SUNSET
Of my exile of over two years in Mexico,
little need be said. By easy stages, I reached
the haciendas on the Rio San Juan where we had received
the cows in the summer of ’77. The reception
extended me was all one could ask, but cooled when
it appeared that my errand was one of refuge and not
of business. I concealed my offense, and was given
employment as corporal segundo over a squad
of vaqueros. But while the hacienda to which
I was attached was larger than Las Palomas, with greater
holdings in live-stock, yet my life there was one of
penal servitude. I strove to blot out past memories
in the innocent pleasures of my associates, mingling
in all the social festivities, dancing with the dark-eyed
señoritas and gambling at every fiesta.
Yet in the midst of the dissipation, there was ever
present to my mind the thought of a girl, likewise
living a life of loneliness at the mouth of the San
Miguel.
During my banishment, but twice did
any word or message reach me from the Nueces valley.
Within a few months after my locating on the Rio San
Juan, Enrique Lopez, a trusted vaquero from Las Palomas,
came to the hacienda, apparently seeking employment.
Recognizing me at a glance, at the first opportunity
he slipped me a letter unsigned and in an unknown
hand. After reading it I breathed easier, for
both Hunter and Oxenford had recovered, the former
having been shot through the upper lobe of a lung,
while the latter had sustained three wounds, one of
which resulted in the loss of an arm. The judge
had reserved his decision until the recovery of both
men was assured, but before the final adjournment of
court, refused the decree. I had had misgivings
that this would be the result, and the message warned
me to remain away, as the stage company was still
offering a reward for my arrest. Enrique loitered
around the camp several days, and on being refused
employment, made inquiry for a ranch in the south
and rode away in the darkness of evening. But
we had had several little chats together, in which
the rascal delivered many oral messages, one of which
he swore by all the saints had been intrusted to him
by my own sweetheart while visiting at the ranch.
But Enrique was capable of enriching any oral message,
and I was compelled to read between the lines; yet
I hope the saints, to whom he daily prayed, will blot
out any untruthful embellishments.
The second message was given me by
Frank Nancrede, early in January, ’81.
As was his custom, he was buying saddle horses at Las
Palomas during the winter for trail purposes, when
he learned of my whereabouts in Mexico. Deweese
had given him directions where I could be found, and
as the Rio San Juan country was noted for good horses,
Nancrede and a companion rode directly from the Nueces
valley to the hacienda where I was employed.
They were on the lookout for a thousand saddle horses,
and after buying two hundred from the ranch where
I was employed, secured my services as interpreter
in buying the remainder. We were less than a
month in securing the number wanted, and I accompanied
the herd to the Rio Grande on its way to Texas.
Nancrede offered me every encouragement to leave Mexico,
assuring me that Bethel & Oxenford had lost their mail
contract between San Antonio and Brownsville, and were
now operating in other sections of the state.
He was unable to give me the particulars, but frauds
had been discovered in Star Route lines, and the government
had revoked nearly all the mail contracts in southern
Texas. The trail boss promised me a job with
any of their herds, and assured me that a cow hand
of my abilities would never want a situation in the
north. I was anxious to go with him, and would
have done so, but felt a compunction which I did not
care to broach to him, for I was satisfied he would
not understand.
The summer passed, during which I
made it a point to meet other drovers from Texas who
were buying horses and cattle. From several sources
the report of Nancrede, that the stage line south
from San Antonio was now in new hands, was confirmed.
One drover assured me that a national scandal had
grown out of the Star Route contracts, and several
officials in high authority had been arraigned for
conspiracy to defraud. He further asserted that
the new contractor was now carrying the mail for ten
per cent, of what was formerly allowed to Bethel &
Oxenford, and making money at the reduced rate.
This news was encouraging, and after an exile of over
two years and a half, I recrossed the Rio Grande on
the same horse on which I had entered. Carefully
avoiding ranches where I was known, two short rides
put me in Las Palomas, reaching headquarters after
nightfall, where, in seclusion, I spent a restless
day and night.
