by Wister, Owen
“I don’t know,” said Miss Sissons, “and I’m sure I’d rather not know.” And so she gave her promise. “But I shouldn’t suppose,” she added, “that the men of Siskiyou, mad or not, would forget that women are women.”
Jim laughed. “Oh no,” he said, “they ain’t going to forget that.”
The appointed day came; and the train came, several hours late, bearing the box of confectionery, addressed to the Ladies’ Reform and Literary Lyceum. Bill, the ticket-agent, held his lantern over it on the platform.
“That’s the cake,” said he.
“What cake?” Abe inquired.
Bill told him the rumor.
“Cake?” repeated Abe. “Fer them?” and he tilted his head towards the jail. “Will you say that again, friend? I ain’t clear about it. Cake, did ye say?”
“Pound-cake,” said Bill. “Ordered special from San Francisco.”
Now pound-cake for adults is considered harmless. But it is curious how unwholesome a harmless thing can be if administered at the wrong time. The gaunt, savage-looking Californian went up to the box slowly. Then he kicked it lightly with his big boot, seeming to listen to its reverberation. Then he read the address. Then he sat down on the box to take a think. After a time he began speaking aloud. “They hold up a stage,” he said, slowly. “They lay up a passenger fer a month. And they lame Bob Griffiths fer life. And then they do up Buck. Shoot a hole through his spine. And I helped bury him; fer I liked Buck.” The speaker paused, and looked at the box. Then he got up. “I hain’t attended their prayer-meetin’s,” said he, “and I hain’t smelt their flowers. Such perfume’s liable to make me throw up. But I guess I’ll hev a look at their cake.”
He went to the baggage-room and brought an axe. The axe descended, and a splintered slat flew across the platform. “There’s a lot of cake,” said Abe. The top of the packing-case crashed on the railroad track, and three new men gathered to look on. “It’s fresh cake too,” remarked the destroyer. The box now fell to pieces, and the tattered paper wrapping was ripped away. “Step up, boys,” said Abe, for a little crowd was there now. “Soft, ain’t it?” They slung the cake about and tramped it in the grime and oil, and the boards of the box were torn apart and whirled away. There was a singular and growing impulse about all this. No one said anything; they were very quiet; yet the crowd grew quickly, as if called together by something in the air. One voice said, “Don’t forgit we’re all relyin’ on yer serenade, Mark,” and this raised a strange united laugh that broke brief and loud, and stopped, leaving the silence deeper than before. Mark and three more left, and walked towards the Lyceum. They were members of the Siskiyou band, and as they went one said that the town would see an interesting trial in the morning. Soon after they had gone the crowd moved from the station, compact and swift.
Meanwhile the Lyceum had been having disappointments. When the train was known to be late, Amanda had abandoned bestowing the cake until morning. But now a horrid thing had happened: the Siskiyou band refused its services! The rocking-chairs were plying strenuously; but Amanda strode up and down in front of Mount Shasta and Lucretia Mott.
Herr Schwartz entered. “It’s all right, madam,” said he. “My trombone haf come back, und—”
“You’ll play?” demanded the president.
“We blay for de ladies.”
The rocking-chairs were abandoned; the Lyceum put on its bonnet and shawl, and marshalled down-stairs with the band.
“Ready,” said Amanda.
“Ready,” said Herr Schwartz to his musicians. “Go a leedle easy mit der Allegro, or we bust ‘Fatinitza.’”
The spirited strains were lifted in Siskiyou, and the procession was soon at the jail in excellent order. They came round the corner with the trombone going as well as possible. Two jerking bodies dangled at the end of ropes, above the flare of torches. Amanda and her flock were shrieking.
“So!” exclaimed Herr Schwartz. “Dot was dose Healy boys we haf come to gif serenade.” He signed to stop the music.
“No you don’t,” said two of the masked crowd, closing in with pistols. “You’ll play fer them fellers till you’re told to quit.”
“Cerdainly,” said the philosophical Teuton. “Only dey gif brobably very leedle attention to our Allegro.”
So “Fatinitza” trumpeted on while the two on the ropes twisted, and grew still by-and-by. Then the masked men let the band go home. The Lyceum had scattered and fled long since, and many days passed before it revived again to civic usefulness, nor did its members find comfort from their men. Herr Schwartz gave a parting look at the bodies of the lynched murderers. “My!” said he, “das Ewigweibliche haf draw them apove sure enough.”
