Short Stories & Tall Tales
The Trial of Bonner James
Tom Sheehan
The jury was sitting against the wall of Big Mike’s Saloon in Oak Grove, in an assortment of chairs. The sheriff, Dolph Bernais, sat at a poker table drawn up for the trial, and the accused, a young, good-looking man by the name of Bonner James sat relaxed beside the sheriff. Donner smiled at the judge who said to himself, “I hope he’s not guilty, he looks so much like my nephew Harry, a special boy to say the least.”
He tried to go over once more what the sheriff had told him: “One of the ladies was shot upstairs just about midnight. There were 10 men in the saloon and none of them can say that James was still downstairs in the saloon when the shot went off. And last week he had a big argument with her at the bar. Her name’s Sally Turpin, or was Sally Turpin, pretty as a picture, and as young as any of the ladies. Came from Chicago a year ago, she did, and all by her lonelies. Bonner knew her before. I heard that from the bar keep, Silvio, who knows everything hereabouts.”
“As it comes over the bar?” said the judge.
“Best place, Judge, as you can imagine.”
“Including verdicts?” mused the judge under his breath.
Judge Floyd Wescott was appointed territorial judge by a group of influential men looking for justice in the territory. He was selected because of his many sit-ins as an arbitrator of legal and moral problems between parties in a few of the bigger towns of the territory. His name spread around the general area leading up to the start of the Rocky Mountains, carrying plaudits about resolutions reached. His decisions were fair, honest and spoke of an innate wisdom that the man generated to support those decisions.
He was looked upon as honest, tough but fair, and fearless, meaning no pointed gun could change his mind. “The law tries not to punish the innocent, and as I have committed no crime and will not commit a crime in the pursuit of my duties, I have no fear of reparation.”
Wescott had come out of New Hampshire by way of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis with an inner demand for more space and adventure. He had a decent education but experience in several positions fed him a good degree of knowledge, business and a sense of morality he did not find around himself all the time. It nagged on him, brought him opportunity to make amends for the downtrodden and victims of one crime or another, thus spreading his good name and good works.
So he was called to Oak Grove in the far corner of the territory to sit in judgment on a murder case. It took him the better part of a week to get to Oak Grove, tucked into a corner of the Rockies that would have been hidden for a longer time except for the freshet of water that sprung from the side of a mountain all year long. He had not been this far west in his life and loved the scenery, the sense of freedom in riding in the air, and the grand opportunity that the land evinced.
The wire had come from the Oak Grove Town Council, saying, “The murder trial of Bonner James is ready to start but we need a judge to sit the case and ask you to sit on it.”
That’s all it said, and it smarted inside of Wescott for a number of reasons, some he was aware of and some not. The name James, he suspected, was trouble enough for a man of consideration in a crime at any level, no matter how he was touched, or involved, in that crime.
Wescott’s reply said, “Will arrive within a week. F. Wescott, Terr. Judge.”
The territorial judge arrived in Oak Grove on a horse rented at the closest stagecoach station, as Oak Grove, except for a climb over the mountains, was a dead end for open road traffic and was not granted a stop on the stage coach route.
“Goin’ to Oak Grove, are ya?” the station man said. “Had ‘notha murder up there, week last.” He was affable, making small talk about the only connection the two men had, passing the time of day until the next stage came through. “Thet sheriff there gets the job done right soon. Good man. Need more like him ‘round hereabout.”
He cinched a saddle in place before he continued. “Says Bonner James done it, from what I heard comin’ back this ways. He’s a kid at that, but I don’t know he’s a Missouri James. I knowed a James gent from Chicago, not related either, could shoot the wings off’n a butterfly, and quick. Must come with the name though.”
Judge Wescott was on full alert for Oak Grove before he got there, before he talked to the sheriff who was going to be the prosecutor, before he sat behind the bar and studied the jury and the lot cast in their direction, before he studied the defendant and rehearsed in his mind what he had been told about him and the crime and the witnesses.
Of a sort, he said, again under his breath.
Sheriff Dolph Bernais was methodical in his treatment of witnesses, nine of the ten men in the saloon, not including the bar keep, who one after the other could not swear that Bonner James was on the first floor of the saloon when the shot was fired, the one that killed Sally Turpin.
By the time Bernais had questioned the third man, Luke Kiely, the consensus was that Bonner James was not in the saloon proper at the time of the shot.
“You sure of that, Luke?” Bernais said, his hand touching Kiely on the shoulder. “Absolutely sure?”
“I gotta say yes, I’m sure,” Kiely replied. “Then there was that argument he had last week.”
“Oh, that’s okay, Luke, you don’t have to mention that. We all know about that.”
At his chair behind the bar, set up on some crates so he could look down on the jury, Wescott was getting nervous with the sheriff’s methods.
Rolfe Larkin was the next witness, a burly guy with two or three day’s growth of beard, a vivid scar across his nose that twisted his face when he tried to smile or purse his lips. He was jaunty as he said his answers, including the final statement, “No way was Bonner in the same room with us. I remember that, remember looking around just about then to see who was just getting out of the last game. He wasn’t there. I’m dead sure of that.”
By the time he got to the 9nth man, one mild looking broken-down cowhand by the name of Jed Guthrie who had lost a hand in a stampede a half dozen years earlier, Wescott believed Bonner James was doomed to the hangman.
