A Prairie Infanta, Page 2

  CHAPTER TWO

  A SACRED CHARGE

  Jane helplessly regarded the child's despair, while Senora Vigilmaintained an attitude curiously significant of deep compassion and aprofound intention of neutrality. With the sound of Lola's distraughtrefusals in her ear, Jane felt upon her merely the instinct of flight.She rallied her powers of speech and set her hand on the gate, sayingsimply, "I'm going. She better stay here."

  But at this the senora's face, which had exhibited a kind of wofulpleasure in the excitement of the occasion, took on an anxious frown.

  "And the board-money?" she exclaimed, with instant eagerness.

  "I guess it'll be all right. Mr. Keene said he'd send it every month."

  The senora's eyes narrowed. "He said so! Ay, but who can say he shallremember? There are eight chickens to eat of our meal already. No, MeesCombs! The _muchacha_ was left to you. It is a charge very sacred. AveMaria! yes!"

  Jane had closed the gate. "I can't force her," she repeated.

  Senora Vigil, watching her go, fell a prey to lively dissatisfaction."_Santo cielo!_" she thought. "What will my Pablo say to this? I mustrun to the mine for a word with him. It is most serious, thisbusiness!" And casting her apron over the whip-cord braids of hercoarse hair, she started hastily down toward the bridge.

  Lola, crouching on the ground, watched her go. It was very quiet in thegrassless yard. The Vigil children were playing in the _arroyo_ bed.Their voices came with a stifled sound. There was nothing else to hearsave the far-off moaning of a wild dove somewhere up Gonzales canyon.The echo was like a soft, sad voice. It sounded like the mournful cryof one who, looking out of heaven, saw her hapless little daughterbereaved and abandoned, and was moved, even among the blessed, to asobbing utterance.

  Lola sat up to listen. Her father had spoken of going through thatcanyon from which the low call came. Even now he was traveling throughthe green hills, regretting that he had left his child behind him atthe instance of a strange woman! Even now he was doubtless deploringthat he should have been moved to consider another's loneliness beforehis own.

  "Wicked woman," thought the girl, angrily, "to ask him to leave mehere--my poor papa!" She sprang to her feet, filled with an impetuousidea. She might follow her father!

  There was the road, and no one by to hinder her. Even the hideouswooden house of the short-haired woman looked deserted. Lola, with anIndian's stealth of tread, crossed the bridge, and walked withoutsuspicious haste up the empty street.

  At the mouth of the canyon, taking heart of the utter wilderness allabout, she began to run. Before her the great Spanish Peaks heavedtheir blue pyramids against the desert sky. Shadows were falling overthe rough, winding road, and as she rushed on and on, many a gully andstone and tree-root took her foot unaware in the growing gray oftwilight. Presently a star came out, a strange-faced star. Othersfollowed in an unfamiliar throng, which watched her curiously when,breathless and exhausted, she dropped down beside a little spring todrink. The water refreshed her. She lay back on the cattle-tramped hillto rest.

  Dawn was rosy in the east when she awoke, dazed to find herself alonein a deep gorge. Her mission recurred to her, and again she took theclimbing road. Now, however, the way was hard, for it rose ever beforeher, and her feet were swollen.

  As the day advanced it grew sultry, with a menace of clouds to thewest. After a time the great peaks were lost in dark clouds, anddistant thunder boomed. A lance of lightning rent the nearer sky, andflashed its vivid whiteness into the gorge. This had narrowed so thatbetween the steep hills there was only room for the arroyo and thelittle roadway beside it. Before the rain began to fall on Lola's barehead, as it did shortly in sheets, the stream-bed had become a ragingtorrent, down which froth and spume and uprooted saplings werespinning.

  In an instant the canyon was a wild tumult of thunder and roaring water,and Lola, barely keeping her feet, had laid hold of a pinon on thelower slope and was burying her head in the spiked branches. Wind andrain buffeted the child. The ground began to slip and slide with thefurious downpour, but she held fast, possessed of a great fear of thetorrent sweeping down below her.

