CHAPTER XXIII. THE MALICE OF A SQUAW
Good Indian looked in the hammock, but Evadna was not there. He went tothe little stone bench at the head of the pond, and when he still didnot see her he followed the bank around to the milk-house, where wasa mumble of voices. And, standing in the doorway with her arm thrownaround her Aunt Phoebe's shoulders in a pretty protective manner, he sawher, and his eyes gladdened. She did not see him at once. She was facingcourageously the three inseparables, Hagar, Viney, and Lucy, squatted atthe top of the steps, and she was speaking her mind rapidly and angrily.Good Indian knew that tone of old, and he grinned. Also he stopped bythe corner of the house, and listened shamelessly.
"That is not true," she was saying very clearly. "You're a bad old squawand you tell lies. You ought to be put in jail for talking that way."She pressed her aunt's shoulder affectionately. "Don't you mind aword she says, Aunt Phoebe. She's just a mischief-making old hag, andshe--oh, I'd like to beat her!"
Hagar shook her head violently, and her voice rose shrill and malicious,cutting short Evadna's futile defiance.
"Ka-a-ay bueno, yo'!" Her teeth gnashed together upon the words. "I notellum lie. Good Injun him kill Man-that-coughs. All time I seeum creep,creep, through sagebrush. All time I seeum hoss wait where much rockgrow. I seeum. I no speakum heap lie. Speakum true. I go tell sheriffmans Good Indian killum Man-that-coughs. I tellum--"
"Why didn't you, then, when the sheriff was in Hartley?" Evadna flung ather angrily. "Because you know it's a lie. That's why."
"Yo' thinkum Good Injun love yo', mebbyso." Hagar's witch-grin was atits malevolent widest. Her black eyes sparkled with venom. "Yo' heapfool. Good Injun go all time Squaw-talk-far-off. Speakum glad word. GoodInjun ka-a-ay bueno. Love Squaw-talk-far-off. No love yo'. Speakum lies,yo'. Makum yo' heap cry all time. Makeum yo' heart bad." She cackled,and leered with vile significance toward the girl in the doorway.
"Don't you listen to her, honey." It was Phoebe's turn to reassure.
Good Indian took a step forward, his face white with rage. Viney saw himfirst, muttered an Indian word of warning, and the three sprang up andbacked away from his approach.
"So you've got to call me a murderer!" he cried, advancing threateninglyupon Hagar. "And even that doesn't satisfy you. You--"
Evadna rushed up the steps like a crisp little whirlwind, and caught hisarm tightly in her two hands.
"Grant! We don't believe a word of it. You couldn't do a thing likethat. Don't we KNOW? Don't pay any attention to her. We aren't going to.It'll hurt her worse than any kind of punishment we could give her. Oh,she's a VILE old thing! Too vile for words! Aunt Phoebe and I shouldn'tbelittle ourselves by even listening to her. SHE can't do any harmunless we let it bother us--what she says. _I_ know you never could takea human life, Grant. It's foolish even to speak of such a thing. It'sjust her nasty, lying tongue saying what her black old heart wishescould be true." She was speaking in a torrent of trepidation lest hebreak from her and do some violence which they would all regret. Shedid not know what he could do, or would do, but the look of his facefrightened her.
Old Hagar spat viciously at them both, and shrilled vituperativesentences--in her own tongue fortunately; else the things she saidmust have brought swift retribution. And as if she did not care forconsequences and wanted to make her words carry a definite sting, shestopped, grinned maliciously, and spoke the choppy dialect of her tribe.
"Yo' tellum me shont-isham. Mebbyso yo' tellum yo' no ketchumSquaw-talk-far-off in sagebrush, all time Saunders go dead! Me ketchumhair--Squaw-talk-far-off hair. You like for see, you thinkum me telllies?"
From under her blanket she thrust forth a greasy brown hand, and shooktriumphantly before them a tangled wisp of woman's hair--the hair ofMiss Georgie, without a doubt. There was no gainsaying that color andtexture. She looked full at Evadna.
"Yo' like see, me show whereum walk," she said grimly. "Good Injun bootmake track, Squaw-talk-far-off little shoe make track. Me show, yo'thinkum mebbyso me tell lie. Stoppum in sagebrush, ketchum hair. Meketchum knife--Good Injun knife, mebbyso." Revenge mastered cupidity,and she produced that also, and held it up where they could all see.
Evadna looked and winced.
"I don't believe a word you say," she declared stubbornly. "You STOLEthat knife. I suppose you also stole the hair. You can't MAKE me believea thing like that!"
"Squaw-talk-far-off run, run heap fas', get home quick. Me seeum, Vineyseeum, Lucy seeum." Hagar pointed to each as she named her, and waiteduntil they give a confirmatory nod. The two squaws gazed steadily at theground, and she grunted and ignored them afterward, content that theybore witness to her truth in that one particular.
