The Little Lady of Lagunitas by Richard Henry Savage

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

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29

Hardin has struggled to his feet. In his hand, flashes a pistol.

Joe Woods smiles.

"Trying the old El Dorado dodge, Judge, won't work. Sit down now.
Listen to me. Put up that shooting iron, or I'll nail you to the
wall."

His bowie knife presses a keen point to Hardin's breast. It is
checkmate.

Natalie Santos is buried in the cushions of her chair. She is sobbing
wildly. Shuffling feet are at the door. The fracas has been overheard.

Joe Woods quietly opens it. He speaks calmly. "The lady has fainted.
It's all right. Go away."

Through the door a girl's lovely face is seen, in frightened shyness.
"I'll send for you, miss, soon," Colonel Joe remarks, with awkward
sympathy.

He seats himself nonchalantly.

"Now, Hardin, I've got a little account to settle with you. I'll
give you all the time you want. But I'll say right here before this
lady, I know you are under an obligation to treat her decently.

"I remember her at the El Dorado!"

Hardin springs to his feet. Natalie raises her tearful eyes.

"Keep cool, Judge," continues the speaker. "You used to take care
of her. Now I'm a-going to advise her in her little private affairs.
I want you to let her severely alone. I want you to treat her as she
deserves; like a woman, not a beast. You can finish this interview
with her. I'm a-going out. If you approach her after this, without
my presence or until she sends for you, I'll scatter your brains
with my old six-shooter. I shall see she gets a square deal. She's
not going to leave California till this whole business is cleared
up. You hear me." Joe's mood is dangerous.

"Now go ahead with your palaver, madame. I'm not going to leave
the house. I know my business, and I'll stand by you as long as my
name is Joe Woods. When you're done I want you to see me, and see
my lawyer."

There is silence. Natalie's eyes give the stalwart miner a glance
of unutterable thankfulness.

She has met a man at last.

Her bosom heaves with pride, her eyes beam on rough old Joe. Woods
has taken out an unusually long cigar. He lights it at the door,
and leisurely proceeds to smoke it on the upper veranda.

When his foot-fall dies away, Hardin essays to speak. His lips
are strangely dry. He mutters something, and the words fail him.
Natalie interrupts, with scorn: "Curse you and your money, you
cowardly thief. You have met your match at last. I trusted to your
honor. Your hands were on my throat just now. I have but one word
to say to you now. Go, face that man out there!" Hardin is in a
blind rage.

His legal vocabulary finds no ready phrase of adieu. His foot is
on the top stair. Joe Woods says carelessly:

"Judge, you and I had better have a little talk to-night." Ah,
his enemy! He knows him at last. Hardin hoarsely mutters: "Where?
when?"

"When you please," says Woods.

"Ten, to-night; your room. I'll bring a friend with me." Hardin
nods, and passes on, crossing the square to his hotel. He must have
time for thought; for new plans; for revenge; yes, bloody revenge.

Colonel Joseph Woods spends an hour in conference with Peyton and
Father Francois. Their plans are all finished.

Judge Davis, who is paralyzed by the vehemence of California
character, caresses his educated whiskers. He pets his eye-glasses,
while the three gentlemen confer. He is essentially a man of peace.
He fears he may become merely a "piece of man" in case the appeal
to revolvers, or mob law, is brought into this case. They do things
differently in New York.

While the two lovely girls are using every soothing art of womanly
sympathy to care for Natalie, it begins to dawn upon each of them
that their futures are strangely interlinked. The presence of Madame
de Santos seals their lips. They long for the hour when they can
converse in private. They know now that the redoubtable Joe Woods
has TWO fatherless girls to protect instead of ONE.

Natalie Santos, lying on her couch, watches these young beauties
flitting about her room. "Does the heiress, challenged in her
right, dream of her real parentage?" A gleam of light breaks in on
the darkness of her sufferings. Why not peace and the oblivion of
retirement for her, if her child's future is assured in any way?
Why not?

