When Bryton left the corrals, the evening had come; the afterglow was flooding the hills with pale rose, and Indian boys were driving home cows through the village street. The more time he had to consider the matter, the more impatient he grew at the reckless disregard of his new sister-in-law for the conventionalities.
Since she had married Teddy, she might at least have remained decently and quietly where he had left her. Or she might have continued her journey and joined her cousin at San Diego; but to do so mad a thing as to stop off here—he determined she should go either north or south to-morrow, if he had to carry her to the stage. He would tell her so at once.
He had arrived at that determination as he crossed the plaza and heard her laugh through the door of Alvara's house. The door was open; she was trying to teach Alvara English, at which his daughters laughed very much. It was the sharp eyes of Teresa that caught sight of Bryton first, as he involuntarily halted in the road.
"Yes, Señor Bryton, it is all true; we have robbed the Señor Mac's hotel of your sister!" she called to him with a new air of elation,—of victory.
Alvara appeared and invited him to supper, which he declined for a previous engagement with Don Antonio. His sister-in-law came out and listened to his excuses, and smiled quietly at him with the baby-blue eyes, in which he read a certain defiance.
"I would have smothered in that awful cell you took me to!" she pouted. "These people are charming to me; they are friends of Cousin Edward's. It was Don Rafael took them to me. He looks like a hero in a picture-book! How does it come I never met him before?"
"Perhaps because during your last visit down here he was in Mexico, making love to the girl he is to marry very soon."
"Oh! isthatwhy you are guarding him so carefully?" she said, laughingly. "Well, since I am married, I am willing to stay and dance at his wedding; but, Keith, if I had seen him first—"
She broke off, laughing at the quick anger in his eyes.
And Teresa, listening, understood the game of Rafael and the mocking laughter, and the anger of Bryton, and was as happy as she was likely to be, with Miguel under the ground.
Music: Danza Mexicana.CHAPTER III
Music: Danza Mexicana.
M
Many things had happened, and it had been a bad day. "A day cursed of God!" said Pedro Gallardo, the driver; and against such ill fortune the carriage of Señora Luisa Arteaga made such progress as might be, from San Luis Rey to San Juan.
Clouds had drifted along the mountains each night for a week, and never the ranges a bit the better for it, until the cavalcade of Doña Luisa had started north from San Diego; and then—well, it was not what you would call a rain, it was a torrent came down. The skies had opened, and a deluge followed.
Then, after leaving San Luis Rey, a carriage-pole must break in an attempt at a runaway, and two horses were lost over that, to say nothing of the off leader, whose "sire had been the devil, and whose dam had been a witch thrice accursed in the foaling!"Their joint offspring had demonstrated his infernal lineage by breaking his own leg as well as the carriage-pole, and another untamed beast had to be roped on the range—hog-tied, and blindfolded to get the harness on him; and because of him Pedro's throat was fairly blistered with curses.
As the wheels sank into the sands or plunged from one ravine into another, Doña Luisa prayed and trusted to the saints that she might see her own valley again, and her companion, Doña Jacoba, protested, and forgetting to pray, waxed argumentative.
"Raquel was right, Luisa," she repeated for the twentieth time between her groans; "we had been wise to wait at San Diego for Rafael. She has an old head on her shoulders—you will have a wise daughter when the day comes."
"Wise! Yes—yes!" moaned Doña Luisa, shaking her head. "I thank the Virgin for that, every day, for Rafael is young, Jacoba; a baby of a wife would be his ruin. Yet—a baby might love him!"
"Our boys get love enough!" grunted Jacoba, thinking of her own sons, and her own troubles. "They need wives with sense; and our girls all go wild these days about the Americanos, so—"
Raquel EstevanRaquel Estevan
Raquel Estevan
"The girls, too!" and Doña Luisa's tones were strident with censure. "It is bad enough when menmust buy and sell with the Americanos in the markets; but the girls,—the women of California,—it is in their hands to shut the door when the Americano knocks—is it not so?"
"Oh, yes, of course—yes—it is as you say," agreed Jacoba, weakly, as she thought of the many girls of their relationship, who had opened doors very wide indeed for the Americanos, and of not a few who were to open also the door of the Church. But who could tell Doña Luisa that?
"Rafael is all I have left, now that Miguel is killed," continued the mother. "My only grandchildren are half-breeds, and only Rafael is left. Ai! it is hard to grow old,—to let go all lines. But you know what makes me happy, Jacoba? No? It is this one big thing. Raquel will be what I was. She may suffer, but she will stand square on her feet; and she will fight as her father fought—and it will be for California."
