Part 39 (2/2)
Ramona shuddered, and was silent. Alessandro continued: ”If Majella would not be afraid, I know a place, high up on the mountain, where no white man has ever been, or ever will be. I found it when I was following a bear. The beast led me up. It was his home; and I said then, it was a fit hiding-place for a man. There is water, and a little green valley. We could live there; but it would be no more than to live,, it is very small, the valley. Majella would be afraid?”
”Yes, Alessandro, I would be afraid, all alone on a high mountain. Oh, do not let us go there! Try something else first, Alessandro. Is there no other Indian village you know?”
”There is Saboba,” he said, ”at foot of the San Jacinto Mountain; I had thought of that. Some of my people went there from Temecula; but it is a poor little village, Majella. Majella would not like to live in it.
Neither do I believe it will long be any safer than San Pasquale. There was a kind, good old man who owned all that valley,--Senor Ravallo; he found the village of Saboba there when he came to the country. It is one of the very oldest of all; he was good to all Indians, and he said they should never be disturbed, never. He is dead; but his three sons have the estate yet, and I think they would keep their father's promise to the Indians. But you see, to-morrow, Majella, they may die, or go back to Mexico, as Senor Valdez did, and then the Americans will get it, as they did Temecula. And there are already white men living in the valley.
We will go that way, Majella. Majella shall see. If she says stay, we will stay.”
It was in the early afternoon that they entered the broad valley of San Jacinto. They entered it from the west. As they came in, though the sky over their heads was overcast and gray, the eastern and northeastern part of the valley was flooded with a strange light, at once ruddy and golden. It was a glorious sight. The jagged top and spurs of San Jacinto Mountain shone like the turrets and posterns of a citadel built of rubies. The glow seemed preternatural.
”Behold San Jacinto!” cried Alessandro.
Ramona exclaimed in delight. ”It is an omen!” she said. ”We are going into the sunlight, out of the shadow;” and she glanced back at the west, which was of a slaty blackness.
”I like it not!” said Alessandro. ”The shadow follows too fast!”
Indeed it did. Even as he spoke, a fierce wind blew from the north, and tearing off fleeces from the black cloud, sent them in scurrying ma.s.ses across the sky. In a moment more, snow-flakes began to fall.
”Holy Virgin!” cried Alessandro. Too well he knew what it meant. He urged the horses, running fast beside them. It was of no use. Too much even for Baba and Benito to make any haste, with the heavily loaded wagon.
”There is an old sheep-corral and a hut not over a mile farther, if we could but reach it!” groaned Alessandro. ”Majella, you and the child will freeze.”
”She is warm on my breast,” said Ramona; ”but, Alessandro, what ice in this wind! It is like a knife at my back!”
Alessandro uttered another e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of dismay. The snow was fast thickening; already the track was covered. The wind lessened.
”Thank G.o.d, that wind no longer cuts as it did,” said Ramona, her teeth chattering, clasping the baby closer and closer.
”I would rather it blew than not,” said Alessandro; ”it will carry the snow before it. A little more of this, and we cannot see, any more than in the night.”
Still thicker and faster fell the snow; the air was dense; it was, as Alessandro had said, worse than the darkness of night,--this strange opaque whiteness, thick, choking, freezing one's breath. Presently the rough jolting of the wagon showed that they were off the road. The horses stopped; refused to go on.
”We are lost, if we stay here!” cried Alessandro. ”Come, my Benito, come!” and he took him by the head, and pulled him by main force back into the road, and led him along. It was terrible. Ramona's heart sank within her. She felt her arms growing numb; how much longer could she hold the baby safe? She called to Alessandro. He did not hear her; the wind had risen again; the snow was being blown in ma.s.ses; it was like making headway among whirling snow-drifts.
”We will die,” thought Ramona. ”Perhaps it is as well!” And that was the last she knew, till she heard a shouting, and found herself being shaken and beaten, and heard a strange voice saying, ”Sorry ter handle yer so rough, ma'am, but we've got ter git yer out ter the fire!”
”Fire!” Were there such things as fire and warmth? Mechanically she put the baby into the unknown arms that were reaching up to her, and tried to rise from her seat; but she could not move.
”Set still! set still!” said the strange voice. ”I'll jest carry the baby ter my wife, an' come back fur you. I allowed yer couldn't git up on yer feet;” and the tall form disappeared. The baby, thus vigorously disturbed from her warm sleep, began to cry.
”Thank G.o.d!” said Alessandro, at the plunging horses' heads. ”The child is alive! Majella!” he called.
”Yes, Alessandro,” she answered faintly, the gusts sweeping her voice like a distant echo past him.
It was a marvellous rescue. They had been nearer the old sheep-corral than Alessandro had thought; but except that other storm-beaten travellers had reached it before them, Alessandro had never found it.
Just as he felt his strength failing him, and had thought to himself, in almost the same despairing words as Ramona, ”This will end all our troubles,” he saw a faint light to the left. Instantly he had turned the horses' heads towards it. The ground was rough and broken, and more than once he had been in danger of overturning the wagon; but he had pressed on, shouting at intervals for help. At last his call was answered, and another light appeared; this time a swinging one, coming slowly towards him,--a lantern, in the hand of a man, whose first words, ”Wall, stranger, I allow yer inter trouble,” were as intelligible to Alessandro as if they had been spoken in the purest San Luiseno dialect.
Not so, to the stranger, Alessandro's grateful reply in Spanish.
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