Deborah Bedford - Blessing

“It won’t take too long,” Aaron said, jumping on the opportunity. “She’s right. It might be something I’ll never get another chance to say.”

Uley was uncertain as to how she felt about standing out on a dark stoop with a man who’d pulled a gun on the marshal. But she’d already proven once that she could handle Aaron Brown if he gave her trouble.

Sam turned to the man on the porch. “I warn you, I’ll be waitin’ right inside this door, with my shotgun cocked and loaded.”

“Yes, sir,” Aaron said. “That was what I was expectin’.”

Uley tromped out onto the boards and pulled the door closed behind her.

When the door shut, they couldn’t even see each other, it was so black.

Aaron knew right where she was standing. He could hear her breathing.

Uley knew right where he was standing. She could smell his bay rum.

“Well, I must say,” she told him finally. “You smell a mite nicer than you did the last time I caught a whiff of you.”

“It’s amazing what a washtub will do for a man.”

“Well,” she said, “I’m surprised you were able to leave Elizabeth Calderwood long enough to come out here.”

“Elizabeth’s fine without me,” he said. “She’s safely inside her room at the Pacific Hotel. There are so many men on the lookout for her, she can’t make a move without having a good dozen of them following down the street after her. They’re looking after her like bees protect their queen.”

“So I’ve noticed.” Through the window, Uley could see her father lifting his gun off the rack and wiping down the barrel. “You’d best get on with what you came to say,” she said. “It doesn’t look like he’s going to give you much time.”

At precisely that moment, the moon moved out from behind a cloud and Uley saw his face.

“You make a habit,” she asked out of the blue, “of winking at every girl you see beneath a mule?”

He looked straight up at the night sky and guffawed.

“I was protecting our secret, Uley,” he said. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Well,” she said, crossing her arms, “I don’t think that was a very good way of protecting it.”

He stopped fiddling with his hat. He decided just to put it back on his head and go back to the hotel. “Forget it, Uley,” he told her. “I wasn’t winking at you, anyway. I was winking at the mule.”

* * *

Alex Parent rang the Tin Cup town bell in the belfry of the town hall at precisely nine on Thursday morning.

Cher-bong. Cher-bong. Of course, there wasn’t any reason to ring it. Some two hundred men were already jostling for position inside.

Miners and ranchers had been arriving from all over Taylor Park since just after seven. Another wagonload of men had just gotten in over Cumberland Pass from Pitkin. Judge Murphy had sent for them to come. He figured there wasn’t anybody in the town of Tin Cup unbiased enough to give Mr. Brown a fair trial. Those Pitkin miners were the closest thing he was likely to find to a jury in Gunnison County.

The bell echoed off Gold Hill over to Siegel Mountain and American Mountain and back again. Cher-bong. Cher-bong. Cher-bong.

Those who hadn’t been able to find seats were jammed inside the back foyer, standing on tiptoe and boot heels. The men around Uley were all craning their necks to see Elizabeth. Elizabeth Calderwood hadn’t been in town forty-eight hours and the news of her arrival had already traveled as far as Pitkin and St. Elmo. That was almost faster than a good horse could run.

Judge J. M. Murphy sat behind the bench, a massive table of lodgepole planks made by the Beckley brothers, the only two men in town who took the time away from mining to build furniture, houses and coffins. Murphy banged his cup on the wood and did his best to call everyone to order. “Let the record show that I call to order this court on April 27, 1882, the trial of Gunnison County, Colorado, and Marshal Harris John Olney versus defendant Mr. Aaron Talephas Brown.”

Uley about fell out of her tumbledown pine chair. Talephas. Next time he talked to her about winking at mules, she was going to call him Talephas. That ought to put him in his place.

That is, if he lived long enough.

Murphy continued with his speech. “Seth Wood will represent Gunnison County and Marshal Harris Olney in this matter. John Kincaid will represent the accused.”

Commotion broke out in the room.

Murphy pounded the table with the cup again, making little C-shaped dents in the pine planks. “Quiet! Or we won’t go on! Seth,” he hollered over the din, “come on up here and start your case.”

Seth Wood approached the bench and whispered to Murphy while the talking died down. As soon as everyone could hear him, he started calling witnesses.

Carl Hansen came forward, put his hand on the Bible and was sworn in. He sat down beside Murphy and told all about how he’d been on his way to Frenchy’s when somebody hollered, “Uley’s got a man down over there!” He told how he’d run to help Uley and had found the accused—here he pointed at Aaron Talephas Brown—lying beneath Uley in the dirt.

“Thank you, Mr. Hansen,” Seth Wood said. “Next witness, John West.”

West walked to the front and told the same tale.

During the morning hours, Seth called at least a dozen men to the bench. Each one of those dozen men told the judge and jury the exact same story. At about eleven-thirty, Seth Wood stepped up beside Judge Murphy and looked right at Uley.

Everybody knew it was time for the lawyer to call his key witness.

“Uley Kirkland. Will you approach the bench, please?”

She hadn’t figured on being this nervous. She felt like a marionette as she went to stand beside Seth Wood, a marionette with someone waiting to drop the strings.

Judge Murphy held out the biggest, blackest Bible Uley had ever seen. “Repeat after me,” he said somberly. “I, your name...”

“I, Uley Kirkland...”

“Do solemnly swear...”

“Do solemnly swear...”

“To tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth...”

Uley figured everyone in the room saw her swallow. This was one time in her life when being a gal stood her in good stead. She didn’t have a protruding Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. To get her out of this mess, she uttered a silent prayer. I promise I’ll do my best to get it right, God.

Out loud she said, “To tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth...”

“So help me God.”

“So help me God.”

From the front of the room, she could see everyone in town. She could see her father on the third row, sitting with his hands clenched between his knees. She could see Elizabeth Calderwood with her hair all done up in a bun and her neck as long and graceful as a trumpeter swan’s. She could see Harris Olney just below her, his marshal’s star gleaming. And she could see Aaron Brown.

Aaron Brown. Today, when it seemed the whole world was against him, she felt some regret that she hadn’t been kinder to him last night. Then again, she found she was afraid to meet his eyes. Just suppose he winked at her again—here in the courtroom! It would totally unnerve her. Here. Where she needed to be quick-thinking and smart.

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