The Death Shot: A Story Retold

After entering it, the sisters make stop, and for a while stand surveying the scene. The moon at full, coursing through a cloudless sky, flings her soft light upon gorgeous flowers with corollas but half-closed, in the sultry southern night giving out their fragrance as by day. The senses of sight and smell are not the only ones gratified; that of hearing is also charmed with the song of the czentzontle, the Mexican nightingale. One of these birds perched upon a branch, and pouring forth its love-lay in loud passionate strain, breaks off at sight of them. Only for a short interval is it silent; then resuming its lay, as if convinced it has nought to fear from such fair intruders. Its song is not strange to their ears, though there are some notes they have not hitherto heard. It is their own mocking-bird of the States, introducing into its mimic minstrelsy certain variations, the imitations of sounds peculiar to Texas.

After having listened to it for a short while, the girls move on down the centre walk, now under the shadow of trees, anon emerging into the moonlight; which shimmering on their white evening robes, and reflecting the sparkle of their jewellery, produces a pretty effect.

The garden ground slopes gently backward; and about half-way between the house and the bottom wall is, or has been, a fountain. The basin is still there, and with water in it, trickling over its edge. But the jet no longer plays, and the mason-work shows greatly dilapidated. So also the seats and statues around, some of the latter yet standing, others broken off, and lying alongside their pedestals.

Arriving at this spot, the sisters again stop, and for a time stand contemplating the ruins; the younger making a remark, suggested by a thought of their grandeur gone.

“Fountains, statues, seats under shade trees, every luxury to be got out of a garden! What Sybarites the Holy Fathers must have been!”

“Truly so,” assents Helen. “They seem to have made themselves quite comfortable; and whatever their morals, it must be admitted they displayed good taste in landscape gardening, with an eye on good living as well. They must have been very fond of fruit, and a variety of it – judging by the many sorts of trees they’ve planted.”

“So much the better for us,” gleefully replies Jessie. “We shall have the benefit of their industry, when the fruit season comes round. Won’t it be a grand thing when we get the walks gravelled, these statues restored, and that fountain once more in full play. Luis has promised me it shall be done, soon as the cotton crop is in. Oh! it will be a Paradise of a place!”

“I like it better as it is.”

“You do. Why?”

“Ah! that you cannot understand. You do not know – I hope never will – what it is to live only in the past. This place has had a past, like myself, once smiling; and now like me all desolation.”

“O sister! do not speak so. It pains me – indeed it does. Besides your words only go half-way. As you say, it’s had a smiling past, and’s going to have a smiling future. And so will you sis. I’m determined to have it all laid out anew, in as good style as it ever was – better. Luis shall do it – must, when he marries, me– if not before.”

To the pretty bit of bantering Helen’s only answer is a sigh, with a sadder expression, as from some fresh pang shooting through her heart. It is even this; for, once again, she cannot help contrasting her own poor position with the proud one attained by her sister. She knows that Dupré is in reality master of all around, as Jessie will be mistress, she herself little better than their dependant. No wonder the thought should cause her humiliation, or that, with a spirit imperious as her’s, she should feel it acutely. Still, in her crushed heart there is no envy at her sister’s good fortune. Could Charles Clancy come to life again, now she knows him true – were he but there to share with her the humblest hut in Texas, all the splendours, all the grandeurs of earth, could not add to that happiness, nor give one emotion more.

After her enthusiastic outburst, to which there has been no rejoinder, Jessie continues on toward the bottom of the garden, giving way to pleasant fancies, dreams of future designs, with her fan playfully striking at the flowers as she passes them.

In silence Helen follows; and no word is exchanged between them till they reach the lower end; when Jessie, turning round, the two are face to face. The place, where they have stopped is another opening with seats and statues, admitting the moonlight. By its bright beam the younger sister sees anguish depicted on the countenance of the older.

With a thought that her last words have caused or contributed to this, she is about to add others that may remove it. But before she can speak, Helen makes a gesture that holds her silent.

