THE DUEL WITHOUT SECONDS: A DAGUERREOTYPE FROM THE STATE HOUSE OF ARKANSAS. BY A MEMBER OF THE LEGISLATURE. PROLOGUE. knife from its scabbard beside his heart, he asks the invariable and formal question: Are you prepared?" If the other answer, "No, I have not got my tools," the desperado says: "Go and get them; arm yourself well; for one of us must die." Thus, it is evident he is not an Assassin. THE Western desperado offers for ana- | he cocks his pistol, or draws the big bowie lysis a new type of human character peculiar to the American frontier. He has no exemplar, either among the fiercest forms of savage life, or in any the wildest regions of the old world. Like the fresh forest embowering the rude Tog-cabin of his home -like the novel medium of circumstances, that environs his political, social, and moral being, coloring all his fancies, and inspiring all his feelings, he is a sheer original, as thoroughly unique, as he is terribly interesting. It does not enter into our present purpose to discuss the tangled rationale of causes concurring to yield such a singular specimen of humanity. We intend, not to explain why he is, but simply to describe him as he is. In doing this, however, it may become necessary to show, first of all, what he is not, so as to contra-distinguish him from certain analogue, with whom he has been frequently confounded, by reason of some common attributes and affinities, though, in other respects, he is toto cœlo an opposite. 1. The desperado is not an assassin. As his very name implies, he is too desperate, too fearlessly and blindly brave for that. He never lurks in ambush ; never stabs in the dark; never assaults his enemy when the latter is unarmed; never seeks to take him by surprise, and never manoeuvres for the vantage ground. Doth he chance to meet his mortal foe-the man who has slain his father, or violated his sister, or profaned his own person with the stinging touch of the horse-whip? Before 2. Neither is he a bravo. He never slays for hire. He would slay the wretch outright who should dare propose a bloody bribe; and so great is his loathing and horror for all sorts of dishonesty, that he even deems immediate death, without any formalities of law or trial the just punishment of a detected thief or swindler: and he stands ever ready to execute such penalty himself. And thus also it is plain he is not a bravo. 3. Again, he is not either in disposition, or demeanor, an over-bearing tyrant, prone to bully the weak, and cringe to the powerful. On the contrary, he makes a theoretical division of mankind, into two grand classes-" fighting men," and "peaceable men. He never attacks individuals who fall under the second category,—such cannot insult him by any indignity short of personal violence. But a sneering word or supercilious look from a "fighting man," sets him on fire as with lightning. 4. The desperado differs widely, too, from the professed duelist. It is true they are both mentally sworn to avenge insult; but there the similarity ceases. The duelist fights for etiquette, and from a sense of honor the desperado, from passion, and for the pure love of danger. The one obeys an organized code, burdened with multitudinary statutes as to times, places, formulas, weapons, and the personal equality of antagonists; the other recognizes but one law-on the proper provocation, and at the precise moment of its reception, to wage deadly combat, at any time, in any place, and with any and every kind of weapon. The one must needs have his second to arrange preliminaries and see fair play: the other can have no preliminaries, for he does battle on the insult, ere the thought gets cold, he himself, will make fair play, and Death always is his second. The one calls for pistols, or the gentleman's sword, or perhaps in a strong case, will risque the surer rifle, especially if attended by the surgeon and his instruments; the other will combat, if ye prefer it, with knives, hatchets, short guns, or cannon,-nay, he would even handle red-hot "thunder-stones," " had he power to command the artillery of storms: and there may be business for the gravedigger, for the doctor never, when he is done! It is worthy of remark, that the desperado has a characteristic division of insults and injuries, denoted by the terms "pardonable" and "unpardonable." The number of "pardonables" is large and rather indefinite; but a spit in the face, the stroke of a horse-whip, the imputation of a lie, the denial of courage, the murder of a relation, and the seduction of a female friend, are fixed, inexpiable "unpardonables"sins that must be answered by blood. The man is not necessarily, in other respects, a dangerous or disagreeable member of society. He may be an affectionate husband, a fond parent, a pleasant neighbor. He is commonly courteous, often humane, and seldom inhospitable. In fine, two, and only two essential elements may be assigned as constituting the logical differentia of the desperado's character-perfect freedom from fear, and