Chapter Thirty-four
That was Hanging Judge Earwig’s finest hour, and he knew it. He convened court at six in the morning, making sure that everyone was grouchy and no one had dosed himself with coffee yet. I marched the criminals into court, thirty-three in all, and they were a surly lot, stained brown from all that dried blood. They shed a lot of it, wrestling on the floor with all those broken bottles.
Billy Bones came along with a bag of money; he was reconciled to what was coming, and wanted to bail out of Doubtful as well as he could manage, which would mean forking over.
Earwig leered at the assembled miscreants, cowboys off the ranches, roustabouts, and show cowboys from the Wild West.
“What a beautiful morning, gentlemen,” he said. “At least I think you’re all gentlemen, aren’t you? What a lovely, sweet dawn welcoming a glorious day in Puma County. Do you wish to plead guilty to whatever charges we can think up? It will save time. If not, why, I will set the trial for two weeks hence, and you may post bail for a thousand dollars apiece, or enjoy the hospitality of Sheriff Pickens. I understand the piss pots are overflowing, and there’s a lack of bunks, but you’ll have no trouble accommodating yourselves to minor discomforts.”
All those miscreants stared up at Earwig, not yet fathoming his opening sally, since half of them were still drunk, and the rest were hurting, or leaking liquids from every pore and orifice. Still, they listened.
Earwig was enjoying himself. “There is the small matter of Mr. Upward’s saloon, which is now suffering from the recent and memorable joust in which you participated. He has yet to give me an estimate, but he lost every bottle of spirits in his possession, most of his glassware, most of his furniture, and sundry other items. Even the Montgomery Ward catalog in his outhouse, he tells me.”
He peered owlishly at the silent and surly crowd of miscreants. “There is the matter of disturbing the peace. The matter of assault to do great bodily harm, if not exterminate anyone in your way. There is public drunkenness. I believe there were threats and foul language. There was the matter of defying the sheriff, who ordered you to cease and desist. And I suppose I can think up a few more, and court testimony will enlarge and embellish the list of infractions against the good order and peacefulness of Doubtful, Wyoming Territory. How do you plead?”
No one said a thing. So Earwig pointed at each man and asked him to plead, guilty or innocent. But they were all clamming up.
“Very well, I will remand the prisoners to the sheriff, and direct them to appear at their combined trial in a fortnight,” he said.
“Ah, Your Honor,” Billy Bones said. “May I be heard?”
“Step forward, sir.”
“I am the employer of twelve of these gents, and I will enter a guilty plea for those in my company.”
“A guilty plea, is it?”
“If it can result in a fair settlement, Your Honor, guilty it will be.”
“And what would a fair settlement be?”
“Ah, let us say, no more than forty percent of the cost of rehabilitating Mr. Upward’s business establishment, if you determine that my group was at fault. However, since they didn’t initiate this difficulty, but sat peacefully until set upon by drovers, the true amount should be less, no more than ten percent, because they were merely defending themselves.”
Earwig leaned over, and jabbed a finger at Rinkydink. “You there, how did you defend yourself ?” he asked.
“We were sitting peacefully at our table, Your Honor, when we were set upon by local rowdies. We remained seated until it was plain that we needed to protect our persons, and guard our private parts against the unruly mob.”
“Good, good, sir. Now how did you protect yourself against the drovers from the ranches, may I ask?”
“Well, sir, we invited them to join us for a drink, and we expressed our friendship and best wishes, for we had just competed in certain rodeo events in our show, and we offered to buy them a round of drinks, but they chose to hit us.”
“Hit you?”
Rinkydink sighed. “We did our best to keep the peace, sir, but it came time to defend ourselves, and so we did, it being a principle of justice that we have the right to defend our persons against harm.”
“Ah!” said Earwig, his eyes aglow.
“Your Honor,” said another roustabout, “it was a matter of honor and decency. The star, the glory, of our show is our shooter, Miss Quick. She came to have a friendly drink with all parties, being of a generous nature, but the locals began to abuse her, threaten her, mock her honor and skills, and needless to say, we were ready and willing to defend her against these calumnies, canards, and gross perversions of the truth.”
That fellow sounded real practiced at this, I thought. Maybe he had some experience. I thought I’d ask Bones if this sort of departure was ordinary.
Earwig leaned forward. “And so you defended her honor against the local drovers? Who were demeaning her? Is that it?”
“Yessir.”
“What are calumnies? Tell me about canards.”
“Those are real evils, sir, right out of Webster’s.”
“And what truth was perverted by these drovers?”
“They said she couldn’t shoot worth a damn. If she didn’t load her rifle with sand, she couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.”
“Ah! Now we are getting somewhere,” Earwig said. “And does she use sand?”
“Never, sir, she shoots nothing but lead. And anyone who says otherwise is a rotter, a cad, and a bounder.”
“Those are from Webster’s, too?”
“That’s what Billy Bones taught me to say.”
“Your boss is a fine, upstanding gent,” Earwig said. “A lady’s virtue is at stake.”
He turned to the rest of the miscreants, familiar faces from the assorted ranches around Doubtful. “Ah, it’s always a joy to spot old friends and acquaintances,” he said. “Now, then, my curiosity has got the best of me. I shall point, and you shall tell me how many times you have been before this court. If you wish to repeat your name, that is fine; if not, it won’t matter.”
