Aug 25, 2008 11:59 am US/Mountain

Plot to Kill Obama: Shoot From High Vantage Point

Written by Brian Maass and cbs4denver.com staff

Story: US Attorney: Evidence Doesn’t Support Obama Threat

 Section: Democratic National Convention Section

Reporting
Brian Maass
E-mail

DENVER (CBS4/AP) ―

Denver’s U.S. attorney is expected to speak on Tuesday afternoon about the arrests of four people suspected in a possible plot to shoot Barack Obama at his Thursday night acceptance speech in Denver. All are being held on either drug or weapons charges.

One of those suspects spoke exclusively to CBS4 investigative reporter Brian Maass from inside the Denver City Jail late Monday night and said his friends had discussed killing Obama.

“So your friends were saying threatening things about Obama?” Maass asked.

“Yeah,” Nathan Johnson replied.

“It sounded like they didn’t want him to be president?”

“Well, no,” Johnson said.

Maass reported earlier Monday that one of the suspects told authorities they were “going to shoot Obama from a high vantage point using a … rifle … sighted at 750 yards.”

Law enforcement sources told Maass that one of the suspects “was directly asked if they had come to Denver to kill Obama. He responded in the affirmative.”

The story began emerging Sunday morning when Aurora police arrested Tharin Gartrell, 28. He was driving a rented pickup truck in an erratic manner, according to sources.

Sources told CBS4 police found two high-powered, scoped rifles in the car along with camouflage clothing, walkie-talkies, wigs, a bulletproof vest, a spotting scope, licenses in the names of other people and 44 grams of methamphetamine. One of the rifles is listed as stolen from Kansas.

Aurora police alerted federal officials because of heightened security surrounding the Democratic convention, Aurora police Det. Marcus Dudley said.

“Clearly we feel that there are federal implications — otherwise we would not have notified those agencies,” Dudley said Monday night. “The weapons clearly would cause great concern.”

Subsequently authorities went to the Cherry Creek Hotel in Glendale to contact an associate of Gartrell’s. But that man, identified as Shawn Robert Adolph, 33, who was wanted on numerous warrants, jumped out of a sixth floor hotel window. Law enforcement sources say Adolph broke an ankle in the fall and was captured moments later. Sources say he had a handcuff ring and was wearing a swastika, and is thought to have ties to white supremacist organizations.

Nathan Johnson, 32, an associate of Gartrell and Adolph, was also arrested Sunday morning. He told authorities that the two men had “planned to kill Barack Obama at his acceptance speech.”

“He don’t belong in political office. Blacks don’t belong in political office. He ought to be shot,” Johnson told Maass.

“Do you think they were really plotting to kill Obama?” Maass asked.

“I don’t want to say yes, but I don’t want to say no,” he said.

Johnson’s girlfriend Natasha Gromek is also under arrest on drug charges.

The Secret Service, FBI, ATF and the joint terrorism task force are all investigating the alleged plot. Dudley didn’t say what tied the men together but said more arrests were possible.

Officials with the U.S. Attorney’s office in Denver said they do not believe there is a credible threat to Obama or the convention.

“It’s premature to say that it was a valid threat or that these folks have the ability to carry it out,” said a U.S. government official familiar with the investigation. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

U.S. Attorney Troy Eid said the case was under investigation.

“We’re absolutely confident there is no credible threat to the candidate, the Democratic National Convention, or the people of Colorado,” Eid said in a prepared statement.

Gartrell, who has no known address, was being held at the Arapahoe County jail on $50,000 bail on drug and weapons charges. The jail said he was due in court Thursday.

all that evidence and its still a possible threat? oh come on, they had guns and a swastika for goodness sake. and now this is hidden and not many people know about this, (i check the front page of yahoo almost every day, and this was NOT on the front page!) but if it was the opposite, like an african american attacking a white person, it would be all over the news and on the front page of yahoo too. and i am not seeing it all over the news, what i am seeing is the palins daughter is pregnant and the other stuff.
and of course, because the people who are doing to investigations are white, they have sympathy for the white supremacy group. ITS CALLED PATHETIC AND SAD THAT WE ARE STILL LIVING IN THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY AND WE HAVE THE SAME MENTALITY AS WE DID A HUNDRED YEARS AGO!
if there was a black supremacy gruop in the untied states they would be considered terrorist and they would say they need to be killed.

“In Memphis, Tenn., a riot broke out between Klansmen and counter-demonstrators on Martin Luther King’s birthday. More than 100 police threw tear gas canisters and arrested 20 anti-Klan demonstrators while protecting the Klan’s right to rally and speak.”

this is not freedom of speech, its called abuse. and it shows something: it shows that instead of protecting the people like the police should be doing, they are protecting the Klansmen, which meaning they are protecting the racist, and which means America is still racist, its just hidden. like the use of BCE instead of BC to not qualify americans as “religious” and they want to be what you call it religious free, or secular, and if you look at it they havent changed the dates or anything. i mean we still use the gergorian calender, but we just changed BC and AD to BCE and CE.

You could hear my heart tearing,

Ripping, as if it was just a piece of cloth or a piece of paper.

But over it, you could always hear me screaming,

Screaming because it hurts too much.

You always had that maniacal laugh,

It was only that laugh you would hear in movie,

That high pitched laugh you only hear from the witches.

My eyes were always red with rage,

I didn’t understand why anyone would do that.

You always stabbed me in the heart,

And right in the same place, over and over again.

Then with one tug, you ripped my heart open,

And always left it like that, bleeding and opened,

And in my two hands, blood would always spill,

I held my bleeding heart, screaming silently,

So that no one could ask what happened.

But I somehow always managed to sew it back together,

Sewing it back together hurt more than you ripping it.

I winced as I put the needle in my heart,

Screaming inside because my heart was bleeding,

My eyes filled with tears as I screamed.

