“No further questions at this time,” Bell said.
Stark looked at Hairston. “Continue, counselor.”
The next few witnesses were cowhands from the Arrow, along with the old-timer who was the cook. Their testimony established that Jefferson McCafferty, who was in his early twenties and expected to take over the Arrow someday, had ridden out from the ranch headquarters four days earlier to check on some cattle. When he didn’t come back at a reasonable hour, Boone McCafferty sent men to look for him. They returned a short time later with the terrible news that they had found young Jeff’s body on the other side of Pine Ridge, so named because of the thick stand of trees that grew there, in what was a treeless country for the most part. He had been shot.
The cowboys brought back something else. Tyler Ketchum was with them, his hands bound behind his back and a bloody gash on his head.
“It was plain as day what happened,” testified a young redheaded puncher named Orrie. “We found the place just over the ridge where Ketchum had built a fire. He’d taken a runnin’ iron to some of our stock and changed the Arrow brand to his Rafter K. Done a mighty poor job of it, too.”
“But you didn’t find the cattle with the altered brands and the running iron until after you’d found Jefferson McCafferty’s body, is that correct?” Hairston asked.
“We didn’t find the cows until afterward. The runnin’ iron was layin’ right there next to Jeff’s body.”
“And where was Mr. Ketchum?”
Orrie leaned forward and glared. “Ketchum was layin’ next to Jeff. He had his gun in his hand. Jeff was a few feet away with the runnin’ iron next to him, like he’d dropped it. What we figured happened is–”
“Objection,” Bell said. “Speculation.”
“I’ll allow it,” Stark said. “I want to hear what the scene looked like.”
Orrie resumed, “We figured Jeff came up on Ketchum with the fire and runnin’ iron, and Ketchum got the drop on him. Jeff’s gun was on the ground by the ashes of the fire, like Ketchum made him throw it down. But it looked to us like Jeff managed to grab that runnin’ iron and wallop Ketchum with it. That’s how Ketchum got that gash on his head. When Jeff hit him, he pulled the trigger and killed Jeff, then passed out. He was still out cold when we rode up later. That’s how it had to happen. Plain as day.”
Wearily, Bell got to his feet. “Objection, Your Honor. This is all an assumption on the part of the witness.”
“Except for the part about where the bodies and the weapons were,” Stark said. “I’ll allow that. Strike the rest of the witness’s last statement. Mr. Hairston?”
“No further questions, Your Honor.”
Bell asked, “What did you do after you found my client and Mr. McCafferty?”
“We throwed Ketchum on a horse, tied his hands so he couldn’t get away, and went back to the ranch to fetch a wagon so we could bring in poor Jeff’s body,” Orrie said.
“Mr. Ketchum regained consciousness while you were on your way back to the ranch?”
“Yeah. He come to before we got there.”
“Did he admit killing Jefferson McCafferty?”
Orrie snorted. “Of course not. That’d be a dang fool thing to do, wouldn’t it?”
That brought laughter from the spectators, which Stark silenced with a look.
“Did you accuse him of the murder?”
“Well, sure, we said somethin’ about it.”
“And he denied it?”
“Sure.”
Orrie seemed on the verge of saying something else, but Bell said, “No further questions, Your Honor.”
“Step down,” Stark told the young puncher.
Hairston got up and said, “At this time the prosecution rests, Your Honor.”
Stark nodded and turned to the defense attorney. “Your turn, Mr. Bell.”
“I call Tyler Ketchum.”
When the young rancher took the stand, Bell asked him to tell everything that had happened to him on the day in question.
“I went to Pine Ridge to cut down a Christmas tree,” Ketchum said. “The kids never had one before, and when I saw the trees on the ridge I thought they might like it.”
“Pine Ridge is on Arrow range, correct?”
With a shrug, Ketchum said, “Yeah, but I didn’t think McCafferty would mind. It was for Christmas.”
“He’s accused you of stealing his stock in the past.”
