, Bobo, enough’s enough, you better jist wait for the warden and don’t be foolin around.”
Viridis shook herself loose from the hands of McChristian and Fancher and looked at both of them indignantly, then gave Bobo her most scornful glower and asked, “What kind of monster are you?”
“Hey, lady, I was jist givin him a little sample,” Bobo said. “He hardly felt it. But if ole Burdell don’t git back here soon, I might jist let my hand slip