The Blood of the Conquerors Read online

  CHAPTER II

  Usually in each generation of a large and long-established family there issome one individual who stands out from the rest as a leader and as themost perfect embodiment of the family traditions and characteristics. Thiswas especially true of the Delcasar family. It was established in thiscountry in the year 1790 by Don Eusabio Maria Delcasar y Morales, anofficer in the army of the King of Spain, who distinguished himself in theconquest of New Mexico, and especially in certain campaigns against theNavajos. As was customary at that time, the King rewarded his faithfulsoldier with a grant of land in the new province. This Delcasar estate layin the Rio Grande Valley and the surrounding _mesa_ lands. By theprovisions of the King's grant, its dimensions were each the distance thatDon Delcasar could ride in a day. The Don chose good horses and did notspare them, so that he secured to his family more than a thousand squaremiles of land with a strip of rich valley through the middle and awilderness of desert and mountain on either side. Much of thisprincipality was never seen by Don Eusabio, and even the four sons whodivided the estate upon his death had each more land than he could welluse.

  The outstanding figure of this second generation was Don Solomon Delcasar,who was noted for the magnificence of his establishment, and for hisautocratic spirit.

  No Borgia or Bourbon ever ruled more absolutely over his own domain thandid Don Solomon over the hundreds of square miles which made up hisestate. He owned not only lands and herds but also men and women. The_peones_ who worked his lands were his possessions as much as were hishorses. He had them beaten when they offended him and their daughters werehis for the taking. He could not sell them, but this restriction did notapply to the Navajo and Apache slaves whom he captured in war. These werehis to be sold or retained for his own use as he preferred. Adult Indianswere seldom taken prisoner, as they were untameable, but boys and girlsbelow the age of fifteen were always taken alive, when possible, and werevalued at five hundred _pesos_ each. Don Solomon usually sold the boys, ashe had plenty of _peones_, but he never sold a comely Indian girl.

  The Don was a man of proud and irascible temper, but kindly when notcrossed. He had been known to kill a _peon_ in a fit of anger, and thenafterward to bestow all sorts of benefits upon the man's wife andchildren.

  The life of his home, like that of all the other Mexican gentlemen in histime, was an easy and pleasant one. He owned a great _adobe_ house, builtabout a square courtyard like a fort, and shaded pleasantly by cottonwoodtrees. There he dwelt with his numerous family, his _peones_ and hisslaves. In the spring and summer every one worked in the fields, thoughnot too hard. In the fall the men went east to the great plains to kill asupply of buffalo meat for the winter, and often after the hunt theytravelled south into Sonora and Chihuahua to trade mustangs and buffalohides for woven goods and luxuries.

  There was a pleasant social life among the aristocrats of dances andvisits. Marriages, funerals and christenings were occasions of greatceremony and social importance. Indeed everything done by the Dons wascharacterized by much formality and ceremony, the custom of which had beenbrought over from Spain. But they were no longer really in touch withSpanish civilization. They never went back to the mother country. They hadno books save the Bible and a few other religious works, and many of themnever learned to read these. Their lives were made up of fighting, withthe Indians and also among themselves, for there were many feuds; ofhunting and primitive trade; and of venery upon a generous and patriarchalscale. They were Spanish gentlemen by descent, all for honour andtradition and sentiment; but by circumstance they were barbarian lords,and their lives were full of lust and blood.

  Circumstance somewhat modified the vaunted purity of their Spanish blood,too. The Indian slave girls who lived in their houses bore the children oftheir sons, and some of these half-bred and quarter-bred children wereeventually accepted by the _gente de razon_, as the aristocrats calledthemselves. In this way a strain of Navajo blood got into the Delcasarfamily, and doubtless did much good, as all of the Spanish stock wasweakened by much marrying of cousins.

  Dona Ameliana Delcasar, a sister of Don Solomon, was responsible foranother alien infusion which ultimately percolated all through the family,and has been thought by some to be responsible for the unusual mentalability of certain Delcasars. Dona Ameliana, a beautiful but somewhatunruly girl, went into a convent in Durango, Mexico, at the age offifteen. At the age of eighteen she eloped with a French priest namedRaubien, who was a man of unusual intellect and a poet. The errant couplecame to New Mexico and took up lands. They were excommunicated, of course,and both of them were buried in unconsecrated ground; but despite theirspiritual handicaps they raised a family of eleven comely daughters, allof whom married well, several of them into the Delcasar family. Thus someof the Delcasars who boasted of their pure Castilian blood were really ofa mongrel breed, comprising along with the many strains that have mingledin Spain, those of Navajo and French.

  Don Solomon Delcasar played a brilliant part in the military activitieswhich marked the winning of Mexican Independence from Spain in theeighteen-twenties, and also in the incessant Indian wars. He was a fighterby necessity, but also by choice. They shed blood with grace andnonchalance in those days, and the Delcasars were always known asdangerous men.

