O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 by Various

V >> Various >> O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920

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Like some wild creature of those winter woods the woman clumped and
stumbled around the main shack, seeking the door.

Finding it, she stopped; the snowshoe slipped from beneath her arm;
one numb hand groped for the log door-casing in support; the other
fumbled for the revolver.

Tracks led into that cabin!

A paralysis of fright gripped Cora McBride. Something told her
intuitively that she stood face to face at last with what she had
traveled all this mountain wilderness to find. Yet with sinking
heart it also came to her that if Hap Ruggam had made these tracks
and were still within, she must face him in her exhausted condition
and at once make that tortuous return trip to civilization. There
would be no one to help her.

She realized in that moment that she was facing the primal. And she
was not primal. She was a normal woman, weakened to near-prostration
by the trek of the past twenty-four hours. Was it not better to turn
away while there was time?

She stood debating thus, the eternal silence blanketing forest-world
and clearing. But she was allowed to make no decision.

A living body sprang suddenly upon her. Before she could cry out,
she was borne down precipitously from behind.

She tried to turn the revolver against the Thing upon her, but the
gun was twisted from her raw, red fingers. The snow into which she
had been precipitated blinded her. She smeared an arm across her eyes,
but before clear sight was regained, talon fingers had gripped her
shoulders. She was half lifted, half dragged through the doorway,
and there she was dropped on the plank flooring. Her assailant,
turning, made to close and bar the door.

When she could see clearly, she perceived a weak illumination in the
cabin. On the rough bench-table, shaded by two slabs of bark, burned
the stub of a tallow candle probably left by some hunting-party.

The windows were curtained with rotting blankets. Some rough
furniture lay about; rusted cooking-utensils littered the tables,
and at one end was a sheet-iron stove. The place had been equipped
after a fashion by deer-hunters or mountain hikers, who brought
additional furnishings to the place each year and left mouldy
provisions and unconsumed firewood behind.

The man succeeded finally in closing the door. He turned upon her.

He was short and stocky. The stolen corduroy coat covered
blacksmith's muscles now made doubly powerful by dementia. His hair
was lifeless black and clipped close, prison-fashion. His low
forehead hung over burning, mismated eyes. From her helplessness on
the floor Cora McBride stared up at him.

He came closer.

"Get up!" he ordered. "Take that chair. And don't start no
rough-house; whether you're a woman or not, I'll drill you!"

She groped to the indicated chair and raised herself, the single
snowshoe still dragging from one foot. Again the man surveyed her.
She saw his eyes and gave another inarticulate cry.

"Shut your mouth and keep it shut! You hear me?"

She obeyed.

The greenish light burned brighter in his mismated eyes, which gazed
intently at the top of her head as though it held something unearthly.

"Take off your hat!" was his next command.

She pulled off the toque. Her hair fell in a mass on her
snow-blotched shoulders. Her captor advanced upon her. He reached out
and satisfied himself by touch that something was not there which he
dreaded. In hypnotic fear she suffered that touch. It reassured him.

"Your hair now," he demanded; "it don't stand up, does it? No, o'
course it don't. You ain't _him_; you're a woman. But if your hair
comes up, I'll kill you--understand? If your hair comes up, _I'll
kill you_!"

She understood. She understood only too well. She was not only housed
with a murderer; she was housed with a maniac. She sensed, also, why
he had come to this mountain shack so boldly. In his dementia he knew
no better. And she was alone with him, unarmed now.

"I'll keep it down," she whispered, watching his face out of
fear-distended eyes.

The wind blew one of the rotten blankets inward. Thereby she knew
that the window-aperture on the south wall contained no sash. He
must have removed it to provide means of escape in case he were
attacked from the east door. He must have climbed out that window
when she came around the shack; that is how he had felled her from
behind.

He stepped backward now until he felt the edge of the bench touch
his calves. Then he sank down, one arm stretched along the table's
rim, the hand clutching the revolver.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

"I'm Cora McB----" She stopped--she recalled in a flash the part her
husband had played in his former capture and trial. "I'm Cora Allen,"
she corrected. Then she waited, her wits in chaos. She was fighting
desperately to bring order out of that chaos.

"What you doin' up here?"

"I started for Millington, over the mountain. I lost my way."

"Why didn't you go by the road?"

"It's further."

"That's a lie! It ain't. And don't lie to me, or I'll kill you!"

"Who are you?" she heard herself asking. "And why are you acting
this way with me?"

The man leaned suddenly forward.

"You mean to tell me you don't know?"

"A lumberjack, maybe, who's lost his way like myself?"

