Stories in Light and Shadow

B >> Bret Harte >> Stories in Light and Shadow


Their way lay through a sylvan wilderness, mid-leg deep in ferns, whose
tall fronds brushed their horses' sides in their furious gallop and
concealed the flapping of the captive's loosened cords. The peaceful
vista, more suggestive of the offerings of nymph and shepherd than of
human sacrifice, was in a strange contrast to this whirlwind rush of
stern, armed men. The westering sun pierced the subdued light and the
tremor of leaves with yellow lances; birds started into song on blue and
dove-like wings, and on either side of the trail of this vengeful
storm could be heard the murmur of hidden and tranquil waters. In a
few moments they would be on the open ridge, whence sloped the common
turnpike to "Sawyer's," a mile away. It was the custom of returning
cavalcades to take this hill at headlong speed, with shouts and cries
that heralded their coming. They withheld the latter that day, as
inconsistent with their dignity; but, emerging from the wood, swept
silently like an avalanche down the slope. They were well under way,
looking only to their horses, when the second captive slipped his right
arm from the bonds and succeeded in grasping the reins that lay trailing
on the horse's neck. A sudden vaquero jerk, which the well-trained
animal understood, threw him on his haunches with his forelegs firmly
planted on the slope. The rest of the cavalcade swept on; the man who
was leading the captive's horse by the riata, thinking only of another
accident, dropped the line to save himself from being dragged backwards
from his horse. The captive wheeled, and the next moment was galloping
furiously up the slope.

It was the work of a moment; a trained horse and an experienced hand.
The cavalcade had covered nearly fifty yards before they could pull up;
the freed captive had covered half that distance uphill. The road was
so narrow that only two shots could be fired, and these broke dust two
yards ahead of the fugitive. They had not dared to fire low; the horse
was the more valuable animal. The fugitive knew this in his extremity
also, and would have gladly taken a shot in his own leg to spare that of
his horse. Five men were detached to recapture or kill him. The latter
seemed inevitable. But he had calculated his chances; before they could
reload he had reached the woods again; winding in and out between
the pillared tree trunks, he offered no mark. They knew his horse was
superior to their own; at the end of two hours they returned, for he
had disappeared without track or trail. The end was briefly told in the
"Sierra Record:"--

"Red Pete, the notorious horse-thief, who had so long eluded justice,
was captured and hung by the Sawyer's Crossing Vigilantes last week;
his confederate, unfortunately, escaped on a valuable horse belonging
to Judge Boompointer. The judge had refused one thousand dollars for
the horse only a week before. As the thief, who is still at large, would
find it difficult to dispose of so valuable an animal without detection,
the chances are against either of them turning up again."

*****

Salomy Jane watched the cavalcade until it had disappeared. Then she
became aware that her brief popularity had passed. Mrs. Red Pete, in
stormy hysterics, had included her in a sweeping denunciation of the
whole universe, possibly for simulating an emotion in which she herself
was deficient. The other women hated her for her momentary exaltation
above them; only the children still admired her as one who had
undoubtedly "canoodled" with a man "a-going to be hung"--a daring flight
beyond their wildest ambition. Salomy Jane accepted the change with
charming unconcern. She put on her yellow nankeen sunbonnet,--a hideous
affair that would have ruined any other woman, but which only enhanced
the piquancy of her fresh brunette skin,--tied the strings, letting the
blue-black braids escape below its frilled curtain behind, jumped on
her mustang with a casual display of agile ankles in shapely white
stockings, whistled to the hound, and waving her hand with a "So long,
sonny!" to the lately bereft but admiring nephew, flapped and fluttered
away in her short brown holland gown.

Her father's house was four miles distant. Contrasted with the cabin she
had just quitted, it was a superior dwelling, with a long "lean-to" at
the rear, which brought the eaves almost to the ground and made it look
like a low triangle. It had a long barn and cattle sheds, for Madison
Clay was a "great" stock-raiser and the owner of a "quarter section." It
had a sitting-room and a parlor organ, whose transportation thither had
been a marvel of "packing." These things were supposed to give Salomy
Jane an undue importance, but the girl's reserve and inaccessibility to
local advances were rather the result of a cool, lazy temperament and
the preoccupation of a large, protecting admiration for her father, for
some years a widower. For Mr. Madison Clay's life had been threatened in
one or two feuds,--it was said, not without cause,--and it is possible
that the pathetic spectacle of her father doing his visiting with a
shotgun may have touched her closely and somewhat prejudiced her against
the neighboring masculinity. The thought that cattle, horses, and
"quarter section" would one day be hers did not disturb her calm. As for
Mr. Clay, he accepted her as housewifely, though somewhat "interfering,"
and, being one of "his own womankind," therefore not without some degree
of merit.

