Frontier Stories by Bret Harte

B >> Bret Harte >> Frontier Stories

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31

"Have you been long here?" he stammered.

"All night."

He would have given worlds to leave her at that moment. He would have
jumped from the starting coach to save himself any explanation of the
embarrassment he was furiously conscious of showing, without, as he
believed, any adequate cause. And yet, like all inexperienced,
sensitive men, he dashed blindly into that explanation; worse, he even
told his secret at once, then and there, and then sat abashed and
conscience-stricken, with an added sense of its utter futility.

"And this," summed up the young girl, with a slight shrug of her pretty
shoulders, "is _your May_?"

Cass would have recommenced his story.

"No, don't, pray! It isn't interesting, nor original. Do _you_ believe
it?"

"I do," said Cass, indignantly.

"How lucky! Then let me go to sleep."

Cass, still furious, but uneasy, did not again address her. When the
coach stopped at Blazing Star she asked him, indifferently: "When does
this sentimental pilgrimage begin?"

"I return for her at one o'clock," replied Cass, stiffly. He kept his
word. He appeased his eager companions with a promise of future
fortune, and exhibited the present and tangible reward. By a circuitous
route known only to himself, he led Miss Mortimer to the road before
the cabin. There was a pink flush of excitement on her somewhat faded
cheek.

"And it was here?" she asked, eagerly.

"I found it here."

"And the body?"

"That was afterward. Over in that direction, beyond the clump of
buckeyes, on the Red Chief turnpike."

"And any one coming from the road we left just now and going
to--to--that place, would have to cross just here? Tell me," she said,
with a strange laugh, laying her cold nervous hand on his, "wouldn't
they?"

"They would."

"Let us go to that place."

Cass stepped out briskly to avoid observation and gain the woods beyond
the highway. "You have crossed here before," she said. "There seems to
be a trail."

"I may have made it: it's a short cut to the buckeyes."

"You never found anything else on the trail?"

"You remember, I told you before, the ring was all I found."

"Ah, true!" she smiled sweetly; "it was _that_ which made it seem so
odd to you. I forgot."

In half an hour they reached the buckeyes. During the walk she had
taken rapid recognizance of everything in her path. When they crossed
the road and Cass had pointed out the scene of the murder, she looked
anxiously around. "You are sure we are not seen?"

"Quite."

"You will not think me foolish if I ask you to wait here while I go in
there"--she pointed to the ominous thicket near them--"alone?" She was
quite white.

Cass's heart, which had grown somewhat cold since his interview with
Miss Porter, melted at once.

"Go; I will stay here."

He waited five minutes. She did not return. What if the poor creature
had determined upon suicide on the spot where her faithless lover had
fallen? He was reassured in another moment by the rustle of skirts in
the undergrowth.

"I was becoming quite alarmed," he said, aloud.

"You have reason to be," returned a hurried voice. He started. It was
Miss Porter, who stepped swiftly out of the cover. "Look," she said,
"look at that man down the road. He has been tracking you two ever
since you left the cabin. Do you know who he is?"

"No!"

"Then listen. It is three-fingered Dick, one of the escaped road
agents. I know him!"

"Let us go and warn her," said Cass, eagerly.

Miss Porter laid her hand upon his shoulder.

"I don't think she'll thank you," she said, dryly. "Perhaps you'd
better see what she's doing, first."

Utterly bewildered, yet with a strong sense of the masterfulness of his
companion, he followed her. She crept like a cat through the thicket.
Suddenly she paused. "Look!" she whispered, viciously, "look at the
tender vigils of your heart-broken May!"

Cass saw the woman who had left him a moment before on her knees on the
grass, with long thin fingers digging like a ghoul in the earth. He had
scarce time to notice her eager face and eyes, cast now and then back
toward the spot where she had left him, before there was a crash in the
bushes, and a man,--the stranger of the road,--leaped to her side.
"Run," he said; "run for it now. You're watched!"

"Oh! that man, Beard!" she said, contemptuously.

"No, another in a wagon. Quick. Fool, you know the place now,--you can
come later; run!" And half-dragging, half-lifting her, he bore her
through the bushes. Scarcely had they closed behind the pair when Miss
Porter ran to the spot vacated by the woman. "Look!" she cried,
triumphantly, "look!"

Cass looked, and sank on his knees beside her.

"It _was_ worth a thousand dollars, wasn't it?" she repeated,
maliciously, "wasn't it? But you ought to return it! _Really_ you
ought."

