And you all know security
Is mortal's chiefest enemy.
SHAKESPEARE.
In St. Louis and Kansas City men of Esmond Clarenden's type were sending out great caravans of goods and receiving return cargoes across the plains--pioneer trade-builders, uncrowned sovereigns of national expansion--against whose enduring power wars for conquest are as flashlight to daylight. And Beverly Clarenden and I, with the whole battalion of plainsmen--"bull-whackers," in the common parlance of the Santa Fé Trail--who drove those caravans to and fro, may also have been State-builders, as Uncle Esmond had declared we would be. Yet we hardly looked like makers of empire in those summer days when we followed the great wagon-trains along the prairies and over the mountain passes.
Two of us had come home from school hilariously eager for the trail service. But the silent plains made men thoughtful and introspective. Days of endless level landscapes under wide-arching skies, and nights in the open beneath the everlasting silent stars, give a man time to get close to himself, to relive his childhood, to measure human values, to hear the voice in the storm-cloud and the song of low-purring winds, to harden against the monotonous glare of sunlight, to defy the burning heat, and to feel--aye, to feel the spell of crystal day-dawns and the sweetness of velvet-shadowed twilights. Beverly and I were typical plainsmen in that we never spoke of these things to each other--that is not the way of the plainsman.
Our company had been organized at Council Grove--three trains of twenty-six wagons each, drawn by three or four spans of mules or yoke of oxen, guarded by eightscore of "bull-whackers." And there were a dozen or more ponies trained for swift riding in cases of emergency. There were also half a dozen private outfits under protection of the large body.
The usual election before starting had made Jondo captain of the whole company. His was the controlling type of spirit that could have bent a battalion or swayed a Congress. For all the commanders and lawmakers of that day were not confined to the army and to Congress. Some of them escaped to the West and became sovereigns of service there. And Jondo had need for an intrepid spirit to rule that group of men, as that journey across the plains proved.
On the day before we left Council Grove he was sitting with the heads of the other wagon-trains under a big oak-tree, perfecting final plans for the journey.
"Gail, I want you to sign some papers here," he said. "It is the agreement for the trip among the three companies owning the trains."
I read aloud the contract setting forth how one Jean Deau, representing Esmond Clarenden, of Kansas City, with Smith and Davis, representing two other companies from St. Louis, together agreed to certain conditions regarding the journey.
Smith and Davis had already signed, and as I took the pen, a white-haired old trapper who was sitting near by burst out:
"Jean Deau! Jean Deau! Who the devil is Jean Deau?"
Jondo did not look up, but the lines hardened about his mouth.
"It's a sound. Don't get in the way, old man. Go ahead, Clarenden," Smith commanded.
Few questions were asked in those days, for most men on the plains had a history, and it was what a man could do here, not what he had done somewhere else, that counted.
So I, representing Esmond Clarenden, signed the paper and the two managers hurried away. But the old trapper sat staring at Jondo.
"Say, I'm gittin' close to the end of the trail, and the divide ain't fur off for me. D'ye mind if I say somethin'?" he asked at last.
Jondo looked up with that smile that could warm any man's heart.
"Say on," he commanded, kindly.
"You aint never signin' your own name nowhere, it sorter seems."
Jondo shook his head.
"Didn't you and this Clarenden outfit go through here 'bout ten years ago one night? Some Mexican greasers was raisin' hell and proppin' it up with a whisky-bottle that night, layin' fur you vicious."
Jondo smiled and nodded assent.
"Well, them fellers comin' in had a bargain with a passel of Kioways to git you plenty if they missed you themselves; to clinch their bargain they give 'em a pore little Hopi Injun girl they'd brung along with a lot of other Mexicans and squaws."
"I had that figured out pretty well at the time," Jondo said, with a smile.
"But, Jean Deau--" the old man began.
"No, Jondo. Go on. I'm busy," Jondo interrupted.
The old man's watery eyes gleamed.
"I just want to say friendly-like, that them Kioways never forgot the trick you worked on 'em, an' the tornydo that busted 'em at Pawnee Rock they laid to your bad medicine. They went clare back to Bent's Fort to fix you. Them and that rovin' bunch of Mexicans that scattered along the trail with 'em in time of the Mexican War. They'd 'a' lost you but fur a little Apache cuss they struck out there who showed 'em to you."
Jondo looked up quickly now. Santan, Beverly's "Satan," whom our captain had defended, flashed to my mind, but I knew by Jondo's face that he did not believe the old trapper's story.
"Them Kioways is still layin' fur you ever' year, I tell you, an' they're bound to git you sooner or later. I'm tellin' ye in kindness."
The old man's voice weakened a little.
"And I'm taking you in kindness," Jondo said. "You may be doing me a great service."
"I shore am. Take my word an' keep awake. Keep awake!"
In spite of his drink-bleared eyes and weakened frame, there was a hint of the commander in him, a mere shadow of the energy that had gone years ago into the wild, solitary life of the trapper who foreran the trail days here.
"One more trip to the ha'nts of the fur-bearin' and it's good-by to the mountain trails and the river courses fur me," he said, as he rose and stalked unsteadily away, and--I never saw him again.
At daybreak the next morning we were off for Santa Fé. Our wagons, loaded with their precious burdens, moved forward six abreast along the old sun-flower bordered trail. Morning, noon, and evening, pitching camp and breaking camp, yoking oxen and harnessing mules, keeping night vigil by shifts, hunting buffalo, killing rattlesnakes, watching for signs of hostile Indians, meeting incoming trains, or solitary trappers, at long intervals, breathing the sweet air of the prairies, and gathering rugged strength from sleep on the wholesome earth--these things, with the jolliest of fellowship and perfect discipline of our captain, Jondo, made this hard, free life of the plains a fascinating one. We were unshaven and brown as Indians. We lost every ounce of fat, but we were steel-sinewed, and fear, that wearing element that disintegrates the soul, dropped away from us early on the trail.
But when the full moon came sweeping up the sky, and all the prairie shadows lay flat to earth under its surge of clear light, in the stillness of the great lonely land, then the battle with home-sickness was not the least of the plains' perils.
One midnight watch of such a night, Jondo sat out my vigil with me. Our eighty or more wagons were drawn up in a rude ellipse with the stock corraled inside, for we were nearing the danger zone. And yet to-night danger seemed impossible in such a peaceful land under such clear moonlight.
"Gail, you were always a far-seeing youngster, even in your cub days," Jondo said, after we had sat silent for a long time. "We are moving into trouble from to-night, and I'll need you now."
"What makes you think so, Jondo?" I asked.
"That train we met going east at noon."
"Mexicans with silver and skins worth double our stuff, what have they to do with us?" I inquired.
"One of the best men I have ever known is a Mexican in Santa Fé. The worst man I have ever known is an American there. But I've never yet trusted a Mexican when you bunch them together. They don't fit into American harness, and it will be a hundred years before the Mexican in our country will really love the Stars and Stripes. Deep down in his heart he will hate it."
"I remember Felix Narveo and Ferdinand Ramero mighty well," I commented.
Jondo stared at me.
"Can't a boy remember things?" I inquired.
"It takes a boy to remember; and they grow up and we forget they have had eyes, ears, feelings, memories, all keener than we can ever have in later years. Gail, the Mexican train comes from Felix Narveo, and Narveo is a man of a thousand. They bring word, however, that the Kiowas are unusually friendly and that we have nothing to fear this side of the Cimarron. They don't feel sure of the Utes and Apaches."
"Good enough!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, only they lie when they say it. It's a trap to get us. No Kiowa on the plains will let a Clarenden train through peacefully, because we took their captive, Little Blue Flower. It's a hatred kept alive in the Kiowas by one man in Santa Fé through his Mexican agents with Narveo's train."
"And that man is Ramero?" I questioned.
"That man is Ramero, and his capacity for hate is appalling. Gail, there's only one thing in the world that is stronger than hate, and that is love."
Jondo looked out over the moonlit plains, his fine head erect, even in his meditative moods.
"When a Mexican says a Kiowa has turned friendly, don't believe him. And when a Kiowa says it himself--kill him. It's your only safe course," Jondo said, presently.
