The Complete Works of Stephen Crane (145 page)

“No; hold on!” screamed Bobbie, flinging up his hands. “He’ll come clear all right. Tom,” he appealed wildly to Larpent, “you never committed no Gawd-damn low-down grand larceny?”

“No,” said Larpent, coldly.

“But how was it? Can’t you tell us how it was?”

Larpent answered with plain reluctance. He waved his hand to indicate that it was all of little consequence.

“Well, he was a tenderfoot, and he played poker with me, and he couldn’t play quite good enough. But he thought he could: he could play extremely well, he thought. So he lost his money. I thought he’d squeal.”

“Boys,” begged Bobbie, “let the sheriff take him.”

Some answered at once, “Yes.” Others continued to mutter. The sheriff had held his hand because, like all quiet and honest men, he did not wish to perturb any progress toward a peaceful solution, but now he decided to take the scene by the nose and make it obey him.

“Gentlemen,” he said formally, “this man is comin’ with me. Larpent, get up and come along.”

This might have been the beginning, but it was practically the end. The two opinions in the minds of Warpost fought in the air and, like a snow-squall, discouraged all action. Amid general confusion Jack Potter and Scratchy Wilson moved to the door with their prisoner. The last thing seen by the men in the Crystal Palace was the bronze countenance of Jack Potter as he backed from the place.

A man, filled with belated thought, suddenly cried out: “Well, they’ll hang him fer this here shootin’ game anyhow.”

Bobbie Hether looked disdain upon the speaker.

“Will they? An’ where’ll they get their witnesses? From here, do y’ think? No; not a single one. All he’s up against is a case of grand larceny, and — even supposin’ he done it — what in hell does grand larceny amount to?”

In the First Act there had been a farm scene, wherein real horses had drunk real water out of real buckets, afterward dragging a real wagon off stage L. The audience was consumed with admiration of this play, and the great Theater Nouveau rang to its roof with the crowd’s plaudits.

The Second Act was now well advanced. The hero, cruelly victimized by his enemies, stood in prison garb, panting with rage, while two brutal warders fastened real handcuffs on his wrists and real anklets on his ankles. And the hovering villain sneered.

“ ’Tis well, Aubrey Pettingill,” said the prisoner. “You have so far succeeded; but, mark you, there will come a time—”

The villain retorted with a cutting allusion to the young lady whom the hero loved.

“Curse you,” cried the hero, and he made as if to spring upon this demon; but, as the pitying audience saw, he could only take steps four inches long.

Drowning the mocking laughter of the villain came cries from both the audience and the people in back of the wings. “Fire! Fire! Fire!” Throughout the great house resounded the roaring crashes of a throng of human beings moving in terror, and even above this noise could be heard the screams of women more shrill than whistles. The building hummed and shook; it was like a glade which holds some bellowing cataract of the mountains. Most of the people who were killed on the stairs still clutched their playbills in their hands as if they had resolved to save them at all costs.

The Theater Nouveau fronted upon a street which was not of the first importance, especially at night, when it only aroused when the people came to the theater, and aroused again when they came out to go home. On the night of the fire, at the time of the scene between the enchained hero and his tormentor, the thoroughfare echoed with only the scraping shovels of some streetcleaners, who were loading carts with blackened snow and mud. The gleam of lights made the shadowed pavement deeply blue, save where lay some yellow plum-like reflection.

Suddenly a policeman came running frantically along the street. He charged upon the firebox on a corner. Its red light touched with flame each of his brass buttons and the municipal shield. He pressed a lever. He had been standing in the entrance of the theater chatting to the lonely man in the box office. To send an alarm was a matter of seconds.

Out of the theater poured the first hundreds of fortunate ones, and some were not altogether fortunate. Women, their bonnets flying, cried out tender names; men, white as death, scratched and bleeding, looked wildly from face to face. There were displays of horrible blind brutality by the strong. Weaker men clutched and clawed like cats. From the theater itself came the howl of a gale.

