Headless Horseman by Mayne Reid - Chapter Fifty Four. A Prairie Palanquin
The friendly arms, flung around Maurice Gerald, were those of Zeb Stump.
Guided by the instructions written upon the card, the hunter had made all haste towards the rendezvous there given.
He had arrived within sight, and fortunately within rifle-range of the spot, at that critical moment when the jaguar was preparing to spring.
His bullet did not prevent the fierce brute from making the bound—the last of its life—though it had passed right through the animal’s heart.
This was a thing thought of afterwards—there was no opportunity then.
On rushing into the water, to make sure that his shot had proved fatal, the hunter was himself attacked; not by the claws of the jaguar, but the hands of the man just rescued from them.
Fortunate for Zeb, that the mustanger’s knife had been left upon land. As it was, he came near being throttled; and only after throwing aside his rifle, and employing all his strength, was he able to protect himself against the unlooked-for assault.
A struggle ensued, which ended in Zeb flinging his colossal arms around the young Irishman, and bearing him bodily to the bank.
It was not all over. As soon as the latter was relieved from the embrace, he broke away and made for the pecân tree;—as rapidly as if the injured limb no longer impeded him.
The hunter suspected his intent. Standing over six feet, he saw the bloody knife-blade lying along the cloak. It was for that the mustanger was making!
Zeb bounded after; and once more enfolding the madman in his bear-like embrace, drew him back from the tree.
“Speel up thur, Pheelum!” shouted he. “Git that thing out o’ sight. The young fellur hev tuck leeve o’ his seven senses. Thur’s fever in the feel o’ him. He air gone dullerious!”
Phelim instantly obeyed; and, scrambling up the tree-trunk took possession of the knife.
Still the struggle was not over. The delirious man wrestled with his rescuer—not in silence, but with shouts and threatening speeches—his eyes all the time rolling and glaring with a fierce, demoniac light.
For full ten minutes did he continue the mad wrestling match.
At length from sheer exhaustion he sank back upon the grass; and after a few tremulous shiverings, accompanied by sighs heaved from the very bottom of his breast, he lay still, as if the last spark of life had departed from his body!
The Galwegian, believing it so, began uttering a series of lugubrious cries—the “keen” of Connemara.
“Stop yur gowlin, ye durned cuss!” cried Zeb. “It air enuf to scare the breath out o’ his karkidge. He’s no more dead than you air—only fented. By the way he hev fit me, I reck’n there ain’t much the matter wi’ him. No,” he continued, after stooping down and giving a short examination, “I kin see no wound worth makin’ a muss about. Thur’s a consid’able swellin’ o’ the knee; but the leg ain’t fructered, else he kudn’t a stud up on it. As for them scratches, they ain’t much. What kin they be? ’Twarnt the jegwur that gin them. They air more like the claws o’ a tom cat. Ho, ho! I sees now. Thur’s been a bit o’ a skrimmage afore the spotted beest kim up. The young fellur’s been attakted by coyoats! Who’d a surposed that the cowardly varmints would a had the owdacity to attakt a human critter? But they will, when they gits the chance o’ one krippled as he air—durn ’em!”
The hunter had all the talking to himself. Phelim, now overjoyed to know that his master still lived—and furthermore was in no danger of dying—suddenly changed his melancholy whine to a jubilant hullaballoo, and commenced dancing over the ground, all the while snapping his fingers in the most approved Connemara fashion.
His frenzied action provoked the hound to a like pitch of excitement; and the two became engaged in a sort of wild Irish jig.
Zeb took no notice of these grotesque demonstrations; but, once more bending over the prostrate form, proceeded to complete the examination already begun.
Becoming satisfied that there was no serious wound, he rose to his feet, and commenced taking stock of the odd articles around him. He had already noticed the Panama hat, that still adhered to the head of the mustanger; and a strange thought at seeing it there, had passed through his mind.
Hats of Guayaquil grass—erroneously called Panama—were not uncommon. Scores of Southerners wore them, in Texas as elsewhere. But he knew that the young Irishman was accustomed to carry a Mexican sombrero—a very different kind of head-gear. It was possible he might have seen fit to change the fashion.
Still, as Zeb continued to gaze upon it, he fancied he had seen that hat before, and on some other head.
It was not from any suspicion of its being honestly in possession of him now wearing it that the hunter stooped down, and took it off with the design to examine it. His object was simply to obtain some explanation of the mystery, or series of mysteries, hitherto baffling his brain.
