“If you can pause,” said Kinstrey to Jason, “permit me to acquaint you with my friend, Mr. Enderby.”
Enderby—the planter who opposed Major Westall. Jason took two steps and offered his hand. The plump fingers of Enderby gripped his, then fell quickly away. The planter had a secret look to his ruddy fat face, and his dark eyes were set uncommonly close together.
“Enchanted, young sir,” he said condescendingly. “I had thought you aspired to the law.”
“And so I do, Mr. Enderby,” Jason assured him.
“Indeed ?” Enderby looked loftily at the maul in Jason’s hand, at the pile of neatly split logs. “A pity, perhaps. You’re so skilled at this work.”
Jason felt his face grow hot. As with Kinstrey, this man Enderby had a trick of the voice-tone that was an insult.
“We’ve enough puncheons,” said Major Westall, tramping over to the group.
Enderby bowed to the old man, and so did Kinstrey. Major Westall struck the end of his cane on the earth, snorted, and bowed on his own part, very stiff and stern.
“I trust I see you well, Major,” said Enderby, silkily gentle.
“You do see me well, sir,” replied the Major shortly. “Very well indeed. But you hope nothing of the sort.” He snorted again, and walked away.
“Ah, ah,” said Kinstrey, gazing after the broad old back as it departed. “Learn your law, such as you can, from Squire Colquitt, Mr. Morgan; but don’t learn your manners, or lack of them, from Major Westall.”
He strolled off toward the tables, where ladies were setting down stacks of dishes. Jason saw him bow and smile as he spoke to Betsy Colquitt, and she smiled briefly in her turn.
With the puncheons spiked down, the rest of the building went up with an almost dizzy speed. Strong arms snatched up ready-notched logs, set them in place, laid other logs across, and still others on top. Meanwhile, inside the structure, the workmen handiest with hammer and nails covered the puncheons with sawed planking to finish the floor. At the same time, sawyers busily cut windows to each side and doors front and rear.
“Good enough for a thoroughbred horse, let alone a man,” vowed Mr. Enderby, watching.
Young Alexander Kift, the new editor, gazed with delight at his fast-growing new quarters. Once or twice he offered to help, but the swarm of townsmen pushed him away.
“You can work tomorrow,” Snipe Witherspoon told him. “Maybe you’ll put all our names in the paper. Remember, my full name’s Thomas Jefferson Witherspoon.”
“What will the paper be called, Mr. Kift?” inquired Jason.
“The Sentinel, the Moshawnee Sentinelreplied Kift. “Look, the roof’s almost on.”
Half a dozen men were hammering at rafters hewn out of pine poles. Others had swiftly split short lengths of cypress into stout shingles and handed these aloft, to be laid down, course by course. Jason joined a crew that worked clay and water into stiff mortar to use in chinking between the logs.
“All we need is doors now, and windows,” roared a big man.
Window glass, someone else replied, must be brought in from another town; but the two doors were ready-cleated together, of two broad planks each. Hand-wrought hinges, gift of the town blacksmith, served to hang them. The stout log cabin was virtually finished, twenty feet by twelve, with an inner partition to make a large front room and a small rear one.
“The paper will operate in front, I’ll five behind,” said Alexander Kift.
“Speech, speech!” cried Mr. Parham, the storekeeper, and two men caught up the editor and set him on a sawhorse. The workmen thronged around, laughing and applauding so that the stammered words of gratitude could barely be heard. Kift’s embarrassed effort came to an end with the sudden roar of Sheriff Thompson.
“Who’s for the beef shoot?” he demanded.
“I!” yelled back Snipe Witherspoon.
“I! I! I!” chorused others.
“Then pay your quarters to me,” commanded the sheriff. “The beef’s worth ten dollars as we figure, and that means forty shots.”
There was an enthusiastic rush toward him.
“You will compete, Mr. Morgan?” inquired Kinstrey, strolling toward the press of marksmen.
“I’m not over-handy with rifle or musket,” admitted Jason.
“No? I’d thought, setting up for a gentleman as you are—”
“Let me past,” grumbled old Major Westall, stumping along and fumbling in his pocket. “I want two shorts, Sheriff.”
