Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  He would wait thirty seconds to allow the man time to run down and open the rear door and thus receive him on his dash. He counted, found that his tongue was racing — and counted the thirty twice over, faster than the ticking of a second hand.

  Then he rose to bolt for the rear door of the jail — surely it must be opened by this time! And, as he rose, a rifle spurted fire from the trees, and he received a heavy blow across the forehead that staggered him.

  Charlie Bone and his companion had spotted him, at last, from among the trees!

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  THE IMPACT OF the slug from the rifle had knocked the greater part of the wits of young Signal out of his head, and yet as he slumped against the wall of the house he knew certain things with a dreadful distinctness. He knew, for instance, that it was only a glancing wound, though perhaps the bullet had furrowed the bone of the head.

  He knew that he must flee with all the speed that he could manage. And, turning his head, he had a clear view of Charlie Bone who, rising from behind a log, excited at the success of his first shot, stood with rifle at shoulder, about to fire again. But, for the least part of a second, stunned and helpless, the boy could not stir. Only his brain was active to this degree. Then a second shot plunged through the wall just beside his head, and suddenly he was himself again! Just as a boxer, stunned and helpless from one blow, suddenly is shocked into his right senses, as it were, by the impact of a second stroke!

  So John Signal came to himself and lurched away. If he really had been in his best senses, he would have shrunk back around the corner of the house, and from this position tried to get in a shot at Charlie Bone and his wicked companion. But he did not think of that. He was sufficiently recovered to be able to move, but he was only sensible enough to plunge straight forward toward the rear door of the jail.

  The next shot went past him on hornet wings. They had opened upon him with their two repeating Winchesters, and they were fairly pumping the lead at him. And, as he went past the rear of the vacant house, he stumbled on a hummock of soft ground and fell headlong. He heard the wild, exultant yelling, as he fell, not of the two among the trees, but of many more as well, and as he lurched to his feet again, he knew that the entire rear of the house was covered by the tribesmen of Bone, looking out on the fall of this young enemy.

  Anger gave him strength and speed. He dodged forward with hardly another shot fired, so greatly did his sudden rise from the ground surprise the others. And so he reached the rear door of the jail and plunged through it to safety, past a chalky-faced jailor who instantly wrenched the heavy door shut behind him.

  It closed with a heavy iron clanking, and here was safety for the moment! But for how long? Of the two guards, if this white fellow was a sample, the pair would not be worth the assistance of a single armed child, when the attack was delivered at nightfall. But there was Simeon Langley in the cell, white also, but resolutely erect, and gripping at the bars of his cell as though he were anxious to get out and share in the defense. That instant the young deputy made up his mind. With the first falling of the night, in case no other succor were at hand, he would free Sim Langley, and so increase his force.

  But even that would hardly improve matters. The first glance around him showed how desperately difficult it would be to defend the place. There were many windows, well secured with bars of the best tool-proof steel, but, for all that, windows to which anyone could climb from the outside, and through which anyone could fire. There were shutters for these windows, but every one of the shutters was now open and hooked back — for who had use for shutters here, in summer weather? Into the big cell-room looked no fewer than eight windows. During the day they were simply convenient portholes through which the garrison could keep their watch. But, during the night, they were sure to provide loopholes for the enemy to fire through. Ordinary rascals might not have had the resolution for such feats, but the Bone tribe would furnish many volunteers for this work.

  All of this the boy thought in the first glance that he threw around him. And, in the meantime, the trembling guard was saying:

  “Aw, Gawd, but I’m glad to see you, Sheriff Alias! I never was so glad to see nobody! I thought that I was gunna be left here to die an’ rot! I thought that they was gunna leave me here to be murdered!”

  John Signal said to him briefly:

  “Murdered you will be, unless you buck up and take a part, and work with your own hands. I never can defend this place by myself!”

  There was a noise at the front door, and the guard clutched at the wall, half fainting.

  “They’re sneakin’ in through the front way, now! Gawd help us! We’re done! We’re done! Stop ’em, Mr. Alias! Stop ’em, sir!”

  In fact, there was enough danger in that sound to make the boy quake. Fear, catching like disease of the most deadly nature, breathed coldly in his face. Then he rallied himself and forced himself forward.

  He heard Langley calling softly:

  “Name of God, Alias, lemme loose to help you! Lemme loose to fight for myself!”

  But he had not a key; moreover, he had no time, if the enemy actually were breaking in through the front door. And, at this moment, he heard a sudden crashing of shots, and a roar of voices from the front of the jail, instantly answered by the rush of heavy feet, and then a great shout inside the front door.

  Into that front hallway, the boy himself sprang, for he felt that he was cornered; and, if the enemy were indeed inside the door, his one fighting chance was to drive them out before they were solidly entrenched. For that purpose, he delivered a quick attack, leaping through the doorway with a revolver in either hand.

  He saw before him Fitz Eagan and with him the tall, pale Major! Two forms more welcome he could not have seen among all the hosts of the fighting men in Monument. If he had had to choose two from the multitude, he would instantly have named these very men. The guard, who evidently had been able to catch the signal of the pair in some manner when they were able to dash for the jail, was now bolting the door behind them, and laughing hysterically.

