Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories Read online

  A PIECE OF WRECKAGE

  Delay not thy coming, my love, my own! Though patient I wait thee, my love unknown, Yet long I thy figure to see, and know What form thou wilt have, and what face be thine, And when thou wilt clasp me, dear love of mine; For all that is left me is thy cold breath, And wond'ring I wait thee, my sweetheart, Death!

  It may be that the high tide of material development which in lateyears has been sweeping over Southern California has penetrated even tothat isolated nook in the hills which, when I knew it, was the saddestplace I had ever seen. It was a lonely region, miles and miles awayfrom railroads, telegraphs, newspapers--all the mighty, roaring musicof civilization. Off toward the east the desert stretched its levelexpanse of vague coloring, and westward the rounded hills, green in thewinter, yellow as ripe wheat fields through the long, rainless summer,reared their mounds higher and higher until they stopped, as if cowedand ashamed, at the flanks of Monte Pinos. And the mountain, majesticand vapor-veiled, seemed always to be watching them in their work ofprotecting and comforting the wrecks that clung to their feet.

  For that was why this region, despite its soft, reposeful beauty,seemed so sad--because of the wrecks, the human wrecks, who dweltthere, who had seized such fast hold of the sphinx-like hills that onlydeath could unloose their grasp. Some of them were relics ofCalifornia's heyday, men who, when the waves of hope and adventure andendeavor were rolling fast and high over the Golden State, were sodashed about and bruised and beaten that at last they were glad to becast ashore among these hills. Some had hidden themselves therebecause they were weary of the world and all its works, and wished togo where they could no longer hear even its heart-beats. Others therewere who had fled thither to escape the scorn of men or the vengeanceof the law. And there were a few who were staying on and on, and wouldalways stay, because those enchantresses that whisper in the eveningbreezes of the mountains and the desert, that put forth caressing handsin the balmy air that bathes the hills and canyons in the earlymorning, whose wooing voices sing in the music of birds and chant inthe cries of wild things at night, had taken captive their wills, andthey could not go if they would.

  Their cabins were scattered through the valleys, or on the sides of thehills, or in the recesses of the canyons, miles apart. Sometimes,though rarely, there was a little family in one. But usually the onlyoccupant was an elderly or middle-aged man, who spoke but little abouthimself or his past, and was as destitute of curiosity as to what wasgoing on in the outside world as he was about the former lives andaffairs of his fellow wreckage.

  Nevertheless, I had the good fortune to learn much of the story of oneof these men. A member of our camping party chanced to make speakingacquaintance with him at the quaint old adobe house under its huge,spreading grapevine and waving cottonwoods, which served as stagestation and supply store--the centre of such civilization as there wasin all the region within a radius of thirty or forty miles. Every onein that country called him "Old Dan." I found his name one day in theGreat Register--twin relic, with the shabby old stage, of the outerworld--which hung in the stage station. But as it was not his realname, nor probably any name by which he was ever known outside of thosehills, it will be of no use to mention it here.

  Old Dan, learning that we were not pleased with our camping-place,invited us to pitch our tents under some trees near his cabin. And forone delightful month of the southern summer we brought into his lifethe strange sensation of voices fresh from the world he had discarded.The unwonted influence unlocked his memories and sent his mind back todwell among the almost forgotten years when he, too, was of the worldand delighted in it.

  We soon fell into the habit of sociability. Every evening he wouldcome down to our camp, usually bringing his violin, and sit with us forhours at our camp fire. His cats--he had near a dozen of them--cametrailing after him, and his two dogs trotted by his side. Two or threeof the cats sprang into his lap as soon as he sat down, and the restsnarled at the dogs for appropriating the choice positions nearest him,and then disposed themselves in an outer row. The stable inclosure wasonly a few rods distant, and the three burros it contained, as soon asthey heard his voice, ranged themselves in a solemn row at the nearestpoint, looking as wise and mysterious as so many sphinxes.

  Sometimes he played for us, with unexpected skill and feeling, on hisviolin. As the days went by and our acquaintance grew more intimate,he gradually fell back into memories of the past and turned over forus, now and then, the pages of his life's history. But all these bits,heard at many different times, and some things which were told meafterwards by men who had known him in other years and places, I havegathered into one continuous narrative. For in my memory they are allfused together, as if he had told us the whole of his story in oneevening--one special evening, of which remembrance is most vivid.

