Hewitt jabbed his finger impatiently at Cudmore. “There he sits,” he said. “Are we going to have to start talking about contempt charges before this hearing even begins?”

Patterson knelt down next to Cudmore and emphatically whispered into his ear. Finally, with a heavy sigh, Cudmore lumbered to his feet. He stood hip out, his body language saying to Joe, This is ridiculous.

“You may all be seated,” Judge Hewitt said through clenched teeth. “Except for you,” he said, boring in on Cudmore. “You keep standing for a few minutes until I tell you to sit down.”

Joe hadn’t seen that maneuver before, and he’d testified in Judge Hewitt’s court many times over the years. Hewitt was a no-nonsense tyrant of a judge who ripped through every procedure like his hair was on fire. He hated it when a lawyer meandered or stalled, and he was quick with a threat or a sarcastic put-down if either the prosecution or the defense didn’t respond to his questions quickly enough or if they appeared to be wasting his time. He’d been brusque to Joe a few times, but Joe learned later it wasn’t personal. The judge wanted the trial to end so he could go hunting or fishing. Joe had encountered Judge Hewitt wading waist-deep and fly-fishing in the Twelve Sleep River many times. Hewitt was only relaxed, it seemed, when he was on the water. They’d had several conversations about dry flies, nymphs, and streamers. They never talked about particular cases before the court or about law enforcement in general.

Personally, Joe and Marybeth owed a debt of gratitude to Judge Hewitt and it had to do with April’s status as their adopted daughter. Finally, after years of April’s existence in a legal netherworld, the judge had informally recommended to Joe and Marybeth a clear path for settling April’s legal status once and for all.

April had been abandoned by her mother at age five, when the Picketts took her in. Due to circumstances, the birth mother’s brief interference, and Joe and Marybeth receiving bad advice, the family hadn’t formally adopted April when she was returned to them, and for a while it seemed April didn’t want to be adopted. When April reached her late teens and demanded that she wanted to “know who she was,” Joe went to the judge for advice.

Hewitt recommended an experienced family lawyer in Jackson Hole he’d once partnered with, and he made a call to her to smooth the way. The lawyer took up the case and provided her opinion that, despite the unusual circumstances of the case, the facts spoke for themselves—April had lived with Joe and Marybeth for a sufficient length of time with no support or contact from April’s extended family—and that what was pertinent was the “intent of both parties.” In a sense, they were already common-law parents. The lawyer drew up an adoption petition signed by Joe, Marybeth, and April, which was filed with the court.

Judge Hewitt approved the petition in a proceeding that lasted five minutes. He signed off on it with a wink to Joe and Marybeth.

And she took on her new name: April Pickett.

—

“COUNSEL, APPROACH,” Hewitt snapped.

Patterson and Dulcie Schalk responded by practically sprinting to the bench. They’d both been in Judge Hewitt’s courtroom many times. Despite that, Joe knew the judge was reading each the riot act: telling them to move things along, keep things clean and professional, and most of all to not waste his time. Joe could see Patterson and Dulcie nodding along.

When they returned to their tables, the bailiff read off the formal title of the case as well as the docket number.

Cudmore was still standing.

Dulcie rose to present an affidavit prepared by Sheriff Reed that supported the charges. After Dulcie finished her presentation, Patterson would then do his best to argue that the affidavit contained insufficient evidence to warrant going forward with a trial.

He had a hard job, Joe thought. Patterson was tall, thin, and ungainly, and wore a suit that was too large for him and hung on his slim frame like a tarp covering an outdoor barbecue grill. Judge Hewitt was rarely magnanimous to the defense, and Tilden Cudmore hadn’t helped his cause by refusing to stand up.

“Let’s get this show on the road,” Hewitt said, scanning the papers in front of him. “Let’s hear the charges.”

Dulcie approached the podium. Before she spoke, she looked around to see who was in the gallery. When she saw Joe, she smiled. When he noticed she was wearing her blood-red attack blouse, he smiled back.

“Okay, you’ll probably want to be sitting down for this,” Hewitt said to Cudmore.

Cudmore remained standing.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Hewitt asked, raising his voice. Patterson tugged on Cudmore’s sleeve.

“I got something to say, Your Excellency,” Cudmore grumbled. “I’ve been sittin’ in your jail since Friday night. I’ve done enough sittin’.”

“That’s not how it works,” Hewitt said impatiently. “There’s a procedure here, and in my courtroom we follow it. Miss Schalk reads the charges. When she’s done, I’ll ask you if you plead guilty or not guilty. Then I determine if there’s enough evidence to proceed. Got that?”

It didn’t stop Cudmore. “I want to fire this guy,” he said, pointing at Patterson a foot away. “I don’t want him to represent me one more minute. He’s a part of our corrupt legal system, just like everybody in this damned room. I ain’t gonna let myself get railroaded by treacherous elites with an incompetent boob by my side.”

“Tilden . . .” Patterson said. “Come on now. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I sure as hell do know what I’m doing, Your Excellency,” Cudmore said too loudly to Judge Hewitt. “He might as well be over there with Schalk, rubbing her feet, that’s how close they are. This is a damned joke, this trial. I ain’t done nothing wrong and you are all just actors performing a part in a play called Let’s Screw Tilden Cudmore Because He Knows the Truth About Obama and 9/11.”

Dulcie scowled at Cudmore, then turned to the judge.

“Your Honor, I move that the defendant be gagged and restrained if he says another word out of order.”

“Fine idea,” Hewitt said, nodding toward the bailiff. “I was thinking about having him tased first. Do you have your Taser on you?”

“Um, yes, Your Honor,” the bailiff said, instinctively checking his equipment belt to make sure the Taser was there.

“Though I’m kind of starting to like the term ‘Your Excellency,’” Judge Hewitt said with a grin.

Then he turned to Cudmore and the grin vanished.

Joe looked over at the woman in the front row. She’d lowered her knitting to her lap. She was transfixed and had a slight grin on her face.

Judge Hewitt said to Cudmore, “Sit down and shut up. That is your first and only warning. The only reason I haven’t had you dragged back to jail with a whole slew of new charges is because a local girl was horribly beaten and she deserves swift justice.”

“Like this is justice,” Cudmore said, his voice rising again. “First they send an armored personnel carrier onto my property to arrest me, like this was Cuba or Russia or some damned Third World dictatorship. Then they blow off the roof of my house with a .50-caliber machine gun. Then they drag me in here in front of you.

“This is a kangaroo court, a show trial just like the Commies used to run. I done nothing wrong, but here I am. They set me up and brought me in because of my political beliefs. I’m a political prisoner. If that girl got hurt, it’s because she brought it on herself. Hell, everybody in this town knows April Pickett is nothing more than a two-bit buckle bunny out there spreading her legs wide and just asking for something like this to happen. This is bullshit, Your Excellency.”

Judge Hewitt turned white. He banged his gavel down so hard—bam-bam-bam-bam—the shaft snapped.

Joe was five steps down the aisle before he even realized he had launched out of his seat. He was headed toward the bar, into the well of the court itself. Cudmore stood with his back to him not twelve feet away through the short batwing doors. Joe fixed his eyes on the back of Cudmore’s head and neck, where the first blows would land.