XVI
AFTER they reached the highway, and had trotted briskly on for a mile,Alessandro suddenly put out his hand, and taking Baba by the rein, beganturning him round and round in the road.
"We will not go any farther in the road," he said, "but I must concealour tracks here. We will go backwards for a few paces." The obedientBaba backed slowly, half dancing, as if he understood the trick; theIndian pony, too, curvetted awkwardly, then by a sudden bound underAlessandro's skilful guidance, leaped over a rock to the right, andstood waiting further orders. Baba followed, and Capitan; and there wasno trail to show where they had left the road.
After trotting the pony round and round again in ever-widening circles,cantering off in one direction after another, then backing over thetracks for a few moments, Ramona docilely following, though muchbewildered as to what it all meant, Alessandro said: "I think now theywill never discover where we left the road. They will ride along, seeingour tracks plain, and then they will be so sure that we would have keptstraight on, that they will not notice for a time; and when they do,they will never be able to see where the trail ended. And now my Majellahas a very hard ride before her. Will she be afraid?"
"Afraid." laughed Ramona. "Afraid,--on Baba, and with you!"
But it was indeed a hard ride. Alessandro had decided to hide forthe day in a canon he knew, from which a narrow trail led direct toTemecula,--a trail which was known to none but Indians. Once in thiscanon, they would be safe from all possible pursuit. Alessandro did notin the least share Ramona's confidence that no effort would be made toovertake them. To his mind, it appeared certain that the Senora wouldnever accept the situation without making an attempt to recover at leastthe horse and the dog. "She can say, if she chooses, that I have stolenone of her horses," he thought to himself bitterly; "and everybody wouldbelieve her. Nobody would believe us, if we said it was the Senorita'sown horse."
The head of the canon was only a couple of miles from the road; but itwas in a nearly impenetrable thicket of chaparral, where young oaks hadgrown up so high that their tops made, as it were, a second stratum ofthicket. Alessandro had never ridden through it; he had come up on footonce from the other side, and, forcing his way through the tangle hadfound, to his surprise, that he was near the highway. It was from thiscanon that he had brought the ferns which it had so delighted Ramonato arrange for the decoration of the chapel. The place was filled withthem, growing almost in tropical luxuriance; but this was a mile or sofarther down, and to reach that spot from above, Alessandro had had tolet himself down a sheer wall of stone. The canon at its head was littlemore than a rift in the rocks, and the stream which had its rise init was only a trickling spring at the beginning. It was this preciouswater, as well as the inaccessibility of the spot, which had decidedAlessandro to gain the place at all hazards and costs. But a wall ofgranite would not have seemed a much more insuperable obstacle than didthis wall of chaparral, along which they rode, vainly searching for abreak in it. It appeared to Alessandro to have thickened and knit evensince the last spring. At last they made their way down a small sidecanon,--a sort of wing to the main canon a very few rods down this, andthey were as hidden from view from above as if the earth had swallowedthem. The first red tints of the dawn were coming. From the easternhorizon to the zenith, the whole sky was like a dappled crimson fleece.
"Oh, what a lovely place." exclaimed Ramona. "I am sure this was not ahard ride at all, Alessandro! Is this where we are to stay?"
Alessandro turned a compassionate look upon her. "How little does thewood-dove know of rough places!" he said. "This is only the beginning;hardly is it even the beginning."
Fastening his pony to a bush, he reconnoitred the place, disappearingfrom sight the moment he entered the chaparral in any direction.Returning at last, with a grave face, he said, "Will Majella let meleave her here for a little time? There is a way, but I can find it onlyon foot. I will not be gone long. I know it is near."
Tears came into Ramona's eyes. The only thing she dreaded was the losingsight of Alessandro. He gazed at her anxiously. "I must go, Majella," hesaid with emphasis. "We are in danger here."
"Go! go! Alessandro," she cried. "But, oh, do not be long!"
As he disappeared in the thicket, the tough boughs crackling andsnapping before him, it seemed to Ramona that she was again alone in theworld. Capitan, too, bounded after Alessandro, and did not return at hercall. All was still. Ramona laid her head on Baba's neck. The momentsseemed hours. At last, just as the yellow light streamed across thesky, and the crimson fleeces turned in one second to gold, she heardAlessandro's steps, the next moment saw his face. It was aglow with joy.
"I have found the trail!" he exclaimed; "but we must climb up again outof this; and it is too light. I like it not."
