In one respect, Hatfield was unlike old Cap Lutts. Lutts would fight so long as the enemy was in sight and then quit. All the old man wanted was to be left alone and unmolested. But not so with this Hatfield. He had the reputation of following his enemy up, and he did it with a confidence and deliberation that was little short of uncanny. He had been literally shot to pieces in other family wars, but always survived and always followed. It was the shadow of this relentless Nemesis that filled Sap and Eversole with a nervous unrest. These two conspirators not only owned practically all the realty in Junction City, but they, moreover, owned and controlled the Judge of the Court, the County prosecutor, and the Sheriff, and through Sap McGill old Eversole was the dictator supreme in Junction City.
He was postmaster and the post-office occupied one corner of his merchandise store. In the event that any citizen appeared lax or half-hearted in his partisanship, Eversole would accost him with a leering, soft-spoken reminder, which mild petition pounded more like the pungent echo of a gun-crack than a voice, and the delinquent always heeded.
In a sense, old Hank Eversole was a philanthropist of no mean generosity. Anybody could get a tombstone out of old Hank. These ornaments were a sort of hobby of his. If the deceased's relatives could not pay cash, he procured one and took a mortgage on the stone. If they rejected all overtures on the pay plan, he furnished one and placed it at his own expense, and gave it gratis. He maintained that plain boards were a disgrace to a well-ordered graveyard, and not meant for Junction City.
It was the second Tuesday in May, and the sun shone brightly and the air was scented with the mingled odors of spring. Junction City had taken on a sudden new life. The May term of circuit court was in session and the activity and life astir here was more animated than that which attended a court term for many a year, for the reason that there was a murder trial in progress.
In this festering crime-stained town, where hired assassination brewed under contract by day, and was returnable at night with its toll of blood, a murder was not a sensational episode, but a real murder trial was. Here the chief conspirators, who had made the Judge and the Prosecutor and the Sheriff, had the law by the throat; and they dumped the offal of their deeds into subservient arms of the law, and burdened and shackled it with collusions it dare not drop. Wherefore, the law winked and connived with these murder lords in brazen malfeasance inflicted upon the commonwealth, and trials assumed all the aspects of a hurried laugh-provoking comedy, despite the grim fact that its elements involved human life. The swearing out of warrants had long since fallen obsolete. In times past, charges had been made and warrants issued, but when the day of trial arrived, there were no witnesses at hand, and the prosecuting witness was usually the farthest distant.