Майн Рид
The Death Shot: A Story Retold
Chapter Fifteen.
A moonlight moving
While the widowed mother, now doubly bereft – stricken down by the blow – is still in a state of syncope, the faithful negress doing what she can to restore her, there are sounds outside unheard by either. A dull rumble of wheels, as of some heavy vehicle coming along the main road, with the occasional crack of a whip, and the sonorous “wo-ha” of a teamster.
Presently, a large “Conestoga” wagon passes the cottage-gate, full freighted with what looks like house furniture, screened under canvas. The vehicle is drawn by a team of four strong mules, driven by a negro; while at the wagon’s tail, three or four other darkeys follow afoot.
The cortege, of purely southern character, has scarce passed out of sight, and not yet beyond hearing, when another vehicle comes rolling along the road. This, of lighter build, and proceeding at a more rapid rate, is a barouche, drawn by a pair of large Kentucky horses. As the night is warm, and there is no need to spring up the leathern hood – its occupants can all be seen, and their individuality made out. On the box-seat is a black coachman; and by his side a young girl whose tawny complexion, visible in the whiter moonbeams, tells her to be a mulatto. Her face has been seen before, under a certain forest tree – a magnolia – its owner depositing a letter in the cavity of the trunk. She who sits alongside the driver is “Jule.”
In the barouche, behind, is a second face that has been seen under the same tree, but with an expression upon it sadder and more disturbed. For of the three who occupy the inside seats one is Helen Armstrong; the others her father, and sister. They are en route for the city of Natchez, the port of departure for their journey south-westward into Texas; just starting away from their old long-loved dwelling, whose gates they have left ajar, its walls desolate behind thorn.
The wagon, before, carries the remnant of the planter’s property, – all his inexorable creditor allows him to take along. No wonder he sits in the barouche, with bowed head, and chin between his knees, not caring to look back. For the first time in his life he feels truly, terribly humiliated.
This, and no flight from creditors, no writ, nor pursuing sheriff, will account for his commencing the journey at so early an hour. To be seen going off in the open daylight would attract spectators around; it may be many sympathisers. But in the hour of adversity his sensitive nature shrinks from the glance of sympathy, as he would dread the stare of exultation, were any disposed to indulge in it.
But besides the sentiment, there is another cause for their night moving – an inexorable necessity as to time. The steamboat, which is to take them up Red River, leaves Natchez at sunrise. He must be aboard by daybreak.
If the bankrupt planter be thus broken-spirited, his eldest daughter is as much cast down as he, and far more unhappily reflecting.
Throughout all that night Helen Armstrong has had no sleep; and now, in the pale moonlight of the morning, her cheeks show white and wan, while a dark shadow broods upon her brow, and her eyes glisten with wild unnatural light, as one in a raging fever. Absorbed in thought, she takes no heed of anything along the road; and scarce makes answer to an occasional observation addressed to her by her sifter, evidently with the intention to cheer her. It has less chance of success, because of Jessie herself being somewhat out of sorts. Even she, habitually merry, is for the time sobered; indeed saddened at the thought of that they are leaving behind, and what may be before them. Possibly, as she looks back at the gate of their grand old home, through which they will never again go, she may be reflecting on the change from their late luxurious life, to the log-cabin and coarse fare, of which her father had forewarned them.
If so, the reflection is hers – not Helen’s. Different with the latter, and far more bitter the emotion that stirs within her person, scalding her heart. Little cares she what sort of house she is hitherto to dwell in, what she will have to wear, or eat. The scantiest raiment, or coarsest food, can give no discomfort now. She could bear the thought of sheltering under the humblest roof in Texas – ay, think of it with cheerfulness – had Charles Clancy been but true, to share its shelter along with her. He has not, and that is an end of it.
Is it? No; not for her, though it may be for him. In the company of his Creole girl he will soon cease to think of her – forget the solemn vows made, and the sweet words spoken, beneath the magnolia – tree, in her retrospect seeming sadder than yew, or cypress.
Will she ever forget him? Can she? No; unless in that land, whither her face is set, she find the fabled Lethean stream. Oh! it is bitter – keenly bitter!
It reaches the climax of its bitterness, when the barouche rolling along opens out a vista between the trees, disclosing a cottage – Clancy’s. Inside it sleeps the man, who has made her life a misery! Can he sleep, after what he has done?
While making this reflection she herself feels, as if never caring to close her eyelids more – except in death!
Her emotions are terribly intense, her anguish so overpowering, she can scarce conceal it – indeed does not try, so long as the house is in sight. Perhaps fortunate that her father is absorbed in his own particular sadness. But her sister observes all, guessing – nay, knowing the cause. She says nothing. Such sorrow is too sacred to be intruded on. There are times, when even a sister may not attempt consolation.