And every time I tried to sew it back together,

I would use the finest and thinest string,

So that no one could see and that it would heal faster.

And then after more than a couple of times,

The string I used  would get a little bigger each time,

So that it would be harder for you to rip it.

But you always managed to rip it open.

My eyes, green with envy, always seemed to turn blue.

It got so big that I am about to use barbed wire,

And shred my heart to pieces, so that it can’t love anymore.

Or stab it myself so that I could feel the pain,

And leave it open, always and forever.

And always be the broken woman,

Who is too afraid to give her heart to anyone.

I believe soon enough, I will put that barbed wire in it,

or just stab it myself and just leave my heart open,

So that my eyes could turn pitch black and become lifeless.

I mean theres so much that a girl can take

Before she decides she’s had it.

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/Conventions/story?id=5657439&page=1

Openly gay diver wins gold

By Maggie Hendricks

  Alfred Noyes (1880-1958)

                                   The Highwayman

                                        PART ONE

                                                 I

    THE wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
    The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
    The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
    And the highwayman came riding—
                      Riding—riding—
    The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

                                                 II

    He’d a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
    A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
    They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
    And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
                      His pistol butts a-twinkle,
    His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

                                                 III

    Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
    And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
    He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
    But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter,
                      Bess, the landlord’s daughter,
    Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

                                                 IV

    And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
    Where Tim the ostler listened; his face was white and peaked;
    His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
    But he loved the landlord’s daughter,
                      The landlord’s red-lipped daughter,
    Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say—

                                                 V

    “One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I’m after a prize to-night,
    But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
    Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
    Then look for me by moonlight,
                      Watch for me by moonlight,
    I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.”

                                                 VI

    He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
    But she loosened her hair i’ the casement! His face burnt like a brand
    As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
    And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
                      (Oh, sweet, black waves in the moonlight!)
    Then he tugged at his rein in the moonliglt, and galloped away to the West.

                                        PART TWO

                                                 I

    He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;
    And out o’ the tawny sunset, before the rise o’ the moon,
    When the road was a gypsy’s ribbon, looping the purple moor,
    A red-coat troop came marching—
                      Marching—marching—
    King George’s men came matching, up to the old inn-door.

                                                 II

    They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
    But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
    Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
    There was death at every window;
                      And hell at one dark window;
    For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.

                                                 III

    They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
    They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
    “Now, keep good watch!” and they kissed her.
                      She heard the dead man say—
    Look for me by moonlight;
                      Watch for me by moonlight;
    I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!

                                                 IV

    She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
    She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
    They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years,
    Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
                      Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
    The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

                                                 V

    The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
    Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
    She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
    For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
                      Blank and bare in the moonlight;
    And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love’s refrain .

                                                 VI

        Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear;
    Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?
    Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
    The highwayman came riding,
                      Riding, riding!
    The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still!

                                                 VII

    Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!
    Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
    Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
    Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
                      Her musket shattered the moonlight,
    Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death.

                                                 VIII

    He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
    Bowed, with her head o’er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
    Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear
    How Bess, the landlord’s daughter,
                      The landlord’s black-eyed daughter,
    Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

                                                 IX

    Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
    With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
    Blood-red were his spurs i’ the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
    When they shot him down on the highway,
                      Down like a dog on the highway,
    And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.

                  *           *           *           *           *           *

                                                 X

    And still of a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
    When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
    When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
    A highwayman comes riding—
                      Riding—riding—
    A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

                                                 XI

    Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard;
    He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;
    He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
    But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter,
                      Bess, the landlord’s daughter,
    Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

THE MONKEY’S PAW (1902)

from The lady of the barge (1906, 6th ed.)
London and New York
Harper & Brothers, Publishers

by W.W. Jacobs

I.

WITHOUT, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of Laburnam Villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly. Father and son were at chess, the former, who possessed ideas about the game involving radical changes, putting his king into such sharp and unnecessary perils that it even provoked comment from the white-haired old lady knitting placidly by the fire.

  ”Hark at the wind,” said Mr. White, who, having seen a fatal mistake after it was too late, was amiably desirous of preventing his son from seeing it.

  ”I’m listening,” said the latter, grimly surveying the board as he stretched out his hand. “Check.”

  ”I should hardly think that he’d come to-night,” said his father, with his hand poised over the board.

  ”Mate,” replied the son.

  ”That’s the worst of living so far out,” bawled Mr. White, with sudden and unlooked-for violence; “of all the beastly, slushy, out-of-the-way places to live in, this is the worst. Pathway’s a bog, and the road’s a torrent. I don’t know what people are thinking about. I suppose because only two houses on the road are let, they think it doesn’t matter.”

  ”Never mind, dear,” said his wife soothingly; “perhaps you’ll win the next one.”

  Mr. White looked up sharply, just in time to intercept a knowing glance between mother and son. The words died away on his lips, and he hid a guilty grin in his thin grey beard.

  ”There he is,” said Herbert White, as the gate banged to loudly and heavy footsteps came toward the door.

  The old man rose with hospitable haste, and opening the door, was heard condoling with the new arrival. The new arrival also condoled with himself, so that Mrs. White said, “Tut, tut!” and coughed gently as her husband entered the room, followed by a tall burly man, beady of eye and rubicund of visage.

  ”Sergeant-Major Morris,” he said, introducing him.

  The sergeant-major shook hands, and taking the proffered seat by the fire, watched contentedly while his host got out whisky and tumblers and stood a small copper kettle on the fire.

  At the third glass his eyes got brighter, and he began to talk, the little family circle regarding with eager interest this visitor from distant parts, as he squared his broad shoulders in the chair and spoke of strange scenes and doughty deeds; of wars and plagues and strange peoples.

  ”Twenty-one years of it,” said Mr. White, nodding at his wife and son. “When he went away he was a slip of a youth in the warehouse. Now look at him.”

  ”He don’t look to have taken much harm,” said Mrs. White, politely.

