Prayers the Devil Answers

by Sharyn McCrumb

  He might have admired it, but he still didn’t quite believe it. I knew he would ease as gradually as time allowed into the painful subject of the Robbins family’s future without their breadwinner, because local politics had made Vernon Johnson a diplomat.

  I was right. He spent a few more minutes asking about Eddie and George and making remarks about the weather, but finally he decided it was time to come to the point. “Well, I hope you’ll excuse my plain speaking, ma’am. I don’t mean to be overly inquisitive, but before we discuss some ways that we could address your situation, there are things I need to know on behalf of the county.”

  “Yes, sir.” I was going to save him the trouble of a long discussion by telling him my idea, but before I could figure out a way to frame it, he plunged right on ahead.

  “The main concerns are did Sheriff Robbins carry any insurance and do you have any family that can take you in?”

  “Family? No sir. There’s just my brothers and sisters left now, and they are pretty well scattered from here to Michigan. With times being as hard as they are, none of them could afford to take in three more people. And I wouldn’t ask them to.” I didn’t want to move away and live in some far-off city, anyhow, but I wouldn’t say that unless I had to.

  Vernon Johnson steepled his fingers and scrunched his forehead so I’d know he was thinking. “But what about your husband’s ­people?”

  I knew that question would be coming, and I had worked out what to say so that I wouldn’t sound too harsh, but still made it clear that we weren’t going back there. I didn’t want to sound troublesome, just firm. “There’s just his brother Albert. He offered to let us go back to the farm, but . . .”

  “But other people there feel differently?”

  “Yes. It’s plain as a pikestaff that his wife wouldn’t like it. Neither would he, really. I don’t intend to go where we’d be a burden.”

  “Is there another alternative, Mrs. Robbins?”

  “I could stay put.”

  That startled him. “You would prefer to stay here?”

  “Here in town? Yes sir, I would.”

  “Alone? That might be difficult. May I ask why?”

  I wondered if I should tell him any more about the biggest reason I wanted to stay. Unless Elva could persuade Henry not to let us move in, she would make my life a misery in hopes of forcing us to go elsewhere. It had been hard to put up with Elva even at the best of times, but now I knew I would have no energy to contend with her, and no one to take my side in the inevitable arguments anymore. Not with Albert gone. The boys didn’t need to grow up in a house full of quarreling and bitter silences.

  “I’d like to stay in town on account of the boys,” I told him, and it was true enough. “The schools are better here. Besides, there’s no one we can count on to take us in. Nobody we’d care to ask.”

  “Can you afford to stay on?”

  “Not as we are now. You asked about insurance. We didn’t have any, because Albert said we couldn’t afford it yet.”

  “We’re too young to need it, Ellie,” he had told me. “Let’s spend our money on things we need in the here and now. Like new shoes and winter coats for Eddie and George.”

  Well, Albert had been wrong about us not needing insurance, but we weren’t to know then that he would be dead before he ever saw forty. He had been right about the expense, anyhow. We had so little money to spare that to spend it betting on something that was not likely to happen for decades did seem like an unnecessary waste. Unfortunately, we lost that bet.

  Vernon Johnson sighed again. “Yes, I thought it might be like that. It’s human nature to take care of the present and hope that the future will see to itself.”

  “Seems like the very people who need insurance the most are the ones who can’t afford to have it.”

  “Indeed. It’s a pitiful shame, but there it is. I wish the county had some sort of pension plan for employees, like the railroad does, but alas we can’t afford it either.”

  “We always thought we were too young to need insurance, but Albert had been thinking about it again, since he got elected sheriff, on account of the dangers of the job. It’s just that he never did get around to taking out a policy. It has only been a couple of months since he won the election, you know. Maybe if he had been in the job longer . . .”

  “I understand.” He was looking alarmed. I think my voice must have quavered. “None of us likes to think about dying, so making plans for it feels like asking for trouble, don’t you think? It’s a natural reaction. People don’t like making wills for the same reason. But now the future has arrived and plans have to be made. Have you thought about what you want to do now?”

