Salomy Jane's Kiss Page #4

"Salomy Jane's Kiss" is a short story by Bret Harte that explores themes of love, identity, and social dynamics in the American West during the Gold Rush era. The narrative centers on Salomy Jane, a strong-willed and independent woman, and her romantic encounter with a charming stranger. Through rich descriptions and vivid characterizations, Harte captures the tension between societal expectations and personal desires, ultimately leading to a poignant and memorable conclusion that highlights the complexities of human emotions amidst the rugged backdrop of frontier life.

• Short story

								

he's hiding."

"You'll just stay where ye are, Salomy," said her father decisively.
"This ain't no woman's work--though I ain't sayin' you haven't got more
head for it than some men I know."

Nevertheless, that night, after her father had gone to bed, Salomy Jane
sat by the open window of the sitting-room in an apparent attitude of
languid contemplation, but alert and intent of eye and ear. It was a
fine moonlit night. Two pines near the door, solitary pickets of the
serried ranks of distant forest, cast long shadows like paths to the
cottage, and sighed their spiced breath in the windows. For there was no
frivolity of vine or flower round Salomy Jane's bower. The clearing was
too recent, the life too practical for vanities like these. But the moon
added a vague elusiveness to everything, softened the rigid outlines
of the sheds, gave shadows to the lidless windows, and touched with
merciful indirectness the hideous debris of refuse gravel and the gaunt
scars of burnt vegetation before the door. Even Salomy Jane was affected
by it, and exhaled something between a sigh and a yawn with the breath
of the pines. Then she suddenly sat upright.

Her quick ear had caught a faint "click, click," in the direction of the
wood; her quicker instinct and rustic training enabled her to determine
that it was the ring of a horse's shoe on flinty ground; her knowledge
of the locality told her it came from the spot where the trail passed
over an outcrop of flint scarcely a quarter of a mile from where she
sat, and within the clearing. It was no errant "stock," for the foot was
shod with iron; it was a mounted trespasser by night, and boded no good
to a man like Clay.

She rose, threw her shawl over her head, more for disguise than shelter,
and passed out of the door. A sudden impulse made her seize her father's
shotgun from the corner where it stood,--not that she feared any danger
to herself, but that it was an excuse. She made directly for the wood,
keeping in the shadow of the pines as long as she could. At the fringe
she halted; whoever was there must pass her before reaching the house.

Then there seemed to be a suspense of all nature. Everything was deadly
still--even the moonbeams appeared no longer tremulous; soon there was a
rustle as of some stealthy animal among the ferns, and then a dismounted
man stepped into the moonlight. It was the horse-thief--the man she had
kissed!

For a wild moment a strange fancy seized her usually sane intellect and
stirred her temperate blood. The news they had told her was NOT true;
he had been hung, and this was his ghost! He looked as white and
spirit-like in the moonlight, dressed in the same clothes, as when she
saw him last. He had evidently seen her approaching, and moved quickly
to meet her. But in his haste he stumbled slightly; she reflected
suddenly that ghosts did not stumble, and a feeling of relief came
over her. And it was no assassin of her father that had been prowling
around--only this unhappy fugitive. A momentary color came into her
cheek; her coolness and hardihood returned; it was with a tinge of
sauciness in her voice that she said:--

"I reckoned you were a ghost."

"I mout have been," he said, looking at her fixedly; "but I reckon I'd
have come back here all the same."

"It's a little riskier comin' back alive," she said, with a levity
that died on her lips, for a singular nervousness, half fear and half
expectation, was beginning to take the place of her relief of a moment
ago. "Then it was YOU who was prowlin' round and makin' tracks in the
far pasture?"

"Yes; I came straight here when I got away."

She felt his eyes were burning her, but did not dare to raise her own.
"Why," she began, hesitated, and ended vaguely. "HOW did you get here?"

"You helped me!"

"I?"

"Yes. That kiss you gave me put life into me--gave me strength to get
away. I swore to myself I'd come back and thank you, alive or dead."

Every word he said she could have anticipated, so plain the situation
seemed to her now. And every word he said she knew was the truth. Yet
her cool common sense struggled against it.

"What's the use of your escaping, ef you're comin' back here to be
ketched again?" she said pertly.

He drew a little nearer to her, but seemed to her the more awkward as
she resumed her self-possession. His voice, too, was broken, as if by
exhaustion, as he said, catching his breath at intervals:--

"I'll tell you. You did more for me than you think. You made another man
o' me. I never had a man, woman, or child do to me what you did. I never
had a friend--only a pal like Red Pete, who picked me up 'on shares.'
I want to quit this yer--what I'm doin'. I want to begin by doin' the
square thing to you"--He stopped, breathed hard, and then said brokenly,
"My hoss is over thar, staked out. I want to give him to you. Judge
Boompointer will give you a thousand dollars for him. I ain't lyin';
it's God's truth! I saw it on the handbill agin a tree. Take him, and
I'll get away afoot. Take him. It's the only thing I can do for you, and
I know it don't half pay for what you did. Take it; your father can get
a reward for you, if you can't."

Such were the ethics of this strange locality that neither the man who
made the offer nor the girl to whom it was made was struck by anything
that seemed illogical or indelicate, or at all inconsistent with
justice or the horse-thief's real conversion. Salomy Jane nevertheless
dissented, from another and weaker reason.

"I don't want your hoss, though I reckon dad might; but you're just
starvin'. I'll get suthin'." She turned towards the house.

"Say you'll take the hoss first," he said, grasping her hand. At the
touch she felt herself coloring and struggled, expecting perhaps another
kiss. But he dropped her hand. She turned again with a saucy gesture,
said, "Hol' on; I'll come right back," and slipped away, the mere shadow
of a coy and flying nymph in the moonlight, until she reached the house.

Here she not only procured food and whiskey, but added a long dust-coat
and hat of her father's to her burden. They would serve as a disguise
for him and hide that heroic figure, which she thought everybody must
now know as she did. Then she rejoined him breathlessly. But he put the
food and whiskey aside.

"Listen," he said; "I've turned the hoss into your corral. You'll find
him there in the morning, and no one will know but that he got lost and
joined the other hosses."

Then she burst out. "But you--YOU--what will become of you? You'll be
ketched!"

"I'll manage to get away," he said in a low voice, "ef--ef"--

"Ef what?" she said tremblingly. "Ef you'll put the heart in me
again,--as you did!" he gasped.

She tried to laugh--to move away. She could do neither. Suddenly he
caught her in his arms, with a long kiss, which she returned again and

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