Tonio-Son of the Sierras

by King, Charles

  "I do not understand this as—demanded," said Blackbeard, looking quickly into Willett's pallid face.

  "You will, when you remember that my wife—and child—would hardly be acceptable in army circles," was the quiet reply.

  "You mean—you are going at once to marry her?"

  "What else should I do?" said Willett.

  And this it was that explained his unlooked-for escort beyond the borders of the little reservation, Stannard's words of commendation, and Case's ebullition at the Alcazar.

  Case had not many more. Craney coaxed him back to Almy after awhile, where every one from Archer down to the drum boys showed him many a kindness, and where from time to time he received letters that seemed to bring him comfort, in spite of the fact that Bonner, Bucketts and even gruff old Stannard, when they spoke of it at all, were given to saying that there was little happiness in store for the poor girl at Portland, for Willett was not made of the stuff that kept man faithful long to any one woman. It was rumored for awhile that the little family, having moved northward to one of the new and booming settlements on the Sound, were living in poverty and seclusion, Willett's wealthy kindred in the East scorning him, as was to be expected, for the mésalliance and for his abandonment of the profession he was expected to adorn. But the embryo "Smart Set" and the tried old Service had little in common, at best. It was in the employ of the Engineer Corps that Willett found means to keep the wolf from the door, and the girl was happier longer than most people would have believed possible, for it was full three years before Willett's father died, and, relenting, willed him prosperity. Some time after that there came a tale of Evelyn Darrah, but, as the best authority would say, "that's another story."

  With Case, however, life seemed to have lost its inspiration. He wandered more and more from the paths of rectitude to those which meandered through the willows and the old ghost walk. The firm of Sanchez y Muñoz had gone to seed, the ranch to ashes, and the individual members to jail. Dago had accompanied Mrs. Bennett and the growing babies to her brother's ranch on the Agua Fria. The Indians had been gathered to their reservations, and 'Tonio, with Lieutenant Harris, has been assigned to service under the eye of the Great Chief himself. A new post, a big post, was projected nearer the reservation. It was rumored that Almy would then be abandoned and Case would not have even the ghost walk for his solitary moonings when the whiskey spell was on him, and the spells, though no more frequent, as the Scotchman would have it, were of longer duration. He had taken strongly, not strangely, to Stannard and his gentle wife, and it was to them he told at last the story of his troubles, and through them, long years after, it became known.

  He was doing well in Portland, had fallen deeply in love with, and was engaged to, as pretty a girl as ever was seen, good and gentle, too; but she was young, the belle of her set, a beautiful dancer, and Case could not dance. She loved gayety, pleasure, music, and in those days they picnicked over to Vancouver, and danced in a big barrack to the stirring strains of the band of the Lost and Strayed, and why shouldn't the Portland girls love to dance with the young officers? Why shouldn't Estelle enjoy dancing with such finished performers and partners? There was one at that time who outclassed them all, and in an evil day they met. It wasn't long before her fascination became infatuation, and either there or in Portland, or somewhere, they were forever meeting. It was not long before Case saw his world swept from before his eyes. He did his best with her, with her mother and friends, but she told him flatly that she loved Lieutenant Willett and would be no man's wife but his. That clinched Case's downfall—and hers, but not until after Case saw Willett at Camp Almy, and her mother's letters, and hers, began again to come, did he learn the worst. Then came Willett's devotions to Archer's gentle little daughter, and the rage within his soul overmastered him. He would not—he could not—bear to tell of Estelle's shame. He dare not, he owned it, oppose himself man to man, physically, to Willett, but he burned with desire for revenge. Sanchez and his kind were willing tools. Ramon and Alvarez, they told him, were thirsting for Willett's blood. It would be easy enough to shoulder it all on 'Tonio, if the worst came to the worst. Sanchez had Case deep in his debt, for monte had fascinated him when in liquor. They did not know Willett had left with Craney payment in full for their financial differences. They insisted on his seeing Willett and making him pay before he left the post. Dago had the run of the garrison, and Dago took the few lines that told Willett if he was a man to come down to the ghost walk and settle, dollar for dollar, man to man, or the story of his Portland days should be told the Archers. Sanchez, Muñoz, and the two Apache-Mohaves were lurking there across the stream. Case watched for him from the rear window, saw him, and in spite of the doctor's precaution, counteracted by the whiskey he had hidden in an inner pocket, he slipped out in his stocking feet, took the path to the ford, and there met Willett face to face. It was all so easy. Sanchez knew 'Tonio was near, grieving that no answer came from Harris, signalling for a talk, ignorant of the fact that Sanchez had delivered neither the revolver nor the message. Case had with him only his knife, for he knew his confederates would be at hand. He vowed he did not know that they were bringing Ramon and Alvarez. Raging with jealousy, hate, desire for vengeance, and nerved by liquor, he had demanded his money. Willett contemptuously bade him seek it of his employer, and asked him how he dare doubt a gentleman, whereat, in a fury, Case told him, or started to tell him, why, and was knocked flat in a second. He sprang up, knife in hand, and rushed upon him a second time, only to be floored again, and the knife sent spinning. Willett seized it, and was standing over him, panting a bit, when felled by a crashing blow with a pistol-butt at the base of the skull. Then in terror Case fled the way he came, for he saw both Indians and Mexicans were on him, realized that murder was meant, and knew he would be involved unless he could instantly get back to his bed. Willett made a desperate fight, wounded Ramon, and might have killed him but for the timely shot from the pistol of José. Case heard it, and the cry for help as he ran. So quick was the response of the sentry and the guard that the assailants, too, fled in fear, leaving their work unfinished. They had no fear of their drugged countrymen at the ranch. They were ready to help the soldiers hunt the Indians, and did, but José had dropped the old Navy Colt at the ford. They bought Dago's silence for awhile, for he, too, hated Willett, and it was so easy to charge the crime to 'Tonio. But, when they fell out among themselves, and the pistol was found, and then Case was accused, Dago let loose on Muñoz, and the secret of the attempted murder was out.

