Part 43 (1/2)
”Yes,” he replied. ”It is done.” And he pointed to a little box of rough boards by the side of the cradle.
”Is Majella ready to go to the mountain now?” he asked.
”Yes, Alessandro, I am ready,” she said.
”We will hide forever,” he said.
”It makes no difference,” she replied.
The Saboba women did not know what to think of Ramona now. She had never come into sympathetic relations with them, as she had with the women of San Pasquale. Her intimacy with the Hyers had been a barrier the Saboba people could not surmount. No one could be on such terms with whites, and be at heart an Indian, they thought; so they held aloof from Ramona.
But now in her bereavement they gathered round her. They wept at sight of the dead baby's face, lying in its tiny white coffin. Ramona had covered the box with white cloth, and the lace altar-cloth thrown over it fell in folds to the floor. ”Why does not this mother weep? Is she like the whites, who have no heart?” said the Saboba mothers among themselves; and they were embarra.s.sed before her, and knew not what to say. Ramona perceived it, but had no life in her to speak to them.
Benumbing terrors, which were worse than her grief, were crowding Ramona's heart now. She had offended the Virgin; she had committed a blasphemy: in one short hour the Virgin had punished her, had smitten her child dead before her eyes. And now Alessandro was going mad; hour by hour Ramona fancied she saw changes in him. What form would the Virgin's vengeance take next? Would she let Alessandro become a raging madman, and finally kill both himself and her? That seemed to Ramona the most probable fate in store for them. When the funeral was over, and they returned to their desolate home, at the sight of the empty cradle Ramona broke down.
”Oh, take me away, Alessandro! Anywhere! I don't care where! anywhere, so it is not here!” she cried.
”Would Majella be afraid, now, on the high mountain, the place I told her of?” he said.
”No!” she replied earnestly. ”No! I am afraid of nothing! Only take me away!”
A gleam of wild delight flitted across Alessandro's face. ”It is well,”
he said. ”My Majella, we will go to the mountain; we will be safe there.”
The same fierce restlessness which took possession of him at San Pasquale again showed itself in his every act. His mind was unceasingly at work, planning the details of their move and of the new life. He mentioned them one after another to Ramona. They could not take both horses; feed would be scanty there, and there would be no need of two horses. The cow also they must give up. Alessandro would kill her, and the meat, dried, would last them for a long time. The wagon he hoped he could sell; and he would buy a few sheep; sheep and goats could live well in these heights to which they were going. Safe at last! Oh, yes, very safe; not only against whites, who, because the little valley was so small and bare, would not desire it, but against Indians also. For the Indians, silly things, had a terror of the upper heights of San Jacinto; they believed the Devil lived there, and money would not hire one of the Saboba Indians to go so high as this valley which Alessandro had discovered. Fiercely he gloated over each one of these features of safety in their hiding-place. ”The first time I saw it, Majella,--I believe the saints led me there,--I said, it is a hiding-place. And then I never thought I would be in want of such,--of a place to keep my Majella safe! safe! Oh, my Majel!” And he clasped her to his breast with a terrifying pa.s.sion.
For an Indian to sell a horse and wagon in the San Jacinto valley was not an easy thing, unless he would give them away. Alessandro had hard work to give civil answers to the men who wished to buy Benito and the wagon for quarter of their value. He knew they would not have dared to so much as name such prices to a white man. Finally Ramona, who had felt unconquerable misgivings as to the wisdom of thus irrevocably parting from their most valuable possessions, persuaded him to take both horses and wagon to San Bernardino, and offer them to the Hyers to use for the winter.
It would be just the work for Jos, to keep him in the open air, if he could get teaming to do; she was sure he would be thankful for the chance. ”He is as fond of the horses as we are ourselves, Alessandro,”
she said. ”They would be well cared for; and then, if we did not like living on the mountain, we could have the horses and wagon again when we came down, or Jos could sell them for us in San Bernardino. n.o.body could see Benito and Baba working together, and not want them.”
”Majella is wiser than the dove!” cried Alessandro. ”She has seen what is the best thing to do. I will take them.”
When he was ready to set off, he implored Ramona to go with him; but with a look of horror she refused. ”Never,” she cried, ”one step on that accursed road! I will never go on that road again unless it is to be carried, as we brought her, dead.”
