A few days later the troops had left Tres Hermanos, and Ashley Ward
stood in the silent graveyard on the mountain side, pushing back with
his foot the loose sand his tread had disturbed, as it threatened again
and again to cover the rude wooden cross upon which his eyes were fixed.
It bore the name of his murdered cousin, faint yet distinct, preserved
by the sand, for the wind had soon prostrated it after Chinita’s shallow
replanting. The words seemed to Ashley to call to him aloud from the
dust of his kinsman; in the hot sunshine their spell was as potent as
though a ghostly voice had spoken at midnight. For the first time,
something more intense than the desire to satisfy conscience by proving
that he wronged no rightful heir in entering upon property which would
have been John Ashley’s had he lived, arose in his mind. The absolute
reality of his cousin’s death for the first time seemed to become an
overwhelming conviction; and with it came memories of the young and
daring man whom he had in childhood held in wondering admiration. And as
he stood within sight of the spot where the brilliant young life had
ended in a bloody tragedy, a deep wave of sorrow surged over his soul,
and from its depths, as from the loose sands of the wind-levelled grave,
appeared to rise a cry for vengeance.
Though not till now had Chinita’s charge that he be taken to the
American’s grave been carried out, the message from Doña Isabel, which
Pepé had not failed to deliver, had reached him some days before, and
had been supplemented by a visit from Don Rafael. Although a certain
fascination had inclined Ashley to linger still at Tres Hermanos, he had
so little hope of adding to the information he had already gained of his
cousin’s life,—there seemed so little possibility that the marriage
which John Ashley had intimated had taken place, could ever have been
more than a mere sentimental dedication of the lovers one to the other,
in which they deemed themselves man and wife in the sight of God, but
which in the sight of man was a mere illicit connection, to be condemned
or ignored,—that he had not dared to present himself before the haughty
mother of the one Herlinda whom he suspected to have been the object of
his cousin’s passion, and to insult her with questions or insinuations
that would cast a doubt upon her daughter’s purity and a stain upon the
fame of the house of Garcia, which even the blood of John Ashley and his
own added thereto would be insufficient to wash away.
The young man had decided then to accept the order of dismissal, so
delicately conveyed in the intimation that by accepting the escort of
the troops as far as they might proceed toward Guanapila, he would not
only reach a point whence in all probability he might in safety proceed
to that city, but that he would thus render a favor to Doña Isabel, who
was minded by the same opportunity to withdraw from the hacienda,—her
presence there being liable to act as a lure to either party, who might
after seizing her person levy a ransom upon the family which even their
large resources would be severely strained to meet.
Although the fiction was maintained that her assistance of the Liberal
cause was involuntary, it was readily surmised that Doña Isabel Garcia
was in reality seeking to avoid the vengeance of the Conservatives,
while their forces were so demoralized and scattered that she might hope
to reach Guanapila, which was then occupied by a patriot guard, before
the tide of the war should turn and bring the army of the Church again
to the fore en masse,—collected by the clarion cry of fanaticism, and
lavishly rewarded from the hoards of silver and gold drawn from the
vaults into which for generations had been drained the prosperity and
the very life-blood of the peasantry.
Ashley Ward had been struck with admiration of the woman who thus dared
the dangers of the road,—to which she had been no stranger. He had felt
something of the chivalrous enthusiasm of a knight of old, as he joined
the irregular band which by daylight had gathered upon the sandy plain
before the straggling village. The soldiers had fallen into march with
something like order, with Ruiz at their head,—for once with an anxious
face, for he felt that the die was cast, and that he had raised up for
himself an enemy whom it would be mad temerity to face, and hopeless to
attempt to conciliate. The baggage-mules were driven by the
leathern-clad muleteers, who even thus early had begun their profane
adjurations to the nimble-footed beasts, that listened with quivering
ears thrown back in obstinate surprise at every unwonted silence. The
women who had come from other villages had laughed and chided their
unruly infants, as they arranged and rearranged their baskets of maize
and vegetables upon the panniers of their donkeys, if they were
fortunate enough to possess any, or upon their own shoulders if they
were to walk; and those who were for the first time leaving their
birthplace to follow the fortunes of husband or sweetheart, had burst
into loud lamentations. Ashley had been glad to find these changed to
laughter, however, before they were well past the broken wall of the
reduction-works; which they skirted, entering upon the bridle-path which
led across the hill, where the rough heaps of sand showed through the
scattered cacti, and where, by the rude wooden crosses, he now for the
first time learned lay the village graveyard.
