Prayers the Devil Answers

by Sharyn McCrumb

  “It’s too late to talk to him, though, isn’t it?”

  “The trial is over now, yes.”

  “But the trial was miles away, and I couldn’t possibly have got there. The lawyer was a man, though, and I doubt if he would have listened to a word I said. It’s only when I got to thinking about them hanging him and knowing it was going to happen here that I felt I had to come and tell somebody.”

  I thought about it. “Would it be all right with you if I told your story to Mr. Varden when he gets back? Maybe it would give him some peace to think the crime wasn’t altogether his fault.”

  Eunice Greer looked relieved. She stuffed the remains of the paper handkerchief back in her purse and stood up to go. “Thank you, Sheriff. Yes. I suppose I can’t hope for any more than that. You tell him that. And tell him that we will be praying for him. All of us from the Dumb Supper. We’ll be praying for his soul.”

  In these mountains there is a kind of cricket called a cicada that hardly crosses your mind most of the time, but every seventeen years an enormous brood of them hatches out of the ground and takes flight. Then it is like living through one of the ten plagues of Egypt around here. The last time it happened was four years ago, after we had moved to town. The newly awakened cicadas swarm like black smoke, covering everything, and blundering into anyone who is working outside in a field near trees or bushes, so that it’s a misery to venture out until they finish their natural cycle and go to ground again.

  The newspapermen made me think of them.

  A few days after it was announced that wife-killer Lonnie Varden would be publicly executed by a sheriff who happened to be female, a great swarm of journalists seemed to rise right up out of the ground and descend on this little town just like the plague of cicadas. They tied up the telephone at the office until we began to be afraid that some caller with a genuine emergency would be unable to get through. Finally Roy started taking names and threatening to arrest any reporter who called more than three times. Then they took to dropping by the office and trying to waylay us on our way in and out the door. They offered the deputies everything from a cup of coffee to a five-dollar bill for a five-minute interview with the prisoner. We told them all to get lost, but we might as well have been swatting at cicadas.

  I ate lunch in the office every day, so generally the only time I had to worry about them was going to work and leaving at the end of the day, but it didn’t take them long to figure that out, and at five o’clock one afternoon I opened the door and an explosion of flashbulbs sent me stumbling back into the office with blue dots blinding me for the better part of a minute. Even with the door shut behind me I could hear them yelling my name—my first name, mind you, as if these total strangers were my old-time buddies—and bawling out questions, some of which struck me as so peculiar that I wondered if they had taken leave of their senses.

  “What are you going to wear to the hanging, Ellie?” “What’s your favorite color, Ellie?” “Are you going to kiss him good-bye before you string him up?”

  I stumbled to a chair next to the reception desk. “I don’t know what to do! We can’t run them out of town, can we?”

  Falcon shook his head. “As far as I can tell, being annoying isn’t illegal. Besides, a lot of folks in town think these fellows are a godsend. They’ve filled up the depot hotel, and on account of them, all the local eateries have been doing a landslide business all week.”

  “Wait until they read the stories those reporters churn out. I’ll bet they could go over those articles with a divining rod and not find a scrap of truth about this town or anybody those newspapermen talked to.”

  “They’re making a lot more work for us, I’ll give you that,” said Falcon. “They are almost as hard to keep out as ants, and they don’t take no for an answer.”

  “We ought to try to say as little as possible to them. Seems like no matter what we say they’ll twist it around to whatever they want. The more we can steer clear of them, the better.”

  Easier said than done.

  I was walking home that afternoon a little before six, thinking about home, as I always did. Most days, as soon as I got away from the office and got to the wooded path along the creek that led to the house, I went from thinking like a law officer to being an ordinary woman again, with a house to run and children to look after. I was thinking about fixing beans and cornbread and sliced tomatoes for supper—wondering if we had enough tomatoes in the garden and whether the milk would last us through breakfast if I used some of it in the cornbread—when someone fell in step beside me. I hadn’t noticed anyone around, but suddenly there he was: a stocky man wearing a shiny brown suit, a necktie, and a battered fedora that had seen better days. The town banker, the railroad directors, and the undertaker dress that way on workdays, but somehow I knew this fellow was not any of them, because when they did dress up, their clothes were not as shabby as this fellow’s.

  “Good evening, madam. You’d be the sheriff, wouldn’t you?”

  There’s no law against talking to an elected official on public land, and even if there had been, I had been raised to be civil to everybody in the world, as long as they didn’t give me a reason to behave otherwise.

  “That’s right, sir. I’m off duty now, though. Just heading off home.” I quickened my step a little, but he took it in stride, even managing to dodge the mud puddle in the path.

  “I reckon you got more of a job than you bargained for when they appointed you sheriff, madam.”

  “The hanging, you mean? I’ll manage. It’s my job to do it—but not to talk about it.”

  “I see that you have divined that I am a journalist, Sheriff. You know, there are people all across the country who are interested in your story. How you feel about doing a man’s job. How you take care of your family while trying to do your work. You’d make quite a story. And as pretty as you are, you’d make the cover of Life magazine, if you’d give us some time to make a proper feature story of it. Let a photographer do a series of pictures of you at work and at home, say.”

