Days of '49/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
1
Cowden's ranch, until the coming of Americans, was not known as Cowden's ranch, but as El Crucifijo.
The native Californians, as with Spanish people everywhere, did not feel there was anything incongruous in naming a boy Jesus, a girl Maria de la Concepcion, a meager group of mud houses the pueblo of La Reina de los Angeles; and so suggestive a landmark as the dead oak that stood before the rancho could not escape the significant name of El Crucifijo.
El Crucifijo Rancho was very old, as the works of men had age in California. Part of the high adobe wall still stood where it had been raised when there was danger from Indians. There were many buildings, particularly for a Californian rancho.
It was here that Col. Nevinson had brought Mr. Tesla, his daughter, and Kredra. At the second meeting between Col. Nevinson and Ilona, he said with fierceness:
"Young lady, if any other man had spoken to you as I did this morning, I'd horsewhip him, sir! I'd whip the scoundrel to an inch of his life! I can't apologize fittingly, because I dare not use language that would express what I think of myself!"
Ilona, a little startled, and hardly knowing what to say, said that she forgave him.
Col. Nevinson had provided horses, and a man with a mule to carry baggage. Kredra protested against their riding faster than the muleteer, who, taking her for an ordinary servant, had tried to be agreeable and made her angry. She expressed doubts as to his honesty, felt he should be watched.
"As you are a witch-woman," said Ilona, "you know the poor, honest man will steal nothing."
Toward the end of the afternoon they came to the ranch, and though the land was hot and dry, there were many live oaks and burr oaks through which they rode; and not far from the ranch was a tall fringe of green along the dry bed of a river where springs, or an underground flow, gave moisture to the soil. There was beauty in the contour of the hills, low and rounded, and in the hazy vagueness of distant hills and mountains. The land was almost entirely without undergrowth, and the trees stood as if in a park.
As they approached near to the rancho they heard, in the stillness of the late afternoon, a deep musical voice accompanied by a plaintive strumming on a guitar.
"Ferdinand!" said Col. Nevinson, with no tone of joy. He had thought Elvira's man was at the mines.
A dog barked. Other dogs came out with galloping excitement and barked loudly to show how alert they were. They barked at Americans only, never at Spaniards.
Ilona had reined up and was staring at the great bare trunk and two out-spread branches of the dead oak.
"How like a cross!"
When she looked again toward the house she saw a big shaggy-headed man standing where the glow of the afternoon sun, partially obscured by foliage, fell slantingly on his face and breast. From half of his breast down he stood in a shadow. He was bareheaded, his hair was dark and tangled as if never combed. In age he was at least forty or more; tall as the average man, but appeared shorter because of his immense breast. His face was as beardless as a young man's, for he considered the day unlucky on which he did not shave. He wore a velvet sash about his waist; his shirt was open at the throat, sleeves rolled back on his thick arms. There was the glint of loop earrings under his hair. He smiled, showing even white teeth, but there was now a wary steadiness in the way he looked from one to another.
"Hello there, Ferdinand," said Col. Nevinson, almost more friendly than Mr. Tesla had heard the colonel address any other man.
"A-hoy-O!" said Ferdinand, with a familiar flourish of his hand.
He had a rich voice, at once powerful and smooth, and spoke English with an odd trace of accent.
"I thought you were at the mines," said Col. Nevinson, plainly wishing that he were at the mines.
Ferdinand laughed. He laughed readily, as if he found much in the world to make a man merry; his manner toward every one was nearly always pleasant, or at least cheerful. There could be a difference between his pleasantness and cheerfulness, as many people had learned. But somehow he had an almost insolent indifference as to whether or not he was thought agreeable. It pleased him to be merry; he seldom appeared to care if it pleased others.
Now one hand toyed with the strings of the guitar, absently picking a little rhythm as if there was so much music in his fingers that they could play tunes by themselves. He looked carefully at Mr. Tesla, glanced with indifference at Kredra, and stared, smiling, at Ilona. Then with a broader smile he answered Nevinson:
"O-ho, up to the mines people work too hard for Ferdinand to be happy there. They get up in the dark an' wait for the sun so they can deeg gol'. They stand in col' water to here"—he made a pass at his throat—"an' deeg. They do not eat for fear they won't fin' some of that gol' while they cook. When the sun goes down, they curse heem an' go to bed an' dream of gol'. When they find them gol' they get drunk. They are beeg fools."
