Ramona

Mrs. Hartsel mused. "Jim can"t do anything to-night," she said; "that"s certain. You might see the man yourself, and ask him if he"d buy it."

Alessandro shook his head. An invincible repugnance withheld him.

He could not face one of these Americans who were "coming in" to his valley. Mrs. Hartsel understood.

"I"ll tell you, Alessandro," said the kindly woman, "I"ll give you what money you need to-night, and then, if you say so, Jim"ll sell the violin to-morrow, if the man wants it, and you can pay me back out of that, and when you"re along this way again you can have the rest. Jim"ll make as good a trade for you"s he can. He"s a real good friend to all of you, Alessandro, when he"s himself."

"I know it, Mrs. Hartsel. I"d trust Mr. Hartsel more than any other man in this country," said Alessandro. "He"s about the only white man I do trust!"

Mrs. Hartsel was fumbling in a deep pocket in her under-petticoat.

Gold-piece after gold-piece she drew out. "Humph! Got more"n I thought I had," she said. "I"ve kept all that"s been paid in here to-day, for I knew Jim"d be drunk before night."

Alessandro"s eyes fastened on the gold. How he longed for an abundance of those little shining pieces for his Majella! He sighed as Mrs.

Hartsel counted them out on the table,--one, two, three, four, bright five-dollar pieces.

"That is as much as I dare take," said Alessandro, when she put down the fourth. "Will you trust me for so much?" he added sadly. "You know I have nothing left now. Mrs. Hartsel, I am only a beggar, till I get some work to do."

The tears came into Mrs. Hartsel"s eyes. "It"s a shame!" she said,--"a shame, Alessandro! Jim and I haven"t thought of anything else, since it happened. Jim says they"ll never prosper, never. Trust you? Yes, indeed.

Jim and I"d trust you, or your father, the last day of our lives."

"I"m glad he is dead," said Alessandro, as he knotted the gold into his handkerchief and put it into his bosom. "But he was murdered, Mrs.

Hartsel,--murdered, just as much as if they had fired a bullet into him."

"That"s true." she exclaimed vehemently. "I say so too; and so was Jose.

That"s just what I said at the time,--that bullets would not be half so inhuman!"

The words had hardly left her lips, when the door from the dining-room burst open, and a dozen men, headed by the drunken Jim, came stumbling, laughing, reeling into the kitchen.

"Where"s supper! Give us our supper! What are you about with your Indian here? I"ll teach you how to cook ham!" stammered Jim, making a lurch towards the stove. The men behind caught him and saved him. Eyeing the group with scorn, Mrs. Hartsel, who had not a cowardly nerve in her body, said: "Gentlemen, if you will take your seats at the table, I will bring in your supper immediately. It is all ready."

One or two of the soberer ones, shamed by her tone, led the rest back into the dining-room, where, seating themselves, they began to pound the table and swing the chairs, swearing, and singing ribald songs.

"Get off as quick as you can, Alessandro," whispered Mrs. Hartsel, as she pa.s.sed by him, standing like a statue, his eyes, full of hatred and contempt, fixed on the tipsy group. "You"d better go. There"s no knowing what they"ll do next."

"Are you not afraid?" he said in a low tone.

"No!" she said. "I"m used to it. I can always manage Jim. And Ramon"s round somewhere,--he and the bull-pups; if worse comes to worse, I can call the dogs. These San Francisco fellows are always the worst to get drunk. But you"d better get out of the way!"

"And these are the men that have stolen our lands, and killed my father, and Jose, and Carmena"s baby!" thought Alessandro, as he ran swiftly back towards the graveyard. "And Father Salvierderra says, G.o.d is good.

It must be the saints no longer pray to Him for us!"

But Alessandro"s heart was too full of other thoughts, now, to dwell long on past wrongs, however bitter. The present called him too loudly. Putting his hand in his bosom, and feeling the soft, knotted handkerchief, he thought: "Twenty dollars! It is not much! But it will buy food for many days for my Majella and for Baba!"

XVIII

EXCEPT for the rea.s.suring help of Carmena"s presence by her side, Ramona would never have had courage to remain during this long hour in the graveyard. As it was, she twice resolved to bear the suspense no longer, and made a movement to go. The chance of Alessandro"s encountering at Hartsel"s the men sent in pursuit of him and of Baba, loomed in her thoughts into a more and more frightful danger each moment she reflected upon it. It was a most unfortunate suggestion for Alessandro to have made. Her excited fancy went on and on, picturing the possible scenes which might be going on almost within stone"s-throw of where she was sitting, helpless, in the midnight darkness,--Alessandro seized, tied, treated as a thief, and she, Ramona, not there to vindicate him, to terrify the men into letting him go. She could not bear it; she would ride boldly to Hartsel"s door. But when she made a motion as if she would go, and said in the soft Spanish, of which Carmena knew no word, but which yet somehow conveyed Ramona"s meaning, "I must go! It is too long! I cannot wait here!" Carmena had clasped her hand tighter, and said in the San Luiseno tongue, of which Ramona knew no word, but which yet somehow conveyed Carmena"s meaning, "O beloved lady, you must not go! Waiting is the only safe thing. Alessandro said, to wait here. He will come." The word "Alessandro" was plain. Yes, Alessandro had said, wait; Carmena was right. She would obey, but it was a fearful ordeal. It was strange how Ramona, who felt herself preternaturally brave, afraid of nothing, so long as Alessandro was by her side, became timorous and wretched the instant he was lost to her sight. When she first heard his steps coming, she quivered with terror lest they might not be his. The next second she knew; and with a glad cry, "Alessandro! Alessandro!" she bounded to him, dropping Baba"s reins.