Cass could scarcely articulate. "But how did _you_ know it?" he finally
gasped.

"Oh, I suspected something; there was a woman, and you know you're
_such_ a fool!"

Cass rose, stiffly.

"Don't be a greater fool now, but go and bring my horse and wagon from
the hill, and don't say anything to the driver."

"Then you did not come alone?"

"No; it would have been bold and improper."

"Please!"

"And to think it _was_ the ring, after all, that pointed to this," she
said.

"The ring that _you_ returned to me."

"What did you say?"

"Nothing."

"Don't, please, the wagon is coming."

* * * * *

In the next morning's edition of the "Red Chief Chronicle" appeared the
following startling intelligence:

EXTRAORDINARY DISCOVERY!

FINDING OF THE STOLEN TREASURE OF WELLS, FARGO & CO. OVER $300,000
RECOVERED.

Our readers will remember the notorious robbery of Wells, Fargo & Co.'s
treasure from the Sacramento and Red Chief Pioneer Coach on the night
of September 1. Although most of the gang were arrested, it is known
that two escaped, who, it was presumed, _cached_ the treasure,
amounting to nearly $500,000 in gold, drafts, and jewelry, as no trace
of the property was found. Yesterday our esteemed fellow citizen, Mr.
Cass Beard, long and favorably known in this county, succeeded in
exhuming the treasure in a copse of hazel near the Red Chief
turnpike,--adjacent to the spot where an unknown body was lately
discovered. This body is now strongly suspected to be that of one Henry
Cass, a disreputable character, who has since been ascertained to have
been one of the road agents who escaped. The matter is now under legal
investigation. The successful result of the search is due to a
systematic plan evolved from the genius of Mr. Beard, who has devoted
over a year to this labor. It was first suggested to him by the finding
of a ring, now definitely identified as part of the treasure which was
supposed to have been dropped from Wells, Fargo & Co.'s boxes by the
robbers in their midnight flight through Blazing Star.

In the same journal appeared the no less important intelligence, which
explains, while it completes this veracious chronicle:--

"It is rumored that a marriage is shortly to take place between the
hero of the late treasure discovery and a young lady of Red Chief,
whose devoted aid and assistance to this important work is well known
to this community."

IN THE CARQUINEZ WOODS.

CHAPTER I.

The sun was going down on the Carquinez Woods. The few shafts of
sunlight that had pierced their pillared gloom were lost in
unfathomable depths, or splintered their ineffectual lances on the
enormous trunks of the redwoods. For a time the dull red of their vast
columns, and the dull red of their cast-off bark which matted the
echoless aisles, still seemed to hold a faint glow of the dying day.
But even this soon passed. Light and color fled upwards. The dark,
interlaced tree-tops, that had all day made an impenetrable shade,
broke into fire here and there; their lost spires glittered, faded, and
went utterly out. A weird twilight that did not come from an outer
world, but seemed born of the wood itself, slowly filled and possessed
the aisles. The straight, tall, colossal trunks rose dimly like columns
of upward smoke. The few fallen trees stretched their huge length into
obscurity, and seemed to lie on shadowy trestles. The strange breath
that filled these mysterious vaults had neither coldness nor moisture;
a dry, fragrant dust arose from the noiseless foot that trod their
bark-strewn floor; the aisles might have been tombs, the fallen trees,
enormous mummies; the silence, the solitude of the forgotten past.

And yet this silence was presently broken by a recurring sound like
breathing, interrupted occasionally by inarticulate and stertorous
gasps. It was not the quick, panting, listening breath of some stealthy
feline or canine animal, but indicated a larger, slower, and more
powerful organization, whose progress was less watchful and guarded, or
as if a fragment of one of the fallen monsters had become animate. At
times this life seemed to take visible form, but as vaguely, as
misshapenly, as the phantom of a nightmare. Now it was a square object
moving sideways, endways, with neither head nor tail and scarcely
visible feet; then an arched bulk rolling against the trunks of the
trees and recoiling again, or an upright cylindrical mass, but always
oscillating and unsteady, and striking the trees on either hand. The
frequent occurrence of the movement suggested the figures of some weird
rhythmic dance to music heard by the shape alone. Suddenly it either
became motionless or faded away.

There was the frightened neighing of a horse, the sudden jingling of
spurs, a shout and outcry, and the swift apparition of three dancing
torches in one of the dark aisles; but so intense was the obscurity
that they shed no light on surrounding objects, and seemed to advance
at their own volition without human guidance, until they disappeared
suddenly behind the interposing bulk of one of the largest trees.
Beyond its eighty feet of circumference the light could not reach, and
the gloom remained inscrutable. But the voices and jingling spurs were
heard distinctly.

