Kitabı oku: «Overland Tales», sayfa 12
There was no public trial – not even a court-martial. The colonel had killed the doctor in a duel; but nobody demanded a record of the event, and the reprimand he received was not by sentence. But he was ordered to Fort Marcy, near Santa Fé. The colonel had borne off a cut across the forehead, extending upward till under the hair, in one of the pitched battles with the Indians; and he was known to suffer from headache and irritation of the wound to such a degree, at times, that over-excitement, from anger or other cause, made him almost crazy. He was an old, valiant, and valued officer; and the War Department, not supposed to know any uninvestigated matter, would excuse many things in such a one, even though it could not approve them.
Then it was that the colonel's wife had returned to the States "for her health," – as her husband was particular to write to his brother officers stationed at the barracks and arsenal near to the western city where his wife's home was.
Who can tell how rumor travels? When Regina made her appearance at the arsenal, the very women who had once been proud of her notice seemed hardly to remember a passing acquaintance with her; and, stung to the quick, she had barely strength to control her face and hold high her head till the door of her carriage had closed on her. She laid back her head, throbbing and aching, yet filled with a thousand plans for regaining her position and punishing those who had so humbled her.
It was one of Paul's restless days; and she heard him "storming" on the piano as her carriage entered the gateway. With sudden interest she raised her head, while her face grew animated with some struggling thought.
When night had set in, and the broad hall-door was thrown open to admit the soft breeze and the tender moonlight, Regina, for the first time since her return to the home of her childhood, approached the piano in the drawing-room and ran her fingers over the keys. The door stood open, and from her seat she could see into the hall, and catch a glimpse of Paul's shadow every time he passed the hall-door in his walk on the moonlit veranda. Not a muscle of her face moved as she continued in her play, striking chords and running roulades, without any apparent purpose save that of touching once more the old familiar key-board. Paul's shadow flitted by, regularly and restlessly, never varying an inch in his distance from the door as he passed it. Suddenly the chords melted into a melody low and sweet, yet swelling almost into wildness in its yearning, longing tenderness.
Regina listened intently, and – surely Paul could not have paused suddenly in his walk on the veranda! Directly his footsteps came again, halting and uncertain, and Regina repeated the air, throwing into it more intensity, even, than at first. She seemed absorbed in her playing, though she knew full well when Paul's hesitating footsteps crossed the threshold, and moved nearer the drawing-room entrance. When he stood in the door, she looked up, as though unwilling to be disturbed in her musical meditations. One look at the deathly-pale face, above which the dark blonde hair rose like a lion's mane, assured her that she would gain —had gained – her end; and she played on, as though forgetting his presence in an instant. Presently, a hoarse, unsteady voice reached her ear:
"Where did you learn that air? Who taught you the song?"
She looked up unconcernedly.
"That air? Do you like it?"
He nodded his head impatiently.
"Where did you learn it? Who taught you?"
"That song? Oh, I learned that in New Mexico."
He looked at her wildly for a moment, but her gaze was so steady that he dropped his eyes and moved slowly away.
Late in the night, when Regina awoke from a sleep sweeter and sounder than any she had yet enjoyed, she heard Paul's steps in the hall-way, on his way to bed.
"You have left me alone all night again," complained his wife, when he entered the room; "and I have had one of my nervous spells."
"You keep the room so confoundedly hot and full of camphor that it smothers me to stay here," was the crusty reply.
"Would you want me to keep the windows and shutters open, so as to let the mosquitoes come in and devour us?"
"Why do you keep the light burning till twelve in the night, then?"
"But, Paul, I can't read in the dark, can I? And I want some pastime, I am sure, so sick and feeble as I am," weeping for very pity of herself.
"Throw those foolish books out of the window; the camphor-bottle, too; let air and daylight into your room, and you'll soon get well and strong," he answered, willing to be kind and anxious to hush her distracting sobs.
Regina, in her room, breathed a little sigh of satisfaction; for though she could not hear the conversation, she could guess very nearly what Paul's reception had been: "Ah! my clever brother-in-law, yours is not a bed of roses, either;" and with this comforting reflection she dropped off to sleep.
