 Chapter 22 Part 1 of Ramona During the first day of Ramona and Alessandro's sad journey they scarcely spoke. Alessandro walked at the horse's heads, his face sunk on his breast, his eyes fixed on the ground. Ramona watched him in anxious fear. Even the baby's voice and cluing laugh won from him no response. After they were camped for the night she said, Dear Alessandro, will you not tell me where we are going? In spite of her gentleness there was a shade of wounded feeling in her tone. Alessandro flung himself on his knees before her and cried, My Magella! My Magella! It seems to me I am going mad. I cannot tell what to do. I do not know what I think. All my thoughts seem whirling around as leaves do in brooks in the time of the spring rains. Do you think I can be going mad? It was enough to make me. Ramona, her own heart rung with fear, soothed him as best she could. Dear Alessandro, she said, Let us go to Los Angeles and not live with the Indians any more. You could get work there. You could play at dances sometimes. There must be plenty of work. I could get more sewing to do, too. It would be better, I think. She looked horror-stricken at the thought. Go live among the white people, he cried. What does Magella think would become of one Indian or two alone among whites? If they will come to our villages and drive us out a hundred at a time, what would they do to one man alone? Oh, Magella, it's foolish. But there are many of your people at work for whites that saw in Medinardino and other places, she persisted. Why could not we do as they do? Yes, he said bitterly, at work for whites. So they are. Magella has not seen. No man will pay an Indian but half wages. Even long ago, when the fathers were not all gone and tried to help the Indians, my father has told me that it was the way only to pay an Indian one half that a white man or a Mexican had. It was the Mexicans, too, did that, Magella. And now they pay the Indians in money sometimes, half wages, sometimes in bad flour or things he does not want. Sometimes in whiskey, and if he will not take it and asks for his money, they laugh and tell him to go then. One man in San Medinardino last year, when an Indian would not take a bottle of sour wine for pay for a day's work, shot him in the cheek with his pistol and told him to mind how he was insolent any more. Oh, Magella, do not ask me to work in the towns. I should kill some man, Magella, if I saw things like that. Ramona shuddered and was silent. Alessandro continued, If Magella would not be afraid, I know a place high up on the mountain where no man has ever been or ever will be. I found it when I was following a bear. The beast led me up. It was his home, and I said then it was a fit hiding place for a man. There is water and a little green valley. We could live there, but it would be no more than to live. It is very small, the valley. Magella would be afraid. Yes, Alessandro, I would be afraid all alone on a high mountain. Oh, do not let us go there. Try something else first, Alessandro. Is there no other Indian village, you know? There is Suboba, he said, at foot of the San Jacinto mountain. I had thought of that. Some of my people went there from Temecula, but it is a poor little village, Magella. Magella would not like to live in it. Neither do I believe it will long be any safer than San Pasquale. There was a kind, good old man who owned all that valley, Señor Ravallo. He found the village of Suboba there when he came to the country. It is one of the very oldest of all. He was good to all Indians, and he said they should never be disturbed, never. He is dead, but his three sons have the estate yet, and I think they would keep their father's promise to the Indians. But you see, tomorrow, Magella, they may die, or go back to Mexico as Señor Ravallo did, and then the Americans will get it, as they did Temecula. And there are already white men living in the valley. We will go that way, Magella. Magella shall see. If she says stay, we will stay. It was in the early afternoon that they entered the broad valley of San Jacinto. They entered it from the west. As they came in, though the sky over their heads was overcast and gray, the eastern and northeastern part of the valley was flooded with a strange light, at once ruddy and golden. It was a glorious sight. The jagged top and spurs of San Jacinto mountains shone like the turrets and postures of a citadel built of rubies. The glow seemed preternatural. Behold, San Jacinto! cried Alessandro. Ramona exclaimed in delight. It is an omen, she said. We are going into the sunlight out of the shadow, and she glanced back at the west, which was of a slady blackness. I like it not, said Alessandro. The shadow follows too fast. Indeed it did. Even as he spoke a fierce wind blew from the north and tearing off fleeces from the black cloud sent them in scurrying masses across the sky. In a moment more snowflakes began to fall. Holy Virgin! cried Alessandro. Too well he knew what it meant. He urged the horses running fast beside them. It was of no use. Too much even for Baba and Benito to make any haste with the heavily loaded wagon. There is an old sheep corral and a hut not over a mile farther if we could but reach it, groaned Alessandro. Magella, you and the child will freeze. She is warm on my breast, said Ramona. But Alessandro, what ice in this wind it is like a knife at my back. Alessandro uttered another ejaculation of dismay. The snow was fast thickening. Already the track was covered. The wind lessened. Thank God that wind no longer cuts as it did, said Ramona, her teeth chattering, clasping the baby closer and closer. I would rather it blew than not, said Alessandro. It will carry the snow before it. A little more of this, and we cannot see any more than in the night. Still thicker and faster fell the snow. The air was dense. It was, as Alessandro had said, worse than the darkness of night. This strange opaque whiteness, thick, choking, freezing one's breath. Presently the rough jolting of the wagon showed that they were off the road. The horses stopped, refused to go on. We are lost if we stay here, cried Alessandro. Come, my bonito, come! And he took him by the head and pulled him by main force back into the road and led him along. It was terrible. Ramona's heart sank within her. She felt her arms growing numb. How much longer could she hold the baby safe? She called to Alessandro. He did not hear her. The wind had risen again. The snow was being blown in masses. It was like making headway among whirling snow drifts. We will die, thought Ramona. Perhaps it is as well. And that was the last she knew till she heard a shouting and found herself being shaken and beaten, and heard a strange voice saying, Sorry to her hand, oh, you're so rough, man, but we've got to get you out to her the fire. Fire? Were there such things as fire and warmth? Mechanically she put the baby into the unknown arms that were reaching up to her and tried to rise from her seat, but she could not move. Sit still, sit still, came the strange voice. I'll just carry the baby, turn my wife, and come back for you. I allowed your couldn't get up on your feet. And the tall form disappeared. The baby thus vigorously disturbed from her warm sleep began to cry. Thank God, said Alessandro, at the plunging horse's heads. The child is alive. Majella, he called. Yes, Alessandro, she answered faintly, the gusts sweeping her voice like a distant echo passed him. It was a marvelous rescue. They had been nearer the old sheep corral than Alessandro had thought. But except that other storm-beaten travelers had reached it before them, Alessandro had never found it. Just as he felt his strength failing him and had thought to himself in almost the same despairing words as Ramona, this will end all our troubles. He saw a faint light to the left. Instantly he had turned the horse's heads towards it. The ground was rough and broken, and more than once he had been in danger of overturning the wagon, but he had pressed on, shouting at intervals for help. At last his call was answered and another light appeared, this time a swinging one, coming slowly towards him, a lantern in the hand of a man, whose first words, While, stranger, I allow you're into trouble, were as intelligible to Alessandro as if they had been spoken in the purest San Luiseno dialect. Not so to the stranger, Alessandro's grateful reply in Spanish. For these no-count Mexicans by a thunder, thought Jeff higher to himself, blamed if I'd lived in a country all my life if I wouldn't know better than to get caught out in such weather as this. And as he put the crying baby into his wife's arms he said, half impatiently, If I'd known to his Mexicans, re, I wouldn't have gone out to them, there more to hum than I am in