Crooked River (15 page)

Mr. Phelps took a deep gulp of air and wiped his ragged sleeve across his face when he finished.

“No more questions.” Augustus Root grinned and puffed out his chest.

Fool-headed old rooster.

“Mr. Kelley,” the judge said. “Any questions?”

“Just two,” Peter Kelley answered. He walked toward the witness, who shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “How deep was the snow?” he asked.

Mr. Phelps blinked. “Snow?”

“You said there was snow,” Mr. Kelley repeated slowly, as if the witness was half-witted. “How deep was it?”

“Well now, I don't recollect things like that,” Mr. Phelps stammered. “That was about three months ago. It was winter; we always got snow. Maybe it was six or eight inches deep. Maybe ten. Don't see what the snow has got to do with nothing.”

Truth to speak, I couldn't see why Peter Kelley was asking about the snow either. Who could remember how deep the snow was on a particular day in March, and what did it matter?

“You said you saw tracks in the snow,” Mr. Kelley continued. “Could you describe them for us, Mr. Phelps?”

The witness grinned widely. “I think most folks 'round here has seen moccasin tracks before, ain't they? Just picture a bunch of Indian tracks traipsed around in the snow.”

“But I'm not sure I know what they look like,” Mr. Kelley persisted. He frowned at the witness as if he
was awful confused. “Could you describe what you saw for me?”

And suddenly, in a flash, I knew why he was being so curious about tracks and snow.
Snowshoes.
I cast a sideways look at Laura, and she gave me a half smile before turning away.

“You daft or what?” the witness said, shaking his head and setting the crowd to chuckling. He moved his hands in the air. “It's just a soft print like a foot, only without toes—like a footprint without toes.” He smirked at Mr. Kelley “Anything else 'bout Indians you want to know, Mr. Lawyer?”

“Just one more thing,” Mr. Kelley said, rubbing the end of his nose. “Were you wearing your boots that morning you found the trapper? Do you recall?”

“Well, we warn't tiptoeing around barefoot, I can tell you that.” Mr. Phelps rolled his eyes, and the crowd snickered.

“So if you were wearing boots …” Mr. Kelley paused as if he was putting all of the pieces together. “Why were the Indians wearing moccasins in the snow?”

“What?”

“I was just wondering why you saw moccasin prints, Mr. Phelps. Don't you think that the Indians would have been wearing snowshoes, like this one?” Mr. Kelley reached for something below his chair and then held up the exact snowshoe me and Laura had seen before. A strange silence fell over the room. “Don't Indians wear snowshoes in the winter months?” he kept on.

The air in the cabin was heavy and still. You could
tell folks were listening, even though they didn't like what they were hearing one bit. I figure most of the men must have known that Peter Kelley was right— that there should have been snowshoe prints, not moccasin ones, in the snow.

“I don't know—” Mr. Phelps stuttered and stumbled. A red flush crept up his neck, as if he was being slowly boiled inside. “I ain't sure, perhaps, I think maybe they was snowshoes, yes, I reckon they were.”

“But you said you saw moccasin prints, didn't you? A footprint without toes?” Mr. Kelley repeated. “That's what you said.”

The witness squirmed. “Now that I think—I'm sure they was snowshoes.”

Mr. Kelley moved toward the witness chair. “Why don't you tell the jury the truth?” The lawyer's voice was low and angry. My heart pounded, fearing what would happen next.

“Tell them that you saw one set of snowshoes in the snow, Mr. Phelps.” Mr. Kelley's voice rose. “One set of prints, not a whole band of Indians. One Indian—”

“I tol’ you everything I know,” the witness hollered.

The judge hammered his gavel sharply on the table. “You've had your try with this witness, Mr. Kelley. Return to your seat and leave well enough alone.”

As Mr. Phelps got up, he shouted at the room, “Me and my family don't have nothing 'gainst Indians long as they stay in their place. And no matter what that Indian lawyer says, we done told you the gospel truth.”

A lot of folks in the crowd clapped as the witness made his crooked, half-limping walk back to his seat. But I don't know why they clapped for him when they must have known, sure as I did, that he was outright lying. That he hadn't seen moccasin tracks, and maybe he hadn't seen any real tracks at all. Not a soul clapped for Peter Kelley sitting down, and it seemed to me he was the only one who was trying to find out the truth.

Up in front, Augustus Root called out in an easy voice, “Your Honor, my last witness is a trapper who was friends with the murdered man. He's setting outside waiting, if you'd like me to fetch him.”

“Bring him in.” The judge nodded.

But when the last witness walked into the cabin, dripping water from his hat, I know that my whole face must have turned as white as a cake of salt.

It was the same wretched, vulgar trapper who had once come to our door.

“Why's he here?” I hissed to Laura, but she shook her head.

“Mr. Granger,” Augustus Root said loudly after the trapper was sworn in. “Please tell us of your acquaintance with the dead man, if you would.”

The trapper's eyes darted from one corner of the room to the other. He coughed a little and wiped his sleeve across his nose. “Me and the dead trapper Gibbs, we was good friends, that's what we was. Been hunting and trapping together for years,” he added.

