Killer’s Can’t Fly by Edward parrish Ware Read online

  Thrilling Adventures, March, 1939

  HEN Tom Hale, U. S. Public Lands

  snowstorm of the winter in the Arkansas patrolman, looked out from under

  L’Anguile Swamp was over, it was exactly W the weighted branches of his midnight.

  sheltering juniper and saw that the first He shouldered rifle and pack and

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  pushed off through a twelve-inch blanket of authorities wanted Hargett badly, and the loot snow. Snow which would make his immediate along with him.

  job even more hazardous than he had

  The patrolman stopped at length at the anticipated—would inject desperate risk into east side of a small clearing, and looked across an already dangerous undertaking.

  the snow at what was visible of the old Ladue Five miles northwest of the sheltering cabin. A black huddle was all he could see.

  juniper his trek would come to an end—

  He sprinted across the short distance

  Hale stopped abruptly. Crossing the

  between the brush and the door of a lean-to unbroken expanse of his trail ahead, like holes kitchen—and two black-and-tan hounds gave punched in a sheet of white paper, were newly savage alarm. He jerked the latchstring, a laid tracks. Fresh tracks of a human being. He jump ahead of them, slapped the door open thrust his fingers down into one of them, and leaped into the house. A dark, silent touched hard-pack with no fluff on it.

  house. Closing the door, he moved on silent

  “Five minutes ago, maybe ten,” he feet through the darkness. He located the surmised, standing still and scanning the snow doorway into the remaining room, then found in all directions. His survey was hindered by a a table on which was a lamp. He laid a hand heavy growth of swamp juniper, the trees on the chimney, then jerked it away quickly.

  suggesting rotund, sheeted ghosts, with here The globe was hot!

  and there a green undergarment showing. He

  “If you come closer, I’ll shoot!”

  could see no movement, hear no sound.

  The

  threat,

  vibrant

  with fear, suspense,

  He walked on, covered three hundred

  desperation, came out of the darkness across yards, then stopped again. Cutting across the the room. The voice was a woman’s!

  line of his course was another set of tracks, pointing in the same general direction as the HALE remained against the table, hand on the first set had done. But the second trail had not bowl of the lamp.

  been broken by the person who laid the first.

  “I won’t come closer,” he assured her.

  The stride of this one was much shorter, the

  “And don’t you shoot. We need a light!”

  punctures in the snow-sheet less deep. No He removed the chimney, touched a

  snow had fallen in them either. They had been match to the wick, and turned to find the made at or near the time the first set was laid.

  woman.

  The patrolman shrugged and struck

  She stood crouching in a corner—and

  out, but not in the direction the tracks pointed.

  if ever the patrolman had seen stark fear in a He continued to head toward his objective on human countenance hers had it. As he stood the east bank of Little Redbone Bayou. The staring, the look of fear lessened on her puzzle of the two snow trails could work itself features. Surprise took its place. Whoever she out. Perhaps was doing so, somewhere in the had feared, it was not Tom Hale. Her right jungle’s cover.

  hand, inside the front of a woolly jacket, Little Redbone lay two miles ahead.

  relaxed and was nearly withdrawn. She was And Shawnee Hargett was holed up on the not going to pull her pistol.

  east bank of the bayou in Frenchy Ladue’s A girl of the swamp country, trousered abandoned cabin. Hale’s information on that and booted. Her black eyes, under a low point was certain. And holed up with the cold-forehead crowned with a cap of red wool blooded slayer of two railway mail clerks was which confined her closely cropped black hair, the loot he had taken from them—one hundred were demanding now. Her small, pointed chin thousand dollars in currency. The Federal was lifted stubbornly, and the set of her red-

  Killer’s Can’t Fly

  3

  lipped mouth was as suggestive as the chin. In He walked to the front door, opened it her late ’teens, probably, but already seasoned and looked down at the doorlog.

  by the swamp woman’s unflagging resistance.

  The snow on it had been trampled by

  She continued standing there in the far corner, human feet and those of the dogs. He could looking at the patrolman from questioning read no clear sign there. But day had dawned eyes.

  bleakly, and his survey of the snow-sheet in

  “Here all alone?” Hale asked, his the clearing told him a very definite story.

  scrutiny finished.

  The two black-and-tans, not savage

  The girl tried to speak, choked—then

  now, slunk inside, tails tucked, shivering from pointed to the floor in front of the fireplace.

  cold. Hale closed the door.

  Hale had already seen the body. A man

  “What’s your first name?” he asked

  lay there, eyes open and fixed on the shingles the girl.

  above. There was a ragged hole in his

  “Ruthie,” she choked, her eyes less

  forehead where a bullet had torn through. Hale hot. “Ruthie Barwick!”

  walked to him.

