Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural

by Marvin Kaye (ed. )

  “Listen! I never killed no guy personal, like I say; I mean for nothing he done to me. I’ve been a gun and crook for many years, like you know, but I’m always mighty careful about hurting anyone permanent. I’m careful about them pete jobs, so’s not to blow up no harmless persons, and I always tell my outside men that, when they have to do shooting, not to try to hit anyone. If they did, accidental, that ain’t my fault. One reason I took to inside work was to keep from having to kill anyone. I’ve been so close to being taken that I could hear the gates of the Big House slam, and one little shot would have saved me a lot of trouble, but I always did my best to keep from letting that shot go. I never wanted to kill no man. I’ve been in jams where guys were after me good and strong, and I always tried to get by without no killings.

  “I said I never killed a guy. I helped once, but it wasn’t murder. It’s never worried me a—bit since, and I sleep good.”

  He walked to the window and peered out into the yard where a bunch of sparrows were fluttering about. Finally he turned and said:

  “I hadn’t thought of that for quite a while, and I never do until I see some poor stiff that’s been tagged to go away. Some of them make me nervous—especially this tee-hee guy next to us. I’ll tell you about Soupbone Pew—some day you can write it, if you want to.”

  Soupbone Pew was a rat who trained years ago with Billy Coulon, the Honey Grove Kid, and a bunch of other old-timers that you’ve never seen. It was before my time, too, but I’ve heard them talk about him. He was in the Sioux City bank tear-off, when they all got grabbed and were sent to the Big House for fifteen years each. In them days Soupbone was a pretty good guy. He had nerve, and was smart, and stood well with everybody, but a little stretch in the big stir got to him. He broke bad. Honey Grove laid a plan for a big spring—a get-away—while they were up yonder. It looked like it would go through, too, but just as they were about ready, Soupbone got cold feet and gave up his insides.

  For that he got a pardon, and quit the road right off. He became a railroad brakeman, and showed up as a shack running between Dodge City and La Junta. And he became the orneriest white man that God ever let live, too.

  To hoboes and guns he was like a reformed soak toward a drunk. He treated them something fierce. He was a big, powerful stiff, who could kill a man with a wallop of his hands, if he hit him right, and his temper soured on the world. Most likely it was because he was afraid that every guy on the road was out to get him because of what he’d done, or maybe it was because he knew that they knew he was yellow. Anyway, they never tried to do him, that job belonging to Coulon, Honey Grove and the others.

  Soupbone cracked that no ’bo could ride his division, and he made it good, too. He beat them up when they tried it, and he made it so strong that the old heads wou1dn’t go against a try when he was the run. Once in a while some kid took a stab at it, but if he got caught by Soupbone he regretted it the rest of his life. I’ve heard of that little road into Hot Springs, where they say a reward used to be offered to any ’bo that rode it, and how a guy beat it by getting in the water-tank; and I’ve personally met that Wyoming gent on the Union Pacific, and all them other guys they say is so tough, but them stories is only fairy-tales for children beside what could be told about Pew. He went an awful route.

  I’ve known of him catching guys in the pilot and throwing scalding water in on them; I’ve heard tell of him shoveling hot cinders into empties on poor bums laying there asleep. That trick of dropping a coupling-pin on the end of a wire down alongside a moving train, so that it would swing up underneath and knock a stiff the rods, was about the mildest thing he did.

  He was simply a devil. The other railroad men on the division wouldn’t hardly speak to him. They couldn’t stand his gaff, but they couldn’t very well roar at him keeping ’boes his trains because that was what he was there for.

  His longest suit was beating guys up. He just loved to catch some poor old broken-down bum on his train and pound the everlasting stuffing out of him. He’s sent many a guy to the hospital, and maybe he killed a few before my acquaintance with him, for all I know.

  Once in a while he ran against some live one—some real gun, and not a bum—who’d given him a battle, but he was there forty ways with a sap and gat, and he’d shoot as quick as he’d slug. He didn’t go so strong on the real guns, if he knew who they was, and I guess he was always afraid they might be friends of Honey Grove or Coulon.

