Red Men and White

Pidcock’s examination went forward, and the half-sack of gold from the hay-stack brought a great silence in court. The Major’s identification of the gold was conducted by Rocklin with stage effect, for it was an undoubted climax; but I caught a most singular smile on the face of Bishop Meakum, and there sat Mrs. Sproud, still solitary and engulfed in the throng, her face flushed and her eyes blazing. And here ended the first day.

In the morning came the Major’s cross-examination, with the room more crowded than before, but I could not find Mrs. Sproud. Rocklin did not believe I had seen her, and I feared something had happened to her. The Bishop had walked to the court with Jenks, talking and laughing upon general subjects, so far as I could hear. The counsel for the prisoners passed lightly over the first part of the evidence, only causing an occasional laugh on the score of the Major’s military prowess, until he came to the gold.

“You said this sack was one of yours, Major?” he now inquired.

“It is mine, sir.”

A large bundle of sacks was brought. “And how about these? Here are ten, fifteen – about forty. I’ll get some more if you say so. Are they all yours?”

“Your question strikes me as idle, sir.” The court rapped, and Jenks smiled. “They resemble mine,” said Pidcock. “But they are not used.”

“No; not used.” Jenks held up the original, shaking the gold. “Now I’m going to empty your sack for a moment.”

“I object,” said Rocklin, springing up.

“Oh, it’s all counted,” laughed Jenks; and the objection was not sustained. Then Jenks poured the gold into a new sack and shook that aloft. “It makes them look confusingly similar, Major. I’ll just put my card in your sack.”

“I object,” said Rocklin, with anger, but with futility. Jenks now poured the gold back into the first, then into a third, and thus into several, tossing them each time on the table, and the clinking pieces sounded clear in the room. Bishop Meakum was watching the operation like a wolf. “Now, Major,” said Jenks, “is your gold in the original sack, or which sack is my card in?”

This was the first time that the room broke out loudly; and Pidcock, when the people were rapped to order, said, “The sack’s not the thing.”

“Of course not. The gold is our point. And of course you had a private mark on it. Tell the jury, please, what the private mark was.”

He had none. He spoke about dates, and new coins, he backed and filled, swelled importantly, and ended like a pricked bladder by recanting his identification.

“That is all I have to say for the present,” said Jenks.

“Don’t complicate the issue by attempting to prove too much, Mr. Rocklin,” said the judge.

Rocklin flushed, and called the next witness, whispering sulkily to me, “What can you expect if the court starts out against you?” But the court was by no means against him. The judge was merely disgusted over Rocklin’s cardinal folly of identifying coin under such loose conditions.

And now came the testimony of Sergeant Brown. He told so clear a story as to chill the enthusiasm of the room. He pointed to the man with the mustache, black curly, and yellow. “I saw them shooting from the right of the road,” he said. Jenks tried but little to shake him, and left him unshaken. He was followed by the other wounded soldier, whose story was nearly the same, except that he identified different prisoners.

“Who did you say shot you?” inquired Jenks. “Which of these two?”

“I didn’t say. I don’t know.”

“Don’t know a man when he shoots you in broad daylight?”

“Plenty was shooting at me,” said the soldier. And his testimony also remained unshaken.

Then came my own examination, and Jenks did not trouble me at all, but, when I had likewise identified the men I knew, simply bowed smilingly, and had no questions to ask his friend from the East.

Our third morning began with the negress, who said she was married, told a scattered tale, and soon stated that she was single, explaining later that she had two husbands, and one was dead, while the other had disappeared from her ten years ago. Gradually her alarm subsided and she achieved coherence.

“What did this gentleman do at the occurrence?” inquired Jenks, indicating me.

“Dat gemman? He jes flew, sir, an’ I don’ blame him fo’ bein’ no wusser skeer’d dan de hole party. Yesser, we all flew scusin’ dey two pore chillun; an’ we stayed till de ’currence was ceased.”

“But the gentleman says he sat on a stone, and saw those men firing.”

“Land! I seed him goin’ like he was gwineter Fo’t Grant. He run up de hill, an’ de Gennul he run down like de day of judgment.”

“The General ran?”

“Lawd grashus, honey, yo’ could have played checkers on dey coat tails of his.”

The court rapped gently.

“But the gold must have been heavy to carry away to the horses. Did not the General exert his influence to rally his men?”

“No, sah. De Gennul went down de hill, an’ he took his inflooence with him.”

“I have no further questions,” said Jenks. “When we come to our alibis, gentlemen, I expect to satisfy you that this lady saw more correctly, and when she is unable to recognize my clients it is for a good reason.”

“We’ve not got quite so far yet,” Rocklin observed. “We’ve reached the hay-stack at present.”

“Aren’t you going to make her describe her own confusion more?” I began, but stopped, for I saw that the next witness was at hand, and that it was Mrs. Sproud.

“How’s this?” I whispered to Rocklin. “How did you get her?”

“She volunteered this morning, just before trial. We’re in big luck.”