“I never touched a one of his cows,” Ketchum insisted. “He knows it, too. He’s just mad because somebody bought that range he’d been using and he had to get his stock off of it.”
“Land ought to belong to the man who uses it!” McCafferty burst out.
Stark rapped the gavel. “This trial isn’t about the concept of open range. That’s a debate for another time. Get on with it.”
“Go ahead, Tyler,” Bell said. “You went up there to cut down a Christmas tree.”
“That’s right. I picked out a good one and took my axe to it, but while I was cutting it, I hit it wrong and the axe bounced back and hit me in the head.” Ketchum touched the bandage. “The cut wasn’t really that bad, but it bled a lot. Earlier I’d thought I heard somebody talking on the other side of the ridge, so I started in that direction to see if they could help me. Just about the time I spotted...” Ketchum stopped and swallowed hard. “Just about the time I spotted Jeff McCafferty lying on the ground, somebody hit me from behind and knocked me out. The next thing I knew, I woke up on a horse with my hands tied and a bunch of mad cowboys calling me a killer.”
“You didn’t shoot Jefferson McCafferty or harm him in any way?”
“I did not,” Ketchum declared.
“No further questions.”
Hairston said, “You’ve had plenty of trouble with Boone McCafferty in the time you’ve been in these parts, haven’t you?”
“I told you, he didn’t like it when I bought that spread and he couldn’t use it anymore.”
“Arrow is fifty times the size of your ranch, Mr. Ketchum. Why would Mr. McCafferty care about such a small amount of range?”
“Because he doesn’t like anybody standing up to him, big or little,” Ketchum said. “He thinks he’s got the right to run roughshod over everybody around here.”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Hairston said. “Immaterial.”
“You asked the question, counselor,” Stark said. “The witness answered it. Overruled.”
Hairston didn’t seem bothered by the ruling. He went on, “Did you have an argument with Boone McCafferty at the community Thanksgiving celebration last month?”
“We got to talking,” Ketchum answered sullenly. “There were some hot words.”
“In fact, you tried to attack Mr. McCafferty.”
“He took a swing at me first. I was just defending myself.”
“At which point Jeff McCafferty stepped in and gave you a thrashing, isn’t that true?”
“He didn’t whip me,” Ketchum insisted. “He shoved me away from his pa, and there were a dozen more Arrow hands standing there waiting to get into it. I came to my senses and backed off.”
“And you’ve been waiting to get even with Jeff McCafferty ever since, haven’t you?”
Stark glanced at Bell, but the attorney didn’t object.
Ketchum shook his head. “No, I didn’t hold any grudge against Jeff. He just wanted to help his pa. I can understand that.”
“Well, grudge or no grudge, you couldn’t afford to let him go back to his father and tell him that he’d caught you changing brands, now could you?”
“That never happened. I told you, I went up there to get a Christmas tree!”
More chuckles came from the spectators, but they were more discreet about it this time.
“You made Jeff throw his gun down, but he grabbed the running iron and hit you with it, didn’t he?”
“No!”
“And when he did, you pulled the trigger and killed him before you passed out!”
&nb
sp; Ketchum flexed his big, work-roughened hands. “No,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper. “No, that never happened.”
“Nothing further,” Hairston said with a sneer that made it plain what he thought about the truthfulness of the witness’s testimony.
“Mr. Bell?” Stark said.
Bell stood up and shook his head. “The, uh, defense rests, Your Honor.”
Ketchum started to stand up and move back to the defense table, but Stark stopped him saying, “Hold on a minute. I’ve got a couple of questions for the witness.”
“Your Honor?” Hairston said with a puzzled frown as Ketchum sank back into the witness chair.
“The judge in a case has a right to question a witness, too, if he thinks there might be important information that hasn’t been brought out.”
“Of course, but–”
“Do you want to make a formal objection, counselor?”
Hairston shook his head. “No, I suppose not, Your Honor.”
“All right, then.” Stark turned to look at the witness. “How long have you been a rancher, Mr. Ketchum?”
