The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Stories
Bret Harte
The Outcasts of Poker Flat
As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker
Flat on the morning of the 23rd of November, 1850, he was conscious of
a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night. Two or
three men, conversing earnestly together, ceased as he approached, and
exchanged significant glances. There was a Sabbath lull in the air,
which, in a settlement unused to Sabbath influences, looked ominous.
Mr. Oakhurst's calm, handsome face betrayed small concern in these
indications. Whether he was conscious of any predisposing cause was
another question. "I reckon they're after somebody," he reflected;
"likely it's me." He returned to his pocket the handkerchief with
which he had been whipping away the red dust of Poker Flat from his
neat boots, and quietly discharged his mind of any further conjecture.
In point of fact, Poker Flat was "after somebody." It had lately
suffered the loss of several thousand dollars, two valuable horses,
and a prominent citizen. It was experiencing a spasm of virtuous
reaction, quite as lawless and ungovernable as any of the acts that
had provoked it. A secret committee had determined to rid the town of
all improper persons. This was done permanently in regard of two men
who were then hanging from the boughs of a sycamore in the gulch, and
temporarily in the banishment of certain other objectionable
characters. I regret to say that some of these were ladies. It is but
due to the sex, however, to state that their impropriety was
professional, and it was only in such easily established standards of
evil that Poker Flat ventured to sit in judgment.
Mr. Oakhurst was right in supposing that he was included in this
category. A few of the committee had urged hanging him as a possible
example and a sure method of reimbursing themselves from his pockets
of the sums he had won from them. "It's agin justice," said Jim
Wheeler, "to let this yer young man from Roaring Camp an entire
stranger carry away our money." But a crude sentiment of equity
residing in the breasts of those who had been fortunate enough to win
from Mr. Oakhurst overruled this narrower local prejudice.
Mr. Oakhurst received his sentence with philosophic calmness, none the
less coolly that he was aware of the hesitation of his judges. He was
too much of a gambler not to accept fate. With him life was at best an
uncertain game, and he recognized the usual percentage in favor of the
dealer.
A body of armed men accompanied the deported wickedness of Poker Flat
to the outskirts of the settlement. Besides Mr. Oakhurst, who was
known to be a coolly desperate man, and for whose intimidation the
armed escort was intended, the expatriated party consisted of a young
woman familiarly known as "The Duchess;" another who had won the title
of "Mother Shipton;" and "Uncle Billy," a suspected, sluice-robber and
confirmed drunkard. The cavalcade provoked no comments from the
spectators, nor was any word uttered by the escort. Only when the
gulch which marked the uttermost limit of Poker Flat was reached, the
leader spoke briefly and to the point. The exiles were forbidden to
return at the peril of their lives.
As the escort disappeared, their pent-up feelings found vent in a few
hysterical tears from the Duchess, some bad language from Mother
Shipton, and a Parthian volley of expletives from Uncle Billy. The
philosophic Oakhurst alone remained silent. He listened calmly to
Mother Shipton's desire to cut somebody's heart out, to the repeated
statements of the Duchess that she would die in the road, and to the
alarming oaths that seemed to be bumped out of Uncle Billy as he rode
forward. With the easy good humor characteristic of his class, he
insisted upon exchanging his own riding-horse, "Five-Spot," for the
sorry mule which the Duchess rode. But even this act did not draw the
party into any closer sympathy. The young woman readjusted her
somewhat draggled plumes with a feeble, faded coquetry; Mother Shipton
eyed the possessor of "Five-Spot" with malevolence, and Uncle Billy
included the whole party in one sweeping anathema.
The road to Sandy Bar a camp that, not having as yet experienced the
regenerating influences of Poker Flat, consequently seemed to offer
some invitation to the emigrants lay over a steep mountain range. It
was distant a day's severe travel. In that advanced season the party
soon passed out of the moist, temperate regions of the foothills into
the dry, cold, bracing air of the Sierras. The trail was narrow and
difficult. At noon the Duchess, rolling out of her saddle upon the
ground, declared her intention of going no farther, and the party
halted.