Pepé had ridden sullenly by his side. He had been sent back with a sharp
reprimand from the station he had taken among the mounted servants who
surrounded the carriage of Doña Isabel, Ruiz in petty tyranny refusing
him so honorable a place. A glance from Chinita had been the deepest
reproof of all; and as he pondered upon it, certain words which she had
uttered, and which he had hitherto forgotten, had come into his mind. As
they neared the graveyard his eye caught Ward’s, and suddenly laying his
hand upon the bridle of the American’s horse, he had muttered,—
“Señor, she thinks I have forgotten all her wishes; but there is not
even one so foolish that I scorn it. Turn aside but for a moment,
Señor,—here where the adobe has fallen, your horse can scramble through
the wall. Follow me, they will not miss us before we can reach our
places again. _Caramba!_ Don Fernando watches me as a cat watches a
mouse. Here, Señor,—never mind the women. Stupids! how they herd their
donkeys together, when they might have the whole hillside to pick their
own paths on! Patience! Let us wait a little, Señor! Ah,” he reflected,
as they remained silent and motionless, “there is the spot. I have never
forgotten it since I followed her through the rushes down there by the
stream, and scratched my face in the tuñas, darting behind them that she
should not see me. I was not half so tired as Chinita was though, when
she sat down to rub sand upon her smarting hands, and fell asleep with
the sun beating upon her head. I wonder if she ever thought it was I who
covered her face with her ragged reboso,—she wears one of silk now, as
clean and soft as a dove’s breast,—or that I lay behind the big pipes of
the flowering organ-plant as she turned over the fallen cross which her
hand struck against, and read the name and age of the American who had
been murdered years before? Who ever would have thought—for I hated her
then if I did follow her, as she maddens me now with her soft eyes and
her mocking smile—that I should be bringing here the man who perhaps is
just the handsome, woman-maddening demon they say that other was, and at
her will too? _Ave Maria Purissima!_ what God wills the very saints
themselves may not say No to,—much less a poor peasant like Pepé Ortiz.”
These thoughts, perhaps scarcely in the order in which they are set
down, passed through the mind of Pepé, as lingering until the straggling
procession had passed, he emerged from the shade of such an organ-plant
as had once sheltered him years ago, and taking his bearings with
unerring eyes, beckoned to Ashley,—who had waited within touch of his
hand, and whose heart had begun to beat suffocatingly, though he knew
that it was utterly improbable that anything more important than the
mound that covered the body of his cousin would meet his eye,—and led
the way to the most wind-swept and desolate portion of that paupers’
acre, and presently stooping where the ground was sunken rather than
heaped, turned with some effort the half-buried cross, and exposed to
Ashley’s view the name from which his own had been derived.
The young man gazed at it in a sort of fascination, actually spelling
the letters over and over. He felt as if a part of himself must be
buried there. His eyes burned; the glaring sunshine leaped and quivered
above the ill-carved letters, distorting and confounding them. His heart
beat violently; every sense but that of hearing seemed to fail him, and
every sound upon the air became a weird, mysterious voice,—blood crying
unto its kindred blood.
