Free and Other Stories

FREE AND OTHER STORIES

plying the Mississippi between New Orleans and O – ), who was plainly wildly fond of her, became suspicious and finally satisfying himself that his mistress, who was a real beauty after her kind, was faithless to him, set a trap to catch her. Returning suddenly one day when she imagined him to be away for a week or two of labor, and bursting in upon her, he found her with another man. Death would have been her portion as well as that of her lover had it not been for the interference of friends, which had permitted the pair to escape.

Lacerated by the double offenses of betrayal and desertion, he now set out to follow her, as the cutting on this occasion proved. Returning to his task as stevedore and working his way thus from one river-city to another, he arrived by turns in Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez and New Orleans, in each case making it a point to disguise himself as a peddler selling trinkets and charms, and in this capacity walking the crowded negro sections of all these cities calling his wares. Ambling up one of these stuffy, stifling alleys, finally, in O – which bordered on this same police station and where so many negroes lived, he encountered this late August afternoon his quondam but now faithless love. In answer to his cry of “Rings! Pins! Buckles! Trinkets!” his false love, apparently not recognizing his voice, put her head out of a doorway. On the instant the damage was done. Dropping his tray, he was upon her in a flash with his razor, cris-crossing and slashing her until she was marred beyond recognition. With fiendish cruelty he cut her cheeks, lips, arms, legs, back, and sides, so much so that when Binns arrived at the City Hospital where she had been taken, he found her unconscious and her life despaired of. On

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the other hand, the lover had made good his escape, as had her paramour.

Curiously, this story captured the fancy of Mr. Binns as it did that of his city editor later, completely. It was such a thing as he could do, and do well. With almost deft literary art he turned it into a rather striking black tragedy. Into it, after convincing his rather fussy city editor that it was worth the telling, he had crowded a bit of the flavor of the hot waterfronts of Cairo, Memphis, Natchez, and New Orleans, the singsong sleepiness of the stevedores at their lazy labors, the idle, dreamy character of the slow-moving boats, this rickety alley, with its semi-barbaric curtain-hung shacks and its swarming, idle, crooning, shuffling negro life. Even an old negro refrain appropriate to a trinket peddler, and the low, bold negro life two such truants might enjoy, were pictured. An old negro mammy with a yellow-dotted kerchief over her head who kept talking of “disha Gawge” and “disha Sam” and “disha Marquatta” (the girl), had moved him to a poetic frenzy. Naturally it made a colorful tale, and his city editor felt called upon to compliment him on it.

But in the News, owing possibly to Collins’s inability to grasp the full significance, the romance, of such a story as this, it received but a scant stick – a low dive cutting affray. His was not the type of mind that could see the color here, but once seen he could realize wherein he had been beaten, and it infuriated him.

“You think you’re a helluva feller, dontcha?” he snarled the next day on sight, his lip a-curl with scorn and rage. “You think you’ve pulled off sompin swell. Say, I’ve been up against you wordy boys before, and I can work all around you. All you

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guys can do is get a few facts and then pad ‘em up. You never get the real stuff, never,” and he even snapped his fingers under the nose of the surprised Mr. Binns. “Wait’ll we get a real case some time, you and me, and then I’ll show you sompin. Wait and see.”

“My good fellow,” Mr. Binns was about to begin, but the cold, hard, revengeful glare in the eyes of Mr. Collins quite took his breath away. Then and there Mr. Collins put a strange haunting fear of himself into Mr. Binns’s mind. There was something so savage about him, so like that of an angry hornet or snake that it left him all but speechless. “Is that so?” he managed to say after a time. “You think you will, do you? That’s easy enough to say, now that you’re beaten, but I guess I’ll be right there when the time comes.”

“Aw, go to hell!” growled Collins savagely, and he walked off, leaving Mr. Binns smiling pleasantly, albeit vacantly, and at the same time wondering just what it was Mr. Collins was going to do to him, and when.

The sequel to this was somewhat more interesting.

As Mr. Binns came in one morning fresh from his bath and breakfast, his new city editor called him into his office. Mr. Waxby, in contrast with Mr. Batsford, was a small, waspish, and yet affable and capable man whom Binns could not say he admired as a man or a gentleman, but who, he was sure, was a much better city editor than Batsford, and who appreciated him, Binns, as Batsford never had, i.e., at his true worth. Batsford had annoyed him with such a dog as Collins, whereas Waxby had almost coddled him. And what a nose for news!

Mr. Waxby eyed him rather solemnly and enigmatically on this occasion, and then observed: “Do you remember, Binns,

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that big M.P. train robbery that took place out here near Dolesville about six months ago?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And do you remember that the Governor of this state and his military staff, all in uniform, as well as a half dozen other big-wigs, were on board, and that they all reported that there had been seven lusty bandits, all heavily armed, some of whom went through the train and robbed the passengers while others compelled the engineer and fireman to get down, uncouple the engine, and then blow open the express car door and safe for them and carry out the money, about twenty or thirty thousand dollars all told?”

