Fifty
T
he walk back to the observation cell was much longer than before. Adam made it alone, by now on familiar terrain. Lucas Mann disappeared somewhere in the labyrinth of the Row.
As Adam waited before a heavy barred door in the center of the building, he was immediately aware of two things. First, there were many more people hanging around now—more guards, more strangers with plastic badges and guns on their hips, more stern-faced men with short-sleeved shirts and polyester ties. This was a happening, a singular phenomenon too thrilling to be missed. Adam speculated that any prison employee with enough pull and enough clout just had to be on the Row when Sam’s death sentence was carried out.
The second thing he realized was that his shirt was soaked and the collar was sticking to his neck. He loosened his tie as the door clicked loudly then slid open under the hum of a hidden electric motor. A guard somewhere in the maze of concrete walls and windows and bars was watching and punching the right buttons. He stepped through, still pulling on the knot of his tie and the button under it, and walked to the next barrier, a wall of bars leading to Tier A. He patted his forehead, but there was no sweat. He filled his lungs with muggy, dank air.
With the windows shut, the tier was now suffocating. Another loud click, another electric hum, and he stepped into the thin hallway, which Sam had told him
was seven and a half feet wide. Three dingy sets of fluorescent bulbs cast dim shadows on the ceiling and floor. He pushed his heavy feet past the dark cells, all filled with brutal murderers, each one now praying or meditating, a couple even crying.
“Good news, Adam?” J. B. Gullitt pleaded from the darkness.
Adam didn’t answer. Still walking, he glanced up at the windows with their various shades of paint splattered around the ancient panes, and was struck by the question of how many lawyers before him had made this final walk from the front office to the Observation Cell to inform a dying man that the last thin shred of hope was now gone. This place had a rich history of executions, and so he concluded that many others had suffered along this trail. Garner Goodman himself had carried the final news to Maynard Tole, and this gave Adam a much needed shot of strength.
He ignored the curious stares of the small mob standing and gawking at him at the end of the tier. He stopped at the last cell, waited, and the door obediently opened.
Sam and the reverend were still sitting low on the bed, heads nearly touching in the darkness, whispering. They looked up at Adam, who sat next to Sam and placed his arm around his shoulders, shoulders that now seemed even frailer. “The Supreme Court just denied everything,” he said very softly, his voice on the verge of cracking. The reverend exhaled a painful moan. Sam nodded as if this was certainly expected. “And the governor just denied clemency.”
Sam tried to raise his shoulders bravely, but power failed him. He slumped even lower.
“Lord have mercy,” Ralph Griffin said.
“Then it’s all over,” Sam said.
“There’s nothing left,” Adam whispered.
Excited murmurings could be heard from the death squad squeezed together at the end of the tier. This thing would happen after all. A door slammed somewhere behind them, in the direction of the chamber, and Sam’s knees jerked together.
He was silent for a moment—one minute or fifteen, Adam couldn’t tell. The clock was still lurching and stopping.
“I guess we oughta pray now, preacher,” Sam said.
“I reckon so. We’ve waited long enough.”
“How do you wanna do it?”
“Well, Sam, just exactly what do you want to pray about?”
Sam pondered this for a moment, then said, “I’d like to make sure God’s not angry with me when I die.”
“Good idea. And why do you think God might be angry with you?”
“Pretty obvious, isn’t it?”
Ralph rubbed his hands together. “I guess the best way to do this is to confess your sins, and ask God to forgive you.”
“All of them?”
“You don’t have to list them all, just ask God to forgive everything.”
“Sort of a blanket repentance.”
“Yeah, that’s it. And it’ll work, if you’re serious.”
“I’m serious as hell.”
“Do you believe in hell, Sam?”
“I do.”
“Do you believe in heaven?”
“I do.”
“Do you believe that all Christians go to heaven?”
Sam thought about this for a long time, then nodded slightly before asking, “Do you?”
“Yes, Sam. I do.”
“Then I’ll take your word for it.”
“Good. Trust me on this one, okay?”
“It seems too easy, you know. I just say a quick prayer, and everything’s forgiven.”
“Why does that bother you?”
“Because I’ve done some bad things, preacher.”