  ”I’d like to go to India myself,” said the old man, “just to look round a bit, you know.”

  ”Better where you are,” said the sergeant-major, shaking his head. He put down the empty glass, and sighing softly, shook it again.

  ”I should like to see those old temples and fakirs and jugglers,” said the old man. “What was that you started telling me the other day about a monkey’s paw or something, Morris?”

  ”Nothing,” said the soldier hastily. “Leastways, nothing worth hearing.”

  ”Monkey’s paw?” said Mrs. White curiously.

  ”Well, it’s just a bit of what you might call magic, perhaps,” said the sergeant-major off-handedly.

  His three listeners leaned forward eagerly. The visitor absentmindedly put his empty glass to his lips and then set it down again. His host filled it for him.

  ”To look at,” said the sergeant-major, fumbling in his pocket, “it’s just an ordinary little paw, dried to a mummy.”

  He took something out of his pocket and proffered it. Mrs. White drew back with a grimace, but her son, taking it, examined it curiously.

  ”And what is there special about it?” inquired Mr. White, as he took it from his son and, having examined it, placed it upon the table.

  ”It had a spell put on it by an old fakir,” said the sergeant-major, “a very holy man. He wanted to show that fate ruled people’s lives, and that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow. He put a spell on it so that three separate men could each have three wishes from it.”

  His manner was so impressive that his hearers were conscious that their light laughter jarred somewhat.

  ”Well, why don’t you have three, sir?” said Herbert White cleverly.

  The soldier regarded him in the way that middle age is wont to regard presumptuous youth. “I have,” he said quietly, and his blotchy face whitened.

  ”And did you really have the three wishes granted?” asked Mrs. White.

  ”I did,” said the sergeant-major, and his glass tapped against his strong teeth.

  ”And has anybody else wished?” inquired the old lady.

  ”The first man had his three wishes, yes,” was the reply. “I don’t know what the first two were, but the third was for death. That’s how I got the paw.”

  His tones were so grave that a hush fell upon the group.

  ”If you’ve had your three wishes, it’s no good to you now, then, Morris,” said the old man at last. “What do you keep it for?”

  The soldier shook his head. “Fancy, I suppose,” he said slowly.

  ”If you could have another three wishes,” said the old man, eyeing him keenly, “would you have them?”

  ”I don’t know,” said the other. “I don’t know.”

  He took the paw, and dangling it between his front finger and thumb, suddenly threw it upon the fire. White, with a slight cry, stooped down and snatched it off.

  ”Better let it burn,” said the soldier solemnly.

  ”If you don’t want it, Morris,” said the old man, “give it to me.”

  ”I won’t,” said his friend doggedly. “I threw it on the fire. If you keep it, don’t blame me for what happens. Pitch it on the fire again, like a sensible man.”

  The other shook his head and examined his new possession closely. “How do you do it?” he inquired.

  ”Hold it up in your right hand and wish aloud,’ said the sergeant-major, “but I warn you of the consequences.”

  ”Sounds like the Arabian Nights,” said Mrs White, as she rose and began to set the supper. “Don’t you think you might wish for four pairs of hands for me?”

  Her husband drew the talisman from his pocket and then all three burst into laughter as the sergeant-major, with a look of alarm on his face, caught him by the arm.

  ”If you must wish,” he said gruffly, “wish for something sensible.”

  Mr. White dropped it back into his pocket, and placing chairs, motioned his friend to the table. In the business of supper the talisman was partly forgotten, and afterward the three sat listening in an enthralled fashion to a second instalment of the soldier’s adventures in India.

  ”If the tale about the monkey paw is not more truthful than those he has been telling us,” said Herbert, as the door closed behind their guest, just in time for him to catch the last train, “we shan’t make much out of it.”

  ”Did you give him anything for it, father?” inquired Mrs. White, regarding her husband closely.

  ”A trifle,” said he, colouring slightly. “He didn’t want it, but I made him take it. And he pressed me again to throw it away.”

  ”Likely,” said Herbert, with pretended horror. “Why, we’re going to be rich, and famous, and happy. Wish to be an emperor, father, to begin with; then you can’t be henpecked.”

  He darted round the table, pursued by the maligned Mrs. White armed with an antimacassar.

  Mr. White took the paw from his pocket and eyed it dubiously. “I don’t know what to wish for, and that’s a fact,” he said slowly. “It seems to me I’ve got all I want.”

  ”If you only cleared the house, you’d be quite happy, wouldn’t you?” said Herbert, with his hand on his shoulder. “Well, wish for two hundred pounds, then; that’ll just do it.”

  His father, smiling shamefacedly at his own credulity, held up the talisman, as his son, with a solemn face somewhat marred by a wink at his mother, sat down at the piano and struck a few impressive chords.

  ”I wish for two hundred pounds,” said the old man distinctly.

  A fine crash from the piano greeted the words, interrupted by a shuddering cry from the old man. His wife and son ran toward him.

  ”It moved, he cried, with a glance of disgust at the object as it lay on the floor. “As I wished it twisted in my hands like a snake.”

  ”Well, I don’t see the money,” said his son, as he picked it up and placed it on the table, “and I bet I never shall.”

  ”It must have been your fancy, father,” said his wife, regarding him anxiously.

  He shook his head. “Never mind, though; there’s no harm done, but it gave me a shock all the same.”

  They sat down by the fire again while the two men finished their pipes. Outside, the wind was higher than ever, and the old man started nervously at the sound of a door banging upstairs. A silence unusual and depressing settled upon all three, which lasted until the old couple rose to retire for the night.

  ”I expect you’ll find the cash tied up in a big bag in the middle of your bed,” said Herbert, as he bade them good-night, “and something horrible squatting up on top of the wardrobe watching you as you pocket your ill-gotten gains.”

