The Splendid Idle Forties: Stories of Old California

The night after the close of school the Governor gave a grand ball, which was attended by the older of the convent girls who lived in Monterey or were guests in the capital.  The dowagers sat against the wall, a coffee-coloured dado; the girls in white, the caballeros in black silk small-clothes, the officers in their uniforms, danced to the music of the flute and the guitar.  When Elena Estudillo was alone in the middle of the room dancing El Son and the young men were clapping and shouting and flinging gold and silver at her feet, Sturges and Eustaquia slipped out into the corridor.  It was a dark night, the dueñas were thinking of naught but the dance and the days of their youth, and the violators of a stringent social law were safe for the moment.  A chance word, dropped by Sturges in the dance, and Eustaquia’s eager interrogations, had revealed the American’s indignation at the barbarous treatment of Pilar, and his deep interest in the beautiful victim.

“Señor,” whispered Eustaquia, excitedly, as soon as they reached the end of the corridor, “if you feel pity and perhaps love for my unhappy friend, go to her rescue for the love of Mary.  I have heard to-day that her punishment is far worse than what you saw.  It is so terrible that I hardly have dared—­”

“Surely, that old fiend could think of nothing else,” said Sturges.  “What is she made of, anyhow?”

“Ay, yi!  Her heart is black like the redwood tree that has been burnt out by fire.  Before Don Enrique ran away, she beat him many times; but, after, she was a thousand times worse, for it is said that she loved him in her terrible way, and that her heart burnt up when she was left alone—­”

“But Doña Pilar, señorita?”

“Ay, yi!  Benito, one of the vaqueros of Doña Erigida, was in town to-day, and he told me (I bribed him with whiskey and cigaritos—­the Commandante’s, whose guest I am, ay, yi!)—­he told me that Doña Erigida did not take my unhappy friend home, but—­”

“Well?” exclaimed Sturges, who was a man of few words.

Eustaquia jerked down his ear and whispered, “She took her to a cave in the mountains and pushed her in, and rolled a huge stone as big as a house before the entrance, and there she will leave her till she is thirty—­or dead!”

“Good God!  Does your civilization, such as you’ve got, permit such things?”

“The mother may discipline the child as she will.  It is not the business of the Alcalde.  And no one would dare interfere for poor Pilar, for she has committed a mortal sin against the Church—­”

“I’ll interfere.  Where is the cave?”

“Ay, señor, I knew you would.  For that I told you all.  I know not where the cave is; but the vaquero—­he is in town till to-morrow.  But he fears Doña Erigida, señor, as he fears the devil.  You must tell him that not only will you give him plenty of whiskey and cigars, but that you will send him to Mexico.  Doña Brígida would kill him.”

“I’ll look out for him.”

“Do not falter, señor, for the love of God; for no Californian will go to her rescue.  She has been disgraced and none will marry her.  But you can take her far away where no one knows—­”

“Where is this vaquero to be found?”

“In a little house on the beach, under the fort, where his sweetheart lives.”

“Good night!” And he sprang from the corridor and ran toward the nearest gate.

He found the vaquero, and after an hour’s argument got his way.  The man, who had wormed the secret out of Tomaso, had only a general idea of the situation of the cave; but he confessed to a certain familiarity with the mountains.  He was not persuaded to go until Sturges had promised to send not only himself but his sweetheart to Mexico.  Doña Brígida was violently opposed to matrimony, and would have none of it on her rancho.  Sturges promised to ship them both off on the Joven Guipuzcoanoa, and to keep them comfortably for a year in Mexico.  It was not an offer to be refused.

They started at dawn.  Sturges, following Benito’s advice, bought a long gray cloak with a hood, and filled his saddle-bags with nourishing food.  The vaquero sent word to Doña Brígida that the horses he had brought in to sell to the officers had escaped and that he was hastening down the coast in pursuit.  In spite of his knowledge of the mountains, it was only after two days of weary search in almost trackless forests, and more than one encounter with wild beasts, that they came upon the cave.  They would have passed it then but for the sharp eyes of Sturges, who detected the glint of stone behind the branches which Doña Brígida had piled against it.

He sprang down, tossed the brush aside, and inserted his fingers between the side of the stone and the wall of the cave.  But he could not move it alone, and was about to call Benito, who was watering the mustangs at a spring, when he happened to glance upward.  A small white hand was hanging over the top of the stone.  Sturges was not a Californian, but he sprang to his feet and pressed his lips to that hand.  It was cold and nerveless, and clasping it in his he applied his gaze to the rift above the stone.  In a moment he distinguished two dark eyes and a gleam of white brow above.  Then a faint voice said:—­

“Take me out!  Take me out, señor, for the love of God!”