A few new faces were about the ranch,
but the old friends bade me a welcome and assured
me that my fears were groundless. During the brief
time at my disposal, Miss Jean entertained me with
numerous disclosures regarding my old sweetheart.
The one that both pleased and interested me was that
she was contented and happy, and that her resignation
was due to religious faith. According to my hostess’s
story, a camp meeting had been held at Shepherd’s
during the fall after my banishment, by a sect calling
themselves Predestinarians. I have since learned
that a belief in a predetermined state is entertained
by a great many good people, and I admit it seems
as if fate had ordained that Esther McLeod and I should
never wed. But it was a great satisfaction to
know that she felt resigned and could draw solace
from a spiritual source, even though the same was
denied to me. During the last meeting between
Esther and Miss Jean, but a few weeks before, the
former had confessed that there was now no hope of
our ever marrying.
As I had not seen my parents for several
years, I continued my journey to my old home on the
San Antonio River. Leaving Las Palomas after
nightfall, I passed the McLeod ranch after midnight.
Halting my horse to rest, I reviewed the past, and
the best reasoning at my command showed nothing encouraging
on the horizon. That Esther had sought consolation
from a spiritual source did not discourage me; for,
under my observation, where it had been put to the
test, the love of man and wife overrode it. But
to expect this contented girl to renounce her faith
and become my wife, was expecting her to share with
me nothing, unless it was the chance of a felon’s
cell, and I remounted my horse and rode away under
a starry sky, somewhat of a fatalist myself. But
I derived contentment from my decision, and on reaching
home no one could have told that I had loved and lost.
My parents were delighted to see me after my extended
absence, my sisters were growing fast into womanhood,
and I was bidden the welcome of a prodigal son.
During this visit a new avenue in life opened before
me, and through the influence of my eldest brother
I secured a situation with a drover and followed the
cattle trail until the occupation became a lost one.
My last visit to Las Palomas was during the winter
of 1894-95. It lacked but a few months of twenty
years since my advent in the Nueces valley. After
the death of Oxenford by small-pox, I had been a frequent
visitor at the ranch, business of one nature and another
calling me there. But in this last visit, the
wonderful changes which two decades had wrought in
the country visibly impressed me, and I detected a
note of decay in the old ranch. A railroad had
been built, passing within ten miles of the western
boundary line of the Ganso grant. The Las Palomas
range had been fenced, several large tracts of land
being added after my severing active connections with
the ranch. Even the cattle, in spite of all the
efforts made for their improvement, were not so good
as in the old days of the open range, or before there
was a strand of wire between the Nueces and Rio Grande
rivers. But the alterations in the country were
nothing compared to the changes in my old master and
mistress. Uncle Lance was nearing his eighty-second
birthday, physically feeble, but mentally as active
as the first morning of our long acquaintance.
Miss Jean, over twenty years the junior of the ranchero,
had mellowed into a ripeness consistent with her days,
and in all my aimless wanderings I never saw a brother
and sister of their ages more devoted to, or dependent
on each other.
On the occasion of this past visit,
I was in the employ of a live-stock commission firm.
A member of our house expected to attend the cattle
convention at Forth Worth in the near future, and I
had been sent into the range sections to note the
conditions of stock and solicit for my employers.
The spring before, our firm had placed sixty thousand
cattle for customers. Demand continued, and the
house had inquiry sufficient to justify them in sending
me out to secure, of all ages, not less than a hundred
thousand steer cattle. And thus once more I found
myself a guest of Las Palomos.
“Don’t talk cattle to
me,” said Uncle Lance, when I mentioned my business;
“go to June—he’ll give you the
ages and numbers. And whatever you do, Tom, don’t
oversell us, for wire fences have cut us off, until
it seems like old friends don’t want to neighbor
any more. In the days of the open range, I used
to sell every hoof I had a chance to, but since then
things have changed. Why, only last year a jury
indicted a young man below here on the river for mavericking
a yearling, and sent him to Huntsville for five years.
That’s a fair sample of these modern days.
There isn’t a cowman in Texas to-day who amounts
to a pinch of snuff, but got his start the same way,
but if a poor fellow looks out of the corner of his
eye now at a critter, they imagine he wants to steal
it. Oh, I know them; and the bigger rustlers they
were themselves on the open range, the bitterer their
persecution of the man who follows their example.”
