THE AVENGER.
"Bill! _Wild Bill!_ Is this you, or your ghost? What, in great
Creation's name, are you doing here?"
"Gettin' toward sunset, old pard--gettin' toward sunset, before I pass
in my checks!"
The first speaker was an old scout and plainsman, Sam Chichester by
name, and he spoke to a passenger who had just left the west-ward-bound
express train at Laramie, on the U.P.R.R.
That passenger was none other than J. B. Hickok, or "Wild Bill," one of
the most noted shots, and certainly the most desperate man of his age
and day west of the Mississippi River.
"What do you mean, Bill, when you talk of passing in your checks? You're
in the very prime of life, man, and---"
"Hush! Talk low! There are listening ears everywhere, Sam! I don't know
why, but there is a chill at my heart, and I know my time has about run
out. I've been on East with Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack, trying to show
people what our plains life is. But I wasn't at home there. There were
crowds on crowds that came to see us, and I couldn't stir on the streets
of their big cities without having an army at my heels, and I got sick
of it. But that wasn't all. There was a woman that fell in love with me,
and made up her mind to marry me. I told her that I was no sort of a man
to tie to--that I was likely to be wiped out any day 'twixt sunrise and
sunset, for I had more enemies than a candidate for President; but she
wouldn't listen to sense, and so--_we buckled!_ Thank Heaven, I've
coaxed her to stay East with friends while I've come out here; for, Sam,
she'll be a widow inside of six weeks!"
"Bill, you've been hitting benzine heavy of late haven't you?
"No; I never drank lighter in my life than I have for a year past. But
there's a shadow cold as ice on my soul! I've never felt right since I
pulled on that red-haired Texan at Abilene, in Kansas. You remember, for
you was there. It was kill or get killed, you know, and when I let him
have his ticket for a six-foot lot of ground he gave one shriek--it
rings in my ears yet. He spoke but one word--'Sister!' Yet that word has
never left my ears, sleeping or waking, from that time to this. I had a
sister once myself, Sam, and I loved her a thousand times more than I
did life. In fact I never loved life after I lost her. And I can't tell
you all about her--I'd choke if I tried. It is enough that she died, and
the cause of her death died soon after, and I wasn't far away when--when
he went under. But that isn't here nor there, Sam--let's go and warm up.
Where do you hang out?"
"I'm in camp close by. I'm heading a party that is bound in for the
Black Hills. Captain Jack Crawford is along. You know him. And
California Joe, too."
"Good! It is the first streak of luck I've had in a year. I'll join your
crowd, Sam, if you'll let me. Captain Jack and Joe are as good friends
as I ever had--always barring one."
"And that is?"
"My old six-shooter here. Truth-Teller I call it. It never speaks
without saying something. But come, old boy--I see a sign ahead. I must
take in a little benzine to wash the car-dust out of my throat."
Bill pointed to a saloon near at hand, and the two old scouts and
companions moved toward it.
As they did so, a young man, roughly dressed, with a face fair and
smooth, though shadowed as if by exposure to sun and and wind, stepped
from behind a shade tree, where he had stood while these two talked,
listening with breathless interest to every word. His hair, a deep, rich
auburn, hung in curling masses clear to his shoulders, and his blue eyes
seemed to burn with almost feverish fire as he gazed in the direction
the scouts had taken.
"So! He remembers Abilene, does he?"
And the tone of the young man was low and fierce us an angered serpent's
hiss.
"And he thinks his time is near. So do I. But he shall not die in a
second, as his victim did, I would prolong his agonies for years, if
every hour was like a living death; a speechless misery. Let him go with
Sam Chichester and his crowd. The avenger will be close at hand! His
Truth-Teller will lie when he most depends on it. For I--I have sworn
that he shall go where he has sent so many victims; go, like them all,
unprepared, but not unwarned. No, he thinks that death is near; I'll
freeze the thought to his very soul! He is on the death-trail now? With
me rests when and where it shall end."
The face of the young man was almost fiendish in its expression as he
spoke. It seemed as if his heart was the concentration of hate and a
fell desire for revenge.
He strode along the streets swiftly, and, glancing in at the saloon
which the two men had entered, paused one second, with his right hand
thrust within his vest, as if clutching a weapon, and debating in his
mind whether or not to use it.
A second only he paused, and then muttering, "It is not time yet," he
passed on.
"He went a little way up the same street and entered a German
restaurant. Throwing himself heavily on a seat, he said:
"Give me a steak, quick. I'm hungry and dry. Give me a bottle of the
best brandy in your house."