Near the spot where they are standing two trees overshadow the walk, their boughs meeting across it. Both are emblematic – one symbolising the most joyous hour of existence, the other its saddest. They are an orange, and a cypress. The former is in bloom, as it always is; the latter only in leaf, without a blossom on its branches.

Helen, stepping between them, and extending an arm to each, plucks from the one a sprig, from the other a flower. Raising the orange blossom between her white fingers, more attenuated than of yore, she plants it amid Jessie’s golden tresses. At the same time she sets the cypress sprig behind the plaits of her own raven hair; as she does so, saying: —

“That for you, sister – this for me. We are now decked as befits us – as we shall both soon be —you for the bridal, I for the tomb!”

The words, seeming but too prophetic, pierce Jessie’s heart as arrow with poisoned barb. In an instant, her joy is gone, sunk into the sorrow of her sister. Herself sinking upon that sister’s bosom, with arms around her neck, and tears falling thick and fast over her swan-white shoulders.

Never more than now has her heart overflowed with compassion, for never as now has Helen appeared to suffer so acutely. As she stood, holding in one hand the symbol of bright happy life, in the other the dark emblem of death, she looked the very personification of sorrow. With her magnificent outline of form, and splendid features, all the more marked in their melancholy, she might have passed for its divinity. The ancient sculptors would have given much for such a model, to mould the statue of Despair.

Chapter Forty Eight.

A blank day

On the frontier every settlement has its professional hunter. Often several, seldom less than two or three; their métier being to supply the settlers with meat and game – venison, the standing dish – now and then bear hams, much relished – and, when the place is upon prairie-land, the flesh of the antelope and buffalo. The wild turkey, too – grandest of all game birds – is on the professional hunter’s list for the larder; the lynx and panther he will kill for their pelts; but squirrels, racoons, rabbits, and other such “varmints,” he disdains to meddle with, leaving them to the amateur sportsman, and the darkey.

Usually the professional votary of Saint Hubert is of solitary habit, and prefers stalking alone. There are some, however, of more social inclining, who hunt in couples; one of the pair being almost universal a veteran, the other a young man – as in the case of Sime Woodley and Ned Heywood. By the inequality of age the danger of professional jealousy is avoided; the younger looking up to his senior, and treating him with the deference due to greater knowledge and experience.

Just such a brace of professionals has come out with the Armstrong colony – their names, Alec Hawkins and Cris Tucker – the former an old bear-hunter, who has slain his hundreds; the latter, though an excellent marksman, in the art of vénerie but a tyro compared with his partner.

Since their arrival on the San Saba, they have kept the settlement plentifully supplied in meat; chiefly venison of the black-tailed deer, with which the bottom-land abounds. Turkeys, too, in any quantity; these noble birds thriving in the congenial climate of Texas, with its nuts and berry-bearing trees.

But there is a yet nobler game, to the hunting of which Hawkins and his younger associate aspire; both being eager to add it to the list of their trophies. It is that which has tempted many an English Nimrod to take three thousand miles of sea voyage across the Atlantic, and by land nearly as many more – the buffalo. Hawkins and Tucker, though having quartered the river bottom, for ten miles above and below the mission-building, have as yet come across none of these grand quadrupeds, nor seen “sign” of them.

This day, when Armstrong has his dinner party, the hunters bethink themselves of ascending to the upper plain, in the hope of there finding the game so much desired.

The place promising best is on the opposite side of the valley, to reach which the river must be crossed.

There are two fords at nearly equal distances from the old mission-house, one about ten miles above, the other as many below. By the latter the waggons came over, and it is the one chosen by the hunters.

Crossing it, they continue on to the bluffs rising beyond, and ascend these through a lateral ravine, the channel of a watercourse – which affords a practicable pass to the plain. On reaching its summit they behold a steppe to all appearance; illimitable, almost as sterile as Saara itself. Treeless save a skirting of dwarf cedars along the cliff’s edge, with here and there a motte of black-jack oaks, a cluster of cactus plants, or a solitary yucca of the arborescent species – the palmilla of the Mexicans.

Withal, not an unlikely place to encounter the cattle with; hunched backs, and shaggy shoulders. None are in sight; but hoping they soon will be the hunters launch out upon the plain.

