BY DIFFERENT TONGUES
“Refugio.”
The word was magic. The angry woman who had laid hand upon Carlota’s
shoulder started at the sound and intently regarded the unhappy child.
Then she stooped and again touched her, but, this time, with gentle,
tremulous fingers.
“Say that again, _Señorita_. Again.”
The girl sprang up, for to hear the familiar Spanish was, also, magic.
“What? Who are you? It was Refugio, I said. The House of Refuge--which
this is not! Why--why?”
The wrinkled face softened to comeliness, and a look grew upon it which
tempted Carlota to clasp it between her own two palms, in a dainty
fashion she had, and to beseech:
“Do you know Refugio? Have you ever been at my home?”
“Are you the Master’s daughter?”
“Yes, oh! yes. Do you know him? Is he, too, here?”
The woman shook her head.
“No. Why should he be here? But I know the place, yes. In my heart of
hearts, why not? And the blessed Lady who died for my poor son. Pablo,
soul of my life, afflicted of God, Pablo--the natural, where are you
this day!”
“‘Pablo’? The ‘Lady of Refugio’? Then--who are you?”
Carlota was now upon her knees before the trembling creature whose
memory had been so strangely stirred. But, at sight of her thus
humbled, the crone herself stood up and set the child upon a bench.
Still standing, she burst into a rapid story of that which has been
already told: of Pablo’s desperate illness and his nursing back to
health by the all-loving “Lady of Refugio.” How that name, that
household, was a spell to conjure by; and that here--if she who had
long ago married a Pueblo had influence--the children of Refugio should
have rich and speedy justice. More: there could be nothing too good or
sacred in the whole tribe for them.
“Come, little girl. Let us go. Ah! proud, proud am I thus once to lay
my hand upon the flesh of her who died to save my son!”
“Is Pablo here?”
“Not now. Sometimes he comes, far, far between. He is not like others.
Against my father’s will I married and I have been punished, yes.
Against his will and against the faith I had been taught by the good
Padres. I was happy, why not? Till my husband, a brave, fell dead in
the field, gored by one of his own cattle. My son is happier than I,
for he knows neither sin nor its punishment. But, come. I can still be
of use. Come.”
The councilors were amazed by the intrusion of old Paula and her
charge, but listened respectfully to her story and her plea. She was
reputed to be very wise and was known to be a most excellent nurse.
True, those hardy Pueblos rarely required nursing, yet, when they did,
it were well to be friends with her who ministered to them. The dose
might be wrong if the giver were offended.
When she ceased speaking Carlos was immediately brought out of his dark
room and set in the midst; and to see the twins rush, sobbing, yet
laughing, into each other’s arms touched even those stolid Indians and
inclined some to lenient judgment.
Yet, it was the eldest man speaking, and he must be heard:
“Brothers, he stole our horse. From our own wild herd. We have been
greatly harassed. Punishment is just. If we make not example of the
bird in the hand, how deal with the bird uncaught? There is peace
between us and our white brothers but--our white brothers still steal
our horses. This youth is swift of aim; he is proud; a Pueblo of whom
to say: ‘Behold, a brave!’ His father--” a suggestive shrug of the
shoulders intimated that this unknown father was recreant and had
deserted his offspring. “Let him be to us a son and she our daughter.
This is my wisdom.”
Then the council gravely laid the matter before the youthful
prisoner and listened closely to his simple reply, which, acting as
interpreters, old Paula and Carlota eagerly translated.
“On my father’s rancho are many herds of horses. All are wild. I did
not ask to whom they belonged. When I wished I sought one, as I did
from yours. I have been taught the art. I am not a thief. I, I would
not have ‘stolen,’ no. Not if I walked all the days of my life. But I
thought the free creatures of the plains were God’s, alone. Well, then;
if I did wrong I will take punishment, as should the son of man who is
brave. After you have done your will I will go. Nothing can make me
stay. My father has not forever left his children. Since he comes not
it is because, for some reason I do not know, that he cannot. My sister
and I will go to him, and tell him this story. He will restore what is
due. I owe nothing to anyone except good will, and that I will pay as I
may. Moreover--_you still have the horse--and I broke him for you_.”
The naive conclusion of the argument was so consistent with the
childish pleader that some of those stern judges smiled. After all, he
was but a boy and he spoke the truth; and the old chief who would have
liked to rear the youngster as his own was even more desirous now. But
he was just, and it was he who first extended the hand-clasp of peace.
