Chapter 6

“Ah, Senor Felipe has married. She is his wife,” thought Alessandro, and a strange pain seized him. He did not analyze it; hardly knew what it meant. He was only twenty-one. He had not thought much about women. He was a distant, cold boy, his own people of the Temecula village said. It had come, they believed, of learning to read, which was always bad. Chief Pablo had not done his son any good by trying to make him like white men. If the Fathers could have stayed, and the life at the Mission have gone on, why, Alessandro could have had work to do for the Fathers, as his father had before him. Pablo had been Father Peyri's right-hand man at the Mission; had kept all the accounts about the cattle; paid the wages; handled thousands of dollars of gold every month. But that was “in the time of the king;” it was very different now. The Americans would not let an Indian do anything but plough and sow and herd cattle. A man need not read and write, to do that.

Even Pablo sometimes doubted whether he had done wisely in teaching Alessandro all he knew himself. Pablo was, for one of his race, wise and far-seeing. He perceived the danger threatening his people on all sides. Father Peyri, before he left the country, had said to him: “Pablo, your people will be driven like sheep to the slaughter, unless you keep them together. Knit firm bonds between them; band them into pueblos; make them work; and above all, keep peace with the whites. It is your only chance.”

Most strenuously Pablo had striven to obey Father Peyri's directions. He had set his people the example of constant industry, working steadily in his fields and caring well for his herds. He had built a chapel in his little village, and kept up forms of religious service there. Whenever there were troubles with the whites, or rumors of them, he went from house to house, urging, persuading, commanding his people to keep the peace. At one time when there was an insurrection of some of the Indian tribes farther south, and for a few days it looked as if there would be a general Indian war, he removed the greater part of his band, men, women, and children driving their flocks and herds with them, to Los Angeles, and camped there for several days, that they might be identified with the whites in case hostilities became serious.

But his labors did not receive the reward that they deserved. With every day that the intercourse between his people and the whites increased, he saw the whites gaining, his people surely losing ground, and his anxieties deepened. The Mexican owner of the Temecula valley, a friend of Father Peyri's, and a good friend also of Pablo's, had returned to Mexico in disgust with the state of affairs in California, and was reported to be lying at the point of death. This man's promise to Pablo, that he and his people should always live in the valley undisturbed, was all the title Pablo had to the village lands. In the days when the promise was given, it was all that was necessary. The lines marking off the Indians' lands were surveyed, and put on the map of the estate. No Mexican proprietor ever broke faith with an Indian family or village, thus placed on his lands.

But Pablo had heard rumors, which greatly disquieted him, that such pledges and surveyed lines as these were coming to be held as of no value, not binding on purchasers of grants. He was intelligent enough to see that if this were so, he and his people were ruined. All these perplexities and fears he confided to Alessandro; long anxious hours the father and son spent together, walking back and forth in the village, or sitting in front of their little adobe house, discussing what could be done. There was always the same ending to the discussion,--a long sigh, and, “We must wait, we can do nothing.”

No wonder Alessandro seemed, to the more ignorant and thoughtless young men and women of his village, a cold and distant lad. He was made old before his time. He was carrying in his heart burdens of which they knew nothing. So long as the wheat fields came up well, and there was no drought, and the horses and sheep had good pasture, in plenty, on the hills, the Temecula people could be merry, go day by day to their easy work, play games at sunset, and sleep sound all night. But Alessandro and his father looked beyond. And this was the one great reason why Alessandro had not yet thought about women, in way of love; this, and also the fact that even the little education he had received was sufficient to raise a slight barrier, of which he was unconsciously aware, between him and the maidens of the village. If a quick, warm fancy for any one of them ever stirred in his veins, he found himself soon, he knew not how, cured of it. For a dance, or a game, or a friendly chat, for the trips into the mountains after acorns, or to the marshes for grasses and reeds, he was their good comrade, and they were his; but never had the desire to take one of them for his wife, entered into Alessandro's mind. The vista of the future, for him, was filled full by thoughts which left no room for love's dreaming; one purpose and one fear filled it,--the purpose to be his father's worthy successor, for Pablo was old now, and very feeble; the fear, that exile and ruin were in store for them all.

