by Elmer Kelton
‘You lie!’ said Red Moffet. ‘The fact is that you’ve come over to enjoy the killing of me!’
Ingram sighed. But in the little pause which followed, he asked himself seriously if the prisoner were not right. For what else had drawn him to the jail with such an irresistible force? Had he felt, really, that he could be of help to Moffet? Had he felt that he could control the crowd?
He said suddenly: ‘I hope that you’re not right, Moffet. I hope that I’ve come here from a better motive.’
‘That’s right,’ said Moffet. ‘Be honest; be honest, man, and shame the hypocritical devil that’s in a good many of you sky pilots.’
There was a wilder burst of noise outside, and the wave of sound crowded up around the walls of the jail. Those inside could make out the voice of a ringleader shouting; and then they heard Dick Binney defying the crowd and swearing that the prisoner would never be taken except at the cost of a dozen lives.
The minister heard Moffet groan bitterly: ‘Oh, God, for a gun and a chance to die fighting! Ingram! Ingram! Find me a gun, or a club! What’s the matter with me, askin’ a hound of a sky pilot for help!’
Ingram retreated to the farther side of the aisle, dizzy, his head whirling with many ideas. He was trembling from head to foot—as he had trembled in the old days when he waited for the signal which would send him trotting out upon the field with the team.
There was another roar and a wave of running feet, but this time it curled around the jail and there was a sudden crash against the back door.
‘The back door, Binney! Dick! Dick! The back door! shouted Moffet.
He rushed to the bars and shook them with his frenzy, but Binney was already running to the back of the jail, cursing. His two assistants had had enough. They were out of the fight before it began, and Binney had to face the crowd alone.
He was within a stride of the rear door when it was beaten in, and a swarm of men, leaping through the breach, bore him down and trampled him underfoot. Up the aisle of the jail they poured, their terrible masked faces illumined by the swinging light of heavy lanterns which they carried.
Then Ingram leaped into their path.
He raised both hands before them, looking gigantic in the strange, moving light.
‘Friends and brothers!’ he called to them. ‘In the name of the Father of Mercy, I protest—’
‘Get that yellow-livered fool out of the way!’ called a voice, and half a dozen rude shoulders crashed against Ingram and beat him out of the path.
‘A couple of you hold the sky pilot’ ordered another voice. ‘Now, gimme those keys you got from Binney!’
XIII
Things in General
It was dreadful to Ingram to stand pinned against the opposite range of bars, held on either side by a stalwart fellow, while the leader of the mob jangled the keys and tried them rapidly in the lock.
‘He’s shakin’ like a leaf’ said one of Ingram’s captors to the other.
‘Sure’ said the second man, ‘he looks real, but he ain’t. He’s a make-believe man. Stand fast, Ingram, or I’ll bash you in the head, you big sap!’
Ingram stood still!
He heard a voice snarling at Moffet: ‘Now, Red, what d’you say about yourself? The shoe’s on the other foot, ain’t it?’
‘I know you, “Lefty’” said Red Moffet, his voice calm. ‘You never heard of a time when I was part of a mob at a lynching. I’ve fought fair all my life, and you know it, you swine!’
‘Swine, am I?’ said Lefty. ‘I’ll have that out of your hide before you swing.’
‘Shut up!’ barked the leader. ‘These keys don’t fit. Hold on—by heaven, I’ve got it!’
And the next moment the door to Red Moffet’s cell swung open.
Then Reginald Oliver Ingram found his strength, as he had found it on other days when the whistle sounded the commencement of the game. The grip of those who held him slipped away from his muscles, which had become like coiling serpents of steel. He thrust the men staggering back and sprang into the crowd.
A round half dozen had rushed into the little cell the instant the door was opened as the yell of the two guards rang out: ‘Look out for Ingram! He’s running amuck!’
The others whirled, hardly knowing what to expect, and as they whirled, Ingram plunged through them. They seemed to him shadows rather than men. He had known how to rip through a line of trained and ready athletes. He went through these unprepared cow-punchers and miners as though they had been nothing. Reaching the cell, he slammed the door with such a crash that the spring lock snapped, and the bunch of keys fell violently to the floor.
