Part 21

On the first Tuesday in September the open spaces in front and on the sides of the Tickfall courthouse filled up early with a crowd of negroes. It was the occasion of the opening of the criminal term of the district court, and all witnesses and talesmen were called to court for the trial of Hitch Diamond, charged with murder, against the peace and dignity of the commonwealth of Louisiana and the statutes made and provided.

The witnesses and talesmen already sat in the court-room, along with as many other people, mostly colored, as could squeeze in there. Even now, at nine o’clock in the morning, the heat of that ill-ventilated room was stifling, the odor was overpowering. Men sat on the bench seats, on the back of the benches, on the ledges of the windows; they stood in the aisles, in the corridors, on the stairways, and were ranged in rows along the soiled and dusty walls.

Inside the low railing which divided the room, and nearest to the chairs which the jurors were to occupy, Hitch Diamond sat at a long table with Goldie Curtain by his side. In that crowd of people, either white or black, Goldie was the one splotch of vivid coloring--her face and hands and neck a beautiful orange in color, and her half-caste beauty most striking and attractive. Hitch sat beside the table as stolid and indifferent as a wooden man, but Goldie trembled, her nervous fingers plaited in and out of each other like squirming snakes; she was scared and shrinking, pitiable and lonely.

Just outside the low railing sat Ginny Babe Chew and Dinner Gaze, directly behind the broad back of Hitch Diamond. Ginny slowly slapped at her fat face with a turkey-wing fan. Her big mouth was clamped shut like a steel trap, and her little green, greedy, pig eyes glared through the rolls of facial fat with baleful, condemning gaze upon everything and everybody around her.

A little farther away from Hitch, but on the same front seat with Ginny Chew and Dinner Gaze, sat the Reverend Vinegar Atts and Tucky Sugg.

There was a window behind the jury-box, so that the light falling over the heads of the jurors would fall full upon the faces of the witnesses as they sat in the chair, and would illumine every line in the faces of the lawyers as they presented their sides to the jury.

On the opposite side of the room there was another window, and within this window, sitting precariously on the ledge, was Pap Curtain. He had asked and obtained permission from Sheriff Flournoy to sit within the bar on the ground that it was his son-in-law who was being tried for his life.

Across from Hitch Diamond the district attorney sat at another long table to represent the cause of the State. Tall, urbane, white-haired, with the reputation of being a pitiless prosecutor of criminals, Dan Davazec was confident and jaunty. He fussed about busily, arranging and rearranging the table in front of him, shoving aside the water-pitcher, the ink-bottle, a pile of law-books with freckled-leather covers, as a battleship strips her decks for action.

“It’s a cinch, Sam,” he chuckled to the editor of the Tickfall _Whoop_. “Dead open-and-shut!”

Davazec had tried in vain to find a wife, or mother, or sisters of the night-watchman for whose murder Hitch Diamond was to be tried. He wanted somebody to lend force and eloquence to his plea by sitting before the jury dressed in black and wearing a long, thick mourning veil. But the murdered man apparently had no kinsmen, so Davazec lacked these eloquent figures of desolation and sorrow.

But the two owners of the Sawtown mill sat at the table beside Davazec, and the room in the rear of the judge’s bench was crowded with witnesses. Davazec felt the importance of his place and the certain triumph of his cause, and he swelled and expanded in his clothes at the thought of how helpful this day’s proceedings would be to him when he announced himself for reëlection.

From his office in the rear the judge entered the court-room, followed by a clerk bearing a few law-books and some sheets of paper and a large palm-leaf fan. Judge Haddan was a pale, sickly looking man with a weak voice, trembling hands, and stooped shoulders. But his head was massive and Websterian, and his eyes glowed like the eyes of some jungle beast. No man within the borders of the State commanded more respect as a lawyer and a jurist.

Hitch Diamond raised his massive head and eyed the judge with the stolid gaze of a stupid horse. Goldie gasped, and laced and interlaced her nervous fingers in her lap.

The opening ceremonies of the court were soon over. No one paid any attention to the few formalities, for they were all hastening to get at the thing of big interest.

The clerk called the case of the Commonwealth _versus_ Hitch Diamond.

“We are ready, your honor,” Dan Davazec said in his clear voice.

“Where is your counsel, Hitch Diamond?” Judge Haddan asked.

“I ain’t got none, boss,” Hitch answered.

