landor came in a few weeks later. he had had an indecisive skirmish in new mexico with certain bucks who had incurred the displeasure of the paternal government by killing and eating their horses, to the glory of their gods and ancestors, and thereafter working off their enthusiasm by a few excursions beyond the confines of the reservation, with intent to murder and destroy.
being shaved of the thick iron-gray beard, and once again in seemly uniform, and having reported to the commandant, he sat down to talk with his wife.
she herself lay at full length upon a couch she had devised out of packing cases. it occurred to landor that she often dropped down to rest now, and that she was sallow and uneasy.
he looked at her uncomfortably. "i am going to get you out of this, up into the mountains somewhere," he said abruptly; "you look peaked."
she did not show the enthusiasm he had rather expected. "i dare say it is my bad conscience," she answered with some indifference. "i have a sin to confess."
he naturally did not foresee anything serious, and he only said, "well?" and began to fill his pipe from a[pg 83] buckskin pouch, cleverly sketched in inks with indian scenes. "by the way," he interrupted as she started to speak, "what do you think of this?" he held it out to her. "that fellow cairness, who wouldn't stay to luncheon that day, did it for me. we camped near his place a couple of days. and he sent you a needle-case, or some such concern. it's in my kit." she looked at the pouch carefully before she gave it back; then she clasped her hands under her head again and gazed up at the manta of the ceiling, which sagged and was stained where the last cloud-burst had leaked through the roof.
"well?" repeated landor.
"i disobeyed orders," said felipa.
"did you, though?"
"and i went outside the post the night after you left, down to the river. some one will probably tell you about a wounded sierra blanca found down among the bushes in the river bottom that same night. i shot him, and then i hacked him up with my knife." he had taken his pipe from his mouth and was looking at her incredulously, perplexed. he did not understand whether it was a joke on her part, or exactly what it was.
but she sat up suddenly, with one of her quick movements of conscious strength and perfect control over every muscle, clasped her hands about her knees, and went on. "it was very curious," and there came on her face the watchful, alert, wild look, with the narrowing of the eyes. "it was very curious, i could not[pg 84] have stayed indoors that night if it had cost me my life—and it very nearly did, too. i had to get out. so i took my revolver and my knife, and i went the back way, down to the river. while i was standing on the bank and thinking about going home, an indian stole out on me. i had an awful struggle. first i shot. i aimed at his forehead, but the bullet struck his shoulder; and then i fought with the knife. as soon as i could slip out of his grasp, i went at him and drove him off. but i didn't know how badly he was hurt until the next day. the shot had roused them up here, and they went down to the river and found him bleeding on the sand.
"they put him in a tent beside the hospital, and the next morning i went over with the doctor to see him. he was all cut up on the arms and neck and shoulders. i must have been very strong." she stopped, and he still sat with the puzzled look on his face, but a light of understanding beginning to show through.
"are you joking," he asked, "or what?"
"indeed, i am not joking," she assured him earnestly. "it is quite true. ask any one. only don't let them know it was i who wounded him. they have never so much as suspected it. fortunately i thought of you and ran home all the way, and was in my tent before it occurred to any one to come for me." she burst into a low laugh at his countenance of wrath and dismay. "oh! come, jack dear, it is not so perfectly, unspeakably horrible after all. i was disobedient. but then i am so sorry and promise never, never to do it again."
[pg 85]
"you might have killed the indian," he said, in a strained voice. it did not occur to either of them, just then, that it was not the danger she had been in that appalled him.
she was astonished in her turn. "killed him! why, of course i might have killed him," she said blankly, frowning, in a kind of hopeless perplexity over his want of understanding. "i came very near it, i tell you. the ball made shivers of his shoulder. but he was brave," she grew enthusiastic now, "he let the doctor probe and pick, and never moved a muscle. of course he was half drunk with tizwin, even then."
"you didn't stay to see the operation?" his voice was ominously quiet.
