The Death Shot: A Story Retold

At the conclusion of his fulsome speech Helen Armstrong cares but little for the proffered championship, and not much for aught else.

Her heart is nigh to breaking. She has given her affections to Clancy – in that last letter written, lavished them. And they have been trifled with – scorned! She, daughter of the erst proudest planter in all Mississippi State, has been slighted for a Creole girl; possibly, one of the “poor white trash” living along the bayous’ edge. Full proof she has of his perfidy, or how should Darke know of it? More maddening still, the man so slighting her, has been making boast of it, proclaiming her suppliance and shame, showing her photograph, exulting in the triumph obtained! “O God!”

Not in prayer, but angry ejaculation, does the name of the Almighty proceed from her lips. Along with it a scarce-suppressed scream, as, despairingly, she turns her face towards home.

Darke sees his opportunity, or thinks so; and again flings himself before her – this time on his knees.

“Helen Armstrong!” he exclaims, in an earnestness of passion – if not pure, at least heartfelt and strong – “why should you care for a man who thus mocks you? Here am I, who love you, truly – madly – more than my own life! ’Tis not too late to withdraw the answer you have given me. Gainsay it, and there need be no change – no going to Texas. Your father’s home may still be his, and yours. Say you’ll be my wife, and everything shall be restored to him – all will yet be well.”

She is patient to the conclusion of his appeal. Its apparent sincerity stays her; though she cannot tell, or does not think, why. It is a moment of mechanical irresolution.

But, soon as ended, again returns the bitterness that has just swept through her soul – torturing her afresh.

There is no balm in the words spoken by Dick Darke; on the contrary, they but cause increased rankling.

To his appeal she makes answer, as once before she has answered him – with a single word. But now repeated three times, and in a tone not to be mistaken.

On speaking it, she parts from the spot with proud haughty step, and a denying disdainful gesture, which tells him, she is not to be further stayed.

Spited, chagrined, angry, in his craven heart he feels also cowed, subdued, crestfallen. So much, he dares not follow her, but remains under the magnolia; from whose hollow trunk seems to reverberate the echo of her last word, in its treble repetition: “never—never—never!”

Chapter Thirteen.

The coon-hunter at home

Over the fields of Ephraim Darke’s plantation a lingering ray of daylight still flickers, as Blue Bill, returning from his abandoned coon-hunt, gets back to the negro quarter. He enters it, with stealthy tread, and looking cautiously around.

For he knows that some of his fellow-slaves are aware of his having gone out “a-cooning,” and will wonder at his soon return – too soon to pass without observation. If seen by them he may be asked for an explanation, which he is not prepared to give.

To avoid being called upon for it, he skulks in among the cabins; still carrying the dog under his arm, lest the latter may take a fancy to go smelling among the utensils of some other darkey’s kitchen, and betray his presence in the “quarter.”

Fortunately for the coon-hunter, the little “shanty” that claims him as its tenant stands at the outward extremity of the row of cabins – nearest the path leading to the plantation woodland. He is therefore enabled to reach, and re-enter it, without any great danger of attracting observation.

And as it chances, he is not observed; but gets back into the bosom of his family, no one being a bit the wiser.

Blue Bill’s domestic circle consists of his wife, Phoebe, and several half-naked little “niggers,” who, at his return, tackle on to his legs, and, soon as he sits down, clamber confusedly over his knees. So circumstanced, one would think he should now feel safe, and relieved from further anxiety. Far from it: he has yet a gauntlet to run.

His re-appearance so early, unexpected; his empty gamebag; the coon-dog carried under his arm; all have their effect upon Phoebe. She cannot help feeling surprise, accompanied by a keen curiosity.

She is not the woman to submit to it in silence.

Confronting her dark-skinned lord and master, with arms set akimbo, she says, —

“Bress de Lor’, Bill! Wha’ for you so soon home? Neider coon nor possum! An’ de dog toated arter dat trange fashun! You ain’t been gone more’n a hour! Who’d speck see you come back dat a way, empty-handed; nuffin, ’cep your own ole dog! ’Splain it, sah?”

Thus confronted, the coon-hunter lets fall his canine companion; which drops with a dump upon the floor. Then seats himself on a stool, but without entering upon the demanded explanation. He only says: —

“Nebba mind, Phoebe, gal; nebba you mind why I’se got home so soon. Dat’s nuffin ’trange. I seed de night warn’t a gwine to be fav’ble fo’ trackin’ de coon; so dis nigga konklood he’d leab ole cooney ’lone.”

