LETHAL LEGAL

 

 

            Penny Baxter had almost never seen the county's local sheriff. So he was quite shocked when he received such a visitor at Baxter's Island, and even more astonished when he was presented with a subpoena. But those surprises were as nothing when he glanced at it and learned the nature of his required court appearance.

            Ory and Jody had never before seen Penny appear faint. He leaned on the table as he read.

            "What is it?" Ory demanded.

            "I got to testify."

            "In what??"

            "The Huttos is back. And filin' charges agin the Forresters. For arson."

 

            A very pale Penny faced the glare of all six Forresters as he entered the courtroom. Their meaning was clear. They were openly hostile toward their traitorous "friend."

            "I ain't here willin'ly," he told them. "I don't want no part in this."

            "Yeah," Lem growled. "You don't never wanta be betwixt us and Oliver. And yit you allus are."

            "Buck, really...," Penny reached out to his best Forrester friend. But even Buck turned away from him. Sadly, Penny switched his gaze to the other side of the courtroom, from which Oliver gazed back at him bitterly. "This is a mistake," Penny told him firmly. "You'd not oughta be doin' this."

            On that much, the Forresters agreed. Lem snarled at Oliver, "And you'll find out how big a mistake iffen them guards and their guns go away. We'll pick up on you where we left off."

            Grandma Hutto agreed with Penny. "I tried to talk him outen this. Hit were like talkin' to the wall. I didn't want he should ever come back here at all."

            "Well, how did...," Penny began, unsure of how to ask the question without revealing their conspiracy to keep Oliver in the dark about the fire.

            He needn't have bothered. Oliver accused, "You and Ma shouldn'ta lied to me! You shoulda told me them devils set the fire that night! 'Stead o' lettin' me run off, and have them thinkin' me a coward, to be run out o' town!"

            Penny's temper snapped. "Better a live coward than a dead fool!"

            But the Forresters found their argument interesting for a different reason. Mill-wheel challenged, "So! You never lie, Penny, eh?"

            Grandma Hutto snapped at the bearded accuser across the aisle, "'Twas me, lied to Oliver! To save him from you savages! Ezra ain't done nothin' but bear me out! We knowed you'da kilt Oliver!"

            The Forresters' reactions to that were varied. Buck smiled slightly, and repeated the name, "Ezra. I'd near 'bout forgot 'twas your given name."

            "You right there," Mill-wheel conceded her point. "We was tryin' to lure him to foller us; we'da kilt him, shore."

            "Savages, uh?" Lem's eyes were afire. "You-all leave us once git a hold o' you three alone, and you'll find out jest how savage we kin be!"

            At that, the ghostly white Twink did what she always did: she began to cry. Oliver slipped a consoling arm around her shoulders, but she turned and faced the Forresters. Her expression crumpled piteously as she gazed at them. "Oh please!" she begged. "Don't hurt us!! Don't!!!"

            Oliver shushed her. Not one Forrester regarded her with pity or mercy. In fact, they were amused to varying degrees.

            Giving up on the now pointless subterfuge, Penny asked Oliver, "All right! So you know! I still wanta know how you found out the truth."

            "I got suspicious when Ma insisted I never visit you-all agin. I told her I'd go see you, next time my ship put in to port in Jacksonville. She fussed and said I mustn't never come here agin. And I got to thinkin': she moved to Boston to keep me away from here. So, had to be about more'n jest that fight we had."

            "That there fight was bad enough," Mrs. Hutto retorted. "No mother ever wants to see her boy hurted that bad!"

            The Forresters chuckled and smirked unpleasantly at that. She flared back at them with a curse.

            An officer of the court then announced that everyone should settle down, and that the judge would arrive momentarily and bring the court into formal session.

 

            Penny found his testimony to be an utter misery.

            The prosecutor demanded how he had known that the defendants had even been in Volusia on the night in question.

            "'Cause they fetched us there with 'em," he admitted uncomfortably. He struggled not to see Oliver's shocked expression at that, as well as the Forresters' narrow-eyed accusational looks.

            "And did you leave with them also?"

            "No."  

            "They just left you there? Abandoned you?"

            "Well.... They knowed we'd go home with Ory. She'd got there ahead of us in our wagon."

