personal challenge to the Sheriff, and I thought that Johnson should
so consider it. Without waiting for the Sheriff to answer, whether in
protest or acquiescence, I broke in:
“Two or three would be cowardly. One should go, and one only.” At once I
felt rather than saw the Sheriff free himself from the group of men; the
next moment he stood opposite to me.
“What was that?” he asked sharply, holding me with keen eye and
out-thrust chin--repressed passion in voice and look.
The antagonism of his bearing excited and angered me not a little. I
replied:
“I think it would be cowardly to take two or three against a single man.
I said one should go, and I say so still.”
“Do you?” he sneered. “I guess you'd go alone, wouldn't you? to bring
Williams in?”
“If I were paid for it I should,” was my heedless retort. As I spoke his
face grew white with such passion that I instinctively put up my hands
to defend myself, thinking he was about to attack me. The involuntary
movement may have seemed boyish to him, for thought came into his eyes,
and his face relaxed; moving away he said quietly:
“I'll set up drinks, boys.”
They grouped themselves about him and drank, leaving me isolated. But
this, now my blood was up, only added to the exasperation I felt at his
contemptuous treatment, and accordingly I walked to the bar, and as
the only unoccupied place was by Johnson's side I went there and said,
speaking as coolly as I could:
“Though no one asks me to drink I guess I'll take some whisky,
bar-keeper, if you please.” Johnson was standing with his back to me,
but when I spoke he looked round, and I saw, or thought I saw, a sort of
curiosity in his gaze. I met his eye defiantly. He turned to the others
and said, in his ordinary, slow way:
“Wall, good night, boys; I've got to go. It's gittin' late, an' I've had
about as much as I want.”
Whether he alluded to the drink or to my impertinence I was unable to
divine. Without adding a word he left the room amid a chorus of “Good
night, Sheriff!” With him went Martin and half-a-dozen more.
I thought I had come out of the matter fairly well until I spoke to
some of the men standing near. They answered me, it is true, but in
monosyllables, and evidently with unwillingness. In silence I finished
my whisky, feeling that every one was against me for some inexplicable
cause. I resented this and stayed on. In a quarter of an hour the rest
of the crowd had departed, with the exception of Morris and a few of the
same kidney.
When I noticed that these gamblers, outlaws by public opinion, held away
from me, I became indignant. Addressing myself to Morris, I asked:
“Can you tell me, sir, for you seem to be an educated man, what I have
said or done to make you all shun me?”
“I guess so,” he answered indifferently. “You took a hand in a game
where you weren't wanted. And you tried to come in without ever having
paid the _ante,_ which is not allowed in any game--at least not in any
game played about here.”
The allusion seemed plain; I was not only a stranger, but a foreigner;
that must be my offence. With a “Good night, sir; good night,
bar-keeper!” I left the room.
* * * * *
The next morning I went as usual to the office. I may have been seated
there about an hour--it was almost eight o'clock--when I heard a knock
at the door.
“Come in,” I said, swinging round in the American chair, to find myself
face to face with Sheriff Johnson.
“Why, Sheriff, come in!” I exclaimed cheerfully, for I was relieved
at seeing him, and so realized more clearly than ever that the
unpleasantness of the previous evening had left in me a certain
uneasiness. I was eager to show that the incident had no importance:
“Won't you take a seat? and you'll have a cigar?--these are not bad.”
“No, thank you,” he answered. “No, I guess I won't sit nor smoke jest
now.” After a pause, he added, “I see you're studyin'; p'r'aps you're
busy to-day; I won't disturb you.”
“You don't disturb me, Sheriff,” I rejoined. “As for studying, there's
not much in it. I seem to prefer dreaming.”
“Wall,” he said, letting his eyes range round the walls furnished with
Law Reports bound in yellow calf, “I don't know, I guess there's a big
lot of readin' to do before a man gets through with all those.”
“Oh,” I laughed, “the more I read the more clearly I see that law is
only a sermon on various texts supplied by common sense.”
“Wall,” he went on slowly, coming a pace or two nearer and speaking with
increased seriousness, “I reckon you've got all Locock's business to see
after: his clients to talk to; letters to answer, and all that; and when
he's on the drunk I guess he don't do much. I won't worry you any more.”
“You don't worry me,” I replied. “I've not had a letter to answer in
three days, and not a soul comes here to talk about business or anything
else. I sit and dream, and wish I had something to do out there in the
sunshine. Your work is better than reading words, words--nothing but
words.”
“You ain't busy; hain't got anything to do here that might keep you?
