The Headless Horseman: A Strange Tale of Texas

“But, Captain Calhoun,” pursued Hancock, “your adversary has no knife. If you are not afraid to meet him on equal terms you should surrender yours.”

“Certainly he should!” cried several of the bystanders. “He must! he must!”

“Come, Mr Calhoun!” said the major, in a soothing tone. “Six shots ought to satisfy any reasonable man; without having recourse to the steel. Before you finish firing, one or the other of you – ”

“Damn the knife!” interrupted Calhoun, unbuttoning his coat. Then drawing forth the proscribed weapon, and flinging it to the farthest corner of the saloon, he added, in a tone of bravado, intended to encowardice his adversary. “I sha’n’t want it for such a spangled jay-bird as that. I’ll fetch him out of his boots at the first shot.”

“Time enough to talk when you’ve done something to justify it. Cry boo to a goose; but don’t fancy your big words are going to frighten me, Mr Calhoun! Quick, gentlemen! I’m impatient to put an end to his boasting and blasphemy!”

“Hound!” frantically hissed out the chivalric Southerner. “Low dog of an Irish dam! I’ll send you howling to your kennel! I’ll – ”

“Shame, Captain Calhoun!” interrupted the major, seconded by other voices. “This talk is idle, as it is unpolite in the presence of respectable company. Have patience a minute longer; and you may then say what you like. Now, gentlemen!” he continued, addressing himself to the surrounding, “there is only one more preliminary to be arranged. They must engage not to begin firing till we have got out of their way?”

A difficulty here presented itself. How was the engagement to be given? A simple promise would scarce be sufficient in a crisis like that? The combatants – one of them at least – would not be over scrupulous as to the time of pulling trigger.

“There must be a signal,” pursued the major. “Neither should fire till that be given. Can any one suggest what it is to be?”

“I think. I can,” said the quiet Captain Sloman, advancing as he spoke. “Let the gentlemen go outside, along with us. There is – as you perceive – a door at each end of the room. I see no difference between them. Let them enter again – one at each door, with the understanding that neither is to fire before setting foot across the threshold.”

“Capital! the very thing!” replied several voices. “And what for a signal?” demanded the major. “A shot?”

“No. Ring the tavern bell!”

“Nothing could be better – nothing fairer,” conclusively declared the major, making for one of the doors, that led outward into the square.

“Mein Gott, major!” screamed the German Boniface, rushing out from behind his bar; where, up to this time, he had been standing transfixed with fear. “Mein Gott – surely the shentlemens pe not going to shoot their pisthols inside the shaloon: Ach! they’ll preak all my pottles, and my shplendid looking-glashes, an my crystal clock, that hash cost me von – two hundred dollars. They’ll shpill my pesht liquors – ach! Major, it’ll ruin me – mein Gott – it will!”

“Never fear, Oberdoffer!” rejoined the major, pausing to reply. “No doubt you’ll be paid for the damage. At all events, you had better betake yourself to some place of safety. If you stay in your saloon you’ll stand a good chance of getting a bullet through your body, and that would be worse than the preaking of your pottles.”

Without further parley the major parted from the unfortunate landlord, and hurried across the threshold into the street, whither the combatants, who had gone out by separate doors, had already preceded him.

“Old Duffer,” left standing in the middle of his sanded floor, did not remain long in that perilous position. In six seconds after the major’s coat-tail had disappeared through the outer door, an inner one closed upon his own skirts; and the bar-room, with its camphine lamps, its sparkling decanters, and its costly mirrors, was left in untenanted silence – no other sound being heard save the ticking of its crystal clock.

Chapter Twenty One.

A Duel within Doors

Once outside, the major took no further part in the affair. As the commanding officer of the post, it would have been out of place for him to have given encouragement to a fight – even by his interfering to see that it should be a fair one. This, however, was attended to by the younger officers; who at once set about arranging the conditions of the duel.

There was not much time consumed. The terms had been expressed already; and it only remained to appoint some one of the party to superintend the ringing of the bell, which was to be the signal for the combat to commence.

This was an easy matter, since it made no difference who might be entrusted with the duty. A child might have sounded the summons for the terrible conflict that was to follow.

A stranger, chancing at that moment to ride into the rude square of which the hotel “Rough and Ready” formed nearly a side, would have been sorely puzzled to comprehend what was coming to pass. The night was rather dark, though there was still light enough to make known the presence of a conglomeration of human beings, assembled in the proximity of the hotel. Most were in military garb: since, in addition to the officers who had lately figured inside the saloon, others, along with such soldiers as were permitted to pass the sentries, had hastened down from the Fort on receiving intelligence that something unusual was going on within the “square.” Women, too, but scantily robed – soldiers’ wives, washerwomen, and “señoritas” of more questionable calling – had found their way into the street, and were endeavouring to extract from those who had forestalled them an explanation of the fracas.

The conversation was carried on in low tones. It was known that the commandant of the post was present, as well as others in authority; and this checked any propensity there might have been for noisy demonstration.