On looking inside the hat he read two names; first, that of a New Orleans hatter, whose card was pasted in the crown; and then, in writing, another well known to him:—
“HENRY POINDEXTER.”
The cloak now came under his notice. It, too, carried marks, by which he was able to identify it as belonging to the same owner.
“Dog-goned kewrious, all this!” muttered the backwoodsman, as he stood with his eyes turned upon the ground, and apparently buried in a profound reflection.
“Hats, heads, an everythin’. Hats on the wrong head; heads i’ the wrong place! By the ’tarnal thur’s somethin’ goed astray! Ef ’twa’nt that I feel a putty consid’able smartin’ whar the young fellur gin me a lick over the left eye, I mout be arter believin’ my own skull-case wa’nt any longer atween my shoulders!”
“It air no use lookin’ to him,” he added, glancing towards Maurice, “for an explanation; leastwise till he’s slep’ off this dullerium thet’s on him. When that’ll be, ole Nick only knows.
“Wal,” he continued after another interval spent in silent reflection, “It won’t do no good our stayin’ hyur. We must git him to the shanty, an that kin only be did by toatin’ him. He sayed on the curd, he cudn’t make neer a track. It war only the anger kep’ him up a bit. That leg looks wusser and wusser. He’s boun to be toated.”
The hunter seemed to cogitate on how he was to effect this purpose.
“’Taint no good expektin’ him to help think it out,” he continued looking at the Galwegian, who was busy talking to Tara. “The dumb brute hev more sense than he. Neer a mind. I’d make him take his full share o’ the carryin’ when it kum to thet. How air it to be done? We must git him on a streetcher. That I reck’n we kin make out o’ a kupple o’ poles an the cloak; or wi’ the blanket Pheelum fetch’d from the shanty. Ye-es! a streetcher. That’s the eydentikul eyedee.”
The Connemara man was now summoned to lend assistance. Two saplings of at least ten feet in length were cut from the chapparal, and trimmed clear of twigs. Two shorter ones were also selected, and lashed crosswise over the first; and upon these there spread, first the serapé, and afterwards the cloak, to give greater strength.
In this way a rude stretcher was constructed, capable of carrying either an invalid or an inebriate.
In the mode of using it, it more resembled the latter than the former: since he who was to be borne upon it, again deliriously raging, had to be strapped to the trestles!
Unlike the ordinary stretcher, it was not carried between two men; but a man and a mare—the mare at the head, the man bearing behind.
It was he of Connemara who completed the ill-matched team. The old hunter had kept his promise, that Phelim should “take his full share o’ the carryin’, when it kum to thet.”
He was taking it, or rather getting it—Zeb having appointed himself to the easier post of conductor.
The idea was not altogether original. It was a rude copy from the Mexican litera, which in Southern Texas Zeb may have seen—differing from the latter only in being without screen, and instead of two mules, having for its atelage a mare and a man!
In this improvised palanquin was Maurice Gerald transported to his dwelling.
It was night when the grotesque-looking group arrived at the locale.
In strong but tender arms the wounded man was transferred from the stretcher to the skin couch, on which he had been accustomed to repose.
He was unconscious of where he was, and knew not the friendly faces bending over him. His thoughts were still astray, though no longer exciting him to violent action. He was experiencing an interval of calm.
He was not silent; though he made no reply to the kind questions addressed to him, or only answered them with an inconsequence that might have provoked mirth. But there were wild words upon his lips that forbade it—suggesting only serious thoughts.
His wounds received such rude dressing as his companions were capable of administering to them; and nothing more could be done but await the return of day.
Phelim went to sleep upon his shake-down; while the other sate up to keep watch by the bedside of the sufferer.
It was not from any unfaithfulness on the part of the foster-brother, that he seemed thus to disregard his duty; but simply because Zeb had requested him to lie down—telling him there was no occasion for both to remain awake.
The old hunter had his reasons. He did not desire that those wild words should be heard even by Phelim. Better he should listen to them alone.
And alone he sate listening to them—throughout the live-long night.
He heard speeches that surprised him, and names that did not. He was not surprised to hear the name “Louise” often repeated, and coupled with fervent protestations of love.
But there was another name also often pronounced—with speeches less pleasant to his ear.
It was the name of Louise’s brother.
The speeches were disjointed—incongruous, and almost unintelligible.
Comparing one with the other, however, and assisted by the circumstances already known to him, before the morning light had entered the jacalé, Zeb Stump had come to the conclusion: that Henry Poindexter was no longer a living man!