"Eh? Well, this was the way of it":
* * * * *
At the end of the war I settled here--that was five years ago. Borden
lived a mile up the creek, and so, as times went, we were neighbors.
By the people yonder in Kinton he was not liked, being grim, rough,
savage, altogether unsociable and short of word. Besides, they
remembered '57. In that year he appeared from no one knew where, took
his claim, and proceeded to live after his own fashion. Then the
high-handed Claim Club of the village went about it to drive him "in or
over the river"--a bad night for them. They rode back to Kinton with
three dead men laid across saddles. That was in the rough days of the
Territory, the days when men in the Nebraska hills along the Missouri
were a law unto themselves.
[Illustration: "THEY CROWDED HIS HORSE UNTIL IT HUNG BACK FROM THE
OTHERS"]
Once he tied up on his own deck a steamboat captain who was drunk
and bent on murder; single-handed he ran down two horse-thieves; and
another time he choked the money out of a river-gambler who had robbed
a boy. Oh, they knew Borden up and down the river in those days! Then
he went to war as one of Thayer's sharpshooters, returning at the end
of it to be appointed United States marshal. And he had been riding
that saddle six months when I came.
One day he and another pulled rein at my door.
"Come with me," he said abruptly. "I want you to look after this
fellow--you're my deputy till further notice." He did not waste time
over oaths or official nonsense.
"Now, see here--" the man started to say. But Borden cut him off with a
scowl.
"Who is he?" I asked.
"Him?--Fitch. You've heard of him, I guess."
Heard of him, of course, as everyone had; of his sly, petty legal
tricks by which he grabbed land here and land there until his titles
spotted the country about Nebraska City; of his rent-squeezing that
smelled over the whole town; of these, and other things. He was a lean,
dark, uneasy fellow, wearing a rumpled tile and a shiny coat, riding
all crouched up, and pulling his horse away from everybody we met.
After we started, Borden told me that Fitch had brought him notice to
serve on Dempster--old John Dempster, his friend. Now, that made a bad
job for the Marshal. I saw it from the way he answered not a word to
Fitch, who now and then pressed up--intent on the business--to make him
talk. Once Borden pulled out his heavy wrinkled boot from the stirrup
and kicked the other's horse in the belly until it reared on its
haunches. For Borden was the law's officer, but no man's servant.
Our way ran three miles up from Kinton. There was no road, and we
followed along the edge of the bluffs as best we were able, until
finally we dipped down into a ravine and so came to our destination. It
was a wooded flat on the bank of the river, made by a sudden retreat
of the hills--a sort of pocket. The space was not large, a handful of
acres, and it looked smaller than it really was. The bluffs curved
around it on three sides in a yellow, crumbling wall; on the fourth
flowed the muddy waters of the Missouri. The house was in the center
of a small clearing, and when we came in sight of it Fitch pulled up
behind a small thicket of scrub. Borden, as if he never saw the fellow
halt, rode straight up to the door where John Dempster sat shaping an
axe-haft.
"Jack," said Borden, swinging down from his saddle, "I've come to have
a talk with you."
Dempster shaved the haft a minute, laid it aside, and gazed off toward
the clump of scrub. The two men were something alike, though the man
seated on the door-sill was the older, both past the prime, both spare
of words, both come to the West in the same year. They had lain side by
side behind a sleety log before Fort Donelson, and each in his three
years of service had felt the touch of hot lead.
"How d'you come--friend or enemy?"
"The first, and always, I hope. It depends on you. Why did you kick him
off of here yesterday, Jack? He's full of poison over it."
"Let him keep off then," was the gruff response.
Both looked again at the clump where Fitch could be seen through the
thin screen of bushes. After a while Dempster took out his tobacco, cut
off a piece, and passed the rest to us.
"You're in a dirty way of business when you're mixed up with him," he
said slowly. "An' I 'spose you've come to run me out."
"What's at the bottom of this trouble?" returned Borden, evading the
point. "'Tain't the land--what is it he's after?"
Dempster spat. "He's gettin' even. I knocked him down last spring when
I was at Nebraska City, for lyin' about--never mind. That's all. So he
sneaked around an' hunted out where I live an' filed on the land." A
dull fire lighted up under his bushy eyebrows.
"Why didn't you file long ago?"
