processes of organized and historic, as well as hieratic, religious
powers and forms (theological seminaries, organized churches and
their affiliations and product--all carefully and advisedly and
legitimately because historically and dogmatically interpreting the
word of God) choosing to walk forth and without ordination after
any fashion conduct an unauthorized and hence nondescript mission.
Besides if she had remained at home, as a good mother should, and
devoted herself to her son, as well as to her other children--their
care and education--would this--have happened?
And not only that--but according to Clyde's own testimony in this
trial, had he not been guilty of adultery with this girl--whether
he had slain her or not? A sin almost equal to murder in many
minds. Had he not confessed it? And was an appeal for a convicted
adulterer--if not murderer (who could tell as to that?) to be made
in a church? No,--no Christian church was the place to debate, and
for a charge, the merits of this case, however much each Christian
of each and every church might sympathize with Mrs. Griffiths
personally--or resent any legal injustice that might have been done
her son. No, no. It was not morally advisable. It might even
tend to implant in the minds of the young some of the details of
the crime.
Besides, because of what the newspapers had said of her coming east
to aid her son and the picture that she herself presented in her
homely garb, it was assumed by most ministers that she was one of
those erratic persons, not a constituent of any definite sect, or
schooled theology, who tended by her very appearance to cast
contempt on true and pure religion.
And in consequence, each in turn--not hardening his heart exactly--
but thinking twice--and deciding no--there must be some better way--
less troublesome to Christians,--a public hall, perhaps, to which
Christians, if properly appealed to through the press, might well
repair. And so Mrs. Griffiths, in all but one instance, rejected
in that fashion and told to go elsewhere--while in regard to the
Catholics--instinctively--because of prejudice--as well as a
certain dull wisdom not inconsistent with the facts--she failed
even to so much as think of them. The mercies of Christ as
interpreted by the holder of the sacred keys of St. Peter, as she
knew, were not for those who failed to acknowledge the authority of
the Vicar of Christ.
And therefore after many days spent in futile knockings here and
there she was at last compelled--and in no little depression, to
appeal to a Jew who controlled the principal moving picture theater
of Utica--a sinful theater. And from him, this she secured free
for a morning address on the merits of her son's case--"A mother's
appeal for her son," it was entitled--which netted her, at twenty-
five cents per person--the amazing sum of two hundred dollars. At
first this sum, small as it was, so heartened her that she was now
convinced that soon--whatever the attitude of the orthodox
Christians--she would earn enough for Clyde's appeal. It might
take time--but she would.
Nevertheless, as she soon discovered, there were other factors to
be considered--carfare, her own personal expenses in Utica and
elsewhere, to say nothing of certain very necessary sums to be sent
to Denver to her husband, who had little or nothing to go on at
present, and who, because of this very great tragedy in the family,
had been made ill--so ill indeed that the letters from Frank and
Julia were becoming very disturbing. It was possible that he might
not get well at all. Some help was necessary there.
And in consequence, in addition to paying her own expenses here,
Mrs. Griffiths was literally compelled to deduct other reducing
sums from this, her present and only source of income. It was
terrible--considering Clyde's predicament--but nevertheless must
she not sustain herself in every way in order to win to victory?
She could not reasonably abandon her husband in order to aid Clyde
alone.
Yet in the face of this--as time went on, the audiences growing
smaller and smaller until at last they constituted little more than
a handful--and barely paying her expenses--although through this
process none-the-less she finally managed to put aside--over and
above all her expenses--eleven hundred dollars.
Yet, also, just at this time, and in a moment of extreme anxiety,
Frank and Julia wiring her that if she desired to see Asa again she
had better come home at once. He was exceedingly low and not
expected to live. Whereupon, played upon by these several
difficulties and there being no single thing other than to visit
him once or twice a week--as her engagements permitted--which she
could do for Clyde, she now hastily conferred with Belknap and
Jephson, setting forth her extreme difficulties.