This deep emotion fixed the indifferent and wandering eye of Pepé, who,
holding the bridles of the horses, stood near, impatient to be gone, yet
intending to watch out of sight the last stragglers; for it was with a
double purpose he had turned aside to point out the grave of the
American,—first, perhaps, to gratify the seemingly jesting wish of
Chinita; and then to seize the opportunity to turn his fleet steed into
the narrow bridle-path which led to mountain villages, where he shrewdly
suspected Pedro might be found, or at least be heard of. He had promised
to carry the message of Chinita to Pedro, and would have set forth upon
the very night she had charged him with it, but until mounted by Ruiz’s
command had found it impossible to provide himself with a horse, without
which it was hopeless for him to attempt his quest. To escape the
discipline of the ranks, he had induced Ashley to retain him as his
servant, feeling no scruple at his intended abandonment. As his eye
rested upon the pale and excited countenance of Ashley, Chinita’s words,
with which she had bade him taunt him, flashed into his mind; yet he
forbore to utter them, saying presently in a tone of concern,—
“Let us go now, Señor, it is growing hot. It is almost noon, and you are
faint. Let us ride on, and I will point out the way that you must take
when we have crossed the face of the hill. Then comes a slight descent,
Señor, and upon the little plain that lies between that and the cañon of
the Water-pots will the troop stop for the nooning. This has been a
rapid march. Doña Isabel will feel all the safer when she is once on the
highway. But as for us, Señor, we must part company. You will find a
better servant; I should but ill serve your grace. You know yourself I
am but a stupid fellow, and it is only the patience of your grace that
has been equal to my ignorance.”
Ashley heard neither the excuses of Pepé nor his own praises, but with a
gesture at once commanding and entreating the servant to leave him,
said: “Pepé, I had forgotten. There is something which will keep me
still at Tres Hermanos. The Señora Doña Isabel must pardon me. Go! go to
your duty, as I must to mine. God! how could I have forgotten it? Oh
John, John! does time and distance make men so unnatural? Is it possible
I could leave the place where you were so foully murdered, without
knowing why or by whom? Who killed him, and why was the deadly and
secret blow struck? Ah, that involves the question of the very mystery I
came here to fathom, and which I was turning my back upon; for I am
convinced that it is here, and not by following Doña Isabel Garcia, that
it may be solved. She is too resolute, too astute; nothing is to be
forced or beguiled from her lips! But now that the spell of her presence
is removed, I may learn everything from these people, who with all their
cunning and clannish devotion can surely be influenced by reasons such
as I can give.”
“Who would have guessed the sight of a grave would so stir the blood?”
soliloquized Pepé. “Can it be that Chinita—But no, she was more in jest
than earnest; she always laughed at the _niña_ Chata for her sorrow for
the foreigner.—Well, all must die!” he said aloud. “Believe me, Señor,
after all these years a knife-thrust is a little matter to inquire into.
_Caramba!_ Chinita herself would tell you that to turn back on a journey
because of the dead is an omen of evil; ’twas not for that she would
have me show you the grave of your countryman,—God rest him!”
Ashley looked at him keenly. “Ah,” he said, “it is then no accident that
you have brought me here? God! what a mystery! Pepé, tell Chinita I know
her thoughts, and that I never will rest till I prove them right or
wrong. She is a strange creature, and likely to prove an enigma to more
men than myself. Poor lad, she is not for you to dream of.”
“I will not see her again till I can tell her that which shall please
her,” said Pepé. “Look you, Señor, she is one who will have the world
turn to suit her.”
“A wilful girl,” thought Ashley, with judicial disapproval. “She has all
the craftiness and deceit of the Indian and the pride and passion of a
Spaniard; yet what if I should follow her? No, no! mere circumstance and
conjecture shall not turn me!—_Adios_, Pepé,” he said aloud, “and
beware! It is Doña Isabel you serve, and not the young girl who has
bewitched you.”
Pepé smiled vaguely; his glance roved over the landscape. “Her heart is
virgin honey in a cup of alabaster!” he murmured. Ashley was becoming
accustomed to the poetic expressions of these unlettered rancheros, and
with some impatience took in his own hand the bridle-rein of his horse,
and reminding Pepé that it was nearly noon, and that he would be missed
should he longer delay, bade him mount and hasten with messages of
excuse to Doña Isabel for his own sudden return to Tres Hermanos.
With the customary apparent submission of a peasant, Pepé prepared to
obey. He was in fact anxious to set forth as soon as he could be certain
that no straggler was near to mark his movements. The troops and their
followers had disappeared. “The Señor Don ’Guardo should leave this
solitary spot on the instant,” he said with genuine concern; “in these
days of revolution, one can never say what dangerous people may be
wandering abroad.”