"Ferdinand, this is Mr. Tesla and his daughter. They are going to stay here awhile. Where is Mrs. Castro?"
Castro had been a sort of overseer on the ranch for Cowden, had lived there for many years.
Ferdinand bobbed his shaggy head in friendly greeting toward Ilona; then:
"Señora Castro she went yesterday, or it was the day before, or yet the day before that such a fool's head I have for numbers!—to Sonora, to Sonoma, to some place, my colonel. I don't know where the mother lives. Maybe her mother she do not live. Some people do not tell the truth always when they look for excuses to go away. Señor Castro he went too. When they come back they do not say. Señora Castro she talk talk talk so much she got no time to say when she comes back. Maybe they went to deeg for gol' an' don't come back."
"That makes it bad, Colonel," said Mr. Tesla. "Impossible."
It was under the care of the Castros, whom Nevinson had recommended, that he had expected to leave his daughter.
"And damn queer," said Col. Nevinson. "I don't understand their going off without letting me know."
He swore hotly under his breath at the Castros, as if snapping oaths at them.
Kredra climbed down as if half falling. She was too weary to grumble.
"See that the horses are put up, Ferdinand," said the Colonel. "Then come and help us find something to eat."
Ferdinand carefully hung his guitar on a wooden peg that jutted from the adobe wall of the house and came forward to take the reins of the horses. As he passed Kredra he said to her in Spanish:
"Bloom of the Orange, do you like love songs?"
She scowled angrily, for hers was the arrogant virginity of a priestess.
"Ah, we will be good friends," said Ferdinand, winking, teasing her.
"God has kept beard from your face so men could see the devil in it!" she retorted.
Ferdinand grinned, pleased. He liked a sharp tongue in women.
He gathered the reins of the horses and motionlessly watched his guests, for whom he had only a doubtful welcome, pass through the doorway.
When they were out of sight he called:
"Pedro? Pedro! Son of a turnip—Pedro!"
"Si, señor. I come!"
"Use your breath for running, not words, Empty-Skull."
The small Pedro came running clumsily, and grinning:
"I am here, señor!"
"Listen, Tail of a Dog, when did Señor Castro and the señora depart?"
"I do not know, señor, for many days run together like drops of water and may not be counted. But it is a long time now."
"Idiot! It was two days ago."
Pedro nodded rapidly:
"Two days, señor. Yes." He held up a finger of each hand to show that he understood. "It is in my mind now."
"Why did they go, Pig-Ear?"
Pedro grinned in a way that wrinkled his face from forehead to chin.
"Because the good Señor Ferdinand said, 'I love you so well it makes me unhappy to see you work so hard. Here is a club and here is a little gold. If you stay till tomorrow's sun puts his nose in my face, I will teach you the bastinado. If you go now, you may have the gold, but the bastinado waits for your return. Besides, rascals, you have sold cattle and kept the money.'"
"Oho, what a law clerk was spoiled in the making of a vaquero! The devil loves you to put so many lies in a mouth no bigger than a miser's heart! Señor Castro and the señora went to visit the señora's mother, who is near death. She told you so much. It is not for me to know anything of stealing. Put away the horses and tell the truth always. Hear, Turnip-Head?"
"Si, señor, " said Pedro, bobbing in appreciation of the joke, which he understood but imperfectly, but well enough for his needs. He worshiped Señor Ferdinand as he should have worshiped someone more likely to be canonized.
Taking the reins of the horses, clucking and jerking at them, he marched off through the twilight.
2
Ferdinand looked toward the windows where candlelight was now flickering, and held conversation with himself:
"Why he brings a woman that has so much beauty is something the devil could tell me if he would. This is my house, and what is mine is the good Doña's, and since he belongs to her, too, the devil owns us all . That young girl has more beauty than another woman can want in the world except on her own face. I know the good Doña. She will be jealous, and the good Doña has an evil heart when she is jealous. My colonel will learn wisdom yet!"
