Finally, he looked at Ray and Jay, thinking of the pain he would cause by separating these boys who had played together with so much innocence, worked together with so much strength, and yet pursued lives on such different courses. Aaron didn’t like to think of Jay as a bad boy, but he could not ignore the pain Jay had caused, the denial of God’s direction, and his seeming inability to do the right thing. Now it had come to this.
As he had done once before, Aaron let the Kansas City Star make his charges. He held the paper before him, standing like a monument in the middle of the room in his black suit with its vest pocket chain hanging from his stomach. His white beard was trimmed and just dried, as if he had dressed up for the occasion.
“Let me just read the first two paragraphs of this story by Temple Dandridge, so we all know how the world sees the recent events in our life,” he began.
The headline read: “Jury Believed McArdle Charges a Conspiracy to Wreck His Character.” This was the story Buck Lamb had hoped that Temp Dandridge would write, and the story they would need if W.W. McArdle was to have any chance of winning the election.
Aaron moved to the third paragraph. He read it slowly. “Jurors, after the verdict had been returned, said that it appeared to them that the case against McArdle was part of a conspiracy to blast his character because of his prosecution of the tar party case.”
Then he turned to address Jay directly: “Son, we prayed that your actions against Margaret Chambers were inspired by the holy word of God, that you believed you were protecting our neighbors and our children from her sinful ways, but the trial proved other motives were at hand. We prayed that during your time away”—Aaron could not bring himself to say “in jail”—“that you had repented. That you had seen the wages of vindictiveness and hate. We know this is a time of religious toleration, and people are shamelessly moving away from the word of God. And we must remain a community of the faithful. But it is not loyalty to the faith that corrupted that poor orphan girl and forced her to bear false witness against another person. In the tarring and feathering of Margaret and in this matter, you played a part. You could have stopped them both. You have ignored your responsibility to God and to our family.”
The room was deathly quiet. Ivy clung to the knitting in her lap as if it were an anvil, praying silently while staring at the floor. The girls reached for each other’s hands, not fully understanding what was happening, glancing at each other nervously. Only Jay looked directly at his father, fighting to keep his inner anger in check. Only a twitch of his cheek betrayed his fear.
Aaron stood like marble, as if waiting for some last-minute reprieve, perhaps a plea for forgiveness, perhaps the admission of guilt that he had never heard from his son, perhaps a commitment to a new life, a promise. But it did not come.
“Son,” Aaron began slowly, “you must leave our family today and never return. You must leave the state of Kansas and start life in some other place. For our part, we will never speak your name again, or speak of the shame you have brought to our family. We will pray for you always, but in the silence of our hearts.”
Jay stood to address his father, his legs trembling and his arms hanging loosely at his side. Ivy and the girls began crying quietly. Ray bent over with his elbows on his knees, holding his head. He could not look at any of them.
“Father,” Jay said, “I am ready to go.” He swallowed, thinking of other things to say, angry things, but he knew they would not help. He considered throwing himself at his father’s mercy or begging his mother to prevent this act, but those were not his real sentiments. He was, in fact, ready to be done with Nickerly, Kansas, and that might as well include his family. He said nothing else.
“Your mother has packed your clothes,” Aaron said, pointing to a carpetbag near the door. “And you can take the mare. She’s ready.”
Jay Langston turned, stepped over to Ray, and briefly shuffled his hand through his brother’s hair. Then he walked out the door. He was not followed.
In the few days before the election, Winton McArdle, Margaret Chambers, Temp Dandridge, and Buck Lamb traveled to every corner of the district. Two of them rode on horseback and two rode in the wagon that carried a trunk of clothes, two boxes of posters, and a large cloth banner that could be strung across almost any street, reading “McArdle for Congress.”
W.W. could feel a change in his audiences. Some hadn’t heard about the acquittal and clearly wondered why he wasn’t in jail. Some wanted to make their own judgment of the man and stared at him suspiciously. Only two weeks earlier W.W. had been a shoo-in to win. People had trusted him, had brought their kids down to the train platforms to meet him. Now they acted cautious. They did not cheer so loudly. They did not crowd around to shake his hand. They felt betrayed. Nothing angers an electorate more than a betrayal of their beliefs.
“I know this is a long shot, Buck,” W.W. said, sitting in the lobby of the Sunflower Hotel in Russell, “but I can’t let the Garveys beat me. If I can just talk to enough people, I can make it.”
“You’re doing great,” Buck said. “Get some sleep. We head for Tescott early tomorrow, and then it’s home for election day.”
Margaret and Temp had gone for a walk along the main street of Russell, with its new buildings painted in bright cheery colors. The boardwalk was worn, but it wasn’t splintered. The Indian summer air was warm around them. She held his arm as they walked.
When they came to the River Brethren Church at the end of the street, Temp said, “Let’s sit a moment.”
He knew he had to return to Kansas City as soon as the election was over. It would be his last story from Nickerly.
“Margaret,” he said, “you have been wonderful these last few days, getting up in front of everybody and talking about W.W. No matter what happens with the vote, you have done your best.”
“I owe him so much,” she replied. “It’s still so sad that he should have to pay for what happened to me.”
