The Girl at the Halfway House by Emerson Hough (good fiction books to read TXT) 📕

which supported a few battered books. At his right the red-nosed prosecuting attorney shuffled his papers. Along the sides of the open hall-way, through whose open doors at each end the wind passed freely, sat jury and audience, indiscriminately mingled. The prisoner himself, ignorant of the meaning of all this, sat on an upturned tub, unshackled and unguarded. Back of these figures appeared the heads of a double row of horses. The stamp of an uneasy hoof, the steady crunch of jaws upon the hay, with now and then a moist blowing cough from a stall, made up a minor train of intermittent sound. Back of the seated men others were massed, standing in the doorways. Outside the building stood crowds, now and then increased or lessened by those who passed in or out of the room where the court was in session. These interested spectators were for the most part dark, sunburned men, wearing wide hats and narrow boots with spurs. They all were armed. Leaning against the sides of the mangers, or resting a hand upon the shoulders of another, they gazed calmly at the bar of justice. The attitude of Ellisville was one of sardonic calm. As a function, as a show, this trial might go on.

The trial did go on, rapidly, without quibbling, indeed without much regard for the formalities of the law. The jury had been selected before Franklin made his appearance, and he was given to understand that this jury was good enough for him, and was the one before which this prisoner should be tried. A formal motion for the discharge of the prisoner was overruled. Without much delay the prosecuting attorney arose to present his charge.

"Yo' Honah," said the attorney for the State, arising and striking an attitude learned in earlier forensic days—"yo Honah, an' gentlemen, I rise to present to you, an' to push to the ultimate penalty of the law, a case of the most serious, the most heinyus crime, committed by the most desperate and dangerous criminal, that has thus far ever disturbed the peaceful course of ouah quiet little community. There he sets befo' you," he cried, suddenly raising his voice and pointing a forefinger at the prisoner, who sat smiling amiably. "There he sets, the hardened and self-confessed criminal, guilty of the foulest crime upon the calendar of ouah law. A murderer, gentlemen, a murderer with red hands an' with the brand of Cain upon his brow! This man, this fiend, killed ouah fellow-citizen Calvin Greathouse—he brutally murdered him. Not content with murder, he attempted to destroy his body with fiah, seekin' thus to wipe out the record of his crime. But the fiah itself would not destroy the remains of that prince of men, ouah missin' friend an' brother! His corpse cried out, accusin' this guilty man, an' then an' there this hardened wretch fell abjeckly onto his knees an' called on all his heathen saints to save him, to smite him blind, that he might no mo' see, sleepin' or wakin', the image of that murdered man—that murdered man, ouah friend an' brother, ouah citizen an' friend."

The orator knew his audience. He knew the real jury. The shuffling and whispers were his confirmation.

"Yo' Honah," began the accusing voice again, "I see him now. I see this prisoner, this murderer, the central figger of that wild an' awful scene. He falls upon his knees, he wrings his hands, he supplicates high Heaven—that infinite Powah which gave life to each of us as the one most precious gift—he beseeches Providence to breathe back again into that cold clay the divine spark of which his red hand had robbed it. Useless, useless! The dead can not arise. The murdered man can remain to accuse, but he can not arise again in life, He can not again hear the songs of birds. He can not again hear the prattle of his babes. He can not again take a friend by the hand. He can not come to life. The heavens do not open fo' that benef'cent end!

"But, yo' Honah, the heavens will open! They will send down a bolt o' justice. Nay, they would send down upon ouah heads a forked messenger o' wrath it we should fail to administer justice, fail to do that juty intrusted into ouah hands! There sets the man! There he is befo' you! His guilt has been admitted. Answer me, gentlemen, what is ouah juty in this case? Shall we set this incarnate fiend free in the lan' again—shall we let him come clear o' this charge—shall we turn him loose again in ouah midst to murder some other of ouah citizens? Shall we set this man free?" His voice had sunk into a whisper as he spoke the last words, leaning forward and looking into the faces of the jury. Suddenly he straightened up, his clinched hand shaken high above his head.

"No!" he cried. "No! I say to you, ten thousand times no! We are a people quiet an' law-abidin'. We have set ouah hands to the conquest o' this lan'. We have driven out the savages, an' we have erected heah the vine an' fig tree of a new community. We have brought hither ouah flocks an' herds. We shall not allow crime, red-handed an' on-rebuked, to stalk through the quiet streets of ouah law-abidin', moral town! This man shall not go free! Justice, yo' Honah, justice, gentlemen, is what this community asks. An' justice is what it is a-goin' to have. Yo' Honah, an' gentlemen, I yiel' to the statement o' the defence."

