Lone Star Planet

by John Joseph McGuire and H. Beam Piper

  CHAPTER IX

  The trial got started the next morning with a minimum amount ofobjections from Sidney. The charges and specifications were duly read,the three defendants pleaded not guilty, and then Goodham advanced witha paper in his hand to address the court. Sidney scampered up to takehis position beside him.

  "Your Honor, the prosecution wishes, subject to agreement of thedefense, to enter the following stipulations, to wit: First, that thelate Silas Cumshaw was a practicing politician within the meaning of thelaw. Second, that he is now dead, and came to his death in the mannerattested to by the coroner of Sam Houston Continent. Third, that he cameto his death at the hands of the defendants here present."

  In all my planning, I'd forgotten that. I couldn't let thosestipulations stand without protest, and at the same time, if I protestedthe characterization of Cumshaw as a practicing politician, the trialcould easily end right there. So I prayed for a miracle, and ClementSidney promptly obliged me.

  "Defense won't stipulate anything!" he barked. "My clients, here, arevictims of a monstrous conspiracy, a conspiracy to conceal the truefacts of the death of Silas Cumshaw. They ought never to have beenarrested or brought here, and if the prosecution wants to establishanything, they can do it by testimony, in the regular and lawful way.This practice of free-wheeling stipulation is only one of the manydevices by which the courts of this planet are being perverted to servethe corrupt and unjust ends of a gang of reactionary landowners!"

  Judge Nelson's gavel hit the bench with a crack like a rifle shot.

  "Mr. Sidney! In justice to your clients, I would hate to force them tochange lawyers in the middle of their trial, but if I hear anotherremark like that about the courts of New Texas, that's exactly what willhappen, because you'll be in jail for contempt! Is that clear, Mr.Sidney?"

  I settled back with a deep sigh of relief which got me, I noticed,curious stares from my fellow Ambassadors. I disregarded the questionsin their glances; I had what I wanted.

  They began calling up the witnesses.

  First, the doctor who had certified Ambassador Cumshaw's death. He gavea concise description of the wounds which had killed my predecessor.Sidney was trying to make something out of the fact that he wasHickock's family physician, and consuming more time, when I got up.

  "Your Honor, I am present here as _amicus curiae_, because of theobvious interest which the Government of the Solar League has in thiscase...."

  "Objection!" Sidney yelled.

  "Please state it," Nelson invited.

  "This is a court of the people of the planet of New Texas. This foreignemissary of the Solar League, sent here to conspire with New Texantraitors to the end that New Texans shall be reduced to a supine andravished satrapy of the all-devouring empire of the Galaxy--"

  Judge Nelson rapped sharply.

  "Friends of the court are defined as persons having a proper interest inthe case. As this case arises from the death of the former Ambassador ofthe Solar League, I cannot see how the present Ambassador and his staffcan be excluded. Overruled." He nodded to me. "Continue, Mr.Ambassador."

  "As I understand, I have the same rights of cross-examination ofwitnesses as counsel for the prosecution and defense; is that correct,Your Honor?" It was, so I turned to the witness. "I suppose, Doctor,that you have had quite a bit of experience, in your practice, withgunshot wounds?"

  He chuckled. "Mr. Ambassador, it is gunshot-wound cases which keep thepractice of medicine and surgery alive on this planet. Yes, I definitelyhave."

  "Now, you say that the deceased was hit by six different projectiles:right shoulder almost completely severed, right lung and right ribsblown out of the chest, spleen and kidneys so intermingled as to bepractically one, and left leg severed by complete shattering of the leftpelvis and hip-joint?"

  "That's right."

  I picked up the 20-mm auto-rifle--it weighed a good sixty pounds--fromthe table, and asked him if this weapon could have inflicted suchwounds. He agreed that it both could and had.

  "This the usual type of weapon used in your New Texas politicalliquidations?" I asked.

  "Certainly not. The usual weapons are pistols; sometimes a hunting-rifleor a shotgun."

  I asked the same question when I cross-examined the ballistics witness.

  "Is this the usual type of weapon used in your New Texas politicalliquidations?"

  "No, not at all. That's a very expensive weapon, Mr. Ambassador. Wasn'teven manufactured on this planet; made by the z'Srauff star-cluster. Aweapon like that sells for five, six hundred pesos. It's used forshooting really big game--supermastodon, and things like that. And, ofcourse, for combat."

  "It seems," I remarked, "that the defense is overlooking an obviouspoint there. I doubt if these three defendants ever, in all their lives,had among them the price of such a weapon."

  That, of course, brought Sidney to his feet, sputtering objections tothis attempt to disparage the honest poverty of his clients, which onlyhelped to call attention to the point.

  Then the prosecution called in a witness named David CrockettLongfellow. I'd met him at the Hickock ranch; he was Hickock's butler.He limped from an old injury which had retired him from work on therange. He was sworn in and testified to his name and occupation.

  "Do you know these three defendants?" Goodham asked him.

  "Yeah. I even marked one of them for future identification," Longfellowreplied.

