[Sara Dean, How Wilson's Claim Was Jumped, Sunset, February 1907]

 

HOW WILSON'S CLAIM WAS JUMPED

BY SARAH DEAN

          TOWARD the east rolled an unbroken stretch of grey-green sagebrush and chaparral. At the western horizon the Sierra Nevada arose empurpled by the distance. Here and there the yucca twisted above the level in strange fantastic shapes. The sun shone on pitilessly, burning into the parched earth. The silence was unbroken save for the occasional scuttling passage of a rabbit in the underbrush, or the lazy progress of a rattlesnake seeking an unshaded spot for its sunbath.

          Suddenly the silence was interrupted by the dulled thump of a horse's hoofs in loose alkaline dust. Above a rise in the ground a man appeared riding slowly. He was clad in brown jeans overalls, spotted with grease, and a blue flannel shirt open at the neck. His mustache looked almost white against the red-brown of his tanned face; beneath the shadow of his broad sombrero his eyes, steely and keen, were sharply alert. Each rise in the earth, each bunch of cactus, caught his attention.

          A faint sound reached him from the chaparral !

          The man gave a short exclamation, and the horse pricked up his ears, his neck swerved sharply to one side.

          The man arose in his stirrups and peered intently about. Then he dismounted and proceeded on foot, the bridle lines over his arm. Slowly, searchingly he went, step by step, scanning the whitened ground, and each sharp, black shadow beneath the brush.

          Suddenly he dropped to his knees with a hoarse cry: "Jim, oh, Jim!"

          He had come upon the prostrate body of a man lying on his side. A dark curly beard covered his chin; his face was ghastly beneath its tan.

          Beside him a dark stain dyed into the earth!       

          "Water, water !" gasped Jim.

          The other placed his canteen to the wounded man's lips and he drank a few mouthfuls with difficulty.

          "Is that you, Will," gasped Jim; "I knew you'd come—sometime."

          "God," cried Wilson, his voice low and hushed with horror. "Have you been here long, Jim?"

          "Years," muttered Jim. "The sun has come and gone, I know."

          "God!" breathed Wilson again in an agony of sympathetic anguish.

          He bent over his comrade in a search for the wound. He soon found it, a jagged rent in the side, the evident result of the discharge of a shotgun at short range. He was powerless to dress it—powerless to do anything but take the wounded man's head on his knees, and press his flask occasionally close to his pallid lips.

          Jim was sinking rapidly. Wilson had seen the grey of death steal into too many faces not to recognize its stamp now. A sudden anger stirred within him, the anger of a strong man to whom battle was instinct, facing the tragedy of the inevitable.

          "Who done this, Jim?" he whispered. Jim stirred uneasily but he made no reply.

          "Who done this, Jim?" persisted Wilson.

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HOW WILSON'S CLAIM WAS JUMPED      361

          Jim opened his filmy eyes in silent protest against the will that was dominating him back from pain-dulling shadows.

          Wilson bent close to the dying man's ear.

          "Who done this, Jim?" he asked with forced distinctness.

          The greed for revenge was awaking amid his grief and making him cruel.

          "Hermit O'Keefe," gasped Jim. "I struck it rich over here. He----" his voice trailed off into silence, his jaw dropped.

          Wilson laid his friend's head back tenderly on the parched earth. For hours he sat motionless, his arms clasped about his knees. Jim was dead ! He was trying to realize it. Jim, the merry; Jim, who had so cheerfully carried the heavy ends of all their burdens—dear, old, loving, unasking Jim. Why, he'd half believed once that even a rattler wouldn't bite Jim.

          It was almost sunset before he aroused himself and began to dig a grave, using his own prospecting tools. Down, down, he delved until he struck moisture even in that dry earth. He wrapped Jim's body in its own blankets which lay close at hand, and placed it tenderly in the yawning hollow. He piled in the earth, stamping it heavily into place. He feared those prowling midnight thieves, the coyotes.

          Above the grave he erected a pyramid of stones. For some moments he stood with bowed head, contemplating this rude monument.

          "I wish I could have done things up to the handle for you, Jim," he murmured huskily. "I reckon a prayer from me wouldn't come regular—but if you ain't got a chance up there, then most of this onery world will go a-beggin'."

          Wilson captured his horse and was soon moving over the face of the plain. On he went, turning aside for nothing. His broncho took his hardy way, pricked on by a relentless spur, through the chaparral that grew breast high in places, or down the steep sides of an occasional arroyo that cut deep into the surface of the plain. For miles man and horse stood out sharp and black against the monotony of green and grey.

