Jessica, the Heiress

“First, I would like to walk around to that curious hedge yonder, that you told me before had been planted by the old padres. Everything about these ancient missions interests me.”

“Oh! I love them, too, and I’m so glad we live on one, or the place where one used to be. That hedge is prickly-pear and was meant to keep the Indians out of the inclosure, if they were ugly. But it’s a hundred years old, and Pedro could remember when it was ever so much smaller than now.”

It was a weird stretch of the repellent cactus, whose great gnarled branches locked and intertwined themselves in a verdureless mass of thorns and spikes which well might have daunted even an Indian. The hedge was many feet in width and higher than Ninian’s shoulder, still green on top, but too unlovely to have been preserved for any reason save its antiquity and history. One end of it was close to the kitchen part of the house, and the other reached beyond the fall of the farthest old adobe.

“A formidable barrier, indeed! It reminds me of some of Dore’s fantastic pictures,” said the reporter.

“Doesn’t it? My mother has books with his drawings in, and I have thought that, too. It is a trouble sometimes, because anybody coming across the field from yonder must go either way around the quarters or all along the back of the house, before he can get in here; when if it weren’t there at all, it wouldn’t be two steps. But we will never have it cut down because my father said so. He wouldn’t have anybody break a single leaf, if he could help it, and–oh, oh!”

Mr. Sharp lifted his head from his close examination of a branch that had particularly interested him and saw Jessica pointing in astonishment at the very heart of the great hedge.

“What is it? Something especially curious?”

“Curious! It’s–it’s–dreadful! You can see right through it! Somebody has ruined it!”

The reporter stooped and followed the direction of her guiding finger and saw that a strange thing had indeed been done. For a considerable length the terrible barrier had been literally tunneled, though the fact was not easily discernible. Walls of the bare and twisted branches were still left unbroken on either side, but a sufficient space had been scooped out to admit the passage of a human being should such desire a hiding place.

“Oh! isn’t that dreadful? Who could have done it, and why?” cried the captain, in distress; and her companion could only think of Aunt Sally’s declaration, made to him at breakfast, that Sobrante was “bewitched.”

CHAPTER XVIII.

WHAT THE SABBATH BROUGHT

“Now I know how it was that Antonio disappeared that time when Aunt Sally and Ephraim heard him outside the pantry window!” cried Jessica, exultingly; and seeing the gentleman’s puzzled expression, told of the scene within the cold closet and of the mocking answer “Forty-niner” had received, when he said he was determined to find out Antonio’s retreat. Then she bade her friend stoop again and see for himself how easy it was for one at the rear of the house, where the pantry was, to slip into this cactus tunnel and be utterly hidden from anybody who would search from that side.

They saw, also, that the broken branches had been thrown under the open foundation of the kitchen, leaving no sign of the ruin that had been done.

“A clever scamp, indeed! And any other sort of plant would have withered at the top and led to discovery. But not this; for the verdure has evidently long been gone from this part of the hedge,” observed Ninian.

“Oh, yes! This end has been dead for a great while, yet my mother would not have it removed. It would have lasted maybe forever in just that way; and Antonio knew how we prized it. Oh, dear! I do believe he is as wicked as the ‘boys’ say, though I hate to think that of anybody.” “Surely, you have had proof enough of his evil doings, even without these later fantastic developments. You must never trust that man, little girl, should he again try to make you.”

“I think he won’t bother me. Why should he?” asked she, in some surprise, for her friend’s tone had been most impressive. “Why should you imagine that?”

“I don’t know myself, exactly why. It just ‘happened’ into my head. By the way, captain, did you send me all of the specimen of copper that you had?”

“Oh, no, indeed! My mother thought best not. We sent you only a little bit, cut from the larger one Pedro dug. Let’s go into the office and I’ll open the safe and show you the rest. Do you know anything about such mines and stuff?”

“I do know something about ores and minerals, my dear, for before I was a newspaper man I was a clerk in the office of an expert in such matters. I should greatly like to see your sample,” he answered, readily.

So she led the way at once and took the key from a desk drawer, which anybody might have opened, and Ninian remarked:

“What an insecure place for a safe key! Yours is certainly a most confiding household.”

