Crooked River (14 page)

I didn't say a word to Laura about it when I came downstairs. With people already arriving, we had to hurry to move all our furnishings and such to the walls. By midmorning, folks were packed into our cabin so tightly that not a chink of air remained. They were crowded on our beds, and Lorenzo even perched on top of our flour barrel.

Me and Laura settled in the farthest corner of the room, behind all of the water-soaked backs and heads. We sat on the top of our wooden chest so no other folks would use it as their seat. It made my heart pound to imagine what would happen if anybody
stumbled upon the things we had hidden inside. What would they think if they opened the wooden cover and caught a glimpse of the beads and quills and such?

From where we sat, we could see Judge Noble, who was placed squarely in front of our fireplace, behind our dinner table. The jury was on the judge's left, crowded on chairs and stools in front of our food cupboard. The lawyers had the other side of the hearth to themselves. They sat in two of our good straight-backed chairs from the East with our dried bunches of herbs dangling strangely above their heads. Indian John sat on the far side of Peter Kelley, nearly hidden in the cabin corner.

The judge hammered his mallet on our table. “Come to order,” he called out. I noticed that his hair was wet and unruly from the rain. He kept running his hand over the top of his wide forehead, trying to smooth away the lingering drops of water.

“We are returning to the testimony of blacksmith Nichols this morning,” he said, clearing his throat. “And as planned, we will hear the questions of the lawyer Mr. Kelley today.”

From the side of the fireplace, Mr. Kelley stood up and walked toward blacksmith Nichols, who was sitting in a chair beside the judge's table. Laura stared down at her fingers, knotting and unknotting them. A lump rose in my throat as I watched Peter Kelley square his thin shoulders and face the blacksmith.

His copper red hair was combed neatly, I noticed, and he wore a vest and shirt that looked newly made, but seeing those things made my heart ache
even more. How would it feel to be in his shoes? I wondered. Having to defend the life of a person who was once your friend?

For Mr. Kelley's sake, may something go well, I prayed. Just one small thing.

“Good morning, Mr. Nichols,” the lawyer said in a quiet voice. “I only have a few questions.” Even those simple words made the crowd mock him in low whispers. Beside me, Laura shook her head.

Mr. Kelley didn't seem to pay the whispers any mind. He held up the striped tomahawk again. “You made this tomahawk for the Indian called Indian John, am I correct?”

Nichols rolled his eyes and gave a sigh loud enough for the whole room to hear. “I already said that to the lawyer yesterday, if you was listening.”

“Answer the question Mr. Kelley asked you,” the judge warned.

“Yes,” the blacksmith's voice rumbled. “Answer ain't no different than yesterday's—yes.”

“Thank you,” Peter Kelley said, setting the tomahawk on the corner of the judge's table. He walked across the room to fetch something from a sack beside his chair. I raised my head to see what he was doing. He held up a small hatchet with a wood handle, the kind most of the men carried. Not much different than the tomahawk except for its plain handle.

“I'm just curious, Mr. Nichols,” Peter Kelley said. “How about this hatchet? Do you recollect making this one?” He handed it to the blacksmith. “Go on— take a closer look at it.”

A peculiar expression passed across Nichols's face
as he took that hatchet from Mr. Kelley. He gazed at it for a good long while, turning it over and over in his big hands and running his thumb along the side of the blade, and then he said, “Nope. It ain't one of mine.”

“You're certain?” Mr. Kelley repeated. “This isn't the one you made in the fall of last year for Reverend Doan?” Reverend Doan was a Methodist circuit preacher who came through from time to time. I could tell by the way Mr. Kelley asked the question that the hatchet surely belonged to the minister. But I didn't see what Reverend Doan's hatchet had to do with anything.

“I said—it ain't one of mine,” Nichols warned.

“This one?” Mr. Kelley held up another plain hatchet, and the blacksmith didn't even look at it. Just kept his eyes on Mr. Kelley's face and said, “It ain't mine.”

“How about this one? Certainly you will recognize this one.” Mr. Kelley held up another tomahawk. It was striped with scorch marks like Indian John's pipe tomahawk, but it had two silver bands around it and a pewter-looking piece on the end of the handle. “Tell the jury which Indian this belongs to, Mr. Nichols. Certainly you remember.”

My heart thudded inside me as I watched Nichols's face grow darker by the minute.

“Perhaps you'll remember the owner of this one—”

As Mr. Kelley reached for another tomahawk, the blacksmith jumped up suddenly and raged, “I ain't answering no more of your questions, you skinny little cuss.” The judge stood up and pounded his mallet, but Nichols didn't pay it any mind.

“Maybe I don't know every damn savage I made a tomahawk for,” he roared in Mr. Kelley's drawn and fearful face. “But sure as the devil is in hell, I know the one I made for that savage.” He pointed at Indian John. “And I dare—DARE—any man in this room to call me a liar to my face,” he bellowed. “You go on and have your court of fools—but I'm done answering questions. DONE.” He plowed through the crowd of people, pushing a woman and a little toddling child out of his path as he thundered out of our cabin.

