Free Crooked River by Shelley Pearsall

doorway of the cabin, slowly cutting up a bowl of potatoes and keeping an eye out for Pa and the boys, who had gone to the settlement. Mercy played on the floor behind me.
    I tried to decide what to say to Mr. Kelley before he left. Should I warn him about Mr. Perry and the other men? Tell him everything I had overheard in the store? Was it blasphemous to repeat the words my brother Amos had said about the trial? Or should I just keep silent, as my Pa always said I ought to do?
    At the sound of Mr. Kelley's footsteps, my heartthudded in my chest and my mouth felt dry as ashes. I could not think of what words to say. The questions tossed to and fro in my mind. He would surely think I was a half-wit or a fool if I spoke. And how could I go against my Pa and the men?
    I ran my tongue across my lips. As Mr. Kelley was tucking the brown book back into his haversack, I stammered quickly “Will you win, do you think?” It was not the question I was fixing to ask, but it was the only one that came out.
    “Win?” He squinted at me.
    “The trial,” I said.
    Peter Kelley's forehead wrinkled up as if he was thinking what to say, and his serious brown eyes stared at me for what seemed like a long time before he replied. I reckon maybe he didn't want to answer on account of who my Pa was and what I might tell him.
    But finally, he said, “Yes, Miss Rebecca. I will win.”
    His voice was as sure and solid as a block of stone, and I had to swallow hard when I heard it because I figured he didn't know a thing about Mr. Perry and the men.
    “What if the men aim—” I paused, praying that Pa would never find out what I did. “What if the men aim, well, to cause you trouble?” I said in a voice that was almost a whisper.
    “Trouble?”
    “At the trial,” I mumbled. “Because of you, well, defending an Indian.”
    Mr. Kelley slung his haversack over his shoulder and gave me a wide easy grin. “I don't expect thejudge or the sheriff would stand for that,” he said with a shrug. “And if someone didn't serve as the lawyer for the Indian's side, what sort of trial would there be?”
    Peter Kelley ducked through the doorway and was gone before I could tell him what my brother had said. Or that, truth be told, the sheriff for the Crooked River settlement might not help him either. He was one of my Pa's good friends. And he was none too fond of Indians either, from what I knew.
    But perhaps Peter Kelley was right. Perhaps the judge would be on his side.
    in my mind
    i hear the words
    of Red Hair
    telling me how it will be.
    when I am brought
    to the trial
,
    i will stand before a judge
    and twelve other white men
    who will decide
    right and wrong.
    i do not understand
    i tell my old friend.
    if an Indian murders a man
,
    it is the man's family—
    brothers, sons, fathers—
    who decide
    right and wrong.
    they are the only ones who know
    what should be done.
    why would a white chief
    and twelve strangers
    take revenge for a murder
    that has not happened to them?
    i ask.
    Red Hair says it is the law
    of the white men
—
    they must prove
    that i am guilty of the crime.
    but i am not guilty
    i tell Red Hair
,
    and if they asked the family
    of the murdered man
    they would know
    i speak the truth.
    my friend sighs and tells me
    that after i see it
    with my own eyes
    and listen
    with my own ears
,
    i will understand
    the fair justice
    of the white man.

June 1812
    The judge arrived a few days before the trial was set to begin.
    It was the first week of June when he came riding into our settlement. The weather had been warm and dry, and the corn had been in the ground for a good while. The beets and potatoes were already coming up in the garden, and we had more onions than we cared to eat.
    Our gossiping neighbor Mrs. Evans was the one who came barreling down the path to our house to tell us the judge had arrived.
    Hammering her big knuckles on the door frame to get our attention, Mrs. Evans gasped, out of breath,“That judge we been