The Ordways (36 page)

There was more in the sequel to the Reverend's story too. Having recalled that he already had a wife and five children, he had backed out of a hasty promise to marry a widow woman in the town. She objected less to that, however, than she did to the fact that when the time came to return all the little gifts they had exchanged, he was unable to recollect where he had mislaid the three thousand dollars she had entrusted him to invest in her name.

Punctually at half past five the jailer came bringing the supper tray. A surly-looking brute, he was a lesson in the deceptiveness of appearances. “Gentlemen,” he said with a hideous but well-meant smile. “How are you all this fine evening? Everything to your satisfaction? How is that nasty whitlow coming along, Mr. Brown?” (By which name he seemed to mean Reverend Teague.) “That poultice of my wife's do it any good?”

They replied that they were very well, thank you, and that they had just one complaint to make at the moment. Would he be a pal and take away the bucket? He did so with a compliance which surprised my grandfather, for as he observed once the man was out of hearing, he had not expected such politeness towards prisoners on the part of jailers. Nor such excellent stew.

They said he ought to have been there before. Before last week, that was. The chili con came had meat in it now but formerly it was just plain old chili con carne. Up until last week the jailer had used to come banging on the bars and growling, “Here it is, you scum,” or words to that effect.

New jailer? my grandfather inquired.

Same jailer, but he was a changed man, and the whole regime had been reformed, owing to a riot they had staged.

To protest the food, asked my grandfather, or the abuse?

Neither, actually. Both admitted having eaten, as well as been called, worse, in as well as out of other jails. It had come about in the following manner: some while before, they had been given a new cellmate … The jailer returned at this point, with the bucket emptied, scoured, and sweetened with Lysol. Would that be all for now? he asked, and on being told that he might go, wished them each and all a hearty appetite. New cellmate, as they were saying. Fellow brought in on charges of having passed a lead half dollar, although he swore he was ignorant of the fact and that if it was counterfeit then he had been done out of a day's wages; and it was true that he had no others like it, or for that matter unlike it, on him at the time of arrest. He had seemed at once not only a decent, but what was more, a particularly likable soul, a very sporting loser at three-handed stud (they played nightly, low man to do the chores around the cell next day, such as making the beds, mopping the floor, et cetera), quite content to take thirds on the bucket in the morning, and the longer you got to know him—and some three weeks went by with no sign of his case coming to trial—the better you liked him. To be useful to others was a pleasure to him, so that in time they gave up the nightly poker session and just left the housekeeping to old Bill. The man had a gift for finding things when they went on the street-sweeping detail on Sunday mornings, and always insisted on sharing with them. All the better-quality cigar butts that he picked up he passed on to them, saving only the two-fers for himself—said Havana leaf upset his digestion. Once he found a two-dollar bill, and what do you think he did with it? Sent out for a fried-chicken dinner for all, and swore when it came that the gizzard and the pope's nose were his two favorite pieces and left the rest for them. Bill—Bill O'Shaughnessey—was a positive ray of sunshine. One of those easily-put-upon fellows that don't know how to get mad. Would give you the shirt off his back. Would do anything for a friend and didn't have an enemy in the world. One of those …

“I know the type,” said my grandfather.

“Mr. Ordway, I doubt you do,” said Reverend Teague, “for he was not what he seemed to be.”

“I first begun to get suspicious,” said Rags, “when he insisted on calling me mister. ‘Mr. Rags, here, let me polish them shoes for you—I'm good at that. Mr. Rags, would you mind swapping with me? This here is more pudding than I can eat.' And so forth. ‘Just plain Rags will reach me, pardner,' I said. But no, he—”

“To cut a long story short,” said Reverend Teague, “one day at dinner Bill draws a long breath and says, ‘Gentlemen, I can't go on like this no longer. I cannot take advantage of your trust and kindness no more. Every day of this deception adds to the load on my conscience. Gentlemen, for three weeks now I have enjoyed your company, your hospitality, your friendship—company too good for me, hospitality to which I had no right, friendship I did not deserve. Oh, gentlemen, I waited for you to see the truth for yourselves, but no, you are too trusting, too goodhearted. It never occurs to you that others can be any less open and aboveboard than yourselves. Gentlemen, look at me! Now do you see? No? Oh, Mr. Rags, Mr. Brown, for three weeks now you have unknowingly shared your bed and board with … Oh, how can I break it to you? Gentlemen, I am but fifteen-sixteenths Irish. The rest of me …”

