THE SILVER BELL OF LOS MORALES
STRANGE things are related of the old Indian pueblo of Los Morales on the Rio Grande. And a tale that is one of the strangest concerns these—a dark vaquero—a young painter of Indians, fair as the vaquero was dark—a blue-eyed girl with a spotted mustang—a little father of the chapel of San Felipe—a dove that was a peacock—a peacock that was a living example—a deer fed on flowers—and an empty belfry that sounded forth the ringing of a bell.
“Ah-ah,” said Father José, pausing in the midst of his salad-making to listen, “—more trouble!”
The young man at the easel looked up. “Gracious!” he exclaimed, and faced about to peer through the low, wide-ledged window of the kitchen. “It sounds serious.”
“But it is only Anastacio and Paloma,” said the father wearily. He trotted across the worn floor to fetch a deep white-and-gold dish from his cupboard. Returning, he held the dish up. “It was my mother’s,” he explained proudly, “—like all those upon the shelf. She had a full set of porcelain. And my salads are always most palatable in this dish.”
“Paloma,” repeated the painter, with a fleet glance at the dish. “That means a dove.”
“Yes—and I christened her. But, ah! Señor John, when a Spanish girl is yet a baby, how is it possible to know what name she should be given? A dove!”
At this juncture the quarrel without waxed more loud and furious. A girl shrilled something taunting—over and over, in a high key—then, the rumble of a man’s deep growling answered—next, both voices sounded together—a very discord of wrath.
“I’d like to get Anastacio to sit for me,” said the painter. “I could call it ‘The Brigand.’ Whatdoyou suppose the trouble isthistime?”
The father was intent upon his salad. In the bottom of the white-and-gold dish he laid a slice of buttered bread well rubbed with garlic—this for a foundation, as it were. Then upon the bread, leaf laid against leaf, so that the effect was that of a huge green rose, he placed the lettuce, all glistening with its dressing of oil and vinegar; and a-top the lettuce, thin circles of silvery onion.
“I do not ask,” he said presently, “because it is not necessary to ask. I hear it all at confession.”
Señor John smiled, and came back to his painting.
“If it is something wicked that Paloma has done,” resumed the father, “I know even before that. For she comes to bring me a custard.”
The next moment, the low blue door beside the window was struck so violently from without that it slammed open with a bang against the corner of Father José’s china-cupboard. Then over the threshold on swift foot came a girl, her angry face ivory-pale in contrast with her black eyes and wildly tossed black hair. “But I love the deer!” she burstforth pantingly, as she paused before the father; “and I willnotgive him away. And if I cannot have him at the new house, then I shall not marry.”
The father had been standing with one hand upon his cupboard to steady it, for the bang of the door had set all his precious porcelain to rattling. Now, by a rolling of his eyes, a pursing of his lips, and a sidewise wagging of his head, he directed the girl’s look toward the easel.
She half whirled, and a sudden tinge of coral upon cheek and lip relieved the black and ivory. “O-o-oh!” she murmured, and fell back a step.
Señor John rose, bowing over his palette and brush.
“This gentleman,” explained Father José, “is Señor John Gordon. He is staying on the other side of the river, at the rancho of Señor Allen. And he comes here to paint pictures.”
Paloma regarded the stranger in silence for a moment. Then, “He—he will think I am a cross girl,” she began regretfully. “But it is Anastacio that gives me the temper. One day,”—advancing a little—“he is all kind looks, Señor, and he says what is nice. Next day, he is all bad looks, and the serape is over his ears—ugh! One can never tellhowhe will be. He is worse for changing than the sand of the river. Yes. And now he wishes back the ring! What do you think,padrecito?” She held out her left hand with a quick gesture. Upon the slender third finger of it, milk-white against the creamy smoothness of her skin, shone a single large pearl. “It cost him fifty dollars!”—this triumphantly.
“Well! well!” said Señor John, coming forward to get a better look.
“You think that much?” said Paloma. “So it is. But I would not wear a turquoise or a garnet, such as are picked up by the Indians not so far away—and I would not wear beaten silver, as do the squaws. No—my pearl, you see, is set in gold, and it was bought in Albuquerque, at the store that has high, glass windows.”
“Indeed?” questioned the painter, even more impressed.
“But whatever it cost,” went on Paloma, “Anastacio shall not have it back. What is given, is given. It is notmyfault that he cannot love my pretty Miguel. I said to him, ‘The good father has a peacock. And I——’”
Father José held up a hand to interrupt her. “My peacock serves as a lesson to my Indians,” he said. “He is a living example of all that is least to be desired. He is beautiful, but useless; he talks loudly, but does nothing; he struts, but goes nowhere; he eats much, yet—since he is old—his flesh is not even good for food. Vain and ostentatious bird!—his life is a warning.”
Paloma had scarcely heard him, having been waiting a chance to speak again. Now she continued promptly, mimicking her lover: “‘Miguel will take all your time,’ Anastacio complains. Well,”—argumentatively—“Miguel must be watched, else the dogs will chase him. Has not Anastacio said (more than once, señor,) that he himself is certain the dogs will do away with Miguel? So! And if I were not watching the little one, what then should I do?Make mud dishes?—like the Indians? Hah!Thatfor what Anastacio thinks! The pig!” Again she threw out her hand—with a loud snap of her fingers.
“Hush!” whispered the father. “He is there.” He pointed through the window.
“A-a-ah!” It was a purr. With a sudden step aside, and a sway of her shoulders, she looked past the young painter. “He is waiting for me!” she cried. “But I shall not go. No! I think that I even do not like him any more, and I may not marry him after all. He thinks himself so handsome! Puf!—with that moustache of his, like a bird’s-nest!” And she threw back her tumbled head, and shook her black hair and laughed aloud.
