Under the Redwoods

B >> Bret Harte >> Under the Redwoods


"B'gosh! She's a stunner!"

Kane, a good deal relieved at her departure and the success of his
ministration, smiled benignly.

The stranger again stared after the retreating carriage, looked around
the shop, and even into the deserted surgery, and approached the
counter confidentially. "Look yer, pardner. I kem straight from St. Jo,
Mizzorri, to Gold Hill--whar I've got a claim--and I reckon this is the
first time I ever struck San Francisker. I ain't up to towny ways nohow,
and I allow that mebbe I'm rather green. So we'll let that pass! Now
look yer!" he added, leaning over the counter with still deeper and even
mysterious confidence, "I suppose this yer kind o' thing is the regular
go here, eh? nothin' new to YOU! in course no! But to me, pard, it's
just fetchin' me! Lifts me clear outer my boots every time! Why, when I
popped into that thar room, and saw that lady--all gold, furbelows,
and spangles--at twelve o'clock at night, sittin' in that cheer and you
a-cuttin' her h'r and swabbin' her head o' blood, and kinder prospectin'
for 'indications,' so to speak, and doin' it so kam and indifferent
like, I sez to myself, 'Rube, Rube,' sez I, 'this yer's life! city life!
San Francisker life! and b'gosh, you've dropped into it! Now, pard, look
yar! don't you answer, ye know, ef it ain't square and above board for
me to know; I ain't askin' you to give the show away, ye know, in the
matter of high-toned ladies like that, but" (very mysteriously, and
sinking his voice to the lowest confidential pitch, as he put his
hand to his ear as if to catch the hushed reply), "what mout hev bin
happening, pard?"

Considerably amused at the man's simplicity, Kane replied
good-humoredly: "Danced among some champagne bottles on a table at a
party, fell and got cut by glass."

The stranger nodded his head slowly and approvingly as he repeated with
infinite deliberateness: "Danced on champagne bottles, champagne! you
said, pard? at a pahty! Yes!" (musingly and approvingly). "I reckon
that's about the gait they take. SHE'D do it."

"Is there anything I can do for you? sorry to have kept you waiting,"
said Kane, glancing at the clock.

"O ME! Lord! ye needn't mind me. Why, I should wait for anythin' o' the
like o' that, and be just proud to do it! And ye see, I sorter helped
myself while you war busy."

"Helped yourself?" said Kane in astonishment.

"Yes, outer that bottle." He pointed to the ammonia bottle, which still
stood on the counter. "It seemed to be handy and popular."

"Man! you might have poisoned yourself."

The stranger paused a moment at the idea. "So I mout, I reckon," he said
musingly, "that's so! pizined myself jest ez you was lookin' arter that
high-toned case, and kinder bothered you! It's like me!"

"I mean it required diluting; you ought to have taken it in water," said
Kane.

"I reckon! It DID sorter h'ist me over to the door for a little fresh
air at first! seemed rayther scaldy to the lips. But wot of it that GOT
THAR," he put his hand gravely to his stomach, "did me pow'ful good."

"What was the matter with you?" asked Kane.

"Well, ye see, pard" (confidentially again), "I reckon it's suthin'
along o' my heart. Times it gets to poundin' away like a quartz stamp,
and then it stops suddent like, and kinder leaves ME out too."

Kane looked at him more attentively. He was a strong, powerfully built
man with a complexion that betrayed nothing more serious than
the effects of mining cookery. It was evidently a common case of
indigestion.

"I don't say it would not have done you some good if properly
administered," he replied. "If you like I'll put up a diluted quantity
and directions?"

"That's me, every time, pardner!" said the stranger with an accent of
relief. "And look yer, don't you stop at that! Ye just put me up some
samples like of anythin' you think mout be likely to hit. I'll go in for
a fair show, and then meander in every now and then, betwixt times, to
let you know. Ye don't mind my drifting in here, do ye? It's about ez
likely a place ez I struck since I've left the Sacramento boat, and my
hotel, just round the corner. Ye just sample me a bit o' everythin';
don't mind the expense. I'll take YOUR word for it. The way you--a
young fellow--jest stuck to your work in thar, cool and kam as a
woodpecker--not minding how high-toned she was--nor the jewelery and
spangles she had on--jest got me! I sez to myself, 'Rube,' sez I,
'whatever's wrong o' YOUR insides, you jest stick to that feller to set
ye right.'"

