On the Frontier

by Bret Harte

  CHAPTER III

  Mr. Patterson did not inform his wife of the lawyer's personal threatto himself. But he managed, after Poindexter had left, to make herconscious that Mrs. Tucker might be a power to be placated and feared."You've shot off your mouth at her," he said argumentatively, "andwhether you've hit the mark or not you've had your say. Ef you thinkit's worth a possible five thousand dollars and interest to keep on,heave ahead. Ef you rather have the chance of getting the rest in cash,you'll let up on her." "You don't suppose," returned Mrs. Pattersoncontemptuously, "that she's got anything but what that man ofhers--Poindexter--lets her have?" "The sheriff says," retorted Pattersonsurlily, "that she's notified him that she claims the rancho as a giftfrom her husband three years ago, and she's in POSSESSION now, and wasso when the execution was out. It don't make no matter," he added, withgloomy philosophy, "who's got a full hand as long as WE ain't got thecards to chip in. I wouldn't 'a' minded it," he continued meditatively,"ef Spence Tucker had dropped a hint to me afore he put out." "And Isuppose," said Mrs. Patterson angrily, "you'd have put out too?" "Ireckon," said Patterson simply.

  Twice or thrice during the evening he referred, more or less directly,to this lack of confidence shown by his late debtor and employer, andseemed to feel it more keenly than the loss of property. He confided hissentiments quite openly to the sheriff in possession, over the whiskeyand euchre with which these gentlemen avoided the difficulties of theirdelicate relations. He brooded over it as he handed the keys of the shopto the sheriff when they parted for the night, and was still thinking ofit when the house was closed, everybody gone to bed, and he was fetchinga fresh jug of water from the well. The moon was at times obscured byflying clouds, the avant-couriers of the regular evening shower. Hewas stooping over the well, when he sprang suddenly to his feet again."Who's there?" he demanded sharply.

  "Hush!" said a voice so low and faint it might have been a whisper ofthe wind in the palisades of the corral. But, indistinct as it was, itwas the voice of the man he was thinking of as far away, and it sent athrill of alternate awe and pleasure through his pulses.

  He glanced quickly around. The moon was hidden by a passing cloud, andonly the faint outlines of the house he had just quitted were visible."Is that you, Spence?" he said tremulously.

  "Yes," replied the voice, and a figure dimly emerged from the corner ofthe corral.

  "Lay low, lay low, for God's sake," said Patterson, hurriedly throwinghimself upon the apparition. "The sheriff and his posse are in there."

  "But I must speak to you a moment," said the figure.

  "Wait," said Patterson, glancing towards the building. Its blank,shutterless windows revealed no inner light; a profound silenceencompassed it. "Come quick," he whispered. Letting his grasp slip downto the unresisting hand of the stranger, he half-dragged, half-led him,brushing against the wall, into the open door of the deserted bar-roomhe had just quitted, locked the inner door, poured a glass of whiskeyfrom a decanter, gave it to him, and then watched him drain it at asingle draught. The moon came out, and, falling through the bare windowsfull upon the stranger's face, revealed the artistic but slightlydisheveled curls and moustache of the fugitive, Spencer Tucker.

  Whatever may have been the real influence of this unfortunate man uponhis fellows, it seemed to find expression in a singular unanimity ofcriticism. Patterson looked at him with a half-dismal, half-welcomingsmile. "Well, you are a h-ll of a fellow, ain't you?"

  Spencer Tucker passed his hand through his hair and lifted it from hisforehead, with a gesture at once emotional and theatrical. "I am a manwith a price on me!" he said bitterly. "Give me up to the sheriff,and you'll get five thousand dollars. Help me, and you'll get nothing.That's my d----d luck, and yours too, I suppose."

  "I reckon you're right there," said Patterson gloomily. "But I thoughtyou got clean away. Went off in a ship--"

  "Went off in a boat to a ship," interrupted Tucker savagely; "went offto a ship that had all my things on board--everything. The cursed boatcapsized in a squall just off the Heads. The ship, d--n her, sailedaway, the men thinking I was drowned, likely, and that they'd make agood thing off my goods, I reckon."

  "But the girl, Inez, who was with you, didn't she make a row?"

  "Quien sabe?" returned Tucker, with a reckless laugh. "Well, I hungon like grim death to that boat's keel until one of those Chinesefishermen, in a 'dug-out,' hauled me in opposite Saucelito. I charteredhim and his dug-out to bring me down here."

  "Why here?" asked Patterson, with a certain ostentatious caution thatill-concealed his pensive satisfaction.