Jason walked away to where the beef had been slaughtered. Its four quarters hung to the branches of a sycamore. Under these lay the fresh hide with a great heap of tallow upon it, as a “fifth quarter” to be awarded in the coming competition. Major Westall returned from his purchase of two shots. He carried a fine sporting rifle with silver clasps and mountings.
“When I was a youngster, there was a sixth quarter, too,” he said. “The lead fired into the target went to the man who was sixth best, and he melted it down into more bullets. Lead’s not so precious any more. You said you aren’t shooting?”
Jason shook his head.
“I’ll give you one of my shots—”
“Thank you. I could pay for it, Major, but I’m not first class with the rifle.”
A sudden clamor of voices rose from where men still ringed
Sheriff Thompson. Both Jason and the Major glanced that way.
“I say he shan’t shoot against us for beef,” rose the harsh tones of Mr. Asper Enderby. “This is a white men’s contest. Let Indians shoot by themselves.”
“Amen to that,” put in Milo Kinstrey.
Major Westall hurried toward the spot, and Jason followed at his heels. “What’s this trouble?” demanded the Major.
Enderby turned toward them, and so did someone else. It was the Indian who earlier had watched Jason splitting logs. He leaned on his disreputable old gun, his scarred face calm but stubborn.
“Old Cut Nose here wants to shoot with us,” Sheriff Thompson told the Major.
“Why shouldn’t he do so?” asked the Major. “Cut Nose is a friend of mine.”
“He’s no friend of mine,” put in Enderby. “I shoot at Indians, not with them.”
“Come, now!” protested Squire Colquitt. “Cut Nose never made war on the white men. His people sold this land to us.”
“Then why didn’t he leave with his tribe?” demanded Enderby. “He doesn’t shoot in this contest, and that’s final.”
Major Westall lifted his broad old shoulders fiercely. “Wait, sir,” he warned. “Speak for what happens on your plantation; you’re master there. But now you’re in the town of Moshawnee.”
“I think I understand you, Major,” rejoined Enderby, standing grimly up to the old soldier. “I don’t speak for the town of Moshawnee. That means you speak for it”—he grinned bitterly— “as master and owner of the town and all who live here.”
And he relaxed, as though to drink in Major Westall’s confusion. But the Major was not confused.
“Mr. Enderby, I’ll be obliged if you don’t put words into my mouth,” he said. “I don’t speak for the town; every man here can speak for himself. I speak for fairness and friendship.”
“Friendship ?” echoed Enderby. “With this old Indian beggar?”
“He was no beggar when first I came here,” snapped the Major. “I was a stranger, and he welcomed me. Brought me venison, and showed me the best places to hunt. Helped me find a stream of good water, beside which to build my house. He was a good neighbor.”
“Gentlemen,” said Sheriff Thompson, looking at a scribbled list in his hand, “we’ve but one shot left to sell.”
“In that case—” began Mr. Enderby, feeling in his pocket.
But Jason suddenly stepped to the sheriff’s side. “I’ll take the shot,” he said.
“Very well,” Sheriff Thompson said, writing down Jason’s name.
Enderby smiled and Major Westall grimaced as Jason paid with a quarter wedge of a dollar, like a p
ale, bright slice of pie. Then he turned toward Cut Nose.
“And I assign my shot to you,” said Jason.
A moment of surprised silence. Then someone whooped loudly.
“Hurrah for my young log-splitter!” cried Snipe Witherspoon. “He spoke up like a smart ’un!”
“Egad, he did so,” added Alexander Kift.
Then came a chorus of applauding shouts. Jason’s gesture had captured the fancy of the onlookers. Enderby shrugged.
“I’ll not go against the majority will, if it’s for Cut Nose to shoot,” he said. “I don’t fear his competition, nor any man’s.”
The sheriff scratched out Jason’s name and entered that of Cut Nose.
“The fortieth shot’s taken,” he announced. “Get your shooting tackle, friends, and let’s be at it while we have light and time.”
7 The Beef Shoot
Everyone who had bought a shot followed the sheriff past the new home of Alexander Kift and the Moshawnee Sentinel and on toward the woods beyond. There, at the edge of town, was a clearing, through which flowed a swift brown stream. No houses lay in this direction to catch stray bullets.