And these, seeing that eleven hundred dollars of all she had thus
far collected was to be turned over to them, now, in a burst of
humanity, advised her to return to her husband. Decidedly Clyde
would do well enough for the present seeing that there was an
entire year--or at least ten months before it was necessary to file
the record and the briefs in the case. In addition another year
assuredly must elapse before a decision could be reached. And no
doubt before that time the additional part of the appeal fee could
be raised. Or, if not--well, then--anyhow (seeing how worn and
distrait she was at this time) she need not worry. Messrs. Belknap
and Jephson would see to it that her son's interests were properly
protected. They would file an appeal and make an argument--and do
whatever else was necessary to insure her son a fair hearing at the
proper time.
And with that great burden off her mind--and two last visits to
Clyde in which she assured him of her determination to return as
speedily as possible--once Asa was restored to strength again and
she could see her way to financing such a return--she now departed
only to find that, once she was in Denver once more, it was not so
easy to restore him by any means.
And in the meantime Clyde was left to cogitate on and make the best
of a world that at its best was a kind of inferno of mental ills--
above which--as above Dante's might have been written--"abandon
hope--ye who enter here."
The somberness of it. Its slow and yet searing psychic force! The
obvious terror and depression--constant and unshakeable of those
who, in spite of all their courage or their fears, their bravado or
their real indifference (there were even those) were still
compelled to think and wait. For, now, in connection with this
coldest and bitterest form of prison life he was in constant
psychic, if not physical contact, with twenty other convicted
characters of varying temperaments and nationalities, each one of
whom, like himself, had responded to some heat or lust or misery of
his nature or his circumstances. And with murder, a mental as well
as physical explosion, as the final outcome or concluding episode
which, being detected, and after what horrors and wearinesses of
mental as well as legal contest and failure, such as fairly
paralleled his own, now found themselves islanded--immured--in one
or another of these twenty-two iron cages and awaiting--awaiting
what?
How well they knew. And how well he knew. And here with what loud
public rages and despairs or prayers--at times. At others--what
curses--foal or coarse jests--or tales addressed to all--or ribald
laughter--or sighings and groanings in these later hours when the
straining spirit having struggled to silence, there was supposedly
rest for the body and the spirit.
In an exercise court, beyond the farthermost end of the long
corridor, twice daily, for a few minutes each time, between the
hours of ten and five--the various inmates in groups of five or six
were led forth--to breathe, to walk, to practice calisthenics--or
run and leap as they chose. But always under the watchful eyes of
sufficient guards to master them in case they attempted rebellion
in any form. And to this it was, beginning with the second day,
that Clyde himself was led, now with one set of men and now with
another. But with the feeling at first strong in him that he could
not share in any of these public activities which, nevertheless,
these others--and in spite of their impending doom--seemed willing
enough to indulge in.
The two dark-eyed sinister-looking Italians, one of whom had slain
a girl because she would not marry him; the other who had robbed
and then slain and attempted to burn the body of his father-in-law
in order to get money for himself and his wife! And big Larry
Donahue--square-headed, square-shouldered--big of feet and hands,
an overseas soldier, who, being ejected from a job as night
watchman in a Brooklyn factory, had lain for the foreman who had
discharged him--and then killed him on an open common somewhere at
night, but without the skill to keep from losing a service medal
which had eventually served to betray and identify him. Clyde had
learned all this from the strangely indifferent and non-committal,
yet seemingly friendly guards, who were over these cells by night
and by day--two and two, turn about--who relieved each other every
eight hours. And police officer Riordan of Rochester, who had
killed his wife because she was determined to leave him--and now,
himself, was to die. And Thomas Mowrer, the young "farmer" or farm
hand, as he really was, whom Clyde on his first night had heard
moaning--a man who had killed his employer with a pitchfork--and
was soon to die now--as Clyde heard, and who walked and walked,
keeping close to the wall--his head down, his hands behind his
back--a rude, strong, loutish man of about thirty, who looked more
beaten and betrayed than as though he had been able to torture or
destroy another. Clyde wondered about him--his real guilt.
Again Miller Nicholson, a lawyer of Buffalo of perhaps forty years
of age who was tall and slim and decidedly superior looking--a
refined, intellectual type, one you would have said was no
murderer--any more than Clyde--to look at, who, none-the-less was
convicted of poisoning an old man of great wealth and afterwards
attempting to convert his fortune to his own use. Yet decidedly
with nothing in his look or manner, as Clyde felt, at least, which
marked him as one so evil--a polite and courteous man, who, noting
Clyde on the very first morning of his arrival here, approached and
said: "Scared?" But in the most gentle and solicitous tone, as
Clyde could hear and feel, even though he stood blank and icy--
afraid almost to move--or think. Yet in this mood--and because he
felt so truly done for, replying: "Yes, I guess I am." But once
it was out, wondering why he had said it (so weak a confession) and
afterwards something in the man heartening him, wishing that he had
not.
