by Max Brand
“Maybe you would. I hear you say so,” said Harris Fielding. “But just now he’s riding on top. The men around here begin to wear their hats like Barney Dwyer . . . a little on the back of their heads. The boys and the youngsters try to walk like him, slowly. Everyone tries to talk like him, slowly. Everyone is quieter. Just because he’s refused to testify against you, because he doesn’t want even the blood of his enemies on his hands, these mountaineers worship him. Today, I heard a man say . . . ‘As true as Barney Dwyer.’ He’s a proverb for everything honest and straight and simple and true. The decent men in this town won’t speak to me, simply because they know that I’m your hired lawyer. No wonder the judge says that he wouldn’t dare to favor you. He’d be lynched. And any juryman who failed to find you guilty would be lynched, too . . . and pronto. Maybe I paint a black picture for you, but it’s a true one. If you stand your trial in Coffeeville, you’re a pair of dead ones.”
McGregor closed his eyes and grew slightly pale.
Adler remarked: “Well, now that we know the rock bottom, we can start building.”
“Building on what?” snapped McGregor.
“Building to get out of this place . . . this jail. If staying in here means hanging, then we gotta leave.”
“How’ll you get out?” asked Harris Fielding.
“With our brains,” said Adler.
“Burn your brains!” growled Fielding, and walked straight out of the jail.
He went to the hotel, packed his bag, and paid his bill.
“I wash my hands of the Adler-McGregor case,” said Harris Fielding. And he went to the railroad station, stepping out briskly in his natty suit of grey tweed. “They’re as guilty as hell . . . and that’s why I’m washing my hands of the case,” said Harris Fielding, unprofessionally.
As a matter of fact, he thought that the pair were little better than dead men.
An hour later, big, long-haired Justis had sworn out the statement by which he saved his own neck and put that of McGregor into the halter. It was an economical statement. As for Adler, it could be proved that he had fired a bullet at a woman with intent to kill. That would be enough to settle him in a Western law court. As for McGregor, the statement of Justis cooked him. It proved very simply and with concrete evidence that it was not young Leonard Peary who had shot and killed Buddy Marsh, driver of the Coffeeville Stage to Timberline. Instead, Peary was cleared of the murder, and the blame was placed squarely on the shoulders of McGregor.
The district attorney was very contented after he had that statement in his hands. Coffeeville was contented, too.
But in their adjoining cells at the jail that evening, hope was not dead in the breasts of McGregor and Adler. Like a strange harbinger of better fortune, there arrived a visitor to call upon McGregor, and he was permitted to chat with the captive for a moment, standing in front of the bars of the cell. For everyone knew that this was Wash the old Negro, dusty gray with age, who for years had been the servant to McGregor, and before him to the honorable family from which McGregor descended.
So the jailor let in Wash, and stood only near enough to see that nothing was passed from hand to hand.
Old Wash, his hat in his hand, his head bowed, stood in the aisle in front of his master’s cell and let the tears, unregarded, roll down his face.
Adler sat with his buzzard face pressed close against the bars, watching, listening. Like a bird, he said nothing. Like a bird, his eyes were sharp as polished beads.
But the voice of McGregor went on softly, smoothly, saying: “Wash, did you bring down the bunch of skeleton keys and pass keys?”
“Yes, sir,” said Wash.
“Take those keys out to the edge of the town, up the creek, tonight, as soon as it’s dark. There’s a grove of poplar trees, yonder. Take the keys there. And have two good horses there. And wait.”
“Yes, sir,” said Wash.
“I may not come tonight, or tomorrow night. But have the keys and the horses there. Have them there every night. Every night until they hang me by the neck.”
“Yes, sir,” said Wash.
“Have you brought plenty of money, Wash?”
“Ten thousand dollars, sir.”
“‘That ought to be enough. Get the finest horses that you can buy. Have rifles and revolvers. Everything that I might need. You understand?”
“Yes sir,” said Wash.
“And if I hang, Wash,” went on McGregor, “all of that money is yours. That and everything else you can put your hands on. You know where to find it, too.”
“Old Wash ain’t gonna need money if you come to an end, sir,” said the Negro.
