The Death Shot: A Story Retold

“Oh, sister! A man fearful to look at. A great rough fellow, ugly enough to frighten any one. I’ve met him several times when out walking, and every time it’s made me shudder.”

“Has he been rude to you?”

“Not exactly rude, though something like it. He stares at me in a strange way. And such horrid eyes! They’re hollow, gowlish like an alligator’s. I’d half a mind to tell father, or Luis, about it; but I know Luis would go wild, and want to kill the big brute. I saw him just now, standing on the side-walk close by. No doubt he’s there still.”

“Let me have a look at those alligator eyes.”

The fearless elder sister, defiant from very despair, steps out to the rail, and leaning over, looks along the street.

She sees men passing; but no one who answers to the description given.

There is one standing under a tree, but not in the place of which Jessie has spoken; he is on the opposite side of the street. Neither is he a man of large size, but rather short and slight. He is in shadow, however, and she cannot be sure of this.

At the moment he moves off, and his gait attracts her attention; then his figure, and, finally, his face, as the last comes under the lamp-light. They attract and fix it, sending a cold shiver through her frame.

It was a fancy her thinking she saw Charles Clancy among the tree-tops. Is it a like delusion, that now shows her his assassin in the streets of Natchitoches? No; it cannot be! It is a reality; assuredly the man moving off is Richard Darke!

She has it on her tongue to cry “murderer!” and raise a “hue and cry;” but cannot. She feels paralysed, fascinated; and stands speechless, not stirring, scarce breathing.

Thus, till the assassin is out of sight.

Then she totters back to the side of her sister, to tell in trembling accents, how she, too, had been frayed by a spectre in the street!

Chapter Thirty Two.

The “Choctaw Chief.”

“You’ll excuse me, stranger, for interruptin’ you in the readin’ o’ your newspaper. I like to see men in the way o’ acquirin’ knowledge. But we’re all of us here goin’ to licker up. Won’t you join?”

The invitation, brusquely, if not uncourteously, extended, comes from a man of middle age, in height at least six feet three, without reckoning the thick soles of his bull-skin boots – the tops of which rise several inches above the knee. A personage, rawboned, and of rough exterior, wearing a red blanket-coat; his trousers tucked into the aforesaid boots; with a leather belt buckled around his waist, under the coat, but over the haft of a bowie-knife, alongside which peeps out the butt of a Colt’s revolving pistol. In correspondence with his clothing and equipment, he shows a cut-throat countenance, typical of the State Penitentiary; cheeks bloated as from excessive indulgence in drink; eyes watery and somewhat bloodshot; lips thick and sensual; with a nose set obliquely, looking as if it had received hard treatment in some pugilistic encounter. His hair is of a yellowish clay colour, lighter in tint upon the eyebrows. There is none either on his lips or jaws, nor yet upon his thick hog-like throat; which looks as if some day it may need something stiffer than a beard to protect it from the hemp of the hangman.

He, to whom the invitation has been extended, is of quite a different appearance. In age a little over half that of the individual who has addressed him; complexion dark and cadaverous; the cheeks hollow and haggard, as from sleepless anxiety; the upper lip showing two elongated bluish blotches – the stub of moustaches recently removed; the eyes coal black, with sinister glances sent in suspicious furtiveness from under a broad hat-brim pulled low down over the brow; the figure fairly shaped, but with garments coarse and clumsily fitting, too ample both for body and limbs, as if intended to conceal rather than show them to advantage.

A practised detective, after scanning this individual, taking note of his habiliments, with the hat and his manner of wearing it, would pronounce him a person dressed in disguise – this, for some good reason, adopted. A suspicion of the kind appears to be in the mind of the rough Hercules, who has invited him to “licker up;” though he is no detective.

“Thank you,” rejoins the young fellow, lowering the newspaper to his knee, and raising the rim of his hat, as little as possible; “I’ve just had a drain. I hope you’ll excuse me.”

“Damned if we do! Not this time, stranger. The rule o’ this tavern is, that all in its bar takes a smile thegither – leastwise on first meeting. So, say what’s the name o’ yer tipple.”

“Oh! in that case I’m agreeable,” assents the newspaper reader, laying aside his reluctance, and along with it the paper – at the same time rising to his feet. Then, stepping up to the bar, he adds, in a tone of apparent frankness: “Phil Quantrell ain’t the man to back out where there’s glasses going. But, gentlemen, as I’m the stranger in this crowd, I hope you’ll let me pay for the drinks.”

