Майн Рид
The Death Shot: A Story Retold
Chapter Eighteen.
“To the sheriff!”
A day of dread, pitiless suspense to the mother of Charles Clancy, while they are abroad searching for her son.
Still more terrible the night after their return – not without tidings of the missing man. Such tidings! The too certain assurance of his death – of his murder – with the added mystery of their not having been able to find his body. Only his hat, his gun, his blood!
Her grief, hitherto held in check by a still lingering hope, now escapes all trammels, and becomes truly agonising. Her heart seems broken, or breaking.
Although without wealth, and therefore with but few friends, in her hour of lamentation she is not left alone. It is never so in the backwoods of the Far West; where, under rough home-wove coats, throb hearts gentle and sympathetic, as ever beat under the finest broadcloth.
Among Mrs Clancy’s neighbours are many of this kind; chiefly “poor whites,” – as scornfully styled by the prouder planters. Some half-score of them determine to stay by her throughout the night; with a belief their presence may do something to solace her, and a presentiment that ere morning they may be needed for a service yet more solemn. She has retired to her chamber – taken to her bed; she may never leave either alive.
As the night chances to be a warm one – indeed stifling hot, the men stay outside, smoking their pipes in the porch, or reclining upon the little grass plot in front of the dwelling, while within, by the bedside of the bereaved widow, are their wives, sisters, and daughters.
Needless to say, that the conversation of those without relates exclusively to the occurrences of the day, and the mystery of the murder. For this, they all believe it to have been; though utterly unable to make out, or conjecture a motive.
They are equally perplexed about the disappearance of the body; though this adds not much to the mystery.
They deem it simply a corollary, and consequence, of the other. He, who did the foul deed, has taken steps to conceal it, and so far succeeded. It remains to be seen whether his astuteness will serve against the search to be resumed on the morrow.
Two questions in chief, correlative, occupy them: “Who killed Clancy?” and “What has been the motive for killing him?”
To the former, none of them would have thought of answering “Dick Darke,” – that is when starting out on the search near noon.
Now that night is on, and they have returned from it, his name is on every lip. At first only in whispers, and guarded insinuations; but gradually pronounced in louder tone, and bolder speech – this approaching accusation.
Still the second question remains unanswered: —
“Why should Dick Darke have killed Charley Clancy?”
Even put in this familiar form it receives no reply. It is an enigma to which no one present holds the key. For none know aught of a rivalry having existed between the two men – much less a love-jealousy, than which no motive more inciting to murder ever beat in human breast.
Darke’s partiality for Colonel Armstrong’s eldest daughter has been no secret throughout the settlement. He himself, childishly, in his cups, long since made all scandal-mongers acquainted with that. But Clancy, of higher tone, if not more secretive habit, has kept his love-affair to himself; influenced by the additional reason of its being clandestine.
Therefore, those, sitting up as company to his afflicted parent, have no knowledge of the tender relations that existed between him and Helen Armstrong, any more than of their being the cause of that disaster for which the widow now weeps.
She herself alone knows of them; but, in the first moment of her misfortune, completely prostrated by it, she has not yet communicated aught of this to the sympathetic ears around her. It is a family secret, too sacred for their sympathy; and, with some last lingering pride of superior birth, she keeps it to herself. The time has not come for disclosing it.
But it soon will – she knows that. All must needs be told. For, after the first throes of the overwhelming calamity, in which her thoughts alone dwelt on the slain son, they turned towards him suspected as the slayer. In her case with something stronger than suspicion – indeed almost belief, based on her foreknowledge of the circumstances; these not only accounting for the crime, but pointing to the man who must have committed it.
As she lies upon her couch, with tears streaming down her cheeks, and sighs heaved from the very bottom of her breast – as she listens to the kind voices vainly essaying to console her – she herself says not a word. Her sorrow is too deep, too absorbing, to find expression in speech. But in her thoughts are two men – before, her distracted fancy two faces – one of a murdered man, the other his murderer – the first her own son, the second that of Ephraim Darke.
Notwithstanding ignorance of all these circumstances, the thoughts of her sympathising neighbours – those in council outside – dwell upon Dick Darke; while his name is continuously upon their tongues. His unaccountable conduct during the day – as also the strange behaviour of the hound – is now called up, and commented upon.
Why should the dog have made such demonstration? Why bark at him above all the others – selecting him out of the crowd – so resolutely and angrily assailing him?
His own explanation, given at the time, appeared lame and unsatisfactory.
It looks lamer now, as they sit smoking their pipes, more coolly and closely considering it.
While they are thus occupied, the wicket-gate, in front of the cottage, is heard turning upon its hinges, and two men are seen entering the enclosure.
