The Scalp Hunters

The leech disappeared, and the landlord came next. He, like the former, made earnest entreaty to prevent me from setting forth. He offered a variety of reasons to detain me.

“Do not go; for your life, señor, do not!”

“And why, good José?” I inquired.

“Oh, señor, los Indios bravos! los Navajoes! carambo!”

“But I am not going into the Indian country. I travel down the river, through the towns of New Mexico.”

“Ah! señor! the towns! no hay seguridad. No, no; there is safety nowhere from the Navajo. Hay novedades: news this very day. Polvidera; pobre polvidera! It was attacked on Sunday last. On Sunday, señor, when they were all en la misa. Pues, señor, the robbers surrounded the church; and oh, carambo! they dragged out the poor people – men, women and children! Pues, señor; they kill the men: and the women: Dios de mi alma!”

“Well, and the women?”

“Oh, señor! they are all gone; they were carried to the mountains by the savages. Pobres mugeres!”

“It is a sad story, truly; but the Indians, I understand, only make these forays at long intervals. I am not likely to meet with them now. At all events, José, I have made up my mind to run the risk.”

“But, señor,” continued José, lowering his voice to a confidential tone, “there are other ladrones besides the Indians: white ones, muchos, muchissimos! Ay, indeed, mi amo, white robbers; blancos, blancos y muy feos, carrai!”

And José closed his fingers as if clutching some imaginary object.

This appeal to my fears was in vain. I answered it by pointing to my revolvers and rifle, and to the well-filled belt of my henchman Gode.

When the Mexican Boniface saw that I was determined to rob him of all the guests he had in his house, he retired sullenly, and shortly after returned with his bill. Like that of the medico, it was out of all proportion; but I could not help myself, and paid it.

By grey dawn I was in my saddle; and, followed by Gode and a couple of heavily packed mules, I rode out of the ill-favoured town, and took the road for the Rio Abajo.

Chapter Ten.

The Del Norte

For days we journey down the Del Norte. We pass through numerous villages, many of them types of Santa Fé. We cross the zequias and irrigating canals, and pass along fields of bright green maize plants. We see vineyards and grand haciendas. These appear richer and more prosperous as we approach the southern part of the province, the Rio Abajo.

In the distance, both east and west, we descry dark mountains rolled up against the sky. These are the twin ranges of the Rocky Mountains. Long spurs trend towards the river, and in places appear to close up the valley. They add to the expression of many a beautiful landscape that opens before us as we move onward.

We see picturesque costumes in the villages and along the highways: men dressed in the chequered serape or the striped blankets of the Navajoes; conical sombreros with broad brims; calzoneros of velveteen, with their rows of shining “castletops” and fastened at the waist by the jaunty sash. We see mangas and tilmas, and men wearing the sandal, as in Eastern lands. On the women we observe the graceful rebozo, the short nagua, and the embroidered chemisette.

We see rude implements of husbandry: the creaking carreta, with its block wheels; the primitive plough of the forking tree-branch, scarcely scoring the soil; the horn-yoked oxen; the goad; the clumsy hoe in the hands of the peon serf: these are all objects that are new and curious to our eyes, and that indicate the lowest order of agricultural knowledge.

Along the roads we meet numerous atajos, in charge of their arrieros. We observe the mules, small, smooth, light-limbed, and vicious. We glance at the heavy alparejas and bright worsted apishamores. We notice the tight wiry mustangs, ridden by the arrieros; the high-peaked saddles and hair bridles; the swarth faces and pointed beards of the riders; the huge spurs that tinkle at every step; the exclamations, “Hola, mula! malraya! vaya!” We notice all these, and they tell us we are journeying in the land of the Hispano-American.

Under other circumstances these objects would have interested me. At that time, they appeared to me like the pictures of a panorama, or the changing scenes of a continuous dream. As such have they left their impressions on my memory. I was under the incipient delirium of fever.

It was as yet only incipient; nevertheless, it distorted the images around me, and rendered their impressions unnatural and wearisome. My wound began to pain me afresh, and the hot sun, and the dust, and the thirst, with the miserable accommodations of New Mexican posadas, vexed me to an excess of endurance.