Well, the mayor and the entire board of aldermen and the county sheriff, the town constable, the whole shooting match had all come to apologize. Nothing like this had ever happened in their jail before and they could promise it would never happen again. It was an honest mistake, the sort that anybody might make, for the fellow was only one-sixteenth, after all, and it wasn't always easy to spot them in cases like that. Well, apologies were all very well, but such a blow to a man's self-respect was not to be healed by a few words, nor even a few scraps of meat in the chili con carne. It was Rags's lawyer's hope that by entering a plea of police brutality he would go scot-free on his charge of armed entry.

“I thought all along that son of a bitch was awful friendly and obliging for a white man,” said Rags.

“Well, he took me in, I don't mind admitting,” said Reverend Teague. “I just thought he wasn't any too bright. But he was as light-complected as Mr. Ordway here.”

My grandfather assured them that he was what he seemed to be, at which they pshawed and said they had never doubted him for a moment. Privately he resolved to be a little less pliant and easygoing than he suspected himself of being ordinarily, so as to give them no cause to question their confidence in him.

“Got to keep them in their place,” said Rags. “Let them in here, next thing you know one of them's married to your sister.”

After supper they played poker. My grandfather lost. Then the daylight faded and they made music in the gloaming. They sang of Lilian the dog-faced lady whose bark was worse than her bite. Of that hometown gal we all used to know who now was selling huh-what she used to give awayhay. Of the growing girl who to the tune of “Turkey in the Straw” swore she wasn't gonna do it for a nickel any more, wasn't gonna be just an ordinary whore, fifteen cents was gonna be her new price—give her a quarter and she'd do it twice.

After turning in that night my grandfather heard from the bunk below a
hssst!
followed by, “Listen. It goes without saying that you never saw me before either. Tit for tat, eh, Lefty, old pal?”

“Deal me in on that too,” said Reverend Teague from across the room.

However, they came the very next day—the county sheriff, a Texas Ranger, and a U. S. marshal—with a dossier on Mr. Brown identifying him as the notorious Suds Folsom, and hauled him off to Austin, there to answer for his crimes.

They came also that same day to interrogate the prisoner Ordway.

“Tell them,” Rags counseled, “you won't speak a word without a lawyer.”

But my grandfather responded to their very first question.

“What body?” he cried.

He was remanded in custody and returned to his cell, charged, until such time as the corpus delicti should be found, with suspicion of murder.

My grandfather's court-appointed attorney, Mr. Sully Parker, was a man in his late nineties or early hundreds. Leaky with rheum, he was constantly hawking and spitting and blowing his nose, and his eyes were as liquid as a brace of oysters. He had lost all command of his voice, which sounded like a faulty long-distance telephone connection, choky and faint one moment, startlingly close and piercing the next. Printed, HIS conversATION WOULD have LOOKED LIKE this. In the course of his long legal practice he had heard as much as an elderly priest, and it was a question which Mr. Parker despised the human, or at least the Texan, animal more for, his law-breaking or his law enforcement.

In the case of Texas vs. Ordway he was not encouraging. Not encouraging at all. He listened to his client's protestations of innocence, and advised him to plead guilty. He too was curious as to the disposal of the body. My grandfather finally managed to convince him that he had not killed Will Vinson … yet. But then he went on to confide that all he wanted, really, was to recover his son. He went so far as to hint that it would be a source of remorse to him, enough to detract from his pleasure in later years as he watched his Ned grow to manhood, to have it on his conscience that he had orphaned Will Vinson's three children. “ALL RIGHT, son,” said Mr. Parker. “No need to LAY IT ON.” He reminded his client that he had been overheard in that thicket, and that they had his pistol in evidence. He said he could just conceive the possibility of a jury accepting a man's sworn statement that he intended not to kill a fellow who had stolen his wife, say, or a daughter. And perhaps had Mr. Ordway been from out of state, or even a local colored man, a jury might be suborned to believe that so long as he recovered his boy he would be content to let Will Vinson off with a good pistol-whipping. But to expect twelve idiots to believe that a native-born white fellow-Texan was not going to shoot the man who had stolen his first and only son was asking too much.

