The Pardon

A drift of small hard leaves clicked from the live oak at the main gate of the penitentiary. The man Adams looked at the sky and turned up the collar of his misfit coat. Then he turned it down again, with the uncertainty of a man for whom decisions have been made too long. The sky was gray, mottled with the harsh blue of November.

A guard at the gate said, “Don’t forget anything. It’s unlucky to turn back.”

The trusties clustered at the gatehouse made a clatter of thin laughter.

A man serving a life sentence said, “It’s more unlucky, turning in—” and they laughed again, with the sound of men applauding from a distance.

Adams put his hand inside his coat and touched the sharp edge of parchment paper that was the pardon. He wanted to show it. His fumbling was ignored and he let his hand drop at his side.

He said, “Well, so long.”

The guard answered indifferently, “So long,” and spat into the sand. The group was silent; immobile; understanding the futility of speech or movement.

Adams shuffled into the roadway and searched the line of parked cars of visitors. A woman fluttered toward him and retreated to the protection of an open Ford. She lifted a hand, entrenched on the far side of the high hood.

He called “Emma!” and moved his feet faster, his pulse thick in his throat.

He saw that it was Joe Porter at the wheel of the Ford.

He said, “Hey, Joe.”

Joe said, “Hey,” and absorbed himself with the gears.

Adams turned to the woman.

He said, “Hey, wife.”

She looked at him. He thought that he had never before noticed how much she looked like a rabbit. When he had worked on the penitentiary farm they had killed dozens of rabbits. They sat staring with frightened eyes and trembling noses, pretending not to be seen.

He asked, “Where’s the two young uns?”

She said belligerently, “I didn’t see fitten to carry ’em. I ain’t never yet carried ’em here.”

“No,” he said.

He hesitated between the front seat and the back, and climbed stiffly into the back. The woman licked her lips.

She said, “I reckon you’ll be glad of the room,” and stepped into the front seat beside Joe Porter.

Joe said, “First chance in seven years to spread hisself, eh, Emma?”

Adams stared at the back of his wife’s neck. It was plump, with the hair dark and low-growing.

The Ford lurched in the deep ruts of the sand road leading away from the penitentiary. Adams bounced on the worn springs, holding his black felt hat with one hand against the wind that whipped through the rear of the car. It seemed to him that he was moving with incredible speed. The prison farm trailed out of sight; the nursery telescoping into the dairy farm; the dairy farm into the hog pasture; the hog pasture into the open fields; the fields, at last, beyond the bridge, into pine woods.