"Blast the mare! She's shied off that cursed trail again."

"Ye ain't lost it agin, hev ye?" growled a second voice.

"That's jist what I hev. And these blasted pine-knots don't give light
an inch beyond 'em. D----d if I don't think they make this cursed hole
blacker."

There was a laugh--a woman's laugh--hysterical, bitter, sarcastic,
exasperating. The second speaker, without heeding it, went on:

"What in thunder skeert the hosses? Did you see or hear anything?"

"Nothin'. The wood is like a graveyard."

The woman's voice again broke into a hoarse, contemptuous laugh. The
man resumed angrily:

"If you know anything, why in h--ll don't you say so, instead of
cackling like a d----d squaw there? P'raps you reckon you ken find the
trail too."

"Take this rope off my wrist," said the woman's voice, "untie my hands,
let me down, and I'll find it." She spoke quickly and with a Spanish
accent.

It was the men's turn to laugh. "And give you a show to snatch that
six-shooter and blow a hole through me, as you did to the Sheriff of
Calaveras, eh? Not if this court understands itself," said the first
speaker dryly.

"Go to the devil, then," she said curtly.

"Not before a lady," responded the other. There was another laugh from
the men, the spurs jingled again, the three torches reappeared from
behind the tree, and then passed away in the darkness.

For a time silence and immutability possessed the woods; the great
trunks loomed upwards, their fallen brothers stretched their slow
length into obscurity. The sound of breathing again became audible; the
shape reappeared in the aisle, and recommenced its mystic dance.
Presently it was lost in the shadow of the largest tree, and to the
sound of breathing succeeded a grating and scratching of bark.
Suddenly, as if riven by lightning, a flash broke from the centre of
the tree-trunk, lit up the woods, and a sharp report rang through it.
After a pause the jingling of spurs and the dancing of torches were
revived from the distance.

"Hallo?"

No answer.

"Who fired that shot?"

But there was no reply. A slight veil of smoke passed away to the
right, there was the spice of gunpowder in the air, but nothing more.

The torches came forward again, but this time it could be seen they
were held in the hands of two men and a woman. The woman's hands were
tied at the wrist to the horse-hair reins of her mule, while a _riata_,
passed around her waist and under the mule's girth, was held by one of
the men, who were both armed with rifles and revolvers. Their
frightened horses curveted, and it was with difficulty they could be
made to advance.

"Ho! stranger, what are you shooting at?"

The woman laughed and shrugged her shoulders. "Look yonder at the roots
of the tree. You're a d----d smart man for a sheriff, ain't you?"

The man uttered an exclamation and spurred his horse forward, but the
animal reared in terror. He then sprang to the ground and approached
the tree. The shape lay there, a scarcely distinguishable bulk.

"A grizzly, by the living Jingo! Shot through the heart."

It was true. The strange shape lit up by the flaring torches seemed
more vague, unearthly, and awkward in its dying throes, yet the small
shut eyes, the feeble nose, the ponderous shoulders, and half-human
foot armed with powerful claws were unmistakable. The men turned by a
common impulse and peered into the remote recesses of the wood again.

"Hi, Mister! come and pick up your game. Hallo there!"

The challenge fell unheeded on the empty woods.

"And yet," said he whom the woman had called the sheriff, "he can't be
far off. It was a close shot, and the bear hez dropped in his tracks.
Why, wot's this sticking in his claws?"

The two men bent over the animal. "Why, it's sugar, brown sugar--look!"
There was no mistake. The huge beast's fore paws and muzzle were
streaked with the unromantic household provision, and heightened the
absurd contrast of its incongruous members. The woman, apparently
indifferent, had taken that opportunity to partly free one of her
wrists.

"If we hadn't been cavorting round this yer spot for the last half
hour, I'd swear there was a shanty not a hundred yards away," said the
sheriff.

The other man, without replying, remounted his horse instantly.

"If there is, and it's inhabited by a gentleman that kin make centre
shots like that in the dark, and don't care to explain how, I reckon I
won't disturb him."

The sheriff was apparently of the same opinion, for he followed his
companion's example, and once more led the way. The spurs tinkled, the
torches danced, and the cavalcade slowly reentered the gloom. In
another moment it had disappeared.