“Oh, it’s not a very safe safe, anyway,” she answered, laughing; “and who would want to open it? It’s Ephraim’s really, though I don’t think he’s ever been near it since he came home. Isn’t it a great, clumsy key? But my father told me that there are safes much, much larger and stronger than this which are opened by very small keys. Odd, isn’t it?” As she spoke she was down upon her knees in front of the strong box and trying with all her small strength to turn the lock; and after watching her for a moment the reporter laughed, and suggested:

“Suppose you just merely pull at the knob. It looks to me as if the thing were already opened, for the door isn’t tight; or is that protruding edge of it a part of the general crudeness?”

Jessica obeyed, pulling with such unnecessary force that the safe flew open and he fell backward, laughing.

But Mr. Sharp did not laugh. In view of what had been told him he was afraid the thing had been tampered with, and watched in silence while the little girl thrust her hand into the safe and felt all about, her face lengthening as she did so; but again, suddenly brightening, when she exclaimed:

“Oh, my mother must have done that! There was all the money in here that was left after Elsa got her own share. The first nights two of the ‘boys’ slept in the house to watch, ’cause mother was afraid we might lose it again. Then, since ‘Forty-niner’ got home only he has slept here, and he generally ‘bunks’ on the lounge in this very office. That’s what it is, what it must be. My mother has worried about Antonio, and has taken the money and the piece of copper away and put them somewhere else. Well, never mind. She’ll show it to you as soon as she comes back; and now, what shall we do next? Would you like to ride?”

Ninian passed his hand across his brow in mild perplexity. An instant conviction had seized him that here was another feature of the mysteries pervading this peaceful ranch; and though he as instantly frowned upon his own suspicion, it would remain to torment him. However, he said nothing further to disturb Jessica’s composure, and readily agreed that a ride would be delightful, though he added, grimly:

“I’m so lame and stiff already from yesterday’s horseback exercise that I feel older than Ephraim. I expect a ‘hair of the same dog’ is the best cure, and wish now I had made time, back there in town, to get used to a saddle. I never found it convenient, though, and poor Nimrod missed his outings even more than I did, I fancy. It certainly is a glorious day for a canter, as almost all our days are.”

“It’s nice, too, when the rains come. We do things indoors then that we never do all the rest of the year. My mother plays and sings half the time, ’cause then she can’t go poking around all over the ranch, like she does now. In the evenings the ‘boys’ all come in and tell stories or do their best to amuse us. We were always happiest, too, when Pedro came, and when my father was here he coaxed him and he came often. Now–he’ll never come again!” she finished, with an irrepressible burst of grief, which she as quickly suppressed, for she saw that it saddened her guest as well; and she had been reared in the spirit of hospitality that makes the stranger glad even at the cost of one’s own impulses.

So she added, with a smile that seemed all the brighter because of the tears still glistening on her long lashes:

“I’ll bring you some books out here and you can rest in the hammock while I run and have the horses saddled. Buster isn’t as fast as Nimrod, but he’ll go now and then as if he were a colt. I hope this will be one of his fast times, don’t you? I love to ride fast!” Ninian smiled rather grimly, answering:

“Just at present, from the state of my poor muscles, I fancy I’d prefer a gait as slow as Buster’s ordinary one. But if I stay the week out, I mean to learn a thing or two about that fine beast of mine.”

“A week or two! Why, you’re to be here till after Christmas, anyway, and that’s a fortnight off. I wish–oh, I wish you would live here always!”

From his delightful resting place in a hammock that was “stretched just right,” and which commanded one of the loveliest views in the world, he looked afield and wished so too. Fond as he was of his own active city life, this broad outlook appealed to him most strongly; yet he shook off the longing that assailed him to pass his days in the country and opened the book Jessica had brought. He was soon absorbed in its pages and forgot the errand upon which the child had gone, till, after a long time, as it proved, Ned stole bashfully up and pushed a scrap of paper into his down-hanging hand.

“Hello, youngster!” cried the gentleman, sitting up. “What’s this?”

