BAD NEWS
Old Man Haley's shack stood back from a branch road that wound down from
Antelope across the foothills to Pine Flat. Commercial travelers,
staging it from camp to camp, could see his roof over the trees, and
sometimes the driver would point to it with his whip and tell how the
old man--a survival of the early days--lived there alone cultivating his
vegetable patch. In the last four or five years people said he had gone
"nutty," had taken to wandering down the stream beds with his pickax and
pan, but he was a harmless old body and seemed able to get along. He
said he had a son somewhere who sent him money now and again, and he
always had enough to keep himself in groceries and tobacco, which he
bought at the general store in Pine Flat. Maybe you'd see him straying
along, sort o' kind and simple, with his pick over his shoulder, smilin'
up at the folks in the stage.
On that Sunday when Mayer had made his last trip to Sacramento Old Man
Haley had risen with the sun. While the rest of the world was slumbering
on its pillow he was out among his vegetables, hoe in hand.
It was one of those mornings that deck with a splendor of blue and gold
the foothill spring. The air was balmy, the sky a fleckless vault, where
bird shapes floated on aerial currents or sped in jubilant flight. From
the chaparral came the scents of sun-warmed foliage, the pungent odor of
bay, the aromatic breath of pine, and the sweet, frail perfume of the
chaparral flower. This flecked the hillside with its powdery blossom, a
white blur among the glittering enamel of madrona leaves.
Old Man Haley, an ancient figure in his rusty overalls, paused in his
labor to survey the sea of green from which he had wrested his garden.
His eye traveled slowly, for he loved it, and had grown to regard it as
his own. Leaning on his hoe he looked upward over its tufted density and
suddenly his glance lost its complacent vagueness and became sharp and
fixed. Through the close-packed vegetation a zigzag movement descended as
if a fissure of earth disturbance was stirring along the roots. After a
moment's scrutiny he turned and sent a look, singularly alert, over the
shack and the road beyond. Then, pursing his lips, he emitted a whistled
bar of bird notes.
The commotion in the chaparral stopped, and from it rose a wild figure.
It looked more ape than man, hairy, bearded to the cheekbones,
sunken-eyed and staggering. It started forward at a run, branches
crashing under its blundering feet, and as it came it sent up a hoarse
cry for food.
Some years before Old Man Haley had built a woodshed behind the cabin.
When he bought the planks he had told "the boys" in Pine Flat that he was
getting too old to forage for his wood in winter, and was going to cut it
in summer, and have it handy when the rains came. He had built the shed
well and lined it with tar paper. Adventurous youngsters, going past one
day, had peeped in and seen a blanket spread over the stacked logs as if
the old man might have been sleeping there; which, being reported, was
set down to his craziness.
Here Garland now hid, ate like a famished wolf, and slept. Then when
night came, and all wayfarers were safe indoors, stole to the shack,
and with only the red eye of the stove to light their conference,
exchanged the news with his confederate. Hunger had driven him back to
the settlements; four days before his last cartridge had been spent, and
he had lived since then on berries and roots. Old Man Haley, squatting
in the rocking-chair made from a barrel, whispered cheering
intelligence: they'd about given up the hunt, thought he had died in the
chaparral. Someone had seen birds circling round a spot off toward the
hills behind Angels.
The next day when Garland told his intention of moving on to San
Francisco, the old man was uneasy. He was the only associate of the
bandit who knew of the daughter there, and he urged patience and caution.
He was even averse to taking a letter to her when he went into Pine Flat
for supplies. The post office was the resort of loungers. If they saw Old
Man Haley coming in to mail a letter, they'd get curious; you couldn't
tell but what they might wrastle with him and grab the letter. In a day
or two maybe he could get into Mormons Landing, where he wasn't so well
known, and mail it there. To placate Garland he promised him a paper; the
man at the store would give him one.
When he came back in the rosy end of the evening he was exultant. A
woman, hearing him ask the storekeeper for a paper, had told him to stop
at her house and she would give him a roll of them. There they were, a
big bundle, and not local ones, but the _San Francisco Despatch _almost
to date. He left Garland in the woodshed, reading by the light that fell
in through the open door, and went to the shack to cook supper.
Presently a reek of blue smoke was issuing from the crook of pipe above
the roof, and wood was crackling in the stove. Old Man Haley, mindful of
his guest's dignities and claims upon himself, set about the
preparation of a goodly meal, part drawn from his own garden, part from
the packages he had carried back from Pine Flat. He was engrossed in it,
when, through the sizzling of frying grease, he heard the sound of
footsteps and the doorway was darkened by Garland's bulk. In his hand he
held a paper, and even the age-dimmed eyes of the old man could see the
pallid agitation of his face.
"My daughter!" he cried, shaking the paper at Haley. "She's sick in
Francisco--I seen it here! I got to go!"
There was no arguing with him, and Old Man Haley knew it. He helped to
the full extent of his capacity, set food before the man, and urged him
to eat, dissuaded him from a move till after nightfall, and provided him
with money taken from a hiding-place behind the stove.
Then together they worked out his route to the coast. The first stage
would be from there to the Dormer Ranch where he had friends. They'd
victual him and give him clothes, for even Garland, reckless with
anxiety, did not dare show himself in the open as he now was, a figure to
catch the attention of the most unsuspicious. He would have to keep to
the woods and the trails till he got to Dormer's, and it would be a long
hike--all that night and part of the next day. They would give him a
mount and he could strike across country and tap the railroad at some
point below Sacramento, making San Francisco that night.
The dark had settled, clearly deep, when he left. There were stars in the
sky, only a few, very large and far apart, and by their light he could
see the road between the black embankment of shrubs. It was extremely
still as he stole down from the shack, Old Man Haley watching from the
doorway. It continued very still as he struck into his stride, no sound
coming from the detailless darkness. Its quiet suggested that same tense
expectancy, that breathless waiting, he had noticed under the big trees.