"Squaw-talk-far-off sabe Good Injun killum Man-that-coughs, mebbyso,"she hazarded, watching Good Indian's face cunningly to see if the guessstruck close to the truth.
"If you've said all you want to say, you better go," Good Indian toldher after a moment of silence while they glared at each other. "I won'ttouch you--because you're such a devil I couldn't stop short of killingyou, once I laid my hands on you."
He stopped, held his lips tightly shut upon the curses he would notspeak, and Evadna felt his biceps tauten under her fingers as if hewere gathering himself for a lunge at the old squaw. She looked upbeseechingly into his face, and saw that it was sharp and stern, asit had been that morning when the men had first been discovered in theorchard. He raised his free arm, and pointed imperiously to the trail.
"Pikeway!" he commanded.
Viney and Lucy shrank from the tone of him, and, hiding their faces ina fold of blanket, slunk silently away like dogs that have been whippedand told to go. Even Hagar drew back a pace, hardy as was her untamedspirit. She looked at Evadna clinging to his arm, her eyes wide andstartlingly blue and horrified at all she had heard. She laughedthen--did Hagar--and waddled after the others, her whole body seeming toradiate contentment with the evil she had wrought.
"There's nothing on earth can equal the malice of an old squaw," saidPhoebe, breaking into the silence which followed. "I'd hope she don't goaround peddling that story--not that anyone would believe it, but--"
Good Indian looked at her, and at Evadna. He opened his lips for speech,and closed them without saying a word. That near he came to telling themthe truth about meeting Miss Georgie, and explaining about the hair andthe knife and the footprints Hagar had prated about. But he thought ofRachel, and knew that he would never tell anyone, not even Evadna. Thegirl loosened his arm, and moved toward her aunt.
"I hate Indians--squaws especially," she said positively. "I hate theway they look at one with their beady eyes, just like snakes. I believethat horrid old thing lies awake nights just thinking up nasty, wickedlies to tell about the people she doesn't like. I don't think you oughtto ride around alone so much, Grant; she might murder you. It's in herto do it, if she ever got the chance."
"What do you suppose made her ring Georgie Howard in like that?" Phoebespeculated, looking at Grant. "She must have some grudge against her,too."
"I don't know why." Good Indian spoke unguardedly, because he was stillthinking of Rachel and those laboriously printed words which he hadscattered afar. "She's always giving them candy and fruit, whenever theyshow up at the station."
"Oh--h!" Evadna gave the word that peculiar, sliding inflection ofhers which meant so much, and regarded him unwinkingly, with her handsclasped behind her.
Good Indian knew well the meaning of both her tone and her stare, but heonly laughed and caught her by the arm.
"Come on over to the hammock," he commanded, with all the arrogance of alover. "We're making that old hag altogether too important, it seems tome. Come on, Goldilocks--we haven't had a real satisfying sort of scrapfor several thousand years."
She permitted him to lead her to the hammock, and pile three cushionsbehind her head and shoulders--with the dark-blue one on top because herhair looked well against it--and dispose himself comfortably where hecould look his fill at her while he swung th
e hammock gently with hisboot-heel, scraping a furrow in the sand. But she did not show anydimples, though his eyes and his lips smiled together when she lookedat him, and when he took up her hand and kissed each finger-tip in turn,she was as passive as a doll under the caresses of a child.
"What's the matter?" he demanded, when he found that her manner did notsoften. "Worrying still about what that old squaw said?"
"Not in the slightest." Evadna's tone was perfectly polite--which was abad sign.
Good Indian thought he saw the makings of a quarrel in her generalattitude, and he thought he might as well get at once to the real rootof her resentment.
"What are you thinking about? Tell me, Goldilocks," he coaxed, pushinghis own troubles to the back of his mind.
"Oh, nothing. I was just wondering--though it's a trivial matter whichis hardly worth mentioning--but I just happened to wonder how you cameto know that Georgie Howard is in the habit of giving candy to thesquaws--or anything else. I'm sure I never--" She bit her lips as if sheregretted having said so much.
Good Indian laughed. In truth, he was immensely relieved; he had beenafraid she might want him to explain something else--something which hefelt he must keep to himself even in the face of her anger. But this--helaughed again.
"That's easy enough," he said lightly. "I've seen her do it a couple oftimes. Maybe Hagar has been keeping an eye on me--I don't know; anyway,when I've had occasion to go to the store or to the station, I've nearlyalways seen her hanging around in the immediate vicinity. I went acouple of times to see Miss Georgie about this land business. She's wiseto a lot of law--used to help her father before he died, it seems. Andshe has some of his books, I discovered. I wanted to see if there wasn'tsome means of kicking these fellows off the ranch without making a lotmore trouble for old Peaceful. But after I'd read up and talked thething over with her, we decided that there wasn't anything to be donetill Peaceful comes back, and we know what he's been doing about it.That's what's keeping him, of course.
