Red grass river, p.8
Red Grass River, page 8
“Breakfast six o’clock, Johnny,” she sheriff said as he started for the door. He paused and looked back at Bob Baker, who was lingering near the cage.
“I’ll be along, Daddy,” Bob Baker said.
“Dont devil the boy, son,” Sheriff George said, and then went out in the front room.
John Ashley stood near the bars with his hands in his pockets and watched Bobby Baker roll a cigarette and light it. One of the other prisoners was standing against the far wall of bars, smoking and gazing at his hand closed around a bar and paying them no attention. The other inmate lay in an upper bunk with an arm over his eyes.
Now Bobby leaned on one elbow against the cell bars and smiled at John Ashley. “Tell me somethin, Johnny: you ever see a man hung?” he asked.
“Yeah I have,” John Ashley said. “Just after, anyway.”
“A nigger, right?”
“Hard to say. By the time I saw him he’d been burned up so bad he didnt look like much of anything but a big chunk of charcoal.”
“That’s a nigger lynchin sure,” Bob Baker said. “I mean you ever seen a white man hung?”
“Guess not.”
Bob Baker smiled and took a drag on his cigarette. “I have,” he said. “Up in Saint Lucie County Jail, about a year ago. They hung a old boy for murder. Killed his partner in a moonshine business—cut his head off with a cane knife—and they gave him the rope. They built a gallows back of the jailhouse and before dawn they stood the fella up there and asked him did he have any last words and he just shook hid head. I’d been told he was a rough old boy but up on that gallows he didnt seem all that tough. Looked too scared to open his mouth—like he might of started cryin if he did. They put hood over his head and you could see the cloth suckin in and out against his mouth he was breathin so hard. His neck was sposed to break when they dropped him through the door but it didnt. They say thats what happens more than half the time, the neck dont break like it ought, and what happens then is the fella chokes to death. You shoulda seen the way he was jerkin and kickin ever which way, just like a damn fish on a hook. Makin sounds all wet and choky like water going down a mostly clogged drain. I bet he was gaggin and kicking for five minutes before he finally give up the ghost. And the smell! Lord Jesus! He couldnt help but shit his pants—I’m told they all do. But that aint the half of it, listen to this: the sumbuck got a hard on! I aint lyin. He got this boner in his pants you could see from all the way cross the room. They say some of em even shoot off and you can see the stain on their pants. Aint that a hoot? I mean to tell you, Johnny, hanging is just about the most godawful humiliatin way in the world for a man to die.”
Bob Baker leaned closer against the bars and said softly: “When they find you guilty, John, that’s what’s gonna happen to you.” He smiled genially, his aspect all bonhomie, then took a deep pull on his cigarette and dropped the butt on the floor and ground it under his heel. “Thought you might wanna have somethin to think about between now and then,” he said through an exhalation of smoke.
“Well dont get too way ahead of youself, Bobby,” John Ashley said, forcing a grin. “I aint hung yet. But I tell you what—even if they did hang me, leastways I’d still be able to stand up there on my own two legs, which is more than I can say for some.”
Bob Baker’s smile twitched and he blinked quickly several times. He stepped back from the bars—and then suddenly laughed like he’d been told a good joke. He put a fist to the side of his neck and then jerked the first straight up as though yanking on a noose and he crooked his head and struck out his tongue and crossed his eyes. He was still laughing as he went out the door.
The morning dawned hot and humid. To either side of the rising sun low heavy clouds looked streaked with fire. The courtroom filled early and the small room was murmurous with excitement as spectators fanned themselves against the heat. A weakling breeze sagged through the courtroom’s tall windows. A growing line of prospective jurors was already crowding the hallways and many of the veniremen were forced to wait outside in the shade of trees. Now the bailiff announced that court was in session, the Honorable H. P. Branning presiding.
Gordon Blue had informed the Ashleys that Circuit Court Judge Branning had a reputation for no-nonsense legal proceeding, a factor in their own favor. “Gramling’s going to challenge so many of the jury candidates,” Blue had told Joe Ashley, referring to John Gramling, the state prosecutor, “that he’ll use up all his peremptories by tomorrow. In the meantime Branning will get his fill of him for slowing things down so much. By the time the jury’s seated we’ll have them and the judge on our side.”
