 | The luck of Roaring Camp, and other sketches |  |
1. PART I. — IN THE FIELD.
IT was near the close of an October day that I
began to be disagreeably conscious of the Sacramento
Valley. I had been riding since sunrise,
and my course through the depressing monotony
of the long level landscape affected me more like
a dull dyspeptic dream than a business journey,
performed under that sincerest of natural phenomena,
— a California sky. The recurring stretches of
brown and baked fields, the gaping fissures in the
dusty trail, the hard outline of the distant hills,
and the herds of slowly moving cattle, seemed like
features of some glittering stereoscopic picture that
never changed. Active exercise might have removed
this feeling, but my horse by some subtle
instinct had long since given up all ambitious
effort, and had lapsed into a dogged trot.
It was autumn, but not the season suggested to
the Atlantic reader under that title. The sharply
defined boundaries of the wet and dry seasons were
prefigured in the clear outlines of the distant hills.
In the dry atmosphere the decay of vegetation was
Eastern landscape, or else Nature was too practical
for such thin disguises. She merely turned the
Hippocratic face to the spectator, with the old diagnosis
of Death in her sharp, contracted features.
In the contemplation of such a prospect there
was little to excite any but a morbid fancy. There
were no clouds in the flinty blue heavens, and the
setting of the sun was accompanied with as little
ostentation as was consistent with the dryly practical
atmosphere. Darkness soon followed, with a
rising wind, which increased as the shadows deepened
on the plain. The fringe of alder by the
watercourse began to loom up as I urged my horse
forward. A half-hour's active spurring brought
me to a corral, and a little beyond a house, so low
and broad it seemed at first sight to be half buried
in the earth.
My second impression was that it had grown out
of the soil, like some monstrous vegetable, its
dreary proportions were so in keeping with the
vast prospect. There were no recesses along its
roughly boarded walls for vagrant and unprofitable
shadows to lurk in the daily sunshine. No
projection for the wind by night to grow musical
over, to wail, whistle, or whisper to; only a long
wooden shelf containing a chilly-looking tin basin,
and a bar of soap. Its uncurtained windows were
red with the sinking sun, as though bloodshot and
tracks of cattle led to its front door, firmly closed
against the rattling wind.
To avoid being confounded with this familiar
element, I walked to the rear of the house, which
was connected with a smaller building by a slight
platform. A grizzled, hard-faced old man was
standing there, and met my salutation with a look
of inquiry, and, without speaking, led the way to
the principal room. As I entered, four young men,
who were reclining by the fire, slightly altered
their attitudes of perfect repose, but beyond that
betrayed neither curiosity nor interest. A hound
started from a dark corner with a growl, but was
immediately kicked by the old man into obscurity,
and silenced again. I can't tell why, but I instantly
received the impression that for a long time
the group by the fire had not uttered a word or
moved a muscle. Taking a seat, I briefly stated
my business.
Was a United States surveyor. Had come on
account of the Espíritu Santo Rancho. Wanted
to correct the exterior boundaries of township
lines, so as to connect with the near exteriors of
private grants. There had been some intervention
to the old survey by a Mr. Tryan who had preempted
adjacent — “settled land warrants,” interrupted
the old man. “Ah, yes! Land Warrants,
— and then this was Mr. Tryan?”
I had spoken mechanically, for I was preoccupied
in connecting other public lines with private
surveys, as I looked in his face. It was certainly
a hard face, and reminded me of the singular effect
of that mining operation known as “ground sluicing”;
the harder lines of underlying character
were exposed, and what were once plastic curves
and soft outlines were obliterated by some powerful
agency.
There was a dryness in his voice not unlike the
prevailing atmosphere of the valley, as he launched
into an ex parte statement of the contest, with a
fluency, which, like the wind without, showed frequent
and unrestrained expression. He told me
— what I had already learned — that the boundary
line of the old Spanish grant was a creek, described
in the loose phraseology of the deseño as beginning
in the valda or skirt of the hill, its precise location
long the subject of litigation. I listened and
answered with little interest, for my mind was still
distracted by the wind which swept violently by
the house, as well as by his odd face, which was
again reflected in the resemblance that the silent
group by the fire bore toward him. He was still
talking, and the wind was yet blowing, when my
confused attention was aroused by a remark addressed
to the recumbent figures.
