Gardener's Son

by Cormac McCarthy

  Interior. Courthouse hallway. Day. A press of people in the hallway. Mr McEvoy comes along with Robert’s attorney O C Jordan. Jordan has a briefcase in his hand and he is talking to the dazed father of the defendant.

  JORDAN Chin up McEvoy, chin up. The boy has every confidence in us and we want you to feel the same.

  MR MCEVOY They’re tryin to hang him.

  JORDAN Tut tut, McEvoy. Tut tut. Far from being hanged we have every expectation of getting him off scot free.

  MR MCEVOY I dont see why Bobby caint testify for hisself.

  Jordan tucks the briefcase up under his arm and smiles at some of the people who are edging along the crowded hall past him.

  JORDAN Worst mistake in the world, McEvoy. Worst mistake in the world. We wont get anywhere in an attempt to blacken the Gregg name. People dont want that. We’ve agreed with Mrs Gregg to call no female witnesses and I dont have to tell you that we have exacted every consideration from the family in exchange. Her anxiety to protect the family is one of the things most in our favor.

  He nods and smiles to a man passing.

  JORDAN Doctor.

  He turns back to Mr McEvoy.

  JORDAN All the law dont go on in the courts, McEvoy. And I’m sure I dont have to tell you that.

  At the end of the hallway they are stopped by a constable.

  CONSTABLE Mr McEvoy.

  Mr McEvoy and Jordan halt.

  CONSTABLE Mr McEvoy you got to see to your affairs at home, sir. Your wife . . .

  Jordan looks at Mr McEvoy.

  CONSTABLE I dont want to have to get a court order, but those people are entitled to some consideration. They can detect her four houses down. I hate to be so forward, but they’re your neighbors. Not to mention your christian duty . . .

  MR MCEVOY I’ll tend to it.

  CONSTABLE I know you’ve had all this trouble . . .

  Mr McEvoy fidgets with his cap and then suddenly puts one hand to his face. Jordan nods to the Constable that everything will be taken care of and takes Mr McEvoy by the arm and they go out the door past the crowds.

  Interior. Aiken County courthouse. Prosecutor Wiggins is listening with his head bowed like a confessor, nodding sagely, hand at his mouth. On the witness stand is Captain Giles.

  CAPTAIN GILES No sir. He fired the last shot from the door. I saw Captain Gregg cross the room towards the safe. I accosted McEvoy and he said that he’d shoot any man that drew a pistol on him. He run out the door and Captain Gregg came to the door and fired once after him and then there was another shot from the street and Captain Gregg collapsed.

  MR WIGGINS Captain Giles, did you see a pistol in Captain Gregg’s hand when you first saw him in his office after McEvoy fired?

  CAPTAIN GILES No sir, I did not. I believe he must of got it from the safe. Dont know that Captain Gregg was in the habit of going armed.

  Interior. Courtroom. Dr Campbell on witness stand.

  DR CAMPBELL He asked me what I thought of his condition and I told him, James, I said, you know gunshot wounds in the abdomen are very uncertain, and he said: If you say so, I will die certain. Then I asked him if he meant his statement about the shooting to be a dying declaration and he said yes, said he did. He said he had two policies of life insurance and he wanted to show that he hadnt started the difficulty. I was present on the train when his declaration was read back to him. He was in pain and very weak but he was able to sign it under oath.

  Robert McEvoy at table with his lawyers is chewing tobacco. He leans and spits carefully into a spitoon at his feet and continues chewing.

  Interior. Courtroom. Stark Sims (office boy) on stand.

  JORDAN Who do you work for, son?

  STARK SIMS I work for Mr Giles. I dont know who was there fore me. I do what he tells me. Otherwise I’d get turned off.

  JORDAN And what are your duties?

  STARK SIMS I go for the mail when the train comes. I bring the freight bills. Eat my meals at home.

  JORDAN And you saw Robert McEvoy shoot Captain Gregg.

