Winding Stair (9781101559239)

by Jones, Douglas C.

  There was an interesting point of procedure here. McRoy was having his cake and eating it, too, pleading his client not guilty yet arguing now for consideration of a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. Normally, he would have to plead to that effect, which is actually an admission of guilt though not culpable due to mental derangement. But he hadn’t done that. It was as if he were giving the jury a choice: Johnny was either not at the Thrasher farm at all, or else if he was, he was insane. I assumed Judge Parker was allowing it due to the pressure of Supreme Court review and to ensure that no one could say the defendants had not obtained their full day in court. Evans remained silent for his own reasons.

  “Does drinking strong spirits have any influence on this behavior?” McRoy asked.

  “It makes it worse. The restraints of morality are lessened by hard drink, even in a normal person, and in Johnny Boins there has never been much moral restraint to begin with.”

  “As an expert witness, Doctor, do you think Johnny Boins has been incapable of making a determination of right from wrong over, say, the last year?”

  “It is my opinion he has not had that capability.”

  “Your witness,” McRoy said, wheeling toward the defense table with that now-familiar flourish, his head up, smiling, looking pleased and sure of himself.

  I suspected Evans was in unknown territory, but I was soon to learn that such an experienced prosecutor did not stand in awe of any expert witness.

  “Dr. Schafer,” Evans said, “what is the nature of your practice?”

  “I am a general practitioner.”

  “In that role, how much time do you spend reading the most recent literature on the practice of medicine as it applies to mental disorders and insanity?”

  “I have read some of it, certainly,” Schafer said, becoming a little indignant. Evans was unperturbed, moving calmly, the best I had seen him at any time in this court.

  “Are you familiar with any of the periodicals inspired by studies on mental disorders done in such places as Vienna?”

  “I read German very badly,” Schafer said, and laughed.

  “In your practice, I would suppose that you need to keep abreast of developments in such diverse fields as surgery, obstetrics, infectious disease, respiratory ailments, constipation, falling hair, blemished skin, and other such things. Is that true, Doctor?”

  The doctor flushed as the laughter spread through the crowd. Judge Parker sat with his head down, one hand over his face, and I could see the smile behind it.

  “Yes, my practice is diverse,” Schafer said.

  “Then how do you find time, Doctor, to read so widely in the field of insanity?”

  “I try to keep up with all manner of medicine.”

  “Doctor, have you ever studied at an institution the symptoms or the treatment for insanity?”

  “Well, no—”

  “But, Doctor,” Evans cut in sharply, “you have been presented here as an expert on the subject.”

  “Well, I am not what you’d call an expert on insanity.”

  “I could have sworn I heard the defense counsel refer to you as a ‘medical expert.’ ” And the people laughed again, and a few of the jurors as well. “But never mind. You used the word normal. What is a normal person?”

  “It would be difficult to provide a definition on the spur of the moment.”

  “You have indicated that Johnny Boins was not normal, and it seemed that was on the spur of the moment.”

  “I’ve watched him over a good many years.”

  “Did you watch him, or treat him, or even see him throughout the month of June last?”

  “No, I don’t believe I saw him during that time.”

  “Yet you would come here and state that at the time of the Winding Stair crimes, which occurred in June, that he was not able to distinguish between right and wrong?”

  “That is my opinion,” Schafer said.

  Evans startled the courtroom with a short, harsh laugh, a burst of mirthless sound, and abruptly he sat down.

  When McRoy called his next witness, the crowd moved expectantly, and Judge Parker subdued them with his usual slap on the bench. Johnny Boins walked to the stand and lifted his hand to be sworn, his lips twisted into a crooked smile as though he had some dark secret about to be shared.

  “Johnny, do you have headaches?” McRoy asked.

  “All the time,” he said, but there was no show of pain on his face nor even the flicker of its memory.

  “Are you sometimes forgetful?”

  “Your Honor, he’s leading his witness,” Evans said without rising.

  “Rephrase it, Mr. McRoy.”

