Old Mission Stories of California

by Charles Franklin Carter

Tenderly and reverently they cared for him. At his request they bore him into the cave where he would be safe from the sight of any chance party from the presidio hunting for him, and here they nursed him back to life and strength. It was many days before he recovered from the effects of the great loss of blood he had suffered; many more before the wounds in his feet healed. From the ill-usage to which he had subjected them, inflammation set in, and at one time great fear was felt that he could not survive; but his strong constitution prevailed. Yet after all he would have died gladly, for he was a helpless cripple from that day, hobbling around only with the aid of rude crutches.

His comrades vied with each other in their attentions to the sick leader, and after he had recovered from the fever and weakness, they furnished him with all the necessaries of life which he was unable to obtain by his own efforts. After a few months in the cave, Pomponio left it to be with the Indians in the forest near the mission; but he was careful to keep away from the neighborhood of the scene of his capture, judging rightly that that place would be under surveillance at any time of uneasiness. However, there was no thought of farther insurrection. Their spirit had been broken with Pomponio’s capture, for a long time, at any rate. But although they had abandoned all idea of a general uprising, they did everything in their power to annoy and harass their enemies: stealing their horses and cattle and sheep; devastating their crops of wheat and grapes, and, once or twice, setting fire to an outlying mission house or granary. Their lofty idea of freedom from servitude had degenerated thus into a system of petty depredation.

Here, among his friends, Pomponio passed the days quietly and sadly, caring for nothing, and going through mechanically the routine of each day. His spirit was crushed—not so much from the effects of his treatment, but because his long thought of, long desired, purpose was come to naught. He paid but little attention to the affairs of those about him. They went and came, carried on their game of life, rousing in him only a gleam of interest. Thus three years passed.

One day, in the early spring, the Indians went away on a foraging expedition, leaving Pomponio alone in his hut. It had been a warm, sunny day, and in the afternoon Pomponio dragged himself to a little moss-covered bank under the trees, on which he stretched himself, and, after a short time, he fell asleep. All was quiet. Not a sound was to be heard save the insects humming drowsily in the heated air, and, now and then, the whirr of an oriole as it flew swiftly past, lighting up with a glint of gold the shadows among the trees. The oriole is sunlight incarnate.

But this quiet scene was to be broken. The sound of branches snapping beneath the tread of some heavy foot was heard. It drew near the secluded spot; then the form of a man, carrying a musket, could be discerned, making his way, to the glade. He reached the edge of the clearing, when he espied the sleeping Indian, lying with his face turned from him. He halted instantly. Was it an Indian belonging to the mission, and playing truant, or one of the savages of the forests, from whom the mission had suffered so much during the last three years? He must find out. Creeping so slowly and carefully that not a sound was heard again from his feet among the plants, he passed around the edge of the glade to a point nearly opposite, in order to get a more direct view of the sleeping man. What a diabolical expression of alternate hate and triumph passed over his countenance! Here was the scoundrel who had escaped from the presidio. After three years, when hope of ever finding him again had died out, when, except for the depredations continually taking place at the mission and presidio, every one would have declared Pomponio was dead of the wounds he had inflicted on himself, that he, Pablo, the youngest soldier at the presidio, when out hunting, and with no thought of enemies near, should find the miscreant, asleep and in his power! This would advance him in the good graces of the commandant.

There was no time to lose. Pomponio might awake at any moment; his friends in the forest might return on the instant. He raised his musket and took long and steady aim at the Indian. There was a report that raised the echoes. With lightning speed the soldier reloaded, and then cautiously drew nearer; but there was no need of apprehension from Pomponio. He was dead—shot through the heart. The soldier gazed at the inanimate form, at the bullet-hole in his breast, from which the blood was trickling, and at the poor mutilated feet. Did a glimmer of pity stir in his heart? It were hard to say. Yet, as he stood there looking down at his work, perhaps there was a little feeling of sorrow for the fate of his fellow man, coupled with a touch of shame at his own unmanly act in thus murdering his sleeping foe, criminal though he was, and richly deserving death. But he had scant time for reflection. The noise of men approaching was heard in the forest. Pomponio’s friends would be here in an instant. He must go at once. He slipped away among the trees in the direction from which he had come, and vanished. A moment later four Indians appeared at the point where the soldier had stood when he fired. Their first glance at Pomponio revealed to them the meaning of the shot they had heard.

Pomponio was buried that night, secretly and in profound silence. His comrades, determined his enemies should never find his grave and body, bore it into the deepest recesses of the forest, and there interred it, afterward removing all trace of any disturbance of the earth covering it. There they left him, at rest, his little part in life’s drama ended.

Pablo’s story of his killing Pomponio was not believed when he told it at the mission and the presidio. No one, however, could contradict him, and as time went on, and nothing farther was heard of the neophyte, and the marauding at the mission became less, until it ceased altogether, his assertion came, in time, to be regarded as the true account of Pomponio’s death.

Note.—The writer has taken the liberty of altering the real facts of Pomponio’s end. He was captured by a party of four soldiers, tried by court martial at Monterey, in February, and shot, about September, 1824. The period covered by the story, also, has been changed to three years later than the actual time of occurrence. It is surprising that Bancroft, from whose history the facts in this note are taken, does not mention Captain Duhaut-Cilly who, in his Voyage autour du Monde, Vol. II, Chap. XI, recounts Pomponio’s self-mutilation in order to effect his escape. As Pomponio’s execution occurred only three years before Duhaut-Cilly’s visit, the French captain must have learned his facts with a close approach to accuracy, and it seems safe to take them without reserve. Bancroft affects to regard the main fact in this story with some incredulity, and limits the victim’s manacles to one ankle only. Vide Bancroft: History of California, Vol. II, pp. 537-38.

(2) “Un trait que les Anciens auraient divinisa.” Duhaut-Cilly.