CHAPTER XI
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY AND THE TWENTIETH
It was the second day after Pesquiera's challenge that his rival wascalled to Santa Fe, the capital of the State, to hold a conference withhis lawyers about the progress of the suit of ouster against thoseliving on the Moreno grant. Gordon knew how acute was the feeling of theresidents of the valley against him. The Corbetts, whose homestead wasnot included in either the original Valdes or Moreno grant, reporteddaily to him whatever came to their ears. He could see that theimpression was strong among the Mexicans that their champion, Dona Mariaas they called her, would be worsted in the courts if the issue evercame to final trial.
To live under the constant menace of an attack from ambush is a strainupon the best of nerves. Dick and his friend Davis rode out of thevalley to meet the Santa Fe stage with a very sensible relief. For a fewdays, anyhow, they would be back where they could see the old Stars andStripes flutter, where feudal retainers and sprouts of Spanisharistocracy were not lying in wait with fiery zeal to destroy theAmerican interloper.
They reached the little city late, but soon after sunup Gordon rose,took a bath, dressed, and strolled out into the quaint old town whichlays claim to being the earliest permanent European settlement in thecountry. It was his first visit to the place, and as he poked his noseinto out of the way corners Dick found every step of his walkinteresting.
Through narrow, twisted streets he sauntered, along unpaved roadsbounded by century-old adobe houses. His walk took him past the SanMiguel Church, said to be the oldest in America. A chubby-faced littlepriest was watering some geraniums outside, and he showed Dick throughthe mission, opening the door of the church with one of a bunch of largekeys which hung suspended from his girdle. The little man went throughthe usual patter of the guide with the facility of long practice.
The church was built, he said, in 1540, though Bandelier inaccuratelysets the date much later. The roof was destroyed by the Pueblo Indiansin 1680 during an attack upon the settlement, at which time theinhabitants took refuge within the mission walls. These are from threeto five feet thick. The arrows of the natives poured through thewindows. The senor could still see the holes in the pictures, could henot? Penuelo restored the church in 1710, as could be read by theinscription carved upon the gallery beam. It would no doubt interest thesenor to know that one of the paintings was by Cimabue, done in 1287,and that the seven hundred pound bell was cast in Spain during the year1356 and had been dragged a thousand miles across the deserts of the newworld by the devoted pioneer priests who carried the Cross to the simplenatives of that region.
Gordon went blinking out of the San Miguel mission into a world thatbasked indolently in a pleasant glow of sunshine. It seemed to him thathere time had stood still. This impression remained with him during histramp back to the hotel. He passed trains of faggot-laden burros, drivenby Mexicans from Tesuque and by Indians from adjoining villages, thelittle animals so packed around their bellies with firewood that theyreminded him of caricatures of beruffed Elizabethan dames of the oldendays.
Surely this old town, which seemed to be lying in a peaceful siesta forcenturies unbroken, was an unusual survival from the buried yesterdaysof history. It was hard to believe, for instance, that the Governor'sPalace, a long one-story adobe structure stretching across one entireside of the plaza, had been the active seat of so much turbulent andtragic history, that for more than three hundred years it had beenoccupied continuously by Spanish, Mexican, Indian, and Americangovernors. Its walls had echoed the noise of many a bloody siege andhidden many an execution and assassination. From this building the oldSpanish cavaliers Onate and Vicente de Salivar and Penalosa set out ontheir explorations. From it issued the order to execute forty-eightPueblo prisoners upon the plaza in front. Governor Armijo had herepenned his defiance to General Kearney, who shortly afterward nailedupon the flagpole the Stars and Stripes. The famous novel "Ben Hur" waswritten in one of these historic rooms.
But the twentieth century had leaned across the bridge of time to shakehands with the sixteenth. A new statehouse had been built after thefashion of new Western commonwealths, and the old Palace was now givenover to curio stores and offices. Everywhere the new era compromisedwith the old. He passed the office of the lawyer he had come to consult,and upon one side of the sign ran the legend:
+---------------------------------+ | Despacho | | de | | Thomas M. Fitt, Licendiado. | +---------------------------------+
Upon the other he read an English translation:
+---------------------------------+ | Law Office | | of | | Thomas M. Fitt, Attorney. | +---------------------------------+
Plainly the old civilization was beginning to disappear before an alert,aggressive Americanism.
At the hotel the modern spirit became so pronounced during breakfast,owing to the conversation of a shoe and a dress-goods drummer at anadjoining table, that Gordon's imagination escaped from the tramp ofSpanish mailclad cavalry and from thoughts of the plots and counterplotsthat had been devised in the days before American occupancy.
In the course of the morning Dick, together with Davis, called at theoffice of his attorney. Thomas M. Fitt, a bustling little man with arather pompous manner, welcomed his client effusively. He had beenappointed local attorney in charge by Gordon's Denver lawyers, and hewas very eager to make the most of such advertising as his connectionwith so prominent a case would bring.
He washed the backs of his hands with the palms as he bowed his visitorsto chairs.
"I may say that the case is progressing favorably--very favorablyindeed, Mr. Gordon. The papers have been drawn and filed. We await ananswer from the defendants. I anticipate that there will be only theusual court delays in pressing the action."
"We'll beat them, I suppose," Dick replied, with a manner almost ofindifference.
"One can never be positive in advance, but I'd like to own your claim tothe estate, Mr. Gordon," laughed the lawyer wheezily.
"Think we'll be able to wolf the real owners out of their property allright, do you?"
Fitt's smile went out like the flame of a burnt match. The wrinkles oflaughter were ironed out of his fat cheeks. He stared at his client insurprise. It took him a moment to voice the dignified protest he feltnecessary.
