Overland Part 4

"My dear Mrs. Stanley, allow me. Remember that emigrants move westward, and not eastward. Coming from Bent's Fort you had protection and company; but going towards it would be different. And then think what you would lose. The great American desert, as it is absurdly styled, is one of the most interesting regions on earth. Mrs. Stanley, did you ever hear of the Casas Grandes, the Casas de Montezuma, the ruined cities of New Mexico? In this so-called desert there was once an immense population. There was a civilization which rose, flourished, decayed, and disappeared without a historian. Nothing remains of it but the walls of its fortresses and palaces. Those you will see. They are wonderful. They are worth ten times the labor and danger which we shall encounter. Buildings eight hundred feet long by two hundred and fifty feet deep, Mrs. Stanley. The resting-places and wayside strongholds of the Aztecs on their route from the frozen North to found the Empire of the Montezumas! This whole region is strewn, and c.u.mbered, and glorified with ruins. If we should go by the way of the San Juan--"

"The San Juan!" protested Thurstane. "n.o.body goes by the way of the San Juan."

Coronado stopped, bowed, smiled, waited to see if Thurstane had finished, and then proceeded.

"Along the San Juan every hilltop is crowned with these monuments of antiquity. It is like the castled Rhine. Ruins looking in the faces of ruins. It is a tragedy in stone. It is like Niobe and her daughters.

Moreover, if we take this route we shall pa.s.s the Moquis. The independent Moquis are a fragment of the ancient ruling race of New Mexico. They live in stone-built cities on lofty eminences. They weave blankets of exquisite patterns and colors, and produce a species of pottery which almost deserves the name of porcelain."

"Really, you ought to write all this," exclaimed Aunt Maria, her imagination fired to a white heat.

"I ought," said Coronado, impressively. "I owe it to these people to celebrate them in history. I owe them that much because of the name I bear. Did you ever hear of Coronado, the conqueror of New Mexico, the stormer of the seven cities of Cibola? It was he who gave the final shock to this antique civilization. He was the Cortes of this portion of the continent. I bear his name, and his blood runs in my veins."

He held down his head as if he were painfully oppressed by the sense of his crimes and responsibilities as a descendant of the waster of aboriginal New Mexico. Mrs. Stanley, delighted with his emotion, slily grasped and pressed his hand.

"Oh, man! man!" she groaned. "What evils has that creature man wrought in this beautiful world! Ah, Mr. Coronado, it would have been a very different planet had woman had her rightful share in the management of its affairs."

"Undoubtedly," sighed Coronado. He had already obtained an insight into this remarkable person's views on the woman question, the superiority of her own s.e.x, the stolidity and infamy of the other. It was worth his while to humor her on this point, for the sake of gaining an influence over her, and so over Clara. Cheered by the success of his history, he now launched into pure poetry.

"Woman has done something," he said. "There is every reason to believe that the cities of the San Juan were ruled by queens, and that some of them were inhabited by a race of Amazons."

"Is it possible?" exclaimed Aunt Maria, flushing and rustling with interest.

"It is the opinion of the best antiquarians. It is my opinion. Nothing else can account for the exquisite earthenware which is found there.

Women, you are aware, far surpa.s.s men in the arts of beauty. Moreover, the inscriptions on hieroglyphic rocks in these abandoned cities evidently refer to Amazons. There you see them doing the work of men--carrying on war, ruling conquered regions, founding cities. It is a picture of a golden age, Mrs. Stanley."

Aunt Maria meant to go by way of the San Juan, if she had to scalp Apaches herself in doing it.

"Lieutenant Thurstane, what do you say?" she asked, turning her sparkling eyes upon the officer.

"I must confess that I never heard of all these things," replied Thurstane, with an air which added, "And I don't believe in most of them."

"As for the San Juan route," he continued, "it is two hundred miles at least out of our way. The country is a desert and almost unexplored. I don't fancy the plan--I beg your pardon, Mr. Coronado--but I don't fancy it at all."

Aunt Maria despised him and almost hated him for his stupid, practical, unpoetic common sense.

"I must say that I quite fancy the San Juan route," she responded, with proper firmness.

"I venture to agree with you," said Coronado, as meekly as if her fancy were not of his own making. "Only a hundred miles off the straight line (begging your pardon, my dear Lieutenant), and through a country which is naturally fertile--witness the immense population which it once supported.

As for its being unexplored, I have explored it myself; and I shall go with you."

"Shall you!" cried Aunt Maria, as if that made all safe and delightful.

"Yes. My excellent Uncle Garcia (good, kind-hearted old man) takes the strongest interest in this affair. He is resolved that his charming little relative here, La Senorita Clara, shall cross the continent in safety and comfort. He offers a special wagon train for the purpose, and insists that I shall accompany it. Of course I am only too delighted to obey him."