“He was just doing his job,” Temp said. “And it was you who gave him the chance to run for Congress. So I’d say you’re about even.”
Temp put his arm around Margaret’s shoulders. The first shadows were falling from the church steeple, creeping across their faces like a veil.
“Margaret,” he began, “I’ve come to feel so close to you. It seems like whenever we get close, I have to leave.”
“I missed you when you were gone, Temp,” she said. “But I didn’t know what to do about it. It seemed I was in the middle of so many people, all pushing me in different directions.”
“I know,” he said. “Even now we’ve gone from a trial to an election in just days. Fortunately, as a newspaperman, I’m used to it. But I can understand your confusion.”
Margaret wasn’t sure that Temp understood her. She admired him, but she was wary of his ability to wall off his emotions, to write the story he wanted no matter who was involved. She knew, of course, that his stories had been sympathetic to her, and perhaps not as objective as he liked to pretend. She was thankful for that. Of course, she also thought her position was the objective one. She hadn’t given a lot of thought to falling in love with Temp Dan-dridge. But he could not say the same.
“I don’t want to leave without you, Margaret,” he said. “Will you come to Kansas City with me?”
Margaret drew close to his face. Her gloved hand touched his cheek. She could feel his body quivering.
Margaret pulled away slowly. “I like you very much, Temp,” she said. “But we have to get through all this first. I can’t come to Kansas City with you now. But I will come later.”
“Why?” he asked. “What do you have to do here?”
“I need some time with my mother and father, even Ileen. I need to be with them without some calamity hanging over our heads,” she said. “Also, Buck says I should use my fame while it lasts, maybe travel. Wouldn’t that be great?”
“Come to Kansas City,” he said again. “We can travel wherever you like.”
“I will, Temp,” she said. “I’m just not ready now. Buck says I have opportunities. Women should use their opportunities, like getting to vote. I have to see what happens.”
Temp turned to face her in the thickening darkness of the night. He put his arms around her waist, and she confidently touched both sides of his face as they kissed. He withdrew slowly and murmured, “I love you, Margaret.”
Margaret did have strong feelings for Temp, and she cared for his feelings, but she could not quite bring herself to return the commitment to love. “I guess we had better return to the hotel,” Margaret said, “before somebody catches us.” The destructive force of gossip was never far from her mind.
Jay Langston arrived on the outskirts of Topeka on election day. He felt deliciously free—free from family and friends, free from laws and courts, free from newspapers and records of the state, and most importantly, free from his father’s religion and all the restrictions on his innate sense of joy in life. He was heading for a new life in the north, across the prairie and beyond the farms to a land where trees were as thick as locusts, and the water could carry him to big cities or remote islands, whatever his whim devised. Perhaps he would go to Michigan or even Minnesota. Jay had not planned where his feet would wander. He was just happy to be going.
On the edge of town, he stopped at a lone boardinghouse with fading gables to spend the night. He tied his horse near the trough next to two other horses and stepped onto the porch, when he noticed a flyer attached to a board where church notices were posted. It was printed on thick paper and appeared to have been nailed up that very day. The word “MARCH” was printed in six-inch letters across the top, and below it read: “We Want the Right to Vote. Join Your Sisters and the Tar Party Schoolteacher, Sunday on Main Street.”
“Jesus,” Jay said as he yanked the flyer off the board, crumpled it in both hands, and threw it into a muddy pool of water collecting near the porch. “How far do I have to go?”
Note from the Author
This story is based on a series of events involving my great-uncle Jay Fitzwater and my great grandfather, the Reverend Levi Fitzwater. The events of the story track many of the facts of the actual “tar party” case. All of the names have been changed; some of the characters are totally fictional; and all of the motives, dialogue, descriptions, and relationships in this novel are fictional, with the exception of some language taken directly from newspaper accounts of the “tar party trial” of 1911.
On August 7, 1911, a schoolteacher from Shady Bend, Kansas, was tarred by several of the leading citizens of the area for allegedly seducing one of her students. At the subsequent trial, no evidence was presented in support of that assertion. Seven of the men were found guilty of assault and abuse and received varying sentences of up to one year in jail. The Lincoln County prosecutor ran unsuccessfully for Congress. He was accused of attempting to rape a young girl on December 24, 1911, and was found innocent in a trial that lasted only thirty minutes. All members of the original tar party were in attendance. The schoolteacher later married and lived out her life as a wife and mother in Illinois. The prosecutor continued to practice law in Lincoln, Kansas.
Other books by Marlin Fitzwater
Call the Briefing!
Reagan and Bush, Sam and Helen:
A Decade with Presidents and the Press
Sunflowers: A Collection of Short Stories
Death in the Polka Dot Shoes: A Novel
About the Author
Marlin Fitzwater is the author of several books including a memoir, two novels, and short stories. He received America’s second highest civilian achievement award, the Presidential Citizens Medal, from President George H. W. Bush in 1992. He was Presidential Press Secretary to both Bush and President Ronald Reagan. He is from Abilene, Kansas and is actively involved with the Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communication at Franklin Pierce University. He is married and has two children.
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