Read Online Destry Rides Again by Max Brand - Free Book Online Page B

give the alarm—”
    “There’s only one,” said Jerry Wendell. “
Only
one, but he’s the devil. I’m not ashamed of running! You know who it is! You must have heard!”
    “Nothing!”
    “It’s Harry Destry running amok!”
    The riot gun crashed to the floor from the hands of the girl.
    Jerry Wendell, his eyes rolling wildly at the windows, was crowding himself back into the most obscure corner of the room,
     as he continued, his voice shaking as violently as his body:
    “It was all a sham! You see? Pretending to be afraid! Oh, what fools we were to think that Destry ever could be afraid of
     anything! He wanted to trap us all—every man that sat on that jury—oh God, how I wish I never had seen that courtroom or listened
     to that judge! He’ll kill the judge. I hope he kills the judge.”
    “Straighten up,” said Dangerfield slowly. “I’veseen Destry actin’ like a yellow hound dog with his sneakin’ tail between its legs, and you tell me that he’s runnin’ wild?”
    “That’s it! He waited till all of us were back in town. Then he trapped the Ogdens in the Last Chance. He—he—killed them both.
     He killed them both!”
    Dangerfield stepped closer to him.
    “Murder?” he asked.
    “Murder? What else? What else?” screamed Jerry Wendell. “What else is it when a killer like him starts after an ordinary man,
     like me? Murder, murder, I tell you! And he’ll never stop till he’s got me here and slaughtered me under your eyes in your
     own house!”

Chapter Ten
    Shame, after all, is a human invention; the animals know no touch of it. The elephant feels no shame when it flees from the
     mouse, and the lion runs from the rhinoceros without a twinge of conscience, for shame was unknown until man created it out
     of the whole cloth of his desire to be godlike, though the gods themselves were divorced from such small scruples on sunny
     Olympus. Poor Jerry Wendell in his paroxysm quite forgot the thing that he should be; fifty thousand years of inherited dignity
     were shaken out of him and he acted as a caveman might have done if a bear were tearing down the barricade at the mouth of
     the dwelling, and the points of all the spears inside were broken.
    Every moment he was starting, his pupils distending as he looked at the doors or the windows. He was oblivious of the scorn
     of the Dangerfields, which they were covering as well as they could under an air of kind concern.
    “Have you got a man at that door?” asked Jerry. “And that?”
    “Yes.”
    “And that?”
    “That leads down into the cellar. He won’t try to come that way.”
    “No matter what you do, he’ll be here!” said Wendell, wringing his hands. “
I
thought I could stop him, too. I had the message from the saloon in time; I had three good men posted; I was telephoning
     across the way for more help, and then I heard a step on the stairs—a step on the stairs——”
    The memory strangled him.
    “I ran for the back steps and jumped down ’em. I locked the kitchen door as I went out. I tore across the garden and vaulted
     the street fence, and as I jumped, I looked back and saw a shadow slide through the kitchen window.
    “Then I found a horse on the street. I didn’t stop to ask whose it was. I jumped into the saddle, thanking God, and started
     for the lights in the middle of the town.
    “But he gained on me. I had to cut down a side alley. He was hard after me on a runt of a mustang.
    “I got out of the town. Luckily my horse would jump. I put it over fences and got into fields. There was no sight of him behind
     me then, and at last I decided to circle back into Wham.
    “Then I saw him again, coming over a hill—just a glance of the outline of him against the stars—and he’s been on my heels
     ever since—ever since! He’ll——”
    “Sit down to breakfast,” urged Dangerfield. “The corn bread’s still warm. You look—hungry!”
    “Breakfast?” said the other. And he laughed hysterically.