turns out that I was right. Gillespie, Peters, Baker, and the others—they are all gone now. Gone without so much as one cow or one acre to their name. Quentin owns it all.”
“Do you find fault with Mr. Quentin for that?”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Do you blame Mr. Quentin for the fact that these other gentlemen you mentioned lost their property?”
“You damn right I do,” Colby said resolutely. “He stole that land from them as sure as if he had done it with a gun.”
Gilmore turned toward the judge. “Your Honor, dismiss for cause. It is clear that there is some animosity between this juror and the father of the victim.”
“You may step down, Mr. Colby,” McCabe said. “You are dismissed from this jury.”
Gilmore dismissed two more of the potential jurors, both of whom had had run-ins with Billy Ray, and Murchison dismissed two of the jurors who were currently cowboys working for the Tumbling Q. They finally ended up with a panel of twelve.
“Those jurors who have been dismissed may stay as spectators, but you are to have no contact with the remaining jurors,” McCabe said. He looked over toward Gilmore. “Mr. Prosecutor, you may give your opening statement now. Make your case.”
Gilmore walked over to the jury. “Hello, Greg,” he said to the first juror. “Is your wife going to enter her plum jam in the county fair this year?”
The juror smiled. “Yes, sir, she sure is. You know Alice. Her plum jam has won a blue ribbon for the last three years running.”
“As it should have. I know it’s certainly the best I’ve ever eaten.” Gilmore smiled. “In fact, I had it on a biscuit for breakfast this morning. I’m sure she’ll do well again this year.”
Gilmore turned to the next man. “Good afternoon, Adam, how is little Sterling doing? I know he broke his arm. Is it healing up all right?”
“His arm is coming along just fine,” Adam replied. “He complains that the cast makes it itch all the time.”
Gilmore chuckled. “Oh, indeed, it will certainly do that. I remember that I broke my arm when I was about the same age as young Sterling is now. I fell off the roof of the barn. But you just remind him how good it will feel when he can finally get the cast off and scratch.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll do that,” Adam said.
Gilmore went on down the line, speaking to every other member of the jury in the same way, calling each of them by name and making some personal comment, either about them, or about someone in their family.
“Now, fellas,” he said, after he had spoken to each one of them individually, “in a few minutes, that man sitting behind the table over there”—Gilmore pointed to Murchison—“the counsel for the defense, is going to give you his opening statement. No doubt, he is going to begin by addressing you as ‘gentlemen of the jury.’
“He has to do that, you understand, because he doesn’t know you. He is a stranger to our town, and it will be a stranger who addresses you.”
Gilmore pointed to Pearlie.
“A few days ago, the defendant was also a stranger to our town. None of us had ever heard of him. But he is certainly not a stranger any more. By now, everyone in town knows him, and knows the evil deed he did. You see, nine days ago the defendant, this—spawn of Cain—came into town, had a few drinks, got into a card game, and became so enraged over what was happening in that game that he killed—no—he murdered Billy Ray Quentin.
“I knew Billy Ray. All of you knew Billy Ray. In fact, I would go so far as to say that everyone in town either knew him or knew of him. We knew him because he was the son of Mr. Pogue Quentin, who is, arguably, the wealthiest man and the leading citizen of our fair city.”
Gilmore paused in his presentation and looked pointedly toward Quentin, inviting everyone else to look as well.
“More importantly, my fellow citizens of Santa Clara, we knew him because Billy Ray was one of us. He was full of life, and I dare say that at one time or another his antics gave all of you something to laugh about, either with him—or at him. Oh, don’t misunderstand; I know Billy Ray wasn’t always a ‘hail fellow well met’ type person. I would be the first to admit that Billy Ray could be a bit of a rascal on occasion. He liked to drink, and when he was drunk, he could sometimes be somewhat overly rambunctious. And just as all of us laughed at and with him from time to time, I’m sure that all of us became angry with him just as often.
“But none of us ever got so angry at Billy Ray that we killed him.”
Gilmore pointed to Pearlie.
“No, sir. That bit of malevolence was left to be perpetrated by a stranger.”
Gilmore was quiet for a moment. Then he shouted the next sentence so loudly that it made some of the people in the jury jump. “This man!” he shouted. “This man, who will admit only to the name of Pearlie, came into our town and took one of our own from us!”
Again, he was quiet for a long moment. When he resumed speaking, his voice was much quieter and well modulated.
“Today, each one of you has been called upon to perform a solemn task. You are being asked to decide the fate of another human being. The decision you make here could mean that this man will be required to forfeit his life, and no decision you will ever make in your life will be graver or more awesome than this.
“But when you render your decision, I want you to consider something. You are not doing it alone. This murderer will have a lawyer to plead for him. This murder will have a jury to hear and weigh all the facts. And this murderer will have his sentence imposed by a judge, duly recognized by the state of Colorado. Compare this to the rash decision Pearlie made in the blink of an eye, which was all the time left to Billy Ray Quentin, after the defendant decided to kill him.
