Jessica Trent: Her Life on a Ranch

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“It’s only a rifle practice. The ranchmen and the children–all children in this sport–and always noisy. I’m sorry it disturbed you, but–Indians! How could you imagine it. Ah! Antonio, good-evening. Have you had supper?”

“No, senora. I need it.”

“It is waiting. This visitor, Mr. Hale, Senor Antonio Bernal, the manager of Sobrante.”

The gentlemen bowed, one with the brevity of a busy man, the other with the profound salutation of his race. But they parted immediately, for the Easterner was anxious to witness the shooting and the superintendent to break his long fast; and with disgust at his own readiness to fancy danger where none existed, Mr. Hale followed the sound of the yells and cheers.

“Hi! hi! for the little one! Hit him again, blue jacket!” shrieked Samson, as, steadying upon a tie-post the rifle he was too small to support, Ned sighted the bull’s-eye of a distant target, took a careless aim, yet struck it squarely.

Whereupon the strong ex-sailor thrust the weapon aside and tossed the lad in the air as if he had been a ball. Yet caught him as he lightly descended, and placed him astride his own shoulders.

“Who’ll beat the little master? Three times out o’ seven, with an iron heavy as that, how’s the showing for an eight-year-old?”

But Ned slipped from the ranchman’s back, picked up his own tiny, perfectly finished gun, and swung it over his head.

“Huh! That’s nothing! Huh! This the feller! Huh! Guess ’tis. Shot more’n forty-’leven quails this day ’t ever was. Had ’em for my supper. Had ’em for the man broke his horse’s leg and stole Scruff. Hello, Mister! Had your supper? Wasn’t them good birds? I shot ’em for you. I did.”

“You?” demanded the gentleman, astonished. He had now joined the group surrounding the three children, and his presence caused a lull in the uproar which had preceded his arrival. “You! Why you aren’t big enough to do such a thing.”

“I did! I did! I never told a lie in all my life–never, never, never! So, there!” and unable to endure such an imputation, the child rushed upon his traducer and pounded him well with the butt of his little rifle.

“Ned! Edward Trent! Stop! You–a little gentleman–mother’s son!”

Jessica’s arms were about her brother, restraining his movements and for a moment making him drop his head in shame. The next he had broken from her grasp, caught up another gun and dragged it toward her.

“Your turn, Jess. Hurry up. There’s just an inch of sun left–I mean there was a minute ago–hurry up! Me an’ Luis’s got to go to bed quick as a wink! Hurry–hurry!”

“Hurry up!” echoed Luis, with a yawn, and dropping down where he stood, was instantly asleep.

John Benton crossed to the visitor’s side and remarked:

“Now, I tell you, stranger, you’ll see the sight of your life. If I was a betting man I’d back Our Lady Jess again’ any other girl-shooter on the globe. You just watch out–if the dark holds off a spell.”

There were a dozen, maybe, of the ranchmen standing or lying around in a semi-circle, but now all quiet and intent upon the little girl, as, nodding and smiling upon her guest and her beloved “boys,” she stepped into the open space before them all. “Forty-niner” March, unerring marksman and the children’s instructor, took his place beside her, examined her rifle, handed it to her and also observed to the stranger:

“Now, if nothin’ happens, you’ll see sunthin’. Sorry it’s so dusk, but any gent what doubt’s is free to walk up to the target and look where the ball strikes. You, lady, do me proud.”

“I’ll try,” said Jessica, simply. “Is it the little nail in the center?”

“Just that.”

She sighted and fired; and a ranchman who had run forward to the target, shouted back across the darkening space:

“Hit her plumb!”

A roar of applause greeted this announcement, but the girl accepted this tribute with no comment save another nod and smile, as she waited her teacher’s next direction.

This was given silently by a gesture downward.

Instantly Jessica dropped upon the ground, rested herself upon her elbows, aimed, fired, and–“Hit her again! Hooray for Our Lady! Hooray–hooray–hooray!”

In his excitement big Samson seized Mr. Hale by the sleeve and compelled that gentleman to jog-trot across the open and view at closer range the wonderful skill of the little maid who was so dear to them all.

“Stand aside, Psalm Singer. Your head’s in the way!” cautioned somebody.

Still clutching his companion, Samson obeyed, and they saw Jessica now lying upon her back, sighting upward and backward over her head a small, white object that had been placed in the target where the tack had been. There was no cheering then, nor any movement among the eager watchers who fairly held their breaths lest they disturb their darling in that supreme moment of her success or failure.

“But she’ll not fail!” thought more than one, and would have given a year’s wages that she should not.

