Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

This confession Langley signed.

  “I’m signing my life away,” he explained gloomily. “They’ll never leave me alone, now, until they’ve snagged me for this! Never!”

  He added with more bitterness:

  “It never would of happened — we’d of got away with everything, if it hadn’t been for the kid, here!”

  And he paid John Signal with a glance of uttermost hatred. But however much he might hate the boy, his interest was now plain; his own skin was more endangered than that of any other man. It was his life that the others chiefly wanted. As for his confession, that might well be discredited in a court of law; but his personal testimony would be utterly damning to too many lives. So Simeon Langley was loosed from the cell and furnished with a rifle and revolvers — his own!

  The plan for the defense was now thoroughly established. To the two regular guards of the jail, the outlook from the top floor and from the cellar was to be entrusted. Langley, Signal, and Major Harkness were to go the rounds of the various rooms on the main floor continually, and Fitz Eagan, whose fame and whose fighting experience caused him to be entrusted with the command, would move from one part of the building to the other, wherever he saw fit to go.

  Dusk was now coming on, and through the windows they looked gloomily forth upon a world of yellow and pale blue, constantly deepening to purple and gold. Every moment brought their danger nearer. Then Fitz Eagan made a little speech to his assembled garrison. He said:

  “You been brought up around here to believe in speed. Forget that tonight. Never fire until you got a perfect bead. Always make sure. Nothin’ encourages the other gent so much as to be missed. Nothin’ discourages him so much as to be shot — even if you don’t nip off no more than a finger. Besides, we don’t want the air in the jail to get all smoked up. Keep your eyes open. And the best way to keep them open is to keep moving. Once every round, stop short and listen hard. Then walk again. Take a slant out of every window as you go past it, and don’t forget to look down because they’ll have to come up to get us through the windows. Now, boys, we’re in a hell of a hole. The worst I ever was in in my life. There’s about one chance in ten of seein’ sun-up. Let’s forget about that. Let’s aim to die well!”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  NOW JOHN SIGNAL well could remember similar instructions often received from his poor mother, from the school teacher, from the minister — that the greatest thing in life was to die well. But they had meant death met with a composed mind, with good will and forgiveness to our enemies, with prayers upon the lips, and upward intentions in the soul. The meaning of Fitz Eagan, however, was plainly different. He wanted them to die well — each man fighting to the last gasp, each man shooting straight.

  “I take it,” said Fitz Eagan, “that we’re uncommon fighters, all four of us. The only shame is that the other pair of rats has to be classed with us, so’s folks can say afterward that the jail was kept with six men. But if we’ve got any luck, the four of us should be able to down three apiece, and that would make a pretty fair total. If we can do that, there won’t be enough left to the Bone gang to steal a hoss, tomorrow!” And, at this thought, he laughed.

  Major Harkness said suddenly:

  “What about your brothers? Why didn’t they come in on this with you?”

  Said Big Fitz Eagan sourly:

  “I don’t know what brothers you mean.”

  “You don’t? Well, everybody else does! I say, where are they? Why aren’t they here, fighting beside you?”

  Fitz Eagan answered again, heavily:

  “I’ve got no brothers. They’re worse’n dead to me!”

  And this caused even the hardy Major to blink a little. It shocked and appalled John Signal, for he understood that, for their failure to follow their brother into this nest of danger, he disavowed them forever.

  The dusk gathered, deepened. Now they could see the lights of the town; and finally, the long yellow rays began to pass through the barred windows, casting faint, tangled shadows upon the northern wall of the jail.

  The time of danger truly had arrived, and the guards began their watchful procession from room to room. Passing the southern windows, John Signal paused at each to make sure that no enemy crouched beneath it, and he also glanced out to see the crowds who still patiently waited at windows and on roofs to see the commencement of the long expected battle. He was grimly amused by this worthy patience, and by the thought that one per cent of those worthy citizens would be enough to swamp the Bones, and set free the defenders of the jail from all danger. But such a step did not occur to them. The newspaper reporters, with thick pads of paper and with plenty of sharpened pencils, would be waiting feverishly, too. This was their opportunity to make national copy!

