“It was Sonny,” Polly said.
“He must not have liked your performance in court today,” said Chester. “You showed him you meant business.”
“Sonny doesn’t give a damn whether you’re convicted or not,” said Micah. “But he doesn’t want Polly to testify. This was his way of letting her know that one more time. So far his name hasn’t come up in the trial. He wants to keep it that way.”
“By God, he can’t get away with firing a gun into a house full of sleeping people,” Jackson said. His voice was still a little quivery.
“Oh, please, Jackson,” said Cedra. “He’s already gotten away with it. He gets away with everything. Isn’t that why we’re all hiding in this house together, because Sonny Pratt can do whatever he wants to do whenever he wants to do it?”
“It could never be proven that Sonny Pratt was the one who fired this shot,” said Micah, “but there is some law in this town. There’s supposed to be, anyway. And this time that son of a bitch Collins is at least going to question Pratt about it.” Micah tore his coat from the hall tree. As he pulled it on, he said, “Chester, there’s some wood in the shed behind the house. Cover that God-damned window in there before everyone freezes to death.”
Brad Collins rented a small house on North Second Street, one block over and a couple of blocks south of Lottie’s. Nora, his wife, had run off with a traveling salesman of pots and pans two years earlier, and Collins had lived alone in the house ever since.
Micah climbed Collins’s front porch and pounded on the door. “Open up in there, Collins.”
There was no response, and Micah pounded again. After a bit, there was the sound of curses, and Micah saw the flare of a match through the thin curtains as a lamp was lit. Collins pulled open the door. His hair was mussed and his eyes still looked a little out of focus. He wore pants and the top of his longjohns, but he was barefoot.
“Who is it?” he asked, holding the lamp up and rubbing his eye with the heel of his hand.
Micah stepped into the room, pushing Collins aside as he did.
“What the hell do you want, McConners? It’s the middle of the damned night.”
Micah held the piece of lead up to Collins’s light. “Ten minutes ago,” he said, “this was fired through the bedroom window of Lottie Charbunneau’s house.”
Collins took it from him. He held both the lamp and the piece of lead as far from his eyes as the length of his arms would allow. “Anybody hurt?” he asked.
“No,” said Micah, “by some miracle no one was.”
Collins handed the lead back and placed the lamp on the table in front of the window. “What time is it, anyway?” he asked, rubbing his head.
“A little after five.”
“Did you see anything?”
“No, it was too dark. But it had to’ve come from the freight yards behind the house.”
“Probably some drunk cowboy.”
“It was no drunk cowboy,” said Micah.
“Now how the hell would you know that, McConners?”
“It was Sonny Pratt.”
“What? Are you out of your mind?”
“You’ve been turning your back on Sonny’s behavior ever since you’ve been in office. Now I’m telling you I have reason to believe he fired a gun into a house with six people in it.”
“You got anything showing it’s Sonny?” Collins asked.
“He’s made threats to Polly to prevent her from testifying tomorrow.”
“Well, now,” said the sheriff, puffing his chest up, “this is the first I’ve ever heard about any threats being made.”
“Polly and Cedra didn’t want to inform the law. But I’ve had enough of it, and I’m here telling you now.”
“I can’t go out to the Pratt place and start making accusations with no more to go on than that.”
Micah stared at the man. “Let me get this straight,” he finally said, “a gunshot was fired into a house with six people in it. One of the victims gives you the name of a person who’s made threats against another of the victims to keep her from testifying in district court, and you won’t even go out and question the person making the threats? Is that what I’m hearing?” Micah’s anger was rising fast. “That’s the way I’m reading the situation here, Collins. How close is that to accurate?”
Collins stuck a thick finger in Micah’s face. “You listen to me, you pup. If you think you can come back into this town with the ink still wet on your license to play lawyer and start telling folks how to do their job, you are wrong.” He jabbed Micah’s shoulder. “Now you get out of here before you wish you had.”
“Oh, for Christ sake, Collins, what’s this? Are you getting tough with me?”
“You better watch yourself, boy. You’re not in the courtroom now. You and me start scrapping, it won’t be with words.” He jabbed his big finger into Micah’s shoulder again, this time hard enough to push him back a step.
“You know, I really wish you wouldn’t do that,” Micah said. He could feel a smile bloom but it felt too wide and too stiff.
“So you don’t like that, huh? Let me tell you something, if you didn’t like that, you’re really going to hate this.” He pulled his hand back for another jab, and when he did Micah’s left fist lashed out, catching Collins on the right eye, making him stagger and turning his head to his left. Micah followed up with a right cross that also landed on Collins’s right eye. This time the sheriff went down flat on his back, smacking his head with a clunk on the wooden floor. Collins was stunned, but still conscious.
Micah stood above him looking down. “Collins,” he said with disgust, “you are about as worthless as any man I’ve ever run across.” He tossed the bullet onto Collins’s chest. It hit and bounced to the floor, rotated in one tight circle, and came to a stop. “I don’t guess I ever expected anything from you, anyhow.” He started for the door. “By the way,” he said, turning back to face the sheriff, “you were wrong about me hating it.” He watched as Collins lifted a hand to his eye. A little groan skittered through the man’s clenched teeth. “Knocking you to the floor was the most fun I’ve had in years.”
