CHAPTER VIII
THE HEART OF BENICIA
The Desert of Altar is transcendence of silence. From the savageGrowler range in Arizona south to the obsidian bastions of Pinacate, bythe dead Gulf, is space to crowd five million people with their tumultof cities, their crash of machines, hoot of locomotives and shriek ofsteel under stress. Yet in all this blank waste not a sound.
The chirp of the wren from her hole in the _sahuaro_ carries not evenso far as the watching hawk on nearby skeleton _ocatilla_ stalk. Themeat cry of the prowling cat in the mountains where the wild sheeprange is swallowed in the muffling depths of the canyon under her feet.Thin air seems too tenuous to conduct sound waves. Creatures of thewild lands move mute under the oppression of unbounded space.
Yet nowhere does rumour fly swifter than here in this vacant land.Comes a strange prowler to the waterholes of Tinajas Altas, and theantelope fifty miles away know the news and seek the hidden springs atBates' Wells. A Papago three days' journey from the nearest rancheriastumbles onto hoofprints of six horses away over where tidewater climbsinto the delta of the Colorado, and he turns back to carry report ofrevolution in Baja California. Strange signs tell their tales fromthe sands; the arrangement of little sticks conveys whole chapters ofinformation to the wayfarer. When man meets man, be he white, brown orcopper coloured, news is a torch to be passed on to a new hand. Nothingcan be long a secret. The latent must out.
Even as the worthy Doc Stooder in his shabby office at Arizora hada never-ending messenger service from all the Border and the landsbeyond, carrying scraps of oblique news, another far distant in theGarden of Solitude enjoyed the same intelligence. This was Don PadraicO'Donoju, last of the line of masters over the once-great principalityof El Rancho del Refugio. Though a hundred years of revolution, ofuproar and the teetering of political balances in the more populousMexico to south and east of him had left to the last don of theO'Donojus little more territory than that comprised in the oasis ofthe Garden, still he had cattle enough to be counted a rich man andsix generations of custom gave him unbroken sway over the Papagoes.From the Sand People of the Gulf away up to the San Xavier rancheriaat Tucson extended the secret kingdom of Don Padraic's influence. Hisonly tithes were those of loyalty and the bringing of report. What thePapagoes thought Don Padraic should know, that he knew as speedily asword could be passed.
So, a week after Benicia had returned to the Casa O'Donoju, came arunner from the eastward--one sent by El Doctor Coyote Belly, whosewinter house was at Babinioqui near the railroad. The runner had bignews. El Doctor, known all over the Desert of Altar because of hisreputed skill at curing hydrophobia and the bite of the sidewinder,had a sick white man--a seriously wounded white man who might be anAmerican--in his house at Babinioqui and he asked Don Padraic what heshould do with this man.
El Doctor was returning from the Medicine Cave of Pinacate--thiswas the runner's tale--when on the road that runs from Sonizona toHermosillo he found seven dead men; dead men with the marks of fetterson their left wrists. A little beyond he found still another; this one,lying in an arroyo, had been shot through the shoulder from behindand he still lived. El Doctor had tied the living man to his burro andtaken him to his winter house at Babinioqui, where he had treated himwith the most powerful herbs and had massaged the wound with the lizardimage. The wounded white man would live. Coyote Belly did not wish toturn him over to the Mexicans, for he was a victim of _ley de fuga_ andthe Mexicans undoubtedly would shoot him again.
Don Padraic, whose charity was wider than his acres, made his decisioninstantly. He ordered Quelele to go, with the runner to guide him to ElDoctor's house, in the little desert car and to fetch the white man tothe Garden of Solitude as soon as he was able to be moved. It was best,the master instructed, that Quelele travel in the night, returning withthe wounded man, and tell no one of the object of his mission.
The big Indian stocked the car with gasoline from the tank behindthe master's house--a reservoir filled monthly from drums brought byox cart from the distant railroad point--strapped canteens and oilcontainers on his running boards and was off. Don Padraic said nothingof the incident to his daughter.
That night Don Padraic and Benicia sat in the candlelight of the bigsalon or living room which filled the space of one quadrangle offthe patio. In all Sonora there was no counterpart of this chamber ofmellowed antiquities, the collection of generations of the O'Donoju.Low ceiled and with crossing beams of oak, whereon the marks of thehewer's adze showed like waves; walls hung with tapestries between theheavy frames of portraits of grandees and their ladies of forgottendays; a great fireplace wherein a man could stand upright, with itshand-wrought andirons and heavy crane shank; floor almost black froma hundred years of polishing and with the skins of animals floatingthere like so many islands:--here was a magic bit of old Spain liftedoverseas to find root in the heart of the desert.