"Jondo, why does Ramero stir up the Indians and Mexicans against Uncle Esmond?" I asked.
"Because Clarenden drove him into exile in New Mexico before it was United States territory," Jondo replied.
"What did he do that for?" I asked.
"Because of what Ramero had done to me," Jondo replied.
"Well, New Mexico is United States territory now. What keeps this Ramero in Santa Fé, if he is there?"
"I keep him there. It's safer to know just where a man like that is. So I put a ring around the town and left him inside of it."
Jondo paused and turned toward me.
"Yonder comes Banney to go on guard now. Gail, I'll tell you all about it some day. I couldn't on a night like this."
The deep voice sent a shiver through me. There was a pathos in it, too manly for tears, too courageous for pity.
The days that followed were hard ones. Word had gotten through the camp that the Indians were very friendly, and that we need not be uneasy this side of the Cimarron country. Smith and Davis agreed with the train captain, Jondo, in taking no chances, but most of the one hundred sixty bull-whackers stampeded like cattle against precaution, and rebelled at his rigid ruling. He had begun to tighten down upon us as we went farther and farther into the heart of a savage domain. The night guard was doubled and every precaution for the stock was demanded, giving added cause for grumbling and muttered threats which no man had the courage to speak openly to Jondo's face. I knew why he had said that he would need me. Bill Banney was always reliable, but growing more silent and unapproachable every day. Rex Krane's mind was on the girl-wife he had left in the stone house on the bluff above the Missouri. Beverly was too cock-sure of himself and too light-hearted, too eager for an Indian fight. Jondo could counsel with Smith and Davis of the St. Louis trains, but only as a last resort would he dictate to them. So he turned to me.
We were nearing Pawnee Rock, but as yet no hint of an Indian trail could we find anywhere. Advance-guards and rear-guards had no news to report when night came, and the sense of security grew hourly. The day had been very warm, but our nooning was shortened and we went into camp early. Everything had gone wrong that day: harness had broken; mules had grown fractious; a wagon had upset on a rough bit of the trail; half a dozen men, including Smith and Davis of the St. Louis trains, had fallen suddenly ill; drinking-water had been warm and muddy; and, most of all, the consciousness of wide-spread opposition to Jondo's strict ruling where there were no signs of danger made a very ugly-spirited group of men who sat down together to eat our evening meal. Bets were openly made that we wouldn't see a hostile redskin this side of Santa Fé. Covert sneers pointed many comments, and grim silence threatened more than everything else. Jondo's face was set, but there was a calmness about his words and actions, and even the most rebellious that night knew he was least afraid of any man among us.
At midnight he wakened me. "I want you to help me, Gail," he said. "The Kiowas will gather for us at Pawnee Rock. They missed us there once because they were looking for a big train, and it was there we took their captive girl. The boys are ready to mutiny to-night. I count on you to stand by me." Stand by Jondo! In my helpless babyhood, my orphaned childhood, my sturdy growing years toward young manhood, Jondo had been father, mother, brother, playmate, guardian angel. I would have walked on red-hot coals for his sake.
"I want you to slip away to-night, when Rex and Bev are on guard, and find out what's over that ridge to the north. Don't come back till you do find out. We'll get to Pawnee Rock to-morrow. I must know to-night. Can you do it? If you aren't back by sunrise, I'll follow your trail double quick."
"I'll go," I replied, proud to show both my courage and my loyalty to my captain.
The night was gray, with a dying moon in the west, and the north ridge loomed like a low black shadow against the sky. There was a weird chanting voice in the night wind, pouring endlessly across the open plains. And everywhere an eyeless, voiceless, motionless land, whereon my pony's hoof-beats were big and booming. Nature made my eyes and ears for the trail life, and matched my soul to its level spaces. To-night I was alert with that love of mastery that made me eager for this task. So I rode forward until our great camp was only a dull blot on the horizon-line, melting into mere nothingness as it grew farther away. And I was alone on the earth. God had taken out every other thing in it, save the sky over my head and the uneven short-grass sod under my feet.
On I went, veering to the northwest from instinct that I should find my journey's end soonest that way. Over the divide which hid the wide valley of the Arkansas, and into the deep draws and low bluffs of a creek with billowy hills beyond, I found myself still instinctively smelling my way. I grew more cautious with each step now, knowing that the chance for me to slip along unseen gave also the chance for an enemy to trail me unseen.
At last I caught that low breathing sound that goes with the sense of nearness to life. Leaving my pony by the stream, I climbed to the top of a little swell, and softly as a cat walks on a carpet, I walked straight into an Indian camp. It was well chosen for outlook near, and security from afar. There was a growing light in the sky that follows the darkness of moonset and runs before the break of dawn. Everything in the camp was dead still. I saw evidences of war-paint and a recent war-dance that forerun an Indian attack. I estimated the strength of the enemy--possibly four hundred warriors, and noted the symbols of the Kiowa tribe. Then, thrilled with pride at my skill and success, I turned to retrace my way to my pony--and looked full into the face of an Indian brave standing motionless in my path. A breath--and two more braves evolved out of gray air, and the three stood stock-still before me. Out of the tail of my eye, I caught sight of a drawn bow on either side of me. I had learned quickness with firearms years ago, but I knew that two swift arrows would cut my life-line before the sound of my ready revolver could break the stillness of the camp. Three pairs of snaky black eyes looked steadily at me, and I stared back as directly into them. Two arrow-points gently touched my ears. Behind me, a tomahawk softly marked a ring around my scalp outside of my hat. I was standing in a circle of death. At last the brave directly before me slowly drew up his bow and pointed it at me; then dropping it, he snapped the arrow shaft and threw away the pieces. Pointing to my cocked revolver, he motioned to me to drop it. At the same time the bows and tomahawks, of the other warriors were thrown down. It was a silent game, and in spite of the danger I smiled as I put down my firearms.
"Can't any of you talk?" I asked. "If you are friendly, why don't you say so?"
The men did not speak, but by a gesture toward the tallest tepee--the chief's, I supposed--I understood that he alone would talk to me.
"Well, bring him out." I surprised myself at my boldness. Yet no man knows in just what spirit he will face a peril.
One of the braves ran to the chief's tent, but the remaining five left me no chance for escape. It was slowly growing lighter. I thought of Jondo and his search at sunrise, and the moments seemed like hours. Yet with marvelous swiftness and stillness a score of Indians with their chief were mounted, and I, with my pony in the center of a solid ring, was being hurried away, alive, with friendly captors daubed with war-paint.
There was a growing light in the east, while the west was still dark. I thought of the earth as throwing back the gray shadowy covers from its morning face and piling them about its feet; I thought of some joke of Beverly's; and I wondered about one of the oxen that had seemed sick in the evening. I tried to think of nothing and a thousand things came into my mind. But of life and death and love and suffering, I thought not at all.
Meantime, Jondo waited anxiously for my coming. Rex and Beverly had gone to sleep at the end of their watch and nobody else in camp knew of my going. At dawn a breeze began to swing in from the north, and with its refreshing touch the weariness and worries of yesterday were swept away. Everybody wakened in a good humor. But Jondo had not slept, and his face was sterner than ever as the duties of the day began.
Before sunrise I began to be missed.
"Where's Gail?" Bill Banney was the first to ask.
"That's Clarenden's job, not mine," another of the bull-whackers resented a command of Jondo's.
"Gail! Gail! Anybody on earth seen Gail Clarenden this morning?" came from a far corner of the camp.
"Have you lost a man, Jondo?" Smith, still sick in his wagon, inquired.
And the sun was filling the eastern horizon with a roseate glow. It would be above the edge of the plains in a little while, and still I had not returned.
Breakfast followed, with many questions for the absent one. There was an eagerness to be off early and an uneasiness began to pervade the camp.
"Jondo, you'll have to dig up Gail now. I saw him putting out northwest about one o'clock," Rex Krane said, aside to the train captain.
"If he isn't here in ten minutes. I'll have to start out after him," Jondo replied.
