The Open Boat and Other Stories
made air seem nearer to water, and no eye could have seen through it
the black things that moved like monster lizards toward the camp. The
branches, the leaves, that are fain to cry out when death approaches in
the wilds, were frustrated by these uncanny bodies gliding with the
finesse of the escaping serpent. They crept forward to the last point
where assuredly no frantic attempt of the fire could discover them, and
there they paused to locate the prey. A romance relates the tale of the
black cell hidden deep in the earth, where, upon entering, one sees
only the little eyes of snakes fixing him in menaces. If a man could
have approached a certain spot in the bushes, he would not have found
it romantically necessary to have his hair rise. There would have been
a sufficient expression of horror in the feeling of the death-hand at
the nape of his neck and in his rubber knee-joints.
Two of these bodies finally moved toward each other until for each
there grew out of the darkness a face placidly smiling with tender
dreams of assassination. "The fool is asleep by the fire, God be
praised!" The lips of the other widened in a grin of affectionate
appreciation of the fool and his plight. There was some signaling in
the gloom, and then began a series of subtle rustlings, interjected
often with pauses, during which no sound arose but the sound of faint
breathing.
A bush stood like a rock in the stream of firelight, sending its long
shadow backward. With painful caution the little company travelled
along this shadow, and finally arrived at the rear of the bush. Through
its branches they surveyed for a moment of comfortable satisfaction a
form in a grey blanket extended on the ground near the fire. The smile
of joyful anticipation fled quickly, to give place to a quiet air of
business. Two men lifted shot-guns with much of the barrels gone, and
sighting these weapons through the branches, pulled trigger together.
The noise of the explosions roared over the lonely mesquit as if these
guns wished to inform the entire world; and as the grey smoke fled,
the dodging company back of the bush saw the blanketed form twitching;
whereupon they burst out in chorus in a laugh, and arose as merry as a
lot of banqueters. They gleefully gestured congratulations, and strode
bravely into the light of the fire.
Then suddenly a new laugh rang from some unknown spot in the darkness.
It was a fearsome laugh of ridicule, hatred, ferocity. It might have
been demoniac. It smote them motionless in their gleeful prowl, as the
stern voice from the sky smites the legendary malefactor. They might
have been a weird group in wax, the light of the dying fire on their
yellow faces, and shining athwart their eyes turned toward the darkness
whence might come the unknown and the terrible.
The thing in the grey blanket no longer twitched; but if the knives in
their hands had been thrust toward it, each knife was now drawn back,
and its owner's elbow was thrown upward, as if he expected death from
the clouds.
This laugh had so chained their reason that for a moment they had no
wit to flee. They were prisoners to their terror. Then suddenly the
belated decision arrived, and with bubbling cries they turned to run;
but at that instant there was a long flash of red in the darkness, and
with the report one of the men shouted a bitter shout, spun once, and
tumbled headlong. The thick bushes failed to impede the route of the
others.
The silence returned to the wilderness. The tired flames faintly
illumined the blanketed thing and the flung corpse of the marauder, and
sang the fire chorus, the ancient melody which bears the message of the
inconsequence of human tragedy.
V
"Now you are worse off than ever," said the young man, dry-voiced and
awed.
"No, I ain't," said Bill rebelliously. "I'm one ahead."
After reflection, the stranger remarked, "Well, there's seven more."
They were cautiously and slowly approaching the camp. The sun was
flaring its first warming rays over the grey wilderness. Upreared
twigs, prominent branches, shone with golden light, while the shadows
under the mesquit were heavily blue.
Suddenly the stranger uttered a frightened cry. He had arrived at a
point whence he had, through openings in the thicket, a clear view of a
dead face.
"Gosh!" said Bill, who at the next instant had seen the thing; "I
thought at first it was that there José. That would have been queer,
after what I told 'im yesterday."
They continued their way, the stranger wincing in his walk, and Bill
exhibiting considerable curiosity.
The yellow beams of the new sun were touching the grim hues of the
dead Mexican's face, and creating there an inhuman effect, which made
his countenance more like a mask of dulled brass. One hand, grown
curiously thinner, had been flung out regardlessly to a cactus bush.
Bill walked forward and stood looking respectfully at the body. "I know
that feller; his name is Miguel. He----"
The stranger's nerves might have been in that condition when there
is no backbone to the body, only a long groove. "Good heavens!" he
exclaimed, much agitated; "don't speak that way!"
"What way?" said Bill. "I only said his name was Miguel."
After a pause the stranger said:
"Oh, I know; but----" He waved his hand. "Lower your voice, or
something. I don't know. This part of the business rattles me, don't
you see?"
"Oh, all right," replied Bill, bowing to the other's mysterious
mood. But in a moment he burst out violently and loud in the most
extraordinary profanity, the oaths winging from him as the sparks go
from the funnel.
He had been examining the contents of the bundled grey blanket, and
he had brought forth, among other things, his frying-pan. It was now
only a rim with a handle; the Mexican volley had centered upon it. A
Mexican shot-gun of the abbreviated description is ordinarily loaded
with flat-irons, stove-lids, lead pipe, old horseshoes, sections of
chain, window weights, railroad sleepers and spikes, dumb-bells, and
any other junk which may be at hand. When one of these loads encounters
a man vitally, it is likely to make an impression upon him, and a
cooking-utensil may be supposed to subside before such an assault of
curiosities.