It was of these things he had been thinking as be walked alone, in advance of his men, on the previous night, when he first saw Ramona kneeling at the brook. Between that moment and the present, it seemed to Alessandro that some strange miracle must have happened to him. The purposes and the fears had alike gone. A face replaced them; a vague wonder, pain, joy, he knew not what, filled him so to overflowing that he was bewildered. If he had been what the world calls a civilized man, he would have known instantly and would have been capable of weighing, analyzing, and reflecting on his sensations at leisure. But he was not a civilized man; he had to bring to bear on his present situation only simple, primitive, uneducated instincts and impulses. If Ramona had been a maiden of his own people or race, he would have drawn near to her as quickly as iron to the magnet. But now, if he had gone so far as to even think of her in such a way, she would have been, to his view, as far removed from him as was the morning star beneath whose radiance he had that morning watched, hoping for sight of her at her window. He did not, however, go so far as to thus think of her. Even that would have been impossible. He only knelt on the stones outside the chapel door, mechanically repeating the prayers with the rest, waiting for her to reappear. He had no doubt, now, that she was Senor Felipe's wife; all the same he wished to kneel there till she came out, that he might see her face again. His vista of purpose, fear, hope, had narrowed now down to that,--just one more sight of her. Ever so civilized, he could hardly have worshipped a woman better. The mass seemed to him endlessly long. Until near the last, he forgot to sing; then, in the closing of the final hymn, he suddenly remembered, and the clear deep-toned voice pealed out, as before, like the undertone of a great sea-wave, sweeping along.

Ramona heard the first note, and felt again the same thrill. She was as much a musician born as Alessandro himself. As she rose from her knees, she whispered to Felipe: “Felipe, do find out which one of the Indians it is has that superb voice. I never heard anything like it.”

“Oh, that is Alessandro,” replied Felipe, “old Pablo's son. He is a splendid fellow. Don't you recollect his singing two years ago?”

“I was not here,” replied Ramona; “you forget.”

“Ah, yes, so you were away; I had forgotten,” said Felipe. “Well, he was here. They made him captain of the shearing-band, though he was only twenty, and he managed the men splendidly. They saved nearly all their money to carry home, and I never knew them do such a thing before. Father Salvierderra was here, which might have had something to do with it; but I think it was quite as much Alessandro. He plays the violin beautifully. I hope he has brought it along. He plays the old San Luis Rey music. His father was band-master there.”

Ramona's eyes kindled with pleasure. “Does your mother like it, to have him play?” she asked.

Felipe nodded. “We'll have him up on the veranda tonight,” he said.

While this whispered colloquy was going on, the chapel had emptied, the Indians and Mexicans all hurrying out to set about the day's work. Alessandro lingered at the doorway as long as he dared, till he was sharply called by Juan Canito, looking back: “What are you gaping at there, you Alessandro! Hurry, now, and get your men to work. After waiting till near midsummer for this shearing, we'll make as quick work of it as we can. Have you got your best shearers here?”

“Ay, that I have,” answered Alessandro; “not a man of them but can shear his hundred in a day, There is not such a band as ours in all San Diego County; and we don't turn out the sheep all bleeding, either; you'll see scarce a scratch on their sides.”

“Humph.” retorted Juan Can. “'Tis a poor shearer, indeed, that draws blood to speak of. I've sheared many a thousand sheep in my day, and never a red stain on the shears. But the Mexicans have always been famed for good shearers.”

Juan's invidious emphasis on the word “Mexicans” did not escape Alessandro. “And we Indians also,” he answered, good-naturedly, betraying no annoyance; “but as for these Americans, I saw one at work the other day, that man Lomax, who settled near Temecula, and upon my faith, Juan Can, I thought it was a slaughter-pen, and not a shearing. The poor beasts limped off with the blood running.”

