University of Santa Clara - Redwood Yearbook (Santa Clara, CA)

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THE REDWOOD 15 take on so, Ben, she almost whis- pered. He stroked her hand gently, but he could not speak. Oh I ain ' t bawlin ' ' count o ' the sheriff ' s dyin ' , he burst out sudden- ly. I ' d kill him a dozen times if he ' d come to life. Johanna was stroking his head much as one would to quiet an angry dog. Anyhow, that ' s the reason I went, Johan ' , he said. ' ' I f iggered you ' d— be glad— if I did it. He looked ap- pealingly toward her, but her eyes were turned away. He ran his fingers through his thick hair. I reckoned you ' d be glad to be free of a — murderer. You warn ' t deservin ' o ' my disgrace .... were you? He seemed uncertain. Oh Ben, it warn ' t disgrace to kill a sheriff, said Johanna. You got a right to do that. Foster was obstinate. Reckoned I ' d be hanged if I waited around, Johan ' , he persisted, feeling his neck ruminatively. ' Twarn ' t no use to stay. But something in his voice showed that he knew he was wrong. His wife ' s face was turned toward him, every line traced in shadow. Why, Johan ' ! tears hev jest gouged out them hollows under yer eyes. You oughtn ' t ever have done it! Noon came with cold sunlight, the afternoon drifted down in the west and the day waned into grey again. An overwhelming peace slept in the two reunited hearts and sorrow was only a memory. The vigil and the anxiety were over. Johanna, watching the darkness creep up the mountain, saw dark fig- ures on horseback half a mile down the slope. Men coming, Ben, she said, falling dejectedly into her chair. He sprang to the window in time to see a head disappear behind a rise. With a clouded brow he stood for a long while biting his lips. Johan ' , I — I guess I got to leave you again, he at last said slowly with his gaze still upon the mountain side. He buttoned his coat around him. But you ' ll wait, won ' t you? Johanna smiled ; they embraced. She stood in the doorway with the light streaming through her hair, while Ben, indistinct against the gloom, turned for a last farewell. I ' ll be back — soon, he called soft- ly. Then the shadow of the man melt- ed into a forest of shadows, and the door of the cabin closed softly. The light went out and Johanna sat by the window, weeping for the first time that day. Old Maria appeared from somewhere and entered the cabin. But she did not try to comfort Johanna for Maria was wise. Foster ' s foot trod many strands in the ensuing half a year. He eluded the posse that Johanna had so lucidly espied from the cabin window, and escaped on a coaster sailing for Mexico and South America. In a fight aboard ship, he was thrown overboard, and was rescued by a Spanish fisherman, half dead. He was delirious for a week afterwards; and the fisherman ' s child- ren, in mimicry of the raving man, went about the beach crying, Johan- na! Johanna! and laughing. One day, when he had recovered, his fisherman host accosted him. You wish to go back to California, eh?