Close by, and built at right angles to the rear wall of Father José’s own house, rose the north wall of the chapel of San Felipe—a mud wall, up which some vines straggled. Against the vines, and half-screened by them, leaned a blanket-wrapped figure.
Now, Paloma neared the window, but without looking out, and sat down on the wide ledge, so that she was in full sight of the waiting man by the wall. Then, she turned to Señor John’s easel with a great show of interest. “You are making a picture of Los Morales!” she began. “Am I not quick at guessing? You see it could not be Albuquerque, for you have put flat roofs on the houses. And it is notoldAlbuquerque, because—oh,padrecito!here is your house, and the garden, and the church with the little tower! Paint a bell in the tower, señor, since we have none.” And she smiled up at Señor John saucily.
“My daughter!” chided Father José, almost sternly, “do not jest of the bell!”
“So there was a bell—once,” said the young painter.
The father folded a damp napkin, covered his salad, and set the white-and-gold dish away carefully on a shelf. Then he came over and stood beside the easel, one slender hand clasping the other, and both held against the jet cross that swung on his breast. He was short and lean, with straight, white hair; a pale, bulging, bald forehead; a high nose; thin cheeks—upon each a spot of scarlet; and dark eyes that were on occasions alive with almost childish fun, nearly extinguished by laughter and as full of glints as the big, shining, brown-black beads of his rosary, but which, at other times, were wide, serene, and luminous.
“It was when there were mulberry-trees here by the river,” he began, “—the trees that gave the pueblo its name. There are some who say that mulberry-trees were never here; or, if trees were indeed here, they were only of the cottonwood. But these doubters think also”—a gentle smile parted his lips—“that the silver bell of Los Morales is only a legend.”
“Thesilverbell,” repeated Señor John.
“Aye, silver,” answered the father sadly; “that is why it hangs no longer in the tower of San Felipe. Alas! my belfry is a pierced ear from which the jewel has been torn.” And his head bent to his hands. After a moment he raised his face, and raised his hands so that they pressed one palm against the other, at his chin. “It came to be lostthrough greed,” he went on. “A wandering band of Indians crossed the Rio Grande at this ford and attacked the pueblo. That was many, many years ago. The band came to steal, for they were hungry—not having been wise, Paloma, and provided themselves against a day of need. They fought from the ground, for they had no horses, and the Pueblos fought from the flat roofs of their houses, sending sharp arrows down upon their enemies. These, before they were fully routed, withdrew from the town, and sought a brief refuge in the chapel, and here, in this house. They demanded money, but there was no money to give them, and so the brave priest said. They did not harm the man of God. But they climbed to the belfry. There was the bell. They knew there was silver in it, else they would not have troubled. There was much silver in it, señor, it having been made in Old Mexico, where the custom was to use silver. The bell was easy to take. It swung in no yoke, but from a roundish, wooden beam, by heavy thongs that were run through its iron loop. These thongs they cut, and then——” The scarlet spots on his thin cheeks blanched, his eyes became round pools of glowing black. “Señor, a storm broke—a storm the like of which Los Morales had never before seen. Rain like a second deluge, so that the Rio Grande deepened on its bed, and wind so strong that it caught up the water of the river and lashed the ground with it, and carried waves up to the edge of the town—aye, even to the foot of the dirt-cliffs beyond. The thieves in the chapel were frightened—not because they saw what a terrible thing it was theyhad done, señor, only because they believed they might not get safely away with their lives. So they hurried down to the river, six men carrying the bell, and started to cross. As they entered the stream the silver tongue was swinging to and fro, to and fro, calling a farewell through the storm. And the Indians on the housetops called back to their beloved bell, answering it, and they wept aloud.”
Here, the father’s voice faltered, broke, and went silent. He shut his eyes, and his slender hands trembled. But presently, he again looked up at the two who were listening. “Then, as the bell was choked into dumbness by the rushing waters,” he said, “the six who bore it suddenly sank from sight. They had walked into a very pit of death!”
“How?” questioned the young painter.
“The quicksands, señor.”
“The quicksands!”
“You should know that for all its shallow depth, the Rio Grande is here most treacherous, and travellers keep to the ford. The sands shift, señor—the bed of the river rots.”
“And the silver bell—it was never heard of again?”
“Listen! and I will tell you. One black night, long before I came to Los Morales, a second band of thieving Indians crept up across the level ground beyond the river—across the ground where stands the hacienda in which you stay, Señor John. Before entering the ford the band halted to get ready their arrows, for they meant to take the town and drive out all the inhabitants. But see what happened! Scarcely had the enemy pushed their horses into thewater at the farther side when the priest who lived here then wakened of a sudden. It seemed to him that from overhead had sounded a warning—the single clear peal of a bell!”
Paloma crossed herself. Her dark eyes were wet. “Ah!padrecito!” she said softly. “I would pray for the return of the silver bell were I not too wicked.”
“I pray,” said the father, “and my faith does not falter. Ah! señor! when the bell is restored to its tower, I shall waken the town with its mellow call to prayer! The Indians come but slowly to the chapel now. But think how musically sweet and inviting——”
He was interrupted by the slow, dullthub, thub, thubof a drum, which was beating from somewhere in the direction of the pueblo. He nodded gravely. “That is what calls my people, señor,” he said. “Little wonder that they lag.”
The drum had brought Paloma to her feet. “The noon service, and so much yet left undone!” she cried. She gave a backward nod to Señor John, caught up one of the father’s hands upon her wrist, dutifully kissed it, and went out the door through which she had come.
“That warning in the night,” said the young painter, “—it saved the town?”
“Yes.” The father went to the window and leaned his hands on the sill. “Little wonder that they lag,” he said again, as if to himself. Then, to Señor John: “See!—for I am an old man and my eyes are poor—is that Roberta Allen?Shedoes not know fear of the ford.”