Juan did not see his way clear at the moment to any fitting rejoinder to this easy assumption, on Alessandro's part, of the equal superiority of Indians and Mexicans in the sheep-shearing art; so, much vexed, with another “Humph!” he walked away; walked away so fast, that he lost the sight of a smile on Alessandro's face, which would have vexed him still further.

At the sheep-shearing sheds and pens all was stir and bustle. The shearing shed was a huge caricature of a summerhouse,--a long, narrow structure, sixty feet long by twenty or thirty wide, all roof and pillars; no walls; the supports, slender rough posts, as far apart as was safe, for the upholding of the roof, which was of rough planks loosely laid from beam to beam. On three sides of this were the sheep-pens filled with sheep and lambs.

A few rods away stood the booths in which the shearers' food was to be cooked and the shearers fed. These were mere temporary affairs, roofed only by willow boughs with the leaves left on. Near these, the Indians had already arranged their camp; a hut or two of green boughs had been built, but for the most part they would sleep rolled up in their blankets, on the ground. There was a brisk wind, and the gay colored wings of the windmill blew furiously round and round, pumping out into the tank below a stream of water so swift and strong, that as the men crowded around, wetting and sharpening their knives, they got well spattered, and had much merriment, pushing and elbowing each other into the spray.

A high four-posted frame stood close to the shed; in this, swung from the four corners, hung one of the great sacking bags in which the fleeces were to be packed. A big pile of bags lay on the ground at the foot of the posts. Juan Can eyed them with a chuckle. “We'll fill more than those before night, Senor Felipe,” he said. He was in his element, Juan Can, at shearing times. Then came his reward for the somewhat monotonous and stupid year's work. The world held no better feast for his eyes than the sight of a long row of big bales of fleece, tied, stamped with the Moreno brand, ready to be drawn away to the mills. “Now, there is something substantial,” he thought; “no chance of wool going amiss in market!”

If a year's crop were good, Juan's happiness was assured for the next six months. If it proved poor, he turned devout immediately, and spent the next six months calling on the saints for better luck, and redoubling his exertions with the sheep.

On one of the posts of the shed short projecting slats were nailed, like half-rounds of a ladder. Lightly as a rope-walker Felipe ran up these, to the roof, and took his stand there, ready to take the fleeces and pack them in the bag as fast as they should be tossed up from below. Luigo, with a big leathern wallet fastened in front of him, filled with five-cent pieces, took his stand in the centre of the shed. The thirty shearers, running into the nearest pen, dragged each his sheep into the shed, in a twinkling of an eye had the creature between his knees, helpless, immovable, and the sharp sound of the shears set in. The sheep-shearing had begun. No rest now. Not a second's silence from the bleating, baa-ing, opening and shutting, clicking, sharpening of shears, flying of fleeces through the air to the roof, pressing and stamping them down in the bales; not a second's intermission, except the hour of rest at noon, from sunrise till sunset, till the whole eight thousand of the Senora Moreno's sheep were shorn. It was a dramatic spectacle. As soon as a sheep was shorn, the shearer ran with the fleece in his hand to Luigo, threw it down on a table, received his five-cent piece, dropped it in his pocket, ran to the pen, dragged out another sheep, and in less than five minutes was back again with a second fleece. The shorn sheep, released, bounded off into another pen, where, light in the head no doubt from being three to five pounds lighter on their legs, they trotted round bewilderedly for a moment, then flung up their heels and capered for joy.

