Kitabı oku: «Lone Pine: The Story of a Lost Mine», sayfa 11

Turning back into the patio he found himself in the presence of Manuelita, who was crossing it on some errand. As all the doors gave on the patio, it acted, so to speak, as the passage by which everybody went from any one room to any other, except where two or three rooms opened into each other en suite. "Señorita," he said, "one word with you, if I may. It would really make you very happy, it would make your heart quite free of sorrow, if this money were paid and things settled in that way?"

"Oh, Madre de Dios!" she exclaimed, "but can you doubt it for an instant? I would dance for joy"; and her eyes grew brighter on the instant with the thought.

"Very well," answered Stephens cautiously, "I'll see what can be done. I'll promise you to do my best to bring about a peaceful settlement. I can't say more."

He went back into the sitting-room and wrote a third letter to the cashier of the First National Bank at Santa Fé, where he kept a small balance. He asked the cashier to telegraph to Rockyfeller at Denver to say that he, Stephens, was unavoidably detained at Santiago, and to ask Rockyfeller to send the thousand dollars to his account at the Santa Fé bank, and he likewise wrote a cordial answer to Rocky's letter, explaining matters at length. As soon as he had finished these he hastened with them to the post-office. The ambulance which brought the mail from Fort Wingate stood before the door, and a fresh team was being harnessed to it, while Mr. Backus was in the act of bringing out the little San Remo mail-bag, and at sight of Stephens stowed it hastily inside.

For the little San Remo mail-bag was all but empty. The two fat letters Stephens had entrusted to him for the governor and the general were not inside it; their thin papery ashes lay amid the glowing coals of the cedar-wood fire on Mr. Backus's kitchen hearth, and had helped to cook the stage-driver's dinner. The impeccable United States postmaster had opened and read them; decided on the spot that he did not want these Navajos interfered with just at present; and had taken this summary method of blocking the game.

"Here's a couple more letters," exclaimed Stephens, running up. "Can't you put them in?" and he held them out to Backus in total ignorance of his perfidy.

"Bag's sealed up now," said the postmaster officially. "Contrary to U.S. regulations to open it again."

Stephens turned instantly to the mail-driver. "I wish you'd oblige me by posting these for me when you get to Santa Fé. They're stamped all right."

The driver held out his hand for the letters and shoved them carelessly into the pocket of his overcoat.

"Mind you don't forget to post them," repeated Stephens; "they're important." At this instant there came into his mind a thing that he had forgotten, so absorbed had he become in the troubles of the Sanchez family. Some stage-driver had libelled him to Sam Argles, and he had intended to find out who it was. Probably this was the man. "Say," he began, "do you remember driving a man named Sam Argles, a miner from Prescott, over this line a month or two back?"

"Can't say, I'm sure," replied the driver, who was shortening a trace with some difficulty. "You don't suppose as I can remember the names of all the passengers I take?"

"Well, Argles was over this line recently," said Stephens, "and he reports that a driver on it told him something about me."

"Likely he did," said the driver unconcernedly; "like as not, too, 't warn't me. I aint the only driver on this line."

"Then you deny having told him I was a squawman?" said Stephens.

"Dunno nawthin' about it," replied the driver, gathering up the lines and climbing to his perch. "It's no concern of mine." But he avoided meeting Stephens's eye.

"Well, so long," said the latter; "I'm obliged to you about the letters," and without further comment on the matter he started back towards the Sanchez house.

"A d – d highfalutin, tonified cuss he is," said Backus as soon as the prospector was out of earshot. "If you was to drop them letters in the Rio Grande it'd serve him right for bouncing you like that."

"He dursn't say nuthin' to me," said the driver, "or I'd mash his face in a minute. What do I know about his Sam Argleses? I reckon he is a squawman, aint he?"

"Wal', if he aint, what does he live with them Injuns for? That's what I say," said Backus with an evil laugh. "And I think, if I was you," he added, "I'd be apt to have an accident with them letters crossing the Rio Grande."

"There's a chance for it anyway," said the stage-driver; "the river was rising fast day before yesterday, and I judge 't will be booming by now. I've got to rustle around, for I'm going straight across to San Miguel. I can cross there with the mail, anyway. Get up there, mules." He raised the reins, cracked his whip and departed.

