Half in Shadow

by Mary Elizabeth Counselman

  He froze. The officer held a gun leveled at his heart.

  "Don’t try it!” The whisper cracked like a whiplash. "Come on, bud. You’ll get a fair trial in this court—fairer then the likes of you deserve!”

  Bob moved forward, helpless to resist. The officer turned his back, almost insolently, and stalked on up the narrow road. At the steps of the chapel he stood aside, however, waving his gun for Bob to open the heavy doors. Swallowing on a dry throat, he obeyed—and started violently as the rusty hinges made a sound like a hollow groan.

  Then, hesitantly, his heart beginning to hammer with apprehension, Bob stepped inside. Groping his way into the darker interior of the chapel, he paused for a moment to let his eyes become accustomed to the gloom. Row on row of hardwood benches faced a raised dais, on which was a pulpit. Here, Bob realized with a chill coursing down his spine, local funeral services were held for those to be buried, in the churchyard outside. As he moved forward, his footsteps echoed eerily among the beamed rafters overhead...

  Then he saw them. People in those long rows of benches! Why, there must be over a hundred of them, seated in silent bunches of twos and threes, facing the pulpit. In a little alcove, set aside for the choir, Bob saw another, smaller group—and found himself suddenly counting them with a surge of panic. There were twelve in the choir box. Twelve, the number of a jury! Dimly he could see their white faces, with dark hollows for eyes, turning to follow his halting progress down the aisle.

  Then, like an echo of a voice, deep and reverberating, someone called his name.

  ’’The defendant will please take the stand... !”

  Bob stumbled forward, his scalp prickling at the ghostly resemblance of this mock-trial to the one in which he had been acquitted only that morning. As though propelled by unseen hands, he found himself hurrying to a seat beside the pulpit, obviously reserved for one of the elders, but now serving as a witness-stand. He sank into the big chair, peering through the half-darkness in an effort to make out some of the faces around him...

  Then, abruptly, as the "bailiff" stepped forward to "swear him in," he stifled a cry of horror.

  The man had no face. Where his features had been there was a raw, reddish mass. From this horror, somehow, a nightmare slit of mouth formed the words: "... to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?’’

  "I... I do,” Bob murmured; and compared to the whispered tones of the bailiff, his own voice shocked him with its loudness.

  "State your name.”

  "R-robert Trask . .

  "Your third offense, isn’t it, Mr. Trask?” the judge whispered dryly. "A habitual reckless-driver...”

  Bob was shaking now, caught in the grip of a nameless terror. What was this? Who were all these people, and why had they had him brought here by a motorcycle cop with a twisted... ?

  He caught his breath again sharply, stifling another cry as the figure of a dignified elderly man became visible behind the pulpit, where before he had been half-shrouded in shadow. Bob blinked at him, sure that his stern white face was familiar—very familiar, not in the haunting way in which that child had seemed known to him, lying there crushed under his car. This man...

  His head reeled all at once. Of course! Judge Abernathy! Humorous, lenient old Judge Ab, his father’s friend, who had served in the Gareyville circuit court... Bob gulped. In 1932! Why, he had been only a youngster then! Twenty years would make this man all of ninety-eight years old, if... And it was suddenly that "if* which made Bob’s scalp prickle with uneasiness. If he were alive. Judge Ab was dead! Wasn’t he? Hadn’t he heard his mother and dad talking about the old man, years ago; talking in hushed, sorrowful tones about the way he had been killed by a hit-and-run driver who had never been caught?

  Bob shook his head, fighting off the wave of dizziness and nausea that was creeping over him again. It was crazy, the way his imagination was running away with him! Either this was not Judge Ab, but some old fellow who vaguely resembled him in this half-light... Or it was Judge Ab, alive, looking no older than he had twenty-odd years ago, at which time he was supposed to have been killed.

  Squinting out across the rows of onlookers, Bob felt a growing sense of unreality. He could just make out, dimly, the features of the people seated in the first two rows of benches. Other faces, pale blurs against the blackness, moved restlessly as he peered at them... Bob gasped. His eyes made out things in the semi-gloom that he wished he had not seen. Faces mashed and cut beyond the semblance of a face! Bodies without arms! One girl... He swayed in his chair sickly; her shapely form was without a head!

