Майн Рид
The Lone Ranche
Chapter Eighteen.
A Lilliputian Forest
Guiding their course by the stars the fugitives continue on – no longer going in a run, nor even in a very rapid walk. Despite the resolution with which he endeavours to nerve himself, the wounded man is still too weak to make much progress, and he advances but laggingly. His companion does not urge him to quicken his pace. The experienced prairie man knows it will be better to go slowly than get broken down by straining forward too eagerly. There is no sign or sound of Indian, either behind or before them. The stillness of the desert is around them – its silence only interrupted by the “whip-whip” of the night-hawk’s wings, and at intervals its soft note answering to the shriller cry of the kid-deer plover that rises screaming before their feet. These, with the constant skirr of the ground-crickets and the prolonged whine of the coyote, are the only sounds that salute them as they glide on – none of which are of a kind to cause alarm.
There appears no great reason for making haste now. They have all the night before them, and, ere daylight can discover them, they will be sure to find some place of concealment.
The ground is favourable to pedestrianism in the darkness. The surface, hard-baked by the sun, is level as a set flagstone, and in most places so smooth that a carriage could run upon it as on the drive of a park. Well for them it is so. Had the path been a rugged one the wounded man would not go far before giving out. Even as it is, the toil soon begins to tell on his wasted strength. His veins are almost emptied of blood.
Nor do they proceed a very great distance before again coming to a halt; though far enough to feel sure that, standing erect, they cannot be descried by any one who may have ascended the cliff at the place where they took departure from it.
But they have also reached that which offers them a chance of concealment – in short, a forest. It is a forest not discernible at more than a mile’s distance, for the trees that compose it are “shin oaks,” the tallest rising to the height of only eighteen inches above the surface of the ground. Eighteen inches is enough to conceal the body of a man lying in a prostrate attitude; and as the Lilliputian trees grow thick as jimson weeds, the cover will be a secure one. Unless the pursuers should stray so close as to tread upon them, there will be no danger of their being seen. Further reflection has by this time satisfied them that the Indians are not upon the upper plain. It is not likely, after the pains they had taken to smoke them in the cave and afterwards shut them up. Besides, the distribution of the spoils would be an attraction sure to draw them back to the waggons, and speedily.
Becoming satisfied that there is no longer a likelihood of their being pursued across the plain, Wilder proposes that they again make stop; this time to obtain sleep, which in their anxiety during their previous spell of rest they did not attempt. He makes the proposal out of consideration for his comrade, who for some time, as he can see, has evidently been hard pressed to keep up with him.
“We kin lie by till sun-up,” says Walt; “an’ then, if we see any sign o’ pursoot, kin stay hyar till the sun goes down agin. These shin oaks will gie us kiver enuf. Squatted, there’ll be no chance o’ thar diskiverin’ us, unless they stumble right atop o’ us.” His companion is not in the mood to make objection, and the two lay themselves along the earth. The miniature forest not only gives them the protection of a screen but a soft bed, as the tiny trunks and leaf-laden branches become pressed down beneath their bodies.
They remain awake only long enough to give Hamersley’s wound such dressing as the circumstances permit, and then both sink into slumber.
With the young prairie merchant it is neither deep nor profound. Horrid visions float before his rapt senses – scenes of red carnage – causing him ever and anon to awake with a start, once or twice with a cry that wakes his companion.
Otherwise Walt Wilder would have slept as soundly as if reposing on the couch of a log cabin a thousand miles removed from any scene of danger. It is no new thing for him to go to sleep with the yell of savages sounding in his ears. For a period of over twenty years he has daily, as nightly, stretched his huge form along mountain slope or level prairie, and often with far more danger of having his “hair raised” before rising erect again. For ten years he belonged to the “Texas Rangers” – that strange organisation that has existed ever since Stephen Austin first planted his colony in the land of the “Lone Star.” If on this night the ex-Ranger is more than usually restless, it is from anxiety about his comrade, coupled with the state of his nervous system, stirred to feverish excitement by the terrible conflict through which they have just passed. Notwithstanding all, he slumbers in long spells, at times snoring like an alligator.