Nothin'?”
“Not a thing. I'm sick of Blackstone and all Commentaries.”
Suddenly I felt his hand on my shoulder (moving half round in the
chair, I had for the moment turned sideways to him), and his voice was
surprisingly hard and quick:
“Then I swear you in as a Deputy-Sheriff of the United States, and of
this State of Kansas; and I charge you to bring in and deliver at the
Sheriff's house, in this county of Elwood, Tom Williams, alive or dead,
and--there's your fee, five dollars and twenty-five cents!” and he laid
the money on the table.
Before the singular speech was half ended I had swung round facing him,
with a fairly accurate understanding of what he meant. But the moment
for decision had come with such sharp abruptness, that I still did not
realize my position, though I replied defiantly as if accepting the
charge:
“I've not got a weapon.”
“The boys allowed you mightn't hev, and so I brought some along. You ken
suit your hand.” While speaking he produced two or three revolvers of
different sizes, and laid them before me.
Dazed by the rapid progress of the plot, indignant, too, at the trick
played upon me, I took up the nearest revolver and looked at it almost
without seeing it. The Sheriff seemed to take my gaze for that of an
expert's curiosity.
“It shoots true,” he said meditatively, “plumb true; but it's too small
to drop a man. I guess it wouldn't stop any one with grit in him.”
My anger would not allow me to consider his advice; I thrust the weapon
in my pocket:
“I haven't got a buggy. How am I to get to Osawotamie?”
“Mine's hitched up outside. You ken hev it.”
Rising to my feet I said: “Then we can go.”
We had nearly reached the door of the office, when the Sheriff stopped,
turned his back upon the door, and looking straight into my eyes said:
“Don't play foolish. You've no call to go. Ef you're busy, ef you've
got letters to write, anythin' to do--I'll tell the boys you sed so, and
that'll be all; that'll let you out.”
Half-humorously, as it seemed to me, he added: “You're young and a
tenderfoot. You'd better stick to what you've begun upon. That's the way
to do somethin'.--I often think it's the work chooses us, and we've just
got to get down and do it.”
“I've told you I had nothing to do,” I retorted angrily; “that's the
truth. Perhaps” (sarcastically) “this work chooses me.”
The Sheriff moved away from the door.
On reaching the street I stopped for a moment in utter wonder. At that
hour in the morning Washington Street was usually deserted, but now
it seemed as if half the men in the town had taken up places round the
entrance to Locock's office stairs. Some sat on barrels or boxes tipped
up against the shop-front (the next store was kept by a German, who sold
fruit and eatables); others stood about in groups or singly; a few were
seated on the edge of the side-walk, with their feet in the dust of the
street. Right before me and most conspicuous was the gigantic figure
of Martin. He was sitting on a small barrel in front of the Sheriff's
buggy.
“Good morning,” I said in the air, but no one answered me. Mastering
my irritation, I went forward to undo the hitching-strap, but Martin,
divining my intention, rose and loosened the buckle. As I reached him,
he spoke in a low whisper, keeping his back turned to me:
“Shoot off a joke quick. The boys'll let up on you then. It'll be all
right. Say somethin', for God's sake!”
The rough sympathy did me good, relaxed the tightness round my heart;
the resentment natural to one entrapped left me, and some of my
self-confidence returned:
“I never felt less like joking in my life, Martin, and humour can't be
produced to order.”
He fastened up the hitching-strap, while I gathered the reins together
and got into the buggy. When I was fairly seated he stepped to the
side of the open vehicle, and, holding out his hand, said, “Good day,”
adding, as our hands clasped, “Wade in, young un; wade in.”
“Good day, Martin. Good day, Sheriff. Good day, boys!”
To my surprise there came a chorus of answering “Good days!” as I drove
up the street.
A few hundred yards I went, and then wheeled to the right past the post
office, and so on for a quarter of a mile, till I reached the descent
from the higher ground, on which the town was built, to the river.
There, on my left, on the verge of the slope, stood the Sheriff's house
in a lot by itself, with the long, low jail attached to it. Down the
hill I went, and across the bridge and out into the open country. I
drove rapidly for about five miles--more than halfway to Osawotamie--and
then I pulled up, in order to think quietly and make up my mind.
I grasped the situation now in all its details. Courage was the one
virtue which these men understood, the only one upon which they prided
themselves. I, a stranger, a “tenderfoot,” had questioned the courage
of the boldest among them, and this mission was their answer to my
insolence. The “boys” had planned the plot; Johnson was not to blame;
clearly he wanted to let me out of it; he would have been satisfied
there in the office if I had said that I was busy; he did not like to
put his work on any one else. And yet he must profit by my going. Were I
killed, the whole country would rise against Williams; whereas if I shot
Williams, the Sheriff would be relieved of the task. I wondered whether
the fact of his having married made any difference to the Sheriff.