The wood sank again into repose, this time disturbed by neither shape
nor sound. What lower forms of life might have crept close to its roots
were hidden in the ferns, or passed with deadened tread over the
bark-strewn floor. Towards morning a coolness like dew fell from above,
with here and there a dropping twig or nut, or the crepitant awakening
and stretching-out of cramped and weary branches. Later a dull, lurid
dawn, not unlike the last evening's sunset, filled the aisles. This
faded again, and a clear gray light, in which every object stood out in
sharp distinctness, took its place. Morning was waiting outside in all
its brilliant, youthful coloring, but only entered as the matured and
sobered day.

Seen in that stronger light, the monstrous tree near which the dead
bear lay revealed its age in its denuded and scarred trunk, and showed
in its base a deep cavity, a foot or two from the ground, partly hidden
by hanging strips of bark which had fallen across it. Suddenly one of
these strips was pushed aside, and a young man leaped lightly down.

But for the rifle he carried and some modern peculiarities of dress, he
was of a grace so unusual and unconventional that he might have passed
for a faun who was quitting his ancestral home. He stepped to the side
of the bear with a light elastic movement that was as unlike customary
progression as his face and figure were unlike the ordinary types of
humanity. Even as he leaned upon his rifle, looking down at the
prostrate animal, he unconsciously fell into an attitude that in any
other mortal would have been a pose, but with him was the picturesque
and unstudied relaxation of perfect symmetry.

"Hallo, Mister!"

He raised his head so carelessly and listlessly that he did not
otherwise change his attitude. Stepping from behind the tree, the woman
of the preceding night stood before him. Her hands were free except for
a thong of the _riata_, which was still knotted around one wrist, the
end of the thong having been torn or burnt away. Her eyes were
bloodshot, and her hair hung over her shoulders in one long black
braid.

"I reckoned all along it was _you_ who shot the bear," she said; "at
least some one hidin' yer," and she indicated the hollow tree with her
hand. "It wasn't no chance shot." Observing that the young man, either
from misconception or indifference, did not seem to comprehend her, she
added, "We came by here, last night, a minute after you fired."

"Oh, that was _you_ kicked up such a row, was it?" said the young man,
with a shade of interest.

"I reckon," said the woman, nodding her head, "and them that was with
me."

"And who are they?"

"Sheriff Dunn, of Yolo, and his deputy."

"And where are they now?"

"The deputy--in h--ll, I reckon. I don't know about the sheriff."

"I see," said the young man quietly; "and you?"

"I--got away," she said savagely. But she was taken with a sudden
nervous shiver, which she at once repressed by tightly dragging her
shawl over her shoulders and elbows, and folding her arms defiantly.

"And you're going?"

"To follow the deputy, may be," she said gloomily. "But come, I say,
ain't you going to treat? It's cursed cold here."

"Wait a moment." The young man was looking at her, with his arched
brows slightly knit and a half smile of curiosity. "Ain't you Teresa?"

She was prepared for the question, but evidently was not certain
whether she would reply defiantly or confidently. After an exhaustive
scrutiny of his face she chose the latter, and said, "You can bet your
life on it, Johnny."

"I don't bet, and my name isn't Johnny. Then you're the woman who
stabbed Dick Curson over at Lagrange's?"

She became defiant again. "That's me, all the time. What are you going
to do about it?"

"Nothing. And you used to dance at the Alhambra?"

She whisked the shawl from her shoulders, held it up like a scarf, and
made one or two steps of the _sembicuacua_. There was not the least
gayety, recklessness, or spontaneity in the action; it was simply
mechanical bravado. It was so ineffective, even upon her own feelings,
that her arms presently dropped to her side, and she coughed
embarrassedly. "Where's that whiskey, pardner?" she asked.

The young man turned toward the tree he had just quitted, and without
further words assisted her to mount to the cavity. It was an
irregular-shaped vaulted chamber, pierced fifty feet above by a shaft
or cylindrical opening in the decayed trunk, which was blackened by
smoke as if it had served the purpose of a chimney. In one corner lay a
bearskin and blanket; at the side were two alcoves or indentations, one
of which was evidently used as a table, and the other as a cupboard. In
another hollow, near the entrance, lay a few small sacks of flour,
coffee, and sugar, the sticky contents of the latter still strewing the
floor. From this storehouse the young man drew a wicker flask of
whiskey, and handed it, with a tin cup of water, to the woman. She
waved the cup aside, placed the flask to her lips, and drank the
undiluted spirit. Yet even this was evidently bravado, for the water
started to her eyes, and she could not restrain the paroxysm of
coughing that followed.

