B. M. BOWER: Historical Novels, Westerns & Old West Sagas (Illustrated Edition). B. M. Bower
me, Ramon what loves yoh?”
“No hurt for swears what I tells,” Annie-Many-Ponies stepped back from him a pace, distrust creeping into her voice.
“All right.” Ramon moved nearer. “So I make oath, perhaps you make oath also! Me, I theenk yoh perhaps not like for leave Luck Leensay—I theenk perhaps yoh loves heem, yoh so all time watch for ways to please! So I swear, then yoh mus’ swear also that yoh come for-sure. That square deal for both—si?”
Annie-Many-Ponies hesitated, a dull ache in her breast when Ramon spoke of Luck. But if her heart was sore at thought of him, it was because he no longer looked upon her with the smile in his eyes. It was because he was not so kind; because he believed that she had secret meetings with Bill Holmes whom she hated. And in spite of the fact that Bill Holmes had left the company the other day and was going away, Wagalexa Conka still looked upon her with cold eyes and listened to the things that Applehead said against her. The heart of Wagalexa Conka, she told herself miserably, was like a stone for her. And so her own heart must be hard. She would swear to Ramon, and she would keep the oath—and Wagalexa 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 make swears.”
“Muy bueno!” smiled Ramon then. “So I make oath I take you queek to one good friend me, the Padre Dominguez. Then yoh be my wife for sure. That good enough for yoh, perhaps? Queeck yoh make oath yoh leave these place Manana—tomorra. Yoh go by ol’ rancho where we talk so many time. I leave horse for yoh. Yoh ride pas’ that mountain, yoh come for Bernalillo. 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 her proud place beside Ramon who had much land and many cattle and who loved her 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 cluster beside the house—for the company ‘had forsaken Applehead’s adobe and slept under canvas as a matter of choice. With Indian cunning she bided her time and gave no sign of what was hidden in her heart. She rose with the others and brushed her glossy hair until it shone in the sunlight like the hair of a high-caste Chinese woman. She tied upon it the new bows of red ribbon which she had bought in the secret hope that they would be a part of her wedding finery. She put on her Indian gala dress of beaded buckskin with the colored porcupine quills—and then she smiled cunningly and drew a dress of red-and-blue striped calico over her head and settled the folds of it about her with little, smoothing pats, so that the two white women, Rosemary and Jean, should not notice any unusual bulkiness of her figure.
She did not know how she would manage to escape the keen eyes of Wagalexa Conka and to steal away from the ranch, especially if she had to work in the picture that day. But Luck unconsciously opened wide the trail for her. He announced at breakfast that they would work up in Bear Canon that day, and that he would not need Jean or Annie either; and that, 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 lashes that 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 which she wrapped in her plaid shawl, and was proud because the bundle was so big, and because she had much fine beadwork and so many red ribbons, and a waist of bright blue silk which she would wear when she stood before the 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, she slipped upon her finger with her little, inscrutable smile. She was engaged to be married, now, just like white girls; and tomorrow she would have a wide ring of shiny gold for that finger, and should be the wife of Ramon.
Just then Shunka Chistala, lying outside her tent, flapped his tail on the ground and gave a little, eager whine. Annie-Many-Ponies thrust her head through the opening and looked out, and then stepped over the little black dog and stood before her tent to watch the Happy Family mount and ride away with Wagalexa Conka in their midst and with the mountain wagon rattling after them loaded with “props” and the camera and the noonday lunch and Pete Lowry and Tommy Johnson, the scenic artist. Applehead was going to drive the wagon, and she scowled when he yanked off the brake and cracked the whip over the team.
Luck, feeling perchance the intensity of her gaze, turned in the saddle and looked back. The eyes of Annie-Many-Ponies softened and saddened, because this was the last time she would see Wagalexa Conka riding away to 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 is used for solemn occasions of parting.
Luck pulled up short and stared. What did she mean by that? He reined his horse around, half minded to ride back and ask her why she gave him that peace-sign. She had never done it before, except once or twice in scenes that he directed. But after all he did not go. They were late in getting started that morning, which irked his energetic soul; and women’s whims never did impress Luck Lindsay very deeply. Besides, just as he was turning to ride back, Annie stooped and went into her tent as though her gesture had carried no especial meaning.
Then in her tent he heard her singing the high, weird chant of the Omaha mourning song and again he was half-minded to go back, though the wailing minor notes, long drawn and mournful, might mean much or they might mean merely a fit of the blues. The others rode on talking and laughing together, and Luck rode with them; but the chant of the Omaha was in his ears and tingling his nerves. And the vision of Annie-Many-Ponies standing straight before her tent and making the sign of peace and farewell haunted him that day.
Rosemary and Jean, standing in the porch, waved good-bye to their men folk until the last bobbing hatcrown had gone down out of sight in the long, low swale that creased the mesa in that direction. Whereupon they went into the house.
“What in the world is the matter with Annie?” Jean exploded, with a little shiver. “I’d rather hear a band of gray wolves tune up when you’re caught out in the breaks and have to ride in the dark. What is that caterwaul? Do you suppose she’s on the warpath or anything?”
“Oh, that’s just the squaw coming out in her!” Rosemary slammed the door shut so they could not hear so plainly. “She’s getting more Injuny every day of her life. I used to try and treat her like a white girl—but you just 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!” she shivered—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 if somebody was dead, or going to die or something. Like Lite says your dog will howl if anything—”
“Oh, for pity sake!” Rosemary pushed her into the living room with make-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 supposed to be a mourning song, as Luck explains it. But don’t pay any attention to her at all. She just does it to get on our nerves. It’d tickle her to death if she thought it made us nervous.”
“And now the dog is joining in on the chorus! I must say they’re a cheerful pair to have around the house. And I know one thing—if they keep that up much longer, I’ll either get out there with a gun, or saddle 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 write poetry today—I thought of an awfully striking sentence about the—for heaven’s sake, where’s a shotgun?”
“Jean, you wouldn’t!” Rosemary, I may here explain, was very femininely afraid of guns. “She’d—why, there’s no telling WHAT she might do! Luck says she carries a knife.”
“What if she does? She ought to carry a few bird-shot, too. She’s got nothing to mourn about—nobody’s died, has there?
“Hiu-hiu-hia-a-a,ah!