The War Trail: The Hunt of the Wild Horse

Mayne Reid

The War Trail: The Hunt of the Wild Horse

Chapter One.

Souvenirs

Land of the nopal and maguey – home of Moctezuma and Malinché! – I cannot wring thy memories from my heart! Years may roll on, hand wax weak, and heart grow old, but never till both are cold can I forget thee! I would not; for thee would I remember. Not for all the world would I bathe my soul in the waters of Lethe. Blessed be memory for thy sake!

Bright land of Anahuac! my spirit mounts upon the aerial wings of Fancy, and once more I stand upon thy shores! Over thy broad savannahs I spur my noble steed, whose joyous neigh tells that he too is inspired by the scene. I rest under the shade of the corozo palm, and quaff the wine of the acrocomia. I climb thy mountains of amygdaloid and porphyry – thy crags of quartz, that yield the white silver and the yellow gold. I cross thy fields of lava, rugged in outline, and yet more rugged with their coverture of strange vegetable forms – acacias and cactus, yuccas and zamias. I traverse thy table-plains through bristling rows of giant aloes, whose sparkling juice cheers me on my path. I stand upon the limits of eternal snow, crushing the Alpine lichen under my heel; while down in the deep barranca, far down below, I behold the feathery fronds of the palm, the wax-like foliage of the orange, the broad shining leaves of the pothos, of arums, and bananas! O that I could again look with living eye on these bright pictures, that even thus palely outlined upon the retina of memory, impart pleasure to my soul!

Land of Moctezuma! I have other souvenirs of thee, more deeply graven on my memory than these pictures of peace. Thou recallest scenes of war. I traversed thy fields a foeman – sword in hand – and now, after years gone by, many a wild scene of soldier-life springs up before me with all the vividness of reality.

The Bivouac! – I sit by the night camp-fire; around are warlike forms and bearded faces. The blazing log reflects the sheen of arms and accoutrements – saddles, rifles, pistols, canteens, strewing the ground, or hanging from the branches of adjacent trees. Picketed steeds loom large in the darkness, their forms dimly outlined against the sombre background of the forest. A solitary palm stands near, its curving fronds looking hoary under the fire-light. The same light gleams upon the fluted columns of the great organ-cactus, upon agaves and bromelias, upon the silvery tillandsia, that drapes the tall trees as with a toga.

The wild tale is told – the song is sung – the jest goes round – the hoarse peal echoes through the aisles of the forest, frighting the parrot on its perch, and the wolf upon his prowl. Little reck they who sing, and jest, and laugh – little reck they of the morrow.

The Skirmish! – Morning breaks. The fragrant forest is silent, and the white blue light is just tinging the treetops. A shot rings upon the air: it is the warning-gun of the picket-sentinel, who comes galloping in upon the guard. The enemy approaches! ‘To horse!’ the bugle thrills in clear loud notes. The slumberers spring to their feet – they seize their rifles, pistols, and sabres, and dash through the smouldering fires till ashes cloud the air. The steeds snort and neigh; in a trice they are saddled, bridled, and mounted; and away sweeps the troop along the forest road.

The enemy is in sight – a band of guerilleros, in all their picturesqueness of manga and serapé– of scarlet, purple, and gold. Lances, with shining points and streaming pennons, o’ertop the trees.

The bugle sounds the charge; its notes are drowned by the charging cheer. We meet our swarthy foemen face to face; spear-thrusts are answered by pistol-shots; our sabres cross and clink, but our snorting steeds rear back, and will not let us kill each other. We wheel and meet again, with deadlier aim, and more determined arm; we strike without remorse – we strike for freedom!

The Battle-field! – The serried columns and the bristling guns – the roar of cannon and the roll of drums – the bugle’s wildest notes, the cheer, the charge – the struggle hand to hand – the falling foeman and his dying groan – the rout, retreat, the hoarse huzza for victory! I well remember, but I cannot paint them.

Land of Anahuac! thou recallest other scenes, far different from these – scenes of tender love or stormy passion. The strife is o’er – the war-drum has ceased to beat, and the bugle to bray; the steed stands chafing in his stall, and the conqueror dallies in the halls of the conquered. Love is now the victor, and the stern soldier, himself subdued, is transformed into a suing lover. In gilded hall or garden bower, behold him on bended knee, whispering his soft tale in the ear of some dark-eyed dongella, Andalusian or Aztec!

