Henry Thornberry was an attorney here in Fort Stockton who drove one of these back in the day.

He cut a dashing figure pulling up to the courthouse in the red and black Dodge, no one could argue. The contrast of his starched white shirt and mane of white hair with the merlot and ebony truck was akin to the savior standing in front of the table of the Last Supper before everyone was seated. So stark and dramatic.

Of course he could have driven anything he wanted, a Cadillac if had so chosen. But that’s not who Hank was. He was a man of far simpler tastes. A man of the people. Many of whom couldn’t actually afford his services. They would pay him in big burlap bags of pecans, bushel baskets of corn and tomatoes, jars of pickled okra, or even the occasional live chicken or two, all of which would end up in the oak-lined bed of his beloved Dodge pickup and taken home.

Long about July of ‘54 Hank had a case that weighed as heavily on him as any he had ever handled. A young man by the name of Jimmy Wright was charged with the assault and homicide of a long time Fort Stockton citizen. Hank knew that Jimmy Wright was innocent.

The problem was that his alibi was a tightly put together middle aged married woman not so distantly related to the judge who had made it clear she would not be testifying as to Jimmy’s whereabouts on the evening in question. Her silence on the fact that she and the accused had been bumping fuzz at a motel in Marfa that night meant that the thin circumstantial evidence would be all it took for Jimmy Wright to swing from the business end of a thick rope.

The day the verdict was read was so hot that birds were building their nests out of barbed wire. “Verdict: Guilty. Sentence: Death.” Hank tried to assure Jimmy that it wasn’t over, but they both knew the odds. It was a long lonely drive home in the Dodge from the courthouse to Maple Street. Each block seemed like a hundred miles.

Two months later the red and black B1B was parked outside the courthouse long after all the other cars had departed. It was the day the execution was to be carried out and Henry Thornberry was doing everything in his power, filing appeals, calling Austin, pleading for mercy right up until the last meal was due to be served.

Finally, long after darkness had settled over Fort Stockton, Hank walked through the heavy oak front door of his four square frame home, leaving the Dodge in the driveway, windows still rolled down. He was immediately confronted by an agitated Mrs. Thornberry. “Where have you been? Do you know what time it is? You didn’t call. Dinner is cold and I am not heating it up!”

Too shattered to even explain, Hank went to the kitchen and poured himself an jelly glass full of aged Kentucky bourbon and headed upstairs to the bathroom. He stripped off the jeans, white shirt, and tie and filled the claw foot bathtub with scalding hot water and a handful of Ivory Snowflakes. And there he laid until the bourbon was gone and the water was tepid.

Meanwhile, downstairs his wife had received a phone call from the court clerk, Wanda Jane. It seems that Jimmy’s illicit paramour couldn’t live with her guilt and confessed to the judge, at the very last minute, all the sordid facts of Jimmy Wright’s whereabouts on the night of the crime. Emergency calls were made to Huntsville where the execution was to take place.

Mrs. Thornberry burst through the bathroom door just as Hank was bent over, one leg on the toilet drying his foot. “They’re not hanging Wright!” she yelled.

“Good God, woman. You just don’t let up, do you?” Hank responded.