  STARK SIMS Yes sir. Just like I done told it. I’d done eat. I’d been back about twenty minutes.

  JORDAN And when the shooting started you just stood there? You didnt take cover?

  STARK SIMS They wasnt nobody shootin at me.

  JORDAN I see. Thank you.

  WJ Whipper (black counsel for the defense) rises.

  WHIPPER I’d like to examine the witness if I may.

  Jordan looks at him with surprise, gives a slight bow, not quite disdainful, and relinquishes the platform to Whipper.

  WHIPPER Master Sims, did you also run errands for Captain Gregg?

  STARK SIMS Yessir. For him and Captain Giles both.

  WHIPPER Did Captain Gregg ever give you messages to take to any of the girls in the mill?

  Counselor Jordan, sitting at his table, raises his eyebrows. The prosecutor looks toward Jordan.

  STARK SIMS Yessir.

  WHIPPER And what did those messages say?

  STARK SIMS I dont know.

  WHIPPER You dont know.

  STARK SIMS No. Sir.

  WHIPPER Were the notes sealed?

  STARK SIMS No sir.

  WHIPPER And you never looked at them? Never even peeked at one of them?

  STARK SIMS No sir. Wouldnt of done me no good to.

  WHIPPER And why is that?

  STARK SIMS I caint read.

  There is a long silence. Whipper looks from Sims to the prosecutor to the table where McEvoy sits with his lawyers and to the jury. All look back with no expression at all.

  Interior. Oil-lamp lit kitchen in a negro shack. The kitchen is the temporary law office of Mr Whipper and there are lawbooks in a cabinet behind him and books open on the table and legal pads and a quill and inkcruse. Mr Whipper’s black face is lightly beaded with sweat and he speaks to the man across the table from him, who is Mr McEvoy.

  WHIPPER Mr Jordan says that your son wont hang. What do you want me to tell you?

  MR MCEVOY I dont know. I caint be satisfied in my mind. I got no friends to tell me right. Folks turn their head in the street. I know my boy done wrong. But he aint like they’re tryin to make him out. If my boy were a Gregg he’d not even be tried.

  WHIPPER If your son were black he’d not be tried.

  MR MCEVOY If they was to send him to the penitentiary that would be hard. But if they was to hang him. I dont believe I could live with that. My boy is no better and no worse than most any boy in this town. I know he must of had some reason to do what he done. If you’d just let him get up there and tell it hisself.

  WHIPPER That’s not possible.

  MR MCEVOY Why aint it?

  WHIPPER He’s full of wild accusations. Slander. That wont help him now. I tried.

  MR MCEVOY You tried what?

  WHIPPER There’s nothing to be done about that. Best let sleeping dogs lie.

  MR MCEVOY If I just had some sign . . .

  Mr McEvoy looks at Whipper as if to read some reassurance.

  WHIPPER A lawyer aint a priest. Nor a doctor. Law’s more vagrant than sickness or sin. We make our case. We’d be fools to say what a dozen other fools might think of it.

  MR MCEVOY Mr Jordan said that all the law dont go on in the courtroom.

  WHIPPER Ahh.

  MR MCEVOY They say God is just. I reckon if he wasnt there’d be no justice.

  WHIPPER If men were no more just than God there’d be no peace in this world. Everwhere I look I see men trying to set right the inequities that God’s left them with.

  MR MCEVOY I caint accept that.

  WHIPPER Look around you, man. We’ve all seen murderers carouse in the streets while the righteous go to the scaffold.

  MR MCEVOY It might be that the righteous have sins that are hid.

  WHIPPER Yes. Seven times seven I believe is the just man’s daily lot. I tried a law case in Beaufort a few months back. In the course of the proceedings I turned to the court and I said: Is there anybody here who bel
ieves in justice? Would you raise your hand?

  Whipper laughs quietly to himself.

  MR MCEVOY Did anyone?

  WHIPPER Oh yes. There were in the courtroom at that time seven or eight of the most notorious scoundrels in the state and every man-jack of them raised his hand. Just them. Even the judge busted out laughing.