  For a time thereafter Case felt dazed, benumbed; but, as Willett recovered, he took courage again, and more drink, and tried to shoot his worthless head off, he said, when they came to arrest him. But when he heard of Willett's doings at Prescott, and had been openly taunted by Dooley, he determined to lose his life another way, if need be, in bringing Willett to justice. He told it all to Wickham, and was amazed, yes, amazed at the result. He never dreamed that Willett at the eleventh hour would go to Estelle and make the only amend in his power.

  For that matter, neither did any one else cognizant of the fact, especially Harris, who, having been the unwilling recipient of all poor Eastern Stella's confidences in the past, believed Willett still haunted by memories of her, and knew not this new and innocent and confiding Star of the West. He had his own sorrows to bear, and his heart was bitter within him at sight of the woe in the sweet blue eyes of the girl who speedily went back to Almy, without ever having opened her heart to a soul except that devoted mother.

  While Evelyn Darrah kept her room as much as a week after Willett's going, it was a wonderful fact that, during a visit of four days, Lilian Archer appeared in public with her father, rode, drove, played croquet, though she managed to avoid two dinners and a dance. She was very quiet, it is true. "She never did shine in society," said the Prime girls. But, under all this silence and fortitude, and the access of tenderness with which she clung to her father, Mrs. Stannard and others saw how near the little heart
was to breaking, and there grew up among the exiles a feeling of love and admiration for this uncomplaining child, so suddenly grown old, that outlived the lives of most of them, for it has come down to those who, in the fulness of time, stepped into their places. They are gone now, nearly all—our bearded general and his beloved Mary, gruff old Stannard and his wise and winsome wife. Bright, Bonner, Bucketts, grim-visaged Turner, white-haired, noble Archer and his fond and cherished Bella, even Willett, but not, thank God, until better and brighter days had dawned on most of them, and of one of these days, and of 'Tonio, there is yet this to tell.

  There had been a year in which the Archers took their little girl abroad. The old regiment had been ordered to an eastern station, and the change was welcome, for with all her bravery, and despite their fondest care, she drooped in Arizona, and there came a longed-for opportunity they could not neglect. They were many moons away; they were for a time at regimental head-quarters on their return, and then, in days when nothing was so rare as advancement, came Archer's promotion to the colonelcy of the very regiment that had taken the stations of their former friends in Arizona. In a little less than two years from that eventful night among the cedars, the Archers, three, were once more welcomed to the general's roof, escorted the last ten miles of the dusty stage ride from the desert by Harris, whose letters to the general or to Mrs. Archer had been regular as the fortnightly mail. With the morrow he and 'Tonio were on hand to hail them, looking fit and spare and sinewy as ever they had of old, for these were strenuous days and stirring times in the Apache-haunted mountains—the Tontos had broken faith and were again afield.

  Camp Sandy on the Verde was the centre of the storm. Pelham and his cavalry had just been sent to other climes, marching overland to "the Plains." Archer was needed at once in command of the district, and was speedily there established, and thither too went Crook, with Bright to write his orders and despatches, with Harris and 'Tonio to head the scouts. Thither presently went Lilian and her mother. The post was large, the garrison ample. There was active service that their own white-haired general welcomed eagerly, for Crook meant to the full that his loyal old friend and supporter should have all the credit that the campaign might bring him. But campaigns conducted under daily telegraphic promptings from distant superiors were not the brisk and independent matters of a few years back. There were too many advisers within easy, if expensive, reaching distance—too many "Friends of the Indian," and far too few of the soldier, close in touch at court. Crook himself was looking vexed and worried. It is so hard to serve God and Mammon, to grapple with the foemen at the front, the Press and the Pulpit at the rear. At the very moment when he had the "hostiles" hemmed between converging columns and sure of capture, his hand was held by orders from the East. At the very moment when the warriors at the reservation should have been watched and guarded against exhorters from without, the latter got within, and a powerful band stampeded up the Red Rock country and were gone. The news reached Archer toward eleven, one winter's night, and at dawn he, in person, with Harris and 'Tonio and twenty scouts and barely thirty mounted men, was climbing the rugged trail from the head of the Beaver in pursuit, leaving Bella and Lilian, brave, silent, yet tearful, at the post.