The junior partner's face reddened as he turned to his shelves
ostensibly for consultation. Conscious of his inexperience, the homely
praise of even this ignorant man was not ungrateful. He felt, too,
that his treatment of the Frenchwoman, though successful, might not be
considered remunerative from a business point of view by his partner. He
accordingly acted upon the suggestion of the stranger and put up two or
three specifics for dyspepsia. They were received with grateful alacrity
and the casual display of considerable gold in the stranger's pocket in
the process of payment. He was evidently a successful miner.

After bestowing the bottles carefully about his person, he again
leaned confidentially towards Kane. "I reckon of course you know this
high-toned lady, being in the way of seein' that kind o' folks. I
suppose you won't mind telling me, ez a stranger. But" (he added
hastily, with a deprecatory wave of his hand), "perhaps ye would."

Mr. Kane, in fact, had hesitated. He knew vaguely and by report that
Madame le Blanc was the proprietress of a famous restaurant, over which
she had rooms where private gambling was carried on to a great extent.
It was also alleged that she was protected by a famous gambler and a
somewhat notorious bully. Mr. Kane's caution suggested that he had no
right to expose the reputation of his chance customer. He was silent.

The stranger's face became intensely sympathetic and apologetic. "I
see!--not another word, pard! It ain't the square thing to be givin'
her away, and I oughtn't to hev asked. Well--so long! I reckon I'll jest
drift back to the hotel. I ain't been in San Francisker mor' 'n three
hours, and I calkilate, pard, that I've jest seen about ez square a
sample of high-toned life as fellers ez haz bin here a year. Well,
hastermanyanner--ez the Greasers say. I'll be droppin' in to-morrow. My
name's Reuben Allen o' Mariposa. I know yours; it's on the sign, and it
ain't Sparlow."

He cast another lingering glance around the shop, as if loath to leave
it, and then slowly sauntered out of the door, pausing in the street a
moment, in the glare of the red light, before he faded into darkness.
Without knowing exactly why, Kane had an instinct that the stranger knew
no one in San Francisco, and after leaving the shop was going into utter
silence and obscurity.

A few moments later Dr. Sparlow returned to relieve his wearied partner.
A pushing, active man, he listened impatiently to Kane's account of his
youthful practice with Madame le Blanc, without, however, dwelling much
on his methods. "You ought to have charged her more," the elder said
decisively. "She'd have paid it. She only came here because she was
ashamed to go to a big shop in Montgomery Street--and she won't come
again."

"But she wants you to see her to-morrow," urged Kane, "and I told her
you would!"

"You say it was only a superficial cut?" queried the doctor, "and
you closed it? Umph! what can she want to see ME for?" He paid more
attention, however, to the case of the stranger, Allen. "When he comes
here again, manage to let me see him." Mr. Kane promised, yet for some
indefinable reason he went home that night not quite as well satisfied
with himself.

He was much more concerned the next morning when, after relieving the
doctor for his regular morning visits, he was startled an hour later
by the abrupt return of that gentleman. His face was marked by some
excitement and anxiety, which nevertheless struggled with that sense
of the ludicrous which Californians in those days imported into most
situations of perplexity or catastrophe. Putting his hands deeply into
his trousers pockets, he confronted his youthful partner behind the
counter.

"How much did you charge that French-woman?" he said gravely.

"Twenty-five cents," said Kane timidly.

"Well, I'd give it back and add two hundred and fifty dollars if she had
never entered the shop."

"What's the matter?"

"Her head will be--and a mass of it, in a day, I reckon! Why, man, you
put enough plaster on it to clothe and paper the dome of the Capitol!
You drew her scalp together so that she couldn't shut her eyes without
climbing up the bed-post! You mowed her hair off so that she'll have to
wear a wig for the next two years--and handed it to her in a beau-ti-ful
sealed package! They talk of suing me and killing you out of hand."

"She was bleeding a great deal and looked faint," said the junior
partner; "I thought I ought to stop that."

"And you did--by thunder! Though it might have been better business
for the shop if I'd found her a crumbling ruin here, than lathed and
plastered in this fashion, over there! However," he added, with a laugh,
seeing an angry light in his junior partner's eye, "SHE don't seem to
mind it--the cursing all comes from THEM. SHE rather likes your style
and praises it--that's what gets me! Did you talk to her much," he
added, looking critically at his partner.

"I only told her to sit still or she'd bleed to death," said Kane
curtly.

"Humph!--she jabbered something about your being 'strong' and knowing
just how to handle her. Well, it can't be helped now. I think I came in
time for the worst of it and have drawn their fire. Don't do it again.
The next time a woman with a cut head and long hair tackles you, fill
up her scalp with lint and tannin, and pack her off to some of the big
shops and make THEM pick it out." And with a good-humored nod he started
off to finish his interrupted visits.

