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“Those men must have thought I’d forgotten all about them.” He laughed, a big booming Roosevelt laugh. “I think I showed great wisdom not to respond to their first report, but to let them draw their own conclusions as to what should be done.”
“Yes, sir, it most certainly was wise of you.” Hensen was often amazed at the depth and breadth of the president’s self-regard. He licked the point of his pencil. Roosevelt perched on the edge of his desk, mindful of the fine figure he cut as he dictated his message of congratulations.
“What a magnificent ending to this project!” the president exclaimed.
Chapter 90
PHINEAS EVERSMAN’S FIRST ACT was to release two of the five prisoners. He told us it was for lack of evidence, but I assumed there was some family connection. (There had to be; this was Mississippi.) I was so surprised and impressed that the chief had actually arrested the other three men that I offered no word of protest.
The three still in custody were named Chester Madden, Henry Wadsworth North, and, ironically enough, Lincoln Alexander Stephens, a man whose name evoked both the Great Emancipator and the dwarfish vice-president of the Confederacy. Henry North was the redheaded bully I’d encountered before, at Jenkins’ Mercantile.
Some folks called it “the Niggertown Trial.” Others called it “the White Raiders Trial.” The New Orleans Item dubbed it “That Mess in Eudora.” Whatever people called it, everyone was obsessed with it.
The citizens of Eudora were divided on the issues, but they certainly weren’t evenly divided. A small group welcomed the prospect of punishment for the violent, night-riding Raiders. But many folks, unbelievable as it might seem, thought the Raiders were being treated unfairly.
The Eudora Gazette, a weekly four-sheeter usually devoted to social notes, was now publishing five days a week, churning out a breathless new front-page report on the White Raiders Trial every day. The formerly lazy and slow-moving editor, Japheth Morgan, was a whirl of energy, placing expensive telephone trunk calls nearly daily to consult with his “unimpeachable sources of information in the capital.”
Japheth Morgan had never worked this hard before. He was losing weight and smoking cigarettes, one after another. He had dark circles under his eyes.
“You’d best settle down a bit, Japheth,” L.J. told him. “This trial could end up being the death of you.”
“But you don’t understand,” Japheth answered. “For me and for the Gazette, this isn’t the opportunity of a lifetime, it’s the trial of the century!”
The trial of the century.
As soon as he said it, I knew it was true. This was the trial of the century—not just for Eudora, not just for Mississippi, but for the entire country.
Chapter 91
“NOTICE HOW NOBODY COMPLAINS about the heat anymore,” L.J. said to me one morning over breakfast at his home. “Nobody talks about the mosquitoes, or the price of cotton, or any of the things that mattered before. None of those things means a damn now. All anybody cares about is the trial.”
I had to smile. “I wouldn’t know what you’re talking about, L.J., since nobody in this town speaks to me.”
“Maybe they’re like me, they just hate talking to a damn lawyer.”
I’d been given a bedroom on the second floor at L.J.’s, with a sitting room attached and a small balcony where my first cup of coffee was served every morning. There were fresh sheets, starched and ironed, every day; the best sausages for breakfast, aged beef for supper.
Most important, L.J. posted three armed guards around the house: one at the front, one in the back, and one baking on the roof. At L.J.’s I’d gotten the first really good night’s sleep I’d had since coming back to Eudora.
L.J.’s wife, Allegra, bustled into the dining room.
“Japheth Morgan insists on seeing you two right now,” she said.
Indeed, Morgan did mean right now. He had followed Allegra and was standing directly behind her. In his hand was a fresh broadsheet, the ink still shiny. At the top of the page I saw in enormous type the word EXTRA!!!
“I thought you two gentlemen would want to be the first to read this,” Morgan said.
L.J. shook his head. “What the hell have you done now, Japheth?”
Morgan began to read aloud. “The Mississippi Office of Criminal Courts has announced the venue and date for the proceedings currently known far and wide as the White Raiders Trial. Following a ruling by the Mississippi Supreme Court, the prosecutor’s petition for change of venue has been denied, and the trial will be held in Eudora, Mississippi, scene of the alleged offenses.”
“Well, hell, that’s no big surprise,” L.J. said. “We all knew nobody else wanted to grab hold of this hot horseshoe.”
“I agree,” I said. “It’s disappointing, but it does provide the prosecution with its first proper grounds for appeal.”
“Appeal to whom?” said L.J. “The Supreme Court has ruled.”
“There’s another Supreme Court, in Washington,” I said with a wink.
