For the Soul of Rafael Part 32

"Ai! it is not far you would ride, Ana Mendez. You are like other women when it comes to riding alone these days."

"Raquel rides alone."

"Her mother was not of this country, or she would not be so bold,"

returned Teresa, tartly. "Men have little liking for women as strong as themselves."

"Alas for me!" laughed Ana, "for I tell you now I am going to copy after her. She makes the other women look like sheep. If she would go with me, I would ride to the San Joaquin ranch this night and have no fear."

Teresa shrugged her shoulders.

"You grow like a child, Ana, as you get more years. Your letter makes you young again--so?"

But Ana was out of the gate, and crossing the plaza with a light springy step, as if indeed the days of girlhood had come back. In her eyes was a smile, but back of the smile was a light of new determination. All at once she seemed to have found herself: he was in danger, and had called her.

At the Mission she found the Indian boy with a dish of frijolles.

"How did the letter come?" she asked, but he did not know. It was found under the door, and it had frightened Dona Refugia, and she wanted it out of the house when the men were away. She thought it, maybe, was a demand for money, such as the outlaws had sent Senor Eduardo Downing, and she asked Ana for the love of G.o.d to send word back quick what it meant.

"It is only from the padre who borrowed the horse, and he thanks her,"

said Ana, coolly. "Ride straight home, and talk to no one, or you will get a reata instead of frijolles."

The Indian boy nodded silently. He knew the Dona Ana always kept her promises of that sort.

A little later, Teresa looked out at the sound of horse-hoofs thundering by, and saw Ana on the road to the sea.

She let her horse have his head until she came to the Rancho de la Playa, when she halted to scan the meadow and sand of the sh.o.r.e, and then bent her attention to the ground, and paced slowly along until she found the tracks of Raquel's horse turning to the right. There was only one road to be followed to the right; she had gone through the little canon of the cactus and up to the heights above. More than once Dona Ana halted to examine the ground, to be sure that no later tracks had been made on a return trip. Then, away across the mesa she saw Raquel's horse browsing among the sage-brush on the cliff above the sea. Raquel was nowhere in sight; but, knowing she was near, Ana rode quietly along the bluff, until right at the edge of the cliff she saw her stretched at full length in the odorous gra.s.ses, her chin propped on her hands, staring down the steeps where yellow poppies nodded to the surf below. A cl.u.s.ter of the blossoms was beside her, and her skirt was torn. She had evidently been down there after them, and was resting after her climb.

"What is it, Anita?" she asked after a brief upward glance. "Is there a spirit of unrest with you also? Some say there is sleep and forgetfulness in these little cups of gold. I have gathered some and lain here a long time, but it is not true, Anita. There is no forgetting."

Ana slipped from the saddle and came closer. Never before had so much of confession been heard from Raquel Arteaga.

"What, then, do you try to forget, my darling?" she asked, caressingly.

"Your love and happiness?"

"Love is not happiness," said Raquel, and laid her cheek against the sheaf of poppies. "Why do people say so? Do they wish to lie, or do they not know? The heart does not laugh with love; it aches. The light and the glory of it comes, and after that comes the earthquake; and the life is shaken out of us, and all we can do is to make ourselves a sacrifice."

"Holy saints! I never knew love was all that!" acknowledged Ana. "It means also to dance, to listen to your lover's songs in the night under your window, and to go to sleep satisfied that he is not with some other girl. It means stolen looks like kisses. I never am sure but that they are sweeter than the kisses themselves, though they do not make one mad."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THERE IS NO FORGETTING"]

Raquel looked at her, and smiled strangely, and rose to her feet.

"Ai! you are right, Anita; it is without doubt more wise to love like that. All the girls in the willows think so." As she saw Ana's face flush, she turned in quick contrition. "Ah, forgive me! You do not love as they do, I am sure--those fat brown animals; but, Anita darling, I am a tired soul, and rest is somewhere far beyond the ranges, and--ah, well,--forgive me!"

Ana smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

"Why should I not?" she asked; "for, after all, you are right. All human things are much alike when they love--the brown girls in the willows also. They nurse their babies and thank the Virgin they are not childless, as I am."

"And you--?"

"I am thankful to be as I am. When I have children, I want to love the father of them. My people did not ask if I loved my husband. They made the marriage, and G.o.d made me a widow. I thank G.o.d always that when I marry again I can do my own choosing."

"Oh, when you marry again! Good! When is it to be?"

Ana laughed and then grew grave.

"You may help me to decide," she said, a trifle nervously. "I am going to elope to-night. Will you ride along?"

"Anita!"

"It is up there," and Ana waved her hand toward the blue mountains above Trabuco. "It is a long ride, but the moon s.h.i.+nes, and--I am trusting you!"

"And the man?"

"Your husband hates him, and will find fault if you go."

"And he does not come to you?"

"He is--I think he is hurt," said Ana. "And I am going, though I go alone."

"You shall not go alone," and Raquel whistled to her horse. "Come! I needed something of this sort to rouse me from poppy dreams. I ride with you, my Anita; and the man, whoever he is, has my blessing."

They galloped together through the sweet-smelling gra.s.ses, and a load was lifted from Ana's heart. With Raquel beside her, she could ride care-free from danger to the man who had called her.

"I have not been told to take any one along," she confessed, "so I cannot mention names; but there is a man hurt, and we must manage to get extra horses away from the Mission, and things to eat, perhaps, for we go where no people live; and--I--that is all I dare tell you."

"It is enough, my Anita. We will ride together like n.o.bles of old Spain seeking adventures, only we will storm no castles, and wear no colors to denote our caballeros!"

She was elated as a child over the secret journey they were to take over unknown roads. The poppy dreams were left at the edge of the cliff, and she rode lightly across the divide, where at other times she ever halted for the picture of ocean and valley stretching from San Mateo at the sea to San Jacinto of the ranges.

"I knew it was love in thy heart for some one, Anita," she said, smiling. "Religion alone does not make a woman comprehend heartaches for other women. You are the only one of all of them who asks no questions, yet you put your arms around me that crazy night when I rode from Los Angeles, and all at once I felt that I need not hold with tired hands a mask to my face for you."

"Holy Mary! I know, and why not? My family married me to the wrong man,"

said Ana, easily. "But I was lucky in one thing, and I know enough now to thank the saints for it,--I had not learned what love meant, so the other man had not come."

"And if he had?"

They had checked their speed to descend the steep ravine cut in the heart of the mesa, and giving outlet to the blue sea. Raquel was intent, apparently, on finding the best footing for her horse, and did not look up at once, but when no reply came she tried to laugh, and repeated the question.

"I did not answer," said Ana, after a moment, "because, Raquelita, when you made me think of it, truly it seemed as if my heart stopped beating that minute. Poor Jose, my husband! It would have gone hard with him, and my relatives would have cursed me."

"And why?"

"I think I should have risked the purgatory they would have sent me to, but I would ride as we are riding now, straight to the man--the one man."

"And suppose--suppose, Anita, you were bound by a vow to the dead--could you ride away from that? Suppose that so long as you lived you were set to guard one living soul--that each day when you awoke, your prayers were to keep worthy for the task; suppose--"

"No, no! I will not suppose. A woman can endure just so much, no more. I know you are doing all this, my Raquel, and I see that it is forever one big fight and sacrifice, and all your life it will be the same. But, Raquel, when you awake and pray each morning, thank the Virgin at the same time that the other man has not yet ridden into your heart. I know you do not think of men--that it is to live ever in cloisters! But pray G.o.d that the man may never come, Raquel--for a girl is only a girl, after all!"