by Don Marquis
CHAPTER XIII
I seen the feller from the telephone exchange run down the street alittle ways as the first rush hit the square, and fire his pistol twice.Then he turned and made fur an alleyway, but as he turned they let himhave it. He throwed up his arms and made one long stagger, right acrostthe bar of light that streamed out of the windows, and he fell into theshadder, out of sight, jest like a scorched moth drops dead into thedarkness from a torch.
Out of the middle of that bunch of riders come a big voice, yellingnumbers, instead of men's names. Then different crowds lit out in alldirections--some on foot, while others held their hosses--fur theyseemed to have a plan laid ahead.
And then things began to happen. They happened so quick and with such awhirl it was all unreal to me--shots and shouts, and windows breaking asthey blazed away at the store fronts all around the square--and ordersand cuss-words ringing out between the noise of shooting--and thoseelectric lights shining on them as they tossed and trampled, andshowing up masked faces here and there--and pounding hoofs, and hossesscream--like humans with excitement--and spurts of flame squirted suddenout of the ring of darkness round about the open place--and a bull-dogshut up in a store somewheres howling himself hoarse--and white puffs ofpowder smoke like ghosts that went a-drifting by the lights--it was allunreal to me, as if I had a fever and was dreaming it. That square waslike a great big stage in front of me, and I laid in the darkness on mylumber pile and watched things like a show--not much scared because itWAS so derned unreal.
From way down along the railroad track they come a sort of blunted roar,like blasting big stumps out--and then another and another. Purty soon,down that way, a slim flame licked up the side of a big building there,and crooked its tongue over the top. Then a second big building rightbeside it ketched afire, and they both showed up in their own light, bigand angry and handsome, and the light showed up the men in front of 'em,too--guarding 'em, I guess, fur fear the town would get its nerve andmake a fight to put 'em out. They begun to light the whole town up aslight as day, and paint a red patch onto the sky, that must of beennoticed fur miles around. It was a mighty purty sight to see 'em burn.The smoke was rolling high, too, and the sparks flying and other thingsin danger of ketching, and after while a lick of smoke come drifting upmy way. I smelt her. It was tobacco burning in them warehouses.
But that town had some fight in her, in spite of being took unexpectedthat-a-way. It wasn't no coward town. The light from the burningbuildings made all the shadders around about seem all the darker. Andevery once in a while, after the surprise of the first rush, they wouldcome thin little streaks of fire out of the darkness somewheres, and thesound of shots. And then a gang of riders would gallop in that directionshooting up all creation. But by the time the warehouses was all lit upso that you could see they was no hope of putting them out the shootingfrom the darkness had jest about stopped.
It looked like them big tobacco warehouses was the main object of theraid. Fur when they was burning past all chancet of saving, with wallsand floors a-tumbling and crashing down and sending up great gouts offresh flame as they fell, the leader sings out an order, and all that isnot on their hosses jumps on, and they rides away from the blaze. Theycome across the square--not galloping now, but taking it easy, laughingand talking and cussing and joking each other--and passed right by mylumber pile agin and down the street they had come. You bet I laid lowon them boards while they was going by, and flattened myself out till Ifelt like a shingle.
As I hearn their hoof-sounds getting farther off, I lifts up my headagin. But they wasn't all gone, either. Three that must of been up tosome pertic'ler deviltry of their own come galloping acrost the squareto ketch up with the main bunch. Two was quite a bit ahead of the thirdone, and he yelled to them to wait. But they only laughed and rodeharder.
And then fur some fool reason that last feller pulled up his hoss andstopped. He stopped in the road right in front of me, and wheeled hishoss acrost the road and stood up in his stirrups and took a long lookat that blaze. You'd 'a' said he had done it all himself and was mightyproud of it, the way he raised his head and looked back at that town. Hewas so near that I hearn him draw in a slow, deep breath. He stood stillfur most a minute like that, black agin the red sky, and then he turnedhis hoss's head and jabbed him with his stirrup edge.
Jest as the hoss started they come a shot from somewheres behind me.I s'pose they was some one hid in the lumber piles, where the streetcrossed the railway, besides myself. The hoss jumped forward at theshot, and the feller swayed sideways and dropped his gun and lost hisstirrups and come down heavy on the ground. His hoss galloped off. Iheard the noise of some one running off through the dark, and stumblingagin the lumber. It was the feller who had fired the shot running away.I suppose he thought the rest of them riders would come back, when theyheard that shot, and hunt him down.
I thought they might myself. But I laid there, and jest waited. If theycome, I didn't want to be found running. But they didn't come. The twolast ones had caught up with the main gang, I guess, fur purty soonI hearn them all crossing that plank bridge agin, and knowed they wasgone.
At first I guessed the feller on the ground must be dead. But he wasn't,fur purty soon I hearn him groan. He had mebby been stunned by his fall,and was coming to enough to feel his pain.
I didn't feel like he orter be left there. So I clumb down and went overto him. He was lying on one side all kind of huddled up. There hadbeen a mask on his face, like the rest of them, with some hair onto thebottom of it to look like a beard. But now it had slipped down till ithung loose around his neck by the string. They was enough light to seehe wasn't nothing but a young feller. He raised himself slow as I comenear him, leaning on one arm and trying to set up. The other arm hungloose and helpless. Half setting up that-away he made a feel at his beltwith his good hand, as I come near. But that good arm was his prop, andwhen he took it off the ground he fell back. His hand come away emptyfrom his belt.
The big six-shooter he had been feeling fur wasn't in its holster,anyhow. It had fell out when he tumbled. I picked it up in the roadjest a few feet from his shot-gun, and stood there with it in my hand,looking down at him.