"for a while, yes. and before i came away i made a sign to show him it was i. you should have seen his surprise."
there followed a fury-fraught silence. landor's face was distorted with the effort he was making to contain himself, and felipa began to be a little uneasy. so she did the most unwise thing possible, having been deprived by nature of the good gift of tact. she got up from the couch and drew the knife from its case, and took it to him. "that," she said, showing the red-brown stains on the handle, "that is his blood."
he snatched it from her then, with a force that threw her to one side, and sent it flying across the room, smashing a water jug to bits. then he pushed her away and going out, banged the door until the whitewash fell down from the cracks.
[pg 86]
felipa was very thoroughly frightened now. she stood in wholesome awe of her husband, and it was the first time she had ever made him really angry, although frequently he was vaguely irritated by her. she had had no idea the thing would infuriate him so, or she would probably have kept it to herself. and she wished now that she had, as she went back to the couch and sat on the edge of it, dejectedly.
when he returned at the end of a couple of hours she was all humility, and she had moreover done something that was rare for her: made capital of her beauty, putting on her most becoming white gown, and piling her hair loosely on the top of her head, with a cap of lace and a ribbon atop of it. landor liked the little morning caps, probably because they were a sort of badge of civilization, but they were incongruous for all that, and took from the character of her head. his anger was well in leash, and he gave her the mail which had just come in by the stage, quite as though nothing had occurred. "and now," he commenced, when he had glanced over the eastern papers, "i have seen the c. o.; he wants the line between here and apache fixed. he will give me the detail if you care to go." he plainly meant to make no further reference to her confession, but she would have been more than woman if she had known when to let a matter drop.
her face lighted with the relief of a forgiven child, and she went to him and put her arms around his neck.
"you are so good to me," she said penitently, "and i was so disobedient."
[pg 87]
he bit his lip and did not reply, either to the words or to the caress. "you need a month of the mountains, i think," he said.
the telegraph between thomas and apache always gave something to think about. the indians had learned the use of the white-eye's talking wire very promptly. in the early '70's, when it first came to their notice, they put it to good use. as when an apache chief sent to a yuma chief the message that if the yumas did not hold to a certain promise, the apaches would go on the war-path and destroy them, root and branch.
the indians and the cow-boys used the insulators to try their marksmanship upon, and occasionally—in much the same spirit that the college man takes gates from their hinges and pulls down street signs—the young bucks cut the wires and tied the ends with rubber bands. also trees blown down by storms fell crashing across the line, and some scheme for making it a little less tempting and a little more secure was much needed. landor had long nursed such an one. so a week later he and felipa, with a detail of twenty men and a six-mule wagon, started across the gila valley to the white mountains.
by day felipa was left in camp with the cook, while landor and the men worked on ahead, returning at sundown. at times she went with them, but as a rule she wandered among the trees and rocks, shooting with pistol and bow, but always keeping close to the tents. she had no intention of disobeying her [pg 88]husband again. sometimes, too, she read, and sometimes cooked biscuits and game over the campfire in the dutch oven. her strength began to return almost from the first, and she had gone back, for comfort's sake, to the short skirts of her girlhood.
the indians who came round talked with her amicably enough, mainly by signs. she played with the children too, and one day there appeared among them her protégé of the post, who thereafter became a camp follower.
and on another morning there lounged into the space in front of the tents, with the indolent swing of a mountain lion, a big sierra blanca buck. he was wrapped from neck to moccasins in a red blanket, and carried an elaborate calf's-hide quiver. he stopped in front of felipa, who was sitting on the ground with her back against the trunk of a fallen tree reading, and held out the quiver to her.
"how," he said gruffly.