Looking forward hopefully to a conference with Colonel Joe, she
fears only the clear eyes of old Padre Francisco. "Shall she tell
him all?" In these misgivings and vain rackings of the mind, she
passes the afternoon. She yields to her better angel, and gives
the story of her life to the patient priest.

Armand Valois and Raoul Dauvray have a blessed new bond of brotherhood.
They are both lovers. With Padre Francisco, they are a guard of
honor, watching night and day the two heiresses.

They share the secret consciousness of Natalie de Santos that Joe
Woods has in store some great stroke.

Judge Davis, Peyton, and the resolute Joe are the only calm ones in
the settlement. For, far and wide the news runs of racy developments.
In store, saloon, and billiard lounging-place, on the corners, and
around the deserted court-room, knots of cigar-smoking scandal-mongers
assuage their inward cravings by frequent resort to the never-failing
panacea--whiskey. Wild romances are current, in which two great
millionaires, two sets of lawyers, duplicate heiresses, two foreign
dukes, the old padre and the queenly madame are the star actors in
a thrilling local drama, which is so far unpunctuated by the crack
of the revolver.

It is a struggle for millions, and the clash of arms will surely
come.

There has been no great issue ever resolved in Mariposa before the
legal tribunal, which has not added its corpses to the mortuary
selections lying in queer assortment on the red clay hillsides.

"Justice nods in California while the pistols are being drawn."

Hardin, closeted with his lawyers, suspends their eager plotting,
to furtively confer in private with the judge.

When the first stars sweep into the blue mountain skies, and
a silver moon rises slowly over the pine-clad hills, Joseph Woods
summons all his latent fascinations to appease Madame Natalie de
Santos. The sturdy Missourian has had his contretemps with Sioux
and Pawnee. He has faced prairie fires, stampeded buffalo herds,
and met dangers by flood and field. Little personal discussions
with horse thieves, some border frays, and even a chance encounter
on a narrow trail with a giant grizzly, have tried his nerve. But
he braces with a good stiff draught of cognac now. He fears the
wily and fascinating Natalie. He is at heart a would-be lady's
man. Roughness is foreign to his nature, but he will walk the grim
path of duty.

When he thinks of flinching, there rises on his memory the lonely
grave where Peyton laid Maxime Valois to rest on the bloody field
of Peachtree Creek, with the stars and bars lying lightly on his
gallant breast. And he calmly enters the presence of the once famous
siren.

There is a mute entreaty in her eyes, as she motions him to a seat.

Joseph toys nervously with the huge diamond, which is a badge "de
rigueur" of his rank and grade as a bonanza king.

"I do not wish to agitate or distress you, madame," begins Joe,
and his voice is very kind.

"I broke out a little on Hardin; all bluff, you know. Just to show
him a card. Now will you trust and let me help you? I mean to bring
you out all right. I can't tell you all I know. I am going to fight
Hardin on another quarrel. It will be to the death. I can just as
well square your little account too, if you will trust me. Will
you let me handle your movements, up to the legal issue. After that
you are free. I'll give you the word of an honest man, you shall
not suffer. Will you trust me?"

Joe's big eyes are looking very appealingly in hers.

Without a word, she places her hand in his. "I am yours until that
time, but spare me as much as you can--the old histories, you know,"
her voice falters. She is a woman, after all.

"Now see here, madame! I swear to you I am the only private man in
California who knows your secret, except Hardin, now. I got it in
the days long past. No one shall know your identity." He fixes a
keen glance on her: "Is there anyone else you wish to spare?" he
softly says.

"Yes." She is sobbing now. "It is my child. Don't let her know
that awful past."

Joseph's eyes are filled with manly sorrow. He whispers with
eagerness:

"Her father is"--

"Philip Hardin," falters the woman, whose stately head is now bowed
in her hands.