unconquerable determination to punish every insult from one of his class. This much may suffice as a general description of the strange species. We now proceed to exemplify, by detailing a dreadful instance, where the writer had the misfortune to be an unwilling eye-witness of the tragedy. THE DUEL. session shortly after the organization of the The Legislature of Arkansas held a State Government. Every thing, of course, was in a condition of half-chaotic transition. The "loaves and fishes" of office had not yet been fully divided, and monopoly was knocking noisily at the door of the "public crib," clamorous to be admitted. Intense was the fury of partizans within the in the community without. The members House, and as fierce the excitement raging teeth, and, besides the choice weapons, mostly went to their places armed to the their pockets, each kept an ample supply worn in their bosoms, or protruding from of revolving pistols in the writing-desk before him. There were munitions of war enough in the hall to have answered the purposes of a small army. Every evening after adjournment, there was a general firing off and reloading in order to have their "tools" of death in prime condition for the emergencies of the morrow. I was frequently startled from sleep at the hour of midnight, by the roar of incessant explosions, heard at different points in the city. Many legislators also during the day would be out practising to learn the difficult art of cutting a tape string at ten paces, or of driving the centre out of a silver quarter, at twelve. They used as their pistol-gallery a little grove of pine trees, immediately on the south bank of the Arkansas river, and not more than fifty yards from the State-House, where every report was fearfully audible; and admonished certain independent members of the doom they might expect, provided their votes were not cast in favor of the banks! The Deringer pistol and bowie knife governed. Power resided in gunpowder; and popularity hovered round the points of naked daggers. Among the most agitating measures, calling into exercise the wisdom of the Western sages, was the institution of the Real Estate Bank. Its establishment was strongly and steadily, but ineffectually opposed by a slender minority. All the wealthiest men in the State, all the leading legislators took shares of its capital stock; and John Wilson, speaker of the lower House, was elected President. As this person was one of the chief actors in the tragedy soon to be recorded, a brief designation of his appearance and character becomes ne cessary. Every public man in the backwoods has a sobriquet, bestowed on account of some real or fancied peculiarity, by the whimsical humors of his constituents. Speaker Wilson was called "Horse Ears," from his possessing an accident never before heard of in the natural history of the species. When excited by any violent emotion, his ears worked up and down flexibly, like those of a horse. A man of ordinary looks, nothing in his features or countenance denoted the desperado, save a strange, wild, twinkling expression of his infantile grey eyes, always in motion with cold, keen glances, as if watching out for some secret enemy. He had fought half-a-dozen duels with uniform success, and had been engaged in several more off-hand affrays, in none of which he had received even the honor of a scar. Hence, as may well be supposed, his prowess inspired almost universal fear; and few were the dead shots to be found in Arkansas, who would voluntarily seek a quarrel with "old Horse-Ears." As to the rest, he was the owner of a large cotton farm, rich and influential, honest, liberal, and courteous in his manners; exceedingly amiable in his domestic relations, beloved by his family and adored by his slaves. Such are often the inconsistencies of human nature, which seems utterly incapable of producing unalloyed types of either good or evil-angels or devils! During the session, previously specified, there was a member of the lower House, by the name of Abel Anthony, in no way remarkable except for his opposition to the banks and his sly, quiet wit, addicted to practical jokes. In the parlance of frontier technics, he belonged to the category of" peaceable men," having never in all his life before had a mortal rencounter. He was even deemed a coward, for he had been known to pocket open insults without so much as showing a sign of resentment. One day the bill to provide for the more effectual rewarding of wolf-slayers, denominated, in short," the wolf-scalp bill," came up for discussion. This had been a standing reform measure from the earliest settlement of Arkansas, and will probably continue to be so long as the Ozark mountains shall rear their black, bristling crests in the western division of the State, or the Mississippi swamps shall occupy so large an area in the east. Accordingly, whenever the wolf-scalp bill is taken up, a tremendous debate ensues. The contest then is no longer between the ins and outs of power. Whigs and