“I’M TALKING FOR MY LIFE,” SAID—
The Sheriff frowned.
“Meaning?” he said coldly. And as one trusting to receive a foolish argument. “Meaning—but wait!”
And placing his hand on the handle of his gun—as a gentle gesture of what could suddenly happen on that island—he turned his head far enough to survey the nearest shore line of the island back of him. He had no fear that the man who—so far as the logic of events on this island went today—had indissolubly branded himself as “Actor” Hart, might spring across that narrow circle, while his—the Sheriff’s—face was turned, and grab that gun. For not only was the gun firm in the Sheriff’s fist but, what was more important, the latter had seen the hamlike fists of the man whom he was satisfied was Abner Hick closing meaningfully up—and he had also seen the muscles tighten under the shoulders of the man whom all were calling Mex. And so the Sheriff knew that one move—just one false move!—now out of the man across from himself, and the two who had earned their life belts would have the latter down, and be on top of him.
And thus protected by the situation, the Sheriff surveyed the nearest shore line of the fog-encased island. An island which indisputably now was smaller than it had been any time today. Indeed—the oval of it had literally shrunk during the telling of that last story—and the holding of this last argument with the man who had been shown up to be an impostor. Whether it could be the so-called vanguard of the advancing waters from the breaking of that dam, the Sheriff could not say. Personally, however, he was fully convinced it was not. For its rise had been practically imperceptible while the story, and subsequent argument, had proceeded; decidedly not such a rise as would be caused by the toppling over of a vast dam—the kind of rise that would be actually visible to the human eye as it took place—that would take but 10 minutes to cover this island, did one wait that long before taking off! But the Sheriff did know that this last rise, desultory as it may have seemed, was a result of still more waters from contributing streams getting into Big River both below—and above!—the Cooperstown Dam. And which meant, in turn, that more water yet was now pouring over that dam and through—no, not through, since the open gates right now must be spewing all they could spew! But it meant that the pressure on that dam was greater than ever—there was far more wreckage and drift backed up behind it—it meant that it was just that much closer to going.
The Sheriff returned his gaze to the circle. And answered the unasked questions on the faces of the two men to whose stories he had judicially listened.
“No, no, she ain’t busted yit! But of co’se she is clos’ter to it than she was—count o’ mo’ water and wreckage ag’in her.”
The man in the Mexican suit spoke. Carelessly—blasély. It was plain now that, having branded himself as a potential newspaperman, he realized he must show casualness and coolness in the face of danger.
“Well, Sheriff, don’t you think that since Hart there has nailed himself where he belongs—easy there, Hart, one move, and Hick and I will break your back!—don’t you think, Sheriff, that Hick and I had better at least—even if we don’t yet shroud ourself in yonder bulky ‘weskits’!—help you tilt that heavy concrete cross—and regain that diamond pin?”
The Sheriff looked amused.
For he perceived, with no trouble, the very show of careless bravado the other was putting on.
“He’p me—is good!” he said, amused also at the mental picture of three husky men operating a mechanism said to be so cunningly balanced that—“He’p me is good,” he repeated, “in the face o’ the fact—as I thunk I told you ’way back—that that heavy concrete cross, and heavy vault lid that it’s attached to, is so evenly balanced that even a dead man kin tilt ’em.” He chuckled. “Ef’n it’d take three men to do what a dead man is ’sposed to be able to do, they must be three putty weak men!