  He sat alone in the darkness, gazing at the dying fire, and seeing faces in it. The last face was so horrible and so simian that he gazed at it in amazement. It got so vivid that, with a little uneasy laugh, he felt on the table for a glass containing a little water to throw over it. His hand grasped the monkey’s paw, and with a little shiver he wiped his hand on his coat and went up to bed.

II.

IN the brightness of the wintry sun next morning as it streamed over the breakfast table Herbert laughed at his fears. There was an air of prosaic wholesomeness about the room which it had lacked on the previous night, and the dirty, shrivelled little paw was pitched on the sideboard with a carelessness which betokened no great belief in its virtues.

  ”I suppose all old soldiers are the same,” said Mrs White. “The idea of our listening to such nonsense! How could wishes be granted in these days? And if they could, how could two hundred pounds hurt you, father?”

  ”Might drop on his head from the sky,” said the frivolous Herbert.

  ”Morris said the things happened so naturally,” said his father, “that you might if you so wished attribute it to coincidence.”

  ”Well, don’t break into the money before I come back,” said Herbert, as he rose from the table. “I’m afraid it’ll turn you into a mean, avaricious man, and we shall have to disown you.”

  His mother laughed, and following him to the door, watched him down the road, and returning to the breakfast table, was very happy at the expense of her husband’s credulity. All of which did not prevent her from scurrying to the door at the postman’s knock, nor prevent her from referring somewhat shortly to retired sergeant-majors of bibulous habits when she found that the post brought a tailor’s bill.

  ”Herbert will have some more of his funny remarks, I expect, when he comes home,” she said, as they sat at dinner.

  ”I dare say,” said Mr. White, pouring himself out some beer; “but for all that, the thing moved in my hand; that I’ll swear to.”

  ”You thought it did,” said the old lady soothingly.

  ”I say it did,” replied the other. “There was no thought about it; I had just—-What’s the matter?”

  His wife made no reply. She was watching the mysterious movements of a man outside, who, peering in an undecided fashion at the house, appeared to be trying to make up his mind to enter. In mental connection with the two hundred pounds, she noticed that the stranger was well dressed and wore a silk hat of glossy newness. Three times he paused at the gate, and then walked on again. The fourth time he stood with his hand upon it, and then with sudden resolution flung it open and walked up the path. Mrs. White at the same moment placed her hands behind her, and hurriedly unfastening the strings of her apron, put that useful article of apparel beneath the cushion of her chair.

  She brought the stranger, who seemed ill at ease, into the room. He gazed at her furtively, and listened in a preoccupied fashion as the old lady apologized for the appearance of the room, and her husband’s coat, a garment which he usually reserved for the garden. She then waited as patiently as her sex would permit, for him to broach his business, but he was at first strangely silent.

  ”I–was asked to call,” he said at last, and stooped and picked a piece of cotton from his trousers. “I come from Maw and Meggins.”

  The old lady started. “Is anything the matter?” she asked breathlessly. “Has anything happened to Herbert? What is it? What is it?”

  Her husband interposed. “There, there, mother,” he said hastily. “Sit down, and don’t jump to conclusions. You’ve not brought bad news, I’m sure, sir” and he eyed the other wistfully.

  ”I’m sorry—-” began the visitor.

  ”Is he hurt?” demanded the mother.

  The visitor bowed in assent. “Badly hurt,” he said quietly, “but he is not in any pain.”

  ”Oh, thank God!” said the old woman, clasping her hands. “Thank God for that! Thank—-”

  She broke off suddenly as the sinister meaning of the assurance dawned upon her and she saw the awful confirmation of her fears in the other’s averted face. She caught her breath, and turning to her slower-witted husband, laid her trembling old hand upon his. There was a long silence.

  ”He was caught in the machinery,” said the visitor at length, in a low voice.

  ”Caught in the machinery,” repeated Mr. White, in a dazed fashion, “yes.”

  He sat staring blankly out at the window, and taking his wife’s hand between his own, pressed it as he had been wont to do in their old courting days nearly forty years before.

  ”He was the only one left to us,” he said, turning gently to the visitor. “It is hard.”

  The other coughed, and rising, walked slowly to the window. “The firm wished me to convey their sincere sympathy with you in your great loss,” he said, without looking round. “I beg that you will understand I am only their servant and merely obeying orders.”

  There was no reply; the old woman’s face was white, her eyes staring, and her breath inaudible; on the husband’s face was a look such as his friend the sergeant might have carried into his first action.

  ”I was to say that Maw and Meggins disclaim all responsibility,” continued the other. “They admit no liability at all, but in consideration of your son’s services they wish to present you with a certain sum as compensation.”

  Mr. White dropped his wife’s hand, and rising to his feet, gazed with a look of horror at his visitor. His dry lips shaped the words, “How much?”

  ”Two hundred pounds,” was the answer.

  Unconscious of his wife’s shriek, the old man smiled faintly, put out his hands like a sightless man, and dropped, a senseless heap, to the floor.

III.

  IN the huge new cemetery, some two miles distant, the old people buried their dead, and came back to a house steeped in shadow and silence. It was all over so quickly that at first they could hardly realize it, and remained in a state of expectation as though of something else to happen–something else which was to lighten this load, too heavy for old hearts to bear.

  But the days passed, and expectation gave place to resignation–the hopeless resignation of the old, sometimes miscalled, apathy. Sometimes they hardly exchanged a word, for now they had nothing to talk about, and their days were long to weariness.

  It was about a week after that that the old man, waking suddenly in the night, stretched out his hand and found himself alone. The room was in darkness, and the sound of subdued weeping came from the window. He raised himself in bed and listened.

  ”Come back,” he said tenderly. “You will be cold.”

  ”It is colder for my son,” said the old woman, and wept afresh.

  The sound of her sobs died away on his ears. The bed was warm, and his eyes heavy with sleep. He dozed fitfully, and then slept until a sudden wild cry from his wife awoke him with a start.

