Vanguards of the Plains: A Romance of the Old Santa Fé TrailMcCarter, Margaret Hill
History
Vanguards of the Plains: A Romance of the Old Santa Fé Trail
McCarter, Margaret Hill
Santa Fe National Historic Trail -- Fiction; West (U.S.) -- History -- Fiction
"You aimed at me! Well, learn your lesson on that right now. Promise
never to play the fool that way again. Promise the everlasting God's
truth, or here you go."
The boy's clutch tightened on Santan's throat. "By all that's holy,
you'll go to your happy hunting-ground _right now, unless you do_!" He
growled out the words, and his blazing eyes glared threateningly at his
fallen enemy.
"I promise!" Santan muttered, gasping for breath.
"You didn't mean to kill the nun? Then you'll go with me and ask her to
forgive you before she dies. You will. You needn't try to get away from
me. I let you thrash your strength out before we came to this
settlement. Be still!" Beverly commanded, as Santan made a mad effort to
release himself.
"Hurry up, and remember she is dying. Go softly and speak gently, or by
the God of heaven, you'll go with her to the Judgment Seat to answer for
that deed right now!"
Slowly the two rose. Their clothes were torn, their hair disheveled, the
ground at their feet was red with their blood. They were as bitter, as
distrustful now as when their struggle began. For brute force never
conquers anything. It can only hold in check by fear of its power to
destroy the body. Above the iron fist of the fighter, and the sword and
cannon of the soldier, stands the risen Christ who carried his own cross
up Mount Calvary--and "there they crucified him."
The two young men, spent with their struggle, their faces stained with
dirt and bloody sweat, crossed the river and sought the shadowy place
where Little Blue Flower sat beside Sister Anita. Twice Santan tried to
escape, and twice Beverly brought him quickly to his place. It must
have been here that I caught sight of them from the rock above.
"One more move like that and the ghost of Sister Anita will walk behind
you on every trail you follow as long as your flat feet hit the earth,"
Beverly declared.
"All Indians are afraid of ghosts and I was just too tired to fight any
more," he said to me afterward when he told me the story of that hour by
the San Christobal River.
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. 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.
"Kneel down and tell her again," Beverly said, more gently.
The Apache dropped on his knees beside the dying woman and repeated his
words. Sister Anita smiled sweetly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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