SANTA FE
After an early breakfast the _atejo_ of nineteen mules besides the
_mulera_, or bell mule, was brought out of the pasture and the
_aparejos_, leather bags stuffed with hay, thrown on their backs and
cinched fast with wide belts of woven sea-grass, which were drawn so
cruelly tight that they seemed almost to cut the animals in two; this
cruelty was a necessary one and saved them greater cruelties by holding
the packs from slipping and chafing them to the bone. Groaning from the
tightness of the cinches they stood trembling while the huge cruppers
were put into place and breast straps tightened. Then the _carga_ was
placed on them, the whiskey carriers loaded with a cask on each side,
firmly bound with rawhide ropes; the meal carriers with nearly one
hundred fifty pounds in sacks on each side. While the mules winced now,
after they had become warmed up and the hay of the _aparejos_ packed to
a better fit, they could travel longer and carry the heavy burdens with
greater ease than if the cinches were slacked. The packing down and
shaping of the _aparejo_ so loosened the cinch and ropes that frequently
it was necessary to stop and tighten them all after a mile or so had
been put behind.
The _atejo_ was in charge of a major-domo, five _arrieros_, or
muleteers and a cook, or the _madre_, who usually went ahead and led the
bell mule. All the men rode well-trained horses, and both men and horses
from Turley's rancho were sleek, well fed and contented, for the
proprietor was known throughout the valley, and beyond, for his
kindness, honesty and generosity; and he was repaid in kind, for his
employees were faithful, loyal, and courageous in standing up for his
rights and in defending his property. Yet the time was to come some
years hence when his sterling qualities would be forgotten and he would
lose his life at the hands of the inhabitants of the valley.
The _atejo_ swiftly and dexterously packed, the two pairs of
bloodthirsty looking Indian guards divided into advance and rear guard,
the _madre_ led the bell mule down the slope and up the trail leading
over the low mountainous divide toward Ferdinand de Taos, the grunting
mules following in orderly file.
The trail wandered around gorges and bowlders and among pine, cedar, and
dwarf oaks and through patches of service berries with their small,
grapelike fruit, and crossed numerous small rivulets carrying off the
water of the rainy season. Taos, as it was improperly called, lay twelve
miles distant at the foot of the other side of the divide, and it was
reached shortly after noon without a stop on the way. The "noonings"
observed by the caravans were not allowed in an _atejo_, nor were the
mules permitted to stop for even a moment while on the way, for if
allowed a moment's rest they promptly would lie down, and in attempting
to arise under their heavy loads were likely to strain their loins so
badly as to render them forever unfit for work. To remove and replace
the packs would take too much time. Because of the steady traveling the
day's journey rarely exceeded five or six hours nor covered more than
twelve to fifteen miles.
Taos reached, the packs were removed and covered by the _aparejos_, each
pile kept separate. Turned out to graze with the bell mule, without
picket rope or hobbles, the animals would not leave her and could be
counted on, under ordinary circumstances, to be found near camp and all
together.
Taos, a miserable village of adobes, and the largest town in the valley,
had a population of a few American and Canadian trappers who had married
Mexican or Indian women; poor and ignorant Mexicans of all grades except
that of pure Spanish blood, and Indians of all grades except, perhaps,
those of pure Indian blood. The mixed breed Indians had the more courage
of the two, having descended from the Taosas, a tribe still inhabiting
the near-by pueblo, whose warlike tendencies were almost entirely
displayed in defensive warfare in the holding of their enormous,
pyramidal, twin pueblos located on both sides of a clear little stream.
In the earlier days marauding bands of Yutaws and an occasional
war-party of Cheyennes or Arapahoes had learned at a terrible cost that
the Pueblo de Taos was a nut far beyond their cracking, and from these
expeditions into the rich and fertile valley but few returned.
Here was a good chance to test the worth of their disguises, for the
three older plainsmen were well-known to some of the Americans and
Canadians in the village, having been on long trips into the mountains
with a few of them. And so, after the meal of _frijoles_, _atole_ and
jerked meat, the latter a great luxury to Mexicans of the grade of
_arrieros_, Hank and his two Arapahoe companions left the little
encampment and wandered curiously about the streets, to the edification
of uneasy townsfolk, whose conjectures leaned toward the unpleasant.
Ceran St. Vrain, on a visit to the town, passed them close by but did
not recognize the men he had seen for days at a time at his trading post
on the South Platte. Simonds, a hunter from Bent's Fort, passed within a
foot of Hank and did not know him; yet the two had spent a season
together in the Middle Park, lying just across the mountain range west
of Long's Peak.
