Carolina Skeletons

by David Stout

  “No,” Judah Brickstone said. Linus thought he sounded nervous.

  “Your Honor, having established that the defendant here has reached the age of reason before the law, I will now call Sheriff Hiram Stoker.”

  The sheriff had on his work clothes, but Linus thought he looked very much at home. The sheriff nodded and smiled at the judge, some women who seemed to be there to run errands for the judge, and the lawyer who was asking the questions.

  “Now, Sheriff, I will show you a piece of paper, which I will first have marked. But before I get to that, will you tell us what you know of the events in this case.”

  The sheriff was about to speak when the lawyer stopped him with a hand signal.

  “Begging your pardon, Sheriff, and may it please the court. Since the events here are rather cut and dried, horrible as they may be, perhaps we could expedite matters if the sheriff, rather than being led step by step by a lot of questions, could just go ahead and tell us what happened.”

  “That okay with the defense?” the judge asked, peering over his glasses.

  “Uh, certainly …” Judah said.

  Linus thought Mr. Brickstone seemed afraid.

  “Well, the night of March twenty-eighth, last, I was just getting ready to lock up and head home when the phone rang …”

  Linus thought the sheriff’s voice was very deep and clear, like he was used to having people listen to him. He sounded easy and kind, too.

  “… and so, finally ruling out that they might have gone to a friend’s, it getting dark and all, we started a search. We used dogs …”

  Linus had asked Mr. Brickstone who the twelve men were sitting in two rows over to the side. They’re the jurors, Mr. Brickstone had said. The jurors mostly listened to the sheriff, but now and then some of them looked over at Linus. It made him shiver. More and more, Linus was glad that the sheriff was in the room, because when the men who were called the jurors looked at him, he could feel the hate.

  “… and then my deputy, Dexter Cody, came up to tell me. Didn’t even have to say they were dead, actually. I knew they were …”

  Linus sat up. Maybe the sheriff had found out how the girls had got to be dead!

  “… One of the Guardsmen had found ’em. There they were, lying there. It was clear to me, from the deep head cuts and all, that whoever had hit ’em had hit as hard as he could, meaning to kill …”

  Linus felt like his head was spinning. He wished he had not left Blossom tied up.

  “… figured whoever done it was from close by, and we figured a good place to start was the colored shacks by the mill. Considering where they was killed, and all. So my deputy and me, we went over there and snooped around, and by and by …”

  Linus was shivering, he was so eager to hear what the sheriff had found out.

  “… and after talking to a few colored folks, we came across this guy with a big string of catfish. Old fella, he was …”

  Mr. Crooks! Linus thought.

  “… and later on, just as I was leaving the office, damned—excuse me—if the same old fella, Crooks, didn’t come up to me right outside my office. Said he’d seen Linus Bragg, he knew the boy, walking a cow home the same day the girls were killed. Same time, almost …”

  Linus’s face stung, like someone had just slapped him.

  “… said the boy had a funny look on his face, dazed-like, and that his clothes were wet in spots. The old man, he knew Linus, like I said. So the next morning, my deputy and me, we went over to find this Linus Bragg. Found his place, arrested him with no trouble. Brought him in, and at first he wasn’t hungry. I let my deputy talk to him for a while. Then I went in, quiet-like, to have a talk …”

  The sting on Linus’s face hurt worse than ever. His eyes felt hot. The sheriff had tricked him.

  “… after a while, he told me the whole story, signed a confession. Then I got him some dinner.”

  Linus thought his face would burn up. He had felt sure the sheriff understood. No, that was not the worst thing. The worst thing was that Linus had believed the sheriff when the sheriff pretended he liked him.

  The man who was asking the sheriff questions came back to his table and picked up an envelope.

  “Now, Sheriff, I’m going to show you some photographs and I’ll ask you if you recognize what they show.”

  The sheriff frowned as he looked at the shiny black, gray, and white pictures. “These are the victims, their bodies, where they was pulled out of the ditch and here, lying in the morgue.”

