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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
This etext differs from the original as follows. A few typographical
errors that did not affect the sense have been corrected. The character
U with tilde is shown as [~U]. The oe ligature is shown as [oe]. The
original has musical notation at many points, indicated thus:
[Music (title, when given)]
Where the music also has lyrics, they are formatted as poetry below the
that line.
[Illustration: FOR THE SOUL OF RAFAEL]
[Illustration: "BECAUSE OF ONE LITTLE WHITE VAMPIRE."]
FOR THE SOUL OF RAFAEL
BY
MARAH ELLIS RYAN
AUTHOR OF "TOLD IN THE HILLS" "THE BONDWOMAN" ETC.
WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
TAKEN EXPRESSLY FOR THIS BOOK
BY
HAROLD A. TAYLOR
DECORATIVE DESIGNS BY
RALPH FLETCHER SEYMOUR
ELEVENTH EDITION
CHICAGO
A.C. McCLURG & CO.
1920
COPYRIGHT
A.C. MCCLURG & CO.
1906
Entered at Stationers Hall, London
Photographs by HAROLD A. TAYLOR, by permission of
The Hallett-Taylor Company
The Author is indebted to the Southwest Society of the
Archaeological Institute of America for the
Spanish Music contained in this volume
Published May 12, 1906
Second Edition, Sept. 15, 1906
Third Edition, Oct. 1, 1906
Fourth Edition, Dec. 5, 1906
Fifth Edition, Dec. 15, 1906
Sixth Edition, Feb. 11, 1907
7th Edition, Aug. 31, 1907
8th Edition, Jan. 12, 1909
9th Edition, April 30, 1909
10th Edition, Oct. 15, 1910
11th Edition, Nov. 10, 1914
M.A. DONOHUE & CO., PRINTERS AND BINDERS, CHICAGO
A MIS AMIGOS DE CALIFORNIA
_que siempre me han prestado su ayuda con_
_aquella bonded que les es caracteristica._
M.E.R.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
"BECAUSE OF ONE LITTLE WHITE VAMPIRE" Frontispiece
DONA ANGELA 32
RAQUEL ESTEVAN 56
KEITH BRYTON 62
"NEVER ON ANY OTHER SHORE" 128
"YOU LIED TO ME--ALL OF YOU!" 166
"R[~U]ELAS ME FECIT: ME LLAMA SAN JUAN. 1796." 176
"THEN I HEARD YOUR VOICE" 240
"HERE AMONG THE RUINS CONSECRATED" 260
"THERE IS NO FORGETTING" 278
THE ALISO TREE 294
AN INNER COURT 302
THE SERENADE 312
"AFTER THE VERY GAY SUPPER" 316
"THEIR HOSTESS HAD ARRIVED" 320
"AND--HE WAS AN ARTEAGA!" 334
"EACH WAY HE TURNED HE MET AN ALTAR OR A PRIEST" 352
"ONE WORDLESS MINUTE" 368
"THINGS KNOWN AND NEVER TOLD" 372
[Music: _La Calandria_ (The Meadow Lark)]
[Music: _Capitan de un Barco_.]
Capitan de un barco Me escribio un papel
Que si ne queria Casarme con el.
FOR THE SOUL OF RAFAEL
CHAPTER I
Over the valley of the Mission of the Tragedies, the grass was knee-deep
in March that year. The horses galloping from the mesa trail down to
Boca de la Playa (the mouth of the ocean) were fat and sleek and tricky
as they ran neck and neck past the corral of the little plain, and
splashed in glee through the San Juan River, where it ends its short run
from the Sierras to the Pacific.
Where the west trail hugged the hill, two men sat their broncos,
watching that no strays break for the mesa above; and beyond the cross
on Avila's hill, other vaqueros guarded El Camino Real (the road royal),
lest in the whirl and dash of the round-up rebels might break for the
open and a stampede undo all the riding since dawn of day.
High above on the western cliff a giant head of cactus reared infernal
arms and luminous bloom. One immense clump threw a shadow across the
cliff road where it leaves the river plain and winds along the canyon to
the mesa above the sea,--the road over which in the old days the Mission
Indians bore hides to the ships and flung them from the cliffs to the
waiting boats below.
