The Paradise jail ain’t much. It’s one story, mostly dobe, and stands way out from any other shack, a grim reminder that there still is law and order—at times. A strong man might kick the walls loose if they wasn’t afraid the roof would fall on ’em. I takes a rock and busts the padlock. There’s only one cell in the place, and when I lights a match I sees the faces of Scenery Sims and the old man.
I busts the lock off the cell door, and lets ’em out.
“Vamoose!” I whispers. “Get a-going. We don’t want no lynching in Paradise on the Fourth of July.”
“But, Henry—” squeaks Scenery.
“No time for argument!” I snaps. “You’ll find out later. Go fast and far. Sabe?”
“I’ll make this right with you, Henry,” says the old man, earnest-like, and I nods in the dark and says to myself—
“You’ll likely try.”
They slips out together, and in about a minute I hears Chuck come up to the door, and he seems peevish over something.
“Hen!” he whispers. “Aw, Hen! Henry Peck!”
I don’t say nothing, and pretty soon he remarks, sad-like:
“Drunk. Saw two Henry Pecks go away from here. Must be drunk as a boiled owl.”
He goes out of hearing, complaining to himself about the effects of alcohol on the optic nerves.
I takes the dynamite out of them cans and puts it in one pile on the floor. Bill must a been afraid of that stuff, ’cause he’s got about ten minutes’ worth of extra fuse.
I runs the fuse out the door, puts the padlock back in place, and touches her off. I goes back up to Mike’s place but don’t go in. Mike and Calamity are playing cards, while they waits for Chuck’s body to arrive, so I goes over and climbs up on the hitch-rack. I gets up there, and gets right down. Comes a rumble and a shake, the town is lit up for a second, and then it begins to rain pieces of jail all over town. Thirty sticks of dynamite is some little dwelling-mover.
Mike and Calamity staggers out on the porch, and gazes at the world.
“What do yuh reckon it was?” gasps Calamity.
“Dynamite!” yells Mike. “There’s —— to pay and no pitch hot!”
“Bill McFee insisted on leaving that stuff in the jail until it was time to touch it off, and he done put old man Whittaker and Scenery Sims in there—and—they both smoke!”
“Gosh all hemlock!” wails Calamity. “There ain’t a thing we can do, is there, Mike?”
“Nothing. When you’re near thirty sticks of dynamite, and she goes off, there ain’t nothing that anybody can do—not even the coroner.”
They don’t much more than get inside, when I hears the rattle of wheels, and into Paradise comes the ambulance. They swings around in front of the place and stops. Out comes Mike and Calamity.
“Was he dead?” asks Mike, and we hears McFee snort:
“Old man Whittaker must be crazy! We couldn’t find Chuck nor the autymobile. All we found was Muley and Telescope, setting along the road trying to sing. They don’t know about no shooting scrape. Whittaker is a danged old liar!”
“Don’t speak disrespectable of the dead,” advises Calamity. “No matter how a man acted in this vale of tears yuh hadn’t ought to besmirch his memory with recriminations.”
“He ain’t dead, I tell yuh!” yelps Bill. “Well,” says Mike, “if he ain’t he’s made of iron. No man can stand a shock like that and ever be the same.”
“Shock? Who do yuh mean—Chuck?”
“No,” says Mike, sad-like. “I mean Whittaker.”
“And Scenery Sims,” adds Calamity, removing his hat. “They must a threw a match on to a fuse. The padlock came through the back door, and is sticking in Mike’s bar.”
There’s complete silence for a while, and then McFee gasps—
“My ——!”
He yanks the team around, and away he goes, rattlety bang, down toward the jail, while the crowd races along behind him. Muley and Telescope sets there on the steps and finishes up their song.
“Ret-ret-retribution,” pronounces Telescope. “The old man kills Chuck, and then gets hoist with his own petard.”
“Hoisted,” corrects Muley. “I never heard dynamite called petard but a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Some celebration, eh, Telescope. I wonder if anybody has yet killed Henry Peck this fair morning?”
“The day is yet young, so why worry?” says Telescope. “I fain wouldst look upon the red when it is wine. Let’s tend a little bar, Muley.”
