San Isidro

Don Beltran laughed at this. He was happy as he was, and content. There had always been floods, and they had sometimes caused the river to overflow so as to wash across his potreros, but the cacao and bananas were planted on gentle elevations where the water as yet had never reached. Then, too, there was always the Hill Rancho, though neither so large nor so comfortable as the casa. Why borrow trouble? At the first sign of danger the cattle and horses had always betaken themselves to the grove on the hill, there to browse and feed, until the shallow lake which stretched across the plains below them had subsided. Once Don Beltran, Adan, his faithful serving-man, and Adan's niece, Agueda, had been belated. Adan had quickly untied the bridle of the little brown horse from the tethering staple at the corner of the casa, and mounting it, had swum away for safety.

"That is right," said Don Beltran; "he will swim Mexico"--Don Beltran said Mayheco--"to the rising ground, and save the young rascal. As for us, Agueda, the horse had stampeded before I noticed the cloud-burst. It seems that you and I must stay."

Agueda made no answer, but she thought it no hardship to remain.

"There is no danger for us, child; we can go up to the thatch and wait."

"The peons have gone," said Agueda, shyly.

"They were within their rights," answered Don Beltran. "All must go who are afraid. I have always told them that. For me, I have known many floods. They were always interesting, never dangerous. Had I my choice, I should have stayed."

"And I," said Agueda. She did not look at Don Beltran as she spoke. The lids were drooped over her grey eyes.

Agueda turned away and entered the comidor, leaving Don Beltran looking up the valley: not anxiously--merely as one surveys a spectacle of interest. Once in the comidor, Agueda busied herself opening cupboards and closets. She took therefrom certain articles of food which she placed within a basket. She did not move nervously, but quickly, as if to say, "It may come at any moment; we have not much time, perhaps." She recalled, as she lightly hurried about, the last time that the flood had overtaken them at the casa. Nada, her mother, had prepared the basket then. Nada, Adan's sister, who had kept Don Beltran's house, after she had been left alone on the hillside--Nada, sweet Nada, who had died six months ago of no malady that the little Spanish doctor could discover.

Don Beltran prized his Capitas, Adan, above all the serving-men whom he had ever employed, and nothing was too good for Adan's sister Nada--so young, so fair-looking, so patient, her mouth set ever in that heartrending smile, which is more bitter to look upon than a fierce compression of the lips, whose gentle tones wring the heart more cruelly than do the wild denunciations of the revengeful and vindictive. The little Spanish doctor, who, like the Chinese, had never forgotten anything, as he had never learned anything, had ordered a young calf slain and its heart brought to where Nada lay wasting away. Warm and almost beating, it had been opened and laid upon the spot where she felt the gnawing pain; but as there is no prophylactic against the breaking of a heart, so for that crushed and quivering organ there is no remedy. And Nada, tortured in every feeling, physical and mental, had suffered all that devotion and ignorance could suggest, and died.

Agueda knew little of her mother's history, and remembered only her invariable patience and gentleness. She remembered their leaving Los Alamos to come to the hacienda down by the river. She remembered that one day she had suddenly awakened to the fact that Don Jorge was at the casa no longer, that her mother smiled no more, that she paid slight attention to her little daughter's questionings, that Nada was always robed in black now, that there had been no funeral, no corpse, no grave! Don Jorge was not dead, that she knew, because the old Capitas, Rafael, was always ordering the peons about, saying, "The Señor wills it," or "The Señor will have it so." Then there had come a day when the bull-cart was brought to the door--the side door which opened from their apartment. In it were placed her little trunk, which Nada had brought her from Haldez, when she went to the midwinter fair, and her mother's American chair, which Don Jorge had brought once when he returned from the States; she remembered how kindly he had smiled at her pleasure. In fact, all that in any way seemed to be part and parcel of the two was placed in the cart, not unkindly, by Juan Filipe, and then the vehicle awaited Nada's pleasure. She remembered how Nada had taken her by the hand and led her through the rooms of the large, spreading, uneven casa. They had passed through halls and corridors, and had finally come to a pretty interior, which Agueda remembered well, but in which she had not been now for a long time. The walls were pink, and on the floor was a pink and white rug, faded it is true, but dainty still. Here Nada had looked about with streaming eyes. She had gone round behind the bed, and Agueda had looked up to see her standing, her lips pressed to the wall, and whispering through her kisses, "Good by, good by!" Then she had taken Agueda by the hand.

"Look at this room well, 'Gueda," she had said.

"Why, mother?"

But Nada did not speak. Her lips trembled. She could not form her words. She stood for a moment, her eyes devouring that room which she should never see again. Her tears had stopped; her eyes were burning.

She stooped down by her daughter.

"Agueda," she said, "repeat these words after me."

"Yes, mother."

"Say, 'All happiness be upon this house.'"

"No, no! mother, I will not. This casa has made you cry. I will not say it."

