“Drat!” she said. “Now what? I was getting all set to draft a bond for the sureties on that bail application. You can apply for bail to Judge Hazledine,” she pointed out. “He’s got those powers.”
Kilgore rubbed a stubbled jaw. “Might as well drop that idea,” he decided. “Once is enough to milk those possibilities. I don’t want to be an actor that keeps repeating the same lines all night. No, I need quicker justice. Something real dramatic that can catch the imagination of these country jays. Something unusual! Erskine!” he said suddenly, “would you like a trip to Santa Fe?”
“Why yes, I suppose,” said Erskine uncertainly. He was struck suddenly with panic at the idea of responsibility. “Doing what?”
Kilgore put a hand to his ear. “Nothing much,” he said pleasantly, “I got this earache, so I can’t travel in the cold. I got a simple task I’d like you to carry out. I want you to get Judge Hazledine’s signature to a writ of habeas corpus. I got to smoke out their evidence somehow.”
“Habeas corpus?” Erskine echoed.
“Nothing to it,” said Kilgore with amusement. “I’ll dictate the application and you shove it under the judge’s nose. He’s got to sign it—and that’s it. Or is that too much responsibility?”
“Oh, no, no!” said Erskine hastily. “It’s just that it all sounds pretty feeble to me,” he said. “A fraternity pin, a Navajo rug, a couple of unreliable native witnesses—”
“We don’t know what they’re holding back, boy. Duer can be full of little surprises. I keep telling you he wouldn’t have dared to swear out that complaint unless he thought he had a chance of making it stick.” Kilgore pulled out his pocket watch. “Getting late. Sarah, close up the office. Erskine, let’s get over to my place and get some food. And then some relaxation. Sarah, why not come to the cantina with us? You like a nip of whisky as much as any of us. We can all get borracho together, eh?”
Sarah’s expression was steely. “The day I start drinking with you, Jake Kilgore, is the day they make Mike Duer the Pope of Rome. Now get yourself home and put some hot compresses on that big ear of yours. We’ll take care of that writ in the morning.”
“Take Mr. Kilgore’s things, Julian,” said McCandless nervously. “We’ll be in the library.”
“Yes, Mr. McCandless.”
Julian silently stood by as Kilgore slipped out of his sheepskin and unwound a woolen scarf from his ear and followed McCandless into the great library where a great log of piñon was ablaze in a giant hearth. An elk’s head stared across a hall whose rafters seemed smoky and blue in the distance. The vast room had been decorated on a princely scale.
“Drink?”
“Always.”
The McCandless party returning from New York had gotten off at the siding maintained on Wa-po-nah as a courtesy to the railroad magnate who owned the line. In consequence they had not entered San Carlos, and it was the telephone, relayed through Fred Hicks at the irrigation company that had summoned Kilgore to the conference. Kilgore felt in poor shape, but he could not resist the misery in Dan McCandless’ humble message, begging him to visit Wa-po-nah. McCandless’ hand shook as he poured brandy for two. His appearance shocked the lawyer. In his four months’ absence in New York he had lost weight, and the skin of his face hung loosely. McCandless leaned forward and peered with bloodshot eyes.
“Tell me about the case,” he said hoarsely.
Kilgore succinctly outlined the situation. McCandless listened carefully, digesting the circumstances with a sense of dreadful realism.
“What do you think?” he asked finally.
Kilgore shook his head. “Too soon to tell. I can’t get much out of Harry. He just keeps reiterating that he’s innocent— but he feels that there’s a lot of prejudice against the family name. I don’t like his fatalistic mood. Sorry, but I can’t give you any kind of opinion.”
McCandless waited. “There was a time when this would be unthinkable. You’d have an opinion.”
“Times change,” Kilgore said briefly. “There’s a lot of feeling since you ran the irrigation company into a dry ditch. And the railroad! A lot of people have been wiped out.”
McCandless nodded. “I’m worried about the boy’s mother,” he said, rising and standing by the crackling fire on the stone hearth. “It was a great shock to her, Kilgore. Dreadful, to find that boy charged with this crime. Harry’s her son, you know! A Lucero! The coloring, the temperament! There’s a bond between them, and sometimes I feel shut out of an understanding between them. Can you understand that, Kilgore?”
