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"What a striking appearance mine must be!" laughed Nora, restored to good-humor, for the time.
It has often seemed to me that all Spanish people, of whatever degree, throughout California, are either related or intimately acquainted with each other. Thus Nora heard from the Del Gadas occasionally; nay, even from the Rodriguez, away back in the Salinas Valley, did they hear news and greeting once. Narcissa del Gada was dying, the Don told her; and the twinge that had distorted his features when he first mentioned her name again passed over them.
But all the time of our friends was not given to pleasuring; many a long morning did Brother Ben and the Don pass together at the Court-House, the Hall of Records, and other places where titles are examined and the records kept. A ranch of twenty or thirty thousand acres is well worth securing, so that through no loophole can adverse claimant creep, or sharp-witted land-shark, with older title, spring on the unwary purchaser.
In the meantime spring was growing into summer; the sun began to burn more fierce, and Nora, always fond of out-doors, had made the remada her special camping-ground. She sat there one morning, after having declined to go on a shopping expedition with Sister Anna. It had seemed rather ungracious, too; but Brother Ben had come to the rescue, as usual, and had taken Nora's place. Now she sat here, pale and listless, her hands idly folded, her eyes wandering among the shadows of the orange grove.
There had been an arrival at the house, she thought, for she heard the tramp of a horse as it was led around to the stables; but she took no heed. After a while she heard the noise of one of the long windows opening, and soon she heard steps behind her. Then a low voice said "Leonora!" and Manuel, pale and haggard, stood before her.
All her listlessness vanished in an instant, and she would have flown into his arms, but for something that seemed to make him unapproachable.
"Narcissa is dead," he said, monotonously, "and since coming to town I have learned that I am a beggar; we are all homeless – outcasts."
"Oh, Manuel!" she cried, laying her hand on his arm, "my poor, poor boy. Come with me into the open air – this place chokes me. And now tell me about Narcissa." She drew him out into the sunshine, and back again to the fragrant shadows of the orange grove. She sought a rustic seat for them, but he threw himself on the sod beside it.
"Wrecked and lost and lonely," he groaned, "it is well that Narcissa is dead; and yet she was our only comfort."
"Poor Manuel!" she repeated, softly; "my poor boy." Her fingers were straying among the sunny waves of his hair, and he caught her hand suddenly, and covered it with a frenzy of kisses.
"Leonora!" he cried, all the reckless fire of his nation breaking into flames, "come with me, and we will be happy. You do not love your wealthy affianced, you love me. Be mine; I will work and toil for you, and you shall be my queen. Oh, Nora, I love you – I love you – I love you."
Poor Nora! why should stern reality be so bitter? "Foolish boy," she said, disengaging her hand, "you are mad. What if Don Pedro – "
"Ah, true; I had forgotten – you are an American. Go, then, be happy with your wealthy husband; Manuel will never cross your path again."
"Manuel!" she cried, and she stretched out her arms towards the spot where he had just stood, "come back, for I love you, and you alone." But a rustling in the willow-hedge only answered to her passionate cry, and she cowered on the garden-bench, sobbing and moaning out her helpless grief.
The rustling in the willow-hedge behind her grew louder, so that even she was startled by the noise.
"Ho, Nell!" The words fell on her ears like the crack of doom, her face grew white to the very lips, and a great horror crept into her eyes. She turned as if expecting to meet the engulfing jaws of some dread monster, and her eyes fell upon the form of a man, whose slovenly dress and bloated features spoke of a life of neglect and dissipation – perhaps worse.
"Why, Nell, old girl," he continued, familiarly, "this is a pretty reception to give your husband. I'm not a ghost; don't be afraid of me."
"Wretch!" she cried, trembling with fear and excitement. "How dare you come here? Go at once, or I shall call for help."
"No, you won't. I'm not afraid. Come, you can get rid of me in a minute. The truth is, I'm d – d hard up; got into two or three little unpleasantnesses, and got out only by a scratch. I want to get away from here – it's unhealthy here for me – but I've got no money. Saw you down town with that pompous Greaser the other day; know him well; he's got lots of money; and I thought that, for love and affection, as they say in the law, and in consideration of our former relations, you might help me to some of his spare coin."