"Agueda!" Nada's tone was almost stern. "Do as I tell you, child, repeat my words--'All happiness come to this house.'"

But Agueda had pressed her lips tightly together and shaken her head. She had closed the grey eyes so that the curled lashes swept her round brown cheek. Nada had lifted the child in her arms and carried her through the corridors and out to the side veranda. She had set her in the cart and got in beside her.

"Where to, Señora?" Juan Filipe had asked gently.

"To San Isidro," Nada had answered from stiff lips.

"_Aaaaaiiieee!_" Juan Filipe had shouted, at the same time flourishing the long lash of his whip round the animals' heads. They, knowing that they must soon move, had tossed their noses stubbornly. Another warning, the wheels had creaked, turned round, and they had passed down the hill. Agueda never forgot that ride to San Isidro. Had it not been for her mother's tears, she would have been more than happy. She had always wished to ride in the new bull-cart; Juan Filipe had promised her many a time. Now he was at last keeping his promise. This argued well. If she could take one ride, how many more might she not have? All the time during that little trip to San Isidro, Agueda was asking herself mental questions. There was no use in speaking to her mother. She only looked far away toward Los Alamos, and answered "Yes" and "No" at random. Agueda remembered with what delight she had seen the patient bulls turn the creaking cart into the camino which led to San Isidro.

"Oh," she said, clapping her hands, "we are going to Uncle Adan's!"

For was not this Uncle Adan's casa, and did not Don Beltran live with Uncle Adan? She was not sure. But when she had been there with her mother, she had seen that splendid tall Don Beltran about the house with the dogs, or with his bulls in the field, or in his shooting coat with his gun slung across his shoulder, or going with his fishing-tackle to the river. Yes, she was sure that Don Beltran lived at Uncle Adan's house.

Agueda's thoughts sped with the rapidity that reminiscence brings, and as she placed some rounds of cassava bread in the basket she saw her mother doing the same, as if it were but yesterday, and saying between halting breaths:

"Never trust a gentleman--Agueda--marry some--plain, honest--man--a man of--our people, Agueda--but do not--trust--"

"Who are our people, mother?" the girl had interrupted.

Aye, who were their people?

Nada had not answered. She had lain her thin arms round Agueda's unformed shoulders, turned the girl's head backward with the other hand laid upon her brow, and gazed steadily into the good grey eyes.

"My little Agueda," she had said--stopped short, and sighed. It was hopeless. There was no escape from the burden of inheritance. Agueda had not understood the cause of her mother's sigh and her halting words. She had been ill to death--that she knew. Then came long years of patience, as Agueda grew to girlhood. Could it be only six months ago that she had lost her?

"My sweet Nada," she whispered, as she laid a napkin over the contents of the basket, "I do not know what you meant, but I do not forget you, Nada."

"Hasten, Agueda! There is no danger, but there is no need of getting a wetting."

Agueda turned to see Don Beltran standing in the doorway of the comidor. He was smiling. His face looked brown and healthful against the worn blue of the old painted door. His white trousers were tucked within the tops of his high boots, and he wore a belt of tanned leather, with the usual accompaniment of a pistol-holder, which was empty, the belt forming a strap for a machete, and holding safely that useful weapon of domesticity or menace. His fine striped shirt hung in loose folds partly over the belt; the collar, broad, and turned down from the brown throat, being held carelessly in place by a flowing coloured tie. He had an old Panama hat in his brown hand. His wavy hair swept back from his forehead, crisp and changeable in its dark gold lights. His brown eyes looked kindly at the girl, but more particularly at the basket which she filled.

"Have you some glasses?" he asked, "and some--"

"Water, Señor? Yes, I have not forgotten that."

Don Beltran laughed merrily.

"I fancy that we shall have water enough, 'Gueda, child. Get my flask and fill it with rum. The pink rum of the vega. Here, let me get the demijohn. Run for the flask, child. Perhaps I should have listened to the warning of old Emperatriz."

There were other warnings which Beltran had not taken into account. The sultry day that had passed, the total absence of breeze, the low-flying birds, the stridulous cry of the early home-flying parrots, the dun-colored sky to the south and east, the whinneying and neighing of the horses. The old grey, who knew the signs of the times, had torn his bridle loose and raced across the pasture-land to the hill where stood the rancho. He was the pioneer; the others had followed him, and the little roan had galloped away last of all, with Adan to guide and reassure him. The bulls, leaping and plunging with heads to earth and hind hoofs raised in air, with shaking fringe of tail and bellowed pleading, had asked, as plainly as could creatures to whom God gave a soul, to be allowed to flee to the mountain. Adan, in passing, had unclasped and thrown wide the gate, and they had raced with him for certain life from the death which might be imminent. Emperatriz had whined and had pounded her tail restlessly against the planks of the floor. Then she had arisen, and stood with her great forepaws resting upon Beltran's shoulder, gazing with anxiety that was almost human into his face.