The Professor (35 page)

EPILOGUE

On the northern tip of the Hazel Green farm, nestled between two cherry trees, is the McMurtrie family cemetery. In this twenty foot by twenty foot plot, there are three large headstones, and Tom took a minute with each one, running his fingers over the engraved letters.

Sutton Winslow McMurtrie. July 5, 1908–May 9, 1979.

Rene Graham McMurtrie. December 6, 1910–May 25, 1992.

Julie Lynn Rogers McMurtrie. March 16, 1943–April 17, 2007.

On his walk from the house, Tom had picked fresh wildflowers, Julie’s favorite, and now he placed them on her grave as well as his momma’s and daddy’s. He stood back and gazed upward at the beautiful blue sky, taking in the fragrance of the flowers. Then he turned from them and walked to the edge of the plot, where the last headstone lay.

This one was small and it contained no dates or even a last name. Tom wiped a tear from his eye as he looked at the stone that so amply described the friend buried underneath.

MUSSO: “A Fighting Dog”

“First time I’ve ever been quoted on a monument.”

Tom turned at the sound of the familiar voice. Bocephus Haynes approached and put his huge hand on Tom’s shoulder.

“You want to tell me about it?” he said, his voice low.

Tom nodded, feeling the emotion in his chest as he thought back to the day when the world went white. “The day after my last treatment, when Rick came out here and asked me to try the Wilcox case with him”—Tom paused, wiping his eyes—“I refused at first. Didn’t think I could do it. Too old. Too sick. I went for a long walk to think about it and didn’t bring a gun. This farm is pretty tame but it’s not without its wild animals. Remember hearing that bobcat squeal?”

“Yeah, dog. You said they were harmless.”

“They normally are,” Tom said, squinting at him. “Unless they’re rabid . . .”

Bo’s eyes widened.

“Took Musso with me,” Tom continued. “It was too long a walk for him, and when I stopped at the creek I thought I might have to carry him back. Musso was so old.” Tom’s lip quivered but he continued. “He started limping halfway to the creek, but I wouldn’t stop. Anyway, after he’d fallen asleep, I heard something behind me. It was that same high-pitched squeal that you heard, and I knew immediately it had to be a bobcat. I turned, and sure enough it was a yellow and black bobcat. Had to be at least fifty pounds, which is big for them.” Tom paused. “When I saw the foam on its mouth, I knew I was screwed.”

“Aw, shit,” Bo whispered.

“I barely had time to move,” Tom said. “The son of a bitch lunged for me, and I tripped over an uneven rock. Must have hit the back of my head on something, ’cause I was out cold for a while.” Tom stopped, wiping his eyes and gazing down at the small headstone.

“Then what happened?” Bo asked.

“Well, damnedest thing. I woke up, and other than the back of my head hurting, I was fine. The damn thing hadn’t touched me.” Tom paused. “Which was
impossible
.
He was coming right for me and he was rabid. I looked around and didn’t see the bobcat. Then I noticed that Musso was gone too.” Tom’s heart hurt as he talked but he continued. “I walked around a little bit and saw them about thirty yards away, nestled against an oak tree.”

“
Them?” Bo raised an eyebrow.

“At first I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. I could tell the bobcat was dead, ’cause I saw its tail underneath the red thing on top of him. When I got closer, I saw that . . . that the red thing was Musso. He was so scratched up, his white coat was almost solid red.”

“But . . . but how—?” Bo tried to ask, but Tom interrupted.

“Musso had the bobcat’s neck in his mouth and his eyes were shut. He had clamped down and held on.”

Bo let out a low whistle. “Damn.”

“He was thirteen years old and knocking on death’s door and he killed a fifty-pound rabid bobcat.”

“Was he still . . . ? I mean, when you found him . . .”

Tom felt the tears again but forced them back. “I spoke to him. I said, ‘Musso, it’s me. It’s me . . .’ and . . . he opened his eyes and let out the lowest, most ornery growl I’ve ever heard in my life. Then he finally let go. He had been holding on that whole time. Hours . . . He sank to the side of the bobcat but he didn’t move. I put my hand down to his mouth and he licked it. Then . . .” Tom put his hand over his face and let the tears flow.

“He waited until he knew you were safe before he let himself die.”

Tom nodded. “He fought, Bo. Just like you said he would.”

“And so did you.”

“Just like you said I would.”

Bo smiled. “What can I say? I know a bulldog when I see one.”

They walked back to the house, and the talk turned to the future.

“So what’s the news from Tuscaloosa?” Tom asked.

Since the trial, Tom had finally given in to Bo’s urging to strike back at the law school. Bo had written the board of directors a letter stating that Tom’s retirement had been under duress and demanding that Tom be immediately reinstated to the faculty and that all of the conditions imposed by the board on his return be removed.