“Well...five years, I guess you could say. I had a spread over close to Uvalde for a while. And before that I worked on my pa’s ranch, up by Rotan, ever since I was big enough to ride. So, really, most of my life.”
“Make a good hand, do you?”
Despite the grimness of his situation, the shadow of a proud smile touched Ketchum’s lips. “Yes, sir, Your Honor. I’ve always been a good hand.”
“That pine you say you were trying to cut down for a Christmas tree, how’d you do with it?”
Ketchum shook his head. “Not so good. Made a mess of it, in fact. My hands got all sticky from the sap, and I think that’s what caused me to miss my swing, the one that bounced back and hit me.”
“So you don’t have a Christmas tree at home for your young’uns?”
“No, sir. It’s looking like they won’t have a very good Christmas this year.”
“All right, step down.” Stark picked up his gavel and used it to point. “You, there. Orrie. Get back up here, and remember that you’re under oath.”
The redheaded cowboy hesitated, turning to his boss and asking, “Do I gotta, Mr. McCafferty?”
“I suppose so,” McCafferty said. “I don’t know what all this extra business is, though. Seems like we ought to let the jury go ahead and vote to hang that no-good, murderin’ skunk!”
“The jury will render its verdict in due time, Mr. McCafferty,” Stark said coldly. “Sit down, Orrie.”
The cowboy sank into the witness chair as if he were afraid there was a bear trap in it he couldn’t see. He squirmed around for a second. When he’d settled down, Stark asked, “Did you see an axe anywhere around the place where you found Jeff McCafferty and the defendant?”
“Uh...no, sir, Your Honor, we didn’t. I didn’t see one, anyway, and none of the other fellas said anything about seein’ one. Of course, we weren’t lookin’ for one.”
“You said the defendant had been altering brands on Arrow cattle?”
“Well, we didn’t actually see him do it. But the runnin’ iron was there, and shoot, the ashes of the fire were still warm. Hot, even.”
Stark nodded. “When you saw that Jeff McCafferty was dead, it must have upset you.”
Orrie’s eyes widened. “I’ll say! Jeff was a fine fella, one of the finest I ever met. It didn’t matter that he was the boss’s son, he rode the range ever’ day and pitched right in on the work with the rest of us. He was always lookin’ out for his pa’s best interests.”
“The plan was for him to take over the Arrow one day, correct?”
Boone McCafferty got to his feet, ignoring the warning gesture Hairston made at him, and said, “That’s family business! It don’t have any place in this court.”
Stark felt like he was on to something, so he ignored the breach of courtroom decorum and said, “I’m not saying anything bad about you or your son, Mr. McCafferty. Sit down, please.” He looked at Orrie again as the rancher reluctantly sat down. “Answer the question.”
Orrie swallowed. “Uh, yeah, everybody figured Jeff’d be runnin’ the place one o’ these days. I mean, he went off to college in Austin for several years to learn all about runnin’ a business. He didn’t have to learn about cowboyin’. That came natural to him.”
“So when you and the other men found out that he was dead, you probably wanted to get even with the man you blamed for killing him.”
Orrie looked wary now. “What are you sayin’, Judge? Ketchum was out cold. There wasn’t nothin’ we could do to him.”
“What about when he woke up on the way back to the ranch? Did you do anything then?”
That was a guess on Stark’s part, but the sudden flash of fear he saw in Orrie’s eyes told him it was a good one. Orrie looked down at the floor and said, “We didn’t do anything.”
“You know that lying under oath is a crime, too, don’t you, Orrie?” Stark asked in a soft but ominous tone.
That got to the young cowboy. He squirmed some more and said, “All right! We tried to make Ketchum ’fess up to what he’d done. When he wouldn’t do it, we got him down from his horse and pushed him around a mite, but that’s all it amounted to. Just blowin’ off some steam.” He looked at his fellow ranch hands among the spectators and muttered, “Sorry, boys.”
“The only one who could bring charges against you in that matter is the defendant, and he’s got bigger worries right now,” Stark pointed out. In truth, the reaction of the punchers from Arrow was understandable. “Step down.”