  "You may well ask," returned Tucker, with an equal ostentation ofbitterness, as he slightly waved his companion away. "But I reckoned Icould trust a white man that I'd been kind to, and who wouldn't go backon me. No, no, let me go! Hand me over to the sheriff!"

  Patterson had suddenly grasped both the hands of the picturesque scampbefore him, with an affection that for an instant almost shamed the manwho had ruined him. But Tucker's egotism whispered that this affectionwas only a recognition of his own superiority, and felt flattered. Hewas beginning to believe that he was really the injured party.

  "What I HAVE and what I have HAD is yours, Spence," returned Patterson,with a sad and simple directness that made any further discussion agratuitous insult. "I only wanted to know what you reckoned to do here."

  "I want to get over across the Coast Range to Monterey," said Tucker."Once there, one of those coasting schooners will bring me down toAcapulco, where the ship will put in."

  Patterson remained silent for a moment. "There's a mustang in the corralyou can take--leastways, I shan't know that it's gone--until to-morrowafternoon. In an hour from now," he added, looking from the window,"these clouds will settle down to business. It will rain; there willbe light enough for you to find your way by the regular trail over themountain, but not enough for any one to know you. If you can't pushthrough to-night, you can lie over at the posada on the summit. Themgreasers that keep it won't know you, and if they did they won't go backon you. And if they did go back on you, nobody would believe them. It'smighty curious," he added, with gloomy philosophy, "but I reckon it'sthe reason why Providence allows this kind of cattle to live among whitemen and others made in his image. Take a piece of pie, won't you?" Hecontinued, abandoning this abstract reflection and producing half a flatpumpkin pie from the bar. Spencer Tucker grasped the pie with one handand his friend's fingers with the other, and for a few moments wassilent from the hurried deglutition of viand and sentiment. "YOU'RE awhite man, Patterson, anyway," he resumed. "I'll take your horse, andput it down in our account, at your own figure. As soon as this cursedthing is blown over, I'll be back here and see you through, you bet. Idon't desert my friends, however rough things go with me."

  "I see you don't," returned Patterson, with an unconscious and serioussimplicity that had the effect of the most exquisite irony. "I was onlyjust saying to the sheriff that if there was anything I could have donefor you, you wouldn't have cut away without letting me know." Tuckerglanced uneasily at Patterson, who continued, "Ye ain't wanting anythingelse?" Then observing that his former friend and patron was roughly butnewly clothed, and betrayed no trace of his last escapade, he added, "Isee you've got a fresh harness."

  "That d----d Chinaman bought me these at the landing; they're notmuch in style or fit," he continued, trying to get a moonlight view ofhimself in the mirror behind the bar, "but that don't matter here." Hefilled another glass of spirits, jauntily settled himself back in hischair, and added, "I don't suppose there are any girls around, anyway."

  "'Cept your wife; she was down here this afternoon," said Pattersonmeditatively.

  Mr. Tucker paused with the pie in his hand. "Ah, yes!" He essayed areckless laugh, but that evident simulation failed before Patterson'smelancholy. With an assumption of falling in with his friend's manner,rather than from any personal anxiety, he continued, "Well?"

  "That man Poindexter was down here with her. Put her in the hac
ienda tohold possession afore the news came out."

  "Impossible!" said Tucker, rising hastily. "It don't belong--that is--"he hesitated.

  "Yer thinking the creditors 'll get it, mebbe," returned Patterson,gazing at the floor. "Not as long as she's in it; no sir! Whetherit's really hers, or she's only keeping house for Poindexter, she's afixture, you bet. They're a team when they pull together, they are!"

  The smile slowly faded from Tucker's face, that now looked quite rigidin the moonlight. He put down his glass and walked to the window asPatterson gloomily continued, "But that's nothing to you. You've gotahead of 'em both, and had your revenge by going off with thegal. That's what I said all along. When folks--especially womenfolks--wondered how you could leave a woman like your wife, and go offwith a scallawag like that gal, I allers said they'd find out there wasa reason. And when your wife came flaunting down here with Poindexterbefore she'd quite got quit of you, I reckon they began to see the wholelittle game. No sir! I knew it wasn't on account of the gal! Why, whenyou came here to-night and told me quite nat'ral-like and easy howshe went off in the ship, and then calmly ate your pie and drank yourwhiskey after it, I knew you didn't care for her. There's my hand,Spence; you're a trump, even if you are a little looney, eh? Why, what'sup?"

