Читать книгу The Rose Dawn - Stewart Edward White - Страница 4

COLONEL RICHARD PEYTON stepped to the edge of his veranda and looked up into the early morning through the branches of his over-arching live oak trees. He was very proud of those trees, for they were taller and more wide spread and branchy than any other live oaks in Arguello County; and that is saying a good deal. In fact so impressive were they that the Colonel had named the five or six acres they occupied Cathedral Oaks, thus placing them apart in all minds from the Rancho de la Corona del Monte, which was the Colonel's real property. Every morning thus the Colonel stepped early to his veranda's edge and looked up. And every morning something mysterious of the new day came down and met his spirit; whether it was a sound, as the low soft cooing of mourning doves; or a scent, as of something released by the dampness of fog or dew or the winter rains; or a sight, as of the slant of golden or sliver light, or a solemn belated owl, or the sailing of slow clouds down the wind. These things he absorbed, and they grew into his subconsciousness, and thus became part of him, so that at last he rose to a mild scorn of all who did not likewise arise betimes.

"By Godfrey, Allie!" he would cry to his plump, bright-eyed, alert little wife, as he strode around the breakfast table to kiss her ceremonially. "I cannot understand these slug-abeds! They miss the best of the day!"

And then he would seat himself across the table and beam about. The dining room thereupon resumed its natural size; ​for as long as the Colonel was afoot it became much smaller than even its actual and modest dimensions. The Colonel was not over six feet, and he was slender; but he had presence. Everything except the Cathedral Oaks and the Sierra del Sur seemed rather undersized when he was around—and, they only just fitted. As a matter of fact the ranch house, when analyzed right down and stripped of its vines and its coco-matting and its big pink seashells and its wonderful haircloth mahogany and its doilies and stuffed birds and steel engravings and traditions and such matters, would have turned out to be merely a rather small one-storied board-and-batten structure with a wide veranda running all the way around it, set comfortably amid the huge live oaks. It took a very clear-headed man to do this analysis. I know of two only; and they made their discovery with considerable surprise.

But this particular morning of one spring of the eighties was an especial occasion. The Colonel did not, as was his usual custom, take a look at his oaks and his green half moon of lawn with its border of plumbago and geraniums and other bright flowers, glance down the perspective of his avenue of palms that led to the distant Camino Real, breathe deeply of the sparkling morning air, and so return to his table. On this one day were the most important matters afoot. It was Allie's birthday, and on that anniversary the Rancho de la Corona del Monte—hereafter, except on ceremonial occasions, let us call it, like the rest of the country, Corona del Monte for short—turned itself inside out and had the biggest barbecue picnic of the year. So the Colonel put on his low-crowned, wide-brimmed Stetson and took his way around the corner of the house.

The Colonel, as has been said, was tall and slender. Beneath his Stetson his clean-shaven face with its hawknose and kindly eyes looked remarkably young and vigorous. Yet on closer inspection you could not have missed the network of fine quizzical lines that seamed his countenance; nor the delightful winter-apple quality in the colour of his lean ruddy cheeks; nor the calm, lofty dignified set of the mouth as in the portraits of Washington, Franklin, and their compeers, which means not so much loftiness of soul as lack of teeth. No, the Colonel was getting on. You ​never would have suspected it from the movements of his long figure in its black frock coat. The Colonel never suspected it at all. No one had told him, not even life itself.

He moved around to the back of the house, humming something quite tuneless under his breath. On his way he did a number of little things of which he was not fully aware. He plucked successively leaves of the bay, the camphor tree, and sweet geranium, rolled them in the palms of his hands and inhaled their aroma; he took off the cover of the olla—the earthen evaporation jar hanging from a tree—and inspected its supply of cool drinking water; he pulled up a number of weeds from the brilliant flower borders and concealed them carefully beneath the shrubbery; a flaming humming bird poised buzzing in front of his face—he held motionless until the little creature had darted away. None of these things could he have repeated to you. A modern psychologist would have told you they were products of his subliminal. Manuelo, ranch foreman, at present superintending the preparations for the barbecue, would have shrugged his shoulders and said:

"Eet is the señor. He ees like that."

Same thing.

But near the kitchen door the Colonel awakened from this sauntering, buzzing happy dreaming. In the course of his progress hung the substitute of that day and place for the modern icebox—a framework covered with layers of burlap over which water constantly sprayed. The evaporation lowered the temperature. This contraption possessed, of course, a door; and the Colonel's hand reached for it, as his hand had reached for the fragrant herbages or the cover of the olla. And then the alarm bell of his mind rang violently. The Colonel withdrew his hand as from a red hot iron, and looked about him with a comically guilty air. None too soon. Almost on the instant the back porch screen door opened behind him.