“Now, then, which on ye 'll see the stranger up
the creek to Altascar's, to-morrow?”
There was a general movement of opposition in
the group, but no decided answer.
“Kin you go, Kerg?”
“Who 's to look up stock in Strarberry perar-ie?”
This seemed to imply a negative, and the old
man turned to another hopeful, who was pulling
the fur from a mangy bear-skin on which he was
lying, with an expression as though it were somebody's
hair.
“Well, Tom, wot 's to hinder you from goin'?”
“Man 's goin' to Brown's store at sun-up, and I
s'pose I 've got to pack her and the baby agin.”
I think the expression of scorn this unfortunate
youth exhibited for the filial duty into which he
had been evidently beguiled, was one of the finest
things I had ever seen.
“Wise?”
Wise deigned no verbal reply, but figuratively
thrust a worn and patched boot into the discourse.
The old man flushed quickly.
“I told ye to get Brown to give you a pair the
last time you war down the river.”
“Said he would n't without'en order. Said it
was like pulling gum-teeth to get the money from
you even then.”
There was a grim smile at this local hit at the
old man's parsimony, and Wise, who was clearly
the privileged wit of the family, sank back in honorable
retirement.
“Well, Joe, ef your boots are new, and you are
n't pestered with wimmin and children, p'r'aps
you 'll go,” said Tryan, with a nervous twitching,
intended for a smile, about a mouth not remarkably
mirthful.
Tom lifted a pair of bushy eyebrows, and said
shortly, —
“Got no saddle.”
“Wot 's gone of your saddle?”
“Kerg, there,” — indicating his brother with a
look such as Cain might have worn at the sacrifice.
“You lie!” returned Kerg, cheerfully.
Tryan sprang to his feet, seizing the chair, flourishing
it around his head and gazing furiously in
the hard young faces which fearlessly met his own.
But it was only for a moment; his arm soon
dropped by his side, and a look of hopeless fatality
crossed his face. He allowed me to take the chair
from his hand, and I was trying to pacify him by
the assurance that I required no guide, when the
irrepressible Wise again lifted his voice:—
“Theer 's George comin'! why don't ye ask him?
He 'll go and introduce you to Don Fernandy's
darter, too, ef you ain't pertickler.”
The laugh which followed this joke, which evidently
had some domestic allusion (the general
tendency of rural pleasantry), was followed by a
light step on the platform, and the young man entered.
Seeing a stranger present, he stopped and
then, drawing a box from the corner, sat down, his
hands clasped lightly together and his very handsome
bright blue eyes turned frankly on mine.
Perhaps I was in a condition to receive the romantic
impression he made upon me, and I took
it upon myself to ask his company as guide, and
he cheerfully assented. But some domestic duty
called him presently away.
The fire gleamed brightly on the hearth, and, no
longer resisting the prevailing influence, I silently
watched the spirting flame, listening to the wind
which continually shook the tenement. Besides
the one chair which had acquired a new importance
in my eyes, I presently discovered a crazy
table in one corner, with an ink-bottle and pen; the
latter in that greasy state of decomposition peculiar
to country taverns and farm-houses. A goodly
array of rifles and double-barrelled guns stocked
the corner; half a dozen saddles and blankets lay
near, with a mild flavor of the horse about them.
Some deer and bear skins completed the inventory.
As I sat there, with the silent group around me,
the shadowy gloom within and the dominant wind
without, I found it difficult to believe I had ever
known a different existence. My profession had
often led me to wilder scenes, but rarely among
those whose unrestrained habits and easy unconsciousness
made me feel so lonely and uncomfortable.
doubts — which I think occur naturally to people
in like situations — that this was the general rule
of humanity, and I was a solitary and somewhat
gratuitous exception.
It was a relief when a laconic announcement of
supper by a weak-eyed girl caused a general movement
in the family. We walked across the dark
platform, which led to another low-ceiled room.
Its entire length was occupied by a table, at the
farther end of which a weak-eyed woman was already
taking her repast, as she, at the same time,
gave nourishment to a weak-eyed baby. As the
formalities of introduction had been dispensed
with, and as she took no notice of me, I was enabled
to slip into a seat without discomposing or interrupting
her. Tryan extemporized a grace, and the
attention of the family became absorbed in bacon,
potatoes, and dried apples.
