by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER V. FOR THE GOOD OF THE COMPANY
All through breakfast Applehead seemed to have something weighty on hismind. He kept pulling at his streaked, reddish-gray mustache when hisfingers should have been wholly occupied with his food, and he staredabstractedly at the ground after he had finished his first cup of coffeeand before he took his second. Once Bill Holmes caught him glaring withan intensity which circumstances in no wise justified--and it was BillHolmes who first shifted his gaze in vague uneasiness when he tried tostare Applehead down. Annie-Many-Ponies did not glance at him at all, sofar as one could discover; yet she was the first to sense trouble inthe air, and withdrew herself from the company and sat apart, wrappedclosely in her crimson shawl that matched well the crimson bows on hertwo shiny braids.
Luck, keenly alive to the moods of his people, looked at herinquiringly. "Come on up by the fire, Annie," he commanded gently. "Whatyou sitting away off there for? Come and eat--I want you to work today."
Annie-Many-Ponies did not reply, but she rose obediently and cameforward in the silent way she had, stepping lightly, straight and slimand darkly beautiful. Applehead glanced at her sourly, and her lashesdrooped to hide the venom in her eyes as she passed him to stand beforeLuck.
"I not hungry," she told Luck tranquilly, yet with a hardness in hervoice which did not escape him, who knew her so well. "I go put onmakeup."
"Wear that striped blanket you used last Saturday when we worked upthere in Tijeras Canon. Same young squaw makeup you wore then, Annie."He eyed her sharply as she turned away to her own tent, and he observedthat when she passed Applehead she took two steps to one side, wideningthe distance between them. He watched her until she lifted her tentflap, stooped and disappeared within. Then he looked at Applehead.
"What's wrong between you two?" he asked the old man quizzically. "Herdog been licking your cat again, or what?"
"You're danged right he ain't!" Applehead testified boastfully."Compadre's got that there dawg's goat, now I'm tellin' yuh! He don'ttake nothin' off him ner her neither."
"What you been doing to her, then?" Luck set his empty plate on theground beside him and began feeling for the makings of a cigarette. "Wayshe side-stepped you, I know there must be SOMETHING."
"Well, now, I ain't done a danged thing to that there squaw! She ain'tgot any call to go around givin' me the bad eye." He looked at thebreakfasting company and then again at Luck, and gave an almostimperceptible backward jerk of his head as he got awkwardly to his feetand strolled away toward the milling horses in the remuda.
So when Luck had lighted his fresh-rolled cigarette he followedApplehead unobtrusively. "Well, what's on your mind?" he wanted to knowwhen he came up with him.
"Well, now, I don't want you to think I'm buttin' in on your affairs,Luck," Applehead began after a minute, "but seein' as you ast me what'swrong, I'm goin' to tell yuh straight out. We got a couple of dangedfine women in this here bunch, and I shore do hate to see things goin'on around here that'd shame 'em if they was to find it out. And fur'sI can see they will find it out, sooner or later. Murder ain't the onlykinda wickedness that's hard to cover up. I know you feel about as I doon some subjects; you never did like dirt around you, no better'n--"
"Get to the point, man. What's wrong?"
So Applehead, turning a darker shade of red than was his usual hue,cleared his throat and blurted out what he had to say. He had heardShunka Chistala whinnying at midnight in the tent of Annie-Many-Ponies,and had gone outside to see what was the matter. He didn't know, heexplained, but what his cat Compadre was somehow involved. He had stoodin the shadow of his tent for a few minutes, and had seen Bill Holmessneak into camp, coming from up the arroyo somewhere.
For some reason he waited a little longer, and he had seen a woman'sshadow move stealthily up to the front of Annie's tent, and had seenAnnie slip inside and had heard her whisper a command of some sortto the dog, which had immediately hushed its whining. He hated tobe telling tales on anybody, but he knew how keenly Luck felt hisresponsibility toward the Indian girl, and he thought he ought to know.This night-prowling, he declared, had shore got to be stopped, or he'dbe danged if he didn't run 'em both outa camp himself.
"Bill Holmes might have been out of camp," Luck said calmly, "but yousure must be mistaken about Annie. She's straight."
"You think she is," Applehead corrected him. "But you don't know adanged thing about it. A girl that's behavin' herself don't go chasin'all over the mesa alone, the way she's been doin' all spring. I neversaid nothin' 'cause it wa'n't none of my put-in. But that Injun had aheap of business off away from the ranch whilst you was in Los Angeles,Luck. Sneaked off every day, just about--and 'd be gone fer hours at atime. You kin ast any of the boys, if yuh don't want to take my word. Oryou kin ast Mis' Green; she kin tell ye, if she's a mind to."
"Did Bill Holmes go with her?" Luck's eyes were growing hard and gray.
"As to that I won't say, fer I don't know and I'm tellin' yuh what Iseen myself. Bill Holmes done a lot uh walkin' in to town, fur as thatgoes; and he didn't always git back the same day neither. He never wentoff with Annie, and he never came back with her, fur as I ever seen.But," he added grimly, "they didn't come back together las' night,neither. They come about three or four minutes apart."
Luck thought a minute, scowling off across the arroyo. Not even toApplehead, bound to him by closer ties than anyone there, did he everreveal his thoughts completely.