Possibly--and yet it was not the Sheriff; it was the “boys” who had
insisted on giving me the lesson. Public opinion was dead against me. “I
had come into a game where I was not wanted, and I had never even paid
the _ante_”--that was Morris's phrase. Of course it was all clear now. I
had never given any proof of courage, as most likely all the rest had at
some time or other. That was the _ante_ Morris meant....
My wilfulness had got me into the scrape; I had only myself to thank.
Not alone the Sheriff but Martin would have saved me had I profited by
the door of escape which he had tried to open for me. Neither of them
wished to push the malice to the point of making me assume the Sheriff's
risk, and Martin at least, and probably the Sheriff also, had taken
my quick, half-unconscious words and acts as evidence of reckless
determination. If I intended to live in the West I must go through with
the matter.
But what nonsense it all was! Why should I chuck away my life in the
attempt to bring a desperate ruffian to justice? And who could say that
Williams was a ruffian? It was plain that his quarrel with the Sheriff
was one of old date and purely personal. He had “stopped” Judge Shannon
in order to bring about a duel with the Sheriff. Why should I fight the
Sheriff's duels? Justice, indeed! justice had nothing to do with this
affair; I did not even know which man was in the right. Reason led
directly to the conclusion that I had better turn the horse's head
northwards, drive as fast and as far as I could, and take the train as
soon as possible out of the country. But while I recognized that this
was the only sensible decision, I felt that I could not carry it into
action. To run away was impossible; my cheeks burned with shame at the
thought.
Was I to give my life for a stupid practical joke? “Yes!”--a voice
within me answered sharply. “It would be well if a man could always
choose the cause for which he risks his life, but it may happen that he
ought to throw it away for a reason that seems inadequate.”
“What ought I to do?” I questioned.
“Go on to Osawotamie, arrest Williams, and bring him into Kiota,”
replied my other self.
“And if he won't come?”
“Shoot him--you are charged to deliver him 'alive or dead' at the
Sheriff's house. No more thinking, drive straight ahead and act as if
you were a representative of the law and Williams a criminal. It has to
be done.”
The resolution excited me, I picked up the reins and proceeded. At the
next section-line I turned to the right, and ten or fifteen minutes
later saw Osawotamie in the distance.
I drew up, laid the reins on the dashboard, and examined the revolver.
It was a small four-shooter, with a large bore. To make sure of its
efficiency I took out a cartridge; it was quite new. While weighing it
in my hand, the Sheriff's words recurred to me, “It wouldn't stop any
one with grit in him.” What did he mean? I didn't want to think, so
I put the cartridge in again, cocked and replaced the pistol in my
right-side jacket pocket, and drove on. Osawotamie consisted of a single
street of straggling frame-buildings. After passing half-a-dozen of
them I saw, on the right, one which looked to me like a saloon. It was
evidently a stopping-place. There were several hitching-posts, and
the house boasted instead of a door two green Venetian blinds put upon
rollers--the usual sign of a drinking-saloon in the West.
I got out of the buggy slowly and carefully, so as not to shift the
position of the revolver, and after hitching up the horse, entered the
saloon. Coming out of the glare of the sunshine I could hardly see in
the darkened room. In a moment or two my eyes grew accustomed to the dim
light, and I went over to the bar, which was on my left. The bar-keeper
was sitting down; his head and shoulders alone were visible; I asked him
for a lemon squash.
“Anythin' in it?” he replied, without lifting his eyes.
“No; I'm thirsty and hot.”
“I guessed that was about the figger,” he remarked, getting up leisurely
and beginning to mix the drink with his back to me.
I used the opportunity to look round the room. Three steps from me stood
a tall man, lazily leaning with his right arm on the bar, his fingers
touching a half-filled glass. He seemed to be gazing past me into
the void, and thus allowed me to take note of his appearance. In
shirt-sleeves, like the bar-keeper, he had a belt on in which were two
large revolvers with white ivory handles. His face was prepossessing,
with large but not irregular features, bronzed fair skin, hazel eyes,
and long brown moustache. He looked strong and was lithe of form, as if
he had not done much hard bodily work. There was no one else in the room
except a man who appeared to be sleeping at a table in the far corner
with his head pillowed on his arms.