A hand reached instantly for those keys—Ingram stamped on the wrist and was answered by a scream of pain.
At the same time a pair of arms closed heavily around his body.
It would not be fair, of course, on a football field; but this was not a football field. Ingram snapped his fist home behind the ear of the assailant, and the arms which had pinned him relaxed. Others were coming at him, leaping, crowding one another so that their arms had no play; and, with his back to the cell door, which contained Moffet and his half dozen would-be lynchers, the minister stood at bay.
The nervous tension which had made him shake like a frightened child in the cold before the crisis, now enabled him to act with the speed of lightning. He struck not a single blind blow. He saw nothing but the point of the jaw, and into that charging rank he sent two blows that tore out the center of it.
Arms reached for him; a rifle whizzed past his head; but he brushed the reaching arms aside, and plucked the rifle from the hands which wielded it.
The men gave back before the sway of it with a yell of fear. Two or three lay crushed on the floor of the jail. He stepped over or on the bodies and struck savagely into the whirling mass of humanity.
The butt of the rifle struck flesh; there was a shriek of pain.
The rifle stock burst from its barrel as though it had been made of paper!
Then a gun spat fire in Ingram’s face. He smote with the naked rifle barrel in the direction of that blinding flash of light, and there was a groan and a fall.
Panic seized the crowd in that narrow aisle. They had no room to use their numbers. Many of them had fallen before the onslaught of this inspired fighter. They shrank from him; he followed on their heels.
And suddenly they turned and fled, beating each other down, trampling on one another, turning and striking frantic blows at their assailant, who now seemed a giant. And half a dozen times a revolver bullet was fired at him, point-blank. Panic, however, made the hands shake that held the guns, and Ingram drove the crowd on before him, striking mercilessly with his terrible club and treading groaning men underfoot as he went.
So the mob of rioters was vomited from the back door of the jail. As they swept out, two or three frightened fugitives, who had dragged themselves from the floor on which they lay stunned, staggered past Ingram and into the kindly dark.
Into that doorway Ingram stepped. He shook the broken rifle toward the mob which was swirling and pitching here and there like water.
Those behind wished to press forward; and those who had been in the jail dreaded more than death to get within the reach of that terrible churchman.
‘You yelping dogs!’ called Ingram in a voice of thunder. ‘The door of the jail is open here. Come when you’re ready! Next time I’ll meet you with bullets—and I’ll shoot to kill. Do you hear?’
There was a yell of rage from the crowd. Half a dozen bullets sang about Ingram’s ears. He laughed at the crowd, and strode back through the doorway.
On either side of the opening he placed a lantern, of which several had been dropped by the fleeing mob. Their light would bring into sharp relief anyone who tried to pass through that doorway; and it would be strange indeed if that cowed host of lynchers dared to attempt the passage.
From the cell where the foremost members of the lynching party were held safe with Red Moffet there was now rising
a wild appeal for help. The men called by name upon their companions, who remained in the darkness outside. They begged and pleaded for the opening of that door which they had unlocked with such glee.
Now from the floor near the rear of the jail, a man rose up and staggered toward Ingram. It was Dick Binney with a smear of blood on one side of his face, where he had been struck by the butt of a heavy Colt. He had a gun in either hand, and his lips were twitching. Ingram felt that he never before had seen a man so ready for desperate needs.
‘Ingram,’ he said, ‘God bless you for givin’ me another chance at’em! Oh, the scoundrels! I’m gunna make’em pay for this! I’m gunna make ‘em pay!’
There was a litter of weapons on the floor of the aisle, where five men lay, either unconscious or writhing in terrible pain.
The sheriff and Ingram gathered the fallen and placed them in a corner, while the sheriff’s two assistants now again appeared and offered to guard the prisoners. Their offer of help was accepted in scornful silence, and the sheriff went back to the main prize of the evening—the half dozen ringleaders who were cooped safely in Red Moffet’s cell.