"Good morning, Sing Toy," said the Colonel.

"You wan' blekfus?" demanded Sing Toy.

"Presently. Pretty soon," said the Colonel, managing a dignified retreat. He did not hasten his steps; yet one psychically endowed would have said he hastened. The expression of ​the calm, bland white-clad Chinaman on the doorstep was as blank as still water; yet the sensitive would have distinguished accusation and reproof. Sing Toy had a queue, as did all the Chinamen of those days. It was almost as expressive in some ways as a dog's tail. The rest of Sing Toy remained as immovable as a bronze Buddha, but the tip of his queue wriggled ever so slightly, and in some subtle manner disapproval of all who investigated his domain overcast the day.

Thus roused the Colonel stepped out more briskly. He passed the large stables and their neatly whitewashed corral fences with hardly more than a glance, opened two big swing gates and proceeded with brisk steps between a double row of small houses toward another group of live oaks beyond it and atop a small, flat hill.

But he was not to be permitted to pass unchecked. A bevy of very small brown children swooped down on him noisily, came to a dead halt and an equally dead silence a few paces from him and stared, round-eyed and expectant. They were very handsome children, somewhat grimy, with sketchy garments and bare feet. The Colonel thrust his hands behind the coat-tails of his frock coat and contemplated them gravely. They stared back without either embarrassment or impertinence.

"Buenos dias, niños," observed the Colonel at last.

"Buenas dias, Don Ricardo!" returned the little group in chorus.

From this point you are to consider the Colonel as speaking in the soft and beautiful language of California, with a deepening and mellowing of his natural manner. The Colonel continued to survey them for some moments, his blue eyes twinkling, the fine network of lines deepening. The children stared back.

"I will wish you good day," said the Colonel at last, moving as though to pass.

The great soft Spanish eyes about him clouded with dismay, the red full lips drooped at the corners, but the polite chorus came bravely back:

"God be with you, señor."

The Colonel laughed aloud, thrust his hand in his coat-tail ​pocket, and brought it forth filled with little hard peppermint lozenges. These he distributed, one to each, receiving a succession of staid "muchas gracias, señor." He continued his walk. The children, sucking ecstatically at the fiery sweetmeat, fell gravely in behind. Some lank black-and-tan hounds stretched at full length in the dust rapped vigorously with thick tails—thus raising a smudge—; arose and shook themselves—thus raising another; and trailed along, too.

Half way up the gentle slope that led to the second grove of live oaks the Colonel was met by a very lean, dark saturnine man with long, drooping moustaches and deep, vertical muscle-lines running across his countenance. He too wore the low-crowned Stetson with the addition of a woven, horsehair band. As to the rest of his costume, he affected the modern rather than the traditional, although he was evidently pure Spanish. That is to say, he wore a vest but no coat, and tucked his striped trousers into soft-legged, high-heeled boots. His shirt sleeves, however, were bound by very frilly pink elastic bands with huge rosettes; his waist was encircled by a leather belt studded with conchas of silver; at his heels clanked loose spurs of great size, inlaid with silver, jingling with little clappers at the rowels, strapped with broad carved leather, ornamented at the buttons with silver conchas fully two inches across. A picturesque enough figure to satisfy any small boy, even though he carried no traditional "gun," nor wore traditional chaparejos—"chaps." This was Manuelo, major domo, after the Colonel the most important figure on del Monte.

He swept his hat from his head; the Colonel raised his Stetson. Formal and stately greetings were exchanged according to the formulae in use among the Spanish. They fell in step and continued up the hill.

"All is in order, señor?" the Colonel asked.

"All is in order, señor," assured Manuelo. "It was a matter of anxiety that young Juan had not returned with the pepper sauce promised us by the Doña Paredis. There is no pepper sauce like that of the Doña Paredis."

"That is true, señor," observed the Colonel.

"But happily he has returned at dawn. Why inquire? ​Here is the pepper sauce of the Doña Paredis delivered—Bright eyes or bright wine, señor; who knows?"

"And to leave either at dawn," said the Colonel, "is both penance and testimony of a soul devoted to duty in spite of all."

"Or a late remembrance that he must meet Manuelo," added that worthy, a little grimly. "But here are matters for your inspection, Don Ricardo."