  He got a grip on his nerves with a tremendous effort. Of course! It wasn’t real; it was all a horrible, perverted sort of practical joke! All these people were tricked up like corpses in a Chamber-of-Commerce "horror” parade. He tried to laugh, but his lips jerked with the effort... Then they quivered, sucking in breath.

  The "prosecuting attorney” had stepped forward to question him—as, hours ago, he had been questioned by the attorney for Limestone County. Only... Bob shut his eyes quickly. It couldn’t be! They wouldn’t, whoever these people in this lonely chapel might be, they wouldn’t make up some old Negro to look like the one whose wagon he had... had...

  The figure moved forward, soundlessly. Only someone who had seen him on the morgue slab, where they had taken him after the accident, could have dreamed up that wooly white wig, that wrinkled old black face, and... And that gash at his temple, on which now the blood seemed to have dried forever...

  "Hidy, Cap’m,” the figure said in a diffident whisper. "I got to ast you a few questions. Don’t lie, now! Dat’s de wust thing you could do—tell a lie in dis-yeah court!... "Bout how fast you figger you was goin’ when you run over de girl-baby?”

  Bob stared down at the kindly black face, smiling up at him, soothing him, telling him not to be afraid, but to tell the truth.

  “I... Pretty fast,” he blurted. "Sixty-five, maybe seventy an hour.”

  The man he had killed nodded, frowning. "Yassuh. Dat’s about right, sixty-five accordin’ to de officer here.” He glanced at

  the patrolman with the twisted neck, who gave a brief, grotesque nod of agreement.

  Bob waited sickly. The old Negro—or whoever was dressed up as a dead man— moved toward him, resting his hand on the ornate rail of the chapel pulpit.

  "Cap’m . . His soft whisper seemed to come from everywhere, rather than from the moving lips in that black face. "Cap’m... why? How come you was drivin’ fifteen miles over the speed-limit on this-yeah road? Same road where you run into my wagon • • •

  The listeners in the tiers of pews began to sway all at once, like reeds in the wind. "Why?” someone in the rear took up the word, and then another echoed it, until a faint, rhythmic chant rose and fell all over the crowded chapel:

  " Why? Why? Why? , . . Why? Why? Why?”

  "Order!” The "judge,” the man who looked like a judge long dead, banged softly with his gavel; or it could have been a shutter banging at one of those arched chapel windows, Bob thought strangely.

  THE chanting died away. Bob swallowed nervously. For, the old Negro was looking up at him expectantly, waiting for an answer to his simple question—the question echoed by those looking and listening from that eery "courtroom.” Why? Why was he driving so fast? If he could only make up something, some good reason...

  "I... I had a date with my girl,” Bob heard his own voice, startling in its volume compared to the whispers around him.

  "Yassuh?” The black prosecutor nodded gently. "She was gwine off someplace, so’s you had to hurry to catch up wid her? Or else, was she bad-off sick and callin’ for you .. . ?

  "I... No,” Bob said, miserably honest. "No. There wasn’t any hurry. I just... didn’t want to...” He gestured futilely. "I wanted to be with her as quick as I could! Be-because I love her...” He paused, waiting to hear a titter of mirth ripple over the listeners.

  There was no laughter. Only
silence, sombre and accusing.

  “Yassuh.” Again the old Negro nodded

  his graying head, the- head with the gashed temple. "All of us wants to be wid the ones we love. We don’t want to waste no time doin’ it... Only, you got to remember: de Lawd give each of us a certain portion of time to use. And He don’t aim for us to cut off de supply dat belong to somebody else. They got a right to live and love and be happy, too!’’

  The grave words hit Bob like a hammer blow—or like, he thought oddly, words he had been forming in his own mind, but holding off, not letting himself think because they might hurt. He fidgetted in the massive chair, twisting his hands together in sudden grim realization. Remorse had not, up to this moment, touched him deeply. But now it brought tears welling up, acid-like, to burn his eyes.