Ferdinand's primitive reasoning as to the ownership of El Crucifijo was about as near the truth as could be reached by a man who had only the vaguest regard for what constituted ownership of anything by anybody. What a man could get and keep was his. That was the law of all the countries Ferdinand had ever visited and he had been a great wanderer. But this time he had gone to the trouble to be honest, since land was difficult to carry off and hide. Elvira had told him the land had been bought, and Ferdinand felt that it was his. Elvira, who had kept Ferdinand's money, quite naturally expected the colonel to give it to her, as he had, in all sincerity, said that he would. Thus three persons, not unreasonably, regarded the rancho as his or her property.
Ferdinand, whom the devil with especial care had tutored in knavery, had selected El Crucifijo as a fine place for him and such of his friends as he had picked up to rest quietly between the labors of gold-hunting, since it was situated well off a traveled road, and at that a road little used by miners, who might take undue pleasure in again meeting a man they knew but slightly. El Crucifijo was more than a hundred miles from the mines, which, though it meant a few days' travel to go and come, greatly lessened Ferdinand's chances of being found by people he did not want to see.
Very recently most of Ferdinand's friends had been taken under the leadership of a short stout savage man, one Don Gil Diego, friend of Don Esteban de Sola. Ferdinand knew all about Don Esteban, and also knew where the horse was for which they searched. This was quite natural, since the horse was now, and had been for some time, at El Crucifijo. But Ferdinand always felt that a secret was sufficiently well known if he alone knew it. Besides, there were many, a great many, de Sola horses scattered through the land; and if he were ever to be questioned by that savage Don Gil Diego, Ferdinand could say in what way did he, a sailor-man, know one horse from another? But he had kept the horse well out of sight nevertheless.
Ferdinand had felt that the Castros, though, now and then tempted beyond discretion by the high prices of foolish gringos, they had sold a horse or two, were too honest for him to trust. They hardly knew what authority he had, but when he said "Go!" there was that about him which made them ready to go, and without a thought of seeking and complaining to Col. Nevinson, who was a mad gringo.
3
The tallow candles burned dispiritedly. The room was too large for them. Their flame did not carry so far as their odor.
It was a large room, low of ceiling, with rough-hewn beams. The floor had been laid with tiling, which by long use was worn, broken and in some places depressed into the earth. One familiar with California houses would have known that an Englishman or an American had once lived there by the huge fire place built in at one end.
Señora Cowden, when, with her children, she had returned to her father's home, had gone on a carreta—a low Spanish wagon, whose wheels were four segments of a great tree—and carried away such furniture and belongings as would seem to be the property of a discarded wife. In this dining-room remained a few chairs, fastened more firmly than with nails or glue, by rawhide; and a large rough-hewn table, where many a joyous company had feasted on beef, roast pigeon, green corn, sauce of peppers, tomatoes, garlic and parsley, tortillas, stewed beans, panocha for women and children who liked sweets, tea, and wine from the vineyards of San José for everybody. A rude fare, but stomachs were strong and hearts light. The dishes were of baked clay; the forks and spoons of horn; the knives were such as men carried in belts and leggings, with which they cut the throats of cattle.
When Ferdinand entered the room Kredra was sitting in a chair where she had dropped patiently. It made little difference to her where she might be as long as Ilona was near. Col. Nevinson, in low sharp tones, was expressing himself wrathfully to Mr. Tesla regarding the departure of the Castros. Ilona, with hand resting against a corner of the table, looked about with mild interest at the large, nearly bare room.
"Hi—oh!" said Ferdinand, and his fingers rippled carelessly across the strings of the guitar. Ilona looked at him and her face brightened. It was as if a magician had entered and scattered the shadows. The room did not seem so dark, nor so bare and lonely.
"Now soon we will eat. Ferdinand was once cook to the King of Spain"—he bowed low—"Ah, if the good God had but give us two mouths as he did ears! How much more pleasure! Eat and drink at the same time!"
He laughed and put the guitar carefully into a chair, and, as he talked, got more candles, lighted them one by one, stuck them on the table.
"Ho yes, my Colonel, I was at the mines and saw them hang men. 'Tis not ever' stout lad the devil loves so much as to let heem dance at his own death. At the mines, if you keel some fellow you hate—good! But if you steel his pick an' shovel, you are the fruit of a pine tree! Hones', I speak true. Ferdinand never tol' more than two lies in his life, an' both to women, so they are not remembered in Heaven. You beleeve me, señorita?"