“I can remember looking around at the same hour wondering who was pals with each other at the end of a night of cards. It gets tricky sometime, you know how one guy loses and gets mad for a while, and if the guy is a good friend, it gets really tough for a while.” He nodded and smiled and didn’t look up at anybody in the whole saloon, including the judge and Bonner James. He did look at the sheriff and smiled with a sorrowful look on his face as if he had put Bonner James to death on the gallows, him being the last witness and sure as all the others.
“Tell me what you saw at midnight, Jed, and what makes you remember.” The sheriff had his hand lightly on Guthrie’s shoulder, the same way he had touched the others.
“Well, I remember they was about paired up and talking about the games and such stuff. Rolfe was over at the end of the bar with Jack Clayton. They’ve been pals for years. And sitting at their table still was Smiley Relgard and Jed there who just said Bonner was not in the room. I figure they was talking about the games too because Smiley, yes Smiley won a big pot during the night with a pair of treys. Can you imagine that, a pair of treys?”
Bernais tapped Guthrie on the shoulder again, and then did it again, like the law was touching the man for good. “Tell me, Jed, who else was paired up, or who was where when the shot went off overhead, the one that killed Sally Turpin.”
“Oh, I guess it all falls into place the more I think about it, fellows wanting to talk about things kinda personal with them, about their game or their luck or how the damned cards never seem to fall the way you want them.”
“Tell me about that,” Bernais said, “like who else was where and sort of reined in together.”
“Oh, sure, Sheriff, the way guys always talk, sharing the excitement or the bad luck of the games. It sorta lets off the steam of losing a month’s wages, or almost a month’s wages.”
Bernais was right on key, the judge thought, as the sheriff leaned in close and said, “Tell me about the others, Jed, so we can close this thing up.”
“Well, Pat Clausen and Josh Gibbons were by the big window off there to the side of the front of the room.” He posed in a thinking mood and said, “And Ed Mackey was talking to Doug Jurgens. They go way back, you know, like twins they are, always together even out on the trail.” He smiled at Clausen and Gibbons who smiled back at him.
The sheriff said, “Thanks, Jed. You got a good memory. You put everybody in place. That’s good. We got a damned good idea of what happened at midnight, ain’t we?” He slapped Guthrie on the shoulder.
“You’re excused, Jed,” he said. “You can go back to your seat now.”
As Guthrie started to rise from his seat, Judge Wescott said, “Hold on there, Mr.Guthrie. I have a few questions for you. You can stay in your seat. It won’t take me long.” The tone of his voice slid across the room like a thin edge of a knife. “Just a few pertinent questions, Mr. Guthrie.” The name came hard and with edges on it.
Jed Guthrie could feel his toes curling in his boots. They all had heard about this territorial judge.
Guthrie sat down as Sheriff Bernais spun to look at the judge.
The judge raised one finger, and then placed it on his lips. The sheriff understood that demand, started to speak, thought better of it, and sat down.
“Mr. Guthrie,” Judge Wescott said, “You throw out the definite feeling that poker is a man’s game, that there is an exciting and sometimes fruitful or terrible yield involved at the end of an evening, but that men, winners or losers, manage to get back to their roots, find old friendships, after a spell as you say, and intend to go on in their world. Am I correct in that, Mr. Guthrie?”
“Oh, yes, Sir, Your Honor, Sir. That’s for sure.”
“Who were ‘you’ talking to, Mr. Guthrie, when the evening was about over? Who were you with? Who were you talking with, what old buddy? Did you have any close friends there, Mr. Guthrie? Any close friends here? Who can say where you were when a shot overhead killed Sally Turpin? I am definitely interested in your answer, Sir.”
“Well, I don’t seem to recall who, Your Honor. It was late, gents had paired up, that kinda stuff.”
The judge leveled his gaze directly into Guthrie’s eyes. “Who was sitting behind you?”
Guthrie could have flinched, might have flinched, for the question hit him like a whip.
He shook a little, collected himself, most likely measured where he was on an odd scale, a threatening scale, and said, “Well, the last I knew it must have been Bonner James, but I guess he moved out of there and went somewhere else.”
“You ‘guess?’ “Mr. Guthrie. Can you be as specific as you have in everything else?”
“Well, if you say it that way, Your Honor, I guess he might have been there all the time.”
“Mr. Guthrie, I marvel at your power of observation, how you remember things. It is quite remarkable when all the fuzz is taken off the issue, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Sir, it certainly is. You are right, Sir.”
“As I look at things, after studying what has been stated and proved here, and what has not, and as I admire the powers of your observations, Mr. Guthrie, I have one more question to ask of you before I bring this trial to a close, and declare that Bonner James is innocent of the charges brought against him.”
Guthrie swallowed visibly, flinched, felt something coming at him he might have trouble with, and said, “What question is that, Your Honor?”
“Where was the bar keep when the shot went off?”
At the far end of the room there was a sudden scurry and a door slammed.
Judge Floyd Wescott, Territorial Judge, nodded at Sheriff Dolph Bernais and said, “Duty calls, Sheriff.”
He slammed his homemade gavel down on the top of the bar and said, “Case dismissed. You’re free to go, Mr. James.”
The room was silent.
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