Bret Harte - A First Family of Tasajara

“It blows,” said Joe Wingate.

As if to accent the words of the speaker a heavy gust of wind at that moment shook the long light wooden structure which served as the general store of Sidon settlement, in Contra Costa. Even after it had passed a prolonged whistle came through the keyhole, sides, and openings of the closed glass front doors, that served equally for windows, and filled the canvas ceiling which hid the roof above like a bellying sail. A wave of enthusiastic emotion seemed to be communicated to a line of straw hats and sou-westers suspended from a cross-beam, and swung them with every appearance of festive rejoicing, while a few dusters, overcoats, and “hickory” shirts hanging on the side walls exhibited such marked though idiotic animation that it had the effect of a satirical comment on the lazy, purposeless figures of the four living inmates of the store.

Ned Billings momentarily raised his head and shoulders depressed in the back of his wooden armchair, glanced wearily around, said, “You bet, it’s no slouch of a storm,” and then lapsed again with further extended legs and an added sense of comfort.

Here the third figure, which had been leaning listlessly against the shelves, putting aside the arm of a swaying overcoat that seemed to be emptily embracing him, walked slowly from behind the counter to the door, examined its fastenings, and gazed at the prospect. He was the owner of the store, and the view was a familiar one,—a long stretch of treeless waste before him meeting an equal stretch of dreary sky above, and night hovering somewhere between the two. This was indicated by splashes of darker shadow as if washed in with india ink, and a lighter low-lying streak that might have been the horizon, but was not. To the right, on a line with the front door of the store, were several scattered, widely dispersed objects, that, although vague in outline, were rigid enough in angles to suggest sheds or barns, but certainly not trees.

“There’s a heap more wet to come afore the wind goes down,” he said, glancing at the sky. “Hark to that, now!”

They listened lazily. There was a faint murmur from the shingles above; then suddenly the whole window was filmed and blurred as if the entire prospect had been wiped out with a damp sponge. The man turned listlessly away.

“That’s the kind that soaks in; thar won’t be much teamin’ over Tasajara for the next two weeks, I reckon,” said the fourth lounger, who, seated on a high barrel, was nibbling—albeit critically and fastidiously—biscuits and dried apples alternately from open boxes on the counter. “It’s lucky you’ve got in your winter stock, Harkutt.”

The shrewd eyes of Mr. Harkutt, proprietor, glanced at the occupation of the speaker as if even his foresight might have its possible drawbacks, but he said nothing.

“There’ll be no show for Sidon until you’ve got a wagon road from here to the creek,” said Billings languidly, from the depths of his chair. “But what’s the use o’ talkin’? Thar ain’t energy enough in all Tasajara to build it. A God-forsaken place, that two months of the year can only be reached by a mail-rider once a week, don’t look ez if it was goin’ to break its back haulin’ in goods and settlers. I tell ye what, gentlemen, it makes me sick!” And apparently it had enfeebled him to the extent of interfering with his aim in that expectoration of disgust against the stove with which he concluded his sentence.

“Why don’t YOU build it?” asked Wingate, carelessly.

“I wouldn’t on principle,” said Billings. “It’s gov’ment work. What did we whoop up things here last spring to elect Kennedy to the legislation for? What did I rig up my shed and a thousand feet of lumber for benches at the barbecue for? Why, to get Kennedy elected and make him get a bill passed for the road! That’s MY share of building it, if it comes to that. And I only wish some folks, that blow enough about what oughter be done to bulge out that ceiling, would only do as much as I have done for Sidon.”

As this remark seemed to have a personal as well as local application, the storekeeper diplomatically turned it. “There’s a good many as DON’T believe that a road from here to the creek is going to do any good to Sidon. It’s very well to say the creek is an embarcadero, but callin’ it so don’t put anough water into it to float a steamboat from the bay, nor clear out the reeds and tules in it. Even if the State builds you roads, it ain’t got no call to make Tasajara Creek navigable for ye; and as that will cost as much as the road, I don’t see where the money’s comin’ from for both.”

“There’s water enough in front of ‘Lige Curtis’s shanty, and his location is only a mile along the bank,” returned Billings.

“Water enough for him to laze away his time fishin’ when he’s sober, and deep enough to drown him when he’s drunk,” said Wingate. “If you call that an embarcadero, you kin buy it any day from ‘Lige,—title, possession, and shanty thrown in,—for a demijohn o’ whiskey.”

The fourth man here distastefully threw back a half-nibbled biscuit into the box, and languidly slipped from the barrel to the floor, fastidiously flicking the crumbs from his clothes as he did so. “I reckon somebody’ll get it for nothing, if ‘Lige don’t pull up mighty soon. He’ll either go off his head with jim-jams or jump into the creek. He’s about as near desp’rit as they make ‘em, and havin’ no partner to look after him, and him alone in the tules, ther’ ‘s no tellin’ WHAT he may do.”

Billings, stretched at full length in his chair, here gurgled derisively. “Desp’rit!—ketch him! Why, that’s his little game! He’s jist playin’ off his desp’rit condition to frighten Sidon. Whenever any one asks him why he don’t go to work, whenever he’s hard up for a drink, whenever he’s had too much or too little, he’s workin’ that desp’rit dodge, and even talkin’ o’ killin’ himself! Why, look here,” he continued, momentarily raising himself to a sitting posture in his disgust, “it was only last week he was over at Rawlett’s trying to raise provisions and whiskey outer his water rights on the creek! Fact, sir,—had it all written down lawyer-like on paper. Rawlett didn’t exactly see it in that light, and told him so. Then he up with the desp’rit dodge and began to work that. Said if he had to starve in a swamp like a dog he might as well kill himself at once, and would too if he could afford the weppins. Johnson said it was not a bad idea, and offered to lend him his revolver; Bilson handed up his shot-gun, and left it alongside of him, and turned his head away considerate-like and thoughtful while Rawlett handed him a box of rat pizon over the counter, in case he preferred suthin’ more quiet. Well, what did ‘Lige do? Nothin’! Smiled kinder sickly, looked sorter wild, and shut up. He didn’t suicide much. No, sir! He didn’t kill himself,—not he. Why, old Bixby—and he’s a deacon in good standin’—allowed, in ‘Lige’s hearin’ and for ‘Lige’s benefit, that self-destruction was better nor bad example, and proved it by Scripture too. And yet ‘Lige did nothin’! Desp’rit! He’s only desp’rit to laze around and fish all day off a log in the tules, and soak up with whiskey, until, betwixt fever an’ ague and the jumps, he kinder shakes hisself free o’ responsibility.”

A long silence followed; it was somehow felt that the subject was incongruously exciting; Billings allowed himself to lapse again behind the back of his chair. Meantime it had grown so dark that the dull glow of the stove was beginning to outline a faint halo on the ceiling even while it plunged the further lines of shelves behind the counter into greater obscurity.