XIII
IN THE SHELTER OF SAN MIGUEL

Fear not, dear love, thy trial hour shall be
The dearest bond between my heart and thee.
--ALL THE YEAR ROUND.

When we reached the end of the trail and entered a second time into Santa Fé the Stars and Stripes were floating lazily above the Palace of the Governors. Out on the heights beyond the old Spanish prison stood Fort Marcy, whose battlements told of a military might, strong to control what by its strength it had secured. In its shadow was La Garita, of old the place of execution, against whose blind wall many a prisoner had started on the long trail at the word of a Spanish bullet, La Garita changed now from a thing of legalized horror to a landmark of history.

But the city itself seemed unchanged, and there was little evidence that Yankee thrift and energy had entered New Mexico with the new government. The narrow street still marked the trail's end before the Exchange Hotel. San Miguel, with its dun walls and triple-towered steeple, still good guard over the soul of Santa Fé, as it had stood for three sunny centuries. The Mexican still drove down the loaded burro-train of firewood from the mountains. The Indian basked in the sunny corners of the Plaza. The adobe dwellings clustered blindly along little lanes leading out to nowhere in particular. The orchards and cornfields, primitively cultivated, made tiny oases beside the trickling streams and sandy beds of dry arroyos. The sheep grazed on the scant grasses of the plain. The steep gray mesa slopes were splotched with clumps of evergreen shrubs and piñon trees. And over all the silent mountains kept watch.

The business house of Felix Narveo, however, did not share in this lethargy. The streets about the Plaza were full of Conestoga wagons, with tired ox-teams lying yoked or unyoked before them. Most of the traffic borne in by these came directly or indirectly to the house of Narveo. And its proprietor, the same silent, alert man, had taken advantage of a less restricted government, following the Mexican War, to increase his interests. So mine and meadow, flock and herd, trappers' snare and Indian loom and forge, all poured their treasures into his hands--a clearing-house for the products of New Mexico to swell the great overland commerce that followed the Santa Fé Trail.

For all of which the ground plan had been laid mainly by Esmond Clarenden, when with tremendous daring he came to Santa Fé and spied out the land for these years to follow.

A boy's memory is keen, and all the hours of that other journey hither, with their eager anticipation and youthful curiosity, and love of surprise and adventure, came back to Beverly Clarenden and me as we pulled along the last lap of the trail.

"Was it really so long ago, Bev, that we came in here, all eyes and ears?" I asked my cousin.

"No, it was last evening. And not an eyebrow in this Rip Van Winkle town has lifted since," Beverly replied. "Yonder stands that old church where the gallant knight on a stiff-legged pony spied Little Lees and knocked the head off of that tormenting Marcos villain, and kicked it under the door-step. Say, Gail, I'd like mighty well to see the grown-up Little Lees, wouldn't you? And I'd as soon this was Saint Louis as Santa Fé."

Since the night of Mat's wedding, I had been resolutely putting away all thought of Eloise St. Vrain. I belonged to the plains. All my training had been for this. I thought I was very old and settled now. But the mention of her pet name sent a thrill through me; and these streets of Santa Fé brought back a flood of memories and boyhood dreams and visions.

"Bev, how many auld-lang-syners do you reckon we'll meet in this land of sunshine and chilly beans?" I asked, carelessly.

"Well, how many of them do you remember, Mr. Cyclopedia of Prominent Men and Pretty Women?" Beverly inquired.

"Oh, there was Felix Narveo and Father Josef--and Little Blue Flower"--A shadow flitted across my cousin's face for a moment, leaving it sunny as ever again.

"And there was that black-eyed Marcos boy everywhere, and Ferdinand Ramero whom we were warned to step wide of," I went on.

"Oh, that tall thin man with blue-glass eyes that cut your fingers when he looked at you. Maybe he went out the back door of New Mexico when General Kearny peeped in at the front transom. There wasn't any fight in that man."

"Jondo says he is still in Santa Fé." Just as I spoke an Indian swept by us, riding with the ease of that born-to-the-horseback race.

"Beverly, do you remember that Indian boy that we saw out at Agua Fria?" I asked.

"The day we found Little Lees asleep in the church?" Beverly broke in, eagerly.

