The Best American Mystery Stories of the Nineteenth Century

by Penzler, Otto

  The captain, always suspicious, saw with his usual penetration what was passing within me, and ordered me to go upon the ridge of woods to keep a look-out over the neighborhood and await the return of the shepherd. I obeyed, of course, stifling the fury that raged within me, though I felt for the moment that he was my most deadly foe.

  On my way, however, a ray of reflection came across my mind. I perceived that the captain was but following with strictness the terrible laws to which we had sworn fidelity. That the passion by which I had been blinded might with justice have been fatal to me but for his forbearance; that he had penetrated my soul, and had taken precautions, by sending me out of the way, to prevent my committing any excess in my anger. From that instant I felt that I was capable of pardoning him.

  Occupied with these thoughts, I arrived at the foot of the mountain. The country was solitary and secure, and in a short time I beheld the shepherd at a distance crossing the plain. I hastened to meet him. He had obtained nothing. He had found the father plunged in the deepest distress. He had read the letter with violent emotion, and then calming himself with a sudden exertion, he had replied coldly, “My daughter has been dishonored by those wretches; let her be returned without ransom, or let her die!”

  I shuddered at this reply. I knew, according to the laws of our troop, her death was inevitable. Our oaths required it. I felt, nevertheless, that, not having been able to have her to myself, I could become her executioner!

  The robber again paused with agitation. I sat musing upon his last frightful words, which proved to what excess the passions may be carried when escaped from all moral restraint. There was a horrible verity in this story that reminded me of some of the tragic fictions of Dante.

  We now came to a fatal moment, resumed the bandit. After the report of the shepherd, I returned with him, and the chieftain received from his lips the refusal of the father. At a signal, which we all understood, we followed him some distance from the victim. He there pronounced her sentence of death. Every one stood ready to execute his order, but I interfered. I observed that there was something due to pity as well as to justice. That I was as ready as anyone to approve the implacable law which was to serve as a warning to all those who hesitated to pay the ransoms demanded for our prisoners, but that, though the sacrifice was proper, it ought to be made without cruelty. The night is approaching, continued I; she will soon be wrapped in sleep; let her then be dispatched. All that I now claim on the score of former fondness for her is, let me strike the blow. I will do it as surely, but more tenderly, than another.

  Several raised their voices against my proposition, but the captain imposed silence on them. He told me I might conduct her into a thicket at some distance, and he relied upon my promise.

  I hastened to seize my prey. There was a forlorn kind of triumph at having at length become her exclusive possessor. I bore her off into the thickness of the forest. She remained in the same state of insensibility and stupor. I was thankful that she did not recollect me, for had she once murmured my name, I should have been overcome. She slept at length in the arms of him who was to poniard her. Many were the conflicts I underwent before I could bring myself to strike the blow. But my heart had become sore by the recent conflicts it had undergone, and I dreaded lest, by procrastination, some other should become her executioner. When her repose had continued for some time, I separated myself gently from her, that I might not disturb her sleep, and seizing suddenly my poniard, plunged it into her bosom. A painful and concentrated murmur, but without any convulsive movement, accompanied her last sigh. So perished this unfortunate!

  1827

  WILLIAM LEGGETT

  The Rifle

  It has been well established that the true inventor of the detective short story is Edgar Allan Poe, who defined most of the major tropes of the genre with his very first effort in the literary form, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841).

  Nonetheless, it would be unfair to deny WILLIAM LEGGETT (1801–1839) the recognition he deserves for having produced a story fourteen years earlier that anticipates so many of the elements that the far more gifted Poe honed to such excellence in his story.

  Leggett, like the hero in “The Rifle,” was an Easterner who moved to the wilds of Illinois early in the nineteenth century before moving to New York permanently in 1822. A critic and journalist, he founded several journals (all of which failed very quickly) but enjoyed some success when he was hired by William Cullen Bryant to write for the New York Evening Post, adding political columns to his literary and drama reviews. A staunch Jeffersonian Democrat, he was a powerful advocate of laissez-faire and the rights of individuals to be left alone by the government, a sentiment that moved him to the front of the antislavery movement. He died very young from complications of the yellow fever he had contracted while in the navy.

  The suspense in “The Rifle” derives from wondering if the innocent man accused and convicted of murder will be set free and the true culprit apprehended. There is a certain amount of true detective work, and the story may boast literature’s first use of ballistics in the solution to a mystery.

  “The Rifle” was first published anonymously in The Atlantic Souvenir, Christmas and New Year’s Offering for 1827. It was first collected in Tales and Sketches by a Country School Master (New York: Harper, 1829). The story as published here has been cut by the great American cultural critic Jacques Barzun for his anthology The Delights of Detection (1961). Having compared it with the original text, I believe the reader should be grateful for Professor Barzun’s efforts.

