Sleeping Beauty (32 page)

“Mr. Hardesty, wait on Justice Tyler to hear these charges,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm and commanding. “The judge will be here soon. If you hang this man without benefit of trial, you'll be committing murder.”

Hardesty turned on Matthew. “Who the
hell
are you?”

Matthew's stomach churned, and he fought to keep from trembling. He wanted to step back. In truth, he wanted to run. But he held his ground.

“I'm Matthew Penny, sir, and I'm an attorney. Oregon has a constitution now. We're a member of the Union. Our courts are organized, and we have no need of lynch juries.”

Hardesty spit at Matthew's feet. “That's what I think of the courts. We don't need ‘em here.”

A pistol shot brought everyone around, and Matthew found himself facing the Honorable Jedidiah Tyler.

From a distance, it would not have been unreasonable to mistake Justice Tyler for a fierce black bear. He was short and stocky, with massive shoulders. His large head was covered by dark, slicked-back hair and supported by a thick neck. Bushy eyebrows and a woolly beard covered most of his broad, flat face; and sharp, glinting eyes and a vicious hairline scar cemented an impression of animal ferocity that made his visage as terrifying as his courtroom demeanor. Tyler was a hard man with a wicked temper. More than one litigant had threatened his life, and he never held court without a pistol close at hand.

As soon as he had the crowd's attention, Tyler planted himself so that he looked as immovably rooted to the ground as the tree before which he stood.

“I'm Jed Tyler, a justice of your supreme court,” he bellowed. Then he turned and faced Hardesty, who was five inches taller than the judge and lean and dangerous looking.

“What is your name, sir?” Tyler demanded.

“Abner Hardesty,” snapped the leader of the lynch mob.

“Well, Mr. Hardesty, this is my judicial district, and there will be no lynching in it. This man will receive a fair trial.
If
he is convicted,
I
will decide his punishment.”

“This ain't
your
district, mister. It's
our
town, and this son of a bitch is gonna hang.”

The moment Hardesty tacked the period onto his belligerent pronouncement Tyler hammered the butt of his pistol against the hangman's skull. Hardesty's eyes bulged, and he sank to his knees before toppling over, unconscious. Tyler leveled his pistol at the crowd.

“Harry,” the judge ordered calmly, “escort the prisoner to the inn and lock him in the storeroom.”

“Stand back,” Chambers hollered as he rushed to Tyler's side. “Let's do this legal, like the judge says. If this fella is guilty, he'll get what's coming to him in Jed Tyler's court.”

Tyler's thunderous blow and loaded pistol had tipped the scales in favor of a fair trial, and the men holding Clyde Lukens made no move to challenge the judge's authority. When Chambers told them to bring the prisoner to the inn, they followed the innkeeper across the field with the salesman in tow.

Matthew felt weak-kneed as the adrenaline that had kept him upright dissipated. He said a silent prayer of thanks for the judge's intercession and started back to his place of lodging. Before he had taken two steps, Tyler stopped him.

“This man will need counsel, Mr. Penny, and you will serve in that capacity.”

Matthew wanted to protest. He already had a client, and he needed time to prepare his case. But Tyler had a long memory, and Matthew would have to be crazy to defy the judge if he wanted to practice law in Oregon.

“Very well,” Matthew said, but Tyler was no longer listening. Matthew followed the judge's gaze and saw that he was looking at a full-figured woman whose oval face was framed by ebony ringlets that were in sharp contrast with her milk-white complexion. The woman's lips were pursed in disapproval, and there was no doubt in Matthew's mind that her piercing green eyes were studying the judge. Then the frown turned into a smile of respect, and she nodded at Tyler before walking away.

D
URING THE EVENING, THE NOISY
bar/dining room that took up most of the ground floor of Harry Chambers's establishment was poorly lit by lanterns that cast shadows everywhere. Farmers, townspeople, litigants in Phoenix for a trial, and traveling salesmen packed the oak tables and bellied up to the long bar. Beer and hard liquor slopped onto the sawdust that covered the wood-plank flooring. The din made conversation almost impossible.

