Heart's Desire

by Emerson Hough

  CHAPTER IV

  THE LAW AT HEART'S DESIRE

  _Continuing the Story of the Pig from Kansas, and the Deep Damnation ofhis Taking Off_

  "Order! order! gentlemen!" called Blackman, Justice of the Peace,clearing his throat. "This honorable justice court is now in session.Gentlemen, what is your pleasure?"

  He was a little confused, but he meant well. It seemed incumbent uponthe prosecutor to make some sort of a statement, but the attorney forthe defence interposed. He moved for the discharge of the prisoner onthe ground that there was no Territorial law and no city ordinanceviolated; he pointed out that Heart's Desire was not a city, neither atown, but had never been organized, established, or begun, even to theextent of the filing of a town site plat; he therefore denied theexistence of any municipal law, since there had never been anymunicipality; he intimated that the pig had perhaps been killedaccidentally, or perhaps in self-defence; it was plain that theprisoner was wrongfully restrained of his liberty, etc.

  The ire of Blackman, J. P., at all this was something to behold. He tobe deprived of his opportunity thus lightly? Hardly! He overruled theobjections at once, and rapped loudly for order.

  "The trile will go on," said he.

  "Then, your Honor," cried Dan Andersen, springing to his feet, "then Ishall resort to the ancient bulwark of our personal liberties. I shallsue out a writ of _habeas corpus_, and take this prisoner out ofcustody. I'll sue this court on its bond! I'll take a change ofvenue! We'll leave no stone unturned to set this innocent man free andrestore him to the bosom of his family!"

  This speech produced a great effect on the audience, as murmurs ofapprobation testified, but the doughty Justice of the Peace was not soeasily to be reckoned with. He pointed out that there was no officerto serve a writ of _habeas corpus_; that the court had given no bondto anybody and did not propose to do so; that there was no other courtto which to apply for a change of "vendew," as he termed it; andreiterated once more that the "trile must go on." The prosecution was,therefore, once more called upon to state the case. Again the attorneyfor the defence protested, a foreshadowing of his fighting bloodreddening his face.

  "I call for a jury," said he. "Does this court suppose we are going toleave the liberty of this prisoner in the hands of a judge openly andnotoriously prejudiced as to the facts of this case? I demand a trialby a jury of the defendant's peers."

  Blackman reddened, but was game. "Jury goes," said he. "Count outtwelve fellers there, beginnin' next the door."

  "Twelve!" said Dan Andersen, for the moment almost losing his gravity."I thought this court might be content with six for a justice's jury;but realizing the importance of this court, we are willing to agree ontwelve."

  It was so agreed. The jury took in every man in the little room butthree. "They'll do for a veniry," said Blackman, J. P., learnedly.Under the circumstances, one can perhaps forgive him for becoming attimes a trifle mixed as to the legal proceedings.

  At least, it was easy to agree as to the jury; for obviously thepopulation of the place was fully acquainted with all the facts in thecase, and each one had freely expressed his opinion upon the one sideor the other. There seemed to be no reason for excusing any juror forcause; and upon the other hand, there are often very good reasons in aLand Before the Law for not bringing up personal matters of this kind.Indeed, the trial judge settled all that. He looked over the twelvegood men and true thus segregated, and remarked briefly: "They're hispeers, all right. The trile will now proceed."

  Whereupon he swore them solemnly and made a record in his fee book, tothe later consternation of his jurors. "Ain't this court a notary,too?" said Blackman later. "And ain't a notary entitled to so much feefor administerin' a oath? And didn't I administer twelve oaths?"There was small answer to this, after all. The laborer is worthy ofhis hire; and Blackman really labored in this case as in all likelihoodfew justices have before or since.

  The prosecuting attorney, who, it may be seen, held his office much asdid the justice of the peace, by the doctrine of _neminecontradicente_, now arose and made the opening statement. There, wassome doubt as to whether this was a civil or criminal trial, but therewas no doubt whatever of the existence of a trial of some kind; neitherdid there exist any doubt as to the importance of this, the first casethe prosecuting attorney had ever tried, outside of moot courts. Itwas the first speech he had ever made in public, barring college"orations," carefully memorized, and an occasional Fourth of Julyspeech, which might have been better for more memorizing. The attorneyfor the prosecution, however, arose to the occasion--at least to acertain extent. He spoke in low and feeling tones of the strugglinglittle community of hardy souls thus set down apart in the far-offmountain country of the West; of its trials, its hopes, its ambitions,of its expectations of becoming a mountain emporium which should be thepride of the entire Territory; he went on to mention the necessity forlaw and order, pointing out the danger to the public interests of thecommunity which must lie in a general reputation for ruffianism andlawlessness, showing how Eastern Capital must ever be timid in visitinga town of such reputation, apart from investing any money therein;then, changing to the personal phases of the case, he spoke of theabsolute disregard of law shown in the act charged, mentioned thered-handed deed of this lawless and dangerous person who had thus slaina pig, no less the pride of the community than the idol of the familynow bereft.

