Simon wrote, dragging one hand behind the other because of the manacles. Doris stood on her toes to write her name, examined it, tipped her head back and forth, decided it was all right. The justice asked if there was a ring and the lieutenant said, in a rigidly controlled voice, “Here.” He held out a thin band of silver, the kind you could buy at the Military Plaza market next to the bird sellers. The kind young girls saved for and wore on their forefingers to shine in the sun and glitter as they helped their mothers dish out tortillas and chilis, cheap and bright.

And then Doris said I will, and Simon said I will. He lifted his manacled hands over her head and laid his arms around her neck. He kissed her with great care because of his split lip and also so that he did not lose his balance. He felt her body pressed against him, ignoring the pain of the wound that ran from his navel to his sternum. He stood for what seemed to be a long time with his head bent and his face in her hair and nobody said anything. At last he lifted his handcuffed hands over her head again and stepped back. She looked up at him with wide eyes, and perhaps it was her vision, perhaps he had a glow around his head. He hoped so. He had little else. And so they were married. And then he went to his trial before the officers of the tribunal.

Chapter Twenty-six

The Vance House was northeast of the plazas at Paseo and St. Mary’s. It had been taken over by the Union Army, now simply the United States Army. In the main dining room was convened the last military tribunal of the Texas occupation under the auspices of the office of the judge advocate general this day of the twenty-fifth of February 1867 to consider the matter of a charge of homicide preferred against Simon Boudlin, age twenty-four, musician, resident of San Antonio.

Simon walked through the front doors with Lieutenant Jacob Whittaker at his elbow. Coming down the hall Whittaker took off his cap and said to him, “Listen, Simon, they wouldn’t hang a fiddler. They’d hang a carpenter, a blacksmith, a gambler, or a horse thief but nobody would ever hang a fiddler.”

Simon didn’t laugh. What was in his mind was that they might not hang him but there was the possibility of several years behind bars in Huntsville.

“I am your counsel. Your defender.” The lieutenant pressed back his glasses. He carried the mail sack in one hand and a sheaf of papers carefully annotated under his arm. This case would help him transfer into the judge advocate general’s department. If he could win it. “None of us on the tribunal have to be lawyers, just chosen at random from various branches. The man prosecuting you is Captain Garth. It’s his job, it would not be personal.”

“Yes.” Simon slowed. “Hold up a minute.” He leaned against the wall, hoping the faintness would go away.

Whittaker waited patiently. “Take your time,” he said.

Simon straightened at last. He said, “Lieutenant, I know you held Miss Dillon in great regard.”

A long tense silence and then Whittaker said, “Love and war,” in a stiff voice. “So it goes.” The late sunlight glinted from his small round eyeglasses and the uniform itself seemed to hold him upright in a strict rectitude. “I wish the best for her. Selfless, very noble, I know. But she has made her decision and so deserves every good thing. That might or might not include you and by God it better.” He held the mail sack in one hand, his sliding papers in the other. “I asked to be appointed your defense counsel. I will do whatever is in my power.”

They walked on. The hall seemed endless. The wallpaper was a dizzying repetition of milkmaids with feet the size of pie wedges dancing in some kind of foliage. Two privates had been posted on either side of the double doors to the dining room. One opened the doors and then shut them as they passed through. Inside, Whittaker came to attention, tucked his cap under one arm, and saluted. The big man with the giant shoulder boards at the middle of the long table stood and returned it, sat down again. He was clearly Colonel Frelich. The other officers he didn’t know. Had no way of knowing.

He stood before the board with his hands held low to hide the manacles. Doris had soaked her handkerchief and wiped his face, but there were still blood spots and stains on his shirt, his vest, his pants, rimming his nostrils. He saw that the butternut vest was not only missing buttons but it was cut through as was his shirt.

They began by reading aloud the military statutes that made the tribunal legal, then the state law against homicide in all its variations (willful, negligent, premeditated) and this went on until they finally came around to self-defense. Also charges of resisting an arresting officer and attacking another prisoner in the cells.

Simon was asked by Judge Advocate Frelich to describe what had happened.

He paused. Someone poured him a glass of water, but he didn’t drink it because it would have been difficult with the manacles. It would have been humiliating.

