by Watt Key
“What else?”
“That’s it.”
The judge sat back in his chair and looked at Mr. Wellington. “Okay, lawyer, your turn.”
Mr. Wellington stood calmly and made his way to the front of the courtroom. He faced Sanders. “Mr. Sanders, where were you when Moon supposedly shot at you with your pistol?”
Sanders looked straight at Mr. Wellington’s eyes. “I was in the Talladega National Forest.”
“Describe your surroundings.”
“I don’t remember.”
“You mean you were lost out in the forest and then shot at, and you don’t remember anything about your surroundings?”
“Who said I was lost!”
“Just an assumption. Perhaps I’m wrong.”
“Listen here, you slick old sum-bitch, I was—”
The judge slammed his gavel on the desk without lifting his cheek from his palm. I jumped in my chair from surprise. Sanders paused for a moment and then spoke calmly. “I was near a creek, I think.”
“You think?”
“Yeah, I was beside a creek.”
“And Moon Blake shot at you once.”
“That’s right.”
“Once?”
“That’s right.”
“How far away was he when he shot?”
“About ten yards, I guess. Close.”
“And you saw the remains of your dogs not far from there?”
“That’s right.”
“I see,” Mr. Wellington said. “Can I remind you, Mr. Sanders, that you’re under—”
“He knows he’s under oath, Mr. Wellington,” the judge said wearily. “Stop fancy-pantsin’ around and get on with it.”
Sanders looked over at the judge. “Your Honor, I thought this was gonna be an informal hearin’. How come I got this lawyer in my face?”
“I can’t keep the boy from havin’ his own counsel, Mr. Sanders.”
Sanders shook his head and looked back at Mr. Wellington. “Well, ask what you gotta ask, slick.”
Mr. Wellington nodded politely. “You say you saw the carcasses of your dogs not far from where the shooting took place?”
“That’s right.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t a single deer carcass that Moon had left not far from there?”
“You don’t think I know a deer carcass from a dog carcass? And I said there were three.”
“Very well,” Mr. Wellington nodded. He walked to the table where I sat. He reached beside me and pulled a plastic bag from his briefcase. Inside the bag was Sanders’s pistol. He held it up. “Is this your pistol, Mr. Sanders?”
Sanders’s forehead veins popped up again and his eyes grew wide. He stood and held out his hand for it. Mr. Wellington walked over to him and held it in front of him, just out of reach. “Well,” Sanders said, “lemme see the thing.”
“You can see it fine,” the judge said. “Sit down.”
“Yeah, it looks like mine. Gimme that.”
Mr. Wellington swung the pistol away and laid it on the judge’s desk. The judge stared at it for a second and then looked at Mr. Wellington. “Go on.”
“That’s my pistol he stole!” Sanders said as he reached for it.
“Get your hand away from my desk!” the judge snapped. “I said sit down!”
Sanders clenched his teeth, sat, and stared at the back wall.
Mr. Wellington waited a few seconds, then continued. “Mr. Sanders?”
“What!”
“Did you shoot the pistol at all that day before Moon supposedly took it from you and fired at you?”
“No.”
“And he only fired at you once?”
“That’s what I said.”
“How many shells does that pistol hold?”
“Nine in the clip and one in the chamber.”
Mr. Wellington turned to the judge. “Your Honor, if you examine the clip, you’ll see that there are eight bullets in it. The bullets are oxidized against the clip, evidence that they’ve been in there and positioned in such a way for some time and have not been tampered with.”
Sanders smiled and shook his head. “Maybe he shot it again, slick.”
Mr. Wellington nodded. “Yes, he did. Moon shot the pistol twice.”
Sanders shrugged his shoulders and looked at the judge. “Can I go, Your Honor?”
The judge looked at Mr. Wellington. The lawyer held up his finger and walked to his briefcase. He pulled out some pictures and another small plastic bag with two bullets in it. He took these to the judge and set them on his desk. Again, the judge looked down and eyed them. “What is all that?”