"I reckon that's the kind that kills at forty rods," she said, with a
hysterical laugh. "But I say, pardner, you look as if you were fixed
here to stay," and she stared ostentatiously around the chamber. But
she had already taken in its minutest details, even to observing that
the hanging strips of bark could be disposed so as to completely hide
the entrance.

"Well, yes," he replied; "it wouldn't be very easy to pull up the
stakes and move the shanty further on."

Seeing that either from indifference or caution he had not accepted her
meaning, she looked at him fixedly, and said,--

"What is your little game?"

"Eh?"

"What are you hiding for--here in this tree?"

"But I'm not hiding."

"Then why didn't you come out when they hailed you last night?"

"Because I didn't care to."

Teresa whistled incredulously. "All right--then if you're not hiding,
I'm going to." As he did not reply, she went on: "If I can keep out of
sight for a couple of weeks, this thing will blow over here, and I can
get across into Yolo. I could get a fair show there, where the boys
know me. Just now the trails are all watched, but no one would think of
lookin' here."

"Then how did you come to think of it?" he asked carelessly.

"Because I knew that bear hadn't gone far for that sugar; because I
knew he hadn't stole it from a _cache_--it was too fresh, and we'd have
seen the torn-up earth; because we had passed no camp; and because I
knew there was no shanty here. And, besides," she added in a low voice,
"may be I was huntin' a hole myself to die in--and spotted it by
instinct."

There was something in this suggestion of a hunted animal that, unlike
anything she had previously said or suggested, was not exaggerated, and
caused the young man to look at her again. She was standing under the
chimney-like opening, and the light from above illuminated her head and
shoulders. The pupils of her eyes had lost their feverish prominence,
and were slightly suffused and softened as she gazed abstractedly
before her. The only vestige of her previous excitement was in her
left-hand fingers, which were incessantly twisting and turning a
diamond ring upon her right hand, but without imparting the least
animation to her rigid attitude. Suddenly, as if conscious of his
scrutiny, she stepped aside out of the revealing light, and by a swift
feminine instinct raised her hand to her head as if to adjust her
straggling hair. It was only for a moment, however, for, as if aware of
the weakness, she struggled to resume her aggressive pose.

"Well," she said. "Speak up. Am I goin' to stop here, or have I got to
get up and get?"

"You can stay," said the young man quietly; "but as I've got my
provisions and ammunition here, and haven't any other place to go to
just now, I suppose we'll have to share it together."

She glanced at him under her eyelids, and a half-bitter,
half-contemptuous smile passed across her face. "All right, old man,"
she said, holding out her hand, "it's a go. We'll start in housekeeping
at once, if you like."

"I'll have to come here once or twice a day," he said, quite
composedly, "to look after my things, and get something to eat; but
I'll be away most of the time, and what with camping out under the
trees every night I reckon my share won't incommode you."

She opened her black eyes upon him, at this original proposition. Then
she looked down at her torn dress. "I suppose this style of thing ain't
very fancy, is it?" she said, with a forced laugh.

"I think I know where to beg or borrow a change for you, if you can't
get any," he replied simply.

She stared at him again. "Are you a family man?"

"No."

She was silent for a moment. "Well," she said, "you can tell your girl
I'm not particular about its being in the latest fashion."

There was a slight flush on his forehead as he turned toward the little
cupboard, but no tremor in his voice as he went on: "You'll find tea
and coffee here, and, if you're bored, there's a book or two. You read,
don't you--I mean English?"

She nodded, but cast a look of undisguised contempt upon the two worn,
coverless novels he held out to her. "You haven't got last week's
'Sacramento Union,' have you? I hear they have my case all in; only
them lying reporters made it out against me all the time."

"I don't see the papers," he replied curtly.

"They say there's a picture of me in the 'Police Gazette,' taken in the
act," and she laughed.

He looked a little abstracted, and turned as if to go. "I think you'll
do well to rest a while just now, and keep as close hid as possible
until afternoon. The trail is a mile away at the nearest point, but
some one might miss it and stray over here. You're quite safe if you're
careful, and stand by the tree. You can build a fire here," he stepped
under the chimney-like opening, "without its being noticed. Even the
smoke is lost and cannot be seen so high."

The light from above was falling on his head and shoulders, as it had
on hers. She looked at him intently.

"You travel a good deal on your figure, pardner, don't you?" she said,
with a certain admiration that was quite sexless in its quality; "but I
don't see how you pick up a living by it in the Carquinez Woods. So
you're going, are you? You might be more sociable. Good-by."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31