  The courtroom was silent as death. Judah Brickstone felt naked; the pictures showed what had happened to two little girls, what had been done to them by the nigger boy sitting next to him. His client.

  “At this time, Your Honor …” the prosecutor began.

  Judah was no fool. He recognized the self-conscious smoothness, the extra caution in the voice.

  “… the people would like to submit as evidence this signed confession by Linus Bragg and these photographs. So that we may know exactly what he did, what he admitted.”

  Judah Brickstone did not want the jurors to see what his client had done.

  The judge peered at him over his glasses. “Mr. Brickstone?”

  Judah was on his feet, the floor seeming to tilt under him, his knees shaking.

  “May it please the Court …” Judah said.

  “Yes, Counsel?” Judah thought the judge seemed annoyed.

  “Regarding the matter of the photographs …”

  Judah Brickstone could see the hate in the faces of the jurors. Not just hate for Linus Bragg but—no, he was not just imagining it—hate for him as well. It was not fair! Hate on the faces, hate in the eyes. He knew what kind of men they were. Hard working and dirt poor, some of them; all bone and gristle and no love for men who wore suits and ties. Judah knew; he could feel their hate.

  “Your Honor,” the prosecutor said. “Is Mr. Brickstone trying to make an objection? Does he object to the jury’s seeing these pictures? If so, he should say so.”

  Judah’s legs were rubber. He felt faint. “No objection,” he said at last, then sat down, out of breath.

  The prosecutor handed the judge the pictures, and Linus saw the judge’s face wrinkle up, like he was going to get sick. Then the pictures were given to the jurors. One by one they looked at them, and then at him.

  A man older than Mr. Brickstone and dressed in a suit (Mr. Brickstone had told Linus he was a doctor) went to the stand and told about the bodies. He said they had been hit hard on the head a lot of times.

  The courtroom was so quiet, it was like someone had told everybody to hush. Linus could feel the hate.

  “Now, Doctor, could you tell if the girls had been forced to have sex before they died?”

  “It appeared not. Of course, we don’t know if the defendant tried but wasn’t able.”

  Linus heard a few people laugh, but they were mean laughs. The hate was still there, mixed in with the laughs.

  Judah Brickstone stood up. He was in a mood to defend himself at least as much as his client.

  “Excuse me, Doctor,” Judah said. “You say ‘appeared not.’ Isn’t it true that your tests showed, rather they didn’t show, any sign of sexual assault?”

  “Your Honor,” the prosecutor snapped, “the defense will have its chance to cross-examine. Perhaps Mr. Brickstone is unfamiliar …”

  That was too much for Judah. Bad enough that he was being forced to defend a colored murderer, but even worse, he was being painted as a man who would stick up for the worst kind of sex fiend. Such an impression could ruin his practice. Nor would he tolerate the prosecutor’s insults about his lack of courtroom experience.

  “Well, all right,” the judge said, in the tone of a father breaking up a fight between his two little boys. “But as long as Mr. Brickstone has already asked, the doctor may answer.”

  “True,” the doctor said. “The tests showed no signs of sexual assault. No blood—in the genital regions, I mean—and no ejaculat
e.”

  The prosecutor asked the doctor a few more questions, but Judah hardly heard, he was so angry.

  “No further questions,” the prosecutor said at length.

  “No further questions,” Judah said woodenly.

  “In that case, Your Honor,” the prosecutor said, “and assuming Mr. Brickstone has no objections, perhaps the Court would consider a recess for lunch. Except for summation, the people have concluded their case.”

  The guards took Linus to a small damp cell in the courthouse basement, where he was given a tin plate of beans, a roll, and a cup of water. He ate only a little.

  Judah Brickstone, his own lunch lying like a lump of dough in his stomach, sat at the counsel table, making notes for the summation he must deliver in what he hoped, with mounting fervor, would be his last (even though it was his first) criminal case. First the prosecutor came back into the courtroom, nodding perfunctorily at Judah, who nodded in return. Before Judah knew it, the courtroom was filled again. The door to the chambers opened, there was a shuffle of feet, and the judge took his place. He nodded to Judah Brickstone, who rose. Judah felt hot and self-conscious.

