The driver took a slug of cold beer and watched to see the cross go up in flames. He heard a shotgun instead. His buddies abandoned the cross and the torch and the front yard, and jumped into a small ditch next to the road. Another shotgun blast. The driver could hear the screams and obscenities. They had to be rescued! He threw down his beer and stepped on the gas,
Old Luther fired again as he came off the porch, and again as the truck appeared and stopped by the shallow ditch. The three scrambled desperately from the mud, stum-
bling and sliding, cussing and yelling as they attacked the truck and furiously fought to jump into the bed.
"Hang on!" yelled the driver just as old Luther fired again, this time spraying the pickup. He watched with a smile as the truck sped away, spinning gravel and fishtailing from ditch to ditch. Just a bunch of drunk kids, he thought.
From a pay phone, a Kluxer held the list of twenty names and twenty phone numbers. He called them all, simply to ask them to take a look in their front yards.
Friday morning Jake phoned the Noose home and was informed by Mrs. Ichabod that His Honor was presiding over a civil trial in Polk County. Jake gave instructions to Ellen and left for Smithfield, an hour away. He nodded at His Honor as he entered the empty courtroom and sat on the front row. Except for the jurors, there were no other spectators. Noose was bored, the jurors were bored, the lawyers were bored, and after two minutes Jake was bored. After the witness finished Noose called for a short recess, and Jake went to his chambers.
"Hello, Jake. Why're you here?"
"You heard what happened yesterday."
"I saw it on the news last night."
"Have you heard what happened this morning?"
"No."
"Evidently someone gave the Klan a list of the prospective jurors. Last night they burned crosses in the yards of twenty of the jurors."
Noose was shocked. "Our jurors!"
"Yes, sir."
"Did they catch anybody?"
"Of course not. They were too busy putting out fires. Besides, you don't catch these people."
"Twenty of our jurors," Noose repeated.
"Yes, sir."
Noose pawed at his mangled mass of brilliant gray hair and walked slowly around the small room, shaking his head and occasionally scratching his crotch.
"Sounds like intimidation to me," he muttered.
What a mind, thought Jake. A real genius. "I would say so."
"So what am I supposed to do?" he asked with a touch of frustration.
"Change venue."
"To where?"
"Southern part of the state."
"I see. Perhaps Carey County. I believe it's sixty percent
black. That would generate at least a hung jury, wouldn't it? Or maybe you would like Brower County. I think it's even blacker. You'd probably get an acquittal there, wouldn't you?"
"I don't care where you move it. It's not fair to try him in Ford County. Things were bad enough before the war yesterday. Now the white folks are really in a lynching mood, and my man's got the nearest available neck. The situation was terrible before the Klan started decorating the county with Christmas trees. Who knows what else they'll try before Monday. There's no way to pick a fair and impartial jury in Ford County."
"You mean black jury?"
"No, sir! I mean a jury that hasn't prejudged this case. Carl Lee Hailey is entitled to twelve people who haven't already decided his guilt or innocence."
Noose lumbered toward his chair and fell into it. He removed those glasses from that nose and picked at the end of it.
"We could excuse the twenty," he wondered aloud.
"That won't help. The entire county knows about it or will know about it within a few hours. You know how fast word travels. The entire panel will feel threatened."
"Then we could disqualify the entire panel and summon a new one."
"Won't work," Jake answered sharply, frustrated by Noose's stubbornness. "All jurors must come from Ford County, and everybody in the county knows about it. And how do you keep the Klan from harassing the next panel? It won't work."
"What makes you so confident the Klan won't follow the case if I move it to another county?" The sarcasm dripped from every word.
"I think they will follow it," Jake admitted. "But we don't know that for sure. What we do know is that the Klan is already in Ford County, that it's quite active now, and that it has already intimidated some potential jurors. That's the issue. The question is, what will you do about it?"