  “My God!” cried young John Signal, “but I’m glad to see you!”

  “Not half so glad,” said Fitz Eagan, “as we are to see you. I thought you’d be done and down, young game chicken.”

  “How did you manage? How did you manage?” stammered the deputy sheriff.

  “We managed when we heard the roaring of the rifles behind the jail. If that many of the Bone outfit were shooting back there, it stood to reason that not many of them could be watching from the front of the house. So we made the dash. Skinny, here, had been spotting us through the window; we passed him the signal, and here we are.”

  So, carelessly, Fitz Eagan commented on their arrival, but Signal did not need to be told what danger had been endured. He had heard the crash of the guns only a few seconds before.

  “This will go down as one of the great battles of the West,” sneered Major Paul Harkness. “Fifty fighting men, all outlaws, all desperadoes, all dead shots. And out of the first hundred bullets fired, there’s one small wound! That’s the West! That’s the wild and woolly West!”

  He laughed, and his laughter turned abruptly into a racking cough. The spasm brought a flush into his face.

  Fitz Eagan, in the meantime, was asking after the boy’s wound more seriously; and then he tended to it with his own hands, washing it at the sink in the corner of the cell room, and then dressing it. He had brought over ample materials for the dressing of all kinds of wounds. He had with him, moreover, a quantity of bread, meat and salt, and two large flasks of whisky.

  The spirits of the deputy sheriff rose high. He danced and swore softly as the stinging medicaments entered his wound, but still he chuckled.

  “When they open this box,” said John Signal, “I’ve an idea that they’ll get pepper into their eyes.”

  “Of course they will,” said Fitz Eagan genially, “but when they sneeze it may be the finish of us.”

  “What do you th
ink?” asked the boy of Major Harkness.

  The latter smiled. It was not really a smile, but his nearest sneering approach to one.

  “It’s the first time in years,” said the Major, “that I’ve been asked for a thought. Usually it’s for money or a gun. D’you really mean it, Mr. Sheriff?”

  “Paul, don’t be a jackass!” said Fitz Eagan angrily. “Open up and talk like a white man if you can. The kid is serious.”

  “Why,” said the Major, taking no notice of this rebuke, “I’ll do my best. My idea is that there’ll be no more trouble. We’re here, and the Bones won’t bother us.”

  “How do you work that out?” asked Fitz Eagan.

  “It’s simple, ain’t it?”

  “I don’t follow it at all!”

  “The Bone gang is a pack of Indians. They’ll never give away three lives to get three — or three to get four. And it’s pretty plain that they’re apt to pay that high for the inside of this package. Or d’you think that we’ll be cheaper meat than that, partner?”

  He asked it with a drawling viciousness. But Fitz Eagan turned to the deputy sheriff.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “I don’t know what to think,” said young John Signal. “I’m pretty badly scared, I guess. I’m not thinking very fast or very straight, as a matter of fact. I only know that we’re on the inside and a lot of trouble is on the outside. But there’s the whole city of Monument that can hear the guns. Surely some of the fighting men will come to help us!”

  Harkness stepped closer and laid a hand on the shoulder of the deputy.

  “You’re a good kid,” said he. “I thought you might have a little case of swelled head after what you’ve done in Monument, but I can see that you’ve eaten your raw meat with salt on it. But about these fighting heroes in Monument — hell, lad, they won’t come near us! Why should they?”

  “Except the sheriff,” said Fitz Eagan. “He’s sure to turn up.”

  “Then why isn’t he here now?” asked the Major.

  “I don’t know. It rather beats me, I confess. I looked to find the old fat boy here!”

  “He’s changed his mind. He’s one of the heroes that would rather be alive to read in the books than to be dead and put inside the covers of one.”

  So said the Major, and John Signal heartily agreed.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  BEFORE THEY ATTEMPTED any definite conclusion, they went over the state of the jail with the greatest care, passing together from the top to the bottom, and from one end of it to the other. The further they went, the more complicated the task appeared.

  In the first place, above the first floor there was a large attic with a barred window at either end, one pressing against the wall of the vacant house which the Bone tribe had seized and the other looking upon the barn. This attic was littered in part with broken furniture and old odds and ends. In part, it was cluttered with big packing cases.

  “A pretty neat place for twenty thugs to hide out,” as Fitz Eagan commented.

  “But how could they get in?” asked John Signal.

  Both the Major and Eagan turned curious eyes upon their companion. Then the Major said quietly:

  “The wall of that next house is just thin boards. What’s wrong with peeling off those boards and going to work on this brick wall with a crowbar? Six licks would break a hole through it!”

  “It would,” agreed Fitz Eagan, and Signal was silent, for he saw the truth in what had been said.

  They went down to the main floor of the building, and there they took note of the eight windows which yawned upon the cell room. Peering out through one of these, Fitz Eagan called the attention of his friends to the houses which were nearest to them upon the town side of the building. Every window was crowded, particularly the upper ones. And sheltering themselves from the sun under umbrellas, whole families were picnicking in the open air and ready to enjoy the show when the attack upon the jail should commence in earnest.