"how," answered felipa, as unconcernedly as though she had not recognized him almost at once for the buck she had last seen in the a tent beside the hospital, with the doctor picking pieces of bone and flesh from his shoulder. then she took the quiver and examined it. there was a bow as tall as herself, and pliable as fine steel, not a thing for children to play with, but a warrior's arm. also there were a number of thin, smooth, gayly feathered arrows. "malas," he told her, touching the heads. "venadas" and she knew that he meant that they were poisoned by the process of [pg 89]dipping them in putrid liver, into which a rattler had been made to inject its venom. even then the sort was becoming rare, though the arrow was still in use as a weapon and not merely as an attraction for tourists.
the buck sat down upon the ground in front of felipa and considered her. by the etiquette of the tribe she could not ask him his name, but the boy, her protégé, told her that it was alchesay. all the afternoon he hung around the camp, taciturn, apparently aimless, while she went about her usual amusements and slept in the tent. once in a way he spoke to her in spanish. and for days thereafter, as they moved up along the rough and dangerous road,—where the wagon upset with monotonous regularity, big and heavy though it was,—he appeared from time to time.
for some days felipa had noticed a change, indefinable and slight, yet still to be felt, in the manner of the indians all about. not that they were ever especially gracious, but now the mothers discouraged the children from playing hide-and-seek with her, and although there were quite as many squaws, fewer bucks came around than before. but alchesay could always be relied upon to stalk in, at regular intervals, and seat himself near the fire, or the hot ashes thereof.
they had been four days camping on black river, a mountain stream rushing between the steep hills, with the roar of a niagara, hunting deer and small game, fishing with indifferent success,—to the disgust of the apaches, who would much rather have eaten worms than fish,—and entertaining visitors. there were any[pg 90] number of these. one party had come out from fort apache, another from a camp of troops on the new mexico road, and some civilians from boston, who were in search of a favorable route for a projected railway.
in the opinion of landor, who knew the impracticable country foot for foot, they were well-intentioned lunatics. but they were agreeable guests, who exchanged the topics of the happy east for the wild turkey and commissary supplies of the far west, and in departing took with them a picturesque, if inexact, notion of army life on the frontier, and left behind a large number of books for felipa, who had dazzled their imaginations.
she had read one of the books one afternoon when she was left alone, until the sun began to sink behind the mountain tops, and the cook to drag branches to the fire preparatory to getting supper. then she marked her place with a twig, and rose up from the ground to go to the tent and dress, against landor's return. the squaws and bucks who had been all day wandering around the outskirts of the camp, speaking together in low voices, and watching the cook furtively, crowded about the opening.
she warned them off with a careless "ukishee." but they did not go. some ten pairs of eyes, full of unmistakable menace, followed her every movement. she let down the tent flaps and tied them together, taking her time about it. she was angry, and growing angrier. it was unendurable to her to be disobeyed, to have her authority put at naught on the few occasions when she chose to exercise it. she could keep her temper over[pg 91] anything but that. and her temper was of the silent sort, rolling on and on, like a great cold swell at sea, to break finally against the first obstacle with an uncontrollable force. she had never been really angry but twice in her life. once when she was in school, and when a teacher she liked, judging her by her frequent and unblushing lies to a teacher she disliked, doubted her word upon an occasion when she was really speaking the truth. it was after that that she had written to her guardian that she would run away. the second time had been when brewster had tried to bully her. she knew that it would soon be a third time, if the indians went on annoying her. and she was far more afraid of what she might do than of what they might do. but she took off the waist of her gown and began to brush her hair, not being in the least squeamish about letting the apaches see her fine white arms and neck, if they were to open the flaps again.
which was what they presently did. she expected it. a long, wrinkled hand reached in, feeling about for the knots of the tape. she stood still with the brush in her hands, watching. another hand came, and another. she caught up her quirt from the cot, then realizing that the sting of the lash would only prove an exasperation and weaken her authority, if she had any whatever,—and she believed that she had,—she threw it down. the cook was probably in the kitchen tent and did not know what was going on. and she would have died before she would have called for help.
