Chapter XV: Counsel for the Defense

On the first Tuesday in September the open spaces in front and on the sides of the Tickfall courthouse filled up early with a crowd of negroes. It was the occasion of the opening of the criminal term of the district court, and all witnesses and talesmen were called to court for the trial of Hitch Diamond, charged with murder, against the peace and dignity of the commonwealth of Louisiana and the statutes made and provided.

The witnesses and talesmen already sat in the court-room, along with as many other people, mostly colored, as could squeeze in there. Even now, at nine o’clock in the morning, the heat of that ill-ventilated room was stifling, the odor was overpowering. Men sat on the bench seats, on the back of the benches, on the ledges of the windows; they stood in the aisles, in the corridors, on the stairways, and were ranged in rows along the soiled and dusty walls.

Inside the low railing which divided the room, and nearest to the chairs which the jurors were to occupy, Hitch Diamond sat at a long table with Goldie Curtain by his side. In that crowd of people, either white or black, Goldie was the one splotch of vivid coloring--her face and hands and neck a beautiful orange in color, and her half-caste beauty most striking and attractive. Hitch sat beside the table as stolid and indifferent as a wooden man, but Goldie trembled, her nervous fingers plaited in and out of each other like squirming snakes; she was scared and shrinking, pitiable and lonely.

Just outside the low railing sat Ginny Babe Chew and Dinner Gaze, directly behind the broad back of Hitch Diamond. Ginny slowly slapped at her fat face with a turkey-wing fan. Her big mouth was clamped shut like a steel trap, and her little green, greedy, pig eyes glared through the rolls of facial fat with baleful, condemning gaze upon everything and everybody around her.

A little farther away from Hitch, but on the same front seat with Ginny Chew and Dinner Gaze, sat the Reverend Vinegar Atts and Tucky Sugg.

There was a window behind the jury-box, so that the light falling over the heads of the jurors would fall full upon the faces of the witnesses as they sat in the chair, and would illumine every line in the faces of the lawyers as they presented their sides to the jury.

On the opposite side of the room there was another window, and within this window, sitting precariously on the ledge, was Pap Curtain. He had asked and obtained permission from Sheriff Flournoy to sit within the bar on the ground that it was his son-in-law who was being tried for his life.

Across from Hitch Diamond the district attorney sat at another long table to represent the cause of the State. Tall, urbane, white-haired, with the reputation of being a pitiless prosecutor of criminals, Dan Davazec was confident and jaunty. He fussed about busily, arranging and rearranging the table in front of him, shoving aside the water-pitcher, the ink-bottle, a pile of law-books with freckled-leather covers, as a battleship strips her decks for action.

“It’s a cinch, Sam,” he chuckled to the editor of the Tickfall _Whoop_. “Dead open-and-shut!”

Davazec had tried in vain to find a wife, or mother, or sisters of the night-watchman for whose murder Hitch Diamond was to be tried. He wanted somebody to lend force and eloquence to his plea by sitting before the jury dressed in black and wearing a long, thick mourning veil. But the murdered man apparently had no kinsmen, so Davazec lacked these eloquent figures of desolation and sorrow.

But the two owners of the Sawtown mill sat at the table beside Davazec, and the room in the rear of the judge’s bench was crowded with witnesses. Davazec felt the importance of his place and the certain triumph of his cause, and he swelled and expanded in his clothes at the thought of how helpful this day’s proceedings would be to him when he announced himself for reëlection.

From his office in the rear the judge entered the court-room, followed by a clerk bearing a few law-books and some sheets of paper and a large palm-leaf fan. Judge Haddan was a pale, sickly looking man with a weak voice, trembling hands, and stooped shoulders. But his head was massive and Websterian, and his eyes glowed like the eyes of some jungle beast. No man within the borders of the State commanded more respect as a lawyer and a jurist.

Hitch Diamond raised his massive head and eyed the judge with the stolid gaze of a stupid horse. Goldie gasped, and laced and interlaced her nervous fingers in her lap.

The opening ceremonies of the court were soon over. No one paid any attention to the few formalities, for they were all hastening to get at the thing of big interest.

The clerk called the case of the Commonwealth _versus_ Hitch Diamond.

“We are ready, your honor,” Dan Davazec said in his clear voice.

“Where is your counsel, Hitch Diamond?” Judge Haddan asked.

“I ain’t got none, boss,” Hitch answered.

“Do you wish me to assign you counsel?” Haddan inquired.

Hitch stood up and scratched his woolly head.

“Boss,” he said, in a sad tone, “one time when yo’ leetle gal got sick an’ you lived out on yo’ plantation in de country, I done you a leetle favor. Does you remember, boss?”

Haddan looked straight at Hitch Diamond while his nervous fingers drummed upon the arms of his chair. He seemed not to have heard what Hitch had said.

“Do you wish me to assign you counsel?” he asked again.

“Boss,” Hitch continued, “when yo’ little gal got sick, de water had done riz up an’ de Dorfoche Bayou wus seben miles wide--an’ you axed me to go atter de dorctor. I waded an’ swum dat bayou--I got acrost dat seben mile of water--I fotch de dorctor--an’ yo’ little gal got well. Boss, you tole me den, dat ef I ever needed any he’p, you would he’p me at any cost--an’ boss, befo’ Gawd, now is yo time!”

Hitch Diamond sat down at the table.

Involuntarily Judge Haddan looked at the State’s attorney; their eyes met, and Davazec murmured, “Don’t that nigger beat hell!”

“Do you wish me to assign counsel for you, Hitch?” Judge Haddan asked for the third time.

“Naw, suh, boss!” Hitch said. “I think you an’ me had better law dis case togedder!”

“Do you plead guilty or not guilty?” Haddan asked.

Hitch grinned.

“Ain’t dat jes’ whut we is come to try, boss?” he asked.

“The defendant pleads not guilty!” Judge Haddan announced with an amused grimace at the State’s attorney.

Then the clerk called the name of a talesman.

In an hour the jury was complete. Hitch Diamond left that work entirely in the hands of Dan Davazec and Judge Haddan. Whenever the judge excused a talesman from service, Hitch smiled, and felt that the judge was certainly winning the case for him!

Then for two hours the crowded court-room of people sat in breathless silence, while District Attorney Davazec drove nail after nail into the gallows which should hang Hitch Diamond. It was a savage and pitiless prosecution, not because of the efforts of Davazec, but because of the force of the testimony, developing a chain of evidence without a weak or missing link. The jurors, grim, silent, attentive, fixed their eyes upon each witness, and when the witness-chair was empty, they looked down at the floor.

Not one of them glanced at Hitch Diamond. Jurymen don’t like to watch a man whom they are making up their minds to condemn to death.

Hitch listened to the evidence without a word or question to a single witness. If Judge Haddan asked a question, Hitch grinned. He seemed never to comprehend the effect of the statements that were being made.

Dan Davazec arose and announced with dramatic emphasis:

“Your honor, the State closes!”

The crowd in the court-room drew a long breath; a humming murmur like a breeze in the tree-tops swept over the heads of the people.

Hitch Diamond arose.

“Boss,” he announced to the judge, “Mister Danny Davazec is shore done hisse’f proud, an’ all dem white men is tole de truth--as fur as dey knows it. I closes up de State’s case, too!”

A snicker sounded from the rear benches, where an assortment of white toughs and loafers had congregated for gratuitous entertainment.

The jury stared at the floor.