The young man also looked out. A girl was slowly passing, mounted on a spotted mustang that was wet to his hocks. She was a slender girl, in laced boots, a riding-skirt, and a waist of some thin, white stuff that the wind fluttered. She peered in through the window—a sailor hat shielding her face from the glare on the adobe wall, and her blue eyes fixed themselves eagerly upon Señor John.
“Yes, father,” answered the young painter, and he smiled and bowed to the girl. Having watched after the spotted mustang for a moment, he turned to look the opposite way, where a bobbing black head showed above the untidy board fence that surrounded a near-by house. “Paloma is very beautiful,” he added presently.
The father was searching in the wide seat of his cane armchair. “Aye, señor,” he admitted. “But often a pinkdulcehas a black pulp.”
“What a contrast to Miss Allen!” the other went on. The spotted mustang was entering the winding street of the pueblo.
The father had found his book, and now paused a moment, his hand on the door-latch. “My peacock, señor,” he said, “does not mean to be vain. But he cares only for the bright feathers that hang upon his body, and he loves to strut. But, Roberta, she is wise and modest, I think.” And he went out.
When Father José had disappeared through the side entrance of the chapel, Señor John opened the front door of the kitchen and stepped down to the flat stone that lay just before it. The front door opened on the father’s garden—the only garden in the whole of Los Morales. Two feet of paved walkdivided the garden and led from the door to a weathered picket-gate. All the wide cracks of this walk were well weeded and neatly filled with trowel-marked adobe, and on either side of the walk stretched small squares of bright green lawn. Across these squares now, and across the stone walk, the father’s peacock was strutting, from the rose-bushes that stood against the pickets on one hand to the sweet-pea vines that screened the fence on the other. And, as he paraded, the sun glanced upon his crested head, brilliantly blue breast, and the green-and-gold semicircle of his tail plumage.
The young painter was still watching the bird when his ear caught a song not from the chapel. A girl’s voice was singing it—a clear voice, if a little loud:
The moon is a sun with a veil—Lift my veil, and behold my eyes shining.
The moon is a sun with a veil—Lift my veil, and behold my eyes shining.
The moon is a sun with a veil—
Lift my veil, and behold my eyes shining.
The voice neared, repeating the words but somewhat disconnectedly. Then, “Goon!” cried the voice impatiently, breaking off the song. “Must I carry you!”
The next moment Paloma came into view beyond the pickets at the corner of the kitchen. A scarlet shawl was thrown about her shoulders, and she was half-leading, half-shoving a young deer. The deer was a full-eyed creature, nimble and strong. And now it butted with its sharp horns, and now struck out swiftly with alternating front and hind feet.
“Open the gate,” called Paloma. “Miguel does not wish to come in. But how shall he get grassexcept when Father José is in the chapel? Go on, you beast!”
The young painter hastened to the gate.
“Shove and lead and coax!” scolded Paloma, puffing. “Once I could do anything with him. But now he is getting too big. There! Now he’s in!”
“But, look!” cried Señor John. “He’s tearing the roses!”
“My life!” exclaimed the girl, hastening forward across the grass. “Stop it, Miguel! Stop it! Oh, you sinful one!”
But as fast as she drove him away, Miguel returned to the rose-bushes, circling the strutting peacock with little leaps. After him raced Paloma. And as she ran, she shrieked with laughter and threw bits of dirt at the deer.
“Oh, I am dying for breath!” she called. “He knows the roses are choice, you see! Is he not beautiful! Who couldhelpbut love him!”
The last was aimed at a figure approaching from the town. It was Anastacio, bound riverward, his serape so far across his face that only his gleaming eyes showed from under his wide and heavy sombrero. He strode past slowly, those eyes now upon Señor John, now upon Paloma and the running deer. Behind him, riding at a distance, came the girl on the spotted mustang.
Paloma redoubled her laughter and her merry cries and Señor John joined his laughter to hers and leaned his arms on the pickets of the gate. She called upon him to testify that Miguel was a very goat. She pursued the little animal more fleetly, lashing out at him so smartly with a broken rose-spraythat the peacock retired to the wide stone-step, and let fall the glory of his train. Around and around she tore, her cheeks scarlet as her shoulder-shawl, her black eyes dancing, her hair whipping out behind, her teeth gleaming like a score of pearls as white as that one in her ring.
All at once, spent with her running and shouting, and almost choking with her mirth, she turned to the gate to find that Señor John was no longer there, but was now standing between the garden and the river, talking to the girl on the spotted mustang; while Anastacio had disappeared entirely—under the high bank that stood back from the strip of gently sloping beach. Paloma’s face fell, her eyes stared, her head came up resentfully. Then she walked over to Miguel, seized him by a narrow strap about his neck, gave him a cuff to quiet him, and jerked him, struggling, out of the yard.
It happened the very next morning. Señor John was in the garden, sketching the peacock, and humming the song of the sun and the moon and the veil as he sketched, and Father José was close by, busy with the roses, a violet-bordered square of black silk tied over his ears, and his hands full of dislodged pickets and lengths of string. Suddenly they heard the screams of a girl—screams sharp with grief—then, wild broken cries—“Padre! Oh! oh!Mamita! Dios!It is blood!”
“Señor John!” called the father. “Something unlucky has befallen Miguel. Come!”
They hurried into the kitchen by one door andout of it by another and along the path that led back of the chapel. A middle-aged lady was standing beside the path—a bareheaded, fat lady, whose face, though gentle and somewhat dirty, suggested the round face of Paloma; with her was Paloma—her head upon her mother’s breast, and her form shaking with tempestuous sobs. At their feet, on the smooth-packed ground, was a little round dark pool.
