A Waif of the Plains by Bret Harte (13 ebook reader TXT) 📖

the gossip of the train and their own inexperienced consciousness. To them, they were all astounding and important personages. But, either from boyish curiosity or some sense of being misunderstood, Clarence was more attracted by the two individuals of the party who were least kind to him— namely, Mrs. Peyton and her brother Harry. I fear that, after the fashion of most children, and some grownup people, he thought less of the steady kindness of Mr. Peyton and the others than of the rare tolerance of Harry or the polite concessions of his sister. Miserably conscious of this at times, he quite convinced himself that if he could only win a word of approbation from Harry, or a smile from Mrs. Peyton, he would afterwards revenge himself by “running away.” Whether he would or not, I cannot say. I am writing of a foolish, growing, impressionable boy of eleven, of whose sentiments nothing could be safely predicted but uncertainty.

It was at this time that he became fascinated by another member of the party whose position had been too humble and unimportant to be included in the group already noted. Of the same appearance as the other teamsters in size, habits, and apparel, he had not at first exhibited to Clarence any claim to sympathy. But it appeared that he was actually a youth of only sixteen—a hopeless incorrigible of St. Joseph, whose parents had prevailed on Peyton to allow him to join the party, by way of removing him from evil associations and as a method of reform. Of this Clarence was at first ignorant, not from any want of frankness on the part of the youth, for that ingenious young gentleman later informed him that he had killed three men in St. Louis, two in St. Jo, and that the officers of justice were after him. But it was evident that to precocious habits of drinking, smoking, chewing, and card-playing this overgrown youth added a strong tendency to exaggeration of statement. Indeed, he was known as “Lying Jim Hooker,” and his various qualities presented a problem to Clarence that was attractive and inspiring, doubtful, but always fascinating. With the hoarse voice of early wickedness and a contempt for ordinary courtesy, he had a round, perfectly good-humored face, and a disposition that when not called upon to act up to his self-imposed role of reckless wickedness, was not unkindly.

It was only a few days after the massacre, and while the children were still wrapped in the gloomy interest and frightened reticence which followed it, that “Jim Hooker” first characteristically flashed upon Clarence’s perceptions. Hanging half on and half off the saddle of an Indian pony, the lank Jim suddenly made his appearance, dashing violently up and down the track, and around the wagon in which Clarence was sitting, tugging desperately at the reins, with every indication of being furiously run away with, and retaining his seat only with the most dauntless courage and skill. Round and round they went, the helpless rider at times hanging by a single stirrup near the ground, and again recovering himself by—as it seemed to Clarence—almost superhuman effort. Clarence sat open-mouthed with anxiety and excitement, and yet a few of the other teamsters laughed. Then the voice of Mr. Peyton, from the window of his car, said quietly,—

“There, that will do, Jim. Quit it!”

The furious horse and rider instantly disappeared. A few moments after, the bewildered Clarence saw the redoubted horseman trotting along quietly in the dust of the rear, on the same fiery steed, who in that prosaic light bore an astounding resemblance to an ordinary team horse. Later in the day he sought an explanation from the rider.

“You see,” answered Jim gloomily, “thar ain’t a galoot in this yer crowd ez knows jist WHAT’S in that hoss! And them ez suspecks daren’t say! It wouldn’t do for to hev it let out that the Judge hez a Morgan-Mexican plug that’s killed two men afore he got him, and is bound to kill another afore he gets through! Why, on’y the week afore we kem up to you, that thar hoss bolted with me at camping! Bucked and throwed me, but I kept my holt o’ the stirrups with my foot—so! Dragged me a matter of two miles, head down, and me keepin’ away rocks with my hand—so!”

“Why didn’t you loose your foot and let go?” asked Clarence breathlessly.

“YOU might,” said Jim, with deep scorn; “that ain’t MY style. I just laid low till we kem to a steep pitched hill, and goin’ down when the hoss was, so to speak, kinder BELOW me, I just turned a hand spring, so, and that landed me onter his back again.”

This action, though vividly illustrated by Jim’s throwing his hands down like feet beneath him, and indicating the parabola of a spring in the air, proving altogether too much for Clarence’s mind to grasp, he timidly turned to a less difficult detail.

“What made the horse bolt first, Mr. Hooker?”

“Smelt Injins!” said Jim, carelessly expectorating tobacco juice in a curving jet from the side of his mouth—a singularly fascinating accomplishment, peculiarly his own, “‘n’ likely YOUR Injins.”

“But,” argued Clarence hesitatingly, “you said it was a week before—and—”

“Er Mexican plug kin smell Injins fifty, yes, a hundred miles away,” said Jim, with scornful deliberation; “‘n’ if Judge Peyton had took my advice, and hadn’t been so mighty feared about the character of his hoss gettin’ out he’d hev played roots on them Injins afore they tetched ye. But,” he added, with gloomy dejection, “there ain’t no sand in this yer crowd, thar ain’t no vim, thar ain’t nothin’; and thar kan’t be ez long ez thar’s women and babies, and women and baby fixin’s, mixed up with it. I’d hev cut the whole blamed gang ef it weren’t for one or two things,” he added darkly.

Clarence, impressed by Jim’s mysterious manner, for the moment forgot his contemptuous allusion to Mr. Peyton, and the evident implication of Susy and himself, and asked hurriedly, “What things?”

