The Informal Execution of Soupbone Pew

Damon Runyon

The condemned man in the cell next to us laughed incessantly. He had been sentenced that morning, and they told us he had started laughing as soon as the words “May the Lord have mercy on your soul” were pronounced. He was to be taken to the penitentiary next day to await execution.

Chicago Red had manifested a lively interest in the case. The man had killed a railroad brakeman, so one of the guards told us; had killed him coldly, and without provocation. The trial had commenced since our arrival at the county jail and had lasted three days, during which time Red talked of little else.

From the barred windows of the jail corridor, when we were exercising, we could see the dingy old criminal court across the yard and Red watched the grim procession to and from the jail each day. He speculated on the progress of the trial; he knew when the case went to the jury, and when he saw the twelve men, headed by the two old bailiffs returning after lunch the third day, he announced: “They’ve got the verdict, and it’s first degree murder. They ain’t talking and not a one has ever grinned.”

Then when the unfortunate was brought back, laughing that dismal laugh, Red said: “He’s nutty. He was nutty to go. It ain’t exactly right to swing that guy.”

Red and I were held as suspects in connection with an affair which had been committed a full forty-eight hours before we landed in town. We had no particular fear of being implicated in the matter, and the officers had no idea that we had anything to do with it, but they were holding us as evidence to the public that they were working on the case. We had been “vagged” for ten days each.

It was no new experience for us in any respect—not even the condemned man, for we had frequently been under the same roof with men sentenced to die. The only unusual feature was Red’s interest in the laughing man.

“Red,” I asked, as we sat playing cards, “did you ever kill a man?”

He dropped a card calmly, taking the trick, and as he contemplated his hand, considering his next lead, he answered:

“For why do you ask me that?”

“Oh, I don’t know; I just wondered,” I said. “You’ve seen and done so many things that I thought you might accidentally have met with something of the sort.”

“It isn’t exactly a polite question,” he replied. “I’ve seen some murders. I’ve seen quite a few, in fact. I’ve seen some pulled off in a chief’s private office, when they was sweating some poor stiff, and I’ve seen some, other places.”

“Did you ever kill a man?” I insisted.

He studied my lead carefully.

“I never did,” he finally answered. “That is to say, I never bumped no guy off personal. I never had nothing to do with no job from which come ghosts to wake me up at night and bawl me out. They say a guy that kills a man never closes his eyes again, even when he really sleeps. I go to the hay, and my eyes are shut tight, so I know I ain’t to be held now or hereafter for nothing like that.”

We finished the game in silence, and Red seemed very thoughtful. He laid the cards aside, rolled a cigarette, and said: “Listen! I never killed no guy personal, like I say; I mean for nothing he done to me. I’ve been a gun and crook for many years, like you know, but I’m always mighty careful about hurting anyone permanent. I’m careful about them pete jobs, so’s not to blow up no harmless persons, and I always tell my outside men that, when they have to do shooting, not to try to hit anyone. If they did, accidental, that ain’t my fault. One reason I took to inside work was to keep from having to kill anyone. I’ve been so close to being taken that I could hear the gates of the Big House slam, and one little shot would have saved me a lot of trouble, but I always did my best to keep from letting that shot go. I never wanted to kill no man. I’ve been in jams where guys were after me good and strong, and I always tried to get by without no killings.

“I said I never killed a guy. I helped once, but it wasn’t murder. It’s never worried me a ——— bit since, and I sleep good.”

He walked to the window and peered out into the yard where a bunch of sparrows were fluttering about. Finally he turned and said: “I hadn’t thought of that for quite a while, and I never do until I see some poor stiff that’s been tagged to go away. Some of them make me nervous—especially this tee-hee guy next to us. I’ll tell you about Soupbone Pew—someday you can write it, if you want to.”

Soupbone Pew was a rat who trained years ago with Billy Coulon, the Honey Grove Kid, and a bunch of other old timers that you’ve never seen. It was before my time, too, but I’ve heard them talk about him. He was in the Sioux City bank tear-off, when they all got grabbed and were sent to the Big House for fifteen years each. In them days Soupbone was a pretty good guy. He had nerve, and was smart, and stood well with everybody, but a little stretch in the big stir got to him. He broke bad. Honey Grove laid a plan for a big spring—a getaway—while they were up yonder. It looked like it would go through, too, but just as they were about ready, Soupbone got cold feet and gave up his insides.

