by Max Brand
Afterward, when he had closed the door, they heard his steps go down the hall, and there followed the opening and the closing of another door.
“That’s the armory, isn’t it?” asked Single Jack.
“Yes. He always leaves his cannon there.”
McGruder eyed his prisoner intently, as though eager to talk, but Single Jack seemed in no mood for it. He even settled himself in his chair and closed his eyes as though for sleep, but all the while, through the lowered lashes, he was watching the nervous state of his guard.
“You sleeping?” said Dan at last.
“If you don’t mind, Dan, I’ll have a nap.”
“How can you sleep, man, after what’s happened to you?”
“You mean Hester?”
“Of course. The finest and prettiest girl that I ever laid eyes on . . . and she loves you enough to come here and talk about it in front of us all.”
“I have to forget about her, now.”
“Forget about her?”
“Yes. There’s only one thing for me to prepare for, and that’s to keep my nerve as strong and steady as ever, so that I’ll be able to go up tomorrow without shaking.”
“I understand what you mean. But you don’t have to be afraid of yourself. How many times have you come next door to death?”
“A hundred times, I suppose. But dying under a gun or a knife is not the same thing as dying under a rope.”
“Well, of course, I’ll admit that. But look here, Jack, I’m as nervous as a cat.”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s because I’m thinking things over. I never guessed what a hound Shodress was until this morning. No man has got a right to talk to any girl the way that he talked to Hester. And her crying, too. That’s what beat me.”
“This is Shodress’s big day,” said Single Jack, “and let him make all that he can out of it. You can hardly blame him for wanting to run amuck a little.”
“Tell me, Jack. Do you think that I’m like Shodress?”
“Not a bit, old fellow. You and I have had it out together. You played fair enough, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t even hold Apperley against you. Because you stood up to him fair and square. It was the other pair that stood off to the side and put their lead into him. Westover . . . he’s gone. And Mandell . . . I wish that I’d finished that rat off.”
Single Jack stretched his arms until the chains rattled loudly. “We’re what you’d call friendly enemies, Dan. If I make a move to escape, you’ll squirt lead at me enough to kill a whole company of soldiers. And if I had a chance to get away, and, you tried to stop me, I’d kill you if I could and never think about it again.”
McGruder nodded with a little shudder at the thought. His prisoner, with a yawn, composed himself again for a nap in the chair.
“Hold on,” said McGruder. “I’d like to be doing something until the boss comes back. I’m sort of hungry and I need something to keep my mind from settling on the emptiness of my stomach. How about a game of poker?”
“Shodress don’t like to have you play poker with me. He says that it’s dangerous.”
“Shodress is ten kinds of a fool about you, Jack. I admit free and easy that you’re a faster and a straighter shooter than me when it comes to a stand-up fight, but, with your arms weighted down with chains, and not even a pin for a weapon, what have I got to fear from you?”
“Nothing. I’m saying what Shodress always talks about. Not the facts.”
“Well, Shodress ain’t here. It may be our last chance for a game, old boy.”
“I don’t feel like the cards, Dan.”
“Well, you’re nearly fifteen dollars up. I suppose it ain’t so bad to quit a winner.”
“If you really feel that way about it, I’ll play a hand or two with you.”
“That’s good. I’m nervous as a cat, and I need something to steady me.”
“Deal ’em out, then.”
The prisoner took his place on the side of the table, his fettered feet swinging a little back and forth—and for a very good reason. For while those feet were on the floor the chains were not apt to be scrutinized very carefully. But now that they were well raised into the light, it was most probable that even an unsuspicious eye would be able to detect the cuts through them. So he kept his feet in motion back and forth, and the chain swung, of course, in the same rhythm.
Even so, it was a most perilous position. He could only hope that the attention of McGruder would be fixed intently upon the cards throughout the play.
So McGruder, smoking a cigarette and dealing the cards, won the first hand with three sevens.
“It’s my lucky day!” he exclaimed. “Every time that I’ve scored heavy, I’ve begun with three sevens. What do you say, old-timer? Do we bet free, or are you going to hedge a little?”
“I’ll bet what I have to,” said Single Jack. “I feel that my luck is out.” And he edged a little closer along the table.
The second hand, he received three kings in the deal, but it was not his purpose to win, if he could help it. He deliberately threw one of them away, and, when he drew two aces, he let himself be weakly bluffed out of the bet that had been placed.
Dan McGruder joyously exposed an incomplete straight. “Even bluffing works on you today, Jack!” he exclaimed. “I’m in, old boy, and I’m going to trim you. Well, it might as well come to me as to anybody, eh? You won’t have long to enjoy your money.”
“That’s perfectly true,” agreed the prisoner, and hunched himself still closer along the table. He was fast working himself into the position that he desired. Now, with a hard strain of the right leg pulling down and the left leg straining up, the filed link in the chain burst with a sharp snap.
“What’s that?” cried Dan McGruder, and gripped the butt of his revolver, letting the cards flutter from his hands to the floor. And his keen eyes fixed upon the face of the prisoner as grimly as a hawk from mid-air, spying a field mouse far below him. No, there was no doubt that McGruder meant business. “What’s that?” he echoed again. “Lemme see that chain on your feet!”