Continuing on their way the next morning they camped in the open valley
for the night, and the next day crossed a range of mountains. The next
village was El Embudo, a miserable collection of mud huts at the end of
a wretched trail. The Pueblo de San Juan and the squalid,
poverty-stricken village of La Canada followed in turn. Everywhere they
found hatred and ill-disguised fear of the Texans roaming beyond the
Canadian. Next they reached the Pueblo de Ohuqui and here found snug
accommodations for themselves and their animals in the little valley.
From the pueblo the trail lay through an arroyo over another mountain
and they camped part way down its southeast face with Santa Fe sprawled
out below them.
Morning found them going down the sloping trail, the Indian escort
surreptitiously examining their rifles, and in the evening they entered
the collection of mud houses honored by the name of San Francisco de la
Santa Fe, whose population of about three thousand souls was reputed to
be the poorest in worldly wealth in the entire province of New Mexico;
and, judging from the numbers of openly run gambling houses, rum shops
and worse, the town might have deserved the reputation of being the
poorest in morals and spiritual wealth.
Sprawled out under the side of the mountain, its mud houses of a single
story, its barracks, _calabozo_ and even the "palace" of the governor
made of mud, with scarcely a pane of glass in the whole town; its narrow
streets littered with garbage and rubbish; with more than two-thirds of
its population barefooted and unkempt, a mixture of Spaniards and
Indians for generations, in which blending the baser parts of their
natures seemed singularly fitted to survive; with cringing, starving
dogs everywhere; full of beggars, filthy and in most cases disgustingly
diseased, with hands outstretched for alms, as ready to curse the tight
of purse as to bless the generous, and both to no avail; with its
domineering soldiery without a pair of shoes between them, its arrogant
officers in shiny, nondescript uniforms and tarnished gilt, with huge
swords and massive spurs, to lead the unshod mob of privates into
cowardly retreat or leave them to be slaughtered by their Indian foes,
whose lances and bows were superior in accuracy and execution to the
ancient firelocks so often lacking in necessary parts; reputed to be
founded on the ruins of a pueblo which had flourished centuries before
the later "city" and no doubt was its superior in everything but
shameless immorality. There, under Sante Fe mountain and the pure and
almost cloudless blue sky, along the little mountain stream of the same
name, lay Santa Fe, the capital of the department of New Mexico, and the
home of her vainglorious, pompous, good-looking, and brutal governor;
Santa Fe, the greatest glass jewel in a crown of tin; Santa Fe, the
customs gate and the disappointing end of a long, hard trail.
Through the even more filthy streets of the poverty-stricken outskirts
of the town went the little _atejo_, disputing right-of-way in the
narrow, porch-crowded thoroughfares with _hoja_ (corn husk) sellers and
huge burro loads of pine and cedar faggots gathered from the near-by
mountain; past the square where the mud hovels of the soldiers lay; past
a mud church whose tall spire seemed ever to be stretching away from the
smells below; past odorous hog stys, crude mule corrals with their
scarred and mutilated creatures, and sheep pens, and groups of avid
cock-fighters; past open doors through which the halfbreed women,
clothed in a simple garment hanging from the shoulders, could be seen
cooking _frijoles_ or the thin, watery _atole_ and hovering around the
flat stones which served for stoves; past these and worse plodded the
_atejo_, the shrewd mules braying their delight at a hard journey almost
ended. Sullen Indians, apologetic Mexicans, swaggering and too often
drunken soldiers gave way to them, while a string of disputing,
tail-tucking dogs followed at a distance, ever wary, ever ready to wheel
and run.
Reaching the _Plaza Publica_, which was so bare of even a blade of grass
or a solitary tree, and its ground so scored and beaten and covered with
rubbish to suggest that it suffered the last stages of some earthly
mange, they came to the real business section of the town, where nearly
every shop was owned by foreigners. Around this public plaza stood the
architectural triumphs of the city. There was the _palacio_ of the
governor, with its mud walls and its extended roof supported on rough
pine columns to form a great porch; the custom-house, with its greedy,
grafting officials; the mud barracks connected to the atrocious and much
dreaded _calabozo_, whose inmates had abandoned hope as they crossed its
threshold; the mud city hall, the military chapel, fast falling into
ruin, and a few dwellings. The interest attending the passing of the
_atejo_ increased a little as the pack train crossed this square, for
the Indian guards were conspicuous by their height and by the breadth of
shoulder, and the excellence of their well-kept weapons. Strangers were
drawing more critical attention these days, with the Texan threat
hanging over the settlements along the Pecos and the Rio Grande. Peon
women and Indian squaws regarded the four with apparent approval and as
they left the square and plunged into the poorer section again,
compliments and invitations reached their ears. Hopeless _mozos_, or
ill-paid servants, most of them kept in actual slavery by debts they
never could pay off because of the system of accounting used against
them, regarded the four enviously and yearned for their freedom.
