Chata and Chinita: A Novel

by Laura Preston

With the same unreasoning fury with which he had denounced Ramirez at the banquet, Ruiz had returned to the camp of Gonzales; and through a cleverly managed correspondence with Ramirez—in which however he dared not mention the name of Chinita, lest he should awaken in the astute mind of the General a suspicion that his godson conjectured the deception which was to be played upon him—Ruiz gradually drew from the chief data through which to propose such movements to Gonzales as procured for him as a strategist the respect and admiration of that commander, which well might have satisfied a laudable ambition.

Meanwhile Ramirez himself, though surrounded by no despicable force, which was daily augmented by accessions from the mountains or from the ranks of less popular leaders of either party, was for the first time in his life oppressed by a vague melancholy,—which, with some impatience, he ascribed to the forced separation from the child whose purity and innocence had so irresistibly attracted him. There were times when he thought with what horror such a record as his would be viewed by that gentle and upright nature; and a positive dread came upon him of her ever knowing the one incident that had been so vividly recalled to him by the appearance of the avenger upon the grave of the man he had murdered years before,—one crime among many he had almost forgotten. He said to himself that an evil spell had been upon him ever since the day when he had foolishly thrown away the charm the elf-like child had given him. His emissaries had brought him word time and again of the miscarriage of his best-laid plans. Who had betrayed them?

Ramirez knew too well who had frustrated them. The American who had escaped his knife at the cemetery seemed ubiquitous since obtaining the commission which authorized him to wage war against his cousin’s murderer. Not content with defending El Toro with unexampled bravery, he appeared at every point where an advantage was to be gained. “Carrhi!” Ramirez said to himself, “I shall be forced to give that fellow a thrust of my dagger in secret, since he appears to be impervious to ball and proof against the chances of open warfare. He or I must fall. There’s not room in all Mexico for him and me.”

Whether there was room or not, it seemed destined that they should remain in it together, though not without constant collision. Gonzales became to the mind of Ramirez far less formidable than this yellow-haired foreigner, who with a mere handful of followers so constantly harassed and baffled him. Like most men of his class, the mountain chieftain was intensely superstitious, and one night in the moonlight he saw, or fancied he saw, a female form glide before him into the chaparral[chaparral]. He caught but a glimpse of the face, but it had reminded him of Herlinda, for whom he had done the deed that, so late, seemed to have brought upon him a threatened retribution. As he searched the bushes for the woman, whom he could not discover, he shuddered as he remembered the expression of her eyes,—as of a wronged creature who had loved and now hated. He had seen such an expression in a woman’s eyes before. More than ever after this strange occurrence the thought of Ashley Ward tormented him; the young man’s face haunted him; and curiously enough other faces also began to peer upon him,—faces of women he had wronged, of men who with good cause bore him deadly hatred, or of others whom, like the American, or the gatekeeper, he had murdered.

Ramirez grew strangely taciturn and nervous. Not even the letters of Ruiz aroused him. In his heart he distrusted his godson, as he did all men but Reyes, all women but Chata. Had she been near, he thought, he would have talked to her and cast off his fancies; but in her absence they grew upon him. One day he could have sworn he saw clearly not only the face but the figure of Pedro Gomez; and upon another, that of the woman he had loved long years before. Bah! they were fantasies. He wondered whether he too would be seized with the fever, which was still raging at Tres Hermanos, and of which they said its lady was dying at her daughter’s house in Guanapila. Was this weakness of nerve the presage of what was to come?

At last battle was joined with Gonzales as had been planned. The day turned in favor of Ramirez; even the gallant assistance of Ward availed little against the desperate courage of the mountain troops. The genius and valor of their leader were manifested with a vigor that declared they had been but shaken, not broken. Until the arrival of Ward it had even appeared that the forces actually under the command of Ramirez would have been sufficient to effect a victory; but Ward’s appearance speedily turned the tide in favor of Gonzales, and with some impatience Ramirez gave the signal that was to hasten the promised action of Ruiz.

But at the critical moment the expected ally failed him. With a vindictive fury which was demoniacal in its exhibition, Ruiz threw himself against his old commander. The carnage was terrible in that part of the field; and when the fray was ended, the demoralization of Ramirez’s troops was complete,—yet he himself had escaped.

That such should be the case seemed to Ashley Ward incredible, as later he walked over the field seeking among the slain the man against whom he had begun a private warfare, which to his own surprise had, with further investigation of the principles involved, rapidly attained in his mind the dignity of a struggle for liberty that even dwarfed the incentive of personal revenge, although it was impossible that this should be wholly forgotten or ignored.

Gonzales marched into El Toro amid the clanging of bells and shouts of rejoicing; for though that was a convent town, the people of the lower class were mad Juaristas, who did good service under Ward when troops were scarce. The triumph had however not been gained without much loss upon the Liberal side; and among the missing was the young officer who in the eyes of Gonzales—and to the astonishment of Ward—had so ably vindicated his character as a stanch adherent in the day of battle. Pepé too, the right-hand man of Ward, was gone.

In very truth, at the last moment the most important and useful calculation of Ruiz had failed. He saw Ramirez, by his orders, surrounded by desperate men; it seemed inevitable that he must be stricken down,—when a party led by Reyes broke through to his assistance, and in the fury of the onslaught Ruiz himself was swept from his horse and hurried away, and to his consternation found himself a prisoner dragged onward in the irresistible impetus of flight.