The spot was singularly wild and impressive. A wooded amphitheatre,
surrounded on three sides by precipitous cliffs of naked granite,
sloped gently toward the crest of another precipice that overlooked
the valley. It was, undoubtedly, the most suitable spot for a camp,
had camping been advisable. But Mr. Oakhurst knew that scarcely half
the journey to Sandy Bar was accomplished, and the party were not
equipped or provisioned for delay. This fact he pointed out to his
companions curtly, with a philosophic commentary on the folly of
"throwing up their hand before the game was played out." But they were
furnished with liquor, which in this emergency stood them in place of
food, fuel, rest, and prescience. In spite of his remonstrances, it
was not long before they were more or less under its influence. Uncle
Billy passed rapidly from a bellicose state into one of stupor, the
Duchess became maudlin, and Mother Shipton snored. Mr. Oakhurst alone
remained erect, leaning against a rock, calmly surveying them.
Mr. Oakhurst did not drink. It interfered with a profession which
required coolness, impassiveness, and presence of mind, and, in his
own language, he "couldn't afford it." As he gazed at his recumbent
fellow exiles, the loneliness begotten of his pariah trade, his habits
of life, his very vices, for the first time seriously oppressed him.
He bestirred himself in dusting his black clothes, washing his hands
and face, and other acts characteristic of his studiously neat habits,
and for a moment forgot his annoyance. The thought of deserting his
weaker and more pitiable companions never perhaps occurred to him. Yet
he could not help feeling the want of that excitement which, singularly
enough, was most conducive to that calm equanimity for which he was
notorious. He looked at the gloomy walls that rose a thousand feet
sheer above the circling pines around him, at the sky ominously
clouded, at the valley below, already deepening into shadow; and,
doing so, suddenly he heard his own name called.
A horseman slowly ascended the trail. In the fresh, open face of the
newcomer Mr. Oakhurst recognized Tom Simson, otherwise known as "The
Innocent," of Sandy Bar. He had met him some months before over a
"little game," and had, with perfect equanimity, won the entire
fortune amounting to some forty dollars of that guileless youth.
After the game was finished, Mr. Oakhurst drew the youthful speculator
behind the door and thus addressed him: "Tommy, you're a good little
man, but you can't gamble worth a cent. Don't try it over again." He
then handed him his money hack, pushed him gently from the room, and
so made a devoted slave of Tom Simson.
There was a remembrance of this in his boyish and enthusiastic
greeting of Mr. Oakhurst. He had started, he said, to go to Poker Flat
to seek his fortune. "Alone?" No, not exactly alone; in fact (a
giggle), he had run away with Piney Woods. Didn't Mr. Oakhurst
remember Piney? She that used to wait on the table at the Temperance
House? They had been engaged a long time, but old Jake Woods had
objected, and so they had run away, and were going to Poker Flat to be
married, and here they were. And they were tired out, and how lucky it
was they had found a place to camp, and company. All this the Innocent
delivered rapidly, while Piney, a stout, comely damsel of fifteen,
emerged from behind the pine-tree, where she had been blushing unseen,
and rode to the side of her lover.
Mr. Oakhurst seldom troubled himself with sentiment, still less with
propriety; but he had a vague idea that the situation was not
fortunate. He retained, however, his presence of mind sufficiently to
kick Uncle Billy, who was about to say something, and Uncle Billy was
sober enough to recognize in Mr. Oakhurst's kick a superior power that
would not bear trifling. He then endeavored to dissuade Tom Simson
from delaying further, but in vain. He even pointed out the fact that
there was no provision, nor means of making a camp. But, unluckily,
the Innocent met this objection by assuring the party that he was
provided with an extra mule loaded with provisions, and by the
discovery of a rude attempt at a log house near the trail. "Piney can
stay with Mrs. Oakhurst," said the Innocent, pointing to the Duchess,
"and I can shift for myself."
