The Greatest Works of B. M. Bower - 51 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). B. M. Bower
waiting for her, unconscious of her near presence.
Annie-Many-Ponies stood almost within reach of him, but she did not make her presence known. With the infinite wariness of her race she waited to see what he would do; to read, if she might, what were his thoughts—his attitude toward her in his unguarded moments. That little, inscrutable smile which so exasperated Applehead was on her lips while she watched him.
Ramon finished that cigarette, threw away the stab and rolled and lighted another. Still Annie-Many-Ponies gave no little sign of her presence. He watched the arroyo, and once he leaned to one side and stared back at his own quiet camp on the slope that had the biggest and the wildest mountain of that locality for its background. He settled himself anew with his other shoulder against the rock, and muttered something in Spanish—that strange, musical talk which Annie-Many-Ponies could not understand. And still she watched him, and exulted in his impatience for her coming, and wondered if it would always be lovelight which she would see in his eyes.
He was not of her race, though in her pride she thought him favored when she named him akin to the Sioux. He was not of her race, but he was tall and he was straight, he was dark as she, he was strong and brave and he bad many cattle and much broad acreage. Annie-Many-Ponies smiled upon him in the dark and was glad that she, the daughter of a chief of the Sioux, had been found good in his sight.
Five minutes, ten minutes. The coyote, yap-yap-yapping in the broken land beyond them, found his mate and was silent. Ramon Chavez, waiting in the shadow of the ledge, muttered a Mexican oath and stepped out into the moonlight and stood there, tempted to return to his camp—for he, also, had pride that would not bear much bruising.
Annie-Many-Ponies waited. When he muttered again and threw his cigarette from him as though it had been something venomous; when he turned his face toward his own tents and took a step forward, she laughed softly, a mere whisper of amusement that might have been a sleepy breeze stirring the bushes somewhere near. Ramon started and turned his face her way; in the moonlight his eyes shone with a certain love-hunger which Annie-Many-Ponies exulted to see—because she did not understand.
“You not let moon look on you,” she chided in an undertone, her sentences clipped of superfluous words as is the Indian way, her voice that pure, throaty melody that is a gift which nature gives lavishly to the women of savage people. “Moon see, men see.”
Ramon swung back into the shadow, reached out his two arms to fold her close and got nothing more substantial than another whispery laugh.
“Where are yoh,sweetheart?” He peered into the shadow where she had been, and saw the place empty. He laughed, chagrined by her elusiveness, yet hungering for her the more.
“You not touch,” she warned. “Till priest say marriage prayers, no man touch.”
He called her a devil in Spanish, and she thought it a love-word and laughed and came nearer. He did not attempt to touch her, and so, reassured, she stood close so that he could see the pure, Indian profile of her face when she raised it to the sky in a mute invocation, it might be, of her gods.
“When yoh come?” he asked swiftly, his race betrayed in tone and accent. “I look and look—I no see yoh.”
“I come,” she stated with a quiet meaning. “I not like cow, for make plenty noise. I stand here, you smoke two times, I look.”
“You mus’ be moonbeam,” he told her, reaching out again, only to lay hold upon nothing. “Come back, sweetheart. I be good.”
“I not like you touch,” she repeated. “I good girl. I mind priest, I read prayers, I mind Wagalexa Conka—” There she faltered, for the last boast was no longer the truth.
Ramon was quick to seize upon the one weak point of her armor. “So? He send yoh then to talk with Ramon at midnight? Yoh come to please yoh boss?”
Annie-Many-Ponies turned her troubled face his way. “Wagalexa Conka sleep plenty. I not ask,” she confessed. “You tell me come here you tell me must talk when no one hear. I come. I no ask Wagalexa Conka—him say good girl stay by camp. Him say not walk in night-time, say me not talk you. I no ask; I just come.”
“Yoh lov’ him, perhaps? More as yoh lov’ me? Always I see yoh look at him—always watch, watch. Always I see yoh jomp when he snap the finger; always yoh run like train dog. Yoh lov’ him, perhaps? Bah! Yoh dirt onder his feet.” Ramon did not seriously consider that any woman whom he favored could sanely love another man more than himself, but to his nature jealousy was a necessary adjunct of lovemaking; not to have displayed jealousy would have been to betray indifference, as he interpreted the tender passion.
Annie-Many-Ponies, woman-wily though she was by nature, had little learning in the devious ways of lovemaking. Eyes might speak, smiles might half reveal, half hide her thoughts; but the tongue, as her tribe had taught her sternly, must speak the truth or keep silent. Now she bent her head, puzzling how best to put her feelings toward Luck Lindsay into honest words which Ramon would understand.
“Yoh lov’ him, perhaps—since yoh all time afraid he be mad.” Ramon persisted, beating against the wall of her Indian taciturnity which always acted as a spur upon his impetuosity. Besides, it was important to him that he should know just what was the tie between these two. He had heard Luck Lindsay speak to the girl in the Sioux tongue. He had seen her eyes lighten as she made swift answer. He had seen her always eager to do Luck’s bidding—had seen her anticipate his wants and minister to them as though it was her duty and her pleasure to do so. It was vital that he should know, and it was certain that he could not question Luck upon the subject—for Ramon Chavez was no fool.
“Long time ago—when I was papoose with no shoes,” she began with seeming irrelevance, her eyes turning instinctively toward the white tents of the Flying U camp gleaming in the distance, “my people go for work in Buffalo Bill show. My father go, my mother go, I go. All time we dance for show, make Indian fight with cowboys—all them act for Buffalo Bill-Pawnee Bill show. That time Wagalexa Conka boss of Indians. He Indian Agent. He take care whole bunch. He make peace when fights, he give med’cine when somebody sick. He awful good to them Indians. He give me candy, always stop to talk me. I like him. My father like him. All them Indians like him plenty much. My father awful sick one time, he no let doctor come. Leg broke all in pieces. He say die plenty if Wagalexa Conka no make well. I go ticket wagon, tell Wagalexa Conka, he come quick, fix up leg all right.
“All them Indians like to make him—” She stopped, searching her mind for the elusive, little-used word which she had learned in the mission school. “Make him sdop’,” she finished triumphantly. “Indians make much dance, plenty music, lots speeches make him Indian man. My father big chief, he make Wagalexa Conka him son. Make him my brother. Give him Indian name Wagalexa Conka. All Indians call that name for him.
“Pretty soon show stop, all them Indians go home by reservation. long time we don’t see Wagalexa Conka no more. I get big girl, go school little bit. Pretty soon Wagalexa Conka come back, for wants them Indians for work in pictures. My father go, my mother go, all us go. We work long time. I,” she added with naive pride in her comeliness, “awful good looking. I do lots of foreground stuff. Pretty soon hard times come. Indians go home by reservation. I go—I don’t like them reservations no more. Too lonesome. I like for work all time in pictures. I come, tell Wagalexa Conka I be Indian girl for pictures. He write letter for agent, write letter for my father. They writes letter for say yes, I stay. I stay and do plenty more foreground stuff.”
“I don’t see you do moch foreground work since that white girl come,” Ramon observed, hitting what he instinctively knew was a tender point.
Had he seen her face, he must have been satisfied that the chance shot struck home. But in the shadow hate blazed unseen from her eyes. She did not speak, and so he went back to his first charge.
“All this don’t tell me moch,” he complained. “Yoh lov’ him, maybe? That’s what I ask.”
“Wagalexa Conka my brother, my father, my friend,” she replied calmly, and let him interpret it as he would.
“He