“A Death” – Stephen King

The link to the short story can be found here.

“A Death” is a short story written back in 2015. just because it’s short doesn’t mean that it’s lacking on any detail. The story starts out with Sheriff Barclay arriving at the residence of Jim Trusdale’s father where Jim is found reading a book by some lantern light. He is hauled off to jail while being yelled at by the people that they pass by. Trusdale is confused but then he is informed that he has been accused of multiple crimes including robbery, murder, and molestation of a 10 year old girl who was on her way to the sweet shop in town with a silver dollar coin. Trusdale is being accused because his hat was found in her dress. It was his favorite hat and always wore it, so when he was not wearing when he was arrested, it made him even more suspicious. He claims that he has lost it and wishes he had it back. He says that he isn’t right in the head, so he’s not fully there even when he’s out and about. The key to all of this is the silver dollar that has yet to be found or spent. They conduct a strip search on him and still, nothing has been found. With all of this along with the towns hatred for Trusdale, and his child like honesty, Barclay starts to believe that Trusdale is innocent. But this doesn’t help anything because he is convicted in trial shortly there after. Barclay sympathizes with Trusdale and pays for his last meal of steak, eggs, and fries. Trusdale worries about the food not passing through him naturally. They try and think about where the hat could have gone and who might have stolen it, but again, nothing comes to mind. The next day arrives, and Trusdale is up on the platform where he is about to be hung. The crowd watches in amazement as Trusdale grows more restless as he realizes what is about to happen. He asks to see the mountains one last time but his request goes unheard and the platform beneath him drops and he dies. Barclay is distraught over the killing of an “innocent” man while he receives a visit from the towns undertaker. He informs Barclay that he found the silver coin in Trusdale’s fecal matter while cleaning his body. Turns out, Trusdale was fully guilty of all of these crimes and would ingest the silver dollar every time that it would pass through his system so it could never be found. Barclay is dumbfounded by this and really takes a moment to rethink everything. Trusdale kept up his story all the way up until death and he has shown no remorse.

This story has really thrown me through a loop. I truly think that people are innocent until proven guilty so I would have sided with Sheriff Barclay here. There was just one piece of evidence that didn’t sit right with everything which was Trusdale’s hat being found inside of the girl’s dress. If it was his favorite hat, he would have made sure not to lose it or to misplace it. He should have been more worried about it if he actually lost it. It did seem like he was trying to sweep it under the rug a bit. So many details have really made me question a lot things. I could not imagine the way that Barclay felt after he found out that Trusdale was actually guilty of everything. He tried so hard to go against the grain of the towns people, yet he could not have been more wrong. Also the fact that Trusdale would keep eating the coin to really hide the evidence is so gross to me and show just how twisted he actually was. I know that he said that he wasn’t right in the head before, but nothing could really excuse what he has done or his behavior after wards. This whole story was very well written and the plot twist at the end really adds to the plot over all. With having a main character go against what everyone else thinks to only have them end up being wrong adds a whole other layer to the story. It really tries to get the reader on board to go through all of the emotions at one time. Instead of hating Trusdale in the beginning, there is a whole mess of feelings at the end where the truth really comes out. I had my friend read the story and she said that she did not expect the ending at all. With this being a short story, every piece of information was important in some way. There was such little time to convey such a well throughout plot and King did it very well.