The Red Well

by Max Brand

  “It fits in perfectly,” said Editor Jones. “Another thing is going to fit a lot better, though. That will be the rope that is snugged up around the neck of the murderer when he’s caught.”

  “Is that all you can tell me?” begged the girl.

  “That’s all,” said Jimmy Jones.

  “If you bring him to justice . . . it’s a great thing to do . . . it’s a noble thing,” said the girl. “But I’m afraid for you.”

  “I’ll stand sidewise, and the danger will miss me,” said Jimmy Jones.

  IV

  When Jimmy Jones shut the door after the girl, he found Joe Parson in the act of putting a hat on his head.

  “What’s the matter with some more seven-up?” asked Jimmy.

  “I’m pulling out,” said Parson. “I’m the rat that can tell when the ship is going to sink. Listen, Jimmy. You act as though you were back in the state of Maine, or some place else where law is law. Out here, law is guns.”

  “Are you telling me?” Jimmy grinned. Another tap at the door made him turn. “This is our day for receiving,” he said, and pulled the door wide open.

  Before him stood two men in black hoods; the skin showed behind the eye holes like white, dead eyes. And the nearer reached for the head of Jimmy Jones with a revolver.

  He might as well have struck at a will-o’-the-wisp. Jimmy, dodging swiftly to the left, had two guns in his hands in a twinkling. Both weapons would have started chattering in another moment, except that his foot struck a dark patch on the floor where Parson, the moment before, had spilled a bit of water in filling a glass, carelessly. The foot of Jimmy Jones slipped beneath him. He fell on both hands and received a crushing blow on his head from that same impending gun.

  That stroke dropped him forward into a deeper darkness. He wakened to hear a vague series of sounds. As his eyes cleared, he saw that he had been dragged to his feet, his hands bound hard and close together, in front of his body. The sounds came from Joe Parson, who was fighting like a hero against a pressure of great odds.

  Four men were crowding Joe into a corner. Two of them he sent reeling with heavy blows. The third tackled him, pinning his arms to his sides and jamming him against the wall. The fourth deliberately struck again and again, crashing the head of Parson against the wall until he buckled into loose insensibility.

  As he dropped, the four came in again. Two of them kicked the fallen body. One of those kicks landed flush in the face of the unconscious man. And Jimmy Jones groaned at his own helplessness. He had not expected to find that bulldog courage in the lank form of his sub-editor.

  “Bring Jones along,” said a voice that Jimmy recognized easily as that of Harry Burwell. “Bring him fast.”

  It was Burwell who had smashed Parson so heavily in the face while his arms were held.

  They jerked Jimmy Jones out of the building, slammed the door behind him, and tossed him into a saddle. Something warm trickled down his face; he tasted his own blood, running from a wound in his scalp, and his brain whirled with a dizzy weakness. He thought that his skull might have been fractured. And every jouncing step of the horse that carried him sent exquisite spasms of pain through his entire spinal column.

  Quickly the cavalcade left the main street of Jasper and passed unnoticed down a side alley. The whole invasion and capture had taken place in a few minutes.

  The bridle reins of Jimmy’s horse were fastened to the pommel of the saddle of the rider on his left. The lead rope led to the saddle of the fellow on his right. Before him cantered two more riders; another pair closed up the procession to the rear. Six men had proved enough to storm the offices of the Jasper Journal.

  The man on his left said: “Well, Jones, you been shooting off your face for quite a while, haven’t you?”

  “I watched you in there fighting, Harry,” answered Jimmy Jones. “You did pretty well when another fellow was holding the arms of poor Joe Parson.”

  “You think you know my name?” asked Burwell.

  “I was able to tell you by your bray,” said Jimmy Jones.

  “Tell that big and loud and long,” said Harry Burwell. “This is the last night you’ll ever have a chance to run your gab. We’re going to string you up where the buzzards can eat off you, comfortable and undisturbed, Jones.”

  “I don’t think you will,” said Jimmy.

  “You don’t think so?” echoed Burwell. “What’ll keep us from it, I’d like to know?”

