The Lost Mountain: A Tale of Sonora

This is said after examination of the plain all along the base of the mountain through a field-glass, which Don Estevan habitually carries on his person.

“Therefore,” he continues, “I think it advisable that some five or six ride ahead – those who are best mounted – and make sure that the coast is clear. In case of redskins being there in any formidable numbers, the knowledge of it in time will enable us to form corral, and so better defend ourselves should we be attacked.”

Before becoming a master miner, Don Estevan had been a soldier, and seen service on the Indian frontier, in more than one campaign against the three great hostile tribes, Comanches, Apache, and Navajo. For which reason the gambusino, instead of making light of his counsel, altogether approves of it – of course volunteering to be himself of the reconnoitring party.

In fine, there is another short halt, while the scouts are being selected; half a dozen men of spirit and mettle, whose horses are still strong enough to show speed, should there be Indians and pursuit.

Of the half-dozen, Henry Tresillian is one; he coming up quick to the call. No fear of his horse giving out, or failing to carry him safe back if pursued, and whoever the pursuers. A noble animal of Arab strain it is, coal-black, with a dash of dun-colour between the hips and on either side of the muzzle. Nor shows it signs of distress, as the others, notwithstanding all it has come through. For has not its young master shared with it every ration of water served out along the way, even the last one that morning?

In a few minutes the scouting party is told off, and, after receiving full instructions, starts onward.

The elder Tresillian has made no objection to his son being of it; instead, being rather proud of the spirit the latter is displaying, and follows him with admiring eyes as he rides off.

Still another pair of eyes go after him, giving glances in which pride and fear are strangely commingled. For they are those of Gertrudes Villanueva. She is proud that he, whom her young heart is just learning to love, should possess such courage, while apprehensive of what may come of it.

“Adelante!” calls out the mayor-domo, who has chief charge of the caravan; and once more there is a vigorous wielding of whips, with an objurgation of mules, as the animals move reluctantly and laboriously on.

In twenty minutes after, all is changed with them. Horse and hybrid – every animal in the train – have raised head and pricked up ears, with nostrils distended. Even the horned cattle to rearward have caught the infection, and low loudly in response to the neighing of the horses and the hinneying of the mules. There is a very fracas of noises, like a Bedlam broke loose, the voice of the mayor-domo rising above all as he cries out,

“Guarda, la estampeda!”

And a “stampede” it becomes, all knowing the cause. The animals have scented water, and no longer need whip-lash or cry to urge them on. Instead, teamsters and arrieros find it impossible to restrain them, for it were a struggle against Nature itself. Taking the bits between their teeth, and regardless of rein, horses, mules, all rush simultaneously and madly forward, as if each had a score of gadflies with their venomous probosces buried deep in its body.

A helter-skelter it is, with a loud hullaballoo, the heavily-laden wagons drawn over the ground as light-like and with the velocity of bicycles, and making noise as of thunder. For now, near the mountain’s foot, the plain is bestrewed with stones, some big enough to raise the wheels on high, almost to overturning the vehicles, eliciting agonised cries from the women and children inside them. No more are Indians thought of for the time; enough danger without that, from upsets, broken bones, indeed death.

In the end none of these eventualities arise. Luckily – and more by good luck than guiding – the wagons keep their balance, and they within them their places, till all come to a stand again. While still tearing on, they see before them a disc of water lit up by the last rays of departing sunlight, with half a dozen horsemen – the reconnoitring party – drawn up on its edge, in attitude of wonder at their coming after so soon.

But their animals, still in rush, give no opportunity for explanation. On go they into the lake, horses, mules, and cattle mingled together; nor stop till they are belly-deep, with the water up over their nostrils. No more neighing nor lowing now, but all silent, swilling, and contented.

Chapter Four.