"Yes," said Ilona, laughing, for one could hardly help laughing at Ferdinand, "I believe you have lied to women."
"Come, Flower of the Lemon"—this to Kredra—"I will show you the keetchin."
For the next hour Ferdinand was hardly silent. He moved back and forth from the kitchen to the dining-room, scattered pottery dishes over the table, told stories, sang snatches of song, teased Kredra, but with it all somehow maintained a careless air of dignity, which marked him as one who had never served anybody, except willingly. He brought a jug of wine and teacups.
"—blood of the grape. An' Señor Death some day puts us all into his wine press."
Pedro, hat in hand, poked his head through the doorway.
"Now what, Turnip?" demanded Ferdinand.
"A man that leads a mule, señor. With baggage for the señorita."
"Into the room of saints, Don Turnip. Ho, I myself will go an' see that for once you do as I tell you."
He went out of the door, leading little Pedro by the ear; and from afar they could hear him greeting the muleteer, demanding to know if he was a good Christian, vowing that he, Ferdinand, would allow none but good Christians to get drunk in his house; saying—though it was a dark night—that he could see the muleteer had a mouth all puckered out of shape by being so much at the edge of a bottle.
"I like that man," said Ilona.
"But of course, Miss Tesla, you can not remain here!" said Col. Nevinson.
"I suppose not," Ilona agreed, looking about her. "But after all, father, why not? I would have no uneasiness."
"Impossible!" said Mr. Tesla quickly. "The fault is all mine. But the Castros were good people. I'd like to tan their hides for them, leaving"
"Who is this man?" asked Ilona.
"Er-I know but little of the fellow. A friend of mine—ah—to whom he is devoted has vouched for him. Of course, because of his friend, I let him come and go as he pleases."
"It would seem that he almost thought he owned the ranch, Colonel," said Mr. Tesla.
"True, sir. And that is something about the fellow I do not like," the colonel answered.
"There is something about the rascal that I do like," said Ilona. "And you, Kredra"—Kredra was entering with a wide platter of juicy steaks—"what do you think of him?"
"That he would be nearer Heaven if he had died young," said Kredra, indifferently.
4
They were at the table when Ferdinand returned. Before he entered they could hear his voice rippling in song about some far-off girl whose smile was as the glow of the summer's sun, as the warmth of the autumn grape.
"Señorita, saints will guard your sleep." He seized a heavy chair, and with ease swung it to the table. "They are wax saints"—he dropped into the chair—"but since God is God, señorita, may not wax have as much power to fight evil as flesh?"
With that he drew a knife from his sash, a long heavy knife, half rose from his chair, reached well across the table, stabbed a steak and left a trail of juice and grease all the way back to his plate.
Col. Nevinson made a gesture of anger and very nearly exploded into wrath. He thought this fellow had no business at the table with them anyhow; but though the colonel would acknowledge fear of no man, he did have some dread of Doña Elvira's anger; and she was likely to be very exasperating if she misunderstood—as an offended Ferdinand could make her misunderstand—about Miss Tesla. In fact, the colonel watched Ilona with increasing interest and admiration from minute to minute. She was young, a perfect lady, beautiful.
Both Ilona and her father were interested, entertained by Ferdinand; table manners were not to be expected of such a robust barbarian, who ate carelessly, drank noisily, and was as unconscious of not being among equals as if he were the King of Spain in disguise. Kredra had retired to the kitchen.
"I have been in twentee countries an' on ten oceans," said Ferdinand, waving a tea cup by way of illustrating the length and breadth of his travels, "an' because men are evil to the innocent, in many prisons. But nevare in such a countree as this California. At the mines where men deeg deeg deeg for gol' they do not have policia, no gendarmes, no law's man, no books of the law, not a black robe, not a wig. Yet they wheep men for being such fools as to get caught when they steal. They hang men quick as a vaquero like Don Pedro Turnip-Head jerks down a cow, an'—it is truth! more men for stealing than if they keel somebody. My Colonel, you are much at the mines. Is it not true?"
