75 лучших рассказов / 75 Best Short Stories

They slept all that day and the next, nor did they waken when voices and footsteps broke the silence of the camp. And when pitying fingers brushed the snow from their wan faces, you could scarcely have told from the equal peace that dwelt upon them which was she that had sinned. Even the law of Poker Flat recognized this, and turned away, leaving them still locked in each other’s arms.

But at the head of the gulch, on one of the largest pine trees, they found the deuce of clubs pinned to the bark with a bowie knife. It bore the following, written in pencil, in a firm hand:

BENEATH THIS TREE

LIES THE BODY

OF

JOHN OAKHURST,

WHO STRUCK A STREAK OF BAD LUCK

ON THE 23D OF NOVEMBER, 1850,

AND

HANDED IN HIS CHECKS

ON THE 7TH DECEMBER, 1850.

And pulseless and cold, with a Derringer by his side and a bullet in his heart, though still calm as in life, beneath the snow lay he who was at once the strongest and yet the weakest of the outcasts of Poker Flat.

The Convalescence of Jack Hamlin (Bret Harte)

The habitually quiet, ascetic face of Seth Rivers was somewhat disturbed and his brows were knitted as he climbed the long ascent of Windy Hill to its summit and his own rancho. Perhaps it was the effect of the characteristic wind, which that afternoon seemed to assault him from all points at once and did not cease its battery even at his front door, but hustled him into the passage, blew him into the sitting room, and then celebrated its own exit from the long, rambling house by the banging of doors throughout the halls and the slamming of windows in the remote distance.

Mrs. Rivers looked up from her work at this abrupt onset of her husband, but without changing her own expression of slightly fatigued self-righteousness. Accustomed to these elemental eruptions, she laid her hands from force of habit upon the lifting tablecloth, and then rose submissively to brush together the scattered embers and ashes from the large hearthstone, as she had often done before.

‘You’re in early, Seth,’ she said.

‘Yes. I stopped at the Cross Roads Post Office. Lucky I did, or you’d hev had kempany on your hands afore you knowed it – this very night! I found this letter from Dr. Duchesne,’ and he produced a letter from his pocket.

Mrs. Rivers looked up with an expression of worldly interest. Dr. Duchesne had brought her two children into the world with some difficulty, and had skillfully attended her through a long illness consequent upon the inefficient maternity of soulful but fragile American women of her type. The doctor had more than a mere local reputation as a surgeon, and Mrs. Rivers looked up to him as her sole connecting link with a world of thought beyond Windy Hill.

‘He’s comin’ up yer to-night, bringin’ a friend of his – a patient that he wants us to board and keep for three weeks until he’s well agin,’ continued Mr. Rivers. ‘Ye know how the doctor used to rave about the pure air on our hill.’

Mrs. Rivers shivered slightly, and drew her shawl over her shoulders, but nodded a patient assent.

‘Well, he says it’s just what that patient oughter have to cure him. He’s had lung fever and other things, and this yer air and gin’ral quiet is bound to set him up. We’re to board and keep him without any fuss or feathers, and the doctor sez he’ll pay liberal for it. This yer’s what he sez,’ concluded Mr. Rivers, reading from the letter: ‘“He is now fully convalescent, though weak, and really requires no other medicine than the – ozone” – yes, that’s what the doctor calls it – “of Windy Hill, and in fact as little attendance as possible. I will not let him keep even his negro servant with him. He’ll give you no trouble, if he can be prevailed upon to stay the whole time of his cure.”’

‘There’s our spare room – it hasn’t been used since Parson Greenwood was here,’ said Mrs. Rivers reflectively. ‘Melinda could put it to rights in an hour. At what time will he come?’

‘He’d come about nine. They drive over from Hightown depot. But,’ he added grimly, ‘here ye are orderin’ rooms to be done up and ye don’t know who for.’

‘You said a friend of Dr. Duchesne,’ returned Mrs. Rivers simply.

‘Dr. Duchesne has many friends that you and me mightn’t cotton to,’ said her husband. ‘This man is Jack Hamlin.’ As his wife’s remote and introspective black eyes returned only vacancy, he added quickly. ‘The noted gambler!’

‘Gambler?’ echoed his wife, still vaguely.

‘Yes – reg’lar; it’s his business.’

‘Goodness, Seth! He can’t expect to do it here.’

‘No,’ said Seth quickly, with that sense of fairness to his fellow man which most women find it so difficult to understand. ‘No – and he probably won’t mention the word “card” while he’s here.’

‘Well?’ said Mrs. Rivers interrogatively.