Spanish Crossing

by Alan Lemay

  "I'll show the witness," he said, "a description of this property exactly as set out in the petition of the plaintiff. Is this," he bellowed at old Martin, "the land recorded by Dutch Bill?"

  Martin mumbled over the description for a space of moments. "No!" he said vehemently. "This is the Wagon Bed Springs lands that was recorded by Peter Douglas!"

  All Windemer's practical psychology had blown up in his face, and all over the courtroom was felt the shock of that explosion. Yet he did not flinch, and his hesitation was a matter of a second only.

  "But," he roared, "you said a minute ago it was Dutch Bill!"

  "Oh, 1 thought he said Hackenschmitt Springs!"

  A slow rustle ran over the audience, gradually becoming a rumble, and then a roar, as the significance of the crossexamination dawned. For once Windemer's headlong attack had landed him in the barbed wire. Yet, in the face of misfortune, he made the most of the moment. Windemer turned, and stood with drooping shoulders, facing the audience with an expression of such utter pathetic woe that the laughter rose anew.

  "Let's try to be a little quiet," said Randolph. "Go ahead, Hugh."

  Douglas, pushing his case through sharply, now called three cattlemen who testified that the Wagon Bed was commonly known as Douglas land. They brought out plainly that, although the Wagon Bed had, from time to time, been overrun by many brands, a small sum per head of stock had often been paid Peter Douglas by those who used the Wagon Bed land. Three cowboys next bore witness to the fence-building of Verne Harris upon Wagon Bed, and there, esteeming that he had established a case of title and trespass, Hugh wound up his case and sat down.

  "I move the case be dismissed," said Windemer.

  "Why?" asked Randolph. "It seems to me he's established a perfectly good prima facie case of title, Walt."

  "Oh, was all that to establish original tide?" said Windemer. "Why, my client was prepared to concede that!"

  "Why didn't you say so before?"

  "1 really couldn't make out what he was getting at," Windemer apologized. "Well, well, well. Call Newt Magnusson."

  Windemer now called three witnesses who testified consecutively that the elder Harris had expressed an intention to buy the Wagon Bed, that he had said definitely he was on his way to buy it, and that subsequently he had referred to the Wagon Bed as if it was his own.

  "This is hearsay," Hugh Douglas objected.

  "Res gestce, strictly," said Windemer sagely.

  "A slight weakness in the knees does not make testimony hearsay," Randolph decided. "Proceed."

  A slow, dark doubt was stretching its shadow over Hugh Douglas. It was plain enough, by this time, what line Harris had instructed Windemer to take. Hugh could guess, too, just about what evidence existed in support of that defense. At the same time he knew Windemer for a daring, often a reckless, strategist, and Verne Harris, of course, could be depended upon for no scruples at all. How far this pair would dare go before Judge Randolph, with no recourse to a befuddled jury, and what would be the result, he had not the experience to judge.

  Of the first four witnesses, Hugh cross-examined but one - a cowman who testified that Rack Harris, Verne's father, had "generally kept his accounts in his pants pocket."

  "What kind of records did Peter Douglas keep?" he asked.

  "Rotten," said the witness. "Worse than Rack Harris."

  "A fine way of doing business," Randolph allowed himself to comment. "And now with the county records burnt...!"

  George Calender, accountant, testified next that he knew the veritable signature of Peter Douglas, that there had been given into his keeping, for auditing, a mass of receipts, and that among them were fourteen receipts which acknowledged that the elder Harris had paid the elder Douglas sums amounting to nearly seven thousand dollars. Only one of these contained any notation of what the payment was for, but this one, sufficiently damning, seemed indicatory of the significance of the rest: "Received from Robert Harris on Wagon Springs account" - the witness read aloud - "the sum of eight hundred dollars. Signed.. .Peter Douglas."

  "These receipts," Windemer asked, "obviously represent a purchase of that land?"

  "They might," conceded the witness.

  The assembled cowmen stirred, recognizing the force of Windemer's latest wallop. Nor could Douglas break the witness.

  "As a matter of fact," he put, "you know very well that these receipts represent a lease, and not a sale?"

  "No!"

  Again the restive air.