El Ojo de Agua

Morning dawns upon the Lost Mountain, to disclose a scene such as had never before been witnessed in that solitary spot. For never before had wagon, or other wheeled vehicle, approached it. Remote from town or civilised settlement, leagues away from any of the customary routes of travel, the only white men having occasion to visit it had been hunters or gold-seekers, and their visits, like those of angels, few and far between. Red men, however, have sought it more frequently, for it is not far from one of their great war-trails – that leading from the Apache country to the settlements on the Horcasitas, so serving these savages as a convenient halting-place when on raid thither. The reconnoitring party, sent in advance of the caravan, had discovered traces of their presence by the lake’s edge; but none recent, and nothing to signify. There were no fresh tracks upon the meadow-grass, nor the belt of naked sand around the water, save those of wild animals that had come thither to quench their thirst.

In confidence, therefore, the miners made camp, though not negligently or carelessly. The old militario had seen too much campaigning for that, and directed the wagons to be drawn up in a corral of oval shape, tongues and tails united as the links of a chain. Lone-bodied vehicles, the six enclose a considerable space – enough to accommodate all who have need to stay inside. In case of attack it could be still further strengthened by the bales, boxes, and alparejas of the pack-mules. Outside the animals were staked, and are still upon their tethers, though without much concern about their running away. After the long traverse over the dry llanos, and the suffering they have endured, now on such good grass, and beside such sweet water, they will contentedly stay till it please their masters to remove them.

Fires had been kindled the night before, but only for cooking supper; it is summer, and there is no discomfort from cold – heat rather. And now at dawn the fires are being re-lighted with a view to desayuna, and later on breakfast; for, though the caravan had unexpectedly run short of water, its stock of provisions is still unexhausted.

Among the earliest up – nay, the very first – is Pedro Vicente. Not with any intention to take part in culinary operations. Gambusino and guide, he would scorn such menial occupations. His reasons for being so early astir are altogether different and twofold; though but one of them has he made known, and that only to Henry Tresillian. Overnight, ere retiring to rest, he had signified his intention to ascend the Cerro in the morning – soon as there was enough of daylight to make the ascent practicable – in hopes of finding game both of the furred and feathered sorts, he said. For in addition to his métier as guide to the caravan – being a skilled hunter as well as gold-seeker – he holds engagement to supply it with venison, or such other meat commodity as may fall to his gun. For days he has had but little opportunity of showing his hunter skill. On the sterile tract through which they have been passing birds and quadrupeds are scarce, even such as usually inhabit it having gone elsewhere in consequence of the long-continued drought. All the more is he desirous to make up for late deficit, and at least furnish the table of the quality with something fresh. He knows there are game animals on the mountain – a mesa, as already said, level-topped, with trees growing over it, besides water; for there is the fountain’s head, source of the stream and lake below. On the night before, he had spoken of wild sheep as likely to be found above, with antelopes, and possibly a bear or two, also turkeys. Now, in the morning, he is sure about these last, having heard them, as is their wont before sunrise, saluting one another with that sonorous call from which they derive their Mexican name, guajaloté.

These confidences he has imparted to Henry Tresillian, who is to accompany him in the chase, though not from any view of inspiring the latter with its ardour. There is no need; the young Englishman being a hunter by instinct, with a love for natural history as well, and the Lost Mountain promises rich reward for the climbing, in discovery as in sport. Besides, the two have been compagnons de chasse all along the route; habitually together, the fellow-feeling of huntership making such association congenial. So, early as is the Mexican afoot, he beats the English youth by barely a minute of time; the latter seen issuing forth from one of the tents that form part of the encampment, just as the former has crawled out from between the wheels of a wagon, under which, rolled-up in his frezada, he had passed the night.

With just enough light to identify him, Henry Tresillian is seen to be habited in shooting coat, breeches, and gaiters, laced buskins, and a tweed cloth cap; in short, the costume of an English sportsman – shot-belt over the shoulders, and double-barrel in hand – about to attack a pheasant preserve, or go tramping through stubble and swedes. The gambusino himself wears the picturesque dress of his class and country; the gun he carries being a rifle, while the sword-like weapon hanging along his hip is the ever-present macheté– in Sonora sometimes called cortanté.

As, overnight, the programme had been all arranged, their interchange of speech at present has only reference to something in the way of desayuna before setting out. This they find ready and near; at the central camp fire now blazing up, where several of the women, “whisks” in hand, are bending over pots of chocolate, stirring the substantial liquid to a creamy froth.

