USA > California > Sonoma County > Casa Grande : a California pastoral > Part 4
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In the morning fever developed, and before even- ing the sheriff was slightly delirious. During the next two days these disturbing symptoms continued, and no one was allowed to talk business with the pa-
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tient, who lay passive and indifferent from heavy doses of opium.
On the third morning, after a family conference, it was decided that Bailey must be paying their ex- penses at the hotel, which amounted to at least ten dollars a day-an extravagant courtesy.
"I don't see why we should take his money," Belle considerately remarked. "It may be days before we can get away ; let's go to jail. If the court wants to punish us for defending our rights, the county must take care of us!"
Mrs. Clark demurred, for they always had been good people, never before getting in the grip of the law. She wavered between the disgrace of impris- onment and the humiliation of accepting charity- the one quite as repugnant as the other to their inde- pendent natures.
"It's no disgrace to go to jail, maw, for what we've done," insisted Belle. "I'll die before I admit that we did wrong."
"We shot the sheriff," protested Mrs. Clark, who was not endowed with the martyr-like disposition of her daughter.
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"The sheriff had no right to come in our house. Father always said that an American could keep any one out of his home, even if he must shoot to do it."
So it was arranged for the family by the deputy sheriff, without consulting his principal, and before night they were imprisoned on a charge of attempt- ing to murder an officer of court. The subordinate official was guided by his own idea of the indignity done his superior, and supposed that the wounded man felt about the crime as he himself felt. The judge, sharing the prejudice of the deputy, fixed the prisoners' bail at fifty thousand dollars.
The sheriff raged when he learned what his deputy had done-the very thing he had been anxious to prevent; but matters could not be bettered until he was in condition to attend in person to the business.
When Bailey was well enough to appear before the court and ask a reduction of the prisoners' bail, the judge, old and peevish, stubbornly refused, for the sheriff's face still told of physical suffering, and his arm carried in a sling was an unimpeachable wit- ness that a crime had been attempted on him. There
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was no alternative, then, but to find bail in the amount originally fixed.
At the end of a week Bailey had secured only ten thousand dollars of the bond. He was asking his friends to go surety for an unknown family who had resisted a process of court. There was not even a vote among them, and everywhere he was met with the question why he interested himself in getting bail. The real reason could not be given unless he confessed that he hoped to make Belle his wife.
The prospect of making the girl his wife had grown very shadowy since his wounding, for had she sincerely loved him she could not have shot him. He did not reason it out, but the depression of all the succeeding days resulted from the unconscious perception of this truth, and at the end of the second week he was in greater perplexity than ever.
To add to his depression, confinement was begin- ning to tell on Belle. The entire family had rather enjoyed the first two or three days of enforced idle- ness. Mrs. Clark declared that it was the only time since she was born that she had been rested. Belle
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had been under a severe strain the day they were dis- possessed, and rest and seclusion were what she needed. But the end of the week found them ready for action once more, which meant liberty. The end of the second week found them fretful, with evident signs of pining in Belle.
Another consultation was now held, at which the sheriff was chief advocate. He proposed to ask Miller to furnish the balance of the surety, which Belle vetoed at once. Again she was ready to die rather than accept a favour from that man. She dominated the family, not because of wilfulness, but because of her good sense and unselfishness; and all yielded to her objection against accepting Miller's assistance because she was so determined, although none fully shared her sentiments.
The third week passed, Belle growing more droopy in spite of her effort not to show it, and the others more restless. Bailey had arranged from the first to make Wash a messenger in the sheriff's office, thus giving the boy the liberties of a "trusty." His duties brought him often into the courtroom, and his absorbed interest in the cases on trial at-
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tracted the notice of the Judge, who, with all his crustiness, felt kindly toward young people.
One day, when the courtroom was empty, the Judge and the boy had a long talk together begin- ning by His Honour asking if Wash would like to be a lawyer. The old man read promise in the lad, his frank ingenuousness, his keenly inquiring intellect ; it carried him back to his own youth, quite as humble as that of this offspring of the hills. When he had learned the family history, he finished by telling Wash that he had concluded to reduce their bail.
