The Covered Wagon Part 48

"That packet is over the seal of the United States of America, Chardon.

It carries the signature of the President. It was given to the Army to deliver. The Army has given it to me. I give it to you, and you must go.

It is for Jim. He would know. It must be placed in the hands of the Circuit Judge acting under, the laws of Oregon, whoever he may be, and wherever. Find him in the Willamette country. Your pay will be more than you think, Chardon. Jim would know. Dead or alive, you do this for him.

"You can do thirty miles a day. I know you as a mountain man. Ride!

To-morrow I start east to Laramie--and you start west for Oregon!"

And in the morning following two riders left Bridger's for the trail.

They parted, each waving a hand to the other.

CHAPTER XLIII

THE KILLER KILLED

A rough low cabin of logs, hastily thrown together, housed through the winter months of the Sierra foothills the two men who now, in the warm days of early June, sat by the primitive fireplace cooking a midday meal. The older man, thin, bearded, who now spun a side of venison ribs on a cord in front of the open fire, was the mountain man, Bill Jackson, as anyone might tell who ever had seen him, for he had changed but little.

That his companion, younger, bearded, dressed also in buckskins, was Will Banion it would have taken closer scrutiny even of a friend to determine, so much had the pa.s.sing of these few months altered him in appearance and in manner. Once light of mien, now he smiled never at all. For hours he would seem to go about his duties as an automaton. He spoke at last to his ancient and faithful friend, kindly as ever, and with his own alertness and decision.

"Let's make it our last meal on the Trinity, Bill. What do you say?"

"Why? What's eatin' ye, boy? Gittin' restless agin?"

"Yes, I want to move."

"Most does."

"We've got enough, Bill. The last month has been a crime. The spring snows uncovered a fortune for us, and you know it!"

"Oh, yes, eight hundred in one day ain't bad for two men that never had saw a gold pan a year ago. But she ain't petered yit. With what we've learned, an' what we know, we kin stay in here an' git so rich that hit sh.o.r.e makes me cry ter think o' trappin' beaver, even before 1836, when the beaver market busted. Why, rich? Will, hit's like you say, plumb wrong--we done hit so d.a.m.ned easy! I lay awake nights plannin' how ter spend my share o' this pile. We must have fifty-sixty thousand dollars o' dust buried under the floor, don't ye think?"

"Yes, more. But if you'll agree, I'll sell this claim to the company below us and let them have the rest. They offer fifty thousand flat, and it's enough--more than enough. I want two things--to get Jim Bridger his share safe and sound; and I want to go to Oregon."

The old man paused in the act of splitting off a deer rib from his roast.

"Ye're one awful d.a.m.n fool, ain't ye, Will? I did hope ter finish up here, a-brilin' my meat in a yaller-gold fireplace; but no matter how plain an' simple a man's tastes is, allus somethin' comes along ter bust 'em up."

"Well, go on and finish your meal in this plain fireplace of ours, Bill. It has done us very well. I think I'll go down to the sluice a while."

Banion rose and left the cabin, stooping at the low door. Moodily he walked along the side of the steep ravine to which the little structure clung. Below him lay the ripped-open slope where the little stream had been diverted. Below again lay the bared bed of the exploited water course, floored with bowlders set in deep gravel, at times with seamy dams of flat rock lying under and across the gravel stretches; the bed rock, ages old, holding in its hidden fingers the rich secrets of immemorial time.

Here he and his partner had in a few months of strenuous labor taken from the narrow and unimportant rivulet more wealth than most could save in a lifetime of patient and thrifty toil. Yes, fortune had been kind.

And it all had been so easy, so simple, so unagitating, so matter-of-fact! The hillside now looked like any other hillside, innocent as a woman's eyes, yet covering how much! Banion could not realize that now, young though he was, he was a rich man.

He climbed down the side of the ravine, the little stones rattling under his feet, until he stood on the bared floor of the bed rock which had proved so unbelievably prolific in coa.r.s.e gold.

There was a sharp bend in the ravine, and here the unpaid toil of the little waterway had, ages long, carried and left especially deep strata of gold-shot gravel. As he stood, half musing, Will Banion heard, on the ravine side around the bend, the tinkle of a falling stone, lazily rolling from one impediment to another. It might be some deer or other animal, he thought. He hastened to get view of the cause, whatever it might be.

And then fate, chance, the G.o.ddess of fortune which some men say does not exist, but which all wilderness-goers know does exist, for one instant paused, with Will Banion's life and wealth and happiness lightly a-balance in cold, disdainful fingers.

He turned the corner. Almost level with his own, he looked into the eyes of a crawling man who--stooped, one hand steadying himself against the slant of the ravine, the other below, carrying a rifle--was peering frowningly ahead.

