The B.M. Bower MEGAPACK ®. B.M. Bower
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her uncle the truth.
“Where’s Rachel?” he asked suddenly, the words following involuntarily his thought.
Peppajee sucked hard upon his pipe, took it away from his mouth, and knocked out the ashes upon a pole of the wikiup frame.
“Yo’ no speakum Rachel no more,” he said gravely. “Yo’ ketchum ‘Vadnah; no ketchum otha squaw. Bad medicine come. Heap much troubles come. Me no likeum. My heart heap bad.”
“I’m Rachel’s friend, Peppajee.” Good Indian spoke softly so that others might not hear. “I sabe what Rachel do. Rachel good girl. I don’t want to bring trouble. I want to help.”
Peppajee snorted.
“Yo’ make heap bad heart for Rachel,” he said sourly. “Yo’ like for be friend, yo’ no come no more, mebbyso. No speakum. Bimeby mebbyso no have bad heart no more. Kay bueno. Yo’ white mans. Rachel mebbyso thinkum all time yo’ Indian. Mebbyso thinkum be yo’ squaw. Kay bueno. Yo’ all time white mans. No speakum Rachel no more, yo’ be friend.
“Yo’ speakum, me like to kill yo’, mebbyso.” He spoke calmly, but none the less his words carried conviction of his sincerity.
Within the wikiup Good Indian heard a smothered sob. He listened, heard it again, and looked challengingly at Peppajee. But Peppajee gave no sign that he either heard the sound or saw the challenge in Good Indian’s eyes.
“I Rachel’s friend,” he said, speaking distinctly with his face half turned toward the wall of deerskin. “I want to tell Rachel what the sheriff said. I want to thank Rachel, and tell her I’m her friend. I don’t want to bring trouble.” He stopped and listened, but there was no sound within.
Peppajee eyed him comprehendingly, but there was no yielding in his brown, wrinkled face.
“Yo’ Rachel’s frien’, yo’ pikeway,” he insisted doggedly.
From under the wall of the wikiup close to Good Indian on the side farthest from Peppajee, a small, leafless branch of sage was thrust out, and waggled cautiously, scraping gently his hand. Good Indian’s fingers closed upon it instinctively, and felt it slowly withdrawn until his hand was pressed against the hide wall. Then soft fingers touched his own, fluttered there timidly, and left in his palm a bit of paper, tightly folded. Good Indian closed his hand upon it, and stood up.
“All right, I go,” he said calmly to Peppajee, and mounted.
Peppajee looked at him stolidly, and said nothing.
“One thing I would like to know.” Good Indian spoke again. “You don’t care any more about the men taking Peaceful’s ranch. Before they came, you watch all the time, you heap care. Why you no care any more? Why you no help?”
Peppajee’s mouth straightened in a grin of pure irony.
“All time Baumberga try for ketchum ranch, me try for stoppum,” he retorted. “Yo’ no b’lievum, Peacefu’ no b’lievum. Me tellum yo’ cloud sign, tellum yo’ smoke sign, tellum yo’ hear much bad talk for ketchum ranch. Yo’ all time think for ketchum ‘Vadnah squaw. No think for stoppum mens. Yo’ all time let mens come, ketchum ranch. Yo’ say fightum in co’t. Cloud sign say me do notting. Yo’ lettum come. Yo’ mebbyso makum go. Me no care.”
“I see. Well, maybe you’re right.” He tightened the reins, and rode away, the tight little wad of paper still hidden in his palm. When he was quite out of sight from the camp and jogging leisurely down the hot trail, he unfolded it carefully and looked at it long.
His face was grave and thoughtful when at last he tore it into tiny bits and gave it to the hot, desert wind. It was a pitiful little message, printed laboriously upon a scrap of brown wrapping—paper. It said simply:
“God by i lov yo.”
CHAPTER XXIII
THE MALICE OF A SQUAW
Good Indian looked in the hammock, but Evadna was not there. He went to the little stone bench at the head of the pond, and when he still did not see her he followed the bank around to the milk-house, where was a mumble of voices. And, standing in the doorway with her arm thrown around her Aunt Phoebe’s shoulders in a pretty protective manner, he saw her, and his eyes gladdened. She did not see him at once. She was facing courageously the three inseparables, Hagar, Viney, and Lucy, squatted at the 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 by the corner of the house, and listened shamelessly.
“That is not true,” she was saying very clearly. “You’re a bad old squaw and 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 a word she says, Aunt Phoebe. She’s just a mischief-making old hag, and she—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 no tellum lie. Good Injun him kill Man-that-coughs. All time I seeum creep, creep, through sagebrush. All time I seeum hoss wait where much rock grow. I seeum. I no speakum heap lie. Speakum true. I go tell sheriff mans Good Indian killum Man-that-coughs. I tellum—”
“Why didn’t you, then, when the sheriff was in Hartley?” Evadna flung at her angrily. “Because you know it’s a lie. That’s why.”
“Yo’ thinkum Good Injun love yo’, mebbyso.” Hagar’s witch-grin was at its malevolent widest. Her black eyes sparkled with venom. “Yo’ heap fool. Good Injun go all time Squaw-talk-far-off. Speakum glad word. Good Injun 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 him first, muttered an Indian word of warning, and the three sprang up and backed away from his approach.
“So you’ve got to call me a murderer!” he cried, advancing threateningly upon Hagar. “And even that doesn’t satisfy you. You—”
Evadna rushed up the steps like a crisp little whirlwind, and caught his arm tightly in her two hands.
“Grant! We don’t believe a word of it. You couldn’t do a thing like that. 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’t belittle ourselves by even listening to her. She can’t do any harm unless we let it bother us—what she says. I know you never could take a human life, Grant. It’s foolish even to speak of such a thing. It’s just her nasty, lying tongue saying what her black old heart wishes could be true.” She was speaking in a torrent of trepidation lest he break from her and do some violence which they would all regret. She did not know what he could do, or would do, but the look of his face frightened her.
Old Hagar spat viciously at them both, and shrilled vituperative sentences—in her own tongue fortunately; else the things she said must have brought swift retribution. And as if she did not care for consequences and wanted to make her words carry a definite sting, she stopped, grinned maliciously, and spoke the choppy dialect of her tribe.
“Yo’ tellum me shont-isham. Mebbyso yo’ tellum yo’ no ketchum Squaw-talk-far-off in sagebrush, all time Saunders go dead! Me ketchum hair—Squaw-talk-far-off hair. You like for see, you thinkum me tell lies?”
From under her blanket she thrust forth a greasy brown hand, and shook triumphantly before them a tangled wisp of woman’s hair—the hair of Miss Georgie, without a doubt. There was no gainsaying that color and texture. She looked full at Evadna.
“Yo’