“Maybe not,” admitted Jason. “But they’re lucky to be alive themselves.”
“I think they realize as much. A reduced sentence, with perhaps more time off if they’re well behaved in prison—who knows? They might turn honest when they’re free, for sheer terror of being locked up again.”
“And you say they’ll testify against Enderby?”
“Aye, and to considerable purpose for the state’s case. They’re eager to testify.”
“I thought so when I talked to them in jail myself,” Jason confessed. “I gather that they have known Enderby for a number of years, and did more than one unsavory job for him.”
“Many more than one, Jason,” agreed Parks. “As the story comes out, it seems that the three of them arrived in Alabama as a partnership of petty swindlers. Enderby struck out for himself, managed to get some money together—”
“Dishonestly, I’ll wager,” put in Jason.
“He prospered by buying Indian lands cheaply,” went on Parks. “But he kept in touch with his old friends, and from time to time he had work for them. Unsavory work, as you very aptly put it. That’s how they happened to be with him at the time they dug up Sun Chief’s body.”
“Well, if they help us to convict him, I’ll cool my blood,” Jason relented.
“Probably we can trust them for that, even though they never were trustworthy before. They feel that Enderby tried to turn against them that day when Cut Nose marched them into court and Enderby denied knowing them. Enderby, of course, is going to fight the accusations against him.”
“But without Kinstrey this time,” added Jason.
Parks laughed, somewhat sardonically. “Kinstrey is certainly out of the picture. Did you know that once he wanted to be Squire Colquitt’s partner?”
“I’ve been told that,” said Jason, remembering Betsy’s story.
“And the Squire refused—he’s refused so many offers of partnership, but never did he do better than to refuse Kinstrey. That poor scoundrel Kinstrey is done for now. If he ever comes into the new courthouse yonder, it will be as a prisoner, not a lawyer.”
“And nobody knows where he is?” asked Jason.
“Nobody I can find, and I’ve tried,” said Parks. “Kinstrey left here running at top speed. Apparently he didn’t stop until he was far away and well hidden. One of the wisest decisions he could make, at that. Munson and Harnish keep telling us more and more to implicate Kinstrey in Enderby’s scheme to falsify the grave business.”
“He’ll be charged and tried, then,” said Jason.
“If he can be brought back here for trial, yes. He’s been disbarred already. Wherever he goes, he can’t practice law.”
Jason looked up at the clear blue sky. “I remember how once Kinstrey and Enderby talked to me about seeking some new frontier—Mississippi or Arkansas.”
“That new frontier may be what Kinstrey has sought. I might ask somebody to make inquiry. But surely he had the foresight to change his name, grow whiskers, hide his trail and himself. Meanwhile, his client Enderby’s made heavy bail to get out, and he’s hiring lawyer after lawyer to defend himself against our charge. There are so many charges, you know.”
“Fraud,” said Jason. “Perjury. Obstruction of justice. Conspiracy and complicity in attempted murder. Assault with intent to kill.”
“All of those,” agreed Parks, “and his two repentant accomplices will be the witnesses to convict him. I would take n© wagers on Enderby’s going free. The more so when I have you with me for the state—Squire Jason Morgan, special prosecutor,” Parks grinned over the words. “Scores of people, throughout the whole state, want to come and hear you lock the door on Enderby. I myself will relish hearing you address the jury.” “I’ll do my best, sir,” promised Jason. “I hope I’ll be some help to you as a prosecutor.”
“I know you’ll be brilliant.” Pausing, Parks lighted a cigar. Above it he studied Jason calculatingly. “And that brings me to my real reason for coming to see you.”
“Real reason, sir? What’s that?”
“How would you like to give all your time to prosecution? How would you like to be solicitor for this circuit ?”
“I!” cried Jason, utterly amazed. “But I never thought of such a thing, sir!”
“If you didn’t, others have thought of it for you. Hark you, Jason, have you heard about Judge Hemphill’s new political plans?”
Jason was sitting up straight in his chair, gazing blankly at Parks.
“What have his plans to do with it?” he demanded at last. “I did hear that he thinks of offering for Congress in this district, but that’s all.”
“Oh, he has fully decided to run, and if he does so, he’ll be elected of course. Who could seriously oppose Judge Hemphill for Congress ? Next fall will see him elected, and the following spring will see him in Washington.”
“I still don’t understand how this concerns me, except as a friend of the judge.”