Miss Sissons next day was walking and talking off her shock and excitement with her lover. “And oh, Jim,” she concluded, after they had said a good many things, “you hadn’t anything to do with it, had you?” The young man did not reply, and catching a certain expression on his face, she hastily exclaimed: “Never mind! I don’t want to know—ever!”
So James Hornbrook kissed his sweetheart for saying that, and they continued their walk among the pleasant hills.
* * *
THE GENERAL’S BLUFF
The troops this day had gone into winter-quarters, and sat down to kill the idle time with pleasure until spring. After two hundred and forty days it is a good thing to sit down. The season had been spent in trailing, and sometimes catching, small bands of Indians. These had taken the habit of relieving settlers of their cattle and the tops of their heads. The weather-beaten troops had scouted over some two thousand aimless, veering miles, for the savages were fleet and mostly invisible, and knew the desert well. So, while the year turned, and the heat came, held sway, and went, the ragged troopers on the frontier were led an endless chase by the hostiles, who took them back and forth over flats of lime and ridges of slate, occasionally picking off a packer or a couple of privates, until now the sun was setting at 4.28 and it froze at any time of day. Therefore the rest of the packers and privates were glad to march into Boisé Barracks this morning by eleven, and see a stove.
They rolled for a moment on their bunks to get the feel of a bunk again after two hundred and forty days; they ate their dinner at a table; those who owned any further baggage than that which partially covered their nakedness unpacked it, perhaps nailed up a photograph or two, and found it grateful to sit and do nothing under a roof and listen to the grated snow whip the windows of the gray sandstone quarters. Such comfort, and the prospect of more ahead, of weeks of nothing but post duty and staying in the same place, obliterated Dry Camp, Cow Creek Lake, the blizzard on Meacham’s Hill, the horse-killing in the John Day Valley, Saw-Tooth stampede, and all the recent evils of the past; the quarters hummed with cheerfulness. The nearest railroad was some four hundred miles to the southeast, slowly constructing to meet the next nearest, which was some nine hundred to the southeast; but Boisé City was only three-quarters of a mile away, the largest town in the Territory, the capital, not a temperance town, a winter resort; and several hundred people lived in it, men and women, few of whom ever died in their beds. The coming days and nights were a luxury to think of.
“Blamed if there ain’t a real tree!” exclaimed Private Jones.
“Thet eer ain’t no tree, ye plum; thet’s the flag-pole ’n’ th’ Merrickin flag,” observed a civilian. His name was Jack Long, and he was pack-master.
Sergeant Keyser, listening, smiled. During the winter of ’64-65 he had been in command of the first battalion of his regiment, but, on a theory of education, had enlisted after the war. This being known, held the men more shy of him than was his desire.
Jones continued to pick his banjo, while a boyish trooper with tough black hair sat near him and kept time with his heels. “It’s a cottonwood-tree I was speakin’ of,” observed Jones. There was one—a little, shivering white stalk. It stood above the flat where the barracks were, on a bench twenty or thirty feet higher, on which were built th
e officers’ quarters. The air was getting dim with the fine, hard snow that slanted through it. The thermometer was ten above out there. At the mere sight and thought Mr. Long produced a flat bottle, warm from proximity to his flesh. Jones swallowed some drink, and looked at the little tree. “Snakes! but it feels good,” said he, “to get something inside y’u and be inside yerself. What’s the tax at Mike’s dance-house now?”
“Dance ’n’ drinks fer two fer one dollar,” responded Mr. Long, accurately. He was sixty, but that made no difference.
“You and me’ll take that in, Jock,” said Jones to his friend, the black-haired boy. “‘Sigh no more, ladies,’” he continued, singing. “The blamed banjo won’t accompany that,” he remarked, and looked out again at the tree. “There’s a chap riding into the post now. Shabby-lookin’. Mebbe he’s got stuff to sell.”
Jack Long looked up on the bench at a rusty figure moving slowly through the storm. “Th’ ole man!” he said.
“He ain’t specially old,” Jones answered. “They’re apt to be older, them peddlers.”
