Cropper's Cabin

by Jim Thompson

  He said that he knew he appeared to be a humorous, even pitiful, figure, but God in His wisdom has chosen to make him thus and he hoped that the court would bear with him with the resignation which he was forced to bear with himself. He said that he understood this was hard to do for those who had been carefully nurtured and tended until their bodies became strong and handsome, but—

  The judge ordered him to sit down, but he looked pretty uncomfortable. He was six feet tall and he weighed two hundred pounds.

  “You see, kid?” Kossmeyer told me that night. “We’ve got ’em dodging already, him and the c.a. No matter how they play it now, they’re always a little in the wrong. If they get tough, they’re sore. If they don’t, they’ve got a guilty conscience.”

  “I see,” I said. “How soon do you think I’ll be free, Mr. Kossmeyer?”

  “Free!” he said, startled.

  And I was thinking what I was going to do when I did get free—how I was going to face Pa with the axe in my hand.

  “Yes,” I nodded. “How long do you think the trial will last?”

  “Three weeks, perhaps,” he said; and he left soon after that.

  As it turned out, it was three weeks before the case went to the jury. But, for all practical purposes, the trial ended on Friday of the second week.

  Donna was on the stand; she’d been there day after day. And Kossmeyer was leading her back and forth over the same thing, phrasing the same questions in a hundred different ways and making her answer them, until it sounded like she’d never done anything else but…

  16

  I object! Again I object to this entire line of questioning, and I am amazed that your honor…”

  The judge’s gavel came down with a bang. “The prosecution will refrain from mention of his emotions or the source of their inspiration. However! Due to the seriousness of this charge, Mr. Kossmeyer, I am allowing the defense the greatest latitude possible, but I am inclined to feel that…”

  “I shall connect everything up, your honor.”

  “I feel obliged to warn you again that…”

  “I am quite sensitive to the court’s warnings. I might even say I am becoming intimidated by them. I have been warned about my posture, the tone of my voice, the nervous tic acquired in childhood, the…”

  “Mr. Kossmeyer, you are in contempt of court. You will leave one hundred dollars with the clerk at the close of today’s session.”

  “I shall have to ask the court’s forbearance for a few days. As the court knows, my client has no funds and my resources have been seriously strained by…”

  “You’re breaking my heart.”

  “I am relieved to learn that the court has…”

  “Yes?”

  “May I proceed?”

  “You may!”

  “Thank you, your honor,” said Kossmeyer, and he turned back to Donna.

  “Now, let’s see. I wonder if I might ask the reporter to—oh, never mind. I seem to recall the topic under discussion. (Laughter.) By the way, that’s a very attractive suit you have on.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I notice that the skirt is equipped with zippers…”

  Laughter.

  “I object!”

  “Mr. Kossmeyer!”

  “Now,” said Kossmeyer, “I believe we agreed that during the course of your, uh, active association with the defendant, you were probably intimate with him a hundred times…”

  “Yes.”

  “Give or take a few dozen…”

  “Your honor, I demand that…!”

  “Sustained. The remark will be stricken.”

  “Could it have been as many as a hundred and twenty-five times, Miss Ontime?”

  “It could have been.”

  “But no children resulted?”

  “No.”

  “Your honor, all this has already gone into the record, and defense counsel can have no legitimate purpose in…”

  “Oh, let it go,” said Kossmeyer. “You used contraceptives, Miss Ontime, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “You did. You supplied the money for them. You purchased them in another town. You did it, not he. Is that right?”

  “Well, naturally, he…”

  “Just answer my question, please.”

  “Yes.”

  “With the intent and purpose of preventing human life?”

  “I—yes!”

  “You don’t have a very high regard for human life, do you, Miss Ontime?”

  “Objection! your honor…”

  “For certain specimens of it, no,” said Donna.

  “Sustained. Strike it. The witness will wait for the court’s ruling, hereafter, before responding to questions.”

  “How many times did you receive the defendant in your bedroom, Miss Ontime?”

  “Never!”

  “Are you quite sure of that? After all, you seem to have satisfied your appetite in virtually every other place. Why not in the natural habitat for such activity?”

  “Objection!”

  “Mr. Kossmeyer. Just when are you going to connect this decidedly peculiar line of questioning to the case at hand?”

  “Very soon, your honor.”

  “I shall depend on that. Witness may answer.”

  “I’m sure he was never in my bedroom!”

  “Why not, since…”

  “Because. He just wasn’t!”

  “Oh,” said Kossmeyer, slowly. “You were afraid your father would object?”

  “Of course he would have objected!”

  “I see. You hadn’t told him, then, of your affair with the defendant?”

  “Naturally I hadn’t!”

  “You were afraid to tell him?”

  “I—yes. No! I just didn’t want to tell him!”

  “You wanted to keep it secret, right? Not only from him but everyone else?”

  “I… I suppose so.”

  “It didn’t make any difference to you, did it, if, to conceal your affair, an innocent man—an innocent victim of circumstances…”

  “Objection!”

  “I withdraw the question. Now, let me ask you this, Miss Ontime. Did you ever invite the defendant to visit you in your bedroom?”

