The Penance of Magdalena and Other Tales of the California Missions Part 3

ay de mi! Well, senor, one day some steers were missing, twelve or fifteen or more, and my father sent us, Pedro and me, to find them and bring them in. We hunted for them one day, two days, and could not find them. The range was getting poor on the Escorpion, but it was still good in the hills, and my father said the cattle must have gone up to the Sim?. So the next morning we started toward the Sim?, and it was not long before we found their tracks, coming toward the hills. We followed them all that day, and nearly at night we found them. It was in a little valley that is quite near here: you will go through it to-morrow, senor.

"We had brought food with us, for we knew we might be more than one day out, and when we had found the cattle we looked for a place to camp. We headed the steers down the creek, and came out into this canon. And here we saw the house, the same house, senor: so you see it is quite old, but it was old then, too. We were surprised, for we did not know there was a house there at all, and we had been born at San Fernando, and we thought we knew everybody that lived this way as far as Ventura. It was nearly dark, and there was no light in the house nor anybody about, though the house did not look quite as if no one lived there. We should have liked to use it to sleep in, but we thought some one must live there, and might come in, so we made a camp on the creek. Just about here, where your camp is, is where we slept.

"In the morning, after we had eaten, Pedro said he was going to look inside the house. I was saddling the horses and did not go with him. In a few minutes I heard him call, so I went to the house. Pedro was standing at the door, and he looked white and frightened. 'There are dead people here,' he said: 'they are all dead.' He went in and I went in after him. In the back room there was a bad sight, a very bad sight, senor: a lot of bones lying all about the room, and there were three skulls among them. In the middle of the room was that box you saw, with the lid open. There was a big bone, like a leg bone, lying right across it, I remember. Zape! a bad sight that was.

"It must have been a long time since they had died, months, perhaps years, two or three, from the look of the place and the bones. The coyotes had been in, and nothing but the bones and some bits of clothing was left. They had all been men, at least I think so, because there were no women's clothes. In the box there were pieces of money, twenty or thirty, or perhaps more. I did not like to touch it, with the dead men all about there: but Pedro, he was always one who cared for nothing. He said it was lucky to find them: the money wasn't dead, he said, and he laughed at me. He picked up one of the coins: it was a silver peso of Spain, very old. Was it not strange, senor? All the money was the same, all pesos and all old. I. have never seen any more like them."

"Well, Pedro said we ought to take the money. The dead men could not spend it, he said, so it was foolish to leave it. But I would not touch it, not one piece. I wanted to burn the bones, and at last Pedro helped me. We picked them all up, the skulls and all. Diantre! it was bad work!

I wanted to put them in the box, and burn all together, and bury the money. But Pedro would not: he wanted the money, and he said he would have the box too. So instead of burning them, we buried them, that is, the bones. We found an old spade, and dug a place behind the house, among the sycamores on the hill--you will see to-morrow--and buried them.

"Then we had to go to take the cattle back to the ranch. Pedro would take the money: he put it in his clothes. It was quite heavy, and you could hear it, so he put some in his shoes and in other places. I asked him what he would do with the box, because he would not burn it. He said he wanted it because it had been good luck to find it: he would get it someday and keep it. Then we went away with the cattle. Pedro said we should not tell anybody about what we had found, nor about the dead people; and there was no one to tell, I mean the officers, unless we went to Los Angeles. So I did not say anything, and Pedro did not, because he had taken the money."

"It was not long before he had used it up. I don't know where he spent it, for there was no money like it, and people would ask where he got it: but somehow he spent it, all but two pesos. Then one day he asked me to come with him to the place again: he wanted to see if the box was there, and if anybody lived in the house. I did not want to see the box, but I wanted to know if any one lived there, so I came with him. It was about a year after we had found the dead men and the money. It was a Sunday, and we got to the place about noon, for we started early.

Everything was like we had left it, and it did not look as if any one had been to the house. The box was there, and it was open; and then I noticed that there was some writing on a piece of paper inside the lid.

It must have been there when we saw the box before, but we had not noticed it. It was very old and yellow, and torn, too, and we could not read it. They did not seem like Spanish words. We stayed an hour, maybe, and then I said we should go, so as to get back before night. Then Pedro said to me, why shouldn't we come and live here in the house. We each had a few head of cattle of our own by that time, nearly twenty all together, and the range here was very good. He was tired of working on the Escorpion, he said. The place didn't belong to anybody, as far as we could tell, and we could make a good home here and do well with our cattle.

