Through the Shadows with O'Henry

by Эл Дженнингс

  Once across the Snake Creek to the mountain side, and capture was almost impossible. Dogwood, pecan trees, briar and cottonwood matted together and pread like a jungle growth up the mountain and there wasn't a marshal in the State would set a horse toward it.

  It was across the Snake Creek and up the Conchorda that I made my last race against the law, years later.

  I went cow-punching there; Frank went over to Pryor's Creek, 20 miles distant.

  The branding pen was just at the edge of the timber on the near side of the creek. Harliss was not over-particular as to the ownership of the calves branded. His pen was well concealed.

  One morning we were branding the cattle. Five men rode up, nodded to Harliss and began stripping off the meat from the carcass hanging in the trees. One of them came over to me.

  "Reckon you don't remember me? Reckon you uster work on the Lazy Z for my father?"

  He knew of the shooting in Las Cruces. He knew of my brother's murder. He knew I had a fast gun and a close mouth. He told me of a robbery that had been pulled off on the Sante Fe.

  "Ain't much in range work," he ended. "Reckon you'll join us yet."

  He was a shrewd prophet. Not more than a month later John Harliss was sitting on the porch of the ranch house. I was standing in the door. A nester rode up. We knew that something had happened.

  The nester comes only to bring news. If there's one fellow in the world that loves gossip it's these puffy little farmers that nestle in the flats. It makes them big with importance.

  John Harliss was a blond giant. He towered over the blustering nester.

  "Ain't heard the news, hev ye?" Then he caught sight of me and added furtively. "They cleared the fellows that killed Jennings' brother."

  Houston and Love free!

  The thing I had been dreading and expecting for six months came now with a shock that sent a cold fury of resolution through me. I knew that I would have to do deliberately what I should have done in passion.

  It was not blood-lust, but raging vindictiveness that spurred ire on the 75-mile ride to my father's house.

  The hoofbeats stopping at his door aroused him. When he saw me, he stood as one petrified.

  "Lo, your honor!" I put out my hand. He did not take it.

  "What have you been doing?'" Never had I seen his eye so cold, so hostile. "What does this mean?" He reached into his pocket, took out a folded hand-bill and offered it for me to read.

  "Reward for the apprehension of Al Jennings," it said, "wanted for the robbery of the Santa Fe Express."

  I saw it in a moment. That was the work of Houston and Love. They would get me out of the way. They would save their cringing hides by another cowardly attack.

  "I had nothing to do with it. I'm damn' sorry I didn't---" I hurled the words at my father. Anger caught me by the throat and was choking me. "Damned if I had anything to do with it. By hell, they'll pay for it."

  "If you had nothing to do with it, give up and clear yourself. That's the way to make them pay."

  One of those sudden shifts from command to appeal softened my father's face. "Do you want to bring disgrace on the name?" he asked.

  "The name be damned and the law and everything connected with it. I hate it."

  "If you don't come in and clear yourself, I'm finished with you."

  "I can't clear myself," I told him. "The Harliss range harbors outlaws. I can't bring them in to prove an alibi for me. Harliss wasn't there at the time. If I did give up, I couldn't establish my innocence."

  "Then you're guilty?"

  Not in all the lawlessness of my early life, nor in all the frenzy of sorrow and revenge after the murder, had such a full tide of storming violence beaten down the discretion of my nature. If he distrusted me what had I to expect from enemies?

  I went out from my father's house, lashed with a desperate, unappeasable fury. I wanted something to happen that once and for all would put me beyond the pale.

  I slept out on the range and the next morning rode toward Arbeka. I had eaten nothing the day before. On the public road through the timber on the old trail west from Fort Smith was a little country store. I could have carried off nearly all its contents in my slicker.

  Five men were lounging on the bench near the horse rack when I threw my bridle over the pole. Their horses were tied. I couldn't tell whether they were marshals or horse-thieves from the look of them. Whatever difference there is favors the horse-thief.

  I bought some cheese and crackers. When I came out my horse was gone.