The woman was simply dressed in something dark. Her handsome face was pale, but she held a steady eye upon the jury, speaking clearly and with deliberation. Old Meakum, always in court and watchful, was plainly unprepared for this, and among the prisoners, too, I could discern uneasiness. Whether or no any threat or constraint had kept her invisible during these days, her coming now was a thing for which none of us were ready.

“What do I know?” she repeated after the counsel. “I suppose you have been told what I said I knew.”

“We’d like to hear it directly from you, Mrs. Sproud,” Rocklin explained.

“Where shall I start?”

“Well, there was a young man who boarded with you, was there not?”

“I object to the witness being led,” said Jenks. And Bishop Meakum moved up beside the prisoners’ counsel and began talking with him earnestly.

“Nobody is leading me,” said Mrs. Sproud, imperiously, and raising her voice a little. She looked about her. “There was a young man who boarded with me. Of course that is so.”

Meakum broke off in his confidences with Jenks, and looked sharply at her.

“Do you see your boarder anywhere here?” inquired Rocklin; and from his tone I perceived that he was puzzled by the manner of his witness.

She turned slowly, and slowly scrutinized the prisoners one by one. The head of black curly was bent down, and I saw her eyes rest upon it while she stood in silence. It was as if he felt the summons of her glance, for he raised his head. His face was scarlet, but her paleness did not change.

“He is the one sitting at the end,” she said, looking back at the jury. She then told some useless particulars, and brought her narrative to the afternoon when she had heard the galloping. “Then I hid. I hid because this is a rough country.”

“When did you recognize that young man’s voice?”

“I did not recognize it.”

Black curly’s feet scraped as he shifted his position.

“Collect yourself, Mrs. Sproud. We’ll give you all the time you want. We know ladies are not used to talking in court. Did you not hear this young man talking to his friends?”

“I heard talking,” replied the witness, quite collected. “But I could not make out who they were. If I could have been sure it was him and friends, I wouldn’t have stayed hid. I’d have had no call to be scared.”

Rocklin was dazed, and his next question came in a voice still more changed and irritable.

“Did you see any one?”

“No one.”

“What did you hear them say?”

“They were all talking at once. I couldn’t be sure.”

“Why did you go to the hay-stack?”

“Because they said something about my hay-stack, and I wanted to find out, if I could.”

“Did you not write their names on a paper and give it to this gentleman? Remember you are on oath, Mrs. Sproud.”

By this time a smile was playing on the features of Jenks, and he and Bishop Meakum talked no longer together, but sat back to watch the woman’s extraordinary attempt to undo her work. It was shrewd, very shrewd, in her to volunteer as our witness instead of as theirs. She was ready for the paper question, evidently.

“I wrote – ” she began, but Rocklin interrupted.

“On oath, remember!” he repeated, finding himself cross-examining his own witness. “The names you wrote are the names of these prisoners here before the court. They were traced as the direct result of your information. They have been identified by three or four persons. Do you mean to say you did not know who they were?”

“I did not know,” said Mrs. Sproud, firmly. “As for the paper, I acted hasty. I was a woman, alone, and none to consult or advise me. I thought I would get in trouble if I did not tell about such goings on, and I just wrote the names of Will – of the boys that came round there all the time, thinking it was most likely them. I didn’t see him, and I didn’t make out surely it was his voice. I wasn’t sure enough to come out and ask what they were up to. I didn’t stop to think of the harm I was doing on guess-work.”

For the first time the note of remorse conquered in her voice. I saw how desperation at what she had done when she thought her love was cured was now bracing the woman to this audacity.

“Remember,” said Rocklin, “the gold was also found as the direct result of your information. It was you who told Major Pidcock in the ambulance about the seven sacks.”

“I never said anything about seven sacks.”

This falsehood was a master-stroke, for only half a sack had been found. She had not written this down. There was only the word of Pidcock and me to vouch for it, while against us stood her denial, and the actual quantity of gold.

“I have no further questions,” said Rocklin.

“But I have,” said Jenks. And then he made the most of Mrs. Sproud, although many in the room were laughing, and she herself, I think, felt she had done little but sacrifice her own character without repairing the injury she had done black curly. Jenks made her repeat that she was frightened; not calm enough to be sure of voices, especially many speaking together; that she had seen no one throughout. He even attempted to show that the talk about the hay-stack might have been purely about hay, and that the half-sack of gold might have been put there at another time – might belong to some honest man this very moment.

“Did you ever know the young man who boarded with you to do a dishonorable thing?” inquired Jenks. “Did you not have the highest opinion of him?”

She had not expected a question like this. It nearly broke the woman down. She put her hand to her breast, and seemed afraid to trust her voice. “I have the highest opinion of him,” she said, word painfully following word. “He – he used to know that.”

“I have finished,” said Jenks.

“Can I go?” asked the witness, and the attorneys bowed. She stood one hesitating moment in the witness-stand, and she looked at the jury and the court; then, as if almost in dread, she let her eyes travel to black curly. But his eyes were sullenly averted. Then Mrs. Sproud slowly made her way through the room, with one of the saddest faces I have ever seen, and the door closed behind her.