"Wot's this yer I'm hearin' of your doin's over at Red Pete's?
Honeyfoglin' with a horse-thief, eh?" said Mr. Clay two days later at
breakfast.

"I reckon you heard about the straight thing, then," said Salomy Jane
unconcernedly, without looking round.

"What do you kalkilate Rube will say to it? What are you goin' to tell
HIM?" said Mr. Clay sarcastically.

"Rube," or Reuben Waters, was a swain supposed to be favored
particularly by Mr. Clay. Salomy Jane looked up.

"I'll tell him that when HE'S on his way to be hung, I'll kiss him,--not
till then," said the young lady brightly.

This delightful witticism suited the paternal humor, and Mr. Clay
smiled; but, nevertheless, he frowned a moment afterwards.

"But this yer hoss-thief got away arter all, and that's a hoss of a
different color," he said grimly.

Salomy Jane put down her knife and fork. This was certainly a new and
different phase of the situation. She had never thought of it before,
and, strangely enough, for the first time she became interested in the
man. "Got away?" she repeated. "Did they let him off?"

"Not much," said her father briefly. "Slipped his cords, and going down
the grade pulled up short, just like a vaquero agin a lassoed bull,
almost draggin' the man leadin' him off his hoss, and then skyuted up
the grade. For that matter, on that hoss o' Judge Boompointer's he mout
have dragged the whole posse of 'em down on their knees ef he liked!
Sarved 'em right, too. Instead of stringin' him up afore the door, or
shootin' him on sight, they must allow to take him down afore the hull
committee 'for an example.' 'Example' be blowed! Ther' 's example enough
when some stranger comes unbeknownst slap onter a man hanged to a tree
and plugged full of holes. THAT'S an example, and HE knows what it
means. Wot more do ye want? But then those Vigilantes is allus clingin'
and hangin' onter some mere scrap o' the law they're pretendin' to
despise. It makes me sick! Why, when Jake Myers shot your ole Aunt
Viney's second husband, and I laid in wait for Jake afterwards in the
Butternut Hollow, did I tie him to his hoss and fetch him down to your
Aunt Viney's cabin 'for an example' before I plugged him? No!" in deep
disgust. "No! Why, I just meandered through the wood, careless-like,
till he comes out, and I just rode up to him, and I said"--

But Salomy Jane had heard her father's story before. Even one's dearest
relatives are apt to become tiresome in narration. "I know, dad," she
interrupted; "but this yer man,--this hoss-thief,--did HE get clean away
without gettin' hurt at all?"

"He did, and unless he's fool enough to sell the hoss he kin keep away,
too. So ye see, ye can't ladle out purp stuff about a 'dyin' stranger'
to Rube. He won't swaller it."

"All the same, dad," returned the girl cheerfully, "I reckon to say it,
and say MORE; I'll tell him that ef HE manages to get away too, I'll
marry him--there! But ye don't ketch Rube takin' any such risks in
gettin' ketched, or in gettin' away arter!"

Madison Clay smiled grimly, pushed back his chair, rose, dropped a
perfunctory kiss on his daughter's hair, and, taking his shotgun from
the corner, departed on a peaceful Samaritan mission to a cow who had
dropped a calf in the far pasture. Inclined as he was to Reuben's wooing
from his eligibility as to property, he was conscious that he was sadly
deficient in certain qualities inherent in the Clay family. It certainly
would be a kind of mesalliance.

Left to herself, Salomy Jane stared a long while at the coffee-pot, and
then called the two squaws who assisted her in her household duties, to
clear away the things while she went up to her own room to make her bed.
Here she was confronted with a possible prospect of that proverbial bed
she might be making in her willfulness, and on which she must lie,
in the photograph of a somewhat serious young man of refined
features--Reuben Waters--stuck in her window-frame. Salomy Jane smiled
over her last witticism regarding him and enjoyed, it, like your true
humorist, and then, catching sight of her own handsome face in the
little mirror, smiled again. But wasn't it funny about that horse-thief
getting off after all? Good Lordy! Fancy Reuben hearing he was alive and
going round with that kiss of hers set on his lips! She laughed again, a
little more abstractedly. And he had returned it like a man, holding her
tight and almost breathless, and he going to be hung the next minute!
Salomy Jane had been kissed at other times, by force, chance, or
stratagem. In a certain ingenuous forfeit game of the locality known as
"I'm a-pinin'," many had "pined" for a "sweet kiss" from Salomy Jane,
which she had yielded in a sense of honor and fair play. She had never
been kissed like this before--she would never again; and yet the man was
alive! And behold, she could see in the mirror that she was blushing!

