Colonel Starbottle's Client

  JOHNSON'S "OLD WOMAN."

  It was growing dark, and the Sonora trail was becoming more indistinctbefore me at every step. The difficulty had increased over the grassyslope, where the overflow from some smaller watercourse above had worn anumber of diverging gullies so like the trail as to be undistinguishablefrom it. Unable to determine which was the right one, I threw the reinsover the mule's neck and resolved to trust to that superior animal'ssagacity, of which I had heard so much. But I had not taken into accountthe equally well-known weaknesses of sex and species, and Chu Chu hadalready shown uncontrollable signs of wanting her own way. Without amoment's hesitation, feeling the relaxed bridle, she lay down and rolledover.

  In this perplexity the sound of horse's hoofs ringing out of the rockycanyon beyond was a relief, even if momentarily embarrassing. An instantafterwards a horse and rider appeared cantering round the hill on whatwas evidently the lost trail, and pulled up as I succeeded in forcingChu Chu to her legs again.

  "Is that the trail from Sonora?" I asked.

  "Yes;" but with a critical glance at the mule, "I reckon you ain't goingthar tonight."

  "Why not?"

  "It's a matter of eighteen miles, and most of it a blind trail throughthe woods after you take the valley."

  "Is it worse than this?"

  "What's the matter with this trail? Ye ain't expecting a racecourse or ashell road over the foothills--are ye?"

  "No. Is there any hotel where I can stop?"

  "Nary."

  "Nor any house?"

  "No."

  "Thank you. Good-night."

  He had already passed on, when he halted again and turned in his saddle."Look yer. Just a spell over yon canyon ye'll find a patch o' buckeyes;turn to the right and ye'll see a trail. That'll take ye to a shanty.You ask if it's Johnson's."

  "Who's Johnson?"

  "I am. You ain't lookin' for Vanderbilt or God Almighty up here, areyou? Well, then, you hark to me, will you? You say to my old woman togive you supper and a shakedown somewhar to-night. Say I sent you. Solong."

  He was gone before I could accept or decline. An extraordinary noiseproceeded from Chu Chu, not unlike a suppressed chuckle. I lookedsharply at her; she coughed affectedly, and, with her head and neckstretched to their greatest length, appeared to contemplate her neatlittle off fore shoe with admiring abstraction. But as soon as I hadmounted she set off abruptly, crossed the rocky canyon, apparentlysighted the patch of buckeyes of her own volition, and without theslightest hesitation found the trail to the right, and in half an hourstood before the shanty.

  It was a log cabin with an additional "lean-to" of the same material,roofed with bark, and on the other side a larger and more ambitious"extension" built of rough, unplaned, and unpainted redwood boards,lightly shingled. The "lean-to" was evidently used as a kitchen, andthe central cabin as a living-room. The barking of a dog as I approachedcalled four children of different sizes to the open door, where alreadyan enterprising baby was feebly essaying to crawl over a bar of woodlaid across the threshold to restrain it.

  "Is this Johnson's house?"

  My remark was really addressed to the eldest, a boy of apparently nineor ten, but I felt that my attention was unduly fascinated by the baby,who at that moment had toppled over the bar, and was calmly eyeingme upside down, while silently and heroically suffocating in itspetticoats. The boy disappeared without replying, but presently returnedwith a taller girl of fourteen or fifteen. I was struck with the waythat, as she reached the door, she passed her hands rapidly over theheads of the others as if counting them, picked up the baby, reversedit, shook out its clothes, and returned it to the inside, without evenlooking at it. The act was evidently automatic and habitual.

  I repeated my question timidly.

  Yes, it WAS Johnson's, but he had just gone to King's Mills. I replied,hurriedly, that I knew it,--that I had met him beyond the canyon. As Ihad lost my way and couldn't get to Sonora to-night, he had been goodenough to say that I might stay there until morning. My voice wasslightly raised for the benefit of Mr. Johnson's "old woman," who, I hadno doubt, was inspecting me furtively from some corner.