A man stood back of the cactus watching with tireless eyes the dividing
of the herds and the quick work of the vaqueros as their excited
mustangs raced for a stray or a rebel from the ranks. A dark serape was
at his feet, the dust of the roads on his face, and when he removed his
sombrero to light a cigarro in its shelter, there was disclosed a great
shock of black hair worn unusually long, and matching in unkemptness the
full beard covering his face almost to his black velvety eyes.
They were the one youthful feature in an otherwise weather-worn visage,
and at the sound of horse hoofs on the road, they opened wider,
listening, alert, yet he did not turn to look whence the sounds came.
Instead, he dropped silently to the serape, crushed the end of the
cigarro against a cactus leaf, and waited, as still and as safe from
detection as a lizard of the mesa in a sage thicket.
He could see clearly the face of Don Antonio, the major-domo, and
instinctively his right hand reached for his gun. Then he shrugged his
shoulders at his own folly, and bent his head to listen. Don Antonio
was speaking Americano to a man riding beside him, and the man behind
the cactus frowned impatiently,--the villanous tongue was an added
grievance. A few rebellious animals had made a dash for the cliff, and
Don Antonio waved his sombrero and ranged his horse across the road. His
companion did the same, and to give the vaqueros time to cross the river
after them, the two stood guard in the shadow of the cactus, and rolled
cigarros and smoked leisurely, while the horsemen, in jingling spurs and
all the bravery of the Mexican riders' outfit, circled and lassoed the
pick of the herd for the Apache work of the government in the desert
lands.
"It is quicker done than it was a year ago," the American remarked
approvingly, "and the horses are in better condition. If you can let us
have the five hundred from the La Paz ranges, there should be no trouble
about making up the other five hundred from the San Mateo."
"Not any, senor," agreed Don Antonio, "I send a man down to have them
round-up for next week. You no want that they begin sooner than that?"
"To-morrow," returned the other with smiling decision.
"To-morrow! Holy Maria and Jose! You will cut out the fiesta and the
barbecue always given for the army men? Senor Bryton, the Don Miguel and
Don Rafael Arteaga will feel offend if you refuse their hospitality
except for the little--little while, the horse herd is arranged for."
"Sorry to offend the young men," observed the other. "But since Don
Miguel is ranging in some other part of California, and your Don Rafael
is in Mexico getting married or making love,--which is it?--I reckon
they will not miss us much."
"No, senor, it is not to marry down there, only to make it all arrange.
His mother, the Dona Luisa, is there in Mexico since San Pascual; but
Dona Luisa will be more old and crippled than she is now, before she
lets Don Rafael be marry outside her own Mission."
"So they come back here for the ceremony?"
"Sure! Dona Luisa she marry Don Vicente, here in San Juan Capistrano. It
is here he have the big trouble with the padre, and the padre put the
curse on him that long time ago. It is here that he is brought back dead
from San Pascual. And now when the sons have make much trouble, all are
dead but two, and when Dona Luisa, who was so proud, has only Indian
grandchildren, she wants to marry Rafael to a senorita who is half a
nun, that the curse may be lifted. She think that girl do more to keep
him from walking in Miguel's shoes than prayers to the saints can do;
and it may be,--who knows? I hear you talking of the padre's curse to
the Alcalde, so I know you hearing the story."
"Um--something of church property south of here, wasn't it?" remarked
the American. "Yes, I remember. There goes a mare that is a beauty for a
mustang."
"Some few years, and you no getting that strong, wild stock some more,"
he observed. "Miguel and Rafael want English stallions and such other
breeds. They will have English stock and American customs. The saints
keep Dona Luisa from hearing them all. I mean no discourtesy, senor, but
she is an old woman now, and left her home because she would not live in
your government. She comes back for duty and the marriage; but the old
never change, senor, and she is hating it till she die."
The American cast his eyes northward where the heights of San Jacinto
stood guard over the beautiful valley. Willows marked the course of
Trabuco Creek and San Juan River, and on the plateau between them
gleamed the ruined dome of the old mission, a remnant of beauty such as
the ranging American meets with in Latin lands, seldom in his own, and
admires, and wonders if it was worth while, and drifts away again, but
never quite forgets.
Yellow-white it gleamed like an opal in a setting of velvety ranges
under turquoise skies. About its walls were the clustered adobes of the
Mexicans, like children creeping close to the feet of the one mother;
and beyond that the illimitable ranges of mesa and valley, of live-oak
groves and knee-deep meadows, of countless springs and canyons of
mystery, whence gold was washed in the freshets; and over all, eloquent,
insistent, appealing, the note of the meadow-lark cutting clearly
through the hoof-beats of the herd and the calls of the vaqueros.