Till near night they scout around, but without seeing any buffalo.

The descending sun warns them it is time to return home; and, facing for the bluff, they ride back towards it. Some three or four hundred yards from the summit of the pass is a motte of black-jacks, the trees standing close, in full leaf, and looking shady. As it is more than fifteen miles to the mission, and they have not eaten since morning, they resolve to make halt, and have a sneck. The black-jack grove is right in their way, its shade invites them, for the sun is still sultry. Soon they are in it, their horses tied to trees, and their haversacks summoned to disgorge. Some corn-bread and bacon is all these contain; but, no better refection needs a prairie hunter, nor cares for, so long he has a little distilled corn-juice to wash it down, with a pipe of tobacco to follow. They have eaten, drunk, and are making ready to smoke, when an object upon the plain attracts their attention. Only a cloud of dust, and far off – on the edge of the horizon. For all that a sign significant. It may be a “gang” of buffaloes, the thing they have been all day vainly searching for.

Thrusting the pipes back into their pouches, they grasp their guns, with eyes eagerly scanning the dust-cloud. At first dim, it gradually becomes darker. For a whiff of wind has blown the “stoor” aside, disclosing not a drove of buffaloes, but instead a troop of horses, at the same time showing them to have riders on their backs, as the hunters can perceive Indians.

Also that the troop is coming towards them, and advancing at such rapid pace, that in less than twenty minutes after being descried, it is close to the clump of black-jacks. Fortunately for Alec Hawkins and Oris Tucker, the Indian horsemen have no intention to halt there, or rest themselves under the shadow of the copse. To all appearance they are riding in hot haste, and with a purpose which carries them straight towards the pass. They do not even stop on arrival at its – summit; but dash down the ravine, disappearing suddenly as though they had dropped into a trap!

It is some time before the two hunters have recovered from their surprise, and can compare notes about what they have seen, with conjectures as to its bearing. They have witnessed a spectacle sufficiently alarming, – a band of fierce-looking savages, armed with spear and tomahawk – some carrying guns – all plumed and painted, all alike terrible in aspect.

Quick the apparition has passed before their eyes, as suddenly disappearing. The haste in which the Indians rode down the ravine tells of their being bent on some fore-arranged purpose that calls for early execution. It may be murder, or only plunder; and the men may be Comanches – as in every likelihood they are.

“They’re a ugly-looking lot,” says Hawkins, after seeing them file past. “If there were a hundred, instead o’ twenty, I’d predict some danger to our new settlement. They appear to be going that way – at all events they are bound for the river bottom, and the lower crossing. We must follow them, Oris, an’ see if we can make out what’s their game. The red devils mayn’t mean downright robbery, but like enough they intend stealin’. Hitch up, and let’s after em’.”

In a trice the two hunters are in their saddles; and proceeding to the summit of the pass, look down at the valley below. Not carelessly, but cautiously. Hawkins is an old campaigner, has fought Indians before, and knows how to deal with them.

Keeping himself and horse under cover of the cedars, after instructing his comrade to do the same, he reconnoitres the bottom-land, before attempting to descend to it.

As expected, he sees the Indians making for the ford. At the point between the San Saba, and either of its bluffs is a breadth of some four miles, part open meadow land, the other part, contiguous to the river overgrown with heavy timber. Into this the red horsemen are riding, as the two hunters reach the summit of the pass, the latter arriving just in time to see their last files disappear among the trees. It is their cue to descend also, which they do, without further delay.

Hastening down the ravine and on to the river ford, they discover that the Indians have crossed it. The tracks of their horses are on both banks. Beyond, the hunters cannot tell which way they have taken. For though still only twilight it is dark as night under the thick standing trees; and he keenest eye could not discover a trail.

Thus thrown off, they have no choice but continue on to the settlement.

Beaching this at a rather late hour, they do not enter the mission-building nor yet any of the huts of the rancheria. Their own residence is a tent, standing in the grove between; and to it they betake themselves. Once under canvass their first thought is supper, and they set about cooking it. Though they have brought back no buffalo meat a twenty pound turkey “gobbler” has been all day dangling at the horn of Hawkins’ saddle – enough for a plentiful repast.

