The Heritage of the Sioux Part 19

He told Annie-Many-Ponies all that she wished him to tell; and some things that she had never dreamed and that she shrank from hearing.

For he told her of the gold they had stolen, and how they had made it look as though Luck Lindsay had planned the theft. He told her that he loved her--which did not interest her greatly--and he told her that Ramon would never marry her--which was like a knife thrust to her soul.

Ramon had many loves, said Luis, and he was true to none; never would he marry a woman to rule his life and make him trouble--it were easier to make love and then laugh and ride away. Luis was "muy s'prised"

that Annie-Many-Ponies had ever believed that Ramon would marry her, beautiful though she was, charming though she was, altogether irresistible though she was--Luis became slightly incoherent here and lapsed into swift rolling Spanish words which she did not understand.

Luis, before the sun went down and it was time to eat supper and go on, became so thoroughly bewitched that he professed himself eager to let his share of the gold go, and to take Annie-Many-Ponies to a priest and marry her--if she wished very much to be married by a priest. In the middle of his exaltation, Annie-Many-Ponies chilled him with the look she gave him.

"You big fool," she told him bluntly. "I not so fool like that. I go to Ramon--and plenty gold! I think you awful fool. You make me tired!"

Luis was furious enough for a minute to do her violence--but Annie-Many-Ponies killed that impulse also with the cold contempt in her eyes. She was not afraid of him, and like an animal he dared not strike where he could not inspire fear. He muttered a Mexican oath or two and went mortifiedly away to lead the horses down to the little stream where they might drink. The girl was right--he was a fool, he told himself angrily; and sulked for hours.

Fool or not, he had told Annie-Many-Ponies what she wanted to know. He had given food to her brooding thoughts--food that revived swiftly and nourished certain traits lying dormant in her nature, buried alive under the veneer of white man's civilization--as we are proud to call it.

The two ate in silence, and in silence they saddled the horses and fared forth again in their quest of Ramon--who had the gold which Annie-Many-Ponies boldly a.s.serted was an added lure. "The monee--always the man wins that has muchos monee." Luis muttered often to himself as he rode into the dusk. Behind him Annie-Many-Ponies walked and led the black horse that bore all her worldly possessions bound to the saddle.

The little black dog padded patiently along at his heels.

CHAPTER XXI. "WAGALEXA CONKA--COLA!"

"So good little girl yoh are to true' Ramon! Now I knows for sure yoh lov' me moch as I lov' yoh! Now we go little ride more to my house high up in the pinons--then we be so happy like two birds in nes'. Firs' we rest ourselves, querida mia. This good place for res', my sweetheart that comes so far to be with Ramon. To-morrow we go to my house--to nes' of my loved one. Thees cabin, she's very good little nes' ontil tomorrow--yoh theenk so?"

Annie-Many-Ponies, sitting beside the doorway of the primitive little log cabin where the night-journeys with Luis had ended, looked up into Ramon's flushed face with her slow smile. But her eyes were two deep, black wells whose depths he could not fathom.

"Where them priest you promise?" she asked, her voice lowered to its softest Indian tone. "Now I think we make plenty marriage; then we go for live in your house."

Ramon turned and caught her unexpectedly in his arms. "Ah, now you spik foolish talk. Yoh not trus' Ramon! Why yoh talk pries', pries' all time?

Lov', she's plenty pries' for us. Pries' she don' make us more lov'

each other--pries' don' make us happy--we like birds that make nes'

in tree-tops. Yoh think they mus' have pries' for help them be happy?

Lov'--that's plenty for me."

Annie-Many-Ponies drew herself away from his embrace, but she did it gently. Bill Holmes, coming up from the spring, furnished excuse enough, and Ramon let her go.

"You promise me priest for making us marriage," she persisted in her soft voice.

Ramon twisted the points of his black mustache and regarded her askance, smiling crookedly. "Yoh 'fraid for trus' me, that's why I promise,"

he said at last. "Me, I don' need padre to mumble-mumble foolish words before I can be happy. Yoh 'fraid of Luck Leen'sey, that's why I promise. Now yoh come way up here, so luck don' matter no more. Yoh be happy weeth me."

"You promise," Annie-Many-Ponies repeated, a sullen note creeping into her voice.

Bill Holmes, lounging up to the doorway, glanced from one to the other and laughed. "What's the matter, Ramon?" he bantered. "Can't you square it with your squaw? Go after her with a club, why don't you? That's what they're used to."