I wanders around back of Mike’s place. I feels weary, and when I notices Mike’s little barn, I gets an inspiration. Why not sleep until celebration time? I climbs into the loft and sprawls on the hay.
“All the comforts of home,” says I out loud.
“Hey, Henry,” comes a whisper. “Was Chuck dead?”
“Uh-huh,” says I. “Is Scenery with yuh?”
“He is,” squeaks Scenery. “What was that explosion, Henry?”
“They say that Harelip and Pole Cat blew up the jail. I don’t know how much truth there is in it.”
“Henry,” quavers the old man, “you was a friend in need. I’ll—”
Just then a faint voice begins singing, somewhere in the hay. It’s a voice that nobody ever heard and forgot. Cross between a greaseless wheel and pneumonia.
“‘Rockuhvages clef’ for me-e-e, le’ me hide myself——’”
We listens for a few seconds. Old man Whittaker gathers his legs under himself like a rabbit, and shoots out a that hay-loft like a swaller. We hears him hit the ground and gallop out of range. Scenery don’t say a word. He yawns, crawls over to the window, and lets himself down, easy-like, and sneaks away.
“Henry,” says Chuck, “did I hear your voice?”
“You did.”
“Stop talking to yourself, you shepherd, and let a man sleep. I had a awful dream, Henry. Dreamed that the world blowed up. It hit me and—ho, hum-m-m!”
“Ho, hum-m-m-m!” says I, and goes to sleep, too.
When I woke up the birds were singing, and the sun was shining through the cracks in the loft. Chuck is still snoring, so I climbs down alone. I’m as dry as a drouth in Arizona, so I pilgrims into Mike’s place regardless of consequences.
The place is fairly filled, and sadness is the prevailing color scheme. On the bar stands Scenery’s old stove-pipe hat, with a wide band of black cloth around it, and Mike’s mirror is hung with the emblem of mourning.
McFee is standing there with bowed head, and sadness fairly drips from his lips.
“It’s a most awful situation,” he orates. “If we could only find a single piece of ’em. There ain’t nothing left—nothing!”
“There ain’t nothing left of poor Chuck either,” tolls Muley. “Poor old Chuck. He was a gentleman and a scholar. I’d love to gaze upon his face once more.
“He’s went away and left usIn the prime of his young life.He’s gone from this here vale of tearsWith all it’s joy and strife.No more we’ll see his banty legs,Nor hear him tell a lie.He’s vanished from old Paradise,
“He’s went away and left usIn the prime of his young life.He’s gone from this here vale of tearsWith all it’s joy and strife.No more we’ll see his banty legs,Nor hear him tell a lie.He’s vanished from old Paradise,
“He’s went away and left usIn the prime of his young life.He’s gone from this here vale of tearsWith all it’s joy and strife.No more we’ll see his banty legs,Nor hear him tell a lie.He’s vanished from old Paradise,
“He’s went away and left us
In the prime of his young life.
He’s gone from this here vale of tears
With all it’s joy and strife.
No more we’ll see his banty legs,
Nor hear him tell a lie.
He’s vanished from old Paradise,
“That’s a mighty pretty thing, Muley,” applauds Pole Cat. “Can’t yuh think of something nice to say for old man Whittaker?”
“The rest of you fellers stand back from Pole Cat and Harelip, and old man Whittaker will say something for himself,” states a voice at the door, and there stands the old man, with a shotgun which he levels at Pole Cat and Harelip.
The crowd obeys. Bill McFee’s legs get so weak that he sets down on the bar-rail where he gasps like a fish out of water.
“You danged pair of dynamiters!” snaps the old man. “With the shadder of the gallows staring me in the eye, and Chuck Warner’s ghost haunting my dreams, I comes back to show yuh that your dastardly deed failed. When yuh blowed up that jail yuh didn’t get me and Scenery. Sabe? Shut up!” he snaps, as Harelip starts to say something. “Don’t try to deny it, Harelip. I can prove it by the heero what let us out. There he stands, gents. Henry Clay Peck. He busted the lock and liberated——”
The crowd turns to look at me, but I don’t seem to be the point of interest at that. They looks right past me. Old man Whittaker’s gun slips from his hands, and clangs on the floor. I twists my neck and looks behind me, and there stands Chuck. He yawns and leans against the pool-table.
