The Washita Reservation

The Washita Reservation is the Cherokee homeland of Arlen Bitterbuck, a condemned man on E Block at Cold Mountain Penitentiary. Bitterbuck, a council elder of the Washita Cherokee, is executed in the electric chair on July 17, 1932, and his identity as a tribal leader shapes his final hours and the manner of his death.

Identity and Background

Arlen Bitterbuck, called "The Chief" by the guards, was not a chief but first elder of his tribe on the Washita Reservation and a member of the Cherokee Council. He had killed a man while both were drunk, crushing the man's head with a cement block over a pair of boots. Despite his crime, his tribal standing remained significant; he wore his iron-gray hair in braids, and his eldest daughter, a woman of thirty-odd, was allowed to plait them nice and even before his execution. She wanted to weave hawk pinfeathers into the tips—the hawk was his bird—but Paul Edgecombe refused, fearing they might catch fire and burn.

Life on E Block and Execution

Bitterbuck was stoical on the outside, in the tradition of his tribe, but Edgecombe could see his fear of the end growing inside him like a poison flower. In his final days, he spoke of his first wife and how they had built a lodge together up in Montana, calling those the happiest days of his life. He asked Edgecombe if a man who sincerely repented of what he had done wrong might get to go back to the time that was happiest for him and live there forever, wondering if that could be what heaven is like. On the night of his execution, he walked strong up the Green Mile to Edgecombe's office, where he dropped to his knees to pray with Brother Schuster from the Heavenly Light Baptist Church. He started to cry when Schuster recited the psalm about lying down beside the still waters, and Edgecombe believed he was thinking about still water so pure and so cold it felt like it was cutting your mouth every time you drank some.

Narrative Role and Significance

Bitterbuck's execution serves as the first detailed electrocution in the narrative, establishing the ritual and the guards' procedures. His calm dignity contrasts with the later botched execution of Eduard Delacroix. The Washita Reservation grounds his identity as a man with a community and a past, unlike the rootless John Coffey. His daughter's dignified conduct practically guaranteed that her father would do the same, and Edgecombe noted that he liked to see them cry a little, because it was when they didn't that he got worried. After the execution, Percy Wetmore slapped the dead man's cheek and said, "Adios, Chief. Hope hell's hot enough for you," prompting Brutus Howell to rebuke him, saying, "He's paid what he owed. He's square with the house again."