Wild Western Tales 2: 101 Classic Western Stories Vol. 2 (Civitas Library Classics)

by Various

  But here Fortune again favored the house of Spindler with a dramatic surprise, even greater than the advent of the children had been. In the change that had come over Rough and Ready, "the boys" had decided, out of deference to the women and children, to omit the first part of their programme, and had approached and entered the house as soberly and quietly as ordinary guests. But before they had shaken hands with the host and hostess, and seen the relations, the clatter of wheels was heard before the open door, and its lights flashed upon a carriage and pair,--an actual private carriage,--the like of which had not been seen since the governor of the State had come down to open the new ditch! Then there was a pause, the flash of the carriage lamps upon white silk, the light tread of a satin foot on the veranda and in the hall, and the entrance of a vision of loveliness! Middle-aged men and old dwellers of cities remembered their youth; younger men bethought themselves of Cinderella and the Prince! There was a thrill and a hush as this last guest--a beautiful girl, radiant with youth and adornment--put a dainty glass to her sparkling eye and advanced familiarly, with outstretched hand, to Dick Spindler. Mrs. Price gave a single gasp, and drew back speechless.

  "Uncle Dick," said a laughing contralto voice, which, indeed, somewhat recalled Mrs. Price's own, in its courageous frankness, "I am so delighted to come, even if a little late, and so sorry that Mr. M'Kenna could not come on account of business."

  Everybody listened eagerly, but none more eagerly and surprisingly than the host himself. M'Kenna! The rich cousin who had never answered the invitation! And Uncle Dick! This, then, was his divorced niece! Yet even in his astonishment he remembered that of course no one but himself and Mrs. Price knew it,--and that lady had glanced discreetly away.

  "Yes," continued the half-niece brightly. "I came from Sacramento with some friends to Shootersville, and from thence I drove here; and though I must return to-night, I could not forego the pleasure of coming, if it was only for an hour or two, to answer the invitation of the uncle I have not seen for years." She paused, and, raising her glasses, turned a politely questioning eye towards Mrs. Price. "One of our relations?" she said smilingly to Spindler.

  "No," said Spindler, with some embarrassment, "a--a friend!"

  The half-niece extended her hand. Mrs. Price took it.

  But the fair stranger,--what she did and said were the only things remembered in Rough and Ready on that festive occasion; no one thought of the other relations; no one recalled them nor their eccentricities; Spindler himself was forgotten. People only recollected how Spindler's lovely niece lavished her smiles and courtesies on every one, and brought to her feet particularly the misogynist Starbuck and the sarcastic Cooledge, oblivious of his previous speech; how she sat at the piano and sang like an angel, hushing the most hilarious and excited into sentimental and even maudlin silence; how, graceful as a nymph, she led with "Uncle Dick" a Virginia reel until the whole assembly joined, eager for a passing touch of her dainty hand in its changes; how, when two hours had passed,--all too swiftly for the guests,--they stood with bared heads and glistening eyes on the veranda to see the fairy coach whirl the fairy princess away! How--but this incident was never known to Rough and Ready.

  It happened in the sacred dressing-room, where Mrs. Price was cloaking with her own hands the departing half-niece of Mr. Spindler. Taking that opportunity to seize the lovely relative by the shoulders and shake her violently, she said: "Oh, yes, and it's all very well for you, Kate, you limb! For you're going away, and will never see Rough and Ready and poor Spindler again. But what am I to do, miss? How am I to face it out? For you know I've got to tell him at least that you're no half-niece of his!"

  "Have you?" said the young lady.

  "Have I?" repeated the widow impatiently. "Have I? Of course I have! What are you thinking of?"

  "I was thinking, aunty," said the girl audaciously, "that from what I've seen and heard to-night, if I'm not his half-niece now, it's only a question of time! So you'd better wait. Good-night, dear."

  And, really,--it turned out that she was right!