Ramon did not make any reply whatever, and Bill gave another chuckling laugh and joined Luis, who was going to take the gaunt horses to a tiny meadow beyond the hill. As he went he said something that made Luis look back over his shoulder and laugh.

Annie-Many-Ponies lifted her head and stared straight at Ramon. He did not meet her eyes, nor did he show any resentment of Bill Holmes'

speech; yet he had sworn that he loved her, that he would be proud to have her for his wife. She, the daughter of a chief, had been insulted in his presence, and he had made no protest, shown no indignation.

"You promise priest for making us marriage," she reiterated coldly, as if she meant to force his real self into the open. "You promise you put ring of gold for wedding on my finger, like white woman's got."

Ramon's laugh was not pleasant. "Yoh theenk marry squaw?" he sneered.

"Luck Leen'sey, he don't marry yoh. Why yoh theenk I marry yoh? You be good, Ramon lov' yoh. Buy yoh lots pretty theengs, me treat yoh fine.

Yoh lucky girl, yoh bet. Yoh don't be foolish no more. Yoh run away, be my womans. W'at yoh theenk? Go back, perhaps? Yoh theenk Luck Leen'sey take yoh back? You gone off with Ramon Chavez, he say; yoh stay weeth Ramon then. Yoh Ramon's woman now. Yoh not be foolish like yoh too good for be kees. Luck, be kees yoh many times, I bet! Yoh don' play good girl no more for Ramon--oh-h, no! That joke she's w'at yoh call ches'nut. We don' want no more soch foolish talk, or else maybe I do w'at Bill Holmes says she's good for squaw!"

"You awful big liar," Annie-Many-Ponies stated with a calm, terrific frankness. "You plenty big thief. You fool me plenty--now I don't be fool no more. You so mean yoh think all mens like you. You think all girls bad girls. You awful big fool, you think I stay for you. I go."

Ramon twisted his mustache and laughed at her. "Now yoh so pretty, when yoh mad," he teased. "How yoh go? All yoh theengs in cabin--monee, clothes, grob--how yoh go? Yoh mad now--pretty soon Ramon he makes yoh glad! Shame for soch cross words--soch cross looks! Now I don't talk till yoh be good girl, and says yoh lov' Ramon. I don't let yoh go, neither. Yoh don't get far way--I promise yoh for true. I breeng yoh back, sweetheart, I promise I breeng yoh back I Yoh don't want to go no more w'en I'm through weeth yoh--I promise yoh! Yoh theenk I let yoh go?

O-oh-h, no! Ramon not let yoh get far away!"

In her heart she knew that he spoke at last the truth; that this was the real Ramon whom she had never before seen. To every woman must come sometime the bitter awakening from her dreamworld to the real world in all its sordidness and selfishness. Annie-Many-Ponies, standing there looking at Ramon--Ramon who laughed at her goodness--knew now what the future that had lain behind the mountains held in store for her. Not happiness, surely; not the wide ring of gold that would say she was Ramon's wife. Luis was right. He had spoken the truth, though she had believed that he lied when he said Ramon would never marry a woman. He would love and laugh and ride away, Luis had told her. Well, then--

"Shunka Chistala!" she called softly to the little black dog, that came eagerly, wagging his burr-matted tail. She laid her hand on its head when the dog jumped up to greet her. She smiled faintly while she fondled its silky, flapping ears.

"Why you all time pat that dam-dog?" Ramon flashed out jealously. "You don't pet yoh man what lov' yoh!"

"Dogs don't lie," said Annie-Many-Ponies coldly, and walked away. She did not look back, she did not hurry, though she must have known that Ramon in one bound could have stopped her with his man's strength. Her head was high, her shoulders were straight, her eyes were so black the pupils did not show at all, and a film of inscrutability veiled what bitter thoughts were behind them.

As it had been with Luis so it was now with Ramon. Her utter disregard of him held him back from touching her. He stood with wrath in his eyes and let her go--and to hide his weakness from her strength he sent after her a sneering laugh and words that were like a whip.

"All right--jus' for now I let you ron," he jeered. "Bimeby she's different. Bimeby I show yoh who's boss. I make yoh cry for Ramon be good to yoh!"

Annie-Many-Ponies did not betray by so much as a glance that she beard him. But had he seen her face he would have been startled at the look his words brought there. He would have been startled and perhaps he would have been warned. For never bad she carried so clearly the fighting look of her forefathers who went out to battle. With the little black dog at her heels she climbed a small, round-topped hill that had a single pine like a c.o.c.kade growing from the top.