"Does the gover'ment take away a man's home when he's fought in the
war?"
"You know how I feel about it," replied Borden, and he laid his hand on
the other's shoulder. "But it's too late for you to try to keep it now.
You'd better look up another place."
"No, I'm goin' to stay here, I guess, or nowhere."
Borden knew that the decision was inflexible. As he rose, put his foot
in the stirrup, and raised himself into the saddle, he determined,
however, to have another try.
"Come and settle up along the creek by me. There's an open claim just
beyond mine, better than this piece."
[Illustration: "'YOU GOT THE BEST O' ME, DICK; I'LL GO'"]
Dempster shook his head; maybe he was thinking of the clearing back in
Indiana and the boughs under which he had drawn his first breath,
maybe this poor fringe of woods along the river was dearer to him than
all the treeless prairie.
"We've lived here near ten years now," he said at last, "the old woman
an' Joe--an' me, 'ceptin' when I was at war. I guess if we go, you'll
have to use your gun."
"I'm sorry, Jack, but you've got to go. And I give you a week. It's not
me that says so, it's the law."
"Law!" answered Dempster, with sudden rising fierceness. "Does the law
drive a man off his own?"
It was the law, not justice, that was driving him. Without replying a
word, Borden, and I by his side, rode away. When we reached the lean,
eager face behind the scrub, the Marshal broke out, "You vulture, keep
behind us! If you try to ride even, I'll sink your carcass in the
river." And in that order, with him trailing us, we came back to Kinton.
Well, during the next week the more I turned the thing over on my
tongue the less I liked the taste of it, but Borden was not one to
consider dislikes--neither another man's nor his own--when he was
riding the law's saddle. So I resolved to go through with it, and was
ready Thursday morning. He came out from Nebraska City, accompanied
by six deputies, men he had tried, who would not back off from the
mouth of a gun, for he knew the door he must enter that day. Fitch was
among them; oh, he was yellow over it! Borden had dragged him along to
the whole end of the dirty business. The tale, too, was out among the
deputies, and Fitch saw plainly what rope they would have swung him
by. Grim looks were his every mile; when he pushed up among them, they
crowded his horse to the withers until it hung back from the others;
one cursed him fully and foully. They intended that he should earn that
bit of ground before the day was done.
In the ravine at the edge of the flat we tied our horses. The men
unslung their rifles, hitched their revolvers about, and waited, while
Borden went down the hollow to reconnoiter. Perhaps half an hour had
passed when he climbed down the bank above our heads and dropped into
our midst.
"Quick! The boy's gone for water to the spring. Straight ahead there.
No shooting till I give the word."
The men nodded, we filed down the ravine single-file, and the next
minute were advancing noiselessly through the trees, spreading out
gradually as we crossed the flat toward the clearing where stood the
log house. The deputies went ahead, alert, silent, with an eye on
Borden, who walked a little before them, each keeping a tree in line
with the door.
Perhaps things were no different that morning than they were at any
time; yet the little flat seemed possessed of a very great quiet,
broken only by the slight swish of our boots through the dry grass.
As we neared the cabin, we saw that its windows and door were shut.
Fitch, who clung to me as though he found more comfort in my company,
occasionally wiped drops of sweat from his yellow forehead, and removed
his high hat to let the wind blow through his hair.
The other men went ahead unconcerned enough. One big fellow dropped
his gun into the crook of his arm, pulled out a piece of tobacco, and
carefully picked the lint off it. When he had had a bite, he tossed it
to a comrade, who caught it handily, buried it for a moment under his
mustache, and then held up the remnant to the other's sight, grinning.
He tossed it back; neither had lost his place in the advancing line.
Fifty yards from the house Borden signaled a halt. Rifle-butts slipped
to the ground, and the men leaned with backs against their trees--all
except two, who handed their guns to others and veered off towards
the bluffs, the direction Borden indicated, to the spring. A brown,
grizzled fellow, sheltered behind an elm a few feet from me, turned
his attention to Fitch, whom he examined curiously and at leisure,
concluding his inspection by spitting his way. Then his look strayed
south. After a little he began to sing softly:
The flat-boats 'r in an' the bull-boats 'r a-stoppin'
An' licker runnin' free,--oh, hell is a-poppin'!