With a vague sense of remorse, and yet a consciousness of some injustice
done him, Mr. Kane resumed his occupation with filters and funnels, and
mortars and triturations. He was so gloomily preoccupied that he did
not, as usual, glance out of the window, or he would have observed the
mining stranger of the previous night before it. It was not until the
man's bowed shoulders blocked the light of the doorway that he looked up
and recognized him. Kane was in no mood to welcome his appearance. His
presence, too, actively recalled the last night's adventure of which he
was a witness--albeit a sympathizing one. Kane shrank from the illusions
which he felt he would be sure to make. And with his present ill luck,
he was by no means sure that his ministrations even to HIM had been any
more successful than they had been to the Frenchwoman. But a glance
at his good-humored face and kindling eyes removed that suspicion.
Nevertheless, he felt somewhat embarrassed and impatient, and perhaps
could not entirely conceal it. He forgot that the rudest natures are
sometimes the most delicately sensitive to slights, and the stranger had
noticed his manner and began apologetically.

"I allowed I'd just drop in anyway to tell ye that these thar pills you
giv' me did me a heap o' good so far--though mebbe it's only fair to
give the others a show too, which I'm reckoning to do." He paused, and
then in a submissive confidence went on: "But first I wanted to hev you
excuse me for havin' asked all them questions about that high-toned lady
last night, when it warn't none of my business. I am a darned fool."

Mr. Kane instantly saw that it was no use to keep up his attitude of
secrecy, or impose upon the ignorant, simple man, and said hurriedly:
"Oh no. The lady is very well known. She is the proprietress of a
restaurant down the street--a house open to everybody. Her name is
Madame le Blanc; you may have heard of her before?"

To his surprise the man exhibited no diminution of interest nor change
of sentiment at this intelligence. "Then," he said slowly, "I reckon I
might get to see her again. Ye see, Mr. Kane, I rather took a fancy to
her general style and gait--arter seein' her in that fix last night. It
was rather like them play pictures on the stage. Ye don't think she'd
make any fuss to seein' a rough old 'forty-niner' like me?"

"Hardly," said Kane, "but there might be some objection from her
gentlemen friends," he added, with a smile,--"Jack Lane, a gambler, who
keeps a faro bank in her rooms, and Jimmy O'Ryan, a prize-fighter, who
is one of her 'chuckers out.'"

His further relation of Madame le Blanc's entourage apparently gave the
miner no concern. He looked at Kane, nodded, and repeated slowly
and appreciatively: "Yes, keeps a gamblin' and faro bank and a
prize-fighter--I reckon that might be about her gait and style too. And
you say she lives"--

He stopped, for at this moment a man entered the shop quickly, shut the
door behind him, and turned the key in the lock. It was done so quickly
that Kane instinctively felt that the man had been loitering in the
vicinity and had approached from the side street. A single glance at the
intruder's face and figure showed him that it was the bully of whom
he had just spoken. He had seen that square, brutal face once before,
confronting the police in a riot, and had not forgotten it. But today,
with the flush of liquor on it, it had an impatient awkwardness and
confused embarrassment that he could not account for. He did not
comprehend that the genuine bully is seldom deliberate of attack, and
is obliged--in common with many of the combative lower animals--to lash
himself into a previous fury of provocation. This probably saved him, as
perhaps some instinctive feeling that he was in no immediate danger kept
him cool. He remained standing quietly behind the counter. Allen glanced
around carelessly, looking at the shelves.

The silence of the two men apparently increased the ruffian's rage and
embarrassment. Suddenly he leaped into the air with a whoop and
clumsily executed a negro double shuffle on the floor, which jarred the
glasses--yet was otherwise so singularly ineffective and void of purpose
that he stopped in the midst of it and had to content himself with
glaring at Kane.

"Well," said Kane quietly, "what does all this mean? What do you want
here?"

"What does it mean?" repeated the bully, finding his voice in a high
falsetto, designed to imitate Kane's. "It means I'm going to play merry
h-ll with this shop! It means I'm goin' to clean it out and the blank
hair-cuttin' blank that keeps it. What do I want here? Well--what I want
I intend to help myself to, and all h-ll can't stop me! And" (working
himself to the striking point) "who the blank are you to ask me?" He
sprang towards the counter, but at the same moment Allen seemed to
slip almost imperceptibly and noiselessly between them, and Kane found
himself confronted only by the miner's broad back.

