Only the Truth by Pat Brown

Glen.
    When I opened the front door in the morning, the sunshine lit up the entire
house and you could feel it warm on your face if you stood there for a bit. I
could see the buds starting to show on the trees and there were birds singing
now. They broke the quiet which made me near crazy in the winter, especially
with Charlene and Big Dog missing from the house.
    The trial has been postponed and postponed again. Mr. Green was trying to
get as much time as possible to dig up dirt on John Doe so as to make the jury
hate him enough to let Charlene go or at least get her a lighter sentence. He
even went so far as to get a story put in a state paper about how a young
pregnant girl who killed a suspected rapist was being charged with capital
murder and what a shame that was. It was a good story and made me feel really
sad reading it so I am guessing other people would feel bad for Charlene too.
    "Billy Ray!"
    I squinted into the sun that had broke over the
stubby pines that stood in a row behind dead John Doe's burnt house and I could
make out the figure of Mr. Green carrying something under his arm. He was
moving fast toward me, his step bouncier than I had seen over these last
months, and there he was, standing in front of me, holding out a mud-brown
puppy.
    He beamed.
    "I got you a new Big Dog, Billy Ray!" Mr. Green laughed and then
shrugged his shoulder a bit. "Well, a new small Big Dog."
    The puppy looked at me and yelped.
    "Hey then, put the poor dog down, Mr. Green! He don't like being all
held up in the air like that!" I felt myself grinning from ear to ear. He
did look like my old Big Dog had looked when he was that little. I got down on
the ground with him and he started licking my face all over. He smelt like dog
food so I guessed Mr. Green had just fed him before coming out here.
    Mr. Green patted me on my shoulder. "He's your good luck charm, Billy
Ray. He is going to be the start of good things for you and Charlene. We are gonna win this case and bring Charlene and your baby
home."
    I stood up.
    "Thanks, Mr. Green. It was real nice of you to find me a new Big
Dog."
    Mr. Green shoved a big bag he was gripping in his left hand at me.
    "Dog food. I'll bring you some more next time
I get up here."
    I carried the bag into the kitchen and New Big Dog started running from room
to room, sniffing everything out. Mr. Green and I sat down at the kitchen table
and just watched him going crazy. I wondered if he could smell old Big Dog.
    After a bit, I turned to Mr. Green.
    "Have you found out anything about John Doe yet?"
    Mr. Green shook his head. "Not yet, but don't worry. We have time
before next month to get something on him and even if we don't, that one arrest
record for rape ought to help sway the jury. And, I found a couple of witnesses
we can pull in who spent time with him in jail. They never knew his name to be
anything but John Doe because he never told them otherwise and he never told
them anything about himself. On the other hand, they will testify that he was
always very angry, prone to violence if you got in his way, and he was
suspected of shanking his cellmate while they were in
the exercise yard."
    I didn't know what shanking meant but it sounded
like raping so I thought that would be good in court.
    I nodded. "Okay."
    Mr. Green patted my hand. "We have a good defense now. Don't worry
about it." I looked up at him, straight in the eyes, and it seemed like he
was telling the truth, not that I was too good a judge of that.
    "How's Charlene?" I hadn't seen her for a few days because I had
sprained my ankle stepping off the porch in a wrong way and it was too hard to
walk all the way to town on it with it hurting so bad .
My truck was still just sitting there because I spent too much time with
Charlene, now that she was being sweet to me again, and I had not been working
enough to pay for the new battery it still needed.
    "She's good, Billy Ray, she's good. She seems much calmer now. I see
she is starting to show a