Suzanna (11 page)

Ramon's teeth sank into his lips as he saw her turn away without a word and enter the house. His arms fell to his sides, as he stood there stunned.

Don Fernando preferred not to recognize the meaning of the scene he had interrupted. As though he were conveying a surprise, he acquainted his son with the fact of Don Diego's return.

“Yes, yes, Ruiz informed me,” the boy replied, going back to his task dejectedly.

“Your mother wants you to go to Monterey for certain dainties,” his father continued. “Do you prefer to leave now, or this afternoon?”

“As mother prefers,” Ramon answered. “I shall be through with this in a few minutes.”

Suzanna came out and trudged across the road in the wake of the other servants as father and son talked. Their brief conversation at an end, Don Fernando followed her.

His face was severe as he entered the house of his friend. A sadness, which wholly obliterated the joy that Don Diego's home-coming had brought, rested upon him. How stupid he had been not to have packed off Suzanna at once to San Luis Bautista. Well, she should go before Chiquita arrived, train or not.

Ruiz had busied himself in the kitchen, leaving part of the servants to put the other rooms of the large house in order. When Suzanna entered, she had found them more intent on play than work. For once, she had no desire to abet them. The merriment ended most abruptly as Señor Gutierrez strode into the living-room, his face red with rage. Suzanna saw him glance at her, and knowing that from past experience he would blame her for this loitering, she got to her feet and ran toward the altar-room. There Don Fernando found her.

The girl had heard him follow her, and realizing that his wrath was to be visited on her, she sank to her knees and assumed an attitude of penitent prayer.

Don Fernando waited for her to finish her devotions. Suzanna exhausted her words of prayer before she arose to face him.

“Child,” he said sternly. “I am weary of your pranks. We have little enough time to arrange for my friend's arrival, and yet you countenance—and I vow instigated—such conduct as greeted me when I entered this house. You are demoralizing every servant on the hacienda.”

“I have been guilty so often that my innocence this once is unbelievable, I know,” Suzanna said sadly. “You have been too indulgent.”

Don Fernando looked at her shrewdly. Truly this was a new Suzanna. Overjoyed to find her so tractable, he made to inform her at once that she went to the Mission at sunrise.

Amazed, Suzanna heard him out. Horror transfixed her face as he finished.

“But I have no desire for an education,” she said with choking voice. “Please—I do not want to leave here, Don Fernando. I should die were you to send me away from this hacienda where I know every flower and blade of grass. I have been so happy here. I will work, oh, so hard,—you will have no cause to find fault with me if you will but let me stay. Please, I beg you.”

Suzanna's emotion engulfed her. With a sob she sank to her knees, her tears blinding her as she looked up at her master.

“Don't send me away from you, from Doña Luz, from Ramon—from my father,” she implored. “Oh, oh,—I cannot go. Everything that I know and—and—love is here. I—I won't go! I can't!”

“But you must,” Don Fernando declared firmly, but not unkindly. “The time will pass quickly enough. You be ready to go at sunrise. Guara, the Indian, shall accompany you.”

Suzanna continued to plead with him, but the determined old man remained firm in his decision. Don Fernando left her to compose herself in the quietness of this holy room. Upon leaving, he pulled the door to, and Suzanna, alone with her grief, threw herself upon the cold flagging before the altar and sobbed piteously.

An hour later she dragged herself to her room. She had stopped her tears. Her anger, too, had subsided. Resignation, hopeless and cold had taken its place. It took but a short time to gather her meager belongings and make them ready against the morrow's journey. Saying good-by to Timoteo, and Chichi, the bear, proved a much harder task.

Chichi had an affectionate disposition and he hugged her with his hairy paws as Suzanna petted him and whispered little love words in his ears.

The girl saw much alike in their situations. She was Don Fernando's chattel just as Chichi was hers. The bear was petted and humored; but a steel chain around his neck marked his movements for him. The sight of the chain filled Suzanna with rage. Within her blazed a sudden hatred for all that was tyrannical and oppressive.

Dropping to her knees, she unfastened the chain, and led the bear to a field in back of the barns.

