PHINEAS EVERSMAN’S FIRST ACT was to release two of the five prisoners. He told us it was for lack of evidence, but I assumed there was some family connection. (There had to be; this was Mississippi.) I was so surprised and impressed that the chief had actually arrested the other three men that I offered no word of protest.
The three still in custody were named Chester Madden, Henry Wadsworth North, and, ironically enough, Lincoln Alexander Stephens, a man whose name evoked both the Great Emancipator and the dwarfish vice-president of the Confederacy. Henry North was the redheaded bully I’d encountered before, at Jenkins’ Mercantile.
Some folks called it “the Niggertown Trial.” Others called it “the White Raiders Trial.” The New Orleans Item dubbed it “That Mess in Eudora.” Whatever people called it, everyone was obsessed with it.
The citizens of Eudora were divided on the issues, but they certainly weren’t evenly divided. A small group welcomed the prospect of punishment for the violent, night-riding Raiders. But many folks, unbelievable as it might seem, thought the Raiders were being treated unfairly.
The Eudora Gazette, a weekly four-sheeter usually devoted to social notes, was now publishing five days a week, churning out a breathless new front-page report on the White Raiders Trial every day. The formerly lazy and slow-moving editor, Japheth Morgan, was a whirl of energy, placing expensive telephone trunk calls nearly daily to consult with his “unimpeachable sources of information in the capital.”
Japheth Morgan had never worked this hard before. He was losing weight and smoking cigarettes, one after another. He had dark circles under his eyes.
“You’d best settle down a bit, Japheth,” L.J. told him. “This trial could end up being the death of you.”
“But you don’t understand,” Japheth answered. “For me and for the Gazette, this isn’t the opportunity of a lifetime, it’s the trial of the century!”
The trial of the century.
As soon as he said it, I knew it was true. This was the trial of the century—not just for Eudora, not just for Mississippi, but for the entire country.