  It was nothing new, this going forth of veteran division and brigade commanders of the war days, with a handful of soldiery, to cope with a band of savages on their chosen ground. Barely two years before the Modocs had asked for a talk with the general commanding and killed him. Only the year previous the Cheyennes lured out a lieutenant-colonel, with but a lieutenant's command, and picked him off. And so, two nights later, there was weeping at old Sandy, for a runner was in long hours after sundown with the tidings that there had been a sharp and sudden skirmish among the rocks, that brave old Archer had been the first to fall, and that 'Tonio had been desperately wounded in the effort to save the veteran's life.

  They started them homeward within the week, Archer calm, conscious, suffering much, but as, the skilled surgeons told the wife and daughter who had rested not until they reached him, with good hope of recovery. It was 'Tonio for whom they felt the keenest apprehension. 'Tonio had received a bullet meant for the soldier who had once decreed his death, and Archer's anguish was more for him. With them, on the slow homeward way around by the old Wingate road, was Harris, sleepless from anxiety and distress, watching night and day by the side of his two heroes, filling all with wonderment at his endurance; and with Harris, much of the time, by the side of both father and father's self-devoted savior, was Lilian.

  They brought them back to Sandy. They nursed the general back to life and partial strength. But age and wounds and sorrows all had told on the Mohave chieftain, and slowly he sank, despite their every effort and the doctor's skill. They had pitched a little tent fly for him—he would not be borne within doors—and shaded it with brush and willow, yet left the southward view open so that he could look out upon the broad valley and see the shadows of the mountains steal across it as the sun went westering. He seemed to love to watch the morning flame on the bald summit of the huge peak so close at hand; it made him think of the Picacho about whose base he had sported as a boy. He seemed to love to see Ramon and Pancha hovering ever about him. He would look at them, take their hands, then place their hands together and hold them between his own. But most of all he loved to see Harris bending over him, moving about him, and when Lilian came and gave him drink and touched his fevered head, his glittering eyes would soften and follow her with such a world of wistfulness as though they would speak the longing of his heart. Then he would look from her to Harris, and from Harris back to her, in a way that sent the blushes surging to her forehead, and the sight of those blushes set that young soldier's heart to bounding.

  One beautiful afternoon, when the sun was slanting low and the great dome of the peak was all agleam with crimson and with gold, they were gathered about his shelter, for the spirit had been wandering and his strength was almost gone. Without the canvas, their women weeping with Pancha, their young men silent and sad, a group of the old band hovered along the slope of the low mesa. It was thought he could hardly survive the night, and with the sinking of the sun his mind seemed clouding more, and he called, over and over, for "Chiquito," who knelt there clinging to his hand. Even Archer had come, leaning heavily upon his crutches, and Bella, his wife, and Lilian—Lilian upon whom the dying eyes rested again and again. 'Tonio was now too weak to lift a hand; he could not signal; but something in his gaze seemed to call her to him irresistibly. He was breathing with such difficulty that the surgeon, bending over him on the other side of the pallet, slipped an arm beneath his shoulders, Harris from his side aiding, and together they slowly raised him almost to a sitting posture, his weary head resting on "Chiquito's" shoulder. But the eyes still sought Lilian, and Archer, watching, murmured to her, "Go."

  To take his other hand, feebly plucking at the light coverlet, she had to kneel so close to Harris that he could feel the swift throbbing of her heart against his arm, and 'Tonio, looking now into the two young faces so near together, so close to his own, began with all his remaining strength slowly drawing her little white hand toward the lean and sinewy fingers that clasped his right, whereat her bonny head drooped lower, her bosom heaved; she seemed at once to read his purpose, and, with the instinct of the maiden, to gently resist. But the almost instant reproach and pleading in the fading eyes melted and unnerved her. Harris, too, had seen, and noted, and understood, and his own heart, through all its sorrowing, was beating vehemently; his own right hand, without releasing 'Tonio's, crept forth in search of hers, and presently, trembling, but resisting no longer, the lily-white, slender fingers lay softly within the young soldier's clasp, and a big, hot tear fell upon the back of the brown and withered hand that, almost pulseless, drooped upon them both as though in benediction.

  Overcome with emotion, Mrs. Archer, watching, breathless, dropped her head upon her husband's shoulder and sobbed convulsively. The last brilliant, dazzling beams of
the dying day had lifted from the crest of the huge dome that shut the valley, and left it dark and sombre; and 'Tonio's eyes, turning upon it for the last time, seemed to note the change; and the flitting spirit, wandering back to the old, old boyish days, and the legends of his people, spoke once more. The gathering darkness, the plash upon his hand, the resemblance to the mountain that guarded his babyhood and youth, all probably had worked their spell, for the pallid lips began to move, and in the silence of the lowering night a few words in his native tongue were faintly heard, and hot tears gushed from the eyes of his young chief, friend and brother, as, in answer to the doctor's quick, questioning glance, Harris brokenly murmured the translation:

  "When the Picacho hides his head in the clouds, then will there be rain."

  And the clouds had lowered, and the day was done, and there was rain of tears from even soldier eyes for 'Tonio—Son of the Sierras.

  THE END.

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