Nightmare Town: Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

Whiting’s Ford, with Whiting and Harris staggering down the street after him, waking the town with their drunken shouts and roared-out mocking advice, until he had reached the desert’s edge. Then the drive through the desert, along the road that was hotter than the rest of the desert, with – He chose not to think of the ride. He had made it, though – had won the bet. He couldn’t remember the amount of the latter.
    “So you’ve come out of it at last?” a rumbling voice inquired.
    The steel-slatted door swung open and a man filled the cell’s door. Steve grinned up at him. This was the giant who would not wrestle. He was coatless and vestless now, and loomed larger than before. One suspender strap was decorated with a shiny badge that said MARSHAL.
    “Feel like breakfast?” he asked.
    “I could do things to a can of black coffee,” Steve admitted.
    “All right. But you’ll have to gulp it. Judge Denvir is waiting to get a crack at you, and the longer you keep him waiting, the tougher it’ll be for you.”
    The room in which Tobin Denvir, J.P., dealt justice was a large one on the third floor of a wooden building. It was scantily furnished with a table, an ancient desk, a steel engraving of Daniel Webster, a shelf of books sleeping under the dust of weeks, a dozen uncomfortable chairs, and half as many cracked and chipped china cuspidors.
    The judge sat between desk and table, with his feet on the latter. They were small feet, and he was a small man. His face was filled with little irritable lines, his lips were thin and tight, and he had the bright, lidless eyes of a bird.
    “Well, what’s he charged with?” His voice was thin, harshly metallic. He kept his feet on the table.
    The marshal drew a deep breath, and recited:
    “Driving on the wrong side of the street, exceeding the speed limit, driving while under the influence of liquor, driving without a driver’s license, endangering the lives of pedestrians by taking his hands off the wheel, and I parking improperly – on the sidewalk up against the bank.”
    The marshal took another breath, and added, with manifest regret:
    “There was a charge of attempted assault, too, but that Vallance girl won’t appear, so that’ll have to be dropped.”
    The justice’s bright eyes turned upon Steve.
    “What’s your name?” he growled.
    “Steve Threefall.”
    “Is that your real name?” the marshal asked.
    “Of course it is,” the justice snapped. “You don’t think anybody’d be damn fool enough to give a name like that unless it was his, do you?” Then to Steve: “What have you got to say – guilty or not?”
    “I was a little -“
    “Are you guilty or not?”
    “Oh, I suppose I did -“
    “That’s enough! You’re fined a hundred and fifty dollars and costs. The costs are fifteen dollars and eighty cents, making a total of a hundred and sixty-five dollars and eighty cents. Will you pay it or will you go to jail?”
    “I’ll pay it if I’ve got it,” Steve said, turning to the marshal. “You took my money. Have I got that much?”
    The marshal nodded his massive head.
    “You have,” he said, “exactly – to the nickel. Funny it should have come out like that-huh?”
    “Yes-funny,” Steve repeated.
    While the justice of the peace was making out a receipt for the fine, the marshal restored Steve’s watch, tobacco and matches, pocket-knife, keys, and last of all the black walking-stick. The big man weighed the stick in his hand and examined it closely before he gave it up. It was thick and of ebony, but heavy even for that wood, with a balanced weight that hinted at loaded ferrule and knob. Except for a space the breadth of a man’s hand in its middle, the stick was roughened, cut and notched with the marks of hard use – marks that much careful polishing had failed to remove or conceal. The unscarred hand’s-breadth was of a softer black than the rest – as soft a black as the knob – as if it had known much contact with a