"I'll protect that child. She shall never want a friend, if you do
one thing," Joe falters.

Natalie raises a white face to his.

"What is it?" she huskily whispers.

"Will you swear, in open court, which of these two girls is your
own child, if I ask you to?" He is eager and pleading.

She reads his very soul. She hesitates. "And you will protect the
innocent girl, against his wrath?" There is all a mother's love in
her appeal.

"Both of you. I swear it. You shall not want for money or protection,"
Joe solemnly says.

"Then, I will!" Natalie firmly answers.

He springs to her side.

"Does Hardin know which girl is his daughter?"

"He does not!" Natalie says slowly.

There is a silence; Joe can hear his own heart beat. Victory at
last.

"I have nothing to ask you, except to see no one but myself, Padre
Francisco, or my lawyer. If Hardin wants to see you, I'll be present.
Now I am going to see him to-night. You will be watched over night
and day. I am going to have every precaution taken. I shall be near
you always. Rest in safety. I think I can save you any opening up
of the old days.

"I will see you early."

Her hands clasp his warmly! She says: "Colonel, send Pere Francois
to me. I will tell him all you need to know. He will know what to
keep back."

"That's right," cries Joseph, warmly. "I know how to handle Hardin
now. You can bank on the padre. He's dead game."

"And your reward?" Natalie whispers, with bowed head.

A wild thought makes the blood surge to Joe's brain. He slowly
stammers, "My reward?" His eyes tell him he must make no mistake.
A flash of genius.

"You will square my account, madame, if you make no objection to
the immediate marriage of your daughter to Dauvray. He's a fine
fellow for a Frenchman, and she shall never know this story. She'll
have money enough. I'll see to that." Joe's voice is earnest.

Natalie's arms are stretched to him in thanks. "In God's name, be
it, my noble friend."

Joe dares not trust himself longer.

He retires, leaving Natalie standing, a splendid statue, with
shining, hopeful eyes. Her blessing follows him; sin-shadowed though
she be, it reaches the Court of Heaven.

Natalie, in silent sorrow, sees her labor of years brushed away.
Her child can never be the heiress of Lagunitas. Fate has brought
the gentle Louise Moreau to the very threshold of her old home.
It is Providence. Destiny. The all-knowing Pere Francois reveals
to her how strangely the life-path of the heiress has been guarded.
"My daughter," the priest solemnly says, "be comforted. Right shall
prevail. Trust me, trust Colonel Woods. Your child may fall heir
yet to a name and to her own inheritance. The ways of Him who
pardons are mysterious." He leaves her comforted and yet not daring
to break the seal of silence to the lovely claimants.

While Pere Francois confers with Natalie, as the moon sails high
in heaven over the fragrant pines, Woods and Peyton exchange a few
quiet words over their cigars.

By the repeater which Joe consults it is now a quarter of ten. The
two gentlemen stroll over the grassy plaza. By a singular provincial
custom each carries a neat navy revolver, where a hand could drop
easily on it. Joe also caresses his favorite knife in his overcoat
pocket.

In five minutes they are seated with Philip Hardin in his room. There
is an air of gloomy readiness in Hardin which shows the unbending
nature of the man. He is alone. Woods frankly says: "Judge Hardin,
I wish you to know my friend, Mr. Henry Peyton. If anything should
happen to me, he knows all my views. He will represent me. As you
are alone, I will ask Mr. Peyton to wait for me below."

Henry Peyton bows and passes downstairs, where he is regarded as
an archangel of the enemy. For the Hardin headquarters are loyal to
their great chief. The man who controls the millions of Lagunitas
is surrounded by his loyal body-guard at Mariposa.

When the two men are alone, Woods waits for Hardin to speak. He is
silent. There is a gulf between them which never can be bridged.
Joseph feels he is no match for Hardin in chicanery, but he has
his little surprise in store for the lawyer. It is an armed truce.

