That Night at the Palace

by Watson, L. D.

  “Oh, her. She doesn’t know who I am.”

  “Oh, she knows,” Jewel replied with assurance.

  “Did you guys hear what happened in Jacksonville?” Cliff asked, changing the subject. He had been down this road enough times and knew full well that Jesse was way too much of a coward to ever walk across the street and talk to Gemma Crawford.

  “Some girl got killed is what I heard,” Jesse replied, relieved to get the conversation on anything but him.

  “I heard it was a colored fellow that did it,” said Cliff. “Someone named Davis.”

  Jewel spotted a commotion in front of the domino hall. A number of men were gathered and began to get into cars.

  “Mr. Davis from over in Pleasant Grove? He works on the rigs for my pa.”

  “I think it’s his son.”

  “Guys, something’s going on,” Jewel said as she pointed toward the end of the street.

  “What do you suppose is up?” Jesse asked as a line of cars and pickups began heading their direction.

  “I’ll find out,” Cliff replied as he stood to his feet and waved down a pickup. “Hey, Toad, what’s up?”

  Toad Lowery pulled to a stop as Cliff, followed by Jesse and Jewel walked up, “We’re gonna go watch a lynchin’.”

  “Was it Mr. Davis?” Jesse asked.

  “His son, Bucky.” Hunker Lowery answered from across the cab. “I can’t believe it, either, I know’d Bucky and he’s a nice kid.”

  “Well, I don’t care if he’s a nice kid or not, if he did what they say he did, they oughta hang ‘im from the highest tree,” Toad clamored.

  “I didn’t say that they shouldn’t hang ‘im. I just said that he’s a nice kid,” Hunker replied.

  “Can we come?” Cliff asked.

  “Fine with me,” Toad answered, as Cliff was already climbing in the back of his pickup, “but if you get in trouble with your ma and pa, don’t come crying to us.”

  “Come on,” Cliff said, more aimed at Jesse than Jewel.

  Jewel hopped right in but Jesse hesitated.

  “You can’t come,” Cliff said to Jewel.

  “Why not?”

  “A girl can’t go to a lynchin’.”

  “If you two can go, I can go.”

  Then both kids looked at Jesse who was still hesitant.

  Toad looked at him, “If you’re comin’, get in.”

  Jesse shrugged and climbed into the back of the truck just as Toad pulled away.

  Cliff looked at Jesse and Jewel and rolled his eyes. “My first hangin’ and I’m going with a girl and a chicken.”

  As the truck pulled away, Gemma Crawford watched them leave from inside the dress shop.

  #

  Jacksonville was about twelve miles north of Elza, and by 1936 was considerably larger. Twenty-five years earlier the two towns had been about the same size, but the Santa Fe railroad put a depot right in the middle of Jacksonville, which brought all sorts of businesses. Jacksonville’s newspaper The Jacksonville Statesman eventually put all the papers in Cherokee county out of business, and by 1930, Jacksonville got Chevrolet and Ford dealerships and a Sears and Roebuck’s.

  The line of cars and trucks from Elza circled through town past the jailhouse where fifty or sixty men had gathered. Jesse watched the crowd of angry men as they passed and felt a sense of fear run through him. Until that moment it had been a bit of an adventure, but suddenly there was a frightful reality to what was taking place.

  A block south of Commerce Street was a big square park with parking spaces all the way around it. Jesse often thought it reminded him of a county seat without a courthouse. In the center of the park stood a monument to the soldiers of the Great War. Every Saturday farmers from all over circled the park with their pickups to sell produce. On weekdays like this only a couple of farmers took the time to come into town.

  Toad parked next to the only farmer on the square. “Hey, Clovis,” Toad said to the farmer as he got out of his pickup. “We gonna have a lynchin’?”

  The old man just shook his head with disgust. “It sure looks that way.”

  Jesse, Cliff, and Jewel climbed out of the back of the old Ford as Hunker walked around to where Clovis and Toad stood.

  “What’s the matter Clovis?” Hunker asked. “Don’t you think he deserves to get hung?”

  “Nope. He ain’t killed nobody. He might ought to go to prison for a while, if he did it.”