Next morning, at the breakfast-table, Regina watched with placid interest the haggard face of Paul, and the furtive looks he threw over to where she sat. During the morning his wife was attacked with sick headache, "from reading those trashy novels," he said; and by night he was wandering through the house again, groaning in very anguish of spirit, and flying, at last, to his only refuge, the piano. Through the loud clanging of the chords there breathed a strain, now and then, of the song Regina had played; but in a moment it was drowned by the louder crashes, which almost shook the house, and seemed the outpouring of some wild spirit in its abject misery. Day followed day, and as the season advanced, and autumn set in, with stormy days and long, moonless nights, Paul grew more restless; and one night, when he had wandered through the house all day – "as though driven by the Fury of Remorse," Regina said – she went, unobserved, into the drawing-room, from where soon came the strains of the song that had so agitated Paul. Again his heavy steps approached the door, and, as he entered the room, Regina said to herself, "He has grown ten years older since that evening last summer, and he is ripe for my purpose now."
"You learned that song in New Mexico?" he asked, trying to speak in his usual quiet tones. "I suppose it is a popular air among the Mexicans?"
"Not a common one, though it is a Spanish song;" and she softly sang the refrain, "Ela – Manuela!"
Had she stabbed him to the heart he could not have turned paler, or sprung forward quicker, than at the uttering of the words.
"She taught it you! Tell me quick, for God's sake!"
He had clutched her arm, and was shaking her without knowing it.
"Gently, my dear brother-in-law," she said, sneeringly; and he shook the hair back from his forehead, and regained his self-possession by a strong effort.
"You wanted to know who taught me the song? My information has a price."
She had folded her hands in her lap, and was looking quietly into his face.
"Name it!" he burst out impatiently.
"It is a high price; but I can give you all the information you may want in return. Here is a sample."
She had turned the music-stool on which she was seated, and while he paced up and down the room to hide his agitation, she continued in the tone of one holding easy converse with a good friend:
"I learned this little Spanish song from a very pretty girl in New Mexico. She said she had once taught it to an American, a tall, handsome man, with blue eyes and fair face, who must have been in love with her, I think, for he had always substituted her name, in the refrain, for the name which the author of the song had put into it. She, too, must have been fond of this American with blue eyes and dark blonde hair; for, though not in the least conceited, or aware of her own attractions, she always sang the refrain with her own name, Manuela, instead of the original name, Juanita, simply because this American had wished her so to do. The air is beautiful, I think; and the words are very pretty too." She turned to the keys again, as though to repeat the air.
"Stop!" he said hoarsely, arresting her hand; "you will kill me. What is the price you ask?"
"The price is high," he groaned, when she had coolly and in unfaltering tones stated her conditions to him. "But if you promise to keep to your word, I will do my best."
"You will succeed, then," she said, holding out her hand, and speaking almost cordially as they parted for the night.
When she reached her room she seemed for once to have fallen into Paul's rôle of Wandering Jew; but her steps were noiseless, though the thoughts that danced and chased through her brain would come to her tongue, in quick, triumphant words.
"My upright, truthful judge and brother-in-law – to bring about a reconciliation between his best friend, my husband, and his 'erring but loving wife.'" A haughty look flashed in her eyes: "Regina – and pleading for forgiveness! Ah, well – even a queen must sometimes stoop to conquer!"
The weeks passed slowly on; and, absorbed though Laura was in her camphor-bottle and her novels, she could not but notice that Paul had altogether changed in his behavior toward her sister; and she rejoiced over this in her own fashion:
"I always told Regina that her innocence would come to light, and she would triumph over the machinations of her enemies, and get married to a – But she is married – I forget. Well, it will all come right, and she'll be ever so happy, I know."
Poor thing! She could not live to see her so. The camphor-bottle, the close, dark room, and the Frenchy novels were too much for her; and before the spring had brought any flowers to strew on her grave, they had laid her in a darker, closer room than she had yet been in. Her husband and Regina followed the coffin, dressed in deep mourning; and Regina's face, as well as Paul's, was paler and sadder by a good many shades than usual.
Meanwhile, letters passed frequently between Paul and his friend and brother-in-law; and one day, when the roses and lilacs that bordered the lawn were shedding fragrance and beauty together over the old homestead-grounds, Paul announced to his sister-in-law that he would accompany her on her journey to New Mexico.
