The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original)

by Unknown

  Then the little buttons are given out with no extra charge but lots more wind; those buttons must have been worth all of ten for a cent—when I was a kid we use to pick better in a nickel’s worth of popcorn.

  But I don’t get no real dope; not a mention of the boy nor a mention of me, which sure hurts my pride. Then I get the how of their pulling off the real dirt without being openly to blame. Committees is appointed, but they don’t say what for. See the lay of it? If you have an enemy—why, get on a committee—it’s hot stuff!

  The real fellows who just enter the Klan because they are born joiners don’t know half the time why they are beating up some helpless old man or weak woman. They just do it. Why—God alone knows. They forget their manhood and listen to all the wind about cleaning up the world and making it safe for the white race. And all for ten bucks. Oh, I’m a pretty tough egg—none tougher, I guess, but I felt as white as my robe in comparison with most of that gang.

  And just when I’m wondering what good this whole show is going to do me, outside of improving my morals, I get a real shock. There’s a commotion outside the circle and the outer guard rushes in and following him is—is my victim of the Ford.

  Some excitement then and I can see my finish unless I duck and—and I ducked. In the excitement it was easy to slip back through the circle of white figures and into the thick foliage. I lay low there, where I can see what’s going on. I’m not leaving yet—no—not me! I still got unfinished business. There sure will be a few dead Kleagles, to say nothing of a couple of Klodards and one thing and another, if this bunch get mussy with me.

  You see, I suspect they’ll unmask, looking for me, but no such thing. After they quiet down a bit the lad what thinks I wronged him starts around the circle, examining all the uniforms. He must have spilt soup or something on his, else how could he tell it? But he has no luck and after a little more talk they just bust up the meeting and beat it. The fear of Race Williams has been placed in their hearts. So I lay there a while, cussing my hard luck.

  I’m wondering if they’ll search the woods, but they don’t. However, I shake my night shirt so as to be free and easy for gun-play; but these boys are not bent on committing suicide. About ten minutes pass and the chug of the motors has died away and I’m just about thinking of going back to town, when two white-robed figures suddenly enter the deserted glen. But they don’t look around none, just lay off a bit. Then one of them, wanting a smoke, pulls off his hood and—and it’s Feather-Face. Now, I got this bird sized up. Where he is, there is trouble.

  Backing slowly out of the woods, I decided to sneak around and see if I can hear what they’re saying. The moon is fairly bright, so I got to be mighty careful. And then, as I turn and go slowly through the trees, I hear the chug-chug of a motor. I peer through the trees and there by the roadside is a car—none of your flivvers this time, but a big touring car. The motor stops and a lad gets out and passes through the wood within ten feet of me. He ain’t got no hood nor robe on, but I can’t get a slant at his map.

  I turn and follow him and as I reach the end of the clearing I hear him say to the others:

  “Ed’ll be here in ten minutes and then—”

  “Sh!” cautions another voice.

  But I don’t wait to hear no more. I got ten minutes and I’m flying down the road to the place I left my bike. I ain’t got time to duck in and out among the trees, but I don’t meet no one, which ain’t so much my luck as his.

  And the bike’s there and in less than ten minutes I’m about twenty feet behind that car, hidden in the bushes, ready to do a six-day race.

  Five minutes later we all breeze off together—the four of them in the car and me following on the bike—none of us showing lights.

  Now, the first part of that ride is not so bad, for they ain’t bent on speed and the road is fairly level—but the moon goes behind a cloud and I got to hang close. On top of that we come to an upgrade and things are not so good. Then they turn up a steep and winding road and the bike ain’t no good any more—at least, it’s no good to me.

  It looks like I’m stumped as I stand there panting and listening to the throb of the distant motor—and then the throb stops sudden—not just dies away. I look up the side of that hill and suddenly I see a light—it just flashes for a moment and is gone. Enough—I park the bike in the woods and start in to hoof it.

