Part 9

“Then the marshal went to his desk and got a lot of photographs and hand-bills tellin’ about murderers and robbers and burglars and pickpockets and ever’thing else, that was sent to him from all over the country, and he took ‘em and looked ‘em all over and then looked at me. Then he sorted out a dozen or so and stared at me more particular than before. I seen what he had in his hand; I seen one of ‘em was my picture; only I was smooth-faced and now my whiskers had got long. He made me take off my clothes and looked me over careful, and found where I had broke my leg the time that I caught my foot between the rails when I thought I was goin’ to be run over. You remember the time? I wish now I had. Then he let me put on my clothes, and he went over all the descriptions just as careful as he could, and he found that the hand-bill told about a broken leg; then he looked at my face again, and then he asked me when I’d shaved last, and I told him I never shaved. Then he wanted to know how tall I was, and I told him I didn’t know, so he measured me by standin’ me up ‘gainst the wall and markin’ the place. I tried to scrooch down as much as I could without him noticin’ it; but he said it was just ‘bout what the hand-bill had it. Then he asked me how much I weighed, and I told him I hadn’t been weighed for years. So he called someone to help him, and they put some han’cuffs on one arm and fastened the other to the marshal and took me over to a store, and made me stand on the scales till I got weighed. He said I weighed just a little bit less than the hand-bill made it, and that if I’d walked from Chicago that would account for the difference. Then he looked over my clothes, but he couldn’t find any marks on ‘em.

“Then he sent down for the barber and told him to shave me. I objected to that and told him he hadn’t any right to do it; that I wasn’t charged with any crime, and he said it didn’t make no difference, he was goin’ to do it anyway. So I knew it wa’n’t no use, and I set down and let the barber shave me. Of course I knew it would all be up as soon as I got shaved. But I didn’t care so very much if it was; it wa’n’t any worse than runnin’ all the time and bein’ ‘fraid of ever’-one you met and knowin’ you’d be ketched at last.

“Well, after the barber got through shavin’ me, the marshal took the picture and held it up ‘side of my face, and anyone could see ‘twas me. He was so glad he almost shouted. And he told the police judge that he’d got one of the most dangerous criminals in the whole United States, and he was entitled to one thousand dollars reward. I never see a boy feel so good over anythin’ as he did over ketchin’ me. He said that now he could pay off the mortgage on his house and get his girl piano lessons, and run for sheriff next fall. When he told me I was Jackson, I denied it and said I never knew anything about Chicago, and was never there in my life. He didn’t pay any attention to this, but wired to Chicago, givin’ a full description of me. Of course, it wa’n’t long before he got back word that I was Jackson, and to hold me till they sent someone down.

“After the marshal found out who I was he treated me a good deal better’n before. He got me nice fried chicken ‘most every meal, and always coffee or tea and corn-cakes, and I couldn’t complain of the board. Then he got my clothes washed and give me some new pants and shoes and fixed me up quite nice. He come in and visited with me a good deal and seemed real social and happy. He give me cigars to smoke and sometimes a drink o’ whiskey, and treated me as if he really liked me. I expect he couldn’t help feelin’ friendly to me, because he thought of that one thousand dollars, and that he wouldn’t’ve got it if I hadn’t killed her, and in one way a good deal as if I done it on his account. Of course he wa’n’t really glad I done it, but so long as I done it, he was glad I come his way. I s’pose he hadn’t anything against me any more’n a cat has against a mouse that it ketches and plays with till it gets ready to eat it up. His business was ketchin’ people just like the cat’s is ketchin’ rats. Seems to me, though, I’d hate to be in his business, even if it is a bad lot you’ve got to ketch. Still he watched me closer’n ever, even if he was good to me. He didn’t mean to let that thousand dollars get away. He kep’ someone ‘round the jail all the time, and he got some extra bars on the windows, and when he come to see me or talk with me he always brought someone with him so I couldn’t do anything to him. He needn’t worried so much, for I was clean tired out and discouraged, and I felt better in there than I had any time since I killed her. Bein’ out of jail ain’t necessar’ly liberty. If you’re ‘fraid all the time and have got to dodge and keep hid and can’t go where you want to and are runnin’ away all the time, you might just as well be shut up, for you ain’t free.

