Chapter II: The Lion and the Lamb Lie Down Together

Most unwonted drought had laid a withering hand on fertile Santa Clara valley that year. March had come and no vast stretches of wild oats measured the way from foothill to bay; no juicy grazing for cattle and horses on the rich bottom lands. The plain-brown color-tone of autumn prevailed, not that of spring, in triumphant green and promise of rich harvest.

This interchange prevailed almost everywhere except around the gushing springs at the Mission San José. Here rioted nature in her proudest fancy, for the intense warmth of day and night had brought to blossom before their time wild plant, oleander, and fruit tree. Here was green grass in luxuriant abundance, while the tall mustard flaunted its yellow top as usual, and afforded a resting place for chattering blackbird and twittering linnet.

The springs on the Administrator's property several miles north of Mission San José had gradually diminished in flow until only unsightly, trampled mud remained where was a limpid lake in happier years.

The geyserlike warm springs on the property of Don Fulgencio Higuera, Señor Mendoza's neighbor to the south, had suddenly run dry. In fact, not more than half a dozen sources of water-supply remained within a radius of a score of miles. The like had never been known, not even in the memory of the oldest Indian in the valley.

Weird relics of Druidic worship, half forgotten under the tutelage of the Mission padres, were revived in forest and mountain. Vast columns of smoke, odoriferous of cedar and bay-leaf, reached high toward heaven in the motionless air. The ancient name of Oroysom replaced on many a tongue that of the smoothly flowing Mission San José de Guadalupe, which name the missionaries had given the region when their work of Christianizing the Indians began.

"Oroysom, Oroysom, begs thee, Great Spirit, to awake," sang the aborigine. "Let the perfume of laurel propitiate thee. Let the sweetness of the smoke of cedar be a gracious offering unto thee. On the fields of Oroysom no food for beast is found. Gaunt famine is rushing hither in wind-swift pace. Our hunters search stream and wildwood, but find no food for the child, the women, the old people. There is no maize, no field of growing wheat; and, lo! the garden is dry and empty. Oroysom calls on thee, Father of the rain, Source of the springs, and Giver of the harvest, to arouse from slumber and forget no longer the people who from old have honored thee."

Around the great fires at night the Indians swung hand in hand, swaying in willowy motion as they chanted their incantation. Their shadows danced in wildest abandon on the mammoth rocks or mountain peaks which formed the background of the strange scene.

Señor Mendoza, the leading spirit among the landholders on the eastern side of the valley, endeavored, as, indeed, did his neighbors, to maintain equanimity, but there was much anxiety among all.

Even water for family use had to be carried on horseback, the vaqueros from ranchos miles away coming to the few remaining water-supplies, and riding back with the precious water skins over the pommel of the saddle.

It was the last week of January when the Administrator first called his fellow landowners together to consider what could be done. They gathered in his sitting room. Graybeards they were, the most of them, and rich in the wisdom of many years, as well as in landed possessions.

Long they smoked the cigarros of the provident Administrator and sipped his rare wines, the while exchanging polite remarks on the nothings of the day. This was their way while waiting to begin attack on some weighty subject. Finally Señor Mendoza ordered the serving peons to bring on his choicest cognac, a select French product.

"The Administrator is vastly disturbed over this rainless winter," whispered Don Pedro Zelaya, of the rancho San Lorenzo, to Don Fulgencio Higuera, of the rancho Aguas Calientes. "Paris knows no better cognac than I see here. I divine his anxiety by the quality of his liquors. Last year when renegade Indians threatened he furnished our meeting here with a Portuguese cordial mild as milk. Much as he fears the prowling Yoscolo and Stanislaus, he measures them not high in comparison with this drought."

The leonine-appearing Señor Higuera squared his yard-wide shoulders to attention as he sat in his high-backed chair. His eye ran slowly over the slender and dapper Señor Zelaya. A trace of humor stole into his eyes, then over his bearded face. "Brandy in the head seldom lends swiftness to the feet. Is it not so?"

