A Maid of the Kentucky Hills

by Edwin Carlile Litsey

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

IN WHICH I SPAR WITH DEATH

The past week, culminating on the night in I which I sit and write with barred door and shuttered windows, has been a hard and dangerous one for me. Three times have I escaped death so narrowly it would seem Providence had a hand in the game. On no occasion was the would-be assassin visible, but I knew well chance had not aimed these well directed blows at my life. I can't understand Buck's tactics. They are hidden, merciless, savage in their deadly intention. I had not thought he would stoop to this. I had eliminated this contingency when considering my plan of action. It was incredible, but no doubt lingers in my heart to-night. Buck Steele is trying to murder me secretly, and in such a way that it would seem the result of an accident. His plots suggest the cunning of an unsettled mind, but, while it certainly is strained under the force of his mad passion, I do not believe Buck's brain is unbalanced. He wants me out of the way, but at the same time he wants to avoid any odium, and be free to live his life here at Hebron. He knows that if he kills me openly it will mean, at the least, exile. I have thought long and often over the problem, and I am sure I have come upon the right solution. That he does not compel a meeting which could result in a fair fight, from which no especial blame would revert to him should he prove the victor, is simply because he is afraid to undergo the risk—to accept the possibility of being killed instead of killing. I do not mean by this that he is a coward, but his desire for Celeste has so wrought upon him that he is casting aside all chances for defeat, though his sense of honor and fair play, if he had any, goes with them. He has become a scheming machine, and a most formidable one, I must confess. Now I will make a brief record of what has taken place the last seven days.

Saturday night, at bedtime, I debated the question of closing the Lodge, following the discovery of the final, crimson warning. I hesitated to confess to myself that I had begun to feel fear, but something had waked within me that whispered I must be careful from that hour. I don't think I would have known this feeling had my enemy been open and fair in his movements. But it is human nature to dread the invisible terror which lurks in the dark, and I knew that I was doing the sensible thing when I barred my door and dropped the shutter of the window next my cot. I made this shutter secure by a long hook which fitted into a large staple. Before I blew out the lamp, I looked at the other window for a long time. At last I decided that Buck could not squeeze his bulk through the opening, and went to bed.