The crowd, thus promiscuously collected, was not in close proximity with the hotel; but standing well out in the open ground, about a dozen yards from the building. Towards it, however, the eyes of all were directed, with that steady stare which tells of the attention being fixed on some engrossing spectacle. They were watching the movements of two men, whose positions were apart – one at each end of the heavy blockhouse, known to be the bar-room of the hotel; and where, as already stated, there was a door.

Though separated by the interposition of two thick log walls, and mutually invisible, these men were manoeuvring as if actuated by a common impulse. They stood contiguous to the entrance doors, at opposite ends of the bar-room, through both of which glared the light of the camphine lamps – falling in broad divergent bands upon the rough gravel outside. Neither was in front of the contiguous entrance; but a little to one side, just clear of the light. Neither was in an upright attitude, but crouching – not as if from fear, but like a runner about to make a start, and straining upon the spring.

Both were looking inwards – into the saloon, where no sound could be heard save the ticking of a clock. Their attitudes told of their readiness to enter it, and that they were only restrained by waiting for some preconcerted signal.

That their purpose was a serious one could be deduced from several circumstances. Both were in their shirt sleeves, hatless, and stripped of every rag that might form an impediment to action; while on their faces was the stamp of stern determination – alike legible in the attitudes they had assumed.

But there was no fine reflection needed to discover their design. The stranger, chancing to come into the square, could have seen at a glance that it was deadly. The pistols in their hands, cocked and tightly clutched; the nervous energy of their attitudes; the silence of the crowd of spectators; and the concentrated interest with which the two men were regarded, proclaimed more emphatically than words, that there was danger in what they were doing – in short, that they were engaged in some sort of a strife, with death for its probable consummation!

So it was at that moment when the crisis had come. The duellists stood, each with eye intent upon the door, by which he was to make entrance – perhaps into eternity! They only waited for a signal to cross the threshold; and engage in a combat that must terminate the existence of one or the other – perhaps both.

Were they listening for that fatal formulary: – One – two – fire?

No. Another signal had been agreed upon; and it was given.

A stentorian voice was heard calling out the simple monosyllable —

“Ring!”

Three or four dark figures could be seen standing by the shorn trunk on which swung the tavern bell. The command instantly set them in motion; and, along with the oscillation of their arms – dimly seen through the darkness – could be heard the sonorous tones of a bell. That bell, whose sounds had been hitherto heard only as symbols of joy – calling men together to partake of that which perpetuates life – was now listened to as a summons of death!

The “ringing in” was of short duration. The bell had made less than a score of vibrations, when the men engaged at the rope saw that their services were no longer required. The disappearance of the duellists, who had rushed inside the saloon, the quick, sharp cracking of pistols; the shivering of broken glass, admonished the ringers that theirs was but a superfluous noise; and, dropping the rope, they stood like the rest of the crowd, listening to the conflict inside.

No eyes – save those of the combatants themselves – were witnesses to that strange duel.

At the first dong of the bell both combatants had re-entered the room. Neither made an attempt to skulk outside. To have done so would have been a ruin to reputation. A hundred eyes were upon them; and the spectators understood the conditions of the duel – that neither was to fire before crossing the threshold.

Once inside, the conflict commenced, the first shots filling the room with smoke. Both kept their feet, though both were wounded – their blood spurting out over the sanded floor.

The second shots were also fired simultaneously, but at random, the smoke hindering the aim.

Then came a single shot, quickly followed by another, and succeeded by an interval of quiet.

Previous to this the combatants had been heard rushing about through the room. This noise was no longer being made.

Instead there was profound silence. Had they killed one another? Were both dead? No! Once more the double detonation announced that both still lived. The suspension had been caused as they stood peering through the smoke in the endeavour to distinguish one another. Neither spoke or stirred in fear of betraying his position.

Again there was a period of tranquillity similar to the former, but more prolonged.

It ended by another exchange of shots, almost instantly succeeded by the falling of two heavy bodies upon the floor.

There was the sound of sprawling – the overturning of chairs – then a single shot – the eleventh – and this was the last that was fired!

The spectators outside saw only a cloud of sulphurous smoke oozing out of both doors, and dimming the light of the camphine lamps. This, with an occasional flash of brighter effulgence, close followed by a crack, was all that occurred to give satisfaction to the eye.

But the ear – that was gratified by a greater variety. There were heard shots – after the bell had become silent, other sounds: the sharp shivering of broken glass, the duller crash of falling furniture, rudely overturned in earnest struggle – the trampling of feet upon the boarded floor – at intervals the clear ringing crack of the revolvers; but neither of the voices of the men whose insensate passions were the cause of all this commotion! The crowd in the street heard the confused noises, and noted the intervals of silence, without being exactly able to interpret them. The reports of the pistols were all they had to proclaim the progress of the duel. Eleven had been counted; and in breathless silence they were listening for the twelfth.

Instead of a pistol report their ears were gratified by the sound of a voice, recognised as that of the mustanger.

“My pistol is at your head! I have one shot left – an apology, or you die!”