long lashes lifted timidly toward the handsome stranger, and on a sudden
the bright face turned ashen, and the girl sank back upon a heap of
fallen stones. Pablo stared with wide eyes, and a dizziness ran from head
to knee, for there were dark drops upon the rocks, and amid the flowing
hair he saw the notched ends of two arrows—his very own, feathered from
the gray quills of Koor-níd-deh, the crane. He reeled, to fall, but the
strong hand held him up and the strong voice said:
“Take the heart of a man, for it is not yet too late. Thou hast done
this, unknowing; for the witches filled thine eyes with smoke, to fool
thee. But we will yet make medicine to heal my daughter—for I am the
wizard T’bó-deh, the last of the Hoo-máh-no, and precious to Those Above,
who will help us. But thou hast still arrows in the quiver—go, then,
till thou come to the first cliff on the west, and shoot three arrows
strongly into the sky. And bring to me that which falls—for it needs that
thou who hast shed her blood shouldst bring it again. Nay, tremble not,
for the Trues will help thee; and with this amulet of the striped stone
the witches cannot come nigh. Take the heart of a man, and go!”
Pablo looked at the pitiful little heap in the corner, and turning,
manfully strode out through the broad portal and went stumbling westward
in the darkness, over mounds and hollows and fallen walls. Down the long,
steep ridge, across the undulant plain, knee-deep in dry and whispering
grass, and up the western slope of the valley he trudged; and at last in
the darkness ran up against a smooth, straight face of rock. “It is the
cliff,” he shivered—for he feared greatly. But plucking up his soul, he
backed away a few paces from the rock and notched a shaft and drew it to
the head and sent it hurtling to the sky, and another and another. For
a long time he waited, and then there was a soft _whish!_ and an arrow
stood in the earth at his feet. He groped and found it and drew back
his hand quickly, for shaft and feathers were wet—with that soft, warm,
ticklish wetness that never came from water yet. Another arrow fell and
it was so, and so also was the third.
Shaken as are the leaves of the shivering tree,[35] Pablo put to his lips
the amulet of the wizard and drew a long breath from it. Then, gingerly
plucking the standing arrows one by one, he started running from the
haunted spot, not resting in his stumbling flight until he found himself
at the foot of the hill of Ta-bi-rá. In a few moments he was groping
along the great wall, and at last stood again within the roofless temple.
Now there was a tiny fire there, and the old man was squatted by it
chanting and snapping two long feathers together in rhythm with his wild
refrain. And in the corner was the same dark, limp heap, which seemed to
drift near or farther away on the waves of the firelight.
“It is well!” said the old man, rising; “for already I have blown away
the evil ones, that we be alone. And I see that thou hast brought blood
from above to pay for that which is lost.”
Taking from Pablo’s hand the arrows, still red-wet, he broke one over
the fire and one he thrust upright in the hard earth at the maiden’s
feet. Then he rubbed his hands with ashes and laid them upon her breast,
chanting:
“Blood, water of life,
Come back in the brooks of the heart!
Blood, water of life,
Give it to drink again—
For the red field is dry
And nothing grows.”
As he rubbed and sang the maiden stirred and moved and sat up. And taking
the third arrow he put the notch to his lips and the barb to her side and
drew with a strong breath, and the buried shaft grew long and longer from
her side, until it fell upon the ground. So he drew the second shaft,
and it, too, came away and left her.[36] Then he laid the arrow of power
against her side and the wounds were no more there; and she rose and took
the hand of Pablo to her little mouth and breathed on it, and looked up
at him with timid eyes, but Pablo sank down and knew nothing, for his
strength was done.
When he woke, the Sun-Father was high over the gray ruins. Pablo found
himself upon a bed of dry grass, in the shadow of the wall; and near him
sat the old man who was last of the Hoo-máh-no, watching him with clear
eyes. A low, sweet voice was crooning a sleep-song in his own tongue;
and from behind a jutting wall peeped forth a little moccasined foot.
“Sleep! Sleep! It is good!
Sleep the Moon-Mother gave—
She that bought us the night,
Paying her sight to buy!
Sleep! For so She is glad!”
Pablo sat up, bending forward if he might see the singer; but there was
only a gleam of soft eyes around the wall, and then they were gone. The
old man eyed him kindly. He was dressed now like Pablo, with the garments
of the Pueblos; and the stern, quiet face, with its strange scar-stripes,
seemed after all very good.