It was warm work. The dust from the fleeces and the trampling feet filled the air. As the sun rose higher in the sky the sweat poured off the men's faces; and Felipe, standing without shelter on the roof, found out very soon that he had by no means yet got back his full strength since the fever. Long before noon, except for sheer pride, and for the recollection of Juan Canito's speech, he would have come down and yielded his place to the old man. But he was resolved not to give up, and he worked on, though his face was purple and his head throbbing. After the bag of fleeces is half full, the packer stands in it, jumping with his full weight on the wool, as he throws in the fleeces, to compress them as much as possible. When Felipe began to do this, he found that he had indeed overrated his strength. As the first cloud of the sickening dust came up, enveloping his head, choking his breath, he turned suddenly dizzy, and calling faintly, “Juan, I am ill,” sank helpless down in the wool. He had fainted. At Juan Canito's scream of dismay, a great hubbub and outcry arose; all saw instantly what had happened. Felipe's head was hanging limp over the edge of the bag, Juan in vain endeavoring to get sufficient foothold by his side to lift him. One after another the men rushed up the ladder, until they were all standing, a helpless, excited crowd, on the roof, one proposing one thing, one another. Only Luigo had had the presence of mind to run to the house for help. The Senora was away from home. She had gone with Father Salvierderra to a friend's house, a half-day's journey off. But Ramona was there. Snatching all she could think of in way of restoratives, she came flying back with Luigo, followed by every servant of the establishment, all talking, groaning, gesticulating, suggesting, wringing their hands,--as disheartening a Babel as ever made bad matters worse.

Reaching the shed, Ramona looked up to the roof bewildered. “Where is he?” she cried. The next instant she saw his head, held in Juan Canito's arms, just above the edge of the wool-bag. She groaned, “Oh, how will he ever be lifted out!”

“I will lift him, Senora,” cried Alessandro, coming to the front, “I am very strong. Do not be afraid; I will bring him safe down.” And swinging himself down the ladder, he ran swiftly to the camp, and returned, bringing in his hands blankets. Springing quickly to the roof again, he knotted the blankets firmly together, and tying them at the middle around his waist, threw the ends to his men, telling them to hold him firm. He spoke in the Indian tongue as he was hurriedly doing this, and Ramona did not at first understand his plan. But when she saw the Indians move a little back from the edge of the roof, holding the blankets firm grasped, while Alessandro stepped out on one of the narrow cross-beams from which the bag swung, she saw what he meant to do. She held her breath. Felipe was a slender man; Alessandro was much heavier, and many inches taller. Still, could any man carry such a burden safely on that narrow beam! Ramona looked away, and shut her eyes, through the silence which followed. It was only a few moments; but it seemed an eternity before a glad murmur of voices told her that it was done, and looking up, she saw Felipe lying on the roof, unconscious, his face white, his eyes shut. At this sight, all the servants broke out afresh, weeping and wailing, “He is dead! He is dead!”

Ramona stood motionless, her eyes fixed on Felipe's face. She, too, believed him dead; but her thought was of the Senora.

“He is not dead,” cried Juan Canito, who had thrust his hand under Felipe's shirt. “He is not dead. It is only a faint.”

At this the first tears rolled down Ramona's face. She looked piteously at the ladder up and down which she had seen Alessandro run as if it were an easy indoor staircase. “If I could only get up there!” she said, looking from one to another. “I think I can;” and she put one foot on the lower round.

“Holy Virgin!” cried Juan Can, seeing her movement. “Senorita! Senorita! do not attempt it. It is not too easy for a man. You will break your neck. He is fast coming to his senses.”

Alessandro caught the words. Spite of all the confusion and terror of the scene, his heart heard the word, “Senorita.” Ramona was not the wife of Felipe, or of any man. Yet Alessandro recollected that he had addressed her as Senora, and she did not seem surprised. Coming to the front of the group he said, bending forward, “Senorita!” There must have been something in the tone which made Ramona start. The simple word could not have done it. “Senorita,” said Alessandro, “it will be nothing to bring Senor Felipe down the ladder. He is, in my arms, no more than one of the lambs yonder. I will bring him down as soon as he is recovered. He is better here till then. He will very soon be himself again. It was only the heat.” Seeing that the expression of anxious distress did not grow less on Ramona's face, he continued, in a tone still more earnest, “Will not the Senorita trust me to bring him safe down?”

Ramona smiled faintly through her tears. “Yes,” she said, “I will trust you. You are Alessandro, are you not?”

“Yes, Senorita,” he answered, greatly surprised, “I am Alessandro.”