Ten minutes are long to one who waits. The boys were ready for the camp order. "Catch up!" to start the harnessing of teams. But it was not given. The sun's level rays, hot and yellow, smote the camp, and a low murmur ran from wagon to wagon. Jondo waited a minute longer, then he climbed to the wagon tongue at the head of the ellipse of vehicles, his commanding form outlined against the open space, his fine face illumined by the sunlight.
"Boys, listen to me."
Men listened when Jondo spoke.
"I believe we are in danger, but you have doubted my word. I leave the days to prove who is right. At midnight I sent Gail Clarenden to find out what is beyond that ridge--a band of men running parallel with us that shadows us day by day. If he is not here in ten minutes, we must go after him."
A hush fell on the camp. The oxen switched at the first nipping insects of the morning, and the ponies and mules, with that horse-sense that all horsemen have observed in them at times, stood as if waiting for a decision to be made.
Beverly Clarenden was first to speak.
"If anybody goes after Gail, it's me, and I'll not stop till I get him," he cried, all the brotherly love of a lifetime in his ringing voice.
"And me!" "And me!" "And me!" came from a dozen throats. Plainsmen were always the truest of comrades in the hour of danger. Nobody questioned Jondo's wisdom now. All thought was for the missing man.
Rex Krane had leaped up on the wagon next to Jondo's and stood gazing toward the northwest. At this outburst of eagerness he turned to the crowd in the corral.
"You wait five minutes and Gail will be here. He's gettin' into sight out yonder now," he declared.
Another shout, a rush for the open, and a straining of eyes to make sure of the lone rider coming swiftly down the trail I had followed out at midnight. And amid a wild swinging of hats and whoops of joy I rode into camp, hugged by Beverly and questioned by everybody, eager for my story from the time I left the camp until I rode into it again.
"They took me to Pawnee Rock before they let me know anything, except that my scalp would hang to the old chief's war-spear if I tried one eye-wink to get away from them. But they let me keep my gun, and I took it for a sign," I told the company. "They had a lot of ceremony getting seated, and then, without any smoking-tobacco or peace-pipe, they gave their message."
"Who said the Kiowas wasn't friendly? They already sent us word enough," one man broke in.
Jondo's face, that had been bright and hopeful, now grew grave.
"They said they mean us no harm. They were grateful to Uncle Sam for the favors he had given them. That the prairies were wide, and there was room for all of us on it," I continued. "In proof, they said that we would pass that old rock to-day unharmed where once they would have counted us their enemies. And they let me go to bring you all this word. They are going northeast into the big hunting-ground, and we are safe."
No man could take defeat better than Jondo.
"I am glad if I was wrong in my opinion," he said. "Fifteen years on that trail have made me cautious. I shall still be cautious if I am your captain. They did not smoke the peace-pipe. In my judgment the Kiowas lied. Two or three days will prove it. Choose now between me and my unchanged opinion, and some new train captain."
"Oh, every man makes some bad guesses, Jondo. We'll keep you, of course, and it's a joke on you, that's all." So ran the comment, and we hurriedly broke camp and moved on.
But with all of our captain's anxiety Pawnee Rock stood like a protecting shield above us when we camped at its base, and the long bright days that followed were full of a sense of security and good cheer as we pulled away for the Cimarron crossing of the Arkansas River, miles ahead.
All day Jondo rode wide of the trail, sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other, watching for signs of an enemy. And the bluff, jovial crowd of bull-whackers laughed together at his holding on to his opinion out of sheer stubbornness.
On the second night he asked for a triple guard and nobody grumbled, for everybody really liked the big plainsman and they could afford to be good-natured with him, now that he was unquestioningly in the wrong.
The camp was in a little draw running down to the river, bordered by a mere ripple of ground on either side, growing deeper as it neared the stream and flattening out toward the level prairie in its upper portion. In spite of the triple guard, Jondo did not sleep that night; and, strangely enough, I, who had been dull to fear in the hands of the Indians two nights before, felt nervous and anxious, now when all seemed secure.
Just at daybreak a light shower with big bullet-like drops of rain pattered down noisily on our camp and a sudden flash of lightning and a thunderbolt startled the sleepy stock and brought us to our feet, dazed for an instant. Another light volley of rain, another sheet of lightning and roar of thunder, and the cloud was gone, scattering down the Arkansas Valley. But in that flash all of Jondo's cause for anxiety was justified. The widening draw was full of Kiowas, hideous in war-paint, and the ridges on either side of us were swarming with Indians beating dried skins to frighten and stampede our stock, and all yelling like fiends, while a perfect rain of arrows swept our camp. With the river below us full of holes and quicksands, our enemies had only to hold the natural defense on either side while they drove us in a harrowing wedge back to the water. If our ponies and mules should break from the corral they would rush for the river or be lost in the widening space back from the deeper draw, where a well-trained corps of thieves knew how to capture them. I had estimated the Kiowas' strength at four hundred, two nights before, which was augmented now by a roving band of Dog Indians--outcasts from all tribes, who knew no law of heaven or hell that they must obey. And so we stood, shocked wide awake, with the foe four to one, man for man against us.
Men remember details acutely in the face of danger. As I write these words I can hear the sound of Jondo's voice that morning, clear and strong above the awful din, for nature made him to command in moments of peril. In a flash we were marshalled, one force to guard the corral, one to seize and hold either bank and one to charge on the advance of the Indians down the draw. We were on the defensive, as our captain had planned we should be, and every man of us realized bitterly now how much he had done for us, in spite of our distrust of his judgment.
On came the yelling horde, with rifle-rip and singing arrow. And the sharp cry of pain and the fierce oath told where these shots had sped home. Four to one, with every advantage of well-laid plan of action against an unsuspecting sleeping force, the odds and gods were with them. Dark clouds hung overhead, but the eastern sky was aflame, casting a lurid glare across the edges of the draw as a stream of savages with painted faces and naked bedaubed bodies poured down against the corral. In an instant the chains and ropes holding the stock were severed, and our mules and oxen and ponies stampeded wildly. By some adroit movement they were herded over the low bank, and a cloud of dust hid the entire battleground as the animals, mad with fright and goaded by arrows, tossed against one another, stumbled blindly until they had cleared the ridge. A shriek of savage glee and the thunder of hoofs on the hard earth told how well the thing had been done and how furiously our animals were being whirled away.
"Go, get 'em, Gail! Stay by 'em! Run!"
Jondo's voice sounded far away, but my work was near. With a dozen bull-whackers I made a dash out of the draw and, circling wide, we rode like demons to outflank the cloud of dust that hid our precious property. On we swept, fleet and sure, in a mad burst of speed to save our own. We were gaining now, and turning the cloud toward the river. Another spurt, and we would have them checked, faced about, subdued. I saw the end, and as the boys swung forward I urged them on.
"To the river. To the river. Head 'em south!" I cried.
And Rex Krane, like a centaur, swirled by me to do the thing I ordered. Behind me rode Beverly Clarenden bareheaded, his face aglow with power. As I looked back the dust engulfed him for a moment, and then I heard an arrow sing, and a sharp cry of pain. The dust had lifted and Beverly and a huge Indian, the tallest I have ever seen, were grappling together, a scalping-knife gleaming in the morning light. I dashed forward and felled the savage with the butt of my revolver. He leaped to his feet and sprang at me just as Beverly, with unerring aim, sent a blaze of fire between us. As the savage fell again, my cousin seized his pony; and with an arrow still swinging to his arm, dashed into the chase, and left it only when the stock, with the loss of less than a fourth, was driven up the river's sandy bank and over the swell into the camp inclosure.
Meantime, Jondo at the front of his men charged into the very center of the savage battle-line as, furious for blood, they threshed across the narrow draw--the disciplined arm and courageous heart against a blood-thirsty foe. A charge, a falling back, another surge to win the lost ground, a steady holding on and sure advance, and then Jondo, with one triumphant shout of victory, struck the last fierce blow that sent the Kiowas into full flight toward the northwest, and the day was won.
