A Book of American Martyrs(113)

“They’re forgetting Luther! They’re forgetting who he is, what he did—the sacrifices he made.”

Dawn said, “Don’t cry, Mawmaw. They won’t forget him.”

Luke said: “God won’t forget. That’s all that matters, Mawmaw.”

In the backseat of the vehicle Dawn sat between the shivering children who were strangely quiet. On either side of their big sister they sat without fidgeting as if, so early in the day, they were already tired and ready for bed. Dawn sought out her brother’s evasive eyes in the rearview mirror but he avoided looking at her.

Luke persisted, as if in mockery: “God is all that matters, see? The rest is bullshit.”


HELP ME, JESUS! My husband needs me with him in his hour of need.

And yet, in the morning, again Edna Mae could not lift her head from her pillow. A terrible weariness had sunk into her bones in the night turning their marrow to lead.

Each morning before she left for school Dawn came to plead with her—“Mawmaw! Wake up.”

Edna Mae wanted to protest, she was awake. Her brain was awake. Yet, she could not open her eyes.

Barely she could move her limbs. If her limbs were not leaden-heavy they were light as air and detached from her, incapable of being moved.

Her mouth so dry from the pills, she could not speak.

And so it was, morning following morning through the remainder of that terrible month September 2001. And each morning a (seeming) surprise to Edna Mae who’d been resolved the night before that the next day would be different.

Yet she would attend the trial. She vowed.

It was the last days, she believed. The Great Tribulation had begun. Cataclysms, firestorms, floods. Earthquakes, plagues. The terrorist attacks were only the first strike of the wrathful God. Yet so strange to her, as to others in Mad River Junction, that, after the devastation at Ground Zero, nothing further had happened—really, nothing at all had happened to the inhabitants of Mad River Junction.

“Edna? Edna!”—a face so close to Edna Mae’s face she could scarcely recognize it as her aunt’s. Mary Kay Mack was all but snapping her fingers to wake Edna Mae who was not asleep at the kitchen table where she’d poured cereal into a bowl but had not gotten around to pouring milk onto the cereal or taking up a spoon to eat.

“Edna Mae. We just had a call. The jury is ‘deliberating.’ Maybe you should be with Luther?”

Confused, Edna Mae saw that it was twenty-five after twelve. The last she recalled, she’d come downstairs to have breakfast at about nine-thirty.

“Luther’s lawyer called. They are ‘hoping for the best.’ We can drive over now, if you’re up to it.”

“Yes.”

But she was so tired suddenly! She hid her face in her hands.





VERDICT


Have you reached a verdict?

We have, Your Honor.

The judge was handed a slip of paper which he opened, read, handed back to the bailiff.

We find the defendant guilty as charged.

On two counts of homicide in the first degree—guilty as charged.


IT WAS A SURPRISE TO HIM! By the kick of his heart he had to realize he’d been expecting another verdict.

But I am not guilty. God will spare me.

It was a surprise to him and something of a shock, he had to concede it was something of a shock though he’d believed himself immune, invulnerable to earthly vicissitudes but then he realized—God was testing him.

And so Luther smiled, a radiant smile creasing his face.

In all his limbs, that were hard-muscled now, with not an ounce of fat encasing them after months of rigorous exercise in his cell, a shudder of newfound strength, resilience.


RETURNED TO HIS CELL in the detention facility. His cell, it had come to be.

The younger guard was not so friendly now. Since the exchange in the van when the guard had assured Luther Dunphy that he would one day walk out of the courthouse a “free man” there had been virtually no words between them. And the older guard, who had not liked Luther Dunphy, who had called him a profane name, was blatant in his dislike now.

Muttering with satisfaction what sounded like Fucker. Got what you deserve.

Luther’s lawyer too had been surprised. Stunned.

Or rather, not so surprised, probably. But stunned.

He would appeal the verdict, he assured Luther.

And whatever sentencing was to come, he would appeal. Though the young public defender was not so optimistic now. He spoke slowly, distractedly. His eyes were worried. Something of his former, almost giddy energy had dissipated and Luther felt a stab of sympathy, that he’d let the young man down.

Yet, he was sure that God had not abandoned him.





SENTENCE


Five days later in the Broome County Courthouse he heard himself sentenced to death.

Those were the actual words he heard, yet could not quite comprehend—Luther Dunphy you are sentenced to death.

This morning, the judge spoke at greater length. In his clipped precise voice of disdain, dislike, disapproval that was yet the voice of a son of Ohio very likely born not far from Muskegee Falls, as Luther Dunphy had been born within twenty miles of Muskegee Falls and had lived his entire life in the region, he spoke of how Luther had killed two men “in cold blood.” These were “premeditated” killings he had “systematically planned”—he had driven from his home, a distance of more than three miles, with the twelve-gauge shotgun that was the murder weapon in his vehicle; he had remained in his vehicle until his victims arrived, at which time he had “stalked” them in plain view of numerous witnesses; these were not “impulsive, spontaneous” acts of passion or emotion but had grown out of a “carefully calculated scheme” of something like vengeance—“cloaked in a distortion and perversion of Christian religious conviction.”