Kitabı oku: «Lone Pine: The Story of a Lost Mine», sayfa 20

He stopped before one of the ancient cave-dwellings. It was not one of those excavated entirely out of the rock, for here there was a natural cave on the ground level. Across the front of this a wall had been built, enclosing the space behind it as a dwelling-room, but the wall had been partly broken down by time. In the angle where the wall joined the rock there was a fireplace. Close by, an external house had been built as a sort of lean-to against the rock face, with a roof supported by beams that had now fallen in.

"I guess I'll just move in and take possession," he said as he looked at the cave-dwelling, and, suiting the action to the word, he stripped the saddle from his horse and put it inside, and then led him out in the meadow to picket him.

He returned to where he had left his saddle; he could see by the moonlight the fallen roof-beams of the outside house lying confusedly here and there. The roof had been of clay, but this had all washed down and now was indistinguishable from the floor, while the layers of brushwood that had supported it had crumbled into dust. But the primeval rafters of enduring pitch-pine were still mostly sound.

Entering the cave-dwelling, where he had put his saddle, his eye was caught by the old fireplace; it was still blackened with the flame of the fire that had so long ago been quenched, and still there lay visible on the hearth, cold and black, the dead embers that had once been live and glowing coals of fire.

"I wonder how many centuries it is since those were live coals?" he said. "I've heard say the old, old Aztecs used to live up north here in these deserted mountain pueblos and cliff-dwellings before ever they went south and built the City of Mexico. And they'd been living down there, so I've heard, for ages and ages before Cortes came along and slaughtered Montezuma. Why, it might be a thousand years since this place was inhabited."

He looked at the dead embers with a fascinated gaze. To him, who considered a mining camp of two years' duration quite old, who was himself one of the restless spirits who were busy making history, the history of the New West, the prehistoric hearth came with a strange appeal.

"I'll rekindle it," he said; "I will so; I'd like to warm my hands at a fire that's a thousand years old maybe. Those old rafters out there will do well to burn." He stepped round to the ruined house. "I wonder if there's any snakes hiding among those fallen stones?" He struck a match once more, and looked round in likely corners and crevices, but no sign of any reptile appeared; he dragged out a couple of rafters and carried them in and placed their ends in the fireplace; he broke with a heavy stone another one that had partly rotted, and got some splinters out of the sounder part and soon had a fire going. He watched the dead embers catch and glow red from the blaze.

"Who'd have thought in all those hundreds of years," he said, "as they lay dead, that they'd ever jump to life again in one moment like this." His words pointed to the glowing coals, but he was thinking of the poor shell of a body that an hour before he had committed to the ground. Who could believe that it might ever live again? and yet – some folks said so.

The fate of that lonely man had moved him deeply, more deeply by far than he was conscious of, for it was the type of what his own was like to be, to fall unfriended and alone in some remote ravine of a nameless range. He thought of the pocket-book he had rescued, and drew it out. The fire blazed brightly now, and he could read by it easily. The notes were casual jottings – entries of cash expended – notes of an arrangement with another man to meet and mine together – the brand of a horse purchased, and the price set down, eighty-five dollars – Winchester cartridges, two and a half dollars.

"That's clear enough evidence that he had a Winchester," commented Stephens; "all right, then; practically that settles it. He's the man, sure, those cursed Navajos joked about killing with his own gun. Hullo! what's this? Mahletonkwa's name, as I'm alive!" He rapidly ran his eye over a page of close writing. "Why, he's got it all down that Mahletonkwa brought him up here to show him a silver mine, and then treacherously left him, and that then he was attacked by Indians; he doesn't say what Indians, poor beggar; but you bet I know who they were. Here's his last entry. 'I've stood them off now for six hours, and if they don't get me before night, maybe I'll make the riffle and get away.' It was after he'd written that that they wounded him and he surrendered to them, and they had their little game with him, the sons of guns! But that's their way; cruelty and cunning are bred in their bones. They've been doing things like that for a good deal more than a thousand years, I guess, and they've kind of got into the habit of it. But I'd like to pay them out all the same. It's that Mahletonkwa's band are the guilty ones, and I dare swear to it. Well, we'll see. I've given them no amnesty for this. We'll see."

