THE LAST CHANCE
There was a hot time in old Geronimo on the night that Ike Crittenden
and his cowboys rode in, and in spite of everything he could do three
of them wound up in the jag-cell before morning. Nevertheless he had
plenty of witnesses and to spare, for the grand jury merely went over
the same evidence that had been taken before the magistrate and handed
down an indictment against Pecos Dalhart, accusing him of feloniously
and unlawfully marking, branding, or altering the brand on one neat
animal, to wit, a spotted calf, belonging to Isaac Crittenden of
Verde Crossing. It was almost the first case on the calendar and the
arraignment was set for the following Monday. Then Pecos Dalhart,
defendant, slouched gloomily back to his cell and sat down to await
the issue. The howls of Angevine Thorne, blended with the hoarse
protests of Crit's cowboys, floated in to him from the jag-cell and he
knew his faithful attorney had not deserted him, but what a broken reed
was that to lean on when his whole future hung in the balance! Even as
he listened he had an uneasy fear that Angy was giving the whole snap
away to the drunken cowboys and once more he begged Bill Todhunter to
throw Babe into the tanks where he could look after him. It was at this
time, when things were at their worst, that Shepherd Kilkenny, the
district attorney, came down to look into his case and find out how he
would plead.
He was a very cautious man, Mr. Kilkenny, and he never had a man
indicted unless he held his written confession or knew beyond the
peradventure of a doubt that he could convict him. In the case of Pecos
Dalhart he had been unusually careful, for it was the first case of
cattle stealing to come before him and most of his constituents were in
the cow business; therefore, not to take any chances, he had followed
it from the magistrate's court to the secret chambers of the grand
jury, and now he was going after a confession. He came with gifts, a
brace of cigars, but Pecos was well supplied with cigarette makings and
waved them courteously aside. Then they got down to business.
"Mr. Dalhart," began Kilkenny, "I'm the district attorney and I've come
to talk over your case with you—in a friendly way, you understand.
Ah—have you engaged an attorney? No? Well, that is hardly necessary,
you know, but if you do call in a counsellor I am sure he will advise
you to plead 'Guilty.' Ahem—yes, indeed. There's many a man stole his
calf and got away with it, but you were caught in the act and observed
by twenty witnesses. Not the ghost of a chance, you see; but if you
plead 'Guilty' and throw yourself upon the mercy of the court it will
cut your sentence in half, probably more. I'm a friend of yours, Mr.
Dalhart, and I've often heard the sheriff speak of your exemplary
character as a prisoner. All these things are appreciated, you know,
and I—well, I'll do all I can for you with the judge. Now all you have
to do is to sign this little paper and—"
"I'm sorry," said Pecos, thrusting the paper back, "and I sure take it
kindly of you, Mr. Kilkenny, but I can't plead 'Guilty'—not to please
nobody—because I'm _not_ guilty."
"Not guilty!" The district attorney laughed. "Why, you were taken in
the act, Mr. Dalhart. I never saw a more conclusive line of evidence."
"Well," grumbled Pecos, "if I was guilty I'd sure plead 'Guilty,' you
can bank on that. But this blankety-blank, Ike Crittenden, has jest
framed up a lot of evidence to railroad me to the pen—and them cowboys
of his would swear to anything for the drinks. You wouldn't soak a man
on evidence like that, would you, Mr. District Attorney?"
"I'd soak him on any evidence I could get," responded the district
attorney succinctly. "You know my reputation, Mr. Dalhart— I convict
every man that pleads 'Not guilty'!"
"But s'pose he isn't guilty!" cried Pecos.
"I convict him anyway!" replied the district attorney. "Are you going
to sign this, or are you going ahead like a damned fool and get the
limit in Yuma?"
"I won't sign it," said Pecos firmly.
"Very well," responded Kilkenny, closing his little book with a snap.
He rose to his full height and pursed his lips ominously. "Very well,
Mr. Dalhart!" he said, nodding and blinking his eyes. "Very well,
sir!" Then he retired, leaving so much unsaid that it threw Pecos into
a panic. In a very real picture he could see himself sitting in the
shade of a big adobe wall and making State's-prison bridles for life.
He could see the guards pacing back and forth on top of the bastions
and Pete Monat holding one end of a horse-hair strand while he swung a
little trotter and twisted the loose hairs into the other end, forever
and forever. It was awful. The full sense of his impending doom rushed
in upon him and he laid hold of the sodden Babe who was maundering
about the revolution, and shook him frantically.
"My God, Angy," he cried, "wake up and do something! Fergit about the
common people and do something for _me_! Fergit that you ever had any
principles and he'p me fight that low-lived dastard or I'll go to Yuma
for life!"
"The voice of the people shall rule in the land!" pronounced Angy
oracularly.
