AN ox-drawn cart was coming into the court yard behind the imposing administration building as Juan and Padre Mateo approached. This was a solid-wheeled cart, clumsy, heavy, at which the span of oxen strained with tongues thrust out in the agony of their labor, bound horn and horn as they were by the primitive, cruel Spanish yoke that had not been improved in the slightest particular in two thousand years. Baskets of purple grapes, big as wild plums, they appeared to Juan Molinero, were piled high in the cart, behind which there walked a young Indian, a tall and graceful youth, who carried his head so high that he seemed unconscious of his feet among the broken tile, brick and sunken cobblestones with which the court was paved.
Juan Molinero's attention was fixed on the Indian following this juicy load, a figure that expressed so much of suppressed defiance and revolt in its erect carriage, its detached bearing from the enforced task, however pleasant it might seem. The young man's face was gaunt and severe, sealed and impressed with the stamp of silent repression. It was the first Indian countenance marked with the quickness of intellectual nobility that Juan had met among the hundreds which he had viewed that morning.
The driver of the oxen, another Indian little older than the one who came behind, brought the load of grapes to a stand near a broad arched door in the main building, unsparing of his sharpened goad. This instrument was a peeled sapling, as thick at the butt as a man's wrist, six or seven feet long. An iron spike was inset in its smaller end, and wound about with a rawhide thong. Three-quarters of a century later, the drovers of the plains which lay in the bounds of this new Louisiana territory which the stranger at San Fernando mission had crossed, used the same kind of goad to prod up the cattle which had fallen from fatigue and thirst to the car floor, as the slow train held onward to a distant market.
"Come this way, Juan; you shall see our noble wine press," Padre Mateo beckoned, one foot within the door, the arch of which was six feet thick above his head.
"What a way to yoke oxen!" said Juan in high contempt of the crude and barbarous method that made the creatures' labor a long-drawn agony. He lingered in the court, pity in his face for the suffering brutes, on whose withers streams of blood were black-streaked in the dust, where the unsparing driver had urged and directed them as he had been taught.
"Do you know a better way?" Padre Mateo inquired, with just a little slighting of contempt, perhaps, in his own tone. It was as if the old rose up in bridling hauteur to defend the unnumbered cruelties which ignorance had established and usage had fastened, blighting curses on man and beast, through the slow centuries in the land that was his own.
"A better way!" Juan derided. "Why, you couldn't think of a worse way. Who ever would imagine oxen yoked by the horns, the yoke tied to the horns with ropes? They could pull about as much with their tails!"
"And there is another way, then, Juan Molinero?" Padre Mateo's resentment at this criticism of time-established usage was falling; he was a shrewd man, a servant of an institution that had grown great on its ability to see, its readiness to employ, the cunning and the wisdom of shrewd men.
"The yoke ought to set back on the shoulders, with a bow under the necks," Juan replied. "Haven't you ever seen a yoke like that? Why, they're used in every Christian country under the sun, have been since Adam made the first one, I guess."
"That is another thing you shall show us, then, if there is any advantage in it, Juan."
"Advantage? Why, I tell you, Padre Mateo, one span of oxen can draw as much as three span hitched this way. No wonder your fields look so scratched and poorly-plowed! You can't expect beasts to more than pull the hat off of your head hitched up by the horns that way."
"Then you shall show us the better way, Juan Molinero. Truly, God directed you to teach us many things. I am ashamed to show you the wine press now, that was the pride of our hearts yesterday. Perhaps you will say we are savages when you see it. But come."
Padre Ignacio himself was there, and the mayordomo, Don Geronimo, just inside the broad arched door. A broad stairway of thin bricks—the padres followed the Spanish custom, making their bricks thin and broad—led down to the wine press, which stood several feet below the ground level. At the press itself this stairway narrowed to half its upper breadth to continue into the cellar, now to become the padres' wine vault, which underlay the eastern end of the administration building.