  “What is the state of your health, Johnny?”

  “Not good. There are times I get these bad headaches and there are times I can’t remember anything.”

  “How do you relieve this pain?”

  “I take these powders the druggist gives me, but they don’t do much good. Usually, I drink.”

  “And what happens when you drink?”

  “I don’t have headaches anymore,” he said, and laughed. “And I don’t usually remember anything.”

  “Now, Johnny, you’ve heard in testimony here of a letter written to you by someone who drew a deer’s-head signature. Do you recall getting that letter?”

  “Sure. I met Rufus Deer in the Creek Nation a long time ago, and we sometimes went to horse races together, and sometimes chicken fights. Last May we were at Saddler’s Ford on the North Canadian where they were having some races. Rufus saw this black stallion he wanted to buy, but before be could make any offer, the man who owned the horse left.”

  “It was at this time you met a girl named Jennie Thrasher?”

  “Sure. At Wetumka, I think it was, a few days before, then at Saddler’s Ford. Her daddy owned the horse Rufus wanted to buy. I got to know Jennie pretty well.” And he laughed again. Joe Mountain, still beside me, placed a hand on my leg and patted me as though soothing a skittery horse, as though he were afraid I’d leap over the railing and assault the witness. “I told her I’d marry her and she asked me to come to her daddy’s farm because she was willing. But her daddy found us together and threatened to kill me if I ever came around again, so I decided it was useless and forgot it.”

  “Then you received the letter?”

  “Sure. Rufus knew about the girl and that I was taken with her, and of course I knew about that horse he wanted to buy. I’d gone on home to Eureka Springs and then I got the letter. He’d sent somebody to find that horse, and the girl was there, too. So I decided I’d go with him and maybe I could talk her daddy into letting us get married.”

  “What happened then, Johnny?”

  “I met Rufus here in Fort Smith. We went across the river that night and got good and drunk. I guess we stayed drunk for two weeks. I don’t remember anything until I was back home.”

  “Do you recall going to the Winding Stair Mountains?”

  “Rufus may have. I don’t know. I don’t ever remember being down in that part of The Nations. A little far south of my normal range.”

  “Have you ever seen any of these defendants before, the ones at that table where you’ve been sitting?”

  “I never have. Not until they brought ’em into this jail, where they had me locked up.”

  “Now, Johnny, this loss of memory when you’re drinking. Does it happen often?”

  “All the time. The pain in my head gets so bad and I start drinking and then I can’t remember. I was up in Missouri once for over two months, and didn’t remember a thing.”

  “You might say your mind leaves your body.”

  “You might say that.”

  “No more questions,” McRoy said. Evans sat for a long time, staring at the witness, then shook his head.

  Nason Grube took the stand, his eyes still bloodshot. He sat on the edge of the chair, his hands clasped between his knees.

  “Nason, have you ever been in the Choctaw Nation?”

  “
No, sir, I ain’t.”

  “Nason, how do you make a living?”

  “I work on Mr. Cornkiller’s farm,” Grube said. “I work there all the time.”

  “Were you there during the month of June?”

  “Yes, sir. I ain’t been off the farm since last Christmas when me and Mr. Cornkiller went into Muskogee to get drunk.”

  “Was Mr. Cornkiller there, too?”

  “Most of the time. He went to Okmulgee once and then to Muskogee to trade horses. He goes around Creek Nation and horse trades some.”

  McRoy had been holding a slip of yellow tablet paper behind his back throughout this, and now he presented it to the witness.

  “Do you recognize this document, Nason?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s a bill of sale.”

  “Your Honor, I ask this be entered in evidence,” McRoy said. “It indicates that on June tenth, 1890, a bay gelding and a blue roan mare were sold to one Skitty Cornkiller in Creek Nation the Indian Territory, for the sum of seventy-five dollars each.”

  “Objection,” Evans shouted. “I request His Honor instruct the jury.”

  “Sustained,” Parker said. “The jury will disregard the defense counsel’s statements going to the content of this paper. Let me see that thing.”