"To hell with the people!" yelled Pecos. "It's the People that's tryin'
to send me up! Do you want me to git twelve years for brandin' that
spotted calf? Well, wake up, then, and git yore wits to work!"
Angy woke up, by degrees, but his wits would not work. The ecstasy
of intoxication was past and his mind was a legal blank for the
remainder of that day. The day was Friday, and Pecos had to plead on
Monday—"Guilty" or "Not guilty." "Guilty" meant six or eight years in
prison; "Not guilty" meant twelve years—or freedom. It was a gamble,
but he would risk it if Angy would remain sober enough to talk. His
only chance of freedom lay in his friend's misdirected eloquence, and
when Babe was entirely himself Pecos backed him up into a corner and
talked to him with tears in his voice.
"Never, never, never—" began Angy, holding up his hand to swear; but
Pecos stopped him with a sign.
"Nothing like that, Pardner," he said. "You been breakin' that pledge
for forty years. Jest look me in the eye now and promise me you won't
tech a drop until I'm free."
"All right, Pecos," agreed Angy, "I'll do it, I won't touch a drop till
you're free."
"And when I'm free," continued Pecos, "I'll stake you to a drunk from
which Geronimo will sure date time. Now let's git down to business."
The details of that campaign against the People were talked over in
hushed secrecy and when on Monday morning Pecos appeared before the
stern judge to plead, Angevine Thorne stood just within the rail,
shuffling his worn hat nervously.
"I will call the case of the People versus Pecos Dalhart," said the
judge. "Pecos Dalhart, to the charge of grand larceny do you plead
'Guilty' or 'Not guilty'?"
"'Not guilty,' Your Honor!" responded Pecos.
"The defendant enters a plea of 'Not guilty,'" observed the judge
impassively. "Are you represented by counsel, Mr. Dalhart?"
"No, Your Honor," replied Pecos.
"You understand, do you not, that in case you are unable to employ an
attorney the court will appoint one to advise you, free of charge?"
"Yes, Your Honor," answered Pecos, "but if it's all the same to you I'd
rather not have a lawyer. I'd like to ask a favor, Judge, if you don't
mind. The reason I don't want an attorney appointed is that I know very
well none of these lawyers around here can stand up to the district
attorney when it comes to a case of law"—here Kilkenny smiled grimly to
himself and glanced at Mr. Baker of the _Blade_—"but at the same time,
Judge, I do want some one to speak for me, and I'm goin' to ask you to
appoint my friend Mr. Thorne, back there, as my counsellor."
"Mr. Thorne?" inquired the judge, and as Angy stepped forward, smirking
and bowing, a slight smile broke up the fine legal lines on the
judicial brows. At no time was Angy over-fastidious about his attire,
and a night in jail, particularly in the jag-cell, is warranted to
spoil the appearance of the finest suit of clothes that was ever made.
Angy's clothes were old and worn; his shirt was greasy around the neck,
and his overalls, hanging loosely about his hips, piled up in slovenly
rolls above his shoe-tops; his hat, from much fanning of open fires,
was grimed with ashes and whitened with splashes of sour dough, and
his shiny bald head and red face told all too plainly the story of his
past. In the titter that followed his announcement he stood silent,
rolling his bloodshot eyes upon the audience, but as the grinning
bailiff smote the table for order he turned with the dignity of an
orator and addressed the judge.
"Your Honor," he said, beginning the set speech which he had prepared,
"I am not unaware that this request on the part of the defendant is a
little irregular, but if the court please I should like to state the
reasons—"
"Just a moment!" cut in the district attorney brusquely. "Your Honor,
I object to this man being appointed to the position of counsellor on
the ground that he is not a duly-licensed attorney and therefore not
competent to practise in this court."
"As I am tendering my services without hope of compensation,"
observed Angy suavely, "and also without submitting briefs or other
legal papers, I hope that the court will overlook this trifling
irregularity. The law referred to by the district attorney, as applied
to this case, was intended solely to protect the defendant in his
rights, the inference being that no one not a regularly practising
attorney is competent to adequately represent the defendant against
the learned district attorney"—Angy bowed to that gentleman—"but at
the same time, Your Honor, I wish to say that in days gone by I have
stood before the bar"—the bailiff struck his gavel to quiet the sudden
laughter—"I have stood before the bar of justice, Your Honor, and I
have stood there, sir, not as Angevine Thorne, the drunkard, but as a
regular practitioner in that court. I submit, Your Honor, that I am
fully qualified, both by past experience and present information, to
represent Mr. Dalhart in this unfortunate case!"