“Do you wish me to assign you counsel?” Haddan inquired.

Hitch stood up and scratched his woolly head.

“Boss,” he said, in a sad tone, “one time when yo’ leetle gal got sick an’ you lived out on yo’ plantation in de country, I done you a leetle favor. Does you remember, boss?”

Haddan looked straight at Hitch Diamond while his nervous fingers drummed upon the arms of his chair. He seemed not to have heard what Hitch had said.

“Do you wish me to assign you counsel?” he asked again.

“Boss,” Hitch continued, “when yo’ little gal got sick, de water had done riz up an’ de Dorfoche Bayou wus seben miles wide--an’ you axed me to go atter de dorctor. I waded an’ swum dat bayou--I got acrost dat seben mile of water--I fotch de dorctor--an’ yo’ little gal got well. Boss, you tole me den, dat ef I ever needed any he’p, you would he’p me at any cost--an’ boss, befo’ Gawd, now is yo time!”

Hitch Diamond sat down at the table.

Involuntarily Judge Haddan looked at the State’s attorney; their eyes met, and Davazec murmured, “Don’t that nigger beat hell!”

“Do you wish me to assign counsel for you, Hitch?” Judge Haddan asked for the third time.

“Naw, suh, boss!” Hitch said. “I think you an’ me had better law dis case togedder!”

“Do you plead guilty or not guilty?” Haddan asked.

Hitch grinned.

“Ain’t dat jes’ whut we is come to try, boss?” he asked.

“The defendant pleads not guilty!” Judge Haddan announced with an amused grimace at the State’s attorney.

Then the clerk called the name of a talesman.

In an hour the jury was complete. Hitch Diamond left that work entirely in the hands of Dan Davazec and Judge Haddan. Whenever the judge excused a talesman from service, Hitch smiled, and felt that the judge was certainly winning the case for him!

Then for two hours the crowded court-room of people sat in breathless silence, while District Attorney Davazec drove nail after nail into the gallows which should hang Hitch Diamond. It was a savage and pitiless prosecution, not because of the efforts of Davazec, but because of the force of the testimony, developing a chain of evidence without a weak or missing link. The jurors, grim, silent, attentive, fixed their eyes upon each witness, and when the witness-chair was empty, they looked down at the floor.

Not one of them glanced at Hitch Diamond. Jurymen don’t like to watch a man whom they are making up their minds to condemn to death.

Hitch listened to the evidence without a word or question to a single witness. If Judge Haddan asked a question, Hitch grinned. He seemed never to comprehend the effect of the statements that were being made.

Dan Davazec arose and announced with dramatic emphasis:

“Your honor, the State closes!”

The crowd in the court-room drew a long breath; a humming murmur like a breeze in the tree-tops swept over the heads of the people.

Hitch Diamond arose.

“Boss,” he announced to the judge, “Mister Danny Davazec is shore done hisse’f proud, an’ all dem white men is tole de truth--as fur as dey knows it. I closes up de State’s case, too!”

A snicker sounded from the rear benches, where an assortment of white toughs and loafers had congregated for gratuitous entertainment.

The jury stared at the floor.

XVI

WITNESS FOR THE DEFENSE.

“Have you any witnesses, Hitch?” Judge Haddan inquired, nervously mopping at his temples with a handkerchief.

“Yes, suh. I wants to ’terrogate Skeeter Butts, please, suh.”

There was a slight movement in the crowd in the rear of the court-room, and Skeeter came forward and pushed open the little gate in the low railing, which, like a river levee, held back an overflow of black people.

He had moved slowly through the crowd, proud of being called as a witness, ostentatiously speaking to every colored person he knew, and bowing with fine courtesy to every white face.

Respectably dressed, and extremely respectful in his manner, Skeeter came to the witness stand with the air of a man who knew exactly how to act in the company of white folks.

The jurors straightened up in their seats, looking at Skeeter with interest, wondering what light he could bring to brighten the black cloud which hung over the defendant. Skeeter noted the movement and bowed.

“Mawnin’, gen’lemens!” he murmured.

At the admonition of the judge, Skeeter held up his right hand, a clerk rattled off a string of words which Skeeter could not understand, and Skeeter dropped his hand.

“Thank ’e, suh!” he said.

Then, for the first time during the trial, Hitch Diamond came to life.