Kilgore nodded, staring at the brandy dancing in the goblet, lit by golden flames. The lawyer felt the appeal of one thinking man to another—and he had no taste for his usual raffish pose.
“I think so,” he said seriously.
McCandless paused wearily at the flames. “I feel lonely for my son, Kilgore,” he said wretchedly. “I’ve always felt lonely, but now I need him. I want this thing to end.”
“I’ll win the trial,” said Kilgore thoughtfully. “I really will. If there’s any balance to the issues, you can back the lawyer, not the case. I’ve met Pete Beaudoin, and I’ll say this. He’s tough, but I’m better.”
McCandless considered his next remark. “I don’t want it to come to trial,” he said finally. “I don’t want to let Harry get into that much jeopardy. I don’t want the grand jury to vote an indictment.”
“No indictment?” Kilgore smiled crookedly. “That’s a tall order. I don’t control the grand jury. That’s up to Pete Beaudoin. He’s just superseded all powers in this county, and he’s proceeding in camera, as we say.”
“Can’t somebody be reached?”
“Maybe,” said Kilgore shortly, “but not by me.”
“Money?”
“It’s not a question of money.”
McCandless looked away. “I suppose not. You know what this is? It’s some scheme of Tilley and the Territorial bunch to ruin me. The Chicago railroad men are out for my scalp, Jake, and Tilley’s probably in with them.” His hand shaking, McCandless refilled his brandy glass. “I’m on the edge of bankruptcy, Kilgore,” he said in a shaking voice, “I’m overextended, and suddenly everyone’s got an ax out for me.”
“You haven’t gone out of your way to build up friendships in the Territory, McCandless.”
“I had no need of friendships. I had loyalties, instead. But they’re all turning against me now. And this trial is the wedge designed to split me wide open.” McCandless went on to describe the anxiety and misery of the months spent in the financial centers of the nation, the agonized waiting in the anterooms of bankers, the slow strangulation of his financial empire as the sources of money dried up at the behest of his formidable rivals. “It isn’t only Harry!” he burst out. “It’s the whole world. Kilgore, you’ve got to help the boy. You’ve got to help me.” He turned suddenly and shook his fist against the unseen and powerful foe in the distance. “I’ll smash ’em!” he shouted passionately. “I’ll make ’em wish they’d never been born!”
Kilgore let the outburst pass. “That won’t do any good, McCandless,” he said quietly. “This didn’t come out of a clear blue sky. A little girl was killed, or murdered, and justice has got to take its course. I’ll see that it does. In my opinion, Harry’s innocent, and I’ll get him off.”
McCandless shivered like an elk at bay. In a hoarse, tired voice he said, “Don’t mind me, Kilgore. It’s just that I feel—so helpless, for the first time in my life. It’s a hard thing to feel yourself drowning in your own blood—with those you love. Kilgore, forget me, and help the boy.”
“I’d like to see Mrs. McCandless.”
“Not now, please. It’s been a shock, and she’s been taking some medicine. Another time?”
“Sure.” Kilgore put his glass aside. “I’d like your help in one respect. I’m not satisfied by the way Harry has been acting. He’s giving me no help, except for denials, and I have the feeling that he’s keeping things back from me. Someb
ody’s got to talk to him.”
“I’ll think about it,” McCandless agreed.
Kilgore shook his head pityingly. It was a sad sight, watching the formidable Dan McCandless fumbling impotently for words in a welter of misery. He said in a quiet voice. “I’ll do everything I can, McCandless. Not because he’s your son, or because it’s got some bearing on business, but because he’s my client. I’d better go.”
“I’m sorry I’m such a bad host,” said Dan McCandless. He pulled a bellcord. “Julian!”
Julian DuVivier followed Kilgore out to a red-wheeled buggy that had been warmed in the McCandless stables behind the great house. He helped the lawyer into the seat and waited respectfully.
“If there’s anything I can do, Mr. Kilgore,” said Julian quietly, “anything at all, I wish you would remember that I love Mr. Harry. I would do anything in the world to help.”
