The Death Shot: A Story Retold

After skirting the mud-flat for a time, the figure – whether ghost or human – turns face toward the tract of lighter woodland, extending between the thick timber and cleared ground of the plantations.

Having traversed this, the nocturnal wayfarer comes within sight of the deserted cottage, late occupied by the Clancys.

The moonlight, falling upon his face, shows it to be white. Also, that his cheeks are pallid, with eyes hollow and sunken, as from sickness – some malady long-endured, and not yet cured. As he strides over fallen logs, or climbs fences stretching athwart his course, his tottering step tells of a frame enfeebled.

When at length clear of the woods, and within sight of the untenanted dwelling, he stops, and for a time remains contemplating it. That he is aware of its being unoccupied is evident, from the glance with which he regards it.

His familiarity with the place is equally evident. On entering the cottage grounds, which he soon after does, through, some shrubbery at the back, he takes the path leading up to the house, without appearing to have any doubt about its being the right one.

For all this he makes approach with caution, looking suspiciously around – either actually afraid, or not desiring to be observed.

There is little likelihood of his being so. At that hour all in the settlement should be asleep. The house stands remote, more than a mile from its nearest neighbour. It is empty; has been stripped of its furniture, of everything. What should any one be doing there?

What is he doing there? A question which would suggest itself to one seeing him; with interest added on making note of his movements.

There is no one to do either; and he continues on to the house, making for its back door, where there is a porch, as also a covered way, leading to a log-cabin – the kitchen.

Even as within the porch, he tries the handle of the door which at a touch goes open. There is no lock, or if there was, it has not been thought worth while to turn the key in it. There are no burglars in the backwoods. If there were, nothing in that house need tempt them.

Its nocturnal visitor enters under its roof. The ring of his footsteps, though he still treads cautiously, gives out a sad, solemn sound. It is in unison with the sighs that come, deep-drawn, from his breast; at times so sonorous as to be audible all over the house.

He passes from room to room. There are not many – only five of them. In each he remains a few moments, gazing dismally around. But in one – that which was the widow’s sleeping chamber – he tarries a longer time; regarding a particular spot – the place formerly occupied by a bed. Then a sigh, louder than any that has preceded it, succeeded by the words, low-muttered: —

“There she must have breathed her last!”

After this speech, more sighing, accompanied by still surer signs of sorrow – sobs and weeping. As the moonbeams, pouring in through the open window, fall upon his face, their pale silvery light sparkles upon tears, streaming from hollow eyes, chasing one another down emaciated cheeks.

After surrendering himself some minutes to what appears a very agony of grief, he turns out of the sleeping chamber; passes through the narrow hall-way; and on into the porch. Not now the back one, but that facing front to the road.

On the other side of this is an open tract of ground, half cleared, half woodland; the former sterile, the latter scraggy. It seems to belong to no one, as if not worth claiming, or cultivating. It has been, in fact, an appanage of Colonel Armstrong’s estate, who had granted it to the public as the site for a schoolhouse, and a common burying-ground – free to all desiring to be instructed, or needing to be interred. The schoolhouse has disappeared, but the cemetery is still there – only distinguishable from the surrounding terrain by some oblong elevations, having the well-known configuration of graves. There are in all about a score of them; some having a plain head-board – a piece of painted plank, with letters rudely limned, recording the name and age of him or her resting underneath.

Time and the weather have turned most of them greyish, with dates decayed, and names scarcely legible. But there is one upon which the paint shows fresh and white; in the clear moonlight gleaming like a meteor.

He who has explored the deserted dwelling, stands for a while with eyes directed on this recently erected memorial. Then, stepping down from the porch, he passes through the wicket-gate; crosses the road; and goes straight towards it, as though a hand beckoned him thither.

When close up, he sees it to be by a grave upon which the herbage has not yet grown.

The night is a cold one – chill for that Southern clime. The dew upon the withered grass of the grave turf is almost congealed into hoar frost, adding to its ghostly aspect.

The lettering upon the head-board is in shadow, the moon being on the opposite side.

But stooping forward, so as to bring his eyes close to the slab, he is enabled to decipher the inscription.

It is the simplest form of memento – only a name, with the date of death —

“Caroline Clancy,

Died January 18 – ”

After reading it, a fresh sob bursts from his bosom, new tears start from his eyes, and he flings himself down upon the grave. Disregarding the dew, thinking nought of the night’s dullness, he stretches his arms over the cold turf, embracing it as though it were the warm body of one beloved!

For several minutes he remains in this attitude. Then, suddenly rising erect, as if impelled by some strong purpose, there comes from his lips, poured forth in wild passionate accent, the speeches: —

“Mother! dear mother! I am still living! I am here! And you, dead! No more to know – no more hear me! O God!”