“Thou hast slept well, son,” he said at last, “for we have been here many
hours. But it is hard to fight them of the evil road, and for that thou
wast tired. But rise now, eat and be strong, for other days come.”
As he spoke the maiden came bringing a steaming earthen bowl and set
it down timidly before the stranger, at whom she dared not look, and
disappeared again in her nook. The hot broth revived the young hunter,
and a new heart came in him and he was strong. When he had eaten, the old
man said:
“Now thou art a man again. Tell me how goes with the village of the
Tee-wahn? For in fifty winters I have not seen Shee-eh-huíb-bak—since my
wife had come from there to P’ah-que-toó-ai, where I loved her. Is it
well with the town? Do they keep the ways of the Old?”
“There are many True Believers,” answered Pablo slowly, “but many have
forgotten the ways of the Old and taken the evil road, so that it is hard
to know who are good, there are so many witches. For that, the young
men that believe in the Olds are afraid to make nests, lest they find
feathers of the accursed birds therein—for many that look to be snowbirds
are inwardly owls and woodpeckers.”
“And thou hast no nest?” asked the old man with a keen glance.
“_In-dáh-ah!_” replied Pablo emphatically—and from the corner he caught a
bright gleam of eyes.
“It is well! For if the nest be bad, how shall the young birds grow up
clean? And thy parents?”
“My father was War Captain of the Tee-wahn,” said Pablo proudly, “and
he taught me the ways of men, and the sacred stories of the Old. But
one gave him the evil eye, and he was slain by the Cumanche in war. My
mother was a True Believer, and soon she went after him, to make his
house good in Shee-p’ah-poón. So there is left only my grandfather, who
is cacique, and my uncle. And with my uncle I live, for we are both of
the Eagle clan.”
“It is well! But now it is to stay here for a time; for in this place is
mighty power of the Olds. But if thou wilt hunt for us, that Deer-Maiden
may eat well while I fast and talk with Those Above, then we will go
with thee to Shee-eh-huíb-bak; for my people are no more and my child is
lonely to be with the people of her mother. But show me the _wahr_ with
which thou huntest, for perhaps the witches have blinded it.”
Pablo fished out the little stone image, which he had never shown to man
before, and T’bó-deh inhaled from its lips.
“It is so!” he said angrily; and prying out the turquoise heart he showed
the hunter that from beneath it the sacred meal was gone, and in its
place a tiny black feather. “It is no wonder that thy hunting was ill,”
he cried, “for the witches have changed the heart of Keem-eé-deh! But
I will give thee a strong _wahr_ that none can kill,” and breaking the
polluted image with a rock, he covered the fragments with a cloth and
chanted a sacred song. In a moment the cloth moved, and the wizard drew
from under it a bright new Keem-eé-deh, carved from the sunlight-stone,
the yellow topaz, and bound to its side was an arrow-head of transparent
emerald. Its heart was turquoise and its eyes red garnets.
“Take it, son, and fear not,” said the aged conjurer, “for it is stronger
than the ghosts. But now go and hunt, for there is no more meat.”
When Pablo toiled up the hill of ruins at sundown a noble antelope was
balanced upon his shoulders and a fat wild turkey dangled from his belt.
He threw them down proudly, and was paid with a shy glance from the eyes
that now lived in his heart, and the old man said:
“The new _wahr_ is good! And thou art a hunter like Keem-eé-deh himself.
Verily there will be no lack of meat in thy house.” But at this the
maiden ran away with a red face, and Pablo’s heart was glad.
For three days they were there while the old man made medicine; and every
day Pablo brought back much game. And every day his eyes grew deeper
and those of the maiden drooped lower. On the fourth day they started,
the three, to the northeast; and with three journeys they came to
Shee-eh-huíb-bak. There Pablo brought the strangers to his grandfather,
the cacique; and when old Desidério knew that this was the great wizard,
the last of the Hoo-máh-no, he was very glad, and gave him of the common
lands, that his home should be always there.
When the people of Shee-eh-huíb-bak were making clean for the Noche
Buena, Pablo came to the cacique, and said: “_Tata_, there is another
year, and I am tired to be alone.”
“But canst thou keep a wife?”
“Thou knowest, _tata_, that none kill more game. As for my fields, they
are good, and the careless-weed never grows there.”
“It is truth, my son. And who is good in thine eyes?”
“There is only one, _tatita_, and that is Deer-Maiden, the child of the
Hoo-máh-no. She is very good.”
“I like her,” answered the withered cacique, slowly, “for her father has
given her a good heart, and they are both precious to Those Above. It is
well.”