"You think so?" asked Jacoba, doubtfully. "It may be so, but—do you expect strong fights from a girl who was half a nun? I say she knows too little of the world to fight it."
"You take from me my one hope when you say that!" and the older woman put out her hand appealingly. "Our men are wild—always! It is the women's work to save them. The death of Miguelis making me think much and quick. Rafael must be marry. There must be no more Indio women and children."
Jacoba glanced doubtfully at her friend. These five years, while Rafael had been learning California ranch life, Jacoba had lived near enough to hear much that she never could repeat to the old mother, whose life was so nearly spent, whose weakness and prejudices could never cope with the new life in the changed land—and of what use to torture her with the truth? She wished with all her heart the exile had elected to stop over at San Diego or San Luis Rey, until some little glimmer of present conditions should enlighten her.
"It is well thedonascame by water," she remarked, eager to find some straw of comfort in the situation. "Even extra baggage would be a care, with these roads and troubles, to say nothing of the temptation to El Capitan! Thanks to God, he never yet has had record of troubling women on the road."
"He was a fine boy," said Doña Luisa, musingly. "It is not his fault that he is an outlaw to these States. It means only that he is patriot to California. He was a fine boy."
"Ask thy son how fine he thinks El Capitan!" remarked Jacoba. "Rafael has paid him a heavy taxin his best stock. They have long ago forgotten they are cousins."
"Raquel will make him remember," said the older woman, with certainty. "Did he not fight as he was able beside her father? Ai! he fought for California when only a boy. Do Californians forget?"
"He does not let them do so," remarked Jacoba dryly. "Much has changed, Luisa."
"I see no change, only the Indios more poor. The hills are green, as always after the rains. All these ranges are the same like we rode over them forty years ago. The hills and the sea never change, only the people. It is good to hear there is one of the young left who thinks in the old way."
"But—holy Maria!—we were never robbers, Luisa!"
"Well, we did not need to be," returned her friend. "But I tell you truly, Jacoba, I could find it in my heart to forgive a son who fought the Americanos as he does, even if they made him outlaw. He could not be outlaw to the Church, nor to me."
Jacoba said no more. Of what use was it to tell her that a few such women would be firebrands in the land if they had youth, and that the American soldiers, instead of coming peacefully to buy stock and pay good prices, would come from Los Angelesshooting,—would come with torches to burn each town where rebels hid. It was no longer little internal wars, such as they used to have in the days they both remembered, when the men who smoked or played together one month would fight under different leaders the next.
There were no faction fights now. It was one great ugly pale nation to the east, trailing slowly over the ranges and planting itself like the live-oak in the cañons. The Mexicans might hate, might curse; but the curses made no difference against the heretics. They had no churches, and they laughed at the beautiful wooden saints in the old chapel. Had not some of them snuffed out candles on the graves with their accursed rifles, last All Souls' Day? Yet the sky had not fallen, and no earthquake had come! What would even prayers or holy Church do against a people so ignored by God?
But Jacoba knew there was no use to fight. She remembered what that meant in the other days. In an old adobe of San Juan's one street she had helped as a girl to nurse the wounded of San Pascual. It was years ago, but she had not forgotten the cruel wounds, or the young Americano who died in her arms there. She had never mentioned to any the reason of her hatred for war; for even with revenge in reach, on whom would she seek it?—onher brother who had killed a stranger forcing their gates?
"You do not forget how the blessed Junípero Serra himself spoke from the altar of San Juan in the old days, Luisa; our grandfather telling us that many times,—how, when the Spanish guard was hard with the Indios, he stood on the altar and say that a new people will come and put the foot on the neck of the Mexican like the Mexican tramp on the Indios. He say it, and cry—cry for the reason that the good God no can make their hearts more soft to the Indios. I think of that when I see the Americanos come. They not put the foot on the neck—but they are here!"
"Father Junípero was old then—very old—like a child, and would make of the Indios babies to be petted," returned Doña Luisa, leniently. "He was a saint—not a man; only the saints could have the patience with those Indios—I remember! One of the old scares of the padre's was that the water would fail us; yet San Juan still has its river!"
Jacoba nodded. They were likely to find the river a difficulty after the rainfall. The ford was not a good one in high water; but the thought of getting across the ford was a trifle compared to the difficulty of impressing Doña Luisa with any idea of the change she would find in the land she had known.