  The girl drew the children away, except the boy. To him she saidsimply, "Show the stranger whar to stake out his mule, 'Dolphus," anddisappeared in the "extension" without another word. I followed mylittle guide, who was perhaps more actively curious, but equallyunresponsive. To my various questions he simply returned a smile ofexasperating vacuity. But he never took his eager eyes from me, and Iwas satisfied that not a detail of my appearance escaped him. Leadingthe way behind the house to a little wood, whose only "clearing"had been effected by decay or storm, he stood silently apart whileI picketed Chu Chu, neither offering to assist me nor opposing anyinterruption to my survey of the locality. There was no trace of humancultivation in the surroundings of the cabin; the wilderness still trodsharply on the heels of the pioneer's fresh footprints, and even seemedto obliterate them. For a few yards around the actual dwelling therewas an unsavory fringe of civilization in the shape of cast-off clothes,empty bottles, and tin cans, and the adjacent thorn and elder bushesblossomed unwholesomely with bits of torn white paper and bleachingdish-cloths. This hideous circle never widened; Nature always appearedto roll back the intruding debris; no bird nor beast carried it away; noanimal ever forced the uncleanly barrier; civilization remained grimlytrenched in its own exuvia. The old terrifying girdle of fire around thehunter's camp was not more deterring to curious night prowlers than thiscoarse and accidental outwork.

  When I regained the cabin I found it empty, the doors of the lean-to andextension closed, but there was a stool set before a rude table, uponwhich smoked a tin cup of coffee, a tin dish of hot saleratus biscuit,and a plate of fried beef. There was something odd and depressing inthis silent exclusion of my presence. Had Johnson's "old woman" fromsome dark post of observation taken a dislike to my appearance, or wasthis churlish withdrawal a peculiarity of Sierran hospitality? Or wasMrs. Johnson young and pretty, and hidden under the restricting ban ofJohnson's jealousy, or was she a deformed cripple, or even a bedriddencrone? From the extension at times came a murmur of voices, but neverthe accents of adult womanhood. The gathering darkness, relieved only bya dull glow from the smouldering logs in the adobe chimney, added to myloneliness. In the circumstances I knew I ought to have put aside therepast and given myself up to gloomy and pessimistic reflection; butNature is often inconsistent, and in that keen mountain air, I grieveto say, my physical and moral condition was not in that perfect accordalways indicated by romancers. I had an appetite and I gratified it;dyspepsia and ethical reflections might come later. I ate the saleratusbiscuit cheerfully, and was meditatively finishing my coffee when agurgling sound from the rafters above attracted my attention. I lookedup; under the overhang of the bark roof three pairs of round eyes werefixed upon me. They belonged to the children I had previously seen,who, in the attitude of Raphael's cherubs, had evidently been deeplyinterested spectators of my repast. As our eyes met an inarticulategiggle escaped the lips of the youngest.

  I never could understand why the shy amusement of children over theirelders is not accepted as philosophically by its object as when itproceeds from an equal. We fondly believe that when Jones or Brownlaughs at us it is from malice, ignorance, or a desire to show hissuperiority, but there is always a haunting suspicion in our minds thatthese little critics REALLY see something in us to laugh at. I, however,smiled affably in return, ignoring any possible grotesqueness in mymanner of eating in private.

  "Come here, Johnny," I said blandly.

  The two elder ones, a girl and a boy, disappeared instantly, as if thecrowning joke of this remark was too much for them. From a scraping andkicking against the log wall I judged that they had quickly dropped tothe ground outside. The younger one, the giggler, remained fascinated,but ready to fly at a moment's warning.

  "Come here, Johnny, boy," I repeated gently. "I want you to go to yourmother, please, and tell her"--

 
But here the child, who had been working its face convulsively, suddenlyuttered a lugubrious howl and disappeared also. I ran to the front doorand looked out in time to see the tallest girl, who had received me,walking away with it under her arm, pushing the boy ahead of herand looking back over her shoulder, not unlike a youthful she-bearconducting her cubs from danger. She disappeared at the end of theextension, where there was evidently another door.

