skeletons (17 page)

“Scarcely gave them the time of day.”

“Why?”

“Didn’t approve. Instinct. Books were only a living to them.”

“You approve me.”

“You love books. I can tell in a minute. And you’re not going for blood and guts and book clubs—you write for children, bless you. I have a story hour twice a week, Wednesdays after school and Saturday mornings. It’s wonderful, reading to them, acting stories out—oh, their eyes, their big round eyes. Don’t you ever read to them, Butters?”

“Yes I do. Often.”

“Bully for you.”

“Millie, may I ask you some questions?”

“About the living or the dead?”

“Does it make a difference?”

“You bet. I won’t talk about the living—that’s gossip. Judge Vaught or Helene—Helene was one of my closest friends, poor thing. Tyler I never knew.”

“Fair enough. The dead.”

“Shoot.” She made herself comfortable, glanced at the watch on a chain pinned to her sweater. “We’ve got half an hour. The ladies start coming in around eleven, after they’ve done their housework. For the books they won’t let their daughters read.”

“What do you guess happened to Buell Wood?”

“I haven’t a clue.”

“What about Philip Crossworth?”

“Ditto.”

“And the four Villistas?”

“That’s easy. They were run down and killed, that night. And a few years back, buried down near the border. They call it La Casa de—”

“No. I’ve been there, twice. I dug up two of the four graves, and there’s nothing in them.”

She frowned. “I’ll be damned.”

“What’s your theory about Sansom?”

“Theory? He was hit by a car.”

“No again. They opened his coffin when it got to New York. It was full of sand.”

“My stars!” She stared at me. “Sand?”

“All I’ve done here in Harding is follow in Crossworth’s and Sansom’s footsteps and tie myself into knots,” I said. “For instance, the transcripts of both trials are missing.”

“Oh, I knew that.”

“You did?”

“I ankled over to the courthouse once myself, long ago. They’ve been vamoosed for years.”

“Not only that, the newspaper accounts are gone. I stopped in at the
Graphic
yesterday.”

“Oh.”

“Someone’s razored the pages.”

“Oh. I know who did that.”

“Who?”

Millicent Mills studied me through her butterflies, opened a desk drawer, took out a pint of Jack Daniel’s, uncapped it. “Care for a snort?”

“No thank you.”

“I don’t tipple,” she said. “Not usually. Unless I’m excited. I’m excited.”

“You are?”

“I’ll say. Look who’s here!”

I observed with interest as she tilted the bottle, fired one down, recapped, put the bottle away as respectfully as she might have a fan or a brooch or her best white gloves.

“I did,” she said.

“Did what?”

“Razored those pages. Nigh on to fifty years ago.”

“Why?”

“To use.”

“How?”

“Well,” she said. She was embarrassed, almost maidenly. “Well, it sounds silly now, but when I was young I wanted to write.”

“Oh no,” I said. “You, too?”

“Yup. I thought those two trials would make a hell of a novel. I intended to fill it with gore and sex and all sorts of spine-tingling stuff. It would make me bags of money and take me away from Harding to New York and Paris and Timbuctoo. Edith Wharton. Willa Cather. Champagne. Caviar. Whoopdedoo. So I went in to the
Graphic
and while the girl was out back took a safety razor blade and cut the pages out and put them under my coat. There —that’s my true confession. You’re the only one I ever told.”

“You never wrote it.”

“Nope. The longer I was librarian, Butters, the more I revered books. The longer I lived here, the more I took to the place, and the people, and their boys and girls. I’ve seen three generations grow up.”

“So you were the one.”

“Yes.”

Again I could scarcely speak. My throat was constricted, my tongue thick.

THE PAGES.

I had to stand, lean, put both hands on her desk. If Miss Millicent Mills possessed the KEY, the first DOOR into the past, perhaps into the present, would finally open wide. For Tyler Vaught. And for me.

“The-the pages,” I said.

“Would you like to see them?”

They stand at the windows of the courtroom on the second floor of Harding Courthouse: Judge Cox, Sheriff Gilmore, Buell Wood, Captain Carpenter, Word, Van-Dellen, Dr. Shelley, Turnbow, the other jurors, the bailiff, who is one of Gilmore’s deputies, and Charles Vaught. They peer down into the dark at the crowd assembling, more than a hundred men, many of them armed. Judge Cox is the first to leave the windows. Returning to the bench, he spreads his black robe, sits down, notices the four Mexicans in the dock, men found not guilty.