Binns remembered it well. He had been on the News at the time, and the full-page spread had attracted his keenest attention. It was illustrative, as he thought, of the character of this region – raw and still daring. It smacked so much of the lawlessness of the forties, when pack-train and stagecoach robberies were the rule and not the exception. It had caused his hair to tingle at the roots at times so real was it. Never had he been so close, as it were, to anything so dramatic.

“Yes, sir, I remember it very well,” he replied.

“And do you remember how the newspapers laughed over the fact that the Governor and his military staff had crawled into their berths and didn’t come out again until the train had started?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well now, Binns, just read this,” and here Mr. Waxby handed him a telegram, the while his eyes gleamed with a keen humorous light, and Mr. Binns read:

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FREE AND OTHER STORIES

“Medicine Flats, M. K.

“Lem Rollins arrested here to-day confesses to singlehanded robbery of M. P. express west of Dolesville February 2d last. Money recovered. Rollins being brought to O – via C. T. & A. this p. m. Should arrive six-thirty.”

“Apparently,” cackled Mr. Waxby, “there was nothing to that seven-bandit story at all, Binns. There weren’t any seven robbers, but just one, and they’ve caught him, and he’s confessed,” and here he burst into more laughter.

“No, Binns,” went on Waxby, “if this is really true, it is a wonderful story. You don’t often find one man holding up a whole train anywhere and getting away with twenty or thirty thousand dollars. It’s amazing. I’ve decided that we won’t wait for him to arrive, but that you’re to go out and meet him. According to this time-table you can take a local that leaves here at two-fifteen and get to Pacific fifteen minutes ahead of the express on which he is coming in, and you’ve just about time to make it. That will give you all of an hour and a half in which to interview him. It’s just possible that the News and the other papers won’t get wind of this in time to send a man. Think of the opportunity it gives you to study him! No seven robbers, remember, but just one! And the Governor and his whole staff on board! Make him tell what he thinks of the Governor and his staff. Make him talk. Ha! ha! You’ll have him all to yourself. Think of that! And they crawled into their berths! Ha! Ha! Gee whiz, you’ve got the chance of a lifetime!”

Mr. Binns stared at the telegram. He recalled the detailed descriptions of the actions of the seven robbers, how some of them had prowled up and down outside the train, while oth-

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ers went through it rifling the passengers, and still others, forward, overawed the engineer and fireman, broke open and robbed the express car safe in the face of an armed messenger as well as mailman and trainmen, and how they had then decamped into the dark. How could one man have done it? It couldn’t be true!

Nevertheless he arose, duly impressed. It would be no easy task to get just the right touch, but he felt that he might. If only the train weren’t over-run with other reporters! He stuffed some notepaper into his pocket and bustled down to the Union Station – if Mr. Binns could be said to bustle. Here he encountered his first hitch.

On inquiring for a ticket to Pacific, the slightly disturbing response of “Which road?” was made.

“Are there two?” asked Mr. Binns. “Yes – M.P. and C.T. & A.”

“They both go to Pacific, do they?” “Yes.”

“Which train leaves first?” “C.T. & A. It’s waiting now.”

Mr. Binns hesitated, but there was no time to lose. It didn’t make any difference, so long as he connected with the incoming express, as the time-table showed that this did. He paid for his ticket and got aboard, but now an irritating thought came to him. Supposing other reporters from either the News or one of the three afternoon papers were aboard, especially the News! If there were not he would have this fine task all to himself, and what a beat! But if there were others? He walked forward to the smoker, which was the next car in front, and there, to his intense disgust and nervous dissatisfaction, he spied, of all

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people, the one man he would least have expected to find on an assignment of this kind, the one man he least wanted to see – Mr. Collins, no less, red-headed, serene, determined, a cigar between his teeth, crouched low in his seat smoking and reading a paper as calmly as though he were not bent upon the most important task of the year.

“Pshaw!” exclaimed Mr. Binns irritably and even bitterly. He returned to his seat nervous and ill composed, all the

more so because he now recalled Collins’s venomous threat, “Wait’ll we get a real case some time, you and me.” The low creature! Why, he couldn’t even write a decent sentence. Why should he fear him so? But just the same he did fear him – why, he could scarcely say. Collins was so raw, savage, brutal, in his mood and plans.

