The Valley of Adventure/Chapter 15
"HE would have married her, but the wisdom of Padre Ignacio stood in the way," said Magdalena. "It is a perilous journey, Padre Ignacio said, that Juan is setting his feet upon. He may not return. It is better to be a maid than a widow. I heard him say the words."
"I'd rather be a rich widow than a poor maid, even pretty as God ever fashioned on his anvil," Borromeo declared.
"So they have gone to the church to plight their betrothal before the altar. That is next to a wedding; that will hold them true until they meet again, if ever that day shall come."
"I don't know," Borromeo demurred; "a woman is a fly, she will go buzzing after the next lump of sugar she smells. It will take more than plain promises on bent knees to hold a woman to her word."
"A woman will hold steadier than a man, who is ready to run off after the first pretty ankle he sees under a woman's riding gown."
"Maybe more, doña, when she slides to the ground; maybe a leg, heh? They say the English and American ladies ride like monkeys; Juan will have his temptation presented many a time before he sees the pretty eyes of our little Tula again. But no woman will wait a year for a man if another comes by her window. My poor little Juan should have married her, Padre Ignacio would have yielded to argument, especially from a man of experience like me. And I would have stood up like a lawyer to talk for Juan"
"Like a fool, you'd better say!" said Magdalena in scorn. "What do you know about women, or how true they can be to a man who is worthy?"
Borromeo struck the cold iron upon his anvil a ringing blow, his brows knotted in displeasure.
"Why do you stop to gossip with a fool then, doña? Go along, then, and put your words like cotton in the ears of that great saint Don Geronimo, and don't stand in the light of a poor fool that never did more than cut a false woman's throat for her perfidy."
"Maybe you will cut mine, Borromeo?" she mocked him, stretching out her chin, drawing the delicate dark skin tight on her round, soft throat. She laughed in his eyes, merry as the music of a holy day.
Borromeo was taking a horseshoe from the fire with his tongs. He plunged the glowing iron toward her, causing her to leap back nimbly, her laugh cut by a breathless exclamation.
"Go along, now, one of your kind," said he.
Magdalena stood in the door of the forge, her hand against the side, the sun on the bright kerchief about her head, twinkling on the great gold rings in her ears.
"Just as if I didn't know your fraud as well as I can see the bottom of an empty bucket," she said. "Borromeo, you never killed anybody, you never killed anything; your heart is too soft."
"So, I was condemned to prison for doing good!" he sneered, but badly, making a poor effect.
"For stealing, that is all; stealing money out of a man's pockets, the prank of a foolish boy. I have heard it. You were drunk at: the time."
"Now!" said Borromeo, beating the horseshoe furiously, his face dark-red as the cooling iron. "What slanders you heap on a man, Doña Magdalena, with your bold tongue. Say, then, that I was put under a penance for stepping on a dog's tail!"
"You were put under a penance for fighting the soldiers in barracks when all of you were drunk on brandy brought from Santa Barbara, you simple great ox. Go on, live in the reputation of a dangerous man with blood on his fingers—I'll not betray your innocence, Borromeo."
Borromeo dropped his hammer, reached with a little spring and drew his smutty fingers across her cheek, leaving four streaks of black. She looked at him in humorous reproach, the simple fellow's heart as well known to her as the secrets of a divided apple, her fingers ruefully trailing where his had swept, as if to feel the grime.
"Rascal!" she said, laughing again in his eyes.
Borromeo threw back his head and roared, shaking with laughter until the horseshoe rattled in the jaws of the tongs, his mouth wide enough to hide a spade.
"I have put you under my seal," he said, tears of mirth on his beard. He wiped his eyes on the crook of his wrist, with a comical grimace.
"I'll not betray you, Borromeo," she promised, rubbing with her apron at the streaks of grime. "Is it all off, pig?"
"It will do; you are black, anyway, by nature you are black, Doña Magdalena. It will not be seen. How is Don Geronimo's split head mending? You must have care of fever that may strike to the brain."
"Don Geronimo rode last night to the pueblo. There was the rumor of a ship."
"So? He is not in his bed, then. He is a rash man to go riding through the heat with a cracked head."
"It is nothing to Don Geronimo!" Magdalena was displeased by Borromeo's familiar discussion of Don Geronimo's wound. She turned away coldly, as if to go.
"They are sealing their promises before the altar, heh?" Borromeo stooped for his hammer, after thrusting the cooling horseshoe back into the fire. He stood a little while with hand on the bellows, his head bent as if in reflection.
"I suppose it is done," she returned. "There is Padre Ignacio at the church door. They are remaining behind for prayers."
"I am not the man to cross the path of a friend," Borromeo said, blowing hard at his bellows, his face turned to the fire, "but if Juan does not come back when his year is past, then I'll marry Tula myself. A man is not an old man at thirty"
"Soldiers!" said Doña Magdalena, startled, alarmed. "What is this?"
