The Big Sky (7 page)

"They're across, havin' one."

The sheriff took Bedwell by the arm. "Watch this here boy, will you, Charlie?" he said to the dark little man. The man sat down. The sheriff and Bedwell went out.

The section beyond the pole was filling. The voices made a single, steady noise in the room, a noise without words, rising and falling but still steady, coming at a man like waves and washing up on him. The people stopped and looked up front as they came in and then went and sat down and looked up again and began to talk, their voices going into the wave.

After while the door beside Boone opened to let in the sheriff and Bedwell and half a dozen other men. Two of them stepped up on the judges' platform and sat down and waited there, quiet and open-eyed, like owls in the light. One of them had a body like an egg, and a red face and eyes with little rivers of blood running in them. The other was pale and had eyes like a sick hound. He slumped back when he sat down and didn't make a motion, letting his eyes go over everything as if nothing mattered. A third man went to a little table and put a big book on it and sat down behind it and got out a pen. The sheriff nudged Boone to his feet and pushed him over in front of the judges. The redveined eyes fastened on him. "What's your name, boy?"

"Boone Caudill."

"You are charged with assault and battery. Guilty or not guilty?"

"I ain't done nothin'."

"Not guilty, then. Ready to stand trial?"

When Boone didn't answer the red eyes flicked impatiently. "Here, this boy needs counsel." The eyes picked out a man. "Squire Beecher."

One of the half-dozen men who had just come in stepped forward. "Yes, your honor." He wore a brown coat with a rolling collar and underneath it a lighter-colored vest. His hair was thick and straw-colored, and at the nape of his neck it flowed into a queue, tied with some kind of skin, which reached to his tail. He looked to be twentyfive or twenty-six years old.

"Can you take the defense? The court doubts if there's a fee in it." The man nodded slowly, and the judge went on, "Eggleston says the state's ready. We got a jury, from yesterday."

"Give me a minute," asked Squire Beecher.

"Sure thing. Take the defendant into the grand jury room. Then we'll git on."

"Suppose you tell me all about it," said Squire Beecher after they had sat down in the other room. There was a table in it, and twelve chairs, and five or six spittoons that reared up, widemouthed, as if begging for a squirt. "Well?" prompted Beecher.

"That gun, he stoled it from me."

"How?"

"He just taken it, and I was aimin' to Sit it back."

"That's why you tackled him?"

"To git it back."

The squire hitched himself in his chair. "Look, boy! I'm on your side, but unless you tell me the facts of the case I can't help you. Start at the first now, and tell the whole story."

"Ain't nothin' to tell, savin' he came up on me two nights ago and gave me his name and took supper with me."

"Where?"

"Two days away, yonder."

"Then what?"
 

"He sneaked off in the night, takin' my gun and my horn and bullet pouch."

"When he came up on you, do you mean it was at your house?"

"Outside."

"How did you happen to be outside?"

Squire Beecher waited for an answer. "You mean you were traveling?"

"To St. Louis."

"From where?"

Again the squire waited. "Is this all you're going to tell me, just that this man Bedwell came up on you while you were camping out, and shared your supper and later stole off with your gun while you slept?"

Boone said, "That's all there is."

Squire Beecher bent his head and brought his queue around in front and fingered it while he thought. It was eelskin, likely, it was tied by. Beecher said, "You don't give yourself much chance. How do you happen to be tramping through Indiana with no money? You haven't any money, have you? No food? No horse?"

The sheriff's horn of a voice came into the room. "Court's ready, Beecher." While Beecher looked at him Boone said, "It don't matter. He stoled my rifle, I told you." The young lawyer got up, a frown wrinkling his smooth face. "Come on, then."

"Ready?" asked the red-faced judge. Squire Beecher nodded. "Ready as can be, Judge Test." To the sheriff the judge said, "Summon the jury." The sheriff strode to the door and bellowed "Jury!" like a man calling hogs. Afterward he came back and pounded on a table. "Oyez! Oyez!" There was a scuffling of feet as everybody stood. The voice boomed around the room. Beecher motioned Boone toward one of the tables. They sat down by it. Bedwell was seated at the other, and with him was a lean-faced man who kept fiddling with his chin. The man's eyes were so gray they were almost white, like glass, and, like glass, they looked hard and cool.