          The sun sank behind the Sierra and with its vanishing a refreshed rustle passed over the land. The moon rose large, yellow, casting long black shadows. One by one the stars appeared, pallid in the light of the moon, patient with the patience of infinitude.

          Wilson hobbled his horse and threw himself down, but not to sleep. He had not troubled to unstrap his blankets. For long hours he lay, gazing back with puckered brow at the impersonal, isolating stars.

          Suddenly across the night floated the half-human wail of the coyote! Wilson turned over and buried his head in his arms. That long-drawn cry made Jim seem so much lonelier lying over there, under his scanty coverlet.

          Morning was still in the greys when he threw his saddle across his horse and was once more on his unrelenting way. He was bent on reaching Paydust Springs, which lay near the foot of the Sierra.

          A few hours travel brought him to them. His broncho lowered his head and drank eagerly of the water that was standing in pools in the short grass. This grass was trampled by the feet of men and horses. A litter of empty meat and sardine cans lay about, the names stamped on them telling of distant marts of trade, looking strange in the midst of the desolation.

          An earlier sojourner was there. He was a short man of rotund figure, with a gyred face and a shining bald head. His back was toward Wilson. He was in his waistcoat, which was patched up the back with dirty white.

          Wilson deftly unpacked his cooking kit, and was soon busy cutting off slices of bacon. He gave no heed to the red faced man, by word or sign. He was bitter with self-centered grief, and in a mood to be brutally short with man or beast.

          The first corner turned, wiping the perspiration from his forehead with the back of his hand.

          "Morning, stranger," he said. "Morning," said Wilson, not glancing at him.

          "Traveled far ?" queried the man.

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"Who done this, Jim?" he whispered

HOW WILSON'S CLAIM WAS JUMPED      363

          "Farther than I care to travel back again," said Wilson curtly.

          The man had a sociable, kindly face and he would not be discouraged.

          "Use my fire, pardner. My coffee's made," he said hospitably.

          Wilson obeyed his invitation and the bacon was soon frying in the pan. The man surveyed his movements with interest, his legs wide-spread and hands in gaping trouser pockets.

          "Struck anything?" he asked, after a few moments.

          Wilson indicated a surly negative.

          "Hard luck, hard luck," said the stranger - sympathetically. "Gold comes high when you hunt for it in this desert. I'll bet my stack you'd find a hole straight down to hell in Death Valley if you looked for it long enough."

          Wilson laughed a short laugh.

          " 'Nough short cuts to hell without looking for them in Death Valley," he said.

          The brightening of the other's face indicated the appearance of a congenial topic in the conversational horizon.

          "Right you are, pard," he cried, "right you are—and," he lowered his voice—"the shortest of them is whisky."

          Wilson had a grim sense of humor. Was he to be treated to a temperance lecture out here in the midst of the desert.

          "Cures snake bites," he said mockingly.

          "Yes," cried the other, with excitement, "and gives snakes. Why, it was right over there in Death Valley. There were three of us, Crab, Jones, me and a pack-mule. Third day out the mule died. We pegged on best way we could. Crab had his flask with him. He would take a pull at it now and again. Jones and I couldn't do nothing with him. We reached camp after while, Jones and me—plumb pegged out, and our tongues that for size."

          He held out and hollowed his two hands.

          "We left Crab out on the desert; he was a horrible sight to see !"

          Wilson's silence pricked him into further argument.

          "And there is O'Keefe, Hermit O'Keefe," he continued.

          Wilson's cynically slouching shoulders snapped into tense attention—his heart beat like a hammer.

          The man continued: "He's been swillin' whisky for two days. Been down to Rocket shootin' that old gun of his around fearful. Scared the whole town into the foothills. Frightened Dave Flynn's wife into a fit and she died in three days, and the men of Rocket have suddenly remembered their grit. They're going to lynch O'Keefe by golly ! on account of Flynn's wife, and for making them look ridikilous."

          Wilson was on his feet throwing his kit together in a frenzy of energy.

          "When do they do this?" he asked.

          "Tonight at nine, sure as shootin'."

          A moment later Wilson was astride his horse urging the animal into a lope across the desert.

          "What's up, pard?" asked the red-faced stranger.

          "I'm off," said Wilson.

          The man watched horse and rider grow small in the distance.

