Part 43 (2/2)

At noon he came down with the first load of the meat, and Ramona began cutting it into long strips, as is the Mexican fas.h.i.+on of drying.

Alessandro returned for the remainder. Early in the afternoon, as Ramona went to and fro about her work, she saw a group of hors.e.m.e.n riding from house to house, in the upper part of the village; women came running out excitedly from each house as the hors.e.m.e.n left it; finally one of them darted swiftly up the hill to Ramona. ”Hide it! hide it!” she cried, breathless; ”hide the meat! It is Merrill's men, from the end of the valley. They have lost a steer, and they say we stole it. They found the place, with blood on it, where it was killed; and they say we did it.

Oh, hide the meat! They took all that Fernando had; and it was his own, that he bought; he did not know anything about their steer!”

”I shall not hide it!” cried Ramona, indignantly. ”It is our own cow.

Alessandro killed it to-day.”

”They won't believe you!” said the woman, in distress. ”They'll take it all away. Oh, hide some of it!” And she dragged a part of it across the floor, and threw it under the bed, Ramona standing by, stupefied.

Before she had spoken again, the forms of the galloping riders darkened the doorway; the foremost of them, leaping off his horse, exclaimed: ”By G.o.d! here's the rest of it. If they ain't the d.a.m.nedest impudent thieves! Look at this woman, cutting it up! Put that down, will you?

We'll save you the trouble of dryin' our meat for us, besides killin'

it! Fork over, now, every bit you've got, you--” And he called Ramona by a vile epithet.

Every drop of blood left Ramona's face. Her eyes blazed, and she came forward with the knife uplifted in her hand. ”Out of my house, you dogs of the white color!” she said. ”This meat is our own; my husband killed the creature but this morning.”

Her tone and bearing surprised them. There were six of the men, and they had all swarmed into the little room.

”I say, Merrill,” said one of them, ”hold on; the squaw says her husband only jest killed it to-day. It might be theirs.”

Ramona turned on him like lightning. ”Are you liars, you all,” she cried, ”that you think I lie? I tell you the meat is ours; and there is not an Indian in this village would steal cattle!”

A derisive shout of laughter from all the men greeted this speech; and at that second, the leader, seeing the mark of blood where the Indian woman had dragged the meat across the ground, sprang to the bed, and lifting the deerskin, pointed with a sneer to the beef hidden there.

”Perhaps, when you know Injun's well's I do,” he said, ”you won't be for believin' all they say! What's she got it hid under the bed for, if it was their own cow?” and he stooped to drag the meat out. ”Give us a hand here, Jake!”

”If you touch it, I will kill you!” cried Ramona, beside herself with rage; and she sprang between the men, her uplifted knife gleaming.

”Hoity-toity!” cried Jake, stepping back; ”that's a handsome squaw when she's mad! Say, boys, let's leave her some of the meat. She wasn't to blame; of course, she believes what her husband told her.”

”You go to gra.s.s for a soft-head, you Jake!” muttered Merrill, as he dragged the meat out from beneath the bed.

”What is all this?” said a deep voice in the door; and Ramona, turning, with a glad cry, saw Alessandro standing there, looking on, with an expression which, even in her own terror and indignation, gave her a sense of dread, it was so icily defiant. He had his hand on his gun.

”What is all this?” he repeated. He knew very well.

”It's that Temecula man,” said one of the men, in a low tone, to Merrill. ”If I'd known 't was his house, I wouldn't have let you come here. You're up the wrong tree, sure!”

Merrill dropped the meat he was dragging over the floor, and turned to confront Alessandro's eyes. His countenance fell. Even he saw that he had made a mistake. He began to speak. Alessandro interrupted him.

Alessandro could speak forcibly in Spanish. Pointing to his pony, which stood at the door with a package on its back, the remainder of the meat rolled in the hide, he said: ”There is the remainder of the beef.

I killed the creature this morning, in the canon. I will take Senor Merrill to the place, if he wishes it. Senor Merrill's steer was killed down in the willows yonder, yesterday.”

”That's so!” cried the men, gathering around him. ”How did you know? Who did it?”

Alessandro made no reply. He was looking at Ramona. She had flung her shawl over her head, as the other woman had done, and the two were cowering in the corner, their faces turned away. Ramona dared not look on; she felt sure Alessandro would kill some one. But this was not the type of outrage that roused Alessandro to dangerous wrath. He even felt a certain enjoyment in the discomfiture of the self-const.i.tuted posse of searchers for stolen goods. To all their questions in regard to the stolen steer, he maintained silence. He would not open his lips. At last, angry, ashamed, with a volley of coa.r.s.e oaths at him for his obstinacy, they rode away. Alessandro went to Ramona's side. She was trembling. Her hands were like ice.

”Let us go to the mountain to-night!” she gasped. ”Take me where I need never see a white face again!”

A melancholy joy gleamed in Alessandro's eyes. Ramona, at last, felt as he did.

”I would not dare to leave Majella there alone, while there is no house,” he said; ”and I must go and come many times, before all the things can be carried.”

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