His expression changed abruptly.

"What you luggin' _this_ for?" He indicated the revolver.

"For protection."

"From what?"

"Wild things."

"There ain't no wild things in these mountains this time o' year;
they're snowed up, and you know it."

"I just felt safer to have it along."

"To protect you from men-folks, maybe?"

"There are no men in these mountains I'm afraid of!" She made the
declaration with pathetic bravado.

His eyes narrowed.

"I think I better kill you," he decided. "You've seen me; you'll
tell you seen me. Why shouldn't I kill you? You'd only tell."

"Why? What have I done to you?" she managed to stammer. "Why should
you object to being seen?"

It was an unfortunate demand. He sprang up with a snarl. Pointing
the revolver from his hip, he drew back the hammer.

"_Don't_!" she shrieked. "Are you crazy? Don't you know how to treat
a woman--in distress?"

"Distress, _hell_! You know who I be. And I don't care whether
you're a woman or not, I ain't goin' to be took--you understand?"

"Certainly I understand."

She said it in such a way that he eased the hammer back into place
and lowered the gun. For the moment again she was safe. In response
to her terrible need, some of her latent Yankee courage came now to
aid her. "I don't see what you're making all this rumpus about," she
told him in as indifferent a voice as she could command. "I don't
see why you should want to kill a friend who might help you--if
you're really in need of help."

"I want to get to Partridgeville," he muttered after a moment.

"You're not far from there. How long have you been on the road?"

"None of your business."

"Have you had any food?"

"No."

"If you'll put up that gun and let me get off this snowshoe and pack,
I'll share with you some of the food I have."

"Never you mind what I do with this gun. Go ahead and fix your foot,
and let's see what you got for grub." The man resumed his seat.

She twisted up her tangled hair, replaced her toque and untied the
dangling snowshoe.

Outside a tree cracked in the frost. He started in hair-trigger
fright. Creeping to the window, he peeped cautiously between casing
and blanket. Convinced that it was nothing, he returned to his seat
by the table.

"It's too bad we couldn't have a fire," suggested the woman then.
"I'd make us something hot." The stove was there, rusted but still
serviceable; available wood was scattered around. But the man shook
his bullet head.

After a trying time unfastening the frosted knots of the ropes that
had bound the knapsack upon her back, she emptied it onto the table.
She kept her eye, however, on the gun. He had disposed of it by
thrusting it into his belt. Plainly she would never recover it
without a struggle. And she was in no condition for physical conflict.

"You're welcome to anything I have," she told him.

"Little you got to say about it! If you hadn't given it up, I'd took
it away from you. So what's the difference?"

She shrugged her shoulders. She started around behind him but he
sprang toward her.

"Don't try no monkey-shines with me!" he snarled. "You stay here in
front where I can see you."

She obeyed, watching him make what poor meal he could from the
contents of her bag.

She tried to reason out what the denouement of the situation was to
be. He would not send her away peacefully, for she knew he dared not
risk the story she would tell regardless of any promises of secrecy
she might give him. If he left her bound in the cabin, she would
freeze before help came--if it ever arrived.

No, either they were going to leave the place and journey forth
together--the Lord only knew where or with what outcome--or the life
of one of them was to end in this tragic place within the coming few
minutes. For she realized she must use that gun with deadly effect
if it were to come again into her possession.

The silence was broken only by the noises of his lips as he ate
ravenously. Outside, not a thing stirred in that snowbound world.
Not a sound of civilization reached them. They were a man and woman
in the primal, in civilization and yet a million miles from it.

"The candle's going out," she announced. "Is there another?"

"There'll be light enough for what I got to do," he growled.

Despite her effort to appear indifferent, her great fear showed
plainly in her eyes.

"Are we going to stay here all night?" she asked with a pathetic
attempt at lightness.

"That's my business."

"Don't you want me to help you?"

"You've helped me all you can with the gun and food."

"If you're going to Partridgeville, I'd go along and show you the way."

He leaped up.

"_Now I know you been lyin_!'" he bellowed. "You said you was headed
for Millington. And you ain't at all. You're watchin' your chance to
get the drop on me and have me took--that's what you're doin'!"

"Wait!" she pleaded desperately. "I _was_ going to Millington. But
I'd turn back and show you the way to Partridgeville to help you."

"What's it to you?" He had drawn the gun from his belt and now was
fingering it nervously.

"You're lost up here in the mountains, aren't you?" she said.
"I couldn't let you stay lost if it was possible for me to direct
you on your way."

"You said you was lost yourself."