"Hol' yer hosses, stranger," said Allen slowly, as the ruffian suddenly
collided with his impassive figure. "I'm a sick man comin' in yer for
medicine. I've got somethin' wrong with my heart, and goin's on like
this yer kinder sets it to thumpin'."

"Blank you and your blank heart!" screamed the bully, turning in a fury
of amazement and contempt at this impotent interruption. "Who"--but his
voice stopped. Allen's powerful right arm had passed over his head and
shoulders like a steel hoop, and pinioned his elbows against his sides.
Held rigidly upright, he attempted to kick, but Allen's right leg here
advanced, and firmly held his lower limbs against the counter that shook
to his struggles and blasphemous outcries. Allen turned quietly to Kane,
and, with a gesture of his unemployed arm, said confidentially:

"Would ye mind passing me down that ar Romantic Spirits of Ammonyer ye
gave me last night?"

Kane caught the idea, and handed him the bottle.

"Thar," said Allen, taking out the stopper and holding the pungent
spirit against the bully's dilated nostrils and vociferous mouth, "thar,
smell that, and taste it, it will do ye good; it was powerful kammin' to
ME last night."

The ruffian gasped, coughed, choked, but his blaspheming voice died away
in a suffocating hiccough.

"Thar," continued Allen, as his now subdued captive relaxed his
struggling, "ye 'r' better, and so am I. It's quieter here now, and ye
ain't affectin' my heart so bad. A little fresh air will make us both
all right." He turned again to Kane in his former subdued confidential
manner.

"Would ye mind openin' that door?"

Kane flew to the door, unlocked it, and held it wide open. The bully
again began to struggle, but a second inhalation of the hartshorn
quelled him, and enabled his captor to drag him to the door. As they
emerged upon the sidewalk, the bully, with a final desperate struggle,
freed his arm and grasped his pistol at his hip-pocket, but at the same
moment Allen deliberately caught his hand, and with a powerful side
throw cast him on the pavement, retaining the weapon in his own hand.
"I've one of my own," he said to the prostrate man, "but I reckon I'll
keep this yer too, until you're better."

The crowd that had collected quickly, recognizing the notorious and
discomfited bully, were not of a class to offer him any sympathy, and he
slunk away followed by their jeers. Allen returned quietly to the
shop. Kane was profuse in his thanks, and yet oppressed with his simple
friend's fatuous admiration for a woman who could keep such ruffians in
her employ. "You know who that man was, I suppose?" he said.

"I reckon it was that 'er prize-fighter belongin' to that high-toned
lady," returned Allen simply. "But he don't know anything about
RASTLIN', b'gosh; only that I was afraid o' bringin' on that heart
trouble, I mout hev hurt him bad."

"They think"--hesitated Kane, "that--I--was rough in my treatment
of that woman and maliciously cut off her hair. This attack was
revenge--or"--he hesitated still more, as he remembered Dr. Sparlow's
indication of the woman's feeling--"or that bully's idea of revenge."

"I see," nodded Allen, opening his small sympathetic eyes on Kane with
an exasperating air of secrecy--"just jealousy."

Kane reddened in sheer hopelessness of explanation. "No; it was earning
his wages, as he thought."

"Never ye mind, pard," said Allen confidentially. "I'll set 'em
both right. Ye see, this sorter gives me a show to call at that thar
restaurant and give HIM back his six-shooter, and set her on the right
trail for you. Why, Lordy! I was here when you was fixin' her--I'm
testimony o' the way you did it--and she'll remember me. I'll sorter
waltz round thar this afternoon. But I reckon I won't be keepin' YOU
from your work any longer. And look yar!--I say, pard!--this is seein'
life in 'Frisco--ain't it? Gosh! I've had more high times in this very
shop in two days, than I've had in two years of St. Jo. So long, Mr.
Kane!" He waved his hand, lounged slowly out of the shop, gave a parting
glance up the street, passed the window, and was gone.

The next day being a half-holiday for Kane, he did not reach the shop
until afternoon. "Your mining friend Allen has been here," said Doctor
Sparlow. "I took the liberty of introducing myself, and induced him to
let me carefully examine him. He was a little shy, and I am sorry for
it, as I fear he has some serious organic trouble with his heart and
ought to have a more thorough examination." Seeing Kane's unaffected
concern, he added, "You might influence him to do so. He's a good fellow
and ought to take some care of himself. By the way, he told me to tell
you that he'd seen Madame le Blanc and made it all right about you. He
seems to be quite infatuated with the woman."

"I'm sorry he ever saw her," said Kane bitterly.

