A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties Part 14

"Yes."

"A-and the other t-t-twenty? I'll get it later, eh?"

"You can trust me, can't you, Patsy?" queried Billy.

"B-betch yur life I can. E-e-e-everybody does. B-but how much later?"

"When it is all over," answered Billy.

"A-all right," responded his stuttering friend.

"But," asked Billy, "if Doug recovers, and should think as you did at first, that Rita fired the shot?"

"Sa-sa-say, B-Billy Little, you couldn't make it another t-t-twenty later on for that ere job about the st-store, could ye?"

"I think I can," returned Billy.

"Well, then, Doug'll g-get it straight--never you f-f-fear. He was crazy drunk and ha-ha-half blind with blood where Dic knocked him, and he didn't know who f-f-fired the shot."

"But suppose he should know?"

"B-but he won't know, I-I tell ye. I-I t-trust you; c-can't you trust Patsy? I-I'm not as big a f-fool as I look. I-I let p-people think I'm a fool because when p-people think you're a f-fool, it's lots easier t-t-to work 'em. See?"

Billy left Doug hovering between life and death, and hurried back to Dic. "Patsy says you took the gun from where it was leaning against the tree and shot Hill. I suppose he doesn't know exactly how it did happen. I told him you said that was the way of it, and he a.s.sents. He says Doug doesn't know who fired the shot. We shall be able to leave Rita entirely out of the case, and you may, with perfect safety, enter a plea of self-defence."

Dic breathed a sigh of relief and longed to thank Billy, but dared not, and the old friend rode homeward unthanked but highly satisfied.

On the way home Billy fell into deep thought, and the thoughts grew into mutterings: "Billy Little, you are coming to great things. A briber, a suborner of perjury, a liar. I expect soon to hear of you stealing.

Burglary is a profitable and honorable occupation. Go it, Billy Little.--And for this you came like a wise man out of the East to leaven the loaf of the West--all for the sake of a girl, a mere child, whom you are foolish enough to--nonsense--and for the sake of the man she is to marry." Then the grief of his life seemed to come back to him in a flood, and he continued almost bitterly: "I don't believe I have led an evil life. I don't want to feel like a Pharisee; but I don't recollect having injured any man or woman in the whole course of my miserable existence, yet I have missed all that is best in life. Even when I have not suffered, my life has been a pale, tasteless blank with nothing but a little poor music and worse philosophy to break the monotony. The little pleasure I have had from any source has been enjoyed alone, and no joy is complete unless one may give at least a part of it to another.

If one has a pleasure all to himself, he is apt to hate it at times, and this is one of the times. Billy Little, you must be suffering for the sins of an ancestor. I wonder what he did, d.a.m.n him."

This mood was unusual for Billy. In his youth he had been baptized with the chrism of sorrow and was safe from the devil of discontent. He was by nature an apostle of suns.h.i.+ne; but when we consider all the facts, I know you will agree with me that he had upon this occasion good right to be a little cloudy.

That evening Dic was arrested and held in jail pending Doug Hill's recovery or death. Should Douglas die, Dic would be held for murder and would not be ent.i.tled to bail. In case of conviction for premeditated murder, death or imprisonment for life would be his doom. If Doug should recover, the charge against Dic would be a.s.sault and battery, with intent to commit murder, conviction for which would mean imprisonment for a term of years. If self-defence could be established--and owing to the fact that neither Dic nor Rita was to testify, that would be difficult to accomplish--Dic would go free. These enormous "ifs"

complicated the case, and Dic was detained in jail till Doug's fate should be known.

THE TRIAL

CHAPTER VII

THE TRIAL

I shall not try to tell you of Rita's suffering. She wept till she could weep no more, and the nightmare of suspense settled on her heart in the form of dry-eyed suffering. She could not, even for a moment, free her mind from the fact that Dic was in jail and that his life was in peril on account of her act. Billy went every day to encourage her and to keep her silent by telling her that Dic would be cleared. Mrs. Bays prohibited her from visiting the jail; but, despite Rita's fear of her mother, the girl would have gone had not Dic emphatically forbidden.