“Lookee hya, Bill!” rejoins the sable spouse, laying her hand upon his shoulder, and gazing earnestly into his eyes. “Dat ere ain’t de correck explicashun. You’s not tellin’ me de troof!”

The coon-hunter quails under the searching glance, as if in reality a criminal; but still holds back the demanded explanation. He is at a loss what to say.

“Da’s somethin’ mysteerus ’bout dis,” continues his better half. “You’se got a seecrit, nigga; I kin tell it by de glint ob yer eye. I nebba see dat look on ye, but I know you ain’t yaseff; jess as ye use deseeve me, when you war in sich a way ’bout brown Bet.”

“Wha you talkin ’bout, Phoebe? Dar’s no brown Bet in de case. I swar dar ain’t.”

“Who sayed dar war? No, Bill, dat’s all pass. I only spoked ob her ’kase ya look jess now like ye did when Bet used bamboozle ye. What I say now am dat you ain’t yaseff. Dar’s a cat in de bag, somewha; you better let her out, and confess de whole troof.”

As Phoebe makes this appeal, her glance rests inquiringly on her husband’s countenance, and keenly scrutinises the play of his features.

There is not much play to be observed. The coon-hunter is a pure-blooded African, with features immobile as those of the Sphinx. And from his colour nought can be deduced. As already said, it is the depth of its ebon blackness, producing a purplish iridescence over the epidermis, that has gained for him the sobriquet “Blue Bill.”

Unflinchingly he stands the inquisitorial glance, and for the time Phoebe is foiled.

Only until after supper, when the frugality of the meal – made so by the barren chase – has perhaps something to do in melting his heart, and relaxing his tongue. Whether this, or whatever the cause, certain it is, that before going to bed, he unburdens himself to the partner of his joys, by making full confession of what he has heard and seen by the side of the cypress swamp.

He tells her, also, of the letter picked up; which, cautiously pulling out of his pocket, he submits to her inspection.

Phoebe has once been a family servant – an indoor domestic, and handmaiden to a white mistress. This in the days of youth – the halcyon days of her girlhood, in “Ole Varginny” – before she was transported west, sold to Ephraim Darke, and by him degraded to the lot of an ordinary outdoor slave. But her original owner taught her to read, and her memory still retains a trace of this early education – sufficient for her to decipher the script put into her hands.

She first looks at the photograph; as it is the first to come out of the envelope. There can be no mistaking whose likeness it is. A lady too conspicuously beautiful to have escaped notice from the humblest slave in the settlement.

The negress spends some seconds gazing upon the portrait, as she does so remarking, —

“How bewful dat young lady!”

“You am right ’bout dat, Phoebe. She bewful as any white gal dis nigga ebber sot eyes on. And she good as bewful. I’se sorry she gwine leab dis hya place. Dar’s many a darkie ’ll miss de dear young lady. An’ won’t Mass Charl Clancy miss her too! Lor! I most forgot; maybe he no trouble ’bout her now; maybe he’s gone dead! Ef dat so, she miss him, a no mistake. She cry her eyes out.”

“You tink dar war something ’tween dem two?”

“Tink! I’se shoo ob it, Phoebe. Didn’t I see dem boaf down dar in de woodland, when I war out a-coonin. More’n once I seed em togedder. A young white lady an’ genl’m don’t meet dat way unless dar’s a feelin’ atween em, any more dan we brack folks. Besides, dis nigga know dey lub one noder – he know fo sartin. Jule, she tell Jupe; and Jupe hab trussed dat same seecret to me. Dey been in lub long time; afore Mass Charl went ’way to Texas. But de great Kurnel Armstrong, he don’t know nuffin’ ’bout it. Golly! ef he did, he shoo kill Charl Clancy; dat is, if de poor young man ain’t dead arready. Le’s hope ’tain’t so. But, Phoebe, gal, open dat letter, an’ see what de lady say. Satin it’s been wrote by her. Maybe it trow some light on dis dark subjeck.”

Phoebe, thus solicited, takes the letter from the envelope. Then spreading it out, and holding it close to the flare of the tallow dip, reads it from beginning to end.

