The Choiring of the Trees - Donald Harington [91]
“You’re under arrest, ma’am,” the sheriff said to Viridis.
“You can’t do this,” she said. “What are you arresting me for?”
“Obstructin justice,” he said, and took her arm and tried to lead her down from the porch.
The old woman placed herself in front of the sheriff and slapped his face. “You had better arrest me too, Mister Snow,” she said to him when he had recovered.
He held his sore jaw. “Who the heck are you?” he asked.
“If failure to answer questions is obstructing justice, then arrest me too,” the old woman said.
“I jist might,” the sheriff said. “You caint go around hittin on the high sherf of Newton County!”
“I can’t?” the old woman said. She slapped him again, harder, on the other cheek.
For a second it looked as if Duster Snow might haul off and hit her back, but he got his emotions under control, at the expense of a beet-red face, and said, “All right, dammit, you’re under arrest too.” But Judge Lincoln Villines came up on the porch and whispered something into Sheriff Snow’s ear. The sheriff looked at the old woman and then up at the porch ceiling over his head, and spoke as if addressing it: “So you live here in Governor Ingledew’s house?”
Viridis still had her sketchbook open and was doing a trio of quick portraits: Sull, the sheriff, and Judge Villines, grouped together like a pack of rats, each of them rendered unflatteringly, almost in caricature. When I failed to suppress a giggle, Sull stepped around to take a look at what she was doing.
She had done him first, in a few quick lines that perfectly expressed the coarse bluster and bullying of the man, with those bandages around his head making him look like a clown, but perhaps he was too stupid to realize how unflattering the interpretation was, and his first response was cocky: “Hey! That’s me!” But then he changed his tone and demanded, “What are you drawin me fer?” Viridis ignored his question and went on finishing her quick sketches of the sheriff and the judge. Judge Villines seemed addled; he seemed to be aware that his portrait was being done, but he couldn’t decide whether to protest or pose, though he inclined to the latter, trying to get his best profile into position and his nose tilted properly. Sheriff Snow had dropped his mouth open, and Viridis decided that he looked more characteristic that way, and she quickly redrew his face with a slack-jawed expression.
“Hey, yo’re under arrest, ma’am,” the sheriff reminded her. “You caint go makin pitchers of people when yo’re arrested.”
“Indeed, what air ye doing?” Judge Villines timidly inquired. And then he requested, “May I see?” She turned the sketchbook so he could see it. “Wal, I doggies!” he exclaimed. “That’s shore a clever resemblance of ole Duster! Looks jist lak ’im. Don’t it, boys? And I shore wush Mary Jane could see this yere one of me.” He looked beseechingly at Viridis, and said, “I don’t suspose you could be persuaded to part with it?”
“No,” she said. “This is for the front page of the Gazette.”
“The Gazette?!” the men said in unison, and Judge Villines wanted a clarification: “The Arkansas Gazette?”
Viridis nodded and resumed putting the finishing touches on Judge Villines, who was busy whispering in the ear of Judge Jerram.
Sull gave Villines a grudging look, as if the circuit judge had made an unpleasant suggestion, and then Sull glowered at Viridis and pretended politeness: “Did ye take the trouble to record my speech, ma’am, ye prob’ly wrote down that I didn’t say nary a word about the Chism be-ness. I jist came out here peaceable to say hidy to my friends and cool down the ruckus. I don’t have no personal involvement in the Chism be-ness.”
Viridis made a sort of laugh and stopped drawing. She looked Sull in the eye. “Then maybe you’ll explain why you shot Waymon Chism in the back.”
All of the men tried to speak at once, but the sheriff’s voice was loudest: “Goddammit, it was self dee-fense!”
Viridis ignored him and continued looking Sull in the eye.