Blood on the Table by Gerry Spence

Author:Gerry Spence
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

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THE DAY OF Eckersly’s trial, the wind ran wild across a hundred miles of vacant plains, and in high hilarity hurled anything loose, or that could be loosened, across the land—hats, newspapers, small dogs, and the pervasive cinders of the Union Pacific Railroad’s coal-burning locomotives. The cinders beat against the faces of the people like small, sharp buckshot. The people walked with their heads bowed to protect their eyes, and leaned into the wind as if they were walking uphill. At Laramie’s altitude of seven thousand feet, the air was thin and bone-chilling ten months of the year, and its citizens suffered an enduring suspicion that summer was but a fleeting fantasy.

On the streets of Laramie, one’s ears were assaulted by the mournful bellowing of coal-burning switch engines and the explosive sounds of boxcars banging into one another. Added to the cacophony was the high, mournful whistling of coast-to-coast passenger trains on their scheduled runs. The town smelled of smoke. But the people of Laramie were a hardy, proud, uncomplaining lot.

The Albany County Courthouse was an imposing three-story structure of hand-cut sandstone the color of a palomino horse. The courthouse was the hub of the county’s official business, the county offices on the first floor, the judge’s and prosecutor’s quarters and courtroom on the second, and the sheriff’s office and jail on the third. In the courtroom, the American flag stood boldly behind the judge’s bench. The ceiling was lofty, and the room’s oaken pews were of a design to guarantee the discomfort of all.

Justice was a bustling business in Laramie. It hired judges, court clerks, court reporters, the sheriff, his deputies, dispatchers and secretaries, the prosecutor, his deputies and secretaries, along with a bevy of private lawyers and their secretaries, who, but for the business of justice, would have been relegated to selling real estate and used cars.

The business of justice required bailsmen who profited beyond usury by providing bond for an accused. The jurors and witnesses and the families of the accused occupied hotel rooms and took their meals at the local restaurants.

The business of justice provided the county a budget for the Sheriff’s Department’s vehicles—gas, oil, and repairs—its guns and ammunition, as well as food and blankets for the prisoners.

The business of justice required accountants to keep the books and recording clerks to keep the criminal records. The epicenter of this bustling business was the Albany County Courthouse.

The harshness of Laramie’s climate drove many to treat their misery with the most widely used medication known to man—alcohol. And without drunken husbands beating their wives, drunken sheepherders fighting in the bars, drunken college students disturbing the peace, and the usual ration of hopeless drunks cluttering the streets, including an occasional desperate drunk attempting to burglarize a liquor store to satisfy his drinking habit, the lucrative business of justice would soon dry up. But only rarely was the town of Laramie favored with an honest-to-God murder case, a delight the sheriff bestowed upon the citizens when he’d filed charges against Ben Eckersly, a thoroughly sober man.

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