PABLO GONZALES was returning home leisurely from the pueblo, his long legs appearing like an extra pair belonging to the burro which carried him, his toes were so near to the ground. It was an old burro, as Pablo was old, long-haired, shaggy, gray. It pattered along in short strides, head down, ears lopping forward, the bell on its bridle scarcely jingling, its gait so smooth and unbroken. Pablo said there was not another animal in the world that went with such an easy foot. It was comparable only to riding on a cloud.
Pablo squinted his eyes against the sun, at that level in the west when it strikes under a man's hatbrim, no matter how he slants it. He carried a sack in front of him, across the burro's withers, a lump of his purchases in each end, sitting himself on the soft long hair of the ancient beast, not so much as a saddle-blanket to give him dignity. As for comfort, neither saddle nor blanket, cushion nor pad would have added to that, according to his own long usage and belief.
It was said of Pablo's burro that it was as old as its owner, and more esteemed by him than all his other possessions combined. Such creatures, it was well known, lived to incredible age; there were records of them in Mexico that had lived ninety years. Pablo refused to discuss its age. A woman's age should be inquired into only when she goes to be married; a burro's when it is to be sold. There was no money that could buy Pablo's friend and companion out of his kindly hands.
Pablo was still several miles from home; he could not reach it now until well after dark. It was well enough, he said, speaking to Benito, the ass, for there was a pleasure in seeing the hills at that distance as a man rode on his way. It seemed to him that he never had seen so much beauty in the hills before, the sun just looking back on the world over its shoulder, as a man might say, lighting the tops of them, ridge after ridge, peak after peak seeming to stand like islands out of the blue mysterious something that filled the canyons like the smoke of a million fires. And it was nothing when a man went down the mountains into it; nothing but shadows and gray rocks, and sage and laurel and chaparral, with little blue and red flowers between. That was the mystery of the blue filling that floated into the canyons at this hour of the day. A man might walk on the solidness of that blue, it seemed from here, or from the mountain tops, as he knew very well. But let the sun go down and it would vanish, cheating the eyes like a rainbow that seems to rest its column in a man's field.
No, truly, the hills never had appeared so beautiful in his eyes before. It troubled him to find the world so fair at this late day. It was as in the case of a man who must leave home, never to come back to it again, walking about among things that have been familiar to him many years, discovering new beauty in each common shrub and flower that makes the heart hurt more when he turns away forever. Perhaps he must be leaving the hills soon, and the vega spread at their feet, and the soft winds that came roaming it from the sea. In paradise, it was said, were things sweeter than of this earth, but—but Well, a man would rather stay at home.
Now, who was this scarecrow that rose up in a man's way with a rag on his head? Not Simon of the eight mules? Truly, Simon. There was a lying look in the man's face. He turned his head to listen like a fugitive who expects horses at his heels.
"Pablo! for the love of Our Señora!" said Simon, putting out his hand like a beggar at the church door.
However loquacious to Benito on a long and unfrequented road, Pablo was a man whose tongue did not move with the wind. He stopped Benito, and sat looking at Simon with little interest and less of friendliness in his dry, brown face.
"Help a man whose life hangs by a thread!" Simon appealed, laying familiarly hold of Benito's bridle.
"Who is the man?" Pablo inquired, making his close eyes smaller.
"That man is I, Simon Villalobo. I am in the greatest danger that a man ever breathed."
"There is the whole world," said Pablo, sweeping his hand to embrace it. "Hide yourself from your enemies, Simon."
"I am weak; I suffer from a wound."
"Well, I can't carry you."
"You can help me, Pablo."
"I have helped many an honest man."
"I have broken from Don Abrahan's prison, curse him in the seven places! Because I helped the young American, Don Gabriel, escape, by a cunning plot between us it was, Pablo—have you not heard?"
"Would the wind tell me?" Pablo asked, indifference in his unmoved face.
"Of course it is impossible that you have seen him. I rave like a drunk man. Well, it was this way, Pablo, between Don Gabriel and me: I feigned that he struck me with the water pitcher, putting my head into his cell to take away his straw bed. We broke the pitcher against the bars, and I gave him my hands to tie, and opened my mouth for the silencer he put into it. But Don Abrahan is sharper than seven doctors. For the blow I pretended to receive he gave me this knocked head, he locked me in his prison, he swore he would hang me if Don Gabriel was not caught. Did they catch him? You have been to the pueblo, good Pablo—tell me if Don Gabriel has been caught?"
"There is life a mile long in a man who has so much breath. Go your way, Simon Villalobo; that way is not mine."
Pablo clamped his knees three times in rapid sequence against Benito's ribs, that being the private and confidential signal between them for a quick and decisive start. Benito responded faithfully, if not with any shocking rapidity, jogging off on his short legs with dainty steps. Simon, not to be abandoned in his extremity in this cynical manner, came trotting beside Benito, well able to outrun him and have plenty of speed to spare, at the best gait he ever struck in all his useful years.
