The Splendid Idle Forties: Stories of Old California

The next day Eulogia went with her mother and Aunt Anastacia to pay a visit of sympathy to Doña Jacoba at Los Quervos.  Eulogia’s eyes were not so bright nor her lips so red as they had been the night before, and she had little to say as the wagon jolted over the rough road, past the cypress fences, then down between the beautiful tinted hills of Los Quervos.  Doña Pomposa sat forward on the high seat, her feet dangling just above the floor, her hands crossed as usual over her stomach, a sudden twirl of thumbs punctuating her remarks.  She wore a loose black gown trimmed with ruffles, and a black reboso about her head.  Aunt Anastacia was attired in a like manner, but clutched the side of the wagon with one hand and an American sunshade with the other.

“Poor Jacoba!” exclaimed Doña Pomposa; “her stern heart is heavy this day.  But she has such a sense of her duty, Anastacia.  Only that makes her so stern.”

“O-h-h-h, y-e-e-s.”  When Aunt Anastacia was preoccupied or excited, these words came from her with a prolonged outgoing and indrawing.

“I must ask her for the recipe for those cakes—­the lard ones, Anastacia.  I have lost it.”

“O-h-h, y-e-e-s.  I love those cakes.  Madre de Dios!  It is hot!”

“I wonder will she give Eulogia a mantilla when the chit marries.  She has a chest full.”

“Surely.  Jacoba is generous.”

“Poor my friend!  Ay, her heart—­Holy Mary!  What is that?”

She and Aunt Anastacia stumbled to their feet.  The sound of pistol shots was echoing between the hills.  Smoke was rising from the willow forest that covered the centre of the valley.

The Indian whipped up his horses with an excited grunt, the two old women reeling and clutching wildly at each other.  At the same time they noticed a crowd of horsemen galloping along the hill which a sudden turn in the road had opened to view.

“It is the Vigilantes,” said Eulogia, calmly, from the front seat.  “They are after John Power and Pio Lenares and their lieutenants.  After that awful murder in the mountains the other day, the men of San Luis and the ranchos swore they would hunt them out, and this morning they traced them to Los Quervos.  I suppose they have made a barricade in the willows, and the Vigilantes are trying to fire them out.”

“Heart of Saint Peter!  Thou little brat!  Why didst thou not tell us of this before, and not let us come here to be shot by flying bullets?”

“I forgot,” said Eulogia, indifferently.

They could see nothing; but curiosity, in spite of fear, held them to the spot.  Smoke and cries, shouts and curses, came from the willows; flocks of agitated crows circled screaming through the smoke.  The men on the hill, their polished horses and brilliant attire flashing in the sun, kept up a ceaseless galloping, hallooing, and waving of sombreros.  The beautiful earth-green and golden hills looked upon a far different scene from the gay cavalcades to which they were accustomed.  Even Don Roberto Duncan, a black silk handkerchief knotted about his head, was dashing, on his gray horse, up and down the valley between the hills and the willows, regardless of chance bullets.  And over all shone the same old sun, indifferent alike to slaughter and pleasure.

“Surely, Anastacia, all those bullets must shoot some one.”

“O—­h—­h, y—­e—­e—­s.”  Her sister was grasping the sunshade with both hands, her eyes starting from her head, although she never removed their gaze from the central volume of smoke.

“Ay, we can sleep in peace if those murdering bandits are killed!” exclaimed Doña Pomposa.  “I have said a rosary every night for five years that they might be taken.  And, holy heaven!  To think that we have been petting the worst of them as if he were General Castro or Juan Alvarado.  To think, my Eulogia!—­that thirsty wild-cat has had his arm about thy waist more times than I can count.”

“He danced very well—­aha!”

Aunt Anastacia gurgled like an idiot.  Doña Pomposa gave a terrific shriek, which Eulogia cut in two with her hand.  A man had crawled out of the brush near them.  His face was black with powder, one arm hung limp at his side.  Doña Pomposa half raised her arm to signal the men on the hill, but her daughter gave it such a pinch that she fell back on the seat, faint for a moment.

“Let him go,” said Eulogia.  “Do you want to see a man cut in pieces before your eyes?  You would have to say rosaries for the rest of your life.”  She leaned over the side of the wagon and spoke to the dazed man, whose courage seemed to have deserted him.

“Don Abel Hudson, you do not look so gallant as at the ball last night, but you helped us to get there, and I will save you now.  Get into the wagon, and take care you crawl in like a snake that you may not be seen.”

“No—­no!” cried the two older women, but in truth they were too terrified not to submit.  Power swung himself mechanically over the wheel, and lay on the floor of the wagon.  Eulogia, in spite of a protesting whimper from Aunt Anastacia, loosened that good dame’s ample outer skirt and threw it over the fallen bandit.  Then the faithful Benito turned his horse and drove as rapidly toward the town as the rough roads would permit.  They barely had started when they heard a great shouting behind them, and turned in apprehension, whilst the man on the floor groaned aloud in his fear.  But the Vigilantes rode by them unsuspecting.  Across their saddles they carried the blackened and dripping bodies of Lenares and his lieutenants; through the willows galloped the caballeros in search of John Power.  But they did not find him, then nor after.  Doña Pomposa hid him in her woodhouse until midnight, when he stole away and was never seen near San Luis again.  A few years later came the word that he had been assassinated by one of his lieutenants in Lower California, and his body eaten by wild hogs.