“It is as I feared,” said the father, when he stopped and looked down. “Here are some yellow-grey hairs, and here, cloven hoof-marks.”
Paloma, seeing out of one eye that Señor John was present, now began to wail more vigorously than before. “O my Miguel!” she exclaimed. “You were so pretty and so good! Opadrecito, he but pruned the roses!”
Her mother wept, too, but silently, and strove to sooth Paloma by patting her on the shoulder. Her own tears she dried against the scarlet shawl, after she had smiled a sad greeting through them.
“Do not cry,” said Father José, wiping surreptitiously at his cheeks with a flowing corner of the silk square.
“Because Miguel isn’t dead,” declared Señor John. “The dogs have only wounded him probably, and he’s run away to hide.”
The words of comfort had an effect opposite to that desired. Paloma’s sorrow mounted. She threw herself upon her knees, clinging now to her mother’s dress, and now catching at the black skirt of the father, and “Oh! oh! oh!” she sobbed.
“I’m going to start right out and hunt him,”said the young painter. “If he’s dead, I’ll find his body.”
The father shook his head doubtfully. “Maybe,” he said. “But you forget, señor, the deer is good to eat.”
“Atthistime of the year?” asked the other, significantly.
At that the two men exchanged glances of meaning. Then, “Let us hunt until we know,” advised Father José, in a low tone. “And, meanwhile, let us say nothing.” He laid a finger on his lips.
Paloma had listened—between sobs—to what was being said. Now, she sprang up excitedly. “Know?” she cried. “I know this moment.Hedid it! None needs to tell me different. Every day he has come. ‘Marry me or give back the ring,’ he has said. And I have said, ‘No,’ to both. And he has done this to revenge himself. The rattlesnake!” The next moment she straightened resentfully, and stared past Señor John and the father. Then, “Rattlesnake!” she cried again, and stamped a foot.
The others turned about, and beheld Anastacio sauntering down the path that led from the pueblo to the chapel. He returned their look defiantly—almost triumphantly—and took off his sombrero in a wide, mocking sweep.
There was that in the gesture which made the father resolve on a rebuke. “Anastacio!” he called peremptorily, and hurried toward the vaquero, his eyes severe, his thin face flushed even up his bald forehead to the roots of his white hair. “Anastacio,”he said, as he neared the path, “the cock that crows the loudest catches the eye of the cook.”
The vaquero’s eyes widened in innocent wonderment. “What is it that I have done?” he questioned, in an aggrieved voice.
“Miguel is gone. It was a coward’s trick, I say, even though he nibbled my roses.”
“Miguel gone! Since when, father? Alas! Too bad! But if a man is in Albuquerque all the night——” he pulled at his moustache.
“Where do you visit in Albuquerque? You busy yourself with gambling, I have no doubt, or with drinking—surely some sin. Where?”
“At Riley’s, father, on the street which has a car. There till midnight. Then, at Georgio’s, for the stupid Riley shuts his door when it is twelve.”
“So? I trust you do not think to throw ashes in my eyes. For I get the truth always, do I not?” Then, suddenly pointing, “I see that you crossed the riveron foot.”
Anastacio regarded his boots. They showed a recent wetting, and one end of his serape—from which a small, bright square had been torn—hung as heavy as if it had been trailed in a stream.
“Do youwalkto Albuquerque?” inquired Father José, eyeing him narrowly.
The vaquero tried to smile, but it was only a drawing back of his lips from over his white teeth. “Sometimes I walk,” he answered evasively.
“Then the Rio Grande is plainly like a sea for you,” declared the father. “For you are the tint of an unripe lemon.” With that, he walked away.
Instead of searching for the lost Miguel, SeñorJohn rode to Albuquerque that afternoon, that being Father José’s wish. When he returned at sunset, it was with the expected news. Anastacio had not been seen in the town the evening previous. And neither could venison be purchased at a certain little Spanish shop, though the young painter had first winked across a piece of silver and then asked for a cut of the deer brought from Los Morales.
But the day following the hunt began. As many as three Indians reluctantly consented to help, and led by Señor John and the girl on the spotted mustang, made off to the marshes north of the town. Late rains had deepened the ooze of the marshes, and even the road which crossed them was a channel for running water. The two on horseback floundered from one muddy pool to another, while the Pueblos, wound in bright blankets, stationed themselves on a dry eminence and solemnly rotated.
Paloma watched the searchers from the roof of her home, and when they returned, gave herself over to tears of rage and desolation. Fortunately, Anastacio came to talk with her at suppertime, and to declare his guiltlessness solemnly. So her unhappiness found a vent. She berated him. She cried that never,neverwould she marry him. And in the end, when she had said all her say, she stuffed her fingers into her pretty ears and bade him begone.
After that, seven days passed without incident.
The morning of the ninth day following Miguel’s disappearance, Señor John chanced to be painting by the river. At Los Morales the Rio Grande is wide, and the colour of the crumbling dirt banks between which it runs; the colour, too, of the high,crumbling dirt-cliffs that stand back of the pueblo on the west, and the colour of the low, square, flat-roofed adobe houses of the Indian village. Two high, white crosses marked its ford—one being set on the farther shore and one on the near. At the base of the latter the young painter had his easel, and over him, made fast to the cross so as to shade him from the sun, was a huge umbrella, yellower than the river.
As he worked he glanced, now at the shallow stream, and now at his canvas—this as painters do. Suddenly, something close to the bank caught his eye—a greyish something, almost submerged, around which the water purled and played with little whispers. He sprang up in haste, overturning easel and stool, and ran down the narrow, sloping beach which here stretched between river and bank.
There was no need to doubt what he saw. For there, thrust up through the moving water, almost in reach of his hand, was the point of a sharp horn.
