Henry slept fitfully, and he was awake the following morning early when the deputy arrived. He heard him in the hallway, kicking and talking loudly to someone, presumably Eaton.
“Wake up,” Henry heard him say. “We got a long ride ahead of us.”
Then Henry heard the key turn in the lock again, and soon the door opened and the deputy made his appearance. He wore the same wretched clothes he had worn the day before. Henry figured the man had slept in them. He wondered how long it had been since this white man had taken a bath. He seemed as unconcerned as ever as he brought out his key to the manacles and approached Henry.
“Where are you taking me?” demanded Henry.
The deputy unlocked the wrist that was fastened to the bedstead and hooked Henry’s two wrists back together.
“The court at Fort Smith,” he said nonchalantly.
Henry had heard of the court at Fort Smith and the famous hanging judge, Isaac Parker. He didn’t think that Judge Parker would hang him, but the knowledge of where he was being taken did put fear into his heart, and he had learned that he would get nowhere with this great clod of a man by demanding justice or by protesting his innocence, so he followed along quietly.
Soon the three of them—Henry, the deputy, and the sleazy Eaton—were riding horseback across the prairies of the northern Cherokee Nation. Henry maintained his silence for a good, long while. He was riding on his own horse and in his own saddle, and he wondered how the deputy had obtained them, as Henry had driven into Nowata in the wagon, leaving his horse and saddle back at the Todd Ranch. Finally he could no longer contain himself.
“I’m telling you,” he shouted as they rode along the trail, “I haven’t done anything. Mr. Eaton, what’s this all about?”
Eaton kept his eyes straight forward. He didn’t answer. Henry thought that it appeared as if Eaton didn’t have the guts to look him in the eyes. At least that was some indication that the man had a semblance of a conscience, but Henry couldn’t figure out a motive for what Eaton was doing to him. Eaton didn’t answer, but the deputy did.
“Listen, boy,” he said, “I don’t know what you’ve done or what you ain’t done. All I do is serve the writs. The court decides whether you’re guilty or not.”
“How did you get my horse?” said Henry.
“That’s all right,” said the deputy. “I got him, didn’t I?”
Once again Henry resolved to remain silent, and he maintained that silence the rest of what seemed to him to be the longest day of his life. Eventually the deputy called a halt to the ride and made a sloppy camp beside a stream for the night. He heated up some beans over a fire that Henry thought was large enough to roast a good-sized hog over, and he gave Henry a small dab of them. He also boiled some coffee and served it around. Eaton had still refused to speak to Henry and continued to avoid his gaze. After finishing his coffee, the deputy suddenly decided to move around the fire and sit down beside Henry. He spoke with what sounded to Henry like feigned concern.
“You ever been to Fort Smith before?” he said.
“No.”
“You ever been arrested?”
Henry’s second negative reply was louder than the first and filled with obvious and intentional indignation. The deputy sniffed loudly and spat toward the fire. He leaned back on an elbow.
“Look, boy,” he said, “like I told you before, I don’t know if you stole that man’s horse or not. I’m just doing my job. But I can see that you’re scared, and you got a reason to be. Young fella like you—never been in trouble before. Don’t know your way around with courts and judges and all that. Hell, you could be innocent and still wind up in jail and never know what happened to you.”
The deputy paused to let his words soak in. He settled back even more and groaned as he did. He glanced at Henry to see if he could detect the impact of his words on the young man’s face. Seeing nothing there, he continued.
“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll do this much for you. When we get to Fort Smith, I’ll stop off with you at a lawyer’s office—that is, if you want me to. You’re going to need someone on your side. Especially you being Indian and all. I tell you what. I sure wouldn’t want to be going up in front of Judge Parker. No sir. Not me. Not Isaac C. Parker.”
The deputy’s speech had made its impact on the young cowboy, though Henry had been careful not to let it show. He found himself, for the second night in a row, tired, bewildered, afraid, and unable to sleep. He supposed that he would have to let the deputy introduce him to a lawyer. What other recourse had he? He knew no one in Fort Smith, and, so far as he knew, there was no one in the world besides his two unwanted companions who knew where he was. He wondered, even if he could manage to extricate himself from this outlandish mess, whether or not he would have a job when he got back to the Todd Ranch. Guilty or innocent, he thought, it really didn’t matter much once a man had been arrested. Being in jail is no excuse for missing work.
Once they arrived in Fort Smith, the deputy, true to his word, took Henry directly to the office of an attorney-at-law. They tied their horses to a hitching rail in front of the building, and the deputy led Henry, still manacled, into the office. It was small, cluttered, and dusty. A fat, perspiring redheaded man sat puffing a cigar behind a desk. He looked up when Henry and the deputy came into his office, and, ignoring Henry, he smiled and stood up to greet the deputy.
“Oh, hello, Bernie,” he said.
“Howdy, John.”
“You look like you’ve had a hard ride,” said the lawyer, puffing smoke.
“Not too bad,” said the deputy. “I may have a customer for you here.”
“We call them clients, Bernie,” said the lawyer. “What did he do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” said Henry.
The lawyer didn’t seem even to acknowledge Henry’s protestation, though he did rephrase his question.
“What is he alleged to have done?”
“He’s supposed to have stole a horse,” said the deputy.
“Any evidence?”
“The man that owns the horse signed a writ against him. I got it right here.”
The deputy showed the document to the lawyer, who studied it hastily, puffing all the while.
“Well, boy,” he said, “it appears to me that you sure do need some legal representation. You got any money?”
Henry reached into his pocket with some difficulty because of the handcuffs and pulled out all his cash, which he dumped onto the lawyer’s desk. The fat man counted it quickly and greedily.
“Twenty-two dollars,” he said. “Is that all you got?”
“Every last penny,” said Henry.
The lawyer scraped it off the desk into a fat palm and pocketed it. He looked up at the deputy.
“Whose horse is he riding?” he asked.
“That’s my horse,” said Henry. He was beginning to be sick of these two talking about him as if he were not even in the room.
“It’s his,” said the deputy.
“Well,” puffed the lawyer, looking out his office window toward the hitching rail, “he’ll fetch a few dollars. What about the saddle?”
“It’s mine,” said Henry. “It’s nearly brand-new. I paid forty dollars for it.”
The big redhead moved back around behind his desk and dropped with a heavy sigh into his well-worn office chair. He leaned back with a creak and puffed out great clouds of smoke.
“These things cost money,” he said. “I can’t get very far for you with twenty-two dollars, but, uh, if you’ll sign this bill of sale for your horse and saddle, I might be able to help you out.”
“Even if you do get me out of this, how am I going to get home from here without my horse?”
“You’re a long ways from out,” said the redhead. “First things first.”
“Where else you going to turn, boy?” said the deputy.
Henry felt sick. He didn’t like either of these two men, and he didn’t trust them. He felt certain that they were just trying to get his money, and he felt like a fool for handing it over. Now they wanted his horse and saddle. He felt terribly young and inexperienced all of a sudden, and he felt completely vulnerable. This was all wrong, but he had no place else to turn. He had no idea what to do. He was alone and lost and almost without hope. Henry signed the paper.