  “It’s a sort of a vision that I’ve got in the back of my mind,” answered Jimmy. “And there’s prophecy in what you see with your mind’s eye.”

  “What’s the picture you think you see?” asked Burwell.

  “You, Harry . . . throwing up your hands and howling for help while you fall on your face, with my bullets still plowing through you.”

  Burwell turned in his saddle and slashed Jimmy Jones across the face with his riding quirt. He laid a second stinging, cutting blow over his back and shoulders. “Take that, will you?” said Burwell.

  “Aw, leave him be, Harry! Leave him be while his hands is tied,” called one of the two riders in the rear.

  “A good thing for us that his hands are tied,” said Harry Burwell. “Did you see how he got a pair of guns into those hands in the wink of an eye? If his foot hadn’t slipped, nobody knows what would have happened. I told you that we ought to go in shooting.”

  “You’re always for blood,” said the man behind, gloomily.

  The horses were winding up a hillside along a narrow dim trail that passed among boulders and overhanging trees.

  “Where blood is needed, it’s the only thing that washes the trouble away,” declared Harry. “And this rat has gnawed at our reputations until the Burwell name will never be quite clean again.”

  “Never after this night,” said Jimmy Jones. “People are going to remember that the editor of the Jasper Journal disappeared after he’d promised to print a little of the truth about the Burwell mob. They’ll have as good as murder hung on all of you, Harry. And Ruth Denham will be the first person to know that you’re a murderer.”

  Harry Burwell, with a groan of rage, turned again in the saddle and slashed his prisoner with the riding quirt. The sharp lash cut through like a knife. Long, burning, aching weals were rising on the body of Jimmy Jones, but he laughed as he answered: “She’ll use something worse than a whip on you. She’ll use words on you, Harry, and they’ll burn you up. You’re damned in the town . . . you’re damned in the whole countryside. After tonight, people will know that the Burwells are a flock of murderers.”

  “I’ve got a mind to burn you alive,” said Harry Burwell.

  The horses reached a higher level, where the trail wound narrowly along the shoulder of a hill that sloped away at a sharp angle to the right, with a staggering outline of trees and boulders scattered along it. Here they broke into a trot.

  But Jimmy Jones continued: “However, you’re right, Harry. It’s better to have people talk black and look black than it is to hang by the neck, as you would hang if I published my article on Saturday.

  “What’s the matter with this place right ahead?” sang out a voice behind them. “We could roll some of those big rocks over him, and nobody would ever know.”

  “I know a better spot,” answered Harry Burwell. He went on to Jimmy: “Nobody’ll know what we’ve done, or who took you away, tonight. They may guess that it was the Burwells, but they’ll never know.”

  “They never knew that you people murdered Charlie Denham,” answered Jimmy, “but after tonight they’ll begin to guess. A gang that will do one murder surely could have done another murder before. People will begin to talk.”

  “Smoke doesn’t make a fire,” answered Burwell. “Anyway, you’ll be dead before you hear any of the talking. You’ve got too much tongue, Jones. You can’t wag a couple of yards of tongue around a town like Jasper without getting hurt. Understand that? You can work your gags with a girl like Ruth Denham, but the men won’t stand for it.”r />
  “Thanks,” said Jimmy. “I didn’t know she was interested, but I’ll certainly call on her tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow? Jones, you really think that you’re going to get out of this?”

  “Think so? I know it, Burwell. I’ve got something up my sleeve.”

  Harry Burwell shouted out derisive laughter. “You hear that, boys? He says that he’s got something up his sleeve!”

  The horses, in the meantime, were keeping up a steady dog-trot, after the habit of Western mustangs, and, as they passed, now, under the head of a tree, Jimmy Jones marked a big, low-hanging branch that extended above the trail. He had been looking for just such a thing ever since the trail started down the side of the hill. Now, rising suddenly in his stirrups, he flung his tied hands above his head and gripped the

  branch.