A taza of it is handed to each of the “cazadores,” with a “tortilla enchilada,” accompanied by a graceful word of welcome. Then, emptying the cups, and chewing up the tough, leatherlike maize cakes, the hunters slip quietly out of camp, and set their faces for the Cerro.

The ascent, commenced almost immediately, is by a ravine – a sort of gorge or chine worn out by the water from the spring-head above and disintegrating rains throughout the long ages. They find it steep as a staircase, though not winding as one; instead, trending straight up from its debouchment on the plain to the summit level, between slopes, these with grim, rocky façade, still more precipitous. Down its bottom cascades the stream – a tiny rivulet now, but in rain-storms a torrent – and along this lies the path, the only one by which the Cerro can be ascended, as the gambusino already knows.

“There’s no other,” he says, as they are clambering upward, “where a man could make the ascent, unless with a Jacob’s ladder let down to him. All around, the cliff is as steep as the shaft of a mine. Even the wild sheep can’t scale it, and if we find any on the summit – and it’s to be hoped we shall – they must either have been bred there, or gone up this way. Guarda!” he adds, in exclamation, as he sees the impulsive English youth bounding on rather recklessly. “Have a care! Don’t disturb the stones; they may go rattling down and smash somebody below.”

“By Jove! I didn’t think of that,” returns he thus cautioned, turning pale at thought of how he might have endangered the lives of those dear to him; then ascending more slowly, and with the care enjoined upon him.

In due time they arrive at the head of the gorge, there stopping to take breath. Only for an instant, when they proceed on, now no longer in a climb, the path thence leading over ground level as the plain itself; but still by the rivulet’s edge, through a tangle of trees and bushes.

At some two hundred yards from the head of the gorge they come into an opening, the Mexican as he enters it exclaiming:

“El ojo de agua!”

Chapter Five.

Los Guajalotes

The phrase, “ojo de agua” (the water’s eye), is simply the Mexican name for a spring; which Henry Tresillian needs not to be told, being already acquainted with the pretty poetical appellation. And he now sees the thing itself but a few paces ahead, gurgling up in a little circular basin, and sending off the stream which supplies the lake below.

In an instant they are upon its edge, to find it clear as crystal, the gambusino saying, as he unslings his drinking-cup of cow’s horn,

“I can’t resist taking a swill of it, notwithstanding the gallons I had swallowed overnight. After such a long spell of short-water rations, one feels as though he could never again get enough.” Then filling the horn, and almost instantly emptying it, he concludes with the exclamation “Delicioso!”

His companion drinks also, but from a cup of solid silver; vessels of this metal, even of gold, being aught but rare among the master-miners of Sonora.

They are about to continue on, when lo! a flock of large birds by the edge of the open. On the ground these are – having just come out from among the bushes – moving leisurely along, with beaks now and then lowered to the earth; in short, feeding as turkeys in a pasture field. And turkeys they are, the Mexican saying in a whisper:

“Los guajalotes!”

So like are they to the domestic bird – only better shaped and every way more beautiful – that Henry Tresillian has no difficulty in identifying them as its wild progenitors. One of superior size, an old cock, is at their head, striding to and fro in all the pride of his glittering plumage, which, under the beams of the new-risen sun, shows hues vivid and varied as those of the rainbow. A very sultan he seems, followed by a train of sultanas and their attendants; for there are young birds in the flock, fledglings, that differ in appearance from the old ones.

Suddenly the grand satrap erects his head, and with neck craned out, utters a note of alarm. Too late. “Bang – bang!” from the double-barrel – the sharper crack of the rifle sounding simultaneously – and the old cock, with three of his satellites, lies prostrate upon the earth, the rest taking flight with terrified screeches, and a clatter of wings loud as the “whirr” of a threshing machine.

“Not a bad beginning,” quietly observes the gambusino, as they stand over the fallen game. “Is it, señorito?”

“Anything but that,” answers the young Englishman, delighted at having secured such a good bottom for their bag. “But what are we to do with them? We can’t carry them along.”