The principal diversion of the family was Bailey's visits and the boy's accounts of his daily experiences. The interview with the Judge was of absorbing in- terest to them all, and Wash minutely recounted it, not a little pleased at his own importance.
"When he asked me," said Wash, "if I wanted to be a lawyer, I told him I'd rather be a ranchero like Mr. Miller and raise fine cattle and horses. The Judge looked funny, and said that Mr. Miller is an unusual man, typical of the South, and if he gave the same attention to making money as to raising stock he would be rich."
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"You and the Judge must be pretty thick," inter- jected Tom. "What does he know about Miller, anyway?"
"They're good friends," replied Wash. "He goes every year to Casa Grande to fish and hunt-two or three times. He said it is a charming place to visit, and it made him mad because the squatters bothered the ranchero."
"I suppose that's the reason he piled on our bail," growled Tom.
"Just wait till I get through," said Wash. "I told the Judge that we had lived eight years on our place, spent lots of money in improving it, and I asked him if he thought it fair for the Government to come in at this late time and put us off. He said the Government never had owned the Mexican grants; simply held them in trust for the ones that country had given them to. But I argued that the Government, in that case, never should have let us go on the land; should have given notice it was not public domain."
"Whew !" exclaimed Belle. "What big words we use when we talk to judges !"
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"I'll bet I've learned more than a hundred big words since we came here."
"Now, Washie, don't you get saucy."
"You le' me 'lone," replied the boy, forgetting his pedantic phrases. "You use big words yourself. The other day, after Mr. Miller-"
From out the tussle on the floor Wash's voice good-naturedly called, "Ma !"
"Oh, dear," complained the widow, "I'll be glad when you children get out of here."
"Go on with your story, Wash," said Belle, when order had been restored.
"The Judge said I'd make a lawyer, because I had given good reason why we never should have been allowed on that land. He said any other landlord would have to keep off trespassers, or lose his lands after a certain number of years of adverse posses- sion, but the American people required each settler to prove that he had a right to enter vacant lands. 'Suppose he can't?' said I. 'Then he'd better keep off,' said he; 'and when a court has decided that the land is not the settler's, he must move off at once.' "
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"It's easy to see that every one in this town is against the settlers," said Belle. "We'll never get out on bail."
"We may," hopefully declared Wash. "The Judge and I talked about bail and the sheriff and Mr. Miller. I told him that Sam is our friend, and we didn't intend to hurt him that day-just wanted him to keep away. I even told him that Mr. Miller had offered to go with us that night and bail us out. He asked me how long we had known the sheriff, and if he came often to see us. When I told him, he said, 'H'm,' and pulled his beard. He asked if Mr. Miller came to-"
The boy did not finish. His sister went swiftly to him and flung an arm about him. "Don't you know, Wash, you mustn't talk about those things?"
"But, sis, he asked me. He won't tell. When he wanted to know about you, I told him there isn't a prettier nor a smarter girl in this county. Then he went to a window and stood a long time looking out. I thought he was through, and I tiptoed away ; but he called me back, and said he would reduce our bail to five thousand dollars each, and if Mr. Miller
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would go on our bond the court would require no other surety. So there!"
The other members of the family looked at the girl. In the dim light she scarcely could see the appeal in their glances, but she felt it in their man- ner. "Let's think about it," she kindly suggested.
Wash felt his spirits rise, and immediately told the sheriff of Belle's decision. Bailey met the Judge waiting for the mail, and found that Wash had cor- rectly reported his decision. The official put the boy on a saddle-horse and posted him off to Miller with a note.
Early next morning the ranchero came to town, Wash with him, prepared to secure liberty for the Clarks. Belle would not thank him for his kind- ness, but explained that she was willing to accept for the sake of the others. She herself would die before she would ask any one to bail her out.
Miller assured her it was his friendship for Bailey that prompted his action; she need feel under obligation to no one but the sheriff.