  The most curious thing about this ri?1/2gime of the old-time Dons was theway in which it persisted. It received its first serious blow in 1845 whenthe military forces of the United States took possession of New Mexico.Don Jesus Christo Delcasar, who was then the richest and most powerful ofthe family, was suspected of being a party to the conspiracy which broughtabout the Taos massacre--the last organized resistance made to the gringodomination. At this time some of the Delcasars went to Old Mexico to live,as did a good many others among the Dons, feeling that the old ways oflife in New Mexico were sure to change, and having the Spanish aversion toany departure from tradition. But their fears were not realized, and lifewent on as before. In 1865 the _peones_ and Indian slaves were formallyset free, but all of them immediately went deeply in debt to their formermasters and thus retained in effect the same status as before. So ithappened that in the seventies, when New York was growing into ametropolis, and the factory system was fastening itself upon New England,and the middle west was getting fat and populous and tame, life in theSouthwest remained much as it had been a century before.

  Laws and governments were powerless there to change ways of life, as theyhave always been, but two parallel bars of steel reaching across theprairies brought change with them, and it was great and sudden. Therailroad reached the Rio Grande Valley early in the eighties, and itsmashed the colourful barbaric pattern of the old life as the ruthlessfist of an infidel might smash a stained glass window. The metropolis ofthe northern valley in those days was a sleepy little _adobe_ town of afew hundred people, reclining about its dusty _plaza_ near the river. Therailroad, scorning to notice it, passed a mile away. Forthwith a new townbegan growing up between, the old one and the railroad. And this new townwas such a town as had never before been seen in all the Southwest. It wasbuilt of wood and only half painted. It was ugly, noisy and raw. It waspopulated largely by real estate agents, lawyers, politicians andbarkeepers. It cared little for joy, leisure, beauty or tradition. Its Godwas money and its occupation was business.

  This thing called business was utterly strange to the Delcasars and to allof the other Dons. They were men of the saddle, fighting men, and tradersonly in a primitive way. Business seemed to them a conspiracy to taketheir lands and their goods away from them, and a remarkably successfulconspiracy. Debt and mortgage and speculation were the names of itsweapons. Some of the Dons, including many of the Delcasars, who were now avery numerous family, owning each a comfortable homestead but no more,sold out and went to Old Mexico. Many who stayed lost all they had in afew years, and degenerated into petty politicians or small storekeepers.Some clung to a bit of land and went on farming, making always less andless money, sinking into poverty and insignifican
ce, until some of themwere no better off than the men who had once been their _peones_.

  Diego Delcasar and Felipe Delcasar, brothers, were two who owned houses inthe Old Town and farms nearby, who stayed in the country and held theirown for a time and after a fashion. Diego Delcasar was far the more ableof the two, and a true scion of his family. He caught onto the gringomethods to a certain extent. He divided some farm land on the edge of towninto lots and sold them for a good price. With the money he bought a greatarea of mountain land in the northern part of the state, where he raisedsheep and ruled with an iron hand, much as his forbears had ruled in thevalley. He also went into politics, learned to make a good stump speechand got himself elected to the highly congenial position of sheriff. Inthis place he made a great reputation for fearlessness and for theruthless and skilful use of a gun. He once kicked down the locked door ofa saloon and arrested ten armed gamblers, who had threatened to kill him.He was known and feared all over the territory and was a tyrant in his ownsection of it. When a gringo prospector ventured to dispute with him theownership of a certain mine, the gringo was found dead in the bottom ofthe shaft. It was reported that he had fallen in and broken his neck andno one dared to look at the bullet hole in his back.

  Don Diego's wife died without leaving him any children, but he hadnumerous children none-the-less. It was said that one could follow hiswanderings about the territory by the sporadic occurrence of theunmistakable Delcasar nose among the younger inhabitants. All of his sonsand daughters by the left hand he treated with notable generosity. He wasa sort of hero to the native people--a great fighter, a great lover--andsongs about his adventures were composed and sung around the fires insheep camps and by gangs of trackworkers.

  Don Diego, in a word, was a true Delcasar and a great man. Had he used hisopportunities wisely he might have been a millionaire. But at the age ofsixty he owned little besides his house and his wild mountain lands. Hedrank a good deal and played poker almost every night. Once he had been afamous winner, but in these later years he generally lost. He also formeda partnership with a real estate broker named MacDougall, for thedevelopment of his wild lands, and it was predicted by some that theleading development would be an ultimate transfer of title to Mr.MacDougall, who was known to be lending the Don money and taking land assecurity.

  Don Felipe's career was far less spectacular than that of his brother. Heowned more than Don Diego to start with, and he spent his life slowlylosing it, so that when he died he left nothing but a house in Old Townand a single small sheep ranch, which afforded his widow, two daughtersand one son a scant living.

  This son, Ramon Delcasar, was the hope of the family. He would inherit theestate of Don Diego, if the old Don died before spending it all, which itdid not seem likely that he would do. But Ramon early demonstrated that hehad a more important heritage in the sharp intelligence, and the proud,plucky and truculent spirit which had characterized the best of theDelcasars throughout the family history.

  As there was no considerable family estate for him to settle upon, he wassent to law school at the age of twenty, and returned three years later totake up the practice of his profession in his native town. Thus he was thefirst of the Delcasars to face life with his bare hands. And he was alsothe last of them in a sense, to face the gringos. All the others of hisname, save the senile Don, had either died, departed or sunk from sightinto the mass of the peasantry.