The Conviction of Nicholas Graham

The tallow of this candle is old and cracking, and for that I can barely see the blank papers in front of me. Please forgive me if my lettering is rough, for the light is dim and outside I can hear their distant shouts, which compels me to write as quickly as possible.

My name is Nicholas Graham. At this moment I lie squeezed between the heavy beam and rickety loft of the old Miller’s barn, clutching a stick of charcoal as if it is my last hope. Reluctantly I must admit it is; for if I do not scribble my story upon these ancient leaves, the lie that has been sown in this valley shall never be uprooted. This is my greatest fear, even greater than the certain death which shall come at the heels of my pursuers, and I am greatly disturbed by the notion that perhaps I do not have time to finish the account you hold now.

Listen closely. For what you are about to read is the only truth left; the last shred of unsoiled humanity anywhere in the valley. Take heed, my friend. And do not forget a word you read.

Two days ago I abruptly awoke around midnight to the sound of my front door being forcefully torn from the wall. Still groggy from sleep, I felt strong, powerful hands grip both my arms—to my surprise they were hands that I knew, the hands of Sheriff Boyd and his deputy Ralph Ross, both good friends of mine—and shove me out of my door and into the moonlit night.

I was not given enough time to awaken fully before the Sheriff and Ross, combining their strength, managed to propel my limp weight down the hill to the road leading into town, where a flat-backed wagon awaited us.

The Sheriff and Ross hoisted me into the back, then clambered onto the wagon-tongue and lashed the horses into a fast trot. I must have slipped into a stupor soon after starting out, for the next thing I remembered was the jolt of the wagon as it halted, and once again their rough hands grasping my arms as I was hauled out of the wagon with less care than they would give an old quilt.

It was still dark out and I tried to glance around for my bearings, but I was not given time for such things as they frog-marched me up a small pair of steps, through a room smelling of faint cigar smoke, and down a narrow hallway so dark that for a moment I felt a great sense of fear, and then stopped. I heard the jingle of keys and saw the Sheriff’s cold eyes before they thrust me into a small, damp room and slammed the door shut.

There I sat for many hours without a sound or sight. Sunlight crept up the hallway eventually, revealing my quarters as a cell in the office of the Sheriff. Across from me—in the hallway of course—was Ralph Ross, perched on a chair and watching me with such an sorrowful attention that I was slightly confused. But I had no time to ponder this before the first of my many visitors arrived.

It was Maggie, the tailor’s wife. She entered the room with her usual stoop and shawl, but to my surprise did not stop and chat as she often would, but rather marched up to the bars and gave me only a glare of loathing. Then she left.

Jason was next. He was my closest friend from childhood, and together we ran a small law firm here in town. In all honesty he was more like a brother to me—in fact, my faith in him was so strong that I entrusted him with the only spare keys to my office and home.

He entered with a shuddering step, shrouded by a long gray cloak, and began slowly making his way towards me. I brightened immediately when I saw who it was; and sure of a response I asked, “Jason! Why am I here?”

He jumped at the sound of my voice. Then he looked at me with mixed pity and sorrow which was far more hurtful than any curse or loathing glare. “Please, Nicholas…” he said in a choked voice. “Don’t play the innocent…”

“Innocent?” I asked, and my heart all but stopped at what it meant. “For what would I be guilty of, I beg?”

His face did not change, but in his eyes was resolve. “I hope God will forgive you, Nicholas. Because no one else will.” Then he turned and left.

His actions shattered me. Just a few weeks before, Jason’s frantic complaints about his mounting debts had escalated so much that I had offered to pay them. If only he would return my faith in our friendship now, when I needed it most…

I received many visitors after that; all of whom I had known for decades, many I had taught to fish, hunt, or whistle. But despite the dozens of folk who crowded at my cell to see me, I began to ignore them all; for none had anything to say but curses and shocked reprimands. All save Jason, that is; but I did not see him again.

Eventually I slipped into sleep, forgetting all around me.