Benicia, in a gown of rippling lines which left her strong young armsbare to the shoulder, was seated behind the great golden span of herharp. Candlelight falling across her shoulders made ivory the fleshof her bare arms as they moved rhythmically back and forth over thewilderness of strings. She was playing the Volga Boatsong, a peasantmelody whose minors rose and fell to the sweep of oars. As the girlgave her heart to the music, the thrumming strings wove a picture ofsome barbaric steppe coming down to a sluggish river; boatmen chantingat the sweeps. The ancient room was a-thrill with resonance.
She finished with just a breath of melody, the song of the boatmendying in the distance. Her eyes fell on the face of her father; itwas deeply etched by the play of flames from the mesquite logs in thefireplace. Always he sat this way, moveless before the fire, whenshe played on the great harp o' nights, freeing his soul to drink inthe melodies; but to Benicia's understanding eyes appeared now thesemblance of a deeper shadow not of the firelight. She softly left theinstrument and stole over to nestle herself on the broad chair wing,with her coppery head laid against the snow white one.
"_Pobrecito_"--this was her pet word carried through the years fromchildhood--"_Pobrecito_, thy face is as grave as the owl's. Somesecret? Remember, there are no secrets between us two--no worry whichthe other does not share."
Her coaxing hand played through the heavy mane of hair; her cheek wasagainst his. Don Padraic slowly turned his head with denial in hiseyes; but that denial could not sustain the accusation in the steadyblue eyes of the daughter. During the week Benicia had been home asecret doubt had steadily pressed upon the father; he had been waitingsome word from her which did not come. Now one of his hands stole up totweak her ear--signal of surrender.
"'Nicia, great-heart, you have told me all about your two years in thecities--your two years of life in the great world outside? There issomething you have withheld?"
"Nothing, little father." She gave him a peck on the forehead. DonPadraic appeared to be groping for his words.
"You met--many American men--young men who--ah--might have beenattracted by the beauty of my desert flower?"
A ripple of soft laughter and the girl pressed closer to him.
"Ah, _Pobrecito_, you forget that your desert flower carries thorns.Ask that ridiculous Hamilcar Urgo; he has felt the thorns."
"But"--Don Padraic was not to be put off by evasions--"was there notone whose heart was conquered by a girl of such fire, such beauty?Come--come! These Americans are not men of ice."
For a minute Benicia was silent. She was weighing in all sincerity theonly shred of a secret she had in her heart; testing it for genuinenessas fairly as she might.
"Yes, daddy, there were many with bold eyes and ready tongues; buthardly had they begun to speak as friends or companions when their talkwas all of money--how much they were planning to make that year; the'big deal' they were going to put through. All were like this--but one."
"Ah," breathed Don Padraic.
"That one I have told you of," she continued. "The man on the trainwho was so masterful with little Hamilcar. He was not like the others.A man
of wit--of sympathies; one who seemed to have understanding oflife--"
"And he--?" the father prompted.
"We said '_adios_' the night before we came to Arizora. I did not seehim in the morning, though he said that was his destination."
They were silent once more. Finally from Benicia a wraith of laughteron fluttering wings of a sigh:
"But, my grave old owl, why these questions? Never before have I seenmy daddy play the prying duenna."
"Heart of mine, thou canst not be blind"--the father's voice trembledover the intimate pronoun. "I have been thy father, mother, elderbrother, all in one. And selfish--selfish beyond measure! Keeping theechained here to an old man in the wilderness when all the world of loveand life lies beyond--"
"No--no, daddy mine!" Tears dewed blue eyes as yearning arm strainedhim to her.
"--My 'Nicia has her years ahead of her. Her love life must be awakenedand given freedom to unfold like a flower in a garden. Yet I havepermitted her to come back to me here in the Garden of Solitude becauseI was lonely. Better far that I sell what we have here and take youback to the world. In these evil days there is no fit mate to be foundfor you in all Sonora. Hamilcar Urgo has threatened me if I do not giveyou to him; he is of our blood, but he is abominable. I--"
A soft hand clapped over his lips. He heard passionate words:
"Father mine, stop! Never--never whisper again that you will sell ourGarden. For I love it, next to you, above all the world. We are desertpeople, little father. We live in God's hand and are happy. The citiescrush me with their noise, their confusion."
"But, 'Nicia--"
"And, dearest of daddies"--her lips against his ear were giving kisseslight as thistledown--"I want no lover but you--no happiness but whatI have returned to here in the Garden. Now, not a word more!"
She was on her feet and with the skirts of her gown caught in herfingers was making him an old-fashioned curtsy. Then she slipped intothe shadows where the great golden harp stood, and in an instant theancient room began to hum with spirited arpeggios--rush of many watersover a fall.
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