Down on the river, down on----
He broke off suddenly, turning his head a little way towards where the
two men had entered the bushes, listening. Directly he finished the
lines:
Down on the river, down on the river,
Down on the Misser-ee when the boats come in.
The man must have had ears like an Indian's. He folded his arms across
the muzzle of his rifle and began watching the bushes that fringed the
base of the hill; the other men also were looking that way. A minute
passed. All at once a young fellow slipped out from nowhere, running
and carrying a full bucket. He was bare-headed, his sleeves rolled
to the elbows. He ran a few steps toward the house, quickly slanted
off, and kept going, while turning his head this way and that. I saw
the cause of his sudden change in direction, for there was one of the
deputies running parallel with him, but between him and the door. The
second came in sight a minute later, farther down, and from behind a
thicket, abreast of the other two. They had the young fellow between
them.
The rest of us were strung about before the house in a half-circle, the
three runners being on the outside of the circle. Everything was quiet,
for Borden's hounds don't hunt with their mouths open. Young Dempster
carried his bucket of water with scarcely a slop or a splash; the inner
deputy gradually moved out and behind him. Two men at the tail of the
line fell away from their trees to meet him--and there he was in a
ring. The man nearest me, still leaning on his rifle, gave a cluck of
his tongue as if it were all over. But it was not. A shot cracked from
the door, and the deputy who was on the outside flipped his hand in
the air as if he had been stung. His fingers were all bloody. That was
a pretty shot, I tell you; old Jack Dempster ticked the button on his
son's shirt to make it, for the men were running breast and breast from
the door.
The boy saw the trap he was in. Just as he came even with me, he
whirled and took his chance through the line. It was quick--oh,
quick as a cat! Three of us met him. But he was in moccasins and
light-footed, jumping this way and that, and though my neighbor flung
his rifle between his legs, he skipped it and was nearly through. He
sprang to one side, leaped at Fitch--the water was splashing now--and
swerved past him. Maybe it was the nasty look on his face that made
Fitch shoot, anyway the fellow fired his revolver. It did not seem as
if he could miss; Joe ran straight for the cabin. Half way there the
bucket slipped from his hand; then he began to stagger a little. Near
the door he went to his knees and, with a look over his shoulder at us
while fumbling for his revolver, crawled behind the chopping-log.
"I got him before he got me," said Fitch, fairly green about the mouth,
"He was going to kill me."
Borden took a step toward him, paused for the time of a single breath,
whirled around, and was behind his tree. As for the other men, I never
want to see such faces as they wore.
After that it seemed to me as if our business had come to a standstill.
It was little shelter we had, just a tree apiece. We might as well have
been tied to them with cords, for the old man was watching from his
lair, and that with his boy's blood red in his eyes, ready to catch us
either advancing or retiring. Nor was the young fellow so badly hurt
but what he could pull a trigger. And Borden never retired that I ever
heard of--that wasn't his way. Any instant I expected to hear a bullet
snip the bark on my tree. I never felt so big before or since, big as
a hill, and I drew myself together mighty small, I can tell you.
While I was wondering what would come next, Borden stepped out into
the open. He walked toward the door, calm and steady, and without
particular haste, his revolver in its holster. It all happened so
quickly it took me by surprise; the Dempsters, man and boy, must have
been struck by it, for not a shot was fired. But to advance that way,
to clasp hands with death! Maybe you've heard soldiers tell about
charging in the face of cannon, how they felt--I know I felt worse just
to see him go straight toward the house. I got dizzy, dizzy sick. Then
it had all fallen so still, the little wind in the trees and the leaves
stirring over the ground. I looked at the other men, thinking they
could somehow change it; the grizzled old chap was chewing his tobacco
as fast as he could, and the man with the bloody fingers had finished
tying them up in his handkerchief. First thing I knew I was half out
from behind my tree, watching him.
"Keep back, Dick Borden," warned the man in the house--I swear his
voice shook as he said it--"keep back, or, by God, I'll shoot!"
"I'm coming into that door, Jack Dempster," was Borden's reply.
He never flinched, never stopped. Then the rifle sounded, and, like an
echo, the boy's revolver echoed it. Borden was hit--how could they fail
at that distance and such a mark? But he managed to win the log where
young Dempster lay. He stood there an instant, then slowly sat down
upon it. A second time the young fellow lifted his weapon, and every
man of us could see the Marshal looking into the muzzle. Orders or no
orders, that was too much for even the deputies; the click of their
rifle hammers ran along the trees. Borden heard it.
