THE HEART OF BENICIA
The Desert of Altar is transcendence of silence. From the savage
Growler range in Arizona south to the obsidian bastions of Pinacate, by
the dead Gulf, is space to crowd five million people with their tumult
of cities, their crash of machines, hoot of locomotives and shriek of
steel under stress. Yet in all this blank waste not a sound.
The chirp of the wren from her hole in the _sahuaro_ carries not even
so far as the watching hawk on nearby skeleton _ocatilla_ stalk. The
meat cry of the prowling cat in the mountains where the wild sheep
range is swallowed in the muffling depths of the canyon under her feet.
Thin air seems too tenuous to conduct sound waves. Creatures of the
wild lands move mute under the oppression of unbounded space.
Yet nowhere does rumour fly swifter than here in this vacant land.
Comes a strange prowler to the waterholes of Tinajas Altas, and the
antelope fifty miles away know the news and seek the hidden springs at
Bates’ Wells. A Papago three days’ journey from the nearest rancheria
stumbles onto hoofprints of six horses away over where tidewater climbs
into the delta of the Colorado, and he turns back to carry report of
revolution in Baja California. Strange signs tell their tales from
the sands; the arrangement of little sticks conveys whole chapters of
information to the wayfarer. When man meets man, be he white, brown or
copper coloured, news is a torch to be passed on to a new hand. Nothing
can be long a secret. The latent must out.
Even as the worthy Doc Stooder in his shabby office at Arizora had
a never-ending messenger service from all the Border and the lands
beyond, carrying scraps of oblique news, another far distant in the
Garden of Solitude enjoyed the same intelligence. This was Don Padraic
O’Donoju, last of the line of masters over the once-great principality
of El Rancho del Refugio. Though a hundred years of revolution, of
uproar and the teetering of political balances in the more populous
Mexico to south and east of him had left to the last don of the
O’Donojus little more territory than that comprised in the oasis of
the Garden, still he had cattle enough to be counted a rich man and
six generations of custom gave him unbroken sway over the Papagoes.
From the Sand People of the Gulf away up to the San Xavier rancheria
at Tucson extended the secret kingdom of Don Padraic’s influence. His
only tithes were those of loyalty and the bringing of report. What the
Papagoes thought Don Padraic should know, that he knew as speedily as
word could be passed.
So, a week after Benicia had returned to the Casa O’Donoju, came a
runner from the eastward--one sent by El Doctor Coyote Belly, whose
winter house was at Babinioqui near the railroad. The runner had big
news. El Doctor, known all over the Desert of Altar because of his
reputed skill at curing hydrophobia and the bite of the sidewinder,
had a sick white man--a seriously wounded white man who might be an
American--in his house at Babinioqui and he asked Don Padraic what he
should do with this man.
El Doctor was returning from the Medicine Cave of Pinacate--this
was the runner’s tale--when on the road that runs from Sonizona to
Hermosillo he found seven dead men; dead men with the marks of fetters
on their left wrists. A little beyond he found still another; this one,
lying in an arroyo, had been shot through the shoulder from behind
and he still lived. El Doctor had tied the living man to his burro and
taken him to his winter house at Babinioqui, where he had treated him
with the most powerful herbs and had massaged the wound with the lizard
image. The wounded white man would live. Coyote Belly did not wish to
turn him over to the Mexicans, for he was a victim of _ley de fuga_ and
the Mexicans undoubtedly would shoot him again.
Don Padraic, whose charity was wider than his acres, made his decision
instantly. He ordered Quelele to go, with the runner to guide him to El
Doctor’s house, in the little desert car and to fetch the white man to
the Garden of Solitude as soon as he was able to be moved. It was best,
the master instructed, that Quelele travel in the night, returning with
the wounded man, and tell no one of the object of his mission.
The big Indian stocked the car with gasoline from the tank behind
the master’s house--a reservoir filled monthly from drums brought by
ox cart from the distant railroad point--strapped canteens and oil
containers on his running boards and was off. Don Padraic said nothing
of the incident to his daughter.
That night Don Padraic and Benicia sat in the candlelight of the big
salon or living room which filled the space of one quadrangle off
the patio. In all Sonora there was no counterpart of this chamber of
mellowed antiquities, the collection of generations of the O’Donoju.
Low ceiled and with crossing beams of oak, whereon the marks of the
hewer’s adze showed like waves; walls hung with tapestries between the
heavy frames of portraits of grandees and their ladies of forgotten
days; a great fireplace wherein a man could stand upright, with its
hand-wrought andirons and heavy crane shank; floor almost black from
a hundred years of polishing and with the skins of animals floating
there like so many islands:--here was a magic bit of old Spain lifted
overseas to find root in the heart of the desert.
