by Sharon Ihle
With a heavy sigh, he turned to his wife and admitted, "I got to be honest with you, sugar. I'm plum worried about the girl. It's gonna take a flat out miracle to get her out of this one. A good bit more than a miracle, at that."
The doors to the courthouse slammed open then, charging the air with a loud bang which was almost enough to convince Caleb that a bolt of lightening had come down from the sky, bringing with it the hoped for miracle. He turned along with gallery to see what looked like a wild man standing in the doorway.
The women gasped and the men seemed to shrink against their chairs. Then Hawke strode into the suddenly hushed room.
To lose one parent... may be regarded as a misfortune;
to lose both looks like carelessness.
—Oscar Wilde
Chapter 20
He'd tied the leather thong around his forehead to keep the hair from his eyes, but dressed the way he was in buckskins and leggings, Hawke's long flowing locks did little to dispel the savage within the clothes or to hide his raw outrage.
The gavel banged down as Judge MacIver said, "Come in if you've a mind to, sir, and sit down. This court is in order."
Spotting Caleb's white lipped expression among the onlookers, Hawke moved over to where his friend was seated on the aisle, and dropped down to his haunches. Crowfoot, who was intimidated by the large crowd, hovered just outside the courtroom, preferring to take in the proceedings through an open window.
Ignoring the spectators who were still gawking at him, Hawke turned to Caleb and quietly asked, "What's happened so far?"
"Uh, not too much. The law took a turn asking questions of the folks who work at the bank, and now I guess Lacey's lawyer is gonna give it a go. That's him, Malcolm Webber, up there talking to the gal from Braddock's office."
With a quick glance toward the stand, Hawke turned back to his friend in surprise. "You hired a lawyer for Lacey?"
"Nope, the court did. I expect soon's the trial is over, though, they're gonna come after you to pay up."
He shrugged indifferently. "Has Lacey had a chance to explain what happened?"
Dragging his answer out, Caleb hemmed and hawed a minute, then said, "No, she, ah... ain't been called up to testify yet."
Nodding thoughtfully, Hawke turned his attention back to the stands to listen in on the cross-examination.
"... and you were actually present in the room when Mr. Winterhawke assaulted Mr. Braddock?" asked Webber.
"Yes, sir, I was sitting right next to Mr. Braddock when the half-breed jumped over the desk and tried to strangle Mr. Braddock." She pointed at Hawke. "That's him right there, the fellow who just came into the courtroom."
The gallery gave a collective gasp, and Judge MacIver banged his gavel, demanding quiet. Then he turned to Webber and said, "Hurry this thing along a little, will you? Ask her something we don't already know."
Fresh out of law school, Webber's cheeks flushed brightly as he resumed his interrogation. "If memory serves from your earlier testimony, I believe you said that Mr. Braddock saved himself during the assault by pulling a gun on Mr. Winterhawke and ordering him from his office. Is that correct?"
Pauline delicately sniffed into her handkerchief. "Yes, sir, and if I may say so, I think if Mr. Braddock had put that gun away instead of leaving it lying on his desk, he'd... he'd be alive today." She collapsed into sobs after that, and the judge was forced to give her a moment to collect herself.
When he was able to resume questioning the witness, Webber quietly asked, "Now be very careful to remember the exact words if you can, and tell the court one more time what Mr. Winterhawke said to the deceased as he walked out of his office."
A heavily perspiring Judge MacIver intervened before she could. "Didn't I ask you to hurry this along?"
"Yes, your honor, but Miss Little's testimony is really all the court has by way of evidence. I want to make sure she's absolutely certain of the facts in this case."
With a weary sigh, the judge agreed. "You may proceed, but do remember to keep it moving along."
After a short nod of thanks, Webber went back to questioning the witness. "Please answer the question, Miss Little."
"Well, best as I can remember, he said something like; 'there's more than one way to get rid of a fellow like you, and I'll have someone else do it so I don't have to get blood on my hands.'"
Webber raised a cynical eyebrow. "Those were his exact words?"
