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Matthew Lewis - "The Monk"

a Platonic Imitator (see Appendix II) - "Eryxias"

Guy De Maupassant - "Selected Writings "

M. Y. Lermontov - "A Hero of Our Time"

The Heritage of the Sioux

B >> B.M. Bower >> The Heritage of the Sioux




"We-ell, now, you're dang right I have! 'N' if some them bucks don't go off
'n' mind their own business, I'll likely fight a few morel You shoo 'em outa
camp, Luck, 'n' start 'em about their own dang business. 'N' we'll eat a bite
'n' git on about our own. If we show up any grub whilst this bunch is hangin'
around we'll have t' feed 'em--'n' you know dang well we ain't got enough
skurcely fer the Jemes trip as it is."

"I've been handing out money as it is till I'm about broke," Luck confessed,
"making presents to those fellows that came in with bullets in their legs and
arms. Funny nobody got hit in the body--except one poor devil that got shot in
the shoulder."

"We-ell, now, you kin blame Lite's dang tender heart fer that there,"
Applehead accused, pulling at his sunbrowned mustache. "We was all comin' on
the jump, 'n' so was the Injuns; 'n' it was purty long range 'n' nobody but
lite could hit 'n Injun t' save his soul. 'N' Lite, he wouldn't shoot t'
kill--he jes' kep' on nippin' an' nickin', 'n' shootin' a boss now an' then. I
wisht I was the expert shot Lite is--I'd shore a got me a few Navvies back
there, now I'm tellin' yuh!"

"Bud's got a bullet in his arm," Luck said, "but the bone wasn't hit, so he'll
make out, and one of the pack-horses was shot in the ear. We got off mighty
lucky, and I'm certainly glad Lite didn't get careless. Cost me about fifty
dollars to square us as it is. You stay where you are, Applehead, till I get
rid of the Indians. The old fellow acts like he feels he ought to stick along
till we're outa here. He's kind of taken a notion to me because I can talk
sign, and he seems to want to make sure we don't mix it again with the tribe.
Some of them are kinda peeved, all right. You've got no quarrel with this old
fellow, have you? He's a big-league medicine man in the tribe, and his Spanish
name is Mariano Pablo Montoya. Know him?"

"No I don't, 'n' I don't keer to neither," Applehead retorted crossly. "Shoo
'em off, Luck, so's we kin eat. My belly's shore a floppin' agin m' backbone,
'n' I'm tellin' yuh right!"



CHAPTER XX. LUIS ROJAS TALKS

Three days of hiding by day in sequestered little groves or deep, hidden
canons, with only Luis Rojas to bear her company--Luis Rojas whom she did not
trust and therefore watched always from under her long straight lashes, with
oblique glances when she seemed to be gazing straight before her; three nights
of tramping through rough places where often the horses must pause and feel
carefully for space to set their feet. Roads there were, but Luis avoided
roads as though they carried the plague. When he must cross one he invariably
turned back and brushed out their footprints--until he discovered that
Annie-Many-Ponies was much cleverer at this than he was; often he smoked a
cigarette while Annie covered their trail. Three days and three nights, and
Ramon was not there where they stopped for the third day.

"We go slow," Luis explained nervously because of the look in the black,
unreadable eyes of this straight, slim Indian girl who was so beautiful--and
so silent. "They go muy fas', Ramon an' Beel. Poco tiempo--sure, we fin' dem
little soon."

Annie-Many-Ponies did not betray by so much as a quiver of an eyelash that
Luis had mentioned Bill unwittingly. But she hid the name away in her memory,
and all that day she sat and pondered over the meager facts that had come her
way, and with the needle of her suspicion she wove them together patiently
until the pattern was almost complete.

