XXXI.
An hour later they assembled in the plaza to start for the bear hunt.Reinaldo was not of the party.
Estenega lifted Chonita to her horse and stood beside her for a momentwhile the others mounted. He touched her hand with his:
"We could not have a more beautiful night," he said, significantly."And I have often wished that my father had included this spot when heapplied for his grant. I should like to live with you here. Even whenthe winds rage and hurl the rain through the very window pane, I knowof no more enchanting spot than Fort Ross. The Russians are going;some day I will buy it for you."
She made no reply, but she did not withdraw her hand, and he heldit closely and glanced slowly about him. Always, despite his bitterintimacy with life, in kinship with nature, perhaps in that moment ithad a deeper meaning, for he saw with double vision: She was there;and, with him, sensible not only of the beauty of the night, but ofthe indefinable mystery which broods over California the moment thesun falls. Perhaps, too, he was troubled by a vague foreboding, suchas comes to mortals sometimes in spite of their limitations: he neversaw Fort Ross again.
On the horizon the fog crouched and moved; marched like a battalion ofocean's ghosts; suddenly cohered and sent out light puffs of smoke, asfrom the crater of a spectral volcano. The moon, full and bright andcold, hung low in the dark sky: one hardly noted the stars. The vastsweep of water was as calm as a lake, dark and metallic like the sky,barely reflecting the silver light between. But although calm it wasnot quiet. It greeted the forbidding rocks beyond the shore, the longirregular line of stark, storm-beaten cliffs, with ominous mutter, nowand again throwing a cloud of spray high in the air, as if in derisiveproof that even in sleep it was sensible of its power. Occasionally itmoaned, as if sounding a dirge along the mass of stones which stormshad hurled or waves had wrenched from the crags above,--a dirge forbeheaded Russians, for him who had walked the plank, or for the loverof Natalie Ivanhoff.
Here and there the cliffs were intersected by deep straggling gulches,out of whose sides grew low woods of brush; but the three tablesrising successively from the ocean to the forest on the mountain, werealmost bare. On the highest, between two gulches, on a knoll so bareand black and isolated that its destiny was surely taken into accountat creation, was a tall rude cross and a half hundred neglectedgraves. The forest seemed blacker just behind it, the shadows thickerin the gorges that embraced it, the ocean grayer and more illimitablebefore it. "Natalie Ivanhoff is there in her copper coffin," saidEstenega, "forgotten already."
The curve of the mountain was so perfect that it seemed to reach downa long arm on either side and grasp the cliffs. The redwoods on itscrown and upper slopes were a mass of rigid shadows, the points, only,sharply etched on the night sky. They might have been a wall about anundiscovered country.
"Come," cried Rotscheff, "we are ready to start." And Estenega sprangto his horse.
"I don't envy you," said the Princess Helene from the veranda, hersilveren head barely visible above the furs which enveloped her. "Iprefer the fire."
"You are warmly clad?" asked Estenega of Chonita. "But you have theblood of the South in your veins."
They climbed the steep road between the levels, slowly, the womenchattering and asking questions, the men explaining and advising.Estenega and Chonita having much to say, said nothing.
A cold volume of air, the muffled roar of a mountain torrent, rushedout of the forest, startling with the suddenness of its impact. Once apanther uttered its human cry.
They entered the forest. It was so dark here that the horses wanderedfrom the trail and into the brush again and again. Conversationceased; except for the muffled footfalls of the horses and the speechof the waters there was no sound. Chonita had never known a stillnessso profound; the giant trees crowding together seemed to resentintrusion, to menace an eternal silence. She moved her horse close toEstenega's and he took her hand. Occasionally there was an opening, awell of blackness, for the moon had not yet come to the forest.
They reached the summit, and descended. Half-way down the mountainthey rode into a farm in a valley formed by one of the many basins.
The Indians were waiting, and killed a bullock at once, placing thecarcass in a conspicuous place. Then all retired to the shade of thetrees. In less than a half-hour a bear came prowling out of the forestand began upon the meal so considerately provided for him. When hisattention was fully engaged, Rotscheff and the officers, mounted,dashed down upon him, swinging their lassos. The bear showed fight andstood his ground, but this was an occasion when the bear always gotthe worst of it. One lasso caught his neck, another his hind foot,and he was speedily strained and strangled to death. No sooner washe despatched than another appeared, then another, and the sport grewvery exciting, absorbing the attention of the women as well as theenergies of the men.
Estenega lifted Chonita from her horse. "Let us walk," he said."They will not miss us. A few yards farther, and you will be on myterritory. I want you there."
She made no protest, and they entered the forest. The moon shone downthrough the lofty redwoods that seemed to scrape its crystal; themonotone of the distant sea blended with the faint roar of thetree-tops. The vast gloomy aisles were unbroken by other sound.
