Teeftallow/Chapter 21

THE high pillars of the Irontown lock-up made it inconvenient for the boys and men of the village to climb up and peer through the barred windows into the cage where Peck Bradley was confined, but, nevertheless, this scrambling and peering went on all day long. There was something obscene and defiling in the spectacle of a mud-encrusted man locked up like an animal in a cage which stung the spiritual palate of Irontown with a kind of salty pleasure.

Peck, in all the mud and filth of his three-days-and-three-nights' chase, had been caged without even the comfort of a brush or a pan of water. Nevertheless, he sat on the noisome bunk in his cell with a certain air of assurance and habit. He had hung his woollen socks on one of the cross bars to dry. He pulled off his shirt and beat it against his cage to flail off the dried mud. He flipped his fingers through his bristly hair to get the dust out of it, and he begged cigarettes from his visitors. He made the most of the slender resources of the Irontown lock-up just as an experienced traveller arranges his things in a Pullman compartment and puts himself at ease for a journey.

To those who climbed to the window Peck talked freely and apparently quite casually, but, nevertheless, everything that he said held a certain expert-witness adroitness, so that if it ever should be repeated in a courtroom it would assist him to freedom and not to the electric chair.

"Why, yes," he told Tim Fraley, "I shot Tug—had to do it. I admit I was tryin' to skeer him. He pulled his automatic an' come at me spittin' far ever' step. I yelled at him to stop it, I was a frien', but he kep' comin' an' I had to ​do somethin'—it was self-defence pyore an' simple. . . . He went on to say he would get Buck Sharp for his lawyer. He guessed Buck would pull him through. As a matter of fact, when Tug's body was found his automatic had just been fired and five cartridges were missing from the clip.

Now every person in Irontown knew those missing five cartridges were ex post facto evidence. Peck simply had shot them away. But the social centres of Irontown, butcher shop, grocery, and drug store, conned this testimony which Peck clearly meant to give in his trial, and all agreed that it hung together. Whether or not the prosecuting attorney would be able to pick it to pieces the gossips did not know. They surmised not. At least, he had not in the Shelton case. Besides that, Peck had been haled before the courts on two or three cases of hog theft and he had always displayed a curious ingenuity in coming off scot free.

The cunning with which Peck Bradley had planned his crime and now was building up his defence excited a certain admiration in the village. It was a parade in criminal violence of the same genre as one of Railroad Jones's coups in financial trickery. In each instance the actor saw the law clearly as an obstacle and evaded it. Such illegal technique demanded its meed of admiration.

However, there was one fault with Peck's achievement: he had ambushed Tug after his rival had whipped him in a fair fight at the Warrington dance.

Tom Northcutt, the miller, in talking about the matter in Fuller's drug store, said he "didn't think after Tug had licked Peck in a fair fight, Peck ort to of ambushed Tug—it didn't look right."

Every man in the circle agreed by words or nods to this sentiment, and a queer sentiment it was. The implication being that if Tug had not whipped Peck, Peck's ambush would have been justified.

Such a fantastic twist to hill morals was a relic of the old Indian fighters who first settled the country. These Indian fighters used the ambush freely, but when two white men ​had a fist fight and one was whipped, then for the loser to resort to an ambush was dishonourable. Therefore, the village thought that Peck had done Tug a wrong.

On the other hand, every native of Irontown firmly believed that Tug Beavers's catastrophe was a direct dispensation of Providence brought on by Tug's refusal to go to the mourners' bench during the revival. Everyone had seen how stiff-necked the teamster was, and had heard the minister predict his downfall.

An old hillman in the butcher shop elucidated this mystery. God had used the criminal intentions of Peck to bring retribution on Tug. He had played one sinner off against the other. This was to the hill people's kidney. They could worship a deity like that, a celestial trickster, a kind of Railroad Jones of Heaven.

Mrs. Roxie Biggers, hurrying down the street from the banker's house, met Abner Teeftallow and stopped him with a sharp gesture. The two had come to know each other fairly well during Tug's sickness. Now something in Mrs. Biggers's manner alarmed the teamster. A fear shot through him and he asked in a constrained voice, "Miss Roxie—is he dead?"

"No, he ain't dead, he talked to me a little while ago." A quiver of wrath moved the old woman's high thin nostrils.

Abner was relieved that Tug was alive, but immediately was apprehensive as to what his friend had done to irritate Mrs. Biggers. It was quite within probabilities that he had sworn at the old woman and had offended the whole family.

"Wh-what did he say?" asked Abner, expecting the worst report.

"Why, I was talkin' to him about his soul!" snapped Mrs. Roxie.

"Y-yes," stammered Abner, who perceived that his worst anticipations had been realized.

"An' we've all misjudged Mr. Beavers; we've misjudged him bad, Abner!"

​She uttered this with such feeling that Abner began to make plans to carry Tug back to the Scovell House. The youth nodded apprehensively.

"An' we've been too leenient with that stinking rascal, Peck Bradley! Do you know what Tug said to me? He said, 'Miss Roxie, I always meant to throw my influence on the right side,' he shore said it; he whispered it to me." Tears came into the old woman's eyes.