“Well,” says Chuck, in a dry voice, “ain’t somebody going to set ’em up? Sleeping in timothy makes a feller dry.”
Bill McFee looks at Chuck and back at Whittaker and the tears of joy runs out of his eyes. Whittaker leans against the door and tries to laugh, but he can’t.
“Haw!” says Harelip, but that’s as far as he got.
Chuck ambles up to the bar, and looks ’em over.
“Holy henhawks!” he snorts. “Have yuh all gone loco?”
“Ain’t—ain’t yuh dead, Chuck?” stutters the old man.
“Almost—from thirst.”
Bill McFee has been looking, steady-like, at me for some time, and when he gets on his feet he sort of starts edging toward me. I edges the other way, sort of unconcerned-like, and bumps into Calamity. He’s got a billiard cue in his hands.
“Henry,” he whispers, “you lied to me.”
I nods, kicks his feet out from under him, and goes out of that back door like a shot. I races around to the front, and runs into something. They’re grouped, and I’m into ’em before I has time to think.
There’s the two Mudgett sisters, Hulda Peterson, Annie Schmidt, Mrs. Benson, Maggie Smith, Clarice Chaffin and the widder Saunders. The male members of the vigilance committee is Abe Mudgett and Breezy Benson.
“We’ve been waiting for you, Henry,” states the widder, sort of belligerent-like, and the chorus sings the last four words.
“We’re looking for a little explanation from you,” states Breezy Benson, and Abe nods—
“We desires the same.”
“Exactly,” says I. “In the course of human e-vents——”
“Grab that dynamiter!” yells McFee, from the front door, and Breezy tried to foller instructions. Anybody that reaches out to grasp old man Peck’s loving son Henry, in times of stress, is in continuous danger. Breezy got it on the jaw, and yours truly went away from there with the enraged citizens on the trail.
Never again do I sic a pack of hounds after a coyote. What few broncs are in town are immediate and soon rode after me, and I sure have a plenty to attend to. I got a good start, but I know I can’t keep it forever. I’m hopping off down a washout, when I happens to see McFee’s corral. I gets an idea right there.
The gang is quite a ways behind me, trying to make me come out of a old shack, so I takes a chance and races for that corral. The autymobile is pointed the wrong way, and I ain’t got no time to turn it around. I yanks the front wheels around, sets the brake, grabs the crank and prays. Bingo! She took it the first turn. I yanks off the brake, and away I goes, straight for the posse.
I yanks the little jigger down and we sure hits for Paradise in a hurry. They scatters at my approach, swings in behind me, and up the main street of Paradise we goes, strung out for a quarter of a mile and stretching all the time.
That machine was a humdinger as long as I’m in danger, but when I leaves ’em far behind she lays down and quits like a yal-ler pup. I sets there and looks around, and out into the road wanders three saddled broncs. I ducks, thinking they’re some of the posse, but a second look tells me that they’re some of the broncs what left Paradise yesterday, when the autymobile first came in.
One Cross J bronc has a long rope dragging, so I catches him and then ropes the other two. I strings out across the hills toward home, puts ’em in the home corral, and goes to bed. I reckon it’s almost morning when the Cross J bunch gets home. Muley, Telescope, Chuck and the old man all comes into the bunk-house, but they don’t see me.
“Ho, hum-m-m-m!” yawns the old man. “I’m glad to be home. This has been one strenuous holiday, fellers.”
“She sure has,” agrees Telescope. “That pe-rade was a humdinger.”
I sets up in bed and looks ’em over.
“Pe-rade?” I asks. “Did they have a pe-rade?”
“Yes, little one,” replied Muley. “We had a pe-rade that we’ll date time from. We had eight Miss Columbuses and——”
“Who—who led it?” I asks.
“You did, you danged fool!” whooped Telescope.
THE END
Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the July 18, 1918 issue ofAdventuremagazine.
Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the July 18, 1918 issue ofAdventuremagazine.