June Deweese was then the active manager
of the ranch, and after securing a classification
of their salable stock, I made out a memorandum and
secured authority in writing, to sell their holdings
at prevailing prices for Nueces river cattle.
The remainder of the day was spent with my old friends
in a social visit, and as we delved into the musty
past, the old man’s love of the land and his
matchmaking instincts constantly cropped out.
“Tom,” said he, in answer
to a remark of mine, “I was an awful fool to
think my experience could be of any use to you boys.
Every last rascal of you went off on the trail and
left me here with a big ranch to handle. Gallup
was no better than the rest, for he kept Jule Wilson
waiting until now she’s an old maid. Sis,
here, always called Scales a vagabond, but I still
believe something could have been made of him with
a little encouragement. But when the exodus of
the cattle to the north was at its height, he went
off with a trail herd just like the rest of you.
Then he followed the trail towns as a gambler, saved
money, and after the cattle driving ended, married
an adventuress, and that’s the end of him.
The lack of a market was one of the great drawbacks
to ranching, but when the trail took every hoof we
could breed and every horse we could spare, it also
took my boys. Tom, when you get old, you’ll
understand that all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
But I am perfectly resigned now. In my will,
Las Palomas and everything I have goes to Jean.
She can dispose of it as she sees fit, and if I knew
she was going to leave it to Father Norquin or his
successor, my finger wouldn’t be raised to stop
it. I spent a lifetime of hard work acquiring
this land, and now that there is no one to care for
the old ranch, I wash my hands of it.”
Knowing the lifetime of self-sacrifice
in securing the land of Las Palomas, I sympathized
with the old ranchero in his despondency.
“I never blamed you much, Tom,”
he resumed after a silence; “but there’s
something about cattle life which I can’t explain.
It seems to disqualify a man for ever making a good
citizen afterward. He roams and runs around,
wasting his youth, and gets so foxy he never marries.”
“But June and the widow made
the riffle finally,” I protested.
“Yes, they did, and that’s
something to the good, but they never had any children.
Waited ten years after Annear was killed, and then
got married. That was one of Jean’s matches.
Tom, you must go over and see Juana before you go.
There was a match that I made. Just think of it,
they have eight children, and Fidel is prouder over
them than I ever was of this ranch. The natives
have never disappointed me, but the Caucasian seems
to be played out.”
I remained overnight at the ranch.
After supper, sitting in his chair before a cheerful
fire, Uncle Lance dozed off to sleep, leaving his
sister and myself to entertain each other. I had
little to say of my past, and the future was not encouraging,
except there was always work to do. But Miss
Jean unfolded like the pages of an absorbing chronicle,
and gave me the history of my old acquaintances in
the valley. Only a few of the girls had married.
Frances Vaux, after flirting away her youth, had taken
the veil in one of the orders in her church. My
old sweetheart was contentedly living a life of seclusion
on the ranch on which she was born, apparently happy,
but still interested in any word of me in my wanderings.
The young men of my acquaintance, except where married,
were scattered wide, the whereabouts of nearly all
of them unknown. Tony Hunter had held the McLeod
estate together, and it had prospered exceedingly
under his management. My old friend, Red Earnest,
who outrode me in the relay race at the tournament
in June, ’77, was married and serving in the
Customs Service on the Rio Grande as a mounted river
guard.
The next morning, I made the round
of the Mexican quarters, greeting my old friends,
before taking my leave and starting for the railroad.
The cottage which had been built for Esther and me
stood vacant and windowless, being used only for a
storehouse for zacahuiste. As I rode away,
the sight oppressed me; it brought back the June time
of my youth, even the hour and instant in which our
paths separated. On reaching the last swell of
ground, several miles from the ranch, which would give
me a glimpse of headquarters, I halted my horse in
a farewell view. The sleepy old ranch cosily
nestled among the encinal oaks revived a hundred memories,
some sad, some happy, many of which have returned in
retrospect during lonely hours since.
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A TEXAS MATCHMAKER
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