I squeezed my fingers together. I remembered the sixpence the trapper had tried to give to me. A sixpence to see the savage you got, he had said, and he hadn't breathed a word about the dead trapper being his friend.

Augustus Root kept on. “You weren't there the night he was killed?”

“Nossir. I was visiting a relation of mine.”

“But you saw his body after Mr. Phelps found it?”

“Yessir.” The trapper's eyes skipped over toward the jury. “It were an awful dreadful sight,” he added slowly and loudly.

The lawyer looked closely at the trapper. “Didn't you find something near the body of your friend that day?”

My skin prickled.

Something near the body…

I remembered how the trapper had run from our house with something hidden in his hand. Something he had taken from us. Or from Indian John.

In the front of the room, the trapper reached into his coat. “This here is what I found.” He coughed. “It was laying in the snow right next to the dead body of Gibbs.”

Everyone stood up to see what he held. The floor creaked beneath the weight of boots and feet. Clambering onto the chest, I could see that the trapper held the same brown twist of paper I remembered.

Only it wasn't paper.

“You can tell for yourselves it came right from that savage's head,” the trapper crowed. “Look at it.”

It was a brown hawk's feather.

I wanted to holler that the miserable trapper had stolen the feather from this very cabin. That I had seen it in his hand when we ran him out the door. That he was telling nothing but lies.

But as I stood on the top of the chest and gazed over the heads of all of the people crowded into our house, I could see that folks believed every word the trapper was saying. A whole roomful of bonnets and hats nodded. How could I open my mouth to tell them what I had seen? What would my Pa do to me if I did?

My voice stuck fast in my throat and wouldn't confess a word.

“Sit down,” Laura said, tugging on my hand. “Sit down, Reb. The judge is starting again.”

“That trapper stole the feather from Indian John,”
I hissed as I clambered down from the chest. “It wasn't in the snow—I saw it in his hand when you ran him out the door. Somebody's got to tell the judge what the trapper's done—” My voice rose above a whisper, and Mrs. Hoadley turned to stare at us from the depths of her old green bonnet.

“You hush.” Laura dug her fingers into my arm. “You just sit here and listen and keep quiet.”

“Didn't you see that feather in his hand?”

“You want to face Pa and his wrath?”

“Did you see it?” I kept on.

Laura looked away. “No,” she whispered. “Don't ask me again, no.”

I ducked my head down as stinging tears rose up in my eyes. I didn't want Indian John to be kilt because of me, because I didn't breathe a word about the trapper's lies. If Indian John was kilt, maybe it would be my debt to pay in heaven. …

In the front, Peter Kelley stood up to ask Mr. Granger his questions. He gave the trapper a long, silent stare. It was so long that folks started to shift in their seats and whisper, “What's the matter with him?”

I started to hope that maybe Peter Kelley knew exactly what I did—that the trapper had stolen the brown feather. Perhaps Indian John had told him the story or he had guessed it for himself.

“You a God-fearing man, Mr. Granger?” Peter Kelley said to the trapper.

“Yessir, I am.”

“You always tell the truth when you swear on the Bible?”

“Yessir, I do.”

“Did you ever visit Indian John while he was a prisoner in this cabin?”

I drew in my breath and Laura gave me a fierce stare, warning me not to say a word.

“Nossir,” the trapper answered.

I shook my head, and Laura pinched my arm. Hard. “Stop that,” she warned.

Peter Kelley's voice was low and angry. “Are you certain?” He gestured toward the crowd. “I think there are a few people who might have seen you visiting here.”

Laura gasped, and my face felt suddenly warm. Was Peter Kelley going to call on us?

The trapper shifted uncomfortably in his chair and glanced out at the crowd. “Come to think of it,” he said, coughing, “it was a while ago, but maybe I did.”

“So, you visited Indian John here?”

“Yessir, maybe so. But I don't recollect it real clear,” he said, coughing harder.

“Did you take anything from him?”

“Nossir. Nothing.”

“But if you visited here once, wouldn't it have been possible for you to take the feather from him then?” Mr. Kelley's voice rose. “And later say that you had found it near the body of your—”

Before the witness could answer, Augustus Root jumped up and hollered in his crackling old voice, “Stop this blasphemy, Your Honor!”

“Answer the question,” the judge said tiredly.

The trapper set his shifting eyes on Mr. Kelley. “I already told you that the feather was in the snow. I
ain't never seen it before or since, and I surely didn't take it from no savage's head.”

Everyone was lying. It was nothing but lies.

“No more questions.” Mr. Kelley finished, and my heart ached.

The judge pushed back his chair and stood up. Mr. Root's side of the case was over, he said, and after the noonday recess, Mr. Kelley would have his turn to call his witnesses. Some in the crowd hooted and laughed at the news.

“How many witnesses do you intend to call, Mr. Kelley?” the judge said.

“Just two, Your Honor,” he answered. “Only two.”

And the crowd hooted and laughed some more.

After folks left to eat their noonday meals, Mrs. Evans came over to talk to Laura and me. Settling herself on the edge of one of our beds, she rattled on and on about the evidence. “Ain't that lawyer Root something,” she said in her never-ending voice. “That savage ain't got a prayer in the world, does he? Not with that tomahawk and that feather they found from his very own head.”