Blister Jones Part 40

Never had I seen anything so malevolent as this head. Its eyes were green flame, holding the hate of h.e.l.l in their depths. The mouth was open, and the great white teeth closed with a snap on one of the bars and shook it in its socket.

So this was the noted man-killer, nicknamed because of his size and his astonis.h.i.+ng ability to carry weight--The Big Train! His fame had been borne by leaded column beyond the racing, and to the more general public; for on several occasions he had succeeded in furnis.h.i.+ng the yellow newspapers with gory copy.

He had begun his career as a man-killer in his three-year-old form. An unscrupulous owner had directed the jockey to carry an electric battery during an important race. Under the current The Big Train had run like a wild thing, and despite a staggering load placed on him by the handicapper, had won by many lengths.

After the race the stallion had reached back, and getting the jockey's leg between his teeth, had torn him from the saddle. Then before a screaming, horror-stricken grand-stand he had stamped the boy into a red waste.

This was his first and last public atrocity. He had killed men since, but always when they were alone with him. No one had seen him at his murders. He would have been destroyed when his racing days were over, but he possessed the ability to transmit a large measure of his stamina and speed to his offspring, and was greatly in demand as a sire.

I stood before The Big Train's stall, fascinated by his wicked attempts to get at me until Blister's attention was attracted by the thud of the stallion's hoofs against the lower door.

"Come on back here 'n' set down 'n' let that hoss get his rest,' he ordered. I obeyed.

"Why on earth did you take him?" I asked, when once more seated on the bale of straw.

"Well, ole Prindle says he'd give fifty bucks a week to the guy who'll handle him 'n' I needs the money . . . fur certain reasons."

"Fur certain reasons" was added diffidently, I thought. This was an altogether new quality in Blister. And I remembered the pretty, spoiled-looking, young girl I had seen with him quite often of late.

She was rosy, pouty, slim, enticing and thoroughly aware of how desirable she appeared. Blister had told me she was his landlady's daughter, and I knew she lived but a block from the race track. I thought of the head I had seen, and felt certain that fifty _thousand_ a week would not tempt me into an intimate relations.h.i.+p with its owner.

"I can't tell you how sorry I am you've taken him--it's a fearful risk," I said.

"Get out!" said Blister. "He won't even muss my hair. I never go in to him alone 'n' he don't like company fur his little stunts. He's a regular family hoss in a crowd."

Two stable-boys now climbed the track fence and came toward us rather hastily.

"Been on a vacation?" was Blister's greeting to them.

"Playin' seven-up 'n' tried to finish the game," one of them explained as they started with buckets for the pump.

"That's good. It don't matter whether these hosses get watered, just so you swipes enjoy yourselves," Blister commented.

I watched languidly while the buckets were filled and brought to the horses, until this process reached the barred stall. Then I became interested. One of the boys approached the stall with a bucket in one hand and a pitchfork held near the p.r.o.nged end in the other. He swung open the lower door and whacked the fork handle back and forth inside, yelling harsh commands in the meantime. He succeeded in getting the bucket where the horse could drink, but the pitchfork was seized and twisted and the boy had difficulty in wrenching it away. It was all he could do to regain possession of it.

"Little pink toes is feelin' like his ole sweet self again," said Blister. "I been worried about him--he's seemed so pie-faced here lately."

"Don't worry none about him," said the boy who had watered The Big Train. "Mama's lamb ain't forgot his cute ways." Then he addressed the other boy. "Say, Chic, you snored somethin' fierce last night!

Why don't you sleep in here with Bright Eyes, so's not to disturb me?"

"Would, only I might thrash around in my sleep 'n' hurt him," promptly replied the other boy.

Two figures had come from the street, through the gate and strolled down the line of stalls. One of them was feminine, and in white, and as they drew nearer, "Good evening, Mister Jones," floated to us in an a.s.sured though girlish voice.

It was the landlady's daughter, attended by a cavalier in the person of a stolid young man of German extraction, as I thought at first glance, and this was confirmed by Blister's, "Let me make you acquainted with Miss Malloy," and "Shake hands with Mister Shultz."

Then began the by no means unskilful playing of one lover against the other. She sat, a queen--the bale of straw a throne--and dispensed royal favors impartially; a dimple melting to a smile, a frown changed by feminine magic into a delicious pout.

In the moonlight she was exceedingly lovely. She seemed unapproachable, elusive, mysterious, and yet her art touched the material. She contrived to bring out how successful Mister Shultz was in the bakery business, and in the next breath told nonchalantly of the vast sums acquired by a race-horse trainer.

She appealed to Blister to corroborate this.

"Isn't that so, Mister Jones? Didn't you tell me you get fifty dollars a week for training one horse?"

Blister was not above impressing his rival, it seemed. He nodded to this deceptive question. And since he had nine horses in his "string,"

the worthy German's eyes bulged.

At last I rose to go and our little circle broke up. The girl, with a coquettish good night to me, moved away from us and stood with her back to the stalls, her face lifted to the moon.

"Good night, ole Four Eyes!" said Blister, and gave my hand a friendly pressure, just as a rattling sound attracted my eyes to the barred stall.

The lower door was swinging open. A powerful neck had tossed the bars from their sockets. This was the rattle I had heard, as Death came out of that stall, huge and terrible, to rear above the unconscious white figure in the moonlight.

My look of horror swung Blister about. I saw him dive headlong, and the white figure was knocked to safety as the man-killer's forefeet struck Blister down.

The rest was a dream . . . I found myself beating with futile fists the giant body that rose and fell as it stamped upon that other body beneath. I knew, but dimly, that the night was pierced by shriek on shriek. And still I felt the rise and fall of the beast. How long it lasted I do not know. . . . . . .

A helmeted figure swept me aside, I saw a gleam in the moonlight--a flash, and felt that a shot was fired, although I can not remember hearing it. The Big Train ceased to rise and fall. He swayed, staggered and crumpled to the ground.

"An ambulance--quick!" I said to the heaven-sent policeman; and saw him start for the gate on a lumbering trot. Then I stooped to the figure, lying with its head in what the moonlight had changed to a pool of ink.

Suddenly I felt a woman's soft form beneath my hands. It was in white and it covered that other dreadful figure with its own . . . and moaned.

"This won't do," I said to the girl. "Let me see how badly he's hurt."

She took Blister's head in her arms.

"Go 'way from here! He's dead," she said. "He saved me . . . he's mine! Go 'way from here!"

A crowd was forming. I sent a stableboy for a blanket, put it under Blister's head, despite the girl's protests, and pulled her roughly to her feet.

"Go over to that bale and sit down!" I ordered, giving her a shake; and to my surprise she obeyed. "Sit with her!" I said to the German, and I heard her repeat, "Go 'way from here!" as he approached. . . .

The ambulance clanged through the gate. The young surgeon put his ear to Blister's heart, picked the limp body up unaided and placed it in the somber-looking vehicle.

"Beat it, Max!" he said to the driver.

"What hospital?" I called after him.

"Saint Luke's!" he shouted, as they gathered speed.

"You had better take her home now," I suggested to Mr. Shultz. "I am going to the hospital."

"So am I," said the girl. "Tell mother," she directed at the German, as she started for the gate.

"You'd better not go," I remonstrated. "I'll let you know everything as soon as I hear."

She paid not the slightest attention. When we reached the street she stopped on the wrong corner waiting for a car that would have taken her away from, instead of toward, the hospital.