How the wind of the plains through Paul's hair made it look more than ever like a lion's mane! and how like the Paul of long ago he looked, mounted on his fiery black horse! Something like pity for him sometimes stole into Regina's heart; but she would sneer at herself for the feeling. "Did he pity me when I came home broken-hearted – repentant?"
The long hours of their rest – for the colonel had seen to it that his wife had not to travel in the plebeian stage, but was furnished train and escort at Fort Leavenworth – she beguiled with telling, bit by bit, the story of her acquaintance with Manuela, who had found her way to the fort on the Rio Pecos, one day, where they had been stationed. Regina had been captivated at once by the girl's gentle face and soft black eyes; and when, after an acquaintance of some weeks, she surmised that the girl was looking for the man who had once loved and then, unaccountably, deserted her, she felt only pity for one who could so unselfishly and devotedly love any man as to give up home and friends, and wander through what must seem the wide world to this poor girl, in search of him. That the man was Paul, she felt quite sure; though she had never expressed the least suspicion of this to the colonel.
This much only could Paul learn from his sister-in-law; and that she knew, even now, where the girl could be found; further than this she would not say; would not tell him that Manuela had lived in her own household, half as domestic, half as companion; that she had been induced to this by the vague hope that while with Americans she might more easily learn of those who arrived, or returned, from the States to the Territories; that on leaving Santa Fé she had exacted a promise from the girl to remain in the colonel's quarters and employ until she should send her permission to leave her post.
And so they reached Santa Fé – Paul hopeful and expectant as a young bridegroom; Regina calm and thoughtful, but trying to look cheerful when she knew of Paul's eyes resting on her; when unobserved, the dreary, despairing look crept back into her eyes, and her face, white as marble, grew rigid as the face of a statue. When the cluster of square, low-built adobe houses, called Santa Fé, rose up before them, Paul could hardly restrain his impatience; but he had promised to be guided in all things by his sister-in-law, and he had now to abide by her decisions. "It would be painful and embarrassing to have any one, even her own brother-in-law, present at her first meeting with the colonel," she said, and therefore requested Paul to remain over night in Santa Fé, and ride over in the morning to where Fort Marcy lay, on the low rise of the hills bordering the plain.
Since Regina so wished it, let the meeting between herself and husband be entirely private. We will not draw aside the veil till the next morning, which came up with a blaze of broad, staring sunshine, promising an unpleasantly hot day. The commanding officer's quarters, though surrounded by a neat paling-fence, was as bare and innocent of the least attempt at a garden as all the rest of the quarters were. The red, hard earth alone stared up at the hard blue sky; outside the fortress walls, ungainly cactus and stunted mesquit bushes made the plain look only the more inhospitable and barren.
The quarters were low, but cool; and as the doorways were only hung with curtains, the breeze that swept over the plain had free access to every room in the house. The large sitting-room at the colonel's quarters had been darkened since early morning, and the heat excluded as much as possible, for the colonel was threatened with a severe attack of the torturing headache that sprang from the badly-healed wound in his forehead. As the sun rose higher, he succumbed to the pain; and as he threw himself on the wide, low lounge, in intolerable suffering, Regina stepped lightly to his side, to supply the usual remedies. But a cold look and colder words drove her back from his couch; and as he called to Manuela to bathe his head, in gentle, almost tender tones, she for the first time felt a deadly hatred toward this girl, whom she knew still to be an angel in virtue and purity.
Struck to the heart, she left the room, only to throw herself on the hard floor of the next apartment, where she grovelled in an agony of anger and pain. Suddenly the sound of horses' hoofs fell on her ear, and she sprang up with one wild bound, and flew to the door, just in time to motion Paul, who had already dismounted, into her presence.
"Now has my time come!" She could hardly restrain herself from crying it out aloud to the frowning mountain and the arid plain. "Ricardo, thou shalt be avenged! avenged thou, my poor heart, for the tears and the blood wrung from thee for many, many bitter days!"