  “Not interested.”

  He paused for a moment, sizing me up probably. “My editor has authorized me to pay you a tidy sum for exclusive rights to your story, madam. Surely, a newly widowed lady such as yourself could find a use for some ready money.”

  I kept walking just as fast as ever, wishing I wasn’t tempted by his offer. It would feel like selling my soul to the devil, but I had two boys to feed and clothe, and no idea what the future would hold once I finished my late husband’s term in office. A bankable sum of money would be an answer to prayer, really. And where was the harm in it? No one said it was against the rules. Finally I turned to look at the man in the shiny brown suit, half expecting him to have sprouted horns and a cloven hoof, but he looked just the same: weary and a little out of breath, but quite alert to my every expression.

  “Give me your business card and tell me where you’re staying. I’ll have to think about it.”

  “Got another sack here,” said Roy, slinging a canvas bag on top of the reception desk. He mopped his brow with a dingy cotton handkerchief. “Good thing you don’t pick up the mail yourself, Sheriff. When the postmaster handed this load over to me just now he looked like he wanted to spit in your eye.”

  “Did you sort out the ones for me?”

  He grinned and pulled a handful of envelopes out of his hip pocket. “Those in the sack are all for you. This here’s the department’s share. I’ll look through them and leave that batch to you.” He ambled back to his desk, still laughing.

  I loosened the cord on the mailbag and pulled out the first dozen letters. Some of them had been sent to THE COUNTY SHERIFF, with only the name of the town and the state written beneath it, but the postal officials had no trouble figuring out who the letters were for. There had been a couple hundred just like them beginning a few days after Lonnie Varden arrived. Practice makes perfect.r />
  The ones addressed to MISS ELLENDOR ROBBINS (spelled forty different ways) were usually marriage proposals. The rest didn’t want to rescue me from widowhood; they just wanted to save me from the unwomanly task of executing a prisoner. I suppose they meant well, but it was hard to see how, for example, a professor from Bloomington, Indiana, or a plumber from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, could think they were more qualified, much less legally authorized, to execute a convicted felon for a state they didn’t even live in.

  I tore one open. I don’t know why. We had been getting piles of letters for more than a week, and they all said pretty much the same thing.

  Dear Madam,

  I read of your present troubles in the newspaper, and I was shocked and saddened to learn that a poor widow woman with no experience in law enforcement was expected to dispatch a dangerous killer in a public execution. If anything could make this prospect more terrible, it is the knowledge that you are also the mother of two young children whose images of their gentle mother must surely be tainted by this deed. My horror at imagining this appalling scene leads me to offer my humble services so as to spare you from this fate. Thus, madam, although I live several hundred miles from your little mountain county, you may consider me at your disposal . . .

  The ones from the doctors and professors mostly sounded like that. The ordinary farmers and mill hands and such usually said something like:

  Dear Lady Sheriff

  I heard about yore having to hang a man in public. It is a turrible thing, and I would gladly do it for you . . .

  None of them asked for any money to take my place at the execution. That surprised me. People these days were looking for a way to make money out of anything, because nobody seemed to have any, but these self-appointed knights appeared to be set on rescuing a fair lady, with no other catch to the offer. When the first couple of letters came in I thought about answering them because my upbringing had given me strict rules about thanking people for offers of help, whether you had wanted that help or not, but before I could work out a civil answer, the trickle of letters became a stream and then a flood, so I gave up the idea of responding at all. If I had tried to answer—or even read—all the correspondence addressed to the office or to me personally, there wouldn’t have been time for anything else.

  I did wonder, though, how Eddie would take the news, and I knew he would hear it at school if I didn’t tell him first, so one night after Georgie had fallen asleep I sat Eddie down in the kitchen with a glass of milk and tried to explain.

  “I guess you heard about that man who threw his wife off The Hawk’s Wing last spring?”

  “Some of the fellers at school talked about it. They were talking about hiking up there to see where it happened.” Just as I reached for the dishcloth he wiped the milk from his lips with the back of his hand. “Could I go along with them?”

  “No. If you didn’t get nightmares, you’d go telling Georgie, and he would.” I’d had nightmares myself a time or two thinking about it.

  “Why did the man do that?”

  “He hasn’t said. And he doesn’t have to.”

  “Bobby Hardesty said he reckoned the man’s wife had another sweetheart.”

  “That’s nobody’s business, Eddie. Least of all the pupils of the fifth grade. And you can tell them I said so.”

  He hung his head. “Yes, ma’am.”

  I knew he wouldn’t tell them, though. I may have been the county sheriff, but to Eddie I was just his mother, and he wouldn’t want to deliver any scoldings from me to his friends. A sheriff for a daddy is one thing; a mama who’s a sheriff is something else again. It didn’t matter to me, though. I didn’t want to be important—just independent.

