Salomy Jane's Kiss Page #6

"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

								


Madison Clay had stared amazed and bewildered--horror-stricken.
The incidents of the past night for the first time flashed upon him
clearly--hopelessly! The shot; his finding Salomy Jane alone in
the woods; her confusion and anxiety to rid herself of him; the
disappearance of the shotgun; and now this new discovery of the taking
of his hat and coat for a disguise! SHE had killed Phil Larrabee in that
disguise, after provoking his first harmless shot! She, his own child,
Salomy Jane, had disgraced herself by a man's crime; had disgraced him
by usurping his right, and taking a mean advantage, by deceit, of a foe!

"Gimme that gun," he said hoarsely.

Breckenridge handed him the gun in wonder and slowly gathering
suspicion. Madison examined nipple and muzzle; one barrel had been
discharged. It was true! The gun dropped from his hand.

"Look here, old man," said Breckenridge, with a darkening face, "there's
bin no foul play here. Thar's bin no hiring of men, no deputy to do this
job. YOU did it fair and square--yourself?"

"Yes, by God!" burst out Madison Clay in a hoarse voice. "Who says I
didn't?"

Reassured, yet believing that Madison Clay had nerved himself for
the act by an over-draught of whiskey, which had affected his memory,
Breckenridge said curtly, "Then wake up and 'lite' out, ef ye want me to
stand by you."

"Go to the corral and pick me out a hoss," said Madison slowly, yet not
without a certain dignity of manner. "I've suthin' to say to Salomy
Jane afore I go." He was holding her scribbled note, which he had just
discovered, in his shaking hand.

Struck by his kinsman's manner, and knowing the dependent relations
of father and daughter, Breckenridge nodded and hurried away. Left to
himself, Madison Clay ran his fingers through his hair, and straightened
out the paper on which Salomy Jane had scrawled her note, turned it
over, and wrote on the back:--

You might have told me you did it, and not leave your ole father to
find it out how you disgraced yourself and him, too, by a low-down,
underhanded, woman's trick! I've said I done it, and took the blame
myself, and all the sneakiness of it that folks suspect. If I get away
alive--and I don't care much which--you needn't foller. The house and
stock are yours; but you ain't any longer the daughter of your disgraced
father,

MADISON CLAY.

He had scarcely finished the note when, with a clatter of hoofs and a
led horse, Breckenridge reappeared at the door elate and triumphant.
"You're in n*gger luck, Mad! I found that stole hoss of Judge
Boompointer's had got away and strayed among your stock in the corral.
Take him and you're safe; he can't be outrun this side of the state
line."

"I ain't no hoss-thief," said Madison grimly.

"Nobody sez ye are, but you'd be wuss--a fool--ef you didn't take him.
I'm testimony that you found him among your hosses; I'll tell Judge
Boompointer you've got him, and ye kin send him back when you're safe.
The judge will be mighty glad to get him back, and call it quits. So ef
you've writ to Salomy Jane, come."

Madison Clay no longer hesitated. Salomy Jane might return at any
moment,--it would be part of her "fool womanishness,"--and he was in
no mood to see her before a third party. He laid the note on the table,
gave a hurried glance around the house, which he grimly believed he was
leaving forever, and, striding to the door, leaped on the stolen horse,
and swept away with his kinsman.

But that note lay for a week undisturbed on the table in full view of
the open door. The house was invaded by leaves, pine cones, birds,
and squirrels during the hot, silent, empty days, and at night by shy,
stealthy creatures, but never again, day or night, by any of the Clay
family. It was known in the district that Clay had flown across the
state line, his daughter was believed to have joined him the next day,
and the house was supposed to be locked up. It lay off the main road,
and few passed that way. The starving cattle in the corral at last broke
bounds and spread over the woods. And one night a stronger blast than
usual swept through the house, carried the note from the table to the
floor, where, whirled into a crack in the flooring, it slowly rotted.

But though the sting of her father's reproach was spared her, Salomy
Jane had no need of the letter to know what had happened. For as she
entered the woods in the dim light of that morning she saw the figure of
Dart gliding from the shadow of a pine towards her. The unaffected cry
of joy that rose from her lips died there as she caught sight of his
face in the open light.

"You are hurt," she said, clutching his arm passionately.

"No," he said. "But I wouldn't mind that if"--

"You're thinkin' I was afeard to come back last night when I heard the
shootin', but I DID come," she went on feverishly. "I ran back here when
I heard the two shots, but you were gone. I went to the corral, but your
hoss wasn't there, and I thought you'd got away."

"I DID get away," said Dart gloomily. "I killed the man, thinkin' he
was huntin' ME, and forgettin' I was disguised. He thought I was your
father."

"Yes," said the girl joyfully, "he was after dad, and YOU--you killed
him." She again caught his hand admiringly.

But he did not respond. Possibly there were points of honor which this
horse-thief felt vaguely with her father. "Listen," he said grimly.
"Others think it was your father killed him. When I did it--for he fired
at me first--I ran to the corral again and took my hoss, thinkin' I
might be follered. I made a clear circuit of the house, and when I found
he was the only one, and no one was follerin', I come back here and took
off my disguise. Then I heard his friends find him in the wood, and I
know they suspected your father. And then another man come through the
woods while I was hidin' and found the clothes and took them away." He
stopped and stared at her gloomily.

But all this was unintelligible to the girl. "Dad would have got
the better of him ef you hadn't," she said eagerly, "so what's the
difference?"

"All the same," he said gloomily, "I must take his place."

She did not understand, but turned her head to her master. "Then you'll
go back with me and tell him ALL?" she said obediently.

"Yes," he said.

She put her hand in his, and they crept out of the wood together. She
foresaw a thousand difficulties, but, chiefest of all, that he did not
love as she did. SHE would not have taken these risks against their
happiness.

But alas for ethics and heroism. As they were issuing from the wood
they heard the sound of galloping hoofs, and had barely time to
hide themselves before Madison Clay, on the stolen horse of Judge
Boompointer, swept past them with his kinsman.

Salomy Jane turned to her lover.

*****

And here I might, as a moral romancer, pause, leaving the guilty,
passionate girl eloped with her disreputable lover, destined to lifelong

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