THE SUPREME GETAWAY AND OTHER TALES FROM THE PULPS Read online

  The woman lay wrapped, head and all, like a monster cocoon.

  Smash! smash! The door from the etherizing-room trembles, breaks, gives — sharp spurs of firemen’s axes splinter it, shatter the lock — the door breaks down — two, three firemen stumble in, heads muffled, axes in gloved hands.

  “Out! Out!” they roar dully. “Only chance is through de winder out here in de nex’ room! Clear out!”

  One seizes Miss Willett and carries her off bodily through the curling smoke. Benedict, shielding his head with his hands, rushes out wildly. Then comes a sudden dash of waters all over Miller and the woman, as some other firemen get a line of hose up the ladder into the next room.

  “Wait! Hold on!” yells Miller. “Turn that the other way!”

  And gathering up in his strong arms, as if she had been a child, the uncon­scious woman who had branded him a coward, he bears her out of the now fiercely flaming place, through the win­dow of the etherizing-room, down the swaying, smoking ladder.

  SPEED LIMIT

  “SHE’S CERTAINLY a jim-slicker!” murmured Judge Amos Bartlett, shifting his quid. He spat accurately, fin­gered his goatee, and laid a hand on the glossy saddle of the machine.

  “By Joe Beeswax! a right smart contraption, ain’t she, now that I kin see her by daylight? Looks twice as hun’some as she did last night, when she come. Gosh, I cal’late she wun’t take nubbody’s dust! Bet two fingers on the choppin’-block, an’ resk it, she’ll hum!”

  With the eye of love he studied his purchase.

  Right-o! she surely was a dazzler as she stood there in her bravery of blue and gilt, just uncrated, with the morn­ing sun coruscating her nickel-work.

  And, gazing, the old judge felt a thrill of temptation poignant as the long-forgotten passions of a youth now dead these forty years.

  “Gosh a’mighty, why not?” he murmured, giving dalliance the rein. “I know I could! I useter navigate a by-cycle as smart as any of ’em; an’ the book says this here ain’t a mite harder to handle. Dog my cats ef I wanta try her the fust time, with every­body buttin’ in an’ tellin’ me how to break the critter. What I need’s a leetle spin all by myself out Pinhook way an’ back, jest to git the hang of it like. After that mebbe I wun’t s’prise ’em, hey?”

  Foreknowing that he would yield to temptation, he still considered a bit.

  “Shucks!” he grunted at last “I got any God’s amount o’ time ’fore court’s called. That there Brooks land case ain’t docketed till nine. No namable reason I sh’d wait till afternoon. I — I’m a goin’ to!”

  A new light flashed in the spectacled eye. The judge breathed a trifle faster and spat again.

  “I kin!” he exclaimed with emotion. “Reckon I ain’t seen my boy Hiram run a wood-cutter an’ ensilage-chopper two years fer nawthin’! He allus said it was plumb easy. All ye need’s com­mon sense, an’ I reckon that’s my long shot. I’ll take a run right off now, while th’ road’s clear. Out to Pinhook an’ back makes a good route. Jim Hick! I kin an’ will!”

  Not five minutes higher the August sun had crept when it beheld the judge, there in the barn, communing with the direction book and with the mechanism of the Antelope — consulting them in alternation.

  “H-m! Well, that’s done now. Tank ‘F’ is filled with naphthy. Con­nections at ‘B’ is all fixed. Leever ‘D’ is set right. Switch ‘X’ is turned. Cor-rect!

  “‘Now,’ he read — ‘now run the motorcycle along a smooth road a few feet till the ingine begins to explode, then mount, pedal a short distance if necessary, and —’ Lawzee! Ef that’s all they is to it —”

  Right glad at heart that his help­meet, Luella, wasn’t visible, he furtive­ly trundled the machine out of the barn, through the straw-littered yard, and out onto the road that led to Pin­hook.

  “It’s jest as well she ain’t seen me,” he muttered. “Women-folks is sech pesky idjits, allus ’skivin’ in where they ain’t asked ner wanted. Here goes, by gum!”

  Back into the toolbox he slapped the half-read book of directions, set the spark, and gave the motorcycle a vigor­ous push along the road.

  At first nothing happened; but all at once, making music to his ears, put-put! Put! Put! Put-put-put! the engine caught.

  Judge Bartlett made a little rheu­matic run, scrambled aboard — though just how he couldn’t have told—and, righting the machine that slued hard a lee, Mazeppa was in the saddle!