“Run, Chichi,” she exclaimed. “Go back to your hills and your woods. Far better that some chance hunter should kill you than that you stay here to be ordered about as I am ordered. Go,
jovencito
, before my father catches you.”

The bear showed no disposition to embrace his freedom, and although Suzanna beat him with a stick, he but circled round and round her feet. The girl shook her head sadly as she realized that the poor brute's affection for her outweighed his desire to return to the wild.

Suzanna had heard her father calling her, and he approached now. He saw enough of her purpose with the bear to anger him. Grabbing the chain from her, he snapped it around the animal's neck.

Don Fernando had communicated his wishes to Ruiz, and the girl's father had readily agreed to his master's plans. The peon was a good servant and he never questioned the orders of his superiors. In this instance, however, he saw the calamity that he had feared, safely averted by what his master proposed. And that, too, for reasons which would have surprised Don Fernando.

Suzanna knew better than to hope that Ruiz would go counter to Don Fernando's wishes. When she spoke to her father it was only to ask him if he had been informed of what the morrow held.

“Of course. Have you packed your things?”

“I have,” Suzanna answered dully. “Does Ramon know that I am leaving?”

“He is on his way to Monterey. I do not know whether his father informed him or not. You give your question a pointing which implies that your leaving is of importance to our young master. Again I tell you that you presume. You would do well to keep your eyes to your own kind. Doña Luz has set out some clothes and trinkets for you. Go to her and thank her as she deserves. And if it pleases you, give a hand in the kitchen until the bell rings, for I know you have some skill with cakes.”

Suzanna found that the news of her departure for San Luis Bautista was common property in the kitchen. Caridad and the other women saw in it but another manifestation of the great goodness of their master, and were frankly jealous of the grand journey ahead of Suzanna.

The girl looked at them hopelessly. What better could one expect from such fools, she asked herself. Suzanna was glad when Doña Luz sent for her. Better it was to be misunderstood by your superiors than by your equals!

With an armful of things from
la señora's
precious store, Suzanna crossed the patios to her quarters as the evening bell sounded. As she did so, Pancho Montesoro rode in. He had been away from the house since early morning, and Suzanna's old spirit flamed for a brief second as she beheld the man. Naturally, he could not know that Chiquita de Sola was returning to-morrow. Suzanna resolved that he should be informed immediately, and by her in a manner best suited to embarrass him.

Montesoro swung to the ground in front of her a minute later.

“Well,” he grinned. “What is the meaning of this? Art getting married?”

“From what do you infer that?” Suzanna answered saucily, “——my face or this armful of clothes?”

“I but jested,” Pancho said ingratiatingly. “For the first time, I find you looking sad and blue. Meet me to-night and let me put a smile upon your pretty face.”

“You are so sure you could?”

“Don't taunt me,” he muttered dramatically. “You know that my heart and soul are yours alone. I should die were you to he taken away from me.”

Miserable though she was, Suzanna could smile at this bald lying.

“Death hovers near you, then, my dashing lord,” she assured him. “I leave for San Luis Bautista at sunrise.”

“Oh, no—no!” the rascal exclaimed, still the actor.

“It is all too true,” Suzanna replied firmly. “But”—and mischief fairly twinkled in her eyes—“do not pine. One arrives to-morrow who will busily engage thee.”

“Yes?” Pancho queried.

“Your friend, Chiquita de Sola! She arrives at noon.”

The man staggered, so great was his surprise. Suzanna felt well repaid. Peon she might be, but she had thrown the name of a lady of high degree into this man's face when his words of love to her were still warm upon his lips.

Montesoro saw that she had played with him, and he hated her for it.

“What is it that you insinuate?” he demanded hotly. “
La Señorita de Sola
has my most profound respect.”

Suzanna mocked him with a courtesy.

“I wonder,” she murmured pointedly, “if you have her father's.”

The girl continued across the patio without waiting for an answer. She knew she had drawn blood. The man's face was livid as her trailing laugh floated across the garden. Impotent, he stood there and cursed her beneath his breath. With pleasure, he could have shaken the life out of her.