these year tropics. Now, Jeff, you know you won't let anything in Jeff if a human critter go perishin' past our fires, such weather's this. Replied the woman as she took the baby, which recognized the motherly hand at its first touch and ceased crying. Why, your putty blue-eyed little thing, she exclaimed as she looked into the baby's face. I declare, Joss, think as such a might as this bein' out in this weather, I'll just warm up some milk for it this minute. Better seat the mother first, re, said Jeff, leading, half-carrying Ramona into the hut. She's nigh about froze stiff. But the sight of her baby safe and smiling was a better restorative for Ramona than anything else, and in a few moments she had fully recovered. It was in a strange group she found herself. On a mattress in the corner of the hut lay a young man apparently about twenty-five whose bright eyes and flushed cheeks told but too plainly the story of his disease. The woman, tall, ungainly, her face gant, her hands hardened and wrinkled, gown ragged, shoes ragged, her dry and broken light hair wound in a careless, straggling nod in her neck, wisps of it flying over her forehead, was certainly not a prepossessing figure. Yet despite of her careless, unkempt condition there was a certain gentle dignity in her bearing and a kindliness in her glance which one trust and warmed hearts at once. Her pale blue eyes were still keen-sighted, and as she fixed them on Ramona she thought to herself, this ain't no common Mexican know-how. Be ye movers, she said. Ramona stared. And the little English she knew that word was not included. Ah, senora, she said regretfully, I cannot talk in the English speech, only in Spanish. Spanish, yeh. You mean Mexican? Joss higher he can talk that. He can't talk much, though, taint good for him, his lungs is outer kilter. That's what we're bringing him hair for. For warm climate, peers like it, don't it? She chuckled grimly, but with a side glance of ineffable tenderness at the sick man. Ask her who they be, Joss, she added. Joss lifted himself on his elbow and fixing his shining eyes on Ramona, said in Spanish. My mother asks if you are travelers. Yes, said Ramona. We have come all the way from San Diego. We are Indians. Engines, ejaculated Joss's mother. Lord save us, Joss. Have we really took in engines? What on earth? Well, well, she's fond of her baby's any white woman. I can see that. An engine or no engine, they've got to stay now. You couldn't turn a dog out and fetch where there's this. I bet that baby's father was white then. Look at them blue eyes. Ramona looked and listened intently, but she could understand nothing. Almost she doubted if the woman were really speaking English. She had never before heard so many English sentences without being able to understand one word. The Tennessee drawl so altered even the commonest words that she did not recognize them. Turning to Joss, she said gently. I know very little English. I am so sorry I cannot understand. I'm a little bit tired you to interpret to me what your mother said. Joss was as full of humor as his mother. She wants me to tell her what you was saying, he said. I allow I'll only tell her the part on she'll like best. My mother says you can stay here with us till the storm is over, he said to Ramona. Swifter than lightning Ramona had seized the woman's hand and carried it to her heart with an expressive gesture of gratitude and emotion. Thanks, thanks senorita, she cried. What is it she calls me Joss, asked his mother. Senorita, he replied, it only means the same as lady. Shaw, Joss, you tell her I ain't any lady. Tell her everybody round where we live calls me Aunt Rhee, or Miss Hire. She can call me whichever she's the mind to. She's real sweet-spoken. With some difficulty Joss explained his mother's disclaimer of the title of senorita and the choice of name she offered to Ramona. Ramona, with smiles which won both mother and son, repeated after him both names, getting neither exactly right at first trial, and finally said, I like Aunt Rhee best, she is so kind, like Aunt to everyone. Now ain't that queer Joss, said Aunt Rhee, out here in this wilderness, to catch somebody saying that. Just what they all say to hum. I don't know if I'm any kinder than anybody else. I don't want to see anybody put upon, nor no way of suffering, if so be as I can help. But that ain't anything extraordinary as I know. I don't know how anybody could feel any different. There's lots do's, mammy, replied Joss affectionately. You'd find out fast enough if you're going around more. There's my diffuse goods you air to everybody. Ramona was crouching in the corner by the fire, her baby held close to her breast. The place, which at first had seemed a haven of warmth, she now saw was indeed but a poor shelter against the fearful storm which raged outside. It was only a hut of rough boards, carelessly knocked together for a shepherd's temporary home. It had been long unused, and many of the boards were loose and broken. Through these crevices, at every blast of the wind, the fine snow swirled. On the hearth were burning a few sticks of wood, dead cottonwood branches, which Jeff Hire had hastily collected before the storm reached its height. A few more sticks lay by the hearth. Aunt Rea glanced at them anxiously, a poor provision for a night in the snow. Be ye warm, Joss, she asked. Not very, Mammy, he said. But I ain't cold neither, and that's something. It was the way in the Hire family to make the best of things. They had always possessed this virtue to such an extent that they suffered from it as from a vice. There was hardly to be found in all southern Tennessee a more contented, shiftless, ill-beasted family than theirs. But there was no grumbling. Whatever went wrong, whatever was lacking. It was just like our luck, they said, and did nothing or next to nothing about it. Good-natured, affectionate, humorous people. After all, they got more comfort out of life than many a family whose surface conditions were incomparably better than theirs. When Joss, their oldest child and only son, broke down, had hemorrhage after hemorrhage, and the doctor said the only thing that could save him was to go across the plains in a wagon to California, they said. What good luck, Liza, was married last year. Now there ain't nothing to hinder selling the farm and going right off. And they sold their little place, for half it was worth, traded cattle for a pair of horses and a covered wagon, and set off, half-beggared, with their sick boy on a bed in the bottom of the wagon, as cheery as if they were rich people on a pleasure trip. A pair of steers, to spell the horses and a cow to give milk for Joss, they drove before them, and so they had come by slow stages, sometimes camping for a week at a time, all the way from Tennessee to the San Jacinto Valley, they were rewarded. Joss was getting well. Another six months, they thought, would see him cured. And it would have gone hard with any one who had tried to persuade either Jefferson or Maria Hire that they were not as lucky a couple as could be found. Had they not saved Joshua their son? Nicknames among this class of poor whites in the South seem singularly like those in Vogue in New England. From totally opposite motives, the lazy, easygoing Tennessean and the hurry-driven Vermonker cut down all their family names to the shortest. To speak three syllables where one will answer seems to the Vermonker a waste of time, to the Tennessean quite too much trouble. Mrs. Hire could hardly recollect ever having heard her name Maria in full. As a child and until she was married she was simply re, and as soon as she had a house of her own to become a center of hospitality and help, she was adopted by common consent of the neighborhood in a sort of titular and universal anthood which really was a much greater tribute and honor than she dreamed. Not a man, woman, or child within her reach that did not call her or know of her as Aunt Re. I don't know whether I'd best make any more fire now or not, she said reflectively. If this storm's going to last till morning we'll come short of wood, that's clear. As she spoke the door of the hut burst open and her husband staggered in, followed by Alessandro, both covered with snow, their arms full of wood. Alessandro, luckily, knew of a little clump of young cottonwood trees in a ravine only a few rods from the house, and the first thing he had thought of after tethering the horses in shelter between the hut and the wagons, was to get wood. Jeff, seeing him take a hatchet from the wagon, had understood, got his own and followed, and now they're lay on the ground enough to keep them warm for hours. As soon as Alessandro had thrown down his load he darted to Ramona and kneeling down, looked