“I have nothing to fear from them,” answered Ashley, “unless it should
be that they might attempt to rob me of the horse Doña Isabel has lent
me. Well, for its sake, I will be prudent; though in truth the sight of
a ghost in this desolate spot of sunken graves would seem more probable
than that any living being should pass here. Now, then, good-by, Pepé.”
“Until our next meeting, Señor!” replied Pepé, gravely lifting his hat.
He had attached himself to Ashley, and it seemed to him an evil omen
that they should part at a grave, and he thus attempted to console
himself by the pretence that it was but for a little while. “For a short
time Señor, and God keep you!”
Ashley shook his hand warmly. The ranchero drew his hat over his eyes,
adjusted his serape so that his face was almost hidden, and dropping
into that utterly ungraceful posture into which the skilled horseman of
Mexico relapses when he suffers his steed to take his own way and pace
across a wearisome stretch of country, he turned his horse’s head toward
the bridle-path they had left, and slowly receded from Ashley’s gaze.
Once however beyond the crest of the hill, the rider’s eye brightened,
his figure straightened; a distant sound of voices reached his keen
ear,—it was so remote that but for the rarity of the atmosphere it would
have failed to reach him. Bending his head, he listened intently for a
moment; then raising it he gazed searchingly on every hand, rode for a
short distance to the right, guided his nimble-footed beast down the
cleft sides of a deep ravine and along the dry bottom of a rock-strewn
path, which rapid floods had in some past time cut in their fierce
descent from the steep sides of the frowning mountains, and so gradually
gained the dark and solitary defiles that led directly to those eyries
of bandit mountaineers, who under the guise of shepherds,
charcoal-burners, and goat-herds had been, as Pepé well knew, the chosen
comrades of Pedro Gomez and his mates in the boyhood days of that Don
Leon whose wild deeds were still the theme of many a tale, and like the
story of his death became more mythical with every repetition.
Pepé rode steadily on for hours, picturing to himself his meeting with
Pedro should he find him, or the quiet exultation of Chinita when she
should hear that he had deserted the troops, or of the return of Don
’Guardo to the hacienda. In his heart he was not displeased that the
American should be separated from Chinita, though it left her the more
completely to the gallant care of Ruiz. He had comprehended instantly
the emotion which had seized upon Ashley at his kinsman’s grave,—the
instinct for revenge. He said to himself that those Americans, after
all, were people of sensibility, and he felt a certain satisfaction that
he had been the instrument of calling into action a sentiment that did
the foreigner so much credit.
Meanwhile the heat of noon passed, and Ashley’s horse stood with patient
dejection in the shadow of the huge cactus to which he had been
tethered, not even taking advantage of the freedom allowed by the length
of the rope, so little temptation to browse was offered by the sparse
and coarse tufts of herbage which struggled into existence here and
there. The time wore on, and an occasional stamp attested his
disapprobation of a master who lay prone upon the ground under a
mesquite tree when the sun shone hottest, and who when the cool breeze
of afternoon swept over the silent spot, stood long and still beside the
grave he had not sought, and yet felt infinite reluctance to leave.
It was a foolish thought, but as he gazed across the broad valley to the
great square of buildings set among the fields, the youth imagined how
indeed the dead man might at times steal forth to visit again those
fertile scenes where he had lived and loved. As he stood there, Ashley
could see the people like pigmies passing in and out the great gateway,
or going from hut to hut in the village. There was one figure—it seemed
that of a woman—which his eye sought from time to time, as it appeared
and disappeared in the corn and bean fields, and at last came out on the
open road that lay between them and the reduction-works. He was becoming
quite fascinated by its hesitating yet persistent progress, when he was
startled by a sound; and glancing up, he saw a man leaning upon the
crumbling wall and regarding him with a gaze so bewildered, so fixed,
that involuntarily he moved a step toward him.
The stranger started, as if some frightful spell had been broken. Ashley
saw that he crossed himself, and muttered some invocation; yet that he
had not the look of a nervous man or a coward, but rather of a
somnambulist pacing the earth under the impulse of some horrible dream.
