THE KILLER KILLED
A rough low cabin of logs, hastily thrown together, housed through the
winter months of the Sierra foothills the two men who now, in the warm
days of early June, sat by the primitive fireplace cooking a midday
meal. The older man, thin, bearded, who now spun a side of venison ribs
on a cord in front of the open fire, was the mountain man, Bill Jackson,
as anyone might tell who ever had seen him, for he had changed but
little.
That his companion, younger, bearded, dressed also in buckskins, was
Will Banion it would have taken closer scrutiny even of a friend to
determine, so much had the passing of these few months altered him in
appearance and in manner. Once light of mien, now he smiled never at
all. For hours he would seem to go about his duties as an automaton. He
spoke at last to his ancient and faithful friend, kindly as ever, and
with his own alertness and decision.
"Let's make it our last meal on the Trinity, Bill. What do you say?"
"Why? What's eatin' ye, boy? Gittin' restless agin?"
"Yes, I want to move."
"Most does."
"We've got enough, Bill. The last month has been a crime. The spring
snows uncovered a fortune for us, and you know it!"
"Oh, yes, eight hundred in one day ain't bad for two men that never had
saw a gold pan a year ago. But she ain't petered yit. With what we've
learned, an' what we know, we kin stay in here an' git so rich that hit
shore makes me cry ter think o' trappin' beaver, even before 1836, when
the beaver market busted. Why, rich? Will, hit's like you say, plumb
wrong--we done hit so damned easy! I lay awake nights plannin' how ter
spend my share o' this pile. We must have fifty-sixty thousand dollars
o' dust buried under the floor, don't ye think?"
"Yes, more. But if you'll agree, I'll sell this claim to the company
below us and let them have the rest. They offer fifty thousand flat, and
it's enough--more than enough. I want two things--to get Jim Bridger his
share safe and sound; and I want to go to Oregon."
The old man paused in the act of splitting off a deer rib from his
roast.
"Ye're one awful damn fool, ain't ye, Will? I did hope ter finish up
here, a-brilin' my meat in a yaller-gold fireplace; but no matter how
plain an' simple a man's tastes is, allus somethin' comes along ter bust
'em up."
"Well, go on and finish your meal in this plain fireplace of ours,
Bill. It has done us very well. I think I'll go down to the sluice a
while."
Banion rose and left the cabin, stooping at the low door. Moodily he
walked along the side of the steep ravine to which the little structure
clung. Below him lay the ripped-open slope where the little stream had
been diverted. Below again lay the bared bed of the exploited water
course, floored with bowlders set in deep gravel, at times with seamy
dams of flat rock lying under and across the gravel stretches; the bed
rock, ages old, holding in its hidden fingers the rich secrets of
immemorial time.
Here he and his partner had in a few months of strenuous labor taken
from the narrow and unimportant rivulet more wealth than most could save
in a lifetime of patient and thrifty toil. Yes, fortune had been kind.
And it all had been so easy, so simple, so unagitating, so
matter-of-fact! The hillside now looked like any other hillside,
innocent as a woman's eyes, yet covering how much! Banion could not
realize that now, young though he was, he was a rich man.
He climbed down the side of the ravine, the little stones rattling under
his feet, until he stood on the bared floor of the bed rock which had
proved so unbelievably prolific in coarse gold.
There was a sharp bend in the ravine, and here the unpaid toil of the
little waterway had, ages long, carried and left especially deep strata
of gold-shot gravel. As he stood, half musing, Will Banion heard, on the
ravine side around the bend, the tinkle of a falling stone, lazily
rolling from one impediment to another. It might be some deer or other
animal, he thought. He hastened to get view of the cause, whatever it
might be.
And then fate, chance, the goddess of fortune which some men say does
not exist, but which all wilderness-goers know does exist, for one
instant paused, with Will Banion's life and wealth and happiness lightly
a-balance in cold, disdainful fingers.
He turned the corner. Almost level with his own, he looked into the eyes
of a crawling man who--stooped, one hand steadying himself against the
slant of the ravine, the other below, carrying a rifle--was peering
frowningly ahead.
It was an evil face, bearded, aquiline, not unhandsome; but evil in its
plain meaning now. The eyes were narrowed, the full lips drawn close, as
though some tense emotion now approached its climax. The appearance was
that of strain, of nerves stretched in some purpose long sustained.
And why not? When a man would do murder, when that has been his steady
and premeditated purpose for a year, waiting only for opportunity to
serve his purpose, that purpose itself changes his very lineaments,
alters his whole cast of countenance. Other men avoid him, knowing
unconsciously what is in his soul, because of what is written on his
face.