Out by the river, a sudden dullness seized me. I lifted my eyes to see Beverly free and Rex directing the charge; cattle, mules, and ponies turned back toward safety, and something crawling and writhing about my feet; Jondo's great shout of victory far away, it seemed, miles and miles to the north; a cloud of dust sweeping toward me; the crimson east aflame like the Day of judgment; the dust cloud rolling nearer; the yellow sands and slow-moving waters of the Arkansas; and six silent stalwart Kiowa braves, with snaky black eyes, looking steadily at me. Shadows, and the dust cloud upon me. Then all was night.
[XII]
THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE PLAINS
Deeper than speech our love, stronger than life our tether,
But we do not fall on the neck, nor kiss when we come together.
--"A SONG OF THE ENGLISH."
The whole thing was clear now, clear as the big white day that suddenly beamed along the prairies, scattering the clouds into gray strands against the upper heavens. The treachery of the Kiowas had been cleverly executed. Word of their friendliness had come to us through the Mexican caravan which could have no object in deceiving us, since it was on its way to Kansas City to do business with the Clarenden house there. And Jondo had sent a spy by night into the Kiowa camp as if they were not to be trusted. Yet they had taken no offense; but, letting me keep my firearms, had led me into their council on the top of Pawnee Rock, where they had told me in clear English that they had nothing but love for the white brothers of the plains. And to prove it we should pass unharmed along the trail where once we had wronged them by stealing their captive. The prairies were wide enough for all of us and they had forgotten--as an Indian always forgets--all malice against us. They had sent me back to camp with greetings to my captain, and had gone on their way to the heart of the Grand Prairie in the northeast.
It was only Jondo, as he rode wide of the trail for two days, who could see any mark of an Indian's track. And we had not believed Jondo. We never made that mistake again: But trust in his shrewdness now, however, would not bring back the oxen lost and the mules and ponies captured by the thieving band of Dog Indians. But there was a greater loss than these. The Kiowas had come for revenge. It was blood, not plunder, they wanted. A dozen men with arrow wounds reported at roll call, and six men lay stark dead under the pitiless sky. Among them Davis of the St. Louis train, who had been too ill to take part in the struggle. One more loss was there to report, but it was not discovered until later.
Indians seldom leave their dead on the field of battle, but the blood-stained sod beside their fallen ponies told a story of heavy toll. Blood marked the trail of hoofprints to the northwest in their wild rout thither. One comrade they had missed in their flight. He lay down near the river where the ground had been threshed over by the stampeded stock. He must have been a giant in life, for his was the longest grave made in the prairie sod that day. At the river's edge the sands were pricked with hoofprints, where the struggle to carry away the dead seemed to have reached clear into the thin yellow current of the Arkansas, although no trail led out on the far side of the stream.
"That's the very copper cuss with yellow trimmings who had me down when that arrow stopped me," Beverly exclaimed. "He was seven feet tall and streaked with yellow just that way. I thought ten million rattlesnakes and eight billion polecats had hit me. His club was awful. Then I caught sight of old Gail's face in the dust-storm, coming back to help me. He gave the Indian one dose and got one back, a good hard bill, and then the dust closed in and Gail was off again to the northwest out there, like a hurricane. I could hear him a mile away. Couldn't I Gail? Where is Gail?"
Where?
"Oh, back there with the stock!"
No?
"Out there looking over the draw for things that's got all scattered."
No? Not there?
"Oh, he's getting breakfast. And we are all hungry enough to eat raw Kiowas now."
No? No?
"Gail would be helping the wounded, anyhow, or straightening out dead men's limbs. Poor fellows--to lose six! It's awful!"
No? No? No?
"Bathing in the river? Where? Over there across the sand-bar?"
Nowhere! Nowhere!
"By the eternal God, they've got him!" Jondo's agonized voice rang through the camp.
"We can take care of the wounded, and those fellows lying over there don't need us. But, oh, Gail! They'll torture him to death!" Rex Krane's voice choked and he ground his teeth.
"Gail, my Gail!" Beverly sat down white and desparingly calm--Beverly, whose up-bubbling spirits nobody could repress.
The others wrung their hands and cursed and groaned aloud. Only Bill Banney, the unimaginative and stern-hearted, stood motionless with set jaws and black-frowning brows. Bill, whom the plains had made hard and unfeeling.
"We won't give up Gail, will we, Bill?" Jondo spoke sternly, but his face--they said his face was bright with courage and that his eyes shone with the inspiration of his will. In all that crowd of eager, faithful men, he turned now to Bill Banney. Every man had his place on the plains, and Jondo out of the chrism of his own life-struggle knew that Bill was bearing a cross in silence, and that his was the martyr spirit that finds salvation only in deeds. Bill was the man for the place.
And so while straying animals were slowly recovered, while the camp was set in order, while the dead were laid with simple reverence in un-coffined graves, and the sick were crudely ministered to, while Beverly grew feverish and his arrow wound became a festering sore, and Rex Krane, master of the company, cared for every thing and everybody with that big mother-heart of his--Jondo and Bill Banney pushed alone across the desolate plains toward where the Smoky Hills wrapped in their dim gray-blue mist mark the low watershed that rims the western valley of the Kaw.
They went alone because skill, and not numbers, could save a captive from the hands of the Kiowas, and the sight of a force would mean death to the victim before he could be rescued.
A splash of water against a hot hand hanging down; a sense of light, of motion; a glimpse of coarse sands and thin straggling weeds beside the edge of the stream down which the pathway ran; a sharp aching at the base of the brain; an agony of strained muscles--thus slowly I came to my senses, to memory, to the knowledge that I was bound hand and foot to a pony's back; that the sun was hot, and the sands were hotter, and the glare on the waters blinding; that every splash of the pony's hoofs sent up glittering sparkles that stabbed my aching eyes like white-hot dagger-points; that the black and clotted dirt on the pony's shoulder was not mud, but blood; that before and behind were other splashing feet, all hiding the trail in the thin current of the wide old Arkansas; that the quick turns to follow the water and the need for speed gave no consideration to the helpless rider. The image of six pairs of snaky black eyes came to help the benumbed brain, and I knew with whom I was again captive. But there was no question about the friendly motive now, for there was no friendly motive now. And as we pushed on east, Jondo and Bill Banney were hurrying toward the northwest, and the space between us widened every minute. A wave of helplessness and despair swept over me; then a wild up-leaping prayer for deliverance to a far-away unpitying Heaven; a sudden sense of the futility of prayer in a land the Lord had forgotten; and then anger, hot and wholesome, and an unconquered, dominant will to gain freedom or to die game, swept every other feeling away, marvelously mastering the sense of pain that had ground mercilessly at every nerve. Then came that small voice which a man hears sometimes in the night stillness and sometimes in the blare of daylight wrangle. And all suddenly I knew that He who notes the sparrow's fall knew that I was alone with death, slow-lingering, inch-creeping death, out on that wide, lonely plain. The glare on the waters softened. The heat fell away. The despair and agony lifted. In all the world--my world--there was only one, God; not a far, unpitying, book-made Lord beyond the height of the glaring blue dome above me. God beside me on, the yellow waters of the Arkansas. His hand in my hot hand! His strength about me, invisible, unbreakable, infinite. When a man enters into that shielding Presence, nothing else matters.
I do not know how many miles we went down-stream, leaving no trail in the shallow water or along its hard-baked edges. But by the time we dropped that line I had begun to think coherently and to take note of everything possible to me, bound as I was, face downward, on the pony's back. It was when we had left the river that the hard riding began, and a merciful unconsciousness, against which I fought, softened some stretches of that long day's journey. We crossed the Santa Fé Trail and were pushing eastward out of sight of it to the north. No stop, no word, nothing but ride, ride, ride. Truly, I needed the Presence that went with me on the way.
At sunset we stopped, and I was taken from my pony and thrown to the ground. I managed, in spite of my bonds, to sit up and look about me.
We were on the top of Pawnee Rock. The heat of the day was spent and all the radiant tints of evening were making the silent prairies unspeakably beautiful. I do not know why I should have noted or remembered any of this, save that the mind sometimes gathers impressions under strange stress of suffering. I had had no food all day, and when our ponies stopped to drink, the agony of thirst was maddening. My tongue was swollen and my lips were cracked and bleeding. The leather thongs that bound me cut deep now. But--only the men who lived it can know what all this meant to the pioneer of the trail.