  “Ruthie,” he said, “one man crossed

  He checked closely enough. Hargett,

  the clearing into this cabin after the snow no doubt. A small hole at the base of the brain began falling last night. He didn’t go out indicated the caliber of the revolver used. A again. You came in later, went away, lost

  .38.

  yourself in the timber, and came back here.

  “Where are you from? Barwick’s No other tracks, except those of the dogs, in Settlement, up the bayou?” he asked the girl.

  the snow until I came. The chap you call Bonner is dead. Murdered. Do you deny that SHE jerked her small head affirmatively, but you killed him?”

  made no other reply. She just stood and

  “I didn’t! He was dead, right there on waited, eyes again fear haunted.

  the floor,” she cried, pointing an unsteady

  “Acquainted with Lance Barwick, up

  finger. “He was still warm! I left, and then got there?”

  scared I’d meet Pap on the bayou. If he’d The girl’s eyes jumped, her lids missed me, he’d be after me, and he’d figger flickered, and her small hands, already fists, out exactly where to look. I got lost in the clenched tighter still.

  storm, trying to go back home a new way, and

  “Lance Barwick is my father,” she backtracked to the cabin to get a new start.

  admitted, a tremor in her voice.

  That’s all. He was dead when I came first, just

  “Pretty well acquainted with Shawnee

  like you see him now!”

  Hargett?” he asked, nodding toward the body Hale’s smile lost nothing of its

  on the floor.

  skepticism. “So this Bonner committed

  “Cliff Bonner!” she contradicted suicide, eh?” he suggested sarcastically.

  promptly.

  “He could have!” she sobbed.

  “My mistake,” Hale apologized

  “Kind of awkward, shooting himself in

  meekly. “Please excuse it! How long have you the back of the head. Besides, the deat
h gun known Harg—pardon me again, Bonner?”

  was a thirty-eight—just like yours—and

  “About six months, right after he came Bonner’s is a forty-four. He was murdered.

  in here.”

  Why did you come here, in the first place?”

  Tom Hale seized her wrist quickly,

  abruptly.

  thrust a hand inside her woolly jacket and

  “Cliff and me was going to run away

  plucked out a .38 revolver.

  together last night,” she managed through the

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  sobs. “I hid out in a willow thicket below

  “For murder, yes.”

  Pap’s cabin, and waited for him. He didn’t Both hounds broke into a fury of

  come, so I went down the bayou to find out barking. Hale wheeled, a gun drawn.

  why. And—and he was dead, like I told you!”

  The front door latch clicked, and the

  “While you were lost and trailing door slammed back.

  around in the timber,” Hale asked abruptly,

  “Drop it!” Hale snapped—and thrust

  “did you have a feeling that somebody else his six-gun forward.

  was out there? Somebody who trailed along A tall, bulky, well wrapped man had

  with you—”

  stepped from doorlog to sill. Startled, his The effect on the girl was astounding.

  relaxed fingers dropped the gun he had in his

  “No!” she shrieked, her eyes distended hand. He stared at the patrolman, his dark eyes agonizedly. “Nobody did! Nobody was out wide, his lips peeled back from strong, white there! Please,” in supplication, “say there teeth. Hale had never seen the man before.

  wasn’t nobody follering me last night!”

  “All right,” he said, “come in and close One of the hounds lifted suddenly the door!”

  from the floor, growled throatily and trotted to

  “So here’s where yuh are, huh?” the

  a window on the west. Hale followed.

  swamper snarled at the girl, walking in and The girl, Hale’s eyes off her for the

  closing the door.

  moment, darted swiftly into the kitchen. She

  “Where I am ain’t any business of yours, Lee was tearing at the door latch when he overtook Ruffner!” Ruthie scorned shrilly. “Howcome her and carried her bodily back into the big you here, anyhow?”

  room.

  “Hunting for you, if yuh must know!

  “Who are you so afraid of?” he asked,

  And I done found yuh, too, ain’t I?”

  putting her down in a rocker.

  “After you lost her trail in the timber

  “Please let me go,” she panted. “I last night?” Hale put in quietly. “That about don’t want to stay here—and—and be killed! I right?”

  want to go home. Please—can’t I go?”

  “Was it you that follered me last night, Hale stood by the window, watching.

  Lee Ruffner?” Ruthie demanded accusingly.

  The hound was barking in short, throaty yaps.

  “I didn’t foller nobody!”

  As yet he saw nobody.

  “You’re lying,” Hale told him calmly.

  “Nobody will kill you here,” he

  assured her. “I’ll take care of you. Who are THEN Ruffner saw the dead man on the floor.

  you afraid will try it?”

  His long body jerked stiffly erect. He stared

  “You won’t take care of me!” Ruthie

  hard, walked over and looked down at the accused hopelessly. “You think I killed dead face.

  Bonner!”

