That Night at the Palace (40 page)

“He don’t want to be free,” Cherokee said, simply knowing, as did Crawford, what would happen the moment he was out of jail.

“What about the killing of that Crawford man’s brother? That should be investigated.”

“And it will,” the judge replied. “Jesse what happened that night?”

Jesse looked at Cherokee, who nodded, and then back to the judge and answered, “He took me out to the tracks. I guess he was going to kill me. He dragged me out of his car by my hair. When Cherokee got there Crawford shot at him and hit him in the wood leg. He was about to shoot again and I found a stick and started hitting him on the head.”

“So let me get this straight. He had already shot at your friend, and you feared that he might kill you as well, is that correct?”

“Yes sir, your honor.”

“Well that settles that.”

“Wait a minute, your honor,” Cockwright argued loudly.

“No, you wait a minute, Cockwright,” the judge said angrily. “How did that Houston paper get that story and those crime scene pictures?”

Cockwright stiffened. He had prepared himself. The judge was bound to ask. “I don’t know. The paper said something about a source close to the trial. I suspect it was someone in Elza.”

“Jefferson,” the judge asked directing his attention to Chief Hightower, “did you give those pictures to that paper?”

“It wasn’t me, Buck. I mean, your Honor,” Jefferson said, earning a grin from McKinney.

“Mr. McKinney,” Buckner asked, “would you mind, in your capacity as a Texas Ranger, going down to Houston to conduct an investigation on behalf of this court to find out exactly how that newspaper got their hands on sensitive evidence in a murder trial?”

Cockwright turned white.

“Your Honor, The Texas Rangers would be more than happy to handle that investigation for the court.”

“Your honor,” Cockwright began. “I hardly think that’s necessary.”

“I didn’t think you would,” Buckner began. “Nathanial, I suggest that you go to your office and type up a resignation letter; that is unless you want to find yourself sitting in a cell downstairs next to Mr. Crawford. And don’t even entertain the notion of running for office again. If you run for trash collector in the state of Texas you can count on me being squarely and loudly behind your opponent. Is that understood?”

Cockwright nodded as he looked at the judge, feeling the eyes of every person in the room on him.

“Now get out of my office,” Buckner ordered.

Nathanial Cockwright stood and left the room without saying a word or making eye contact with anyone.

Once the former C. A. was gone, Buckner turned his attention to Jesse.

“Gentlemen, we have a problem,” Buckner began. “With the radio and newspaper reports of the last couple of weeks combined with that mess in this morning’s Houston paper, I’m afraid Jesse isn’t going to be safe. He might be okay in Elza, but anywhere else the name ‘Jesse Rose’ is the same as ‘Alligator Killer,’ and with what’s happening in Hawaii, I doubt that a single paper will report that we got the real killer.”

“What happened in Hawaii?” Jefferson asked innocently.

Buckner looked at the faces around the room. Clearly none of them had heard the reports.

“It was on the radio when I left the house. The Japanese attacked our navy base at Pearl Harbor.”

“Does this mean we’re going to war?” Jefferson asked.

“Probably so.”

The room grew silent as everyone considered the ramifications. Finally Jesse spoke up, “I’m not going back to Elza. I’m gonna join the army.”

“Jesse,” the chief began, “think about this.”

“I was going to before all this began. Now it makes more sense than ever.”

“You were going to college so you could be an officer. This will be a lot different.” Cherokee argued.

“I doubt that I can go to college now. Besides, you weren’t an officer. You did okay.”

“You probably need to discuss this with your parents, son,” Judge Buckner commented.

“Did you see my parents in court, Judge? They aren’t parents. They’re two people who had a kid together. Cliff’s mom and dad were my parents. I’ll catch a train and join the army up north somewhere. Maybe my name won’t be an issue up there.”

“Those stories went nationwide, but you’re right, you are probably better off joinin’ up outside of Texas,” Buckner said and then stood and added as he reached to shake Jesse’s hand, “Good luck, son.”

#

When Jesse, Cherokee, the Chief, and Corporal McKinney walked out of the courthouse, Rusk was a quiet, empty little town. The only vehicle near the square was the big pulpwood truck that Cherokee had ridden to town in.

When they reached the bottom of the steps, Chief Hightower started to shake Jesse’s hand and then wrapped him in a bear hug. When he let Jesse go he said, “I wish I could have done more for you, Jesse. Are you sure you can’t fix things with Gemma?”

“She can’t marry me now. Actually, she couldn’t before, she just didn’t know it.”

McKinney put out his hand, “You’re going to be okay, Jesse. You’ll make a good soldier. When the war’s over, if you find yourself interested in becoming a Ranger, you come look me up.”

“Thank you, Corporal McKinney,” Jesse said as he shook the man’s hand. “I might do that.”

McKinney just nodded, and he and the chief walked back to the prowler.

Epilogue

STONEY’S DINER

JACKSONVILLE, TEXAS

5:30 p.m., June 14, 2014

J
eana had tears in her eyes as she listened to her grandmother tell her story. They had finished lunch over an hour before, and the waitress had just poured a third cup of coffee for the two of them.

“When I finished high school I went to secretary school up in Dallas. After I graduated from there, I worked at that same Chevrolet Dealership here in Jacksonville that Jewel worked at. I was working there when I met your grandfather.

“I was sitting at this booth with a girlfriend from work having lunch one day when I looked down at a paper and saw Jesse’s name. He was listed among the Cherokee County boys who were killed at Normandy. We would always look to see if someone we knew had been killed or captured.” Gemma paused and swallowed hard, trying not to cry again, “I didn’t go back to work that afternoon. I went home and cried and cried. And then I was over it. At least that’s what I thought.