          "Well, I'll be goldarned," he said, "ef that don't beat the Dutch !"

          For two hours Wilson rode, skirting the foot of the Sierra. A sudden turn brought into view a little group of men—three in number. They were on horses, and leading a train of pack-mules. At the sight of Wilson they halted their lagging progress. The animals were exhausted and stood with drooping heads. One of the men wheeled his horse about and called out in a cheery, young voice:

          "Como esta Usted, amigo! Can you direct us to any springs hereabout where we can water our beasts?"

          The Spanish greeting rang familiarly in Wilson's ears, and he heard the question distinctly; but he only waved his arm in reply and urged his horse on. His gesture was instinctive. No reply would bring the men galloping toward him intent on an answer. A mile farther on he looked back over his shoulder and saw the men and beasts, pathetically solitary in the great waste, still motionless. He knew intuitively that they were watching him.

          The bitter of revenge was biting to the core of his being, drying the instinct of

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humanity at its source. With set jaw and brooding eyes Wilson urged on his weary horse. The broncho's hardy feet stumbled occasionally despite the relentless spur.

          The country was changing in its character. Green trees marked the winding of a river and the mountains were covered in patches by a short, shrubby growth.

          At a spur in the mountains Wilson turned his horse sharply westward. Up a hollow they went, the horse's knees trembling, his breast heaving.

          A miserable cabin built of shakes, which were warped and broken in places, came into view from behind a spur in the mountains. Near it a stream rippled and danced, singing softly to itself. Save for this there was silence, a silence dense, self-conscious—as if Nature set her lips. The cabin itself was closed, its crazy door and crazier window firmly shut. From the mud-and-stick chimney no smoke arose. An irregular path ran from the door down to the stream near by. A tin-pail hung on a stake near the door. Suddenly, as it seemed to Wilson, the moon rounded a turn in the mountains, and shone full on the scene. The gaunt shadow of horse and man stretched out black and sharp, the pail shone faint and silvery. From the shed near by came the muffled stamp of a horse's hoof. Wilson urged his horse in that direction, but as they neared the cabin the animal suddenly became a prey to ungovernable terror. He reared and plunged, his eyes rolling fearfully. Wilson drove his spurs into him in angry silence, then dismounted and led him, the weary beast straining at the lines.

          Within the rude shed a pinto pony moved restlessly, the white spots in his hide gleaming faintly in the gloom. Wilson tied his horse to the manger, putting the reins through a hole in the rough board.

          Then he strode back, unheeding his stiff, sore muscles. He stood erect, his long shadow mocking him from the ground, watching the silent cabin, the gleam of his narrowed eyes visible even in the dark of his broad-brimmed sombrero.

          Wilson went on to the door, and knocked rudely. He told himself that he was no assassin—O'Keefe should have a fighting chance. Still silence!

          Wilson pushed open the door a few inches.

          Through the narrow aperature appeared the gleam of a pair of fiery eyes. A cat, its fur all abristle, passed him and tore off into the brush amid a scatter of broken pebbles.

          Wilson had never known fear in his life, yet the action of that cat affected him strangely. He entered the room, the corners of which were in shadow. The air was heavy with the stale fumes of exhaled whisky. A huddled figure was faintly discernible in a chair before the fire-place. A square of moonlight fell full upon the bed, bringing out the pattern in the patchwork quilt upon it. A candle set in a bottle, which was shrouded in long trails of tallow, stood on a table in the pathway of the moonlight.

          Wilson struck a match. It flickered and expired in his unsteady fingers. He struck a second. The candle ignited, sending up an odor of burnt grease.

          Wilson advanced toward the huddled figure at the hearth.

          "O'Keefe," he said with a sort of forced rudeness.

          Ever since he had entered the stillness of that room the revenge he had been nursing so jealously had been mysteriously waning. The silence hung in the air oppressive—tangible. Where was the deep breathing of the inebriate? A chill struck through Wilson!

          He advanced the candle within a foot of the empurpled face. The eyes were wide open, staring, the white glaring above the iris; the shadow of the hook-nose danced up and down in the flickering light; the mouth was wide open, frozen in the act of emitting a yell of horror. O'Keefe was dead—killed by stark fear! Death had jumped Wilson's claim.

          A moment later the clatter of a horse's hoofs, spurred on by mad terror, echoed up the gully. The sound grew faint—fainter. Then again—silence, save for the brook that laughed and sang, pure as crystal, dripping silver in the moonbeams.