At no time does the ex-Ranger stand in need of much sleep, even after the most protracted toil. Six hours is his usual daily or nocturnal dose; and as the grey dawn begins to glimmer over the tops of the shin oaks, he springs to his feet, shakes the dew from his shoulders like a startled stag, and then stoops down to examine the condition of his wounded comrade.
“Don’t ye git up yit, Frank,” he says. “We mustn’t start till we hev a clar view all roun’, an’ be sure there’s neery redskin in sight. Then we kin take the sun a leetle on our left side, an’ make tracks to the south-eastart. How is’t wi’ ye?”
“I feel weak as water. Still I fancy I can travel a little farther.”
“Wall, we’ll go slow. Ef there’s none o’ the skunks arter us, we kin take our time. Durn me! I’m still a wonderin’ what Injuns they war; I’m a’most sartint thar the Tenawa Kimanch – a band o’ the Buffler-eaters an’ the wust lot on all the parairia. Many’s the fight we rangers used to hev wi’ ’em, and many’s the one o’ ’em this child hev rubbed out. Ef I only hed my rifle hyar – durn the luck hevin’ to desart that gun – I ked show you nine nicks on her timmer as stan’ for nine Tenawa Kimanch. Ef’t be them, we’ve got to keep well to the southart. Thar range lays most in the Canadyen, or round the head o’ Big Wichitu, an’ they mout cross a corner o’ the Staked Plain on thar way home. Tharfer we must go southart a good bit, and try for the north fork o’ the Brazos. Ef we meet Indian thar, they’d be Southern Kimanch – not nigh sech feeroshus varmints as them. Do you know, Frank, I’ve been hevin’ a dream ’bout them Injuns as attacked us?”
“A dream! So have I. It is not strange for either of us to dream of them. What was yours, Walt?”
“Kewrus enuf mine war, though it warn’t all a dreem. I reck’n I war more ’n half awake when I tuk to thinkin’ about ’em, an’ ’twar somethin’ I seed durin’ the skrimmage. Didn’t you observe nothin’ queery?”
“Rather say, nothing that was not that way. It was all queer enough, and terrible, too.”
“That this child will admit wi’ full freedom. But I’ve f’t redskin afore in all sorts an’ shapes, yet niver seed redskin sech as them.”
“In what did they differ from other savages? I saw nothing different.”
“But I did; leastways, I suspeck I did. Didn’t you spy ’mong the lot two or three that had ha’r on thar faces?”
“Yes; I noticed that. I thought nothing of it. It’s common among the Comanches and other tribes of the Mexican territory, many of whom are of mixed breed – from the captive Mexican women they have among them.”
“The ha’r I seed didn’t look like it grew on the face o’ a mixed blood.”
“But there are pure white men among them – outlaws who have run away from civilisation and turned renegades – as also captives they have taken, who become Indianised, as the Mexicans call it. Doubtless it may have been some of these we saw.”
“Wall, you may be right, Frank. Sartint thar war one I seed wi’ a beard ’most as big as my own – only it war black. His hide war black, too, or nigh to it; but ef that skunk wan’t white un’erneath a coatin’ o’ charcoal an’ vermilion then Walt Wilder don’t know a Kristyun from a heethun. I ain’t no use spek’latin’ on’t now. White, black, yella-belly, or red, they’ve put us afoot on the parairia, an’ kim darned nigh wipin’ us out althegither. We’ve got a fair chance o’ goin’ un’er yet, eyther from thirst or the famishment o’ empty stomaks. I’m hungry enuf already to eat a coyat. Thar’s a heavy row afore us, Frank, an’ we must strengthen our hearts to hoein’ o’ it. Wall, the sun’s up; an’ as thar don’t appear to be any obstrukshun, I reck’n we’d best be makin’ tracks.”
Hamersley slowly and somewhat reluctantly rises to his feet. He still feels in poor condition for travelling. But to stay there is to die; and bracing himself to the effort, he steps out side by side with his colossal companion.
Chapter Nineteen.
The Departure of the Plunderers
On the day after the capture of the caravan the Indians, having consumed all the whisky found in the waggons, and become comparatively sober, prepared to move off.