  “So,” he shrugged, turning away, “the

  “No,” Hale told her. “I don’t think you damned skunk’s dead, eh? Good riddance to did. The tracks in the snow declare that you bad rubbage, if yuh ask me!”

  and you alone could have done so, but I’m

  “Murdered,” Hale said laconically.

  convinced you didn’t. But that isn’t enough.

  “Who done it?”

  I’ve got to prove you didn’t—else take you to

  “Ruthie.”

  jail. I don’t like the thought of that.”

  “I didn’t!” Ruthie wailed protestingly.

  “Jail?” she queried, almost whispering.

  “Of course Ruthie didn’t!” Ruffner

  “Why—they don’t put women folks in the cried in angry support. “And yuh, want to be jailhouse, do they?”

  careful, feller, how yuh accuse the gal I’m

  Killer’s Can’t Fly

  5

  aiming to marry!”

  kitchen chair—and had then burned the

  “But I ain’t aiming to marry with you, sections in the fireplace.

  Lee Ruffner!” Ruthie blazed indignantly.

  That just did not make sense!

  “Yuh will, though,” confidently. “Your His glance rested idly on something

  pap and me has done fixed that up. Far as that which he had marked before, but which had goes,” boastingly, “I picked yuh for myself not made any specific impression. Suddenly it when I first come into this section, six months did. What lay, on the table was a nickeled belt ago. I take what I want. But that ain’t buckle, a thin strip of leather adhering to it to important now. What’s all this about killing show that the belt of which it had been a part that trash yonder?” He nodded had recently been cut. Hale’s glance dropped contemptuously toward the dead man on the to the body of the man before the fireplace.

  floor.

  “I’ll tell you about that later,” Hale THERE were no suspenders over the

  told him. “Sit down. I’ll look things over a bit.

  shoulders, and the belt was missing from Pretty soon we’ll all go up to the village.”

  about the middle.

  Ruffner gave the patrolman a sour

  In a flash the chair, the belt buckle, look, but sat down as ordered. Hale picked the and the leather belt all came together and newcomer’s gun off the floor and pocketed it.

  made sense to the patrolman.

  The swamper grinned bleakly, but said

  Hale was suddenly wary. He needed

  nothing.

  nobody to tell him that what he now knew Hale saw very quickly that the two rooms had amounted to a warrant for his own swift and recently been searched. In the kitchen he sudden death. One man had been killed; the found that packages had been opened, a sack death of another would be neither here nor of flour probed, the woodbox emptied of its there to the murderer.

  contents. No possible hiding place had been The black-and-tans gave tongue

  overlooked.

  loudly. Hale leaped to a window and glanced And the patrolman knew what that out. He was barely in time to see a figure glide meant. Hargett’s loot had been hunted for—

  into cover back of a bush. Over the top of and probably found.

  another clump of shrubbery he saw a

  He started back into the big room, and shapeless black felt hat.

  noticed more distinctly a crumbly substance He wheeled to ask Ruffner a

  underfoot which he had been vaguely aware of question—and found Ruthie at his elbow. She, before. He glanced down at the floor, then too, had been looking out the window. Her bent over for a closer look.

  face was paler than ever, and there was abject Sawdust. A heap of new sawdust was

  fear in her eyes.

  on the floor near the table. That was odd. For

  “Pap’s out there!” she whimpered.

  there was nothing in either room which “He’s back of that clump of buck brush. I saw showed signs of having been recently cut. Yet him. I’m afraid of Pap, Mr. Patrolman—awful something certainly had been.

  afraid!”

  Hale poked at the dead ashes in the

  “And with mighty good reason to be!”

  fireplace,
and discovered some charred bits of Ruffner spat angrily. “Afraid of him and me wood which certainly looked like parts of the both—or yuh oughta be!”

  frame of a chair. The charred bits had been Hale walked to the door, threw it open varnished as was the still remaining chair.

  and called:

  Somebody had sawed up Hargett’s

  “Come in, Lance Barwick! No use

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  skulking out there. The man you want is he would create a mystery which would dead!”

  forever put investigators off his trail— and A moment of silence, then two men

  he’d do that by going out of the cabin without emerged into view and walked swiftly into the leaving a trail!”

  cabin. Both of them were known casually to

  “Unless he had wings and could fly—”

  the patrolman. Both started when they saw the Barwick started to protest.

  dead man on the floor, but concerning him

  “He did it very simply,” Hale cut in.

  neither made comment.

  “He sawed up a kitchen chair, and using the Lance Barwick, shaggy haired, pig posts, plus a leather belt and a few nails, he eyed, in middle life, had a savage, threatening fixed up a contraption which did the trick. In look on his swarthy face. His hot eyes found short, men, the killer walked away from here the girl who cowered in her chair, and he on a pair of stilts!”

  swore savagely.

  Joe Brant, the young native, spoke THE faces of the men looked blank. As warningly to him, then looked inquiringly at though they couldn’t quite accept the amazing Hale.