by Bret Harte
THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE
CHAPTER I
It had grown dark on Burnt Ridge. Seen from below, the whole serratedcrest that had glittered in the sunset as if its interstices were eatenby consuming fires, now, closed up its ranks of blackened shafts andbecame again harsh and sombre chevaux de frise against the sky. A faintglow still lingered over the red valley road, as if it were its ownreflection, rather than any light from beyond the darkened ridge. Nightwas already creeping up out of remote canyons and along the furrowedflanks of the mountain, or settling on the nearer woods with the soundof home-coming and innumerable wings. At a point where the road began toencroach upon the mountain-side in its slow winding ascent the darknesshad become so real that a young girl cantering along the rising terracefound difficulty in guiding her horse, with eyes still dazzled by thesunset fires.
In spite of her precautions, the animal suddenly shied at some objectin the obscured roadway, and nearly unseated her. The accident disclosednot only the fact that she was riding in a man's saddle, but also a footand ankle that her ordinary walking-dress was too short to hide. It wasevident that her equestrian exercise was extempore, and that at thathour and on that road she had not expected to meet company. But she wasapparently a good horsewoman, for the mischance which might have throwna less practical or more timid rider seemed of little moment to her.With a strong hand and determined gesture she wheeled her frightenedhorse back into the track, and rode him directly at the object. But hereshe herself slightly recoiled, for it was the body of a man lying in theroad.
As she leaned forward over her horse's shoulder, she could see by thedim light that he was a miner, and that, though motionless, he wasbreathing stertorously. Drunk, no doubt!--an accident of the localityalarming only to her horse. But although she cantered impatientlyforward, she had not proceeded a hundred yards before she stoppedreflectively, and trotted back again. He had not moved. She could nowsee that his head and shoulders were covered with broken clods of earthand gravel, and smaller fragments lay at his side. A dozen feet abovehim on the hillside there was a foot trail which ran parallel with thebridle-road, and occasionally overhung it. It seemed possible that hemight have fallen from the trail and been stunned.
Dismounting, she succeeded in dragging him to a safer position by thebank. The act discovered his face, which was young, and unknown to her.Wiping it with the silk handkerchief which was loosely slung around hisneck after the fashion of his class, she gave a quick feminine glancearound her and then approached her own and rather handsome face near hislips. There was no odor of alcohol in the thick and heavy respiration.Mounting again, she rode forward at an accelerated pace, and in twentyminutes had reached a higher tableland of the mountain, a clearedopening in the forest that showed signs of careful cultivation, anda large, rambling, yet picturesque-looking dwelling, whose unpaintedred-wood walls were hidden in roses and creepers. Pushing open aswinging gate, she entered the inclosure as a brown-faced man, dressedas a vaquero, came towards her as if to assist her to alight. But shehad already leaped to the ground and thrown him the reins.
"Miguel," she said, with a mistress's quiet authority in her boyishcontralto voice, "put Glory in the covered wagon, and drive down theroad as far as the valley turning. There's a man lying near the rightbank, drunk, or sick, may be, or perhaps crippled by a fall. Bring himup here, unless somebody has found him already, or you happen to knowwho he is and where to take him."
The vaquero raised his shoulders, half in disappointed expectationof some other command. "And your brother, senora, he has not himselfarrived."
A light shadow of impatience crossed her face. "No," she said, bluntly."Come, be quick."
She turned towards the house as the man moved away. Already agaunt-looking old man had appeared in the porch, and was awaiting herwith his hand shadowing his angry, suspicious eyes, and his lips movingquerulously.
"Of course, you've got to stand out there and give orders and 'tendto your own business afore you think o' speaking to your own flesh andblood," he said aggrievedly. "That's all YOU care!"
"There was a sick man lying in the road, and I've sent Miguel to lookafter him," returned the girl, with a certain contemptuous resignation.
