The heritage of the Sioux
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Suddenly Applehead, eyeing the rocks specu-228
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latively, turned his head suddenly to look behind and to either side like one who seeks a way of escape from sudden peril.
" Don't make no quick moves, boys," he said, waving one gloved hand nonchalantly toward the flat land from which they were turning, " but foiler my lead 'n' angle down into that draw off here. Mebbe it's deep enough to put us outa sight, V mebbe it ain't. But we'll try it."
" What's up ? What did yuh see ? " Pink and Weary spoke in a duet, urging their horses a little closer.
"You fellers keep back thar 'n' don't act excited !" Applehead eyed them sternly over his shoulder. " I calc'late we're just about t' walk into a trap." He bent — on the side away from the ridge — low over his horse's shoulder and spoke while he appeared to be scanning the ground. " I seen gun-shine up among them rocks, er I'm a goat. 'N"' if it's ISTavvies, you kin bet they got guns as good as ours, and kin shoot mighty nigh as straight as the best of us — except Lite, uh course, that's a expert." He pointed aimlessly at the ground and edged toward the draw.
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" Ef they think we're jest follerin' a stray track, they'll likely hold off till we git back in the trail V start comin' on agin," he explained craftily, still pointing at the ground ahead of him and still urging his horse to the draw. " Ef they suspicion 't we're shyin' off from the ridge, they'll draw a fine bead V cut loose. I knowed it," he added with a lugubrious complacency. " I told ye all day that I could smell trouble a-comin'; I knowed dang well 't we'd stir up a mess uh fightin' over here. I never come onto this dang res'vation yit, that I didn't have t' kill off a mess uh Navvies before I got offen it agin.
" ISTow," he said when they reached the edge of the sandy depression that had been gouged deeper by freshets and offered some shelter in case of attack, " you boys jest fool around here on the aidge 'n' foller me down here like you was jest curious-like over what I'm locatin'. That'll keep them babies up there guessin' till we're all outa sight — meHbyl" He pulled down the corners of his mouth till his mustache-ends dropped a full inch, and lifted himself off his horse with a bored deliberation that was masterly in its convincingness. 230
"NOW, DANG IT, RIDE!"
He stood looking at the ground for a moment and then began to descend leisurely into the draw, leading his horse behind him.
" You go next, Pink," Weary said shortly, and with his horse began edging him closer to the bank until Pink, unless he made some unwise demonstration of unwillingness, was almost forced to ride down the steep little slope.
" Don't look towards the ridge, boys," Applehead warned from below. " Weary, you come on down here next. Lite kin might' nigh shoot the dang triggers often their guns 'fore they kin pull, if they go t' work 'n' start anything."
So Weary, leaving Lite up there grinning sheepishly over the compliment, rode down because he was told to do so by the man in command. " You seem to forget that Lite's got a wife on his hands," he reproved as he went.
" Lite's a-comin' right now," Applehead retorted, peering at the ridge a couple of hundred yards distant. " Git back down the draw 's fur's yuh kin b'fore yuh take out into the open agin. I'll wait a minute 'n' see —"
" ~Ping-ng-ng! " a bullet, striking a rock on the 231
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edge of the draw fifty feet short of the mark, glanced and went humming over the hot waste.
" Well, now, that shows they got a lookout up high, 't seen me watchin' that way. But it's hard' t' git the range shootin' down, like that," Apple-head remarked, pulling his horse behind a higher part of the bank.
Close beside him Lite's rifle spoke, its little steel-shod message flying straight as a homing honeybee for the spitting flash he had glimpsed up there among the rocks. Whether he did any damage or not, a dozen rifles answered venomously and flicked up tiny spurts of sand in the close neighborhood of the four.
" If they keep on trying," Lite commented drily, " they might make a killing, soon as they learn how to shoot straight."