  "1 was going," said Windemer, "to call a lot of witnesses to show that my client is in possession of this land. I think, however, that the plaintiff's own witnesses have already cleared this up very nicely. Now I'll call the coroner... unless Mister Douglas concedes that Charley Phillips, county recorder in Nineteen Ten, is now deceased."

  "I'll admit he's dead," said Hugh.

  "And his assistant?"

  "Yes."

  "Is that your case, Walt?" Randolph asked.

  "You may well ask," said Windemer. "Certainly it looks like case enough. 1 agree, we have not only established the transaction circumstantially, but we have exhibited receipts covering the payments. Possession has kindly been established for us by Mister Douglas, and we have nicely covered the absence of further records. I'm going to call the tax assessor."

  The latest witness, hardly less damaging than the one before, now testified that Harris had been paying taxes on the Wagon Bed range for at least three years and probably, by implication, for a long time before that. Stroke by stroke, the Harris-Windemer combination was literally cutting the ground from under Douglas's feet.

  A crazy anger was on Hugh Douglas. He saw now that in his inexperience he had bungled his case, and he knew that he could never wipe out the defeat that he already read in Judge Randolph's kindly eyes, nor the faint, derisive grin from the face of Rack Harris's son.

  "Just as a finishing touch," Windemer's ululating voice was saying, "we will call one witness more. In fact, we have sent downstairs for him. Call Charley Busted Wing."

  Having been sworn, the Crow agreed that he was of the name given, and a cowboy. A snicker from some place greeted this description, and Busted Wing looked about him with sur prise. For the first time he seemed to become aware that he was conspicuous before any number of people. He made a move to leave, but a bailiff urged him back.

  "You've been away from the Kettle country some time?" said Windemer with that unctuousness that passed with him for gentle handling.

  "Four year," said Charley promptly.

  "What is this Wagon Bed fence dispute, Charley?"

  "Never heard of it."

  The counsel for Harris peeled off his coat. He was getting ready for one of his deliberate, nicely timed, dramatic moments.

  "You just got back? And have you found employment?"

  "Huh?"

  "Who do you work for?"

  "Hugh Douglas."

  "Who, me?" said Hugh.

  A faintly pleased gleam of recognition shone for a moment in Busted Wing's apprehensive dark face. "Uhn-huh. You said...."

  A sharp riffle stirred the crowd. A Two-Box cowboy - roughly speaking - was about to turn in the final evidence against his boss!

  "What were you doing," Windemer asked the witness, "in the summer of Nineteen Ten?"

  Marveling, Hugh Douglas checked his poker face. A new urge of battle was pounding into him as he listened to the most extraordinary testimony he had yet confronted. In the short sentences that examination worked out of him Busted Wing testified that in 1910 he had been cook at the Two-Box, that Rack Harris had stopped by and asked the price of the Wagon Bed, that, after a long argument, a price was agreed upon. Money passed, and papers were written. Charley could not read, but he was certain that the Wagon Bed land had been bought and paid for that hot day in 1910.

  It was true, Hugh recalled, that Charley had once cooked, for a short time, at the Two-Box. What deal the Indian thought he remembered, Hugh had no notion. He could imagine, how
ever, how Harris, arrogant in his long run of luck, might have been tempted to a bold and unscrupulous stroke, and he could picture well enough the plausible Verne, deftly wheedling the Indian back to a memory of fictitious events. And he was pretty sure that once scared - and Busted Wing was worried - the Crow would stick to his recital through whatever verbal storm.

  "How do you know it was Nineteen Ten?" Windemer was concluding.

  "That year, 1 just come," said Charley. "1 know some times, huh?"

  "You sure do, Charley," chuckled Windemer. "And 1 may as well say now," he added, turning to the bench, "that when this witness has been cross-examined and washed up, that is going to be our case."

  "Quite a case," commented Hugh.

  "My boy, it's a screamer," Windemer agreed. "Take the witness."

  Hugh Douglas got to his feet. "You say you can't read, Charley?"

  "No.

  "No can, or no can't?"

  "Can't read."

  "Then why," Hugh said, "did Verne Harris give you written instructions about what you were to say here?"

