Oakdale Affair — 02 - Section 02
The youth flushed.
“Oh say!
” he cried; “you needn't kid me just because I'm new at it.
You all had to start sometime.
I've always longed for the free life of a tramp; and if you'll let me go along with you for a little while, and teach me, I'll not bother you; and I'll do whatever you say.
” The elderly person frowned.
“Beat it, kid!
” he commanded.
“We ain't runnin' no day nursery.
These you see here is all the real thing.
Maybe we asks fer a handout now and then; but that ain't our reg'lar way.
You ain't swift enough to travel with this bunch, kid, so you'd better duck.
Why we gents, here, if we was added up is wanted in about twenty-seven cities fer about everything from rollin' a souse to crackin' a box and croakin' a bull.
You gotta do something before you can train wid gents like us, see?
” The speaker projected a stubbled jaw, scowled horridly and swept a flattened palm downward and backward at a right angle to a hairy arm in eloquent gesture of finality.
The boy had stood with his straight, black eyebrows puckered into a studious frown, drinking in every word.
Now he straightened up.
“I guess I made a mistake,” he said, apologetically.
“You ain't tramps at all.
You're thieves and murderers and things like that.
” His eyes opened a bit wider and his voice sank to a whisper as the words passed his lips.
“But you haven't so much on me, at that,” he went on, “for I'm a regular burglar, too,” and from the bulging pockets of his coat he drew two handfuls of greenbacks and jewelry.
The eyes of the six registered astonishment, mixed with craft and greed.
“I just robbed a house in Oakdale,” explained the boy.
“I usually rob one every night.
” For a moment his auditors were too surprised to voice a single emotion;
but presently one murmured, soulfully: “Pipe de swag!
” He of the frock coat, golf cap, and years waved a conciliatory hand.
He tried to look at the boy's face; but for the life of him he couldn't raise his eyes above the dazzling wealth clutched in the fingers of those two small, slim hands.
From one dangled a pearl necklace which alone might have ransomed, if not a king, at least a lesser member of a royal family, while diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds scintillated in the flaring light of the fire.
Nor was the fistful of currency in the other hand to be sneezed at.
There were greenbacks, it is true; but there were also yellowbacks with the reddish gold of large denominations.
The Sky Pilot sighed a sigh that was more than half gasp.
“Can't yuh take a kid?
” he inquired.
“I knew youse all along.
Yuh can't fool an old bird like The Sky Pilot--eh, boys?
” and he turned to his comrades for confirmation.
“He's The Oskaloosa Kid,” exclaimed one of the company.
“I'd know 'im anywheres.
” “Pull up and set down,” invited another.
The boy stuffed his loot back into his pockets and came closer to the fire.
Its warmth felt most comfortable, for the Spring night was growing chill.
He looked about him at the motley company, some half-spruce in clothing that suggested a Kuppenmarx label and a not too far association with a tailor's goose, others in rags, all but one unshaven and all more or less dirty--for the open road is close to Nature, which is principally dirt.
“Shake hands with Dopey Charlie,” said The Sky Pilot, whose age and corpulency appeared to stamp him with the hall mark of authority.
The youth did as he was bid, smiling into the sullen, chalk-white face and taking the clammy hand extended toward him.
Was it a shudder that passed through the lithe, young figure or was it merely a subconscious recognition of the final passing of the bodily cold before the glowing warmth of the blaze?
“And Soup Face,” continued The Sky Pilot.
A battered wreck half rose and extended a pudgy hand.
Red whiskers, matted in little tangled wisps which suggested the dried ingredients of an infinite procession of semi-liquid refreshments, rioted promiscuously over a scarlet countenance.
“Pleased to meetcha,” sprayed Soup Face.
It was a strained smile which twisted the rather too perfect mouth of The Oskaloosa Kid, an appellation which we must, perforce, accept since the youth did not deny it.
Columbus Blackie, The General, and Dirty Eddie were formally presented.
As Dirty Eddie was, physically, the cleanest member of the band the youth wondered how he had come by his sobriquet--that is, he wondered until he heard Dirty Eddie speak, after which he was no longer in doubt.
The Oskaloosa Kid, self-confessed 'tramp' and burglar, flushed at the lurid obscenity of Dirty Eddie's remarks.
“Sit down, bo,” invited Soup Face.
“I guess you're a regular all right.
Here, have a snifter?
” and he pulled a flask from his side pocket, holding it toward The Oskaloosa Kid.