"I forgot to say that I had got married a little time before, and I said my wife would not come so far away from her people. They lived at Calabasas. I didn't like the idea of living in that house, though I liked the land and wanted to have a place of my own, now that I was married. So we were talking about it when we got on our horses to ride back. We rode past the sycamore trees, where we had buried the bones of the dead men. Just when we pa.s.sed the place, my brother's horse jumped at something, and threw him off. He fell against a sharp rock that hurt him in the back. He was quite still, and I thought he was dead. For a long time he did not move, but I could see he was breathing. I got water and threw it on him many times, and at last he opened his eyes. But he could not move, senor, nor speak either: the rock had hurt his backbone, and his legs were like dead. He was a paral?tico, and he has never been able to move, any more than you saw him move, nor talk either.

"I did not know what to do. It was many miles to the ranch, and there was no one that lived anywhere nearer. My brother was in much pain, so I could not put him on his horse: I was afraid of hurting him more. He could not talk, but he pointed at the house, for me to take him there.

There was nothing else to do, and at last I got him there. Then I said I must go and get help to take him away, but he shook his head and would not let me go. I think he thought he might as well die there as anywhere, and he was half dead anyway. But I had to go to get food, and I thought I could bring a doctor also. I left him some water, and got on my horse and rode--cielo, how I rode!--for I thought he might be dead when I got back. It was dark most of the way, and it was midnight when I got to the ranch. I got help, and sent for a doctor to come from Los Angeles. My wife--she is a good woman, my wife, Elena, senor--she said she would come with me to nurse Pedro if he could not be brought away.

We were back at the house the next day early, two cousins of mine and my wife and myself. Pedro was lying where I had left him, but he was out of his head. Whenever he saw the box he would try to get up and go to it, so I put it where he could not see it. I had never told my wife about the box and the money: I thought it would only do harm to talk about it.

"The doctor came the next day. He said Pedro would never be able to walk; he might be able to speak after a while; but he never has. The doctor told us he ought not to be moved for a long while. And so we stayed, senor, and we have never gone away. Don Guillermo was very good: I think G.o.d makes people good to one when one is in trouble, is it not so, senor? He gave me ten more cattle; two of them were good milch cows.

That made thirty head we had all together. And he sent us a lot of flour, and coffee and frijoles; and then he found who owned the land the house was on: it was an American, who lived in San Francisco and never came here at all; and Don Guillermo told him about my brother getting hurt, and he promised that we could have the house and the grazing for nothing for three years, and then pay a little when we could. After about ten years I bought the place, about fifty acres, and now it is my own."

"So it was bad fortune the box brought us, as I said, senor, but good fortune, too. Did you see what my brother has round his neck, senor? It is one of the pesos. He had two of them left when he was hurt: he had always said he would keep those two for more luck, as he called it. One day, after he was hurt, I saw him making a hole in one of them, and he hung it round his neck. He gave me the other. I did not want to take it, so I put it on the shelf for Our Lady. You can see it in the morning, and you can see the box, too. My wife would like to burn it, and so would I, but Pedro will not let us, and he always sits on it. There is carving on it, an 'F' and a 'Y,' I think, and there is the writing inside, though much of it is gone now. Perhaps you can tell what the writing says: I should like to know, if there is enough left to tell by."

"Well, it is late, and Elena will be going to bed. I am sorry that we have no room for you to sleep in, senor, but the house is small, and we are so many women and sick. Buenas noches, senor."

I was much interested in the strange story I had heard, and lay for some time awake, trying to fit a working theory to the black chest and the Spanish dollars, but with no success. It was a puzzle that was worth a good deal of trouble to unlock if it could be done, and I was eager for daylight, to get a good view of the box. Probably the invalid would not be up so early as the rest of the family, who had breakfast, I had learned, at six o'clock. I was prompt upon the hour, and while waiting a few minutes before the meal was ready, I examined the silver piece and the chest. The coin was a large one, Spanish, as my host had said, and bore the inscription of Carlos III, with the date 1787, and the arms of Castile and Le?n. The box I examined with special attention. It was exceedingly heavy for its size, which was about thirty inches long by fourteen wide and ten deep, and was made of the dark, hard wood of some tropical tree that had withstood decay wonderfully. On the upper side of the lid were cut the letters "F Y" in plain, deep carving, encircled with an elaborate scroll, this somewhat defaced and broken in outline.