Col. Nevinson, a bit bored, but noticing that Ilona listened attentively, nodded. It was true; and the widely traveled Ferdinand had spoken earnestly of something that greatly puzzled him.
"When a man, señorita, has a wrong, he can go to no officer. He tells ever'body, an' ever'body, though they deeg deeg as if gol' had legs an' would run off if they do not catch heem quick, drop them their picks and shovels an' hold a meetin' to hear the man's wrong. They have such a hurry to hang somebody queek so they can get back and deeg deeg deeg, that the mine camps is no place for the hones' man like me, who the devil so hates thatmany times he has had me accused Ah, señorita, they hang you so queek you do not have the time to sing only to dance, an', señorita, I shall die with a song in my throat or be unhappy. There is nothin'"
Kredra's voice, rising higher and higher in harsh strange outlandish words, bearing curses, came rattling in upon them.
Pedro and the muleteer, being men with stomachs, had, as they were used to doing in whatever houses mealtime found them, gone into the kitchen and begun dipping into the food. Kredra glowered and may have muttered a little; but when, taking her for a kitchen wench, and not a bad favored one, they added to words she did not understand attempted caresses that she understood perfectly, her anger flared into the speech of her birth, and her curses were curses that would nearly have melted their bones had they understood a word of what she was saying.
Ferdinand broke off in the middle of a sentence, listening. His gesturing hand remained motionless in mid-air; his open mouth opened the wider and hung wide, and his eyes took on a staring, astonished fixity. Slowly, as if moving in a trance, with amazed, incredulous glances from face to face of those at the table, he pushed his chair back, then sprang toward the kitchen.
"!" cried Col. Nevinson. "The fellow is mad!"
5
As Ferdinand entered the kitchen, Kredra's unwelcome lovers stood with laughter, backs to the door, and made gestures as if about to give her caresses that she would not have.
Pedro was the nearest to the door. He turned the flash of a startled glance over his shoulder at the sound of heavy feet, then, being seized by neck and thigh, he went through the back door and into the courtyard, thrown bodily. The muleteer, after a moment's stupefied gaping, for his wits were too slow to be of the best service, turned and would have run; but Ferdinand caught him, shook him, struck him, hurled him to the floor, kicked him until the wretched man with a rolling and tumbling scramble got out of the door and, bowed by aches and bruises, went moaning and groaning into the darkness.
Ferdinand turned on Kredra, who stood with her back against the wall, and she was now in more uncertain amazement than she had felt anger. Her deep black eyes searched him with a burning doubtful gaze, for though his wrathful blows pleased her, she wanted jealous gallantry from him less than she had wanted caresses from men of whom she had no fear.
"By the Sacred Oak and Moon," cried Ferdinand in a low voice, using an ancient oath of the Basques and the tongue of the Basques, "you are a woman of my people!"
"You—you?" asked Kredra, wondering at her ears. "Basque!"
"In twenty years I have not heard my mother's speech! You are a woman of the Blood! And she—the Basque serve only whom they love! Who is she?" he demanded, pointing toward the dining-room.
"Daughter of a daughter of the House of de Ruz! I live but to die for her."
"De Ruz! God will guard her! And loves me! And he, her father, who is he?"
"Her father," Kredra answered simply, as if that were sufficient honor for any man. "But you, why are you here with so much evil on your face?"
Ferdinand with a tired abstract gesture passed his hand across his face as if to wipe away some speck noticed there, and speaking quietly as one does who is looking far back into the memory, he said:
"As a lad with my knife I waited among the rocks by the mountain road until the officer of the King's men rode by. There were men at his back, but I was mad with waiting and the Oath of the Knife had crossed my lips. I leaped out, high as the bow of his saddle. I put my knife into his heart and left it there, for even then I could throw the knife as well as now. I went as a wolf goes down the rocks where horsemen could not come. Their bullets touched my hair, but not my blood! With dogs and men of arms, with rewards that stirred damned gipsies to seek me, they searched the land, but the women of my people who had cursed the dead lord said prayers for me, and I was not found. And when the King's men would take my brothers to the garrote because they could not find me, it was Francesco de Ruz who said, 'No! Not while one rock of these mountains stands upon another!'"
"E-ah! He was the father of her mother! And I know of you!"