Nothing but Mr. Oakhurst's admonishing foot saved Uncle Billy from
bursting into a roar of laughter. As it was, he felt compelled to
retire up the canon until he could recover his gravity. There he
confided the joke to the tall pine-trees, with many slaps of his leg,
contortions of his face, and the usual profanity. But when he returned
to the party, he found them seated by a fire for the air had grown
strangely chill and the sky overcast in apparently amicable
conversation. Piney was actually talking in an impulsive girlish
fashion to the Duchess, who was listening with an interest and
animation she had not shown for many days. The Innocent was holding
forth, apparently with equal effect, to Mr. Oakhurst and Mother
Shipton, who was actually relaxing into amiability. "Is this yer a d
d picnic?" said Uncle Billy, with inward scorn, as he surveyed the
sylvan group, the glancing firelight, and the tethered animals in the
foreground. Suddenly an idea mingled with the alcoholic fumes that
disturbed his brain. It was apparently of a jocular nature, for he
felt impelled to slap his leg again and cram his fist into his mouth.
As the shadows crept slowly up the mountain, a slight breeze rocked
the tops of the pine-trees and moaned through their long and gloomy
aisles. The ruined cabin, patched and covered with pine boughs, was
set apart for the ladies. As the lovers parted, they unaffectedly
exchanged a kiss, so honest and sincere that it might have been heard
above the swaying pines. The frail Duchess and the malevolent Mother
Shipton were probably too stunned to remark upon this last evidence of
simplicity, and so turned without a word to the hut. The fire was
replenished, the men lay down before the door, and in a few minutes
were asleep.
Mr. Oakhurst was a light sleeper. Toward morning he awoke benumbed and
cold. As he stirred the dying fire, the wind, which was now blowing
strongly, brought to his cheek that which caused the blood to leave
it, snow!
He started to his feet with the intention of awakening the sleepers,
for there was no time to lose. But turning to where Uncle Billy had
been lying, he found him gone. A suspicion leaped to his brain, and a
curse to his lips. He ran to the spot where the mules had been
tethered they were no longer there. The tracks were already rapidly
disappearing in the snow.
The momentary excitement brought Mr. Oakhurst back to the fire with
his usual calm. He did not waken the sleepers. The Innocent slumbered
peacefully, with a smile on his good-humored, freckled face; the
virgin Piney slept beside her frailer sisters as sweetly as though
attended by celestial guardians; and Mr. Oakhurst, drawing his blanket
over his shoulders, stroked his mustaches and waited for the dawn. It
came slowly in a whirling mist of snowflakes that dazzled and confused
the eye. What could be seen of the landscape appeared magically
changed. He looked over the valley, and summed up the present and
future in two words, "Snowed in!"
A careful inventory of the provisions, which, fortunately for the
party, had been stored within the hut, and so escaped the felonious
fingers of Uncle Billy, disclosed the fact that with care and prudence
they might last ten days longer. "That is," said Mr. Oakhurst sotto
voce to the Innocent, "if you're willing to board us. If you
ain't and perhaps you'd better not you can wait till Uncle Billy
gets back with provisions." For some occult reason, Mr. Oakhurst could
not bring himself to disclose Uncle Billy's rascality, and so offered
the hypothesis that he had wandered from the camp and had accidentally
stampeded the animals. He dropped a warning to the Duchess and Mother
Shipton, who of course knew the facts of their associate's defection.
"They'll find out the truth about us all when they find out
anything," he added significantly, "and there's no good frightening
them now."
Tom Simson not only put all his worldly store at the disposal of Mr.
Oakhurst, but seemed to enjoy the prospect of their enforced
seclusion. "We'll have a good camp for a week, and then the snow'll
melt, and we'll all go back together." The cheerful gayety of the
young man and Mr. Oakhurst's calm infected the others. The Innocent,
with the aid of pine boughs, extemporized a thatch for the roofless
cabin, and the Duchess directed Piney in the rearrangement of the
interior with a taste and tact that opened the blue eyes of that
provincial maiden to their fullest extent. "I reckon now you're used to
fine things at Poker Flat," said Piney. The Duchess turned away sharply
to conceal something that reddened her cheeks through their
professional tint, and Mother Shipton requested Piney not to "chatter."
But when Mr. Oakhurst returned from a weary search for the trail, he
heard the sound of happy laughter echoed from the rocks. He stopped in
some alarm, and his thoughts first naturally reverted to the whiskey,
which he had prudently cached. "And yet it don't somehow sound like
whiskey," said the gambler. It was not until he caught sight of the
blazing fire through the still blinding storm, and the group around
it, that he settled to the conviction that it was "square fun."