And so did the first day of the trial go. Of the twenty juror candidates questioned, Gramling challenged seventeen and did not seem happy with the other three. Gordon Blue challenged none. Near the end of the day Judge Branning called both lawyers to the bench and asked the state’s attorney whether he intended to continue to weight down the proceedings with still more challenges tomorrow. “The peremptory is not an infinite privilege, Mr. Gramling,” the judge said. Gramling said he was fully aware of that—and aware as well that every potential juror so far, with a single exception, was a friend of the Ashleys, and the one exception was so clearly intimidated by the family he couldnt even look the defendant in the eye and could hardly be relied on to be impartial. The judge looked at Gordon Blue who shrugged in the manner of one baffled utterly by the state’s argument. After warning Gramling not to test his patience the judge adjourned court for the day.
As Bob Baker led John Ashley by an arm toward a side exit, John Ashley looked over at his family seated behind the defense table. His father nodded to him and his mother and sisters blew kisses and the twin brothers Frank and Ed each showed him a fist of encouragement. Bill was scribbling in a notebook—having been recruited as a secretarial assistant by Gordon Blue. Bob Ashley shouted, “We gone beat em, Johnny!”
Then he was outside and in Bob Baker’s Model T and they were clattering down the road on the short drive back to jail. As when they’d come to court in the car that morning—he in his fresh white suit and Bob Baker in a starched uniform and wearing his holstered and strapped-down pistol on the side away from John Ashley—they made the ride in silence.
The following day was mostly a repetition of the first—one venire-man after another was eliminated from the jury pool by Gramling’s peremptories. Judge Branning’s irritation grew. When he recessed for lunch he brought the gavel down like he was trying to break it. The early afternoon saw still more candidates dismissed by Gramling’s challenges. The judge drummed his fingers.
The sky framed in the windows began to darken with gathering clouds. The wind kicked up and carried on it the smell of the coming storm and brought to the courtroom some relief from the stifling heat. Thunder rolled in the distance. The first scattered raindrops were smacking the roof and the raised shutters when Gramling at last used up the last of his peremptory challenges. The judge heaved a theatrical sigh and said perhaps they could now proceed at quicker pace.
But Gramling then filed a motion for change of venue, citing the pertinent statutes permitting the action. He wanted the trial moved to Dade County, where, he argued, there was much better chance for the state to seat an impartial jury.
Judge Branning rubbed his face with his hands and said he’d take the motion under advisement and rule on it first thing in the morning. Gordon Blue muttered. “Damn!” and the look on his face made John Ashley’s chest go tight. The judge motioned the bailiff to the bench for a private word with him. John Ashley wondered if Blue had considered that the judge might get so fed up with Gramling he’d let the trial go elsewhere.
His father was whispering to Bill in obvious agitation as his other three sons leaned in to listen. Blue patted John Ashley’s shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, they cant do this.” He began gathering his papers. “I’m going to talk with your daddy. I’ll see you in the lockup later.” The judge banged his gavel and adjourned for the day.
In the clamor of voices that rose behind the judge’s exit from the room, John Ashley was suddenly certain the trial was going to go to Dade County—to Miami—to a jury of complete strangers. His mother scowled at John Gramling who took no notice as he gathered his papers. Old Joe was listening to Bill. Bob waved to catch John Ashley’s attention and pointed at Bob Baker who was talking to the bailiff. John Ashley did not understand what Bob was signifying but Bob and Frank and Ed were already hastening from the courtroom.
Bob Baker came over and took him by the arm and said, “Let’s go.”
The rain was coming down hard now and they were sodden by the time they reached the open-sided Ford. John got in and Bob Baker cranked the motor and then got in and adjusted the spark lever and they started back to the jail. The air shook with thunder and the sky was rent bright with lightning. The trees whipped in the wind. They drove along in the jouncing car with mud slapping up under the floor-boards. John Ashley stared glumly at the gray world passing and felt that all matters of import to him had already been decided and none of them in his favor.
With the storm had come an early twilight. Sheets of water swept across the narrow road and soaked them all the more in the open car. The jailhouse came into view, the light above the door already on and glowing hazy yellow in the gloom. John Ashley cut his eyes everywhere but saw no sign of deliverance.
Bob Baker parked the car alongside the fence gate and cut off the motor which chugged for several more revolutions before shutting down. Wisps of steam issued from under the hood covers. John Ashley slid out of the car and scanned the area as Bobby worked a key into the gate lock.
“Come on!” Bob Baker hollered through a crash and roll of thunder, beckoning irritably as he swung open the gate. John Ashley entered the compound and Bobby re-locked the gate and they slogged through the mud up to the jailhouse which loomed now in John Ashley’s eyes like an enormous crypt.
As Bob Baker reached for the iron knocker to summon Norman to unlock the door John Ashley acted on his impulse of the moment and grabbed him from behind in a headlock and wrestled him away from the entry.
Bob Baker snarled a muffled curse under John Ashley’s arm and became a bucking writhing frenzy trying with both hands to break free. But John Ashley held the arm clamped round his head as hard as he could and they reeled and staggered and splashed about like mad dancers in the muddy rain. And now Bob Baker was clawing at John Ashley’s binding arm with one hand and trying to unholster his pistol with the other and John Ashley got the leverage and purchase he was struggling for and lunged toward the jail wall and rammed the crown of Bob Baker’s head against it. Bobby went slack and sagged full weight in the vise of his arm and John Ashley feared he might have killed him. So tightly was his arm locked that he had to force it open with his other hand before he could let Bob Baker fall.
He stood gasping, massaging his aching arm, watching the jailhouse door in expectation of Norman’s appearance, but the door remained shut. The wind had died of a sudden and the rain was falling straight down and spattering high and loud. He saw now that Bobby’s face was in the mud and if he was not already dead he was going to drown. He knelt and pushed him onto his side and Bob Baker sucked a huge muddy mouthful of air. He was yet unconscious and blood ran from his hair and rubied the mud under his head. The hold-down strap of his holster was unfastened and John Ashley for the second time in their lives relieved him of his gun, once again a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson. He checked the loads and then stuck the pistol in his waistband.
“Johnny!”
He looked to the yard gate and saw his brothers Bob and Ed coming on the run, each time pistol in hand, and behind them, in the driving rain, a shimmying Model T emitted vague smoke from its exhaust pipe and Frank was behind the wheel and was looking out for anyone coming from either direction in the road.
Bob kicked and kicked at the gate lock and John Ashley was about to yell out for him to hold on, he’d get the gate key out of Bobby’s pocket, but Ed was already backing up a dozen feet and now running at the fence and throwing his full weight against it and a fifteen-foot portion of chickenwire ripped off its support posts and scooped down into the mud as Ed sprawled on the fallen fence and regained his feet and here came Bob behind him laughing raucously and yelling, “Whooo! Some damn jail, aint it? Fucken Chickenwire!”
They clapped him on the shoulder and grinned hugely and he felt himself grinning back. “We’d been here waitin to jump the sonofabitch,” Ed said, “but Frankie run off the road about a quarter-mile back and it took a while to get the machine out the damn ditch.”
“He dead?” Bob asked, nudging Bobby Baker with his toe. Bob Baker groaned but his eyes were still closed.
“You all get back to the car,” John Ashley said. “Best he dont see you here. Go on now.”
“Hell, I aint scared of this mullethead,” Bob said. “Let him see me all he wants.”
“It’s got nothin to do with bein scared of him, Bob,” John Ashley said. “Right now he aint got a thing on any you, only me. Let’s keep it that way. Get on to the car and I be right there. I want a word with this sumbitch.”
“He’s right,” Ed said, tugging on Bob’s sleeve. “C’mon, let’s get.” Bob spat and hustled his balls and looked from one to the other of them and said, “Well all right, hell,” and went off with Ed through the rain and over the downed portion of fence and got in the car with Frank.
John Ashley knelt and turned Bobby Baker on his back and shook him by the shoulder and patted his face and tugged repeatedly on his ears and in a moment Bobby coughed wetly and choked and rolled toward John Ashley who jumped up and away to avoid the gush of vomit he heaved up.
Bobby gasped and opened his eyes and saw John Ashley grinning down at him. He started to sit up but John Ashley put his foot against his shoulder and pushed him onto his back again. “Just you stay there.”