Three heavy strips of iron were fastened round the shorter circ.u.mference, one near each end of the box and one at the middle. At the ends were strong wrought-iron handles, and there was a curious lock, also of wrought-iron. I opened the lid, and there, as Leandro had said, were the remains of a sheet of parchment, vellum, or heavy hand-made paper, which had been glued to the wood, but the greater part of which was torn or worn away. It was evident that the writing was too much defaced to allow of more than a mere guess at its purport, but by the not very good light I copied what I could decipher of the inscription.

This is what I made out:--

hac ar osit unt num tria mi et qu enti qui pert anc Mi Sanc in cujus fini utelam ob lat hoc lito atis com arca absco a est.

rra.

Oc 1824

I had hardly finished my transcription when my hostess entered saying that breakfast was ready in the kitchen: so no attempt at working out the puzzle could be made at the time. Pedro's food was taken to him by Carlota, and he did not appear before I left. During the pleasant meal, I looked with added respect at the woman whose goodness of heart had led her willingly to undertake, and to carry day by day for many years, the burden of a hopeless, and I fear an ungrateful, invalid (though, indeed, from my experience of the kindliness, and especially the strength of the family bond among the Mexican people, I might well have been prepared for such magnanimity).

Soon after breakfast I bade them farewell, Leandro accompanying me a short distance to show me my road. When we came to part, no further word had been said regarding Pedro or the mysterious chest. I said nothing, for I had no theory to offer. When we shook hands, after thanking him heartily I remarked that I hoped we might meet again, adding, as an afterthought, "and in a luckier house." "Yes, senor," he said, "but it is not the house that is unlucky: Our Lady attends to that. It was the money, and, you see," with a smile--"I gave her the half of what was left. Do you know, senor, sometimes I think the money was stolen from the Church. That would account for all, is it not so? They say the churches had much money once. Quien sabe? Adios senor."

As I turned Pancho into the trail that would bring me to the Ventura road, my mind was busy at a clue that Leandro's parting words had started. "F Y," the letters carved on the chest--somehow they seemed to link up with something in my memory. Who was that Padre of whom Robinson, in his "Life in California," spoke with a good deal of disparagement? The surname initial was surely a "Y," and it seemed to me that San Fernando was the Mission where the depreciated Father dwelt.

Yorba, Ybarronda, Ybaez, Ybarra--yes, that was it: Ybarra, sure enough, and the first name was Francisco, it seemed to me; and I felt sure now that it was at San Fernando that Robinson encountered him. All circ.u.mstantial evidence, no doubt, but highly interesting. To try another link--did the sc.r.a.ps of writing give any support to my idea? I took out my notebook: unmistakably there were the letters "rra"

remaining where naturally the signature would be written. All the rest of the name was gone except a fragment of rubric, but that embellishment again made it plain that the letters were part of a name.

With that I had to be satisfied, both then and now. Matters of more personal importance soon pushed the problem into the back of my mind.

Once, indeed, chancing on a copy of the torn inscription, I spent an idle hour in trying to fashion the oddments into a possible connected whole. In case the reader should be interested in such exercises, I will give my tentative solution.

I take the writing, as far as the signature, to have been in Latin, and this is my guesswork rendering: the reader may perhaps improve upon it:--

In hac arca depositi sunt nummi tria millia et quingenti qui pertinent ad hanc Missionem de Sancto Fernando, in cujus finibus ad cautelam ob latrocinia hoc litore a piratis commissa haec arca abscondita est.

Francisco Ybarra.

Oct. 1824.

My chain of guesses, then, is that the old chest that I saw in that house in the Sim? Hills may have once been the personal property of Fray Francisco Ybarra, sometime priest in charge of the Mission of San Fernando. That he, on the approach of some marauders, buried the chest, with the stated sum of money in silver pesos of Carlos III, in some hiding-place about the Mission precincts. That for some unguessable reason the chest was never taken up by the priest or his successors; but that long years afterwards, probably not less than fifty, some party of treasure-seekers (of whom there are evidences of there having been many at that Mission) came upon the buried chest. That it was transported by them to the lonely house in the mountains, some twenty miles distant.

That there, a quarrel occurred over the booty, and that the survivor or survivors of the fatal affray, if any there were, did not, for some reason, carry off in their flight all the treasure. The rest of my theory is embodied in the foregoing narrative.

But after all, as to the whole matter, probably there is little to be said that is more to the point than the all-embracing phrase of Leandro, and of Spain and Mexico in general--Quien sabe? Who knows?

