As a child growing up in Mock Turtle, Pennsylvania, the last thing Emmett Hayworth thought he would end up doing one day was to be a judge out in the middle of the Rocky Mountains.
Emmett was a big man, the same as his father, a banker who had retired from Philadelphia to live quietly out in the country. Before he was twenty, Emmett’s greatest claim to fame was that he had won the all-county pie-eating contest three years in a row. It was assumed that Emmett would never amount to much, since he would have enough money to not have to work very hard, and not enough money to really get into much mischief. Everyone liked him, for he was always willing to buy you a drink if you called him “Sir.”
And then came the War, and back then everyone still thought the Rebels would fold like a house of cards in three months. Emmett said to himself, “Why the heck not? This will probably be my only chance in life to see New Orleans.” ?With his father’s money he raised a regiment, and overnight he was Colonel Emmett Hayworth of the Union Army.
He took surprisingly well to being a soldier, and while his body slimmed down with riding and getting less than enough to eat, his good cheer never flagged. Somehow his regiment managed to stay out of the meat grinders that were the great battles that made newspaper headlines, and they lost fewer men than most. The men were grateful for Emmett’s luck. “Oh, if I were a woman as I am a man,” they sang, “Colonel Hayworth is the man I’d marry. His hands are steady, and his words are always merry. He’ll bring us to New Orleans.” Emmett laughed when he heard the song.
They did get to New Orleans eventually, but by then it wasn’t much of a party town anymore. The War was over, and Emmett had scraped through with no bullet holes in him and no medals. “That’s not so bad,” he said to himself. “I can live with that.”
But then he got the order that President Lincoln wanted to see him in DC.
Emmett did not remember much about the meeting, save that Lincoln was a lot taller than he had imagined. They shook hands, and Lincoln began to explain to him about the situation in Idaho Territory.
“The Confederate Democratic refugees from Missouri are filling up the mines of Idaho. I’ll need men like you there, men who have proven their bravery, integrity, and dedication to the cause.”
The only thing Emmett could think of was that they had the wrong man.
The trouble, as it turned out, had entirely been the fault of that song his men made up as a joke. It grew to be popular with the other regiments, and spread its way wherever the Union marched. New verses were added as it passed from man to man, and the soldiers, having no idea who Emmett Hayworth was, attributed great acts of courage and sacrifice to him. Colonel Hayworth became famous, almost as famous as John Brown.
Be that as it may, Emmett Hayworth packed up everything he owned and left for Boise, and only when he arrived did he find out that the Territorial Governor had just appointed him to be a district judge for the Idaho Territory.
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Jack Seaver looked across the desk at the plump form of the Honorable Emmett Hayworth. The judge was still working on a plate of fried chicken that served as his lunch. Life out here in the booming territory of Idaho had been good to him, and he showed it in his barrel-like chest, his sacklike belly, his glistening forehead dripping with sweat from the effort of licking strips of juicy meat from the chicken bones.
The man was supposed to be some kind of war hero. Jack Seaver knew the type: a man accustomed to living off the money of his father who probably bought himself a cushy commission managing the supply lines and then puffed up his every accomplishment in the name of Union and Glory until he weaseled his way to a sinecure here while men like Jack Seaver dodged bullets in the mud and froze their toes off in winter. Jack clenched his teeth. This was neither the time nor the place to show his contempt. He did reflect upon the irony that despite what he had told Elsie’s father back East, he now wished that he had studied to be a lawyer.
“What is this I hear about chicken blood?” Emmett asked.
? ? ?
“That’s outrageous,” said Obee. “I won’t do it. Why are you even letting the Chinaman talk? This is not the way it works in California.”
“You are going to have to,” Judge Hayworth said to him. He hadn’t been very enamored of the idea of the Chinamen’s ceremony at first, but that Jack Seaver had been very persuasive. If he ever decided to become a lawyer, he’d eat the other guys in town for lunch. “Maybe in California they’ll just take a white man’s word for it since the Chinamen can’t testify in court, but this isn’t California. The accused has the right to a fair trial, and since he has agreed to swear with his hand on the Bible as is our custom, it’s only fair that you agree to swear the way that his people have always sworn in witnesses.”
“It’s barbaric!”
“That may be. But if you won’t do it, I’ll have to direct the jury to acquit.”
Obee swore under his breath.
“Fine,” he said. He stared at Logan, who was across the courthouse from him. Obee’s eyes were so filled with hate that he looked even more like a rat than usual.
Ah Yan was called for, and he came up to the witness box. In his left hand was a struggling hen dangling by her legs while in his right hand was a small bowl.
He set the bowl down in front of Obee. Taking a knife from his belt, he slit the hen’s throat efficiently. The blood of the hen dripped into the bowl until the hen stopped kicking in Ah Yan’s hands.
“Dip your hand into the blood and make sure it covers your whole hand,” Ah Yan said. Obee reluctantly did as he was told. His hand shook so much that the bowl clattered against the wooden surface on which it was set.
“Now you have to clasp Logan’s hand and look into his eyes, and swear that you’ll tell the truth.”
Logan was escorted over to the witness box by Sheriff Gaskins. Since his legs and arms were shackled together, this took some time.
Logan looked down at Obee, contempt written in every wrinkle in his bloodred face. He dipped both of his shackled hands into the bowl of chicken blood, soaking them thoroughly. Lifting his hands out of the bowl, he shook off the excess blood and stretched the open palm of his right hand toward Obee. The color of his hands now matched his face.
Obee hesitated.
“Well,” Judge Hayworth said impatiently. “Get on with it. Shake the man’s hand.”
“Your honor.” Obee turned toward him. “This is a trick. He’s going to crush my hand if I give it to him.”
Laughter shook the courtroom.
“No, he won’t,” said the judge, trying to control his smirk. “If he does, I’ll personally thrash him.”
Obee gingerly stretched his hand toward Logan’s hand. He eyes were focused on the shrinking distance between their palms as if his life depended on it. He wasn’t breathing, and his hand shook violently.
Logan stepped forward and made a grab for Obee’s hand, and he gave a low growl from his throat.
Obee screamed as if he had been stabbed with a hot poker. He stumbled back frantically, pulling his hand out of Logan’s grasp. A spreading, wet patch appeared at the crotch of his pants. A moment later the sheriff and the judge were hit with the unpleasant smell of excrement.
“I didn’t even get to touch him,” Logan said, holding up his hands. The pattern of chicken blood on his right palm was undisturbed with the print from Obee’s hand.
“Order, order!” Judge Hayworth banged the gavel. Then he gave up and shook his head in disbelief. “Get him out of here and cleaned up,” he said to Sheriff Gaskins, trying to keep himself from smiling. “Stop laughing. It’s, uh, unbecoming for officers of the law. And hand me that chicken, will you? No sense in letting perfectly good poultry go to waste.”
? ? ?
“All you have to do is to tell the truth,” Lily said to Logan. “That’s what Dad told me to do. It’s easy.”
“The law is a funny thing,” said Logan. “You’ve heard my stories.”
“It won’t be like that here. I promise.”