"Me, I theenk yoh not lov' me so moch as a pin," Ramon complained in soft reproach, down in the dry wash where Applehead had looked in vain for baling wire. "Sometimes I show yoh what is like the Spanish lov'. Like stars, like fire--sometimes I seeng the jota for you that tell how moch I lov' yoh. 'Te quiero, Baturra, te quiero,'" he began humming softly while he looked at her with eyes that shone soft in the starlight. "Sometimes me, I learn yoh dat song--and moch more I learn yoh--"Annie-Many-Ponies stood before him, straight and slim and with that air of aloofness which so fired Ramon's desire for her. She lifted a hand to check him, and Ramon stopped instantly and waited. So far had her power over him grown.
"All time you tell me you heap love," she said in her crooning soft voice.
"Why you not talk of priest to make us marry? You say words for love--you say no word for wife. Why you no say--""Esposa!" Ramon's teeth gleamed white as a wolf's in the dusk. "When the padre marry us I maybe teach you many ways to say wife!" He laughed under his breath. "How I calls yoh wife when I not gets one kees, me? Now I calls yoh la sweetheart--good enough when I no gets so moch as touches hand weeth yoh.""I go way with you, you gets priest for make us marry?" Annie-Many-Ponies edged closer so that she might read what was in his face.
"Why yoh no trus' Ramon? Sure, I gets padre! W'at yoh theenk for speak lies, me? Sure, I gets padre, foolish one! Me, I not like for yoh no trus' Ramon.
Looks like not moch yoh lov' Ramon."
"I good girl," Annie-Many-Ponies stated simply. "I love my husband when priest says that's right thing to do. You no gets priest, I no go with you. I think mens not much cares for marry all time. Womens not care, they go to hell.
That's what priest tells. Girls got to care. That's truth." Simple as two-plus-two was the rule of life as Annie-Many-Ponies laid it down in words before him. No fine distinctions between virtue and superwomanhood there, if you please! No slurring of wrong so that it may look like an exalted right.
"Womens got to care," said Annie-Many-Ponies with a calm certainty that would brook no argument.
"Sure theeng," Ramon agreed easily. "Yoh theenk I lov' yoh so moch if yoh not good?""You gets priest?" Annie-Many-Ponies persisted.
"Sure, I gets padre. You theenk Ramon lies for soch theeng?""You swear, then, all same white mans in picture makes oath." There was a new quality of inflexibility under the soft music of her voice. "You lift up hand and says, 'Help me by God I makes you for-sure my wife!'" She had pondered long upon this oath, and she spoke it now with an easy certainty that it was absolutely binding, and that no man would dare break it. "You makes that swear now," she urged gently.
"Foolish one! Yoh theenk I mus' swear I do what my hearts she's want? I tell yoh many times we go on one ranch my brother Tomas says she's be mine. We lives there in fine house weeth mooch flowers, yoh not so moch as lif' one finger for work, querida mia. Yoh theenk I not be trus', me, Ramon what loves yoh?""No hurt for swears what I tells," Annie-Many-Ponies stepped back from him a pace, distrust creeping into her voice.
"All right." Ramon moved nearer. "So I make oath, perhaps you make oath also!
Me, I theenk yoh perhaps not like for leave Luck Leensay--I theenk perhaps yoh loves heem, yoh so all time watch for ways to please! So I swear, then yoh mus' swear also that yoh come for-sure. That square deal for both--si?"Annie-Many-Ponies hesitated, a dull ache in her breast when Ramon spoke of Luck. But if her heart was sore at thought of him, it was because he no longer looked upon her with the smile in his eyes. It was because he was not so kind;because he believed that she had secret meetings with Bill Holmes whom she hated. And in spite of the fact that Bill Holmes had left the company the other day and was going away, Wagalexa Conka still looked upon her with cold eyes and listened to the things that Applehead said against her. The heart of Wagalexa Conka, she told herself miserably, was like a stone for her. And so her own heart must be hard. She would swear to Ramon, and she would keep the oath--and Wagalexa Conka would not even miss her or be sorry that she had gone.
"First you make swears like I tells you," she said. "Then I make swears.""Muy bueno!" smiled Ramon then. "So I make oath I take you queek to one good friend me, the Padre Dominguez. Then yoh be my wife for sure. That good enough for yoh, perhaps? Queeck yoh make oath yoh leave these place Manana--tomorra.
Yoh go by ol' rancho where we talk so many time. I leave horse for yoh. Yoh ride pas' that mountain, yoh come for Bernalillo. Yoh wait. I come queeck as can when she's dark. Yoh do that, sweetheart?"Annie-Many-Ponies stilled the ache in her heart with the thought of her proud place beside Ramon who had much land and many cattle and who loved her so much. She lifted her hand and swore she would go with him.
She slipped away then and crept into her tent in the little cluster beside the house--for the company 'had forsaken Applehead's adobe and slept under canvas as a matter of choice. With Indian cunning she bided her time and gave no sign of what was hidden in her heart. She rose with the others and brushed her glossy hair until it shone in the sunlight like the hair of a high-caste Chinese woman. She tied upon it the new bows of red ribbon which she had bought in the secret hope that they would be a part of her wedding finery. She put on her Indian gala dress of beaded buckskin with the colored porcupine quills--and then she smiled cunningly and drew a dress of red-and-blue striped calico over her head and settled the folds of it about her with little, smoothing pats, so that the two white women, Rosemary and Jean, should not notice any unusual bulkiness of her figure.