  He was passing the big front door for the third time after utter darkness fell, when Signal heard a faint knock, rapidly repeated from the outside. He stepped close and called in a guarded voice:

  “Who’s there?”

  “It’s me!” gasped an unmistakable voice.

  No hesitation made Signal pause. He was thrilled by a vast wonder, and then he unlocked, unbolted the door, and dragged it open. A prostrate form lay before it. He reached out, collared the man, and jerked him inside. The door was already closed again when a rifle pumped two bullets from across the street, but the lead splashed like water from the iron bindings of the door, and John Signal leaned over the senseless body of Crawlin! He exclaimed:

  “Are you hurt, man? Have they winged you?”

  Crawlin recovered a little.

  “I dunno!” he gasped. “I think they just shot me twice!”

  “Where?”

  “Through the heart!” moaned the wretched man.

  Signal smiled.

  “You’re scared half to death, Crawlin,” he said. “Stand up and shake yourself. You’re out of the water, now.”

  Crawlin, supporting himself on one elbow, fumbled at his body. He groaned with relief as it began to dawn upon him that he had not actually been struck by anything more real than terror.

  “But how did you manage to take the chance and get across to the jail?”

  “I dunno,” mumbled Crawlin. “My God, my God, I’d rather die quick and here than to face it again! I’d rather die! It makes me sick at the stomach to think of what I done!”

  “Well, and how did you do it?”

  “I just walked down the street. They knew it was me. Nobody never pays no attention to me. When I come to the jail, I turned in toward the door. Then I rapped and you answered. I got faint with excitement and fell down — then they begun to shoot. I heard the bullets go thumping — into my own body, I thought. And then I woke up in here!”

  He clutched his face with his hands to shut out the terror of the picture.

  “Look here,” said John Signal, between contempt and wonder. “You’ve done a brave thing, Crawlin. You’ve done a damn brave thing that’s going to be remembered. Why, the newspaper will be full of what you’ve done, tomorrow.”

  This suggestion acted as a tremendous tonic upon the coward. He got up from the floor and began to laugh, a little shakily.

  “You think they’ll notice me, do you? Nobody’s ever noticed me. I never had a fair chance to get on! I never been in a newspaper in my life. You think that they’ll notice me?”

  “Of course I think so. I know so. You’ve been a hero!”

  Crawlin clutched the arm of the boy.

  “My God,” he gasped, “will people say that about me?” Signal swallowed a smile.

  “Why, look at the thing for yourself, will you?” said he. “What do you make of it? Don’t you suppose that there’s hundreds of people in Monument that would like to see us out of this scrape? But of the whole lot, there was only one man that dared to come and break through and help us!”

  “Yes, yes!” gasped Crawlin. “I’m gunna fight for you, too. Gimme a gun, Alias, and you show me how to shoot, will you? I’m gunna stay and show everybody that I’m a man!”

 
“I’ll give a gun to you. Don’t you worry about that! But still I don’t understand why you came!”

  “Ain’t you answered that yourself? I come to help you fight! Besides, the sheriff gave me a message for you.”

  “The sheriff?”

  “Yes.”

  “For me?”

  “For you or Fitz Eagan. But you’re more important in Monument right now than even Fitz Eagan!”

  He slipped off a shoe, and beneath the false sole he found and drew out a thin fold of paper. This the boy opened and lighted a match to read.

  It said:

  FITZ EAGAN, or ALIAS,

  They’ve shut me off from you, they think. Perhaps they have. I’ve tried to get through, and they have every inch of ground well-covered with their rifles. First of all, I want to give you warning that if you try to make a rush in any direction from the jail, you’re probably done for. They’ve arranged light-bombs which they’ll throw at the first sign of a break, and if you try to rush out, the light of the bombs will show you up almost as clearly as the daylight.

  I think they have more than forty men scattered around the jail. I’ve tried to drum up a posse in Monument, but the boys can’t see the worth of risking their necks to kill a Bone and save an Eagan. You see that I’m talking straight!