For months most men had avoided Woodhull. It was known that he was on a
man hunt. His questions, his movements, his changes of locality showed
that; and Woodhull was one of those who cannot avoid asseverance,
needing it for their courage sake. Now morose and brooding, now loudly
profane, now laughing or now aloof, his errand in these unknown hills
was plain. Well, he was not alone among men whose depths were loosed.
Some time his hour might come.
It had come! He stared now full into the face of his enemy! He at last
had found him. Here stood his enemy, unarmed, delivered into his hands.
For one instant the two stood, staring into one another's eyes. Banion's
advance had been silent. Woodhull was taken as much unawares as he.
It had been Woodhull's purpose to get a stand above the sluices, hidden
by the angle, where he could command the reach of the stream bed where
Banion and Jackson last had been working. He had studied the place
before, and meant to take no chances. His shot must be sure.
But now, in his climbing on the steep hillside, his rifle was in his
left hand, downhill, and his footing, caught as he was with one foot
half raised, was insecure. At no time these last four hours had his
opportunity been so close--or so poor--as precisely now!
He saw Will Banion's eyes, suddenly startled, quickly estimating,
looking into his own. He knew that behind his own eyes his whole foul
soul lay bared--the soul of a murderer.
Woodhull made a swift spring down the hill, scrambling, half erect, and
caught some sort of stance for the work which now was his to do. He
snarled, for he saw Banion stoop, unarmed. It would do his victim no
good to run. There was time even to exult, and that was much better in a
long-deferred matter such as this.
"Now, damn you, I've got you!"
He gave Banion that much chance to see that he was now to die.
Half leaning, he raised the long rifle to its line and touched the
trigger.
The report came; and Banion fell. But even as he wheeled and fell,
stumbling down the hillside, his flung arm apparently had gained a
weapon. It was not more than the piece of rotten quartz he had picked up
and planned to examine later. He flung it straight at Woodhull's
face--an act of chance, of instinct. By a hair it saved him.
Firing and missing at a distance of fifty feet, Woodhull remained not
yet a murderer in deed. In a flash Banion gathered and sprang toward him
as he stood in a half second of consternation at seeing his victim fall
and rise again. The rifle carried but the one shot. He flung it down,
reached for his heavy knife, raising an arm against the second piece of
rock which Banion flung as he closed. He felt his wrist caught in an
iron grip, felt the blood gush where his temple was cut by the last
missile. And then once more, on the narrow bared floor that but now was
patterned in parquetry traced in yellow, and soon must turn to red, it
came to man and man between them--and it was free!
They fell and stumbled so that neither could much damage the other at
first. Banion knew he must keep the impounded hand back from the knife
sheath or he was done. Thus close, he could make no escape. He fought
fast and furiously, striving to throw, to bend, to beat back the body of
a man almost as strong as himself, and now a maniac in rage and fear.
* * * * *
The sound of the rifle shot rang through the little defile. To Jackson,
shaving off bits of sweet meat between thumb and knife blade, it meant
the presence of a stranger, friend or foe, for he knew Banion had
carried no weapon with him. His own long rifle he snatched from its
pegs. At a long, easy lope he ran along the path which carried across
the face of the ravine. His moccasined feet made no sound. He saw no one
in the creek bed or at the long turn. But new, there came a loud,
wordless cry which he knew was meant for him. It was Will Banion's
voice.
The two struggling men grappled below him had no notion of how long they
had fought. It seemed an age, and the dénouement yet another age
deferred. But to them came the sound of a voice:
"Git away, Will! Stand back!"
It was Jackson.
They both, still gripped, looked up the bank. The long barrel of a
rifle, foreshortened to a black point, above it a cold eye, fronted and
followed them as they swayed. The crooked arm of the rifleman was
motionless, save as it just moved that deadly circle an inch this way,
an inch back again.
Banion knew that this was murder, too, but he knew that naught on earth
could stay it now. To guard as much as he could against a last desperate
knife thrust even of a dying man, he broke free and sprang back as far
as he could, falling prostrate on his back as he did so, tripped by an
unseen stone. But Sam Woodhull was not upon him now, was not willing to
lose his own life in order to kill. For just one instant he looked up at
the death staring down on him, then turned to run.
There was no place where he could run. The voice of the man above him
called out sharp and hard.
"Halt! Sam Woodhull, look at me!"
He did turn, in horror, in fascination at sight of the Bright Angel. The
rifle barrel to his last gaze became a small, round circle, large as a
bottle top, and around it shone a fringed aura of red and purple light.
That might have been the eye.
Steadily as when he had held his friend's life in his hand, sighting
five inches above his eyes, the old hunter drew now above the eyes of
his enemy. When the dry report cut the confined air of the valley, the
body of Sam Woodhull started forward. The small blue hole an inch above
the eyes showed the murderer's man hunt done.