James Beardley Hendryx - Black John of Halfaday Creek

“That’s over on the American side, an’ we told the U.S. marshal about that time on Birch Crick an’ that other will. He done some lookin’ around, but Fatty was somewhere under the ice, an’ nothin’ to show it wasn’t an accident. So Snook got his stuff, too. But we know’d different, ’cause Fatty was a good riverman an’ he wouldn’t git ketched in no ice jam onlest he was shoved in. It looked like the best luck a pardner of Snook could have would be that his claim wasn’t no good.

“The next one was the Bird Man. He wasn’t no p’ardner of Snook’s, but Snook was guidin’ him. That was on the American side, too. There wasn’t much doin’ that summer—no new strikes nor nothin’, an’ I was tendin’ bar down to Eagle.

“This here Bird Man, he was some scientist from the States an’ he come into the country fer to git samples of all the birds there was. He’d shoot anything that wore feathers, from a hummin’ bird to a swan, an’ skin it an’ save the hide. An’ besides that he took samples of all the kinds of flowers an’ grass an’ weeds he could git holt of an’ saved ’em.

“Most of these here scientists is huntin’ rocks—but the Bird Man didn’t give a damn about rocks—birds an’ grass was his weakness.

“Snook, he hired out to guide him, an’ they’d be gone out along the cricks fer a spell, an’ then they’d come into Eagle, an’ the Bird Man would spend a few days sortin’ out what he’d got an’ packin’ it away in boxes.

“One time they come in an’ the Bird Man had a lot of toadstools which he’d picked, an’ he claimed they was good to eat. He took ’em to Pop Bascom’s restaurant an’ told Pop to cook ’em. Pop allowed they was p’izen, but the Bird Man claimed they wasn’t, so Pop went ahead an’ cooked ’em, an’ the Bird Man set there in the restaurant an’ et ’em, an’ a lot of us set around watchin’ him to see if he would die—but he didn’t—an’ I’ll bet he et a quart of the damn stuff.

“Besides these ones Pop cooked, he fetched in some other kinds. But he cooked them hisself, separate, an’ et jest a little bit of each kind—one each day. He claimed that he suspicioned they might be p’izen ones, so he was tryin’ ’em out. One kind did make him sort of sick to his stummick fer a while, but he hadn’t et enough to kill him, an’ he got all right next day.

“I s’pose that’s a damn good way to find out if a thing is p’izen. But it takes guts to do it, an’ what I claim—who would give a damn if it was p’izen er not? There’s plenty other stuff to eat besides toadstools.

“Well, about a month after that Snook come bustin’ into Eagle one day an’ claimed the Bird Man was sick as hell out in the hills. Old Doc Smedly went out an’ found him sick, all right—so damn sick Doc couldn’t do nothin’ but jest set around an’ watch him die. Couldn’t git no medicine down him. He’d throw it up before it could take holt.

“Snook claimed that the Bird Man had cooked up a mess of them toadstools, er whatever it was he et down to the restaurant, so most folks wasn’t surprised to hear he’d got p’izened. But when they fetched the body in, an’ we found out it didn’t have no more ’n about ten dollars an’ some change on it, we began to wonder if it was musheroons, er somethin’ else, that killed the Bird Man. Because we all know’d he carried a roll with him—an’ the most of us remembered about Buck Huston an’ Fatty Eckinrod.

“We told Doc about it, but he claimed that the only kind of p’izen there was that he could of got holt of was strychnine, fer to p’izen wolves with, an’ he claimed it worn’t strychnine p’izen the Bird Man died of—the symptoms was different.

“So we buried the Bird Man, an’ some society er museum er somethin’ back in the States sent on some money fer to ship back his samples, an’ that’s all there was to it—except you can’t never make me believe the Bird Man died of eatin’ musheroons. He know’d too damn much about ’em to eat a p’izen kind—an’ his pockets bein’ damn near empty when he always carried a roll!”

“How come,” queried Black John, “that if you was all these places where this here Snook was, he ain’t recognized you on Halfaday?”

“Oh hell, I was different them days. I had two arms an’ no whiskers. An’ my name was a little different, too.”

“Well,” opined Moosehide Charley, “if a constable an’ a doctor an’ a U.S. marshal couldn’t ketch this damn cuss at his murders, it looks like he’d git away with another one, too.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” grinned Black John. “I’ve saw constables that wasn’t none too wide between the ears, an’ doctors, too. An’ my own experience down around Fort Gibbon, in the matter of that army pay roll, wasn’t nothin’ that would put me in no awe of the acumen of U.S. marshals. Offhand, from what One Armed has told us, I’d say that if this here Harrison didn’t p’izen hisself with musheroons, like Cleveland claims, he’d be’n fed a dose of arsenic.”

“Arsenic!” exclaimed Swiftwater Bill. “Where in hell would he git arsenic in this country?”

“My guess would be that that roll of bills wasn’t the only thing this here Snook, alias Cleveland, took off’ n that Bird Man. You see I happen to rec’lect the Bird Man—er another one jest like him. He come up-river from the coast whilst I was sojournin’ around Fort Gibbon. He was an interestin’ sort of a cuss. I got acquainted with him an’ I kind of liked him. He hired him a Siwash fer a guide down there, an’ he’d come in every little while with his specimens, jest like One Armed claimed he done at Eagle, an’ I’d help him sort ’em an’ pack ’em away.

“He’d explain all about the different kinds—most of which I’ve fergot. But I ain’t fergot that he dusted them bird skins with arsenic an’ plaster of Paris. The arsenic, he explained, preserved the skins an’ kep’ the bugs out of ’em, an’ the plaster blotted up the grease an’ the blood. He had plenty of arsenic with him—an’ Snook could of got holt of it easy enough.”

“By God, John, I believe yer right!” exclaimed Swiftwater Bill, with enthusiasm. “An’ now we’ll see fer ourselves how this jestice works out that we’ve be’n hearin’ about down to Dawson! They all claim down there that no man kin git away with a crime on Halfaday. When will you call yer miners’ meetin’, John?”

“Well, we’ve got to go slow. We don’t make no mistakes on Halfaday—because you can’t never rectify a dead man. I liked the Bird Man. He was a damn nice fella—if it’s the same one. I——”

“He was kind of littlish, an’ redheaded, an’ he didn’t wear no hat,” cut in One-Armed John.

“That’s him to a T. Perfessor Amadon, his name was.”

“That’s him! I rec’lect the name, now you’ve spoke it.”

“H-u-u-m-m, he was a friend of mine,” mused Black John, half aloud. And Swiftwater Bill noted a steely glint in the blue-gray eyes as the big man added: “What a hell of a way to die!”

“Do you know arsenic symptoms?” asked Moosehide.

“No, but I know strychnine symptoms,” Black John replied. “We’ll have to git along with them. We’ll go up the crick now. You go to Harrison’s shack. I’ll show you the one. Stick around there an’ keep this Snook, er Cleveland, there on one pretext er another. Don’t say nothin’ about us comin’ back with the meat. Let ’em think we’re still out in the hills. Jest tell ’em you come up to see if you could do somethin’—fetch Bettles up some more whisky er somethin’. Me an’ Swiftwater’ll slip on to Cleveland’s tent, on the next claim to Harrison’s, an’ look around a little.”

Leaving the saloon, the three proceeded rapidly up the creek for three or four miles when Black John halted and turned to Moosehide. “Harrison’s in the first shack around this bend,” he said. “Go on up there an’ do like I said, an’ me an’ Swiftwater’ll slip around through the brush to Cleveland’s. When we git through there we’ll go to Harrison’s, like we jest come up from the fort.”