  It was very extraordinary. It was not strange that I turned back tothe cabin with a chagrin and mortification which for a moment made meentertain the wild idea of saddling Chu Chu, and shaking the dust ofthat taciturn house from my feet. But the ridiculousness of such an act,to say nothing of its ingratitude, as quickly presented itself to me.Johnson had offered me only food and shelter; I could have claimed nomore from the inn I had asked him to direct me to. I did not re-enterthe house, but, lighting my last cigar, began to walk gloomily up anddown the trail. With the outcoming of the stars it had grown lighter;through a wind opening in the trees I could see the heavy bulk of theopposite mountain, and beyond it a superior crest defined by a red lineof forest fire, which, however, cast no reflection on the surroundingearth or sky. Faint woodland currents of air, still warm from theafternoon sun, stirred the leaves around me with long-drawn aromaticbreaths. But these in time gave way to the steady Sierran night windsweeping down from the higher summits, and rocking the tops of thetallest pines, yet leaving the tranquillity of the dark lower aislesunshaken. It was very quiet; there was no cry nor call of beast or birdin the darkness; the long rustle of the tree-tops sounded as faint asthe far-off wash of distant seas. Nor did the resemblance cease there;the close-set files of the pines and cedars, stretching in illimitableranks to the horizon, were filled with the immeasurable loneliness ofan ocean shore. In this vast silence I began to think I understood thetaciturnity of the dwellers in the solitary cabin.

  When I returned, however, I was surprised to find the tallest girlstanding by the door. As I approached she retreated before me, andpointing to the corner where a common cot bed had been evidently justput up, said, "Ye can turn in thar, only ye'll have to rouse out earlywhen 'Dolphus does the chores," and was turning towards the extensionagain, when I stopped her almost appealingly.

  "One moment, please. Can I see your mother?"

  She stopped and looked at me with a singular expression. Then she saidsharply:--

  "You know, fust rate, she's dead."

  She was turning away again, but I think she must have seen my concernin my face, for she hesitated. "But," I said quickly, "I certainlyunderstood your father, that is, Mr. Johnson," I added, interrogatively,"to say that--that I was to speak to"--I didn't like to repeat the exactphrase--"his WIFE."

  "I don't know what he was playin' ye for," she said shortly. "Mar hasbeen dead mor'n a year."

  "But," I persisted, "is there no grown-up woman here?"

  "No."

  "Then who takes care of you and the children?"

  "I do."

  "Yourself and your father--eh?"

  "Dad ain't here two days running, and then on'y to sleep."

  "And you take the entire charge of the house?"

  "Yes, and the log tallies."

  "The log tallies?"

  "Yes; keep count and measure the logs that go by the slide."

  It flashed upon me that I had passed the slide or declivity on thehillside, where logs were slipped down into the valley, and I inferredthat Johnson's business was cutting timber for the mill.

  "But you're rather young for all this work," I suggested.

  "I'm goin' on sixteen," she said gravely.

  Indeed, for the matter of that, she might have been any age. Her face,on which sunburn took the place of complexion, was already hard and set.But on a nearer view I was struck with the fact that her eyes, whichwere not large, were almost indistinguishable from the presence of themost singular eyelashes I had ever seen. Intensely black, intenselythick, and even tangled in their profusion, they bristled rather thanfringed her eyelids, obliterating everything but the shining blackpupils beneath, which were like certain lustrous hairy mountain berries.It was this woodland suggestion that seemed to uncannily connect herwith the locality. I went on playfully:--

  "That's not VERY old--but tell me--does your father, or DID your father,ever speak of you as his 'old woman?'"

  She nodded. "Then you thought I was mar?" she said, smiling.

  It was such a relief to see her worn face relax its expression ofpathetic gravity--although this operation quite buried her eyes in theirblack thickest hedge again--that I continued cheerfully: "It wasn't muchof a mistake, considering all you do for the house and family."

  "Then you didn't tell Billy 'to go and be dead in the ground with mar,'as he 'lows you did?" she said half suspiciously, yet trembling on theedge of a smile.

  No, I had not, but I admitted that my asking him to go to his mothermight have been open to this dismal construction by a sensitive infantmind. She seemed mollified, and again turned to go.

  "Good-night, Miss--you know your father didn't tell me your real name,"I said.

  "Karline!"

  "Good-night, Miss Karline."

  I held out my hand.

  She looked at it and then at me through her intricate eyelashes. Thenshe struck it aside briskly, but not unkindly, said "Quit foolin', now,"as she might have said to one of the children, and disappeared throughthe inner door. Not knowing whether to be amused or indignant, Iremained silent a moment. Then I took a turn outside in the increasingdarkness, listened to the now hurrying wind over the tree-tops,re-entered the cabin, closed the door, and went to bed.