For that he got a pardon, and quit the road right off. He became a railroad brakeman, and showed up at a shack running between Dodge City and La Junta. And he became the orneriest white man that God ever let live, too.

To hoboes and guns he was like a reformed soak toward a drunk. He treated them something fierce. He was a big, powerful stiff, who could kill a man with a wallop of his hands, if he hit him right, and his temper soured on the world. Most likely it was because he was afraid that every guy on the road was out to get him because of what he’d done, or maybe it was because he knew that they knew he was yellow. Anyway, they never tried to do him, that job belonging to Coulon, Honey Grove and the others.

Soupbone cracked that no ’bo could ride his division, and he made it good, too. He beat them up when they tried it, and he made it so strong that the old heads wouldn’t go against a try when he was the run. Once in a while some kid took a stab at it, but if he got caught by Soupbone he regretted it the rest of his life. I’ve heard of that little road into Hot Springs, where they say a reward used to be offered to any ’bo that rode it, and how a guy beat it by getting in the water tank; and I’ve personally met that Wyoming gent on the Union Pacific, and all them other guys they say is so tough, but them stories is only fairytales for children beside what could be told about Pew. He went an awful route.

I’ve known of him catching guys in the pilot and throwing scalding water in on them; I’ve heard tell of him shoveling hot cinders into empties on poor bums laying there asleep. That trick of dropping a coupling pin on the end of a wire down alongside a moving train, so that it would swing up underneath and knock a stiff off the rods, was about the mildest thing he did.

He was simply a devil. The other railroad men on the division wouldn’t hardly speak to him. They couldn’t stand his gaff, but they couldn’t very well roar at him keeping ’boes off his trains because that was what he was there for.

His longest suit was beating guys up. He just loved to catch some poor old broken-down bum on his train and pound the everlasting stuffing out of him. He’s sent many a guy to the hospital, and maybe he killed a few before my acquaintance with him, for all I know.

Once in a while he ran against some live one—some real gun, and not a bum—who’d give him a battle, but he was there forty ways with a sap and gat, and he’d shoot as quick as he’d slug. He didn’t go so strong on the real guns, if he knew who they was, and I guess he was always afraid they might be friends of Honey Grove or Coulon.

He was on the run when I first heard of him, and some of the kids of my day would try to pot him from the road, when his train went by, but they never even come close. I’ve heard them talk of pulling a rail on him and letting his train go into the ditch, but that would have killed the other trainmen, and they was some good guys on that same run then. The best way to do was to fight shy of Soupbone, and keep him on ice for Honey Grove and Coulon.

Training with our mob in them days was a young kid called Manchester Slim—a real kid, not over eighteen, and as nice and quiet a youngster as I ever see. He wasn’t cut out for the road. It seems he’d had some trouble at home and run away. Old man Muller, that Dutch prowler, used to have him on his staff, but he never let this kid in on any work for some reason. He was always trying to get Slim to go home.

“Der road is hell for der kits,” he used to say. “Let der ole stiffs vork out dere string, und don’t make no new vuns.”

The Slim paid no attention to him. Still he had no great love for the life, and probably would have quit long before if he hadn’t been afraid someone would think he was scared off.

They was a pete job on at La Junta, which me and ’Frisco Shine and Muller had laid out. We had jungled up—camped—in a little cottonwood grove a few miles out of town, and was boiling out soup—nitro-glycerine—from dynamite, you know—and Muller sent the Slim into town to look around a bit. It was winter and pretty cold. We had all come in from the west and was headed east. We was all broke bad, too, and needed dough the worst way.

Slim come back from town much excited. He was carrying a Denver newspaper in his hand.

“I’ve got to go home, Mull,” he said, running up to the old man and holding out the paper. “Look at this ad.”

Muller read it and called to me. He showed me a little want ad, reading that Gordon Keleher, who disappeared from his home in Boston two years before, was wanted at home because his mother was dying. It was signed Pelias Keleher, and I knew who he was, all right—president of the National Bankers’ Association.

