Overland Tales Part 22

"Neither," she answered, pa.s.sing her hand over her face; "only tired a little."

"There," put in the doctor, "I _thought_ Mrs. Stanford had baked those tarts and prepared the salad, with her own hands, to-day, and now I am certain of it; and I prescribe that the gentlemen immediately depart from here, and leave Mrs. Stanford to rest, and her own reflections."

Her own reflections! They crowded on her fast and unbidden, when left alone by her husband and the rest of the officers. Marcelita, after having repeatedly a.s.sured her mistress that the house was free from invading vermin, had settled down on the floor, with her back against the wall, when she found that Eva paid no heed to what she said. After awhile she grew bolder, and lighted and smoked _cigarritos_, enjoying them to her heart's content, while Eva was enjoying "her own reflections."

"My dear child, did I stay out late? We all went into the sutler's a little while, after taps. Did you sit up to wait for me?" asked the major, kindly, breaking in on Eva's reflections.

Marcelita had started up out of a sound sleep when the major had first entered the room, and she rolled into her own little tent now, into her bed, and back into the arms of the drowsy G.o.d, without once thinking of scorpion or tarantula.

Weeks pa.s.sed before any more tidings of the Forty-third were heard; then they entered Camp Andrew Jackson one day--not with fife and drum, and colors flying, but silently, quietly; with shoulders stooping under the load of knapsack and musket--packed all day long through scorching sun and ankle-deep sand. It was not till Eva saw the line of tents newly pitched, on the following day, that she knew of the arrival.

"Yes," said the major, "they have come; but both Captain Howland and Lieutenant Addison appear very reserved. I don't think either of them will call till a formal invitation has been extended them. Perhaps we had better invite them all to dinner some day--that will place them at their ease to visit here, later."

Invitations, accordingly, were issued for a certain day; but the Fates so willed it that the horses of Company "F" were stampeded from the picket-line by a band of Apaches, during the night preceding; and Arroyos, the guide, expressed his conviction that he could lead the troops to the _rancheria_ of these Indians, and recover the horses taken. Although Major Stanford's position as post-commander would have justified him in sending some subaltern officer, he preferred to take charge of the expedition in person, leaving the post in Captain Manson's hands.

"You look pale, child," said Major Stanford, bidding Eva farewell, while the orderly was holding his horse outside. "I am almost glad, on your account, that the dinner-party could be put off. Your color has been fading for weeks, and if you do not brighten up soon, I shall have to send you back home, to your aunt." And tenderly smoothing the glossy hair back from her face, he kissed it again and again, before vaulting into the saddle.

Accompanied by Marcelita alone, Eva, toward evening, set out on her usual ramble, following the road from which the path branched off, leading into the valley. At the point where the road falls off toward Tucson, she stopped before taking the path that led to the spring, and cast a long, shivering look around her. Wearily her eyes roamed over the desolate land; wearily they followed the road, with its countless windings, far into the level country; wearily they watched the flight of a solitary crow, flapping its wings as it hovered, with a doleful cry, over the one, single tree on the plain, that held its ragged branches up to the sky, as though pleading for the dews of heaven to nurture and expand its stunted growth. An endless, dreary waste--an infinitude of hopeless, changeless desert--a hard, yellow crust, where the wind had left it bare from sand, above which the air was still vibrating from the heat of the day, though the breeze that came with the sunset had already sprung up; the only verdure an occasional bush of grease-wood, or mesquite, with never a blade of gra.s.s, nor a bunch of weeds, in the wide s.p.a.ces between.

Farther on to her right, she could see the rough, frowning rocks in the mountain yonder, looking as though evil spirits had piled them there, in well-arranged confusion, to prevent the children of earth from taking possession of its steep heights, and its jealously-hidden treasures.

