On the Frontier
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ON THE FRONTIER
By Bret Harte
CONTENTS
AT THE MISSION OF SAN CARMEL
A BLUE GRASS PENELOPE
LEFT OUT ON LONE STAR MOUNTAIN
AT THE MISSION OF SAN CARMEL
PROLOGUE
It was noon of the 10th of August, 1838. The monotonous coast line
between Monterey and San Diego had set its hard outlines against the
steady glare of the Californian sky and the metallic glitter of
the Pacific Ocean. The weary succession of rounded, dome-like hills
obliterated all sense of distance; the rare whaling vessel or still
rarer trader, drifting past, saw no change in these rusty undulations,
barren of distinguishing peak or headland, and bald of wooded crest or
timbered ravine. The withered ranks of wild oats gave a dull procession
of uniform color to the hills, unbroken by any relief of shadow in their
smooth, round curves. As far as the eye could reach, sea and shore met
in one bleak monotony, flecked by no passing cloud, stirred by no sign
of life or motion. Even sound was absent; the Angelus, rung from the
invisible Mission tower far inland, was driven back again by the steady
northwest trades, that for half the year had swept the coast line and
left it abraded of all umbrage and color.
But even this monotony soon gave way to a change and another monotony as
uniform and depressing. The western horizon, slowly contracting before
a wall of vapor, by four o'clock had become a mere cold, steely strip of
sea, into which gradually the northern trend of the coast faded and was
lost. As the fog stole with soft step southward, all distance, space,
character, and locality again vanished; the hills upon which the sun
still shone bore the same monotonous outlines as those just wiped into
space. Last of all, before the red sun sank like the descending host,
it gleamed upon the sails of a trading vessel close in shore. It was the
last object visible. A damp breath breathed upon it, a soft hand passed
over the slate, the sharp pencilling of the picture faded and became a
confused gray cloud.
The wind and waves, too, went down in the fog; the now invisible and
hushed breakers occasionally sent the surf over the sand in a quick
whisper, with grave intervals of silence, but with no continuous murmur
as before. In a curving bight of the shore the creaking of oars in their
rowlocks began to be distinctly heard, but the boat itself, although
apparently only its length from the sands, was invisible.
"Steady, now; way enough." The voice came from the sea, and was low, as
if unconsciously affected by the fog. "Silence!"
The sound of a keel grating the sand was followed by the order, "Stern
all!" from the invisible speaker.
"Shall we beach her?" asked another vague voice.
"Not yet. Hail again, and all together."
"Ah hoy--oi--oi--oy!"
There were four voices, but the hail appeared weak and ineffectual, like
a cry in a dream, and seemed hardly to reach beyond the surf before
it was suffocated in the creeping cloud. A silence followed, but no
response.
"It's no use to beach her and go ashore until we find the boat," said
the first voice, gravely; "and we'll do that if the current has brought
her here. Are you sure you've got the right bearings?"
"As near as a man could off a shore with not a blasted pint to take his
bearings by."
There was a long silence again, broken only by the occasional dip of
oars, keeping the invisible boat-head to the sea.
"Take my word for it, lads, it's the last we'll see of that boat again,
or of Jack Cranch, or the captain's baby."
"It DOES look mighty queer that the painter should slip. Jack Cranch
ain't the man to tie a granny knot."
"Silence!" said the invisible leader. "Listen."
A hail, so faint and uncertain that it might have been the
long-deferred, far-off echo of their own, came from the sea, abreast of
them.
"It's the captain. He hasn't found anything, or he couldn't be so far
north. Hark!"
The hail was repeated again faintly, dreamily. To the seamen's trained
ears it seemed to have an intelligent significance, for the first voice
gravely responded, "Aye, aye!" and then said softly, "Oars."
The word was followed by a splash. The oars clicked sharply and
simultaneously in the rowlocks, then more faintly, then still fainter,
and then passed out into the darkness.
The silence and shadow both fell together; for hours sea and shore were
impenetrable. Yet at times the air was softly moved and troubled, the
surrounding gloom faintly lightened as with a misty dawn, and then was
dark again; or drowsy, far-off cries and confused noises seemed to grow
out of the silence, and, when they had attracted the weary ear, sank
away as in a mocking dream, and showed themselves unreal. Nebulous
gatherings in the fog seemed to indicate stationary objects that, even
as one gazed, moved away; the recurring lap and ripple on the shingle
sometimes took upon itself the semblance of faint articulate laughter
or spoken words. But towards morning a certain monotonous grating on the
sand, that had for many minutes alternately cheated and piqued the ear,
asserted itself more strongly, and a moving, vacillating shadow in the
gloom became an opaque object on the shore.
