Analy High School - Azalea Yearbook (Sebastopol, CA)

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THE WAGES OF SIN By James McMenamin Third Prize ONDUCTOR John Sterns gazed proudly down the long line of brilliantly lighted coaches to the purring, sputtering engine that waited for his signal rest¬ lessly, like an excited colt. And that signal, how much it meant to Sterns. It proved conclusively that he had some authority over the movements of the great “Gilt Edge” express, no matter how incom¬ prehensible that seemed to him. And furthermore, with that sig¬ nal he sent the lives of five hundred souls out into the darkness. Yes it was an honor to be chief conductor on the “Gilt Edge,” for no other train on the line could boast of a record like hers. Twelve years of constant service, with never a wreck, and still more important, with only one “hold up.” To say that the “Gilt Edge” was only “held up” once might horrify some of her noisy city cousins who have never been robbed. But it is the surroundings, not the record, that make the hero. For the “Gilt Edge” had her way laid out through the wildest piece of country in New Mexico. It was a place where trains were in¬ troduced to six-shooters and masked men once a week, at the least. Yet the “Gilt Edge” had only had this pleasure once in her long career. Surely Sterns was not grieving because of this cold neglect by the “Knights of the Mask.” Yet many a time his mind went racing back to that hot June night in Nineteen Hundred and One. How well he remembered that stirring scene. Could he ever forget how that “Gilt Edge,” two miles west of Lone Shanty, had been brought to a grinding stop and ransacked by “Dead- shot Bill” Branden, the only man daring enough to do the trick? And could he ever forget “Deadshot’s” trial? The crowded courtroom, the solemn-faced, weary-eyed jury, the weeping mother, and her defiant son. The nasal harangue of the railroad attorney seemed to be still ringing in his ears. The judge, who looked more like a bull-dog than a man, loomed before him in the act of passing sentence. “Young man,” said the judge, “for your own benefit and that of humanity, I sentence you to ten years hard labor.” 18

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without looking behind, ran for home, but the tramp did not follow. Instead, he sat down, pulled the knife out of his foot, glowered at it a moment with his shifty eyes and threw it far out into a duck pond. Jack Knife sank to a watery grave without a murmur. One solitary bubble rose to the surface to mark his last resting place. Then the angels in Jack Knife’s heaven sang for joy. THE LOST MOONBEAM A moonbeam flew to earth one night And lighted ' neath a maple tree. Beside him laughed a little stream; About him, far as he could see, Tall grasses waved, and flowers gay All becked and nodded cheerfully. Beside the brook were many trees, And there, beneath their shade, he spied Some fairies painting butterflies, Preparing for their midnight ride. When this was done, with blades of grass Their steeds to flower stems they tied. An hour passed, and midnight came, The fairies loosed their steeds so gay, While in the grass an orchestra Of crickets soon began to play. The fairies rode and danced about; The moonbeam watched ' till almost day. But when he looked up into heaven The moon was gone; ah, fatal night! Then, just before the fairies left, They saw him in his mournful plight. The morning came. Upon a leaf A dewdrop sparkled in the light. —MARJORIE SHATTO, ’ 16 . 17

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A mother’s shriek pierced the hearts of all present, then it sank and was lost in a tumult of sobbing. Asked if he had any¬ thing to say, “Deadshot” had given one of the strangest replies ever given by a sentenced man. He said, “I swear vengeance upon the railroad that is putting me behind the bars. Even if it takes me thirty years, I shall put the ‘Gilt Edge’ in the scrap- heap.” A sharp toot from the big Mogul, that led the “Gilt Edge” out of the land of bondage, awakened Sterns from his revery, and all thoughts of “Deadshot Bill” Branden faded from his mind. It was time to start as his Elgin testified and a wave of his hand sent the “Gilt Edge” thundering down the track. Far to the north, where the rolling sea-like prairies of Kansas spread monotonously from horizon to horizon, had been built in the early “eighties” what is known to those persons who built it, by its more dignified name, a penitentiary. But to those poor unfortunates who wasted out their days behind its grim stone walls, it was recognized by the less dignified label, •‘the pen.” And in truth it was a pen, where men were driven like slaves, where the moans of the weak mingled with the oaths of the sullen and defiant, and where hunger and thirst, cold and heat stalked at will. It was not a place where good will and re¬ pentance might enter, but it was a place where revenge and de¬ fiance could be and was cultivated to perfection. It was in this place that “Deadshot Bill” Branden had for ten long years nourished a revenge that gnawed at his heart and which at times seemed to fill his whole body with a poison that caused him to act as one demented. His fellow man he hated, for was it not he who had put him in this place ? There was only one person in the world for whom he held any love. That was his mother. His fellow prisoners knew little about him for he remained apart from them. In fact, he had never spoken more than two words to any one of them. Yet they respected him and tried to make his slavery among them as pleasant as possible. For was not the man who could “hold up” the famed “Gilt Edge” express worthy of any man’s respect? As for Branden, he thought little of the prisoners or their affairs. True, he was one of them, and as number 2382 went to work with them every day. But his mind was not with them, 19