"I suppose," he added, looking at her frankly, "I should have mentionedmy going there. But to tell you the truth, I didn't think anything muchabout it. It was just business, and when I'm with you, Miss Goldilocks,I like to forget my troubles. You," he declared, his eyes glowing uponher, "are the antidote. And you wouldn't have mo believe you couldpossibly be jealous!"
"No," said Evadna, in a more amiable tone. "Of course I'm not. But I dothink you showed a--well, a lack of confidence in me. I don't see why_I_ can't help you share your troubles. You know I want to. I thinkyou should have told me, and let me help. But you never do. Just forinstance--why wouldn't you tell me yesterday where you were beforebreakfast? I know you were SOMEWHERE, because I looked all over theplace for you," she argued naively. "I always want to know where youare, it's so lonesome when I don't know. And you see--"
She was interrupted at that point, which was not strange. Theinterruption lasted for several minutes, but Evadna was a persistentlittle person. When they came back to mundane matters, she went right onwith what she had started out to say.
"You see, that gave old Hagar a chance to accuse you of--well, of aMEETING with Georgie. Which I don't believe, of course. Still, it doesseem as if you might have told me in the first place where you had been,and then I could have shut her up by letting her see that I knew allabout it. The horrid, mean old THING! To say such things, right toyour face! And--Grant, where DID she get hold of that knife, do yousuppose--and--that--bunch of--hair?" She took his hand of her ownaccord, and patted it, and Evadna was not a demonstrative kind of personusually. "It wasn't just a tangle, like combings," she went on slowly."I noticed particularly. There was a lock as large almost as my finger,that looked as if it had been cut off. And it certainly WAS Georgie'shair."
"Georgie's hair," Good Indian smilingly asserted, "doesn't interest mea little bit. Maybe Hagar scalped Miss Georgie to get it. If it had beengoldy, I'd have taken it away from her if I had to annihilate the wholetribe, but seeing it wasn't YOUR hair--"
Well, the argument as such was a poor one, to say the least, but it hadthe merit of satisfying Evadna as mere logic could not have done, andseemed to allay as well all the doubt that had been accumulating fordays past in her mind. But an hour spent in a hammock in the shadiestpart of the grove could not wipe out all memory of the past few days,nor quiet the uneasiness which had come to be Good Indian's portion.
"I've got to go up on the hill again right after dinner,Squaw-with-sun-hair," he told her at last. "I can't rest, somehow, aslong as those gentlemen are camping down in the orchard. You won't mind,will you?" Which shows that the hour had not been spent in quarreling,at all events.
"Certainly not," Evadna replied calmly. "Because I'm going with you. Oh,you needn't get ready to shake your head! I'm going to help you, fromnow on, and talk law and give advice and 'scout around,' as you call it.I couldn't be easy a minute, with old Hagar on the warpath the way sheis. I'd imagine all sorts of things."
"You don't realize how hot it is," he discouraged.
"I can stand it if you can. And I haven't seen Georgie for DAYS. Shemust get horribly lonesome, and it's a perfect SHAME that I haven't beenup there lately. I'm sure she wouldn't treat ME that way." Evadnahad put on her angelic expression. "I WOULD go oftener," she declaredvirtuously, "only you boys always go off without saying anythingabout it, and I'm silly about riding past that Indian camp alone. Thatsquaw--the one that caught Huckleberry the other day, you know--wouldhardly let go of the bridle. I was scared to DEATH, only I wouldn't lether see. I believe now she's in with old Hagar, Grant. She kept askingme where you were, and looked so--"
"I think, on the whole, we'd better wait till after supper when it'scooler, Goldenhair," Good Indian observed, when she hesitated oversomething she had not quite decided to say. "I suppose I really oughtto stay and help the boys with that clover patch that Mother Hart isworrying so about. I guess she thinks we're a lazy bunch, all right,when the old man's gone. We'll go up this evening, if you like."
Evadna eyed him with open suspicion, but if she could read his realmeaning from anything in his face or his eyes or his manner, she musthave been a very keen observer indeed.
Good Indian was meditating what he called "making a sneak." He wantedto have a talk with Miss Georgie himself, and he certainly did not wantEvadna, of all people, to hear what he had to say. For just a minutehe wished that they had quarreled again. He went down to the stable,started to saddle Keno, and then decided that he would not. After all,Hagar's gossip could do no real harm, he thought, and it could not makemuch difference if Miss Georgie did not hear of it immediately.