“Bailiff, take them downstairs and lock them up,” he directs. The jail is in the basement.

The bailiff does so.

“Oh yes,” adds the judge. “And the jury. You’re dismissed. And if you value your hides, gentlemen, you’d better leave the building the back way.”

Exeunt the jury.

Now they are five: the judge, the sheriff, Wood, Captain Carpenter, and Charles Vaught, the county prosecutor.

“Dammit, Buell,” says the judge. “If you just hadn’t used the word lynching’ in your plea, this—” He reaches into his mouth, loosens his upper plate, rubs a gum, replaces the denture. “Blaise, do they mean business down there?”

Gilmore is still at a window. “It’s no church potluck.”

“How many deputies have you downstairs?”

“Two jailers, and now your bailiff.”

“What about all those you deputized to patrol at night?”

“Half of them are down there.” Gilmore nods below. “Brought their weapons, too.”

“You’re the sheriff. What do you suggest?”

“I don’t know.”

Obed Cox leans back. “All right, we have a damned interesting situation. Blaise, you have four men in custody, but you can’t keep them because they’ve been acquitted, they’re free to go. But they can’t do that either. In any case, they’re Mexican nationals, they belong on their own side of the line. Suppose I order you to take them there.”

Gilmore turns. “I wouldn’t, Your Honor. Me and three deputies against a hundred? Thirteen miles to go? We wouldn’t make it past the first tree we came to.”

“I can order you.”

“I’d turn in my badge. I might as well. I try to save their Mex asses and I couldn’t be elected dogcatcher next time. And that applies to Charley, too.”

His Honor sighs. He turns his attention to the army officer who has come back to sit on a table. “What about you, Captain? You brought them up here to try. Can’t you fetch a detail of troops from Columbus and escort them to the line?”

Hedley Carpenter shakes his head. “No sir. The Army’s done its job. They’re out of our jursidiction now. This is civil, not military.”

“Hell,” says Obed Cox.

“Besides, I wouldn’t trust my own men. Not with Villistas. I’d have a firing squad, not an escort.”

“Hell” says Obed Cox.

It is night now. Lights burn in globes of white glass. Through the open windows the mutter of the crowd hones tension in the courtroom.

“Judge, I have a suggestion,” says Charles Vaught. “Counsel for the defense got them off, let him get them out. Gilmore can keep them locked up till midnight. In all probability the crowd will be dispersed by then. Blaise can turn them over to Mr. Wood—he’s an officer of the court. You can so direct.”

Buell Wood looks at him. “You’re not serious.”

“Capital,” says the judge.

“You son of a bitch,” says Wood to Vaught.

“Capital,” says the judge. “All right, Buell. Sheriff will hold them downstairs till midnight. After that, they are hereby remanded to your custody. You’ll be responsible.”

“For God’s sake, Obed–”

“That’s an order of the court.”

“I demand the court’s protection—that means Blaise and his—”

“Sorry, Buell,” says Gilmore.

“Then I want some of the damned Army!”

“I have no authority,” says Carpenter.

The attorney glares at one, then at another. Alone and at bay, he grips the oaken rail separating court from spectators as though to wrench it from the floor.

Charles Vaught lights a cigar. “You can do it, Buell,” he smiles. “You’re good with guns.”

Obed Cox rises unsteadily. “Gentlemen, I am tired and hungry,” he announces. “I am going home to supper.”

The events of the remainder of this March, 1916, night in Harding are confusing, murky. The few women and children in the crowd outside the courthouse are sent home. The men stay, to be joined by others. Soon the brick facade of the building is illuminated by the headlamps of automobiles parked in a row along the street–Chandlers, Fords, Marmons, Durants, Columbias. In their feeble beams the armed men muster. They are not loud, nor unruly; nor is there talk of rushing the courthouse, taking the Mexicans by force. Patiently they wait. Rumors sweep them. Buell Wood may have custody of the Mexicans at midnight. Gilmore has posted a deputy with a shotgun at the head of the steps—that everyone can see —but the shotgun is not loaded. Wood has gone to the priest for assistance. He has telegraphed the governor in Santa Fe, appealing for a detachment of the National Guard. It is all hearsay. Certain facts, however, and certain times, are incontrovertible.