He sat there, quite still, in a fierce and moody silence. He was so still that a rattlesnake in the stones behind him pushed his flat, venomous head out of a crevice, and looked at him for quite a long time, and then drew it in again and retired. "Leave me alone and I'll leave you alone," was the snake's motto. He had no wrongs to avenge.

Unconscious of this silent observer of his reverie, the American allowed himself to indulge for a while in wild, fanciful dreams of revenge for the murder of his fellow-countryman; then he pulled himself up short.

"I'm not really called upon to punish them," he said, "and I won't think about it. It only makes me angry, and I hate to be angry and do nothing." He raised himself up, moved the ends of the burning rafters farther into the fireplace, and the flames blazed up freshly.

"Kit Carson used to be mighty careful about looking into the camp-fire at night," he said. "He always used to sit well away from the blaze, with his eyes towards the darkness, so that if anything happened he could see with them at once, without having to wait till they had got accustomed to it. But then there was always war going on, and always danger, when he used to be around in this part of the country. I've never felt shy about sitting by a camp-fire up in this sierra, and there aint no reason that I know of why I should."

He rose and straightened himself up to his full height, and stretched out his arms as a relief after sitting so still. "I might as well take a look round, though," he said, "and see if that horse is all right. I don't know his tricks, and he might tangle himself up in his picket-rope." He strolled out to where he had fastened him, and made sure that he was all right. As he turned to come back again, he saw something on the ground that caught the fire-light and shone like a jewel. He stooped to pick it up. It was an obsidian arrowhead.

"Volcanic glass," said the miner, – expert as he was in minerals, – critically turning it over and over in his fingers, "and most beautifully chipped. This is a piece of real high-class ancient Indian work. Now, I wonder if that arrow belonged to one of those old Aztec pueblo folks, or if it was one shot at them by some wild Indian. The wild Indians were enemies of the house-people then, same as now."

His imagination took fire as he looked at this relic of ancient strife. The long procession of the centuries unrolled itself before his mind's eye, and he beheld the secular struggle for life of tribe against tribe. Those old pueblo builders, cultivators of corn, house-folk, had always been at odds with their nomad brethren, the hunters of the wild wood and the plains; yet generation after generation, they had gone on being born, growing up, marrying, and begetting a new generation to succeed them, and passing away either in battle for their little community or peacefully by their own hearth. This fire-blackened, clay-plastered angle of the wall, to what unending succession of house-mothers and house-fathers did it not speak? He looked at it with a sort of reverence. The flickering light of the flames, rekindled by him, alien successor as he was of those ancient folk, lit up every detail of the surface. In places the clay daubed on there so many centuries ago looked as fresh as if it had been done last year. Here and there he could see the very finger-marks of the woman who had plastered it; for among the Indians this was ever the task of the women, as he knew very well. Yes, and, by George! there in one spot, low down, was the handprint of a tiny child in the plaster; the little one had been playing beside its mother, and had stuck its hand against the wall while the clay was wet. A strange emotion struck through him at the sight. It was as if the little hand had reached out to him across the years and touched his own. The fire he had kindled on this cold hearth seemed like a sort of altar flame, in memory of the love that had once made this little abode a sacred place.

Like a flash it came across his mind that this was what he had blindly sacrificed during all these long years of his wanderings – the joys of home; the sweet domesticities of wife and child. He knew them not; aloof, solitary, self-contained, he had coldly held himself outside the circle of all that was best in life. Why? To what end? For the sake of phantom gold; for the sake of a visionary fortune which he might never touch; for the sake of being able to build, some distant day, a fancied home away back there in the States. It was all a dream. Ten of the best years of his life had gone in the vain effort. Ten more might go as easily and as futilely. And then! OLD AGE! He saw it all now; and now it was no imaginary shadow-wife – dim, vague, and unsubstantial – that his heart went out to; it was she, the real, living, breathing creature of flesh and blood that he had played with and talked to; that he had rescued in her trouble, and restored to her parents; she whose sweet eyes met his with a certain demand. With a rush it came over him that she was what he needed; that he wanted to make her happy, and that he must do it by making her his own. He was amazed at his own blindness and hardness of heart. Was he too late? Could he have missed his chance? No, no; not that! But he would lose no time. He knew now what he must say to her, and the quicker he did it the better. With a joyful sense of anticipation he saw himself already at her side, pouring into her ear the tale of his loneliness and his love. He sprang to his feet at the thought, eager to start. As he rose to his full height there was a deafening bang close to his right ear, a blinding flash, and the burning breath of gunpowder scorched his cheek. Some murderer had fired at him from a yard off!