  Twenty minutes later I’m at the top of a steep hill—on the other side of me is a cliff and below a roaring mountain stream. I can hear the water dashing by far below. And then out comes the moon and about fifty feet away I see a log cabin almost on the very edge of the steep cliff. A little ways from it I see the big car.

  There ain’t no one in sight and I just duck around that cabin, trying to look in; but there’s nothing doing. Oh, I can catch the flicker of light from between some of the cracks in the logs, but can’t see in. There is only one window and that is boarded up. I try the door softly, but it’s locked tight; then I go round back with half an idea of climbing to the roof in the hope of finding a crack big enough to peer through.

  And then when I get around the side I hear the door open—it creaks mighty loud. Only a second and footsteps are coming around to the back. Both guns ready, I back to cover behind the opposite corner of the cabin and wait. The moon is fine and I see two men plainly as they approach the edge of the cliff, forcing a lithe figure of a boy between them. His arms are bound, but his legs ain’t, and he’s pleading with them in a low voice.

  “I won’t never tell about the murder—I won’t never say a word about who done it.”

  His feet are giving from under him and they help him along.

  “You’re right—you won’t never tell.”

  One of the men give a gruff laugh.

  “Here, you, Ed, give him the knife and get the job done,” he says to his companion.

  “Oh, push him over,” Ed answers, and I seen his stomach ain’t strong for such work, for his voice breaks a bit.

  “Here—give me the knife.”

  The other has a sneer in his tones. The next instant I see a flash of steel in the air above the boy.

  Crack!

  Yep, it’s my gun what speaks and that lad goes out like a light. The other lad draws a gun and looks around him, bewildered. But he don’t see nothing; leastwise in this world he don’t. I get him right through the head—there ain’t no mistake where I land in that distance. He drops the wrong way—staggers a bit and I hear his body crashing down the cliff, tearing loose the rough stones as it goes.

  Oh, I ain’t a killer, but remember, there were four of them, that left two more to be accounted for yet; it wouldn’t do to wound a lad and then have him pop up again when you least wanted to see him.

  The boy just stands there—swinging back and forth on his weak legs—and I’m afraid he’ll go over too.

  “Lay down, you fool!” I says, and he drops like a log and lays still.

  Then I wait. I know those gentlemen in the cabin must have heard the shots and be coming. Like a movie picture villain, a figure looms up from the side of the cabin; sneaking slowly along, the flash of nickel plainly visible in his hand. And like a movie villain he fades out of the picture. I got him.

  “Number three,” I says and wait; the party ain’t over yet.

  And then there’s a step behind me; like a foot upon dried twigs.

  Like a shot I turn and in the rays of the moon spot the evil, sneering map of Feather-Face. His gun spoke ahead of mine—I knew that from the red-hot burn that shot along my temple—just above the ear it seemed to hurt most.

  Of course I fired—emptied both guns, I guess. But I didn’t see nothing when I shot—there were dancing, blazing lights before my eyes and then darkness—a deadly black darkness followed by a sinking feeling. I had stuck on my feet while I shot, but now I knew I was slipping; every minute I expected to hear the gun bark—but didn’t.

  Then there was the chug-chug of a motor—the grinding of hurriedly shifting gear
s; my firing had scared Feather-Face off. With that thought I sagged to the ground—everything went black.

  When I come to again I was in the cabin and several men were leaning over me. One of them was in uniform and I recognized him for the Chief of Police of Clinton.

  I hear them talking a minute; how they had come across Willie Thompson staggering down the road and how they had come out to the cabin; and I gathered that Feather-Face had beat it—then curtains again.

  I was all right—that is, to a certain extent—when I come to again. But I was in the coop, which was not so good. Yep, I opened my eyes in the jail at Clinton and a doctor was bending over me.

  He had a real friendly face and his talk was good.