  ”The paw!” she cried wildly. “The monkey’s paw!”

  He started up in alarm. “Where? Where is it? What’s the matter?”

  She came stumbling across the room toward him. “I want it,” she said quietly. “You’ve not destroyed it?”

  ”It’s in the parlour, on the bracket,” he replied, marvelling. “Why?”

  She cried and laughed together, and bending over, kissed his cheek.

  ”I only just thought of it,” she said hysterically. “Why didn’t I think of it before? Why didn’t you think of it?”

  ”Think of what?” he questioned.

  ”The other two wishes,” she replied rapidly. “We’ve only had one.”

  ”Was not that enough?” he demanded fiercely.

  ”No,” she cried, triumphantly; “we’ll have one more. Go down and get it quickly, and wish our boy alive again.”

  The man sat up in bed and flung the bedclothes from his quaking limbs. “Good God, you are mad!” he cried aghast.

  ”Get it,” she panted; “get it quickly, and wish—- Oh, my boy, my boy!”

  Her husband struck a match and lit the candle. “Get back to bed,” he said, unsteadily. “You don’t know what you are saying.”

  ”We had the first wish granted,” said the old woman, feverishly; “why not the second.”

  ”A coincidence,” stammered the old man.

  ”Go and get it and wish,” cried the old woman, quivering with excitement.

  The old man turned and regarded her, and his voice shook. “He has been dead ten days, and besides he–I would not tell you else, but–I could only recognize him by his clothing. If he was too terrible for you to see then, how now?”

  ”Bring him back,” cried the old woman, and dragged him toward the door. “Do you think I fear the child I have nursed?”

  He went down in the darkness, and felt his way to the parlour, and then to the mantelpiece. The talisman was in its place, and a horrible fear that the unspoken wish might bring his mutilated son before him ere he could escape from the room seized upon him, and he caught his breath as he found that he had lost the direction of the door. His brow cold with sweat, he felt his way round the table, and groped along the wall until he found himself in the small passage with the unwholesome thing in his hand.

  Even his wife’s face seemed changed as he entered the room. It was white and expectant, and to his fears seemed to have an unnatural look upon it. He was afraid of her.

  ”Wish!” she cried, in a strong voice.

  ”It is foolish and wicked,” he faltered.

  ”Wish!” repeated his wife.

  He raised his hand. “I wish my son alive again.”

  The talisman fell to the floor, and he regarded it fearfully. Then he sank trembling into a chair as the old woman, with burning eyes, walked to the window and raised the blind.

  He sat until he was chilled with the cold, glancing occasionally at the figure of the old woman peering through the window. The candle end, which had burnt below the rim of the china candlestick, was throwing pulsating shadows on the ceiling and walls, until, with a flicker larger than the rest, it expired. The old man, with an unspeakable sense of relief at the failure of the talisman, crept back to his bed, and a minute or two afterward the old woman came silently and apathetically beside him.

  Neither spoke, but both lay silently listening to the ticking of the clock. A stair creaked, and a squeaky mouse scurried noisily through the wall. The darkness was oppressive, and after lying for some time screwing up his courage, the husband took the box of matches, and striking one, went downstairs for a candle.

  At the foot of the stairs the match went out, and he paused to strike another, and at the same moment a knock, so quiet and stealthy as to be scarcely audible, sounded on the front door.

  The matches fell from his hand. He stood motionless, his breath suspended until the knock was repeated. Then he turned and fled swiftly back to his room, and closed the door behind him. A third knock sounded through the house.

  ”What’s that?” cried the old woman, starting up.

  ”A rat,” said the old man, in shaking tones–”a rat. It passed me on the stairs.”

  His wife sat up in bed listening. A loud knock resounded through the house.

  ”It’s Herbert!” she screamed. “It’s Herbert!”

  She ran to the door, but her husband was before her, and catching her by the arm, held her tightly.

  ”What are you going to do?” he whispered hoarsely.

  ”It’s my boy; it’s Herbert!” she cried, struggling mechanically. “I forgot it was two miles away. What are you holding me for? Let go. I must open the door.”

  ”For God’s sake, don’t let it in,” cried the old man trembling.

  ”You’re afraid of your own son,” she cried, struggling. “Let me go. I’m coming, Herbert; I’m coming.”

  There was another knock, and another. The old woman with a sudden wrench broke free and ran from the room. Her husband followed to the landing, and called after her appealingly as she hurried downstairs. He heard the chain rattle back and the bottom bolt drawn slowly and stiffly from the socket. Then the old woman’s voice, strained and panting.

  ”The bolt,” she cried loudly. “Come down. I can’t reach it.”

  But her husband was on his hands and knees groping wildly on the floor in search of the paw. If he could only find it before the thing outside got in. A perfect fusillade of knocks reverberated through the house, and he heard the scraping of a chair as his wife put it down in the passage against the door. He heard the creaking of the bolt as it came slowly back, and at the same moment he found the monkey’s paw, and frantically breathed his third and last wish.

  The knocking ceased suddenly, although the echoes of it were still in the house. He heard the chair drawn back and the door opened. A cold wind rushed up the staircase, and a long loud wail of disappointment and misery from his wife gave him courage to run down to her side, and then to the gate beyond. The street lamp flickering opposite shone on a quiet and deserted road.

(End.)

The Scarlet Ibis
JAMES HURST

It was in the clove of seasons, summer was dead but autumn
had not yet been born, that the ibis lit in the bleeding tree. The
flower garden was strained with rotting brown magnolia petals and
ironweeds grew rank amid the purple phlox. The five o’clocks by the
chimney still marked time, but the oriole nest in the elm was
untenanted and rocked back and forth like an empty cradle. The last
graveyard flowers were blooming, and their smell drifted across the
cotton field and through every room of our house, speaking softy the
names of our dead.