"Your name's Griffiths, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Well, my name's Nicholson. Don't be frightened. You'll get used
to it." He achieved a cheerful, if wan smile. But his eyes--they
did not seem like that--no smile there.
"I don't suppose I'm so scared either," replied Clyde, trying to
modify his first, quick and unintended confession.
"Well, that's good. Be game. We all have to be here--or the whole
place would go crazy. Better breathe a little. Or walk fast.
It'll do you good."
He moved away a few paces and began exercising his arms while Clyde
stood there, saying--almost loudly--so shaken was he still: "We
all have to be or the whole place would go crazy." That was true,
as he could see and feel after that first night. Crazy, indeed.
Tortured to death, maybe, by being compelled to witness these
terrible and completely destroying--and for each--impending
tragedies. But how long would he have to endure this? How long
would he?
In the course of a day or two, again he found this death house was
not quite like that either--not all terror--on the surface at
least. It was in reality--and in spite of impending death in every
instance, a place of taunt and jibe and jest--even games,
athletics, the stage--all forms of human contest of skill--or the
arguments on every conceivable topic from death and women to lack
of it, as far at least as the general low intelligence of the group
permitted.
For the most part, as soon as breakfast was over--among those who
were not called upon to join the first group for exercise, there
were checkers or cards, two games that were played--not with a
single set of checkers or a deck of cards between groups released
from their cells, but by one of the ever present keepers providing
two challenging prisoners (if it were checkers) with one checker-
board but no checkers. They were not needed. Thereafter the
opening move was called by one. "I move from G 2 to E 1"--each
square being numbered--each side lettered. The moves checked with
a pencil.
Thereafter the second party--having recorded this move on his own
board and having studied the effect of it on his own general
position, would call: "I move from E 7 to F 5." If more of those
present decided to join in this--either on one side or the other,
additional boards and pencils were passed to each signifying his
desire. Then Shorty Bristol, desiring to aid "Dutch" Swighort,
three cells down, might call: "I wouldn't do that, Dutch. Wait a
minute, there's a better move than that." And so on with taunts,
oaths, laughter, arguments, according to the varying fortunes and
difficulties of the game. And so, too, with cards. These were
played with each man locked in his cell, yet quite as successfully.
But Clyde did not care for cards--or for these jibing and coarse
hours of conversation. There was for him--and with the exception
of the speech of one--Nicholson--alone, too much ribald and even
brutal talk which he could not appreciate. But he was drawn to
Nicholson. He was beginning to think after a time--a few days--
that this lawyer--his presence and companionship during the
exercise hour--whenever they chanced to be in the same set--could
help him to endure this. He was the most intelligent and
respectable man here. The others were all so different--taciturn
at times--and for the most part so sinister, crude or remote.
But then and that not more than a week after his coming here--and
when, because of his interest in Nicholson, he was beginning to
feel slightly sustained at least--the execution of Pasquale
Cutrone, of Brooklyn, an Italian, convicted of the slaying of his
brother for attempting to seduce his wife. He had one of the cells
nearest the transverse passage, so Clyde learned after arriving,
and had in part lost his mind from worrying. At any rate he was
invariably left in his cell when the others--in groups of six--were
taken for exercise. But the horror of his emaciated face, as Clyde
passed and occasionally looked in--a face divided into three grim
panels by two gutters or prison lines of misery that led from the
eyes to the corners of the mouth.
Beginning with his, Clyde's arrival, as he learned, Pasquale had
begun to pray night and day. For already, before that, he had been
notified of the approximate date of his death which was to be
within the week. And after that he was given to crawling up and
down his cell on his hands and knees, kissing the floor, licking
the feet of a brass Christ on a cross that had been given him.