  But not to sleep. Perhaps the responsibility towards these solitarychildren, which Johnson had so lightly shaken off, devolved upon me asI lay there, for I found myself imagining a dozen emergencies of theirunprotected state, with which the elder girl could scarcely grapple.There was little to fear from depredatory man or beast--desperadoes ofthe mountain trail never stooped to ignoble burglary, bear or pantherseldom approached a cabin--but there was the chance of sudden illness,fire, the accidents that beset childhood, to say nothing of thenarrowing moral and mental effect of their isolation at that tender age.It was scandalous in Johnson to leave them alone.

  In the silence I found I could hear quite distinctly the sound of theirvoices in the extension, and it was evident that Caroline was puttingthem to bed. Suddenly a voice was uplifted--her own! She began to singand the others to join her. It was the repetition of a single verse ofa well-known lugubrious negro melody. "All the world am sad anddreary," wailed Caroline, in a high head-note, "everywhere I roam." "Oh,darkieth," lisped the younger girl in response, "how my heart growthweary, far from the old folkth at h-o-o-me." This was repeated two orthree times before the others seemed to get the full swing of it, andthen the lines rose and fell sadly and monotonously in the darkness. Idon't know why, but I at once got the impression that those motherlesslittle creatures were under a vague belief that their performance wasdevotional, and was really filling the place of an evening hymn. A briefand indistinct kind of recitation, followed by a dead silence, brokenonly by the slow creaking of new timber, as if the house were stretchingitself to sleep too, confirmed my impression. Then all became quietagain.

  But I was more wide awake than before. Finally I rose, dressed myself,and dragging my stool to the fire, took a book from my knapsack, and bythe light of a guttering candle, which I discovered in a bottle in thecorner of the hearth, began to read. Presently I fell into a doze.How long I slept I could not tell, for it seemed to me that a dreamyconsciousness of a dog barking at last forced itself upon me so stronglythat I awoke. The barking appeared to come from behind the cabin in thedirection of the clearing where I had tethered Chu Chu. I opened thedoor hurriedly, ran round the cabin towards the hollow, and was almostat once met by the bulk of the frightened Chu Chu, plunging out of thedarkness towards me, kept only in check by her reata in the hand of ablanketed shape slowly advancing with a gun over its sho
ulder out of thehollow. Before I had time to recover from my astonishment I was throwninto greater confusion by recognizing the shape as none other thanCaroline!

  Without the least embarrassment or even self-consciousness of herappearance, she tossed the end of the reata to me with the curtestexplanation as she passed by. Some prowling bear or catamount hadfrightened the mule. I had better tether it before the cabin away fromthe wind.

  "But I thought wild beasts never came so near," I said quickly.

  "Mule meat's mighty temptin'," said the girl sententiously and passedon. I wanted to thank her; I wanted to say how sorry I was that shehad been disturbed; I wanted to compliment her on her quiet midnightcourage, and yet warn her against recklessness; I wanted to know whethershe had been accustomed to such alarms; and if the gun she carried wasreally a necessity. But I could only respect her reticence, and I wasturning away when I was struck by a more inexplicable spectacle. As sheneared the end of the extension I distinctly saw the tall figure ofa man, moving with a certain diffidence and hesitation that did not,however, suggest any intention of concealment, among the trees; the girlapparently saw him at the same moment and slightly slackened her pace.Not more than a dozen feet separated them. He said something that wasinaudible to my ears,--but whether from his hesitation or the distanceI could not determine. There was no such uncertainty in her reply,however, which was given in her usual curt fashion: "All right. You cantrapse along home now and turn in."

  She turned the corner of the extension and disappeared. The tall figureof the man wavered hesitatingly for a moment, and then vanished also.But I was too much excited by curiosity to accept this unsatisfactoryconclusion, and, hastily picketing Chu Chu a few rods from the frontdoor, I ran after him, with an instinctive feeling that he had not gonefar. I was right. A few paces distant he had halted in the same dubious,lingering way. "Hallo!" I said.

  He turned towards me in the like awkward fashion, but with neitherastonishment nor concern.

  "Come up and take a drink with me before you go," I said, "if you're notin a hurry. I'm alone here, and since I HAVE turned out I don't see whywe mightn't have a smoke and a talk together."