CHAPTER XXVI
THE SNAKE'S VERDICT

In that desperate moment Stephens felt that he was respited as by a miracle. The bullet had missed him. He dropped his right hand on to the wall over which the weapon had been fired, and clearing it with a mighty bound, lit right on top of someone recocking a discharged pistol. His eyes, dazzled by the fire glare, saw nothing, but he grappled him by the feel on the instant; with one powerful twist of his body he whirled his opponent off his legs and flung him to the ground, going down with him himself and falling heavily upon him. The Indian – he knew him for an Indian as he grappled with him by the blanket he wore – felt like a child in his grip. He seized him by the throat with the left hand and choked him, his right holding the left arm of the other and pinning him to the ground. What he had to fear now was that the free right arm would deal him some deadly blow with knife or pistol, and he tightened his grasp on the muscular throat to choke the life out of him. Then he suddenly realised that his foe was mastered, and he lifted his weight partly off his chest, still, however, kneeling on him with one knee and bearing him down with his hands.

And now his eyes were growing accustomed to the dark, and he could distinguish the features of the man under him. "By George!" he cried, "but it's Felipe. Why, you murderous young cub, what devilment are you up to now?"

But the Indian youth lay helpless under his knee, gasping, and made no answer. That strangling grasp on his throat had nearly finished him off.

Still holding him down, Stephens ran his eyes around to see if other foes were near. The moon was very low now, but its level rays cast sufficient light to allow him to discern that there was no enemy visible anywhere. He listened intently, but no sound came to him except the laboured breathing of the prostrate Indian. He longed for Faro. "If I'd only got you along, old man," thought he, "this young devil would never have been able to get the drop on me the way he did; and now you'd be able to tell me whether there were any more mean hounds like him laying for me. I wonder if there are any more around?" For several minutes he remained motionless like this, but there was no sign of anyone to succour the fallen man. The discharged pistol was lying on the ground within arm's length. He reached out and picked it up, his left hand and knee still firmly pressing his antagonist against the ground. He looked the revolver over; it was a good weapon, he could tell that much, but he could not recognise it. He had mended many weapons for the Santiago people during the winter, and the thought had occurred to him that he might chance to know this one, but on examination he did not remember to have ever set eyes on it before.

Felipe, under his knee, lay perfectly still, and his breathing was becoming more regular. Laying the pistol down behind him, Stephens felt for the boy's belt, and unbuckled it and dragged it from under him; it carried a knife in its sheath as well as the holster for the pistol. He put these behind him likewise, away from his prisoner's hand. Again he paused and listened for the sound of possible enemies approaching; but he could hear nothing whatever. He felt his own revolver, to make sure it was all right in its place, and he thought of his Winchester lying in its case by his saddle, the other side of the wall. If an enemy were to sneak up and grab that, he, Stephens, would be in a fix. He took his weight off his knee for a moment, so as to lighten the pressure on Felipe's body. "Who's with you, you young ruffian?" he asked.

"No one, Sooshiuamo," replied the boy. The breath was fast coming back to his lungs; he spoke audibly, but with difficulty.

"Don't call me Sooshiuamo, you wretch! Do you mean to say you're here all alone? If you lie to me now I'll kill you right here."

"Yes, sir," said Felipe, "I'm alone."

Stephens hesitated; he knew Felipe well enough to judge, by the way he spoke, that he was telling the truth; but he was much puzzled to account for this murderous attack. Various theories flitted through his brain. He had not a single enemy in the pueblo that he knew of, the cacique perhaps excepted; but the cacique, of all men, was the most unlikely to select Felipe to do this trick. Could this attack be intended as a punishment on him for violating some old superstition of theirs, by making a fire here in the ruined pueblo? Such a thing might be ample justification for murdering him, from their point of view, as he had reason to know. Their behaviour over the blasting of the ditch was proof enough of how strongly they could feel about things that shocked their religious susceptibilities. But how could they have known of his crime when he had only found the spot an hour ago? He determined to cross-question his prisoner.