  “I thought that girl was dead,” Toad said with surprise.

  “Naw. She’s laid up over at Doc Mahoney’s. She’s been hurt pretty bad, but she’s gonna make it. ”

  Cliff, Jesse, and Jewel listened to the conversation as they watched the commotion across the park.

  “Well, a fellow that does something like that to a girl still ought to get hung,” Hunker argued.

  “Maybe, if he done it. But I don’t think he done it,” the old man said with conviction.

  “Who did it if he didn’t?” Hunker asked, somewhat angrily.

  “A lot of folks have seen her carrying on with a white fellow from down your way.”

  Toad suddenly got angry. “Ain’t nobody from Elza did that!”

  “I didn’t say he did it. I’m just sayin’ that nobody knows if that boy did it or not. I’ve known Bucky all his life, and he’s as good a young man as I’ve ever met. By god he don’t deserve to get hung just because he ain’t white.”

  Toad started to open his mouth when Hunker put his hand on his brother’s shoulder and pointed toward the police station, “Somethin’s happenin’.”

  “Come on,” Toad said as he and his brother began to hurriedly head over to the crowd.

  Toad looked back at the kids who were following behind, “You kids stay close to us. If you get separated, head for the truck.”

  “We will, Toad,” Cliff answered as they headed to the crowd, which has now swelled to well over fifty or sixty.

  Crossing through the park, Jesse noticed something moving over their heads. Looking up he saw a rope tied into a hangman’s noose slung from a telephone pole and swinging in the breeze.

  As they approached, Jewel grabbed Jesse’s arm. “Do you think they’re really going to kill him?”

  “I don’t know,” Jesse replied.

  The three stayed back from the crowd. Looking around, they saw several cars and trucks pulled into the town as more and more men from the surrounding communities arrived. The kids found a spot on the curb across the street from the jailhouse and sat down to watch. In minutes the crowd, which moments before had been no more than sixty men, was turning into a mob of over two hundred.

  “What if that old man’s right?” Jewel asked the other two. “What if he didn’t do it?”

  “By the looks of this crowd,” Cliff answered, “they’re going to hang him no matter what. The chief here ain’t like Jefferson. My pa says this guy is really bad. He says that when this chief finds hobos down on the tracks he don’t just run them off. He likes to beat ‘em up first.”

  Suddenly Jesse recognized a man in the crowd and elbowed Cliff.

  “I see him,” Cliff replied as he watched the man work his way through the crowd, yelling along with all the others.

  Cliff stood, “I’m gonna get a closer look.”

  “Stay here,” Jesse said to Jewel as he too stood and then followed Cliff into the crowd.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Jewel replied emphatically.

  The two boys worked their way through the angry mob, trying to keep the man in sight. Finally they got to where they could see him up close. He was the man from the alley, Peterson Crawford, Gemma’s father.

  The boys tried to keep an eye on the man, but the mob around them kept pushing and shoving. The boys soon got separated. In moments, Jesse found himself standing almost next to the man.

&n
bsp; Suddenly, the mob became silent. Behind them in the street a black Oldsmobile pulled to a stop. A man got out of the car and went to the back door and opened it. As he did, the mob split into two, making an open path to the front of the jailhouse. Jesse was standing to the left of Peterson Crawford with another man between them. Across the open path he saw Cliff, who also was keeping an eye on Mr. Crawford.

  Then Jesse noticed that the crowd’s attention turned to the jailhouse steps. Looking up, he saw the police chief stepping out of the door. Behind him two officers came out with a young black man between them. Each officer was holding the young man’s arms, which were handcuffed behind his back. The Chief led as the four headed down the steps. The young man in handcuffs was clearly terrified and tried to resist, but the two officers made sure he came along.

  At the same time, at the other end of the opening in the crowd, the man who had opened the car door helped a young blonde haired woman timidly step out. Her face was bandaged, and she couldn’t stand without help. The man insisted, and she hesitantly walked as best she could with him.