  Windemer shot to his feet. "Now, honestly, if Your Honor please! 1 certainly don't want to make it any harder for the plaintiff than it already is, but I really have to object to that!"

  "I think you don't realize, Hugh," said Randolph, "that question, leading or not, comes pretty close to an open charge."

  "Judge, 1 aim to impeach this witness," said Douglas. "This is going to be about the worst impeached witness ever seen in this court."

  "Are we trying the witness?" asked Windemer.

  "What it amounts to...," began Judge Randolph.

  "Excuse me," said Windemer. "Don't say it yet! Will you please reserve decision for just a moment?"

  Verne Harris, an evil glimmer in his eye, had pulled his attorney's arm and was whispering instructions.

  "On second thought," said Windemer, "we withdraw our objection. After all, as my client puts it, a show is a show. By all means, let Mister Wing answer."

  "Let's not twitter out and in," said Judge Randolph. "Is that final on this point, Walt?"

  "Yes. When it comes to proving written instructions to a witness that can't read...."

  "Please let Douglas proceed," said Randolph wearily. "I've set at this bench on and off for fifteen years, and I've about given up trying to break this county to legal procedure. Go ahead with Busted, Hugh."

  "Charley," said Hugh Douglas, "hand the judge that paper you've got in your pocket... the one that starts out by telling who you are."

  Once more a gleam of independent intelligence showed in Busted Wing's unbright face. From his pocket he drew the flat tin-covered box that had once contained snuff. Carefully he took out of it the yellowed tally sheet.

  At this point the vague, restive suspicion that had begun to tinge Verne Harris's face was seen to give way to something else. He clutched Windemer's arm and was whispering furi ously as the paper passed to Judge Randolph's hand.

  "Object!" barked Windemer. "incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial!"

  "We had that up a minute ago," said Randolph peevishly. "You withdrew your objection."

  "There is such a thing as carrying nonsense too far," Windemer blustered. "in all seriousness, i object on perfectly sound grounds of procedure."

  "The Court," said Hugh Douglas, "has already admitted the exhibit."

  "1 made no ruling whatsoever," said Randolph. "The objection to this line of cross-examination was withdrawn. I'm getting tired of this gee-haw in what is already a drawn-out case. For once 1 am going to make a perfectly strict ruling around here. The...."

  "Gimme that back!" yelped Charlie Busted Wing.

  With a perfunctory gesture, the exasperated Randolph extended the tally sheet to the witness. "The objection is...." His hand and voice stopped abruptly in mid-passage. His eye had caught upon the tally sheet like a wasp lancing against fly paper. "Just a minute," he said.

  "Now, if Your Honor please," shouted Windemer. "1 don't know what that paper contains, but...."

  "Order!" snapped the judge. His face was as implacable as living rock as he smoothed the worn tally sheet before him. The courtroom was utterly still, now, as Randolph's slow hand adjusted unnecessary nose glasses.

  "There are times," the bench declared at last, "when an exhibit needs not only to be admitted, but to be made known throughout an entire jurisdiction. This is one of those times."

  "Good Lord, he's got no sense of humor!" sounded Verne Harris's agonized whisper.

  To let that whispered remark be heard was possibly the worst thing he could have done. Randolph, who had opened his mouth, now closed it and slowly impaled Harris upon an iron stare. "Are you interrupting me, sir?" he demanded.

  "No, sir!"

  "If Your Honor please...," Windemer tried again.

  "How would you like a contempt of court?" Randolph said savagely. Slowly, bearing down on every word, he intoned to the Kettle country the message of Busted Wing's worn recommendation: "`To Whom It May Concern. The bearer is Charley Busted Wing, run out of the Kettle country as the damnedest liar, thief, and drunkard out of the Crow Nation, which is going some. If he stops in your county, you will be missing calves, etcetera, and the truth is positively not in him. Kick him out."'

  He took off his glasses and looked over the assembled cowmen. "`Signed,"' he finished, "`V. Harris, Circle Bar.' That, gentlemen, is the defendant's conception of his witness."