In our whole journey he had hardly spoken of Eloise, and, knowing Beverly as I did, I had felt sure for that reason that she had not been on his mind. Now twice in five minutes he had called her name. But why should he not remember her here, as well as I?

"Yes, I remember there was an Indian boy, sort of sneaky like, and deaf and dumb, that followed us until I turned and stared him out of it. That's the way to get rid of 'em, Gail, same as a savage dog," Beverly said, lightly.

"What if there are six of them all staring at you?" I asked.

"Oh, Gail, for the Lord's sake forget that!"

Beverly cried, affectionately. "When you've got an arrow wound rotting your arm off and six hundred and twenty degrees of fever in your blood, and the son of your old age is gone for three days and nights, and you don't dare to think where, you'll know why a fellow doesn't want to remember." There were real tears in the boy's eyes. Beverly was deeper than I had thought.

"Well, to change gradually, I wonder if that centaur who just passed us might be that same Indian of Agua Fria of long ago."

"He couldn't be," Beverly declared, confidently. "That boy got one square look at my eagle eye and he never stopped running till he jumped into the Pacific Ocean. 'I shall see him again over there.'" Half chanting the last words, Beverly, boy-hearted and daring and happy, cracked his whip, and our mule-team began to prance off in mule style the journey's latter end.

Oh, Beverly! Beverly! Why did that day on the parade-ground at Fort Leavenworth and a boy's pleading face lifted to mine, come back to me at that moment? Strange are the lines of life. I shall never clearly read them all.

Down in the Plaza a tall, slender young man was sitting in the shade, idly digging at the sod with an open pocket-knife. There was something magnetic about him, the presence that even in a crowd demands a second look.

He was dressed in spotless white linen, and with his handsome mustache, his well-groomed black hair, and sparkling black eyes, he was a true type of the leisure son of the Spanish-Mexican grandee. He stared at our travel-stained caravan as it rolled down the Plaza's edge, but his careless smile changed to an insolent grin, showing all his perfect teeth as he caught sight of Beverly and me.

We laid no claims to manly beauty, but we were stalwart young fellows, with the easy strength of good health, good habits, clear conscience, and the frank faces of boys reared on the frontier, and accustomed to its dangers by men who defied the very devil to do them harm. But even in our best clothes, saved for the display at the end of the trail, we were uncouth compared to this young gentleman, and our tanned faces and hard brown hands bespoke the rough bull-whacker of the plains.

As our train halted, the young man lighted a cigar and puffed the smoke toward us, as if to ignore our presence.

"Its mamma has dressed it up to go and play in the park, but it mustn't speak to little boys, nor soil its pinafore, nor listen to any naughty words. And it couldn't hold its own against a kitten. Nice little clothes-horse to hang white goods on!"

Beverly had turned his back to the Plaza and was speaking in a low tone, with the serious face and far-away air of one who referred to a thing of the past.

"Bev, you are a mind-reader, a character-sketcher--" I began, but stopped short to stare into the Plaza beyond him.

The young man had sprung to his feet and stood there with flashing eyes and hands clenched. Behind him was the same young Indian who had passed us on the trail. He was lithe, with every muscle trained to strength and swiftness and endurance.

He had muttered a word into the young white man's ear that made him spring up. And while the face of the Indian was expressionless, the other's face was full of surprise and anger; and I recognized both faces in an instant.

"Beverly Clarenden, there are two auld-lang-syners behind you right now. One is Marcos Ramero, and the other is Santan of Bent's Fort," I said, softly.

Beverly turned quickly, something in his fearless face making the two men drop their eyes. When we looked again they had left the Plaza by different ways.

After dinner that evening Jondo and Bill Banney hurried away for a business conference with Felix Narveo. Rex and Beverly also disappeared and I was alone.

The last clear light of a long summer day was lingering over the valley of the Rio Grande, and the cool evening breeze was rippling in from the mountains, when I started out along the narrow street that made the terminal of the old Santa Fé Trail. I was hardly conscious of any purpose of direction until I came to the half-dry Santa Fé River and saw the spire of San Miguel beyond it. In a moment the same sense of loss and longing swept over me that I had fought with on the night after Mat's wedding, when I sat on the bluff and stared at the waters of the Kaw flowing down to meet the Missouri. And then I remembered what Father Josef had said long ago out by the sandy arroyo:

"Among friends or enemies, the one haven of safety always is the holy sanctuary."