Judge Advocate Frelich observed this and said, “You do not have to stand, you are injured. Sit down. Now, you had fired this Pruitt from off of your music band, did you not?” The man’s stand collar bit into the flesh of his neck; the new spring sun shone on his balding head and the grain of the table, bounced off the opened law books, and reflected into men’s faces.

Simon sat down in a chair pulled out for him. “Yes sir.”

“So you differed. You had disagreements.”

“No. There wasn’t any disagreement. I told him we didn’t want him.”

An officer who was probably Captain Garth stood to speak. He said, “Someone has said that at Colonel Webb’s dance they overheard you telling Miss Doris Dillon, the Webb family’s governess, that you would strangle Pruitt.”

“That’s immaterial, it’s unacceptable,” said Lieutenant Whittaker. “Overhearing is not acceptable. Unless it was said directly to this someone, we could not consider it.”

“Why not?” Judge Advocate Frelich looked around at the others.

Lieutenant Whittaker said, “Sir, the entire legality of military tribunals trying and sentencing civilians who are not in a state of rebellion is questionable. There are no precedents. We have to go with state law. That is the state law concerning hearsay.”

Frelich shook his finger in the air. “Yes, there are precedents for trying civilians. Those who conspired to kill Lincoln all were hanged by a military tribunal.”

“Correct. But they were in a state of rebellion and conspiring to incite more rebellion and an armed uprising. This is what you might call an ordinary homicide case, one civilian killing another civilian. Much better handled by state authorities, except there are very few local or state authorities at present.”

Frelich regarded him in silence. Finally: “Are we proceeding with the prewar laws of the state of Texas, then, concerning homicide? Resisting arrest and so on?”

Captain Garth said, “We have to. We have no other.”

“Very well. Again I ask you Mr. Boudlin, tell us what happened.”

Simon said, “I sacked Pruitt and told him to leave the band. The next night he came into the Plaza House Hotel and sat at a table and started shouting for a certain song. I don’t like to play it or sing it. It’s uncommonly filthy. He was trying to embarrass me.”

“What song?” Lieutenant Whittaker turned toward Simon, curious.

“‘The Hog-Eye Man.’”

Several of the officers sitting around the table nodded in a knowing way. Garth made a wry face. Frelich gestured: Go on.

“Then Miss Dillon came to the door of the Plaza House and called in to me. She had something urgent to tell me. Pruitt kept on singing in a loud voice where she could hear the words, one of which begins with ‘F’; I told him to shut up.”

“Something urgent?” Frelich lifted his eyebrows.

“Yes, urgent,” said Garth. “Colonel Webb had insisted that the sheriff put out a warrant for Mr. Boudlin’s arrest. Miss Dillon had rushed out to warn him.”

Frelich’s foot tapped in a slow beat under the table. He said to Simon, “Then you are in a fistfight with this man.”

“No, sir.” Simon sat and tried to gather his words. “The fight with Pruitt was over in about thirty seconds.”

“But you are beat up,” said Frelich.

Lieutenant Whittaker spun an earpiece of his eyeglasses in one hand and then put them back on with slow care. “Mr. Boudlin was taken to jail, the cells behind city hall. Then apparently the sheriff put a man into his cell with him. Man called Tom Shettle, a notorious brawler. There are five cells back there, only two of them were occupied, and yet the sheriff put Shettle in with Mr. Boudlin, with the results that you see.”

“The sheriff then is derelict in his public duty and liable for charges of battery.”

“Yes, sir, but we will take that up presently. That is another matter.”

Frelich settled in his chair in a certain indefinable way, with a slight narrowing of the eyes. The other officers had said very little. They were here for the fireworks and it appeared the fireworks were about to begin.

Frelich said, “Colonel Webb has no authority to order a sheriff to write out a warrant for anybody.”

“Well, sir, we are not sure about military authority to enforce any laws whatsoever on civilians. We’re under martial law and to tell you frankly, it leaves me confused.”

“He has no authority,” said Frelich in a stubborn voice, the voice of somebody who is not to be moved, not by arguments, gunfire, avalanches, or plague. “None. What was the warrant for?”