  Sidney was up at once, shouting objections. After he was quieted down,Goodham remarked that he'd come to that point later, and began a line ofquestioning to establish that Longfellow had been on the Hickock ranchon the day when Silas Cumshaw was killed.

  "Now," Goodham said, "will you relate to the court the matters ofinterest which came to your personal observation on that day."

  Longfellow began his story. "At about 0900, I was dustin' up andstraightenin' things in the library while the Colonel was at his desk.All of a sudden, he said to me, 'Davy, suppose you call the SolarEmbassy and see if Mr. Cumshaw is doin' anything today; if he isn't, askhim if he wants to come out.' I was workin' right beside thetelescreen. So I called the Solar League Embassy. Mr. Thrombley tookthe call, and I asked him was Mr. Cumshaw around. By this time, theColonel got through with what he was doin' at the desk and came overto the screen. I went back to my work, but I heard the Colonel askin'Mr. Cumshaw could he come out for the day, an' Mr. Cumshaw sayin',yes, he could; he'd be out by about 1030.

  "Well, 'long about 1030, his air-car came in and landed on the drive.Little single-seat job that he drove himself. He landed it about ahundred feet from the outside veranda, like he usually did, and got out.

  "Then, this other car came droppin' in from outa nowhere. I didn't payit much attention; thought it might be one of the other Ambassadors thatMr. Cumshaw'd brung along. But Mr. Cumshaw turned around and looked atit, and then he started to run for the veranda. I was standin' in thedoorway when I seen him startin' to run. I jumped out on the porch,quick-like, and pulled my gun, and then this auto-rifle begun firin'outa the other car. There was only eight or ten shots fired from thiscar, but most of them hit Mr. Cumshaw."

  Goodham waited a few moments. Longfellow's voice had choked and therewas a twitching about his face, as though he were trying to suppresstears.

  "Now, Mr. Longfellow," Goodham said, "did you recognize the people whowere in the car from which the shots came?"

  "Yeah. Like I said, I cut a mark on one of them. That one there:Jack-High Abe Bonney. He was handlin' the gun, and from where I was, hehad his left side to me. I was tryin' for his head, but I alwaysovershoot, so I have the habit of holdin' low. This time I held toolow." He looked at Jack-High in coldly poisonous hatred. "I'll be sorryabout that as long as I live."

  "And who else was in the car?"

  "The other two curs outa the same litter: Switchblade an'Turkey-Buzzard, over there."

  Further questioning revealed that Longfellow had had no direct knowledgeof the pursuit, or the siege of the jail in Bonneyville. Colonel Hick
ockhad taken personal command of that, and had left Longfellow behind tocall the Solar League Embassy and the Rangers. He had made no attempt tomove the body, but had left it lying in the driveway until the doctorand the Rangers arrived.

  Goodham went to the middle table and picked up a heavy automatic pistol.

  "I call the court's attention to this pistol. It is an eleven-mmautomatic, manufactured by the Colt Firearms Company of New Texas, alicensed subsidiary of the Colt Firearms Company of Terra." He handed itto Longfellow. "Do you know this pistol?" he asked.

  Longfellow was almost insulted by the question. Of course he knew hisown pistol. He recited the serial number, and pointed to different scarsand scratches on the weapon, telling how they had been acquired.

  "The court accepts that Mr. Longfellow knows his own weapon," Nelsonsaid. "I assume that this is the weapon with which you claim to haveshot Jack-High Abe Bonney?"

  It was, although Longfellow resented the qualification.

  "That's all. Your witness, Mr. Sidney," Goodham said.

  Sidney began an immediate attack.

  Questioning Longfellow's eyesight, intelligence, honesty and integrity,he tried to show personal enmity toward the Bonneys. He implied thatLongfellow had been conspiring with Cumshaw to bring about the conquestof New Texas by the Solar League. The verbal exchange became so heatedthat both witness and attorney had to be admonished repeatedly from thebench. But at no point did Sidney shake Longfellow from his onefundamental statement, that the Bonney brothers had shot Silas Cumshawand that he had shot Jack-High Abe Bonney in the shoulder.

  When he was finished, I got up and took over.

  "Mr. Longfellow, you say that Mr. Thrombley answered the screen at theSolar League Embassy," I began. "You know Mr. Thrombley?"

  "Sure, Mr. Silk. He's been out at the ranch with Mr. Cumshaw a lottatimes."

  "Well, beside yourself and Colonel Hickock and Mr. Cumshaw and,possibly, Mr. Thrombley, who else knew that Mr. Cumshaw would be at theranch at 1030 on that morning?"

  Nobody. But the aircar had obviously been waiting for Mr. Cumshaw; theBonneys must have had advance knowledge. My questions made that pointclear despite the obvious--and reluctantly court-sustained--objectionsfrom Mr. Sidney.

  "That will be all, Mr. Longfellow; thank you. Any questions from anybodyelse?"

  There being none, Longfellow stepped down. It was then a few minutesbefore noon, so Judge Nelson recessed court for an hour and a half.