“Thank you, but;--er--I'm on the wagon, you know,” declined the youth.
“Have a smoke?
” suggested Columbus Blackie.
“Here's the makin's. ” The change in the attitude of the men toward him pleased The Oskaloosa Kid immensely.
They were treating him as one of them, and after the lonely walk through the dark and desolate farm lands human companionship of any kind was to him as the proverbial straw to the man who rocked the boat once too often.
Dopey Charlie and The General, alone of all the company, waxed not enthusiastic over the advent of The Oskaloosa Kid and his priceless loot.
These two sat scowling and whispering in the back-ground.
“Dat's a wrong guy,” muttered the former to the latter.
“He's a stool pigeon or one of dese amatoor mugs.
” “It's the pullin' of that punk graft that got my goat,” replied The General.
“I never seen a punk yet that didn't try to make you think he was a wise guy an' dis stiff don't belong enough even to pull a spiel that would fool a old ladies' sewin' circle.
I don't see wot The Sky Pilot's cozyin' up to him fer.
” “You don't?
” scoffed Dopey Charlie.
“Didn't you lamp de oyster harness?
To say nothin' of de mitful of rocks and kale.
” “That 'ud be all right, too,” replied the other, “if we could put the guy to sleep; but The Sky Pilot won't never stand for croakin' nobody.
He's too scared of his neck.
We'll look like a bunch o' wise ones, won't we?
lettin' a stranger sit in now--after last night.
Hell!
” he suddenly exploded.
“Don't you know that you an' me stand to swing if any of de bunch gets gabby in front of dis phoney punk?
” The two sat silent for a while, The General puffing on a short briar, Dopey Charlie inhaling deep draughts from a cigarette, and both glaring through narrowed lids at the boy warming himself beside the fire where the others were attempting to draw him out the while they strove desperately but unavailingly to keep their eyes from the two bulging sidepockets of their guest's coat.
Soup Face, who had been assiduously communing with a pint flask, leaned close to Columbus Blackie, placing his whiskers within an inch or so of the other's nose as was his habit when addressing another, and whispered, relative to the pearl necklace: “Not a cent less 'n fifty thou, bo!
” “Fertheluvomike!
” ejaculated Blackie, drawing back and wiping a palm quickly across his lips.
“Get a plumber first if you want to kiss me--you leak.
” “He thinks you need a shower bath,” said Dirty Eddie, laughing.
“The trouble with Soup Face,” explained The Sky Pilot, “is that he's got a idea he's a human atomizer an' that the rest of us has colds.
” “Well, I don't want no atomizer loaded with rot-gut and garlic shot in my mug,” growled Blackie.
“What Soup Face needs is to be learned ettyket, an' if he comes that on me again I'm goin' to push his mush through the back of his bean.
” An ugly light came into the blear eyes of Soup Face.
Once again he leaned close to Columbus Blackie.
“Not a cent less 'n fifty thou, you tinhorn!
” he bellowed, belligerent and sprayful.
Blackie leaped to his feet, with an oath--a frightful, hideous oath--and as he rose he swung a heavy fist to Soup Face's purple nose.
The latter rolled over backward; but was upon his feet again much quicker than one would have expected in so gross a bulk, and as he came to his feet a knife flashed in his hand.
With a sound that was more bestial than human he ran toward Blackie; but there was another there who had anticipated his intentions.
As the blow was struck The Sky Pilot had risen; and now he sprang forward, for all his age and bulk as nimble as a cat, and seized Soup Face by the wrist.
A quick wrench brought a howl of pain to the would-be assassin, and the knife fell to the floor.
“You gotta cut that if you travel with this bunch,” said The Sky Pilot in a voice that was new to The Oskaloosa Kid; “and you, too, Blackie,” he continued.
“The rough stuff don't go with me, see?
” He hurled Soup Face to the floor and resumed his seat by the fire.
The youth was astonished at the physical strength of this old man, seemingly so softened by dissipation; but it showed him the source of The Sky Pilot's authority and its scope, for Columbus Blackie and Soup Face quitted their quarrel immediately.
Dirty Eddie rose, yawned and stretched.
“Me fer the hay,” he announced, and lay down again with his feet toward the fire.
Some of the others followed his example.
“You'll find some hay in the loft there,” said The Sky Pilot to The Oskaloosa Kid.
“Bring it down an' make your bed here by me, there's plenty room.
” A half hour later all were stretched out upon the hard dirt floor upon improvised beds of rotted hay; but not all slept.
