LAST WORDS

It was in the light of a store window in Catskill that he read hurriedly the few pages which he had found in the cabin of the Goodfellow. The first three or four were written in a firm hand, the rest were scrawled, and evidently written under stress. The writing had been left unfinished. He could hardly credit his senses as he read:

“As long as I can’t do what I intended or get away from here I might as well confess. I would of confessed long ago to clear an innocent man only I heard he was killed in the war and charges against him can’t hurt him. I want to say I tried to go to but they wouldn’t take me on account of my hart. I tried in Denver. I killed Henry Merrick in 1908. It wasn’t Anson Dyker. First he told me how he hated Merrick that was the day him and me tramped up Overlook Mountain we were pals. He says he would kill Merrick for what he was going to do if he done it the next year when they would be clearing the valley. I says he better look out how he talked. He says he would do it anyway and I says yes you will you talk big.

The day Uncle Caleb sent him to pay old Merrick in Kingston I was just out of Elmira a week and I was shuting craps with coreys farmhand near his house so he asks me to go with him to Kingston to the old mans and I says no I wouldn’t. Anyways I follered him. I knowed he had over a hundred dollars. I caught up with him an I says tell your granfather yer lost it an we’ll go out west I dare you. He says no he wouldn so I follers him and went in the cellar way of Merricks by the window that was busted. It was all in the bushes like. I hered him payin Merrick upstairs and he gives Merrick the devil talkin like a regler kid. He got so mad when he couldn get out the kitchen door he climed out the winder then I went up and soked old Merrick with the iron and took the money that was in a onvelop and a tin box to. There was papers I didn know how I culd get money on them so I buried them in our old well in West Hurley. Anyways I had near two thousand ter go out west with en I sends money back sos they’ll think im all right and workin. I sends my mother five hundred. She thot I was married en working en everything.

Las year I was took sick with my hart en couldn work no more en I was in hard luck. I reads in a paper how old Hurley is all so yer can see it in dry weather en I come east ter get the papers I left in the well sos I could turn em inter money, but thats all bunk anyways it ain’t dry long enough for the old village ter show yet. I waited all this time en go there every night till I get sick. Now its a month it ain’t rained en nothing doing yer cant see a thing so I says its all bunk.

When I didn have no more money left I come here. I guess Im a goner now I have to spells yesterday. I couldn go ashore since the first one I had while I was swimming out but that wasn much. Now I got em all the time anyways the game is up but if anybody says Im lying they can see fer thereselves what I hid if it ever gets dry enough.

P S it was me killed old Merrick.

As long as my mother is dead please notify Al Burnam 82 Kent St Dawson Ohio why I didn come back en tell him he can have my things in the room en he can tell Doc Conway in the hospital he was right I gotter hand it to him.

Sent word ter Alice Darrel too she lives at 407 Harrison street Dawson. I gotter sit up it hurts when I lay down and it hurts ter write. P. S. its straight about the—”

Here the narrative broke off. Tom paused, too dumbfounded to replace the pages in his pocket. For a few seconds he was like a statue. Then he moved along the street in a kind of trance, bumped into a man, was vaguely conscious of saying “Excuse me.” And just a trifle more conscious of asking someone else where the police station was.

It cannot be said that he seemed happy, the whole thing was too solemn and grim for happiness. But beneath his excitement was a deep, abounding joy, a joy not prejudicial to his pity for the poor wretch who had penned those lines in remorse and bitter disappointment and lonely suffering.

It was not the man’s crime-stained history which Tom thought of now, only the heartrending tragedy of his awful end. And in his grateful joy he was sobered and subdued by the solemnity of death which neither crime nor sordid environment can destroy. And so this returned native lying stark out there on the moonlit river was respected as he had never deserved to be. For men are known by the company they keep. And that night he was in company with the Angel of Death.