On the fifth day after leaving Santa Fé, we entered the wretched little pueblo of Parida. It was my intention to have remained there all night, but it proved a ruffian sort of place, with meagre chances of comfort, and I moved on to Socorro. This is the last inhabited spot in New Mexico, as you approach the terrible desert, the Jornada del Muerte.

Gode had never made the journey, and at Parida I had obtained one thing that we stood in need of, a guide. He had volunteered; and as I learnt that it would be no easy task to procure one at Socorro, I was fain to take him along. He was a coarse, shaggy-looking customer, and I did not at all like his appearance; but I found, on reaching Socorro, that what I had heard was correct. No guide could be hired on any terms, so great was their dread of the Jornada and its occasional denizens, the Apaches.

Socorro was alive with Indian rumours, “novedades.” The Indians had fallen upon an atajo near the crossing of Fra Cristobal, and murdered the arrieros to a man. The village was full of consternation at the news. The people dreaded an attack, and thought me mad, when I made known my intention of crossing the Jornada.

I began to fear they would frighten my guide from his engagement, but the fellow stood out staunchly, still expressing his willingness to accompany us.

Without the prospect of meeting the Apache savages, I was but ill prepared for the Jornada. The pain of my wound had increased, and I was fatigued and burning with fever.

But the caravan had passed through Socorro only three days before, and I was in hopes of overtaking my old companions before they could leave El Paso. This determined me to proceed in the morning, and I made arrangements for an early start.

Gode and I were awake before dawn. My attendant went out to summon the guide and saddle our animals. I remained in the house, making preparations for a cup of coffee before starting. I was assisted by the landlord of the posada, who had risen, and was stalking about in his serape.

While thus engaged I was startled by the voice of Gode calling from without, “Von maître! von maître! the rascal have him run vay!”

“What do you mean? Who has run away?”

“Oh, monsieur! la Mexicaine, with von mule, has robb, and run vay. Allons, monsieur, allons!”

I followed the Canadian to the stable with a feeling of anxiety. My horse – but no – thank Heaven, he was there! One of the mules, the macho, was gone. It was the one which the guide had ridden from Parida.

“Perhaps he is not off yet,” I suggested. “He may still be in the town.”

We sent and went in all directions to find him, but to no purpose. We were relieved at length from all doubts by the arrival of some early market men, who had met such a man as our guide far up the river, and riding a mule at full gallop.

What should we do? Follow him to Parida? No; that would be a journey for nothing. I knew that he would not be fool enough to go that way. Even if he did, it would have been a fool’s errand to seek for justice there, so I determined on leaving it over until the return of the traders would enable me to find the thief, and demand his punishment from the authorities.

My regrets at the loss of my macho were not unmixed with a sort of gratitude to the fellow when I laid my hand upon the nose of my whimpering charger. What hindered him from taking the horse instead of the mule? It is a question I have never been able to answer to this day. I can only account for the fellow’s preference for the mule on the score of downright honesty, or the most perverse stupidity.

I made overtures for another guide. I applied to the Boniface of Socorro, but without success. He knew no mozo who would undertake the journey.

“Los Apaches! los Apaches!”

I appealed to the peons and loiterers of the plaza.

“Los Apaches!”

Wherever I went, I was answered with “Los Apaches,” and a shake of the forefinger in front of the nose – a negative sign over all Mexico.

“It is plain, Gode, we can get no guide. We must try this Jornada without one. What say you, voyageur?”

“I am agree, mon maître; allons!”

And, followed by my faithful compagnon, with our remaining pack-mule, I took the road that leads to the desert. That night we slept among the ruins of Valverde; and the next morning, after an early start, embarked upon the “Journey of Death.”

Chapter Eleven.

The “Journey of Death.”

In two hours we reached the crossing at Fra Cristobal. Here the road parts from the river, and strikes into the waterless desert. We plunge through the shallow ford, coming out on the eastern bank. We fill our “xuages” with care, and give our animals as much as they will drink. After a short halt to refresh ourselves, we ride onward.