  The jerk of his weight almost wrenched his arms out of their shoulder sockets, but his grip held, and he was snatched from the saddle. One of the riders behind him dodged the sudden looming of that swinging body, but Jimmy crashed full into the other and knocked him headlong to the ground.

  By luck, his own fall was cushioned by the body of the other that was stretched prone on the ground. He heard the crunch of bones as he fell and rolled to his feet.

  Ahead of him, Harry Burwell was yelling commands in an agony of rage and excitement. But two frightened, riderless horses were jamming in among the Burwells as Jimmy Jones headed down the steep slant of the slope.

  It was more sliding than running, and every moment he expected to pitch forward on his face. He had never realized that our arms are almost as necessary to keeping our balance at bad angles as are wings to a bird. And then, striking the head of a long gravel slope, he skidded on his back to the bottom of it.

  He rose with his clothes torn to tatters, his flesh scored as though by thorns. Above him, through the night, he heard the Burwells running in pursuit, shouting to one another.

  Jimmy Jones struck off at a steady trot over the rolling ground. They would never catch him, no matter if his hands were tied. Even if they were wild Indians, they would never catch him, now that he had this head start.

  V

  When he got back to the narrow town of Jasper, he found the main street in front of the office of the Journal thronged from sidewalk to sidewalk by a milling crowd of curious people, most of them men.

  Jimmy, slipping through the mob toward the open front door of the lighted building, heard varying comments from the obscure figures around him. There seemed to be a general agreement that an outrage had been committed. But, also, there was a distinct feeling that when men talk too much, they must expect to pay the consequences.

  As one drawling voice said—and Jimmy Jones heard it: “If a gent wants to spin yarns, he’d better pick out a campfire where there ain’t many folks to listen. This Jimmy Jones, he had to have the whole town of Jasper putting an eye on him. And that’s damn’ dangerous in this neck of the woods.”

  Jimmy reached the lighted semicircle around the open door before he was recognized.

  “There’s Jones!” someone shouted. “There’s Jimmy Jones! They didn’t kill him . . . they just took and beat him up.”

  “They took him, and he got away!” shouted others.

  Jimmy Jones, walking through the open door into his front office, found there Joe Parson, whose head was fairly covered with bandages, but one eye looked forth, grimly shining. There were several other men present, one of them with a badge pinned to his flannel shirt. They all turned with wonder to the bloodstained face and the ragged figure of Jimmy.

  Joe Parson rushed on him with a cry. “Jimmy, have they hurt you bad? Have they done you in, partner?”

  That last word was what the mind of Jimmy Jones seized on. He gripped the hand of Parson with a strong pressure. “You’re not resigning now, Joe!” he exclaimed.

  “Not till hell freezes over the Burwells,” said Parson. “Are you hurt bad?”

  “Only scratched,” said Jimmy Jones. “Water will wash away most of my trouble. But it won’t wash the Burwells clean.”

  “There’s a lot of free talk going on in here,” said the man with the badge.

  “Are you the sheriff?” asked Jimmy.

  “That’s what I am,” said the other, staring grimly at the owner of the Journal.

  “Sheriff,” said Jimmy Jones, “there’s a good charge of attack with intent to kill, assault, or whatever you want, along with kidnapping. And Harry Burwell is the man who led the gang.”

  “He is, eh?” demanded the sheriff. “You see him?”

  “Of course.”

  “He showed his face?” persisted the sheriff.

  “I recognized his voice.”

  “You recognized the cat’s whiskers.” The sheriff sneered. “Try to pull that baloney with me. You recognized his voice, did you? How many times have you seen Harry?”

  “Enough times to know that he looks like you, and sounds a bit like you,” said Jimmy. “Are you a Burwell?”

  “My name is Clive Burwell, and what of it? Button up your tongue in this town, young man.”

  Jimmy Jones regarded gravely the broad jowls and the keen eyes of the sheriff. “Are you going to make that arrest or not?” he asked.

  “Why should I?” asked the sheriff. “Am I to go around arresting the best citizens in this town every time a damned stranger comes in and claims one of them’s been doing something wrong? I’m not such a fool. I want evidence before I put people in jail.”

