Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

Cox squinted in disbelief that I could grin at such an outrage. Before stomping off to the far side of the pen, he pointed his forefinger and repeated his death threat in a voice thick and heavy, as if his throat was full of clotted blood-so full, in fact, that Reese and I could not even agree on what he’d said. “Some kind of secret redneck curse, you think?” I asked, watching Les go. Reese looked me over. Then he spoke again in that same furious cold voice. “Redneck, whiteneck-don’t make no fuckin difference to us blackneck niggers.”

In early April, thanks to Walt Langford and Jim Cole, the celebrated Senator Fred P. Cone of Lake City had been retained as our defense attorney. Cone was a silver-haired aristocrat, very close to Broward, and scarcely a judge in all north Florida would stand up to him, knowing “Senator Fred” was certain to occupy the governor’s mansion in the future and settle up any old scores with the judiciary. But in our first meeting, Fred Cone warned me that the state’s attorneys were already claiming “an ironclad case”-just the kind, he smirked, that he most enjoyed smelting down.

On Friday, May 1, in Columbia County Court, the defendants pled not guilty before Judge R. M. Call. Frank Reese was described by the Lake City Citizen-Reporter as “a very dark-colored negro wearing overalls. Asked how he pleaded, he was stopped by counsel.” Cone ordered Reese to keep his mouth shut even for his plea, which was all right, I suppose, if he had good reason. But Cone did this with an impatient gesture, not looking at Reese but at me, as if telling me to put a stop to my dog’s barking, and Reese muttered something so ugly for my benefit that I had to warn him.

That day the judge asked him to plead was Frank’s last chance to stand up as a man and declare his innocence; he was never questioned or even mentioned in the case again. Even his own counsel never spoke to him. Day after day, in courtroom after courtroom, he would sit like a dark knot on the oak bench in the white man’s courtroom. Once in a while I caught his eye and winked but he just looked away.

By returning the prisoners to Columbia County Court, Lawyer Cone had provoked the populace into raucous demonstrations in the streets-a clever tactic, I agreed, if we survived it, establishing before the trial could begin the dire prejudice against the suspects in this county. With threats and abuse being shouted through the courtroom windows, Cone prepared his petition for a change of venue, waving a whole sheaf of affidavits; having discussed the case with two hundred local citizens, he had found not one unprejudiced against his clients, and had therefore concluded that it would be impossible to seat a fair and impartial jury in Columbia County. By this, the defense intended no reflection on the residents: “Honest men can be prejudiced as well as other men,” the court was told, “and some men mistake their prejudices for their principles.”

Naturally the state’s attorney had sheaves of sworn testimony to the contrary, duly signed by the Herlongs and those others who had howled for my head that afternoon at Herlong Station.

That morning the court was informed by Mr. Charlie Eaton, a special investigator appointed by Nap Broward, that he had heard about a lynch raid on the jail planned for 3:00 a.m. on Thursday night in the week previous. The defendants, he testified, had been in such peril of mob violence that he’d rushed to the Elks Club to alert Lawyer Cone, and these two agreed that the state militia should be called out to guard the prisoners. Cone told the court he had gone to Sheriff Purvis and demanded protection for his clients and that Purvis responded that those “ol’ boys” in the mob had given him their word that the accused were in no danger, since the evidence against them was so strong that they would hang anyway. Purvis admitted he had ordered extra guards around the jail but only as a courtesy to the defense attorneys. If the truth be known, declared this lawman under oath, real trouble was far more likely to arrive with Defendant Watson’s friends from southwest Florida. Even now, he said, crowds of dangerous men were on their way north by sea and rail to effect his rescue.

This mendacity so astounded my attorney that he smote his marble brow. He invited the sheriff to admit that he’d confided to Detective Eaton that he feared for his prisoners’ lives. Purvis denied this, saying, “If I told you that, I told you a lie.” The witness was thereupon informed that the defense had no confidence whatever in his truthfulness and even less in the intentions of his deputies, several of whom had been identified as members of the lynch mob. Purvis cheerfully agreed that he had heard that, too.

Lawyer Cone’s assistant now advised the judge that when he’d gone to Purvis and the prosecutor to express concern about the prisoners, they had merely laughed at him. Hearing this complaint, those two men laughed at him again in open court, behavior which struck me as so outlandish that I had to clap my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing with them. “Are you crazy, Watson?” Fred Cone whispered irritably behind his hand.

Next up was Will’s brother Jasper Cox, who testified he’d been solicited to join the lynch mob by none other than Mr. Blumer Hunter, a member of the coroner’s jury which had held impartial hearings on the case. Politely, Jasper had declined, explaining to Mr. Hunter that he “was not in that line of business.” Next morning, according to the Lake City paper, Mr. Hunter came to town (in brown coveralls smeared with wet cow dung, if I know Blumer) and informed the court stenographer that the testimony of Jasper Cox was “an unqualified fabrication.” Even John Porter had to smile at the idea of such fine words emerging from the brown tobacco teeth of Blumer Hunter.

That afternoon, my son-in-law arrived from Fort Myers with a note from Carrie: Oh Daddy, we all know that you are innocent! Eddie has written us about those dreadful Tolens! On the witness stand, Langford declared, “Why yes, I am his son-in-law, but that don’t mean I am a stranger to the truth. And the truth is that ever since my arrival, what I have heard over and over is, ‘That murdering skunk should be hung on general principles!’ ” When I told Walt later that quoting my ill-wishers with such vehemence might not help my case, the banker flashed me kind of a scared grin. Walt could never quite make out when his father-in-law was being serious and when he wasn’t.

Meanwhile, Mr. Eaton passed the word that the governor was following the case and meant to take “all appropriate measures to ensure the safety of the accused.” However, with that mob out there, we defendants felt like rat cheese. Our attorney could not deny there was a risk but saw the change of venue as our only hope.

On Monday morning the sheriff came to Jacksonville to escort us back to Lake City, and this day I rode handcuffed to Les Cox. For all his big talk, Leslie was pale and nervous. Fred Cone had made him get a haircut and put on his daddy’s Sunday shirt but the collar was tight and the new hairline gleamed on his sunburned neck and for all his good looks, he appeared kind of green and weedy. When he bragged that some church lady had told him he looked like Billy the Kid, I said, “Correct. William Bonney looked like weasel shit last time I saw him.” Les cackled, thinking I was kidding.

“Well, somebody done a good deed on them Tolen sonsabitches, and I sure ain’t sorry, how about you?” he chortled, and I said, “You are not sorry, son, because you think Fred Cone will get you off. You might repent of your black sins if you feared you might be dancing on a rope until you died.” But all attempts to improve his attitude were wasted on this criminal young man.