“Certainly not,” rejoins the Mexican. “Nor need. Let them lie where they are till we come back. But no,” he adds, correcting himself. “That will never do. There are wolves up here, no doubt – certainly coyotes, if no other kind – and on return we might find only feathers. So we must string them up out of reach.”

The stringing up is a matter which occupies only a few minutes’ time; done by one leg thrust through the opened sinew of the other to form a loop; then the birds hoisted aloft, and hung upon the up-curving arms of a tall pitahaya.

“And now, on!” says the gambusino, after re-loading guns. “Let us hope we may come across something in the four-legged line, big enough to give everybody a bit of fresh meat for dinner. Likely we’ll have to tramp a good way before sighting any; the report of our guns will have frighted both birds and beasts, and sent all to the farthest side of the mesa. But no matter for that. I want to go there direct, and at once, for a reason, muchacho, I’ve not yet made known to you.”

While speaking, an anxious expression has shown itself on the gambusino’s face, which, taken in connection with his last words, leads Henry Tresillian to suspect something in, or on, his mind, beside the desire to kill game. Moreover, before leaving the camp he had noticed that the Mexican seemed to act in a manner more excited than was his wont – as if in a great hurry to get away. That, no doubt, for the reason he now hints at; though what it is the young Englishman cannot even give a guess.

“May I know it now?” he asks, with some eagerness, noting the grave look.

“Certainly you may, and shall,” frankly responds the Mexican. “I would have told you sooner, and the others as well, but for not being sure about it. I didn’t like to cause an alarm in the camp without good reason. And I hope still there’s none. After all it may not have been smoke.”

“Smoke! What?”

“What I saw, or thought I saw, yesterday evening, just after we arrived by the lake’s edge.”

“Where?”

“To the north-east – a long way off.”

“But if it was a smoke, what would that signify?”

“In this part of the world, much. It might mean danger; ay, death.”

“You astonish – mystify me, Señor Vicente. How could it mean that?”

“There’s no mystery in it, muchacho. Where smoke is seen there should be fire; and a fire on these llanos is likely to be one with Indians around it. Now do you understand the danger I’m thinking of?”

“I do. But I thought there were no Indians in this part of the country, except the Opatas; and they are Christianised, dwelling in towns.”

“True, all that. But the Opata towns are far from here, and in an entirely different direction – the very opposite. If smoke it was, the fire that made it wasn’t one kindled by Opatas, but men who only resemble them in the colour of their skin – Indians, too.”

“What Indians do you suspect?”

“Los Apaches.”

“Danger indeed, if they be in the neighbourhood.” The young Englishman has been long enough in Sonora to have acquaintance with the character of these cruel savages. “But I hope they’re not,” he adds, trustfully, still with some apprehension, as his thoughts turn to those below.

“That hope I heartily echo,” rejoins the Mexican, “for if they be about, we’ve got to look out for the skin of our heads. But come, muchacho mio! Don’t let us be down in the mouth till we’re sure there is a danger. As I’ve said, I’m not even sure of having seen smoke at all. It might have been a dust-whirl, just as I noticed the thing, the estampeda commenced; and after it the rush for water, which of course took off my attention. When that was over, and I again turned my eyes north-eastward, it was too dark to distinguish smoke or anything else. I then looked for a light all along the sky-line, and also several times during the night – luckily to see none. For all I can’t help having fears. A man who’s once been prisoner to the Apaches never travels through a district where they are like to be encountered without some apprehension. Mine ought to be of the keenest. I’ve not only been their prisoner, but rather roughly handled, as no doubt you’ll admit after looking at this.”

Saying which, the Mexican opens his shirt-front, laying bare his breast; on which appears a disc, bearing rude resemblance to a “death’s head,” burnt deep into the skin.

“They gave me that brand,” he continues, “just by way of amusing themselves. They meant to have further diversion out of it by using me as a target, and it for a centre mark at one of their shooting matches. Luckily, before that came off, I found the chance of giving them leg-bail. Now, muchacho, you’ll better understand my anxiety to be up here so early, and why I want to push on to the other end. Vamonos!”

