A Thousand Never Evers (21 page)

CHAPTER 31

October 21, 1963, Midafternoon

Miss Gold and me trail the judge, Mrs. Tate, Mr. Hickock, the news reporter, and the jurors down the road to Mr. Mudge’s farm. I
tweet, click, click,
and Flapjack scurries to catch up with me.

While we parade down Main Street, Mrs. Tate wobbles in her high heels. I can tell she’s uncomfortable in more ways than one. And me? I’m ten thousand times more nervous than I was when I walked to Weaver with Cool Breeze for the first day of seventh grade! With every step I take, I wonder why Mrs. Tate decided to join our side. Well, whatever her reason, now it’s up to me to prove what she says is true. If I can’t do that, then Mrs. Tate and me, we’re both history.

At long last the whole lot of us stumble up Mr. Mudge’s walkway. And who do we spot digging up dandelions out front? None other than Mr. Mudge himself! This morning in court Mrs. Worth said Mr. Mudge was out of town the past month. But I know better! And look at him. His overalls are streaked with mud. There’s a pile of plucked weeds at his feet. And if tending’s Negro work, I don’t know why he’s doing it himself.

Not surprising, Mr. Mudge is flabbergasted to see us. And I reckon he’s stalling for time, because instead of saying “hello” or “good day” to the lot of us, he pulls off his garden gloves one finger at a time, then folds them awful neat before tucking them in his back pocket. Then he pastes on a smile and says, “Finished taking care of my mother in Florida. After that, had to meet with the Coca-Cola folks all the way in Atlanta to place my order for the new shop. Just got back. And can you believe this?”

Truth be told, no I can’t, but I keep my trap shut while Mr. Mudge beats the devil round the stump. “They say someday soon they’re gonna give me a better price on aluminum cans than glass bottles. Seems we’re moving to the future faster than I can keep pace.”

I can’t help but feel bad for Mr. Mudge, the way he’s wiggling round like a worm on a hook.

“Sam,” says the judge, “I know you won’t mind if we just take a quick look around your property.” The judge looks past all the jurors to me. “That Negro girl over there says she’s found some evidence for the court.”

Here I stand, Addie Ann Pickett, accusing my brother’s boss, Mr. Mudge, of doing wrong. Me? I’m nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs! The way this is going, it doesn’t seem right.

“Look-a-here,” Mr. Mudge says to me. “What kind of evidence could you possibly find on my land?”

“Probably none,” the judge answers for me. “I’m sorry to do this to you, Sam, but you know if I don’t investigate the newspaper will.” The judge takes a paper out of his cloak pocket and shows it to Mr. Mudge. “By order of the court, you’ve got to remain inside your house during the search,” he says.

All of a sudden, Mr. Mudge is furious. His mouth falls wide open, his eyes light up, and he looks just like a jack-o’-lantern. “Scram!” he shouts.

And that’s when I know for certain what the night said is true.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” the judge says. “But you’ll have to stay in your house during the search.”

So Mr. Mudge says to me, “You’re nothing but ungrateful colored trash!” Then he stomps up his steps and slams the house door behind him.

I push against the hot air, try to stay steady, but my legs are shakier than the strings on Mama’s mop. I follow the judge past a wheelbarrow and onto Mr. Mudge’s farm. When we pass Mr. Mudge’s garden shed, the judge picks up a shovel resting against the shed door and hands it to the bailiff.

Flapjack dashes off ahead while Miss Gold asks me to tell everyone what I saw the last time I was here on this land. Part of me, the part deep in my chest, doesn’t want to talk. Despite the mean things Mr. Mudge says about Negroes, he’s helped my family all these years. He gave my brother a job. And just a few weeks ago, he hired the rest of us for the garden planting.

I remember the time Delilah told Cool Breeze the rumor that his daddy was spotted a couple miles away in Bramble. How Cool Breeze searched for his daddy for days without luck. How the rumor turned out not to be true. And how much Delilah hurt him by passing it on. And I shiver to think I could be doing the same to Mr. Mudge.

I think how I swore to God—to God!—to tell the whole truth in this trial. But my insides are screwed up all over the place till I picture Uncle Bump in those chains, those jail clothes, and the words, they come.

“It was almost a week ago,” I say. I lead everyone down a row of sunflowers on the farm, and cross through the pumpkin patch to the edge of the woods. But when I see how many trees are in this forest, my heart flutters in my chest. There’s elm and oak and hickory and pine. How will I ever find the right spot? I shut my eyes, remember what I saw. The tree. The shovel. The farm. If I could see the farm, then that place where Mr. Mudge dug his hole can’t be too deep in the woods. My eyes scan one tree after the next till at long last I see a gnarled oak, and I know that’s the one. I push aside branches, flex my toes in my sneakers, and run straight to it. Then I point my foot on the dirt under the tree. “Right here,” I say. “I saw Mr. Mudge bury something strange right here.”