There was a swift rush of something through the air, so close to Mr. Hale’s nose that he visibly drew back, and a double report as the bullet hit the toy torpedo which had been the chosen mark.

After that, pandemonium; or so it seemed to Mr. Hale. Those gray and grizzled men–for there were few young among them–shouted themselves hoarse and gave way to the wildest expressions of pride and delight. As for Jessica, the heroine, though her eyes sparkled and a flush rose to her cheeks, she was by far the calmest person present. Even Mr. Hale’s heart was beating rapidly and he caught the girl’s hands and shook them violently, in his congratulations.

“That was marvelous! marvelous! I’ve seen pretty good sharp-shooting done by professionals, but never anything so fine as that last shot of yours. How could you ever learn it, so young as you are?”

“How could I help learning? It is ‘Forty-niner's’ work, a deal more than mine. He’s been teaching me ever since I could hold a tiny bow and arrow. He’s wonderful, if you please; but I–Well, it seems just to do itself, somehow. But I must go in now. Time for the little ones to be in bed. Come, Ned. Come, Luis. Oh, dear! he’s fast asleep.”

“I’ll pack him for you, lady. And say, boys, isn’t this the time?”

Samson had lifted the sleeping Luis, tucked him under one arm and swung Ned to the other, but now paused to glance around among his fellow-workmen.

“Time was ‘moon-up,’” answered Joe, minded to be facetious.

“This would be ‘moon-up,’ if the old girl knew her business,” retorted the sailor. “In ten minutes we’ll be with you. Come, on, my lady. I’ve a word to say to you and the mistress.”

The daily evening sport was over and the ranchmen rapidly dispersed, each to his own quarters, and none considering it his especial business to entertain the stranger, who was now strolling slowly houseward mindful of the sudden chill which came with the nightfall and of his own unfitness for exposure.

Proudest of all, “Forty-niner” gathered up the weapons and carried them off, to clean and put in order for the next evening’s practice. He was well satisfied with his pupil’s achievements, though already planning more difficult feats for their performance. The man was eighty; yet, while his abundant hair was white, his back was still straight and his step firm. The joy of his old age was the athletic training of the Sobrante children, and it would have amazed him, even broken his heart, had he been told that by such means he did not well earn his keep. He was eldest of all the elderly workmen that the late master of the ranch had gathered about him, and his appreciation of this good home in which to end his days perhaps, the greatest of all. It was, therefore, a terrible shock which awaited him, as entering his own room, he lighted his lamp and saw lying on his table a white envelope addressed to himself.

He knew what it meant. Dismissal.

One year before, when Cassius Trent died, there had been twenty employees where there were now but thirteen–he the “odd one” of the “baker’s dozen.” Seven times, when least expected or desired, some one of these twenty had found in his room just such an envelope, containing his arrears of wages, and the curt information that, “by the order of Mrs. Trent, his services were no longer required at Sobrante, nor would any wages be forthcoming from that day forward.”

These men had all been friends, rather than servants, and in each case the result had been the same. Cut to the heart by the manner of discharge, and, for the first time it may be, realizing that he was no longer young, and, therefore, valuable, the recipient of the envelope had quietly disappeared, saying farewell to nobody.

“My turn! My turn, at last!” broke from the aged frontiersman’s lips, and a groan followed. “Ten years I’ve lived in this old adobe cell till I’ve come to feel like the monk for whom it was first built. Now–”

The white head drooped forward on the outstretched arms and all the burden of his eighty years seemed suddenly to have descended upon that bowed and shrunken figure.

In the pretty dining-room Antonio Bernal had eaten a hearty supper served by his own mistress, since Wun Lung was not to be found and the house-boy, Pasqual, claimed his usual recreation hour at the rifle practice. But neither thought anything amiss in this, and the manager would, indeed, have asserted that it was quite the proper thing. Was not he a Bernal, and superior to all at Sobrante? Even though he was, for the time being, receiving wage instead of bestowing. Well, it was a long lane that had no turning.

Pushing back from the table, Antonio had murmured the proverb in Spanish, with a smile of satisfaction lighting his dark face, and Mrs. Trent had failed to hear distinctly, though she was familiar enough with the language so often in use about her.

“Beg pardon, I did not understand.”

“Begging pardon, one’s self, senora, it is seldom that you do. It is the business was never made for the small brains of the women, no? ’Tis the senora’s place to be beautiful and let the business rest in the capable hands of I, myself. En verdad.”

