Flagg nodded for the rancher to go ahead. Hightower left the town hall, and returned a moment later with a coiled reata of braided horsehair. He handed it to Flagg, who wrapped the rope around Joshua Shade as Matt and Sam forced him back down into the chair.
When that was done, Judge Stanfield frowned at Shade and declared, “I dislike being forced to these measures, sir. It’s undignified, and I don’t like such things in my courtroom. But you’ve forced us to this point.” He whacked the gavel on the table again. “Counsel is ready to proceed?”
Finch got to his feet. “The prosecution is ready, Your Honor.”
Wearily, Colonel Wilmont rose. He had flinched away from Shade as the prisoner was being secured, and it was obvious he didn’t like the job he had been handed. Matt would have been willing to bet that Wilmont’s belief in and devotion to the legal system was the only reason he had let himself be dragged into representing Shade.
“Counsel for the defense is ready, Your Honor,” Wilmont said.
Stanfield nodded. “I’ll listen to opening statements, if either side cares to make one. Mr. Finch?”
“Yes, Your Honor.” Finch launched into a speech that lasted several minutes, all of it devoted to declaring what a vicious, bloody-handed owlhoot Joshua Shade was. He wasn’t saying anything that everyone in the courtroom didn’t already know, but that didn’t stop him from saying it anyway.
When Finch was done, Colonel Wilmont got up again and said, “The defense has no opening statement, Your Honor.”
Stanfield nodded. “Very well. Mr. Finch, call your first witness.”
“I call Sheriff Cyrus Flagg, Your Honor.”
Flagg took the witness stand—which was a ladder-back chair at the end of the table where Judge Stanfield sat—and told what he knew about the events of the night when Shade and his gang had raided Arrowhead. Colonel Wilmont had no questions for him.
Following Flagg’s testimony, Finch called half a dozen other leading citizens, all of whom had witnessed the atrocities committed by Shade’s men. Even though all the spectators knew what had happened, they listened in rapt attention as that violent night was recreated in the words of the witnesses.
It was all a little boring to Matt, who had never been long on patience to start with. Finally, Finch called Matt himself to the stand to testify about how he and Sam had discovered one of Shade’s men on the hotel roof after the outlaw had killed Charlie Cornwell, the lookout.
“You and Mr. Two Wolves were still on the roof of the hotel when the rest of the bandits attacked the town?” Finch asked.
Matt nodded, feeling a little ill at ease with the eyes of everyone in the room on him. “Yes, sir, that’s right.”
“In your own words, tell us about the battle that followed.”
Matt wondered briefly whose words he would use, if not his own, but he didn’t voice that thought. Instead, he did as Finch asked and described the parts he and Sam had played in the defense of the settlement.
After Finch thanked Matt and Wilmont said he had no questions for the witness, Stanfield told Matt to step down. Finch said, “I could spent the rest of the day and all day tomorrow calling witnesses who would tell the same story, Your Honor, and I see no point in that. The prosecution rests, having proven its case.”
“That will be up to the jury to decide, Counsel,” Stanfield said with a frown.
This was a waste of time, Matt thought. Everybody knew Shade was guilty. Everybody knew he deserved to be hanged. They were just going through the motions.
Stanfield was determined to do everything legal and proper, though. The judge turned to Wilmont and said, “Colonel, you may call your first witness.”
Shaking his head with its mane of white hair, Wilmont rose to his feet and said, “The defense has no witnesses, Your Honor.”
Stanfield leaned forward sharply, his frown deepening. “Colonel, as an attorney, I’m sure you need no reminder that your client has a right to the best possible defense you can give him, regardless of the circumstances or your own personal feelings about the case. You have asked no questions of the prosecution’s witnesses, and now you say you intend to call no witnesses of your own?”
“That is correct, Your Honor.” Wilmont stood straight, his shoulders square. “I cannot present witnesses to call the facts of the case into question, because they are so clear-cut and because the testimony of the prosecution’s witnesses cannot be refuted. Therefore, our defense will consist solely of my closing statement.”
“Your client won’t even testify on his own behalf?”
Wilmont shook his head. “I deem it inadvisable, Your Honor, considering the inflammatory statements he’s been known to make. I fear he would simply prejudice his own case that much more.”
“Very well,” Stanfield said, although it was clear that he didn’t like this unorthodox course of action from the defense. “Does the defense rest?”
“It does, Your Honor.”
Stanfield looked at Finch. “I’ll hear closing statements.”
There wasn’t much Finch could say other than what had already been said. He repeated what a varmint Joshua Shade was, although in more high-flown language, and sat down. Wilmont rose again.
The elderly lawyer clasped his hands behind his back and gazed at the jury. “Gentlemen, take a good look at my client. He’s wearing shackles and leg irons, and he’s been gagged because otherwise he would have subjected this courtroom to a stream of profanity and obscenity and threats the likes of which none of us need to hear. We all know what he’s done, the deaths he’s been responsible for, the deaths he has carried out with his own hands, the suffering he has inflicted on the citizens of this territory. I deny none of that. But I would have you ask yourselves a question…Why? Why has Joshua Shade done these things?”
One of the spectators in the back of the room called out, “Because he’s loco!”