  As she listened to the crashing of the swollen tide, another noiseseemed to mingle with the sound of the mountain waters--a sound ofbellowing and trampling, as of a stampeded herd. A sudden horror ofgreat rolling eyes and rending horns and crazy hoofs hurtled throughthe girl's dizzy brain. Her hands loosened. She began to slip down.

  The rain had slackened when Bev Gribble, looking from his herder's hutup on the _mesa_, saw that his "bunch" of cattle had disappeared.Certain tracks on the left of the upland pasture exhibited traces of ahasty departure. That there had been a cloudburst over toward the Peakshe was as yet ignorant; nor did he discover this until he had caughthis cow-pony and descended into the ravine.

  The sun was shining now, and the arroyo was nothing more than a placid,though muddy stream. Its gleaming sides, however, spoke lucidly toBev's intelligence, and he set the pony at a smarter pace in the marshyroad.

  "_Sus! Sus!_" said Bev to his pony, who knew Spanish best, being abronco from the south. But Coco did not respond. Instead, he came backsuddenly on his haunches, as if the rope on the cow-puncher's saddlehad lurched to the leap of a steer.

  Coco knew well the precise instant when it is advisable for a cow-ponyto forestall the wrench of the lasso. But now the loop of hemp hunglimp on the saddle-horn, and Gribble, surprised at being nearly thrown,rose in the stirrups to see what was underfoot.

  A drenched thing it was which huddled at the roadside; very limp,indeed, and laxly lending itself to the motions of Gribble's hands ashe lifted and shook it.

  "Seems to be alive!" muttered the cow-puncher. "Where could she havedropped from? Aha! here's a broken arm! I better take her right to townto the doctor. Hi there, Coco!" He laid Lola over the saddle andmounted behind his dripping burden.

  When the coal-camp came in sight on the green skirt of the plains, withthe Apishapa scrolling the distance in a velvet ribbon, sunset wasalready forward, and the smoke of many an evening fire veined the latesky.

  A man coming toward the canyon stopped at sight of Gribble. He was thestore clerk going home to supper. He shouted, "Hullo, Bev! Why, whathave you struck? Bless me, it's the little girl they're all hunting!She belongs to Miss Combs, it seems. Her mother died here the otherday. Found her up the canyon, eh? They been all ranging north, thinkingshe'd taken after her pa. Maybe she thought he'd headed for La Vetapass? Looks sure 'nough bad, don't she?"

  Jane, when she heard the pony cross the bridge, ran to the door, as shehad run so many times during the long, anxious day. She took the girlfrom Gribble without a word, and bore her into the house from which shehad fled with so much loathing.

  "Don't look so scared!" said Gribble, kindly. "It's only a broken boneor so." As this consoling assurance seemed not to lessen Jane's alarm,he went on cheerfully to say, "There isn't one in my body hasn't beensplintered by these broncos! Tinker 'em up and they're better than new.Here's doc coming lickety-switch! He'll tell you the same."

  But the doctor was less encouraging. "It isn't merely a question ofbones," he said, observing his patient finally in her splints andbandages. "It's the nervous strain she's lately undergone. She's beenovertaxed with so much excitement and sorrow. If she pulls through,it'll be the nursing."

  Jane drew a deep breath. "She won't die if nursing can save her!" saidshe. Her face shone with grave sacrificial tenderness, in the light ofwhich the shortcomings of her uncouth dress and looks were for oncewithout significance.

  "She's a good woman," said the doctor, as he rode away, "though shewears her womanhood so ungraciously--as a rough husk rather than aflower. All the same, she's laying up misery for herself in herdevotion to this fractious child; I wish I'd had no hand in it!"

  Jane early came to feel what burs were in the wind for her. Lola soonreturned to the world, staring wonderingly about; but even in the firstmoment she winced and turned her face away from Jane's eager gaze. Asthe
girl shrank back into the pillows, Jane's lips quivered.