“It’s a picture of a log with two bullets in it. In that bag are the only two bullets that were shot out of the pistol. As you know, there are tests that can prove the bore markings on those bullets match Mr. Sanders’s pistol. If you examine this picture and others I have taken of the log—and I even have the log itself if that becomes necessary—you will see these bullets are the same ones that were embedded in the log.”
Sanders stood up. “So maybe he fired twice at me! Hell, when you’re gettin’ shot at, you lose track of things.”
This time, the judge lifted his cheek from his palm and stared at Sanders. “If I have to tell you to sit down one more time, I’m gonna throw some rope around you and that chair.”
Sanders sat with his hands shaking on top of the armrests. Mr. Wellington turned to me and winked. “Moon,” he said, “how is it that we know this log was nowhere near Mr. Sanders at the creek?”
All of a sudden, I knew what he was doing. The answer to his question shot into my head and seemed like it was ringing a bell inside me. “ ’Cause there aren’t any pine logs by creeks! They’re all up at the top of the hill!”
Sanders started to get up, but sat down again and leaned forward in his seat. “That’s the craziest damned—”
“Hey!” the judge said.
“Craziest damned defense,” Sanders mumbled. The judge shot him a look and Sanders settled into his chair. Mr. Wellington turned and began walking to our table. When his back was to the judge, he looked up and smiled at me.
After Mr. Wellington sat down, the courtroom was quiet and everyone watched the judge. He rubbed his temples and stared at the top of his desk. “I’m not sure what’s been accomplished here,” he said to the desk. “Bullets in a log. Bore markings. Inconsistencies in the number of shots. This is pretty shaky, Wellington. Maybe that log rolled down the hill. Maybe it washed up on the creek bank.”
Mr. Wellington nodded. “I’ve thought of that, Your Honor. With your permission, I’d like to make a few more points.”
The judge looked up and sighed. “Good. That would be helpful.”
“I’d like to introduce my second piece of evidence, my client here, Moon Blake.”
“Bring him up, then.”
“Actually, with your permission, I’d like to demonstrate something outside the courtroom. I believe your police department has a shooting range not far outside of town. I’d like to go there for my demonstration.”
Sanders twisted in his chair and threw up his hands.
The judge stared at Mr. Wellington for what seemed like a long time. Finally he said, “Wellington, I think this is going to be a waste of my time. You and your fancy talk may work with a jury, but I can cut it down to what it is. You’re not in the big city anymore . . . However, this is your lucky day. I don’t feel good at all. You give me a nap and I’ll take your country drive with you.” He tapped the gavel on his desk. “Reconvene in two hours. Meet me in the garage so we don’t start a parade with all those reporters out there.”
44
Mr. Wellington said he’d see me later, and Officer Pete took me back to the cage to wait while the judge took his nap. I was there for what seemed like a lot longer than two hours before Officer Pete came again to get me. “Let’s go, kid.”
He took me down some stairs into the basement, where the judge was already in the front passenger side of a police car,
staring straight ahead.
“He feelin’ better?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Officer Pete said. He opened the back door and I climbed inside.
We drove up from the basement and out into the sunshine. I turned to see all of the people still gathered around the courthouse steps. Some of them had grown tired and were sitting down. A couple were lying on the park benches out front with their cameras on the ground beside them. No one seemed to notice we were leaving.
The judge rolled his window down and I was relieved to feel the cool air brush across the backseat. We hadn’t gone far when I saw Mr. Wellington pull out behind us in a shiny car I’d never seen before. Then we saw Sanders in his car and the judge turned in his seat as we passed by. “Pete, where do you think he drives to get a car that scratched up and muddy?”
“He’s been all over lookin’ for me,” I said.
The judge glanced at Officer Pete and then back at me. He started to say something but then didn’t and faced the road again. After a few seconds he started shaking his head. “Stop up here and get me a hamburger, Pete. This boy had lunch?”
“No, sir.”
“Get us all somethin’, then.”
“What you want?” Officer Pete asked me.
“Sausage biscuit.”
