Free Crooked River by Shelley Pearsall Page A

waiting for is here. My husband seen him with his own eyes.”
    If you ranked men in order of importance, the most important man to meet would likely be the president, next the governor, and right after that would be the traveling judges who came for the court days.
    Since none of us had a prayer of ever meeting President Madison and not likely Governor Meigs either, everyone was always anxious to get a glimpse of the judges when they passed through our settlement like minor kings. They always had fine-cut frock coats from the city, handsome riding horses, and a collection of mysterious leather bags and round portmanteaus tied to their saddles.
    “It's Judge James Randolph Noble,” Mrs. Evans continued. “That's what my husband said.”
    Judge James Randolph Noble.
    I don't know why, but hearing his fancy name gave me some hope. I pictured the judge in his flowing black robes, looking like Moses giving out the Ten Commandments. A judge named James Randolph Noble would see to it that justice was done for Peter Kelley and Indian John, surely he would.
    Mrs. Evans, who was an everlasting talker, said the courtroom for the judge was being set up under the big shady tree next to Mr. Perry's store. “Anybody who can fill up a foot of space and put the fear of God in that wretched savage is invited to come and hear it, they says—even women and children and babes in arms,” Mrs. Evans rattled on.
    Mrs. Evans peered at us. “I reckon both of you is gonna be there with your Pa and brothers, ain't you?”
    When me and Laura didn't answer, Mrs. Evans leaned forward, eyeing us more closely. “Now you ain't just gonna stay here in your old house, are you? Don't you want to see that Indian get his comeuppance for what he done? Setting here by yourselves won't be half as good as watching all that.”
    She shook her finger at Laura. “You just tell that Pa of yours to let you come and watch. I don't see why Major Carver would find fault with letting his girls come to a savage's trial. You tell him Mrs. Evans will keep an eye on you. Just tell him that.” She turned to leave. “And I'm gonna borrow one of your milk buckets while I'm here, too, if you don't mind.”
    And without waiting to hear a word from us, she headed out the door in the direction of our barn and was gone.
    After Mrs. Evans left, Laura heaved a deep sigh. “I don't care to go to that trial at all,” she said. “Let everybody leave us to ourselves. You and me, we'll take a pinch or two of loaf sugar and make some fancy little cakes in the reflector oven. Like the ones Ma used to have for company. And we'll put on our good bonnets and find a place to sit near the cabin, and we'll drink green tea and eat our fancy little cakes. Let Pa and the men do what they will.”
    To tell the honest truth, I didn't want to see the trial either. I knew what Peter Kelley had told me— how he was going to win. And I knew what my Pa and the settlement all believed. And I knew that Judge James R. Noble was there to see that fair justice was done. Looking at it from all of these directions,I believed that nothing good could possibly come out of the trial for anyone.
    But Pa wouldn't hear of us staying home.
    “Carvers is gonna be at the trial,” he said when Laura tried to reason with him at supper that night. She told him that we were planning to do some baking and keep an eye on Mercy rather than going to watch the trial proceedings.
    “You just bring Mercy along with you and make her mind,” he said in a hard voice. “And you make your bread and such some other day. All of us is gonna be at the trial.”
    the gichi-mookomaanag
    paint my face
    in crooked stripes.
    they take me
    from the place
    that floats above the ground.
    outside
    i lift up my head
    and smell the corn
    growing in the fields
    and the fish
    swimming in the rivers
    and the wild red berries
    turning full and ripe
    in the woods.
    i hear the deer moving
    with their fawns
    and the snapping turtles
    coming up