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

his eyes, and he straightened, hands sinking into the mud as he pushed away from the tree. The rain was stopping. He had to share the truth with his truest partner.

“I told the jury myself: Killers lie, don’t they? Killers do lie. And I told them I would put the actual killer in that witness chair.”

A glint of sun streaking through the parting clouds bounced off of her tombstone.

“God help me, Martha, I did. I did put the killer on.”

He pressed his muddy hands over his face, hoping not to see any more, but he did. The tighter he shut his eyes, the clearer it became. The same courtroom. The same witness chair. Thaddeus Schoolcraft’s grinning face, blurring into Bud Orman—you’re losing this case too.

The jail yard. A young man hanging from the scaffold, swinging in the breeze, turning toward his father . . . Houston! . . . turning away . . . turning . . . coming around again—no, a different face. This face was not his son. This face was someone else’s son.

Cicero.

The killer was Cicero.

The colonel nuzzled him. He wiped the mud from his face and scrambled up.

What had he done? He’d put Cicero on the stand, and the boy had lied. He did kill her. He’d lied to save his own skin, and now he was going to hang.

Catfish was the one who couldn’t see the truth.

He staggered to the tombstone and touched her name; saw her sweet smile and stumbled down the cemetery road.

God, help me. Let it not be too late to save his life.

The colonel trotted beside him. They came to a tall monument shooting up through the tree branches. In Memory of the Brave Men and Devoted Women of the South. He was standing among departed comrades, gone one by one over the years since the war. He strode down the street. There it was; the marker was small. J. C. Jenkins. Judson Cicero Jenkins. He fell to his knees beside his old friend, his old law partner. Judge Warwick Jenkins’s brother. Cicero Sweet’s namesake. The three had ridden together—Catfish and Henry Sweet and Cicero Jenkins, the daring captain of Company K. Cicero’s commanding voice still rang in his ears: Fear not death, men. The day goes to the bold. Forward! They’d done bold things in those days—terrible things, in order to survive. The three of them had survived.

And that was the answer, wasn’t it? After all this time, it came from the voice of his friend: The day will go to the bold.

He knew how to save Cicero.

***

Miss Peach gripped the seat as the surrey rattled through the gate into Oakwood Cemetery. They turned right down the first lane. The rain had stopped, and the air was steamy.

She held tightly as Harley put the horse into a gallop. “The family plot’s up ahead on the right.”

She scanned the cemetery. Mr. Calloway and the colonel were walking up the road. “Look, there he is.”

Harley turned left in front of the Confederate Memorial and met him in the street. He leaped out, and they embraced. Mr. Calloway’s eyes were shut tight over his son’s shoulder.

Miss Peach turned her face away as her eyes filled.

Harley spoke first. “Are you all right?”

Mr. Calloway broke the embrace and grinned as if he’d seen something amazing. “Of course I am.”

He and the colonel both looked like drowned rats, but it was the old Mr. Calloway. He was standing in a puddle of rainwater, but his bright blue eyes sparkled. “When God got around to making Texas, the only weather he had left was floods and droughts.”

She managed a laugh through the tears she couldn’t hold back.

He jumped into the back seat of the surrey behind her and squeezed her shoulders.

“Colonel, up.” The hound joined him. “Go to my house, son, and be quick about it. I need some dry clothes. Miss Peach, we’ll drop you off at Sam Kee’s first. Get me a plate of fried rice and a pot of ginger tea.” He peeled off some soggy bills from his money clip and handed them over her shoulder. “Take it to the courthouse. Get yourself something too.”

“Are you sure you can eat?” she asked.

“Darlin’, I’m starved. Can’t argue to a jury on an empty stomach. Harley, while I’m changing clothes, I need you to do two things.”

“Yes, sir?”

She snuck a peek at Harley. He felt it too. She could just hug them both until they burst.

Mr. Calloway leaned between them. “Take the jury list with you and stop by the Pat Cleburne Camp office. Check their membership records for which jurors were in the war.”

Miss Peach broke into a big smile and twisted around. “Mr. Calloway, he could just use the talking-phone at the courthouse.”

Mr. Calloway roared with laughter. She beamed back.

Harley glanced at them both, smiling. “I better go in person.”

“And one more thing. Go tell the jailer to bring Cicero to the county courtroom. And get Henry Sweet there too. We’ll talk there over lunch.”

She knew that voice.

Harley nodded. “Yes, sir.” He eyed her.

She just couldn’t hold back the tears. She shrugged and shook her head.

He snapped the reins. “Get up there!”

Chapter 40

“We need to have a very frank conversation.”

Cicero and his parents sat on the other side of the table from Catfish, watching him with anxious eyes as he gulped a heaping plate of fried rice. The county court deliberation room where they met was small, stuffy, and smelly. No fan, only one window. No one else had an appetite.

He looked straight at Cicero. “Be honest, whether what you have to say is good or bad for your case. Now’s the time to tell it straight. My question’s this: Do you actually remember what happened or not?”

Cicero shook his head immediately.

“You see, I’ve got some doubts about your story after hearing you testify.”

Cicero opened his mouth to answer, but Catfish held up a hand. “Wait. Before you answer, let me just tell you a few things. I’m sorry to say this, but I believe the jury’s gonna convict you based on the testimony