I felt the strong need for a haven from myself as I crossed the stream and followed the trail up to the doorway of San Miguel.

The shadows were growing long, few sounds broke the stillness of the hour, and the spirit of peace brooded in the soft light and sweet air. I had almost reached the church when I stopped suddenly, stunned by what I saw. Two people were strolling up the narrow, crooked street that wanders eastward beside the building--a tall, slender young man in white linen clothes and a girl in a soft creamy gown, with a crimson scarf draped about her shoulders. They were both bareheaded, and the man's heavy black hair and curling black mustache, and the girl's coronal of golden braids and the profile of her fair face left no doubt about the two. It was Marcos Ramero and Eloise St. Vrain. They were talking earnestly; and in a very lover-like manner the young man bent down to catch his companion's words.

Something seemed to snap asunder in my brain, and from that moment I knew myself; knew how futile is the belief that miles of prairie trail and strength of busy days can ever cast down and break an idol of the heart.

In a minute they had passed a turn in the street, and there was only sandy earth and dust-colored walls and a yellow glare above them, where a moment ago had been a shimmer of sunset's gold.

"The one haven of safety always is the holy sanctuary."

Father Josef's words sounded in my ears, and the face of old San Miguel seemed to wear a welcoming smile. I stepped into the deep doorway and stood there, aimless and unthinking, looking out toward where the Jemez Mountains were outlined against the southwest horizon. Presently I caught the sound of feet, and Marcos Ramero strode out of the narrow street and followed the trail into the heart of the city.

I stared after him, noting the graceful carriage, the well-fitting clothes, and the proud set of the handsome head. There was no doubt about him. Did he hold the heart of the golden-haired girl who had walked into my life to stay? As he passed out of my sight Eloise St. Vrain came swiftly around the corner of the street to the church door, and stopped before me in wide-eyed amazement. Eloise, with her clinging creamy draperies, and the vivid red of her silken scarf, and her glorious hair.

"Oh, Gail Clarenden, is it really you?" she cried, stretching out both hands toward me with a glad light in her eyes.

"Yes, Little Lees, it is I."

I took both of her hands in mine. They were soft and white, and mine were brown and horny, but their touch sent a thrill of joy through me. She clung tightly to my hands for an instant. Then a deeper pink swept her cheeks, and she dropped her eyes and stepped back.

"They told me you were--lost--on the way; that some Kiowas had killed you."

She lifted her face again, and heaven had not anything better for me than the depths of those big dark eyes looking into mine.

"Who told you, Eloise?"

The girl looked over her shoulder apprehensively, and lowered her voice as she replied:

"Marcos Ramero."

"He's a liar. I am awfully alive, and Marcos Ramero knows I am, for he saw me and recognized me down in the Plaza this afternoon," I declared.

Just then the church door opened and a girl in Mexican dress came out. I did not see her face, nor notice which way she took, for a priest following her stepped between us. It was Father Josef.

"My children, come inside. The holy sanctuary offers you a better shelter than the open street."

I shall never forget that voice, nor hear another like it. Inside, the candles were burning dimly at the altar. The last rays of daylight came through the high south windows, touching the carved old rafters and gray adobe with a red glow. Long ago human hands, for lack of trowels, had laid that adobe surface on the rough stone--hands whose imprint is graven still on those crudely dented walls.

We sat down on a low seat inside of the doorway, and Father Josef passed up the aisle to the altar, leaving us there alone.

"Eloise, Marcos Ramero is your friend, and I beg your pardon for speaking of him as I did."

I resented with all my soul the thought of this girl caring for the son of the man who in some infamous way had wronged Jondo, but I had no right to be rude about him.

"Gail, may I say something to you?" The voice was as a pleading call and the girl's farce was full of pathos.

"Say on, Little Lees," was all that I could venture to answer.

"Do you remember the day you came in here and threw Marcos Ramero out of that door?"

"I do," I replied.

"Would you do it again, if it were necessary? I mean--if--" the voice faltered.