In sheer despair she returned once more to a safer subject, Raquel Estevan,—Raquel the wise, who was to marry with Rafael and forever build a wall about him from American influence; Raquel, who might not love, because of that dark shadow of the cloister, but who would be all the more wise for that! Still, who could tell?
"When one is young like that, one never can be sure until the right man comes," said Jacoba; "and she is handsome, your Raquel. But is it true what they say, that there was the blood of the old Mexican Indios in her mother?"
Doña Luisa did not commit herself; yet she realized that Raquel Estevan might have a few battles to fight along the line of race, as well as against the Americanos; for of course Rafael was a favorite; of course there would be burning hearts and jealousy at first.
Keith BrytonKeith Bryton
Keith Bryton
Music: Esta Noche.Esta noche voy a verte,Al otro lado del rioTe encargo que estes despierta ay!Para quando te haga (se silva)Ay! Paloma, daca el pico De ese rico manantial,Ay! Paloma, daca el pico De ese rico manantial!
Esta noche voy a verte,Al otro lado del rioTe encargo que estes despierta ay!Para quando te haga (se silva)Ay! Paloma, daca el pico De ese rico manantial,Ay! Paloma, daca el pico De ese rico manantial!
Esta noche voy a verte,Al otro lado del rioTe encargo que estes despierta ay!Para quando te haga (se silva)Ay! Paloma, daca el pico De ese rico manantial,Ay! Paloma, daca el pico De ese rico manantial!
MusicCHAPTER IV
Music
F
From Las Flores, where the Indian village still held together in a shiftless sort of way, Raquel Estevan and her friend Ana Mendez galloped north mile on mile over the mesa above the sea.
"Art never tired, Raquel?" demanded the older and darker of the two as they halted to let their animals drink where a rivulet ran full from the foothills. "Since we left the ranch house thou hast never lessened the gallop."
"Tired? I should shame to acknowledge that, when Doña Luisa never rests on the way. She endures it all, while only the young ones complain."
"Endures! What would she not endure for her beloved Rafael—now your beloved Rafael?"
Ana was not malicious, but there was a touch of mockery in her tone and questioning glance.
"Why should he not be beloved?" asked the other,smoothing carefully the mane of her horse and bending low to conceal the slight flush of cheek. "Is he not handsome and good?"
"It is not easy to be good when a man is so handsome," laughed Ana; "still, I will take your word for it! But, Raquel, you always get clear of the question; not once have you said that you find him beloved. Are you going to be coquette to the wedding-day?"
"You talk to amuse yourself," and the violet dark eyes were lifted an instant. "You learn to coquette when you marry, and cannot forget; but the nuns never teach us that."
"What need?" and Ana showed her white teeth in a laugh. "They did not teach us we must breathe to live; yet some way we learned it! But confess! You outride all the party to reach San Juan, and Rafael; yet how are we sure what urges you?"
"My promise."
"But why the promise, if the man is not beloved? You have had no harsh guardian, as I had; you were all free."
"Free? Oh yes, I had always the choice between some husband and the veil of a nun. And then—then Doña Luisa came with her love and her son, and her great plans of good work I could do out inthe world. And so—and so we are riding to meet him, and I outride you!"
"I never hasten to trouble," remarked Ana Mendez; "and if we should meet him on the way, you would send me at once to the carriage. I should put in hours listening to the virtues of Rafael Arteaga and peril my soul pretending to agree with his mother."
"Why should you do that?"
"Raquel, do you really see how little the ideas of Don Rafael and his mother agree? I know little enough—thanks to California, which keeps its girls from education; but I do see that every thought of Rafael Arteaga is for the new ways, the ways of the Americano."
The younger girl drew up her horse with a cruel jerk, and faced her friend.
"Anita, beloved," she said, sadly, "you have said the thing I felt, but did not know. Why not let some less dear one tell me?"
"Holy Maria! Who else would? You are going among strangers, but you are no more a stranger to the California of to-day than is Doña Luisa. I hope all the time some one tell you at San Diego, or at San Luis Rey, but no one does; and Rafael does not meet us; and—"
"The letter did not reach him, or else he has goneby boat," said the other, steadily. "Anita, why do you sometimes seem not quite friendly to Rafael? Your words—"
"Never think it!" cried Ana. "We are friends enough, but—I know him better than his mother—that is all! He has turned the heads of many girls, but I do not think he has turned yours, Raquelita!"
The other girl made no reply.