Ramon and Bill--what Bill, save Bill Holmes, would be with Ramon? Ramon and
Bill Holmes--memory pictured them again by the rock in the moonlight,
muttering in Spanish mostly, muttering mystery always. Ramon and Bill Holmes
she remembered the sly, knowing glances between these two at "location" though
they scarcely seemed on speaking terms. Ramon and Bill and this mysterious
night-travelling, when there should be no trouble and no mystery at all beyond
the house of the priest! So much trouble over the marriage of an Indian girl
and a young Mexican cattle king? Annie-Many-Ponies was not so stupid as to
believe that; she had seen too much of civilization in her wanderings with the
show, and her work in pictures. She had seen man and maid "make marriage," in
pictures and in reality. There should be no trouble, no mysterious following
of Ramon by night.

Something evil there was, since Bill Holmes was with Ramon. Annie-Many-Ponies
knew that it was so. Perhaps--perhaps the evil was against Wagalexa Conka!
Perhaps--her heart forgot to beat when the thought stabbed her brain--perhaps
they had killed Wagalexa Conka! It might be so, if he had suspected her flight
and had followed Ramon, and they had fought.

In the thick shade of a pinon Luis slept with his face to the ground, his
forehead pressed upon his folded arms. Annie-Many-Ponies got up silently and
went and stood beside him, looking down at him as though she meant to wrest
the truth from his brain. And Luis, feeling in his sleep the intensity of her
gaze, stirred uneasily, yawned and sat up, looking about him bewilderedly. His
glance rested on the girl, and he sprang to his feet and faced her.

Annie-Many-Ponies smiled her little, tantalizing, wistfully inviting
smile--the smile which luck bad whimsically called heart-twisting. "I awful
lonesome," she murmured, and sat down with her back nestling comfortably
against a grassy bank. "You talk. I not lets you sleep all time. You think I
not good for talk to?"

"Me, I not tell w'at I'm theenk," Luis retorted with a crooning note, and sat
down facing her. "Ramon be mad me."

Annie-Many-Ponies looked at him, her eyes soft and heavy with that languorous
look which will quickest befuddle the sense of a man. "You tell; Ramon not
hear," she hinted. "Ramon, he got plenty trobles for thinking about." She
smiled again. "Ramon plenty long ways off. He got Bill Holmes for talking to.
You talk to me."

How he did it, why he did it, Luis Rojas could never explain afterwards.
Something there was in her smile, in her voice, that bewitched him. Something
there was that made him think she knew and approved of the thing Ramon had
planned. He made swift, Spanish love to Annie-Many-Ponies, who smiled upon him
but would not let him touch her hand--and so bewitched him the more. He made
love--but also he talked. 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 lasped 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
asserted 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 bill. As be 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 be 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 cockade
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 billtop, 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--!"

She whirled and faced Ramon, whose eyes blazed bate and murder and whose
tongue spoke the foulness of his soul. He flung out his arm fiercely and
thrust her aside. "Me, I kill that dam--"

He did not say any more, and the six-shooter he had levelled at Luck dropped
from his nerveless hand like a coiled adder, Annie-Many-Ponies had struck.
Like an avenging spirit she pulled the knife free and held it high over her
head, facing Luck who stared up at her from below. He thought the look in her
eyes was fear of him and of the law, and he lifted his hand and gave back the
peace-sign. It was for him she had killed and she should not be punished if he
could save her. But Luck failed to read her look aright; it was not fear he
saw, but farewell.

For with her free hand she made the sign of peace and farewell--and then the
knife descended straight as a plummet to her heart. But even as she fell she
spurned the dead Ramon with her feet, so that he rolled a little way while the
black dog growled at him with bared teeth; even in death she would not touch
him who had been so foul.

Luck ran the last few, steep steps, and took her in his arms. His eyes were
blurred so that he could not see her face, and his voice shook so that he
could scarcely form the words that brushed back death from her soul and
brought a smile to her eyes.

"Annie--little sister!"

Annie-Many-Ponies raised one creeping hand, groping until her fingers touched
his face.

"Wagalexa Conka--cola!"

He took her fingers and for an instant, while she yet could feel, he laid them
against his lips.

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