  I was still too numb to feel much of anything, even hope, and I didn’t trust anybody, really, but the man seemed sincere in his willingness to help, and, after all, where else did I have to turn? I know I must have looked red-eyed and weary, but I tried to sound confident anyway. “I have given it a lot of thought, sir.”

  “And what would you like to do, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “I’m glad you asked, sir. You’re the very person I had to tell. I want my husband’s job.”

  Vernon Johnson leaned back in his leather chair, and I think that for once he had been rendered speechless. He kept opening and closing his mouth like a fish. I almost smiled. Finally he stammered, “Your husband’s job? Well . . . that is a facer, ma’am. Frankly, what I was expecting was a request for a sum of money—I expect the county could manage fifty dollars—to enable you and your children to move somewhere else. I had hoped you would be going back to family, but from what you tell me, that is not in the cards.” He shook his head. “We had not anticipated this. The other commissioners and I, I mean.”

  “No, sir. I don’t suppose many widows would ask for such a thing.”

  He picked up a pencil and started tapping his desk with it. He looked like the discussion had got away from him, and now he was trying to think more than a sentence ahead. “Well, Mrs. Robbins, your husband’s job. Oh, my.”

  “I’d like to earn a living instead of being handed charity.”

  “Your independence does you credit. I admire your courage, but courage and recklessness often look a lot alike. When you say you want your husband’s job, are you sure you know what you’re asking for?”

  In the corner next to the window there was an American flag on a wooden staff with a gilded eagle carved on top. When Mr. Johnson spoke of independence, I started concentrating on that eagle, because I was afraid that if I kept looking at him, his doubts would cause me to lose my nerve.

  “Yes, Mr. Johnson, I know exactly what I am asking. I’ve been thinking on this ever since I started trying to figure out how to go on without Albert. I’ve been praying about it too.”

  He had formed all his ideas on women from the well-to-do ladies like his wife. She was kindness itself, but I couldn’t imagine her working either. I’ll bet Mr. Johnson wished he had gone home for lunch so that someone else would have had to deal with this. With me. I said “praying about it” on purpose, to suggest that any objection from him would be arguing with God.

  He stopped tapping the pencil. “Well, ma’am, I don’t hold with women working, especially not if they have young children, but times are hard, and I can see that you don’t have many other choices. If you’re bound and determined to work, maybe we can find something more suitable for you to do.”

  That made me wary. I couldn’t bring myself to smile, but with downcast eyes I did manage to murmur a thank you—no point in being rude to anybody who meant well, even if you took offense at what he said. All the same, if he said he would get me hired to clean the courthouse, I intended to head for the door. That flash of spirit didn’t last more than a few seconds, though. I let go of that prideful resolution as soon as I remembered Eddie and Georgie needing town schooling, and shoes, and food on t
he table. Since I had to be the breadwinner now, if Vernon Johnson offered me honest work, even as a cleaner or a washerwoman, I would have to swallow my pride and take it. If it came to that, I would accept whatever job I was given, but not before I had done all I could to be allowed to serve out Albert’s term. The sheriff’s job would pay better than anything the commissioners would consider women’s work.

  “I have given this a lot of thought, Mr. Johnson. I could do my husband’s job.”

  I’m sure that all the commissioner saw was a pale, quiet little woman hunched in the chair in front of his desk. He couldn’t believe that I would be equal to the task of dealing with lawbreakers. I could tell he was trying—and failing—to picture me as a peace officer, but I didn’t think I’d have to get in any fistfights or anything worse than a shouting match. I didn’t suppose I’d ever be able to do that, but chances were I wouldn’t have to. For one thing, most of the men around here would die of shame if they were to try to fistfight with a woman. And Albert once said that if you could scare people just by looking mean it would save you a lot of time and trouble in dealing with them.