From the gallery, Hawke leaned in close to Caleb and whispered, "I said there was more than one way to skin a polecat, and that I intended to do it without getting his stink all over me—where does she get blood in that?"
"I think those were his exact words," said Pauline. "He said something very much like that, anyway."
Hawke rolled his eyes. "She's not even close."
Drumming his fingers against the witness box, Webber paused a long moment. "Fifteen or twenty minutes after Mr. Winterhawke left Braddock's office, the defendant requested an interview with him. Is that correct?"
She nodded, pointing at Lacey as she said, "That's her sitting right there."
Hawke strained to see his wife over the crowd, but all he could spot of her was a few wild coppery curlicues which had escaped from the bun at the back of her head.
"Please tell us one more time," Webber went on. "Exactly what happened after Mrs. Winterhawke entered the office of the deceased?"
"Well, I really can't say exactly since I wasn't in there, but she hadn't been in Mr. Braddock's office for more than, oh, I don't know, around ten minutes or so I guess, before I heard the gunshot."
"And did you hear loud arguing or anything of their conversation prior to that gunshot?"
She shook her head. "No, it was real quiet—even when I walked up near the door and listened long enough for her to say that she was Mrs. Winterhawke."
"And why did you do that?"
Pauline shrugged. "Curious I guess."
"Curious," Webber repeated. "After you heard the shot, what happened?"
"I raced through the door that same second, and saw that Mr. Braddock was lying on his back near his desk..." She choked back a sob. "He was dead, and that red-haired murderer was holding the gun that killed him."
A buzz rippled through the crowd as if they hadn't heard this information before, even though they had during the opening statements and again during the prosecution's questioning of the witness. The judge banged his gavel to quiet the group, then asked Webber, "Are you quite finished with the witness?"
After a moment's reflection, he sighed and said, "Yes, I believe that I am."
"Good," said MacIver. "In that case, I suggest you call your client to the stand so we can wrap up the proceedings."
Casting a wary eye in Lacey's direction, again Webber sighed. "She, ah, hasn't been very cooperative so far, your honor. I don't—"
"She can cooperate or not, Mr. Webber, but she will come up to the stand and at least hear the charges against her before I send this trial to jury. Now go get her, young man."
His cheeks burning again, Webber hurried to the table where Lacey sat staring at the floor, helped her to her feet, and bodily led her to the witness stand. He then sat her down, lifted her right hand, exposing her scarred palm to the spectators, and held it upright throughout the swearing in. When asked to give her pledge at the end of the process, however, she remained silent.
"Mrs. Winterhawke," Judge MacIver warned in a deadly serious tone, "if you think you can avoid telling the truth in this court by refusing to swear yourself in, you are gravely mistaken. This trial, and the consequences of your actions, are indeed a matter of life or death where you are concerned, so I strongly suggest you take your pledge now."
Even from his spot on the courtroom floor, Hawke could see that Lacey's eyes and the depth of understanding there were as shallow as a teardrop. Turning to Caleb, he said in a strangled whisper, "Has she been like this since they arrested her?"
His eyes downcast, Caleb slowly nodded. "Kate
says she's having some kind of spell."
Kate, listening to the conversation, leaned across her husband's lap. "'Tis a sickness Lacey thought cured long ago, Hawke. She canna understand what is going on around her, and she canna..."
But Hawke was no longer paying attention to Kate's description of his wife's condition. He knew exactly how debilitated Lacey was and had risen to his full height. Marching down the aisle toward her, his gaze pinned to her dazed features, his progress was suddenly stopped by the waist-high gate separating the gallery from the proceedings—not to mention the pair of strong hands tugging at his left arm. Trying to shrug the deputy off, he shouted at Lacey, praying to God that somewhere in her confusion she might hear his voice.
"Lacey? It's me, Hawke. For the love of God, snap out of it."
Another pair of strong hands gripped his right arm, jerking him backwards, but Hawke wrapped his long muscular fingers around the gate in front of him and clung to it, still shouting at the woman he loved.
"Lacey, I'm begging you. Hear me, please hear me."