  “There’s your honest citizens who ought to be falling in and right shouldering arms to come and help us,” said Major Harkness to Signal. “There they are!”

  Signal stared, amazed.

  “I don’t make it out,” said he. “I don’t understand it at all!”

  “You wouldn’t, kid,” answered Fitz Eagan. “But the fact is that you don’t understand the lay of this land any too well.”

  “Are there no honest men in Monument with a little nerve?” asked Signal desperately.

  “Tons of ’em,” said Fitz Eagan. “Tons and tons of ’em. But why should they mix in on this? They shouldn’t and they won’t. They don’t know which side is straight. That’s the mistake that Sheriff Ogden has made. He’s had to play both sides against the middle, I admit that. But he ought to have let the crowd see where he stood!”

  “How could he let the crowd see and not let both sides see?” asked Major Harkness.

  Fitz Eagan appeared to agree. It was a tight hole and a bad fix for the sheriff, he admitted. This defense of Ogden seemed very wonderful to Signal. Finally he exclaimed:

  “If the sheriff really is honest, why isn’t he here now to help us fight?”

  “I dunno,” answered Fitz Eagan. “But I do know this — that you can’t judge of a man until you’ve seen him finish the race. This one is barely started! Give Ogden another chance to come through!”

  They continued their investigation of the main floor. There were three small rooms across the front of the building. One of these was the room of the sheriff himself, where Signal already had sat. Of the other two, one was devoted to supplies and guns of all necessary kinds, together with fetters of various sorts; the other served as a cooking and living room for the jail guards. Each of these rooms contained a window. Eleven windows, therefore, looked in upon the main floor of the jail.

  “We’re like water in a sieve,” commented Fitz Eagan. “How can we keep from leaking out, I ask you?”

  They went down into the cellar. It was practically as large as the floor above it, and that floor was supported by a small forest of timber pillars.

  “They could fire this!” said Fitz Eagan at once. “And once they fired it, they could burn us out like so many rats! Isn’t that right?”

  “That’s right enough. But how would they get fire into this?” asked Signal curiously.

  “By bashing a hole through the cellar wall, the same as they could do through any of the floors above,” said Fitz Eagan. “This jail is a fine fort. I’d as soon be in a glass house! They can do everything but look through at us! And we’ll have to have a man on every floor, every minute of the time!”

  This seemed obvious.

  They posted the two regular jail guards one in the attic and one in the cellar. Their fear, which they plainly showed even after the arrival of such reinforcements, should be enough to keep their senses upon the alert.

  The fighting corps, as they might refer to Eagan, Harkness, and John Signal, was to take charge of the main floor, since if there was an attempt to rush the jail, or to get possession of the windows from the outside, of course the attack would have to be met at that level.

  There remained the moot question of Sim Langley. The moment he saw Fitz Eagan and Harkness, he ceased his clamoring for freedom from his cell. Harkness walked up to the cell and rolled a cigarette while he eyed the prisoner.

  “Sim Langley,” he said, “you always have known that I look on you as a rat?”

  Langley made no answer but, with an equal coolness, he rolled a smoke of his own, and regarded the other placidly through the bars of the cell.

  “A poison rat!” repeated Harkness.

  “Harkness,” said Langley, “you’ve got a great name for yourself around Monument by bumping off a few tenderfeet. I never laid no stock by you. And I ain’t ready to change my mind now. I figure you for a low four-flusher, and if you want to call my turn, let me out of this cell and gimme a six shooter. When I’ve finished with you, your partners can finish with me.
But finish you I can and I will, if I get the smallest half of a chance!”

  “This is something pretty good,” declared Harkness. “Do you hear this boys? Langley is getting a heart inside of him. The yellow doesn’t show such a broad streak today! Will you let him walk out and talk to me, Alias?”

  “There’ll be no fighting here,” answered Signal. “Not a damn bit of it! Langley, you’ve chucked your chance to come out and help fight for your own hide.”

  To this Fitz Eagan replied that the fault was Harkness’ and not the prisoner’s. Still Signal would not permit Langley to leave the cell until he had finished writing out his confession. And that, most unwillingly, he did.

  It was not a long story. It simply told how Henry Colter had called together his clan of fighting men and informed them of the scheme which he had on foot. He was to ride down into Mexico in order to get sure details of the start and the progress of the caravan of mules. After that, he was to retire into the upper mountains, east of Monument. There he was to wait, peering down into the lowlands and the hills to spy certain far-off fire-signals which the smugglers, he was led to believe, usually used in order to communicate with their friends.

  All went as he had planned, and, among those wild uplands where Signal first met Colter, he had been keeping his watch and had spied out the train. In answer to his own call, his men then went up to meet him, and they descended into the lower lands, paralleling the course of the mule train. They did not come upon a perfect spot for ambuscade until the train was in San Real Ca¤on, where the blow was delivered with sweeping effect. Only one man had escaped, and that man was badly wounded. Colter, Dad Bone, Charlie Bone, Joe Klaus, Langley himself, and several more had worked in the raid. They had planned to leave no living men, when they saw the pocket into which the Mexicans had ridden. But luck defeated them.