"And so I went into strange countries, and over all the oceans of the world, and from that day to this hour I have been a man whose heart sang though"—he brushed up the tangled hair from the sides of his head—"men of the law have cut my ears, and"—he reached with his left hand toward his right shoulder—"they have burned me with iron, and though"—he pointed to his ankles—"I have worn their chains, and though"—he put both hands to his neck, as if strangling himself—"the rasp of their hemp has scratched my throat!"
Kredra looked at him with humble respectfulness. The wretch of a lord who commanded a detachment of soldiers, maddened with wine and insolence, had made prisoner for a night a young Basque girl; she escaped, told her story, then leaped from a rock; and the young Basque to whom she was betrothed took the Oath of the Knife. The story was well known. Said Kredra:
"I have told my little one of you a hundred times, and blessed you as I told. As a child that lisped, she loved you. Your name is told to little boys when they are taught the noble deeds that Basques have done."
"Oh-ho," he cried excitedly, "this gold-land has done some good in the world since it brings the speech of my own mother to my ears! Down, sit down, daughter of the Blood, down, and talk with me!"
He squatted at her feet on the floor, like one who means not to move for hours, and began a thousand questions; but Kredra answered in haste, and made him follow her into the next room.
6
Col. Nevinson sat at the table across from Mr. Tesla and listened with an air of perplexed irritation. He, being a man of one tongue, understood not a word that was being said, for they talked Spanish; and he, usually the most important in any group, was not used to having conversations lifted beyond reach of his understanding. It was, sir, bad manners; and if the colonel had expressed what he felt, not only then but as a matter of permanent belief, he would have declared that the English language was good enough for anybody at any time, the world over, sir!
Now and then he lifted a candle's flame to his cigar, which died out repeatedly. He bit and clamped it between his teeth, shifting about in his chair. He frowned inquiringly toward Tesla, and in puzzlement toward Ilona, whose eyes were aglow, whose small hand fluttered in delight toward her father's arm as she happily looked and listened to that piratical scoundrel, Ferdinand, whom even the sullen Kredra also watched with admiration. Col. Nevinson could not understand it, though Mr. Tesla had tossed to him fragments of explanations. But Ilona was happy, and she looked very beautiful in her happiness.
When Ilona gave her father a good-night kiss on the cheek, and Col. Nevinson so pleasant a parting that he almost pardoned the outlandish gabbling that had irritated him, Kredra followed her and Ferdinand went before, candle in hand, showing the way to the room of saints.
It was a small dark room, dark and chilly in the daytime, of thick walls with rusty iron grating and no glass at the single deep window. There had never been glass. In niches of this room there were three or four small, rudely fashioned wax figures in tarnished garments and covered with dust. Some pious hand in years past had put them there, and no one had ever been sufficiently impious to put them out, or sufficiently devotional to carry them off. Halos were over their heads, and the upright splinters at their backs plainly enough showed what held the halos in place.
Ferdinand, for all of the use he made of God's name, had long before had the Catholic traditions and ancient folk lore with which his people were permeated, knocked out of him; but, like many a rascal, though he had no love of God or fear of the devil, he was primitively superstitious; and being wholly uneducated, he respected the religion of other people, which was something he would not do with their property.
This night as he entered the room of the saints, candle in hand, he crossed himself, feeling sudden emotions that he could not have explained had he tried.
The bed was large, with four high, thick posts, as if to bear a canopy, but there was no canopy. The bottom of the bed was a webbing of wide strips of rawhide; on this Ferdinand had spread dry grass, for Señora Cowden had carried off the cushions. Over the grass he placed well tanned hides, still strong with odor, but his nose, being used to the smell, knew nothing of that. Over the hides were blankets.
On the dark wall at the foot of the bed was an imprint very like the white shadow of the cross. Here for many years had hung the crucifix to which Señora Cowden paid her devotions. One who was superstitious might feel that so divine a figure had imparted its essence to the place where it rested; which in a way could be true without being miraculous, for weather wear and dust had stenciled there the outline of that symbol to which the good señora had prayed in thankfulness when her husband loved her, and before which her tears had fallen when gold-hunting, strong liquor, and God alone knew what other agencies of the Evil One had turned him into madness.
