Clifford Simak - The Shipshape Miracle - And Other Stories

Childress had offered him work only to close his mouth, to make him another Blair-Childress hanger-on, like Mike, the bartender, like Hunter, who whittled on the steps of the Silver Dollar, watching the street when either Blair or Childress might step from their establishments. Like Jeff Shepherd, who had gone post-haste to Childress as soon as Harry Duff’s death had been reported to him.

What Fletcher had told Jeff about the Duff affair had made Childress recognize him as a possible danger, as a man who knew or suspected just a bit too much. So Childress had tried to buy him off with the offer of a job—with the lure of public office.

Fletcher grinned sourly to himself. Childress, of course, would have liked nothing better than a county attorney who was his man.

In the darkness Fletcher heard Johnny suck in his breath, heard the click of the lock. “She’s open,” Johnny whispered.

Slowly the blind man swung the door open and Fletcher, shifting around, squatted on his heels, dimly saw the compartments of the safe—the cash box and the rolls of currency held together by heavy rubber bands, pigeon holes stuffed with papers, a bottle of whiskey that Childress had locked up with the cash.

“I’ll have to chance a match,” he whispered to Johnny.

The blind man grunted. “All right, then, but be quick about it.”

Fishing in his pocket, Fletcher found the match, struck it on the seat of his trousers, cupped it for a moment in his hands, nursing it into a steady flame.

Swiftly, he moved it from pigeon hole to pigeon hole, staring at the papers. One was filled with letters, dog-eared and torn, the other with sheets of scribbled notations, the third with legal documents. Swiftly he snatched the documents from their resting place, shuffled them, one-handed, in the light of the dying match.

Mortgages! Two dozen of them at least.

The match burned down and singed his fingers. He dropped it and the place returned to blackness that folded about them like a blanket.

“Got what you want?” asked Johnny.

“Sure have,” Fletcher told him. “We’d better start getting out of here.” He slipped the package of papers into the inside pocket of his coat, patted it to see that they were in place. Reaching out, he closed the heavy door, was reaching for the combination when Johnny hissed alarm.

Squatting before the safe, Fletcher froze, hand still reaching for the dial. Someone was at the door. He heard the key grating in the lock, imagined that he could hear the wheezing breath of the man outside.

Swiftly, he jerked away from the safe, hurled himself back into the narrow space between the huge iron box and the wall, brought up against Johnny, who had scuttled there at the first sound from outside.

Fletcher eased his gun gently from the holster. He was caught in a bank, with the safe unlocked—burdened with a blind man! Escaped from jail, with the marshal clubbed outside the cell! A neatly sawed hole in the floor above leading down from his office, that could have been made by no one but himself!

Fletcher felt his jaw muscles tightening.

The outer door swung open, silhouetting the bulking figure of Charles J. Childress. Childress came quickly inside, was followed by two others, the last one banging the door behind him.

Fletcher crouched in his corner, suddenly cold with apprehension, gun tilted in his hand.

A muffled growl came out of the darkness: “—dead wrong, Childress. No sense in what you’re doing.”

The banker’s words came back. “You talked me into this deal, Blair, and I stayed as long as it was working out. But now I’m getting out. Ain’t no sense in stayin’ and lettin’ a thing blow up in your face.”

“You’re scared,” snarled Blair.

“Sure, I’m scared,” Childress rumbled back. “Good sense to be scared at a time like this.”

“We’ll have Fletcher stretched out cold before morning,” snapped Blair. “He doesn’t know the country and he can’t get away.”

“He had help breakin’ out,” Childress reminded him. “He has somebody with him.”

A third voice said: “I was walkin’ down toward the cell and someone clunked me on the head.”

“Shut up,” snapped Blair, “or you’ll get worse than being hit on the head. Why Charlie ever made a broken down saddle-stiff like you a lawman, is more than I can figure.”

Childress was waddling across the floor toward the safe and the others followed, boots clumping on the boards.

“I smell something,” said Shepherd suddenly, his harsh whisper rasping across the dark. “Like a match.”

The feet halted.

Childress sniffed. “Don’t smell a thing.”

“Jeff is spooky,” snarled Blair.

“No, I ain’t,” protested Jeff. “I smelled a match, I tell you.”

Puffing, Childress settled his huge bulk in front of the safe. Fletcher pressed himself back into the corner. By reaching out his hand he could have touched the man who squatted there in front of him.

Childress’ stark and startled whisper scraped across the room. “The safe is open!”

“Forget it and get busy,” Blair snapped at him. “You probably forgot to lock it.”

Childress was stubborn. “No, I didn’t. Always lock it. Never forget it.”

“Quick!” snarled Blair. “Open it up and get that money out.”

In the fog of night light that filtered through the window, Fletcher saw the saloon owner had his gun out, was pointing it at the banker.

Childress quavered. “What do you mean?”

“I mean get that money out of there and hand it over.”

“But—but—” Childress sobbed.

“You heard me,” Blair told him. “Get it out and hand it over. You don’t think I’m going to let you pull stakes with all that cash!”

With an agility that belied his size, Childress straightened from the safe, hurled himself for the corner, his massive body crashing into Fletcher.

Out in the center of the room, Blair’s gun spat a flash of fire and a bullet thudded into the wall just above Fletcher’s head.

“There’s someone here!” yelled Childress.

Still sprawled in the corner, Fletcher angled his gun, pressed the trigger. The weapon bucked wickedly against his wrist and the roar drowned out every other sound within the room.

Then Blair was no longer there and over by the desk there was the thud of a falling body, the quick scurry of hands and knees. A gun talked from the corner by the door, three quick shots rippling through the dark.

Hurling himself flat on the floor, Fletcher pressed against the safe. Somewhere in the room, someone stirred. There was no sound from the corner where Blind Johnny crouched. Fletcher wondered for a second how Johnny was getting along.

From behind Fletcher a second weapon coughed. A man screamed in agony and a body thrashed briefly on the floor. Fletcher sucked in his breath and huddled tighter to the safe, his ears straining in the silence.

That shot had come from Johnny’s corner!

By the door there was a terrible quietness after the grisly sound of a flopping body.

“We can’t stay here,” Fletcher told himself. “We have to get away.”

He could envision men tumbling out of bed, reaching for their trousers, scuffling into cold boots, grabbing up their gunbelts.

Slowly, cautiously, pulling himself along by inches, holding his breath, Fletcher edged from behind the safe, squirmed toward the wall that led toward the door. Blair was over there, crouching behind the piece of furniture, waiting for a flicker in the dark, for a sound, for anything to shoot at.

Jeff must be the one down by the door, the one who had screamed and flopped painfully on the floor before the quietness came to still him. Where Childress was, Fletcher had no idea.