With fear and trembling they urged their horses up and out into the openagain, and galloped a half-mile farther west, still keeping as closeto the chaparral thicket as possible. Here Alessandro, who led the way,suddenly turned into the very thicket itself; no apparent opening; butthe boughs parted and closed, and his head appeared above them;still the little pony was trotting bravely along. Baba snortedwith displeasure as he plunged into the same bristling pathway. Thethick-set, thorny branches smote Ramona's cheeks. What was worse, theycaught the nets swung on Baba's sides; presently these were held fast,and Baba began to rear and kick. Here was a real difficulty. Alessandrodismounted, cut the strings, and put both the packages securely on theback of his own pony. "I will walk," he said. "It was only a little waylonger I would have ridden. I shall lead Baba, where it is narrow."
"Narrow," indeed. It was from sheer terror, soon, that Ramona shut hereyes. A path, it seemed to her only a hand's-breadth wide,--a stony,crumbling path,--on the side of a precipice, down which the stonesrolled, and rolled, and rolled, echoing, far out of sight, as theypassed; at each step the beasts took, the stones rolled and fell. Onlythe yucca-plants, with their sharp bayonet-leaves, had made shift tokeep foothold on this precipice. Of these there were thousands; andtheir tall flower-stalks, fifteen, twenty feet high, set thick with theshining, smooth seed-cups, glistened like satin chalices in the sun.Below--hundreds of feet below--lay the canon bottom, a solid bed ofchaparral, looking soft and even as a bed of moss. Giant sycamore-treeslifted their heads, at intervals, above this; and far out in the plainglistened the loops of the river, whose sources, unknown to the world,seen of but few human eyes, were to be waters of comfort to thesefugitives this day.
Alessandro was cheered. The trail was child's play to him. At the firsttread of Baba's dainty steps on the rolling stones, he saw that thehorse was as sure-footed as an Indian pony. In a few short hours, now,they would be all at rest. He knew where, under a sycamore-clump, therewas running water, clear as crystal, and cold,--almost colder than onecould drink,--and green grass too; plenty for two days' feed for thehorses, or even three; and all California might be searched over in vainfor them, once they were down this trail. His heart full of joy at thesethoughts, he turned, to see Ramona pallid, her lips parted, her eyesfull of terror. He had forgotten that her riding had hitherto beenonly on the smooth ways of the valley and the plain, There she was sofearless, that he had had no misgiving about her nerves here; but shehad dropped the reins, was clutching Baba's mane with both hands, andsitting unsteadily in her saddle. She had been too proud to cry out; butshe was nearly beside herself with fright. Alessandro halted so suddenlythat Baba, whose nose was nearly on his shoulder, came to so sharp astop that Ramona uttered a cry. She thought he had lost his footing.
Alessandro looked at her in dismay. To dismount on that perilous trailwas impossible; moreover, to walk there would take more nerve than toride. Yet she looked as if she could not much longer keep her seat.
"Carita," he cried, "I was stupid not to have told you how narrow theway is; but it is safe. I can run in it. I ran all this way with theferns on my back I brought for you."
"Oh, did you?" gasped Ramona, diverted, for the moment, from hercontemplation of t
he abyss, and more reassured by that change of herthoughts than she could have been by anything else. "Did you? It isfrightful, Alessandro. I never heard of such a trail. I feel as if Iwere on a rope in the air. If I could get down and go on my hands andknees, I think I would like it better. Could I?"
"I would not dare to have you get off, just here, Majella," answeredAlessandro, sorrowfully. "It is dreadful to me to see you suffer so; Iwill go very slowly. Indeed, it is safe; we all came up here, the wholeband, for the sheep-shearing,--old Fernando on his horse all the way."
"Really," said Ramona, taking comfort at each word, "I will try not tobe so silly. Is it far, dearest Alessandro?"
"Not much more as steep as this, dear, nor so narrow; but it will be anhour yet before we stop."
But the worst was over for Ramona now, and long before they reached thebottom of the precipice she was ready to laugh at her fears; only,as she looked back at the zigzag lines of the path over which she hadcome,--little more than a brown thread, they seemed, flung along therock,--she shuddered.
Down in the bottom of the canon it was still the dusky gloaming whenthey arrived. Day came late to this fairy spot. Only at high noon didthe sun fairly shine in. As Ramona looked around her, she uttered anexclamation of delight, which satisfied Alessandro. "Yes," he said,"when I came here for the ferns, I wished to myself many times that youcould see it. There is not in all this country so beautiful a place.This is our first home, my Majella," he added, in a tone almost solemn;and throwing his arms around her, he drew her to his breast, with thefirst feeling of joy he had experienced.
