Free Shot in the Heart by Mikal Gilmore Page A

skills. He painted rich, naturalistic views of the Provo landscape, and he also carved handsomely detailed bows for archers throughout the state.
    Sometimes, though, George’s isolation seemed to drive something wild in him. On these occasions, he would strip off his clothes and lay them in a tidy pile in the Browns’ front yard, then take off running down Jordan Lane. Once or twice he made it all the way to Provo’s Center Street, running naked among the pop-eyed Mormons, until the police would pick him up and hold him for Will Brown to come and retrieve him. Invariably, these events would be followed by Will beating George, though frequently the beatings happened for no reason better than Will’s own fury. On these occasions, Will dragged George to one of the large trees in the backyard and tied him to its trunk with a strong rope. Then he took a strap and lashed his screaming son until the boy passed out from the pain and humiliation. Occasionally, the beatings grew so fierce that Bessie or Mark would run next door, where Will’s older brother Charley lived, and beg him to come over and drag Will off George. At such times, Charley was the only person in the world who could come safely between Will Brown and his rage.
    The beatings continued until the 1940s, when George and Mark wentoff to fight in the Second World War. George was among the American troops who helped liberate the Nazi concentration camps in Germany, and he was also stationed in France for a short time. Within a few days after his return from the war, George got on the wrong side of his father’s temper. Will threw a fist at his son, but George caught it and twisted his father’s hand. “You will
not
hit me again,” George told him. According to my mother, Will Brown never hit George or anybody after that.
    All the years of outrage and madness left their mark on George. He never dated, he never married, and for all the hurt he had suffered at home, he never ventured outside of the family. In a trunk in his room, George kept a collection of photos he had brought home from the war. Some were pictures he had taken of the corpses and emaciated survivors left in the concentration camps. The others were pornographic postcards that he had bought on the streets of Paris. Sometimes, George would coax his nieces and their friends into his room. Then he would lock the door and not let them out until they had looked at both sets of photos. It was an odd choice of images to show children—pictures of the modern world’s most horrific murders, mingled with pictures of forbidden pleasures. No doubt something about the juxtaposition titillated Uncle George, though something about the mix also told the whole sad story of what had been done to his life.
    George never left the farm. He inherited it after his mother died, and he lived there by himself, until his death in 1974. He lay dead for three days before he was found alone in his bed, near the trunk where he kept his pictures.
    A CCORDING TO MY MOTHER, THE DAY SHE FIRST CAME TO HATE Will Brown was the day of an execution. It’s an interesting story, so mired in fear and improbability that I’m no longer sure what its real meaning might be. Still, the story should be told, if only because it’s one that had consequences.
    Sporadically, Utah’s executions had been public or semi-public affairs. At times, hundreds had assembled for these events; sometimes thousands. On a few occasions, fathers and mothers would bring their families to witness the deaths and to attest to the merciless cost of violating God’s most precious laws. For a child growing up in early twentieth-century Utah, the atmosphere surrounding these events could be a fearful thing. My mother used to tell us that she hated hearing people talk about an impending execution, that she would cover her ears and try to shutout the awful news and the grim but excited way that her father and other churchmen would discuss the event. On the day of the