The Choiring of the Trees - Donald Harington [86]
We got lost trying to find the jury’s foreman, who lived on the Little Buffalo River up on the north edge of Jasper, and while we were driving around looking for his house we came across an Oldsmobile parked broadside blocking the road. Sitting behind the steering-wheel was Sheriff Duster Snow with three of his deputies there in the vehicle with him, all four men wearing their silver stars pinned to the outside of their overcoats. The sheriff asked Viridis who she was looking for, and she told him, and he said that that individual was not available. Those were his words. Then he asked did she mind if he had a look at that piece of paper she was carrying around. She showed the petition to him, and he studied it and looked as if he’d like to chew it up and swallow it. He kept throwing fierce looks at Rindy and me. Rindy watched me to see what sort of fierce look I was throwing back at him, and she did a fair job of imitating mine. Finally he passed the petition back to Viridis and bobbed his Adam’s apple a few times and said, “Now lookee yere, ma’am, we caint allow no furriners a-comin in yere and a-stirrin up trouble.” Viridis said she wasn’t a foreigner but an American citizen, a native Arkansawyer. “You aint from Newton County,” Sheriff Snow said, “and this yere aint none of yore business and hit’s again the law to go stirrin up the jurymen such-a-way as this-all, and I don’t aim to stand fer it. Now you better jist git yoreself on back to wharever ye came from, and stay out of this country, if ye know what’s good fer ye.”
Viridis simply took out her Eagle fountain pen and unscrewed the cap and held the pen out toward the automobile and said, “Would any of you gentlemen like to sign this petition?” and one of the deputies reached out to do it before Sheriff Snow slapped his hand away.
Later, when we found that lost jury foreman on the Little Buffalo, we got an idea of why the sheriff hadn’t wanted us to find him: not only was he ready to sign the petition, but he wanted to make a confession of his own, that he had never been convinced of Nail’s guilt, that he had tried to hang the jury but had voted with them only after the sheriff had threatened to run him out of the country if he didn’t. Now, if Viridis would let him make a copy of that petition, he knew a good many fellows whose signatures he could obtain. He was still afraid of the sheriff, but he’d just as soon be run out of the country as have to go on the rest of his life feeling bad about sending an innocent man to that electric chair.
By the time we’d given up trying to locate one more of the jurymen, who’d gone off visiting relatives in Western Grove, it was getting so late in the afternoon that we knew we wouldn’t make it back to Stay More before dark. And we’d be sure to freeze if we tried. So Viridis decided to spend the night at the Buckhorn Hotel, an old landmark in Jasper. Rindy and I would have to miss school Monday, but we didn’t care; we’d never even dreamt of staying at the Buckhorn before, and we were so excited we couldn’t sleep. Viridis had to entertain us past bedtime. She drew our pictures (I’ve still got mine, framed, one of my prized possessions), and she told us stories and descriptions of Paris and her trip around the world.
It was way past bedtime when a knock came at the door, and Viridis opened it, and there stood Judge Sull Jerram. He didn’t have any of his henchmen or cronies with him. He just pointed past Viridis…at Rindy, who was sitting