We have not travelled far before we recognise the appropriate name of this terrible journey. Scattered along the path we see the bones of many animals. There are human bones too! That white spheroidal mass, with its grinning rows and serrated sutures, that is a human skull. It lies beside the skeleton of a horse. Horse and rider have fallen together. The wolves have stripped them at the same time. They have dropped down on their thirsty track, and perished in despair, although water, had they known it, was within reach of another effort!

We see the skeleton of a mule, with the alpareja still buckled around it, and an old blanket, flapped and tossed by many a whistling wind.

Other objects, that have been brought there by human aid, strike the eye as we proceed. A bruised canteen, the fragments of a glass bottle, an old hat, a piece of saddle-cloth, a stirrup red with rust, a broken strap, with many like symbols, are strewn along our path, speaking a melancholy language.

We are still only on the border of the desert. We are fresh. How when we have travelled over and neared the opposite side? Shall we leave such souvenirs?

We are filled with painful forebodings, as we look across the arid waste that stretches indefinitely before us. We do not dread the Apache. Nature herself is the enemy we fear.

Taking the waggon-tracks for our guide, we creep on. We grow silent, as if we were dumb. The mountains of Cristobal sink behind us, and we are almost “out of sight of land.” We can see the ridges of the Sierra Blanca away to the eastward; but before us, to the south, the eye encounters no mark or limit.

We push forward without guide or any object to indicate our course. We are soon in the midst of bewilderment. A scene of seeming enchantment springs up around us. Vast towers of sand, borne up by the whirlblast, rise vertically to the sky. They move to and fro over the plain. They are yellow and luminous. The sun glistens among their floating crystals. They move slowly, but they are approaching us.

I behold them with feelings of awe. I have heard of travellers lifted in their whirling vortex, and dashed back again from fearful heights.

The pack-mule, frightened at the phenomenon, breaks the lasso and scampers away among the ridges. Gode has galloped in pursuit. I am alone.

Nine or ten gigantic columns now appear, stalking over the plain and circling gradually around me. There is something unearthly in the sight. They resemble creatures of a phantom world. They seem endowed with demon life.

Two of them approach each other. There is a short, ghastly struggle that ends in their mutual destruction. The sand is precipitated to the earth, and the dust floats off in dun, shapeless masses.

Several have shut me within a space, and are slowly closing upon me. My dog howls and barks. The horse cowers with affright, and shivers between my thighs, uttering terrified expressions.

My brain reels. Strange objects appear. The fever is upon me! The laden currents clash in their wild torsion. I am twisted around and torn from my saddle. My eyes, mouth, and ears are filled with dust. Sand, stones, and branches strike me spitefully in the face; and I am flung with violence to the earth!

I lay for a moment where I had fallen, half-buried and blind. I was neither stunned nor hurt; and I began to grope around me, for as yet I could see nothing. My eyes were full of sand, and pained me exceedingly. Throwing out my arms, I felt for my horse; I called him by name. A low whimper answered me. I staggered towards the spot, and laid my hands upon him; he was down upon his flank. I seized the bridle, and he sprang up; but I could feel that he was shivering like an aspen.

I stood by his head for nearly half an hour, rubbing the dust from my eyes; and waiting until the simoom might settle away. At length the atmosphere grew clearer, and I could see the sky; but the sand still drifted along the ridges, and I could not distinguish the surface of the plain. There were no signs of Gode.

I mounted and commenced riding over the plain in search of my comrade. I had no idea of what direction he had taken.

I made a circuit of a mile or so, still calling his name as I went. I received no reply, and could see no traces upon the ground. I rode for an hour, galloping from ridge to ridge, but still without meeting any signs of my comrade or the mules. I pulled up in despair. I had shouted until I was faint and hoarse. I could search no longer.

I was thirsty, and would drink. O God! my “xuages” are broken! The pack-mule has carried off the water-skin.

The crushed calabash still hung upon its thong; but the last drops it had contained were trickling down the flanks of my horse. I knew that I might be fifty miles from water!

You cannot understand the fearfulness of this situation. You live in a northern zone, in a land of pools and streams and limpid springs. How unlike the denizen of the desert, the voyageur of the prairie sea! Water is his chief care, his ever-present solicitude; water the divinity he worships. Without water, even in the midst of plenty, plenty of food, he must die. In the wild western desert it is the thirst that kills. No wonder I was filled with despair. I believed myself to be about the middle of the Jornada. I knew that I could never reach the other side without water. The yearning had already begun. My throat and tongue felt shrivelled and parched.