“Peddlers! Oh, ye-es.” A seizure of very remarkable coughing took Jack Long by the throat; but he really had a cough, and, on the fit’s leaving him, swallowed a drink, and offered his bottle in a manner so cold and usual that Jones forgot to note anything but the excellence of the whiskey. Mr. Long winked at Sergeant Keyser; he thought it a good plan not to inform his young friends, not just yet at any rate, that their peddler was General Crook. It would be pleasant to hear what else they might have to say.
The General had reached Boisé City that morning by the stage, quietly and unknown, as was his way. He had come to hunt Indians in the district of the Owyhee. Jack Long had discovered this, but only a few had been told the news, for the General wished to ask questions and receive answers, and to find out about all things; and he had noticed that this is not easy when too many people know who you are. He had called upon a friend or two in Boisé, walked about unnoticed, learned a number of facts, and now, true to his habit, entered the post wearing no uniform, none being necessary under the circumstances, and unattended by a single orderly. Jones and the black-haired Cumnor hoped he was a peddler, and innocently sat looking out of the window at him riding along the bench in front of the quarters, and occasionally slouching his wide, dark hat-brim against the stinging of the hard flakes. Jack Long, old and much experienced with the army, had scouted with Crook before, and knew him and his ways well. He also looked out of the window, standing behind Jones and Cumnor, with a huge hairy hand on a shoulder of each, and a huge wink again at Keyser.
“Blamed if he ’ain’t stopped in front of the commanding officer’s,” said Jones.
“Lor’!” said Mr. Long, “there’s jest nothin’ them peddlers won’t do.”
“They ain’t likely to buy anything off him in there,” said Cumnor.
“Mwell, ef he’s purvided with any kind o’ Injun cur’os’tees, the missis she’ll fly right on to ’em. Sh’ ’ain’t been merried out yere only haff’n year, ’n’ when she spies feathers ’n’ bead truck ’n’ buckskin fer sale sh’ hollers like a son of a gun. Enthoosiastic, ye know.”
“He ’ain’t got much of a pack,” Jones commented, and at that moment “stables” sounded, and the men ran out to form and march to their grooming. Jack Long stood at the door and watched them file through the snow.
Very few enlisted men of the small command that had come in this morning from its campaign had ever seen General Crook. Jones, though not new to the frontier, had not been long in the army. He and Cumnor had enlisted in a happy-go-lucky manner together at Grant, in Arizona, when the General was elsewhere. Discipline was galling to his vagrant spirit, and after each pay-day he had generally slept off the effects in the guard-house, going there for other offences between-whiles; but he was not of the stuff that deserts; also, he was excellent tempered, and his captain liked him for the way in which he could shoot Indians. Jack Long liked him too; and getting always a harmless pleasure from the mistakes of his friends, sincerely trusted there might be more about the peddler. He was startled at hearing his name spoken in his ear.
“Nah! Johnny, how you get on?”
“Hello, Sarah! Kla-how-ya, six?” said Long, greeting in Chinook the squaw interpreter who had approached him so noiselessly. “Hy-as kloshe o-coke sun” (It is a beautiful day).
The interpreter laughed—she had a broad, sweet, coarse face, and laughed easily—and said in English, “You hear about E-egante?”
Long had heard nothing recently of this Pah-Ute chieftain.
“He heap bad,” continued Sarah, laughing broadly. “Come round ranch up here—”
“Anybody killed?” Long interrupted.
“No. All run away quick. Meester Dailey, he old man, he run all same young one. His old woman she run all same man. Get horse. Run away quick. Hu-hu!” and Sarah’s rich mockery sounded again. No tragedy had happened this time, and the squaw narrated her story greatly to the relish of Mr. Long. This veteran of trails and mines had seen too much of life’s bleakness not to cherish whatever of mirth his days might bring.
“Didn’t burn the house?” he said.
“Not burn. Just make heap mess. Cut up feather-bed hy-as ten-as (very small) and eat big dinner, hu-hu! Sugar, onions, meat, eat all. Then they find litt’ cats walkin’ round there.”
“Lor’!” said Mr. Long, deeply interested, “they didn’t eat them?”