Whether Mr. Oakhurst had cached his cards with the whiskey as
something debarred the free access of the community, I cannot say. It
was certain that, in Mother Shipton's words, he "didn't say 'cards'
once" during that evening. Haply the time was beguiled by an
accordion, produced somewhat ostentatiously by Tom Simson from his
pack. Notwithstanding some difficulties attending the manipulation of
this instrument, Piney Woods managed to pluck several reluctant
melodies from its keys, to an accompaniment by the Innocent on a pair
of bone castanets. But the crowning festivity of the evening was
reached in a rude camp-meeting hymn, which the lovers, joining hands,
sang with great earnestness and vociferation. I fear that a certain
defiant tone and Covenanter's swing to its chorus, rather than any
devotional quality, caused it speedily to infect the others, who at
last joined in the refrain:
"I'm proud to live in the service of the Lord,
And I'm bound to die in His army."
The pines rocked, the storm eddied and whirled above the miserable
group, and the flames of their altar leaped heavenward, as if in token
of the vow.
At midnight the storm abated, the rolling clouds parted, and the stars
glittered keenly above the sleeping camp. Mr. Oakhurst, whose
professional habits had enabled him to live on the smallest possible
amount of sleep, in dividing the watch with Tom Simson somehow managed
to take upon himself the greater part of that duty. He excused himself
to the Innocent by saying that he had "often been a week without
sleep." "Doing what?" asked Tom. "Poker!" replied Oakhurst
sententiously. "When a man gets a streak of luck, nigger-luck, he
don't get tired. The luck gives in first. Luck," continued the gambler
reflectively, "is a mighty queer thing. All you know about it for
certain is that it's bound to change. And it's finding out when it's
going to change that makes you. We've had a streak of bad luck since
we left Poker Flat, you come along, and slap you get into it, too. If
you can hold your cards right along you're all right. For," added the
gambler, with cheerful irrelevance
"I'm proud to live in the service of the Lord,
And I'm bound to die in His army."
The third day came, and the sun, looking through the white-curtained
valley, saw the outcasts divide their slowly decreasing store of
provisions for the morning meal. It was one of the peculiarities of
that mountain climate that its rays diffused a kindly warmth over the
wintry landscape, as if in regretful commiseration of the past. But it
revealed drift on drift of snow piled high around the hut, a
hopeless, uncharted, trackless sea of white lying below the rocky
shores to which the castaways still clung. Through the marvelously
clear air the smoke of the pastoral village of Poker Flat rose miles
away. Mother Shipton saw it, and from a remote pinnacle of her rocky
fastness hurled in that direction a final malediction. It was her last
vituperative attempt, and perhaps for that reason was invested with a
certain degree of sublimity. It did her good, she privately informed
the Duchess. "Just you go out there and cuss, and see." She then set
herself to the task of amusing "the child," as she and the Duchess
were pleased to call Piney. Piney was no chicken, but it was a
soothing and original theory of the pair thus to account for the fact
that she didn't swear and wasn't improper.
When night crept up again through the gorges, the reedy notes of the
accordion rose and fell in fitful spasms and long-drawn gasps by the
flickering campfire. But music failed to fill entirely the aching void
left by insufficient food, and a new diversion was proposed by Piney,
story-telling. Neither Mr. Oakhurst nor his female companions caring
to relate their personal experiences, this plan would have failed too,
but for the Innocent. Some months before he had chanced upon a stray
copy of Mr. Pope's ingenious translation of the Iliad. He now proposed
to narrate the principal incidents of that poem having thoroughly
mastered the argument and fairly forgotten the words in the current
vernacular of Sandy Bar. And so for the rest of that night the Homeric
demigods again walked the earth. Trojan bully and wily Greek wrestled
in the winds, and the great pines in the canon seemed to bow to the
wrath of the son of Peleus. Mr. Oakhurst listened with quiet
satisfaction. Most especially was he interested in the fate of "Ash-heels,"
as the Innocent persisted in denominating the "swift-footed
Achilles."