  At the same time, the officers with the black man came toward the girl and stopped directly in front of Jesse. The man and girl also stopped. Jesse looked at Mr. Crawford, who was staring intently at the girl. Suddenly she noticed him and the man between Crawford and Jesse. She tried to turn and go back to the car, but the man holding her arm wouldn’t let her. Jesse watched as she glanced up a second time at Crawford and then the other man, both of whom had their eyes trained on her face. Jesse glanced at Cliff, who had noticed the same things that he did. The girl was terrified as everyone could clearly see. Most thought it to be because she was standing directly across from the black man who attacked her, but only Cliff and Jesse could see that she was afraid of Crawford.

  The chief stepped to his right so that the girl was standing face to face with the young black man.

  “Gladys, is this the man who raped you?” the Chief asked, but it seemed to Jesse to be more of a statement than a question.

  There was complete silence as every man in the crowd strained to hear her answer. Jesse looked back at Crawford, whose angry scowl was bearing down on the girl.

  She looked at the chief and started to shake her head, but then glanced back at Crawford. His left hand slightly opened his suit coat revealing a Smith and Wesson .38 Special that he had tucked into his belt. She glanced back at the chief with tears streaming down her face and just nodded.

  Suddenly the crowd began shouting and pushing.

  The young black man pulled back and shouted, “It wasn’t me! I didn’t do it!”

  The larger of the two officers punched him with all his might. With blood streaming down his face, the young man kept proclaiming his innocence while the screaming mob closed in around him.

  The man holding the girl managed to get her back to the Oldsmobile as Jesse and Cliff began frightfully trying to work their way out of the crowd. People were pushing and shoving all around them. At one point Jesse looked back to see that the police officers had let go of the young black man and were watching the mob drag him away, beating him as they went.

  Fighting his way through the mob, Jesse suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder. He stopped and looked up to see Peterson Crawford holding on to him. Jesse looked at the man and darted away. With the crowd all around them, he managed to easily get free and soon was across the street where Jewel and Cliff were waiting.

  “Let’s get back to the truck,” Jewel demanded, clearly frightened.

  Jesse and Cliff led the way, neither wanting to reveal that they were as terrified as Jewel.

  When they got to the pickup they climbed into the back and watched. The mob was dragging the young man, beaten to the point that he was unable to walk. The noose had been lowered, and they held him as the crowd put the rope over his head. Jewel turned her head to hide the tears. Cliff and Jesse watched in stunned silence as the young man was being pulled up by his neck, his limbs flinging wildly. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of shouting, his legs stopped moving as the last breath of life slipped from his lungs.

  Toad and Hunker approached the truck with their heads down.

  “That chief oughten’t done that. They should have given him a trial,” Hunker said in disgust.

  The two climbed into the cab of the truck.

  “I knew that kid,” Toad said. “He’s a good kid. That girl didn’t say he done it. She just nodded her head a little.”

  Jewel and the two boys looked at the mob that was boiling over with chaos and anger. Suddenly there was a single gunshot from behind them. All three looked back as a man on horseback slowly rode into the park. The crowd immediately fell silant. The man wore a broad cowboy hat and held a six-shooter in his right hand just like Gene Aurty or John Wayne.

  “Cut him down,” he demanded to one of the men in the crowd.

  No one in the mob made a move to stop the horseman as he tossed a pocketknife to the man.

  Hunker and Toad stepped out of the cab and onto the running boards of the pickup to get a good look at the horseman.

  “That’s Brewster McKinney,” Hunker announced.

  “Who?” Jesse asked.

  “Corporal McKinney?” Cliff asked.

  “That’s him all right,” Toad agreed.

  “Who’s Corporal McKinney?” Jesse asked.

  “Texas Ranger,” Cliff replied. “One of the toughest men alive from what I hear.”

  “He must ‘ave just got here,” Toad injected. “A ranger wouldn’t have let them lynch him.”

  They watched as the now silent crowd lowered the man from the telephone pole. Jesse and Cliff both had tears in their eyes.

  To their right an old black Ford pickup stopped in the middle of the street. A black woman got out of the truck and began running toward the mob. When she got to the young man who was then lying on the ground, she began wailing and threw herself on his body. The only sound that Jesse could hear was the woman’s wailing.

