Crooked River (13 page)

When the court resumed again in the late afternoon, a large bear of a man filled the entire witness chair. I drew in my breath.

Blacksmith Nichols.

In the settlement, the sight of him always frightened me near to death. His soot black hands were the size of bear paws. Beneath his rolled-up sleeves, his red arms were as big around as tree limbs. But it was his fierce eyes that truly seemed to burn holes straight through your skin if you caused him to turn them in your direction. Whenever he came to visit my Pa, I sat in terror of him.

But Augustus Root didn't seem to feel even a shiver of fear. After the blacksmith was sworn to tell the truth, he strolled easily toward him. “Tell us, if you would, Mr. Nichols,” he started, in a voice that
was almost cheerful, as if he was asking Mr. Nichols to tea. “How did you come to make the acquaintance of the Indian who is before us today, the one who is called—”

“Made him a tomahawk,” the blacksmith's voice rumbled, and he stuck his finger in Indian John's direction before Mr. Root even finished all his words.

“A tomahawk,” Mr. Root repeated slowly.

“Yes sir.”

“And why did you make a tomahawk for this particular Indian?”

Mr. Nichols crossed his arms and glared at the lawyer. “You seen many blacksmiths among the savages, Mr. Root?”

Not a soul in the crowd dared to laugh.

Augustus Root smiled uncomfortably. “No, of course not, quite so.” He straightened the fancy white cloth tied around his neck and smoothed the front of his yellow silk vest before speaking again. I hid a small grin behind my hand.

“Could you, perhaps, describe the tomahawk you made for Indian John?” he said, gesturing with one arm. “Tell the jury, well, exactly how it was made.”

Mr. Nichols stared at the lawyer as if he had asked an even more thick-skulled question. “What a tomahawk is
made of?”
he repeated.

“Let me remind everyone,” the judge interrupted, “that this is a court of law and all questions are to be answered to the best of one's knowledge.”

Seemed to me that the blacksmith grew even larger as he drew back his anvil-sized shoulders and turned his fierce eyes upon the judge.

“Mr. Nichols, could you explain how the tomahawk was made exactly? Just for the jury,” the lawyer hurried on.

There was a long terrifying wait before Nichols turned toward the crowd again and answered the lawyer.

“It was a pipe tomahawk. Iron blade with a steel edge. For sharpness,” he added in a voice that sent a chill clear through my bones.

“And you made only the blade, am I correct?”

“Yes.”

“What about the haft—the handle? What did it look like?”

“Wood.”

“Any decoration that you recall?”

“Yes.”

Augustus Root stopped and rubbed his eyes, as if he was growing weary of asking question after question without getting anything more than a yes or no. “Could you perhaps describe it?” he said, sighing loudly.

“There was marks scorched all along the wood of the haft.” Mr. Nichols moved his hands. “Dark and light stripes.”

“Made by the Indian?”

“Made by some Indian,” the blacksmith rumbled. “I don't know who.”

“Anything else? Other decorations?”

“One piece of trade silver in the shape of a diamond, set in the wood.”

The lawyer glanced out at the crowd and said in a louder voice, as if he wanted all of us to hear him.

“Do you think, Mr. Nichols, you would recognize the tomahawk you worked on if it was shown to you again?”

My heart thudded in my chest.

“Yes,” Mr. Nichols said, folding his big arms. “I would.”

Grinning a little to himself, Augustus Root walked quickly to his chair to fetch something. In an anxious rush of air, everyone around us stood up to see it.

I knew by the whispering sound of the crowd that the tomahawk was exactly the one the blacksmith had described. Exactly the one he had made for Indian John. And the same one that had been found in the trapper's head. Stinging tears began to fill my eyes and a lump rose fast in my throat.

“Is this the pipe tomahawk you recollect making?” I heard Augustus Root say loudly and the blacksmith did not take more than a half second to examine it before I heard him answer that it was.

“Could you show us the person you made it for?” the lawyer continued.

The blacksmith stood up and pointed his finger.

My heart sank to my feet.

“That Indian is who I made it for. That one sitting right there,” he said, in a voice that was sure as anything.