The captured goods, made up into convenient parcels, were placed upon mules and spare horses. Of both they had plenty, having come prepared for such a sequel to their onslaught upon the traders.
The warriors, having given interment to their dead comrades, leaving the scalped and mutilated corpses of the white men to the vultures and wolves, mounted and marched off.
Before leaving the scene of their sanguinary exploit, they had drawn the waggons into a close clump and set fire to them, partly from a wanton instinct of destruction, partly from the pleasure of beholding a great bonfire, but also with some thoughts that it might be as well thus to blot out all the traces of a tragedy for which the Americans – of whom even these freebooters felt dread – might some day call them to account.
They did not all go together, but separated into two parties on the spot where they had passed the night. They were parties, however, of very unequal size, one of them numbering only four individuals.
The other, which constituted the main body of the plunderers, was the band of the Tenawa Comanchey, under their chief, Horned Lizard. These last turned eastward, struck off towards the head waters of the Big Witches, upon which and its tributaries lie their customary roving grounds.
The lesser party went off in almost the opposite direction, south-westerly, leaving the Llano Estacado on their left, and journeying on, crossed the Rio Pecos at a point below and outside the farthest frontier settlement of New Mexico towards the prairies. Then, shaping their course nearly due south, they skirted the spurs of the Sierra Blanca, that in this latitude extend eastward almost to the Pecos.
On arriving near the place known as Gran Quivira – where once stood a prosperous Spanish town, devoted to gathering gold, now only a ruin, scarcely traceable, and altogether without record – they again changed their course, almost zigzagging back in a north-westerly direction. They were making towards a depression seen in the Sierra Blanca, as if with the intention to cross the mountains toward the valley of the Del Norte. They might have reached the valley without this circumstance, by a trail well known and often travelled. But it appeared as if this was just what they wanted to avoid.
One of the men composing this party was he already remarked upon as having a large beard and whiskers. A second was one of those spoken of as more slightly furnished with these appendages, while the other two were beardless.
All four were of deep bronze complexion, and to all appearance pure-blooded aboriginals. That the two with hirsute sign spoke to one another in Spanish was no sure evidence of their not being Indians. It was within the limits of New Mexican territory, where there are many Indians who converse in Castilian as an ordinary language.
He with the whiskered cheeks – the chief of the quartet, as well as the tallest of them – had not left behind the share of plunder that had been allotted to him. It was still in his train, borne on the backs of seven strong mules, heavily loaded. These formed an atajo or pack-train, guided and driven by the two beardless men of the party, who seemed to understand mule driving as thoroughly as if they had been trained to the calling of the arriero; and perhaps so had they been.
The other two took no trouble with the pack-animals, but rode on in front, conversing sans souci, and in a somewhat jocular vein.
The heavily-bearded man was astride a splendid black horse; not a Mexican mustang, like that of his companions, but a large sinewy animal, that showed the breed of Kentucky. And so should he – since he was the same steed Frank Hamersley had been compelled to leave behind in that rapid rush into the crevice of the cliff.
“This time, Roblez, we’ve made a pretty fair haul of it,” remarked he who bestrode the black. “What with the silks and laces – to say nothing of this splendid mount between my legs – I think I may say that our time has not been thrown away.”
“Yours hasn’t, anyhow. My share won’t be much.”
“Come, come, teniente! don’t talk in that way. You should be satisfied with a share proportioned to your rank. Besides, you must remember the man who puts down the stake has the right to draw the winnings. But for me there would have been no spoils to share. Isn’t it so?”
This truth seeming to produce an impression on Roblez’s mind, he made response in the affirmative.
“Well, I’m glad you acknowledge it,” pursued the rider of the black. “Let there be no disputes between us; for you know, Roblez, we can’t afford to quarrel. You shall have a liberal percentage on this lucky venture; I promise it. By the bye, how much do you think the plunder ought to realise?”
“Well,” responded Roblez, restored to a cheerful humour, “if properly disposed of in El Paso or Chihuahua, the lot ought to fetch from fifteen to twenty thousand dollars. I see some silk-velvet among the stuff that would sell high, if you could get it shown to the rich damsels of Durango or Zacatecas. One thing sure, you’ve got a good third of the caravan stock.”