  “You sure did for that gang,” he said. “I hope you come out of it all right. Oh, not your head—it must be as hard as rock—you’re all right there. I mean this little killing. You have a good lawyer—none better—and the judge has no use for the Klan. Thompson has told him his story—and it’s not a pretty one. Man, I tell you you have a first-class lawyer. I hear that it’s fixed up to release you on bail—on a writ of habeas corpus, they call it.”

  “Then I’ll get out all right,” I said, relieved, for I had the idea that the Klan ran the town.

  “Oh, the judge is with you, but the Klan—you see, there is a threat about town—death to the party that goes on your bail—and the trouble is that the people fear the Klan. They have a habit of making good on these little threats. Why, no one can visit you—the Klan’s orders again—of course they wouldn’t forbid you medical attention.”

  “Then no one will have the nerve to go my bail?”

  I sure was some surprised.

  “That remains to be seen.” He shook his head, but there didn’t seem to be much hope in his voice.

  But he didn’t tell me then that there also was a threat to storm the jail and there was much talk about asking for the State troops to be sent over.

  And that’s that. I didn’t get much time to think; my mouthpiece sure did work fast, for by that afternoon I was hustled out of the jail by the Chief of Police and three or four other highly nervous gentlemen and rushed into court.

  Some court; just one long, low-ceilinged room with great big windows on either side of it. It was warm and the windows were open and the bright sun shone in. But the faces about me—there was nothing bright and comforting about them; hostile, hard faces they were, and a murmur, a threatening murmur of disapproval, ran through the room as I was led before the judge’s bench. The judge was hard too, but his face was honest and almost defiant as he looked over the crowded courtroom.

  My lawyer was there and talking, but I didn’t get much of what he said, but I guess the judge was hurrying things along; the people looked like they might act up bad any minute. The District Attorney was objecting to everything—I wasn’t surprised—I’d heard that he was mighty close in with the Klan.

  Then the judge come out flat-footed and named the bail—not a large sum, neither; and he hammered on the bench as a low rumble of protest went up from the packed courtroom.

  Then my lawyer says, slow and calm:

  “Your honor, I have the bondsman here.”

  My, you could hear a pin drop when he said that, and half the court stood up and looked around where the lawyer had pointed toward the door at the rear.

  There comes a sudden rattling of windows from both sides; I look first at one of the big windows and then the other. There, on the two opposite window sills, had appeared the huge, stalwart frames of the Jabine boys. Motionless as statues they stood with their rifles swung loose beneath their armpits.

  “Buck Jabine!”

  I hear the hoarse whisper go up from ten voices at once. And I look toward the back door of the courtroom.

  Right through the swinging doors had come Buck Jabine, his head erect, his eyes looking neither to left nor right. Straight between that path of gaping, angry faces, he made his way until he reached the bench. Not a hand was raised to stop him—not a mouth voiced even anger. You see, everyone there knew Buck Jabine and the boys. Two minutes later and everything was Jake.

  So it was that I left the courthouse a free man and joined the procession of the Jabines. I was third in that single-file line as we made our way up the Main Street and out into the open country toward the Jabine farm. Not a word did we speak—just hoofed it along. I wondered then if I made as forbidding an appearance as the family.

  Thompson and his son were at the Jabine house and such a welcome you never did see. And the Jabines took it all without a smile—they were all business and no mistake.

  Of course I got the lowdown on the whole affair from the Thompsons. Willie Thompson had made some discoveries about the murder at the town twenty miles away—it was Feather-Face and his three friends what had pulled it off in the name of the Klan. There was robbery behind it and Willie had come across that little cabin in the hills and seen them splitting some of the swag. Enough! They nailed him and was just waiting for things to blow over a bit before they bumped him off and let his body float away below the cliff.

  After that things happened in town. The real story came out and I was never even brought before the Grand Jury. It appears that even with the truth most of the Grand Jury wanted to hold me at first—you see, they were thick with the Klan. Then things started.