"Who set you on to murder me?" he asked.

Felipe hesitated. "Nobody," he said finally.

"Do you mean to tell me you did it on your own hook?" he asked, incredulous.

"Yes, sir."

"Where d'you get that pistol?" Stephens knew he didn't own one.

"I bought it."

"Where?"

"In San Remo."

"Who sold it to you?"

"The storekeeper."

"Mr. Backus?"

"Yes, sir."

A light began to dawn upon Stephens. Backus undoubtedly had a grudge against him.

"Did he put you up to this?" he asked.

Felipe was silent.

"Answer me; mind you, your life's at stake."

"Partly he did."

"Partly, you say. What do you mean? Who else?"

"Partly myself."

"You young scallywag! What did you want to kill me for?"

Felipe hesitated, but he felt the knee of the man who had him down begin to press harder again. "Because of Josefa," he said, with evident reluctance.

"Explain yourself, you idiot. Because of Josefa? Why, it was I who saved her. Don't you know that much?"

"You took her away," said Felipe sulkily.

"Of course I did, you ninny. What would you have had me do? Leave her with her father to be beaten to death? You're a plumb idiot."

"You needn't have taken her, though, for yourself," rejoined the boy.

"Oh, you make me tired!" said Stephens; "if that's all you've got to kill me for, get up." He released the young Indian, taking care, however, to retain possession of the belt and pistol and knife. Felipe scrambled to his feet rather unsteadily.

"I've a mind to boot you all the way back to the pueblo," said Stephens disgustedly; "not for trying to blow the top of my head off, though you deserve it for missing me at only four feet away, but for being such a loony idiot as to think that. By Jimini! I haven't got language to say what I think of you. Why, you – you – you galoot! when did you ever know me go to carrying on with any of the women in the pueblo? You ought to know me better by this time."

Felipe looked abashed.

"You all but did for yourself," he went on, – "that is, if you'd only known it; and I'm not sure that you haven't now. Why, I took her over from her family thinking to give her to you, but I'm dashed if I know whether I'd ought to now. There's too many blanked fools in this world already to make it worth while to help to set more of 'em going. However, we'll see what she's got to say about you. If she has a fancy for marrying an escaped lunatic, I suppose she'll have to have her way. Come, I'm going back to the fire; walk through that door there and we'll go in. Here, take your belt, but I'm dashed if you're to be trusted with a loaded pistol any more than if you were a three-year-old baby." He raised the Colt above his head and rapidly discharged the five loaded chambers one after another in the air.

It was the report of those shots that attracted the attention of the storekeeper far off on the hillside. The two entered the cave-dwelling, Felipe holding himself very stiffly as he moved.

"I don't wonder you're stiff," said the American, observing him; "I must have pretty near squeezed the life out of you, and serves you right." He was still very angry.

"It isn't that," said Felipe, feeling his dignity assailed; "my shoulder is very sore; I have a bullet wound in it."

"The mischief, you have," said Stephens. "I suppose you got that from the cacique. I guess it must have hurt you some when I was mauling you just now." His voice softened a bit. "Of course I couldn't know about that"; he was actually apologising already to his would-be murderer. "Here, bring it to the light of the fire and let me see it." Felipe squatted down with his right shoulder towards the blaze. "H'm, yes, an ugly place, rather," examining it carefully, "but it's been well done up"; he smelt it, "you've got that carbolic on it; good stuff for a gunshot wound, in my opinion. Say, where d'you get any round here?"

"Mr. Backus," answered the boy.

"Oh, from him. Seems to me he's been having a good deal to say to you lately. Who dressed this for you?" He replaced the bandage.

"Mr. Backus."

"Well, he understands gunshot wounds pretty well, but you take my advice and don't have any more to do with him for the present. He aint good company for young gentlemen with no more brains than you – Hullo! what's that? Didn't you hear something out yonder?"

