Overland Tales Part 29

"After three days, if in the land of the living, I will come to claim you for my bride"--what more he said was lost in the din and racket of the approaching train.

She saw nothing of him after she had watched the supple figure at the last moment springing lightly on the platform of the last car. But she knew he was near and was happy.

Early the next forenoon, in the counting-room of a mercantile firm on Front street, sat one of the princ.i.p.als, enjoying his Havana, when the door was darkened by the shadow of a tall figure standing in it.

"Jim--old fellow!" he cried, seizing the newcomer by both hands.

"Welcome--thrice welcome! Have you come to stay, vagabond and rover? Say at once--I read something in your face that tells me you are unbending at last. Are you in love, my dear boy?--or what hath wrought this change?"

"How you do run on, Luke. You have not changed, at least. Yes, I am the prodigal son, returning to his father to be--set up in business.

And--no--I'm not in love; I have simply learned to wors.h.i.+p the dearest, n.o.blest girl, and will make her mine--or die," he added, in a lower tone.

"Why not accept my offer, Jim? The desk at my elbow is always kept vacant for you. Your father, poor man, is not the only friend you have, remember." He laid his hand impressively on his friend's arm, and looked with frank affection into his face.

Their interview was a lengthy one: friend Luke seemed averse to parting with his old chum, and the son seemed in no great haste to greet his father. But as we need not intrude on their first meeting, we can rejoin father and son as they ascend the broad stairs in front of the family residence, whither the father has taken his son in the first flush of happiness.

"You will love little Willie, I know; he is a brave boy, with long flaxen ringlets just like my--like his mother." For the first time something like hesitation came into his speech, and even the son's heart beat faster for an instant as the door swung open in answer to the old man's ring. He preceded him through the corridor, threw open a door and called out, "Jim has come home, my dear; we are going into the library, and will be ready for lunch after a while."

She had known of their coming just a moment before they entered; he felt it, for she had s.n.a.t.c.hed up the boy, and half hid her face in his dress.

Very faded she looked; her cheeks, softly rounded once, were thin, and the pink and white of her complexion had grown sallow. The "long fair ringlets," too, were but limp, stringy curls, that hung without grace or fulness down her back. The eyes, pale blue, though radiant once with health and happiness, were weak and expressionless--save that a dumb terror was written in them now.

A smile, half contemptuous, half pitying, flitted over the young man's face as he pa.s.sed through the room, with only a silent bow to the woman.

When they had vanished she stood like a statue, till the prattling of the boy on her arm recalled her to herself.

"He spoke not one word to me," she said, as she put the boy down, "not one word. Oh, to hear the tone of his voice once more--only once more."

The door was open through which they had pa.s.sed, and her burning eyes seemed to pursue the form last vanished through it. She silently rose, like one in a dream, and walked slowly, slowly along the corridor that led to the library.

Little Willie pulled over mamma's willow work-stand first, and then found harmless amus.e.m.e.nt in winding a spool of crimson embroidering-silk around and around the legs of a convenient table.

What was it that turned his little beating heart and his puny white face to stone all at once? Was this really a Medusa on which he looked?

The long ringlets seemed serpents, indeed; every one of them instinct with the wild despair the bitter hatred pictured on the face that looked so meek and inoffensive but a while ago. "His bride!"--the serpents hissed it into her ears--"His bride! Never--never. She shall die--and he? I will murder him with these hands, first. His bride--and I am to be a friend to her--ha! ha! ha! The dotard." Every one of the serpents echoed the mad laugh, as the woman threw back her head and clinched her hands in wild defiance. The child broke out into shrill complaining cries, and she sprang toward him, seized him and shook him by the shoulders till his breath failed. But in the midst of her mad fury the door opened, after a soft knock, and a female servant entered the room.

"Is Master Willie troublesome?" she asked. "Dear heart; let me take him, mum."

"Leave the room instantly, nurse; Master Willie is naughty and will remain with me."

Two little arms were stretched out imploringly; but nurse had to withdraw--with her own opinion of Master Willie's naughtiness, and "Missus' temper."

But the furies were banished, and when father and son entered the room some time after to say that they would take lunch down town, "Sylvia,"

as the old man addressed her, came forward quietly, leading the child by the hand, and spoke words of welcome to him, in his little brother's name. And she gave him her hand as she said "good-by," to the old man's unspeakable joy.

Poor old man! He fondly dreamed the G.o.ds were propitiated, the furies appeased; that the son whom he really loved had been restored to his rightful place, and would be guardian at some future day to the child of his old age--the son his idolized young wife had given him.