“Soon as the marshal found out who I was, it didn’t take the news long to travel ‘round the town, and it seemed as if ever’one there come to the lock-up to see me. The boys used to come up ‘round the windows and kind of stay back, as if they thought I might reach out and ketch ‘em, but I always kep’ as far away as I could. Then the people would come down with the marshal to the cell when he brought my supper and look at me to see me eat, and try to get me to come up and talk to ‘em and watch me same as you’ve seen ‘em look at bears when they was feedin’ up at Lincoln Park, and they’d point to me and say, ‘That’s him; just see his for’head. Wouldn’t I hate to get caught out alone with him? Anyone could see what he is by lookin’ at him. I bet they make short work of him when they get him to Chicago!’ I always kep’ back as far as I could for I didn’t want to be seen. No one had ever looked at me or paid any attention to me before, or said anything about me, and I hadn’t ever expected to have my name or picture in the paper, or to have people come and see me, and anyhow not this way.

“Of course, I knew well enough that it wouldn’t last long, and that they’d be here for me in two or three days. I can’t tell you just how I felt. I knew I was caught, and that there wa’n’t much chance for me. I knew all the evidence would be circumstantial, still I knew I done it, and luck never had come my way anyhow, so I didn’t have much hopes that ‘twould now. Then I began to feel as if it might as well be over. If I was goin’ to be hung, I might just as well be hung and done with it. There wa’n’t any kind of a show for me any more, and it wa’n’t any use to fight. Then I began to figger on how long ‘twould take. I knew there was cases where it took years, but I always thought them cases must have been where they had lots of money and could hire high-priced lawyers. And I hadn’t got any money, and the newspapers had said so much about my case that I was sure that they wouldn’t give me much chance or any more than the law allowed.

“Well, inside of two days some fellers come down from the sheriff’s office in Chicago. I didn’t know either one of ‘em, but they had all kinds of pictures and descriptions and said there wa’n’t any doubt about who I was, and said I might as well own up and be done with it. But I didn’t see any use of ownin’ up to anything, so I wouldn’t answer any questions or say much one way or another. Then they explained to me that they hadn’t any right to take me out of the state without a requisition from the gov’nor, and it would take a week or so to get that, and I might just as well go back with them without puttin’ ‘em to this bother; that it always looked better when anyone went back themselves, and anyhow I’d be kep’ here in jail till they got a requisition. So I told ‘em all right, I’d just as soon go back to Chicago as anywhere, and I hadn’t done nothin’ that I had to be ‘fraid of, and was ready to go as soon as they was. So they stayed till the next mornin’ and then han’-cuffed me and put me between ‘em and led me down to the depot. Before I left the lock-up the marshal give me a good breakfast and some cigars and shook hands with me, and said he hoped I’d have a pleasant journey.

“When I went down to the depot it seemed as if the whole town, black and white, had turned out to see me, and ever’one was pointin’ to me and sayin’, ‘That’s him; that’s him.’ ‘He looks it, don’t he?’ And pretty soon the train come up and the officers and conductor kep’ the crowd back while they took me into the smokin’-car. It seemed as if ever’one in the car and on the whole train knew who I was and just what I’d done, and they all come up to the smokin’-car to get a look at me, and pass remarks about me, and ever’one seemed glad to think I was caught and was goin’ to be hung.

“It ain’t no use to tell you all about the trip home. It didn’t take me as long to come back as it did to go ‘way. At pretty near ever’ station there was a crowd out to see the train, and all of ‘em tried to get a look at me. The conductor and brakemen all pointed me out and the people come to the doors and stood up before the window and did ever’thing they could think of to see me. The detectives treated me all right. They gave me all I could eat and talked with me a good deal. They didn’t ask many questions, and told me I needn’t say any more’n I had a mind to, but they told me a good deal about politics and how that the alderman was runnin’ again, and all that was goin’ on in Chicago, and where all they’d been huntin’ for me since I run away. I had to sit up at night. One of ‘em kep’ han’-cuffed to me all night and another han’cuff was fastened to the seat. I don’t s’pose they could’ve made it any more comfortable and see that I didn’t run away. But still I don’t ever want to take that kind of a ride again and I s’pose I never will.