It’s strange that all this is still so clear to me, now that summer
has long since fled and time has had its way. A grindstone stands
where the bleeding tree stood, just outside the kitchen door, and now
if an oriole sings in the elm, its song seems to die up in the leaves, a
silvery dust. The flower garden is prim, the house a gleaming white,
and the pale fence across the yard stands straight and spruce. But
sometimes (like right now), as I sit in the cool, green-draped parlor,
the grindstone begins to turn, and time with all its changes is ground
away-and I remember Doodle.

Doodle was just about the craziest brother a boy every had. Of
course, he wasn’t crazy crazy like old Miss Leedie, who was in love
with President Wilson and wrote him a letter every day, but was a
nice crazy, like someone you meet in your dreams. He was born
when I was six and was, from the outset, a disappointment. He
seemed all head, with a tiny body which was red and shriveled like
an old man’s. Everybody thought he was going to die-everybody
except Aunt Nicey, who had delivered him. She said he would live
because he was born in a caul, and cauls were made from Jesus’
nightgown. Daddy had Mr. Heath, the carpenter, build a little
mahogany coffin for him. But he didn’t die, and when he was three
months old, Mama and Daddy decided they might as well name him.

They named him William Armstrong, which is like tying a big tail on
a small kite. Such a name sounds good only on a tombstone.
I thought myself pretty smart at many things, like holding my
breath, running, jumping, or climbing the vines in Old Woman
Swamp, and I wanted more than anything else someone to race to
Horsehead Landing, someone to box with, and someone to perch
with in the top fork of the great pine behind the barn, where across
the fields and swamps you could see the sea. I wanted a brother. But
Mama, crying, told me that even if William Armstrong lived, he
would never do these things with me. He might not, she sobbed, even
be “all there.” He might, as long as he lived, lie on the rubber sheet in
the center of the bed in the front bedroom where the white Marquette
curtains billowed out in the afternoon sea breeze, rustling like
palmetto fronds.

It was bad enough having an invalid brother, but having one
who possibly was not all there was unbearable, so I began to make
plans to kill him by smothering him with a pillow. However, one
afternoon as I watched him, my head poked between the iron posts of
the foot of the bed, he looked straight at me and grinned. I skipped
through the rooms, down the echoing halls, shouting, “Mama, he
smiled. He’s all there! He’s all there!” and he was.

When he was two, if you laid him on his stomach, he began to
move himself, straining terribly. The doctor said that with his weak
heart this strain would probably kill him, but it didn’t. Trembling,
he’d push himself up, turning first red, then a soft purple, and finally
collapse back onto the bed like an old worn-out doll. I can still see
Mama watching him, her hand pressed tight across her mouth, her
eyes wide and unblinking. But he learned to crawl (it was his third
winter), and we brought him out of the front bedroom, putting him
on the rug before the fireplace. For the first time he became one of us.
As long as he lay all the time in bed, we called him William
Armstrong, even though it was formal and sounded as if we were
referring to one of our ancestors, but with his creeping around on
the deerskin rug and beginning to talk, something had to be done about
his name. It was I who renamed him. When he crawled, he crawled
backwards, as if he were in reverse and couldn’t change gears. If you
called him, he’d turn around as if he were going in the other
direction, then he’d back right up to you to be picked up. Crawling
backward made him look like a doodlebug, so I began to call him
Doodle, and in time even Mama and Daddy thought it was a better
name than William Armstrong. Only Aunt Nicey disagreed. She said
caul babies should be treated with special respect since they might
turn out to be saints. Renaming my brother was perhaps the kindest
thing I ever did for him, because nobody expects much from
someone called Doodle.

Although Doodle learned to crawl, he showed no signs of walking, but
he wasn’t idle. He talked so much that we all quit listening to what he said.
It was about this time that Daddy built him a go-cart and I had to pull him
around. At first I just paraded him up and down the piazza, but then he
started crying to be taken out into the yard, and it ended up by my having to
lug him wherever I went. If I so much as picked up my cap, he’d start crying
to go with me and Mama would call from where she was, “Take Doodle
with you.”

He was a burden in many ways. The doctor had said that he mustn’t
get too excited, too hot, too cold, or too tired and that he must always
be treated gently. A long list of don’ts went with him, all of which I
ignored once we got out of the house. To discourage his coming with
me, I’d run with him across the ends of the cotton rows and careen
him around corners on two wheels. Sometimes I accidentally turned
him over, but he never told Mama. His skin was very sensitive, and
he had to wear a big straw hat whenever he went out. When the
going got rough and he had to cling to the sides of the go-cart, the hat
slipped all the way down over his ears. He was a sight. Finally, I
could see I was licked. Doodle was my brother and he was going to
cling to me forever, no matter what I did, so I dragged him across tile
burning cotton field to share with him the only beauty I knew, Old
Woman Swamp. I pulled the go-cart through the saw-tooth fern,
down into the green dimness where the palmetto fronds whispered by
the stream. I lifted him out and set him down in the soft rubber grass
beside a tall pine. His eyes were round with wonder as he gazed
about him, and his little hands began to stroke the rubber grass. Then
he began to cry my shoulder and carried him down the ladder, and
even when we were outside in the bright sunshine, he clung to me,
crying, “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”

When Doodle was five years old, I was embarrassed at having a
brother of that age who couldn’t walk, so I set out to teach him. We
were down in Old Woman Swamp and it was spring and the sicksweet
smell of bay flowers hung everywhere like a mournful song.

“I’m going to teach you to walk, Doodle,” I said.
He was sitting comfortably on the soft grass, leaning back
against the pine. “Why?” he asked.
I hadn’t expected such an answer. “So I won’t have to haul you
around all the time.”
“I can’t walk, Brother,” he said.
“Who says so?” I demanded.
“Mama, the doctor-everybody.
“Oh, you can walk,” I said, and I took him by the arms and
stood him up. He collapsed onto the grass like a half-empty flour
sack. It was as if he had no bones in his little legs.
“Don’t hurt me, Brother,” he warned.
“Shut up. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to teach you to
walk.” I heaved him up again, and again he collapsed.
This time he did not lift his face up out of the rubber grass. “I
just can’t do it. Let’s make honeysuckle wreaths.”
“Oh yes you can, Doodle,” I said. “All you got to do is try. Now
come on,” and I hauled him up once more.