“Son…bitch,” Bobby muttered. He managed to get up on all fours before John Ashley kicked him in the ribs and the air whooshed out of him and he fell on his side with eyes wide and blood running from his hair and down the side of his face and his mouth working for breath. John Ashley squatted and grabbed a fistful of his hair and turned his face up into the rain.
“So I’m gonna hang, hey?” John Ashley said. “Gonna shit my pants? I told you not to get so ahead of yourself, didnt I?” He yanked Bob Baker over onto his stomach and pushed his face into the mud for several seconds and then yanked his head up again by the hair. Bob Baker snorted and spat mud and tried weakly to wrest free and John Ashley punched him in the back of the neck. “I wouldn’t try and make a fight of it just now, I was you,” he said.
A piercing whistle he recognized as Bob’s cut through the rain and he looked at the idling Ford. The rain was falling harder now and he could see his brothers as only vague forms within the car and he knew Bobby would not recognize them if he should look their way. Bob Baker cursed lowly and tried to pull John’s hand off his hair and roll over. John Ashley released him and got to his feet and thought to kick him again but the sight of his bloody head and the sound of his gasping decided him against it. The man was beat, so let him lay. He turned and ran for the fence and clambered over the skewed chickenwire and loped to the car and the open door waiting for him.
And Bob Baker, bleeding and breathless in the mud, heard him laughing and laughing as he made away.
He confided the details of the escape to no one but his father, and in addition to the warrants on John Ashley for murder and escape from custody, Sheriff George Baker had also wanted one for assault on a police officer. But Bob Baker did not want the assault known publicly and his father had deferred to his wish that they keep it to themselves. In his official report Bob Baker asserted that John Ashley had broken his word not to escape and bolted away into the rainy darkness when they got back to the jailyard from the courthouse. He said he could have shot him down but he was not one to shoot an unarmed man, not even a fleeing prisoner, not if he had not yet been convicted of a crime. Because he did not remove his hat in public during the entire time he wore a bandage on his crown, no one but his father and his wife Annie—who’d been the one to tend his wound—ever saw evidence of the beating he’d taken.
As she ministered to his bloody scalp Annie had asked what happened but he’d only looked at her and she’d questioned him no further. She’d come to know him for a moody man best left alone when withdrawn into himself.
That night he made love to her despite the pain of his throbbing head—made love with a passion near to ferocity and the woman in his mind was not his wife but a girl long gone. Two months later Annie happily informed him that she was carrying a child. He was delighted and said they would name it after his father. Annie made a mock face of distaste but said all right, but if it was a girl she wanted to name it after her favorite aunt. Bob Baker said fine, whatever the name it was fine with him. Annie’s smile at him then had been wide and warm and full of love. “Good,” she said. “I just love the name Julie.”
Seven months later she gave birth to the girl. Bob Baker smiled on his wife in the hospital room and gingerly cuddled the infant in his arms and cooed to her and called her his pretty little bird and evermore called her by that nickname rather than her Christian name. If his wife or the girl herself were ever curious about that, they neither one ever said.
Although John Ashley remained in the region, the Palm Beach sheriff was hard-pressed to arrest him. When Dade County went dry the year before, Joe Ashley’s moonshine business boomed, and now John Ashley was making regular runs to Miami to deliver his daddy’s hooch. Sheriff George knew that. But he was not on friendly terms with the Dade County sheriff and the Ashley family was. And he’d heard enough tales about the corruption in the Miami Police Department to know it would be useless to ask for its help.
There were steady reports of John Ashley sightings in the local region too—mostly in its portion of the Everglades. He was seen at Indian villages and at fishing and hunting camps from the north shore of Lake Okeechobee to the south end of the Loxahatchee Slough. But Sheriff George knew there was as much chance of catching John Ashley in the Devil’s Garden as there was of catching a hawk on the wing. He figured his best chance for an arrest would at the Ashley homestead, and so he posted a continuous surveillance on the Twin Oaks house. His deputies made their way to the Ashley property on foot through the piney swamp and took up positions among the trees from which they had a good view of the front of the house some forty yards distant. They reported seeing all the other Ashleys come and go at irregular intervals but never spied John among them.
