Analy High School - Azalea Yearbook (Sebastopol, CA)

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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

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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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tor it was filled with the one, undying thought—revenge. Morn¬ ing, noon and night that one thought loomed before him like the hand-writing on the wall, and every day it grew more bitter. Revenge must be meted out by him upon the proud “Gilt Edge.” He would see it lying wrecked and shattered in the ditch and how he would laugh. Its beautiful furnishings would be de¬ molished, its proud conductor, Sterns, would be mangled, and all its passengers woul d lie dying. And he would laugh! Ah! his revenge would be sweet, sweet, sweet. At night he lay on his bunk and stared blinkingly out of that hateful barred window where he saw the gem-studded sky. In the twinkling of those jewels of night he read a mesage that seemed to bore into his very brain. Those flaming words seemed branded on his heart and at times would stifle that hateful spirit of revenge which consumed him. But he would scornfully thrust its influence aside and would say to himself, half aloud, that he was the victim of his own imagination. Yet struggle as he might, and hate as hard as he could, that old warning of the stars would come pushing its way unannounced and unwelcomed upon his thoughts. The day for which he had longed and waited had arrived. Into the bright sunlight of a Kansas June “Deadshot Bill” Bran- den strode a free man. The prison life had done its work, for he was no longer the defiant, fiery and energetic youth who had entered its iron gates. But though haggard and worn, there was a stubborn light in his tired eyes. The fires of revenge which had been smouldering for ten long years within his sodden brain now burst forth in all their early fierceness. Far to the South lay the rails of steel which grew hot twice each week beneath the whirling wheels of the “Gilt Edge” ex¬ press. And it was there Branden must go. The old warning of the stars burst upon his brain like a bombshell. “The wages of sin is death!” it rang in his ears. He hesitated, but only for a moment; the spirit of revenge overwhelmned him, and “Deadshot Bill Branden departed for the South. The station of Lone Shanty was a landmark in Amarrillo, New Mexico. Sharply outlined against the sky it stood—bleak, unattractive, and desolate. The victim of many a standstorm that angrily swept the desert, exposed to the whims of the elements and ridiculed by all strangers who swaggered across its worn 20