CHAPTER VITHE NORTHER
“O, brother! We must ride fast, fast! We must not stop one single minute—if they should get us—why did our father go away!”
“Hush, little sister. Never fear. I am almost a man. I will take care of you.”
“Boys are not men; not even ‘almost’ men at twelve years. But—can they still see us from Refugio?”
Turning, the child looked back. The trees and shrubbery about the venerable home they loved quite hid it from sight and the fact made her suddenly sad, so that she cried:
“Suppose, just s’pose, we should never come back?”
“Pooh! don’t be silly, girlie. Course we’ll go back, soon as the ‘enemies’ go away,” answered Carlos stoutly, though he was secretly troubled by the same thought.
“What ever made them come?”
“Carlota! You told me that yourself: because they were just—‘enemies.’”
“‘Enemies’ are wicked people, and I don’t see how anybody could be wicked to our father. Do you, Carlos?”
“Oh! don’t ask so many questions. I am no older than you. I can’t answer them.”
“You often say you are much bigger, you were ‘almost a man’ a minute ago. Doesn’t Benoni travel splendidly?”
“Yes. But—where shall we go?”
“Why, to the shearing-place, I s’pose,” she answered, doubtfully.
“We can’t. They—anybody might come there. All strangers go everywhere that there’s things to see, like the shearing.”
“Oh! dear! I wanted to see if our lambs, Santa Maria and San Jose, had been sheared. But the men would not dare, I think. But we must go somewhere, ‘to hide,’ Miguel said, and—what shall we do?”
Carlos reflected; then observed:
“I can’t think yet. I hate ‘hiding,’ anyway, and on our own rancho from such polite gentlemen—I mean the Rupert-one was so. I feel sort of mean and sneaky, as I guess a cowardmight. You may be a coward, Carlota, but I’m not. I’ve a mind to go right home and order those men to leave. If they won’t, I can lock them up in—” Here he hesitated and looked questioningly at his sister.
“Lock them up—where, Carlos Manuel?”
“You needn’t tremble. I haven’t done it yet.”
“Where could you lock them?” she sternly persisted.
Carlos fidgetted, then said:
“Girls ask so many questions!”
“And boys answer so few! You know that there’s only one place in all Refugio that can be locked. Our father never turned a key on his possessions. I’ve heard him say that. I’ve heard him say the whole world was free to use what he used except—our mother’s rooms. The key to those he took away. I saw him put it in his pocket and he kissed me when he did it. Carlos Manuel, would you put ‘enemies’ in our mother’s rooms?”
Carlos evaded her piercing gaze, but answered, firmly:
“It would be worse to keep them outside, where they could hurt our father and us, thanto put them into places which nobody uses and where they could hurt nobody till they promised to be good and go away.”
“Down in the inside of you, Carlos, you know that locking them up there would be the worstest thing could be. Don’t you?”
“Yes, I s’pose so. I wish there was some other place.”
“So do I. But, first, let’s go to our mother’s grave and think about it there. Maybe we’ll guess just what to do, and if we should be gone a long, long time— If we should never come back at all—”
She began to cry but the lad exclaimed:
“We’ll never get anywhere if you cry all the time. I never did see anybody cry as much as you do. I wouldn’t be a girl for all New Mexico!”
They turned Benoni toward the flower-decked mound and the pair knelt there for a little time, each praying after his and her own habit, and feeling vastly comforted by the peaceful beauty of that sacred spot. Then Carlos rose and went away, and Carlota called to him:
“Brother, aren’t you coming back here?”
“No, sister. I’ve said good-by and now I want to go. I’m getting my things in the schoolroom.”
Carlota would have liked to linger, but now joined her brother in the pretty glen beside the spring; and, while he wound his riata and thrust his hammer and knife into his sash, she secured the basket which old Marta had given them with their luncheon. Little of that was now left; only a few scattered cakes, which she carefully gathered again, thinking they would answer very well for supper, in case they did not arrive at “anywhere” by that time. She also slung her botany-box across her shoulders, which made Carlos inquire:
“Why are you taking that? If we do get things we can’t bring them home to the garden.”
“Well, you’re taking your hammer. If you can crack stones I can pick flowers. You know they’ll keep a week in my box, and we ought to be home long before that. If—we ever come at all!”