  MR MCEVOY We come here nine year ago. We tried to stay on at home after the war but they wasnt no way. I wanted the children to have somethin. If I could have foresaw my life as it’s become. I would rather to of been dead than this.

  WHIPPER They say that God sends no man a burden greater than what he can bear.

  MR MCEVOY Ay. Nor much less, neither.

  WHIPPER No man’s lot is so bad he cant look at a neighbor’s who’s not worse.

  MR MCEVOY Where is he? Where is that neighbor?

  Interior. Night. Oil lamps, Aiken County courthouse.

  JUDGE Mr Steedman, has the jury reached a verdict?

  FOREMAN The jury has, your honor.

  The bailiff takes a paper from the foreman of the jury and carries it to the judge. The judge takes the paper. He unfolds it. He reads it and folds it back.

  JUDGE Robert McEvoy, hold up thy hand.

  McEvoy raises his hand.

  JUDGE Put it down. Thou wast heretofore indicted for that thou didst willfully and feloniously and of thy malice aforethought kill and murder James J Gregg, against the peace and dignity of the state of South Carolina. Now thou hast been found guilty of that murder . . .

  McEvoy has stopped chewing tobacco.

  JUDGE . . . by a jury of thy peers and I do solemnly demand that thou show cause, if any thou hast, why execution of the judgement established by law for the state should not be passed upon thee.

  McEvoy does not answer.

  JUDGE He saith nothing. It is considered by the court and pronounced as the judgement of the law that the said Robert McEvoy be taken to the place whence he last came and there be kept in close and safe custody until Friday the thirtieth day of June next, and that on said Friday between the hours of ten in the forenoon and four in the afternoon he be taken to the place of legal execution in this county and there be hanged by the neck until his body be dead and may God have mercy on his soul.

  Exterior. Night. Street in Graniteville where the McEvoys live. There are lamps lit in the houses and people at the windows look out to see what the dogs are barking at. Patrick McEvoy is coming slowly up the street. He comes from pool to pool of lamplight where it falls into the street and various voices call out after him.

  VOICE FIRST WOMAN You better see to your business.

  VOICE FIRST MAN We got to have some relief up here, McEvoy.

  VOICE FIRST WOMAN You better do somethin about this.

  VOICE SECOND MAN (to himself or others) It’s an outrage is what it is. A damned outrage.

  Mr McEvoy passes on to his own house and mounts the steps. The house is in darkness and he lights a lamp and goes to the parlor where the bier is trestled up. The flowers have withered and died and dead candle stubs sit in pools of grease. As he enters with the lamp a cat leaps from the bier and scrabbles off through the house with a low squall. Mr McEvoy goes down the hallway through the kitchen and out into the yard, holding the lamp before him. He sets the lamp down on a stump used for splitting kindling. There is a hatchet stuck in the stump. He goes to the wood pile and commences carrying armloads of kindling, then stovewood, then logs, to the center of the yard. He piles the wood up into a great heap and he takes the lamp and takes off his cap and uses it to grip the hot lampchimney and removes the chimney and throws it to one side and kneels with the lamp and lights the pile of wood at the bottom. When it is going he returns to the house.

  Interior. McEvoy parlor. The unchimneyed lamp flame now gutters and flares and leaves a trail of black smoke and Mr McEvoy makes his way to the bier and stands looking down at it for a few moments. He sets the lamp in the floor and lifts one end of the casket and kicks the sawhorse from under it and lowers it to the floor. Then he does the same with the other end of the casket. Then he takes up the rope handle in the end of the coffin and, stooping, he commences to drag the coffin across the floor toward the door.

  Interior. The Gregg house. Mrs Gregg is in widow’s black. She walks slowly down the long hall of the house and at the end she turns and faces the drawing room. She stands there a moment and then she enters. As she enters Martha McEvoy rises from a chair. Mrs Gregg moves past her and turns and stands and looks at Martha.