  What Judah hoped for most of all, as he stood before the jury, was to see less hate on the faces. If the men hated less, they might forget after a while that he had defended the boy.…

  “I was picked to defend this boy here,” Judah said. “You all know that, and you all know what a terrible thing this was. We all know. I ask you to remember that this boy had barely turned fourteen when this happened. True, he’s got more schooling than some of the colored, but he’s still a boy. Maybe you can find some mercy.…”

  Before long, Judah Brickstone was finished and back in his seat. He sat slumped in his chair, his face flushed, his legs numb, the smell of his own perspiration blending with that of his hair oil and the vanilla in his handkerchief. His spirit was exhausted.

  The prosecutor appeared to be righteous and certain. “My friends and neighbors,” he said, “my daddy used to tell me that when you make a man’s mistake, you pay a man’s price. Now, when you commit an animal’s crime, doesn’t it make sense that you pay the most? You all been on farms. What do you do with a mean dog, a mad dog? With a diseased animal of any kind? Thing is, an animal doesn’t try to be mean.

  “This is no boy’s mistake. A lot of you have children. I have children. You saw the pictures, you saw what he did. Hell, he admitted it. Told the sheriff, signed the paper, then sat down and ate a great big dinner …”

  Linus didn’t understand. Timidly, he touched Judah’s sleeve.

  “What is it, boy?”

  “I get to tell my side?” Linus was afraid, but he managed to whisper.

  Judah Brickstone was flabbergasted. “My God, boy. You can’t go up there. What would you say?”

  Linus shut his eyes and bit his lip to keep from crying.

  Linus was in the backseat of the sheriff’s car. The sheriff had given him a piece of ham, donuts, coffee, and an orange for breakfast. Linus had enjoyed the food and thanked the sheriff, trying to get the sulk out of his voice so the sheriff wouldn’t leave him alone with the thin, bony deputy.

  The men at the prison, where the sheriff was taking him again, had taught him that: not to put too much sulk into his voice, to keep it nice and even.

  Linus ached inside. Each tree and field and path that went by the window took him farther away from his mama and daddy, from Will and Jewel, from the catfish pond.

  Yesterday seemed long ago. The twelve men were only out of the courtroom ten minutes (Linus was proud he could tell time). When they came back in, the hate was still on their faces.

  Linus remembered the judge’s face. Before the men came back, his face had seemed so mean, almost as mean as the deputy’s, only smarter. But after one of the twelve handed over a piece of paper, the judge’s face looked both more kind and sad.

  Linus could remember being pulled to his feet, being held tightly, one big man in uniform on each of his arms.

  “Linus Bragg,” the judge had said. His face was very kind, very sad. “You have been found guilty of murder …”

  Linus could not believe how quiet the courtroom was.

  “… and the jury has found that you should be put to death.”

  Put to death. Put to death. Linus said the words over and over to himself, sometimes making the words with his lips, as the car went by the trees and fields and ponds. When he had heard the words in the courtroom, he could not believe they were talking about him.

  Linus remembered Mr. Brickstone’s face. He looked all tired, all worn out, like he had been working hard.

  “I’m sorry, boy,” Mr. Brickstone had whispered. Then he picked up his books and seemed to be in a big hurry to get away. Linus wondered if he would ever see him again.

  Linus ached most, even more than he did for the catfish pond and for Blossom, when he thought of his mother and father.

  When his mother and father weren’t there, Linus guessed it was because the courtroom couldn’t hold all the people who wanted to get in, the people who had the same look in their eyes as the twelve men.…

  Then, when the sheriff put the handcuffs back on him and took him out of the courtroom and back to his cell, Linus was sure his mother and father and brother and sister would be in the sheriff’s office. But there was nobody in the sheriff’s office except the mean deputy. The sheriff put his hands on Linus’s shoulder and steered him back to his cell.

  Linus was afraid to ask. He felt like crying. But he had to ask. “Where my ma and pa?”

  Linus thought the sheriff’s face was sad. “They be long gone, boy. Far away. Up north. For their own good.”