That: Shortly before eleven o’clock five men cross the yard in a body and ascend the courthouse steps. One comes down to the crowd, to Max Goss, a butcher and, by virtue of his bulk and temperament, a leader. The man is Charles Vaught. He takes Goss aside. He tells him his companions are jurors Word, VanDellen, Doc Shelley, and Turnbow. They know already, Vaught reveals to Goss, that they have brought in the wrong verdict, and they are going inside as a deputation to learn what Gilmore actually plans to do with the Villistas—if he will actually give them to Wood or what. Max Goss has no objection.

But he tells Vaught to warn Gilmore that the town will see justice done this night one way or another. The county prosecutor agrees to convey the message, rejoins the others, and the five are admitted to the courthouse by the shotgun deputy at the door.

That: Between eleven o’clock and eleven-thirty, a matched pair of Navy Colts stuck in his belt, Buell Wood crosses the yard, ascends the courthouse steps, and is also admitted.

I I: 1 4 I I : 1 4 I I: 1 4

WOULD I LIKE TO SEE THE PAGES?

“Millie,’ I said, swallowing to open my throat, “I would. Yes I would. My God I would.’

“Be my guest.’

She opened a desk drawer, handed me a sheaf of brown, brittle pages from editions of the
Harding Graphic.
There were fourteen. The stories on them ran chronologically, from the shootings on Gold Street and the arrest of Buell Wood for murder in May of 1910 to the acquittal of the four Villistas in March of 1916. I read them rapidly, and while I did, Miss Mills took advantage of the interval to renew acquaintance with Mr. Daniel’s.

“Well?” she inquired.

“Fascinating,” I said.

“Aren’t they, though. Will they help?”

“I don’t know. What I’m looking for is some kind of link between two trials. I find one—maybe. It’s with the people involved. Eight men in the first trial were participants in the second.”

“Who?”

I referred to the pages. “Well, four of the eight were present officially. Obed Cox, the judge. Charles S. Vaught, the prosecutor. Buell Wood, accused in the first, defense counsel in the second. And of course Gilmore, the sheriff. We can discount them. But the other four names served on both juries—here they are—Coye Turnbow, Francis Word, Hazen VanDellen, Dr. Jack Shelley. Shelley? Now wait a minute. Would he be any relation to the young Doc Shelley practicing here now?”

“That was his grandfather.”

“Ah.”

“Ah what?”

“I’m not sure. But why would these four serve on both juries?”

“They might. Harding was a very small town in those days. Prominent men served on lots of juries.”

“All right, I’ll accept that. But what about them? What about Turnbow, Word, VanDellen, Shelley?”

“I knew them all.”

“And they’re all dead.”

“And buried. In the town boneyard, where I’ll be presently. And that’s interesting, too.”

“What’s interesting?”

“The way they died, some of them.”

“Tell me, Millie.”

She looked again at the watch pinned to her sweater. “Ten of. We’ve still got ten minutes before the ladies arrive. O.K.” She put elbows on the desk. “Blaise was thrown from a horse in 1919. Broke his neck.”

“Gilmore doesn’t count.”

“Oh yes he does. You’ll see. Coye Turnbow was taken by a heart attack, and Haze VanDellen by pneumonia. Much later. I forget how Francis went—but his son Tom did the damnedest thing.”

I was losing track, but decided not to interrupt, to let the bourbon be her guide.

“Listen to this, Butters. 1972 I think it was—just five years ago. Tom Word—he was Francis’ son, remember–left a note with Don Turnbow—that’s Coye’s son—he’s president of the Merchants’ and Stockmen’s Bank—and asked him to deliver it to Sheriff Chavez. Pingo read it, and it said Tom was dying of cancer and was going to commit suicide and his body would be found down near Columbus, in the Pancho Villa State Park. So Pingo drove down there, and there was Tom’s car with the motor running and a hose from the exhaust pipe through a window—carbon monoxide. Well, sir, Pingo got out to see the body and—”

She slid from her chair sideways, as though exiting a car, stepped spryly to a bookcase and out of sight behind it, hopped out, raised arms as though aiming at me. “
Boom!
Tom Word wasn’t dead, wasn’t in he car at all! It was a trap! He was hiding in an old hut and shot Pingo in the leg! He’s got a limp, you know—that’s how he got it. Then they just blazed away at each other for a while—
boom! boom!
—and suddenly,
boom!
When he saw he wasn’t going to bring Pingo down, Tom put the shotgun in his mouth and blew his own head off!” She clapped hands to her cheeks. “Oh, it was awful!” She glided to her chair, sat herself melodramatically down.