by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER VIII. THE SONG OF THE OMAHA
"Me, I theenk yoh not lov' me so moch as a pin," Ramon complained insoft reproach, down in the dry wash where Applehead had looked in vainfor baling wire. "Sometimes I show yoh what is like the Spanish lov'.Like stars, like fire--sometimes I seeng the jota for you that tellhow moch I lov' yoh. 'Te quiero, Baturra, te quiero,'" he beganhumming softly while he looked at her with eyes that shone soft in thestarlight. "Sometimes me, I learn yoh dat song--and moch more I learnyoh--"
Annie-Many-Ponies stood before him, straight and slim and with that airof aloofness which so fired Ramon's desire for her. She lifted a hand tocheck him, and Ramon stopped instantly and waited. So far had her powerover him grown.
"All time you tell me you heap love," she said in her crooning softvoice. "Why you not talk of priest to make us marry? You say words forlove--you say no word for wife. Why you no say--"
"Esposa!" Ramon's teeth gleamed white as a wolf's in the dusk. "Whenthe padre marry us I maybe teach you many ways to say wife!" He laughedunder his breath. "How I calls yoh wife when I not gets one kees, me?Now I calls yoh la sweetheart--good enough when I no gets so moch astouches hand weeth yoh."
"I go way with you, you gets priest for make us marry?"Annie-Many-Ponies edged closer so that she might read what was in hisface.
"Why yoh no trus' Ramon? Sure, I gets padre! W'at yoh theenk for speaklies, me? Sure, I gets padre, foolish one! Me, I not like for yoh notrus' Ramon. Looks like not moch yoh lov' Ramon."
"I good girl," Annie-Many-Ponies stated simply. "I love my husband whenpriest says that's right thing to do. You no gets priest, I no go withyou. I think mens not much cares for marry all time. Womens not care,they go to hell. That's what priest tells. Girls got to care. That'struth." Simple as two-plus-two was the rule of life as Annie-Many-Ponieslaid it down in words before him. No fine distinctions between virtueand superwomanhood there, if you please! No slurring of wrong so thatit may look like an exalted right. "Womens got to care," saidAnnie-Many-Ponies with a calm certainty that would brook no argument.
"Sure theeng," Ramon agreed easily. "Yoh theenk I lov' yoh so moch ifyoh not good?"
"You gets priest?" Annie-Many-Ponies persisted.
"Sure, I gets padre. You theenk Ramon lies for soch theeng?"
"You swear, then, all same white mans in picture makes oath." There wasa new quality of inflexibility under the soft music of her voice. "Youlift up hand and says, 'Help me by God I makes you for-sure my wife!'"She had pondered long upon this oath, and she spoke it now with an easycertainty that it was absolutely binding, and that no man would darebreak it. "You makes that swear now," she urged gently.
"Foolish one! Yoh theenk I mus' swear I do what my hearts she's want?I tell yoh many times we go on one ranch my brother Tomas says she's bemine. We lives there in fine house weeth mooch flowers, yoh not so mochas lif' one finger for work, querida mia. Yoh theenk I not be trus', me,Ramon what loves yoh?"
"No hurt for swears what I tells," Annie-Many-Ponies stepped back fromhim a pace, distrust creeping into her voice.
"All right." Ramon moved nearer. "So I make oath, perhaps you make oathalso! Me, I theenk yoh perhaps not like for leave Luck Leensay--I theenkperhaps yoh loves heem, yoh so all time watch for ways to please! So Iswear, then yoh mus' swear also that yoh come for-sure. That square dealfor both--si?"
Annie-Many-Ponies hesitated, a dull ache in her breast when Ramon spokeof Luck. But if her heart was sore at thought of him, it was because heno longer looked upon her with the smile in his eyes. It was because hewas not so kind; because he believed that she had secret meetings withBill Holmes whom she hated. And in spite of the fact that Bill Holmeshad left the company the other day and was going away, Wagalexa Conkastill looked upon her with cold eyes and listened to the things thatApplehead said against her. The heart of Wagalexa Conka, she toldherself miserably, was like a stone for her. And so her own heart mustbe hard. She would swear to Ramon, and she would keep the oath--andWagalexa Conka would not even miss her or be sorry that she had gone.
"First you make swears like I tells you," she said. "Then I makeswears."