  For their own good … maybe so they wouldn’t get burned up in the shack …

  Linus had started to cry, the tears hot on his cheeks, streaming down his neck, into the top of his shirt, but he was so sad he couldn’t stop.

  “How you be doin’ back there, boy?” The sheriff’s eyes were in the mirror.

  “I be okay.” Linus was still mad at the sheriff for tricking him.

  A white boy, the sheriff’s son, was sitting next to the sheriff. Linus had first seen him that morning, in the sheriff’s office. The sheriff had said his son would be going along for the ride.

  Linus was glad when the car stopped at a store with a gasoline pump in front of it. Linus had to pee, but he didn’t want to say that in front of the sheriff and his son. He hoped that the sheriff would ask him.

  “How you today?” the sheriff said to the man who came out of the store. “Fill up the tank.”

  The sheriff turned around and looked at Linus. “Feel like stretchin’ and such?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The sheriff helped him out of the car and led him behind the store. Linus peed hard and tried not to let the sheriff see him.

  Hiram Stoker was having more trouble than usual sorting out his feelings. He could not forget—ever—what had happened to the girls, but he had to feel sorry for the boy as he fumbled to urinate.

  “Take your time, boy.”

  The sheriff saw Linus turn away, ever so slightly. Christ, the sheriff thought. Doesn’t want me to see.

  The sheriff thought of what lay ahead for Linus Bragg, and something inside him was touched. Abruptly, he thought of the girls, wondered if they had seen that coal-black thing that was still firing that remarkable rainbow of piss. His heart went out to them. Then he felt the hate inside himself. He felt his right hand clench into a fist, as though he was grasping a hunting knife. Yes, he could do it; he, Sheriff Hiram Stoker, would be capable of that which he had protected Linus Bragg from.

  Well, the point was he had protected the boy. Saved him for the law. Guilty, fair and square, and going to pay a man’s price. That was it, in the end.

  “Let’s head back to the car, boy.”

  Linus settled back into the seat, held out his wrists for the cuffs, and saw the sheriff give the store owner a dollar for gas. Where was the sheriff�
��s son? There, coming out of the store with a doughnut.

  “Damn,” the sheriff said to the owner. “Think my boy never ate breakfast. Owe you for a doughnut.”

  Then, as though he had just remembered something, the sheriff got out of the car. “Junior,” he hollered, “you watch things for a minute while I go inside.…”

  A few minutes later the sheriff came out of the store, holding a small paper bag. He opened it to show the store owner, then handed him some money, smiled, and slapped the store owner on the shoulder in a friendly way.

  Linus saw the sheriff get into the car, saw that his face was red.

  “Junior,” he said, “do your old dad a favor now. Check them rear tires for me. Forgot to have the fella do it.”

  Junior looked surprised, but he obeyed without question.

  “Long ride for you, boy,” the sheriff said to Linus, not looking at him. “A bit easier with this.”

  The sheriff took a candy bar and a bottle of root beer, already opened, from the bag and placed them in Linus’s hands.

  Linus could hardly believe his eyes.

  “And something to keep with you. Help you be the man I know you can be when the time comes …”

  The sheriff placed a small Bible on Linus’s lap.

  “Some good stuff in there, boy. Powerful medicine.”

  Linus’s eyes were hot and his throat all tight. He was still mad at the sheriff for tricking him. Now that the sheriff had given him presents, he didn’t know what to feel.

  Put to death. Linus turned those words over in his mind again. Put to death. He knew what they meant, but he could not picture it happening to him. Put to death. At least the sheriff would not let anyone cut him down there. He wondered if anyone could hurt his mother and father way up north.…

  Sometimes Linus wondered if he should try to talk to the sheriff again. But when he did, he thought of his mother and father and thought they would get hurt. And Blossom …

  No, his mother and father were way up north, on the train. The sheriff had said so.

  It was hard to tell when he was dreaming and what was real.…

  Linus had thought it would be all right when he signed the piece of paper. The sheriff had winked at him, and the food had tasted good afterward.…