  "Where's my horse?" The fellow felt the hot blast of anger in the challenge.

  "Ran away," he answered.

  "Ran?" I snapped at him. "Some of you fellows turned him loose."

  In the glade about 200 yards distant, I saw my horse nibbling grass. I ran down, mounted and was just galloping off when a shot whizzed past, then a clash, a volley, and the next moment the horse lunged sideward and thumped to the ground, pinning my leg under him.

  They were possemen out to get me on the holdup. They were five to one and they didn't even try to take me on the porch. They fired without calling for a surrender. It was better to get a suspected trainrobber dead than alive. The question of guilt and the surety of reward were then settled beyond dispute.

  I pulled myself free, started firing like a madman, and saw two of them drop. I hid behind a tree, reloaded and went for the porch, shooting as I went. Two of them ran into the timber.

  As I got to the store the fifth tumbled over into the brush. I ran inside, took up an ax and smashed the place to pieces. The owner crawled out from behind an empty cider barrel. I didn't care what I did. The viciousness of their attack infuriated me. I busted one at him as he crawled out the back door.

  The drawer in the counter was open. There was $27.50 in it. I took it. I needed no money, but the theft filled me with happiness. I had taken a definite step. I was a criminal now. My choice was made. I was one with the outlaws. For the first time since Ed's death, I felt at peace. I knew that I would have a gang with me now to the end.

  The big iron-gray horse that had stood undisturbed during the ruckus, I mounted and started back to the Harliss ranch. My foot was slipping up and down in my boot. I looked down.

  The boot was filled with blood. One of the bullets had struck through the muscles above my ankle. I picked it out with my pen-knife and stuffed the hole with a puff-ball weed.

  When I got to the range I did not stop at the house but made for the cover in the timber. As I came near a pang of fear shot through me. It was long past midnight, but they had a fire blazing. One of the men raised himself stealthily and glanced toward me.

  He nodded.

  The sudden elation at the store was dissipated. Should I go on? Could I rely on these men? I no longer felt at ease with them. Should I tell them what had happened? The silence of the fugitive is inbred. The reserve of the savage in his armor. Innocent, I had trusted the outlaws; guilty, I doubted their loyalty.

  "Hello," Andy called.

  "I'm coming over," I answered, guiding my horse into the deep stream.

  "Want some coffee?" Jake asked. I was limping miserably. They asked no question.

  "Looks like you got snagged," Bill offered.

  "Got shot. They tried to kill me. Soaked my horse full of lead. They beat it. I robbed the damned store."

  "Reckon you're with us."

  Andy settled it.

  They had a cozy camp hidden there in the lap of the mountains. An old wagon sheet, stretched between two poles, roofed the kitchen. Bill was making biscuits in the flour sack, shuffling up just enough dough and not wetting the rest.

  I was lying on the ground at the fire. A man on horseback in the level at the edge of the creek had reined in and sat staring at me.

  Andy nodded to him. He came over. It was Bob, the fourth man of the gang.

  "It's O. K.," he said. "She stops at the tank."

  CHAPTER VII.

  Planning a holdup; terrors of a novice; the tra
in-robbery; a bloodless victory; division of the spoils; new threat of peril.

  "She rolls in at 11:25. We'll get the old man to dump her.

  "And if it ain't there, we'll have to take up a collection from the passengers."

  They sat under the wagon sheet, stowing in the biscuits and coolly doping out the "medicine."

  I was getting soft in the backbone. I hadn't figured to jump right into a train-robbery. Here were four men deliberately planning to stick up an express car as leisurely as a batch of Wall-street brokers hatching out a legitimate steal. Little quivering arrows of nervousness went pricking through me. I felt that I had cast in my lot with Andy and his gang too hastily. The darkness fretted me. I began casting about for an alibi.

  "Broke?" I asked. "I have some money. I've got $327. It's yours."

  Andy flipped his fingers. Nobody else paid the slightest attention to the offer. Five men were better than four. I was committed. The M. K. T. was due to be robbed at 11:25 on the following night as she chugged across the bridge on the Verdigras river north of the Muskogee. The crossing was about 40 miles from the Spike S ranch.