"You miserable man," she cried, beside herself, "is it not enough that you blasted my life's happiness? Must I be dragged down to the very lowest degradation with you? Oh, Charlie," she added, in changed, softened tones, "what would your mother say to all this?"
"And my daddy the parson," he laughed, hoarsely. "Yes, we know all that. But here, Nell," he went on, while a last glimmer of shame or contrition passed over his once handsome face, "I don't want to hurt you, my girl; you've always been a trump, by G – ; I am willing you should become the respected wife of Don Pedro Lopez, but I must have money, or money's worth. That cluster-diamond on your finger; tell the Greaser you lost it. Or pull out your purse; I know it is full."
"Nothing," she said, slowly and determinedly, "nothing shall you have from me – a woman you have so wronged and deceived – "
"Stop, Nell; I haven't time to wait for a sermon. Give me what you've got – Oh, here's h – to pay and no pitch hot," he interrupted himself; "there's the Don, and he's heard it all."
He spoke true; Don Pedro stood beside them, frozen into a statue. At last he breathed.
"Yes, heard all. And I would have made you my wife – you a divorced woman. Oh, Santa Maria! She divorced of such a man – for I know you, Randal," he continued, lashing himself into a fury – "horse-thief, stage-robber, gambler. It was you who killed my friend Mariano Anzar after robbing him at cards – murderer! You shall not escape me as you escaped the officers of the law. Hombres! catch the murderer!" he shouted towards the house, as he made a dart at the man, who turned at bay, but halted when he saw that the Don was not armed.
"Stop your infernal shouting and don't touch me," he said, in a low, threatening voice. But the Don was brave, and his blood was up; he sprang upon the man, shouting again; they closed and struggled, and when the man heard footsteps swiftly approaching, he drew back with an effort, and hissing, "You would have it so, idiot," he raised his pistol and fired.
Before the smoke cleared away he had vanished, and the people who came found Don Pedro stretched on the ground. His life was almost spent, but his energy had not deserted him. He gave what information and directions were necessary for the prosecution of his murderer, and Manuel, who was among the excited throng, threw himself on his horse to head the fugitive off. The others lifted the wounded man tenderly from the ground, bore him gently into the house, and frowned with hostile eyes upon Nora; it had taken possession of their minds at once that, in some unexplained manner, the Gringa was the cause of all this woe.
Nora followed them like an automaton; she saw them carry him through the open door-window into the back parlor, and lay the helpless figure on a lounge. A messenger had already been despatched for priest and doctor, and the servants, who were not admitted into the room, lay on their knees outside.
Then the priest came, and Nora, in a strange, dazed way, could follow all his movements after he went into the room. The odor of burning incense crept faintly through the closed doors, and she wondered again – did the priest touch the white lips and say, "for they have uttered blasphemies." The fingers were stiffening, she thought; would the priest murmur now – "for with their hands do men steal;" the eyelids were fluttering over the glazed eyes; the cleansing oil was dropped upon them, for "they had looked upon unholy things."
She saw it all before her, and heard it, though her eyes were fast closed, and her ears were muffled, for she had fallen, face down, by one of the pillars supporting the remada, and the thick-growing tropical vine, with its bright, crimson flowers, had buried her head in its luxuriant foliage, and seemed raining drops of blood upon the wavy dark brown hair.
Thus Manuel found her when he returned from the pursuit of the fugitive. He raised her head, and looked into large, bewildered eyes. "What is it?" she asked; "have I been asleep? Oh, is he dead?"
"The wretched man I followed? Yes; but my hand did not lay him low. The sheriff and his men had been hunting him; he attempted to swim the river at the ford; the sheriff fired, and he went down into the flood."
Nora's eyes had closed again during the recital, and Manuel held a lifeless form in his arms, when Sister Anna and her husband came at last. They had heard of the shooting of Don Pedro in the city, and the carriage they came in bore Nora away to the hotel. Manuel did not relinquish his precious burden till he laid the drooping form gently on the bed at the hotel. Then the doctor came, and said brain-fever was imminent, and the room was darkened, and people went about on tip-toe. And when the news of the death of Don Pedro Lopez was brought down to the hotel, Nora was already raving in the wildest delirium of the fever.
