Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories Part 4

Half an hour later the train was carrying them back to Acoma. Colonel Kate at once sent a note to Barbara's lover, telling him what had happened. But the messenger, being a small boy, met other small boys on the way, and by the time the young officer read the news the Indian girl was well on her way toward home.

Lieutenant Wemple applied for leave of absence, and as soon as possible he followed old Ambrosio. At Laguna, where he left the railroad, he hired a horse and inquired the way to Acoma. It was the middle of the night, but he refused to wait for daylight, and started at once across the plain, galloping as though life and death depended on his mission.

In the early morning he reached the great rock-island of Acoma, towering four hundred feet above the plain, and climbed the steep ascent to the village on its summit. A file of maidens, and among them his lover's eye quickly sought out Barbara, were coming from the pool far beyond, carrying water jars upon their heads, graceful as a procession of Caryatides. Wemple found his way to Ambrosio's door, where the old chief was sitting in the early sunlight. As he stopped his horse Barbara came up the street, her _tinaja_ poised on her head. One swift and frightened flash of her black eyes was all the recognition she gave him as she hurried into the house.

Briefly the Lieutenant told the old man that he loved Barbara and wished to marry her. Inside the house the girl stood out of sight, listening anxiously for her father's reply, although she well knew what it would be.

"The senor forgets that my daughter is an Indian and that he is a white man."

"I do not care whether she is Indian or white. I love her and I want her to be my wife."

"You mean that you do not care what she is now. But after she is your wife you want her to be a white woman in her heart. You want to take her away from me, her father, and away from her mother, and her clan, and all our people, and make her forget us and forget that she is an Indian. No!"

"No, senor!" urged the Lieutenant, "I do not wish her to forget you. She shall come back to visit you whenever she wishes."

A crafty look came into Ambrosio's eyes. "There is one way," he went on quietly, not heeding Wemple's reply, "in which you may make her your wife. But there is only one."

The officer leaned eagerly forward in his saddle and the girl inside the door clasped her hands and listened breathlessly. The old Indian went on, slowly and deliberately, as if to give his listener time to weigh his words, while his keen eyes searched the white man's face.

"You think my daughter loves you well enough to forsake and forget her people if I would let her. Do you love her well enough to leave your people and become one of us? Do you love her well enough to be an Indian all the rest of your life, wear your hair in side-locks, enter the clan of the eagle, or the panther, become Koshare or Cuirana, dance at the feasts, forget your people, and never again be other than an Indian? If you do, speak, and she shall be your wife."

Ambrosio shut his lips tightly and waited for the young man's answer.

And the young man stared back, his ruddy cheek paling under its sunburn, and spoke not. A whirling panorama of visions was filling his brain as he realized what the old chief's words meant. He saw himself living the life of these people; renouncing everything that meant "the world" and "life" to him--everything except Barbara; driving burros loaded with wood to town and tramping about its streets with a basket of pottery at his back; saw himself with painted face and nude, smeared body dancing the clownish antics of the Koshare; planting prayer sticks; sprinkling the sacred meal; taking part and pretending belief in all the heathen rites of the pueblo secret religion--and then Barbara sprang out of the house, crying to her father in the Indian tongue, "Wait! Wait!"

Both men turned toward her inquiringly. She stood before them, hesitating, excited, her eyes on the ground, as if anxious but yet unwilling to speak.

"Father," she began in Spanish, "it is useless for you and the senor to speak longer about this. For since I have returned to my home I do not feel as I did before." She stopped an instant and then went on hurriedly, pouring out her words with now and then little, gasping stops for breath. "Now I do not wish to marry him. I wish to marry one of my own people. He is not an Indian and never can become one. I know now that I can never be anything but an Indian and so it is better for me to marry one of my own people. I do not wish to marry the senor, even if he should become one of us."

Wemple looked at her blankly, as if hardly comprehending her words, and then cried out, "Barbara! You cannot mean this!"

"You see, senor," said the old man, "there is nothing more to say."

"Is there nothing more to say, Barbara?" Wemple appealed to her in a broken voice.

She did not look at him, but shook her head and went back into the house.