"I was lost--until I stumbled into this clearing. That gave me my
location."

"Smart, ain't you? Damn' smart, but not too smart for me, you woman!"
The flare flamed up again in his crooked eyes. "You know who I be,
all right. You know what I'm aimin' to do. And you're stallin' for
time till you can put one over. But you can't--see? I'll have this
business done with. I'll end this business!"

She felt herself sinking to her knees. He advanced and gripped her
left wrist. The crunch of his iron fingers sent an arrow of pain
through her arm. It bore her down.

"For God's sake--_don't_!" she whispered hoarsely, overwhelmed with
horror. For the cold, sharp nose of the revolver suddenly punched
her neck.

"I ain't leavin' no traces behind. Might as well be hung for a sheep
as a lamb. Never mind if I do----"

"Look!" she cried wildly. "Look, look, _look_!" And with her free
hand she pointed behind him.

It was an old trick. There was nothing behind him. But in that
instant of desperation instinct had guided her.

Involuntarily he turned.

With a scream of pain she twisted from his grasp and blotted out the
candle.

A long, livid pencil of orange flame spurted from the gun-point. She
sensed the powder-flare in her face. He had missed.

She scrambled for shelter beneath the table. The cabin was now in
inky blackness. Across that black four more threads of scarlet light
were laced. The man stumbled about seeking her, cursing with
blood-curdling blasphemy.

Suddenly he tripped and went sprawling. The gun clattered from his
bruised fingers; it struck the woman's knee.

Swiftly her hand closed upon it. The hot barrel burned her palm.

She was on her feet in an instant. Her left hand fumbled in her
blouse, and she found what had been there all along--the flash-lamp.

With her back against the door, she pulled it forth. With the gun
thrust forward for action she pressed the button.

"I've got the gun--_get up_!" she ordered. "Don't come too near me
or I'll shoot. Back up against that wall."

The bull's-eye of radiance blinded him. When his eyes became
accustomed to the light, he saw its reflection on the barrel of the
revolver. He obeyed.

"Put up your hands. Put 'em up _high_!"

"Suppose I won't?"

"I'll kill you."

"What'll you gain by that?"

"Five thousand dollars."

"Then you know who I be?"

"Yes."

"And was aimin' to take me in?"

"Yes."

"How you goin' to do that if I won't go?"

"You're goin' to find out."

"You won't get no money shootin' me."

"Yes, I will--just as much--dead as alive."

With his hands raised a little way above the level of his shoulders,
he stood rigidly at bay in the circle of light.

"Well," he croaked at last, "go ahead and shoot. I ain't aimin' to
be took--not by no woman. Shoot, damn you, and have it done with.
I'm waitin'!"

"Keep up those hands!"

"I won't!" He lowered them defiantly. "I w-wanted to m-make
Partridgeville and see the old lady. She'd 'a' helped me. But
anything's better'n goin' back to that hell where I been the last
two years. Go on! Why don't you shoot?"

"You wanted to make Partridgeville and see--_who_?"

"My mother--and my wife."

"Have you got a mother? Have you got a--wife?"

"Yes, and three kids. Why don't you shoot?"

It seemed an eon that they stood so. The McBride woman was trying to
find the nerve to fire. She could not. In that instant she made a
discovery that many luckless souls make too late: _to kill a man_ is
easy to talk about, easy to write about. But to stand deliberately
face to face with a fellow-human--alive, pulsing, breathing, fearing,
hoping, loving, living,--point a weapon at him that would take his
life, blot him from the earth, negate twenty or thirty years of
childhood, youth, maturity, and make of him in an instant--nothing!
--that is quite another matter.

He was helpless before her now. Perhaps the expression on his face
had something to do with the sudden revulsion that halted her finger.
Facing certain death, some of the evil in those crooked eyes seemed
to die out, and the terrible personality of the man to fade.
Regardless of her danger, regardless of what he would have done to
her if luck had not turned the tables, Cora McBride saw before her
only a lone man with all society's hand against him, realizing he
had played a bad game to the limit and lost, two big tears creeping
down his unshaved face, waiting for the end.

"Three children!" she whispered faintly.

"Yes."

"You're going back to see them?"

"Yes, and my mother. Mother'd help me get to Canada--somehow."

Cora McBride had forgotten all about the five thousand dollars. She
was stunned by the announcement that this man had relatives--a mother,
a wife, _three_ babies. The human factor had not before occurred to
her. Murderers! They have no license to let their eyes well with
tears, to have wives and babies, to possess mothers who will help
them get to Canada regardless of what their earthly indiscretions
may have been.

