skeletons (23 page)

“Judge, this is Tyler.”

“Tyler?”

Father and daughter.

“Here?”

Fourteen years.

“Oh my poor girl,” he said.

Neither the sight of each other nor the sound of each other’s voice in fourteen years. He waited, I waited, for her to speak to him.

SHE WOULD NOT.

He sighed. “Please put your gun away, Mr. Butters.”

“Gun? Oh yes, my gun.” After two or three tries I managed to shove the thing into its holster.

“Thank you. You’ve been upstairs?”

“Yes.”

“Inevitable someone would, someday. I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? I’ll never be the same.”

“I suppose not.”

“Judge, when I talked to you before, you stonewalled. Don’t you think this is the time?”

“Of course. The damage is done. To you and to Tyler.” He moved to the wooden column of the cable cage, leaned wearily against it. “They’d have hung anyway. Throughout the trial, I understand, you could hear sawing and hammering outside the courthouse —raising the gallows. Everyone expected them to hang, wanted them to. The raid on Columbus had really been very bloody. Unconscionable. Then the verdict. Not guilty. Then the fury. That evening a crowd gathered in the yard here, with guns. They formed a line of automobiles, headlights on. Blaise Gilmore was sheriff. The court ordered him to escort the Mexicans to the border—Blaise couldn’t have saved them with the National Guard. They were doomed. During the evening a certain man went to four of the jurymen and—”

“Word. Turnbow. VanDellen. Doc Shelley.”

“Yes. How do you know?”

“Go on.”

“This individual said they had made a second mistake. They’d been on the Wood jury, too. They let him go, and he was guilty. Now they’d found in favor of the Mexicans, who were guilty. And they’d hang before the night was done. Better for the sake of the town, he said, that they do it themselves, secretly, than let an armed mob have its way in public. Besides, he said, if they wished to stay in Harding and raise their children and prosper, better admit their error and rectify it with their own rope. Not much argument was needed, I guess. The five of them came to the courthouse a little before eleven. They told Gilmore what they intended. He brought the Mexicans up from the basement, into the tower. The clock was stopped by removing the weights. Then. One by one.”

“And Buell Wood?”

“They were just finishing the job when he appeared. Up there. Two revolvers in his belt—the ones the town had given him. He had defended the Mexicans, gotten them off. He was an awesome man. He said he would not use his guns on them, but they would pay the price. He would go if necessary to the governor, in Santa Fe. He turned to go down those stairs. A certain man shot him in the back, killed him. The same one who had got the jurymen together. Then this individual dragged Wood to a corner and sat him up so he could see.”

“Then.”

“They went back down. They told the crowd that Blaise had let the Mexicans run a Texas horse race with his deputies and they had lost. That it was all over, and they could go home knowing justice had been done. And they did. But of course it wasn’t over. It isn’t yet. It may never be.”

We had not moved, Tyler and I. We stood on the landing above him, listening.

“‘A certain man,’” I said.

Charles Vaught was silent.

‘This individual.’

Charles Vaught was silent.

“Judge,” I prompted.

Charles Vaught was silent.

“My grandfather,” said Tyler.

“My father,” said Charles Vaught.

HER GRANDFATHER.

HIS FATHER.

I took hold of the iron rail. I shook my head. I addressed the man below me. “You’re saying—you’re saying your father, Tyler’s grandfather, the judge before you—was the man responsible for the lynching?”

“I am.”

“And that—that he killed Tyler’s other grandfather, Buell Wood, in cold blood?”

“I am.”

“My God.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“We underrate hatred, Mr. Butters. Wood had whipped him twice in court, in much-publicized trials. We underrate ambition. He was county prosecutor, but he was determined to run against Obed Cox for district judge in the next election. He did, too, and won. He stayed on the bench for thirty years.”

“But why weren’t they buried?” I burst out. “Why leave them hanging up there? Why leave Wood sitting in a corner?”

“You don’t see?”

“No I don’t!”

“Consider. Is there another room like that one in America?”

“No, probably not.”

“In the world?”

“No, probably not, but—”

“Extortion.”

“Extortion?”

‘Turnbow and VanDellen and Word and Dr. Shelley were men of means. Threaten to reveal what they had done up there—taken the law into their own hands, lynched four innocent men—keep the room intact, keep your exhibits under lock and key—and my father could have whatever he wanted from them. And he did. Ruthlessly. For years. Bled them white. He bought elections, he bought land, he died wealthy. Do you know about Tyler’s trust?”