  ***

  THE TRAVELER WHO passes, during the summer or autumn months of the year, through the States of our union that lie west of the Ohio river, Indiana and Illinois in particular, will often pause in his journey, with feelings of irrepressible admiration, to gaze upon the ten thousand beauties which nature has spread through these regions with an uncommonly liberal hand. The majestic mountain, upholding the heavens on its cloudy top, does not, to be sure, arrest his astonished eye; and the roaring cataract, dashing from a dizzy height, and thundering down into whirling depths below, then rising again in upward showers, forms no part of the character of their quiet scenes. But the wide-spread prairie, level as some waveless lake, from whose fertile soil the grass springs up with a luxuriance unparalleled in any other part of our country, and whose beautiful green is besprinkled with myriads and myriads of flowers, ravishing the sight with their loveliness, and filling the air with their sweets; and, again, on either side of these immense savannas, standing arrayed, “like host to host opposed,” the leafy forests, whose silence has not often been broken by the voice of man, and through whose verdant recesses the deer stalk in herds, with the boldness of primeval nature,—these are some of the scenes that call forth a passing tribute of praise from every beholder. Such is their summer aspect; but when winter “has taken angrily his waste inheritance,” not even the painter’s pencil can convey a just conception of the bleakness and desolation of the change. Then those extensive plains, lately covered with the infinitely diversified charms of nature, become one white unvaried waste; through the vistas of the naked trees, nothing meets the glance but snow; and if from the chilly monotony of earth, the wearied eye looks up to heaven, thick and heavy clouds, driven along upon the wind, seem overcharged to bursting, with the same frigid element. It was during the latter season that the incidents of our story took place.

  About the middle of December, some ten or twelve years ago, before Illinois was admitted a sister State into the union, on the afternoon of a day that had been uncommonly severe, and during the morning of which there had occurred a light fall of snow, two persons were seen riding along one of the immense prairies, in a northern direction. The elder seemed advanced in years, and was dressed in the usual habiliments of the country. He wore a cap made of the skin of the otter, and a hunting-shirt of blue linsey-wolsey covered his body, descending nearly to the knees, and trimmed with red woolen fringe. It was fastened round the wa
ist by a girdle of buckskin, to which was also appended a bullet pouch, made of the same material with the cap. His feet were covered with buckskin moccasins, and leggings of stout cloth were wrapped several times round his legs, fastened above the knee and at the ankle with strings of green worsted. The horse he bestrode was so small, that his rider’s feet almost draggled on the ground, and he had that artificial gait, which is denominated rocking. The old man’s hair fell in long and uncombed locks beneath his cap, and was white with the frosts of many winters; while the sallowness of his complexion gave proof of a long residence in those uncultivated parts of the country where the excessive vegetable decay, and the stagnation of large bodies of water, produce perennial agues. His companion was a young man, dressed according to the prevailing fashion of the cities of the eastern States, and his rosy cheeks, and bright blue eyes, evinced that he had not suffered from the effects of climate. He was mounted on a spirited horse, and carried in his hand, the butt resting on his toe, a heavy looking rifle.

  “Well, Doctor Rivington,” said the elder person, “I should no more ha’ looked to see one of you Yankees taking about wi’ you a rail Kentuck rifle, than I should ha’ thought I’d be riding myself without one. If I didn’t see it in your hands, I could almost swear that it’s Jim Buckhorn’s.”

  “You have guessed correctly, Mr. Silversight,” replied the young physician; “I believe you know almost every rifle in this part of the territory.”

  “Why, I have handled a power of ’em in my time, Doctor,” said the old man, “and there a’n’t many good ones atwixt Sangano and the Mississip’, that I don’t know the vally on. I reckon, now, that same rifle seems to you but a clumsy sort of shooting-iron, but it’s brought down a smart chance of deer, first and last. That lock’s a rail screamer, and there a’n’t a truer bore, except mine, that I left down in the settlement, to get a new sight to—no, not atwixt this and Major Marsham’s. It carries just ninety-eight, and mine a little over ninety-four to the pound. Jim has used my bullets often, when we’ve been out hunting together.”

  “I was unacquainted with the worth of the gun,” resumed Charles Rivington; “but stepping into the gunsmith’s this morning, I heard him lament that he had missed a chance of sending it out to Jimmy Buckhorn’s; so, intending to come this way, I offered to take charge of it myself. In this wilderness country, we must stand ready to do such little offices of friendship, Mr. Silversight.”

  “’Twas no doubt kindly meant, Doctor, and Jim will be monstrous glad to git his piece agin,” said the hunter. “But my wonderment is, and I don’t mean no harm by it, how that tinker would trust such a screamer as that ’ere with a Yankee doctor. Do give it to me; I can’t ’bide seeing a good rifle in a man’s hand that don’t know the vally on it.”

  Doctor Rivington resigned the weapon with a good-humored smile; for he had been some time in the country, and partly understood the love which a hunter always feels for a piece, of the character of that he had been carrying; he knew, too, though the old man’s manners were rough, there was nothing like roughness in his heart. Indeed, the very person who was loath to trust his young companion with a gun, intrinsically worth but a trifle, would nevertheless, as we shall presently see, have unhesitatingly placed in his charge, without witness or receipt, an uncounted or unlimited amount of money. The term Yankee, which we have heard him applying, in rather a contemptuous manner, was then, and for years after, used indiscriminately in reference to all such as emigrated from the States east of the Alleghany mountains. Handing his rifle across his horse to the old hunter, Charles Rivington observed, “I am glad you have offered to take it, Mr. Silversight, for there appears to be a storm coming up, and as I wish to reach Mr. Wentworth’s to-night, I can make the distance shorter, by crossing through the timber into the other prairie, before I get to Buckhorn’s.”