"I do not think so," continued her friend, "because you have never once lost sight of duty,—the duty Doña Luisa and the padre have taught you to see. You are good, Raquel,—when you are not in a temper; but about Rafael you do not think your own thoughts. You dream of the life of your father and Doña Luisa when all this land was theirs. But the dream is gone, and to-day we wake up."
"I see—the old world was too slow. You wake up to be all Americano—no?"
"Raquel, do you hate them as much as Doña Luisa?"
The girl from Mexico turned her face toward the sea, and did not answer at once. Then she said:
"Only once in my life have I spoken with an Americano, and I did not hate him."
"A young man?"
"He—he was not old," she confessed.
"On my soul, I believe you have had a lover!" cried Ana. "Oho! you can play Rafael at his own game, after all! Santa Maria! I thought you were too pretty to be the saint they think you. Tell me!"
"There is not anything to tell," said the younger girl, quietly, though the color crept to her cheek; and then after a little she added, "He died. I never saw him but once; the padre said I was wrong to—to—oh, they said things to me about heretics! I never knew any other, and I promised not to. But if he had lived I should not have promised; that is all."
"All! Rafael would think it enough! On my soul, I am glad you are so human—though I have no love myself for heretics!"
"Human!" mused Raquel. "Is it human to remember, when one should forget and cannot?"
She did not say it aloud, and refused to discuss the matter further.
"He is dead," she said; "Rafael cannot be jealous of a man I saw but once; it was only the dream of a girl—like a picture in a book—and the page is closed. I shall marry Rafael, and work in the world instead of in the convent. It is for Mother Church and—it is right!"
At San Onofre the surf was breaking against the cliffs. It was high tide, and the beach road was deepenough for a horse to swim. Raquel had ridden far ahead, and now stood on the brink of a torrent cutting its way down from the hills to the sea.
The girl glanced back at the swaying chariot-like carriage on a far hill, and wondered what would be expected of their broncos in this crisis.
The animal she herself rode danced and fretted with fright at the roar of the surf and the dash of the hill stream, but she sat the saddle with ease, answering to every curve or side leap as lightly as a gull that floated on the incoming wave.
Her face held something of the power suggested by her strong right hand. The eyes were so soft, yet steady, and of darkest violet. The black lashes touching her cheeks gave them tender shadows, and the hair, in two thick braids reaching to her waist, framed a face of youthful curves and charm. But what was it made every man, and many women, turn to look again at the face of Raquel Estevan?
Many girls were as beautiful, but something beyond the beauty of feature or color was in her strange half-Egyptian face,—a certain barbaric note held in check by the steady eyes and the mouth firm yet tender. It was a mouth made for love; yet—was it the shadow of the dark veil she had so nearly worn? Was it a hint of regret for the cloistered life left behind? Orwas it the shadow of some future—a prophecy of the years to come?
Ana paused at the edge of the stream, in terror at the volume of water barring their way on every side.
"Ai! ai! And Aunt Jacoba but a moment ago declaring that she will have her supper in the refectory of the San Juan Mission. Neither Mission nor supper can we see this night—and no Rafael!"
She turned dismayed though roguish eyes on Raquel.
"He did not expect us when the rains came," said Raquel with quiet certainty. "If he received Doña Luisa's letter, he has gone by sea to San Diego. Did she not say so, Anita?"
"Oh, he can do much, your handsome Rafael," agreed Ana, "but he cannot yet stop the tide, or dam La Christienita! Such a dry bed in Summer! and now it is a river."
"But not deep?" hazarded Raquel. "Not so deep as the carriage bed."
"Deep? There is one ford that is safe if one knows it; but, Holy Maria! on each side are pits of a depth to drown us all!"
"Oh, if there is a good ford to be found—" The rest of Raquel's sentence was drowned in Ana's shrieks of protest, as her horse was spurred into the torrent in search of the roadway safe for a carriage.
Ana was right; there were pits, and there were great round bowlders on the edges of them. The horse stumbled on one, recovered, and stumbled again where the current swung into a whirlpool; and then, as the water roaring in her ears almost drowned Ana's screams, a sharp authoritative voice sounded from the bank—
"Loose the stirrup!"
Raquel did so mechanically, just as a rope circled about her shoulders, pinning her arms to her sides, and with a quick, cruel jerk she was wrenched from the saddle; and as her horse, relieved of her weight, swam straight for the opposite shore, she felt herself caught by a strong arm and lifted across another saddle. The man with the reata had caught her first, lest she be dragged downward into the whirlpool, but it was another man who dashed through the whirl of waters and bore her to the shore, where half a dozen men waited. They were evidently vaqueros; one of them had thrown the reata, and hastened now to loosen it, to lift her from her rescuer and stand her on her feet. She swayed a trifle, and reaching blindly for support, she caught the arm of a man beside her, the one who had lifted her from the water. Then for the first time she noticed that he wore the garb of a priest, evidently a secular priest, for he wore a beard,and even then it struck her as strange that he looked so bronzed and rugged. His grasp was that of a rider of the range, rather than a priest of the Church.