Also he was repeatedly visited by an Italian brother and sister
fresh from Italy and for whose benefit at certain hours, he was
removed to the old death house. But as all now whispered, Pasquale
was mentally beyond any help that might lie in brothers or sisters.
All night long and all day long, when they were not present, he did
this crawling to and fro and praying, and those who were awake and
trying to read to pass the time, were compelled to listen to his
mumbled prayers, the click of the beads of a rosary on which he was
numbering numberless Our Fathers and Hail Marys.
And though there were voices which occasionally said: "Oh, for
Christ's sake--if he would only sleep a little"--still on, on. And
the tap of his forehead on the floor--in prayer, until at last the
fatal day preceding the one on which he was to die, when Pasquale
was taken from his cell here and escorted to another in the old
death house beyond and where, before the following morning, as
Clyde later learned, last farewells, if any, were to be said. Also
he was to be allowed a few hours in which to prepare his soul for
his maker.
But throughout that night what a strange condition was this that
settled upon all who were of this fatal room. Few ate any supper
as the departing trays showed. There was silence--and after that
mumbled prayers on the part of some--not so greatly removed by time
from Pasquale's fate, as they knew. One Italian, sentenced for the
murder of a bank watchman, became hysterical, screamed, dashed the
chair and table of his cell against the bars of his door, tore the
sheets of his bed to shreds and even sought to strangle himself
before eventually he was overpowered and removed to a cell in a
different part of the building to be observed as to his sanity.
As for the others, throughout this excitement, one could hear them
walking and mumbling or calling to the guards to do something. And
as for Clyde, never having experienced or imagined such a scene, he
was literally shivering with fear and horror. All through the last
night of this man's life he lay on his pallet, chasing phantoms.
So this was what death was like here; men cried, prayed, they lost
their minds--yet the deadly process was in no way halted, for all
their terror. Instead, at ten o'clock and in order to quiet all
those who were left, a cold lunch was brought in and offered--but
with none eating save the Chinaman over the way.
And then at four the following morning--the keepers in charge of
the deadly work coming silently along the main passage and drawing
the heavy green curtains with which the cells were equipped so that
none might see the fatal procession which was yet to return along
the transverse passage from the old death house to the execution
room. And yet with Clyde and all the others waking and sitting up
at the sound.
It was here, the execution! The hour of death was at hand. This
was the signal. In their separate cells, many of those who through
fear or contrition, or because of innate religious convictions, had
been recalled to some form of shielding or comforting faith, were
upon their knees praying. Among the rest were others who merely
walked or muttered. And still others who screamed from time to
time in an incontrollable fever of terror.
As for Clyde he was numb and dumb. Almost thoughtless. They were
going to kill that man in that other room in there. That chair--
that chair that he had so greatly feared this long while was in
there--was so close now. Yet his time as Jephson and his mother
had told him was so long and distant as yet--if ever--ever it was
to be--if ever--ever--
But now other sounds. Certain walkings to and fro. A cell door
clanking somewhere. Then plainly the door leading from the old
death house into this room opening--for there was a voice--several
voices indistinct as yet. Then another voice a little clearer as
if some one praying. That tell-tale shuffling of feet as a
procession moved across and through that passage. "Lord have
mercy. Christ have mercy."
"Mary, Mother of Grace, Mary, Mother of Mercy, St. Michael, pray
for me; my good Angel, pray for me."
"Holy Mary, pray for me; St. Joseph, pray for me. St. Ambrose,
pray for me; all ye saints and angels, pray for me."
"St. Michael, pray for me; my good Angel, pray for me."
It was the voice of the priest accompanying the doomed man and
reciting a litany. Yet he was no longer in his right mind they
said. And yet was not that his voice mumbling too? It was. Clyde
could tell. He had heard it too much recently. And now that other
door would be opened. He would be looking through it--this
condemned man--so soon to be dead--at it--seeing it--that cap--
those straps. Oh, he knew all about those by now though they
should never come to be put upon him, maybe.
"Good-by, Cutrone!" It was a hoarse, shaky voice from some near-by
cell--Clyde could not tell which. "Go to a better world than
this." And then other voices: "Goodby, Cutrone. God keep you--
even though you can't talk English."
