Lone Pine: The Story of a Lost Mine

by R. B. Townshend

CHAPTER IX A SQUAW FOR A FEE

All day Felipe remained in the wheat patch. At noon he ate his lunch of bread and dried flesh down by the river instead of going back to the pueblo. At intervals during the day he came to the edge of the bank in order to see that the mare and the remaining mule were all right, and not trying to get up the bank into the crops. He might have gone off to talk, for a change to other Indians, who were working in their fields, but he did not care to. His heart was too sore; he wanted to be alone. He thought and he thought, but all to no purpose. He ended by saying to himself, "Well, there's one day more. I'll see Josefa to-night, and we'll talk it over."

A wild idea floated through his brain of taking one of Don Estevan's animals without his leave, but he knew it was wild. He believed Don Estevan would shoot anyone that did so, and he did not mean to incur that penalty. The only rational scheme he could think of was to run off in the night to the sierra, find the horse herd next day, get his father's horse and start back with it, but instead of coming straight to the pueblo, to lie hid in the foothills of the sierra till night time, and then slip down and get Josefa to come. But he knew that on the morrow, when his father missed him, there would be a noise made and he might be followed, in which case his plan might miscarry, the more so that his disappearance would cause a doubly sharp watch to be kept on Josefa. With melancholy eyes he watched the sun sink lower and lower in the west. Precious time was passing, and he was doing nothing and could do nothing to bring his will to pass. He burned with desire to act, and he was helpless.

Before sunset he caught the mare and mule, and took them up to the pueblo in order to put them in the corral for the night. This was the time of day when Josefa was likely to be fetching water from the ditch, which had been empty all the morning on account of the blasting, and in the hope of meeting her Felipe led them through the street on which her father's house faced.

And where had Josefa been all this time? She had been hard at work at home, under the vigilant eye of her step-mother. Grinding corn meal was the labour which she was set to do, a good steady task to give to a young person of rebellious disposition. The Indian hand-mill is a large, smooth stone, something like a flagstone, set sloping in a box on the floor. The grinding is always done by a woman, who kneels on the ground, and bending over the mill rubs the corn up and down with a smaller stone held in both her hands. Hard work it is indeed for back and arms, but the Pueblo women keep it up for hours. Their good health and fine physique are largely due to this vigorous exercise.

Josefa worked away over the mill till her back ached, while her step-mother, at the other end of the room sat at a hand-loom, on which she was slowly weaving a gorgeous blanket of many colours for the cacique's next official appearance. Josefa thought as she toiled at her work; and her mind reviewed over and over again different alternatives. From the bottom of her heart she hoped that Felipe would be successful in getting a horse from the American. If he didn't, she did not know what she should do. One thing only was certain in her mind. Have Ignacio she would not. They might starve her, and they might beat her, but they should not force her to be his wife. What was the use of being a woman of Santiago if she mightn't have some say in the matter? Why should she be treated as a slave, as the savage Utes treated their women? "I don't care," she said to herself, and as she said it she stiffened her back, and rubbed away at the refractory corn harder than ever. "I won't. He's old, and he's ugly, and I hate him. I know he beat his first wife—he did. I won't have him."

She glowed with the heat of her scorn and indignation; but all the time a little unbelieving spirit in the recesses of her mind kept asking in a sort of undertone, "How will you like being beaten if you disobey? How will you like it; how will you like it?" And as she cooled off from her glow, and thought of another side to the picture,—an intercepted flight, rough seizure, angry words, and furious blows,—she quaked. She had not been beaten since she was a child, and not much then, for the Pueblo Indians are good to their little ones; but she knew that her father was within his rights in giving her to whom he chose, and that those who broke the laws of the community were liable to the lash. She had never seen it done severely. All she had seen was two or three cuts with a whip, administered publicly in the street after a severe scolding by the marshal of the village, to some misdemeanant who had let his ass trespass among the standing corn, or who had otherwise broken some of their simple rules; but she knew with what severity, in private, serious offences were treated, and in the depths of her brave little heart she quaked.

But the quaking fit passed off, too, as the indignant glow had done; perhaps the hard work helped her through. "They can't do more than kill me," said she to herself. "I can stand it. But have old Ignacio I won't."

Then she thought of Felipe. She had not much fear for him. His own father certainly wouldn't beat him. For one thing he couldn't, for the son was the stronger; and as for Ignacio, she fairly laughed to herself at the idea of the ugly old fellow attacking Felipe. "Why, Felipe would put him on the ground in a moment, and keep him there, too, as long as he wanted," she thought, and felt a grim satisfaction at the idea. The only danger she feared for him was lest he should get furious and use his knife, and kill Ignacio, and be hanged for it. But Felipe had promised her never, never to do such a thing, and he would keep his word. Such a thing had not happened in the pueblo for forty years—not since old Fernando was a youth, when he had quarrelled in a fit of jealousy with another Indian and stabbed him, and had been arrested, and afterwards pardoned.