Chapter 17 - The Scalp Hunters by Mayne Reid
Up the Del Norte
I will not distress you with a parting scene. We were in our saddles before the stars had died out, and riding along the sandy road.
At a short distance from the house the path angled, striking into thick, heavy timber. Here I checked my horse, allowing my companions to pass, and, standing in the stirrup, looked back. My eyes wandered along the old grey walls, and sought the azotea. Upon the very edge of the parapet, outlined against the pale light of the aurora, was the object I looked for. I could not distinguish the features, but I easily recognised the oval curvings of the figure, cut like a dark medallion against the sky.
She was standing near one of the yucca palm trees that grew up from the azotea. Her hand rested upon its trunk, and she bent forward, straining her gaze into the darkness below. Perhaps she saw the waving of a kerchief; perhaps she heard her name, and echoed the parting prayer that was sent back to her on the still breath of the morning. If so, her voice was drowned by the tread of my chafing horse, that, wheeling suddenly, bore me off into the sombre shadows of the forest.
I rode forward, turning at intervals to catch a glimpse of those lovely outlines, but from no other point was the house visible. It lay buried in the dark, majestic woods. I could only see the long bayonets of the picturesque palmillas; and our road now descending among hills, these too were soon hidden from my view.
Dropping the bridle, and leaving my horse to go at will, I fell into a train of thoughts at once pleasant and painful.
I knew that I had inspired this young creature with a passion deep and ardent as my own, perhaps more vital; for my heart had passed through other affections, while hers had never throbbed with any save the subdued solicitudes of a graceful childhood. She had never known emotion. Love was her first strong feeling, her first passion. Would it not, thus enthroned, reign over all other thoughts in her heart’s kingdom? She, too, so formed for love; so like its mythic goddess!
These reflections were pleasant. But the picture darkened as I turned from looking back for the last time, and something whispered me, some demon it was, “You may never see her more!”
The suggestion, even in this hypothetical form, was enough to fill my mind with dark forebodings, and I began to cast my thoughts upon the future. I was going upon no party of pleasure, from which I might return at a fixed hour. Dangers were before me, the dangers of the desert; and I knew that these were of no ordinary character. In our plans of the previous night, Seguin had not concealed the perils of our expedition. These he had detailed before exacting my final promise to accompany him. Weeks before, I would not have regarded them—they would only have lured me on to meet them; now my feelings were different, for I believed that in my life there was another’s. What, then, if the demon had whispered truly? I might never see her more! It was a painful thought; and I rode on, bent in the saddle, under the influence of its bitterness.
But I was once more upon the back of my favourite Moro, who seemed to “know his rider”; and as his elastic body heaved beneath me, my spirit answered his, and began to resume its wonted buoyancy.
After a while I took up the reins, and shortening them in my hands, spurred on after my companions. Our road lay up the river, crossing the shallow ford at intervals, and winding through the bottom-lands, that were heavily timbered. The path was difficult on account of the thick underwood; and although the trees had once been blazed for a road, there were no signs of late travel upon it, with the exception of a few solitary horse-tracks. The country appeared wild and uninhabited. This was evident from the frequency with which deer and antelope swept across our path, or sprang out of the underwood close to our horses’ heads. Here and there our path trended away from the river, crossing its numerous loops. Several times we passed large tracts where the heavy timber had been felled, and clearings had existed. But this must have been long ago, for the land that had been furrowed by the plough was now covered with tangled and almost impenetrable thickets. A few broken and decaying logs, or crumbling walls of the adobe were all that remained to attest where the settlers’ rancho had stood.
We passed a ruined church with its old turrets dropping by piecemeal. Piles of adobe lay around covering the ground for acres. A thriving village had stood there. Where was it now? Where were the busy gossips? A wild-cat sprang over the briar-laced walls, and made off into the forest. An owl flew sluggishly up from the crumbling cupola, and hovered around our heads, uttering its doleful “woo-hoo-a,” that rendered the desolation of the scene more impressive. As we rode through the ruin, a dead stillness surrounded us, broken only by the hooting of the night-bird, and the “cranch-cranch” of our horses’ feet upon the fragments of pottery that covered the deserted streets.
