E SCREAMED when the hot
tar touched him. The- night had been quiet with only the slight rustling of white figures, and the little sounds of the fire: under the tar pot, and his weak, gasping sobs. Then his voice came suddenly, and he kept screaming "Christ, Christ, Christ!" over and over again. He kept on screaming "Christ, Christ, Christ!" for a little while, and then he moaned some, and then he was silent and his body sagged like an empty sack, and there were no sounds save our heavy breathing and the sticky sucking of the swabs as they pulled out of the thick tar.
own
There were about twenty of us there that night, clustered back in the shadows of the big trees away from the moonlight in the little clearing. We were wrapped clum- sily in sheets and my head grew hot under a pillow case slashed with skeleton features. There had about the some argument sheets and pillow cases, but Art Reynolds had insisted upon them.
been
"There's 10 use taking chances," he had said. "When word of this gets 'round the news papers'll start yapping their heads off, and a lot of preachers and some of those damned radical outfits are going to get after the Governor. And he'll have to do something about it whether he wants to or not. It isn't as if we were down South where they know how to handle things like this. This is Pennsylvania, and there's no use taking chances. The rat isn't worth it."
So we wore sheets. I had left mine under a blanket in the back seat until I reached the outskirts of town. Then I had stopped, put on my sheet and pillow case, turn- ed off my lights, and driven on. It was very late when I reached the bend in the road just back of mill village, and six other cars were already waiting. darkly silent. They were all parked in the old abandoned quarry, just off the road.
Everything had been planned carefully, so speech was unneces- sary. After I had swung my car off the road and joined the others,
on
we sat motionless for a moment while a strange car glared past us and bounced down, toward cement where the lights of the mill shore on the slow waters of the river. Then, without a word, ten of us left the cars and started down the road.
SHORT STORY
THE CHINA MAIL, FEBRUARY 10, 1937.
THE VIGILANTE
By VICTOR SCHIFT
We pounded on the door and we could hear people moving about, but my heart beat off ten slow sec- onds before the light went on in side the house. He must have known what it was, because his face was white and frightened when we opened the door, and he was dressed except for his shirt. His wife, in only a nightgown, was standing in the bedroom doorway, and when we pushed into the house she began to scream. She didn't move, but just stood there with her mouth wide open and screamed. Two of us went over and held her, and I put my hand over her mouth so that she could only make faint, choked sounds; but I could feel her hot breath vibrat-. ing against my palm. I didn't, want to hurt her, but she was $ strong woman and she squirmed and wriggled and kicked at us with her bare feet, so I twisted her arm up between her shoulder blades and she
The was still.
children had tumbled out of bed, but when they saw us they hud- died back into a corner, wide-eyed with fright, and the youngest ones began to whimper.
they dragged him along, his feet stumbling and scraping over the rough road. When we reached the quarry, we all got into the un- lighted cars and drove out of the cement fog into the clean air. ̈
When we reached the clearing others had been there before us, and the tar was already melted. The smell of it and the smoke of it made my eyes smart. It had been a black night, but a bright moon came out from behind the clouds and we could see each other too clearly. After the first few minutes most of us shuffled back into the shelter of the trees.
j
We held court there.. Seats from several of the cars were - piled high, and Art sat as judge. The charges were read off "Stirring up discontent" "Inciting to riot” an unruly mob to interfere with a charity ball held at the Coun- try Club on the night of May "Preaching commun-
ninth
istic doctrines”
"Causing
They asked him if he had any thing to say for himself, but he only stood there sobbing broken- ly. When Art began to pronounce sentence his voice was deep and solemn. He talked for a long time. We are law-abiding citizens," he said. He said that several times. And once he said "You deserve to be hanged." He talked a lot about "GO"The peace of our city and the "Keep
happiness of our workers." There was a little stirring under the trees, and my head grew hot and my face began to itch and I be gan to think of how late it was.
Art
He went along quietly. Two men took him by the arms and he walked out of the house be tween them, stumbling a little. He didn't say a word to us or to his family; nor did I see him look back. When he was gone, came over to the woman. back to bed," he said. quiet and stay here, and when we are through with him we will bring him back to vou. But don't leave the house or make a sound. You will be watched."
I let go of her arm and dropped my hand from her mouth. She moved her lips but there were no words, only little strange sounds. We turned and left her with the whimpering children, and shut the door after
US.
The moon was getting low when Art stopped. "You have worked under cover," he said. "The law the cannot touch you. But we,
To- citizens of this city, can. night you are to be punished for your crimes. To-morrow you will leave this city forever."
and I gulped noisily and lifted my pillow case for air. Then he stop ped screaming, and then he stop ped moaning, and then he swayed limp and broken and shiny black in the moonlight.