  He was on the run when I heard of him, and some of the kids of my day would try to pot him from the road, when his train went by, but they never even come close. I’ve heard them talking of pulling a rail on him and letting his train go into the ditch, but that would have killed the other trainmen, and they was some good guys on that same run then. The best way to do was to fight shy of Soupbone, and keep him on ice for Honey Grove and Coulon.

  Training with our mob in them days was a young kid called Manchester Slim—a real kid, not over eighteen, and as nice and quiet a youngster as I ever see. He wasn’t cut out for the road. It seems he’d had some trouble at home and run away. Old man Muller, that Dutch prowler, used to have him on his staff, but he never let this kid in on any work for some reason. He was always trying to get Slim to go home.

  “Der road is hell for der kits,” he used to say. “Let der ole stiffs vork out dere string, und don’t make no new vuns.”

  The Slim paid no attention to him. Still he had no great love for the life, and probably would have quit long before if he hadn’t been afraid some one would think was scared off.

  They was a pete job on at La Junta, which me and ’Frisco Shine and Muller had laid out. We had jungled up—camped—in a little cottonwood grove a few miles out of town, and was boiling out soup—nitro-glycerine—from dynamite, you know—and Muller sent the Slim into town to look around a bit. It was Winter and pretty cold. We had all come in from the West and was headed East. We was all broke bad, too, and needed dough the worst way.

  Slim come back from town much excited. He was carrying a Denver newspaper in his hand.

  “I’ve got to go home, Mull,” he said, running up to the old man and holding out the paper. “Look at this ad.”

  Muller read it and called to me. He showed me a little want ad reading that Gordon Keleher, who disappeared from his home in Boston two years before, was wanted at home because his mother was dying. It was signed Pelias Keleher, and I knew who he was, all right—president of the National Bankers’ Association.

  “Well, you go,” I said, right off the reel, and I could see that was the word he was waiting for.

  “For certainly he goes,” said Muller. “Nail der next rattler.”

  “All the passengers are late, but there’s a freight due out of here tonight; I asked,” said Slim.

  “How much dough iss dere in dis mob?” demanded Muller, frisking himself. We all shook ourselves down, but the most we could scare up was three or four dollars.

  “If you could wait until after tonight,” I says, thinking of the job, but Muller broke me with:

  “Ve don’t vant him to vait. Somedings might happens.”

  “I’d wire home for money, but I want to get to Kansas City first,” said Slim. “That paper is a couple of days old, and there’s no telling how long it may have been running that ad. I can stop over in K.C. long enough to get plenty of dough from some people I know there. I’m going to grab that freight.”

  “Soupbone on dat freight,” said the ’Frisco Shine, a silent, wicked black.

  “Ve’ll see Soub,” said Muller quietly. “I guess maybe he von’t inderfere mit dis case.”

  We decided to abandon the job for the night, and all went uptown. The Slim was apparently very much worried, and he kept telling us that if he didn’t get home in time he’d never forgive himself, so we all got dead-set on seeing him started.

  We looked up the conductor of the freight due out that night and explained things to him. None of us knew him, but he was a nice fellow.

  “
I tell you, boys,” he said, “I’d let the young fellow ride, but you’d better see my head brakeman, Soupbone Pew. He’s a tough customer, but in a case like this he ought to be all right. I’ll speak to him myself.”

  Muller went after Pew. He found him in a saloon, drinking all by his lonesome, although there was a crowd of other railroad men in there at the time. Muller knew Pew in the old days, but there was no sign of recognition between them. The old Dutchman explained to Pew very briefly.

  “It vould pe a gread personal favor mit me, Soub; maype somedimes I return it.”

  “He can’t ride my train!” said Pew shortly. “That’s flat. No argument goes.”

  The Dutchman looked at him long and earnestly, murder showing in his eyes, and Pew slunk back close to the bar, and his hand dropped to his hip.

  “Soub, der poy rides!” said Muller, his voice low but shaking with anger. “He rides your rattler. Und if anyding happens by dot poy, de Honey Grove Kit von’t get no chance at you! Dot’s all, Soub!”

  But when he returned to us, he was plainly afraid for the Slim.

  “You don’t bedder go to-nid,” he said. “Dot Soub is a defil, und he’ll do you.”

  “I’m not afraid,” said Slim. “He can’t find me, anyhow.”

  The old man tried to talk him out of the idea, but Slim was determined, and finally Muller, in admiration of his spirit, said:

  “Vell, if you vill go, you vill. Vun man can hide besser as two, but der Shine must go mit you as far as Dodge.”

  That was the only arrangement he would consent to, and while the Slim didn’t want the Shine, and I myself couldn’t see what good he could do, Muller insisted so strong that we all gave in.

  We went down to the yards that night to see them off, and the old man had a private confab with the Shine. The only time I ever saw Muller show any feeling was when he told the boy goodby. I guess he really liked him.

  The two hid back of a pile of ties, a place where the trains slowed down, and me and Muller got off a distance and watched them. We could see Soupbone standing on top of a box-car as the train went by, and he looked like a tall devil. He was trying to watch both sides of the train at the same time, but I didn’t think he saw either Slim or the Shine as they shot underneath the cars, one after the other, and nailed the rods. Then the train went off into the darkness, Soupbone standing up straight and stiff.

  We went back to our camp to sleep, and the next morning before we were awake, the Shine came limping in, covered with blood and one arm hanging at his side.

  I didn’t have to hear his story to guess what had happened. Soupbone made them at the stop. He hadn’t expected two, but he did look for the kid. Instead of warning him off, he told him to get on top where he’d be safe. That was one of his old tricks. He didn’t get to the Shine, who dodged off into the darkness, as soon as he found they were grabbed, and then caught the train after it started again. He crawled up between the cars to the deck, to tip the Slim off to watch out for Soupbone. Slim didn’t suspect anything, and was thanking Soupbone, and explaining about his mother.

  The moment the train got under way good, Soupbone says:

  “Now my pretty boy, you’re such a—good traveler, let’s see you jump off this train!”

  The kid thought he was joshing, but there wasn’t no josh about it. Soup pulled a gun. The Shine, with his own gun in hand, crawled clear on top and lay flat on the cars, trying to steady his aim on Soupbone. The kid was pleading and almost crying, when Soupbone suddenly jumped at him, smashed him in the jaw with the gun-barrel, and knocked him off the train. The Shine shot Soupbone in the back, and he dropped on top of the train, but didn’t roll off. As the Shine was going down between the cars again, Soupbone shot at him and broke his arm. He got off all right, and went back down the road to find the kid dead—his neck broke.

  Old man Muller, the mildest man in the world generally, almost went bug-house when he heard that spiel. He raved and tore around like a sure enough nut. I’ve known him to go backing out of a town with every man in his mob down on the ground, dead or dying, and not show half as much feeling afterward. You’d ’a’ thought the kid was his own. He swore he’d do nothing else as long as he lived until he’d cut Soupbone’s heart out.

  The Shine had to get out of sight, because Soupbone would undoubtedly have some wild-eyed story to tell about being attacked by hoboes and being shot by one. We had no hope but what the Shine had killed him.

  Old man Muller went into town and found out that was just what had happened, and he was in the hospital only hurt a little. He also found they’d brought Slim’s body to town, and that most people suspected the real truth, too. He told them just how it was, especially the railroad men, and said the Shine had got out of the country. He also wired Slim’s people, and we heard afterward they sent a special train after the remains.

  Muller was told, too, that the train conductor had notified Pew to let Slim ride, and that the rest of the train-crew had served notice on Pew that if he threw the boy off he’d settle with them for it. And that was just what made Soupbone anxious to get the kid. It ended his railroad career there, as we found out afterwards, because he disappeared as soon as he got out of the hospital.

  Meantime me and Muller and the Shine went ahead with that job, and it failed. Muller and the nigger got grabbed, and I had a tough time getting away. Just before we broke camp the night before, however, Muller, who seemed to have a hunch that something was going to happen, called me and the Shine to him, and said, his voice solemn:

  “I vant you poys to bromise me vun ting,” he said. “If I don’t get der chance myself, bromise me dot venefer you find Soubbone Bew, you vill kill him deat.”

