Les trappeurs de l'Arkansas. English Read online

  CHAPTER II.

  THE HACIENDA DEL MILAGRO.

  The environs of Hermosillo are a thorough desert. The road which leadsfrom that city to the Hacienda del Milagro (Farm of the Miracle) is oneof the dullest and most arid possible.

  Nothing is to be seen but, at rare intervals, ironwood, gum, and Perutrees, with red and spicy clusters, nopales, and cactuses, the onlytrees that can possibly grow in a soil calcined by the incandescent raysof a perpendicular sun.

  At distances are visible, as if in bitter derision, the long polesof cisterns, with a leathern bucket, twisted and shrivelled, at oneextremity, and at the other stones fastened by straps; but the cisternsare dry, and the bottom of them is merely a black slimy crust, in whichmyriads of unclean animals disport; whirlwinds of a fine and impalpabledust, raised by the least breath of wind, choke the panting traveller,and under every blade of dried grass the grasshoppers call with fury forthe beneficent night dews.

  When, however, with great labour, the traveller has covered six leaguesof this burning solitude, the eye reposes with delight upon a splendidoasis, which appears all at once to rise from the bosom of the sands.

  This Eden is the Hacienda del Milagro.

  At the time our history took place, this hacienda, one of the richestand largest in the province, was composed of a two storied house, builtof _tapia_ and _adobes_, with a terrace roof of reeds, covered withbeaten earth.

  Access to the hacienda was gained by passing through an immense court,the entrance of which shaped like an arched portico, was furnished withstrong folding gates, and a postern on one side. Pour chambers completedthe front; the windows had gratings of gilded iron, and shutters inside;they were glazed, an almost unheard-of luxury in that country at thattime; on the four sides of the court, or patio, were the apartments forthe peons and children, &c.

  The ground floor of the principal house was composed of threeapartments; a kind of grand vestibule furnished with antique fauteuilsand canopies covered with stamped Cordovan leather, with a large nopaltable and some stools; upon the walls hung, in gilded frames, severalold full-length portraits, representing the members of the family;while the beams of the ceiling, left in relief, were decorated with aprofusion of carvings.

  Two folding doors opened into the saloon; the side in front of the patiowas raised about a foot above the rest of the floor; it was covered bya carpet, and contained a row of curiously carved low stools ornamentedwith, crimson velvet, and cushions for the feet; there was also alittle square table, eighteen inches high, serving as a work table.This portion of the saloon is reserved for the ladies, who there sitcross-legged, in the Moorish fashion; on the other side of the saloonwere chairs covered with the same stuff as the stools and the cushions.Facing the entrance of the saloon was the principal bedchamber, withan alcove at the back of a dais, upon which stood a bed of ceremony,ornamented with an infinity of gildings and brocade curtains, withtassels and fringes of gold and silver; the sheets and pillowcases wereof the most beautiful linen, bordered with wide lace.

  Behind the principal house was a second patio, in which were thekitchens and the corral; beyond this court was an immense garden,surrounded by walls, and more than a hundred perches in length, laidout in the English fashion, and containing the most remarkable exoticplants and trees.

  It was holiday time at the hacienda.

  It was the period of the matanza del ganado (slaughtering of cattle).The peons had formed, at a few paces from the hacienda, an enclosure, inwhich, after driving the beasts, they separated the lean from the fat,which they drove out, one by one, from the enclosure.

  A vaquero, armed with a sharp instrument in the form of a crescent,furnished with points placed at the distance of a foot apart, and whowas concealed behind the door of the enclosure, cut, with great address,the hamstrings of the poor beasts, as they passed before him.

  If by chance he missed a stroke, which he rarely did, a second vaquero,mounted on horseback, galloped after the animal, threw the lasso roundits horns, and held it till the first had succeeded in cutting itshamstrings.

  Carelessly leaning against the portico of the hacienda, a man of aboutforty years of age, clothed in the rich costume of a gentleman farmer,his shoulders covered by a zarape of brilliant colours, and his headprotected from the rays of the setting sun by a fine hat of Panamastraw, worth at least five hundred piastres, seemed to be presiding overthis scene while enjoying a husk cigarette.

