In The Carquinez Woods | Page 3

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This etext was prepared by Donald Lainson, [email protected].

IN THE CARQUINEZ WOODS
by Bret Harte

CHAPTER I.
The sun was going down on the Carquinez Woods. The few shafts of
sunlight that had pierced their pillared gloom were lost in unfathomable
depths, or splintered their ineffectual lances on the enormous trunks of
the redwoods. For a time the dull red of their vast columns, and the dull
red of their cast-off bark which matted the echoless aisles, still seemed
to hold a faint glow of the dying day. But even this soon passed. Light
and color fled upwards. The dark interlaced treetops, that had all day
made an impenetrable shade, broke into fire here and there; their lost
spires glittered, faded, and went utterly out. A weird twilight that did
not come from the outer world, but seemed born of the wood itself,
slowly filled and possessed the aisles. The straight, tall, colossal trunks
rose dimly like columns of upward smoke. The few fallen trees
stretched their huge length into obscurity, and seemed to lie on
shadowy trestles. The strange breath that filled these mysterious vaults
had neither coldness nor moisture; a dry, fragrant dust arose from the
noiseless foot that trod their bark-strewn floor; the aisles might have
been tombs, the fallen trees enormous mummies; the silence the

solitude of a forgotten past.
And yet this silence was presently broken by a recurring sound like
breathing, interrupted occasionally by inarticulate and stertorous gasps.
It was not the quick, panting, listening breath of some stealthy feline or
canine animal, but indicated a larger, slower, and more powerful
organization, whose progress was less watchful and guarded, or as if a
fragment of one of the fallen monsters had become animate. At times
this life seemed to take visible form, but as vaguely, as misshapenly, as
the phantom of a nightmare. Now it was a square object moving
sideways, endways, with neither head nor tail and scarcely visible feet;
then an arched bulk rolling against the trunks of the trees and recoiling
again, or an upright cylindrical mass, but always oscillating and
unsteady, and striking the trees on either hand. The frequent occurrence
of the movement suggested the figures of some weird rhythmic dance
to music heard by the shape alone. Suddenly it either became
motionless or faded away.
There was the frightened neighing of a horse, the sudden jingling of
spurs, a shout and outcry, and the swift apparition of three dancing
torches in one of the dark aisles; but so intense was the obscurity that
they shed no light on surrounding objects, and seemed to advance of
their own volition without human guidance, until they disappeared
suddenly behind the interposing bulk of one of the largest trees.
Beyond its eighty feet of circumference the light could not reach, and
the gloom remained inscrutable. But the voices and jingling spurs were
heard distinctly.
"Blast the mare! She's shied off that cursed trail again."
"Ye ain't lost it again, hev ye?" growled a second voice.
"That's jist what I hev. And these blasted pine-knots don't give light an
inch beyond 'em. D--d if I don't think they make this cursed hole
blacker."
There was a laugh--a woman's laugh--hysterical, bitter, sarcastic,
exasperating. The second speaker, without heeding it, went on:--

"What in thunder skeert the hosses? Did you see or hear anything?"
"Nothin'. The wood is like a graveyard."
The woman's voice again broke into a hoarse, contemptuous laugh. The
man resumed angrily:--
"If you know anything, why in h-ll don't you say so, instead of cackling
like a d--d squaw there? P'raps you reckon you ken find the trail too."
"Take this rope off my wrist," said the woman's voice, "untie my hands,
let me down, and I'll find it." She spoke quickly and with a Spanish
accent.
It was the men's turn to laugh. "And give you a show to snatch that
six-shooter and blow a hole through me, as you did to the Sheriff of
Calaveras, eh? Not if this court understands itself," said the first
speaker dryly.
"Go to the devil,