“Ha! ha! More than half of it in value. The Horned lizard went in for bulk. I let him have it to his heart’s content. He thinks more of those cheap cotton prints, with their red and green and yellow flowers, than all the silk ever spun since the days of Mother Eve. Ha! ha! ha!”
The laugh, in which Roblez heartily joined, was still echoing on the air as the two horsemen entered a pass leading through the mountains. It was the depression in the sierra, seen shortly after parting with the Horned Lizard and his band. It was a pass rugged with rock, and almost trackless, here and there winding about, and sometimes continued through canons or clefts barely wide enough to give way to the mules with the loads upon their backs.
For all this the animals of the travellers seemed to journey along it without difficulty, only the American horse showing signs of awkwardness. All the others went as if they had trodden it before.
For several hours they kept on through this series of canons and gorges – here and there crossing a transverse ridge that, cutting off a bend, shortened the distance.
Just before sunset the party came to a halt; not in the defile itself, but in one of still more rugged aspect, that led laterally into the side of the mountain. In this there was no trace or sign of travel – no appearance of its having been entered by man or animal.
Yet the horse ridden by Roblez, and the pack-mules coming after, entered with as free a step as if going into a well-known enclosure. True, the chief of the party, mounted on the Kentucky steed, had gone in before them; though this scarce accounted for their confidence.
Up this unknown gorge they rode until they had reached its end. There was no outlet, for it was a cul-de-sac– a natural court – such as are often found among the amygdaloidal mountains of Mexico.
At its extremity, where it narrowed to a width of about fifty feet, lay a huge boulder of granite that appeared to block up the path; though there was a clear space between it and the cliff rising vertically behind it.
The obstruction was only apparent, and did not cause the leading savage of the party to make even a temporary stop. At one side there was an opening large enough to admit the passage of a horse; and into this he rode, Roblez following, and also the mules in a string, one after the other.
Behind the boulder was an open space of a few square yards, of extent sufficient to allow room for turning a horse. The savage chief wheeled his steed, and headed him direct for the cliff; not with the design of dashing his brains against the rock, but to force him into a cavern, whose entrance showed its disc in the façade of the precipice, dark and dismal as the door of an Inquisitorial prison.
The horse snorted, and shied back; but the ponderous Mexican spur, with its long sharp rowel-points, soon drove him in; whither he was followed by the mustang of Roblez and the mules – the latter going in as unconcernedly as if entering a stable whose stalls were familiar to them.
Chapter Twenty.
A Transformation
It was well on in the afternoon of the following day before the four spoil-laden savages who had sought shelter in the cave again showed themselves outside. Then came they filing forth, one after the other, in the same order as they had entered; but so changed in appearance that no one seeing them come out of the cavern could by any possibility have recognised them as the same men who had the night before gone into it. Even their animals had undergone some transformation. The horses were differently caparisoned; the flat American saddle having been removed from the back of the grand Kentucky steed, and replaced by the deep-tree Mexican silla, with its corona of stamped leather and wooden estribos. The mules, too, were rigged in a different manner, each having the regular alpareja, or pack-saddle, with the broad apishamores breeched upon its hips; while the spoils, no longer in loose, carelessly tied-up bundles, were made up into neat packs, as goods in regular transportation by an atajo.
The two men who conducted them had altogether a changed appearance. Their skins were still of the same colour – the pure bronze-black of the Indian – but, instead of the eagle’s feathers late sticking up above their crowns, both had their heads now covered with simple straw hats; while sleeveless coats of coarse woollen stuff, with stripes running transversely —tilmas– shrouded their shoulders, their limbs having free play in white cotton drawers of ample width. A leathern belt, and apron of reddish-coloured sheepskin, tanned, completed the costume of an arriero of the humbler class – the mozo, or assistant.
