CHAPTER XIV
All the ceremonies and procedures, religious and legal, which had been made necessary by the death of Don Diego Delcasar, were done. The body of the Don had been taken to the church in Old Town and placed before the altar, the casket covered with black cloth and surrounded by candles in tall silver candlesticks which stood upon the floor. A Mass of impressive length had been spoken over it by Father Lugaria assisted by numerous priests and altar boys, and at the end of the ceremony the hundreds of friends and relatives of the Don, who filled the church, had lifted up their voices in one of the loudest and most prolonged choruses of wailing ever heard in that country, where wailing at a funeral is as much a matter of formal custom as is cheering at a political convention. Afterwards a cortege nearly a mile in length, headed by a long string of carriages and tailed by a crowd of poor Mexicans trudging hatless in the dust, had made the hot and wearisome journey to the cemetery in the sandhills.
Then the will had been read and had revealed that Ramon Delcasar was heir to the bulk of his [pg 107] uncle’s estate, and that he was thereby placed in possession of money, lands and sheep to the value of about two hundred thousand dollars. It was said by those who knew that the Don’s estate had once been at least twice that large, and there were some who irreverently remarked that he had been taken off none too soon for the best interests of his heirs.
Shortly after the reading of the will, Ramon rode to the Archulera ranch, starting before daylight and returning after dark. He exchanged greetings with the old man, just as he had always done.
“Accept my sympathy, amigo,” Archulera said in his formal, polite way, “that you have lost your uncle, the head of your great family.”
“I thank you, friend,” Ramon replied. “A man must bear these things. Here is something I promised you,” he added, laying a small heavy canvas bag upon the table, just as he had always laid a package of tobacco or some other small gift.
Old Archulera nodded without looking at the bag.
“Thank you,” he said.