As these draw near to the porch, where a tallow dip dimly burns, its light is reflected from the features of Simeon Woodley and Edward Heywood.
The hunters are both well-known to all upon the ground; and welcomed, as men likely to make a little less irksome that melancholy midnight watch.
If the new-comers cannot contribute cheerfulness, they may something else, as predicted by the expression observed upon their faces, at stepping into the porch. Their demeanour shows them possessed of some knowledge pertinent to the subject under discussion, as also important.
Going close to the candle, and summoning the rest around, Woodley draws from the ample pocket of his large, loose coat a bit of wood, bearing resemblance to a pine-apple, or turnip roughly peeled.
Holding it to the light, he says: “Come hyar, fellurs! fix yar eyes on this.”
All do as desired.
“Kin any o’ ye tell what it air?” the hunter asks.
“A bit of tree timber, I take it,” answers one.
“Looks like a chunk carved out of a cypress knee,” adds a second.
“It ought,” assents Sime, “since that’s jest what it air; an’ this child air he who curved it out. Ye kin see thar’s a hole in the skin-front; which any greenhorn may tell’s been made by a bullet: an’ he’d be still greener in the horn as kedn’t obsarve a tinge o’ red roun’ thet hole, the which air nothin’ more nor less than blood. Now, boys! the bullet’s yit inside the wud, for me an’ Heywood here tuk care not to extract it till the proper time shed come.”
“It’s come now; let’s hev it out!” exclaims Heywood; the others endorsing the demand.
“Thet ye shall. Now, fellurs; take partikler notice o’ what sort o’ egg hez been hatchin’ in this nest o’ cypress knee.”
While speaking, Sime draws his large-bladed knife from its sheath; and, resting the piece of wood on the porch bench, splits it open. When cleft, it discloses a thing of rounded form and metallic lustre, dull leaden – a gun-bullet, as all expected.
There is not any blood upon it, this having been brushed off in its passage through the fibrous texture of the wood. But it still preserves its spherical shape, perfect as when it issued from the barrel of the gun that discharged, or the mould that made it.
Soon as seeing it they all cry out, “A bullet!” several adding, “The ball of a smooth-bore.”
Then one asks, suggestingly:
“Who is there in this neighbourhood that’s got a shooting-iron of such sort?”
The question is instantly answered by another, though not satisfactorily.
“Plenty of smooth-bores about, though nobody as I knows of hunts with them.”
A third speaks more to the point, saying: —
“Yes; there’s one does.”
“Name him!” is the demand of many voices.
“Dick Darke!”
The statement is confirmed by several others, in succession repeating it.
After this succeeds silence – a pause in the proceedings – a lull ominous, not of further speech but, action.
Daring its continuance, Woodley replaces the piece of lead in the wood, just as it was before; then laying the two cleft pieces together, and tying them with a string, he returns the chunk to his pocket.
This done, he makes a sign to the chiefs of the conclave to follow him as if for further communication.
Which they do, drawing off out of the porch, and taking stand upon grass plot below at some paces distant from the dwelling.
With heads close together, they converse for a while, sotto voce.
Not so low, but that a title, the terror of all malefactors, can be heard repeatedly pronounced.
And also a name; the same, which, throughout all the evening has been upon their lips, bandied about, spoken of with gritting teeth and brows contracted.
Not all of those, who watch with the widow are admitted to this muttering council. Simon Woodley, who presides over it, has his reasons for excluding some. Only men take part in it who can be relied on for an emergency, such as that the hunter has before him.
Their conference closed, four of them, as if by agreement with the others, separate from the group, glide out through the wicket-gate, and on to their horses left tied to the roadside rail fence.
“Unhitching” these, they climb silently into their saddles, and as silently slip away; only some muttered words passing between them, as they ride along the road.
Among these may be heard the name of a man, conjoined to a speech, under the circumstances significant: —
“Let’s straight to the Sheriff!”
Chapter Nineteen.
The “Belle of Natchez.”
While search is still being made for the body of the murdered man, and he suspected of the crime is threatened with a prison cell, she, the innocent cause of it, is being borne far away from the scene of its committal.
The steamboat, carrying Colonel Armstrong and his belongings, having left port punctually at the hour advertised, has forsaken the “Father of Waters,” entered the Red River of Louisiana, and now, on the second day after, is cleaving the current of this ochre-tinted stream, some fifty miles from its mouth.
The boat is the “Belle of Natchez.” Singular coincidence of name; since one aboard bears also the distinctive sobriquet.
Oft have the young “bloods” of the “City of the Bluffs,” while quaffing their sherry cobblers, or champagne, toasted Helen Armstrong, with this appellation added.