Beneath the wide spreading branches of the live oak tree had been built row after row of long board tables flanked by benches. These were evidently of long past date, for their lumber was browned and weather stained. But already they were partly concealed by pyramids of fruit cunningly heaped, by batteries of cutlery and tin plates and cups, by long loaves of bread, by tin pans full of walnuts and almonds, by bottles and glasses of condiments and jellies. A number of young girls and older children were darting here and there with armfuls of flowers which they arranged artfully still further to hide the brown planks—brodea, the great white Matilija poppies, Mariposa lilies, branches of mountain lilac, and above all great quantities of glowing golden-orange California poppies, like morsels of sunset entrapped. A very fat Californian woman sat on one of the benches and directed these activities. She had smooth, shining black hair, and a smooth, shining brown countenance, and beautiful black eyes from which unexpectedly youth peered.

"The tables are beautiful, señora," said the Colonel.

"Ay de mi," sighed the fat woman. "These children—they know not the old arrangements of flowers. When I was a young girl——"

"The caballeros gave you little time for flowers, señora, that I'll wager. It must be so, for never have I seen the tables better than to-day."

Señora Manuelo raised her fan from her lap to her face. The change was startling. The lower grosser part of her countenance was covered. Only were visible the slumberous youthful eyes, the smooth brow, the shining black parted hair. Returned for a magic moment was all the beauty of her youth. The Colonel bowed in farewell, shaking his head slightly.

​"No, never time for flowers, señora; for men are not blind."

Two of the tables at the end were covered with white table-cloths, and furnished out with china and glassware and silver. This was for the Colonel's personal guests as distinguished from the ranch retainers and those of his neighbours. Here two pretty girls were engaged, selecting from some wash tubs of roses. They were very pretty in a soft young rounded fashion, with the lustrous, dreamy eyes and shining hair of their race. Not yet had they begun to ape the complexities of the American toilette. Their rather full, curved young figures were clad in plain white starched muslin, and their hair was parted smoothly and confined in the back by high fan-shaped combs. Each had thrust one of the roses intended for the decorations over her left ear. I regret to say also that each had plastered on an inordinate quantity of white powder; but that was the custom. At the Colonel's approach with Manuelo they ceased their ativities and stood side by side.

"The table is most beautiful," said the Colonel.

"Si, señor," they bobbed together, breathlessly.

"You have plenty of roses?"

"Si, señor."

"Do you enjoy yourselves at the merienda?"

"Si, señor."

The Colonel surveyed them quizzically. They were very correct, very respectful, very much in earnest to do the right thing before the master of the Rancho. His hand sought his coat-tail pocket.

"Did you ever see anything like that before?" he demanded, holding up one of his peppermint lozenges.

They looked at each other, and their hands groped for each other seeking encouragement at so embarrassing a question.

"Señorita Ynez Calderon, and you, Señorita Dolores Ygnacio," said the Colonel, "you are a pair of solemn frauds. You treat me, me, as though I were the holy father and the blessed San Antonio and a total stranger, all in one. And last year," he turned to the saturnine Manuelo, "last year, mind you, they stood before me barefoot, in camisa only, and begged me for these!" Again he held up the peppermint.

​The girls dissolved toward one another in horrified protest.

"Oh, Señor! Oh, Don Ricardo! Not last year! Many years ago! We are doñas grown these five years!"

The Colonel bore down on them, bowed low, and bending forward in his most courtly fashion stopped their protests by thrusting between their lips one apiece of the celebrated peppermints. Then he bowed again gravely and turned away, leaving them giggling, their dignity all gone.

The two men now approached the heart and centre of all this activity. Behind three tables of a construction more substantial than those just visited was enclosed a large open space. Here several fires were burning. Over some of these fires kettles had been suspended. Others had been built under grills or grates, and were being plied with oak and willow fuel in order to establish beds of coals. The pits had been heated, and even now contained the bull's head, the huge joints, and the mutton of the main barbecue. All this was presided over by a very sleek, stout good-looking Californian, who was perspiring freely even thus early, and who wore a look of busyness, responsibility, and care evidently out of his usual character. He seemed to have two official assistants—young swarthy chaps: at least, two young men of the many present seemed to be doing something. One was whetting a finishing edge to a pile of long, thin butcher knives. The other was mixing something in a bowl. Of the rest a few squatted about on their heels, staring rather vacantly and in general at the preparations; a few more seemed engrossed in some sort of game about a blanket; but most were, though idle, very much interested in what was passing—especially girls. Two of them had guitars on which they strummed as a sort of sweet and plaintive undertone to their conversation. Every few moments they, or two or three of the others, or even all the group together, would catch a few bars of the lilt and sing it forth full voiced—a few bars only, so that it seemed almost as though a passing breeze had lifted and let fall melody. To one side, on rough trestles, rested two aromatic barrels. A single old one-eyed man sat on a camp stool by them. Two laughing youths, their hands on each other's shoulders, stood before him.

