SHERIFF. Thats enough. Now, on your oath, did you see the prisoner on my
horse this morning on the road to Pony Harbor?
FEEMY. On my oath--[Disturbance and crowding at the door].
AT THE DOOR. Now then, now then! Where are you shovin to? Whats up?
Order in court. Chuck him out. Silence. You cant come in here. Keep
back.
(Strapper rushes to the door and forces his way out.)
SHERIFF [savagely] Whats this noise? Cant you keep quiet there? Is this
a Sheriff's court or is it a saloon?
BLANCO. Dont interrupt a lady in the act of hanging a gentleman. Wheres
your manners?
FEEMY. I'll hang you, Blanco Posnet. I will. I wouldn't for fifty
dollars hadnt seen you this morning. I'll teach you to be civil to me
next time, for all I'm not good enough to kiss the Book.
BLANCO. Lord keep me wicked till I die! I'm game for anything while
youre spitting dirt at me, Feemy.
RENEWED TUMULT AT THE DOOR. Here, whats this? Fire them out. Not me. Who
are you that I should get out of your way? Oh, stow it. Well, she cant
come in. What woman? What horse? Whats the good of shoving like that?
Who says? No! you don't say!
THE SHERIFF. Gentlemen of the Vigilance Committee: clear that doorway.
Out with them in the name of the law.
STRAPPER [without] Hold hard, George. [At the door] Theyve got the
horse. [He comes in, followed by Waggoner Jo, an elderly carter, who
crosses the court to the jury side. Strapper pushes his way to the
Sheriff and speaks privately to him].
THE BOYS. What! No! Got the horse! Sheriff's horse? Who took it, then?
Where? Get out. Yes it is, sure. I tell you it is. It's the horse all
right enough. Rot. Go and look. By Gum!
THE SHERIFF [to Strapper] You don't say!
STRAPPER. It's here, I tell you.
WAGGONER JO. It's here all right enough, Sheriff.
STRAPPER. And theyve got the thief too.
ELDER DANIELS. Then it aint Blanco.
STRAPPER. No: it's a woman. [Blanco yells and covers his eyes with his
hands].
THE WHOLE CROWD. A woman!
THE SHERIFF. Well, fetch her in. [Strapper goes out. The Sheriff
continues, to Feemy] And what do you mean, you lying jade, by putting up
this story on us about Blanco?
FEEMY. I aint put up no story on you. This is a plant: you see if it
isnt.
[Strapper returns with a woman. Her expression of intense grief silences
them as they crane over one another's heads to see her. Strapper takes
her to the corner of the table. The Elder moves up to make room for
her.]
BLANCO [terrified]: that woman aint real. You take care. That woman will
make you do what you never intended. Thats the rainbow woman. Thats the
woman that brought me to this.
THE SHERIFF. Shut your mouth, will you. Youve got the horrors. [To the
woman] Now you. Who are you? and what are you doing with a horse that
doesn't belong to you?
THE WOMAN. I took it to save my child's life. I thought it would get me
to a doctor in time. It was choking with croup.
BLANCO [strangling, and trying to laugh] A little choker: thats the word
for him. His choking wasn't real: wait and see mine. [He feels his neck
with a sob].
THE SHERIFF. Where's the child?
STRAPPER. On Pug Jackson's bench in his shed. He's makin a coffin for
it.
BLANCO [with a horrible convulsion of the throat--frantically] Dead! The
little Judas kid! The child I gave my life for! [He breaks into hideous
laughter].
THE SHERIFF [jarred beyond endurance by the sound] Hold you noise! will
you? Shove his neckerchief into his mouth if he don't stop. [To the
woman] Dont you mind him, maam: he's mad with drink and devilment. I
suppose theres no fake about this, Strapper. Who found her?
WAGGONER JO. I did, Sheriff. Theres no fake about it. I came on her on
the track round by Red Mountain. She was settin on the ground with the
dead body on her lap, stupid-like. The horse was grazin on the other
side of the road.
THE SHERIFF [puzzled] Well, this is blamed queer. [To the woman] What
call had you to take the horse from Elder Daniels' stable to find a
doctor? Theres a doctor in the very next house.
