SNAKE STRIKES
“Snake Sanders has kilt his woman!”
Aghast, Douglas stood in his dark doorway, staring down into the
upturned face of Marion. Around them the dusk was thickening into
night, and in the shadow of his porch it was dim indeed; but through
the gloom the eloquent gray eyes and the hushed voice spoke the same
shocked horror, pity, and wrath that stirred in his own soul.
“Killed her? Killed Lou Brackett?” he repeated slowly.
“Yes. She ain’t dead yet, but she can’t live long. Poor woman, it’d
been a lot better for her if she’d missed that tree--she wouldn’t be
sufferin’ now. But then, there wouldn’t be a proof against him if she
had. Where you been all day? You must be the only one into the Traps
that ain’t heard. I was down here twice--I wanted to tell you so’s
you’d look out. They ain’t caught Snake yet, and he might--well, you
better watch out.”
She turned, sweeping the darkling road with her eyes. Nothing moved
there. No sound came, except the doleful sigh of a cold night breeze.
“Come in.” He moved back. “I want to know all about this. The fire’s
going--I was just getting supper. Come in and keep warm.”
For an instant she hesitated, instinctively dreading entrance into the
sinister house where her father and Jake Dalton had met nameless doom.
But then, realizing that Douglas had lived here for weeks without harm,
she followed him in. Her moving feet made an unwonted noise on the
boards--the patter of leather-heeled shoes, which the gnawing chill had
at last compelled her to don. The sombre echo of the sound in the bare
room halted her again.
“Ain’t you got a light?” she requested. “I--I don’t like this place, so
dark and holler.”
“I’ll light up. Take this chair.” The one chair in the place came
rumbling toward her, and she sank on it as he worked on the lamp. When
the white flame was lighting up the room he set the illuminator on the
table and turned to her, neglecting to draw the burlap window-curtains
which he had made some time ago.
“I was up in the rocks all day,” he explained. “Found something, too,
that may help to catch Snake. But now tell me all about it.”
“Well, this is what I hear, and it’s what Lou said her own self after
she got so’s she could talk. Snake took her up on top the Big Wall last
night and throwed her off----”
“Good God! Threw her off the Wall?”
“That’s right. Snake ain’t been to home much lately--you know that--but
he’s come in a few times, and then he was so ugly to her she dasn’t go
lookin’ round to find out where he was when he was away. He told her
if she stepped a foot away from the house he’d know about it, and he’d
fix her so’s she wouldn’t be able to walk or talk any more, and if
anybody come a-huntin’ him she’d got to say she didn’t know where he
was, and so on. But last night he come in ’long toward dark, and he was
laughin’ fit to kill. And he said he’d got an awful good joke onto the
detectives.
“She asked him what ’twas, of course, and he wouldn’t tell her. But he
said he’d show her if she’d hurry up to the top of the Wall. He said
the detectives had got into the rocks down under the Wall, and when she
could see what they were up to she’d ’most die laughin’. But she’d have
to come and see it her own self.
“Well, Lou, she--she ain’t very bright, you know. And she was so
glad to see him good-natured and so curious about this joke onto the
detectives, she went right ’long up there with him. And he went right
to the edge and looked round a little, and then he says: ‘There! See
’em, right up under here? It’s a-gittin’ dark down there, but look
close and you’ll make ’em out. Ain’t that funny, now?’
“Lou, she couldn’t see anything but rocks. But he kept a-tellin’
her she was too far back, so she edged up closer and closer, still
a-lookin’. Then all of a sudden she heard Snake laugh again, and he had
sneaked behind her, and that laugh scairt her. She looked round quick,
and he was grinnin’ like death. And before she could move he shoved her
off. The murderin’ copperhead! He’d brought her up there jest to kill
her.”
Her fingers, twining and intertwining over one knee while she talked,
gripped hard. Unable longer to sit still, she sprang up.
“D’you know where he is? If you do, git him quick! Lou wasn’t a friend
to me--she hated me--but he’s got to be kilt for what he done! He----”
“Go on,” he broke in. “Tell me all of it. Then I’ll see what we can do.”
“Yes--yes, that’s right. Well, Lou would have been kilt right quick,
only for one thing. There was a tree part-way down, growin’ right off
the face of the wall, the way they do sometimes--a hemlock, stickin’
out on a slant. And Lou struck right into it. She was fallin’ awful
fast, and she hit it so hard it--it hurt her terrible; and the tree
tore off from the little ledge, and it went ’long down with her. She
landed into the rocks, of course. But that tree had stopped her enough
so that the rocks didn’t kill her.
“She laid there a long time, and when she got her senses back it was
all dark. But then a light showed right close by, and what d’you s’pose
she saw? Snake! Snake, with an ax into one hand and a lantern into the
other, a-lookin’ for her!
“He must have seen that tree stop her, and he’d come down through the
Gap and worked ’long through the rocks to be sure she was dead. He
was a-callin’ to her, and sayin’ he’d help her, and so on. But she
kept dead still. She was into a shadow beside one of the rocks, and he
went right by her. She never moved till he quit lookin’ and come back,
swearin’ at her and the dark and everything. And then when she was sure
he was gone, she started crawlin’.”
She stopped again, her hands clenched. Douglas, visioning that awful
scene at the base of the night-bound crags, stood with jaw set.
Presently she resumed the tragic narrative.
“I dunno how she could do it, but she did--she crawled down through the
rocks and over pretty near to the road. It took her more’n half the
night to do it--it was ’most two o’clock into the mornin’ when they
found her. She couldn’t git any further, and she laid there a-cryin’
and a-screamin’---- Oh, why does God let a devil like Snake live? Seems
like He ain’t much good to let sech things be!