CHAPTER XIV
A STERN CHASE

Could Felipe but have known what the stage-driver knew, that the rise of the river had begun two days ago, he would never have made the sad mistake of taking the straight route to Ensenada. Alas, now, when he and Josefa reached the spot where the ford should have been, his cry, "Valgame Dios, the river is up," was only too true. As they passed through the grove of cottonwoods they beheld right from their feet to the farther bank, full a half-mile off, a turbid yellow flood, rolling rapidly southward towards Texas and the Gulf, twelve hundred miles away. All autumn and winter long, a broad expanse of dry water-worn pebbles and boulders, and beds of shingle and sand, through which ran half a dozen easily forded streams of clear water, had been all that lay between La Boca on the west bank and Ensenada on the east. During those seasons both horses and waggons, and people on foot by picking their way through the shallows, could cross almost anywhere without wading much above knee-deep. But all autumn and winter long, on the great mountain ranges of Colorado, two hundred miles away to the north where the river had its sources, the snows of successive storms had been piled up deeper and deeper. And now the sun was well past the vernal equinox, and his growing heat had loosened those snows and was sending their cold floods down ten thousand gulches and tributaries to swell the current of the Rio Grande. This takes place every April, and Felipe ought to have thought of it, but he was young and had not yet learned to think of everything. This was a possibility he had forgotten.

"It must have come down in the last two days," he groaned, as he looked hopelessly at the flood. "I know Juan and Miguel passed here only three days ago from Santa Fé, and it was all light then, and now it is like this."

"We are lost," said Josefa. "What shall we do, Felipe?" – even her brave heart succumbing to this unexpected calamity.

"Don't cry, dear heart, don't cry," said he tenderly, taking her in his arms, and lifting her from the horse. "Perhaps there is a boat. I will go and see." He pulled the bridle from the horse's head. "Do you rest here a minute," he said, spreading his blanket for her to rest her weary limbs, "and let him feed here on the green grass, but don't let him drink. I will run back to La Boca and ask." He threw her the rope, and darted back like the wind in the direction of the houses they had lately passed. The unkempt Mexican was milking a cow in the corral as Felipe dashed up breathless. "Where is the boat?" he asked eagerly. "Is it running? Is it this side?"

"The boat?" said the Mexican slowly, going on with his milking. "No, friend. The river only came down like this yesterday. It was high the day before, but we could still ford it up above. It was yesterday it came down big."

The leisurely manner of the man, and the indefiniteness of his reply, were maddening to the excited Indian.

"Yes, but the boat," he almost shouted, "the boat, where is it?"

The Mexican had finished milking his cow, and putting down the milk jar he began to unfasten the rawhide strap with which her hind legs were tied.

"The boat, friend?" said he; "there is no boat here now. Last year Don Leandro had the boat, but she is hauled up, and they say there is a hole in her. Perhaps he will talk of getting it mended after a while. I suppose the Americano at the mail station in Ensenada will be wanting to send the mail across next week."

"Valgame Dios!" cried the boy. "And will there be no way of getting over the river till next week?"

"The water will have run by in a month, or perhaps in three weeks, if God wills it," remarked the Mexican piously; "and then, friend, you can cross without a boat."

"And is there no boat anywhere up or down the river on this side?" exclaimed Felipe. "Is there no way over?"

"There are the Indians at San Miguel, eight leagues below," said the man, proceeding to take down the bars of the corral for the purpose of turning out the cow to pasture. "They have a bridge of single logs to cross on foot by. I do not know if the river will have carried it down. Probably not. They have land on both sides, and are always crossing."

"Eight leagues below!" cried the young Indian in a despairing voice. "And a sandy road from here they say – deep sand, is it not?" He followed the man and the cow outside the corral.

"Yes, friend," said the man, "it is deep sand along the river. But there is a better way: to take the trail to Santiago as far as the Banded Mesa and then turn to the left. So you keep up on the mesas the whole way, and it is better going."

"Thanks, sir; adios," said Felipe; and without waiting for more discourse he tore along back towards Josefa as fast as he could run.

She was lying on the blanket where he had left her, and holding the end of the lariat. Felipe rushed up to the horse and began to bridle him.