"For the love of Our Señor!" he pleaded, "do not run away and leave me here to die."
Pablo rode on, no pity in his face. Simon put out his hand to catch the bridle; Pablo pushed it aside with a manner of contemptuous denial and disbelief.
"I have heard there is a secret place somewhere on the old Guiterrez ranch, a place where the Franciscans hid, when the king's days ended here. They say that only you and Don Felipe know of this place, and Don Felipe, God receive him! he is dead."
Pablo rode on, his old eyes but a very little crack, indeed.
"Hide me in this place, Pablo, and all I have saved will be yours. Here—take this money and show me the place. What is gold to a man who is already dead!"
Simon produced several small gold-pieces as he spoke, and offered them in his cupped hand to Pablo while he trotted easily at the burro's side. Pablo pressed Benito's sides in the signal to stop.
"Simon, your danger is greater than you understand," said Pablo, his voice deep and stern.
He rode on, leaving Simon in the road, his palm covered with the little gold coins, at which he looked now, and now after the dusty old man who had given him nothing but his contempt, and that without price.
Simon returned the money to his pocket. There was more cunning shrewdness in the fellow than malevolence; nature had not designed him for a villain of the first class. Asa pirate Simon would have failed in business, in spite of his audacity, his swelling manner and boastful, vain heart. He had sense enough to do what his patron ordered, and simplicity enough that he never troubled over the consequences. It was but a very small matter to him to kill a man if Don Abrahan desired it of him. It had been done.
"Old fool!" he said, looking after Pablo's dust. "Just as if you could swallow the road!"
Pablo went on his way, disturbed in his contemplation of the beauty of his native place. When he looked toward the hills now it was with another thought. Night closed upon him fully an hour before he reached home, hard as he pushed little Benito on the road. Felipe came softly out of the darkness near the sycamore to give him greeting in low and cautious word.
"Is everything well with the others?" Pablo inquired.
"Very well."
"And the young lady is tranquil?"
"She is as placid as if death had not come near enough to breathe in her face so lately."
"Well, there is news," said the old man calmly, his voice as dry as his lean face. "Roberto is not dead; he is on his feet again with nothing worse to show than a cut forehead."
"I thought the grape-shot took him, I saw him on the ground," Felipe said.
"No, it was a soldier struck him down with the butt of his gun when he gave the command to fire on the people. A hundred eyes saw it done. That man is a hero, though the blow he gave his general laid him flat and saved his skin. The grape-shot passed over him like a swarm of bees, but the man who struck him was killed."
"It must be that Roberto has been reserved for a rope," Felipe said. "I would not interfere with Providence; let him live."
"His day is approaching. It is true that the Americans have taken Monterey. Their general is marching into the South with cavalry."
"So it is true? Gabriel and Helena will leap at this news."
"Also, soldiers are coming from San Diego to reinforce General Garvanza and defend the pueblo. Don Abrahan has put down his quarrel with his son, the governor is united with them, all to make a stand against the Americans. They swear they never will yield to the Americans, and Roberto, he has made a vow to Our Señora to burn Don Gabriel in chains."
"And for me? what has he sworn for me?"
"There is a paper speaking of reward for all of you posted in the plaza, another nailed to the church door. This is given above the general's hand. The lady and you are charged with treason, Don Gabriel as a spy."
"There is only one answer to Roberto's intention, then."
"I was told by soldiers who heard, that Don Abrahan pleaded with, commanded, his son to leave the lady out of this paper, but in vain. Roberto swears she shall die before the soldiers' guns. He is furious that two men should come between him and the vengeance of his jealous heart, by defeating his twenty-seven valiant soldiers."
"And a man can understand the state of his feelings," Felipe said.
"Nine of the soldiers will fight no more, Don Felipe. It was a fight of giants, all in the pueblo say."
"Nine thieves and murderers less in the world! So the republic pays for injustice and oppression, Pablo. I struck a blow for myself also, when I struck for Helena Sprague."
"They say the cannon took five of them, wounding others. The soldiers are no less furious than General Garvanza; they are riding day and night in search of the three of you."
"They were at the door twice today," Felipe said.
"That is to be expected."
"We had anxiety of you, Pablo, so long on the way. We thought you had been held because it is known you are my friend."
"It is a slow business to hear many stories, and get hold of the handles of the true ones," the old man replied. "Well, I encountered a snake in the road."
"Of a color, Pablo?"
"The devil's color, you might say. Simon Villalobo is abroad with Don Abrahan's gold in his hand."
"He brought it to a poor market," said Felipe with such emphatic confidence that admitted no greater expression of praise for the old man's fidelity.
"He is following, a thought of Don Abrahan's promised reward, of the reward posted in the plaza, in his coyote's head. The ground has opened under the feet of fools, I have heard it said."
"It may swallow this one," Felipe returned. "There will be fools enough to stock the world, even without Simon."