I have sat on the same spot at sunset many a time in these my sunset years; have gazed in tranquil joy at the whole panorama of the heavens that hang over the prairies in the opalescent splendor of the after-sunset hour; have looked out over the earthly paradise of waving grain, all glowing with the golden gleam of harvest, in the heart of the rich Kansas wheat-lands--and somehow I'm glad of soul that I foreran this day and--maybe--maybe I, too, helped somewhat to build the way--the way that Esmond Clarenden had helped to clear a decade before and was building then.
The six Indians gathered near me. One of them with unmerciful mercy loosened my bonds a trifle and gave me a sup of water. They did not want me to die too soon. Then they sat down to eat and drink. I did not shut my eyes, nor turn my head. I defied their power to crush me, and the very defiance gave me strength.
The chill air of evening blew about the brow of the rock, the twilight deepened, and down in the valley the shadows were beginning to hide the landscape. But the evening hour is long on the headlands. And there was ample time for another kind of council than that to which I had listened three mornings ago, when I had been set free to bear a friendly message to my chief.
They carried me--helpless in their hands--to where, unseen myself, and secured by rock fragment and rawhide thong, I could see far up the trail to the eastward. But I could give no signal of distress, save for the feeble call of my swollen, thirst-parched throat. Then the six bronze sons of the plains sat down before me, and looked at me. Looked! I never see a pair of beady black eyes to-day--and there are many such--that I do not long to kill somebody, so vivid yet is the memory of those murdering eyes looking at me.
At last they spoke--plains English, it is true--but clear to give their meaning.
"Chief Clarenden thinks Kiowas forget. He comes with little train across the prairies; Kiowas go to meet big train east and fight fair for Mexican brothers who hate Chief Clarenden. They do not stop to look for little sneaking coyotes when they seek big game. Clarenden steals away Kiowas' captive Hopi. Cheat Kiowas of big pay that white Medicine-man Josef would give for her. Mexican brothers and Kiowa tribe hate Clarenden. They take his son, you, to show Clarenden they can steal, too. Hopi girl! white brave! all the same."
The speaker's words came deliberately, and he gave a contemptuous wave of the hand as he closed. And the six sat silent for a time. Then another voice broke the stillness.
"Yonder is your trail. Chief Clarenden and big white chiefs go by to Santa Fé to buy and sell and grow rich. Indian sell captives to grow rich! No! White chief not let Indians buy and sell. But we do not kill white dogs. We leave you here to watch the trail for wagon-trains. They may not come soon. They may not see you nor hear you. You can see them pass on their way to get rich. You can watch them. Hopi girl would have brought us big money. We get no richer. Watch white men go get rich. You may watch many days till sun dries your eyes. Nothing trouble you here. Watch the trail. No wild animal come here. No water drown you here. No fine meat make you ache with eating here. Watch."
The six looked long at me, and as the light faded their black eyes and dark faces seemed like the glittering eyes and hooked bills of six great dark birds of prey.
When the last sunset glow was in the west the six rose up and walked backward, still looking at me, until they passed my range of vision and I could only feel their eyes upon me. Then I heard the clatter of ponies' feet on the hard rock, the fainter stroke on the thin, sandy soil, the thud on the thickening sod. Thump, thump, thump, farther and farther and farther away. The west grew scarlet, deepened to purple and melted at last into the dull gray twilight that foreruns the darkness of night. One ray of pale gold shimmered far along toward the zenith and lost itself in the upper heavens, and the stars came forth in the blue-black eastern sky. And I was alone with the Presence whose arm is never shortened and whose ear grows never heavy.
The trail to the east was only a dull line along the darker earth. I looked up at the myriad stars coming swiftly out of space to greet me. The starlit sky above the open prairie speaks the voice of the Infinite in a grandeur never matched on land or sea.
I thought of Little Blue Flower on that dim-lighted dawning when she had showed us her bleeding hands and lashed shoulders. And again I heard Beverly's boyish voice ring out:
"Let's take her and take our chances."
And then I was beside the glistening waters of the Flat Rock, and Little Blue Flower was there in her white Grecian robe and the wrought-silver headband with coral pendants. And Eloise. The golden hair, the soft dark eyes, the dainty peach-bloom cheek. Eloise whom I had loved always and always. Eloise who loved Beverly--good, big-hearted, sunny-faced Beverly, who never had visions. Any girl would love him. Most of all, Little Blue Flower. What a loving message she had left us in the one word, Lolomi. God pity her.
A thousand sharp pains racked my body. I tried to move. I longed for water. Then a merciful darkness fell upon me--not sleep, but unconsciousness. And the stars watched over me through that black night, lying there half dead and utterly alone.
Out to the northwest Jondo and Bill Banney rode long on the trail of the fleeing Kiowas. A picture for an artist of the West, these two rough men in the garb and mount and trappings of the plainsman, with eyes alert and strong faces, riding only as men can ride who go to save a life more eagerly than they would save their own. Not in rash haste, but with unchecked speed, losing no mark along the trail that should guide them more quickly to their goal, so they passed side by side, and neither said a word for hours along the way. Night came, and the needs of their ponies made them pause briefly. The trail, too, was harder to follow now. They might lose it in the darkness and so lose time. And those two men were going forth to victory. Not for one single heart-beat did they doubt their power to win, and the stead-fast assurance made them calm.
Daylight again, and a fresher trail made them hurry on. They drank at every stream and ate a snatch of food as they rode. They reached the hurriedly quitted Kiowa camp, and searched for the sign of vengeance on a captive there. Jondo knew those signs, and his heart beat high with hope.
"They haven't done it yet," he said to his companion. "They want to get away first. We are safe for a day."
And they rode swiftly on again.
"There's trouble here," Bill Banney declared as he watched the ground. "Too many feet. Could it be here?"
His voice was hardly audible. The two men halted and read the ground with piercing eyes. Something had happened, for there had been a circling and chasing in and out, and the sod was cut deep with hoofprints.
"No council nor ceremony, no open space for anything." Jondo would not even speak the word he was bound not to know.
"They've divided, Jondo. Here goes the big crowd, and there a smaller one," Bill declared.
"There were a lot of Dog Indians along for thieving. They've split here. Seem to have fussed a bit over it, too. And yonder runs the Kiowa trail to the north. Here go the Dogs east." Jondo replied. "We'll follow the Kiowas a spell," he added, after a thoughtful pause.
And again they were off. It was nearing noon now, and the trail was fresher every minute. At last the plainsmen climbed a low swell, halting out of sight on the hither side. Then creeping to the crest, they looked down on the Indian camp lying in a little dry valley of a lost stream whose course ran underground beneath them.
Lying flat on the ground, each with his head behind a low bush on the top of the swell, the men read the valley with searching eyes. Then Jondo, with Bill at his heels, slid swiftly down the slope.
"Gail Clarenden isn't there. We must take the trail east, and ride hard," he said, in a hoarse voice.
And they rode hard until they were beyond the range of the Kiowa outposts.
"What's your game, Jondo?" Bill asked, at length.
"They quarreled back there. Either the Dogs have Gail, or he's lost somewhere. The Kiowas are waiting for something. I can't quite understand, but we'll go on."
It was mid-afternoon and the two riders were faint from the hardship of the chase, but nobody who knew Jondo ever expected him to give up. The sun blazed down in the heat of the late afternoon, and the baking earth lay brown and dry beneath the heat-quivering air. There was no sound nor motion on the plains as the two faithful brothers--in purpose--followed hard on the track of the Dog Indian band.
Ahead of them the trail grew clearer until they saw the object of their chase, a band nearly a hundred strong, riding slowly, far ahead. Jondo and Bill halted and dropped to the ground. No cover was in sight, but if the Indians were unsuspicious they might not be discovered. On went the outlaw band, and the two white men followed after. Suddenly the Indians halted and grouped themselves together. The plainsmen watched eagerly for the cause. Out of the south six Indians came riding swiftly into view. They, too, halted, but neither group seemed aware that the two dull, motionless spots to the west were two white men watching them. White men didn't belong there.