The policeman’s fingers had flashed into instant life and action the most perfect counterattack to the fire. He listened for some seconds, and presently he heard the thunder of a charging engine. She swept around a corner, her three shining enthrilled horses leaping. Her consort, the hosecart, roared behind her. There were the loud clicks of the steel-shod hoofs, hoarse shouts, men running, the flash of lights, while the crevice-like streets resounded with the charges of other engines.

At the first cry of fire, the two brutal warders had dropped the arms of the hero and run off the stage with the villain. The hero cried after them angrily: “Where are you going? Here, Pete — Tom — you’ve left me chained up, damn you!”

The body of the theater now resembled a mad surf amid rocks, but the hero did not look at it. He was filled with fury at the stupidity of the two brutal warders, in forgetting that they were leaving him manacled. Calling loudly, he hobbled off stage L., taking steps four inches long.

Behind the scenes he heard the hum of flames. Smoke, filled with sparks sweeping on spiral courses, rolled thickly upon him. Suddenly his face turned chalk-color beneath his skin of manly bronze for the stage. His voice shrieked: “Pete — Tom — damn you — come back — you’ve left me chained up.”

He had played in this theater for seven years, and he could find his way without light through the intricate passages which mazed out behind the stage. He knew that it was a long way to the street door.

The heat was intense. From time to time masses of flaming wood sung down from above him. He began to jump. Each jump advanced him about three feet, but the effort soon became heartbreaking. Once he fell, it took time to get upon his feet again.

There were stairs to descend. From the top of this flight he tried to fall feet first. He precipitated himself in a way that would have broken his hip under common conditions. But every step seemed covered with glue, and on almost every one he stuck for a moment. He could not even succeed in falling downstairs. Ultimately he reached the bottom, windless from the struggle.

There were stairs to climb. At the foot of the flight he lay for an instant with his mouth close to the floor, trying to breathe. Then he tried to scale this frightful precipice up the face of which many an actress had gone at a canter.

Each succeeding step arose eight inches from its fellow. The hero dropped to a seat on the third step, and pulled his feet to the second step. From this position he lifted himself to a seat on the fourth step. He had not gone far in this manner before his frenzy caused him to lose his balance, and he rolled to the foot of the flight. After all, he could fall downstairs.

He lay there whispering. “They all got out but I. All but I.” Beautiful flames flashed above him; some were crimson, some were orange, and here and there were tongues of purple, blue, green.

A curiously calm thought came into his head. “What a fool I was not to foresee this! I shall have Rogers furnish manacles of papier-mâché tomorrow.”

The thunder of the fire-lions made the theater have a palsy.

Suddenly the hero beat his handcuffs against the wall, cursing them in a loud wail. Blood started from under his fingernails. Soon he began to bite the hot steel, and blood fell from his blistered mouth. He raved like a wolf.

Peace came to him again. There were charming effects amid the flames.… He felt very cool, delightfully cool.… “They’ve left me chained up.”

Nights on the Cuban blockade were long, at times exciting, often dull. The men on the small leaping dispatch boats became as intimate as if they had all been buried in the same coffin. Correspondents who, in New York, had passed as fairly good fellows sometimes turned out to be perfect rogues of vanity and selfishness, but still more often the conceited chumps of Park Row became the kindly and thoughtful men of the Cuban blockade. Also each correspondent told all he knew, and sometimes more. For this gentle tale I am indebted to one of the brightening stars of New York journalism.

“Now, this is how I imagine it happened. I don’t say it happened this way, but this is how I imagine it happened. And it always struck me as being a very interesting story. I hadn’t been on the paper very long, but just about long enough to get a good show, when the city editor suddenly gave me this sparkling murder assignment.

“It seems that up in one of the back counties of New York State a farmer had taken a dislike to his wife; and so he went into the kitchen with an axe, and in the presence of their four little children he just casually rapped his wife on the nape of the neck with the head of this axe. It was early in the morning, but he told the children they had better go to bed. Then he took his wife’s body out in the woods and buried it.