It was an evil face, bearded, aquiline, not unhandsome; but evil in its plain meaning now. The eyes were narrowed, the full lips drawn close, as though some tense emotion now approached its climax. The appearance was that of strain, of nerves stretched in some purpose long sustained.

And why not? When a man would do murder, when that has been his steady and premeditated purpose for a year, waiting only for opportunity to serve his purpose, that purpose itself changes his very lineaments, alters his whole cast of countenance. Other men avoid him, knowing unconsciously what is in his soul, because of what is written on his face.

For months most men had avoided Woodhull. It was known that he was on a man hunt. His questions, his movements, his changes of locality showed that; and Woodhull was one of those who cannot avoid a.s.severance, needing it for their courage sake. Now morose and brooding, now loudly profane, now laughing or now aloof, his errand in these unknown hills was plain. Well, he was not alone among men whose depths were loosed.

Some time his hour might come.

It had come! He stared now full into the face of his enemy! He at last had found him. Here stood his enemy, unarmed, delivered into his hands.

For one instant the two stood, staring into one another's eyes. Banion's advance had been silent. Woodhull was taken as much unawares as he.

It had been Woodhull's purpose to get a stand above the sluices, hidden by the angle, where he could command the reach of the stream bed where Banion and Jackson last had been working. He had studied the place before, and meant to take no chances. His shot must be sure.

But now, in his climbing on the steep hillside, his rifle was in his left hand, downhill, and his footing, caught as he was with one foot half raised, was insecure. At no time these last four hours had his opportunity been so close--or so poor--as precisely now!

He saw Will Banion's eyes, suddenly startled, quickly estimating, looking into his own. He knew that behind his own eyes his whole foul soul lay bared--the soul of a murderer.

Woodhull made a swift spring down the hill, scrambling, half erect, and caught some sort of stance for the work which now was his to do. He snarled, for he saw Banion stoop, unarmed. It would do his victim no good to run. There was time even to exult, and that was much better in a long-deferred matter such as this.

"Now, d.a.m.n you, I've got you!"

He gave Banion that much chance to see that he was now to die.

Half leaning, he raised the long rifle to its line and touched the trigger.

The report came; and Banion fell. But even as he wheeled and fell, stumbling down the hillside, his flung arm apparently had gained a weapon. It was not more than the piece of rotten quartz he had picked up and planned to examine later. He flung it straight at Woodhull's face--an act of chance, of instinct. By a hair it saved him.

Firing and missing at a distance of fifty feet, Woodhull remained not yet a murderer in deed. In a flash Banion gathered and sprang toward him as he stood in a half second of consternation at seeing his victim fall and rise again. The rifle carried but the one shot. He flung it down, reached for his heavy knife, raising an arm against the second piece of rock which Banion flung as he closed. He felt his wrist caught in an iron grip, felt the blood gush where his temple was cut by the last missile. And then once more, on the narrow bared floor that but now was patterned in parquetry traced in yellow, and soon must turn to red, it came to man and man between them--and it was free!

They fell and stumbled so that neither could much damage the other at first. Banion knew he must keep the impounded hand back from the knife sheath or he was done. Thus close, he could make no escape. He fought fast and furiously, striving to throw, to bend, to beat back the body of a man almost as strong as himself, and now a maniac in rage and fear.

The sound of the rifle shot rang through the little defile. To Jackson, shaving off bits of sweet meat between thumb and knife blade, it meant the presence of a stranger, friend or foe, for he knew Banion had carried no weapon with him. His own long rifle he s.n.a.t.c.hed from its pegs. At a long, easy lope he ran along the path which carried across the face of the ravine. His moccasined feet made no sound. He saw no one in the creek bed or at the long turn. But new, there came a loud, wordless cry which he knew was meant for him. It was Will Banion's voice.

The two struggling men grappled below him had no notion of how long they had fought. It seemed an age, and the denouement yet another age deferred. But to them came the sound of a voice:

"Git away, Will! Stand back!"

It was Jackson.

They both, still gripped, looked up the bank. The long barrel of a rifle, foreshortened to a black point, above it a cold eye, fronted and followed them as they swayed. The crooked arm of the rifleman was motionless, save as it just moved that deadly circle an inch this way, an inch back again.

Banion knew that this was murder, too, but he knew that naught on earth could stay it now. To guard as much as he could against a last desperate knife thrust even of a dying man, he broke free and sprang back as far as he could, falling prostrate on his back as he did so, tripped by an unseen stone. But Sam Woodhull was not upon him now, was not willing to lose his own life in order to kill. For just one instant he looked up at the death staring down on him, then turned to run.