Chapter XII: Inspector Buckie's Narrative (2)

My plea was therefore based on the apparent confusion which brought a stone age savage before a civilized court, to be judged, not as he should be, by the sanctions and usages of savagery, but by the customs of a strange, a mysterious, an invading and hostile people. What chance would one of us have, tried by the unknown customs of the heavenly host before a court of angels? The jurors laughed at me.

So, with a stinging self-contempt I sat down, a total failure, knowing that the uttermost endeavors of my friendship had brought my friend just one step nearer to a shameful death.

I am at best a poor interpreter of La Mancha's actions. His character was built upon a scale beyond my measurements, beyond, I think, the standards by which the common run of men must estimate affairs. There are hill districts of India where a respectable woman must keep several husbands; of North America where a church elder may have several wives without affronting his neighbors; of the Appalachian Mountains where a man who shirks the slayings of his family blood-feud earns the contempt of his mother; and the world has never seen such ferocious dueling to the death as that considered right in the southwestern states. The standards of the old England or the new quite fail to take the measurements of even our fellow-citizens; and the whole world's moralities are local to times and places, not pivots on which the planets are swung by eternal law.

So there are men whose lives are guided by sanctions of a conscience above the plane where I obey, who are the clean, effective and useful instruments of powers far beyond my understanding. I should need to be Cæsar before I could justly wield a Roman Empire, levying wars to purge distracted provinces, or milling nations between the millstones of an over-crowded peace.

Perhaps the reader knows whether my friend La Mancha did right or wrong. I don't.

And so the judge summed up:

"I am here," he said, "gentlemen of the jury, as an authority on the common law and an impartial umpire to instruct you before you give your judgment.

"The prisoner's friend disclaimed the right of this court to deal with Indians as British subjects. I find that the prisoner's friend has misread the treaty made by Her Majesty with the Blackfoot nation. This man is subject to the common law.

"He was brought here as an innocent man, charged with capital felony, free to prove his innocence and entitled to go back to the world, with your verdict establishing his character before all mankind.

"He told you that he is guilty. You have heard the overwhelming evidence of the facts confessed. But is he guilty? Is he sane and responsible for these proven felonies? On that you must pass your judgment and give your verdict. He confessed himself a public danger, but if he is insane the public must be guarded while he remains, during the queen's pleasure, under medical treatment.

"The defense raises a second question equally grave. It is an axiom that ignorance of the law excuseth no man; but, gentlemen, an axiom, like a diamond, may be hard, impure and flawed. How can we expect this savage to comprehend our statutes, obey our ordinances and enjoy our liberties? And yet, apart altogether from the customs of our people expressed in common law, deep down at the foundation of all human life, is that instinctive universal wisdom which proclaims that for the common good the slayer should be slain. Even the plea of native red Indian custom condemns this man, surrendered by his tribesmen to our justice.

"Next, we have to consider an appeal to something in us all more potent than our reason, a trait of man not human but divine, our sense of pity. You have, no doubt, been moved, as I was, swayed out of all reason, by the prisoner's fine sincerity, his perfect manliness, his unusual argument, the purity of his thought, the rare beauty of its expression. This man is not, as the Crown pleads, brutal or depraved, but, as our hearts claim, noble. We have to deal, not with a common felon convicted of mere outrage, but with a man, moved by barbaric warrior motives to acts of war against us. My impulse, and yours, if I read you rightly, is to pardon.

"Yet pardon, in such a case as this, would gratify sentiment at the cost of a solemn duty to the state. As citizens, we may not expose our fellow-citizens to the free activities of native gentlemen with a taste for collecting scalps. The prisoner belongs to the fiercest tribe of savages in the Americas, if not in the world, and they must not be encouraged to hope that we are sentimentalists to be killed and scalped by Blackfoot connoisseurs. For the sake of your women and children, you must do your duty.

"And it is not for pardon that this plea is made. The prisoner dreads the slavery of imprisonment more than he fears the gallows. His only claim is the solemn demand for a death of honor. This, gentlemen, I am sure we would all be glad to grant if it were only possible. But I fear that death by fusillade is a grace beyond the powers of this court, beyond the authority of government, and possible only by a special act of the Dominion parliament. Here again sentiment beats in vain against high walls of reason. I can only warn you that in practise your recommendation to mercy involves for the prisoner that which he most dreads--imprisonment for life.

"To sum up: the prisoner is liable under the law, he is guilty of capital felony, and the sole point left open to your judgment is whether he must be held responsible for his actions. If you find him sane, you have only one verdict--guilty."

The case was so clear that the jury did not retire, but, after a brief consultation, gave their verdict, "The prisoner is guilty."

Strongly moved, visibly reluctant, the judge told me to ask the prisoner if he had any reason to offer why sentence should not be pronounced.