With the first rays of the morning light the fog lifted. As the undraped
hills one by one bared their cold bosoms to the sun, the long line of
coast struggled back to life again. Everything was unchanged, except
that a stranded boat lay upon the sands, and in its stern sheets a
sleeping child.
CHAPTER I.
The 10th of August, 1852, brought little change to the dull monotony
of wind, fog, and treeless coast line. Only the sea was occasionally
flecked with racing sails that outstripped the old, slow-creeping
trader, or was at times streaked and blurred with the trailing smoke of
a steamer. There were a few strange footprints on those virgin sands,
and a fresh track, that led from the beach over the rounded hills,
dropped into the bosky recesses of a hidden valley beyond the coast
range.
It was here that the refectory windows of the Mission of San Carmel had
for years looked upon the reverse of that monotonous picture presented
to the sea. It was here that the trade winds, shorn of their fury and
strength in the heated, oven-like air that rose from the valley, lost
their weary way in the tangled recesses of the wooded slopes, and
breathed their last at the foot of the stone cross before the Mission.
It was on the crest of those slopes that the fog halted and walled
in the sun-illumined plain below; it was in this plain that limitless
fields of grain clothed the fat adobe soil; here the Mission garden
smiled over its hedges of fruitful vines, and through the leaves of fig
and gnarled pear trees: and it was here that Father Pedro had lived for
fifty years, found the prospect good, and had smiled also.
Father Pedro's smile was rare. He was not a Las Casas, nor a Junipero
Serra, but he had the deep seriousness of all disciples laden with the
responsible wording of a gospel not their own. And his smile had an
ecclesiastical as well as a human significance, the pleasantest object
in his prospect being the fair and curly head of his boy acolyte and
chorister, Francisco, which appeared among the vines, and his sweetest
pastoral music, the high soprano humming of a chant with which the boy
accompanied his gardening.
Suddenly the acolyte's chant changed to a cry of terror. Running rapidly
to Father Pedro's side, he grasped his sotana, and even tried to hide
his curls among its folds.
"'St! 'st!" said the Padre, disengaging himself with some impatience.
"What new alarm is this? Is it Luzbel hiding among our Catalan vines, or
one of those heathen Americanos from Monterey? Speak!"
"Neither, holy father," said the boy, the color struggling back into his
pale cheeks, and an apologetic, bashful smile lighting his clear eyes.
"Neither; but oh! such a gross, lethargic toad! And it almost leaped
upon me."
"A toad leaped upon thee!" repeated the good father with evident
vexation. "What next? I tell thee, child, those foolish fears are most
unmeet for thee, and must be overcome, if necessary, with prayer and
penance. Frightened by a toad! Blood of the Martyrs! 'Tis like any
foolish girl!"
Father Pedro stopped and coughed.
"I am saying that no Christian child should shrink from any of God's
harmless creatures. And only last week thou wast disdainful of poor
Murieta's pig, forgetting that San Antonio himself did elect one his
faithful companion, even in glory."
"Yes, but it was so fat, and so uncleanly, holy father," replied the
young acolyte, "and it smelt so."
"Smelt so?" echoed the father doubtfully. "Have a care, child, that this
is not luxuriousness of the senses. I have noticed of late you gather
overmuch of roses and syringa, excellent in their way and in moderation,
but still not to be compared with the flower of Holy Church, the lily."
"But lilies don't look well on the refectory table, and against the
adobe wall," returned the acolyte, with a pout of a spoilt child; "and
surely the flowers cannot help being sweet, any more than myrrh or
incense. And I am not frightened of the heathen Americanos either NOW.
There was a small one in the garden yesterday, a boy like me, and he
spoke kindly and with a pleasant face."
"What said he to thee, child?" asked Father Pedro, anxiously.
"Nay, the matter of his speech I could not understand," laughed the boy,
"but the manner was as gentle as thine, holy father."
"'St, child," said the Padre impatiently. "Thy likings are as
unreasonable as thy fears. Besides, have I not told thee it ill becomes
a child of Christ to chatter with those sons of Belial? But canst thou
not repeat the words--the WORDS he said?" he continued suspiciously.
"'Tis a harsh tongue the Americanos speak in their throat," replied the
boy. "But he said 'Devilishnisse' and 'pretty-as-a-girl,' and looked at
me."
The good father made the boy repeat the words gravely, and as gravely
repeated them after him with infinite simplicity. "They are but
heretical words," he replied in answer to the boy's inquiring look;
"it is well you understand not English. Enough. Run away, child, and be
ready for the Angelus. I will commune with myself awhile under the pear
trees."