Lieutenant Wemple turned his horse and with head hanging on his breast rode slowly, very slowly, back toward the long declivity leading to the plain below. If he had not ridden so slowly this tale might have had a different ending.

Ambrosio went into the house and began telling his wife what had happened. Barbara took an empty _tinaja_ and said she would go for more water. When she stepped outside she could still see the forlorn figure of her lover riding slowly down the trail. Her heart yearned after him as she bitterly thought:

"He will believe it! I made him believe it! And I can never tell him that it is not true!"

Then something set her heart on fire and put into it the thought of rebellion. She looked around her at the village and thought of the life it meant for her, as long as she should live; of the heartbreak she would have to conceal from sneering eyes, of the obscene dances in which she would soon be forced to take part, of the persecutions she would have to suffer because she could no longer think as her people thought; and hatred of it all filled her to the teeth. Rebellion burned high in her soul and with clenched fingers she said to herself, "I hate the Indians!

In my heart I am a white woman!" She cast one more longing, loving glance at the disappearing figure and resolution was born in her heart: "And I will be a white woman, or die!"

She looked hastily about. No one seemed to be watching her. She dropped the _tinaja_ beside the house and walked swiftly--she feared to run lest she might attract attention--to the edge of the precipice. There she looked down over the flight of rude steps, hacked centuries ago in the stone and worn smooth by many scores of generations of moccasined feet, which was once the only approach to the fortress-pueblo. It was three hundred feet down that precipitous wall to where the steps joined the trail, but from babyhood she had gone up and down, and she knew them every one. From one to another she fearlessly sprang, and over several at a time she dropped herself, catching here by her hands and there by her toes and finally landed, with a last long leap, on the trail. One glance told her that her lover had almost reached the road at the foot of the cliff and that if he should then quicken his pace she could scarcely hope to catch him. But love and determination made steel springs of her muscles, and she bent herself to the task. For if she could not overtake him there was no hope anywhere.

Lieutenant Wemple, with his head still hanging on his breast and his horse creeping along at its own pace, turned from the declivity into the road which would take him back to Laguna, to the railroad, and to his own life. There the horse decided to take a rest; and Wemple, aroused to realization of his surroundings by the sudden stop, jerked himself together again, straightened up, sent a keen glance across the plain and over the road in front of him, and struck home his spurs for the gallop to the railroad station. As the horse leaped forward, he thought he heard some one calling. Turning in his saddle he saw Barbara running toward him, her breast heaving, her arms outstretched. She almost fell against the horse's side, panting for breath.

"It was not true," she gasped, "what I said up there! I wanted to save you. Take me with you if you still love me! For I love you and I hate--I hate all that--" turning her face for an instant toward the heights above them--"and if you do not want me I must die, for I will not go back."

For an instant their eyes read each other's souls, and then she hastily put up her hand to stop him from leaping from his horse.

"No, no! Do not get off! They will be sure to follow us and we must lose no time. Take me up behind you and gallop for Laguna. If we can catch the next train we'll be all right!"

She seized his hand and sprang to her seat behind his saddle. He turned and kissed her.

"Put spurs to your horse," she said. "They will be sure to follow us soon."

There was need of haste, for scarcely had the horse p.r.i.c.ked up his ears and sprung into a long gallop when they heard loud shouts from the top of the mesa.

"Hurry, hurry!" exclaimed Barbara. "They have found me out and they will follow us!"

Scarcely had she spoken when the sound of a rifle report came from the top of the cliff, and Wemple's left arm dropped helpless beside him.

"They dare not shoot to kill," she said, "but they think they can frighten you, and they may cripple the horse. My darling, you will not let them have me again?" The terror in her voice told how intense was her fear of capture.

"Sweetheart, they shall not have you again unless they kill me first!"

A dozen Indians were galloping recklessly down the steep trail. "Promise me," Barbara, pleaded, "if it comes to that, if you must die, you will kill me first! For it would be h.e.l.l--it would be worse than h.e.l.l--to go back there now!"

Wemple did not answer. "Promise me that you will," she begged. "You do not know what you would save me from; but believe me, and promise me that you will not send me back to it!"