“As a matter of fact,” Bo said, chuckling, “Rufus called me this morning. They’ve offered you your job back, Professor.”

Tom cocked his head toward Bo and raised his eyebrows.

“Yep,” Bo continued. “Evidence professor and trial team coach. They’re throwing in a ten-thousand-dollar raise too.”

“Jesus, Bo. How did you do it so fast?”

“Wasn’t me,” Bo said. “You saw the papers after the trial. The press may be annoying but they aren’t stupid. The school suspended you for your actions toward Rick Drake and Dawn Murphy, both of whom helped you try and win the Wilcox case. The
Tuscaloosa
News
and the local television stations called the board’s decision fishy in light of Drake and Murphy’s obvious allegiance to you. Anyway, after all the negative press, one of your supporters on the board was able to get a couple of the board members who had voted with Tyler to see the error of their ways.”

“Rufus,” Tom said, chuckling.

“Bingo,” Bo said.

“What about Lambert?” Tom asked.

“Gone,” Bo said, laughing. “Once Rufus got a majority of the board to vote you back in, that same majority voted to fire Lambert.”

Tom shook his head. “And Tyler?”

Bo’s laughter stopped and his face grew solemn. “That . . . is actually the best part. Rufus’s majority asked the board of trustees of the university to remove Tyler as the law school attorney, and the president of the board of trustees issued a mandate that Jameson Tyler and the Jones & Butler firm never be allowed to do any legal work for the university ever again.” Bo paused. “I believe you know the president of the board of trustees, don’t you?”

Tom nodded, feeling goose bumps break out on his arm. “Paul Bryant Jr.”

“Seems appropriate, doesn’t it?” Bo said, but Tom was too moved by the gesture to speak. “Yeah . . .” Bo continued, nodding. “I think Coach would have loved that.”

When they reached the driveway, Bo opened the door to the Lexus and then turned to look at Tom. “How did the surgery go?”

“Good,” Tom said. “Bill said he got it all this time. I’ll have to live with being scoped every three months for a while, but . . . I’m in pretty good shape.”

Bo leaned against the open door and looked Tom in the eye. “So what are you gonna do now, dog? You’ve got your job back if you want it. Your health is good. And you just hit the largest verdict in West Alabama history. Sounds like the world is your oyster, Professor.”

“I don’t know yet, Bo. You’ve given me a lot to think about.” He paused and looked back toward the farm. “But whatever it is, it’ll be something. No more sitting around. I plan to live the rest of my life like Musso died.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Bo said. “Now . . .” A low whine interrupted Bo’s words, and Bo smiled. “Ah, hell, I almost forgot.”

“Forgot what?” Tom asked, watching Bo walk around the car and open the back.

“Well, when you told me why I was coming up here today, I bought you a little present.”

Bo stepped back and gestured at a small green crate.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Tom said.

Inside the crate was a tiny white and brown English bulldog puppy. Tom opened the crate and took the pup in his arms. Then he looked at his friend.

“You saved my life, Bo. I can’t thank—”

“Save your thank-yous, Professor,” Bo said, sliding into his car and turning the ignition.

“So, back to Pulaski?” Tom inquired once the automatic windows had come down.

“Home sweet home,” Bo said.

“You ever gon’ tell me why you practice in that town? You could make even more millions in a bigger city.”

“I did tell you, remember?”

Tom’s stomach tightened as the memory came back to him. “Because of what happened to your dad?”

Bo nodded, the smile leaving his face. “Unfinished business, dog.”

“You ever gonna tell me the whole story?”

Bo shook his head. “Maybe, but not today. It’s too long and I have to get home before Jazz tears me a new one.”

Before Tom could say anything else, Bo eased the car forward. When it reached the end of the driveway, Tom remembered something Bo had said many moons ago.

“Bo!” Tom yelled, leaning back as his new puppy licked his face.

The car stopped, and Bo leaned his head out the window, waiting for Tom to speak.

But Tom didn’t say anything. He simply held up the four fingers of his right hand.

Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Six months later

He arrived at the Waysider about 7:00 a.m. Hungry, both literally and figuratively. He ate eggs and bacon and read the newspaper, looking for new opportunities—an angle for the firm—but he didn’t see any. Had he been less focused, he might have allowed himself to reminisce. To think back to that morning some forty years earlier in this same restaurant when the Man had asked him to come home. Instead, he drank coffee and thought about increasing the firm’s caseload. He had by his count eaten at the Waysider at least once a week since he started. He had also eaten once a week at the City Café in Northport. Getting out and about and being noticed. Keeping his ear to the ground in the hopes of landing the home run case. That was the name of the game. The life of the plaintiff’s lawyer.

