The Road to Monterey/Chapter 7
DON ROBERTO rode into the courtyard at evening, dust on his shoulders. He flung himself from the saddle with impatience, throwing out his hands in baffled expression of emptiness when Don Abrahan came hastily from the house to meet him.
"The earth has swallowed him," Don Roberto said.
He drew his shoulders up, lifted his eyebrows, pulled down the corners of his large, flexible mouth, emphasizing his report of complete failure in his quest.
"You have made his grave, then? It is very good."
Don Abrahan spoke with well-simulated gratification, as a man hearing good news. But that light of something in his eyes that seemed laughter and was not, told Roberto that he was being scorned.
"I have not made his grave," Roberto replied shortly, with surly tongue. "No man has seen him; he leaves no tracks."
"The earth opens to swallow a man but once," Don Abrahan said gravely. That is when it makes the little grin called the grave. As long as this sailor is not in his grave, he walks the ground to be brought back to this plantation and serve his time."
"I'll cut the heart out of him with a rawhide when I find him!" Roberto said.
"Cut him till his back runs blood, you may; but his heart you will leave whole in his body to suffer for the great insult he has put upon this house. Never mind," laying his hand on Roberto's shoulder in comforting caress, "we shall find him. There is no way for him to escape but through the mountains into the desert. He had no arms, no money; his shoes are cut to pieces on the rocks by now; he runs lame; he is hungry. Soon he must come out of his place to beg foode. Then the word will come; we shall have him in our hands."
Don Felipe came for the horse, led it away unnoticed by father and son, clapped his genie signal for the young man who always seemed just out of sight in the warehouse. Don Abrahan and his son, in close and earnest conversation, entered the dwelling.
This was the evening of the fourth day since Henderson's escape. The mystery of his complete evanishment troubled Don Abrahan, not so much because his son had failed in the search which he headed, as that it seemed to show that his hitherto dependable machinery had failed and broken down. This would seem to indicate that the peon class was growing in defiance of the privileged few who had held them in subjugation so completely and so long. It was a state of affairs to cause a man to wrinkle his brow and consider, with beard bent upon his breast.
And so Don Abrahan sat in what would have been called his library in an American house, but in this place termed office. Here the records of his business transactions were kept; here such books as the family owned, which were neither many nor important. Don Abrahan's father had occupied the room for the same purpose, contriving it when he built the house.
This was a room of two tall, narrow Venetian windows set in the deep adobe wall. There were dark beams of cedar overhead, a dark door of broad panels and great thickness shutting off the rest of the house. There was a picture of a cavalier in a ruff and pointed beard, a sword at his side, his hand on the hilt, hanging in a dark, deep frame between the windows. In the center of the room Don Abrahan's strong oak table stood, two silver candlesticks flanking the great inkstand.
There was more to trouble Don Abrahan than the thought of peon defiance in concealing a fugitive, or the revolution in the peon mind and conscience which would no longer permit one to seize and deliver an unhappy human chattel for the reward of five dollars. The greater thought that rose in the mind of Don Abrahan, like a cloud out of season upon the eye, was nothing less than that of American plotting and contriving to lay hold of California and add it to their domain.
That such plotting was going on, Don Abrahan and others of his estate had proof; that it was being furthered and supported by men of his own nation who hoped to profit through it, and by Spaniards who had lost their lands, was more than suspected.
Proof was wanting there, but proof Don Abrahan hoped to secure, to the happy hanging of some of his neighbors, the exile and expatriation of others. Then there would be land to divide as a reward among the patriots. The thought brought a smile to Don Abrahan's face; it stood in twinkling reflection in his eyes long after its ripple had passed through his beard.
Roberto entered presently, refreshed by razor and clean garments. His face was gloomy for all the brightness of his raiment; there was a sulkiness in the corners of his drooping lips as of a resentful child. He sat at the end of the table, dark, handsome; soft in his habit of indolence, yet enduring from the very breed of him, more boy than man in spite of his years. There was promise in his well-carried head, capability in his small, compact hands. Experience, hardship, renunciation by force, might harden this indulged boy into a formidable man, such as the gray, sharp-featured one across the table.
"You are wrong, father, when you think he roams the hills without a friend," Roberto said.
He scarcely had settled in the rough chair with rawhide seat, but with the words he got to his feet again, walked rapidly across the room, stood at a window where a last spear of sunlight came through, filtered of its white strength by the smoky haze of the hills.
"You believe some American in the pueblo is hiding him?" Don Abrahan asked.
He was unmoved by his son's perturbation. He watched the young man furtively, head bent, fingers interlaced meditatively at the tip of his beard. It was as if he tried an experiment in psychology, and waited the result.
"No, there is no American in the pueblo who would risk it. But there is another, not in the pueblo. He is not without a friend."
Don Abrahan lifted his head, his eyes open wide. He puta hand to the table, leaning forward as if to rise.
"What is it you have learned today?" he asked.
Roberto turned from the window to stand with hands on the back of his chair, deliberating his next word, itseemed. He sat down, drew the chair close to the table, leaning confidentially toward his father, eye to the windows to see that nobody loitered near.
"There is something to be told to the shame of this house," he said, with such intense feeling that caused his father to stare. "There is a thing I have kept from you since the night of this rufianly assault. Now you must hear it, but it burns my heart with shame to speak the words."
"How? What is this thing you preface with such terrible beginning?"
Don Abrahan was thoroughly aroused. He glanced behind him to see that the door letting into the rest of the house was closed; and over his shoulder to make certain the door opening out of it into the convenient courtyard that might, in time of stress, contain a man's saddled horse, did not show a crack.