"Soldiers?" Borromeo repeated, going to the door, wiping his hands on his leather apron as he went. "I thought we were done with those scoundrels. Olivera rides ahead, and here is little Captain del Valle, coming galloping as if he had stopped to pick up a purse. Juan! by the holy wood, they have come for Juan!"
"Impossible! Why this day than any"
"He has been betrayed! News of his banishment has been carried to the pueblo by some vengeful traitor. Del Valle would not risk taking him on the road, but comes here to do it in safety."
"If you mean Don Geronimo"
"By the holy wood, I do mean Don Geronimo!"
"Then you lie!"
Sharply as Magdalena flung the insulting charge, it was no more than a pellet against Borromeo's indignant wrath. He pushed her out of his door without a word and went running after the troopers, who were riding in a clatter of shod hooves along the paved arcade to the church door where Padre Ignacio stood. Magdalena saw that the blacksmith carried a long iron bar in his prodigious hand.
Magdalena stood near the smithy door, looking after the soldiers with sinking heart. She held Juan in blame for the blow he had given Don Geronimo, but not in unforgiving bitterness. There was mitigation in the deed, she was just enough to understand and admit, but it had been a wicked thing to strike authority down in the eyes of the subjugated and mean. It was better for Juan to go from San Fernando, Padre Ignacio's decree was wise and just; but it was a sorrowful misfortune for him to fall into the soldiers' hands. Don Geronimo could not have betrayed him; she could not believe it so.
It was not more than an hour before vespers; the shadow of building and tree fell long across the court; the shadow of the church reached far over the mean huts of the Indians which lay snuggling along the other side of the separating adobe wall; Borromeo's shadow was a huge, long-striding thing as he ran after the troopers, the terrible iron bar in his hand. In a few hours more night would have fallen; Juan would have ridden in safety out of the mission gate.
Padre Ignacio stood at the vestry door, just as he had emerged from the church but a few moments before, astonished by this rude invasion, this barbarous charge against the very walls of the sacred building in whose protecting shadow he waited. At the corner of the church the headlong advance halted suddenly at Captain del Valle's command. There the little force divided, four troopers going with Sergeant Olivera to the front door, four continuing with Captain del Valle to confront Padre Ignacio where he stood, his indignation, his great bewilderment, upon him.
"What is the meaning of this wild riding into these sacred precincts, Captain del Valle?" Padre Ignacio demanded, his voice trembling in resentment of the outrage.
"I have come to demand the body of Juan Molinero, so called, who has entered California in defiance of the king's edict, and who stands charged with murderous assault on the person of Don Geronimo Lozano, mayordomo of San Fernando."
"You shall not touch him, for all your grandiloquent charges. Juan Molinero is under discipline of the church for such misdemeanor as he is guilty of; his punishment is extreme. Turn again, Captain del Valle, and be careful that you ride in the cart track, not across the pavement of our arcade."
"This temporizing cannot stand in the way of justice, Padre Ignacio. Juan Molinero must be surrendered into my hands."
"Call your ruffians from the door of this sacred house, or you shall suffer for this sacrilege!"
"I am not to be denied. Threats, my good padre, cannot bar me here."
"Juan Molinero is in sanctuary; he is at his prayers within."
"Then we shall drag him out, with irons on his arms. Inside, Olivera!"
Borromeo rushed past Padre Ignacio and into the church.
"To the altar, Juan! to the altar! the soldiers are upon you!" the blacksmith shouted, his great voice roaring in the empty church, coming back in shattered echoes from the choir loft and stately gables.
Padre Ignacio hastened after Borromeo; two troopers dismounted at the captain's command and entered through the vestry door.
There was neither bench nor pew, nor cushion to kneel upon at prayer, in the spacious interior of San Fernando church. The white plastered walls, the soft red tiles of the floor, clean as devoted care could make them, lent an atmosphere of purity and sanctity to the place. Its very emptiness seemed to accentuate its consecration to holy purposes, to lofty meditation, to heaven-aspiring prayer.
The boots of Sergeant Olivera and his men—two at his back, two keeping the door—were loud on the tiles before Borromeo's warning was hurled among the beams. Juan and Gertrudis were standing before the altar, his hands clasping hers as when he had reached to lift her. She shrank against him in terror of the soldiers, their defiance of that sanctuary, the sudden violence in their peaceful hour.
"Stand!" Sergeant Olivera commanded, advancing with drawn sabre.
"The soldiers!" said Gertrudis weakly, clinging in stifling fright to Juan's supporting hands. "Leave me, Juan—fly!"
Even with an eagle's wings he could not have escaped them, if it had been in his heart to go and leave her there, stricken and white at the altar steps. Soldiers were at the inner vestry door close behind Padre Ignacio, who lifted his hands to stay the sacrilegious advance of those who had entered from the front.