“Well, you go,” I said, right off the reel, and I could see that was the word he was waiting for.

“For certainly he goes,” said Muller. “Nail der next rattier.”

“All the passengers are late, but there’s a freight due out of here tonight; I asked,” said Slim.

“How much dough iss dere in dis mob?” demanded Muller, frisking himself. We all shook ourselves down, but the most we could scare up was three or four dollars.

“If you could wait until after tonight,” I says, thinking of the job, but Muller broke me off with: “Ve don’t vant him to vait. Somedings might happens.”

“I’d wire home for money, but I want to get to Kansas City first,” said Slim. “That paper is a couple of days old, and there’s no telling how long it may have been running that ad. I can stop over in K.C. long enough to get plenty of dough from some people I know there. I’m going to grab that freight.”

“Soupbone on dat freight,” said the ’Frisco Shine, a silent, wicked black.

“Ve’ll see Soub,” said Muller quietly. “I guess maybe he von’t inderfere mit dis case.”

We decided to abandon the job for the night, and all went uptown. The Slim was apparently very much worried, and he kept telling us that if he didn’t get home in time he’d never forgive himself, so we all got dead-set on seeing him started.

We looked up the conductor of the freight due out that night and explained things to him. None of us knew him, but he was a nice fellow.

“I tell you, boys,” he said. “I’d let the young fellow ride, but you’d better see my head brakeman, Soupbone Pew. He’s a tough customer, but in a case like this he ought to be all right. I’ll speak to him myself.”

Muller went after Pew. He found him in a saloon, drinking all by his lonesome, although there was a crowd of other railroad men in there at the time. Muller knew Pew in the old days, but there was no sign of recognition between them. The old Dutchman explained to Pew very briefly, winding with: “It vould pe a gread personal favor mit me, Soub; maype somedimes I return it.”

“He can’t ride my train!” said Pew shortly. “That’s flat. No argument goes.”

The Dutchman looked at him long and earnestly, murder showing in his eyes, and Pew slunk back close to the bar, and his hand dropped to his hip.

“Soub, der poy rides!” said Muller, his voice low but shaking with anger. “He rides your rattler. Und if any-ding happens by dot poy, de Honey Grove Kit von’t get no chance at you! Dot all, Soub!”

But when he returned to us, he was plainly afraid for the Slim.

“You don’t bedder go tonide,” he said. “Dot Soub is a defil, und he’ll do you.”

“I’m not afraid,” said Slim. “He can’t find me, anyhow.”

The old man tried to talk him out of the idea, but Slim was determined, and finally Muller, in admiration of his spirit, said: “Veil, if you vill go, you vill. Vun man can hide besser as two, but der Shine must go mit you as far as Dodge.”

That was the only arrangement he would consent to, and while the Slim didn’t want the Shine, and I myself couldn’t see what good he could do, Muller insisted so strong that we all gave in.

We went down to the yards that night to see them off, and the old man had a private confab with the Shine. The only time I ever saw Muller show any feeling was when he told the boy good-bye. I guess he really liked him.

The two hid back of a pile of ties, a place where the trains slowed down, and me and Muller got off a distance and watched them. We could see Soupbone standing on top of a boxcar as the train went by, and he looked like a tall devil. He was trying to watch both sides of the train at the same time, but I didn’t think he saw either Slim or the Shine as they shot underneath the cars, one after the other, and nailed the rods. Then the train went off into the darkness, Soupbone standing up straight and stiff.

We went back to our camp to sleep, and the next morning before we were awake, the Shine came limping in, covered with blood and one arm hanging at his side.

I didn’t have to hear his story to guess what had happened. Soupbone made them at the first stop. He hadn’t expected two, but he did look for the kid. Instead of warning him off, he told him to get on top where he’d be safe. That was one of his old tricks. He didn’t get to the Shine, who dodged off into the darkness, as soon as he found they were grabbed, and then caught the train after it started again. He crawled up between the cars to the deck, to tip the Slim off to watch out for Soupbone. Slim didn’t suspect anything, and was thanking Soupbone, and explaining about his mother.

The moment the train got under way good, Soupbone says: “Now my pretty boy, you’re such a ——— good traveler, let’s see you jump off this train!”