  “Crimus!” he cried as he set­tled himself firmly, braced his Con­gress-booted feet on the rests, and gripped the long, curving handles. “The go-darned critter b-b-b-bounces some, d-d-d-don’t she?”

  But the judge had little time to con­sider bounces. Already the needle of the speedometer was edging its way past “20,” and a sudden wind seemed to have sprung up from nowhere, flailing his long goatee and whiskers as it whipped his wrinkled face.

  “G-g-g-gosh!”

  All his attention speedily fixed itself on the one problem of keeping the An­telope somewhere in the road. Past him flickered the apple rows of his orchard.

  Then the long stone wall that bound­ed his farm slid away, and right ahead of him yawned the sharp descent of Billings Hill.

  The needle now marked 55, and still was rising. With a sickening sensation the judge realized that in his haste to start he had read the instruction book only far enough to learn about starting. The art of stopping he had omitted.

  Now some vague, wild notion glim­mered through his brain of perhaps try­ing to get the toolbox open again, find the book, and — but no! Impossible!

  He dared not for so much as a single second release the death-grip of even one hand.

  To his staring eyes the road had developed into an endless gray ribbon whirling beneath him. Trees, walls, telegraph poles flicked flashing by. The shaking became terrific. Amos felt his store-teeth clatter madly in his gaping jaw.

  Crash!

  What was it? Only a loose boulder powerless to swerve the force of the great wheels. On sped the machine.

  But a twelve-dollar set of “uppers” gyrated through the air, struck the grit far behind, and bounded into the ditch as though in search of the flap­ping straw hat that but a moment be­fore had sky-hooted rearward in a meteor trail of dust.

  The Bean place loomed ahead. Amos glimpsed the huge white barn, the sugar maple grove, the glint of sunlit waters beyond.

  “Help! Help!”

  The farm lay behind. Vaguely a dog’s barking mingled with Ezra Bean’s startled shout. The spattering roar of the engine swallowed all.

  “Jay Ree-oo! Team!”

  Delrine Bates reined his ton of hay aside just in time to clear a streaking glint of blue, to which clung a crouch­ing figure — clung with yells, while coattails and whiskers streamed straight behind like gonfalons of woe.

  Swerve! Bounce! Slue!

  With a sickening yaw to port the Antelope flickered through Pinhook, hazed with dust and hens, and struck the Shag Pond Road — a five-mile cir­cuit, now the judge’s only safety.

  Dana Cole leaped to the telephone and hurled hot messages broadcast all up and down the farmers’ amal­gamated lines:

  “Ev’body clear th’ roads! Teams, youngins, poultry, pigs, keep off! Jedge Bartlett’s run away with by a motorcycle! He’s lickin’ it raound th’ lake!”

  Thus Amos had a clear track. Hastily all traffic was diverted into barnyards and front doors. Infants and animals were impounded. And fences all along the line began to fringe themselves with an anxious yet a well-pleased populace.

  Old Dr. Chase hastily laid out splints, needles, bandages, and chloroform, to­gether with a bottle of Gribbins’s Peer­less Horse Liniment, the only embro­cation in his veterinary stock.

  “Reckon mebbe I’ll git a job yit!” he murmured, nodding with joyous anticipation.

  Thus began the judge’s motordrome.

  Inside of five minutes, having made the complete circle, he once more leaped through the village. A crowd gathered on the plat
form of Coffin’s general store. Some of the younger bloods on the store platform began to time the judge after the fourth com­plete circuit.

  Silas Hennberry, who once had been an assistant track-manager at the South Paris fair, got his stopwatch into action. The fifth round gave a record of 4.28.

  Then the betting began, even money that the judge would be making it in 4.25, inside of half an hour.

  Old Pop Bicknall offered two to one that the judge would “come up ’mongst the missin’” before the end of the tenth heat. ’Raish Cole took him, and Uncle Sessions held the total stakes of seventy-five cents.

  The news spread over the country­side like an oil-film on water. Obser­vation-parties began to coagulate at vantage points. Every impinging road brought in its quota by “rig” or afoot.

  The semi-occasional trolley from Mil­ton Plantation to Pinhook began run­ning specials of the entire rolling stock of one car, with record-breaking crowds aboard.

  Luella Bartlett, the judge’s wife, ar­rived at the Bean place at 7.32 behind a lathering nag, just in time to catch sight of a vanishing whirl of dust. At this she waved her umbrella, scream­ing:

  “Amos! You, Amos! My soul an’ body, Ame! You stop, this ’tarnal minute! Hear me?”

