For the Soul of Rafael Part 17

"Is he a workman?"

The others exchanged glances, and then one of them stepped forward.

"No, senor. He is one of the mountain people. No one knows where they live. I know a little of their talk. He says for us all to go away, or worse things will always happen. He--he wants to speak to you."

"Well?"

The man hesitated, and then said a few words, and the Indian replied in a strange jargon with peculiar aspirated syllables.

"He says," continued the interpreter, hesitatingly, "to ask if she is to come back."

"She?"

Bryton's face flushed, as the priest looked at him curiously.

"You have known those people before?"

"I--my brother and I were lost once in the forest here. We--well, we were made to feel we had trespa.s.sed; but some one--a sort of missionary among them--made them lead us to the plain. It would have been better if my brother had never come back."

"And--?"

The priest noticed Bryton's hesitation; so did the Indian, for he walked direct to him, and pointed to the ring he wore, and looked from the ring to Bryton's face.

"Tell him," said the American, "that she is a man's wife, and lives in a lovely land."

"You see her--some day?" asked the Indian.

"No--not ever again--perhaps."

The Indian bent his head, and with a slight gesture as of farewell, turned and walked swiftly away from them, around the bend of the mountain.

"Your words have an unusual interest," said the priest, as they walked down toward the plain. "They suggest that the missionary might be the one they spoke of here as the Indian nun."

"This lady was not Indian," said Keith, decidedly. "Her skin was whiter than either yours or mine. The Indians called her Dona Espiritu! It was the only name they knew her by."

"It was the same, and her father's name was Estevan," said the priest, quietly.

"Yes, I know now. His name was Estevan, but--"

"And he was the man who died the awful death up there." And he pointed back to the temple.

"No!" Bryton stopped on the path and faced the priest, thus halting the entire procession at a point where a yawning gulf of a canon reached to unseen depths below.

"For the love of Christ--senor!" screamed the priest, while the Mexicans in the rear clung to their burros and swore.

"The man who was killed left no child," persisted Bryton. "I heard the story."

"A daughter was born six months after his death--after the wife had taken the black veil of eternal renunciation of the world," declared the priest, solemnly. "Now, senor, for the love of G.o.d, will you let us find safer footing?"

"Oh, yes. Pardon me!" and Bryton continued thoughtfully along the trail to the plain below. When they reached a broader road where it was possible to ride abreast, he asked one more question.

"Father, does she know?"

"Not unless some in the world have told her. Here, the old priest, her uncle, had power enough over the wild tribe to make them promise they would not tell her until she had lived twenty years. He died ten years ago, but they kept faith. There are some people in the world who had to know,--the lawyers and judges who settled the estate,--for Estevan was a man of wealth. He carried wounds here from the war for California. The child thought he died from the effects of those. Out in the world where she has gone, that wild barbaric outbreak of her mother's people will never be known; and of the few who have learned it who would tell her?"

"True, father: who would?"

[Music: _La Pa.s.sion Funesta_]

CHAPTER VIII

He did not go north for a month. His letter to Angela contained a check, which she at once invested in very becoming mourning, for which she of course had to journey to Los Angeles.

With her went Don Eduardo Downing and his wife, Dona Maria, who, with Rafael, had unpleasant business to transact with the bishop, and were irritable in consequence. Bryton called upon them at the home of the ex-Governor of California. After Angela's first emotional outburst at the details of Teddy's death and burial,--and regret that a Protestant clergyman was not to be had,--she managed to come back to subjects nearer home, and retail a few of the changes since the death of Dona Luisa.

There had not been time for many. Yet--well--there had been the marriage, of course; and the relations who thought it so fine a thing that Rafael married an heiress and a saint were not so sure now. The tone of Angela and her slight shrug of contempt showed that she shared their doubts.

Raquel Estevan de Arteaga was in the city. She had ridden the sixty miles on horseback, and all the old Spanish families were entertaining her in a style magnificent as their means would allow; but all who cared to have her must invite no heretic Americans, and it was understood to be a promise to Dona Luisa. She did not wish to meet the English-speaking people; not one had yet crossed her threshold; even Don Eduardo, sharing some business interests with her husband, was not welcomed, because he held fields of the old Mission, for which the Church was fighting in the courts of law.

