Chapter 30 - Wood Rangers: The Trappers of Sonora by Mayne Reid
Bois-Rose and Fabian
For twenty years the murderer of the Countess de Mediana had gone unpunished. For twenty years the justice of heaven had remained suspended; but the time of its accomplishment was not far off. Soon was it to open its solemn assizes; soon would it call together accuser and criminal, witness and judge—not from one part of a country to another, but from opposite sides of the globe; and, as if led by some invisible hand, all would have to obey the terrible summons.
Fabian de Mediana and the Canadian sailor lay side by side—just as they had done twenty years ago, at three thousand leagues distance from Sonora. And yet they had no suspicion of ever having met before, though a single chance word might at that moment have brought either to the memory of the other.
It was just about this time that Don Estevan and his party rode off from the hacienda.
The Canadian, according to the counsel of his comrade Pepé, slept with one eye open. At short intervals he contrived to awake himself, and raising his head slightly, cast around him a scrutinising glance. But on each of these occasions, the light of the fire showed him Tiburcio still tranquilly asleep; and this appearing to satisfy him, he would again compose himself as before.
About an hour had passed, when the sound of heavy footsteps awakened him once more, and listening a moment, he distinguished them as the hoof-strokes of a horse.
A few moments after, Pepé made his appearance within the circle of the blaze, leading a horse at the end of his lazo—a magnificent animal, that snorted and started back at sight of the fire. Pepé, however, had already given him more than one lesson, and his obedience was nearly complete; so that, after a short conflict, the trapper succeeded in bringing him nearer and attaching him to the trunk of a tree.
“Well,” said Pepé, wiping the perspiration from his forehead with an old ragged handkerchief, “I’ve had a tough struggle with him; but he’s worth it, I fancy. What think you, Bois-Rose? Isn’t he the most splendid quadruped that ever galloped through these woods?”
In truth it was a beautiful creature, rendered more beautiful by the terror which he was exhibiting at the moment, as he stood with his fine limbs stretched, his head thrown high in the air, his mane tossed over his wild savage eyes, and his nostrils spread and frothy. Strange enough that fear, which renders vile and degraded the lord of the creation, should have an opposite effect on most of the lower animals—especially on the horse. This beautiful creature under its impulse only appears more beautiful!
Little as Bois-Rose delighted in horse-flesh, he could not withhold his approval of the capture which his comrade had made.
“He looks well enough,” was his sober reply; “but he’ll be a rough mount, I reckon.”
“No doubt of that,” assented Pepé. “I know he’ll be rough at first; but the main thing was to get hold of him. I had a lucky hand to hook him as I did.”
“I hope your neck will prove as lucky as your hand. For my part, I’d rather walk ten leagues than be on his back for ten minutes. But see, comrade!” continued the big trapper, pointing to the stars, “they’re gone down yonder! you’ll need some sleep before morning. Lie down while I take my turn of the watch.”
“I’ll take your advice,” replied Pepé, at the same time stretching himself out upon his back, with his feet to the fire—in which attitude he was soon asleep.
The Canadian rose to his feet, took several turns round the fire—as if to drive away any remains of sleep that might be lurking in his eyes—then sat down again, with his back resting against the stump of a tree.
He had not been long seated before he got up once more, and, approaching with caution, stood over Tiburcio. For several minutes he remained in this attitude, attentively examining the features of the young man: he then returned to his seat by the stump.
“Just about his age, if he is still living,” muttered he to himself. “But what chance have I to recognise in a grown man the features of an infant scarce four years old?”
A smile of disdain played for an instant on his lips, as if he were chiding himself for the silliness of his conjectures.
“And yet,” he continued, his countenance changing its expression, “I have seen and taken part in too many strange events—I have been too long face to face with Nature—to doubt the power of Providence. Why should I consider this a miracle? It was not one when I chanced upon the boat adrift that carried that poor infant and its murdered mother! No, it was the hand of God. Why might not the same hand restore him to me in the midst of the desert? The ways of Providence are inscrutable.”
As if this reflection had given birth to new hopes, the Canadian again rose to his feet, and approaching, stooped once more over the prostrate form of Tiburcio.
