LA PERDIDA
On her fourteenth birthday they had married her to an old man, and atsixteen she had met and loved a fire-hearted young vaquero. The oldhusband had twisted his skinny fingers around her arm and dragged herbefore the Alcalde, who had ordered her beautiful black braids cut closeto her neck, and sentenced her to sweep the streets. Carlos, the tempterof that childish unhappy heart, was flung into prison. Such were law andjustice in California before the Americans came.
The haughty elegant women of Monterey drew their mantillas more closelyabout their shocked faces as they passed La Perdida sweeping the dirtinto little heaps. The soft-eyed girls, lovely in their white orflowered gowns, peered curiously through the gratings of their homes atthe "lost one," whose sin they did not understand, but whose sad faceand sorry plight appealed to their youthful sympathies. The caballeros,dashing up and down the street, and dazzling in bright silken jackets,gold embroidered, lace-trimmed, the sun reflected in the silver of theirsaddles, shot bold admiring glances from beneath their sombreros. No onespoke to her, and she asked no one for sympathy.
She slept alone in a little hut on the outskirts of the town. With thedawn she rose, put on her coarse smock and black skirt, made herself atortilla, then went forth and swept the streets. The children mocked hersometimes, and she looked at them in wonder. Why should she be mocked orpunished? She felt no repentance; neither the Alcalde nor her husbandhad convinced her of her sin's enormity; she felt only bitter resentmentthat it should have been so brief. Her husband, a blear-eyed crippledold man, loathsome to all the youth and imagination in her, had beatenher and made her work. A man, young, strong, and good to look upon, hadcome and kissed her with passionate tenderness. Love had meant to herthe glorification of a wretched sordid life; a green spot and a patch ofblue sky in the desert. If punishment followed upon such happiness,must not the Catholic religion be all wrong in its teachings? Must notpurgatory follow heaven, instead of heaven purgatory?
She watched the graceful girls of the wealthy class flit to and fro onthe long corridors of the houses, or sweep the strings of the guitarbehind their gratings as the caballeros passed. Watchful old women werealways near them, their ears alert for every word. La Perdida thankedGod that she had had no duena.
One night, on her way home, she passed the long low prison where herlover was confined. The large crystal moon flooded the red-tiled roofprojecting over the deep windows and the shallow cells. The light sweetmusic of a guitar floated through iron bars, and a warm voice sang:--
"Adios, adios, de ti al ausentarme, Para ir en poz de mi fatal estrella, Yo llevo grabada tu imagen bella, Aqui en mi palpitante corazon.
"Pero aunque lejos de tu lado me halle No olvides, no, que por tu amor deliro Enviame siquiera un suspiro, Que de consuelo, a mi alma en su dolor.
"Y de tu pecho la emocion sentida Llegue hasta herir mi lacerado oido, Y arranque de mi pecho dolorido Un eco que repita, adios! adios!"
La Perdida's blood leaped through her body. Her aimless hands struck thespiked surface of a cactus-bush, but she never knew it. When the songfinished, she crept to the grating and looked in.
"Carlos!" she whispered.
A man who lay on the straw at the back of the cell sprang to his feetand came forward.
"My little one!" he said. "I knew that song would bring thee. I beggedthem for a guitar, then to be put into a front cell." He forced hishands through the bars and gave her life again with his strong warmclasp.
"Come out," she said.
"Ay! they have me fast. But when they do let me out, nina, I will takethee in my arms; and whosoever tries to tear thee away again will havea dagger in his heart. Dios de mi vida! I could tear their flesh fromtheir bones for the shame and the pain they have given thee, thou poorlittle innocent girl!"
"But thou lovest me, Carlos?"
"There is not an hour I am not mad for thee, not a corner of my heartthat does not ache for thee! Ay, little one, never mind; life is long,and we are young."
She pressed nearer and laid his hand on her heart.
"Ay!" she said, "life is long."
"Holy Mary!" he cried. "The hills are on fire!"
A shout went up in the town. A flame, midway on the curving hills,leaped to the sky, narrow as a ribbon, then swept out like a fan. Themoon grew dark behind a rolling pillar of smoke. The upcurved arms ofthe pines were burnt into a wall of liquid shifting red. The caballerossprang to their horses, and driving the Indians before them, fled to thehills to save the town. The indolent women of Monterey mingled theirscreams with the shrill cries of the populace and the hoarse shouts oftheir men. The prison sentries stood to their posts for a few moments;then the panic claimed them, and they threw down their guns and ran withthe rest to the hills.
Carlos gave a cry of derision and triumph. "My little one, our hour hascome! Run and find the keys."
The big bunch of keys had been flung hastily into a corner. A momentlater Carlos held the shaking form of the girl in his powerful arms.Slender and delicate as she was, she made no protest against thefierceness of that embrace.
"But come," he said. "We have only this hour for escape. When we aresafe in the mountains--Come!"
He lifted her in his arms and ran down the crooked street to a corralwhere an hidalgo kept his finest horses. Carlos had been the vaquero ofthe band. The iron bars of the great doors were down--only one horse wasin the corral; the others had carried the hidalgo and his friends to thefire. The brute neighed with delight as Carlos flung saddle and aquerainto place, then, with La Perdida in his arms, sprang upon its back. Thevaquero dug his spurs into the shining flanks, the mustang reared, shookhis small head and silver mane, and bounded through the doors.
A lean, bent, and wiry thing darted from the shadows and hung upon thehorse's neck. It was the husband of La Perdida, and his little brownface looked like an old walnut.
"Take me with thee!" he cried. "I will give thee the old man'sblessing," and, clinging like a crab to the neck of the gallopingmustang, he drove a knife toward the heart of La Perdida. The bladeturned upon itself as lightning sometimes does, and went through stringytissues instead of fresh young blood.
Carlos plucked the limp body from the neck of the horse and flung itupon a cactus-bush, where it sprawled and stiffened among the spikes andthe blood-red flowers. But the mustang never paused; and as the firesdied on the hills, the mountains opened their great arms and shelteredthe happiness of two wayward hearts.
The Splendid Idle Forties: Stories of Old California Page 8