For the Soul of Rafael Part 33

"Of course, but--"

"Oh, you would argue, because you do not know!" burst out Ana, with impatience. "Raquel, you are so good you are always beautiful; but I tell you truly, that if it should happen--all the saints could not help you. Between your vow for the soul of Rafael and your love for the one man--"

"Well, my Anita?"

"Well, you could not live through it and remain what you are. Any woman would go mad--any woman."

Raquel touched her horse and galloped up the steep hill ahead of Ana.

Down the longer one to Boca de la Playa she rode in the same reckless way, and it was not until they had reached El Camino Real that she pulled her horse in, and allowed Ana to come alongside.

"Jesusita! how you ride away from me!" gasped her friend. "Wait until I braid up my hair. Look at it--all the new pins lost, the pretty ones you brought me from Los Angeles. We will send a boy back to hunt them."

Raquel sat silent on her panting horse, looking out on the wide sea and saying nothing. Ana glanced at her white face while braiding her hair, and thought it looked cold and determined, almost angry; and as they started on once more, she reached across and touched her hand.

"Do not make your eyes like cold agates of violet," she entreated.

"Truly, I meant not to anger you, and I know you are good always, and think only of your vows. But even the saints have known temptation, my Raquel, and some who might have been saints have lost souls for a man or a woman."

"Oh, my own soul!" and Raquel shrugged her shoulders with a dreary smile. "It is the soul of Rafael I am set to guard. Only that must I think of every day of my life. My own! Only Mother Mary knows what my own may become."

"His mother knew the power of the heretics; it was not fair, Raquelita."

"It is judgment," said Raquel, steadily. "I asked G.o.d to give me some work for the Church in the world, instead of within the convent walls.

It was brought to me; I accepted it on my knees. What any of us think now does not change that in the least. I must live till I die with that thought."

"So I know," conceded Ana, "and so I thank G.o.d the other man does not come. You would know then how to feel sympathy for the women who fail, or the women who do mad things such as I mean to do to-night."

"Do I not understand? Do I not go with you? Yes, ahead of you, for my horse beats yours," replied Raquel; and from that to the Mission plaza there was only the sound of hoof-beats on the hard road, and no more words of love or lovers.

A man had come from San Diego with a message from Rafael Arteaga. He would be at San Juan in a few days, and was bringing guests for a barbecue. Strange word had come from the vigilantes of the disappearance of Bryton, the Americano. It had been learned that he had not returned to Los Angeles, neither had he gone south. To free Mrs. Bryton from anxiety, Rafael and Don Eduardo meant to find him and make a holiday while doing it.

Raquel Arteaga listened, and Ana noticed all at once how white and tired she looked from the little gallop.

"Get down from the saddle, my dear," she said, appealingly. "Lift her, you, Victorio. Mother Mary! Do not faint, Raquel!"

Raquel did not faint. She thanked the muscular Victorio, who lifted her from the saddle as though she had been but a little child, and placed her on one of the long seats of brick, while Ana ran for water, and old Polonia crouched beside her and looked up in her face, but did not speak. She had heard the name of the hated Americano, and she had no need to ask questions. It was the witchcraft come over her again; even the sound of his name could bring it!

"No, I am not ill, Ana. I really am not," she persisted. "You say I turn white. Well, it may be I had no dinner--I think I forgot it, or those heroes the vigilantes took my appet.i.te. See! I can stand; I am quite well. I am ready for the San Joaquin ride when the sun goes down."

"But, if harm should come?"

"Never fear. To go will not harm me. I am very strong--stronger than you think. Ai! I shall live long--a long, long time, Anita!"

She arose and pa.s.sed through the door of the carved Aztec sun and little half-crescents, and Ana looked after her doubtfully.

"It is the Americana?" said Victorio, with a shrug and lifted brows.

"Rafael Arteaga is mad after that baby woman--just mad. I think it makes Dona Maria afraid. It would not be well to have the wrong things happen in her house; so they jump at the chance to ride north together, for any reason at all, and bring Don Rafael to his own wife. That is all the reason they come: Dona Maria is afraid."

"But to bring them here! The Dona Raquel is not fond of heretics."

"I think myself it is the woman and not the religion she will think of when they come," said Victorio; "and she must have heard something,--what else made her look like that?"

