THE DEVOTION OF WANAHA
Nevil Steyne's day's labor, of whatever it consisted, was over. Wanaha had
just lit the oil lamp which served her in her small home.
The man was stretched full length upon the bed, idly contemplating the
dusky beauty who acknowledged his lordship, while she busied herself over
her shining stove. His face wore a half smile, but his smile was in nowise
connected with that which his eyes rested on.
Yet the sight he beheld was one to inspire pleasurable thoughts. For
surely it falls to the lot of few men, however worthy, to inspire one
woman with such a devotion as Wanaha yielded to him. Besides, she was a
wonderful picture of beauty, colored it is true, but none the less fair
for that. Her long black, braided hair, her delicate, high-bred face so
delightfully gentle, and her great, soft black eyes which had almost, but
not quite, lost that last latent glimmer of the old savage. Surely, she
was worth the tenderest thought.
But Nevil's thoughts were not with her, and his smile was inspired by his
thoughts. The man's mean, narrow face had nothing pleasant in it as he
smiled. Some faces are like this. He was a degenerate of the worst type;
for he was a man who had slowly receded from a life of refinement, and
mental retrogression finds painful expression on such a face. A ruffian
from birth bears less outward trace, for his type is natural to him.
Wanaha always humored her husband's moods, in which, perhaps, she made a
grave error. She held silent until he chose to speak. And when she turned
at last to arrange the supper table, he was so moved. The smile had died
out of his thin face, and his pale blue eyes wore a look of anxious
perplexity when he summoned her attention.
"Wana," he said, as though rousing himself from a long worrying thought,
"we must do something, my Wana. And--I hardly know what."
The black eyes looked straight into the blue ones, and the latter shifted
to the table on which the woman's loving hands had carefully set the
necessaries for supper.
"Tell me," she said simply, "you who are clever--maybe I help."
"That's just it, my Wana. I believe you can. You have a keen brain. You
always help me."
Nevil relapsed into silence, and bit nervously at his thumb nail. The
woman waited with the stoical patience of her race. But she was all
interest, for had not the man appealed to her for help?
"It's your brother," Nevil said at last. "Your brother, and the white girl
at the farm, Rosebud."
"Yes."
The dark eyes suddenly lit. Here was a matter which lay very near her
heart. She had thought so much about it. She had even dared at other times
to speak to her husband on the subject, and advise him. Now he came to
her.
"Yes," the man went on, still with that look of perplexity in his shifty
eyes; "perhaps I have been wrong. You have told me that I was. But, you
see, I looked on your brother as a child almost. And if I let him talk of
Rosebud, it was, as I once told you, because he is headstrong. But now he
has gone far enough--too far. It must be stopped. The man is getting out
of hand. He means to have her."
Wanaha's eyes dilated. Here indeed was a terrible prospect. She knew her
brother as only a woman can know a man. She had not noted the melodramatic
manner in which her husband had broken off.
"You say well. It must be stop. Tell your Wana your thought. We will
pow-wow like great chiefs."
"Well, that's just it," Nevil went on, rising and drawing up to the table.
"I can't see my way clearly. We can't stop him in whatever he intends.
He's got some wild scheme in his head, I know; and I can't persuade him.
He's obstinate as a mule."
"It is so. Little Black Fox is fierce. He never listen. No. But you think
much. You, who are clever more than all the wise men of my race."
Wanaha served her husband with his food. Whatever might be toward, her
duty by him came first. Nevil sat eating in what appeared to be a moody
silence. The velvety eyes watched his every expression, and, in sympathy,
the woman's face became troubled too.
"Well, of course we must warn--some one," Nevil went on at last. "But the
question is, who? If I go to the Agent, it'll raise trouble. Parker is
bullheaded, and sure to upset Black Fox. Likely he'll stop his going
hunting. If I warn old Rube Sampson it'll amount to the same thing. He'll
go to the Agent. It must be either Seth or Rosebud."
"Good, good," assented the Indian woman eagerly. "You say it to Seth."
Nevil ate silently for some minutes, while the woman looked on from her
seat beside the stove. Whatever was troubling the man it did not interfere
with his appetite. He ate coarsely, but his Indian wife only saw that he
was healthily hungry.
"Yes, you're right again, my Wana," Nevil exclaimed, with apparent
appreciation. "I'd prefer to tell Seth, but if I did he'd interfere in a
manner that would be sure to rouse your brother's suspicions. And you know
what he is. He'd suspect me or you. He'd throw caution to the devil, and
then there'd be trouble. It's a delicate thing, but I can't stand by and
see anything happen to your chum, my Wana."
"No; I love the paleface girl," replied Wanaha, simply.
"It comes to this," Nevil went on, with something like eagerness in his
manner. "We must warn her, and trust to her sense. And mind, I think she's
smart enough."
"How?"
The woman's dark eyes looked very directly into the man's. Nevil was
smiling again. His anxiety and perplexity seemed suddenly to have
vanished, now that he had come to his point; as though the detailing of
his fears to her had been the real source of his trouble.