"Muy bueno!" smiled Ramon then. "So I make oath I take you queek to onegood friend me, the Padre Dominguez. Then yoh be my wife for sure. Thatgood enough for yoh, perhaps? Queeck yoh make oath yoh leave these placeManana--tomorra. Yoh go by ol' rancho where we talk so many time.I leave horse for yoh. Yoh ride pas' that mountain, yoh come forBernalillo. Yoh wait. I come queeck as can when she's dark. Yoh do that,sweetheart?"
Annie-Many-Ponies stilled the ache in her heart with the thought of herproud place beside Ramon who had much land and many cattle and who lovedher so much. She lifted her hand and swore she would go with him.
She slipped away then and crept into her tent in the little clusterbeside the house--for the company 'had forsaken Applehead's adobe andslept under canvas as a matter of choice. With Indian cunning she bidedher time and gave no sign of what was hidden in her heart. She rose withthe others and brushed her glossy hair until it shone in the sunlightlike the hair of a high-caste Chinese woman. She tied upon it the newbows of red ribbon which she had bought in the secret hope that theywould be a part of her wedding finery. She put on her Indian gala dressof beaded buckskin with the colored porcupine quills--and then shesmiled cunningly and drew a dress of red-and-blue striped calico overher head and settled the folds of it about her with little, smoothingpats, so that the two white women, Rosemary and Jean, should not noticeany unusual bulkiness of her figure.
She did not know how she would manage to escape the keen eyes ofWagalexa Conka and to steal away from the ranch, especially if she hadto work in the picture that day. But Luck unconsciously opened wide thetrail for her. He announced at breakfast that they would work up in BearCanon that day, and that he would not need Jean or Annie either; andthat, as it would be hotter than the hinges of Gehenna up in that canon,they had better stay at home and enjoy themselves.
Annie-Many-Ponies did not betray by so much as a flicker of the lashesthat she heard him much less that it was the best of good news to her.She went into her tent and packed all of her clothes into a bundle whichshe wrapped in her plaid shawl, and was proud because the bundle was sobig, and because she had much fine beadwork and so many red ribbons, anda waist of bright blue silk which she would wear when she stood beforethe priest, if Ramon did not like the dress of beaded buckskin.
A ring with an immense red stone in it which Ramon had given her, sheslipped upon her finger with her little, inscrutable smile. She wasengaged to be married, now, just like white girls; and tomorrow shewould have a wide ring of shiny gold for that finger, and should be thewife of Ramon.
Just then Shunka Chistala, lying outside her tent, flapped his tail onthe ground and gave a little, eager whine. Annie-Many-Ponies thrusther head through the opening and looked out, and then stepped over thelittle black dog and stood before her tent to watch the Happy Familymount and ride away with Wagalexa Conka in their midst and with themountain wagon rattling after them loaded with "props" and the cameraand the noonday lunch and Pete Lowry and Tommy Johnson, the scenicartist. Applehead was going to drive the wagon, and she scowled when heyanked off the brake and cracked the whip over the team.
Luck, feeling perchance the intensity of her gaze, turned in the saddleand looked back. The eyes of Annie-Many-Ponies softened and saddened,because this was the last time she would see Wagalexa Conka riding awayto make pictures--the last time she would see him. She lifted her hand,and made the Indian sign of farewell--the peace-go-with-you sign that isused for solemn occasions of parting.
Luck pulled up short and stared. What did she mean by that? He reinedhis horse around, half minded to ride back and ask her why she gave himthat peace-sign. She had never done it before, except once or twice inscenes that he directed. But after all he did not go. They were latein getting started that morning, which irked his energetic soul; andwomen's whims never did impress Luck Lindsay very deeply. Besides, justas he was t
urning to ride back, Annie stooped and went into her tent asthough her gesture had carried no especial meaning.
Then in her tent he heard her singing the high, weird chant of theOmaha mourning song and again he was half-minded to go back, though thewailing minor notes, long drawn and mournful, might mean much or theymight mean merely a fit of the blues. The others rode on talking andlaughing together, and Luck rode with them; but the chant of theOmaha was in his ears and tingling his nerves. And the vision ofAnnie-Many-Ponies standing straight before her tent and making the signof peace and farewell haunted him that day.
Rosemary and Jean, standing in the porch, waved good-bye to their menfolk until the last bobbing hatcrown had gone down out of sight in thelong, low swale that creased the mesa in that direction. Whereupon theywent into the house.
