The Shipshape Miracle: And Other Stories

by Clifford D. Simak

  “To Childress?”

  Johnny shook his head. “To Blair.”

  “Didn’t know Blair lent money.”

  “Once in a while,” Johnny told him. “When he figures it’s a good deal.”

  Fletcher rose from the chair. “Think I’ll go back and look on awhile.”

  The back room was a fog of smoke and alcoholic fumes. A silent knot of men crowded around the table in the center of the room. Lamplight poured down from the ceiling.

  Standing by the door, Fletcher picked out faces that he knew. There was McKinley, the blacksmith, with a huge cigar clamped tightly in his jaw. Tony, the barber, standing behind him on tiptoe trying to see. Lance Blair, owner of the Silver Dollar, stood close to the table, arms folded across his chest, twisted stogie between his teeth, his face good-natured in the lamplight. But his lips were a hard straight line. Beside him stood Dan Hunter and nearer to the door, Jeff Shepherd, the marshal. It was a gathering of wolves.

  Fletcher took a place alongside Shepherd. By craning his neck, he could see that one of the men at the table had stacks of coins in front of him. He knew it must be White.

  “What did you find out at Duff’s?” Fletcher whispered to Shepherd.

  “It was Duff, all right,” Shepherd whispered back. “Burned to a crisp. Probably smoking in bed.”

  “He was shot,” said Fletcher. “Found three empty cartridges.”

  Shepherd grunted. “Doesn’t mean a thing. Harry could have fired them off himself.”

  “But they’d been fired only a short time before. Still could smell powder on them.”

  “Maybe he shot at something just before it happened,” insisted Shepherd.

  “Makes it easy for you that way, doesn’t it?” said Fletcher.

  “Shut up, you guys,” yelled someone angrily.

  Fletcher said, “I came in here to say something. Give me a minute to say it and then I’ll leave.”

  He elbowed forward, pushing men aside until he reached the table. Across the table he saw the hard eyes of Lance Blair on him.

  “Anything you have to say, Fletcher,” said Blair, “can wait until the game is over.”

  “That’s just the point,” snapped Fletcher. “It can’t.”

  He looked across at the man with the stacks of cash. “You White?”

  White snarled back at him. “What if I am?”

  “You got a mortgage,” Fletcher told him, “with Blair?”

  “Now, wait,” yelled Blair. “What has all this got to do with the game? Sure, I hold Zeb’s mortgage, but—”

  Fletcher disregarded him. “Got enough in front of you to pay it off?” he asked of White.

  “Why, I guess so. Say, what the hell—”

  White was rising from the table.

  “Sit down, White,” snapped Fletcher. “Count out the money you owe Blair.”

  White sat down. “And if I don’t?”

  “If you don’t,” said Fletcher, “you won’t live until tomorrow night.”

  Blair leaned across the table. “You’re crazy,” he shouted. “Coming in here with talk like this.”

  “A man died today,” Fletcher told him evenly, “because he was about to get money that would have paid his mortgage. I only want to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen here.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Fletcher saw the swift motion of Hunter’s arm, driving for his gun.

  With a wild yell, the lawyer lunged forward, crashing into one of the players, hurling him against the table. The table tottered and went over, spilling money and whiskey glasses to the floor. Fletcher dropped swiftly and whipped his own gun from its holster.

  A bullet chunked through the upturned table edge, hurling splinters in the lamplight. The roar of the shot drowned out the thump of feet, the thud of bodies being hurled to the floor out of bullet line.

  Hunter came charging around the table, smoking gun leveled at his hip. Behind the table, Fletcher whirled on his toes, brought his gun around.

  Hunter’s triumphant face washed over with a frozen stare of surprise and his heels dug into the floor. Fletcher’s gun coughed smokily and Hunter tripped and fell in a headlong crash, one leg folding under him.

  Fletcher ducked and the other man fell to the floor so hard that his gun was shaken from his hand and spun like a wheel of light across the boards.

  Slowly Fletcher rose and backed toward the wall.

