The Boy Who Shot the Sheriff: The Redemption of Herbert Niccolls Jr.

Chapter 11

93 Chapter 11 On Herbert Junior’s first day in prison, Hans Damm took him aside for a stern talk. Damm later reported that the boy broke into tears and said he was sorry for killing the sheriff, that he didn’t intend for it to happen and from then on he promised to do the right thing. When asked what made him finally tell the truth about Robinson, the boy answered, “Prayer.” Damm asked him about the checkerboard he had brought with him to prison and told him he couldn’t play alone. “Maybe you could play with me?” the boy asked. • Having plenty of food, guaranteed shelter, and freedom from beatings , the boy quickly adapted to prison routine. Mr. Rose, the librarian, Damm, the warden, and those who taught him were his companions. Occasionally, he’d get one of them to play checkers or dominos with him. The crime had made him a celebrity and people he didn’t know sent him things. He had more gifts than he had had in his entire life. But the only gift the staff let him keep was a picture book about Jesus. After all, it 94 was a prison, they told him. Even so, he had new trousers and a sweater and a pair of dungarees. He was lucky, the warden said, because he didn’t have to wear a prison uniform like the others, or have his head shaved. For that he was especially grateful. The cornet he brought to prison was confiscated because it would be too disruptive to other inmates, he was told. In exchange, someone in the woodshop made him a guitar and he received lessons from another prisoner who taught him in the library. The music would always bring back memories, whether the guitar chords or a voice, from long ago before his father became religious, back in the days when his father would take his gun and go into the hills to kill a deer or elk and they’d live on it all winter. They were sad songs. Like the end of the world was coming and there would never be music or a summer night again. He struck another chord and strummed. Then he could hear the voices of the others calling to him. The voices echoed through the dark. Someone laughed. They called him Fish, because he was new. There was the clang of a door and then the sharp voice of a guard. No one spoke. The boy set his guitar down and listened. Every morning the others marched past his cell to the exercise yard, to work or to chow. They wore denim shirts and denim dungarees. Their heads were shaved and their faces gaunt and they looked only straight ahead as they marched beneath the guards’ watchful eyes. The boy had no contact with them, except at night when their voices floated to him from beyond the door to his cell. Herbert climbed onto his bed, pulled the black wool blanket over his head and tried to sleep. Long ago, there was blue sky and jacksnipes that took flight, their wings beating so furiously as they rose from the river. He clutched the rough wool blanket. His memory of the outside world was beginning to fade. There was his grandmother’s house, his kitten . Where was his kitten now? He had written to his grandmother and asked. She wrote to him all about Jesus but never mentioned the cat. His mother had written, too, and he cried when he got her letter. She urged him to be a good boy and said he must accept his punishment for his terrible deed. He never heard from his father and he was glad about Chapter 11 95 it. He was glad that they had put him away in an insane asylum. Maybe that way he couldn’t hurt his mother ever again. The girls were getting bigger and the baby, too, his mother wrote. He never heard from any of his brothers, but she said they were away working on a farm, except for James Francis. Someone had adopted him and changed his name to Hudson Shake. Herbert thought it was strange that his brother was now someone else’s boy, someone who called him by a different name, someone whose own little boy had died and who very much wanted a replacement. The Mitchells in Shoshone, Idaho, had tried to erase Herbert Niccolls and make him their boy. They...