Lovely land! In truth have I sweet memories of thee; for who could traverse thy fields without beholding some fair flower, ever after to be borne upon his bosom! And yet, not all my souvenirs are glad. Pleasant and painful, sweet and sad, they thrill my heart with alternate throes. But the sad emotions have been tempered by time, and the glad ones, at each returning tide, seem tinged with brighter glow. In thy bowers, as elsewhere, roses must be plucked from thorns; but in memory’s mellowed light I see not the thorns – I behold only the bright and beautiful roses.

Chapter Two.

A Mexican frontier village

A Mexican pueblita on the banks of the Rio Bravo del Norte – a mere rancheria, or hamlet. The quaint old church of Morisco-Italian style, with its cupola of motley japan, the residence of the cura, and the house of the alcaldé, are the only stone structures in the place. These constitute three sides of the piazza, a somewhat spacious square. The remaining side is taken up with shops or dwellings of the common people. They are built of large unburnt bricks (adobes), some of them washed with lime, others gaudily coloured like the proscenium of a theatre, but most of them uniform in their muddy and forbidding brown. All have heavy jail-like doors, and windows without glass or sash. The reja of iron bars, set vertically, opposes the burglar, not the weather.

From the four corners of the piazza, narrow, unpaved, dusty lanes lead off to the country, for some distance bordered on both sides by the adobe houses. Still farther out, on the skirts of the village, and sparsely placed, are dwellings of frailer build, but more picturesque appearance; they are ridge-roofed structures, of the split trunks of that gigantic lily, the arborescent yucca. Its branches form the rafters, its tough fibrous leaves the thatch. In these ranchitos dwell the poor peons, the descendants of the conquered race.

The stone dwellings, and those of mud likewise, are flat-roofed, tiled or cemented – sometimes tastefully japanned – with a parapet breast-high running round the edge. This flat roof is the azotea, characteristic of Mexican architecture.

When the sun is low and the evening cool, the azotea is a pleasant lounging-place, especially when the proprietor of the house has a taste for flowers; then it is converted into an aerial garden, and displays the rich flora for which the picture-land of Mexico is justly celebrated. It is just the place to enjoy a cigar, a glass of piñolé, or, if you prefer it, Catalan. The smoke is wafted away, and the open air gives a relish to the beverage. Besides, your eye is feasted; you enjoy the privacy of a drawing-room, while you command what is passing in the street. The slight parapet gives security, while hindering a too free view from below; you see, without being seen. The world moves on, busied with earthly affairs, and does not think of looking up.

I stand upon such an azotea: it is that over the house of the alcaldé; and his being the tallest roof in the village, I command a view of all the others. I can see beyond them all, and note the prominent features of the surrounding country. My eye wanders with delight over the deep rich verdure of its tropic vegetation; I can even distinguish its more characteristic forms – the cactus, the yucca, and the agave. I observe that the village is girdled by a belt of open ground – cultivated fields – where the maize waves its silken tassels in the breeze, contrasting with the darker leaves of the capsicums and bean-plants (frijoles). This open ground is of limited extent. The chapparal, with its thorny thicket of acacias, mimosae, ingas, and robinias – a perfect maze of leguminous trees – hems it in; and so near is the verge of this jungle, that I can distinguish its undergrowth of stemless sabal palms and bromelias – the sun-scorched and scarlet leaves of the pita plant shining in the distance like lists of fire.

This propinquity of the forest to the little pueblita bespeaks the indolence of the inhabitants; perhaps not. It must be remembered that these people are not agriculturists, but vaqueros (herdsmen); and that the glades and openings of that thick chapparal are speckled with herds of fierce Spanish cattle, and droves of small sharp-eared Andalusian horses, of the race of the Barb. The fact of so little cultivation does not abnegate the existence of industry on the part of the villagers. Grazing is their occupation, not farming; only a little of the latter to give them maize for their tortillas, chile to season it with, and black beans to complete the repast. These three, with the half-wild beef of their wide pastures, constitute the staple of food throughout all Mexico. For drink, the denizen of the high table-land find his favourite beverage – the rival of champagne – in the core of the gigantic aloe; while he of the tropic coast-land refreshes himself from the juice of another native endogen, the acrocomia palm.

