Stepsons of Light

“In your opinion, when I shot Adam Forbes did I stand on my saddle? Or could I have inflicted a wound such as you have described by simply kneeling on my saddle – ”

“I object!”

“ – if Adam Forbes rode a horse big enough to carry his weight, and I rode a horse fourteen hands high?”

Wade leaped to his feet and flung out his hands. “I object!” he shrilled.

“Objection sustained. The question is most improper. I shall instruct myself to disregard it in making my decision.”

“That’s all,” said Johnny Dines; and sat down.

“Any more witnesses for the prosecution, Mr. Wade?”

“No, sir. The prosecution rests.”

The judge turned back to Johnny. “Witnesses for the defense?”

“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 cañon. 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 curiæ, 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.”

Judge Hinkle turned to Wade. “Any objections?”

“No,” said Wade. “I guess justice is what we all want – results, as you said yourself.”

He was a subdued man. His three witnesses stirred uneasily, with sidelong glances. Spinal Maginnis kept a corner of his eye on those witnesses.

“Suits me,” said Johnny.

“I got to get me a drink,” whispered Caney, and rose, tiptoeing. But Maginnis rose with him.

“Sit down, Mr. Caney,” he said. “You look poorly. I’ll fetch you some water.”

Pete Harkey took the stand and was duly sworn. He crossed his legs and addressed the judge.

“Well, we went up in Redgate, Dan Fenderson and I and a bunch. We thought there was no use of more than one coming here to-day, because we all saw just the same things.”

Hinkle nodded. “All right, Pete. Tell us about it.”

“Well, now, Andy – Your Honor – if it’s just the same to everybody, I’ll skip the part about the tracks and finding Adam until cross-examination. It’s just going over the same old ground again. I’ve been talking to Hobby, and we found everything just about as you heard it from these boys.” His eye shifted toward the witness bench. “All except one little thing about the tracks, and that was done after the murder, and might have been happen-so. And I was wanting to hurry up and get back to Garfield to-night. We’re going to bury Adam at sundown.”

“All right, Pete. But we’ll cross-examine you – if not to-day, then to-morrow. It pays to work tailings, sometimes.”

“That’s queer, too. I was just coming to that – in a way. Mining. Adam went up there to prospect for gold – placer gold. When the big rain came, the night he was killed, all tracks were washed out, of course. We hadn’t got far when dark came – and then the rain. But yesterday I went combing out the country to look for Adam’s outfit of camp stuff, and also to see if perhaps he had found any claims before he was killed. And I found this.”

He handed to the judge a small paper packet, folded and refolded, and wrapped round with a buckskin string. The judge opened it.

“Coarse gold!” he said. “Like the Apache gold in the seventies! Pete, you’ve got a rich mine if there’s much of this.”

“It is rich dirt,” said Pete. “I got that from less than a dozen pans. But it is not my mine.”

“How so?”

“I got home late last night. This morning I looked in all the pockets in the clothes Adam was wearing. Here is what I found in his vest.” He handed to Hinkle a small tobacco sack, rolled to a tiny cylinder.

“The same kind of gold – big as rice!” said Hinkle. “So Adam Forbes found this?”

Caney’s hand crept under his coat.

“Judge for yourself. I found three claims located. Three. But no name of Adam Forbes to any notice. One claim was called the ‘Goblin Gold – ’”

Charlie See rose up as if he were lifted by the hair of his head. “The other names, Pete! Not the locators. The claims – give me the names of the other two claims!”

“‘Nine Bucks’ was one – and the ‘Please Hush.’”

Charlie turned and took one step, his tensed weight resting on the balls of his feet, his left arm lashed out to point. All eyes turned to the witness bench – and two witnesses looked at one.

“Caney!” thundered Charlie See.

Leaping, Caney’s arm came from his coat. See’s hand was swifter, unseen. In flashes of fire and smoke, Caney, even as he leaped up, pitched forward on his face. His arm reached out on the floor, holding a smoking gun, and See’s foot was on the gun.

A dozen men had pulled down Toad Hales and Jody Weir. Gwinne’s gun was out.

“Stand back! The next man over the rails gets it!” Maginnis jumped beside him. The shouting crowd recoiled.

“Sit down! Sit down, everybody!” shouted the judge. He pounded on his desk. “Bojarquez! Ross! Foster! Come up here. I make you deputies. Get this crowd out or get order.”

The deafening turmoil stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

“Gwinne, arrest those two men for the murder of Adam Forbes,” ordered Hinkle.

“Well, gee-whiz, I’d say they was under arrest now. Here, gimme them.” He reached down and handcuffed Weir and Hales together. “How’s Caney, Dines? Dead?”

Johnny knelt by the fallen man. “Dead as a door nail. Three shots. Did he get you anywhere, See?”

“No. He was just one-sixteenth of a second too late.” Charlie See looked hard at the cylinder of his gun. He had fired only two shots. “Pete, it’s a wonder he didn’t hit you. You was right in line.”

“I wasn’t there,” said Pete dryly. “Not when the bullets got there. Not good enough.”