Bill held high his desecrated frying-pan, turning it this way and that
way. He swore until he happened to note the absence of the stranger. A
moment later he saw him leading his horse from the bushes. In silence
and sullenly the young man went about saddling the animal. Bill said,
"Well, goin' to pull out?"
The stranger's hands fumbled uncertainly at the throat-latch. Once
he exclaimed irritably, blaming the buckle for the trembling of his
fingers. Once he turned to look at the dead face with the light of the
morning sun upon it. At last he cried, "Oh, I know the whole thing was
all square enough--couldn't be squarer--but--somehow or other, that
man there takes the heart out of me." He turned his troubled face for
another look. "He seems to be all the time calling me a--he makes me
feel like a murderer."
"But," said Bill, puzzling, "you didn't shoot him, mister; I shot him."
"I know; but I feel that way, somehow. I can't get rid of it."
Bill considered for a time; then he said diffidently, "Mister, you're a
eddycated man, ain't you?"
"What?"
"You're what they call a--a eddycated man, ain't you?"
The young man, perplexed, evidently had a question upon his lips, when
there was a roar of guns, bright flashes, and in the air such hooting
and whistling as would come from a swift flock of steam-boilers. The
stranger's horse gave a mighty, convulsive spring, snorting wildly in
its sudden anguish, fell upon its knees, scrambled afoot again, and was
away in the uncanny death run known to men who have seen the finish of
brave horses.
"This comes from discussin' things," cried Bill angrily.
He had thrown himself flat on the ground facing the thicket whence had
come the firing. He could see the smoke winding over the bush-tops.
He lifted his revolver, and the weapon came slowly up from the ground
and poised like the glittering crest of a snake. Somewhere on his face
there was a kind of smile, cynical, wicked, deadly, of a ferocity which
at the same time had brought a deep flush to his face, and had caused
two upright lines to glow in his eyes.
"Hello, José!" he called, amiable for satire's sake. "Got your old
blunderbusses loaded up again yet?"
The stillness had returned to the plain. The sun's brilliant rays swept
over the sea of mesquit, painting the far mists of the west with faint
rosy light, and high in the air some great bird fled toward the south.
"You come out here," called Bill, again addressing the landscape, "and
I'll give you some shootin' lessons. That ain't the way to shoot."
Receiving no reply, he began to invent epithets and yell them at
the thicket. He was something of a master of insult, and, moreover,
he dived into his memory to bring forth imprecations tarnished with
age, unused since fluent Bowery days. The occupation amused him, and
sometimes he laughed so that it was uncomfortable for his chest to be
against the ground.
Finally the stranger, prostrate near him, said wearily, "Oh, they've
gone."
"Don't you believe it," replied Bill, sobering swiftly. "They're there
yet--every man of 'em."
"How do you know?"
"Because I do. They won't shake us so soon. Don't put your head up, or
they'll get you, sure."
Bill's eyes, meanwhile, had not wavered from their scrutiny of the
thicket in front. "They're there all right; don't you forget it. Now
you listen." So he called out: "José! Ojo, José! Speak up, _hombre_! I
want have talk. Speak up, you yaller cuss, you!"
Whereupon a mocking voice from off in the bushes said, "Señor?"
"There," said Bill to his ally; "didn't I tell you? The whole batch."
Again he lifted his voice. "José--look--ain't you gittin' kinder tired?
You better go home, you fellers, and git some rest."
The answer was a sudden furious chatter of Spanish, eloquent with
hatred, calling down upon Bill all the calamities which life holds. It
was as if some one had suddenly enraged a cageful of wild cats. The
spirits of all the revenges which they had imagined were loosened at
this time, and filled the air.
"They're in a holler," said Bill, chuckling, "or there'd be shootin'."
Presently he began to grow angry. His hidden enemies called him nine
kinds of coward, a man who could fight only in the dark, a baby who
would run from the shadows of such noble Mexican gentlemen, a dog that
sneaked. They described the affair of the previous night, and informed
him of the base advantage he had taken of their friend. In fact,
they in all sincerity endowed him with every quality which he no less
earnestly believed them to possess. One could have seen the phrases
bite him as he lay there on the ground fingering his revolver.
VI
It is sometimes taught that men do the furious and desperate thing from
an emotion that is as even and placid as the thoughts of a village
clergyman on Sunday afternoon. Usually, however, it is to be believed
that a panther is at the time born in the heart, and that the subject
does not resemble a man picking mulberries.
"B' G----!" said Bill, speaking as from a throat filled with dust,
"I'll go after 'em in a minute."
"Don't you budge an inch!" cried the stranger, sternly. "Don't you
budge!"
"Well," said Bill, glaring at the bushes--"well--"
"Put your head down!" suddenly screamed the stranger, in white alarm.
As the guns roared, Bill uttered a loud grunt, and for a moment leaned
panting on his elbow, while his arm shook like a twig. Then he upreared
like a great and bloody spirit of vengeance, his face lighted with the