“We’ve all done bad things. Our God is a God of infinite love.”
“You haven’t done what I’ve done.”
“Will you feel better if you talk about it?”
“Yeah, I won’t ever feel right unless I talk about it.”
“I’m here, Sam.”
“Should I leave for a minute?” Adam asked. Sam clutched his knee. “No.”
“We don’t have a lot of time, Sam,” Ralph said, glancing through the bars.
Sam took a deep breath, and spoke in a low monotone, careful that only Adam and Ralph could hear. “I killed Joe Lincoln in cold blood. I’ve already said I was sorry.”
Ralph was mumbling something to himself as he listened. He was already in prayer.
“And I helped my brothers kill those two men who murdered our father. Frankly, I’ve never felt bad about it until now. Human life seems a whole lot more valuable these days. I was wrong. And I took part in a lynching when I was fifteen or sixteen. I was just part of a mob, and I probably couldn’t have stopped it if I’d tried. But I didn’t try, and I feel guilty about it.”
Sam stopped. Adam held his breath and hoped the confessional was over. Ralph waited and waited, and finally asked, “Is that it, Sam?”
“No. There’s one more.”
Adam closed his eyes and braced for it. He was dizzy and wanted to vomit.
“There was another lynching. A boy named Cletus. I
can’t remember his last name. A Klan lynching. I was eighteen. That’s all I can say.”
This nightmare will never end, Adam thought.
Sam breathed deeply and was silent for several minutes. Ralph was praying hard. Adam just waited.
“And I didn’t kill those Kramer boys,” Sam said, his voice shaking. “I had no business being there, and I was wrong to be involved in that mess. I’ve regretted it for many years, all of it. It was wrong to be in the Klan, hating everybody and planting bombs. But I didn’t kill those boys. There was no intent to harm anyone. That bomb was supposed to go off in the middle of the night when no one would be anywhere near it. That’s what I truly believed. But it was wired by someone else, not me. I was just a lookout, a driver, a flunky. This other person rigged the bomb to go off much later than I thought. I’ve never known for sure if he intended to kill anyone, but I suspect he did.”
Adam heard the words, received them, absorbed them, but was too stunned to move.
“But I could’ve stopped it. And that makes me guilty. Those little boys would be alive today if I had acted differently after the bomb was planted. Their blood is on my hands, and I’ve grieved over this for many years.”
Ralph gently placed a hand on the back of Sam’s head. “Pray with me, Sam.” Sam covered his eyes with both hands and rested his elbows on his knees.
“Do you believe Jesus Christ was the son of God; that he came to this earth, born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, was persecuted, and died on the cross so that we might have eternal salvation? Do you believe this, Sam?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“And that he arose from the grave and ascended into heaven?”
“Yes.”
“And that through him all of your sins are forgiven? All the terrible things that burden your heart are now forgiven. Do you believe this, Sam?”
“Yes, yes.”
Ralph released Sam’s head, and wiped tears from his eyes. Sam didn’t move, but his shoulders were shaking. Adam squeezed him even tighter.
Randy Dupree started whistling another stanza of “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.” His notes were clear and precise, and they echoed nicely along the tier.
“Preacher,” Sam said as his back stiffened, “will those little Kramer boys be in heaven?”
“Yes.”
“But they were Jews.”
“All children go to heaven, Sam.”
“Will I see them up there?”
“I don’t know. There’s a lot about heaven we don’t know. But the Bible promises that there will be no sorrow when we get there.”
“Good. Then I hope I see them.”
The unmistakable voice of Colonel Nugent broke the calm. The tier door clanged, rattled, and opened. He marched five feet to the door of the Observation Cell. Six guards were behind him. “Sam, it’s time to go to the Isolation Room,” he said. “It’s eleven o’clock.”
The three men stood, side by side. The cell door opened, and Sam stepped out. He smiled at Nugent, then he turned and hugged the reverend. “Thanks,” he said.
“I love you, brother!” Randy Dupree yelled from his cell, not ten feet away.
Sam looked at Nugent, and asked, “Could I say good-bye to my friends?”
