Willard Ganeel’s voice was louder than it had to be. “All rise,” he said.
I snuck a look at Billy, and he nodded when he shoved his chair back and stood up, me doing likewise. The rest of the room was on their feet at the same time.
Dewey moved behind the big dark desk and sat down. He nodded to the crowd, and everybody was butt down right away. Some people coughed. Some people cleared their throat. Dewey looked off in the direction of Mr. Walsh, and Walsh looked back with a shared knowledge, the look power gives to power. Dewey looked back at the crowd. “Ladies and gentleman, my name’s Dewey and I’m the judge here and I’ll run the court as I see fit, and what fits is that there won’t be any outbreaks of agreement or disagreement or dispute. Anyone who doesn’t understand that will be given the opportunity to think it through in a jail cell.” He moved his head back and forth then, like he was sweeping with his eyes. It got quiet enough to suit him. He looked over at Walsh, who beamed back. He had his hands on a sizable pile of books and papers stacked on his particular desk. “The State ready to proceed, Mr. Walsh?”
“We are, your honor.”
“Mr. Piper, is your defense ready to take a shot at it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then perhaps your client might like to enter a plea.”
Billy put a hand under my elbow and pushed up. We both stood. Billy fiddled with his tie.
“Waiting, Mr. Piper.”
“Your Honor, Mr. Moss pleads guilty.”
A high-pitched voice perked out a “What?” For a time, I thought Pearline was there after all, but it was just young Walsh. He was on his feet with a sinkhole where his mouth used to be. His hands fluttered all around the big pile of books and papers on his little table. The hands were saying, “But all the work I’ve done. All the research and preparation.” The people in the seats made a buzzing-bee noise.
Dewey used the gavel with some force. “Mr. Piper, that’s not the impression we got yesterday when we talked with you and your client.”
“Judge Dewey, me and Wilbur talked it over and we just came out at a different place.” Billy was breathing hard. He cleared his throat. It was a real loud silence.
The judge glanced off to Marshal-Sheriff Willard Ganeel. “Marshal, I need to meet with counsel in chambers.”
“Excuse?”
“Chambers. I need to meet with the lawyers in chambers.”
Walsh popped up out of his chair. “Judge Dewey, begging your pardon, sir, but Mr. Piper isn’t any kind of a proper lawyer.”
Dewey gave Walsh the look you’d give a moving worm in your pie. “Thank you for the correction, Mr. Walsh. I won’t forget it.” You could almost feel the heat coming off the bench he sat on. His head tilted over toward Ganeel again. “Marshal, I still need to meet with counsel in chambers.”
Ganeel looked like a duck hitting a patch of ice. “Judge, I’m not all that sure what you’re talking about, but offhand, I don’t think we got any chambers around here.”
Dewey closed his eyes. “Marshal, there must be someplace where the lawyers and the defendant and I could meet in private.”
And that’s how it was that five minutes later, Judge Dewey and young Walsh and Billy and me were all standing in the boys’ outhouse. It was a two-holer, so there was room, but it probably wasn’t going to be a very lengthy type of meeting.
“Mr. Moss, it’s important that I impress upon you the implications of you pleading guilty. I’m not trying to get you to change your plea, but merely to nail down that you know what you’re doing.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You understand that by pleading guilty you give up any chance of the court finding you innocent. Ever. Any chance whatsoever.”
“Yes, sir. I get that.”
“Did Mr. Piper say anything to you that made you change your mind?”
“Well, yeah. You could say that.”
“Mr. Piper? You want to explain what got said?”
Billy took in a deep breath. That was all right. The outhouse hadn’t got used yet, so there was no stench. “Judge Dewey, we had a witness we were going to call, which we could do if we pleaded not guilty, but that witness has gone off no one knows where to, so we decided to go the other route. Seemed like the only way.”
“And who is this witness? What would the testimony address?”
Walsh lifted a hand schoolboy-like. “Judge, if the witness and the testimony isn’t going to come into court, I don’t think it should come into this discussion. It might serve to prejudice the bench, sir.”
Dewey’s look at Walsh made certain their ride back to Cody was going to be long and uneasy. “‘Prejudice the bench,’ Mister Dewey? Is that what I just heard you say?”
“Just offering a thought, Your Honor.” He skulked back like moose nuts on a snowbank.
Dewey massaged the bridge of his nose. He was still at it when he talked. “Is that it, Mr. Moss? Did the loss of this witness make you change your mind? Did you, do you, understand why this change makes sense?”
“Billy explained it and I went right along with his thinking.”
Dewey opened his eyes. It was a look that would crucify anything coming back at him that he didn’t think was up to muster. “You do understand that all you’ll be allowed to do is offer some character witnesses and have Mr. Piper do a summation that counts on the mercy of the court to spare your life? And that I’m not a very softhearted man?”
That last item didn’t need saying out loud. I just moved my head up and down.
“One more thing,” Dewey said. “Mr. Piper?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The court’s time is limited and valuable. I understand that Mr. Moss knows a lot of people here in Salt Springs. How many character witnesses are you planning on calling? And let me inform you that ten would be too many.”
“And two might not be enough.”
