“It is.”
“My name is Jack Reid. I’ve been appointed as your defense attorney.”
Bobby Lee extended his hand, but saw that Jack Reid made no effort to reciprocate, so he pulled his hand back.
“Why am I being appointed an attorney?” Bobby Lee asked. “I can afford my own attorney.”
Reid wiped sweat from his face before he answered. “There are only two counselors in Cloverdale,” he replied. “The judge has appointed Mr. Roswell as prosecutor, so that leaves me for you. ”
Bobby Lee nodded. “I guess that answers my question, doesn’t it?”
“I’m here to help prepare for your defense. We go to trial at two o’clock this afternoon.”
Bobby Lee looked up at the clock that hung from the wall at the end of the small corridor that separated the two jail cells from the back wall of the sheriff’s office. It read twelve-fifteen.
“That’s only an hour and forty-five minutes,” he said. “That doesn’t leave us much time, does it?”
“It’s time enough for the defense I have planned,” Reid said.
“What defense is that? ”
“I have looked at the case of the prosecution, Mr. Cabot. And my advice to you is to plead guilty, and throw yourself upon the mercy of the court.”
“What?” Bobby Lee replied sharply. “I’ll do no such thing! I was not a participant in the robbery, I was trying to stop it.”
“Mr. Cabot, the entire train saw you riding with Dodd and the others,” Reid said.
“Yes, of course I was riding with them. It was all part of the plan. I was to ride with them and gather information as to when and where their next robbery would take place.”
“But the entire train saw you with them,” Reid said again, as if he had not understood a word Bobby Lee said. “It will be their word against yours.”
Bobby Lee shook his head. “I don’t deny I was riding with Dodd. The passengers did see that, but what the passengers could not see was my intent. Why was I riding with Dodd?”
“Is that really the case you want to make?” Reid asked.
“Of course it is the case I want to make. It is the truth, so I can do little else.”
“All right, I’ll do what I can, but don’t expect much,” Reid said without enthusiasm. He turned to leave. “I’ll see you in court at two o’clock.”
“Wait, that’s it? You are leaving now? That’s all the preparation you are going to do?”
“What else is there to prepare?” Reid said. “You tell me that you were with Dodd because, somehow, you had planned to trap him and the others. Right?”
“Yes,” Bobby Lee replied.
“Then I am prepared.”
Bobby Lee watched his lawyer waddle through the door and close it behind him. Now, for the first time since being put in jail, he began to think that he was not going to be able to get out of this.
At two o’clock that afternoon, Deputy Beard led a handcuffed Bobby Lee into the courtroom, which was actually the ballroom of the Depot Hotel.
“Sit over there behind that table,” Beard said, pointing to a table at which sat the still-sweating Jack Reid.
“Good luck, Bobby Lee,” someone called, and looking toward the crowded gallery, he saw Doc Baker, the man who had called out to him, Nate Nabors, and Minnie Smith. Nabors owned the Gold Strike Saloon and Minnie worked for him.
Minnie smiled bravely at him, and Bobby Lee smiled back.
Those three seemed to represent the only friendly faces in the entire crowd. In the face of nearly every other person present, he saw anger and hatred of the man they had already convicted in their own minds. Just across from Bobby Lee sat Ray Roswell, the prosecutor. He was tall, dignified-looking, with piercing blue eyes and silver hair and a neatly trimmed silver beard. He was wearing a suit that fit his slender body well. Bobby Lee groaned inwardly. If the jury was going to make its decision on the appearance of the respective lawyers, he had already lost.
When he looked toward the jury box, Bobby Lee saw not one friendly face. He only recognized one juror, and it was a man he had beaten in a game of poker a few weeks earlier. The man had lost a considerable amount of money, and had accused everyone else at the table, including Bobby Lee, of cheating.
Sheriff Wallace came in through another door, stood just inside the door, and called out in a loud voice.
“Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye! This here trial is about to commence, the Honorable Jeremiah J. Briggs, presiding. Everybody stand respectful.”
The Honorable Jeremiah J. Briggs came out of a back room. After taking his seat at the bench, he put on his glasses, fitting the earpieces very carefully over each ear, one at a time, then cleared his throat.
“You may be seated,” he said.
There was a rustle of clothing and the scrape of chairs as the gallery, large enough to overflow the courtroom, responded.
Judge Briggs picked up a piece of paper and looked at it for a moment before speaking.
“There comes now before this court defendant Bobby Lee Cabot, charged with murder, pursuant to the