Taking quality into account, she has a better right to it than the boat. For this, notwithstanding the proud title bestowed upon it, is but a sorry craft; a little “stern-wheel” steamer, such as, in those early days, were oft seen ploughing the bosom of the mighty Mississippi, more often threading the intricate and shallower channels of its tributaries. A single set of paddles, placed where the rudder acts in other vessels, and looking very much like an old-fashioned mill-wheel, supplies the impulsive power – at best giving but poor speed.
Nevertheless, a sort of craft with correct excuse, and fair raison d’être; as all know, who navigate narrow rivers, and their still narrower reaches, with trees from each side outstretching, as is the case with many of the streams of Louisiana.
Not that the noble Red River can be thus classified; nor in any sense spoken of as a narrow stream. Broad, and deep enough, for the biggest boats to navigate to Natchitoches – the butt of Colonel Armstrong’s journey by water.
Why the broken planter has taken passage on the little “stern-wheeler” is due to two distinct causes. It suited him as to time, and also expense.
On the Mississippi, and its tributaries, a passage in “crack” boats is costly, in proportion to their character for “crackness.” The “Belle of Natchez,” being without reputation of this kind, carries her passengers at a reasonable rate.
But, indeed, something beyond ideas of opportune time, or economy, influenced Colonel Armstrong in selecting her. The same thought which hurried him away from his old home under the shadows of night, has taken him aboard a third-rate river steamboat. Travelling thus obscurely, he hopes to shun encounter with men of his own class; to escape not only observation, but the sympathy he shrinks from.
In this hope he is disappointed, and on both horns of his fancied, not to say ridiculous, dilemma. For it so chances, that the “bully” boat, which was to leave Natchez for Natchitoches on the same day with the “Belle,” has burst one of her boilers. As a consequence, the smaller steamer has started on her trip, loaded down to the water-line with freight, her state-rooms and cabins crowded with passengers – many of these the best, bluest blood of Mississippi and Louisiana.
Whatever of chagrin this contretemps has caused Colonel Armstrong – and, it may be, the older of his daughters – to the younger it gives gladness. For among the supernumeraries forced to take passage in the stern-wheel steamer, is a man she has met before. Not only met, but danced with; and not only danced but been delighted with; so much, that souvenirs of that night, with its saltative enjoyment, have since oft occupied her thoughts, thrilling her with sweetest reminiscence.
He, who has produced this pleasant impression, is a young planter, by name Luis Dupré. A Louisianian by birth, therefore a “Creole.” And without any taint of the African; else he would not be a Creole pur sang.
The English reader seems to need undeceiving about this, constantly, repeatedly. In the Creole, simply so-called, there is no admixture of negro blood.
Not a drop of it in the veins of Luis Dupré; else Jessie Armstrong could not have danced with him at a Natchez ball; nor would her father, fallen as he is, permit her to keep company with him on a Red River steamboat.
In this case, there is no condescension on the part of the ex-Mississippian planter. He of Louisiana is his equal in social rank, and now his superior in point of wealth, by hundreds, thousands. For Luis Dupré is one of the largest landowners along the line of Red River plantations, while his slaves number several hundred field-hands, and house domestics: the able-bodied of both, without enumerating the aged, the imbecile, and piccaninnies, more costly than profitable.
If, in the presence of such a prosperous man, Colonel Armstrong reflects painfully upon his own reduced state, it is different with his daughter Jessie.
Into her ear Luis Dupré has whispered sweet words – a speech telling her, that not only are his lands, houses, and slaves at her disposal, but along with them his heart and hand.
It is but repeating what he said on the night of the Natchez ball; his impulsive Creole nature having then influenced him to speak as he felt.
Now, on the gliding steamboat, he reiterates the proposal, more earnestly pressing for an answer.
And he gets it in the affirmative. Before the “Belle of Natchez” has reached fifty miles from the Red River’s mouth, Luis Dupré and Jessie Armstrong have mutually confessed affection, clasped hands, let lips meet, and tongues swear, never more to live asunder. That journey commenced upon the Mississippi is to continue throughout life.
In their case, there is no fear of aught arising to hinder the consummation of their hopes; no stern parent to stand in the way of their life’s happiness. By the death of both father and mother, Luis Dupré has long since been emancipated from parental authority, and is as much his own master as he is of his many slaves.
On the other side, Jessie Armstrong is left free to her choice; because she has chosen well. Her father has given ready consent; or at all events said enough to ensure his doing so.