"That's enough, sir." The judge brought his gavel down three times, filling the air with a series of sharp cracks that sounded like rapid gunfire. "If you don't remove yourself from this court now, I'll find you in contempt and have you jailed."
Finally taking his troubled gaze off of his wife, Hawke turned to the judge, his voice hoarse with emotion, and begged, "Please, just give me five minutes alone with her! Just five minutes to get her talking again, then I've leave."
"That would be highly irregular, and—"
"Something's wrong with her—can't you see that? Look into her eyes."
Judge MacIver grudgingly glanced at Lacey and studied her a moment. "I can see that she's probably not quite herself, Mr. Winterhawke, but you should have had this little discussion with your wife long before this court convened." He raised the gavel again as if preparing to give his final order, but kept it hanging in mid-air as Hawke continued to plead his case.
"I've been up in the Snowy Range Mountains since I left Braddock's office, and didn't even know until this morning what had happened to him or Lacey." His knuckles white where he gripped the rail, Hawke launched a final plea. "I just now got into town. Can't you show us—my wife—a little mercy and give us five measly minutes alone?"
Contemplating the request at last, the judge's gaze flickered between Hawke and Lacey. Finally, he raised his gavel and said, "Clear the court for a short recess." After smashing the polished wood mallet to the bench one more time, he leaned over and quietly said to Hawke, "That's five minutes, Mr. Winterhawke, and not one second more. I'm going to clear this court of everyone except those two guards hanging onto your arms. They'll be posted at the back of the room with instructions to shoot you dead if you even look like you're thinking of sneaking your wife out of here. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir, it is. And thank you."
As Judge MacIver climbed down from the bench, he signaled for the guards to release their prisoner and take up their positions. The moment he was free, Hawke vaulted over the gate and hurried to the witness box where Lacey still sat staring down at the floor.
Dropping to his knees, he took her hands in his. Then, keeping his voice low as the fascinated observers slowly left the courthouse, he begged, "Lacey, sweetheart, please listen to me. Hear me now—we don't have much time."
This got no response whatsoever, frustrating Hawke right down to his toenails. Remembering the items he'd brought with him just to cheer Lacey up, he reached into his back pocket and withdrew her lucky spurs.
Spinning the silver shamrocks at the heel of one spur as he spoke, he tried gentle coaxing one more time. "See what I brought for you? Want me to put them on your boots?"
Nothing, but he went ahead and attached one of the spurs to her left boot, anyway. Still spinning the other spur under her nose, Hawke raised his voice. "Damn it, Lacey—pay attention to me. You're almost out of time. You've got to save yourself, you hear me? Save yourself, damn it. I love you!"
Hawke had never seen a pair of eyes shudder before, but that's exactly what happened to Lacey. Her eyes shuddered as if caught by a sudden chill, then she trembled from head to toe. Was she coming out of it? he wondered, daring to hope it was true. She began to blink then, her eyes darting from side to side, so he continued to shout words of both encouragement and love.
Something disturbed Lacey's calm, her dark sense of peace.
She liked being unconscious inside herself, unaware of her surroundings, and fought against whatever or whoever dared to disturb her. The intrusion reminded her of bath night, one of the few memories she had left of her childhood. She loved to play "fish," floating face down in the big copper tub in the family castle whenever she got the chance. Then one night her mother came upon her that way, floating calmly and serenely like a giant stingray.
Of course her mother thought she'd drowned. The frantic woman dug her fingers into Lacey's tender shoulders and jerked her out of the water, violently disrupting the safety of her silent underwater world where nothing could hurt her—especially not the shouts and cries of her parents' endless arguments. Lacey felt as if she were abruptly being jerked out of the water again. Somewhere in the darkness of her mind, she heard Hawke's voice, verbal fingers this time, but still grappling with her, demanding that she come up for air. Or something. And then she caught his scent, the musky horse and pine aroma of the man she loved.
Lacey opened her eyes and cleared her vision until she was able to focus on her husband. Realizing instantly that something was terribly wrong, but not what, she opened her mouth as if to speak. Hawke placed his finger across her lips, silencing her.