[pg 92]
the lean hands found the knots, untied them, and threw back the flaps defiantly. the ten pairs of eyes were fastened on her again. she returned the gaze steadily, backing to a little camp table and slipping her hand under a newspaper that lay upon it. "ukishee, pronto," she commanded, in the accepted argot. they stood quite still and unyielding; and she knew that if she were to be obeyed at all, it must be now. or if she were to die, it must be now also. but the hand that drew from beneath the newspaper the little black-butted smith and wesson, which was never out of her reach, did not so much as tremble as she aimed it straight between the eyes of the foremost buck. "ukishee," she said once again, not loudly, but without the shadow of hesitation or wavering. there answered a low muttering, evil and rising, and the buck started forward. her finger pressed against the trigger, but before the hammer had snapped down, she threw up the barrel and fired into the air, for a big, sinewy arm, seamed with new scars, had reached out suddenly and struck the buck aside. it was all done in an instant, so quickly that felipa hardly knew she had changed her aim, and that it was alchesay who had come forward only just in time.
the cook came running, six-shooter in hand, but alchesay was driving them away and lowering the canvas flaps. felipa told the cook that it was all right, and went on with her dressing. although she had no gifts for guessing the moods and humors of her father's race, she understood her mother's considerably better,[pg 93] and so she did not even call a "gracias" after alchesay. she merely nodded amicably when she went out and found him sitting on the ground waiting for her. he returned the nod, a degree less graciously, if possible, and began to talk to her in bad spanish, evidently putting small faith in her command of the white mountain idiom, marvellous, to be sure, in a white-eye squaw, for such were of even greater uselessness than the average woman, but of no account whatever in a crisis. and such he plainly considered this to be.
"usted, vaya prontisimo," he directed with the assumption of right of one to whom she owed her life.
she looked down at him in a somewhat indignant surprise. "pues porque?" she asked, maintaining the haughtiness of the dominant race, and refusing to acknowledge any indebtedness. "why should i go away?"
"hombre!" grunted the indian, puffing at a straw-paper cigarette, "excesivamente peligroso aqui."
"why is it dangerous?" she wanted to know, and shrugged her shoulders. she was plainly not to be terrorized.
"matarán á usted."
"they will kill me? who will kill me, and what for?"
he gave another grunt. "go away to-morrow. go to the fort." he pointed with the hand that held the bit of cigarette in the direction of apache. "tell your man."
[pg 94]
she threw him an indifferent "i am not afraid, not of anything." it was a boast, but he had reason to know that it was one she could make good.
he rolled another cigarette, and sat smoking it unmoved. and she went into the mess tent.
nevertheless she decided that it might be best to tell her husband, and she did so as they sat together by the fire after the moon had risen into the small stretch of sky above the mountain peaks. they had bought a live sheep that day from a mexican herder who had passed along the road, and they were now cutting ribs from the carcass that hung from the branch of a near-by tree, and broiling them on the coals. felipa finished an unimpassioned account of the afternoon's happenings and of alchesay's advice, and landor did not answer at once. he sat thinking. of a sudden there was a rustle and a step among the pines, and from behind a big rock a figure came out into the half shadow. felipa was on her feet with a spring, and landor scrambled up almost as quickly.
the figure moved into the circle of red firelight and spoke, "it is cairness."
felipa started back so violently that she struck against the log she had been sitting upon, and lost her balance.
cairness jumped forward, and his arm went around her, steadying her. for a short moment she leaned against his shoulder. then she drew away, and her voice was quite steady as she greeted him. he could never have guessed that in that moment she had[pg 95] learned the meaning of her life, that there had flashed burningly through her brain a wild, unreasoning desire to stand forever backed against that rock of strength, to defy the world and all its restrictions.
there was a bright i. d. blanket spread on the ground a little way back from the fire, and she threw herself down upon it. all that was picturesque in his memories of history flashed back to cairness, as he took his place beside landor on the log and looked at her. boadicea might have sat so in the depths of the icenean forests, in the light of the torches of the druids. so the babylonian queen might have rested in the midst of her victorious armies, or she of palmyra, after the lion hunt in the deserts of syria. her eyes, red lighted beneath the shadowing lashes, met his. then she glanced away into the blackness of the pine forest, and calling her dog to lie down beside her, stroked its silky red head.