  “Blair,” he said, softly, “put away that gun.”

  Blair, flat on his belly, opened his hand and the gun dropped with a clatter.

  Fletcher glanced around. Men were crouched or squatting or flattened full length upon the floor. Tony the barber huddled under a chair that he held above his head. Shepherd hunkered in one corner, eyes shining in the lamplight.

  Fletcher felt the wall at his back and stopped. “White,” he said, “come out and pick up your money. Just so you can’t say I busted up the game and lost you all that cash.”

  White rose slowly from the floor, walked toward the center of the room, squatted on his heels and started scooping up the scattered coin.

  “Blair,” said Fletcher, conversationally, “if you make one more pass at that gun, I’ll let you have it straight between the eyes.”

  He looked at Hunter, writhing on the floor, a pool of blood growing under him.

  “Come out from under that chair, Tony,” Fletcher ordered. “You and McKinley. Take a look at Hunter. He isn’t dead. Stove-up leg, most likely.”

  Cautiously the two came out, bent above the fallen man.

  White was on his feet again, pockets bulging. “Blair,” he said, making an effort to keep his voice calm. “Blair, I want to pay up my mortgage.”

  Blair did not move.

  White’s hand dipped to his side, rested on his gun-butt.

  “You heard me, Blair.”

  Blair rose slowly to his feet. “I haven’t got the mortgage with me,” he declared.

  “I’ll pay you off,” said White, “and you can write me a receipt. We’ll take care of the paper work later.”

  Blair strode across the room, righted the tip-tilted table. Rapidly, White counted out a pile of money. Blair took a piece of paper from his pocket, felt in other pockets.

  “Here you are!” Fletcher flipped a pencil on the table.

  “Thanks,” said Blair. He bent to write.

  “Fletcher,” said McKinley, his voice booming in the room, “if you don’t mind, we’d better get Hunter out of here and run for the doc. He’s losing blood.”

  “I don’t mind,” said Fletcher. “The game is over now.”

  Blair had handed White the slip of paper and White was folding it, putting it away. Blair was counting out the money on the table. Fletcher holstered his gun. “Good evening, gentlemen,” he said.

  On the porch outside, he stopped for a moment, looking up and down the street. The bank’s windows glowed with light and inside he could see Childress moving about, gathering up papers and books and putting them away in the big iron safe that stood in one corner of the room.

  A horse clopped down the street, hoofs thudding softly in the dust, rider swaying easily in the saddle. A woman came out of the grocery store, a basket on her arm.

  Footsteps sounded behind him and he whirled. Jeff Shepherd was coming toward him, not too fast, gun out, star gleaming in the lamplight. “What is it, Jeff?” Fletcher demanded.

  “I’m arresting you,” said Jeff. “Can’t no tenderfoot come into town and raise as much hell as you just raised.”

  “O.K.,” said Fletcher. “Put away your iron. I’ll go along with you peaceable.”

  Chapter III

  Jailbreak!

  Fletcher sat on the cot, sole furniture in the lone cell the Gravestone jail could boast, and tried to figure it out. Matt Humphrey had a mortga
ge and Matt Humphrey had been shot by rustlers running off his herd. More than likely just before he had been ready to market the cattle. Charlie Craig, another homesteader, had died by violence last winter. It would be interesting to know, Fletcher mused, if Charlie’d had a mortgage, too.

  Wilson had given a mortgage on his place, and when he’d been ready to pay up, the same thing had happened to him as to Humphrey except that Wilson, at the moment, only lost his cattle, not his life.

  And Harry Duff, less than 48 hours after he had received the legacy that would have paid off his mortgage, had been shot and burned inside his cabin.

  It wasn’t, Fletcher told himself, too hard to piece together. Somebody didn’t want those mortgages paid off, somebody would rather have the land that secured the loans, than the loans themselves.

  Fletcher got up off the cot and walked to the tiny, barred window. A sickle moon was rising above the butte and the summer stars blazed out above the plains. From far off came the howl of hunting wolves and in the street nearby a horse clopped slowly out of town while his drunken rider sang, off key.

