Inside the mudroom door, I stepped into a pair of rubber chore boots. Stuffed my pant legs into the boots to discourage ticks from latching onto me. Then I exited the farmhouse just as the sky overhead was lightening from black to indigo blue.
I crossed the hard, bare ground of the side yard, heading to the weathered barn my great-grandfather had built with his own hands. The rooster followed along, scolding me. I was not having it.
“Don’t mess with me, Foghorn Leghorn. I’m in no mood,” I said. When he continued to squawk, I resorted to threats. “I’ll chop you into pieces and fry you up in a pan. You hear?”
My quarter horse, Tornado, trotted up to meet me. She was my pride, a cross-rein-trained mare that was a joy to ride. But not these days. Tornado was swelling with a new foal. I wasn’t about to mount the pregnant mare to ride the rounds. She wasn’t livestock. She was dear to me.
Inside the barn, I climbed onto the John Deere tractor and drove it to the east pasture, where I keep bales of hay stored under a plastic tarp. Used the pallet fork on the tractor to carry hay to the spot where my cattle grazed. I had twenty head of Charolais, including a bull that I rented out for stud. My cows were high-breed beef cattle, some of the best in the region.
As I drove the tractor across the field, the cattle looked up, eager to eat. I called out to them, just like my mama and daddy used to do.
The cattle lowed in response as they ambled toward me. I fedthem the hay, mixed with barley and oats from a burlap sack. While I scattered the feed, one of the cows brushed up against me. I stroked her neck behind the ears before climbing back on the tractor.
As I drove back, the sun had risen high enough to turn the sky pink, casting a rosy glow on my land. The sight of that early light generally gave me pleasure. On that morning, though, it served as a reminder. Nothing could stop this day from coming.
Just contemplating the terrible task ahead sent a zing into my lower back. I ignored it. I had no time for back trouble. I needed to muck out my horse’s stall before I got into the shower.
After twenty minutes of shoveling shit, replacing it with fresh wood shavings, and setting out food and water for my mare, I left the barn and headed back to the house. Foghorn scuttled up to squawk at me again as I crossed the yard. He hushed up when I tossed a handful of seed for him to peck.
I quickly showered and dressed. Chugged a cup of coffee while I stared at my reflection in the mirror, just thinking. I almost shoved the cosmetic bag out of my way, tempted to forgo that process. But at fifty, a woman can’t rely on the glow of youth. So I did the bare minimum. Rubbed in some moisturizer, applied foundation. A lick of blush and a swipe of lipstick.
I was aware that I might be facing an audience. The press.
Before I left through the front door, I picked up my briefcase and pulled the black judicial robe off the coatrack, draped it over my arm.
CHAPTER
3
BULLOCK COUNTY COURTHOUSE UNION SPRINGS, ALABAMA
I pulled into my designated spot in the Bullock County Courthouse parking lot. One of the sweetest perks of my elected position was that nine-foot-by-twenty-foot slice of asphalt directly under the window of my chambers on the second floor. Marked by two white stripes and a small sign that clearly stated:RESERVED FOR CIRCUIT JUDGE MARY STONE.
I left that beautiful sight for a familiar one.
Aurora Freeman, a member of the custodial staff, was smoking a cigarette by the back door. As I passed by, toting my bright red leather briefcase and black robe, she blew out a cloud of smoke and said, “Morning, Judge Mary.”
“Morning, Aurora.” I pulled the door open, pausing to say, “How’s your hip? Seems like you should be home with your feet up.”
She waved off the suggestion with a flip of her hand, sending ashes flying. “Don’t you worry about me, honey, I’m good. You run along now.”
Aurora is well over seventy, old enough to be my mother. Back when I was a student at Union Springs Elementary School, Aurora was as influential as any teacher. She worked in the lunchroom and she ruled that cafeteria with an iron hand. Aurora regularly threatened to whoop our butts, and it was not an empty threat.
Now I spend a fair amount of my life in the confines of this courthouse, a three-story brick structure topped by two towers. The National Register of Historic Places recognizes it as one of the finest courthouses in the state of Alabama, and the only one built in the Empire style. I’m a circuit judge, not a student of architecture, so I’m not sure what all that entails. But it’s a pretty building, the centerpiece of the historic district in our small town.
No debating that. Nor the weight of the past.
Every day I climbed the double curved staircase toward the courtroom where I presided at the oak bench. Hearing and deciding cases inside that historic structure where my people weren’t permitted to vote for damn near one hundred years after the courthouse was built in 1871. My great-grandpa and great-great-grandpa couldn’t vote because the Klan wouldn’t let them. One grandpa couldn’t afford to pay the poll tax they imposed; the other’s vote was blocked by a literacy test. None of the women in my family could cast a vote in my current workplace before the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
At nine thirty this morning, I would be handing down a sentence.
My administrative clerk, Luna Young, lingered in the open doorway, her mouth turned down in a worried frown. She was young, barely thirty, but I’d observed her air of maturity when I hired her. She’d also demonstrated a gift for handling people in tough situations. A judge’s clerk has to conduct communications with attorneys, law enforcement, and the public. I was lucky that Luna possessed more tact than I generally exhibited.
When I walked past Luna’s desk, she said, “Judge Mary, you’ve got the sentencing set inState v. Graytoday.”
Luna didn’t need to provide a reminder of the murder charges against Ferrell Gray, the contentious jury trial over a case where the evidence of guilt was overwhelming.
At trial, the defendant had been hard to control, disrupting the proceedings with violent outbursts on more than one occasion. I was tempted to remove him from the courtroom. Threatened to do it at least twice, informing him that he could watch the case unfold on a monitor inside the county jail.
