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We laid them away in the deep pine forest Aunty Boone, of strange, prophetic vision; Santan, the cruel Indian; the loyal Hopi maiden; Jondo and Beverly. God made them all and in His heaven they will be rightly placed. Beside the cañon's rim, in the soft twilight hour of that October day, Eloise St. Vrain and I plighted our troth, till death us do part for just a little while.
Our care was to reach Beverly before the Hopis should rise up against Little Blue Flower, or the band led by Santan should fall upon them. Father Josef had sent a runner on to tell them of our coming and to warn them of the Apache raid. But runners sometimes come to grief.
"This makes it clearer," Father Josef said. "Through Bent to Ramero and Ramero to Santan, the word went, somehow. The Apache has gathered up a band of the worst of his breed and they are moving against the Hopis to get Beverly.
"When Santan, the Apache, came back from a long raid eastward, he told Little Blue Flower that Beverly had spared his life beside a poisoned spring in the Cimarron valley, urging him to go back and marry her; life had other interests now to white men who must forget all about Indian girls, he declared, and with Apache adroitness he pressed his claims upon her.
Don't you remember, Bev, when we were out in the court, and how scared blue we all were when the moon went under a cloud, and that Indian boy, Santan, was creeping between us and the home base?" "No, I don't remember anything except that we were in Fort Bent. Got in by the width of a hair ahead of some Mexicans and Indians, and got out again after a jolly six weeks.
Sister Anita lay with wide-open eyes, her hands moving feebly as she clutched at her crucifix. Her hour was almost spent. Santan stood motionless before her, as Beverly with a grip on his arm said, firmly: "Tell her you did not aim at her, and ask her to forgive you. It will help to save your own soul sometime, maybe." Santan looked at Little Blue Flower.
Behind him always was his Cheyenne mother, jealously defending him in everything, and in manifold ways making life a burden if we would submit to the making, which we seldom did. And lastly Santan, the young boy who had deserted his Mexican masters for Jondo's command, contrived, with an Indian's shrewdness, never to let us out of his sight. But he gave us no opportunity to approach him.
Then he sprang up and dashed across the river, splashing the bright waters as he leaped to the farther side where Santan stood concealed, waiting for the return of Ramero's Mexicans. At the sound of Beverly's feet he leaped to the open just in time to meet Beverly's fist square between the eyes. "Take that, you dirty dog, to shoot down an innocent nun. And that!"
But she gave no heed to him as she put the dropped crucifix into the weakening fingers. Murder, as such, is as horrifying to the gentle Hopi tribe as it is sport for the cruel Apache. Beverly loosed his hold now. "I did not want to hurt you. Forgive me!" Santan said, slowly, as though each word were plucked from him by red-hot pincers. Sister Anita heard and turned her eyes.
"And shrewder than most men," Jondo went on. "She supplied the lost link with Santan for me last night. Years ago, when Little Blue Flower brought me a message from Father Josef on the morning that we took Eloise from Santa Fé, I caught a glimpse of the Apache across the plaza and read the message 'trust the bearer anywhere' to mean that boy.
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