I asked leave to explain in Blackfoot to the prisoner all that had transpired. I had leave. But now I had not the heart to repeat what my friend knew to the uttermost. I dared not whisper in English, words failed me in Blackfoot. All I could say was, "Be brave, be strong." Then I broke down and La Mancha laughed at me. His soft, low, rippling laughter startled the silent court. Then he said out loud in Blackfoot:

"Poor old chap! I'll have to help you out somehow. You've got to pretend to tell me something. Say the Lord's Prayer."

And so we prayed together in Blackfoot, while I could scarcely speak for tears, or he for laughter, I in my cowardice, he in the greatness of his valor.

"Our Father," I muttered.

"Which art in Heaven," he laughed; and so, with alternate phrases, while the crowd waited in awful silence. And then I said the _Gloria_.

"Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace, good-will toward men. We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we worship Thee, we give thanks to Thee for Thy great Glory, O Lord God.... Have mercy upon us ... for Thou only art holy.... Thou only, O Christ...."

I had my courage, and stood back, telling the judge to go on, for the prisoner was ready.

"Convey these words," he said, and his voice quivered. "The prisoner will stand."

"He shall not stand," I said. "He can not stand."

"Prisoner," I repeated the words in Blackfoot, "you will be taken back to the place from which you have come, and there you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead. And may the Lord have mercy on your soul."

Then I heard the prisoner whispering in Latin:

"Into Thy hands, O Lord, into Thy hands!"

V

On the morning after his trial the prisoner sent for a priest, who confessed and shrived him, taking his word that he would not again make any attempt at suicide. So we were able to release him from the shackles that chained his wrists and ankles to the floor, and to give him the liberty of the cell. I sent in furniture, and arranged for food from the officers' mess--eccentric conduct, confirming the general idea that I was cracked.

As long as there was something to be done, I had not time to worry, and the time we have for worrying is the greatest curse we know in our little lives. My friend sent his priest to tell me that he had confessed, so with the holy father I had no need for further secrecy. Sharing a secret takes away half the strain.

And at this time I shared no secrets with Brat. He went his own dour way and I went mine, because we dared not be seen in conference. After the trial he went on furlough, by doctor's orders, returning on the eve of the execution completely restored to health.

Sam twitted me in his nice way for my sentimental conduct, hinting at duties apart from those which needed a cap and apron. He visited the prisoner himself, talking in the sign language, telling stories of Sitting Bull, Spotted Tail, Crowfoot and other mighty chiefs he had known in the early days. My officer commanding was a great gossip, a great disciplinarian, soldier, magistrate, administrator, tyrant, friend--nothing by halves. He called me a fool for being sentimental, and furtively smuggled bottles of port to the cell by way of a tonic, to give his prisoner strength for the coming ordeal. Then he chaffed me, and his tongue raised blisters.

"Buckie," he said once, "do you remember a young chap we called the Blackguard?--La Mancha's brother. He was killed arguing with a horse. This Charging Buffalo reminds of him somehow. We'll have him fat before we kill him, Buckie."

No horse or man ever escaped Sam's memory.

"Buckie," said the prisoner, "I don't like fooling Sam."

"Trust him to the limits. But how about the Brat? A scandal would spoil his chance of being inspector?"

"I remember, Buckie, once, when he was a very wee brat, he woke from a dream, screeching as if there were no hereafter. 'Oh, Mummie, Mummie!' he sobbed, 'a fox has biten off my tail, and a sluggard's in my bed!' You know, he wouldn't make a good inspector."

"Don't spoil his chance."

"Well, perhaps not." Then, with a whimsical sigh, "You see, I've lost even my taste for scandals."

The condemned cell had become for me the one place free from worries, for in my dear friend's presence I felt as though I had followed him into rest. Sadness made him laugh, and laughter jarred him. All who came near him were hushed, as in the presence of death, and we seemed transparent to his eyes, which were lost in impenetrable shadows. He was no longer habitant of this earth, but lived among things invisible. He told me that Rain was always at his side, that she would stroke his hair and give delicious mimicry of my voice and manner. "I begin to see," he said, "through veils which grow thin toward the light.

"You know, Buckie, that when a gun is fired, or lightning flashes miles and miles away, you wait and count the seconds until you hear the crash. There's not really an instant between flash and bang, but we have an illusion which we call time. It does not exist. Time's only a thing we imagine: the pause between flash and bang."

"The flash and bang of what?"

"Suppose it is a word, proceeding out of the mouth of God, which bids your soul to serve. Between the blaze and the report you enter time, born, living, gone, and all the long revolving years between of happiness and sorrow, sin and penance, the passions, loves, ambitions, triumphs, failures, from birth to death exist within this instant we call a human life. We are like falling stars, the meteor stones which rush through the eternities of space unseen, unknown, save for the moment's blazing transit of earth's atmosphere. But we are spirits lit by a word of God."

"Burned!"