Favoured land! Ceres loves thee, and Bacchus too. To thy fields both the god and the goddess have been freely bounteous. Food and drink may be had from them on easy terms. Alas! as in all other lands – one only excepted – Nature’s divine views have been thwarted, her aim set aside, by the malignity of man. As over the broad world the blight of the despot is upon thy beauty.

Why are these people crowded together – hived, as it were, in towns and villages? Herdsmen – one would expect to find them scattered by reason of their occupation. Besides, a sky continually bright, a genial clime, a picturesqueness of scene – all seem to invite to rural life; and yet I have ridden for hours, a succession of lovely landscapes rising before my eyes, all of them wild, wanting in that one feature which makes the rural picture perfect – the house, the dwelling of man! Towns there are; and at long intervals the huge hacienda of the landed lord, walled in like a fortress; but where are the ranchos, the homes of the common people? True, I have noticed the ruins of many, and that explains the puzzle. I remember, now that I am on the frontier: that for years past the banks of the Rio Bravo, from its source to the sea, have been hostile ground – a war-border of fifteen hundred miles in length! Many a red conflict has occurred – is still occurring – between those Arabs of the American desert – the Horse Indians – and the pale-faced descendants of the Spaniard. That is why the ranchos exist only in ruins – that is why the haciendas are loopholed, and the populace pent up within walls. The condition of feudal Europe exists in free America, on the banks of the Rio Bravo del Norte!

Nearly a mile off, looking westward, I perceive the sheen of water: it is a reach of the great river that glances under the setting sun. The river curves at that point; and the summit of a gentle hill, half girdled by the stream, is crowned by the low white walls of a hacienda. Though only one story high, this hacienda appears, from its extent, and the style of its architecture, to be a noble mansion. Like all of its class, it is flat-roofed; but the parapet is crenated, and small ornamental turrets over the angles and the great gateway relieve the monotony of its outlines. A larger tower, the belfry of a chapel, appears in the background, the Mexican hacienda is usually provided with its little capilla, for the convenient worship of the peon retainers. The emblems of religion, such as it is, are thick over the land. The glimmer of glass behind the iron rejas relieves to some extent the prison-like aspect, so characteristic of Mexican country-houses. This is further modified by the appearance over the parapet of green foliage. Forms of tropic vegetation show above the wall; among others, the graceful curving fronds of a palm. This must be an exotic, for although the lower half of the Rio Bravo is within the zone of the palms, the species that grow so far north are fan-palms (chamaerops and sabal). This one is of far different form, with plume-shaped pinnate fronds, of the character of cocos, phoenix, or euterpe. I note the fact, not from any botanical curiosity with which it inspires me, but rather because the presence of this exotic palm has a significance. It illustrates a point in the character of him – it may be her– who is the presiding spirit of the place. No doubt there is a fair garden upon the azotea – perhaps a fair being among its flowers! Pleasant thoughts spring up – anticipations. I long to climb that sloping hill, to enter that splendid mansion, and, longing still, I gaze.

The ring of a bugle startles me from this pleasant reverie. ’Tis only a stable-call; but it has driven sweet reflections out of my mind, and my eyes are turned away from the bright mansion, and rest upon the piazza of the pueblita. There, a far different scene greets their glance.

Chapter Three.

The rangers on picket

The centre of the piazza presents a salient point in the picture. There the well (el poso), with its gigantic wheel, its huge leathern belt and buckets, its trough of cemented stone-work, offers an Oriental aspect. Verily, it is the Persian wheel! ’Tis odd to a northern eye to find such a structure in this Western land; but the explanation is easy. The Persian wheel has travelled from Egypt along the southern shores of the Mediterranean. With the Moors it crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and the Spaniard has carried it over the Atlantic. The reader of the sacred volume will find many a familiar passage illustrated in the customs of Mexico. The genius of the Arab has shaped many a thought for the brain of the Aztec!