  Mr. Johnson gave me a half-hearted smile, but it was plain that he was humoring me rather than agreeing with me. “It’s brave of you to be willing to try it, Mrs. Robbins, but perhaps you feel you have no choice. After all, desperate times call for desperate measures. It’s a tough job, even for a man. Do you really think you could go out and arrest people? A little lady like you? Be honest now.”

  “I know how to shoot.”

  “Oh dear. Do you?”

  “I’m tolerably good at it, too, if that matters. Better than your Mr. Snyder, I’ll wager.”

  The thought of that other candidate, the one that nobody wanted, brought him up short.

  “You think that you could deal with a violent and dangerous job?”

  I sneaked another look at the gilded eagle for reassurance. “I’m willing to try, sir. Maybe I couldn’t have dealt with John Dillinger or Pretty Boy Floyd, but the kind of lawbreakers we have around here? I could handle them. If you think it would ever come to that.”

  “You ought to assume that it may. And if you went up against some desperate men—say, bootleggers—who fought back, there wouldn’t be anything you could do about it. We’d be afraid you’d get hurt—or worse. Remember what happened to poor Sheriff Tyler? Why, you’d be risking your life. Think of your sons, ma’am. They have already lost one parent. Are you willing to risk making orphans of those poor boys? Shouldn’t you think of them?”

  Shouldn’t you stay home with the children? I knew I’d hear that sooner or later. “I am thinking of them, sir. Their schooling in town is important. Albert would have wanted them to stay and get a good education. And as for the job of sheriff being dangerous? I suppose it is, but just lately I learned a hard lesson. Life is dangerous, no matter what you do. My husband took sick and died within a week. It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d been a sheriff or a preacher or a railroad bum. He still would have died.”

  “All the more reason for you not to take any chances with your life then, Mrs. Robbins. You don’t want your sons to be orphans.”

  “I don’t want them to starve, either, and that’s more likely to happen if I don’t do something. Look, sir, the sheriff’s department has two full-time deputies on each shift, most of them big as bears and twice as mean.”

  That wasn’t strictly true. Falcon Wallace had the height and bulk that people expected of a peace officer, and the air of calm authority needed to reassure ordinary citizens in times of trouble. Albert always sent Falcon out to look for lost children or break up a fight between man and wife. He was a strapping, towheaded farm boy, as loyal as a hound to his boss, according to Albert. He wondered if Falcon obeyed orders without question because doing so kept him from having to think too much. He said he had finished the eighth grade in a one-room schoolhouse and then lit out for “the big city” (by which he meant this jerkwater town of five hundred souls, which was all of seven miles from his family’s farm). Falcon Wallace was indeed tall and he had the farm boy’s well-honed muscles, but, like a big shaggy dog, he had a gentle nature—peaceable because a big dog didn’t feel the need to prove himself the way the little ones did. When he wasn’t arresting people he seemed to be a kind man. I knew a little about Roy Phillips, but Albert never said much about the other two. That was all right. I was betting that Vernon Johnson didn’t know much about them either.

  I did know all of them well enough to speak to, anyhow. One or the other of the day shift deputies was around nearly every time I stopped by the office to talk to Albert. Roy Phillips was the short, bandy-legged fellow, with hair like black seaweed. He didn’t look fearsome, but Albert said he was about the best shot anywhere around and that he never fell for a sob story from anybody. Albert had called Roy Phillips “the smart one.” If a report had to be written up by the arresting officers, Roy took care of it. When they weren’t busy in the office Roy would have his nose stuck in a Zane Grey dime novel. He went through two a week. He told Albert he’d rather have books than cigarettes. Of course, it didn’t take much to be the smart one in a little county sheriff’s department. At best, Roy had gone to high school a year or two longer than the other deputies and reading had educated him even more, whereas Albert had stayed on to get his diploma, even though his father had insisted that he do his share of the farm work. On top of all his other duties, I doubted if Roy Phillips could have handled the book work and the ciphering a sheriff was expected to do. I even had to help Albert with it now and again.