I had lost all knowledge of the course I should take. The mountains, hitherto my guide, seemed to trend in every direction. Their numerous spurs puzzled me.

I remembered hearing of a spring, the Ojo del Muerto, that was said to lie westward of the trail. Sometimes there was water in the spring. On other occasions travellers had reached it only to find the fountain dried up, and leave their bones upon its banks. So ran the tales in Socorro.

I headed my horse westward. I would seek the spring, and, should I fail to find it, push on to the river. This was turning out of my course; but I must reach the water and save my life.

I sat in my saddle, faint and choking, leaving my animal to go at will. I had lost the energy to guide him.

He went many miles westward, for the sun told me the course. I was suddenly roused from my stupor. A glad sight was before me. A lake! – a lake shining like crystal. Was I certain I saw it? Could it be the mirage? No. Its outlines were too sharply defined. It had not that filmy, whitish appearance which distinguishes the latter phenomenon. No. It was not the mirage. It was water!

I involuntarily pressed the spur against the side of my horse; but he needed not that. He had already eyed the water, and sprang forward, inspirited with new energy. The next moment he was in it up to his flanks.

I flung myself from the saddle with a plunge. I was about to lift the water in my concave palms, when the actions of my horse attracted me. Instead of drinking greedily, he stood tossing his head with snorts of disappointment. My dog, too, refused to lap, and ran along the shore whining and howling.

I knew what this meant; but, with that common obstinacy which refuses all testimony but the evidence of the senses, I lifted some drops in my hand, and applied them to my lips. They were briny and burning. I might have known this before reaching the lake, for I had ridden through a salt incrustation that surrounded it like a belt of snow. But my brain was fevered; my reason had left me.

It was of no use remaining where I was. I climbed back into my saddle, and rode along the shore, over fields of snow-white salt. Here and there my horse’s hoof rang against bleaching bones of animals, the remains of many a victim. Well was this lake named the Laguna del Muerto – the “Lake of Death!”

Reaching its southern point, I again headed westward, in hopes of striking the river.

From this time until a later period, when I found myself in a far different scene, I have no distinct memories.

I remember dismounting on a high bank. I must have travelled unconsciously for hours before, for the sun was low down on the horizon as I alighted. It was a very high bank – a precipice – and below me I saw a beautiful river sweeping onward through groves of emerald greenness. I thought there were many birds fluttering in the groves, and their voices rang in delicious melody. There was fragrance on the air, and the scene below me seemed an Elysium. I thought that around where I stood all was bleak, and barren, and parched with intolerable heat. I was tortured with a slakeless thirst that grew fiercer as I gazed on the flowing water. These were real incidents. All this was true.

I must drink. I must to the river. It is cool, sweet water. Oh! I must drink. What! A horrid cliff! No; I will not go down there. I can descend more easily here. Who are these forms? Who are you, sir? Ah! it is you, my brave Moro; and you, Alp. Come! come! Follow me! Down; down to the river! Ah! again that accursed cliff! Look at the beautiful water! It smiles. It ripples on, on, on! Let us drink. No, not yet; we cannot yet. We must go farther. Ugh! Such a height to leap from! But we must drink, one and all. Come, Gode! Come, Moro, old friend! Alp, come on! We shall reach it; we shall drink. Who is Tantalus? Ha! ha! Not I; not I! Stand back, fiends! Do not push me over! Back! Back, I say! Oh!

Part of all this was a reality; part was a dream, a dream that bore some resemblance to the horrors of a first intoxication.

Chapter Twelve.

Zoe

I lay tracing the figures upon the curtains. They were scenes of the olden time – mailed knights, helmed and mounted, dashing at each other with couched lances, or tumbling from their horses, pierced by the spear. Other scenes there were: noble dames, sitting on Flemish palfreys, and watching the flight of the merlin hawk. There were pages in waiting, and dogs of curious and extinct breeds held in the leash. Perhaps these never existed except in the dreams of some old-fashioned artist; but my eye followed their strange shapes with a sort of half-idiotic wonder.