His first thought was that Paloma might see it; his next, that Father José must be summoned.
The father came at once, adjusting his spectacles upon his high nose as he hurried along. And when he saw what was lying near the shore, with the water urging it inch by inch downstream, he fell back with a shocked and sorrowful face, murmuring his pity. “The gentle creature!” he said. “I trust I was never over-bitter against him. Though he had green to feed upon, yet he would rather crop at my flowers. Señor, how human!”
“But what is that, Father José?” Señor John pointed to a bit of bright-coloured cloth that wasnow spread out upon the surface of the water from the tip of the horn. By wading a step and poking at the cloth with the end of his brush-handle, he dislodged it, whereupon it gave a sudden whirl, floated for a few feet, then rode into shore on an eddy.
“Ah, señor!” cried Father José, as he caught it up—and anger succeeded pity on his face. “He thought to throw the little beast where he would be sucked down. But the sands have shifted! And here is telltale proof! Come with me, señor. It requires discussion.” And he led the way hastily to Paloma’s.
What befell at the council needs no particular recounting. Paloma’s mother said little and that in Spanish. Paloma wept and threatened, and vowed that now she truly wouldnotmarry Anastacio, though he lived to be as old as the father himself and as rich as the richest man in Albuquerque. As for Señor John, he said little, but listened respectfully to Father José, who spoke chiefly of the law.
After the drum had beaten, and midday prayers had been said in the chapel, Father José took a cup of coffee to fortify him, then donned cloak and hat and climbed up to the little railway station at the top of the crumbling dirt-cliffs. There he asked on the telephone for the office of the sheriff of the county, and when the sheriff spoke at the other end of the wire, Father José asked him to hasten to Los Morales to arrest one Anastacio Galvez, for killing a deer out of season.
When the sheriff came, Anastacio, swaggering cheerfully, again sought Paloma. “Ninita,” he began,“I come for a farewell word. I am sorry now that Miguel is dead, since it makes you so unhappy. But do not forget that love urged me to do away with him.”
“Then murder again!” retorted Paloma, enraged; “—my mother, the dear father, the guinea-pigs whichMamitahas just given me—all! So you will have my heart alone—perhaps.” And she laughed harshly.
There was a suspicion of merriment in his eyes, but he pulled a long face. “I am going to prison for the sake of my love,” he protested. “Imustgo to prison, for I have not a cent with which to pay the fine.”
Now Paloma almost shrieked in her triumph. “Good!” she cried. “And perish in prison. I am pleased! I am pleased! And because you have been in prison I shall never marry you. The killing of Miguel was very much. But a prison is much more. I could never marry a man who had been in prison. My pride would not let me.”
“Then all is over between us?” questioned Anastacio, meekly.
“All!All!I tell you I would not marry you now if you were covered thick with gold and silver and jewels from your head to your ugly feet—no, not even if you had thousands of pearls as big as this one.” And she flashed the ring before his dark eyes.
“In that case,” he went on, “I think it but honest that you should give back this pearl.” And he watched her keenly.
“The pearl!” she cried. She was walking to and fro, her head high “The pearl will pay mefor the loss of Miguel. Yesterday I said, ‘I shall give Anastacio back the ring, for I hate the sight of it. And, besides, the pearl is doubtless only glass, after all, and I can easily get a better.’ But now—I shall keep it.” (This with an imperious glance of her eyes.)
“Miguel was not worth so much,” argued Anastacio. “He was little and thin. And the pearl——” His eyes rested upon it, where it flashed on the hand at her side.
“You shall not have the pearl,” she declared, “not if youdieasking for it. You killed my pretty Miguel—and it was not even on a feast-day. So now, this is how you pay.” As she crossed the floor with slow grace, she smiled mockingly.
Again his look rested longingly on the round whiteness of his gift. “Ah, Paloma,” he said tenderly, “you but increase my passion as you storm. Little dove, your sweet mouth is the colour of pepper-tree berries. Your eyes——”
“Have done with my mouth and my eyes!” ordered Paloma, pausing against the window. But she spoke perhaps a shade less angrily than before. “They are not for you. Go hunt among the Indian girls for a wife. One of these you can lead about on a rope, as you do your cows. But, ah, I pity the one you would choose! A squaw is too good for you—much too good.”
“I must speak of your beauty,” insisted Anastacio. “It fills my eyes like the light of the sun. When I shall see it no more the night will fall for me. O my Paloma!” And he took one step toward her.
She waved him back with her two hands. “Keepyour compliments!” she said haughtily. “I do not want them. And take yourself off. I never wish to see you again.”
But Anastacio, undaunted, approached another step or two. “Do not be cruel, Paloma,” he begged. “Say farewell kindly to me, sweet dove. And before I go let me—yes, be merciful—let me kiss your little hand.”
“No!No!I say!” She leaned farther away, and struck at him as he came—though not hard.
With a tender cry of “Ah! my beautiful one!” he caught her two flying hands in his. Then, holding all her fingers firmly, he bent his dark head down to her left hand swiftly. The next moment, he retreated, almost with a leap, swung the door open, closed it behind him, ran swiftly to where the sheriff was waiting for him on the path by the chapel, threw himself on to a horse, and led the way at a gallop to the river.
Paloma pursued him, and so fleetly that her hand all but touched thetapaderoof his stirrup as he rode into the river. Those who saw her then, standing at the edge of the stream, splashed upon face and dress with the yellow water sent into the air by his horse’s hoofs, were appalled as they looked at her. She was livid with anger and screamed wild things that no one understood—execrations and threats. Then she fell down at the ford in a very spasm of wrath.
It was Señor John who lifted her up and gave her into the comforting arms of her mother. “What did he do?” he questioned. “He’s a bad, heartless wretch, that’s what he is.”