“However,” he went on, “yo’re thinkin’ more about the time element. About some possible last minute—or fraction of a minute, heh?—when ever’thing’s got to be did? Well, again I say to you, as I did awhile back—and this time I’m giving you my author’ty: ’twas a article that was writ by a Gov’ment eng’neer, and published in the Shelby’s Bluff’s Citizen—atter that dam busts, it’ll be thutty full minutes afore the full waters gits to Shelby’s Bluff. They’ll on’y lap the base o’ that safe high bluff where my town stands—shore!—but they’ll kiver this island to 10 feet, at least. But—and git this this time!—’twill be 10 full minutes between the time the vangyard—that’s what he called it!—o’ them waters would git here—and the island would git su’merged. Of ’cose,” the Sheriff nodded, “the dam could be busted right now—and we wouldn’t know it!—not till that vangyard gits here. But ’taint here yit—that’s plain. And even atter it fu’st shows—they’s still 10 minutes—not one, much less a fraction o’ one, but 10 full minutes whilst you, Mex, and Hick hyar, put on yo’re belts well and snug. And the while I wake up tenBrockerville—or blow up his vest—or both. And then rekivver that pin. And the which I don’t do yit, becaze—” And every man there could have seen the profoundly troubled look that went over the Sheriff’s face, even if he himself couldn’t have. “—becaze it’s a knowed fact along this river that ef’n an’thing is t’uk off’n a dead man, so’thin’ happens somewhar that affects th’ taker plenty bad in exac’ly thutty minutes. The niggers they say it don’t never fail. Whilst I still had my launch this mo’ning, I didn’t take much truck with sup’stition. But now that I’m settin’ on an island—with a hunderd miles o’ river to have to go down—with su’merged stumps—and whirlpools at the bends whose rims is fo’teen feet higher than their bottoms—an’ no danged ’surance that I kin kiver it alive—well, mebbe I ain’t calc’lating to pull that dam’ dam right down on my haid—at least till I know dang well it’s down! Mebbe I—I ain’t sup’stitious at all. Mebbe I’m thinkin’ o’ you two an’ tenBrockerville—that you cain’t say I pulled the dam down on you. The p’int jest is—we’ll see the dam down fu’st before we go pulling down high heaven on our haids—yes? And now you know the whyfo’es, and the wherefo’es, and the time scheme of ever’thing. Partic’ly as to them last 10 minutes. So keep cool as you both air—and as I honor you fur being. Fact is, I figger to git you both safely off’n hyar in belts—and tenBrockerville in his vest—befo’ I do my ’ficial work; and which may involve—God he’p me!—my havin’ to give Hart thar a bullet ef’n he advances to’ds me and that vault by so much as a inch whilst I’m reachin’ in it. So keep yo’re nerve, boys—everythin’s okay on Bleeker’s Island yit. And—” The Sheriff broke off, and turned to the man whose death, from a possible bullet, instead of drowning, he had just casually broached. And who had made no move whatsoever to enter into the Sheriffs discourse—or to interrupt it.
“And so, Hart,” the Sheriff said dryly, “referrin’ again—and once more—to the fool statement you sprang jest afore Mex and Hick here, and myse’f, embarked on a far more impo’tent subject—our final 10 minutes on this island!—you figger, do you, that Hick and tenBrockerville and Mex mought have made up stories out’n p’ints that they knowed I could corrob’rate? And meanin’—once more ag’in—what?”
But though he had asked the question blandly enough, anyone could see that the Sheriff was but curious as to what sort of counterattack this man, whose impostorship had been plainly uncovered, was trying to launch—to save his own skin.
“Meaning just this,” the latter said hurriedly, as one glad to seize the floor again if even but momentarily offered him. “Hick’s story—at least I’ll call him Hick, even though I claim his story’s not been confirmed—is ‘confirmed,’ apparently, by two facts in it—one that you personally knew about—I’ll come to that in a second—and the other by the story’s mention, through one of its characters, of a cyclone-slot on this island under the marking-stone. With all due respect to Brother Hick, you told us enough today about Philaster McCorniss—and the way you Big River people built these slots—and even the fact that McCorniss had a couple on his property at Shelby’s Bluff—for any man with full complement of wits to guess there’d be one on this island; and, if there was, where oh where oh where would it be—could it be—but underneath the marking-stone! So Hick—whose brains certainly are not Grade-C brains!—could easily have sewed into his story what he had a profound hunch about—and, in case he was wrong—and there was no slot—well and enough—the slot was just filled up, that’s all. So much for that. And now for the other point. You—no, wait! Now you say that you yourself, years ago, took out to this island the man with the red iron box whom Hick presented in his story as his uncle—and which red iron box, in turn, Hick presented as containing an ‘inheritance’ of his of which only now has he become aware! All right. And you say you brought this man—Hick’s ‘uncle’—back, a week later—but without the red iron box. Now don’t tell me, Sheriff, that in a small town like the one where you live, nobody else saw you and the stranger pull off—in your police launch—or whatever boat it was you took him off in.”