“Sure,” said Single Jack, “take a look.” And swinging himself lightly around, his right hand resting a great part of his weight upon the surface of the table, he drove a heel straight at McGruder.
Fast as light that blow drove home, but not too fast for McGruder to draw a Colt. He had it clear of the holster, but, before he could level it and pull the trigger, he was kicked back, his chair toppled over, and he crashed upon the floor.
The fall and the blow did not stun him. In his chest there was a stabbing pain, where the kick had broken a rib, but nevertheless his wits were about him, and he fought desperately to regain his feet in time to drive a bullet at the coming danger.
He needed only a half second, but he had not that time. Single Jack was off the table to follow his advantage, moving fast as a curling whiplash. His feet were free, except for the heavy, dangling chains. And that lent him almost his full speed. He turned himself into a doubled-up knot, a sort of human projectile, and threw himself bodily at the man who was toppling to the floor.
Dan McGruder, in the act of lifting himself on one hand and grasping for his fallen revolver with the other, was struck a second time, and the gun torn from his fingers. So there was Single Jack armed.
The terrible thought gave an hysteria of strength to Dan McGruder. He whirled to his feet with a gasp, but only in time to see Single Jack bring up against the wall in the corner of the room, with the Colt leveled.
McGruder did not pause to ask questions. He made not the slightest effort to get at his other revolver. But he straightway tossed his hands into the air.
“That’s finished, then,” said Deems, getting slowly to his feet. “Turn around to the wall, Dan.”
“Jack, are you going to murder me?”
“Turn around.”
Slowly McGruder turned his face to the wall.
“Now hear me talk,” said Deems, as he took the gun fr
om the hip holster of the guard and dropped it into his own coat pocket. “I’m playing this game to win. Win life. Win Hester Grange. And I make every move as sure as I can. Do what I tell you, and you’re as safe as if you were in your own home. Try to double-cross me, and it may make you famous, but it won’t save your life.”
Poor McGruder nodded.
“I want to get to the armory, first of all. You lead the way.”
McGruder walked slowly from the room with the prisoner behind him, and his arms still high in the air. They turned out into the corridor. A cool breath of air struck them.
“Ah,” murmured Single Jack, “the only air for breathing is the free air, Dan.”
Chapter Forty
They reached the armory.
It was in a way the official junk shop of Yeoville. All sorts of curious odds and ends were stowed away there, from Indian war clubs to old-fashioned muskets and the latest kinds of rifles and revolvers. There were enough weapons there, as Shodress was always fond of saying, to equip every man in Yeoville with some sort of arms. And in the center of the floor stood a heavy anvil for such blacksmith’s work as might be necessary without taking the tools to the regular forge.
To that anvil stepped Single Jack. He took the second of McGruder’s guns from his coat pocket and rested his manacled wrists upon the heavy iron slab. Both of the weapons pointed at McGruder.
“This is the idea, Dan,” he explained. “If you take that axe, over yonder, and smash away at these chains, I think that you can break ’em. I have a gun in each hand. You might be tempted to miss the chains with one of your strokes and chop off a hand at the wrist. But if you did, the second hand would surely kill you. Or you might be a little more reckless and take a swipe at my head, while the axe was in the air. But I don’t think you would go quite as far as that. You’re brave, Dan, but you don’t really want to die for your country. Now you start in, and swing that axe hard, but be sure that you use a good aim, all the while.”
Dan McGruder obeyed.
It was a ticklish business to heave that heavy axe up and down with the muzzles of the two revolvers constantly centered upon him. He could see that one was turned upon his heart and the other upon his head. And wild thoughts grew up in his mind. If he struck down the hand that was directing a gun at his body, in the shock of the terrible pain and the surprise, was it very possible that the left hand would be able to shoot? Especially because his very next movement would be to dash his axe at the head of the criminal?
With that desperate resolve in his heart, he swung the axe up for the next stroke, but, at the top of the swing, his eyes flickered up and let in the keen, calm glance of Single Jack. That glance was reading him deeply, and suddenly he knew that he had no chance whatever against this man.
He let the stroke fall upon the first chain, and such was the ardor in it that the steel cracked open at once, and the chain fell apart.
“Very good,” said the prisoner, “second thoughts are usually best, eh, Dan?”
And he smiled a little, but in such a way that cold moisture beaded the forehead of McGruder.
He found the second chain a more difficult job.
“Let it go, Jack,” he advised in a gasp. “The noise that we’re making will call ’em up here, and . . .”
“Thanks,” said Single Jack. “But I like to have my hands about me.” And he smiled again, while the shattered axe rose for another stroke.
That was the lucky blow. It snapped a central link across, and now both the hands of the arch criminal were free, except for the dangling, jangling weight of the chains.
“The best bit of work that you’ve ever done, I think,” said Single Jack calmly. “Now walk ahead of me.”
“What are you going to do with me, Jack?” asked the frightened guard.
“I won’t hurt you. Not while you give me a fair show to be square with you. But no funny motions and no funny steps, old man.”