The six rode forward. There was much parleying and pointing eastward. Then the six rode rapidly northward and the Dog band spurted east as rapidly.
Jondo looked at Bill.
"I see it clear as day. God help us not to be too late!" he cried, triumphantly, leaping to his saddle.
"What in Heaven's name to you see?" Bill asked eagerly.
"Gail wasn't with the Kiowas back there. He wasn't with the Dogs out yonder. Don't you remember he told us about six of the devils getting him in their friendly camp that morning? Yonder go the six. They have left Gail somewhere to die and they are cutting back to join the tribe. They have sent the Dogs on east. We'll run down this trail to the south. Hurry, Bill! For God's sake, hurry! It's the Lord's mercy they didn't see us back here."
That day Pawnee Rock saw the same old beauty of sunrise; the same clear sweeping breeze; the same long shining hours on the green prairies; but it all meant nothing to me, racked with pain and choking with thirst through the awful lengths of that summer day. Fitful unconsciousness, with fever and delirium, seeing mocking faces with snaky black eyes, looking long at me; food almost touching my lips, and floods of crystal waters everywhere just out of reach. I was on the bluff above the river at Fort Leavenworth again, watching for the fish on the sand-bars. They were Indians instead of fish, and they laughed at me and called me a big brown bob-cat. Then Mother Bridget and Aunty Boone would have come to me if I could only make them hear me. But the sun beat hot upon my burning face, and my swollen lips refused to moan.
And then I looked to the eastward and hope sprang to life within me. A wagon-train was crawling slowly toward Pawnee Rock. Tears drenched my eyes until I could hardly count the wagons--twenty, thirty, forty. It must be far in the afternoon now, and they might encamp here. But they seemed to be hurrying. I could not see for pain, but I knew they were near the headland now. I could hear the rattle of the wagon-chains and the tramp of feet and shouts of the bull-whackers. I tugged masterfully at my bonds. It was a useless effort. I tried to shout, but only low moans came forth from my parched lips. I strove and raged and prayed. The wagons hurried on and on, a long time, for there were many of them. Then the rattling grew fainter, the voices were far off, the thud of hoof-beats ceased. The train had passed the Rock, never dreaming that a man lay dying in sight of the succor they would so gladly have given.
The sun began to strike in level rays across the land, and the air was cooler, but I gave no heed to things about me. Death was waiting--slow, taunting death. The stars would be kind again to-night as they had been last night, but death crouching between me and the starlight, was slowly crawling up Pawnee Rock. Oh, so slowly, yet so surely creeping on. The sun was gone and a tender pink illumined the sky. The light was soft now. If death would only steal in before the glare burst forth. I forgot that night must come first. Pity, God of heaven, pity me!
And then the Presence came, and a sweet, low voice--I hear it still sometimes, when sunsets soften to twilight, "My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest." I felt a thrill of triumph pulse through my being. Unconquered, strong, and glad is he who trusts.
"I shall not die. I shall live, and in God's good time I shall be saved." I tried to speak the words, but I could not hear my voice. My pains were gone and I lay staring at the evening sky all mother-of-pearl and gold above my head. And on my lips a smile.
And so they found me at twilight, as a tired child about to fall asleep. They did not cry out, nor fall on my neck, nor weep. But Bill Banney's strong arms carried me tenderly away. Water, food, unbound swollen limbs, bathed in the warm Arkansas flow, soft grass for a bed, and the eyes of the big plainsman, my childhood idol, gentle as a girl's, looking unutterable things into my eyes.
I've never known a mother's love, but for that loss the Lord gave me--Jondo.
[XIII]
IN THE SHELTER OF SAN MIGUEL
Fear not, dear love, thy trial hour shall be
The dearest bond between my heart and thee.
--ALL THE YEAR ROUND.
When we reached the end of the trail and entered a second time into Santa Fé the Stars and Stripes were floating lazily above the Palace of the Governors. Out on the heights beyond the old Spanish prison stood Fort Marcy, whose battlements told of a military might, strong to control what by its strength it had secured. In its shadow was La Garita, of old the place of execution, against whose blind wall many a prisoner had started on the long trail at the word of a Spanish bullet, La Garita changed now from a thing of legalized horror to a landmark of history.
But the city itself seemed unchanged, and there was little evidence that Yankee thrift and energy had entered New Mexico with the new government. The narrow street still marked the trail's end before the Exchange Hotel. San Miguel, with its dun walls and triple-towered steeple, still good guard over the soul of Santa Fé, as it had stood for three sunny centuries. The Mexican still drove down the loaded burro-train of firewood from the mountains. The Indian basked in the sunny corners of the Plaza. The adobe dwellings clustered blindly along little lanes leading out to nowhere in particular. The orchards and cornfields, primitively cultivated, made tiny oases beside the trickling streams and sandy beds of dry arroyos. The sheep grazed on the scant grasses of the plain. The steep gray mesa slopes were splotched with clumps of evergreen shrubs and piñon trees. And over all the silent mountains kept watch.
The business house of Felix Narveo, however, did not share in this lethargy. The streets about the Plaza were full of Conestoga wagons, with tired ox-teams lying yoked or unyoked before them. Most of the traffic borne in by these came directly or indirectly to the house of Narveo. And its proprietor, the same silent, alert man, had taken advantage of a less restricted government, following the Mexican War, to increase his interests. So mine and meadow, flock and herd, trappers' snare and Indian loom and forge, all poured their treasures into his hands--a clearing-house for the products of New Mexico to swell the great overland commerce that followed the Santa Fé Trail.
For all of which the ground plan had been laid mainly by Esmond Clarenden, when with tremendous daring he came to Santa Fé and spied out the land for these years to follow.
A boy's memory is keen, and all the hours of that other journey hither, with their eager anticipation and youthful curiosity, and love of surprise and adventure, came back to Beverly Clarenden and me as we pulled along the last lap of the trail.
"Was it really so long ago, Bev, that we came in here, all eyes and ears?" I asked my cousin.
"No, it was last evening. And not an eyebrow in this Rip Van Winkle town has lifted since," Beverly replied. "Yonder stands that old church where the gallant knight on a stiff-legged pony spied Little Lees and knocked the head off of that tormenting Marcos villain, and kicked it under the door-step. Say, Gail, I'd like mighty well to see the grown-up Little Lees, wouldn't you? And I'd as soon this was Saint Louis as Santa Fé."
Since the night of Mat's wedding, I had been resolutely putting away all thought of Eloise St. Vrain. I belonged to the plains. All my training had been for this. I thought I was very old and settled now. But the mention of her pet name sent a thrill through me; and these streets of Santa Fé brought back a flood of memories and boyhood dreams and visions.
"Bev, how many auld-lang-syners do you reckon we'll meet in this land of sunshine and chilly beans?" I asked, carelessly.
"Well, how many of them do you remember, Mr. Cyclopedia of Prominent Men and Pretty Women?" Beverly inquired.
"Oh, there was Felix Narveo and Father Josef--and Little Blue Flower"--A shadow flitted across my cousin's face for a moment, leaving it sunny as ever again.
"And there was that black-eyed Marcos boy everywhere, and Ferdinand Ramero whom we were warned to step wide of," I went on.
"Oh, that tall thin man with blue-glass eyes that cut your fingers when he looked at you. Maybe he went out the back door of New Mexico when General Kearny peeped in at the front transom. There wasn't any fight in that man."
"Jondo says he is still in Santa Fé." Just as I spoke an Indian swept by us, riding with the ease of that born-to-the-horseback race.
"Beverly, do you remember that Indian boy that we saw out at Agua Fria?" I asked.
"The day we found Little Lees asleep in the church?" Beverly broke in, eagerly.
In our whole journey he had hardly spoken of Eloise, and, knowing Beverly as I did, I had felt sure for that reason that she had not been on his mind. Now twice in five minutes he had called her name. But why should he not remember her here, as well as I?
"Yes, I remember there was an Indian boy, sort of sneaky like, and deaf and dumb, that followed us until I turned and stared him out of it. That's the way to get rid of 'em, Gail, same as a savage dog," Beverly said, lightly.
"What if there are six of them all staring at you?" I asked.