"Father, the Virgin have you in her keeping! You saved my life then. I shall always—always—"
Then she could no longer distinguish priest from vaquero; the earth seemed to meet the sky, and between them she was extinguished.
When she awoke she no longer could hear the screams of Ana, and the red rays of the lowering sun touched the face of the priest as he bent over her. It had more of youth than she had at first perceived.
"Lie you still," he said, as one used to command. "The water was rough with you, and the reata rougher. Swallow some of this wine; it came from your own carriage, and is better than ours."
"From the carriage?" The carriage was on the opposite side of the stream, but her horse had followed her and was tied near, shaking himself like a great dog.
"Yes. I sent one of the boys—the vaqueros—across. Your friends know you are safe, but the carriage cannot come over—not yet; you have had good fortune to get out."
"The good fortune was to find you here, father," she said, and catching his hand she kissed it reverently."It is a good omen and shows me a blessing is on my journey to my father's land. You may have known him by name. I am Raquel Estevan, and it was my father Felipe who once owned this land from mountain to sea."
"Felipe Estevan—you! But that cannot be. He is dead, and his one child is in religion—I was told so—I—"
The color came back to her face, and she raised herself on her elbow.
"It is true—I was for the Church—but I will tell you all—some time!"
"Go on," said the priest, authoritatively, "tell me now!"
"I was told it was better to work for God out in the world," she said, softly, "and so I am coming with my Aunt Luisa, father's cousin, and—"
"And—" he looked at her strangely. "Then it is you—you they bring to marry with Rafael Arteaga. Holy Mary! And it is Felipe's daughter—Felipe Estevan—who sold for a song rather than live under the Americanos; and it is for his daughter I wait here by San Onofre—for his daughter!"
Raquel stared at his evident agitation, not understanding. The sentences of the padre sank to muttering beneath the black beard, as he turned and strodeaway. The vaqueros, standing together holding their horses as if eager to be gone, exchanged wondering glances and eyed the girl curiously. Directly he came striding back and halted beside her.
"Yet you marry with Rafael Arteaga," he said, accusingly. "You are Felipe's daughter, yet you are much Americano—eh? You are of the States, is it not so? Between you two, old California will no longer have foot-room from San Jacinto to the water out there. God!" and he ground his heel into the turf. "Yet are you Felipe's daughter, and we must let you go!"
"No!" she cried as vehemently as he. "I go nowhere from the rules of my father in this land. The things he loved I love; the things he fought for I will guard! It is for that, father, I marry with Rafael. He is—he is not so much for old California, I know—I hear! His mother is afraid; she grieves over that much! But the two of us—the two of us, with your prayers to help, and we keep him always for our father's country—always till he die—with your help!"
"With my—help?"
"Your prayers, father! You will see I am Felipe Estevan's daughter, even while I am born in Mexico. I will do what a son would do for our land and ourChurch. You will see—you will see! It is a blessing from God that you meet me here like this at the edge of the land. Always I have thought these thoughts in my heart, but only to you—a priest—could I say them in words, and it is well you meet me here like this. Your words are the words I needed to make me see what I want to do. It is like a baptism that I went under that water a girl, and your hand lift me out a woman! The Virgin sent me here this day that I meet you. You have opened the gate of the land for Felipe Estevan's daughter."
He leaned against the trunk of a young live-oak and stared at her with a derisive smile in the smoke-black eyes.
"Yes, the Virgin sent me," he said at last, "and she came near sending me too late. The trail is bad along La Christienita for the night-time, and the night is close. The man will take you back to your friends."
"But you, father? You come to the carriage and see the mother of Rafael—no? They wait for us. Doña Luisa is so very old; she will be anxious till she speak with me—and with you."
She arose and held out her hand. He regarded her strangely, and shook his head.
"The men have other work than to camp with apleasure party. I stay on this side and have far to travel before sunrise. This once I talk with you—maybe nevermore, and to San Juan you take one message for Rafael Arteaga."
"A message? Yes?"
"Tell him Felipe Estevan's daughter has saved to him this once a treasure; but no woman can guard him always, for—El Capitan is never too far to come quickly!"