Ferdinand, having lighted other candles, pounded the bed to show its soft thickness, pointed to the piece of mirror, which was all that was left on the rancho to tell the truth to a woman when she was alone, paused at the doorway in withdrawing, and said earnestly:
"Rest in peace, in great peace, little one. God, his saints, and Ferdinand guard you!"
7
Mr. Tesla, having told the story of Ferdinand to Col. Nevinson, added:
"So, Colonel, with your permission, I will have my daughter remain here until I can arrange a home for her in that strange wild city of ours."
"I do not give my approval," said the colonel. "But as for permission, sir—my ranch, sir, as anything else of value to my friends, is, sir, at your disposal."
"I feel that it is far from an ideal arrangement, Colonel. But it is one that leaves me without the least fear for my daughter's safety."
Nevinson was a man of impulse. His hatreds were sudden, and sometimes he forgave unexpectedly. His affections did not hesitate and critically examine a woman as if he were buying a horse. When he disliked, he showed anger; when he liked, he yielded readily. He was a man of the world, and the code of his day and caste permitted a gentleman to have as many affairs with women of pleasure as was pleasing; but he would no more have thought of marrying such a woman than of marrying a negress.
Ilona, in his eyes, was beautiful; her father was a gentleman; and in spite of that episode at the gambling table, he was ready to believe that she was all that he implied when he called a woman a "refined lady." So, in coming from the city to the ranch, he had passed from a gallant readiness to do a beautiful young woman a favor into an uneasy solicitation for the welfare of the woman he was really beginning to think of marrying.
The next morning he spoke with Ferdinand alone.
"Look here, sir. If you let any harm come to her, you'll have to answer to me, to me, sir!"
"Ho, my Colonel, if harm comes to her, Ferdinand will be already in hell!"
"What, sir, do you mean by that?" demanded the colonel who did not readily understand the roundabout speech of romantic people.
"That God who is good will not have me die till a better man follows her leetle feet. An' as Ferdinand is as good as the bes', he will live a long time an' tell merry tales to the children she shall bring into this beeg bad world."
"No impudence, Ferdinand. More respect when you talk of a lady, sir!"
Ferdinand regarded him blankly, wholly unsuspecting that there were gentlemen so high-minded, whatever their vices, as to think it indecorous to speak of unborn children.
"Now, Ferdinand," said the colonel a little awkwardly, though he gave his mustache an upward pull, and was always quite uncomfortable when trying to speak otherwise than bluntly, "if Miss Elvira should misunderstand—"
"Hi-oh-o, my Colonel, I knew queeker than a bird winks why you pulled the long face to see that Ferdinand was not to the mine-camps. But now what sleep do he get, this Ferdinand with the thought of how the good Doña, God be good to her! will talk to learn that Ferdinand, her own man, who would keel, if she was wicked an' wanted men keeled—who would keel an die for her, maybe—now loves to the death a woman that has so much beauty, even my Colonel, who is no blin' man, has his eyes dazzle? Ho-oh-o, my Colonel, the good Doña will be full of ten devils an' the Colonel's ears will buzz as if bees hived there! But poor Ferdinand—e-ah! Ho, well, I leave it to God who knows all things! But if my Colonel does not say where she is, this leetle one, Ferdinand will not say how she come; an' the good Doña rides this way so leetle that she has been to El Crucifijo but one time. Then there were so many fleas in the blanket that she swore with oaths beeg as your own, my Colonel, that she would nevare, nevare, come again. So you see how God does plan all things!"
That morning the colonel called for the beautiful horse that he had named Prince, and which, without thought or inkling of the storm that gathered because of this horse, he believed that he had bought fairly enough, since he left in the Spaniard's hands, or rather at his feet, as much gold as the horse was worth.
This was Sunday morning. Ilona and the colonel rode together, Ilona upon Prince.
She rather liked Col. Nevinson. His abrupt, tense directness of speech interested her in a way that mannerly smoothness would not have done.
They galloped over the smooth ground, and from time to time drew rein under an oak or on a round hilltop. He told her with vivid abruptness of what he had seen at the mines and elsewhere, all of which he did in his best manner, and quite consciously hoping to touch her affections. Her liking for him increased, but she no more suspected, or responded to, the tender purpose that he had in mind than she would have responded had he attempted a caress. She would have struck him and hated him.