Parks laughed. “Then you’re more stupid than ever I dreamed; or, likely, you’re pretending to be stupid. When Judge Hemphill becomes Congressman Hemphill, there must be a new judge for this circuit. And a number of the more influential gentlemen concerned have been kind enough to suggest that I might very properly and logically come to the bench. How would you like that?”
“Sir, I’d like it very much indeed,” said Jason honestly.
“Thank you,” said Parks. “Judge Hemphill himself will bring his influence to back me. The circuit judgeship is, of course, in the gift of the legislature. And I have every assurance that I will be appointed, early year after next—in time to sit at the spring circuit for 1835. Well, Jason,” and Parks blew out cigar smoke, “if the solicitor becomes judge in place of Hemphill, that leaves the solicitorship open in turn. And that, since you pretend not to guess, is why I have come to see you today.”
Parks closed his lips on the cigar once again.
“Well, sir, if you mean that I’m to be solicitor,” said Jason, “you’ll forgive me for saying that it seems ridiculous. I’m not yet twenty, and I’ve had no true experience.”
“You’ll be twenty before this present year is out,” reminded Parks, “and you’ll be twenty-one by the time you receive your appointment. As for experience, there’s a full year of that before you. If you thrive as you’ve begun, why, heaven help those who must stand to oppose you!”
Parks was grinning again, and Jason felt himself helplessly confused and embarrassed.
“Every step of the way, you’ve shown yourself a born master of courtroom law,” Parks told him impressively. “The very first day we met, you told me how to win a criminal case.”
“Oh, the business of how tall Brundage might look to various people,” Jason said. “A simple thing, that.”
“Aye, a simple thing,” agreed Parks. “So simple that nobody thought of it, myself included, until you pointed it out. And then, your first case in court. In you walked, with the mud still sticking to your shoes from where you’d stood in the yard to be examined for your license by Judge Hemphill and me. Milo Kinstrey—and I still wonder what happened to Squire Kinstrey —thought he had the case won before it was called. So, I must confess, did I. And so did every lawyer who sat there to hear. But, with all things cunningly set against you, you rose to speak to the jury.”
“I was frightened,” remembered Jason.
“Were you so? But you began by answering, with a crushing eloquence, the jibes at your youth.”
“I was angry, too.”
“But you did not lose your head in anger. And, at just the right moment, like one who has written and staged a mighty dramatic spectacle, you brought in Stamm Harnish and Harry Munson to confront and destroy Enderby and Kinstrey.”
“Mr. Parks, I’ve told you repeatedly that that was nothing but sheer luck,” said Jason wearily.
“Luck,” repeated Parks, “luck, indeed. If so, then your luck is wondrous, miraculous. Recognize it, Jason. Cultivate it as you would cultivate
any other professional asset. For a successful lawyer must have luck, and lots of it, and know how to employ it.”
“You refuse to believe that it was mere chance that Cut Nose brought in those rascals when he did,” accused Jason.
“Oh, I believe. But you saw the possibility, seized upon it. When you’re older, Jason, you’ll know that all the luck in the world is worthless without wit and will and courage to take full advantage of it.”
“That seems to make good sense,” said Jason thoughtfully.
“All right then.” Parks leaned forward. “Give me the word, and I’ll go forward and smooth the way to the solicitorship for you. Judge Hemphill himself is ready to speak for you, just as he will speak for me. Most of the other lawyers on the circuit, save only a few who are too afraid of you already, will endorse you. And in the legislature—”
“Mr. Parks, I thank you,” broke in Jason, forgetting his manners. “I thank you from the bottom of my heart. But I can’t think of being the solicitor.”
“What’s that you’re saying?” Parks sputtered in his surprise. “You, Jason, just beginning as a lawyer, and you won’t take a chance like this ? What did you agree with me, even now, about employing the luck that comes your way?”
“I’m already spoken for, and my time,” said Jason, “Ever since the courthouse trial, I’ve been sought out by clients.”
“Important clients?”
“Not all of them. But one or two matters—that big land-claim settlement at Birch Springs—are interesting, and won’t be settled at a single session of court. They are cases involving money and legal precedent. I may have to work on them for years.”
Parks’s stare turned from amazement to respect.
“Egad,” the solicitor breathed. “You’ve been retained in the land-claim settlement suit?”