anxiously into the baby's face. Then into hers, then he said devoutly, The saints be praised, my Majella, it is a miracle. Joss listened in dismay to this ejaculation. If the ain't Catholics, he thought, what kind of engines be they, I wonder. I won't tell Mammy their Catholics, she'd feel worse than ever. I don't care what they be, that gals got the sweetest eyes in her head ever I saw since I was born. By help of Joss's interpreting, the two families soon became well acquainted with each other's condition and plans, and a feeling of friendliness, surprising under the circumstances, grew up between them. Jeff, said Aunt Rhee, Jeff they can't understand a word we say, though it's no harm done, I suppose, to speak of for them, though don't seem hardly fair to take advantage of they are not knowing any language but their own. But I just tell you that I've got a lesson in the subject of engines. I've always had a real mean feeling about them. I didn't want to come nigh them, nor to heaven come nigh me. This woman here, she's as sweet a credor as ever I see, and is bound up in that baby's your cadastke any woman to be. As for that man, can't you see, Jeff, he just worships the ground she walks on? That's a fact, Jeff. I don't know, as ever I see a white man think so much of a woman. Come now, Jeff, do you think you ever did yourself? Aunt Rhee was excited. The experience was to her almost incredible. Her ideas of indians had been drawn from newspapers and from a book or two of narratives of massacres and from an occasional sight of vagabond bands or families they had encountered in their journey across the plains. Here she found herself sitting side by side in friendly intercourse with an Indian man and Indian woman whose appearance and behavior were attractive, towards whom she felt herself singularly drawn. I'm free to confess, Joss, she said. I wouldn't have believed it. I ain't seen nobody, black, white, or gray since we left time I've took to like these year, folks. And they're real dark, as dark as any nigger in Tennessee. And he's pure engine. Her father was white, she says, but she don't call herself nothing but an engine, the same as he is. Do you notice the way she looks at him, Joss? Don't she just set a store by that fella? And I don't blame her. Indeed, Joss had noticed. No man was likely to see Ramona with Alessandro without perceiving the rare quality of her devotion to him. And now there was added to this devotion an indefinable anxiety which made its vigilance unceasing. Ramona feared for Alessandro's reason. She had hardly put it into words to herself, but the terrible fear dwelt with her. She felt that another blow would be more than he could bear. The storm lasted only a few hours. When it cleared the valley was a solid, expansive white and the stars shone out as if in an arctic sky. It will all be gone by noon tomorrow, said Alessandro to Joss, who was dreading the next day. Not really, he said. You will see, said Alessandro, I have often known it thus. It is like death while it lasts, but it is never long. CHAPTER XXII BY HELLEN HUNT JACKSON The hires were on their way to some hot springs on the north side of the valley. Here they proposed to camp for three months to try the waters for Joss. They had a tent and all that was necessary for living in their primitive fashion. Aunt Rhee was looking forward to the rest with great anticipation. She was heartily tired of being on the move. Her husband's anticipations were of a more stirring nature. He had heard that there was good hunting on San Jacinto Mountain. When he found that Alessandro knew the region thoroughly and had been thinking of settling there, he was rejoiced and proposed to him to become his companion and guide in hunting expeditions. Ramona grasped eagerly at the suggestion, companionship she was sure would do Alessandro good, companionship the outdoor life and the excitement of hunting of which he was fond. This hot spring cannon was only a short distance from the Savoba village of which they had spoken as a possible home, which she had from the first desired to try. She no longer had repugnance to the thought of an ending village. She already felt a sense of kinship and shelter with any ending people. She had become, as Carmina had said, one of them. A few days saw the two families settled. The hires in their tent and wagon at the hot springs and Alessandro and Ramona with the baby in a little adobe house in the Savoba village. The house belonged to an old Indian woman who, her husband having died, had gone to live with a daughter and was very glad to get a few dollars by renting her own house. It was a wretched place. One small room walled with poorly made adobe brigs, thatched with tulle, no floor and only one window. When Alessandro heard Ramona say cheerily, oh, this will do very well when it is repaired a little. His face was convulsed, and he turned away. But he said nothing. It was the only house to be had in the village and there were few better. Two months later no one would have known it. Alessandro had had good luck in hunting. Two fine deer skins covered the earth floor, a third was spread over the bedstead, and the horns hung on the walls, served for hooks to hang clothes upon. The scarlet calico canopy was again set up over the bed and the woven cradle on its red manzanita frame stood near. A small window in the door and one more out in the walls led in light and air. On a shelf near one of these windows stood the little Madonna, again wreathed with vines as in San Pasquale. When Aunt Ri first saw the room after it was thus arranged, she put both arms akimbo and stood in the doorway. Her mouth wide open, her eyes full of wonder. Finally, her wonder framed itself in an ejaculation. While I allow you air-fixed up. Aunt Ri, at her best estate, had never possessed a room which had the expression of this poor little mud-hud of Ramona's. She could not understand it. The more she studied the place, the less she understood it. On returning to the tent she said to Joss, It beats all I ever see the way that engine woman's got fixed up out of nothing. There ain't no more in a huddle, a mud-huddle, Joss. Not much bigger than this year's tent, for all three on them, and the bed, and the stove, and everything, and I vow, Joss, She's fixed it so it looks just like a parlor. It beats me, it does. I'd just like you to see it. And when Joss saw it, and Jeff, they were as full of wonder as Aunt Ri had been. Dimly, they recognized the existence of a principle here which had never entered into their life. They did not know it by name, and it could not have been either taught, transferred, or explained to the good-hearted wife and mother who had been so many years the affectionate, disorderly genius of their home. But they felt its charm. And when, one day, after the return of Alessandro and Jeff, from a particularly successful hunt, the two families had sat together to a supper of Ramona's cooking, stewed venison and artichokes, and frijoles with chili. Their wonder was still greater. Ask her if this is engine-stall of cooking, Joss, said Aunt Ri. I never thought nothing of beans, but these are good and no mistake. Ramona laughed. No, it is Mexican, she said. I learned to cook from an old Mexican woman. While I'd like the receipt on't, but I allow I shouldn't never get the time to fuss with it, said Aunt Ri. But I may as well get the rule, now I'm here. Alessandro began to lose some of his gloom. He had earned money. He had been lifted out of himself by kindly companionship. He saw Ramona cheerful, the little one sunny. The sense of home, the strongest passion Alessandro possessed next to his love for Ramona, began again to awaken him. He began to talk about building a house. He had found things in the village better than he feared. It was but a poverty-stricken little handful, to be sure. Still they were unmolested. The valley was large, their stock ran free. The few white settlers, one at the upper end and two or three on the south side, had manifested no disposition to crowd the Indians. The Ravayo brothers were living on the estate still and there was protection in that, Alessandro thought. And Majella was content. Majella had found friends. Something not quite hope, but akin to it, began to stir in Alessandro's heart. He would build a house. Majella should no longer live in this mud hut. But to his surprise, when he spoke of it, Ramona said no. They had all they needed now. Was not Alessandro comfortable? She was. It would be wise to wait longer before building. Ramona knew many things that Alessandro did not. While he had been away on his hunts, she had had speech with many a one he never saw. She had gone to the store and post office several times to exchange baskets or lays for flour, and