The fat man called Judge Test sat forward on his seat, his arms crossed on the bench in front of him. The other judge stayed slumped back, looking tired. Judge Test had his hand up and was saying something to the jurymen, seated over to the right against the side wall. Boone wondered if the pale judge was as sick as he looked. Beecher and the coldeyed man were putting questions to the jury. A man might get as white as that if he never let the weather touch him. The red-veined eyes swung around. "Let the witnesses be sworn. Stand up! Hold up your hand there, boy!"

". . sweart'ell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, s'helpyouGod?"

As the judge said "God" a queer look flashed over his face. His eyes flicked wide, as if he had been poked in the behind, and his jaw fell down and his mouth made a round hole in his face. His hands fluttered. There was the sound of wood splintering. Boone just caught a glimpse of the wide eyes and open mouth and the hands grabbing, and then the judge's face dropped out of sight behind the bench as if he were playing fort and had ducked a rock. Boone heard his rump thump on the platform. The pale judge seized the bench in front of him and held himself up while the other end of the seat beneath him went down. Judge Test got up, blowing and redder than ever. He said, "Dammit!" and looked at the sheriff. "It's the sheriff-'s job to see that this here courtroom is kept in repair."

The sheriff said something that Boone couldn't hear because people had begun to laugh. Judge Test pounded for silence. The cold-eyed man at the other table nodded wisely. He muttered, "It appears that this is a mighty weak bench."

They hollered then, the people at the other side of the pole did, and slapped each other and whooped while Judge Test pounded. The judge's eyes flashed redly, but the cold-eyed man just grinned at him and by and by the judge swallowed and made himself grin, too. A man brought in a block of wood, and they set the end of the bench on.it, and Judge Test lowered himself slowly, trying it out. "All right, Eggleston," he said, "if you're through with your funnin'," and the cold-eyed man said, "Come around, sheriff."

The sheriff handed Old Sure Shot to another man and came over and sat down in a chair beside the judges' bench, facing the crowd.

Eggleston asked, "You are Mark York, sheriff of Orange county?"

"Sure."

A thumb motioned toward Boone. "Ever see this defendant before?"

"Sure."

"When and where?"

"First time, he went sneakin' around me, on the Greenville road. That was about noon."

"What were you doing there?"

"Matt Elliott got a cow stole. I was coming from there."

"What do you mean when you say he sneaked around you?"

"He left the road and circled behind me. I just got a flash of him makin' off."

"Do you know any reason why he would want to sneak by you?"

Squire Beecher jumped up. "Objection!"

Eggleston said, "Oh, all right," and went on. "When did you see him for the second time?"

"Up the road a piece. He had this here gentleman down and was gougin' him."

"They were fighting?"

"Sure."

"Who would you say was the aggressor?"

"This young feller here was on top."

Squire Beecher cried "Objection!" again. Judge Test looked at him, then said, "This court isn't going to tie itself up with a lot of fiddle-faddle. It's the truth we want. Go ahead, Eggleston."

"And you brought them in?"

"Sure." He pointed at Boone. "He was fixin' to get the gentleman's horse and outfit."

"Objection!"

Eggleston turned his white eyes on Squire Beecher. "Pass the witness."

The squire said, "Sheriff, so far as you know, the man Bedwell might have started the fight, might he not?"

"Could be."

"Actually, you couldn't tell who the aggressor was?"

"This one was on top."

"But that doesn't prove anything?"

"Proves he was gettin' the best of it."

The answer set people to nudging one another and giggling and talking at the corners of their lips. The sheriff grinned back at them and made a slow wink. Judge Test rapped.

"That's all."

The sheriff got up and walked over to the side and took Old Sure Shot from the man he had handed it to. "Bedwell."

The dove greatcoat switched, the tight breeches scissored, the white hat swung from one hand.

The prosecutor looked at his papers. "You are Jonathan Bedwell, of New Orleans?"

"The same."

"You know the defendant here?"

"I saw him, just the once."

"Tell the court about it."