The man was not ill-looking,—no, decidedly not; and though his skin was
deeply browned as if from much exposure, and his cheek bones were
prominent, giving his face a certain cast below the eyes that was
plebeian or Indian in character, the eyes themselves were dilated and
brilliant, and the straight nose and pointed beard gave him the air of a
Spanish cavalier, though he wore the broad sombrero and serape of a
common soldier of the rural order. Perhaps on ordinary occasions even a
more practised eye than that of Ashley Ward would have accepted the
stranger for what he purported to be; but the American with an
extraordinary feeling of repulsion little accounted for by the mere
sense of intrusion caused by the man’s unexpected appearance, at once
leaped to the conclusion that his dress—though he had no appearance of
strangeness in it—was virtually a disguise, and that instead of a
soldier of the ranks, the man before him was of no ordinary position or
character.
The new-comer seemed to have risen out of the ground, so stealthily had
he approached. It would have been quite possible for him, tall as he
was, to have skirted the wall without observation from any one within
the enclosure. But undoubtedly he had taken no precaution in that
solitary place, which except at funeral times was shunned as the haunt
of ghosts and ill-omened birds and reptiles, and thus had come
unexpectedly upon the motionless figure of the tall young man clothed in
a plain riding-suit of black, with bright conspicuous locks at the
moment uncovered, and fair-skinned face of a characteristic American
type,—all unremarkable in themselves but associated in the mind of the
observer with one whom he had seen but twice or thrice, and this on the
mad night when the moon had shone down upon a victim quivering in the
death-agony above which he had exulted.
The two men held each the other’s gaze in silence for a full minute,
both unmindful of the common courtesy usual in such chance encounters in
solitary places. Then recovering from the superstitious awe which had
overpowered him, the Mexican stepped over the broken wall. Ashley
noticed as he did so that heavy silver spurs were on his heels, and that
the fringed sides of his leathern trousers were stained as though with
hard riding, and that, as if from habit, rather than any purpose of
menace, his nervous hand closed upon the pistol in his scarlet band, as
with a few long strides he reached the spot on which Ashley stood with
that air of defiance which a sudden intrusion upon a solitude however
secure naturally arouses in a man who is neither a coward nor an adept
in the self-command that is perhaps the most perfect substitute for
invincible courage.
“Señor,” said the Mexican, “your pistols are on your saddle. You are
right; this is an evil habit to wear them so readily at one’s side.
Pardon me if in my surprise I assumed an attitude of menace; but these
are troublous times. One scarcely expects to find a cavalier alone in
such a place.” He looked around him with a smile, which did not hinder a
quiver of the lip expressing an excitement which his commonplace words
denied.
Ashley regarded the speaker with ever increasing repugnance. It was true
his pistols hung from the saddle, but there was a small knife in his
belt, and his hand wandered to it stealthily as he answered: “Señor, I
make no inquiry why you are here, and on foot,—which you must
acknowledge might well cause some curiosity in this place; but in all
courtesy I trust your errand is a happier one than mine. Whatever it is,
I will not intrude upon it longer than will suffice to plant this
cross.” And with an air of perfect security, yet with his knife in hand,
he bent to the work, which the other regarded with an almost incredulous
gaze,—the preservation of a grave or its tokens being a sort of
sentimentality to which by tradition and training he was a stranger; and
to see it exhibited for the first time in this God’s acre of laborers,
almost sufficed to dissipate the impression the unexpected encounter had
made upon him. As Ashley quietly pursued his work, the new-comer had an
opportunity to look at him narrowly. After all, this one was like many
another American! Yet there was something in the young man’s appearance
that brought the sweat to the brow of the soldier; he pushed back his
hat, and breathed hard. As he did so, Ashley braced the cross against
his knee. The action brought the letters into clear and direct view. The
eyes of the Mexican rested upon them. He fell back a step or two in
superstitious awe, involuntarily exclaiming:
“_Cristo!_ was _he_ buried here? And who are you?”
Ashley glanced up. There was a revelation to him in the questioner’s
disordered and ashy countenance. He dropped the cross, sprang over the
grave, and seized the stranger by the right arm. “Who are you who ask?”
he cried. “What do you know of the man who is buried there?”