“Señor! My adored pearl!” wailed Paloma, finding her voice. “Oh, he has taken my precious pearl!” She held out her left hand tremblingly.
“The pearl?” echoed Father José, joining the others.
“See what he did!” wept Paloma. “He made as if to kiss my fingers—and bit the pearl from my ring!”
At sunset Anastacio was back at Los Morales again, where he bade fair to become a hero before long, since the Indians could not but honour a man who was able so promptly to throw off the clutches of the jailer. Anastacio related his adventures to those Pueblos who were lounging before the single store of the town, and who, as they listened, surrounded him in an eager, many-hued circle. It was easy, he explained, to guard against being kept in custody if one but used a little forethought. As for his own case, it had presented no difficulties. He had paid his fine with the pearl.
When the boast reached the ears of Paloma, what could have maddened her more? At once she sat herself down to think. Revenge was what she most desired. Revenge was what she must have—but how? Not till she had paced the floor many times, and torn all the fringe from the bottom of the scarlet shawl, did she think out the best way.
The girl who rode the spotted mustang came past the chapel the very next morning. Paloma ran to halt her, holding up a flower culled from Father José’s garden by way of an inducement to stop.And when Paloma had made sure that no one was watching them, or listening, she divulged an earnest wish. It was that Señorita Roberta would give her the loan of a ring.
A pair of blue eyes laughed down at her knowingly. “Punish him well!” whispered Señorita Roberta, and slipped a band from a finger. “Here—take this one with a green stone. It will make himterriblyjealous!” Then she rode to where Señor John was painting beneath the empty belfry in the shadow of the chapel wall.
Putting on the borrowed ring Paloma hastened to dress herself with great care. After which, strolling carelessly, she made through the sunlight to the store.
The man who kept the store was young, but with the pallid skin and sad, hollow eyes that denote a mortal illness. He could move about but slowly in the little room, and take down and display and put away only with much effort.
As he waited upon her, Paloma walked to and fro with a gay step, all the while talking: “Show me the calico with the yellow flower, señor. Yes—a yard, please. Did you hear that Señor Gordon is to paint me? Well, he is—and with the padre’s peacock. I am to wear a certain white dress that I shall not use for the purpose it was once intended. No; I shall buy another white dress—very soon, I think—a much richer dress. And, look, señor, is this ring not beautiful? The stone came from beyond the Pacific Ocean.”
Behind the stove, as she sauntered about, boasting, sat a figure wrapped to the ears in a torn serape.But the figure did not move, or appear to see, or even so much as cough.
“Yes,” babbled Paloma, “first I’m to be put in a picture. Then—who knows?—I may go on a long trip. Oh, farther than Albuquerque, señor. Yes, one spool of white thread, very fine. I may even go as far as Chicago.” She tossed her pretty head with meaning. “A girl cannot always live in Los Morales,” she added. “It is but a poor place.” Thereupon, she gathered up her packages, put down some coins upon the counter, gave the sick young man a saucy smile, and went out.
Perhaps it was ten—perhaps fifteen—minutes later when Anastacio rose from his seat by the stove. A change had come over him—a change that was not good to see. His thin face was as ghastly white as the face of the man behind the counter. Out of it gleamed his black eyes, which were so wide open that each was rimmed with white. And his lips were purple under his long moustache and parted to show the line of his set, white teeth. Now his hat was not hiding his forehead, but back upon his shining hair; nor was the torn serape about his shoulders—it was wound around his left arm. He went down through the village, out upon the path which led to the chapel, along this to where Señor John was still painting under the belfry, and so on to the ford, where he disappeared from sight under the high bank that stood a little way back from the river.
The day had begun warm and still, and the noon had been hot, without a breath of air to stir the drooping flowers in Father José’s garden or wavethe bright fan of the strutting peacock. But at the middle of the afternoon black clouds suddenly lowered upon river and town, dropping from off the high dirt-cliffs to the west, and bringing twilight with them. A gusty wind marshalled the clouds along, bent the reeds in the marsh, drove through the winding streets of the pueblo and caught at the blankets of the Indians who were scurrying to cover, and brushed all the surface of the river into a white lather. Then came great drops of rain.
Señor John fled into Father José’s kitchen. “Do you think I’d better start home now?” he inquired, “or wait a while?”
“Wait,” advised the father. “There will betamalesfor supper, and a loaf of bread heated with butter. After a day like this one, señor, the storm soon passes.”
But as night came on swiftly the wind grew to a gale and the rain began to drive, beating upon the panes of the wide-ledged window like whips of grass.
Señor John ate his supper in silence, getting up nervously every now and then to open the front door a trifle in order to look out, or he shaded his eyes from the lamplight as he peered through the window. The father touched little food, and following supper took his seat in the cane chair before the open grate of his stove—his head lowered and his eyes closed.
Before long the young painter could not contain his impatience further. “I think I’d better start,” he said. “It doesn’t act like quitting for sometime.”
Father José rose. “Why go home to-night?” heasked. “You will not be able to see the cross on the other side, señor. You are welcome here.”
“Oh, I must get over somehow. They would worry about me.”
The father looked grave. “The storm still increases,” he said.
The rain was coming in sheets against the window now, but at short intervals, so that it was as if a white wraith were returning noisily again and again to peer through the blurred glass. The blue blinds outside the father’s bedchamber were banging forward and back with a rattle of loose laths. Upon the level roof overhead sounded the unbroken roar of the tempest.
“A cloudburst and a hurricane,” went on the father. He also opened the front door a little to look out. “I have never seen its like before, señor. They will surely not expect you to brave this.”
The young painter’s face had grown suddenly anxious. “Butshemight try to come—looking for me,” he said.
“Señorita Roberta? No. She knows how dangerously the river rises in a storm and how the sands shift.”