"There is no boat, sweetheart," he panted, "but there is a bridge of the Indians at San Miguel. Let us go there. We can leave the horse with the Indians on this side, and get a horse from some of them on the other, and come on to Ensenada that way. Make haste."

Once more he lifted her to the saddle, and springing up behind her turned the horse's head.

"They must be after us long ago," said he wearily, looking at the sun, which was already well up. "I expect they are half-way here by this time. They will be here in a little while."

"My father will have no horse," suggested Josefa, trying to make the best of it.

"Oh, he will take the Americano's. Don Estevan will lend it to him," said Felipe bitterly. "The cacique can take what he wants."

He revolved their position in his mind. If he rode the back trail as far as the Banded Mesa, and there turned off the trail just where it was hard and stony, he would be almost certain to throw the pursuers off the track. But could he reach the Banded Mesa before they got there? That was the question. He considered it well. It was an up-hill road, and the horse, gallantly as he had carried his double burden, was beginning to flag. He doubted whether to try it did not mean running into the very jaws of the lion. It seemed more hopeful to turn out as soon as they were out of sight of the people at La Boca, and go down parallel to the Rio Grande, trusting to the sand, which was here in drifts almost like the seashore, being so loose that no definite trail of theirs could be traced.

On this idea he acted. But no sooner were they in the deep sand than the tired horse could no longer raise the semblance of a gallop. Felipe sprang off and ran on foot, urging the horse on. Relieved of half his load he went better, but even under the most favourable circumstances the deep sand was very heavy going, and their progress was but slow. Thus they struggled on for two weary miles, and Felipe kept uttering words of encouragement to his mistress, whose silence proclaimed her sinking spirits; but all the time his eyes kept turning in the direction of the Santiago trail, for every moment he expected their pursuers to appear.

Suddenly on the brow of the topmost of the low, rolling hills that rose between the Rio Grande and the mesas, his keen sight discerned a black speck, which he knew had not been there a minute before. In the clear air of New Mexico, and over those bare, open downs far-off things are seen with amazing distinctness; but at that distance it was impossible to say for certain what it was. Felipe said nothing of it to Josefa; what was the use of adding unnecessarily to her terrors. He kept his eye vigilantly on the object of his suspicions.

"It is no use to try to hide," said he to himself. "There isn't cover enough among these scattering juniper bushes to hide a sheep. If it is a man he can see us as plain as we do him, and he will know what we are by our actions. If it is a cow or a horse feeding, it will move slowly about; if it is a man riding, he will move straight on in a minute or two, and then I shall know."

His uncertainty did not last long. Before five minutes elapsed the speck moved again, and this time it descended the hill straight towards the fugitives, till it was lost to sight behind the brow of a nearer ridge. There was no longer any doubt left in Felipe's mind.

"Ay de mi!" said he to his mistress, "we are pursued. It is one man only, as far as I can see. It must be your father," and he urged the horse on freshly.

"Run, run, Felipe!" said the girl. "Hide yourself somewhere! He will kill you if he catches us. Never mind me. He won't kill me, you know."

"No, not that! I can't do that!" he cried; but dark despair came over him. His feet seemed like lead as he struggled forward. He looked over his shoulder again. The black speck had reappeared again much closer and much larger; it was a galloping horseman. His last hope fled. "There he comes!" he cried – and he seized the horse's bridle, and, turning him to the left, headed him straight for the Rio Grande, which was but a few hundred yards away.

"What are you doing? Where are you going, Felipe?" exclaimed Josefa, troubled at this sudden change of direction and at the sudden fury of his face.

"Where am I going?" he echoed bitterly. "Don Estevan told me yesterday that I must come to the Rio Grande to find water enough to drown myself, and I am going to see."

They came near the brink of the rushing river. Behind them the galloping horseman was fast closing up the gap that separated them. Felipe recognised his style of riding. "It is your father! see!" he cried in a voice of despair, "but he sha'n't separate us now," and he urged the horse towards the water's edge.

"Oh stop, Felipe, stop! What madness is this?" cried the girl, and she drew rein and pulled up. Felipe seized the bridle, his face aflame with baffled passion.

"Loose the rein!" he cried to her desperately. "Let the horse come on. He will carry you over. I can swim."

"Oh, you are mad!" said she, gazing on the wide rolling flood and the distant shore beyond. "Don't dream of such a thing. We shall both be drowned."