Sighing gently, Carmena picked up the reins, and stood still, holding the horse, while the lovers clasped each other with breathless words.

"How she loves Alessandro!" thought the widowed Carmena. "Will they leave him alive to stay with her? It is better not to love!" But there was no bitter envy in her mind for the two who were thus blest while she went desolate. All of Pablo"s people had great affection for Alessandro.

They had looked forward to his being over them in his father"s place.

They knew his goodness, and were proud of his superiority to themselves.

"Majella, you tremble," said Alessandro, as he threw his arms around her. "You have feared! Yet you were not alone." He glanced at Carmena"s motionless figure, standing by Baba.

"No, not alone, dear Alessandro, but it was so long!" replied Ramona; "and I feared the men had taken you, as you feared. Was there any one there?"

"No! No one has heard anything. All was well. They thought I had just come from Pachanga," he answered.

"Except for Carmena, I should have ridden after you half an hour ago,"

continued Ramona. "But she told me to wait."

"She told you!" repeated Alessandro. "How did you understand her speech?"

"I do not know. Was it not a strange thing?" replied Ramona. "She spoke in your tongue, but I thought I understood her, Ask her if she did not say that I must not go; that it was safer to wait; that you had so said, and you would soon come."

Alessandro repeated the words to Carmena. "Did you say that?" he asked.

"Yes," answered Carmena.

"You see, then, she has understood the Luiseno words," he said delightedly. "She is one of us."

"Yes," said Carmena, gravely, "she is one of us." Then, taking Ramona"s hand in both of her own for farewell, she repeated, in a tone as of dire prophecy, "One of us, Alessandro! one of us!" And as she gazed after their retreating forms, almost immediately swallowed and lost in the darkness, she repeated the words again to herself,--"One of us! one of us! Sorrow came to me; she rides to meet it!" and she crept back to her husband"s grave, and threw herself down, to watch till the dawn.

The road which Alessandro would naturally have taken would carry them directly by Hartsel"s again. But, wishing to avoid all risk of meeting or being seen by any of the men on the place, he struck well out to the north, to make a wide circuit around it. This brought them past the place where Antonio"s house had stood. Here Alessandro halted, and putting his hand on Baba"s rein, walked the horses close to the pile of ruined walls. "This was Antonio"s house, Majella," he whispered. "I wish every house in the valley had been pulled down like this. Old Juana was right. The Americans are living in my father"s house, Majella," he went on, his whisper growing thick with rage. "That was what kept me so long.

I was looking in at the window at them eating their supper. I thought I should go mad, Majella. If I had had my gun, I should have shot them all dead!"

An almost inarticulate gasp was Ramona"s first reply to this. "Living in your house!" she said. "You saw them?"

"Yes," he said; "the man, and his wife, and two little children; and the man came out, with his gun, on the doorstep, and fired it. They thought they heard something moving, and it might be an Indian; so he fired.

That was what kept me so long."

Just at this moment Baba tripped over some small object on the ground.

A few steps farther, and he tripped again. "There is something caught round his foot, Alessandro," said Ramona. "It keeps moving."

Alessandro jumped off his horse, and kneeling down, exclaimed, "It"s a stake,--and the lariat fastened to it. Holy Virgin! what--" The rest of his e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n was inaudible. The next Ramona knew, he had run swiftly on, a rod or two. Baba had followed, and Capitan and the pony; and there stood a splendid black horse, as big as Baba, and Alessandro talking under his breath to him, and clapping both his hands over the horse"s nose, to stop him, as often as he began whinnying; and it seemed hardly a second more before he had his saddle off the poor little Indian pony, and striking it sharply on its sides had turned it free, had saddled the black horse, and leaping on his back, said, with almost a sob in his voice: "My Majella, it is Benito, my own Benito. Now the saints indeed have helped us! Oh, the a.s.s, the idiot, to stake out Benito with such a stake as that! A jack rabbit had pulled it up. Now, my Majella, we will gallop! Faster! faster! I will not breathe easy till we are out of this cursed valley. When we are once in the Santa Margarita Canon, I know a trail they will never find!"

Like the wind galloped Benito,--Alessandro half lying on his back, stroking his forehead, whispering to him, the horse snorting with joy: which were gladder of the two, horse or man, could not be said. And neck by neck with Benito came Baba. How the ground flew away under their feet! This was companionship, indeed, worthy of Baba"s best powers.

Not in all the California herds could be found two superber horses than Benito and Baba. A wild, almost reckless joy took possession of Alessandro. Ramona was half terrified as she heard him still talking, talking to Benito. For an hour they did not draw rein. Both Benito and Alessandro knew every inch of the ground. Then, just as they had descended into the deepest part of the canon, Alessandro suddenly reined sharply to the left, and began climbing the precipitous wall. "Can you follow, dearest Majella?" he cried.

"Do you suppose Benito can do anything that Baba cannot?" she retorted, pressing on closely.

But Baba did not like it. Except for the stimulus of Benito ahead, he would have given Ramona trouble.

"There is only a little, rough like this, dear," called Alessandro, as he leaped a fallen tree, and halted to see how Baba took it. "Good!" he cried, as Baba jumped it like a deer. "Good! Majella! We have got the two best horses in the country. You"ll see they are alike, when daylight comes. I have often wondered they were so much alike. They would go together splendidly."

After a few rods of this steep climbing they came out on the top of the canon"s south wall, in a dense oak forest comparatively free from underbrush. "Now," said Alessandro, "I can go from here to San Diego by paths that no white man knows. We will be near there before daylight."