Pedro Zelaya was the swiftest foot-racer in the province of California. He was also a lover of good eating and drinking. When training for his famous races he must forego the delicacies of his French cook, and the bouquet of imported wine, which deprivations he relished not over well.

"A thimbleful of brandy is given even to a bull-fighter before the contest," replied Señor Zelaya, bowing politely and suavely smiling.

Years before the doughty Señor Higuera had seized and held by the horns an infuriated bull which, maddened by eating the dreaded rattleweed, a venomous plant then common, had left the herd and rushed up on Higuera, who was standing, with his wife and children, in the open before the courtyard of his hacienda house.

The peons served the cognac in long, slender-stemmed goblets. Señor Mendoza raised his glass, looked for a moment at the amber liquid, then sipped it gently. Lowering the glass he glanced around at the assembled company. Each man, following the example of the host, tasted the contents of his own glass, and then allowed his eyes to rest on the Señor Administrator.

This process was repeated once, twice, three times, until each had finished his beverage.

Señor Mendoza's aquiline features, garnished by mustache and imperial, and embellished by a waving iron-gray hair, fell into severer mold.

"Señors, my friends, may I have your attention?"

No one spoke.

"Señors," his tones serious and resonant, "it is not raining to-day."

His assertion was not disputed. The rays of the sun streamed into the room. It was afternoon and the delicately tinted stained glass of the windows was resplendent in the light.

"It rained not yesterday, nor in the yesterday of many months," looking from one to another of his company, as if in search of opposition.

The señors, in solemn concord, bowed in corroboration of his statement.

"The soft south wind blows not. Overhead is the summer sun. I see no hope of rain to-morrow."

The grave señors acquiesced.

"Indians in thousands, beasts in tens of thousands, are on our lands. Responsibilities, neither few nor doubtful, weigh on our shoulders. If it rains not to-morrow, nor yet till the to-morrows touch late spring, how can we fulfill the duty this province of Alta California lays at our door, that our aborigine wards lack not the sustenance their condition demands?"

His look went from face to face. Suddenly he stood upright.

"Señors, to save our people we must save our cattle. Even if the rain comes, the feed will be late. Therefore our herds must go elsewhere soon, or only their dried bones will see another year. Whither shall we take them?"

The foremost in the council gave their views.

"The river to the north, called Russian, nourishes vast cañons of redwood forest. The soil is ever moist where the heaven-searching redwood grows. Let rafts be made to ferry the animals to the shore of Contra Costa. In another year they will return, with increase, fat and safe. Our peons throughout the year can call hither from that region the supplies we need." Thus Don Antonio Peralta.

As he concluded the other leaders bowed to him solemnly.

The dapper Zelaya indicated to his host, who was yet standing, his wish to speak.

The quiet humor in the heart of Señor Higuera stole again into his eyes and over his face and reached his tongue. "Swiftness in the feet means quickness in the mind directing those feet. Let us hear Señor Zelaya."

The lord of the rancho San Lorenzo looked musingly at his friend. "I doubt greatly that even Señor Higuera could hold a grizzly bear by the horns, since that creature possesses none. At any rate, the grizzly has strength yet greater than our mighty Higuera here. The deep shadows of the Russian river cañons shelter these enemies in numbers. Our vaqueros could little protect their charges in those glades and thickets. Señors," impressively, "if our live stock are to leave their bones bleaching anywhere this season, why send them abroad to seek this privilege?"

"Brava!" said the giant Higuera, smiling approval.

Some one then spoke of the pasturage away to the south, in the valley of the Salinas, or even the rolling lands of Santa Barbara. But the feed could but poorly support the herds already there, so one said who recently had traveled about.

Mendoza resumed his seat, since no one spoke further. For a moment he silently regarded his neighbors. At last: "Friends and brothers mine, Señor Peralta has spoken of the north country as a possible solution for our imminent difficulties. Señor Zelaya is right. The Russian bear, as well as the California grizzly, would divide our property by piecemeal there. There are yet the river beds of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin."