But after a week's search had failed to disclose any corpse, or any telltale evidence such as bloodstains on the suspect's clothes or human hair on the butt of his unfired pistol; and as the state's principal witness had only heard, not seen, a killing committed; and as the accused man stoutly maintained his innocence despite hours of questioning, the grand jury refused to hand down an indictment for murder. Instead he was charged with intent to kill, illegal possession of firearms, carrying a concealed weapon, disturbance of the peace, and interference with justice.

My grandfather was brought before the presiding judge and bail was set. Five hundred dollars. But to the disappointment of the court's hopes that he would make it, then skip (for Fort Worth in those days was quite a humble and backward place. Now, of course, all this has been taken care of, but in my grandfather's day it stood in need of a good few civic improvements, such as: pavement, street lamps, sewage disposal, fire truck, water tower, dog pound, relief fund for sheriffs' and tax collectors' widows and orphans, et cetera, et cetera, and the town's budget was sunk in arrears), the prisoner refused bail.

Came the day of the trial. That he might make the worst possible appearance, though the reason given was that he might overpower the barber and seize his razor, the prisoner was denied a shave. Rags wished him luck, giving him a wink and a broad grin as he called him “Mr. Ordway.” He was then escorted under guard to the courtroom. There was a good crowd. Mr. Parker had a large following, so did Mr. Shively, the prosecuting attorney, and a match between the two always drew well. On a table to itself lay my grandfather's pistol, a tag tied to the trigger guard. His Honor the judge arrived and court was declared opened. The veniremen were called and the opposing counsels used up their peremptory challenges on them. Then twelve good men and true, and without preconceptions in the case, were duly sworn and seated. The prisoner under advice of counsel pled guilty as charged. The sheriff was called by the prosecution and deposed the details of his arrest. The nut gatherer, one Dewey Tutwiler, recounted what he had overheard that day in the thicket. Three farmers, four housewives, a miller, a blacksmith, a wheelwright, and a surveyor were called to the stand, deposed that the accused had approached them seeking to learn the whereabouts of a man named Will Vinson, of whom he had grimly declared himself to be in pursuit. A witness who identified himself as Eber Smithwick, resident of Tarrant County, was called. He deposed that on October 29 of the preceding year he had been in Paris, Texas. Yes, he had seen somebody there that day who was now present in the courtroom. He pointed a finger at my grandfather. Where had he seen him? It was at a stump-speaking. He then recounted more or less accurately my grandfather's unscheduled speech of that day, concluding with his guarantee that anybody who gave him information leading him to Will Vinson would need fear no reprisal.

After each of these, “Your witness, sir,” said the prosecutor.

And each time, “NO questions,” said Mr. Parker.

The defendant was called and sworn. The prosecuting attorney got to his feet with a loud sigh, as though saddened by the prospect of the perjury before them all. He strode past the witness stand three or four times, nodding at my grandfather in passing, contriving thereby to suggest that he had seen him in that seat on former occasions. At last he stopped pacing, wheeled on the witness, and said:

“Your name, please. Remember, you are under oath.”

“Ordway. Sam … Samuel Ordway. That's O-R-D—”

“Place of residence—if you have one?”

“Clarksville. Well, Mabry, actually. That's over in Red River—”

“Well? Which is it?”

“Mabry.”

“All right. Now we've got that cleared up, I hope. And now will you tell the court your version of what has brought you so far from home?”

“I'm out here looking for my little boy.”

“Looking for your little boy? Ran away from home, did he?”

“No, sir, he did not run away. He wasn't but two, going on three years old.”

“That is young to run away,” the prosecutor agreed.