“Did you ever kill a man?”
The question came quietly out of a long silence. The younger man looked
up quickly from the crackling camp-fire, his eyes searching his
partner’s grave face for an explanation of the strangely dull note in
his voice.
“No, Johnny. I never killed a man. Why?”
Johnny Watson made no answer for a little as he drew thoughtfully upon
his pipe. The little, drying mountain stream upon which they had camped
for the night went singing on its way under the stars.
Neither of the two men so much as stirred until after the younger man
had almost forgotten the abrupt question, and was thinking upon the bed
he had made of willow branches, when Johnny Watson took the pipe from
between his lips, ran a brown hand across the grizzled stub of his
ragged mustache and continued in the same expressionless monotone:
“I have. Three of ’em. One close to thirty years ago, Dick. A sailor, he
was; and a sailor of a sort I was, too, in those days. Down where the
South Seas is used to man-killing. I had a little money, a good deal for
a sailorman to have all at one time, sewed in a bit of canvas in my
shirt. Ben, he had been drunk and was mean and reckless, or I guess he
wouldn’t ’a’ done it— Ben was a decent man after his fashion.
“He come up behind with a knife. I saw his shadow, and I give it to him
across the temple with a bit of scrap-iron laying on the little pier. He
died two days later.
“One was twenty years gone now. They called him DeVine, and he was the
crookedest man that ever put on white man’s clothes. It began with
cards, and ended with him trying to do me on a mine. He knowed when I
had caught him, and pulled his gun first. He missed me about six inches,
and we wasn’t standing more than seven feet apart....
“And one was something more than eight years ago. He was no account. He
murdered old Tom Richards. Tom was a pardner of mine. Tom’s body wasn’t
cold yet when the man as murdered him went to plead his case with the
Great Judge.”
Again the deep stillness of the mountains shut in about them. Young Dick
Farley stared curiously into his partner’s face, wondering. And since
the ways of the cities of the earth were not forgotten by him, the ways
of men, where judges and courts and written laws were not, were new to
him—he shivered slightly.
For two years he and the man who was speaking quietly of the murderous
killing of men, and the killing of men in retribution, had lived
together in that close fraternity for which the West has coined the word
“pardnership” from a colder word; and never had he heard old Johnny
Watson talk as he did tonight. And still he waited for the man to go on,
knowing that there was some reason for this unasked confidence.
“There’s some things a man can explain,” went on Watson. “There’s a
Lord’s sight more he can’t. When you’ve lived as long as I have, Dickie,
alone a big three-fourths of the time, maybe you’ll be like me and not
try to look under things for the _why_ so long’s you know the _what_.
“I know now you and me are on the likeliest trail I ever put one foot
down in front of the other on. And I know it’s my last trail! It’s ‘So
long’ for you and me, pardner. And I’m going to know real soon what’s on
the other side of things.”
Dick Farley sought a light rejoinder with which to meet an old miner’s
superstition, but he could find no words. So again there was silence
between them until Watson once more spoke:
“I killed them three men in fair fight, Dickie, and with the right o’
things on my side. And it ain’t ever once bothered me. And now the funny
part of it—I ain’t so much as thought of one of them men for a month.
“You know we got too much to think about, you and me, with the trail
leading us straight to more gold—our gold—than would sink a battle-ship.
And today? Well, when the sun shines in my eyes, and I wake up slow, I’m
kinder dazed for a little while, and while I can’t get my bearings I’m
back in the South Sea country with Ben, the sailorman. Just as plain as
I’m seeing you now, Dick, I saw him. Twisted thumb and all—and I hadn’t
thought about that twisted thumb from that day over thirty years ago
until this very morning! And all day I’ve been walking first with Ben
and then with Flash DeVine, and then with Perry Parker, as did for poor
old Tom Richards.”
* * * * *
He broke off suddenly, sitting lurched forward, his eyes meditatively
upon the fire. Then he continued:
“A man that didn’t know would think it was all nonsense. But most men
that live in the way-out places of the earth, and who’ve took men off,
fair and square—or with a knife from behind; it makes no
difference—would know what I know. I don’t know the _why_, pardner. And
I don’t care why. You’ll be looking for a new side-kick before Summer
dies.”
Dick stirred uneasily. Again he sought for a light, bantering reply. But
the words did not come. A strange sense of fatality had crept slowly
over him.
He tried to tell himself that he was listening to the expression of an
old miner’s superstition, that the thing was an absurdity. And while he
refused to give credence to a thing which he could not understand, he
had an odd sense that he and Johnny Watson were not alone. Unconsciously
he drew a bit closer to the fire and to the man who was “seeing things.”
“And this here the likeliest trail I ever set foot down on,” said the
older man, with nothing but a vague regret in the even tones. “Just two
more days and we’re there—maybe together and maybe you finish the trail
alone, pardner. It’s a month ago I picked up that first big yellow lump.
The whole mountainside is rotten with gold! And then I come back and
picked you up like we’d said we would, you wearing your shoes out on
flinty rocks where a man wouldn’t find a color in seven lifetime. And
now we’re in two days of it, and——”
He didn’t finish, breaking off with a long-drawn, deep breath. His pipe
had gone out and he leaned forward, picking up a blazing bit of dry pine
which he held to the blackened bowl. Dick Farley noticed that the
bronzed, lined face was very calm, the eyes somewhat wider opened than
usual, the fingers upon the fagot as steady as should be the fingers of
a man without nerves.
“Johnny—” Farley was speaking at last, with an effort, keeping his tones
as steady as his partner’s—“you are right when you say that there are
some things which we can’t explain. But it’s up to us to explain what we
can, isn’t it? You haven’t thought of those men for a long time, and now
they flash up before you all of a sudden, and clear. Can’t it be that I
have happened to use some expression that Ben used, or that some sound
from the woods about us, or some smell or even an odd color in the
sunset——”
“That’s like you, Dickie. Fight until you’re in the last ditch, and then
go on fighting!” Watson shook his head. “No, that ain’t the right
explanation this trip. I’ve seen them three men today. I’ve seen Flash
DeVine jerk up his head with a little funny sort of twist to the left
like he always used to, and I’ve seen the red spot by Parker’s ear. I’d
clean forgot them little things, Dick. No, pard’. There’s no use trying
to explain. I got to thinking about it this noon while you was staking
out the horses, and I made a little drawing you can use if I pass out
before we get to the place. It’s on a cigareet paper, and I poked it
inside old Shaggy’s saddle-blanket. And now, boy—” standing up, his
shoulders lifted and squared—“good night. If it happens I don’t see you
any more——”
He put out his hand suddenly. Young Dick Farley gulped down a lump in
his throat as he gripped Johnny Watson’s fingers. For a moment they
stared into each other’s eyes—then Watson turned away abruptly and with
no other word went to his blankets.