  "Goose that I am!" she thought. "Of course my looks are strange to her!It'd be funny if she took to me right off. I aint good-looking. And herma was real handsome!" For once in her life Jane sighed a little overher own plainness. "Children love their mothers even when they're plumbhomely!" she encouraged herself. "Maybe Lola'll like me, in spite of mynot being well-favored, when she finds how much I think of her."

  As time passed, and Lola, with her arm in a sling, began to sit up andto creep about, there was little in her manner to show the wisdom ofJane's cheerful forecast. The girl was still and reserved, as if someancient Aztec strain predominated in her over all others. She watchedthe Vigils playing, the kids gamboling, the magpies squabbling; butnever a lighter look stirred the chill calm of her little,russet-toned features, or the sombre depths of her dark, long eyes.

  Jane watched her in despair. "I'm afraid you aint very well contented,Lola," she said, one day. "Is there anything any one can do?" Lola wassitting in the August sunshine. A little quiver passed through her.

  "I want to hear from my father," she said. "Has he--written?" Her voicewas wishful, indeed, and Jane colored.

  "I guess he's been so busy he hasn't got round to it yet," she said,lightly.

  "I thought he hadn't," said Lola, quickly. "I--didn't expect it quiteyet. He hates to write." Her accent was sharp with anxiety as sheadded, "But of course he sends the--board-money for me--he wouldremember that?" Evidently she recalled the Senora Vigil's questions anddoubts on this subject, for there was such intensity of apprehension inher look that Jane felt herself full of pain.

  "Of course he would remember it, my dear!" she said, on the instant;she consoled her conscience by reflecting that there was no untruth inher words. Although Mr. Keene had sent never a word or sign to Aguilar,it was measurably certain that he remembered his obligations.

  "It'd just about kill that child to find out the truth," thought Jane."She looks, anyhow, like she hadn't a friend on earth! I'm going to lether think the money comes as regular as clockwork! I d' know but I'mreal glad he don't send it. Makes me feel closer to the little thing,somehow."

  After a while the broken arm was pronounced whole again, and the slingwas taken off.

  "You're all right now," said the doctor to Lola, "and you must runout-of-doors and get some Colorado tan on your cheeks. _Sabe?_ And eatmore. Get up an appetite. How do you say that in Spanish? _Tener buendiente_, eh? All right. See you do it."

  Lola stood at his knee, solemn and mute. She took his jests with an airof formal courtesy, barely smiling. She had a queer littlehalf-civilized look in the neat pigtails which Jane consideredappropriate to her age, and which were so tightly braided as fairly todraw up the girl's eyebrows. The emerald _fajas_ had been laid by. Togarland that viny strip in Lola's locks was beyond Jane's power.

  "What a little icicle it is!" mused the doctor. "If I had taken a thornfrom a dog's foot the creature would have been more grateful!"

  Even as he was thinking this, he felt a sudden pressure upon his hand.Lola had seized it and was kissing the big fingers passionately, whileshe cried, "_Gracias! mil gracias, senor!_ You have made me well! Whenmy papa comes he will bless you! He will pour gold over you from headto foot!"

  "That's all right, Lola," laughed the doctor. "He'll have to thank MissJane more than me. She pulled you through. Have you thanked _her_ yet,Lola?"

  Lola's face stiffened. "But for her I should not have been tramped bythe cattle--I should have been safe in my father's wagon!" she thought."I--have not, but I will--soon," she said. "And your housekeeper, too,for the ice-cream, and other things."

  Jane, in succeeding days, took high comfort in the fact that Lolaseemed to like being out-of-doors, and apparently amused herself theremuch after the fashion of ordinary children. She had establishedherself over by the ditch, and Jane could see her fetching water in acan and mixing it with a queer kind of adobe which she got half-way upthe hill. That Lola should be engaged with mud _casas_ was, indeed,hardly in accord with Jane's experience of the girl's dignity; but thatshe should be playing ever so foolishly in a slush of clay delightedJane as being a healthful symptom.

  "What you making down yonder, honey?" she ventured to ask.

  "I am making nothing; I am finished," said Lola. "To-morrow you shallsee my work." Jane felt taken aback. It had been work, then; not simpleplay. She awaited what should follow with curious interest.