"Hardin, I've come over to-night to talk a little politics with
you," begins Joseph. His eye is glued on the Judge's, who steadily
returns the glance.

CHAPTER XX.

JUDGE HARDIN MEETS HIS MATCH.--A SENATORIAL ELECTION.--IN A MARIPOSA
COURT-ROOM.--THE TRUST FULFILLED AT LAGUNITAS.

"You need not trouble yourself about my political aspirations,
sir," haughtily remarks Hardin, glaring at the stolid visitor,
who calmly continues.

"I don't allow no trouble, Jedge," Woods drawls. "I'll play
my cards open. I run this here joint convention, which makes or
breaks you. I'm dead-flat plain in my meaning. I can burst up your
election as United States Senator, unless you and me can make 'a
deal.'"

"Your terms?" sneers Hardin, with a glance at Joe's hand in his
pocket, "Toujours pret" is Joseph's motto.

"Oh, my terms! I'll be open, Jedge. I leave this here lawsuit between
us, to our lawyers. I will fight you fair in that. You will find
me on the square."

"Do you threaten me, sir?" demands Hardin.

"Now, make your own game." Joe's brow darkens. "Hardin, I want
you to hear me out; you can take it then, in any shape you want
to. Fight or trade." Woods' old Missouri grit is aroused.

"Go on," says Hardin, with a rising gorge.

"You're talking marriage." Joe's sneer maddens Hardin." I tell you
now to settle old scores with the lady whom I found in your hands
to-night. If you don't, you're not going to the Senate."

Hardin gathers himself. Ah, that hand in the pocket!

"Don't make a mistake, Jedge," coldly interjects Woods. "Drop that
gun. We're no bravos."

"I positively decline to have any bargain with you on my private
matters. After you leave this room, you can look out for yourself,
if you cross my path," hisses the Judge, his face pale and ghastly.

"Now, Jedge," Joe snaps out, "watch your own scalp. Hardin, I'll
not dodge you. You are going on the wrong road. We split company
here. But there's room enough in California for you and me. As for
any 'shooting talk,' it's all bosh. You will get in a hot corner,
unless you hear me out. I tell you now, to acknowledge your child
by that woman. Save your election; save yourself, old man.

"She'll go off to France, but you've got to give her child a square
name and a set-out."

"Never!" yells Hardin, forgetting himself, as with blind rage he
points to the door.

"All right," says Joseph, coolly. "You'll never be senator till
you send for me. You have fair warning. My cards are face-up on
the table." Hardin, speechless with rage, sees him disappear.

Peyton and Joe Woods walk over the silent plaza, with the twinkling
stars sweeping overhead. They exchange but few words. They seek
the rest of their pillows. Joe's prayers consist of reloading his
revolvers.

The last watcher in Mariposa is Hardin, the hate of hell in
his heart. A glass of neat brandy is tossed off. He throws himself
heavily on the bed. The world is a torment to him now. "On to
Sacramento" is his last thought. Money, in hoards and heaps, will
drown this rich booby's vain interference. For, legislatures sell
senatorial honors in California openly like cabbage in a huckster's
wagon, only at higher prices.

Before the gray squirrels are leaping on the madronas and nutty oaks
next dawn of day, Hardin is miles away towards the State capital.
His legal forces remain. He takes one trusty agent, to distribute
his golden arguments.

When Woods leisurely finishes his breakfast he strolls under the
pines with Pere Francois. There are also two youthful couples.
They are reading lessons, not of law, but of love, in each other's
shining eyes as they wander in the lonely forest paths.

Seated by a dashing mountain brook which runs past the town, Pere
Francois gravely informs Joe that Natalie de Santos has given him
the dark history of her chequered life. Though the seal of the
confessional protects it, he has her consent to supply Woods and
Judge Davis with certain facts. Her sworn statements will verify
these if needed.