“I felt queer when we began to get back into Chicago. In some ways I always liked the city; I guess ever’one does, no matter how rough it is. And I couldn’t help feelin’ kind of good to see the streets and fac’tries and shops again; and still I felt bad, too. I knew that ever’one in the town was turned against me, and I didn’t have a friend anywhere. We’d got the Chicago papers as we’d come along and they was full of all kinds of stories and pictures about me, and some things that I’d said, ‘though I’d never talked a word to anyone.

“The papers said that they hoped there’d be none of the usual long delays in tryin’ my case, that I was a brutal murderer, and there wa’n’t no use of spendin’ much time over me. Of course, I ought to have a fair and impartial trial, but I ought to be hung without delay, and no sentimental notoriety-huntin’ people ought to be allowed to see me. They wished that a judge could be found who had the courage to do his duty, and do it right off quick. I had already been indicted, and there wa’n’t nothin’ to do but place me on trial next day, and the verdict would be reached in a few days more. It was unfortunate that the law allowed one hundred days before a murderer could be hung after trial; that the next legislature must change it to ten days; that would be plenty of time for anyone to show that a mistake had been made in their trial, even if he was locked up all the time. The papers said how that the Anti-Crimes Committee was to be congratulated on havin’ found a good lawyer to assist the state in the prosecution, and that the lawyer was a good public spirited man and ought to be well paid for his disagreeable work.

“The papers told all about the arrest down in Georgia, and how the marshal and a force of citizens followed me into the swamp and what a desperate fight I made, and how many people I’d knocked down and ‘most killed, until I was finally overpowered and taken in irons to the county jail.

“I can’t make you understand how I felt when they was bringin’ me into town. We come along down the old canal where we used to stone the frogs and the geese and all along the places where us boys used to play. Then we come down through the yards where I used to work, and right past the house where I left that night with the kid sleepin’ in the bedroom. That was the hardest part of all the trip, and I tried to turn away when we come down along back of the barn by the alley; but it seemed as if something kind of drew my eyes around that way, and I couldn’t keep ‘em off’n the spot. And I thought about ever’thing I done there just in a flash, and even wondered how long the old horse was tied in the barn before they found him, and whether he got all the potatoes et up before he was took away. But I looked away as quick as I could and watched all the streets as we passed, to see if I could see anyone I knew. I felt pretty sure that I wouldn’t leave Chicago again, and I guess I never will.

“Pretty soon they pulled into the big depot, and the train stopped and we got off. I wa’n’t expectin’ nothin’ in the station, but when we landed the whole place was filled back of the gate, and I could see that they was looking for me. The crowd was about like one that I was in down there once when McKinley come to Chicago. A squad of policemen come down to meet us, and they got us in the middle of the bunch and hurried us into a patrol wagon. I could hear the crowd sayin’, ‘That’s him; that’s the murderer; let’s lynch him!’—‘He don’t deserve a trial! Let’s hang him first and then try him’—‘The miserable brute!’ ‘The contemptible coward!’—I guess if it hadn’t been for all the policemen I’d have been lynched, and mebbe ‘twould have been just as well. ‘Twouldn’t have taken so long, nor cost so much money. Anyhow, I wish now they’d done it and then it would be all over; and now—well, ‘twon’t be long.

“There was a lot of people in the street and every one of ‘em seemed to know who was in the patrol-wagon, and they walked all the way over, and lots of little boys follered the wagon clear to the jail; then the newsboys on the street kep’ yellin’, ‘All ‘bout the capture of Jim Jackson! Extra paper!’ and it seemed as if the whole town was tryin’ to kill me. Somehow I hadn’t realized how ‘twas as I come ‘long, and, in fact, ever since I went away. Of course, I knew how bad the killin’ was, and how ever’one must feel, and how I wished I hadn’t done it, and how I’d have done anything on earth to make it different, but all the time I’d been away from the people that knew all about it, and I didn’t somehow realize what they’d do. But when I come back and seen it all I felt just as if there was a big storm out on the lake and I was standin’ on the shore and all the waves was comin’ right over me and carryin’ me away.