"Oh—Capitan?" she said with sudden comprehension. "I was told at San Luis Rey how much he is the enemy of Rafael. But it must not be, father. Cannot we help that? I have heard of Capitan from an old soldier of the wars, who told me all I know of my father: he was a brave boy and—he fought beside my father. I remembered that when I passed his mother's grave at San Luis Rey—it will never be bare and forgotten again—never! I planted it thick with the passion-vine. Doña Luisa tells me she was a great woman. She prays that some day the two cousins may be friends."
"Doña Luisa prays for what only the good God could make happen," said the priest, grimly. "But of course all things are possible to the good God, even in the land which God forgot. Fidele is waiting."
He made a movement toward the Mexican holdingher horse, and without further words mounted another animal himself, and galloped away along the fringe of trees skirting the cañon. Several of the others followed. Only three remained to watch Fidele pilot his charge across the ford, where the ford was safe though deep; and once her animal's feet touched the opposite bank, her attendant, with a sweep of sombrero, but no words, wheeled his own horse and fell in line after his comrades, who were disappearing one by one toward the mountains.
Raquel Estevan sat her horse at the edge of the stream and stared after them, giving little heed to the shrill calls and exclamations of the women. Even after they had stripped her of the soaked riding-dress and wrapped her in serapes for the night, she maintained a thoughtful silence, and all Ana's hints of romances went for nought, so far as gaining replies or special notice.
What treasure had Felipe Estevan's daughter saved for Rafael Arteaga? And why—why—that strange intensity of the priest? These questions were turned again and again in her mind as she lay there in the light of the camp-fire watching the stars move across the high blue. The other three women were sleeping as best they could in the carriage, smothered in serapes. Jacoba lamented every waking moment,because of much-feared rheumatism,—she was so certain it would mean a camp at the hot springs for a month, just at the time of the wedding!
Doña Luisa made no complaint. When told the carriage could not by any means cross safely, she braced herself for the ordeal of the night, and Raquel, glancing toward her, could see her face gray-white in the gathering dusk. All the night that gray profile met her eyes, for she slept not at all.
The driver had stretched himself where his horses were tethered, but the two Indian boys who rode with the carriage kept a fire of aliso boughs burning. They would nod at times with sleepiness, but the whispered command of the girl ever wakened them quickly, and the dying fire would blaze again. There was no conversation, only brief commands and prompt obedience; and thus the girl passed the first night in the land of her father, the roar of the sea and the wild calls of the coyotes keeping silence from the night.
When the coyotes ceased and the birds heralded dawn, one Indian boy rode across at the ford and gauged the depth of the water on his cow-pony's legs. It was "muy bueno"—very good indeed, the water had gone down a foot, and before the dawn broke, the whole cavalcade was again under way. There wasbreakfast to ride for, and it was several miles across the hills.
Pedro was of the opinion that there was a round-up in the cañon of La Paz, about half-way to San Juan. If so, there might be "carne oeco" and coffee to be had—perhaps tortillas. The vaqueros would be eating by dawn, but if it was possible to drive fast, there might be hope of coffee at least.
So Raquel rode ahead, alert at the coming day and the promise of it. Ana was glad to stay in the carriage with the older women, complaining that she had caught cold from the sea-damp. At one bend of the road she noticed Raquel far ahead, bending low over the neck of her horse, scanning the ground. Then she turned out of sight under the live-oaks in a narrow cañon, and came galloping back to the main trail as the carriage came up.
"One would think you were searching the sand for grains of gold washed down from the mountains!" called Ana; but the girl shook her head, and rode thoughtfully up the incline to the mesa above. She had been noting the curious fact that the party of vaqueros and the priest had left the trail one by one, heading toward the hills wrapped still in the mist of the morning.
Music: El Charro.Nescesito buen caballoBuena Silla, y buen gaban.CHAPTER V
Music: El Charro.Nescesito buen caballoBuena Silla, y buen gaban.
Nescesito buen caballoBuena Silla, y buen gaban.
Nescesito buen caballoBuena Silla, y buen gaban.
A
At La Paz they were in time for coffee, and Raquel, who had ridden ahead with an Indian boy, was told a strange story by the Mexican cook.
A good breakfast had been cooked, but the devil had got among the horses in the night; there had been a stampede—or something. Every one had got into the saddle and ridden that way—up the river,—no one had come back to tell him what it meant or to eat the breakfast that was ready. It was cold now, all but the coffee, but they were welcome to it.