In the courtroom, when the party appeared to arrange the bail, His Honour admonished the Clarks
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that he accepted Mr. Miller as their surety since he had learned that the ranchero harboured no resent- ment against them, and now they would be account- able to their neighbour for good behaviour. As Mr. Bailey did not choose to prosecute them for assault- ing him, the charge against them would rest for the present, to be revived whenever they should become unruly. The old jurist called Belle to his side and kindly took her hand, which he studied, then softly clasped it.
"There are three kinds of women in this world, young lady : the few feminine; a greater number mannish ; the great majority ordinary. You'll never be ordinary. I thought when you first came before me that you were mannish-and with your face! But this hand-it is strong and friendly ; your eyes and lips-they are my own mother's. . . "
The fatherless girl flung herself down, her head on his knee, her hand gripping his. He clasped her quivering body with the wordless sympathy he might have given a daughter, held her a moment, and gently raised her.
"I shall keep my eye on you," he somewhat testily
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declared, to hide his embarrassment at this outburst of feeling. "You must show me that I haven't mis- judged you. Now you may go."
Everybody but Belle shook hands with Miller and thanked him for what he had done. The old Judge took him by the arm and led him away.
On the homeward road the ranchero passed the Clarks driving in silence. "Come and take dinner with me," he called. "It will be ready when you reach Casa Grande, and Manuel always has a plate or two extra." He did not wait for their acceptance. Scarcely a day passed without his inviting some one in the same offhand manner.
The little group in the wagon gazed after Miller without comment. Peggy appeared to fly with him over the smooth road, and even his back expressed confidence and resolution.
Belle's emotions were conflicting. Her resent- ment against him had grown with her days of con- finement, and she realised more clearly than ever how unjust he had been. It seemed to her that all the misery of the last three weeks-their remorse, humiliation and rebellion-should be laid at his
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door. It had been his doing that they were impris- oned, and he merited the hatred she felt for him.
And yet she caught herself measuring each man by this one, who had greatly wronged her and her family. Even Bailey, with all his devotion, suffered in the comparison, and she had tried, with new reso- lution, to make up for the unhappiness caused him. She wondered if this would be the end of acquain- tance with their neighbour-he seemed so indif- ferent.
"Didn't he take off his hat grand!" declared Wash, after the horseman had passed. "Let's go to dinner at Casa Grande."
"I'll not interfere this time," Belle replied; "but you can let me out at the big gate, and I'll walk home."
"Me, too," added Tom.
"And me," said their mother. "You'd better drive straight home, Wash."
The boy cracked his whip, and whistled as if there might be other opportunities for dining at Casa Grande.
CHAPTER VI
A CUNNING WORKMAN
W HEN the Clarks, on their homeward way, had reached the brow of the hill overlook- ing Dry Creek, another proceeding of the master of Casa Grande roused Belle's unquiet resentment. About halfway up the valley the band of Indians who had harvested Miller's hay the year before were building a stone fence along his eastern boundary.
It meant an inclosure that would completely ex- clude squatters and their animals, and, while the girl recognised this as the most peaceable way to keep out intruders, yet the impassable barrier was an assertion of ownership unbearable to those who long had roamed these hills at will. More than that : it became a challenge to open resistance.
Miller had not been unmindful of his neighbours' attitude, but the right to his own must be asserted.
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For two years his boundary toward the squatters had been daily patrolled by a mounted vaquero, and thus he had prevented their livestock from trespass- ing or from mixing with his herd. The decision of court lately rendered made it possible now to main- tain a more permanent barrier. He would build his close; if the squatters broke it, the consequences would be theirs.
An abundance of suitable stone was near the boun- dary line, and, with the help of teams and sleds, the Indians built rapidly. They began at the gorge of the Aguas Frias, behind Casa Grande, whence the wall would extend five miles, past the Clarks' to the northern line of the grant, along which a stout rail fence separated it from the Los Tollones.
The progress of the work was moodily watched by the neighbours. It was well done-better than the white men would have built, and as they fol- lowed the constructing and noted its solidity and reg- ularity, their resentment against the owner of the land was gradually changed, for the time, to resent- ment against his patient labourers.
