Bower, 1874-1940 - The heritage of the Sioux

ANNIE-MANY-PONIES WAI1S

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-

ANNIE-MANY-PONIES WAITS

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 well. 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

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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.

In a little he turned from the ravine, which was becoming more open and not quite so deep. They scrambled over boulders which the horse must negotiate carefully to avoid a broken leg, and then they were in another little ravine, walled round with rocks and high, brushy slopes. Luis went a little way, stopped beside a huge, jutting boulder and gave a little exclamation of dismay.

" No more here, Eamon," he said, staring down at the faintly smoking embers of a little fire. " She's go som' place, I don't know, me."

The slim right hand of Annie-Many-Ponies went instinctively to her bosom and to what lay hidden 245