It is a task that occupies her some considerable time; for her scholastic acquirements, not very bright at the best, have become dimmed by long disuse. For all, she succeeds in deciphering its contents and interpreting them to Bill; who listens with ears wide open and eyes in staring wonderment.

When the reading is at length finished, the two remain for some time silent, – pondering upon the strange circumstances thus revealed to them.

Blue Bill is the first to resume speech. He says: —

“Dar’s a good deal in dat letter I know’d afore, and dar’s odder points as ’pear new to me; but whether de old or de new, ’twon’t do for us folk declar a single word o’ what de young lady hab wrote in dat ere ’pistle. No, Phoebe, neery word must ’scape de lips ob eider o’ us. We muss hide de letter, an’ nebba let nob’dy know dar’s sich a dockyment in our posseshun. And dar must be nuffin’ know’d ’bout dis nigga findin’ it. Ef dat sakumstance war to leak out, I needn’t warn you what ’ud happen to me. Blue Bill ’ud catch de cowhide, – maybe de punishment ob de pump. So, Phoebe, gal, gi’e me yar word to keep dark, for de case am a dangersome, an a desprit one.”

The wife can well comprehend the husband’s caution, with the necessity of compliance; and the two retire to rest, in the midst of their black olive branches, with a mutual promise to be “mum.”

Chapter Fourteen.

Why comes he not?

Helen Armstrong goes to bed, with spiteful thoughts about Charles Clancy. So rancorous she cannot sleep, but turns distractedly on her couch, from time to time changing cheek upon the pillow.

At little more than a mile’s distance from this chamber of unrest, another woman is also awake, thinking of the same man – not spitefully, but anxiously. It is his mother.

As already said, the road running north from Natchez leads past Colonel Armstrong’s gate. A traveller, going in the opposite direction – that is towards the city – on clearing the skirts of the plantation, would see, near the road side, a dwelling of very different kind; of humble unpretentious aspect, compared with the grand mansion of the planter. It would be called a cottage, were this name known in the State of Mississippi – which it is not. Still it is not a log-cabin; but a “frame-house,” its walls of “weather-boarding,” planed and painted, its roof cedar-shingled; a style of architecture occasionally seen in the Southern States, though not so frequently as in the Northern – inhabited by men in moderate circumstances, poorer than planters, but richer, or more gentle, than the “white trash,” who live in log-cabins.

Planters they are in social rank, though poor; perhaps owning a half-dozen slaves, and cultivating a small tract of cleared ground, from twenty to fifty acres. The frame-house vouches for their respectability; while two or three log structures at back – representing barn, stable, and other outbuildings – tell of land attached.

Of this class is the habitation referred to – the home of the widow Clancy.

As already known, her widowhood is of recent date. She still wears its emblems upon her person, and carries its sorrow in her heart.

Her husband, of good Irish lineage, had found his way to Nashville, the capital city of Tennessee; where, in times long past, many Irish families made settlements. There he had married her, she herself being a native Tennesseean – sprung from the old Carolina pioneer stock, that colonised the state near the end of the eighteenth century – the Robertsons, Hyneses, Hardings, and Bradfords – leaving to their descendants a patent of nobility, or at least a family name deserving respect, and generally obtaining it.

In America, as elsewhere, it is not the rule for Irishmen to grow rich; and still more exceptional in the case of Irish gentlemen. When these have wealth their hospitality is too apt to take the place of a spendthrift profuseness, ending in pecuniary embarrassment.

So was it with Captain Jack Clancy; who got wealth with his wife, but soon squandered it entertaining his own and his wife’s friends. The result, a move to Mississippi, where land was cheaper, and his attenuated fortune would enable him to hold out a little longer.

Still, the property he had purchased in Mississippi State was but a poor one; leading him to contemplate a further flit into the rich red lands of North-Eastern Texas, just becoming famous as a field for colonisation. His son Charles sent thither, as said, on a trip of exploration, had spent some months in the Lone Star State, prospecting for the new home; and brought back a report in every way favourable.

But the ear, to which it was to have been spoken, could no more hear. On his return, he found himself fatherless; and to the only son there remains only a mother; whose grief, pressing heavily, has almost brought her to the grave. It is one of a long series of reverses which have sorely taxed her fortitude. Another of like heaviness, and the tomb may close over her.