  “It doesn’t matter why that man killed his wife, Eddie, and it doesn’t matter what she did or didn’t do, because nobody has a right to take another person’s life. The fact is he did it. People saw him do it, and they gave him a trial downstate, and the jury found him guilty. After listening to the witnesses, the jury decided it wasn’t an accident, and he wasn’t crazy at the time, so they sentenced him to death. Do you understand?”

  Eddie stifled a yawn. “Uh-huh. Can I have that last biscuit from supper?”

  “No. You can have it with breakfast.” I tried again. “The state believes it has a right to execute that man for being a murderer. Do you know why?”

  He shrugged. “Stop him from doing it again?”

  “That’s right. And we hope that it would make other people think twice about killing anybody, too.”

  “Can people go and watch the hanging?”

  “Yes. The courts think that seeing such a terrible thing will convince people not to risk such a fate for themselves, and so the execution is done in public.”

  “Here in town?”

  “Yes. You know that empty lot over next to the train station? They’re building the gallows there.”

  “Can Georgie and me go and watch?”

  “Watch what? The carpenters building the platform?”

  “Naw. The hanging. Well, I reckon Georgie is too young for it. It’d give him nightmares for sure, but I wouldn’t want to miss it.”

  “You’d better get used to the idea then, son, because I forbid you to go.”

  His face crinkled with disappointment. “Awww. Why not? I’m plenty old enough. Anyhow I’ll bet Daddy would have let me go.”

  “He might have tried, but it wouldn’t have made any difference. I would not have let you go. Such a thing is not fitten for a child to see.” Nor for most adults either, I thought, but there wasn’t much I could do about that. Maybe I should have a word with Falcon about making sure none of the town’s schoolboys tried to sneak into the crowd. Human nature being what it is, I knew that some parent might be fool enough to bring the child themselves, but we couldn’t help that.

  chapter fifteen

  I had been called on the carpet, not for anything I had done, but for what I would be obliged to do.

  When the trial was over, the attorney general’s office sent word that Lonnie Varden was being sent back here to the county for execution, and it suddenly dawned on the local commissioners that their newly appointed sheriff, whose job it would be to hang the condemned man, was a woman. The day after we were notified, I was summoned to a meeting in the boardroom at the courthouse. They invited me to sit down, and I did, but I still felt like I was standing. I wore my blue swearing-in dress and my long-brimmed white hat with the black ribbon trim because I knew that this was likely to be an important meeting. I might even have to fight for my job. Even so, I made myself smile at everybody when I went in, and I tried to act calm and unconcerned, but I kept on my white cotton gloves because my hands were sweating.

  Vernon Johnson, in a white linen suit and string tie, chaired the meeting. Despite its big windows, which were shut, the upstairs room in the courthouse was hot and stuffy, but even if it hadn’t been, Mr. Johnson might have kept mopping his brow with that big silk handkerchief because I think most of the heat he was feeling was coming from the accusing looks of his fellow board members. After all, he was the one who insisted that they appoint me. I bet he was regretting it now, which was a shame, because nobody ought to have to regret doing someone a kindness.

  I sat at the head of the scarred oak table facing two rows of stern-looking gentlemen: the railroad executives in dark suits, and a couple of the county’s more prosperous farmers wearing their shiny Sunday suit jackets over work clothes and suspenders. One of them had a shaggy brown dog sprawled out next to his chair. Looking at that line of scowls, I started to feel like the condemned prisoner instead of like the sheriff.

  Vernon Johnson sighed. “No good deed goes unpunished, I suppose, but heaven knows I meant well. Providing for a widow lady, giving her a paperwork job—and now this.”

  One of the farmers smiled. “You couldn’t be expected to foresee a murder, Mr.
Johnson. Nobody blames you. The question now is what’s to be done about it.”

  “We could send him somewhere else, or get somebody to do it as a volunteer. Maybe there are experts in execution procedures.”

  “I have a suggestion, sirs,” I said.

  They all turned to look at me with much the same expression they’d have had if the farmer’s dog had spoken up.

  “I think you ought to let me get on with my job. There haven’t been any complaints so far, have there?”

  Vernon Johnson sighed. “You have done well, Mrs. Robbins; nobody is saying otherwise, but this business of performing an execution. People are horrified. It’s not something we could expect a woman to do, any more than we could ask one to join the army and fight battles.”

  A few of the other commissioners chuckled politely.

  “Do you want to hang a man, Mrs. Robbins?”

  I waited for a moment, sorting out my words. “I want to do the job I was appointed to. Every job in the world involves things you’d rather not do, doesn’t it?” I looked at the craggy old farmer on my left. “I’ll bet shoveling cow manure isn’t your favorite part of farming, but it’s got to be done, doesn’t it?”

  He smiled and nodded.

  “I’m saying that I am willing to do what would be required of any sheriff during a term in office. I’m sorry that an execution has to be part of those duties, but I am satisfied that the prisoner is guilty as charged, and the court has decided what ought to happen to him. Somebody has to carry out their orders, and I am the one sworn to do it. I am willing.”

  A railroad executive spoke up, addressing the others as if I wasn’t there. “But it’s a public execution. What if she backs out at the last minute, or makes a hash of it?”