My eye rests not long upon the well, but turns to gaze on the scene of active life that is passing near and around it. Forms, and varied ones, I trow, are moving there.

Gliding with silent step and dubious look – his wide calzoneros flapping around his ankles, his arms and shoulders shrouded in the mottled serape, his black broad-brimmed hat darkening still more his swarth face – goes the poblano, the denizen of the adobe hut. He shuns the centre of the piazza, keeping around the walls; but at intervals his eyes are turned towards the well with a look of mingled fierceness and fear. He reaches a doorway – it is silently opened by a hand within – he enters quickly, and seems glad to get out of sight. A little afterwards, I can catch a glimpse of his sombre face dimly visible behind the bars of the reja.

At distant corners, I descry small groups of his class, all similarly costumed in calzoneros, striped blankets, and glaze hats; all, like him, wearing uneasy looks. They gesticulate little, contrary to their usual habit, and converse only in whispers or low mutterings. Unusual circumstances surround them.

Most of the women are within doors; a few of the poorer class – of pure Indian race – are seated in the piazza. They are hucksters, and their wares are spread before them on a thin palm-leaf mat (petaté), while another similar one, supported umbrella-like on a stem, screens them and their merchandise from the sun. Their dyed woollen garments, their bare heads, their coarse black hair, adorned with twists of scarlet worsted, impart to them somewhat of a gipsy look. They appear as free of care as the zingali themselves: they laugh, and chatter, and show their white teeth all day long, asking each new-comer to purchase their fruits and vegetables, their piñolé, atolé, and agua dulce. Their not unmusical voices ring pleasantly upon the ear.

Now and then a young girl, with red olla poised upon her crown, trips lightly across the piazza in the direction of the well. Perhaps she is a poblana– one of the belles of the village – in short-skirted, bright-coloured petticoat, embroidered but sleeveless chemisette, with small satin slippers upon her feet; head, shoulders, and bosom, shrouded in the blue-grey reboso; arms and ankles bare. Several of these may be seen passing to and fro. They appear less uneasy than the men; they even smile at intervals, and reply to the rude badinage uttered in an unknown tongue by the odd-looking strangers around the well. The Mexican women are courageous as they are amiable. As a race, their beauty is undeniable.

But who are these strangers? They do not belong to the place, that is evident; and equally so that they are objects of terror to those who do. At present they are masters here. Their numbers, their proud confident swagger, and the bold loud tone of their conversation, attest that they are masters of the ground. Who are they?

Odd-looking, I have styled them; and the phrase is to be taken in its full significance. A more odd-looking set of fellows never mustered in a Mexican piazza, nor elsewhere. There are fourscore of them; and but that each carries a yäger rifle in his hand, a knife in his belt, and a Colt’s pistol on his thigh, you could not discover the slightest point of resemblance between any two of them. Their arms are the only things about them denoting uniformity, and some sort of organisation; for the rest, they are as unlike one another as the various shapes and hues of coarse broadcloth, woollen jeans, cottonades, coloured blankets, and buckskin, can make them. They wear caps of ’coon-skin, and cat’s-skin, and squirrel; hats of beaver, and felt, and glaze, of wool and palmetto, of every imaginable shape and slouch. Even of the modern monster – the silken “tile” – samples might be seen, badly crushed. There are coats of broadcloth, few in number, and well worn; but many are the garments of “Kentucky jeans” of bluish-grey, of copper-coloured nigger cloth, and sky-coloured cottonade. Some wear coats made of green blankets, others of blue ones, and some of a scarlet red. There are hunting-shirts of dressed deerskin, with plaited skirt, and cape, fringed and jauntily adorned with beads and embroidery – the favourite style of the backwoods hunter, but others there are of true Indian cut – open only at the throat, and hanging loose, or fastened around the waist with a belt – the same that secures the knife and pistol. There are cloth jackets too, such as are worn by sailors, and others of sky-blue cottonade – the costume of the Creole of Louisiana; some of red-brown leather – the jaqueta of the Spano-American; and still another fashion, the close-fitting embroidered “spencer” of the Mexican ranchero. Some shoulders are covered by serapes, and some by the more graceful and toga-like manga. Look lower down: examine the limbs of the men of this motley band: the covering of these is not less varied than their upper garments. You see wrappers of coarse cloth, of flannel, and of baize: they are blue, and scarlet, and green. You see leggings of raw hide and of buckskin; boots of horse-leather reaching to the thighs; “nigger boots” of still coarser fabric, with the pantaloons tucked under brogans of unstained calf-skin, and moccasins of varied cut, betokening the fashion of more than one Indian tribe. You may see limbs encased in calzoneros, and others in the heavy stamped leather botas of the Mexican horseman, resembling the greaves of warriors of the olden time.