Patience and persistence! The men who knew
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neither the one trait nor the other could not help taking umbrage at the steadfastness of the Indians. This alien band, of different speech and customs, was doing the work and receiving the pay that the white men considered their own by right of birth. These labourers, like the horses they drove in the sleds, were plodders, too dull to be influenced by either entreaty or command, and gradually they be- came typical of persecution.
Miller felt the growing animosity against his red men, and kept near them at labour. What they may have felt, only a reader of signs could fathom. They held stolidly to their task, and soon were near the Clarks', where at least the master found diversion.
Miller had permitted the family to occupy the old house while they prepared a new dwelling. They were quite humble since their arrest, a dread of pros- ecution still lingering in their fancies, and they went diligently at their tasks. The land selected for their future home was higher on the Napa hills, and a comparatively flat piece offered a natural building site. It was watered by a copious spring, and a grove of pines would furnish material for the im-
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provements. The two boys, with occasional help from a neighbour, cut and hewed logs ready for use and split "shakes" for the roof.
Wash, alert as usual, frequently came to inter- view the fence-builders. He always had regarded a stone wall as a safe harbour for squirrels and other small pests, but the care taken by the Indians to leave no crevice wide enough for a lizard to hide in con- verted the boy to the value of such a barrier.
On these visits he liked to discuss their new house with Miller, who was kept informed of each day's progress. All the timbers were hewed and ready before the fence was completed, and the family planned a trip to town to get doors, windows and such materials as must be purchased.
"How would you like to surprise the folks, Wash ?" Miller asked, as the wall was about finished. "When they go to town to-morrow we might take the Indians and put up the cabin before night."
The boy's eyes danced at the prospect, and the burden of the plan kept him more mysterious than usual as he cheerfully did the evening chores.
Next morning Wash remained behind without
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rousing suspicion. As soon as the others were out of sight he and Miller and the Indians proceeded with the house-raising. The old home was taken for a model, and the hiss of saw and the bark of axe echoed merrily.
By noon the walls were up, and long before sun- down the roof was on and covered with "shakes," and a wide chimney of rough stones laid up against the north end, outside. The house contained a big living-room and two smaller bedrooms, porch to the west, and space on the east for more rooms to be added later ; everything complete except doors, win- dows and floors.
As the sun neared the western hills a dwelling stood on the opposite slope of Dry Creek, where in the morning only trees had been. The white of freshly hued timbers was suffused by the glow of the reddening west, and the structure showed warm and inviting. Then the men who had wrought the wood- magic gathered a moment to gaze at what had been effected. They watched the colour deepen on the new building; they looked with satisfaction on that other cabin below, of which this was the counterpart; they
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glanced a moment at the flaming sun, the pale blue of heaven, and, gathering their belongings, they and the master left as simply as they had come.
Soon after the house-builders had departed the Clarks drove down the hill into Dry Creek. Wash had lighted a fire in their old cabin and was busy with the evening duties. The three in the wagon saw the smoke rising from the chimney, saw the hillside beyond where the new cabin glowed in the light of the setting sun, and they guessed why the boy had not gone with them in the morning. Each divined it in his own way, with his own emotion, and silently entered the door-yard.
The young people, without a word, unhitched and cared for the horses, their mother going listlessly into the house. She removed hat and wrap and stood in the doorway looking to the east. On the hillside, bathed in rose-colour, stood an almost com- pleted house-doors, chimney, roof, all plainly vis- ible, with walls as if aflame. It startled her to a consciousness of its meaning.
The woman was no longer young. The last eight years had brought sorrow, but withal the current of
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their existence had been deep and placid, and she had asked no more than to end her days in the little glen and mingle her dust with that of the man who always had been good to her. But that cabin up there . !
She stood nervously twisting her apron through bony, calloused fingers, and weakly leaned her head against the casing of the door, in and out of which her feet would no more pass. Her body stiffened to its full length, and she clutched at the throat of her garment; her breath caught convulsively, and, sinking on the threshold, she yielded to her grief. The old life was ended; they must begin anew.
Belle came slowly back from the barn. There was a droop in her figure that betokened something be- sides weariness. She stood at the pump with the others, washing off the dust of the road, but she kept her gaze from the cabin on the hill.