Mrs. Trent colored and bit her lip. This man’s insolence was becoming insupportable, and she could scarcely recognize him for the obsequious fellow who had been her husband’s right-hand dependence. His brief authority had turned his head, she reflected, and, again, that she must in no wise offend him. The welfare of her children demanded this, and forcing herself to smile as pleasantly as if his insult were a jest, she remarked:

“The gentleman whom you met, as you came in, is a lawyer. A New York lawyer. I–I would like to consult him about our–this business you mention. I was born and reared in New York and have a feeling that anything which comes from there must be all right. Even a lawyer, though I’m not fond of the profession usually.

“The senor is not wont to waste so many words upon her most humble servant, no. And as for the lawyers, have I not this day been to the consulting of the most eminent, the wisest of his kind, no? But yes; and the truth is, senora–believe me, it breaks my heart so to inform you, but this barren rancho of Sobrante belongs not to the Dona Gabriella and her children, but to one Antonio Bernal, even I, myself.”

“To you! Belongs–to–you?” gasped the astonished woman.

The manager shrugged his shoulders and tossed another Spanish proverb toward her: “What I have said, I have said.”

Mrs. Trent felt her strength leaving her and sank into a chair, still gazing incredulously at the other, who now lounged back in his own chair and began to leisurely pick his teeth. It was a trivial action, but one wholly disgusting to the gentlewoman’s fastidious sense, and it angered her, which was a good thing, for her anger banished her momentary faintness and gave her boldness to demand:

“The proof!”

“It will be forthcoming, senora, at the right time. Yes. Meanwhile, I am content you shall remain, you and your little ones, until–well, say a month. By that date all things should have been arranged and the senora will have found herself another home less lonely than Sobrante. One so beautiful as the Dona Gabriella must have hosts of friends who–”

Senor Bernal paused. There were footsteps approaching, and the merry voices of children, and an instant later Samson was in the room, still carrying the little lads in his arms, and with Jessica clinging affectionately to his ragged sleeve.

One glance showed the faithful ranchman that something was amiss. There was fresh sorrow, even consternation, in the beloved face of Sobrante’s mistress, fresh insolence in that of her chief assistant. He was not one to hesitate when his friends were in trouble, and turned to Antonio with an angry demand:

“What have you been worrying your betters with now, senor?”

“Keep a civil tongue in your head, rascal.”

“Returnin’ the compliment, if you please. All the same, don’t you know that a man–a man– doesn’t go around worrying women as you worry Mrs. Trent? You, that hadn’t a shirt to your back when the boss took you in and made you what you are! I’m anticipatin’ a mite, and I don’t know just how some of the boys’ll take it, but we’d laid out this very night at moon-up–if there’d been a moon sensible enough to get up, which there isn’t–to haul you and a few other matters over the coals and stir up a fresh sort of blaze. Now, I warn you, just you let matters slide, peaceable, and you–just you, yourself, keep that civil tongue you recommend, or you’ll light out of here so quick ye won’t see your heels for dust, dry season though it is. Hear?”

“Hear? Yes, I hear. Now, ’tis your turn. You go tell those malcontents you call ‘the boys’ to take their packs and foot it. Times have changed. Things have changed. There’s another master here now, and not a weak-willed mistress. That is me–I–Antonio Bernal, owner of Sobrante rancho and all that appertains thereto. Now, go. Vamos. Depart. Clear out. Get!”

Samson went–as far as the long, open window, and stepped out upon the porch. He did not see Mr. Hale, who had seated himself in a rocker, an unintentional witness of a scene he would gladly have missed, and putting a whistle to his lips blew a summons which was understood by every fellow-workman on the ranch. Then he quietly re-entered the house, folded his arms, and leaned carelessly against the door frame.

Senor Bernal started up as if he would forcibly eject the herder, but thought better of this and sank back nonchalantly in his great chair. Jessica had placed herself behind her mother, and clasped Mrs. Trent’s shoulders with the protecting tenderness habitual to her. Ned had sprung to his mother’s lap and Luis continued his nap at her feet; while all seemed waiting for some fresh development of the affair.

This came and speedily; for, in answer to Samson’s whistle, there filed over the porch and into the room, Joe, the smith; Marty, the gardener; and Carpenter John. There was missing old “Forty-niner,” commonly the dominant fifth of this odd quintet, but nobody wondered much at that. Doubtless he was polishing his darling’s rifle and making ready for some astonishing display of her skill wherewith to dazzle the stranger upon the morrow. In any case he rarely disagreed with the opinions of his cronies and was sure to be one with them in the matter of that hour.

With a respectful salute to Mrs. Trent, a grin toward the children, and a scowl for Antonio, these stalwart ranchmen lined up against the wall and stood at attention. Mr. Hale, observant through the doorway, again noticed that each of these was well along in years, that each had some slight physical infirmity, and that, despite these facts, each looked a man of unusual strength and most entire devotion. Indeed, the gaze fixed upon the little lady, was one of adoration, and the situation boded ill for anybody who meant harm to her.