At this revelation the gun-point wavered. The sight of those tears
on his face sapped her will-power even as a wound in her breast
might have drained her life-blood.

Her great moment had been given her. She was letting it slip away.
She had her reward in her hand for the mere pulling of a trigger and
no incrimination for the result. For a bit of human sentiment she
was bungling the situation unpardonably, fatally.

Why did she not shoot? Because she was a woman. Because it is the
God-given purpose of womanhood to give life, not take it.

The gun sank, sank--down out of the light, down out of sight.

And the next instant he was upon her.

The flash-lamp was knocked from her hand and blinked out. It struck
the stove and she heard the tinkle of the broken lens. The woman's
hand caught at the sacking before the window at her left shoulder.
Gripping it wildly to save herself from that onslaught, she tore it
away. For the second time the revolver was twisted from her raw
fingers.

The man reared upward, over her.

"Where are you?" he roared again and again. "I'll show you! Lemme at
you!"

Outside the great yellow moon of early winter, arising late, was
coming up over the silhouetted line of purple mountains to the
eastward. It illumined the cabin with a faint radiance, disclosing
the woman crouching beneath the table.

The man saw her, pointed his weapon point-blank at her face and fired.

To Cora McBride, prostrate there in her terror, the impact of the
bullet felt like the blow of a stick upon her cheek-bone rocking her
head. Her cheek felt warmly numb. She pressed a quick hand
involuntarily against it, and drew it away sticky with blood.

_Click! Click! Click_!

Three times the revolver mechanism was worked to accomplish her
destruction. But there was no further report. The cylinder was empty.

"Oh, God!" the woman moaned. "I fed you and offered to help you. I
refused to shoot you because of your mother--your wife--your babies.
And yet you----"

"Where's your cartridges?" he cried wildly. "You got more; gimme
that belt!"

She felt his touch upon her. His crazy fingers tried to unbutton the
clasp of the belt and holster. But he could secure neither while she
fought him. He pinioned her at length with his knee. His fingers
secured a fistful of the cylinders from her girdle, and he opened
the chamber of the revolver.

She realized the end was but a matter of moments. Nothing but a
miracle could save her now.

Convulsively she groped about for something with which to strike.
Nothing lay within reach of her bleeding fingers, however, but a
little piece of dried sapling. She tried to struggle loose, but the
lunatic held her mercilessly. He continued the mechanical loading of
the revolver.

The semi-darkness of the hut, the outline of the moon afar through
the uncurtained window--these swam before her.... Suddenly her eyes
riveted on that curtainless window and she uttered a terrifying cry.

Ruggam turned.

Outlined in the window aperture against the low-hung moon _Martin
Wiley, the murdered deputy, was staring into the cabin_!

From the fugitive's throat came a gurgle. Some of the cartridges he
held spilled to the flooring. Above her his figure became rigid.
There was no mistaking the identity of the apparition. They saw the
man's hatless head and some of his neck. They saw his dark pompadour
and the outline of his skull. As that horrible silhouette remained
there, Wiley's pompadour lifted slightly as it had done in life.

The cry in the convict's throat broke forth into words.

"Mart Wiley!" he cried, "Mart Wiley! _Mart--Wiley_!"

Clear, sharp, distinct was the shape of that never-to-be-forgotten
pompadour against the disk of the winter moon. His features could
not be discerned, for the source of light was behind him, but the
silhouette was sufficient. It was Martin Wiley; he was alive. His
head and his wirelike hair were moving--rising, falling.

Ruggam, his eyes riveted upon the phantom, recoiled mechanically to
the western wall. He finished loading the revolver by the sense of
touch. Then:

Spurt after spurt of fire lanced the darkness, directed at the Thing
in the window. While the air of the hut reeked with the acrid smoke,
the echo of the volley sounded through the silent forest-world miles
away.

But the silhouette in the window remained.

Once or twice it moved slightly as though in surprise; that was all.
The pompadour rose in bellicose retaliation--the gesture that had
always ensued when Wiley was angered or excited. But to bullets
fired from an earthly gun the silhouette of the murdered deputy's
ghost, arisen in these winter woods to prevent another slaughter,
was impervious.

Ruggam saw; he shrieked. He broke the gun and spilled out the empty
shells. He fumbled in more cartridges, locked the barrel and fired
again and again, until once more it was empty.

Still the apparition remained.

The man in his dementia hurled the weapon; it struck the sash and
caromed off, hitting the stove. Then Hap Ruggam collapsed upon the
floor.