  The moon was at its half, and showered down just enough of its silverlight to bring out sharply the darkling woods on the hill beyond thelittle stream and to make his cabin under the trees, off in theopposite direction, take on strange shapes, while it cut out, sharp anddistinct against the background of light, the silhouettes of the solemnand unmoving burros, standing in a row behind the fence. Our camp fireblazed and crackled and the crimson and orange flames mounted high inthe air and showed our little party, sitting or half lying about it onblankets. Old Dan, sitting on a great chunk of wood, his lap full ofcats, his violin beside him, and his usual bodyguard of cats and dogsaround him, went far back into his youth and let us know--what probablyhe had told no other being since he broke those ties--why he left thehome, the heritage, and the name of his ancestors.

  He had been playing on his violin, and then, putting it down, had begunto tell us about some hunting adventure. The red light danced over hiswrinkled, weather-beaten face and scraggly, grizzled beard; and as Iconsidered his large, well-shaped head and strongly marked features, itseemed to me there was something familiar in his countenance. In hisvoice a peculiar intonation--I had noticed it many times before--teasedme with suggestions of a voice heard somewhere else.

  And presently I remembered.

  He turned his face toward me, the firelight fell bright and strong uponit, that peculiar tone in his voice sounded at just the same instant,and there flashed upon me the memory of a scene in Boston two yearsbefore. It was in Faneuil Hall, and a great mass of eager,enthusiastic faces was turned toward the platform, where stood a memberof one of Massachusetts' old and distinguished families. His speech,full of persuasive fire, had welded his whole audience into onepersonality that, for the time being, at least, felt as he felt andthought as he thought. And the voice of the orator, which hadimpressed me by reason of a certain peculiar intonation, was like thisman's voice, and his face had in it much that was like the face of OldDan.

  I spoke of the resemblance, and Old Dan at first drew back withinhimself. Then he began to question me eagerly about the man. Andpresently he had let us know who he was.

  "Yes," he said, "you are right. There is a strong resemblance betweenus, or there was when we were young. I have not seen him for more thanforty years. He is my brother--younger than I. You know what thefamily has been in New England. There has not been a generation of itfor a hundred, yes, a hundred and fifty years, that has not made itsinfluence felt either in Massachusetts or the nation. I cut loose fromit before I was twenty, and they have known nothing about me since. Infact, they think me dead--they thought I died then, and I do not intendthey shall ever know that I did not. This is the first time since Ileft that anybody has known my real name, and you 'll do me a favor ifyou never speak of it to any one else, here or elsewhere. I have notalways been known by the same name since then, but what difference doesthat make? When a man leads as many different lives as I have done, hehas a right to more names than one or two.

  "I was in Harvard College and it was the summer vacation after myjunior year. Every male member of our family"--Old Dan spoke that"our" with timid and shame-faced, but very evident, pride
--"for I don'tknow how many generations, has gone to Harvard, and I suppose I am theonly one of the whole lot of them that didn't graduate. I went to NewYork that summer to transact some business for my father. I succeededwith it very well, but in the meantime I did n't neglect theopportunities of enjoying myself with a good deal more freedom than Iwould have dared to take at home. I probably was n't born quite up tothe high standard of morality, dignity, and self-respect which myancestors had set; and if I had stayed there all my life I wouldprobably have found living up to it either very galling or quiteimpossible. I dare say it is just as well that I did break loose andburn the bridge behind me, for if I had stayed in New England it'slikely I should have turned out a black sheep and brought shame anddisgrace upon my people.

  "While I was in New York I fell in with a pleasant, companionable man,some years older than myself. He went around with me a good deal, tookme to his home, where I met his wife and sister, gave me sensibleadvice about a number of things, and was altogether so entertaining andso kind and such a good fellow that I thought myself fortunate inhaving met him.

  "One evening, when I was almost ready to return to Boston, I dined withhim at his home. He had had me there to dinner several times, and theevening had always passed off pleasantly. But on this evening I drankmore wine than was good for me. Probably it was doctored, but I don'tknow. All my life, whenever I have taken a glass too much, one sureresult has followed. All the restraints of conduct which I ordinarilyfeel drop away, and I become reckless.

  "So this evening, when he brought out cards and we began to bet on thegame, both my moral sense and my prudence deserted me. I drank moreand more, and bet higher and higher, and after a while I realized thathe had won from me quite a sum of money which I had neglected to sendto my father during the day.