“How often,” said he, “have I thus gazed on my little Fabian as he slept! Well, whoever you are, young man,” continued he, “you have not come to my fire without finding a friend. May God do for my poor Fabian what I am disposed to do for you!”
Saying this, he once again returned to his seat, and remained for a long time reflecting upon incidents that had transpired twenty years before in the Bay of Biscay.
It should here be stated that up to this hour Bois-Rose and Pepé had not the slightest suspicion that they had ever met, before their chance encounter upon the prairies of America. In reality they had never met—farther than that they had been within musket-range of each other. But up to this hour Pepé knew not that his trapping comrade was the gigantic smuggler he had fired at from the beach of Ensenada; and Bois-Rose was equally ignorant that Pepé was the coast-guard whose “obstinacy and clumsiness” he had spoken of to his lieutenant.
The cause of this mutual ignorance of each other’s past was that neither of them had ever mentioned the word Elanchovi in the hearing of the other. The Canadian had never thought of communicating the incidents of that night to his prairie comrade; and Pepé, on his side, would have given much to have blotted them altogether from the pages of his memory.
The night became more chilly as the hours passed on, and a damp dew now fell upon the grass and the foliage of the trees. It did not wake the sleepers, however, both of whom required a long rest.
All at once the silence was broken by the horse of Pepé, that neighed loudly and galloped in a circle at the end of his lazo: evidently something had affrighted him. Bois-Rose suddenly started from his reverie, and crept silently forward, both ear and eye set keenly to reconnoitre. But nothing could be heard or seen that was unusual; and after a while he glided back to his seat.
The noise had awakened Tiburcio, who, raising himself into a sitting posture, inquired its cause.
“Nothing,” answered the trapper, whose denial, however, was scarce sincere. “Something indeed,” continued he, “has frightened the horse. A jaguar, I fancy, that scents the skins of his companions, or, more likely, the remains of our roast mutton. By the way, you can eat a bit now; I have kept a couple of pieces for you.”
And as he said this he handed two goodly-sized pieces of mutton to Tiburcio.
This time the young man accepted the invitation to eat. Rest had given him an appetite; and after swallowing a few mouthfuls of the cold mutton, warmed up by a glass of the brandy already mentioned, he felt both his strength and spirits restored at the same time. His features, too, seemed to have suddenly changed their hue, and now appeared more bright and smiling.
The presence of the hunter also added to the pleasure thus newly arisen within his breast. He remembered the solicitude which the Canadian had exhibited in dressing his wound—which he now extended even to giving him nourishment—and the thought occurred to him that in this man he might find a friend as redoubtable for his herculean strength as for his dexterity and courage. He no longer felt so lone in the world—so abandoned.
On the other hand, Bois-Rose sat looking at his protégé and apparently delighted to see him enjoy his repast. The heart of the trapper was fast warming into a strong friendship for this young man.
“Stranger!” said he, after a considerable interval of silence, “it is the custom of the Indians never to inquire the name or quality of a guest until after he has eaten of their bread. I have followed their example in regard to you; and now may I ask you who you are, and what happened at the hacienda to drive you forth from it?”
“I shall willingly tell you,” answered Tiburcio. “For reasons that would have no interest for you, I left my hut and started on a journey to the Hacienda del Venado. My horse, overcome by thirst and fatigue, broke down on the way. It was his dead body, as you already know, that attracted the jaguars, so adroitly destroyed by you and your brave comrade.”
“Hum!” interrupted the Canadian, with a smile; “a poor feat that—but go on. I long to hear what motive any one could have for hostility to a mere youth scarce twenty years old, I should fancy.”
“Twenty-four,” answered Tiburcio, and then proceeded with his narrative. “I came very near sharing the fate of my poor horse; and when, about two hours after, you saw me at La Poza, I had just arrived there—having been saved by the party in whose company you found me. But what motive those gentlemen could have, first to rescue me from death, and then afterwards attempt to take my life, is what I am unable to comprehend.”
“Perhaps some rivalry in love?” suggested the Canadian, with a smile; “it is usually the history of young men.”
