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| Saint Sebastian River Bridge [Click image to call up all published instalments] |
Monday,
June 14, 1915
Harry Lee had to holler at John to wake him up: it was seven in the morning and breakfast was a’comin’.
John was surprised at how well he slept in jail; he rarely slept till dawn. A young man in a bad suit, a dusty blue camel-striped jacket with a vest that matched and a tie that didn’t, came along with Harry when he brought the tray from what John had learned was Schmid’s Restaurant, just down 12th Street.
Harry pulled up a chair for the serious young man, sat down on his own and handed the tray to John. John took it, but the serious young man didn’t take the seat. He ignored Harry and the fact that John’s hands were full with his breakfast, stood right up to the bars and stuck his hand through.
“Alto Adams, Attorney at Law. Pleased to meet you. Call me Bud.”
John looked at the hand. He looked at Harry. He looked at the breakfast on his lap. Breakfast won.
While Harry hid a snigger behind his fist, John Ashley stuffed his face with scrambled eggs and bacon while they were still hot. He took a huge bite from a piece of buttered toast, chewing with his mouth wide open, still looking at the hand.
He slurped coffee, and through a mouthful of food, he asked, “The fuck are you?”
Harry like to have spit out a laugh and had to get up and walk off down the hallway.
The serious young man withdrew the hand, with only the slightest sign of irritation; it seemed his nature was serious through and through.
“I, Mr. Ashley, am your attorney. I have been hired by Geneva Pitt, of Palm Beach, to represent you. I intend to get you out of this town and back to Palm Beach, to be tried for armed robbery, not capital murder here in Miami where no one knows you. I don’t expect it will be too difficult; from all accounts, Dade County is likely to be glad to be shut of you. Once we get to Palm Beach, we’ll see what we can do about the charges of bank robbery.”
Harry watched from down the hall, grinning to himself and wondering what kind of shenanigans John would pull next.
Ashley continued to shovel eggs and bacon into his mouth, chewing rudely, which Harry knew was unusual. John normally ate slowly and politely, chewed carefully, switched his knife and fork when he ought to, and kept his mouth shut. It followed that, whatever came out of his mouth next, Harry thought, was bound to be most entertaining. He was not disappointed.
John, mouth still jammed with food, cheeks bulging, looked up sideways at Adams again. “The fuck is Geneva Pitt?”
Officer Harry Lee threw back his head and brayed his pent-up laughter out loud.
Monday, June 28, 1915, 10 AM
“All rise!” the young Bailiff, facing the courtroom, intoned in a high but resonating voice. John Ashley thought he sounded like a choir singer in the local Southern Baptist Church.
John stood, at the defense table, his hands cuffed in front of him, in a lightweight suit bought for him with money from the mysterious Geneva Pitt.
He’d had a long bath, a haircut and a shave, and was feeling good. He wore a brand spankin’ new short union suit under a crisp white long-sleeved button-down shirt, a sparkling white summer jacket, and matching slacks with creases you could cut yourself on. He had on a black ribbon bow tie that matched his black eye-patch and gave him a decidedly rakish look. The ladies certainly noticed; they always did, John thought smugly. The only problem was that, as most folks did, the young lawyer had underestimated the length of John’s arms, and they stuck out of his cuffs nearly a foot. To the surprise of the apple-faced Adams, John knew not only how to don a suit and tie but how to act while wearing it; in fact, next to Adam’s slightly disheveled presence, John Ashley appeared downright debonair.
“The 11th Judicial Circuit Court of Florida is now in session, the Honorable Judge Everett Merrick presiding!”
John thought for sure the boy’s voice would crack. What was he, maybe sixteen?
The courtroom was filled to capacity, the front rows with whites, the back rows full of Seminoles in their colorful clothes. The whites sweated in the heat. The Indians didn’t. The crowd, both the poorer whites and most of the Indians, had to stand out in the street. The blacks had to stand behind everybody; even an Indian was better than a nigger.
Men could be heard shouting what was said in the court to them, passing it on like orders called from man to man on a ship of war.
The judge, a florid, slab-faced brute, swept into the courtroom from behind the bench, his black robe swirling around him like a flock of ravens around a malevolent god. He was scowling like a pirate and already pouring sweat in the heat.
“Oh shit, this don’t look good” |
Judge Merrick took the chair, grabbed a gavel and banged it enthusiastically three times. The cracking impacts bounced off the walls like the backfires of passing cars.
The bailiff sang out, “Order in the Court!” The mild babble ceased immediately.
Adams leaned close and whispered, “Rumor is, he’s broken two of those hammers this year, and it’s only June.”