It seemed so hopeless from the beginning that it’s a miracle I
didn’t give up. But all of us must have something or someone to be
proud of, and Doodle had become mine. I did not know then that
pride is a wonderful, terrible thing, a seed that bears two vines, life
and death. Every day that summer we went to the pine beside the
stream of Old Woman Swamp, and I put him on his feet at least a
hundred times each afternoon. Occasionally I too became
discouraged because it didn’t seem as if he was trying, and I would
say, “Doodle, don’t you want to learn to walk?”

He’d nod his head, and I’d say, “Well, if you don’t keep trying,
you’ll never learn.” Then I’d paint for him a picture of us as old men,
white-haired, him with a long white beard and me still pulling him
around in the go-cart. This never failed to make him try again.
Finally one day, after many weeks of practicing, he stood alone
for a few seconds. When he fell, I grabbed him in my arms and
hugged him, our laughter pealing through the swamp like a ringing
bell. Now we knew it could be done. Hope no longer hid in the dark
palmetto thicket but perched like a cardinal in the lacy toothbrush
tree, brilliantly visible. “Yes, yes,” I cried, and he cried it too, and the
grass beneath us was soft and the smell of the swamp was sweet.

With success so imminent,4 we decided not to tell anyone until
he could actually walk. Each day, barring rain, we sneaked into Old
Woman Swamp, and by cotton-picking time Doodle was ready to
show what he could do. He still wasn’t able to walk far, but we could
wait no longer. Keeping a nice secret is very hard to do, like holding
your breath. We chose to reveal all on October eighth, Doodle’s sixth
birthday, and for weeks ahead we mooned around the house,
promising everybody a most spectacular surprise. Aunt Nicey said
that, after so much talk, if we produced anything less tremendous
than the Resurrection, she was going to be disappointed.

At breakfast on our chosen day, when Mama, Daddy, and Aunt
Nicey were in the dining room, I brought Doodle to the door in the
gocart just as usual and had them turn their backs, making them cross
their hearts and hope to die if they peeked. I helped Doodle up, and
when he was standing alone I let them look. There wasn’t a sound as
Doodle walked slowly across the room and sat down at his place at
the table. Then Mama began to cry and ran over to him, hugging him
and kissing him. Daddy hugged him too, so I went to Aunt Nicey,
who was thanks praying in the doorway, and began to waltz her
around. We danced together quite well until she came down on my
big toe with her brogans, hurting me so badly I thought I was
crippled for life.

Doodle told them it was I who had taught him to walk, so
everyone wanted to hug me, and I began to cry.
“What are you crying for?” asked Daddy, but I couldn’t answer.

They did not know that I did it for myself, that pride, whose slave I
was, spoke to me louder than all their voices, and that Doodle walked
only because I was ashamed of having a crippled brother.
Within a few months Doodle had learned to walk well and his
go-cart was put up in the barn loft (it’s still there) beside his little
mahogany coffin. Now, when we roamed off together, resting often,
we never turned back until our destination had been reached,
and to help pass the time, we took up lying. From the beginning
Doodle was a terrible liar and he got me in the habit. Had anyone stopped to
listen to us, we would have been sent off to Dix Hill.

My lies were scary, involved, and usually pointless, but
Doodle’s were twice as crazy. People in his stories all had wings and
flew wherever they wanted to go. His favorite lie was about a boy
named Peter who had a pet peacock with a ten-foot tail. Peter wore a
golden robe that glittered so brightly that when he walked through
the sunflowers they turned away from the sun to face him. When
Peter was ready to go to sleep, the peacock spread his magnificent
tail, enfolding the boy gently like a closing go-to-sleep flower,
burying him in the glorious iridescent, rustling vortex. Yes, I must
admit it. Doodle could beat me lying.

Doodle and I spent lots of time thinking about our future. We
decided that when we were grown we’d live in Old Woman Swamp
and pick dog-tongue for a living. Beside the stream, he planned, we’d
build us a house of whispering leaves and the swamp birds would be
our chickens. All day long (when we weren’t gathering dog-tongue)
we’d swing through the cypresses on the rope vines, and if it rained
we’d huddle beneath an umbrella tree and play stickfrog. Mama and
Daddy could come and live with us if they wanted to. He even came
up with the idea that he could marry Mama and I could marry Daddy.
Of course, I was old enough to know this wouldn’t work out, but the
picture he painted was so beautiful and serene that all I could do was
whisper Yes, yes.

Once I had succeeded in teaching Doodle to walk, I began to
believe in my own infallibility,5 and I prepared a terrific development
program for him, unknown to Mama and Daddy, of course. I would
teach him to run, to swim, to climb trees, and to fight. He, too, now
believed in my infallibility, so we set the deadline for these
accomplishments less that a year away, when, it had been decided,
Doodle could start to school.

That winter we didn’t make much progress, for I was in school
and Doodle suffered from one bad cold after another. But when
spring came, rich and warm, we raised our sights again. Success lay
at the end of summer like a pot of gold, and our campaign got off to a
good start. On hot days, Doodle and I went down to Horsehead
Landing, and I gave him swimming lessons or showed him how to
row a boat. Sometimes we descended into the cool greenness of Old
Woman Swamp and climbed the rope vines or boxed scientifically
beneath the pine where he had learned to walk. Promise hung about
us like the leaves, and wherever we looked, ferns unfurled and birds
broke into song.