He stepped out into the cold late-December air. Although Micah had not accomplished a thing by his visit to the sheriff, as he walked back to Lottie’s, he felt one hell of a lot better.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“I won’t be taking long, Judge,” whispered Thomas Blythe in a side-bar conference. As soon as the judge had entered, Blythe asked if they could approach the bench to take care of a few housekeeping matters. “I would say I have less than fifteen minutes with the sheriff, and then, as I mentioned in my opening, I have only four quick questions for Miss Pratt.” Blythe turned to Micah. “Of course, Mr. McConners seems to do a rather extensive job at cross-examination, so I’m not positive we will be finishing up our case by midday, but I should anticipate we will.”
Micah shook his head. “I won’t be long, Judge. I’ll take a little while with Miss Pratt, but I would think less than an hour.”
“Fine. We’ll finish the state’s case, take a noon recess, then come back and begin the defense case. How long do you figure that’ll take?”
“Not long, sir,” Micah said. His response was an honest one, since he did not plan to put on a case at all. There was nothing he could do in a case-in-chief that he couldn’t do as well on Polly’s cross-examination. He didn’t want to admit in front of the prosecutor, though, that he wasn’t putting on any evidence. He doubted it would make a difference, but it was something he didn’t want to do.
“Well, good,” said Walker. “Maybe we can let the jury go a little early this afternoon, and all of us can get together and work out the law I’ll be instructing them on. We can come back in the morning, I’ll charge the jury, you fellas can give your closings, and we’ll send them out to deliberate. How does that sound, gentlemen?”
Both Micah and Blythe agreed that would be fine, and everyone returned to their seats.
“Court’l
l come to order,” Walker said. “I believe when we finished yesterday, Mr. Blythe, you were prepared to call your next witness.”
“That’s correct, Your Honor. The state would call Sheriff Bradley Collins.”
“Come forward to be sworn, sheriff,” said the judge.
Collins stepped up to the bench, and murmurs ran through the theater when everyone saw his red and swollen right eye.
Walker swore him in. “Take the stand there, please, sheriff,” he said.
“Gracious,” whispered Chester, “you did pop him, didn’t you? I thought you’d learned to deal with that nasty temper of yours.”
“He brought out the worst in me,” Micah said.
Chester grimaced. “Maybe I’ll start being nicer to you.”
“Good morning, sheriff,” said Blythe.
“Morning.”
“Would you state for the record and the jury your name and your occupation?”
“Brad Collins. I was elected sheriff in the last election.”
Blythe pointed out, “That’s quite a shiner you’re sporting there, sir.” When Collins didn’t respond, Blythe asked with a smile, “I suppose that is one of the many hazards of your job; is that right?”
“I reckon,” Collins said in a flat voice.
“Yes, well, tell me, you said you were elected sheriff of this county in the last election. Would that have been the election a little over a month ago, or did you mean the general election in ’98?”
“Ninety-eight.”
“So,” said Blythe, “I assume you held the position of sheriff of this county, then, on the twenty-eighth day of August, 1900.”
“I did.”
“Did you have occasion to make any arrests on that date?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you tell us who it was you arrested?”
“I arrested Dr. Hedstrom there.” He lifted his arm and pointed to the defense table.
Micah noticed Blythe did not ask the judge if the record would reflect that the witness had identified the defendant. A dog didn’t have to bite the clever Thomas Blythe more than once.
“And,” continued Blythe, “what were the circumstances surrounding that arrest?”
“I was called over to the county attorney’s office that morning.”
“How was that done?”
“Mr. Anderson sent a boy to my office with a message for me to come to the courthouse right away.”
“Did you do so?”
“Sure.”
“And once you arrived at the county attorney’s office, what happened next?”
“That Mrs. Eggers who was here yesterday, she was at Mr. Anderson’s office when I got there. Earl, he told her to tell me what she’d told him.”
“Yes?”
“So I listened to her story, and me and Mr. Anderson decided we should go talk to the doctor. We walked up to his place—his clinic there—and asked him a few questions.”
“Did you tell him your business—that is, the reason for your visit?”
“Yes—well, Mr. Anderson did.”
“Tell us what was said.”
“Earl told him we’d been informed that he had performed an abortion there in his clinic the day before.”
“What was the doctor’s response to that?”
“Well, he guessed right away who it was told us about it.”
“You mean he knew it was Mrs. Eggers, the woman he had thrown into the street the night before when she had confronted him with his crime?”
“That’s who he said, Mrs. Eggers, right.”
“What else was said on that day?”
“Mr. Anderson asked him if that information was true.”
“And what did the doctor say in response?” asked Blythe.
“He said that, yes, it certainly was true. He had performed the abortion.”
“He never denied it at all?”
“No, sir, he never did. He admitted it right away.”
“Thank you, sheriff,” said Thomas Blythe. “Nothing further at this time, Judge.”
“Mr. McConners, cross?” asked the judge.