Abner caught his breath at this volte-face of what he had expected. All he could do was simply to stare at Mrs. Biggers, wondering what would come next.

"Did you know that?"

Abner nodded, "Yes, that's what he always tol' me, too."

"Why in the name of creation didn't you tell it!"

"Well, I—I don't know," stammered Abner now that her wrath apparently had switched to him.

"Why, that would uh proved this shootin' wasn't the Lord's work!" stormed the old woman, "because you know, Abner Teeftaller, God judges a mortal by what's in his heart, not by what he does!"

"Yeh, that's right," nodded Abner hastily.

"Well, don't that show you God didn't have a thing in the worl' to do with the shootin' of Tug Beavers! It's nothin' but the wickedness of that low-down murderer down yonder in the lock-up, Peck Bradley! It's him an' nobody but him!"

"Yes, I always thought that!" Abner nodded his head sidewise, which indicated great earnestness.

"You should of spoke up if you thought it!" she reproved sharply. "Here we are, lettin' that stinkin' Peck Bradley git up his plea of self-defence—an' he'll git out on it, too, as shore as you're a foot high, if we ever let his case fall into the han's of the law!" She shook a skinny finger under Abner's nose.

Certain nebulous but disquieting implications lurked in the old woman's phrase. Abner stared at her intently, breathing through his open mouth.

​"If we let his case—fall—into—the—hands—of—the—law?" he repeated, very uncomfortably at sea.

"Shore! You know Buckin'ham Sharp'll git him out! You know that! That ain't no guesswork! When law comes in the door, jestice flies out the winder! Now, you look here, Abner," she wielded her finger again, "if us folks in Lane County don't use more jestice an' less law, this county ain't goin' to be fitten for decent, God-fearin' folks to live in! I'm not aginst the courts. I think they air fine in their places, but their place certainly ain't where they is a real crime and wickedness committed. 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!' Well, how's the Lord goin' to git vengeance unless the children of the lord wake up an' do somethin'! God kain't come down out of Heaven, bust open that lock-up, an' hang Peck Bradley, but He can use the han's of the God-fearin' people of this town to serve His purpose! 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!'"

The next moment she was off, past Abner, down the street on her way to the next person she met, even more wrought up than when Abner first encountered her.

The teamster felt as if he had received an electric shock. For the first time, Tug Beavers's shattered side called to Abner for vengeance. Like all his fellow villagers, the young man had fallen into a foggy notion that because it was customary to inflict merely the annoyance of capture and trial on a homicide, that custom necessarily was right. But Mrs. Biggers had been nursing Tug steadily since she had removed him from the hotel. SHe had fallen into a maternal attitude toward the wounded man, and now with ruthless feminine logic, she appraised the law for exactly what it was worth. And she had a woman's ability to burn her point of view into others.

Abner felt that he must do something. He moved along aimlessly, his wrath slowly kindling against Peck Bradley. Added to what Mrs. Biggers had said, there revisited Abner's thoughts the fact that Tug had whipped Peck once in a fair fight. And after all that, Peck had waylaid Tug and shot ​him! The teamster began cursing softly under his breath, "The God-damn yellow cur . . ."

Abner met Zed Parrum. Zed officially lived in the country, but he stayed in the village most of the time and visited the home of his wife at intervals.

Abner passed a brief "Hidy" and then rapped out, "Zed, what do you think about Peck Bradley?"

Zed was surprised at this question, but cocked his head to one side, gave it consideration, and finally brought out the information that he thought Peck was a "lallapaloosa."

"Do you think he done right shootin' Tug Beavers after Tug licked him in a fair fight?" demanded Abner hotly.

"Now, Abner," philosophized Zed, "you see Tug hisse'f had jest committed the unpardonable sin."

"Unpardonable hell!" flared Abner.

"You ain't mad at me, air you, Abner?"

"Naw, but where'd you git any sich idee?"

"Well—me an' Pap Tolbert was talkin' about it, an' he said Tug had rejected the pleadin's of the Holy Ghost and that was the unpardonable sin."

"What had ol' man Shelton done when Peck killed him? He was a good ol' man, a deacon in the church."

Zed rubbed an unshaven jaw. "I don't know as he done nothin', but God may of been jest whettin' Peck up gittin' ready to land on Tug."

"By Geemeny, God's plan of punishment is mighty loose in the steering gear, runnin' into ol' man Shelton first—a good ol' man."

"His mysteries are past findin' out," quoted Zed reverently.

"Well, of course, that's so," admitted Abner, who at heart was as good a religionist as any of the hill folk. "But now here I got ye, 'As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.'"

"What you mean by that?"

"Haven't you heard Tug say many a time he wanted to throw his influence on the right side?"

"Well, yeh, I b'lieve I have."

​"Now, by God, I got ye!" He shook a finger at Zed. "It don't make a damn bit o' diff'runce what Tug done, whether he went up to the mourners' bench or not, he was thinkin' right in his heart, an' he was right! He was right! That shows Peck Bradley shot Tug out o' wickedness and cussedness, exactly like he shot ol' man Shelton, an', by God, me an' you as citizens of Lane County ort not to let him fall into the protection an' encouragement of the law, which will turn him go a free man."