she had heard talk there which disquieted her. She did not believe that Suboba was safe. One day she had heard a man say. If there is a drought, we shall have the devil to pay with our stock before winter is over. Yes, said another. And look at those Indians over there in Suboba with water running all the time in their village. It's a shame they should have that spring. Not for worlds would Ramona have told this to Alessandro. She kept it locked in her own breast, but it rankled there like a ceaseless warning and prophecy. When she reached home that day she went down to the spring in the center of the village and stood a long time looking at the bubbling water. It was indeed a priceless treasure. A long irrigating ditch led from it down into the bottom where lay the cultivated fields. Many acres in wheat, barley, and vegetables. Alessandro himself had fields there from which they would harvest all they needed for the horses and their cow all winter in case pastureage failed. If the whites took away this water Suboba would be ruined. However, as the spring began in the very heart of the village, they could not take it without destroying the village. And the Ravallos would surely never let that be done, thought Ramona. While they live it will not happen. It was a sad day for Ramona and Alessandro when the kindly hires pulled up their tent stakes and left the valley. Their intended three months had stretched into six. They had so enjoyed the climate, and the waters had seemed to do such good to Joss. But we ain't rich, folks, you know, not by a long ways we ain't, said Aunt Rhee. And we've got pretty nigh down to where Jeff and me's got to begin ironing something. If we can get settled in some of these towns where there's carpenter run to be done. Jeff, he's a master hand to that kind of work, though you mightn't think it. And I can iron right smart at weavin. Just give me a good carpet loom, and I won't be beholden to nobody for vitals. I just do love weavin. I don't know how I've contented myself this whole year or nigh about a year without a loom. Jeff, he says to me once, says he, Rhee, do you think you'd be contented in heaven without your loom? And I was free to say I didn't know as I should. Is it hard, cried Ramona? Could I learn to do it? It was wonderful what progress in understanding and speaking English Ramona had made in these six months. She now understood nearly all that was said directly to her, though she could not follow general and confused conversation. Wow, tis and taint, said Aunt Rhee. I don't suppose I'm much of a judge, for I can't remember when I first learned it. I know I sat in the loom to weave when my feet couldn't reach the floor, and I don't remember nothing about fuss learning to spool and warp. I've tried to teach lots of folks, and some learns quick, and some don't never learn. It's just that it strikes them. I should think now that you as one of the kind could turn your hands to anything. When we get settled in San Bernardino, if you'll come down there, I'll teach you all I know and be glad to. I don't know if it's going to be much of a place for carpet weaving, though, anywhere around this year, country. Not but what there's plenty of rags, but folks seems to be wearing them. Put a general wear, I should say. I've seen more clothes on folks' backs higher that weren't no more in fit for carpet rags than any place ever I struck. There are dreadful, chefless lads these year, Mexicans, and the engines as wuss. Now when I say engines, I don't never mean you, you know that. It never seemed to me one might like an engine. Most of our people haven't had any chance, said Ramona. You wouldn't believe it if I were to tell you what things have been done to them, how they are robbed and cheated and turned out of their homes. Then she told the story of Temecula and of San Pasquale in Spanish to Joss, who translated it with no loss in the telling. Aunt Rhee was aghast. She found no words to express her indignation. I don't believe the government knows anything about it, she said. Why they take folks up and penitentiarize them for life back in Tennessee for things that ain't so bad as that, somebody art to be sent to tell them to Washington what's going on higher. I think it's the people in Washington that have done it, said Ramona, sadly. Is it not in Washington all the laws are made? I believe so, said Aunt Rhee. Ain't it Joss? It's Congress, ain't it, makes the laws? I believe so, said Joss. They make some at any rate. I don't know if they make them all. It is all done by the American law, said Ramona. All these things, nobody can help himself. For if anybody goes against the law, he has to be killed or put in prison. That was what the sheriff told Alessandro at Temecula. He felt very sorry for the Temecula people, the sheriff did. But he had to obey the law himself. Alessandro says there isn't any help. Aunt Rhee shook her head. She was not convinced. I shall make a business of finding out about this thing yet, she said. I think your hank got the rights on it yet. There's cheating somewhere. It's all cheating, said Ramona. But there isn't any help for it, Aunt Rhee. The Americans think it is no shame to cheat for money. I'm an American, cried Aunt Rhee. And Jeff Hire and Joss, we're Americans, and we wouldn't cheat nobody, not if we knowed it, not out or a dollar. We're poor, and I all expect to be, but we're above cheating, and I tell you now, the American people don't want any of this cheating done now. I'm going to ask Jeff how tis. Why, it's a burning shame to any country, so tis. I think something order be done about it. I wouldn't mind going myself if there weren't anybody else. A seed had been sown in Aunt Rhee's mind, which was not destined to die for want of soil. She was hot with shame and anger and full of impulse to do something. I ain't nobody, she said. I know that well enough. I ain't nobody nor nothing, but I allow I've got something to say about the country I live in and the way things hit order be. Or at least Jeff has. And that's the same thing. I tell you, Joss, I ain't going to rest nor to give you and your father no rest another, till you find out what all this year means she's been telling us. But sharper and closer anxieties than any connected with rights to lands and homes were pressing up on Alessandro and Ramona. All summer the baby had been slowly drooping, so slowly that it was each day possible for Ramona to deceive herself, thinking that there had been since yesterday no loss, perhaps a little gain. But looking back from the autumn to the spring and now from the winter to the autumn, there was no doubt that she had been steadily going down. From the day of that terrible chill in the snowstorm she had never been quite well, Ramona thought. Before that she was strong, always strong, always beautiful and merry. Now her pinched little face was sad to see and sometimes for hours she made a feeble wailing cry without any apparent cause. All the simple remedies that Aunt Rhee had known had failed to touch her disease. In fact, Aunt Rhee from the first had been baffled in her own mind by the child's symptoms. Day after day Alessandro knelt by the cradle. His hands clasped, his face set. Hour after hour, night and day, indoors and out, he bore her in his arms, trying to give her relief. Prayer after prayer to the Virgin, to the Saints, Ramona had said. And candles by the dozen though money was now scant she had burned before the Madonna. All in vain. At last she implored Alessandro to go to San Bernardino and see a doctor. Find Aunt Rhee, she said. She will go with you, with Joss, and talk to him. She can make him understand. Till Aunt Rhee she seems just as she did when they were here only weaker and thinner. Alessandro found Aunt Rhee in a sort of shanty on the outskirts of San Bernardino. Not to riot yet, she said, as if she ever would be. Jeff had found work, and Joss, too, had been able to do a little on pleasant days. He had made a loom and put up a loom-house for his mother. A floor just large enough to hold the loom, rough walls and a roof, one small square window, that was all. But if Aunt Rhee had been presented with a palace she would not have been so well pleased. Already she had woven a rag carpet for herself, was at work on one for a neighbor, and had promised as many more as she could do before spring. The news of the arrival of a rag carpet weaver, having gone with dispatch all through the lower walks of San Bernardino life. I wouldn't have believed they had so many rags besides what they're wearing, said Aunt Rhee, as sack after sack appeared at her door. Already, too, Aunt Rhee had gathered up the threads of the village life. In her friendly, impressionable way she had come into relation with scores of people, and