Micah stood, but he stayed at the table rather than walk to the lectern. Collins gave him a scowl.
“Sheriff,” began Micah, “isn’t it true that the doctor asked what would happen if he did deny Mrs. Eggers’s accusations?”
Collins nodded. “Yes, now that you mention it, I believe he did.”
“What was either your or Mr. Anderson’s response to that?”
“Seems like Earl said he’d have to go ask the Pratt women some questions. Maybe investigate their involvement in the situation.”
“And wasn’t it at that time that Dr. Hedstrom gave his confession to you and the county attorney?”
“Yes, it was.”
Micah started to sit down but stopped himself. He couldn’t resist asking one more question. “So, sheriff, tell me, have you tried putting a steak on that eye of yours? I expect Mr. Anderson would be glad to buy you one.”
Everyone laughed except Collins and Anderson. Even Blythe was chuckling when he made his relevancy objection. And the judge smiled too when he said, “Sustained.”
“The state,” said Thomas Blythe, “would now call to the stand its third and final witness, Miss Polly Pratt.”
After Polly was sworn and gave her name, Blythe said, “Now don’t be nervous, Miss Pratt. Would you care for some water?”
Polly said in a strong voice, “I don’t need any water. Thank you, Mr. Blythe.”
“Miss Pratt, it is not my desire to embarrass you. I have known you since your childhood. I know what a fine young woman you are.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“But as you know, there are certain questions I must ask.”
“I realize that. You may ask your questions.”
“Very well. Miss Pratt, were you with child on the date of August 27, 1900?”
Micah saw Polly swallow hard, but she turned to the jury and answered loudly, “Yes, Mr. Blythe, I was.”
“On that same date, August 27, 1900, here in Probity, Wyoming, was there an abortion performed to rid you of that child?”
“Yes, there was.”
“Did this pregnancy cause your health to be such that you were in danger of death?”
“No, Mr. Blythe, my health was fine.”
Blythe moved from the lectern to the witness stand, and in what Micah assumed was his most solemn of voices, he asked, “By whom was this abortion performed, Miss Pratt?”
For the briefest instant, Polly looked down at her hands; then she raised her head, took a breath, and said, “It was performed, Mr. Blythe, by my doctor and my friend, Chester Hedstrom.”
“Thank you, Miss Pratt. Your Honor, I have no further questions.”
“Polly,” Micah began, “I’ll not be as brief as the attorney for the state, but I’ll not take long, either. There are, however, a few things that I feel will help the gentlemen of the jury to put all of this in some kind of perspective.”
“I understand, Mr. McConners.” Polly’s voice was not as strong with Micah as it had been with Blythe. Although she was the state’s witness, Blythe had been an adversary. Micah was her friend, and with her resistance more relaxed, her nervousness showed.
Micah had given a great deal of thought to how he was going to handle this examination of Polly. Yet as he stood before the judge, the prosecution, and the heat of hundreds of eyes, he still was not sure of the best way to approach it. He knew that on a practical level it would not matter. In the end Polly would tell her story, and there would be a conviction. But perhaps Chester was right. We must establish our own personal lines, and once established, refuse to cross them no matter how impractical. It was odd. His conversation with Lottie last night hadn’t been so different than his discussions with Chester. Both divided the world into two categories: the practical and the ardent. Both, like Micah, were passionate, sometimes too passionate for their own good. But still both also had great respect
and admiration for the practical, more down-to-earth side of things . . . Lottie with her fond example of lovers storing memories in a pantry, Chester with his excitement for all the practical advances the new century promised to bring about. Micah had learned in his own life that passion often had to give way to the practical, but he acknowledged sometimes it had to go the other way too.
“Polly,” said Micah, “let’s get right to the heart of the matter. How did you become pregnant?”
There was tittering and stirring among the spectators. For a moment Micah thought Polly was not going to answer. Finally, she said, “I was raped, Mr. McConners. I was raped on June 14, 1900.”
There was more stirring in the theater, but not the sound of even one voice.
“And, Polly, who was it who raped you last spring?”
Blythe was on his feet. “Your Honor, I must object. This is totally irrelevant to the matter before the court. Whatever happened to this poor young woman is unfortunate, but, Judge, it has absolutely nothing to do with the charge against Chester Hedstrom.”
“Response, Mr. McConners?”
“Your Honor, we’re dealing with a tragic situation here. It’s a situation in which a large number of lives were changed forever.” He waved his hand in the direction of the jury. “We are asking these men to make a decision that will also affect lives—not only my client’s life, but all of our lives to one degree or another. I will say to you, Your Honor, and as of this moment I will say to everyone who will care to listen—” He turned to face Earl Anderson and Brad Collins. “—that Probity has up to now not been a community in which the truth was welcome. It has been, in fact, a community that has hidden the truth—ignored the acts of certain individuals. Even, I’m afraid—” He faced Thomas Blythe. “—felt the truth was irrelevant.” He turned back to Judge Walker. “It’s sad, Your Honor, but right now this trial is the only forum the truth has in Probity, Wyoming. And I feel these jurymen must be provided all the truth before they’re asked to make their decision.”
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