 | The luck of Roaring Camp, and other sketches |  |
2. PART II. — IN THE FLOOD.
Three months after the survey of the Espíritu
Santo Rancho, I was again in the valley of the
Sacramento. But a general and terrible visitation
had erased the memory of that event as completely
as I supposed it had obliterated the boundary
monuments I had planted. The great flood of
1861 - 62 was at its height, when, obeying some
indefinite yearning, I took my carpet-bag and embarked
for the inundated valley.
There was nothing to be seen from the bright
cabin windows of the “Golden City” but night
deepening over the water. The only sound was
the pattering rain, and that had grown monotonous
for the past two weeks, and did not disturb
the national gravity of my countrymen as they
silently sat around the cabin stove. Some on
errands of relief to friends and relatives wore
anxious faces, and conversed soberly on the one
absorbing topic. Others, like myself, attracted by
curiosity, listened eagerly to newer details. But
circumstance that might give chance event the
exaggerated importance of instinct, I was half
conscious of something more than curiosity as an
impelling motive.
The dripping of rain, the low gurgle of water,
and a leaden sky greeted us the next morning as
we lay beside the half-submerged levee of Sacramento.
Here, however, the novelty of boats to
convey us to the hotels was an appeal that was
irresistible. I resigned myself to a dripping rubber-cased
mariner called “Joe,” and, wrapping myself
in a shining cloak of the like material, about
as suggestive of warmth as court-plaster might
have been, took my seat in the stern-sheets of his
boat. It was no slight inward struggle to part
from the steamer, that to most of the passengers
was the only visible connecting link between us
and the dry and habitable earth, but we pulled
away and entered the city, stemming a rapid current
as we shot the levee.
We glided up the long level of K Street, — once
a cheerful, busy thoroughfare, now distressing in
its silent desolation. The turbid water which seemed
to meet the horizon edge before us flowed at right
angles in sluggish rivers through the streets. Nature
had revenged herself on the local taste by
disarraying the regular rectangles by huddling
houses on street corners, where they presented
in compact ruin. Crafts of all kinds were gliding
in and out of low-arched doorways. The water
was over the top of the fences surrounding well-kept
gardens, in the first stories of hotels and
private dwellings, trailing its slime on velvet carpets
as well as roughly boarded floors. And a
silence quite as suggestive as the visible desolation
was in the voiceless streets that no longer
echoed to carriage-wheel or footfall. The low
ripple of water, the occasional splash of oars, or
the warning cry of boatmen were the few signs of
life and habitation.
With such scenes before my eyes and such
sounds in my ears, as I lie lazily in the boat, is
mingled the song of my gondolier who sings to the
music of his oars. It is not quite as romantic as
his brother of the Lido might improvise, but my
Yankee “Giuseppe” has the advantage of earnestness
and energy, and gives a graphic description
of the terrors of the past week and of noble deeds
of self-sacrifice and devotion, occasionally pointing
out a balcony from which some California Bianca
or Laura had been snatched, half clothed and famished.
Giuseppe is otherwise peculiar, and refuses
the proffered fare, for — am I not a citizen
of San Francisco, which was first to respond to the
suffering cry of Sacramento? and is not he, Giuseppe,
a member of the Howard Society? No!
Still, if I must spend it, there is the Howard
Society, and the women and children without food
and clothes at the Agricultural Hall.
I thank the generous gondolier, and we go to
the Hall, — a dismal, bleak place, ghastly with
the memories of last year's opulence and plenty,
and here Giuseppe's fare is swelled by the stranger's
mite. But here Giuseppe tells me of the “Relief
Boat” which leaves for the flooded district in the
interior, and here, profiting by the lesson he has
taught me, I make the resolve to turn my curiosity
to the account of others, and am accepted of
those who go forth to succor and help the afflicted.
Giuseppe takes charge of my carpet-bag, and does
not part from me until I stand on the slippery
deck of “Relief Boat No. 3.”
An hour later I am in the pilot-house, looking
down upon what was once the channel of a peaceful
river. But its banks are only defined by tossing
tufts of willow washed by the long swell that
breaks over a vast inland sea. Stretches of “tule”
land fertilized by its once regular channel and
dotted by flourishing ranchos are now cleanly
erased. The cultivated profile of the old landscape
had faded. Dotted lines in symmetrical
perspective mark orchards that are buried and
chilled in the turbid flood. The roofs of a few
farm-houses are visible, and here and there the
tenements show an undaunted life within. Cattle
and sheep are gathered on Indian mounds waiting
the fate of their companions whose carcasses drift
by us, or swing in eddies with the wrecks of barns
and out-houses. Wagons are stranded everywhere
where the tide could carry them. As I wipe the
moistened glass, I see nothing but water, pattering
on the deck from the lowering clouds, dashing
against the window, dripping from the willows,
hissing by the wheels, everywhere washing, coiling,
sapping, hurrying in rapids, or swelling at last
into deeper and vaster lakes, awful in their suggestive
quiet and concealment.