BLANCO [mopping his dabbled red crest and trying to be ironically gay]
Story simply wont wash, my angel. You got it from the man that stole the
horse. He gave it to you because he was a softy and went to bits when
you played off the sick kid on him. Well, I guess that clears me. I'm
not that sort. Catch me putting my neck in a noose for anybody's kid!
THE FOREMAN. Dont you go putting her up to what to say. She said she
took it.
THE WOMAN. Yes: I took it from a man that met me. I thought God sent him
to me. I rode here joyfully thinking so all the time to myself. Then I
noticed that the child was like lead in my arms. God would never have
been so cruel as to send me the horse to disappoint me like that.
BLANCO. Just what He would do.
STRAPPER. We aint got nothin to do with that. This is the man, aint he?
[pointing to Blanco].
THE WOMAN [pulling herself together after looking scaredly at Blanco,
and then at the Sheriff and at the jury] No.
THE FOREMAN. You lie.
THE SHERIFF. Youve got to tell us the truth. Thats the law, you know.
THE WOMAN. The man looked a bad man. He cursed me; and he cursed the
child: God forgive him! But something came over him. I was desperate, I
put the child in his arms; and it got its little fingers down his neck
and called him Daddy and tried to kiss him; for it was not right in its
head with the fever. He said it was a little Judas kid, and that it was
betraying him with a kiss, and that he'd swing for it. And then he gave
me the horse, and went away crying and laughing and singing dreadful
dirty wicked words to hymn tunes like as if he had seven devils in him.
STRAPPER. She's lying. Give her the oath, George.
THE SHERIFF. Go easy there. Youre a smart boy, Strapper; but youre not
Sheriff yet. This is my job. You just wait. I submit that we're in a
difficulty here. If Blanco was the man, the lady cant, as a white woman,
give him away. She oughtnt to be put in the position of having either
to give him away or commit perjury. On the other hand, we don't want a
horse-thief to get off through a lady's delicacy.
THE FOREMAN. No we don't; and we don't intend he shall. Not while I am
foreman of this jury.
BLANCO [with intense expression] A rotten foreman! Oh, what a rotten
foreman!
THE SHERIFF. Shut up, will you. Providence shows us a way out here. Two
women saw Blanco with a horse. One has a delicacy about saying so. The
other will excuse me saying that delicacy is not her strongest holt. She
can give the necessary witness. Feemy Evans: you've taken the oath. You
saw the man that took the horse.
FEEMY. I did. And he was a low-down rotten drunken lying hound that
would go further to hurt a woman any day than to help her. And if he
ever did a good action it was because he was too drunk to know what he
was doing. So it's no harm to hang him. She said he cursed her and went
away blaspheming and singing things that were not fit for the child to
hear.
BLANCO [troubled] I didn't mean them for the child to hear, you venomous
devil.
THE SHERIFF. All thats got nothing to do with us. The question you have
to answer is, was that man Blanco Posnet?
THE WOMAN. No. I say no. I swear it. Sheriff: don't hang that man: oh
don't. You may hang me instead if you like: Ive nothing to live for now.
You darent take her word against mine. She never had a child: I can see
it in her face.
FEEMY [stung to the quick] I can hang him in spite of you, anyhow. Much
good your child is to you now, lying there on Pug Jackson's bench!
BLANCO [rushing at her with a shriek] I'll twist your heart out of you
for that. [They seize him before he can reach her].
FEEMY [mocking at him as he struggles to get at her] Ha, ha, Blanco
Posnet. You cant touch me; and I can hang you. Ha, ha! Oh, I'll do for
you. I'll twist your heart and I'll twist your neck. [He is dragged back
to the bar and leans on it, gasping and exhausted.] Give me the oath
again, Elder. I'll settle him. And do you [to the woman] take your
sickly face away from in front of me.
STRAPPER. Just turn your back on her there, will you?
THE WOMAN. God knows I don't want to see her commit murder. [She folds
her shawl over her head].
THE SHERIFF. Now, Miss Evans: cut it short. Was the prisoner the man you
saw this morning or was he not? Yes or no?