            "But the Forresters left the church before you did?"

            "Yes."

            "You saw them leave?"

            "Yes."

            "Now, we've heard Mrs. Hutto's testimony that the defendants left the church immediately after speaking to the stranger who entered. Is that correct?"

            "Yes."

            "And then you spoke to the stranger. What did he say?"

            Penny nodded miserably. "Jest what Ms' Hutto told you. That Oliver was back."

            "So you assumed, as she did, that the Forresters would seek out Mr. Hutto at his house, intending violence?"

            Penny's uneasy gaze rested on the Forresters, as he admitted softly, "Yes. We assumed there'd be violence."

            "And so you followed them to the Hutto house, you, your wife and son, and Mrs. Hutto, as she earlier testified. Why?"

            "To see could we ward off trouble."

            "You made it a family outing, instead of going alone, into what you thought would be a dangerous situation. Why?"

            Penny shrugged helplessly. "I knowed I couldn't stop 'em. I figgered they might behave theirselves better, was the women there to shame 'em."

            "In other words, you were desperate. You felt that the women were Mr. Hutto's only hope."

            "We'd tried and failed to stop 'em before, in the fight months earlier. And then, there'd only been three of 'em. This time, they was all six there."

            The Forresters looked smug.

            "In other words, you expected to walk into a bloodbath."

            "Objection, your Honor," said the defense attorney.

            "Sustained."

            "So, what did you walk into instead?"

            "A fire."

            "The Huttos' house was burning."

            "Yes."

            "Where were the Forresters?"

            "Nowheres around."

            "They had left?"

            Penny gritted his teeth. "We had no proof they'd ever been there."

            The Forresters' brows rose at that. At least, Penny had done that much for them.

            "Oh, but what about the horse tracks that Mrs. Hutto mentioned in her testimony?"

            "There's lots o' horses in the two counties."

            "Oh, so, you consider it plausible that the Forresters left the church and just went home, suddenly abandoning their murderous intent."

            "Objection, your Honor."

            "Sustained."

            "It's possible. Cain't prove 'twas them."

            "So, you think someone else might've set the fire?"

            "Or jest goed to watch."

            The prosecutor shook his head. He tried a different approach. "Was Mr. Hutto at the fire?"

            "No. He was missin'."

            "And you were worried about him?"

            "Yes. Fire coulda been an accident. The Forresters mighta caught Oliver somewheres else."

            "And was that the case? Had they?"

            "No."

            "Well, then, how did you find the plaintiff?"

            "I sent my son Jody to find him."

            "And did he?"

            "Right quick."

            Once again, the Forresters appeared surprised. They'd clearly had no idea that Jody would be so attuned to Oliver's whereabouts.

            "And when your son brought Mr. Hutto back to the rest of you, Mrs. Hutto denied suspecting that the Forresters had set the blaze, in order to keep her son from going after them, correct?"

            "Yes."

            "How did you know that she didn't really believe what she was telling her son?"

            "She fussed at Jody and Ory for a'most lettin' out what we knew, from the doin's."

            "That the Forresters had been there, and had left immediately upon receipt of the news of Mr. Hutto's return?"

            Penny sighed. "Yes."

            "How did you feel about her lying to her son?"

            "I agreed 'twas necessary. And I supported the lie."

            "Exactly what did you say?"

            He looked very uncomfortable. "I told Jody, 'Yes, son, you got no business thinkin' sich of innocent men is miles away.'"

            "Did you truly believe that they were miles away?"

            "I had no way o' knowin'."

            "But did you really believe that they were innocent? Based on all of the prior events of the evening."

            Penny spoke very softly. "No." Devastated, he met the Forresters' eyes, and then lowered his.

 

            While the trial was in noon recess, everyone gathered uneasily in front of the courthouse, to escape the stifling heat inside the building and enjoy a slight breeze. The Huttos kept carefully away from the Forresters, who were held at bay in any case by armed guards watching them warily.

            As one guard said to the Huttos, "I reckon you three need full-time bodyguards."

            "That's the way of it," admitted Mrs. Hutto. "Long's we're in Floridy."

            For his part, Oliver could tell that the Forresters' presence made Twink excruciatingly uncomfortable. She kept trying so hard not to even glance their way, only to fail, and dart surreptitious little micro-glances at them, only to wince away after each.