Franklin rose and looked calmly about him while the buzzing of comment and the outspoken exclamations of applause yet greeted the speech of the prosecutor. He knew that Curly's thoughtless earlier description of the scene of the arrest would in advance be held as much evidence in the trial as any sworn testimony given in the court. Still, the sentiment of pity was strong in his heart. He resolved to use all he knew of the cunning of the law to save this half-witted savage. He determined to defeat, if possible, the ends of a technical justice, in order to secure a higher and a broader justice, the charity of a divine mercy. As the lawyer, the agent of organized society, he purposed to invoke the law in order to defeat the law in this, the first trial, for this, the first hostage ever given to civilization on the old cattle range. He prayed to see triumph an actual justice and not the old blind spirit of revenge. He realized fully how much was there to overcome as he gazed upon the set faces of the real jury, the crowd of grim spectators. Yet in his soul there sprang so clear a conviction of his duty that he felt all fogs clear away, leaving his intelligence calm, clear, dispassionate, with full understanding of the best means to obtain his end. He knew that argument is the best answer to oratory.

"Your Honour, and gentlemen of the jury," he began, "in defending this man I stand for the law. The representative of the State invokes the law.

"What is that law? Is it violence for violence, hatred for unreasoning hate? Is that the law? Or is the love of justice, the love of fair play, at the heart of the law? What do you say? Is it not right for any man to have a fair chance?

"I yield to no man in my desire to see a better day of law and order in this town. We are two years old in time, but a century old in violence. Is it merely your wish that we add one more grave to the long rows on our hillsides? Is that your wish? Do you want a trial, or do you wish merely an execution? Gentlemen, I tell you this is the most important day in the history of this town. Let us here make our stand for the law. The old ways will no longer serve. We are at the turning of the road. Let us follow the law.

"Now, under the law you must, in order to prove the crime of murder, be able to show the body of the victim; you must show that murder has really been done. You must show a motive, a reason. You must show, or be prepared to show, when required, a mental responsibility on the part of the accused. All these things you must show by the best possible testimony, not by what you think, or what you have heard, but by direct testimony, produced here in this court. You can't ask the accused man to testify against himself. You can't ask me, his counsel, to testify against him. Hence there is left but one witness who can testify directly in this case. There is not one item of remains, not one bone, one rag, one shred of clothing, not one iota of evidence introduced before this honourable court to show that the body of Calvin Greathouse was ever identified or found. There is no corpus delicti. How shall you say that this missing man has been murdered? Think this thing over. Remember, if you hang this man, you can never bring him back to life.

"There must be some motive shown for the supposition of such an act as murder. What motive can be shown here? Certainly not that of robbery. The horse of the missing man came back alone, its lariat dragging, as we shall prove. It had not been ridden since the lariat was broken. You all know, as we shall prove, that this man Juan was never known to ride a horse. We shall prove that he walked sixty miles, to the very spot where the horse had been tied, and that he scorned to touch a horse on his whole journey. He wanted no horse. He stole no horse. That was no motive. There has been no motive shown. Would a criminal lead the officers of the law to the very spot where he had committed his crime? Had this been theft, or murder, would this man have taken any one directly and unhesitatingly to that spot? I ask you this.

"To be subject to the law, as you very well know, a man must be morally responsible. He must know right and wrong. Even the savage Indians admit this principle of justice. They say that the man of unsound mind is touched by the hand of the Great Spirit. Shall we be less merciful than they? Look at this smiling giant before you. He has been touched by the hand of the Almighty. God has punished him enough.

"I shall show to you that when this man was a child he was struck a severe blow upon the head, and that since that time he has never been of sound mind, his brain never recovering from that shock, a blow which actually broke in a portion of his skull. Since that time he has had recurrent times of violent insanity, with alternating spells of what seems a semi-idiocy. This man's mind never grew. In some ways his animal senses are keen to a remarkable degree, but of reason he has little or none. He can not tell you why he does a thing, or what will happen provided that he does thus or so. This I shall prove to you.

"I therefore submit to you, your Honour, and to you, gentlemen of the jury, two distinct lines of defence which do not conflict, and which are therefore valid under the law. We deny that any murder has been committed, that any motive for murder has been shown, that any body of the crime has been produced. And alternatively we submit that the prisoner at the bar is a man of unsound mind and known to be such, not responsible for his acts, and not in any wise amenable to the capital features of the law. I ask you, gentlemen of the jury, you who hold this man's life in your hands, are you going to hang