  Toward morning we turned in. I was the only one who didn't sleep. Andy told me afterward that green hands always feel the yellow streak the first time. When the light came sneaking through the clouds, I began to feel better. The oppression of the night is an uncanny thing to a man beset with fearful indecisions.

  There wasn't another word said about the holdup. We lolled about and let the horses take their ease until the late afternoon. I was anxious to be on the road—to have the suspense over—to start the scrap and be done with it.

  We mounted about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and made ahead at an amiable trot, stopping now and then to rest. We wanted to keep the horses cool for the return. It was coal dark when we rode into a clump of timber, tied one of the horses to a cotton-wood tree and threw the other bridles over his saddle horn. It all helps in the getaway.

  As soon as we climbed down through the brush, the terror of the night before, a thousand times intensified, jabbed through me. The branches of every tree rustled with alarms. I expected any moment to see marshals step from behind the trunks or angry citizens swoop down on us. The nearest house was five miles distant and the only living soul around, the old pump man. But the dry sticks crackled like a festive bonfire. I wanted to caution them to pick their way.

  I felt as though the entire responsibility rested on my shoulders. It occurred to me the whole affair had been bungled. They had not planned it out enough.

  "Suppose the old man won't stop the train?" the question popped out. Andy laughed in my ear.

  "Then they'll have to get a new man at the pump house," he confided.

  This put a crimp in me. I had shot men without any particular grudge, but to murder in cold blood as a matter of business—I'd have given anything on God's green earth to be off the job.

  "Who's got a match?" Jake chirped as merrily as though he sat in his own dining-room.

  "For God's sake, you're not going to strike a match here, are you?" Even the hoarse whisper seemed to boom through the silence. Jake struck the match, covering the light with his coat. He took out his watch. It was just 11:10. Fifteen minutes and the train would roll in.

  The massive iron bridge all but crashed to pieces as I put a light foot on its beams. The tall girders heaved together. In a panic, I lost my footing and half slipped through the trestle. And} scooped his hand down and grabbed me up as though I were a kitten.

  Our plan was to stop the train on the middle of the bridge to prevent the passengers from getting out. We would stall these cars on the trestle; the express would halt at the tank. We could rifle it and make a getaway before any alarm could be sent.

  Andy gave the orders.

  "Bob, go bring the old man down and drag a red light along.

  "Jake, you and Bill get on that side—Al and I will take the right. We need all the men tonight."

  As Bob sauntered off, I wondered if I would ever see him again. He came back, chugging the old man in the back with his six-shooter and ribbing him as he came.

  "Don't fall on this gun, Bub, or someone will do a slow walk tomorrow." The old fellow was chattering with fear.

  "Be easy, lad; be easy, be easy," he kept repeating like a magpie. "I ain't a-going to kick a ruckus; be easy."

  Suddenly there came a rumbling and a singing of the rails. Andy and I flopped to our sides. A light like a great eye flashed through the timber. The engine chugged viciously, heaved, whistled for the tank and stopped.

  Stopped of its own accord for water before it even got to the bridge ! I got ringy from head to foot and was rolling in the grass when a shot banged out and a man swinging a light jumped off the train. It was the conductor. He dashed right past me. I never thought to stop him. Andy ran past and fired. I came, too, then and began running and yelling up and down the tracks. Bill and Jake were firing and hollering on the other side of the train like an army of maniacs.

  "Keep it up ; that's it---" Andy yelled to me.

  I did. Two or three passengers started to the steps. I fired in the air. They ducked. The fun was getting hot and furious. I was as happy as a drunkard.

  And then the engine began to heave and the train pulled out. I was afraid of nothing. I wanted to run after it and kick it good-bye. I felt like bellowing. I wanted everyone to know I had stuck up a train and done it wonderfully.

  The hush seemed to swallow us up. Out of the darkness I could feel Andy and Bob coming toward us. They didn't say a word. We started back quietly. I began to wonder what it was all about.