The light of the sun shining into Paul's eyes, blinded him; and though he saw the finger laid on her lips, he could not see the dishevelled hair and bloodshot eyes, and approached her, looking for some glad surprise. He had donned a Mexican costume, and the little silver bells on the outside seam of his pantaloons jingled musically at every step; while the short jacket, showing the pistol-belt under the red sash, set his figure off to full advantage.
He spoke laughingly: "You see I have turned Mexican, every inch of me!" then he caught the wild eyes, with their frenzied look, and he grasped her hand, exclaiming, "Good God! what has happened?"
"Happened?" she echoed with a demoniac laugh; "we have been deceived – outraged – cheated out of our life's happiness – both you and I! Behold the traitor and the serpent!"
Drawing aside the curtain that hung in the door-arch between the two rooms, she beckoned him to approach, and pointed silently to the group in the next room. Bending over the reclining form of the man on the lounge stood a girl, whose face, of angel goodness, was turned in profile to the two intruders at the doorway. The man's eyes were closed; and as the girl stooped lower, his hand stole softly around her form, and nestled there, lovingly, tenderly, as though it had found a long-sought resting-place. Pliant braids of glossy black hair fell far below the girl's waist; and her eyes were of the almond shape, that we find in the faces of those descended from the people of Castile.
In a moment Paul's burning eyes had taken in the picture, and an inarticulate sound came over his lips. The woman beside him watched him with the eyes of a tigress; and he never knew – was it her touch that guided him, or did his own evil passions move his hand from his reeking brow to the pistol in his belt? There was a sharp report, a shriek and a groan, and the next minute Paul Kennerly was dashing over the plain, mounted on his fleet black horse, the wind tossing through his hair, and raising it from his bare brow, where it reared itself proudly, like the mane of a lion when he flies from captivity and death.
THE ROMANCE OF GILA BEND
Travelling from Los Angeles to Tucson, you can, if you choose, sleep under a roof almost every night, providing you have good teams. There are Government forage stations along the whole route, where travellers are "taken in" by the station-keepers, though not on Government account. I do not say that it is pleasant at all these stations, particularly for a woman, as she will seldom or never meet one of her own sex on the way. When we left Fort Yuma, Sam, the driver, assured me that I would not see a white woman's face between there and Tucson. He was mistaken. I met not only one, but a whole family of them, one after another.
The day that brought us to Oatman's Flat was murky, dark, and gloomy – a day in full harmony with the character of the country we were travelling through. We descended into the Flat by an abrupt fall in the road that landed us at once among a clump of scraggy, darkling willows, drooping wearily over a sluggish little creek. In the distance we could see the white sand of the bed of the Gila, and half-buried in it the ghastly, water-bleached limbs of the trees that the river had uprooted year after year in its annual frenzy. We could not go the upper road, on account of the Gila's having washed out a portion of it, and the lower road seemed to be regarded by Sam with all the disfavor it deserved. Verde or grease-wood, as ragged and scraggy as the willows, covered the whole Flat, except where, towards the centre, a dilapidated shanty stood on a sandy, cheerless open space. Not far from it were the remains of a fence, enclosing some six paces of uneven ground, and on the only upper rail left of the inclosure sat a dismal-looking, solitary crow.
There was something so repulsively dreary about the whole place that it made me shudder, and when Sam, pointing to it with his whip, said it was the spot where the Oatman family had been murdered and lay buried, I was not in the least surprised. Only one of the whole family had escaped – a little chap who had crawled away after he had been left for dead, and brought the white people from the next settlement to the scene of the massacre. There was nothing to be done but to bury the mutilated corpses; after this, the place had been deserted and shunned by the few who lived here, though there had been no more Indian depredations committed for years past.
I was glad that the road did not take us very near the shanty, though I watched it with a strange fascination. Sam, too, had his eyes fixed on something that might have been the shadow of one of the victims, flitting by the black gap which had once been the door. The place was so weird that the ghostly shadow seemed to belong there; it chimed in so well with the rest, that I accepted it as a part of the uncanny whole. We had been going along at the usual leisurely gait, but Sam whipped up the mules all at once, and leaned out of the ambulance to speak to Phil, who drove the army wagon containing our baggage. The road was good and solid, so I took no alarm at first; but when the speed was continued, and the baggage-wagon kept thundering close behind us, I ventured to ask, "Is there danger from Indians here?"
