TENNESSEE'S PARTNER
by Bret Harte
I do not think that we ever knew his real name. Our
ignorance of it certainly never gave us any social
inconvenience, for at Sandy Bar in 1854 most men
were christened anew. Sometimes these appellatives
were derived from some distinctiveness of dress,
as in the case of "Dungaree Jack;" or from some
peculiarity of habit, as shown in "Saleratus Bill,"
so called from an undue proportion of that chemical
in his daily bread; or from some unlucky slip, as
exhibited in "The Iron Pirate," a mild, inoffensive
man, who earned that baleful title by his unfortunate
mispronunciation of the term "iron pyrites." Perhaps
this may have been the beginning of a rude heraldry;
but I am constrained to think that it was because a
man's real name in that day rested solely upon his
own unsupported statement. "Call yourself Clifford,
do you?" said Boston, addressing a timid newcomer
with infinite scorn; "hell is full of such Cliffords!"
He then introduced the unfortunate man, whose name
happened to be really Clifford, as "Jay-bird Charley,"--an
unhallowed inspiration of the moment that clung to
him ever after.
But to return to Tennessee's Partner, whom we never
knew by any other than this relative title; that he
had ever existed as a separate and distinct individuality
we only learned later. It seems that in 1853 he left
Poker Flat to go to San Francisco, ostensibly to procure
a wife. He never got any farther than Stockton. At that
place he was attracted by a young person who waited
upon the table at the hotel where he took his meals.
One morning he said something to her which caused her
to smile not unkindly, to somewhat coquettishly break
a plate of toast over his upturned, serious, simple
face, and to retreat to the kitchen. He followed her,
and emerged a few moments later, covered with more
toast and victory. That day week they were married
by a Justice of the Peace, and returned to Poker Flat.
I am aware that something more might be made of this
episode, but I prefer to tell it as it was current at
Sandy Bar--in the gulches and bar-rooms--where all
sentiment was modified by a strong sense of humor.
Of their married felicity but little is known, perhaps
for the reason that Tennessee, then living with his
partner, one day took occasion to say something to the
bride on his own account, at which, it is said, she
smiled not unkindly and chastely retreated,--this time
as far as Marysville, where Tennessee followed her,
and where they went to housekeeping without the aid
of a Justice of the Peace. Tennessee's Partner took
the loss of his wife simply and seriously, as was his
fashion. But to everybody's surprise, when Tennessee
one day returned from Marysville, without his partner's
wife,--she having smiled and retreated with somebody
else,--Tennessee's Partner was the first man to shake
his hand and greet him with affection. The boys who
had gathered in the canyon to see the shooting were
naturally indignant. Their indignation might have
found vent in sarcasm but for a certain look in
Tennessee's Partner's eye that indicated a lack of
humorous appreciation. In fact, he was a grave man,
with a steady application to practical detail which
was unpleasant in a difficulty.
Meanwhile a popular feeling against Tennessee had
grown up on the Bar. He was known to be a gambler;
he was suspected to be a thief. In these suspicions
Tennessee's Partner was equally compromised; his
continued intimacy with Tennessee after the affair
above quoted could only be accounted for on the
hypothesis of a copartnership of crime. At last
Tennessee's guilt became flagrant. One day he overtook
a stranger on his way to Red Dog. The stranger
afterward related that Tennessee beguiled the time
with interesting anecdote and reminiscence, but
illogically concluded the interview in the following
words: "And now, young man, I'll trouble you for
your knife, your pistols, and your money. You see
your weppings might get you into trouble at Red Dog,
and your money's a temptation to the evilly disposed.
I think you said your address was San Francisco. I
shall endeavor to call." It may be stated here that
Tennessee had a fine flow of humor, which no business
preoccupation could wholly subdue.
This exploit was his last. Red Dog and Sandy Bar
made common cause against the highwayman. Tennessee
was hunted in very much the same fashion as his
prototype, the grizzly. As the toils closed around
him, he made a desperate dash through the Bar,
emptying his revolver at the crowd before the
Arcade Saloon, and so on up Grizzly Canyon; but at
its farther extremity he was stopped by a small
man on a gray horse. The men looked at each other
a moment in silence. Both were fearless, both
self-possessed and independent, and both types of
a civilization that in the seventeenth century
would have been called heroic, but, in the nineteenth,
simply "reckless."
