Black, Jack, 1871-1932; Criminals -- Canada -- Biography; Criminals -- United States -- Biography
I was put on the witness stand and answered “No” very positively to his
question. The prosecutor hadn’t anything to cross-examine me about. He
started a few questions, but was stopped and gave up. My attorney made
some motion and was overruled. He then offered to let the case go
without argument from either side, but the prosecutor wanted to talk and
the judge told him to go ahead.
He argued about the same as the prosecutor in the police court, waved
the bloody room-rent receipt and harped about the change of clothes and
my absence from the room, and my refusal to make any statement. He
dingdonged away till the judge ordered him to stop.
Judge Powers went over the case in five minutes, the jury was instructed
in five more, and went away to the jury room. I was nervous. I thought
my attorney had not asked enough questions, hadn’t argued enough. The
judge went into his chambers. Judge Powers followed him in for a visit.
A few courtroom hangers got up and went out. Nobody paid any attention
to me. The bailiff who had me in charge strolled about the room,
gossiping. There was no dock in the courtroom. I was sitting outside the
railed-off enclosure at the attorneys’ table. The jury hadn’t been out
fifteen minutes, but I was so nervous I couldn’t sit still, and got up
to stretch my legs. The bailiff was busy talking to a man who came in
from the street. His back was turned to me as I walked a few steps up
the aisle in the direction of the door, and then back.
The next time I walked farther toward the door before turning, and still
he never looked at me. The third time I went to the door and out, and
oozed down the broad, single flight of stairs into the main street.
Dodging between two hacks at the curb I crossed to the opposite side of
the street and looked back up the stairway to the courtroom—no alarm
yet. Directly in front of me was a basement restaurant. I went
downstairs, straight through the dining room to the kitchen, into the
back yard, and then to the alley without being molested. When I got out
of the alley I turned every corner I came to for fifteen minutes and
finished in the railroad yards, instinctively.
The whistles were blowing for twelve o’clock, noon. I saw no signs of
any outgoing trains and decided to plant myself somewhere nearby till
night, when I could get a train or walk out of town in safety. I found
an old deserted barn and hid up in the loft, hungry and thirsty, till
dark.
A passenger train was due out on the Rio Grande at eight. With much
caution I made my way along between lines of box cars till I got near
enough to the depot to get aboard the blind end of a baggage car. I
held the train all night, carefully dodging about at every stop.
At daylight, as the train slowed down for a stop, a man climbed up
beside me. “You’re arrested,” he shouted, tapping a big gun in its
holster.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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