After a long interview with Madame de Santos, Colonel Joseph follows
Hardin to Sacramento. He has one or two resolute friends with him
as a guard against the coarse Western expedient of assassination.
He knows Hardin's deft touches of old.

As the stage rattles around dizzy heights, below massy cliffs,
swinging under the forest arches, the Missouri champion reasons out
that Hardin's hands are tied personally as regards a bloody public
quarrel, by the coming senatorial fight. To pluck the honors of the
Senate at last from a divided State, is a testimony to the lawyer's
great abilities. Joe thinks, with a sigh of regret, that some mere
animated money-bag may sit under the white dome, and misrepresent
the sovereign State of California. "Well, if Hardin won't bend,
he's got to break." The miner puffs his cigar in search of wisdom.

Single-minded and unswerving, Woods goes directly to his splendid
rooms at the "Golden Eagle," on reaching Sacramento.

The capital city of the State is crowded with legislators and attaches.
The lobby banditti, free lances, and camp followers of the annual
raid upon the pockets of the people are on guard. While his meal is
being served in his parlor, he indites a note to Hardin's political
Mark Antony. It will rest with him to crown a triumph or deliver
his unheard oration over the body of a politically dead Caesar.
The billet reads:

"I want you instantly, on a matter deciding Hardin's election. You
can show him this."

In half an hour, over burgundy and the ever-flowing champagne,
Woods, feeling his visitor in good humor, fires his first gun. He
begins with half-shut eyes, in a genial tone:

"Harris, I have sent for you to tell you Hardin and me have locked
horns over some property. Now I won't vote for him, but I'll hold
off my dogs. I won't work against him if he signs a sealed paper
I'm goin' to give you. If he don't, I'll open out, and tell an old
yarn to our secret nominating caucus. I am solidly responsible for
the oration. He will be laid out. It rests only with his friends
then, to spread this scandal. He has time to square this. It does
not hang on party interests. I am a man of my word, you know.
Now, I leave it to you to consider if he has any right to ask his
friends to back him in certain defeat. See him quick. If he tells
you to hear the story from me, I will tell you all. If he flies
the track, I am silent until the caucus. THEN, I will speak, if
I'm alive. If I am dead, my pard will speak for me. My death would
seal his utter ruin. I can stand the consequences. He has got to
come up to the captain's office and settle." The astounded Harris
gloomily muses while Woods quietly inscribes a few lines on a sheet
of paper. He seals the envelop, and hands it to Senator Harris.

"I won't leave this camp, Harris, till I get your answer," calmly
remarks Joseph. He refuses to waste more words in explanation.
"See Hardin," is his only phrase. "It's open war then between him
and me."

Harris, with a very grave face, enters the private rooms of Judge
Hardin at the Orleans Hotel.

Hardin listens, with scowling brow as black as night. He tears open
the envelop! His faithful henchman wonders what can bring night's
blackness to Judge Hardin's face.

The lines are a careful acknowledgment of the paternity of the girl
child of "Natalie de Santos," born at San Francisco and now about
eighteen years of age. It closes with a statement of her right to
inherit as a lawful heiress from him.

"I will shoot that dog on sight, if he carries out this threat,"
deliberately says Hardin.

"Judge," coldly replies his lieutenant, "does this note refer to
public affairs, or to party interests?"

"Private matters!" replies Hardin, his eyes flashing.

"Then, let me say, I will keep silent in this matter. I shall
ask you to name some other man to handle your candidacy before the
Legislature. Joe Woods is honest, and absolutely of iron nerve.
You can send for any of your other friends, and choose a man to
take my place. I won't fight Joe. Woods never lied in his life.

"If you will state that you have adjusted this difference with him,
I am at your service. Let me know your decision soon. He waits for
me. In all else, I am yours, as a friend, but I will not embroil
the State now for a mere private feud. Send for me, Judge, when
you have decided."

In the long and heated conferences of the night, before the
sun again pours its shimmering golden waves on the parched plains
of Sacramento, Hardin finds no one who will face the mysterious
situation.