  "I dursn't."

  I looked up at the six feet of strength before me and repeatedwonderingly, "Dare not?"

  "SHE wouldn't like it." He made a movement with his right shouldertowards the extension.

  "Who?"

  "Miss Karline."

  "Nonsense!" I said. "She isn't in the cabin,--you won't see HER. Comealong." He hesitated, although from what I could discern of his beardedface it was weakly smiling.

  "Come."

  He obeyed, following me not unlike Chu Chu, I fancied, with the samesense of superior size and strength and a slight whitening of the eye,as if ready to shy at any moment. At the door he "backed." Then heentered sideways. I noticed that he cleared the doorway at the top andthe sides only by a hair's breadth.

  By the light of the fire I could see that, in spite of his full firstgrowth of beard, he was young,--even younger than myself,--and that hewas by no means bad-looking. As he still showed signs of retreating atany moment, I took my flask and tobacco from my saddle-bags, handed themto him, pointed to the stool, and sat down myself upon the bed.

  "You live near here?"

  "Yes," he said a little abstractedly, as if listening for someinterruption, "at Ten Mile Crossing."

  "Why, that's two miles away."

  "I reckon."

  "Then you don't live here--on the clearing?"

  "No. I b'long to the mill at 'Ten Mile.'"

  "You were on your way home?"

  "No," he hesitated, looking at his pipe; "I kinder meander round here atthis time, when Johnson's away, to see if everything's goin' straight."

  "I see--you're a friend of the family."

  "'Deed no!" He stopped, laughed, looked confused, and added, apparentlyto his pipe, "That is, a sorter friend. Not much. SHE"--he lowered hisvoice as if that potential personality filled the whole cabin--"wouldn'tlike it."

  "Then at night, when Johnson's away, you do sentry duty round thehouse?"

  "Yes, 'sentry dooty,' that's it,"--he seemed impressed with thesuggestion--"that's it! Sentry dooty. You've struck it, pardner."

  "And how often is Johnson away?"

  "'Bout two or three times a week on an average."

  "But Miss Caroline appears to be able to take care of herself. She hasno fear."

  "Fear! Fear wasn't hangin' round when SHE was born!" He paused. "No,sir. Did ye ever look into them eyes?"

  I hadn't, on account of the lashes. But I didn't care to say this, andonly nodded.

  "There ain't the created thing livin' or dead, that she can't standstraight up to and look at."

  I wondered if he had fancied she experienced any difficulty in standingup before that innocently good-humored face, but I could not resistsaying:--

  "Then I don't see the use of your walking four miles to look after her."

  I was sorry for it the next minute, for he seemed to have awkwardlybroken his pipe, and had to bend down for a long time afterwards tolaboriously pick up the smallest fragments of it. At last he said,cautiously:

  "Ye noticed them bits o' flannin' round the chillern's throats?"

  I remembered that I had, but was uncertain whether it was intended as apreventive of cold or a child's idea of decoration. I nodded.

  "That's their trouble. One night, when old Johnson had been off forthree days to Coulterville, I was prowling round here and I didn't gitto see no one, though there was a light burnin' in the shanty all night.The next night I was here again,--the same light twinklin', but no oneabout. I reckoned that was mighty queer, and I jess crep' up to thehouse an' listened. I heard suthin' like a little cough oncet in awhile, and at times suthin' like a little moan. I didn't durst to singout for I knew SHE wouldn't like it, but whistled keerless like, to letthe chillern know I was there. But it didn't seem to take. I was jessgoin' off, when--darn my skin!--if I didn't come across the bucket ofwater I'd fetched up from the spring THAT MORNIN', standin' there full,and NEVER TAKEN IN! When I saw that I reckoned I'd jess wade in, anyhow,and I knocked. Pooty soon the door was half opened, and I saw her eyesblazin' at me like them coals. Then SHE 'lowed I'd better 'git up andgit,' and shet the door to! Then I 'lowed she might tell me what wasup--through the door. Then she said, through the door, as how thechillern lay all sick with that hoss-distemper, diphthery. Then she'lowed she'd use a doctor ef I'd fetch him. Then she 'lowed again I'dbetter take the baby that hadn't ketched it yet along with me, and leaveit where it was safe. Then she passed out the baby through the door allwrapped up in a blankit like a papoose, and you bet I made tracks withit. I knowed thar wasn't no good going to the mill, so I let out forWhite's, four miles beyond, whar there was White's old mother. I toldher how things were pointin', and she lent me a hoss, and I jess roundedon Doctor Green at Mountain Jim's, and had him back here afore sun-up!And then I heard she wilted,--regularly played out, you see,--for shehad it all along wuss than the lot, and never let on or whimpered!"