"Well," he says, in a drawly kind of voice, slow and feeble, but lookingat me steady and trying to raise himself agin, "yo' can finish yo'little job now--yo' shot me from the darkness, and now yo' done got mypistol. I reckon yo' better shoot AGIN."
"I don't want to rub it in none," I says, "with you down and out, butfrom what I seen around this town to-night I guess you and your own ganggot no GREAT objections to shooting from the dark yourselves."
"Why don't yo' shoot then?" he says. "It most suttinly is YO' turn now."And he never batted an eye.
"Bo," I says, "you got nerve. I LIKE you, Bo. I didn't shoot you, and Iain't going to. The feller that did has went. I'm going to get you outof this. Where you hurt?"
"Hip," he says, "but that ain't much. The thing that bothers me is thisarm. It's done busted. I fell on it."
I drug him out of the road and back of the lumber pile I had been layingon, and hurt him considerable a-doing it.
"Now," I says, "what can I do fur you?"
"I reckon yo' better leave me," he says, "without yo' want to getyo'self mixed up in all this."
"If I do," I says, "you may bleed to death here: or anyway you would getfound in the morning and be run in."
"Yo' mighty good to me," says he, "considering yo' are no kin to thishere part of the country at all. I reckon by yo' talk yo' are one ofthem damn Yankees, ain't yo'?"
In Illinoise a Yankee is some one from the East, but down South he isanybody from north of the Ohio, and though that there war was foughtforty years ago some of them fellers down there don't know damn andYankee is two words yet. But shucks!--they don't mean no harm by it! SoI tells him I am a damn Yankee and asts him agin if I can do anythingfur him.
"Yes," he says, "yo' can tell a friend of mine Bud Davis has happenedto an accident, and get him over here quick
with his wagon to tote mehome."
I was to go down the railroad track past them burning warehouses tillI come to the third street, and then turn to my left. "The third housefrom the track has got an iron picket fence in front of it," says Bud,"and it's the only house in that part of town which has. BeauregardPeoples lives there. He is kin to me."
"Yes," I says, "and Beauregard is jest as likely as not going to take ashot out of the front window at me, fur luck, afore I can tell him whatI want. It seems to be a kind of habit in these here parts to-night--I'mgetting homesick fur Illinoise. But I'll take a chancet."
"He won't shoot," says Bud, "if yo' go about it right. Beauregard ain'tgoing to be asleep with all this going on in town to-night. Yo' rattleon the iron gate and he'll holler to know what yo' all want."
"If he don't shoot first," I says.
"When he hollers, yo' cry back at him yo' have found his OLD DEAD HOSSin the road. It won't hurt to holler that loud, and that will make himlet you within talking distance."
"His old DEAD HOSS?"
"Yo' don't need to know what that is. HE will." And then Bud toldme enough of the signs and words to say, and things to do, to keepBeauregard from shooting--he said he reckoned he had trusted me so muchhe might as well go the hull hog. Beauregard, he says, belongs to themriders too; they have friends in all the towns that watches the lay ofthe land fur them, he says.
I made a long half-circle around them burning buildings, keeping in thedark, fur people was coming out in bunches, now that it was all overwith, watching them fires burning, and talking excited, and saying theriders should be follered--only not follering.
I found the house Bud meant, and they was a light in the second-storywindow. I rattled on the gate. A dog barked somewheres near, but I hearnhis chain jangle and knowed he was fast, and I rattled on the gate agin.
The light moved away from the window. Then another front window openedquiet, and a voice says:
"Doctor, is that yo' back agin?"
"No," I says, "I ain't a doctor."
"Stay where you are, then. _I_ GOT YOU COVERED."
"I am staying," I says, "don't shoot."
"Who are yo'?"
"A feller," I says, kind of sensing his gun through the darkness as Ispoke, "who has found your OLD DEAD HOSS in the road."
He didn't answer fur several minutes. Then he says, using the words DEADHOSS as Bud had said he would.
"A DEAD HOSS is fitten fo' nothing but to skin."
"Well," I says, using the words fur the third time, as instructed, "itis a DEAD HOSS all right."
I hearn the window shut and purty soon the front door opened.
"Come up here," he says. I come.
"Who rode that hoss yo' been talking about?" he asts.
"One of the SILENT BRIGADE," I tells him, as Bud had told me to say. Igive him the grip Bud had showed me with his good hand.
"Come on in," he says.
He shut the door behind us and lighted a lamp agin. And we looked eachother over. He was a scrawny little feller, with little gray eyes setnear together, and some sandy-complected whiskers on his chin. I toldhim about Bud, and what his fix was.
"Damn it--oh, damn it all," he says, rubbing the bridge of his nose, "Idon't see how on AIRTH I kin do it. My wife's jest had a baby. Do yo'hear that?"
And I did hear a sound like kittens mewing, somewheres up stairs.Beauregard, he grinned and rubbed his nose some more, and looked at melike he thought that mewing noise was the smartest sound that ever wasmade.
"Boy," he says, grinning, "bo'n five hours ago. I've done named himBurley--after the tobaccer association, yo' know. Yes, SIR, BurleyPeoples is his name--and he shore kin squall, the derned little cuss!"
"Yes," I says, "you better stay with Burley. Lend me a rig of some sortand I'll take Bud home."
So we went out to Beauregard's stable with a lantern and hitched up oneof his hosses to a light road wagon. He went into the house and comeback agin with a mattress fur Bud to lie on, and a part of a bottle ofwhiskey. And I drove back to that lumber pile. I guess I nearly killedBud getting him into there. But he wasn't bleeding much from his hip--itwas his arm was giving him fits.
We went slow, and the dawn broke with us four miles out of town. It wasbroad daylight, and early morning noises stirring everywheres, when wedrove up in front of an old farmhouse, with big brick chimbleys built onthe outside of it, a couple of miles farther on.