Gwinne and Maginnis took the two prisoners to jail, by the back door.

“Now for a clearing up,” said Judge Hinkle. “You seem to have inside information, Mr. See. Suppose you tell us about it?”

“No chance for a mistake, judge. I had a long talk with Adam the night before, about a lost gold mine at Mescalero. And three of the phrases that we used back and forth – it seems he picked them out to name his find. ‘Goblin Gold.’ I used the word ‘gobbling’ gold – joking, you know. And the story was about ‘nine bucks’; and it wound up with an old Mescalero saying ‘Won’t you please hush?’ It wasn’t possible that those three names had reached the papers Pete found, except through the dead man’s mind. Adam called these three men to witness for him, likely. Then they killed him for his mines. They destroyed his location papers, but they kept the names. Easier than to make up new ones. That’ll hang ’em.”

“Sounds good. But how are you going to prove it? Suppose they get a good lawyer and stick to their story? They found a mine, and you got in a shooting match with Caney. That don’t prove anything.”

“Well, I’ll bet I can prove it,” said Johnny Dines. “Ten to one, that letter Forbes gave me to mail was his location papers. He seemed keen about it.”

“Did he say anything about location papers? Was the letter addressed to the recorder?” demanded Pete.

“Look now!” said Johnny. “If this theory of See’s is correct, and if that really was location papers in the letter I mailed – why, that letter won’t get here till two o’clock this afternoon, whether it is the location papers or what. And the postmaster and the recorder are both here in this court room, judge. Gwinne was pointing out everybody to me, before you called court. So they can mosey along down to the post office together – the postmaster and the recorder. And when that letter comes you’ll know all about it.”

“Ah, that reminds me,” said the judge – “the case of the Territory of New Mexico vs. John Dines is now dismissed. This court is now adjourned. John Dines, I want to be the first to congratulate you.”

“Thanks, Judge. – Hiram,” said Johnny, “Cole told me to report to you. He said I was to go to the John Cross pasture and pick me a mount from the runaways there.”

“But, Johnny, you can’t ride those horses,” said Bojarquez.

Johnny flushed. “Don’t you believe it, old hand. You’re not the only one that can ride.”

Bojarquez spread out his hands. “But bareback? Where ees your saddle? And the Twilight horse? The bridle, he ees broke. Scarb’ro’s in Chihuahua by now.”

“Dinner’s on me,” said Johnny.

Charlie See drew Johnny aside and spoke to him in confidence.

“How does it happen you know so pat just when a letter gets to Hillsboro when it is posted in Garfield?”

“A letter? Oh – Hobby Lull, he told me.”

“Yes, yes. And what was the big idea for keeping still about that letter while they wove a rope to your neck?”

“Why, my dear man,” said Johnny, “I can’t read through a sealed envelope.”

Charlie sniffed. “You saw a good many things mighty clear, I notice, but you overlooked the one big bet – like fun you did! Caney and Weir and Hales – don’t you suppose they knew that letter was on the way? And that it was never to reach the recorder?”

“Since you are so very shrewd,” said Johnny, “I sometimes wonder that you are not shrewder still.”

“And keep my mouth shut? That’s how I shall keep it. But I just wanted you to know. You may be deceiving me, but you’re not fooling me any. Keep your secret.”

“Thank you,” said Johnny, “I will.”

“Good boy. All the same, Hobby and I will be up at the post office. And I know now what we’ll find in that letter you mailed. We’ll find Adam’s location papers, with them three murderers for witness.”

And they did. They found something else too; a message from beyond the grave that in his hour of fortune their friend did not forget his friends.

They buried Adam Forbes at sundown of that day. No thing was lacking; his friends and neighbors gathered together to bid him Godspeed; there were love and tears for him. And of those friends, three were all road stained and weary; they had ridden hard from Hillsboro for that parting; Lull and Charlie See and old Pete. It was to one of these that all eyes were turned when the rude coffin was lowered into the grave.

“Pete?” said Jim-Ike-Jones.

And old Pete Harkey stepped forth and spoke slowly, while his faded old eyes looked past the open grave and rested on the hills beyond.

“More than at any other time we strive to center and steady our thoughts, when we stand by the loved and dead. It is an effort as vain as to look full and steadily at the blinding sun. I can tell you no thing here which you do not know.

“You all knew Adam Forbes. He was a simple and kindly man. He brought a good courage to living, he was all help and laughter, he joyed in the sting and relish of rushing life. Those of you here who were most unfriends to him will not soon forget that gay, reckless, tender-hearted creature.

“You know his faults. He was given to hasty wrath, to stubbornness and violence. His hand was heavy. If there are any here who have been wronged by this dead man – as I think most like – let the memory of it be buried in this grave. It was never his way to walk blameless. He did many things amiss; he took wrong turnings. But he was never too proud to turn back, to admit a mistake or to right his wrongdoing. He paid for what he broke.

“For the rest – he fed the hungry, helped the weak, he nursed the sick and dug graves for the dead. Now, in his turn, it is fitting and just that no bought hand dug this grave, but that his friends and his foes did him this last service, and called pleasant dreams to his long sleep.