Page 66 of Wellspring
Cade wanted to smash the lecherous expression off Reichardt’s face.“Tell them what happened next,” he shouted as he jumped to his feet.“Tell them how Erick Heller punched Sanders in the face, and Sanders shot him in the back.And Lutz didn’t raise a hand against him.”
The judge pounded on the desk again for order.“Neither Mr.Sanders nor Mr.Lutz are on trial here today.”
“Because they’re both dead,” Cade muttered.
“Webster, you’ll get your chance to speak next,” Parnell said.“Please take your seat so I don’t have to remove you from the courtroom until it’s your turn.”
Cade subsided grudgingly because he didn’t want to get kicked out.Erick would never let him hear the end of it if he caused that much of a scene, no matter how justified Cade felt it was.When the mutterings in the courtroom had died down, the judge turned back to Javier.“Whatdidhappen then?”
“Pretty much what Webster said.Heller defended Miz Roarke.Because he was the fastest, mind.Any one of Wellspring’s outfit would have done the same.Well, most of us would have gone for our guns instead of fists, but we’d have defended her, one way or another.But Heller knocked Sanders down and walked out.Sanders shot him in the back, and Lutz did nothing.Dr.Lillard managed to save Heller, and I stayed to stand guard while Webster rode like hell to warn Wellspring.I can’t tell you anything about the attack itself since I was here in town the whole time, but what I do know is what I heard in town before it all started, which I already shared, and that’s that Reichardt ordered the attack, even if he didn’t participate.”
“Thank you, Mr.Trujillo,” the judge said.“All right, Mr.Webster.Let’s hear what you have to say.”
Cade messed with his tie and reminded himself he’d survived far worse than this as he walked up to take the seat the others had vacated.“Now, what did you see or hear that night?”
“With all due respect, Your Honor, it started before that,” Cade said.“It goes back at least to mid-March.Miz Roarke sent me to Galveston this spring on an errand, and on my way back, Heller and I stopped in Austin for a night to rest and pick up some supplies to get us the rest of the way home.The next morning, we overheard Reichardt talking to Otto Ulrich, another rancher in the area, about Miz Roarke and how she was a problem.Reichardt said the simplest solution would be to marry her because then it wouldn’t matter what she thought because the land—and the water—would be under his control.And in a few years, after she’d given him an heir, no one would think twice if she had an unfortunate accident.Ulrich asked what he’d do if she refused to marry him, and he said there were other ways of getting what he wanted.Heller and I didn’t hear anything else, but we didn’t stick around either.We had to get back to warn Miz Roarke, not that I thought she’d give Reichardt the time of day.”
A sudden thought struck him.“It does make me wonder, though.Roarke had been working with mustangs his whole life.Everybody has bad days, but now I wonder if his accident wasn’t so much of an accident after all.”
“You’ll never prove it, boy,” Reichardt spat.“You can’t prove any of this.It’s all hearsay and gossip.”
“If enough people all saw or heard the same thing, Mr.Reichardt, it stops being hearsay or gossip, and becomes evidence,” the judge said.“And while facts about the death of Mr.Roarke might be hard to come by, I’ve certainly heard plenty of testimony of other crimes already.Now, Mr.Webster, you overheard the conversation in Austin and came home to warn your employer.What happened then?”
Leaving out everything between himself and Erick, Cade took the judge through the events of the months since—the harassment by JR hands, the threats, the mounting tension, and finally Erick getting shot and the harrowing ride through growing darkness to warn Wellspring before the nighttime attack.“And when it was over, I came back to town to make sure Heller had survived and to confront Sanders.You can ask anyone in town.Sanders shot at me first.I killed him in self-defense.”
“You don’t need to defend yourself to me.”Judge Morrison nodded his dismissal.Cade hightailed it back to his seat, loosening his tie enough to pull open his collar.He only hoped he’d been convincing enough.
“Your Honor, I’ll need to fetch Jim Collier from the lockup, if you’ll grant me a few minutes,” Parnell asked.
“Let’s take a twenty-minute recess so the marshal can produce his next witness,” the judge agreed.“In the meantime, can someone show me where I can get a beer in this town?”
Chapter Thirty-Six
BILLY MEIERwas swift to offer to escort Judge Morrison to the Lone Star.Cade sagged in his seat as soon as the judge left the building.“Fuck, I don’t know if this is going well or not.”
“We have plenty of witnesses on our side,” Javier said.
“Hearsay and gossip.”Payne scowled.“Reichardt’s right, we don’t have any hard proof.It’s our word against his, just like it’s always been.”
“But a lot more of us against one of him,” Miz Roarke said.“The judge seemed receptive to that.But we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Collier’s testimony should be pretty damning,” Javier said hopefully.“He told Parnell they attacked on Reichardt’s orders.”
But when the JR hand was sworn in, he kept glancing at Reichardt, whose glare was hard enough to cut glass.
“Mr.Collier, you took part in the attack on Wellspring.On whose orders were you acting?”Parnell asked.
“Adam Carter was the one who took us out there.”Collier glanced at Reichardt, then down at his shackled hands.
“Mr.Carter was killed during the attack,” Parnell explained to the judge.“And whose orders was Carter acting on?”
“Sanders’s, I guess.”Collier spoke with a bit more confidence.“He was the foreman, after all.”
“Mr.Collier, you told me earlier you acted on Mr.Reichardt’s orders,” Parnell declared.“Were you lying then, or now?”
“Well, I never heard Mr.Reichardt give no orders,” Collier said.Reichardt smiled, obviously pleased at the answer.
“But Mr.Sanders wouldn’t have the authority to order an attack on Wellspring, would he?”Parnell pressed.“An order like that would have to come from Mr.Reichardt.”
