Part 21 (1/2)

Perhaps the disappointment of my cursory reconnoiter showed itself in my expression. Curt Dawson, who stood with his arms folded and his loose length draped against the door-jamb, grinned at my dolorous face.

”Nice place, ain't hit--fer a murder?”

”That's about all,” I responded affably enough. I had discovered that I was gaining nothing by a sullen att.i.tude and I am afraid that I was even yielding to a cheap desire to impress these desperadoes with my indifference.

”By the way,” I added, ”what's the delay about? Why don't you finish up your job and get to a more comfortable place?”

Again he grinned. ”Say, stranger,” he questioned, ”ain't we treatin' yer pretty well? Was you ever in any other jail where yer got better handled? I've done laid myself out ter make yer visit memorable.”

”It will be,” I a.s.sured him, ”provided I live long enough to remember it--and--” I reached out my manacled hand for some of his ”natural leaf”

and loaded the cob pipe with which I had been presented, ”whenever I pa.s.s through Frankfort in after years, Dawson, I promise to drop into the penitentiary and pay you a visit.”

”No Dawson ain't never put up thar yit,” came his quick retort, with a flash that showed I had touched his raw nerve of fear, but the smile came back as he added, ”as fer me, I venerates the traditions of my family.”

I had never succeeded in trapping this unique man-killer into any admission which he did not care to make, and I had begun to understand his ability to take the witness stand and run, unscathed, the gantlet of cross-examination. Still, I could not refrain now from putting a leading question.

”How did it occur to you to bring me here? Had the judge arranged in advance that I should be kidnaped?”

”The who?” he inquired.

”Judge Garvin.”

”Aw!” his laugh was hearty and prolonged. ”So that's the idee that's bitin' yer? The jedge thinks I'm in Virginny. In fact, stranger, I am in Virginny. I just seems ter be here, but I hain't. I brought yer here because yer'd done been firin' off yer face ter the effect that yer thought yer saw me shoot at yer from the laurel. I didn't low ter have yer testifyin' ter no sich false notion. Hit mout injer my rep'tation fer peace and quiet.”

Still he later made me a proposal which I promptly rejected. ”I done been studyin' right smart, an' we ain't doin' no good fer ourselves, stayin' round here,” he ventured. ”I done sort figgered that mebby if hits plum agreeable ter you, we mout take yer down ter the railroad cars, an' let yer promise to leave the mountings and keep yer face shet.”

”What reason have you to suppose that I'd keep a promise made under duress?”

”I got two reasons ter spose hit. In the fust place the minnit yer busts yer contrack an' comes back inter this jurisdiction I gives yer my word I'm goin' ter kill yer thar same's I would er houn' dawg. In the second place, I'd have this here--” He fumbled awkwardly in his pocket and brought out a paper which he handed me to read. It was an affidavit legally drawn, with blank s.p.a.ces for my signature, and that of witnesses. It purported to have been written in an attorney's office in Virginia and to be duly attested. The doc.u.ment represented me as stating voluntarily that I had seen Curt Dawson (in Virginia) and had realized that he was not the man whom I had recognized among our a.s.sailants. I was leaving the mountain country, so I was asked to swear, because, being an Easterner, I did not find the environment congenial. The fantastic bit of perjury culminated in this highly colored peroration:

”I feel that, in intimating that the said Curt Dawson made said or any attempt upon the lives of my party, I have been guilty of an unpardonable injustice, which I deeply deplore and for which I feel sincere chagrin.” As I read that pa.s.sage I laughed with an amus.e.m.e.nt that was not feigned, and then I tore the paper into fragments which I scattered among the ashes.

Dawson watched me and shrugged his shoulders.

”We don't hardly like ter kill furriners--” he said. ”Them folks down below misunderstands. .h.i.t an' raises h.e.l.l--but I reckon ef they won't take nuthin' but killin' they kin git kilt.”

So they had planned not only to keep me out of court, but to present my affidavit when it became convenient: an affidavit purporting to have been made by me across the Virginia line, while I was abjectly fleeing.

Weighborne and maybe his wife as well, whom I had already grossly insulted, would hear the reading of my Iscariot betrayal. If it were possible for them to think more contemptuously of me than they already did, this would be the precise climax to bring about such a result.

Most of that day I spent below stairs. In the afternoon Bud left the cabin and shortly after returned in great excitement.

”Git that d.a.m.ned feller upstairs quick,” he cautioned. ”A couple of them Marcus men is stragglin' round here, an' they mout come in.”

Dawson leaped from his chair as though electrified, and his face showed a pa.s.sion of anxiety. He sprang toward me and seizing my shoulder pivoted me, pointing to the stairs.

”Hustle,” he shouted as he pushed me toward the door. ”Git movin'.”

Naturally I did not obey. I scented the possibility of rescue, so I laughed at him and stolidly stood my ground.

”This place suits me,” I said.

With the swiftest demonstration of the art of weapon-drawing I have ever seen he brought his magazine pistol from its holster and thrust it into my chest. His chin shot belligerently out and his eyes narrowed into blazing slits. His profanity came in a wild torrent.