" 'S jest like them dang Injuns! " Applehead grumbled, shooing the three before him down the draw. " Four t' our one — it takes jest about that big a majority 'fore they feel comf'table about buildin' up a fight. Lead yore bosses down till we're outa easy shootin' distance, boys, 'n' then we'll head out f er where Luck ought t' be. If they 232
fixed a trap fer us, they've fixed another fer him, chances is, V the sooner us fellers git together the better show we'll all of us have. You kin see, the fway they worked it to split the bunch, that they ain't so dang anxious t' tie into us when we're t'gether—V that's why we can't git t' Luck a dang bit too soon, now I'm tellin' yuh! "
Weary and Pink were finding things to say, also, but old Applehead went on with his monologue just as though they were listening. Lite showed a disposition to stop and take issue with the shooters, who kept up a spiteful firing from the ridge. But Applehead stopped him as he was leveling his rifle.
" If yuh shoot," he pointed out, " they'll know jest where we air and how fast we're gittin' outa here. If yuh don't, unless their lookout kin see us movin' out, they got t' do a heap uh guessin' in the next few minutes. They only got one chancet in three uh guessin' right, 'cause we might be camped in one spot, 'n' then agin we might be crawlin' up closer, fer all they kin tell."
If they were guessing, they must have guessed right; for presently the four heard faint yells from behind them, and Applehead crawled up the bank 233
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to where he could look out across the level. What he saw made him slide hastily to the bottom again.
" They've dumb down and straddled their ponies," he announced grimly. " An' about a dozen is comin' down this way, keepin' under cover all they kin. I calculate mebby we better crawl our hosses 'n' do some ridin' ourselves, boys." And he added grimly, " They ain't in good shootin' distance yit, V they dassent show theirselves neither. We'll keep in this draw long as we kin. They're bound t' come careful till they git us located."
The footing was none the best, but the horses they rode had been running over untracked mesa-land since they were bandy-legged colts. They loped along easily, picking automatically the safest places whereon to set their feet, and leaving their riders free to attend to other important matters — which proved their true value as horses that knew their business.
Soon the draw shallowed until they found themselves out in the open, with the square-topped mountain five miles or so ahead and a little to the left; a high, untraversable sandstone ledge to their right, 234
"NOW, DANG IT, RIDE!"
and what looked like plain sailing straight ahead past the mountain.
Applehead twisted his body in the saddle and gave a grunt. " Throw some lead back at them hombres, Lite," he snapped. " And make a killin* if yuh kin. It'll make 'em mad, but it'll hold 'em back fer a spell."
Lite, the crack rifle-shot of Luck's company and the man who had taught Jean Douglas to shoot with such wonderful precision, wheeled his horse short around and pulled him to a stand, lined up his rifle sights and crooked his finger on the trigger. And away back there among the Indians a pony reared, and then pitched forward.
" I sure do hate to shoot down a horse," Lite explained shamefacedly, " but I never did kill a man —"
" We-ell, I calc'late mebby yuh will, 'fore you're let out from this yere meetin'," Applehead prophesied drily. " Now, dang it, ride ! "
CHAPTER XVI
ANNIE-MANT-PONIES TAIT9
IN the magic light of many unnamable soft shades which the sun leaves in New Mexico as a love token for his dark mistress night, Annie-Many-Ponies sat with her back against a high, flat rock at the place where Ramon had said she must wait for him, and stared somber-eyed at what she could see of the new land that had held her future behind the Sandias; waiting for Ramon; and she wondered if Wagalexa Conka had come home from his picture-making in Bear Canon and was angry becau
se she had gone; and shrank from the thought, and tried to picture what life with Ramon would be like, and whether his love would last beyond the wide ring of shiny gold that was to make her a wife.
At her feet the little black dog lay licking his sore paws that had padded patiently after her all day. Beside the rock the black horse stood nib-236
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Wing at some weeds awkwardly, because of the Spanish bit in his mouth. The horse was hungry, and the little black dog was hungry; Aimie-Many-Ponies was hungry also, but she did not feel her hunger so much, because of the heaviness that was in her heart.