"I don't have much time to tell you what's going on here," he explained, his voice not only hoarse now, but raw with emotion. "You're in the Laramie courtroom, on trial for killing William Braddock—"
Lacey gasped. "Oh, my Lord."
She tried to pull away from him, but Hawke held her hands fast. "I don't know what Braddock did to make you shoot him, but whatever it was, I know it must have been pretty awful." His jaw granite hard, he narrowed his gaze and instructed, "Tell the judge what he did, Lacey—spare no details, you hear me? Every last detail."
Again her eyes shuddered. "B-but–"
"Do as I say, Lacey. Beg the court for mercy, get down on your knees if you have to and beg, but save yourself."
She shuddered all over now, caught in her husband's intense gaze, and for a long moment, it was almost as if they were somewhere else, at some other time. She'd killed Hawke's uncle. Lacey remembered that now, the sight of the man falling to the floor at her feet, and yet Hawke didn't seem to be mad at her. Even stranger, she vaguely remembered words of love coming from him as she swam up through the surface of her spell. I love you, he'd said, not once, but several times over. Still locked in her husband's gaze, Lacey's eyes grew moist and her heart blossomed with love. Then a voice, not Hawke's, but that of a stranger broke into their private moment.
"Time's up, injun," said the bailiff.
Sliding his hands up her arms to take her by the shoulders, Hawke slowly rose to his feet. "Do whatever you have to, Lacey, but save yourself at any cost—understand? Nothing else is important; not me, not Winterhawke Ranch, nothing. Just save yourself, no matter what."
His voice steeped in irritation, Judge MacIver said, "I don't want to have to find you in contempt of court, Mr. Winterhawke. If you do not take your seat now, I'll have you removed from the courtroom. Bailiff, call the jury and the spectators in at once."
With one final long look into his wife's sparkling eyes, Hawke folded the other spur into Lacey's hands, then turned and strode down the center aisle, his spine and stride as rigid as the trunk of a lodgepole pine.
It wasn't until he'd sat down beside Caleb that Lacey finally glanced at her surroundings. People were everywhere, packed into the large courtroom and staring at her as if she were some kind of freak. To her right, two men were huddled against the bench, engage
d in conversation with the judge. She took a deep breath, longing to return to the safety and comfort of the spell, but strengthened herself instead by mentally repeating Hawke's words: Save yourself. I love you.
The men to Lacey's right suddenly approached her. The young one, a rather nervous looking fellow, said, "Hello, Mrs. Winterhawke. My name is Malcolm Webber. I'm your attorney. This," he swept his arm around toward the older man, "is Anthony Silver, the prosecuting attorney."
The older man gave her a magnanimous smile, but before she could decide how to respond to either of them, her lawyer resumed speaking. "I realize this may all seem a little strange to you after your, ah, recent illness, but we are in the middle of a trial and the judge has directed us to proceed. After you're sworn in, Mr. Silver will ask you some questions about the murder of William Braddock. You, ah, do recall the incident, don't you?"
Nodding miserably, Lacey uttered a barely audible, "Aye."
"Good. Just raise your right hand and repeat the pledge when you're asked. I'll be sitting right in front of you looking out for your interests as best as I can." He turned on his heel as if to leave, but then turned back to her, leaned in very close, and whispered, "Just one more thing—did you shoot Mr. Braddock? It's always a good idea for your lawyer to have some idea what we'll be getting into."
She swallowed hard, then said in that same wisp of a voice, "Aye, that I did, but 'twere an accident."
"I see." With that, he turned around and took a seat directly across from her.
Once Lacey was sworn in, the prosecutor wasted no time getting around to her. Still smiling that patronizing grin, he began to question her, his dramatic tone leaving no doubt in her mind that the man loved the sound of his own voice. "Try to relax, little lady. I'm going to ask you a few questions about yourself just to break the ice. I understand that you are married to one John Winterhawke, Jr., a half-breed Arapaho Indian who also happens to be the blood nephew of the deceased, William James Braddock. Is that correct?"