"It is infidelity and disgrace of one that was most dear," Roberto said, his head drooping with shame of the confession. "Helena—it was Helena who met him under the tree that cursed night. It was Helena's slipper that Don Fernando picked up. She lost it when she fled."
"But no, no. Did you see her, my son?"
"I held the shoe a moment before the dog snatched it from me. It was of the shoes I bought her in Mexico City, silk and fine kid. There is no mistake; there are no shoes of that kind in this country."
"And Don Fernando? You were not fool enough to betray this suspicion to him?"
"Don Fernando does not know, thank God! This affront to my honor is known only to you and me, and the guilty pair that shamed me. And by the breath of God I'll wash my hands in their blood before another sun goes down!"
"But Helena, that is not like her. I would not condemn Helena without greater proof than the circumstance of a shoe picked up under a tree. You did not see her run away. Perhaps she lost it, passing there for the air with Doña Carlota, and could not find it in the dark. I will make inquiry of Carlota. Let us be calm; let us wait."
"It is well enough for you to say all this, but I, who know better, want no further proof."
"It is not like Helena," Don Abrahan persisted. "Why should she want to meet a servant by night under a tree? It is preposterous!"
"It is her Yankee blood; there is a baseness in it," Roberto declared.
"Grant that it was Helena's shoe that caused you to suffer at this rough fellow's hands—and I am not convinced yet that it was, for ships from Mexico bring many shoes—there would be no harm in the prank of meeting this sailor for a word. Helena is more Yankee than Mexican. It is a strong blood; it is not always base. Captain Sprague was as much a gentleman as ever came to California from any land."
"No harm in meeting him!" Roberto repeated bitterly. It seemed that he had not heard his father beyond these words.
"No harm. It is the custom of Americans to permit their young of the opposite sexes together in all places, at all hours. Custom gives it a different color in their eyes than ours. It is likely she only wanted to practice a little English with one fresh from Boston, to get from him the latest words. She has dreams of going there some day; she doesn't want to go with a stiff tongue."
"It isn't her native speech, her native land. She is Mexican, as I am. Captain Sprague was a Mexican citizen; there is no Yankee custom that can absolve her."
"I think she is innocent of any wrong intention, however bold her deed, if she is guilty of meeting him as you charge, my son. There is no smirch on Helena; she is a good girl, and a rich one. I cannot permit you to think of throwing aside this betrothal on account of a foolish episode such as troubles you so deeply, Roberto. It is our secret. Call it a child's prank and forgive it."
"And this Yankee sailor? Do you expect me to forgive him, as well?"
Don Abrahan sat in meditation a little while, his beard bent upon his breast. When he looked up—presently there was that reflection of inner laughter in his eyes.
"The devil first tempted woman under a tree," he said. "If Adam had killed the devil in Eden, it would have been for the happiness of mankind."
Roberto sprang to his feet, his nostrils twitching, his face white.
"I know where to find him!" he said. "This country could not hide a man four days without a strong friend to cover him. Give me permission to go to San Fernando and demand this Yankee at her door."
"Without absolute knowledge that he is there, it would be an affront that Helena never would forgive," Don Abrahan returned in politic softness.
"Forgive! Helena forgive! I swear to you, Don Abrahan my father, that I will not have her, polluted by his kiss."
"This is folly," Don Abrahan reproved him coldly. "What is a kiss more or less, if he kissed her? The sailor never met her alone, never spoke a word to her. But I give him to you. Do with him what your desire leads you to do—when you find him."
"If we find that she is hiding him, will that be proof enough for you of her guilt?"
"It is preposterous; she could not hide him—nobody could hide him," Don Abrahan declared, but contrary to his own deep conviction that somebody, indeed, must be concealing the fugitive. "He has crawled into a cave in the hills; hunger will drive him out tomorrow."
"It is a thing that touches a man's honor. One does not marry a woman whom he has discovered alone with a man."
Roberto judged Helena as Helena judged him and his kind, as revealed in her significant speech to Henderson, explaining why she had hidden herself in the tree. Men were not trusted alone with women in the Spanish-Mexican society of that time; they are not trusted in any greater degree in the same society today.
"Proof would be necessary," Don Abrahan insisted, with such firmness that Roberto knew could not be shaken. "You did not see her. The touch of a shoe, which seemed of the same material you brought from the capital"
"Sixteen dollars, gold, they cost me!"
"Such evidence is weaker than the testimony of a blind man. It does not convict Helena, in my judgment. I will not consent to your throwing away her lands, her herds, her gold won by that magician Sprague as if he clutched it out of the air. It is too much for a trifle of suspicion to wreck. When you cool, when you are reasonable, you will see it as I do."
"In my own heart she stands convicted. There is not another pair of shoes like that this side of the capital."
"Who comes?" Don Abrahan asked, leaning to listen as the sound of someone riding into the courtyard in haste passed the window like a gust of wind.
Roberto turned to the window to see. The rider had passed; only the dust of his swift arrival could be seen. He opened the window and leaned out.
"Felipe is coming with the intelligence," he announced.
"It is time for the fish to show himself in the net," Don Abrahan said, going to the door which opened into the courtyard. "I knew we must have news of him soon."
Roberto stood by the table, lips compressed, hands clenched, as if he struggled against vengeful emotions. Don Abrahan turned from the door, and closed it. He stood a moment reading the written message his mayordomo had put into his hand.
"It is a message from Doña Carlota, at the San Fernando ranch," he said, looking his son straight in the eyes. Don Abrahan stood then a moment, taking his breath in such long inspiration as a man draws it when he fortifies himself for some tremendous ordeal.
"Your suspicions are confirmed. She is hiding him," he said.