When Ramon came he would bring food, or he would tell her where she might buy. The horse, too, would be fed — when Eamon came. And he would take her to the priest who was his friend, and together they would kneel before the priest. But first, if Eamon would wait, she wanted to confess her sins, so that she need not go into the new life bearing the sins of the old. The priest could pray away the ache that was in her heart; and then, with her heart light as air, she would be married with Ramon. It was long since she had confessed — not since the priest came to the agency when she was there, before she ran away to work in pictures for Wagalexa Conka.
Before her the glow deepened and darkened. A
rabbit hopped out of a thick clump of stunted
bushes, sniffed the air that blew the wrong way to
warn him, and began feeding. Shunka Chistala
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gathered his soft paws under him, scratched softly for a firm foothold in the ground, and when the rabbit, his back turned and the evening wind blowing full in his face, fed unsuspectingly upon some young bark that he liked, the little black dog launched himself suddenly across Jhe space that divided them. There was a squeak and a thin, whimpering crying — and the little black dog, at least, was sure of his supper.
Annie-Many-Ponies, roused from her brooding, shivered a little when the rabbit cried. She started forward to save it — she who had taught the little black dog to hunt gophers and prairie dogs! — and when she was too late she scolded the dog in the language of the Sioux. She tore the rabbit away from him while he eyed her reproachfully; but when she saw that it was quite dead she flung the warm body back to him and went and sat down again with her back to the rock.
A train whistled for the little station of Ber-nalillo, and soon she saw its headlight paint the squat houses that had before been hidden behind the creeping dusk. Ramon was late in coming — and for one breath she caught herself hoping that 238
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he would not come at all. But immediately she remembered the love words he had taught her, and smiled her inscrutable little smile that had now a tinge of sadness. Perhaps, she thought wishfully, Ramon had come on the train from Albuquerque. Perhaps he had a horse in the town, and would ride out and meet her here where he had told her to wait.
The train shrieked and painted swiftly hill and embankment and little adobe huts and a corral full of huddled sheep, and went churning away to the northeast. Annie-Many-Ponies followed its course absently with her eyes until the last winking light from its windows and the last wisp of smoke was hidden behind hills and trees. The little black dog finished the rabbit, nosed its tracks back to where it had hopped out of the brush, and came back and curled up at the feet of his mistress, licking his lips and again his travel-sore paws. In a moment, feeling in his dumb way her loneliness, perhaps, he reached up and laid his pink tongue caressingly upon her brown hand.
Dark came softly and with it a noisy wind that whistled and murmured and at last, growing more 239
boisterous as the night deepened, whooped over her head and tossed wildly the branches of a clump of trees that grew near. Annie-Many-Ponies listened to the wind and thought it a brother, perhaps, of the night wind that came to the Dakota prairies and caroused there until dawn bade it be still. Too red the blood of her people ran in her veins for her to be afraid of the night, even though she peopled it with dim shapes of her fancy.
After a long while the wind grew chill. Annie-Many-Ponies shivered, and then rose and went to the horse and, reaching into the bundle which was still bound to the saddle, she worked a plaid shawl loose from the other things and pulled it out and wrapped it close around her and pulled it over her head like a cowl. Then she went back and sat down against the bowlder, waiting, with the sublime patience of her kind, for Ramon.
Until the wind hushed, listening for the dawm,
j she sat there and waited. At her feet the little
black dog slept with his nose folded between his
front paws over which he whimpered sometimes
in his dreams. At every little sound all through
the night Annie-Many-Ponies had listened, think-
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ing that at last here came Eamon to take her to the priest, but for the first time since she had stolen out on the mesa to meet him, Ramon did not keep the tryst — and this was to be their marriage meeting! Annie-Many-Ponies grew very still and voiceless in her heart, as if her very soul waited. She did not even speculate upon what the future would be like if Eamon never came. She was waiting.