Santa Barbara

Love in the Padre's Garden

It was five years since I had seen my old chum, d.i.c.k Trevgern, back in Boston, while Mrs. Trevgern I had never seen at all. So when, last winter, I found myself at Santa Barbara, where they lived, one of the first things I did was to trace them in the telephone book and call up d.i.c.k. The result was an urgent invitation to dinner that evening. I was quite keen to meet my friend's wife, and all the more so, since d.i.c.k, who is one of the finest fellows in the world, is, or used to be, also one of the oldest-fashioned, and had seemed to be destined for bachelor joys; so I wondered what could be the special charms that had subjugated him.

I found them as cozy as a married couple of two years' standing has a right to be, in a rose-embowered cottage on one of the hill streets near the Mission. Mrs. Trevgern I found to be a very pretty, vivacious, and in every way attractive girl,--she was only twenty,--and as they were evidently very fond of each other I rejoiced at d.i.c.k's good sense and good fortune. It was a very jolly little dinner, and altogether as pleasant an evening as I have ever pa.s.sed. At some indirect reference to the topic (it is hard to find a name for it that is agreeable to every one, but I will use a well-worn phrase) the emanc.i.p.ated woman, I had an opportunity of seeing that the lady clearly was of the affirmative party, whereas I knew, from recollection of old times, and anyway because d.i.c.k was d.i.c.k, that his view on the question was a decided No.

This raised an interesting little speculation in my mind, and when, about eleven o'clock, Mrs. Trevgern declared that she was going to leave us two together for a good confabulation over old days, and retired for the night, I made some half-joking reference to the matter, and asked d.i.c.k how it happened that he, of all men, had chosen a wife out of the emanc.i.p.ation camp.

"Oh, well," he replied, "she is a dear good girl"--I hastened to say that I was sure of it--"and we have lots of fun out of our different ideas on little things like that. The odd thing is, though, that it was Kitty's fad for woman's rights and that sort of thing that is responsible for her being Mrs. Trevgern--I mean, that was what you might call the exciting cause. Pull your chair up to the fire and I'll tell you all about it. It was really quite a joke."

"No doubt it will be news to you that I used to know Kitty years ago, before either you or I came to California. All the time that you fellows were ragging me about being an old bachelor, I knew my own mind and meant to marry Kitty some day. I don't think you knew her people, the Draytons. They lived down at Quincy, close to us, and our families were old friends. At the time that I got this appointment out here she was only sixteen, but before I came away from Boston I told her I loved her, and that when I had got on my feet I was going to ask her to marry me. I didn't want her to promise then, for it didn't seem square to ask her; but I had a pretty good idea that she liked me, and I figured that in two or three years I could be so placed that I might fairly ask her, and, as young as she was, she would hardly have fallen in love with any one else. After I came to California I wrote to her now and then, not often, and no spooning, you know, but just to keep myself in her mind; and she answered with good, sensible, newsy letters."

"She was always a particularly bright girl, with a good idea of what was going on in the world and a mind of her own about it. In one of her letters she said she had been going to a set of lectures by some confounded Englishwoman, on The Woman of To-morrow, or the Day after To-morrow, or something, and asked me what I thought about what she called Woman's Awakening. I dare say you remember how we used to argue all that stuff in our old Debating Club--didn't we just!--and how I always got sat upon for being a back number and not lining up with the hatchet brigade? Well, I hadn't changed my mind--haven't yet, for that matter--but I didn't suppose she cared two hairpins about it, and I replied with some old joke or other, and let it go. From other letters, though, I soon saw that Kitty had got really keen on the suffrage business, and that she knew I was a heretic: but we both had sense enough not to let the subject get on the argumentative line."

"It ran on that way until two years ago, and then her people came to spend the winter in California. In the early spring they came up to Santa Barbara, and I saw Kitty again. I hadn't weakened at all in my loving her, and she was prettier than ever--almost as pretty as she is now, bless her.--Yes, I knew you'd think so, old man.--By that time I was doing quite well, and prospects were good enough so that I felt I could ask her to marry me. One day, on a drive round by Montecito, I asked her. She wouldn't promise: said she liked me as much as ever, and didn't care about any one else, but didn't think she ought to marry me, and so on. I couldn't get her to say why for a long time, but at last it came out. Some one, that idiotic Englishwoman, I suppose, had put it into the dear girl's head that it was her duty not to ally herself with 'a reactionary' (I think that was the word) and in this case that meant poor harmless me. I argued till I must have been blue in the face, but I couldn't get her to give in: she says now that she thought she would make me give in. And so it had to stay, but my consolation was that I knew she really cared for me. It was just head against heart, and though I knew, as I said, that Kitty's head was as good as anybody's, I thought her heart was better yet. I told her, though, that I shouldn't let it rest like that for long."