He was a newcomer in the land, and had never heard of the Doña Luisa. To the cholo the lady or the lord of the land is often an unknown personality; their representative, the major-domo, is the centre of their little universe.
But as the carriage came lurching down from the mesa, the oldest of the vaqueros, a very black Indian, rode back to camp, and at sight of Doña Luisa's face white and drawn in the morning light, he slid from his bronco, and ignoring the cook's impatient questions stood with bent head uncovered, until the old mistress noticed him and spoke.
"You are Benito, are you not?" she asked, as she brought him to the carriage with a gesture, and rested her hand on his to alight.
"Yes, señora," said the old man with grave courtesy, though trembling with pleasure at the honor she chose to bestow; "I am Benito. I used to break all the horses you rode. No one else was let put a hand on them. You do not forget; I thank you."
"I could not forget the things of my home. Is there coffee? I am very glad."
She held her left hand against her side, and the women exchanged frightened glances at her pallor and the strange weakness of her voice. While she drank the hot coffee Jacoba deftly drew the old vaquero aside to look at a bit of broken carriage harness which Pedro was mending with rawhide.
"Benito, is there no boy here to ride fast to the Mission?" she demanded when out of hearing of the others. "Our Doña Luisa is a sick woman, and noone dare say it. Some one must go and have a bed ready—everything!"
"There is no boy here. The horses were run off last night by Juan Flores or Capitan—no one knows how many. All the men have gone that way. I ride to the Mission. Don Rafael, he go to San Diego to-day."
"To-day? Santa Maria! he may have gone! Ride fast!"
"He not go yet," and the old man shrugged his shoulders. "Too early. Army men going away. Don Rafael make barbecue yesterday, and last night he have a big dance for the Americanos in the Mission."
"Hush! Ride fast! We will drive as slow as she will let us. But tell Don Rafael Arteaga I say for him to meet his mother on the road."
Raquel noticed the old man cantering slowly along the level green, and heard the sound of his horse galloping rapidly once he was out of sight past the fringe of sycamores and low growths along the river.
"For what is that, Jacoba?" she asked.
"Oh, some bandits have run off some horses—they may send more vaqueros," she replied as easily as she could with the girl watching her like that.
Raquel looked as though she thought all the truthmight not be in the reply, but she turned quietly away.
"I would have ridden with him if I had known," she said, and went back to Doña Luisa, who was so eager to continue the journey that she would wait for no breakfast but the coffee.
"Cut another strap of the harness and take time to mend it," muttered Jacoba to Pedro; "we are not all so near to being angels that we can live without eating."
Thus was a little more time gained.
Benito made the second crossing where the river bends around the mesa, and there met one of the boys from the village looking for a pair of strayed mules.
"The Don Rafael—he has started for San Diego?" demanded Benito. "Turn and ride with me, José."
The boy did so, grinning.
"When Don Rafael wake up to-day he much too late to go to San Diego," he said, and the old man uttered a sigh of relief.
"He sleeping, then?"
"No one sleep in San Juan last night," said José. "There was the supper, and some girls stay. The army men they all start north an hour ago, but maybe the others still dance in the Mission, Don Rafael say he go to get married, this is his last night—no one must sleep, or be sober!"
José thought it a great joke, but Benito muttered, "Jesus and San Vicente!" and ordered the boy to go back for the mules, and rode on down the valley alone.
It took José some time to find the mules, and when he did find them they were even more perverse than usual; he had got them so near home as the hill above San Juan, when one of them went careering along the mesa as though heading for San Jacinto mountain.
By the time he had secured it and got back near the road an astonishing sight met his eyes—something one was not used to seeing at sunrise in San Juan.
A carriage came down the valley road from La Paz cañon. There were only women in it, and two Indian boys rode in the rear. Where could a carriage like that come from at such an hour? No one who rode in carriages lived up those valleys!
In staring at the carriage he failed at first to notice the girl on horseback, who had ridden alone in advance of the carriage, and had halted in the road, on the brow of the hill, looking down across the old pueblo to the sea.
She was so motionless, he was very close before he noticed her, close enough to hear her indrawn breath of delight, to see the soft flush of emotiontouch her face. Almost he thought there were tears in her eyes; he thought her the most beautiful lady he had ever seen alive,—though one picture of the Virgin in the chapel was as fine.
José stopped at the sight of her and stood very still. He could not drive mules into the road ahead of a lady who was more lovely than even the wooden saints with the gold painted around the border of their gowns; and that is how he chanced to see a strange meeting on that hill.