  He was a gentleman of lofty bearing, slightly built, but perfectlywell-proportioned, and his features well defined with firm and markedlines, denoted loyalty, courage, and, above all, an inflexible will.His large black eyes, shaded by thick eyebrows, displayed indescribablemildness; but when any contradictory chance spread a red glow over hisembrowned complexion, his glance assumed a fixity and a force which fewcould support, and which made even the bravest hesitate and tremble.

  His small hands and feet, and more than all, the aristocratic stampimpressed upon his person, denoted, at the first glance, that this manwas of pure and noble Castilian race.

  In fact, this personage was Don Ramon Garillas de Saavedra, theproprietor of the Hacienda del Milagro, which we have just described.

  Don Ramon Garillas was descended from a Spanish family, the headof which had been one of the principal lieutenants of Cortez, andhad settled in Mexico after the miraculous conquest of that cleveradventurer.

  Enjoying a princely fortune, but unnoticed by the Spanish authorities,on account of his marriage with a woman of mixed Aztec blood, he hadgiven himself up entirely to the cultivation of his land, and theamelioration of his vast domains.

  After seventeen years of marriage, he found himself the head of a largefamily, composed of six boys and three girls, in all nine children, ofwhom Rafael--he whom we have seen so deftly kill the vaquero--was theeldest.

  The marriage of Don Ramon and Dona Jesuita had been merely a marriageof convenience, contracted solely with a view to fortune, but which,notwithstanding, had rendered them comparatively happy; we saycomparatively, because, as the girl only left her convent to be married,no love had ever existed between them, but its place had been almost aswell occupied by a tender and sincere affection.

  Dona Jesuita passed her time in the cares necessitated by her children,surrounded by her Indian women. On his side, her husband, completelyabsorbed by the duties of his life as a gentleman farmer, was almostalways with his vaqueros, his peons, and his huntsmen, only seeing hiswife for a few minutes at the hours of meals, and sometimes remainingmonths together absent in hunting excursions on the banks of the RioGila.

  Nevertheless, we are bound to add that, whether absent or present, DonRamon took the greatest care that nothing should be wanting for hiswife's comfort; and in order that her least caprices might be satisfied,he spared neither money nor trouble to procure her all she appeared todesire.

  Dona Jesuita was endowed with extraordinary beauty and angelic mildness;she appeared to have accepted, if not with joy, at least without anygreat pain, the kind of life to which her husband bad obliged her tosubmit; but in the depth of her large black languishing eye, in thepaleness of her countenance, and, above all, in the shade of sadnesswhich continually obscured her beautiful white brow, it was easy todivine that an ardent soul abode within that seducing statue, and thatthe heart, which was ignorant of itself, had turned all its feelingsupon her children, whom she adored with all the virginal strength ofmaternal love, the most beautiful and the most holy of all loves.

  As for Don Ramon, always good and anxious for his wife, whom he hadnever taken the pains to study, he had a right to believe her thehappiest creature in the world, which, in fact, she became as soon asGod made her a mother.

  It was some minutes after sunset; the sky, by degrees, lost its purpletint, and grew rapidly darker; a few stars began to sparkle in thecelestial vault, and the evening wind arose with a force that presagedfor the night, one of those terrible storms which so often burst overthese regions of the sun.

  The mayo
ral, after having caused the rest of the ganado to be carefullyshut up in the enclosure, assembled the vaqueros and the peons, andall directed their steps towards the hacienda, where the supper bellannounced to them that the hour of rest was at length arrived.

  As the major-domo passed the last, with a bow, before his master, thelatter asked him:

  "Well, No Eusebio, how many heads do we count this year?"

  "Four hundred and fifty _mi amo_--my master," replied the mayoral, atall, thin, wizened man, with a grayish head, and a countenance tannedlike a piece of leather, stopping his horse and taking off his hat;"that is to say, seventy-five head more than last year. Our neighboursthe jaguars and the Apaches have not done us any great damage thisseason."

  "Thanks to you, No Eusebio," Don Ramon replied; "your vigilance has beengreat; I must find means to recompense you for it."

  "My best recompense is the kind remark your lordship has just addressedto me," the mayoral, whose rough visage was lit up by a smile ofsatisfaction, replied. "Ought I not to watch over everything thatbelongs to you with the same zeal as if it were my own?"