He rose to his feet, picked up the heavy table against which he had been leaning, and set it entirely out of his way by placing it so close to the witness stand that Skeeter Butts could have reached out his foot from the chair and stepped on it.

A heavy iron cuspidor stood in the middle of the space which Hitch was clearing for himself, so he set it out of his way. After that he moved two heavy chairs.

Suddenly Sheriff John Flournoy woke up!

It looked to him like Hitch Diamond had cleared a space for himself clear across the court-room in front of the judge to the open window where Pap Curtain, Hitch’s father-in-law, was sitting. He noticed that Pap Curtain had slipped off the window ledge and was standing with his back to the window, one hand stretched out on either side.

Hitch was getting ready to run!

As quietly as possible, Sheriff Flournoy slipped across the platform behind the judge’s seat and stationed himself near the window where Pap Curtain stood.

Pap smiled and nodded knowingly.

“Dat’s right, Marse John,” he grinned, as he waved his hand toward Hitch Diamond. “Git a good ready! Dat Tickfall Tiger is gwine scratch somebody’s back!”

Having completed his preparations, Hitch Diamond turned to his star witness.

“Whut am yo’ name, Skeeter Butts?” he bellowed.

Skeeter got mad and began to swell up.

“You done called me by my name!” he snapped.

“Tell de white folks whut is yo’ name, Skeeter!” Hitch growled. “Mebbe dey is seed yo’ favor but disremember de name of yo’ face!”

“Skeeter Butts!” the witness replied grumpily.

“Does you know who kilt dat night-watchman down at Sawtown?” Hitch asked.

“Suttinly.”

“Was you dar when it happened?” Hitch inquired.

“Naw, suh.”

“Was it me whut done it?” Hitch bellowed.

“Naw, suh,” Skeeter answered positively.

“Who done it?” Hitch Diamond howled.

Skeeter hitched himself forward until he sat upon the extreme edge of the witness chair. He hung his brown derby hat upon the first finger of his left hand and turned it round and round with the finger and thumb of his right hand. He stared at the table which Hitch had lifted and placed before him.

The members of the jury suddenly sat up and took notice.

They had known negroes all their lives; they had had negro playmates when they were boys; and now they “read sign” on Skeeter. They knew Skeeter was going to explode something. Their backbones stiffened in their chairs as if the marrow had suddenly turned to rigid steel.

“Who--done--it?” Hitch Diamond bellowed.

Skeeter pushed himself back in his chair. His little brown derby hat fell from his finger, rattled and bounced in a ridiculous fashion across the table before him, fell to the floor and rocked to and fro on the curved crown.

Skeeter stretched out his hand with two middle fingers and the thumb flexed, and the first finger and the little finger extended in such a way that he pointed at the same time with one gesture to two men sitting in different parts of the court-room. Then he answered:

“Dinner Gaze and Tucky Sugg!”

Judge Haddan slumped forward in his chair, his delicate, fragile hands gripping the edge of the desk before him. The district attorney, a man who generally possessed perfect poise and self-possession, was jerked to his feet by this announcement and stood in absolute silence waving his hands to and fro like an embarrassed schoolboy who had suddenly forgotten how to “speak his piece.” The jury sank back in their chairs with a low sigh of gratification. They had tuned their ears for the sound of an explosion, and the effect had produced a pleasant shock.

Silence in the court-room, a silence appalling.

Hitch Diamond, who had been standing like a statue carved from ebony, slowly turned and faced the crowd of black men sitting behind him.

Then a voice cracked the silence like a starter’s pistol shot over the backs of two men straining for a race; it was the voice of Ginny Babe Chew:

“Dar--now!”

In the twenty seconds which had elapsed since Skeeter made his astounding statement, Dinner Gaze and Tucky Sugg had both considered the chances and the avenues of escape, as well as the possibility of remaining in their places and protesting innocence of the charge. Ginny Babe Chew’s triumphant exclamation decided the issue.

The low railing around the bar was directly before them. They sprang forward to clear it, and lo! Vinegar Atts was swinging to Tucky Sugg’s coat-tail, and Ginny Babe Chew was hanging to the coat-tail of Dinner Gaze!

In an instant each man had slipped his arms out of his coat and was free. They leaped the railing, standing in the open space which Hitch Diamond had so ostentatiously cleared.