"What in the world is the matter with Annie?" Jean exploded, with alittle shiver. "I'd rather hear a band of gray wolves tune up whenyou're caught out in the breaks and have to ride in the dark. What isthat caterwaul? Do you suppose she's on the warpath or anything?"
"Oh, that's just the squaw coming out in her!" Rosemary slammed the doorshut so they could not hear so plainly. "She's getting more Injuny everyday of her life. I used to try and treat her like a white girl--but youjust can't do it, Jean."
"Hiu-hiu-hi-i-ah-h! Hiu-hiu-hi-i-ah-h-h--hiaaa-h-h!"
Jean stood in the middle of the room and listened. "Br-r-r!" sheshivered--and one could not blame her. "I wonder if she'd be mad,"she drawled, "if I went out and told her to shut up. It sounds as ifsomebody was dead, or going to die or something. Like Lite says your dogwill howl if anything--"
"Oh, for pity sake!" Rosemary pushed her into the living room withmake-believe savageness. "I've heard her and Luck sing that last winter.And there's a kind of a teetery dance that goes with it. It's supposedto be a mourning song, as Luck explains it. But don't pay any attentionto her at all. She just does it to get on our nerves. It'd tickle her todeath if she thought it made us nervous."
"And now the dog is joining in on the chorus! I must say they're acheerful pair to have around the house. And I know one thing--if theykeep that up much longer, I'll either get out there with a gun, orsaddle up and follow the boys."
"They'd tease us to death, Jean, if we let Annie run us out."
"It's run or be run," Jean retorted irritatedly. "I wanted to writepoetry today--I thought of an awfully striking sentence about the--forheaven's sake, where's a shotgun?"
"Jean, you wouldn't!" Rosemary, I may here explain, was very femininelyafraid of guns. "She'd--why, there's no telling WHAT she might do! Lucksays she carries a knife."
"What if she does? She ought to carry a few bird-shot, too. She's gotnothing to mourn about--nobody's died, has there?
"Hiu-hiu-hia-a-a,ah! Hia-a-a-a-ah!" wailed Annie-Many-Ponies in hertent, because she would never again look upon the face of WagalexaConka--or if she did it would be to see his anger blaze and burn herheart to ashes. To her it was as though death sat beside her; the deathof Wagalexa Conka's friendship for her. She forgot his harshness becausehe thought her disobedient and wicked. She forgot that she loved RamonChavez, and that he was rich and would give her a fine home and muchlove. She forgot everything but that she had sworn an oath and that shemust keep it though it killed faith and kindness and friendship as witha knife.
So she wailed, in high-keyed, minor chanting unearthly in its primitiveinarticulateness of sorrow, the chant of the Omaha mourning song. Sohad her tribe wailed in the olden days when warriors returned to thevillages and told of their dead. So had her mother wailed when the GreatSpirit took away her first man-child. So had the squaws wailed in theirtepees since the land was young. And the little black dog, sitting onhis haunches before her door, pointed his moist nose into the sunlightand howled in mournful sympathy.
"Oh, my gracious!" Jean, usually so calm, flung a magazine against thewall. "This is just about as pleasant as a hanging! let's saddle up andride in after the mail, Rosemary. Maybe the squaw in her will be howledout by the time we get back." And she added with a venomous sinceritythat would have warmed the heart of old Applehead, "I'd shoot that dog,for half a cent! How do you suppose an animal of his size can produceall that noise?"
"Oh, I don't know!" Rosemary spoke with the patience of utter weariness."I've stood her and the dog for about eight months and I'm getting kindof hardened to it. But I never did hear them go on like that before.You'd think all her relations were being murdered, wouldn't you?"
Jean was busy getting into her riding clothes and did not say what shethought; but you may be sure that it was antipathetic to the grief ofAnnie-Many-Ponies, and that Jean's attitude was caused by a completelack of understanding. Which, if you will stop to think, is true ofhalf the unsympathetic attitudes in the world. Because they did notunderstand, the two dressed hastily and tucked their purses safelyinside their shirtwaists and saddled and rode away to town. And the lastthey heard as they put the ranch behind them was the wailing chant ofAnnie-Many-Ponies and the prodigious, long-drawn howling of the littleblack dog.
