A Death
| "A Death" | |
|---|---|
| Author | Stephen King |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | crime, historical |
| Published in | The New Yorker, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams |
| Publication type | short story |
| Publisher | The New Yorker, Charles Scribner's Sons |
| Media type | |
| Publication date | March 9, 2015 |
| Preceded by | "Bad Little Kid" |
| Followed by | "The Bone Church" |
"A Death" is a short story by Stephen King, first published in the March 9, 2015 issue of The New Yorker, and collected in the November 3 collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. In his "Introduction" to the latter book, King suggests that he was somewhat inspired by The Hair of Harold Roux (1975), a novel by Thomas Williams, which King describes as the best book about writing ever written.
Set in the Dakota Territory, 1889, the story describes the arrest, trial, and conviction of Jim Trusdale, a simple-minded rancher's son, for a crime he may not have committed.
Sherriff Barclay and his deputies arrive at the ranch currently inhabited by Jim Trusdale, whose father, the owner, is now being cared for elsewhere in his old age. They arrest Trusdale, who's reading Black Hills Pioneer by lantern-light. Confused and protesting, but calm, he's led away from the ranch in a funeral hack to the local jail, a path which leads him through a crowd of townsfolk who jeer at and threaten him.
He's informed that the crime he's been accused of is the murder, robbery, and implied molestation of a ten-year-old girl, who was on her way to a sweet shop with a silver dollar given to her by her mother. Trusdale is accused because his hat was found inside her dress, a hat he treasured and always wore, but wasn't wearing and couldn't account for when he was arrested. The missing silver dollar is presumed to be either in his possession or discarded, since there's no record of him spending it, but no evidence is gained from a full-body strip search by Barclay.
As an economic measure the trial judge, Roger Mizell, also serves as the prosecuting attorney, a quirk of procedure described by a juror as: "Like a banker taking out a loan from himself and then paying himself interest", though no-one seems to disapprove of this. The childlike Trusdale's simple-minded honesty, coupled with the shambolic nature of the judicial process, the absence of the silver dollar, and the townfolks' unruly determination to see Trusdale hanged, gradually convinces Barclay that he is innocent. Nonetheless, he is convicted, while all through the trial the sounds of a gallows being erected can be heard.
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