  Upon the next morning Lola ran off through the alfalfa ratherexcitedly. After a little she reappeared, walking slowly, with an airof importance. She carried something carefully before her, holding itabove the reach of the alfalfa's snatching green fingers.

  It was a square pedestal of adobe, sun-baked hard as stone, upon whichsat a queer adobe creature, with a lean body and a great bulbous head.This personage showed the presence in his anatomy of an element offinely chopped straw. His slits of eyes were turned prayerfullyupward. From his widely open mouth hung a thirsty mud tongue, andbetween his knobby knees he held an empty bowl, toward the filling ofwhich his whole expression seemed an invocation.

  "He is for you," said Lola, beaming artistic gratification. "He is toshow my thanks for your caring for me in my broken-bonedness. He isTesuque, the rain-god. You can let your ditches fill with weeds, if youlike. You won't need to irrigate your _vega_ any more. Tesuque willmake showers come."

  Jane trembled with surprised pleasure. The powers ascribed to Tesuquewere hardly accountable for the gratification with which she receivedhim.

  "I'll value him as long as I live!" she exclaimed. "He--he's realhandsome!"

  "Not handsome," corrected Lola, with a tone of modest pride, "but_good_! He makes the rain come. In Taos are many Tesuques."

  "I reckon it must rain considerable there," surmised Jane, notunnaturally.

  Lola shook her head. "No. It's pretty dry--but it wouldn't rain at all,you see, if it wasn't for Tesuque!"

  This logic was irresistible. Jane dwelt smilingly upon it as she setthe rain-god on the mantel, with a crockery bowl of yellow daisies tomaintain his state. Afterward, a dark, adder-like compunction glidedthrough the flowery expanse of her joy in Tesuque, as she wondered ifthere was not something heathenish in his lordly enshrinement upon aChristian mantelpiece.

  "Maybe he's an idol!" thought Jane. "Lola," she asked, perturbed, "youdon't _pray_ to Tersookey, do you?" Lola looked horrified.

  "Me? _Maria Santissima!_ I am of the Church! Tesuque is not to pray to.I hope you have not been making your worship to him. It is like this,senora: You plant the seed and the leaf comes; you set out Tesuque andrain falls. It is quite simple."

  "'HE IS TESUQUE, THE RAIN-GOD.'"]

  Jane rested in this easy and convincing philosophy. She saw the joke ofLola's advice to her not to misplace her devotions, and one day sherepeated the story to the doctor, showing him the rain-god.

  "Do you know," said the doctor, handling Tesuque, "that this thing issurprisingly well-modeled? The Mexicans can do anything with adobe, butthis has something about it beyond the reach of most of them."

  After this, a pleasanter atmosphere spread in Jane's dwelling. Lolaoften unbent to talk. Sometimes she sewed a little on the frocks andaprons, preparing for her school career. Oftener she worked in herroofless pottery by the ditch, where many a queer jug and vase andbowl, gaudy with ochre and Indian red, came into being and passed earlyto dust again, for want of firing. Jane found these things engrossing.She liked to sit and watch them grow under Lola's fingers, while thepurple alfalfa flowers shed abroad sweet odors, and the ditch-watersang softly at her feet. As she sat thus one afternoon, Alejandro Vigilcame running across the field, waving a letter.

  "'Tis for you, Lolita!" he cried. "My father read the marks. It is fromCripple Creek!"

  "Oh, give me! give me!" cried Lola, flinging down a mud dish.

  Jane had taken the letter. "It's for me, dear," she said, beginning toopen it. "I'll read it aloud--" She paused. Her face had a gray co
lor.

  Lola held out her hands in a passion of joy and eagerness. "What doeshe say? Oh, hurry! Oh, let me have it!"

  Jane suddenly crushed the letter, and her eyes were stern as shewithdrew it resolutely from Lola's reaching fingers.

  "No, Lola, no!" she said, in a sharp tone. "I--can't let you have thisletter! I can't! I can't!"

  A TRUE BENEFACTRESS