“Well, they didn’t lose any time but drove as fast as they could down Dearborn Street over the bridge to the county jail. Then they hustled me right out and took me straight through the crowd up to the door; the Dearborn Street door (that’s the one you came in, I s’pose), and they didn’t wait hardly a minit to book me, but hurried me up stairs and locked me in a cell, and I haven’t seen the outside of the jail since, and I don’t s’pose I ever will.”

Jim stopped as if the remembrance of it all had overpowered him. Hank didn’t know what to say, so he got up and walked a few turns back and forth along the cell, trying to get it all through his clouded mind. Such a night as this he had never dreamed of, and he could not yet realize what it meant. The long story and the intense suffering seemed to have taken all the strength that Jim had left.

Hank turned to him with an effort to give him some consolation. “Say, Jim, don’t take it too hard. You know there ain’t much in it for any of us, and most people has more trouble than anything else. Lay down a little while; you can tell me the rest pretty soon.”

“No,” Jim answered, “I ain’t got through; I can’t waste any time. It must be gettin’ along toward mornin’, and you see I don’t know just when it’ll be. They seem to think it’s treatin’ us better if they don’t tell us when, only just the day. Then you know, they can come in any time after midnight. They could break in now if they wanted to, but I s’pose they’ll give me my breakfast first, though they won’t wait long after that. Well, I ain’t got any right to complain, and I don’t mean to, but I s’pose I feel like anyone else would.”

Just then a strange dull sound echoed through the silent corridors. Hank started with a nervous jerk. It sounded like a rope or strap suddenly pulled up short and tight.

“What’s that?” Hank asked. Jim’s face was pale for a moment, and his breath was short and heavy.

“Don’t you know? That’s the bag of sand.”

“What bag of sand?” Hank asked.

“Why, they always try the rope that way, to see if it’s all right. If they don’t, it’s liable to break, and they’d have to hang ‘em over again. They take a bag of sand that weighs just about the same as a man and tie the rope to the sand, and then knock the door out and the sand falls. I guess the rope’s all right; I hope so. I don’t want ‘em to make any mistake. It’ll be bad enough to be hung once. I wonder how I’ll stand it. I hope I don’t make a scene. But I don’t really think anyone ought to be blamed no matter what they do when they’re gettin’ hung, do you?

“It seems to me, though, that they might be a better way to kill anyone. I think shootin’ would be better’n this way. That’s the way they kill steers down to the stock-yards and I don’t believe the Humane Society would let ‘em hang ‘em up by the neck. I should think ‘twould be better to take some cell that’s air-tight and put ‘em to bed in there and then turn on the gas. But I s’pose any way would seem bad enough. Did you ever stop to think how you’d like to die? I guess nobody could pick any way that they wanted to go, and mebbe we’d all rather take chances; but I don’t believe anybody’d pick hangin’. It seems to me the very worst way anybody could die. I wonder how they commenced it in the first place. Well, I can’t help it by thinkin’ it over. I’ve done that often enough already, goodness knows. I believe I’ll ask the guard for another drink before I tell any more.”

The guard came at the first call.

“Sure, you can have all the whiskey you want. I was just down to the office a little while ago. Take this bottle. I think it’s pretty smooth, but it’s a little weak. Guess the clerk poured some water in, thinkin’ it was goin’ to the ladies’ ward. You’d better take a pretty big drink to do you any good.”

Jim thanked him as he took the bottle, and then inquired:

“Did you go down to the telephone again to see whether there had anything come over to the telegraph office?”

“No—I didn’t,” the guard answered, “but I’ll go back pretty soon. They keep open all night. It’s early yet, anyhow.”

Jim offered the bottle to his friend. Hank took a good drink, which he needed after the excitement of the night. Then he passed the bottle back to Jim.

“If I was you I’d drink all that’s left; it’s good, but it’s pretty weak, all right. I’m sure you’d feel better to take it all.”

Jim raised it to his lips, tipped his head back and held the bottle almost straight until the last drop had run slowly down his throat.