The Sheriff was silent. Then spoke.
“And?” was all he said. And coldly.
“And don’t tell me there weren’t plenty to watch you and the stranger land again, when you brought him off a week or so later. Or that there weren’t several persons to note—several, that is, who were there at the time the stranger was taken off!—that the red iron box didn’t come back. How—how about that, I ask?”
“I t’uk no census of the loafers watching our departure—nor them that watched our return,” the Sheriff said coldly.
“And if you had,” the other pressed on, “they’d have assayed about 90 per cent the same loafers. I know small towns.”
“Go on,” the Sheriff said. “Ef’n this is the way you desire fur to use up the time as is due you before sentence is passed on you—use it that way. Go on.”
“I will! Because I have to! Well, the fact of that red-iron box going out—and not coming back—must be known to many persons who doubtlessly have talked to this woman Mrs. Cordelia van Renschuyler Barnes—”
“The woman who fitted you up as a lineman—yes?”
“She didn’t fit me up as a lineman—I outfitted myself—but let that go for the moment,” persisted the other. “But the point is that she could have known of the red box—and Hart, in her place, could in turn have known of it—and that if Hick there were Al Hart—and in the jam that Hart’s in this very day—he would have woven into his story a fact just such as that one we’re discussing. And—”
“See here, goddamn you to hell,” bit out the man who had claimed himself to be Hick, “you’ve got a stinking goddamn gall to assail my sto—’
“Hold, brother! I’m not assailing stories. I’m assailing only the thick-wittedness of a fool country constable who thinks he’s seen a story confirmed—when it isn’t! That may be hard for you, brother, to grasp—that I’m assailing the judge here—and not the witness—but that’s exactly what I’m doing. And why not? Since I appear to be hung without even my day in court. And—but all right—while I still have the floor. The story, as a story—”
The Sheriff interrupted.
“And what’s yo’re attack on that sleepin’ man ahind you?”
“None—on that sleeping man, that is. But on your confirmation of his story—well—take, now, the matter of the webbed toe of that Negro he presumably came out here to Big River—to this island, in fact—to contact; and—”
“And I ’spose,” retorted the Sheriff, “I hain’t seed that dead nigger’s little toe—I mean that drowned nigger who corr’sponded in ev’ry poss’bility with the one tenBrock’ville come out hyar to contack—I ’spose I hain’t seed that nigger’s little toe webbed to his next ’un when, as I related a w’ile back, I went to put the dead nigger’s shoe back on his foot? And—”
“Not at all, Sheriff. Not at all. I’m attacking only your having confirmed his story through that. For isn’t it quite possible that that web-toed Negro, at one time or another, applied to Mrs. Barnes for work—and she, being an arthritic, which it appears she was!—gave him some scrubbing to do—and he did it barefooted—and she saw the web toe on his right foot—maybe even learned he had no friends or relatives along Big River—and then later, when Hart was living there in her place, and they maybe both together read in the town paper about some Negro, of that indisputable description, being drowned up river—listen, Sheriff, was it in the local paper that you looked that Negro over?”
“You’d oughter know.” The Sheriff’s voice was gelid. “You seed the papers—hidin’ thar in that woman’s attick. And the story ’bout how I said I t’uk off his right shoe and prized off his heel-plate—fur poss’ble later identyfyin’ of him atter he was buried. But the p’int is that tenBrockerville, not being hiding in that attick, didn’t know—”
“The point is, you—you damn fool, Sheriff, that if tenBrockerville were Al Hart—and knew by that local story that the drowned Negro in question, whose body had been examined by you, was the web-toed Negro who had worked for his confederate, he would have sewed just such a subtle point as that webbed toe into any story he’d have told here today. And so—under such circumstances—that exceedingly otherwise credible story of his hasn’t been confirmed—as even Hick stoutly first averred when it was told.”