"Our title is good in law, Mr. Gordon. I have been over the evidencevery carefully. The court decisions all lean our way. Don BartolomeValdes, the original grantee, failed to perfect his right of ownershipin many ways. It is very doubtful whether he himself had not before hisdeath abandoned his claim. His official acts appear to point to thatconclusion. Our case is a very substantial one--very substantial,indeed."
"The Valdes' tenants have settled on the land, grazed their flocks overit, bought farms here and there from the heirs, haven't they?"
"Exactly. But if the sellers cannot show a good title--and my word as alawyer for it they can't. Prove that in court and all we'll need is awrit of ejectment against the present holders as squatters. Then----"Fitt snapped his finger and thumb in an airy gesture that swept theValdes' faction into the middle of the Pacific.
"It'll be the story of Evangeline all over again, won't it?" askedGordon satirically.
"Ah! You have a kind heart, Mr. Gordon. Your sympathy does you credit.Still--business is business, of course."
"Of course," Dick picked up a pen and began to jab holes aimlessly intoa perfectly good blotter tacked to the table. "Well, let's hear thestory--just a sketch of it. Why do the rightful heirs lose out and thevillain gain possession?"
Mr. Fitt smiled blandly. He had satisfied himself that his client wasgood pay and he did not intend to take offense. "It pleases you to befacetious, Mr. Gordon. But we all know that what this countryneeds--what such a valley as the Rio Chama ought to have--is up to dateAmerican development. People and conditions are in a primitive state.When men like you get poss
ession of the Moreno and similar tracts NewMexico will move forward with giant strides to its great destiny. Timedoes not stand still. The day of the indolent semi-feudal Spanish systemof occupancy has passed away. New Mexico will no longer remain _manana_land. You--and men like you--of broad ideas, progressive, energetic----"
"Quite a philanthropist, ain't I?" interrupted Gordon, smiling lazily."Well, let's hear the yarn, Mr. Fitt."
The attorney gave up his oration regretfully. He subsided into a chairand resumed the conversational tone.
"You've got to understand how things were here in the old Spanish days,gentlemen. Don Bartolome for instance was not merely a cattleman. He wasa grandee, a feudal lord, a military chief to all his tenants andemployees. His word was law. The power of life and death lay in him."
Dick nodded. "Get you."
"The old Don was pasturing his sheep in the Rio Chama valley and he hadstarted a little village there--called the place Torreon, I think, froma high tower house he had built to overlook the valley so that Indianscould be seen if they attempted an attack. Well, he takes a notion thathe'd better get legal title to the land he was using, though in thosedays he might have had half of New Mexico for his cattle and sheep as arange. So he asks Facundo Megares, governor of the royal province, for agrant of land. The governor, anxious to please him, orders theconstitutional alcalde, a person named Jose Garcia de la Mora, toexecute the act of possession to Valdes of a tract described as follows,to wit----"
"I've heard the description," cut in the young man. "Well, did the Dontake possession?"
"We claim that he never did. He visited there, and his shepherdsundoubtedly ran sheep on the range covered by the grant. But Valdes andhis family never actually resided on the estate. Other points thatmilitate against the claim of his descendants may be noted. First, thatminor grants of land, taken from within the original Valdes grant, weremade by the governor without any protest on the part of the Don. Second,that Don Bartolome himself, subsequently Governor and Captain-General ofthe province of New Mexico, did, in his official capacity as Presidentof the Council, endorse at least two other small grants of land cut outfrom the heart of the Valdes estate. This goes to show that he did nothimself consider that he owned the land, or perhaps he felt that he hadforfeited his claim."
"Or maybe it just showed that the old gentleman was no hog," suggestedGordon.
"I guess the law will construe it as a waiver of his claim. It doesn'tmake any allowances for altruism."
"I've noticed that," Gordon admitted dryly.
"A new crowd of politicians got in after Mexico became independent ofSpain. The plums had to be handed out to the friends of the party inpower. So Manuel Armijo, the last Mexican Governor of the province,being a favorite of the President of that country because he haddefeated some Texas Rangers in a battle, and on that account endowedwith extraordinary powers, carved a fat half million acres out of theValdes grant and made a present of it to Jose Moreno for 'services tothe government of Mexico.' That's where you come in as heir to yourgrandfather, who purchased for a song the claim of Moreno's son."
"My right has been lying dormant twenty-five years. Won't that affectits legality?"
"No. If we knock out the Valdes' grant, all we have to do is to provethe legality of the Moreno one. It happens we have evidence to show thathe satisfied all legal requirements by living on the land more than fouryears. This gave him patent in perpetuity subject to taxes. By thepayment of these we can claim title." Fitt rubbed his hands and walkedbackward and forward briskly. "We've got them sewed up tight, Mr.Gordon. The Supreme Court has sustained our contention in the almostparallel Baca case."
"Fine," said Dick moodily. He knew it was unreasonable for him to beannoyed at his counsel because the latter happened to be an alert andcompetent lawyer. But somehow all his sympathies were with ValenciaValdes and her dependents.
"If you'd like to look at the original documents in the case, Mr.Gordon----"
"I would."
"I'll take you up to the State House this afternoon. You can look overthem at your leisure."
Davis laughed at his friend as they walked back to the hotel.
"I don't believe you know yourself what you want. You act as if you'drather lose than win the suit."
"Sometimes I'm a white man, Steve. I don't want to grab other people'sproperty just because some one can dig up a piece of paper that saysit's mine. We sit back and roast the trusts to a fare-you-well forhogging all there is in sight. That's what Fitt and his tribe expect meto do. I'm damned if I will."
A Daughter of the Dons: A Story of New Mexico Today Page 11