Kilgore exchanged a glance of understanding with the black man, and studying the mingling plumes of steaming breath, nodded, and drove off to his home on the road to San Carlos, nursing his ear against the cutting wind. The interview with McCandless had depressed him. He wished he had not been alone with McCandless, that Isabella or Carlotta had been there. He enjoyed Carlotta’s company; she was a girl after his own heart, beautiful, stubbornly independent-minded—the sort of girl he’d be proud to have as a daughter, or, if he were younger and of a different frame of mind, a wife.
And Isabella, too. He remembered the Isabella of decades ago, and winced at the recollection. He had been a young lawyer then, and Isabella had just borne Harry. She was in the flower of her young motherhood, and Jake Kilgore had fallen under the spell of her loveliness.
Oh, there had been no romance. Kilgore was no wife-stealer, and in any case only a fool would have approached the wife of Dan McCandless. Kilgore had been retained to defend some Lucero servant on a minor charge, and Isabella had captivated him, and for weeks he had carried her image in his mind as he went about his professional duties. He had never really stopped loving that image of Isabella McCandless, he thought.
But the Isabella he recalled was the one of twenty years ago—not the cold, imperious creature of today. The old beauty still glinted in her, but now the cheekbones were unpleasingly harsh, the aristocratic nose perhaps a trifle beaklike. She had hardened. It had begun right after Harry’s birth, Kilgore thought. And over the years she had grown bitter, had moved further away from her husband’s love, had all but withdrawn from society.
A strange woman, Kilgore decided.
A strange family.
The buggy halted in front of the Kilgore house. His old Spanish servant scuttled out—Lupe, withered and dried, seventy years old and still stronger than any Anglo woman half her age. “The joven is here, Señor Kilgore. The tall, young one. He is in your study.”
“Gracias, Lupe. Bring us some brandy and let me get warm.”
Clem Erskine was prowling, as usual, through Kilgore’s extensive library. Kilgore kept the lawbooks at his office, but he had many hundreds of books here.
“What are you reading?” Kilgore asked brusquely.
Erskine looked up. “Cicero, sir. Against Catiline”
“You know Latin?”
“Only the legal phrases I’ve picked up. But I’m trying to puzzle it out all the same. It’s a wonderful language, isn’t it? Not a word wasted.” Erskine closed the volume. “There’s so much I’d like to learn, Mr. Kilgore. So much it frightens me. Besides the law, that is. I’d like to know Latin and geometry, and maybe something about the old philosophers and—oh, everything!”
The boy’s eyes were gleaming. Kilgore gestured sweepingly at the rows of books. “Any time you want to borrow a book, help yourself. Just mind you treat them with respect. Handle a book like you’d handle a woman you love.”
Clem smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Kilgore.”
“But first learn the law. There’s time for Plato when you’re my age. Where’s the petition?”
“Here, Mr. Kilgore.”
“Have you checked it through thoroughly?”
“I assumed that you and Miss Hilleboe had used the proper form, sir. I’ve read it, though.”
Kilgore’s displeasure was monumental. “Is Sarah Hilleboe presenting the petition? Am I? What will you do if Hazledine finds irregularities and rips it up under your nose? Are you a messenger boy, or my representative to him?”
Erskine reddened. “I’m sorry, sir. I meant to have a look at it on the train.”
Kilgore grunted sourly and called for hot soup to follow the brandy. “If I didn’t have this ear, Erskine, I’d take the assignment from you. It’s fundamental that a good lawyer takes nothing for granted. Not commas, not periods, not grammar, not law. Fortunately it’s been checked by me.” Lupe entered, bearing the brandy and two glasses. It was not the equal of McCandless’ fine cognac, but it would have to do for now. “Drink hearty, Clem. In this weather you need fortification.”
Kilgore’s ear throbbed mercilessly. The nightmare-ridden face of Dan McCandless haunted him. Outside, a cold wind whistled. Kilgore downed the brandy, but somehow it made him feel little more cheerful.
8.
KILGORE was speaking earnestly in the cold morning air of the railroad platform.