"i knew," cairness said, turning to landor after a very short silence, "that you and mrs. landor were somewhere along here. so i left my horse at a rancheria across the hill there," he nodded over his shoulder in the direction of the looming pile just behind, "and walked to where i saw the fire. i saw you for some time before i was near, but i ought to have called out. i really didn't think about startling you."
"that's all right," landor said; "are you hunting?"
he hesitated. "i have done some shooting. i am always shooting more or less, for that matter."
landor went to the tree and cut another rib from[pg 96] the mutton and threw it on the coals. then he walked across the clearing to the tent.
cairness and felipa were alone, and he leaned nearer to her. "do you know," he asked in a low voice, "that there have been all sorts of rumors of trouble among the indians for some time?"
she nodded.
"i have kept near you for a week, to warn you, or to help you if necessary."
her lips parted, and quivered, and closed again. the winds from the wide heavens above the gap whined through the pines, the river roared steadily down below, and the great, irresistible hand of nature crushed without heeding it the thin, hollow shell of convention. the child of a savage and a black sheep looked straight and long into the face of the child of rovers and criminals. they were man and woman, and in the freemasonry of outlawry made no pretence.
"you know that i love you?" he said unevenly.
"i know it," she whispered, but she took her shaking hand from the dog's head, and, without another word, pointed to the shadow of landor's figure, thrown distorted by the candle light against the side of the tent.
and he understood that the shadow must rise always between them. he had never expected it to be otherwise. it was bound to be so, and he bowed his head in unquestioning acceptance.
the shadow was swallowed up in darkness. the candle had been blown out, and landor came back to the fire.
[pg 97]
"you must get mrs. landor into the post to-morrow," cairness said abruptly; "victorio's band is about."
landor asked him to spend the night at the camp, and he did so, being given a cot in the mess tent.
about an hour after midnight there came thundering through the quiet of the night the sound of galloping hoofs along the road at the foot of the ravine. cairness, lying broad awake, was the first to hear it. he sprang up and ran to the opening of the tent. he guessed that it was a courier even before the gallop changed to a trot, and a voice called from the invisible depths below, "captain landor?" with a rising intonation of uncertainty.
"yes," cairness called back.
"is that captain landor's camp?"
a score of voices answered "yes." they were all aroused now. landor went down to meet the man, who had dismounted and was climbing up toward him, leading his horse. it was a courier, sent out from apache, as cairness had supposed.
"sixty of victorio's hostiles have been at the agency, and are on their way back to new mexico. will probably cross your camp," the captain read aloud to the men, who crowded as near as was compatible with discipline.
then he went off to inspect the stock and the pickets, and to double the sentries. "you had better sleep on your arms," he told the soldiers, and returned to his cot to lie down upon it, dressed, but feigning sleep,[pg 98] that felipa might not be uneasy. he need not have resorted to deception. felipa had not so much as pretended to close her eyes that night.
before dawn cairness was out, hastening the cook with the breakfast, helping with it himself, indeed, and rather enjoying the revival of the days when he had been one of the best cooks in the troop and forever pottering about the mess chests and the dutch oven, in the field. as the sun rose,—though daybreak was fairly late there in the ca?on,—the cold, crisp air was redolent of coffee and bacon and broiling fresh meat.
felipa, lifting her long riding skirt, stepped out from the tent, and stood with hand upraised holding back the flap. a ray of sun, piercing white through the pines, fell full on her face. she had the look of some mysterious priestess of the sun god, and cairness, standing by the crackling fire, prodding it with a long, charred stick, watched her without a word.
then she came forward, holding out her hand in the most matter-of-fact way, if, indeed, any action of a very beautiful woman can be matter of fact.
