Читать книгу Who Would Have Thought It? - María Ruiz de Burton - Страница 9

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"Let me see," said the doctor, looking at the clouds of smoke which, for the first time in the twenty-one years of Mrs. Norval's married life, floated in her bed-chamber, such is gold's power. "We were on our way down the Colorado River, intending to follow its course to its junction with the Gila, or perhaps to the Gulf of California, and we had encamped to take a two days' rest, when we were surrounded by a large party of Indians. We took our arms, and got together to make fight, if necessary, but it was not. The rascally Indians had had enough of shooting just then. They were returning from a fight with an emigrant train and some government troops. The chief and two of his sons were badly wounded, and perhaps would have died if my medicine-chest and my surgical instruments hadn't been so good. The village of the Indians-called rancheria—was only about a mile from our camp, and the chief told me he wished to send for his wife and daughter, and remain in my camp with his two sons, that I might attend to their wounds. I gave the three wounded Indians my tent, and went to share Sinclair's with him. That same evening, after I had dressed the wounds of the chief and his two sons, and was yet busy attending to other warriors answer, who had been winged, Lola and her mother came, accompanied by an Indian woman. The chief told me in broken Spanish, which he and I spoke about alike, that 'Euitelhap'-pointing to Lola's mother was his wife, and had come to take care of him; and said to her, Ña Hala, this is the good man doctor who is going to cure me and my sons, and has already relieved us.' The ña Hala looked at me with a pair of large, mournful eyes, but made no

She evidently did not feel very enthusiastic on the subject of the chief's recovery. The chief, however, seemed to feel the greatest respect for the ña Hala (which, in the language of these Indians, means my lady), and all the Indians the same, obeying her slightest wish. A day or two after, when the wounded Indians were taking their mid-day siesta, the ña Hala, feeling better acquainted, asked me if she could trust me with a secret, and begged me to do her a favor, for the love of God, and for humanity's sake. I answered I would do what I could. Then she told me that her name was Doña Theresa Medina, that she had been carried away from Sonora, in Mexico, ten years ago, and she had never had an opportunity to escape until now; that she had made an oath to the chief not to try to escape, because in that way he would relax his vigilance, and she be enabled to send her little girl away. I told her that she ought to try to regain her liberty, that her oath to the chief could not be binding. She insisted that it was, for she had voluntarily made it; that she did not wish to see her family now, after ten years of such life as had been forced upon her; that she only wished to save her daughter from a similar fate, and then to lie down and die. She said also that she would pay me well if I would take her child away and care for her until I found her family (she told me the name of the place where her family lived in Mexico, but I have forgotten it), and that I must promise to try to find Lola's father. This, of course, I promised her. Then she told me that she had enough gold to fill up those boxes' (pointing to our mess and provision chests), which she would put under my care for Lola, and for me to pay myself for my trouble; that she had the gold in a little ravine not far from the spot where our camp was pitched. At first I could hardly believe what she said; but she did not let me doubt long. That same night she brought me a buckskin bag, which she could hardly carry, full of gold nuggets, and gave them to me, saying she would give me as many more as I wanted if I only would take her child away from among savages and bring her up as a Christian, and educate her myself in case I should not be able to find her father.

"Sinclair and Lebrun had gone down the river on a sort of reconnoissance, and would not be back for a week. So I told the lady that when my companions returned we would make the necessary arrangements to carry Lola away, and the gold she wished to give her, and that she must keep quiet in the mean time. But she was too anxious to wait. Every night, accompanied by her Indian woman, she made four or five trips to the little ravine where she kept her treasure. By the time Sinclair and Lebrun returned, she had transferred nearly half of it, and she and I had packed two of our chests full of gold nuggets, leaving room only to put some specimens of ores and pieces of quartz on the top. As soon as Sinclair and Lebrun came, I took them aside and asked them if they were willing to discontinue our expedition for the present, and make ten thousand dollars each clear of expenses. They said yes, particularly as we were obliged to stop for awhile on account of the freshets. Then I pledged them to secrecy, and told them what Lola's mother had said to me, and of my promise to carry the child away.

"The Indian chief, as well as his two sons, was fast convalescing, and it was advisable to hasten our departure before they were strong enough to give us trouble, whilst Doña Theresa herself was visibly declining in health, and daily becoming more weak and emaciated. The prospect of being forever separated from her child was rapidly killing her, and she knew it full well. But such was the self-sacrificing devotion of that lady, that sick and weak as she felt, with a sinking heart and no hope for herself, she never swerved from her purpose to set her child free, and then, literally, lie down and die. "The day fixed for our departure came.

We had thrown away, unknown to our escort, at night, when everybody was asleep, the greater part of our specimens,-breaking from each, to keep, a small piece, -to make room for the gold. We packed it all in two of our wagons, putting some ores and other traps which we had used in our expedition on the top of the gold, and then we were ready to start.

"I told the chief that, as he was on a fair way to get well, and both of his sons the same, I would now go on my journey down the river; that I would leave him my tent, where he could stay three or four days longer, if he wished. He begged me to remain a few days longer, as he was afraid that ña Hala was very sick. I told him I would see the ña Hala and ascertain whether she required my services.

"That night, about midnight, Sinclair started with the gold and Lola, and all our escort, leaving only Lebrun and Jim with me to follow next morning on horseback.

"When it was scarcely daylight, the Indian woman so devoted to Doña Theresa came to tell me that her mistress had ‘lain down to die,' and wished to see me; that they had both gone with Lola part of the way, and when the ña Hala felt that she had no strength to go farther, they returned, and had just arrived.

"In a miserable Indian hut lay the dying lady. The surroundings were cheerless enough to kill any civilized woman, but the bedclothes, I noticed, were as white as snow, and everything about her was clean and tidy. She smiled when she saw me, and said, ‘Thank God, Lolita is away from those horrid savages! Please do not forget that she must be baptized and brought up a Roman Catholic.' Her voice failed her, and she made a sign that she wished to sit up. We raised her, and, after drinking a little wine I gave her, she said she would like me to make a memorandum of some things she wished to tell me, so that if I ever found her husband, or her father, I would be able to give them news of her, and some idea of her terrible history since she was carried off by the Indians. I told her that Lebrun understood Spanish better than I; and, moreover, being a stenographer, he could take her words down as she spoke them. She was very much pleased at this suggestion, and I called Lebrun to take down her narrative as she told it. Lebrun will send the manuscript as soon as he transcribes it.

"Poor woman! That was a clear case of 'broken heart.' She died of sheer grief, and nothing else."

"But she gave you the diamonds before that?" asked Mrs. Norval.

The doctor looked at her, then arose, and began to undress, without answering.