  “All right,” said Jimmy. He turned on his heel and stepped to the door of his office, looking out over the street where the crowd had grown far denser than before. A quick, deep-throated shout greeted him, and a pale flash as many faces looked up toward his battered form.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said Jimmy Jones, “I was stolen from my office tonight by a gang that intended to murder me. I recognized the leader by voice and size, in spite of his hood. It was Harry Burwell.”

  A deep, humming murmur ran through the people.

  “Harry knew that, after I published my article on Saturday, this part of the world would be too hot to hold him. So he tried to make sure by lynching me. Burwell carried me out of the town and up that hill, yonder. You can see it against the stars. They had tied my hands together, but, as the horses passed under a tree, I saw that I could reach a branch, so I grabbed it, was jerked out of the saddle, and got away down the slope. If you want to know how I traveled down that slope, I’ll tell you that most of the way I went on my back. If you doubt that, look at my clothes, and they’ll show you that I’ve been down the devil’s slide.”

  He made another pause, not to gain breath but to hear the dull murmur of excitement from the crowd.

  Then he added: “I’ve asked the sheriff of this county to arrest Harry Burwell. But he says I can be damned.” He paused.

  A brief, high-pitched shout of astonishment came from the throng.

  “That’s a lie!” cried the sheriff. But his voice was lost in the general commotion.

  “He says that he’s too much of a Burwell to put Harry in jail,” said Jimmy Jones.

  Another growling shout answered this remark.

  “It’s all lies!” yelled the sheriff, shouldering Jimmy a little to the side and lifting his hand to get attention. “I said that where the only evidence . . .”

  “The only evidence is what my eyes saw and what my ears heard . . . together with the evidence that’s written on my body and my head,” said Jimmy Jones. He pointed to his blood-caked face as he spoke.

  “It’s an outrage. There’s got to be something done!” called a voice. “A disgrace to the law . . .”

  “Damn the disgrace to the law,” said Jimmy Jones. “It’s a disgrace to the town of Jasper.”

  “It is!” came the shouting answer.

  “I came to this town,” said Jimmy Jones, “because I heard that some of the best people in the West were living here. I wanted to get to know them. But the Burwells run this place, I
find. Still I’m going to start a fight against them. Gentlemen, they’ve beaten me up and won the first round, but the second round will be fought on Saturday in the Jasper Journal. After you’ve finished reading that, you won’t be able to find any Burwells. Not outside of jail.”

  A whoop was the response to this.

  “You’ll be able to ride five hundred miles without finding a Burwell, unless a few may be hanging on trees. There’s going to be a second supplement to the Saturday edition. It’ll be only half news . . . the other half will be a description of exactly what happened tonight.”

  “You’re breaking the peace!” shouted the sheriff in a rage. “Another word out of you and I’ll put you in jail.”

  “Gentlemen,” shouted Jimmy Jones, without making a move to shake off the hand of the sheriff, “Sheriff Clive Burwell says that if I say another word against the Burwells, he’ll throw me in jail! So I have to stop talking.”

  At this, there was not only a shout from the men in the street, but there was also a surging movement forward. And the sheriff, hearing several shouts of—“Lynch the Burwells! Down with ’em! Rope necklaces for the Burwells!”—suddenly left the side of Jimmy Jones and fled through the rear of the newspaper office.

  Jimmy Jones, left alone, lifted his arm and checked the advance of the crowd.

  “Boys,” he called, “we’re in this thing together! They’ve had me down, but they haven’t licked me. They’ve had the town of Jasper down, but they haven’t licked it. They’ve knocked me around, and they’ve knocked the town of Jasper around. But now the gang has started running, and the brave sheriff is the fellow who leads the way and shows the first pair of heels.”

  “We’ll catch him!” called several men. “We’ll catch him in his house! Come on, boys!”

  Swayed by one of those strong emotions that will suddenly overmaster and control a mob, the entire crowd started sweeping down the street.