Radiant with joy at their dismissal, the twins left the hall of justice
and returned where they had left Dennis. He had vanished, yet, while
they were searching the many roofs they heard his voice in one of the
courtyards below.
“Hark! The foolish fellow! He imagines that hallooing so loud will
make them understand him as well as if he knew their language!” said
Carlota, with a little air of superiority. Indeed! Where would they
have been now if she hadn’t been able to talk with old Paula?
“Ha, Carlota! I’m learning some lessons, too, of another sort--these
days. I’ll lasso no more horses till I know whose they are! But, come
on! It’s so good to be free again and Dennis is surely getting into
trouble. Why, what’s the matter with his arm?”
As they descended to the court and the Irishman, Carlota explained.
He was now trying to “swop” with a young Indian; his broncho for a
pack-burro.
“Hurry! Tell them, sister! He’ll make them mad, directly, and--I don’t
wish any more Pueblo anger, if you please! It wasn’t of the noisy kind
but--I’ll be glad when we’re once more on the road toward our father,
and I wish we hadn’t to go back to the Burnhams. While I was alone
in that horrible darkness, I did a lot of thinking, and I believe
that father went to the big city of New York, where the ‘enemies’
came from, on some business for the rich men who own the mountains he
‘prospected.’ Anyway, I think that’s where we’d best seek him.”
“Isn’t that a far, far place? Is it in the ‘north’?”
“Yes. But we can go and go, day after day, can’t we?”
“I--I s’pose so,” she slowly answered.
But this “wild goose chase” was losing its charm for Carlota, and she
now often thought of the Captain’s opinion that they should never have
left home, unless bidden to do so by a wiser man than Miguel.
However, here was Dennis, forgetting his trading operations in delight
at reunion with Carlos; and here, too, was unusual commotion among the
villagers. Because Paula would insist that this should be a _fiesta_,
a day of merry frivolity, such as suited her Mexican nature, which age
had not wholly altered.
The children’s impatience at delay was overruled. Indeed, the affair
proved to be one to be forever remembered, for the _fiesta_ lasted
more than three days; so that it was well along in the morning of the
fourth day before the guests for whom the holiday was made were allowed
to depart. Even then, they did not go alone. Two young men acted as
guides to direct them whither the Burnhams had probably encamped.
Paula, also, went; riding an ancient and most sedate burro, as black as
her own hair that even yet had not a thread of white mixed in it.
When they had been bidden a last, grave farewell by the assembled
Pueblos, the children were led out upon the terrace and there a fresh
surprise awaited them.
“What is this? Why--what?” asked Carlota, her eyes shining with
anticipation, for, by the instincts of her own generous heart, she
already guessed the truth.
Paula laughed, like one who had suddenly regained her youth, and
answered gayly:
“One wouldn’t wish the mouse-colored, blazed-face burro die of
loneliness by the way, is it not?”
“Tell me, quick, quick! Oh! Paula, tell!”
“That grown up baby, Dennis! Soul of my life, what has he to do with a
horse? A pack-donkey is even too good for one who would run a friend
through with a knife, yes.”
“But the beautiful horse, Paula, what of him?”
“Shall one of the Master’s children ride and not the other? ’Tis a
fine animal, he chose well from the wildings, and he conquered the
wildness well. It befits that to the finder the spoils. So the council
now decree. _Ha!_ ’Tis a proud, handsome lad; he they would have made a
Pueblo brave! I--I wish--if my poor Pablo--?”
Carlota’s arms were around the old mother’s neck and she was kissing
away the gloom which rested on the wrinkled face, crying:
“Ah! dear Paula! You have been so good to us! Up in her Heaven my happy
mother must know and love you for the help you have given her straying
children. And we will find him, that Pablo you love. Miguel and many
shall hunt for him everywhere, and when he is found he shall be led to
you here. Believe me, he shall. And for the rest--thank you, thank you,
thank you!”
“In truth then, should I die in peace. If he were here he would be
safe. The Pueblos honor the ‘touched of God.’ Alas! the _Americanos_
taunt and jeer them.”
“Believe me. I feel--I know--he will come back to you some day, and
soon.”
Gayly, they rode forward all that day and toward sunset had come so far
into the mountains that the guides could clearly point their further
route. They halted in a beautiful spot, where there was abundant water
and verdure, and they had their packs well-filled by their recent
hosts. Yet, with the deep emotions of those who live close to nature,
they long lingered over the parting; and even Dennis, on his new and
quiet mount, appeared thoughtful and serious. He seemed either to have
adopted the silence of his Indian escort or to be afflicted by the
prospect of another journey into unknown places and dangers.