Glad to escape so easily, the young acolyte disappeared down the alley
of fig trees, not without a furtive look at the patches of chickweed
around their roots, the possible ambuscade of creeping or saltant
vermin. The good priest heaved a sigh and glanced round the darkening
prospect. The sun had already disappeared over the mountain wall that
lay between him and the sea, rimmed with a faint white line of outlying
fog. A cool zephyr fanned his cheek; it was the dying breath of the
vientos generales beyond the wall. As Father Pedro's eyes were raised to
this barrier, which seemed to shut out the boisterous world beyond, he
fancied he noticed for the first time a slight breach in the parapet,
over which an advanced banner of the fog was fluttering. Was it an omen?
His speculations were cut short by a voice at his very side.
He turned quickly and beheld one of those "heathens" against whom he
had just warned his young acolyte; one of that straggling band of
adventurers whom the recent gold discoveries had scattered along the
coast. Luckily the fertile alluvium of these valleys, lying parallel
with the sea, offered no "indications" to attract the gold seekers.
Nevertheless to Father Pedro even the infrequent contact with the
Americanos was objectionable; they were at once inquisitive and
careless; they asked questions with the sharp perspicacity of
controversy; they received his grave replies with the frank indifference
of utter worldliness. Powerful enough to have been tyrannical
oppressors, they were singularly tolerant and gentle, contenting
themselves with a playful, good-natured irreverence, which tormented
the good father more than opposition. They were felt to be dangerous and
subversive.
The Americano, however, who stood before him did not offensively suggest
these national qualities. A man of middle height, strongly built,
bronzed and slightly gray from the vicissitudes of years and exposure,
he had an air of practical seriousness that commended itself to Father
Pedro. To his religious mind it suggested self-consciousness; expressed
in the dialect of the stranger it only meant "business."
"I'm rather glad I found you out here alone," began the latter; "it
saves time. I haven't got to take my turn with the rest, in there"--he
indicated the church with his thumb--"and you haven't got to make an
appointment. You have got a clear forty minutes before the Angelus
rings," he added, consulting a large silver chronometer, "and I reckon
I kin git through my part of the job inside of twenty, leaving you ten
minutes for remarks. I want to confess."
Father Pedro drew back with a gesture of dignity. The stranger, however,
laid his hand upon the Padre's sleeve with the air of a man anticipating
objection, but never refusal, and went on.
"Of course, I know. You want me to come at some other time, and in
THERE. You want it in the reg'lar style. That's your way and your time.
My answer is: it ain't MY way and MY time. The main idea of confession,
I take it, is gettin' at the facts. I'm ready to give 'em if you'll
take 'em out here, now. If you're willing to drop the Church and
confessional, and all that sort o' thing, I, on my side, am willing
to give up the absolution, and all that sort o' thing. You might," he
added, with an unconscious touch of pathos in the suggestion, "heave in
a word or two of advice after I get through; for instance, what YOU'D do
in the circumstances, you see! That's all. But that's as you please. It
ain't part of the business."
Irreverent as this speech appeared, there was really no trace of such
intention in his manner, and his evident profound conviction that
his suggestion was practical, and not at all inconsistent with
ecclesiastical dignity, would alone have been enough to touch the Padre,
had not the stranger's dominant personality already overridden him. He
hesitated. The stranger seized the opportunity to take his arm, and lead
him with the half familiarity of powerful protection to a bench beneath
the refectory window. Taking out his watch again, he put it in the
passive hands of the astonished priest, saying, "Time me," cleared his
throat, and began:--
"Fourteen years ago there was a ship cruisin' in the Pacific, jest off
this range, that was ez nigh on to a Hell afloat as anything rigged kin
be. If a chap managed to dodge the cap'en's belayin-pin for a time,
he was bound to be fetched up in the ribs at last by the mate's boots.