"Garcia is very good, and so are you, Coronado," said Clara, very thankful and profoundly astonished. "How can I ever repay you both? I shall always be your debtor."

"My dear cousin!" protested Coronado, bowing and smiling. "Well, it is settled. We will start as soon as may be. The train will be ready in a day or two."

"I have no money," stammered Clara. "The estate is not settled."

"Our good old Garcia has thought of everything. He will advance you what you want, and take your draft on the executors."

"Your uncle is one of nature's n.o.blemen," affirmed Aunt Maria. "I must call on him and thank him for his goodness and generosity."

"Oh, never!" said Coronado. "He only waits your permission to visit you and pay you his humble respects. Absence has prevented him from attending to that delightful duty heretofore. He has but just returned from Albuquerque."

"Tell him I shall be glad to see him," smiled Aunt Maria. "But what does he say of the San Juan route?"

"He advises it. He has been in the overland trade for thirty years. He is tenderly interested in his relative Clara; and he advises her to go by way of the San Juan."

"Then so it shall be," declared Aunt Maria.

"And how do you go, Lieutenant?" asked Coronado, turning to Thurstane.

"I had thought of travelling with you," was the answer, delivered with a grave and troubled air, as if now he must give up his project.

Coronado was delighted. He had urged the northern and circuitous route mainly to get rid of the officer, taking it for granted that the latter must join his new command as soon as possible. He did not want him courting Clara all across the continent; and he, did not want him saving her from being lost, if it should become necessary to lose her.

"I earnestly hope that we shall not be deprived of your company," he said.

Thurstane, in profound thought, simply bowed his acknowledgments. A few minutes later, as he rose to return to his quarters, he said, with an air of solemn resolution, "If I can possibly go with you, I _will_."

All the next day and evening Coronado was in and out of the Van Diemen house. Had there been a mail for the ladies, he would have brought it to them; had it contained a letter from California, he would have abstracted and burnt it. He helped them pack for the journey; he made an inventory of the furniture and found storeroom for it; he was a valet and a spy in one.

Meantime Garcia hurried up his train, and hired suitable muleteers for the animals and suitable a.s.sa.s.sins for the travellers. Thurstane was also busy, working all day and half of the night over his government accounts, so that he might if possible get off with Clara.

Coronado thought of making interest with the post-commandant to have Thurstane kept a few days in Santa Fe. But the post-commandant was a grim and taciturn old major, who looked him through and through with a pair of icy gray eyes, and returned brief answers to his musical commonplaces.

Coronado did not see how he could humbug him, and concluded not to try it.

The attempt might excite suspicion; the major might say, "How is this your business?" So, after a little unimportant tattle, Coronado made his best bow to the old fellow, and hurried off to oversee his so-called cousin.

In the evening he brought Garcia to call on the ladies. Aunt Maria was rather surprised and shocked to see such an excellent man look so much like an infamous scoundrel. "But good people are always plain," she reasoned; and so she was as cordial to him as one can be in English to a saint who understands nothing but Spanish. Garcia, instructed by Coronado, could not bow low enough nor smile greasily enough at Aunt Maria. His dull commonplaces moreover, were translated by his nephew into flowering compliments for the lady herself, and enthusiastic professions of faith in the superior intelligence and moral worth of all women. So the two got along famously, although neither ever knew what the other had really said.

When Clara appeared, Garcia bowed humbly without lifting his eyes to her face, and received her kiss without returning it, as one might receive the kiss of a corpse.

"Contemptible coward!" thought Coronado. Then, turning to Mrs. Stanley, he whispered, "My uncle is almost broken down with this parting."

"Excellent creature!" murmured Aunt Maria, surveying the old toad with warm sympathy. "What a pity he has lost one eye! It quite injures the benevolent expression of his face."

Although Garcia was very distantly connected with Clara, she gave him the t.i.tle of uncle.

"How is this, my uncle?" she said, gaily. "You send your merchandise trains through Bernalillo, and you send me through Santa Anna and Rio Arriba."

Garcia, cowed and confounded, made no reply that was comprehensible.

"It is a newly discovered route," put in Coronado, "lately found to be easier and safer than the old one. Two hundred and fifty years in learning the fact, Mrs. Stanley! Just as we were two hundred and fifty years without discovering the gold of California."

"Ah!" said Clara. Absent since her childhood from New Mexico, she knew little about its geography, and could be easily deceived.

After a while Thurstane entered, out of breath and red with haste. He had stolen ten minutes from his accounts and stores to bring Miss Van Diemen a piece of information which was to him important and distressing.