"Oh, Gail, for the Lord's sake forget that!"
Beverly cried, affectionately. "When you've got an arrow wound rotting your arm off and six hundred and twenty degrees of fever in your blood, and the son of your old age is gone for three days and nights, and you don't dare to think where, you'll know why a fellow doesn't want to remember." There were real tears in the boy's eyes. Beverly was deeper than I had thought.
"Well, to change gradually, I wonder if that centaur who just passed us might be that same Indian of Agua Fria of long ago."
"He couldn't be," Beverly declared, confidently. "That boy got one square look at my eagle eye and he never stopped running till he jumped into the Pacific Ocean. 'I shall see him again over there.'" Half chanting the last words, Beverly, boy-hearted and daring and happy, cracked his whip, and our mule-team began to prance off in mule style the journey's latter end.
Oh, Beverly! Beverly! Why did that day on the parade-ground at Fort Leavenworth and a boy's pleading face lifted to mine, come back to me at that moment? Strange are the lines of life. I shall never clearly read them all.
Down in the Plaza a tall, slender young man was sitting in the shade, idly digging at the sod with an open pocket-knife. There was something magnetic about him, the presence that even in a crowd demands a second look.
He was dressed in spotless white linen, and with his handsome mustache, his well-groomed black hair, and sparkling black eyes, he was a true type of the leisure son of the Spanish-Mexican grandee. He stared at our travel-stained caravan as it rolled down the Plaza's edge, but his careless smile changed to an insolent grin, showing all his perfect teeth as he caught sight of Beverly and me.
We laid no claims to manly beauty, but we were stalwart young fellows, with the easy strength of good health, good habits, clear conscience, and the frank faces of boys reared on the frontier, and accustomed to its dangers by men who defied the very devil to do them harm. But even in our best clothes, saved for the display at the end of the trail, we were uncouth compared to this young gentleman, and our tanned faces and hard brown hands bespoke the rough bull-whacker of the plains.
As our train halted, the young man lighted a cigar and puffed the smoke toward us, as if to ignore our presence.
"Its mamma has dressed it up to go and play in the park, but it mustn't speak to little boys, nor soil its pinafore, nor listen to any naughty words. And it couldn't hold its own against a kitten. Nice little clothes-horse to hang white goods on!"
Beverly had turned his back to the Plaza and was speaking in a low tone, with the serious face and far-away air of one who referred to a thing of the past.
"Bev, you are a mind-reader, a character-sketcher--" I began, but stopped short to stare into the Plaza beyond him.
The young man had sprung to his feet and stood there with flashing eyes and hands clenched. Behind him was the same young Indian who had passed us on the trail. He was lithe, with every muscle trained to strength and swiftness and endurance.
He had muttered a word into the young white man's ear that made him spring up. And while the face of the Indian was expressionless, the other's face was full of surprise and anger; and I recognized both faces in an instant.
"Beverly Clarenden, there are two auld-lang-syners behind you right now. One is Marcos Ramero, and the other is Santan of Bent's Fort," I said, softly.
Beverly turned quickly, something in his fearless face making the two men drop their eyes. When we looked again they had left the Plaza by different ways.
After dinner that evening Jondo and Bill Banney hurried away for a business conference with Felix Narveo. Rex and Beverly also disappeared and I was alone.
The last clear light of a long summer day was lingering over the valley of the Rio Grande, and the cool evening breeze was rippling in from the mountains, when I started out along the narrow street that made the terminal of the old Santa Fé Trail. I was hardly conscious of any purpose of direction until I came to the half-dry Santa Fé River and saw the spire of San Miguel beyond it. In a moment the same sense of loss and longing swept over me that I had fought with on the night after Mat's wedding, when I sat on the bluff and stared at the waters of the Kaw flowing down to meet the Missouri. And then I remembered what Father Josef had said long ago out by the sandy arroyo:
"Among friends or enemies, the one haven of safety always is the holy sanctuary."
I felt the strong need for a haven from myself as I crossed the stream and followed the trail up to the doorway of San Miguel.
The shadows were growing long, few sounds broke the stillness of the hour, and the spirit of peace brooded in the soft light and sweet air. I had almost reached the church when I stopped suddenly, stunned by what I saw. Two people were strolling up the narrow, crooked street that wanders eastward beside the building--a tall, slender young man in white linen clothes and a girl in a soft creamy gown, with a crimson scarf draped about her shoulders. They were both bareheaded, and the man's heavy black hair and curling black mustache, and the girl's coronal of golden braids and the profile of her fair face left no doubt about the two. It was Marcos Ramero and Eloise St. Vrain. They were talking earnestly; and in a very lover-like manner the young man bent down to catch his companion's words.
Something seemed to snap asunder in my brain, and from that moment I knew myself; knew how futile is the belief that miles of prairie trail and strength of busy days can ever cast down and break an idol of the heart.
In a minute they had passed a turn in the street, and there was only sandy earth and dust-colored walls and a yellow glare above them, where a moment ago had been a shimmer of sunset's gold.
"The one haven of safety always is the holy sanctuary."
Father Josef's words sounded in my ears, and the face of old San Miguel seemed to wear a welcoming smile. I stepped into the deep doorway and stood there, aimless and unthinking, looking out toward where the Jemez Mountains were outlined against the southwest horizon. Presently I caught the sound of feet, and Marcos Ramero strode out of the narrow street and followed the trail into the heart of the city.
I stared after him, noting the graceful carriage, the well-fitting clothes, and the proud set of the handsome head. There was no doubt about him. Did he hold the heart of the golden-haired girl who had walked into my life to stay? As he passed out of my sight Eloise St. Vrain came swiftly around the corner of the street to the church door, and stopped before me in wide-eyed amazement. Eloise, with her clinging creamy draperies, and the vivid red of her silken scarf, and her glorious hair.
"Oh, Gail Clarenden, is it really you?" she cried, stretching out both hands toward me with a glad light in her eyes.
"Yes, Little Lees, it is I."
I took both of her hands in mine. They were soft and white, and mine were brown and horny, but their touch sent a thrill of joy through me. She clung tightly to my hands for an instant. Then a deeper pink swept her cheeks, and she dropped her eyes and stepped back.
"They told me you were--lost--on the way; that some Kiowas had killed you."
She lifted her face again, and heaven had not anything better for me than the depths of those big dark eyes looking into mine.
"Who told you, Eloise?"
The girl looked over her shoulder apprehensively, and lowered her voice as she replied:
"Marcos Ramero."
"He's a liar. I am awfully alive, and Marcos Ramero knows I am, for he saw me and recognized me down in the Plaza this afternoon," I declared.
Just then the church door opened and a girl in Mexican dress came out. I did not see her face, nor notice which way she took, for a priest following her stepped between us. It was Father Josef.
"My children, come inside. The holy sanctuary offers you a better shelter than the open street."
I shall never forget that voice, nor hear another like it. Inside, the candles were burning dimly at the altar. The last rays of daylight came through the high south windows, touching the carved old rafters and gray adobe with a red glow. Long ago human hands, for lack of trowels, had laid that adobe surface on the rough stone--hands whose imprint is graven still on those crudely dented walls.
We sat down on a low seat inside of the doorway, and Father Josef passed up the aisle to the altar, leaving us there alone.
"Eloise, Marcos Ramero is your friend, and I beg your pardon for speaking of him as I did."
I resented with all my soul the thought of this girl caring for the son of the man who in some infamous way had wronged Jondo, but I had no right to be rude about him.
"Gail, may I say something to you?" The voice was as a pleading call and the girl's farce was full of pathos.
"Say on, Little Lees," was all that I could venture to answer.
"Do you remember the day you came in here and threw Marcos Ramero out of that door?"
"I do," I replied.
"Would you do it again, if it were necessary? I mean--if--" the voice faltered.
I had heard the same pleading tone on the night of Mat's wedding when Eloise and Beverly were in the little side porch together. I looked up at the red light on the old church rafters and the rough gray walls. How like to those hand-marked walls our memories are, deep-dented by the words they hold forever! Then I looked down at the girl beside me and I forgot everything else. Her golden hair, her creamy-white dress, and that rich crimson scarf draped about her shoulders and falling across her knees would have made a Madonna's model that old Giovanni Cimabue himself would have joyed to copy.