The wine press would have passed undiscovered by Juan Molinero if he had been left to find it for himself. It was nothing more than a big bowl, made of bricks, plastered with cement, built into a corner of the passage, or area-way, into which the arched door opened. It was about as high as a man's head, six or seven feet square, tapering toward the bottom. A ledge was fashioned around the interior walls to hold a framework, or strainer, laced with strips of rawhide, a space of a foot or so between it and the bottom of the press to admit the free passage of the compressed juice, the pulp remaining on the sieve, which could be lifted out as required.
At the base of the wine press, on the side facing the door, just at the bottom of the steps, a deep basin, something like a modern bathtub, stood filled with water for washing the feet of those who were to have the joyous honor of trampling the grapes on the springy rawhide sieve. These favored ones were waiting, feet' bare, garments above the knees, six youths and six maidens, but not in any mood of great hilarity, or even subdued pleasure, that Juan could see. It was work to them, and strange work, which they approached with timid reluctance in spite of Padre Ignacio's assurance and the not so kind glances of Don Geronimo.
A line of young men, baskets of grapes on their heads, marched in and emptied their loads into the wine press; Padre Ignacio gave the word, the girls with washed feet clambered nimbly up the sides and began trampling out the wine. At first they stepped shyly on the cool rich grapes, promising little for Padre Ignacio's hopes. Presently the juice began to bubble pleasantly between their toes, bringing little exclamations of wonder, little starting smiles of pleasure. Absorbed in the new aspects of this task, moved to nimbler prancing by the reward of gushing juice, which broke in sharp little jets now and then, spraying faces and bare arms, the girls began to chatter and laugh.
"It is the same as in the days of old," Padre Mateo said. "Even these poor daughters of savages shout with joy as they tread out the wine."
Padre Ignacio knew there would be no scarcity of eager feet for his wine press now.
The chief ceremony, so Padre Mateo said, was to be the drawing off of the first juice from the press. Padre Ignacio himself was to do this; no other hand was worthy the distinction of that long-waited day. At the very bottom of the wine press, in the gloom at the foot of the cellar stairs, a half cask stood under the spiggot, which was itself made of a small cedar log with the heart hollowed out, the end closed with a plug. Padre Ignacio now descended to drain off the first juice trampled out in a wine press in California.
Magdalena came from her kitchen, which opened through a narrow door into this cellar way, to see this ceremony; the young men who carried in the grapes stood with empty baskets; the girls in the wine press, their dark faces spattered with stains, leaned along the edge, looking down on Padre Ignacio's fringe of snow-white hair as he went, gown gathered between his knees, to remove the plug. Borromeo Cambon, the blacksmith, was in the door.
They gasped in pleasurable exclamation when the thick stream of dark juice poured into the deep tub. Padre Ignacio let it run until the tub was full; the juice was running strong when he replaced the plug.
"It is a fruitful year; the grape skins are stored with wine. We shall have plenty at last," he said.
"There are dry throats waiting for it," said Borromeo, as he turned from the door to go back to his forge.
"Geronimo, there is a messenger from the harbor of San Pedro, asking to see Padre Ignacio," Magdalena announced.
"What is this?" Father Ignacio asked, overhearing Magdalena as he came up the stair.
"He has letters for you, which he refused to put in my hand," she said.
"Don Geronimo, have the kindness to conduct him to my office," Padre Ignacio requested, hurrying away.
Padre Ignacio returned in a little while, letters in his hand, trouble furrowing his brow. He beckoned Padre Mateo; Juan Molinero saw them stand talking in the white sunlight of the court a little outside the door.
"Here is a business!" said Father Ignacio, gesticulating with the unfolded letters. "The ship has been in the harbor these two days."
"So far ahead of the time we expected it? Does it bring any news from Spain?"
"Not that I know, Brother Mateo, but it brings a woman who begs sanctuary in the mission San Fernando!"
"A woman?" Padre Mateo's eyes grew wide. "It is incredible! Is it one of these adventuring strumpets the viceroy has been solicited to send here to marry his off-cast soldiers?"