Weeks have passed, and Nora has declared herself not only well, but able to return home. Manuel has been an invaluable friend to them all, during these weeks of trial, and Nora has learned to look for his coming as she looks for the day and the sunshine.
To him, too, was allotted the task to impart to Nora what it was thought necessary for her to know – the death of Don Pedro and the finding of the body of the other, caught against the stump of an old willow, where the water had washed it, covered with brush and floating débris. But he had glad news to impart, too; the report of an adverse decision from Washington on the Del Gada suit had been false, and circulated by the opposing party in order to secure better terms for withdrawal.
One morning Nora expressed her wish to leave Los Angeles, and Mr. Whitehead did not hesitate to gratify her wish. An easy conveyance was secured, the trunks sent by stage, and a quick journey anticipated. Manuel went with them only as far as San Buenaventura, he said, for it was on his way home. But when they got there, he said he must go to Santa Barbara, and no one objected. At Santa Barbara Nora held out her hand to him, with a saucy smile:
"This is the place at which you were to leave us; good-by."
"Can you tolerate me no longer, Nora?"
"You said at San Buenaventura you would try my patience only till here. How long do you want me to tolerate you, then?"
"As long as I live. Why should we ever part? Be my wife, Nora," and he drew her close to him, pressing his lips on hers; and she did not shrink away from him, but threw her arm around his neck, to bend his head down for another kiss.
"But you would never have married me – a poor man," he says, bantering.
"Nor would you have married me – a divorced woman," she returns, demurely.
JUANITA
"Every man in the settlement started out after him; but he got away, and was never heard of again."
I had listened quietly to the end, though my eyes had wandered impatiently from the face of the man to the region to which he pointed with his finger. There was nothing to be seen out there but the hot air vibrating over the torn, sandy plain, and the steep, ragged banks of the river, without any water in it – as is frequently the case at this season of the year. The man who had spoken – formerly a soldier, but, after his discharge from the army, station-keeper at this point – had become so thoroughly "Arizonified" that he thought he was well housed in this structure, where the mud-walls rose some six feet from the ground, and an old tent was hung over a few crooked manzanita branches for a roof. There was a wide aperture in the wall, answering the purpose of a door; and a few boards laid on trestles, and filled in with straw, which he called his bunk. He had raised it on these trestles, partly because the snakes couldn't creep into the straw so "handy," and partly because the coyotes, breaking down the barricade in the doorway one night, hunting for his chickens, had brought their noses into unpleasant proximity with his face while lying on the ground. He had confided these facts to me early in the morning, shortly after my arrival, continuing his discourse by a half-apology for his naked feet, to which he pointed with the ingenuous confession that "he'd run barefooted till his shoes wouldn't go on no more." He held them up for my inspection, to show that he had them – the shoes, I mean, not the feet – a pair of No. 14's, entirely new, army make.
We had arrived just before daybreak, my escort and I having made a "dry march" – which would have been too severe on Uncle Sam's mules in the scorching sun of a June day – during the night. The morning, flashing up in the East with all the glorious colors that give token of the coming, overpowering heat, brought with it also the faint, balmy breath of wind in which to bathe one's limbs before the sun burst forth in its burning majesty. Phil, the ambulance-driver, and my oracle, said I could wander off as far as I wanted without fear of Indians; so I had ascended the steep hill back of the station, and, spying what looked like a graveyard at the foot of it, on the other side, I had immediately clambered down in search of new discoveries. I knew that there had formerly been a military post here: it is just so far from the Mexican border that fugitives from the law of that country would instinctively fly this way for refuge; and just near enough the line where the "friendly Indian" ceases to be a pleasant delusion, to make the presence of a strong military force at all times necessary for the protection of white settlers. But there are none; and Uncle Sam, protecting his own property "on the march" through here as well as possible, allows the citizen and merchant to protect himself and his goods the best way he can. Why the camp had been removed, I cannot tell – neither, perhaps, could those who occupied it – but I am pretty sure they were all very willing to go. I've never seen the soldier yet that wasn't glad of a change of post and quarters.
There were quite a number of graves in this rude burying-ground (I don't like that name, on the whole; but it seemed just the proper thing to call this collection of graves), and among them were two that attracted my attention particularly. The one was a large, high grave, with rather a pretentious headstone, bearing the inscription:
"To the Memory of James Owens,
Who came to his death May 20, 186-."