  And we promised, because we didn't think we would ever be called on to make good.

  Muller got a long jolt for the job; the Shine got a shorter one and escaped a little bit later on, while I left that part of the country.

  A couple of years later, on a bitter cold night, in a certain town that I won’t name, there was five of us in the sneezer, held as suspects on a house prowl job that only one of us had anything to do with—I ain’t mentioning the name of the one, either. They was me, Kid Mole, the old prize-fighter, a hophead named Squirt McCue, that you don’t know, Jew Friend, a dip, and that same ’Frisco Shine. We were all in the bull-pen with a mixed assortment of drunks and vags. All kinds of prisoners was put in there over night. This pokey is down-stairs under the police station, not a million miles from the Missouri River, so if you think hard you can guess the place. We were walking around kidding the drunks, when a screw shoved in a long, tall guy who acted like he was drunk or nutty, and was hardly able to stand.

  I took one flash at his map, and I knew him. It was Pew.

  He flopped down in a comer as soon as the screw let go his arm. The Shine rapped to him as quick as I did, and officed Mole and the rest. They all knew of him, especially the Honey Grove business, as well as about the Manchester Slim, for word had gone over the country at the time.

  As soon as the screw went up-stairs I walked over to the big stiff, laying all huddled up, and poked him with my foot.

  “What’s the matter with you, you big cheese?” I said. He only mumbled.

  “Stand up!” I tells him, but he didn’t stir. The Shine and Mole got hold of him on either side and lifted him to his feet. He was as limber as a wet bar-towel. Just then we heard the screw coming down-stairs and we got away from Pew. The screw brought in a jag—a laughing guy with his snoot full of booze and who laughed like he’d just found a lot of money. He was a little, thin fellow, two pounds lighter than a straw hat. He laughed high and shrill, more like a scream than a real laugh, and the moment the screw opened the door and tossed him in, something struck me that the laugh was phoney. It didn’t sound on the level.

  There wasn’t no glad in it. The little guy laid on the floor and kicked his feet and kept on laughing. Soupbone Pew let out a yell at the sight of him.

  “Don’t let him touch me!�
� he bawled, rolling over against the wall, “Don’t let him near me!”

  “Why, you big stiff, you could eat him alive!” I says.

  The jag kept on tee-heeing, not looking at us, or at Pew either for that matter.

  “He’s nuts,” said Jew Friend.

  “Shut him off,” I told the Shine.

  He stepped over and picked the jag up with one hand, held him out at arm’s length, and walloped him on the jaw with his other hand. The jag went to sleep with a laugh sticking in his throat. Soupbone still lay against the wall moaning, but he saw that business all right, and it seemed to help him. The Shine tossed the jag into a cell. Right after that the screw came down with another drunk, and I asked him about Pew.

  “Who’s this boob?” I said. “Is he sick?”

  “Him? Oh, he’s a good one,” said screw. “He only killed his poor wife—beat her to death with his two fists, because she didn’t have supper ready on time, or something important. That ain’t his blood on him; that’s hers. He’s pretty weak, now, hey? Well, he wasn’t so weak a couple of hours ago, the rat! It’s the wickedest murder ever done in this town, and he’ll hang sure, if he ain’t lynched beforehand!”

  He gave Soupbone a kick as he went out, and Soupbone groaned.

  Said I: “It’s got to be done, gents; swing or no swing, this guy has got to go. Who is it—me?”

  “Me!” said the Shine, stepping forward.

  “Me!” said the Jew.

  “Me!” chimed in Mole.

  “All of us!” said the hophead.

  “Stand him up!” I ordered.

  The lights had been turned down low, and it was dark and shadowy in the jail. The only sound was the soft pad-pad of people passing through the snow on the sidewalks above our heads, the low sizzling of the water-spout at the sink, and the snores of the drunks, who were all asleep.

  Us five was the only ones awake. The Shine and Mole lifted Soupbone up, and this time he was not so limp. He seemed to know that something was doing. His eyes was wide open and staring at us.