"Don't shoot, men!"
His voice was not loud, but harsh, and keyed high, as if his throat was
dry. I think the next sound was a groan from the boy, and his revolver
wavered and slipped in his fingers.
"It's the gun you gave me," he said, "an' I can't kill you with it."
Borden turned his head painfully from side to side, saw a stick, bent
down laboriously, got it at last, and by its aid raised himself to
his feet. That seemed to exhaust him. He stood for a moment, inert
and useless, like an old man. Then he began to hoist himself forward
step by step to the door. Iron will, just iron, it was. And it was
terrible to see him--one shoulder and arm swinging low and limp, his
knees lifting high as if knotted with stiffness, his head protruding in
intense effort. The distance was short, but long, long for him.
"Keep back! keep back!" cried Dempster. He himself was half out of the
door, gripping his gun with one hand, warding the relentless Marshal
off with the other.
Borden answered nothing, another step.
"You've got to stop!" begged Dempster. "Don't make me kill you, an'
I can't let you in. Go back, go back! We fought together, we marched
together, we ate and slept together, Dick--for God's sake, don't come
nearer!"
One step at a time, putting his stick forward bit by bit and dragging
himself to it with his queer uplifting knees, Borden moved himself
ahead. There was something stern and inhuman in this persistence. So it
went to the last bitter inch. Then Borden's breast touched the rifle's
muzzle. The two men stood looking into each other's eyes, measuring
life and death.
That is a minute in my mind forever. The young fellow had dragged
himself a little way from behind his log--half-following, fascinated,
supporting himself by his two hands--and was staring at them. The empty
bucket lay on its side in the sunshine. The wind whined and whined
through the trees. And the wife's haggard face peered over Dempster's
shoulder in the door.
"I arrest you!"
The stick dropped from his fingers, he clutched at the man's sleeve and
fell across the door-sill. All I remember is that we were all crowding
about the door, with the boy cursing from the ground behind us for
someone to help him. Even Fitch had come, twisting and pushing among
the rest.
Borden was white and still, but he came around directly and stared at
us a little. We laid him on a blanket outside the door, along with
Joe, who carried his lead just below the knee. The Marshal was pretty
bad, having a bullet through his collar-bone and another through his
side, this one a big ugly hole. There were plenty of us to help, some
to cut and to strip their clothes, some to fetch water, some to wash
the wounds, some to tear bandages. One had already started south for a
doctor. Dempster was on his knees by his old comrade.
"You got the best o' me, Dick; I'll go."
Borden smiled a little. It was good to look at their two faces then.
Fitch, who was rubbing his hands evilly, put in, "Yes, you get off here
within an hour. And I'll have the law on you, too, for the kicking you
gave me."
One of the men struck him across the mouth.
"Tie him," said Borden, "and hang him."
Well, there was a noisy to-do, the fellow screeching that it was
against the law, that he shot the boy for trying to kill him, that it
was on his own land, and the like. He kept it up until his screech fell
into a quaver, and terror came into his eyes. Borden smiled again at
sight of him, this time with lips that made a straight white line.
"The law!" he said, at last. "I am the law."
He let the matter go as far as the rope around the wretch's neck; then
it seemed as if Fitch was dead already. No, Borden didn't hang him;
he had another idea, the claim. He waited until Fitch had his senses
once more and told him he would be taken to Nebraska City and tried for
attempted murder. Fitch began to beg, while Borden listened with grim
satisfaction. He would let the claim go, he would start down the river,
quit the country. The rope was thrown off and Borden ordered him away;
and with a sudden fierce oath that made him gasp from pain, Borden
swore he would shoot him with his own hand if he caught sight of him
again.
Fitch knew that Borden meant what he said, and he wasn't seen again in
Nebraska. Six months or so fetched Borden round, and let him into the
saddle again. It must be lead in the heart or brain to kill men of his
fiber--and Dempster had been shaky with his gun. Things got a little
loose while the Marshal was on his back up there in the cabin, but he
tightened them up again soon. We'll ride up there some day and see the
spot. Yes, the Dempsters have the title to the place now.
[Illustration]
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