"All right--I'll attend to them," he said finally. "Don't say anythingto the bunch; these things aren't helped by talk. Get into your oldcowman costume and use that big gray you rode in that drive we made theother day. I'm going to pick up the action where we left off when itturned cloudy. Tomorrow or next day I want to move the outfit back tothe ranch. There's quite a lot of town stuff I want to get for thispicture."
Applehead looked at him uncertainly, tempted to impress further upon himthe importance of safeguarding the morals of his company. But he knewLuck pretty well--having lived with him for months at a time when Luckwas younger and even more peppery than now. So he wisely condensed hisreply to a nod, and went back to the breakfast fire polishing his baldbead with the flat of his palm. He met Annie-Many-Ponies coming to askLuck which of the two pairs of beaded moccasins she carried in her handshe would like to have her wear. She did not look at Applehead at all asshe passed, but he nevertheless became keenly aware of her animosity andturned half around to glare after her resentfully. You'd think, he toldhimself aggrievedly, that he was the one that had been acting up! Lether go to Luck--she'd danged soon be made to know her place in camp.
Annie-Many-Ponies went confidently on her way, carrying the two pairs ofbeaded moccasins in her hands. Her face was more inscrutable than ever.She was pondering deeply the problem of Bill Holmes' business withRamon, and she was half tempted to tell Wagalexa Conka of that secretintimacy which must carry on its converse under cover of night. She didnot trust Bill Holmes. Why must he keep Ramon posted? She glancedahead to where Luck stood thinking deeply about something, and her eyessoftened in a shy sympathy with his trouble. Wagalexa Conka worked hardand thought much and worried more than was good for him. Bill Holmes,she decided fiercely, should not add to those worries. She would warnRamon when next she talked with him. She would tell Ramon that he mustnot be friends with Bill Holmes; in the meantime, she would watch.
Ten feet from Luck she stopped short, sensing trouble in the hardnessthat was in his eyes. She stood there and waited in meek subjection.
"Annie, come here!" Luck's voice was no less stern because it waslowered so that a couple of the boys fussing with the horses inside therope corral could not overhear what he had to say.
Annie-Many-Ponies, pulling one of the shiny black braids into thecorrect position over her shoulder and breast, stepped soft-footedly upto him and stopped. She did not ask him what he wanted. She waited untilit was his pleasure to speak.
"Annie, I want you to keep away from Bill Holmes." Luck was not one tomince his words when
he had occasion to speak of disagreeable things."It isn't right for you to let him make love to you on the sly. You knowthat. You know you must not leave camp with him after dark. You make meashamed of you when you do those things. You keep away from Bill Holmesand stay in camp nights. If you're a bad girl, I'll have to send youback to the reservation--and I'll have to tell the agent and ChiefBig Turkey why I send you back. I can't have anybody in my company whodoesn't act right. Now remember--don't make me speak to you again aboutit."
Annie-Many-Ponies stood there, and the veiled, look was in her eyes.Her face was a smooth, brown mask--beautiful to look upon but asexpressionless as the dead. She did not protest her innocence, she didnot explain that she hated and distrusted Bill Holmes and that shehad, months ago, repelled his surreptitious advances. Luck would havebelieved, for he had known Annie-Many-Ponies since she was a barefootedpapoose, and he had never known her to tell him an untruth.
"You go now and get ready for work. Wear the moccasins with the birds onthe toes." He pointed to them and turned away.
Annie-Many-Ponies also turned and went her way and said nothing. What,indeed, could she say? She did not doubt that Luck had seen her thenight before, and had seen also Bill Holmes when he left camp orreturned--perhaps both. She could not tell him that Bill Holmes had goneout to meet Ramon, for that, she felt instinctively, was a secret whichRamon trusted her not to betray. She could not tell Wagalexa Conka,either, that she met Ramon often when the camp was asleep. He wouldthink that as bad as meeting Bill Holmes. She knew that he did notlike Ramon, but merely used him and his men and horses and cattle fora price, to better his pictures. Save in a purely business way she hadnever seen him talking with Ramon. Never as he talked with the boys ofthe Flying U--his Happy Family, he called them.
She said nothing. She dressed for the part she was to play. Shetwined flowers in her hair and smoothed out the red bows and laid themcarefully away--since Wagalexa Conka did not wish her to wear ribbonbows in this picture. She murmured caresses to Shunka Chistala, thelittle black dog that was always at her heels. She rode with the companyto the rocky gorge which was "location" for today. When Wagalexa Conkacalled to her she went and climbed upon a high rock and stood just wherehe told her to stand, and looked just as he told her to look, and stoleaway through the rocks and out of the scene exactly as he wished her todo.
But when Wagalexa Conka--sorry for the harshness he had felt it hisduty to show that morning--smiled and told her she had done fine, andthat he was pleased with her, Annie-Many-Ponies did not smile back withthat slow, sweet, heart-twisting smile which was at once her sharpestweapon and her most endearing trait.
Bill Holmes who had also had his sharp word of warning, and had beentold very plainly to cut out this flirting with Annie if he wanted toremain on Luck's payroll, eyed her strangely. Once he tried to have asecret word with her, but she moved away and would not look at him.For Annie-Many-Ponies, hurt and bitter as she felt toward her belovedWagalexa Conka, hated Bill Holmes fourfold for being the cause of herhumiliation. That she did not also hate Ramon Chavez as being equallyguilty with Bill Holmes, went far toward proving how strong a hold hehad gained upon her heart.