John winced away and snapped his head around. “Bud” Adams was on his blind side. He’d yet to resign himself to being a one-eyed man. “That don’t sound good,” John whispered.
“No,” Adams reluctantly agreed. “No, it don’t.”
The Judge gave the back of the Bailiff’s neck a stern glare and said, “I’ve read the docket for this morning, Bailiff, so let’s get on with it.”
The Bailiff responded respectfully to the back wall. “Yes, Your Honor. First case on today’s docket is Sate of Florida versus John Hopkin Ashley. John Hopkin Ashley is charged with first-degree murder in the death of one Desoto Billy Tiger, son of Chief Tommy Billy Tiger of the Cow Creek,” but the Judge cut him off, speaking gently.
“All right, all right, Cornelius, we know who’s who, you can leave off with the ‘Hopkins’ and the ‘son of’s’ and get on with it.”
The boy’s face crumpled a little, and he said, “Aw, Uncle Ev, you said you wasn’t gonna call me Cornelius no more…”
A chuckle ran through the court.
Bang! The gavel hit the sounding block like a pistol shot, and Cornelius jumped half a foot. “I will have order in this court! Who is prosecuting for the State?”
A man at the table to John’s left stood, looking down, and carefully buttoned his perfect tan summer suit jacket. Of everyone there, he alone seemed unruffled by the Judge’s thorny aspect, and despite the humid air he didn’t seem to be sweating at all. He was tall, with shoulders built for the jacket, a sweeping wave of hair that could only be described as “auburn,” and a face that drew comments from behind the ladies’ fluttering hands.
The Court, Judge Merrick included, seemed to accept his delaying tactics without irritation. All except Alto “Bud” Adams, who bristled at the fellow like a Jack Russell terrier.
John screwed his head around again so he could see his lawyer, then chuffed in irritation and grabbed Adams’ left elbow. He dragged him past and to his left and took Adam’s previous position.
“It bugs the shit out of me when I can’t see you” |
Adams scowled. “Arrogant prick,” passed his lips, while his eyes followed the prosecutor as if he thought the District Attorney might bite, given the chance.
John could easily see what upset Adams, who he knew probably wouldn’t get away with what this guy was pulling.
“J. Winston Fesmire, Esquire, for the People of the State of Florida, Your Honor.”
Merrick appeared to have had enough. “We know who you are, counsellor; I thought I made that clear. Now can we get on with the damn charges please?”
J. Winston fingered the knot on his brown bow tie, twisted his head, cleared his throat. Didn’t look at the judge.
“Ah, Your Honor, we have the charge of murder in the first degree of Desoto Tiger.”
He stopped with his mouth open as if he’d wanted to go further with that but thought better of it.
“We have the testimony of Girtman Brothers Trading Company and a bill of sale for twelve hundred dollars for a skiff full of otter hides.”
The Judge waited, then lost patience again. “And?”
Fesmire, still not looking the judge in the eye, returned to the table and shuffled through pages of notes. “Ah, we have the sworn testimony of ah, one Jimmie Gopher, Cow Creek Seminole and a trapper by trade, that the day before the sale, he saw John Ashley in the skiff with Desoto Tiger and the hides.”
Judge Merrick hung his face down into his beefy hands, rubbed his eyes, looked up at Fesmire blearily and said again, “And?”
Fesmire didn’t seem to have another “and.”
“You’ll have your turn, counselor” |
“Counselor, why is your client on the outside of the bar? Bailiff, why is that prisoner not secured?”
His voice was rising and the storm clouds gathered on Merrick’s brow, but Adams spoke up. “I was on his blind side, your Honor! John’s not used to being half-blind, and a man needs to be able to see his lawyer when his life is on the line.”
John rolled his good left eye at “his lawyer” and managed to keep a smirk off his face. The kid wasn’t as dumb as he looked, for sure and for certain. At one shot he’d drummed up sympathy for a one-eyed man, cast the accused as a victim, and presented himself as the perfect mix of professionalism and compassion.
The Judge considered it for a moment, grunted, and turned his ire back upon the DA.
John saw Adams visibly slump and put a hand on his back for support. Adams looked at him and John winked.
Adams leaned over, twitched his head towards Fesmire, and tipped his hand to his mouth, to mimic drinking. So, that was it. John went ahead and smiled this time.
Within half an hour, without a word from Adams or John, the Judge had established that, despite the circumstantial evidence, Fesmire and the State had absolutely nothing tying John Ashley to the death of Desoto Tiger.
