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Show 63 to the nub of it now. "Hell," said Buck, "why does somebody always have to be guilty? Seems to me it was just one of those things." I was so caught by his question that I nearly missed Castle telling him that there were other ways of settling a dispute, that if Verne had misunderstood him, why didn't Buck just tell him so? "The way he hit me? And him coming at me like that? Hell, Judge, if I'd of stayed on the ground he'd of kicked me to pieces. And if I'd of got up any way but swinging he'd of knocked my head off." Just then the chief hung up and my father stood. I was ready to put out my wrists for the cuffs, to be hustled off to my cell, but my father reached for his wallet. Of course, it would cost him two dollars a day to replace me on the farm, but even so he handed over that $10 like it was one of the most distasteful acts he had ever been forced to participate in. $10 would have clothed me for a year. I got mad then. Here I was, innocent and getting socked, while that damned Buck was talking his way right out of it. Except I had misjudged the forces of law and order, for I heard old Castle say he was going to find Buck guilty. "When he hit me first!" "I'm gonna find him guilty too, don't you bother yourself about that. You boys have got to learn how to behave yourselves, that's all there is to it." He gave him ten days at hard labor and Buck shrugged as if he'd never expected anything else, as if he'd known his case had been decided before the trial just as surely as Verne's was. But he turned and came back toward the chief's office with that toothless impudent grin still on his face, undiminished. I thought that was it, that a little of my father's money would take care of it, but with that set jaw he drove me back to the farm like a sheriff |