"I wish we could live here always," cried Ramona.
"Would Majella be content?" said Alessandro.
"Very," she answered.
He sighed. "There would not be land enough, to live here," he said."If there were, I too would like to stay here till I died, Majella, andnever see the face of a white man again!" Already the instinct of thehunted and wounded animal to seek hiding, was striving in Alessandro'sblood. "But there would be no food. We could not live here." Ramona'sexclamation had set Alessandro to thinking, however. "Would Majella becontent to stay here three days now?" he asked. "There is grass enoughfor the horses for that time. We should be very safe here; and I fearvery much we should not be safe on any road. I think, Majella, theSenora will send men after Baba."
"Baba!" cried Ramona, aghast at the idea. "My own horse! She would notdare to call it stealing a horse, to take my own Baba!" But even asshe spoke, her heart misgave her. The Senora would dare anything; wouldmisrepresent anything; only too well Ramona knew what the very mentionof the phrase "horse-stealing" meant all through the country. She lookedpiteously at Alessandro. He read her thoughts.
"Yes, that is it, Majella," he said. "If she sent men after Baba, thereis no knowing what they might do. It would not do any good for you tosay he was yours. They would not believe you; and they might take metoo, if the Senora had told them to, and put me into Ventura jail."
"She's just wicked enough to do it!" cried Ramona. "Let us not stir outof this spot, Alessandro,--not for a week! Couldn't we stay a week? Bythat time she would have given over looking for us."
"I am afraid not a week. There is not feed for the horses; and I do notknow what we could eat. I have my gun, but there is not much, now, tokill."
"But I have brought meat and bread, Alessandro," said Ramona, earnestly,"and we could eat very little each day, and make it last!" She was likea child, in her simplicity and eagerness. Every other thought was forthe time being driven out of her mind by the terror of being pursued.Pursuit of her, she knew, would not be in the Senora's plan; but thereclaiming of Baba and Capitan, that was another thing. The more Ramonathought of it, the more it seemed to her a form of vengeance which wouldbe likely to commend itself to the Senora's mind. Felipe might possiblyprevent it. It was he who had given Baba to her. He would feel thatit would be shameful to recall or deny the gift. Only in Felipe layRamona's hope.
If she had thought to tell Alessandro that in her farewell noteto Felipe she had said that she supposed they were going to FatherSalvierderra, it would have saved both her and Alessandro muchdisquietude. Alessandro would have known that men pursuing them, on thatsupposition, would have gone straight down the river road to the sea,and struck northward along the coast. But it did not occur to Ramona tomention this; in fact, she hardly recollected it after the first day.Alessandro had explained to her his plan, which was to go by way ofTemecula to San Diego, to be married there by Father Gaspara, the priestof that parish, and then go to the village or pueblo of San Pasquale,about fifteen miles northwest of San Diego. A cousin of Alessandro'swas the head man of this village, and had many times begged him to comethere to live; but Alessandro had steadily refused, believing it tobe his duty to remain at Temecula with his father. San Pasquale wasa regularly established pueblo, founded by a number of the Indianneophytes of the San Luis Rey Mission at the time of the breaking upof that Mission. It was established by a decree of the Governor ofCalifornia, and the lands of the San Pasquale Valley given to it. Apaper recording this establishment and gift, signed by the Governor'sown hand, was given to the Indian who was the first Alcalde of thepueblo. He was Chief Pablo's brother. At his death the authority passedinto the hands of his son, Ysidro, the cousin of whom Alessandro hadspoken.
"Ysidro has that paper still," Alessandro said, "and he thinks itwill keep them their village. Perhaps it will; but the Americans arebeginning to come in at the head of the valley, and I do not believe,Majella, there is any safety anywhere. Still, for a few years we canperhaps stay there. There are nearly two hundred Indians in the valley;it is much better than Temecula, and Ysidro's people are much better offthan ours were. They have splendid herds of cattle and horses, and largewheat-fields. Ysidro's house stands under a great fig-tree; they say itis the largest fig-tree in the country."
"But, Alessandro," cried Ramona, "why do you think it is not safe there,if Ysidro has the paper? I thought a paper made it all right."
"I don't know," replied Alessandro. "Perhaps it may be; but I have gotthe feeling now that nothing will be of any use against the Americans. Idon't believe they will mind the paper."
"They didn't mind the papers the Senora had for all that land of hersthey took away," said Ramona, thoughtfully. "But Felipe said that wasbecause Pio Pico was a bad man, and gave away lands he had no right togive away."
