Suzanna (7 page)

“Ah, Pancho,” she murmured dreamily, “thou art a wonderful lover.”

“And thou art a still more wonderful sweetheart,” the man breathed softly into her ear. “Thine eyes are as the most precious stones, thy hair as sheer as finest silk, thy brow fairer than any gentle sun or whispering wind ever kissed; thy lips are more perfect than a cupid's bow, sweeter than honey, softer than eiderdown, more colorful than a pomegranate. Thou art the personification of Venus and all her beautiful sisters combined. Thou——”

“Enough,
enamorato mio
,” Chiquita interrupted with a warm little laugh. “Thou art as good at piercing my poor heart and brain with thy flattery as thou art at piercing the heart of a maddened bull with thy sword. But what thy lips fail to say, thy eyes revealeth. Thou art thinking that I——”

Chiquita broke off with startling suddenness, as she looked up and saw her father striding angrily toward her. The man saw him, too, and immediately released her.

“Your father!” he murmured hastily, lifting a derisive hand in the direction of Don Diego. “I'll stand before an angry bull, but a maddened father,—never!”

Chiquita was too badly flustered to heed his wit. Dumbly, she saw him vault easily to the top of the wall which enclosed the garden. Safe, he paused bravely enough and plucked a rose, pressed it to his lips and tossed it toward her.

Don Diego reached for him with his sword as the stranger disappeared in the darkness on the other side of the wall, his insolent laugh floating back to the father's ears. But even though Don Diego caught the rose which the stranger had thrown Chiquita, he failed to recognize the fleeing lover.

Don Diego crushed the flower between his fingers and throwing it to the earth, ground it into the dirt with his heel. Silently then, for an interval, they took stock of each other; the proud, self-centered girl's lips curling with contempt for the indulgent parent who had treated her so cavalierly; the father's face suffused with shame that his own flesh and blood had tarnished the honour of his house.

“What manner of woman are you?” he asked when he could trust his voice. “Have you forgotten every teaching? It is not enough that you are bundled home from school, but ten minutes after you arrive you must prove to me with my own eyes that Señora Carrera did not libel you!”

“I am old enough for love,” Chiquita answered flatly.

“Love?” her father cried incredulously. “You shame the word. Do you call it love, to deliver yourself to the embraces of one who comes and goes by way of the garden wall? Have I the man's acquaintance? Does he come with honorable intentions? You need not answer! This man—I had no look at his face, but by the cut of his clothes some blustering
torero
—shall answer to me, no matter what his station.”

“But first, you shall find him,” the girl declared impudently. “Think you, my father, that I am satisfied to spend my days answering to the whims of crusty teacher or wrinkled
duenna?
I did not come to Mexico City to take Holy Orders!”

“Stop!” Don Diego fumed. “You came here to learn the airs and graces befitting one of your high estate. I had no mind for leaving California. It was to please you that we came here. You wanted advantages that were not to be had at home. And you repay me with this! Have you forgotten that you are already betrothed? What would Ramon and his family think if they knew of your conduct?”

“Small difference it would make to me,” Chiquita answered with a toss of her head. “If I am betrothed to Ramon it is because it pleased you, not me.”

“God pity me that I should live to hear such words from your lips,” her father cried. “There is not a girl in the New World but what would be honored with Ramon Gutierrez for husband. He is a worthy son. His father tells me that Ramon waits with impatience for your return. This night shall a letter be dispatched to Don Fernando telling him that we leave immediately.”

Chiquita heard this ultimatum with ill-concealed regret. Angry tears filled her eyes. Her father, mis-reading her emotion, made as though to place his hand upon her shoulder.

“Chiquita, my child,” he said sadly, “you are all your father has; why do you act in this manner? Come to my arms and promise me that you will——”

But the girl turned from him, and without a word, hurried up the path toward the house.

Once in her room, Chiquita resorted to tears. She told herself that she preferred death to going back to California.

“I hate it,” she sobbed. “There's no place to go; nothing to do; no crowds, no life; no music,—I'll die of loneliness.”