"What have you got there?--I call," said Tennessee
quietly.
"Two bowers and an ace," said the stranger, as quietly,
showing two revolvers and a bowie knife.
"That takes me," returned Tennessee; and, with this
gambler's epigram, he threw away his useless pistol,
and rode back with his captor.
It was a warm night. The cool breeze which usually
sprang up with the going down of the sun behind the
chaparral-crested mountain was that evening withheld
from Sandy Bar. The little canyon was stifling with
heated resinous odors, and the decaying driftwood on
the Bar sent forth faint, sickening exhalations. The
feverishness of day, and its fierce passions still
filled the camp. Lights moved restlessly along the
bank of the river, striking no answering reflection
from its tawny current. Against the blackness of the
pines the windows of the old loft above the express-office
stood out staringly bright; and through their curtainless
panes the loungers below could see the forms of those
who were even then deciding the fate of Tennessee.
And above all this, etched on the dark firmament,
rose the Sierra, remote and passionless, crowned
with remoter passionless stars.
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
don't take any hand in this yer game," had been his
invariable but good-humored reply to all questions.
The Judge--who was also his captor--for 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 Tennessee's 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 having shaken 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 I'd just step in and see how things was
gittin' on with Tennessee thar--my pardner. It's
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.
"Thet's it," said Tennessee's Partner, in a tone of
relief. "I come yar as Tennessee's pardner--knowing
him nigh on four years, off and on, wet and dry, in
luck and out o' luck. His ways ain't allers my ways,
but thar ain't any p'ints in that young man, thar
ain't any liveliness as he's been up to, as I don't
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.
"Thet's so," continued Tennessee's Partner." It
ain't for me to say anything agin' him. And now,
what's the case? Here's Tennessee wants money,
wants it bad, and doesn't 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 isn't so."
"Prisoner," said the Judge, interrupting, "have
you any questions to ask this man?"
"No! no!" continued Tennessee's Partner hastily.
"I play this yer hand alone. To come down to the
bed-rock, it's just this: Tennessee, thar, has
played it pretty rough and expensive-like on a
stranger, and on this yer camp. And now, what's
the fair thing? Some would say more, some would
say less. Here's seventeen hundred dollars in
coarse gold and a watch,--it's 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, Tennessee's 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 Tennessee's 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. Tennessee's 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
Lynch--who, whether bigoted, weak, or narrow, was at
least incorruptible--firmly fixed in the mind of
that mythical personage any wavering determination
of Tennessee's fate; and at the break of day he was
marched, closely guarded, to meet it at the top of
Marley's 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.
Tennessee's 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 Tennessee's
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 didn't 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 fun'l, 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, Tennessee's
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 men--half-curiously, half-jestingly,
but all good-humoredly--strolled 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
humorist's capacity to be content with the enjoyment
of his own fun.
The way led through Grizzly Canyon--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 activity, 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 Tennessee's 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 enclosure, which, in the brief days of Tennessee's
Partner's 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 enclosure; and rejecting
the offers of assistance with the same air of simple
self-reliance he had displayed throughout, Tennessee's
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 Tennessee's Partner slowly," has
been running free all day, what's the natural thing
for him to do? Why, to come home. And if he ain't in
a condition to go home, what can his best friend do?
Why, bring him home! And here's 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 ain't
the first time that I've packed him on my back, as you
see'd me now. It ain't the first time that I brought
him to this yer cabin when he couldn't help himself;
it ain't 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 couldn't speak, and didn't know me.
And now that it's the last time, why"--he paused, and
rubbed the quartz gently on his sleeve--"you see it's
sort of rough on his pardner. And now, gentlemen" he
added abruptly, picking up his long-handled shovel,
"the fun'l's over; and my thanks, and Tennessee's
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
Tennessee's 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 couldn't 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, Tennessee's Partner was not forgotten.
A secret investigation had cleared him of any complicity
in Tennessee's 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 Tennessee's
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, Tennessee's 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 he's 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 END ~~~~~~~
|