The man who was being conveniently called by everyone “Mex” interrupted now—a nasty sinister tone in his voice that hitherto had never been audible there.
“And I suppose,” he said cuttingly, “that Sheriff Brister here didn’t hear Philaster McCorniss tell about a certain trip he made to New York some 5 years ago—and came home from, moreover, with his face all changed!—a trip where he made a damned fool of himself in a rich man’s uptown home—on some wine!—and tried to deed everything he had away—and all because he found out he had a touch of amnesia concerning South Africa!—and how he—”
“Hold it, brother! And again—if you can grasp this—I’m not assailing your story—but the Sheriff’s confirmation of it. For—” The speaker turned to the Sheriff. “Isn’t it quite true,” he queried, “that when this Mrs. ‘Barnes’—a woman apparently cultured, and traveled, and all that—came to live in Shelby’s Bluff, McCorniss called on her? As a gesture of courtesy? By the town’s chief citizen? Of course it is! And wouldn’t she have offered him a glass of wine?” He turned now to the man who claimed to be Abner Ezra Hick. “And so, Hick, under the circumstances which Sheriff Brister has revealed to us, wouldn’t McCorniss have refused the wine? But wouldn’t he have at least ventured to her the same explanation he did to Sheriff Brister here—and even more complete perhaps—even to mentioning his actual host in New York—and all the whys and wherefores—including, of course, how he’d had his face operated on and changed—for she—cunning woman of the world!—would undoubtedly have said to him ‘How young a looking man you are, Mr. McCorniss!’ while he—a rather honorable sort of mid-town gentleman, as I gather—would have felt he couldn’t rest on a false basis like that—that he’d have to explain anything like that—and so would have told her all—and all from just the simple profferance of a glass of wine—and the telling of which he would have undoubtedly prefaced by the explanatory words ‘As I told Sheriff Brister confidentially once, Mrs. Barnes’—etc.? And there you have—in the possession of the Barnes woman—then, later, in the possession of Hart—something intimately personal in McCorniss’ life—something that he had related to the Sheriff, either partially or completely, but confidentially. And so—”
“He—he wouldn’t tell a stranger like her what he’d tolt me all confident’al-like.” The Sheriff’s statement was supreme confidence itself.
“What the hell do you know about a man meeting a woman of the world—and not wanting to seem to her to be a small-town hick residing all his life in a small town? He—”
“Small-town hick, am I?” retorted the Sheriff. “Well, by God—”
“Oh,” said the other wearily, “let’s not bandy personalities. The point is, you—you damn fool Sheriff, that if Mex were Al Hart—and knew of that confidential episode when McCorniss went to New York—Al Hart would have dipped generously into it for ‘points’ which he would have sewed subtly into any story he would have told. And so—under such circumstances—that exceedingly credible story of Mr. Mexico’s hasn’t been confirmed at all, and remains just what it is—a story—credible, yet just—”
“Oh, God!” said the man in the Mexican suit, raising a clenched fist skyward, “let me just have the pleasure of pounding this bastard’s nose square into his dirty puss before he drowns like the stinking dog he—”
“Easy, Mex!” said the Sheriff. “God hisse’f is going to punch Hart on the nose—and it’ll be a bigger and stronger punch than you kin ever give him. Fur it’ll knock him into Etarnity—whar’ever that mought be.” He rested his eyes sternly on the man under discussion. “And I ’spose you want a chance now, atter having had half a dozen sich, to set yo’rese’f aright?”
“Want it? Damn it to hell—I demand it!”
“Demand it, heh? Well, it shore takes murderin’ scum to demand things! And you up and—as though you was in a big city court with a high-toned crooked lawyer handling yo’re case—demand things? Well, by God yo’re not demandin’ nothin’ out hyar on this lonely isle, fur—”
“I am! And on the same basis you gave these fellows here a chance to explain themselves.”