Of the four Indians, a tall, strapping Delaware, stooping to be less
conspicuous, whose face was the dirtiest in the _atejo_, suddenly
stiffened and then forced himself to relax into his former lazy slouch.
The rattle of an imported Dearborn, which at all times had to be watched
closely to keep its metal parts from being stripped off and stolen,
filled the street as the vehicle rocked along the ruts toward them,
drawn by two good horses and driven by one Joseph Cooper, of St. Louis,
Missouri. At his side sat his niece, looking with wondering and
disapproving eyes about her, her pretty face improved by its coat of
healthy tan, but marred somewhat by the look of worry it so plainly
showed. She appeared sad and wistful, but at times her thoughts leaped
far away and brought her fleeting smiles so soft, so tender, as to
banish the look of worry and for an instant set a glory there.
Her glance took in the little pack train and its stalwart guards and
passed carelessly over the bending Delaware, and then returned to linger
on him while one might count five. Then he and the _atejo_ passed from
sight and she looked ahead again, unseeing, for her memory was racing
along a wagon road, and became a blank in a frightful, all-night storm.
At her sigh Uncle Joe glanced sidewise at her and took a firmer grip on
his vile native cigar, and silently cursed the day she had left St.
Louis.
"Load of wheat whiskey from th' rancho, I reckon," he said, and pulled
sharply on the reins to keep from running over a hypnotized ring of
cock-fighters. "How your paw can live all th' year 'round in this fester
of a town is a puzzle to me. I'd rather be in a St. Louis jail. Cigar?"
he sneered, yanking it from his mouth and regarding it with palpitant
disgust. He savagely hurled it from him. "Hell!"
A tangle of arms and legs rolled out of a rum shop and fought impotently
in the dust of the street, and sotted faces grinned down at them from
the crowded door. A flaky-skinned beggar slouched from behind the corner
of the building and held out an imploring hand, which the driver's
contemptuous denial turned into a clenched fist afloat in a sea of
Spanish maledictions.
The pack train having reached its destination, the two pairs of guards,
clutching their "writin'" from Turley, departed in hot haste to claim
their payment, and not long thereafter, rifleless, wandered about on
foot to see the sights, gaping and curious. In the hand of each was a
whiskey jug, the cynosure of all eyes. The _Plaza Publica_ seemed to
fascinate them, for they spent most of their time there; and when they
passed the guard house in the _palacio_ they generously replied to the
coaxing banter of the guard off watch, and went on again with lightened
jugs. Here as elsewhere they sensed a poorly hidden feeling of unrest,
and hid their smiles; somewhere north of Texas the _Tejanos_ rode with
vengeance in their hearts and certain death in their heretic rifles. No
one knew how close they might be, or what moment they would storm into
the town behind their deadly weapons. But the fear was largely
apathetic, for these people, between the Apache and Comanche raids of
year after year, had suckled fear from their mothers' breasts.
Finally, apprehensive of the attention they were receiving, the strange
Indians left the plaza and sought refuge with the mules of the _atejo_,
to remain there until after dark; and at their passing, groups of
excited women or quarreling children resumed their gambling in the
streets and all was serene again.
Gambling here was no fugitive evader of the law, no crime to be enjoyed
in secret, but was an institution legalized and flourishing. There even
was a public gaming house, where civil officers, traders, merchants,
travelers, and the clergy grouped avidly around the _monte_ tables and
played at fever heat, momentarily beyond the reach of any other
obsession. Regularly the governor and his wife graced the temple of
chance with their august persons and held informal levees among the
tables, making the place a Mecca for favor-seekers and sycophants, and a
golden treasury for the "house." At this time, so soon after the arrival
of two great caravans and the collection of so much impost, part of
which stuck to every finger that handled it, the play ran high
throughout the crowded room.
The round of festivities attending the arrival of the wagon trains were
not yet stilled, and fandangoes nightly gave hilarity a safety valve.