"I promise!" he answered as another shot whistled in front of them and clipped the top of the horse's ear. Wemple dug his spurs into its sweating side and the beast sprang forward at a faster gallop. The Indians, shouting loudly, were urging their ponies across the plain at breakneck speed. Lieutenant Wemple glanced back again and a frown wrinkled his forehead, as he said, "If our horse does not break down we may keep ahead of them until we reach Laguna."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Wemple dug his spurs into its sweating side and the beast sprang forward at a faster gallop.]

Barbara patted the horse and whispered soft words of encouragement and then under her breath she sent up a fervent pet.i.tion to the Virgin Mary to protect them. Looking back, she recognized their pursuers, and told Wemple that one of them was her brother, and another was a young man whom her parents wished her to marry. This one had a faster horse than the others and perceptibly gained upon the fugitives. He left the road where a turn in it seemed to offer an advantage and, galloping across the plain, was presently parallel with them and not more than two hundred yards away. He raised his gun and Wemple, with quick perception noting that his aim was toward their horse's neck, gave the bridle a jerk that brought the animal to its hind feet as the bullet whistled barely in front of them. It would have been quickly followed by another, but the Indian's pony stumbled, went down on its knees, and horse and rider rolled over together.

The other Indians came trooping on in a cloud of dust, yelling and shouting, and now and then firing a shot, apparently aimed at the good horse that so steadily kept his pace.

"They only want me," said Barbara. "If they can overtake us there are enough of them to overpower you. They will not try to do much harm to you, for they would not dare. But they will take me and carry me back with them--if you let them."

"I will not let them," he replied between set teeth.

At last Wemple saw that their pursuers were slowly but surely gaining on them. Barbara saw it too, and she redoubled her prayers to the Virgin, and both she and her lover with words and caresses strove to keep up the courage in their horse's heart. The good steed was of the sort whose spirit does not falter until strength is gone, and he seemed to understand that these people on his back were under some mighty need.

For with unwavering pace he kept up his long, swift gallop, notwithstanding his double burden and the distance he had travelled before the race began.

So they kept on, mile after mile, with their pursuers gaining, little by little, upon them, and when at last they neared Laguna the Indians were within a hundred yards. A banner of smoke across the plain told them that the east-bound train was approaching.

"I believe we can make it!" exclaimed Wemple, as they heard the engine's announcing scream. Apparently their pursuers guessed what the fugitives would try to do, for as they saw the train they shouted and yelled louder than before and urged their ponies to a still higher speed. They gained rapidly for a little while, for the Lieutenant's horse was beginning to flag, and Wemple, leaning to one side, gave the bridle into Barbara's hands and, with left arm dangling useless, reached for his revolver. He began to fear that they might yet head him off and surround him. They outnumbered him hopelessly, but he would try to fight his way through them. If worst came to worst,--he would save two shots out of the six,--Barbara should not fall into their hands.

The train drew into the station and the Indians were not more than a hundred feet behind him. The horse's faltering gait and heaving sides showed that he had reached almost his limit of strength. Some dogs ran out from a house, barking furiously. But being in his rear they only made Wemple's horse quicken his pace. They darted at the heads of the ponies, which s.h.i.+ed and pranced about, and so lost to their riders some valuable seconds.

The train was already moving as Wemple dashed up to its hindmost car, his horse staggering and their pursuers almost upon them.

"Jump for the car-steps!" he shouted to Barbara. She had not leaped and clambered up and down the stair in the Acoma cliff all her life for nothing, and her strength and agility stood her in good stead in this moment of supreme necessity. She leaped from the horse's back, landed upon the upper step, and whirled about to a.s.sist her lover.

The train was moving faster, the Indians, with shouts and yells and curses, were grasping at his bridle, and Wemple felt his horse giving way beneath him. With a last encouraging call to the poor beast he urged it to one more leap, and as it brought him again even with the end of the car he threw his leg over its neck and jumped. The horse staggered and fell as he left the saddle and caused him to lose his balance. He went down upon the car-steps, his wounded left arm beside him and his right doubled beneath his body. In another instant he would have rolled back to the ground beneath the hoofs of the Indian ponies, but Barbara seized him by the shoulders, and held him until he recovered his footing.