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The Little Lady of Lagunitas

R >> Richard Henry Savage >> The Little Lady of Lagunitas









CHAPTER IX.

THE STRANGER'S FOOT AT LAGUNITAS. VALOIS' SPANISH BRIDE.





Through the mines runs a paean of rejoicing. The roads are free;
Joaquin is slain at last. Butcher bravos tire of revenging past
deeds of blood. They slay the helpless Indians, or assassinate the
frightened native Californians. This rude revenge element, stirred
up by Harry Love's exploit, reaches from Klamath to the Colorado.
Yet the unsettled interior is destined to keep up the sporadic
banditti of the valleys for years. Every glen offers an easy ambush.
In the far future only, the telegraph and railway will finally cut
up the great State into localized areas of civilization.

All the whiskey-drinking and revolver-carrying bravos must be swept
into obscure graves before crime can cease. It becomes, however,
occasional only. While bloody hands are ready, the plotting brain
of Joaquin Murieta never is equalled by any future bandit.

Coming years bring Francisco Garcia, Sebastian Flores, and the "Los
Manilas" gang, whose seventeen years of bloodshed end finally at
the gallows of Los Angeles. Varrella and Soto, Tiburcio Vasquez,
Santos Lotello, Chavez, and their wild Mexican brothers, are all
destined to die by shot or rope.

"Tom Bell," "Jack Powers," and other American recruits in the army
of villany, have only changed sides in their crimes. All these
wretches merit the deaths awaiting them. The last purely international
element of discord vanishes from the records of crime.

Wandering Americans aptly learn stage-robbing. They are heirs of
the old riders. The glories of "Black Bart," the lone highwayman
of eighty stage-robberies, and the "train robbers," are reserved
for the future. But Black Bart never takes life. He robs only the
rich.

Valois appreciates that the day has arrived when legal land spoliation
of the Mexicans will succeed these violent quarrels. Nothing is left
to steal but their land. That is the object of contention between
lawyers, speculators, squatters, and the defenceless owners. Their
domains narrow under mortgage, interest, and legal (?) robbery.

"Vae victis!" The days of confiscation follow the conquest.

Hydraulic mining, quartz processes, and corporate effort succeed
the earlier mining attempts. Two different forces are now in full
energy of action.

Hills are swept bodily into the river-beds, in the search for the
underlying gold. Rivers and meadows are filled up, sand covered,
and ruined. Forests are thrown down, to rot by wholesale. Tunnels
are blasted out. The face of nature is gashed with the quest for
gold. Banded together for destruction, the miners leave no useful
landmark behind them. All is washed away and sent seaward in the
choking river-channels.

The home-makers, in peaceful campaigns of seed-time and harvest,
develop new treasures. Great interests are introduced. The gold of
field, orchard, and harvest falls into the hands of the industrious
farmers. These are the men whose only weapons are scythe and
sickle. They are the real Fathers of the Pacific. Roving over the
interior, the miners leave a land as nearly ruined as human effort
can render it. In the wake of these nugget-hunters, future years
bring those who make the abandoned hills lovely with scattered homes.
They are now hidden by orchards, vineyards, and gardens. Peaceful
flocks and herds prove that the Golden Age of California is not to
be these wild days of the barbaric Forty-niner.

Maxime Valois sees the land sweeping in unrivalled beauty to the
Colorado. Free to the snowy peaks of the Sacramento, the rich plains
roll. He knows that there will be here yet,

"Scattered cities crowning these, Whose far white walls along them
shine, With fields which promise corn and wine."

He realizes that transient California must yield to stable conditions.
Some civilized society will succeed the masses as lacking in fibre
as a rope of sand. Already the days of roving adventure are over.
There are wanderers, gamblers, fugitives, ex-criminals, and outcasts
enough within the limits of the new land. Siren and adventuress,
women of nameless history and gloomy future, yet abound. They
throng the shabby temporary camps or tent cities. He knows there
is no self-perpetuation in the mass of men roving in the river
valleys. Better men must yet rule.

A visit to San Francisco and other large places proves that the
social and commercial element is supplied from the Northern, Eastern,
and Middle States. Their professional men will be predominant also.

In the interior, the farmers of the West and the sagacious planters
of the South control.

As May-day approaches, Valois, at San Francisco in 1853, sees a
procession of growing children. There, thousands of happy young
faces of school-children, appear bearing roses in innocent hands.