            Sympathetically, Oliver told her, "We oughtn'ta dragged you back here with us. Me and Ma shoulda takened keer o' this and left you in Boston."

            But Twink objected, "By myself?? Oliver, I don't know nobody back there! Not really. I had to come with you. You gotta take keer o' your pregnant wife!" Then, she instantly cringed in awareness of how much she had revealed to the Forresters.

            Oliver was all too aware that the six Forresters were following their conversation avidly. He rubbed her shoulders soothingly, said, "Sorry, Sweetheart," and kissed her briefly.

            But rather than console her, this had the opposite effect. Panicked, she pushed him away, eyed the bearded men apprehensively, murmured thickly, "Don't!," and then lowered her embarrassed gaze to the ground.

            Seeing Lem's eyes narrow, Oliver sarcastically retorted, "Oh yeah. No rubbin' Lem's nose in his loss. No love in front o' the savages."

            The dark men made immediate aggressive moves in his direction, garnering instant response from the armed guards, who, after stopping the would-be attackers with well-aimed guns, chastised Oliver, with a quick, "Don't provoke 'em, sir."

            "Sorry." Oliver was properly chastened.

            Meanwhile, Twink, with tears flowing, had finally managed to look Lem and his brothers in the eye, seeing, for one thing, just how wounded emotionally she had rendered Lem, and how righteously riled as a result she had made his loyal, supportive brothers. Over her shoulder to Oliver, she said, "Leave me talk to him." She took a few hesitant steps in the dark men's direction. Their brows rose.

            Alarmed, Oliver ordered, "Don't go no closer!" and grabbed her nearer arm from behind. The Forresters grinned at his precaution.

            "Why do you-all find ever'thin' so blasted amusin'?" Oliver fussed. This earned him only a chuckle from the big men.

            "Lem...," Twink faltered, and then tried again. "I am so sorry. I cain't never tell you how sorry. I never meant to mislead you or hurt you. Neither o' you." She glanced backward at Oliver. "Never meant to cause nobody no trouble, not at all. It's jest.... I was in love with both o' you."

            All brows rose, even those of the guards.

            "I didn't know who to choose. Then, the fight made me afeered o' you, of all of you. Afeered you'd hurt me like that someday. And that's why I runned off with Oliver."

            Lem appeared stunned at that revelation. The other Forresters watched his reaction with interest and concern.

            "I wish.... I wish you could somehow forgive me. I wish you could forgive me for betrayin' you, and I wish Oliver could forgive me for gittin' him hurted so bad. I never wanted none o' that."

            Lem made no reply, but he was clearly thinking about her words.

            Soothingly, Oliver told her softly, "I ain't never blamed you for that. Wa'n't your fault."

            "In a way it was, and I blame myself. It was jest too easy to spend time with both o' you, without th'other knowin'. Oliver gone to sea for six months at a time. Lem only in town maybe once a month. I was still lonely." She gazed earnestly into Lem's eyes now. "Please, please try to forgive me! I don't want your hate!" She extended a supplicating hand.

            The nearest of Lem's brothers made an ornery, playful grab at her arm, knowing he was not close enough to catch hold of her. She shrieked briefly and drew back away from all of them, as Oliver quickly seized her in a protective embrace. Oliver, Mrs. Hutto, and Penny gasped at the close call, and the Forresters laughed, at least somewhat good-naturedly.

            Oliver lost his temper. "Now you leave her be! And that's what she gits from you-all, after she said things was so kind and decent!"

            "Watch how you give orders," Mill-wheel warned him, "less'n you wanta go at it with us agin?" He softened his "offer" with a teasing grin.

            Oliver slumped against the tree at his back, pulling her with him. "What would be the point?"

            "Not much," Buck agreed, "we know how that come out t'other time." He was smug.

            After a considerable awkward, silent spell, Penny finally broke it by saying, "My turn, folks. All I ever wanted was to be friends with your two families. I'm so sorry my friendship with each is so despised by t'other."

            Oliver responded, "I kin forgive you for bein' their friend a heap more'n I kin forgive you for he'pin' Ma lie to me."

            "I jest wanted to protect you."