  "Oh... please!” he burst out. "Can’t we get this over with, this... this crazy mock-trial? I don’t know who you are, all you people here. But I know you’ve... you've been incensed because my... my folks pulled some wires and got me out of two traffic-accidents that I... I should have been punished for! Now I’ve... I’ve run over a little girl, and you’re afraid if I go to regular court-trial, my uncle will get me free again; is that it? That’s it, isn’t it... ?” he lashed out, half-rising. "All this... this masquerade! Getting yourselves up like... like people who are dead... ! You’re doing it to scare me!” He laughed harshly. "But

  it doesn’t scare me, kid tricks like... like..."

  He broke off, aware of another figure that had moved forward, rising from one of the forward benches. A burly man in overalls, wearing a trucker’s cap... One big square hand was pressed to his side, and he walked as though in pain. Bob recognized those rugged features with a new shock.

  “Kid... listen!” His rasping whisper sounded patient, tired. “We ain't here to scare nobody... Hell, that’s for Hallowe’en parties! The reason we hold court here, night after night, tryin’ some thick-skinned jerk who thinks he owns the road... Look, we just want t’ know why; see? Why we had to be killed. Why some nice joe like you, with a girl and a happy future ahead of ’im, can’t understand that. .. that we had a right to live, too! Me! Just a dumb-lug of a truck jockey, maybe... But I was doin’ all right. I was gettin’ by, raisin’ my kids right..." The square hand moved from the man’s side, gestured briefly and pressed back again.

  “I figured to have my fool appendix out, soon as I made my run and got back home that Sunday. Only, you... Well, gee! Couldn’t you have spared me ten seconds, mac?’’ the hoarse whisper accused. “Wouldn’t you loan me that much of your... your precious time, instead of takin’ away all of mine? Mine, and this ole darkey’s? And tonight . .

  An angry murmur swept over the onlookers, like a rising wind.

  "Order!” The gavel banged again, like a muffled heartbeat. "The accused is not on trial for previous offenses. Remarks of the defense attorney—who is distinctly out of order!—will be stricken from the record. Does the prosecution wish to ask the defendant any more questions to determine the reason for the accident?”

  The old Negro shook his head, shrugging. "Nawsuh, Jedge. Reckon not.”

  Bob glanced sidewise at the old man who looked so like Judge Ab. He sucked in a quick breath as the white head turned, revealing a hideously crushed skull matted with some dark brown substance. Hadn’t his father said something, years ago, about that hit-and-run driver running a wheel over his old friend’s head? Were those... were those tire-tread marks on this man’s white collar... ? Bob ground his teeth. How far would these Hallowe’en mummers go to make their macabre little show realistic... ?

  But now, to his amazement, the burly man in trucker’s garb moved forward, shrugging-

  "Okay, Your Honor,” his hoarse whisper apologized. "I... I know it’s too late for justice, not for us here. And if the court appoints me to defend this guy, I’ll try... Look, buddy,” his whisper softened. "You have reason to believe your girl was steppin’ out on you? That why you was hurryin’, jumpin’ the speed-limit, to get there before she... ? You were out of your head, crazy-jealous?”

  Bob glared. "Say!” he snapped. "This is going too far, dragging my fiancee’s name into this... this fake-trial... Go ahead! I’m guilt}' of reckless driving—three times!

  I admit it! There was no reason on this earth for me to be speeding, no excuse for running over that... that poor little kid! It’s... it’s just that I...” His voice broke, and suddenly he was sobbing uncontrollably. "I didn’t see her! Out here in the middle of nowhere—a child! How was I to know? The highway was clear, and then all at once, there she was right in front of my car... But , . . but I was going too fast. I deserve to be lynched! Nothing you do to me would be enough...”

  He crumpled in the chair, shaken with dry sobs of remorse. But fear, terror of this weirdly-made-up congregation, left him slowly, as, looking from the Judge to the highway patrolman, from the old Negro to the trucker, he saw only pity in their faces, and a kind of sad bewilderment.

  "But—why? Why need it happen?” the elderly Judge asked softly, in a stern voice Bob thought he could remember from childhood. "Why does it go on and on? This senseless slaughter! If we could only understand... ! If we could make the living understand, and stop and think, before it’s too late for... another such as we. There is no such thing as an accidental death! Accidents are murders—because someone could have prevented them!”

  THE white-haired man sighed, like a soft wind blowing through the chapel. The sigh was caught up by others, until it rose and fell like a wailing gust echoing among the rafters.

