by Philip Wylie
The man paled and fired.
Jack's eyes blinked once. His knife fell upon a little man, cleaving down through his shoulder to the heart. Then Jack pitched on his face. The other two men exchanged a terrified glance and one said:
"We better scram."
Henry leaped into the room.
"Jack! My God! Jack's been shot!"
The door shut at Jack's feet.
Collins leaped upon it and turned the lock.
Henry bent over Jack.
"Jack! Jack!"
Blood ran from the black coat. The aged eyes opened and seemed to recognize Henry. Then light dwindled in them.
Henry looked up.
Collins was standing stiff at the side of the wall.
"Get over here," he said. "They may shoot through the door."
"But--"
The reporter grabbed Henry by the lapels and pulled him away.
"It's Voorhees! Voorhees and his gang. They knew you could change the policy of all the Stone papers. They believed you would. They sent someone for you. Jack must have refused to let them in."
"Voorhees?" he repeated, still not understanding.
"Voorhees. It was the only way. Get you and get you quick. I should have been looking out for it. It's my fault—"
"They killed Jack!"
Collins shook him.
"You're God-damned right. And they would have killed you instead if he had let them in."
"Voorhees did that?"
"Yes. Yes. Yes! It was the last straw-- What in hell are you doing?"
"I'm going to see Voorhees."
"Don't be a fool. Don't open that door. Don't you see? You haven't got anything on Voorhees!" Henry stepped away from the wall. His eyes were lowered to the body of Jack. He whispered the name.
"Jack--Jack--Jack. They killed you. These human lice who run this city. They shot you--because you chose to be shot instead of me. They--"
"Take it easy, Stone," Collins said in a gentle voice.
The man from the island knelt beside the Negro and folded his two hands. His throat had contracted so that he could scarcely speak. He stared up at Collins.
"I loved him--almost as I loved my father."
Slowly a change came over Henry. His sorrow was submerged in a different and hideous emotion. His face locked. His eyes became a conflagration.
His body grew tense--the great shoulders lifting and the mighty head thrusting itself forward. He shook; his fists clenched.
"That's right," he whispered again. "I haven't got anything on Voorhees. That's the way with everything these days. He'd go to trial and get off. I haven't proof. But I'm going to see Voorhees just the same!"
The last words were ended with a roar. He whirled and yanked the door open without turning the lock. The hall was empty except, for a body. He rushed down it, Collins behind him. He stamped and swayed until an elevator came.
He hurled himself through the lobby and started down the street. He did not even think of taking a cab.
Chapter Sixteen: THE HOLOCAUST
HENRY stalked to the newspaper building. Hatless. Not panting.
He got into an elevator and stepped out on the floor where Voorhees' office was.
A girl at a desk rose when he entered the outer room. He ignored her and crossed through the maze of desks. Collins was still on his heels.
He opened another door.
Voorhees was at his desk, talking over a telephone. Two large, lantern-lawed men sat in chairs at his side. When Henry entered, Voorhees hung up, and stood.
"Mr. Stone!" He seemed to be frightened.
Henry smiled and sat down. "Mr. Voorhees."
"You weren't announced—"
"No. I dropped in to speak about the matter of the O'Donnell campaign."
"Oh--yes. I wanted to tell you. I didn't change the morning run. I thought I could convince you that O'Donnell was our man."
Henry shook his head. "No; I prefer Yates."
Voorhees swelled and purpled. "I think I can convince you."
"No."
"These two gentlemen--"
Henry lifted his hand.
"Sorry. You're through. And I'm having you tried for murder. Three of your men shot my Jack."
"The lousy nigger pulled a knife--"
Voorhees clapped his hand to his mouth in terror at having given himself away.
Something happened to Henry. He came up to his feet, slowly. The motion was like the setting of a bow a long even pull that generated tension.
Voorhees' eyes stuck on his.
"That's what I wanted to know," Henry said in a childlike voice.
He got one of the lantern-jawed men as he dove over the table. Fist on jaw. His hands went around Voorhees' throat.
The third man reached for his gun and Collins hit him on the temple with an inkwell.
Voorhees had just time to scream.
A door opened.
Henry saw a group of men sitting in the smoke-filled directors' room--the politicians who had come to confer with Voorhees over Henry's interference with their plans. He dropped Voorhees and went into that room.
Collins, behind him, turned out the lights.
Awful sound carne from the dark. Someone shouted:
"Don't anybody shoot!"
No one shot.
Presently a man ran from the room and out the door. Then two more men. Then one crawled out.
The hubbub diminished.
Henry was last to come. Collins, at the clear, switched on the light again. Henry had the arm of a chair in his hand and' it was bloody. There were five men on the floor in the room where Henry had been.
People ran toward the office. Two more of Voorhees' gorillas came with guns.
Henry plunged at them. A bullet tore through the flesh on his back.
For a minute he stood in the center of the room--a frightful spectacle. His chest rose and fell. His eyes were beserk. His coat had been ripped off. His trousers were torn.
His shirt was crimson. There was a great welt on his head.
Collins shouted shrilly in the ear of a man beside him.
"Get the reporters, Billy. Tell them Voorhees' mob is coming after Stone. This is Stone. Tell 'em to bring clubs."
"We'll go down," Henry bawled.
On the way, Collins grabbed a hysterical clerk and slapped him into sense.
"Call Elihu Whitney. Tell him to come here at once. Tell him hell is loose. Get the police!"
Henry tore for the stairway. He bolted the five flights down to the presses. He howled at a man in overalls to turn off the lumbering giants.