  He carefully placed his glasses on the end of his nose and studied the yellow paper intently, then shook his head.

  “Mr. McRoy, you’re going to have to show proper foundation for this. More than the testimony of the witness. It is self-serving.”

  “Your Honor, may I call another witness at this time?”

  “Prosecution hasn’t had the opportunity to cross,” Parker said.

  “I will recall Mr. Grube, Your Honor.”

  “This is all playacting,” Evans said, obviously upset. “A sudden so-called bill of sale, and now this sandwiching of witnesses.”

  “I am going to allow it, Mr. Evans,” Parker said, a dangerous edge on his voice. “But I must tell you, Mr. McRoy, your sequence of witnesses leaves a great deal to be desired.”

  I wondered if Judge Parker would have so ruled before his decisions became subject to review by the Supreme Court. Nason Grube clanked back to his place and McRoy called James Fentress, a man who identified himself as an operative of the Acme Detective Agency in Little Rock. He was a seedy-looking man with a face like a squirrel, running mostly to nose.

  “Would you explain your involvement in the cause now in hearing?” McRoy asked.

  “Yes. I was retained by your law firm, Mr. McRoy, to go into Creek Nation and search the premises of a farm occupied by two of these defendants, Nason Grube and Skitty Cornkiller.”

  “Did you find anything of evidentiary value?”

  “We found a bill of sale for two horses. It was stuck behind a calendar tacked to the kitchen wall. I suppose it was a kitchen. There was a cookstove in there.”

  I tried to picture in my mind the Cornkiller farm, but too many other images intervened. I could recall nothing tacked to the walls of the kitchen except a page from a Police Gazette, an engraving of a woman trapeze artist. McRoy was passing the slip of paper to the witness.

  “This is the paper,” Fentress said.

  “Would you describe the signature?”

  “Yes, it’s a drawing. The whole thing is done in pencil, and there’s no proper signature. Only a drawing of what appears to be a deer’s head, with antlers.”

  There was a grumble of sudden conversation in the crowd and Judge Parker slammed the bench with his hand. McRoy asked once more that the bill of sale be entered in evidence, and over Evans’s fuming about theatrics. Judge Parker allowed it. Fentress was excused and once more Nason Gtube was on the stand, hands tightly held between his knees.

  “Nason,” McRoy said, “have you ever killed anyone?”

  “Never in my life. No, sir.”

  “Nason, when was the last time you knew a woman?”

  For a moment, Nason Grube sat silent, his fingers twitching. He drew a deep breath and swallowed, and I could not help feeling sorry for him.

  “Mr. McRoy, I don’t remember. It’s been a long time ago.”

  “Nason, have you ever raped anyone?”

  “God is my witness, Mr. McRoy, I ain’t ever done that.”

  “Now, Nason, you know that you are testifying here under oath and that in God’s name you have sworn to tell the truth—”

  “For heaven’s sake, Your Honor,” Evans shouted.

  “All right, all right,” Parker said, waving Evans back into his seat. “Get on with it, Mr. McRoy.”

  “Nason, have you ever been in the Choctaw Nation?”

  “No, sir, never in my life.”

  Evans was across the room in a headlong rush to begin his cross-examination. He grabbed the Texas pearl hat from the railing before the jury and waved it under Nason Grube’s nose. Grube drew back quickly, his eyes going wide.

  “You were arrested with this hat on your head,” Evans said, and his voice shook with intensity. “Where did you get it?”

  “Mr. Cornkiller give it to me. He had it one time when he come back from Muskogee or Okmulgee. I don’t remember which. He’d been horse tradin’ and he said—”

  “Never mind what he said,” Evans roared, tossing the hat in the general direction of the jury. It came to rest on the floor directly before the box. “Can you read, Mr. Grube?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then how can you recognize a bill of sale?”

  “I seen it before.”

  Evans darted over to the jury railing again. He snatched the yellow paper and thrust it into Nason Grube’s hands.