In four days the cacique and the Hoo-máh-no brought Pablo and the
Deer-Maiden to the cacique’s house and gave them to eat two ears of raw
corn—to him a blue ear, but to her a white one, for a woman’s heart is
always whiter. Pablo looked at her as he ate, but she could not look.
And when both had proved themselves by eating the last grain, the elders
took them out to the sacred running-place and put them side by side, and
marked the course, and gave them the road. Then Pablo went running like a
strong antelope, but the girl like a scared fawn; and up the sacred hill
they flew, and turned at the Stone of the Bell, and came flying back.
But now Pablo was slower, for it is not well to surpass one’s bride in
the marrying race, as if one would rob her of respect; and if they come
in equal, there is no marriage. So she was first; and all the people
blessed them, and they were one. No witch could ever harm their house,
for He-that-Was-Striped gave them strong _wahr_, and they were happy.
Candelária’s Curse.
Candelária’s Curse.
What a snip-click! snip-click! snip-click! of the big steel shears, till
the corral rang like an exaggerated telegraph office! Hoarse voices kept
calling out “_Numer’ uno!_” “_dieziseis!_” “_veintetres!_” and tall,
handsome Lorenzo, standing in a corner with the tally card in his hand,
penciled a mark opposite No. 1, No. 16, No. 23, and so on as each man
called out the number by which he was known. The calls came fast, and
for each one a shabby gray shadow, looking like the ghost of a boy with
a home hair-cut, “only more so,” went scurrying into the ranks of his
yet unshorn fellows. The big corral was full as it could hold. Fifteen
hundred sheep were there, so tightly packed that a mouse tossed upon
their backs could hardly have found its way to the ground between them.
Only in the triangular corners of the fence (which was built of logs laid
up in zigzags) was there a trifle of room; and it was from these that all
the noise came. In each was a fast-swelling heap of dirty, gray wool,
and just in front of it the shearer. Each, as he turned a victim loose,
yelled out his number, to be tallied one, and running upon the huddled
mass of sheep, caught one by the fleece with each hand, dragged it to his
corner, flopped it upon its side, knotted its four sharp feet together
with a dextrous movement, and, snatching the shears from his belt, fell
instantly to work. It was a scene to bewilder an Eastern sheep-grower.
There were no shearing tables. Each man bent over, as though there were a
hinge in his waist, until his hands were within six inches of the ground,
and thus worked all day long. Holding and turning the sheep with the left
hand, with the right he drove the sharp blades snipping through the wool
with startling rapidity—till, almost before one knew it, the whole fleece
rolled off to one side, very much as if it had been an unbroken pelt.
As quick a motion freed the feet again and the shorn creature scrambled
up and ran to hide his confusion, while the shearer was already playing
barber to the “next gentleman.”
So it was no sleepy work, tallying for the thirty-seven swart fellows
who were doing Don Roman’s fall shearing, and any one less practiced
than Lorenzo might have lost count now and then. Every one seemed to
be working his best, but the two cries that came oftenest of any were
“_trece_” and “_diezisiete_.” Number thirteen was a short, thickset
Mexican from Los Lunas, known (because of his unusually dark complexion)
as Black Juan, and number seventeen was that two-fisted Pedro of Cubero.
They had been for several years the two best shearers in Valencia county,
and therefore, very naturally, rivals—though in some way they had never
come together before. But now finding themselves, on the eve of the fall
clip of 50,000 sheep, face to face each with a man he had never seen, but
had disliked for ten years, neither could refrain from a slight curl of
the lip. That fellow such a _guapo_? Huh! He might make a noise among the
slowpokes down in the valley, but beside a real shearer there wouldn’t
be enough of him to make a shadow! It was not long before their thoughts
came to speech, and soon they had made a wager for a sheep-shearing
race on the morrow. The ponies upon which they had come, their tattered
blankets and a large proportion of their prospective wages were staked on
which should shear the more fleeces between sunrise and sunset.
For eleven hours, now, the race had been in progress. Lorenzo had given
the word when the first rim of sun peered above the yellow mesas. At noon
the other shearers had taken the usual half hour to swallow the rude
meal of tortillas and roasted sheep-ribs, but Juan and Pedro had worked
doggedly on. The crunch of their shears seemed never to stop, and against
the numbers thirteen and seventeen the little slanting marks (each fourth
one crossed) had crept clear across the tally card and Lorenzo had to
start a new line for each of them.