“What is it?” Mr. Hickock asks. “What’s buried?”

“The something I saw,” I say.

Mrs. Tate gasps like a willow. “The
something
?” she cries.

Here Mrs. Tate followed me out the courthouse door, telling all of Kuckachoo she believes I have the evidence to prove what she says is true. She had faith I knew
where
it is, but now I’ve told her I don’t know
what
it is.

Me, I stare a hole right through my sneaker.

“You’re old enough to know better than to drag us through the woods on account of
something,
” says Mr. Hickock. “We’ve come all this way and you don’t even know what it is that was buried?”

My breath ties up in my throat like a shoelace with a double knot. If I’ve ever needed Flapjack, I need him now. I
tweet, click, click,
but he doesn’t come.

“Did you ever consider, little miss, that Mr. Mudge might’ve been burying a poor raccoon that died in his trap?” Mr. Hickock asks.

No, I never did think of that.

And one thing’s clear: I need to find the something I’m looking for. I need to find it right now! If I don’t, the next time I see Uncle Bump, he’ll be behind prison bars.

I feel myself dying.

My sneaker’s still pointing at the spot beneath the oak tree, so I scrunch my toes and feel Daddy’s dirt there. And I reckon I just might make it through this.

“I assume there’s nothing but dirt and vines here,” says the judge, “but my bailiff will dig one hole—and one hole only—to uncover this so-called evidence. If the evidence isn’t here, then I’m afraid the jury will have to reach a verdict taking into account the fact that you misled me and wasted our valuable time.”

The bailiff digs up the first six inches of ground. He throws the dirt in a neat pile behind him. While the bailiff digs, I hear jurors mumble. “Rubbish!” says one. “A little colored girl!” says another, who spits on the dirt beside him. The only quiet juror is the foreman. Through the leaves, the dappled sun tickles the top of his bald head.

All the while, the judge whistles the Ole Miss fight song. And I can tell he doesn’t care how this turns out. Not so long as he looks good on the front page of tomorrow’s
Delta Daily.

At long last the bailiff drops the shovel to the ground. He stands in a huge ditch, surrounded by nothing but spiders, roots, and dirt. The jurors cackle.

One thing’s clear: if they were looking for a village idiot, they found one. My face crumples up like a tissue.

And I reckon Mrs. Tate’s more than a tad disappointed in me. She turns to the judge. Her voice quivers. “Well, even if there’s nothing here in this forest, surely the bill of sale I showed you proves something,” she says.

“All the bill of sale proves, Mrs. Tate, is that Sam Mudge bought butter bean seeds from your husband. It doesn’t prove Mr. Mudge planted the seeds, and it certainly doesn’t prove he planted them over the community garden,” the judge says. He looks at the jurors. “Without any additional evidence, you’ll have to use the information you already have to decide if the defendant is guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

My heart cracks open like a pecan. Without the evidence I need, we’re finished. Uncle Bump’s finished. The jury won’t have a shadow of a doubt that my uncle’s guilty as charged. He’ll be dragged away and locked up. For five years. Or perhaps ten!

I
tweet, click, click
over and over. Where’s my cat when I need him?

Now Mr. Hickock tells Mrs. Tate, “I reckon that’s the last time little girls—no matter what their age—should ever be trusted in a court of law.”

And then the most crazy thing happens. The thing I would never expect in all my days: Mrs. Tate busts free from her ladylike manners. She turns to Mr. Hickock and says, “You’re a real prize!” Then she slaps her hand over her mouth and giggles.

Mr. Hickock’s so mad. His face turns red and puffy. He looks worse than crawfish stew. He looks like a plucked pelican. He tromps away through the forest, the jurors following him.

But every few steps Mr. Hickock turns to glare at Mrs. Tate, who’s seemed to shock even herself.

“Please, Mrs. Tate,” the judge says. “Let’s try to get ahold of ourselves. We need to return to court.”

Mrs. Tate nods. But as she walks through the forest with the judge, she giggles again. And again.

But me? I can’t move. I’m weighed down by a ton of anger and a barrel of grief. From this day on, Uncle Bump will be called a criminal, and Mrs. Tate a birdbrain, all because I can’t find what I’m searching for.