Then, just before the sky lightened, someone stepped cautiously along a little path that led through rocks and bushes back into the hills. Annie-Many Ponies turned her face that way and listened. But the steps were not the steps of Eamon; Annie-Many-Ponies had too much of the Indian keenness to be fooled by the hasty footsteps of this man. And since it was not Eamon — her slim fingers closed upon the keen-edged knife she carried always in its sinew-sewed buckskin sheath near her heart.
The little black dog lifted his head suddenly and growled, and the footsteps came to a sudden stop quite near the rock.
" It is you ?" asked a cautious voice with the 241
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unmistakable Mexican tone and soft, slurring accent. " Speak me what yoh name."
" Eamon comes ?" Annie asked him quietly, and the footsteps came swiftly nearer until his form was silhouetted by the rock.
" Sh-sh — yoh not spik dat name," he whispered. " Luis Eojas me. I come for breeng yoh. No can come, yoh man. No spik name — som'-bodys maybe hears."
Annie-Many-Ponies rose and stood peering at him through the dark. " What's wrong ?" she asked abruptly, borrowing the curt phrase from Luck Lindsay. " Why I not speak name ? Why — some body — ?" she laid ironical stress upon the word —" not come ? What business you got, Luis Rojas ?"
" "No — don' spik names, me! " The figure was seen to throw out an imploring hand. "Moch troubles, yoh bet! Yoh come now — somebodys she wait in dam-hurry! "
Annie-Many-Ponies, with her fingers still closed
upon the bone handle of her sharp-edged knife,
thought swiftly. Wariness had been born into
her blood — therefore she could understand and
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meet halfway the wariness of another. Perhaps Wagalexa Conka had suspected that she was going with Ramon; Wagalexa Conka was very keen, and his anger blazed hot as pitch-pine flame. Perhaps Ramon feared Wagalexa Conka — as she, too, feared him. She was not afraid — she would go to Eamon.
She stepped away from the rock and took the black horse by its dropped bridle-reins and followed Luis Eojas up the dim path that wound through trees and rocks until it dropped into a little ravine that was chocked with brush, so that Annie-Many-Ponies had to put the stiff branches aside with her hand lest they scratch her face as she passed.
Luis went swiftly along the path, as though his haste was great; but he went stealthily as well, and she knew that he had some unknown cause for secrecy. She wondered a little at this. Had Wagalexa Conka discovered where she and Eamon were to meet ? But how could he discover that which had been spoken but once, and then in the quiet loneliness of that place far back on the mesa ? Wagalexa Conka had not been within three miles of that place, as Annie-Many-Ponies knew w
ell. 243
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How then did he know? For he must have followed, since Eamon dared not come to the place he had named for their meeting.
Dawn came while they were still following the little, brush-choked ravine with its faint pathway up the middle of it, made by cattle or sheep or goats, perhaps all three. Luis hurried along, stopping now and then and holding up a hand for silence so that he might listen. Fast as he went, Annie-Many-Ponies kept within two long steps of his heels, her plaid shawl drawn smoothly over her black head and folded together under her chin. Her mouth was set in a straight line, and her chin had the square firmness of the Indian. Luis, looking back at her curiously, could not even guess at her thoughts, but he thought her too calm and cold for his effervescent nature — though he would have liked to tell her that she was beautiful. He did not, because he was afraid of Ramon.
" Poco tiempo, come to his camp, Ramon," hel said when the sun was peering over the high shoulder of a ridge; and he spoke in a hushed tone, as if he feared that someone might overhear him.
" You 'iraid Wagalexa Conka, he come ?" 244
ANNIE-MANY-PONIES WAITS
Annie-Many-Ponies asked abruptly, looking at him full.
Luis did not understand her, so he lifted his shoulders in the Mexican gesture which may mean much or nothing. " Quien sabe ? " he muttered vaguely and went on. Annie-Many-Ponies did not know what he meant, but she guessed that he did not want to be questioned upon the subject; so she readjusted the shawl that had slipped from her head and went on silently, two long steps behind him.