"Well, let us drown, then; we shall be together," he exclaimed passionately. "Give him the rein. Come on. Better that than to be beaten like dogs and separated." As he spoke he looked over his shoulder and saw that Salvador, his face raging with anger, was within a few yards of them. Felipe raised his arm to strike Josefa's horse, and force him to take the desperate plunge into the boiling current.

The desperate plunge was never taken. A shot cracked. Felipe felt a great blow, and his right arm fell powerless to his side. Salvador was close by with a smoking pistol in his hand. Josefa's terrified horse wheeled round and bounded away in terror from the bank of the dreaded river. Salvador dashed in between her and Felipe and fired at him again. Felipe hardly knew if he was hit again or not, but instinctively he ran off some fifty yards and then stopped. Wounded and weaponless, what could he do against the murderous firearm in the hands of the cacique?

"Yes, run, you villain, you scoundrel!" shouted Salvador. "Run, and don't stop within a hundred leagues of me! If ever I catch you near the village again I'll kill you – I will," and he poured forth a torrent of abuse at the wretched youth who stood there on the river's bank the very picture of misery, the blood running down his right arm and dropping from his hand to the ground. Josefa saw him, and overcome with pity and fear for him turned her horse towards him, but the animal, dreading the water, refused to approach it.

Salvador rode up to her and seized her rein. "Ah, traitress, ungrateful, disobedient!" hissed his angry voice. "I'll settle with you for this piece of work, be sure." And leaving Felipe he started away from the river, dragging the horse and its rider after him across the sand-dunes.

The horse followed not unwillingly, but too slowly for Salvador's impatience. He dropped the rein, pulled his horse behind, and striking the other violently with his whip forced him into a gallop. The position was a tempting one to his passion, and the cruel rawhide fell once and again, not on the horse only but also on his rider. The girl uttered no sound and made no resistance, only she bent forward over the animal's neck before the shower of blows. At this pitiful sight her lover gave a great cry of despair and started forward to the rescue, wounded and unarmed as he was. But bleeding, exhausted, and on foot, it was hopeless for him to attempt to overtake the horses. He made one despairing rush with all his failing strength, then he fell headlong and lay senseless on the sand.

CHAPTER XV
THE ROD DESCENDS

The cacique made straight for the pueblo, driving his wretched prisoner before him. The poor girl, sick at heart and stupefied with grief and fatigue, picturing to herself Felipe dead of his wounds or drowning himself in his despair, submitted unresistingly to the blows and the reproaches of her father. He was the stronger; how could she resist? She let herself be driven back like a strayed beast of burden over the same leagues of burning mesa and sandy ravine that she had traversed in the coolness of the night under the silence of the stars. Then she had her lover's arms round her and his voice whispering words of love in her ear; now she shrank before bitter curses and the stinging lash. Yet never did she open her lips to utter a word in self-defence or a plea for pardon. Only she kept saying over and over to herself in time to the hoof-beats of the horse, "He may beat me, he may kill me, but Ignacio I won't have." Even sunk in misery as she was, she found a surprising comfort in steeling herself to endure, and swearing to be true to herself and to Felipe.

There is a limit to the staying powers of even the toughest of Indian ponies, and by the time the cacique and his captive had covered half the distance back to Santiago, the horse of the storekeeper which he was mounted upon, and his own which carried his daughter, were both showing painful signs of exhaustion. The cacique, unwilling to run the risk of injuring his own animal, left the trail and made for a spring that he knew of a few miles off to one side, near the foot of the mountains, where they found both water and grass. Here, in a sullen silence, they remained, till long after the sun had set and the weary day ended. The cacique was nursing his wrath till he should have got her safely home again, when he would make an example of her. Not till the Great Bear had sunk well below the pole did they remount their now rested steeds and set out once more for the pueblo; it was grey dawn when they came in sight of it at last, and presently the well-known step-like outline of the terraced roofs of Santiago showed sharp and clear among the peach orchards ahead of them. As they entered its precincts they passed through quite a crowd of onlookers; they had been observed descending from the mesas, and natural curiosity had brought numbers to see the excitement. Poor Josefa dropped her head in shame to escape the hard, inquisitive looks.