He took her hand and held it a moment, then drew it through his arm."Now tell me all," he said, "They will be occupied for a long while.The night is ours."
"I have come here to tell you that I love you," she said. "Ah, can _I_make _you_ tremble? It was impossible for me not to tell you this; Icould not rest in my retreat without having the last word withyou, without having you know me. And I want to tell you that I havesuffered horribly; you may care to know that, for no one else in theworld could have made me, no one else ever can. Only your fingerscould twist in my heart-strings and tear my heart out of my body. Isuffered first because I doubted you, then because I loved you, thenthe torture of jealousy and the pangs of parting, then those dreadfulthree months when I heard no word. I could not stay at Casa Grande;everything associated with you drove me wild. Oh, I have gone throughall varieties! But the last was the worst, after I heard from youagain, and all other causes were removed, and I knew that you werewell and still loved me: the knowledge that I never could be anythingto you,--and I could be so much! The torment of this knowledge was sobitter that there was but one refuge,--imagination. I shut my eyes tomy little world and lived with you; and it seemed to me that I grewinto absolute knowledge of you. Let me tell you what I divined. Youmay tell me that I am wrong, but I do not believe that you will. Ithink that in the little time we were together I absorbed you.
"It seemed to me that your soul reached always for something justabove the attainable, restless in the moments which would satisfyanother, fretted with a perverse desire for something different whenan ardent wish was granted, steeped, under all wanton determinedenjoyment of life, with the bitter knowing of life's sure impotenceto satisfy. Could the dissatisfied darting mind loiter long enough togive a woman more than the promise of happiness?--but never mind that.
"With this knowledge of you my own resistless desire for variety leftme: my nature concentrated into one paramount wish,--to be all thingsto you. What I had felt vaguely before and stifled--the nothingnessof life, the inevitableness of satiety--I repudiated utterly, now thatthey were personified in you; I would not recognize the fact of theirexistence. _I_ could make you happy. How could imagination shape suchscenes, such perfection of union, of companionship, if reality werenot? Imagination is the child of inherited and living impressions. Imight exaggerate; but, even stripped of its halo, the substance mustbe sweeter and more fulfilling than anything else on this earth atleast. And I knew that you loved me. Oh, I had _felt_ that! And thevariousness of your nature and desires, although they might maddenme at times, would give an extraordinary zest to life. I was TheDoomswoman no longer. I was a supplementary being who could meet youin every mood and complete it; who would so understand that I couldbe man and woman and friend to you. A delus
ion? But so long as I shallnever know, let me believe. An extraordinary tumultuous desire thatrose in me like a wave and shook me often at first, had, in those lastsad weeks, less part in my musings. It seemed to me that that was theexpression, the poignant essence, of love; but there was so much else!I do not understand that, however, and never shall. But I wanted totell you all. I could not rest until you knew me as I am and asyou had made me. And I will tell you this too," she cried, breakingsuddenly, "I wanted you so! Oh, I needed you so! It was not I, only,who could give. And it is so terrible for a woman to stand alone!"
He made no reply for a moment. But he forgot every other interest andscheme and idea stored in his impatient brain. He was thrilled to hissoul, and filled with the exultant sense that he was about to take tohis heart the woman compounded for him out of his own elements.
"Speak to me," she said.
"My love, I have so much to say to you that it will take all the yearswe shall spend together to say it in."
"No, no! Do not speak of that. There I am firm. Although the misery ofthe past months were to be multiplied ten hundred times in the future,I would not marry you."
Estenega, knowing that their hour of destiny was come, and that uponhim alone depended its issues, was not the man to hesitate betweensuch happiness as this woman alone could give him, and the grayexistence which she in her blindness would have meted to both: hisbold will had already taken the future in its relentless grasp. But,knowing the mental habit of women, he thought it best to let Chonitafree her mind, that there might be the less in it to protest forhearing while his heart and passion spoke to hers.
"It seems absurd to argue the matter," he said, "but tell me thereasons again, if you choose, and we will dispose of them once forall. Do not think for a moment, my darling, that I do not respect yourreasons; but I respect them only because they are yours; in themselvesthey are not worthy of consideration."
"Ay, but they are. It has been an unwritten law for four generationsthat an Estenega and an Iturbi y Moncada should not marry; the enmitybegan, as you should know, when a member of each family was an officerin a detachment of troops sent to protect the Missions in theirbuilding. And my father--he told me lately--loved your father's sisterfor many years,--that was the reason he married so late in life,--andwould not ask her because of her blood and of cruel wrongs her fatherhad done his. Shall his daughter be weak where he was strong? You castaside traditions as if they were the seeds of an apple; but rememberthat they are blood of my blood. And the vow I made,--do you forgetthat? And the words of it? The Church stands between us. I will tellyou all: the priest has forbidden me to marry you; he forbade it everytime I confessed; not only because of my vow, but because you hadaroused in me a love so terrible that I almost took the life ofanother woman. Could I bring you back to the Church it might bedifferent; but you rule others; no one could remould you. You see itis hopeless. It is no use to argue."
