Part 52 (2/2)
”What people?”
”The Negroes in the car!”
Sheriff Parkhouse gave Tom a sidelong glance. He began to fill his pipe with tobacco, slowly, rocking in the cane-bottomed chair. ”I been living here for thirty years,” he said, ”and in all that time, I ain't never seen a n.i.g.g.e.r get hurt. Have you?”
Tom found himself actively disliking the large man. He particularly disliked the easy, slowmovements, the unruffled calm. A little tobacco, up and down, gently, with the silver tool, a little more tobacco . . . ”That hasn't got anything to do with it.” he said.
”Maybe not, maybe not. But answer the question, Tom. Have you ever seen a n.i.g.g.e.r get hurt in Caxton?”
”Yes,” Tom said. ”Tonight.”
The sheriff sighed. His leathery, country flesh had begun to sag from the high cheekbones, and there was something incongruous about the crewcut that kept his white hair short and flat on his head.
Here, Tom thought, in this jail, he's king. People fear him. People actually fear this ignorant man.
Parkhouse sucked fire into the scarred bowl of the pipe, released a cloud of thick, aromatic smoke. ”Well,” he said, smiling, ”what you got in your mind for me to do?”
”Take action,” Tom said. ”Keep the peace. That's what you're getting paid for.”
Parkhouse stopped smiling.
”That's right,” Tom said angrily. ”You're mighty quick to pick a drunk off the street, Rudy, some poor fella that doesn't care any what happens to him. But when it comes to real trouble, you just can't bring yourself to move off that seat.”
The chair came forward with a crack. Parkhouse stared for a moment, and his eyes were hard and small. ”That,” he said slowly, ”ain't very polite.”
”Polite!” Tom walked to the window and turned. ”Let me get this straight. A family was attacked in this town tonight. You know who did the attacking and so do I. Property was destroyed and people were injured. There was blood. And you don't intend to do a thing about it. Not a single G.o.dd.a.m.n thing.
Is that correct?”
”Yeah, that's correct! Now listen, it's real easy for you to sit back and say 'Take action.' Yeah.
But you don't even know what you're talking about. What _kind_ of action?” The sheriff began to jab the air with his pipestem. ”There was at least fifty people around that car. You want to arrest all of them?”
Tom opened his mouth to answer.
”Okay, let's say we do that. I arrest all of them fifty people. Charge 'em with disorderly conduct.
Then what? This jail here was built in 1888, Tom. The doors are steel, but the walls are partly adobe: a thirteen-year-old could bust out in twenty minutes if he put his mind to it. Okay, fifty people. And they're hoppin' mad, too, don't think they ain't. I'd be. Now we got nine 18 by 18 cells and two runarounds, mostly filled as it is. You begin to get the drift?”
The sheriff brought his pipe to life again. ”I like to see a real civic-minded citizen, Tom, I do.
Somebody all the time thinking about the community. Shows real fine spirit. I just wish that you and your paper had of seen to it that we got us a decent jail before you come in here bellering for me to arrest half the town . . .”
Tom ran a hand through his hair. The sheriff's word stung, for it was true. He hadn't ever taken much interest in the condition of the jail. The man had a point, anyway.
”But let me tell you something else,” Parkhouse went on dryly. The way he looked, sitting there, made it suddenly easy to understand why certain people feared him. ”Even if we had a calaboose the size of San Quentin, I still wouldn't go out and start hauling everybody in. Tom, you don't seem to see. Half of those people were kids. School kids. Throwing them in jail would be like giving them a Christmas present.”
”What do you mean?”
”I mean, every kid wants to get put in a cell for a night or so. It's a lark. h.e.l.l, they'd have so much fun they'd probably tear this old place down to the ground!”
”Maybe so, but--”
”And here's something else that I guess you ain't thought about. Who, exactly, do we arrest? The ones who was actually touching the car? The ones in the street, whether they did anything or not? Or, just to be on the safe side, should we arrest everybody who attended the meeting?” Parkhouse chuckled.
”That'd include you and your daughter. She was there, I heard.”
”Who told you that?”
”Jimmy, or somebody. What's the difference? I'm just trying to show you why I can't 'takeaction.' And I wouldn't waste my time this way, either, if I didn't know you was a man with some sense.”
Somewhere in the jail, somewhere upstairs, a voice was raised in song. It was not a particularly mournful or moving sound.
”But one thing still remains. A crime was committed and n.o.body's been punished. They got away with it, clean. So what's to stop them from doing the same thing tomorrow night?”
The sheriff took a bottle of pop from the refrigerator behind the desk and removed the cap.
”The people in this town are good,” he said. ”I ought to know that better than anyone else, ain't that so? They're good. But it's hot, and somebody just got them riled, that's all. Now it's out of their system. We--”
”That's right,” Tom snapped. ”Somebody got them riled. You might even say, somebody talked them into doing what they did.”
Parkhouse nodded.
”You know what that's called, Rudy?”
”I don't get you.”
”That's called 'inciting to riot.' It's a crime. If you don't believe me, look it up.”
”I know what's a crime and what isn't,” the sheriff said. ”I don't have to look nothing up.”
”Then why don't you throw Adam Cramer into jail?”
”Who?”
”Oh, for Christ's sake!” Tom slammed his palm down on the desk. ”The kid who gave the speech! The kid who started the whole thing in the first place, who got the people all inflamed. Adam Cramer!”
”Oh.” The sheriff emptied half of the bottle of Dr. Pepper down his throat and leaned back in his chair. ”Well,” he said, ”I can't very well do that, either, Tom.”
”You can't very well do that, either--_why not?_”
”Just take it easy, now, and I'll explain--just like I explained the other things. I can't arrest Cramer because he wasn't even around when the n.i.g.g.e.rs drove up. To get him for sedition and inciting to riot, we'd have to catch him right there at the front of the mob, leading 'em on. As it was, he was in Joan's Cafe, having a cup of coffee with Verne s.h.i.+pman, when it happened.”
”With Verne?” The anger in Tom gave way suddenly to confusion, and fear.
”That's right,” the sheriff said. ”And you know, Tom, you can't put a man in jail for speaking his mind. If you don't believe me, look it up.” He smiled. ”Maybe you and me don't go along with that, now, but it's in the Const.i.tution. If a man wants to, he can get out on a street corner and call the President of the United States a son of a b.i.t.c.h--and n.o.body can stop him. He can say America is no good and we ought to all be Communists--h.e.l.l, he can say _anything_--and n.o.body's allowed to touch him. It's what's called Freedom of Speech. Besides, the way I heard it, this fella didn't say one solitary thing that everybody in town ain't been saying right along. What have you got against him, anyway?”
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