Annie-Many-Ponies, hearing the beat of hoofs ceased her chanting andlooked out in time to see the girls just disappearing over the low browof the hill. She stood for a moment and stared after them with frowningbrows. Rosemary she did not like and never would like, after theirhidden feud of months over such small matters as the cat and the dog,and unswept floors, and the like. A mountain of unwashed dishes stoodbetween these two, as it were, and forbade anything like friendship.
But the parting that was at hand had brushed aside her jealousy of Jeanas leading woman. Intuitively she knew that with any encouragement Jeanwould have been her friend. Oddly, she remembered now that Jean had beenthe first to ask for her when she came to the ranch. So, althoughJean would never know, Annie-Many-Ponies raised her hand and gave thepeace-and-farewell sign of the plains Indians.
The way was open now, and she must go. She had sworn that she would meetRamon--but oh, the heart of her was heavier than the bundle which shebound with her bright red sash and lifted to her shoulders with thesash drawn across her chest and shoulders. So had the women of hertribe borne burdens since the land was young; but none had ever borne aheavier load than did Annie-Many-Ponies when she went soft footed acrossthe open space to the dry wash and down that to another, and so on andon until she crossed the low ridge and came down to the deserted oldrancho with its crumbling adobe cabins and the well where she had waitedso often for Ramon.
She was tired when she reached the well, for her back was not usedto burden-bearing as had been her mother's, and her steps had laggedbecause of the heaviness that was in her chest. It seemed to herthat some bad spirit was driving her forth an exile. She could notunderstand, last night she had been glad at the thought of going, and ifthe thought of leaving Wagalexa Conka so treacherously had hurt like aknife-thrust, still, she had sworn willingly enough that she would go.
The horse was there, saddled and tied in a tumble-down shed just asRamon had promised that it would be. Annie-Many-Ponies did not mount andride on immediately, however. It was still early in the forenoon, andshe was not so eager in reality as she had been in anticipation. Shesat down beside the well and stared somberly away to the mountains, andwondered why she was go sad when she should be happy. She twisted thering with the big red stone round and round her finger, but she got nopleasure from the crimson glow of it. The stone looked to her now like agreat, frozen drop of blood. She wondered grimly whose blood it was, andstared at it strangely before her eyes went again worshipfully to themountains which she loved and which she must leave and perhaps never seeagain as they looked from there, and from the ranch.
She must ride and ride until she was around on the other side of thatlast one that had the funny, pointed cone top like a big stone tepee.On the other side was Ramon, and the priest, and the strange new life ofwhich she was beginning to feel afraid. There would be no more riding upto camera, laughing or sighing or frowning as Wagalexa Conka commandedher to do. There would
be no more shy greetings of the slim young womanin riding skirt--the friendship scenes and the black-browed anger, whilePete Lowry turned the camera and Luck stood beside him telling her justwhat she must do, and smiling at her when she did it well.
There would be Ramon, and the priest and the wide ring of shinygold--what more? The mountains, all pink and violet and smiling greenand soft gray--the mountains hid the new life from her. And she mustride around that last, sharp-pointed one, and come into the new lifethat was on the other side--and what if it should be bitter? What ifRamon's love did not live beyond the wide ring of shiny gold? She hadseen it so, with other men and other maids.
No matter. She had sworn the oath that she would go. But first, thereat the old well where Ramon had taught her the Spanish love words, therewhere she had listened shyly and happily to his voice that was so softand so steeped in love, Annie-Many-Ponies stood up with her face to themountains and sorrow in her eyes, and chanted again the wailing, Omahamourning-song. And just behind her the little black dog, that hadfollowed close to her heels all the way, sat upon his haunches andpointed his nose to the sky and howled.
For a long time she wailed. Then to the mountains that she loved shemade the sign of peace-and-farewell, and turned herself stoically to thekeeping of her oath. Her bundle that was so big and heavy she placedin the saddle and fastened with the saddle-string and with the red sashthat had bound it across her chest and shoulders. Then, as her greatgrandmother had plodded across the bleak plains of the Dakotas at hermaster's behest, Annie-Many-Ponies took the bridle reins and led thehorse out of the ruin, and started upon her plodding, patient journeyto what lay beyond the mountains. Behind her the black horse walked withdrooping head, half asleep in the warm sunlight. At the heels of thehorse followed the little black dog.