They are the words of one frantic with grief, scarce knowing what he says.

Presently, sober reason seems to assert itself, and he again resumes speech; but now with voice, expression of features, attitude, everything so changed, that no one, seeing him the moment before, would believe it the same man.

Upon his countenance sternness has replaced sorrow; the soft lines have become rigid; the melancholy glance is gone, replaced by one that tells of determination – of vengeance.

Once more he glances down at the grave; then up to the sky, till the moon, coursing across high heaven, falls full upon his face. With his body slightly leaning backward, the arms along his sides, stiffly extended, the hands closed in convulsive clutch, he cries out: —

“By the heavens above – by the shade of my murdered mother, who lies beneath – I swear not to know rest, never more seek contentment, till I’ve punished her murderer! Night and day – through summer and winter – shall I search for him. Yes; search till I’ve found and chastised this man, this monster, who has brought blight on me, death to my mother, and desolation to our house! Ah! think not you can escape me! Texas, whither I know you have gone, will not be large enough to hold, nor its wilderness wide enough to screen you from my vengeance. If not found there, I shall follow you to the end of the earth – to the end of the earth, Richard Darke!”

“Charley Clancy!”

He turns as if a shot had struck him. He sees a man standing within six paces of the spot.

“Sime Woodsy!”

Chapter Thirty Six.

“She is true – still true!”

The men who thus mutually pronounce each other’s names are they who bear them. For it is, in truth, Charles Clancy who stands by the grave, and Simeon Woodley who has saluted him.

The surprise is all upon the side of Sime, and something more. He beholds a man all supposed to be dead, apparently returned from the tomb! Sees him in a place appropriate to resurrection, in the centre of a burying-ground, by the side of a recently made grave!

The backwoodsman is not above believing in spiritual existences, and for an instant he is under a spell of the supernatural.

It passes off on his perceiving that real flesh and blood is before him – Charles Clancy himself, and not his wraith.

He reaches this conclusion the sooner from having all along entertained a doubt about Clancy being dead. Despite the many circumstances pointing to, almost proving, his death, Woodley was never quite convinced of it. No one has taken so much trouble, or made so many efforts, to clear up the mystery. He has been foremost in the attempt to get punishment for the guilty man, as in the search for the body of his victim; both of which failed, to his great humiliation; his grief too, for he sincerely lamented his lost friend. Friends they were of no common kind. Not only had they oft hunted in company, but been together in Texas during Clancy’s visit to the Lone Star State; together at Nacogdoches, where Borlasse received chastisement for stealing the horse; together saw the thief tied to the stake, Woodley being one of the stern jury who sentenced him to be whipped, and saw to the sentence being carried into execution.

The hunter had been to Natchez for the disposal of some pelts and deer-meat, a week’s produce of his gun. Returning at a late hour, he must needs pass the cottage of the Clancys, his own humble domicile lying beyond. At sight of the deserted dwelling a painful throb passed through his heart, as he recalled the sad fate of those who once occupied it.

Making an effort to forget the gloomy record, he was riding on, when a figure flitting across the road arrested his attention. The clear moonlight showed the figure to be that of a man, and one whose movements betrayed absence of mind, if not actual aberration.

With the instinct habitual to the hunter Woodley at once tightened rein, coming to a stop under the shadow of the roadside trees. Sitting in his saddle he watched the midnight wanderer, whose eccentric movements continued to cause him surprise. He saw the latter walk on to the little woodland cemetery, take stand by the side of a grave, bending forward as if to read the epitaph on its painted slab. Soon after kneeling down as in prayer, then throwing himself prostrate along the earth. Woodley well knew the grave thus venerated. For he had himself assisted in digging and smoothing down the turf that covered it. He had also been instrumental in erecting the frail tablet that stood over. Who was this man, in the chill, silent hour of midnight, flinging himself upon it in sorrow or adoration?

With a feeling far different from curiosity, the hunter slipped out of his saddle, and leaving his horse behind, cautiously approached the spot. As the man upon the grave was too much absorbed with his own thoughts, he got close up without being observed; so close as to hear that strange adjuration, and see a face he never expected to look upon again. Despite the features, pale and marked with emaciation, the hollow cheeks, and sunken but glaring eyeballs, he recognised the countenance of Charles Clancy; soon as he did so, mechanically calling out his name.

Hearing his own pronounced, in response, Sime again exclaims, “Charley Clancy!” adding the interrogatory, “Is it yurself or yur shader?”

Then, becoming assured, he throws open his arms, and closes them around his old hunting associate.

Joy, at seeing the latter still alive, expels every trace of supernatural thought, and he gives way – to exuberant congratulation.