"I have no intention of arguing. Words are too good to waste on suchan absurd proposition that because our fathers hated, we, who areindependent and intelligent beings, should not marry when every dropof heart's blood demands its rights. As for your vow,--what is a vow?Hysterical egotism, nothing more. Were it the promise of man to man,the subject would be worth discussing. But we will settle the matterin our own way." He took her suddenly in his arms and kissed her. Sheput her arms about him and clung to him, trembling, her lips pressedto his. In that supreme moment he felt not happiness, but a bitterdesire to bear her out of the world into some higher sphere where theconditions of happiness might possibly exist. "On the highest pinnaclewe reach," he thought, "we are granted the tormenting and chasteningglimpse of what might be, had God, when he compounded his victims,been in a generous mood and completed them."
And she? she was a woman.
"You will resist no longer," he said, in a few moments.
"Ay, more surely than ever, now." Her voice was faint, but crossed bya note of terror. "In that moment I forgot my religion and my duty.And what is so sweet,--it cannot be right."
"Do you so despise your womanhood, the most perfect thing about you?"
"Oh, let us return! I wanted to kiss you once. I meant to do that. ButI should not--Let us go! Oh, I love you so! I love you so!"
He drew her closer and kissed her until her head fell forward andher body grew heavy. "I shall think and act now, for both," he said,unsteadily, although there was no lack of decision in his voice. "Youare mine. I claim you, and I shall run no further risk of losing you.Oh, you will forgive me--my love--"
Neither saw a man walking rapidly up the trail. Suddenly the man gavea bound and ran toward them. It was Reinaldo.
"Ah, I have found thee," he cried. "Listen, Don Diego Estenega, lordof the North, American, and would-be dictator of the Californias. Twohours ago I despatched a vaquero with a circular letter to the priestsof the Department of the Californias, warning them each and allto write at once to the Archbishop of Mexico, and protest that thesuccess of your ambitions would mean the downfall of the CatholicChurch in California, and telling them your schemes. Thou art mighty,O Don Diego Estenega, but thou art powerless against the enmity ofthe Church. They are mightier than thou, and thou wilt never rule inCalifornia. Unhand my sister! Thou shalt not have her either. Thoushalt have nothing. Wilt thou unhand her?" he cried, enraged atEstenega's cold reception of his damnatory news. "Thou shouldst nothave her if I tore thy heart from thy body."
Estenega looked contemptuously across Chonita's shoulder, althoughhis heart was lead within him. "The last resource of the mean anddown-trodden is revenge," he said. "Go. To-morrow I shall horsewhipyou in the court-yard of Fort Ross."
Reinaldo, hot with excitement and thirst for further vengeance,uttered a shriek of rage and sprang upon him. Estenega saw the gleamof a knife and flung Chonita aside, catching the driving arm, thefury of his heart in his muscles. Reinaldo had the soft muscles ofthe cabellero, and panted and writhed in the iron grasp of the manwho forgot that he grappled with the brother of a woman passionatelyloved, remembered only that he rejoiced to fight to the death the manwho had ruined his life. Reinaldo tried to thrust the knife into hisback; Estenega suddenly threw his weight on the arm that held it,nearly wrenching it from its socket, snatched the knife, and drove itto the heart of his enemy.
Then the hot blood in his body turned cold. He stood like a stoneregarding Chonita, whose eyes, fixed upon him, were expanded withhorror. Between them lay the dead body of her brother.
He turned with a groan and sat down on a fallen log, supporting hischin with his hand. His profile looked grim and worn and old. Hestared unseeingly at the ground. Chonita stood, still looking at him.The last act of her brother's life had been to lay the foundation ofher lover's ruin; his death had completed it: all the South wouldrise did the slayer of an Iturbi y Moncada seek to rule it. She feltvaguely sorry for Reinaldo; but death was peace; this was hellin living veins. The memory of the world beyond the forest grewindistinct. She recalled her first dream and turned in loathing fromthe bloodless selfishness of which it was the allegory. Superstitionand tradition slipped into some inner pocket of her memory, there torattle their dry bones together and fall to dust. She saw only thefigure, relaxed for the first time, the profile of a man with hishead on the block. She stepped across the body of her brother, and,kneeling beside Estenega, drew his head to her breast.
THE END
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