The kid thought he was joshing, but there wasn’t no josh about it. Soup pulled a gun. The Shine, with his own gun in hand, crawled clear on top and lay flat on the cars, trying to steady his aim on Soupbone. The kid was pleading and almost crying, when Soupbone suddenly jumped at him, smashed him in the jaw with the gun barrel, and knocked him off the train. The Shine shot Soupbone in the back, and he dropped on top of the train, but didn’t roll off. As the Shine was going down between the cars again, Soupbone shot at him and broke his arm. He got off all right, and went back down the road to find the kid dead—his neck broke.

Old man Muller, the mildest man in the world generally, almost went bughouse when he heard that spiel. He raved and tore around like a sure enough nut. I’ve known him to go backing out of a town with every man in his mob down on the ground, dead or dying, and not show half as much feeling afterward. You’d ’a’ thought the kid was his own. He swore he’d do nothing else as long as he lived until he’d cut Soupbone’s heart out.

The Shine had to get out of sight, because Soupbone would undoubtedly have some wild-eyed story to tell about being attacked by hoboes and being shot by one. We had no hope but what the Shine had killed him.

Old man Muller went into town and found out that was just what had happened, and he was in the hospital only hurt a little. He also found they’d brought Slim’s body to town, and that most people suspected the real truth, too. He told them just how it was, especially the railroad men, and said the Shine had got out of the country. He also wired Slim’s people, and we heard afterwards they sent a special train after the remains.

Muller was told, too, that the train conductor had notified Pew to let Slim ride, and that the rest of the train crew had served notice on Pew that if he threw the boy off he’d settled with them for it. And that was just what made Soupbone anxious to get the kid. It ended his railroad career there, as we found out afterwards, because he disappeared as soon as he got out of the hospital.

Meantime me and Muller and the Shine went ahead with that job, and it failed. Muller and the nigger got grabbed, and I had a tough time getting away. Just before we broke camp the night before, however, Muller, who seemed to have a hunch that something was going to happen, called me and the Shine to him, and said, his voice solemn: “I vant you poys to bromise me vun ting,” he said. “If I don’t get der chance myself, bromise me dot venefer you find Soupbone Bew, you vill kill him deat.”

And we promised, because we didn’t think we would ever be called on to make good.

Muller got a long jolt for the job; the Shine got a shorter one and escaped a little bit later on, while I left that part of the country.

A couple of years later, on a bitter cold night, in a certain town that I won’t name, there was five of us in the sneezer, held as suspects on a house prowl job that only one of us had anything to do with—I ain’t mentioning the name of the one, either. They was me, Kid Mole, the old prize fighter, a hophead named Squirt McCue, that you don’t know, Jew Friend, a dip, and that same ’Frisco Shine. We were all in the bullpen with a mixed assortment of drunks and vags. All kinds of prisoners was put in there overnight. This pokey is downstairs under the police station, not a million miles from the Missouri River, so if you think hard you can guess the place. We were walking around kidding the drunks, when a screw shoved in a long, tall guy who acted like he was drunk or nutty, and was hardly able to stand.

I took one flash at his map, and I knew him. It was Pew.

He flopped down in a corner as soon as the screw let go his arm. The Shine rapped to him as quick as I did, and officed Mole and the rest. They all knew of him, especially the Honey Grove business, as well as about the Manchester Slim, for word had gone over the country at the time.

As soon as the screw went upstairs I walked over to the big stiff, laying all huddled up, and poked him with my foot.

“What’s the matter with you, you big cheese?” I said. He only mumbled.

“Stand up!” I tells him, but he didn’t stir. The Shine and Mole got hold of him on either side and lifted him to his feet. He was as limber as a wet bar towel. Just then we heard the screw coming downstairs and we got away from Pew. The screw brought in a jag—a laughing jag—a guy with his snoot full of booze and who laughed like he’d just found a lot of money. He was a little, thin fellow, two pounds lighter than a straw hat. He laughed high and shrill, more like a scream than a real laugh, and the moment the screw opened the door and tossed him in, something struck me that the laugh was phony. It didn’t sound on the level.

There wasn’t no glad in it. The little guy laid on the floor and kicked his feet and kept on laughing. Soupbone Pew let out a yell at the sight of him.