The meal was a sincere one. Gentle gurglings
at the upper end of the table often betrayed the
presence of the “wellspring of pleasure.” The
conversation generally referred to the labors of the
day, and comparing notes as to the whereabouts
of missing stock. Yet the supper was such a vast
improvement upon the previous intellectual feast,
that when a chance allusion of mine to the business
of my visit brought out the elder Tryan, the
interest grew quite exciting. I remember he inveighed
by the “greasers,” as he was pleased to term
the native Californians. As the same ideas have
been sometimes advanced under more pretentious
circumstances, they may be worthy of record.
“Look at 'em holdin' the finest grazin' land that
ever lay outer doors? Whar 's the papers for it?
Was it grants? Mighty fine grants, — most of
'em made arter the 'Merrikans got possession.
More fools the 'Merrikans for lettin' 'em hold 'em.
Wat paid for 'em? 'Merrikan blood and money.
“Did n't they oughter have suthin out of their
native country? Wot for? Did they ever improve?
Got a lot of yaller-skinned diggers, not
so sensible as niggers to look arter stock, and they
a sittin' home and smokin'. With their gold and
silver candlesticks, and missions, and crucifixens,
priests and graven idols, and sich? Them sort
things wurent allowed in Mizzoori.”
At the mention of improvements, I involuntarily
lifted my eyes, and met the half-laughing,
half-embarrassed look of George. The act did
not escape detection, and I had at once the satisfaction
of seeing that the rest of the family had
formed an offensive alliance against us.
“It was agin Nater, and agin God,” added
Tryan. “God never intended gold in the rocks to
be made into heathen candlesticks and crucifixens.
That 's why he sent 'Merrikins here. Nater never
never gin six months' sunshine to be slept and
smoked away.”
How long he continued, and with what further
illustration I could not say, for I took an early opportunity
to escape to the sitting-room. I was
soon followed by George, who called me to an open
door leading to a smaller room, and pointed to a
bed.
“You 'd better sleep there to-night,” he said;
“you 'll be more comfortable, and I 'll call you
early.”
I thanked him, and would have asked him
several questions which were then troubling me,
but he shyly slipped to the door and vanished.
A shadow seemed to fall on the room when he
had gone. The “boys” returned, one by one, and
shuffled to their old places. A larger log was
thrown on the fire, and the huge chimney glowed
like a furnace, but it did not seem to melt or subdue
a single line of the hard faces that it lit. In
half an hour later, the furs which had served as
chairs by day undertook the nightly office of mattresses,
and each received its owner's full-length
figure. Mr. Tryan had not returned, and I missed
George. I sat there, until, wakeful and nervous, I
saw the fire fall and shadows mount the wall.
There was no sound but the rushing of the wind
and the snoring of the sleepers. At last, feeling
the door, ran out briskly into the night.
The acceleration of my torpid pulse in the keen
fight with the wind, whose violence was almost
equal to that of a tornado, and the familiar faces
of the bright stars above me, I felt as a blessed
relief. I ran not knowing whither, and when I
halted, the square outline of the house was lost
in the alder-bushes. An uninterrupted plain
stretched before me, like a vast sea beaten flat by
the force of the gale. As I kept on I noticed a
slight elevation toward the horizon, and presently
my progress was impeded by the ascent of an Indian
mound. It struck me forcibly as resembling
an island in the sea. Its height gave me a better
view of the expanding plain. But even here
I found no rest. The ridiculous interpretation
Tryan had given the climate was somehow sung
in my ears, and echoed in my throbbing pulse,
as, guided by the star, I sought the house again.
But I felt fresher and more natural as I stepped
upon the platform. The door of the lower building
was open, and the old man was sitting beside
the table, thumbing the leaves of a Bible with a
look in his face as though he were hunting up
prophecies against the “Greaser.” I turned to
enter, but my attention was attracted by a blanketed
figure lying beside the house, on the platform.
The broad chest heaving with healthy slumber,
George, who had given up his bed to the stranger
among his people. I was about to wake him, but
he lay so peaceful and quiet, I felt awed and
hushed. And I went to bed with a pleasant impression
of his handsome face and tranquil figure
soothing me to sleep.
I was awakened the next morning from a sense
of lulled repose and grateful silence by the cheery
voice of George, who stood beside my bed, ostentatiously
twirling a “riata,” as if to recall the
duties of the day to my sleep-bewildered eyes. I
looked around me. The wind had been magically
laid, and the sun shone warmly through the windows.