  "Then I drank more; and after that I do not know what happened until Iawoke with a dazed sense of having heard a woman scream and of being inthe midst of some confusion. I felt a blow on my head and a grip on myarm and heard a voice shouting in my ear, 'You scoundrel, I 'll killyou!' I was in another room, my friend's wife was sobbing hystericallyon a lounge, and he was gripping and shaking me and pointing a pistolat my head.

  "He said I had shamefully insulted his wife and that he was going tokill me. And I was drunk enough to believe him, and maudlin enough tobeg for my life and to accept with tears what terms he was willing tooffer. It was finally settled that he should keep me under hispersonal charge until I could get five thousand dollars from my fatherto pay over to him. Then he made me write a letter to my father whichhe dictated.

  "He locked me in a room with himself, put the key in his pocket, waiteduntil he thought I had gone to sleep, and then threw himself down onthe bed with the pistol in his hand and was soon fast asleep.

  "But instead of going to sleep I was rapidly getting sober enough tounderstand what a rat in a hole I had made of myself, and I was soovercome with horror and shame that I felt I would rather die than facemy father again. I put the letter, which he had left lying on a table,in my pocket. With my knife I took out the screws of the door lock andwas soon creeping stealthily downstairs. As I turned the first streetcorner I saw that my keeper was rushing after me in hot pursuit. Daywas just breaking, and through the dim, deserted streets I ran at thetop of my speed, turning corners, dodging down side streets, trying mybest to get out of sight of my pursuer. He kept close behind me, butat last I reached the docks,--where I meant to drown myself,--justenough ahead of him to dodge behind a pile of lumber.

  "My sudden appearance startled some poor wretch, who was crouchedthere, making his preparations for eternity, just as I myself was aboutto do. He gave me one scared look, as if he feared I was some one cometo stop him, and jumped into the water. In his sudden leap one footdragged after him the little pile of clothing and the letter he hadbeen writing.

  "I crouched down into a hiding-place, so startled by this suddenapparition, in the very act of doing what I had made up my mind to do,that I drew back from the deed with sudden awe and shrinking. I had notime to think before my pursuer dashed up, calling my name loudly. Hehad seen the suicide and thought it was I. He waited about and watchedfor the body a while and then went away, and that was the last I eversaw of him.

  "When I crawled out of my hiding-place I had no idea what I was goingto do. The suicidal impulse had spent itself, and although I hadescaped from my pursuer for the moment I was so afraid of meeting himagain that I slunk along like a criminal. But strong as that fear was,I would rather have met him than faced my father. Soon I came to awharf where a steamer was taking aboard passengers for California. Atonce my determination was made. I hurried to a pawnbroker's shop, andfrom my watch and what little jewelry I had I realized enough money tobuy a steerage ticket, and in a few hours was on my way, under a newname.

  "The Boston papers which the next San Francisco steamer brought told methe story of my suicide, of the recovery of my body, and of its burialin our family lot in Mt. Auburn Cemetery. I hope the poor wretch whosebones are crumbling under the monument was more worthy of its praisesthan I.

  "After I read that, all thought of the possibility of returning, or ofletting them know that I was not dead, dropped from my mind. I plungedinto the furious life of those days with such eagerness and enjoymentthat I lost all desire to go back,--would have had none, even if I hadnot disgraced my name before I left.

  "Of course, I soon understood that I had been caught in the simplestsort of a blackmailer's trap. But I had betrayed my father's trust inme and had gambled away his money, and--what was as crushing to myvanity as this other was to my sense of honor--I had been duped in away that any greenhorn ought to have seen through. So I put it allbehind me and was glad to be alone among strangers.

  "I rushed off to the mines, of course, as soon as I could get there,and I made piles of money, especially at first. And I was probably themost hot-headed, reckless, devil-may-care young rascal on the wholeCoast. I made many enemies and had many a narrow escape, as mosteverybody did in those days.

  "Perhaps the closest call I had was at Foley's Gulch. A fellow hadlately come there who thought he could sing. Op'ry Bill, we calledhim. We got him started to singing in a saloon one night, and I ledthe boys on in making fun of him. We got him wild, but he did n'toffer to shoot, not even when I sent a bullet spinning through his hat.He knew I was the leader in it all, but he just waited for a goodchance before he hinted at revenge. It was a week or two before thechance came, and in the meantime he pretended to be friendly with me.