I fell asleep quickly, although my mind was not at ease. This mental condition must have led to my waking about midnight, which was an unprecedented thing. I lay and listened. I heard something, and it was not the wind; for, though a breeze was soughing in the pines without, the sound of footsteps was distinctly audible. They paused at the door, passed on to the closed window, paused again, then went around to the open window. Quietly I slid my hand under my pillow and drew out my revolver. Luckily, I lay facing the small opening. Otherwise I would have feared to turn, on account of the noise the act would have involved. The square aperture was barely discernible, and I judged from this the night was cloudy. Fixing my gaze on the window with the utmost intensity, I raised my weapon and waited, determining at the same time not to fire until I saw that my life was in danger. A formless shape blotted the square of less dense gloom, and for a time there was silence. I think the prowler was trying to locate me, and I breathed softly, making no sound. The wait was interminable to me, though in reality I suppose it was not over a minute. Then the shape at the window swayed from side to side, noiselessly, sank down, to reappear at once. I heard a rustling, a muffled tattoo like a dry bean pod makes in an autumn gust, and while my mind was yet filled with wonder as to what was going to happen, the shape twisted grotesquely and I heard a slithering as of one body over another. The next instant something cold and crawly struck my upheld wrist, slid across it, and dropped with a fleshy thud on the floor. Horror gripped me then. Horror supreme and terrible. I could have shrieked had my voice not been shut in my breast. I trembled from head to foot, and icy waves swept me all over. What was that? What could it have been but——At that moment one of the most appalling and nerve-racking sounds arose that ever turned a mortal's blood to water, and his brave courage into craven cowardice. It was the hair-raising warning of an angered rattlesnake! With a snarling cry of sheer terror I sprang up in bed and fired at the window—three times before I could control my forefinger, which was acting automatically. The act was spontaneous. I did not shoot with the desire to hit anybody. None of the bullets passed through the window, as I discovered the next morning. Following the reports was the sound of some one running, accompanied by a second whirring rattle. Could that thing see in the dark? Was it preparing to leap upon me? When the rattling ceased this time I knew it would spring. Dashing the cover from me I threw myself toward the foot of the bed, a clammy perspiration bursting out upon me as I did so. I reached the floor. As I stretched a shaking hand toward the spot where I knew the table was, to my ears came the evil sound of the impact of the reptile's body against the edge of the cot, and its subsequent fall to the planks beneath. In the stark stillness followed the sibilant sliding of fold over fold as the monster coiled afresh—whispers of a hideous doom. My palsied fingers touched the table, and presently I was on top of it, crouching among my books and manuscripts, feeling feebly for the lamp and the matches. Before I could make a light it sprang again, again failed to surmount the cot, and dropped back. Four matches broke in my clumsy grip, but the fifth struck. I got the lamp alight before I turned. The sight was awesome enough, but far better the visible menace than the death-dealing thing which moved in darkness. It was coiled there, just at the edge of my bed. Great, thick, fleshy, splotched folds interwoven into a sinister spiral, from the center of which arose the rattle-capped tail, now vibrating with the rapidity of an alarm bell. In front was reared the repulsive head; flat, gem-eyed. When I looked upon this world-old emblem of treachery and guile, my normal being became reëstablished with a suddenness almost amounting to a wrench. Now that I saw, and knew; now that my brain could comprehend the exact situation, and handle it, I became a man once more. But I would offer no apology for my conduct the few preceding minutes. If it appears contemptible, it must remain so. But I was never nearer dead from plain, simple fright than I was during that time.

I grew calm almost at once. The snake was dazed by the light, and made no third assault, though still retaining his fighting posture, and sending out that indescribable alarm now and then. I had dropped my revolver when I threw myself from the cot, and now saw the weapon lying among the bedclothes near the foot. I was master of myself again. Quietly stepping down, I secured the revolver, and ten seconds later it was all over. Then I opened the door and flung the carcass outside, came in and barricaded the entrance again. No longer did I hesitate about the open window, but went and fastened it in the same manner I had the other. My foot struck some object. It was a pasteboard shoe box of extraordinary size. I picked it up and walked nearer the lamp. One end was slit down at the corners so that when the top was lifted it would fall, as on a hinge.

I placed the box on the table, took a stiff drink of whisky, found my pipe, and lit up. I needed bracing, for when I grasped the full significance of this foul and devilish attack, a physical nausea came. The liquor brought a reaction, and I sat down in my nightshirt, puffing vigorously and regarding the big shoe box in a fascinated way. There were rattlesnakes about—plenty of them. I had heard them and seen them on my many journeys through the wilderness, but I had always given them undisputed possession of the especial territory they happened to be occupying when we met. Buck had caught one; a patriarch from his size. The capture was not difficult. These reptiles' lidless eyes have a very short range of vision. A careful man with a forked stick can scotch one whenever he wishes. The transfer to a box was also simple. All of this he had done, and had then come in the middle of the night with the fell intent of dropping that thing on me, asleep. I don't think I have ever heard or read of a project equally as dastardly and devoid of all feeling. It was something the very devil would shudder to confess.

The second attempt to remove me in an apparently natural manner came Tuesday.

Sunday and Monday I kept to the plateau. I did not believe the smith had reached that point of desperation where he would shoot me down openly, and it was out of the question for me to remain a prisoner in the Lodge. I had no doubt that I was watched, although I neither saw nor heard anything to confirm this suspicion.

I measured the rattler before burying it, and found it five feet long and four and a half inches thick at the largest part. It was of mammoth proportions for the Kentucky knobs, where they seldom exceeded three feet in length. I was glad when the noisome thing was out of sight.