The other seemed smaller, though it was difficult to determine the exact dimensions, on account of the rocks, bones, and dry brush piled on it. It is the custom of the Mexicans in passing by a grave to throw on it a stone, a clump of earth, or a piece of brush or bone, if they have nothing else, as a mark of respect: so I concluded at once that some one of that nationality lay buried here. One, too, who had some faithful friend; for there was a look about the grave that spoke of constant attention and frequent visits to it.
On my return, having done justice to the breakfast the station-keeper had prepared (and for which he had killed one of his chickens, in order to "entertain me in a lady-like manner," as he said to Phil), I questioned him about the American whose grave I had seen out there. Before he could answer, a shadow fell across the doorway, and I half rose from the ambulance-cushion I was occupying, when I saw an Indian, a young fellow of about twenty, stand still in front of it, half hiding the form of an aged crone, on whose back was fastened a small bundle of fire-wood, such as is laboriously gathered along the beds and banks of water-courses, in this almost treeless country. The Indian stooped to lift the load from the woman's back; and she turned to go, without even having lifted her eyes, either to the ambulance that stood near the doorway, the soldiers that lounged around it, or myself. The station-keeper seized an old tin-cup, filled it with coffee, piled the remains of the breakfast on a tin-plate, and disappeared in the doorway. Returning, he answered me, at last:
"The grave you saw was dug for a man that lived here while I was yet a soldier in the – Infantry at this camp. He had brought a Spanish woman with him, his wife, with whom he lived in one of those houses, right there, on the bank of the river. He had sold some horses to the Government, at Drum Barracks, and was sent out here with them; and seeing that it was quite a settlement, he thought he'd stay. She was a mighty fine-looking woman – a tall, stoutish figure, with as much pride as if she had been a duchess. Among the Mexicans in the settlement was a man who, they said, had been a brigand in Mexico, had broken jail, and come here, first to hide, and then to live. It warn't long till he began loafering about Owens' place; and one night, while Owens was standing in his door, smoking, there was a shot fired from the direction of the hill, behind this place, and Owens fell dead in his own doorway. There was no doubt in anybody's mind who the murderer was, for his cabin was empty, and he could be found nowhere about camp. The soldiers, as well as the other fellows, were determined to lynch him, and every man in the settlement started out after him; but he got away, and no one ever heard of him again."
"And the woman?" I asked.
"Oh, nobody could hurt her; and she raved and ranted dreadful for awhile. But she turned up absent one morning, about a week after we had put him under the ground, and her husband's watch and money had gone with her."
"But," said I, impatiently, "where is the settlement you speak of? I have not found a trace of it yet."
"Well, you see, they were adobe-houses that they built, and the rains were very heavy last year, and the Gila commenced washing out this way; the banks caved in and carried the rubbish away. They hadn't been occupied for some time; but the house where Owens lived is just right across there – if you go near the bank you can see where he built a good, solid chimbley, like they've got at home. The camp used to be down the flat apiece. I had my house there last year; but it washed away with the rain: so I built up here, where there's better shelter for my chickens. They're my only friends, besides Bose, and I've got to be choice of 'em. I don't see a white face for months, sometimes, since the war is over, and it keeps me company kinder, to see the places where the houses used to be."
"And the other grave – that with the bones and rocks piled on it?"
The man threw a look toward the doorway, and put his hands in his pockets.
"That's Juanita's grave. She was an Indian girl."
He walked out of the door; and, as I had nothing better to do, I too stepped out, thinking to go as far to look for the ruins of that "chimbley" as the blazing sun would permit. The first I saw when I came out of the doorway was the old Indian woman, sitting on the ground in the shade of the house, her back against the wall, her knees drawn up, her elbow resting on them, the doubled fist supporting the face, while the other hand hung listlessly across them. The face was aged and wrinkled, the hair a dirty gray, and the eyes seemed set – petrified, I had almost said – with some great, deep sorrow. Beside her stood the tin-cup, untouched and unnoticed; the tin-plate had been almost emptied of its contents; but a drumstick in the hands of the young Indian, and a suspicious glossiness about his mouth and chin, seemed to mark the road the chicken had taken. The station-keeper stood by the woman, and said something to her in a jargon I could not understand; but she took no more notice of him or what he said than if it were a fly that had buzzed up to her. She moved neither her eyes nor her head, looking out straight before her. I walked as far as the banks of the river, failed to discover the remains of the "chimbley," and turned back to the house. The station-keeper was not to be seen; the Indian boy paused from his labors to take a look at me; but the woman seemed to be a thousand miles away, so little did she take heed of my presence.