  Then she collapsed in hysterics. They had to throw water over her, which they rushed in pails from the horse-trough at the barn.

  Meanwhile, other and more serious matters were shaping. For “Deak” Saunders, driving into town be­hind his goose-necked calico mare, sud­denly became aware of serious trouble impending.

  Hardly had he struck into the Lake Road when his ruminations about the Brooks land case received a ghastly jolt.

  Thus were his pleasant assurances running:

  “I got Jeff Brooks where I want him now, by gary! Ef the case is called, an’ don’t default — an’ it’s a goin’ to be called or I’m a preacher — ef it’s called, that there mowin’ lot’s as good as mine a’ready! Oh, I got him fer sure!”

  Into these cheerful reflections ex­ploded impending disaster in the shape of a crackling, fire-spitting comet be­stridden by a half-glimpsed form that grimly clung and crouched and van­ished down the pike.

  “Whoa, durn ye!” he exhorted, sawing at the lines. “By the Gre’t Deludian! What’s that?”

  Even as faint cheers became audible from the direction of Pinhook, Ronello Bowker came running, waving wild arms.

  “Git out o’ the road! Clear th’ road!” he panted. “Ain’t ye heerd?”

  “Heerd what?”

  “Jedge Bartlett!”

  “Huh?”

  “He’s in a hell of a quand’y! Went an’ got himself run away with on a motorcycle, an’ —”

  “Sho’! Was that —”

  “Yup! An’ fer Heaven’s sake, git off’n the road! He’ll be raound agin in less’n no time!”

  Deak stared and went yellow.

  “But — but —” he stammered. “It can’t be! He’s a goin’ to hear that case at nine, an’ —”

  “Hear nawthin’! You hyper!”

  Rudely Ronello hauled the mare into Orrington’s barnyard.

  “Now, ye ’tarnation fool!” he shouted. “You keep off’n the track! Want a wreck, do ye? Ef he hits ye, neither o’ you’ll last as long as Jed Perkins stayed in heaven.”

  “Y’ mean that’s really th’ jedge, Ronello?” insisted Deak. “My crimus! How long —”

  “He’s be’n goin’ better part of an hour a’ready. Raound an’ raound th’ lake. Dassent git off’n that road looks like. His only chanst is to hang right to it till his napthy gins out or suthin’ busts on him.”

  “My land o’ livin! An’ ye say he ain’t goin’ to stop fer court?”

  “How in Tunket kin he? He’s fer­got how t’ stop her! He’ll mebbe keep it up all day — that is, ef he don’t peg out fust an’ tumble off. Why, what’s the matter? You look bluer’n a whetstun!”

  Deak Saunders, suddenly vitalized into intense activities, leaped from his buckboard.

  “Jeems Rice!” he bellowed. “Ef that ’ar case ain’t called I stand t’ lose thirty dollars! Quick! Git an auto-mobyle! I’ll chase him! I’ll holler to him how t’ shet her off!”

  Ronello snorted.

  “Hain’t no machine in this caounty kin ketch him!”

  Far down the road a distant sound of cheering once more began to float upon the morning air. Then, bursting into the sphere of Deak’s conscious­ness, leaped a crackling roar.

  Br-r-r-r-r-r-r-r! Zip-p-p-p-p-p-p-p!

  Once more the comet streaked and vanished.

  “By gosh all lightnin’!” execrated Saunders, clinging to the fence and staring with horror-smitten eyes. “That’s my finish! Thirty —”

  He whirled on Ronello.

  “Gimme a sheet — brush — paint! I’ll make a big sign—tell him how t’ shet off th’ spark or dreen th’ napthy-tank, an’—

  “Sign?”

  “Yup! An’ hang it ’cross th’ road —”

  “Idjit! He lost his glasses, teeth, hat an’ wig an’ every durn thing ’t would come off’n him ’fore he’d went raound six times! An’ even ef he had his specs, he couldn’t read no sign, clip he’s goin’! Now, you better fergit it an’ —”

  But Deak heard him not.

  Already he had turned and was leg­ging it at full speed through the barn­yard toward the lake.

  After him stared Ronello.

  “Plumb crazed!” he muttered, sha­king his head.

  Deak, however, was far from crazed.