As I completed this hasty scrutiny of the room and its inmates, the
bar-keeper gave me my squash, and I drank eagerly. The excitement had
made me thirsty, for I knew that the crisis must be at hand, but I
experienced no other sensation save that my heart was thumping and my
throat was dry. Yawning as a sign of indifference (I had resolved to
be as deliberate as the Sheriff) I put my hand in my pocket on the
revolver. I felt that I could draw it out at once.
I addressed the bar-keeper:
“Say, do you know the folk here in Osawotamie?”
After a pause he replied:
“Most on 'em, I guess.”
Another pause and a second question:
“Do you know Tom Williams?”
The eyes looked at me with a faint light of surprise in them; they
looked away again, and came back with short, half suspicious, half
curious glances.
“Maybe you're a friend of his'n?”
“I don't know him, but I'd like to meet him.”
“Would you, though?” Turning half round, the bar-keeper took down a
bottle and glass, and poured out some whisky, seemingly for his own
consumption. Then: “I guess he's not hard to meet, isn't Williams, ef
you and me mean the same man.”
“I guess we do,” I replied; “Tom Williams is the name.”
“That's me,” said the tall man who was leaning on the bar near me,
“that's my name.”
“Are you the Williams that stopped Judge Shannon yesterday?”
“I don't know his name,” came the careless reply, “but I stopped a man
in a buck-board.”
Plucking out my revolver, and pointing it low down on his breast, I
said:
“I'm sent to arrest you; you must come with me to Kiota.”
Without changing his easy posture, or a muscle of his face, he asked in
the same quiet voice:
“What does this mean, anyway? Who sent you to arrest me?”
“Sheriff Johnson,” I answered.
The man started upright, and said, as if amazed, in a quick, loud voice:
“Sheriff Johnson sent _you_ to arrest me?”
“Yes,” I retorted, “Sheriff Samuel Johnson swore me in this morning as
his deputy, and charged me to bring you into Kiota.”
In a tone of utter astonishment he repeated my words, “Sheriff Samuel
Johnson!”
“Yes,” I replied, “Samuel Johnson, Sheriff of Elwood County.”
“See here,” he asked suddenly, fixing me with a look of angry suspicion,
“what sort of a man is he? What does he figger like?”
“He's a little shorter than I am,” I replied curtly, “with a brown beard
and bluish eyes--a square-built sort of man.”
“Hell!” There was savage rage and menace in the exclamation.
“You kin put that up!” he added, absorbed once more in thought. I paid
no attention to this; I was not going to put the revolver away at his
bidding. Presently he asked in his ordinary voice:
“What age man might this Johnson be?”
“About forty or forty-five, I should think.”
“And right off Sam Johnson swore you in and sent you to bring me into
Kiota--an' him Sheriff?”
“Yes,” I replied impatiently, “that's so.”
“Great God!” he exclaimed, bringing his clenched right hand heavily down
on the bar. “Here, Zeke!” turning to the man asleep in the corner,
and again he shouted “Zeke!” Then, with a rapid change of manner, and
speaking irritably, he said to me:
“Put that thing up, I say.”
The bar-keeper now spoke too: “I guess when Tom sez you kin put it up,
you kin. You hain't got no use fur it.”
The changes of Williams' tone from wonder to wrath and then to quick
resolution showed me that the doubt in him had been laid, and that I
had but little to do with the decision at which he had arrived, whatever
that decision might be. I understood, too, enough of the Western spirit
to know that he would take no unfair advantage of me. I therefore
uncocked the revolver and put it back into my pocket. In the meantime
Zeke had got up from his resting-place in the corner and had made his
way sleepily to the bar. He had taken more to drink than was good for
him, though he was not now really drunk.
“Give me and Zeke a glass, Joe,” said Williams; “and this gentleman,
too, if he'll drink with me, and take one yourself with us.”
“No,” replied the bar-keeper sullenly, “I'll not drink to any damned
foolishness. An' Zeke won't neither.”
“Oh, yes, he will,” Williams returned persuasively, “and so'll you, Joe.
You aren't goin' back on me.”
“No, I'll be just damned if I am,” said the barkeeper, half-conquered.
“What'll you take, sir?” Williams asked me.
“The bar-keeper knows my figger,” I answered, half-jestingly, not yet
understanding the situation, but convinced that it was turning out
better than I had expected.
“And you, Zeke?” he went on.
“The old pizen,” Zeke replied.
“And now, Joe, whisky for you and me--the square bottle,” he continued,
with brisk cheerfulness.