After a while they were finish- ed with the tar and they spilled the feathers over him. They
opened the Bags, and the feathers" fell in a great cloud so that we couldn't see him. Then the fea- thers settled and we saw him again, only the back was all hid- den and he didn't look like a man anymore but like some obscène. fowl. We loosed the chains from his ankles then and cut the cords. about his wrists. Most of the men had already climbed into the cars, and the few that were left' tried to put him astride a great
But he was
too limp, they tossed him on an old piece. of canvas in the back of one of the cars, and drove back to the mill village.
ני
܀
So
We left the cars parked in the quarry again and carried him back through the moonlight haze to the house. We were very quiet, and the only sound we made was when we let him fall in the dust in front of the steps. We stood and look- ed at him for a second while little May breeze fluttered some of the feathers that clung to him. Then we turned and went down the road.
We had almost reached the cars when we heard a scream like the cry of a trapped horse in a burn- ing barn. It came to us shrill and wordless, with nothing hu- man in it, and behind it was the sob-broken wailing of children. After a few seconds we realised that we had stopped, and went on We got in the cars and drove away, but the scream never stop ped for breath.
and
When I got home, I went down the cellar and opened the furnace and poked at the coals until they shone bright red. Then I threw in the sheet and pillow case watched them until they were all gone. It took a long time for the ashes to get lost, and I felt the skin on my face bake taut and the sweat run down along my belly; but I was shivering and my teeth chattered
Afterwards, I went upstairs. It was almost daylight then. I was cold all over. I took a drink and then another, but they were cold too. I went up to the bedroom, but as I slipped through the door- way, Jane rolled over and whim- pered in her sleep. She was young and clean in a clean bed so I shut
There was, as always, a tan- gray haze of cement dust fogging the place, so that my tongue was chalky, and my nose felt thick and heavy. It was hard to breathe, and the outlines of even the white clad figures nearest to me were spoke to them in a low, clear voice, cable that had been strung over sofa. But I couldn't sleep.
blurred and broken by the dust. The village itself consisted of a long, single row of identical bun- galows running parallel to the road. The mill had built those houses for the workmen, and had made them neat with little patches of fresh green sod. But the ce- ment dust had settled down and grayed the houses and killed the grass.
His house was the second from
the end nearest the quarry. When we reached it there were no lights.
All the houses were dark and there
The neighbours must have heard her screams, for when we came out of the house the vague shapes of half-dressed men were gathering in the roadway.
Art
"Go back to your beds. Nothing is going to happen to you unless you interfere. Get back to bed and keep quiet. For a minute they stood there, but a light from one of the open doorways was shining on the barrel of Art's shot gun, and they were too bewildered and thick with sleep to offer any resistance. They muttered among themselves a little and then turn- ed and faded back into the houses. They stood for a moment, silhouet-
ted in the open doorways, staring stupidly put into the gray Eght.
They stripped him then, and chained his ankles to the iron stakes driven deep into the ground, and tied his hands to the stout
head. He was a short, thin man and without clothes he was a frail as an undernourished child. The moonlight made deep shadow marks between his ribs; and a lit- the breeze sprang up and his body swayed with it. For a minute they stepped back and left him hanging there, white and little in the moonlight.
the door and went downstairs again and stretched out on the
I haven't been able to sleep mach this past week. As soon as I doze of, I hear him crying "Christ, Christ, Christ!" and -I. feel his woman's breath against the palm of my hand, and I smell the tar, and I see the little night breeze breathing through the soft feathers that clung to him and only the feathers moving.
I know that we did right to punish him. He had caused a lot of trouble, and it will serve as an object lesson to the others.
I'm sure that he had it coming to him.
was only the dusty blue street light. Then doors went shut and the balance in the bank, and how many The newspapers, of cours
Art groped in the dust of the road, and then his arm made- an awkward throwing motion. There was the clink of shattering glass, then a steady buzzing sound and
hights in the houses were switched
off.
We turned and hurried down the road and caught up with the others. He had stopped walking ow and was sobbing brokenly as
Then they started to apply the tar and he screamed "Christ, Christ, Christ! I tried to re member the exact figures of my miles since I had changed my oil and my golf game and my busin ess and my home and Jane, notels i please God not Jane, and anything because but that bedabbled thing screat ing in the moonlight. “Christ, Christ, Christ!
Art
otherwise, and the state ducting investigation. am allly to will come of it,
But I c sleep anymore. never klied a man before: