IN THE CARQUINEZ WOODS(在卡圭尼兹森林)

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IN THE CARQUINEZ WOODS

IN THE CARQUINEZ

WOODS

by Bret Harte

IN THE CARQUINEZ WOODS

CHAPTER I.

The sun was going down on the Carquinez Woods. The few shafts

of sunlight that had pierced their pillared gloom were lost in unfathomable

depths, or splintered their ineffectual lances on the enormous trunks of the

redwoods. For a time the dull red of their vast columns, and the dull red

of their cast-off bark which matted the echoless aisles, still seemed to hold

a faint glow of the dying day. But even this soon passed. Light and

color fled upwards. The dark interlaced treetops, that had all day made

an impenetrable shade, broke into fire here and there; their lost spires

glittered, faded, and went utterly out. A weird twilight that did not come

from the outer world, but seemed born of the wood itself, slowly filled and

possessed the aisles. The straight, tall, colossal trunks rose dimly like

columns of upward smoke. The few fallen trees stretched their huge

length into obscurity, and seemed to lie on shadowy trestles. The strange

breath that filled these mysterious vaults had neither coldness nor moisture;

a dry, fragrant dust arose from the noiseless foot that trod their bark-

strewn floor; the aisles might have been tombs, the fallen trees enormous

mummies; the silence the solitude of a forgotten past.

And yet this silence was presently broken by a recurring sound like

breathing, interrupted occasionally by inarticulate and stertorous gasps.

It was not the quick, panting, listening breath of some stealthy feline or

canine animal, but indicated a larger, slower, and more powerful

organization, whose progress was less watchful and guarded, or as if a

fragment of one of the fallen monsters had become animate. At times

this life seemed to take visible form, but as vaguely, as misshapenly, as the

phantom of a nightmare. Now it was a square object moving sideways,

endways, with neither head nor tail and scarcely visible feet; then an

arched bulk rolling against the trunks of the trees and recoiling again, or

an upright cylindrical mass, but always oscillating and unsteady, and

striking the trees on either hand. The frequent occurrence of the movement

suggested the figures of some weird rhythmic dance to music heard by the

shape alone. Suddenly it either became motionless or faded away.

There was the frightened neighing of a horse, the sudden jingling of

IN THE CARQUINEZ WOODS

spurs, a shout and outcry, and the swift apparition of three dancing torches

in one of the dark aisles; but so intense was the obscurity that they shed no

light on surrounding objects, and seemed to advance of their own volition

without human guidance, until they disappeared suddenly behind the

interposing bulk of one of the largest trees. Beyond its eighty feet of

circumference the light could not reach, and the gloom remained

inscrutable. But the voices and jingling spurs were heard distinctly.

"Blast the mare! She's shied off that cursed trail again."

"Ye ain't lost it again, hev ye?" growled a second voice.

"That's jist what I hev. And these blasted pine-knots don't give light

an inch beyond 'em. D--d if I don't think they make this cursed hole

blacker."

There was a laugh--a woman's laugh--hysterical, bitter, sarcastic,

exasperating. The second speaker, without heeding it, went on:--

"What in thunder skeert the hosses? Did you see or hear anything?"

"Nothin'. The wood is like a graveyard."

The woman's voice again broke into a hoarse, contemptuous laugh.

The man resumed angrily:--

"If you know anything, why in h-ll don't you say so, instead of

cackling like a d--d squaw there? P'raps you reckon you ken find the

trail too."

"Take this rope off my wrist," said the woman's voice, "untie my hands,

let me down, and I'll find it." She spoke quickly and with a Spanish

accent.

It was the men's turn to laugh. "And give you a show to snatch that

six-shooter and blow a hole through me, as you did to the Sheriff of

Calaveras, eh? Not if this court understands itself," said the first speaker

dryly.

"Go to the devil, then," she said curtly.

"Not before a lady," responded the other. There was another laugh

from the men, the spurs jingled again, the three torches reappeared from

behind the tree, and then passed away in the darkness.

For a time silence and immutability possessed the woods; the great

trunks loomed upwards, their fallen brothers stretched their slow length

IN THE CARQUINEZ WOODS

into obscurity. The sound of breathing again became audible; the shape

reappeared in the aisle, and recommenced its mystic dance. Presently it

was lost in the shadow of the largest tree, and to the sound of breathing

succeeded a grating and scratching of bark. Suddenly, as if riven by

lightning, a flash broke from the center of the tree- trunk, lit up the woods,

and a sharp report rang through it. After a pause the jingling of spurs and

the dancing of torches were revived from the distance.

"Hallo?"

No answer.

"Who fired that shot?"

But there was no reply. A slight veil of smoke passed away to the

right, there was the spice of gunpowder in the air, but nothing more.

The torches came forward again, but this time it could be seen they

were held in the hands of two men and a woman. The woman's hands

were tied at the wrist to the horse-hair reins of her mule, while a riata,

passed around her waist and under the mule's girth, was held by one of the

men, who were both armed with rifles and revolvers. Their frightened

horses curveted, and it was with difficulty they could be made to advance.

"Ho! stranger, what are you shooting at?"

The woman laughed and shrugged her shoulders. "Look yonder at

the roots of the tree. You're a d--d smart man for a sheriff, ain't you?"

The man uttered an exclamation and spurred his horse forward, but the

animal reared in terror. He then sprang to the ground and approached the

tree. The shape lay there, a scarcely distinguishable bulk.

"A grizzly, by the living Jingo! Shot through the heart."

It was true. The strange shape lit up by the flaring torches seemed

more vague, unearthly, and awkward in its dying throes, yet the small shut

eyes, the feeble nose, the ponderous shoulders, and half-human foot armed

with powerful claws were unmistakable. The men turned by a common

impulse and peered into the remote recesses of the wood again.

"Hi, Mister! come and pick up your game. Hallo there!"

The challenge fell unheeded on the empty woods.

"And yet," said he whom the woman had called the sheriff, "he can't

be far off. It was a close shot, and the bear hez dropped in his tracks.

IN THE CARQUINEZ WOODS

Why, wot's this sticking in his claws?"

The two men bent over the animal. "Why, it's sugar, brown sugar--

look!" There was no mistake. The huge beast's fore paws and muzzle

were streaked with the unromantic household provision, and heightened

the absurd contrast of its incongruous members. The woman, apparently

indifferent, had taken that opportunity to partly free one of her wrists.

"If we hadn't been cavorting round this yer spot for the last half hour,

I'd swear there was a shanty not a hundred yards away," said the sheriff.

The other man, without replying, remounted his horse instantly.

"If there is, and it's inhabited by a gentleman that kin make centre

shots like that in the dark, and don't care to explain how, I reckon I won't

disturb him."

The sheriff was apparently of the same opinion, for he followed his

companion's example, and once more led the way. The spurs tinkled, the

torches danced, and the cavalcade slowly reentered the gloom. In

another moment it had disappeared.

The wood sank again into repose, this time disturbed by neither shape

nor sound. What lower forms of life might have crept close to its roots

were hidden in the ferns, or passed with deadened tread over the bark-

strewn floor. Towards morning a coolness like dew fell from above, with

here and there a dropping twig or nut, or the crepitant awakening and

stretching-out of cramped and weary branches. Later a dull, lurid dawn,

not unlike the last evening's sunset, filled the aisles. This faded again,

and a clear gray light, in which every object stood out in sharp distinctness,

took its place. Morning was waiting outside in all its brilliant, youthful

coloring, but only entered as the matured and sobered day.

Seen in that stronger light, the monstrous tree near which the dead bear

lay revealed its age in its denuded and scarred trunk, and showed in its

base a deep cavity, a foot or two from the ground, partly hidden by

hanging strips of bark which had fallen across it. Suddenly one of these

strips was pushed aside, and a young man leaped lightly down.

But for the rifle he carried and some modern peculiarities of dress, he

was of a grace so unusual and unconventional that he might have passed

for a faun who was quitting his ancestral home. He stepped to the side of

IN THE CARQUINEZ WOODS

the bear with a light elastic movement that was as unlike customary

progression as his face and figure were unlike the ordinary types of

humanity. Even as he leaned upon his rifle, looking down at the prostrate

animal, he unconsciously fell into an attitude that in any other mortal

would have been a pose, but with him was the picturesque and unstudied

relaxation of perfect symmetry.

"Hallo, Mister!"

He raised his head so carelessly and listlessly that he did not otherwise

change his attitude. Stepping from behind the tree, the woman of the

preceding night stood before him. Her hands were free except for a

thong of the riata, which was still knotted around one wrist, the end of the

thong having been torn or burnt away. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her

hair hung over her shoulders in one long black braid.

"I reckoned all along it was YOU who shot the bear," she said; "at

least some one hiding yer," and she indicated the hollow tree with her

hand. "It wasn't no chance shot." Observing that the young man, either

from misconception or indifference, did not seem to comprehend her, she

added, "We came by here, last night, a minute after you fired."

"Oh, that was YOU kicked up such a row, was it?" said the young man,

with a shade of interest.

"I reckon," said the woman, nodding her head, "and them that was

with me."

"And who are they?"

"Sheriff Dunn, of Yolo, and his deputy."

"And where are they now?"

"The deputy--in h-ll, I reckon; I don't know about the sheriff."

"I see," said the young man quietly; "and you?"

"I--got away," she said savagely. But she was taken with a sudden

nervous shiver, which she at once repressed by tightly dragging her shawl

over her shoulders and elbows, and folding her arms defiantly.

"And you're going?"

"To follow the deputy, may be," she said gloomily. "But come, I say,

ain't you going to treat? It's cursed cold here."

"Wait a moment." The young man was looking at her, with his

IN THE CARQUINEZ WOODS

arched brows slightly knit and a half smile of curiosity. "Ain't you

Teresa?"

She was prepared for the question, but evidently was not certain

whether she would reply defiantly or confidently. After an exhaustive

scrutiny of his face she chose the latter, and said, "You can bet your life on

it, Johnny."

"I don't bet, and my name isn't Johnny. Then you're the woman who

stabbed Dick Curson over at Lagrange's?"

She became defiant again.

"That's me, all the time. What are you going to do about it?"

"Nothing. And you used to dance at the Alhambra?" She whisked

the shawl from her shoulders, held it up like a scarf, and made one or two

steps of the sembicuacua. There was not the least gayety, recklessness,

or spontaneity in the action; it was simply mechanical bravado. It was so

ineffective, even upon her own feelings, that her arms presently dropped

to her side, and she coughed embarrassedly. "Where's that whiskey,

pardner?" she asked.

The young man turned toward the tree he had just quitted, and without

further words assisted her to mount to the cavity. It was an irregular-

shaped vaulted chamber, pierced fifty feet above by a shaft or cylindrical

opening in the decayed trunk, which was blackened by smoke, as if it had

served the purpose of a chimney. In one corner lay a bearskin and blanket;

at the side were two alcoves or indentations, one of which was evidently

used as a table, and the other as a cupboard. In another hollow, near the

entrance, lay a few small sacks of flour, coffee, and sugar, the sticky

contents of the latter still strewing the floor. From this storehouse the

young man drew a wicker flask of whiskey, and handed it, with a tin cup

of water, to the woman. She waved the cup aside, placed the flask to her

lips, and drank the undiluted spirit. Yet even this was evidently bravado,

for the water started to her eyes, and she could not restrain the paroxysm

of coughing that followed.

"I reckon that's the kind that kills at forty rods," she said, with a

hysterical laugh. "But I say, pardner, you look as if you were fixed here

to stay," and she stared ostentatiously around the chamber. But she had

IN THE CARQUINEZ WOODS

already taken in its minutest details, even to observing that the hanging

strips of bark could be disposed so as to completely hide the entrance.

"Well, yes," he replied; "it wouldn't be very easy to pull up the stakes

and move the shanty further on."

Seeing that either from indifference or caution he had not accepted her

meaning, she looked at him fixedly, and said,--

"What is your little game?"

"Eh?"

"What are you hiding for--here, in this tree?"

"But I'm not hiding."

"Then why didn't you come out when they hailed you last night?"

"Because I didn't care to."

Teresa whistled incredulously. "All right--then if you're not hiding,

I'm going to." As he did not reply, she went on: "If I can keep out of

sight for a couple of weeks, this thing will blow over here, and I can get

across into Yolo. I could get a fair show there, where the boys know me.

Just now the trails are all watched, but no one would think of lookin'

here."

"Then how did you come to think of it?" he asked carelessly.

"Because I knew that bear hadn't gone far for that sugar; because I

know he hadn't stole it from a cache--it was too fresh, and we'd have seen

the torn-up earth; because we had passed no camp; and because I knew

there was no shanty here. And, besides," she added in a low voice,

"maybe I was huntin' a hole myself to die in--and spotted it by instinct."

There was something in this suggestion of a hunted animal that, unlike

anything she had previously said or suggested, was not exaggerated, and

caused the young man to look at her again. She was standing under the

chimney-like opening, and the light from above illuminated her head and

shoulders. The pupils of her eyes had lost their feverish prominence, and

were slightly suffused and softened as she gazed abstractedly before her.

The only vestige of her previous excitement was in her left-hand fingers,

which were incessantly twisting and turning a diamond ring upon her right

hand, but without imparting the least animation to her rigid attitude.

Suddenly, as if conscious of his scrutiny, she stepped aside out of the

IN THE CARQUINEZ WOODS

revealing light and by a swift feminine instinct raised her hand to her head

as if to adjust her straggling hair. It was only for a moment, however, for,

as if aware of the weakness, she struggled to resume her aggressive pose.

"Well," she said. "Speak up. Am I goin' to stop here, or have I got

to get up and get?"

"You can stay," said the young man quietly; "but as I've got my

provisions and ammunition here, and haven't any other place to go to just

now, I suppose we'll have to share it together."

She glanced at him under her eyelids, and a half-bitter, half-

contemptuous smile passed across her face. "All right, old man," she

said, holding out her hand, "it's a go. We'll start in housekeeping at once,

if you like."

"I'll have to come here once or twice a day," he said, quite composedly,

"to look after my things, and get something to eat; but I'll be away most of

the time, and what with camping out under the trees every night I reckon

my share won't incommode you."

She opened her black eyes upon him, at this original proposition. Then

she looked down at her torn dress. "I suppose this style of thing ain't

very fancy, is it?" she said, with a forced laugh.

"I think I know where to beg or borrow a change for you, if you can't

get any," he replied simply.

She stared at him again. "Are you a family man?"

"No."

She was silent for a moment. "Well," she said, "you can tell your girl

I'm not particular about its being in the latest fashion."

There was a slight flush on his forehead as he turned toward the little

cupboard, but no tremor in his voice as he went on: "You'll find tea and

coffee here, and, if you're bored, there's a book or two. You read, don't

you--I mean English?"

She nodded, but cast a look of undisguised contempt upon the two

worn, coverless novels he held out to her. "You haven't got last week's

'Sacramento Union,' have you? I hear they have my case all in; only

them lying reporters made it out against me all the time."

"I don't see the papers," he replied curtly.

IN THE CARQUINEZ WOODS

"They say there's a picture of me in the 'Police Gazette,' taken in the

act," and she laughed.

He looked a little abstracted, and turned as if to go. "I think you'll do

well to rest a while just now, and keep as close hid as possible until

afternoon. The trail is a mile away at the nearest point, but some one

might miss it and stray over here. You're quite safe if you're careful, and

stand by the tree. You can build a fire here," he stepped under the

chimney-like opening, "without its being noticed. Even the smoke is lost

and cannot be seen so high."

The light from above was falling on his head and shoulders, as it had

on hers. She looked at him intently.

"You travel a good deal on your figure, pardner, don't you?" she said,

with a certain admiration that was quite sexless in its quality; "but I don't

see how you pick up a living by it in the Carquinez Woods. So you're

going, are you? You might be more sociable. Good-by."

"Good-by!" He leaped from the opening.

"I say pardner!"

He turned a little impatiently. She had knelt down at the entrance, so

as to be nearer his level, and was holding out her hand. But he did not

notice it, and she quietly withdrew it.

"If anybody dropped in and asked for you, what name will they say?"

He smiled. "Don't wait to hear."

"But suppose I wanted to sing out for you, what will I call you?"

He hesitated. "Call me--Lo."

"Lo, the poor Indian?"*

"Exactly."

* The first word of Pope's familiar apostrophe is humorously used in

the Far West as a distinguishing title for the Indian.

It suddenly occurred to the woman, Teresa, that in the young man's

height, supple, yet erect carriage, color, and singular gravity of demeanor

there was a refined, aboriginal suggestion. He did not look like any Indian

she had ever seen, but rather as a youthful chief might have looked.

There was a further suggestion in his fringed buckskin shirt and moccasins;

but before she could utter the half-sarcastic comment that rose to her lips

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INTHECARQUINEZWOODS1INTHECARQUINEZWOODSbyBretHarteINTHECARQUINEZWOODS2CHAPTERI.ThesunwasgoingdownontheCarquinezWoods.Thefewshaftsofsunlightthathadpiercedtheirpillaredgloomwerelostinunfathomabledepths,orsplinteredtheirineffectuallancesontheenormoustrunksoftheredwoods.Foratimethedullredoftheirvastcolu...

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