An immense silence filled the place.
"I'm Henry Stone!" The voice rolled through the vast chamber. ''I'm looking for anybody who's Voorhees' man. Any of you baboons--"
Someone fired at him through one of the street doors and shouted:
"Get him, McCorsk!"
There was a rush toward Henry. No one could hold him. No one could hit him hard enough even to attract his special attention.
Collins went in with a machine wrench.
Then the reporters Collins had summoned from the city room came down. They stood at the door--a dammed-up avalanche--for just an instant. They understood what was happening.
"Come on!" someone shouted. "Somebody get the cops. Stone's taking on the mob. Get in there and fight!"
The holocaust raged around the stilled presses. Individuals separated from the main mass and slipped back and forth on the bloody cement. The feud between the reporters and the Record gang now had a leader.
Men reached for tools and hurled them. Men stole through alleys in the machinery with bulging eyes, and fists clenching wrenches.
In the thick of the tumult Henry roared and swung his fists. He was the equal of ten.
Into every blow went all the superb strength he had gained on the island--all the hatred he had for the rottenness of the city--all the heartbreak he had found there and the misery that was pent in his soul.
He
was a Titan.
By and by the din diminished.
Henry and McCorsk fought together in the center of the chamber. Some men ran away. Some men lay still and looked through bruised eyes. Some of them could not look, in those gory moments.
Collins went round the edge of the fight, weak and gasping, his wrench in a hand he could no longer lift.
McCorsk was a huge man. He had a waist like a hogshead and fists like hammers.
He fought silently. But Henry fought back bellowing defiance.
It was upon that scene that Elihu Whitney and Marian made their entrance.
The pressroom was a charnel place. The men in it were ghouls.
And in their center, McCorsk and Henry plunged remorselessly and unhindered against each other.
Henry spit blood.
McCorsk hit his head.
Then Henry saw Marian. He felt the other man's arms around him. He pushed him away. The brutal, red face dangled in front of him. Henry leered at it. He remembered his fury dimly.
McCorsk hit again.
Marian screamed.
Henry felt stupidly weary of the fight. His antagonist picked up a hammer.
"Hit him!" Marian screamed. "Henry!"
He shook his head. McCorsk crouched and circled. Henry saw him plainly, then.
His magnificent and almost naked body shot into the last blow. It turned McCorsk's face to jelly.
Henry slipped to the floor, gasped, quivered, stood up, thought painfully, and then raised his voice. He tried twice before he commanded his former bellow.
' I'm Henry Stone. I'm the boss of this place. How many reporters are here?"
A half dozen men came toward him, Collins pushing them.
Henry wiped his face and coughed.
"Well--well--new policy. New management. Me. I'm going to run this God-damned business. No more gangs. No--no--everything. We're going for straight government."
He rocked on his feet, sobbed, and roared:
"You tell them, Collins. Collins is managing editor now. You tell them. Reform.
Clean city. I'll show Voorhees and his four-legged, yellow-livered baboons how to run a paper."
His head cleared a little more--although his breath was almost gone.
"As for you"--he yawped at Elihu Whitney and his granddaughter--"you're right.
I'm no gentleman! I--I'm a savage!!!"
He pitched on his face.
Police filled the newspaper building. Reporters with bandages on their arms and heads were writing history into the story of the change of policy in the Record and the other twenty-one Stone newspapers.
Henry lay on the couch in the office that had belonged to Voorhees and from which Voorhees had been removed--unconscious. Marian moistened his face with antiseptic and cotton.
He opened his eyes. For a minute, he stared.
"Lie still, dear," she said. "You're terribly beaten."
Henry's manners had returned. He lay still. He spoke.
"I apologize, of course. It was bestial. But--you see--I don't belong to this world. I don't understand its etiquette or its customs very well. I got mad."
She laughed softly. "Yes. You did get a little bit mad."
"You shouldn't be here."
"I think I should."
"Why?"
"Because I love you."
"Oh."
He closed his eyes. He realized that he should remember something his father had told him long ago--but he had a feeling that, whatever it was, it had been a mistake.
"Would you mind saying that again?"
"I love you."
Again, he was silent for some time.
"I think I know what you mean--now," he said at last. "It's something that father never knew--never understood. Love. It's bigger than jealousy. It's--it means that you will always love me not exclusively, but best and most."
She did not answer.
"It means--"
She kissed his battered face.
"That. It means that," he said wonderingly. "It means that--and so much more--"
"Lie still, Henry. Please--"
He lifted himself on his elbow. "I don't know what to say. I--yes, I do--get me a stenographer! I've got to dictate an editorial. You can help me!"
"But--"
"Say! I'm a newspaper man now. Get a stenographer--but kiss me before you go and have another kiss ready when you come back!"
THE END
Document Outline
Chapter One: THE SHIPWRECK
Chapter Two: THE ISOLATION
Chapter Three: THE STOCKADE
Chapter Four: THE EXPLORERS
Chapter Five: THE QUESTIONS
Chapter Six: THE MENACE
Chapter Seven: THE YEARNING
Chapter Eight: THE HOPELESSNESS
Chapter Nine: THE MIRACLE
Chapter Ten: THE SAVAGE
Chapter Eleven: THE GENTLEMAN
Chapter Twelve: THE WOMAN
Chapter Thirteen: THE CHALLENGE
Chapter Fourteen: THE RECALL
Chapter Fifteen: THE GUNMEN
Chapter Sixteen: THE HOLOCAUST