"Let's go." Lucas grabbed his elbow and led him to the first van. He said something to a guard, who jumped into the front seat. Adam and Lucas sat on a bench in the center of it.
Adam knew at that precise moment his grandfather was in the chamber gasping for breath, his lungs seared with burning poison. Just over there, in that little red-brick building, right now, he's sucking it in, trying to swallow as much as possible, hoping to simply float away to a better world.
He began to cry. The van moved around the recreation yards and through the grass in front of the Row. He covered his eyes, and cried for Sam, for his suffering at this moment, for the despicable way he was being forced to die. He looked so pitiful sitting there in his new clothes being tied down like an animal. He cried for Sam and the last nine and a half years he'd spent staring through bars, trying to catch a glimpse of the moon, wondering if anyone out there cared about him. He cried for the whole wretched Cayhall family and their miserable history. And he cried for himself, for his anguish at this moment, for the loss of a loved one, for his failure to stop this madness.
Lucas patted him gently on the shoulder and the van rolled and stopped, then rolled and stopped again. "I'm sorry," he said more than once.
"This your car?" Lucas asked, as they stopped outside the gate. The dirt parking lot was filled to capacity. Adam yanked the door handle and stepped out without a word. He could say thanks later.
He sped along the gravel trail, between the rows of cotton, until he came to the main drive. He drove quickly to the front entrance, slowing only briefly as he weaved around two barricades, then stopped at the front gate so a guard could check his trunk. To his left was the swarm of reporters. They were on their feet, waiting anxiously for word from the Row. Mini-cams were ready.
There was no one in his trunk, and he was waved around another barricade, almost hitting a guard who wasn't moving fast enough. He stopped at the highway, and paused to look at the candlelight vigil under way to his right.
Hundreds of candles. And a hymn in progress somewhere down the way.
He sped away, past state troopers loitering about, enjoying the break in the action. He sped past cars parked on the shoulders for two miles, and soon Parchman was behind him. He pushed the turbo, and was soon doing ninety.
He headed north for some reason, though he had no intention of going to Memphis. Towns like Tutwiler, Lambert, Marks, Sledge, and Crenshaw flew by. He rolled the windows down and the warm air swirled around the seats. The windshield was peppered with large bugs and insects, the plague of the Delta, he'd learned.
He just drove, with no particular destination. This trip had not been planned. He'd given no thought to where he would go immediately after Sam died, because he never truly believed it would happen. Maybe he'd be in Jackson now, drinking and celebrating with Garner Goodman and Hez Kerry, getting plastered because they'd pulled a rabbit out of the hat. Maybe he'd be at the Row, still on the phone trying desperately to get the details of a last minute stay which would later become permanent. Maybe a lot of things.
He wouldn't dare go to Lee's, because she might actually be there. Their next meeting would be a nasty one, and he preferred to postpone it. He decided to find a decent motel. Spend the night. Try and sleep. Figure things out tomorrow after the sun was up. He raced through dozens of hamlets and towns, none with a room for rent. He slowed considerably. One highway led to another. He was lost but didn't care. How can you be lost when you don't know where you're going? He recognized towns on road signs, turned this way then that way. An all-night convenience store caught his attention on the outskirts of Hernando, not far from Memphis. There were no cars parked in front. A middle-aged lady with jet-black hair was behind the counter, smoking, smacking gum, and talking on the phone. Adam went to the beer cooler and grabbed a six-pack.
"Sorry, hon, can't buy beer after twelve."
"What?" Adam demanded, reaching into his pocket.
She didn't like his snarl. She carefully laid the phone next to the cash register. "We can't sell beer here after midnight. It's the law."
"The law?"
"Yes. The law."
"Of the State of Mississippi?"
"That's correct," she said smartly.
"Do you know what I think of the laws of this state right now?"
"No, dear. And I honestly don't care."
Adam flipped a ten-dollar bill on the counter and carried the beer to his car. She watched him leave, then stuck the cash in her pocket and went back to the phone. Why bother the cops over a six-pack of beer?
He was off again, going south on a two-lane highway, obeying the speed limit and gulping the first beer. Off again in pursuit of a clean room with a free continental breakfast, pool, cable, HBO, kids stay free.
Fifteen minutes to die, fifteen minutes to vent the chamber, ten minutes to wash it down with ammonia. Spray the lifeless body, deader than hell, according to the young doctor and his EKG. Nugent pointing here and there - get the gas masks, get the gloves, get those damned reporters back on the vans and out of here.
Adam could see Sam in there, head fallen to one side, still strapped under those enormous leather buckles. What color was his skin now? Surely not the pale whiteness of the past nine and a half years. Surely the gas turned his lips purple and his flesh pink. The chamber is now clear, all is safe. Enter the chamber, Nugent says, unbuckle him. Take the knives. Cut off the clothing. Did his bowels loosen? Did his bladder leak? They always do. Be careful. Here, here's. the plastic bag. Put the clothes in here. Spray the naked body.
Adam could see the new clothes - the stiff khakis, the oversized shoes, the spotless white socks. Sam had been so proud to wear real clothes again. Now they were rags in a green garbage sack, handled like venom and soon to be burned by a trustee.
Where are the clothes, the blue prison pants and white tee shirt? Get them. Enter the chamber. Dress the corpse. No shoes are necessary. No socks. Hell, he's just going to the funeral home. Let the family worry about dressing him for a decent burial. Now the stretcher. Get him out of there. Into the ambulance.
Adam was near a lake somewhere, over a bridge, through a bottom, the air suddenly damp and cool. Lost again.
52
THE first glint of sunrise was a pink halo over a hill above Clanton. It strained through the trees, and was soon turning to yellow, then to orange. There were no clouds, nothing but brilliant colors against the dark sky.
There were two unopened beers sitting in the grass. Three empty cans had been tossed against a nearby headstone. The first empty can was still in the car.
The dawn was breaking. Shadows fell toward him from the rows of other gravestones. The sun itself was soon peeking at him from behind the trees.
He'd been there for a couple of hours, though he'd lost track of time. Jackson and Judge Slattery and Monday's hearing were years ago. Sam had died minutes ago. Or was he dead? Had they already done their dirty act? Time was still playing games.
He hadn't found a motel, not that he'd looked very hard. He'd found himself near Clanton, then was drawn here where he'd located the headstone of Anna Gates Cayhall. Now he rested against it. He'd drunk the warm beer and thrown the cans at the largest monument within range. If the cops found him here and took him to jail, he wouldn't care. He'd been in a cell before. "Yeah, just got out of Parchman," he'd tell his cell mates, his rap partners. "Just walked out of death row." And they'd leave him alone.
Evidently, the cops were occupied elsewhere. The graveyard was secure. Four little red flags had been staked out next to his grandmother's plot. Adam noticed them as the sun rose to the east. Another grave to be dug.
A car door closed somewhere behind him, but he didn't hear it. A figure walked toward him, but he didn't know it. It moved slowly, searching the cemetery, cautiously looking for something.