Free The Big Sky by A. B. Guthrie Jr. Page A

forward, and again the yellow queue swung. "The charge is assault and battery. No other accusation is before the court."
    "Let's git on with it, first," Judge Test said to Eggleston. "Ready for pleadin'?" There was a little buzz of whispers in the crowd and a shifting of butts on the benches. They sat forward, as if this was what they had been waiting for. While Boone looked, the man in the back nodded his head, as if to say everything would be all right.
    "You can come here," Squire Beecher said, not unkindly, and Boone left the witness chair and sat at the table by him.
    Beecher got up and stepped over in front of the jury and began to talk. His voice, lighter than Eggleston's, seemed to turn on and off like a spigot as he faced one way and then another. It was a sight, the way his pigtail joggled. Beyond him, through the window, was the tavern and, farther on, the woods against the sky and the sky itself clear and blue as water. Boone made out a bird against it, probably just a buzzard, but sailing free and easy like keeping up was no trick at all. The spigot turned on and off. "Only one man's word . . . No case has been proved . . . All that has been shown, all you can be sure of, is that a fight took place . . . In the circumstances you must resolve the doubt in favor of the defendant . . ." Out beyond the pole everybody was looking at Beecher, except when he pointed, and then the eyes all moved over, as if they were on a string, and bored at Boone. And everybody was listening, too, and sometimes smiling and sometimes frowning, and whispering once in a while. Maybe a man would find it easy enough to listen, to keep his mind to what was being said, if he was out there. Maybe it was right pleasant, watching and listening and not having fingers aimed at you and eyes putting holes through you, knowing you could get up and go any time you wanted to, to St. Louis or wherever. .., this innocent and friendless boy . . ." He didn't want anyone to be friends, unless it was Jim Deakins. And he wasn't a boy, but a man, growed and out on his own. ... ask the jury in its wisdom and mercy to return a verdict of acquittal."
    Beecher was sweating when he sat down.
    Eggleston lifted himself from his chair and went over toward the jury with his hands in his pockets and his head down. When he got there, though, the hands came out and the head lifted. His voice was loud, so that Boone could hear it plain, if he set himself to listening, no matter how Eggleston faced. Eggleston marched back and forth in front of the jurymen, his arms swinging. Once in a while he turned and pointed and fixed Boone with his whitish eyes, and, when he did, his voice boomed in Boone's ears, saying "ragged rascal" and "plain piece of banditry" and "murderous tramp." When he turned back his words hit the wall first and seemed to run like echoes in the room. Beyond him, - way beyond him, the buzzard was still circling, light as a feather, not moving its wings but just tilting, round and round, with the wind. Words came at Boone again, like rocks being pitched. He felt the eyes on him and his skin trying to be small inside his clothes. "I submit, gentlemen, that you can come to only one verdict, and that is the verdict of guilt." The arm swung over, like a loose limb in the wind. "Look at him! Look him over well! Ask yourselves what a man like this" -a finger pecked at his clothes- "would be doing with a piece like that." Then it was the echo again, bouncing from the wall. "The penalty, gentlemen, I leave to your good judgment."
    Eggleston turned around and went to his seat, giving Squire Beecher a smile on the way. Boone reckoned they were pretty good friends outside of court.
    Judge Test rapped once. "The jury can retire." They got up, stretching, and filed out. Through the window Boone could see them cross the street and go into the tavern. The crowd began to shuffle out, most of them making for the tavern, too. The Indian arose, his dark face still as set as a