"i shall ride into apache with you in captain landor's stead, if he will allow me," he told her, and added, "and if you will."
she bowed gravely, "you are very kind."
at the instant a cloud floated over the sun, and soon a black bank began to fill up the sky above the ca?on. as they ate their breakfast in the tent, the morning darkened forebodingly. felipa finished the big quart cup of weak coffee hurriedly, and stood up, pushing[pg 99] back her camp-stool. her horse and four others were waiting.
landor had agreed to trust her to cairness and an escort of three soldiers. he could ill spare time from the telegraph line, under the circumstances; it might be too imperatively needed at any moment. he mounted his wife quickly. "you are not afraid?" he asked. but he knew so well that she was not, that he did not wait for her answer.
cairness mounted, and looked up anxiously at the sky, as he gathered his reins between his fingers. the wind had begun to howl through the branches of the trees. it promised to be a wild ride. "i will be back to-night, landor, to report," he said; "that is, if the storm doesn't delay us." and they started off down the hill.
he rode beside mrs. landor along the road in the ravine bed, and the soldiers followed some twenty yards in the rear. they were making as much haste as was wise at the outset, and felipa bent forward against the ever rising wind, as her horse loped steadily on.
there was a mutter of thunder and a far-off roar, a flame of lightning through the trees, and the hills and mountains shook. just where they rode the ca?on narrowed to hardly more than a deep gulch, and the river ran close beside the road.
"we must get out of this," cairness started to say, urging his little bronco; but even as he spoke there was a murmur, a rustle, a hissing roar, and the rain fell in one solid sheet, blinding them, beating them down.
[pg 100]
"take care!" yelled cairness, as felipa, dazed and without breath, headed straight for the stream. he bent and snatched at her bridle, and, swerving, started up the sheer side of the hill. she clung to the mane instinctively, but her horse stumbled, struggled, slipped, and scrambled. she had lost all control of it, and the earth and stones gave way beneath its hoofs just as a great wall of water bore down the bed of the river, sweeping trees and rocks away, and making the ground quiver.
"let go your stirrup!" cried cairness, in her ear; and as she kicked her foot loose, he leaned far from the saddle and threw his arm around her, swinging her up in front of him across the mclellan pommel, and driving the spurs into his horse's belly. it had the advantage of her horse in that it was an indian animal, sure of foot as a burro, and much quicker. with one dash it was up the hillside, while the other rolled over and over, down into the torrent of the cloud burst.
cairness slid to the ground, still holding her close, and set her upon her feet at once. he had not so much as tightened the grasp of his arm about her, nor held her one-half second longer than there was absolute need.
he tried to see if the soldiers were safe, but though they were not a hundred feet away, the trunks and the mist of water hid them. the rain still pounded down, but the rush of the wind was lessening sensibly.
felipa leaned against the tree under which they were, fairly protected from the worst of the storm;[pg 101] and cairness stood beside her, holding his winded horse. there was nothing to be said that could be said. she had lost for once her baffling control of the commonplace in speech, and so they stood watching the rain beat through the wilderness, and were silent.
when the storm had fairly passed, they found felipa's gray lodged in the root of a tree some distance down the creek; in no way hurt, oddly enough, but trembling and badly frightened. the saddle, even, was uninjured, though the pigskin was water-soaked and slippery.
cairness sent one of the soldiers back to report their safety to landor, and they mounted and hurried on again, swimming the river twice, and reaching the post some time after noon.
the commandant's wife took mrs. landor in, and would have put her to bed with hot drinks and blankets, but that felipa would have nothing more than some dry clothes and a wrapper in place of her wet habit. the clothes were her own, brought by one of the men, safe in a rubber poncho, but the wrapper belonged to her hostess, who was portly, whereas felipa was slender. but to cairness, who had stopped for luncheon, she seemed, in the voluminous dull red draperies, more splendid than ever before.
he rode away at once after they had lunched. and felipa went to her room, and dropped down shivering beside the little red-hot iron stove, moaning between her clenched teeth.
