The Blood of the Conquerors

by Harvey Fergusson

  CHAPTER XIII

  The day after the news of his uncle's murder reached him, Ramon lay on hisbed in his darkened room fully dressed in a new suit of black. He was notill, and anything would have been easier for him than to lie there withnothing to do but to think and to stare at a single narrow sunbeam whichcame through a rent in the window blind. But it was a Mexican custom, oldand revered, for the family of one recently dead to lie upon its beds inthe dark and so to receive the condolences of friends and the consolationsof religion. To disregard this custom would have been most unwise for anambitious young man, and besides, Ramon's mother clung tenaciously to thetraditional Mexican ways, and she would not have tolerated any breach ofthem. At this moment she and her two daughters were likewise lying intheir rooms, clad in new black silk and surrounded by other sorrowingfemales.

  It was so still in the room that Ramon could hear the buzz of a fly in thevicinity of the solitary sunbeam, but from other parts of the house cameoccasional human sounds. One of these was an intermittent howling andwailing from the _placita_. This he knew was the work of two old Mexicanwomen who made their livings by acting as professional mourners. They didnot wait for an invitation but hung about like buzzards wherever there wasa Mexican corpse. Seated on the ground with their black shawls pulled overtheir heads, they wailed with astonishing endurance until the coffin wascarried from the house, when they were sure of receiving a substantialgift from the grateful relatives. Ramon resolved that he would give themten dollars each. He felt sure they had never gotten so much. He wasdetermined to do handsomely in all things connected with the funeral.

  He could also hear faintly a rattle of wagons, foot steps and low humanvoices coming from the front of the house. A peep had shown him thatalready a line of wagons, carriages and buggies half a block long hadformed in the street, and he could hear the arrival of another one everyfew minutes. These vehicles brought the numerous and poor relations of DonDelcasar who lived in the country. All of them would be there by night.Each one of them would come into Ramon's room and sit by his bedside andtake his hand and express sympathy. Some of them would weep and some wouldgroan, although all of them, like himself, were profoundly glad that theDon was dead. Ramon hoped that they would make their expressions brief.And later, he knew, all would gather in the room where the casket restedon two chairs. They would sit in a silent solemn circle about the room,drinking coffee and wine all night. And he would be among them, tryingwith all his might to look properly sad and to keep his eyes open.

  All the time that he lay there in enforced idleness he was longing foraction, his imagination straining forward. At last his chance had come--hischance to have her. And he would have her. He felt sure of it. He was nowa rich man. As soon as the will had been read and he had come into hisown, he would buy a big automobile. He would go to her, he would sweepaway her doubts and hesitations. He would carry her away and marry her.She would be his.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} He closed his eyes and drew his breath in sharply.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}

  But no; he would have to wait {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} a decent interval. And the five thousanddollars must be gotten to Archulera. That was obviously important. Andthere might not be much cash. The Don had never had much ready money. Hemight have to sell land or sheep first. All of these things to be done,and here he lay, staring at the ceiling and listening to the wailing ofold women!

  There was a knock on the door.

  "_Entra!_" he called.

  The door opened softly and a tall, black-robed figure was silhouetted fora moment against the daylight before the door closed again. The blackfigure crossed the room and sat down by the bed, silent save for a faintrustle.

  Although he could not see the face, Ramon knew that this was the priest,Father Lugaria. He knew that Father Lugaria had come to arrange for themass over the body of Don Delcasar. He disliked Father Lugaria, and knewthat the Father disliked him. This mutual antipathy was due to the factthat Ramon seldom went to Church.

  There were others of his generation who showed the same indifferencetoward religion, and this defection of youth was a thing which the Priestsbitterly contested. Ramon was perfectly willing to make a politecompromise with them. If Father Lugaria had been satisfied with anoccasional appearance at early mass, a perfunctory confession now andthen, the two might have been friends. But the Priest made Ramon a specialobject of his attention. He continually went to the Dona Delcasar withcomplaints and that devout woman incessantly nagged her son, holdingbefore him always pictures of the damnation he was courting. Once in awhile she even produced in him a faint twinge of fear--a recrudescence ofthe deep religious feeling in which he was bred--but the feeling wasevanescent. The chief result of these labours on behalf of his soul hadbeen to turn him strongly against the priest who instigated them.

  Father Lugaria seemed all kindness and sympathy now. He sat close besideRamon and took his hand. Ramon could smell the good wine on the man'sbreath, and could see faintly the brightness of his eyes. The grip of thepriest's hand was strong, moist and surprisingly cold. He began to talk inthe low monotonous voice of one accustomed to much chanting, and thisdroning seemed to have some hypnotic quality. It seemed to lull Ramon'smind so that he could not think what he was going to say or do.

  The priest expressed his sympathy. He spoke of the great and good man theDon had been. Slowly, adroitly, he approached the real question at issue,which was how much Ramon would pay for a mass. The more he paid, thelonger the mass would be, and the longer the mass the speedier would bethe journey of the Don's soul through purgatory and into Paradise.