Jason joined a crowd of onlookers just beyond the men with rifles—long rifles, octagonal-barreled rifles of the sort called “eight-squar’ ” on the frontier, snubnosed, wicked-looking rifles, rifles with small bores and rifles with muzzles that looked almost large enough to hold an ear of corn.
“Hear me, you all!” roared the sheriff, waving his paper with the list of names. “All as have put in for the shoot, get ready, for the putting-in’s about to start!”
Some twenty men had paid for shots, from one to five apiece, and their names had been entered as they had offered their money. There was some discussion about the order of shooting, for several wished to space their several shots, and one or two asked to wait until late in the contest. They leaned on their weapons, arguing and suggesting. Around the corps of marksmen gathered spectators, men, women, and children.
Someone touched Jason’s arm, and Jason turned to find Cut Nose there. The old Indian was offering a handful of cut silver.
“No,” and Jason shook his head, smiling. “I bought the shot for you. Call it a present.”
The wide, thin lips twitched into the briefest of smiles, and Cut Nose put his money away once more.
Sheriff Thompson announced the two judges—Squire Colquitt and Mr. Parham, the storekeeper. A cheer went up at those two popular names. Next, the target was called for.
This was the usual mark Jason had seen set up for such events in Georgia. A length of board about a foot wide and somewhat longer had been charred on one side until it was sooty black, and the sheriff and Mr. Parham carried this to a sturdy tree beside the stream. With a big spike they fastened it to the trunk at shoulder height. Next, a sheet of white paper was produced. Fishing out a big clasp knife, the sheriff chopped out a piece of paper about three inches square. Carefully he cut a diamond in the center of this, perhaps an inch long horizontally and nearly as wide from top to bottom. That would be the bull’s-eye. With splinters of wood he fixed this to the board on the tree. He used the point of his knife to make a line from point to point of the diamond, and another from the upper angle to the lower. That was the cross, to mark the center of the target.
“Now for distance,” the sheriff trumpeted. “Sixty yards. Step it off, will you, Mr. Parham?”
The storekeeper did so, and marked the end of the distance by drawing his boot-heel deep into the soft turf, making a fine or groove.
“You’ll shoot from there, gentlemen,” he announced.
“All right, who’s first?” asked someone.
“Darby Baugh,” read Thompson from his list. “Blaze away, Darby. Every other soul stand behind the mark; we don’t want any wounded folks to plaster up.”
Darby Baugh was short and spry, with a rifle longer than
himself. He toed the mark, raised his piece, sighted, and fired.
“Ate the paper!” yelled Snipe Witherspoon, and Squire Colquitt and Mr. Parham swiftly approached the target. The Squire’s finger touched a point on the paper square just above the diamond.
“Good shot, that,” praised Major Westall. “Would have brought down a squirrel at such distance. Who’s next, Sheriff ?”
“I reckon you are, Major. Your first shot.”
The old man unplugged his powder horn and measured a charge into his fine silver-mounted rifle. Upon this he rammed down bullet and patch, then primed the pan. He came up to the mark, aimed long and carefully, and touched trigger.
“Hit the bull!” cried Darby Baugh.
“So he did, I vow,” nodded Sheriff Thompson. “But did he drive the cross?”
The judges were at the target. Squire Colquitt pointed to the right point of the diamond.
“Ate the line there, seems like,” said Snipe Witherspoon to Jason, and Cut Nose, standing silently apart, grunted softly.
The judges inserted the end of a twig, broke it off in the bullet hole, and rubbed charred ashes over the exposed broken end. The third marksman moved up with a long lean rifle, fired, and hit the wood but not the paper.
The others came up in succession. Those who watched cheered good marks and laughed with friendly disparagement of poor ones. Milo Kinstrey loaded carefully, aimed deliberately, and got inside the bull’s-eye but not on any of the four arms of the cross. Snipe Witherspoon, armed with an “eight-squar’ ” rifle, struck the paper just clear of the diamond. Enderby’s aim was better. His first shot slapped into the diamond, striking an arm of the cross just above center.
