Jackson was earnest, terribly earnest; cool, but gunpowdery. He stood for something. He was a man of destiny—felt it, knew it. Dickinson was a man of chance. Jackson felt he was destined for great things. He did not see how, but he knew he would kill Dickinson.
“Are you ready, gentlemen?” asked Overton.
“I am ready, sir,” said Dickinson.
“Ready!” snapped Jackson from his thin, drawn lips.
“Then f-e-r-e!” shouted Overton, almost before the word had left Jackson’s lips.
It was a strange word to Dickinson, strangely, fiercely, excitingly said. Up went his pistol—he never took aim—and when it reached the button over Jackson’s heart the quiet sweetness of the virgin poplars canopying the cool, grassy plot echoed to the thunder of his big pistol, hurling at Jackson’s heart the terrible two-ounce cone of lead.
Scene on Stone River just back of the Clover Bottom race track.
(Photo March, 1906, by E. E. Sweetland.)