  "It was well you persisted in seeing her that night," I said, watchingthe rapt expression of his face. He looked up quickly, became consciousof my scrutiny, and dropped his eyes again, smiled feebly, and drawing acircle in the ashes with the broken pipe-stem, said:--

  "But SHE didn't like it, though."

  I suggested, a little warmly, that if she allowed her father to leaveher alone at night with delicate children, she had no right to chooseWHO should assist her in an emergency. It struck me afterwards that thiswas not very complimentary to him, and I added hastily that I wonderedif she expected some young lady to be passing along the trail atmidnight! But this reminded me of Johnson's style of argument, and Istopped.

  "Yes," he said meekly, "and ef she didn't keer enough for herself andher brothers and sisters, she orter remember them Beazeley chillern."

  "Beazeley children?" I repeated wonderingly.

  "Yes; them two little ones, the size of Miran
dy; they're Beazeley's."

  "Who is Beazeley, and what are his children doing here?"

  "Beazeley up and died at the mill, and she bedevilled her father to lether take his two young 'uns here."

  "You don't mean to say that with her other work she's taking care ofother people's children too?"

  "Yes, and eddicatin' them."

  "Educating them?"

  "Yes; teachin' them to read and write and do sums. One of our loggersketched her at it when she was keepin' tally."

  We were both silent for some moments.

  "I suppose you know Johnson?" I said finally.

  "Not much."

  "But you call here at other times than when you're helping her?"

  "Never been in the house before."

  He looked slowly around him as he spoke, raising his eyes to the barerafters above, and drawing a few long breaths, as if he were inhalingthe aura of some unseen presence. He appeared so perfectly gratified andcontented, and I was so impressed with this humble and silent absorptionof the sacred interior, that I felt vaguely conscious that anyinterruption of it was a profanation, and I sat still, gazing at thedying fire. Presently he arose, stretched out his hand, shook minewarmly, said, "I reckon I'll meander along," took another long breath,this time secretly, as if conscious of my eyes, and then slouchedsideways out of the house into the darkness again, where he seemedsuddenly to attain his full height, and so looming, disappeared. I shutthe door, went to bed, and slept soundly.

  So soundly that when I awoke the sun was streaming on my bed from theopen door. On the table before me my breakfast was already laid. When Ihad dressed and eaten it, struck by the silence, I went to the door andlooked out. 'Dolphus was holding Chu Chu by the reata a few paces fromthe cabin.

  "Where's Caroline?" I asked.

  He pointed to the woods and said: "Over yon: keeping tally."

  "Did she leave any message?"

  "Said I was to git your mule for you."

  "Anything else?"

  "Yes; said you was to go."

  I went, but not until I had scrawled a few words of thanks on a leaf ofmy notebook, which I wrapped about my last Spanish dollar, addressed itto "Miss Johnson," and laid it upon the table.

  *****

  It was more than a year later that in the bar-room of the Mariposa Hotela hand was laid upon my sleeve. I looked up. It was Johnson.

  He drew from his pocket a Spanish dollar. "I reckoned," he said,cheerfully, "I'd run again ye somewhar some time. My old woman told meto give ye that when I did, and say that she 'didn't keep no hotel.'But she allowed she'd keep the letter, and has spelled it out to thechillern."

  Here was the opportunity I had longed for to touch Johnson's pride andaffection in the brave but unprotected girl. "I want to talk to youabout Miss Johnson," I said, eagerly.

  "I reckon so," he said, with an exasperating smile. "Most fellers do.But she ain't Miss Johnson no more. She's married."

  "Not to that big chap over from Ten Mile Mills?" I said breathlessly.

  "What's the matter with HIM," said Johnson. "Ye didn't expect her tomarry a nobleman, did ye?"

  I said I didn't see why she shouldn't--and believed that she HAD.