A murmur of astonishment passed around the room at this revelation of
his past; for while Angevine Thorne had been about Geronimo, drunk and
sober, for over twenty years, he had never referred except in the
vaguest terms to the life which he had left behind. It struck wonder
into the breasts of the court-room bums, many of whom had shared
the jag-cell with him in times past, and Mr. Baker of the _Blade_
sank down into a seat and began to write hurriedly upon his pad; but
Shepherd Kilkenny, with a sudden premonition of what Angy's "present
information" might lead to, did not yield himself to any such puny
emotion as surprise. He was a fighter, and a sure-thing fighter to boot.
"Your Honor!" he cried, "I wish to protest most—"
"Objection is overruled!" interposed the judge. "I see no reason why
Mr. Thorne should not conduct this case if the defendant so wishes, and
the clerk will enter him accordingly. Would Wednesday be too soon for
you to prepare your argument, Mr. Thorne? Is it satisfactory to you,
Mr. Kilkenny? Very well, then, I will set the case for Wednesday, the
eighth of October, at ten A. M. Call the next case, Mr. Bailiff!"
The bailiff called it, still smiling, and in the pause half the
occupants of the court-room boiled out onto the court-house lawn and
gave vent to their pent-up emotions. Babe Thorne was going to buck
Kilkenny and plead a case in court! He would make an impassioned
appeal and raise Cain with Ike Crittenden's witnesses—it would be an
event never to be forgotten! Still laughing they scattered through
the town, and soon men came hurrying forth from the different saloons
to verify the report; they gathered in a crowd by the sheriff's
office and, as the word spread that it was true, gangs of cowboys and
men on livery-stable plugs went dashing down the streets, whooping
and laughing and crying the news to their friends. It was a new
excitement—something doing—and the way an Arizona town will take on
over some such trifling event is nothing short of scandalous. Within
two hours the leisure male population of Geronimo was divided into
two hostile camps—those who would get Babe drunk before the event
and those who would keep him sober and have him take a fall out of
Kilkenny. On the one side it was argued that, unless he was properly
ginned up, Babe would not do justice to the occasion; but cooler heads
won on the proposition that the judge would bar him if he got drunk
and hollered, and a committee of prominent citizens was organized to
protect him from himself.
Being quick to see the news value of the incident the _Blade_ printed
an exclusive interview with Angevine Thorne—formerly of the Kentucky
bar—and announced that the trial would be covered in detail by "our
Mr. Baker." A series of Communications, written under pressure in the
card-rooms of various casinos, expressed the greatest indignation
at the "dastardly attempt of a certain interested party to debar
Mr. Thorne from the trial," and the hope that this exhibition of
professional jealousy would receive the rebuke it so richly deserved.
In an editorial the _Daily Blade_ spoke at some length of the rare
eloquence of "our gifted fellow-citizen, Colonel Thorne," and
felicitated Alcalde Dalhart upon the acumen he had shown in retaining
counsel. Everything goes, in a case like that, and the _Blade_ played
it up to the limit.
As night came on a select circle of visitors gathered at the county
jail to witness the kangaroo trial of two more of Crit's cowboys who
had unwittingly placed themselves in the power of Pecos Dalhart. The
summary punishment of the first three—the ones who had occupied the
jag-cell with Angevine Thorne—had been heralded far and wide as an
example of poetic justice, but the grim humor of this last arraignment
set the town in an uproar. Within two days these same booze-fighting
cowboys would appear against him in the upper court, but of that event
Pecos Dalhart took no thought and he kangarooed them to a finish. It
was good business, as the actors say, and won him many a friend, for
Arizona loves a sport—but after they had been spread-eagled over a
chair and received twenty blows for contempt of court, the cowboys
were ready to take their oath to anything. That was it—Pecos might
win the hearts of the people and still go down before the law and the
evidence. Only two things cheered him on—Angy and Bill Todhunter had
gone up the river for Old Funny-face, and Joe Garcia was in town. After
Crit had sworn himself into perdition over the calf they would spring
Funny-face on him—Mexican brands and all—and show that he was a liar.
Then José Garcia would testify to the sale of Funny-face and her calf
and the rest would go off in a canter. It was a pleasing dream, and
Pecos indulged it to the full, for it was the only hope he had. But the
next morning he was nervous.
It was the day before his trial and even his six months in jail had
not taught him to be patient. As soon as the cells were unlocked he
began to pace up and down the corridor like a caged lion, scowling and
muttering to himself. To the stray visitors who dropped in he was
distant but civil, as befits a man who must act his part, but all the
time a growing uneasiness was gnawing at his heart and he looked past
them to the outer door. Hours dragged by and his uneasiness changed
into despair; he hurled himself upon his bunk and was lying with his
haggard face to the bars when the jail deputy entered and gazed in upon
him curiously.
"They's a lady out here to see you," he whispered, laying his finger
along his nose with an air of roguish secrecy, "shall I bring her in?
She's got something she wants to give you!"
A vision of the unbalanced females who had been bringing flowers to a
murderer came over Pecos and he debated swiftly with himself whether to
accept this last humiliation or plead a sudden indisposition.
