Chapter XII: A Frustrated Lynching

The night seemed interminable. The faint evening sounds from Main Street, a block away, faded gradually and ceased. One after another buggies and farm wagons creaked away; motor cars roared suddenly into life and departed in a diminuendo of explosions, or hummed off into the night; we heard an occasional outburst of laughter, evoked by the repartee bawled across a block, and at last all was still.

I looked at my watch; almost midnight! Pinelands had gone to sleep--or had it? Soon, if at all, they would be coming. The faint breeze began to carry mysterious whispers; in it I fancied hushed commands, threats, the stealthy creeping of feet over the sand. My nerves tensed and tensed; the fluttering of moths about the arc lamp fretted me to distraction. A huge June bug blundered full tilt against its globe and ricocheted off; the sound seemed thunderous, so that I jumped, barely suppressing a cry.

And always Floyd Somers sat there on the step, long legs curled grotesquely under him, and wrote and wrote. I wanted to cry out at him, to grip him by the shoulder and shriek in his ear that a mob was coming; that murder crept, stealthy-footed, toward us through the still summer night. Anything to rouse him to a human excitement; to wipe that impassive, studious absorption from his lean, sallow face.

Wearily I shifted my feet, wondering whether Lewis was asleep. His bunk was in the cage, three feet inside the window; he could not look out for the bars. I listened intently for his breathing. Did he suspect, I wondered? Did he lie there awake, helpless, waiting for the mob to drag him forth to a shameful death? And suddenly I remembered, with a queer twinge of shame, that we had forgotten to bring him bed linen. It was a foolish thought, of course, but I cannot tell you how it distressed me. Suppose that we failed--that the mob had its way after all. Should I ever be able to forgive myself that Lewis had been without clean sheets during his last night on earth?

Then I fell to worrying about Dorothy. Poor child! If this vigil was terrible to me, waiting, shotgun in hand, for an attack, what must it be to her? She waited there in that grim, ghost-haunted pile, beneath whose very windows a man had died horribly, only yesterday; with no company save that stupid nurse, asleep long ago, no doubt, and Aunt Mary McGregor, who could think of nothing but her own troubles. She could not know what was happening here; had no way of learning until we should come home. In her imagination, no doubt, Lewis was dying a hundred deaths, and she with him. For it is terrible, worse than death, I think, to wait helplessly while a loved one is in peril.

I groaned aloud. Would they never come? Suddenly I was impatient for the test; I would have welcomed a physical attack, anything to get it over and be at rest; anything but this dreadful tension of waiting! I strained my ears anew, but I heard only the faint scratching of Somers’ tireless pen.

Suddenly it came. A distant oath, an abrupt outbreak of raucous, obscene song, as abruptly cut off, the sound of a blow! The confused tramp of many feet thudded in the muffling sand and approached inexorably, with a strange, broken rhythm.

Somers lifted his head alertly; the uncertain light fell across it, and his deep-set eyes and thin, hooked nose seemed oddly fierce.

“Quiet, now, you men!” he ordered. “Keep back; don’t show yourselves unless I call.”

He went on writing with a steady hand.

Craning my neck around the corner of the jail, I made out a clump of moving shadows. Some one stumbled and swore aloud, drunkenly. Then, with startling abruptness, the crowd debouched into the arc lamp’s circle of light.

They moved with ominous deliberation in a sort of rude marching order, four abreast. Handkerchiefs, blue, red, and black, were tied across each face below the eyes, making the marchers unrecognizable. These were my own neighbors; unmasked, I could have recognized almost every face, no doubt. But seen thus they were fearsome shapes, uncanny, inhuman, and I shivered and quailed before them. One burly fellow in the first rank carried a coil of rope. Fascinated, I saw how it swung carelessly at his side, and I noted its fresh, yellow color. My nephew was honored, I thought hysterically; they had bought a new rope for his hanging!

The straggling column advanced; its head wheeled straight toward the jail. Then the marchers caught sight of Doctor Somers’ quiet figure, crouched there on the steps, still writing busily. They halted suddenly, confused, and suspicious of this strange guard. They scented a trap, as mobs will; surely this fellow would not be sitting there so calmly unless he knew that the jail was well protected!

There was some jostling, and the column broke its formation. Men pushed forward from the rear until they formed a rough semicircle at a respectful distance. The tall man who bore that sinister rope stepped forward a little.

And then, and not till then, Floyd Somers laid his writing precisely by and rose upon those slender, stiltlike legs, looking rather like a steel windmill tower, I reflected absurdly.