“This farmer’s name was Jones. The widower’s eldest child was named Freddy. A week after the murder, one of the long-distance neighbors was rattling past the house in his buckboard when he saw Freddy playing in the road. He pulled up, and asked the boy about the welfare of the Jones family.

“ ‘Oh, we’re all right,’ said Freddy, ‘only ma — she ain’t — she’s dead.’

“ ‘Why, when did she die?’ cried the startled farmer. ‘What did she die of?’

“ ‘Oh,’ answered Freddy, ‘last week a man with red hair and big white teeth and real white hands came into the kitchen, and killed ma with an axe.’

“The farmer was indignant with the boy for telling him this strange childish nonsense, and drove off much disgruntled. But he recited the incident at a tavern that evening, and when people began to miss the familiar figure of Mrs. Jones at the Methodist Church on Sunday mornings, they ended by having an investigation. The calm Jones was arrested for murder, and his wife’s body was lifted from its grave in the woods and buried by her own family.

“The chief interest now centered upon the children. All four declared that they were in the kitchen at the time of the crime, and that the murderer had red hair. The hair of the virtuous Jones was gray. They said that the murderer’s teeth were large and white. Jones only had about eight teeth, and these were small and brown. They said the murderer’s hands were white. Jones’s hands were the color of black walnuts. They lifted their dazed, innocent faces, and crying, simply because the mysterious excitement and their new quarters frightened them, they repeated their heroic legend without important deviation, and without the parrotry sameness which would excite suspicion.

“Women came to the jail and wept over them, and made little frocks for the girls, and little breeches for the boys, and idiotic detectives questioned them at length. Always they upheld the theory of the murderer with red hair, big white teeth, and white hands. Jones sat in his cell, his chin sullenly on his first vest-button. He knew nothing about any murder, he said. He thought his wife had gone on a visit to some relatives. He had had a quarrel with her, and she had said that she was going to leave him for a time, so that he might have proper opportunities for cooling down. Had he seen the blood on the floor? Yes, he had seen the blood on the floor. But he had been cleaning and skinning a rabbit at that spot on the day of his wife’s disappearance. He had thought nothing of it. What had his children said when he returned from the fields? They had told him that their mother had been killed by an axe in the hands of a man with red hair, big white teeth, and white hands. To questions as to why he had not informed the police of the county, he answered that he had not thought it a matter of sufficient importance. He had cordially hated his wife, anyhow, and he was glad to be rid of her. He decided afterward that she had run off; and he had never credited the fantastic tale of the children.

“Of course, there was very little doubt in the minds of the majority that Jones was guilty, but there was a fairly strong following who insisted that Jones was a coarse and brutal man, and perhaps weak in his head — yes — but not a murderer. They pointed to the children and declared that children could never lie, and these kids, when asked, said that the murder had been committed by a man with red hair, large white teeth, and white hands. I myself had a number of interviews with the children, and I was amazed at the convincing power of their little story. Shining in the depths of the limpid upturned eyes, one could fairly see tiny mirrored images of men with red hair, big white teeth, and white hands.

“Now, I’ll tell you how it happened — how I imagine it was done. Some time after burying his wife in the woods Jones strolled back into the house. Seeing nobody, he called out in the familiar fashion, ‘Mother!’ Then the kids came out whimpering. ‘Where is your mother?’ said Jones. The children looked at him blankly. ‘Why, pa,’ said Freddy, ‘you came in here, and hit ma with the axe; and then you sent us to bed.’ ‘Me?’ cried Jones. ‘I haven’t been near the house since breakfast-time.’

“The children did not know how to reply. Their meager little sense informed them that their father had been the man with the axe, but he denied it, and to their minds everything was a mere great puzzle with no meaning whatever, save that it was mysteriously sad and made them cry.

“ ‘What kind of a looking man was it?’ said Jones.

“Freddy hesitated. ‘Now — he looked a good deal like you, pa.’

“ ‘Like me?’ said Jones. ‘Why, I thought you said he had red hair?’

“ ‘No, I didn’t,’ replied Freddy. ‘I thought he had gray hair, like yours.’