“Don’t let him touch me!” he bawled, rolling over against the wall. “Don’t let him near me!”

“Why, you big stiff, you could eat him alive!” I says. The jag kept on tee-heeing, not looking at us, or at Pew either for that matter. “He’s nuts,” said Jew Friend. “Shut him off,” I told the Shine. He stepped over and picked the jag up with one hand, held him out at arm’s length, and walloped him on the jaw with his other hand. The jag went to sleep with a laugh sticking in his throat. Soupbone still lay against the wall moaning, but he saw that business all right, and it seemed to help him. The Shine tossed the jag into a cell. Right after that the screw came down with another drunk, and I asked him about Pew.

“Who’s this boob?” I said. “Is he sick?”

“Him? Oh, he’s a good one,” said screw. “He only killed his poor wife—beat her to death with his two fists, because she didn’t have supper ready on time, or something important. That ain’t his blood on him; that’s hers. He’s pretty weak, now, hey? Well, he wasn’t so weak a couple of hours ago, the rat! It’s the wickedest murder ever done in this town, and he’ll hang sure, if he ain’t lynched beforehand!”

He gave Soupbone a kick as he went out, and Soupbone groaned.

Said I: “It’s got to be done, gents; swing or no swing, this guy has got to go. Who is it—me?”

“Me!” said the Shine, stepping forward.

“Me!” said the Jew. “Me!” chimed in Mole.

“All of us!” said the hophead.

“Stand him up!” I ordered.

The lights had been turned down low, and it was dark and shadowy in the jail. The only sound was the soft pad-pad of people passing through the snow on the sidewalks above our heads, the low sizzling of the water spout at the sink, and the snores of the drunks, who were all asleep.

Us five was the only ones awake. The Shine and Mole lifted Soupbone up, and this time he was not so limp. He seemed to know that something was doing. His eyes was wide open and staring at us.

“Pew,” I said in a whisper, “do you remember the kid you threw off your rattler three years ago?”

“And shot me in the arm?” asked Shine. Pew couldn’t turn any whiter, but his eyes rolled back into his head.

“Don’t!” he whispered. “Don’t say that. It made me crazy! I’m crazy now! I was crazy when I killed that little girl tonight. It was all on account of thinking about him. He comes to see me often.”

“Well, Pew,” I said, “a long time back you were elected to die. I was there when the sentence was passed, and it’d been carried out a long time ago if you hadn’t got away. I guess we’ll have to kill you tonight.”

“Don’t, boys!” he whined. “I ain’t fit to die! Don’t hurt me!”

“Why, you’ll swing anyway!” said Friend.

“No! My God, no!” he said. “I was crazy: I’m crazy now, and they don’t hang crazy people!”

I was standing square in front of him. His head had raised a little as he talked and his jaw was sticking out. I suddenly made a move with my left hand, as though to slap him, and he showed that his mind was active enough by dodging, so that it brought his jaw out further, and he said: “Don’t.” Then I pulled my right clear from my knee and took him on the point of the jaw.

The Shine and Mole jumped back. Soupbone didn’t fall; he just slid down in a heap, like his body had melted into his shoes.

We all jumped for him at the same time, but an idea popped into my head, and I stopped them. Soupbone was knocked out, but he was coming back fast. You can’t kill a guy like that by hitting him. The jail was lighted by a few incandescent lights, and one of them was hung on a wire that reached down from the ceiling over the sink, and had a couple of feet of it coiled up in the middle. Uncoiled, the light would reach clear to the floor. I pointed to it, but the bunch didn’t get my idea right away. The switch for the lights was inside the bullpen, and I turned them off. I had to work fast for fear the screw upstairs would notice the lights was out and come down to see what the trouble was. A big arc outside threw a little glim through the sidewalk grating, so I could see what I was doing.

I uncoiled the wire and sawed it against the edge of the sink, close to the lamp, until it came in two. Then I bared the wire back for a foot. The gang tumbled, and carried Pew over to where the wire would reach him. I unfastened his collar, looped the naked end of the wire around his neck and secured it. By this time he was about come to, but he didn’t seem to realize what was going on.