After the door closed behind him, the whole room was as still as the woods after a windstorm. The only sound was the rain hammering down on the roof shingles.

“The court calls a rest for an hour,” the judge said, breaking the silence. “And we shall discuss how to continue with the testimony—”

I think everyone was startled when Mr. Kelley spoke up.

“No. No,” he said, walking toward the judge. “Proceed with the next witness.” He waved his hand in the direction of the door. “My questions for the blacksmith were complete. I only wanted to point out”— Mr. Kelley glanced at the jury men—“the outright lies and untruths in Mr. Nichols's testimony about the tomahawk, Your Honor.” He said the words “lies and untruths” loud enough and slow enough for everybody in the whole room to hear. The other lawyer jumped up to raise an objection to Peter Kelley's statement, but the judge held up a hand to silence him. “No,” he said, impatiently. “We will just proceed. …”

As the judge wrote something down, I could hear an angry hum fill the room. It sounded like a nest of bees. I don't think anyone was too pleased with the new direction the trial had suddenly taken. Or with the words “lies and untruths.”

In front of us, Mr. Perry swore loudly. “If they find that savage innocent, I'll take up my gun and kill him myself. You jist watch me.” Heads nodded all around him.

My mind tossed and turned, trying to understand what I'd heard. Blacksmith Nichols had sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, hadn't he? I remembered his big hand resting on the judge's Bible and all of his fierce nods and “yes sir's.” But I couldn't see how he was able to recollect Indian John's tomahawk clearly and none of the others. And why had Peter Kelley's questions sent him into a wild rage? Was his whole story nothing but lies?

Up in the front of the hearth, the third witness sank down in the chair. He appeared to be about the age of my Pa, but he was more scrawny. One of his thin shoulders stuck up higher than the other, which gave him an odd, crooked appearance.

The judge's voice called for order. “We will now hear the testimony of Mr. Ezra Phelps,” he announced. “Mr. Root, you may begin your questions.”

“Mr. Phelps, you and your family live on the other side of the Crooked River, am I right?” Augustus Root said, beginning his questions with a too-wide smile.

The witness bobbed his head in a way that reminded me of eggs in a kettle of boiling water and gave him a polite, yes sir.

“And you have lived there for about five years?”

The witness nodded again. “Got ten acres in corn,” he said.

“And you found the dead trapper? Correct?”

“Yes sir,” the witness said, sitting up straighter. “Me and my son Asa done found that dead trapper one morning at the edge of one of our cornfields.”

“What morning was it?”

Mr. Phelps rolled his eyes upward. “Now, let's see if I can recollect. It was somewhere 'long about the
end of March. A Tuesday morning, I believe, because—yes”—he looked at someone in the crowd— “that's right, my wife was washing clothes and she mostly does her washing on Tuesdays.”

“Could you describe what you and your son saw?”

“Well, now.” Mr. Phelps scratched his cheek and eyed the crowded room nervously. “Judge, I don't want to frighten all them women and children setting out there. It weren't a pretty sight what I saw.”

The judge sighed. “The observers will bear that in mind. Continue on.”

“Well, the body was lying facedown in the snow,” the witness said slowly. “The tomahawk was stuck there in its head. Jist like, you know—” The man paused and blinked at the crowd. “Well, I'm real sorry for describing this, but, well, it had cleaved off part of the scalp,” he said. “And from what we could see, it done tore out a narrow piece of the poor man's skull—”

I could hear a dozen or more “Lord have mercy's” echo through the cabin. One old woman slipped out the door, holding a handkerchief to her mouth.

Laura reached over and squeezed my hand. “You want to go on outside?” she whispered. I shook my head no, even though I did.

The man paused and spoke louder, as if he was trying to stir things up. “There was a river of dried blood all down the man's back and it had even pooled up in the snow. Me and my son nearly keeled over sick at the sight. Didn't we, Asa?” The witness bobbed his head at his son, who seemed to be sitting in the middle of the crowd.

“Did you know who the murderer was?” Mr. Root asked.

“Yessir, I did, right away.” The man's head bobbed up and down again.

“How did you know that?”

“The tomahawk. Once I saw that tomahawk, I knowed.”

The lawyer folded his arms and smiled a little at the jury. “And who did that tomahawk belong to?”

Mr. Phelps turned and pointed at Indian John. “That Indian right over there. He always wore it stuck in a red sash around his waist. I seen it a hundred times if I seen it once.”

I shook my head. Deciding who was telling the truth was like chasing a will-o’-the-wisp.

Augustus Root continued. “Anything else that you saw?”

“Well.” The witness squinted. “We seen tracks in the snow all around the body. Lotsa tracks, like it weren't just one Indian who had set upon him with the tomahawk.”

“Who did the tracks belong to? Did you know?”

The witness leaned back. “Yes, I did,” he said slowly. “It weren't no trick to figure out whose tracks they was. There was three sets—two full-grown and one young. Since we knowed that the tomahawk belonged to him”—Mr. Phelps gestured toward Indian John again—“and since we knowed he always traveled with two other Indians, then we knowed 'zactly whose tracks they was. Weren't no trick to figure out Indian John was the one who kilt the trapper.”