The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sheriff And His Partner, by Frank Harris This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Sheriff And His Partner Author: Frank Harris Release Date: October 12, 2007 [EBook #23008] Last Updated: December 18, 2016 Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHERIFF AND HIS PARTNER *** Produced by David Widger
“HIGHWAY ROBBERY WITH VIOLENCE.
JUDGE SHANNON STOPPED.
THE OUTLAW ESCAPES. HE KNOWS SHERIFF JOHNSON.
“Information has just reached us of an outrage perpetrated on the person
of one of our most respected fellow-citizens. The crime was committed in
daylight, on the public highway within four miles of this city; a crime,
therefore, without parallel in this vicinity for the last two years.
Fortunately our County and State authorities can be fully trusted, and we
have no sort of doubt that they can command, if necessary, the succour and
aid of each and every citizen of this locality in order to bring the
offending miscreant to justice.
“We now place the plain recital of this outrage before our readers.
“Yesterday afternoon, as Ex-Judge Shannon was riding from his law-office
in Kiota towards his home on Sumach Bluff, he was stopped about four miles
from this town by a man who drew a revolver on him, telling him at the
same time to pull up. The Judge, being completely unarmed and unprepared,
obeyed, and was told to get down from the buckboard, which he did. He was
then ordered to put his watch and whatever money he had, in the road, and
to retreat three paces.
“The robber pocketed the watch and money, and told him he might tell
Sheriff Johnson that Tom Williams had ‘gone through him,’ and that he
(Williams) could be found at the saloon in Osawotamie at any time. The
Judge now hoped for release, but Tom Williams (if that be the robber’s
real name) seemed to get an afterthought, which he at once proceeded to
carry into effect. Drawing a knife he cut the traces, and took out of the
shafts the Judge’s famous trotting mare, Lizzie D., which he mounted with
the remark:
“‘Sheriff Johnson, I reckon, would come after the money anyway, but the
hoss’ll fetch him—sure pop.’
“These words have just been given to us by Judge Shannon himself, who
tells us also that the outrage took place on the North Section Line,
bounding Bray’s farm.
“After this speech the highway robber Williams rode towards the township
of Osawotamie, while Judge Shannon, after drawing the buckboard to the
edge of the track, was compelled to proceed homewards on foot.
“The outrage, as we have said, took place late last evening, and Judge
Shannon, we understand, did not trouble to inform the County authorities
of the circumstance till to-day at noon, after leaving our office. What
the motive of the crime may have been we do not worry ourselves to
inquire; a crime, an outrage upon justice and order, has been committed;
that is all we care to know. If anything fresh happens in this connection
we propose to issue a second edition of this paper. Our fellow-citizens
may rely upon our energy and watchfulness to keep them posted.
“Just before going to press we learn that Sheriff Johnson was out of town
attending to business when Judge Shannon called; but Sub-Sheriff Jarvis
informs us that he expects the Sheriff back shortly. It is necessary to
add, by way of explanation, that Mr. Jarvis cannot leave the jail
unguarded, even for a few hours.”
As may be imagined this item of news awakened my keenest interest. It
fitted in with some things that I knew already, and I was curious to learn
more. I felt that this was the first act in a drama. Vaguely I remembered
some one telling in disconnected phrases why the Sheriff had left
Missouri, and come to Kansas:
“‘Twas after a quor’ll with a pardner of his, named Williams, who kicked
out.”
Bit by bit the story, to which I had not given much attention when I heard
it, so casually, carelessly was it told, recurred to my memory.
“They say as how Williams cut up rough with Johnson, and drawed a knife on
him, which Johnson gripped with his left while he pulled trigger.—Williams,
I heerd, was in the wrong; I hain’t perhaps got the right end of it;
anyhow, you might hev noticed the Sheriff hes lost the little finger off
his left hand.—Johnson, they say, got right up and lit out from
Pleasant Hill. Perhaps the folk in Mizzoori kinder liked Williams the best
of the two; I don’t know. Anyway, Sheriff Johnson’s a square man; his
record here proves it. An’ real grit, you bet your life.”
The narrative had made but a slight impression on me at the time; I didn’t
know the persons concerned, and had no reason to interest myself in their
fortunes. In those early days, moreover, I was often homesick, and gave
myself up readily to dreaming of English scenes and faces. Now the words
and drawling intonation came back to me distinctly, and with them the
question: Was the robber of Judge Shannon the same Williams who had once
been the Sheriff’s partner? My first impulse was to hurry into the street
and try to find out; but it was the chief part of my duty to stay in the
office till six o’clock; besides, the Sheriff was “out of town,” and
perhaps would not be back that day. The hours dragged to an end at last;
my supper was soon finished, and, as night drew down, I hastened along the
wooden side-walk of Washington Street towards the Carvell House. This
hotel was much too large for the needs of the little town; it contained
some fifty bedrooms, of which perhaps half-a-dozen were permanently
occupied by “high-toned” citizens, and a billiard-room of gigantic size,
in which stood nine tables, as well as the famous bar. The space between
the bar, which ran across one end of the room, and the billiard-tables,
was the favourite nightly resort of the prominent politicians and
gamblers. There, if anywhere, my questions would be answered.
On entering the billiard-room I was struck by the number of men who had
come together. Usually only some twenty or thirty were present, half of
whom sat smoking and chewing about the bar, while the rest watched a game
of billiards or took a “life” in pool. This evening, however, the
billiard-tables were covered with their slate-coloured “wraps,” while at
least a hundred and fifty men were gathered about the open space of
glaring light near the bar. I hurried up the room, but as I approached the
crowd my steps grew slower, and I became half ashamed of my eager,
obtrusive curiosity and excitement. There was a kind of reproof in the
lazy, cool glance which one man after another cast upon me, as I went by.