  A shadow hunched itself out of the darkness of the alley and something tapped along the ground. “Johnny,” said Fletcher, softly.

  The blind man reached out a hand and found the building, guided himself along. “Brought you something,” Johnny whispered back. He leaned his cane against the building and dug into his shirt front. “Here,” he said, reaching up with two objects.

  Fletcher took them. “What the—?”

  “File,” said Johnny. “File and a can of oil. The oil will kill the noise.”

  “But I haven’t—”

  “Shucks,” Johnny told him, “you won’t have no trouble at all. Them bars are soft. Town too tight to buy good steel. Three, four hours and you’ll be out of here.”

  “But, Johnny, I haven’t the slightest intention to escape. They can’t prove a thing on me. I didn’t kill Hunter, did I? So they can’t throw a murder charge at me. I shot in self defense—shot a man who was coming at me with a gun. I was careful to hit him in a spot that wasn’t fatal.”

  “But you don’t understand,” protested Johnny.

  “Come morning,” declared Fletcher, “and they’ll turn me loose. I might even sue for false arrest.”

  “Come morning,” Johnny told him, curtly, “you’ll be stretching hemp—decorating a cottonwood, sure as shooting. Hell’s bound to break loose tonight.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Listen,” hissed Johnny. “You know the lay, don’t you?”

  “Sure, I do,” said Fletcher. “Blair and Childress are out to get a block of land. Got a gang operating so the little fellows whose loans they hold can’t pay off and—”

  “And,” said Johnny, “you busted it wide open when you walked into that game and told White he wouldn’t be alive if he didn’t pay his mortgage. You had it doped right. They needed White’s land and they didn’t intend that he’d save it just by a lucky break at cards. Going home tonight, someone would have gunned Zeb, sure as hell. Someone, you understand, that knew he had the money and was bent on robbery.”

  “Sure, sure, I know!”

  “O.K., then,” snapped Johnny. “Get busy with that file. I’ll stand here and warn you if I hear anything.”

  “But I can’t run off,” declared Fletcher, “break out of jail like any common thief.”

  “Better to break out and live,” Johnny told him, “than stay in and die. Childress and Blair can’t afford to let you leave the place alive. Before morning there’ll be a mob along with guns and ropes.”

  Fletcher mopped his brow with his shirtsleeve. “So that’s it, Johnny. Outraged citizens. Sick and tired of fellows coming in and shooting up the place.”

  Johnny said, “Start sawing on them bars.”

  Footsteps crunched down the corridor that led to the cell. Fletcher wheeled, stooped, set the file and oil can on the floor, slid swiftly to the cot, tried his best to look as if he’d been sitting there all the time.

  Against the fan of light that flared out into the corridor from the jail office, Fletcher saw the shuffling shape of Jeff Shepherd. Behind Jeff, another figure stepped swiftly from the office into the corridor. Zeb White! Zeb White, with a gun in hand, was coming down the corridor on tiptoe!

  “Well,” Fletcher bellowed at Shepherd, “It’s about time you were coming to let me loose. What do you think—”

  The gun in White’s hand rose in the air, struck swiftly. Shepherd slumped against the door, slid to the floor like an emptied sack.

  Across the fallen marshal, Fletcher looked at White. “Smart,” said White. “Smart play, Fletcher. With you yelling at him, he didn’t even suspect there was anyone around.”

  Fletcher told him, “I was just ready to start on the bars.”

  White grunted, stooped over the marshal, came up with a bunch of keys. “I’ll have you out in a minute,” he wheezed. “Then you and me are hitting the dust. Got to warn the boys.”

  “You mean the other men with mortgages?”

  “Exactly right,” snapped White. “Blair’s gang will be out to make a clean-up before the news gets around. The life of any man who has a loan with Blair isn’t worth a dime.”

  “It isn’t only Blair,” said Fletcher. “It’s Childress, too. If we could get into the bank’s safe, we’d find all the papers there.”