She should hardly know him again. A young man with very bright eyes,
a flushed and sunburnt cheek, a kind of fixed look in the face, and no
beard; no, none that she could feel. Yet he was not at all like Reuben,
not a bit. She took Reuben's picture from the window, and laid it on her
workbox. And to think she did not even know this young man's name! That
was queer. To be kissed by a man whom she might never know! Of course
he knew hers. She wondered if he remembered it and her. But of course he
was so glad to get off with his life that he never thought of anything
else. Yet she did not give more than four or five minutes to these
speculations, and, like a sensible girl, thought of something else. Once
again, however, in opening the closet, she found the brown holland
gown she had worn on the day before; thought it very unbecoming, and
regretted that she had not worn her best gown on her visit to Red Pete's
cottage. On such an occasion she really might have been more impressive.

When her father came home that night she asked him the news. No, they
had NOT captured the second horse-thief, who was still at large. Judge
Boompointer talked of invoking the aid of the despised law. It remained,
then, to see whether the horse-thief was fool enough to try to get rid
of the animal. Red Pete's body had been delivered to his widow. Perhaps
it would only be neighborly for Salomy Jane to ride over to the funeral.
But Salomy Jane did not take to the suggestion kindly, nor yet did she
explain to her father that, as the other man was still living, she
did not care to undergo a second disciplining at the widow's hands.
Nevertheless, she contrasted her situation with that of the widow with
a new and singular satisfaction. It might have been Red Pete who had
escaped. But he had not the grit of the nameless one. She had already
settled his heroic quality.

"Ye ain't harkenin' to me, Salomy."

Salomy Jane started.

"Here I'm askin' ye if ye've see that hound Phil Larrabee sneaking by
yer today?"

Salomy Jane had not. But she became interested and self-reproachful,
for she knew that Phil Larrabee was one of her father's enemies. "He
wouldn't dare to go by here unless he knew you were out," she said
quickly.

"That's what gets me," he said, scratching his grizzled head. "I've been
kind o' thinkin' o' him all day, and one of them Chinamen said he saw
him at Sawyer's Crossing. He was a kind of friend o' Pete's wife. That's
why I thought yer might find out ef he'd been there." Salomy Jane
grew more self-reproachful at her father's self-interest in her
"neighborliness." "But that ain't all," continued Mr. Clay. "Thar was
tracks over the far pasture that warn't mine. I followed them, and they
went round and round the house two or three times, ez ef they mout hev
bin prowlin', and then I lost 'em in the woods again. It's just like
that sneakin' hound Larrabee to hev bin lyin' in wait for me and afraid
to meet a man fair and square in the open."

"You just lie low, dad, for a day or two more, and let me do a little
prowlin'," said the girl, with sympathetic indignation in her dark eyes.
"Ef it's that skunk, I'll spot him soon enough and let you know whar
he's hiding."

"You'll just stay where ye are, Salomy," said her father decisively.
"This ain't no woman's work--though I ain't sayin' you haven't got more
head for it than some men I know."

Nevertheless, that night, after her father had gone to bed, Salomy Jane
sat by the open window of the sitting-room in an apparent attitude of
languid contemplation, but alert and intent of eye and ear. It was a
fine moonlit night. Two pines near the door, solitary pickets of the
serried ranks of distant forest, cast long shadows like paths to the
cottage, and sighed their spiced breath in the windows. For there was no
frivolity of vine or flower round Salomy Jane's bower. The clearing was
too recent, the life too practical for vanities like these. But the moon
added a vague elusiveness to everything, softened the rigid outlines
of the sheds, gave shadows to the lidless windows, and touched with
merciful indirectness the hideous debris of refuse gravel and the gaunt
scars of burnt vegetation before the door. Even Salomy Jane was affected
by it, and exhaled something between a sigh and a yawn with the breath
of the pines. Then she suddenly sat upright.

Her quick ear had caught a faint "click, click," in the direction of the
wood; her quicker instinct and rustic training enabled her to determine
that it was the ring of a horse's shoe on flinty ground; her knowledge
of the locality told her it came from the spot where the trail passed
over an outcrop of flint scarcely a quarter of a mile from where she
sat, and within the clearing. It was no errant "stock," for the foot was
shod with iron; it was a mounted trespasser by night, and boded no good
to a man like Clay.

