Chapter III: Mountain Justice

“_Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!_” droned the judge. “I hereby declare this justice court open. Hawkins, state your case against the prisoner.”

“Well, suh, I was runnin’ a line two mile west o’ here. Heard two sort o’ _swishes_! From uphill. Knowed ’em to be gunshots muffled by a silencer. Looked up an’--here comes a fat buck just a-swappin’ ends, straight at me! I squatted down in the bushes an’ waited an’ purty soon along come this fella an’ begun butcherin’ the buck. So I gethered him in an’--here he is an’ yonder’s the buck. Reckon it’d be better off in the ice house, judge, pendin’ settlement o’ the case.”

“Not much settling needed!” snapped Carter, authoritatively. “Killing game out of season, on my land! Too bad the old venery laws don’t hold nowadays. By George! They hung riff-raff like this, in England and France, not so long ago!”

“Shore did!” nodded Hawkins, the deputy, blandly. “_I_ read about that in my li’l’ red school books, too. All it took to hang a commoner was just the testimony o’ some--uh--_noble_. Funny old times, wasn’t they? Funny how lots o’ names, to-day, show just about where our great-great-grandfathers stood in the world.

“Take the name ‘Bowyer,’ just for instance: nowadays, it’s just anybody’s name. But them times, it was the name o’ fellas that made bows. ‘Carter,’ too--that was a pore devil that drove a cart for some rich man----”

“Look here!” snarled Carter, his heavy jowls empurpling like an irate turkey gobbler’s, Bud thought amusedly. “Are you insinuating----”

“Suh,” interrupted Hawkins, very softly, but with a steel-blue eye hard upon the foreigner, “I never insinuate anything. I just don’t do such. I speak my piece right out in meetin’ for the good o’ the congregation’s soul.”

“Order in the court! Order in the court!” droned Ben Lingo, staring hard at the wall again, with that telltale twitch of the throat muscles. “Well, Bud? Anything to say for yourself?”

Bud stared stonily straight ahead. Lot of use to say anything in this court! With the judge his father’s bitter enemy, his verdict was sure enough. But, in addition, this fellow Carter would be satisfied with nothing less than the harshest penalty of the law, and Ben Lingo, wanting to unload a section of mountain land upon the foreigner, couldn’t afford to cross him.

“Let’s see that Savage, Hawkins,” commanded the judge, when Bud made no reply. “H’mm--mighty purty gun. This silencer gadget is shore keen. Well, Bud, there’s a mighty foul barrel, here--what about it?”

“Nothin’ to say!” snarled Bud. “I ain’t admittin’ an’ likewise I ain’t denyin’ a thing. But I’m remindin’ you that this fella never saw me kill that buck. For all he knows, I might just’ve heard the shots, same as he did, an’ come down just to grab the meat for Aunt--just to grab the meat.”

“Yep,” nodded the judge, without change of expression. “Yep.”

Hawkins grinned at Bud, entirely without malice. Carter snorted.

“Likely lie, isn’t it?” he snapped. “I think we aren’t to be taken in by it, Lingo. He’s guilty as hell!”

“It’s the best judgment o’ this court that you killed that buck, Bud,” droned Lingo. “With a rifle like this here, you sure wouldn’t miss. Lincoln County knows you ain’t much on missin’, anyhow. Shootin’ an’ horse bustin’ are the two things nobody in this neighborhood can touch you at.

“No--you wouldn’t be over here, packin’ a high-powered rifle with a silencer, except to kill a deer--unless ’t was to take a shot at me, mebbe?”

He stared very straight and hard at Bud.

“Listen! Any time _I_ take a shot at you, it’ll be fair an’ square!” cried Bud hotly. “It’ll be in the open. Anyhow, you an’ me got no row, Ben Lingo--not yet!”

“Then ’t was the buck you was after,” nodded Lingo. “H’mm--it’s this court’s judgment that you’re guilty as charged. The lawr says the first offense shall be punished by a fine o’ fifty dollars or by appropriate term o’ imprisonment. Take charge o’ the prisoner, Hawkins. Take the deer to my ice house, too. Lawr says it has got to be destroyed or give to the pore. I reckon we can find some pore family that’ll be glad to have it----”

Inquiringly, he looked at Carter, who nodded vigorous approval of the heavy fine.