"Who knows? A woman may be tired, may she not? You talk a great deal for a man of your years!"

"Oh, it is only to you, Senora. It is as well some one knows who is a friend,--that pretty white baby of a woman has the 'money eye.' Some one should warn Dona Raquel, for who knows where it will end? You know the Arteaga men."

Ana nodded her head.

"We all know them; but, thanks to G.o.d, the right woman has come into the family. I do not know what she will do--Estevan's daughter; but Rafael will learn what a curb-bit means if he go too far. Women who do not care whether they live or die are more reckless than the wildest man, Victorio; and Rafael will do well to say good-bye to heretic pets."

Victorio shrugged his shoulders, and did not quite believe. Of course a woman could do a lot with a man if he was not so foolish as to marry her, but after that what could she do but keep the home and obey? Some of them found other amus.e.m.e.nts when their husbands rode abroad, but what more could they do than that, even the most powerful?

Of course if Dona Raquel were not his wife, Rafael might be faithful: Victorio acknowledged he knew how that was himself. There was a woman who kept his house, and now after four years of content, the padre was at him for a marriage fee, and was putting the devil in the woman's head, and there was discord. All had been content for all those years, but when the marriage was even talked of, there was trouble; and Victorio had no use for it except, of course, if the woman was dying, or if he was--then the padre could get the marriage made. The money was saved up in case of such need for absolution, but otherwise--

Ana interrupted him angrily, though she knew he voiced the masculine opinion of the valley. She had heard the padre complain that the women had also refused marriage for the same reason; so there was little could be done, and she knew that if Rafael Arteaga should fail openly within the year of his marriage, there would be laughs and shrugs, and the marriage fees would be fewer than ever. The example of their superiors was all that was needed to break all the little invisible bonds told of in the prayer-books, but remembered so little in the everyday life.

"Oh, you need not rail at me, Dona Ana," protested Victorio; "I am only one--and I feed my children! You do not believe so much in Rafael Arteaga yourself; and, after all, it may come right. It depends most on the woman."

"Dona Raquel Arteaga?"

"Never! She is only a wife; it is the other who is still _the_ woman."

Ana flung an angry look at the pessimistic, philosophic vaquero, and followed Raquel, slamming the door after her to emphasize her impatience with his all-too-true statements.

She checked her tempestuous entrance at sight of the wife they were discussing, kneeling at the little altar in the corner of her own room.

The tall candles were lit, and before the shrine of the Virgin Raquel was prostrate.

Ana crossed herself and went out softly, half afraid that the argument in the corridor had been heard through the thick adobe walls. This new sign of Raquel's disfavor at every mention of the Americanos gave Ana several unpleasant moments. The letter now in her pocket had belonged to the Americano whom they were coming to search for: dare she mention it to the girl kneeling there at the shrine? Or did not the news brought by Victorio Lopez make more imperative the need for secrecy? In riding the hills for Bryton, what others hidden there might be discovered for death?

Ana sent an Indian with a pack-mule of provisions to the sheep-herders'

cabin in Trabuco canon, with instructions to wait there until the men came for it, and in every way made smooth the details for the journey of the night.

Don Antonio, the major-domo for the Arteagas, had ridden north with the vigilantes, so there was no one to oppose or question the order of Ana, given in the name of Dona Raquel.

Teresa shrugged her shoulders and said some things when the two mounted and rode gaily northward. She hoped Dona Refugia would say some things to them for the good of their souls when they reached the ranch. Ana had always been a little rebel; it was well they married her when they did!

No one gave much heed to Ana's vagaries or strange whims, but with Raquel it was different. The opinions of Dona Luisa concerning the convent novice secured as a daughter were well known in the San Juan valley: she was a saint, no less. But Teresa watched the slender girlish form riding away on the black horse, and hated the grace and daring of her as only gross creatures can hate refined ones, and had her own ideas of two women who were young, riding like that toward darkness,--the darkness where even men scarcely dared ride alone these days. One might be saintly in soul, yet do indiscreet things in this mundane world. And Teresa wished them a lesson, from the centre of her fat heart.

[Music: _Mi Memoria._]

Mi memoria en ti se ocupa No te olvida un solo instante, Y mi mente delirante En ti piensa, en ti piensa sin cesar.

[Music]

CHAPTER XVI