  "Didn't get a bean?" I ventured. Andy caught my arm.

  "Hell, yes, we went into the express," he said. "We got a little bundle."

  I didn't even know they had gone into the express. I didn't know they had taken a cent. I was so caught up in a frenzy of excitement and suspense, I hadn't an inkling of Andy's maneuvers.

  He had ordered the engineer out. Bob had cornered the express messenger. The two were as mild as lambs. They did more than they were told. The messenger opened up the safe and handed over the winnings.

  I asked no more. I wanted to feel like an oldtimer. But I went across that bridge as though my feet were winged. I didn't fall through the trestle this time. The girders didn't cram about me and I never noticed whether the water was black or yellow. I was filled with a thrill of great achievement.

  A few shots had been fired in the air, but not a man had been hurt, not a blow struck and here we were galloping back with a bundle of boodle in our slickers. The whole job had taken little more than half an hour. We struck into the timber of our encampment well before daylight.

  The boys flopped down on the grass. Jake and I stirred up a fire and put on a pot of coffee. I was obsessed with curiosity. I wanted to know what we had got—if it had been worth our while. Jake talked and talked. He didn't say one word about the stickup. He chewed on about old times on the Red Fork, about his kid days, about every fool thing but the holdup. I was bitten with eagerness.

  Nobody else seemed worried about the profits. They gulped down coffee and stripped off meat as though eating were the one business of life. I began to fear that the reckoning would be postponed until the next day. Andy stretched himself, yawned and leisurely pointed to the horses.

  "Bill, go over to my saddle-bag," he said, at last. "We might as well split this now."

  I started up, knocking over the coffee pot. I had an idea it would take two men to carry the boodle. Andy grinned and rubbed his chin on his shoulder. No kid opening a Christmas package ever felt a happier shiver of excitement than I when that bundle was called for.

  We were lying around the fire. Its flicker in the gray darkness caught the faces of the men in a ruddy glow. There were two packages. Both were small. Andy took one, opened it and emptied a lot of cheap jewelry into his hat.

  Little blue and red stones flashed gold necklaces glinted; ponderous watches ticked almost as loud as alarms. I lay there
fascinated as though the jewels of an enchanted treasure chest were sparkling in the firelight.

  Andy lumped them into five piles, opened the other package and counted out $6,000 in currency. I felt a chill of disappointment; $600,000 would have been closer to my expectations.

  To a copper, the pile was divided. Each man got $1,200 and a handful of trinkets. I jammed these spoils into my pocket with a rapture no attorney's fee had ever given me. I had earned as much in half an hour of gripping excitement as a year's labor as county attorney had given me!

  Years later, when I was in the Ohio Penitentiary and O. Henry had been released and was struggling for success in New York, I wrote him the details of this holdup and added a lot of incidents from other jobs. I wanted to write a short story about it.

  O. Henry was Bill Porter in those days. When he left the penitentiary he slammed the door on his past. He went to New York burning with the shame of his imprisonment and determined to hide his identity behind the name of O. Henry. Billy Raidler, a fellow convict, and I were about the only ones who knew him as an ex-con. The three of us were pals in the pen. Raidler was despondent a typical jailbird pessimist. In every letter Porter wrote he urged me to stick by Billy, to remind him that two people in the world believed in him.

  In answer to my letter he sent me detailed instructions. He told me just how to write the "Holdup." I did the best I could and sent the manuscript to him. He waved the O. Henry wand over it, turned it into a real story and sold it to Everybody's. It was one of his first successes. We went 50-50 on the profits.

  By the time that story was written I had learned that the drawbacks of the game outweigh a thousand to one the thrills. That first stickup was pulled off too successfully. It made me cocksure.

  I had been forced into outlawry by the unwarranted attack at the Arbeka store. I knew the Southwest well enough to see that I would be railroaded to the penitentiary on the word of the marshals, as scores had been before. I went into the game unwillingly and was immediately captivated by its intensity—its apparent security. Revenge gave place to recklessness.