Lightnin'

"I promised you, didn't I?"

"But that was a long time ago. I supposed you'd forgotten all about it."

Bill glanced quickly at him and smiled. "I ain't never forgotten nothin' since I was four years old."

Marvin, happy to see the old Lightnin' behind the boast, smiled, asking him, "How did you know the trial was to-day?"

"That's easy," Bill replied, as he sat against the edge of the table, steadying himself with his hands. "I seen it in a Reno paper at the Home."

"But I told you the time I came to see you that you needn't bother about coming. I wouldn't have had you come all this long way for the world if I had known it." There was concern in Marvin's voice as he slowly dropped into a chair in front of Bill.

"That's why I didn't say nothin'."

"Where did the money come from?"

"I saved my pension." Bill glanced slyly at him. Catching his questioning eye, he stopped and looked through the window into the distance.

"You told me you sent your pension money to your wife!"

"I did – some of it. I sent mother six dollars, but I didn't get no answer." The laughter went from Bill and he leaned over, looking toward the far hills, strange, unreal purple against the clear, cold blue of the April sky.

Marvin watched him, asking, "Did you tell her you were in the Soldiers' Home?"

"No." Bill's voice was devoid of inflection.

"Then she probably didn't know where you were."

"Where else could I be?" His lips were puckered into a whistle, although they were quivering and no tune came. It was always this way when he thought of mother, so he straightened himself and stood by Marvin's chair, forcing a smile to his lips and jerking out, "And six dollars is six dollars."

The court-room was filling again, five minutes having elapsed since recess was declared. A side door opened and Townsend came into court. Blodgett stood up, pounded the desk with his gavel and announced the opening of the session. Bill and Marvin, rising to order, started and looked at each other as Thomas entered the room just behind the judge. Following him was Everett Hammond, who, when he saw Bill and Marvin together at the attorneys' table, began vigorous and anxious whispering in Thomas's ear as he took his place next to him on the other side of the table.

Margaret Davis entered from the judge's chambers. She was accompanied by Mrs. Jones and Millie.

Bill did not see them. His eyes were fastened on Hammond and Thomas in close conference.

But suddenly, as he turned to take in the rest of the people in the room, his eyes alighted on his wife. He arose and wandered toward her, exclaiming, as she came to meet him, "Why, mother, what are you doing here?" He stared at her and held out his hand.

Mrs. Jones was so surprised to see him that she could not speak and stood still, her hands in the air half-way between her waist and shoulder.

Millie was the first to answer him. "Oh, daddy – " She was going to put her arms around him, when Blodgett rapped upon the table for order.

Tears sprang to Mrs. Jones's eyes and Margaret Davis arose and led her to a chair next to hers and just at the foot of the platform, from which Townsend smiled happily upon them.

"Come along, Mr. Clerk!" There was cheer in Townsend's voice as he directed another saccharine shaft toward Margaret. "I've got an important engagement and I want to get through. Call the next case."

Bill, his eyes still on his wife, walked slowly to the table and sat down just behind Marvin.

"Jones versus Jones," read the clerk, standing at one side of the platform and unfolding the document he held in his hand.

Bill did not hear him. He was gazing at Mrs. Jones, an old tenderness in his eyes, a bitter longing in his heart. Drifting, living only for the hour, as was his nature, but one scar had remained unobliterated upon his memory, one hope alone flickered in the lonely sanctuary of a soul that had known no conflicts. His affection for his wife had been something deeper than emotion, something lighter than passion. It had been the lasting quantity in a life of fleeting concepts, and his six months at the Home had subdued it into a dull ache which found relief only when a faint optimism brought vague dreams of a remote reunion.

Her presence in court puzzled him. He felt that it must have something to do with the sale of the place, or, perhaps, with Marvin's case. And yet he was sure she knew nothing of the transaction between Mrs. Marvin and Thomas, or between Rodney Harper and Marvin. Whatever it was, it had brought a ray of expectancy to Bill, and he jumped as he was brought out of his reverie by Marvin's perplexed whisper: "Jones versus Jones. By Jove, Lightnin', I believe that's you!"