"No, not of that kind. It is the daughter of José Sinova, he who had the grant to the south of us from the king for his services in the wars. José was on his way here, with all his goods, his daughter and his wife. Both of the parents died of the black vomit, which struck the ship and took many lives. Now this girl, left alone, appeals to me as one whom her father knew, to stand in a father's place, and the captain, shorn of his crew, asks men to sail his ship to Monterey."
"And she would come to San Fernando?" said Padre Mateo, full of astonishment. "Why doesn't she stay on the ship and return with it to Mexico?"
"Here is her letter," said Father Ignacio, helpless in the demand of this unprecedented business.
"So, there is nothing behind her," said Padre Mateo, having read the letter twice. "Her heart and her hope have been fixed on California; she longs to remain—perhaps there is some useful thing to which she can apply her hand—and there is the captain, who urges marriage and is not a man to be borne, and—here we have Magdalena, who could take her mother's place."
"What? You would counsel bringing her here? No, it is impossible!"
"Somebody is needed to teach the girls needle-work," Padre Mateo argued. "Magdalena has no time to instruct them in any more of the domestic arts."
"Magdalena is a jewel of inestimable value, teaching them breadmaking and the dressing of meats for the table with the patience of an angel. What we should do without Magdalena I do not know."
"This may be another Magdalena, for all we know, Padre Ignacio. Her plea is piteous, it would be hard to turn her away."
"Give me the letter again—let me consider." Padre Ignacio, a man who could not refuse a plea, worthy or unworthy let the subject be, as Padre Mateo well knew, stood with head bent over the letter, feet wide apart in his spacious gown, a gathering of concentrated thought on his brow.
"Besides, it will be a difficult thing to bring her here," he said, "with this brigand Alvitre in the bosque by the road. There must be considerable gold in her possession; José Sinova was a man of the first."
"Del Valle could send half a dozen soldiers."
"There is not a soldier left at San Fernando today; we would be at the mercy of Alvitre if he came riding up in a dust with his villains at his shoulderblade." There was a note of bitterness, of resentfulness for an affront, in Padre Ignacio's voice that drew a glance from his coadjutor so sudden, so sharp, that it seemed to flash like a plowshare in the sun.
"Gone?" said Padre Mateo.
"On one pretext or another," Padre Ignacio replied, spreading his hands to illustrate complete dispersion. "Del Valle has set out for Monterey to make report to the governor he says: Sergeant Olivera and certain others are thought to be in pursuit of Alvitre, but with how much honesty in their design no man knows, and the remainder have been sent to the pueblo at the request of the comisionado there. And you know what Comisionado Felix is."
"A man with red eyes and a disease," said Padre Mateo, succinct in his designation as he was quick in his decision.
"So, what is the peril of a young and comely woman sitting in a cart on a chest of gold?" Padre Ignacio asked it with a grimness of word and feature that seemed to be definite conclusion of the comely young woman's case.
"There will not be much heart in the soldiers' hunt for Alvitre, unpaid as they are, as they have been those two years," Padre Mateo said, turning that phase of it speculatively. "Yet, there might be a way."
"The only way I see is to let her stay on the ship and go to Monterey," Padre Ignacio said.
Padre Mateo turned, hands at his back, to walk a little way apart, chin up, eyes drawn small, in the attitude of a man whose determination leaps all obstacles. He turned back again.
"Del Valle sent his men away out of pique because he could not have his way with the stranger," he said.
"There is no doubt, Brother Mateo."
"Well, let them go. There is a man at hand who is equal to a company of soldiers."
"Such a man at hand?" incredibly, in kindly depreciation of the extravagant declaration.
"Juan Molinero himself," Padre Mateo said, beaming in the discovery of his thought.
"You have advanced well with him, to learn so much, Brother Mateo."
"He has fought the savage Indians in the forests of Kentucky, where one Indian is equal to twenty of our poor simpletons. He is a man who has dared much and suffered much, even the menace of death bound to the fiery stake. In a few words he told me of his escape, crediting it to his peculiar providence, which may be, when all is reduced, even the same providence as our own."