“Take that worried look off your face, Erskine,” he advised, rolling a cigar to the corner of his mouth. “When you’re talking to a judge, there’s nothing he dislikes so much as a fidgeting, worried lawyer. Just remember to look respectful, keep your counsel, and thank the judge, especially when he’s hitting you with the book. Just remember that he makes the rulings.”
Erskine said ruefully, “That’s strong advice, Mr. Kilgore, especially coming from you.”
“Kilgore’s unique,” the older man observed. “The mold was broken, the mold was broken,” he added somberly. “Keep a smile on your face. It’ll help loosen that nervous twist inside.”
The first train to Santa Fe came through San Carlos shortly before nine on Monday mornings, and the two men were at the station early. Clem Erskine wore the new business clothes that he had bought at Ben Weingarten’s Emporium with his poker winnings. He stood tall and straight in his crisp, somewhat somber new outfit. In the portfolio at his side, he carried a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, and the text of the writ itself, firmly commanding the sheriff of San Carlos County to produce the body of Harry McCandless before the court and to show the legality and cause of his imprisonment. Clem felt a twinge of nervousness. A week ago he had been threadbare and penniless; now he was en route to Santa Fe to present a petition before a judge of the supreme court of the Territory. And, though Jake Kilgore stood beside him now as they waited for the train, he would be all alone up there in the capital when he came before Judge Hazledine.
“What time is it, Mr. Kilgore?”
“Twenty past.”
“Train’s due, then.”
“Give her another ten minutes, easy. Hello, look who’s coming down to see us off!”
The tall, full-bodied girl in traveling clothes was Carlotta McCandless, descending from a McCandless buggy and striding briskly to the train platform. Clem Erskine stared at her in wonder as she approached.
“That’s Harry McCandless’ sister?” he murmured.
“None other. And quite some woman, won’t you agree?”
Clem nodded. “Right fine. How come she’s not married?”
“She’s a stubborn filly, that’s why. Headstrong. Too bright for her own good. She won’t be just a bedwarmer for some man; she’ll want an equal voice in family affairs, and it’s a rare man willing to grant his wife that. So she goes without a husband. Doesn’t seem to bother her yet.”
Carlotta drew near. Even her brother’s imprisonment had not completely dampened her buoyant spirits, and she favored Kilgore with a broad smile, reserving a curious stare of blunt appraisal for Clem as introductions were made.
“ ’Morning, Mr. Kilgore. Off on a journey?”
Kilgore shook his head
. “Not I. I’m just here to send my new clerk off to Santa Fe to see Judge Hazledine about your brother. Clem Erskine, Carlotta McCandless. How come you’re here, Carlotta?”
The girl shrugged. “Off to Santa Fe myself. Looks like the train’s slow today.”
“Here it comes now,” Clem said, using his great height to peer into the distance. A few minutes later, the chugging locomotive was coming to a halt, and the San Carlos passengers were getting aboard. Kilgore waved good-by to Clem and Carlotta and left the station before the train departed.
The car was practically empty. Carlotta seated herself at the nearest place. Clem hesitated, not knowing whether it would be ruder to sit down next to her or to move on elsewhere after they had been introduced. Carlotta put an end to his doubts by inviting him to sit beside her. He lowered his big frame into the cushioned seat, acutely aware of the warmth and desirability of the young woman at his side. It was the first time in his life he had ever managed to ride in a Pullman parlor car.
He glanced covertly at her as the train began to pull out. She was lovely, lovely. A high intelligent forehead, curly auburn hair, a finely made, thin-bridged nose, flashing eyes, gleaming white teeth. Her chin was strong and determined, her posture erect. She was a tall girl, too—at least five feet six, Clem had estimated. No wonder she was having trouble finding a husband. She was taller than a lot of men, after all. And only someone of Clem’s own height—say, six-two or-three—could feel really comfortable with a girl so tall.
“How long have you been working for Mr. Kilgore?” Carlotta asked, as they pulled out into flat country.
“About a week. I came down from Colorado.”
“He’s a wonderful man, isn’t he? A little crude, but he’s got such tremendous vitality.”
“I found that out the first time I ate breakfast with him,” Clem said. “He ate like the government was going to call in all the food there was at noon.”
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