Chambers knew that this atmosphere was not fit for the better class of clientele to whom he occasionally catered, so there was a small room at the rear of the inn where his more refined guests could dine. A master carpenter had crafted the chairs and tables, a Persian rug that Harry had won in a poker game covered the floor, and a genuine crystal chandelier from Paris, France, hung from the ceiling. The chandelier was the pride of Phoenix and as out of place in the clapboard inn as a pig on silk sheets. More than one tough-as-nails mountain man had sneaked down the corridor from the bar to peek at it. The town's great mystery was how Harry had obtained it. Many had asked him, and his versions of the acquisition were varied, fanciful, and usually unbelievable.

Matthew followed Chambers down the hall to the storeroom, which was just past the private dining room. Harry fished a key from his pocket while Matthew lit the lantern that hung to the right of the storeroom door. The storeroom was pitch-black. After swinging the light around for a few seconds, Matthew found his client languishing in a corner, hogtied and gagged, his head resting on a sack of meal.

“Untie him, Harry,” Matthew ordered.

“The judge said—”

“He didn't say anything about tying and gagging him, did he?”

“Well, no, but—”

“You were just supposed to make sure he didn't escape. How can he talk to me with a gag in his mouth?”

“I really don't—”

Before Harry could finish his sentence, Matthew pulled a bowie knife from under his frock coat and cut through the prisoner's bindings.

“Hey, I was gonna—”

“You were gonna stand there jawing. This man is presumed innocent. I want him treated innocent. Now, if you'll excuse us, a client's statements to his lawyer are confidential. You can't stay here.” When the storeroom door closed, Matthew turned to the prisoner, who was rubbing circulation back into his wrists. The man looked truly pathetic. He was bathed in sweat, and his sparse brown hair was in disarray. His gaunt face was scratched and bruised from the beating he'd received, his nose looked as if it had been broken, and his thin lips were split and caked with dried blood.

“I'm Matthew Penny of Portland. Justice Tyler has asked me to be your attorney.”

“Thank God, thank God,” the prisoner whimpered. “She's just doing this to get even.”

“Who is? What are you talking about?”

“Her! The Jezebel, the Jezebel!”

CHAPTER 2

A
s soon as Matthew finished with Clyde Lukens, he got his horse from the livery stable and rode to the home of Glen Farber, his client in the case of
Farber v. Gillette
. Farber lived a few miles out of town in a log cabin with his wife, Millie, and their thirteen children, and he farmed from dawn to dusk just to get by. Farber's corded muscles were the product of a life of hard labor. Since there was no fat on his whip-thin body, his bones were visible as jutting elbows, conspicuous shoulder blades, high cheekbones, and a pointed chin. If Farber had been an implement, he would have been a knife, and his temper was as sharp and fierce as a fighting blade.

Farber had paid little attention to the rumors that the railroad was headed for Phoenix until Benjamin Gillette, a wealthy businessman, offered to buy some of his land. Farber jumped at the chance to make some easy money. If the deal had gone through, it would have been the first time in his life that anything had come his way without backbreaking labor. Then Gillette had second thoughts about the deal and Gillette's lawyer, Caleb Barbour, and pointed out a loophole through which he thought his client could slip. When Gillette decided not to honor his contract, Farber's first thought was to shoot Gillette and his lawyer, but Millie Farber beseeched her irate husband to seek legal counsel, and he eventually gave in.

It was late afternoon when Matthew arrived at the Farber cabin. After sharing a meal with the family, Matthew conferred with his client about the case. Mrs. Farber did her best to keep the children quiet, but the din in the cabin gave the lawyer a splitting headache that was still throbbing when he left his horse at the livery stable in Phoenix. Matthew decided that a glass or two of beer might ease his pain. He was walking toward the inn when a giant Negro materialized out of the shadows.

Matthew would not have been more surprised if he had encountered a creature from another planet. Black men were rare and unwelcome in Oregon. The new state constitution prohibited free Negroes from entering the state, making contracts, holding real estate, or maintaining lawsuits unless they were already residing in Oregon on the date that the constitution was adopted.

“Sir?” Matthew barked, startled by the sudden apparition.

“Are you Mr. Penny?” the Negro asked in a rich baritone that would have worked well in a church choir.

