Thelma Roberts - Red hell : the life story of John Goode, criminal

Perditus Liber Presents

the rare

OCLC: 4810316

book

Red Hell: The Life Story

of John Goode, Criminal

By

Thelma Roberts

Published 1934

RED

HELL

Copyright, 1934, by

Rae D. Henkle

All Rights Reserved .

Published October, 1934

Manufactured in the United States

by Chas. H. Bohn & Co., Inc.

... To the mother of John Goode...

and to all those who, understanding that

boys are at heart adventurers, romanc-

ers, brave little crusaders, help them to

find the paths of right adventuring, and

shield them from the tragic mistakes

that beset the boy alone... this book

is dedicated with the sincere esteem of

The Author.

Publishers Note

I first met John Goode in 1919. He interested me for himself and for the work he was doing. After a time (and some persuasion) he came to my apartment one evening for a rambling talk. That was the first of many such evenings, when John, in an easy chair before the fireplace, recalled for me some of the astonishing events in his life. I urged him to put his story into some form of written order and after several years he brought to me a mass of notes and comments. Out of these notes, Red Hell has grown.

John Goode was seventy years old a few weeks before this volume was published. When I met him, his short bristly hair was iron-gray. Today it is almost white. But aside from this he is the man I knew in 1919.

About five feet ten inches in height, somewhat stocky in build: blue-gray eyes shining through steel rimmed spectacles: a gentle, kindly smile that reflected a gentle, kindly spirit: a man who had been helped out of his particular hell and who wanted, with all his heart, to help other men. A man I am glad to call my friend.

Rae D. Henkle.

July, 1934.

P. S. Since this note was written, John Goode has died. He passed away on August 8, 1934, and New Yorks Bowery mourns.

R. D. H.

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE THE SHADOW APPEARS

B ACK and forth the thing swayed. Rain-drenched, limp, it looked like the body of a man, hanged. Sitting on a tie on the side of the railroad track, I watched it, and the cold that trickled down my spine was not the cold of the rain.

Back and forth. It was only a pair of overalls and a jumper, I argued with myself. It was hanging from the bar over the entrance to the small general store. But it looked like the body of a man who had been hanged and left swinging in the wind and the rain. Like the shadow of the gallows.

Wouldnt it be hell, I thought, to have that thing hanging over your head? Sort of haunting you?

Far down the tracks I could hear the switch engine noisily bumping along, pushing the last half of a freight train on to the siding nearby. It comforted me. That freight, side-tracked until the midnight passenger had passed on its way from Memphis through the Ozarks, made a quick get-away possible. Paul and Tony and I had planned things to the minute. There they were, over in the store now. I could see the side window where they had left it

open so they could escape quickly. When the midnight passenger thundered into the station, Tony would blow the safe. The noise of the train would cover the noise of the explosion although Paul insisted that this new soup wouldnt make any noise.

A drunk shuffled along the tracks, paused behind me.

Where you goin, kid? he asked.

Going to wait here for the midnight train, I answered uneasily.

Got any tobacci?

I gave him some. He grunted and lurched on down the tracks in the rain. The wind blew his ragged coat back from his legs. I wished hed get off the tracks. He made me think of that other thing swaying limply. I started, involuntarily, to rise. But long practice kept me at my post. I was the lookout.

The thin sound of a fiddle came to me on the soggy breeze. There was a dance down the way. Everybodyd gone. That was why we had chosen this night for the burglary of the towns biggest store. My two days of scouting had informed us of several things.

Theres a clerk sleeps under the counter, I warned them.

Hell be at the dance, said Paul.

What if he aint? Tony objected.

Well knock him out, see?

That had settled it. But now I remembered their words as I waited. When I heard the rumble of the approaching passenger I rose to get off the tracks. Scanning the freight cars I sighted an empty that would do for a get-away.

Tony and Paul were sneaking along in the grass beyond the roadway. I motioned, and we all started in a dog-trot down the tracks. We were inside the empty freight car, soundly sleeping on our damp newspaper mattresses when the train of cattle cars and empties proceeded toward Memphis.

Twenty miles distant the box car in which we slept was

shunted to a side-track. I pulled the door open and looked out. We gotta get out of here pronto! I cried. Were side-tracked!

Theres a graveyard over there, said Paul, dropping to the mud with a soft splash. The rain lifted a moment in the wind, then pattered gently down in a misty stream that hid his departing figure. Tony and I hesitated in the shelter of the box car, then followed his guarded shout a moment later.

We crawled through mud, ankle deep, sticky cold, toward a white tower that stood out nakedly in the half light. White marble looks coldly clean in the rain; it glistens a little under the play of a light. We crept like wet dogs into the shelter of the mausoleum.

Well sleep here, I said. Tony set about spreading the floor with damp papers he had brought along. And well ditch the soup here, said Paul. Im tired carryin it.

I dont like sleepin with that stuff, Tony objected.

If it blows us up, well make some more, sneered Paul. And so we lay in the dark on cold stone, wet with a shivering dampness that stayed in our clothes and lay close to our bodies. The place was filled with the dank smell of moist earth, and a stale odor of dried flowers. Darkness hung in that tomb like a curtain shutting out the dripping white veil of rain. Paul and Tony slept again. But my own eyes stared into the darkness. I was worried about the clerk in the general store. Theyd acted funny about it. Had they

It was that dark hour before dawn when the sound of marching feet intruded softly into the silence of that tomb. The rain had ceased, and above a few stars showed between drifting clouds.

A hound came slowly through the doorway, sniffed about, and stole out again. Fully awake, I watched him go. Had a posse found us? Paul stirred, and rose on a stiff elbow to look about. Then through the stubby rows of white head

stones we saw them marching in crude formation, shoulders hunched as if with a single purpose.

Say, theres a bunch of men! I was pulling on my shoes. Lets go out and see whats up.

We caught up with the mob just beyond the gateway of the graveyard and joined the last ranks. No one questioned us. No one spoke. No questions, no answers. Everyone busy with his own thoughts.

In the center of the mob one man walked with hands tied behind him. He stumbled, as if the inability to move those gaunt arms hindered him in walking. His face was bruised, one eye crusted with blood. And once a whimpering sound dropped from his sagging lips.