Christian fiction; Clergy -- Fiction; Historical fiction; New Mexico -- Fiction
There was no _calabozo_ in Mora, so Scales was put into an empty stable,
under guard. This stable was soon surrounded by a crowd of people, who
loitered to hear the blood-curdling threats the prisoner shouted against
his wife. Magdalena was kept in the Padre's house, where she lay on a
mat in the corner, begging Father Latour to take her back to Santa Fé,
so that her husband could not get at her. Though Scales was bound, the
Bishop felt alarmed for her safety. He and the American notary, who had
a pistol of the new revolver model, sat in the _sala_ and kept watch
over her all night.
In the morning the magistrate and his party arrived from Taos. The
notary told him the facts of the case in the plaza, where everyone could
hear. The Bishop inquired whether there was any place for Magdalena in
Taos, as she could not stay on here in such a state of terror.
A man dressed in buckskin hunting-clothes stepped out of the crowd and
asked to see Magdalena. Father Latour conducted him into the room where
she lay on her mat. The stranger went up to her, removing his hat. He
bent down and put his hand on her shoulder. Though he was clearly an
American, he spoke Spanish in the native manner.
"Magdalena, don't you remember me?"
She looked up at him as out of a dark well; something became alive in
her deep, haunted eyes. She caught with both hands at his fringed
buckskin knees.
"Christobal!" she wailed. "Oh, Christobal!"
"I'll take you home with me, Magdalena, and you can stay with my wife.
You wouldn't be afraid in my house, would you?"
"No, no, Christobal, I would not be afraid with you. I am not a wicked
woman."
He smoothed her hair. "You're a good girl, Magdalena--always were. It
will be all right. Just leave things to me."
Then he turned to the Bishop. "Señor Vicario, she can come to me. I
live near Taos. My wife is a native woman, and she'll be good to her.
That varmint won't come about my place, even if he breaks jail. He knows
me. My name is Carson."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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