            Oliver shook his head once, hard. "I know, but you kept me from fightin' my own battles, and from standin' up to 'em like a man."

            Mill-wheel suggested, "Oliver? You riled enough at Penny, you wanta give him a beatin'?"

            Oliver was rueful. "Near 'bout."

            Penny leaned his back against the convenient wall of the courthouse. "Go 'head, iffen it'll he'p you git over it. And iffen you really wanta amuse the Forresters, because that'd be the way to do it."

            "Then I reckon I'll pass," he replied with a faint smile, relaxing a bit, and releasing his hold on Twink. She was still casting glances of mixed hope and trepidation at Lem, appealing to him for forgiveness. His return gaze suggested that he was considering it.

            "You loved us both, eh?" he asked quietly.

            "I truly did."

            "Reckon that was hard to live with," Lem admitted softly.

            "'Twas."

            "We'd not never've beat you that-a-way, like we done Oliver, iffen you'da chose me."

            She stepped a bit closer in order to hear; he was speaking at such low volume. "But how was I to know that, for sure?"

            "You coulda asked. You coulda told us you feared that. Sometime when you was at our place. We coulda talked about it."

            "But once I seed the fight, I was too afeered to never go to your place agin." Twink had taken two more steps closer.

            Deftly, Arch reached out, grabbed, and dragged her to him as she screamed shrilly. He shoved her roughly into Lem's arms. Oliver surged forward with a yell. Penny and Oliver's ma seized him, to pull him back, but their combined strength was insufficient. He broke free of them, and Mill-wheel and Pack got hold of him, pinned his arms, and displayed him for Lem to conveniently strike.

            But Lem was busy. He told Twink, "I forgive you," and kissed her passionately.

            "Oh no! No!!" she cried, pushing dainty helpless hands at his chest. "You mustn't! I'm married!"

            While Lem easily restrained her, Arch gave in to the urge to punch Oliver, where he stood so available. Gabby quickly followed suit, as Pack and Mill-wheel refused to let Oliver fall. Penny pushed forward, pleading with the Forresters to stop. Buck blocked his path, gripped his shoulders, and ordered, "Don't make us hurt you. We will."

            Knowing that Buck was the only Forrester that Penny had a chance to reach, he continued to beg him, with his eyes and with his words, to spare Oliver. But he made no move to strike out; that way, he knew, lay disaster.

            Without warning, a gun was fired into the air by one of the guards. Unwilling to miss his chance, Lem pushed Twink from him, turned, and punched Oliver, where his brothers still held him. This time, Mill-wheel and Pack let him drop.

            "We said, stop!" bellowed another one of the guards. This time, all guns were aimed at the Forresters, instead of at the sky.

            Buck released Penny, who was no longer imploring and pulling at him. Without a word, Penny stooped, grabbed a dazed Oliver where he lay in the dirt, and dragged him back away through the dust, to his waiting, frantic mother.

            One guard said, "You! Lady! Get outta there!" and gestured with his gun.

            Twink had already been trying desperately to do just that, but ineffectually, from in the middle of a Forrester mob. Ruefully, at the sight of the guns, Buck and Arch made a space, and she fled gratefully.

            One guard was shaking his head. "You folks are really something."

            Twink dropped at Oliver's side, helping him to sit up. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!! 'Twas my fault! Agin!!"

            He sat up shakily. Blood ran from his nose, and one eye was darkening fast. "No. He tricked you. He lured you, by speakin' soft. Jest like they tried to lure me with the fire, that night. Woulda worked, iffen Ma ain't lied to me." He moaned in pain and put his head in his hands. The Forresters grinned. Twink held Oliver's head to her bosom, and threw a wounded look at the Forresters.

            But Lem said to her, "See? We didn't hurt you."

            "You...held me agin my will...and...kissed a woman is married to someone else."

 

            Buck Forrester's testimony was simple, elegant, and plausible, "We seed the blaze, goed to watch. So, maybe 'twas our tracks they seed, I dunno. Figgered Oliver wa'n't there in the fire. We goed to look for him elsewheres. Ain't found him. Gave up and goed home. I s'pose you could say we had bad intentions for Oliver. But, we wa'n't able to find him and carry 'em out. You kin see, he's fine." For now, his gaze seemed to add, as he eyed Oliver across the courtroom. But he wisely said no such thing aloud.

