Chapter Seventeen

The jury was out three days.

They brought in a verdict of guilty of murder in the second degree, with an urgent recommendation for leniency.

The judge asked me if I had anything to say before sentence was pronounced.

I started to shake my head. Then I said, “I’m not guilty of murder in the second degree or any other kind.”

He sentenced me to twenty years at hard labor at the State Reformatory for Men at Sandstone, Oklahoma.

I turned and looked out into the courtroom.

There was some overlapping, but the spectators were divided roughly into three groups—Indians, whites and Negroes. The white and Negro sections were packed, with people crowding into the aisles. The Indian section—well, that would have been packed except for Abe Toolate. Abe had a whole bench to himself.

My eyes swept on over him, and I remember thinking—and not getting much satisfaction out of it—that he looked as miserable as I felt. Then I was looking at the front bench where Miss Trumbull and Mr. Redbird were sitting.

I’d never really looked at them during the trial. I’d kept from looking at them, and I’d never spoken to them.

Now I looked at them and spoke. I said what Mr. Redbird had told me I would.

“Thank you,” I said.

I tried to spot Pa, because I had something I wanted to say to him, too. But he must have been standing in the back somewhere, and . . .

And two deputy sheriffs were leading me away.

It was all over.