  Even in his seeming madness lay a very definite meaning. At the best gait of his gangling, rawhide-booted legs he racked through the orchard and down to the shores of Shag Pond.

  “It ain’t more’n half a mile wide here!” he panted, “I kin row over to the icehouse in ten minutes. Say, ef I ever needed t’ dig in it’s naow!”

  Mightily he dug in, with Ronello’s punt and oars, borrowed sans formali­ties in the way of asking permission. As never, the waters foamed from that blunt prow; as never, the wake frothed behind.

  A reek of sweat under the ardors of the August sun, Deak travailed. Blis­ters? Weak heart? Asthma? Pooh! The objective of the Chase pasture and the icehouse were lodestones to his fe­vered soul.

  “By gary!” he grunted. “I’ll stop him afore he gits killed or thar’ll be a dead jedge in these here parts!”

  The punt touched mud. Deak leaped through muck and slime, split the cat­tail jungle, and sprinted across plowed land to the scene of campaign.

  Just this side of the big gate into the Chase pasture the Lake Road swerved to the left to clear a broad arm of the pond. This arm, shallow and still, fur­nished the village ice crop, as the ram­shackle building there attested.

  Down toward the icehouse ran a road, tangenting off from the main highway which was now functioning as the judge’s amphitheater, whereon he was being speeded to make a rural holiday.

  To the water this straight, ice-haul­ing road descended at a passably sharp grade. It terminated in a kind of near-wharf, to which a few boards, though rotten, still adhered.

  Heroic as Horatius at the bridge, Deak sprang to the pasture gate.

  From its hinges he wrenched it. His strength was as the strength of ten, because —

  “Br-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!”

  A slatch of wind brought for a sec­ond a vicious purring to his ears.

  “Jumpin’ jews-harps! Comin’ a’-ready!” he gulped.

  Across the road he dragged the heavy gate.

  “He either takes th’ water or he stops right here!”

  Bracing the barrier erect, he stood there with wide and staring eyes, blanched face, white lips, directly in the path of the on-roaring avalanche.

  “Br-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!”

  Deak felt very ill, but stood his ground;

  Then, a quarter-mile up the road, a clattering rocket leaped over a crest. Instantly it spun the distance down, trailing dust-banners.

  Deak,
yelling like a maniac, waved one arm and held the gate up with the other.

  The rocket took the tangent. Past Deak flicked a streak of blue, flame spitting.

  Then, even as Deak dropped the gate and bolted for the wharf, a high-pitched, rising yell was choked in the middle, and a geyser belched.

  White water flung aloft in frothing sheaves. These slapped back into the center of wide-spreading circles, where flailed a dazed and frantic object.

  Deak dived.

  The rest was just a clinching and a dragging.

  “Saved yer life, jedge! Saved yer life!” rose Deak’s voice, triumphant, from the mélée.

  *****

  Twenty-five minutes later the judge, with dry clothes on him and hot drinks in him, was nigh himself again, in Deak’s kitchen. When Mrs. Saunders had dug the mud out of his ears he felt better. After all, he was still alive.

  The motorcycle, intact, stood drying against Deak’s barn. On the barn floor Deak was harnessing Kit, his other horse, into the Democrat wagon.

  A growing crowd gawked along the fence; but Deak was answering no questions. There was still time to get the judge to court, provided no time was frittered in trivialities.

  Suddenly Jeff Brooks, the defend­ant, drove into the yard. His horse showed signs of hard usage. With Jeff was Sheriff Titus. Both men leaped out and advanced toward the barn.

  Deak’s heart sank. The newcomers looked alarmingly in earnest. But Deak paid no heed. He wanted no speech with them.

  They, however, harshly invaded the barn.

  “Where’s th’ jedge?” demanded Brooks.

  “What’s that to you?”

  “Nemmind! Where is he?”

  “None o’ your damn business! He’s my company now. He’s all right ’thout none o’ your buttin’ in, Jeff Brooks!”

  “What you hookin’ up fer?”

  “Well, I reckon I ain’t got no call t’ inform you, but, between you an’ me, I’m gittin’ ready t’ carry him daown to th’ courthouse. Any objections?”

  Hotly Deak faced the pair. Brooks grinned, eying the harness that de­pended from Deak’s vigorous hand.

  “No, I can’t say as I’ve got any real objections t’ your hookin’ up, as sech,” he answered. “Only, it wun’t do ye no good. They ain’t goin’ to be no land case heard, that’s all. It’s goin’ by default, an’ I win!”