There was a chap knocked down the fore hatch with a broken leg in the
Gulf, and another jumped overboard off Cape Corrientes, crazy as a loon,
along a clip of the head from the cap'en's trumpet. Them's facts. The
ship was a brigantine, trading along the Mexican coast. The cap'en
had his wife aboard, a little timid Mexican woman he'd picked up at
Mazatlan. I reckon she didn't get on with him any better than the men,
for she ups and dies one day, leavin' her baby, a year-old gal. One of
the crew was fond o' that baby. He used to get the black nurse to put it
in the dingy, and he'd tow it astern, rocking it with the painter like
a cradle. He did it--hatin' the cap'en all the same. One day the black
nurse got out of the dingy for a moment, when the baby was asleep,
leavin' him alone with it. An idea took hold on him, jest from
cussedness, you'd say, but it was partly from revenge on the cap'en and
partly to get away from the ship. The ship was well inshore, and the
current settin' towards it. He slipped the painter--that man--and set
himself adrift with the baby. It was a crazy act, you'd reckon, for
there wasn't any oars in the boat; but he had a crazy man's luck, and
he contrived, by sculling the boat with one of the seats he tore out, to
keep her out of the breakers, till he could find a bight in the shore
to run her in. The alarm was given from the ship, but the fog shut down
upon him; he could hear the other boats in pursuit. They seemed to close
in on him, and by the sound he judged the cap'en was just abreast of
him in the gig, bearing down upon him in the fog. He slipped out of the
dingy into the water without a splash, and struck out for the breakers.
He got ashore after havin' been knocked down and dragged in four times
by the undertow. He had only one idea then, thankfulness that he had not
taken the baby with him in the surf. You kin put that down for him: it's
a fact. He got off into the hills, and made his way up to Monterey."
"And the child?" asked the Padre, with a sudden and strange asperity
that boded no good to the penitent; "the child thus ruthlessly
abandoned--what became of it?"
"That's just it, the child," assented the stranger, gravely. "Well, if
that man was on his death-bed instead of being here talking to you,
he'd swear that he thought the cap'en was sure to come up to it the
next minit. That's a fact. But it wasn't until one day that he--that's
me--ran across one of that crew in Frisco. 'Hallo, Cranch,' sez he to
me, 'so you got away, didn't you? And how's the cap'en's baby? Grown a
young gal by this time, ain't she?' 'What are you talkin about,' ez I;
'how should I know?' He draws away from me, and sez, 'D--- it,' sez he,
'you don't mean that you' . . . I grabs him by the throat and makes him
tell me all. And then it appears that the boat and the baby were never
found again, and every man of that crew, cap'en and all, believed I had
stolen it."
He paused. Father Pedro was staring at the prospect with an
uncompromising rigidity of head and shoulder.
"It's a bad lookout for me, ain't it?" the stranger continued, in
serious reflection.
"How do I know," said the priest harshly, without turning his head,
"that you did not make away with this child?"
"Beg pardon."
"That you did not complete your revenge by--by--killing it, as your
comrade suspected you? Ah! Holy Trinity," continued Father Pedro,
throwing out his hands with an impatient gesture, as if to take the
place of unutterable thought.
"How do YOU know?" echoed the stranger coldly.
"Yes."
The stranger linked his fingers together and threw them over his knee,
drew it up to his chest caressingly, and said quietly, "Because you DO
know."
The Padre rose to his feet.
"What mean you?" he said, sternly fixing his eyes upon the speaker.
Their eyes met. The stranger's were gray and persistent, with hanging
corner lids that might have concealed even more purpose than they
showed. The Padre's were hollow, open, and the whites slightly brown, as
if with tobacco stains. Yet they were the first to turn away.
"I mean," returned the stranger, with the same practical gravity, "that
you know it wouldn't pay me to come here, if I'd killed the baby, unless
I wanted you to fix things right with me up there," pointing skywards,
"and get absolution; and I've told you THAT wasn't in my line."
"Why do you seek me, then?" demanded the Padre, suspiciously.
"Because I reckon I thought a man might be allowed to confess something
short of a murder. If you're going to draw the line below that--"
"This is but sacrilegious levity," interrupted Father Pedro, turning as
if to go. But the stranger did not make any movement to detain him.
"Have you implored forgiveness of the father--the man you
wronged--before you came here?" asked the priest, lingering.
"Not much. It wouldn't pay if he was living, and he died four years
ago."
"You are sure of that?"
"I am."
"There are other relations, perhaps?"
"None."
Father Pedro was silent. When he spoke again, it was with a changed
voice. "What is your purpose, then?" he asked, with the first indication
of priestly sympathy in his manner. "You cannot ask forgiveness of the
earthly father you have injured, you refuse the intercession of holy
Church with the Heavenly Father you have disobeyed. Speak, wretched man!
What is it you want?"
"I want to find the child."
"But if it were possible, if she were still living, are you fit to seek
her, to even make yourself known to her, to appear before her?"
"Well, if I made it profitable to her, perhaps."
"Perhaps," echoed the priest, scornfully. "So be it. But why come here?"
"To ask your advice. To know how to begin my search. You know this
country. You were here when that boat drifted ashore beyond that
mountain."