  Falcon Wallace was the deputy Albert hired when he replaced Sheriff Tyler, and he was happy to have found him, because every law enforcement department needed somebody like Falcon. And, if they were lucky, at least one employee as unlike Falcon as possible. Tyree Madden was his opposite number. If a suspect tried to resist arrest, Tyree brought him down. He broke up fights, herded drunks into jail cells, and took an ax to the whisky stills they found in the woods. But Albert preferred that the other deputies raid the stills instead of Tyree, because he suspected Tyree of keeping some of the confiscated moonshine instead of pouring it out on the ground.

  “I am acquainted with the other officers, ma’am.”

  I hadn’t seen as much of the other two deputies as I had of Falcon Wallace and Roy Phillips. Usually when I stopped by the office and Tyree Madden was on duty, he’d get up and walk out without a word, leaving me to pass the time with Albert and whoever else was on duty. He didn’t strike me as shy, though—I knew what shyness looked like, and Tyree Madden wasn’t it. He was just indifferent to other people’s society and even more so to their feelings. Albert said it might be because he didn’t have to be polite to people in his job, but I thought that might be the very reason that some people became lawmen in the first place.

  It was fine with me for Tyree Madden to avoid me. I didn’t try very hard to have a conversation with him. He was always cold and silent—Albert said he’d never seen the man smile, except when other people were crying. A time or two I had seen his pale shadow of a wife bringing his lunch in a paper sack when he had gone off without it. He never thanked her. She cringed like a whipped hound, which I took as a sign that Deputy Madden behaved at home just the way he did on duty. He was usually paired to work on either shift with Galen Aldridge, who really was as burly as a bear cub, and about as fearless as one to boot, but since he was about seven inches short of six feet, maybe his short temper was a form of self-defense. He looked like the sort of fellow who had been bullied by his schoolmates, and Albert and I wondered if he sought out a job that gave him a gun on account of that. I hoped he’d never be called on to arrest one of his old tormentors.

  Until recently there had been a jailer, too. Forrest Burdette, who had once been a deputy, before he got too old and unsteady to do the job. He was still spry and alert enough for light work indoors, but he looked like an old turtle with that beaked nose o
n his leathery face, and his skinny neck poking out of the gaping collar of his uniform. Nobody wanted to fire him, though, on account of his many years of service, so he was kept on by the department to guard the prisoners and to take them their meals—which usually meant tending to a couple of drunks, a job no more taxing than minding a flock of chickens. If they thought they had somebody more dangerous in the cell, the deputies would put him in irons when they brought him in. Nobody had wanted poor old Mr. Burdette to get beaten to death trying to deliver a bowl of pinto beans to a prisoner.

  Finally, though, age and infirmity forced Mr. Burdette to quit on his own, so now there were just the four deputies to share the duties of jailer among themselves. Falcon Wallace was probably best at it. The prisoners never gave him much trouble, perhaps because most of them had known him, or someone like him, all their lives. He did his best to be kind, but mostly because he smiled most of the time. I learned that the usual run of prisoners—young men who got locked up for drinking and fighting—were often first-timers. When they sobered up in a jail cell they were confused and afraid. One of them even tried to hang himself with his belt, but Falcon saw him in time and went for help. What the remorseful drunks needed was a friendly face, not an angry and scornful lawman who would make them feel even worse.

  Big as bears and twice as mean. That was stretching the truth to the breaking point. Still, two of them were rather big and one of the others was mean, so what I said was mostly true, and I hoped it would convince the commissioners to appoint me sheriff. Whatever it took. If that didn’t work, I would have to make them feel sorry for me, but that was a last resort.

  “About these sheriff’s deputies, Mr. Johnson. I believe you said you’re acquainted with all of them?”

  “I am, yes, but what about it?” Vernon Johnson’s pause before he answered made me sure that he had taken no particular notice of the deputies, but that he was too proud to admit how little he knew. It didn’t matter, though. There were four of them, so even if they had been Barbary apes their very existence helped my argument.