"Yes. Dirt and water will make your mud, but it takes heat and pressure to turn common stuff to gems, burning for stars, torture to create poor creatures like ourselves into immortal spirits, and God alone knows what terrific ordeal exalts His angels until they can exist triumphant in His presence. I am ready, waiting, impatient, filled with ambitions I hardly dare to think of. The light is blinding."

"Aren't you afraid?"

"Awed, rather. I shall leave fear behind me. The blind are made to see, the dead are raised, we poor have the Gospel preached to us. Blessed are the blind, the poor, the dead, for even in Christ shall all be made alive, and death is swallowed up in victory."

So, rapt in contemplation, this dying felon saw not the walls which imprisoned his body, but visions of immeasurable grandeur through the wide gates of death.

VI

It would be morbid to dwell in detail on the last days, when many Indians were permitted to see the prisoner, when the men of D Troop who had hunted him to this death shook hands at parting, when the priest and I by turns sat with him while through the long hours we could hear the hammers at work upon the scaffold across our barrack square. At the very end of that, in the dusk, when our time came to part, I knelt to receive his blessing. Afterward, I sent my servant for Black Prince, and being off duty, spent most of the night out on the plains, where I could be alone. The stars were very bright, and on the uplands a touch of summer frost turned all the grass to silver. So the dawn broke, and far away I heard reveillé sound, like a great throbbing prayer cleaving the skies.

The whole Blood and North Piegan tribes had been assembled to witness the public execution of the Indian who had dared to levy war against empire. The chiefs and medicine men of the South Piegans, stanch friends of Charging Buffalo as the adopted son of Medicine Robe, had come across from Montana to see his passing. Even some of the North Blackfeet and the Stonies had traveled the hundred miles or so from their reserves. All had pitched their teepees on the banks of Old Man's River, and in the daybreak I rode homeward through a camp of the Blackfoot nation worthy of earlier times.

It was broad daylight when I reached my quarters, with time for a bath and coffee. Fear of possible excitement among the Blackfeet had made it necessary to rally our men from the detachments, and muster a general parade of the division to hold the barrack square and guard the scaffold. I went on duty, took the parade and reported to the officer commanding.

The prisoner, thanks to very careful nursing, had been well enough these last few days to walk, taking even a little exercise, although he had not strength to stand at his full height. He was bent like an old man, and when he left his cell would wrap himself in his large blanket, which formed a sort of cowl hiding his face. Civilians would come and stare, and he resented that.

Now, leaning on the priest's arm, he came out from the guard-house, attended by the guard, who formed up round one of our transport wagons which stood in waiting. At my request, a pair of steps had been placed as a mounting-block, from which, with the priest, he entered at the tail of the wagon. The teamster was my junior counsel, and in the off man's place sat the fellow chosen as hangman, wearing civilian clothes and a silk mask.

As the team started at a slow walk, the prisoner commenced to sing his death-song after the Indian usage, but the priest, as I learned afterward, asked him to stop, saying that the Blackfeet would understand, but white men would think him afraid. In a dead silence the wagon crossed the parade ground and backed to the scaffold, which was level with its bed. Then the priest lifted the prisoner, supporting him until they came under the gallows. The hangman joined them, carrying the white cap which was to be drawn over the prisoner's head, hiding his face.

I remember steeling myself to see the common-place details, and to see nothing else, to think of nothing else. A night of preparation had strengthened me to face as best I could the public and shameful death of the one man on earth I loved. Even now I could not bear to look toward that group on the scaffold, but turned about, surveying the hollow square of our parade formation, the dense mass of Indians surrounding the barrack fence, the crowd of white men. Then I heard a sudden tremendous gasp of amazement, of general consternation, and a single triumphant voice rang out from the scaffold.

I turned, could not believe my eyes, stared wonder-struck; then ran as hard as I could pelt toward the platform.

The prisoner, with one great sweeping gesture, rose to his full height, lifting the blanket apart until he held it behind him with widely outstretched arms, disclosing the scarlet tunic, breeches and gleaming boots, the four gold chevrons on his forearms of a staff-sergeant. The blanket dropped; he snatched away the long gray braids of hair, and cast at his feet a wig. There, with his curly raven-black hair, his laughing eyes and milk-white teeth, in the prime of radiant health, laughing hysterically, was Brat la Mancha!

"Drugged!" he yelled. "He wouldn't go, but I drugged him. He's escaped! He's in Montana by now!"

Sam had leaped on the scaffold before I got there, and never have I seen a man in such a blazing rage as my commanding officer was then. "What does this mean?" he asked through his teeth.

Brat stood to attention, beaming with an outrageous benevolence. "It means, sir," he answered joyfully, "that the prisoner was my brother."

"Your brother!"

"Yes, sir; Ex-constable José de la Mancha, my brother, who changed places once with me when I was a prisoner. It's my turn now, sir. Hang me!"

"By the Lord God!"

"To Him, sir," answered Don Pedro haughtily, "you will leave my brother. I am your prisoner."

THE END