It was nearly noon, and I concluded to pass the rest of the day in sleep, as we were to leave the station at about ten in the night, when the moon should be up. The "whole house" had been given up to me, and a comfortable bed arranged out of mattress and wagon-seats, so that I felt comparatively safe from prowling vermin, and soon went to sleep. I awoke only once, late in the afternoon; the station-keeper was saying something in a loud voice that I could not understand, and, directly, I saw two pair of dusky feet passing by the space that the blanket, hung up in the doorway, left near the ground. After awhile I raised the blanket, and saw the Indians trudging along through the sandy plain, the woman following the tall, athletic form of the man, the yellow sun burning fiercely down on their bare heads, scorching the broad, prickly leaves of the cactus, and withering its delicate, straw-colored, and deep-crimson flowers. I dropped the curtain, panting for breath: it was too hot to live while looking out into that glaring sunshine.
Later, when I could sleep no more, and had made my desert toilet, I stood in the doorway, and saw the two Indians coming back as in the morning: the woman with a bundle of fire-wood on her shoulders, the man walking empty-handed and burdenless before her. I turned to the station-keeper, and pointing to the bundle she had brought in the morning, and which lay untouched by the wall, I said, indignantly:
"It seems to me you need not have sent the poor woman out in the blazing sun to gather fire-wood, when you had not even used this. You might have waited till now."
"She – she would have been somewhere else in the blazing sun; she was just going – " And he stopped – as he had spoken – in haste, yet with some confusion.
I cast a pitying look on the woman, which, however, she heeded no more than the rose-pink and pale-gold sunset-clouds floating above her, and then wandered slowly forth toward the hill, which I meant to climb while the day was going down.
When I reached the top, the light, flying clouds had grown heavy and sad, and their rose hue had turned into a dark, sullen red, with tongues of burning gold shooting through it – the history of Arizona, pictured fittingly in pools of blood and garbs of fire. But the fire died out, and a dim gray crept over the angry clouds; and then, slowly, slowly, the clouds weaved and worked together till they formed a single heavy bank – black, dark, and impenetrable.
Just as I turned to retrace my steps, my eyes fell on a group of low bushes, which would have taken the palm in any collection of those horribly dead-looking things that ladies call phantom-flowers. So pitilessly had the sun bleached and whitened the tiny branches, that not a drop of life or substance seemed left; yet they were perfect, and phantom-bushes, if ever I saw any. How well they would look on those graves below, I thought, as I approached to break a twig in remembrance of the strange sight. But how came the red berries on this one? I stooped, and picked up – a rosary; the beads of red-stained wood, the links and crucifix of some white metal, and inscribed on the cross the words, "Souvenir de la Mission." How had it come there? Had ever the foot of devout Catholic pressed this rocky, thorny ground? Of what mission was it a gift of love and remembrance? Surely it had not lain here a hundred years – the gift of love from one of the Spanish padres of the Arizona Missions to an Indian child of the church! Or had it come from one of those California Missions, where the priests to this day read masses to the descendants of the Mission Indians? Yonder, in the west, with the purplish mists deepening into darkness in its cleft sides, was the mountain which to-morrow would show us "Montezuma's face," and here lay the emblem of peace, of devotion to the one living God. Perhaps the station-keeper could solve the mystery; so I hastened back through the gloom that was settling on the earth, unbroken by any sound save the distant yelping of a coyote, who had spied me out, and followed me, as though to see if I were the only one of my kind who had come to invade his dominion.
"See what I have found!" I cried exultingly, when barely within speaking distance of the station-keeper, who stood within the doorway.
In a moment he was beside me, calling out something in his Indian-Spanish, which seemed to electrify the woman, who still sat by the adobe wall. Springing up with the agility of a panther, she was by my side, pointing eagerly to my hand holding the rosary.