knew who was who and what was what and why among them all, far better than many an old resident of the town. When she saw Benito galloping up to her door she sprang down from her high stool at the loom and ran bareheaded to the gate. And before Alessandro had dismounted cried, You're just the man I wanted. I've been trying to arrange it so as we could go down and see her, but Jeff couldn't leave the job he's got. And I'm drove nigh about off my feet, and I don't know when we had hip-etched it. How's all? Why didn't you come in the wagon and fetch him along? I've got heaps to tell you. I allowed you hadn't got the rights of them things. The government ain't on the side of the thieves, as you said. I know they couldn't be, and they've just sent out a man of purpose to look after things for you. To take care of the engines and nothing else. That's what he's here for. He come last month. He's a real nice man. I seen him and talked with him a spell last week. I'm going to make his wife a rag carpet. And there's a doctor too to tend your when you're sick, and the government pays him. You don't have to pay nothing. And I tell you, that's a heap of saving to get your doctor in for nothing. Aunt Rhee was out of breath. Alessandro had not understood half, she said. He looked about helplessly for Joss. Joss was away. In his broken English he tried to explain what Ramona had wished her to do. Doctor, that's just what I'm telling you. There is one here's paid by the government to tend to the engines that's sick. I'll go and show you to his house. I can tell him just how the baby is. Perhaps he'll drive down and see her. Ah, if he would. What would Majella say, should she see him enter the door bringing a doctor? Luckily Joss returned in time to go with them to the doctor's house as interpreter. Alessandro was bewildered. He could not understand this new phase of affairs. Could it be true? As they walked along he listened with trembling, half incredulous hope to Joss's interpretation of Aunt Rhee's voluble narrative. The doctor was in his office. To Aunt Rhee's statement of Alessandro's errand he listened indifferently and then said, is he an agency ending? A what exclaimed Aunt Rhee? Does he belong to the agency? Is his name on the agency books? No, said she. He never heard of any agency till I was telling him just now. We knew him, him, and her over in San Jacinto. He lives in Suboba. He's never been to San Bernardino since the agent come out. Well, is he going to put his name on the books? Said the doctor impatiently. You ought to have taken him to the agent first. Ain't you the government doctor for all engines? Asked Aunt Rhee rathfully. That's what I heard. Well, my good woman, you hear a great deal I expect that isn't true. And the doctor laughed coarsely, but not ill-naturedly. Alessandro all the time studying his face with the scrutiny of one awaiting life and death. I am the agency physician, and I suppose all the indians will sooner or later come in and report themselves to the agent. You'd better take this man over there. What does he want now? Aunt Rhee began to explain the baby's case, cutting her short, the doctor said. Yes, yes, I understand. I'll give him something that will help her. And going into an inner room, he brought out a bottle of dark-colored liquid, wrote a few lines of prescription, and handed it to Alessandro, saying, that will do her good, I guess. Thanks, senor, thanks, said Alessandro. The doctor stared. That's the first indian said thank you in this office, he said. You tell the agent you've brought him a rara avus. What's that, Joss? said Aunt Rhee as they went out. Don't know, said Joss. I don't like Batman anyhow, Mammy, he's no good. Alessandro looked at the bottle of medicine like one in a dream. Would it make the baby well? Had it indeed been given to him by that great government in Washington? Was he to be protected now? Could this man who had been sent out to take care of indians get back his sampa squally farm for him? Alessandro's brain was in a whirl. From the doctor's office, they went to the agent's house. Here Aunt Rhee felt herself more at home. I've brought you that indian I was telling you of, she said, with a wave of her hand toward Alessandro. We've bent her the doctors to get some medicine for his baby. She's real sick, I'm afraid. The agent sat down at his desk, opened a large ledger, saying as he did so. The man's never been here before, has he? No, said Aunt Rhee. What is his name? Joss gave it and the agent began to write it in the book. Stop him, cried Alessandro agitatedly to Joss. Don't let him write till I know what he puts my name in his book for. Wait, said Joss, he doesn't want you to write his name in that book. He wants to know what it's put there for. Willing his chair with a look of suppressed impatience, yet trying to speak kindly, the agent said, there's no making these indians understand anything. They seem to think if I have their names in my book, it gives me some power over them. Well, don't it? Said the direct-minded Aunt Rhee. Ain't your god any power over them? If your haint got it over them, who have your got it over? What you going to do for them? The agent laughed in spite of himself. Well, Aunt Rhee, she was already Aunt Rhee to the agent's boys. That's just the trouble with this agency. It is very different from what it would be if I had all my indians on a reservation. Alessandro understood the words, my indians, he had heard them before. What does he mean by his indians, Joss? He asked fiercely. I will not have my name in this book if it makes me his. When Joss reluctantly interpreted this, the agent lost his temper. That's all the use there is trying to do anything with them. Let him go then, if he doesn't want any help from the government. Oh, no, no, cried Aunt Rhee. You just explain it to Joss and he'll make him understand. Alessandro's face had darkened. All this seemed to him exceedingly suspicious. Could it be possible that Aunt Rhee and Joss, the first whites except Mr. Hartzell he had ever trusted, were deceiving him? No, that was impossible. But they themselves might be deceived. That they were simple and ignorant, Alessandro well knew. Let us go, he said. I do not wish to sign any paper. Now, don't be a fool, will you? You ain't signin' a thing, said Aunt Rhee. Joss, you tell him I say there ain't anything about binding him, having his name in that book. It's only so the agent can know what engines once help and where they are. Ain't that so, she added, turning to the agent. Tell him he can't have the agency doctor if he ain't on the agency books. Not have the doctor give up this precious medicine which might save his baby's life? No, he could not do that. Magella would say, let the name be written, rather than that. Let him write the name, then, said Alessandro doggedly. But he went out of the room feeling as if he had put a chain around his neck. CHAPTER XXXIII. The medicine did the baby no good. In fact, it did her harm. She was too feeble for violent remedies. In a week, Alessandro appeared again at the agency doctor's door. This time he had come with a request which, to his mind, seemed not unreasonable. He had brought Baba for the doctor to ride. Could the doctor then refuse to go to Ceboba? Baba would carry him there in three hours and it would be like a cradle all the way. Alessandro's name was in the agency books. It was for this he had written it, for this and nothing else, to save the baby's life. Having thus enrolled himself as one of the agency Indians, he had a claim on this, the agency doctor, and that his application might be, all in due form, he took with him the agency interpreter. He had had a misgiving before that Aunt Rhee's kindly volubility had not been well-timed. Not one unnecessary word was Alessandro's motto. To say that the agency doctor was astonished at being requested to ride 30 miles to prescribe for an ailing Indian baby would be a mild statement of the doctor's emotion. He could hardly keep from laughing when it was made clear to him that this was what the Indian father expected. Good Lord, he said, turning to a crony who chanced to be lounging in the office. Listen to that beggar, will you? I wonder what he thinks the government pays me a year for doctoring Indians. Alessandro listened so closely, it attracted the doctor's attention. Do you understand English? He asked sharply. A very little senior replied Alessandro. The doctor would be more careful in his speech then, but he made it most emphatically clear that the thing Alessandro had asked was not only out of the question, but preposterous. Alessandro pleaded for the child's sake he could do it. The horse was at the door. There was no such horse in San Bernardino County. He went like the wind and one