So, with small food and much of Homer and the accordion, a week passed
over the heads of the outcasts. The sun again forsook them, and again
from leaden skies the snowflakes were sifted over the land. Day by day
closer around them drew the snowy circle, until at last they looked
from their prison over drifted walls of dazzling white, that towered
twenty feet above their heads. It became more and more difficult to
replenish their fires, even from the fallen trees beside them, now
half hidden in the drifts. And yet no one complained. The lovers
turned from the dreary prospect and looked into each other's eyes, and
were happy. Mr. Oakhurst settled himself coolly to the losing game
before him. The Duchess, more cheerful than she had been, assumed the
care of Piney. Only Mother Shipton once the strongest of the party
seemed to sicken and fade. At midnight on the tenth day she called
Oakhurst to her side. "I'm going," she said, in a voice of querulous
weakness, "but don't say anything about it. Don't waken the kids. Take
the bundle from under my head, and open it." Mr. Oakhurst did so. It
contained Mother Shipton's rations for the last week, untouched. "Give
'em to the child," she said, pointing to the sleeping Piney. "You've
starved yourself," said the gambler. "That's what they call it," said
the woman querulously, as she lay down again, and, turning her face to
the wall, passed quietly away.
The accordion and the bones were put aside that day, and Homer was
forgotten. When the body of Mother Shipton had been committed to the
snow, Mr. Oakhurst took the Innocent aside, and showed him a pair of
snow-shoes, which he had fashioned from the old pack-saddle.
"There's one chance in a hundred to save her yet," he said, pointing
to Piney; "but it's there," he added, pointing toward Poker Flat. "If
you can reach there in two days she's safe." "And you?" asked Tom
Simson. "I'll stay here," was the curt reply. The lovers parted
with a long embrace. "You are not going, too?" said the Duchess, as
she saw Mr. Oakhurst apparently waiting to accompany him. "As far as
the canon," he replied. He turned suddenly and kissed the Duchess,
leaving her pallid face aflame, and her trembling limbs rigid with
amazement.
Night came, but not Mr. Oakhurst. It brought the storm again and the
whirling snow. Then the Duchess, feeding the fire, found that some one
had quietly piled beside the hut enough fuel to last a few days
longer. The tears rose to her eyes, but she hid them from Piney.
The women slept but little. In the morning, looking into each other's
faces, they read their fate. Neither spoke, but Piney, accepting the
position of the stronger, drew near and placed her arm around the
Duchess's waist. They kept this attitude for the rest of the day. That
night the storm reached its greatest fury, and, rending asunder the
protecting vines, invaded the very hut.
Toward morning they found themselves unable to feed the fire, which
gradually died away. As the embers slowly blackened, the Duchess crept
closer to Piney, and broke the silence of many hours: "Piney, can you
pray?" "No, dear," said Piney simply. The Duchess, without knowing
exactly why, felt relieved, and, putting her head upon Piney's
shoulder, spoke no more. And so reclining, the younger and purer
pillowing the head of her soiled sister upon her virgin breast, they
fell asleep.
The wind lulled as if it feared to waken them. Feathery drifts of
snow, shaken from the long pine boughs, flew like white winged birds,
and settled about them as they slept. The moon through the rifted
clouds looked down upon what had been the camp. But all human stain,
all trace of earthly travail, was hidden beneath the spotless mantle
mercifully flung from above.
They slept all that day and the next, nor did they waken when voices
and footsteps broke the silence of the camp. And when pitying fingers
brushed the snow from their wan faces, you could scarcely have told
from the equal peace that dwelt upon them which was she that had
sinned. Even the law of Poker Flat recognized this, and turned away,
leaving them still locked in each other's arms.
But at the head of the gulch, on one of the largest pine-trees, they
found the deuce of clubs pinned to the bark with a bowie-knife. It
bore the following, written in pencil in a firm hand:
BENEATH THIS TREE LIES THE BODY OF
JOHN OAKHURST,
WHO STRUCK A STREAK OF BAD LUCK
ON THE 23RD OF NOVEMBER 1850.
AND HANDED IN HIS CHECKS
ON THE 7TH DECEMBER, 1850.
And pulseless and cold, with a Derringer by his side and a bullet in
his heart, though still calm as in life, beneath the snow lay he who
was at once the strongest and yet the weakest of the outcasts of Poker Flat.
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