The trial of Tennessee was conducted as fairly as was consistent with a judge and jury who felt themselves to some extent obliged to justify, in their verdict, the previous irregularities of arrest and indictment. The law of Sandy Bar was implacable, but not vengeful. The excitement and personal feeling of the chase were over; with Tennessee safe in their hands, they were ready to listen patiently to any defense, which they were already satisfied was insufficient. There being no doubt in their own minds, they were willing to give the prisoner the benefit of any that might exist. Secure in the hypothesis that he ought to be hanged on general principles, they indulged him with more latitude of defense than his reckless hardihood seemed to ask. The Judge appeared to be more anxious than the prisoner, who, otherwise unconcerned, evidently took a grim pleasure in the responsibility he had created. I dont take any hand in this yer game, had been his invariable but good-humored reply to all questions. The Judgewho was also his captorfor a moment vaguely regretted that he had not shot him on sight that morning, but presently dismissed this human weakness as unworthy of the judicial mind. Nevertheless, when there was a tap at the door, and it was said that Tennessees Partner was there on behalf of the prisoner, he was admitted at once without question. Perhaps the younger members of the jury, to whom the proceedings were becoming irksomely thoughtful, hailed him as a relief.
For he was not, certainly, an imposing figure. Short and stout, with a square face, sunburned into a preternatural redness, clad in a loose duck jumper and trousers streaked and splashed with red soil, his aspect under any circumstances would have been quaint, and was now even ridiculous. As he stooped to deposit at his feet a heavy carpetbag he was carrying, it became obvious, from partially developed legends and inscriptions, that the material with which his trousers had been patched had been originally intended for a less ambitious covering. Yet he advanced with great gravity, and after shaking the hand of each person in the room with labored cordiality, he wiped his serious perplexed face on a red bandana handkerchief, a shade lighter than his complexion, laid his powerful hand upon the table to steady himself, and thus addressed the Judge:
I was passin by, he began, by way of apology, and I thought Id just step in and see how things was gittin on with Tennessee thar,my pardner. Its a hot night. I disremember any sich weather before on the Bar.
He paused a moment, but nobody volunteering any other meteorological recollection, he again had recourse to his pocket-handkerchief, and for some moments mopped his face diligently.
Have you anything to say on behalf of the prisoner? said the Judge finally.
Thets it, said Tennessees Partner, in a tone of relief. I come yar as Tennessees pardner,knowing him nigh on four year, off and on, wet and dry, in luck and out o luck. His ways aint aller my ways, but thar aint any pints in that young man, thar aint any liveliness as hes been up to, as I dont know. And you sez to me, sez you,confidential-like, and between man and man,sez you, Do you know anything in his behalf? and I sez to you, sez I,confidential-like, as between man and man,What should a man know of his pardner?
Is this all you have to say? asked the Judge impatiently, feeling, perhaps, that a dangerous sympathy of humor was beginning to humanize the court.
Thets so, continued Tennessees Partner. It aint for me to say anything agin him. And now, whats the case? Heres Tennessee wants money, wants it bad, and doesnt like to ask it of his old pardner. Well, what does Tennessee do? He lays for a stranger, and he fetches that stranger; and you lays for him, and you fetches him; and the honors is easy. And I put it to you, bein a far-minded man, and to you, gentlemen all, as far-minded men, ef this isnt so.
Prisoner, said the Judge, interrupting, have you any questions to ask this man?
No! no! continued Tennessees Partner hastily. I play this yer hand alone. To come down to the bed-rock, its just this: Tennessee, thar, has played it pretty rough and expensive-like on a stranger, and on this yer camp. And now, whats the fair thing? Some would say more, some would say less. Heres seventeen hundred dollars in coarse gold and a watch,its about all my pile,and call it square! And before a hand could be raised to prevent him, he had emptied the contents of the carpetbag upon the table.
For a moment his life was in jeopardy. One or two men sprang to their feet, several hands groped for hidden weapons, and a suggestion to throw him from the window was only overridden by a gesture from the Judge. Tennessee laughed. And apparently oblivious of the excitement, Tennessees Partner improved the opportunity to mop his face again with his handkerchief. When order was restored, and the man was made to understand, by the use of forcible figures and rhetoric, that Tennessees offense could not be condoned by money, his face took a more serious and sanguinary hue, and those who were nearest to him noticed that his rough hand trembled slightly on the table. He hesitated a moment as he slowly returned the gold to the carpetbag, as if he had not yet entirely caught the elevated sense of justice which swayed the tribunal, and was perplexed with the belief that he had not offered enough. Then he turned to the Judge, and saying, This yer is a lone hand, played alone, and without my pardner, he bowed to the jury and was about to withdraw, when the Judge called him back:
If you have anything to say to Tennessee, you had better say it now.