A faint cry appeared to come from a distance.

"It sounds like a man," said Felipe.

The cry was repeated; it seemed like the word "Help!"

"Come on," cried Stephens, snatching his Winchester from the case and running into the darkness in the direction from which the sound seemed to come. Felipe followed him.

"Help!" came again more distinctly.

In another minute they were on the spot where the body of a man lay writhing on the ground face downwards. Stephens stooped and raised him, and beheld his enemy, Backus.

He let him drop on the ground again as if he had unexpectedly picked up a snake, and sprang back grasping his rifle at the ready. Could this be some infernal trap? Had Felipe been deceiving him?

"Did you lie to me?" There was a dangerous ring in his voice. "I asked you if you were alone, and you said you were, and here's the man who's your confederate, by your own confession."

"Before God, I didn't know he was here," cried the boy very earnestly. "What's the matter with him? He's dying."

"He deserves to die," said the prospector, looking down at him.

"Whiskey," moaned Backus brokenly; "I'm snake-bit."

"Snake-bit, are you?" said the prospector, still suspicious. "Well, if you are that's rather rough on you. Where are you struck?"

"In the face," said the wretched man. "For God's sake help me; this pain's maddening. I'm going to die."

"Lift his head up, Felipe," said Stephens, "and let me see the place. Great Scot! I should say you were snake-bit, and powerful bad, too," he added, as the young Indian lifted the head of the fallen man and turned it so as to show the face. It was a ghastly sight! The whole of the left cheek and side of the head were swollen out of all recognition, and the puffed and strained skin was so discoloured that it looked like a mass of livid bruises.

His first suspicion had been that the cunning storekeeper had set Felipe on him, and then, finding that the Indian had failed in his murderous attack, had adopted the heartless but too common ruse of shamming sick, in order to get his antagonist at a disadvantage. Stephens had sprung backward, and was standing now with his Winchester, ready at any moment to pump lead into his would-be murderers; but the awful condition of his enemy was proof sufficient that there was no sham about this case. Holding his rifle in one hand, he advanced, and with the other aided Felipe to raise the fallen man to a sitting posture.

"When did it happen?" he asked.

"Just now."

The stricken man's breathing was painfully laboured, and he spoke with extreme difficulty, so that it was hard to understand him.

"Have you any whiskey?" Stephens inquired.

"No."

"Have you done anything for it?"

"No."

"There's nothing you could have done that I know of," said Stephens; "I was thinking whether I could try to lance it for you, but I'm afraid of cutting an artery. Of course, Felipe, it isn't possible that you could have any whiskey?"

"No, indeed, Sooshiuamo," said the boy; "how could I?"

"No, no, of course you couldn't," said the prospector; "and I haven't any neither. If we had a quart of whiskey here we might be able to save him. The only thing we can do is to keep him moving. Look here, Felipe, you lift him under the right shoulder and I'll lift him under the left; we must walk him around. Now then, up!" Between them they raised the unhappy man to his feet.

"Come on," cried Stephens, "hold him up. Steady now."

They walked forward as steadily as they could in the direction of the cave-dwelling, Backus staggering along between them. His legs went through the motions of walking almost mechanically, but his weight rested entirely on his two supporters, and he was a heavy man to carry.

"Stick to it, Felipe," said Stephens, "it's the only chance for him. Keep him going." They reached the cave. "Set him down here a minute before the fire," said Stephens, putting aside his rifle, and with both hands lowering the patient to the ground, after spreading his blanket for him to lie on. Backus was in a state of appalling collapse; the swelling increased so rapidly that it seemed as if his head must burst; the inflamed skin was horribly mottled with red and green and yellow, and a cold sweat broke out on him. Stephens knelt beside him and felt his pulse; it was rapid, fluttering, and feeble.

Felipe looked on, awestruck and speechless. That the prospector should try to preserve the life of his enemy did not appeal to him at all; it seemed to him only one more of the unaccountable things these Americans did. But the frightful state of the storekeeper, and the agonising pains he was suffering were the work of the dread reptile he had been taught to reverence from his earliest days. The gods were angry with Backus, and this was their doing.