  “No!”

  “Are you very sure of that?”

  “Well—I might have asked him. But I was just…”

  “Did you ever invite him to visit you on the plantation grounds? Under the shrubbery, say?”

  “No!”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m positive!”

  “Thank you,” said Kossmeyer. “Now let me see if I have the situation straight. You asked him to come to your bedroom, but he didn’t come. But you didn’t ask him to visit you on the grounds, and he did come? Is that what you expect us to believe, Miss Ontime?”

  “I don’t care what you believe!”

  “I’m sorry you don’t care what we believe, Miss Ontime. A man’s life is at stake, and most of us—these good jury men—are here at considerable sacrifice. But…”

  “Counsel will save his orations for the newspapers.”

  “I take no exception to that, your honor. I find our American press much fairer than some of our other institutions. May I proceed with the defense of my client?”

  “You may. You may also see me in my chambers after adjournment.”

  “Now, Miss Ontime, you were saying that you didn’t care what we thought, and I suppose a girl who’s had every advantage of our civilization with none of its responsibilities—”

  “Mr. Kossmeyer!”

  “—wouldn’t care. Incidentally, what are your feelings regarding the defendant?”

  “I hate him!”

  “You do? Now, at the beginning of the trial, as I recall, your attitude was more one of sorrow. You were only interested in seeing justice done and…”

  “I hate him! I hope he dies! I hate hate HATE…!” She was rocking in her chair, eyes clinched, screaming, laughing. “I h-ha
te h-him! I ha…”

  And Kossmeyer was shouting, “Sure, you do! Because you’ve been exposed for the shameless, graceless thing you are! That’s why you’ve lied—because you want him to die! Why don’t you tell the truth, hah? Why…”

  The county attorney was yelling objections. The judge was swinging his gavel, bang, bang, bang, calling and gesturing to the bailiffs. But Kossmeyer kept on shouting at her.

  He kept right on, even after the bailiffs grabbed him and started dragging him from the courtroom.

  “You’re not fooling anyone! The jury knows what you are! So why don’t you tell the truth that this poor misguided youth is too chivalrous to reveal! This youth who stands on the brink of eternity where you placed him! Tell the jury how he was attacked by your father and forced to de—”

  That was as far as he got before they dragged him out.

  Donna was carried from the courtroom.

  Court was adjourned for the day.

  Kossmeyer got a five-hundred-dollar fine, and a thirty-day jail sentence, to be served as soon as he could arrange his affairs. But he said it was worth it when he came to see me that night.

  “That wrapped it up, kid,” he said. “It may drag on for another week, but it’s all over with the jury.”

  “Well”—I swallowed hard—“that’s good.”

  “She’ll get over it, Tom. I know people—I don’t know a goddam thing but people—and I say she’ll get over it.”

  I knew she wouldn’t get over it, but I didn’t say anything. After all, he’d done it for me and I’d helped him do it.

  “All it’ll take is time,” he went on. “And, Tom”—he hesitated—“you’ll have that time.”

  “How do you mean?” I said.

  “Don’t you see, boy? This was murder, the big rap. And they had you cold. We didn’t have a card in our hands. We’ve won—but we haven’t won the fight. Only the first round. There’ll be others, and we’ll win those, too; we’ll trim ’em down to size and pick ’em off on points. But, meanwhile… well, you’ll have some time.”

  “But you said…”

  “I said we’d beat the chair, and we have. And we’re goddam lucky to do it.”

  “I wonder,” I said.

  17

  The jury was out three days.

  They brought in a verdict of guilty of murder in the second degree, with an urgent recommendation for leniency.

  The judge asked me if I had anything to say before sentence was pronounced.

  I started to shake my head. Then I said, “I’m not guilty of murder in the second degree or any other kind.”

  He sentenced me to twenty years at hard labor at the State Reformatory for Men at Sandstone, Oklahoma.

  I turned and looked out into the courtroom.

  There was some overlapping, but the spectators were divided roughly into three groups—Indians, whites and Negroes. The white and Negro sections were packed, with people crowding into the aisles. The Indian section—well, that would have been packed except for Abe Toolate. Abe had a whole bench to himself.

  My eyes swept on over him, and I remember thinking—and not getting much satisfaction out of it—that he looked as miserable as I felt. Then I was looking at the front bench where Miss Trumbull and Mr. Redbird were sitting.

  I’d never really looked at them during the trial. I’d kept from looking at them, and I’d never spoken to them.

  Now I looked at them and spoke. I said what Mr. Redbird had told me I would.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  I tried to spot Pa, because I had something I wanted to say to him, too. But he must have been standing in the back somewhere, and…

  And two deputy sheriffs were leading me away.

  It was all over.

  18

  Son-of-a-bitch!” Wha-ack! The guard swung the strap again, and my whole body jerked against the bars. “You gonna straighten out? You gonna get along?”

  “Get along with me,” I said.

  “Ornery”—wha-ack!—“bastard!”—wha-ack!—“Say it, goddam yuh! You gonna…”

  “Hell with you,” I said. “You can…”

  Wha-ack, wha-ack, wha-aack, wha…

  “That’s enough!” The doctor grabbed him by the arms and spun him around. “I said it was enough! You don’t want to kill him, do you?”