“They don’t have sausage biscuits right now. I’ll get you a hamburger.”
“Okay.”
We pulled up to a drive-through restaurant and Officer Pete told the sign that he wanted three hamburgers and three Cokes. After the woman at the window gave us our food, Officer Pete handed mine to me through the sliding window between us, and we pulled onto the highway again. Mr. Wellington and Sanders were pulled over to the side of the road waiting. After we passed Sanders, I turned and watched him. His face was blood red, and he was holding his hands up in the air and cursing the traffic. “Sanders is mad back there,” I said.
“What?”
“Sanders is mad again.”
Officer Pete didn’t reply. The judge chewed his hamburger slowly and swallowed. “What’s wrong with that man, Pete?”
Officer Pete shook his head. “I don’t know.”
We turned onto a dirt road a few miles outside of town. I’d finished my hamburger and even though my tongue still burned from the Coke, I wished I had two more of each. We didn’t go far before we pulled over near a long, narrow cement slab with a roof over it. On the other side of the slab was a field with a dirt mound at the other end.
Officer Pete opened my door for me as Mr. Wellington pulled up beside us. I got out and saw the judge strolling a few feet away from the car. With his back to us, he stopped and unzipped his pants and began to pee. Mr. Wellington got out of the car and walked up to us.
“You mind if I get a rifle out of my trunk, Officer? It’s for my demonstration.”
“Your Honor?”
“That’s fine with me.”
Mr. Wellington retrieved a rifle from his trunk and reached into his pocket and pulled out some cartridges. He began walking towards the shooting block and loading the rifle. When he passed me, I noticed that it was Pap’s .22.
“Where’d you get that?” I said.
“Moon, you stay quiet,” he told me.
“Where’s Sanders?” the judge said.
Just as he said it, I saw Sanders’s car rounding a bend in the dirt road. “He’s comin’,” I said. “He prob’ly got lost again.”
“Moon, come over here,” Mr. Wellington said.
Sanders’s car came to a stop behind us. I noticed wet grass and mud hung from the front bumper. He got out and slammed his door and the judge stopped midstride and looked over at him. “You got a problem, Constable?”
Sanders started to say something, but then set his jaw and shook his head and stomped around the front of his car. He got to his knees and reached under and felt around for a few seconds. I didn’t think his face could get any redder, but it did. He yanked and tugged until something bloody and furry came loose and he stood with it and slung it out into the weeds.
“You’re a dangerous man to be in front of,” the judge said.
Officer Pete nudged me forward. “Let’s see what your lawyer’s gonna do.”
Mr. Wellington was waiting with his back towards us. When the four of us were standing behind him, he turned and held up the rifle. “This is a .22. Iron sights, no scope. How much would you say you weigh, Constable Sanders?”
“I haven’t weighed myself lately. Judge, this is crazy.”
“Guess your weight, Sanders,” the judge said.
Sanders breathed heavily out of his nose. “Two twenty-five.”
“How tall?” Mr. Wellington asked him.
“About six foot two.”
“Big target for someone ten yards away.”
Sanders began to shake his head. “Okay, lawyer. I know where you’re goin’ with this. You wanna show me this kid can hit somethin’ ten yards away. Is that right?”
“That’s right.”
Sanders turned to the judge and raised his hands palm up. “Didn’t you ask him not to waste your time? What’s this gonna show? For one, the kid’s not nervous like he was out there in the woods with me. Second of all, that’s not a pistol, judge. You know as well as I do that a pistol’s a lot harder to shoot than that rifle.”
“Wellington,” the judge said, “I agree. I hope you have more to show me than this boy shootin’ a ten-yard target.”
“I’d gladly have Moon use the exact pistol he’s accused of shooting at Constable Sanders with; however, it’s evidence.”
“And I don’t think that kid’s ever been nervous a day in his life,” Officer Pete said.
Mr. Wellington reached into his pocket and pulled out a small aspirin bottle. He held it up briefly for us to see. Then he turned and began walking across the field. After he’d walked close to seventy-five yards, he turned and shouted back to us. “This far enough, Moon?”