I had heard the same pleading tone on the night of Mat's wedding when Eloise and Beverly were in the little side porch together. I looked up at the red light on the old church rafters and the rough gray walls. How like to those hand-marked walls our memories are, deep-dented by the words they hold forever! Then I looked down at the girl beside me and I forgot everything else. Her golden hair, her creamy-white dress, and that rich crimson scarf draped about her shoulders and falling across her knees would have made a Madonna's model that old Giovanni Cimabue himself would have joyed to copy.

"Is it likely to be necessary? Be fair with me, Eloise. I saw you two strolling up that little goat-run of a street out there just now. Judging from the back of his head, Marcos looked satisfied. I shouldn't want to interfere nor make you any trouble," I said, earnestly.

"It is I who should not make you any trouble, but, oh, Gail, I came here this evening because I was afraid and I didn't know where else to go, and I found you. I thought you were dead somewhere out on the Kansas prairie. Maybe it was to help me a little that you came here to-night."

Her hands were gripped tightly and her mouth was firm-set in an effort to be brave.

"Why, Eloise, I'd never let Marcos Ramero, nor anybody else, make you one little heart-throb afraid. If you will only let me help you, I wouldn't call it trouble; I'd call it by another name." The longing to say more made me pause there.

The light was fading overhead, but the church lamps gave a soft glow that seemed to shield off the shadowy gloom.

"Father Josef came all the way from New Mexico to St. Ann's to have me come back here, and Mother Bridget sent Sister Anita, you remember her, up to St. Louis to come with me by way of New Orleans. I didn't tell you that I might be here when your train came in overland because--because of some things about my own people--"

The fair head was bowed and the soft voice trembled.

"Don't be afraid to tell me anything, Little Lees," I whispered, assuringly.

"I never saw my father, but my mother was very beautiful and loving, and we were so happy together. I was still a very little girl when she fell sick and they took me away from her. I never knew when she died nor where she was buried. Ferdinand Ramero had charge of her property. He controlled everything after she went away, and I have always lived in fear of his word. I am helpless when he commands, for he has a strange power over minds; and as to Marcos--you know what a little cat I was. I had to be to live with him. It wasn't until we were all at Bent's Fort that I got over my fear of you and Beverly. The day you threw Marcos out of here was the first time I ever had a champion to defend me."

I wanted to take her in my arms and tell her what I dared not think she would let me say. So I listened in sympathetic silence.

"Then came an awful day out at Agua Fria, and Father Josef took me in his arms as he would take a baby, and sang me to sleep with the songs my mother loved to sing. I think it must have been midnight when I wakened. It was dreary and cold, and Esmond Clarenden and Ferdinand Ramero were there, and Father Josef and Jondo."

And then she told me, as she remembered them, the happenings of that night at Agua Fria, the same story that Jondo told me later. But until that evening I had known nothing of how Eloise had come to us.

"You know the rest," Eloise went on "I have had a boarding-school life, and no real friends, except the Clarenden family, outside of these schools."

"You poor little girl! One of the same Clarenden family is ready to be your friend now," I said, tenderly, remembering keenly how Uncle Esmond and Jondo had loved and protected three orphan children.

"The Rameros think nobody but a Ramero can do that now. Marcos is very much changed. He has been educated in Europe, is handsome, and courtly in his manners, and as his father's heir he will be wealthy. He came to-night to ask me, to urge and plead with me, to marry him." Eloise paused.

"Do you need the defense of a bull-whacker of the plains against these things?" I asked.

"Oh, I could depend on myself if it were only Marcos. He comes with polished ways and pleasing words," Eloise replied. "It is his father's iron fist back of him that strikes at me through his graciousness. He tells me that all the St. Vrain money, which he controls by the terms of my father's will, he can give to the Church, if he chooses, and leave me disinherited."

"We don't mind that a bit as a starter up in Kansas. Come out on our prairies and try it," I suggested.

"But, Gail, that isn't all. There is something worse, dreadfully worse, that I cannot tell you, that only the Rameros know, and hold like a sword over my head. If I marry Marcos his father will destroy all evidence of it and I shall have a handsome, talented, rich husband." Eloise bowed her head and clasped her hands, crushed by the misery of her lot.

"And if you refuse to marry this scoundrel?" I asked, bluntly.

"Then I will be a penniless outcast. The Rameros are powerful here, and the Church will be with them, for it will get my inheritance. I am helpless and alone and I don't know what to do."