She rose, threw her shawl over her head, more for disguise than shelter,
and passed out of the door. A sudden impulse made her seize her father's
shotgun from the corner where it stood,--not that she feared any danger
to herself, but that it was an excuse. She made directly for the wood,
keeping in the shadow of the pines as long as she could. At the fringe
she halted; whoever was there must pass her before reaching the house.

Then there seemed to be a suspense of all nature. Everything was deadly
still--even the moonbeams appeared no longer tremulous; soon there was a
rustle as of some stealthy animal among the ferns, and then a dismounted
man stepped into the moonlight. It was the horse-thief--the man she had
kissed!

For a wild moment a strange fancy seized her usually sane intellect and
stirred her temperate blood. The news they had told her was NOT true;
he had been hung, and this was his ghost! He looked as white and
spirit-like in the moonlight, dressed in the same clothes, as when she
saw him last. He had evidently seen her approaching, and moved quickly
to meet her. But in his haste he stumbled slightly; she reflected
suddenly that ghosts did not stumble, and a feeling of relief came
over her. And it was no assassin of her father that had been prowling
around--only this unhappy fugitive. A momentary color came into her
cheek; her coolness and hardihood returned; it was with a tinge of
sauciness in her voice that she said:--

"I reckoned you were a ghost."

"I mout have been," he said, looking at her fixedly; "but I reckon I'd
have come back here all the same."

"It's a little riskier comin' back alive," she said, with a levity
that died on her lips, for a singular nervousness, half fear and half
expectation, was beginning to take the place of her relief of a moment
ago. "Then it was YOU who was prowlin' round and makin' tracks in the
far pasture?"

"Yes; I came straight here when I got away."

She felt his eyes were burning her, but did not dare to raise her own.
"Why," she began, hesitated, and ended vaguely. "HOW did you get here?"

"You helped me!"

"I?"

"Yes. That kiss you gave me put life into me--gave me strength to get
away. I swore to myself I'd come back and thank you, alive or dead."

Every word he said she could have anticipated, so plain the situation
seemed to her now. And every word he said she knew was the truth. Yet
her cool common sense struggled against it.

"What's the use of your escaping, ef you're comin' back here to be
ketched again?" she said pertly.

He drew a little nearer to her, but seemed to her the more awkward as
she resumed her self-possession. His voice, too, was broken, as if by
exhaustion, as he said, catching his breath at intervals:--

"I'll tell you. You did more for me than you think. You made another man
o' me. I never had a man, woman, or child do to me what you did. I never
had a friend--only a pal like Red Pete, who picked me up 'on shares.'
I want to quit this yer--what I'm doin'. I want to begin by doin' the
square thing to you"--He stopped, breathed hard, and then said brokenly,
"My hoss is over thar, staked out. I want to give him to you. Judge
Boompointer will give you a thousand dollars for him. I ain't lyin';
it's God's truth! I saw it on the handbill agin a tree. Take him, and
I'll get away afoot. Take him. It's the only thing I can do for you, and
I know it don't half pay for what you did. Take it; your father can get
a reward for you, if you can't."

Such were the ethics of this strange locality that neither the man who
made the offer nor the girl to whom it was made was struck by anything
that seemed illogical or indelicate, or at all inconsistent with
justice or the horse-thief's real conversion. Salomy Jane nevertheless
dissented, from another and weaker reason.

"I don't want your hoss, though I reckon dad might; but you're just
starvin'. I'll get suthin'." She turned towards the house.

"Say you'll take the hoss first," he said, grasping her hand. At the
touch she felt herself coloring and struggled, expecting perhaps another
kiss. But he dropped her hand. She turned again with a saucy gesture,
said, "Hol' on; I'll come right back," and slipped away, the mere shadow
of a coy and flying nymph in the moonlight, until she reached the house.

Here she not only procured food and whiskey, but added a long dust-coat
and hat of her father's to her burden. They would serve as a disguise
for him and hide that heroic figure, which she thought everybody must
now know as she did. Then she rejoined him breathlessly. But he put the
food and whiskey aside.

"Listen," he said; "I've turned the hoss into your corral. You'll find
him there in the morning, and no one will know but that he got lost and
joined the other hosses."

Then she burst out. "But you--YOU--what will become of you? You'll be
ketched!"