But the change in the two other men – the chief and him addressed as Roblez – was of a far more striking kind. They had entered the cave as Indians, warriors of the first rank, plumed, painted, and adorned with all the devices and insignia of savage heraldry. They came out of it as white men, wearing the costume of well-to-do rancheros – or rather that of town traders – broad glazed hats upon their heads, cloth jackets and trousers – the latter having the seats and insides of the legs fended with a lining of stamped leather; boots with heavy spurs upon their feet, crape sashes around the waist, machetes strapped along the flaps of their saddles, and seraphs resting folded over the croup, gave the finishing touch to their travelling equipment. These, with the well appointed atajo of mules, made the party one of peaceful merchants transporting their merchandise from town to town.
On coming out of the cave, the leader, looking fresh and bright from his change of toilet and late purification of his skin, glanced up towards the sky, as if to consult the sun as to the hour. At the same time he drew a gold watch from his vest pocket, and looked also at that.
“We’ll be just in the right time, Roblez,” he said. “Six hours yet before sunset. That will get us out into the valley, and in the river road. We’re not likely to meet any one after nightfall in these days of Indian alarms. Four more will bring us to Albuquerque, long after the sleepy townsfolk have gone to bed. We’ve let it go late enough, anyhow, and mustn’t delay here any longer. Look well to your mules, mozos! Vamonos!”
At the word all started together down the gorge, the speaker, as before, leading the way, Roblez next, and the mozos with their laden mules stringing out in the rear.
Soon after, they re-entered the mountain defile, and, once more heading north-westward, silently continued on for the valley of the Rio del Norte. Their road, as before, led tortuously through canons and rugged ravines – no road at all, but a mere bridle path, faintly indicated by the previous passage of an occasional wayfarer or the tracks of straying cattle.
The sun was just sinking over the far western Cordilleras when the precipitous wall of the Sierra Blanca, opening wider on each side of the defile, disclosed to the spoil-laden party a view of the broad level plain known as the valley of the Del Norte.
Soon after, they had descended to it; and in the midst of night, with a starry sky overhead, were traversing the level road upon which the broad wheel-tracks of rude country carts —carretas– told of the proximity of settlements. It was a country road, leading out from the foot-hills of the sierra to a crossing of the river, near the village of Tomé, where it intersected with the main route of travel running from El Paso in the south through all the riverine towns of New Mexico.
Turning northward from Tomé, the white robbers, late disguised as Indians, pursued their course towards the town of Albuquerque. Any one meeting them on the road would have mistaken them for a party of traders en route from the Rio Abajo to the capital of Santa Fé.
But they went not so far. Albuquerque was the goal of their journey, though on arriving there – which they did a little after midnight – they made no stop in the town, nor any noise to disturb its inhabitants, at that hour asleep.
Passing silently through the unpaved streets, they kept on a little farther. A large house or hacienda, tree shaded, and standing outside the suburbs, was the stopping place they were aiming at; and towards this they directed their course. There was a mirador or belvidere upon the roof – the same beside which Colonel Miranda and his American guest, just twelve months before, had stood smoking cigars.
As then, there was a guard of soldiers within the covered entrance, with a sentry outside the gate. He was leaning against the postern, his form in the darkness just distinguishable against the grey-white of the wall.
“Quien-viva?” he hailed as the two horsemen rode up, the hoof-strokes startling him out of a half-drunken doze.
“El Coronel-Commandante!” responded the tall man in a tone that told of authority.
It proved to be countersign sufficient, the speaker’s voice being instantly recognised.
The sentry, bringing his piece to the salute, permitted the horsemen to pass without further parley, as also the atajo in their train, all entering and disappearing within the dark doorway, just as they had made entrance into the mouth of the mountain cavern.
While listening to the hoof-strokes of the animals ringing on the pavement of the patio inside, the sentinel had his reflections and conjectures. He wondered where the colonel-commandant could have been to keep him so long absent from his command, and he had perhaps other conjectures of an equally perplexing nature. They did not much trouble him, however. What mattered it to him how the commandant employed his time, or where it was spent, so long as he got his sueldo and rations? He had them with due regularity, and with this consoling reflection he wrapped his yellow cloak around him, leaned against the wall, and soon after succumbed to the state of semi-watchfulness from which the unexpected event had aroused him.