Assuming an air of indecision I threaded my way through the chairs
uptilted against the sides of the billiard-tables. I had drained a glass
of Bourbon whisky before I realized that these apparently careless men
were stirred by some emotion which made them more cautious, more silent,
more warily on their guard than usual. The gamblers and loafers, too, had
taken “back seats” this evening, whilst hard-working men of the farmer
class who did not frequent the expensive bar of the Carvell House were to
be seen in front. It dawned upon me that the matter was serious, and was
being taken seriously.
The silence was broken from time to time by some casual remark of no
interest, drawled out in a monotone; every now and then a man invited the
“crowd” to drink with him, and that was all. Yet the moral atmosphere was
oppressive, and a vague feeling of discomfort grew upon me. These men
“meant business.”
Presently the door on my left opened—Sheriff Johnson came into the
room.
“Good evenin’,” he said; and a dozen voices, one after another, answered
with “Good evenin’! good evenin’, Sheriff!” A big frontiersman, however, a
horse-dealer called Martin, who, I knew, had been on the old vigilance
committee, walked from the centre of the group in front of the bar to the
Sheriff, and held out his hand with:
“Shake, old man, and name the drink.” The Sheriff took the proffered hand
as if mechanically, and turned to the bar with “Whisky—straight.”
Sheriff Johnson was a man of medium height, sturdily built. A broad
forehead, and clear, grey-blue eyes that met everything fairly, testified
in his favour. The nose, however, was fleshy and snub. The mouth was not
to be seen, nor its shape guessed at, so thickly did the brown moustache
and beard grow; but the short beard seemed rather to exaggerate than
conceal an extravagant out jutting of the lower jaw, that gave a peculiar
expression of energy and determination to the face. His manner was
unobtrusively quiet and deliberate.
It was an unusual occurrence for Johnson to come at night to the
bar-lounge, which was beginning to fall into disrepute among the
puritanical or middle-class section of the community. No one, however,
seemed to pay any further attention to him, or to remark the unusual
cordiality of Martin’s greeting. A quarter of an hour elapsed before
anything of note occurred. Then, an elderly man whom I did not know, a
farmer, by his dress, drew a copy of the “Kiota Tribune” from his pocket,
and, stretching it towards Johnson, asked with a very marked Yankee twang:
“Sheriff, hev yeou read this ‘Tribune’?”
Wheeling half round towards his questioner, the Sheriff replied:
“Yes, sir, I hev.” A pause ensued, which was made significant to me by the
fact that the bar-keeper suspended his hand and did not pour out the
whisky he had just been asked to supply—a pause during which the two
faced each other; it was broken by the farmer saying:
“Ez yeou wer out of town to-day, I allowed yeou might hev missed seein’
it. I reckoned yeou’d come straight hyar before yeou went to hum.”
“No, Crosskey,” rejoined the Sheriff, with slow emphasis; “I went home
first and came on hyar to see the boys.”
“Wall,” said Mr. Crosskey, as it seemed to me, half apologetically,
“knowin’ yeou I guessed yeou ought to hear the facks,” then, with some
suddenness, stretching out his hand, he added, “I hev some way to go, an’
my old woman ‘ull be waitin’ up fer me. Good night, Sheriff.” The hands
met while the Sheriff nodded: “Good night, Jim.”
After a few greetings to right and left Mr. Crosskey left the bar. The
crowd went on smoking, chewing, and drinking, but the sense of expectancy
was still in the air, and the seriousness seemed, if anything, to have
increased. Five or ten minutes may have passed when a man named Reid, who
had run for the post of Sub-Sheriff the year before, and had failed to
beat Johnson’s nominee Jarvis, rose from his chair and asked abruptly:
“Sheriff, do you reckon to take any of us uns with you to-morrow?”
With an indefinable ring of sarcasm in his negligent tone, the Sheriff
answered:
“I guess not, Mr. Reid.”
Quickly Reid replied: “Then I reckon there’s no use in us stayin’;” and
turning to a small knot of men among whom he had been sitting, he added,
“Let’s go, boys!”
The men got up and filed out after their leader without greeting the
Sheriff in any way. With the departure of this group the shadow lifted.
Those who still remained showed in manner a marked relief, and a moment or
two later a man named Morris, whom I knew to be a gambler by profession,
called out lightly:
“The crowd and you’ll drink with me, Sheriff, I hope? I want another
glass, and then we won’t keep you up any longer, for you ought to have a
night’s rest with to-morrow’s work before you.”
The Sheriff smiled assent. Every one moved towards the bar, and
conversation became general. Morris was the centre of the company, and he
directed the talk jokingly to the account in the “Tribune,” making fun, as
it seemed to me, though I did not understand all his allusions, of the
editor’s timidity and pretentiousness. Morris interested and amused me
even more than he amused the others; he talked like a man of some
intelligence and reading, and listening to him I grew light-hearted and
careless, perhaps more careless than usual, for my spirits had been
ice-bound in the earlier gloom of the evening.
“Fortunately our County and State authorities can be fully trusted,” some
one said.
“Mark that ‘fortunately’, Sheriff,” laughed Morris. “The editor was afraid
to mention you alone, so he hitched the State on with you to lighten the
load.”
“Ay!” chimed in another of the gamblers, “and the ‘aid and succour of each
and every citizen,’ eh, Sheriff, as if you’d take the whole town with you.
I guess two or three’ll be enough fer Williams.”
This annoyed me. It appeared to me that Williams had addressed a 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, barkeeper!”
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 something 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 Sheriffs 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 Sheriffs 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 dog-goned 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.
End of Project Gutenberg’s The Sheriff And His Partner, by Frank Harris
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