Shootout of the Mountain Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

expect to have this case tried and adjudicated before supper,” he said. “Do you think we can do that?”
    Ray Roswell, who had been appointed as the prosecutor, nodded confidently. “Your Honor, I have an entire trainload of passengers who were witnesses to the murder. I expect this to be a quick and easy trial.”
    “Mr. Reid, will you have time to prepare you case by two o’clock?” Judge Briggs asked the defense counsel.
    “Easily, Your Honor,” Reid said. “There is little to prepare for. Unfortunately for me, it seems to be an open-and-shut case against my client.”
    “Very well, court will convene at two o’clock sharp,” Judge Briggs said.
    Reid went directly from the meeting in the judge’s hotel room to the jail, where he asked to speak with the prisoner.
    “He’s back there,” Deputy Harley Beard said.
    Bobby Lee was lying on the bunk with his hands laced behind his head when the door from the sheriff’s office opened and a fat man with a florid face and thin, blond hair stepped into the back. He was sweating profusely, and he held a sweat-soaked handkerchief in his hand.
    “Bobby Lee Campbell?” he asked.
    “Cabot.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Bobby Lee Cabot,” Bobby Lee said. “That’s my name.”
    The fat man pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and looked at it, his lips moving as he read the print.
    “Yes, Cabot,” he said. “That’s you?”
    “It is.”
    “My name is Jack Reid. I’ve been appointed as your defense attorney.”
    Bobby Lee extended his hand, but saw that Jack Reid made no effort to reciprocate, so he pulled his hand back.
    “Why am I being appointed an attorney?” Bobby Lee asked. “I can afford my own attorney.”
    Reid wiped sweat from his face before he answered. “There are only two counselors in Cloverdale,” he replied. “The judge has appointed Mr. Roswell as prosecutor, so that leaves me for you. ”
    Bobby Lee nodded. “I guess that answers my question, doesn’t it?”
    “I’m here to help prepare for your defense. We go to trial at two o’clock this afternoon.”
    Bobby Lee looked up at the clock that hung from the wall at the end of the small corridor that separated the two jail cells from the back wall of the sheriff’s office. It read twelve-fifteen.
    “That’s only an hour and forty-five minutes,” he said. “That doesn’t leave us much time, does it?”
    “It’s time enough for the defense I have planned,” Reid said.
    “What defense is that? ”
    “I have looked at the case of the prosecution, Mr. Cabot. And my advice to you is to plead guilty, and throw yourself upon the mercy of the court.”
    “What?” Bobby Lee replied sharply. “I’ll do no such thing! I was not a participant in the robbery, I was trying to stop it.”
    “Mr. Cabot, the entire train saw you riding with Dodd and the others,” Reid said.
    “Yes, of course I was riding with them. It was all part of the plan. I was to ride with them and gather information as to when and where their next robbery would take place.”
    “But the entire train saw you with them,” Reid said again, as if he had not understood a word Bobby Lee said. “It will be their word against yours.”
    Bobby Lee shook his head. “I don’t deny I was riding with Dodd. The passengers did see that, but what the passengers could not see was my intent. Why was I riding with Dodd?”
    “Is that really the case you want to make?” Reid asked.
    “Of course it is the case I want to make. It is the truth, so I can do little else.”
    “All right, I’ll do what I can, but don’t expect much,” Reid said without enthusiasm. He turned to leave. “I’ll see you in court at two o’clock.”
    “Wait, that’s it? You are leaving now? That’s all the preparation you are going to do?”
    “What else is there to prepare?” Reid said. “You tell me that you were with Dodd because, somehow, you had planned to trap him and the others. Right?”
    “Yes,” Bobby Lee