Then a strange thing happened.
For the six were well armed—armed to the teeth in fact—and yet they had not the slightest thought of resistance. They crowded against the bars and with piteous voices begged the sheriff to let them out. They promised, like repentant children, that they would be good hereafter. They vowed to the deputy sheriff eternal gratitude.
Dick Binney his face stiff with congealed blood, grinned sourly as he listened. Then he opened the door and permitted them to come out, one by one. At the cell door they were relieved of their weapons, and held in check by Reginald Ingram. They were before him like sheep before a shepherd. For the Reverend Reginald Ingram was a much altered man.
A random bullet had chipped his ear, and sprinkled him with streaks of blood. His coat had been torn from his back. One sleeve of his shirt was rent away, exposing a bare arm on which the iron muscles were piled and coiled. And perhaps his chief decoration was a great swelling—already blue-black—which closed one eye to a narrow, evil squint.
This terrible giant herded the prisoners along the bars, the bent barrel of the rifle, more terrible by far than any loaded gun, still in his hand. He spoke to the crestfallen men with a cheerful contempt. They would be held for attempted murder, and they would be treated as cowards should be treated. He ripped the masks from their faces, and called them by their names. And they shrank and trembled before him.
When the sheriff had emptied Red Moffet’s cell, he locked up the recent aggressors, one by one, in adjoining cells. A miserable row they made! With them went three of the stunned men whom Ingram had trampled in the aisle. Two other of his victims were better suited for the hospital than the jail, and Binney’s assistants cared for them in the office as well as they could.
Outside, the noise of the crowd had ceased with mysterious suddenness. When Binney cast a glance through the open rear door, half suspecting that his enemies might have massed covertly for a sudden thrust, there was not a soul in sight. Apparently, on reflection, the crowd had decided that there had been enough done that night—or enough attempted! They had remembered other employments. They had scattered swiftly and silently.
A cell door had clicked shut for the ninth time, and nine men were cursing or groaning behind bars, when a hand was clapped on the bare shoulder of the minister. He turned and confronted Red Moffet, whose face was transformed by a magnificent grin of triumph.
‘Old-timer’ said Red Moffet, Of all the good turns that was ever done for me, the best—
He was silenced by a lionlike roar from the minister.
‘Moffet, what are you doing out of your cell? Get back inside it!’
‘Me?’ said Moffet, blinking, and then he added: ‘Look here, Ingram, you’ve been playin’ dog to a lot of sheep, but that don’t mean that you can—’
‘Get back in that cell, you—you puppy!’ ordered Ingram.
‘I’ll see you there first!’ began Red Moffet.
Feeling that words were not apt to have much effect upon this bloodstained, ragged monster, Red followed his speech with a long, driving, overhand right which was aimed full at the point of Ingram’s jaw.
It was an honest, whole-hearted punch, famous in many a town and cow camp throughout the Western range. It was sure death, sudden darkness, and a long sleep when it landed. But this time it somehow failed to land. The minister’s head dropped a little to one side, and Moffet’s thick arm drove over his shoulder; then, while Red rushed on into a clinch, Ingram swung his right fist up from his knee, swung it up, and rose on his toes with the sway of it, and put the full leverage of his straightening back into the blow.
It struck Red Moffet just beneath the chin and caused his feet to leave the floor and the back of his head to fall heavily between his shoulder blades. When his feet came down again, there was no strength in his knees to support his weight. A curtain of darkness had fallen over his brain. He dropped headlong into the arms of Ingram.
Those arms picked him up and carried him into his cell, laid him carefully on his cot, and folded his arms upon his chest.
‘You didn’t kill him, Ingram?’ asked the overawed sheriff, peering through the bars as Ingram came out of the cell and slammed the door.
‘No’ said Ingram. ‘He’ll be all right in a few minutes. And’ he added, looking around him, ‘I hope that everything will be quiet here now, Binney?’
