"Call my horse," said Johnny Dines.
"Your Honor, I object! This is preposterous--unheard of! We will admit
the height of this accursed horse as being approximately fourteen
hands, if that is what he wants to prove. I ask that you keep this
buffoon in order. The trial has degenerated into farce-comedy."
"Do you know, Mr. Wade, I seem to observe some tragic elements in this
trial," observed Hinkle. "I am curious to hear Mr. Dines state his
motive in making so extraordinary a request from the court."
"He's trying to be funny!"
"No," said the judge; "I do not think Mr. Dines is trying to be funny.
If such is his idea, I shall find means to make him regret it. Will
you explain, Mr. Dines? You are entitled to make a statement of what
you expect to prove."
Johnny rose.
"Certainly. Let me outline my plan of defense. I could not call
witnesses until I heard the evidence against me. Now that I have heard
the evidence, it becomes plain that, except for a flat denial by
myself, no living man can speak for me. I was alone. When I take the
stand presently, I shall state under oath precisely what I shall now
outline to you briefly.
"On the day in question I was sent by Cole Ralston to Hillsboro to
execute his orders, as I will explain in full, later. I came through
MacCleod's Park, started up a Bar Cross cow and her unbranded
yearling, and I caught the yearling at the head of Redgate. While I
was branding it, a big man--I have every reason to believe that this
man was Adam Forbes--came down the canyon. He rode up where I was
branding the yearling, talked to me, smoked a cigarette, gave me a
letter to mail, and went back the way he came. I went to Garfield. My
horse had lost a shoe, as the witnesses have stated. I nailed on a
fresh shoe in Garfield, and came on. I was arrested about dark that
night while on the road to Hillsboro. That is all my story. True or
false, I shall not vary from it for any cross-examination.
"I shall ask Your Honor to consider that my story may be true. I shall
ask Your Honor to consider that if my story is true no man may speak
for me. I saw no other man between Upham and the Garfield
ditch--twenty-five miles.
"You have heard the prosecution's theory. It is that I was stealing a
calf belonging to the dead man--branding it; that he caught me in the
act, and that I foully murdered him. If I can prove the first part of
that theory to be entirely false; if I can demonstrate that even if I
killed Adam Forbes I certainly did not kill him in the manner or for
the motive set forth by the theory of the prosecution--then you may
perhaps believe my unsupported statement as to the rest of it. And
that is what I can do, if allowed the opportunity. I cannot, by
myself, now or at any other time, absolutely prove my statement to be
true. I can and will prove the theory of the prosecution to be
absolutely false. To do that I rely upon myself--not upon my
statement, but upon myself, my body, so much flesh and blood and bone,
considered as an exhibit in this case, taken in connection with all
known or alleged facts; on myself and my horse; on Adam Forbes' dead
body and on the horse Adam Forbes rode that day; on the Bar Cross
yearling I branded day before yesterday, a yearling that I can
describe in detail, a yearling that can be found and must be found, a
yearling that will be found following a Bar Cross cow. I have no
fancy to be hanged by a theory. I demand to test that theory by facts.
I demand that my horse be called to testify to the facts."
"Mr. Gwinne, you may call the prisoner's horse," said the justice.
"Spinal, you may act as the court's officer while Gwinne is gone."
"His name is Twilight," added Johnny, "and he is over at the Gans
stables."
"I protest! Your Honor, I protest against such unmitigated folly,"
stormed Mr. Benjamin Attlebury Wade, in a hot fury of exasperation.
"You are making a mockery of the law! There is no precedent on record
for anything like this."
"Here's where we make a new precedent, then," observed the court
cheerfully. "I have given my instructions, and I'd be willing to place
a small bet on going through with my folly. I don't know much about
the law, but the people who put me here knew I didn't know much about
the law when they elected me--so I guess they aimed to have me get at
the rights of things in my own way." He twisted his scanty beard for a
moment; his faded blue eyes peered over the rims of his glasses. "Not
that it would make any great difference," he added.