In the hours of the following afternoon, Sheriff Boyd entered the room, the silver ring of keys in his hand. Wordlessly he opened my cell door and gestured for me to exit. For a fleeting moment I thought I was being freed, but that hope shattered when the Sheriff and Ross took their places on either side of me and carefully led me down the hallway, through the Sheriff’s office, and into the street.

When my eyes grew accustomed to the sun’s harsh orange light, a crowd of around eighty people from the surrounding settlements awaited me. They stood in two long lines that stretched down Main Street, their faces hot and angry. The moment I stepped into the dusty street, they roared as one. In the tumultuous noise I heard curses, threats, exclamations, and a cry for a rope. This last one was taken up by most of the crowd, and it became louder and louder until I forgot what silence was. And for one horrible moment I thought it would be brought, but when the chant had risen to the fateful zenith Ross meaningfully tapped his revolver and the Sheriff roared for them to be silent, which they eventually obeyed.

I was dragged through the gauntlet, faintly meeting their seething eyes and hissed growls on either side. These were people I had known for more than twenty years, many of them I had rocked in their cradles; and my heart broke every time my eyes latched onto a new face filled with loathing, shock, or anger. It could not end soon enough.

A few minutes later it did, on the steps of the courthouse. As Sheriff and Ross hauled me into the cold, empty room the crowd followed, filing one by one into the pews. As I passed the waiting judge and jury my dread mounted, for I saw in their eyes the same hateful glare that I had found in everyone else’s.

Judge Adams waited until the crowd had quieted before pounding his gavel onto the table before him. “This court will come to order,” he boomed. “Nicholas Graham, you have been called before us on the grave charges of murder. How do you plead?”

For a long, fateful moment I could not speak. Never would I have guessed the misunderstanding to be so horrible. “I—I, your honor—” I finally managed, but he glared down at me. “I asked how you plead, Nicholas Graham. Guilty or innocent?”

“I—I plead innocent, your honor.”

I quailed beneath the look of pure abhorrence he forced down upon me as the mob hissed, but I did not change my plea.

“Very well,” he said at last. “Prosecutor, state your case.”

The prosecutor, an important man from the city of Norfolk some seventy miles away, launched into his case. It had begun some six years before, he said; when I had slipped money from my business’s finances for my own personal desires. I had at first done it once or twice, but over the years it became a regular habit of mine.

I grew more and more surprised with every word he said. This was absurd!

My alleged actions would have gone undetected, the prosecutor declared, had not a man named Thomas Peyton arrived at my office exactly three days before to request help in redrafting his will.

Going directly to the point, the prosecutor claimed that during the chaotic storm of papers and bills as we tried to calculate his estate, Mr. Peyton had accidentally read a letter that was on my desk. The letter, addressed to a faraway niece of mine, was read before the entire court. It began:

“Dearest Clara,

I write to you to confess a sin of mine, however small it may be, before it consumes my soul. For several years now I have been secretly slipping money from the business accounts of the law firm Jason and I run together…it is nothing really: only a dollar here or a dollar there, but I have been at it so long I’m afraid it has amounted to quite a healthy sum…”

I grew colder and colder with every word that was read, feeling unable to move or speak. When at last it was finished I looked up at Judge Adams—and by his face I saw clearly he believed the letter. The notion of what that could mean broke my paralysis, and I stood to my feet, shouting, “I didn’t write that letter! That letter was forged!”

But Ross, who stood behind me, pulled me back into my seat before I could continue. Furious, I turned to my court-appointed lawyer; but the poor boy averted his eyes and compulsively shuffled the useless papers in front of him, refusing to speak a word.

Now the prosecutor spoke of how Mr. Peyton had accused me on the spot—clearly worried about the safety of his own money. He told of how I had denied his claims, snatching the letter and tucking it away in my desk, and ushering him from my office. Then, once the old miser had stormed home, I had followed him. And fear of being caught had turned a mild-mannered man such as myself dark; and I, to keep my deeds to myself—

Though I had expected this, my blood still felt cold and I listened as a dead man listens to another being buried beside him. When the prosecutor had finished and the first witness was called up, I barely noticed it was Jason. I barely heard him tell of opening my office for the Sheriff, and being present when the confession letter was found. By the time he was finished and the next witness was testifying, I had sunk into a stupor. I did not hear four or five townspeople speak of seeing me walking towards Mr. Peyton’s home wearing my hat and long gray cloak. I did not hear of that same hat being found on the road near Mr. Peyton’s house. In fact, I heard nothing until the Judge’s gavel struck down like the gates of Hades slamming shut before me.