"But Yoscolo and Stanislaus and their thousand renegades!" objected one. "We go to the mouth of the tiger. More than ever are these men active now."

"Our fighting peons equal in strength their recreant fellows. Nothing remains but for us to cross the passes to the soft bottom lands in the eastern valleys. Señors, shall we go?"

The Administrator's judgment was accepted, and the visitors, standing, drank another glass of brandy and departed.

Early the next day began a great exodus of cattle and horses through mountain defile, north and south, to the flat lowlands across the mountain ranges, Indian vaqueros, peons armed with bows and arrows, and here and there a Spaniard with a flint-lock musket going with the herds.

Despite the general departure of live stock the late spring saw wondrous commotion about the watering troughs of Señor Mendoza. Cattle from the hills, from the marshes of the bay, from no one knew where, scented water and rushed in thirst-madness to the Mission of San José; bellowing, leaping, rolling over and over in their frenzy to reach the water!

All day long did the vaqueros rush into the surging tumult, springing with the swiftness of the cat from back to back of cattle or horse in the plunging mass, separating the press here to save the weaker animals from suffocation, opening lanes there to allow ingress to the troughs. Bellowing of cattle mingled with neighing of horses in wildest confusion. Famine showed feverlike in their eyes and echoed madly in their cries. During the day the battle raged, but at night they drew away to the hills looking for the lower tree-foliage and the scanty leaf-forage.

Then came other animals to the water. Thirst drew them from the mountains and drove away their fear of man. The gaunt bear lapped from the trough, and though the bow of the hunter was bent and the arrow aimed to slay, pity withheld the arrow.

The timid deer stood unafraid at the side of its ancient enemies, man and bear. The scream of the mountain lion mingled with the howl of the wolf, as they ran about among men, looking for food after they had quenched their thirst at the watering place.

Some strange chivalry, deep residing in the beasts of prey, held the weaker denizens of the wildwood in safety from claw and fang. In their dire adversity came a literal fulfillment of the old prophecy that the lion and the lamb should lie down together.

Señor Mendoza and his friends faced bravely the difficult situation.

"Our Indian brother shows now his likeness of spirit to the four-footed dwellers of the wood. Famine madness possesses both. Together do they roam by day and weirdly cry by night," said Mendoza in the council of his neighbors.

"The Indians lack not food or water," said some one. "What need of such strange actions?"

"The savage is close to the surface in every nature," replied Mendoza. "Among our Indian friends the outcropping is more easily apparent."

Several began speaking at the same time, an unusual thing in that placid assembly. Like a murmur it began, but rose to distinct word and ordered expression. "Our wives, our children, our lives, are in danger from these mad wards the province has given us."

"Our soldiers are at the pueblo," said one.

"They number less than fifty. The Indians have strength and to spare to drive our few troopers into the San Francisco bay," said Zelaya.

"Why were so many aborigines trained in the use of the musket and lance?" from some one else.

"They have fought our battles against their untamed brethren for a generation," replied Mendoza.

As usual this meeting was in Mendoza's house. Directly across the road was the Mission church.

As if to give emphasis to the fears but just expressed from everywhere there came the peculiar semitone that only moccasined feet can make. A thousand footfalls centered their way to the old adobe church. The Indians poured through the open doors into the auditorium until it overflowed. Like restless ants those who could not get within ran around the building, filling every approach, surging in resistless multitude, as did the thirst-driven cattle around the water source.

"They have gone entirely mad! First they will destroy the church, then fall on our families and on us," came somewhere from the elders. "Let us fly to our hacienda houses, barricade our gates, and fight to the end."

"Let us wait," suggested Mendoza, "and see further."

With sudden impulse the aborigines began to move from side to side in singular unison. At first they uttered no sound, then came a crooning of strange medleys in lifeless, indistinct tones.

"They commence thus their war dance!"

Señor Mendoza shrugged.

