Other People’s Hearts: Chapter 3- Only One Brother

Sid looked over as Katie’s eyes fluttered. The whole courtroom was whispering, loudly. The entire thing had been a spectacle, so much so that no one else in the family dared speak to Katie. But she had always been the baby in the family. And it was up to Sid to take care of her.

 

He had seen the children the evening before, Mrs. King glared at him as he held each of them in her living room. Her own health was quickly fading as she grieved the loss of her son, the father of these children. These children who were consuming everything in her home. Who came from that Devil Woman.

 

Ruby clung pitifully to her Uncle Sid. “Why can’t we come to your house?” Her eyes kept overflowing with tears.

 

Sid felt his own voice choke up. He wanted so much to take them in, but he had seven mouths of his own to feed, and Dee had already made it clear that she would not allow those children to take food from her own. “I just can’t baby, but your momma loves all of you so much. She wishes she were here with y’all!” He had to whisper that last part to all of them, so as not to offend Mrs. King. “She loves you all so, so much.” And he wrapped his arms around each of the children.

 

Emory wiggled out first. “But she killed Daddy, didn’t she? In a way?”

 

“You know it was Nick who did it!” Ruby sobbed.

 

“Maybe it was for the best… he was always so mean,” James Ellis whispered, looking over his shoulder.

 

If only they knew what their fate would be, how they would be sent away. How they would be separated. How some of them would be listed as “inmates”, when in reality they were considered orphans.

 

Sid looked over at Katie as she awoke in the courthouse. “Katie, Katie!” Was all he could say, and wonder how could they have gotten here? If only he had known what kind of man Jim King was, perhaps all of this could have been avoided.

 

Katie stood with the help of her lawyer as Dr. White was taking the stand. It had been long known that Dr. White and his wife had felt slighted by Katie King some years ago when she had not attended a party in their home. Such a thing was considered a unforgivable sin amongst the women in Jones County. They had long suspected that Katie thought she was better than the other ladies in the town, with her clothing from Macon and Savannah. Sure, there had always been the rumors of Jim King’s infidelity. And it was known that he left the saloons in a drunken rage often, with everyone knowing how Katie had taken it. One could not cover all of the bruises, even with fancy hats and bows.

 

Dr. White took the stand, glowering at Katie, who was still limp and pale in her seat.

 

“Well yes, I remember well Mrs. King asking about the strychnine. She claimed that her husband liked to mix it in his coffee, that it was how he maintained his physique.”

 

A hush went over the courtroom as Katie’s lawyers tore into Dr. White, asking about the offense of the missed party, how strychnine was once used for such things like coffee.

 

Dr. White had been the last prosecution witness, and there was only one for the defense:

 

Katie would have to plead for her own life.

 

“Gentlemen, I know I have done some things wrong, but I am not responsible for the death of my husband. Wilburn made his own plans and carried them out. Of course, he told me the evening he passed my house what he was going to do, and I begged him to spare my husband’s life. I was in his hands. He had everything over me. I was entirely alone and in his hands with no protection on earth. He has not only taken my husband, he has taken my children from me and my relatives, and only one brother is left to me. He has wrecked my home and my children’s lives.”

 

 

See parts two and one of this story here:

Other Peoples Hearts: Chapter 2- The Other Sister & Civil War Memories

https://southernbonvivant.com/peoples-hearts-chapter-1-murder-jones-county/