For the first time that evening the eyes of the prisoner and his strange advocate met. Tennessee smiled, showed his white teeth, and saying, Euchred, old man! held out his hand. Tennessees Partner took it in his own, and saying, I just dropped in as I was passin to see how things was gettin on, let the hand passively fall, and adding that it was a warm night, again mopped his face with his handkerchief, and without another word withdrew.
The two men never again met each other alive. For the unparalleled insult of a bribe offered to Judge Lynchwho, whether bigoted, weak, or narrow, was at least incorruptiblefirmly fixed in the mind of that mythical personage any wavering determination of Tennessees fate; and at the break of day he was marched, closely guarded, to meet it at the top of Marleys Hill.
How he met it, how cool he was, how he refused to say anything, how perfect were the arrangements of the committee, were all duly reported, with the addition of a warning moral and example to all future evil-doers, in the Red Dog Clarion, by its editor, who was present, and to whose vigorous English I cheerfully refer the reader. But the beauty of that midsummer morning, the blessed amity of earth and air and sky, the awakened life of the free woods and hills, the joyous renewal and promise of Nature, and above all, the infinite serenity that thrilled through each, was not reported, as not being a part of the social lesson. And yet, when the weak and foolish deed was done, and a life, with its possibilities and responsibilities, had passed out of the misshapen thing that dangled between earth and sky, the birds sang, the flowers bloomed, the sun shone, as cheerily as before; and possibly the Red Dog Clarion was right.
Tennessees Partner was not in the group that surrounded the ominous tree. But as they turned to disperse, attention was drawn to the singular appearance of a motionless donkey-cart halted at the side of the road. As they approached, they at once recognized the venerable Jenny and the two-wheeled cart as the property of Tennessees Partner, used by him in carrying dirt from his claim; and a few paces distant the owner of the equipage himself, sitting under a buckeye-tree, wiping the perspiration from his glowing face. In answer to an inquiry, he said he had come for the body of the diseased, if it was all the same to the committee. He didnt wish to hurry anything; he could wait. He was not working that day; and when the gentlemen were done with the diseased, he would take him. Ef thar is any present, he added, in his simple, serious way, as would care to jine in the funl, they kin come. Perhaps it was from a sense of humor, which I have already intimated was a feature of Sandy Bar,perhaps it was from something even better than that, but two thirds of the loungers accepted the invitation at once.
Tennessees Partner was not in the group that surrounded the ominous tree. But as they turned to disperse, attention was drawn to the singular appearance of a motionless donkey-cart halted at the side of the road. As they approached, they at once recognized the venerable Jenny and the two-wheeled cart as the property of Tennessees Partner, used by him in carrying dirt from his claim; and a few paces distant the owner of the equipage himself, sitting under a buckeye-tree, wiping the perspiration from his glowing face. In answer to an inquiry, he said he had come for the body of the diseased, if it was all the same to the committee. He didnt wish to hurry anything; he could wait. He was not working that day; and when the gentlemen were done with the diseased, he would take him. Ef thar is any present, he added, in his simple, serious way, as would care to jine in the funl, they kin come. Perhaps it was from a sense of humor, which I have already intimated was a feature of Sandy Bar,perhaps it was from something even better than that, but two thirds of the loungers accepted the invitation at once.
It was noon when the body of Tennessee was delivered into the hands of his partner. As the cart drew up to the fatal tree, we noticed that it contained a rough oblong box,apparently made from a section of sluicing,and half filled with bark and the tassels of pine. The cart was further decorated with slips of willow and made fragrant with buckeye-blossoms. When the body was deposited in the box, Tennessees Partner drew over it a piece of tarred canvas, and gravely mounting the narrow seat in front, with his feet upon the shafts, urged the little donkey forward. The equipage moved slowly on, at that decorous pace which was habitual with Jenny even under less solemn circumstances. The menhalf curiously, half jestingly, but all good-humoredlystrolled along beside the cart, some in advance, some a little in the rear of the homely catafalque. But whether from the narrowing of the road or some present sense of decorum, as the cart passed on, the company fell to the rear in couples, keeping step, and otherwise assuming the external show of a formal procession. Jack Folinsbee, who had at the outset played a funeral march in dumb show upon an imaginary trombone, desisted from a lack of sympathy and appreciation,not having, perhaps, your true humorists capacity to be content with the enjoyment of his own fun.
The way led through Grizzly Canon, by this time clothed in funereal drapery and shadows. The redwoods, burying their moccasined feet in the red soil, stood in Indian file along the track, trailing an uncouth benediction from their bending boughs upon the passing bier. A hare, surprised into helpless inactivity, sat upright and pulsating in the ferns by the roadside as the cortege went by. Squirrels hastened to gain a secure outlook from higher boughs; and the blue-jays, spreading their wings, fluttered before them like outriders, until the outskirts of Sandy Bar were reached, and the solitary cabin of Tennessees Partner.