"But poor Juan would find Spanish soldiers far different from the naked savages of Kentucky, and let him be sufficient, even so, to the task in hand, he dare not quit the bounds of the mission lands. I suspect that Del Valle has men posted in waiting to seize him."
"Give him two pistols," said Padre Mateo, building his plan as if no breath had disturbed it, "and the beautiful long rifle that he carried when he came, and I would trust him to deliver both maiden and gold safely beneath this roof. And there is Cristóbal—see him how he stands with admiration in his eyes, looking up into Juan Molinero's face. Ha! there is a friendship already beginning there—see how our tall Juan smiles."
"See him, he gives his hand to the lad, and seems to make himself understood, although there are no words between them," Padre Ignacio marveled. "Yet there is a way of understanding when man meets man that needs no words; I have marked that many times. Poor Cristóbal! I would have spared him today, but Geronimo declares he must work, in spite of the stripes on his back that made his shirt bloody. Discipline will fall without a firm hand to uphold it, our brave Geronimo declares."
"Cruelty is another thing," said Padre Mateo, "Ah! here is Geronimo! Unlucky chance!"
Don Geronimo came from the kitchen, stooping to pass the low connecting door. He stood a moment at sight of the Indian, Cristóbal, idling at his task, to step forward with admirable grace and lightness of foot, a sharp word on his tongue, the lash of his ready whip between his fingers, the thong of it about his wrist.
Cristóbal, his back ribbed and cut from the flogging of last night, did not leap away to follow the cart to the vineyard as Don Geronimo expected him to do at the first word. He fell back a step at Don Geronimo's unexpected appearance, where he stood with head up, his face set and immobile, as if he scorned to save himself the lash at the expense of his dignity in the eyes of his new friend. Don Geronimo's eyes twitched at the corners, a smile that seemed the snarl of anticipation moved his beard, baring his small white teeth. So he stood, slowly drawing the long lash of his whip between finger and thumb of his left hand, his right grasping the butt, like a fencer poising to bend his blade before throwing himself on guard.
Juan Molinero made a corner of the little triangle formed by the three figures in this quickly assembled scene. He stood about equidistant from Don Geronimo and the Indian, Don Geronimo on his left hand. Don Geronimo seemed to be measuring, the length of his whip across his chest between his outstretched arms, as a tailor measures cloth, making his dramatic pause of preparation long in his own enjoyment of it, as well as for the effect of the terror of suspense in the hearts of his assembled vassals who waited the fall of the first whistling blow. The lash was now at tip between his finger and thumb, the pliant black whip at full stretch in his outstretched arms. Don Geronimo lifted himself to tiptoe to whirl the whip, dexterous from long practice in its use.
Juan Molinero stepped in front of the mayordomo as he balanced for the blow, the gleam of his teeth widening in his beard.
"No!" said Juan Molinero, his hand lifted in stern prohibition, his body a barrier before the intended object of this inexorable arm. Don Geronimo's face grew white as the plastered wall; he let himself slowly down to his heels, the thongs of his lead-weighted whip-butt slipped from his slender wrist. Padre Ignacio came with quick stride between them, pushing them apart with outspread arms.
"He does not understand, Don Geronimo," he said. "He shall be taught that he must not interfere in your discipline."
"Very well," said Don Geronimo, his voice unshaken, although his hand trembled in his thwarted passion as he looped the long whip in his hand. "Let it be made very plain."
"Absolve poor Cristóbal his fault this morning, if he has been at fault, indeed, Don Geronimo. I will relieve you of him for a day or two; there is a work I have for him to do."
"Take him, then, Padre Ignacio," Don Geronimo yielded. He turned with what might have passed well for indifference in other eyes, and stepped lightly out to the court, where his saddled horse stood waiting in the sun.
"It is an unfortunate beginning," said Padre Ignacio, sadly; "there is murder in Don Geronimo's heart."