The Reckoning

Joel and Stella return Clanton three days before Christmas. They stay with their Aunt Florry. Pete is allowed to leave the jail and spend one hour with his children at Florry’s house.

The sheriff has observed that Pete looks as if he has aged several years, and he has lost weight despite the good food Florry has provided for him and the other prisoners. He theorizes that for Pete, maybe death doesn’t seem as bad as it does for most men. Pete is tormented by memories of the prison camp and by the residual pain of his war wounds. Pete talks a little bit with his family about his trial, but he offers no defense for his actions, and he tells Joel and Stella that he doesn’t care whether the jury sentences him to death or life in prison.

On Christmas day, Florry, Joel, and Stella go to visit Liza at the Mississippi state hospital where she has spent the last seven months. They have never received a letter from her, and Pete has told them nothing about her diagnosis or treatment.

At the hospital, they are told by Doctor Hilsabeck that Pete, as Liza’s court-ordered guardian, telephoned the hospital the previous day and instructed that Joel and Stella were not to be allowed to see her.