Carlota had her botany-box piled with her other belongings upon her
burro, and though Carlos had left his own cherished hammer in the
Burnham’s wagon, he had been given another of Indian shaping which,
because of its flint-stone head, he thought far superior. Said Carlota,
as she sat down by the old woman on a boulder:
“You see, Paula, we, too, are ‘prospecting,’ same as our father did.
The good Burnhams hope to find some traces somewhere of gold, or
silver, or something else that would mean money. I know many sorts
of flowers that bloom in mining lands. That is, I know about them,
for my father told me. He showed me pictures, too, that he himself
had painted. I could tell the real ones in a minute, if I only could
find some. Then Mr. Burnham could pay back to the rich old lady, that
lives away off, all the debt he owes her and that he calls his ‘life’s
burden.’ We would be doing good if we could help him, and to do good is
all it’s worth living for, my father says.”
“Would that I might see him! That blessed Master.”
“Oh! you will. When you come to Refugio, as we planned.”
Paula sighed. Then she caught up the little brown hand and laid it
against her own, far browner from age and wrinkled like a shriveled
fruit.
“To the grave is far, when one is young, but the way is short for me.
However, is it flowers and gold? _Hola!_ There is far better in these
mountains. My husband often told me. Sometimes, also, he would bring me
a bit of that stuff. With it he would make a brave fire, great heat and
dancing flames. Ah! yes. He should be rich, he said; then he would take
me back to my birth-town and we would sport it with the best. Then the
cruel bull gored him to death and here am I. Ah! life is strange, but
death is stranger. Else, had my husband, who was wise, have lived; and
the son who knows naught but--”
More to divert the woman’s thoughts than because she had really heeded
what had been said, Carlota begged for a further talk about the
wondrous “stuff” which would burn and warm old blood to youth again and
which painted flame-pictures for men to see.
“_Ay de mi._[13] Cared I for that? Well, then, for love I had left that
birth-town and with love I was content. Nothing else mattered. I--a
woman is so foolish! Dearer to me were the flowers my husband brought
and thrust in my dark hair than the ugly black stuff he burned.”
Paula observed that the young men had turned their faces homeward and
were impatiently waiting for her to join them. They dared not hasten
her by words, for their tribe held age in honor, and she was held to be
wise beyond most. But she would delay just a bit longer and amuse the
pretty child who begged a tale of a flower; then farewell! forever.
“What color had those blossoms, Paula? If red or yellow they must have
been brave in your dark hair. Tell me, so that when I find one I can
say: ‘This is for dear Paula,’ and put it in my own curls--if it will
stay there.”
The woman laughed, well pleased.
“Will you, _niña_? I love you, for your own sweet face and because
you are your mother’s child. The flowers? _Si._ Wear them, wear them,
always. They are better for you than for me. They are blue and fit well
your fairness. Blue and shaped--thus.”
She took a small leaf and with deft, love-taught fingers fashioned a
simple model which, to the plant-wise Carlota, suggested a blossom she
could readily identify. Then she swiftly rose and clasped the child in
her arms, saying:
“_Adios_, beloved, sun-gleam on a darkened life. May angels go with
each step on the way until the father you miss shall clasp you close
again. _Adios!_”
The little girl felt a desolate heart-sinking as the three Pueblos
almost immediately disappeared. Then she reproached herself for
tears, since Carlos was with her, safe and free, and now the jubilant
possessor of a beautiful horse that was, in truth, “almost as handsome
as Benoni,” and which was, hereafter, to bear that beloved creature’s
own name though he could never take the old Benoni’s place.
There was nothing to fear, now. The guides had taught Dennis how to
draw the tethers around a bit of ground in such a manner as to keep all
reptiles from intruding upon this circular space where the wanderers
would safely sleep. Carlota began to watch the Irishman at his labors
and, idly, to study the ground he enclosed. A last ray of sunlight
stole through the branches overhead and touched to glory a bit of
herbage almost at her very feet. Touched one fragment of it that,
seeing, the child was thrilled to intense surprise and stared so long
and so fixedly, that, at last, Carlos teasingly cried:
“Why, little sister, you look as if you were seeing ghosts!”
With a little gasp she aroused from her revery and answered very
gravely:
“Carlos, I believe I am!”