Fifteen minutes later he was getting out of his car in the firm parking lot. Before going in, he stopped and looked at the sign that had replaced Rick’s shingle a week ago.

McMurtrie & Drake, LLC.

Thomas Jackson McMurtrie breathed the cool Tuscaloosa air and allowed himself a second to smell the roses. He was sixty-nine years old. Last night he and Ruth Ann had eaten dinner at the Cypress Inn. They had been dating now for a few months, and Tom was happy, knowing in his heart that Julie would want him to keep living. This morning he had walked Lee Roy around the block. Though not as big as Musso at this age, Lee Roy Jordan McMurtrie had promise. And a hell of a lot of spirit. Sometimes Tom wasn’t sure who was walking who.

Now Tom was about to practice his calling. After forty years of teaching—none of which he regretted—Thomas Jackson McMurtrie, the Professor, was a trial lawyer again.

Tom smiled, thinking of something Jameson Tyler had said a few months earlier, and then saying it out loud as he opened the door and ran up the stairs, not caring if anybody heard him.

“The old bull still has a little gas in the tank.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE

In drawing the character of Tom McMurtrie, my aim was to create a legendary figure. A man of exceptional integrity, strength, and class. One of the ways I sought to achieve this purpose was to include Tom on Alabama’s famed 1961 football team. Though Tom and the events of this novel are entirely fictional, the 1961 Alabama football team was very much real. As a lifelong Alabama football fan, I can say that all Alabama teams are in some way measured by the ’61 team. This team formed the bedrock of Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant’s Alabama football dynasty, and their names echo in crimson lore even today. Names like Billy Neighbors, Lee Roy Jordan, Pat Trammell, Darwin Holt, Mike Fracchia, Billy Richardson, Benny Nelson, Bill “Brother” Oliver, Mal Moore, Charley Pell, Bill Battle, and Cotton Clark, just to name a few.

Part of the historical significance of the ’61 team is how far the football program had come since Coach Bryant’s arrival. In 1958, Coach Bryant, an Alabama alumnus who played on the 1934 national champions, left Texas A&M to become the head coach of Alabama, famously proclaiming that “Mama called.” Despite inheriting a program that had suffered four consecutive losing seasons, in his first meeting with the team in 1958 he promised them that they would win a national championship for Alabama.

Just three years later, the 1961 team fulfilled Coach Bryant’s promise, going 11-0 and defeating Arkansas 10-3 in the Sugar Bowl to win the national championship. It was Coach Bryant’s first of six national championships at Alabama and began an amazing run of excellence. From 1961 to 1966, the Crimson Tide went 60-5-1 and won three national championships (1961, 1964, and 1965) and four Southeastern Conference championships.

Perhaps an even bigger part of the legend of the 1961 team is the special bond that Coach Bryant shared with the players. Pat Trammell, the team’s starting quarterback, is widely regarded as Bryant’s favorite all-time player. At Trammel’s funeral in 1968, after his untimely death from cancer, Bryant escorted Trammel’s mother from the church with tears in his eyes. It is the only time Bryant is ever reported to have cried in public. Billy Neighbors, who started on the offensive
and
defensive line, became Bryant’s stockbroker and close confidant. Bill “Brother” Oliver and Mal Moore both became assistant coaches for Bryant.

Even after Coach Bryant’s death in 1982, players from the ’61 team continued to have a dramatic impact on the university. Mal Moore, backup quarterback and defensive back on the ’61 team, became athletic director in 1999 and held the position until 2013. In 2007, Coach Moore probably made the most significant coaching hire at Alabama since Bryant, luring Nick Saban away from the Miami Dolphins. After Moore’s death in March 2013, Alabama suddenly had to replace the best athletic director in the country. It seems only appropriate that the university turned to Bill Battle, Moore’s friend and teammate on the ’61 team, to be his replacement.

Finally, the lasting legacy of the ’61 team was its dominant defense. Even Coach Bryant, not prone to overstatement or hyperbole, proclaimed of the ’61 defense, “We weren’t just a good defensive team. We were a
great
defensive team.” The ’61 defense recorded six shutouts and allowed only three touchdowns to be scored against them. Indeed, opponents scored just twenty-five points against Alabama the entire ’61 season.

The legend of the ’61 team endures today. On January 9, 2012, I sat with my parents in the Superdome in New Orleans as Alabama won its fourteenth national championship, defeating LSU 21-0. The 2011 team was led by a defense that was first in every statistical defensive category. There were three NFL first round draft choices on the 2011 defense and one second rounder. But when I declared to my father that the 2011 defense had to be the greatest of all time, he just shook his head and with misty eyes said, “Not like ’61. Hell, son, that team only gave up twenty-five points . . . the whole year.”