"I'll manage to get away," he said in a low voice, "ef--ef"--

"Ef what?" she said tremblingly. "Ef you'll put the heart in me
again,--as you did!" he gasped.

She tried to laugh--to move away. She could do neither. Suddenly he
caught her in his arms, with a long kiss, which she returned again and
again. Then they stood embraced as they had embraced two days before,
but no longer the same. For the cool, lazy Salomy Jane had been
transformed into another woman--a passionate, clinging savage. Perhaps
something of her father's blood had surged within her at that supreme
moment. The man stood erect and determined.

"Wot's your name?" she whispered quickly. It was a woman's quickest way
of defining her feelings.

"Dart."

"Yer first name?"

"Jack."

"Let me go now, Jack. Lie low in the woods till to-morrow sunup. I'll
come again."

He released her. Yet she lingered a moment. "Put on those things," she
said, with a sudden happy flash of eyes and teeth, "and lie close till I
come." And then she sped away home.

But midway up the distance she felt her feet going slower, and something
at her heartstrings seemed to be pulling her back. She stopped, turned,
and glanced to where he had been standing. Had she seen him then, she
might have returned. But he had disappeared. She gave her first sigh,
and then ran quickly again. It must be nearly ten o'clock! It was not
very long to morning!

She was within a few steps of her own door, when the sleeping woods and
silent air appeared to suddenly awake with a sharp "crack!"

She stopped, paralyzed. Another "crack!" followed, that echoed over to
the far corral. She recalled herself instantly and dashed off wildly to
the woods again.

As she ran she thought of one thing only. He had been "dogged" by one
of his old pursuers and attacked. But there were two shots, and he was
unarmed. Suddenly she remembered that she had left her father's gun
standing against the tree where they were talking. Thank God! she may
again have saved him. She ran to the tree; the gun was gone. She ran
hither and thither, dreading at every step to fall upon his lifeless
body. A new thought struck her; she ran to the corral. The horse was not
there! He must have been able to regain it, and escaped, AFTER the shots
had been fired. She drew a long breath of relief, but it was caught up
in an apprehension of alarm. Her father, awakened from his sleep by the
shots, was hurriedly approaching her.

"What's up now, Salomy Jane?" he demanded excitedly.

"Nothin'," said the girl with an effort. "Nothin', at least, that I can
find." She was usually truthful because fearless, and a lie stuck in her
throat; but she was no longer fearless, thinking of HIM. "I wasn't abed;
so I ran out as soon as I heard the shots fired," she answered in return
to his curious gaze.

"And you've hid my gun somewhere where it can't be found," he said
reproachfully. "Ef it was that sneak Larrabee, and he fired them shots
to lure me out, he might have potted me, without a show, a dozen times
in the last five minutes."

She had not thought since of her father's enemy! It might indeed
have been he who had attacked Jack. But she made a quick point of the
suggestion. "Run in, dad, run in and find the gun; you've got no show
out here without it." She seized him by the shoulders from behind,
shielding him from the woods, and hurried him, half expostulating, half
struggling, to the house.

But there no gun was to be found. It was strange; it must have been
mislaid in some corner! Was he sure he had not left it in the barn? But
no matter now. The danger was over; the Larrabee trick had failed;
he must go to bed now, and in the morning they would make a search
together. At the same time she had inwardly resolved to rise before him
and make another search of the wood, and perhaps--fearful joy as she
recalled her promise!--find Jack alive and well, awaiting her!

Salomy Jane slept little that night, nor did her father. But towards
morning he fell into a tired man's slumber until the sun was well up the
horizon. Far different was it with his daughter: she lay with her face
to the window, her head half lifted to catch every sound, from the
creaking of the sun-warped shingles above her head to the far-off
moan of the rising wind in the pine trees. Sometimes she fell into a
breathless, half-ecstatic trance, living over every moment of the stolen
interview; feeling the fugitive's arm still around her, his kisses on
her lips; hearing his whispered voice in her ears--the birth of her new
life! This was followed again by a period of agonizing dread--that he
might even then be lying, his life ebbing away, in the woods, with her
name on his lips, and she resting here inactive, until she half started
from her bed to go to his succor. And this went on until a pale opal
glow came into the sky, followed by a still paler pink on the summit of
the white Sierras, when she rose and hurriedly began to dress. Still so
sanguine was her hope of meeting him, that she lingered yet a moment to
select the brown holland skirt and yellow sunbonnet she had worn when
she first saw him. And she had only seen him twice! Only TWICE! It would
be cruel, too cruel, not to see him again!