“I have come for that.  Cheer up,” said Sturges, in his best Spanish.  “You’ll be out in five minutes.”

“And then you’ll bring me his head,” whispered Pilar.  “Ay, Dios, what I have suffered!  I have been years here, señor, and I am nearly mad.”

“Well, I won’t promise you his head, but I’ve thrashed the life out of him, if that will give you any satisfaction.  I caught him in the woods, and I laid on my riding-whip until he bit the grass and yelled for mercy.”

The eyes in the cave blazed with a light which reminded him uncomfortably of Doña Erigida.

“That was well!  That was well!” said Pilar.  “But it is not enough.  I must have his head.  I never shall sleep again till then, señor.  Ay, Dios, what I have suffered!”

“Well, we’ll see about the head later.  To get you out of this is the first thing on the program.  Benito!”

Benito ran forward, and together they managed to drag the stone aside.  But Pilar retreated into the darkness and covered her face with her hands.

“Ay, Dios!  Dios!  I cannot go out into the sunlight.  I am old and hideous.”

“Make some coffee,” said Sturges to Benito.  He went within and took her hands.  “Come,” he said.  “You have been here a week only.  Your brain is a little turned, and no wonder.  You’ve put a lifetime of suffering into that week.  But I’m going to take care of you hereafter, and that she-devil will have no more to say about it.  I’ll either take you to your father, or to my mother in Boston—­whichever you like.”

Benito brought in the coffee and some fresh bread and dried meat.  Pilar ate and drank ravenously.  She had found only stale bread and water in the cave.  When she had finished, she looked at Sturges with a more intelligent light in her eyes, then thrust her straggling locks behind her ears.  She also resumed something of her old dignified composure.

“You are very kind, señor,” she said graciously.  “It is true that I should have been mad in a few more days.  At first I did nothing but run, run, run—­the cave is miles in the mountain; but since when I cannot remember I have huddled against that stone, listening—­listening; and at last you came.”

Sturges thought her more beautiful than ever.  The light was streaming upon her now, and although she was white and haggard she looked far less cold and unapproachable than when he had endeavoured in vain to win a glance from her in the church.  He put his hand on her tangled hair.  “You shall suffer no more,” he repeated; “and this will grow again.  And that beautiful mane—­it is mine.  I begged it from the Alcalde, and it is safe in my trunk.”

“Ah, you love me!” she said softly.

“Yes, I love you!” And then, as her eyes grew softer and she caught his hand in hers with an exclamation of passionate gratitude for his gallant rescue, he took her in his arms without more ado and kissed her.

“Yes, I could love you,” she said in a moment.  “For, though you are not handsome, like the men of my race, you are true and good and brave:  all I dreamed that a man should be until that creature made all men seem loathsome.  But I will not marry you till you bring me his head—­”

“Oh! come.  So lovely a woman should not be so blood-thirsty.  He has been punished enough.  Besides what I gave him, he’s been sent off to spend the rest of his life in some hole where he’ll have neither books nor society—­”

“It is not enough!  When a man betrays a woman, and causes her to be beaten and publicly disgraced—­it will be written in the books of the Alcalde, señor!—­and shut up in a cave to suffer the tortures of the damned in hell, he should die.”

“Well, I think he should myself, but I’m not the public executioner, and one can’t fight a duel with a priest—­”

“Señor!  Señor!  Quick!  Pull, for the love of God!”

It was Benito who spoke, and he was pushing with all his might against the stone.  “She comes—­Doña Brígida!” he cried.  “I saw her far off just now.  Stay both in there.  I will take the mustangs and hide them on the other side of the mountain and return when she is gone.  That is the best way.”

“We can all go—­”

“No, no!  She would follow; and then—­ay, Dios de mi alma!  No, it is best the señorita be there when she comes; then she will go away quietly.”

They replaced the stone.  Benito piled the brush against it, then made off with the mustangs.

“Go far,” whispered Pilar.  “Dios, if she sees you!”

“I shall not leave you again.  And even if she enter, she need not see me.  I can stand in that crevice, and I will keep quiet so long as she does not touch you.”