Neither did Ramona wish to see Aunt Ri. Her sympathy would be intolerable, spite of all its affectionate kindliness. ”Tell her I love her,” she said, ”but I do not want to see a human being yet; next year perhaps we will go down,--if there is any other way besides that road.”
Aunt Ri was deeply grieved. She could not understand Ramona's feeling.
It rankled deep. ”I allow I'd never hev bleeved it uv her, never,” she said. ”I shan't never think she wuz quite right 'n her head, to do 't!
I allow we shan't never set eyes on ter her, Jos. I've got jest thet feelin' abaout it. 'Pears like she'd gone klar out 'er this yer world inter anuther.”
The majestic bulwark of San Jacinto Mountain looms in the southern horizon of the San Bernardino valley. It was in full sight from the door of the little shanty in which Aunt Ri's carpet-loom stood. As she sat there hour after hour, sometimes seven hours to the day, working the heavy treadle, and slipping the shuttle back and forth, she gazed with tender yearnings at the solemn, s.h.i.+ning summit. When sunset colors smote it, it glowed like fire; on cloudy days, it was lost in the clouds.
”'Pears like 'twas next door to heaven, up there, Jos,” Aunt Ri would say. ”I can't tell yer the feelin' 't comes over me, to look up 't it, ever sence I knowed she wuz there. 'T s.h.i.+nes enuf to put yer eyes aout, sometimes; I allow 'tain't so light's thet when you air into 't; 't can't be; ther couldn't n.o.body stan' it, ef 't wuz. I allow 't must be like bein' dead, Jos, don't yer think so, to be livin' thar? He sed ther couldn't n.o.body git to 'em. n.o.body ever seed the place but hisself. He found it a huntin'. Thar's water thar, 'n' thet's abaout all thar is, fur's I cud make aout; I allow we shan't never see her agin.”
The horses and the wagon were indeed a G.o.dsend to Jos. It was the very thing he had been longing for; the only sort of work he was as yet strong enough to do, and there was plenty of it to be had in San Bernardino. But the purchase of a wagon suitable for the purpose was at present out of their power; the utmost Aunt Ri had hoped to accomplish was to have, at the end of a year, a sufficient sum laid up to buy one.
They had tried in vain to exchange their heavy emigrant-wagon for one suitable for light work. ”'Pears like I'd die o' shame,” said Aunt Ri, ”sometimes when I ketch myself er thinkin' what luck et's ben to Jos, er gettin' thet Injun's hosses an' waggin. But ef Jos keeps on, airnin' ez much ez he hez so fur, he's goin' ter pay the Injun part on 't, when he c.u.ms. I allow ter Jos 'tain't no more'n fair. Why, them hosses, they'll dew good tew days' work'n one. I never see sech hosses; 'n' they're jest like kittens; they've ben drefful pets, I allow. I know she set all the world, 'n' more tew, by thet nigh one. He wuz hern, ever sence she wuz a child. Pore thing,--'pears like she hedn't hed no chance!”
Alessandro had put off, from day to day, the killing of the cow. It went hard with him to slaughter the faithful creature, who knew him, and came towards him at the first sound of his voice. He had pastured her, since the baby died, in a canon about three miles northeast of the village,--a lovely green canon with oak-trees and a running brook. It was here that he had thought of building his house if they had stayed in Saboba. But Alessandro laughed bitterly to himself now, as he recalled that dream.
Already the news had come to Saboba that a company had been formed for the settling up of the San Jacinto valley; the Ravallo brothers had sold to this company a large grant of land. The white ranchmen in the valley were all fencing in their lands; no more free running of stock. The Saboba people were too poor to build miles of fencing; they must soon give up keeping stock; and the next thing would be that they would be driven out, like the people of Temecula. It was none too soon that he had persuaded Majella to flee to the mountain. There, at least, they could live and die in peace,--a poverty-stricken life, and the loneliest of deaths; but they would have each other. It was well the baby had died; she was saved all this misery. By the time she had grown to be a woman, if she had lived, there would be no place in all the country where an Indian could find refuge. Brooding over such thoughts as these, Alessandro went up into the canon one morning. It must be done.
Everything was ready for their move; it would take many days to carry even their few possessions up the steep mountain trail to their new home; the pony which had replaced Benito and Baba could not carry a heavy load. While this was being done, Ramona would dry the beef which would be their supply of meat for many months. Then they would go.