“Yes. But how could a ghastly thing like this be hidden so long? What about the clock? People were bound to notice it had stopped.”

“He was a meticulous man. He had the wooden door replaced with an iron. He forced Word or VanDellen or Turnbow to run for Board of County Commissioners every term, and made sure he was elected. So that one of them was always in a position to veto the use of county money to repair the clock—Donald Turnbow is a commissioner now. I have no doubt it was my father who stole and disposed of the trial transcripts. By the way, Mr. Butters—how did you obtain a key?”

“From your wife.”

“Helene? How?”

“She came to my room tonight, at the motel.”

I heard Tyler draw breath.

“No. Oh no,” said the judge. “My poor dear.”

“She’s all right, and on her way back to San Carlos. Say—I just thought of something. How could she have a key?”

“She must have stolen mine, years ago. The blacksmith could have made her a duplicate.”

“Then she knows what’s upstairs.”

“Then.”

“They went back down. They told the crowd that Blaise had let the Mexicans run a Texas horse race with his deputies and they had lost. That it was all over, and they could go home knowing justice had been done. And they did. But of course it wasn’t over. It isn’t yet. It may never be.”

“I told her. In 1947. I had to—don’t ask me the circumstances. I think it destroyed her sanity. I’m sure it did—there was an incident.” He peered through gray, unnatural light at his daughter. “I kept it from you, Tyler. You were young, impressionable. Perhaps, now that you’re mature, now that you have severed ties with Harding, with your past, there’s no need to spare you longer. One night, when you were only months old, Helene disappeared from the house with you. I was frantic. She had already shown signs of instability. Finally I found the two of you up there, in the clock chamber.”

Tyler whimpered, swayed into me. I put my arms around her, held her.

“Helene had her own key by then, must have had. Perhaps she wanted her father to see you. To see his grandchild. You won’t remember it, of course, my dear—though I don’t know how massively a sight like that might traumatize an infant.” Judge Vaught hesitated, uncertain whether or not to conclude. “Well, in any case. Wood had been dead then for thirty years. Your mother had placed you in his lap.”

She shuddered. Behind her, I put the entire back of my hand in my mouth.

“Mr. Butters,” her father said, “do you mind if we go downstairs? I can’t bear to be in this place another minute.”

“Neither can we,” I said.

Walking wounded.

Her father in the lead, me with an arm around her, pausing to close and relock the iron door. Then, suddenly, when we reached the second floor, Tyler pulled away from me, walked into the courtroom. We strayed after her, curious.

She stood at the rear, looking around. I could guess her thoughts, if she were capable of thought. The light was better here, less spectral, for there were more and higher windows. Oblivious to us, she seated herself like a spectator at a trial.

Judge Vaught watched her, then entered the room, opened a gate in the oaken rail, shuffled to a chair, sat down at a table used by attorneys for defense or prosecution.

I watched him, then entered the room, started for Tyler, changed my mind, started for the judge, then stopped at the rail, between them. I waited for someone to say something. Waited in vain. Began to do a slow burn. The man in the middle again. Damned if it was my duty to reconcile daughter to father. I owed them nothing, really. They owed me. If I had gone into the tower of Harding Courthouse a retarded child, I had come down from it a sad adult son of a bitch. Then be a son of a bitch, Butters, I said to myself. Tyler and her old man and practically everybody else around here have ripped you off irreparably. Played games with you and lied to you and tried to terrorize your ass and finally, for a capper, after you paid a high enough price for admission, let you open up their goddamned closet and have a look. Okay. From here on, get your goddamned knuckle out of your mouth. Hang tough. Take no prisoners. You’ve got a courtroom—use it. You’ve got a judge off the bench and into the box—try him. Lead him, sucker him, cross-examine the JUDICIAL SHIT out of him, but get it, get it all. You’ve got it coming.

“Extortion,” I said.

“Blackmail, if you wish,” he said.

“I still don’t understand why he wouldn’t want them buried. He was just as guilty as the jurymen—guiltier, in fact. He’d murdered Buell Wood.”

“He gambled. That the other four wouldn’t confess and risk a death sentence to convict him. And again he won. And with every year, what was in the clock chamber became more valuable. In death, those men up there were much more important than they had been in life. They made my father a judge. After Helene and I ran away and were married, he disowned us. But later, those dead men forced him to retire and made me judge in his stead. Still later, they made Pingo Chavez sheriff of this county. They have been a dreadful instrument.”

“Pingo? I’m not following–”

“Do you insist on the rest of it, Mr. Butters? The complete, terrible chronology?”