Metallic rods upheld the curtains; rods that shone brightly, and curved upwards, forming a canopy. My eyes ran along these rods, scanning their configuration, and admiring, as a child admires, the regularity of their curves. I was not in my own land. These things were strange to me. “Yet,” thought I, “I have seen something like them before, but where? Oh! this I know, with its broad stripes and silken texture; it is a Navajo blanket! Where was I last? In New Mexico? Yes. Now I remember: the Jornada! but how came I?

“Can I untwist this? It is close woven; it is wool, fine wool. No, I cannot separate a thread from —

“My fingers! how white and thin they are! and my nails, blue, and long as the talons of a bird! I have a beard! I feel it on my chin. What gave me a beard? I never wear it; I will shave it off – ha! my moustache!”

I was wearied, and slept again.

Once more my eyes were tracing the figures upon the curtains: the knights and dames, the hounds, hawks, and horses. But my brain had become clearer, and music was flowing into it. I lay silent, and listened.

The voice was a female’s. It was soft and finely modulated. Someone played upon a stringed instrument. I recognised the tones of the Spanish harp, but the song was French, a song of Normandy; and the words were in the language of that romantic land. I wondered at this, for my consciousness of late events was returning; and I knew that I was far from France.

The light was streaming over my couch; and, turning my face to the front, I saw that the curtains were drawn aside.

I was in a large room, oddly but elegantly furnished. Human figures were before me, seated and standing.

After looking steadily for a while, my vision became more distinct and reliable; and I saw that there were but three persons in the room, a man and two females.

I remained silent, not certain but that the scene before me was only some new phase of my dream. My eyes wandered from one of the living figures to another, without attracting the attention of any of them.

They were all in different attitudes, and occupied differently.

Nearest me was a woman of middle age, seated upon a low ottoman. The harp I had heard was before her, and she continued to play. She must have been, I thought, when young, a woman of extreme beauty. She was still beautiful in a certain sense. The noble features were there, though I could perceive that they had been scathed by more than ordinary suffering of the mind.

She was a Frenchwoman: an ethnologist could have told that at a glance. Those lines, the characteristics of her highly gifted race, were easily traceable. I thought there was a time when that face had witched many a heart with its smiles. There were no smiles on it now, but a deep yet intellectual expression of melancholy. This I perceived, too, in her voice, in her song, in every note that vibrated from the strings of the instrument.

My eye wandered farther. A man of more than middle age stood by the table, near the centre of the room. His face was turned towards me, and his nationality was as easily determined as that of the lady. The high, florid cheeks, the broad front, the prominent chin, the small green cap with its long peak and conical crown, the blue spectacles, were all characteristics. He was a German.

His occupation was also characteristic of his nationality. Before him were strewed over the table, and upon the floor, the objects of his study – plants and shrubs of various species. He was busy with these, classifying and carefully laying them out between the leaves of his portfolio. It was evident that the old man was a botanist.

A glance to the right, and the naturalist and his labours were no longer regarded. I was looking upon the loveliest object that ever came before my eyes, and my heart bounded within me, as I strained forward in the intensity of its admiration.

Yet it was not a woman that held my gaze captive, but a child – a girl – a maid – standing upon the threshold of womanhood, ready to cross it at the first summons of Love!

My eyes, delighted, revelled along the graceful curves that outlined the beautiful being before me. I thought I had seen the face somewhere. I had, but a moment before, while looking upon that of the elder lady. They were the same face – using a figure of speech – the type transmitted from mother to daughter: the same high front and facial angle, the same outline of the nose, straight as a ray of light, with the delicate spiral-like curve of the nostril which meets you in the Greek medallion. Their hair, too, was alike in colour, golden; though, in that of the mother, the gold showed an enamel of silver.

I will desist and spare details, which to you may be of little interest. In return, do me the favour to believe, that the being who impressed me then and for ever was beautiful, was lovely.

“Ah! it wod be ver moch kindness if madame and ma’m’selle wod play la Marseillaise, la grande Marseillaise. What say mein liebe fraulein!”