  "O, my little brother in Christ!" droned the priest in his vibrantsing-song, "I must not let you neglect this last, this greatest of thingswhich you can do for the uncle you loved. It is unthinkable of course thathis soul should go to hell--hell, where a thousand demons torture the soulfor an eternity. Hell is for those who commit the worst of sins, sins theydare not lay before God for his forgiveness, secret and terrible sins--sinslike murder. But few of us go through life untouched by sin. The soul mustbe purified before it can enter the presence of its maker.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Doubtless thesoul of your uncle is in purgatory, and to you is given the sweet power tospeed that soul on its upward way.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}

  "Don Delcasar, we all know, killed.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} More than once, doubtless, he tookthe life of a fellow man. But he did it in combat as a soldier, as aservant of the State.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} That is not murder. That would not doom him tohell, which is the special punishment of secret and unforgiven murder.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}But the soul of the Don must be cleansed of these earthly stains.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"

  The strong, cold grip of the priest held Ramon with increasing power. Themonotonous, hypnotic voice went on and on, becoming ever more eloquent andconfident. Father Lugaria was a man of imagination, and the special homeof his imagination was hell. For thirty years he had held despotic swayover the poor Mexicans who made up most of his flock, and had gatheredmuch money for the Church, by painting word-pictures of hell. He was averitable artist of hell. He loved hell. Again and again he digressed fromthe strict line of his argument to speak of hell. With all the vividnessof a thing seen, he described its flames, its fiends, the terrible stinkof burning flesh and the vast chorus of agony that filled it.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} And forsome obscure reason or purpose he always spoke of hell as the specialpunishment of murderers. Again and again in his discourse he coupledmurder and hell.

  Ramon was wearied by strong emotions and a shortness of sleep. His nerveswere overstrung. This ceaseless iteration of hell and murder, murder andhell would drive him crazy, he thought. He wished mightily that the priestwould have done and name his price and go. What was the sense and purposeof this endless babble about hell and murder?{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} A sickening thought struckhim like a blow, leaving him weak. What if old Archulera had confessed tothe priest?

  Well; what if he had? A priest could not testify about what he had heardin
confessional. But a priest might tell some one else.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} O, God! If theman would only go and leave him to think. Hell and murder, murder andhell. The two words beat upon his brain without mercy. He longed tointerrupt the priest and beg him to leave off. But for some reason hecould not. He could not even turn his head and look at the man. The priestwas but a clammy grip that held him and a disembodied voice that spoke ofhell and murder. Had he done murder? And was there a hell? He had longceased to believe in hell, but hell had been real to him as a child. Hismother and his nurse had filled him with the fear of hell. He had beenbred in the fear of hell. It was in his flesh and bones if not in hismind, and the priest had hypnotized his mind. Hell was real to him again.Fear of hell came up from the past which vanishes but is never gone, andgripped him like a great ugly monster. It squeezed a cold sweat out of hisbody and made his skin prickle and his breath come short.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}

  The priest dropped the subject of hell, and spoke again of the mass. Hementioned a sum of money. Ramon nodded his head muttering his assent likea sick man. The grip on his hand relaxed.

  "Good-bye, my little brother," murmured the priest. "May Christ be alwayswith you." His gown rustled across the room and as he opened the door,Ramon saw his face for a moment--a sallow, shrewd face, bedewed with thesweat of a great effort, but wearing a smile of triumphant satisfaction.

  Ramon lay sick and exhausted. It seemed to him that there was no air inthe room. He was suffocating. His body burned and prickled. He rose andtore loose his collar. He must get out of this place, must have air andmovement.

  It was dusk now. The wailing of the old women had ceased. Doubtless theywere being rewarded with supper. He began stripping off his clothes--hiswhite shirt and his new suit of black. Eagerly rummaging in the closet hefound his old clothes, which he wore on his trips to the mountains.

  In the dim light he slipped out of the house, indistinguishable from anyMexican boy that might have been about the place. He saddled the littlemare in the corral, mounted and galloped away--through Old Town, whereskinny dogs roamed in dark narrow streets and men and women sat and smokedin black doorways--and out upon the valley road. There he spurred his marewithout mercy, and they flew over the soft dust. The rush of the air inhis face, and the thud and quiver of living flesh under him wereinfinitely sweet.

  He stopped at last five miles from town on the bank of the river. It was aswift muddy river, wandering about in a flood plain a quarter of a milewide, and at this point chewing noisily at a low bank forested withscrubby cottonwoods.

  Dismounting, he stripped and plunged into the river. It was only threefeet deep, but he wallowed about in it luxuriously, finding great comfortin the caress of the cool water, and of the soft fine sand upon the bottomwhich clung about his toes and tickled the soles of his feet. Then heclimbed out on the bank and stood where the breeze struck him, rubbing thewater off of his slim strong body with the flats of his hands.

  When he had put on his clothes, he indulged his love of lying flat on theground, puffing a cigarette and blowing smoke at the first stars. Ahunting owl flitted over his head on muffled wing; a coyote yapped in thebushes; high up in the darkness he heard the whistle of pinions as a flockof early ducks went by.

  He took the air deeply into his lungs and stretched out his legs. In thisplace fear of hell departed from his mind as some strong liquors evaporatewhen exposed to the open air. The splendid healthy animal in him was againdominant, and it could scarcely conceive of death and had nothing more todo with hell than had the owl and the coyote that killed to live. Here hefelt at peace with the earth beneath him and the sky above. But onethought came to disturb him and it was also sweet--the thought of a woman,her eyes full of promise, the curve of her mouth.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} She was waiting forhim, she would be his. That was real.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Hell was a dream.

  He saw now the folly of his fears about Archulera, too. Archulera neverwent to church. There was no danger that he would ever confess to any one.And even if he did, he could scarcely injure Ramon. For Ramon had done nowrong. He had but promised an old man his due, righted an ancient wrong.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}He smiled.

  Slowly he mounted and rode home, filled with thoughts of the girl, to puton his mourning clothes and take his decorous place in the circle thatwatched his uncle's bier.