hazardous undertaking and serene in the confidence that the Colonel's
wife would not again attempt rebellion. She was even more glad and happy
for Barbara's sake, for the two had grown very fond of each other and she
had begun to wonder if old Ambrosio could not be induced to let her adopt
the girl. Already it made her heart ache to think she might have to give
up her _protegee_. She cast a glance at Barbara, who was holding her
usual court, a circle of men about her, and thought:
"Nonsense! Old Ambrosio is not so stupid as to refuse his daughter such
a chance as I can give her!"
For Colonel Kate, with all her cleverness, had never measured, or even
imagined, the world-wide difference between the view-points of a pueblo
chief and an ambitious white woman. So she felt happy and secure, as she
smiled in response to one of Barbara's bright glances, and noticed that
Lieutenant Wemple was still dancing close attendance upon her young
friend.
Barbara was gowned very simply in white, and carried a bouquet of
Jacqueminot roses. Her shining black hair was drawn back from her
forehead in loose, waving masses and filleted with bands of silver
filigree. The brown-faced girl, in her white dress with the glowing
roses at her breast, made a pleasing picture as she stood beside a
cabinet of pueblo pottery, against a Navajo _portiere_. Lieutenant
Wemple, who stood nearest her, thought that, altogether, it made the most
striking and suggestive composition he had ever seen, and that he would
like to see her portrait painted just as she stood there; but that would
be impossible, for no artist could paint two girls into one figure. And
she--at one moment she was a bronze figure, listening with drooped
eyelids, closed lips, and impassive face, and the next she was vibrant
with life; her big black eyes, which would have redeemed a countenance of
less attractiveness than hers, sparkled and glowed; her face was radiant
with eager interest; and the Lieutenant felt that beneath those rich red
roses must beat a heart as glowing with warm bright life as they.
Santa Fe might be, geographically, far in the deeps of the red and woolly
West, but the feminine portion of its social circles did not think that
any reason why they should relapse into barbarism. And as one means of
preventing such a dire catastrophe, they made the law of party calls even
as the laws of the Medes and Persians. Among themselves the men might
groan and swear and protest as much as they pleased, but if any one of
them neglected that duty the ladies forthwith hurled him from the circles
of the Select into the outer shades of the Unassorted. After the night
of Barbara's success these calls did not lag as usual, and Lieutenant
Wemple, who was wont to be the last, was the very first to present
himself.
Then followed a series of gayeties in which Barbara was the central
figure, and Lieutenant Wemple her constant attendant. Whether it was a
dinner, or a reception, or a picnic party up the canyon, or a horseback
excursion to the turquoise mines, he spent as much time by her side as
the other people allowed. Barbara enjoyed it all with the zest of a
mortal let loose in wonderland, and thought that nowhere else in the
world could there be such delightful people as her new friends. It
seemed to her that she had at last come into her own inheritance and
found the people among whom she really belonged. But she liked best of
all the quiet afternoons at home, when she and Mrs. Coolidge sat in the
_placita_, and Lieutenant Wemple came, and they three read and talked
together.
The young officer thought her a more interesting companion than any white
girl he had ever met. The world--his world--was all so new and
marvellous to her that it was like opening its doors to some visitor from
another planet. He took great pleasure in doing that service and in
seeing how quickly and eagerly she absorbed everything she saw and heard
and read; and he found her fresh and constant interest entirely
delightful. So it soon came about that the quiet afternoons at home grew
more and more frequent.
One day in early June they stood together in the _placita_ and agreed
that it was very beautiful. The proposition was evident enough and
likely to cap forth enthusiastic assent from any one. For the plumy
green branches of the locust tree were heavy with pendent clusters of
odorous white bloom; the iris that circled the fountain was glorious in
its purple raiment; the honeysuckle arch was a mass of red and white
blossoms trumpeting their fragrance; beside it a great spreading
rose-bush was yellow with golden treasure; the velvety, emerald turf was
dotted with white and gold; the rose-bushes were weighted with opening
buds or perfect flowers, and the warm, soft air was vivid with sunlight,
and sweet with mingled odors.