  At this point the jury began to look much perturbed and solemn, and theprisoner very red and uneasy. Prosecution closed by offering to proveall charges by competent testimony. This latter was a dangerousproposition to advance. We could not well ask the jurymen to testify,and of the "veniry," more than half had now slipped out for a hurriedand excited visit to the Lone Star, there to advise any possible newarrivals of what was going on at Blackman's adobe.

  Counsel for the defence arose calmly to make his opening statement.The man was a natural trial lawyer. It was simply destiny which haddriven him into this comedy, as destiny had driven him to Heart'sDesire. It was not comedy now, when Dan Anderson faced judge and juryhere in Blackman's adobe. There came a swift, sudden chill, a grippingas of iron, a darkening, a shrinking of the heart of each man in thatlittle room. It was the coming of the Law! Ah! Dan Anderson, youruined our little paradise; and now its walls are down forever, eventhe walls of our city of content.

  Dan Anderson stood, young, tall and grave, one hand in the bosom of hisshirt, for hardly one present wore a coat. He had his audience withhim before he spoke. When he began he caught them tighter to hiscause, using not merely flowing rhetoric of speech, but the close-knit,advancing, upbuilding argument of a man able to "think on hisfeet,"--that higher sort of oratory which is most convincing with anAmerican audience or an American jury.

  The statement of the prosecution, said Dan Anderson, was on the whole afair one, and no discredit to the learned brother making it. Nonewould more readily than himself yield acquiescence to the statementthat law and order must prevail. Without law there could be nothingbut anarchy. Under anarchy progress was at an end. The individualmust give up something of his rights to the state and the community.He gave up a certain amount of liberty, but received therefor anequivalent in protection. The law was, therefore, no oppressor, nomonster, no usurer, no austere being, reaping where it had not sown.The law was nothing to be dreaded, nothing to be feared; and, upon theother hand, it was nothing to be scorned.

  There must be a beginning, continued Dan Anderson. There must besomething established. The pound measure was one pound, the same allover the country; a yard measure was a yard, and there was no guessworkabout it. It was the same. It was a unit. So with the law. It mustbe the same, a unit, soulless, unfeeling, just, unchangeable. Therewas nothing indeterminate in it. The attitude of the law was thus orso, and not otherwise. It was not for the individual to pass upon anyof these questions. It was for the courts to do so, the approvedmachinery set aside, under the social compact, for reducing thefriction of
the wheels of society, for securing the permanency ofthings beneficial to that society, and for removing things injuriousthereto. The Law itself was immutable. The courts must administerthat Law without malice, without feeling, impersonally, justly.

  In so far as there had hitherto been no Law in Heart's Desire, went onthe speaker, thus far had our citizens dwelt in barbarism, had indeedbeen unfit, under the very definition of things, to bear the proudtitle of citizens of America, the justest, the most order-loving, aswell as the bravest and the most aggressive nation of the world. Thetime had now come for the establishment in this community of the Law,that beneficent agency of progress, that indispensable factor, thatinseparable attendant upon civilization. Upon the sky should blaze nomore the red riot of anarchy and barbarism. Upon the summit of thenoble mountain overtopping this happy valley there should sit no morethe grinning figure of malevolent and unrestrained vice, but the pureform of the blind Goddess of Justice, holding ever aloft over thishappy land the unfaltering sword and the unwavering scales, so that allmight look thereon, the rightdoers in smiling security, the wrong-doingin terror of their deeds. This was the Law!

  "And now, gentlemen of this jury," said Dan Anderson, "I stand herebefore you to make no excuses for this Law, to palliate nothing in theway of its workings, to set no tentative or temporizing date for thetime of the arrival at this place of the image of the Law. I say toyou here to-day, at this hour, that image now sits there enthronedabove us. The Law is not to come--it has come, it is here!"