Five o’clock—five-thirty—six—and suddenly the timekeeper shouted “_Ya
’stá_!” The noise redoubled for a moment as each man hurried to finish
his present sheep, and then stopped. Bent backs straightened slowly amid
a general sigh of relief. A hard day, truly. Not a man in the corral,
even down to young Blea, who had not sheared his sixty or seventy sheep.
But the rivals? All crowded around Lorenzo as he began to count up.
“M—m—m—twenty-four, twenty-five—twenty-five tallies and three. Pedro
has one hundred and twenty-eight sheep!” And Juan? “M—m—m—twenty-seven
tallies and one—one hundred and thirty-six! Bravo! _Que guapo!_” And the
evening air rang with shouts.
“Thou couldst not have done it fairly!” growled Pedro, with rage in every
line of his dusty face.
“How, fairly, sleepyhead? Have I not worked openly before all?”
But Pedro went over the fence sullenly and walked away, muttering to
himself. Only when a couple of other shearers joined him at his camp-fire
did he give further vent to his feelings.
“Thrice fool that I was,” he snarled, “to make a bet against that! For
clearly to-day my shears were bewitched and would not cut well. And you
know well the why—it is that old _bruja_ of a Candelária who has given
them the evil eye! For yesterday, as she passed, my dog ran at her,
whereat I laughed, and in the act she turned and cursed me.”
“Thou didst ill,” said one of his companions. “All know that she is a
witch, and works all manner of evil to them that offend her. Why, there
was Marcelino, who refused to give her meat when he killed a sheep, and
straightway she made a mouse to steal into his stomach, so that it was
near to kill him.”
“But I am not Marcelino, then, to go pay a horse to another witch to cure
me. No, I will have-me-them with her. She shall pay me for this loss and
for the laughter they have put upon me.”
“What is that, Pedro?” said young Alonzo, coming up just then and
squatting by the fire. “You wouldn’t hurt the poor old woman?”
“Who gave you a candle in this funeral?” snapped the defeated shearer.
“That is what I will do. There are too many of these _brujas_ putting
spells on innocent folks, and there’s only one way to cure them—the way
they did in San Mateo last year. We’ll stone her for a witch. And much
care thou, that thou get not hurt also!”
The two others made no serious opposition to Pedro’s plan. They had
nothing against the old woman themselves, but every one knew that such
witches were a great pest to the community—perhaps it would be a public
service to put her out of the way. Besides, they were rather used to
being led around by the nose by Pedro, who, in addition to his prowess
as a shearer, was so powerful and reckless that he had become the
acknowledged leader of a certain class.
“_Pues_, understood! We will go over presently and give the old hag a
shower of St. Peter’s tears! And thou”—turning to Alonzo, who was rising
to go—“the less tongue, the less sore bones, eh?”
Candelária lived across the arroyo in a miserable little _jacal_ of
piñon[37] trunks chinked with mud, right up against the side of the great
lava flow. She was a sorry-looking hag; and, on seeing her, the first
thought of much better educated people than Pedro would very likely
have been: “What an old witch!” She was tall and gaunt and incredibly
wrinkled, but with such keen black eyes that almost every one shrank at
her gaze.
Alonzo himself was certainly not fond of her, and probably it would
not be too much to say that he was secretly a bit afraid of this grim,
dark figure in greasy tatters, despite his year of school in the little
mission at San Rafael. But at thought of her being stoned to death he
felt a sudden revulsion.
“But what to do?” he muttered to himself as he slouched away from the
camp-fire. “Pedro is bad to meddle with, and no one here will help me;
even Don Roman is afraid of the witches, and hates them. _Ea!_ I will go
warn her, so she can hide till the shearers have gone.”
It was already very dark as he stumbled over the rocky ground and
turned west along the bank of the arroyo. This was a deep ravine plowed
through the meadow by the intermittent brook from the snows of the Zuñi
mountains. In summer there was no stream, but here and there were pools
enough for the thirsty sheep and cattle. Now there had been rains, and
a narrow rill connected the brimming pools. He found the white, peeled
log which served as a footbridge from bank to bank, and started to walk
cautiously across it. Midway he stopped suddenly with an audible chuckle,
turned, came back and shambled toward the corrals. Something seemed to
amuse him mightily, for at every few steps he paused to laugh softly.