And in her madness she dropped to her knees and begged her patron saint to put some obstacle in her father's path that would forever keep him from returning to California and its barren hills.

CHAPTER VIII

S
EÑOR
A
LVAREZ
, the lawyer, returned to the
Hacienda de Gutierrez
ten days after his conference with Ramon's father. Miguel, his son, had remained at the hacienda during this time, and it was the lawyer's intention to return this day to Monterey with the boy, his vacation having ended.

Even his adoring father must have noted the change in Miguel. The boy was more robust and in spirit grown actually mischievous. He had pestered Don Fernando's vaqueros so persistently that, in self-defense, they had taught him how to throw a rope and sit upon a horse.

Miguel's efforts to reward his teachers had been tireless, but not altogether successful. Suzanna had laughed openly at his awkwardness. In fact, the truculence and impudence of this peon girl was the one fly in an otherwise perfect vacation for the boy. He resented the airs she gave herself, and this was not helped any by seeing that Don Fernando and his family humored her and by their graciousness gave her courage for fresh indignities.

Miguel, as wise in his way as his father was, had said nothing, but he had sought for a means by which he could humble the girl. This very last day of his sojourn at the rancho seemed to hold a promise of success for him.

Suzanna's proudest possession—with the possible exception of the bear which her father had captured for her—was a small, thoroughbred fighting gamecock, Timoteo, by name.

Timoteo had vanquished all local foes, and Suzanna paid him the homage due a champion. The hacienda was the extent of her world, and she refused to believe that beyond its borders there might be a bird able to take away Timoteo's crown. Human beings are prone to grow extravagant in their speech regarding things which they consider certainties. It was so with Suzanna. If one wanted to draw her wrath, he had but to question Timoteo's prowess. Miguel had, inadvertently, and then, seeing the effect it produced, had resorted to it daily as fair reward for the indignities the girl offered him.

Miguel's knowledge of gamecocks was most limited, but happily Suzanna was blind to this fact. The boy pretended to a wide experience with the fighting birds, and from the heights to which this knowledge raised him in Suzanna's eyes he had made many telling, and very derisive, remarks about her champion.

The girl's misery well repaid the boy. But lacking that delicate sense which warns against a too heavy hand, Miguel overstepped himself, and Suzanna, daring anything in her anger, scoffingly invited him to produce a fighter which could defeat her precious Timoteo. The defy having been hurled in the presence of the vaqueros whom the boy had tried to impress, left Miguel but one answer, for all that it was hardly the custom for his class to resort to the fighting pit with a peon.

Early on the morning of this very day, Miguel had set out to find Timoteo's conqueror. He had given himself so much knowledge that he dared not ask advice, at this late date, of those who really knew. Monterey was too far away, so the boy had turned to the south where a large force of Mexican peons were constructing a crude bridge across the Rio Salinas. From them he hoped to purchase a bird that would tear Suzanna's presumptuous contender to ribbons.

Timoteo was a small, blue-black, vicious-eyed gamecock. Miguel came back from his quest bearing a bird three times the size of Suzanna's pet. The peon, from whom the boy had purchased him, had assured Miguel that the rooster had no peer with the steel spurs. The man, seeing that he dealt with a child, had pointed to the bird's size as further proof of his ability, and Miguel, not knowing that the very size of the rooster proclaimed him a cross-breed, had paid his money, and headed for the north well satisfied with himself.

Moving with caution, he had smuggled the bird into his room to await the coming bout. No word of it reached the members of Don Fernando's household or Miguel's father; but the news spread quickly among those employed on the hacienda.

The bout was scheduled to take place at sundown. Miguel waited until the bell announced the evening meal, and then, his bird in a bag, he stole out of the casa and made for the corral in back of the peons' quarters. He found the audience already assembled, with Suzanna standing impatiently in the center of the ring, holding Timoteo in the crook of her arm.

The gamecock struggled and uttered his battle-cry the instant that Miguel brought forth his rooster. Suzanna laughed as she saw the size of Miguel's contender. The pit-wise onlookers grinned also. The boy interpreted this greeting correctly, and his assurance left him as he saw that his rooster made no attempt to answer Timoteo's cry. With a savage pinch he rang a protesting squawk from the bird.