I think I had never known what anger meant before. This beautiful girl, homeless, and about to be robbed of her fortune, reared in luxury, with no chance for developing self-reliance and courage, was being hemmed in and forced to a marriage by threats of poverty and a secret something against which she was powerless. All the manhood in me rallied to her cause, and she was an hundredfold dearer to me now, in her helplessness.

"Eloise, I'm a horny-handed driver of a bull-team on the Santa Fé Trail, but you will let me help you if I can. So far as your money is concerned, there's a lot of it on earth, even if the Church should grab up your little bit because Ferdinand Ramero says your father's will permits it. There are evil representatives in every Church, no matter what its name may be, Catholic, Protestant, Indian, or Jew, but Father Josef up there is bigger than his priestly coat, and you can trust that size anywhere. And as to the knowledge of this 'something' known just to Ferdinand Ramero, if he is the only one who knows it, it is too small to get far, if it were turned loose. And any man who would use such infamous means to get what he wants is too small to have much influence if he doesn't get it. This is a big, wide, good world, Little Lees, and the father of Marcos Ramero, with all his power and wealth, has a short lariat that doesn't let him graze wide. Jondo holds the other end of that lariat, and he knows."

Eloise listened eagerly, but her face was very white.

"Gail, you don't know the Ramero blood. I am helpless and terrified with them in spite of their suave manners and flattering words. Why did Father Josef bring me back here if the Church is not with them? And then that awful shadow of some hidden thing that may darken my life. I know their cruel, pitiless hearts. They stop at nothing when they want their way. I have known them to do the most cold-blooded deeds."

Poor Eloise! The net about her had been skilfully drawn.

"I don't know Father Josef's motive, but I can trust him. And no shadow shall trouble you long, Little Lees. Jondo and Uncle Esmond `tote together,' Aunty Boone said long ago. They know something about the Ramero blood, and Jondo has promised to tell me his story some day. He must do it to-night, and to-morrow we'll see the end of this tangle. Trust me, Eloise," I said, comfortingly.

"But, Gail, I'm afraid Ferdinand will kill you if you get in his way." Eloise clung to my arm imploringly.

"Six big Kiowas got fooled at that job. Do you think this thin streak of humanity would try it?" I asked, lightly.

Eloise stood up beside me.

"I must go away now," she said.

"Then I'll go with you. Thank you, Father Josef, for your kindness," I said as the priest came toward us.

"You are welcome, my son. In the sanctuary circle no harm can come. Peace be with both of you."

There was a world of benediction in his deep tones, and his smile was genial, as he followed us to the street and stood as if watching for some one.

"I will meet you at San Miguel's to-morrow afternoon, Gail," Eloise said, as we reached a low but pretentious adobe dwelling. "This is my home now."

"Your new Mexican homes are thick-walled, and you live all on the inside," I said, as we paused at the doorway. "They make me think of the lower invertebrates, hard-shelled, soft-bodied animals. Up on the Kansas prairies and the Missouri bluffs we have a central vetebra--the family hearth-stone--and we live all around it. That is the people who have them do. There isn't much home life for a freighter of the plains anywhere. Good by, Little Lees." I took her offered hand. "I'm glad you have let me be your friend, a hard-shelled bull-whacker like me."

The street was full of shadows and the evening air was chill as the door closed on that sweet face and cloud of golden hair. But the pressure of warm white fingers lingered long in my sense of touch as I retraced my steps to the trail's end. At the church door I saw Father Josef still waiting, as if watching for somebody.

All that Eloise had told me ran through my mind, but I felt sure that neither financial nor churchly influence in Santa Fé could be turned to evil purposes so long as men like Felix Narveo and Father Josef were there. And then I thought of Esmond Clarenden, himself neither Mexican nor Roman Catholic, who, nevertheless, drew to himself such fair-dealing, high-minded men as these, always finding the best to aid him, and combating the worst with daring fearlessness. Surely with the priest and the merchant and Jondo as my uncle's representative, no harm could come to the girl whom I knew that I should always love.

And with my mind full of Eloise and her need I sought out Jondo and listened to his story. Bzjc0bQo92EqTICpl74ZsVJd0cEeit9jsIuhOqdCGTgM+bkbTSuXjzbcKDYbHJPp

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