Miss Gold’s the only one left with me under this oak tree. “I know I saw something. I did,” I tell her. My voice, it’s lower than the drop out my bedroom window. Then I can’t help it. I burst into tears.

I’m only at the start of my cry when I hear the most frightening sound: a hiss like a snake’s. Miss Gold and me peer over the edge of the ditch, but thank goodness, there’s no snake in sight. We hear the hiss again. Now we look toward the sound. And there, a stone’s throw away, stand the news reporter, the judge, and Mrs. Tate. They’re pointing to something up in a tree. That tree, it’s also an oak.

Gooseflesh covers me. “He’s never hissed before,” I say.

“Huh?” Miss Gold asks.

“Well, only in my dream,” I whisper. “We’ll need that shovel.”

I lead Miss Gold to the other oak tree.

There’s Flapjack, up on a branch, swiping his paw at a blackbird nest, the same nest he wanted to pounce on when we bolted through the forest the day of the garden picking.

The mother blackbird caws at Flapjack. And I can’t stand to see my cat attack, so I scold him till at long last he comes on down.

Then I set to work turning up the dirt beneath the branch with the nest on it. I reckon Mrs. Tate and the judge think I’m sweating up my brow for nothing at all, so they set off again across the forest. But the newsman stays behind to gather the facts.

I’m all wore out, when all of a sudden I hit burlap.

With his instant camera, the news reporter snaps a picture. Then he shouts real loud through the woods for the judge, Mrs. Tate, Mr. Hickock, the bailiff, and all the jurors to come on back.

When everyone’s gathered round the ditch, I pull out seven empty sacks. I rub the dirt off one. My palm gets scratched on the burlap, but it’s more than worth it because there on the side of the sack, in big red letters, it says
BUTTER BEAN SEEDS, 50 LBS.

Flapjack, a regular hero, purrs at the edge of the hole.

Everyone can see that the butter bean fiasco has grown even thornier. And me? I burn with anger. To think Mr. Mudge almost sent Uncle Bump off to jail without regret!

CHAPTER 32

October 21, 1963, Late Afternoon

By the time we get back to the courthouse, I could drink a lake. We pass through the judge’s private room with all the books, and then into the courtroom. As soon as folks see us, they close up their fans and sandwich bags and shuffle back to their seats. I find my way to sit beside Mama. I’m in the middle of telling her what happened when I hear a clang against the floor. And there’s Uncle Bump, ankles shackled, moving real slow, like dead lice are falling off him, while the court officers lead him back to his chair.

The judge bangs his hammer. “I believe folks in this courtroom have been waiting long enough,” he says. “The prosecution will now close its case.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Mr. Hickock says, and stands. Of course, no amount of mustache twirling will get him a victory now, but still, he gives it a good try. “Gentlemen,” he says, “we were all young once, and one of the first things we learned in school was that one plus one equals two. I don’t have to tell you we learn the basics of life first. Be nice to your neighbors, share your toys, and one plus one equals two.

“Now let’s remember that Bump had the
motive
to destroy your garden. He wanted to avenge the death of his nephew, Elias. Also, Bump had the
means
to wreck the garden. When Bump was weeding and watering under Mr. Mudge’s direction, he had access to the butter bean seeds stored inside the garden cabin.”

Mr. Hickock rocks back on his heels. “Earlier today Mrs. Worth testified that the garden cabin on Mr. Adams’s land was filled with seed sacks that were not used at the planting. Sure Mrs. Tate showed you a silly list of seeds that she says were in the garden cabin after Mr. Adams died. According to that list, there were no butter bean seeds in the garden cabin. But with all due respect, Mrs. Tate probably wrote up that list of seeds on a piece of old newsprint just this morning.”

I can’t believe Mr. Hickock’s calling Mrs. Tate a liar! Worse, he’s acting like he didn’t just see the evidence we turned up in the forest. All of a sudden, I’m seized by the urge to give Mr. Hickock a mustache trim. By hand! I’ll yank each hair out one at a time. His eyes will tear up from the pain. And every now and then, he’ll let out a howl. I’ll just tell him, “So sorry. For the deluxe special trim, it’s gotta be done real slow and careful.” But the good news for Mr. Hickock is I’ll donate my labor for free!

Now Mr. Hickock rubs his hand over his scraggly face. I reckon he’s trying to appear like he’s thinking real hard, but instead he looks like he’s brushing off the crumbs from his breakfast. “So let’s remember what our teachers taught us,” he says. “One plus one equals two. Bump Dawson had the motive to wreck this garden and the butter bean seeds he needed to commit the crime. One plus one equals two.”