A little wearied from the strain of focalized effort, Johnny looked
out across the blur of faces. Hobby Lull smiled at him, and Charlie
See looked hardihood like his own. There were other friendly faces,
many of them; and beyond and above them all shone the faces of his
straining mates, Hiram and the three John Cross men.
"Judge, may I speak to the prisoner?" asked Hiram Yoast. He tugged at
a grizzled foretop.
"You may."
"Old-timer," said Hiram, "we didn't hear of you till late last night.
We had moved on from Hermosa. That's all, Your Honor. Thank you."
"Will the learned counsel for the defense outline the rest of his
program?" inquired the judge, with respectful gentleness.
"He will," said Johnny. "I'll have to ask you to continue the case
until to-morrow, or maybe later--till I can get some of the Garfield
men who can swear to the size of the horse Adam Forbes rode. Then I
want--"
Charlie See rose.
"I offer my evidence. I slept with Adam Forbes the night before he was
killed; and I saw him start. He rode a big horse."
"Thank you," said Johnny. "I'll call you after a while. Get yourself a
reserved seat inside here. I knew Adam Forbes rode a big horse, and I
can describe that horse--if Adam Forbes was the man I met in Redgate,
which I've never doubted. A big blaze-faced bay with a Heart-Diamond
brand. This way." He traced on the wall a heart with an inscribed
diamond. "But I want to call the men who brought in Adam Forbes. I
want to question them about all the tracks they saw, before it rained.
So you see, Your Honor, I'll have to ask for a continuation. I can't
afford to be hanged to save the county a little money."
"You'll get your continuation."
"But that isn't all. That yearling I branded--he was from the river
_bosques_, for he had his tail full of sand burs, and the bunch he
was with was sure snaky. His mammy's a Bar Cross cow and he's a Bar
Cross bull--and so branded by me. He'll be back with her by this
time. He had all the Hereford markings, just about perfect. His mammy
wasn't marked so good. She had a bald face and a line back, all right,
and white feet and a white belly. But one of her stockings was
outsize--run clear up her thigh--and she had two big white spots on
her ribs on the nigh side. I didn't see the other side. And one of
her horns drooped a little--the right one. I would like to have you
appoint a commission to bring them into court, or at any rate to
interview them and get a statement of facts."
"That's reasonable," said the judge. "Application granted." He called
to Tom Ross. "Tom, that's your job. You and your three peelers find
that Bar Cross cow--objection overruled--and that bull yearling. Mr.
Clerk, you may so enter it, at the charge of Sierra County."
Wade was on his feet again.
"But, Your Honor," he gasped, "those men are the prisoner's especial
friends!"
"Exactly. That's why they'll find that calf. Results are what I'm
after, and I don't care a hang about methods." He frowned. "Look here,
Mr. Wade--am I to understand that you want this prisoner convicted
whether he's guilty or not?"
"No, no, certainly not. But why appoint those four men in particular?
There is always the possibility of collusion."
Judge Hinkle's face became bleak and gray. He rose slowly. The court
room grew suddenly still. Hinkle walked across the little intervening
space and faced the prosecutor.
"Collision, perhaps you mean," he said. His quiet, even voice was
cutting in its contempt. "What do you think this is--a town full of
thugs? I want you to know that those four men stand a damn sight
higher in this community than you do. Sit down--you're making an
indecent exposure of your soul!"
As he went back to his desk, an oldish man came to the door and caught
Hobby Lull's eye. He beckoned. Hobby rose and went to the door. They
held a whispered council in the anteroom.
Judge Hinkle busied himself with the papers on his desk for a moment.
When he looked up his face had regained its wonted color.
"Here comes Gwinne with the horse," announced Hobby Lull from the
anteroom.
"Mr. Dines, how does your client propose to question that horse, if I
may ask?" inquired the judge.
"I propose to prove by my horse," said Johnny, "that though I may have
murdered this man I certainly did not shoot him while I was riding
this horse. And I depend on the evidence of the prosecution's
witnesses"--he smiled at the prosecution's witnesses--"to establish
that no one rode in Redgate that day except me--and them! If the court
will appoint some man known to be a rider and a marksman, and will
instruct him to ride my horse by the courthouse windows, we can get
this testimony over at once. It has been shown here that I carried a
.45. Set up a box out there where we can see from the windows; give
your man a gun and tell him to ride as close as he likes and put three
shots in that box. If he hits that box more than once--"
"Gun-shy?" said Judge Hinkle.
