The hand of God
The sheriff licked his lips and lifted the muzzle of his gun as the mob
surged toward the jail.
“You-all lookin’ for the Pearly Gates?” he snapped. He was raging;
wrathful with a supreme power which gave no help to a sorely tried
peace officer in time of need. One last straw presented itself. “I’ll
let two of you men come in heah,” he snapped again, “just so’s yuh
can see I ain’t lyin’ about him bein’ in no shape to know whether he
done it or not. Just two, so’s yuh can see. An’ if more’n that try to
come I start killin’ somebody!”
His gun sent a sudden long streak of yellow flame out into the darkness.
A man had run on ahead and was moving toward the jail door from the
side. The sheriff’s voice cut through the echoes of the explosion as
other guns came out in answer to his.
“I wasn’t aimin’ to hit, then,” he snarled, “but I’m tellin’ yuh! Two
men, no more, can come in this heah jail!”
He was crouched down, deadly and desperate and despairing of help from
above. He was going to be killed. He was quite sure of it. But his tired
brain was clinging desperately to one last shred of hope. If they picked
two men who would listen to him, he could show them the two shells. He
could reason with two men, when he couldn’t with a mob.
The mob was milling aimlessly and angrily. The sheriff’s shout, alone,
would have been useless. The shot, alone, would have been worse than
useless. Together, they halted a mob not quite up to the pitch of facing
hot lead for the sake of a killing it lusted for.
And then two men came forward. One was Pete Brown. The other was Lucy
Sears’ father, raging because he had wanted his daughter to marry
Kittinger.
“We’re heah,” said Sears harshly.
Pete Brown’s eyes were bright when the sheriff let them in the jail,
and brighter when he barred the door behind them. He was fingering a
gun in his belt.
“You try shootin’ him, Pete,” said the sheriff, “an’ I blow yuh to bits!
A lynchin’ is a lynchin’, but one man killin’ another is murder, an’ yuh
know it.”
Pete snarled at him. The sheriff was very weary, and very sick at heart.
He took hold of Sears’ arm.
“Listen heah, Mistuh Sears----” began the sheriff desperately.
But Sears wasn’t listening. He was looking savagely after Pete
Brown. And Pete Brown had gone on, and was staring into a cell--then
he turned, with the smoky lamplight disclosing his teeth. Pete Brown
looked remarkably unhandsome, just then.
“Y’ damned liar!” he snarled at the sheriff. “I seen him! He was sittin’
up! He flopped down an’ he’s pretendin’ to be passed out now. Shammin’!”
* * * * *
And suddenly the sheriff saw everything. Everything. Pete Brown was
lying! He said he saw Sam Blake, but he didn’t, because the cell into
which he was looking was empty. Sam Blake was in another cell entirely.
And that little lie, of Pete Brown’s contriving, made two little brass
shells mean----?
Pete Brown was shouting:
“Come in, folks! He’s up an’ about, only shammin’!”
And the sheriff’s voice cut like steel.
“The hand o’ Gawd’s come down at las’! Pete, yuh remembered t’ shoot off
Sam Blake’s gun, but yuh forgot to eject the shell!”
Pete whirled. The sheriff’s big revolver was bearing unwaveringly upon
his body, and the sheriff’s eyes were glowing.
“That cell’s empty,” said the sheriff, very calmly. “Yuh didn’t see
anybody in theah, because it’s empty. But I’m willin’ to believe yuh
did see yore uncle when he was killed. Only--wheah were you when yuh
saw him?”
He went hurtling forward as Pete Brown gasped and jerked something out
of his belt. There was a terrific explosion in the iron and concrete
interior of the jail. Then there were thrashing bodies, fighting madly
between the rows of rusty bars. The bearded Sears stared, stupefied.
And suddenly the sheriff heaved upward, with blood flowing from a cut
on his forehead. Keys jangled. A cell door clanked open and clanged
shut again. There were thunderous, pounding blows upon the jail door.
The sheriff shot through it, deliberately high. The blows stopped. He
shot through it again, lower down.
“I just arrested Pete Brown,” said the sheriff, in a voice that cut
through the thick wooden door. “I ’rested him for the murder of his
uncle. Pete got Sam Blake drunk las’ night an’ shot off his gun
somewheres, but the damn fool forgot to fling out the shell a’terward!
An’ this mornin’, sometime before the killing, Pete banged Sam over the
head--Sam bein’ still dead drunk--an’ dragged him into the blacksmith
shop. Then Pete shot his uncle himself an’ run, leavin’ Sam to take the
blame. But there was empty shells in the blacksmith shop, one where
Pete’d flung out the shell he killed his uncle with, an’ the one he’d
left in Sam Blake’s gun. Pete run along the back of the houses to his
barbershop an’ run out, sayin’ he saw his uncle die. But, listen t’ me,
you folks out theah! The porch of the store wheah Kittinger was killed
is full o’ packin’-boxes. Pete couldn’t ha’ seen a damn thing from his
barbershop! _The only place he could ha’ seen Kittinger die is from the
place the murderer killed him!_”
A pause. One second. Two. Three---- Then Sears, beside him in the jail,
gasped, “By Gawd! Hit’s so!”
He turned, his face working with rage. The sheriff’s gun came up.
“Git out o’ my jail!” said the sheriff grimly. “No matter who’s the
murderer, theah ain’t goin’ to be no lynchin’ tonight! An’ me
thinkin’--me thinkin----” The sheriff swallowed suddenly and went to
the jail door, unbarred it, and stepped out. “Git to hell outer heah!”
he snarled at the still dazed mob. “Git goin’! The lynchin’s off, if I
have t’ kill every rannihan in the county!”
* * * * *
He was ready to kill, then. Quite ready to kill in defense of his new
prisoner, who would have no option but to confess his crime and the lust
for Kittinger’s money that had prompted it. Entirely ready to kill, now,
for the sake of the law alone.
Men are queer things. And so are mobs. Anything that distracts the
attention of a mob--a storm, a house on fire, the discovery that it
was about to lynch an innocent man---- Did not such things show the
hand of God?
A quarter of an hour later the sheriff went back into the jail from the
now deserted courthouse green. He was trembling. He raised the window
and a cool breeze came in and fanned his forehead.
“The hand o’ Gawd----” The sheriff felt suddenly guilty, as if he should
apologize to someone or something for his previous skepticism and for
his hesitation. But an innate stubbornness came to his rescue. “Dawggone
it, hit wasn’t my fault! Anybody’d ha’ got mad!”
[Transcriber’s note: This story appeared in the July 25, 1930 issue
of _Short Stories_ magazine.]