  They think that I’m mixed up on one side or the other, as well. I see that I’ve been playing my cards like a fool!

  At any rate, I want you to know that I haven’t stopped trying. If I can’t do anything else, I’ll try my single hand to get into the jail, and if I can’t get in, I’ll die trying.

  This isn’t mere guff!

  Get Langley’s written confession and try to hide it where not even fire could find it. But give poor Langley a fighting chance for his life.

  I have in mind a desperate last chance — which is to try to get at the jail by getting into the house next door! From the cellar of that, I might be able to break through to you.

  At any rate, I want you to know that I’m working hard to get to you.

  The Bone tribe has some grand scheme under way. They’ve brought several barrels of oil into the house, and perhaps they’ll try to drench the outer wall of the jail with oil. But I don’t think that the fire from the oil could spread through the brick wall to the woodwork inside. At any rate, keep on the watch for that!

  Yours to the last, OGDEN.

  With this letter, the boy hastened to Fitz Eagan, who read it over with much care. He declared that the light-bombs worried him more than anything else, for, as he said, their one real chance of safety had been to depend upon a break from the jail. Neither had he thought of the possibility of an attack with oil. And, as he pointed out to Signal, oil could be flung in quantities through the windows, and then fire thrown after it. In this way, the jail would instantly be rendered untenable, and, when the garrison attempted to flee, the burning jail, vomiting flame from the windows, would provide the light by which the fugitives would be shot down.

  John Signal agreed, for the thing was only too palpable. They decided that Harkness and Langley should not see the letter, and Fitz Eagan tore it to shreds.

  “But,” said Signal aggressively, “after they’ve thrown in the oil, what will become of the men who have thrown it? Will we be standing doing nothing?”

  “They’ll show the wits of devils,” answered Eagan calmly. “I know the tribe, and I know what they can do. We can only stand tight and watch.”

  They returned to their posts to watch, but as John Signal went his rounds, little Crawlin shrank along beside him, a pitiable figure, wincing and shrinking from every sound and from every stir of the shadows.

  But not ten minutes later, he clutched the arm of Signal with a feverish grip.

  “Listen!” said he. And as Signal paused, he heard at first a light tapping against the wall which adjoined the vacant house, and that tapping rapidly increased to a violent pounding. They were trying to burst through the brick wall!

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  NO SOONER DID that pounding develop than the whole garrison of the jail gathered to watch in fear and foreboding.

  “What’s up?” gasped Crawlin. “What can they do? Here — here’s seven guns to shoot ’em down faster’n they could enter. Are they crazy? Would they try to rush us through a hole in the wall?”

  “You’re a fool!” answered Fitz Eagan. “They ain’t going to rush us. But—”

  At that moment there was a noisy fall of bricks into the cell room, and Signal, with leveled and ready rifle, sent a bullet through the hole. Plainly they could hear the exclamation of fear or pain beyond the wall, the noise of the voice almost drowned in the noisy echoes which rang through the jail.

  “Will that hold ’em?”

  So asked Crawlin, but instantly they distinguished the voice of Colter, crying loudly:

  “Give me the crowbar! The yellow livered skunks!”

  And the attack upon the wall began again.

  With converging fire, six bullets crashed into the widening hole in one volley, but still Colter labored on, mysteriously shielded from the effects of the fire. And the hole was now a gap a foot in diameter.

  At this point, the smashing of the crowbar ceased. The garrison of the jail ceased fire. Crawlin was coughing heavily, his throat stung by the gunpowder.

  But still he clung to Signal, as a man in fear of shipwreck clings to a life preserver.

  “They haven’t the nerve to keep on,” guessed Fitz Eagan, “and Colter probably has been badly wounded. Nothing but wounds would keep that devil back now! Look here, Alias. Colter is your friend. You might try to talk to him and get us terms. This job looks worse than ever, to me!”

  “He’d get no terms from Colter,” broke in little Crawlin. “He hates Alias now worse than he hates even you, Fitz!”

