Alias-the-Blackbird-Chapter-05

THE HOLD-UP of the Gold Beetle was not the only crime that was carried out in the next few days. On that same night, for instance, down in Tuxedo, fifteen miles away, a rich man’s summer mansion was gutted of a treasure in old paintings and hand-fasioned silver dinnerware, three times as precious—were the thief able to dispose of it at market price—as the treasure taken from the Beetle. The thief, or at least an accomplice, was immediately arrested, however. The mystery was a question, so far as the local police saw it, of how the loot had been carried away without trace.

It was a curious incident. The mansion, standing in a great park of lawns, and surrounded by a twelve-foot iron fence, could be reached only by one road, and that a steep winding mountain road, whose few inhabitants were accustomed to observing each car that panted up the grade to the gates. The house was in the process of being closed for the winter. An employee of a New York art gallery had been commissioned to pack up the valuables and ship them to the city.

In the evening, when he retired, after drinking some applejack to protect him against the keen October night, the tall iron gates were locked, according to his story, and no marks of vehicles furrowed the long, smooth, newly tamped gravel road that led from the gates to the mansion house.

In the morning, when he awoke, the gates were still locked, and no track of any wheel passed below them. Nor was there anyone upon the road approaching the estate who had heard a car go up or down. Yet wheel tracks ran half-way up the graveled road inside the grounds, cutting straight along the center of it, and suddenly ending in nothingness. From the house, the collection of valuables, weighing several hundred pounds, had curiously vanished. The caretaker was immediately arrested, of course, when it was found that he had a police record, and was put in a place where things were made so warm that he had no need of applejack. Nor did he help his case a whit by saying that he had half aroused from slumber, when the moon was shining, to behold out of his bedroom window a vast black bird soaring away over the tall fence, humming a little song as it went. Such are the visions which spring from applejack drunk in October.

“It’s not right; it’s not right!” complained the suspect, failing to realize, no doubt, that there are many things not right in this old world that men must, nevertheless, stomach. “Here, I’ve got a wife and kids, and been going as straight as a string for seven years. Would I be such a boob? Let me out of here!” he screeched. “Let me go home to my kids!”

But he was caught and put behind solid hoosegow bars.

The next night there was a robbery over near Tarrytown, down across the Hudson—a safe tin-canned open and a watchman knifed in the groin when he had come upon something unexpectedly in the dark.

THE AFTERNOON two days after the Beetle’s crash, Sergeant Cedar Rudd came riding merrily on his fat, white mule over the ridge trail from Iron Mine to Bitter Lake. The woods lay beneath mellow Indian summer sunlight. The air was clean and crisp, and a hawk soared high in it for the pure joy of flying.

“I’m going to get you, old fellow,” said Cedar to himself, eying the speck of bird.

Cedar Rudd had just broken—or rather, emptied—a bottle of Irish whisky with Officer Amsel. It was a gift sent him by Captain Hammer from New York. His glance was bright, his smile confused; his stomach felt warm and rosy. Hammer had written him:

Here is a little gift of bottled sunshine for you and the Iron Mine officer. I am sorry I didn’t see him. The doctors have me flat now, and I’ll have to shoot them or marry my nurse to get away. The blackbird is still in the hills, I’m convinced. It’s a beautiful hiding place for him. I shan’t be able to sleep easily till I’ve run him to ground. Watch out for him—and keep your gun handy. He’s a killer.

“This is right nice of Captain Hammer,” said Cedar, letting Amsel read the letter, while he poured out a drink. “Particularly, remembering you, whom he’s never seen.”

“Oh, we may have met before,” said Amsel softly. “Who knows?”

“You’ve got to meet him, if he comes up here again.”

“Yes,” said Amsel, “I’ll give him a reception.”

“Well, bottoms up!” said Cedar. “The way we used to do in the old Marines. What’ll we drink to?”

“May the Blackbird soar high!” said Amsel.

“Yea!” roared Cedar, downing his glass. “May he soar at the end of a rope necktie ten feet off the ground.”

Now the warmth of this pleasant bottle still lingered with Cedar, as he came over the Ridge. The forest about him bore its quiet autumnal look. Rain had fallen in the early morning; the ground was still wet; and little lizards, scarlet as hot flame, revelled among dank leaves underfoot.

