Clifford Simak - The Shipshape Miracle - And Other Stories

A shadow hunched itself out of the darkness of the alley and something tapped along the ground. “Johnny,” said Fletcher, softly.

The blind man reached out a hand and found the building, guided himself along. “Brought you something,” Johnny whispered back. He leaned his cane against the building and dug into his shirt front. “Here,” he said, reaching up with two objects.

Fletcher took them. “What the—?”

“File,” said Johnny. “File and a can of oil. The oil will kill the noise.”

“But I haven’t—”

“Shucks,” Johnny told him, “you won’t have no trouble at all. Them bars are soft. Town too tight to buy good steel. Three, four hours and you’ll be out of here.”

“But, Johnny, I haven’t the slightest intention to escape. They can’t prove a thing on me. I didn’t kill Hunter, did I? So they can’t throw a murder charge at me. I shot in self defense—shot a man who was coming at me with a gun. I was careful to hit him in a spot that wasn’t fatal.”

“But you don’t understand,” protested Johnny.

“Come morning,” declared Fletcher, “and they’ll turn me loose. I might even sue for false arrest.”

“Come morning,” Johnny told him, curtly, “you’ll be stretching hemp—decorating a cottonwood, sure as shooting. Hell’s bound to break loose tonight.”

“What do you mean?”

“Listen,” hissed Johnny. “You know the lay, don’t you?”

“Sure, I do,” said Fletcher. “Blair and Childress are out to get a block of land. Got a gang operating so the little fellows whose loans they hold can’t pay off and—”

“And,” said Johnny, “you busted it wide open when you walked into that game and told White he wouldn’t be alive if he didn’t pay his mortgage. You had it doped right. They needed White’s land and they didn’t intend that he’d save it just by a lucky break at cards. Going home tonight, someone would have gunned Zeb, sure as hell. Someone, you understand, that knew he had the money and was bent on robbery.”

“Sure, sure, I know!”

“O.K., then,” snapped Johnny. “Get busy with that file. I’ll stand here and warn you if I hear anything.”

“But I can’t run off,” declared Fletcher, “break out of jail like any common thief.”

“Better to break out and live,” Johnny told him, “than stay in and die. Childress and Blair can’t afford to let you leave the place alive. Before morning there’ll be a mob along with guns and ropes.”

Fletcher mopped his brow with his shirtsleeve. “So that’s it, Johnny. Outraged citizens. Sick and tired of fellows coming in and shooting up the place.”

Johnny said, “Start sawing on them bars.”

Footsteps crunched down the corridor that led to the cell. Fletcher wheeled, stooped, set the file and oil can on the floor, slid swiftly to the cot, tried his best to look as if he’d been sitting there all the time.

Against the fan of light that flared out into the corridor from the jail office, Fletcher saw the shuffling shape of Jeff Shepherd. Behind Jeff, another figure stepped swiftly from the office into the corridor. Zeb White! Zeb White, with a gun in hand, was coming down the corridor on tiptoe!

“Well,” Fletcher bellowed at Shepherd, “It’s about time you were coming to let me loose. What do you think—”

The gun in White’s hand rose in the air, struck swiftly. Shepherd slumped against the door, slid to the floor like an emptied sack.

Across the fallen marshal, Fletcher looked at White. “Smart,” said White. “Smart play, Fletcher. With you yelling at him, he didn’t even suspect there was anyone around.”

Fletcher told him, “I was just ready to start on the bars.”

White grunted, stooped over the marshal, came up with a bunch of keys. “I’ll have you out in a minute,” he wheezed. “Then you and me are hitting the dust. Got to warn the boys.”

“You mean the other men with mortgages?”

“Exactly right,” snapped White. “Blair’s gang will be out to make a clean-up before the news gets around. The life of any man who has a loan with Blair isn’t worth a dime.”

“It isn’t only Blair,” said Fletcher. “It’s Childress, too. If we could get into the bank’s safe, we’d find all the papers there.”

The third key White tried clicked back the lock and the door swung open. “We haven’t time to be breaking into banks,” the rancher snapped. “We’ve got to put miles behind us. Mike, the bartender, left right after the ruckus at the Silver Dollar. Blair sent him to tip off the bunch.”

Fletcher nodded. “They’d be hanging out in the badlands, wouldn’t they?”

“That’s the way I figure it,” White agreed. “Perfect hideout for them. Wouldn’t find them there in a million years.”

Swiftly he led the way toward the back, unhooked a door and they stepped into the alley. A faint tapping came out of the shadows of the building.

“That you, Johnny?” Fletcher called.

The blind man sidled up to them, stood silently.

“Look, Johnny,” White said, softly, “you’d better get back before someone misses you. Fletcher and me have riding to do.”

Fletcher shook his head stubbornly in the dark. “I still would like to see what’s in that safe.”

“What safe?” asked Johnny. There was a tremble in his voice.

“The bank safe,” explained Fletcher. “Don’t you see that all the papers would be there? Something to go on, something to show in court.”

“The hell with court,” rasped White. “When we get through with this gang of land grabbers there won’t be any left to show up in court.”

Fletcher shrugged. “Even if we could get into the bank, we couldn’t open the safe. Nothing short of dynamite would budge it.”

Johnny’s fingers plucked at Fletcher’s sleeve. “You get into that bank, Shane, and I’ll get the safe open.”

Fletcher gasped. “You’ll what?”

“I’ll get the safe open,” declared Johnny. “It wouldn’t be the first one.”

White flared at them. “This is all damn foolishness. How’ll you get into the bank to start with?”

“From my office,” Fletcher told him. “Bought a saw the other day to put up shelves for a batch of books. We could saw a hole right through the floor.”

“They’d hear,” protested White. “You’d have the town down on you in five minutes.”

“We have a can of oil,” said Johnny.

“You go ahead, White,” said Fletcher. “Tell me where to meet you. If we haven’t got those papers inside of an hour, I’ll quit and follow you.”

White stared at Fletcher in the darkness. “You’re the damnest hombre I ever saw,” he said. “Never satisfied unless you’re poking your head into a noose. I’ll stick with you if it only takes an hour.”

Fletcher shook his head. “Nope, you ride. Warn a couple of the boys and get them to send other riders out. Tell me where to find you.”

“Know where Phillips’ place is? I’ll meet you there. Before I leave I’ll saddle up a horse and tie him back of the livery barn. You may have to make a quick getaway.”

“You’d better make it two,” said Johnny.

White turned to stare queerly at the blind man. “All right, Johnny,” he finally said. “I’ll make it two.”

Fletcher crouched in the darkness beside the safe, listening to the slow rasp of the dial as Johnny manipulated the combination, ear pressed against the huge steel door.

Silence, broken only by the grinding whisper of the slowly twirling dial, filled the inside of the bank. Fletcher was tense, nerves tight as violin strings.

What he was doing, he told himself, was madness. Robbing a bank. And yet, he knew, by some unusual, perverted logic, it was the only thing to do. For there were only two courses left now. Stay in Gravestone and fight it out with Blair and Childress—or sneak off like a beaten dog and set up another office in some other place, start all over again the struggle to establish himself.