Bud was white-faced. He was going to jail. No Ranger had ever known that shame. He had always known, of course--for this was by no means the first, or the tenth, buck he had killed out of season--that “the lawr” provided fine or jail term for violation. But when old Bart Black was deputy game warden, he had more than once loaned Bud a horse to pack home venison; had himself taken each time a quarter of the kill.

Game laws were hardly considered by these mountain men, descendants of the independent pioneers who had tamed the hills. A deer was to them, as it had been to their grandfathers, _meat_ and that was all. When the deer fed upon their pastures, it was pretty hard lines if a fellow couldn’t kill one, occasionally.

To make matters worse for Bud, there was Brother, still imprisoned on the mountain. No chance to get away from this efficient ex-Ranger lounging behind him, to release Brother. No--there was nothing to do, now, but throw himself and Brother into the enemy’s hands; to tell of Brother’s predicament. That meant two of them going down to jail.

Bud glared at Ben Lingo. The slick old devil! Sitting up there holding that fat face of his straight as a preacher’s--just as if he weren’t tickled stiff at this chance to hit Red Ike Ranger through his son.

“Couple of months in the cooler is just what he needs!” Carter said emphatically. “I tell you, Lingo, civilization is certainly coming to this section! I intend to show these people that I, for one, don’t mean to tolerate their wild western ways for one minute. I----”

“Judge Lingo!” Bud interrupted the lecture with a cold-toned call. “’Tain’t in the deal that I have to be talked to death, is it? An’ if we can get out o’ this wind a minute, or stop it, or somethin’, I got to tell you that----”

“Lots o’ time, Bud! Lots o’ time!” interrupted Lingo, impatiently. “Talk to you after a while. Take him outside, Hawkins, will you? Now, Mr. Carter, about them deeds----Will you get the papers out o’ your room, ready for us to go over?”

Carter, after a wrathful glare at Bud, nodded and went out. Ben Lingo came waddling outside, to where Hawkins stood easily alert and not too close to Bud’s clenching and unclenching fists.

“Brother----” Bud began again.

“Ne’ mind! I’ll do a little talkin’, before you start!” grunted Ben Lingo. “Now, you’re owin’ the State an’ this here justice court the sum o’ fifty dollars. Got it?”

“Got nothin’ but the rifle, here. But that’s worth more’n the whole fine.”

“Don’t want the rifle. H’mm--well, looks like you got to work the fine out, Bud. H’mm. It’s jail, or else---- You want to bust some horses for me? Five dollars a day till the twenty-five’s worked out?”

“Twenty-five?” repeated Bud, stupidly. “What d’you mean? The fine was fifty.”

“Why, as justice, I take half the fine for my fee. I don’t have to collect it unless I want to an’--I don’t want to, off’n you, Bud. Five dollars a day, until the twenty-five dollars are worked out an’ then----

“If you ain’t takin’ your pa’s war talk too serious--he’ll ca’m down after a spell--how about sixty-five a month an’ house an’ board, as my foreman? You see, Bud, it’s like this: I had to let Slim Thorne go. Sudie May, she never liked him an’ he was no hand with horses. Besides, he was beginnin’ to hit the old red-eye too frequent. So Slim, he went down Roswell way, day before yeste’day----”

Bud gaped at the still, red face, the twinkling little blue eyes: “Well, I--well, if you really mean it, I--I shore live up your street, judge! But now, I got to get upriver, hellbent! Brother is----”

“First thing you do is to get you a horse out o’ my corral an’ ride up toward Monument Rock. You see, Bud, I was on the ridge above there, this mornin’. Seemed to me like there’d been somebody--well, trespassin’. I’m so blame’ fat, these days, I made a noise slippin’ in the bushes, I reckon. Anyhow, you look into it, Bud. I told Sudie May an’ Rod Kendall to ride up that a-way, a while ago, to see about it. If you should happen onto ’em----”

He turned and waddled hurriedly back to the house. Bud was racing toward the log corral when Ben Lingo’s hail halted him. The fat figure was framed in the doorway, like a great, benignant Buddha:

“Hey, Bud! About that deer--lawr says it has got to go to some pore family. Try to be thinkin’ o’ somebody as really needs it, will you, Bud?

“An’ say, Bud! If--if you should happen to stumble onto Sudie May an’ Rod Kendall, why, tell Rod I want that he should hightail it back here _right now_, will you, huh?”

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the May 5, 1928 issue of Top-Notch magazine.]