Oris, who acts as cook, sets to plucking the bird, while Hawkins commences kindling a fire outside the tent. But before the fagots are ablaze, the old hunter, all along abstracted, becomes fidgetty, as if troubled with the reflection of having neglected some duty he ought to have done.

Abruptly breaking off, and pitching aside the sticks, he says: – “This wont do, Cris, nohow. I’ve got a notion in my head there’s something not right about them Indyens. I must up to the house an’ tell the Colonel. You go on, and get the gobbler roasted. I’ll be back by the time its ready.”

“All right,” rejoins Tucker, continuing to make the feathers fly. “Don’t stay if you expect any share of this bird. I’m hungry enough to eat the whole of it myself.”

“You needn’t fear for my stayin’. I’m just as sharp set as yourself.”

So saying, Hawkins strides out of the tent, leaving his comrade to continue the preparations for their repast.

From the hunter’s tent, the house is approached by a narrow path, nearly all the way running through timber. While gliding silently along it, Hawkins comes suddenly to a stop.

“Seems to me I heard a cry,” he mutters to himself; “seems, too, as ’twar a woman’s voice.”

After listening awhile, without hearing it repeated, he adds:

“I reckon, ’twar only the skirl o’ them tree-crickets. The warm night makes ’em chirp their loudest.”

Listening a little longer, he becomes convinced it was but the crickets he heard, and keeps on to the house.

Chapter Forty Nine.

Waiting the word

To all appearance Fernand’s fireworks are about to bear fruit, this likely to be bitter. As the sky, darker after the lightning’s flash, a cloud is collecting over the new settlement, which threatens to sweep down upon it in a rain storm of ruin. What but they could have caused this cloud; or, at all events, given a cue for the time of its bursting.

It appears in the shape of a cohort of dusky horsemen, painted and plumed. No need to say, they are the same that were seen by Hawkins and Tucker.

Having crossed the river at its lower ford, where so far the hunters saw their tracks, there losing them, the savages continued on. Not by the main road leading to the mission, but along a path which deflects from it soon after leaving the river’s bank. A narrower trace, indeed the continuation of that they had been following all along – the transverse route across the bottom-land from bluff to bluff, on both sides ascending to the steppe.

But though they came down on one side, they went not up on the other. Instead, having reached the nether bluff, they turned sharp along its base, by another and still narrower trace, which they knew would take them up to the mission-building. A route tortuous, the path beset with many obstacles; hence their having spent several hours in passing from the ford to the mission-house, though the distance between is barely ten miles.

No doubt they have good reason for submitting to the irksome delay caused by the difficult track, as also for the cautious manner in which they have been coming along it. Otherwise, they would certainly have chosen the direct road running nearer the river’s bank.

While Colonel Armstrong, and his friends, are enjoying themselves in the refectory of the ancient mission-house, in the midst of their laughing hilarity, the painted cavaliers have been making approach, and are now halted, within less than half-a-mile from its walls. In such fashion as shows, they do not intend a long stay in their stopping place. Not a saddle is removed, or girth untightened; while the bridles, remaining on their horses’ heads, are but used as halters to attach them to the trees.

The men have dismounted, but not to form camp, or make bivouac. They kindle no fires, nor seem caring to cook, or eat. They drink, however; several of them taking flasks from their saddle pouches, and holding them to their heads bottom upward. Nothing strange in this. The Texan Indian, whether Comanche, Kiowa, or Lipan, likes his fire-water as much as a white man, and as constantly carries it along with him. The only peculiarity about these is that, while quaffing, they do not talk in the Indian tongue, but English of the Texan idiom, with all its wild swearing!