The procession had passed. That door was shut. He was in there
now. They were strapping him in, no doubt. Asking him what more
he had to say--he who was no longer quite right in his mind. Now
the straps must be fastened on, surely. The cap pulled down. In a
moment, a moment, surely--
And then, although Clyde did not know or notice at the moment--a
sudden dimming of the lights in this room--as well as over the
prison--an idiotic or thoughtless result of having one electric
system to supply the death voltage and the incandescence of this
and all other rooms. And instantly a voice calling:
"There she goes. That's one. Well, it's all over with him."
And a second voice: "Yes, he's topped off, poor devil."
And then after the lapse of a minute perhaps, a second dimming
lasting for thirty seconds--and finally a third dimming.
"There--sure--that's the end now."
"Yes. He knows what's on the other side now."
Thereafter silence--a deadly hush with later some murmured prayers
here and there. But with Clyde cold and with a kind of shaking
ague. He dared not think--let alone cry. So that's how it was.
They drew the curtains. And then--and then. He was gone now.
Those three dimmings of the lights. Sure, those were the flashes.
And after all those nights at prayer. Those moanings! Those
beatings of his head! And only a minute ago he had been alive--
walking by there. But now dead. And some day he--he!--how could
he be sure that he would not? How could he?
He shook and shook, lying on his couch, face down. The keepers
came and ran up the curtains--as sure and secure in their lives
apparently as though there was no death in the world. And
afterwards he could hear them talking--not to him so much--he had
proved too reticent thus far--but to some of the others.
Poor Pasquale. This whole business of the death penalty was all
wrong. The warden thought so. So did they. He was working to
have it abolished.
But that man! His prayers! And now he was gone. His cell over
there was empty and another man would be put in it--to go too,
later. Some one--many--like Cutrone, like himself--had been in this
one--on this pallet. He sat up--moved to the chair. But he--they--
had sat on that--too. He stood up--only to sink down on the pallet
again. "God! God! God! God!" he now exclaimed to himself--but
not aloud--and yet not unlike that other man who had so terrorized
him on the night of his arrival here and who was still here. But he
would go too. And all of these others--and himself maybe--unless--
unless.
He had seen his first man die.
Chapter 31
In the meantime, however, Asa's condition had remained serious, and
it was four entire months before it was possible for him to sit up
again or for Mrs. Griffiths to dream of resuming her lecturing
scheme. But by that time, public interest in her and her son's
fate was considerably reduced. No Denver paper was interested to
finance her return for anything she could do for them. And as for
the public in the vicinity of the crime, it remembered Mrs.
Griffiths and her son most clearly, and in so far as she was
concerned, sympathetically--but only, on the other hand, to think
of him as one who probably was guilty and in that case, being
properly punished for his crime--that it would be as well if an
appeal were not taken--or--if it were--that it be refused. These
guilty criminals with their interminable appeals!
And with Clyde where he was, more and more executions--although as
he found--and to his invariable horror, no one ever became used to
such things there; farmhand Mowrer for the slaying of his former
employer; officer Riordan for the slaying of his wife--and a fine
upstanding officer too but a minute before his death; and
afterwards, within the month, the going of the Chinaman, who
seemed, for some reason, to endure a long time (and without a word
in parting to any one--although it was well known that he spoke a
few words of English). And after him Larry Donahue, the overseas
soldier--with a grand call--just before the door closed behind:
"Good-by boys. Good luck."
And after him again--but, oh--that was so hard; so much closer to
Clyde--so depleting to his strength to think of bearing this deadly
life here without--Miller Nicholson--no less. For after five
months in which they had been able to walk and talk and call to
each other from time to time from their cells and Nicholson had
begun to advise him as to books to read--as well as one important
point in connection with his own case--on appeal--or in the event
of any second trial, i.e.,--that the admission of Roberta's letters
as evidence, as they stood, at least, be desperately fought on the
ground that the emotional force of them was detrimental in the case
of any jury anywhere, to a calm unbiased consideration of the
material facts presented by them--and that instead of the letters
being admitted as they stood they should be digested for the facts
alone and that digest--and that only offered to the jury. "If your
lawyers can get the Court of Appeals to agree to the soundness of
that you will win your case sure."
And Clyde at once, after inducing a personal visit on the part of
Jephson, laying this suggestion before him and hearing him say that
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