"That's just it," said Alessandro. "Can't they say that same thing aboutany governor, especially if he has given lands to us? If the Senoracouldn't keep hers, with Senor Felipe to help her, and he knows allabout the law, and can speak the American language, what chance is therefor us? We can't take care of ourselves any better than the wild beastscan, my Majella. Oh, why, why did you come with me? Why did I let you?"
After such words as these, Alessandro would throw himself on the ground,and for a few moments not even Ramona's voice would make him look up. Itwas strange that the gentle girl, unused to hardship, or to the thoughtof danger, did not find herself terrified by these fierce glooms andapprehensions of her lover. But she was appalled by nothing. Saved fromthe only thing in life she had dreaded, sure that Alessandro lived, andthat he would not leave her, she had no fears. This was partly fromher inexperience, from her utter inability to conceive of the thingsAlessandro's imagination painted in colors only too true; but it wasalso largely due to the inalienable loyalty and quenchless courage ofher soul,--qualities in her nature never yet tested; qualities ofwhich she hardly knew so much as the name, but which were to bear hersteadfast and buoyant through many sorrowful years.
Before nightfall of this their first day in the wilderness, Alessandrohad prepared for Ramona a bed of finely broken twigs of the manzanitaand ceanothus, both of which grew in abundance all through the canon.Above these he spread layers of glossy ferns, five and six feet long;when it was done, it was a couch no queen need have scorned. As Ramonaseated herself on it, she exclaimed: "Now I shall see how it feels tolie and look up at the stars at night! Do you
recollect, Alessandro,the night you put Felipe's bed on the veranda, when you told me howbeautiful it was to lie at night out of doors and look up at the stars?"
Indeed did Alessandro remember that night,--the first moment he had everdared to dream of the Senorita Ramona as his own. "Yes, I remember it,my Majella," he answered slowly; and in a moment more added, "That wasthe day Juan Can had told me that your mother was of my people; and thatwas the night I first dared in my thoughts to say that perhaps you mightsome day love me."
"But where are you going to sleep, Alessandro?" said Ramona, seeing thathe spread no more boughs. "You have made yourself no bed."
Alessandro laughed. "I need no bed," he said. "We think it is on ourmother's lap we lie, when we lie on the ground. It is not hard, Majella.It is soft, and rests one better than beds. But to-night I shall notsleep. I will sit by this tree and watch."
"Why, what are you afraid of?" asked Ramona.
"It may grow so cold that I must make a fire for Majella," he answered."It sometimes gets very cold before morning in these canons; so I shallfeel safer to watch to-night."
This he said, not to alarm Ramona. His real reason for watching was,that he had seen on the edge of the stream tracks which gave himuneasiness. They were faint and evidently old; but they looked like thetracks of a mountain lion. As soon as it was dark enough to prevent thecurl of smoke from being seen from below, he would light a fire, andkeep it blazing all night, and watch, gun in hand, lest the beastreturn.
"But you will be dead, Alessandro, if you do not sleep. You are notstrong," said Ramona, anxiously.
"I am strong now, Majella," answered Alessandro. And indeed he didalready look like a renewed man, spite of all his fatigue and anxiety."I am no longer weak; and to-morrow I will sleep, and you shall watch."
"Will you lie on the fern-bed then?" asked Ramona, gleefully.
"I would like the ground better," said honest Alessandro.
Ramona looked disappointed. "That is very strange," she said. "It isnot so soft, this bed of boughs, that one need fear to be made tender bylying on it," she continued, throwing herself down; "but oh, how sweet,how sweet it smells!"
"Yes, there is spice-wood in it," he answered. "I put it in at the head,for Majella's pillow."
Ramona was very tired, and she was happy. All night long she sleptlike a child. She did not hear Alessandro's steps. She did not hearthe crackling of the fire he lighted. She did not hear the barking ofCapitan, who more than once, spite of all Alessandro could do to quiethim, made the canon echo with sharp, quick notes of warning, as he heardthe stealthy steps of wild creatures in the chaparral. Hour after hourshe slept on. And hour after hour Alessandro sat leaning against a hugesycamore-trunk, and watched her. As the fitful firelight played over herface, he thought he had never seen it so beautiful, Its expression ofcalm repose insensibly soothed and strengthened him. She looked like asaint, he thought; perhaps it was as a saint of help and guidance, theVirgin was sending her to him and his people. The darkness deepened,became blackness; only the red gleams from the fire broke it, in swayingrifts, as the wind makes rifts in black storm-clouds in the heavens.With the darkness, the stillness also deepened. Nothing broke that,except an occasional motion of Baba or the pony, or an alert signal fromCapitan; then all seemed stiller than ever. Alessandro felt as if Godhimself were in the canon. Countless times in his life before he hadlain in lonely places under the sky and watched the night through, buthe never felt like this. It was ecstasy, and yet it was pain. What wasto come on the morrow, and the next morrow, and the next, and the next,all through the coming years? What was to come to this beloved andloving woman who lay there sleeping, so confident, so trustful, guardedonly by him,--by him, Alessandro, the exile, fugitive, homeless man?
