Five Days in May by Hammon Ninie

Author:Hammon, Ninie [Hammon, Ninie]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Ninie Hammon
Published: 2014-06-09T16:00:00+00:00

Thursday

May 9, 1963

Chapter 17

Jonas parked his pickup truck in Mac’s driveway right after lunch on Thursday, full of questions about Princes and her case. Mac told him everything he knew about it as they drove east on US 270 toward the Iron House.

“They never found anything for the family to bury? Nothing?”

“Nope, but you got to figure the Three Forks is a big river, runs through Arkansas, Oklahoma, and into Texas. How’d you ever drag a river that size looking for … well, I don’t know if they dragged it or not. I just know what that reporter—” Mac had just turned off the highway onto the road leading to the prison. “Speaking of reporters …”

Like mushrooms after a summer rain, a crowd of seventy-five, maybe a hundred people had sprung up on the prairie in front of the prison gate. The media was out in force. He saw vehicles parked off the road with “Channel 11 News First,” and “OKC’s News Source—KOKA” emblazoned on their sides. The ABC, CBS, and NBC news affiliates had all shown up; looked like every radio and television station in Oklahoma City was there.

But the majority of the people standing on the prairie were protesters, held in check by a small army of Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers.

“Where in the world did all these people come from?” Jonas wondered aloud.

“Don’t go looking for familiar faces,” Mac said. “These folks aren’t local. I think they travel the country, protesting at executions in prisons all over. Least that’s what Oran said.”

Mac glanced to his left, to the side of the prison that faced the Indian Bluffs. “And it looks like he’s managed to keep the multitudes congregated out front like he wanted.” Mac decided not to tell Jonas what Oran said he’d like to save up and throw at the protesters.

Troopers had stretched out yellow “Police Line” tape on both sides of the road leading to the main gate and had corralled the crowd behind the lines. Mac hadn’t realized there’d be people protesting both ways, but there was a group of anti-death penalty protesters on one side of the road and death penalty proponents on the other. The antis had the pros outnumbered three to one.

Both sides carried signs and they hurled slogans and insults across the road at each other as Mac drove slowly down between the opposing sides.

One very fat woman held a stop sign with the words “Stop Executions Now!” printed on it. She was in a shouting match with a man on the other side of the road who held a sign that proclaimed “Murder Victims Had No Choice!” There was a group of half a dozen nuns in habits on the anti side, holding a banner that read: “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” And a small group of teenagers, likely the children of the older protesters, held a series of signs that, when read in order, said, “Kids. Against. Death. Penalty.” Mac wondered if protesting at an execution was considered an excused absence from school.

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