“Drunk. Saw two Henry Pecks go away from here. Must be drunk as a
boiled owl.”
He goes out of hearing, complaining to himself about the effects of
alcohol on the optic nerves.
I takes the dynamite out of them cans and puts it in one pile on the
floor. Bill must a been afraid of that stuff, ’cause he’s got about
ten minutes’ worth of extra fuse.
I runs the fuse out the door, puts the padlock back in place, and
touches her off. I goes back up to Mike’s place but don’t go in. Mike
and Calamity are playing cards, while they waits for Chuck’s body to
arrive, so I goes over and climbs up on the hitch-rack. I gets up
there, and gets right down. Comes a rumble and a shake, the town is
lit up for a second, and then it begins to rain pieces of jail all
over town. Thirty sticks of dynamite is some little dwelling-mover.
Mike and Calamity staggers out on the porch, and gazes at the world.
“What do yuh reckon it was?” gasps Calamity.
“Dynamite!” yells Mike. “There’s —— to pay and no pitch hot!”
“Bill McFee insisted on leaving that stuff in the jail until it was
time to touch it off, and he done put old man Whittaker and Scenery
Sims in there—and—they both smoke!”
“Gosh all hemlock!” wails Calamity. “There ain’t a thing we can do, is
there, Mike?”
“Nothing. When you’re near thirty sticks of dynamite, and she goes
off, there ain’t nothing that anybody can do—not even the coroner.”
They don’t much more than get inside, when I hears the rattle of
wheels, and into Paradise comes the ambulance. They swings around in
front of the place and stops. Out comes Mike and Calamity.
“Was he dead?” asks Mike, and we hears McFee snort:
“Old man Whittaker must be crazy! We couldn’t find Chuck nor the
autymobile. All we found was Muley and Telescope, setting along the
road trying to sing. They don’t know about no shooting scrape.
Whittaker is a danged old liar!”
“Don’t speak disrespectable of the dead,” advises Calamity. “No matter
how a man acted in this vale of tears yuh hadn’t ought to besmirch his
memory with recriminations.”
“He ain’t dead, I tell yuh!” yelps Bill. “Well,” says Mike, “if he
ain’t he’s made of iron. No man can stand a shock like that and ever
be the same.”
“Shock? Who do yuh mean—Chuck?”
“No,” says Mike, sad-like. “I mean Whittaker.”
“And Scenery Sims,” adds Calamity, removing his hat. “They must a
threw a match on to a fuse. The padlock came through the back door,
and is sticking in Mike’s bar.”