‘Partner’ grinned Dick Binney, ‘nobody could start trouble in this town for a month—after what you’ve done tonight! And—suppose we shake hands on things in general?’
They shook hands on things in general.
XIV
Muy Diablo, After All
It would be impossible to describe all that passed through the mind of the Reverend Reginald Ingram when he released the hand of the deputy sheriff. For, with a shock, he was recalled to himself. And he realized that, no matter how else his conduct might be described, it certainly had been most unministerial!
He did not have time to reflect upon the matter in any detail, nor to decide how he could reconcile what his fists had done with certain prescriptions in the Gospels. For now there was a violent interruption on his train of thought. Horses were heard galloping up the street. They stopped near the jail.
‘It’s more trouble! Stand by me, Ingram!’ cried the deputy sheriff, picking up a repeating rifle. ‘If they try to rush that door open, I’m going to blow a few of them sky high! These are some of the friends of the boys in the cells, yonder! Ingram, will you stand by me?’
‘I will,’ said the minister. And, automatically, he reached for a weapon from the sheriff’s stock. It was a great, ponderous, old-fashioned, double-barreled shotgun, loaded with buckshot, adequate to blow a whole column of charging men back through yonder doorway.
Voices were heard calling, crying back and forth. Then into the bright lantern light which flooded the doorway, a figure sprang. Ingram tilted his weapon—
‘No!’ cried the deputy sheriff.
And he struck up the muzzles of the shotgun just as the triggers were pulled, and a double charge blasted its way through the flimsy roofing and on toward the stars.
‘It’s a woman!’ called Dick Binney
Aye, it was a woman who ran toward them now, crying: ‘Dick Binney! Dick Binney! Where’s Reggie Ingram? What’ve you done with him?’
Astrid was as unconcerned as though a popgun had been fired at her. Behind, charging through the doorway, came Vasa and a few of his neighbors to protect the girl. She disregarded them utterly. She found Dick Binney and caught hold of his rifle.
‘Dick! Dick! You’ve let the brutes murder Reggie, and I’ll—’
‘Hey quit it, will you?’ exclaimed Dick Binney, striving vainly to free his gun—for he was not quite sure of the intentions of the cavalcade which clattered up the aisle of the jail. ‘I didn’t touch Reggie, as you call him. Here he i
s to speak for himself.’
The girl looked across at the tattered giant; and at the second glance she was able to recognize him.
‘Reggie!’ she screamed.
And all at once Ingram was enveloped—subdued—dragged forward beneath the light—kissed—wept over—exclaimed about—it would be impossible to express all the storm of joy and grief and fury which burst from Astrid Vasa.
It appeared that the large minister was an innocent darling, and all other men were beasts and wolves; and it further appeared that he was a blessed lamb, and that his Astrid loved him more than heaven and earth joined together; moreover, the man who had made his eye so black was simply hateful, and she would never speak to that man again—
‘But, oh, Reggie,’ she breathed at last, ‘didn’t you just have a gorgeous, glorious, ripping, everlasting good time out of it?’
He hesitated. He blinked. The question touched exactly the center of his odd reflections.
‘Yes,’ he said faintly and sadly. ‘I’m afraid that that is exactly what I have been having. And,’ he added, ‘I’m frightfully depressed, Astrid. I’ve disgraced myself and my profession and my—’
The rest of the sentence was lost. Astrid was hugging him with the vehement delight of a child.
She dragged him forth. She pointed with pride to his tatters and to his wounds.
‘Look!’ cried she. ‘Look at him! And he’s ashamed! Oh, was there ever such a wonderful, silly, dear, foolish, good-for-nothing in the world?’
They got Ingram out of the jail.
The town was up by the time they reached the street. It had not been very safe to venture abroad during the period when the would-be lynching party had possession of the streets, but now it was perfectly safe, and, therefore, all hands had turned out and were raising a great commotion. And in the forefront, nearest to the jail, were the families of sundry gentlemen who, it was rumored, were now fast confined within its walls. And heaven knew what would become of them when the law had had its way!