would not know he was in motion. It was so easy. Would not the doctor come down and look at the horse? Then he would see what it would be like to ride him. Oh, I've seen plenty of your Indian ponies, said the doctor. I know they can run. Alessandro lingered. He could not give up this last hope. The tears came into his eyes. It is our only child, senior, he said. It will take you but six hours in all. My wife counts the moments till you come. If the child dies, she will die. No, no. The doctor was weary of being impotuned. Tell the man it is impossible. I'd soon have my hands full if I began to go about the country in this way. They'd be sending for me down to Agua Caliente next and bring up their ponies to carry me. He will not go, asked Alessandro. The interpreter shook his head. He cannot, he said. Without a word, Alessandro left the room. Presently he returned. Ask him if he will come for money, he said. I have gold at home. I will pay him what the white men pay him. Tell him no man of any color could pay me for going 60 miles, said the doctor. And Alessandro departed again, walking so slowly, however, that he heard the course laugh and the words, gold looked like it didn't tea, which followed his departure from the room. When Ramona saw him returning alone, she wrung her hands. Her heart seemed breaking. The baby had lain in a sort of stupor since noon. She was plainly worse and Ramona had been going from the door to the cradle, from the cradle to the door for an hour, looking each moment for the hoped for aid. It had not once crossed her mind that the doctor would not come. She had accepted in much fuller faith than Alessandro, the account of the appointment by the government of these two men to look after the Indians' interests. What else could their coming mean, except that, at last, the Indians were to have justice. She thought, in her simplicity, that the doctor must have died since Alessandro was riding home alone. He would not come, said Alessandro, as he threw himself off his horse, wearily. Would not, cried Ramona. Would not? Did you not say the government had sent him to be doctor for the Indians? That was what they said, he replied. You see it is a lie, like the rest, but I offered him gold and he would not come then. The child must die, Mahela. She shall not die, cried Ramona. We will carry her to him. The thought struck them both as an inspiration. Why had they not thought of it before? You can fasten the cradle on Baba's back and he will go so gently. She will think it is but play and I will walk by her side, or you, all the way, she continued. And we can sleep at Aunt Ree's house. Oh why, why did we not do it before? Early in the morning, we will start. All through the night they sat watching the little creature. If they had ever seen death, they would have known that there was no hope for the child. But how should Ramona and Alessandro know? The sun rose bright and warm. Before it was up, the cradle was ready, ingeniously strapped on Baba's back. When the baby was placed in it, she smiled. The first smile she has given us for days, cried Ramona. Oh, the air itself will do good to her. Let me walk by her first. Come Baba, dear Baba. And Ramona stepped almost joyfully by the horse's side, Alessandro riding Benito. As they paced along their eyes, never leaving the baby's face, Ramona said in a low tone, Alessandro, I am almost afraid to tell you what I have done. I took the little Jesus out of the Madonna's arms and hid it. Did you never hear that if you do that, the Madonna will grant you anything to get him back again in her arms? Did you ever hear of it? Never, exclaimed Alessandro, with horror in his tone. Never, Mahila, how dare do you? I dare anything now, said Ramona. I've been thinking of doing it for some days and to tell her that she could not have him anymore till she gave me back the baby while in strom. But I knew I could not have the courage to sit and look at her all lonely without him in her arms. So I did not do it. But now we are to be away. I thought that is the time. And I told her, when we come back with our baby well, you shall have your little Jesus again too. Now, holy mother, you go with us and make the doctor cure our baby. Oh, I have heard many times women tell the senior that they had done this and always they got what they wanted. Never will she let the Jesus be out of her arms more than three weeks before she will grant any prayer one can make. It was that way she brought you to me, Alessandro. I never before told you. I was afraid. I think she had brought you sooner, but I could keep the little Jesus hid from her only at night. In the day I could not because the senior I would see. So she did not miss him so much. Else she had brought you quicker. But Mahila, said the logical Alessandro, it was because I could not leave my father that I did not come. As soon as he was buried, I came. If it had not been for the virgin, you would never have come at all, said Ramona confidently. For the first hour of this sad journey, it seemed as if the child were really rallying. The air, the sunlight, the novel motion, the smiling mother by her side, the big black horses she had already learned to love all roused her to animation she had not shown for days. But it was only the last flicker of the expiring flame. The eyes drooped, closed. A strange pallor came over the face. Alessandro saw it first. He was now walking, Ramona riding Benito. Mahila, he cried in a tone which told her all. In a second she was at the baby's side with a cry which smote the dying child's consciousness. Once more the eyelids lifted. She knew her mother. A swift spasm shook the little frame. A convulsion as if agony swept over the face. Then it was at peace. Ramona's shrieks were heart-rending. Fiercely she put Alessandro away from her as he strove to caress her. She stretched her arms up toward the sky. I have killed her. I have killed her, she cried. Oh, let me die. Slowly Alessandro turned Baba's head homeward again. Oh, give her up to me. Let her lie on my breast. I will hold her warm, gasped Ramona. Silently Alessandro laid the body in her arms. He had not spoken since his first cry of alarm. If Ramona had looked at him she would have forgotten her grief for her dead child. Alessandro's face seemed turned to stone. When they reached the house Ramona laying the child on the bed ran hastily to a corner of the room and lifting the deerskin drew from its hiding place the little wooden Jesus. With tears streaming she laid it again in the Madonna's arms and flinging herself on her knees sobbed out prayers for forgiveness. Alessandro stood at the foot of the bed his arms folded, his eyes riveted on the child. Soon he went out still without speaking. Presently Ramona heard the sound of a saw. She groaned aloud and her tears flowed faster. Alessandro was making the baby's coffin. Mechanically she rose and moving like one half paralyzed she dressed the little one in fresh white clothes for the burial. Then laying her in the cradle she spread over it the beautiful lace wrought altar claw. As she adjusted its fold her mind carried her back to the time when she embroidered it. Sitting on the Senora's veranda the song of the finches, the linens the voice and smile of Felipe. Alessandro sitting on the steps drawing divine music from his violin. Was that she? That girl who sat there weaving the fine threads in the beautiful altar claw. Was it a hundred years ago? Was it another world? Was it Alessandro yonder driving those nails into a coffin? How the blows rang louder and louder. The air seemed deafening full of sound. With her hands pressed to her temples Ramona sank to the floor. A merciful unconsciousness set her free for an interval from her anguish. When she opened her eyes she was lying on the bed. Alessandro had lifted her and laid her there making no effort to rouse her. He thought she would die too and even that thought did not stir him from his lethargy. When she opened her eyes and looked at him he did not speak. She closed them. He did not move. Presently she opened them again. I heard you out there. She said. Yes, he replied. It is done. And he pointed to a little box of rough boards by the side of the cradle. Is Mahila 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 Suboba women did not know what to think of Ramona now. She had never come into sympathetic relations with them as she had the women of San Pascal. Her intimacy with the hires had been a barrier the Suboba 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 for 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 Suboba mothers among themselves. And they were embarrassed before her and knew not what to say. Ramona perceived it but had no life in her to speak to them. The numbing tears 