A deviation. The manual plainly said that the prisoner was to be taken directly from the Observation
Cell to the Isolation Room, with nothing being mentioned about a final promenade down the tier. Nugent was dumbstruck, but after a few seconds rallied nicely. “Sure, but make it quick.”
Sam took a few steps and clasped Randy’s hands through the bars. Then he stepped to the next cell and shook hands with Harry Ross Scott.
Ralph Griffin eased past the guards and left the tier. He found a dark corner and wept like a child. He would not see Sam again. Adam stood in the door of the cell, near Nugent, and together they watched Sam work his way down the hallway, stopping at each cell, whispering something to each inmate. He spent the most time with J. B. Gullitt, whose sobs could be heard.
Then he turned and walked bravely back to them, counting steps as he went, smiling at his pals along the way. He took Adam by the hand. “Let’s go,” he said to Nugent.
There were so damned many guards packed together at the end of the tier that it was a tight squeeze just to get by them. Nugent went first, then Sam and Adam. The mass of human congestion added several degrees to the temperature and several layers to the stuffy air. The show of force was necessary, of course, to subdue a reluctant prisoner, or perhaps to scare one into submission. It seemed awfully silly with a little old man like Sam Cayhall.
The walk from one room to another took only seconds, a distance of twenty feet, but Adam winced with every painful step. Through the human tunnel of armed guards, through the heavy steel door, into the small room. The door on the opposite wall was shut. It led to the chamber.
A flimsy cot had been hauled in for the occasion. Adam and Sam sat on it. Nugent closed the door, and
knelt before them. The three of them were alone. Adam again placed his arm around Sam’s shoulders.
Nugent was wearing a terribly pained expression. He placed a hand on Sam’s knee, and said, “Sam, we’re gonna get through this together. Now—”
“You goofy fool,” Adam blurted, amazed at this remarkable utterance.
“He can’t help it,” Sam said helpfully to Adam. “He’s just stupid. He didn’t even realize it.”
Nugent felt the sharp rebuke, and tried to think of something proper to say. “I’m just trying to get through this, okay?” he said to Adam.
“Why don’t you just leave?” Adam said.
“You know something, Nugent?” Sam asked. “I’ve read tons of law books. And I’ve read pages and pages of prison regulations. And nowhere have I read anything that requires me to spend my last hour with you. No law, statute, regulation, nothing.”
“Just get the hell out of here,” Adam said, ready to strike if necessary.
Nugent jumped to his feet. “The doctor will enter through that door at eleven-forty. He’ll stick a stethoscope to your chest, then leave. At eleven fifty-five, I will enter, also through that door. At that time, we’ll go into the Chamber Room. Any questions?”
“No. Leave,” Adam said, waving at the door. Nugent made a quick exit.
Suddenly, they were alone. With an hour to go.
______
Two identical prison vans rolled to a stop in front of the Visitors Center, and were boarded by the eight lucky reporters and one lone sheriff. The law allowed, but did not require, the sheriff of the county where the crime was committed to witness the execution.
The man who was the sheriff of Washington County
in 1967 had been dead for fifteen years, but the current sheriff was not about to miss this event. He had informed Lucas Mann earlier in the day that he fully intended to invoke the power of the law. Said he felt like he owed it to the people of Greenville and Washington County.
Mr. Elliot Kramer was not present at Parchman. He had planned the trip for years, but his doctor intervened at the last moment. His heart was weak and it was just too risky. Ruth Kramer had never thought seriously of witnessing the execution. She was at home in Memphis, sitting with friends, waiting for it to end.
There would be no members of the victims’ family present to witness the killing of Sam Cayhall.
The vans were heavily photographed and filmed as they left and disappeared on the main drive. Five minutes later, they stopped at the gates of MSU. Everyone was asked to step outside, where they were checked for cameras and recorders. They reboarded the vans and were cleared through the gates. The vans drove through the grass along the front of MSU, then around the bullpens on the west end, then stopped very near the ambulance.
Nugent himself was waiting. The reporters stepped from the vans and instinctively began looking wildly around, trying to grasp it all to record later. They were just outside a square red-brick building that was somehow attached to the low, flat structure that was MSU. The little building had two doors. One was closed, the other was waiting for them.