​"Not one drop, José, most worthy José, when we tell you that our throats are dry from the telling of your praises? And see, we have ridden across the arroyo trail since last evening. It is a long ride, as you well know. Ours is not a case like all of these others. If Don Ricardo were to know of us he would instantly command us refreshments."

"He can easily know of it. Tell him yourself. Here he comes," growled José, with considerable relish.

The two youths took one glance of consternation over their shoulders and fairly ran right and left like scattered quail, pursued by delighted laughter from all those who had heard.

After a word with the grim old guardian of the wine, the Colonel passed to the open-air kitchen. The young men instantly arose to their feet, offered and received a stately greeting, and as instantly slid back into their strenuous occupations.

"How is the meat, Benito?" the Colonel asked the cook. "Does it meet with your approval? Will it be worthy of our guests and of your skill?"

Benito's smooth, brown moon-face took on an expression of ludicrously painful consideration.

"The beef, Don Ricardo," he replied, "is the best we have had since the year when the blessed Virgin sent the October rains. Especially is that true of the roasting beef; which is, of course, as it should be. But the mutton——" he turned half away in an eloquent movement, as though abandoning the whole question in despair.

"The mutton is as good as the beef," struck in Manuelo. "I myself gave orders for it to come from the hills on Los Quitos. I myself saw it both before and after killing. The mutton is good."

"It is undoubtedly as the Señor says," replied Benito politely, conveying quite the opposite opinion.

"We have good mutton at Los Quitos," said the Colonel, "and both Mariano and Manuelo should know how to select. What is the matter with this, Benito?"

"The mutton is good, I do not deny, Señor. It is in prime condition, it is tender. But the mutton of the Island is better. There is a flavour, very faint to be sure, but which one can ​distinguish—it would have been better to have brought the Island sheep, as always, instead of going afield to this Los Quitos——"

"Fortunately we have Benito with his knowledge of the old days to make up the difference, " said the Colonel. "This rascal Benito," he addressed the saturnine Manuelo, "would be relieved of all trouble. He could make a delicious carne of a burro."

The Colonel's little convoy had by now succumbed to various temptations and had scattered. Only remained to him Manuelo and two solemn hounds. The former he dismissed. The latter accompanied him on his return journey.

At the edge of the live oak grove he stopped for a moment and looked abroad, removing his Stetson to allow the wandering breeze to play across his high, narrow forehead and to lift his rather long, silky white hair. Beyond the village of his retainers, beyond the wide low barns and sheds and the whitewashed corrals, beyond the green of the Cathedral Oaks, spread the broad acres of the Rancho. Hill after low hill they rolled, oak dotted like a park, green with the grasses of an abundant year or washed bravely with the brilliant colour of flower-masses as though a gigantic brush had been swept across the slopes. At last they climbed into foothills, and then into the milky slate of mountain ramparts against the sun. But the Colonel knew that they climbed those ramparts and descended part way the other side—thirty thousand of them, these acres. In the opposite direction, across the flat of the valley, across the King's Highway, across the waving of a broad tule marsh, was yet another low rim of hills, also oak-dotted like a park. And over their crest the Colonel could make out a flash which was the sea. Beneath the oaks it was safe to vision the cattle slowly gathering for shade—the Colonel's cattle: and he could only have guessed at the number of them. Up in those sagebrush hills shining gray, up in the chaparral, of the rampart mountains, sheep were moving slowly like something molten that flows—the Colonel's sheep.