  Jesse spotted a tall black man walking along the path the woman had taken a few moments before, “That’s Mr. Davis,” he said softly, breaking the eerie silence.

  Davis walked past the ranger to whom he looked at with disdain and over to his wife who lay across her son sobbing. He had to pull hard to get her free from her son. The woman was now wailing without stopping as Davis held her. Finally, he led the woman back to his pickup. About half way to the truck the two stopped walking. The wailing turned to silence and the two looked around at the mob. Davis looked over at the pickup and at the three kids. Then the man and wife, holding tightly to one another, stood as straight and tall as they could and walked back to their pickup with their heads held high.

  Chapter 6

  MAIN STREET,

  ELZA TEXAS

  4:40 p.m.,. Sunday November 16, 1941

  Corporal Brewster McKinney was tired when he climbed out of his 1937 Ford Model 74 coupe. The fifty-year-old Texas Ranger had spent the night before on a stakeout with another Ranger at an old Roadhouse on the Trinity River. It was after five that morning when he finally got to sleep, and then a little before noon he got the call to go down to Elza.

  Elza was the only black mark in the otherwise perfect career of Brewster McKinney. The Rangers prided themselves in always solving their cases. Unfortunately, the fact was that the world-famous law enforcement agency left a lot of cases unsolved or “open” as the Rangers preferred to say. Most Rangers had a number of “open” cases on their record, but Corporal McKinney only had one. Some years earlier a local playboy had gotten drunk and driven out on some railroad tracks just in time to get hit by the Santa Fe headed up to Dallas. The problem for Brewster McKinney was that the man didn’t have a history of getting drunk. He did, Brewster learned, have a history of carrying on with women other than his wife, and there were husbands all over East Texas who had reason to kil
l him. There was also a dent in the back of the man’s head that matched perfectly with a bloody tree limb they had found about a few hundred feet up the track. So though he couldn’t prove anything and he had absolutely no leads, Corporal McKinney knew in his soul that he had let a killer go free.

  McKinney put on the 5x Stetson he had bought two years prior at the Paris Hatters in San Antonio, carefully closed the door to the Ford, and walked into the Elza Police Station. Brewster loved both the car and the hat. The Ford was the first vehicle the Ranger had ever bought new off the showroom floor, and he suspected that it would be the last. Thus, the car was tuned-up once a year, and the oil was changed at exactly three thousand miles, no more, no less. The hat was as fine a Texas style hat a man could buy, and the price reflected it. He suspected, as with the car, that he’d never be able to afford to buy another one, so he took care of it.

  Elza wasn’t a county seat so there wasn’t a town square with a large courthouse in the center. Before 1910 the town barely had enough population to justify a post office. In fact, back in those days the town was called Azle, after the family that founded it. Then when they tried to open a post office they found out that there already was an Azle, Texas. After some head-scratching they spelled the founder’s name backward and came up with Elza.

  In the early days of the oil boom, the town swelled to over two thousand people. The result was a busy main street with two banks - one sitting on the corner that was as much a centerpiece as any county courthouse. Clearly the population was down some, but Brewster could tell that this was still a busy little town. Even on a Sunday with the stores closed, there were quite a few people about.

  When he walked in the door Brewster immediately remembered the police station and police chief. The police headquarters was little more than a storefront wedged between the movie theater and an alley. The second floor had been outfitted with four jail cells, though, as Brewster recalled, they sat empty most of the time.

  Inside the door was a large, open room with a simple desk and two chairs. Behind the desk was a long hallway leading to the back door and a staircase leading up to the jail. The little building had once been a tobacco shop, and even after nearly ten years the wood floors and walls still had the scent of fresh tobacco. Brewster found the odor disgusting. The Ranger, unlike virtually all of his fraternity, was a life-long non-smoker. He personally found the habit intolerable. Brewster was a large man who took pride in his physical ability to handle any crook he encountered, as he had done on many occasions. He held to the unpopular belief that sucking smoke in to one’s lungs had to inhibit one’s ability to chase down a bandit. That theory, which he espoused regularly, was not at all popular with the majority of his fellow lawmen at his Division Headquarters back in Dallas.