Yet he had not strength to battle against the storm that the idolized young wife called up--the storm that was to sweep from him again the long-lost, bitterly mourned son. Ah! well; it is not hard to fancy how she strained every nerve to wrest from another the happiness once within her own reach. Had she not bartered away her peace when she ruthlessly deserted the man she loved? And should some other woman be happier than she? No! Let them all be wrecked together. What cared she? Her husband; bah! Her child, yes; she strained him to her breast, and bemoaned him, and caressed him, and said that he was to be robbed by that wicked, wicked man, who had come to disturb their quiet happiness. That his unnatural father was about to squander on his undutiful older son, who had deserted him and disgraced him for years, the fortune she had been so sparing of--knowing that she would be left alone in the world some day, with no one to provide for herself and her child. And she would take her child now--a fresh burst of hysterical grief--right now, and start out into the cold world to earn her daily bread, or beg, for her child--for it would come to that, now that this cruel, hard-hearted man had undertaken to provide for his profligate, vagabond son.

And the child, little knowing how useful a tool he was in his mother's hands, wept with her, and would not be comforted by the distracted father, but clung to his mother's neck, crying, when she made a feint of leaving the house at the dead of night. Then the old man in his anguish promised to abandon his "vagabond" son, and was but too happy to have peace restored to his troubled home at this price. After all, the boy had lived away from him so many years; had never troubled himself about him; then why should his father heap all this trouble on his own head for what might be only a pa.s.sing whim of the boy's?

The third day had dawned since the long-lost son's return. Friend Luke again sat in his counting-room, in company with his early Havana, his meditations were disturbed by a boy, who was shown in by one of the clerks. "A note for you, sir," and he had vanished.

But the young merchant seized his hat when he had glanced at the contents, and repaired, breathlessly, to his friend's hotel. Cold sweat stood on his forehead when he knocked at the door, and it was opened by a stranger. One glance at the bed and at those standing around it was sufficient.

"I was his friend," he said, and they respectfully made room for him.

He touched the cold hand, and gently lifted the cloth that hid the rigid face. His friend had always been a good shot, and Luke groaned as he replaced the cloth.

"Poor girl, poor girl--and I am to break the news to her!"

The doctor who had been called in, a shock-headed, spectacled German, looked at him, first from under his gla.s.ses, then over them, and at last through them. "Aha!" he said, with evident satisfaction, catching at Luke's words, "now we have it. It vas a voman who made dis misfortune, after all."

"A woman"--Luke repeated, softly; "yes, but her name was Sylvia."

_CROSSING THE ARIZONA DESERTS._

HEAD-QUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF CALIFORNIA, } SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., March 11, 1868.}

MY DEAR MADAM:--The next steamer for Wilmington is advertised to sail on the 14th, but as she is not yet in, her departure may be delayed a day or two.

I enclose letters to the commanding officers of Drum Barracks and Fort Yuma, and am,

My dear Madam,

Truly yours,

E. N. PLATT.

It was my intention to visit quite a remote part of Arizona; and, although an officer's wife, having no personal acquaintance with any of the officers stationed in the Territory, the letters the colonel gave me to the commanding officers of both these posts, through which I should have to pa.s.s, were very acceptable. As I was quite alone, the commanding officer of Drum Barracks was particular to give me reliable people for my long journey. Phil, the driver, was a model, and in many respects a genius, while the two soldiers--who had been in the hospital when their comrades had started for Arizona, two months before, and who were sent by the post commander to protect "Government property" (the ambulance)--were attentive and good-natured, as soldiers always are.

With so small an escort, it was possible--nay, expedient--to make the journey very rapidly. We were uninc.u.mbered by tents or baggage--my only trunk and what provisions we carried were all in the ambulance, which was drawn by four large mules. I had decided, being alone, to stop at the forage-stations, whenever we could reach them, expecting to take my meals there and to find quarters for the night. Luckily, the quartermaster and Phil had made arrangement and provision to have my meals cooked by one of the soldiers, in case the "station-fare" should not agree with me; and my ambulance was of such ample dimensions that it was easily turned into a sleeping apartment for the night: so that Phil, who had all the merits and demerits of such places by heart, had only to give an additional nod of the head to induce me to say to the station-keeper, who would always invite me to enter his "house" when Phil drove up to the _corral_, "No, thank you: I can rest very well in the ambulance." Then there were days' marches to be made when no station could be reached, so that we were compelled to camp out; and on such occasions Phil would appear in the full glory of his well-earned reputation. He boasted that he had brought fully one-half the number of officers' wives who ever visited Arizona to the Territory himself, and that he had always made them comfortable. Knowing, of course, before, whenever we should camp out, he would go to work systematically. His carbine was always by his side, and early in the morning he would commence his raid on the game and birds abounding, more or less, throughout the Territory. Slaying sometimes five or six of the beautifully crested quails at one shot without moving from his seat, he would send one of the soldiers to gather up the spoils, and then set the men, placed one on each side of him, to pick the birds. That this was thoroughly done he was very sure of, for he watched the operation with a stern eye. Not the smallest splinter of wood, or anything combustible, was left ungleaned on the field over which he pa.s.sed on such a day; fifty, ay, a hundred times, he would turn to his right-hand man, or to his left, with the admonition:

"Miller, we've six birds to cook, and bread to bake, to-night: pick up that stick."