“But anyway, there was two fellers out coon-huntin’, and the dogs had
run a coon up that way, and they found Lou. It was Tom Malley and Joe
Weeks--they live ’way ’long on the Paltz road, and they’d drove up this
way to hunt. They went and got their wagon and put Lou in and took her
down to the Malley place, and while Tom’s folks did what they could
he put for the doctor, ’way over to Paltz. The doctor, he says she
might live a few days, but that’s all. She’s awful tough, like all the
Bracketts--they die hard. But she can’t live; she’s hurt too bad.”
“And she was able to tell about it?”
“Yes, a little to a time. And Missus Malley, Tom’s wife, she was sharp
enough to have it all wrote down. There’s quite a family of ’em, the
Malleys, and the oldest boy is quick at writin’, folks say; and she
made him set there by the bed and write down every word Lou said. The
doctor said that was a right smart thing to do, and the detectives
said so too. They didn’t have to ask her----”
“The detectives? Did they go down there?”
“One of ’em did. T’other stayed here. They’re both here now. Tom Malley
was so mad he drove up here this mornin’ and told everybody he come
across about it, and he met the detectives, and one of ’em went back
with him--the quiet one that don’t look so much like a bulldog.”
“Ward. He’s the brains of the combination. And I suppose nobody else
around here is doing anything but talk about it.”
“Ain’t they? You’re the only one, Mister Hammerless Hampton, that
ain’t! Our fellers are kind of rough, mebbe, some of ’em, but they
don’t set still after a thing like this! Every gun into the Traps is
out after Snake, ’ceptin’ yours and mine. And mine’s been waitin’ for
him ever since pop got kilt.”
“So has mine,” he reminded her. “What are the boys doing?”
“They’re a-watchin’ every way out of the Traps. They know he ain’t
gone--they ’most caught him this afternoon, up to his house. He didn’t
know about Lou bein’ alive and found, I s’pose, and he was gittin’ his
stuff together as if he was goin’ somewheres--gun and food and oil and
so on---- What would he want oil for, I wonder? Anyway, he skinned out
of a back winder when they jumped in at the door. Job Clark shot at
him, but he missed, and Snake got into the woods and they lost him. But
the house is bein’ watched now, and so’s every road and trail. He’s
got his gun, though, and if you’re a-goin’ to stay in to-night you’d
better lock up tight. He might come and git you. And now I’d better go
home.”
“Wait. I’ll go along with you. But let me figure on this thing first.”
For a silent minute or two he fixedly regarded the blank wall. As
steadily, she watched him. Soon he nodded.
“That’s the best way,” he said, half to himself. “I’d like to get him
single-handed, but if he should get me instead--nobody else would know
where he was hanging out. Yep, I’ll take some of the boys with me.”
Turning his gaze to her, he announced decisively: “By to-morrow noon
Snake will be dead or in a trap he can’t squirm out of. I found his
hole to-day, and as soon as daylight comes I’ll get some of the fellows
together and we’ll bottle him up. No use trying it to-night--I couldn’t
find the place myself in the dark. But if all the trails are watched he
can’t go anywhere else, and getting him will be easy. All we have to do
is to sit around like a bunch of terriers watching a rat-hole, and when
he comes out--nothing to it!”
“Where? Where is it?” she demanded. “Are you sure it’s his place?
Mebbe--mebbe some of the boys----”
“No, it’s none of the boys,” he smiled. “The boys have cleaned up
all their places lately--hid everything somewhere, so the detectives
wouldn’t see too much if they went poking around. And I know this
is Snake’s place because his jug is there--green paint on one
side--remember? I’ll tell you all about it some other time. But
now--say, here’s an idea! I’ll try to get those detectives both up
there, and while we know where they are you go to Steve and try to make
him leave that cold hole of his and find a better place. If he wants to
make a run for it and leave the Traps awhile, nobody’ll stop him----”
A shake of the head negatived his budding plan.
“He won’t run, and he won’t change, and he won’t listen to sense,” she
declared. “He’s more set and wild than ever now. He’s got to git Snake,
he says, ’fore somebody else does. I hadn’t ought to told him, mebbe.
But I did tell him--I went to him jest now and told him ’bout Lou and
all. I jest got back from there--I ain’t even been home yet. I wish I’d
kept still. He’s crazy as a coot. He swore he’d come out and git Snake
his own self, detectives or no detectives, and he’d take pop’s gun to
do it with. I had an awful time quietin’ him down. He’s sick again,
too--his lung’s bad some more.”
“Good Lord! Sick again?”
“Yes, sick again. He looks awful bad. I dunno if he---- But I’d better
git ’long home. He’s so wild about Snake he might come and git that
gun, sick or no sick.”
“But you said you quieted him down.”
“Mebbe I did. I hope so. I told him he couldn’t have that gun ’cause I
had to have it my own self, and that made him shut up. But he wouldn’t
promise to stay where he was--he wouldn’t say yes or no or nothin’. And
he’s so bull-headed when he gits his mind set, he might---- Well, I’m
a-goin’. G’by.”
As she turned doorward, he stopped her with a swiftly formed decision.
“Just a minute more, Marion. I’m going with you, as I said before; and
I’m going to stay. My job to-night is going to be standing guard at
your house. Then you and your mother can get a good sound sleep. It
isn’t Steve I’m thinking about--it’s Snake. If he intends to call on
anybody to-night it’s more likely to be on you than on me. So if you
don’t mind my sitting on your steps----”
The sentence never was finished. Nor was the plan ever carried out.
As Douglas turned to step toward his hat, coat, and gun, the front door
jumped inward.
Snake Sanders, shotgun leveled at his hip, evil face aflame, stood in
the room.