Some in the crowd wanted to see Indian John hanged without hearing another word. A man with a face full of pox scars waved his arm at the judge and hollered out, “You heared what that Nichols fellow said. Jist hang the savage from this big tree right here and be done with it.”

I looked up at the wide oak tree above us and held my arms across my sickening stomach.

“Silence!”

As the crowd clapped and cheered, Judge James R. Noble pounded his mallet so hard on his table, I expect it probably made circles in the wood. “I am the judge of this state of Ohio,” he bellowed when the crowd grew quiet. “And I don't give a pickled damn who you want to hang or when.” He leaned across the table, his face as red as clay bricks, and stared furiously at everyone. “You will not—by the laws of the United States or the ones written by God himself—hang anyone until I give the word that justice is done.”

The judge gestured toward poor Mr. Kelley and said that he had every right to take his turn, even if the Indian was as guilty as a fox in a henhouse. “Every right,” he repeated, and glared at the crowd.

But I could tell that there wasn't enough time left for Mr. Kelley to question the blacksmith. In the nearby fields, the cows were beginning to bellow for their milking, and there was a day's worth of chores still left to do. So, the judge said the trial would conclude for the day and resume the next morning.

The crowd grumbled as they began to pick up their sundry collection of chairs and benches. “Ain't nothing left to try,” I could hear people saying to each
other. “Guilty as guilty is,” they mumbled. “Waste our time listening to nothing. Jist hang him.”

Me and Laura kept our heads down as we walked back to the cabin with Mercy. I felt plain shaken inside. I didn't know what to think. In my mind, I tried to reason that perhaps Mr. Nichols was mistaken. Or that the trapper had been kilt by another tomahawk, exactly like the one the blacksmith had made. But Mr. Nichols was the only blacksmith we had, and who would recognize a tomahawk better than him?

Laura looked over at me. “You feeling as dreadful bad as I am?”

I nodded.

“I just feel so sorry for Peter Kelley.” Laura's voice wavered. “I think he must have believed every word Indian John told him. They were friends, and so he thought…” Her voice trailed away.

“Yes,” I said low, scuffing my feet along the hard wagon ruts of the road.

“What will Mr. Kelley say tomorrow?” she whispered. “Or do?”

I couldn't imagine what Mr. Kelley would do the next day or how he would prove the blacksmith wrong. But the rest of the evening, my mind kept repeating the words he had said to me.
I will win.

Even though it didn't seem likely that Mr. Nichols would be mistaken in front of God and all those men, I could not give up on those words. No matter what everybody else, even Laura, thought to be true, my mind still held on to
I will win.

The next morning, the sky poured rain. When I heard it on the roof as I was lying in bed, I nearly shouted for joy. There wouldn't be any trial beneath Mr. Perry's old tree. Not in the hard rain. But then Pa came stomping in while we were fixing breakfast and told us the trial would be held inside our cabin on account of the poor weather and because our log house was the biggest one.

I couldn't keep a downcast look from crossing my face. Pa caught a glimpse of it and said he had best not ever see that look again—hard work was what we did, and if I didn't want a thrashing, I had better help Laura get everything in order. I didn't dare to tell him that it wasn't the work I didn't want to do.

After Pa left, I took some breakfast up to Indian John. He was sitting with his knees drawn up to his
chest and his arms wrapped around them, staring into the shadows as if he was thinking. I don't know if he understood what all the shuffling and noise meant below, but he didn't nod in my direction as he usually did.

As I set down the plate of food, I noticed that his white blanket was crumpled in the middle of the loft floor. I figured that it had fallen off his shoulders while the men were putting him back in irons and no one had cared to pick it up. Someone ought to show Amik one small kindness, I thought. No matter what happened at the miserable trial that day.

So, I lifted up the white blanket from where it lay in a heap, shook the dust out of it, and folded it as neatly as one of our own bed quilts. Before I went back down the steps, I put the blanket beside his straw pallet and smoothed it with my hands. The blanket was wool with a band of red along the side, and I imagine it was important to him. It would have been important to me, anyway.