Suzanna's elation was short-lived. Supper proved a grim jest, and to escape from those who sought to fill her with advice, she sought refuge in her room. Sleep, however, was impossible. Later, when she did doze off, a great ogre chased her in her dreams. Round and round the rancho, he pursued her. Her cries for help went unanswered, until at last, the ogre forced her into his cave. There, she saw Ramon, but his hands were chained. Soon, the ogre had her a captive likewise, and then he removed his masque. It was Don Fernando! With a cruel laugh he turned and left them. Suzanna heard the giant stones in the entrance falling into place and knew that nothing but slow, lingering death faced them.

The girl tossed on her bed as her tortured brain continued to plumb the horrors of the ogre's cave. Wet with perspiration, she sat up in answer to her father's summons. The first hint of dawn was in the sky.

“Come,” Ruiz repeated. “It is morning. Time for a bite, and Guara will be ready with the horses.”

Ruiz descended to the kitchen and prepared a scant repast. The Indian joined him, and when Suzanna came down, the three sat in silence and ate. The great kitchen was still dark. Shadows clothed the master's house. In the patios the flowers and vines were wet with dew. Everything was still; even the birds. Fresh, pungent, earthy odors and aromas filled the nostrils. The new-born day was pregnant with the riches the night had stored up for it.

But it was strange, unreal to Suzanna. This stillness, which made one talk in whispers; this lethargy, which held even the leaves motionless, had no part in the hacienda she knew. Dumbly she followed her father and the Indian to where the horses stood.

Ruiz was not an emotional man, but he caressed the girl before he lifted her into the saddle. Affection from him was so unlooked for that it un-nerved Suzanna. As from a distance she heard Ruiz telling her not to cry. The horses were moving, then. Her father opened the gate, and Guara and she passed from the patio to the highroad.

Less than a mile away they came to the hills. The Indian, mindful of the cool hours still at hand, urged his horses down the descent into the next valley.

“Hold!” Suzanna cried to him. “From this spot I take my last look for two years at the
Hacienda de Gutierrez
. Do not be impatient, Guara. I want to wait here until the sun touches the
caserio
. It will be but a minute.”

The Indian grunted a grudging consent. And so, from her saddle, Suzanna said farewell to the only home she had ever known.

CHAPTER XII

G
UARA
pushed the horses without let up during the early morning. Don Fernando had given him most definite instructions as to his conduct. The Indian intended reaching Los Pinos by high-noon for a short siesta. Evening should find them at Paso Robles. An early start the following morning, then, would see them at the Mission by noon. Guara had no mind to be absent from the
fiesta
which would most certainly follow the return of Don Diego to his hacienda. When once Suzanna was off his hands, the Indian knew that he could ride, without pause, the intervening miles between himself and the
caserio
, excepting the minute or two in which to water his pony.

Even though the girl was saddle-wise, she complained at the pace Guara set. But Guara was deaf to her complaints. They should rest at Los Pinos by noon, and it followed that when the sun reached its zenith they rode into the cooling shade of the pines at the springs of Los Pinos.

Suzanna had heard of the life and color which flowed along
El Camino Real
. So far she had seen nothing but sun-burnt hills, wide, parched valleys and unending stretches of dust-covered road. Therefore, she was quite unprepared for the reception which greeted her as she rode into the shelter of the trees. Before her reclined at least a score of men clad in the blue and red uniforms of Mexico. It was obviously, a detachment of troops on its way to the Presidio at Monterey. The officer in charge, a loose-lipped lieutenant overly brave in his display of gold lace, smiled at her ingratiatingly, but not until his sensuous eyes had properly appraised this morsel which the saints had sent hither to break the monotony of this God-forsaken country.

Suzanna shared her master's contempt for most things Mexican. Still, it was not her hatred of Mexican officialdom which made her lips curl scornfully as she faced this young subaltern. The look in the man's eyes made this encounter a matter of personal hatred. Suzanna saw that Guara was little pleased at having stumbled into this hornet's nest. Mexican soldiery had a little way of silencing an offending Indian. Guara was alive to the main chance, and he told himself that it would be very, very unwise to offend these miserable señors. Suzanna, however, was of sterner stuff. To rest here was but courting trouble. With a toss of her head, she turned and addressed her Indian guide.