Great lumbering _carretas_, their wheels cut from solid sections of tree
trunks and the whole vehicle devoid of even a single scrap of precious
iron, shrieked and rattled through the dark streets, filled with shoddy
cavaliers and dazzling women, whose dresses seemed planned to tempt the
resolutions of a saint. _Rebosa_ or lace _mantilla_ over full, rounded,
dark and satiny breasts; fans wielded with an inherited art, to coax
and repel the victims of great and smouldering eyes of jet, which melted
one moment to blaze the next--this was the magic segment of the clock's
round. Now the eyesores of the squalid town were hidden from critical
sight, and the alluring softness and mystery of an ancient Spanish city
made one forget the almost unforgetable. Life and Death danced hand in
hand; Love and Hate bowed and curtsied, and the mad green fires of
Jealousy flickered or flared; while the poverty and the sordid tragedies
of the day gave place to tingling Romance in the feathery night. Violins
and guitars caressed the darkness with throbbing strains, catching the
breath, tingling the nerves and turning dull flesh to pulsing ecstasy.
To the fandango came a flower of a far-off French-American metropolis,
strangely listless; and here felt her blood slowly transmute to wine and
every nerve become a harp-string to make sad music for her soul.
Small wonder that Armijo stood speechless in the sight of such a one as
she, and forgot to press his questioning as to four who had somewhere
left that wagon train; small wonder that he gave no heed to men in the
presence of this exotic flower not yet unfolded, in whose veins the
French blood of the mother coursed with the Saxon of the father, and
played strange and wondrous pranks in delicate features, vivacious eyes,
and hidden whimsicalities now beginning to peek forth.
The coarse sensuality of the governor's face revealed his thoughts to
all the room; his eyes never had known the need to mask the sheerness of
their greedy passion, and in such a moment could not dissemble. What
man like him, in his place and power, with his nature, would glance
twice at a lazy, dirty Indian looking in through the open door, or know
that the murder beast was tearing at its moral fetters in the Delaware's
seething soul? Without again taking his burning eyes from the woman
before him the governor tossed, by force of habit, a copper coin through
the door, alms to a beggar to bring him luck from heaven to further his
plans from hell. Nor did he know the magazine his contemptuous gift had
set aflame, nor see the convulsive struggle between the Delaware and
three other Indians. The guard laughed sneeringly at the fight they
made, three to one, over a single piece of copper: Who was to know that
they fought over a hollow piece of steel, charged twice times three with
leaden death? Who was to read the desperation in that furious struggle,
where a beast-man fought like a fiend against his closest friends? The
struggling four reeled and stumbled from the house, leading away a fiery
tempest and faded into the crooning night. That open door nearly had
been an Open Door, indeed!
Within the room the vivacity died in the woman's eyes, the
whimsicalities drew back in sudden panic at the beast look on the
governor's face; the swing was gone from the strumming music, the rhythm
from the swaying dance. At once the festive room was a pit of slime, the
smiling faces but mocking masks, and the dark shadow of a vulture
descended like a suffocating gas. Like a flash the wall dissolved to
show a long, clean trail, winding from Yesterday into Tomorrow; restful
glades and creeks of shining sands, windswept prairies and a clear, blue
sky; verdant glades and miles of flowers--and a tall, dark youth with
smiling face, who worshiped reverently with tender eyes. She drew
herself up as white streaks crossed her crimson cheeks like some darting
rapier blade, and, bowing coldly to the pompous governor, stood rigidly
erect and stared for a full half-minute into his astonished eyes, and
made them fall. Deliberately and with unutterable scorn and loathing she
turned from him to her father and her uncle, who forthwith shattered the
absurd rules of pomp by showing him their broad backs and leaving at
once. The room hushed as they walked toward the door, but no man stayed
them, for on their faces there blazed the sign of Death.
Armijo, still staring after them, waved his hand and three men slipped
out by another door, to follow and to learn what sanctuary that flower
might choose. As he wheeled about and snapped a profane order the
fiddlers and strummers stumbled into their stammering music; the dance
went on again, with ragged rhythm, like an automaton out of gear.
Down the dark street rumbled the Dearborn, rocking perilously, the
clatter of the running horses filling the narrow way with clamor.
Sprinting at top speed behind it came barefoot soldiers: And then a
human avalanche burst from a pitch dark passage-way. The Dearborn rocked
on and turned a corner; the soldiers groped like blinded, half-stunned
swimmers and as the secretive moments passed, they stumbled to their
feet and staggered back again with garbled tales of prowling monsters,
and crossed themselves continuously. About the time the frightened
soldiers reached the house they had set out from, four Indians crept
along an adobe wall and knocked a signal on the studded planks of a
heavy, warehouse door. There came no creaking from its well-oiled hinges
as it slowly opened, stopped, and swiftly shut again, and left the dark
and smelly courtyard empty.