The Sheriff gazed at the other balefully.
“Well, onlike as in the case of them three chaps—fur plenty o’ water has passed over the mill sence they started to talk—is there anything yo’re expecting to tell me that—that’s going to constitute confirmation—corroboration—proof—or what have you—of what you tell?”
“Nothing,” said the other frankly. “But credibility is—is something. For that’s absolutely all those three fellows furnished today.”
“In sho’t, all you even hope to offer would be words? Words, words, words—as I think Shakespeare called it? Well—jest supposin’ I was to listen to some lying romancing of yo’res—and deemed it a purty fair yarn!—fair’s Hick’s and tenBrockerville’s and Mex’s—then what? With four cred’ble-soundin’ men on my hands—and on’y two belts an’ one blow-up vest to ladle out—and one o’ them men a cunning liar—what would I be s’posed to do?”
“Why—to remove tenBrockerville’s blow-up vest while he sleeps, and put it in the general pile—then wake him up—and, since we had all told believable stories—to resort to a drawing of pebbles—or the cutting of the deck of cards in my back pocket—’
“Ah-ha!” said the Sheriff. “Now at last comes the light!” And light had indeed dawned upon him. “You want to talk this affair from a p’int whar you got no belt nor blow-up vest—and none comin’—to a p’int whar you got a 3-in-4 chanct to git one or’tother! By God, that’s good! These hyar men talk theirsevves into sothin’ to float their carkisses to safety—and you want to talk ’am all three back—the whilst, to boot, one of ’em’s too fast asleep even to protest ag’in it—you want to talk ’em all back into on’y a ¾’s chance on a belt or blowup vest? You shore air a hog fur gall.”
“Gall, you damn fool Sheriff? I’m talking for my life. Which I’ve a right to do—for they all had their chance. And—”
“Bein’ Al Hart, a dirty murderer—who shot a ’ooman through her stoomick,” pointed out the Sheriff coolly, “you ain’t got nary goddanged right in the whole world to an’-thing. Cep’n mebbe to encase a bullet yo’rese’f. To be allowed to drownd is too good fur you. And—”
“And besides,” broke in the other suddenly—and apparently desperately, “we’ve had a prejudiced court today.”
“Prejudyced co’te? You ought to be smacked down fur that. How in hell do you mean I ain’t b’en a impartial jedge? Didn’t I listen patient and attentive to all these men, and—”
“Oh, I don’t mean that, I mean you actually began the whole hearing with prejudice against me. And you wished, against Fate, that something would turn up to make me Al Hart. And if you’ve the alleged frankness of a small-town native, you’ll admit it. Only—”
“Now hold! You asked fur it, Hart. And I’ll give it to you. It’s quite true I didn’t like yo’re guts the minute I met you today. Nor atter I met these other two. Nor even atter I met th’ third. But I didn’t hate you to the p’int of claiming confirmation of three stories what I hadn’t actually confirmed in my own mind. I didn’t like you—no. And I don’t like you now! And ef’n ’twas that none o’ you could have proven hisse’f to be who he is—and there had had to be a cutting of them kyards for them belts—and I had had a pussenel wish as to who was to win, and who was to lose—I’d have wished fur you to lose out. But, ’twasn’t me as had to do all that; ’twas all decided by a Higher Power.”
“Working through a prejudiced court,” said the other sneeringly. “And therefore a Lower Power.”
“Now hold that, Hart! I’ve said that on a drawing I’d druther see you git drownded than these other three. And I would. But I’ve conducted this co’te fa’r and squar’—and have nothin’ to be reproached about—and—but how about that, Mex?”
“It’s been a hundred per cent square,” said the man addressed.
“And you, Hick?”
“‘Fair and square,’ Hick says,” mimicked the man in the lineman clothes sardonically. “Since Hick got a life belt out of it!”