We finished our case with all the prisoners identified, and some of them doubly. The defence was scarcely more than a sham. The flimsy alibis were destroyed even by the incompetent, unready Rocklin, and when the charge came blackness fell upon the citizens of Tucson. The judge’s cold statements struck them as partisan, and they murmured and looked darkly at him. But the jury, with its Meakums, wore no expression at all during any of his remarks. Their eyes were upon him, but entirely fishlike. He dismissed the cumbersome futilities one by one. “Now three witnesses have between them recognized all the prisoners but one,” he continued. “That one, a reputed pauper, paid several hundred dollars of debts in gold the morning after the robbery. The money is said to be the proceeds of a cattle sale. No cattle have ever been known to belong to this man, and the purchaser had never been known to have any income until this trial began. The prisoner’s name was on Mrs. Sproud’s paper. The statement of one witness that he sat on a stone and saw three other of the prisoners firing has been contradicted by a woman who described herself as having run away at once; it is supported by two men who are admitted by all to have remained, and in consequence been shot. Their statements have been assailed by no one. Their testimony stands on the record unimpeached. They have identified five prisoners. If you believe them – and remember that not a word they said has been questioned – ” here the judge emphasized more and more clearly. He concluded with the various alternatives of fact according to which the jury must find its several possible verdicts. When he had finished, the room sat sullen and still, and the twelve went out. I am told that they remained ten minutes away. It seemed one to me.

When they had resumed their seats I noticed the same fishlike oracular eye in most of them unchanged. “Not guilty,” said the foreman.

“What!” shouted the judge, startled out of all judicial propriety. “None of ’em?”

“Not guilty,” monotonously repeated the foreman.

We were silent amid the din of triumph now raised by Tucson. In the laughter, the hand-shaking, the shouting, and the jubilant pistol-shots that some particularly free spirit fired in the old Cathedral Square, we went to our dinner; and not even Stirling could joke. “There’s a certain natural justice done here in spite of them,” he said. “They are not one cent richer for all their looted twenty-eight thousand. They come out free, but penniless.”

“How about Jenks and that jury?” said I. And Stirling shrugged his shoulders.

But we had yet some crowning impudence to learn. Later, in the street, the officers and I met the prisoners, their witnesses, and their counsel emerging from a photographer’s studio. The Territorial Delegate had been taken in a group with his acquitted thieves. The Bishop had declined to be in this souvenir.

“That’s a picture I want,” said I. “Only I’ll be sorry to see your face there,” I added to black curly.

“Indeed!” put in Jenks.

“Yes,” said I. “You and he do not belong in the same class. By-the-way, Mr. Jenks, I suppose you’ll return their horses and saddles now?”

Too many were listening for him to lose his temper, and he did a sharp thing. He took this public opportunity for breaking some news to his clients. “I had hoped to,” he said; “that is, as many as were not needed to defray necessary costs. But it’s been an expensive suit, and I’ve found myself obliged to sell them all. It’s little enough to pay for clearing your character, boys.”

They saw through his perfidy to them, and that he had them checkmated. Any protest from them would be a confession of their theft. Yet it seemed an unsafe piece of villany in Jenks.

“They look disappointed,” I remarked. “I shall value the picture very highly.”

“If that’s Eastern sarcasm,” said Jenks, “it’s beyond me.”

“No, Mr. Jenks,” I answered. “In your presence sarcasm drops dead. I think you’ll prosper in politics.”

But there I was wrong. There is some natural justice in these events, though I wish there were more. The jury, it is true, soon seemed oddly prosperous, as Stirling wrote me afterwards. They painted their houses; two of them, who had generally walked before, now had wagons; and in so many of their gardens and small ranches did the plants and fruits increase that, as Stirling put it, they had evidently sowed their dollars. But upon Jenks Territorial displeasure did descend. He had stayed away too much from Washington. A pamphlet appeared with the title, “What Luke Jenks Has Done for Arizona.” Inside were twenty blank pages, and he failed of re-election.

Furthermore, the government retaliated upon this district by abandoning Camp Thomas and Lowell Barracks, those important sources of revenue for the neighborhood. The brief boom did not help Tucson very long, and left it poorer than ever.

At the station I saw Mrs. Sproud and black curly, neither speaking to the other. It was plain that he had utterly done with her, and that she was too proud even to look at him. She went West, and he as far east as Willcox. Neither one have I ever seen again.

But I have the photograph, and I sometimes wonder what has happened to black curly. Arizona is still a Territory; and when I think of the Gila Valley and of the Boy Orator, I recall Bishop Meakum’s remark about our statesmen at Washington: “You can divide them birds in two lots – those who know better, and those who don’t. D’you follow me?”

THE END

1

Let me no longer pervert General Crook’s military tactics. It was a dismounted charge that he ordered on this occasion, as a friend who was present has written me since the first publication of this story.

Mr. Remington’s illustration was made to suit the text in its original form.– Publisher’s Note.