"We've got der steak, und pread, und peer, und Rhein wine, but no
prandy," said the German, who kept the place.
"Cook the steak in a hurry, and send for some brandy then!" cried the
young man, throwing down a golden eagle. "Your beer and wine are like
dishwater to me. I want fire--fire in my veins now."
"Dunder and blixen! I shouldn't dink as you wus want much more fire as
dere is in your eyes, young fellow. But I send for your prandy."
The young man threw one glance around the room to see if he were the
only occupant.
There was another person there, one who had evidently just come in, a
traveler, judging by a good-sized valise that was on the floor beside
his chair. This person looked young, for the face, or as much of it as
was not hidden by a very full black beard, was fair and smooth as that
of a woman; while the hair which shaded his white brow was dark as
night, soft and glossy as silk, hanging on short, curling masses about
his face and neck.
He was dressed rather better than the usual run of travelers; in a good
black broad-cloth suit--wore a heavy gold watch-chain, had on a fine
linen shirt, with a diamond pin in the bosom, and appeared to feel quite
satisfied with himself, from the cool and easy manner in which he gave
his orders for a good, substantial meal, in a voice rather low and
musical for one of his apparent age.
The last comer eyed this person very closely, and a smile almost, like
contempt rose on his face, when the dark-eyed stranger called for claret
wine, or if they had not that, for a cup of tea.
But his own strong drink was now brought in, and pouring out a glassful
of undiluted brandy he drank it down and muttered:
"That's the stuff! It will keep up the fire. My veins would stiffen
without it. It has carried me so far, and it must to the end. Then--no
matter!"
The stranger or traveler looked as if wondering that the young man could
take such a fearful dose of fiery liquor, and the wonder must have
increased when a second glassful was drained before the food was on the
table.
But the latter came in now, and the traveler and the young man with
auburn hair, at separate tables, were apparently too busy in disposing
of the eatables to take any further notice of each other.
When the first had finished, he took a roll of cigarettes from one of
his pockets, selected one, took a match from a silver box, drawn from
the same pocket, and lighting his cigarette, threw a cloud of smoke
above his head.
The second, pouring out his third glass of brandy, sipped it
quietly--the first two glasses having evidently supplied the fire he
craved so fiercely.
The traveler, as we may call him, for want of any other knowledge, now
rose, and as if impelled by natural politeness, tendered a cigarette to
the other.
The man with auburn hair looked surprised, and his fierce, wild face
softened a little, as he said:
"Thank you, no. I drink sometimes, like a fish, but I don't smoke.
Tobacco shakes the nerves, they say, and I want my nerves steady.
"Strong drink will shake them more, I've heard," said the traveler, in
his low, musical voice. "But you seem to have a steady hand though you
take brandy as if used to it."
"My hand is steady, stranger." was the reply. "There is not a man on the
Rio Grande border, where I came from, that can strike a center at twenty
paces with a revolver as often as I. And with a rifle at one hundred
yards I can most generally drop a deer with a ball between his eyes, if
he is looking at me, or take a wild turkey's head without hurting his
body."
"Then, you are from Texas?"
"Yes, sir. And you?"
"From the East, sir. I have traveled in the South--all over, in
fact--but my home is in the old Empire State.
"If it isn't impudent, which way are you bound now?"
"I haven't quite decided. I may go to the Black Hills--may remain around
here awhile--it seems to be rather a pleasant place."
"Yes, for them that like it. I'm off for the Black Hills, myself."
"Ah! with a company?"
"Not much! But there's a company going. I'm one of them that don't care
much for company, and can take better care of myself alone than with a
crowd about me."
"So! Well, it is a good thing to be independent. Do you know the party
that is going?"
"Some of 'em, by sight. The captain is Sam Chichester, and he has
California Joe, Cap'n Jack, and about twenty more in his party. And Wild
Bill has just come on the train, and I heard him say he was going with
the crowd."
"Wild Bill!" cried the stranger, flushing up. "Did you say he was
going?"
"Yes."
"Then I'd like to go, too--but I'd like to go with another party, either
just before or behind that party. Do you know Wild Bill?"
"_Know_ him! Who does not? Hasn't he killed more men than any other
white man in the States and Territories--I'll not say _how_, but is he
not a hyena, sopped in blood?"
"You do not like him?"
"Who says I don't?"
"_You_ do! Your eyes flash hate while you speak of him."