  “Will you be going to town, to-morrow, Doctor?” asked Silversight.

  “I shall.”

  “Well, then, you can do me a good turn. Here,” said the old man, handing a little leathern bag, “is fifteen dollars in specie; and the rest, four hundred and eighty-five in Shawnee-town paper, is wrapped in this bit of rug. Want you to pay it into the land-office, to clear out old Richly’s land: I was going to take it in; but you’ll do just as well, and save me a long ride.”

  The physician promised to attend to the business, and they kept on together, conversing about such subjects as the nature of the scene suggested, until they reached the place where the path, dividing, pursued opposite directions.

  “This is my nearest way, I believe?” said Charles.

  “It is,” answered the old man. “This first track, that we noticed a while ago, lies on my route; so I’ll push my nag a little, soon as I load this rifle, and it may so be, that I’ll overtake company. Doctor, look here, and you’ll know how an old hunter loads his piece—it may stand you in stead some day; I put on a double patch, because my bullets are a leetle smaller than Jim’s, you mind I told you. There,” said he, as he shoved the ball into its place, and carefully poured some priming into the pan, “it’s done in quick time by them what have slept, year in and year out, with red Indians on every side of ’em. Good night to ye, Doctor; you needn’t lift the certificates—the register may as well keep ’em till old Richly goes in himself.”

  So saying, the two travelers parted, each urging his horse to greater speed, as the night threatened to set in dark and stormy. The old hunter, acknowledging to himself in mental soliloquy, that the doctor was “a right nice and cute young fellow, considering he was raised among Yankees,” rode briskly along the path. He had proceeded about four or five miles further on his way, when he perceived that the track he before observed turned aside: “So, so,” said he, “Slaymush has been out among the deer, to-day; I was in hopes ’twas some one going up to the head-waters”; and he kept rocking along the road, when, directly, the report of a musket was heard reverberating through the night, and the old man, writhing and mortally wounded, fell from his horse, which, scared by the occurrence, ran wildly over the prairie. A form was seen a few minutes after, cautiously approaching the place, fearful lest his victim should not yet be dead; but apparently satisfied in this particular, by his motionless silence, he advanced, and proceeded immediately to examine the pockets of the deceased.

  “Damnation!” muttered he at length, when a fruitless search was finished, “the old curmudgeon hasn’t got the money after all; and I’ve put a bullet through his head for nothing. I’m sure, I heard him say, in Brown’s tavern, down in the settlement, that old Richly give it to him to carry; well, it’s his own fault, for telling a bragging lie about it; and the gray-headed scoundrel won’t never jeer me again, for using a smooth-bore, before a whole company of Kentuck-squatters—it carried true enough to do his business. I’m sorry I dropped that flask, any how; but this powder-horn will make some amends,” grumbled the wretch, as he tore the article he spoke of from the breast, where it had hung for forty years. “What the devil have we here!” said he again, as he struck his foot against the rifle that the murdered man had dropped; “ho, ho,” discharging it into the air, “if the worst comes to worst, they’ll think his piece went off by accident, and shot him. But there’s no danger—it will snow by day light, and cover the trail; and the prairie-wolves will finish the job.”

  Thus muttering, the ruffian remounted the animal he held by the bridle, and trotted across the prairie, nearly at right angles with the path, along which the unfortunate hunter had been traveling.

  It was in a log-house, larger, and of rather more comfortable construction, than was usually seen in that wilderness country, beside a fire that sent a broad and crackling flame half way up the spacious chimney, that there was seated, on the evening of this atrocious murder, in addition to its ordinary inmates, the young physician from whom we have lately parted. His great-coat, hat, and overalls were laid aside, and he was conversing with that agreeable fluency, and pleased expression of countenance, which denoted that he
was happy in the society around him. Opposite, and busily employed in knitting, sat a beautiful girl of eighteen. From her work, which seemed to engross an unusual portion of her attention, she every now and then would send a furtive glance to their guest, thus telling, in the silent language of love, the tale she never could have found words to utter. We say she was beautiful; and if a complexion so clear, that

  The eloquent blood spoke through her cheek, and so distinctly wrought,

  That we might say of her, her body thought;

  if laughing blue eyes, lighted up by intelligence and affection; if smooth and glossy auburn ringlets; teeth white as the snow around her father’s dwelling, and a person which, though not tall, was well formed and graceful;—if all these traits combined, constitute a claim to the epithet, it certainly belonged to her. She was modestly attired in a dress of no costly material; and the little feet that peeped from underneath it, were clothed in white stockings of her own fabrication, and in shoes of too coarse a texture ever to have been purchased from the shelves of a fashionable city mechanic. Yet that same form had been arrayed in richer apparel, and had been followed by glances of warmer admiration, than perhaps ever fell to the share of those, who are ready to condemn her on account of her simple garb.