“We must first go before we can come. Where shall it be?”
“I know. I’ve thought it out.”
“Where, then, Carlota? Quick! Oh! how the wind blows!”
“To find our father.”
“We don’t know where he went.”
“He went toward the north. He said he was going there. That was where his business led him. Our business is to follow and find him. He is ours. He belongs. We always do go to him in trouble, and aren’t ‘enemies’ trouble?”
“I don’t know. Out here I feel braver, and not a bit afraid of those men. The old one, that jiggled his teeth up and down when he talked—that was the curiousest thing! like he’d borrowed somebody else’s—he was real old and wizzly-up. That one—he couldn’t hurt a gopher! The Mr. Rupert was so pleasant and—Carlota, I believe we’ve made a mistake. They mayn’t be ‘enemies’ at all. How could anybody take us away from our father if he wouldn’t let us go and there was everybody to fight for us? I believe that old Miguel—”
“Carlos, I—am—going—to—my—father.”
That settled it. Whenever small Carlotamade a decision it was final; and uncertainty ended, the spirits of both rose. She now joyously exclaimed:
“How jolly he’ll be over us! I’ll take my little notebook, so I can put down all about the flowers and things we find. Father always teases me because I can so much easier forget than remember.”
“You might better take your grammar, I think!” gibed the boy, but she was not offended.
Gently patting Benoni she called:
“See him, brother! How queer he acts? As if he couldn’t bear to go away from us. Never mind, you darling. You aren’t going from, but with us, and that’s quite different. You didn’t think we’d leave you behind, did you, Noni sweet?”
“Silly Carlota! Kissing a horse’s nose. But he does act queer, though, and I know why. It’s the wind. He hates it, and so do I. It—scares me.”
“Now, who’s silly? I’m only a girl, but no wind scares me. I love it. Let’s mount now and ride, ride, ride! Fast and faster andfastest! Come. You’ve all you want and so have I.”
Running to opposite sides of the gentle Benoni they clasped hands above his back and “trick fashion” leaped to their places upon it. Their soft blankets were all the saddle they used, and with a gay “Vamos!” they started upon their search.
“How he does go! He acts just wild, doesn’t he? And isn’t the wind getting terr’ble cold?” asked Carlota, after they had ridden northward for some distance without pausing.
Carlos glanced over his shoulder. His sister’s teeth were chattering as she spoke, and he had to press his own tightly together to keep them still. But the fear which prevented his replying had already risen in her own mind and she added, brokenly:
“Dear, it’s a—‘norther’! We’re caught in it. We—shall die. Refugio—let’s try—back—.”
She had never been exposed to such a wind-storm, but he had once experienced something of it. In terror he now recalled that bad quarter-hour which his father and he hadpassed before they gained a shelter. There was now no shelter possible. They had steadily ridden away from every habitation they knew, straight over the plateau toward the “north,” whither their father had vanished.
But Carlos’s latent manliness now asserted itself. Benoni had become wildly terrified, yet the boy managed to pull from beneath himself the blanket which was flapping like a whip and to order Carlota to put it around her.
“I—can’t! I—I—am—so—cold!”
He nearly lost his seat in struggling to do it for her, and then Benoni took matters into his own keeping. Swerving from the trail he had been following, he bolted due eastward, and it seemed as if he scarcely touched the ground with his speeding hoofs, that even his strong body was lifted and borne along by the blast.
Carlos strained his vision to see, through the blinding storm of leaves and snow, that point whither the animal was hurrying with all his strength. But he could discover nothing and cried, in anguish:
“Oh! my little Carlota, sister! If you were only safe at home!” Then as her stiffening arm stole round his neck he added, consolingly:“But don’t you worry, darling! I’ll take care of my father’s little daughter!”
But she was already past speech, almost past suffering; and realizing this even the boy’s brave spirit succumbed and he let his head fall on Benoni’s neck, wondering if he were also dying.
A few minutes later, the snow had covered them all with its warm blanket and the children lay beneath it, motionless, upon the back of their faithful horse, which feebly struggled on. Besides themselves there was no living thing upon that wide white plain; for even the roaming cattle which dwelt there had vanished somewhere. Death stared the wanderers in the face, but they had already passed beyond consciousness of that.