A dash of cold water, with an extra chill
on from the tin basin, helped to brighten me. It
was still early, but the family had already breakfasted
and dispersed, and a wagon winding far in
the distance showed that the unfortunate Tom had
already “packed” his relatives away. I felt more
cheerful, — there are few troubles Youth cannot
distance with the start of a good night's rest.
After a substantial breakfast, prepared by George,
in a few moments we were mounted and dashing
down the plain.
We followed the line of alder that defined the
creek, now dry and baked with summer's heat,
but which in winter, George told me, overflowed
morning's ride, the far-off mountains, like silhouettes,
against the steel-blue sky, the crisp dry air, and
the expanding track before me, animated often by
the well-knit figure of George Tryan, musical with
jingling spurs, and picturesque with flying “riata.”
He rode a powerful native roan, wild-eyed, untiring
in stride and unbroken in nature. Alas!
the curves of beauty were concealed by the cumbrous
machillas of the Spanish saddle, which levels
all equine distinctions. The single rein lay
loosely on the cruel bit that can gripe, and, if need
be, crush the jaw it controls.
Again the illimitable freedom of the valley rises
before me, as we again bear down into sunlit
space. Can this be “Chu-Chu,” staid and respectable
filly of American pedigree, — “Chu-Chu,” forgetful
of plank-roads and cobble-stones, wild with
excitement, twinkling her small white feet beneath
me? George laughs out of a cloud of dust, “Give
her her head; don't you see she likes it?” and
“Chu-Chu” seems to like it, and, whether bitten
by native tarantula into native barbarism or
emulous of the roan, “blood” asserts itself, and
in a moment the peaceful servitude of years is
beaten out in the music of her clattering hoofs.
The creek widens to a deep gully. We dive into
it and up on the opposite side, carrying a moving
cloud of impalpable powder with us. Cattle are
together in vast restless herds. George makes a
wide, indefinite sweep with the “riata,” as if to
include them all in his vaquero's loop, and says,
“Ours!”
“About how many, George?”
“Don't know.”
“How many?”
“Well, p'r'aps three thousand head,” says George,
reflecting. “We don't know, takes five men to
look 'em up and keep run.”
“What are they worth?”
“About thirty dollars a head.”
I make a rapid calculation, and look my astonishment
at the laughing George. Perhaps a recollection
of the domestic economy of the Tryan household
is expressed in that look, for George averts
his eye and says, apologetically, —
“I 've tried to get the old man to sell and
build, but you know he says it ain't no use to
settle down, just yet. We must keep movin'.
In fact, he built the shanty for that purpose, lest
titles should fall through, and we 'd have to get
up and move stakes further down.”
Suddenly his quick eye detects some unusual
sight in a herd we are passing, and with an exclamation
he puts his roan into the centre of the
mass. I follow, or rather “Chu-Chu” darts after
the roan, and in a few moments we are in the
“Toro!” shouts George, with vaquero enthusiasm,
and the band opens a way for the swinging “riata.”
I can feel their steaming breaths, and their spume
is cast on “Chu-Chu's” quivering flank.
Wild, devilish-looking beasts are they; not
such shapes as Jove might have chosen to woo a
goddess, nor such as peacefully range the downs of
Devon, but lean and hungry Cassius-like bovines,
economically got up to meet the exigencies of a
six months' rainless climate, and accustomed to
wrestle with the distracting wind and the blinding
dust.
“That 's not our brand,” says George; “they 're
strange stock,” and he points to what my scientific
eye recognizes as the astrological sign of Venus
deeply seared in the brown flanks of the bull he is
chasing. But the herd are closing round us with
low mutterings, and George has again recourse to
the authoritative “Toro,” and with swinging “riata”
divides the “bossy bucklers” on either side. When
we are free, and breathing somewhat more easily, I
venture to ask George if they ever attack any
one.
“Never horsemen, — sometimes footmen. Not
through rage, you know, but curiosity. They think
a man and his horse are one, and if they meet a
chap afoot, they run him down and trample him
under hoof, in the pursuit of knowledge. But,”
and here 's Altascar's corral, and that white
building you see yonder is the casa.”