Doña Brígida was a half-hour reaching the cave, and meanwhile Sturges restored the lost illusions of Pilar.  Not only did he make love to her without any of the rhetorical nonsense of the caballero, but he was big and strong, and it was evident that he was afraid of nothing, not even of Doña Brígida.  The dreams of her silent girlhood swirled in her imagination, but looked vague and shapeless before this vigorous reality.  For some moments she forgot everything and was happy.  But there was a black spot in her heart, and when Sturges left her for a moment to listen, it ached for the head of the priest.  She had much bad as well as much good in her, this innocent Californian maiden; and the last week had forced an already well-developed brain and temperament close to maturity.  She vowed that she would make herself so dear to this fiery American that he would deny her nothing.  Then, her lust for vengeance satisfied, she would make him the most delightful of wives.

“She is coming!” whispered Sturges, “and she has the big vaquero with her.”

“Ay, Dios!  If she knows all, what can we do?”

“I’ve told you that I have no love of killing, but I don’t hesitate when there is no alternative.  If she sees me and declares war, and I cannot get you away, I shall shoot them both.  I don’t know that it would keep me awake a night.  Now, you do the talking for the present.”

Doña Brígida rode up to the cave and dismounted.  “Pilar!” she shouted, as if she believed that her daughter was wandering through the heart of the mountain.

Pilar presented her eyes at the rift.

“Ay, take me out! take me out!” she wailed, with sudden diplomacy.

Her mother gave a short laugh, then broke off and sniffed.

“What is this?” she cried.  “Coffee?  I smell coffee!”

“Yes, I have had coffee,” replied Pilar, calmly.  “Benito has brought me that, and many dulces.”

“Dios!” shouted Doña Brígida.  “I will tie him to a tree and beat him till he is as green as my reata—­”

“Give me the bread!—­quick, quick, for the love of Heaven!  It is two days since he has been, and I have nothing left, not even a drop of coffee.”

“Then live on the memory of thy dulces and coffee!  The bread and water go back with me.  Three days from now I bring them again.  Meanwhile, thou canst enjoy the fangs at thy vitals.”

Pilar breathed freely again, but she cried sharply, “Ay, no! no!”

“Ay, yes! yes!”

Doña Brígida stalked up and down, while Pilar twisted her hands together, and Sturges mused upon his future wife’s talent for dramatic invention.  Suddenly Doña Brígida shouted:  “Tomaso, come here!  The spring!  A horse has watered here to-day—­two horses!  I see the little hoof-mark and the big.”  She ran back to the cave, dragging Tomaso with her.  “Quick!  It is well I brought my reata.  Ten minutes, and I shall have the truth.  Pull there; I pull here.”

“The game is up,” whispered Sturges to Pilar.  “And I have another plan.”  He took a pistol from his hip-pocket and handed it to her.  “You have a cool head,” he said; “now is the time to use it.  As soon as this stone gives way do you point that pistol at the vaquero’s head, and don’t let your hand tremble or your eye falter as you value your liberty.  I’ll take care of her.”

Pilar nodded.  Sturges threw himself against the rock and pushed with all his strength.  In a moment it gave, and the long brown talons of Pilar’s mother darted in to clasp the curve of the stone.  Sturges was tempted to cut them off; but he was a sportsman, and liked fair play.  The stone gave again, and this time he encountered two small malignant eyes.  Doña Brígida dropped her hands and screamed; but, before she could alter her plans, Sturges gave a final push and rushed out, closely followed by Pilar.

It was his intention to throw the woman and bind her, hand and foot; but he had no mean opponent.  Doña Brígida’s surprise had not paralyzed her.  She could not prevent his exit, for she went back with the stone, but she had sprung to the open before he reached it himself, and was striking at him furiously with her reata.  One glance satisfied Sturges that Pilar had covered the vaquero, and he devoted the next few moments to dodging the reata.  Finally, a well-directed blow knocked it from her hand, and then he flung himself upon her, intending to bear her to the ground.  But she stood like a rock, and closed with him, and they reeled about the little plateau in the hard embrace of two fighting grizzlies.  There could be no doubt about the issue, for Sturges was young and wiry and muscular; but Doña Brígida had the strength of three women, and, moreover, was not above employing methods which he could not with dignity resort to and could with difficulty parry.  She bit at him.  She clawed at his back and shoulders.  She got hold of his hair.  And she was so nimble that he could not trip her.  She even roared in his ears, and once it seemed to him that her bony shoulder was cutting through his garments and skin.  But after a struggle of some twenty minutes, little by little her embrace relaxed; she ceased to roar, even to hiss, her breath came in shorter and shorter gasps.  Finally, her knees trembled violently, she gave a hard sob, and her arms fell to her sides.  Sturges dragged her promptly into the cave and laid her down.