“Carrambo!” exclaimed the Colonel to his subordinate, when, after looking to the stowage of the plunder, the two men sat together in a well-furnished apartment of the hacienda, with a table, decanters, and glasses between them. “It’s been a long, tedious tramp, hasn’t it? Well, we’ve not wasted our time, nor had our toil for nothing. Come, teniente, fill your glass again, and let us drink to our commercial adventure. Here’s that in the disposal of our goods we may be as successful as in their purchase!”
Right merrily the lieutenant refilled his glass, and responded to the toast of his superior officer.
“I suspect, Roblez,” continued the Colonel, “that you have been all the while wondering how I came to know about this caravan whose spoil is to enrich us – its route – the exact time of its arrival, the strength of its defenders – everything? You think our friend the Horned Lizard gave me all this information.”
“No, I don’t; since that could not well be. How was Horned Lizard to know himself – that is, in time to have sent word to you? In truth, mio Coronel, I am, as you say, in a quandary about all that. I cannot even guess at the explanation.”
“This would give it to you, if you could read; but I know you cannot, mio teniente; your education has been sadly neglected. Never mind, I shall read it for you.”
As the colonel was speaking he had taken from the drawer of a cabinet that stood close by a sheet of paper folded in the form of a letter. It was one, though it bore no postmark. For all that, it looked as if it had travelled far – perchance carried by hand. It had in truth come all the way across the prairies. Its superscription was: —
“El Coronel Miranda, Commandante del Distrito Militario de Albuquerque, Nuevo Mexico.”
Its contents, also in Spanish, translated read thus: —
“My dear Colonel Miranda, – I am about to carry out the promise made to you at our parting. I have my mercantile enterprise in a forward state of readiness for a start over the plains. My caravan will not be a large one, about six or seven waggons with less than a score of men; but the goods I take are valuable in an inverse ratio to their bulk – designed for the ‘ricos’ of your country. I intend taking departure from the frontier town of Van Buren, in the State of Arkansas, and shall go by a new route lately discovered by one of our prairie traders, that leads part way along the Canadian river, by you called ‘Rio de la Canada,’ and skirting the great plain of the Llano Estacado at its upper end. This southern route makes us more independent of the season, so that I shall be able to travel in the fall. If nothing occur to delay me in the route, I shall reach New Mexico about the middle of November, when I anticipate renewing those relations of a pleasant friendship in which you have been all the giver and I all the receiver.
“I send this by one of the spring caravans starting from Independence for Santa Fé, in the hope that it will safely reach you.
“I subscribe myself, dear Colonel Miranda, —
“Your grateful friend, —
“Francis Hamersley.”
“Well, teniente,” said his Colonel, as he refolded the far-fetched epistle, and returned it to the drawer, “do you comprehend matters any clearer now?”
“Clear as the sun that shines over the Llano Estacado,” was the reply of the lieutenant, whose admiration for the executive qualities of his superior officer, along with the bumpers he had imbibed, had now exalted his fancy to a poetical elevation. “Carrai-i! Esta un golpe magnifico! (It’s a splendid stroke!) Worthy of Manuel Armilo himself. Or even the great Santa Anna!”
“A still greater stroke than you think it, for it is double – two birds killed with the same stone. Let us again drink to it!”
The glasses were once more filled, and once more did the associated bandits toast the nefarious enterprise they had so successfully accomplished.
Then Roblez rose to go to the cuartel or barracks, where he had his place of sleeping and abode, bidding buena noche to his colonel.
The latter also bethought him of bed, and, taking a lamp from the table, commenced moving towards his cuarto de camara.
On coming opposite a picture suspended against the sala wall – the portrait of a beautiful girl – he stopped in front, for a moment gazed upon it, and then into a mirror that stood close by.
As if there was something in the glass that reflected its shadow into his very soul, the expression of exultant triumph, so lately depicted upon his face, was all at once swept from it, giving place to a look of blank bitterness.
“One is gone,” he said, in a half-muttered soliloquy; “one part of the stain wiped out – thanks to the Holy Virgin for that. But the other; and she – where, where?”
And with these words he staggered on towards his chamber.