Col. Nevinson and Mr. Tesla, having already stayed longer than they had thought they would remain away from the city, where any hour, or any moment for that matter, business might go with topsy-turvy whirling either up or down, or some dramatic excitement affect the affairs of the city, left the rancho on Sunday afternoon so that with brisk riding they could reach the city before dark.
Ilona, with laughter to hide loneliness, for partings were rare between them, and many lingering kisses, gave her father God's speed, and to Col. Nevinson many merry words and a hand-clasp that he thought tender.
Ferdinand bid them good-by with great flourishes and "Hi-oh-o's!" Kredra was not in sight.
When they had gone, Ilona found her in the house, in a dark corner, crouched and crying.
"Kredra, beloved! Kredra, what is it?"
"I do not know. I do not know, little one!"
"You do not know! Why, silly Kredra, why then do you cry? Have you turned baby and wail to strengthen your lungs?"
"Ah, little one, blessed little one, do not jest with Kredra. For it is here"—she beat her breast—"it is here, the Black Ache—it is greater than pain—I can not tell why—I do not know—but it has come—the Black Ache! I fear for you, for you! For you!"
She clutched Ilona and pulled her near, held her as if holding her from Death itself. At times, but only rarely, an ominous and desperate sensation would seem to gather near Kredra's heart in a way that almost overpowered her. She had grown to believe implicitly that this was a warning, for after experiencing such periods of depression she had always been able soon to name some unfortunate event of which the Black Ache, as she called it, had been meant as a warning. Kredra, though she loved God and was a good Catholic, was also a Basque; and her mother had been a woman who among her people had the name of one who knew the future. But Kredra knew only that at times strange and unintelligible sensations came upon her; and now she felt a great fear, of she knew not what, and she expressively called it the Black Ache.
Ferdinand too had suddenly lost his merriment. When the horsemen were beyond reach of his cheery shouts, he glanced upward to see the sun. That was his way of noting time. Then he threw back his head, gaping upward, and lifting a hand in a gesture of astonishment, the better to make sure of his count, cried:
"One—two—three—four—five—God warns a man! Seven ravens and they fly northward! That is death!"
8
El Crucifijo lay two or three miles off the main traveled road, which at this time was not itself much traveled.
They had not gone far on this road when they met two Spanish Californians. Col. Nevinson swore hotly under his breath as he recognized one of them as Don José.
Col. Nevinson had just been saying, in the formal speech that gentlemen of that day regarded as essential when the subject was of such delicacy and importance,
"Sir, with your permission, sir I, would like to make known to Miss Tesla, sir, as I now make known to you, sir, the high esteem I have conceived for her, brief as has been, sir, our acquaintance. I am, sir, a man of my word. Rash toward my enemies, sir, but I have never failed a friend. I would feel it, sir, a great honor to have your approbation in paying my court to Miss Tesla, whom I regard, sir, as the most charming and refined lady"
His scrutiny of the oncoming Spaniards forced him to break off.
A Californian, it has been said, would greet politely his deadliest enemy if they met as travelers on the road; and Don José, after a studied glance at Nevinson, spoke to Mr. Tesla and rode on, while the more companionable Benito, who knew no word of any tongue but his own, cried a lusty, "Buenas tardes, señores," and touched his hat.
Col. Nevinson reined up and stared after them, and there was a kind of wrathful uneasiness in his manner.
"Let them go, Colonel," said Mr. Tesla, a little anxiously. "Why do you watch them so?"
"Um! No reason, sir, except that two such rascals need close watching. I am half-minded, sir, to return to the ranch."
"Why, this is the main road, Colonel. They are not going there."
"I hope not, sir. Hell and fire, sir, if"
He did not say more. He, being a good judge of horseflesh, had noticed in a glance that the horses these men rode bore the same brand as that upon the one he called Prince.
"After all, what of it?" he reflected. There were no doubt hundreds of horses in this part of the country with that same brand. These men were using the highway. They wouldn't, of course, go to El Crucifijo.
And that afternoon Don José, in spite of Benito's urging, did ride on without turning off toward El Crucifijo.