“A few years after marrying your grandfather, I was at home ironing his work shirts when there was a knock on the door. We had moved up to Dallas only a few months before. It was the day your mother started first grade. I remember because I was in the house alone for the first time in years.

“I was shocked when I answered the door and saw Shakes Blankenship. He looked completely different, wearing a clean pressed suit but he had the same kind smile he’d had when I first met him at the county jail. He had his wife, Judy, with him.

“I knew the moment I saw him that the visit had something to do with Jesse. After so many years, I had gotten to the point that I didn’t think about him much.

“He said that people had started to call him ‘Brother Shakes.’ He worked part time with Brother Bill at the church in Elza. They showed me pictures of their children, and I showed them pictures of your mother.

“He said that he liked to go by the name ‘Shakes’ because it reminded him of who he once was.

“I’m not sure why he felt like he needed to come and tell me the story. He may have needed to just get it off his chest, but I think he really felt like it was a way of doing something for Jesse. Most likely he felt that I needed to know the truth. He was right, of course. I needed it. I broke down and cried like a baby all that afternoon. I’d held all of my tears and anger inside for years, not knowing but always wondering what had really happened and why. It felt like the two of them had lifted an enormous load off my shoulders.

“He said that he had slipped out of town with the crowd after the almost-lynching. Given what had happened, no one was going to miss an old hobo. Not long after that started working again as an accountant and eventually he went to seminary to learn to be a preacher. While there he met Judy and they got married. They moved back to Elza, and he worked part-time as an accountant and part-time at the church.

“He told me that he spent a lot of time with old Cherokee before he died and even more time with Chief Hightower.

“It hurt when he told me all the things my father had done. It hurt even more to think that Daddy tried to kill Jesse and Cherokee and that Uncle Ricky was the one who murdered Cliff and Jewel.

“That was the last time I saw Shakes, but for the next fifty years he and Judy were my two best friends, next to your grandfather. I wrote to them almost every week. People did that in those days. Whenever we had problems of some sort, I’d write a letter to Shakes spilling out all of my sorrow, and a day or two later I’d get a reply. He always knew just the right thing to say. In a way he became the father I’d never really had.

“He eventually started a ministry to help the homeless. He traveled all over the country helping to feed people. He helped start organizations everywhere. I used to get postcards from places like India and Mozambique. You saw what it was like today. I doubt that you could count the number of lives he and Judy touched over the years.

“The funeral? That was Shakes? That lady was his daughter?” Jeana asked.

Gemma smiled and nodded. “He went from being a hobo to one of the greatest men I’ve ever known, all because of three little kids and some stolen watermelons.

“Some years ago I finally got my courage up and went down to the library and did some research. Sure enough, my father and Uncle Ricky had gone to prison for assaulting a Texas Ranger. The more I thought about it, the more it all made sense. My mother and daddy fought all the time in those days, and he was always out until late at night. He didn’t have a job, but Daddy always had money.

“My father was a bookie, he a womanizer, and he was a rapist. For all I know he may have been a murderer, too. And all that time Jesse was protecting me from knowing what kind of man he was. All those years he kept that secret. I hated him, and he was just trying to protect me.”

“Do you still love him, Grandmother?”

Gemma smiled and reached across the table and took Jeana’s hand. “I loved your grandfather. He was a good man. He gave me a daughter, and I have the best granddaughter I could ever have asked for.”

She paused, searching for words as her eyes moistened.

“Jesse would have gone to prison to keep me from knowing what kind of men my father and uncle were. If you had asked me that yesterday, I might have said, no. But right now I think I love him more than I ever did.”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
S

First I must say a special thank you to Deanna Darr for her efforts at editing my poor attempts at writing. Her hard work turned a series of misspelled words followed by misused commas into what you just read. I can’t begin to thank her enough.

Secondly, I have to express my appreciation to Dawn at Austin Design Works www.austindesignworks.com for her cover and website design. She did a masterful job and I can’t begin to express how proud I am of her work.

I would also like to thank Greg Hill, Kim Cook, John Pevoto, and Carolyn Smith for going through the book for a final edit. It is amazing how many errors a few extra sets of eyes can find.

I hope you enjoyed this yarn. I’m hard at work on the next one. For more information and updates come to my website
www.LDWatson.com
and go see my pictures at
www.LDPix.com
.

About L.D. Watson

L.D. is a graduate of the University of Texas at Arlington where he studied film and television. He has a long career in film and video with credits that include television shows, commercials, and motion pictures. Like a lot of people in that industry L.D. has written a number of screenplays including one that was a jury finalist at the Houston International Film Festival.

He’s a Christ Follower and a Texan to the core. He likes to say that he owns two types of shoes; flip-flops and cowboy boots. He loves to ride horses but he hates being called a cowboy. As he once said, “I don’t dip snuff, I’ve never owned a pair of Wranglers, and I hate country music, unless you count ZZ Top as country, of course.”

Most weekends he can be found driving across Texas with his camera taking pictures for his website
www.LDpix.com
. His photographic philosophy is simply that, “There’s pictures everywhere, you just got to find a way to get them into your camera.”

He is writer or contributor on three different blogs and once published a weekly newsletter titled, “Mondays”. Currently he is focusing on his two blogs, LD talk and PixTalk. And, of course he’s hard at work on his third novel.