The Sporting House Killing G. Powell (best free novels .TXT) 📖

She shook her head. “Well, you shouldn’t be toting anything. It’s 1894.”

“That’s the second time you’ve reminded me of that lately.” He removed the pistol from its box and examined it from every angle. Nice lines.

“And it’s still 1894. Modern gentlemen don’t carry pistols in town anymore.”

“Thankful I’m not a modern man, then.” He broke the top of the pistol open to inspect the cylinder and whirled it around before snapping it shut again. He held the small gun underneath his left armpit where a new shoulder holster would go, then pointed at the black handle. “Looky here. You’ll like this.”

She bent closer. The hard rubber grips had round medallions under the hammer on each side, and small owl faces peeked out from them. “Owls?”

“Aren’t these little critters pretty? I’m naming this little beauty Iver”—he showed her the left owl, then flipped it over to show her the right—“and his twin’s Johnson. You ever seen such bright-eyed hoot owls?”

She tapped the white owl on the top of his trial box. “Did you buy it because you like owls?”

“Owls are wiser than men.”

She shook her head disapprovingly.

“Boys may grow up into men, but they’re still just boys.”

He put the pistol inside the trial box and shut the lid. “Perfect.”

“You’re not planning on taking that to court, are you?”

“Why not?”

“You really think you might need it there, of all places?”

“Might.” He’d thought a lot about his cross-examination of Bud Orman, and Orman was just the kind of man not to take it well and do something foolish in court. “Remember Old Man Smiley’s trial?”

“It must have been before my time.”

“May be. Anyway, when Smiley’s son—he was an ornery cuss—when he jumped on the prosecutor and beat him right there in court, I realized there’s no place a man should go unarmed.”

She looked unconvinced.

He shrugged. “Next time you go to the hardware store, pick up a box of thirty-two-caliber bullets for me.”

“Yes, sir.” She shot him her standard look of exasperation. Then her expression changed, and she pointed. “Mr. Calloway, I was just wondering, what’s that metal object in your trial box?”

He picked up the minié ball. “Oh, that? Nothing. Just a jigger, a memento from the war.” He dropped it back in his box and stuffed the box into his satchel. “How long you been with me now, Miss Peach?”

“This is my third year.” Ever since graduating from Baylor.

She fussed around the room, straightening books and papers.

“Have you heard from your mom and pop lately?”

“Yes, sir. I got a letter from my mother yesterday.” She rolled up a big plat Harley had been examining that morning, evidence in a land dispute he was working on, and leaned it against the side of his desk. “They’re doing fine. She sends her regards.”

They were awful nice folks. Her pop was a reformed newspaper editor who decided to take another direction in life after his daughters graduated from college. Opened a little country store in Eulogy, a little country town in the northern tip of Bosque County.

“I know you haven’t been up there in a month of Sundays.” He smiled. “After the trial, why don’t you take a few days off and go see ’em?”

She smiled back. “Thank you, Mr. Calloway, I’ll do that.”

“Harley and I appreciate what you do for us, you know.”

Her back was to him as she put a book in its place on the shelf of Harley’s desk.

He went to the stove for a cup of coffee. “I don’t suppose I ever getting around to letting you know that.”

She turned to look at him. “No, sir, you don’t. But I know it anyway. Thank you.”

The talking-phone rang in the front room, and she went to get it. She spoke briefly and returned. “You’d better take this call yourself.”

“Who is it?”

“Professor Perkins. He says it’s important.”

Catfish went to the talking-phone—the first time he’d ever used it himself, but this was important. Perkins sounded upset. Apparently, the Baylor president, Rufus Burleson, had gotten a visit from some high-and-mighty person—Perkins didn’t know who—about that damned newspaper article and was now considering taking disciplinary action against the boys. Expulsion had been mentioned.

Damnation! If Baylor expelled those boys right before the trial, every man on that jury panel would know about it. If the state of Texas thought Cicero was guilty, and the newspapers all thought he did it, and Baylor believed it so strongly that they expelled him, then Cicero’s goose was cooked. Jury’d be tainted before trial ever started. Damned if he’d let that happen.

“Perkins, do you think you can get Burleson to meet with us before he takes any action?”

“Probably. He’s a fair man.”

“Good. I want him to meet Henry and Jasper face to face before he punishes them. The president’s got to know these aren’t bad boys.”

“I agree.”

Catfish could still see the fear in their eyes. Innocent, pleading.

Familiar.

He had to stop this. Those boys couldn’t be expelled.

God give me the skill to save them. Don’t make Henry Sweet endure what I did with Houston.

Chapter 23

The president was old as Methuselah and nary ever smiled. The very idea of going to see him in his office was scaryfying. It was like going to the schoolmaster’s office back home, and he always got licks on them visits. Jasper figured licks would be better than what the president likely had in mind. Professor Perkins said the president might not let him come back for classes in the fall term. Jasper wouldn’t be able to face his folks if that happened.

He took a big breath and let it out slow. He should just quit fretting. It wouldn’t be so bad.

The president’s office was in a big new three-story red brick building folks called the main building or just “Main” for short. It was the kind of place you expected smart folks to be, and it made Jasper downright edgy. It had them five tall spires like church steeples pointing straight up toward heaven. He didn’t know if that was their purpose, but he