Such an amazing conclusion took Zed off his feet. "My Lord, man, me an' you—me an' you not let him—how the hell can me an' you do anything a-tall?"

"Take him out an' hang him!" cried Abner, "or he'p do it! This ain't a case fer the law; there's been a crime committed!"

"Gosh, but you're talkin' batty!"

"Don't the Bible say, 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord?'"

"Shore."

"Don't the childern of God have to do ever' frazzlin' thing the Lord gits done down here? They build the churches, send off the missionaries, pay the preachers, hold the meetin's. God don't turn a finger for Hisse'f. Now, look here, if the Lord wants vengeance, who's goin' to haff to git it fer Him? Answer me that! Who's it up to?"

"Huh!" Zed fell into a surprised meditation. Presently he admitted. "I never had thought of that. . . ."

"An' Tug licked Peck once in a fair fight," clinched Abner.

"Le's walk down to the garage an' see what the rest of the boys think about it," proposed Zed.

At the garage Abner's bright flash of initiative was lost in a deluge of talk. All he succeeded in doing was to stir up one of those endless incoherent arguments, common to the hill folk, which rambled on and on to no purpose whatever. The question of redressing the wrongs of Tug Beavers was placed on the same impersonal plane as whether or not ​potatoes grew larger when planted in the dark of the moon; or the benefits of Shallburger's Socialism. The men at the garage argued like children, mixing their categories, using clichés from the law, the Bible, science, and folklore, with no sense of a lack of homogeneity.

Abner listened to them with a misery of frustration that they had completely sidetracked his plan of action. He broke into it, shaking a youth named Tim Fraley by the shoulder.

"Look here, le's do something!"

Mr. Fraley looked at Abner with the mists of speculation in his eyes.

"We kain't do nothin'. Willie Purvis there sounds to me like he's got the thing cinched, he says, the Bible says, 'Render unto Cæsar the things that air Cæsar's.'"

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Why, Willie says it means if Peck Bradley could waylay Tug legally so the courts kain't tech him, then we kain't n'uther . . . 'Render unto Cæsar the things that air Cæsar's'—that's what the Bible says."

"Aw, it don't mean no such damn thing!"

"Well, what do you say it means?" demanded Mr. Fraley with the elaborate politeness of the slightly offended. "Come, speak up, this is a free country."

Anger and despair filled Abner at the prospect of having to interpret the exact meaning of every Biblical text before he brought off his coup.

"I don't know what the hell it means!"

"Then, it seems to me you better find out," observed Mr. Fraley ironically. "Seems to me before you set up to lead the citizens of Lanesburg, you better find out jest what is right an' Scriptural."

That, of course, is the difficulty of combating child-logic. It is incontrovertible and betrayingly simple. It skips lightly from darksome premise to more darksome conclusion with a Gallic lucidity. It was far, far beyond Abner to answer ​Mr. Fraley. He simply stood and looked at him and hated him and was balked by him—justice, righteousness, and the Scriptures. . . .

At that moment there entered the door of the garage a short stocky man whose felt hat and blue denim shirt were faintly powdered with meal. This was Tom Northcutt, the Irontown miller. Northcutt stopped in the sunlight, which fell into the square entrance of the garage, and made a peremptory gesture for the gang to come to him. They did not do this, but everyone stopped talking to look at him.

"Git ready, this evenin', three o'clock," he directed in the voice of a man used to shouting above machinery, "meet behind that lumber pile clost to the lock-up. Don't come a minute early, you might git identified; nor a minute late, for that'll be too late. Now you boys scatter out o' here an' git to yore homes. Don't be seen on the streets in crowds. I'm not sayin' nothin' a-tall about what's goin' to happen—I don't know. Now clear out, all of ye!"

He waved them away. A thrill went through the garage gang and they began to disperse. A certain note in this brief address was characteristic of the Northcutt oligarchy over the village, and this phrase inspired confidence in the hangers-on. This was Mr. Northcutt's assertion that he did not know what was going to happen. Every man recognized in this sentence Mr. Northcutt's legal alibi; the parry which would deflect from his bosom the keen rapier of evidence in the event that the doings of this day ever came before a grand jury. What had he done? Told the boys to go home and keep off the streets. It was the same sort of shrewdness that Peck Bradley had used, that Railroad Jones used, but on a slightly different plane from the shrewdness of either of those two.

The crowd dissolved at his advice; some wandered out the back door, some the front. Abner took himself out of the side door, the one by which he had entered, to see Zed Parrum walk past the garage with his bride-to-be.

This memory now flitted into his head and flitted out ​again. Abner was deeply grateful to Mr. Tom Northcutt for taking the burden of redress from his shoulders. The teamster perceived now that he had been a tyro indeed in his effort to incite a lynching. He had gone to the garage arguing the right and wrong. That was not the crux of the matter at all; it was to avoid the law, not to argue about it. Nobody in the garage had sensed that until Tom Northcutt, with the Northcutt prerogative of leadership, had felt it instantly, had given directions in half a minute, and had vanished.