been a doctor for a good many years now. From what you see, from what you know, what do you think the chances are?'
Leonard O'Doull's lips skinned back from his teeth in what wasn't a smile. 'I wish you hadn't asked me that, because now I have to answer it. From what I have seen, from what I know… I wish things were better, mon beau-pere. That's all I can say. I wish things were better.' He made a fist and brought it down on the desk.
'I will pray,' Galtier said. Here lately he'd been thinking he'd got ahead of life. His laugh held only bitterness. No one ever got ahead of life, not for long, and life had just reminded him of it. Why wasn't it me? he wondered. Dear God, why didn't You take me instead? That question had no answer. It never would.
IX
Jonathan Moss nodded to the military judge in front of him. 'Sir, no matter what the occupation codes say about collusion and incitement, my client is not guilty. The prosecutor hasn't introduced a single shred of evidence that Mr. Haynes either conspired against the United States, urged others to conspire or act against them, or, for that matter, acted against them himself in any way, shape, or form.'
The judge, a grim-faced major named Daniel Royce, said, 'Didn't you spend three years fighting against the Canucks?'
'Yes, sir, I did,' Moss answered. 'Right around here, as a matter of fact.'
'I thought as much,' Major Royce rumbled. 'Why the devil are you defending them now, in that case?'
'To make sure they get a fair shake, sir,' Moss said. 'Plenty of people just want to jump on them with both feet now that they're down. This conspiracy charge against my client is a case in point. It's utterly groundless, as you can see.'
'It is not!' yelped the military prosecutor, a captain surely too young to have fought in the Great War.
'Look at the evidence, sir, not the allegations, and you'll see for yourself,' Moss told Major Royce. He hadn't lied to the judge. He did dislike seeing Americans swarming up into Ontario and ravaging the conquered province like so many locusts. But his reply hadn't been the whole truth, either. What would Royce have said had he answered, Because I fell in love with a Canadian woman while my squadron's aerodrome was up by Arthur? The major looked to have been a formidable football player in his younger days. He would have drop-kicked Moss clean out of his courtroom.
Scowling still, the military judge shuffled through the papers in front of him. He picked up one sheet and carefully read through it. Even from the back, Moss recognized it. It was a statement he'd got from his client's neighbors, saying they'd never seen anyone visit Haynes' house at a time when the prosecutor claimed he was shaping a plot there against the USA. His hopes leaped.
Bang! went Royce's gavel. Everyone in the courtroom who'd seen combat started; the sudden noise was too much like a gunshot for comfort. 'I'm sorry, Captain, but I find myself agreeing with the defense attorney here,' the military judge said. 'I see no evidence of an offense against occupation regulations. Greed by people bringing the charges may be another matter. This case is dismissed. Keep your nose clean, Mr. Haynes, as you have been doing. You're a free man.' The gavel banged again.
'Thank you very much, your Lordship.' Paul Haynes sounded astonished that he wasn't heading for prison.
'I'm not a Lordship. You call me 'your Honor,' ' Judge Royce said. 'No more Lordships here, and a good thing, too, if you want to know what I think.'
'Thank you, your Honor, then,' Haynes said, not contradicting the military judge but not offering his own opinion, either. He turned to Jonathan Moss and stuck out his hand. 'And thank you very much. I didn't think you could bring it off.'
'You're not the only Canadian client I've had who's told me the same thing,' Moss answered. 'I'll tell you what I've told a lot of them-our courts will try you fairly if you give them half a chance.'
'I wouldn't have believed it,' Haynes said. 'I thought they'd lock me up and throw away the key when they brought those treason charges against me.'
In a low voice, Moss said, 'You'd be smart to follow the judge's advice and not give them any excuse to charge you again. If you come before the court a second time, they're liable to think that where there's smoke, there's fire, even if they did let you off the hook once before.' Listening to himself, he wondered how many cliches he could string together all at once.
'Wasn't any excuse to charge me this time,' Paul Haynes grumbled. But then he nodded. 'All right, Mr. Moss. I understand what you're telling me.'
'Good,' Moss said.
They left the courtroom together. Spring had been on the calendar for more than a month. Now, as April gave way to May, it was finally visible in Berlin, Ontario, too. The sky was blue, with only a few puffy white clouds drifting across it. The sun was, if not warm, at least tepid. It got up early and went to bed late. Trees were coming into new leaf. A robin chirped in one of them.
'You're a good fellow,' Haynes said. He didn't even add for a Yank, as so many Canadians might have done. 'I'll send you the rest of my fee soon as I can scrape the money together. You don't need to worry about that.'
'I wasn't worried,' Moss said, which was true. His Canadian clients reliably paid what they said they would when they said they'd do it. He wished the Americans he represented up here were as reliable.
Reporters were seldom allowed in military courts. Censorship still lay heavily on occupied Canada. Moss understood that without necessarily approving of it. Here in the street, a couple of newspapermen pounced on Paul Haynes. Moss slipped away before they could start grilling him, too. If they wanted him badly enough, they could run him down at his office. Meanwhile…
Meanwhile, he aimed to celebrate his victory in his own way. He got into his Bucephalus and pressed the starter button. The engine roared to life. A Bucephalus was a big, powerful motorcar. Owning one went a long way toward saying you were a big, powerful man. Owning a new one went a long way toward saying that, anyhow. Moss had owned this one when it was new. Here in the spring of 1928, it was anything but. One reason the engine roared was that it needed work he hadn't given it. The automobile's paint job and upholstery had seen better years. He had put new tires on it recently, but only because he'd got sick of patching the old ones when they blew out.
He put the car in gear and drove west out of Berlin. Roads were better than they had been when he first hung out his shingle in Ontario. The war, by now, had been over for ten and a half years. The roads the grinding conflict had cratered and pocked with shell holes were smooth once more-smoother than ever, in fact. Paving stretched for miles where only dirt had gone before.
About an hour after leaving Berlin, he drove through the much smaller town of Arthur, thirty miles to the west. Arthur hadn't bounced back from the war the way Berlin had. It lay off the beaten track. Few-hardly any- Americans came here with their money and their energy and their connections with the powers that be in the USA. But for a few more motorcars on the streets than would have been visible in 1914, time might have passed Arthur by.
A couple of people pointed to the Bucephalus as it rolled through town. Jonathan Moss saw one of them nod. They'd seen the motorcar before, many times. They had to know who he was. If a diehard wanted to take a shot at him… He shrugged. It hadn't happened yet. He wasn't going to start worrying about it now.
When he got to Laura Secord's farm, he found her where he'd expected to: out in the fields, plowing behind a horse about the size of a half-grown elephant. She must have seen his automobile pull in beside the farmhouse, but she didn't come in right away. The work came first. She'd stubbornly got a crop from the farm every year since the end of the war, and she didn't look like intending 1928 to be an exception.
Only after she'd done what she thought needed doing did she unhitch the enormous horse and lead him back toward the house and the barn. Moss got out of the Bucephalus and waved to her. She nodded back, sober as usual, but her gray eyes danced. 'You got Paul Haynes off, didn't you?' she said.
'Sure did. Not just a reduced sentence, either: full acquittal,' Moss said proudly. 'Don't win one of those every day, not from Major Royce.'
'That's… swell,' she said. The hesitation probably meant she'd almost said bully instead; the old slang died