The men thus addressed as “gentlemen” are seven or eight in number; not one of whom, from outward seeming, could lay claim to the epithet. So far as this goes, they are all of a sort with the brutal-looking bully in the blanket-coat who commenced the conversation. Did Phil Quantrell address them as “blackguards,” he would be much nearer the mark. Villainous scoundrels they appear, every one of them, though of different degrees, judging by their countenances, and with like variety in their costumes.

“No – no!” respond several, determined to show themselves gentlemen in generosity. “No stranger can stand treat here. You must drink with us, Mr Quantrell.”

“This score’s mine!” proclaims the first spokesman, in an authoritative voice. “After that anybody as likes may stand treat. Come, Johnny! trot out the stuff. Brandy smash for me.”

The bar-keeper thus appealed to – as repulsive-looking as any of the party upon whom he is called to wait – with that dexterity peculiar to his craft, soon furnishes the counter with bottles and decanters containing several sorts of liquors. After which he arranges a row of tumblers alongside, corresponding to the number of those designing to drink.

And soon they are all drinking; each the mixture most agreeable to his palate.

It is a scene of every-day occurrence, every hour, almost every minute, in a hotel bar-room of the Southern United States; the only peculiarity in this case being, that the Natchitoches tavern in which it takes place is very different from the ordinary village inn, or roadside hotel. It stands upon the outskirts of the town, in a suburb known as the “Indian quarter;” sometimes also called “Spanish town” – both name having reference to the fact, that some queer little shanties around are inhabited by pure-blooded Indians and half-breeds, with poor whites of Spanish extraction – these last the degenerate descendants of heroic soldiers who originally established the settlement.

The tavern itself, bearing an old weather-washed swing-sign, on which is depicted an Indian in full war-paint, is known as the “Choctaw Chief,” and is kept by a man supposed to be a Mexican, but who may be anything else; having for his bar-keeper the afore-mentioned “Johnny,” a personage supposed to be an Irishman, though of like dubious nationality as his employer.

The Choctaw Chief takes in travellers; giving them bed, board, and lodging, without asking them any questions, beyond a demand of payment before they have either eaten or slept under its roof. It usually has a goodly number, and of a peculiar kind – strange both in aspect and manners – no one knowing whence they come, or whither bent when taking their departure.

As the house stands out of the ordinary path of town promenaders, in an outskirt scarce ever visited by respectable people, no one cares to inquire into the character of its guests, or aught else relating to it. To those who chance to stray in its direction, it is known as a sort of cheap hostelry, that gives shelter to all sorts of odd customers – hunters, trappers, small Indian traders, returned from an expedition on the prairies; along with these, such travellers as are without the means to stop at the more pretentious inns of the village; or, having the means, prefer, for reasons of their own, to put up at the Choctaw Chief.

Such is the reputation of the hostelry, before whose drinking bar stands Phil Quantrell – so calling himself – with the men to whose boon companionship he has been so unceremoniously introduced; as declared by his introducer, according to the custom of the establishment.

The first drinks swallowed, Quantrell calls for another round; and then a third is ordered, by some one else, who pays, or promises to pay for it.

A fourth “smile” is insisted upon by another some one who announces himself ready to stand treat; all the liquor, up to this time consumed, being either cheap brandy or “rot-gut” whisky.

Quantrell, now pleasantly convivial, and acting under the generous impulse the drink has produced, sings out “Champagne!” a wine which the poorest tavern in the Southern States, even the Choctaw Chief, can plentifully supply.

After this the choice vintage of France, or its gooseberry counterfeit, flows feebly; Johnny with gleeful alacrity stripping off the leaden capsules, twisting the wires, and letting pop the corks. For the stranger guest has taken a wallet from his pocket, which all can perceive to be “chock full” of gold “eagles,” some reflecting upon, but saying nothing about, the singular contrast between this plethoric purse, and the coarse coat out of whose pocket it is pulled.

After all, not much in this. Within the wooden walls of the Choctaw Chief there have been seen many contrasts quite as curious. Neither its hybrid landlord, nor his bar-keeper, nor its guests are addicted to take note – or, at all events make remarks upon – circumstances which elsewhere would seem singular.

Still, is there one among the roystering crowd who does note this; as also other acts done, and sayings spoken, by Phil Quantrell in his cups. It is the Colossus who has introduced him to the jovial company, and who still sticks to him as chaperon.