So they could hardly have done anything but agree upon the beauty of the
little court, even if they had wanted to quarrel. But for the hundredth
time it struck him that it was very remarkable they should so often think
alike. When he made mention of this remarkable fact, she flashed up at
him one of her eager, brilliant glances. Then, meeting something more
than usual in his look, she quickly dropped her eyes again, and over her
manner there came that mystifying air of shyness and reserve, as if some
invisible attendant had wrapped about her an impenetrable veil. In their
early acquaintance he had often noticed that quick and baffling change in
her manner, and had liked it, because it seemed to tell of a refined and
sensitive nature. From their later frank and friendly intercourse it had
been absent, and now, when it appeared again and seemed to take her away
from him, his heart beat fast with the longing to tear the veil away.
For a moment she stood with her gaze resolutely upon the ground and her
expression and figure impassive. But she felt his eyes upon her, and her
brown fingers trembled over the yellow rose in her hand. Suddenly, as if
compelled, she lifted her face and the look in his eyes called all her
heart into hers. For a second they stood so, revealing to each other
their inmost feeling, and then, covering her face with her hands, she ran
into the house. The Lieutenant picked up the yellow rose she had dropped
and went out through the street entrance, a very thoughtful look upon his
countenance.
Wemple had not realized before what was happening to them both, although
all Santa Fe, except themselves, knew it very well. But at last he
understood that he loved her and that she knew it, and that she also knew
she had confessed in her eyes her love for him. What was he going to do
about it? That was the question he had to face and to settle; and he
went out alone and tramped over the brown hills and across _arroyos_ and
through clumps of sage brush and juniper and cactus, and argued it out
with himself.
He loved her, and she loved him. Yet--she was an Indian, and did he want
an Indian wife? But after all that had passed between them, and the
silent, mutual confession of the afternoon, could he in honor do else
than marry her? Ever since he had come West he had held the firm
conviction that an Indian can never be anything but an Indian, and that
to attempt to make anything else out of him is not only a sheer waste of
time, effort, and money, but is also an injury to the Indian himself,
because it gives him desires and ambitions that can do nothing but make
discord with his Indian nature.
But it seemed different with her. In truth, he told himself, she seemed
more akin to the white than to the Indian race. That age-long heritage
of religious belief and practice that has made a basis of character for
the pueblo Indian did not seem to have found expression in her. But if
after years should bring it to the surface and she should prove to be
Indian at heart, would it raise a wall between them or would it drag him
down, because of his great love for her, to that same Indian level? If
that Indian nature was there now, patched over and hidden by present
surroundings, would not happiness be impossible between them? And if he
believed that unhappiness would be the sure result of their marriage
would it not be more dishonorable to marry her than to leave her at once?
But at the idea of leaving her a sharp pain pierced his heart. He thrust
at it the thought that in the long run she would probably be happier if
she were never to see him again. Then he ground his teeth together,
whirled about and started for the town.
Presently he put his hand in his pocket and his fingers closed over
Barbara's yellow rose. He raised it to his lips and something very like
a sob trembled through his soldierly figure. And then suddenly, in a
great wave, came the remembrance of her graces of mind and heart and
body, and of how frank and simple and sincere she was, how sweet and
gentle and womanly and winning. At the same moment his own faults rose
up and upbraided him, and his heart cast away the arguments his brain had
been weaving, and cried out with all its strength, "Indian or not, she is
better than I!" All his white-man's pride and prejudice of race fell
from him as he pressed her rose to his lips and kissed it again and again.
On the morrow it happened that Lieutenant Wemple was officer of the day
at the post and his duties kept him so closely confined in and about the
fort that he had not time to see Barbara. But in the latter part of the
afternoon it became necessary for him to see the commanding officer. The
Colonel had gone, he knew, on a business errand to the farther end of the
town, and the Lieutenant started out to find him. His way back took him
past the Coolidge residence. He was walking hurriedly down the street,
in haste to return to his duties, his blonde head erect, his cap at
right-eyed angle, his uniform buttoned tightly across his broad shoulders
and around his trim waist, his sword on hip, and his eyes straight in
front of him. But his thoughts were inside the adobe walls of the
Governor's home and he was calculating how long it would be until,
released from duty, he could hasten back to pour into a little brown ear
the words of love of which his heart was full.