Jessie is glad when the carriage, gliding on, again enters among trees, and the little cottage of the Clancys, like their own great house, is forever lost to view.
Could the eyes of Helen Armstrong, in passing, have penetrated through the walls of that white painted dwelling – could she have rested them upon a bed with a woman laid astretch upon it, apparently dead, or dying – could she have looked on another bed, unoccupied, untouched, and been told how he, its usual occupant, was at that moment lying in the middle of a chill marsh, under the sombre canopy of cypresses – it would have caused a revulsion in her feelings, sudden, painful, and powerful as the shock already received.
There would still be sadness in her breast, but no bitterness. The former far easier to endure; she would sooner believe Clancy dead, than think of his traitorous defection.
But she is ignorant of all that has occurred; of the sanguinary scene enacted – played out complete – on the edge of the cypress swamp, and the sad one inside the house – still continuing. Aware of the one, or witness of the other, while passing that lone cottage, as with wet eyes she takes a last look at its walls, she would still be shedding tears – not of spite, but sorrow.
Chapter Sixteen.
What has become of Clancy?
The sun is up – the hour ten o’clock, morning. Around the residence of the widow Clancy a crowd of people has collected. They are her nearest neighbours; while those who dwell at a distance are still in the act of assembling. Every few minutes two or three horsemen ride up, carrying long rifles over their shoulders, with powder-horns and bullet-pouches strapped across their breasts. Those already on the ground are similarly armed, and accoutred.
The cause of this warlike muster is understood by all. Some hours before, a report has spread throughout the plantations that Charles Clancy is missing from his home, under circumstances to justify suspicion of foul play having befallen him. His mother has sent messengers to and fro; hence the gathering around her house.
In the South-Western States, on occasions of this kind, it does not do for any one to show indifference, whatever his station in life. The wealthiest, as well as the poorest, is expected to take part in the administration of backwoods’ justice – at times not strictly en règle with the laws of the land.
For this reason Mrs Clancy’s neighbours, far and near, summoned or not summoned, come to her cottage. Among them Ephraim Darke, and his son Richard.
Archibald Armstrong is not there, nor looked for. Most know of his having moved away that same morning. The track of his waggon wheels has been seen upon the road; and, if the boat he is to take passage by, start at the advertised hour, he should now be nigh fifty miles from the spot, and still further departing. No one is thinking of him, or his; since no one dreams of the deposed planter, or his family, having ought to do with the business that brings them together.
This is to search for Charles Clancy, still absent from his home. The mother’s story has been already told, and only the late comers have to hear it again.
In detail she narrates what occurred on the preceding night; how the hound came home wet, and wounded. Confirmatory of her speech, the animal is before their eyes, still in the condition spoken of. They can all see it has been shot – the tear of the bullet being visible on its back, having just cut through the skin. Coupled with its master’s absence, this circumstance strengthens the suspicion of something amiss.
Another, of less serious suggestion, is a piece of cord knotted around the dog’s neck – the loose end looking as though gnawed by teeth, and then broken off with a pluck; as if the animal had been tied up, and succeeded in setting itself free.
But why tied? And why has it been shot? These are questions that not anybody can answer.
Strange, too, in the hound having reached home at the hour it did. As Clancy went out about the middle of the day, he could not have gone to such a distance for his dog to have been nearly all night getting back.
Could he himself have fired the bullet, whose effect is before their eyes?
A question almost instantly answered in the negative; by old backwoodsmen among the mustered crowd – hunters who know how to interpret “sign” as surely as Champollion an Egyptian hieroglyph. These having examined the mark on the hound’s skin, pronounce the ball that made it to have come from a smooth-bore, and not a rifle. It is notorious, that Charles Clancy never carried a smooth-bore, but always a rifled gun. His own dog has not been shot by him.
After some time spent in discussing the probabilities and possibilities of the case, it is at length resolved to drop conjecturing, and commence search for the missing man. In the presence of his mother no one speaks of searching for his dead body; though there is a general apprehension, that this will be the thing found.
She, the mother, most interested of all, has a too true foreboding of it. When the searchers, starting off, in kindly sympathy tell her to be of good cheer, her heart more truly says, she will never see her son again.
On leaving the house, the horsemen separate into two distinct parties, and proceed in different directions.
With one and the larger, goes Clancy’s hound; an old hunter, named Woodley, taking the animal along. He has an idea it may prove serviceable, when thrown on its master’s track – supposing this can be discovered.