“Good evening, gentlemen.” His voice was perfectly unruffled and casual. “A fine, cool night for a walk!”

A little, incredulous gasp ran through the silent crowd, followed by an ominous mutter. Was this fellow making game of them?

“Evenin’,” replied the rope bearer gruffly. “What yuh doin’ here?”

Somers yawned and smiled that sudden, disarming smile, that could so change his saturnine features. “Why, writing a letter to my best girl, as you can see.” He gestured toward the heap of notes.

“Huh?” asked the crowd’s spokesman. He seemed bewildered, yet confident. “What’s the feller doin’ here?” I could fancy him thinking. “Somethin’ funny! Well, we’ll find out--got lots of time!”

“Huh?” Above his red bandanna his eyes glinted at the heap of envelopes. “Writin’ a whole lot o’ letters, seems t’ me!”

“Why,” replied Somers blithely, “that’s because I’ve got a whole lot of best girls!”

The jest was feeble enough, but it caught the fancy of the crowd. A gust of laughter ran about the semicircle, and its tension relaxed visibly. The humor of the mob seemed less silently savage than before. “No wonder!” exclaimed some one. “Fine, fat feller like you oughta have plenty o’ girls!”

“I _have_.” Somers’ burlesque of satisfied vanity was irresistibly comic. “Anything I can do for you, gentlemen? I’ve got six or eight more to write, you see.”

“Sure is!” The spokesman stepped forward again, swinging his rope menacingly. This skinny stranger needn’t think he could play horse with them, his gesture said grimly. “Run along, sonny, an’ write yore letters some’rs else. We-all got bus’ness in that there jail, see?”

“So? Well, there’s no hurry, is there? You’ve got all night before you. Suppose we talk about that a while?”

The other scratched a perplexed head, tilting his wide-brimmed hat forward. Plainly he did not know what to make of this imperturbable stranger. After an instant’s hesitation he decided to humor him.

“We-ell, we got plenty time, sure enough!” he declared. “Ain’t nobody goin’ t’ stop us. We’re after that skunk inside, stranger--that feller Lewis Parker, what murdered Doc Gaskell yestiddy mornin’.”

The mob took a step forward, growling assent. The words seemed to have rekindled its fury.

“Murdered Doctor Gaskell?” asked Somers coolly. “How come?”

The crowd’s spokesman snorted. “Nev’ you mind how come! He done it, an’ ’at’s enough. Git outa th’ way now, sonny, an’ let us in!”

Somers held his place. “The door’s locked.”

Again the crowd laughed; this time raucously, hatefully.

“Oh,” jeeringly exclaimed one, swaying on wide-set feet, “Rufe Wakefield ain’t such a big fool as some fellers. He didn’t make no trouble about th’ key w’en we-all come after it--ner you won’t make no trouble, neither, w’en we-all gits ready t’ use it!”

A chorus of drunken agreement broke out. “’At’s right, Charlie! Give it to ’im. C’m’ on, fellers, smash ’im!” It was plain that many in the crowd had found means of circumventing the Eighteenth Amendment.

“Shut up! Who’s runnin’ this, huh?” It was the leader, jealous of his authority, and the noise subsided.

“Didn’t mean nothing, R-rappy, ol’ boy,” replied the disturber.

“Shut up! Ain’t yuh got no sense atall, slingin’ names around that a way?” He faced Somers again. “We-all got th’ key, all right,” he continued, “an’ we aim t’ use it, see? Right way now--d’rectly! Yuh better git outa th’ way, afore th’ fireworks begins!”

“One moment! Listen, you men,” Somers’ voice was really eloquent. “You’re going to do a great injustice. Parker is innocent! He didn’t shoot Doctor Gaskell--the man was dead before he got out there at all--dead and cold! Let the law take its course, boys. Parker’s here in jail; he can’t get away. He’ll be tried, and, if he’s guilty he’ll be convicted and punished. You don’t want to hang an innocent man, do you? I tell you Gaskell was dead and cold before Parker came out at all!”

An outburst of jeers and hisses cut him short. The crowd would not listen to any further interference with its proposed pleasures. But the tall spokesman commanded silence. He seemed shaken.

“Shut up! Shut up!” With paralyzing suddenness he produced a huge revolver, and the angry cries of the mob died away. “That’s better! I ask you-all ag’in, who’s runnin’ this here lynchin’? Any more cracks, an’ somebody’s gointa git hurted bad. Now, stranger, what’s that yuh say, Gaskell was daid afore Parker come out?”

