The room was vast, cool, and silent. High above the judicial bench, three large windows of bottle-green glass admitted a pale, watery light that fell upon the polished mahogany tables, the heavy leather chairs, and the large brass spittoons placed at intervals along the rail. Behind the bench hung a heavy velvet curtain of dark maroon, against which the white plaster seal of the Territory of Arizona gleamed like polished bone.
Tala walked down the center aisle between the rows of empty oak benches.
Her boots made no sound upon the heavy Brussels carpet that covered the floor within the bar. She sat down on the leather bench beside the counsel table, laid her hands flat upon her knees, and looked up at the empty bench where the law of the white men was delivered.
The fear that had hovered over her life since the day the soldiers rode through the red willows on the Gila was not here. In this high, silent room of stone and mahogany, there were no ropes, no bluebottle flies over greasy ledgers, and no drunken teamsters spitting in the dust. There was only a high bench, a clean sheet of paper, and the fact that she was sitting in the light, waiting for the judge to open the book and read her name in her own voice.
Jonah sat down beside her, setting the black tin box between his feet on the floor. He did not say a word. He reached into his coat pocket, took out his spectacles, polished the lenses with his handkerchief, and put them on, his grey eyes fixed upon the mahogany door that led to the judge’s chambers.
Outside, in the bustling plaza of the ancient town, the bells of San Agustín began to chime four o'clock, their deep, bronze strokes rolling through the thick adobe walls with the heavy, solemn cadence of an hour that had finally come to pass.
The mahogany door behind the judicial bench opened with a heavy, muted click that cut through the cavernous quiet of the courtroom.
Judge Donald Miller entered the room without a robe, wearing a dark wool suit of tailored charcoal broadcloth that hung loose over broad, stooped shoulders. He was a man in his late fifties, his hair thinning to a dull silver at the temples, his face etched with the dry, leathery grooves common to men who had practiced territorial law through twenty years of mining disputes, land grabs, and military incursions. His eyes, set deep beneath thick, iron-grey brows, carried the flat, weary skepticism of a jurist who had seen every form of human greed disguised as statutory compliance.
Behind him walked a young man carrying two thick leather-bound folio volumes and an inkstand—a junior clerk named Evans, whose collar was slightly crumpled and whose fingers bore the purple stain of fresh carbon paper.
Following Evans into the bar, stepping with quick, nervous strides, was a man in an oiled leather traveling coat: Bradley, the attorney from Prescott whom Henderson had named in the corridor. Behind Bradley, hovering just inside the swinging mahogany gate with his hat clutched in both hands, stood Elias Hutchins.
Hutchins looked scoured by travel. His black coat was grey with trail dust, his collar frayed, and his small, red-rimmed eyes darted between Jonah and the judge’s desk with an unstable mixture of malice and apprehension. When his gaze fell upon Tala, sitting calm and upright on the leather bench in her dark indigo coat, his jaw tightened until the yellow skin over his cheekbones pulled taut.
Judge Miller did not climb to the elevated dais. He sat down at the head of the heavy mahogany counsel table inside the bar, adjusted a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, and placed his palms flat upon the green baize cloth.
“Mr. Henderson,” the judge said, his voice a low, raspy baritone that needed no raising to fill the room, “bring me the file on the Black Mesa petition.”
Henderson hurried forward through the gate, laying the blue-jacketed Prescott petition and the manila envelope bearing Jonah’s red wax signet side by side before the magistrate.
Bradley cleared his throat, taking a step forward and resting his fingertips on the table with practiced confidence. “Your Honor, as counsel of record for Mr. Elias Hutchins of the Black Mesa Commission, I must register an initial objection to the irregular nature of this conference. This matter concerns an administrative attachment under the military statutes of 1867. An informal hearing in chambers or at counsel table without formal docketing—”
“Sit down, Mr. Bradley,” Judge Miller said, not looking up from the papers.
“Your Honor—”
“I said sit down, sir,” Miller repeated, his voice dropping half an octave, carrying the weight of a stone falling into deep water. “You rode eighty miles from Prescott on an amended petition asserting that this court’s April order was obtained under fraudulent representation. You brought Mr. Hutchins, and Mr. Reed has brought the subject of your writ. I have thirty minutes before the municipal land commission sits in this room. If you waste three of them on procedural filibuster, I will fine you twenty dollars for contempt and dismiss your petition without prejudice. Sit.”