He pointed a crooked index finger at Big Nose George. “Tell me truly, sir, how many times you have stood before me in this court of law.”
Big Nose scratched his nose, dipping into assorted memories. “I believe it was four, sir.”
“Ah! And you, fella?” he asked, pointing at a T-Bar cowboy.
“Five, sir.”
He pointed at Alvin Ream, from the Admiral Ranch. “And you?”
Ream puffed up some. “I don’t rightly remember, sir. So many times I can’t quite say, but it’s in the double digits.”
“Ah, more than the fingers on my hands,” Earwig said, spreading out all his fingers.
“Yep.”
Several cowboys whistled. A little brag was good.
“How about you, sir?” Earwig asked, pointing at a cowboy unfamiliar to me.
“Well, sir, five or six times, before you, and eight or ten before the previous judge, best as I can recollect.”
Earwig nodded. “A true reprobate, and proud of it.”
He aimed his finger at Smiley Thistlethwaite.
“Beyond counting, Your Honor. Simply taxes my mind to remember them all,” Smiley said.
“Good, good. And you, Spitting Sam?”
“I’ve never had the honor, sir, but only because I’ve dodged the law. But I’ve been before a dozen judges throughout the territory, and have survived twenty or thirty good fights.”
“Good, good, good,” the judge said.
The motley crowd looked plumb worn out after a night of uproar and blood, and then a few hours packed into cells intended to hold one or two. The culprits weren’t bleeding now, but they looked pale and drawn, as if they were on their last legs. All of which delighted Judge Earwig.
One by one, he had the locals fess up. And most of them put the best face possible on it, and confessed to far more infractions than they had to their credit. I thought most of them had been before the judge once or twice, at most, but this lot was confessing to five or seven or a dozen arrests for brawling. There was something really satisfying about it, and it did my heart good to see so much manhood confessing to so much public disturbance in Doubtful. There was not a town in the territory that could match or beat Doubtful when it came to public disturbance. And I must say, those roustabouts with the show were really impressed. They hadn’t the faintest idea, until last evening, what they were facing in Doubtful, Wyoming.
But now they knew. Judge Earwig finished his questioning, with a vast smile building under his rough beard. A gleam lit his eyes. I knew this would be a decision for the ages. I could see it coming, like a burst of sunshine in that courtroom.
“Well now,” he said. “We have a bunch of splendid confessions here. We’ve listened to more confession this fine morning than I’ve ever heard in one session of this court. We have confessions upon confessions, admissions upon admissions, crime upon crime, duly noted and officially accounted for. When it comes to confessions, this is a truly manly crowd, except for the show people over there, who were swift to blame anyone other than themselves. They’re a shameful crew, but the locals who have paraded before this court dozens of times, they’re as fine an example of Puma County manhood as ever came here.”
I was getting antsy, seeing as how Earwig was going on and on. I was plumb wore out, and wanted some shut-eye, but this was Earwig’s moment of glory, with the sun and moon and stars all shining on him, and he wouldn’t let go.
Some of those fellows needed some medical attention, I thought. Or at least their pals needed to put them on a horse and carry them back to their ranches. But Earwig ignored that, or if he saw it, he thought there was divine justice in it.
He rapped his gavel sharply, awakening the dead and dying, and alerting the crowd.
“The Wild West scoundrels are herewith fined twenty dollars or two weeks in our iron cages, their choice. If they choose to pay, they must leave town before sundown.”
They sighed. Billy Bones would pay, and extract the fines from their pay down the road. They settled morosely while Earwig grinned at them, enjoying every moment.
He rapped again. “Now, then, the locals, who have intently confessed to crimes beyond number, crimes exceeding the stars in heaven, must endure a harsher fate. I herewith sentence them all to hang by the neck until dead, one week from today.”
That sort of stopped the show. That was it. Sentence imposed. The cowboys looked at one another, amazed. I sure was going to have a mess of hangings on my hand, and the only way I could do it was with a scaffold wide enough to drop them all at the same time. I’d get the carpenters busy on that. I’d have to order a mess of rope just to put nooses over the heads of twenty or so culprits.
Big Nose George sat down on the floor and rubbed his eyes.
“Stand up, you. You’re in a court of law,” Earwig snapped.
Big Nose slowly unfolded and stood erect.
Earwig rapped again. “Now, then, it would impose a great hardship on our esteemed sheriff if he were to keep all twenty-some of the condemned in his two cells, feeding them, changing diapers, hosing them down, and all. Therefore, I am remanding you to your ranches for one week, provided you put a dollar each in the Charity Jar, and you will report here one week hence for your choking party.”
The mob stared, absorbing all that.
“I’ll be there, your lordship,” said Smiley, who dropped a greenback into the Charity Jar and walked out. A certain amount of greenback exchanging went on, but pretty soon, the jar was laden with bills, and the last of the culprits had staggered into the morning sun.
“Now, then,” Earwig said to the show people, “you may take your leave, providing the fine is paid.”
Billy Bones sighed, dug into a black leather purse, spread out some greenery before His Honor, and then marched his charges out the door into the glaring light of day.
Earwig turned to me. “Should be enough to put Sammy back in business,” he said.