Shouldering their guns, they proceed onward; now at slower pace, their progress obstructed by thick-growing bushes and trees, with llianas interlacing. For beyond the spring there is neither stream nor path, save here and there a slight trace, often tortuous, which tells of the passage of wild animals wandering to and fro. The hunters are pleased to see it thus; still more when the Mexican, noting some hoof-marks in a spot of soft ground, pronounces them tracks of the carnero cimmaron.

“I thought we’d find some of the bighorn gentry up here,” he says; “and if all the caravan don’t this day dine on roast mutton, it’ll be because Pedro Vicente isn’t the proper man to be its purveyor. Still, we mustn’t stop to go after the sheep now. True, we’ve begun the day hunting, but before proceeding farther with that, we must make sure we shan’t have to end it fighting. Ssh!”

The sibillatory exclamation has reference to a noise heard a little way off, like the stroke of a hoof upon hard turf, several times rapidly repeated. And simultaneous with it another sound, as the snort or bark of some animal.

“That’s a carnero, now!” says the Mexican, sotto voce; as he speaks, coming to a stop and laying hold of the other’s arm to restrain him. “Since the game offers itself without going after, or out of our way, we may as well secure a head or two. Like the turkeys, it can be strung up till our return.”

Of course his compagnon de chasse is of the same mind. He but longs to empty his double-barrel again, all the more at such grand game, and rejoins, saying, “Just so; it can.”

Without further speech they stalk cautiously forward, to reach the edge of another opening, and there behold another flock – not of birds, but quadrupeds. Deer they might seem at the first glance, to eyes unacquainted with them; and for such Henry Tresillian might mistake them, but that they show no antlers; instead, horns of a character proclaiming them sheep.

Sheep they are, wild ones, different from the domesticated animal as greyhound from dachshund. No short legs nor low bodies theirs; no bushy tails, nor tangle of wool to encumber them. Instead, coats clean and smooth, with limbs long, sinewy, and supple as those of stag itself. Several pairs of horns are visible in the flock, one pair spirally curving much larger than any of the others; indeed, of such dimensions, and seeming weight, as to make it a wonder how the old ram, their owner, can hold up his head. Yet is it he who is holding head highest; the same who had snorted, hammering the ground with his hoof.

He has done so, repeatedly, since; the last time to be the last in his life. Through the leafy branches, cautiously parted, shoots out a double jet of flame and smoke; three cracks are heard; then again there is dead game on the ground.

This time, however, counting less in heads; only one – that carrying the grand curvature of horns. Alone the leader of the flock has fallen to the second fusillade, killed by the rifle’s bullet. For the shot from the double-barrel, though hitting too, has glanced off the thick felt-like coats of the carneros as from a corslet of steel.

“Carrai!” exclaims the gambusino, with a vexed air, as they step up to the fallen quarry. “This time we haven’t done so well – in fact, worse than nothing.”

“But why?” queries the young Englishman, in wonder at the other’s strange words and ways, after having made such a big kill.

“Why, you ask, señorito! Don’t your nostrils tell you? Mil diablos! how the brute stinks!”

Truth he speaks, as his hunting companion, now standing over the dead body of the bighorn, can well perceive – sensible of an offensive odour arising from it as that of ram in the rutting season.

“What a fool I’ve been to spend bullet upon him!” continues the Mexican, without awaiting rejoinder. “Nor was it his great bulk or horns that tempted me. No; all through thinking of that other thing, which made me careless which of them I aimed at.”

“What other thing?”

“The smoke. Well, it’s no use crying over spilt milk nor any to bother more about the brute. It’s only fit food for coyotes; and the sooner they get it into their bellies the better. Faugh! Let us away from it.”

Chapter Six.

A Homeric Repast

Early as are the white men astir, yet earlier are the red ones. For the Coyoteros, like the animal from which they derive their tribal name, do more of their prowling by night than by day. Moreover, it is the sultry season, and they design reaching Nauchampa-tepetl before the sun gets so high and hot as to make travelling uncomfortable. Even savages are not averse to comfort; though these are now thinking more about that of their horses than their own. They are on an expedition that will need keeping the animals up to their best strength; and journeying in the noon hours would distress and pull them down.