“Guilty,” the jury growled as one while the sound still trembled in the air.

“Sentence to be carried out at sunrise,” Judge Adams added.

I was utterly defeated as Ross and the Sheriff guided my tired feet out of the courthouse and into the now-dark night. There was no gauntlet of angry countryfolk awaiting me this time. Instead the crowd filed out of the courthouse behind us; some making their way home, others choosing to surround us as I was led down Main Street. I shuddered to think of spending my final hours in the cold dark, but my hands were empty. There was nothing I could do but march.

We had not gone ten paces before the night exploded.

From the midst of the crowd flew a large clump of sod. In the darkness the caster’s mark was foul, and he missed me entirely and instead struck the Sheriff square in the face with a wet, heavy thud. He grunted, stumbling sideways into Ross.

That single, chaotic second was enough.

It was fear that provoked my bones to action. In a single motion I shoved Ross to the ground and twisted free of the Sheriff’s weakened grasp. Then I took off, straight into the thickest part of the crowd; pushing and shoving through the confused people. Behind me I heard Ross’s half-shout and his gun being drawn; but the nearness of the crowd must have compelled him to still his trigger-finger, for no bullet tore into my retreating back. In seconds the forest engulfed me in its black maw.

They pursued me almost instantly. I could hear their shouts as I ducked beneath branches and leapt over fallen logs. Thorns whipped across my arms and cheeks, but I ran heedless of the blood, ran until my chest smoldered and my legs felt like rubber.

The game began. I would run ten yards or so, then double back over my own tracks and head another direction. I avoided the soft, forested paths and instead forced my bloodied feet over the rocky ones where my tracks vanished. When I reached the creek I dropped into the water, sloshing upstream for three hundred agonizing yards. I threw stones to make noise and bent branches the wrong way. Anything to delay their inevitable arrival.

The chase easily blurred into hours, and before it was over midnight had settled over the valley. My body ached, but I was thankful; for my tricks have bought me this golden hour of safety which I needed to crawl into this musty loft and lay catching my breath.

Which brings me to the present. And not a moment too soon.

I can hear the baying of their hounds. They have found the place I left the creek. No doubt they will all be assembled in minutes, gathering round the barn with rifles ready and hearts determined. I can see the orange light of their lanterns through the trees, and they look so much like the blinking eyes of a monstrous beast. Maybe they are.

I write ahead of myself now, for there is no other way to describe how I shall hide these papers. Just across from me is a large beam, attached to the one I cower beneath. In the end of it there is a small hole, concealing a larger cavity. I plan to roll up these papers into a thin bundle and push them through the hole into the space behind. There they will be safe, out of reach of gnawing rats and protected from the rain.

I shall not hide or try to run from them. I am tired of acting like a guilty man, and I have decided I shall walk from the doors of this place with my hands at my sides, my head high and teeth set. I am void of any hope that they will spare me, for in my stomach I sense there is a bullet out there, one with my initials etched upon it, held in the fist of someone who believes with all righteous anger that I am a murderer. And so be it. I believe I prefer it that way.

My sorry tale has come to an end, but before I commit my final act, hear my last plea. Dear friend, whoever you may be, from whatever country or continent, whether you be old or young; do not forget this account. Speak of it. Share it with those around you with energy and pride. For it is my final hope that one day, your words may return to the valley of Daen, and reach the ears of the descendants of my persecutors.

For this is a tale they need to hear. Their ancestors committed a terrible crime; worse than the one they accused an innocent man of. And I wish for them to hear that, despite their lies, the truth has survived. For if you are reading this, the world now knows the true culprit.

Do not forget the name of Nicholas Graham, dear reader. For my sake, and for the sake of truth, do not forget.