Susy, A Story of the Plains by Bret Harte (bts book recommendations txt) 📕

much together. Now that Francisco is rich from the gold Don Clarencio paid for the title, they come not much together. But Pedro is rich, too. Mother of God! He gambles and is a fine gentleman. He holds his head high,—even over the Americanos he gambles with. Truly, they say he can shoot with the best of them. He boasts and swells himself, this Pedro! He says if all the old families were like him, they would drive those western swine back over the mountains again.”

Clarence raised his eyes, caught a subtle yellow flash from Incarnacion’s, gazed at him suddenly, and rose.

“I don’t think I have ever seen him,” he said quietly. “Thank you for bringing me the spur. But keep the knowledge of it to yourself, good Nascio, for the present.”

Nascio nevertheless still lingered. Perceiving which, Clarence handed him a cigarette and proceeded to light one himself. He knew that the vacquero would reroll his, and that that always deliberate occupation would cover and be an excuse for further confidence.

“The Senora Peyton does not perhaps meet this Pedro in the society of San Francisco?”

“Surely not. The senora is in mourning and goes not out in society, nor would she probably go anywhere where she would meet a dismissed servant of her husband.”

Incarnacion slowly lit his cigarette, and said between the puffs, “And the senorita—she would not meet him?”

“Assuredly not.”

“And,” continued Incarnacion, throwing down the match and putting his foot on it, “if this boaster, this turkey-cock, says she did, you could put him out like that?”

“Certainly,” said Clarence, with an easy confidence he was, however, far from feeling, “if he really SAID it—which I doubt.”

“Ah, truly,” said Incarnacion; “who knows? It may be another Senorita Silsbee.”

“The senora’s adopted daughter is called MISS PEYTON, friend Nascio. You forget yourself,” said Clarence quietly.

“Ah, pardon!” said Incarnacion with effusive apology; “but she was born Silsbee. Everybody knows it; she herself has told it to Pepita. The Senor Peyton bequeathed his estate to the Senora Peyton. He named not the senorita! Eh, what would you? It is the common cackle of the barnyard. But I say ‘Mees Silsbee.’ For look you. There is a Silsbee of Sacramento, the daughter of her aunt, who writes letters to her. Pepita has seen them! And possibly it is only that Mees of whom the brigand Pedro boasts.”

“Possibly,” said Clarence, “but as far as this rancho is concerned, friend Nascio, thou wilt understand—and I look to thee to make the others understand—that there is no Senorita SILSBEE here, only the Senorita PEYTON, the respected daughter of the senora thy mistress!” He spoke with the quaint mingling of familiarity and paternal gravity of the Spanish master—a faculty he had acquired at El Refugio in a like vicarious position, and which never failed as a sign of authority. “And now,” he added gravely, “get out of this, friend, with God’s blessing, and see that thou rememberest what I told thee.”

The retainer, with equal gravity, stepped backwards, saluted with his sombrero until the stiff brim scraped the floor, and then solemnly withdrew.

Left to himself, Clarence remained for an instant silent and thoughtful before the oven-like hearth. So! everybody knew Susy’s real relations to the Peytons, and everybody but Mrs. Peyton, perhaps, knew that she was secretly corresponding with some one of her own family. In other circumstances he might have found some excuse for this assertion of her independence and love of her kindred, but in her attitude towards Mrs. Peyton it seemed monstrous. It appeared impossible that Mrs. Peyton should not have heard of it, or suspected the young girl’s disaffection. Perhaps she had,—it was another burden laid upon her shoulders,—but the proud woman had kept it to herself. A film of moisture came across his eyes. I fear he thought less of the suggestion of Susy’s secret meeting with Pedro, or Incarnacion’s implied suspicions that Pedro was concerned in Peyton’s death, than of this sentimental possibility. He knew that Pedro had been hated by the others on account of his position; he knew the instinctive jealousies of the race and their predisposition to extravagant misconstruction. From what he had gathered, and particularly from the voices he had overheard on the Fair Plains Road, it seemed to him that Pedro was more capable of mercenary intrigue than physical revenge. He was not aware of the irrevocable affront put upon Pedro by Peyton, and he had consequently attached no importance to Peyton’s own half-scornful intimation of the only kind of retaliation that Pedro would be likely to take. The unsuccessful attempt upon himself he had always thought might have been an accident, or if it was really a premeditated assault, it might have been intended actually for HIMSELF and not Peyton, as he had first thought, and his old friend had suffered for HIM, through some mistake of the assailant. The purpose, which alone seemed wanting, might have been to remove Clarence as a possible witness who had overheard their conspiracy— how much of it they did not know—on the Fair Plains Road that night. The only clue he held to the murderer in the spur locked in his desk, merely led him beyond the confines of the rancho, but definitely nowhere else. It was, however, some relief to know that the crime was not committed by one of Peyton’s retainers, nor the outcome of domestic treachery.