Señor John was pulling his soft hat down to his ears. “You said yourself, though, father, that she doesn’t know what it means to be afraid of the Rio Grande. Imustgo. My horse is all right. He’ll take me over.”
“Do not risk it,” advised Father José. “Listen!” And he held up a finger.
There was now a deep voice in the tumult outside—a voice that boomed in heavy undertones.
“It is the river, señor. Oh, I shall worry too.”
“I’ll yell when I get across.”
“I could not hear. But I have an old pistol which I took from a quarrelsome Indian.” The father disappeared into his bedroom and returned carrying a long-barrelled revolver of an old make. “Fire this when you reach the other side.”
“Good-night, Father.”
“Good-night, my son.”
They shook hands and Señor John went out through the door leading into the garden.
A little moon-faced clock on a shelf under the white-and-gold porcelain marked the time as close upon eight. The father returned to his armchair. But now he kept his eyes open and his lips pressed tight, and his head a little to one side. Thus, he waited.
At half-past eight he got up and went to the front door. Rain was still falling heavily, but the wind seemed to have abated a degree. He listened. The river was speaking with a medley of curious voices: There was the rise and fall of pleasant argumentation; wagon-wheels ground over gravel; a child whimpered; oars pounded and squeaked in their rowlocks; steam sang; a dog snarled. Presently he made out the wide Rio Grande as pools of glistening black that moved upon a dead blackness.
With the glimpse of that sweeping, inky flood, fear came over him. He called: “Señor John! Come back! Señor!Señor!”
There was no answer. But as he watched—shivering a little—a tiny speck of light suddenly showed in the distance, where stood the Allen hacienda.
“Good!” he exclaimed. “He must be there.” And after watching and listening for another while, he closed the door and went back to his chair.
The wind was plainly lessening, so that now the bedroom blinds banged only occasionally—and the rain was falling more gently. He leaned back, propped his head on a hand, and dozed.
Suddenly, he found himself sitting bolt upright, clutching either arm of the chair, holding his breath. What was that? What had awakened him? He seemed to hear them yet—the dying tones of a bell!
His eyes sought the clock.Four!And the storm was over, for he could hear the ticking. He rose. He lit the lantern. He tied the purple-bordered square of silk over his white hair. Then he hastened down the garden-walk, out of the gate, and toward the river, calling with all his strength.
A voice answered him faintly, as if from the opposite shore. He shouted again. It was a girl’s voice—the second answer made that certain. Then he heard the snort of a horse, splashing, and a murmur of encouraging words.
As he awaited her approach, he made circles with his lantern upon the river, and whispered in an agony of self-reproach: “He is lost. And I let him go! He is lost or she would not be seeking him!”
There were few clouds in the sky, and in the east was a pale lightening, as if of the dawn. By holding the lantern behind him, he made out horse and rider as they neared.
“Where is Señor John?” he called to the girl.
“Oh!”—it was a piercing cry. “Isn’t he withyou?”
The spotted mustang was pushing through water that foamed about his shoulders. Close to the bank, she reined him and bent over in her saddle as if overcome.
“No! no!” Father José implored. She lifted her head then—he swung his lantern forward—and saw the awful stiffness of her white face, the wild terror of her eyes. All at once he understood what he had not guessed before. “Oh, poor little woman!” he said compassionately.
“When did he start home?”
“Eight.”
“Oh, he went down!” Now, she half-turned the mustang, and rode against the current. All the while, she looked about her, first on one hand then on the other, and uttered little, piteous, despairing calls.
“Be careful!” warned the father. “You are above the ford.”
She reined. “Where is the cross? He must have started in at the cross. John! John!”
Father José hunted about. “I cannot find it,” he answered. “Perhaps it has been swept away.” Then, hurrying forward, “No; here it is—but how far up. This is not the ford!”
“Father! Someone has changed the cross!” Suddenly, the mustang halted as if in fear. She strove to urge him on, striking at his flanks with a quirt.
“Come a little farther,” called Father José.
“My horse issinking!”
That moment, with a shudder, then a quick backward plunge that struck up a shower of spray, themustang threw himself toward the bank and floundered out.
The girl was panting and crouching on her saddle again. “The crossing’s bad!” she wept. “He rode right into it. Oh, Father José!”
The father did not answer. He had waded out a few steps. And now as he stood in the water, the current was catching at the bottom of his gown and whirling it. To and fro he swept the lantern.
All at once the girl sat up and faced riverward. “What’s that?” she asked. “Didn’t you hear it? And, look! There—down there, away out!”
The light had grown. She pointed below them to the middle of the flood. It had divided at one point and was running on either side of a sand-bar which showed above the surface of the water. At the near edge of the bar lay something black—something that moved a little.
Almost before the father knew where she pointed, the spotted mustang was fighting the current once more, now making his way through water that only washed above the stirrups, now falling suddenly into deep channels that he swam. All the while she encouraged him, or shouted ahead, or back to Father José.
The father had put down his lantern. Now he ran to the cross, pried it out of the sand and started along the bank with it, stopped at a point a little above where he judged she could come out, for the cross was heavy and the current could help him to carry it.
Now, she had stopped in midstream and was heading the spotted mustang about. Next, she hadleaned down and reached a hand to the exhausted man lying in water to his shoulders. Then, very slowly, the spotted mustang, alternately swimming and walking as before, she began the return.
She came on without a word, for all her breath and strength were needed for her task. Her left arm was crooked around the horn of her saddle, her right was outstretched, still holding its heavy weight. When she had made half the distance Father José advanced into the water to meet her, pulling the floating cross along at his side.