But where were they who had once made these walls echo with their voices? Who had knelt under the sacred shadow of that once hallowed pile? They were gone; but where? and when? and why?
I put these questions to Seguin, and was answered thus briefly—
“The Indians.”
The savage it was, with his red spear and scalping-knife, his bow and his battle-axe, his brand and his poisoned arrows.
“The Navajoes?” I inquired. “Navajo and Apache.”
“But do they come no more to this place?” A feeling of anxiety had suddenly entered my mind. I thought of our proximity to the mansion we had left. I thought of its unguarded walls. I waited with some impatience for an answer.
“No more,” was the brief reply. “And why?” I inquired.
“This is our territory,” he answered, significantly. “You are now, monsieur, in a country where live strange fellows; you shall see. Woe to the Apache or Navajo who may stray into these woods!”
As we rode forward, the country became more open, and we caught a glimpse of high bluffs trending north and south on both sides of the river. These bluffs converged till the river channel appeared to be completely barred up by a mountain. This was only an appearance. On riding farther, we found ourselves entering one of those fearful gaps, cañons, as they are called, so often met with in the table-lands of tropical America.
Through this the river foamed between two vast cliffs, a thousand feet in height, whose profiles, as you approached them, suggested the idea of angry giants, separated by some almighty hand, and thus left frowning at each other. It was with a feeling of awe that one looked up the face of these stupendous cliffs, and I felt a shuddering sensation as I neared the mighty gate between them.
“Do you see that point?” asked Seguin, indicating a rock that jutted out from the highest ledge of the chasm. I signified in the affirmative, for the question was addressed to myself.
“That is the leap you were so desirous of taking. We found you dangling against yonder rock.”
“Good God!” I ejaculated, as my eyes rested upon the dizzy eminence. My brain grew giddy as I sat in my saddle gazing upward, and I was fain to ride onward.
“But for your noble horse,” continued my companion, “the doctor here would have been stopping about this time to hypothecate upon your bones. Ho, Moro! beautiful Moro!”
“Oh, mein Gott! Ya, ya!” assented the botanist, looking up against the precipice, apparently with a feeling of awe such as I felt myself.
Seguin had ridden alongside me, and was patting my horse on the neck with expressions of admiration.
“But why?” I asked, the remembrance of our first interview now occurring to me, “why were you so eager to possess him?”
“A fancy.”
“Can I not understand it? I think you said then that I could not?”
“Oh, yes! Quite easily, monsieur. I intended to steal my own daughter, and I wanted, for that purpose, to have the aid of your horse.”
“But how?”
“It was before I had heard the news of this intended expedition of our enemy. As I had no hopes of obtaining her otherwise, it was my design to have entered their country alone, or with a tried comrade, and by stratagem to have carried her off. Their horses are swift, yet far inferior to the Arab, as you may have an opportunity of seeing. With such an animal as that, I would have been comparatively safe, unless hemmed in or surrounded, and even then I might have got off with a few scratches, I intended to have disguised myself, and entered the town as one of their own warriors. I have long been master of their language.”
“It would have been a perilous enterprise.”
“True! It was a dernier ressort, and only adopted because all other efforts had failed; after years of yearning, deep craving of the heart. I might have perished. It was a rash thought, but I, at that time, entertained it fully.”
“I hope we shall succeed now.”
“I have high hopes. It seems as if some overruling providence were now acting in my favour. This absence of her captors; and, besides, my band has been most opportunely strengthened by the arrival of a number of trappers from the eastern plains. The beaver-skins have fallen, according to their phraseology, to a ‘plew a plug,’ and they find ‘red-skin’ pays better. Ah! I hope this will soon be over.”
And he sighed deeply as he uttered the last words.
We were now at the entrance of the gorge, and a shady clump of cotton-woods invited us to rest.
“Let us noon here,” said Seguin.
We dismounted, and ran our animals out on their trail-ropes to feed. Then seating ourselves on the soft grass, we drew forth the viands that had been prepared for our journey.