But why, in heaven’s name, he now asked himself as he meditated in his seat as to ways and means, should a man like Batsford send a man like Collins, who couldn’t even write, to interpret a story and a character of this kind? How could he hope to dig out the odd psychology of this very queer case? Plainly he was too crude, too unintellectual to get it straight. Nevertheless, here he was, and now, plainly, he would have this awful creature to contend with. And Collins was so bitter toward him. He would leave no trick unturned to beat him! These country detectives and sheriff and railroad men, whoever they were or wherever they came from, would be sure, on the instant, to make friends with Collins, as they always did, and do their best to serve him. They seemed to like that sort of man, worse luck. They might even, at Collins’s instigation, refuse to let him interview the bandit at all! If so, then what? But Collins would get something somehow, you might be sure,

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secret details which they might not relate to him. It made him nervous. Even if he got a chance he would have to interview this wonderful bandit in front of this awful creature, this one man whom he most despised, and who would deprive him of most of the benefit of all his questions by writing as though he had thought of and asked all of them himself. Think of it!

The dreary local sped on, and as it drew nearer and nearer to Pacific, Binns became more and more nervous. For him the whole charm of this beautiful September landscape through which he was speeding now was all spoiled. When the train finally drew up at Pacific he jumped down, all alive with the determination not to be outdone in any way, and yet nervous and worried to a degree. Let Collins do his worst, he thought. He would show him. Still – just then he saw the latter jumping down. At the same time, Collins spied him, and on the instant his face clouded over. He seemed fairly to bristle with an angry animal rage, and he glared as though he would like to kill Binns, at the same time looking around to see who else might get off. “My enemy!” was written all over him. Seeing no one, he ran up to the station-agent and apparently asked when the train from the West was due. Binns decided at once not to trail, but instead sought information from his own conductor, who assured him that the East-bound express would probably be on time five minutes later, and would certainly stop here.

“We take the siding here,” he said. “You’ll hear the whistle in a few minutes.”

“It always stops here, does it?” asked Binns anxiously. “Always.”

As they talked, Collins came back to the platform’s edge and stood looking up the track. At the same time this train

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pulled out, and a few minutes later the whistle of the express was heard. Now for a real contest, thought Binns. Somewhere in one of those cars would be this astounding bandit surrounded by detectives, and his duty, in spite of the indignity of it, would be to clamber aboard and get there first, explain who he was, ingratiate himself into the good graces of the captors and the prisoner, and begin his questioning, vanquishing Collins as best he might – perhaps by the ease with which he should take charge. In a few moments the express was rolling into the station, and then Binns saw his enemy leap aboard and, with that iron effrontery and savageness which always irritated Binns so much, race through the forward cars to find the prisoner. Binns was about to essay the rear cars, but just then the conductor, a portly, genial-looking soul, stepped down beside him.

“Is Lem Rollins, the train robber they are bringing in from Bald Knob, on here?” he inquired. “I’m from the Star, and I’ve been sent out to interview him.”

“You’re on the wrong road, brother,” smiled the conductor. “He’s not on this train. Those detective fellows have fooled you newspaper men, I’m afraid. They’re bringing him in over the M.P., as I understand it. They took him across from Bald Knob to Wahaba and caught the train there – but I’ll tell you,” and here he took out a large open-face silver watch and consulted it, “you might be able to catch him yet if you run for it. It’s only across the field there. You see that little yellow station over there? Well, that’s the depot. It’s due now, but sometimes it’s a little late. You’ll have to run for it, though. You haven’t a minute to spare.”

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Binns was all aquiver on the instant. Suppose, in spite of Collins’s zeal and savagery, he should outwit him yet by catching this other train while he was searching this one! All the gameness of his youth and profession rose up in him. Without stopping to thank his informer, he leaped like a hare along the little path which cut diagonally across this lone field and which was evidently well worn by human feet. As he ran he wondered whether the genial conductor could possibly have lied to him to throw him off the track, and also if his enemy, seeing him running, had discovered his error by now and was following, granting that the conductor had told him the truth. He looked back occasionally, taking off his coat and glasses as he ran, and even throwing away his cane. Apparently Collins was still searching the other train. And now Binns at the same time, looking eagerly forward toward the other station, saw a semaphore arm which stood at right angles to the station lower itself for a clear track for some train. At the same time he also spied a mail-bag hanging out on a take-post arm, indicating that whatever this train was and whichever way it might be going, it was not going to stop here. He turned, still uncertain as to whether he had made a mistake in not searching the other train. Supposing the conductor had deliberately fooled him! Suppose Collins had made some preliminary arrangements of which he knew nothing? Suppose he had! Supposing the burglar were really on there, and even now Collins was busy with the opening questions of his interview, while he was here, behind! Oh Lord, what a beat! And he would have no reasonable explanation to offer except that he had been outwitted. What would happen to him? He slowed up in his running, chill beads of sweat bursting out on his face as he did

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