A tall Indian mounted the church steps. He turned. His face was wrinkled, his long hair, white, yet straight and sturdy he stood before the undulating throng.

"'Tis old Juan Antonio, major-domo of the Mission there. When did he come from the region of the San Joaquin? He and the padre drove thither their cattle even before we sent away ours."

The man waved his hand over the people. The tumult was lessened. From the church came the soft chords of the organ. A powerful voice intoned.

"My soul hath magnified the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in God, my Saviour."

The organ swelled in thunder notes, as the faithful within the church took up the antistrophe:

"For behold he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid, and from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed."

Thus was sung the Magnificat.

A man came out to the church door. Youth was on face and figure, but care and illness lined his features and bowed the shoulders that showed broad even under his friar's robe. In movements as graceful as a feather's dip he pointed to the Indians, then to their homes scattered over valley and hill. In another gesture he motioned to the neophytes to be on their way. They looked stolidly at one another, then back to the padre who remained standing with his arm outstretched. Savagery flamed anew in their faces. With the growl of an angry beast about to rend its prey they rushed up the steps. The friar, motionless, still stood before them, still pointing to their houses. The mob charged on. They were but a pace distant when, as one man, they paused, held in check by the unswerving calm of the churchman. Back from him, step by step, they went till the ground was reached. Again they paused and looked up at the friar, indecision written on their faces. The padre did not move. With a single impulse they turned homeward and silently filed along the road, in obedience to Padre Osuna's unspoken command. Soon the friar and Juan Antonio were alone. They walked down to a courtyard gate not unlike Señor Mendoza's, and disappeared within.

Mendoza and his friends had witnessed the drama to its close.

A rumbling sounded in the distance which soon resolved itself into the measured tramp of horses, so many that their coming shook the ground. The riders, in uniform, with lance in hand and carbine slung over shoulder, pushed their mounts foaming at mouth and flank to the courtyard gate.

"The cavalry from San José!" cried Mendoza. "What brings them in such haste?"

An officer sprang from his horse.

The Administrator opened his window. "Captain Morando!"

The Captain saluted.

"Why this force, Señor Captain?"

"Message was hurried to me that your Indians, frenzied by pagan rites, were about to make an attack. I gathered my men, together with such volunteers as the pueblo afforded, and hot-foot came to the rescue. I see, instead, the Indians going quietly to their homes. What does it mean?"

"Come within, Señor Captain."

In a moment Morando stood with the others.

The señor told him of the coming of the padre and his dispersal of the Indians.

Señorita Carmelita entered the room, bowing to her father, then to the others.

"O, papacito, my Indian maids who ran away last week, in their madness, are back all sane and cool. They ask your forgiveness and a new lease of service."

"You alone have to do with them, my child."

The Captain was standing at attention. Red lightly tinged the girl's cheek as she saw him. She again bowed, and went out, with "I thank you, papacito."

The Indian maidens were heard on the outside loudly wailing their thanks to the señorita, as was the way of children of the wild when penitent.

"Señors, we need----"

"Rain," interrupted the quiet Higuera.

"Señors," continued Zelaya, taking no notice of the interruption, "we need thank the reverend padre for his work this day. Besides, he is ill, and even an enemy who is ill is entitled to our consideration and sympathy. I do not mean he is our enemy," he quickly added.

"I shall do myself the honor of calling upon him," came from Mendoza. "As Administrator of this Mission and its lands I am interested in everyone in the Mission, including its spiritual head. Some Jesuit bark I chance to have will not come amiss in this fever of the river bottoms. I fancy but little remains in the province."

The company departed, the soldiery to the San José pueblo, the land barons to their hacienda houses.

The hundreds of white adobe cots which swarmed around each grandee's mansion, as well as around the Mission buildings, sheltered that evening the retainer occupants who for days had forgotten service to their feudal lords and the ways civilization had taught them. Once more hill and valley were dotted with the blaze of camp fires before the Indian doorposts.