“Don’t talk rot,” said McGregor. “You’ll live twenty years more. Now get out of here and do what I tell you.”
So Wash left the jail, and presently afterward the head jailor went his final rounds for the night and lingered to shine his lantern on the manacles that bound the hands of McGregor and Adler. He nodded, satisfied, and moved on his way. The jail settled into darkness, broken only by the glow of a single, smoky lantern toward the center of the cell room. Other men began to snore, but Adler and McGregor were talking in small whispers, bending their minds on the problem of life or of death.
IV
“Fielding has run out on us,” said McGregor.
“It’s a sinkin’ ship when that rat leaves it,” commented Adler.
“Burn our brains,” muttered McGregor. “He told us to burn our brains to get us out of here.”
“We’ll burn ’em, then,” said Adler. “There ain’t a tight place in the world that thinkin’ won’t make wide enough for a horse and man to ride out of safe and sound.”
“Ride us out of here, then, Doc,” said McGregor.
“Burn our brains, eh?” muttered Adler. “Burn our brains.”
“There’s twenty chinks and crannies right through the crazy old walls of the jail,” said McGregor.
“It ain’t the walls, it’s the steel bars inside of ’em that count,” said Adler. “It’s a funny thing, Mack. Here’s me, that’s beat the law all of these years, and yet it comes and grabs me right at the end of my life. It’s like a storybook. I went and beat it all of these years. And I put my brains up ag’in’ some of the smartest that ever stepped. And always I beat ’em, till I come up ag’in’ this Barney Dwyer.”
“The half-wit!” snarled McGregor.
“Well, if he had a whole wit, God help you and me and crooks like us,” answered Adler. “Don’t talk down about him, Mack. Because if you make him small, you make us mighty tiny. He beat us. He beat us both. We was settin’ on top of the heap. These here mountains knew us like sheep know a pair of old bellwethers. But still he beat us both . . . him and him alone.”
“Luck is the difference,” said McGregor.
“Burn our brains to get out . . . burn our brains,” murmured Adler. “And even Harris Fielding has gone and left us. He wouldn’t leave while there was a ghost of a hope, son. That ain’t his way. I recollect Pudge Davis, that killed the three brothers down there in Phoenix. They got him dead to rights. But he found Harris Fielding for a lawyer, and Fielding sets him free. You recollect how he done that?”
“No. I don’t remember. How?”
“There was an eyewitness that seen the three killings, all in a row. He swore to everything. He even got down to a point where Fielding just seemed helpless, and kept askin’ simple, foolish questions, like he was just tryin’ to fill up time and pretend to do his best for his client. And then he asked among other questions, the color of the necktie that Pudge Davis was wearin’ the day he done the murders, and by jiminy, the witness told him that, too, and told him the pattern of it, too. And right then, Harris Fielding, he clapped a hand over his own necktie and bellers out and says . . . ‘Tell me the color of my necktie will you? I’ve been wearing the same one every day of the trial’ . . . which was a lie . . . ‘and now you tell me the color of my necktie.’ And the witness, he couldn’t do it. He only guessed, and he
guessed wrong. And when it come to talkin’ to the jury, Harris Fielding, he talked about nothin’ else but that . . . about what a sneakin’ liar that witness was and how all of his story had oughta be throwed out. And by the leapin’ thunder, they did throw it out. They made Pudge Davis a free man. And he lived a whole six months after that, till a greaser knifed him one day in Mexico City about a gal. A yaller gal. But Fielding got him free. And only took twenty-five hundred dollars away from him, which was all that he had. Yes, sir, it’s pretty wonderful what a gent can do that’s a smart lawyer. But even while Fielding knew that he could get a hundred thousand out of us, he didn’t try. He threw up the sponge. He quit.”
“Damn him,” said McGregor. “And damn you too, Adler. I don’t want to think about how other folks got out of jail. I want to think about our own case. If we could get some good saws in here . . .”
“There’d make a terrible screechin’ on the tool-proof steel,” said Adler. “And there’s gents on guard here night and day, always watchin’ and waitin’ for a whisper out of our cells.”