"Me?" Bill glanced around as if he were half awake and leaned far forward in his chair, putting his hand to his ear and straining to catch every word as the clerk read the complaint:

"To the people of the State of Nevada, Mary Jones, Plaintiff versus William Jones, Defendant. A civil action wherein the said plaintiff deposes and says she was lawfully married to the said defendant on the 14th day of June, eighteen hundred and ninety-six, in the state of Nevada. The said plaintiff prays this court for a permanent annulment of her marriage vows, the defendant, William Jones, having disregarded and broken all obligations of the marriage contract, thereby causing the plaintiff great suffering and mental agony and the said Mary Jones claims a final separation and divorce from the said William Jones on the grounds of failure to provide, habitual intoxication, and intolerable cruelty. Subscribed and sworn to me on the fifth day of April, nineteen hundred and seventeen. Alexander Bradshaw, Notary: Raymond Thomas, Attorney for the plaintiff."

When the clerk had finished Bill sent a beseeching glance toward his wife. Each word of the document had entered far into a mind little given to taking account. One by one he had tolled off the record against him, placing the accusations in two files – the true and the false. That his wife had cause for anger against him he now, for the first time, fully realized. But he was bewildered, and when Bill was bewildered it was his habit to seek enlightenment.

After a moment, in which Mrs. Jones darted swift glances from beneath a brow bowed with regret, he turned to Marvin, who had arisen and was standing back of his chair, bending over him, and asked, simply, "Is that all about me?"

Blodgett tapped his sheriff's gavel.

Townsend caught Bill's question and asked, "What did you say?"

Marvin, knowing that Bill was inadequate to the test placed upon him, came quickly to the rescue. Standing in front of the judge, he explained: "Your Honor, Mr. Jones is the unconscious defendant in this case. It just happened that he came to court to-day to be a witness in another case. He has had no previous knowledge of this action."

Before he could go farther Raymond Thomas, upon whom the entire situation was reacting in swift, powerful threats to his cause, arose, his face drawn with the agony of frustration, his voice high pitched from the effort to subdue the feelings fast getting beyond his control. "The defendant's whereabouts were unknown to us, your Honor, and the court allowed us to serve notice by publication."

"Publication in what?" Marvin demanded, as he darted contempt at Thomas.

Townsend answered him. "Proper service was given, if the defendant could not be located." To Bill he addressed the next question, "Is that what you asked about?"

Still confused, and not yet quite getting the trend of the whole matter, he asked, in his quiet, disinterested way, "Who, me?"

"Yes," replied the judge. "You made some remark after the complaint was read."

"I wasn't sure I'd got it straight," Bill said, looking ahead of him, mouth half open.

"You mean the grounds on which the action is based?" the judge persisted.

There was a pause, in which Bill looked first at Thomas, whose lids drooped under the old man's scrutiny, and then at his wife, who hung her head. "I guess so," he jerked, drumming his fingers softly on the table.

Townsend ordered the clerk to repeat that part of the complaint wherein the grounds for the suit were mentioned. The clerk repeated, "Failure to provide, habitual intoxication, and intolerable cruelty."

Bill listened attentively. As the clerk sat down, Bill looked up at the judge, asking, "Is that all?"

"Don't you think it's enough?" There was admonition in his manner, but there was a certain gentleness in his voice and a smile of sympathy lurked at the corners of his mouth. It was difficult for Lemuel Townsend, who knew the lovable side of the careless old man, but he was determined to maintain the dignity and the integrity of the law, and he knew that he must remain unbiased, no matter how strong his feeling was that here there had been sad tampering with truth and the finer essences of happiness.

His severity did not touch Bill. His sense of humor, always close to the surface, asserted itself. A gleam that was half derision, half amusement, lighted his eyes as he grinned up at the judge. "Sounded as if there was more the first time."

Marvin again stood before the judge. He knew that Bill had no one to defend him and he had not felt the necessity of offering himself. He just took it for granted that Bill would turn to him in the dilemma and so he took the case in his hands. "I am counsel for the defendant, your Honor," he said, "and he is entering a general denial."

"Are you counsel for the defense?" Townsend's astonishment was evident in his long-drawn inflection. He had not heard of Marvin's admission to the bar. Neither had he seen the young man about lately, and the whole situation puzzled him.

Before Marvin could answer him, Bill was out of his seat, replying for him, "Yes, sir, he is my lawyer."

It was not the judge's way to admit himself baffled. Turning to Thomas, he instructed him to call his witnesses.