“Well, sence tenBrockerville ain’t able to speak fur hisse’f, and both of these men—yo’rese’f, however, speakin’ fur Hick!—admits the co’te to have been condocted far and squar’, then we’ll adjo’n it an’ percee—’
“Wait, Sheriff! No court ever in the history of all courts—kangaroo—or even courts of savage tribes—ever adjourned until the defendant had been heard.”
“No reg’lar co’te, no, tryin’ one defendant. But this here co’te, Hart, has b’en an elimination co’te. Al Hart, age thutty years and eight months—as we all learned—is on this island. And four defendants, all aged obvi’sly about and around thutty, are hyar. And so, atter the co’te had eliminated three o’ them defendants as innocent, the fo’th—”
“Hangs by default,” said the other bitterly.
“He should hang,” agreed the Sheriff amiably. “On’y he gits a peaceful death—by gulping some water into his lungs.”
“But there’s no such thing as—as an elimination court,” pressed the other again, desperately. “You’re a regulation law officer—yet you dare to hold an unregulation court. When you get back to civilization again—and you’ll make it all right—and when you do, it’ll be you, and not that fool brief you dictated to Mr. Derby Hat here, who’ll get yanked up before the Supreme Court for—”
“Be—yo’rese’f, Hart! I won’t git yanked up before no co’tes. I didn’t even have to hold the co’te I did to assign them belts. All I helt—leg’lly, mayhap as not—was a hearing; and I decided it. So—”
“But I demand my fourth in that hearing. My fourth, I tell you. Which is to tell what I’m really doing on this island. And who I really am!”
“We know who you air—and what yo’re doing. And the most we kin hope to git out’n an’thing you tell us is a little ent’tainment—the which we’re not very likely to git, waiting and waiting, as we all air, fur so’thin’ ser’ous to happen. So—sence we don’t want no ent’taining, yo’re plea is refused.”
“Is that final?”
“Final? I’ll goddanged well say it’s final! And a notch fu’ther. I ain’t ready to make a fool of myse’f listenin’ to Hart’s lies when I’ve found out for myse’f he is Hart. I would need to have my head examined if I did.”
“You will have to—when you read the headline.”
“Headline? What headline?”
“The one,” replied the other coolly, “that will be on every newspaper in the United States tomorrow morning—whether it contains your fool statement to Press and Public, or doesn’t—but will be on every paper after but one of these three fellows here gets back to civilization—and conveys to the Press the descriptions of us four men who were defendants at this court—and that of the one who had to stay. A headline which will read—”
“Jest save it. Sence it’s hyp’thet’cal. And, instid, pony over them kyards you got on yo’re hip—so these boys kin draw fur their belts.”
“Now wait. I’ll make a bargain with you. I’ll—”
“Yo’ll make nary a barg’in, you scum. Yo’ll—”
“Wait! You’ll accept this bargain. It’s as follows: Let me read this headline—and I’ll go up on the point of the island without any trouble or commotion, and wait my fate.”
“You will, eh? All right. I don’t b’lieve you’ll stick to yo’re barg’in—but I’ll at least try you. To mebbe save useless trouble for all four of us—ef’n you think to git nasty. So—what is the headline?”
“As follows: ‘Notorious Al Hart, Murderer and Bank Robber, Escapes Big River Island Through Stupidity of Small-Town Sheriff!!!’”
“On’y,” laughed the Sheriff satisfiedly, “AI Hart ain’t going to escape Bleeker’s Island. He’s going to git the Fate he’s succeeded in dodging time and again, fur—”
He stopped. For even as he had talked, the insouciant words of the speaker had commenced to take concrete form in his mind—to objectify right on his retinae! Indeed, the Sheriff could right now see—in his mind’s eye—a set of headlines; and a set which, curiously, unlike any he had ever actually seen, grew progressively larger as they reached their lowest line—and seemed to look like
NOTORIOUS AL HART,
MURDERER AND BANK ROBBER,
ESCAPES BIG RIVER ISLAND THROUGH
STUPIDITY OF SMALL-TOWN SHERIFF!!!!