“I am.”

“My name is Worthy Brown, and I work for Caleb Barbour.” “Yes, certainly,” Matthew answered with relief, believing that the mystery of the massive black man had been solved. “Do you have a message for me?”

“No, suh, I wish to speak to you myself on a private matter.”

Matthew took a harder look at Brown, whose purple-black skin was so dark it took sharp eyes to make out the man at night. The Negro was well over six feet tall and deep chested with broad shoulders that were stooped from years of fieldwork. Clearly, the man was nervous, but his hands were steady, and, though deferential, there was an air of dignity about him.

“I need to know about slavery, suh. Can a man be a slave in Oregon?”

“Our new constitution prohibits slavery, Mr. Brown.”

“What if a man was a slave before he come to Oregon?” “He would be a free man when he arrived here.”

Matthew waited quietly while Worthy Brown mulled over Matthew's answer.

“Mr. Penny, I need a lawyer, but I don't have money to pay you. What I plan to do is tell you something, and I want you to promise me you'll be my lawyer if it's valuable.”

“Certainly Caleb Barbour can help you with any legal problem you might have. He's an excellent lawyer.”

“No, suh. Mr. Barbour can't help me on this.”

“What's your problem?”

“I'd rather not say until you decide if my information will pay for your help.”

“Mr. Brown, this is very confusing. How can I promise to be your lawyer if I don't know what you want me to do? What you ask may be illegal, or I may have a conflict that prevents me from representing you. Surely you see that I can't commit myself without more information.”

“What I'm asking ain't illegal. I wouldn't ask no man to break the law. All I ask is that they keep their word,” Brown concluded bitterly.

“Does this matter involve a conflict between yourself and Mr. Barbour?” Matthew asked. He was reluctant to involve himself in a dispute between a servant and a man with Barbour's connections.

“I don't want to say no more about it now. When you hear what else I got to say, you'll see why I can't go to Mr. Barbour.”

“And that is?”

“He's gonna bribe some of the jurors in your case.”

“What!”

“He's got a plan for getting someone on that jury who will fix the verdict for him.”

“Who?”

“That I don't know, but they're meetin' behind the inn, tomorrow night. You see if I ain't telling the truth. Then you say if you'll help me.”

“How did you come by this information, Mr. Brown?”

The Negro laughed, but there was no humor in it. “A slave ain't nothing but a piece of furniture, Mr. Penny. Mr. Barbour talks around me same as he would around a chair or a table, ‘specially when he's drinking.”

“Does Mr. Barbour keep you as a slave?” Matthew asked incredulously.

“I don't wish to discuss that now, suh.”

“Very well. Tell me, did Mr. Barbour say whether Benjamin Gillette is a party to this bribery?”

“That I can't say, but I ‘spect not. Mr. Barbour wants to win this case terrible bad. From the way he's been drinking lately, I think he and Mr. Gillette ain't getting on too well. Mr. Barbour is afraid he's gonna lose Mr. Gillette's business, and he can't afford that.”

Brown looked around nervously. “I've been here too long, Mr. Penny. If someone sees us talking, it could go bad for me.” He started to walk away.

“Wait. If I decide to help you how can I get in touch?”

“Don't worry ‘bout that. If you gonna help me, I'll find you.”

CHAPTER 3

O
regon's four supreme court justices spent part of their time as appellate judges and the rest riding circuit as trial judges in the counties of the state. A justice had to be not only wise but also rugged enough to endure long horseback rides, foul weather, poor food, and primitive accommodations. Jed Tyler was such a man. He was ruthless in business and brutal in court, a hard drinker and a fearless gambler who was well known to the whores who worked in Portland's brothels.

As he washed off the dust of travel and changed for dinner, Tyler thought about the woman on the edge of the crowd. She had vanished by the time order was restored in the field. Harry Chambers could have told the judge who she was, but Chambers was occupied with the prisoner. The mystery was solved soon after the judge entered Harry Chambers's back room. Seated between Benjamin Gillette and his attorney, Caleb Barbour, at a table for four beneath Harry's famous chandelier was the woman who had occupied the judge's thoughts.