Old Mission Stories of California

by Charles Franklin Carter

One night Father Altimira, who was a light sleeper, awoke, thinking he had heard a faint noise in the room adjoining his bed-room, which was used as a store-room for the books, the rich vestments embroidered with gold and silver threads, and the money belonging to the mission. At this time there was, in the strong iron-bound chest used for the safekeeping of these valuables, a sum of nearly five thousand dollars in gold, and the Father’s first thought on waking, was of this money. Rising on his elbow, he listened. Hearing nothing, he was about to lie down, when again came the sound which had disturbed him, scarcely louder than the chirp of a far-away cricket, and which, but for the utter silence of the night, would have been swallowed up in the thick depths of the adobe wall between the two rooms. Springing out of bed, he threw on his clothes, and without a thought of danger to himself, hurried out to the cloisters and the next room. The night was dark, and he could not make out anything until he reached the window of the room from which came the noise. The heavy, wooden shutters were slightly ajar, and through the narrow upright opening between them, filtered the faint light from a small lantern in the room. With noiseless steps, Father Altimira approached the window, and looked through the crack between the two shutters. There, in front of the ironbound box, knelt Pomponio, busily at work on the stout padlock that guarded the treasures within. With all the strength of his powerful arms he filed away at the bar of the padlock. For a moment the Father, forgot his part in the nocturnal business, and stood, breathless, at the window, fascinated by the quick motion of the arm back and forth, and the strident sound of the file as it slowly ate its way through the steel. Suddenly Pomponio paused and looked up, with an expression of fear and hate on his face, dreadful, to see. Snatching up the lantern from the floor, he dropped it behind the great box, and ran to the window. The Father stooped, and crouched close against the wall under the window—for there had not been time to get away—and waited, hardly daring to breathe. Pomponio carefully opened the shutters and peered out, but he could distinguish nothing in the intense blackness. After listening a moment and hearing no sound, he closed the shutters and went back to his work. The priest waited until he again heard the screech of the file before he dared to move. This action of Pomponio recalled him to himself, and the responsibility resting on him regarding the safety of the mission funds.

With hasty strides, the Father started off to seek assistance. He hurried to the other end of the row of buildings, some three hundred feet distant, where lived the Mexican servants of the mission. At the house of the carpenter, which was the first he came to, the priest rapped loudly on the door, and called to the occupant to awaken. Juan, the carpenter, answered almost at once, and came to the door. Before he could ejaculate a word of surprise on seeing the Father, the latter had told him the trouble.

“Arouse, with all haste, the men in the next house, while I go for Rafael. Be ready when I come back,” and the Father hurried off.

Juan lost no time in awakening the two men in the house near-by. A moment after, the Father returned with Rafael, the overseer, and together the five men ran swiftly and silently to the scene of the disturbance. Nearing the window through which Pomponio had forced an entrance, the carpenter stepped up to it softly. The Father’s absence had not been longer than five minutes, and the thief was still hard at work filing the padlock. Muttering to Rafael to follow him, and the other two men to guard the window without, Juan noiselessly pushed open the heavy shutters, and sprang through the window, Rafael close at his heels.

It was not until both men had passed through the window, so quick were their movements, that Pomponio became aware he was discovered. Looking up, he dropped the file, snatched up the lantern and hurled it against the wall, shivering it into pieces. Just as the light went out the men seized him. Pomponio fought like a demon, and was fast getting loose from their clutches, when Juan shouted to the men outside to come to their aid; but too late. As they clambered through the window, and sought to lay hold of him, which was not the work of a moment in the darkness, the neophyte broke from his antagonists and sprang to one side, avoiding the oncoming couple from the window. While the men were shouting and swearing, groping this way and that to find their prey, Pomponio slid softly to the window, jumped through it, and set off, at his utmost speed, for the open plain and not far distant forest. During the fray Father Altimira had remained somewhat apart, outside the room. As Pomponio rushed by him, the Father, calling him by name, commanded him to stop. He paid no attention, but kept on his way, and was immediately lost in the darkness. By this time the four men had piled out of the window, falling over each other in their eagerness to pursue the fast escaping game.

“It is useless to follow him,” cried the Father. “You could not find him in this gloom. Wait till daylight, and we will hunt for him. We must see what damage he has done in the store-room. Stay here. I will get a light.”

The Father went to his chamber, and brought out a lighted lantern, and with this the men returned to the now, quiet room, entering by the door which the priest unlocked with the key he had taken from its hiding place in his own room. With the exception of the shattered lantern, and the file and hammer lying on the floor, everything was in order. The bar of the padlock was almost filed through—three minutes more, and Pomponio would have been away with his booty. As further sleep that night was out of the question, the Father and one of the men remained on guard in the room until dawn, the others reconnoitering every half-hour to see that all was quiet around the mission.

When morning came; the first thing the Father did was to send a messenger to the presidio, four miles distant, with a letter to the commandant, relating the occurrence of the night, and asking for a guard for the mission, and a number of men to take up the hunt for the escaped culprit. The soldiers arrived during the day, and at once made active preparations for finding Pomponio. Beyond knowing the general direction he had taken in fleeing from the mission, which the padre had noted as well as he could in the darkness, the hunters were wholly at sea as to where to look. He might be in any part of the hills and forests which surrounded the mission on all sides. To the north he would probably not go, for that way lay the presidio, and the country was more open and traveled, as well as terminating, at no great distance, at the water’s edge of the bay. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to find an Indian of Pomponio’s intelligence, but the soldiers began their task, searching near, and far, visiting the various rancheras and the room, to rob which he had made such a bold and country for many days, but without result. We shall leave them for a while, and see what is become of our fugitive.

As Pomponio passed the Father in his flight from the room, to rob which he had made such a bold and nearly successful attempt, he heard the priest calling him to stop; but what cared he for his master? Had not he been fleeing for his liberty and, perhaps, for his life, he would have killed the Father on the spot: not because he hated his kind teacher, but because in him was embodied the life of the mission, or so it seemed to Pomponio; and his death would have been one blow given toward the freedom of his kind. But Pomponio’s first thought now was for his own safety, and he took the shortest course to the forests south of the mission. As much at home among the great trees as at the mission, he made his way into their depths with unerring aim, in spite of the Egyptian darkness, until he reached a slight thinning of the trees, where he halted. The spot, mentioned at the beginning of this tale, was a favorite of Pomponio, and one he visited from time to time, when he wished to be free to hold communication with the wild men in the neighborhood. Here he felt reasonably secure from surprise, and here he meant to spend the days to come.

There was an old Indian hut in the open space which once had sheltered some family, and was now abandoned. Pomponio took possession of this. When daylight came, he went in search of the savages in the forest, and on finding them, he recounted his adventure and the consequences to himself. Among the Indians were the larger number of those who had sworn allegiance to Pomponio, promising to follow him whenever he should decide for a general extermination of the detested Spaniards. They welcomed him warmly, and supplied him with food and everything he needed for his hut. The Indians not included in his band of followers had, heretofore, looked askance on Pomponio, and had sought to withdraw him from the mission into their own wild life. This he had refused to do, contending, with more than usual Indian intelligence, that he would be able to wreak greater harm to the Spanish if connected with the mission. This had been the principal reason for his small following. Now that he had broken definitely with his old life, they espoused his cause almost to a man, and at last he had the joy of seeing himself at the head of a very respectable band of nearly fifty determined men. The majority of them were for advancing to the enemy without a day’s delay, and striking a decisive blow once for all. But Pomponio refused.