Mr. Hickock twists the edges of his mustache round his finger. “One month ago the garden was laid by. There was nothing left to do but wait for the harvest. That’s when Mr. Mudge left town to tend his sick mother, and the criminal had the perfect opportunity to strike. He broke into the garden cabin, stole the butter bean seeds, and planted them over the entire garden.”

Mr. Hickock smirks like he just cracked an egg on Uncle Bump’s head and is watching the yolk drip down. “Jurors,” he says, “a few empty seed sacks turned up in Mr. Mudge’s forest today. So what! Anyone could have buried those sacks there on Mr. Mudge’s land, most especially someone desperate to frame him!”

Everyone in the viewing gallery whispers. It’s the first they’ve heard of the seed sacks. And I wonder if they can understand. Now that Mr. Hickock’s turned every bit of real evidence inside out and upside down to tell his tall tale, it’s all I can do to pray Miss Gold will rearrange the pieces of the story so the truth will make itself known.

Mr. Hickock saunters back to his seat.

It’s Miss Gold’s turn. She stands, picks an oak leaf off her dress, and drops it on the courthouse floor. “Jurors,” she says, “earlier today Mr. Tate, the biggest seed salesman in Thunder Creek County, testified that butter bean vines grow at a rate of ten inches per week. Mr. Hickock wants you to believe that after Mr. Mudge left town four weeks ago, someone broke into the cabin, stole the seeds, and wrecked the garden with them. But if the seeds were planted over the garden four weeks ago, this butter bean vine would be only forty inches long. Instead, it’s seventy-two inches long. Based upon the length of this vine, we can calculate that those butter bean seeds were planted seven weeks ago. Therefore, the scenario Mr. Hickock describes is nothing less than impossible.”

All I can say is Miss Gold is one clever lawyer lady!

Miss Gold struts over to Mrs. Worth, who’s sitting in the front row of the viewing gallery. I know it’s Mrs. Worth because I can see the back of her purple hat.

“If you follow me now,” Miss Gold says, “Mr. Mudge didn’t want to lose any business from his Corner Store. He simply couldn’t stand the thought of Kuckachookians buying their vegetables from anyplace besides his shop, so he devised a plan to destroy the garden altogether. A couple days after the last Garden Club meeting, he got to work by planting the border of the land with fast-growing Indian corn. He told folks that this corn would shield the growing crops from high winds, but really, that corn would do more.”

What Miss Gold says makes my lip shake.

“Just after he planted the corn,” she goes on, “Mr. Mudge bought the butter bean seeds from Mr. Tate, exactly as Mrs. Tate attested. But Mr. Mudge didn’t keep the seeds in Mr. Adams’s garden cabin. If he had, everyone would have used those seeds at the planting. Instead, he kept them on his own property.”

“The first evening that the men who volunteered to weed and water the garden showed up to do the job, Mr. Mudge sent them off to Roxy’s. He told the men that he had hired Bump Dawson and some others to tend the garden, and these men believed it. But what you must realize is this: after the garden planting, Bump Dawson never came to the garden again.

“Night after night, Mr. Mudge had the farm to himself. After a couple weeks, the Indian corn grew so tall that anyone checking up on the garden could hardly see past it,” Miss Gold says. “That’s when Mr. Mudge committed the crime.”

The courtroom erupts.

The judge bangs his hammer like he’s pounding a dozen nails into his desk, but still, folks go hog wild! So the judge stands up. He spreads his large arms wide open. His black cloak unfolds and he looks like a wizard. “By order of the court,” he yells, “shut up!”

At long last the voices die down enough for Miss Gold to finish building our case.

“Behind the stalks and in the cover of night, Mr. Mudge planted those butter bean seeds,” she says. “First he prepared the soil with his tractor. Then he haphazardly tossed the seeds every which way and waited for the rain to turn them under.”

Miss Gold holds up some pictures. “Jott James, the news reporter and photographer for the
Delta Daily,
took these instant photographs today at Mr. Mudge’s farm. These photographs document what the jury, the judge, and I saw an hour ago: seven empty butter bean seed sacks buried in the forest next to Mr. Mudge’s farm. Addie Ann Pickett witnessed Mr. Mudge burying these sacks last week when he was supposed to be out of town.”

Miss Gold stacks the photographs in her hand like they’re a deck of playing cards. “While it is true that Mr. Mudge left town to open a new shop in Muscadine County,” she says, “on the day of the picking, he panicked. Like so many criminals do, he threw caution to the wind and sneaked back to the scene of the crime to be extra-sure he had hidden any evidence that could possibly link the fiasco to him.”