Viewed under more favorable circumstances, it would not have been a cheerful place. The unpicturesque site, the rude and unlovely outlines, the unsavory details, which distinguish the nest-building of the California miner, were all here with the dreariness of decay superadded. A few paces from the cabin there was a rough inclosure, which, in the brief days of Tennessees Partners matrimonial felicity, had been used as a garden, but was now overgrown with fern. As we approached it, we were surprised to find that what we had taken for a recent attempt at cultivation was the broken soil about an open grave.
The cart was halted before the inclosure, and rejecting the offers of assistance with the same air of simple self-reliance he had displayed throughout, Tennessees Partner lifted the rough coffin on his back, and deposited it unaided within the shallow grave. He then nailed down the board which served as a lid, and mounting the little mound of earth beside it, took off his hat and slowly mopped his face with his handkerchief. This the crowd felt was a preliminary to speech, and they disposed themselves variously on stumps and boulders, and sat expectant.
When a man, began Tennessees Partner slowly, has been running free all day, whats the natural thing for him to do? Why, to come home. And if he aint in a condition to go home, what can his best friend do? Why, bring him home. And heres Tennessee has been running free, and we brings him home from his wandering. He paused and picked up a fragment of quartz, rubbed it thoughtfully on his sleeve, and went on: It aint the first time that Ive packed him on my back, as you seed me now. It aint the first time that I brought him to this yer cabin when he couldnt help himself; it aint the first time that I and Jinny have waited for him on yon hill, and picked him up and so fetched him home, when he couldnt speak and didnt know me. And now that its the last time, whyhe paused and rubbed the quartz gently on his sleeveyou see its sort of rough on his pardner. And now, gentlemen he added abruptly, picking up his long-handled shovel, the funls over; and my thanks, and Tennessees thanks, to you for your trouble.
Resisting any proffers of assistance, he began to fill in the grave, turning his back upon the crowd, that after a few moments hesitation gradually withdrew. As they crossed the little ridge that hid Sandy Bar from view, some, looking back, thought they could see Tennessees Partner, his work done, sitting upon the grave, his shovel between his knees, and his face buried in his red bandana handkerchief. But it was argued by others that you couldnt tell his face from his handkerchief at that distance, and this point remained undecided.
In the reaction that followed the feverish excitement of that day, Tennessees Partner was not forgotten. A secret investigation had cleared him of any complicity in Tennessees guilt, and left only a suspicion of his general sanity. Sandy Bar made a point of calling on him, and proffering various uncouth but well-meant kindnesses. But from that day his rude health and great strength seemed visibly to decline; and when the rainy season fairly set in, and the tiny grass-blades were beginning to peep from the rocky mound above Tennessees grave, he took to his bed.
One night, when the pines beside the cabin were swaying in the storm and trailing their slender fingers over the roof, and the roar and rush of the swollen river were heard below, Tennessees Partner lifted his head from the pillow, saying, It is time to go for Tennessee; I must put Jinny in the cart; and would have risen from his bed but for the restraint of his attendant. Struggling, he still pursued his singular fancy: There, now, steady, Jinny,steady, old girl. How dark it is! Look out for the ruts,and look out for him, too, old gal. Sometimes, you know, when hes blind drunk, he drops down right in the trail. Keep on straight up to the pine on the top of the hill. Thar! I told you so!thar he is,coming this way, too,all by himself, sober, and his face a-shining. Tennessee! Pardner!
And so they met.
THE IDYL OF BED GULCH
Sandy was very drunk. He was lying under an azalea-bush, in pretty much the same attitude in which he had fallen some hours before. How long he had been lying there he could not tell, and didnt care; how long he should lie there was a matter equally indefinite and unconsidered. A tranquil philosophy, born of his physical condition, suffused and saturated his moral being.
The spectacle of a drunken man, and of this drunken man in particular, was not, I grieve to say, of sufficient novelty in Red Gulch to attract attention. Earlier in the day some local satirist had erected a temporary tombstone at Sandys head, bearing the inscription, Effects of McCorkles whiskeykills at forty rods, with a hand pointing to McCorkles saloon. But this, I imagine, was, like most local satire, personal; and was a reflection upon the unfairness of the process rather than a commentary upon the impropriety of the result. With this facetious exception, Sandy had been undisturbed. A wandering mule, released from his pack, had cropped the scant herbage beside him, and sniffed curiously at the prostrate man; a vagabond dog, with that deep sympathy which the species have for drunken men, had licked his dusty boots and curled himself up at his feet, and lay there, blinking one eye in the sunlight, with a simulation of dissipation that was ingenious and dog-like in its implied flattery of the unconscious man beside him.