Grand, and lonely, and desolate looked the mountain, and lonely and desolate looked the plain, as Eva stood there, her hands folded and drooping, the light wind tossing her hair, and fluttering and playing in the folds of her dress. It was the picture of her own life unfolding before her: lone, and drear, and barren; without change or relief, without verdure, or blossom, or goodly springs of crystal water; the arid desert--her life, dragging its slow length along; the frowning mountain--her duties, and the unavoidable tasks that life imposed on her.

With a sigh she turned from both. Before her lay the cool valley, sheltered from careless eyes, and from the sand and dust of the road and the country beyond. Very small was the valley of the spring, with its laughing flowers and shady trees--like the one leaf from the volume of her memory that was tinted with the color of the rose and the sunbeam.

"And up the valley came the swell of music on the wind"--bringing back scenes on which the sun had thrown its glorious parting rays in times past, when life had seemed bright, and full of promise and inexhaustible joy. But she brought her face resolutely back to the desert and the mountain.

She walked on rapidly toward the spring where Marcelita had spread her _rebozo_ on the trunk of a fallen tree, before starting out to gather the flowers that grew in the valley.

Almost exhausted, Eva had seated herself on the improvised couch, but was startled by a step beside her. Was it a spirit conjured up by the flood of memories surging through her breast that stood before her?

"Eva!"

"Charlie, oh, Charlie! have you come at last?" But already the spell was broken.

"I cannot think why Lieutenant Addison should wish to surprise me here.

Would it not be more fitting to visit our quarters, if he felt constrained to comply with the etiquette of the garrison?"

"For G.o.d's sake, Eva," he cried, pa.s.sionately, "listen to me one moment; grant that I may speak to you once more as Eva--not as the wife of Major Stanford. Let me hear the truth from your own lips. Eva, I have come here, to this horrible, horrible country, because I knew you were here.

I came here to see you--to learn from you why you were false to me; why you spurned my love--the deepest and truest man ever felt for woman--and then to die."

He had thrown his cap, marked with the insignia of his rank and calling, into the gra.s.s at his feet; and the last rays of the sun, falling aslant on his rich, brown hair, made it bright and golden again, as Eva so well remembered it.

"False!" she repeated, slowly, as though her tongue refused to frame the accusation against him; "_you_ were false--not I. Or was it not deceiving me--to tell me of your love; to promise faith and constancy to me while carrying on a flirtation--a correspondence with another woman?"

"You cannot believe that, Eva, any more than I could believe what Abby Hamilton told me--that you had left your aunt's house without telling me of it, purposely to avoid me and break every tie between us--till a package, containing all my letters to you, was handed me the day we marched from Fort Leavenworth."

"Those letters had been taken from my desk in my absence. But I had intrusted Abby with a note for you, when I was called to my sister's bedside. And, was it not Abby with whom you were seen riding?"

"Yes--to meet you at Mr. Redpath's farm; and I afterward sent you a note, through her, to which there came no answer save that package of my own letters."

"Why, then, did you go from me? Had you so little faith in me, so little love for me, that you could make no effort to see me? Was it so great a task to write me a few, short lines!"

"Then none of my letters have ever reached you? Oh, Eva, my darling--my lost one--can you not feel how my heart was wrung, how every drop of blood was turned into a scorching tear, searing my brain and eating my life away, when day after day pa.s.sed, and no tidings came from you? I was on the point of deserting the command, of bringing ruin and disgrace on myself, when a brain fever put an end to my misery for the time, and I was carried to Fort Lyons, as they thought, only to be buried there.

When I returned to Leavenworth on sick-leave, I was told you were gone, and your aunt took good care not to let me know where to find you. She had never liked me; but I could forgive her cruelty to me, did not your wan face and weary eyes tell me that my darling girl has not found the happiness I should have sacrificed my own to have purchased for her."

Eva bowed her face in her hands, and deep sobs seemed to rend her very soul, but no word pa.s.sed her lips.