Some of this man’s associates, who appear on familiar footing, called him “Jim Borlasse;” others, less free, address him as “Mister Borlasse;” while still others, at intervals, and as if by a slip of the tongue, give him the title “Captain.” Jim, Mister, or Captain Borlasse – whichever designation he deserve – throughout the whole debauch, keeps his bloodshot eyes bent upon their new acquaintance, noting his every movement. His ears, too, are strained to catch every word Quantrell utters, weighing its import.

For all he neither says nor does aught to tell of his being thus attentive to the stranger – at first his guest, but now a spendthrift host to himself and his party.

While the champagne is being freely quaffed, of course there is much conversation, and on many subjects. But one is special; seeming more than all others to engross the attention of the roysterers under the roof of the Choctaw Chief.

It is a murder that has been committed in the State of Mississippi, near the town of Natchez; an account of which has just appeared in the local journal of Natchitoches. The paper is lying on the bar-room table; and all of them, who can read, have already made themselves acquainted with the particulars of the crime. Those, whose scholarship does not extend so far, have learnt them at secondhand from their better-educated associates.

The murdered man is called Clancy – Charles Clancy – while the murderer, or he under suspicion of being so, is named Richard Darke, the son of Ephraim Darke, a rich Mississippi planter.

The paper gives further details: that the body of the murdered man has not been found, before the time of its going to press; though the evidence collected leaves no doubt of a foul deed having been done; adding, that Darke, the man accused of it, after being arrested and lodged in the county jail, has managed to make his escape – this through connivance with his jailer, who has also disappeared from the place. Just in time, pursues the report, to save the culprit’s neck from a rope, made ready for him by the executioners of Justice Lynch, a party of whom had burst open the doors of the prison, only to find it untenanted. The paper likewise mentions the motive for the committal of the crime – at least as conjectured; giving the name of a young lady, Miss Helen Armstrong, and speaking of a letter, with her picture, found upon the suspected assassin. It winds up by saying, that no doubt both prisoner and jailer have G.T.T. – “Gone to Texas” – a phrase of frequent use in the Southern States, applied to fugitives from justice. Then follows the copy of a proclamation from the State authorities, offering a reward of two thousand dollars for the apprehension of Richard Darke, and five hundred for Joe Harkness – this being the name of the conniving prison-keeper.

While the murder is being canvassed and discussed by the bon-vivants in the bar-room of the Choctaw Chief – a subject that seems to have a strange fascination for them – Borlasse, who has become elevated with the alcohol, though usually a man of taciturn habit, breaks out with an asseveration, which causes surprise to all, even his intimate associates.

“Damn the luck!” he vociferates, bringing his fist down upon the counter till the decanters dance at the concussion; “I’d ’a given a hundred dollars to ’a been in the place o’ that fellow Darke, whoever he is!”

“Why?” interrogate several of his confrères, in tones that express the different degrees of their familiarity with him questioned, “Why, Jim?”

“Why, Mr Borlasse?”

“Why, Captain?”

“Why?” echoes the man of many titles, again striking the counter, and causing decanters and glasses to jingle. “Why? Because that Clancy – that same Clancy – is the skunk that, before a packed jury, half o’ them yellar-bellied Mexikins, in the town of Nacogdoches, swore I stealed a horse from him. Not only swore it, but war believed; an’ got me – me, Jim Borlasse – tied for twenty-four hours to a post, and whipped into the bargain. Yes, boys, whipped! An’ by a damned Mexikin nigger, under the orders o’ one o’ their constables, they call algazeels. I’ve got the mark o’ them lashes on me now, and can show them, if any o’ ye hev a doubt about it. I ain’t ’shamed to show ’em to you fellows; as ye’ve all got something o’ the same, I guess. But I’m burnin’ mad to think that Charley Clancy’s escaped clear o’ the vengeance I’d sworn again him. I know’d he was comin’ back to Texas, him and his. That’s what took him out thar, when I met him at Nacogdoches. I’ve been waitin’ and watchin’ till he shed stray this way. Now, it appears, somebody has spoilt my plans – somebody o’ the name Richard Darke. An’, while I envy this Dick Darke, I say damn him for doin’ it!”

“Damn Dick Darke! Damn him for doin’ it!” they shout, till the walls re-echo their ribald blasphemy.