The Golden Age of Pulp Fiction MEGAPACK ™, Vol. 1: George Allan England. George Allan England

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СКАЧАТЬ 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!”

      “No case?” stammered Deak.

      “Why not? Who’s goin’ t’ stop me, or him?”

      “Titus here is, I reckon!”

      “Haow? Consarn ye!”

      “Do yer duty, officer!” cried Brooks.

      “I got a warrant here fer th’ jedge’s arrest,” announced Sheriff Titus. “An’ one fer you, too, Deak Saunders.”

      “A— Why—wha-what fer?” And Deak’s jaw dropped.

      “You, malicious mischief, СКАЧАТЬ