The Headless Horseman: A Strange Tale of Texas

Behind these paraphernalia sits the judge, not only un-robed in ermine, but actually un-coated – the temperature of the day having decided him to try the case in his shirt-sleeves!

Instead of a wig, he wears his Panama hat, set slouchingly over one cheek, to balance the half-smoked, half-chewed Havannah projecting from the other.

The remaining chairs are occupied by men whose costume gives no indication of their calling.

There are lawyers among them – attorneys, and counsellors, there called – with no difference either in social or legal status; the sheriff and his “deputy”; the military commandant of the fort; the chaplain; the doctor; several officers; with one or two men of undeclared occupations.

A little apart are twelve individuals grouped together; about half of them seated on a rough slab bench, the other half “squatted” or reclining along the grass.

It is the jury– an “institution” as germane to Texas as to England; and in Texas ten times more true to its trust; scorning to submit to the dictation of the judge – in England but too freely admitted.

Around the Texan judge and jury – close pressing upon the precincts of the Court – is a crowd that may well be called nondescript. Buckskin hunting-shirts; blanket-coats – even under the oppressive heat; frocks of “copperas stripe” and Kentucky jeans; blouses of white linen, or sky-blue cottonade; shirts of red flannel or unbleached “domestic”; dragoon, rifle, infantry, and artillery uniforms, blend and mingle in that motley assemblage.

Here and there is seen a more regular costume – one more native to the country – the jaqueta and calzoneros of the Mexican, with the broad sombrero shading his swarthy face of picaresque expression.

Time was – and that not very long ago – when men assembled in this same spot would all have been so attired.

But then there was no jury of twelve, and the judge —Juez de Letras– was a far more important personage, with death in his nod, and pardon easily obtained by those who could put onzas in his pocket.

With all its rude irregularity – despite the absence of effete forms – of white ermine, and black silk – of uniformed alguazils, or bright-buttoned policemen – despite the presence of men that, to the civilised eye, may appear uncouth – even savage I hesitate not to say, that among these red flannel-shirts and coats of Kentucky jean, the innocent man is as safe – ay far safer – to obtain justice, and the guilty to get punished, than amidst the formalities and hair-splitting chicaneries of our so-called civilisation.

Do not mistake those men assembled under the Texan tree – however rough their exterior may seem to your hypercritical eye – do not mistake them for a mob of your own “masses,” brutalised from their very birth by the curse of over-taxation. Do not mistake them, either, for things like yourselves – filled to the throat with a spirit of flunkeyism – would that it choked you! – scorning all that is grand and progressive – revering only the effete, the superficial, and the selfish.

I am talking to you, my middle-class friend, who fancy yourself a citizen of this our English country. A citizen, forsooth; without even the first and scantiest right of citizenship – that of choosing your parliamentary representative.

You fancy you have this right. I have scarce patience to tell you, you are mistaken.

Ay, grandly mistaken, when you imagine yourself standing on the same political platform with those quasi-rude frontiersmen of Texas.

Nothing of the kind. They are “sovereign citizens” – the peers of your superiors, or of those who assume so to call themselves, and whose assumption you are base enough to permit without struggle – almost without protest!

In most assemblies the inner circle is the more select. The gem is to be found in the centre at Port Inge.

In that now mustered the order is reversed. Outside is the elegance. The fair feminine forms, bedecked in their best dresses, stand up in spring waggons, or sit in more elegant equipages, sufficiently elevated to see over the heads of the male spectators.

It is not upon the judge that their eyes are bent, or only at intervals. The glances are given to a group of three men, placed near the jury, and not very far from the stem of the tree. One is seated, and two standing. The former is the prisoner at the bar; the latter the sheriff’s officers in charge of him.

It was originally intended to try several other men for the murder; Miguel Diaz and his associates, as also Phelim O’Neal.

But in the course of a preliminary investigation the Mexican mustanger succeeded in proving an alibi, as did also his trio of companions. All four have been consequently discharged.

They acknowledged having disguised themselves as Indians: for the fact being proved home to them, they could not do less.

But they pretended it to have been a joke – a travestie; and as there was proof of the others being at home – and Diaz dead drunk – on the night of Henry Poindexter’s disappearance, their statement satisfied those who had been entrusted with the inquiry.

As to the Connemara man, it was not thought necessary to put him upon trial. If an accomplice, he could only have acted at the instigation of his master; and he might prove more serviceable in the witness-box than in the dock.

Before the bar, then – if we may be permitted the figure of speech – there stands but one prisoner, Maurice Gerald – known to those gazing upon him as Maurice the mustanger.

Chapter Eighty Seven.

A False Witness

There are but few present who have any personal acquaintance with the accused; though there are also but a few who have never before heard his name. Perhaps not any.

It is only of late that this has become generally known: for previous to the six-shot duel with Calhoun, he had no other reputation than that of an accomplished horse-catcher.

All admitted him to be a fine young fellow – handsome, dashing, devoted to a fine horse, and deeming it no sin to look fondly on a fair woman – free of heart, as most Irishmen are, and also of speech, as will be more readily believed.

But neither his good, nor evil, qualities were carried to excess. His daring rarely exhibited itself in reckless rashness; while as rarely did his speech degenerate into “small talk.”

In his actions there was observable a certain juste milieu. His words were alike well-balanced; displaying, even over his cups, a reticence somewhat rare among his countrymen.

No one seemed to know whence he came; for what reason he had settled in Texas; or why he had taken to such a queer “trade,” as that of catching wild horses – a calling not deemed the most reputable.

It seemed all the more strange to those who knew: that he was not only educated, but evidently a “born gentleman” – a phrase, however, of but slight significance upon the frontiers of Texas.

There, too, was the thing itself regarded with no great wonder; where “born noblemen,” both of France and the “Faderland,” may oft be encountered seeking an honest livelihood by the sweat of their brow.

A fig for all patents of nobility – save those stamped by the true die of Nature!

Such is the sentiment of this far free land.

And this sort of impress the young Irishman carries about him – blazoned like the broad arrow. There is no one likely to mistake him for either fool or villain.

And yet he stands in the presence of an assembly, called upon to regard him as an assassin – one who in the dead hour of night has spilled innocent blood, and taken away the life of a fellow-creature!

Can the charge be true? If so, may God have mercy on his soul!

Some such reflection passes through the minds of the spectators, as they stand with eyes fixed upon him, waiting for his trial to begin.

Some regard him with glances of simple curiosity; others with interrogation; but most with a look that speaks of anger and revenge.

There is one pair of eyes dwelling upon him with an expression altogether unlike the rest – a gaze soft, but steadfast – in which fear and fondness seem strangely commingled.

There are many who notice that look of the lady spectator, whose pale face, half hid behind the curtains of a calèche, is too fair to escape observation.

There are few who can interpret it.

But among these, is the prisoner himself; who, observing both the lady and the look, feels a proud thrill passing through his soul, that almost compensates for the humiliation he is called upon to undergo. It is enough to make him, for the time, forget the fearful position in which he is placed.

For the moment, it is one of pleasure. He has been told of much that transpired during those dark oblivious hours. He now knows that what he had fancied to be only a sweet, heavenly vision, was a far sweeter reality of earth.

That woman’s face, shining dream-like over his couch, was the same now seen through the curtains of the calèche; and the expression upon it tells him: that among the frowning spectators he has one friend who will be true to the end – even though it be death!

The trial begins.

There is not much ceremony in its inception. The judge takes off his hat strikes a lucifer-match; and freshly ignites his cigar.