“Ahem. What say, mates? Has the hour struck?”

“The hour has struck,” answered John Benton, solemnly, shifting his weight from his lame leg to his sound one.

Samson strode a mighty step forward and pulled his forelock.

“Then I state, madam, that we here, on behalf of ourselves and our whole crew, now, and hereby do, throw off all ’legiance to that there Spanish skunk, a-settin’ in your easiest chair, and appoint Our Lady Jess, captain of the good ship Sobrante. Allowin’ you to be the admiral of that same, madam, but takin’ no more orders from anybody save and excepting her–under you, of course–from this time forth, so help us.”

Then there burst from the trio of throats a cheer that shook the windows, and called a contemptuous laugh from the superintendent so valiantly defied.

The cheer died in an ominous silence which Senor Bernal improved.

“Highly dramatic and most edifying, en verdad. Senor, I kiss your hands in even greater devotion. But the play has one little drawback. To I, me, myself, belongs Sobrante. Already I have had the law of which you spoke. My claim I have proved. From the long back generations the good title from the Mission Padres to my own fathers, yes. Sobrante? Si. More and better. Wide lies the valley of Paraiso d’Oro. Mine, Mine. All–all mine. No?”

He rose to his feet and pompously paced up and down the room, insolently handsome and proud of the fact, while out on the darkened porch Mr. Hale had heard a word which set his own pulses beating faster and the row of ranchmen started forward as if minded to throw the braggart out of the house.

But Jessica stepped forth and cried, triumphantly, though still with an effort toward that courtesy she desired.

“Beg pardon, Senor Antonio Bernal, but surely you are quite mistaken. My father taught me some things. He said I was not too young to learn them. He–he only–has the title deed to dear Sobrante, and I–I only–know the safe place where it is kept!”

Antonio halted in his strutting march and for a moment his face grew pale. The next instant he had regained more than his former confidence, and with a sneering laugh, exclaimed:

“Seeing is believing, no? To the satisfaction of the assembled most honorable company,” here he bowed with mock politeness, “let this most interesting document be produced. Si.”

Jessica flew from the room and in an intolerable anxiety the whole “honorable company” awaited her long-delayed return.

CHAPTER VI

NIGHT VISIONS

When the tension of waiting was becoming intolerable, and Mrs. Trent was already rising to seek her daughter, Jessica reappeared in the doorway. Her white face and frightened eyes told her story without words, but her mother forced herself to ask:

“Did you find it, darling?”

“Mother, it is gone!”

“Gone!”

“Gone. Yet it was only that dear, last day when he was with us, in the morning, before he set out for the mines, that he showed it to me, safe and sound in its place. He was to tell you, too, that night–but–”

“It was that, then, which was on his mind, and I could not understand. I–Antonio Bernal, he entrusted you and you must know; where is that missing deed?”

“Deed, senora? This day, just ended, is it not that I have been over all the records and there is none of any deed to Sobrante later than my own–or that proves my claim. In truth, the honorable Dona Gabriella is right, indeed. I was the trusted friend of the dead senor, and if any such precious document existed, would I not have known it? Si. What I do know is the worry, the trouble, the impossibility of such a paper broke the senor’s heart. It does not exist. Sobrante is mine. He knew that this was so–I had often spoken–”

The untruth he was about to utter did not pass his lips. There was that in the white face of Gabriella Trent which arrested his words, as, clasping her boy in her arms, she glided into the darkened hall and entered her own rooms beyond.

The “boys” had not moved, nor Jessica followed, and she now firmly confronted the manager, saying:

“I am sorry to tell you, Antonio Bernal, that you are not acting square. My father did have that title deed, and I believe you know it. Somebody has taken it from the place where his own hands put it, but I will find it. This home is ours, is all my mother’s. Nobody shall ever take it from her. Nobody. You hear me say that, Senor Antonio Bernal, and you, dear ‘boys?’”

“Ay, ay,” echoed her friends, heartily; but the superintendent regarded her as he might have done some amusing little insect.

“Very pretty, senorita. The filial devotion, almost beautiful. But the facts–well, am I not merciful and generous, I? There is no haste. Indeed, no. A month–”

“Before a month is out I will have found that deed and placed it in my darling mother’s hands. I may be too young to understand the ‘business’ you talk about so much, but I am not too young to save my mother’s happiness. I can see that paper now, in my mind, and I remember exactly how it looked inside and out. It seemed such a little thing to be worth a whole, great ranch. I don’t know how nor where, but somehow and somewhere, I shall find that paper. ‘Boys,’ will you help me?”