Harris finds the patient Joe playing seven-up with a couple of
friends, and his pistols on the table.

"All right, Harris; let him think it over." Joe nods, and continues
his game.

Calmly expectant, when Harris sends his name up next morning,
Joe Woods is in very good humor. The gathering forces are anxious
for the hour when a solemn secret party caucus shall name the man
to be officially balloted in as Senator of the United States for
six years. The term is not to begin for three months, but great
corporations, the banks, with their heaped millions, and all the
mighty high-priests of the dollar-god, need that sense of security
which Hardin's ability will give to their different schemes. Their
plans can be safely laid out then.

In simple straightforwardness, Harris hands Woods a sealed envelop,
without a word.

In the vigils of one awful night, Philip Hardin knows that he must
fence off the maddened woman who seems to have a mysterious hold
upon his destiny at this crisis. What force impels her?

Hardin has enjoined Harris to have Woods repeat his pledge of
"non-opposition."

"Did you see the Jedge sign this here paper?" says Woods dryly, as
he inspects the signature. His face is solemn.

"I did," Harris answers.

"Then just write your name here as witness," Joseph briskly says,
handing him a pen, and covering the few lines of the document,
leaving only Philip Hardin's well-known signature visible.

Harris hesitates. Joe's eyes are blazing; no foolery now! Harris
quietly signs. The name of Joseph Woods is added, at once, with
the date.

"Harris," says Joseph, "you're a man of honor. I pledge you now I
will not make public the nature of this document. Hardin can grab
for the Senate now, if you boys can elect him. I'll not fight him."

Harris retires in silence. The day is saved. Though the election is
within three days, Joseph Woods finds private business so pressing
that his seat is vacant, when Philip Hardin is declared Senator-elect.
The pledge has been kept. Not a rumor of the secret incident reaches
the public. The cautious Joseph is grateful for not being obliged
to shorten Hardin's life.

Fly as fast as Hardin may to Mariposa, Joe Woods is there before
him. The telegraph bears to every hamlet of the Golden State the
news of the senatorial choice.

Philip Hardin, seated on the porch of the old mansion at Lagunitas,
reads the eulogies crowding the columns of fifty journals.

From San Diego to Siskiyou one general voice hails the new-made
member of that august body, who are now so rapidly giving America
"Roman liberties."

The friend of Mammon, nurtured in conspiracy, skilled in deceit,
Hardin, the hidden Mokanna, grins behind his silver veil.

His deep-laid plans seem all safe now. The local meshes of his golden
net hold the District Judge firmly. It will be easy to postpone, to
weary out, to harass this strange faction. He has stores of coin
ready. They are the heaped-up reserves of his "senatorial ammunition."
And yet Joe Woods, that burly meddling fool. To placate Natalie!
To induce her to leave at once for Paris! How shall this be done?
Ha! The marriage is her dream in life! He is elected now. He fears
not her Southern rival. The ambitious political lady aspirant! He
can explain to her now in private, To give Natalie an acknowledgment
of a private marriage will content her. Then his bought Judge can
quietly grant a separation for desertion, after Natalie has returned
to France. She will care nothing for the squabble over the acres
of Lagunitas, if well paid. As for the priest, he may swear as
strongly as he likes. The girl will surely be declared illegitimate.
He has destroyed all the papers. Valois' will is never to see the
light. If deception has been practiced he cares not. Senatorial
privilege raises him too high for the voice of slander.

He has the golden heart of these hills now to himself.

Yes, he will fool the priest and divide his enemies. The money
for Natalie will be deposited in Paris banks. The principal to be
paid her in one year, on condition of never again coming to the
United States. Long before that time he will be legally free and
remarried. Hardin rubs his hands in glee. Neither reporter nor
the public will ever see the divorce proceedings. That is easily
handled in Mariposa.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29