For the Soul of Rafael Part 22

"And he sends thee home?"

"No; this is not his fault--do not think it," and she evaded the eyes of Ana. "He will follow, now that I have come; I am most certain of that; but he was in a rage, of course, and if I would live there in the town he would do anything to please me, almost. But I feel weak some days.

I--I am not strong enough to fight the people there whom his mother was afraid of. In my own house they will not come. In my own valley I may keep my promise."

"Poor little dear," moaned Ana again. It was a good hope, and the girl did not seem to have much else to live for; but Ana had known the Arteaga men for many years, and had her doubts.

"It is time that Rafael were at home," she conceded. "Juan Flores is around the range again; some say El Capitan is with him, and they are on this side. Last night they had supper at Trabuco ranch; they did no harm there, but that does not mean that he will do no harm elsewhere. Avila let him have horses once when the marshal was close behind; since that time Avila's house is safe, and his herds as well."

"And Capitan?"

"Oh!" Ana's tone was carefully careless. "No one seems certain he is along. He does not so often come this way; for a year he has been somewhere in Sonora--only when the horses are picked for the government, or the Arteagas have a fine lot broken, does he cross to this country.

There is where Rafael needs guarding more than from heretics."

"From Capitan? He--he--would not kill--"

"No," said Ana, slowly; "I never think he wants Rafael to die; he only wants him not to be happy; always he wants Rafael to remember he is not so far away but he can do him harm. Rafael hates the lonely Mission valley on account of that. In a town Capitan never can make him afraid so much."

"Rafael is not a coward, I think," returned Raquel.

"No, but he knows Capitan does not forget--there was a girl between them once. Rafael is the handsomer, so he got her. Oh, that is long ago. But Rafael was foolish and laughed too loud, and so he has to pay!"

"But I think that is a mistake. I heard all about the trouble; his mother told me. Capitan fights the government only, and takes horses from the Arteagas because they go with the Americanos as friends; that is all. We heard it all at San Luis Rey as we drove north--you remember?"

"Oh, yes, I am not forgetting that," and Ana laughed. "I listen all the time to what his mother thinks she knows about that; and it is true, too, but not all the truth. I could tell you--"

She stopped suddenly, not certain it was wise to tell the girl the thing causing her amus.e.m.e.nt, for, after all, it was not really funny; it was serious enough in itself, it might frighten the girl very much. No other in her place would live one hour in the valley, or ride at night with only one man and an old Indian woman as guard.

"If you know that I have been told lies, you had better tell me the truth," said Raquel. "It may cost me more to find it out alone than to hear it from a friend."

"That is true," agreed Ana, after a moment of thought. She went to the door and looked in the outer room to be sure no curious ears were there.

She could hear ecstatic cries from the girls, who were giving old Polonia good things to eat, and plying her with endless questions. She was recounting the brilliant worldly scenes her old eyes had lately witnessed, and pitying herself a little that she could not remain; for each day had been finer than the day before. And the horse-races, and the fine cavaliers, and Dona Raquel always in the finest carriage--Holy Mary! but it was a thing to see!

Ana closed the door tightly and came back and sat down beside Raquel and took her hand.

"My aunt and the girls are over their heads in delight out there," she remarked, dryly; "and I will tell you a thing no one has been told concerning that ride from San Luis Rey. Rafael lost some fine horses that night--do you remember?"

Raquel did not; she might have heard--but Dona Luisa's death, all that sorrow, all the many and quick changes, had blotted out the fainter records of that day.

"Well, when we stopped for coffee at the camp the cook told us; you may not have heard. However, they were taken after you went into the river.

You have not forgotten that?"

"How could I? Oh, yes, I remember! The priest told me that night. How strange it should have all been crowded out of my mind! He told me to give Rafael a message of warning. What was it? What was it?"

She clasped her hands over her brows and tried to remember. Her first meeting with Rafael beside the dead body of his mother had driven out of her mind the message she was to have delivered. It was a warning, a warning of some sort; that much she was sure of, and--what was it about her father--her father's name?

"I think," said Ana, speaking softly and watching her, "that he told you Felipe Estevan's daughter had saved Rafael Arteaga a treasure that night."

"Anita! So he did; and you know the words, the very words he spoke to me!"

"I know more, Raquel mia; I know what the treasure was."

"And--?"

"It is not nice to tell," and Ana hesitated. "But he saw you there that evening with his own eyes."

"The priest?"

"Yes, the priest. He saved you from being carried to the hills by the Juan Flores robbers, while Capitan took others of the men and secured the chests of wedding gifts from the old Mission. Oh, it was all planned for the one big revenge on Rafael Arteaga. But he saw you, and so--"

"And that priest saved me from them, Anita?"

"Yes, he saved you--the priest--and sent you back to your friends, and sent the men across the mesas--because you were Estevan's daughter. But he did not try to save Rafael's horses; that night many of the finest were headed eastward and never came back."

"And if--if the padre had not been there at the right moment, I--"

"It is not a nice story, at all," acknowledged Ana. "They are rough men.

One of them would have married you, and you would never have cared to see your friends again, and Rafael never would have found you."

"Mother of G.o.d! He hates Rafael like that, yet lets him live?"

Ana laughed a little and shrugged her shoulders.

"Capitan is like that," she observed. "No one is like him. If Rafael's life were in danger this hour, Capitan would ride to save him. Oh, he does not mean that he shall die while young, and handsome, and rich, and beloved!"

Her tone had a little hard ring for a moment; her eyes were sparkling with a certain admiration for the character she was describing. The story had brought the color back to Raquel's face, and she listened feverishly. What strange, strange things could be possible in the smiling valleys of San Juan! For the moment she forgot the dull ache in her heart which had driven her to ride alone back to sanctuary.

"And you know all this, Anita; even the words of the padre! How?"

She caught Ana's hands in hers impetuously, and made her look in her eyes.

"He told me," said her friend, simply.

"Then you know him? You see him sometimes?"

"Sometimes."

"And he is called--?"

"Libertad."

"Padre Libertad--the Liberated? I never have heard him spoken of. Where can I find him? Anita, I will go alone, but this feud shall be ended. He will help me. And I--I never knew what he saved me from that night. I scarcely thanked him. He was so strange, so abrupt, so masterful, I accepted all he did, and never knew! Tell me. Anita. I will go to him--I will--"

"No one goes to him," said Ana. "He never stays in one place. If you see him, you see him--but--"

"But he comes to San Juan?"

"Oh, yes, he comes to San Juan once a year at least, so they will not forget him."