  Shallow and selfish as Tucker was, Patterson's words seemed like arevelation that shocked him as profoundly as it might have shocked anobler nature. The simple vanity and selfishness that made him unable toconceive any higher reason for his wife's loyalty than his own personalpopularity and success, now that he no longer possessed that eclat,made him equally capable of the lowest suspicions. He was a dishonoredfugitive, broken in fortune and reputation--why should she not deserthim! He had been unfaithful to her from wildness, from caprice, from theeffect of those fascinating qualities; it seemed to him natural that sheshould be disloyal from more deliberate motives, and he hugged himselfwith that belief. Yet there was enough doubt, enough of hauntingsuspicion that he had lost or alienated a powerful affection, to makehim thoroughly miserable. He returned his friend's grasp convulsivelyand buried his face upon his shoulder. But he was not above feelinga certain exultation in the effect of his misery upon the dog-like,unreasoning affection of Patterson, nor could he entirely refrain fromslightly posing his affliction before that sympathetic but melancholyman. Suddenly he raised his head, drew back, and thrust his hand intohis bosom with a theatrical gesture.

  "What's to keep me from killing Poindexter in his tracks?" he saidwildly.

  "Nothin' but HIS shooting first," returned Patterson, with dismalpracticality. "He's mighty quick, like all them army men. It's abouteven, I reckon, that he don't get ME first," he added in an ominousvoice.

  "No!" returned Tucker, grasping his hand again. "This is not youraffair, Patterson; leave him to me when I come back."

  "If he ever gets the drop on me, I reckon he won't wait," continuedPatterson lugubriously. "He seems to object to my passin' criticism onyour wife, as if she was a queen or an angel."

  The blood came to Spencer's cheek, and he turned uneasily to the window."It's dark enough now for a start," he said hurriedly, "and if I couldget across the mountain without lying over at the summit, it would be aday gained."

  Patterson arose without a word, filled a flask of spirit, handed it tohis friend, and silently led the way through the slowly falling rain andthe now settled darkness. The mustang was quickly secured and saddled, aheavy poncho afforded Tucker a disguise as well as a protection from therain. With a few hurried, disconnected words, and an abstracted air, heonce more shook his friend's hand and issued cautiously from the corral.When out of earshot from the house he put spurs to the mustang, anddashed into a gallop.

  To intersect the mountain road he was obliged to traverse part of thehighway his wife had walked that afternoon, and to pass within a mile ofthe casa where she was. Long before he reached that point his eyes werestraining the darkness in that direction for some indication of thehouse which was to him familiar. Becoming now accustomed to the evenobscurity, less trying to the vision than the alternate light andshadow of cloud or the full glare of the moonlight, he fancied hecould distinguish its low walls over the monotonous level. One ofthose impulses which had so often taken the place of resolution in hischaracter suddenly possessed him to diverge from his course and approachthe house. Why, he could not have explained. It was not from any feelingof jealous suspicion or contemplated revenge--that had passed with thepresence of Patterson; it was not from any vague lingering sentiment forthe woman he had wronged--he would have shrunk from meeting her at thatmoment. But it was full of these and more possibilities by which hemight or might not be guided, and was at least a movement towardssome vague end, and a distraction from certain thoughts he dared notentertain and could not entirely dismiss. Inconceivable and inexplicableto human reason, it might have been acceptable to the Divine omnisciencefor its predestined result.

  He left the road at a point where the marsh encroached upon the meadow,familiar to him already as near the spot where he had embarked fromthe Chinaman's boat the day before. He remembered that the walls of thehacienda were distinctly visible from the tules where he had hidden allday, and he now knew that the figures he had observed near the building,which had deterred his first attempts at landing, must have been hiswife and his friend. He knew that a long tongue of the slough filledby the rising tide followed the marsh, and lay between him and thehacienda. The sinking of his horse's hoofs in the spongy soil determinedits proximity, and he made a detour to the right to avoid it. In doingso, a light suddenly rose above the distant horizon ahead of him,trembled faintly, and then burned with a steady lustre. It was a lightat the hacienda. Guiding his horse half abstractedly in this direction,his progress was presently checked by the splashing of the animal'shoofs in the water. But the turf below was firm, and a salt drop thathad spattered to his lips told him that it was only the encroaching ofthe tide in the meadow. With his eyes on the light, he again urged hishorse forward. The rain lulled, the clouds began to break, the landscapealternately lightened and grew dark; the outlines of the crumblinghacienda walls that enshrined the light grew more visible. A strangeand dreamy resemblance to the long blue-grass plain before his wife'spaternal house, as seen by him during his evening rides to courtship,pressed itself upon him. He remembered, too, that she used to put alight in the window to indicate her presence. Following this retrospect,the moon came boldly out, sparkled upon the overflow of silver at hisfeet, seemed to show the dark, opaque meadow beyond for a moment, andthen disappeared. It was dark now, but the lesser earthly star stillshone before him as a guide, and pushing towards it, he passed in theall-embracing shadow.