"Well, his seeing her seems to have saved the shop from being smashed
up, and you from getting a punched head," returned the Doctor with a
laugh. "He's no fool--yet it's a freak of human nature that a simple
hayseed like that--a man who's lived in the backwoods all his life, is
likely to be the first to tumble before a pot of French rouge like her."

Indeed, in a couple of weeks, there was no further doubt of Mr. Reuben
Allen's infatuation. He dropped into the shop frequently on his way to
and from the restaurant, where he now regularly took his meals; he spent
his evenings in gambling in its private room. Yet Kane was by no means
sure that he was losing his money there unfairly, or that he was used
as a pigeon by the proprietress and her friends. The bully O'Ryan was
turned away; Sparlow grimly suggested that Allen had simply taken his
place, but Kane ingeniously retorted that the Doctor was only piqued
because Allen had evaded his professional treatment. Certainly the
patient had never consented to another examination, although he
repeatedly and gravely bought medicines, and was a generous customer.
Once or twice Kane thought it his duty to caution Allen against his new
friends and enlighten him as to Madame le Blanc's reputation, but his
suggestions were received with a good-humored submission that was either
the effect of unbelief or of perfect resignation to the fact, and he
desisted. One morning Dr. Sparlow said cheerfully:--

"Would you like to hear the last thing about your friend and the
Frenchwoman? The boys can't account for her singling out a fellow like
that for her friend, so they say that the night that she cut herself at
the fete and dropped in here for assistance, she found nobody here but
Allen--a chance customer! That it was HE who cut off her hair and bound
up her wounds in that sincere fashion, and she believed he had saved her
life." The Doctor grinned maliciously as he added: "And as that's the
way history is written you see your reputation is safe."

It may have been a month later that San Francisco was thrown into a
paroxysm of horror and indignation over the assassination of a prominent
citizen and official in the gambling-rooms of Madame le Blanc, at the
hands of a notorious gambler. The gambler had escaped, but in one
of those rare spasms of vengeful morality which sometimes overtakes
communities who have too long winked at and suffered the existence of
evil, the fair proprietress and her whole entourage were arrested and
haled before the coroner's jury at the inquest. The greatest excitement
prevailed; it was said that if the jury failed in their duty,
the Vigilance Committee had arranged for the destruction of the
establishment and the deportation of its inmates. The crowd that had
collected around the building was reinforced by Kane and Dr. Sparlow,
who had closed their shop in the next block to attend. When Kane had
fought his way into the building and the temporary court, held in the
splendidly furnished gambling saloon, whose gilded mirrors reflected the
eager faces of the crowd, the Chief of Police was giving his testimony
in a formal official manner, impressive only for its relentless
and impassive revelation of the character and antecedents of the
proprietress. The house had been long under the espionage of the police;
Madame le Blanc had a dozen aliases; she was "wanted" in New Orleans,
in New York, in Havana! It was in HER house that Dyer, the bank clerk,
committed suicide; it was there that Colonel Hooley was set upon by her
bully, O'Ryan; it was she--Kane heard with reddening cheeks--who defied
the police with riotous conduct at a fete two months ago. As he coolly
recited the counts of this shameful indictment, Kane looked eagerly
around for Allen, whom he knew had been arrested as a witness. How would
HE take this terrible disclosure? He was sitting with the others, his
arm thrown over the back of his chair, and his good-humored face turned
towards the woman, in his old confidential attitude. SHE, gorgeously
dressed, painted, but unblushing, was cool, collected, and cynical.

The Coroner next called the only witness of the actual tragedy, "Reuben
Allen." The man did not move nor change his position. The summons was
repeated; a policeman touched him on the shoulder. There was a pause,
and the officer announced: "He has fainted, your Honor!"

"Is there a physician present?" asked the Coroner.

Sparlow edged his way quickly to the front. "I'm a medical man," he said
to the Coroner, as he passed quickly to the still, upright, immovable
figure and knelt beside it with his head upon his heart. There was an
awed silence as, after a pause, he rose slowly to his feet.

"The witness is a patient, your Honor, whom I examined some weeks ago
and found suffering from valvular disease of the heart. He is dead."




THREE VAGABONDS OF TRINIDAD


"Oh! it's you, is it?" said the Editor.

The Chinese boy to whom the colloquialism was addressed answered
literally, after his habit:--

"Allee same Li Tee; me no changee. Me no ollee China boy."

"That's so," said the Editor with an air of conviction. "I don't suppose
there's another imp like you in all Trinidad County. Well, next time
don't scratch outside there like a gopher, but come in."