As day fades into night the monotony of this
strange prospect grows oppressive. I seek the
engine-room, and in the company of some of the
few half-drowned sufferers we have already picked
up from temporary rafts, I forget the general
aspect of desolation in their individual misery.
Later we meet the San Francisco packet, and
transfer a number of our passengers. From them
we learn how inward-bound vessels report to having
struck the well-defined channel of the Sacramento,
fifty miles beyond the bar. There is
a voluntary contribution taken among the generous
travellers for the use of our afflicted, and we
part company with a hearty “God speed” on
either side. But our signal-lights are not far distant
an indomitable Yankee cheer, — which scatters the
gloom.
Our course is altered, and we are steaming over
the obliterated banks far in the interior. Once or
twice black objects loom up near us, — the wrecks
of houses floating by. There is a slight rift in the
sky towards the north, and a few bearing stars to
guide us over the waste. As we penetrate into
shallower water, it is deemed advisable to divide
our party into smaller boats, and diverge over the
submerged prairie. I borrow a pea-coat of one of
the crew, and in that practical disguise am doubtfully
permitted to pass into one of the boats. We
give way northerly. It is quite dark yet, although
the rift of cloud has widened.
It must have been about three o'clock, and we
were lying upon our oars in an eddy formed by a
clump of cottonwood, and the light of the steamer
is a solitary, bright star in the distance, when the
silence is broken by the “bow oar”: —
“Light ahead.”
All eyes are turned in that direction. In a few
seconds a twinkling light appears, shines steadily,
and again disappears as if by the shifting position
of some black object apparently drifting close
upon us.
“Stern, all; a steamer!”
“Hold hard there! Steamer be d—d!” is the
one too.”
It is a big one, looming in the starlight like a
huge fragment of the darkness. The light comes
from a single candle, which shines through a
window as the great shape swings by. Some
recollection is drifting back to me with it, as I
listen with beating heart.
“There 's some one in it, by Heavens! Give
way, boys, — lay her alongside. Handsomely, now!
The door 's fastened; try the window; no! here 's
another!”
In another moment we are trampling in the
water, which washes the floor to the depth of several
inches. It is a large room, at the further end
of which an old man is sitting wrapped in a
blanket, holding a candle in one hand, and apparently
absorbed in the book he holds with the
other. I spring toward him with an exclamation:
—
“Joseph Tryan!”
He does not move. We gather closer to him,
and I lay my hand gently on his shoulder, and
say: —
“Look up, old man, look up! Your wife and
children, where are they? The boys, — George!
Are they here? are they safe?”
He raises his head slowly, and turns his eyes to
mine, and we involuntarily recoil before his look.
or pain; but it somehow sends the blood curdling
through our veins. He bowed his head over his
book again, taking no further notice of us. The
men look at me compassionately, and hold their
peace. I make one more effort: —
“Joseph Tryan, don't you know me? the surveyor
who surveyed your ranch, — the Espíritu
Santo? Look up, old man!”
He shuddered and wrapped himself closer in his
blanket. Presently he repeated to himself, “The
surveyor who surveyed your ranch, — Espíritu
Santo,” over and over again, as though it were a
lesson he was trying to fix in his memory.
I was turning sadly to the boatmen, when he
suddenly caught me fearfully by the hand and
said, —
“Hush!”
We were silent.
“Listen!” He puts his arm around my neck
and whispers in my ear, “I 'm a moving off!”
“Moving off?”
“Hush! Don't speak so loud. Moving off.
Ah! wot 's that? Don't you hear? — there! listen!”
We listen, and hear the water gurgle and click
beneath the floor.
“It 's them wot he sent! — Old Altascar sent.
They 've been here all night. I heard 'em first in
move farther off. They came nearer and nearer.
They whispered under the door, and I saw their
eyes on the step, — their cruel, hard eyes. Ah,
why don't they quit?”
I tell the men to search the room and see if they
can find any further traces of the family, while
Tryan resumes his old attitude. It is so much
like the figure I remember on the breezy night
that a superstitious feeling is fast overcoming me.
When they have returned, I tell them briefly what
I know of him, and the old man murmurs again, —
“Why don't they quit, then? They have the
stock, — all gone — gone, gone for the hides and
hoofs,” and he groans bitterly.
“There are other boats below us. The shanty
cannot have drifted far, and perhaps the family are
safe by this time,” says the coxswain, hopefully.