Doug recovered, and, court being then in session, Dic's trial for a.s.sault and battery, with intent to commit murder, came up at once. I shall not take you through the tedious details of the trial, but will hasten over such portions as closely touch the fate of our friends.

Upon the morning of Dic's arraignment he was brought into court and the jury was empanelled. Rita had begged piteously to go to the trial, but for many reasons that privilege was denied. The bar was filled with lawyers, and the courtroom was crowded with spectators. Mr. Switzer defended Dic, who sat near him on the right hand of the judge, the State's attorney, with Doug Hill and Patsy Clark, the prosecuting witnesses, sitting opposite on the judge's left. The jury sat opposite the judge, and between the State's attorney and Mr. Switzer and the judge and the jury was an open s.p.a.ce fifteen feet square. On a raised platform in this vacant s.p.a.ce was the witness chair, facing the jury.

Doug Hill and Patsy Clark were the only witnesses for the State. The defendant had summoned no witnesses, and Dic's fate rested in the hands of his enemy and his enemy's henchman.

Patsy and Doug had each done a great deal of talking, and time and again had a.s.serted that Dic had deliberately shot Doug Hill after the fight was over. Mr. Switzer's only hope seemed to be to clear Dic on cross-examination of Doug and Patsy.

"Not one lie in a hundred can survive a hot cross-examination," he said.

"If a woman is testifying for the man she loves, or for her child, she will carry the lie through to the end without faltering. Every instinct of her nature comes to her help; but a man sooner or later bungles a lie if you make him angry and keep at him."

Doug was the first witness called. He testified that after the fight was over Dic s.n.a.t.c.hed up the gun and said, "I'm going to kill you;" that he then fired the shot, and that afterward Doug remembered nothing. The story, being simple, was easily maintained, and Mr. Switzer's cross-examination failed to weaken the evidence. Should Patsy Clark cling to the same story as successfully, the future looked dark for Dic.

When Doug left the stand at noon recess, Billy rode up to see Rita, and in the course of their conversation the girl discovered his fears.

Billy's dark forebodings did not affect her as he supposed they would.

He had expected tears and grief, but instead he found a strange, unconcerned calmness that surprised and puzzled him. Soon after Billy's departure Rita saddled her horse and rode after him. Mrs. Bays forbade her going, but for the first time in her life the girl sullenly refused to answer her mother, and rode away in dire rebellion.

Court convened at one o'clock, and Patsy Clark was called to the stand.

The State's attorney began his examination-in-chief:--

_Question._--"State your name."

_Answer by Patsy._--"Sh-shucks, ye know my name."

"State your name," ordered the Court.

_Answer._--"Pa-Pa-Patsy C-Clark."

_Question by State's Attorney._--"Where do you live?"

_Answer._--"North of t-t-town, with D-Doug Hill's father."

_Question._--"Where were you, Mr. Clark, on fifth day of last month at or near the hour of three o'clock P.M.?"

_Answer._--"Don't know the day, b-but if you mean the d-day Doug and D-Dic had their fight, I-I was up on B-Blue about halfway b-between Dic Bright's house and T-Tom Bays', at the step-off."

_Question._--"What, if anything, occurred at that time and place?"

_Answer._--"A f-fight--d.a.m.ned bad one."

_Question._--"Who fought?"

_Answer._--"D-Doug Hill and D-Dic Bright."

_Question._--"Now, Mr. Clark, tell the jury all you heard and saw take place, in the presence of the defendant Dic Bright, during that fight."

The solemnity of the Court had made a deep impression on Patsy, and he trembled while he spoke. He was angry because the State's attorney, as he supposed, had pretended not to know his name, whereas that self-same State's attorney had been familiar with him prior to the election.