They stopped at her father's door. He pulled her roughly from the saddle, pushed her inside, and giving the horses to two of the boys, he entered after her, shut the door, and bolted it. He advanced towards her with glowing eyes. The blows he had given her on the road had only whetted his passion. "Now, you she-devil," said he, "I'll teach you to run away from me."

He flung her to the ground and stood over her. The cruel rawhide descended again and again. The eager crowd outside was squeezing up against the door and the little close-barred lattice window, anxious to see as much as possible of the exciting scene inside. They had no notion of interfering. On the contrary, it seemed to them entirely natural that a father should chastise his disobedient daughter. "If he didn't, who was to?" – that was the way they would have put it.

Among the crowd was Tito. Tito was a friend of Felipe's, and what was a source of curiosity to others was maddening to him. There came into his mind the thought of the American, and he resolved to call him to the rescue.

Stephens, after despatching his letters, as he believed, on the previous day, had returned to the house of Don Nepomuceno. He had done all he could to set the proper authorities in motion, and now, finding that the Navajos had taken themselves off and not returned, so that it was impossible to go on with the negotiations, he took his leave of the Sanchez family and hastened back to the pueblo. The more he thought of the fury the cacique had displayed in the morning, the more uneasy he felt as to what might happen when he should overtake Felipe and Josefa. But when he learnt, on his arrival, that nothing further was known since the cacique had galloped away on their tracks, he settled in his mind that no news was good news, and waited quietly for matters to develop themselves. He rose before dawn the following morning, only to be told once more that nothing had been heard of the fugitives or of the cacique, and he was now busy wiping out his rifle, when there came a hasty knock at the door, and, forgetful of the bulldog, Tito burst headlong into the room. "Oh, Don Estevan!" he exclaimed breathlessly, "Salvador is back, and he is beating his daughter like fury. Perhaps he will kill her."

"The dickens you say!" said the American, dropping his work abruptly and making for the door. "Where's Felipe?"

"I don't know," answered Tito. "He's not there. Perhaps the cacique has killed him."

Tito knew nothing of the sort, but the temptation to deepen the shadows of a harrowing tale is quite irresistible.

"Where are they?" said Stephens, as soon as they were in the open air.

"Here, in his house," cried Tito eagerly, leading the way.

Stephens paused and stood irresolute. "After all, it's none of my funeral," growled he to himself. "I haven't any call to interfere. And I haven't got any weapon on me neither." He turned back to get his pistol, but paused again. "No," he said, "I don't want it. Maybe I sha'n't do anything, and if I do, I'd better go through on my nerve." He knew that an appeal to physical force was idle where the odds were one against a hundred, and that his only chance lay in moral influence.

He followed Tito. It was plain enough where the scene was taking place by the crowd at the door. Stephens went up. The sound of blows was audible from inside, but no cry was heard from the victim. "Where are the chiefs? Where are Tostado and Benito and the rest?" he asked. He would gladly have had the support of the seniors of the village, but they were much too dignified to appear at this performance. The mob consisted of boys, young men, and some of the poorer and less well-thought-of people.

No one answered Stephens's question. He listened; the blows continued. "He can't be allowed to murder her," he cried. "The whole pueblo will get into a row with Government if that happens." He collared two or three boys out of the press. "Here you, Jose, Tomas, Juan Antonio, run and fetch Tostado here and the other chiefs. Say I want them to come."

The boys obeyed him; and the American, squeezing into the gap he had made in the crowd, knocked loudly at the door. There was no answer to the knock, but the blows stopped. He knocked again, calling, "Hullo, Salvador! Hullo there!"

"Look out, Don Estevan," called out some of the boys. "He's furious. Maybe he'll go for you."

He listened for an answer, but none was given. Then came the sound of the whip again. Stephens shouted again, but in vain. He looked round for the chiefs. There was no sign of any of them yet.

"I can't stand this any longer," said he. "Give me room, you fellows." He stood back four or five feet from the door, and raising his right foot dashed it against the lock.

The fastenings were old and the door flew open. He stepped over the threshold and entered. The crowd behind him hung back. In the middle of the floor, full length on her face, lay the form of Josefa. Her arms were bare; she had thrown them up to protect her head, and the marks of the whip were only too visible. She lay perfectly silent and still, a slight quivering of her limbs alone showing that she was alive. The Indian stood across her with his uplifted whip in his hand. He glared fiercely at the American who advanced towards him.