  "One afternoon I was in a saloon, and the barkeeper had just told mehow Shirty Smith and Op'ry Bill had had a quarrel, and how Shirty wastearing around like a mad bull and swearing he 'd shoot Bill on sight,when in walked Op'ry himself. He came up almost behind me, slapped meon the shoulder with his left hand, asked me to take a drink with him,slipped his hand down on my right arm and began feeling of it andpraising my muscle. My eye happened to fall on a broken bit of amirror behind the bar, and I saw that his right hand was cocking apistol at the back of my head. I called out loudly and angrily,'Shirty, don't shoot him in the back!'

  "Op'ry Bill was so taken aback by what he supposed to be his own dangerthat he wheeled around and turned his pistol the other way. Shirty wasn't there, but I had him covered when he turned back, red hot at havingbeen deceived.

  "Did I kill him? No, I thought I 'd give him a lecture first, as I hadhim well covered, about being so ornery mean, and while I was talkingShirty rushed in, hot on the trail, and swore he 'd let daylightthrough me if I did n't give him first chance at the sneak.

  "A good many of the young fellows, like me, for instance, and plenty ofthe older ones, too, were utterly reckless about how much money we madeand how much we lost. Everything went at a fast and furious rate, andit was all the same to us whether we were raking in or pouring out thedust. It was many a year after those stirring days before I tried tofigure up how much I took out of the ground and might have got for m
ymine locations if I had had a particle of thrift--such as I ought tohave had, considering my New England birth and ancestry. It footed uppast the million mark, and, if I had had sense enough to handle itproperly, would have made me worth several times that amount by thetime I reached middle age.

  "But I don't know that I regret it now. I 'm as well off here with mycats and dogs and burros as if they were so many mines and ranches andrailroads.

  "I had a partner once, a fellow a little older than I, and not soreckless and hare-brained, and together we had been sinking a prospecthole that promised to be one of the best I ever struck. We had been atwork two or three months, and I was just as sure there was a bigfortune in that hole as I could be of anything. But I got tired ofstaying in one place so long,--it was lonely and monotonous,--and Iwanted some excitement. So one evening I challenged him to playseven-up for the mine, the loser to take his outfit and walk. Herefused and tried to argue me out of my crazy whim, but finally Itaunted him into it. I lost, and the next morning I packed up myblankets and walked away. A month afterwards he sold the mine for ahundred thousand dollars, and in less than a year its owners hadrealized a round half million out of it.

  "But the most exciting part of all those years was the time when I wascalled 'Grizzly Dick.' I ought to be ashamed to tell anything aboutthat portion of my history; but it is all so long ago, and things havechanged so much since then, that it almost seems as if I were talkingabout some other man.

  "It all began at Grizzly Gulch, where a man named Johnson had taken astrong dislike to me. I had played some joke on him which made himridiculous, and he hated me more than if I 'd tried to kill him. Hestarted down to the city with his dust, and somebody robbed him, andhalf killed him into the bargain. He accused me of being the robberand I had no witnesses to prove an alibi. They had a trial andconvicted me of the crime, as Johnson swore that he recognized me. Iknew that it was simply a scheme of his to get even with me, and Ididn't believe that he had been robbed at all. But I was sentenced toprison for two years and I had to go.

  "When I got out my teeth were on edge for revenge on Johnson, thelawyers, the judge, the jury, and the whole law-making system that hadmade me, an innocent man, spend those two years fuming in a cell. Iwas ready to fight the whole organization of society and the wholesystem of government, from President to jailer. I swore the biggest,hardest kind of an oath that I would give them a reason for being soanxious to put people in prison. Only, I didn't propose that theyshould ever send me there again.

  "Well, for two years Grizzly Dick was the terror of that county and allthe adjoining ones. To take him, alive or dead, was the ambition ofhalf the sheriffs in California. After my first few escapades I hadplenty of helpers. Men as desperate and as dare-devil as I gatheredaround me and we carried things with a high hand. I cared nothing forthe profits of being an outlaw. What I wanted was revenge on society,and the excitement and risk of the game. The greater part of whateverwe took went to my followers, and I never kept more than was necessaryfor my immediate needs.

  "We had many a desperate fight with sheriffs and their posses, many awild ride over the hills and through the pine woods on dark nights, andmany a day of lying hidden in the brush or in caves.