  “Why, in the name of God?”

  “Because of Esmeralda Pineta. She smiled a little too much on Alias to please Colter. He wants to cut out the heart of Alias, now. He’d cut it out with his own hand, if he could!”

  “What’s that?”

  “Look!”

  Glimmering in the dim light which flickered through the windows of the jail, they saw a stream of liquid pouring through the hole in the brick wall, and washing in a broad ripple across the floor. The next instant, the rank odor of oil was in their nostrils.

  “It’s the oil, the oil!” groaned Fitz Eagan. “The devil taught Colter that trick.”

  They rushed back to the rear of the room. Crawlin, half collapsing in panic, had to be supported by John Signal. Skinny, the guard, started up the steps to the attic, but Fitz Eagan caught him and pulled him back.

  “You fool!” he said. “Don’t you know that fire climbs faster than a squirrel?”

  Signal, desperate and swearing beneath his breath, sent five rifle bullets through the gap in the wall from which the oil was pouring. It ceased. But instantly it began again, as though another barrel were emptying. And now the wash of the oil had carried clear across the floor of the jail, and as they hurried down the steps into the cellar, the liquid filtered after them.

  “But d’you hear?” screamed Crawlin, fighting against Signal as the latter dragged him on. “We’ll be roasted in here — the oil’ll drop through — the burnin’ oil. The floor’ll collapse. We’ll be fried like pigeons! Oh God, oh God!”

  This shriek of despair was hardly ended before a half stilled, heavy explosion shook the building, and a rain of mortar and bricks showered down into the cellar. The oil had been ignited, and now a pungent odor of the burning stole down into the cellar.

  The roar of the flames went up, now; and far off, they heard the distant outcries of the watchers; and nearer at hand there were savage voices of triumph that sounded in the ear of John Signal like the voices of wolves, howling.

  That danger which Crawlin had prophesied was almost instantly on the way to fulfillment. The explosion of the first ignition of the oil had knocked many small holes in the floor, and through these holes
the flaming oil streamed down, widening in fiercely burning pools upon the floor. Skinny, trying to beat out one of those fires, himself was caught by the flames, and rolled screeching on the floor until Fitz Eagan wrapped him in his coat and thus stifled the flames.

  But everywhere the danger was streaming down upon them, and the floor was puddled with blue, squirming fires, and the air heavy with the oil smoke.

  “Look!” shrieked Crawlin. “They’re comin’ at us with fire through this wall, too!”

  A considerable section of wall was seen to crumble inward at that instant, but in the dusty mouth which opened there appeared an unsteady figure, whitened with dust of mortar, and a hoarse voice called to them:

  “This way, boys, and quick, for God’s sake!”

  The voice of Sheriff Ogden!

  They lurched toward him wildly. From the safety of that chamber beyond, they looked back to an increasing inferno, for the whole cellar of the jail now was bursting with flames, as fresh currents of the oil dropped through the crumbling floor.

  Crawlin, nearly insensible with terror, was dragged on by John Signal while Fitz Eagan laid his hand on the shoulder of the sheriff.

  That one touch was all the thanks that Ogden received at that moment, though he had appeared, indeed, like an angel of grace! He led the way back through the moldy cellar of the house, merely saying: “I was here a whole hour before. I didn’t dare to tackle the wall until they began to make enough noise upstairs to cover the sound. I thought I’d never get through. Damn the mason who put up that foundation wall. He made it as strong as iron!”

  They gathered at the foot of a narrow stairs, the sheriff and Eagan in the lead, Signal and Langley just behind, and the major in the rear.

  “They’re up there, somewhere,” said the sheriff. “Go soft, boys. Hear ’em dancing their jig and whooping it up! God, God, to think that I’ve let them reptiles live safe here in Monument!”

  And he pushed up at the side of Eagan.

  At the head of the stairs they found a door, through which they suddenly charged, and before them was a sudden flaring of guns. Signal saw the sheriff plunge forward on his face, while Fitz Eagan leaped powerfully to the side.