 

            The defense attorney finished his summation, "...Therefore, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, every bit of evidence in the prosecutor's case is entirely circumstantial."

 

            "We, the jury, find the defendants...not guilty."

 

            Once dismissed from the courthouse, Penny Baxter and the Huttos had no chance of escape. All four were seized by strong Forrester arms. Penny was unceremoniously slung up onto Buck's saddle with him, draped helplessly across the horse. Mrs. Hutto, with a great deal more kicking and screaming and cursing, suffered the same result, over Mill-wheel's horse. Limp with fright and crying steadily, Twink was boosted up onto the horse with Lem. Arch, Pack, and Gabby had to deal Oliver a few punches before he was subdued enough to be carelessly dumped over Arch's horse.

            Oliver still managed to protest, "Okay, we lost our case. Leave us go."

            "You're gonna lose a heap more'n that," Arch told him ominously.

            The riders set off to different destinations. Buck and Mill-wheel delivered Penny and Mrs. Hutto to Baxter's Island, and told them to stay there, if they knew what was good for them. Mill-wheel added, "You cain't foller us and find us fast enough to try to stop us anyways. You kin only git yourselves hurted, iffen you try. This is your only warnin'." The two Forresters galloped away, leaving Oliver's mother to sob into Penny's embrace, as Ory and Jody watched, dismayed and bewildered. Even if they'd dared to try to follow, they had no means to do so, as Penny's horse and wagon had been left behind at the courthouse.

            Lem delivered Twink to Forresters' Island, and left her in the care and custody of his parents. She was too stunned, frightened, and grief-stricken to disobey him or them.

            Buck, Mill-wheel, and Lem then rendezvoused with Arch, Pack, Gabby, and their captive, at the Glen. This time, with no audience and no real hope, Oliver allowed himself to show his honest feelings, and cowered before them. He refused to fight back, or to rise after each knockdown. He curled into a protective ball on the ground, and had to be unwound and dragged to his feet each time. He covered his injured face with his hands, and had to endure the ignominy of having his arms dragged away from his body, again and again.

            "Please! Don't do this! I don't want you to!!! I'm feered o' you!!"

            Unlike at the trial, they didn't even bother to torment him with smug grins; they remained grim and absorbed in their task of beating him.

            "Don't!!! Hit takened me so long to recover, t'other time!" His desperate slight hope of survival was couched in that comment.

            "You'll not haveta worry 'bout that, this time." And just like that, even that slight hope was dashed.

            "God, I'm scared!!! Stop hurtin' me!!" When they made no reply, he asked, "What you aim to do with Twink?"

            "Keep her for my own," said Lem. "A widow kin remarry."

            "But she's carryin' my baby!"

            "I'll raise it as my own. And she'll have more, with me."

            "But this baby'll be blond, like me! You'll hate that!"

            "No, it'll be blond, like her, is how I'll look at it."

            "What'd you do with Ma?!"

            "Left her with the Baxters. She's safe."

            "You'll not hurt her...?"

            "Long's she behaves herself."

            Now reassured regarding loved ones, at least as much as he could be, Oliver was again focused on his own personal anguish. "Please stop! It hurts too much!!" The blond was writhing on the ground in agony. "Please...please...." His pleas grew fainter.

            The Forresters stood over him solemnly, waiting to see if they had yet accomplished their grim task.

            Oliver's blood and life were draining away, as he begged, "Please. I don't wanta die."

            "You shoulda thought o' that before you come back here makin' trouble agin."

            "Somebody...please...hold my hand?" He sounded almost childlike.

            Without a qualm, Buck gently obliged, and murmured quietly, "Easy feller. Don't fight it. Jest let go. Jest go to sleep."

            Impatient and disgusted, Lem demanded, "What're you doin', Buck?"

            Buck looked up at him, and replied sternly, "Don't cost me nothin' to be kind to a sufferin' human bein' in his last moments."

 

            Lem and his brothers went home to a terrified Twink. As Lem took her into his embrace, she dared to ask in a tiny, timid voice, "Where is he?"

            "You'll not ask me that agin," he instructed, as he kissed her.