The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1901-06-23
PADRE IeNAcIo AND THE SNUG
GI E2

! lhaI stood IN the shadow Of the SQUAT Ind
/ yellow building that the natives called a
church His mud-walled garden was an
island Of tropical green in an ocean OF
hot white sand. North beyond the stsring
I huttes Of uphfted red sandstone lay Ysi-
! gro pueblo, where Indian and Mexican
| smoked or sweated IN the hot sgualor Of
the deserts fringe. Southwark across the
| unmarked border, Ike piles Of gray and
purple clouds looming against the opal
SKY the dim Sierras. snow-crOwned.
I mocked at the blisteriug world below
/ The old trail from Ysidro and the north
/ that once marked the way 70 San Gabriel
/ wound past the padres garden wall. bat
/ the drifting sands, shifted by the furnace
/ blasts that blew across from Mexico all
summer long, had buried its meanderings
! Tor miles around. On Sundays the padre
( said mass In his seatless church. The In
/ dams and a few shepherds came stray
! cling In from the foothills. and Jesus Mir
( amontes, the Mexican. came up on his
/ pony from san Gabriel 10 serve the her
I nit priest. Then for a day or more there
would be footprints along the trail About
/ the little cross-crowned mounds of stones
/ that rose above the desert floor like the
scattered beads Of a rosary there would
| be the impress Of Ieathered knees and
moccasins until the hot winds filled them
/ again.
The PADRES house was always open.
Sometimes q squaW. with her sick baby,
would sink like a dun ghost to his gate.
And he would give them a little wine or
the sweetened juice OF the lemons that
grew in his oasis, and pray sofNy for
Z them. Sometimes he would trudge TO the
/ villages and lay cool and gentle hands
upon the dirty fOreheads Of the sick
smiling silently at the wondering men and
/ giving little shining medals 10 the women
and children. who loved him afar off as
they might have loved the Galilean. Pad
re IgnaciO had but one familiar friend
Jesus Mirsmontes, TIE Mexican
Miramontes thrived by tradicking in
hides, which he gathered IN Mexico and
sold ia the United States. Two summers
before a squad of horsemen had come
down the trail through Xsidro looking for
him. The told the padre they We're look
ing for Jesus AIiramOntes, who hunted
wild beasts in the Sierras and sold the
skins in Yuma Flagstaff and Tomb
stone. They told the priest that the Mex
lean was very bad man, smuggler who
defied the laws and must be punished. So
the gentle priest told them he did not
know any such bad man, but that he had
heard there was such a villain a Jolla,
many leagues TO the east. And the horse
men rode away in the smothering dust.
The priest and the smuggler were friends.
MiramOntes would come at nightfan and
sit with the padre on a bench under the
lemon tree and smoke, slipping vino Ia
grima and telling over the old legends OF
Spaniard and Aztec.
But one night NIiramontes rode his pony
into the garden and was greeted by
strange priest
Where is Padre Ignacio?" asked Mira
montes.
He is gone growled the stranger
gone back to Barcelona. He went yes
terday."
And the smuggler, wondering in silence
at the sudden desolation of the place
rode away in the moonlight toward the
border. On Sunday he came back and
found the garden and the shadows about
the adobe church pOpulous with sad-eyed
men and women. They knew their be
loved padre was gone. They were wait
ing for mass. Miramontes went TO the
door Of the sacristy, but il was locked.
He raped at the priests hut
''Who is it?' rOared a voice within.
'Miramontes. I serve the mass" re-
piled the smuegler
There viii be no mass!" roared the
angry voice.
And without, in the hot shadows. the In
dams and poems, patient, silent and sad,
waited till noon and then went home TO
their villages. The shepherds followed
Miramontes as he rode away and ques-
toned him, but he said;
THE new padre is sick" and gallOped
away into the purple canyon.
AT midnight the smuggler came creep
ing back to the rnud-walled hacienda In
the distance from behind the waving
lemon he heard the snarl of a coyote. The
south wind loitered among the padres
odorous vines and the dead desert shOne
lurid in the shadow. Miramontes crawIed
into the shadow of the wall and listened.
Hsl. 60 10
growls of those coyotes, the hyenas of
the desert, sounded above the murmur of
the wind. Two buZzards-three-swu
low above the garden wall. He could
smell them as they buffeted the breeze
and poised TO stOop in the shadows. Coy
otes and bnzzards were lowering about
one of those piles of cr0ss-topped boulders
which the natives make and worship.
Aliramontes watched as the coyotes dug
and the buzzards wheeled about the dark
mound Then he seized his pistols and
using them as a club charged upon the
scavengers Of the night aud drove them
yeping and screaming, into the dun
shadows of the mesa and into the purple
night. Tearing away the high-piled
stones. he came first upon an outstretched
human hand The body lay under the
sand but as he dug away 10 furious 81
lence he uncovered the cassock sleeve of
his friend. and at last. upon the ground
his pale face black and staring at the
moon. lay the corpse of Padre Ignacio,
with dented skull. and in his fingers the
ii ger-eye rosary that the smuggler had
brought him from san Potosi.
They found the new padre on Sunday
morning lying on his face in the garden
He was dead, with two pistol bullets in
his breast. The huzzards sat I'm the lemon
trees. The coyotes had gnawed the limbs
His doors We're open and all tho treasures /
left ny the good Padre Ignacio were gone I
There were ne more masses at the church
of san Tgnacfo as the natives call IL.
Jesus Miramontes came no more The
women Of Ysidr0 let their babies die in
peace. and in an the desert that lies along +
chat border nobody knows whittier went
Ignacio the good priest OF why the new (
padre was slain Bur Miramontes knows. /
and now he sells his hides az night time 4