That summer, the summer of 1918, was blighted. In May and
June there was no rain and the crops withered, curled up, then died
under the thirsty sun. One morning in July a hurricane came out of
the east, tipping over the oaks in the yard and splitting the limbs of
the elm trees. That afternoon it roared back out of the west, blew the
fallen oaks around, snapping their roots and tearing them out of the
earth like a hawk at the entrails of a chicken. Cotton bolls were
wrenched from the stalks and lay like green walnuts in the valleys
between the rows, while the cornfield leaned over uniformly so that
the tassels touched the ground. Doodle and I followed Daddy out into
the cotton field, where he stood, shoulders sagging, surveying the
ruin. When his chin sank down onto his chest, we were frightened,
and Doodle slipped his hand into mine. Suddenly Daddy straightened
his shoulders, raised a giant knuckle fist, and with a voice that
seemed to rumble out of the earth itself began cursing the weather
and the Republican Party. Doodle and I prodding each other and
giggling, went back to the house, knowing that everything would be
all right.

And during that summer, strange names were heard through the
house: Chateau-Thierry, Amiens, Soissons, and in her blessing at the
supper table, Mama once said, “And bless the Pearsons, whose boy
Joe was lost at Belleau Wood.” So we came to that clove of seasons.
School was only a few weeks away, and Doodle was far behind
schedule. He could barely clear the ground when climbing up the
rope vines, and his swimming was certainly not passable. We
decided to double our efforts, to make that list drive and reach our
pot of gold. I made him swim until he turned blue. and row until he
couldn’t lift an oar. Wherever we went, I purposely walked fast, and
although he kept up, his face turned red and his eyes became glazed.
Once, he could go no further, so he collapsed on the ground and
began to cry.

“Aw, come on, Doodle,” I urged. “You can do it. Do you want
to be different from everybody else when you start school?”
“Does it make any difference?”
“It certainly does,” I said. “Now, come on,” and I helped him
up.

As we slipped through dog days, Doodle began to look feverish,
and Mama felt his forehead, asking him if he felt ill. At night he
didn’t sleep well, and sometimes he had nightmares, crying out until I
touched him and said, “Wake up, Doodle. Wake up.

It was Saturday noon, just a few days before school was to start.
I should have already admitted defeat, but my pride wouldn’t let me.
The excitement of our program had now been gone for weeks, but
still we kept on with a tired doggedness. It was too late to turn back,
for we had both wandered too far into a net of expectations and left
no crumbs behind.

Daddy, Mama, Doodle, and I were seated at the dining-room
table having lunch. It was a hot day, with all the windows and doors
open in case a breeze should come. In the kitchen Aunt Nicey was
humming softly. After a long silence, Daddy spoke. “It’s so calm, I
wouldn’t be surprised if we had a storm this afternoon.”
“I haven’t heard a rain frog,” said Mama, who believed in signs,
as she served the bread around the table.

“I did,” declared Doodle. “Down in the swamp-”
“He didn’t,” I said contrarily.
“You did, eh?” said Daddy, ignoring my denial.
“I certainly did,” Doodle reiterated, scowling at me over the top
of his iced-tea glass, and we were quiet again.

Suddenly, from out in the yard, came a strange croaking noise.
Doodle stopped eating, with a piece of bread poised ready for his
mouth, his eyes popped round like two blue buttons. “What’s that?”
he whispered.

I jumped up, knocking over my chair, and had reached the door
when Mama called, “Pick up the chair, sit down again, and say
excuse me.”

By the time I had done this Doodle had excused himself and
had slipped out into the yard. lie was looking up into the bleeding
tree. “It’s a great big red bird!” he called.

The bird croaked loudly again, and Mama and Daddy came out
into the yard. We shaded our eyes with our hands against the hazy
glare of the sun and peered up through the still leaves. On the
topmost branch a bird the size of a chicken, with scarlet feathers and
long legs, was perched precariously. Its wings hung down loosely,
and as we watched, a feather dropped away and floated slowly down
through the green leaves.

“It’s not even frightened of us,” Mama said.
“It looks tired,” Daddy added. “Or maybe sick.”
Doodle’s hands were clasped at his throat, and I had never seen
him stand still so long. “What is it it?” he asked.
Daddy shook his head. “I don’t know, maybe it’s-

At that moment the bird began to flutter, but the wings were
uncoordinated, and amid much flapping and a spray of flying
feathers, it tumbled down, bumping through the limbs of the bleeding
tree and landing at our feet with a thud. Its long, graceful neck jerked
twice into an S, then straightened out, and the bird was still. A white
veil came over the eyes and the long white beak unhinged. Its legs
were crossed and its clawlike feet were delicately curved at rest.
Even death did not mar its grace, for it lay on the earth like a broken
vase of red flowers, and we stood around it, awed by its exotic7
beauty.

“It’s dead,” Mama said.
“What is it?” Doodle repeated.
“Go bring me the bird book,” said Daddy.

I ran into the house and brought back the bird book. As we
watched, Daddy thumbed through its pages. “It’s a scarlet ibis,” he
said, pointing to the picture. “It lives in the tropics-South America to
Florida. A storm must have brought it here.”

Sadly, we all looked back at the bird. A scarlet ibis! How many miles
it had traveled to die like this, in our yard, beneath the bleeding tree.
“Let’s finish lunch,” Mama said, nudging us back toward the
dining room.

“I’m not hungry,” said Doodle, and he knelt down beside the ibis.
“We’ve got peach cobbler for dessert,” Mama tempted from the
doorway.
Doodle remained kneeling. “I’m going to bury him.”
“Don’t you dare touch him,” Mama warned. “There’s no telling
what disease he might have had.”
“All right,” said Doodle. “I won’t.”

Daddy, Mama, and I went back to the dining-room table, but we
watched Doodle through the open door. fie took out a piece of string
from his pocket and, without touching the ibis, looped one end
around its neck. Slowly, while singing softly “Shall We Gather at the
River,” he carried the bird around to the front yard and dug a hole in