“We’ve got to think,” insisted McGregor.
“Never crowd your brain, son,” said Doc Adler. “Never put a whip on your brain. A gent’s mind is a free worker, till it’s crowded. Take when you try to remember a name that’s skipped your memory. You try hard. You force. You crowd on steam. And the doggone mind lays right down on you like a balky horse, and don’t do nothing. But suppose that you quit tryin’ and just whistle a tune, and make yourself a cigarette, and right away that name pops up in your mind, easy as nothin’ at all.”
“All right,” said McGregor. “But every night that passes brings us a night nearer to hell. They’ll put us on trial tomorrow.”
“Burn our minds, eh?” said Doc Adler. “Burn our minds to get away? No, but by God, we might burn the jail.”
“Rather die in a fire than by a rope?” asked McGregor.
“I’ve got the head of a match in the pocket of this coat,” said Adler. “And the wood of this here wall is dry as tinder. And there’s an old newspaper in my cell. By thunder, Mack, it’s the right idea.”
“They take us out, because the damn’ jail begins to burn? Is that it?”
“That’s it,” said Adler. “Anyway, we’ll see.”
Presently, faint sounds of the rustling of paper came from his cell. After that, there was the crackling noise of a match being struck—a most illegal act in that tinderbox of a building. And immediately afterward, the thick, sweet smoke of burning paper poured out of the cell of Adler.
Neither he nor McGregor uttered a sound. The flames that rose from the paper made a soft, fluttering sound: Dull waves of light were thrown out from the cell. But the other prisoners slept soundly, and the guards gave no token. Into the noise of the burning of the paper came another sound, the sharp, resinous crackling as the dry-pine boards that composed the wall of the jail began to catch from the heat.
The moment that they were fairly ignited, a gust of wind took the fire rushing and snapping up the outer wall of the jail. A man yelled loudly from the street. And as a gust of heat swept through the jail itself, other prisoners wakened and began to screech.
“Fire! Fire!”
There was a trampling of feet. The guards came running. Water was brought. The whole floor of the jail was soon awash with it, but that did not master the flames that were running to the apex of the roof by this time.
The jailor came and shook his fist through the bars at Adler. “You did this, damn you. I’ve a mind to leave you there to roast!” he yelled.
But already the doors of the cells were being unlocked and the prisoners turned loose. Adler and McGregor among the rest were herded into the street in front of the flaming building. The townspeople were gathering. And high above them, the flames disappeared in flinging armfuls that threw brief waves of light over all the town, and made the creek run like a stream of gold through Coffeeville.
There were twenty of those prisoners, most of them in for nothing more than vagrancy. And there were only four guards. They picked out the chief prisoners, however. The head jailor himself took charge of big McGregor. And his next best man was with old Doc Adler, yet giving so little heed to his charge that he merely kept a firm grip on Adler’s arm and watched the flames of the burning jail, while Doc Adler whispered to the tramps nearby: “Now, boys, one rush and we’re all as free as the day we were born. All together, and one good rush, and we’ll kick their coppers in the face and slide out of Coffeeville while the rest of the town is still throwin’ water to keep the whole town from burnin’ up.”
From far and near, as the flames from the jail shot high in the air and great showers of sparks descended over the town, men could be seen on rooftops, little, black forms against the sky, hauling up buckets of water from the ground and wetting down the shingles.
There were surprisingly few, except women and children, left to watch the conflagration.
And the little herd of prisoners, closely compacted by the guards who watched over them, began to stir a little. A muttering came up from them, just as a moaning sound will come up from a herd that is bedded down in uneasy weather. And as a herd will start into a stampede when a single cow leaps to its feet and rushes off, so the whole gang of the prisoners got into sudden motion when a huge Negro in the center of the bunch bounded high into the air and yelled: “Boys, I’m goin’!”
There was one instant of wavering. Then the whole crowd lurched straight forward.
The guards were brave men and knew their business. But they were kicked to the ground or beaten down with the blows delivered by manacled wrists, and the whole mass of the prisoners swept off up the street.
At the very next lane, two figures detached from the rest and slipped down to the edge of the creek. Stealthily they worked back up the side of the water until they came to a small grove of trees, and into that, they disappeared.
