I
Into the town lock-up came Caleb Gridley. And Caleb Gridley was one mad man.
It was four-thirty of a gray afternoon in March. The local police force tilted back in its chair with its feet on its desk and perused the day’s issue of the Telegraph with the official corncob of the department exquisitely odoriferous and the atmosphere of headquarters suggesting gas masks, cheese knives and quickly lowered windows.
“So this is how you earn taxpayers’ money!” snarled the tanner. “Where’s young Forge?”
The police force lowered its paper and blinked at old Caleb in stupefaction. The last known address of the tanner had been Los Angeles.
“Where’d you come from now?” it demanded weakly.
“None o’ your damn business where I come from now. What’s the idea o’ jailin’ an innocent youngster like Natie Forge for his old man’s cussedness? That’s what I wanner know and I’m gonna find out. Somebody’s goin’ to answer for this—and they’re goin’ to answer to me!”
The police force gradually recovered from this astonishing levitation of the Gridley corpus across three thousand continental miles. It became human and a servant of the public, meaning Caleb.
“You needn’t blame me. I ain’t got nothin’ against him. All I do is carry out the law.”
“Well, carry it out now and never bring it back. Where’s the boy? Got him here?”
“Sure I got him here. Wanner see him?”
“What the devil do you think I’m here for—to gaze at your homely mug, maybe?”
Gridley followed the police force out into the rear corridor and down the twin rows of steel cages until they reached the last on the left. A drawn-faced figure looked up anxiously.
“Got visitors, Nat,” announced the department. “Friend o’ yours! Gridley!”
Caleb walked into the cell—as big-bodied, small-headed, beefy-jawed as ever—derby on the back of his head, big hands in trousers pockets, fully prepared to make hamburg of the entire penal system of the State of Vermont.
“Well, bub,” roared the tanner, “what sort o’ fumi-diddles is this, anyhow?”
“Mr. Gridley!” gasped the young prisoner. Then repeating the department’s question: “Where’d you come from now?”
“California! Got a wire from your old-maid schoolteacher—the Hastings female—one that learned you poetry writin’, remember? Come east to see what kind o’ horseplay they’re puttin’ over on you, anyhow.” To the department: “Mike, you get air in the space you’re now occupyin’! Me’n Nat may wanner discuss poetry. And poetry’s somethin’ just natcherly outter your class.”
The boy rose unsteadily. Inability to exercise had left his muscles flaccid.
The tanner was a trifle shocked by the changed appearance of the young man’s face. Every spare ounce of flesh had disappeared. The skin was drawn tightly over the bones. Every turn of the jaw and depression of the cheek was sharply defined. Yet for all its leanness, it was the countenance of a young man grimly determined to find himself; not to give way to weakness and self-pity. It was growing into a strong face. The lips came together with exquisite precision. The muscles on each side the mouth were cable-heavy. Only the eyes showed his true state of mind. They were hollow and hounded.
“You came—from California—to help me?” The boy put out a hand.
Suddenly Caleb opened his gorilla arms. They encircled the lean young torso, pulled Nathan tightly to the tobacco-daubed vest. Those huge arms squeezed half the life out of him and then began belaboring him crazily on the back.
“Ain’t got no license to go hoofin’ all over the dam’ planet when I might better be seein’ to things right here in Paris! Bub! Bub! They been takin’ pounds o’ flesh away from your heart. I can see it in them eyes!”
“You heard how I landed here?” the boy asked gravely, evenly, a moment later, when Caleb had released him. Caleb had to release him, else Nat could not have said it.
Caleb did something to his nose with a handkerchief. The noise of it suggested he would blast Nat from his confinement with one terrific explosion.
“Yeah! Fodder told me, comin’ up on the ’bus. But to hell with how you got here! Point is, how we goin’ to get you out.”
“Judge Wright set my bail at ten thousand dollars. My old chum Bill did everything short of hocking his interest in the Telegraph, trying to raise it. Seventy-five hundred in cash-money was the best he could do. So I’ve just had to wait here—and wait and wait and wait. It’s been horrible. For the first time in my life I’ve found out how long an hour can be—or a day—or a week. That terrible helpless feeling—being shut up like an animal in a cage, powerless. It’s done for me.”
“Naw it ain’t done for you! You’re good as you ever was, and a darn sight better. But that’s neither here nor there—as the feller says when he was chasin’ the hen. Point is, you gotta get out where you can do some fightin’. How much’d she bust for? The box-shop?”
“Counting liabilities to stockholders, twenty-two thousand.”
“How much is the bank in for?”
“About twelve.”
“How much’d your old man swipe?”
“Close to ten.”
“B’damn, we’ll fix this lock-up business, quick enough! But why the devil didn’t your Ma come forward with her house?”
“She said it was all she had to show for a life of hard work. She was afraid of losing it,” responded Nathan humorously.
“But it was only leavin’ it as bail.”
“I know. She doesn’t understand.”
“Does she think more o’ that damn property than she does of her boy?”
“Apparently! No, that’s unfair. She thinks I should be punished a while for keeping on with father. She wanted me to oust him a long time ago. But I couldn’t, even if I’d wanted. He had control of the stock. I can’t blame her. It’s hard to blame people who haven’t the capacity to understand.”
“Trouble with you, young feller, you’re too soft-hearted for your own good. You need to cultivate a little healthy selfishness. Never mind! Maybe if you was selfish so, I wouldn’t love your dratted young hide like I do—always goin’ and landin’ in scrapes. Well, just thought I’d call in on my way to give Hentley hell, and tell you I was here on the job. You wait a few minutes till I’ve fixed this bail stuff. Then we’ll go out somewheres and assault food and talk it over. Down to the box-shop, maybe, and have a look-see round.”
“We can’t go down there. The shop’s in charge of the sheriff. They won’t let us in.”
“Won’t they, though? I’d like to see the goofus-brained pie-eater in this tank-town as would stop me. I’d pull out his nose a coupla feet and tie a knot in it!”