"I think I should hate it, too," he said at last. "They lived like kings
and made their own laws in those days. After being a queen of all this,
it would be hard to be subject to new forms."
"That is it, senor, she never get used to like the American flag. That
why she want always that Don Rafael marry South, a good Catholic, and a
senorita of Mexico. She only living for that, they say. Now when it is
done she die in peace."
"And Rafael, how will he manage his American deals when--"
Don Antonio shrugged his shoulders doubtfully.
"Who knows? I glad I living my young life in other days. The fences
have make ruin of the country in the north; after a while it is down
here all the same. All cut up in little gardens. Who knows?"
The American restrained a smile as he thought of the sixty-five miles
they had ridden across, and only one little German colony where fence or
hedges were in evidence. For the rest all was fenced on the east by the
mountains and on the west by the sea. On the north the Santa Barbara
range would perhaps serve as a barricade, and south even the Mexican
line raised no obstacle to roving herds.
"The fences will not come in our day, and it is all now to be a pleasure
ground for your gay Don Rafael."
"Not so much of a pleasure ground as it looks, senor," observed Don
Antonio dryly. "The same curse works still. It is good he marries a
convent girl; it takes the prayers of Dona Luisa, and a saint besides,
to clear these ranges of Barto Nordico, el Capitan."
The man on the serape shrugged his shoulders and lifted his head,
resting it on his hands to listen better.
"Nordico? Oh, yes! the man with an eye for good horses."
"If it were only an eye," grumbled Don Antonio, "but the devil seems to
have a hundred hands, and his reata touches only the first stock on the
Arteaga ranches."
"Not only the Arteagas', I suppose?"
"Oh, you not hearing that?" and the older man's tone expressed surprise.
"It going with the curse, maybe, we not knowing. Old Don Vicente have
the brother Ramon, but Vicente buy up all Ramon's land some way. Ramon
goes crazy mad, _loco_, on that account. And then his son, Barto, he
study for the priest, that is when the war comes, and he is only little
yet. He running away from school to fight; but all he can do is to carry
the letters, he is so little and can ride so like the devil. He never is
content to the American flags, no more than Dona Luisa, so he just
keeping on to fight, and the government no getting him."
"Do they try?" asked the American.
"Do they--do they try? Since he joined Juan Flores, one dozen men in
Capistrano have the sword cut or the bullet mark, who have gone to try
for that reward. It is good money, but no one getting it. He is a
devil."
"But I don't understand. You make him out an Arteaga, yet he is called
Nordico?"
"Oh, he hating the Arteagas, so he taking his mother's name. He take the
government mail sometimes, and he takes the Arteaga horses always, and
no one ever finds him any place. While men follow his trail for the
mountains, he is out in a boat on the sea. The saints send that he does
not meet the marriage gifts of Don Rafael."
The man behind the cactus fairly held his breath.
"Whew! would he attack the Mission or the town?"
"It would not be the first time," returned Antonio, "but it is of the
bride-chests on the journey that I speak. Sixty miles of land they must
cover from San Diego, and they cost more than a herd of horses."
"Rafael can replace the gifts," observed the American, "so long as his
bandit cousin does not kidnap the bride; but even that, I suppose, might
be done in this land of lonely ranges."
The man under the cactus nodded and showed his teeth in an appreciative
smile. He had met good fortune for his long vigil; it was a day of luck,
and he crossed himself.
The vaqueros had circled the rebellious animals, and headed them back.
"It is true, the horses are in better condition this year," conceded the
major-domo as they watched the horses loping along the river side. "Do
you send them all together, or by the five hundred, across the range,
Senor Bryton?"
"By the five hundred, I think the lieutenant said," replied Bryton. "It
is not easy to feed more in one bunch on the journey."
The man behind the cactus arose stealthily and stretched his arms as the
hoof-beats grew more faint.
"Senor Bryton--eh?" and he shrugged his shoulders contentedly. "The
clever Bryton who put us off the track last year and took the stock by
the north! This time he will not be so clever. Still, he gives a man
ideas in the head,--may he have an easy death for that! Rafael's good
friend who picks the good horses for the good government!"
[Music: _La Viuda._]
Corre muchacho a la yglesia,
Dile al sacristan mayor,
Que repique las campanas, tan! tan!