Philip Hardin gives him the details of the coming struggle of North
and South. It is a battle for the coast from Arizona to Oregon. Lost
to England, Russia, and France, lost to the Mormons by stupidity or
neglect, this West is lost to the South by the defeat of slavery.
Industrious farmers come, in fairly equal numbers, from the Northern
and Southern agricultural States. The people of the Atlantic free
States come with their commerce, capital, and institutions. The
fiat of Webster, Clay, and Seward has placed the guardian angel
of freedom at the gates and passes of California. The Southerner
cannot transfer his human slave capital to the far West. The very
winds sing freedom's song on the wooded heights of the Sierras.

Philip Hardin sighs, as he drains his glass, "Valois, our people
have doomed the South to a secondary standing in the Union. This
fatal blunder in the West ruins us. Benton and Fremont's precipitancy
thwarted our statesmen. This gold, the votes of these new States,
the future commerce, the immense resources of the West, all are cast
in the balance against us. We must work for a Western republic.
We must wait till we can fight for Southern rights. We will conquer
these ocean States. We will have this land yet."

The legal Mephisto and his pupil are true to the Southern cause.
Neither of them can measure the coming forces of Freedom. Rosalie
Leese, the pioneer white child of California, born in 1838, at Yerba
Buena, was the first of countless thousands of free-born American
children. In the unpolluted West the breath of slavery shall never
blight a single human existence. Old Captain Richardson and Jacob
Leese, pioneers of the magic city of San Francisco, gaze upon the
beautiful ranks of smiling school-children, in happy troops. They
have no regrets, like the knights of slavery, to see their places
in life filled by free-born young pilgrims of life. All hail the
native sons and daughters of the Golden West!

But the Southern politicians forge to the front. The majority is
still with them. They carry local measures. Their hands are only
tied by the admission of California, as a free State. Too late!
On the far borders of Missouri, the contest of Freedom and Slavery
begins. It excites all America. Bleeding Kansas! Hardin explains
that the circle of prominent Southerners, leading ranchers, Federal
officials, and officers of the army and navy, are relied on for the
future. The South has all the courts. It controls the legislature.
It seeks to cast California's voice against the Union in the event
of civil war. As a last resort they will swing it off in a separate
sovereignty--a Lone Star of the West.

"We must control here as we did in Texas, Valois. When the storm
arises, we will be annexed to the Southern Confederacy."

Even as he spoke, the generation of the War was ripening for the
sickle of Death. Filled with the sectional glories of the Mexican
war, Hardin could not doubt the final issue.

"Get land, Valois," he cries. "Localize yourself. When this State
is thrown open to slavery, you will want your natural position.
Maxime, you ought to have a thousand field-hands when you are master
at Lagunitas. You can grow cotton there."

Valois muses. He revolves in his mind the "Southern movement." Is
it treason? He does not stop to ask. As he journeys to Stockton he
ponders. Philip Hardin is about to accept a place on the Supreme
Bench of the State. Not to advance his personal fortunes, but to
be useful to his beloved South.

While the banks, business houses and factories are controlled
by Northern men: while the pothouse politicians of Eastern cities
struggle in ward elections, the South holds all the Federal honors.
They govern society, dominate in the legislature and in the courts.
They dictate the general superior intercourses of men. The ardent
Southrons rule with iron hand. They are as yet only combated by the
pens of Northern-born editors, and a few fearless souls who rise
above the meekly bowing men of the free States.

All see the approaching downfall of lawless pleasure and vicious
license in San Francisco. Slowly the tide of respectable settlement
rises. It bears away the scum of vice, swept into the Golden Gates
in the first rush. The vile community of escaped convicts and mad
adventurers cannot support itself. "The old order changeth, yielding
slowly to the new."

At the head of all public bodies, the gentleman of the South, quick
to avenge his personal honor, aims, with formal "code," and ready
pistol, to dragoon all public sentiment. He is sworn to establish
the superiority of the cavalier.

The first Mayor of San Francisco, a Congressman elect, gifted
editor Edward Gilbert, has already fallen in an affair of honor.
The control of public esteem depends largely on prowess in the
duelling field. Every politician lives up to the code.

Valois ponders over Hardin's advice. Averse to routine business,
fond of a country life, he decides to localize himself. His funds
have increased. His old partner, Joe Woods, is now a man of wealth
at Sacramento. Maxime has no faith in quartz mines. He has no
desires to invest in ship, or factory. He ignores commerce. To be
a planter, a man of mark in the legislature, to revive the glories
of the Valois family, is the lawyer's wish. While he passes the
tule-fringed river-banks, fate is leading him back to Lagunitas. He
has led a lonely life, this brilliant young Creole. In the unrest
of his blood, under the teachings of Hardin, Valois feels the future
may bear him away to unfought fields. The grandsons of those who
fought at New Orleans, may win victories, as wonderful, over the
enemies of that South, even if these foes are brothers born.

