The Beetle Leg Read Online Free PDF

broke it up, I could have run the lot of them out of town. This cell here hasn’t changed, it’s just kept some of that celebration ever since the time I met him.”
    “
Sheriff
,” Wade peered at the sleepers—one lay almost near enough to touch by stretching a restless foot—and his body slackened, fists settled heavily, arms rested high, “have they been fed?”
    “Watered,” continued the Sheriff in a voice low and wandering from the heat, “I watered them.” The other nodded. “You know, Wade, I didn’t even see his brother that night. Two years before I saw him though. I knew that he was marrying, but for all I care he didn’t speak that night.
    “But Luke spoke. By the time they had been married half an hour, with all those women trailing after them, and set maybe in some dark room with a latch on the door—I never cared to know where they spent that night—we were in the office, tipping easy together in our chairs. He could have been one of my boys right then, Wade. He was young enough. I could tell he liked it. But I sent him back and waited for morning by myself.”
    “You’re not alone tonight, Sheriff. But, you sure these men ain’t sick?”
    “Wade, stop putting me off my thought. They’re just locked up for the night is all.” The Sheriff turned, placed his wide face between the bars so that they pressed on his temples and stared into the cell.
    The prisoners did not rise. Occasional words, lights burning pastthe hour, caused no awakening fumble or sudden oath. A few Red Devils lay awkwardly spread eagle in the cell, the black driving mitten of one flung upon the seamless snout of another, tangled, sleeping, perhaps ready to spring with wild rubber limbs high and low against the bars. In captivity, sometime during the night, they had heaped themselves in the middle of the painted floor like a stack of slashed and darkened tires. The Sheriff and Wade slumped, grinned.
    “Sheriff, watch this.” Wade, beginning silently to shake, stooped and squeezed, pushed his leg recklessly through the bars. He puffed and it thrust forward, trousers sticking and riding up the bulky calf.
    “Wade,” the Sheriff chuckled and whispered, “you’ll get it bit off.”
    The dusty shoe of a full sized man probed toward the small formless foot of the nearest sprawled prisoner. Wade hung low and twisted, stopped breathing and bent his head to aim. The Sheriff waited.
    He kicked, then kicked again and suddenly pulling and swaying with all his weight he cursed, strained and drew it back. The Devil’s foot moved a few inches and lay still.
    “Hell,” Wade caught his breath, “they’re harmless.”
    “I told you. But, Wade,” the fingers pressed, relaxed, “go get him for me.”
    The red wagon stood at the end of the street. Now and then a volley of firecrackers burst from a huddle of black braided Indians and with a dismal but high pitched cry they scattered, then returned panting toward the wagon. Or a single brave, eyes closed and ankle shoes clumping in the dust, would break from the rest and race with terrified showy speed away from the leaning red spectacle of the traveling house, straight up the center of the empty street.
    The fireworks were old. Hoarded in leantos and one room cabins among families of fifteen children and ancient long haired eagle men, they were unearthed, armfuls brought into the street, supplied by bareback riders with pockets stuffed, lathered in haste. The paper cartridges exploded with stored energy or fizzled dangerously in clouds of smoke, the breath of a long horned animal on its knees. Above the clamor of the young men—their legs worked to the rattling of dry stones—the oldest Indian alive, without eyes, chin wrinkled into the mouth, clothed in baggy coat on the shoulders of which scraped his yellowed hair, stood rigidly still and, smiling or grimacing, waved in jerky circles a hissing sparkler.
    One of the runners who had left with shouts and returned in a low