  The third key White tried clicked back the lock and the door swung open. “We haven’t time to be breaking into banks,” the rancher snapped. “We’ve got to put miles behind us. Mike, the bartender, left right after the ruckus at the Silver Dollar. Blair sent him to tip off the bunch.”

  Fletcher nodded. “They’d be hanging out in the badlands, wouldn’t they?”

  “That’s the way I figure it,” White agreed. “Perfect hideout for them. Wouldn’t find them there in a million years.”

  Swiftly he led the way toward the back, unhooked a door and they stepped into the alley. A faint tapping came out of the shadows of the building.

  “That you, Johnny?” Fletcher called.

  The blind man sidled up to them, stood silently.

  “Look, Johnny,” White said, softly, “you’d better get back before someone misses you. Fletcher and me have riding to do.”

  Fletcher shook his head stubbornly in the dark. “I still would like to see what’s in that safe.”

  “What safe?” asked Johnny. There was a tremble in his voice.

  “The bank safe,” explained Fletcher. “Don’t you see that all the papers would be there? Something to go on, something to show in court.”

  “The hell with court,” rasped White. “When we get through with this gang of land grabbers there won’t be any left to show up in court.”

  Fletcher shrugged. “Even if we could get into the bank, we couldn’t open the safe. Nothing short of dynamite would budge it.”

  Johnny’s fingers plucked at Fletcher’s sleeve. “You get into that bank, Shane, and I’ll get the safe open.”

  Fletcher gasped. “You’ll what?”

  “I’ll get the safe open,” declared Johnny. “It wouldn’t be the first one.”

  White flared at them. “This is all damn foolishness. How’ll you get into the bank to start with?”

  “From my office,” Fletcher told him. “Bought a saw the other day to put up shelves for a batch of books. We could saw a hole right through the floor.”

  “They’d hear,” protested White. “You’d have the town down on you in five minutes.”

  “We have a can of oil,” said Johnny.

  “You go ahead, White,” said Fletcher. “Tell me where to meet you. If we haven’t got those papers inside of an hour, I’ll quit and follow you.”

  White stared at Fletcher in the darkness. “You’re the damnest hombre I ever saw,” he said. “Never satisfied unless y
ou’re poking your head into a noose. I’ll stick with you if it only takes an hour.”

  Fletcher shook his head. “Nope, you ride. Warn a couple of the boys and get them to send other riders out. Tell me where to find you.”

  “Know where Phillips’ place is? I’ll meet you there. Before I leave I’ll saddle up a horse and tie him back of the livery barn. You may have to make a quick getaway.”

  “You’d better make it two,” said Johnny.

  White turned to stare queerly at the blind man. “All right, Johnny,” he finally said. “I’ll make it two.”

  Fletcher crouched in the darkness beside the safe, listening to the slow rasp of the dial as Johnny manipulated the combination, ear pressed against the huge steel door.

  Silence, broken only by the grinding whisper of the slowly twirling dial, filled the inside of the bank. Fletcher was tense, nerves tight as violin strings.

  What he was doing, he told himself, was madness. Robbing a bank. And yet, he knew, by some unusual, perverted logic, it was the only thing to do. For there were only two courses left now. Stay in Gravestone and fight it out with Blair and Childress—or sneak off like a beaten dog and set up another office in some other place, start all over again the struggle to establish himself.

  Childress had offered him work only to close his mouth, to make him another Blair-Childress hanger-on, like Mike, the bartender, like Hunter, who whittled on the steps of the Silver Dollar, watching the street when either Blair or Childress might step from their establishments. Like Jeff Shepherd, who had gone post-haste to Childress as soon as Harry Duff’s death had been reported to him.

  What Fletcher had told Jeff about the Duff affair had made Childress recognize him as a possible danger, as a man who knew or suspected just a bit too much. So Childress had tried to buy him off with the offer of a job—with the lure of public office.

  Fletcher grinned sourly to himself. Childress, of course, would have liked nothing better than a county attorney who was his man.

  In the darkness Fletcher heard Johnny suck in his breath, heard the click of the lock. “She’s open,” Johnny whispered.