Across the street, in the shadow of a _portal_, an old Indian,
gray-haired and wrinkled, was curiously surveying the Coolidge house.
The heavy, double doors of the _placita_ entrance were open, and as
Lieutenant Wemple strode past he heard a sound from within, a half
suppressed exclamation in a voice that trembled with feeling. It sent
through him a sudden shock, stopped him in mid-step, and swiftly turned
him to the _placita_ door. Barbara, in a white muslin gown, stood under
the honeysuckle arch, her hands full of yellow roses which she had just
been plucking from the bush that glowed behind her. She was looking at
him with soft and glowing eyes, her eager face radiant with love, her
lips still parted by the exclamation which sight of him had forced
through them.
The old Indian under the _portal_ considered him impassively for a moment
and then sauntered across the street.
An instant only the Lieutenant stood looking at her, spellbound by the
beauty and sweetness of the picture, and then he sprang to her side and
gathered her in his arms, forgetful alike of the open doors behind them
and of his duties at the fort. It was only for a moment, and then he
took her hand and led her to Mrs. Coolidge.
But during that moment the Indian with the gray hair and the wrinkled
face stood in front of the _placita_ doors and looked at them with
evident interest. When they went indoors he shut his thin lips close
together, crossed to the other side of the street, and leaned against the
column of a _portal_ while he watched the doors and windows of the
Governor's residence.
It was only a few minutes until Lieutenant Wemple appeared again and
walked rapidly away. For army discipline must be remembered and
maintained, even in times of peace and days of love. The old man gazed
at him until he disappeared around a corner, and then crossed the street
and knocked at the Coolidge door. Colonel Kate herself opened it and at
once held out her hands in welcome, crying, "_Entra_! _Entra_!" She
seized his hands and drew him in, pouring forth a voluble welcome in
Spanish. He did not give much heed to her words, but coldly asked, in
the same tongue:
"Where is my daughter?"
Barbara, in the next room, heard his voice, and her first unthinking
thrill of pleasure was quickly followed by a sinking of her heart which
chilled and saddened her happy face. Intuitively she knew what would
happen.
"She is here," Mrs. Coolidge replied. "She will be so glad! Barbara!
Come quickly! Here is some one very anxious to see you!"
The girl came slowly and stood before her father with downcast eyes. His
piercing glance ran over her dress, and then he grunted in severe
disapproval.
"Go, put on your own clothing. Then stand before your father."
"Yes, dear," chimed in Colonel Kate soothingly, "you must seem very
strange to him in that dress,--scarcely like his daughter. Put on your
native costume and come back to us quickly."
Barbara went to her room and Mrs. Coolidge began to tell her visitor,
with her most charming enthusiasm and with all the delighted expletives
which her knowledge of Spanish made possible, of Barbara's success, of
her love affair, and of how very desirable the match would be. The old
man listened quietly to the end, looked at her steadily for a moment in
silence, and then spoke:
"No!"
Colonel Kate's eyes opened wide in amazement at the word. "What! Don
Ambrosio! Surely--"
"He wishes to marry her?" the old man broke in.
"Indeed he does! He told me so scarcely ten minutes ago. He is very
much in love with her and she with him!"
"No!" repeated the Indian emphatically. "It cannot be!"
"Surely, senor, you do not understand! You could not find a more
desirable husband for Barbara! Why, he is a lieutenant in the army, a
first lieutenant, too, and his position will take her into any society
she wishes to enter. He has money enough to keep her well, and he loves
her devotedly!"
"No! He forgets she is an Indian! He has seen her in all these clothes
of the white women in which you have tricked her out, and he thinks she
is the same as a white woman. She is not. She was born an Indian, and
an Indian she must be until she dies. Never again shall she leave Acoma."
"Senor! How can you be so blind to your daughter's interests? You will
break her heart! Surely you cannot be so cruel!"
But Mrs. Coolidge's protests were broken off by Barbara's return. The
girl stood before her father with her eyes on the floor and her face cold
and impassive. She was dressed again in the garments she had worn when
she first entered the house, three months before, and she seemed a far
different creature from the happy and radiant girl to whom her lover had
but just said good-bye. Ambrosio looked her over approvingly.
"Now you are my daughter. Come."