VI

A BAD beginning did not make a good ending of the Senora Moreno's sheep-shearing this year. One as superstitiously prejudiced against Roman Catholic rule as she was in favor of it, would have found, in the way things fell out, ample reason for a belief that the Senora was being punished for having let all the affairs of her place come to a standstill, to await the coming of an old monk. But the pious Senora, looking at the other side of the shield, was filled with gratitude that, since all this ill luck was to befall her, she had the good Father Salvierderra at her side to give her comfort and counsel.

It was not yet quite noon of the first day, when Felipe fainted and fell in the wool; and it was only a little past noon of the third, when Juan Canito, who, not without some secret exultation, had taken Senor Felipe's place at the packing, fell from the cross-beam to the ground, and broke his right leg,--a bad break near the knee; and Juan Canito's bones were much too old for fresh knitting. He would never again be able to do more than hobble about on crutches, dragging along the useless leg. It was a cruel blow to the old man. He could not be resigned to it. He lost faith in his saints, and privately indulged in blasphemous beratings and reproaches of them, which would have filled the Senora with terror, had she known that such blasphemies were being committed under her roof.

“As many times as I have crossed that plank, in my day!” cried Juan; “only the fiends themselves could have made me trip; and there was that whole box of candles I paid for with my own money last month, and burned to Saint Francis in the chapel for this very sheep-shearing! He may sit in the dark, for all me, to the end of time! He is no saint at all! What are they for, if not to keep us from harm when we pray to them? I'll pray no more. I believe the Americans are right, who laugh at us.” From morning till night, and nearly from night till morning, for the leg ached so he slept little, poor Juan groaned and grumbled and swore, and swore and grumbled and groaned. Taking care of him was enough, Margarita said, to wear out the patience of the Madonna herself. There was no pleasing him, whatever you did, and his tongue was never still a minute. For her part, she believed that it must be as he said, that the fiends had pushed him off the plank, and that the saints had had their reasons for leaving him to his fate. A coldness and suspicion gradually grew up in the minds of all the servants towards him. His own reckless language, combined with Margarita's reports, gave the superstitious fair ground for believing that something had gone mysteriously wrong, and that the Devil was in a fair way to get his soul, which was very hard for the old man, in addition to all the rest he had to bear. The only alleviation he had for his torments, was in having his fellow-servants, men and women, drop in, sit by his pallet, and chat with him, telling him all that was going on; and when by degrees they dropped off, coming more and more seldom, and one by one leaving off coming altogether, it was the one drop that overflowed his cup of misery; and he turned his face to the wall, left off grumbling, and spoke only when he must.

This phase frightened Margarita even more than the first. Now, she thought, surely the dumb terror and remorse of one who belongs to the Devil had seized him, and her hands trembled as she went through the needful ministrations for him each day. Three months, at least, the doctor, who had come from Ventura to set the leg, had said he must lie still in bed and be thus tended. “Three months!” sighed Margarita. “If I be not dead or gone crazy myself before the end of that be come!”

The Senora was too busy with Felipe to pay attention or to give thought to Juan. Felipe's fainting had been the symptom and beginning of a fierce relapse of the fever, and he was lying in his bed, tossing and raving in delirium, always about the wool.

“Throw them faster, faster! That's a good fleece; five pounds more; a round ton in those bales. Juan! Alessandro! Captain!--Jesus, how this sun burns my head!”

Several times he had called “Alessandro” so earnestly, that Father Salvierderra advised bringing Alessandro into the room, to see if by any chance there might have been something in his mind that he wished to say to him. But when Alessandro stood by the bedside, Felipe gazed at him vacantly, as he did at all the others, still repeating, however, “Alessandro! Alessandro!”

“I think perhaps he wants Alessandro to play on his violin,” sobbed out Ramona. “He was telling me how beautifully Alessandro played, and said he would have him up on the veranda in the evening to play to us.”

“We might try it,” said Father Salvierderra. “Have you your violin here, Alessandro?”

“Alas, no, Father,” replied Alessandro, “I did not bring it.”