  The old days were, therefore, done, he went on. Henceforth we mustobserve the Law. We were here now with the intention of observing thatLaw. Should we therefore fear it? Should we dread the decision ofthis distinguished servant of the Law? By no means. To show that theLaw was no dragon, no demon, he would now, in the very face of thatLaw, proceed to clear this innocent man of that cloud of doubt andsuspicion which for a brief moment the social body had cast upon him.He would show to the gentlemen of this jury and to this honorable courtthat there had been no violation of the Law through any act of thishonest, open-faced, intelligent young gentleman, long known among themas an upright and fair-dealing man. The Law, just and exact, would nowprotect this prisoner. The Law was no matter of haphazard. Theprosecution must show that some specific article of the Law had beenviolated.

  "Now," continued Dan Anderson, casting an eye about him as calmly ascould have done any old trial lawyer examining the condition of hisjury, "what are the charges made by the Territory? The prosecutionspecifies no section or paragraph of the statutes of this Territoryholding it unlawful to shoot any dangerous wild beast at large in thiscommunity. But we do not admit that this prisoner shot anything, orshot at anything whatever. We shall prove that at the time mentionedhe was engaged in a simple, harmless, and useful pastime, a pastimelaudable of itself, since it tends to make the participant therein abetter and more useful citizen. There is no Territorial law forbiddingany act which he is here charged with committing. Neither has the bodysocial in this thriving community placed upon its records any locallaw, any indication that a man may not, without let or hindrance, doany act such as those charged vaguely against this good young man, whohas only availed himself of his right under the Constitution to beararms, to assemble in public, and to engage in the pursuit of happiness."

  The prosecution, he said, had introduced reference to a certain pig,alleging that it was slain by the act of the prisoner. He would notadmit that there had been any pig, since no _corpus delicti_ wasshown; but in any event this was no civil suit now in progress. Wewere not here to assess value upon a supposititious pig, injured in asupposititious manner, and not represented here of counsel. No law hadbeen violated. Why, then, his client had been thus ruthlessly draggedinto court, to his great personal chagrin, his loss of time, his mentalsuffering, the attorney for defence could not say. It was injustice ofa monstrous sort! Prosecution might well feel relieved if noretaliatory action were later taken against them for falseimprisonment. This innocent young man must at once be discharged fromcustody.

  When Dan Anderson sat down there was not a man in the jury who was notbathed in perspiration. Abstruse thought was hard at work. Blackman,J. P., perspiring no less than any member of the jury, drew himself up,but he was troubled.

  "Evidence f'r the State," the Judge finally managed to stammer, turningto the attorney for the prosecution.

  But it never came so far along as that. There was a sound of manyfootsteps; voices came murmuring, growing louder. The door was pushedopen from without, and in came much of the remaining population ofHeart's Desire, so far as it could gain room. The man from Leavenworthwas there, his whiskers wagging unintelligibly. McKinney was there,and Doc Tomlinson and Tom Osby, and everybody else; and, pushingthrough the crowd, there came the Littlest Girl from Kansas, her apronawry, her hair blown, her face flushed, her eyes moist with tears.

  "Curly!" cried she as at last her eyes caught sight of him. "Comeright on out of here, this minute! Come along!"

  What would you have? The Law is the Law; but there are such things assupreme courts. It was useless for Blackman, J. P., to rap and callfor order. It had probably been useless for any man to undertake tostop the prisoner at the bar, thus adjured. At any rate he arose andsaid politely to the jurors, "Fellers, I got to go"--and so went, noman raising hand to restrain him.

  As to Dan Anderson, he himself admitted his wish that the case had goneon. "I wanted to cross-examine," said he.

  That night, over by the _arroyo_, we met Curly and the Littlest Girlwalking in the moonlight. Curly was quiet. The Littlest Girl wastremulous, content. Curly, pausing as we approached, mumbled someshamefaced thanks.

  "Curly," said Dan Anderson, his voice queer, "I didn't do it for pay.I did it--I don't know why--"

  A new mood was upon him. A lassitude as of remorse appeared to relaxhim, body and mind. An hour later he and I sat in the glorious floodof the light of the moon of Heart's Desire, and we fell silent, as wasthe way of men in that place. At length Dan Anderson turned his faceto the top of old Carrizo, the restful, the impassive. He gazed longwithout speaking, as though he plainly saw something there at themountain top.

  "Listen," he whispered to me, a moment later, and his eyes did notquite keep back the tears. "She's there--the Goddess. The Law hascome to Heart's Desire. May God forgive me! Why could we not havestayed content?"

  But little did Dan Anderson foresee that day how swiftly was to comefurther ruin for the kingdom of oblivion which we thought that we hadfound.

  "There'll be _women_ next!" I said to him bitterly; though this was avague threat of a thing impossible.

  His reply was a look more than half frightened.

  "Don't!" he said.