“Dead and cold!” repeated Somers. “Mr. Uhlman touched his chest two minutes after Parker shot, and he was cold then.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Uhlman--George Uhlman.”

There was a chorus of jeers and howls. “Uhlman, ol’ Uncle Gawge, huh? His own uncle! Likely he’d claim Parker shot ’im! Why didn’t he tell all this to th’ inquest, huh? Big, fishy yarn--fake--fake!”

Despite their leader’s gesture, the mob surged forward; they would no longer be balked of their quarry. Above the clamor, the man who had boasted of taking the jail keys from Rufe Wakefield, howled shrilly: “C’m’ on, fellers! Let’s git ’im out. Skinny’s jus’ tryin’ t’ hold us an’ argue till ol’ Redden gits here. C’m’ on! Git ’im afore th’ sheriff comes!”

Emitting wild yells to work its courage up, after the manner of mobs, the throng pressed on. It was touch and go; they were almost upon the defenseless Somers. Without awaiting Somers’ call, Peter McGregor and I turned the jail corners almost together and ran forward to take up our stations on either side of the steps.

Somers scowled at us. “Why didn’t you keep back?” he demanded. “I don’t need you.”

None the less, our sudden eruption checked the mob. They hung back from Peter’s menacing pistol and eyed dubiously the shotgun, which I held at the ready.

“Say when, doc!” invited Peter grimly. He leveled his automatic at the mob’s tall leader and slipped its safety catch.

“Keep quiet!” Somers was rather ungracious, I thought, seeing that we had infallibly saved him, all unarmed as he was, from a severe beating at least. But now, without more words, he stooped, extending an arm incredibly long and bony, and lifted his grape basket of eggplant from the dark corner where it had sat.

He laid it very carefully down on the step beside him, selected one of the dark-purple vegetables and held it up.

“Did any of you boys get overseas?” he inquired conversationally.

The wondering mob gaped inquiringly.

“Good boy! Oh, good boy!” declared Peter from his side of the steps, as he chuckled triumphantly.

I was less acute, but some of the men facing us must have understood Somers’ meaning, for I noted that hats moved uneasily, as their wearers shrank back into the crowd.

“I gather that some of you got to France,” went on Somers, quite unperturbed. “You see what I’m holding, don’t you? Suppose you tell these other chaps what will happen, five seconds after I pull the pin?”

The crowd had frozen into a sudden, awed silence. “Keep back, you fool!” came an agonized whisper. “Quit shovin’! Want us all blowed to blazes?”

“Just got into your beautiful city this evening,” remarked Doctor Somers affably. “Stopped off at Camp Sheridan on the way.” This was the cantonment nearest to Pinelands. “I’ve a friend there in the ordnance department; he lent me these little tricks, just in case of--of anything like this. Now don’t crowd, boys, please don’t! I promised I’d bring ’em all back safely, and I’d just hate to spoil one.”

“Aw, quit it!” came the same hoarse whisper. “Rush ’im, huh? Nix! If it was a machine gun, mebbe; but I don’t aim t’ go to glory in pieces. Nos_sir_! Huh? ’At’s a hand grenade, feller--a Mills bomb! G’wan, start somethin’, ’f you want, an’ git all messed up. Me, I’m goin’ home!”

And straightway one masked figure detached itself and marched briskly away, untieing his handkerchief and stuffing it into a pocket as he went. There was a general movement to follow. The tall leader dropped his coiled rope and pushed his hat far back. “What’s th’ use! I give up, stranger; you got us buffaloed. Ain’t a-goin’ to be no lynchin’ to-night. But, if it hadn’t of been f’r them bombs----”

In token of amity, he untied the red bandanna, which masked him, and bared the lean, stubbly face and piratical mustache of Ralph Satterfield. “Uncover, boys,” he said. “Them masks is uncomf’table, an’ we ain’t a-goin’ t’ break no laws, so they ain’t needed no more.”

Most of the crowd followed his example, but some effaced themselves, evidently ashamed of being identified in such company and upon such an errand. Those who remained crowded forward, so that Peter and I raised our weapons, fearing an attack; but Satterfield waved them aside.

“Put by yore shootin’ irons,” he said to us, alcoholically generous. “We ain’t a-goin’ to start nothin’. I give my word, didn’t I?”

I hesitated, but Somers frowned me into compliance. The mob leader advanced. “You got us beat, stranger. I’d like t’ shake you by th’ hand, sir. Ain’t a-many has bested Ralph Satterfield this a way!”