Just as conjectured, the hound does prove of service. Once inside the woods, without even setting nose to the ground, it starts off in a straight run – going so swiftly, the horsemen find it difficult to keep pace with it.
It sets them all into a gallop; this continued for quite a couple of miles through timber thick and thin, at length ending upon the edge of the swamp.
Only a few have followed the hound thus far, keeping close. The others, straggling behind, come up by twos and threes.
The hunter, Woodley, is among the foremost to be in at the death; for death all expect it to prove. They are sure of it, on seeing the stag-hound stop beside something, as it does so loudly baying.
Spurring on towards the spot, they expect to behold the dead body of Charles Clancy. They are disappointed.
There is no body there – dead or alive. Only a pile of Spanish moss, which appears recently dragged from the trees; then thrown into a heap, and afterwards scattered.
The hound has taken stand beside it; and there stays, giving tongue. As the horsemen dismount, and get their eyes closer to the ground, they see something red; which proves to be blood. It is dark crimson, almost black, and coagulated. Still is it blood.
From under the edge of the moss-heap protrudes the barrel of a gun. On kicking the loose cover aside, they see it is a rifle – not of the kind common among backwoodsmen. But they have no need to waste conjecture on the gun. Many present identify it as the yäger usually carried by Clancy.
More of the moss being removed, a hat is uncovered – also Clancy’s. Several know it as his – can swear to it.
A gun upon the ground, abandoned, discharged as they see; a hat alongside it; blood beside both – there must have been shooting on the spot – some one wounded, if not actually killed? And who but Charles Clancy? The gun is his, the hat too, and his must be the blood.
They have no doubt of its being his, no more of his being dead; the only question asked is “Where’s his body?”
While those first up are mutually exchanging this interrogatory, others, later arriving, also put it in turn. All equally unable to give a satisfactory answer – alike surprised by what they see, and puzzled to explain it.
There is one man present who could enlighten them in part, though not altogether – one who comes lagging up with the last. It is Richard Darke.
Strange he should be among the stragglers. At starting out he appeared the most zealous of all!
Then he was not thinking of the dog; had no idea how direct, and soon, the instinct of the animal would lead them to the spot where he had given Clancy his death shot.
The foremost of the searchers have dismounted and are standing grouped around it. He sees them, and would gladly go back, but dares not. Defection now would be damning evidence against him. After all, what has he to fear? They will find a dead body – Clancy’s – a corpse with a bullet-hole in the breast. They can’t tell who fired the fatal shot – how could they? There were no witnesses save the trunks of the cypresses, and the dumb brute of a dog – not so dumb but that it now makes the woods resound with its long-drawn continuous whining. If it could but shape this into articulate speech, then he might have to fear. As it is, he need not.
Fortified with these reflections, he approaches the spot, by himself made bloody. Trembling, nevertheless, and with cheeks pale. Not strange. He is about being brought face to face with the man he has murdered – with his corpse!
Nothing of the kind. There is no murdered man there, no corpse! Only a gun, a hat, and some blotches of crimson!
Does Darke rejoice at seeing only this? Judging by his looks, the reverse. Before, he only trembled slightly, with a hue of pallor on his cheeks. Now his lips show white, his eyes sunken in their sockets, while his teeth chatter and his whole frame shivers as if under an ague chill!
Luckily for the assassin this tale-telling exhibition occurs under the shadow of the great cypress, whose gloomy obscurity guards against its being observed. But to counteract this little bit of good luck there chances to be present a detective that trusts less to sight, than scent. This is Clancy’s dog. As Darke presents himself in the circle of searchers collected around it, the animal perceiving, suddenly springs towards him with the shrill cry of an enraged cat, and the elastic leap of a tiger!
But for Simeon Woodley seizing the hound, and holding it back, the throat of Richard Darke would be in danger.
It is so, notwithstanding.
Around the blood-stained spot there is a pause; the searchers forming a tableau strikingly significant. They have come up, to the very last lagger; and stand in attitudes expressing astonishment, with glances that speak inquiry. These, not directed to the ground, nor straying through the trees, but fixed upon Dick Darke.
Strange the antipathy of the dog, which all observe! For the animal, soon as let loose, repeats its hostile demonstrations, and has to be held off again. Surely it signifies something, and this bearing upon the object of their search? The inference is unavoidable.
Darke is well aware their eyes are upon him, as also their thoughts. Fortunate for him, that night-like shadow surrounding. But for it, his blanched lips, and craven cast of countenance, would tell a tale to condemn him at once – perhaps to punishment on the spot.
As it if, his scared condition is not unnoticed. It is heard, if not clearly seen. Two or three, standing close to him, can hear his teeth clacking like castanets!