With the pueblo children centuries of training have caused unhesitating
obedience to parents to become an instinct. So Barbara did not question,
but at once followed her father toward the door. Mrs. Coolidge was
weeping. Barbara threw both arms around her neck and kissed her again
and again. The girl's face was expressionless and there were no tears in
her voice, but her wide, black eyes, paling now to brown, told the agony
that was in her heart.
"Tell him," she whispered in English, "that I must go back. My father
bids me, and I must go. My father will never again let me leave Acoma.
Tell him I shall never see him again, but I shall love him always."
"My poor child!" sobbed Mrs. Coolidge. "We must find some way to bring
you back!"
"It is useless to try. I know my father, and I know it will be
impossible for me ever again to leave the pueblo. I must be an Indian
all the rest of my life. But I shall love him always. Tell him so."
"Come!" called Ambrosio from the _portal_.
Half an hour later the train was carrying them back to Acoma. Colonel
Kate at once sent a note to Barbara's lover, telling him what had
happened. But the messenger, being a small boy, met other small boys on
the way, and by the time the young officer read the news the Indian girl
was well on her way toward home.
Lieutenant Wemple applied for leave of absence, and as soon as possible
he followed old Ambrosio. At Laguna, where he left the railroad, he
hired a horse and inquired the way to Acoma. It was the middle of the
night, but he refused to wait for daylight, and started at once across
the plain, galloping as though life and death depended on his mission.
In the early morning he reached the great rock-island of Acoma, towering
four hundred feet above the plain, and climbed the steep ascent to the
village on its summit. A file of maidens, and among them his lover's eye
quickly sought out Barbara, were coming from the pool far beyond,
carrying water jars upon their heads, graceful as a procession of
Caryatides. Wemple found his way to Ambrosio's door, where the old chief
was sitting in the early sunlight. As he stopped his horse Barbara came
up the street, her _tinaja_ poised on her head. One swift and frightened
flash of her black eyes was all the recognition she gave him as she
hurried into the house.
Briefly the Lieutenant told the old man that he loved Barbara and wished
to marry her. Inside the house the girl stood out of sight, listening
anxiously for her father's reply, although she well knew what it would be.
"The senor forgets that my daughter is an Indian and that he is a white
man."
"I do not care whether she is Indian or white. I love her and I want her
to be my wife."
"You mean that you do not care what she is now. But after she is your
wife you want her to be a white woman in her heart. You want to take her
away from me, her father, and away from her mother, and her clan, and all
our people, and make her forget us and forget that she is an Indian. No!"
"No, senor!" urged the Lieutenant, "I do not wish her to forget you. She
shall come back to visit you whenever she wishes."
A crafty look came into Ambrosio's eyes. "There is one way," he went on
quietly, not heeding Wemple's reply, "in which you may make her your
wife. But there is only one."
The officer leaned eagerly forward in his saddle and the girl inside the
door clasped her hands and listened breathlessly. The old Indian went
on, slowly and deliberately, as if to give his listener time to weigh his
words, while his keen eyes searched the white man's face.
"You think my daughter loves you well enough to forsake and forget her
people if I would let her. Do you love her well enough to leave your
people and become one of us? Do you love her well enough to be an Indian
all the rest of your life, wear your hair in side-locks, enter the clan
of the eagle, or the panther, become Koshare or Cuirana, dance at the
feasts, forget your people, and never again be other than an Indian? If
you do, speak, and she shall be your wife."
Ambrosio shut his lips tightly and waited for the young man's answer.
And the young man stared back, his ruddy cheek paling under its sunburn,
and spoke not. A whirling panorama of visions was filling his brain as
he realized what the old chief's words meant. He saw himself living the
life of these people; renouncing everything that meant "the world" and
"life" to him--everything except Barbara; driving burros loaded with wood
to town and tramping about its streets with a basket of pottery at his
back; saw himself with painted face and nude, smeared body dancing the
clownish antics of the Koshare; planting prayer sticks; sprinkling the
sacred meal; taking part and pretending belief in all the heathen rites
of the pueblo secret religion--and then Barbara sprang out of the house,
crying to her father in the Indian tongue, "Wait! Wait!"