“No. Not eat litt’ cats. Put ’em two—man-cat and woman-cat—in molasses; put ’em in feather-bed; all same bird. Then they hunt for whiskey, break everything, hunt all over, ha-lo whiskey!” Sarah shook her head. “Meester Dailey he good man. Hy-iu temperance. Drink water. They find his medicine; drink all up; make awful sick.”
“I guess ’twar th’ ole man’s liniment,” muttered Jack Long.
“Yas, milinut. They can’t walk. Stay there long time, then Meester Dailey come back with friends. They think Injuns all gone; make noise, and E-egante he hear him come, and he not very sick. Run away. Some more run. But two Injuns heap sick; can’t run. Meester Dailey he come round the corner; see awful mess everywhere; see two litt’ cats sittin’ in door all same bird, sing very loud. Then he see two Injuns on ground. They dead now.”
“Mwell,” said Long, “none of eer’ll do. We’ll hev to ketch E-egante.”
“A—h!” drawled Sarah the squaw, in musical derision. “Maybe no catch him. All same jack rabbit.”
“Jest ye wait, Sarah; Gray Fox hez come.”
“Gen’l Crook!” said the squaw. “He come! Ho! He heap savvy.” She stopped, and laughed again, like a pleased child. “Maybe no catch E-egante,” she added, rolling her pretty brown eyes at Jack Long.
“You know E-egante?” he demanded.
“Yas, one time. Long time now. I litt’ girl then.” But Sarah remembered that long time, when she slept in a tent and had not been captured and put to school. And she remembered the tall young boys whom she used to watch shoot arrows, and the tallest, who shot most truly—at least, he certainly did now in her imagination. He had never spoken to her or looked at her. He was a boy of fourteen and she a girl of eight. Now she was twenty-five. Also she was tame and domesticated, with a white husband who was not bad to her, and children for each year of wedlock, who would grow up to speak English better than she could, and her own tongue not at all. And E-egante was not tame, and still lived in a tent. Sarah regarded white people as her friends, but she was proud of being an Indian, and she liked to think that her race could outwit the soldier now and then. She laughed again when she thought of old Mrs. Dailey running from E-egante.
“What’s up with ye, Sarah?” said Jack Long, for the squaw’s laughter had come suddenly on a spell of silence.
“Hé!” said she. “All same jack-rabbit. No catch him.” She stood shaking her head at Long, and showing her white, regular teeth. Then abruptly she went away to her tent without any word, not because she was in ill-humor or had thought of something, but b
ecause she was an Indian and had thought of nothing, and had no more to say. She met the men returning from the stables; admired Jones and smiled at him, upon which he murmured “Oh fie!” as he passed her. The troop broke ranks and dispersed, to lounge and gossip until mess-call. Cumnor and Jones were putting a little snow down each other’s necks with friendly profanity, when Jones saw the peddler standing close and watching them. A high collar of some ragged fur was turned up round his neck, disguising the character of the ancient army overcoat to which it was attached, and spots and long stains extended down the legs of his corduroys to the charred holes at the bottom, where the owner had scorched them warming his heels and calves at many camp-fires.
“Hello, uncle,” said Jones. “What y’u got in your pack?” He and Cumnor left their gambols and eagerly approached, while Mr. Jack Long, seeing the interview, came up also to hear it. “‘Ain’t y’u got something to sell?” continued Jones. “Y’u haven’t gone and dumped yer whole outfit at the commanding officer’s, have y’u now?”
“I’m afraid I have.” The low voice shook ever so little, and if Jones had looked he would have seen a twinkle come and go in the gray-blue eyes.
“We’ve been out eight months, y’u know, fairly steady,” pursued Jones, “and haven’t seen nothing; and we’d buy most anything that ain’t too damn bad,” he concluded, plaintively.
Mr. Long, in the background, was whining to himself with joy, and he now urgently beckoned Keyser to come and hear this.
“If you’ve got some cheap poker chips,” suggested Cumnor.
“And say, uncle,” said Jones, raising his voice, for the peddler was moving away, “decks, and tobacco better than what they keep at the commissary. Me and my friend’ll take some off your hands. And if you’re comin’ with new stock to-morrow, uncle” (Jones was now shouting after him), “why, we’re single men, and y’u might fetch along a couple of squaws!”