After some consideration he resolved to seek Jim Hooker, who might be possessed of some information respecting Susy’s relations, either from the young girl’s own confidences or from Jim’s personal knowledge of the old frontier families. From a sense of loyalty to Susy and Mrs. Peyton, he had never alluded to the subject before him, but since the young girl’s own indiscretion had made it a matter of common report, however distasteful it was to his own feelings, he felt he could not plead the sense of delicacy for her. He had great hopes in what he had always believed was only her exaggeration of fact as well as feeling. And he had an instinctive reliance on her fellow poseur’s ability to detect it. A few days later, when he found he could safely leave the rancho alone, he rode to Fair Plains.

The floods were out along the turnpike road, and even seemed to have increased since his last journey. The face of the landscape had changed again. One of the lower terraces had become a wild mere of sedge and reeds. The dry and dusty bed of a forgotten brook had reappeared, a full-banked river, crossing the turnpike and compelling a long detour before the traveler could ford it. But as he approached the Hopkins farm and the opposite clearing and cabin of Jim Hooker, he was quite unprepared for a still more remarkable transformation. The cabin, a three-roomed structure, and its cattle-shed had entirely disappeared! There were no traces or signs of inundation. The land lay on a gentle acclivity above the farm and secure from the effects of the flood, and a part of the ploughed and cleared land around the site of the cabin showed no evidence of overflow on its black, upturned soil. But the house was gone! Only a few timbers too heavy to be removed, the blighting erasions of a few months of occupation, and the dull, blackened area of the site itself were to be seen. The fence alone was intact.

Clarence halted before it, perplexed and astonished. Scarcely two weeks had elapsed since he had last visited it and sat beneath its roof with Jim, and already its few ruins had taken upon themselves the look of years of abandonment and decay. The wild land seemed to have thrown off its yoke of cultivation in a night, and nature rioted again with all its primal forces over the freed soil. Wild oats and mustard were springing already in the broken furrows, and lank vines were slimily spreading over a few scattered but still unseasoned and sappy shingles. Some battered tin cans and fragments of old clothing looked as remote as if they had been relics of the earliest immigration.

Clarence turned inquiringly towards the Hopkins farmhouse across the road. His arrival, however, had already been noticed, as the door of the kitchen opened in an anticipatory fashion, and he could see the slight figure of Phoebe Hopkins in the doorway, backed by the overlooking heads and shoulders of her parents. The face of the young girl was pale and drawn with anxiety, at which Clarence’s simple astonishment took a shade of concern.

“I am looking for Mr. Hooker,” he said uneasily. “And I don’t seem to be able to find either him or his house.”

“And you don’t know what’s gone of him?” said the girl quickly.

“No; I haven’t seen him for two weeks.”

“There, I told you so!” said the girl, turning nervously to her parents. “I knew it. He hasn’t seen him for two weeks.” Then, looking almost tearfully at Clarence’s face, she said, “No more have we.”

“But,” said Clarence impatiently, “something must have happened. Where is his house?”

“Taken away by them jumpers,” interrupted the old farmer; “a lot of roughs that pulled it down and carted it off in a jiffy before our very eyes without answerin’ a civil question to me or her. But he wasn’t there, nor before, nor since.”

“No,” added the old woman, with flashing eyes, “or he’d let ‘em have what ther’ was in his six-shooters.”

“No, he wouldn’t, mother,” said the girl impatiently, “he’d CHANGED, and was agin all them ideas of force and riotin’. He was for peace and law all the time. Why, the day before we missed him he was tellin’ me California never would be decent until people obeyed the laws and the titles were settled. And for that reason, because he wouldn’t fight agin the law, or without the consent of the law, they’ve killed him, or kidnapped him away.”

The girl’s lips quivered, and her small brown hands twisted the edges of her blue checked apron. Although this new picture of Jim’s peacefulness was as astounding and unsatisfactory as his own disappearance, there was no doubt of the sincerity of poor Phoebe’s impression.

In vain did Clarence point out to them there must be some mistake; that the trespassers—the so-called jumpers—really belonged to the same party as Hooker, and would have no reason to dispossess him; that, in fact, they were all HIS, Clarence’s, tenants. In vain he assured them of Hooker’s perfect security in possession; that he could have driven the intruders away by the simple exhibition of his lease, or that he could have even called a constable from the town of Fair Plains to protect him from mere lawlessness. In vain did he assure them of his intention to find his missing friend, and reinstate him at any cost. The conviction that the unfortunate young man had been foully dealt with was fixed in the minds of the two women. For a moment Clarence himself was staggered by it.

“You see,” said the young girl, with a kindling face, “the day before he came back from Robles, ther’ were some queer men hangin’ round his cabin, but as they were the same kind that went off with him the day the Sisters’ title was confirmed, we thought nothing of it. But when he came back from you he seemed worried and anxious, and wasn’t a bit like himself. We thought perhaps he’d got into some trouble there, or been disappointed. He hadn’t, had he, Mr. Brant?” continued Phoebe, with an appealing look.

“By no means,” said Clarence warmly. “On the contrary, he was able to do his friends good service there, and was successful in what he attempted. Mrs. Peyton was very grateful. Of course he told you what had happened, and what he did for us,”