The huge “high-pressure” steam craft which ply upon the western rivers of America bear but a very slight resemblance to the black, long, low – hulled leviathans that plough the briny waste of ocean. The steamboat of the Mississippi more resembles a house, two stories in height, and, not unfrequently, something of a third – abode of mates and pilots. Rounded off at stern, the structure, of oblong oval shape, is universally painted chalk-white; the second, or cabin story, having on each face a row of casement windows, with Venetian shutters, of emerald green. These also serve as outside doors to the state-rooms – each having its own. Inside ones, opposite them, give admission to the main cabin, or “saloon;” which extends longitudinally nearly the whole length of the vessel. Figured glass folding-doors cut it into three compartments; the ladies’ cabin aft, the dining saloon amidships, with a third division forward, containing clerk’s office and “bar,” the last devoted to male passengers for smoking, drinking, and, too often, gambling. A gangway, some three feet in width, runs along the outside façade, forming a balcony to the windows of the state-rooms. It is furnished with a balustrade, called “guard-rail,” to prevent careless passengers from stepping overboard. A projection of the roof, yclept “hurricane-deck,” serves as an awning to this continuous terrace, shading it from the sun.
Two immense twin chimneys – “funnels” as called – tower above all, pouring forth a continuous volume of whitish wood-smoke; while a smaller cylinder – the “scape-pipe” – intermittently vomits a vapour yet whiter, the steam; at each emission with a hoarse belching bark, that can be heard reverberating for leagues along the river.
Seen from the bank, as it passes, the Mississippi steamboat looks like a large hotel, or mansion of many windows, set adrift and moving majestically – “walking the water like a thing of life,” as it has been poetically described. Some of the larger ones, taking into account their splendid interior decoration, and, along with it their sumptuous table fare, may well merit the name oft bestowed upon them, of “floating palaces.”
Only in point of size, some inferiority in splendour, and having a stern-wheel instead of side-paddles, does the “Belle of Natchez” differ from other boats seen upon the same waters. As them, she has her large central saloon, with ladies’ cabin astern; the flanking rows of state-rooms; the casements with green jalousies; the gangway and guard-rail; the twin funnels, pouring forth their fleecy cloud, and the scape-pipe, coughing in regular repetition.
In the evening hour, after the day has cooled down, the balcony outside the state-room windows is a pleasant place to stand, saunter, or sit in. More especially that portion of it contiguous to the stern, and exclusively devoted to lady passengers – with only such of the male sex admitted as can claim relationship, or liens of a like intimate order.
On this evening – the first after leaving port – the poop deck of the little steamer is so occupied by several individuals; who stand gazing at the scene that passes like a panorama before their eyes. The hot southern sun has disappeared behind the dark belt of cypress forest, which forms, far and near, the horizon line of Louisiana; while the soft evening breeze, laden with the mixed perfumes of the liquid ambar, and magnolia grandiflora, is wafted around them, like incense scattered from a censer.
Notwithstanding its delights, and loveliness, Nature does not long detain the saunterers outside. Within is a spell more powerful, and to many of them more attractive. It is after dinner hour; the cabin tables have been cleared, and its lamps lit. Under the sheen of brilliant chandeliers the passengers are drawing together in groups, and coteries; some to converse, others to play écarté or vingt-un; here and there a solitary individual burying himself in a book; or a pair, almost as unsocial, engaging in the selfish duality of chess.
Three alone linger outside; and of these only two appear to do so with enjoyment. They are some paces apart from the third, who is now left to herself: for it is a woman. Not that they are unacquainted with her, or in any way wishing to be churlish. But, simply, because neither can spare word or thought for any one, save their two sweet selves.
It scarce needs telling who is the couple thus mutually engrossed. An easy guess gives Jessie Armstrong and Luis Dupré. The young Creole’s handsome features, black eyes, brunette complexion, and dark curly hair have made havoc with the heart of Armstrong’s youngest daughter; while, en revanche, her contrasting colours of red, blue, and gold have held their own in the amorous encounter. They are in love with one another to their finger tips.
As they stand conversing in soft whispers, the eyes of the third individual are turned towards them. This only at intervals, and with nought of jealousy in the glance. For it is Jessie’s own sister who gives it. Whatever of that burn in Helen’s breast, not these, nor by them, has its torch been kindled. The love that late occupied her heart has been plucked therefrom, leaving it lacerated, and lorn. It was the one love of her life, and now crushed out, can never be rekindled. If she have a thought about her sister’s new-sprung happiness, it is only to measure it against her own misery – to contrast its light of joy, with the shadow surrounding herself.
But for a short moment, and with transient glance, does she regard them. Aside from any sentiment of envy, their happy communion calls up a reminiscence too painful to be dwelt upon. She remembers how she herself stood talking in that same way, with one she cannot, must not, know more. To escape recalling the painful souvenir, she turns her eyes from the love episode, and lowers them to look upon the river.