“ ‘Well,’ said Jones, ‘I saw a man with kind of red hair going along the road up yonder, and I thought maybe that might have been him.’

“Little Lucy, the second child, here piped up with intense conviction. ‘His hair was a little teeny bit red. I saw it.’

“ ‘No,’ said Jones. ‘The man I saw had very red hair. And what did his teeth look like? Were they big and white?’

“ ‘Yes,’ answered Lucy, ‘they were.’

“Even Freddy seemed to incline to think it. ‘His teeth may have been big and white.’

“Jones said little more at that time. Later he intimated to the children that their mother had gone off on a visit, and although they were full of wonder, and sometimes wept because of the oppression of an incomprehensible feeling in the air, they said nothing. Jones did his chores. Everything was smooth.

“The morning after the day of the murder, Jones and his children had a breakfast of hominy and milk.

“ ‘Well, this man with red hair and big white teeth, Lucy,’ said Jones. ‘Did you notice anything else about him?’

“Lucy straightened in her chair, and showed the childish desire to come out with brilliant information which would gain her father’s approval. ‘He had white hands — hands all white — —”

“ ‘How about you, Freddy?’

“ ‘I didn’t look at them much, but I think they were white,’ answered the boy.

“ ‘And what did little Martha notice?’ cried the tender parent. ‘Did she see the big bad man?’

“Martha, aged four, replied solemnly, ‘His hair was all yed, and his hand was white — all white.’

“ ‘That’s the man I saw up the road,’ said Jones to Freddy.

“ ‘Yes, sir, it seems like it must have been him,’ said the boy, his brain now completely muddled.

“Again Jones allowed the subject of his wife’s murder to lapse. The children did not know that it was a murder, of course. Adults were always performing in a way to make children’s heads swim. For instance, what could be more incomprehensible than that a man with two horses, dragging a queer thing, should walk all day, making the grass turn down and the earth turn up? And why did they cut the long grass and put it in a barn? And what was a cow for? Did the water in the well like to be there? All these actions and things were grand, because they were associated with the high estate of grown-up people, but they were deeply mysterious. If, then, a man with red hair, big white teeth, and white hands should hit their mother on the nape of the neck with an axe, it was merely a phenomenon of grown-up life. Little Henry, the baby, when he had a want, howled and pounded the table with his spoon. That was all of life to him. He was not concerned with the fact that his mother had been murdered.

“One day Jones said to his children suddenly, ‘Look here: I wonder if you could have made a mistake. Are you absolutely sure that the man you saw had red hair, big white teeth, and white hands?’

“The children were indignant with their father. ‘Why, of course, pa, we ain’t made no mistake. We saw him as plain as day.’

“Later young Freddy’s mind began to work like ketchup. His nights were haunted with terrible memories of the man with the red hair, big white teeth, and white hands, and the prolonged absence of his mother made him wonder and wonder. Presently he quite gratuitously developed the theory that his mother was dead. He knew about death. He had once seen a dead dog; also dead chickens, rabbits, and mice. One day he asked his father, ‘Pa, is ma ever coming back?’

“Jones said: ‘Well, no; I don’t think she is.’ This answer confirmed the boy in this theory. He knew that dead people did not come back.

“The attitude of Jones toward this descriptive legend of the man with the axe was very peculiar. He came to be in opposition to it. He protested against the convictions of the children, but he could not move them. It was the one thing in their lives of which they were stonily and absolutely positive.

“Now that really ends the story. But I will continue for your amusement. The jury hung Jones as high as they could, and they were quite right: because Jones confessed before he died. Freddy is now a highly respected driver of a grocery wagon in Ogdensburg. When I was up there a good many years afterwards people told me that when he ever spoke of the tragedy at all he was certain to denounce the alleged confession as a lie. He considered his father a victim to the stupidity of juries, and some day he hopes to meet the man with the red hair, big white teeth, and white hands, whose image still remains so distinct in his memory that he could pick him out in a crowd of ten thousand.”