Before the dawn, wood-doves began their calling. The canon was fullof them, no two notes quite alike, it seemed to Alessandro's sharpenedsense; pair after pair, he fancied that he recognized, speaking andreplying, as did the pair whose voices had so comforted him the night hewatched under the geranium hedge by the Moreno chapel,--"Love?" "Here!""Love?" "Here!" They comforted him still more now. "They too have onlyeach other," he thought, as he bent his eyes lovingly on Ramona's face.
It was dawn, and past dawn, on the plains, before it was yet morningtwilight in the canon but the birds in the upper boughs' of thesycamores caught the tokens of the coming day, and began to twitter inthe dusk. Their notes fell on Ramona's sleeping ear, like the familiarsound of the linnets in the veranda-thatch at home, and waked herinstantly. Sitting up bewildered, and looking about her, she exclaimed,"Oh, is it morning already, and so dark? The birds can see more sky thanwe! Sing, Alessandro," and she began the hymn:--
"'Singers at dawn From the heavens above People all regions; Gladly wetoo sing.'"
Never went up truer invocation, from sweeter spot.
"Sing not so loud, my Majel," whispered Alessandro, as her voice wentcarolling like a lark's in the pure ether. "There might be hunters nearwho would hear;" and he joined in with low and muffled tones.
As she dropped her voice at this caution, it seemed even sweeter thanbefore:--
"'Come, O sinners, Come, and we will sing Tender hymns To our refuge,'"
"Ah, Majella, there is no sinner here, except me!" said Alessandro. "MyMajella is like one of the Virgin's own saints." And indeed he mighthave been forgiven the thought as he gazed at Ramona, sitting there inthe shimmering light, her face thrown out into relief by the gray wallof fern-draped rock behind her; her splendid hair, unbound, falling intangled masses to her waist; her cheeks flushed, her face radiant withdevout and fervent supplication, her eyes uplifted to the narrow belt ofsky overhead, where filmy vapors were turning to gold, touched by a sunshe could not see.
"Hush, my love," she breathed rather than said. "That would be a sin, ifyou really thought it.
'O beautiful Queen, Princess of Heaven,'"
she continued, repeating the first lines of the song; and then, sinkingon her knees, reached out one hand for Alessandro's, and glided, almostwithout a break in the melodious sound, into a low recitative of themorning-prayers. Her rosary was of fine-chased gold beads, with an ivorycrucifix; a rare and precious relic of the Missions' olden times. Ithad belonged to Father Peyri himself, was given by him to FatherSalvierderra, and by Father Salvierderra to the "blessed child," Ramona,at her confirmation. A warmer token of his love and trust he could nothave bestowed upon her, and to Ramona's religious and affectionateheart it had always seemed a bond and an assurance, not only of FatherSalvierderra's love, but of the love and protection of the now saintedPeyri.
As she pronounced the last words of her trusting prayer, and slipped thelast of the golden beads along on its string, a thread of sunlightshot into the canon through a deep narrow gap in its rocky easterncrest,--shot in for a second, no more; fell aslant the rosary, lightedit; by a flash as if of fire, across the fine-cut facets of the beads,on Ramona's hands, and on the white face of the ivory Christ. Only aflash, and it was gone! To both Ramona and Alessandro it came like anomen,--like a message straight from the Virgin. Could she choose bettermessenger,--she, the compassionate one, the loving woman in heaven;mother of the Christ to whom they prayed, through her,--mother, forwhose sake He would regard their least cry,--could she choose bettermessenger, or swifter, than the sunbeam, to say that she heard and wouldhelp them in these sore straits.
Perhaps there were not, in the whole great world, at that moment to befound, two souls who were experiencing so vivid a happiness as thrilledthe veins of these two friendless ones, on their knees, alone in thewilderness, gazing half awe-stricken at the shining rosary.