Chapter 29

The Hyers 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 Jos. They had a tent, and all that was necessary for living in their primitive fashion. Aunt Ri 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 canon was only a short distance from the Saboba 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 Indian village; she already felt a sense of kinship and shelter with any Indian people. She had become, as Carmena had said, “one of them.”

A few days saw the two families settled,--the Hyers in their tent and wagon, at the hot springs, and Alessandro and Ramona, with the baby, in a little adobe house in the Saboba 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 bricks, thatched with tule, 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 deerskins 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 cut in the walls, let 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: “Wall, I allow yer air fixed up!”

Aunt Ri, at her best estate, had never possessed a room which had the expression of this poor little mud hut 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 Jos: “It beats all ever I see, the way thet Injun woman's got fixed up out er nothin'. It ain't no more'n a hovel, a mud hovel, Jos, not much bigger'n this yer tent, fur all three on 'em, an' the bed an' the stove an' everythin'; an' I vow, Jos, she's fixed it so't looks jest like a parlor! It beats me, it does. I'd jest like you to see it.”

And when Jos 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 down 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 Injun style of cooking, Jos,” said Aunt Ri. “I never thought nothin' o' beans; but these air good, 'n' no mistake!”

Ramona laughed. “No; it is Mexican,” she said. “I learned to cook from an old Mexican woman.”

“Wall, I'd like the receipt on't; but I allow I shouldn't never git the time to fuss with it,” said Aunt Ri; “but I may's well git the rule, naow 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 awake in 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 Ravallo 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 lace for flour, and she had heard talk there which disquieted her. She did not believe that Saboba 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 damned Indians over there in Saboba, 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 centre 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 pasturage failed. If the whites took away this water, Saboba 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 Hyers 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 Jos. But, “We ain't rich folks, yer know, not by a long ways, we ain't,” said Aunt Ri; “an' we've got pretty nigh down to where Jeff an' me's got to begin airnin' suthin'. Ef we kin git settled 'n some o' these towns where there's carpenterin' to be done. Jeff, he's a master hand to thet kind o' work, though yer mightn't think it; 'n I kin airn right smart at weavin'; jest give me a good carpet-loom, 'n I won't be beholden to nobody for vittles. I jest du love weavin'. I donno how I've contented myself this hull year, or nigh about a year, without a loom. Jeff, he sez to me once, sez he, 'Ri, do yer think yer'd be contented in heaven without yer loom?' an' I was free to say I didn't know's 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.

“Wall, 'tis, an' 'tain't,” said Aunt Ri. “I don't s'pose I'm much of a jedge; fur I can't remember when I fust learned it. I know I set in the loom to weave when my feet couldn't reach the floor; an' I don't remember nothin' about fust learnin' to spool 'n' warp. I've tried to teach lots of folks; an' sum learns quick, an' some don't never learn; it's jest 's 't strikes 'em. I should think, naow, thet you wuz one o' the kind could turn yer hands to anythin'. When we get settled in San Bernardino, if yer'll come down thar, I'll teach yer all I know, 'n' be glad ter. I donno's 't 's goin' to be much uv a place for carpet-weavin' though, anywheres raound 'n this yer country; not but what thar's plenty o' rags, but folks seems to be wearin' 'em; pooty gen'ral wear, I sh'd say. I've seen more cloes on folks' backs hyar, thet wan't no more'n fit for carpet-rags, than any place ever I struck. They're drefful sheftless lot, these yere Mexicans; 'n' the Injuns is wuss. Naow when I say Injuns, I don't never mean yeow, yer know thet. Yer ain't ever seemed to me one mite like an Injun.”

“Most of our people haven't had any chance,” said Ramona. “You wouldn't believe 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 Jos, who translated it with no loss in the telling. Aunt Ri was aghast; she found no words to express her indignation.

“I don't bleeve the Guvvermunt knows anything about it.” she said. “Why, they take folks up, n'n penetentiarize 'em fur life, back 'n Tennessee, fur things thet ain't so bad's thet! Somebody ought ter be sent ter tell 'em 't Washington what's goin' on hyar.”

“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 bleeve so!” said Aunt Ri, “Ain't it, Jos? It's Congress ain't 't, makes the laws?”

“I bleeve so.” said Jos. “They make some, at any rate. I donno's they make 'em 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 Ri shook her head. She was not convinced. “I sh'll make a business o' findin' out abaout this thing yit,” she said. “I think yer hain't got the rights on't yit. There's cheatin' somewhere!”

“It's all cheating.” said Ramona; “but there isn't any help for it, Aunt Ri. The Americans think it is no shame to cheat for money.”

“I'm an Ummeriken!” cried Aunt Ri; “an' Jeff Hyer, and Jos! We're Ummerikens! 'n' we wouldn't cheat nobody, not ef we knowed it, not out er a doller. We're pore, an' I allus expect to be, but we're above cheatin'; an' I tell you, naow, the Ummeriken people don't want any o' this cheatin' done, naow! I'm going to ask Jeff haow 'tis. Why, it's a burnin' shame to any country! So 'tis! I think something oughter be done abaout it! I wouldn't mind goin' myself, ef thar wan't anybody else!”

A seed had been sown in Aunt Ri'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 thet well enough,--I ain't nobody nor nothin'; but I allow I've got suthin' to say abaout the country I live in, 'n' the way things hed oughter be; or 't least Jeff hez; 'n' thet's the same thing. I tell yer, Jos, I ain't goin' to rest, nor ter give yeou 'n' yer father no rest nuther, till yeou find aout what all this yere means she's been tellin' us.”