  Ten members of the Klan who were on the Grand Jury up and resigned from the Klan; they come out flat and told the judge how they felt and how they had joined the organization just like they would have joined any other fraternal organization. The end of it was that the judge discharged me without my ever showing up in court.

  You see, it was better for me not to be seen about too much. The Klan was slipping and members were leaving it every day; and what’s more, an Anti-Klan organization was forming, though Buck Jabine would have nothing to do with either one of them. Altogether things were bad in Clinton; both factions went around armed and defiant. The Klan had sure lost its grip.

  But of Feather-Face nothing was heard; both sides sought him now, equally bent on vengeance. I could see that Feather-Face’s position was not an enviable one—still, he kept clear of Clinton.

  “There weren’t no harm in the old order,” Jabine opened up to me one evening. “My father was in the Klan back in the Sixties. But this modern Ku Klux Klan was a money-making graft bent on raising religious and racial hatred. Of course half the crime laid to their doors wasn’t true, but it gave others the opportunity to masquerade under their name. You can’t defy law and order and the rights of your fellow-man without the criminal element sneaking in. Robbery, murder, private vengeance—that’s all what could come of it. And it took you—you, a stranger, to show it all up in its proper light.”

  And from then until the day I left that was all Buck Jabine had to say on the subject.

  The night that the Thompsons, father and son, came to the house in their little car to drive me to the station, Buck said:

  “I have arranged for the train to stop at Haddon Junction, five miles down. You see”—he turned to Old Thompson—“the folks of Clinton were planning to give Race Williams, here, a little sendoff and it won’t do. The Klan spirit is dead. Why bring it up again? There are enough left to make trouble if any popular demonstration is shown. The Klan is slipping—slipping fast and I say let it slip.”

  Well, I was agreeable, though I think Willie Thompson—who had become somewhat of a hero about town—was disappointed and felt badly about it. But the cash transaction was all that interested me. I had mailed the check which Thompson had given me along to my New York bank and—well—I didn’t have no doubts on it—but I’d be glad to get home and do a little drawing on it.

  So I shook hands with Buck and got a few grunts out of the Jabine boys. Then I said good-bye to the ladies—I didn’t mention the ladies before, but it will be enough to say that they were sure some Amazons and would make a good showing in a free-for-all. And—well—I was off. Old Thompson and me in the fron
t seat and Willie Thompson in the rear. It sure felt good to be on the go again with my twin gats parked nicely about me.

  At nine-thirty we was only about a quarter of a mile from the station and ten minutes to catch the train, when we have trouble. Blooey! Both the rear tires go like a couple of cannon; so sudden did it come that I had half drawn my gun.

  Then I watched the two of them stall around a minute. I could see the one light of the little station shining in the distance, so I decided to hoof it. These lads treated an automobile like a steamroller—only one spare tire and an inner tube on hand. They’d be a half-hour at least; what with scratching their heads and pulling up their pants.

  I wouldn’t listen to their protests about waiting over another night and I wouldn’t let one of them come along to the station with me; they weren’t fit to be separated—too slow-thinking birds they were. No, sir, I was booked for the city and going through.

  So I swung out my suitcase and after a couple of handshakes started down the road. I hoofed it fast, but I got a-thinking while I walked; got a-thinking as I looked down and kicked some mighty dirty-looking pieces of glass and half a broken bottle from the road.

  I could hear the train coming along and see her headlight flashing down the tracks as I reached the station. Now, there was no station master at this Haddon Junction and only one light on the north side of the station—the side the train was approaching from. So, bag in hand, I started to pass under that light and out onto the platform—then I stopped dead—that broken bottle had suddenly loomed up before me as big as life. I just ducked back and made my way cautiously around the other side of the station. Not really suspicious, you understand—only careful. And that’s the secret of why I hope to die in bed.

  Bang! Like that! I duck into a chap who is coming slowly from around the south end of the station. We hit with a crash and both step back a pace; he out on the platform toward the tracks.