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

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СКАЧАТЬ that out!” retorted Pownall. “I got nothin’ to say to you!”

      The men’s voices were hardly audible over the droning roar of the machinery, the whirring of the corn. This racket had kept Pownall from hearing Ruggles as the hobo had climbed the ladder into the silo.

      Unseen by the workers in the yard, Rug­gles had crept up through the meadow, skirted the stone wall and gained the south side of the barn. Here a door had admitted him. The rest had been easy. Now, with that grin of conscious and cruel power, he confronted the gray-faced victim of his blackmail.

      “What d’you want o’ me?” Pownall de­manded.

      “Oh, you don’t know! Oh, no! My letter—you got it, all right.”

      “T’hell with your letter, an’ you, too!”

      “You ain’t gonna come across with that thousand?”

      “Git out o’ here!”

      “All right,” grinned the tramp with yel­lowed snags of teeth. “Suits me! But I’m goin’ right from here to them insurance people. An’ they’ll slip me a few, fer wisin’ ’em up. I’m playin’ in luck, either way. Lucky Ruggles, that’s me!”

      “They won’t believe no bum like you!”

      “We’ll see about that, mister. An’ when you’re doin’ a five-year bit you’ll reckon a thousand bucks is pretty small money to be holdin’ out on me. A man what’ll stay in the big house ruther’n cough up at the rate o’ two hundred bucks a year, ain’t much!”

      “I’ll say you set the fire! I’ll—”

      “Ta-ta, mister!”

      Lucky Ruggles turned to go. Then Pownall struck.

      II.

      A shovel blade may be a murderous weapon in strong hands of hate and terror.

      The hobo crumpled forward. He fell, facedown, in the soft ensilage. Immediate­ly a storm of tiny fragments of corn sprayed itself over his motionless body.

      Pownall recoiled against the sweeping curve of the silo wall, his eyes white-rimmed with horror. He dropped the shovel. Flat against the wall his calloused fingers extended widely. His back pressed that wall, as if he were trying to push fur­ther away from the silent figure.

      “Ruggles!” he cried.

      No answer. Then Pownall laughed ex­plosively.

      It came as a relief after all. Now that the thing, often dreamed, was really done, the farmer felt a vast lightening of his soul’s burden. It wasn’t hard, was it, to kill a man? Why, an ox required twice as hard a blow! And a man—but was this black­mailing snake a man?

      “Damn you!” mouthed Pownall, and stumbled toward the body.

      Already it was half hidden by the tor­nado of ensilage. Pownall understood where his own safety lay, and laughed again. No one had seen the tramp. No one knew. And here, actively at hand, was burial.

      He dragged the body, still face-down­ward, more into the direct line of discharge of the pipe. He stood up and watched the swift drive of the cut fodder over it. Then an idea whipped him to the quick. What if somebody had happened to see, to know? That might be possible. Somebody might have been in the barn. Might be there, even now.

      Pownall’s heart thrashed, sickeningly. An obsession clutched him that somebody really was in the barn. Quivering, he recoiled. He must know!

      He stumbled to the tall row of openings that, one above the other, extended up one side of the great cylindrical pit. Through one of these openings—later to be closed by doors, as the silo should fill—he swung himself to the ladder. His legs shook so that he could hardly clamber down. His hands felt putty-like and lax. He dragged himself out to the barn floor. Horribly afraid, he peered up and down.

      His terror had him as a dog has a rat, shaking him. But in spite of everything he felt the surge of an immeasurable glad­ness. Ruggles was dead! Dead, and well punished for all his threats of blackmail, ruin, imprisonment.

      “He was a skunk, anyhow,” thought the farmer. “I kill skunks on sight. Damned, egg-suckin’ skunks! He’s only gittin’ what was comin’ to him!”

      Pownall was sick and weak. His mouth felt baked. He swallowed hard. What he wanted was a drink. Water! He walked unsteadily to the faucet that supplied the horse trough near the big barn door. He drew a dipper of water, and gulped it. The water slopped down his neck and chest, wet­ting his beard, his shirt. That felt good! He smeared his mouth with his hairy hand, and grew calmer.

      “It was comin’ to him all right,” he re­peated, and blinked at the October sun­shine, golden through the crimsoned maples by the roadside. “Comin’ to him!”

      What made Pownall’s head feel so queer? He wondered dully. For a few minutes he stood there at the door, breathing hard. No one passed along the lonely road. He could hear the engine and the cutter still at work back of the barn; the shouts of a teamster, bringing up still another load of corn from the field. He grinned, crookedly. He couldn’t think very straight, but still he realized that he was safe and that Rug­gles had only got what was coming to him.

      “Lucky Ruggles!” he gulped. “He played it once too often. Out o’ luck fer once. Huh!”

      It struck him as something of a joke after all. A grim jest. He was laughing a little as he turned back into the barn.

      Was there anybody on the barn? Of course not! What an idea, eh? This was a relief. The empty stalls and stanchions peered at him vacantly. The haymows lis­tened. But no human face was visible. In the silo the corn was still rattling down the pipe, whickering on to the pile.

      “Only a tramp,” thought Pownall. “Got no home, no folks. I’m a damn fool to worry!”

      He breathed deep, and returned to the silo. He felt so glad! Glad it was all over and done with. Glad he was free at last.

      “An’ it was comin’ to him all right!”

      He approached the ladder, up along the staring row of openings into the silo. The four lowest openings were closed by doors, each two feet high. That meant eight feet of corn already lay in the silo. He squinted up the ladder, past the haymow, to the roof, where the pipe came through.

      “That’s great stuff, that corn,” he real­ized. “It’ll bury him in no time. Gosh, but this is lucky fer me!”

      He felt calm now. The first nervous shock had passed. A great coolness was possessing him. What danger could there possibly be? No one had seen, no one knew. And already the body would be hidden. Even without packing down, the avalanche of corn would bury it. Was there ever such wondrous fortune?

      He remained there at the foot of the lad­der, thinking. There was no hurry. Let the corn pile in, more and more! The hobo’s threats of a year’s standing pictured themselves with what vivid detail! How distinctly Pownall remembered that July night on the other farm, the old Marshfield farm! A year ago? More. Fifteen months!

      “That place was no good anyhow,” said Pownall, and bit tobacco from his plug. Yes, СКАЧАТЬ