The body had been found by a dragline crew in the New River, halfway to Okeechobee, and the hell and gone from Dade County. Other than Jimmie Gopher, no one could place John with Desoto on that day in 1911, and as of the present day, no one could quite place Jimmie Gopher either. He’d possibly died, which most Indians thought likely, or had run off, as most whites assumed. You never could trust fuckin’ Indians anyway, was the general white opinion, while the general opinion of Indians was you could trust a white man when the sun rose in the west. Desoto Tiger’s body lay a’moulderin’ in the grave, and it looked like the Coming of the Lord was a long ways off.
“It is the order of this court that the charges of murder in the first or any other degree against John Ashley be dropped for lack of evidence.”
The Indians in the back rows erupted in shouts and fists shaking in the air.
“I will have order” |
Pretty much everyone sat and shut. A few were dragged out by deputies, but no one wanted to miss the proceedings, so they mostly behaved.
Judge Everette Merrick really looked at Alto Adams for the first time. “Don’t you have a motion you would like to forward, counsellor?”
Adams looked confused for a minute, while the courtroom once again filled up with voices shouting, arguing, debating.
John leaned over and quietly said “Palm Beach…”
Bud’s features cleared, and he responded loudly, over the hubbub, “Yes, your honor! I have a motion to file!” He dug frantically in his battered briefcase, pulled out several sheets of paper, waving them like a white flag. “Defense moves to remand John Hopkin Ashley to Palm Beach County, to face charges of armed robbery and grand theft!”
It was like the air had gone from the room. No one spoke.
Bang! “So ordered!”
The courtroom might as well have had a stick of dynamite go off in the very center. The whites jumped up and cheered. The Seminoles, including Desoto’s parents, jumped up shouting angrily, waving fists. Some pulled knives. All of them began struggling over the seat backs in front of them and going after any white man they could get their hands on.
Judge Merrick pounded his gavel, to no effect.
Desoto’s mother, Louise Tiger, grabbed a white banker by the arm and slashed his hand with her skinning knife.
Bailiff Cornelius Merrick, son of Judge Merrick’s favorite sister, had drawn his Colt Army Special .38, and was pointing it around the room with no idea clear who to fire it at. John dragged Bud Adams under the table and told him quietly to stay down.
Finally, someone fired three loud shots into the ceiling, and the crowd just stopped. A few flakes of plaster drifted lazily down, winking in the sunlight through the windows, and a person with good ears might have heard them hit the floor.
One beefy white farmer had a young Indian he’d beaten senseless by the collar, the only thing holding the man halfway up. He let go, and the bloody-faced Seminole slumped to the floor.
Louise Tiger had the banker’s left arm up behind his back, her knife at his throat. His right hand hung at his side, dripping blood on the floor from the cut she’d given him. She looked nervously at Sheriff Dan Hardie, standing with his Webley .455 self-loader in his hand.
He nodded a bow to her and politely tipped his hat. “Miz Tiger. Touch on the warm side today, in’nit?” Louise Tiger stared at him with suspicious eyes a second longer. She stood five-foot six and weighed in at about a hundred and thirty pounds.
The banker, at five-eleven and around two-twenty, looked like a damned fool, being held by a woman whose head only came to his shoulder.
Hardie was smiling, and he said gently, “Be right obliged, ma’am, if’n you’d turn Mr. Anderson there loose; he holds the deed to my house, and Miz Hardie would be right put out with me if’n I let anythin’ happen to him.”
Laughter, a little too loud, sounded around the court.
Merrick scowled over his gavel but had the sense not to bang it.
Hardie looked around. “Show’s over, folks, it’s time fer lunch. It bein’ Monday, Schmid’s is havin’ that tasty meatloaf, and I fer one don’t intend to miss it.” The crowd began to shuffle out. Louise Tiger turned Mr. Anderson loose, took her knife and cut a strip from her petticoats, using it to bandage his hand.
Anderson’s eyes were like saucers, his face whiter than his usual office-earned paleness, but he held his ground.
When she finished, she massaged his left shoulder, as much in the way of an apology as any Seminole was ever likely to offer a white man, and he patted her hand before he left.
The muscular farmer picked the skinny Indian up off the floor as easily as he’d have lifted a five-pound sugar sack, carelessly brushed the dust off him, and handed him a pocket flask. He held the swaying young Seminole up while he took two good swallows that seemed to revive him. Blood streamed down the Indian’s face, and the farmer pulled out his bandana and wiped it off, then gargled off the rest of the flask. They staggered out the doors, arms on each other’s shoulders.
| Copyright © 2022 by Roger Owens |
Roger, now that Bob Boldt and I have his 3-part memoir up and scheduled, maybe I can get back to setting up and scheduling the last 20 or so installments of your colorful, wonderfully historically detailed story about the Ashley gang, the Dedge brothers, and the crowd trying to capture the gang….
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