“Ha, ha!” Suzanna cried. “That bird is neither fit for pot or pit. Wait, Timoteo,” she cooed to her pet, “we shall laugh soon enough.”

“We shall see,” Miguel retorted acidly. “Make your precious bird ready.

The steel spurs were quickly attached, and with a movement of the referee's hand Miguel and Suzanna tossed their fowls into the ring.

As though shot out of a gun, Timoteo leaped for the big rooster, ripping him with his spurs. Miguel's bird lost all interest immediately. With a frightened cry he sailed into the air and over the heads of the watchers, Timoteo after him. The audience shrieked. Suzanna uttered a wild cry and pursued the fowls. Miguel, thoroughly crestfallen, followed her.

It had been no fight at all, and now, all but the boy, held their sides as the farce proceeded. The rooster and the gamecock darted round and round the corral fence and in and out beneath the farm implements and wagons parked beside it.

“Turn them back!” Suzanna cried to Miguel as the fowls headed in his direction, and Miguel, in a white rage at the rooster who had let him in for this ridicule, leaped forward, but he fell short of turning them. The open kitchen door lay beyond, and risking all on a wild dash, the rooster lined straight for it.

A cry of dismay rose from the crowd at this. This cock fight had been held witbout the sanction of Don Fernando, a trivial enough matter, but the peons knew that the evening meal was still in progress within the casa, and that the dining room lay just beyond the kitchen. Should Timoteo chase the fleeing rooster into that holy of holies,—
cuidado!
—trouble would follow.

Miguel added his groans to the peons' cries when he got up from the dust. If the calamity, which the servants feared, came to pass, he was in for a very embarrassing hour.

Suzanna's nimble brain grasped the situation, too, but unlike the others, she rushed after her pet. She called to Timoeto as she ran, but Timoteo was a bird of one purpose at present. Another second, and Miguel's rooster darted into the kitchen; in his immediate rear, the rushing gamecock.

The crowd did not wait for the verdict, but slunk away, intent on disavowing any connection with the affair. Miguel saw Suzanna enter the kitchen, and with a sort of dying hope that the inevitable might still be averted, he dashed after her. His heart failed him as he gained the door and saw that the way to the dining room was unbarred.

No sound of the tumult outside had penetrated the cool, darkened room in which Don Fernando's family and Señor Alvarez sat. Ramon's father sat at one end of the long board experiencing the comfortable feeling of a man whose stomach is well-filled and whose mind is at peace with the world. The house-servants had just removed the dishes, and with hand-rolled cigars and a rare vintage before him, Don Fernando surveyed his friend, Alvarez, and his son, Ramon, with keen pleasure.

Ramon's father and the lawyer had held a consultation that afternoon, and it had been planned that at this very time the boy should hear the ultimatum in regard to Suzanna.

It was a propitious moment. The meal had passed with rare pleasure, and Don Fernando congratulated himself on choosing this time for broaching the subject. He shot a keen glance in the direction of his son, and was further pleased to note that Ramon was in excellent spirits. The aged don showed his astuteness by addressing himself to Alvarez rather than to the boy.

“How do things fare in Monterey?” he asked quite casually.

The lawyer had awaited this question, and he promptly voiced his rehearsed answer.

“From bad to worse,” he replied with a show of feeling. “The Mission property is about destroyed. Some of the small ranchers are hiring the Indians at a daily wage. If this thing is not put down, we will be hard-pressed to gather our crops. We cannot exist without peon labor. This talk of educating them is heresy. Once we start that, they will be out of hand completely.”

“Well, I wonder,” Don Fernando replied, seeming to weigh his answer.

“What? Have you turned Republican, too?”

“Hardly! But I have begun to question some of our institutions.”

Ramon heard his father's words in amazement. This was an unbending which he had never dreamed possible. Don Fernando read his son's thoughts, and made his cast.

“What I am about to say will come as a great surprise, I know,” the master of the hacienda continued. “I have gone so far as to formulate certain plans regarding the educating of one of my peons. But last evening did I receive confirmation of them.”