The child’s timidity banished at the first sound of the visitor’s voice. Mr. Sharp reading, with his spectacles on, and Mr. Sharp speaking in that hail-fellow-well-met manner were two different people. Besides that, Ned’s shyness was not his strongest feature, though it cropped out now and then to the astonishment of his family. Also, he was fresh from the hands of Aunt Sally and his catechism lesson, into which she had adroitly forced a hint of the conduct due toward a “wise man, that can write printin’.” Supposing it to be a production of the little fellow’s own, Mr. Sharp delayed the reading of the crumpled epistle he had received and continued his talk with its bearer; who presently forgot his Sunday manners, and reproachfully demanded that “printing press you promised.”

“’Cause if I had it I’d be just as smart as you, you know.”

“Smartersyou!” cried the echo, clasping Ned’s neck with that choking affection of his.

Ned turned upon his other self and pummeled him well, declaring:

“No, you wouldn’t neither, Luis Garcia! ’Twouldn’t be your printing press, and you can’t spell cat backwards! So, there!”

“Cat backwards, dogboycat,” gurgled Luis, in a rapture of mere existence.

Ninian laughed at the comical pair, finding them infinitely diverting; and was only brought back to his immediate duty by the insistence of the small messenger, who demanded:

“Why don’t you read your letter? I should think anybody what makes newspapers could read a little girl’s letter.”

“That’s a fact; I’ll see if I can;” and accordingly spread out the scrap of wrapping paper, which had not been very smooth to start with and had suffered further ill treatment at Ned’s hand. The note required a second reading before he could fully comprehend its meaning, which he then found sufficiently startling to send him stableward in hot haste. The message was from the little captain, and was worded thus:

“dear mister sharp please excuse me i must go to a Dyeing man and i Mustnt Tell Who cause if my mother was Home I Wood and she wood say yes. She always helps dyeing folks and sick ones one the boys will go and he can ride Moses or prince Which he likes. I guess marty so i Cant right any more the paper is so littul and i cant Stay.”

“JESSICA.”

This had been written with a coarse blue pencil, evidently picked up in the stable or workroom; and to the reporter’s inquiries, put to the first ranchman he met, there seemed no satisfactory answer. The man in question had not seen Jessica since service, and the men’s quarters to which Ninian hurried, were almost deserted. Sunday was their own, so the “boys” spent much of it afield, hunting or visiting on neighboring ranches. Yet a further search revealed John Benton, in his own room, reading; and to him the visitor again put the question of Jessica’s probable whereabouts, and showed the letter.

The carpenter was on his feet instantly, a look of apprehension deepening the lines of his earnest face; and running to the door he shouted to a stable boy who was crossing the space before the old adobes:

“Natan! Natan!”

The youth paused, hesitated, yet came no nearer; and John repeated his summons, with an imperative “Here!” Then muttered an explanation to the reporter: “Another of those no-account Greasers; same kind as the Bernals and hired by top-lofty when, he was in charge. Works well enough but–”

By this time Natan had slouched forward and stood stolidly awaiting an expected as well as merited reproof, because of stalls imperfectly cleaned and harnesses left in other than their own places; for John was orderly to the last degree and a very martinet in disciplining his subordinates. However, it was no neglect of duty that was now to be scored, but a question was fairly hurled at the young groom and in a voice sharp with anxiety:

“Natan, did you saddle Buster just now?”

“But yes,” answered the lad, greatly relieved.

“Where is he? And Nimrod?”

“Nimrod is at the ‘house’ horse block, is it not? Si. Groomed to the highest, and a beauty we’re all glad to see back where he belongs.”

“Your opinion wasn’t asked. Where is Buster?”

“Where the captain wills. I know not, I,” with a shrug of his lean shoulders.

“Did she mount him?”

“Why else should he be saddled, no?” returned the groom, with an insolent laugh.

John’s temper flamed and he turned away with a disgusted snort, meaning to seek information elsewhere on a case he felt permitted no delay. But Ninian was cooler, if equally suspicious that Natan was concealing something that should be known; so, laying his hand not unkindly upon the youth’s shoulder, he said:

“If you know anything of this, where Miss Jessica has gone and with whom, or if alone, it will be worth your while to tell me and at once. I’m pretty good pay for seasonable articles,” he finished, in his journalistic manner.

He had taken a dollar from his pocket and was carelessly tossing it from hand to hand, nor was he disappointed when Natan fixed his black eyes greedily upon the coin. Still the lad said nothing, only pondered in his own dull mind which of two masters it would benefit him most to serve; and annoyed by this hesitation, Ninian hazarded a guess:

“Oh, well, if you prefer to work for Antonio Bernal, it’s all one to me.”