"She's been waiting around all the morning," continued the deputy.
"Kinder shy, I reckon—shall I bring 'er in? She's a Mex!"
A Mex! The word shocked Pecos like a blow; it made him glad, and then
it made him angry.
"Well, what's the matter with a Mex?" he demanded sharply. "Ain't a
Mexican got no rights in this dam' jail? I guess she's as good as any
white woman—show her in!"
He waited in palpitating silence, and when the soft rustle of skirts
sounded down the corridor his heart stopped beating entirely. Then
Marcelina pressed her face against the screened bars and gazed
wistfully into the darkened cell. She had grown taller since he last
saw her and her dark eyes had taken on a look of infinite melancholy;
the rare promise of her youth had flowered suddenly in his absence and
she stood before him a woman. Often in his dreams he had thought of
her, but always as the black-eyed girl, saucy and fugitive as a bird,
who had bewitched him with her childish graces; now she peered in at
him through the prison bars with the eyes of a woman who has suffered
and found her soul. For a moment she gazed into the darkness,
and then she drew back involuntarily. The Pecos she had known was a
grown-up boy, grim and quick in speech but full of the reckless fire of
youth; a dashing cowboy, guiding his horse by a touch of the hand and
riding, riding, always. Here was a hard-faced man, pale and bowed by
confinement, and his eyes were like a starved animal's. She started and
bit her lip.
"Are you Paycos?" she asked timidly.
The bitterness of his fate swept over Pecos at the words—he looked down
at his crumpled clothes, his outworn boots, and faded shirt and rumbled
in his throat.
"No, Marcelina," he said, "I'm only a caged wolf—a coyote that the
vaqueros have roped and tied and fastened to a tree. I'm a hard-looker,
all right—how'd you come to find me?"
[Illustration: She laid a brown hand against the bars as if in protest
and motioned him nearer the screen]
She laid a brown hand against the bars as if in protest and motioned
him nearer the screen.
"I have only been in town four days," she said hurriedly. "All summer
I was shut up at Verde, and Ol' Creet—ah, that bad, ba-ad man! My
mother took me to school the day he come to Geronimo. I am 'fraid,
Paycos—but this morning I run away to see you. The seesters will be
hunt for me now. Look Paycos"—she thrust her hand into the bosom
of her dress and drew forth a small bundle, wrapped in a blue silk
handkerchief—"_Cuidado_, be careful," she whispered; "when I keess you
good-bye at the door I weel put thees een your hand—_ssst!_" She turned
and looked up the corridor where the deputy was doing the Sherlock.
He was a new man—the jail deputy—just helping out during the session
of the court and correspondingly impressed with his own importance.
Nothing larger than a darning-needle could be passed through the heavy
iron screen, but all the same he kept his eye on them, and when he saw
the quick thrust of her hand all the suspicions of the amateur sleuth
rushed over him at once.
"Hey! What's that?" he demanded, striding down the run-around. "What
you got hid there, eh?" He ogled Marcelina threateningly as he stood
over her and she shrank before his glance like a school-girl. "Come,
now," he blustered, "show me what that is or I'll take it away from
you. We don't allow anything to be passed in to the prisoners!"
"She can't pass nothin' through here!" interposed Pecos, tapping on the
screen. "You haven't got nothin', have you, Marcelina?"
"Well, I saw her hide something blue in her dress just now," persisted
the jailer, "and I want to see it, that's all!"
"It was—it was only a handkerchief!" sobbed Marcelina, clutching at
her breast. "No, no! Eet is mine—he—he geev it to me! You can not—"
she choked, and backed swiftly toward the door. Like a panther Pecos
whipped out of his cell and sprang against the corridor grating, but
she was gone. The deputy made a futile grab as she darted away from
him and sprang after her, but she swung the great door in his face and
sped like a deer down the hall. The next moment she was gone, leaving
Pecos and the deputy to have it out together.
"Aha!" cried the deputy vengefully, "you will try to smuggle things in,
will you? I'll report this matter to Mr. Morgan at once!"
"Well, report it, then, you low-flung hound!" wailed Pecos, "report
it, and be damned to you! But if I was outside these bars I'd beat you
to death for this!" They raged up and down the grating, snarling at
each other like dogs that fight through a lattice, and even when Boone
Morgan came and called them down Pecos would not be appeased.
"He scairt my girl away!" he cried, scowling menacingly at the raw
deputy. "She come to give me a handkerchief and he jumped at her. I'll
fix him, the dastard, if ever I git a chance!" And so he raged and
stormed until they went away and left him, mystified. To Boone Morgan
it seemed as if his alcalde was raising a row out of all proportion to
his grievance, but that was because Pecos could not explain his woes.
Marcelina had promised to kiss him good-bye, and the damned deputy had
intervened!