Gliding towards his fate, the puppet of the high gods, Maxime Valois
may dream of the surrender of Fort Sumter, and of the Southern
Cross soaring high in victory. Appomattox is far hidden beyond
battle-clouds of fields yet to come! The long road thither has
not yet been drenched with the mingled blood of warring brethren.
Dreams! Idle dreams! Glory! Ambition! Southern rights!

At Stockton, Valois receives tidings from Padre Francisco. Clouds
are settling down on Lagunitas. Squatters arc taking advantage of
the defenceless old Mexican. If the Don would save his broad acres,
he must appear in the law-courts of the conquerors.

Alas! the good old days are gone, when the whole State of California
boasted not a single lawyer. These are new conditions. The train
of loyal retainers will never sweep again out of the gates of
Lagunitas, headed by the martial Commandante, in all the bravery
of rank and office. It is the newer day of gain and greed.

Prospecting miners swarm over Mariposa. The butterflies are driven
from rocky knoll and fragrant bower by powder blasts. The woods
fall under the ringing axe of the squatter. Ignorant of new laws
and strange language; strong only in his rights; weak in years,
devoid of friends, Don Miguel's hope is the sage counsel of Padre
Francisco. The latter trusts to Valois' legal skill.

As adviser, Valois repairs to Lagunitas. Old patents, papers heavy
with antique seal and black with stately Spanish flourish, are conned
over. Lines are examined, witnesses probed, defensive measures
taken.

Maxime sits; catechizes the Don, the anxious Donna Juanita, and
the padre. Wandering by the shores of Lagunitas, Valois notes the
lovely reflection of the sweet-faced Dolores in the crystal waters.
The girl is fair and modest. Fran‡ois Ribaut often wonders if the
young man sees the rare beauty of the Spanish maiden. If it would
come to pass!

Over his beads, the padre murmurs, "It may be well. All well in
time."

The cause drags on slowly. After months, the famous case of the
Lagunitas rancho is fought and won.

But before its last coil has dragged out of the halls of justice,
harassed and broken in spirit, Don Miguel closes his eyes upon the
ruin of his race. Born to sorrow, Donna Juanita is a mere shade
of womanly sorrow. She is not without comfort, for the last of the
Peraltas has placed his child's hand in that of Maxime Valois and
whispered his blessing.

"You will be good to my little Dolores, amigo mio," murmurs the old
man. He loves the man whose lance has been couched in his behalf.
The man who saved his life and lands.

Padre Francisco is overjoyed. He noted the drawing near of the young
hearts. A grateful flash, lighting the shining eyes of Dolores, told
the story to Maxime. His defence of her father, his championship
of the family cause, his graceful demeanor fill sweet Dolores' idea
of the perfect "caballero."

The priest with bell, book, and candle, gives all the honors of
the Church to the last lord of Lagunitas. Hard by the chapel, the
old ranchero rests surrounded by the sighing forest. It is singing
the same unvarying song, breathing incense from the altars of nature
over the stout soldier's tomb.

He has fought the fight of his race in vain. When the roses' leaves
drift a second time on the velvet turf, Maxime Valois receives
the hand of Dolores from her mother. The union is blessed by the
invocation of his priestly friend. It is a simple wedding. Bride
and groom are all in all to each other. There are none of the
Valois, and not a Peralta to join in merrymaking.

Padre Francisco and Donna Juanita are happy in the knowledge that the
shy bird of the mountains is mated with the falcon-eyed Creole. He
can defend the lordly heritage of Lagunitas. So, in the rosy summer
time, the foot of the stranger passes as master over the threshold
of the Don's home. The superb domain passes under the dominion
of the American. One by one the old holdings of the Californian
families pass away. The last of the Dons, sleeping in the silence
of the tomb, are spared the bitterness of seeing their quaint
race die out. The foreigner is ruling within their gates. Their
unfortunate, scattered, and doomed children perish in the attrition
of a newer civilization.

Narrow-minded, but hospitable; stately and loyal; indifferent to
the future, suspicious of foreigners, they are utterly unable to
appreciate progress. They are powerless to develop or guard their
domains. Abandoned by Mexico, preyed on by squatters, these courtly
old rancheros are now a memory of the past.