"Why, I think it will be simple enough."
The man left the table and came to the woman's side. He laid one hand
caressingly on her black hair, and she responded with a smiling upward
glance of devotion. "See, you must tell her I want to speak with her. I
can't go to her. My presence at the farm is not welcome for one thing," he
said bitterly, "and, for another, in this matter I must not be seen
anywhere near her. I've considered this thing well. She mustn't come here
either. No."
He spoke reflectively, biting his long, fair moustache in that nervous way
he so often betrayed.
"You, my Wana, must see her openly at the farm. You must tell her that I
shall be in the river woods just below the bridge, cutting wood at sundown
on Monday. That's three days from now. She must come to me without being
seen, and without letting any one know of her visit. The danger for me,
for us, my Wana, is great, and so you must be extra careful for all our
sakes--and so must she. Then I will tell her all, and advise her."
The woman's eyes had never left his face. The trust and confidence her
look expressed were almost touching. She did not question. She did not ask
why she could not give the girl her warning. Yes, she understood. The
proceeding appealed to her nature, for there is no being in the world to
compare with the Indian when native cunning is required. She could do this
thing. Was it not for Rosebud? But, above all, was it not for him? The
honest man rarely puts faith in a woman's capacity outside her domestic
and social duties. The rascal is shrewder.
"It is a good way," she said, in her deep, soft voice, after much thought.
"And I go--yes. I tell her. I say to her that she must not speak. And she
say 'yes.' I know Rosebud. She clever too. She no child." She paused, and
the man moved away to his seat. She looked over at him and presently went
on. "Rosebud, she love Seth. I know."
Nevil suddenly swung round. Only the blind eyes of love could have failed
to detect the absolute look of triumph which had leapt to the man's face.
Wanaha mistook the look for one of pleasure, and went on accordingly,
feeling that she had struck the right note.
"Yes. And Seth, he love too. They are to each as the Sun and the Moon. But
they not know this thing. She think Seth think she like sister. Like Black
Fox and your Wana. But I know. I love my man, so I see with live eyes.
Yes, these love. So." And the dark eyes melted with a consuming love for
the man she was addressing.
Nevil sprang from his seat, and, crossing to the dark princess, kissed her
with unwonted ardor.
"Good, my Wana; you are a gem. You see where I am blind." And for once he
was perfectly sincere.
"It good?" she questioned. Nevil nodded, and at once the woman went on.
"So. I know much. Rosebud tell me much. She much angry with Seth. She say
Seth always--always look for find her white folks. She not want
them--these white folks. She love Seth. For her he is the world. So. She
say Seth angry, and want her go away. Wana listen. Wana laugh inside. Wana
love too. Seth good. He love her much--much. Then she say she think Seth
find these white folks."
"Seth has found Rosebud's--folk?"
The man's brows had drawn together over his shifty blue eyes, and a
sinister look had replaced the look of triumph that had been there
before.
"She say she think."
"Ah! She only thinks." Nevil's thumb was at his mouth again.
"Yes."
Wanaha finished. The change in the man's face had checked her desire to
pursue the subject. She did not understand its meaning, except that her
talk seemed no longer to please him; so she ceased. But Nevil was more
interested than she thought.
"And what made her think so?" he asked sharply.
"She not say."
"Ah, that's a pity."
The room became silent. The yellow light of the lamp threw vague shadows
about, and these two made a dark, suggestive picture. The woman's placid
and now inscrutable face was in marked contrast to her husband's. His
displayed the swift vengeful thoughts passing behind it. His overshot jaws
were clenched as closely as was physically possible, while his pallid eyes
were more alight than Wanaha had ever seen them. As he sat there, biting
his thumb so viciously, she wondered what had angered him.
"I don't see how he could have found them," he said at last, more to
himself than to her. But she answered him with a quiet reassurance, yet
not understanding why it was necessary.
"She only think," she said.
"But he must have given her some cause to think," he said testily. "I'm
afraid you're not as cute as I thought."
Wanaha turned away. His words had caused her pain, but he did not heed.
Suddenly his face cleared, and he laughed a little harshly.
"Never mind," he said; "I doubt if he'll lose her through that."
The ambiguity of his remark was lost upon the Indian. She heard the laugh
and needed no more. She rose and began to clear the table, while Nevil
stood in the open doorway and gazed out into the night.
Standing there, his face hidden from Wanaha, he took no trouble to
disguise his thoughts. And from his expression his thoughts were pleasant
enough, or at least satisfactory to him, which was all he could reasonably
expect.
His face was directed toward White River Farm, and he was thinking chiefly
of Seth, a man he hated for no stronger reason than his own loss of caste,
his own degeneracy, while the other remained an honest man. The deepest
hatreds often are founded on one's own failings, one's own obvious
inferiority to another. He was thinking of that love which Wanaha had
assured him Seth entertained for Rosebud, and he was glad. So glad that he
forgot many things that he ought to have remembered. One amongst them was
the fact that, whatever he might be, Wanaha was a good woman. And honesty
never yet blended satisfactorily with rascality.