Stephens felt that the stricken man's hands were growing deadly cold. He sprang up. "Come on, Felipe!" he exclaimed, rising quickly again to his feet. "He's at the last gasp, I think. We must try to walk him up and down again. It's the one thing we can do."

They raised him to his feet once more, Stephens putting his right arm round his waist, and steadying him with the other, and, Felipe aiding, they walked him to and fro on the meadow, trying to counteract the fatal lethargy produced by the bite.

"He must have got an awful dose of poison into him," said Stephens, as they struggled along with their now nearly unconscious burden. "I guess it must have been a snake that had been lying up for the winter, and had only just come out now the warm weather's beginning. They're worst of all then; their poison-bag has a full charge in it."

But Felipe made no answer; he was not affected by the scientific question as to how many drops of venom there might be in a serpent's poison-gland. For him the question was, "Had the god struck to kill? or would he be content to punish and pardon?" But as he looked at the lolling head and dragging limbs of the victim he felt that the god had struck to kill.

At this moment the moon sank beneath the horizon.

"I guess he's come to the jumping-off place," said Stephens, as Backus sank into absolute unconsciousness. "Let's carry him right back to the fire."

Once more they laid him down beside that prehistoric hearth, and the ruddy glow lit up the horrid spectacle of his distorted face. They tried to warm him and keep the life in him a little longer; but it was in vain. The laboured breath came slower and slower; the feeble pulse waxed fainter and fainter; the chill hand of death was there, and nought that they could do was of any avail; and after a little while Stephens was aware that the thing that lay in front of the fire was but a disfigured corpse.

Between them, he and Felipe raised it, and laid it at one side of the dwelling, and covered it from sight with the blanket. When they returned to the fire, they stood there side by side gazing at the embers in a long silence. They stood as it were in the presence of death, and neither the white man nor the red had any mind to break the solemnity of the scene.

Suddenly there came a low, rustling, slithering sound from the stones in the corner behind them, as a large snake glided out across the floor, and swiftly vanished into the darkness without.

Stephens gave an involuntary shudder. "That brute must have been in the corner there all the time I was here," he said.

"Yes, Sooshiuamo," answered Felipe in an awestruck voice, "he was there, but he did not touch you. Now he has gone to tell his brother who struck your enemy that he is dead. The snakes must be your friends; they do not hurt you; they only kill your enemies for you"; and as if impelled to penitence by what he regarded as a supernatural warning, he turned to the prospector and poured out in a flood a full confession of all he had heard and seen and suspected of Backus's schemes, and of his dealings with the Navajos.

Stephens listened aghast. Mahletonkwa certainly had told him that his message to the governor had been stopped, but he had been loath to believe that a white man could play such a treacherous game, and side with savages against his own countryman. It was natural for the American to prefer to think that the Navajo had lied; but, if Felipe spoke true, the wretched man who lay dead before them had really and actually sold him into the hands of the Navajos. Then arose the question – what had been his object? There might be more dangers around, more plots that Felipe knew nothing of? "I never liked him, it's true, but why should he play such a mean trick merely for that? If he really did destroy my letters asking for the soldiers, he must have done it that very hour that I gave them to him. It wasn't till the next day that I knocked him into the ditch, so he couldn't have done it out of revenge for that blow I gave him. I wonder, now, if he could have kept a grudge against me for that old wound at Apache Cañon? Some folks find it mighty hard to forgive."

"Well," he continued aloud, addressing Felipe, "I sha'n't bear any malice against you, young 'un. I reckon that – well – that fellow just used you, and you aint much more to blame than an idiot – pity you hadn't got more sense; but that's enough – I'll never think of it again."

Felipe looked up at him with dumb gratitude in his eyes.

"And now," said the prospector, when the misunderstanding between them had been thus settled, "the morning star is up, and it will be dawn directly. We must take the body down to San Remo that it may be buried by his own people."

He went out to the meadow and brought up the horse and put the saddle on him. With no small difficulty they lifted the corpse on to it and made it fast there, and then, with Felipe at the horse's head, and Stephens holding the sad burden in place, they made their way back to the trail, and so down once more from the sierra to the village.