The heels of all are armed, though their armature is as varied as the costumes. There are spurs of silver and steel, some plated, and some with the plating worn off; some strapped, and others screwed into the heel of the boot; some light, with small rowels and tiny teeth, while others are seen (the heavy spur of Mexico) of several pounds’ weight, with rowels five inches in diameter, and teeth that might be dashed through the ribs of a horse! – cruel weapons of the Mexican cavallero.

But these spurs in the piazza, these botas and calzoneros, these mangas and serapes, are not worn by Mexicans. Their present wearers are men of a different race. Most of those tall stalwart bodies are the product of the maize-plant of Kentucky and Tennessee, or the buckwheat and “hog-meat” of the fertile flats of Ohio, Indiana, and the Illinois. They are the squatters and hunters of the backwoods, the farmers of the great western slopes of the Alleghanies, the boatmen of the Mississippi, the pioneers of Arkansas and Missouri, the trappers of prairie-land, the voyageurs of the lake-country, the young planters of the lower states, the French Creoles of Louisiana, the adventurous settlers of Texas, with here and there a gay city spark from the larger towns of the “great west.” Yes, and from other sources are individuals of that mixed band. I recognise the Teutonic type – the fair hair and whitish-yellow moustache of the German, the florid Englishman, the staid Scot, and his contrast the noisy Hibernian; both equally brave. I behold the adroit and nimble Frenchman, full of laugh and chatter, the stanch soldierly Swiss, and the moustached exile of Poland, dark, sombre, and silent. What a study for an ethnologist is that band of odd-looking men! Who are they?

You have thrice asked the question. I answer it. They are a corps of “Rangers” —the guerilla of the American army.

And who am I? I am their captain – their chief.

Yes, I am the leader of that queer crew; and, despite their rough motley aspect, I dare affirm, that not in Europe, not in America elsewhere, not upon the great globe’s surface, can be found a band, of like numbers, to equal them in strength, daring, and warlike intelligence. Many of them have spent half a life in the sharpening practice of border warfare – Indian or Mexican – and from these the others have learnt. Some have been gentlemen upon whom fortune has frowned; a few have been desperadoes within the pale of civilised life; and a smaller few, perhaps, outlaws beyond it – bad materials wherewith to colonise; not so bad, if you go but to conquer.

Rude as is the coup d’oeil of the corps, I am proud to say that a high sentiment of honour pervades it – higher than will be found in the picked corps de garde of an emperor. True, they appear rough and reckless – terrible, I might say; for most of them – with their long beards and hair, dust-begrimed faces, slouched hats, and odd habiliments, belted as they are with knife, pistol, powder-horn, and pouch – present such an aspect.

But you would wrong them to take them as they look. Few among them are the pure bandits whose aim is plunder. Many a noble heart beats beneath a rude exterior – many a one truly humane. There are hearts in that band that throb under the influence of patriotism; some are guided by a still nobler impulse, a desire to extend the area of freedom: others, it is true, yearn but for revenge. These last are chiefly Texans, who mourn a friend or brother slain by Mexican treachery. They have not forgotten the cowardly assassination of Goliad; they remember the red butchery of the Alamo.

Perhaps I alone, of all the band, have no motive for being here; if one, ’tis slight – scarce so noble as vengeance. Mere chance, the love of excitement and adventure, perhaps some weak fondness for power and fame, are all the excuses I can urge for taking a hand in this affair. A poor adventurer – without friends, without home, without country, for my native land is no more a nation – my heart is not cheered by a single throb of patriotism. I have no private wrong to redress, no public cause, no country for which to combat.

During intervals of inaction, these thoughts recur to me, and give me pain.