The bishop himself had set the pace for courtesy toward Raquel. He had called on her personally, had a long private interview (Angela's opinion of clerical private interviews with young wives was expressed by another shrug), and he made a point of calling on several families where she visited.

Dona Maria was of course justly offended. Her estates had been greater than those of the Arteagas, and her family name was older in the land than Estevan, which after all was only Spanish for Stevens. On this subject it was easy to see Angela agreed perfectly with the wife of her cousin. Each had built her own plan for certain social supremacies in the little kingdom of San Juan, but neither had reckoned with the fact that the girl from a convent in Mexico would a.s.sume a rule there such as no one else had ever dared attempt, and emphasize it by barring out heretics, even when married into Catholic families.

What Rafael thought of it no one yet knew. He hated the old Mission, above all places. The only time it was worth while was when the dances were held in the old dining-room; and when his mother died he thought of course no woman would ever wish to live there. A town residence was a.s.sured, and thus closer connection with the new, progressive people.

But the bride of a day had decided differently: when a home befitting their station was built for her in San Juan, she would move to it; until then the Mission rooms would serve, and they must arrange it with the bishop.

To tell her that the bishop no longer had jurisdiction over the property was of no use whatever. She had listened quietly to the legal details of the auction sale, when it had all been bought by Eduardo Downing and Miguel Arteaga.

"That is right, to buy it when the place was sold for debt; any son of the Church should do that," she conceded; "but to hold it,--to treat it as a quarry from which to mine bricks and blocks of stone,--may the saints intercede for your brother in his grave, who did such wickedness!

If your mother had known that a son of hers was fighting in the courts of law against the Church, it would have killed her the day the word reached her. If you people value money more than the blessing of G.o.d, I will give you money for it--to you and your English partner; but not another blast of powder must shatter the place of the altar."

It was in vain they told her Dona Maria had a pious plan to blow down the stonework--the most magnificent monument of such Indian labor ever erected in that part of Mexico which is now United States,--and to build on its site an adobe chapel of her own design. Raquel Estevan de Arteaga listened quietly to all the plans, but shook her head.

"It is sacrilege; it shall not be," she repeated. "Since gold is the G.o.d of the English people, we will give them gold."

"But you forget, beloved," put in Rafael. "Dona Maria is Catholic--is Spanish--is--"

"Rafael," said his bride, quietly, "will you listen a little? Then it will be no need to speak of those things again--we will both understand. The padre comes a stranger to San Juan as I do, but he comes from a strange land, and cares not anything for these different races.

But I have all the names of those people from your mother, that I know whom to avoid in this life--and in the next."

"My mother was one of the old Spanish people; they were slow. Times change."

"Yes, times did change when men like Alvarado were pushed aside and a quadroon ruled the politics and the Mission property. Thus California paved the way for American rule. In politics and business men must meet unpleasant people often, but it is not ever necessary for the ladies of any family to do so; and, Rafael, here before your padre, two things I must say. The heretics I have promised never to meet except as G.o.d sends them in our path. As for the Spanish ladies you mention, if you do not know that there is not a woman of n.o.ble Spanish blood in the length of this valley, then you shut your eyes very tight when you might see. The daughters of Don Juan Alvara have one Spanish strain in them; the others are mixed people of Mexican, Indian, and negro, and few of them care to remember their grandmothers. When you bring into my house Spanish ladies of good breeding, I shall be glad to make them welcome, but I do not care for the subst.i.tutes. The Indios by the river are of more interest, for they need to be taught."

This conversation had been repeated by Padre Andros to Dona Maria over a game of _malilla_ and a gla.s.s of the new American drink called whiskey,--a gift from the army officers, and enjoyed very much by the ladies of San Juan; it suggested a drink made of chilis, because of the appetizing burn it gave the throat.