“I sure as hell do.”

“Do you speak for my daughter?”

“She’s earned it.”

“Very well. If you think there’s something to be gained.” Judge Vaught drew a handkerchief, applied it to his face and his bald spot. “Six men were originally involved. Dr. Shelley was shot in a robbery attempt the next year, in 1917.”

I did not correct him.

“Blaise Gilmore was thrown from a horse and killed two years later. That left four. Ironic, when you think of it—four. As I said, my father drained Coye Turnbow and Francis Word and Hazen VanDellen. But it didn’t end there. When Coye died, his son Donald, who replaced him as president of the bank, found several unsecured notes, for large sums, from my father to his. He requested payment. As answer, my father brought him up here one dark night, made him climb the stairs, let him see what you’ve now seen. Donald canceled the notes. Then, on his deathbed in 1944, Francis Word told his sons, Allan and Tom, what he had done, what was in the tower. They went to my father, demanded that the remains be removed. He threatened them. Tamper with his evidence, he said, and he’d have their father’s name, their family name, on the front page of every newspaper—he’d open up the tower. Allan was a casualty of the war. In 1946, Tom Word and Don Turnbow came to me—the second generation now, you see. They told me everything. I hadn’t dreamed. I confronted my father. He admitted everything. Nothing I have ever seen or read or heard has so profoundly shocked me. I told Helene. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have—it was a reality so hideous she simply couldn’t cope with it. But I did. I was an only child. I loved her. I had to confide in someone.”

He put away his handkerchief. His voice faded into the acoustics.

“Why did my mother lose her mind?”

Tyler. From the back row. A monotone.

“But I’ve just said, my dear.” The judge was as perturbed as I. “I thought I made it clear.”

I got him back on the track. “Word and Turnbow,” I prompted.

“Yes. My father begged me to talk them out of it. The risk was too great. Should anything go awry in the process of taking evidence from the tower, he would bear the brunt. Of the originial six, he was the sole survivor. There is no statute of limitations on homicide. Did I care to be responsible for my own father’s indictment for murder? Did I wish to see him executed or imprisoned by the state he had so long served? If I could only persuade Tom and Don to wait till he was gone, keep the door locked, the clock stopped, he would retire from the bench at once, and aid me by every means to succeed him on it. He asked only to live out his days in repentance. To plead for mercy not before men but before his Maker.”

“He won again,” I said.

“Yes. Buell Wood was the last man who ever defeated him. And was shot in the back for it. I got Tom Word and Don Turnbow to wait. In 1956, my father was eighty-four. Hale and hearty. I used to think death feared him. Or despised him too much to seek his company. Well, to make a grisly story short, Tom and Don refused to delay longer. Every day those bodies dangled in the tower was the day they might be discovered. They wanted them out in the desert, underground, forgotten. So they made an immense mistake. They compounded horror. They went to Pingo Chavez.”

“Ah,” I breathed.

“Why did my mother lose her mind?”

This time the question, dumb, psychotic even, startled the judge and me out of our skins. He rose. I wheeled. Tyler was on her feet.

“But I’ve told you, my dear,” her father reproved. “You’ve seen the reason yourself now, tonight, with your own eyes, upstairs. What more can I say?”

I was more than annoyed. “Take it easy, Tyler. We’ve covered that. Now dammit, let’s get the rest.” I turned to His Honor. “Pingo. Turnbow and Word went to Pingo.”

“Indeed. They offered him a thousand dollars to clean up the clock chamber, get rid of the evidence once for all. He said he’d think on it. Chavez was a deputy then, in his early thirties, the only Mexican-American on the force. Don and Tom must have thought a law officer could do the job without anyone being the wiser. Chavez must have considered his options. Accept the money, perform the task, and he had a thousand dollars. Or keep the key they’d given him, touch nothing, and he had an advantage even Anglos could not overcome. He decided. He came to me, told me what he had, informed me he intended to be the next sheriff, and demanded my support for his silence. He gave Word and Turnbow the same ultimatum. Do his bidding or he would let the world into the tower. We had no choice. He was elected sheriff, and Harding County sheriff he has been ever since. Five years ago Tom Word tried to kill him, but managed only to wound him in the leg. He walks with a limp. Tom then killed himself. He had terminal cancer. Chavez has become as rich as he is powerful. He extorted most of what they had from Tom and Don. From me he’s taken everything I inherited and more—more than I could afford. He’s used it all, evidently, to make some very lucrative investments.”