As Cedar bounced along on Snowball, he burst into song. It was not a particularly nice song, but it had plenty of volume and went rolling over the hills like thunder.

“My mammy was a wall-eyed goat;
My old man was an ass.
And I feed myself off leather boots
And dynamite and grass.
For I’m a mule, a long-eared fool.
And I ain’t never been to school.
Mammee! Ma-ha-ha-mam-hee!
Hee-haw! Mam-maw!
Ma-ham-mee!
“My old man belonged to the Horse Marines;
My mammy was a donkey.
And when they saw the bouncing boy
They called me IIunkey-Tunkey.
For I’m a mule, a long-eared fool.
And I ain’t never been to school

“Join the chorus. Snowball !” he urged,slapping the fat mule’s neck.And Snowball did.
“Mammee! Ma-ha-ha-mam-hee!
Ilee-haw! Mam-maw!
Ma-ham-mee!”
Cedar had progressed a mile from the Iron Mine police cabin. He came to the summit of the ridge. Three miles straight ahead he could see a sector of waters sparkling on Bitter Lake, with his own cabin, like a wren’s house, on the rocky shore. He paused and lighted a cigaret.
Across the trail, almost beneath the
nose of Snowball, a ferret came leaping
in long russet curves, made careless by
Cedar’s posture of immobility. Little
ears alert and pointed, cruel teeth gleam-
ing, it paused, looked up and saw him,
then fled. Cedar jerked out his pistol
and snapped a shot. Instantly he swung
to the ground and plunged after. The
flashing beast was disappearing into the
tangled face of an earth embankment,
leaving a trail of tiny blood drops, like
rubies on the brown leaves.
Cedar had shot instinctively, in the
cheerfulness of his mood. Now he was
sorry of his act. He could not leave the
fierce little killer wounded, to perish with
lingering pain. He followed swiftly, tore
aside an armful of creepers from the
embankment and peered through.
He had uncovered the mouth of an old
horizontal mine shaft, doubtless similar to
the one that lay near the Iron Mine cabin.
From these rude mines had once been
delved metal for the cannons that de-
fended Fort Montgomery and West Point
against the Hessian cattle. The ferret’s
crimson trail disappeared across the
threshold of the mine. Bending below
the decaying crosspiece, Cedar inched his
way cautiously within.
The shaft was about five feet high, six
wide, and of a depth unknown. Rotten
logs, corduroyed across the floor, oozed
like mush beneath his tread. There
struck him the dank exhalation of rotting
vegetation, of termite-weeviled wood, of
deep hidden waters, stagnant with the
corruption of a hundred years. Clots of
earth dropped on him from the cobwebbed
roof. The flooring trembled.
Something splashed into an unseen
pool. Inch by inch Cedar felt his way
inward. His nostrils flattened at the
odor. He trod lightly, and he was rapidly
growing sober.
He should not venture here. No, he
knew the hills too well, and the treachery
of such rotten holes. This was a trap,
a tomb, a place of burial and blind
drowning. Amsel had tried it at the Iron
Mine shaft. And pushing a wheel-
barrow, too. There had been those
wheelmarks on the grass. But Amsel
was not a woodsman. He had not
learned the forest’s dismal secrets.
Cedar Rudd shook his head. He must
warn Amsel again.
Glimmering in the dim light from the
shaft’s mouth, the eyes of an animal
burned cold green upon Cedar. He in-
stantly leveled his pistol and shot.
Echoes shrieked and earth rumbled.
“Almighty God!” he shouted.
There, in the blackness, he let out that
despairing cry. He had felt the flooring
cave beneath him. It tumbled down to
hidden waters. Desperately he leaped.
Where he had stood there was nothing.
Still the log ribbed floor rumbled and
trembled, breaking under his scrambling
feet. In huge clots the roof was falling,
blocking him off from day. With hunched
shoulders, he plunged along that caving
floor and fell headlong over the entrance.
Below his feet yawned emptiness; he lay
over the lip of the gulf. Clutching at
roots, he pulled himself forth on his belly.
He got himself to his shaking knees and
arose. A moment later he drubbed his
heels against Snowball’s smooth, bulging
flanks. At a furious gallop he left that
dismal place behind him.
“I’ve got to warn Amsel again,” he
thought. “That’s what’ll happen to him,
if he don’t watch out.”