In silence the bar-keeper placed the drinks before us. As soon as the
glasses were empty Williams spoke again, putting out his hand to Zeke at
the same time:
“Good-bye, old man, so long, but saddle up in two hours. Ef I don't come
then, you kin clear; but I guess I'll be with you.”
“Good-bye, Joe.”
“Good-bye, Tom,” replied the bar-keeper, taking the proffered hand,
still half-unwillingly, “if you're stuck on it; but the game is to wait
for 'em here--anyway that's how I'd play it.”
A laugh and shake of the head and Williams addressed me:
“Now, sir, I'm ready if you are.” We were walking towards the door, when
Zeke broke in:
“Say, Tom, ain't I to come along?”
“No, Zeke, I'll play this hand alone,” replied Williams, and two minutes
later he and I were seated in the buggy, driving towards Kiota.
We had gone more than a mile before he spoke again. He began very
quietly, as if confiding his thoughts to me:
“I don't want to make no mistake about this business--it ain't worth
while. I'm sure you're right, and Sheriff Samuel Johnson sent you, but,
maybe, ef you was to think you could kinder bring him before me. There
might be two of the name, the age, the looks--though it ain't likely.”
Then, as if a sudden inspiration moved him:
“Where did he come from, this Sam Johnson, do you know?”
“I believe he came from Pleasant Hill, Missouri. I've heard that he left
after a row with his partner, and it seems to me that his partner's name
was Williams. But that you ought to know better than I do. By-the-bye,
there is one sign by which Sheriff Johnson can always be recognized;
he has lost the little finger of his left hand. They say he caught
Williams' bowie with that hand and shot him with the right. But why he
had to leave Missouri I don't know, if Williams drew first.”
“I'm satisfied now,” said my companion, “but I guess you hain't got that
story correct; maybe you don't know the cause of it nor how it began;
maybe Williams didn't draw fust; maybe he was in the right all the way
through; maybe--but thar!--the first hand don't decide everythin'. Your
Sheriff's the man--that's enough for me.”
After this no word was spoken for miles. As we drew near the bridge
leading into the town of Kiota I remarked half-a-dozen men standing
about. Generally the place was deserted, so the fact astonished me a
little. But I said nothing. We had scarcely passed over half the length
of the bridge, however, when I saw that there were quite twenty men
lounging around the Kiota end of it. Before I had time to explain
the matter to myself, Williams spoke: “I guess he's got out all the
vigilantes;” and then bitterly: “The boys in old Mizzouri wouldn't
believe this ef I told it on him, the doggoned mean cuss.”
We crossed the bridge at a walk (it was forbidden to drive faster over
the rickety structure), and toiled up the hill through the bystanders,
who did not seem to see us, though I knew several of them. When we
turned to the right to reach the gate of the Sheriff's house, there
were groups of men on both sides. No one moved from his place; here and
there, indeed, one of them went on whittling. I drew up at the sidewalk,
threw down the reins, and jumped out of the buggy to hitch up the horse.
My task was done.
I had the hitching-rein loose in my hand, when I became conscious of
something unusual behind me. I looked round--it was the stillness that
foreruns the storm.
Williams was standing on the side-walk facing the low wooden fence, a
revolver in each hand, but both pointing negligently to the ground; the
Sheriff had just come down the steps of his house; in his hands also
were revolvers; his deputy, Jarvis, was behind him on the stoop.
Williams spoke first:
“Sam Johnson, you sent for me, and I've come.”
The Sheriff answered firmly, “I did!”
Their hands went up, and crack! crack! crack! in quick succession, three
or four or five reports--I don't know how many. At the first shots the
Sheriff fell forward on his face. Williams started to run along the
side-walk; the groups of men at the corner, through whom he must pass,
closed together; then came another report, and at the same moment he
stopped, turned slowly half round, and sank down in a heap like an empty
sack.
I hurried to him; he had fallen almost as a tailor sits, but his head
was between his knees. I lifted it gently; blood was oozing from a hole
in the forehead. The men were about me; I heard them say:
“A derned good shot! Took him in the back of the head. Jarvis kin
shoot!”
I rose to my feet. Jarvis was standing inside the fence supported by
some one; blood was welling from his bared left shoulder.
“I ain't much hurt,” he said, “but I guess the Sheriff's got it bad.”
The men moved on, drawing me with them, through the gate to where the
Sheriff lay. Martin turned him over on his back. They opened his shirt,
and there on the broad chest were two little blue marks, each in the
centre of a small mound of pink flesh.
4TH APRIL, 1891.
* * * * *