"Then your life has been made a wreck, as well as my own, Eva?" he continued, wildly, almost fiercely. "Is it right that it should be so: that we should be robbed of all that makes life sweet and desirable, by the wicked acts of others? Must we submit? Is it too late--"

"Too late," echoed Eva; "you forget that I am the wife of another. We must submit. Do not make the task harder for me than it is, Charlie; promise never, never to come to me again."

"I promise," he said, kneeling beside her, and bending over her hand.

"Here at your feet ends my wasted life; for I swear to you that I will never go back into the world that lies beyond this camp. But if you believe now that I have been true to you and to my faith, then lay your hand on my head once again, as you did years ago, before we part forever."

"Forever." For an instant the hand he had reverently kissed was laid lovingly on his soft, wavy hair; then Eva arose, leaving him with his face buried in the damp gra.s.s, and the shades of night fast gathering around him.

An orderly with a letter for Mrs. Stanford had been waiting for some time at the quarters. It was from Major Stanford.

"You went out with the major this morning, did you not, Tarleton?" she asked of the man.

"Yes, madame; and the major sent me back with dispatches for Captain Manson, and this letter for you."

The major wrote: "Arroyos' opinion, after closely examining the tracks of the absconding Indians, is, that we had better wait for reinforcements before attacking their _rancheria_. Keep Marcelita in your room. I know how timid you are. If you prefer to have a guard nearer to your quarters, send your compliments to Captain Manson--he has my instructions. We shall probably return to-morrow, by sundown. Till then, 'be of good cheer.'"

"There are more men to be sent out to-night?" asked Eva of the gray-headed soldier. She had always shown particular regard for this man; so he answered more at length than he would have ventured to do under other circ.u.mstances.

"Yes, madame; and I heard the men say down at the quarters, that the new lieutenant who came with the infantry was to take charge of the scout."

"Very well; tell Holly to give you a cup of tea and something to eat.

Say to the major that I shall not be afraid to-night."

"Thank you, madame." And with a military salute, he retired.

Her husband's letter lay unheeded on the table, and Eva was still in the dark when Captain Manson entered the room, some time later. Marcelita brought candles; and the captain, pointing to the letter, said:

"The major is very anxious that you should not feel the slightest fear to-night. I hope you have worded your answer so that he will not have any uneasiness on your account."

"I sent word that I should not be afraid."

"Nevertheless, I shall place a sentinel near your quarters, if I possibly can. To tell the truth, Major Stanford has ordered out more men than _I_ should ever have sent away from the post. If Arroyos was not so confident that _all_ the red devils are engaged in that one direction, I should have advised the major to leave more men here. But you need have no fears."

The sound of the bugle and the tramp of horses interrupted him.

"The command is going out; they will reach the major some time during the night. Can't think what on earth brought that youngster--Addison--out here. Been anxious to go on an Indian scout, too, ever since he came: he'll cry 'enough' before he gets back, this time, I'll warrant you. The clang of those cavalry trumpets is horrible, isn't it; cuts right through your head, don't it?"

Eva had dropped her hands almost as quickly as she had raised them to her temples; and with her face shaded from the light, she silently looked on the cavalcade that pa.s.sed along under the mellow light of the new moon.

She sat there long after the captain had left her; she sat there still when the early moon had gone down, and Marcelita had closed the door before resorting to her favorite seat on the floor, with her back against the wall, from where she watched her mistress with eyes growing smaller and smaller, till they closed at last. The wind had risen again, and was blowing fitfully around the corners of the _adobe_ buildings, causing the sentinel on his lonely beat to draw his cap firmer down on his head. It was just such a gusty, bl.u.s.tering wind as would make the cry of the watchful guard appear to come from all sorts of impossible directions, when "ten o'clock and all is well" was sung out. A dismal howl, as though hundreds of _coyotes_ were taking up the refrain, answered the cry; and then the clamoring and yelping always following the first howl was carried farther and farther away till it died in the distance.