The Oskaloosa Kid, though tired, found himself wider awake than he ever before had been.
Apparently sleep could never again come to those heavy eyes.
There passed before his mental vision a panorama of the events of the night.
He smiled as he inaudibly voiced the name they had given him, the right to which he had not seen fit to deny.
“The Oskaloosa Kid.
” The boy smiled again as he felt the 'swag' hard and lumpy in his pockets.
It had given him prestige here that he could not have gained by any other means; but he mistook the nature of the interest which his display of stolen wealth had aroused.
He thought that the men now looked upon him as a fellow criminal to be accepted into the fraternity through achievement; whereas they suffered him to remain solely in the hope of transferring his loot to their own pockets.
It is true that he puzzled them.
Even The Sky Pilot, the most astute and intelligent of them all, was at a loss to fathom The Oskaloosa Kid.
Innocence and unsophistication flaunted their banners in almost every act and speech of The Oskaloosa Kid.
The youth reminded him in some ways of members of a Sunday school which had flourished in the dim vistas of his past when, as an ordained minister of the Gospel, he had earned the sobriquet which now identified him.
But the concrete evidence of the valuable loot comported not with The Sky Pilot's idea of a Sunday school boy's lark.
The young fellow was, unquestionably, a thief; but that he had ever before consorted with thieves his speech and manners belied.
“He's got me,” murmured The Sky Pilot; “but he's got the stuff on him, too; and all I want is to get it off of him without a painful operation.
Tomorrow'll do,” and he shifted his position and fell asleep.
Dopey Charlie and The General did not, however, follow the example of their chief.
They remained very wide awake, a little apart from the others, where their low whispers could not be overheard.
“You better do it,” urged The General, in a soft, insinuating voice.
“You're pretty slick with the toad stabber, an' any way one more or less won't count.
” “We can go to Sout' America on dat stuff an' live like gents,” muttered Dopey Charlie.
“I'm goin' to cut out de Hop an' buy a farm an' a ottymobeel and--” “Come out of it,” admonished The General.
“If we're lucky we'll get as far as Cincinnati, get a stew on and get pinched.
Den one of us'll hang an' de other get stir fer life.
” The General was a weasel faced person of almost any age between thirty-five and sixty.
Sometimes he could have passed for a hundred and ten.
He had won his military title as a boy in the famous march of Coxey's army on Washington, or, rather, the title had been conferred upon him in later years as a merited reward of service.
The General, profiting by the precepts of his erstwhile companions in arms, had never soiled his military escutcheon by labor, nor had he ever risen to the higher planes of criminality.
Rather as a mediocre pickpocket and a timorous confidence man had he eked out a meager existence, amply punctuated by seasons of straight bumming and intervals spent as the guest of various inhospitably hospitable states.
Now, for the first time in his life, The General faced the possibility of a serious charge; and his terror made him what he never before had been, a dangerous criminal.
“You're a cheerful guy,” commented Dopey Charlie; “but you may be right at dat.
Dey can't hang a guy any higher fer two 'an they can fer one an' dat's no pipe; so wots de use.
Wait till I take a shot--it'll be easier,” and he drew a small, worn case from an inside pocket, bared his arm to the elbow and injected enough morphine to have killed a dozen normal men.
From a pile of mouldy hay across the barn the youth, heavy eyed but sleepless, watched the two through half closed lids.
A qualm of disgust sent a sudden shudder through his slight frame.
For the first time he almost regretted having embarked upon a life of crime.
He had seen that the two men were conversing together earnestly, though he could over-hear nothing they said, and that he had been the subject of their nocturnal colloquy, for several times a glance or a nod in his direction assured him of this.
And so he lay watching them--not that he was afraid, he kept reassuring himself, but through curiosity.
Why should he be afraid?
Was it not a well known truth that there was honor among thieves?
But the longer he watched the heavier grew his lids.
Several times they closed to be dragged open again only by painful effort.
Finally came a time that they remained closed and the young chest rose and fell in the regular breathing of slumber.
The two ragged, rat-hearted creatures rose silently and picked their way, half-crouched, among the sleepers sprawled between them and The Oskaloosa Kid.
In the hand of Dopey Charlie gleamed a bit of shiny steel and in his heart were fear and greed.
The fear was engendered by the belief that the youth might be an amateur detective.
Dopey Charlie had had one experience of such and he knew that it was easily possible for them to blunder upon evidence which the most experienced of operatives might pass over unnoticed, and the loot bulging pockets furnished a sufficient greed motive in themselves.