Democrats alike overleap the iron lines of party demarkation, and begin a general massacre of chancemedley. It is a battle-war to the knife, and the knife to the handle-of every member against every other; the object being, as to who shall urge the most annihilating statutes against their common foes, the wolves, because that is the great pivotquestion on which hinges the popularity of each and all. The present occasion was the more arousing, as there had happened lately a laughable, but most annoying, instance in fraud of the previous territorial law. It seems that a cunning Yankee, fresh from the land growing "wooden nutmegs," had conceived a notable scheme of rearing wolves of his own; so that by butchering a hairy whelp, at his option, and taking its ears to a Justice of the Peace, he could obtain a certificate of "wolf-scalp," entitling him to ten dollars out of the county treasury. It was said that this enterprising genius had already in his pens a number of fine looking breeders, and expressed sanguine hopes of soon realizing a handsome fortune! Numerous were the provisions advocated to prevent such scandalous evasions in future. Among others, Brown C. Roberts of Marion, moved " that each certificate of a genuine wolf-scalp be based on not less than four affidavits, and be signed by at least four Justices, and one Judge of the Circuit Court." Abel Anthony moved to amend by adding, "and by the President of the Real Estate Bank." This was intended by the mover merely as a jest, to throw ridicule on the complicated machinery of Roberts' bill, and accordingly it excited a general smile. But very different was the effect on Mr. Speaker Wilson, President of the Real Estate Bank. He saw fit to interpret the amendment as the deadliest insult! I glanced towards the honorable Chairman, expecting to see him enjoying the joke; but the moment I beheld his counte nance, I was absolutely horrified at its savage expression. His face was of ashy paleness; and there, on those thin, white lips, as if in devilish mockery of malice, sat that grim, snake-like, writhing smile, which merely moved the curled mouth, spreading no further, nor affecting any other feature that significant smile of murder, so peculiar to almost the whole class of desperadoes, when about to do some deed of death. There was, however, brief space for speculation as to physiognomic signs; for hardly had the offensive words left Anthony's lips, when Wilson sprang to his feet and imperiously ordered the other to sit down. Anthony, manifesting no token of either surprise or alarm, replied mildly, that he was entitled to the floor. "Sit down!" Wilson repeated, and this time in a shout like thunder. "I am entitled to the floor, and will not resign it," said Anthony, apparently without anger, but giving back a look of calm, immovable resolution. Speaker Wilson then left the chair, drew his bowie knife, descended the steps of the platform, and slowly and deliberately advanced through the hall some forty feet, in the direction of his foe-all the while that ghastly horrid smile, coiling up his pallid lips, and his ears moving backwards and forwards, with those strange, short, sharp vibrations which had won for him long before the nick-name of "HorseEars." er would conquer or perish. In the backwoods experience has demonstrated two unmistakable tokens of thorough desperation-frozen smiles and hot-gushing tears: and tears may always be regarded as far the most dangerous. Such a conclusion was verified fully in the present instance; for as soon as the Speaker approached within ten feet of his weeping enemy, the latter suddenly unsheathed a bowie-knife from his bosom, and stepped boldly forward to the proffered battle. And then commenced a struggle for life and death, the most obstinate, bloody, and frightfully protracted, ever witnessed in the Southwest. Wilson's knife was long, keen, and so highly polished that you might see yourself in the reflection of its smooth, bright surface, as in the most perfect looking-glass. The image being an extremely small miniature, so symmetrical was the rounding of the fine glittering steel. On each side of the flashing blade was a picture, the facsimile of the other, wrought in exquisite gold enamel, of two Indians in their wild, native costume engaged in mortal combat with bowie knives. The weapon of Anthony was of the largest size of the class called in that country " Arkansas tooth-picks," the most murderous implement of destruction, before which a human eye ever quailed. On one side of its broad gleaming blade was the picture of a fight betwixt a hunter and black bear. The bear seemed to be squeezing the man to death in its iron hug, while he was fiercely digging at the shaggy monster's heart with the point of his knife. Such devices are common on the arms of the most notorious desperadoes on the frontiers, and are the objects of as intense a pride to their owners, as were the insignia of the most exalted chivalry to the knights of the heroic ages. For all