And to think that at the time I was running through the forest, I didn’t even know I was watching a crime unfold. Well, I sure do know it now!

Miss Gold chuckles. “Well,” she says, “at least he was smart enough to drive the back roads to his farm, because as far as I know, no one reported seeing his truck the day of the picking. But of course, if anyone had spotted him and asked about his sudden return, Mr. Mudge had the perfect alibi at the ready. He could have simply said, ‘I heard about the butter bean fiasco, so I came right back to help!’”

Miss Gold paces in front of the viewing gallery. Back and forth. Back and forth. Then she stops, dead center, and stares out at us all. “It was Mr. Samuel Mudge who destroyed this community garden. It was Samuel Mudge who wanted to ruin the crop, so that you would still have to buy your vegetables from his Corner Store. It was Samuel Mudge who stole the harvest from your children,” she says.

She turns to face the jury. “You have the wrong man in custody,” she says. “And unless you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bump Dawson is guilty as charged, you must set him free.”

Miss Gold points at one juror. “You!” she shouts. “You might have a hunch Bump Dawson committed this crime.

“You!” She points to another juror. “You might have an inkling he’s guilty as charged.”

She takes a deep breath. Then her voice gets quiet and even. “I am here to tell you that a hunch or an inkling is not enough,” she says. “You need
proof
! If you convict this defendant without
proof
he committed this crime, then
you
are the one who will be found guilty. Not in a court in the state of Mississippi, but in the highest court there is.” Now Miss Gold points her finger to the Heavens and roars, “The Kingdom of God!”

A chill rises up my spine.

Miss Gold hands the stack of photographs to the jury foreman, whose bald head is burned red from the sun. And all I can say is I sure hope his brain didn’t get burned too, because I need him to be able to think real good.

“The defense rests,” Miss Gold says, and returns to her seat beside Uncle Bump.

Next the judge opens his thick black book, reads out some rules, and dismisses the jurors. While the jurors file out of the courtroom, someone shouts clear till tomorrow, “Lock him up and bury the key!”

But we proved our case. The jurors have to believe us. They have to believe the truth. At least that’s what I think till Mama rubs the cross that hangs round her neck and says, “Lord have mercy.” Then she closes her eyes and stays that way.

After I imagine what each and every member of the jury will say when they meet in the back room, my mind’s as tired as my body. My eyes shut too. And it’s funny how the Lord’s right here in his long beard and overalls waiting to have a word. Mama always tells me to be grateful, so I start out with a big thank-you. The Lord smiles. Then I say, “You can’t imagine how much I love Uncle Bump, so please, I’m begging you, don’t let them take him away.”

I’m just about to finish my plea when Mama chugs me in the ribs. She nods at the front of the courtroom. The jurors file back, silent and serious.

My heart thrashes around in my chest like a squirrel stuck in an upside-down bucket.

But aside from Mama’s sniffles, it’s quiet as a cemetery here, so the judge doesn’t have to call for order. He just looks at the jury foreman and asks, “In the case of the State of Mississippi versus Charles ‘Bump’ Dawson, what say you?”

The jury foreman’s chair creaks when he stands. He makes a face like he just took a big gulp of sour milk. Then he opens up his mouth and spits it out. “Not guilty.”

“What?” asks the judge.

Now the jury foreman shouts as if the words stink to high Heaven. “Not guilty!”

The bayou floods inside me. It spills right out my eyes. Mama weeps too. Elmira dances a jig, Mrs. Jacks sings,
“Glory, glory, hallelujah!”
The reverend shouts, “Praise the Lord!” And Mrs. Montgomery yells, “Amen!”

I can’t say if it was our prayers or Elmira’s magic or Miss Gold’s words or Mrs. Tate’s papers or the empty butter bean sacks that did the trick. But I reckon things in Kuckachoo might be starting to change, because up till now, even if a Negro man had all the evidence on his side, he’d usually end up in jail or worse.

Of course, setting an innocent Negro free isn’t the same as locking up a guilty white man. One thing’s clear: Mr. Mudge will never pay his dues. But for now, I’m jubilant. And the promise of a future for my family nourishes me like honey cake.

After a court officer unlocks Uncle Bump’s shackles, my uncle makes his way through the jeers and cheers right to me. “You saved my life!” he says. A tear slides down his cheek. “You gave me back my freedom!” He pulls me close, my face against his belly.

Inside this hug, it’s good. Better than good. Sensational! Uncle Bump strokes the back of my head. And me? I’m filled to the brim.