We lift the old man up, for he is quite helpless,
and carry him to the boat. He is still grasping
the Bible in his right hand, though its strengthening
grace is blank to his vacant eye, and he cowers
in the stern as we pull slowly to the steamer, while
a pale gleam in the sky shows the coming day.
I was weary with excitement, and when we
reached the steamer, and I had seen Joseph Tryan
comfortably bestowed, I wrapped myself in a
blanket near the boiler and presently fell asleep.
But even then the figure of the old man often started
made a strong undercurrent to my drifting dreams.
I was awakened at about eight o'clock in the
morning by the engineer, who told me one of the
old man's sons had been picked up and was now on
board.
“Is it George Tryan?” I ask quickly.
“Don't know; but he 's a sweet one, whoever he
is,” adds the engineer, with a smile at some luscious
remembrance. “You 'll find him for'ard.”
I hurry to the bow of the boat, and find, not
George, but the irrepressible Wise, sitting on a
coil of rope, a little dirtier and rather more dilapidated
than I can remember having seen him.
He is examining, with apparent admiration, some
rough, dry clothes that have been put out for his
disposal. I cannot help thinking that circumstances
have somewhat exalted his usual cheerfulness.
He puts me at my ease by at once addressing
me: —
“These are high old times, ain't they? I say,
what do you reckon 's become o' them thar
bound'ry moniments you stuck? Ah!”
The pause which succeeds this outburst is the
effect of a spasm of admiration at a pair of high
boots, which, by great exertion, he has at last
pulled on his feet.
“So you 've picked up the ole man in the
shanty, clean crazy? He must have been soft
woman. Did n't know me from Adam; took me
for George!”
At this affecting instance of paternal forgetfulness,
Wise was evidently divided between amusement
and chagrin. I took advantage of the contending
emotions to ask about George.
“Don't know whar he is! If he 'd tended
stock instead of running about the prairie, packin'
off wimmin and children, he might have saved
suthin. He lost every hoof and hide, I 'll bet a
cookey! Say you,” to a passing boatman, “when
are you goin' to give us some grub? I 'm hungry
'nough to skin and eat a hoss. Reckon I 'll turn
butcher when things is dried up, and save hides,
horns, and taller.”
I could not but admire this indomitable energy,
which under softer climatic influences might have
borne such goodly fruit.
“Have you any idea what you 'll do, Wise?” I
ask.
“Thar ain't much to do now,” says the practical
young man. “I 'll have to lay over a spell, I
reckon, till things comes straight. The land ain't
worth much now, and won't be, I dessay, for some
time. Wonder whar the ole man 'll drive stakes
next.”
“I meant as to your father and George, Wise.”
“O, the ole man and I 'll go on to `Miles's,' whar
George 'll turn up somewhar atween this and
Altascar's, ef he ain't thar now.”
I ask how the Altascars have suffered.
“Well, I reckon he ain't lost much in stock. I
should n't wonder if George helped him drive 'em
up the foot-hills. And his `casa' 's built too high.
O, thar ain't any water thar, you bet. Ah,” says
Wise, with reflective admiration, “those greasers
ain't the darned fools people thinks 'em. I 'll bet
thar ain't one swamped out in all 'er Californy.”
But the appearance of “grub,” cut this rhapsody
short.
“I shall keep on a little farther,” I say, “and
try to find George.”
Wise stared a moment at this eccentricity until
a new light dawned upon him.
“I don't think you 'll save much. What 's the
percentage, — workin' on shares, eh!”
I answer that I am only curious, which I feel
lessens his opinion of me, and with a sadder feeling
than his assurance of George's safety might
warrant, I walked away.
From others whom we picked up from time to
time we heard of George's self-sacrificing devotion,
with the praises of the many he had helped
and rescued. But I did not feel disposed to return
until I had seen him, and soon prepared myself
to take a boat to the lower “valda” of the
my arrangements, bade farewell to Wise, and took
a last look at the old man, who was sitting by the
furnace-fires quite passive and composed. Then
our boat-head swung round, pulled by sturdy and
willing hands.
It was again raining, and a disagreeable wind
had risen. Our course lay nearly west, and we
soon knew by the strong current that we were in
the creek of the Espíritu Santo. From time to
time the wrecks of barns were seen, and we
passed many half-submerged willows hung with
farming implements.
We emerge at last into a broad silent sea. It is
the “llano de Espíritu Santo.” As the wind whistles
by me, piling the shallower fresh water into
mimic waves, I go back, in fancy, to the long ride
of October over that boundless plain, and recall
the sharp outlines of the distant hills which are
now lost in the lowering clouds. The men are
rowing silently, and I find my mind, released from
its tension, growing benumbed and depressed as
then. The water, too, is getting more shallow as
we leave the banks of the creek, and with my
hand dipped listlessly over the thwarts, I detect
the tops of chimisal, which shows the tide to have
somewhat fallen. There is a black mound, bearing
to the north of the line of alder, making an
adverse current, which, as we sweep to the right to
I call to the men to stop.