His terror is trebly intensified – from a threefold cause. Seeing no body first gave him a shock of surprise; soon followed by superstitious awe; this succeeded by apprehension of another kind. But he had no time to dwell upon it before being set upon by the dog, which drove the more distant danger out of his head.
Delivered also from this, his present fear is about those glances regarding him. In the obscurity he cannot read them, but for all that can tell they are sternly inquisitorial. En revanche, neither can they read his; and, from this drawing confidence, he recovers his habitual coolness – knowing how much he now needs it.
The behaviour of the hound must not pass unspoken of. With a forced laugh, and in a tone of assumed nonchalance, he says:
“I can’t tell how many scores of times that dog of Clancy’s has made at me in the same way. It’s never forgiven me since the day I chastised it, when it came after one of our sluts. I’d have killed the cur long ago, but spared it through friendship for its master.”
An explanation plausible, and cunningly conceived; though not satisfactory to some. Only the unsuspicious are beguiled by it. However, it holds good for the time; and, so regarded, the searchers resume their quest.
It is no use for them to remain longer by the moss-heap. There they but see blood; they are looking for a body. To find this they must go farther.
One taking up the hat, another the abandoned gun, they scatter off, proceeding in diverse directions.
For several hours they go tramping among the trees, peering under the broad fan-like fronds of the saw-palmettoes, groping around the buttressed trunks of the cypresses, sending glances into the shadowed spaces between – in short, searching everywhere.
For more than a mile around they quarter the forest, giving it thorough examination. The swamp also, far as the treacherous ooze will allow them to penetrate within its gloomy portals – fit abode of death – place appropriate for the concealment of darkest crime.
Notwithstanding their zeal, prompted by sympathising hearts, as by a sense of outraged justice, the day’s search proves fruitless – bootless. No body can be found, dead or living; no trace of the missing man. Nothing beyond what they have already obtained – his hat and gun.
Dispirited, tired out, hungry, hankering after dinners delayed, as eve approaches they again congregate around the gory spot; and, with a mutual understanding to resume search on the morrow, separate, and set off – each to his own home.
Chapter Seventeen.
A bullet extracted
Not all of the searching party leave the place. Two remain, staying as by stealth. Some time before the departure of the others, these had slipped aside, and sauntered off several hundred yards, taking their horses along with them.
Halting in an out-of-the-way spot, under deepest shadow, and then dismounting, they wait till the crowd shall disperse. To all appearance impatiently, as if they wanted to have the range of the forest to themselves, and for some particular reason. Just this do they, or at least one of them does; making his design known to the other, soon as he believes himself beyond earshot of those from whom they separated.
It is the elder that instructs; who, in addition to the horse he is holding, has another animal by his side – a dog. For it is the hunter, Woodley, still in charge of Clancy’s hound.
The man remaining with him is one of his own kind and calling; younger in years, but, like himself, a professional follower of the chase – by name, Heywood.
Giving his reason for the step he is taking, Woodley says, “We kin do nothin’ till them greenhorns air gone. Old Dan Boone hisself kedn’t take up trail, wi’ sich a noisy clanjamfry aroun him. For myself I hain’t hardly tried, seein’ ’twar no use till they’d clar off out o’ the way. And now the darned fools hev’ made the thing more diffeequilt, trampin about, an’ blottin’ out every shadder o’ sign, an everything as looks like a futmark. For all, I’ve tuk notice to somethin’ none o’ them seed. Soon’s the coast is clar we kin go thar, an’ gie it a more pertikler examinashun.”
The younger hunter nods assent, adding a word, signifying readiness to follow his older confrère.
For some minutes they remain; until silence restored throughout the forest tells them it is forsaken. Then, leaving their horses behind, with bridles looped around branches – the hound also attached to one of the stirrups – they go back to the place, where the hat and gun were found.
They do not stay there; but continue a little farther on, Woodley leading.
At some twenty paces distance, the old hunter comes to a halt, stopping by the side of a cypress “knee”; one of those vegetable monstrosities that perplex the botanist – to this hour scientifically unexplained. In shape resembling a ham, with the shank end upwards; indeed so like to this, that the Yankee bacon-curers have been accused, by their southern customers, of covering them with canvas, and selling them for the real article!
It may be that the Mississippian backwoodsman, Woodley, could give a better account of these singular excrescences than all the closet scientists in the world.
He is not thinking of either science, or his own superior knowledge, while conducting his companion to the side of that “cypress knee.” His only thought is to show Heywood something he had espied while passing it in the search; but of which he did not then appear to take notice, and said nothing, so long as surrounded by the other searchers.
The time has come to scrutinise it more closely, and ascertain if it be what he suspects it.