The woman sprang up. She found the rope thongs which had bound her
pack to her shoulders. With steel-taut nerves, she rolled the
insensible Ruggam over.

She tied his hands; she tied his ankles. With her last bit of rope
she connected the two bindings tightly behind him so that if he
recovered, he would be at her mercy. Her task accomplished, on her
knees beside his prone figure, she thought to glance up at the window.

Wiley's ghost had disappeared.

Sheriff Crumpett and his party broke into the Lyons clearing within
an hour. They had arrived in answer to five successive shots given a
few moments apart, the signal agreed upon. The mystery to them,
however, was that those five shots had been fired by some one not of
their party.

The sheriff and his men found the McBride woman, her clothing half
torn from her body, her features powder-marked and blood-stained;
but she was game to the last, woman-fashion weeping only now that
all was over. They found, too, the man they had combed the country
to find--struggling fruitlessly in his bonds, her prisoner.

And they likewise found the miracle.

On the snow outside under the window they came upon a black
porcupine about the size of a man's head which, scenting food within
the cabin, had climbed to the sill, and after the habit of these
little animals whose number is legion all over the Green Mountains,
had required fifteen bullets pumped into its carcass before it would
release its hold.

Even in death its quills were raised in uncanny duplication of Mart
Wiley's pompadour.

A MATTER OF LOYALTY

BY LAWRENCE PERRY

From _The Red Book_

Standing in the bow of the launch, Dr. Nicholls, coach of the Baliol
crew, leaned upon his megaphone, his eyes fixed upon two eight-oared
crews resting upon their oars a hundred feet away. From his hand
dangled a stop-watch. The two crews had just completed a four-mile
race against the watch.

A grim light came into the deeply set gray eyes of Jim Deacon as the
coach put the watch into his pocket. Deacon was the stroke of the
second varsity, an outfit which in aquatics bears the same relation
to a university eight as the scrub team does to a varsity football
eleven. But in the race just completed the second varsity had been
much of a factor--surprisingly, dishearteningly so. Nip and tuck it
had been, the varsity straining to drop the rival boat astern, but
unable to do so. At the finish not a quarter of a length, not fifteen
feet, had separated the two prows; a poor showing for the varsity to
have made with the great rowing classic of the season coming on
apace--a poor showing, that is, assuming the time consumed in the
four-mile trip was not especially low.

Only the coach could really know whether the time was satisfactory
or not. But Jim Deacon suspected that it was poor, his idea being
based upon knowledge he had concerning the capabilities of his own
crew; in other words, he knew it was only an average second varsity
outfit. The coach knew it too. That was the reason his jaws were set,
his eyes vacant. At length he shook his head.

"Not good, boys--not good." His voice was gentle, though usually he
was a rip-roaring mentor. "Varsity, you weren't rowing. That's the
answer--not rowing together. What's the matter, eh?"

"I thought, Dr. Nicholls, that the rhythm was very good----"

The coach interrupted Rollins, the captain, with a gesture.

"Oh, rhythm! Yes, you row prettily enough. You look well. I should
hope so, at this time of the season. But you're not shoving the boat
fast; you don't pick up and get her moving. You're leaking power
somewhere; as a matter of fact, I suspect you're not putting the
power in. I know you're not. Ashburton, didn't that lowering of your
seat fix you? Well, then,"--as the young man nodded affirmatively--
"how about your stretcher, Innis? Does it suit you now?"

As Innis nodded, signifying that it did, Deacon saw the coach's eyes
turn to Doane, who sat at stroke of the varsity.

"Now," muttered the stroke of the second varsity, his eyes gleaming,
"we'll hear something."

"Doane, is there anything the trouble with you? You're feeling well,
aren't you?"

"Yes sir. Sure!" The boy flushed. Tall, straight, handsome he sat in
the boat, fingering the oar-handle nervously. In appearance he was
the ideal oarsman. And yet----

Deacon, watching the coach, could almost see his mind working. Now
the time had come, the issue clearly defined. Another stroke must be
tried and found not wanting, else the annual eight-oared rowing
classic between those ancient universities Baliol and Shelburne
would be decided before it was rowed.

Deacon flushed as the coach's glittering eyeglasses turned toward him.
It was the big moment of the senior's four years at college. Four
years! And six months of each of those years a galley-slave--on the
machines in the rowing-room of the gymnasium, on the ice-infested
river with the cutting winds of March sweeping free; then the more
genial months with the voice of coach or assistant coach lashing him.
Four years of dogged, unremitting toil with never the reward of a
varsity seat, and now with the great regatta less than a week away,
the big moment, the crown of all he had done.

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