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 Alessandra 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 Alessandra 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 site 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 Mahela 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 Mahela, we will go to the mountain. We will be safe there. The same fierce restlessness which took possession of him at San Pascal 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 too 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 the 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 tear of the upper heights of San Jacinto. They believed the devil lived there and money would not hire one of the Cebova 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 Mahela, I believe the saints led me there. I said, it is such a hiding place. And then I never thought I would be in want of such, of a place to keep my Mahela safe. Oh my Mahela. And he clasped her to his breast with a terrifying passion. For an Indian to sell a horse and a wagon in the San Jacinto Valley was no 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 a 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 courses and wagon to San Bernardino and offer them to the hires for use for the winter. It would be just the work for Joss to keep him in the open air if he could get teeming 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 in the wagon again when we came down or Joss could sell them for us in San Bernardino. Nobody could see Benito and Baba working together and not want them. Mahila 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 in spite of all this 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 never have believed it ever, never, she said. I shan't never think she was quite right in her head to do it. I allow, we shan't never set her eyes onto her jaws. I've got just that feeling about it. Peers like she's gone clark out of this year world into another. The majestic bulwark, a San Huacinto mountain looms on 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 looms stood. As she sat there, hour after hour, sometimes seven hours to the day, working the heavy trell and slipping the shuttle back and forth, she gazed with tender yearnings at the solemn shining summit. When sunset colors smote it, it glowed like fire. On cloudy days it was lost in the clouds. Peers liked was next door to heaven up there, Joss, Aunt Ri would say. I can't tell you the feeling comes over to me to look up at it ever since I know she was there. It shines enough to put your eyes out sometimes. I allow taint so light that when you're air into it, to can't be, for there would be nobody standard if it was. I allow to must be like being dead, Joss. Don't you think so to be living, Thar? He said there couldn't be nobody get to him. Nobody ever see the place but his self. He found it a hunting. There's water there and that's about all there is. For as I could make out, I allow we shant never see her again. The horses in the wagon were indeed a godsend to Joss. It was the very thing he had been longing for. The only sort of work he was 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 the 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. Piers like I die of shame, said Aunt Ri. Sometimes when I catch myself for thinking what luck it's been to Joss or getting that engine's horse and wagon. But if Joss keeps on earning as much as he has so far, he's going to pay that engine part on it when he comes. I allow to Joss take no more unfair. Why them horses, they'll do good two days work in one. I never see such horses and they're just like kittens. They've been dreadful pets, I allow. I know she set the world more to by that nigh one. He was her and ever since she was a child. Poor thing, Piers like she hadn't had no chance. End of Chapter 23, Part 1, read by Marianne Spiegel in Chicago, Illinois, July 18th, 2009. Chapter 28, Part 2 of Ramona. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Ramona by Helen Haunt Jackson. Chapter 23, Part 2. 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 cannon about three miles northeast of the village, a lovely green cannon 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 Ravalo 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 not too soon that he had persuaded Myola 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 cannon 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. At noon, he came down with the first load of the meat and Ramona began cutting it into long strips as is the Mexican fashion 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 horsemen riding from house to house in the upper part of the village. Women came running out excitedly from each house as the horsemen 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 today. 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 God, here's the rest of it. If they ain't the damnedest impudent thieves, look at this woman cutting it up. Put that down, will you? We'll save you the trouble of drying our meat for us. Besides killing 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 a 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 him. There were six of the men and they had all swarmed into the little room. I say, Meryl. Said one of them. Hold on. The squaw says her husband's only just killed it today. 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 beach. 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 deer skin pointed with a sneer to the beef hidden there. Perhaps when you know Indians well as I do. He said. You won't go for believing all they say. What she got it hidden under the bed for if it were their own cow. And he's too to drag the meat out. Give us a hand here, Jake. If you touch it I'll 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 grass for a soft head you Jake. What heard 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 said to Macaulay man. Said one of the men in a low tone to Merrill. If I had known it was his house I wouldn't have what 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 spony which stood at the door with a package on its back the remainder of the meat rolled in the hide. He said. There is a remainder of the beef. I killed the creature this morning in the cannon. I will take Senior Merrill to the place if he wishes it. Senior Merrill's steer was killed down in the willows yonder yesterday. How did you know? Who did it? That soul? I cried the men gathering around him. 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 someone. But this was not the type of outreach that drives Alessandro to dangerous wrath. He even felt a certain enjoyment in the discompliture of the self-constituted cause 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 coarse oaths at him for his obstinacy they rode away. Alessandro went to Ramona's side. She was trembling. Her hands were like eyes. Let us go to the mountain tonight. 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 dare not leave Majella here alone while there is no house. And I must go and come many times before all the things can be carried. It will be less danger there than here, Alessandro. Said Ramona, bursting into violent weeping as she recalled the insolent leer with which the man Jake had looked at her. Oh, I cannot stay here. It will not be many days, my Majella. I will borrow Fernando's pony to take double at once. Then we can go sooner. Who was it stole that man's steer? Said Ramona. Why did you not tell them? They looked us if they would kill you. It was that Mexican who lives in the bottom, Jose Castro. I myself came on him, cutting the steer up. He said it was his, but I knew very well by the way he spoke he was lying. But why should I tell? They think only Indians will steal cattle. I can tell them the Mexicans steal more. I told them there was not an Indian in this village would steal cattle. Said Ramona, indignantly. That was not true, Majella. Replied Alessandro, sadly. When they are very hungry, they will steal a heifer or steer. They can lose many themselves and they say it is not so much harm to take one when they can get it. This man Merrill, they say, branded 20 steers for his own last spring when he knew they were Saboba cattle. Why did they not make him give them up? Cried Ramona. Did that Majella see today why they can do nothing? There is no help for us, Majella, only to hide, that is all we can do. A new terror had entered into Ramona's life. She did not tell it to Alessandro. She hardly put it into words in her thoughts. But she was haunted by the phase of the man Jake as by a vision of evil and on one pretext and another she contrived to secure the presence of someone of the Indian women in her house whenever Alessandro was away. Every day