But sharper and closer anxieties than any connected with rights to lands and homes were pressing upon 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 snow-storm, 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 Ri had known, had failed to touch her disease; in fact, Aunt Ri 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 Ri,” she said; “she will go with you, with Jos, and talk to him; she can make him understand. Tell Aunt Ri she seems just as she did when they were here, only weaker and thinner.”

Alessandro found Aunt Ri in a sort of shanty on the outskirts of San Bernardino. “Not to rights yit,” she said,--as if she ever would be. Jeff had found work; and Jos, 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 Ri 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 despatch all through the lower walks of San Bernardino life. “I wouldn't hev bleeved they hed so many rags besides what they're wearin',” said Aunt Ri, as sack after sack appeared at her door. Already, too, Aunt Ri 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: “Ye're jest the man I wanted; I've been tryin' to 'range it so's we could go down 'n' see yer, but Jeff couldn't leave the job he's got; an' I'm druv nigh abaout off my feet, 'n' I donno when we'd hev fetched it. How's all? Why didn't yer come in ther wagon 'n' fetch 'em 'long? I've got heaps ter tell yer. I allowed yer hadn't got the rights o' all them things. The Guvvermunt ain't on the side o' the thieves, as yer said. I knowed they couldn't be,' an' they've jest sent out a man a purpose to look after things fur yer,--to take keer o' the Injuns 'n' nothin' else. That's what he's here fur. He come last month; he's a reel nice man. I seen him 'n' talked with him a spell, last week; I'm gwine to make his wife a rag carpet. 'N' there's a doctor, too, to 'tend ter yer when ye're sick, 'n' the Guvvermunt pays him; yer don't hev to pay nothin'; 'n' I tell yeow, thet's a heap o' savin', to git yer docterin' fur nuthin'!”

Aunt Ri was out of breath. Alessandro had not understood half she said. He looked about helplessly for Jos. Jos was away. In his broken English he tried to explain what Ramona had wished her to do.

“Doctor! Thet's jest what I'm tellin' yer! There is one here's paid by the Guvvermunt to 'tend to the Injuns thet's sick. I'll go 'n' show yer ter his house. I kin tell him jest how the baby is. P'r'aps he'll drive down 'n' see her!”

Ah! if he would! What would Majella say, should she see him enter the door bringing a doctor!

Luckily Jos 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 Jos's interpretation of Aunt Ri's voluble narrative.

The doctor was in his office. To Aunt Ri's statement of Alessandro's errand he listened indifferently, and then said, “Is he an Agency Indian?”

“A what?” exclaimed Aunt Ri.

“Does he belong to the Agency? Is his name on the Agency books?”

“No,” said she; “he never heern uv any Agency till I wuz tellin' him, jest naow. We knoo him, him 'n' her, over 'n San Jacinto. He lives in Saboba. He's never been to San Bernardino sence the Agent come aout.”

“Well, is he going to put his name down on the books?” said the doctor, impatiently. “You ought to have taken him to the Agent first.”

“Ain't you the Guvvermunt doctor for all Injuns?” asked Aunt Ri, wrathfully. “Thet's what I heerd.”

“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 Ri 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's said 'Thank you' in this office,” he said. “You tell the Agent you've brought him a rara avis.”

“What's that, Jos?” said Aunt Ri, as they went out.

“Donno!” said Jos. “I don't like thet man, 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 San Pasquale farm for him? Alessandro's brain was in a whirl.

From the doctor's office they went to the Agent's house. Here, Aunt Ri felt herself more at home.

“I've brought ye thet Injun I wuz tellin' ye uv,” she said, with a wave of her hand toward Alessandro. “We've ben ter ther doctor's to git some metcen fur his baby. She's reel sick, I'm afeerd.”

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 Ri.

“What is his name?”

Jos gave it, and the Agent began to write it in the book. “Stop him.” cried Alessandro, agitatedly to Jos. “Don't let him write, till I know what he puts my name in his book for!”

“Wait,” said Jos. “He doesn't want you to write his name in that book. He wants to know what it's put there for.”

Wheeling 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.”

“Wall, don't it?” said the direct-minded Aunt Ri. “Hain't yer got any power over 'em? If yer hain't got it over them, who have yer got it over? What yer goin' to do for 'em?”

The Agent laughed in spite of himself. “Well, Aunt Ri,”--she was already “Aunt Ri” 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, Jos?” he asked fiercely. “I will not have my name in his book if it makes me his.”

When Jos 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 Ri. “Yeow jest explain it to Jos, an' he'll make him understand.”

Alessandro's face had darkened. All this seemed to him exceedingly suspicious. Could it be possible that Aunt Ri and Jos, the first whites except Mr. Hartsel 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.”

“Naow don't be a fool, will yeow? Yeow ain't signin' a thing!” said Aunt Ri. “Jos, yeow tell him I say there ain't anythin' a bindin' him, hevin' his name 'n' thet book, It's only so the Agent kin know what Injuns wants help, 'n' where they air. Ain't thet so?” she added, turning to the Agent. “Tell him he can't hev the Agency doctor, ef 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. Majella 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.

XXIII

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 Saboba? 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 Ri'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 thirty 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, Senor,” 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.”