Stephens did not meet the cacique's eye. He was looking down at the prostrate figure on the ground. "So you've brought her back, Salvador," he remarked in an unruffled, every-day voice.

"Yes, I have," he replied brutally; "and I've given her something to keep her from ever running away again."

"It looks like it," said Stephens.

He took one hand out of his pocket, stooped down, and felt her head. "It looks like she'd never run anywhere again," he said.

He did not really believe that she was killed, but he thought it politic to assume so. His position placed him absolutely at the mercy of the Indian; but his voice, his manner, and his action conveyed the assumption that it was absolutely impossible that the Indian should dream of attacking him.

His coolness succeeded. The cacique lowered his whip and stepped back, while Stephens moved the girl's arms gently from her head. They fell limp on the earthen floor.

Stephens had seen some wild doings in Californian mining towns, but he never had seen a woman beaten in his life. Those limp arms sent a queer thrill through him. A sudden fury rose within him, but he mastered it. He felt her head all over slowly and carefully to see if the skull was fractured – as indeed it might well have been had she been struck with the loaded whip-handle. This gave him time to think of his next move.

"If you've killed her, you'll be hanged for it, Salvador," he said at last, in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone. "You and she are not citizens, but you'll be hanged all the same. The law of the Americans reaches here; understand that."

The Indian, whose passion was really more under control than seemed to be the case, was somewhat cowed at Stephens's deliberate statement, but he rejoined sullenly, "She's not dead. Lashes don't kill."

"You will have to answer for it if she dies," said Stephens getting up. He had satisfied himself that the girl was not seriously injured.

"Not to you then," said the Indian, his courage reviving, when he realised that the threat was, after all, blank cartridge, seeing that the girl was alive. He tried to work himself into a rage again. "What do you break into my house for and interfere with me? I'll do what I like with my own." He stepped forward close to Stephens, between him and Josefa. "Go out, or I'll kill you!" he said, raising his voice to a tone of fury.

For a moment the American paused, uncertain. The Indian was a powerful man, full as big and strong as himself, well armed with knife, pistol, and loaded whip, to say nothing of his fifty friends outside the door.

The hesitation was momentary. "I can't leave this girl to that brute's mercy," he said to himself. "Perhaps I can back him down."

He looked Salvador square in the eyes. "Where's Felipe?" said he calmly. "You must answer for him, too. Have you killed him?"

"None of your business," said the Indian roughly. "Be off!" and he raised his hand.

At this moment Josefa, hitherto as still as a corpse, turned her face from the floor, but without rising. She looked up at Stephens. "He gave him two shots," she said, in a voice wonderfully steady considering the pain she was enduring. "I saw him fall."

"Then I arrest you for the murder of Felipe. You are my prisoner. Give up your arms."

The only answer the cacique made to this demand was to take out his revolver, but instead of surrendering it he thrust the muzzle in Stephens's face, cocking it as he did so.

The steady gaze of the American met, without quailing, the black, flashing eyes of the Indian. Grey eyes against black, white man against red, the strife is as old as the history of the continent they stood upon; perhaps it will last as long.

"You can kill me, I know, of course," said the American, speaking very slowly and distinctly; "but you can't kill all the soldiers of the Government. You may kill me to-day, but to-morrow the soldiers will come from Santa Fé and take you prisoner; and if you make your people resist they will destroy you. The Navajos were twenty thousand, but the soldiers conquered them. You are only three hundred. They will conquer you and take you away as they did the Navajos, as they did the Jicarillas, as they have done the Modocs." He raised his left hand very gently and took hold of the pistol barrel. "Don't destroy your people, Salvador," he continued. "You know I wish them well. Loose it."

The Indian's grasp relaxed; he drew a deep breath and stepped back. Stephens lowered the pistol to his own right hand, muzzle upwards, uncocked it, and placed it in his waist-belt.

"Now come with me to my room," said he, taking him gently but firmly by the arm. The struggle for the mastery was over; the Indian had yielded; he obeyed unresistingly. As they stepped out of the house, Stephens said to Tito, "Tell the women to see to the girl."

Outside they found Tostado and the other chiefs approaching – not too fast. It was very plain that they did not want to interfere in the matter. Stephens took his man towards them.