The place where they have halted is a bit of glade-ground, nearly circular in shape, only half-encompassed by timber, the other half being an embayment of the bluffs, twin to those on the opposite side of the river bottom. It is shaded three-quarters across by the cliff, the moon being behind this. The other quarter, on the side of the trees, is brilliantly lit up by her beams, showing the timber thick and close along its edge, to all appearance impassable as the façade of rugged rock frowning from the opposite concave of the enclosed circle. Communicating with this are but two paths possible for man or horse, and for either only in single file. One enters the glade coming up the river bottom along the base of the bluff; the other debouches at the opposite end, still following the cliff’s foot. By the former the Indians have entered; but by the latter it is evident they intend going out, as their eyes are from time to time turned towards it, and their gestures directed that way. Still they make no movement for resuming their march, but stand in gathered groups, one central and larger than the rest. In its midst is a man by nearly the head taller than those around him: their chief to a certainty. His authority seems acknowledged by all who address him, if not with deference, in tone and speech telling they but wait for his commands, and are willing to obey them. He, himself, appears waiting for something, or somebody else, before he can issue them, his glance continually turning towards the point where the path leads out upwards.

Impatiently, too, as ever and anon he pulls out a watch and consults it as, to the time. Odd to see a savage so engaged; above all possessed of a repeater! Still the Indians of to-day are different from those of days past, and have learnt many of the white man’s ways – even to wearing watches. The man in question seems to know all about it; and has his reasons for being particular as to the hour. He is evidently acting upon a preconcerted plan, with the time fixed and fore-arranged. And evident also that ten is the hour awaited; for, while in the act of examining his dial, the old mission clock, restored to striking, tolls just so many times; and, before the boom of its cracked bell has ceased rolling in broken reverberation through the trees, he thrusts the watch hurriedly into his fob. Then stands in expectant attitude, with eyes upon the embouchure of the upper path, scanning it more eagerly than ever. There is a strange coincidence between the strokes of the clock and the flashes of Fernanda powder – both numbering the same. Though not strange to the leader of the savage troop. He knows what it is – comprehends the significance of the signal – for signal it has been. A dread one, too, foreboding danger to innocent people. One who could behold this savage band, scrutinise the faces of those composing it, witness the fierce wicked flashes from their eyes, just as the clock is striking, would send up a prayer for the safety of Colonel Armstrong and his colonists.

If further informed as to who the savages are, the prayer would sure be succeeded by the reflection – “Heaven help his daughters! If God guard not, a fearful fate will be theirs – a destiny worse than death!”

Chapter Fifty.

An uncanny skulker

Still within the garden are the young girls – still standing under the shadow of the two trees that furnished the contrasting symbols, – unconscious of danger near. Helen’s speech, suggesting such painful sequence, has touched her sister to the quick, soon as spoken, afflicting also herself; and for a time they remain with entwined arms and cheeks touching – their tears flowing together. But Jessie’s sobs are the louder, her grief greater than that she has been endeavouring to assuage.

Helen perceiving it, rises to the occasion; and, as oft before, in turn becomes the comforter; their happiness and misery like scales vibrating on the beam.

“Don’t cry so, Jess. Be a good girl, now. You’re a little simpleton, and I a big one. ’Twas very wrong of me to say what I did. Be it forgotten, and let’s hope we may yet both be happy.”

“Oh, if I could but think that!”

“Think it, then. You are happy, and I – shall try to be. Who knows what time may do – that and Texas? Now, my little Niobe, dry up your tears. Mine are all gone, and I feel in first rate spirits. I do indeed.”

She is not sincere in what she says, and but counterfeits cheerfulness to restore that of her sister.

She has well-nigh succeeded, when a third personage appears upon the scene, causing a sudden change in their thoughts, turning these into a new and very different channel.

He whose appearance produces such effect – for it is a man – seems wholly unconscious of the influence he has exerted; indeed, is so.

When first observed, he is coming down the central walk; which, though wide, is partially shadowed by trees. And in their shadow he keeps, clinging to it, as if desirous to shun observation. His step declares it; not bold this, nor regardless, but skulking, with tread catlike; while every now and then he casts a backward glance, as if in fear of some one being behind. Just that which hinders him from seeing those who are in front.

The girls are still standing together, with hands joined – luckily on one of the side-walks, and like himself in shadow – though very near to having separated, and one, at least, rushing out into the light at first sound of his footstep. For to Jessie it gave joy, supposing it that of her Luis. Naturally expecting him to join her, she was almost sure of its being he.