As the Colonel stood his eye rested on only two evidences of human occupation other than his own. Against the base of a ​hill five miles away—or ten—one could not tell, the air was so diamond clear—amid the green of trees gleamed white buildings. These were of the Rancho de las Flores belonging to the Colonel's friend and neighbour, Don Vincente Cazadero. At one time the Rancho de la Corona del Monte had also belonged to Don Vincente, indeed the two properties had been part of the same original grant, but there had been various perplexing matters of borrowings, and extravagance and mortgages and some disputed titles and squatters and a whole host of vexatious stinging little matters. It seemed on the whole simpler to get rid of them at a bite. The bite was Del Monte. Las Flores still comprised forty thousand acres; and Don Vincente and the Colonel had become in the course of thirty years wonderful cronies. So that was all right. The second evidence of human occupation was nearer at hand, in fact a scant half-mile distant. It was a brown little house, and it lay half hidden in the entrance to a cañon. Nothing much but the roof could be distinguished. This was the property of a man named Brainerd and, with its hundred and sixty acres, had once belonged to Del Monte. The Colonel had sold it, right from the heart of his own property, and it was the only bit of original Del Monte not still in his hands. The story is too long to tell here. But Brainerd was a gentleman, and a "lunger," and a widower, and the father of a little girl, and down on his luck, and proud enough to struggle for appearances, and intelligent, and a number of similar matters. To clinch matters he had read and could moderately quote Moby Dick. This seemed at the time of his coming the only available land. Indeed, with the sea on one side, the Sur mountains on the other, the rich walnut and orange farms occupying the third, and Del Monte and Las Flores on the fourth, the little town of Arguello might be said to be pretty well surrounded. To be sure, there were the sagebrush foothills of the Sur, but they were dry, desert, fit only for sheep and quail. Take it all around, a man of moderate means, ordered to live in Arguello valley if he would live at all, would be puzzled to find a little ranch unless he went far out. Then the Colonel happened along. Somehow Brainerd found himself in the little brown house.

​But if the Colonel had cared to turn around he could have seen the houses of Arguello only a mile away, with the white Mission on the hill, and again the gleam of the sea, where the coast swept back almost at right angles to form the harbour.

The Colonel did not turn around, however. He stood there straight and slim in his long frock coat, with his fine, lean, kindly old face raised to the sun. and the breeze, and his white hair stirring softly. The sky was very blue, and in its deeps swung buzzards in wide, stately circles. The air was warm and fragrant, and on it floated the clear liquid songs of the meadow larks and the quick buzzy notes of the quail. The sun's warmth fell softly like an essence in suspension, and the Colonel seemed to himself to be soaking it into his physical being as though it were indeed an ethereal, permeating substance. And the Colonel in his simple old heart found it good and thanked his God.

But now on a sudden he waked as though he had been called, and with an appearance of almost guilty haste he strode down the hill. The two hounds, who had been patiently awaiting his pleasure, yawned, stretched and followed after. The Colonel walked briskly around the house to the front door. To the handle of the bell-pull hung a turkey-feather duster as though left by a careless housemaid. It was there a-purpose, however, as it was there on all the bell-pulls in Southern California; and the Colonel put it to its appointed use on his boots.

He crossed the little hallway in two strides and entered the dining room.

His wife Allie sat already at table behind a silver coffee service beneath which burned an alcohol lamp. She was a small, plump, merry looking woman, with black hair in which appeared no thread of white. Her dress was of heavy fine black silk, relieved with white lace. Its cut was very plain and old-fashioned, but possessed a chic of its own that placed Allie definitely above the class of commonplace, small plump women. Her air was of brisk, amused tolerance, with a background of fine competence. Though she did not wear a bunch of keys at her girdle, one felt that it would have been symbolically appro​priate for her to have done so. She raised her face for the Colonel's gallant kiss.

"You are very late this morning, Richard," she remarked.

"There was much to attend to. You remember this is a very important day."

The Colonel sat across the table, but immediately arose to set aside a cut-glass bowl of magnificent red roses that had filled the centre of the table.

"I would rather see you, dear, than the most beautiful roses in the world," he answered Allie's murmured protest.

He attacked the sliced oranges before him. A door opened noiselessly to admit the soft-footed Chinaman, bearing a laden tray. He stood waiting. The Colonel dallied with his fruit, telling Allie interestedly his morning adventure, pausing often with his spoon between plate and mouth.

"You eat fluit," broke in the Chinaman finally. "You stop talkee talkee, eat blekfus."

"Well, I declare, Sing Toy!" cried the Colonel.

But Sing Toy, secure in the righteousness of his attitude, budged not one inch from it.

"Belly late," he pointed out without excitement. "You walkee walkee, no catch blekfus, you catch headache. I know." He spoke from the profound empirical wisdom of years of service, in this family; and therefore he spoke in confidence. The Colonel collapsed and meekly devoured his orange. Sing Toy changed the plates and served the food. His calm eye swept the dining room masterfully.

"You change your nightgown," he told Allie, and left the room.

"I swear that Chinaman will drive me beyond bounds!" cried the Colonel.

"He merely meant the laundry boy was going to begin the week's wash to-day," chuckled Allie, placidly. "I am only thankful that he did not say it before our guests. You know perfectly well, Richard, what a faithful dear old thing he is."

"I suppose so," muttered the Colonel, "still——"

Sing Toy thrust his pig-tailed head through the door.

​"Hot day, "he announced. "Cunnel go catch thin coat. That one too thick. I fix um on bed. You go puttum on."