Natan’s mouth flew open and his eyes grew wild:

“You know it, then, already, you?”

“I know many things,” was the sententious answer.

“But it is a pity, yes. The so fine man and such a rider. He will ride no more, poor Antonio, si.”

Ninian’s blood ran chill, yet he asked, still quietly, though foreseeing evil he dared not contemplate:

“Who brought the word?”

“Ferd, the dwarf,” came the reply, as the dollar exchanged owners.

CHAPTER XIX.

ANTONIO’S CONFESSION

These were the facts: Natan had been grooming the horses, Nimrod and Buster, when suddenly and soundlessly there appeared before the window in the stables’ rear, the misshapen head and shoulders of typo Ferdinand Bernal. He was mounted on a snow-white horse and seemed to the superstitious stable boy to have risen out of the ground. Buster, also, had appeared to be frightened for a few seconds, though he speedily recovered his equine calmness and merely whinnied his delight, while he attempted to secure another mouthful of alfalfa before the bridle slipped into place over his head.

“Natan, the little captain,” whispered Ferd, through the narrow casement.

“Well, yes; the little captain,” returned the other, in a louder tone, and grinning at his own astuteness in discovering that this was a white horse so very like the “spook horse” that it might be one and the same. Some of Antonio’s schemes he had fathomed, being himself a sort of schemer in his own stupid way.

“I want her. She must come. Antonio dies.”

“Antonio–fiddles!” retorted the other, contemptuously. Then saw, to his surprise, that Ferd’s head had dropped upon that of his strange steed and that he was whimpering and sobbing in a pitiful fashion, well calculated to deceive the unwary. It was at this juncture that, fancying to see her beloved Buster made ready for her ride, Jessica ran singing into the stable, and paused amazed at sight of Ferd, weeping, and so oddly mounted. Horses there were galore in the Sobrante stables and pastures, but never one like this; so white, so spirited, and yet so marvelously marked. For even by the daylight, there in the slight shadow of the wall, the animal’s eyes glowed with an unearthly light, terrifying to Natan and startling even to her fearless self. Indeed it had not been until the moment of her appearance and Buster’s whinnied welcome, that Ferd’s horse had turned its face toward them and revealed his curious visage.

“Why, Ferdinand Bernal!” she cried, giving him his full title, and thereby mystifying still further the wondering groom. “I do believe that’s the very creature that’s been scaring such a lot of people everywhere! How came you by it and what ails its eyes?”

Ferd lifted a face that was grimy with dirt and streaked with tears. His misery was evident and needed no words to impress it upon the tenderhearted girl, who ran to the window, begging:

“What is the matter, Ferd? Poor Ferd! are you ill? In trouble? What?”

“The death. It is the accursed house. Where death comes once–he is always there. He told me–you must come. Come; now, right away, si. Before–too late. He said it. Antonio, my brother.”

“You know that, then–about your relationship? But what has happened to him?”

The dwarf glanced at Natan and motioned to her to send him away. For reasons of his own, the groom was glad enough to obey, because dire had been the threats of the mighty-fisted Samson, as well as the stern John Benton, against any on that ranch who should be caught “consorting with that low-lived Ferd or the late manager.” Besides, in spite of Jessica’s apparent indifference to the glowing eyes of the white horse they infected him with a horrible fear; so he made his escape at the first chance; leading Nimrod around to the house and tying him there to await Ninian’s pleasure, while he himself resorted to the most distant and safest spot he could find. This had seemed, in his mind, the mission corridor; but he found it already occupied by a party of the ranchmen who had no desire for his society, and after a short delay frankly told him so. It was in passing from this ancient structure to his own room in another building that he had been intercepted by John, and called to account.

Yet, sometime before this, Jessica had finished her interview with the unhappy Ferd; had written her note of explanation to Ninian, though keeping her destination secret, as the hunchback implored, in accordance with Antonio’s wish; had dispatched her message by Ned and Luis; and, unknown to them, had rapidly ridden away in company with the white horse and her treacherous guide–to comfort the dying.

That death should have come again to the cabin on the mesa, whither she was led, seemed natural enough to her; remembering with such keen sorrow the passing of old Pedro.