  Contents

  LIBERTY JONES'S DISCOVERY

  By Bret Harte

  It was at best merely a rocky trail winding along a shelf of the eastern slope of the Santa Cruz range, yet the only road between the sea and the inland valley. The hoof-prints of a whole century of zigzagging mules were impressed on the soil, regularly soaked by winter rains and dried by summer suns during that period; the occasional ruts of heavy, rude, wooden wheels--long obsolete--were still preserved and visible. Weather-worn boulders and ledges, lying in the unclouded glare of an August sky, radiated a quivering heat that was intolerable, even while above them the masts of gigantic pines rocked their tops in the cold southwestern trades from the unseen ocean beyond. A red, burning dust lay everywhere, as if the heat were slowly and visibly precipitating itself.

  The creaking of wheels and axles, the muffled plunge of hoofs, and the cough of a horse in the dust thus stirred presently broke the profound woodland silence. Then a dirty white canvas-covered emigrant wagon slowly arose with the dust along the ascent. It was travel-stained and worn, and with its rawboned horses seemed to have reached the last stage of its journey and fitness. The only occupants, a man and a girl, appeared to be equally jaded and exhausted, with the added querulousness of discontent in their sallow and badly nourished faces. Their voices, too, were not unlike the creaking they had been pitched to overcome, and there was an absence of reserve and consciousness in their speech, which told pathetically of an equal absence of society.

  "It's no user talkin'! I tell ye, ye hain't got no more sense than a coyote! I'm sick and tired of it, doggoned if I ain't! Ye ain't no more use nor a hossfly,--and jest ez hinderin'! It was along o' you that we lost the stock at Laramie, and ef ye'd bin at all decent and takin', we'd hev had kempany that helped, instead of laggin' on yere alone!"

  "What did ye bring me for?" retorted the girl shrilly. "I might hev stayed with Aunt Marty. I wasn't hankerin' to come."

  "Bring ye for?" repeated her father contemptuously; "I reckoned ye might he o' some account here, whar wimmin folks is skeerce, in the way o' helpin',--and mebbe gettin' yer married to some likely feller. Mighty much chance o' that, with yer yaller face and skin and bones."

  "Ye can't blame me for takin' arter you, dad," she said, with a shrill laugh, but no other resentment of his brutality.

  "Ye want somebody to take arter you--with a club," he retorted angrily. "Ye hear! Wot's that ye're doin' now?"

  She had risen and walked to the tail of the wagon. "Goin' to get out and walk. I'm tired o' bein' jawed at."

  She jumped into the road. The act was neither indignant nor vengeful; the frequency of such scenes had blunted their sting. She was probably "tired" of the quarrel, and ended it rudely. Her father, however, let fly a Parthian arrow.

  "Ye needn't think I'm goin' to wait for ye, ez I hev! Ye've got to keep tetch with the team, or get left. And a good riddance of bad rubbidge."

  In reply the girl dived into the underwood beside the trail, picked a wild berry or two, stripped a wand of young hazel she had broken off, and switching it at her side, skipped along on the outskirts of the wood and ambled after the wagon. Seen in the full, merciless glare of a Californian sky, she justified her father's description; thin and bony, her lank frame outstripped the body of her ragged calico dress, which was only kept on her shoulders by straps,--possibly her father's cast-off braces. A boy's soft felt hat covered her head, and shadowed her only notable feature, a pair of large dark eyes, looking larger for the hollow temples which narrowed the frame in which they were set.

  So long as the wagon crawled up the ascent the girl knew she could easily keep up with it, or even distance the tired horses. She made one or two incursions into the wood, returning like an animal from quest of food, with something in her mouth, which she was tentatively chewing, and once only with some inedible mandrono berries, plucked solely for their brilliant coloring. It was very hot and singula
rly close; the higher current of air had subsided, and, looking up, a singular haze seemed to have taken its place between the treetops. Suddenly she heard a strange, rumbling sound; an odd giddiness overtook her, and she was obliged to clutch at a sapling to support herself; she laughed vacantly, though a little frightened, and looked vaguely towards the summit of the road; but the wagon had already disappeared. A strange feeling of nausea then overcame her; she spat out the leaves she had been chewing, disgustedly. But the sensation as quickly passed, and she once more sought the trail and began slowly to follow the tracks of the wagon. The air blew freshly, the treetops began again to rock over her head, and the incident was forgotten.