Down would jump Miller, trusting to his agility, and the gymnastics he might have practised in younger days, for safety in vaulting over the wheels; for never a moment would Phil allow the ambulance to halt while this wayside gathering was going on.

I always preferred camping out to "bed and board" at the roadside hotels of Arizona, for Phil, with all his sagacity, would sometimes go astray in regard to the eligibility and comfort of the quarters furnished. As, for instance, at Antelope Peak, where my mentor a.s.sured me I should find a bedstead to place my bedding on, and a room all to myself. I _did_ find a bedstead; but after the family (consisting of an American husband, a Spanish wife, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and three children) had removed their bed-clothes from it, to make place for mine, it looked so uninviting that I requested Phil to spread my bed on the floor. I had a room all to myself, too; but, on retiring to rest, I found that the whole family--again consisting of husband, wife, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and three children--had spread their bed on the floor of the adjoining room, which, being separated from my apartment only by an old blanket, coming short of the ground over a foot, and hung up where the door ought to be, enabled, or rather compelled me to look straight into the faces of the different members of this interesting family. As it grew darker, and the danger of being stared out of countenance pa.s.sed over, another serious disturbance presented itself to my senses. All my friends can bear witness to the fact that I consider Mr. Charles Bergh the greatest public benefactor of the present age (the woman who founded the hospital for aged and infirm cats not excepted), and that, with me, it calls forth all the combative qualities lately discovered to lie dormant in woman's nature, to see any harmless, helpless animal cruelly treated; but if I could have caught only half a dozen of the five hundred mice that nibbled at my nose, my ears, and my feet that night, I should exultingly have dipped them in camphene, applied a match, and sent them, as warning examples, back to their tribe.

Only once after this, toward the close of the journey, did Phil entice me to sleep under a roof. It was at Blue-water Station; and the man who kept it turned himself out into the _corral_, and made my bed on the floor of the only room the house contained. There was no bedstead there, but the man gave his word that neither were there any mice; so I went to sleep in perfect faith and security. When I woke up at midnight, I thought the Indians must have surprised us, scalped me, and left me for dead. Such a burning, gnawing sensation I experienced on the top of my head that almost unconsciously I put up my hand to see if they had taken _all_ my hair. But I brought it down rapidly, for all the horrid, pinching, stinging bugs and ants that had ensconced themselves in my hair, during my sleep, suddenly fastened to the intruding fingers, and clung to them with a tenacity worthy of a better cause.

But these experiences were not made until I had crossed the greater part of the Arizona deserts; and I considered them rather as pleasantly varying the solemn, still monotony of the days pa.s.sed, one after one, in a solitude broken only, at long intervals, by those forlorn government forage-stations.

The first desert we crossed was still in California--though why California should feel any desire to claim the wilderness of sand and rattlesnakes lying between Vallecito Mountain and Fort Yuma, I cannot see. We had pa.s.sed over the thriving country around San Bernardino, and through the verdant valley of San Felipe; and striking the desert just beyond Vallecito, it seemed like entering Arizona at once.

Could anything be more hopelessly endless--more discouragingly boundless--than the sand-waste that lay before us the morning we left the forage-station of Vallecito! For days before, Phil had been entertaining me with stories and accounts of travellers who had been lost in sand-storms on the deserts. Not a breath of air stirred--not a cloud was to be seen in the sky on this particular morning; nevertheless, I watched for the signs that precede the springing up of the wind with a keen eye, as the ambulance rolled slowly and noiselessly through the deep sand, and I listened attentively to Phil's stories. The road we followed was but a wagon-track, at best, and I could well believe that, in ten minutes from the time a storm sprang up, there would be no trace of the road left. Then commence the blind wanderings, the frenzied attempts to regain the friendly shelter of the station, on the part of the inexperienced traveller--ending, but too often, in a miserable death by famine and starvation. The sand, flying in clouds, conceals the distant mountains, by which alone he could be piloted; and, straying off, he finds himself bewildered among piles of sand and tattered sage-brush, when the storm has blown over. The remains of human beings found by parties going into the mountains have proved that such poor wretches must have wandered for days without food, without water, till they found their death, at last, on the wide, inhospitable plain.

Their death--but not their grave; for the _coyote_, with his jackal instinct, surely finds the body of the lost one, under the sand-mound mercifully covering it, and, feasting on the flesh, he leaves the bones white and bleaching in the pitiless rays of the sun.