All but me got into their cells and I stepped over and turned the switch button just as Pew was struggling to his feet. The voltage hit him when he was on all fours. He stood straight up, stiff, like a soldier at salute. There was a strange look on his face—a surprised look. Then, as though someone had hit him from behind, his feet left the floor and he swung straight out to the length of the wire and it broke against his weight, just as I snapped off the current. Pew dropped to the floor and curled up like a big singed spider, and a smell like frying bacon filled the room.

I went over and felt of his heart. It was still beating, but very light.

“They ain’t enough current,” whispered Mole. “We got to do it some other way.”

“Hang him wid de wire,” said the Shine.

“Aw—nix!” spoke up the Jew. “I tell you that makes me sick—bumping a guy off that way. Hanging and electricity, see? That’s combining them too much. Let’s use the boot.”

“It ain’t fair, kind-a, that’s a fact,” whispered McCue. “It’s a little too legal. The boot! Give him the boot!”

The voice of the screw came singing down the stairs: “Is that big guy awake?”

“Yes,” I shouted back, “we’re all awake; he won’t let us sleep.”

“Tell him he’d better say his prayers!” yelled the screw. “I just got word a mob is forming to come and get him!”

“Let him alone,” I whispered to the gang. Mole was making a noose of the wire, and the Shine had hunted up a bucket to stand Pew on. They drew back and Soupbone lay stretched out on the floor.

I went over and felt of his heart again. I don’t remember whether I felt any beat or not. I couldn’t have said I did, at the moment, and I couldn’t say I didn’t. I didn’t have time to make sure, because suddenly there run across the floor something that looked to me like a shadow, or a big rat. Then the shrill laugh of that jag rattled through the bullpen. He slid along half stooped, as quick as a streak of light, and before we knew what was doing he had pounced on Soupbone and had fastened his hands tight around the neck of the big stiff. He was laughing that crazy laugh all the time.

“I’ll finish him for you!” he squeaked. He fastened his hands around Soupbone’s neck. I kicked the jag in the side of the head as hard as I could, but it didn’t faze him. The bunch laid hold of him and pulled, but they only dragged Soupbone all over the place. Finally the jag let go and stood up, and we could see he wasn’t no more drunk than we was. He let loose that laugh once more, and just as the Shine started the bucket swinging for his head, he said: “I’m her brother!” Then he went down kicking.

We went into our cells and crawled into our bunks. Soupbone lay outside. The Shine pulled the jag into a corner. I tell you true, I went to sleep right away. I thought the screw would find out when he brought the next drunk down, but it so happened that there wasn’t no more drunks and I was woke up by a big noise on the stairs. The door flew open with a bang, and a gang of guys came down, wild-eyed and yelling. The screw was with them and they had tight hold of him.

“Keep in, you men!” he bawled to us.

“That’s your meat!” he said to the gang, pointing at what had been Soupbone. The men pounced on him like a lot of hounds on to a rabbit, and before you could bat an eye they had a rope around Soupbone’s neck and was tearing up the stairs again, dragging him along.

They must have thought he was asleep; they never noticed that he didn’t move a muscle himself, and they took the person of Soupbone Pew, or anyways what had been him, outside and hung it over a telegraph wire.

We saw it there when we was sprung next morning. When the screw noticed the blood around the bullpen, he said: “Holy smoke, they handled him rough!” And he never knew no different.

If the mob hadn’t come—but the mob did come, and so did the laughing jag. I left him that morning watching the remains of Soupbone Pew.

“She was my sister,” he said to me.

I don’t know for certain whether we killed Soupbone, whether the jag did it, or whether the mob finished him; but he was dead, and he ought to have died. Sometimes I wonder a bit about it, but no ghosts come to me, like I say, so I can’t tell.

They’s an unmarked grave in the potter’s field of this town I speak of, and once in a while I go there when I’m passing through and meditate on the sins of Soupbone Pew. But I sleep well of nights. I done what had to be done, and I close my eyes and I don’t never see Soupbone Pew.

He turned once more to gazing out of the window.

“Well, what is there about condemned men to make you so nervous?” I demanded.

“I said some condemned men,” he replied, still gazing. “Like this guy next door.”

A loud, shrill laugh rang through the corridors.

“He’s that same laughing jag,” said Chicago Red.