"A day or two later I had an engagement to go up with them to look at the Mission. One of the Fathers showed us through, a dozen or more people altogether, regular tourist style, and we had seen about everything there was, when some one asked if we couldn't go into the sacred garden. You know what I mean? There's a private garden that most people don't get to see, and which, as the story goes, no woman is allowed to enter. The priest said he was sorry, but it was only by special permission that any visitor saw that garden and that permission was never given for ladies to see it. Kitty p.r.i.c.ked up her ears at that."

"'Do you mean to say,' she said to me, as we walked on, 'that there is a part of the Mission where men may go and women mustn't?' 'I don't mean to say so,' I told her, but the Padre here does, and I'm afraid that settles it.' 'Indeed, it doesn't,' she said. 'What does he mean? Is there something horrid there that is not nice for women to see?' 'No,' I replied; 'it's nice enough, just a garden. They call it sacred, but I don't know why.' 'Oh, I see,' remarked Kitty, 'sacred from women, no doubt. That's just like these monks: they think this is the Middle Ages still. I suppose you think so too. You may go anywhere, because you are a man, but a woman is to be shut out of this and that--they're sacred!'

I could see she was pretty much excited, and I tried to calm her down.

'Now, Kitty,' I said, 'you know very well that as far as I'm concerned there's nothing on earth that I want so much as for you and me to be together always and everywhere. Let them keep their old garden: anyway, if it's too sacred for you it would certainly kill me on the spot.'

'It's all very well to make fun,' she returned, 'but it's the principle that has to be fought. It's absurd, it's--it's mediaeval! And you're mediaeval too,' she wound up. 'Well,' I said, 'I always knew I was a bit old-fashioned, but I was never called a regular antique before.' That made her laugh, and we forgot all about the old garden till we got back to the house."

"At least, I thought she had forgotten, but when I said good-bye she came with me to the door, and said, 'd.i.c.k, I'm going to see that garden at the Mission. It isn't that I care about the garden, but I do care about the principle. I'm going to get in somehow, and I want to know, will you help me?' 'My dear Kitty,' I answered, 'I'm your man: at least you know I want to be. The only thing is, how do you mean to do it?'

'That's for you to arrange,' she said. 'You men think you can do things better than women, so here's a chance to show what you can do.' 'Well,'

I remarked, 'it looks like a burglar's job, and I've not done much in that line: but you know what I said, that I want to go everywhere you go, and if that means jail, I'm game.' She looked a bit serious when I talked about jail, for she thought I was in earnest: but she didn't back down, and I said I would see what plan I could think up."

"I easily found out whereabout the garden was, and the only way I could see to get Kitty in there was by climbing over the wall some evening after dark. It was an adobe wall, and not very high. I could easily get over it myself, but for Kitty we ought to have a ladder. There was a bright little Mexican chap I knew, whom I had met one day up by the Mission. He lived near there, and one day I had seen him haunting about and got him to pose in a picture. After that we'd had chats now and then. It occurred to me that Julio could find a short ladder and bring it to the place: and I had an idea--old-fashioned, you see, as usual-- that he would make a kind of chaperon, too, to save a little bit of the respectabilities. I told Kitty my plan, and she thought it was all right, jumped at it, in fact; so we set the time for two days after the next full moon. We figured that as it was sundown soon after five o'clock, we could do our wall-climbing when it got dark, say about half past six, before the moon came up. It would rise about seven, and we should have plenty of light to investigate the garden. Kitty did pretty much as she liked at home, as regards being in or out, so all she would need to tell her people was that she was going to be with me that evening."

"Well, I arranged it with Julio. He was a mischievous little rascal, and it looked like a good joke to him; and a couple of dollars was good pay for a joke. When the evening came, I called for Kitty about six o'clock.

I had told her to dress in some kind of color that would not show too much by moonlight, so she had on a big gray cloak of her mother's that covered her all up. It had a hood, too, so she didn't need a hat. For fun I had drawn a large placard, with 'Votes for Women' on it in big letters. I meant to tack it to a tree or something if I got a chance, but Kitty didn't know anything about this."