FEEMY [a little hysterically] I'll tell you fast enough. Dont think I'm
a softy.
THE SHERIFF [losing patience] Here: weve had enough of this. You tell
the truth, Feemy Evans; and let us have no more of your lip. Was the
prisoner the man or was he not? On your oath?
FEEMY. On my oath and as I'm a living woman--[flinching] Oh God! he felt
the little child's hands on his neck--I cant [bursting into a flood of
tears and scolding at the other woman] It's you with your snivelling
face that has put me off it. [Desperately] No: it wasn't him. I only
said it out of spite because he insulted me. May I be struck dead if I
ever saw him with the horse!
[Everybody draws a long breath. Dead silence.]
BLANCO [whispering at her] Softy! Cry-baby! Landed like me! Doing what
you never intended! [Taking up his hat and speaking in his ordinary
tone] I presume I may go now, Sheriff.
STRAPPER. Here, hold hard.
THE FOREMAN. Not if we know it, you don't.
THE BOYS [barring the way to the door] You stay where you are. Stop a
bit, stop a bit. Dont you be in such a hurry. Dont let him go. Not much.
[Blanco stands motionless, his eye fixed, thinking hard, and apparently
deaf to what is going on.]
THE SHERIFF [rising solemnly] Silence there. Wait a bit. I take it that
if the Sheriff is satisfied and the owner of the horse is satisfied,
theres no more to be said. I have had to remark on former occasions that
what is wrong with this court is that theres too many Sheriffs in it.
To-day there is going to be one, and only one; and that one is your
humble servant. I call that to the notice of the Foreman of the jury,
and also to the notice of young Strapper. I am also the owner of the
horse. Does any man say that I am not? [Silence]. Very well, then. In my
opinion, to commandeer a horse for the purpose of getting a dying child
to a doctor is not stealing, provided, as in the present case, that the
horse is returned safe and sound. I rule that there has been no theft.
NESTOR. That aint the law.
THE SHERIFF. I fine you a dollar for contempt of court, and will collect
it myself off you as you leave the building. And as the boys have been
disappointed of their natural sport, I shall give them a little fun by
standing outside the door and taking up a collection for the bereaved
mother of the late kid that shewed up Blanco Posnet.
THE BOYS. A collection. Oh, I say! Calls that sport? Is this a mothers'
meeting? Well, I'll be jiggered! Where does the sport come in?
THE SHERIFF [continuing] The sport comes in, my friends, not so much in
contributing as in seeing others fork out. Thus each contributes to the
general enjoyment; and all contribute to his. Blanco Posnet: you go free
under the protection of the Vigilance Committee for just long enough to
get you out of this town, which is not a healthy place for you. As you
are in a hurry, I'll sell you the horse at a reasonable figure. Now,
boys, let nobody go out till I get to the door. The court is adjourned.
[He goes out].
STRAPPER [to Feemy, as he goes to the door] I'm done with you. Do you
hear? I'm done with you. [He goes out sulkily].
FEEMY [calling after him] As if I cared about a stingy brat like you! Go
back to the freckled maypole you left for me: you've been fretting for
her long enough.
THE FOREMAN [To Blanco, on his way out] A man like you makes me sick.
Just sick. [Blanco makes no sign. The Foreman spits disgustedly, and
follows Strapper out. The Jurymen leave the box, except Nestor, who
collapses in a drunken sleep].
BLANCO [Suddenly rushing from the bar to the table and jumping up on
it] Boys, I'm going to preach you a sermon on the moral of this day's
proceedings.
THE BOYS [crowding round him] Yes: lets have a sermon. Go ahead, Blanco.
Silence for Elder Blanco. Tune the organ. Let us pray.
NESTOR [staggering out of his sleep] Never hold up your head in this
town again. I'm done with you.
BLANCO [pointing inexorably to Nestor] Drunk in church. Disturbing the
preacher. Hand him out.
THE BOYS [chivying Nestor out] Now, Nestor, outside. Outside, Nestor.
Out you go. Get your subscription ready for the Sheriff. Skiddoo,
Nestor.
NESTOR. Afraid to be hanged! Afraid to be hanged! [At the door] Coward!
[He is thrown out].