"Is it likely to be necessary? Be fair with me, Eloise. I saw you two strolling up that little goat-run of a street out there just now. Judging from the back of his head, Marcos looked satisfied. I shouldn't want to interfere nor make you any trouble," I said, earnestly.
"It is I who should not make you any trouble, but, oh, Gail, I came here this evening because I was afraid and I didn't know where else to go, and I found you. I thought you were dead somewhere out on the Kansas prairie. Maybe it was to help me a little that you came here to-night."
Her hands were gripped tightly and her mouth was firm-set in an effort to be brave.
"Why, Eloise, I'd never let Marcos Ramero, nor anybody else, make you one little heart-throb afraid. If you will only let me help you, I wouldn't call it trouble; I'd call it by another name." The longing to say more made me pause there.
The light was fading overhead, but the church lamps gave a soft glow that seemed to shield off the shadowy gloom.
"Father Josef came all the way from New Mexico to St. Ann's to have me come back here, and Mother Bridget sent Sister Anita, you remember her, up to St. Louis to come with me by way of New Orleans. I didn't tell you that I might be here when your train came in overland because--because of some things about my own people--"
The fair head was bowed and the soft voice trembled.
"Don't be afraid to tell me anything, Little Lees," I whispered, assuringly.
"I never saw my father, but my mother was very beautiful and loving, and we were so happy together. I was still a very little girl when she fell sick and they took me away from her. I never knew when she died nor where she was buried. Ferdinand Ramero had charge of her property. He controlled everything after she went away, and I have always lived in fear of his word. I am helpless when he commands, for he has a strange power over minds; and as to Marcos--you know what a little cat I was. I had to be to live with him. It wasn't until we were all at Bent's Fort that I got over my fear of you and Beverly. The day you threw Marcos out of here was the first time I ever had a champion to defend me."
I wanted to take her in my arms and tell her what I dared not think she would let me say. So I listened in sympathetic silence.
"Then came an awful day out at Agua Fria, and Father Josef took me in his arms as he would take a baby, and sang me to sleep with the songs my mother loved to sing. I think it must have been midnight when I wakened. It was dreary and cold, and Esmond Clarenden and Ferdinand Ramero were there, and Father Josef and Jondo."
And then she told me, as she remembered them, the happenings of that night at Agua Fria, the same story that Jondo told me later. But until that evening I had known nothing of how Eloise had come to us.
"You know the rest," Eloise went on "I have had a boarding-school life, and no real friends, except the Clarenden family, outside of these schools."
"You poor little girl! One of the same Clarenden family is ready to be your friend now," I said, tenderly, remembering keenly how Uncle Esmond and Jondo had loved and protected three orphan children.
"The Rameros think nobody but a Ramero can do that now. Marcos is very much changed. He has been educated in Europe, is handsome, and courtly in his manners, and as his father's heir he will be wealthy. He came to-night to ask me, to urge and plead with me, to marry him." Eloise paused.
"Do you need the defense of a bull-whacker of the plains against these things?" I asked.
"Oh, I could depend on myself if it were only Marcos. He comes with polished ways and pleasing words," Eloise replied. "It is his father's iron fist back of him that strikes at me through his graciousness. He tells me that all the St. Vrain money, which he controls by the terms of my father's will, he can give to the Church, if he chooses, and leave me disinherited."
"We don't mind that a bit as a starter up in Kansas. Come out on our prairies and try it," I suggested.
"But, Gail, that isn't all. There is something worse, dreadfully worse, that I cannot tell you, that only the Rameros know, and hold like a sword over my head. If I marry Marcos his father will destroy all evidence of it and I shall have a handsome, talented, rich husband." Eloise bowed her head and clasped her hands, crushed by the misery of her lot.
"And if you refuse to marry this scoundrel?" I asked, bluntly.
"Then I will be a penniless outcast. The Rameros are powerful here, and the Church will be with them, for it will get my inheritance. I am helpless and alone and I don't know what to do."
I think I had never known what anger meant before. This beautiful girl, homeless, and about to be robbed of her fortune, reared in luxury, with no chance for developing self-reliance and courage, was being hemmed in and forced to a marriage by threats of poverty and a secret something against which she was powerless. All the manhood in me rallied to her cause, and she was an hundredfold dearer to me now, in her helplessness.
"Eloise, I'm a horny-handed driver of a bull-team on the Santa Fé Trail, but you will let me help you if I can. So far as your money is concerned, there's a lot of it on earth, even if the Church should grab up your little bit because Ferdinand Ramero says your father's will permits it. There are evil representatives in every Church, no matter what its name may be, Catholic, Protestant, Indian, or Jew, but Father Josef up there is bigger than his priestly coat, and you can trust that size anywhere. And as to the knowledge of this 'something' known just to Ferdinand Ramero, if he is the only one who knows it, it is too small to get far, if it were turned loose. And any man who would use such infamous means to get what he wants is too small to have much influence if he doesn't get it. This is a big, wide, good world, Little Lees, and the father of Marcos Ramero, with all his power and wealth, has a short lariat that doesn't let him graze wide. Jondo holds the other end of that lariat, and he knows."
Eloise listened eagerly, but her face was very white.
"Gail, you don't know the Ramero blood. I am helpless and terrified with them in spite of their suave manners and flattering words. Why did Father Josef bring me back here if the Church is not with them? And then that awful shadow of some hidden thing that may darken my life. I know their cruel, pitiless hearts. They stop at nothing when they want their way. I have known them to do the most cold-blooded deeds."
Poor Eloise! The net about her had been skilfully drawn.
"I don't know Father Josef's motive, but I can trust him. And no shadow shall trouble you long, Little Lees. Jondo and Uncle Esmond `tote together,' Aunty Boone said long ago. They know something about the Ramero blood, and Jondo has promised to tell me his story some day. He must do it to-night, and to-morrow we'll see the end of this tangle. Trust me, Eloise," I said, comfortingly.
"But, Gail, I'm afraid Ferdinand will kill you if you get in his way." Eloise clung to my arm imploringly.
"Six big Kiowas got fooled at that job. Do you think this thin streak of humanity would try it?" I asked, lightly.
Eloise stood up beside me.
"I must go away now," she said.
"Then I'll go with you. Thank you, Father Josef, for your kindness," I said as the priest came toward us.
"You are welcome, my son. In the sanctuary circle no harm can come. Peace be with both of you."
There was a world of benediction in his deep tones, and his smile was genial, as he followed us to the street and stood as if watching for some one.
"I will meet you at San Miguel's to-morrow afternoon, Gail," Eloise said, as we reached a low but pretentious adobe dwelling. "This is my home now."
"Your new Mexican homes are thick-walled, and you live all on the inside," I said, as we paused at the doorway. "They make me think of the lower invertebrates, hard-shelled, soft-bodied animals. Up on the Kansas prairies and the Missouri bluffs we have a central vetebra--the family hearth-stone--and we live all around it. That is the people who have them do. There isn't much home life for a freighter of the plains anywhere. Good by, Little Lees." I took her offered hand. "I'm glad you have let me be your friend, a hard-shelled bull-whacker like me."
The street was full of shadows and the evening air was chill as the door closed on that sweet face and cloud of golden hair. But the pressure of warm white fingers lingered long in my sense of touch as I retraced my steps to the trail's end. At the church door I saw Father Josef still waiting, as if watching for somebody.
All that Eloise had told me ran through my mind, but I felt sure that neither financial nor churchly influence in Santa Fé could be turned to evil purposes so long as men like Felix Narveo and Father Josef were there. And then I thought of Esmond Clarenden, himself neither Mexican nor Roman Catholic, who, nevertheless, drew to himself such fair-dealing, high-minded men as these, always finding the best to aid him, and combating the worst with daring fearlessness. Surely with the priest and the merchant and Jondo as my uncle's representative, no harm could come to the girl whom I knew that I should always love.
And with my mind full of Eloise and her need I sought out Jondo and listened to his story.