Something happened to Dewey’s face that was almost like a smile. “Suppose we compromise on five?”
“Six.”
Billy was raising the ante when I was the only one who had anything to lose if he didn’t have the cards. I must have voice-twitched a little and he looked over at me.
Dewey shook his head. “Five still sounds more appropriate.”
“We could flip a coin,” Billy said.
Walsh choked back a laugh.
“Mr. Piper,” Dewey said, low and slow, “you’re confusing a court of law with a gaming house. Your woeful lack of experience allows me to overlook your last suggestion. But the number five still seems most appropriate to me, and I need to warn you that the number four is taking on an increasing amount of allure with each passing second. And I strongly urge you not to overlook my remarks, as I am mercifully overlooking yours. Do you and I understand each other, young man?”
“You’re talking in English, Judge, and I understand that language. Whether or not you and me will understand each other, it just seems too soon to say. Though I am starting to see the appeal of that number five you talked about.”
“Then five character witnesses it is,” Dewey said. “And I think our time in this little cubbyhole is done. Let’s get back outside.”
As soon as we stepped outside, we were there with Willard Ganeel and his leg irons. Dewey and Walsh kept on going. Me and Billy held up. “Willard,” Billy said, “we’re only about thirty seconds from being back inside the schoolhouse and you’re just going to have to take those things off once we get there.”
“Rules is rules,” Willard said, and knelt down, pulling up my pant leg. Chains got rattled. Locks got snapped. Billy stood by my shoulder.
“You nervous?” I said.
“Yeah.”
“You think the character people will help?”
“Might. A little.”
“Only a little.”
“Just my guess, but yeah.”
“What’s the popinjay going to do?”
“Walsh?”
“Yeah.”
“No idea, Wilbur
. You’re a first-time defendant; I’m a first-time lawyer. I know I get to call character witnesses and I know I get to make a talk on your side, a statement. And Walsh gets to make a talk against you.”
“What’s he going to say?”
Billy’s shoulders hitched up. “I expect he’ll talk about the facts of what happened on that night.”
“You can send him home; I could make that talk myself.”
Willard grunted when he got to his feet. He moved around behind me and took a fistful of shirt. “Time,” he said.
We started our shuffle back into the schoolhouse. I couldn’t stop myself from prideful feelings when I saw how fine it looked in the sun. “Billy,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“You know what you’re going to say to the judge?”
“I got it pretty much marked off in my head, yeah.”
“Is it any good? Will it do the trick?”
“Wilbur, I’d say we’ll know about that by sundown.”
“Well, then, okay.”
Billy told me once about a book he read where a boy got to go to his own funeral. People had got the idea that he had got killed, so they had a service for him and the way it worked out, he got to watch the whole shebang from a secret hiding place, got to hear all the sadness that was left after people thought he was a goner. Listening to everything that got said about me when the character witness people got marched up to say what they had to say about me was a whole lot like what that make-believe boy had to be feeling.
First one into the witness chair was Heflin, and that stumped me to the boots. He talked about how him and me rubbed each other wrong a buncha times, but that I was a worker he could count on and a man, he said, whose word was rock solid and steady. He said he wished he had more of me on a drive. Billy asked him if he’d hire me on the next drive if the chance come up, and Heflin said he couldn’t answer that easy, because with the railroad getting closer, he wasn’t even sure there’d be another drive, that the railhead being so close, he wasn’t sure there’d even be another drive out of Salt Springs, things were changing that much and that fast. That last part was called out of order, but I never heard anyone say what the order ought to be, so I wasn’t sure about what that meant.
Rooney came up next, and he told about me never starting a fight in his place, even when it was clear that I was seriously squiffled. Rooney told them there was times when I stopped fights from happening, even when I was bourbon-noggered. I don’t remember any of those times, so I must have been about as fish drunk as a cowboy gets to be. Rooney also talked about me being real loose with handing out pleases and thank-yous, and that pleased me deep down, because my maw worked hard on that with me. If I ever get to meet her in another place, I’ll be sure to give her the thank-you for that that I never got to give her while she was here.
Shit on a duck, the Dutchman was next, though after he was all done, they could have left him off the list as far as I was concerned. He said good things, but he said them the way the Dutchman would. Said I wasn’t a card cheater as far as he could tell. Said someone stole a rifle out of his kit, but he didn’t put me on top of the list for doing it. Pretty much said I was the best of the lot, though the lot was a motley bunch at best, so it was being at the top of a list that you never even wanted to be on at all.
Honey was next, and she described her job as being a “social hostess” and there was some ripple of laughter there, but Dewey hammered that down right away. Honey was dressed like I never saw her before. The dress was soft and puffy and it was colored a rosy pink. She overdid the cologne splash a bit, but there are worse mistakes a woman can make. Honey spent ten minutes saying I had good manners and was a gentleman and that was a scant breed in Salt Springs. I hope what she said did some good, but there was a sizable amount of cologne in the air.