Camp-fires burned all about the corral, and even far up the rocky mesa,
where the sheep were being herded for the night; but Alonzo had eyes
for but one. Near an angle of the enclosure stood a stout post, and not
far from its foot was a bed of embers surrounded with sooty kettles and
frying pans. It was Telango’s slaughter house and kitchen, where that
greasy gentleman turned twenty sheep a day into soups and joints for the
shearers.
Telango was at the moment absent, and when he returned to his post a
kettle of mutton tallow that had been trying out over the embers was
missing. That should have made a pretty row, for the cook was a touchy
autocrat; but, supper being over, Telango was so sleepy that he would
scarce have noticed it had his whole kitchen been carried off.
* * * * *
“Well, are we ready?” asked Pedro in a low tone of his allies a little
after 8 o’clock. Every one else was asleep, apparently. The camp-fires
had all died down and no one was moving. Pedro rose quietly and stole
off into the darkness, followed by Pepe and ’Lipe. “Close behind me,”
he whispered, “and with care, for if she hears us she can hide in the
malpaís, where no one could find her.”
“But perhaps she would not run,” broke out ’Lipe uneasily, as they neared
the arroyo. “Since she is a witch she might rather throw a spell on us.”
“Quiet you the mouth, stupid! We have only to take care that she does not
hear us.”
“But I have heard that they need not the ears, for the evil spirits tell
them.”
“Let the evil one tell her, if he will!” growled Pedro. “I would like to
see him keep _this_ from her,” and he picked up a jagged lava fragment
over which he had stumbled. “Be not sheep! Close behind me, now.”
Pedro stepped out upon the log whose white length stretching into the
gloom seemed to rest upon nothing. His teguas made no noise upon the
wood, and he was midway across when suddenly there came a stifled oath.
His feet flew right and left and he dropped astride the log with a
violence that shook the breath out of him, and in the same instant began
to slip to one side. In vain he clutched at the log. It gave no hold,
and lurching over he dropped twenty feet. There was a tremendous splash;
and then another and another. Pepe and ’Lipe had followed their leader
downward without even stopping to sit down first.
The shores here were steep and rocky, cut deep in a lava flow millenniums
older than that whose jet black miles lay along the pretty meadow. In the
middle was a long, deep pool wherein the few boys of Alamitos were wont
to swim in summer. Just now it was not particularly attractive. During
the shearing several thousand sheep were watered daily at the head
of this pool and at the shallower one above, and at such times no one
thought of bathing in the odorous mess.
Any one listening might have heard for some seconds after the splashes
nothing but a faint gurgle, as of bubbles breaking. Then there were
curious snorts and plashings, as if that invisible black abyss had
suddenly become the home of a hippopotamus family, and then a laborious
thrashing about. Presently there was a rattle of pebbles, mingled with
coughs and angry mutterings, as if some one were trying to scale the
banks.
“Why didn’t you come this side, stupids?” Pedro whispered across when he
had done choking and sputtering. “The _bruja_ lives over here—not yonder.
_Vamos!_”
“But man! We are not crazy! Seest thou not that she has the power and so
easily has bewitched us? If we go further we shall find worse.”
“Four times fools! It was only that I slipped, and you, being scared,
fell also. Come on!”
“Thanks,” answered Pepe and ’Lipe in a breath. “But even fools know
better than to defy the evil one.”
“Come over or you answer to me!” snorted Pedro, forgetting his caution.
“Cowards that you are, I’ll show you,” and he started back across the log
to get in arguing reach of the deserters.
But four steps from the bank his feet again suddenly leaped out from
under him and the log smote him in the back with a loud thump, and a wild
splash flung a dirty rain in the faces of his terrified companions.
“Uh, uh!” he gasped, coming to the surface at last. “Kff! Tchoo!” for he
had swallowed a most unsavory pint.
“Ah, ha-ha!” rang a weird, shrill laugh from the southern bank. Pepe and
’Lipe crossed themselves and took to their heels, without thought of
waiting for their leader. It struck a chill through Pedro, too, as he
floundered to the shore and clambered up the jagged rocks frantically,
cutting his hands and knees. But he hardly noticed that—all he could
think of was the mocking laugh. Candelária’s laugh! After all, she was
too strong! There was no use fighting against these witches—just see
how easily she had undone his strength and wit! No more witch hunts for
him—and he scrambled up the bank in utter rout. Just then a dark form
reached out overhead. Pedro did not see it; but in an instant came a
warm, suffocating avalanche which choked his cry of terror and half
blinded him.
“Murder!” he managed to sputter at last. “_So-cor-r-r-ro!_” and he fled
to the camp like one chased by wolves.