Hard Row

Several men reach to pull the two apart. Others open

the door and cry out to the bouncers as the bottle

gleams in the dull light.

Blood suddenly spurts across the white cowboy hat

now trampled beneath their feet and the big Anglo

crashes to the floor, writhing in pain.

4

C H A P T E R

1

If a man goes at his work with his fists he is not so successful

as if he goes at it with his head.

—Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890

Deborah Knott

Friday, February 24

% A cold February morning and the first thing on

my calendar was the State of North Carolina ver-

sus James Braswell and Hector Macedo.

Misdemeanor assault inflicting serious bodily injury.

I vaguely remembered doing first appearances on

them both two or three weeks earlier although I would

have heard only enough facts to set an appropriate bond

and appoint attorneys if they couldn’t afford their own.

According to the papers now before me, Braswell was

a lineman for the local power company and could not

only afford an attorney, but had also made bail immedi-

ately. His co-defendant, here on a legal visa, had needed

an appointed lawyer and he had sat in the Colleton

County jail for eleven days till someone went his bail.

Each was charged with assaulting the other, and while

5

MARGARET MARON

it might have been better to try them separately, Doug

Woodall’s office had decided to join the two cases and

prosecute them together since the charges rose out of

the same brawl. Despite a broken bottle, our DA had

not gone for the more serious charge of felony assault

because keeping them both misdemeanors would save

his office time and the county money, something he was

more conscious of now that he’d decided to run for

governor.

Neither attorney had objected even though it meant

they had to put themselves between the two men scowl-

ing at each other from opposite ends of the defendants’

table.

Braswell’s left hand and wrist had been bandaged last

month. Today, a scabby red line ran diagonally across

the back of his hand and continued down along the

outer edge of his wrist till it disappeared under the cuff

of his jacket. The stitches had been removed, but the

puncture marks on either side were still visible. I’m no