"There hain't no Indians been seen around here for more'n three years," was the answer, which satisfied me at the time.
When we came to Burke's Station, where we were to pass the night, a surprise awaited us. The house, a squalid adobe, was built in the style common along the route – an open passage-way with rooms on either side. The principal room to the left was bar-room and store-room; the room to the right was reception-room, sitting-room, bed-room, and behind it was the kitchen. The passage-way was dining-hall. When the tall young Missourian, mine host, had ushered me into the room, he stepped to the opening leading to the kitchen and called out:
"Here, Sis, come and speak to the lady."
Obedient to the call, a bashful, half-grown girl appeared, wiping her hands on her apron, and looking up timidly from under her long eyelashes. I took her by the hand. "How do you, child? How in the world did you get here, and where is your mother?" I asked.
Sam and Phil stood in the hall-door nudging each other, until Sam could restrain himself no longer.
"Why, that's his wife," pointing to the young Goliah from Missouri, "and her dad and mam's living in the old shanty down on the Flat. I'll be derned if they didn't give me the worst scare I had yet – thought they was Indians, shore!"
I looked from one to the other. "And how old are you?" I asked the girl.
"Almost fifteen!" was the answer; and when the men withdrew she told me about the rest of her family, whom I would probably find along the road.
Sis was badly dressed; a coarse cotton gown, made with a yoke about an inch and a half in depth, was drawn up close around her neck, and hung loosely about her slender, immature form; her naked feet were thrust into coarse boots, and a large check apron completed her costume. But there was a shy, daisy-like grace about her that made one forget the dress and see only the dove-like eyes and half-pensive smile on her face. Her husband treated her in all things like a child, and she obeyed him without a murmur or a question. When we left he told us that we would find Sis's aunt at Kenyon's Station, and charged us to say that Sis was well, and not the least bit homesick.
We made Kenyon's Station early in the day, Sam and Phil greatly enjoying the prospect of seeing another white woman here. She appeared on the threshold, a brawny, coarse-handed woman of about forty, tidy-looking, in spite of her bare feet and the short pipe in her mouth. By her side appeared a shock-headed girl of twelve, with eyes agog and mouth open at the strange apparition of a civilized-looking white woman. The husband stood beside the ambulance – six feet and a half in his cowhide boots – a good-humored smile on his leathery face, and lifted me to the ground as though I had been a feather. Though the house, like that at Burke's Station, was only adobe, there was an air of homely comfort about it, inside and out, that made it much more cheerful than the other place.
Aunt Polly was an excellent housekeeper – as viewed from a Texan standpoint – and after she had in the most naïve manner satisfied her curiosity in regard to my looks and general make-up, she commenced preparations for dinner. Sarah Eliza Jane, sole daughter of the house and race, stayed by me in the room. Sitting in a low, home-made chair, she stared steadily at me, sitting on a taller home-made chair, till she had comprehended that the bits of braid and lace in my lap were to be manufactured into a collar similar to the one I wore in my dress. When she learned that the collar was to be for her, she ran out to the kitchen, shouting for her mother to come and see what I was doing. The mother's delight was as frank and hearty as the daughter's, and all at once the secret leaked out that the family was in possession of a fine American cow. Never speak disparagingly to me of Pikes and Texans. The least kindness shown to them is returned tenfold, and the smallest advance of friendliness is met by them half-way. When dinner (or supper) was placed on the table, there came with it the most delicious butter I had eaten for many a long day, to say nothing of a glass of buttermilk, the sweetest I ever tasted. But I must tell you how Aunt Polly made the butter, in case you should emigrate to Arizona without a patent diamond churn. The cream was put into a high tin quart cup, and beaten with a spoon till the butter came – which it did in about fifteen minutes.