A whitewashed wall enclosed a court containing
another adobe building, baked with the solar beams
of many summers. Leaving our horses in the charge
of a few peons in the courtyard, who were basking
lazily in the sun, we entered a low doorway, where
a deep shadow and an agreeable coolness fell upon
us, as sudden and grateful as a plunge in cool
water, from its contrast with the external glare
and heat. In the centre of a low-ceiled apartment
sat an old man with a black silk handkerchief tied
about his head; the few gray hairs that escaped
from its folds relieving his gamboge-colored face.
The odor of cigarritos was as incense added to the
cathedral gloom of the building.
As Señor Altascar rose with well-bred gravity
to receive us, George advanced with such a heightened
color, and such a blending of tenderness and
respect in his manner, that I was touched to the
heart by so much devotion in the careless youth.
In fact, my eyes were still dazzled by the effect of
the outer sunshine, and at first I did not see the
white teeth and black eyes of Pepita, who slipped
into the corridor as we entered.
It was no pleasant matter to disclose particulars
of business which would deprive the old Señor of
the greater part of that land we had just ridden
he listened calmly, — not a muscle of his dark face
stirring, — and the smoke curling placidly from
his lips showed his regular respiration. When I
had finished, he offered quietly to accompany us
to the line of demarcation. George had meanwhile
disappeared, but a suspicious conversation in
broken Spanish and English, in the corridor, betrayed
his vicinity. When he returned again, a
little absent-minded, the old man, by far the coolest
and most self-possessed of the party, extinguished
his black silk cap beneath that stiff, uncomely
sombrero which all native Californians
affect. A serapa thrown over his shoulders hinted
that he was waiting. Horses are always ready
saddled in Spanish ranchos, and in half an hour
from the time of our arrival we were again “loping”
in the staring sunlight.
But not as cheerfully as before. George and
myself were weighed down by restraint, and Altascar
was gravely quiet. To break the silence, and
by way of a consolatory essay, I hinted to him
that there might be further intervention or appeal,
but the proffered oil and wine were returned with
a careless shrug of the shoulders and a sententious
“Que bueno? — Your courts are always
just.”
The Indian mound of the previous night's discovery
was a bearing monument of the new line,
the old man Tryan waiting us. For the first time
during our interview the old Spaniard seemed
moved, and the blood rose in his yellow cheek.
I was anxious to close the scene, and pointed out
the corner boundaries as clearly as my recollection
served.
“The deputies will be here to-morrow to run
the lines from this initial point, and there will be
no further trouble, I believe, gentlemen.”
Señor Altascar had dismounted and was gathering
a few tufts of dried grass in his hands. George
and I exchanged glances. He presently arose from
his stooping posture, and, advancing to within a
few paces of Joseph Tryan, said, in a voice broken
with passion, —
“And I, Fernando Jesus Maria Altascar, put
you in possession of my land in the fashion of my
country.”
He threw a sod to each of the cardinal points.
“I don't know your courts, your judges, or your
corregidores. Take the llano! — and take this
with it. May the drought seize your cattle till
their tongues hang down as long as those of your
lying lawyers! May it be the curse and torment
of your old age, as you and yours have made it of
mine!”
We stepped between the principal actors in this
scene, which only the passion of Altascar made
his triumph, interrupted: —
“Let him curse on. He 'll find 'em coming home
to him sooner than the cattle he has lost through
his sloth and pride. The Lord is on the side of
the just, as well as agin all slanderers and revilers.”
Altascar but half guessed the meaning of the
Missourian, yet sufficiently to drive from his mind
all but the extravagant power of his native invective.
“Stealer of the Sacrament! Open not! — open
not, I say, your lying, Judas lips to me! Ah!
half-breed, with the soul of a cayote! — Car-r-r-ramba!”
With his passion reverberating among the consonants
like distant thunder, he laid his hand
upon the mane of his horse as though it had been
the gray locks of his adversary, swung himself
into the saddle and galloped away.
George turned to me: —
“Will you go back with us to-night?”
I thought of the cheerless walls, the silent figures
by the fire, and the roaring wind, and hesitated.
“Well then, good by.”
“Good by, George.”
Another wring of the hands, and we parted. I
had not ridden far, when I turned and looked back.
The wind had risen early that afternoon, and was
travelled before it, and a picturesque figure occasionally
emerging therefrom was my last indistinct
impression of George Tryan.
| The luck of Roaring Camp, and other sketches | |