Under their coats, the two men carried pistol holsters, and now they stood with their backs against the wall beside the judge’s bench, at bay, each with a pistol in his hand.

There was confusion for about ten seconds while the court-room cleared of its occupants. It took just that long for all to get out who wanted to go. That was sufficient time for some eager ones to pass the post-office two blocks away!

Suddenly Dinner Gaze’s dangerous, desperate voice rang out clearly, with an intonation which pierced like a sword:

“Don’t come dis way, white folks! Ef you do, you better come a-shootin’ an’ pick out yo’ grave befo’ you starts!”

XVII

SMOKE OF BATTLE.

By terrible and evil ways, the reckless feet of Dinner Gaze and Tucky Sugg had come to that cleared space in the Tickfall court-room. In the next few minutes, they were going to make Tickfall history.

No man knew this better than the sheriff, the district attorney, the judge of the district court, and the jurors, as each man stood in his place and planned his part in the coming battle. The negro is the deadliest fighter on earth--when he makes up his mind to fight.

Sheriff Flournoy raised his gun--and the fight was on. With a motion as easy and as mechanical as the gesture of a man flecking a speck of dust from his cuff, Dinner Gaze turned his hand and shot back. The two guns spoke simultaneously.

With an oath, Sheriff Flournoy dropped his useless gun at his feet--the bullet from Dinner Gaze’s pistol had struck it and put it permanently out of business.

Hitch Diamond snarled like an angry beast. By a thrust of his foot, he turned over the table before which Skeeter Butts sat, making a barrier for himself. At the same instant of time, he hurled a heavy chair straight at Dinner Gaze, who stood grinning, leering at Sheriff Flournoy, who was now weaponless.

Hitch dropped down behind the table as a bullet splashed through the wood two inches above him, and also splashed every juryman out of the box like a big flat rock falling in a puddle of mud!

Skeeter Butts jerked a pistol from his coat pocket and tossed it to Hitch Diamond. Lifting with his powerful left arm, Hitch held up that heavy table as a shield between him and his enemies, and crashed forward toward Gaze and Sugg, shooting as he went. Falling, he shot again; sprawling upon the floor, he raised himself above the table and shot still again.

Once more Hitch Diamond charged forward, drawing closer to the fighting pair, staggering with his heavy table as a shield, economical with his gun-fire, waiting for a chance to kill, blazing, terrible, alone, moving toward the flash and smoke and rattle of the two guns barking from the hands of the two men who stood with their backs against the wall with leering grins upon their faces.

The unarmed men in the court-room dodged behind the furniture and crawled under the seats, shuddering at the fury of battle, as the bullets tore the plastering from the ceiling and the walls, splintered the furniture, ricocheted around the room, smashing windows and the glass globes of the electric lights.

In less time than it takes to tell it, Hitch’s last bullet was fired and he snapped his empty gun into the faces of his enemies. At nearly the same moment Dinner Gaze and Tucky Sugg threw aside their own empty and useless weapons.

With a loud bellow, Hitch Diamond tossed the table from him, breaking off the two legs on one side. He sprang around, and in and out, striking blows which had made him famous in the pugilistic ring all over the State. He struck and parried and struck again, pounding, pounding at the faces of the two shrieking men who fought at him with weapons mightier than their fists, for they were fighting with the legs of the table which Hitch had broken off when he tossed his improvised shield aside!

There was a rush of help coming to the aid of Hitch Diamond--Sheriff Flournoy, the district attorney, the two mill owners, a court-clerk, twelve jurors, Skeeter Butts, and Vinegar Atts.

Then began a noise of shouting and tumult, oaths, curses; shrieking, horrible, blood-stained faces, snarling lips and gnashing teeth, and Hitch Diamond fought on, leading the hosts who stood for law and justice. Pain tore at his bruised and bleeding face, blood streamed from his hands and arms, his mighty, heaving chest left stains of red upon his white shirt bosom.

Men fell, and Hitch stepped on them. Hitch fell, and men stepped on him. All men slipped and slid in blood, crushed each other, dragged each other down, struck each other--and all heaved and cursed and shouted and hammered and tore at the shuddering tangle of human flesh and bone.

Standing on a chair close to the struggling men was a woman--a woman of wicked, half-caste beauty, her long Indian hair streaming down her back, her golden-colored hands weaving to and fro with clenched fists, her golden face blazing with hate and fury--fit mate for Hitch Diamond, whose wife she was.