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14 THE REDWOOD hind that brush if it hasn ' t rotted away. Shielding his face the sailor pushed his way through the dense under- growth. A twig snapped in his eyes and blinded him for a moment. When he could see again, he stood in full view of the cabin. But no birds had builded their nests in the rafters, nor did a sagging door reveal a floor littered with leaves. In- stead, a thin trail of smoke glided into the air, and there was a whisper of a burning fire. The man stood aghast, his breath escaping in rasping jerks. He stood thus for a full minute. Then the door opened slowly and silently. A middle aged woman, with hair that was turning gray, looked hopeless- ly out over the mountain; past the sailor, past the trees and out .... out to the ocean. It was his wife. No, Maria, that rustlin ' warn ' t anything, she said, turning to someone within. Ain ' t even a ship in sight. The door was half closed when the man found his voice. Johanna! he cried. And in a mo- ment he was sobbing upon his wife ' s shoulder in the clearing before the cab- in. Not a tear moistened her cheek, but Foster knew that grief had long since exhausted the last tear; only her heart was weeping. Soon they entered the cabin. At a sign from Johanna, Maria, the old ser- vant, glided out, and husband and wife were left alone. Johanna seated her- self at the window, through which she had watched a year of desolate days. Her husband sat upon a stool with his downcast head resting upon his hands. Johan ' , said the man after a long silence, I wasn ' t meanin ' fer you to wait fer me. His wife did not answer. He looked up and when he saw her still gazing out over the wilderness, he again fell to sobbing. The sorrow that had weighed upon Johanna through a long year was dawning slowly upon her hus- band. She had been able to undergo the pangs because they came one by one; legion in number, it is true; but one steeling her heart against the next. But he who had caused her sorrow was beginning to feel its edge and the ac- cumulated griefs of a long year were all torturning his soul at once. He was overwhelmed. I ' d no idee you ' d be set on stayin ' in the cabin fer all that stretch, the man almost whined. Warn ' t climbin ' the mountain fer nothin ' Ben — were you? The woman smiled — a mere trace of a smile. Well, no-o ... I s ' pose not. I — I was jest a mite cur ' us ez to how things were lookin ' yerabouts since I — left. Foster rose nervously and opened the door. Besides, he said when he re- turned, I ben movin ' pretty muchly this last month. Them damnation gov ' - ment hounds hez ben on my trail pret- ty steady, and I figgered the only way to leave ' em was over this yer ridge. That ' s how I happened to come — mostly. What you done? asked Johanna. You recall that sheriff who was a-hangin ' round my heels ' count o ' smugglin ' ? Well — I shot him in the heart. He seemed to doubt whether his wife had grasped the full significance of the situation. He died. She saw her husband ' s shoulders heaving despite him, and she rose and put her hand on his shoulder. Don ' t

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16 THE REDWOOD Foster nodded. To-morrow evening my brother sails thither in the ' Night Hawk ' , ' ' answered the Spaniard. Do you know why he calls it that? Foster shook his head. Because, he said, the night hawk does its work in the darkness and is gone before the light; likewise this ship. He winked and Foster under- stood for he himself had been a smug- gler. So he sailed and took up his quar- ters on the vessel among bale upon bale of a rather cheap Mexican tobacco. But he heeded the call of the siren of his other days, and enlisted as a partner in the illegal traffic. When they at- tempted to land in a lonely cove near Monterej they found that the authori- ties had anticipated them, and there followed a pitched battle. So for Fos- ter, though he escaped, the chase began anew. For slow-footed months he evad- ed his pursuers. Often he was awak- ened from dreams of the cabin on Pu- rissima, to find the hounds hot again on the trail of the fox. Efforts to ap- prehend him became more determined, and the circle was closing about him. Every hope deserted the fugitive save one ; and that was Johanna. By the end of the summer Foster felt himself wavering; he knew that the end of his hunted exis tence was at hand, but he knew that it was to be ended by capture. The one light that still burned for him was one that cast its beams from a heart waiting — he knew that — in a cabin on Purissima ridge. He was in the far south at San Pablo. For two weeks he tramped through the dry fields of the San Joa- quin; chanced it to the ocean, hid for a day in Purissima Mission and in the evening slunk away and began the as- cent of the mountain. The sun dragged its ragged golden cloak over the ocean and disappeared ; with the sudden coolness there sound- ed uncanny crackings in the redwood forest. Particularly terrifying were they to Foster for the hush of the even- ing stimulated his imagination, and the children of this imagination were armed captors. He sighted the grim redwood while a purple glow still clothed the sky regally, and was re- flected in the wine-colored sea. Un- noticing of weariness he reached the clearing while a semi-light showed the cabin ' s rude bulk shrined like a nat- ural growth among the bushes. There was no light in the little cab- in, but that was not strange, for when people sit by the window in thought, they always dim the lamp. The even- ing was so still that he forbore to call aloud but made his way through sus- piciously untrampled grass to the cabin. Then the light which had burned in the heart of Foster went out like a candle flame in a wind. He could hear his heart beating loudly ; and something falling distantly in the forest; as he stared vacantly at the gaping aperture that had framed a door. Johanna! Jo .... The last syllable trailed off into silence. His cry awakened a bat who flitted from the paneless window, while an owl hooted at his misery high above the heads of the forest. Despair with strong fingers gripped his heart, and the blood left his face. With a deliberate step he en- tered the cabin and struck a match. His eyes gleamed like two candles in a well, as he peered at the cold ashes on the hearth, the rotten floor, the fallen