"Do they? Well, maybe I don't like him as well as I do a glass of
brandy--maybe I have lost some one I loved by his hand. It isn't at all
unlikely."
The traveler sighed, and with an anxious look, said:
"You don't bear him any grudge, do you? You wouldn't harm him?"
A strange look passes like a flash over the face of the other: he seemed
to read the thoughts or wishes of the traveler in a glance.
"Oh, no," he said, with assumed carelessness. "Accidents will happen in
the best families. It's not in me to bear a grudge, because Bill may
have wiped out fifteen or twenty Texans, while they were foolin' around
in his way. As to harm--he's too ready with his six-shooter, old
Truth-Teller, he calls it, to stand in much danger. I'm quick, but he is
quicker. You take a good deal of interest in him? Do you know him?"
"Yes; that is, I know him by sight. He is thought a great deal of by an
intimate friend of mine, and that is why I feel an interest in him."
"And that friend is a woman?"
"Why do you think so?"
"It is a fancy of mine."
"Well, I will not contradict you. For her sake I would hate to see any
evil befall him."
There was a cynical smile on the face of the young man with auburn hair.
"If a woman loved him, she ought, not to leave him, for his life is
mighty uncertain," said the latter. "I heard him say to Captain
Chichester, not half an hour ago, that he didn't believe he would live
long, and such a man as he is sure to die with his boots on!"
"Did he say that?" asked the traveler.
"Yes; and he seemed to feel it, too. He had to do as I do, fire up with
something strong to get life into his veins."
"Poor fellow! He had better have staid East when he was there, away from
this wild and lawless section."
"Stranger, there mayn't be much _law_ out this way, but justice isn't
always blind out here. If you stay long enough, you may learn that."
"Very likely; but you spoke of going to those Black Hills."
"Yes, I'm going."
"Will you let me go with you?"
"You don't look much like roughing it, and the trip is not only hard,
but it may be dangerous. The redskins are beginning to act wolfish on
the plains."
"I think I can stand as much hardship as you. You are light and
slender."
"But tough as an old buffalo bull, for all that. I've been brought up in
the saddle, with rifle and lasso in hand. I'm used to wind and weather,
sunshine and storm--they're all alike to me."
"And Indians?"
"Yes--to Comanche, Kiowa, and Apache. But these Cheyennes and Sioux are
a tougher breed, they tell me. I'll soon learn them too, I reckon.
There's one thing sure, I don't go in no crowd of twenty or thirty, with
wagons or pack mules along to tempt the cusses with, while they make the
travel slow. You want either a big crowd or a very small one, if you
travel in an Indian country.
"You have not answered my question yet. Will you let me go through to
the Black Hills with you?"
"Why don't you go with the other party? They'll take you, I'll bet."
"I do not want to go where Wild Bill will see me. He may think his wife
has sent me as a spy on his movements and actions."
"His _wife!_ Is he married? It must be something new."
"It is. He was married only a short time ago to a woman who almost
worships him. She did all she could to keep him from going out into his
old life again, but she could not."
"You _can_ go with me!" said the other, abruptly, after a keen and
searching look in the traveler's face.
"What is your name?"
"Willie Pond."
"Rather a _deep_ Pond, if I know what water is," said the auburn-haired
man, to himself, and then he asked, in a louder tone, "have you horse
and arms?"
"No; I just came on the train from the East. But there is money--buy me
a good horse, saddle, and bridle. I'll see to getting arms."
And Mr. Willie Pond handed the other a five-hundred dollar treasury
note.
"You don't ask my name, and you trust me with money as if you knew I was
honest."
"You'll tell me your name when you feel like it!" was the rejoinder. "As
to your honesty, if I think you are safe to travel with, you're safe to
trust my money with!"
"You're right. Your money is safe. As to my name, call me Jack. It is
short, if it isn't sweet. Some time I'll tell you the rest of it."
"All right, Jack. Take your own time. And now get all ready to start
either ahead or just behind the other party."
"We'll not go ahead. Where will you stay to-night?"
"Wherever you think best."
"All right. This old Dutchman keeps rooms for lodgers. You'd better stay
here, and if you don't want Bill to see you, keep pretty close in doors.
He'll be out in the Black Hillers' camp, or in the saloons where they
sell benzine and run faro banks. Bill is death on cards."
"So I've heard," said Mr. Pond, with a sigh.
Jack now went out, and Pond called the Dutch landlord to him and engaged
a room.