Her voice rang like a trumpet:

“Kill ’em, Hitchie! Kill ’em! Kill ’em! Kill ’em!”

Such a brutal, demoniacal struggle could not endure long. Vinegar Atts was senseless. Skeeter Butts lay flat on his back against the wall with the blood streaming from an ugly cut upon his head. Three of the jurors nursed broken arms, and several more had retired from the fray disabled by their injuries.

Sheriff Flournoy lay on the floor with the blood flowing from a wound on his neck. He crawled over and picked up the pistol which Skeeter Butts had given to Hitch Diamond and which Hitch had discarded. He extracted the cartridges from his own useless pistol and slipped them into Skeeter’s gun, for he had given that weapon to Skeeter and they were of the same calibre.

Just at that moment Tucky Sugg fought his way through the tangle of human arms and legs and sprang into the open window. Then he went screaming downward to his death as a bullet from the sheriff’s pistol went with him, pocketed in the murderer’s heart!

Then, as if the crack of the sheriff’s pistol was her cue to enter, another woman came up-stage and stood in the blazing light of battle. She weighed four hundred and ten pounds, and resembled a balloon divided in the middle by an apron string. She was conducted by Dainty Blackum and a strange young negro man, and her name was Ginny Babe Chew.

Inside the railing, she picked up a heavy iron cuspidor, and walked over to the table where, earlier in the morning, the district attorney had sat.

“He’p me up on dis here table, honey!” she grunted, hugging the heavy cuspidor in her arms.

The district attorney lay unconscious under the table on which Ginny stood.

Ginny announced her position by a loud bellow. She raised the large iron cuspidor above her head with her fat arms, and every pound of her monstrous weight was quivering with unspeakable hate.

“Git outen my way, Hitchie!” she whooped. “Gimme room accawdin’ to my fat, sonny! Let yo’ mammy put somepin acrost!”

For more than a minute Sheriff Flournoy had been fingering his pistol, waiting for a chance to shoot without killing Hitch Diamond. Ginny Babe Chew’s remarkable stunt gave him pause and caused him to lower his gun with astonishment.

Hitch reeled and stumbled backward. His eyes were glazing, his right arm hung broken and useless at his side, he was one bloody mass of wounds.

Dinner Gaze, his clothes torn from him until he was bare to the waist, his whole body screaming with pain from countless injuries, slowly followed Hitch in his retreat, chopping at him with weakening arms, still fighting with the broken table-leg.

“Look up, Dinner Gaze!” Ginny Babe Chew bawled. “Dis is yo’ la-ast time to see de hoodoo face!”

Unconsciously responding to the command, Dinner Gaze raised his pain-shot eyes upward, and looked into the fat face, through whose rolls of flesh two green pig eyes gleamed upon him with a serpent’s venom and deadly malignity.

The heavy iron cuspidor came down with a crash. It crushed the criminal’s head like an egg-shell. It bounced, fell on its rounded edge, and rolled slowly across the floor.

Dinner Gaze fell face downward, kicked the floor three times with the toes of his shoes, and died.

“Dar--_now_!” Ginny Babe Chew whooped.

Then she held out a fat hand to the slim young girl standing beside the table and said:

“Gimme yo’ hand an’ he’p me down offen dis table, honey! Dis here duck is too dang fat to be roostin’ so high!”

XVIII

THE HOODOO FACE SMILES.

The panic and outflow of negroes from the trial chamber in the Tickfall courthouse started a riot-call in the town.

A clerk in the Gaitskill store across the street ran over and tolled the courthouse bell ten times. In response, every white man in Tickfall dropped his task, armed himself, and came with all possible haste to the court square.

When Tucky Sugg fell screaming from the open window, Colonel Tom Gaitskill started at the head of a band of armed men up the steps leading to the court-room. The band arrived too late to do more than constitute themselves into an ambulance corps, and render first aid to the injured.

Four physicians came panting up the steps, bumping their instrument cases against the wall as they ran, and their arrival converted the room into a hospital where the doctor became a wise and efficient judge.

Colonel Gaitskill appointed ten men as assistants and runners for the doctors, assigned to the rest of his band the task of standing on the square in heroic attitudes and guarding the courthouse, and then he cleared the room of all the curious and useless persons and closed the door.

An hour later all the wounded sat up and took notice, and some of them smiled.