Benicia, in a gown of rippling lines which left her strong young arms
bare to the shoulder, was seated behind the great golden span of her
harp. Candlelight falling across her shoulders made ivory the flesh
of her bare arms as they moved rhythmically back and forth over the
wilderness of strings. She was playing the Volga Boatsong, a peasant
melody whose minors rose and fell to the sweep of oars. As the girl
gave her heart to the music, the thrumming strings wove a picture of
some barbaric steppe coming down to a sluggish river; boatmen chanting
at the sweeps. The ancient room was a-thrill with resonance.
She finished with just a breath of melody, the song of the boatmen
dying in the distance. Her eyes fell on the face of her father; it
was deeply etched by the play of flames from the mesquite logs in the
fireplace. Always he sat this way, moveless before the fire, when
she played on the great harp o’ nights, freeing his soul to drink in
the melodies; but to Benicia’s understanding eyes appeared now the
semblance of a deeper shadow not of the firelight. She softly left the
instrument and stole over to nestle herself on the broad chair wing,
with her coppery head laid against the snow white one.
“_Pobrecito_”--this was her pet word carried through the years from
childhood--“_Pobrecito_, thy face is as grave as the owl’s. Some
secret? Remember, there are no secrets between us two--no worry which
the other does not share.”
Her coaxing hand played through the heavy mane of hair; her cheek was
against his. Don Padraic slowly turned his head with denial in his
eyes; but that denial could not sustain the accusation in the steady
blue eyes of the daughter. During the week Benicia had been home a
secret doubt had steadily pressed upon the father; he had been waiting
some word from her which did not come. Now one of his hands stole up to
tweak her ear--signal of surrender.
“’Nicia, great-heart, you have told me all about your two years in the
cities--your two years of life in the great world outside? There is
something you have withheld?”
“Nothing, little father.” She gave him a peck on the forehead. Don
Padraic appeared to be groping for his words.
“You met--many American men--young men who--ah--might have been
attracted by the beauty of my desert flower?”
A ripple of soft laughter and the girl pressed closer to him.
“Ah, _Pobrecito_, you forget that your desert flower carries thorns.
Ask that ridiculous Hamilcar Urgo; he has felt the thorns.”
“But”--Don Padraic was not to be put off by evasions--“was there not
one whose heart was conquered by a girl of such fire, such beauty?
Come--come! These Americans are not men of ice.”
For a minute Benicia was silent. She was weighing in all sincerity the
only shred of a secret she had in her heart; testing it for genuineness
as fairly as she might.
“Yes, daddy, there were many with bold eyes and ready tongues; but
hardly had they begun to speak as friends or companions when their talk
was all of money--how much they were planning to make that year; the
‘big deal’ they were going to put through. All were like this--but one.”
“Ah,” breathed Don Padraic.
“That one I have told you of,” she continued. “The man on the train
who was so masterful with little Hamilcar. He was not like the others.
A man of wit--of sympathies; one who seemed to have understanding of
life--”
“And he--?” the father prompted.
“We said ‘_adios_’ the night before we came to Arizora. I did not see
him in the morning, though he said that was his destination.”
They were silent once more. Finally from Benicia a wraith of laughter
on fluttering wings of a sigh:
“But, my grave old owl, why these questions? Never before have I seen
my daddy play the prying duenna.”
“Heart of mine, thou canst not be blind”--the father’s voice trembled
over the intimate pronoun. “I have been thy father, mother, elder
brother, all in one. And selfish--selfish beyond measure! Keeping thee
chained here to an old man in the wilderness when all the world of love
and life lies beyond--”
“No--no, daddy mine!” Tears dewed blue eyes as yearning arm strained
him to her.
“--My ’Nicia has her years ahead of her. Her love life must be awakened
and given freedom to unfold like a flower in a garden. Yet I have
permitted her to come back to me here in the Garden of Solitude because
I was lonely. Better far that I sell what we have here and take you
back to the world. In these evil days there is no fit mate to be found
for you in all Sonora. Hamilcar Urgo has threatened me if I do not give
you to him; he is of our blood, but he is abominable. I--”
A soft hand clapped over his lips. He heard passionate words:
“Father mine, stop! Never--never whisper again that you will sell our
Garden. For I love it, next to you, above all the world. We are desert
people, little father. We live in God’s hand and are happy. The cities
crush me with their noise, their confusion.”
“But, ’Nicia--”
“And, dearest of daddies”--her lips against his ear were giving kisses
light as thistledown--“I want no lover but you--no happiness but what
I have returned to here in the Garden. Now, not a word more!”
She was on her feet and with the skirts of her gown caught in her
fingers was making him an old-fashioned curtsy. Then she slipped into
the shadows where the great golden harp stood, and in an instant the
ancient room began to hum with spirited arpeggios--rush of many waters
over a fall.