"Put up your weapon, Sergeant Olivera! outside with your men!" the priest commanded.
Sergeant Olivera lifted his saber in salute, but did not pause a moment in his advance. He was within a few yards of the spot where Juan and Gertrudis stood. Padre Ignacio came down hastily and stood before the altar, spreading out his arms.
"Let no man touch him on pain of being denied the holy sacrament!" he cried shocked to the heart by the thing that was being done.
Sergeant Olivera stopped, his head bent for a moment as if he faltered before the interdiction and its dread penalty. Then he lifted his eyes, his face white as if the blood of his heart had been drained away.
"A soldier must obey his commander first, padre, and afterwards make his peace with God," he said. "Juan Molinero, you are the king's prisoner. Stand forth!"
"Now!" Borromeo roared, rushing forward, his iron bar lifted high, "if any man touches him I'll burst his head!"
Borromeo was in easy swing of Sergeant Olivera, who paused and drew back before such a terrible weapon in the hands of that bristling giant. In his pause, in his moment of open guard, Juan sprang and caught Olivera's sword-arm, wringing the weapon from his hand.
Sergeant Olivera leaped back, drawing his pistol, a sharp command on his tongue. The two soldiers leveled their pieces, and Padre Ignacio, his breast heaving, his face tense, his eyes wide in the horror of the growing outrage, rushed between Juan and the threatening guns.
"Peace!" he commanded. "This place must not be profaned with blood. Juan, go with them in peace."
Juan stood a breath, looking at the sword in his hand. He tossed it from him then, with gesture that acknowledged its utter uselessness, as a man throws down a broken tool which has failed him in the moment of his greatest need.
"The irons!" Sergeant Olivera commanded.
"Not here!" Padre Ignacio interposed, stretching his arm to stop the soldier who sprang forward eagerly, the heavy gyves in his hand. "I will guarantee his peaceful and nonresistant passage to the outside. Beyond that, it must be as God wills. That way," to Juan, indicating the vestry door.
Padre Ignacio went beside Juan, the soldiers pressing behind. At the inner door of the vestry, opening close beside the altar, Juan looked back. Gertrudis was on her knees before the altar, her hands clasped to her face, her head bowed in the agony of her supplication. A bright sunbeam, streaming through a tall window, reached near her feet, like a path of golden promise that ended suddenly there, such as the path that had led them to their plighted word, to plunge them into this sudden abyss of despair.
This unexpected development in the midst of what Juan had felt to be his security, his happiest hour; this dragging him from the sanctuary in open defiance of his right under the law, as he knew very well, was portentous of the gravest imaginable things. It was such a shocking blow that it stunned him, leaving him groping for the opening that would show him a gleam of assurance, very much as he might have groped for the door if he had been stricken blind as he stood before the altar.
Outside the vestry door Captain del Valle sat on his horse, his sword-hilt and trappings glittering in the sun. The brim of his broad hat was fastened up with a rosette of gilt cord; the dust of his quick ride from the pueblo, a matter of twenty-five miles, was heavy on his coat. One soldier was on the ground, holding his companions' horses, one in the saddle near the captain. Four came with Sergeant Olivera conveying the prisoner, and two remained at the front of the church.
Borromeo came last out of the church, and stood with his back against the wall, his iron bar taken from him by Padre Ignacio, turning his eyes with a glowering and savage mien.
"Here is this man, whom you have torn from his lawful refuge," Padre Ignacio said, halting with his hand on Juan's shoulder before Captain del Valle. "I have brought him out to prevent the pollution of this sacred place by blood. The most awful penalty that holy church can pronounce rests on the heads of these guilty men who have torn this refugee from the altar. Turn, Captain del Valle, and ride away with these outlaws who have profaned God's house at your command."
"The irons!" said Captain del Valle.
"This is the protest of holy church against your tyranny, Captain del Valle. I shall not surrender this man to your irons."
"You can protest away, then, my good padre," Captain del Valle said, insolently defiant. "We have what we came for. The irons!"
Two soldiers yielded their pieces to their comrades and laid hold of Juan, to bring his arms behind him to receive the irons. Poor old Padre Ignacio, shocked almost to speechlessness by this barbarous defiance of sacred authority, interposed once more.
"On pain of excommunication"
"Peace, old man!" Captain del Valle rudely checked him. "There are no terrors"
A hiss, like a quick-swung blade cleaving the air; a sharp blow, as a man striking himself with open hand upon the chest. Captain del Valle rose in his stirrups, rigid in a moment of mortal agony, plucking vainly at an arrow that had driven through his breast. Sergeant Olivera sprang to his side, easing him as he fell.
There was a confusion of shouts, of shots at random; a leaping of soldiers to locate the unseen assassin. Juan Molinero flung to the ground the two men who held his arms, sprang into Captain del Valle's saddle and galloped away.