Burt didn’t need one of the wooden coffins Welsh was making, because Moreton Frewen had bought one of the manufactured coffins Welsh kept on hand for the more affluent of his customers. It was called the “Eternal Cloud” and it was a beautiful casket, painted with a shining, black satin finish, and adorned with silver. The ad for the coffin boldly announced:
This Coffin is guaranteed to last for ONE THOUSAND YEARS!
Nobody ever thought to ask how a disappointed customer would be able to collect on the guarantee.
Rawlings was laid to rest later that morning, borne to the cemetery in a glass-sided hearse. His funeral was attended by half the people from the town and a significant number of people from the county.
From the window of his cell, Clem was able to watch the funeral cortege as it passed by the jail.
“Why have so many turned out for one cowboy’s funeral?” Clem asked the deputy marshal.
“They are all turnin’ out ’cause he was just a boy, only seventeen years old, and ever’body thinks it is a dirty shame that someone who’s never done no evil to anyone gets murdered in cold blood,” the deputy replied. “And seein’ as you’re the one that done it, well, I reckon there’ll be about that many turn out to watch you hang.”
Clem, who was standing on his bed so he could see out the window, stepped down, then sat on his bunk with his elbows on his knees, and his head in his hands.
He thought of a fishing hole that was near the house where he had grown up back in Missouri, and he wished with all his heart that he could be there now.
“Clem, get on back here and feed the chickens now!”
“I done fed ’em, Ma,” Clem lied. “I just need to catch me a couple more fish here.”
“You haven’t fed them. I know you haven’t.”
“Leave me alone. If you want your goddamn chickens fed, feed ’em yourself.”
“Clem, how can you talk to me that way? I am the one who gave birth to you!”
“Yeah, well I didn’t ask to be born. Now just feed your chickens and leave me be.”
Clem couldn’t wait to get out of Missouri. He intended to go West and strike gold. He knew there was gold out here, he had read about it. All you had to do was find a stream then start sifting through that stream with a pie pan, and you could find as much gold as you wanted.
Or so he had thought.
The reality was much different. The reality was that he didn’t find any gold, and in order to eat, he had turned to stealing. After that it was an easy step to fall in with murderers and thieves, and now he was about to pay the price.
When Moreton Frewen told Matt that he was a judge, he wasn’t exactly lying, but he was stretching the truth. He was a member of the Magistrate’s Court in the Judiciary of England and Wales. In this appointed but unpaid position, his authority was limited, even in England. He had no authority whatever in America, except for an honorary recognition of his status, but he believed in the principle of fiat justitia ruat caelum, “let justice be done,” regardless of the circumstances, so when the occasion called for it, he merely assumed the authority.
Because The Lion and The Crown Saloon was the largest building in Sussex, arrangements were made to hold the trial there. Nearly everyone who had attended Burt Rawlings’s funeral that morning were now present at the saloon turned courtroom. The tables had all been moved to one side, except for three: one to be used by Frewen as the judge’s bench, the second to be used by the defense counsel and the defendant, and the third to be used by the prosecutor. The chairs were then put out in rows, theater-style, but there were far too many people for the chairs, so the rest of the attendees were lined up along the bar and the walls. Two of the bargirls who worked The Lion and The Crown, Lucy and Rose, were sitting up on top of the upright piano. Their crossed bare legs were the object of attention of many of the cowboys who had come into town for the trial.
There were only two lawyers in town, so Frewen appointed one to act as the prosecutor, and the other to act as defense counsel. Orin Dempster, the court-appointed lawyer for the defense, registered a protest before the trial even got underway.
“Mr. Frewen, I submit, sir, that you do not have the authority to preside over this trial,” Orin Dempster said. “This is clearly a case of coram non judice, a legal proceeding without a judge, with improper venue, without jurisdiction.”
“I am a duly appointed Magistrate,” Frewen said.
“In England, sir, not in America, and certainly not in Wyoming. We could quite easily send to Buffalo for a judge,” Dempster insisted.
“No need to waste the judge’s time,” Frewen said. “I am quite capable of presiding over the trial.”
Clem was sitting at the table with Dempster and with Marshal Drew.
“You got no right to try me,” Clem called out.
Frewen looked over at Clem. “You are not to speak until you are asked to speak.”
“But this here feller is right,” Clem said. “You can’t try me.”
“If you speak again, I will have you gagged,” Frewen said.
Clem opened his mouth as if to speak again, but closed it before he uttered a sound.
“Your Honor, I want my protest to go on record,” Dempster said.
“Duly noted,” Frewen said. “Marshal Drew, would you bring the prisoner before me, please?”
Marshal Drew prodded Clem before the table that Frewen was using as his bench.
“Would the prisoner state his name, please?” Frewen said.
“Clem.”
“And what is your surname?”
“My what?”
“Your last name. I shall require your last name.”
Clem smiled. “You do, huh? Well, you ain’t goin’ to get it. I reckon that means you can’t try me, don’t it?”
“It will not prevent the trial from taking place,” Frewen said.
Clem turned toward Dempster. “Can he do that? Can he still have the trial even if he don’t know my last name?”
“Your Honor, I am filing a second protest,” Dempster said.
“Your protest is noted,” Frewen said.
“What’s that mean?” Clem asked Dempster. “These protests you are filing.”
“That means that whatever the verdict is as a result of this trial, there is a possibility that it might be overturned,” Dempster said.
Clem grinned broadly. “Is that a fact?”
“It could take as long as a month,” Dempster said.
“That’s all right, I’ve got a month.”
“Wrong, sir. You have all eternity,” Frewen said.
“What? What do you mean? What do you mean I have all eternity?”
“I mean, sir, that if this jury finds you guilty I will sentence you to hang tomorrow,” Frewen said. “That being the case, if the verdict is overturned next month, it will be of no consequence to you, because your carcass will be a worm feast.”
“No, that ain’t right!” Clem said.
“Killing Burt Rawlings wasn’t right, either,” Frewen said. “Mr. Gilmore, you are the prosecutor. Make your case, please.”
“The court calls Jeffery Singleton to the stand,” Gilmore said.
Jeff, all cleaned up now and wearing his best denims and shirt, took the stand and was sworn in.
“Mr. Singleton, did you see who killed Burt Rawlings?”
“Yes, sir, I did.”
“Is he in this courtroom now?”
“One of ’em is,” Jeff replied. “The other ’n is tied up to a board that is standin’ up in front of Sikes’ Hardware Store.”
There was a smattering of laughter throughout the court.
“Would you point to the murderer please?”
“It was him,” Jeff said, pointing to Clem.