Some such presentiment is in the mother’s mind, on this very day, as the sun goes down, and she sits in her chamber beside a dim candle, with ear keenly bent to catch the returning footsteps of her son.

He has been absent since noon, having gone deer-stalking, as frequently before. She can spare him for this, and pardon his prolonged absence. She knows how fond he is of the chase; has been so from a boy.

But, on the present occasion, he is staying beyond his usual time. It is now night; the deer have sought their coverts; and he is not “torch-hunting.”

Only one thing can she think of to explain the tardiness of his return. The eyes of the widowed mother have been of late more watchful than wont. She has noticed her son’s abstracted air, and heard sighs that seemed to come from his inner heart. Who can mistake the signs of love, either in man or woman? Mrs Clancy does not. She sees that Charles has lapsed into this condition.

Rumours that seem wafted on the air – signs slight, but significant – perhaps the whisper of a confidential servant – these have given her assurance of the fact: telling her, at the same time, who has won his affections.

Mrs Clancy is neither dissatisfied nor displeased. In all the neighbourhood there is no one she would more wish to have for a daughter-in-law than Helen Armstrong. Not from any thought of the girl’s great beauty, or high social standing. Caroline Clancy is herself too well descended to make much of the latter circumstance. It is the reputed noble character of the lady that influences her approval of her son’s choice.

Thinking of this – remembering her own youth, and the stolen interviews with Charles Clancy’s father – oft under the shadow of night – she could not, does not, reflect harshly on the absence of that father’s son from home, however long, or late the hour.

It is only as the clock strikes twelve, she begins to think seriously about it. Then creeps over her a feeling of uneasiness, soon changing to apprehension. Why should he be staying out so late – after midnight? The same little bird, that brought her tidings of his love-affair, has also told her it is clandestine. Mrs Clancy may not like this. It has the semblance of a slight to her son, as herself – more keenly felt by her in their reduced circumstances. But then, as compensation, arises the retrospect of her own days of courtship carried on in the same way.

Still, at that hour the young lady cannot – dares not – be abroad. All the more unlikely, that the Armstrongs are moving off – as all the neighbourhood knows – and intend starting next day, at an early hour.

The plantation people will long since have retired to rest; therefore an interview with his sweetheart can scarce be the cause of her son’s detention. Something else must be keeping him. What? So run the reflections of the fond mother.

At intervals she starts up from her seat, as some sound reaches her; each time gliding to the door, and gazing out – again to go back disappointed.

For long periods she remains in the porch, her eye interrogating the road that runs past the cottage-gate; her ear acutely listening for footsteps.

Early in the night it has been dark; now there is a brilliant moonlight. But no man, no form moving underneath it. No sound of coming feet; nothing that resembles a footfall.

One o’clock, and still silence; to the mother of Charles Clancy become oppressive, as with increased anxiety she watches and waits.

At intervals she glances at the little “Connecticut” clock that ticks over the mantel. A pedlar’s thing, it may be false, as the men who come south selling “sech.” It is the reflection of a Southern woman, hoping her conjecture may be true.

But, as she lingers in the porch, and looks at the moving moon, she knows the hour must be late.

Certain sounds coming from the forest, and the farther swamp, tell her so. As a backwoods woman she can interpret them. She hears the call of the turkey “gobbler.” She knows it means morning.

The clock strikes two; still she hears no fall of footstep – sees no son returning!

“Where is my Charles? What can be detaining him?”

Phrases almost identical with those that fell from the lips of Helen Armstrong, but a few hours before, in a different place, and prompted by a different sentiment – a passion equally strong, equally pure!

Both doomed to disappointment, alike bitter and hard to bear. The same in cause, but dissimilar in the impression produced. The sweetheart believing herself slighted, forsaken, left without a lover; the mother tortured with the presentiment, she no longer has a son!

When, at a yet later hour – or rather earlier, since it is nigh daybreak – a dog, his coat disordered, comes gliding through the gate, and Mrs Clancy recognises her son’s favourite hunting hound, she has still only a presentiment of the terrible truth. But one which to the maternal heart, already filled with foreboding, feels too like certainty.

And too much for her strength. Wearied with watching, prostrated by the intensity of her vigil, when the hound crawls up the steps, and under the dim light she sees his bedraggled body – blood as well as mud upon it – the sight produces a climax – a shock apparently fatal.