“That just about matches Major Westall’s shot,” called out
Parham as he plugged the hole and smudged the inserted peg.
Everyone had shot once by now, it seemed, except Cut Nose, whose name was the last on Sheriff Thompson’s list. And nobody doubted that the true contest lay between Major Westall and Asper Enderby.
By mutual agreement, these two had reserved their final shots while lesser performers tried their skill. The square of paper on the charred board was pock-marked with round bullet holes, and at least six of the best marksmen had managed to score within the diamond-shaped bull’s-eye. But nobody, as yet, had “driven the cross”—struck the exact point where the two lines inside the diamond lay across each other at the center.
“Come, gentlemen, somebody ought to score plumb center for the honor of Alabama,” pleaded the sheriff. “Men shot better than that at Cowpens and New Orleans.”
“Amen to that,” said Major Westall, coming up for his final shot. “My eye’s dimming lately, but I’ll see what I can do for you.”
Again he loaded his weapon with the utmost care, took his place, and planted his sturdy bowed legs like an inverted V. His wrinkled cheek cuddled the rifle stock. Long he aimed, and then fired.
“Where am I ?” he called through the rising powder smoke.
Colquitt and Parham were approaching the target. “You’ve hit the lower arm of the cross,” called back the merchant. “About halfway up, Major.”
“Then I drew my bead a trifle too fine,” said the old soldier, lowering his gun and stepping back. “Mr. Enderby, I wish you joy of what you can do better than I.”
“I’ll try to show how we perform in my native district,” said Enderby.
Carefully he wiped out the bore of his rifle and polished the
pan with a bit of tow. He measured in a charge of powder, rolled a bullet in a patch, and rammed it down carefully. Setting his neat boot to the mark, he brought up his piece, held it rigidly as he gazed with narrowed eye through the sights, and pulled the trigger.
Again the judges hastened forward.
“Drove the cross!” Squire Colquitt almost howled.
There was a loud shout of applause. Jason was one of those who rushed to look at the target.
In the black diamond within the bull’s-eye, several bullet marks had been pegged and carefully sooted over. The new hole showed at the point where the lines
crossed, just above the exact center. Its lower rim obliterated the juncture.
“I’ll warrant you the center of the ball didn’t lack a quarter inch of driving,” protested Darby Baugh, coming back to where Enderby stood. “Mr. Enderby, I give you best.”
“And so do I,” added Major Westall, with an effort to be gracious. “You’ve won first choice of beef quarters.”
“Wait,” ventured Jason. “There’s one shot still to come.” “Aye, there’s Cut Nose,” agreed Sheriff Thompson. “Clear away from the target after Mr. Enderby’s shot is plugged. All right, Cut Nose, are you ready?”
The old Indian had stood at the rear of the watchers, so silent and motionless that many had forgotten him while the others were shooting. Now he nodded to the sheriff, with a sort of bleak dignity. He dropped the split butt of his rifle to the earth and propped its barrel between his leather-clad knees.
Fumbling in a deerskin pouch at his belt, he brought out three or four bullets. He looked at them, one after another, silently, carefully selected one, and returned the others to the pouch. Fumbling again in his pouch, he produced a roughly- knotted little parcel in a bit of smudged calico. When he opened this, it proved to contain a small quantity of gunpowder, very fine and with a sleek sheen to it.
“French powder,” muttered Snipe Witherspoon to Jason. “Five dollars a pound, I’ll be sworn, and the Frenchies don’t use none better in them dueling pistols of theirs.”
Cut Nose set the chosen bullet in the center of his brown palm. Upon it he painstakingly trickled powder, just enough to cover the bullet. Then he removed the lead ball, put it in his mouth, and with the same care sifted the portion of powder down the muzzle of his rifle. With his forefinger he pushed in several grains that had lodged around the mouth of the piece. He tied up the remainder of the powder, returned it to his pouch, and took out a greased pouch in which he wrapped his bullet. Finally he drove the charge down with slow, thoughtful tamp- ings, and measured the space it filled with two fingers upon the protruding part of the ramrod.
“He’s taking an almighty long time about it,” complained Darby Baugh.
Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1956 Page 5