By the time dinner was over we had become quite intimate, and Aunt Polly having resumed her pipe, gave me a short account of her history since emigrating from Texas. The two most striking incidents were the loss of her former husband by a stroke of lightning, about ten months ago, and the acquisition of her present husband by a stroke of policy, about three months ago. Though she did not show me the weeds she had worn on becoming a widow, she exhibited the gorgeous "good clothes" she wore on again becoming a wife. She stood at a little distance from me and spread out the second-day dress, so that I could see the whole of the pattern, consisting of detached bouquets – brilliantly variegated in color and gigantic in size – scattered over a plain of light sky-blue. The dress worn for "the occasion" was a gauzy white muslin, which must have had a delicate effect – if she wore bare feet and a pipe in her mouth with it. Her husband had proved kind and indulgent. Since their marriage he had been at Maricopa Wells, and had bought at the store there another beautiful dress of many colors – which, alas! had run out of his saddle-bags, after a two hours' hard rain, on his way home. I saw the dress pattern, and – oh, it was pitiful.
After this display of good-will and fine clothes on her part, she said she had a favor to ask of me, too. She pointed to my trunk, and said her husband was crazy to know whether there was a waterfall in it? He had read so much about waterfalls in the stray papers that fell into his hands that he had the greatest curiosity in the world to know what it was, and to see one with his own eyes. He imagined it to be a kind of box or bag that ladies wore on their heads to carry their hair in, and, seeing no foreign matter on my head, he "reckoned that I packed it with me in my trunk." Aunt Polly had shrewdly guessed it to be a new fashion of "putting up" the hair; but they both had about as correct an idea of it as a blind man has of colors. With deep regret I owned that there was no waterfall in my trunk; but seeing their disappointment, I succeeded, with the aid of a pair of stockings and a pin-cushion, in putting up my hair into quite a little Niagara, to the great delight of these fashion-worshipping people.
How charming the grove of trees looks, when you draw up under their shadow at Gila Bend, after days of travel over tedious sand-plains or through wildernesses of grease-wood and cactus. The whisper of the wind in the trees, the bark of the dog that ran out to meet us, and the cackle of the busy hens around the doorway, told us that we should find good and happy people here. There was the solitary house as usual, but it seemed more pretentious than those at the other stations. The passage-way was higher and wider, the rooms more numerous, and finished with whitewash and good glass windows. At the windows curtains; a gay-colored counterpane on the bed, and wolf-skins in front of it and the lounge.
The station-keeper was a black-bearded, good-looking man, and his name was George Washington – (I won't give the rest of his name – it's too long). I knew I should find Sis's elder sister here as Mrs. George W. – , for she had been married on the same day with her Aunt Polly. The blue eyes, under long, silken lashes, that met my gaze on the threshold at Gila Bend were like Sis's, only these were the eyes of a woman; there were the same pretty movements, too, only there was more of self-assertion in them. She might have been eighteen; from out of the muslin dress she wore shone the whitest shoulders that belle ever exhibited in a ball-room. Her hands and feet were small, and her rich brown hair, oddly, though not unbecomingly dressed, lay on a forehead white and pure as that of a child.
No wonder George W. was proud of his wife, and had tried hard to win as such the barefooted girl whom he found one day, with her family and some sorry ox-teams, camped near his house, on their way from Texas to California. It was quite a large family. There was the girl's mother, her step-father, her sister, her brother, the aunt, and the aunt's little girl. Aunt Polly seemed to be the leading man, for to her belonged the two best ox-teams, one of which was driven by herself, the other by the girl, Dorinda. She had hired or bought her niece from the step-father for this purpose, after she had lost her husband by lightning, and Dora had been faithful to her task, although pretty nearly worn out crossing the Desert from Maricopa Wells to Gila Bend, where George W. first found them. After he had taken a deep look into the girl's eyes, he very disinterestedly invited the whole family to come into his house – as far as they would go in – to rest there from the long, hard journey. The family was treated to the best the house afforded, and the oxen were fed on such hay as they had perhaps never dreamed of before.
The Texans were in no hurry to move on, and George W. was in no hurry to have them go; being a bachelor, he was naturally fond of ladies' society. Dora, Sis, and the ten-year-old brother soon became warmly attached to him, and they, with the big dog, Bose, would daily wander off to the Gila to catch fish. When they got there the two barefooted girls and the brother would wade into the stream with ever fresh zest, as they recalled that dreadful drag across the waterless desert. Bose always went into the water with them, George W. alone remaining on the bank, fishing-line in hand.