I’ll treasure forever the look on Willard Ganeel’s face when Billy stood up to call out the final character talker. “Call Omar,” he said. Omar moved out from the chair that was behind the table where me and Billy were seated. Omar sat down at the talking chair and looked at Billy. He stretched out tall where he was, might as well have been waiting for First Communion. Billy asked him his name and got how long he’s been in Salt Springs and all his time as handyman and medical man, coming out of his days in the Army. Then he asked how Omar came to know Wilbur Moss.
“It all depends on what you mean when you say when did I know Wilbur Moss. Salt Springs isn’t a town like your city towns. You don’t always get to know someone because you get introduced and shake hands, not like that here. It might just be a face you see in Rooney’s or Honey’s or just out on the street and you ask someone who that is, and they might tell you that’s Wilbur Moss, so that the next time you’d see Wilbur Moss in Rooney’s or Honey’s or out on the street, you might say, ‘Hey, Wilbur’ and Wilbur, he might answer back, ‘Hey, Omar,’ but all you know then is each other’s names, but you wouldn’t say you actually knew the man and what he was like. You just knew who he was.”
“And how long ago would that be for you and Wilbur Moss?”
Omar stared up at the ceiling, pursed his lips together. “Best as I can think back, it’s been ten or twelve years,” he said. “But I wouldn’t say I really come to know Wilbur till last year.”
“And what made that happen?”
“When he was taking care of you in the Blackthorne barn after Black Iodine broke you up so bad.”
“Mr. Piper,” Judge Dewey said, “I’m getting the impression you know all about Black Iodine and what might have happened, but I don’t and neither does Mr. Walsh. Maybe you could fill in the blanks for us.”
Billy told it as best he could, the frog-flip by Black Iodine, the pulling in of Omar on account of his times in the Army Medical, and all the days after and what went on. The judge told him to get back to Omar.
“Why do you think you got to know Mr. Moss after I got banged up?”
“Well, I don’t know as I got to know him, like you say, but I got to know the kinda man he was. Is maybe.”
“How’s that?”
Omar had a round face, and it looked odd when he wrinkled up his forehead and mouth like he was doing now. I was too far old and too far west to get tangled up in the war, but I’d seen enough who had to recognize the look that was coming onto Omar’s face. It was the look of a man who was being made to go back to a hell he thought he left behind forever. He took in a long breath, then looked over at Judge Dewey.
“We’re not going anywhere,” Dewey said. “You take the time you need.”
Omar let his head fall low and his shoulders lifted and dropped a few times. When his head came back up, he started to talk, but he kept his eyes closed tight. “In the war, I was a doctor’s helper. Aide. Assistant. Call it how you want. And I saw things I never want anyone else to have to see. I seen boys sixteen bleed out, and seen wagonloads of arms and legs that got lopped off with bourbon to hide behind. I seen blind boys sickened by the smell of their own rot. And I know how damned hard it is on the ones standing by, how easy it is to turn away and go off looking for something that ain’t wrinkled up with death and stench. But I never saw Wilbur Moss back off from taking care of Billy Piper, not one stitch. And there was times right after it happened when Billy was in a world of hurt, crying and thrashing and striking out for all he was worth. He would do anything he could to make the pain stop, and if hitting out at somebody helped some, then he was the one going to be doing the hitting out.”
“I don’t remember that,” Billy said. He looked back at me.
“You wouldn’t remember, not a bit of it. You were out of your head with the hurt. And when you’d get like that, Wilbur there’d wrap you up in a blanket, like you’d do with a hurt animal to keep it from hurting itself, and he’d hold you all wrapped up like that, still you trying to hit him, and he’d say ‘All right, cowboy. It’s gonna be all right. It’ll pass, cowboy. Everything’ll pass.’ And you’d stop thrashing after a time, and Wilbur’d just stay t
here with the blanket holding on to you, rocking back and forth. ‘We’ll get through this, cowboy,’ he’d say. ‘We’ll get through this just fine.’”
Billy looked back at me again. “I don’t remember that at all.”
“Well, that’s how it was,” Omar said. “And what I learned in the war is that a man who will stick and not get throwed away because of how hard that is, how much hurt just seein’ hurt can bring with it, is a man who’s got the right kind of steel to his spine.” Omar slumped back against the chair. He’d done what he come to do, though I wondered how much opening that door inside had cost him. He got up slow and walked past Willard Ganeel, but neither one ever looked at the other one.
“Mr. Piper?”
“Your Honor.”
“I count that as five character witnesses and I believe that was our arrangement.”
“It was.”
Dewey looked over at young Walsh. “Prosecution ready to make a statement in regard to the penalty ought to be handed out?”
Walsh got to his feet. “Your Honor, I’d like to request a day’s delay.”
“Why?”
“Well, the prosecution came in prepared to try this case on the presumption there would be a plea of not guilty. We assumed a final penalty statement might be days away.”
“Mr. Walsh, I think the defense was presented with the same surprise you got handed. Mr. Piper, you ready with a penalty statement?”
“Am, Your Honor.”
Dewey looked over the top of his glasses at Walsh. “Mr. Prosecutor, are you telling me a non-lawyer, a fact you enjoy reminding the court about, is more prepared with their case than you are with yours? Because I think that would purely stun a lot of people back at the courthouse in Cody.”
A Cold Place In Hell Page 18