she saw the man riding past. Once he had galloped up to the open door, looked in, spoken in a friendly way to her and ridden on. Ramona's instinct was right. Jake was merely biding his time. He had made up his mind to settle in the San Jacinto Valley, at least for a few years, and he wished to have an Indian woman come to live with him and keep his house. Over in Santa Isabel, his brother had lived in that way with an Indian mistress for three years. And when he sold out and left Santa Isabel, he had given the woman a hundred dollars and a little house for herself and her child. And she was not only satisfied but held herself in consequence of this temporary connection with a white man much above her Indian relatives and friends. When an Indian man had wished to marry her, she had replied scornfully that she would never marry an Indian. She might marry another white man, but an Indian, never. Nobody had held his brother in any less esteem for this connection. It was quite the way in the country. And if Jake couldn't use this handsomest squaw he had ever seen to come and live with him in a smaller fashion, he would consider himself a lucky man and also think he was doing a good thing for the squaw. It was all very clear and simple in his mind. And when, seeing Ramona walking alone in the village one morning, he overtook her and walking by her side began to sound her on the subject. He had small misgivings as to the result. Ramona trembled as he approached her. She walked faster and would not look at him. But he, in his ignorance, misinterpreted these signs egregiously. Are you married to your husband? He finally said. It is but a poor place he gives you to live in. If you will come and live with me, you shall have the best house in the valley as good as the Ravallos and... Jake did not finish his sentence with a cry which haunted his memory for years. Ramona sprang from his side as if to run. Then, halting, suddenly, she faced him, her eyes like javelins, her breath coming fast. Beast, she said, and spat towards him. Then turned and fled to the nearest house where she sank on the floor and burst into tears, saying that the man below there in the road had been rude to her. Yes, the women said he was a bad man. They all knew it. Of this Ramona said no words to Alessandro. She did not. She believed he would kill Jake. When the furious Jake confided to his friend Merrill, his repulse, and the indignity accompanying it, Merrill only laughed at him and said, I could have told you better than to try that woman. She's married fast enough. There's plenty you can get, though, if you want them. They're first-rate around a house and just as faithful as dogs. You can trust them with every dollar you've got. From this day, Ramona never knew an instant's peace or rest till she stood on the rim of the refuge valley, high on San Jacinto. Then, gazing around, looking up at the lofty pinnacles above, which seemed to pierce the sky. Looking down upon the world, it seemed the whole world so limitless it stretched away at her feet, feeling that indefinite unspeakable sense of nearness to heaven, remoteness from earth which comes only on mountain heights. She drew in a long breath of delight and cried, At last! At last, Alessandro! Here we are safe. This is freedom. This is joy. Can Majora be content? He asked. I can almost be glad, Alessandro. She cried, inspired by the glorious scene. I dreamed not it was like this. It was a wondrous valley. The mountain seemed to have been cleft to make it. It lay near midway to the top and ran transversely on the mountain's side, its western or south-western end being many feet lower than the eastern. Both the upper and lower ends were closed by piles of rocks and tangled fallen trees. The rocky summit of the mountain itself made the southern wall. The northern was a spur, or ridge, nearly vertical and covered thick with pine trees. A man might roam years on the mountain and not find his cleft. At the upper end gushed out a crystal spring which trickled rather than run in a bed of marshy green. The entire length of the valley disappeared in the rocks at the lower end and came out no more. Many times Alessandro had searched for it lower down but could find no trace of it. During the summer, when he was hunting with Jeff, he had several times climbed the wall and descended it on the inner side to see if the rivulet still ran and to his joy had found it the same in July as in January. Drought could not harm it then. What salvation in such a spring? And the water was pure and sweet as if it came from the skies. A short distance off was another ridge or spur of the mountain widening out into almost a plateau. This was covered with acorn-bearing oaks and under them were flat stones worn into hollows where bygone generations of Indians had ground the nuts into meal. Generations long bygone indeed for it was not in the memory of the oldest now living that Indians had ventured so high up as this on San Jacinto. It was held to be certain death to climb to its summit and fool hardy in the extreme to go far up its sides. There was exhilaration in the place. It brought healing to both Alessandro and Ramona. Even the bitter grief for the baby's death was soothed. She did not seem so far off since it had come so much nearer to the sky. They lived at first in her tent. No time to build a house till the wheat and vegetables were planted. Alessandro was surprised when he came to the plowing to see how much good land he had. The valley thrust itself in inlets and coves into the very rocks of its southern wall. Lovely sheltered nooks these were where he hated to wound the soft, flower-filled sword with his plow. As soon as the planting was done he began to fell trees for the house. No mournful gray adobe this time but walls of hewn pine with half the bark left on. Alternate yellow and brown as gay as if glad hearts had devised it. The roof of thatch, tulle and yucca stocks double-laid and thick was carried at several feet in front of the house, making a sort of bower like veranda supported by young fir tree stems left rough. Once more Ramona would sit under a thatch with birds nests in it, a little coral for the sheep and a rough shed for the pony and the home was complete, far the prettiest home they had ever had. And here in the sunny veranda when autumn came sat Ramona plating out a fragrant yellow twigs a cradle, the one over which she had wept much bitter tears in the valley they had burned the night before they left their saboba home. It was an early autumn she sat plating this cradle. The ground around was strewn with wild grapes dying. The bees were feasting on them in such clouds that Ramona rose frequently from her work to drive them away saying as she did so, good bees make our honey from something else. We gain nothing if you drain our grapes for it. We want these grapes for the winter. And as she spoke her imaginations sped fleetly forward to the winter. The virgin must have forgiven her to give her again the joy of a child in her arms. A joy, spite of poverty, spite of danger, spite of all that cruelty and oppression could do, it would still be a joy to hold her child in her arms. The baby was born before winter came and old Indian woman, the same whose house they had hired in saboba had come up to live with Ramona. She was friendless now, her daughter having died and she thankfully came to be as a mother to Ramona. She was ignorant and feeble, but Ramona saw in her always the picture of what her own mother might perchance be, wandering, suffering, she knew not what or where. And her yearning, filial instinct, found sad pleasure in caring for this lonely, childless aged one. Ramona was alone with her on the mountain at the time of the baby's birth. Alessandro had gone to the valley to be gone two days, but Ramona felt no fear. When Alessandro returned and she laid the child in his arms, she said with a smile, radiant once more, like the old smiles. See, beloved, the virgin has forgiven me. She has given us a daughter again. But Alessandro did not smile. Looking scrutinizingly into the baby's face, he sighed and said, Alas, Majella, her eyes are like mine, not yours. I'm glad of it, cried Ramona. I was glad the first minute I saw it. He shook his head. It is an ill fate to have the eyes of Alessandro. He said, they look ever on wool. And he laid the baby back on Ramona's breast and stood gazing sadly at her. Dear Alessandro, said Ramona, it is a sin to always mourn. Father Salviadeva said if we repined under a crosses, then a heavier cross would be laid on us. Worse things would come. Yes, he said. That is true. Worse things will come. And he walked away with his head sunk deep on his breast. End of Part 2, Chapter 23 Recording by David Lawrence and by Neelu Ayur