  In the afternoon, the surgeon who had treated Jack-High Abe Bonney'swounded shoulder testified, identifying the bullet which had beenextracted from Bonney's shoulder. A ballistics man from Ranger crime-labfollowed him to the stand and testified that it had been fired fromLongfellow's Colt. Then Ranger Captain Nelson took the stand. Histestimony was about what he had given me at the Embassy, with theexception that the Bonneys' admission that they had shot AmbassadorCumshaw was ruled out as having been made under duress.

  However, Captain Nelson's testimony didn't need the confessions.

  The cover was stripped off the air-car, and a couple of men with apower-dolly dragged it out in front of the bench. The Ranger Captainidentified it as the car which he had found at the Bonneyville jail. Hewent over it with an ultra-violet flashlight and showed where he hadwritten his name and the date on it with fluorescent ink. The effects ofAA-fire were plainly evident on it.

  Then the other shrouded object was unveiled and identified as the gunwhich had disabled the air-car. Colonel Hickock identified the gun asthe one with which he had fired on the air-car. Finally, the ballisticsexpert was brought back to the stand again, to link the two by means offragments found in the car.

  Then Goodham brought Kettle-Belly Sam Bonney to the stand.

  The Mayor of Bonneyville was a man of fifty or so, short, partiallybald, dressed in faded blue Levis, a frayed white shirt, and agrease-spotted vest. There was absolutely no mystery about how he hadacquired his nickname. He disgorged a cud of tobacco into a spittoon,took the oath with unctuous solemnity, then reloaded himself withanother chew and told his version of the attack on the jail.

  At about 1045 on the day in question, he testified, he had been in hisoffice, hard at work in the public service, when an air-car, partiallydisabled by gunfire, had landed in the street outside and the threedefendants had rushed in, claiming sanctuary. From then on, the storyflowed along smoothly, following the lines predicted by Captain Nelsonand Parros. Of course he had given the fugitives shelter; they hadclaimed to have been near to a political assassination and were in fearof their lives.

  Under Sidney's cross-examination, and coaching, he poured out the storyof Bonneyville's wrongs at the hands of the reactionary landowners, andthe atrocious behavior of the Hickock goon-gang. Finally, afterextracting the last drop of class-hatred venom out of him, Sidney turnedhim over to me.

  "How many men were inside the jail when the three defendants cameclaiming sanctuary?" I asked.

  He couldn't rightly say, maybe four or five.

  "Closer twenty-five, according to the Rangers. How many of them wereprisoners in the jail?"

  "Well, none. The prisoners was all turned out that mornin'. They wasjust common drunks, disorderly conduct cases, that kinda thing. Weturned them out so's we could make some repairs."

  "You turned them out because you expected to have to defend the jail;because you knew in advance that these three would be along claimingsanctuary, and that Colonel Hickock's ranch hands would be right ontheir heels, didn't you?" I demanded.

  It took a good five minutes before Sidney stopped shouting long enoughfor Judge Nelson to sustain the objection.

  "You knew these young men all their lives, I take it. What did you knowabout their financial circumstances, for instance?"

  "Well, they've been ground down an' kept poor by the big ranchers an'the money-guys...."

  "Then weren't you surprised to see them driving such an expensiveaircar?"

  "I don't know as it's such an expensive--" he shut his mouth suddenly.

  "You know where they got the money to buy that car?" I pressed.

  Kettle-Belly Sam didn't answer.

  "From the man who paid them to murder Ambassador Silas Cumshaw?" I keptpressing. "Do you know how much they were paid for that job? Do you knowwhere the money came from? Do you know who the go-between was, and howmuch he got, and how much he kept for himself? Was it the same sourcethat paid for the recent attempt on President Hutchinson's life?"

  "I refuse to answer!" the witness declared, trying to shove his chestout about half as far as his midriff. "On the grounds that it mightincriminate or degrade me!"

  "You can't degrade a Bonney!" a voice from the balcony put in.

  "So then," I replied to the voice, "what he means is, incriminate." Iturned to the witness. "That will be all. Excused."

  As Bonney left the stand and was led out the side door, Goodhamaddressed the bench.

  "Now, Your Honor," he said, "I believe that the prosecution hassucceeded in definitely establishing that these three defendantsactually did fire the shot which, on April 22, 2193, deprived SilasCumshaw of his life. We will now undertake to prove...."

  Followed a long succession of witnesses, each testifying to some publicor private act of philanthropy, some noble trait of character. It wasthe sort of thing which the defense lawyer in the Whately case had beenso willing to stipulate. Sidney, of course, tried to make it all out tobe part of a sinister conspiracy to establish a Solar League fifthcolumn on New Texas. Finally, the prosecution rested its case.

  I entertained Gail and her father at the Embassy, that evening. Thestreet outside was crowded with New Texans, all of them on our side,shouting slogans like, "Death to the Bonneys!" and "Vengeance forCumshaw!" and "Annexation Now!" Some of it was entirely spontaneous,too. The Hickocks, father and daughter, were given a tremendous ovation,when they finally left, and followed to their hotel by cheering crowds.I saw one big banner, lettered: 'DON'T LET NEW TEXAS GO TO THE DOGS.'and bearing a crude picture of a
z'Srauff. I seemed to recall havingseen a couple of our Marines making that banner the evening before inthe Embassy patio, but....