  Presently she paused; she must have missed the trail, for the wagon tracks had ended abruptly before a large boulder that lay across the mountain trail. She dipped into the woods again; here there were other wagon tracks that confused her. It was like her dogged, stupid father to miss the trail; she felt a gleam of malicious satisfaction at his discomfiture. Sooner or later, he would have to retrace his steps and virtually come back for her! She took up a position where two rough wheel ruts and tracks intersected each other, one of which must be the missing trail. She noticed, too, the broader hoof-prints of cattle without the following wheel ruts, and instead of traces, the long smooth trails made by the dragging of logs, and knew by these tokens that she must be near the highway or some woodman's hut or ranch. She began to be thirsty, and was glad, presently, when her quick, rustic ear caught the tinkling of water. Yet it was not so easy to discover, and she was getting footsore and tired again before she found it, some distance away, in a gully coming from a fissure in a dislocated piece of outcrop. It was beautifully clear, cold, and sparkling, with a slightly sweetish taste, yet unlike the brackish "alkali" of the plains. It refreshed and soothed her greatly, so much that, reclining against a tree, but where she would be quite visible from the trail, her eyes closed dreamily, and presently she slept.

  When she awoke, the shafts of sunlight were striking almost level into her eyes. She must have slept two hours. Her father had not returned; she knew the passage of the wagon would have awakened her. She began to feel strange, but not yet alarmed; it was only the uncertainty that made her uneasy. Had her father really gone on by some other trail? Or had he really hurried on and left her, as he said he would? The thought brought an odd excitement to her rather than any fear. A sudden sense of freedom, as if some galling chain had dropped from her, sent a singular thrill through her frame. Yet she felt confused with her independence, not knowing what to do with it, and momentarily dazzled with the possible gift.

  At this moment she heard voices, and the figures of two men appeared on the trail.

  They were talking earnestly, and walking as if familiar with the spot, yet gazing around them as if at some novelty of the aspect.

  "And look there," said one; "there has been some serious disturbance of that outcrop," pointing in the direction of the spring; "the lower part has distinctly subsided." He spoke with a certain authority, and dominance of position, and was evidently the superior, as he was the elder of the two, although both were roughly dressed.

  "Yes, it does kinder look as if it had lost its holt, like the ledge yonder."

  "And you see I am right; the movement was from east to west," continued the elder man.

  The girl could not comprehend what they said, and even thought them a little silly. But she advanced towards them; at which they stopped short, staring at her. With feminine instinct she addressed the more important one:--

  "Ye ain't passed no wagon nor team goin' on, hev ye?"

  "What sort of wagon?" said the man.

  "Em'grant wagon, two yaller hosses. Old man--my dad--drivin'." She added the latter kinship as a protecting influence against strangers, in spite of her previous independence.

  The men glanced at each other.

  "How long ago?"

  The girl suddenly remembered that she had slept two hours.

  "Sens noon," she said hesitatingly.

  "Since the earthquake?"

  "Wot's that?"

  The man came impatiently towards her. "How did you come here?"

  "Got outer the wagon to walk. I reckon dad missed the trail, and hez got off somewhere where I can't find him."

  "What trail was he on,--where was he going?"

  "Sank Hozay,* I reckon. He was goin' up the grade--side o' the hill; he must hev turned off where there's a big rock hangin' over."

  * San Jose.

  "Did you SEE him turn off?"

  "No."

  The second man, who was in hearing distance, had turned away, and was ostentatiously examining the sky and the treetops; the man who had spoken to her joined him, and they said something in a low voice. They turned again and came slowly towards her. She, from some obscure sense of imitation, stared at the treetops and the sky as the second man had done. But the first man now laid his hand kindly on her shoulder and said, "Sit down."