Both men turned toward her inquiringly. She stood before them,
hesitating, excited, her eyes on the ground, as if anxious but yet
unwilling to speak.
"Father," she began in Spanish, "it is useless for you and the senor to
speak longer about this. For since I have returned to my home I do not
feel as I did before." She stopped an instant and then went on
hurriedly, pouring out her words with now and then little, gasping stops
for breath. "Now I do not wish to marry him. I wish to marry one of my
own people. He is not an Indian and never can become one. I know now
that I can never be anything but an Indian and so it is better for me to
marry one of my own people. I do not wish to marry the senor, even if he
should become one of us."
Wemple looked at her blankly, as if hardly comprehending her words, and
then cried out, "Barbara! You cannot mean this!"
"You see, senor," said the old man, "there is nothing more to say."
"Is there nothing more to say, Barbara?" Wemple appealed to her in a
broken voice.
She did not look at him, but shook her head and went back into the house.
Lieutenant Wemple turned his horse and with head hanging on his breast
rode slowly, very slowly, back toward the long declivity leading to the
plain below. If he had not ridden so slowly this tale might have had a
different ending.
Ambrosio went into the house and began telling his wife what had
happened. Barbara took an empty _tinaja_ and said she would go for more
water. When she stepped outside she could still see the forlorn figure
of her lover riding slowly down the trail. Her heart yearned after him
as she bitterly thought:
"He will believe it! I made him believe it! And I can never tell him
that it is not true!"
Then something set her heart on fire and put into it the thought of
rebellion. She looked around her at the village and thought of the life
it meant for her, as long as she should live; of the heartbreak she would
have to conceal from sneering eyes, of the obscene dances in which she
would soon be forced to take part, of the persecutions she would have to
suffer because she could no longer think as her people thought; and
hatred of it all filled her to the teeth. Rebellion burned high in her
soul and with clenched fingers she said to herself, "I hate the Indians!
In my heart I am a white woman!" She cast one more longing, loving
glance at the disappearing figure and resolution was born in her heart:
"And I will be a white woman, or die!"
She looked hastily about. No one seemed to be watching her. She dropped
the _tinaja_ beside the house and walked swiftly--she feared to run lest
she might attract attention--to the edge of the precipice. There she
looked down over the flight of rude steps, hacked centuries ago in the
stone and worn smooth by many scores of generations of moccasined feet,
which was once the only approach to the fortress-pueblo. It was three
hundred feet down that precipitous wall to where the steps joined the
trail, but from babyhood she had gone up and down, and she knew them
every one. From one to another she fearlessly sprang, and over several
at a time she dropped herself, catching here by her hands and there by
her toes and finally landed, with a last long leap, on the trail. One
glance told her that her lover had almost reached the road at the foot of
the cliff and that if he should then quicken his pace she could scarcely
hope to catch him. But love and determination made steel springs of her
muscles, and she bent herself to the task. For if she could not overtake
him there was no hope anywhere.
Lieutenant Wemple, with his head still hanging on his breast and his
horse creeping along at its own pace, turned from the declivity into the
road which would take him back to Laguna, to the railroad, and to his own
life. There the horse decided to take a rest; and Wemple, aroused to
realization of his surroundings by the sudden stop, jerked himself
together again, straightened up, sent a keen glance across the plain and
over the road in front of him, and struck home his spurs for the gallop
to the railroad station. As the horse leaped forward, he thought he
heard some one calling. Turning in his saddle he saw Barbara running
toward him, her breast heaving, her arms outstretched. She almost fell
against the horse's side, panting for breath.
"It was not true," she gasped, "what I said up there! I wanted to save
you. Take me with you if you still love me! For I love you and I
hate--I hate all that--" turning her face for an instant toward the
heights above them--"and if you do not want me I must die, for I will not
go back."
For an instant their eyes read each other's souls, and then she hastily
put up her hand to stop him from leaping from his horse.
"No, no! Do not get off! They will be sure to follow us and we must
lose no time. Take me up behind you and gallop for Laguna. If we can
catch the next train we'll be all right!"
She seized his hand and sprang to her seat behind his saddle. He turned
and kissed her.
"Put spurs to your horse," she said. "They will be sure to follow us
soon."