Characters in A Death

Abel Hines shouted. Mizell pointed his gavel first at Hines, then at Sheriff Barclay, sitting in the front row. “Sheriff, escort that man out and charge him with disorderly conduct, if you please.” Barclay escorted Hines out, but did not charge him with disorderly conduct.

… “Only I never seen him without it,” said Dale Gerard, the barman. “He was partial to that hat. If he did take it off, he probably laid it on the bar beside him. He had his second drink, and then he left.” “Was his hat on the bar when he …

… back in and took his place next to Dave Fisher. “What are they laughing at?” “Dummy don’t need a hangman,” Fisher said. “He’s tying the knot all by himself. I guess it shouldn’t be funny, but it’s pretty comical, just the same.” “Did you encounter Rebecca Cline in that alley?”

… serve as Trusdale’s defense, so Mizell called on George Andrews, owner of the mercantile, the hostelry, and the Good Rest Hotel. Andrews had gotten two years of higher education at a business school in Omaha. He said he would serve as Trusdale’s attorney only if Mr. and Mrs. Cline agreed.

… Jim Trusdale had a shack on the west side of his father’s gone-to-seed ranch, and that’s where he was when Sheriff Barclay and half a dozen deputized townsmen found him, sitting in the one chair by the cold stove, wearing a dirty barn coat and reading an old issue of …

… best carpenter, whose name, appropriately enough, was Mr. John House. Big snow was coming, and the road to Fort Pierre would be impassable, perhaps for a week, perhaps for the entire winter. There were no plans to jug Trusdale in the local calaboose until spring. There was no economy in …

… voted to hang him on the first ballot,” Kelton Fisher said later, “but we wanted it to look decent.” Mizell asked Trusdale if he had anything to say before sentence was passed. “I can’t think of nothing,” Trusdale said. “Just I never killed that girl.” The storm blew for three …

“Well,” Mr. Cline said, after Andrews had stated his business, “I got a question. If he doesn’t have someone to stand for him, can they still hang him?” “That would not be American justice,” George Andrews said.

“Can he wriggle out of it?” Mrs. Cline asked. “No, ma’am,” Andrews said. “I don’t see how.” “Then do your duty and God bless you,” Mrs. Cline said. The trial lasted through one November morning and halfway into the afternoon.

Pastor Ray Rowles stood on the scaffold next to John House. Both of them were shivering in spite of their coats and scarves. The pages of Pastor Rowles’s Bible fluttered. Tucked into House’s belt, also fluttering, was a hood of homespun cloth dyed black.

… Trusdale, I’m arresting you for the murder of Rebecca Cline. Do you have anything you want to say to that?” “Yes, sir. That I don’t know no Rebecca Cline.” The sheriff left the cell, closed the door, took a key from the wall, and locked it. The tumblers screeched as …

Roger Mizell, who had familiarized himself with the case, served as prosecuting attorney as well as judge. “Like a banker taking out a loan from himself and then paying himself interest,” one of the jurors was overheard to say during the lunch break at Mother’s Best, and although no one …

The sheriff looked around and saw the possemen crowding into the doorway. “You all get out of here,” he said. “Otis,” said the one named Dave, “what if he attacks you?” “Then I will subdue him. I thank you for doing your duty, but now you need to scat.”