"What does she want?" I asked, in utter consternation.
"The rosary; give her the rosary" – the barefooted man was speaking almost imperiously – "it's hers; she has the best right to it."
"Gladly," I said; but she had already clutched it, and turned tottering back to the mud-wall, against which she crouched, as though afraid of being robbed of her new-found treasure.
The man turned to me in evident excitement: "And you found it! Where? She has been hunting for it these years – day after day – in the blazing sun and streaming rain; and you found it. Well, old Screetah's eyes are getting blind – she's old – old."
"But her son might have found it, if he had looked; for I found it just up on the hill there," I suggested.
"He's not her son; only an Indian I kept to look after her, kinder; for she's been brooding and moping till she don't seem to notice nothing no more. But now she's found it, maybe she'll come round again, or go on to Sonora, where, she says, her people are."
"How came she to lose it, then, if it was so precious?"
"She didn't lose it – but, I forget everything; supper's been waiting on; if you'll eat hearty, I'll tell you about those beads after a while. The moon won't rise till after ten, and you've good three hours yet."
I was so anxious to hear about the beads, that I would not give the man time to wash dishes; though he insisted on putting away the china cup and plate, which he kept for State occasions, when he saw my disposition to let Bose make free with what was on the table – table being a complimentary term for one of the ambulance-seats.
In the days when this had been a military post, garrisoned by but one company of the – Infantry, the station-keeper had been an enlisted man, and the servant of Captain Castleton, commanding the camp and company. Young, handsome, and generous, the men were devoted to their captain, though as strict a disciplinarian as ever left the military school. The little settlement springing up around the camp was chiefly peopled by Indians and Mexicans, and only two or three Americans. When Captain Castleton had been here just long enough to get desperately tired of the wearisome solitude and monotony of camp, and had put in motion whatever influence his friends had with the authorities at head-quarters to relieve him of the command of the post and the inactive life he was leading, an Indian woman and her daughter came into the settlement one evening, and found ready shelter with the hospitable Mexicans. That she was an Indian was readily believed; but that the girl with her belonged to the same people, was not received with any degree of faith by those who saw her. She was on her way back to Sonora, she said, to her own people, from whence she had come with her husband, years ago, along with a pack-train of merchandise, for some point in Lower California. From there she had gradually drifted, by way of San Diego, into California, up to Los Angeles, and on to some Mission near there, where she had lived among the Mission Indians, after her husband's death, and where Juanita had been taught to read, write, and sing by the Mission priests.
At last Screetah had concluded to go back to Sonora, and had drifted downward again from Los Angeles, to Temescal, to Temacula, to Fort Yuma, and through the desert, till, finally, some compassionate Mexicans had carried her and the girl with them through the last waterless stretch to this place. The girl, with her velvety eyes and delicately turned limbs, soon became the favorite and the adored of every one in camp and settlement; and, though that branch of her education to which her mother pointed with the greatest pride – reading and writing – had never taken very deep root in the girl's mind, she sang like an angel, and looked "like one of them pictures where a woman's kneeling down, with a crown around her head," while she was singing. Indeed, the religious teachings of the good priests seemed to have sunk deeply into the gentle heart of Juanita, and her greatest treasure – an object itself almost of devotion – was a rosary the priest had given her on leaving the Mission. It had been impressed on her, that "so long as these beads glided through her fingers, while her lips murmured Aves and Pater-nosters, night and morning, so long were the angels with her. Did the angels take the rosary from her – which would happen if Juanita forgot the teachings of the priests, and no longer laid her heart's inmost thoughts before the Blessed Mother – then would she lose her soul's peace and her hopes of heaven; and she must guard the sacred beads as she would her own life."
There was no point of resemblance between Juanita and the old Indian woman; and the girl, though warmly attached to her, declared that she was not her mother, only her nurse or servant. Her mother, she said, had been a Spanish Doña, and her father a mighty chief of his tribe, whose head had been displayed on the gate of some Mexican fortress for weeks after it had been delivered to the Government by some treacherous Indian of his band. Juanita's personal appearance, the fluency with which she spoke Spanish, her very name even, seemed to confirm her accounts, dim and confused as the recollections of her earliest childhood were; nevertheless, she had "Indian in her," as the man said, for she proved it before she died.