  “Read that, Mr. Grube.”

  There was a long pause, Grube staring at the paper in his hands. He shook his head.

  “You don’t know whether it says something about two horses or three pigs, do you, Mr. Grube?”

  “No, sir. I just seen that—”

  “All right, please just answer my questions,” Evans said, pulling the paper from Grube’s hands. “Now, you say you’ve never been in Choctaw Nation. Is that right?”

  “I never been there.”

  “Isn’t it true that you first came into the Indian country on a work permit with the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas railroad?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That line runs straight through the Choctaw Nation.”

  “But I was just workin’ on the northern section—”

  Evans cut in again, pressing harder than he had at any point in this trial. It was having its effect on the witness, who had begun to sweat, his black face shining and the scar welts seeming to stand out even more prominently on his cheeks.

  “Didn’t you watch the officers from this court searching your farm the day you were arrested?”

  “I see ’em lookin’ around, yes, sir.”

  “They didn’t find any bill of sale, did they?”

  “Objection,” McRoy said. “He’s testifying, Your Honor.”

  “Sustained.”

  Evans kept boring in, keeping Grube confused as his questions jumped back and forth from one subject to another. Grube’s mind seemed to adjust to each new idea and then he was asked about something else. It was a technique I wanted to remember.

  “You and Mr. Cornkiller over there, you make a lot of money farming. Is that true?”

  “No, sir, we don’t make much.”

  “How much do you make in, say, a year?”

  “Not much. We sell a little garden truck.”

  “And those trips of Mr. Cornkiller’s, they aren’t for trading stock, are they? They’re for selling whiskey. Isn’t that right?”

  “We sell some. . . .”

  “Don’t you trade whiskey for groceries when you need them, and a pair of shoes now and then?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That so-called bill of sale says you paid seventy-five dollars each for two horses. That’s a lot of money. Where did it come from, Mr. Grube?”

  Nason Grube’s eyes darted arou
nd the room.

  “When’s the last time you saw seventy-five dollars on that farm?”

  “I don’t remember. Mr. Cornkiller . . .”

  “You were sitting right over there”—and Evans pointed to the defense table, at the vacant chair between Cornkiller and Smoker Chubee—“when a little Choctaw woman, a brave little woman, testified under oath that you raped her.”

  “I never done that. I swear I never done that. . . .”

  “So now you’re telling us that she was lying, that she saw your face just over hers when she was lying on that porch naked and—”

  “Objection, Your Honor,” McRoy shouted, banging the table with his fists.

  “Stop the dramatics, Mr. Evans,” Judge Parker said.

  “Your Honor, I was simply paraphrasing an early question of the defense counsel when Mrs. Thrasher was on the stand,” Evans said, his nostrils flared.

  “Mr. Evans, I repeat, stop the dramatics.”

  “Very well.” Evans strode away from the stand and turned back, his arms extended stiffly at his sides. “Are you testifying that Mrs. Thrasher was lying?”

  “Yes, sir, I guess I am. I think she just got the wrong nigger.”

  Evans released the witness, and the fury of his attack left the crowd leaning forward openmouthed as McRoy rested his case. Once more, McRoy moved for a directed verdict and once more Judge Parker denied it.

  Judge Parker said he would take closing arguments after a noon recess, and Joe Mountain and I went out along the river to smoke together. I had no yearning for food, and the big Osage sensed my need for solitude.

  “You want me to leave you alone, Eben Pay?”

  “No, I’d rather you walked with me, Joe,” I said. “I just want to be away from that mob back there.”

  The shock of Jennie Thrasher’s testimony had already begun to wear off, but the thought of it left a bitter taste in my mouth. I considered the defendants, back there in the federal building, chained and waiting now for judgment. A two-week drunk, Johnny Boins had said, and the lives of so many people changed as a result of it, damaged or destroyed forever. It had touched me only in passing, and yet I knew that at this moment, walking along the river with my friend, Eben Pay was a different man from the one who had taken the train south from Saint Louis little more than three months before.