No one knew why the English señora had elected to take a pleasure ride alone that morning, when the message of Benito, shouted as he galloped past, had effectually banished from the minds of Dolores and Madalena their intended picnic at the hot springs in the mountain, for which they were all ready, and had actually started. But when they tumbled with delighted exclamations from the new American buggy, and straightway forgot all their plans for the day, including the entertainment of their English guest, she stared in ill-concealed irritation from one to the other as they chattered in Spanish, scarcely enlightening her as to the reason of the sudden change in their plans.
When she finally gathered the idea that it was the unexpected proximity of Rafael's bride-to-be, and thatall the other social lights of the valley must expect to be extinguished in her honor, the red lips of the Englishwoman straightened a trifle, and the baby-blue eyes took on a shade of coldness; for since her arrival in California she had been made the centre of many social affairs. In San Juan her one week, managed by Teresa and Rafael, had been enough of a triumph to cause Keith Bryton inward rage and to hold him there as long as an excuse to stay had offered.
Once she said in a burst of irritated frankness:
"For mercy's sake, let me be happy once! You are a dog in the manger, that's all! These people really live! There is an empire here for the right woman, and you need not tug at my chains to remind me that I was fool enough to marry before I found it!"
And now the real ruler of the empire was about to enter into possession, and the temporary one was frankly forgotten! Whatever her thoughts were, she did not mean to assist at the royal entry of those two women whose rule meant the ignoring of the English-speaking people.
Only Teresa, watching her out of beady black eyes, comprehended and was content. Rafael had earned the gift she had promised, but it had gone quite far enough; it was as well Doña Luisa was coming with the other girl!
So, when Bryton's sister-in-law looked rather blank and did not descend from the carriage, it was Teresa who agreed that itwasa morning too beautiful to stay indoors, and of course if Doña Angela cared to drive alone—and would excuse them—
Doña Angela would. She leaned back languidly, a picture of carelessness, and motioned the driver to go on, but her lips still held their straight hard line as they passed the great dome of the ruined chancel, where the birds held sovereign sway.
"It looks like a place for a throne," she thought, enviously; "and a black creature from Mexico is coming to rule it!"
They were crossing the bridge at the streamlet, when an exclamation from the driver caused her to glance ahead and see the erect slender figure on the dark horse silhouetted against the yellow flood of sunrise.
No girl of San Juan rode alone like that on the mesa, and certainly not one would have paused like that, transfixed by the beauty before her; there was not one that would not rather have admired the beautiful new buggy and the pretty hat of the fair lady in it.
But the girl on the horse did not appear to notice either any more than she had noticed José. Herhorse had halted straight across the middle of the road. The driver of the buggy had turned aside before she brought her gaze back from the sea cliffs to rest for an instant on the fair indignant face of the Englishwoman.
The road was miles wide really—since one could drive anywhere on the mesa, but the Mrs. Teddy Bryton had heretofore seen every native step aside from the beaten trail when she drove abroad, and she was furious at the driver for turning his horses an iota out of his way for that girl who looked like—what did she look like?
Mrs. Bryton could not have put into words the idea of the girl's face; but her own angry blue eyes were caught and held for an instant by strange fathomless violet ones—held until she shrank suddenly, and the color left her face. Yet—as the carriage paused, her head was still turned toward the stranger, and José saw her put her hands suddenly across her eyes with a gesture of repulsion or pain, and sink back on the cushions.
The girl on the horse had not moved a muscle. She might have been carved from marble, for any sign she made after she read the angry insolence of the blue eyes.
"Don Felipe Estevan's daughter," said the Mexicandriver, "and here ahead of the carriage of the Señora Luisa—it must be so."
Mrs. Bryton gave no sign that she heard, neither did she glance at the occupants of the carriage as they whirled past; her mind held only one hateful picture.
"Felipe Estevan's daughter" meant that she had looked into the eyes of the "black woman from Mexico" who had come back to her father's land to rule, and the Mexican woman had proven not so black as she had fancied, and had sat there on the crest of the hill with a pride that was half regal,—and almost half barbaric,—as though the highway was her very own—as though the centre of it belonged to her by divine right. Mrs. Bryton's vain soul was fired by a momentary wild temptation to test that divine right, to show her there was one man in San Juan not to be ruled by anyone else if she, Angela Bryton, cared to call him to her side and keep him there. Should she—or should she not?
Teresa was quite right in her fancy that the trick against the Americano had been quite successful enough; it was time the other girl came to claim her own!