I shrugged my shoulders. Mr. Wellington turned and kept walking another twenty-five yards. Finally, he stopped and pulled a pen from his shirt pocket. He knelt and stabbed the pen into the ground and stuck the aspirin bottle over it.
“There’s no way he can hit that,” Officer Pete said. “That’s three hundred feet out.”
“Give him your pistol, Officer Pete,” Sanders said.
“Quiet, Constable,” the judge said. “I don’t know anybody who can hit somethin’ that far away with a pistol.”
I heard Sanders shuffle his feet behind me. “This ain’t provin’ nothin’,” he said under his breath.
“Quiet.”
Mr. Wellington walked back to us, picked up the rifle, and gave it to me. “Shoot it, Moon.”
“Want me to make ’em pay?”
“Just shoot the bottle.”
It was nothing to me. I’d done it more than a thousand times with Pap, practicing for the war he always said would come. I brought the rifle up to my shoulder and lined up the iron sights on the bottle. I held my breath and squeezed the trigger. The gun exploded and the aspirin bottle was gone.
I let the rifle down and handed it over to Mr. Wellington. It was a few seconds before anyone said anything. Finally, Sanders spun around and started towards the cars.
“Where you think you’re goin’?” Officer Pete said.
“This ain’t no way to run a trial! Bunch of tricks and nonsense!” Sanders shouted.
I saw the judge’s face go red. “You turn around right now!”
Sanders stopped but didn’t turn around. The judge took a few steps in his direction. “I’m gonna tell you this one more time, mister. This ain’t your daddy’s Sumter County, and I ain’t your daddy. This is my county and my trial. Turn around!”
Sanders slowly turned and stared at the ground and clenched his teeth.
“Look at me!” the judge snapped.
Sanders lifted his chin. I thought the judge was about to say something, but just then we heard a vehicle approaching. Everyone except Sander
s looked out at the dirt road. I hung my mouth open when I saw Hal driving towards us in his daddy’s truck. Just above the passenger-seat window, the little wiener dog’s head watched us curiously. In the bed, curled up on sacks of garbage, were the bloodhounds. “Hey, Hal!” I yelled.
Hal waved at us, and the bloodhounds heard me and tripped around in the garbage trying to stand up. “Recognize those dogs, Sanders?” Mr. Wellington said.
The judge looked back at Mr. Wellington and then at the truck again. The bloodhounds finally made it to their feet and began woofing at me. Sanders spun around and I couldn’t see his face. After a second, he mumbled, “Sum-bitch,” and took out running towards the truck.
“Are those his dogs?” the judge said.
“Yes,” Mr. Wellington replied.
“Hold it right there, Sanders!” Officer Pete yelled.
Sanders kept on. Hal mashed the gas pedal and spun the steering wheel so that the truck leaned into a hard turn. The dogs crashed and stumbled around in the garbage, and newspapers and trash flew out into the weeds. Hal straightened up the wheel and sped out the way he’d come. Sanders kept after him for a second, but finally stopped in the road and stared at the dust trail.
“Put him in your car,” the judge said to Officer Pete.
“Which one?”
“That crazy fool out in the road, that’s which one. Book him for perjury and I’ll think of some more stuff before we get back to town.”
45
The judge rode back from the shooting range with Mr. Wellington and me. “What about Sanders’s car?” I said.
“Hell with his car, son. That thing’s a disgrace to law enforcement.”
“Am I goin’ back to jail?”
The judge didn’t answer me. “Wellington, was that the other missin’ boy drivin’ that truck?”
Mr. Wellington nodded.
“I guess he knows he just turned himself in.”
“He does.”
“And maybe got himself into trouble for bein’ on the road without a license.”
“He’s a good driver,” I said.
For the first time, I saw Judge Mackin almost smile. He looked at me with one corner of his mouth turned up. “Wellington, if I didn’t know better, I’d say your client still hasn’t learned a thing about the way the rest of the world operates.”