“You are a plucky old lady, and I respect you,” he said.  “But here you must stay until your daughter is safely out of the country.  I shall take her far beyond your reach, and I shall marry her.  When we are well out at sea, Tomaso will come back and release you.  If he attempts to do so sooner, I shall blow his head off.  Meanwhile you can be as comfortable here as you made your daughter; and as you brought a week’s supply of bread, you will not starve.”

The old woman lay and glared at him, but she made no reply.  She might be violent and cruel, but she was indomitable of spirit, and she would sue to no man.

Sturges placed the bread and water beside her, then, aided by Tomaso, pushed the stone into place.  As he turned about and wiped his brow, he met the eyes of the vaquero.  They were averted hastily, but not before Sturges had surprised a twinkle of satisfaction in those usually impassive orbs.  He shouted for Benito, then took the pistol from Pilar, who suddenly looked tired and frightened.

“You are a wonderful woman,” he said; “and upon my word, I believe you get a good deal of it from your mother.”

Benito came running, leading the mustangs.  Sturges wrapped Pilar in the long cloak, lifted her upon one of the mustangs, and sprang to his own.  He ordered Tomaso and Benito to precede them by a few paces and to take the shortest cut for Monterey.  It was now close upon noon, and it was impossible to reach Monterey before dawn next day, for the mustangs were weary; but the Joven did not sail until ten o’clock.

“These are my plans,” said Sturges to Pilar, as they walked their mustangs for a few moments after a hard gallop.  “When we reach the foot of the mountain, Benito will leave us, go to your rancho, gather as much of your clothing as he can strap on a horse, and join us at the barque.  He will have a good hour to spare, and can get fresh horses at the ranch.  We will be married at Mazatlan.  Thence we will cross Mexico to the Gulf, and take passage for New Orleans.  When we are in the United States, your new life will have really begun.”

“And Tomaso will surely bring my mother from that cave, señor?  I am afraid—­I feel sure he was glad to shut her in there.”

“I will leave a note for the Governor.  Your mother will be free within three days, and meanwhile a little solitary meditation will do her good.”

When night came Sturges lifted Pilar from her horse to his, and pressed her head against his shoulder.  “Sleep,” he said.  “You are worn out.”

She flung her hand over his shoulder, made herself comfortable, and was asleep in a moment, oblivious of the dark forest and the echoing cries of wild beasts.  The strong arm of Sturges would have inspired confidence even had it done less in her rescue.  Once only she shook and cried out, but with rage, not fear, in her tones.  Her words were coherent enough:—­

“His head!  His head!  Ay, Dios, what I have suffered!”

An hour before dawn Benito left them, mounted on the rested mustang and leading his own.  The others pushed on, over and around the foothills, with what speed they could; for even here the trail was narrow, the pine woods dense.  It was just after dawn that Sturges saw Tomaso rein in his mustang and peer into the shrubbery beside the trail.  When he reached the spot himself, he saw signs of a struggle.  The brush was trampled for some distance into the thicket, and several of the young trees were wrenched almost from their roots.

“It has been a struggle between a man and a wild beast, señor,” whispered Tomaso, for Filar still slept.  “Shall I go in?  The man may breathe yet.”

“Go, by all means.”

Tomaso dismounted and entered the thicket.  He came running back with blinking eyes.

“Madre de Dios!” he exclaimed in a loud whisper.  “It is the young priest—­Padre Domínguez.  It must have been a panther, for they spring at the breast, and his very heart is torn out, señor.  Ay, yi!”

“Ah!  You must inform the Church as soon as we have gone.  Go on.”

They had proceeded a few moments in silence, when Sturges suddenly reined in his mustang.

“Tomaso,” he whispered, “come here.”

The vaquero joined him at once.

“Tomaso,” said Sturges, “have you any objection to cutting off a dead man’s head?”

“No, señor.”

“Then go back and cut off that priest’s and wrap it in a piece of his cassock, and carry it the best way you can.”

Tomaso disappeared, and Sturges pushed back the gray hood and looked upon the pure noble face of the girl he had chosen for wife.

“I believe in gratifying a woman’s whims whenever it is practicable,” he thought.

But she made him a very good wife.