"He attacked me."

"Go on."

"It was about noon today. I had stopped and got off my horse while I let him drink."

"Where?"

"On the Greenville road, a mile or so out."

"I heard someone running, and turned around, and it was this man, charging me."

"Ever see him before?"

"No."

"Why would he attack you?"

"I object," called Beecher. Except for one flicker of the veined eyes, Judge Test gave him no notice.

"I don't know. The sheriff said it was robbery, but I don't know."

The lean face of the prosecutor turned on Boone. "He looks like he needed something of everything, all right."

People smiled at that, and some of them cackled while Beecher objected and Judge Test pounded on the bench. There was just one man who didn't smile. He was an Indian in the first row beyond the pole, sitting straight and unmoving, his hands holding a pair of quilled moccasins which he had brought to town to sell, likely. The pale judge came out of his slump and fixed his sad eyes on the prosecutor. "That ain't law, Eggleston, and you know it."

Eggleston went on. "At any rate, he charged you and knocked you down and was trying to do you bodily injury when the sheriff happened on the scene."

"He would have killed me, I think."

"You have a horse?"

"A good one."

"And a rifle?"

"A good one, but a little light."

It wasn't light, either, Boone said to himself, but heavy enough for even b'ar or buffier.

"I guess any robber"  the cold eyes were on Boone "would be glad to get them."

"I suppose so."

"I object." It was Beecher again, standing and shaking his head so that the queue swung behind his back. Judge Test moved one finger. "No fiddle-faddle."

"You can have him," said Eggleston to Squire Beecher.

Beecher asked, "Did you say you had never seen this boy before?"

"Never."

Beecher aimed a finger at Bedwell. "But, as a matter of fact, you shared his supper with him night before last, didn't you?"

"No."

"You shared his supper with him and spent the night at his campfire, and you got up early, while the boy still slept, and made off with his rifle and horn and pouch, didn't you?"

"No. I did not."

Eggleston interrupted. "The state objects to this line of questioning."

"Go on," said Judge Test to Beecher.

"And the boy attacked you just in the hope of getting his rifle back?"

"It wasn't his rifle."

The questions went on. Through a window Boone could see a tavern across the street and, at the side of it and farther on, the wooded knobs lifting to the horizon. He thought of the cave where he had spent the night, and the rain whispering on the rocks while he stayed dry inside.

"That's all," said Beecher. Bedwell started to get up, but Eggleston motioned him back. Eggleston's thin mouth worked carefully."Just a minute. Can you identify the rifle?"

"Of course. It was made by old Ben Mills at Harrodsburg, Kentucky. I bought it from him."

"Sheriff," Eggleston asked, "bring the rifle around, will you?" He looked at the piece, held it for Beecher's inspection and then handed it to the jurymen. It made the rounds among them while they nodded their heads. The prosecutor let himself smile.
Squire Beecher was on his feet. "Wait! Wait!" His finger leveled at Bedwell. "You could have memorized the name of the maker after you had stolen the rifle, couldn't you?"

"Yes," said Bedwell. "If I had stolen it."

"As a matter of fact, that would probably be the first thing you would do, wouldn't it?" asked Beecher, his eyes going from one juror to another. They looked at him and looked away, as if they couldn't be jarred loose from an idea.

Bedwell said, "Probably. If I had stolen it."

Eggleston pointed his lean face at the bench. "That's the case."

Squire Beecher turned to Boone. "All right," he said. His finger showed the way to the witness stand.

Boone got up and went over and sat down. At one side of him were the jurors, at the other the judges' bench. In front of him were the attorneys and Bedwell and the clerk with his big book and pen, and beyond them the townspeople, staring at him, turning to talk behind shielding hands out of eager, curling mouths. They eyes came together on him, as if everything was just one big eye and he was all there was to see. Only the Indian sat quiet, looking at him out of eyes that caught a gleam from the window, his hands idle in his lap, holding the moccasins. He wouldn't be a real western Indian, but a Miami, or maybe a Pottawatomi. Far back in the room a man was smiling at Boone, like a body would smile at a friend. In the whole passel of faces his was the only friendly one, unless it would be the Indian's.