She swoons upon the spot, and is carried inside the house by a female slave – the last left to her.

Chapter Fifteen.

A moonlight moving

While the widowed mother, now doubly bereft – stricken down by the blow – is still in a state of syncope, the faithful negress doing what she can to restore her, there are sounds outside unheard by either. A dull rumble of wheels, as of some heavy vehicle coming along the main road, with the occasional crack of a whip, and the sonorous “wo-ha” of a teamster.

Presently, a large “Conestoga” wagon passes the cottage-gate, full freighted with what looks like house furniture, screened under canvas. The vehicle is drawn by a team of four strong mules, driven by a negro; while at the wagon’s tail, three or four other darkeys follow afoot.

The cortege, of purely southern character, has scarce passed out of sight, and not yet beyond hearing, when another vehicle comes rolling along the road. This, of lighter build, and proceeding at a more rapid rate, is a barouche, drawn by a pair of large Kentucky horses. As the night is warm, and there is no need to spring up the leathern hood – its occupants can all be seen, and their individuality made out. On the box-seat is a black coachman; and by his side a young girl whose tawny complexion, visible in the whiter moonbeams, tells her to be a mulatto. Her face has been seen before, under a certain forest tree – a magnolia – its owner depositing a letter in the cavity of the trunk. She who sits alongside the driver is “Jule.”

In the barouche, behind, is a second face that has been seen under the same tree, but with an expression upon it sadder and more disturbed. For of the three who occupy the inside seats one is Helen Armstrong; the others her father, and sister. They are en route for the city of Natchez, the port of departure for their journey south-westward into Texas; just starting away from their old long-loved dwelling, whose gates they have left ajar, its walls desolate behind thorn.

The wagon, before, carries the remnant of the planter’s property, – all his inexorable creditor allows him to take along. No wonder he sits in the barouche, with bowed head, and chin between his knees, not caring to look back. For the first time in his life he feels truly, terribly humiliated.

This, and no flight from creditors, no writ, nor pursuing sheriff, will account for his commencing the journey at so early an hour. To be seen going off in the open daylight would attract spectators around; it may be many sympathisers. But in the hour of adversity his sensitive nature shrinks from the glance of sympathy, as he would dread the stare of exultation, were any disposed to indulge in it.

But besides the sentiment, there is another cause for their night moving – an inexorable necessity as to time. The steamboat, which is to take them up Red River, leaves Natchez at sunrise. He must be aboard by daybreak.

If the bankrupt planter be thus broken-spirited, his eldest daughter is as much cast down as he, and far more unhappily reflecting.

Throughout all that night Helen Armstrong has had no sleep; and now, in the pale moonlight of the morning, her cheeks show white and wan, while a dark shadow broods upon her brow, and her eyes glisten with wild unnatural light, as one in a raging fever. Absorbed in thought, she takes no heed of anything along the road; and scarce makes answer to an occasional observation addressed to her by her sifter, evidently with the intention to cheer her. It has less chance of success, because of Jessie herself being somewhat out of sorts. Even she, habitually merry, is for the time sobered; indeed saddened at the thought of that they are leaving behind, and what may be before them. Possibly, as she looks back at the gate of their grand old home, through which they will never again go, she may be reflecting on the change from their late luxurious life, to the log-cabin and coarse fare, of which her father had forewarned them.

If so, the reflection is hers – not Helen’s. Different with the latter, and far more bitter the emotion that stirs within her person, scalding her heart. Little cares she what sort of house she is hitherto to dwell in, what she will have to wear, or eat. The scantiest raiment, or coarsest food, can give no discomfort now. She could bear the thought of sheltering under the humblest roof in Texas – ay, think of it with cheerfulness – had Charles Clancy been but true, to share its shelter along with her. He has not, and that is an end of it.

Is it? No; not for her, though it may be for him. In the company of his Creole girl he will soon cease to think of her – forget the solemn vows made, and the sweet words spoken, beneath the magnolia – tree, in her retrospect seeming sadder than yew, or cypress.

Will she ever forget him? Can she? No; unless in that land, whither her face is set, she find the fabled Lethean stream. Oh! it is bitter – keenly bitter!

It reaches the climax of its bitterness, when the barouche rolling along opens out a vista between the trees, disclosing a cottage – Clancy’s. Inside it sleeps the man, who has made her life a misery! Can he sleep, after what he has done?