Al Jennings - Through the Shadows with O'Henry

I could see his face. The hair was matted about him, the clothes torn in ragged strips.

The guards stood at a distance, pushing him forward with long poles. They stood on either side. The demon could not escape. At the ends of the poles were strong iron hooks, fastened into his flesh, and as the guards pushed the hooks jagged into the prisoner's bones. He was compelled to walk.

On his foot was the monstrous Oregon boot. Every step must have been an agony. There was no sound from the Prison Demon. Across the grass to the new-made dungeon in the old A and B block the hellish procession took its way. Ira Maralatt was riveted to his steel cage and a sign, "Prison Demon," pasted above the grating.

The Prison Demon became an attraction at the penitentiary. His fame spread over the city—almost over the State. He was known as the brute man—the hell fiend. Visitors wanted a sight of him. The old warden saw a chance to turn a penny.

For 25 cents citizens were taken down the east corridor and allowed to stare at the degraded thing that had once been a man.

Ira was not a willing party to the bargain. He had a mean habit of crouching down in the far corner of his black cage and cheating the visitors of their money's worth. One day a distinguished citizen stood in the alley half an hour waiting for the demon to exhibit himself. Threats and prods from the guards were fruitless. The matter was reported to the warden. Incensed and blustering, he came running down the corridor.

"Open the door," he called to one of the guards. No one moved. They did not dare obey the order.

"Open the door," Coffin yelled, snatching the club from one of the guards. He sprang into the cage, the club raised, rushing furiously toward the crouching giant in the corner.

"Come out, you fiend!" he bawled. The Demon reared, hurled himself upright and lunged with the violence of a raging Colossus against the warden. The sudden mad impact bowled the warden over.

Ira snatched the club and flung it forth for a crashing blow on Coffin's head. Two guards dashed into the cage, caught Ira by the feet and sent him thundering backward against the wall.

The visitor got his 25 cents' worth that day.

The warden's escape was little short of a miracle. It taught him a lesson. He devised a safer scheme for bringing Maralatt out of his wretched hole. From a window in the inner hall he had a hose attached to the cage. It would send down a storming current of ice-cold water that would cut the flesh of the cowering Demon.

Ira would come roaring like an infuriated lion to the bars of the cage. He would grab the steel in his mighty hands, shaking it, and filling the alley with wild, maniac screams.

This practice continued two or three months. The new warden came in, took down the sign from Ira's cage and prevented the shameful exhibits.

The sequel to Ira's tragic history came many months later, after I had been appointed private secretary to Warden W. N. Darby. Darby had a kind, magnificent sympathy in his enthusiastic nature. He had an eager ear for suggestions, even from the meanest convict. A chance incident opened the dark book of Ira Maralatt's ghastly life.

One evening I was walking down the east corridor on my way to the asylum. I had taken an apple from the warden's table where I ate. I was bringing the fruit to a poor fellow in the prison "bughouse." He had lost his mind and his eyesight in the hoe polishing shop. The hoes were polished on emery wheels.

Millions of steel particles darted about, often puncturing the convicts in the face and neck. The sparks had gotten this poor devil in the forehead and eyes. I used to bring him an extra bit to eat.

As a I passed the prison demon's cage I caught a glimpse of a haggard face at the low opening into the stone cell. Like a dumb, pathetic apparition, wretched and uncertain, the lumbering figure groped from corner to corner. The red, sunken eyes seemed to be burning deep into the smeared and pallid cheeks.

One hand that was but a mammoth yellow claw was pressed against the rough mat of black hair. More like a hurt and broken Samson than like a hell fiend Ira Maralatt looked as his eye met mine in startled fear.

Something in the defenseless misery of his glance held me. I ran back to his cage, took the apple from my pocket, pressed it through the bars, rolling it over to Maralatt. He drew back. I called softly to him.

"There's an apple for you, Ira." He made no answer. I stepped into a shadow in the corridor and waited.

In a moment I saw the huge creature creeping stealthily forward on his hands and knees. The great yellow claw reached out. The broken cuff and link on his arm clanked on the cement. The chain was imbedded into his wrist and the flesh bulged out over it. The hand closed over the apple. The Demon leaped back to his corner.

After that I felt myself drawn to the Prison Demon's cage. Ira no longer seemed a fiend to me, but an abused and tormented human. I sat outside his cell and called to him. He must have recognized my voice, for he came creeping with a hunching ing swiftness to the front of the cage. He always went on all fours.

"Did you like the apple, Ira?" He looked up at me, as though a thought were struggling in his mind. He did not answer, but sat there watching me. Then he shook his shaggy head and crept back to the stone niche.

I thought I would ask Bill Porter about him. Whenever Ira had been beaten Bill, as the hospital attendant, had been called in to revive him. The theme nauseated Porter. The memory of the raw and bleeding flesh he had so many times sponged sent a shudder of revulsion through him.

"Don't speak of it. This place becomes more unendurable each moment. I try to write in the night. Some wretch, racked with unbearable pain, screams out. It goes like a cold blade to the throat. It comes into my story like a death rattle in the midst of a wedding. Then I can work no longer."

"But you saw Ira and watched him more than others. Is he a demon?"

"Colonel, the man should be in an insane asylum, not in a prison. There's something pressing on his brain. That's my opinion."

I felt satisfied with the verdict. Every night I used to go down to Ira's cage, bringing him pieces of biscuit or meat from the warden's table. In a little while I knew that Ira counted on these visits. I would find him waiting for me.

This wild man, who had become a thing of terror with his hand against his fellows, would be sitting close to the bars, his glowing, uncomprehending eyes peering with a glance of cringing supplication for my coming.

He would take the biscuits from my hands and eat them before me. For fourteen years no one had ever seen the Prison Demon eat. His food would be shoved through the grating. He would not touch it. In the night he would drag it into his cell.

We would talk about the prison. Ira could answer intelligently. Then I would try to draw his history from him. I could hardly ever get more than three or four words. He couldn't remember. He would point to his head and press his hand against it.

We knew that Ira was in for murder, that he had choked a man to death. No one knew the circumstances leading to the crime. No one had ever cared. I thought I would send a letter to some friends if he had any. They might help him.

"Don't know. Head hurts," he would answer in a guttural indistinct voice. "Got a lick on the head once. Coal car hit me.

Night and night, after the most laborious pauses, he would give me the same answers. He wanted to remember. When he failed he would press his powerful hands together and turn to me in abject, appealing despair. But once he seemed to have a gleam of recollection.

I became absorbed in piecing together the solitary words he muttered. I must have been sitting there half an hour. A runner from the warden came shouting down the main corridor for me.