Wash casually remarked, after a silence he no longer could endure, "Pretty quick work." He twisted his head in the direction of the new cabin.
Belle did not reply.
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"Indians know how to do things," again ventured the boy.
His sister was looking away from him, and from the new cabin.
"Are you mad, sis? Did you want to help?" There was a note of disappointment in the question.
"It was a dear thing, Wash. But why did you do it?"
"We wanted to surprise you."
"You have."
"But not that way," he protested. "We wanted you to be glad."
She shook her head and walked to the house. A month ago the hills were hers, the woods, the sun- shine, and slumber profound and restful, almost dreamless. To-day, although the hills, the woods, the sunshine still were hers, there had been added something-something she could not name, yet was conscious of from the mist that too often dimmed her vision, the swelling of her throat, the catching of her breath. And her slumber-even her daylight hours no longer were dreamless.
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As the girl had rounded into womanhood, exist- ence was joyously simple. Like nature's other nurs- lings, she grew up innocent and unafraid. But the story of Eden must be renewed in each earnest life whenever the fruit is tasted that reveals the soul of us. During all her past she had regarded the oppo- site sex concretely, as men. They had formed a class, and she had liked them, even envied them, and in many things had imitated them. Now she caught herself thinking of one man, who represented her ideal of courage and dignity, and she was finding new gladness in being a woman, in thrilling to his word, his look.
The cabin on the hillside-it was the work of his hands. Why had he done it? And she hated him so bitterly. Yet he had built it to-day-a con- stant reminder of himself.
She went into her bedroom, closed the door, and looked out the window at their future home, grow- ing distant in the deepening gloom. He had planned it-he had planned it! The thought beat in her brain with every throb of her heart, and something swelled in her throat. She flung herself on the bed
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and buried her face in the pillow to smother the sobs that no longer would down.
An hour later Mrs. Clark came softly into the room. Belle lay just as she had thrown herself, and the mother gazed long and wistfully at her sleeping daughter, then gently drew a cover over her.
CHAPTER VII
THE RAIN IS OVER
M AY was nearly past, and with it the rainy sea- son. The verdant mantle of the fields was turning amber; the bawling of calves and the an- swering low of dams filled the valley of the Cala- bezas, except the southernmost end, where a waving meadow of wild grass was fit for the scythe.
Here was the hay-field of the ranch, a level green of wild oats reaching to a horse's withers, across hundreds of acres securely fenced from wandering cattle. The crop was now at its best, and should be harvested within a fortnight. There were Indians enough to mow the grass, and Miller had arranged, on the day after the building of the Clarks' dwell- ing, to move them from Dry Creek and quarter them near the meadow.
Early the next morning a clatter of hoofs in the
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courtyard, the furious barking of the dogs, precipi- tately fetched the Casa Grande household from their beds. In the faint dawn they recognised Belle, a rifle across her shoulder, her horse breathing hard.
Some time during the night an ambushed attack had been made on one of the cabins housing the red men. Volley after volley had been fired on them, arousing the inmates of the other cabins to go out for battle. The attacking party had fled before the charge of the Indians, and the trail of the aggressors had been followed to the cabin of one of the squat- ters, which now was besieged by the trailers. The other squatters would gather to help their neigh- bours, and Miller must hasten if he would prevent bloodshed, perhaps slaughter.
The ranchero galloped alone with Belle to Dry Creek, and took no arms, not even a knife. At the foot of the grade into the valley he asked the girl not to follow him. "It's no place for a woman," he said, and he said it kindly.
"It's no place for a lone man," she quickly re- plied. "The squatters aren't friendly, and the In-
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dians are mad. They shot at me this morning when I rode over there."
"No, Belle. There's no way so safe. Neither side will fire on a lone man. Now go, please."
She rode away in the direction of their dwelling, and watched him fearlessly advance to where the Indians were ambushed. Some men were inside the house, and the windows were barricaded. The In- dians, inadequately armed, were sheltered behind trees and outbuildings, waiting an opportunity to kill.
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