When Orrie had resumed his seat, Stark went on, “Is the local doctor here?”
A middle-aged man with a graying mustache stood up. “I’m Dr. Sunderland.”
“Come up here and take a seat, Doctor.”
Hairston stood up. “I don’t understand, Your Honor. Is the doctor being called as a witness for the defense or the prosecution?”
“He’s being called as a witness for justice and the truth,” Stark snapped. He pointed at the chair and added, “Swear him in, Marshal.”
When Brundage had done so, Stark asked, “Did you treat Tyler Ketchum’s head wound, Doctor?”
“I did. It required several stitches to close it up.”
“Could you tell how it was inflicted?”
“With some sort of hard object,” the doctor replied.
“Like a running iron?”
“Well...that’s what they told me had caused the wound, and I didn’t see anything inconsistent with that theory.”
“They?”
“The cowboys from Arrow who came down to my office to fetch me. They had just brought Mr. Ketchum into town and turned him over to the marshal to be locked up.”
“Did the defendant tell you he’d been hurt by an axe, instead?”
“No, he didn’t. But he was pretty shaken up at the time.”
“Shaken up how?”
Sunderland looked like he would rather be almost anywhere else at this moment. “He’d been beaten up pretty bad.”
Stark looked at Orrie and the other cowboys and nodded slowly. “But it could have been an axe that caused the wound?”
“I couldn’t rule it out, Your Honor. But I just don’t know.”
“Did you examine him well enough to determine whether he had any other marks on his head indicating he might have been struck from behind?”
“He had bumps and bruises and scratches all over his head,” Sunderland said. “I’m afraid I couldn’t say one way or the other, Your Honor.”
“Did you examine Jefferson McCafferty’s body when it was brought into town?”
“I did,” Sunderland said with a grim nod. “Jasper Wilcott, the undertaker, is also the coroner. We performed the examination together.”
“What was the verdict?”
“That Jeff died from a single gunshot wound to the chest.”
“Did you recover the bullet?”
“We did.�
�
“Could you tell what caliber it was?”
Sunderland shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not. It glanced off a rib before it struck Jeff’s heart, so it was flattened pretty good.”
In the front row of spectators, Boone McCafferty grimaced in pain at hearing such a blunt description of his son’s cause of death.
“Were there powder burns on Jeff’s clothes?”
“Yes, sir. He was shot at fairly close range.”
Stark thought for a moment and then said, “Does either counsel have any questions for this witness?”
Hairston and Bell both stood up and answered in the negative.
Stark told the doctor to step down and then said, “Mr. McCafferty, have a seat in the witness chair again.”
Boone McCafferty glared at him. “I said all I got to say earlier.”
“It wasn’t a request, Mr. McCafferty.”
Looking unhappy about it every step of the way, the rancher came up and took the witness chair.
“You’re still under oath,” Stark told him. “I want to know where you were and what you were doing the afternoon your son was killed.”
McCafferty’s eyes widened in shock, then blazed with anger. “What in tarnation are you gettin’ at?” he demanded. He started to come up out of the chair. “By God, judge or no judge, no man’s gonna make it sound like I had anything to do with killin’ my own boy–”
Stark was suddenly on his feet, too. “Sit down, you old mossback!” he roared.
McCafferty’s jaw thrust out belligerently. “If I had a gun right now–”
“It’s a good thing you don’t, because I’d probably have to ventilate you,” Stark growled, his hand dangerously close to the butt of the LeMat. Whenever he was challenged, Big Earl, the terror of the stagecoach trails who’d sent many an owlhoot over the divide, was never far from the surface.
A tense silence hung over the room for a moment. Then Stark went on, “I never said you had anything to do with your boy’s killin’. Just answer my question. What were you doing that afternoon?”
With a visible effort, McCafferty controlled his anger and said, “I was at the ranch. Andy there had just come out to talk over some business with me.”
“You mean Andrew Bell, the defendant’s lawyer?”
Powdersmoke Christmas Page 2