For ten minutes she stood there on the top and stared away to the southeast, whence she had come to keep her promise to Ramon. Never, it seemed to her, had a girl been so alone. In all the world there could not be a soul so bitter. Liar--thief--betrayer of women--and she had left the clean, steadfast friendship of her brother Wagalexa Conka for such human vermin as Ramon Chavez! She sat down, and with her face hidden in her shawl and her slim body rocking back and forth in weird rhythm to her wailing, she crooned the mourning song of the Omaha.

Death of her past, death of her place among good people, death of her friendship, death of hope--she sat there with her face turned toward the far-away, smiling mesa where she had been happy, and wailed softly to herself as the women of her tribe had wailed when sorrow came to them in the days that were gone.

All through the afternoon she sat there with her back to the lone pine tree and her face turned toward the southeast, while the little black dog lay at her feet and slept. From the cabin Ramon watched her, stubbornly waiting until she would come down to him of her own accord.

She would come--of that he was sure. She would come if he convinced her that he would not go up and coax her to come. Ramon had known many girls who were given to sulking over what he considered their imaginary wrongs, and he was very sure that he knew women better than they knew themselves. She would come, give her time enough, and she could not fling at him then any taunt that he had been over-eager. Certainly she would come--she was a woman!

But the shadow of the pines lengthened until they lay like long fingers across the earth; and still she did not come. Bill Holmes and Luis, secure in the knowledge that Ramon was on guard against any unlooked-for visitors, slept heavily on the crude bunks in the cabin. Birds began twittering animatedly as the beat of the day cooled and they came forth from their shady retreats--and still Annie-Many-Ponies sat on the little hilltop, within easy calling distance of the cabin, and never once looked down that way. Still the little black dog curled at her feet and slept. For all the movement these two made, they might have been of stone; the pine above was more unquiet than they.

Ramon, watching her while he smoked many cigarettes, became filled with a vague uneasiness What was she thinking? What did she mean to do? He began to have faint doubts of her coming down to him. He began to be aware of something in her nature that was unlike those other women; something more inflexible, more silent, something that troubled him even while he told himself that she was like all the rest and he would be her master.

"Bah! She thinks to play with me, Ramon! Then I will go up and I will show her--she will follow weeping at my heels--like that dog of hers that some day I shall kill!"

He got up and threw away his cigarette, glanced within and saw that Bill and Luis still slept, and started up the hill to where that motionless figure sat beneath the pine and kept her face turned from him. It would be better, thought Ramon, to come upon her unawares, and so he went softly and very slowly, placing each foot as carefully as though he were stalking a wild thing of the woods.

Annie-Many-Ponies did not hear him coming. All her heart was yearning toward that far away mesa. "Wagalexa Conka--cola!" she whispered, for "cola" is the Sioux word for friend. Aloud she dared not speak the word, lest some tricksy breeze carry it to him and fill him with; anger because she had betrayed his friendship. "Wagalexa Conka--cola! cola!"

Friendship that was dead--but she yearned for it the more. And it seemed to her as she whispered, that Wagalexa Conka was very, very near. Her heart felt his nearness, and her eyes softened. The Indian look--the look of her fighting forefathers--drifted slowly from her face as fog, drifts away before the sun. He was near--perhaps he was dead and his spirit had come to take her spirit by the hand and call her cola--friend. If that were so, then she wished that her spirit might go with his spirit, up through all that limitless blue, away and away and away, and never stop, and never tire and never feel anything but friendship like warm, bright sunshine!

Down at the cabin a sound--a cry, a shout--startled her. She brushed her hand across her eyes and looked down. There, surrounding the cabin, were the Happy Family, and old Applehead whom she hated because he hated her.

And in their midst stood Bill Holmes and Luis, and the setting sun shone on something bright--like great silver rings--that clasped their wrists.

Coming up the hill toward her was Wagalexa Conka, climbing swiftly, looking up as he came. Annie-Many-Ponies sprang to her feet, startling the little black dog that gave a yelp of astonishment. Came he in peace?

She hesitated, watching him unwinkingly. Something swelled in her chest until she could hardly breathe, and then fluttered there like a prisoned bird. "COLA!" she gasped, just under her breath, and raised her hand in the outward, sweeping gesture that spoke peace.

"You theenk to fix trap, you--!"