This wedding brings life to Lagunitas. The new suzerain organizes a
working force. It is the transition period of California. Hundreds
of thousands of acres only wait for the magic artesian well to
smile in plenty. Valois gathers up the reins. Only a few pensioners
remain. The nomadic cavalry of the natives has disappeared. The
suggestion of "work" sets them "en route." They drift towards the
Mexican border. The flocks and herds are guarded by corps of white
attendants. The farm succeeds the ranch.

Maxime Valois gives his wife her first sight of the Queen City.
The formalities of receiving the "patent" call him to San Francisco.

Padre Francisco remains with Donna Juanita. The new rule is
represented by "Kaintuck," an energetic frontiersman, whose vast
experience in occasional warfare and frequent homicide is a guarantee
of finally holding possession. This worthy left all his scruples
at home in Kentucky, with his proper appellation. He is a veteran
ranger.

As yet the lands yield no regular harvests. The ten-leagues-square
tract produces less fruit, garden produce, and edibles, than
a ten-acre Pennsylvania field in the Wyoming. But the revenue is
large from the cattle and horses. The cattle are as wild as deer.
The horses are embodiments of assorted "original sin," and as agile
as mountain goats. Valois knows, however, the income will be ample
for general improvements.

His policy matures. He encourages the settlement of Southerners.
He rents in subdivisions his spare lands.

The Creole, now a landlord, hears the wails of short-sighted men.
They mourn the green summers, the showery months of the East.
Moping in idleness, they assert that California will produce neither
cereal crops, fruits, nor vegetables. Prophets, indeed! The golden
hills look bare and drear to strangers' eyes. The brown plains
please not.

In the great realm, apples, potatoes, wheat, corn, the general
cereals and root crops are supposed to be impossible productions.
Gold, wild cattle, and wilder mustangs are the returns of El Dorado.
Cultivation is in its infancy.

The master departs with the dark-eyed bride. She timidly follows
his every wish. Dolores has the education imparted by gentle Padre
Francisco. It makes her capable of mentally expanding in the
experiences of the first journey. The gentle refinement of her
race completes her charms.

To the bride, the steamer, the sights of the bay, crowded with
shipping, and the pageantry of the city are dazzling. The luxuries
of city life are wonders. Relying on her husband, she glides into
her new position. Childishly pleased at the jewels, ornaments, and
toilets soon procured in the metropolis, Donna Dolores Valois is
soon one of Eve's true daughters, arrayed like the lily.

Months roll away. The stimulus of a brighter life develops the girl
wife into a sweetly radiant woman.

Maxime Valois rejoins Philip Hardin. He is now a judge of the Supreme
Court. Stormy days are these of 1855 and the spring of 1856.

Deep professional intrigues busy Valois. Padre Francisco and
"Kaintuck" announce the existence of supposed quartz mines on the
rancho. Valois will not pause in his occupations to risk explorations.

For the Kansas strife, the warring of sections, and the growing
bitterness of free and slave State men make daily life a seething
cauldron. Southern settlers are pouring into the interior. They shun
the cities. In city and country, squatter wars, over lot and claim,
excite the community. San Francisco is a hotbed of politicians and
roughs of the baser sort. While the Southerners generally control
the Federal and State offices, Hardin feels the weakness in their
lines has been the journalistic front of their party. Funds are
raised. Pro-slavery journals spring into life. John Nugent, Pen
Johnston, and O'Meara write with pens dipped in gall, and the ready
pistol at hand. Tumult and fracas disgrace bench, bar, legislature,
and general society. The great wars of Senators Gwin and Broderick
precede the separation of Northern and Southern Democrats. As
the summer of 1856 draws on, corruption, violence, and sectional
hatred bitterly divide all citizens. School and Church, journal
and law-giver, work for the right. The strain on the community
increases. While the coast and interior is dotted with cities and
towns, and the Mint pours out floods of ringing gold coins, there
is no confidence. Farm and factory, ship and wagon train, new
streets, extension of the city and material progress show every
advancement. But a great gulf yawns between the human wave of old
adventurers, and the home-makers, now sturdily battling for the
inevitable victory.

The plough is speeding in a thousand furrows everywhere. Cattle
and flocks are being graded and improved. Far-sighted men look
to franchise and public association. The day dawns when the giant
gaming hells, flaunting palaces of sin, and the violent army of
miscreants must be suppressed.

Everywhere, California shows the local irritation between the
buccaneers of the first days, and the resolute, respectable citizens.
The latter are united in this local cause, though soon to divide
politically on the battle-field.