Together they brought Señor John to shore, he clinging to a stirrup at the last, and she to his sleeve, for her hold had not borne the long strain. He was clinging to the cross as well, Father José having pressed the base of the upright under the water and under his arm. As they laid him upon the ground, and the father wiped at his face, he looked up at them with a wan smile.
“Roberta,” he whispered hoarsely, “I—was getting—tired.”
“I nearly died with fear,” she answered. “John, where’s your horse?”
“Went down.”
“Rest for a little,” bade the father.
They all rested, breathing hard—Señor John lying and they seated beside him. But presently he struggled up to a sitting posture, bracing himself on one dripping arm.
“Roberta,” he said, his voice firmer even with so short a respite, “I’m cold.”
They helped him to stand, and half-carried him to the top of a low ledge of sand near by. Then, whilethe father supported him for a moment, she led the spotted mustang to the ground below the ledge, and Señor John was enabled easily to mount.
“First, to the store,” said Father José, “for dry clothing. Then, hot coffee.”
Señor John was too weak to sit up in the saddle, and leaned forward—his back bowed, his chin on his breast, his hands clasped around the saddle-horn. “You won’t have to hold me on,” he said, when they reached up from either side. “No; I’m all right. Just worn out, that’s all, keeping myself from being sucked under.” He turned a haggard face to Father José. “Think!” he added, “—if it hadn’t been for that rock!”
“Arock, señor?” demanded the father. “There are no rocks here in the Rio Grande.”
Señor John lifted a feeble hand to point. “You canseeit,” he protested; “a big one, too, sticking out of the sand.”
Father José looked out to where the channel divided on either side of the bar. There was a strange light in his eyes, and his cheeks were pale as he faced the dawn. “Somethingisthere,” he said, speaking low, as if to himself.
The spotted mustang started now, slowly, with the girl walking alongside to guide him. The father did not follow. He went down to the water’s edge instead, and stood watching out toward the bar in midstream. And so they left him.
As for Señor John, he was soon wearing a suit from off the shelves at the store and was reviving after a smoking draught of the brew which Paloma’s mother brought. Then a seat behind the stove wasfixed up for him and here he was showered with attention, no less by the young storekeeper—haggard as himself—than by a cluster of inquisitive, but kindly, Indians.
To one side loitered Paloma, quietly observant. But when Señor John, despite his little audience, reached up to kiss the girl who had braved the water and the sands to find him, Paloma approached the two and drew from her finger the ring with the green stone.
“I return what I borrowed,” she said. Her face was a sullen black and ivory, and when she walked away it was with an air somewhat forlorn—like that of a girl who has neither ring nor lover. But when she reached the door a tinge of colour rushed into cheek and lip. Outside, two dark eyes were fixed upon her from under a wide hat, for Anastacio was hovering near, wrapped in his serape—hovering as if he wished to look on, yet was anxious to escape notice. All at once, Paloma’s pretty head came high again and she tripped proudly out.
It was at this juncture that shouting was heard from the direction of the river. Instantly the crowd about Señor John dwindled and started in loose order down the winding pueblo street. Paloma’s mother went too, joining Paloma. And the storekeeper followed, bareheaded. Then—the shouting had grown—Señor John got up and trailed after the others, leaning on a willing shoulder.
The sun was up now and shining warmly. As they came out of the village upon the path which led past the chapel, it glistened on the wet grey roofs of the town and on the wide, yellow river.
All of Los Morales was in front of them, crying out excitedly, running, cheering wildly. And now, as the noisy throng parted, here came a procession, moving up the gentle slope that led from the Rio Grande to the chapel of San Felipe. Father José led it, his thin face uplifted and transformed, his dark eyes wide, serene and luminous, his slender hands clasping the jet cross on his breast. Behind him trooped the Pueblos, reaching out brown hands to touch something that was in their midst. Their black eyes sparkled, their white teeth showed with smiling. At the center of the throng walked six bright-blanketed Indians abreast, a long, stout pole in their hands. And swung on the pole through its iron loop, with its clapper wagging as the six walked, and sounding a mellow, clear-throated, joyous greeting to all the town, came the lost silver bell of Los Morales.
The very morning that the lilac bush in a corner of the father’s garden showed a first cockade of purple bloom among its heart-shaped leaves, the silver bell rang for a wedding—for Paloma married Anastacio, and wore the white dress, and a ring with a pearl to guard her new gold band. And the gift of the groom to his bride was a fawn, which was to have a garden all its own. And the gift of the bride’s mother was a freshly-built house of adobe, flat-roofed, with doors that were bluer than any doors in the city of Albuquerque, and with a trellis as blue as the doors. While, curiously enough, the gift of the bride to the father was a yellow custard.
Señor John and the girl who rode the spottedmustang crossed the river to attend the wedding. (Señor John came, because—in Los Morales—it is well to let sleeping dogs lie.) And when the ceremony was finished, the two visited a while with Father José.
“Well,” said the father to them cheerfully, “I have married the Spanish peacock off. She will strut a little, no doubt, and delight in her own beauty; perhaps accomplish nothing in her new life—after the manner of peacocks. But when it comes to that, could not one sayalmostas much against my roses? Yes.” As he talked he busied himself with a salad. In the bottom of the white-and-gold dish he first laid a slice of buttered bread; then, upon the bread, leaf against leaf, so that the effect was that of a huge green rose, he placed the lettuce, all glistening with its dressing of oil and vinegar; next, a-top the lettuce——
But here Señor John left the wide-ledged window and came forward, smiling, to whisper something slyly into his ear. At that the father left his salad and seized a hand of each of them. “Señor and Señora Gordon!” he cried. “Well, a double blessing! Ah!—how like ever seeks out like!”
And so surprised was the good father at their news that for the first time in all the years that he had possessed the white-and-gold porcelain, he forgot to add—as a top to the big, green rose—the thin circles of silvery onion.