Jim, as if forgetful of the boy’s presence in his fitful mood, abstractedly half drew a glittering bowie knife from his bootleg, and then slowly put it back again. “Thar’s one or two old scores,” he continued, in a low voice, although no one was in hearing distance of them, “one or two private accounts,” he went on tragically, averting his eyes as if watched by some one, “thet hev to be wiped out with blood afore I leave. Thar’s one or two men TOO MANY alive and breathin’ in this yer crowd. Mebbee it’s Gus Gildersleeve; mebbee it’s Harry Benham; mebbee,” he added, with a dark yet noble disinterestedness, “it’s ME.”

“Oh, no,” said Clarence, with polite deprecation.

Far from placating the gloomy Jim, this seemed only to awake his suspicions. “Mebbee,” he said, dancing suddenly away from Clarence, “mebbee you think I’m lyin’. Mebbee you think, because you’re Colonel Brant’s son, yer kin run ME with this yer train. Mebbee,” he continued, dancing violently back again, “ye kalkilate, because ye run off’n’ stampeded a baby, ye kin tote me round too, sonny. Mebbee,” he went on, executing a double shuffle in the dust and alternately striking his hands on the sides of his boots, “mebbee you’re spyin’ round and reportin’ to the Judge.”

Firmly convinced that Jim was working himself up by an Indian wardance to some desperate assault on himself, but resenting the last unjust accusation, Clarence had recourse to one of his old dogged silences. Happily at this moment an authoritative voice called out, “Now, then, you Jim Hooker!” and the desperate Hooker, as usual, vanished instantly. Nevertheless, he appeared an hour or two later beside the wagon in which Susy and Clarence were seated, with an expression of satiated vengeance and remorseful bloodguiltiness in his face, and his hair combed Indian fashion over his eyes. As he generously contented himself with only passing a gloomy and disparaging criticism on the game of cards that the children were playing, it struck Clarence for the first time that a great deal of his real wickedness resided in his hair. This set him to thinking that it was strange that Mr. Peyton did not try to reform him with a pair of scissors, but not until Clarence himself had for at least four days attempted to imitate Jim by combing his own hair in that fashion.

A few days later, Jim again casually favored him with a confidential interview. Clarence had been allowed to bestride one of the team leaders postillionwise, and was correspondingly elevated, when Jim joined him, on the Mexican plug, which appeared— no doubt a part of its wicked art—heavily docile, and even slightly lame.

“How much,” said Jim, in a tone of gloomy confidence,—“how much did you reckon to make by stealin’ that gal-baby, sonny?”

“Nothing,” replied Clarence with a smile. Perhaps it was an evidence of the marked influence that Jim was beginning to exert over him that he already did not attempt to resent this fascinating implication of grownup guilt.

“It orter bin a good job, if it warn’t revenge,” continued Jim moodily.

“No, it wasn’t revenge,” said Clarence hurriedly.

“Then ye kalkilated ter get er hundred dollars reward ef the old man and old woman hadn’t bin scelped afore yet got up to ‘em?” said Jim. “That’s your blamed dodgasted luck, eh! Enyhow, you’ll make Mrs. Peyton plank down suthin’ if she adopts the babby. Look yer, young feller,” he said, starting suddenly and throwing his face forward, glaring fiendishly through his matted side-locks, “d’ye mean ter tell me it wasn’t a plant—a skin game—the hull thing?”

“A what?” said Clarence.

“D’ye mean to say”—it was wonderful how gratuitously husky his voice became at this moment—“d’ye mean ter tell me ye didn’t set on them Injins to wipe out the Silsbees, so that ye could hev an out-an’-out gal ORFEN on hand fer Mrs. Peyton ter adopt—eh?”

But here Clarence was forced to protest, and strongly, although Jim contemptuously ignored it. “Don’t lie ter me,” he repeated mysteriously, “I’m fly. I’m dark, young fel. We’re cahoots in this thing?” And with this artful suggestion of being in possession of Clarence’s guilty secret he departed in time to elude the usual objurgation of his superior, “Phil,” the head teamster.

Nor was his baleful fascination exercised entirely on Clarence. In spite of Mrs. Peyton’s jealously affectionate care, Clarence’s frequent companionship, and the little circle of admiring courtiers that always surrounded Susy, it became evident that this small Eve had been secretly approached and tempted by the Satanic Jim. She was found one day to have a few heron’s feathers in her possession with which she adorned her curls, and at another time was discovered to have rubbed her face and arms with yellow and red ochre, confessedly the free gift of Jim Hooker. It was to Clarence alone that she admitted the significance and purport of these offerings. “Jim gived ‘em to me,” she said, “and Jim’s a kind of Injin hisself that won’t hurt me; and when bad Injins come, they’ll think I’m his Injin baby and run away. And Jim said if I’d just told the Injins when they came to kill papa and mamma, that I b’longed to him, they’d hev runned away.”

“But,” said the practical Clarence, “you could not; you know you were with Mrs. Peyton all the time.”

“Kla’uns,” said Susy, shaking her head and fixing her round blue eyes with calm mendacity on the boy, “don’t you tell me. I WAS THERE!”

Clarence started back, and nearly fell over the wagon in hopeless dismay at this dreadful revelation of Susy’s powers of exaggeration. “But,” he gasped, “you know, Susy, you and me left before—”

“Kla’uns,” said Susy calmly, making a little pleat in the skirt of her dress with her small thumb and fingers, “don’t you talk