  “You’re goddam right, I do! I”—the guard was panting, mopping the sweat from his face. “You know how he is, doc! He just won’t try to…”

  “Take him down! Unfasten his wrists!”

  “But, doc, you know yourself how…”

  “I know. But get him down. He can’t take any more.”

  The guard jerked the wrist-straps free. I tried to grip the bars, but my hands were numb and I sagged down to the floor on my knees.

  “All right, get some help. We’ve got to get him to the hospital.”

  “Huh-uh, doc. I mean, no, sir. He goes to the hole, an’ that’s orders.”

  “Not now it isn’t! He goes to the hospital!”

  … I went to the hospital. Again. I’d been in Sandstone a little more than four months, and this was my fourth time in the hospital.

  A trusty washed and disinfected my back and put a gauze pack over it. Then he went away, and the doctor stood looking down at me; and finally he kicked a stool up to my cot and sat down.

  I liked him. Rather, I would have liked him if I’d been letting myself like anyone. He probably wasn’t more than ten years older than I was; and I guess he had plenty to learn yet or he wouldn’t have been in this kind of job.

  “Well,” he said grimly, “how much longer do you think you can go on like this?”

  I started to shrug, and the bandages drew. I let out a gasp and he nodded, eyes narrowed.

  “Not so good, huh? You keep it up, and they’ll be carrying you out of here in pieces.”

  “I feel all right,” I said.

  “They’ll do it, Carver. They’re itching to do it, and it won’t cost them a cent.”

  “They won’t do it,” I said. Because I knew I was going to go back. I was going to stand there in the doorway with the axe in my hands. “I don’t give a damn if they do it.”

  He frowned, puzzledly, leaning forward on the stool. “I know I’m wasting my time, but—I just don’t get it. What do you want? What do you expect to gain?”

  “I haven’t asked for anything,” I said, “from you or anyone else.”

  “But why—what are you trying to prove? This isn’t a good stir. There aren’t any good ones. Now, there was quite a bit of sympathy for you when you first came here. You weren’t a criminal in the true sense of the term. You were just a country boy who’d got himself in a jam with a rich girl, and had to kill her…”

  I laughed and shook my head. “Never mind me, doc. Go right ahead.”

  “Everyone was prepared to go easy on you. You could have used your time here to improve yourself. Built yourself up, and made plans for the day when you would leave…”

  “I’ve got…” I broke off the sentence.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Well…” He hesitated. “That’s the way it was. This was a great shock to you, a man your age. It seems like the end of the world to you. But, Carver, the fact that you got a twenty-year sentence doesn’t mean you have to serve it. You’ve got a good lawyer pulling for you. Behave yourself, and even if he can’t swing a new trial he can get you a reduction of sentence. Why you’d be out of here in… well, in no time at all!”

  “No time,” I said. “I reckon you mean about ten or twelve years, don’t you?”

  “Well. You can’t really expect to…”

  “I don’t expect anything,” I said. “I don’t want anything. Just leave me alone, doc. Just mind your own business and let me mind mine. That’s all the favor I ask.”

  “You’ve got it!” He started to stand up. “Do you want a shot? That back’s going to give you plenty of trouble tonight.”

 
“Give it to me,” I said. “Don’t give it to me. Suit yourself.”

  His eyes flashed and I thought for a second he was going to slam me one. Instead, though, he sagged back down on the stool, staring at me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “But it’s like you said, doc. You’re wasting your time. No one can do anything for me.”

  “But… why? Why, Carver?”

  I hesitated. I didn’t see how I could explain it to him when I couldn’t really explain it to myself, but he was a good guy so I tried to tell him.

  “It’s—well, it’s kind of like this, doc. Like a story I read one time about a man. He got to where he couldn’t see, not really see, you know. He had eyes, but somehow they didn’t tell his mind anything. And his ears were the same way. And his mouth. Somehow he couldn’t find any words to come out of it; and he couldn’t taste anything. Not really taste it. And all over his body, doc, he was kind of numb. He couldn’t feel anything. And he knew there was something wrong—he knew what was wrong. But there wasn’t a thing he could do about it, him or anyone else. Not a thing, and it was a waste of time to try. Because he was dead.”

  He waited, as if he thought I might be going to say something else. Then he sighed and stood up.

  “Well,” he smiled a little. “At least you’ve talked. That’s a start.”

  “No,” I said, “that’s the end. There isn’t any more.”

  “We’ll see. We’ll see about that.”

  I shook my head. “You wanted to know something. I’ve tried to tell you. But don’t bother me again or I’ll tell you something you won’t like.”

  He saw that I meant it.

  He gave me a hypodermic and walked away, and he didn’t look back. And I was sorry, kind of, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t use any favors. I’d had enough of ’em—things being done to help me, for my own good.

  I knew I was going to get out, and I wasn’t going to have any help doing it. I’d had help, from Pa, from Mary, from Miss Trumbull and Mr. Redbird, from Kossmeyer…

  I’d had all the help I was going to take from anyone.