  MRS GREGG I would have thought it would be your father would come.

  MARTHA Bobby wouldnt let him.

  MRS GREGG So he sent you.

  MARTHA No Mam. I wasnt sent. I come for my own self.

  MRS GREGG It’s out of my hands. I cant do anything for you.

  MARTHA Yes Mam. I just come . . .

  MRS GREGG I always intended well toward your brother. I am a christian woman. But he has put to perdition all the hopes of this family. James was the last male heir. All my late husband’s . . . The directors will take over the mill now. There are always these strangers waiting for those who cannot set their house in order.

  MARTHA Mrs Gregg, I know what people said about James . . .

  Mrs Gregg smiles in a superior and somewhat cynical way.

  MRS GREGG Yes. My people learned to live with slander a long time ago. With envy and with ingratitude. Purity of blood is a trust to those possessed of it. The Bible tells us. At one time there were giants in the earth . . .

  MARTHA Mrs Gregg . . .

  MRS GREGG No, I’m sorry. There was a family here. A community of people working together, joined in a common enterprise. But my husband . . . My family’s bond to this community was of the spirit, not of the flesh.

  MARTHA Mrs Gregg . . .

  MRS GREGG It’s the ingratitude that is worst. I suppose I never understood that to an ingrate a generous person is a fool. When we first came here I took one look and I was ready to go back to Charleston. My husband convinced me . . . I came to love it here . . . to love these people . . .

  Martha is crying now. She has understood little of all this.

  MARTHA Mrs Gregg, I just wanted you to know that your son never done nothin to me. I just come to say I was sorry. I know they aint nothin I can do and they caint nobody bring him back but I wanted to come and tell you that, and to say I was sorry. Somebody had to.

  She turns and goes past Mrs Gregg toward the door. Mrs Gregg looks after her, realizing now that Martha has not come to beg for Bobby but to console her, Mrs Gregg. As she reaches the hall and is turning toward the door Mrs Gregg calls to her.

  MRS GREGG Miss McEvoy.

  Martha turns at the hallway.

  MRS GREGG Come here. Please.

  Martha comes back into the room. She is crying but she does not dab at her eyes or attempt to conceal her tears. As she approaches Mrs Gregg, the older woman takes her by the elbow and steers her toward a chair.

  MRS GREGG Please. Sit down.

  Mrs Gregg goes to a table and takes up a bell and rings it and puts it down again and comes and takes a chair opposite Martha. She studies Martha, who is sitting looking down. She takes a handkerchief from her sleeve and hands it to Martha, who at first will not take it.

  MRS GREGG Wipe your face.

  Martha takes the handkerchief and does as she is told. A maid enters the room.

  MAID Yes Mam.

  MRS GREGG Daphne, we’ll have some tea please.

  MAID Yes Mam.

  The maid exits. Mrs Gregg has turned to study Martha who is dabbing at her eyes. Mrs Gregg looks at her as if seeing one of these people for the first time. Her shoes, her dress.

  MRS GREGG My husband put a great deal of store in the people who worked for him. A great deal of trust . . .

  MARTHA He was always decent to us.

  MRS GREGG I’ve tried to understand. It’s so hard to know what God must mean by this.

  MARTHA Yes Mam.

  They sit
in silence a moment. Martha folds the handkerchief.

  MARTHA I’ll laundry this and bring it back.

  MRS GREGG I look at you and I try to see some sign. Try to see something in your face. These things must have beginnings somewhere. Be put in motion at some point . . . But when I look at you I see nothing. I can see nothing in you to do with death and murder.

  The maid comes into the room and sets down a tray on the table between them. There is a teapot and cups and a plate of sliced cakes and other things.

  MAID Did you want me to make the service Mam?

  MRS GREGG No thank you, Daphne. That’s fine.

  The maid exits. Mrs Gregg turns back to Martha.

  MARTHA Them lawyers wouldnt let him tell his part.

  Mrs Gregg is watching her. Martha raises her face to look at her.