  "Thanks," the gentleman remarked with emotion, and shook his servant'shand. "I know how truly you are devoted to me.

  "For life and to death, my master! My mother nourished you with hermilk; I belong to you and your family."

  "Come, come, No Eusebio," the hacendero said, gaily; "supper is ready;the senora is by this time at table; we must not keep her waiting."

  Upon this, both entered the patio, and No Eusebio, as Don Ramon hadnamed him, prepared, as was his custom every evening, to close the gates.

  In the meantime, Don Ramon entered the dining hall of the hacienda,where all the vaqueros and peons were assembled.

  This hall was furnished with an immense table, which occupied the entirecentre; around this table there were wooden forms covered with leather,and two carved armchairs, intended for Don Ramon and the senora. Behindthese chairs, an ivory crucifix, four feet high, hung against the wall,between two pictures, representing, the one, "Jesus in the Garden ofOlives," the other the "Sermon on the Mount." Here and there, on thewhitewashed walls, grinned the heads of jaguars, buffaloes, and elks,killed in the chase by the hacendero.

  The table was abundantly supplied with lahua, or thick soup made of theflour of maize boiled with meat, with puchero, or olla podrida, and withpepian; at regular distances there were bottles of mezcal, and decantersof water.

  At a sign from the hacendero the repast commenced.

  The storm, which had threatened for some time past, now broke forth withfury.

  The rain fell in torrents; at every second vivid flashes of lightningdimmed the lights of the hall, preceding awful claps of thunder.

  Towards the end of the repast, the hurricane acquired such violence,that the tumult of the conspiring elements drowned the hum ofconversation.

  The thunder peals clashed with frightful force, a whirlwind filled thehall, after dashing in a window, and extinguished all the lights; theassembly crossed themselves with terror.

  At that moment, the bell placed at the gate of the hacienda resoundedwith a convulsive noise, and a voice, which had nothing human in it,cried twice distinctly,--

  "Help! help!"

  "Sangre de Cristo!" Don Ramon cried, as he rushed out of the hall,"somebody is being murdered on the plain."

  Two pistol shots resounded at almost the same moment, a cry of agonyrung through the air, and all relapsed into sinister darkness.

  All at once, a pale flash of lightning furrowed the obscurity, thethunder burst with a horrible crash, and Don Ramon reappeared in thehall, bearing a fainting man in his arms.

  The stranger was placed in a seat, and all crowded round him.

  There was nothing extraordinary in either the countenance or theappearance of this man, and yet, on perceiving him, Rafael, the eldestson of Don Ramon, could not repress a gesture of terror, and his facebecame lividly pale.

  "O!" he murmured, in a low voice, "it is the juez de letras!"

  It was, indeed, the worthy judge, whom we saw leave Hermosillo with sucha brilliant equipage.

  His long hair, soaked with rain, fell upon his breast, his clothes werein disorder, spotted with blood, and torn in many places.

  His right hand convulsively clasped the stock of a discharged pistol.

  Don Ramon had likewise recognized the juez de letras, and hadunconsciously darted a glance at his son, which the latter could notsupport.

  Thanks to the intelligent care that was bestowed upon him by DonaJesuita and her women, he breathed a deep sigh, opened his haggardeyes, which he rolled round upon the assembly, without at first seeinganything, and by degrees recovered his senses.

  All at once a deep flush covered his brow, which had been so pale aminute before, and his eye sparkled. Directing a look towards Don Rafaelwhich nailed him to the floor, a prey to invincible terror, he rosepainfully, and advancing towards the young man, who saw his approachwithout daring to seek to avoid him, he placed his hand roughly on hisshoulder, and turning towards the peons, who were terrified at thisstrange scene, of which they comprehended nothing, he said solemnly,--

  "I, Don Inigo Tormentes Albaceyte, juez de letras of the city ofHermosillo, arrest this man, accused of assassination, in the king'sname!"

  "Mercy!" cried Rafael, falling on his knees, and clasping his hands withdespair.

  "Woe! woe!" the poor mother exclaimed, as she sank back fainting in herchair.