IX

Jim laid the bottle on the bed and then sat down on his chair.

“My head begins to swim some but I guess I can finish the story all right. I know I’m pretty longwinded. Still I guess I can’t talk very much more if I wanted to. I’m glad the whiskey’s beginnin’ to get in its work; I don’t believe I’ll have much trouble gettin’ so drunk that I won’t know whether I’m goin’ to a hangin’ or a primary.

“Let me see; oh, yes, they hustled me into a cell and locked me up. I guess they thought best not to waste much time, for a good many people had got together on the outside.

“I think ‘twas on Friday they put me in. There wa’n’t nothin’ done on Saturday; but on Sunday they let us all go to church up in the chapel. They kep’ me pretty well guarded as if I might do somethin’ in the church, but there wa’n’t no way to get out if I wanted to. The preacher told us about the prodigal son, and how he repented of all his wanderin’s and sins and come back home, and how glad his father was to see him, and how he treated him better’n any of the rest that hadn’t never done wrong. He said that’s the way our Heavenly Father would feel about us, if we repented, and that it didn’t matter what we’d done—after we repented we was white as snow. One of the prisoners told me he was gettin’ kind of tired of the prodigal son; that ‘most every preacher that come told about the prodigal son just as if that story had been meant specially for them.

“Some of the prisoners seemed to like to go to church; some acted as if they understood all about it, and wanted to do better, and some of ‘em seemed to go so as to get out of their cells. Anyhow I s’pose the people that run the jail thought ‘twas a good thing and believed it was all so. But I know one feller that killed a man—he was kind of half-witted—and was tried the same as the rest of us when they had that crusade against crime. Of course they sentenced him to death. He got religion and used to pray all the time, and used to talk religion to all the rest of the fellers, and ever’one said that he was really sorry and was fully converted and was as pure as a little child. But they took him out and hung him anyway. It don’t quite seem as if they believed what the preacher said themselves, or they wouldn’t hang a feller when he’s turned right, and when God was goin’ to treat him like all the rest after he gets to heaven.

“When I went back to my cell, I begun thinkin’ about what I’d do. Of course I knew you can’t get any show without a lawyer, and I knew that I might just as well not have any as to have one that wa’n’t smart. I didn’t know any lawyer except the one that charged me ten dollars for nothin’, and of course I wouldn’t have him. But one of the guards was kind of nice and friendly to me and I thought I’d ask him. He told me that gettin’ a lawyer was a pretty hard matter. Of course, my case was a celebrated one, and would advertise a lawyer, but the best ones didn’t need no advertisin’ and the others wa’n’t no good. He told me that Groves was the best fighter, but it wa’n’t no use to try to get him for he’d got more’n he could do, and most of his time was took up prosecutin’ people for stealin’ coal from the railroads, except once in a while when some rich banker or politician got into trouble. Then he took a good slice of what he’d got saved up. I asked him ‘bout some others and he told me the same story of all the rest that amounted to anything. I told him I hadn’t got no money, and I thought the horse and wagon and furniture was took on the chattel-mortgage before this, and he said he s’posed the court would have to appoint someone and I might just about as well defend myself.

“Monday mornin’ they come to the jail and told me I had to go before the judge. I didn’t s’pose ‘twould come so soon, for I knew somethin’ about how slow the courts was. You remember when Jimmy Carroll was killed by the railroad? Well, that’s more’n three years ago, and the case ha’n’t been tried yet. I was su’prised and didn’t know what to do, but there wa’n’t much to do. They come after me and I had to go; so I put on my coat and vest and they han’-cuffed me to a couple of guards, and took me through some alleys and passages and over some bridges inside the buildin’, and first thing I knew they opened a door and I came into a room packed full of people, and the judge settin’ up on a big high seat with a desk in front of him, and lookin’ awful solemn and kind of scareful. As soon as I stepped in there was a buzz all over the room, and ever’body reached out their necks, and kind of got up on their chairs and looked at me. The guards took off my han’-cuffs and set me down in a chair ‘side of a big table. And then one of ‘em set back of me and another one right to my side.