“I’ll walk a chalk line,” declared McGruder with fervor, and he started down the hall again, according to the instructions of his prisoner.
“Hello!” called a voice from down the stairs. “Hello, McGruder?”
“Hello!” McGruder called, his voice a good deal broken.
“The old man sent me over to ask what is making all the noise over here?”
There was a bit of silence.
“Tell him to go fetch the old man to see for himself,” said Single Jack to McGruder.
“Hey, go back and tell Shodress that he can come and see for himself!” Dan called.
“What! You want me to tell him that?”
“Yes.”
“All right. It’s your funeral, McGruder. But you must be crazy.”
There was a sound of steps crashing down the lower stairs, and then the front door of the building slammed.
What if that messenger had come to the second floor, instead of merely calling up the stairs?
“You see that luck is with me,” said Single Jack. “Walk a little slower, McGruder, because I want you close ahead when you come to the turn in the hall.”
That, and the noise of the messenger descending the stairs a moment before, gave McGruder his daring idea. If he could bound around the sharp angle of the hall wall, the stairs opened directly to the right, and with a single leap he could be down to the first landing, and whirl from it down the lower flight and out of the sight of the eye of Single Jack, and out of the possibility of his dreadful guns.
He acted on the thought, which is the best way if action there must be, and action there had to be for McGruder. It was either a chance to redeem himself, or else eternal shame. Bad enough to have allowed a helpless, chained prisoner to escape. But ten times worse to have actually broken away the chains that bound his terrible hands.
No, McGruder could never live that down.
“How did you get the chain on your feet broken, Jack?”
“I filed ’em through at night.”
“Oh, that was the rat that squeaked in the wall, now and then.”
“Yes, that was the rat.”
“I just about guessed it. Shodress will go mad when he hears about it.”
“Shodress isn’t apt to hear about it. Not while he’s in Yeoville, at least, but come back, Dan.”
McGruder, at that instant, had reached leaping distance of the wall angle. Around it he went, like a streak of light, and with a single bound he crashed down upon the landing beneath.
Single Jack followed down the hall. There would never have been the slightest doubt about what was to happen had not the chains impeded the tigerish speed of his rush in pursuit.
But as it was, only chance was against brave Dan McGruder. For when he struck the landing, he staggered with the force of his leap. If that reeling uncertainty had thrown him toward the lower flight, all would have been well. But he staggered back and to the side and, as he leaped forward again toward safety, he saw Single Jack glide out on the head of the stairs, gun in hand.
A scream tore the lips of McGruder, but it was cut short by the roar of the gun. He fell across the top of the stairs and rolled down to the bottom. And on the wall of the landing they still point to a round hole, where the shot of Single Jack bored its way out of sight after passing through the body and heart of poor McGruder.
At the top of the steps, Single Jack paused a moment to consider. Then another thought came to him, and, turning about, he hurried to the armory that he had just left. Beside the door, as he came into it, he found the sawed-off double-barreled shotgun that had been so much in the hands of Shodress since the time of imprisonment began. This he picked up, and handled it with a grim fondness. Then, with his chains rattling at his heels, he ran forward and down the corridor into the chamber that had served him for a jail room. When he stood in it again, he wondered at the long silences that filled the old building.
But when he stepped to the window, he could see some signs of life there. A dozen men were walking out from the verandah of the hotel, just opposite
, and staring up at the jail, and it was plain that they must have heard the booming reverberations of the revolver shot, as it went echoing down the stairwell.
Now the door of the hotel was dashed open, and big Shodress came running out. He was in a great fury, and so great, indeed, was his passion, that he had snatched out a revolver from the holster and he was shaking this on high as he ran, leaving a stream of oaths upon the air behind him.
The grinning messenger who had brought the insulting word from Dan McGruder paused at the door of the hotel.
And now Single Jack leaned from the window of the jail. From the corner of his eye, he saw a sudden and silent scattering of the men across the street, as though the weapon that he now held to his shoulder had been pointed especially at each one of them. So great was their surprise and their fright that not one of them so much as cried out, but all trusted implicitly in the speed of their feet to take them out of harm’s way.
Then, leaning from the window, he called: “Shodress!”
The fat man, checking himself in his running, looked wildly up into the window of the jail, and there he saw death waiting for him in the dark double mouths of his own gun, and in the sinisterly smiling face of Single Jack Deems behind it.
An expression of horror and of utter bewilderment came upon Shodress. He did not attempt to defend himself.
“You remember the dream, Alec?” asked Single Jack, and fired the first chamber.
Shodress was crushed into the dust as though a great foot had stamped upon him. But into his back, as he lay, Single Jack fired the second barrel, and saw the heavy charge strike home between the shoulder blades, and knock out a little puff of dust from the coat.
Chapter Forty-One
A bolt had been dropped into the mechanism of the town of Yeoville. The machine that had run on at such a furious rate and for so long now ran hit or miss.
Yonder, on his face in the dust, lay the vital factor, and the bravest men in Yeoville dared not step out to see whether their benefactor still lived, or was dead.