“My faith! you are a brave man to put such questions!” retorted the
new-comer, wrenching himself free. Ashley had spoken in English, but the
violence of his act had interpreted his words. “Take your pistols and
defend yourself, if you are here for vengeance. Kill him? Yes; I killed
him as I would a dog. Faith, I thought it was his accursed ghost that
had risen to challenge me!”
“I am his cousin! Assassin, give me reasons for your deed!” cried
Ashley, furiously, yet with a remembrance that to every criminal should
be allowed some chance of justification.
But the Mexican seemed little inclined to profit by it.
“Reasons!” cried he. “Yes, such reasons as I gave him when I thrust the
knife into his heart.” He raised his pistol and fired. The shot passed
so close to Ashley’s temple that he heard it whiz through the air. In
the same instant the two men clinched. The horse, which during the
controversy had plunged and reared madly, broke away, and careering over
the graves galloped wildly down the hillside. A fresh horse with its
rider at the same instant dashed into the enclosure, and a voice cried,
“For God’s sake my General! what adventure is this? Mount! mount! there
is no time to be lost!”
The combatants at the sound of a third voice had involuntarily paused.
Had the knife in the hand of the American been in that of the Mexican it
would have sheathed itself in his opponent’s heart; but Ashley, less
ready in its use, arrested his hand midway. His passion half spent, the
scarcely healed wound throbbing in his shoulder, his strength exhausted,
he had much ado to keep himself from staggering.
“A touch of my sabre would finish him,” said the new-comer coolly, as he
reined in his restive horse, and put his hand on the long weapon
swinging from his saddle. But the soldier stopped him.
“No killing in cold blood,” he exclaimed. “’Tis a madman, but his fury
is over. What brings you here, Reyes? Were you not to wait at the
rendezvous?”
“Wait!” he retorted, “this is no time to wait! We are already a day too
late. A thousand men are on the road before us, my General! We let them
pass us this morning as we lingered on the opposite side of the mountain
in the Devil’s gate!”
“And the troops are there still?” cried the other furiously. “Where is
Choolooke? Did you not think to bring me a horse? Back to the Zahuan,
man! We must begin the march this very night. I know Ruiz; he will yield
in a moment at sight of me!”
“Not he!” answered Reyes. “He has a new patroness; Doña Isabel herself
is with him.”
“Isabel!” cried the officer with an oath. “Ah, then, Tres Hermanos is
partisan at last! _Carrhi!_ my lady Isabel shall find what she has begun
shall be soon ended!” He put a small silver whistle to his lips and blew
a shrill blast, which was answered by a neigh. A black horse lifted its
head and looked over the wall with a gaze of almost human intelligence.
“He followed me at a word,” exclaimed Reyes, “and stood by the wall like
a statue when I bade him. Never was there such another horse as your
black Choolooke, my General. Even the stampede of that unbroken brute
that was tethered here could not startle him.”
“Ay, I discipline horses better than I do men,—eh, Choolooke?” The horse
with its jingling accoutrements had cantered into the enclosure, and
with one bound his owner was in the saddle.
All had passed in the few minutes in which Ashley was recovering breath,
and in utter bewilderment endeavoring to gain some insight into the
meaning of this rapid transformation scene, of which he himself had
formed a part. As his late opponent sprang into the saddle, he could
have fancied he heard the sound of the bugle, so alert were the man’s
movements, so soldierly his bearing. But in the midst of his involuntary
admiration he did not forget the extraordinary relations in which they
stood to each other. He threw himself before the horse at the imminent
risk of being trampled down. “Your name!” he cried. “By your own
admission you are my cousin’s murderer. We must meet again! I am Ashley
Ward; and you?”
“Out of the way!” cried the rider, checking his horse by a dexterous
turn of his hand. “My name? Ah, yes! Tell them there,” and he nodded in
the direction of the hacienda, “they will soon have reason never to
forget it!” He hesitated; plunged the spurs into his already impatient
steed, and dashed furiously away, followed by Reyes; then rose in his
stirrups to shout back in defiance the name—“Ramirez!”