I
Davidson could distinctly remember that it was between two and three
years after the grisly event in the Monte Orte range—the sickening
and yet deserved end of Mersereau, his quondam partner and fellow
adventurer—that anything to be identified with Mersereau’s malice
toward him, and with Mersereau’s probable present existence in the
spirit world, had appeared in his life.
He and Mersereau had worked long together as prospectors, investors,
developers of property. It was only after they had struck it rich in
the Klondike that Davidson had grown so much more apt and shrewd in
all commercial and financial matters, whereas Mersereau had seemed to
stand still—not to rise to the splendid opportunities which then opened
to him. Why, in some of those later deals it had not been possible for
Davidson even to introduce his old partner to some of the moneyed men
he had to deal with. Yet Mersereau had insisted, as his right, if you
please, on being “in on” everything—everything!
Take that wonderful Monte Orte property, the cause of all the
subsequent horror. He, Davidson—not Mersereau—had discovered or heard
of the mine, and had carried it along, with old Besmer as a tool or
decoy—Besmer being the ostensible factor—until it was all ready for him
to take over and sell or develop. Then it was that Mersereau, having
been for so long his partner, demanded a full half—a third, at least—on
the ground that they had once agreed to work together in all these
things.
Think of it! And Mersereau growing duller and less useful and more
disagreeable day by day, and year by year! Indeed, toward the last
he had threatened to expose the trick by which jointly, seven years
before, they had possessed themselves of the Skyute Pass Mine; to drive
Davidson out of public and financial life, to have him arrested and
tried—along with himself, of course. Think of that!
But he had fixed him—yes, he had, damn him! He had trailed Mersereau
that night to old Besmer’s cabin on the Monte Orte, when Besmer was
away. Mersereau had gone there with the intention of stealing the
diagram of the new field, and had secured it, true enough. A thief he
was, damn him. Yet, just as he was making safely away, as he thought,
he, Davidson, had struck him cleanly over the ear with that heavy
rail-bolt fastened to the end of a walnut stick, and the first blow had
done for him.
Lord, how the bone above Mersereau’s ear had sounded when it cracked!
And how bloody one side of that bolt was! Mersereau hadn’t had time to
do anything before he was helpless. He hadn’t died instantly, though,
but had turned over and faced him, Davidson, with that savage, scowling
face of his and those blazing, animal eyes.
Lying half propped up on his left elbow, Mersereau had reached out
toward him with that big, rough, bony right hand of his—the right with
which he always boasted of having done so much damage on this, that,
and the other occasion—had glared at him as much as to say:
“Oh, if I could only reach you just for a moment before I go!”
Then it was that he, Davidson, had lifted the club again. Horrified
as he was, and yet determined that he must save his own life, he had
finished the task, dragging the body back to an old fissure behind the
cabin and covering it with branches, a great pile of pine fronds, and
as many as one hundred and fifty boulders, great and small, and had
left his victim. It was a sickening job and a sickening sight, but it
had to be.
Then, having finished, he had slipped dismally away, like a jackal,
thinking of that hand in the moonlight, held up so savagely, and
that look. Nothing might have come of that either, if he hadn’t been
inclined to brood on it so much, on the fierceness of it.
No, nothing had happened. A year had passed, and if anything had been
going to turn up it surely would have by then. He, Davidson, had gone
first to New York, later to Chicago, to dispose of the Monte Orte
claim. Then, after two years, he had returned here to Mississippi,
where he was enjoying comparative peace. He was looking after some
sugar property which had once belonged to him, and which he was now
able to reclaim and put in charge of his sister as a home against a
rainy day. He had no other.
But that body back there! That hand uplifted in the moonlight—to clutch
him if it could! Those eyes.