And for once Antonio Bernal had told the truth. Lying helpless, almost motionless, on the narrow bed in the shepherd’s home, he greeted his visitor with a pitiful smile on his white face, and a tone from which the last vestige of his old bravado had departed: “The Captain! si. You did well to come, my Lady Jess. But you are not afraid?”

“Why should I be afraid, Antonio? You are ill, I see that. What’s wrong? What can I do to help you?”

“Nothing. There is nothing. I played my game and I lost. I–I saw you last night at the window.”

“And I saw you; I knew you; but I did not know why you were fixed like that and had painted your poor horse all white.”

“Ha! You saw that? You, when nobody–older–well, I lost.”

“Are you hurt? What can have happened to you since then?”

“Shot. On the way here, fearing nothing, a passing horseman, unknown, braver or quicker than the rest, thought he could rid the country of its ghost. Ah, yes! it was merry–for a time. It is past.”

Jessica was crying softly, unable to endure the sight of agony, even his who had tried to injure her and hers. The sick man perceived this and something of the affection he had once felt for his master’s child, before he had betrayed that master’s trust, stirred him to speak and thrilled him with compunction. He felt himself to be doomed; he had already sent Ferd away again to summon a priest; and according to his faith he meant to make his peace with the world; but these preparations had been on his own account only. Now he began to feel something for her also.

Suddenly she ceased crying and stood up to bend over him and beg that she might be allowed to help him. “A drink of water–some coffee? You were always so fond of coffee, Antonio, and I know where Pedro kept all his things. So many, many times we drank it here together, he and I. And you–how came you here, Antonio?”

“Where better or nearer could I be? Pedro, the most obliging, yes. Just when I needed his house he left it. Si. Why, but I am better still, is it not, I?”

Indeed his color had improved and his voice grown stronger since Jessica’s arrival; and he was able to take the cup of coffee which she made him. This was more palatable than anything Ferd had prepared and stimulated him still further. For a few moments after he had taken it he felt so improved that he almost gave up the doing of that for which he had summoned her. But a sudden return of pain again alarmed him, and as soon as that spasm was past, he motioned her to the bedside.

“In the cupboard–look, quick!” he whispered, pointing to a set of shelves built upon the wall and behind whose locked doors Pedro had been accustomed to store his baskets.

Jessica tried the little door, which refused to open, and to her inquiry for the key, Antonio pointed to his own pillow. After a slight hesitation she approached and secured the key from beneath it; but when she had opened the cupboard found that all the Indian’s exquisite weaving had been removed. In its place was the metal-pointed staff, with its shank broken in half, and she exclaimed, indignantly:

“Oh! how could you do that, Antonio? And how could you be so mean as to take it from two children?”

“Ha! Once it was all mine–this land. The copper in the canyon, mine, also. Si. The padres’ secret which the shepherd kept was mine–No, no; not yet!” he broke off, with a sudden, delirious scream, fancying he saw the head of a man appearing without the door.

His outcry set Jessica shivering with fear at being alone in that isolated spot with a possible madman; but a second glance into his pallid face restored her natural courage and assured her that he was powerless to injure her, even had he wished to do so. Just then, too, Buster whinnied and she felt that he was company. It sounded as if he had seen some stable companion of his own and had welcomed it; yet this could not be, of course, since nobody knew of her whereabouts or would be likely to come to the mesa now. Therefore, she did not follow Antonio’s glance doorward, but sought at once to relieve his distress.

“Won’t you drink another cup of coffee, Antonio? Or shall I make you a bit of porridge? There’s hot water still in the kettle and I know how. I’ve made it for my mother, often, when she was ill; and the little boys always have it. Oh, I can do it quite well!”

She was so eager to serve him, and the pain had once more so greatly lessened for the time being, that the late manager graciously consented, and with such an absurd assumption of his old “top-lofty” manner that Jessica laughed even while she hastened to put on the tiny porringer and seek the meal. The little oil stove blazed merrily, and so deft was she that, in a very few minutes more, she had a dish of the steaming mush beside the cot and had thinned a cup of condensed milk with which to make it the more palatable. Sugar there was in plenty, for Pedro had loved sweets; so that nothing was wanted, save appetite, to render the repast all that was desirable; yet when it was quite ready Antonio could not take it.