"Watch him!" said Johnny rapturously.
The judge's eye rested on Mr. Wade with frank distaste.
"We will now have another gross instance of collusion," he announced.
"I will call on Frank Bojarquez to assist the court."
Francisco Bojarquez upreared his straight length at the back of the
hall.
"Excuse, please, if I seem to tell the judge what he is to do.
But what Mistair Wade says, it is true a little--or it might seem
true to estrangers. For us in Hillsboro, frien's togethair, eet
does not mattair; we know. But because the worl' ees full of
estrangers--theenk, Judge Hinkle, eef it is not bes' that it ees not a
great frien' of the preesoner who is to examine that horse--what? That
no estranger may have some doubts? There are so many estrangers."
"Humph! There is something in that." The justice scratched his ear.
"Very well. George Scarboro, stand up. Are you acquainted with this
prisoner?"
"No, sir."
"You are one of the Arizona Rangers?"
"I am."
"Slip your saddle on that blue horse. You know what you have to do?"
"Yes, sir."
Scarboro departed, and half the court room went with him. Five minutes
later he rode the Twilight horse, prancing daintily, under the
courthouse windows. The windows were lined with faces. Johnny, the
judge and Wade had a window to themselves, within the sacred railing.
But Spinal Maginnis did not look from any window. Spinal was looking
elsewhere--at Caney, Weir and Hales.
The ranger wore a loose and sagging belt; his gun swung low on his
thigh, just at the reach of his extended arm. As he came abreast of
the destined box Scarboro's arm flashed down and up. So did Twilight.
A pistol shot, a long blue streak, and a squeal of anguish ascended
together, hopelessly mingled and indiscriminate, spurning the spinning
earth. It launched toward outer space in a complex of motion upward,
sidewise, forward and inside out, shaming the orbit of the moon,
nodes, perturbations, apsides, syzygies and other symptoms too
luminous to mention; but perhaps apogee and acceleration were the most
prominent. A clatter, a pitch, an agonized bawl, a sailing hat, a dust
cloud, a desperate face above it, with streaming hair; the marvel fell
away down the hill and left a stunned silence behind. And presently a
gun came down.
"Do you want to cross-examine the witness?" inquired Johnny.
Wade threw up his hands.
"Well!" he said. "Well!" His jaw dropped. He drew Johnny aside and
whispered, "See here, damn you--did you kill that man?"
"No, I didn't," whispered Johnny. "But you keep it dark. It's a dead
secret."
The roaring crowd came in with laughter and shouts. As they found
seats and the tumult quieted Johnny addressed the judge.
"Shall I take the stand now, Your Honor, or wait till after dinner?
It's late, I know--but you'd believe me better right now--"
"Wait a minute, Andy!"
A man rose in the crowd--a tall old man with a melancholy face--the
same who had summoned Hobby Lull to the door.
"Why, hello, Pete! I didn't see you come!" said the judge.
"That's funny, too. I have been here half an hour. You're getting old,
Andy--getting old!"
"Oh, you go to thunder! Say, can you straighten up this mess?"
"I can help, at least--or so I believe. I was with the search party."
"Well, who calls this witness--the defense or the prosecution?"
inquired the court.
"Oh, let me call myself--as the friend of the court, _amicus curiae_,
just as they used to do in England--do yet, for all I know. I've not
heard your evidence--though I saw some just now, outside. But I've got
a few facts which you may be able to fit in somewhere. I don't know
the defendant, and am not for or against the prosecutor or for anybody
or anything except justice. So I'll take it kindly if you'd let me
tell my story in my own way--as the friend of justice. I'll get over
the ground quicker and tell it straighter. If anyone is not satisfied
they can cross-examine me afterwards, just as if I had been called by
one side or the other."