Laying his vegetable bomb carefully aside, the doctor came down the steps quite fearlessly, one lean arm extended; and presently his slender hand was engulfed in the bootlegger’s huge grip.

“Good feller!” declared Satterfield. “Friend o’ mine, yuh hear, boys? Have a drink, stranger?”

He fumbled at a hip pocket, hiccoughing. Evidently he had given his own goods the testimonial of personal use.

“I thank you, sir,” replied Doctor Somers blandly. “Just a swallow to our friendship.” He tilted the bottle expertly, but I noted that he did not drink. “And now, gentlemen, this lynching foolishness is all over, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir! Oh, yes, sir! Shore, stranger!” declared the crowd genially.

“Fine!” Somers took the bootlegger’s hand again. “I’ll depend on you, Mr.--Satterfield, isn’t it? You’ll guard my friend, Parker, and keep him safe for us, for his sweetheart and his uncle, won’t you?”

I caught my breath at the colossal impudence of this proposal; that the mob, which had come to lynch Lewis, should protect him against the possible attack of others. But Somers had gauged the spirit of the crowd better than I; he was a profound psychologist.

Satterfield burst into a roar of laughter, which ended in a tremendous hiccough; he staggered about and pounded his thighs in an ecstasy of mirth. “By gum, man,” he exclaimed, “you’re a wonder--a wonder! Any man’s got nerve like that, I’m for him. Yes, sir! ’S aw right, stranger, ’s aw right. Here!”

In token of good faith he plunged a hairy hand into his pocket and brought forth a big key. “Here’s th’ jail key, sir; you keep it. Give it back t’ Rufe, ’f yuh wanta. Parker’s safe; I give yuh my word, sir.” And he shook hands all over again, growing mellower and mellower, as his last drink warmed him. “Ain’t nobody a-goin’ t’ touch ’im now. You hear me, boys!” he said to the crowd at his back. “Nobody don’t touch Doc Parker, or bother ’im, unless’n they hankers t’ meet up ’ith me, Satterfield!”

He turned back again to Somers. “S-sass’fied?” he inquired gravely. “Me an’ a coupla other fellers’ll stay an’ keep watch if yuh say so.”

Somers laughed at that, and clapped the other’s back. “You’re a fine chap, Mr. Satterfield, sir! I’m proud to be a friend of yours.” He bowed, and Satterfield bowed also, with surprising dignity and grace, but he marred the effect by stumbling and catching at my shoulder for support.

“And, sir--and you boys, too,” Somers went on, grinning, “now that we’re all good friends----”

“Sure! Sure! O’ course we are--fr’en’s f’r life!” roared the mob. It was amazing how he had won their admiration.

“Well then, gentlemen, I’ll let you all into a little joke,” he finished. “Come up here, closer! Look at my bombs!”

He reached down and picked up his basket and displayed its contents to the men who crowded about.

To my mind it was a hazardous experiment. But again Somers had gauged the spirit of the crowd very exactly. Ten minutes earlier, perhaps, his revelation would have been fatal; but now the mob spirit was gone. We were no longer faced by an irresponsible mob, rendered careless of consequences by numbers and the consciousness of anonymity. Now it was a group of known friends and neighbors, who stood about us, whose unmasking had left each an individual responsible for his own conduct. Each thought for himself and of himself; the unreasoning brutality of the mob was gone.

Doctor Somers’ revelation was greeted with howls of mirth. This was a joke, a stupendous joke, robust, and not too subtle, which should be told against these men for years to come; how Ralph Satterfield and Charlie Bates and “Hank” Conover and fifty others had been cowed and intimidated by a dozen innocuous eggplants in the hands of one lone man! The crowd yelled with laughter, Satterfield louder than any; they pounded each other’s backs, leaned on each other’s shoulders, lay down in the sand and shrieked. Satterfield’s illicit liquor had some part in it, no doubt; none the less it was hearty, honest laughter, so contagious that Peter and I, and even Doctor Somers, were forced to join--so friendly and jolly and carefree that no hearer could doubt its quality. Indeed Rufe Wakefield, the gigantic constable, came round the corner presently--he had been waiting there in fear and trembling, perhaps, all evening, for what might happen at the jail--and strode boldly into our midst, convinced that all danger was over.

“Here, here, you fellers!” he exclaimed in his great, bullying roar. “Quit it, now! You-all better git outa here an’ go home t’ bed; yo’re disturbin’ th’ peace!”

And so peaceable had their humor become that the crowd dispersed forthwith, still shaken with laughter and scuffling amiably for eggplants, to preserve as souvenirs of the occasion.