It took five minutes for twelve men to say Joseph Carl should hang. There was the white shirt, a shirt exactly like the one Juna described. I thought I had burned it all the way through, left nothing but cinders and ash in that barrel, but the sheriff and her men found it straightaway. They found the shovel lying alongside the house, flipped it around, used the handle, and lifted the scraps of that fine white shirt from the barrel. The collar was still stiff, and one sleeve and cuff held on. One of Sheriff Irlene’s men dropped it in a brown paper bag. And even though Dale never named Joseph Carl, the boy might never have been found if not for Joseph Carl finally telling the whereabouts. Joseph Carl was only able to tell because he was to blame, and now Dale Crowley is dead and isn’t that murder?
But the men in charge—they were lawyers, I suppose—didn’t bother with the crime against Dale. The crime against Juna was crime enough. She saw the man, no question of that, and knew of the fine white shirt stole from Mr. and Mrs. Brashear’s line. That Baine boy had been a good one when he was younger, but then he left and went God knows where. That time away hadn’t served him well. Look what became of him. Look how he changed. Lastly, there was the baby growing inside Juna—more proof still of what Joseph Carl had done—and a man who did such a thing to a woman would hang until dead in front of whoever should choose to watch. Even given the tempting, evil sort of woman they all knew Juna to be. She had ascended, which made her especially tempting. Evil is like that. Tempting. Still, Joseph Carl ought not have done what he did to the boy.
As we wait for dawn and for Joseph Carl to mount the steps that lead to the gallows, people keep a safe distance from Juna and me. They allow themselves only a glance in our direction. They whisper, and when their children point at us, the mothers swat their hands away. But as we stand waiting, folks forget we’re altogether different. They begin to shuffle closer, to fill in the gap between us and them. The men smoke cigars. The fat orange tips glow, sparkle. And they drink whiskey. They take it in great gulps and let out long sighs after they’ve swallowed. The sharp scent tints the air. Every so often, someone spits on the ground. They stomp the clumps of prickly lettuce that have sprung up in the field, kick aside rocks and chunks of dry dirt. When one stumbles, another grabs hold of an arm, gives a lift. They rise onto their toes, shoulder against one another, press their bodies sideways to make themselves smaller, all to make certain they have a clear line of sight.
Someone drapes Juna and me with heavy coats, men’s coats that smell of the tobacco the men chew and spit and their whiskey, and they are warm still from whichever men had been wearing them. Juna holds her coat under her chin with both hands and nods her thanks to the familiar folks who whisper kind words to her. You’ll get on, they say. Justice will see you through. Yours is a fine, strong family. Take refuge. Take solace.
Only a few pass our way in the beginning. But one after another, the need spreads among them, the need of the town’s people to speak some kindness to Juna, and more and more folks step up to voice their good wishes. They touch a forearm, pat the back of a hand, shake their heads at these strangers who laugh at us. Not wanting to chance getting caught up in Juna’s black eyes, they look mostly at me while they whisper their kind words, but they can’t resist a glance, a flick of their eyes, at Juna’s midsection. They want to be able to say they saw it—the early signs of the child.
Some will remember, though incorrectly, the day Joseph Carl Baine hanged as a day folks celebrated. There will even be reports in newspapers across the country of folks cheering and tearing the buttons from Joseph Carl’s shirt and the socks from his feet. For years to come, a fellow will say the leather boots that sit on his hearth, the laces tied together in a double knot, belonged to Joseph Carl. Fellow will lie and say he pulled them right off Joseph Carl’s feet while he was still dangling, the rope stretched tight by his burden, his head slung off to one side, the burlap hood still tied off at his neck.
Others will choose to pass on a story of a dignified group who gathered to see justice done and took no pleasure in the day. They will talk of ladies who wore dark wool dresses and gentlemen in hats. They will remember children who stood quietly, didn’t talk back, didn’t dare talk back. They will remember those same children hoisted to sit on their parents’ shoulders so they’d rise high above the crowd and could see what happened when a man lost his way.