The “knee” in question is one which could not be palmed off for a porker’s ham. Its superior dimensions forbid the counterfeit. As the two hunters halt beside it, its bulk shows bigger than either of their own bodies, while its top is at the height of their heads.
Standing in front of it, Woodley points to a break in the bark – a round hole, with edge slightly ragged. The fibre appears freshly cut, and more than cut – encrimsoned! Twenty-four hours may have elapsed, but not many more, since that hole was made. So believe the backwoodsmen, soon as setting their eyes on it.
Speaking first, Woodley asks, —
“What d’ye think o’ it, Ned?”
Heywood, of taciturn habit, does not make immediate answer, but stands silently regarding the perforated spot. His comrade continues: —
“Thar’s a blue pill goed in thar’, which jedgin’ by the size and shape o’ the hole must a kum out a biggish gun barrel. An’, lookin’ at the red stain ’roun’ its edge, that pill must a been blood-coated.”
“Looks like blood, certainly.”
“It air blood– the real red thing itself; the blood o’ Charley Clancy. The ball inside thar’ has first goed through his body. It’s been deadened by something and don’t appear to hev penetrated a great way into the timmer, for all o’ that bein’ soft as sapwood.”
Drawing out his knife, the old hunter inserts the point of its blade into the hole, probing it.
“Jest as I sayed. Hain’t entered the hul o’ an inch. I kin feel the lead ludged thar’.”
“Suppose you cut it out, Sime?”
“Precisely what I intend doin’. But not in a careless way. I want the surroundin’ wood along wi’ it. The two thegither will best answer our purpiss. So hyar goes to git ’em thegither.”
Saying this, he inserts his knife-blade into the bark, and first makes a circular incision around the bullet-hole. Then deepens it, taking care not to touch the ensanguined edge of the orifice, or come near it.
The soft vegetable substance yields to his keen steel, almost as easily as if he were slicing a Swedish turnip; and soon he detaches a pear-shaped piece, but bigger than the largest prize “Jargonelle.”
Holding it in his hand, and apparently testing its ponderosity, he says:
“Ned; this chunk o’ timmer encloses a bit o’ lead as niver kim out o’ a rifle. Thar’s big eends o’ an ounce weight o’ metal inside. Only a smooth-bore barrel ked a tuk it; an’ from sech it’s been dischurged.”
“You’re right about that,” responds Heywood, taking hold of the piece of wood, and also trying its weight. “It’s a smooth-bore ball – no doubt of it.”
“Well, then, who carries a smooth-bore through these hyar woods? Who, Ned Heywood?”
“I know only one man that does.”
“Name him! Name the damned rascal!”
“Dick Darke.”
“Ye kin drink afore me, Ned. That’s the skunk I war a-thinkin’ ’bout, an’ hev been all the day. I’ve seed other sign beside this – the which escaped the eyes o’ the others. An’ I’m gled it did: for I didn’t want Dick Darke to be about when I war follerin’ it up. For that reezun I drawed the rest aside – so as none o’ ’em shed notice it. By good luck they didn’t.”
“You saw other sign! What, Sime?”
“Tracks in the mud, clost in by the edge o’ the swamp. They’re a good bit from the place whar the poor young fellur’s blood’s been spilt, an’ makin’ away from it. I got only a glimp at ’em, but ked see they’d been made by a man runnin’. You bet yur life on’t they war made by a pair o’ boots I’ve seen on Dick Darke’s feet. It’s too gloomsome now to make any thin’ out o’ them. So let’s you an’ me come back here by ourselves, at the earliest o’ daybreak, afore the people git about. Then we kin gie them tracks a thorrer scrutination. If they don’t prove to be Dick Darke’s, ye may call Sime Woodley a thick-headed woodchuck.”
“If we only had one of his boots, so that we might compare it with the tracks.”
“If! Thar’s no if. We shall hev one o’ his boots – ay, both – I’m boun’ to hev ’em.”
“But how?”
“Leave that to me. I’ve thought o’ a plan to git purssession o’ the scoundrel’s futwear, an’ everythin’ else belongin’ to him that kin throw a ray o’ daylight unto this darksome bizness. Come, Ned! Le’s go to the widder’s house, an’ see if we kin say a word to comfort the poor lady – for a lady she air. Belike enough this thing’ll be the death o’ her. She warn’t strong at best, an’ she’s been a deal weaker since the husban’ died. Now the son’s goed too – ah! Come along, an’ le’s show her, she ain’t forsook by everybody.”
With the alacrity of a loyal heart, alike leaning to pity, the young hunter promptly responds to the appeal, saying: —
“I’m with you, Woodley!”