  "I followed that sort of life for two years, and then, one day, Isuddenly felt a disgust for it all, and concluded I 'd had enoughrevenge and was ready to be an honest man again.

  "So I deliberately left that part of the State and everybody supposedthat Grizzly Dick had been killed and his body carried off and buriedby his gang. But nothing of the sort had happened. He reappearedunder another name a good many days' travel from that region.

  "Five or six years afterwards I went back to that same county and waselected sheriff. Yes, I was recognized. A good many people suspectedand two or three openly declared that I was Grizzly Dick. But I madethe best sheriff they had ever had, and I did some work in the way ofcatching a stage robber, cleaning out a nest of gamblers, and gettingrid of a couple of desperadoes, which they were so glad to have donethat they didn't care who or what I might have been.

  "I served two terms and they wanted me to run again. But by that timeI had come to realize that I had frittered away a big part of my life,and I began to have some of the ambitions to accomplish something worthwhile that I ought to have had a dozen years before.

  "So I went down to San Francisco and raised a tidy sum of money tobegin on by going in with an acquaintance on a trip to Bering Sea tocatch otters. We chartered a vessel, spent a whole summer up there,and realized nearly ten thousand dollars apiece out of it.

  "I had a pretty good practical knowledge of mining matters, and so myoperations in mines and mining stocks were generally successful. Itwas n't long until I was a rich, a very rich, man, and a prominent one,too. There is a street named for me in San Francisco. That is, itbears the name I was known by while I was sheriff and while I lived inthe city. I married and built a fine residence, and altogether I wasas prosperous and had as bright a future as any man in California.

  "But one day, after I had been living in San Francisco five or sixyears, I made a deal that wasn't a success, and half my fortune went inless than a week. And at the same time I discovered that my wife wasnot all I had thought her. She had evil tendencies that I had notsuspected, and bad companions of whom I had known nothing; and togetherthey had taken her at a flying pace down the road to destruction. Andwhen the end came, at the same time that I had my first financial blow,the surprise was overwhelming. It was an end so shameful and to me sohumiliating that I could not bear at first to go out among men and meetmy friends. It was a critical time and my affairs needed my closestattention. But I was too broken down and overcome by the disgrace toattempt to do anything. And when I did go back everything was ruined.

  "I did n't care very much, for my greatest desire just then was to getaway from everybody I had known. I wanted to put behind me and forgeteverything that would remind me of my wife, and her ruin, and mydisaster.

  "So I started out alone with a prospector's outfit, and finally broughtup here. I 've been here now, I guess, about ten years, and it's verylikely that I 'll stay here all the rest of my life. I 've got aprospect hole over on the other side of that hill that may amount tosomething some time. But I don't care whether it does or not. I liketo work in it and think about whether or not I 'm going to strikeanything, but I don't care two bits one way or the other.

  "No, I 'm not lonely. My cats and dogs and burros are pretty goodcompany, and then I have my violin. But just these hills, and the sky,and the breezes, and the birds and beasts that come around, are as muchcompany as any man needs to wish for.

  "When I came here I was tired of the world, dead tired of it. And Ihave n't got rested yet. I shall not leave here until I do. And Idon't suppose that will ever be. For my time will soon come. It's allI have to look forward to, and I just sit here and wait for it andwonder what shape Death will have when he does finally find me out.That is the only thing in the world I have any curiosity about, now;and I often think about it in much the same way that I used to wonder,when I was a youth, what the woman would be like whom I was to love."

  The next summer we camped at the mouth of a canyon near the foot ofMonte Pinos, but one day we drove across the hills to pay a visit toOld Dan, and learned at the stage station that he was no more. He hadsickened and died alone, in the early spring, and his body had beenfound, after many days, in his cabin by his nearest "neighbor," anotherlone man living ten miles away. We drove on to his deserted littleranch and found that they had made a grave for him on the side of thehill above the cabin--a grave marked only by its settling mound ofearth and one poor piece of board, cracked, aslant, and weather-beaten,and bearing neither name nor date.

  Doubtless it is as well so. For he that lies beneath was only a pieceof wreckage, with a past that was dead and a future that was empty.The memory of all those turbulent years was heavy upon his gray head,and he wished only that the hi
lls might cover him and give him rest andconcealment.

  And away on the other side of the continent there is a grave that hasknown the tears of love and the hand of remembrance. Its flowers arebright and its shining marble is graven fair with name and date andwords of praise.