"Oh, yes!" struck in another voice, which seemed to belong to the femaleof the first speaker's species, and to be its equal in age and temper,"and I reckon you saw a jay bird on a tree, or a squirrel on the fence,and either of 'em was more important to you than your own brother."
"Steve didn't come by the stage, and didn't send any message," continuedthe young girl, with the same coldly resigned manner. "No one had anynews of him, and, as I told you before, I didn't expect any."
"Why don't you say right out you didn't WANT any?" said the old man,sneeringly. "Much you inquired! No; I orter hev gone myself, and I wouldif I was master here, instead of me and your mother bein' the dust ofthe yearth beneath your feet."
The young girl entered the house, followed by the old man, passing anold woman seated by the window, who seemed to be nursing her resentmentand a large Bible which she held clasped against her shawled bosomat the same moment. Going to the wall, she hung up her large hatand slightly shook the red dust from her skirts as she continued herexplanation, in the same deep voice, with a certain monotony of logicand possibly of purpose and practice also.
"You and mother know as well as I do, father, that Stephen is no more tobe depended upon than the wind that blows. It's three years since he hasbeen promising to come, and even getting money to come, and yet he hasnever showed his face, though he has been a dozen times within fivemiles of this house. He doesn't come because he doesn't want to come. Asto YOUR going over to the stage-office, I went there myself at the lastmoment to save you the mortification of asking questions of strangersthat they know have been a dozen times answered already."
There was such a ring of absolute truthfulness, albeit worn byrepetition, in the young girl's deep honest voice that for one instanther two more emotional relatives quailed before it; but only for amoment.
"That's right!" shrilled the old woman. "Go on and abuse your ownbrother. It's only the fear you have that he'll make his fortune yet andshame you before the father and mother you despise."
The young girl remained standing by the window, motionless andapparently passive, as if receiving an accepted and usual punishment.But here the elder woman gave way to sobs and some incoherent snuffling,at which the younger went away. Whether she recognized in her mother'stears the ordinary deliquescence of emotion, or whether, as a womanherself, she knew that this mere feminine conventionality could notpossibly be directed at her, and that the actual conflict between themhad ceased, she passed slowly on to an inner hall, leaving the malevictim, her unfortunate father, to succumb, as he always did sooner orlater, to their influence. Crossing the hall, which was decorated with afew elk horns, Indian trophies, and mountain pelts, she entered anotherroom, and closed the door behind her with a gesture of relief.
The room, which looked upon a porch, presented a singular combination ofmasculine business occupations and feminine taste and adornment. A deskcovered with papers, a shelf displaying a ledger and account-books,another containing works of reference, a table with a vase of flowersand a lady's riding-whip upon it, a map of California flanked on eitherside by an embroidered silken workbag and an oval mirror decked withgrasses, a calendar and interest-table hanging below two school-girlcrayons of classic heads with the legend, "Josephine Forsythfecit,"--were part of its incongruous accessories. The young girlwent to her desk, but presently moved and turned towards the windowthoughtfully. The last gleam had died from the steel-blue sky; afew lights like star points began to prick out the lower valley. Theexpression of monotonous restraint and endurance had not yet faded fromher face.
Yet she had been accustomed to scenes like the one she had just passedthough since her girlhood. Five years ago, Alexander Forsyth, her uncle,had brought her to this spot--then a mere log cabin on the hillside--asa refuge from the impov
erished and shiftless home of his elder brotherThomas and his ill-tempered wife. Here Alexander Forsyth, by reason ofhis more dominant character and business capacity, had prospered untilhe became a rich and influential ranch owner. Notwithstanding herfather's jealousy of Alexander's fortune, and the open rupture thatfollowed between the brothers, Josephine retained her position in theheart and home of her uncle without espousing the cause of either; andher father was too prudent not to recognize the near and prospectiveadvantages of such a mediator. Accustomed to her parents' extravagantdenunciations, and her uncle's more repressed but practical contempt ofthem, the unfortunate girl early developed a cynical disbelief in thevirtues of kinship in the abstract, and a philosophical resignation toits