  Then they told her there had been an earthquake so strong that it had thrown down a part of the hillside, including the wagon trail. That a wagon team and driver, such as she had described, had been carried down with it, crushed to fragments, and buried under a hundred feet of rock in the gulch below. A party had gone down to examine, but it would be weeks perhaps before they found it, and she must be prepared for the worst. She looked at them vaguely and with tearless eyes.

  "Then ye reckon dad's dead?"

  "We fear it."

  "Then wot's a-goin' to become o' me?" she said simply.

  They glanced again at each other. "Have you no friends in California?" said the elder man.

  "Nary one."

  "What was your father going to do?"

  "Dunno. I reckon HE didn't either."

  "You may stay here for the present," said the elder man meditatively. "Can you milk?"

  The girl nodded. "And I suppose you know something about looking after stock?" he continued.

  The girl remembered that her father thought she didn't, but this was no time for criticism, and she again nodded.

  "Come with me," said the older man, rising. "I suppose," he added, glancing at her ragged frock, "everything you have is in the wagon."

  She nodded, adding with the same cold naivete, "It ain't much!"

  They walked on, the girl following; at times straying furtively on either side, as if meditating an escape in the woods,--which indeed had once or twice been vaguely in her thoughts,--but chiefly to avoid further questioning and not to hear what the men said to each other. For they were evidently speaking of her, and she could not help hearing the younger repeat her words, "Wot's agoin' to become o' me?" with considerable amusement, and the addition: "She'll take care of herself, you bet! I call that remark o' hers the richest thing out."

  "And I call the state of things that provoked it--monstrous!" said the elder man grimly. "You don't know the lives of these people."

  Presently they came to an open clearing in the forest, yet so incomplete that many of the felled trees, partly lopped of their boughs, still lay where they had fallen. There was a cabin or dwelling of unplaned, unpainted boards; very simple in structure, yet made in a workmanlike fashion, quite unlike the usual log cabin she had seen. This made her think that the elder man was a "towny," and not a frontiersman like the other.

  As they approached the cabin the elder man stopped, and turning to her, said:--

  "Do you know Indians?"

  The girl started, and then recovering herself with a quick laugh: "G'lang!--there ain't any Injins here!"

  "Not the kind YOU mean; these are very peaceful. There's a squaw here whom you will"--he stopped, hesitated as he looked critically at the girl, and then corrected himself--"who will help you."

  He pushed open the cabin door and showed an interior, equally simple but well joined and fitted,--a marvel of neatness and finish to the frontier girl's eye. There were shelves and cupboards and other conveniences, yet with no ostentation of refinement to
frighten her rustic sensibilities.

  Then he pushed open another door leading into a shed and called "Waya." A stout, undersized Indian woman, fitted with a coarse cotton gown, but cleaner and more presentable than the girl's one frock, appeared in the doorway. "This is Waya, who attends to the cooking and cleaning," he said; "and by the way, what is your name?"

  "Libby Jones."

  He took a small memorandum book and a "stub" of pencil from his pocket. "Elizabeth Jones," he said, writing it down. The girl interposed a long red hand.

  "No," she interrupted sharply, "not Elizabeth, but Libby, short for Lib'rty."

  "Liberty?"

  "Yes."

  "Liberty Jones, then. Well, Waya, this is Miss Jones, who will look after the cows and calves--and the dairy." Then glancing at her torn dress, he added: "You'll find some clean things in there, until I can send up something from San Jose. Waya will show you."

  Without further speech he turned away with the other man. When they were some distance from the cabin, the younger remarked:--

  "More like a boy than a girl, ain't she?"

  "So much the better for her work," returned the elder grimly.

  "I reckon! I was only thinkin' she didn't han'some much either as a boy or girl, eh, doctor?" he pursued.

  "Well! as THAT won't make much difference to the cows, calves, or the dairy, it needn't trouble US," returned the doctor dryly. But here a sudden outburst of laughter from the cabin made them both turn in that direction. They were in time to see Liberty Jones dancing out of the cabin door in a large cotton pinafore, evidently belonging to the squaw, who was following her with half-laughing, half-frightened expostulations. The two men stopped and gazed at the spectacle.