men are poets; and the idea seeks for ever more to render itself incarnate in the material form-to speak in knowing signs to the senses. Destructiveness will have its images as well as Devotion! As Anthony was commonly considered a coward, when the spectators beheld the far-famed and all-dreaded duelist advancing upon him with uplifted blade, glancing aloft in the air, as ready for the fatal blow, all supposed that the reputed craven would flee in terror from his place. No one believed that he was armed, or that he would fight under any circumstances, or with any odds of position or weapons. But in this opinion every body was mistaken, and no one, perhaps, more so than his infuriate adversary. While that ferocious man was coming towards him, he stood calm and motionless as a pillar of marble. His Wilson made the first pass-a determined color did not change one shade. All his thrust aimed at the pit of his antagonist's limbs were rigid as iron. His only evi- stomach, which the other dexterously pardence of unusual emotion was a copious ried. For a time both parties fought with efflux of tears! At the sight of this we admirable coolness, and with such consumall shuddered, for then we knew the weep-mate skill, that only slight wounds were inflicted, and those on the head and face, whence blood began to trickle freely. And still ominous and awful visionwhile the contest raged, the opposite and characteristic signs of desperation remained fixed, sculptured by the hand of horrible vengeance in either countenance. The cold smile, now converted into a fiendish grin of immeasurable malice, still lingered on Wilson's livid lips: and the tears still flowed, mingling now with warm blood from Anthony's black blazing eyes! The clatter of the knives, thrusting and fending off, and sharply ringing against each other, was hideous to hear, and alone broke the appalling silence that reigned throughout the hall. At length, both foes, maddened at the prolonged obstinacy of the struggle, and blinded by the gore from the red gashes about their eyes, lost all caution, coolness, and equanimity, and battled wildly, more like devils than living men. Each one, more intent on taking the life of his enemy than in guarding his own, exerted every nerve and muscle with a truculent fury that struck the very beholders with icy fear. Both were soon very severely wounded in different parts of the body; but still there came no pause in the combat, till Anthony, striking a heavy, over-handed blow, cut his adversary's arm half off at the wrist! Wilson changed his bowie knife into his left hand, and, for an instant, ran several steps backwards, as if to decline any further contest. He then stopped, and, smiling more frightfully than ever,a fearless, infernal look,—again rushed forwards. Previously, at this crisis, when certain victory was within his grasp, Anthony committed the folly of flinging his knife at the other's bosom, which, missing its aim, fell with a loud, ringing noise on the floor, more than thirty feet distant. This error decided the tremendous combat. Anthony was entirely disarmed, at the mercy of the tiger-man. Wilson darted upon him with a hoarse cry of an ger and hellish joy-there, where he stood, motionless as a rock, powerless to resist, and yet too brave to fly. One sharp thrust ripped open the victim's bowels, and he caught them, as they were falling, in his hands! Another stroke, directed at the neck, severed the main artery, and the blood, spouting out with a gurgling noise, sprinkled the robes, and even the faces, of some members who sat nearest to the horrid scene! The last act of the tragedy was closed, and the curtain of death dropped on the gory stage. Anthony, without a groan or sigh, fell in his place a corpse, and Wilson, fainting from loss of blood, sunk down beside him. Up to this moment, although sixty Legislators were in their seats, and more than a hundred lookers-on in the lobby, and jewelled bevies of bright-eyed ladies in the gallery, still no one, save those raging madmen, had moved; no sound had disturbed the whisperless silence, but the clangors of their concussive steel. But then, as both tumbled on the floor, like lumps of lead, a single wild, wailing, heart-shivering shriek, as if some other soul were parting with its mortal clay, arose in the crowd of females, and all was again still; but whether that deep cry of an orphaned spirit was uttered by the maiden of poor Anthony's bosom, who had hoped to-morrow to be his bride, or by the beautiful little daughter of Wilson, or by some pitying stranger, could never be ascertained. Wilson recovered, and is yet alive; and there is scarcely an inch square on his face that does not show its deep scar, as a memento of the matchless combat. He was expelled the House, bailed by a merciful judge, brought to trial, and acquitted. There was never a jury yet in the back-woods that would convict a person for slaying another in fair fight! For the desperado is the back-woods' hero, whom all men worship. |