The Jimmyjohn Boss, and Other Stories by Owen Wister (reading comprehension books TXT) 📕

they looked up from the rims to which their lips had been glued. They moved round behind the table, grasping it to keep on their feet, with the one on the floor crawling among the legs of the rest. When they were all inside, Jake leaped out and locked the door.

“They kin sleep now,” said he. “Gunpowder won't be needed. Keep wide away from in front.”

There was a minute of stillness within, and then a groveling noise and struggle. A couple of bullets came harmless through the door. Those inside fought together as well as they could, while those outside listened as it grew less, the bodies falling stupefied without further sound of rising. One or two, still active, began striking at the boards with what heavy thing they could find, until suddenly the blade of an axe crashed through.

“Keep away!” cried Jake. But Andy had leaped insanely in front of the door, and fell dead with a bullet through him. With a terrible scream, Jake flung himself at the place, and poured six shots through the panel; then, as Clallam caught him, wrenched at the lock, and they saw inside. Whiskey and blood dripped together, and no one was moving there. It was liquor with some, and death with others, and all of it lay upon the guilty soul of Jake.

“You deserve killing yourself,” said Clallam.

“That's been attended to,” replied Jake, and he reeled, for during his fire some Indian had shot once more.

Clallam supported him to the room where his wife and Nancy had passed the night, and laid him on the bed. “I'll get Mrs. Clallam,” said he.

“If she'll be willin' to see me,” said the wounded man, humbly.

She came, dazed beyond feeling any horror, or even any joy, and she did what she could.

“It was seein' 'em hit Andy,” said Jake. “Is Andy gone? Yes, I kin tell he's gone from your face.” He shut his eyes, and lay still so long a time that they thought he might be dying now; but he moved at length, and looked slowly round the wall till he saw the print of the village among the elms and the covered bridge. His hand lifted to show them this. “That's the road,” said he. “Andy and me used to go fishin' acrosst that bridge. Did you ever see the Housatonic River? I've fished a lot there. Cornwall, Connecticut. The hills are pretty there. Then Andy got worse. You look in that drawer.” John remembered, and when he got out the tintype, Jake stretched for it eagerly. “His mother and him, age ten,” he explained to Elizabeth, and held it for her to see, then studied the faces in silence. “You kin tell it's Andy, can't yu'?” She told him yes. “That was before we knowed he weren't—weren't goin' to grow up like the other boys he played with. So after a while, when she was gone, I got ashamed seein' Andy's friends makin' their way when he couldn't seem to, and so I took him away where nobody hed ever been acquainted with us. I was layin' money by to get him the best doctor in Europe. I 'ain't been a good man.”

A faintness mastered him, and Elizabeth would have put the picture on the table, but his hand closed round it. They let him lie so, and Elizabeth sat there, while John, with Mart, kept Nancy away till the horror in the outer room was made invisible. They came and went quietly, and Jake seemed in a deepening torpor, once only rousing suddenly to call his son's name, and then, upon looking from one to the other, he recollected, and his eyes closed again. His mind wandered, but very little, for torpor seemed to be overcoming him. The squaw had stolen in, and sat cowering and useless. Towards sundown John's heart sickened at the sound of more horsemen; but it was only two white men, a sheriff and his deputy.

“Go easy,” said John. “He's not going to resist.”

“What's up here, anyway? Who are you?”

Clallam explained, and was evidently not so much as half believed.

“If there are Indians killed,” said the sheriff, “there's still another matter for the law to settle with him. We're sent to search for whiskey. The county's about tired of him.”

“You'll find him pretty sick,” said John.

“People I find always are pretty sick,” said the sheriff, and pushed his way in, stopping at sight of Mrs. Clallam and the figure on the bed. “I'm arresting that man, madam,” he said, with a shade of apology. “The county court wants him.”

Jake sat up and knew the sheriff. “You're a little late, Proctor,” said he. “The Supreme Court's a-goin' to call my case.” Then he fell back, for his case had been called.