Driven from their lucrative vices of old, the depraved element, at
the polls, overawes decency. San Francisco's long wooden wharves,
its precipitous streets, its crowded haunts of the transient, and
its flashy places of low amusement harbor a desperate gang. They
are renegades, deserters, and scum of every seaport--graduates of
all human villany. Aided by demagogues, the rule of the "Roughs"
nears its culmination. Fire companies, militia, train bands, and
the police, are rotten to the core. In this upheaval, affecting
only the larger towns, the higher classes are powerless.

Cut off, by the great plains, from the central government, the State
is almost devoid of telegraphs and has but one little railroad. It
has hostile Indians yet on its borders. The Chinese come swarming
in like rats. The situation of California is critical.

Personal duels and disgraceful quarrels convulse high life. The
lower ranks are ruled only by the revolver. The criminal stalks
boldly, unpunished, in the streets.

The flavor of Americanism is no leaven to this ill-assorted
population. The exciting presidential campaign, in which Fremont
leads a new party, excites and divides the better citizens of the
commonwealth.

Though the hills are now studded with happy homes and the native
children of the Golden West are rising in promise, all is unrest.
A local convulsion turns the anger of better elements into the
revolution of the Vigilance Committee of 1856. James Casey's pistol
rang out the knell of the "Roughs" when he murdered the fearless
editor of the leading journal.

Valois, uninterested in this urban struggle, returns to Lagunitas.
His domain rewards his energy.

All is peace by the diamond lake. Senora Dolores, her tutor, Padre
Francisco, and the placid Duenna Juanita make up a pleasant home
circle. It is brightened by luxuries provided by the new lord.
Maxime Valois' voice is heard through the valleys. He travels in
support of James Buchanan, the ante-bellum President. For is not John
C. Breckinridge, the darling son of the South, as vice-president
also a promise of Southern success?

San Francisco throws off its criminals by a spasmodic effort.
The gallows tree has borne its ghastly fruit. Fleeing "Roughs" are
self-expatriated. Others are unceremoniously shipped abroad. The
Vigilance Committee rules. This threshing out of the chaff gives
the State a certain dignity. At least, an effort has been made
to purge the community. All in all, good results--though a Judge
of the Supreme Court sleeps in a guarded cell as a prisoner of
self-elected vindicators of the law.

When the excitement of the presidential election subsides, Maxime
Valois joins the banquets of the Democratic victors. The social
atmosphere is purer. Progress marks the passing months. The State
springs forward toward the second decade of its existence. There
is local calm, while the national councils potter over the Pacific
railways. Valois knows that the great day of Secession approaches.
The Sons of the South will soon raise the banner of the Southern
Cross. He knows the purposes of the cabinet, selected by the
conspirators who surround Buchanan. Spring sees the great departments
of the government given over to those who work for the South. They
will arrange government offices, divide the army, scatter the navy,
juggle the treasury and prepare for the coming storm. The local
bitterness heightens into quarrels over spoils. Judge Philip
Hardin, well-versed in the Secession plots, feeds the ever-burning
pride of Valois. From Kansas, from court and Congress, from the
far East, the murmur of the "irrepressible conflict" grows nearer.
Maxime Valois is in correspondence with the head of his family.
While at Lagunitas, the Creole pushes on his works of improvement.
He dreams at night strange dreams of more brilliant successes. Of
a new flag and the triumph of the beloved cause. He will be called
as a trusted Southron into the councils of the coast. Will they
cut it off under the Lone Star flag? This appeals to his ambition.

There are omens everywhere. The Free-State Democrats must be
suppressed. The South must and shall rule.

He often dreams if war and tumult will ever roll, in flame and fire,
over the West. The mists of the future veil his eyes. He waits the
signal from the South. All over California, the wealth of the land
peeps through its surface gilding. There are no clouds yet upon
the local future. No burning local questions at issue here, save
the aversion of the two sections, distrustful of each other.

It needs only the mad attack of John Brown upon Virginia's
slave-keepers to loose the passions of the dwellers by the Pacific.
Martyr or murderer, sage or fanatic, Brown struck the blows which
broke the bonds of the brotherhood of the Revolution. From the year
1858, the breach becomes too great to bridge. Secretly, Southern
plans are perfected to control the West. While the conspiracy
slowly moves on, the haughtiness of private intercourse admits of
no peaceable reunion. Active correspondence between officials, cool
calculations of future resources, and the elevation to prominent
places of men pledged to the South, are the rapid steps of the
maturing plans. On the threshold of war.

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