  Bob shivered, hunched in his chair. The hollow eyes of the judge fixed themselves on him, stern but pitying. He hung his head, and buried his face in his hands, smearing blood from the cut on his forehead.

  "I... I... Please! Please don’t say any more!” he sobbed. "I guess I just didn’t realize, I was too wrapped up in my own selfish...” His voice broke. "And now it’s too late...”

  As one, the shadowy figures of the old Negro and the burly truck driver moved together in a kind of grim comradeship. They looked at the judge mutely as though awaiting his decision. The gaunt figure with the crushed skull cleared his throat in a way Bob thought he remembered...

  "Too late? Yes... for these two standing before you. But the dead,” his sombre whisper rose like a gust of wind in the dark chapel, "the dead can not punish the living. They are part of the past, and have no control over the present... or the future.” "Yet, sometimes,” the dark holes of eyes bored into Bob’s head sternly, "the dead can guide the living, by giving them a glimpse into the future. The future as it will be... unless the living use their power to change it! Do you understand, Robert Trask? Do you understand that you are on trial in this night court, not for the past but for the future... ?”

  Bob shook his head, bewildered. "The... the future? I don’t understand. I . . He glanced up eagerly. "The little girl! You... you mean, she’s all right? She isn’t dead... ?” he pressed, hardly daring to hope.

  "She is not yet born,” the old man whispered quietly. "But one day you will see her, just as you saw her tonight, lying crushed under your careless wheels... unless . . The whisper changed abruptly; became the dry official voice of a magistrate addressing his prisoner. "It is therefore the judgment of this court that, in view of the defendant’s plea of guilty and in view of his extreme youth and of his war-record, sentence shall be suspended pending new evidence of criminal behavior in the driver’s seat of a motor vehicle. If such new evidence should be brought to the attention of this court, sentence shall be pronounced and the extreme penalty carried out... Do you understand, Mr. Trask?” the grave voice repeated. "The extreme penalty!... Case dismissed.”

  The gavel banged. Bob nodded dazedly, again burying his face in his hands and shaking with dry sobs. A wave of dizziness swept over him. He felt the big chair tilt, it seemed, and suddenly he was falling, falling forward into a great black vortex that swirled and eddied...

  LIGHT snatched him back
to consciousness, a bright dazzling light that pierced his eyeballs and made him gag with nausea. Hands were pulling at him, lifting him. Then, slowly, he became aware of two figures bending over him: a gnome-like little man with a lantern, and a tall, sunburned young man in the uniform of a Highway Patrolman. It was not, Bob noted blurrily, the same one, the one with the twisted neck... He sat up, blinking.

  "My, my, young feller!” The gnome with the lantern was trying to help him up from where he lay on the chapel floor in front of the pulpit. "Nasty lump on your head there! I’m the sexton: live up the road a piece. I heard your car hit the ditch a while ago, and called the Highway Patrol. Figgered you was drunk...” He sniffed suspiciously, then shrugged. "Don’t smell drunk. What happened? You fall asleep at the wheel?”

  Bob shut his eyes, groaning. He let himself be helped to one of the front pews and leaned back against it heavily before answering. Better tell the truth now. Get it over with...

  "The... little girl. Pinned under my car —you found her?” He forced out the words sickly. “I... didn’t see her, but... It was my fault. I was... driving too fast. Too fast to stop when she stepped out right in front on my...”

  He broke off, aware that the tall tanned officer was regarding him with marked suspicion.

  "What little girl?” he snapped. "There’s nobody pinned under your car, buddy! I looked. Your footprints were the only ones leading away from the accident... and I traced them here! Besides, you were dripping blood from that cut on your... Say! You trying to kid somebody?”

  "No, no!” Bob gestured wildly. "Who’d kid about a thing like... ? Maybe the other Highway Patrolman took her away on his motorcycle! He... All of them... There didn’t seem any doubt that she’d been killed instantly. But then, the judge said she... she wasn’t even born yet! They made me come here, to... to try me! In... night court, they called it! All of them pretending to be... dead people, accident victims. Blood all over them! Mangled...” He checked himself, realizing how irrational he sounded. "I fainted,” his voice trailed uncertainly. "I guess when they... they heard you coming, they all ran away...”