There was a stake driven near its summit with
the initials, “L. E. S. I.” Tied half-way down was
a curiously worked “riata.” It was George's. It
had been cut with some sharp instrument, and the
loose gravelly soil of the mound was deeply dented
with horse's hoofs. The stake was covered with
horse-hairs. It was a record, but no clew.
The wind had grown more violent, as we still
fought our way forward, resting and rowing by
turns, and oftener “poling” the shallower surface,
but the old “valda,” or bench, is still distant.
My recollection of the old survey enables me to
guess the relative position of the meanderings of
the creek, and an occasional simple professional
experiment to determine the distance gives my
crew the fullest faith in my ability. Night overtakes
us in our impeded progress. Our condition
looks more dangerous than it really is, but I urge
the men, many of whom are still new in this mode
of navigation, to greater exertion by assurance of
perfect safety and speedy relief ahead. We go on
in this way until about eight o'clock, and ground
by the willows. We have a muddy walk for a
few hundred yards before we strike a dry trail,
and simultaneously the white walls of Altascar's
appear like a snow-bank before us. Lights are
moving in the courtyard; but otherwise the old
tomb-like repose characterizes the building.
One of the peons recognized me as I entered the
court, and Altascar met me on the corridor.
I was too weak to do more than beg his hospitality
for the men who had dragged wearily with
me. He looked at my hand, which still unconsciously
held the broken “riata.” I began,
wearily, to tell him about George and my fears,
but with a gentler courtesy than was even his
wont, he gravely laid his hand on my shoulder.
“Poco a poco Señor, — not now. You are tired,
you have hunger, you have cold. Necessary it is
you should have peace.”
He took us into a small room and poured out
some French cognae, which he gave to the men
that had accompanied me. They drank and threw
themselves before the fire in the larger room. The
repose of the building was intensified that night,
and I even fancied that the footsteps on the corridor
were lighter and softer. The old Spaniard's
habitual gravity was deeper; we might have been
shut out from the world as well as the whistling
storm, behind those ancient walls with their timeworn
inheritor.
Before I could repeat my inquiry he retired.
In a few minutes two smoking dishes of “chupa”
with coffee were placed before us, and my men
ate ravenously. I drank the coffee, but my excitement
and weariness kept down the instincts
of hunger.
I was sitting sadly by the fire when he re-entered.
“You have eat?”
I said, “Yes,” to please him.
“Bueno, eat when you can, — food and appetite
are not always.”
He said this with that Sancho-like simplicity
with which most of his countrymen utter a
proverb, as though it were an experience rather
than a legend, and, taking the “riata” from the
floor, held it almost tenderly before him.
“It was made by me, Señor.”
“I kept it as a clew to him, Don Altascar,” I
said. “If I could find him — ”
“He is here.”
“Here! and” — but I could not say, “well!”
I understood the gravity of the old man's face, the
hushed footfalls, the tomb-like repose of the building
in an electric flash of consciousness; I held
the clew to the broken riata at last. Altascar took
my hand, and we crossed the corridor to a sombre
apartment. A few tall candles were burning in
sconces before the window.
In an alcove there was a deep bed with its
counterpane, pillows, and sheets heavily edged
with lace, in all that splendid luxury which the
humblest of these strange people lavish upon this
single item of their household. I stepped beside
it and saw George lying, as I had seen him once
than that he had known was here, and his generous
heart was stilled forever.
“He was honest and brave,” said the old man,
and turned away.
There was another figure in the room; a heavy
shawl drawn over her graceful outline, and her
long black hair hiding the hands that buried her
downcast face. I did not seem to notice her, and,
retiring presently, left the loving and loved together.
When we were again beside the crackling fire,
in the shifting shadows of the great chamber, Altascar
told me how he had that morning met the
horse of George Tryan swimming on the prairie;
how that, farther on, he found him lying, quite
cold and dead, with no marks or bruises on his
person; that he had probably become exhausted
in fording the creek, and that he had as probably
reached the mound only to die for want of that
help he had so freely given to others; that, as a
last act, he had freed his horse. These incidents
were corroborated by many who collected in the
great chamber that evening, — women and children,
— most of them succored through the devoted
energies of him who lay cold and lifeless
above.
He was buried in the Indian mound, — the
single spot of strange perennial greenness, which
plain. A little slab of sandstone with the initials
“G. T.” is his monument, and one of the bearings
of the initial corner of the new survey of the
“Espíritu Santo Rancho.”
| The luck of Roaring Camp, and other sketches | |