"Ah, indeed. I have much to do with it. It is an affair of the
alcalde--the authorities--of your--your police."
"Is it?"
The Padre again met the stranger's eyes. He stopped, with the snuff box
he had somewhat ostentatiously drawn from his pocket still open in his
hand.
"Why is it not, Senor?" he demanded.
"If she lives, she is a young lady by this time, and might not want the
details of her life known to any one."
"And how will you recognize your baby in this young lady?" asked Father
Pedro, with a rapid gesture, indicating the comparative heights of a
baby and an adult.
"I reckon I'll know her, and her clothes too; and whoever found her
wouldn't be fool enough to destroy them."
"After fourteen years! Good! you have faith, Senor--"
"Cranch," supplied the stranger, consulting his watch. "But time's up.
Business is business. Good-by; don't let me keep you."
He extended his hand.
The Padre met it with a dry, unsympathetic palm, as sere and yellow
as the hills. When their hands separated, the father still hesitated,
looking at Cranch. If he expected further speech or entreaty from him he
was mistaken, for the American, without turning his head, walked in
the same serious, practical fashion down the avenue of fig trees, and
disappeared beyond the hedge of vines. The outlines of the mountain
beyond were already lost in the fog. Father Pedro turned into the
refectory.
"Antonio."
A strong flavor of leather, onions, and stable preceded the entrance of
a short, stout vaquero from the little patio.
"Saddle Pinto and thine own mule to accompany Francisco, who will
take letters from me to the Father Superior at San Jose to-morrow at
daybreak."
"At daybreak, reverend father?"
"At daybreak. Hark ye, go by the mountain trails and avoid the highway.
Stop at no posada nor fonda, but if the child is weary, rest then awhile
at Don Juan Briones' or at the rancho of the Blessed Fisherman. Have no
converse with stragglers, least of all those gentile Americanos.
So . . ."
The first strokes of the Angelus came from the nearer tower. With a
gesture Father Pedro waved Antonio aside, and opened the door of the
sacristy.
"Ad Majorem Dei Gloria."
CHAPTER II
The hacienda of Don Juan Briones, nestling in a wooded cleft of the
foot-hills, was hidden, as Father Pedro had wisely reflected, from
the straying feet of travelers along the dusty highway to San Jose. As
Francisco, emerging from the canada, put spurs to his mule at the sight
of the whitewashed walls, Antonio grunted.
"Oh aye, little priest! thou wast tired enough a moment ago, and though
we are not three leagues from the Blessed Fisherman, thou couldst
scarce sit thy saddle longer. Mother of God! and all to see that little
mongrel, Juanita."
"But, good Antonio, Juanita was my play-fellow, and I may not soon again
chance this way. And Juanita is not a mongrel, no more than I am."
"She is a mestiza, and thou art a child of the Church, though this
following of gypsy wenches does not show it."
"But Father Pedro does not object," urged the boy.
"The reverend father has forgotten he was ever young," replied Antonio,
sententiously, "or he wouldn't set fire and tow together."
"What sayest thou, good Antonio?" asked Francisco quickly, opening his
blue eyes in frank curiosity; "who is fire, and who is tow?"
The worthy muleteer, utterly abashed and confounded by this display
of the acolyte's direct simplicity, contented himself by shrugging his
shoulders, and a vague "Quien sabe?"
"Come," said the boy, gayly, "confess it is only the aguardiente of the
Blessed Fisherman thou missest. Never fear, Juanita will find thee some.
And see! here she comes."
There was a flash of white flounces along the dark brown corridor, the
twinkle of satin slippers, the flying out of long black braids, and with
a cry of joy a young girl threw herself upon Francisco as he entered the
patio, and nearly dragged him from his mule.
"Have a care, little sister," laughed the acolyte, looking at Antonio,
"or there will be a conflagration. Am I the fire?" he continued,
submitting to the two sounding kisses the young girl placed upon either
cheek, but still keeping his mischievous glance upon the muleteer.
"Quien sabe?" repeated Antonio, gruffly, as the young girl blushed under
his significant eyes. "It is no affair of mine," he added to himself, as
he led Pinto away. "Perhaps Father Pedro is right, and this young twig
of the Church is as dry and sapless as himself. Let the mestiza burn if
she likes."
"Quick, Pancho," said the young girl, eagerly leading him along the
corridor. "This way. I must talk with thee before thou seest Don Juan;
that is why I ran to intercept thee, and not as that fool Antonio would
signify, to shame thee. Wast thou ashamed, my Pancho?"