Behind them, the jail was already rotting to the ground in a welter of flames, leaving the red-hot skeleton of the cells still standing, unharmed.
V
To Barney, all the news of that escape was lacking. He had left Coffeeville in the afternoon, with his roll of belongings strapped behind his saddle, a Winchester thrust into the saddle holster under his knee, and a heavy Colt revolver. He merely paused at the house of Dr. Swain to see Susan Jones.
It was a hot afternoon, and the doctor and his wife had carried the girl into the shade of the house, in the garden. There she lay propped with pillows on a small camp cot, when Barney came to her. Mrs. Swain promptly got up from the chair where she had been sitting to read to the girl and offered that seat to Barney, but he could not disturb her comfort. It hardly even occurred to him that it might be better if he were alone with Sue Jones. He wanted to be near her, to touch her hand, to look closely into her face, and for that purpose, he dropped on one knee beside the cot.
The girl’s face was an almost-even white when he came. It turned at once to an almost-even red. She bit her lip. She was ashamed of Barney for not having sufficient understanding to see that they should be alone. She was ashamed of herself for not appreciating more his calm lack of self-consciousness.
“You stay, Missus Swain,” she said. “It’s all right. Do stay.”
Mrs. Swain remained, but uneasily.
And Barney said: “You’re better, Sue. Your eye is clearer.”
“I’m better,” said the girl.
He took her hand, with a wonderful gentleness.
“There’s a Mister Robert Parmelee who offered me a place today on his ranch, to act as foreman, at a hundred and fifty dollars a month. I told him that I really don’t know enough to handle the cattle. He says that doesn’t matter. He thinks, for some reason, that I may be able to handle the sort of men that he needs to have on his place. I’ve told him that I’d come . . . if you permit it, Sue.”
The girl blushed more deeply.
“If you decided to go, of course you’re the master of yourself, Barney
,” she said.
“But you know,” said Barney, looking at her in surprise, “that all of your ideas are sure to be better than mine. I wouldn’t dream of going without your permission, Sue. Why does it anger you for me to say that? Why do you look at Missus Swain?”
The anger of Sue Jones seemed to grow every moment, until she was positively glaring at Barney.
Mrs. Swain, who felt more and more uncomfortable, was drawn to leave at once, and yet her curiosity was so fascinated that she could not help remaining. For this was the hero, the man who was so worshipped and feared through all the length of the range. This was the fellow who had quelled the great McGregor and all his men. And yet now he was as gentle and simple as a child, before this girl. Furthermore, it was clear that this very simplicity was a little more than Sue Jones liked to see exhibited in public.
Mrs. Swain said: “My dear Mister Dwyer, of course you know what sort of a place the Parmelee Ranch is?”
“He said that it was up there in the mountains, and that the country was rough,” said Barney. “He said that he needed rough men, too. He thought, somehow, that I could be useful in working with them.”
“No one but a Robert Parmelee,” said Mrs. Swain, “would ever have attempted to use such land. He got it for a song. But he spent money on cattle to stock it. They increased for a time. People even thought that he might win in the end . . . but now matters go from bad to worse, and I hear they’re running off the cows a great deal faster than he can raise ’em.”
“Who are runnin’ them off?” asked the girl.
“The squatters who are all over the mountains, there. They each have a patch of land, and they do a little farming, a little trapping, hunting, fishing, and sometimes they work by the day in the big lumber camps. But they’re a rough lot, and they don’t see any difference between wild deer and half-wild range cattle. You see? They don’t think that it’s stealing when they run off with a few cows. They kill, cure the meat, and tan the hides. And when they’ve done that, they haven’t a care on their consciences. The sheriffs have tried their hands at bringing in law and order, but how can law and order get on when several hundred people all feel the same way about anything? Dear Mister Dwyer, it’s simply a catch. Of course you can’t handle those men. Nobody could. Robert Parmelee is a dry soul, and I suppose that he was simply laughing at you up his sleeve. He’s about to move his cows away from that part of the world. I understand that he’s already trying to buy land in Texas.”