“Well, the Birch Springs litigants have engaged Squire Colquitt,” said Jason, “but they were so flattering as to stipulate that I must be actively associated. And Squire Colquitt, in agreeing, swore me to pull my weight in the case.”
Parks shrugged, and pushed his chair back so that he leaned I against the office wall. He tapped ashes from his cigar and sighed heavily.
“If you’re to have employment like that, you’re wise to stay in private practice,” he said. “You’ll become famous, Jason, and you’ll become passing well off in dollars, too.”
“There are more points to the practice of law than those decided by judges and juries,” Jason made bold to argue. “It may be that the lawyers most talked of are those who plead in public. But there is also the law that works quietly, sir—in offices, in private conferences, helping the country move ahead with the least trouble and ill feeling and the most profit. Indeed, there have been several small cases that I’ve already so handled as to avoid court action.”
“Truly?” prompted Parks.
“It’s surprising how often a dispute can be settled in an office, with both sides made happy, when the lawyer can show the fairness of things to one man as well as to the other.”
“Jason,” said Parks, with frank admiration, “you speak wisely enough for Squire Colquitt or Judge Hemphill himself. What you say is simple and obvious—as obvious, perhaps, as how tall Brundage looked to this witness or that. But it’s a truth that must be repeated over and over.”
“I’m sorry you had your visit here for nothing, sir.”
“Well, others are ambitious for the solicitorship if you’re not,” Parks informed Jason. “If you won’t seek it, I suppose Squire Frye is the logical man. I believe you know Frye, don’t you?”
“I’ve met him,” nodded Jason. “I hope to be considered his friend.”
“Then,” Parks pleaded, “if he becomes solicitor after me, and you find yourself opposing him, have a trifle of mercy. Don’t utterly demolish him, like another Milo Kinstrey.”
“Well, gentlemen!” a voice hailed them from the house.
Out walked Squire Colquitt, with his coat off and his vest open. His right arm was still in a sling, but under it he had tucked a broad rectangular board. In his sound left hand he bore a hammer.
“I need your help for a little chore, Jason,” he said, walking toward the two.
Jason got to his feet. “Of course, Squire. What can I do for you?”
“Here, take this hammer. And here’s a big spike nail. I want to fasten something up beside the door of the office.”
“I painted that sign,” called Betsy, also coming out into the yard.
Jason took hammer and spike. Parks, too, rose from his chair, and followed Colquitt and Jason around the corner of the office to the front door. Betsy came to join them. Colquitt took the board from under his arm, studied the front wall of the little building a moment, then placed the board against the doorside planks at the height of his eye.
“All right, lad,” he said. “Drive that spike in.”
With three powerful strokes of the hammer, Jason did so. Colquitt took him by the elbow and drew him back and away. “Now read what it says,” he commanded.
Capital letters in black paint leaped out at Jason:
Henry Colquit& Jason Morgan
Attorneys at Law
“Bravo!” cried Parks, and Betsy clapped her hands. Then she linked one arm with Jason’s, the other with her uncle’s, and stood admiring the sign.
“I vow, Jason and I were but now remarking on the fact that you had never taken a partner,” said Parks to Colquitt.
“I’ve taken one at last,” smiled the Squire.
“Congratulations, Jason,” said Parks heartily. “And congratulations to you, too, Squire, on your new associate. I envy you.”
“I envy Jason!” shouted someone from the path in front.
It was Major Westall, tramping sturdily along, staff in hand. Behind him came Alexander Kift.
“Am I in time for the news to put in the Sentinel?” he called.
“You’re in time for the celebration,” called back Betsy. “And behind you I see Mr. Witherspoon and Mr. Parham and Mr. Darby Baugh. Purney’s putting dinner on the table, and Jason’s the guest of honor.”
“To be young, to be fighting for success,” Major Westall was saying. “Thunder, gentlemen! It’s glorious!”
Cut Nose was there, too, standing out in the street, silently grinning his congratulations. And Snipe Witherspoon and Darby Baugh, catching up with the editor, made haste to offer their hands to Jason.
“Let’s have a speech from Squire Jason Morgan,” suggested Parks, and there was a concerted yell of approval. “Come on, Jason, you have an audience for your eloquence. Speech!”
Jason, snuggling Betsy’s arm against him, looked helplessly from one smiling face to another.
“I’m afraid I don’t have anything to say,” he confessed.
And the applause was deafening.
Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1956 Page 15