  There was a short, incredulous pause, then an enormous volcano of laughter went up from the crowd with the rumble of a distant dynamite blast. Through the uproar the gale was seen to rise and fall repeatedly, but its crash of wood on wood was lost in the storm.

  "I've run this court for fifteen years with an easy and liberal hand," Judge Randolph exploded, when at last he could be heard again, "and 1 suppose this is what I get for it. I'm free to state that never in all my experience have 1 seen such a bald-faced damn' insult to an American court of law!"

  Once more laughter rocked the building, while Randolph polished his glasses and put them away.

  "Is that your case, Windemer?" he said at last, his voice cold in the disturbed air.

  "Not by a whole lot," said Windemer. "I'll put Verne Harris on the stand!"

  "Put him on!" snapped Randolph. "Put him right on! But I'll tell you now if Verne Harris goes on that stand, I'm going to question him myself!"

  "You can't do that! Procedure...!"

  "Damn procedure! Put him on, and we'll see if 1 can!"

  Verne Harris, his face blank, met the harsh gaze of Randolph briefly, but his own eyes wilted away. He hesitated, while all the courtroom waited. Hugh Douglas watched intently. He was praying with all his heart that, if it was in Verne Harris to turn tail, he should turn now. And Harris had reason enough to dread the witness chair. Once thoroughly aroused, Randolph had wit enough, and more than experience enough, to trap better men than Verne. Nobody could say what incriminating facts, what humiliating details, would be tricked out of Harris if once he subjected himself to Randolph's raking fire. It was an ordeal no man could look forward to with confidence, and Harris least of all.

  "Well, well, Harris," Randolph pressed, "will you give evidence or not?"

  Harris's one word came out low and thick under the silence.

  "NO!"

  It seemed enough, yet, when Hugh Douglas had freed himself from the enthusiasm of the crowd, the day still held for him one unexpected revelation more.

  Dee Daniels was waiting for him in his dusty old car. "Are you going to give me a lift? Dad's busted down, and...."

  "Bet your life." He wondered a little as he watched Harris's long yellow roadster slide out of Loper ahead of them, and that wondering made him feel tired and sad. It took some of the thrust out of victory to find out that Dee was another who rallied around the victor, the same as everybody else.

  Charley Busted Wing, tagging along behind Hugh, climbed apologetically into the back seat, carrying his saddle. He was oblivious, apparently, to the
significance of anything that had happened. Some thought it was the pounding of the bronchos that had made him that way. They took the road, tooling down the ruts of the Loper switchback in the dust of the general exodus.

  "I want to tell you something, Hugh," said Dee at last.

  "Yes?"

  "I'm a fool. You know the idea 1 got, watching the trial today? Most people are cheap and small, and that goes for myself."

  "Why?"

  "And I'm sorry for the way it went, and 1 think it wasn't fair or right," she finished, hurrying out the words. "And now you can let me out."

  "You mean...? What wasn't fair, Dee?"

  "You should have won," she surprised him.

  "But. ..wait a minute, here. 1 thought 1 did win!"

  "Hugh... is that true?"

  "Didn't you hear Randolph give me the decision?"

  "No! It made me so mad to see the case going against you that I walked out on the whole business. Why, Hugh..."

  "Dee... say, you wouldn't fool me, would you?"

  "Oh, glory, Hugh! No."

  A slow grin altered the face of Hugh Douglas almost past recognition. He pulled the car up, turned, and opened a door of the back seat. "Mister Wing," he said firmly, "I'll see you next week. Indian, you're afoot!"

  Minus its third passenger, the battered car roared downgrade full throttle, at its heels a mounting tower of dust.

  Just as 1 was about to blow out the lamp, the dogs all started hurrahing again, and I pulled my boots back on. After you have been hunting cow-country lions for bounty for about twenty years, you hardly ever mistake what hound talk means, and this time 1 knew for sure that somebody was coming up the road.

  We had lost us a lion that day, and 1 was dead beat and disgusted, so at first it made me mad to think that here come some darn' saddle bum, no doubt all set for a good square meal, 'specially cooked up on late request by yours truly, Old Man Coffee. But 1 set the coffee pot forward, and, when the pony finally eased up outside, 1 opened the door in time to see Lynda Clayton swing down.