“I acknowledge,” rejoined Tiburcio, with an air of embarrassment, “there is something of that; but there is also another motive, I believe. Possibly it is to secure to themselves the sole possession of an important secret which I share with them. Certain it is, that there are three men whom my life appears to discommode; there is one of them against whom I have myself sworn vengeance, and although I am but one against three I must accomplish the vow which I made at the death-bed of a person who was very dear to me.”
The three men whom Tiburcio meant—and whose names he repeated to Bois-Rose—were Cuchillo, who had attempted to assassinate him; the Senator, his rival: and Don Estevan, whom Tiburcio now believed to be the murderer of Marcos Arellanos.
Bois-Rose tacitly applauded this exhibition of youthful ardour and reckless courage.
“But you have not yet told me your name?” said he, interrogatively, after a moment’s hesitation.
“Tiburcio Arellanos,” was the reply.
At the mention of the name the Canadian could not restrain a gesture that expressed disappointment. There was nothing in the name to recall the slightest souvenir. He had never heard it before.
The young man, however, observed the gesture.
“You have heard the name before?” he asked abruptly. “Perhaps you knew my father, Marcos Arellanos? He has often been through the wildest parts of the country where you may have met him. He was the most celebrated gambusino in the province.”
Instead of calling Marcos Arellanos his father, had Tiburcio said his adopted father, his explanation might have elicited a different response from the Canadian. As it was, he only said in reply:
“It is the first time I have heard the name. It was your face that recalled to me some memories of events that happened—long, long ago—”
Without finishing what he meant to have said, the Canadian relapsed into silence.
Tiburcio, too, ceased speaking for a while; he was reflecting on some hopes that had suddenly sprung up within him. His meeting with the two trappers appeared to him not so much a mere chance as a providential circumstance. The secret which he possessed, almost useless to him alone, might be rendered available with the assistance of two auxiliaries such as they—it might become the key to the favour of Don Augustin. It was not without repugnance that he reflected on this means of winning the heart of Rosarita—or rather of purchasing it at the price of gold—for Tiburcio believed that it was closed against any more tender appeal. He had mentally resolved never to return to the hacienda; but notwithstanding this vow he still indulged in a slight remnant of hope—perhaps the echo of his own profound passion. This hope overcame his repugnance; and he resolved to make known his design to the trappers, and endeavour to obtain assistance in carrying it out.
With this view he again opened the conversation.
“You are a hunter by profession—I think I have heard you say?”
“Yes; that is the vocation both of my comrade and myself.”
“It is not a very profitable one, and yet attended with many dangers.”
“Ah! it is a noble calling, my boy! My fathers followed it before my time, and I, after a few years of interruption, have resumed the profession of my fathers. Unfortunately I have no son to succeed me; and I can say, without boasting, that when I am gone a brave and strong race perishes with me.”
“I, too,” said Tiburcio, “follow the profession of my father—who, as I have told you, was a gambusino.”
“Ah! you are one of a race whom God has also created—in order that the gold which He has given to the world should not be lost to the use of man.”
“My father,” continued Tiburcio, “has left me a grand legacy—the knowledge of a deposit of gold, not far from the frontier; and if two men, such as you and your comrade, would join me in obtaining it, I could promise to make you richer than ever you dreamt of becoming.”
Tiburcio awaited the reply of the trapper, feeling almost certain of his adhesion, notwithstanding the refusal the latter had made in his presence to the proposal of Don Estevan. His astonishment, therefore, was great when the Canadian, with a negative shake of the head, replied as follows:
“Your proposal, young man, might be seductive to many—there was a time when it would have been so to myself—but now it is no longer so. What would gold be to me? I have no one to whom either to give it or leave it. I have no longer a country. The woods and prairies are my home, and gold would be of no service to me there. I thank you, young friend, for your offer, but I must decline to accept it.”
And as he said this, the Canadian covered his face with his huge hand, as if to shut out from his eyes the seductive prospect which had been offered to his view.
“Surely this is not your final answer?” said Tiburcio, as soon as he had recovered from his surprise. “A man does not so readily refuse a treasure that he has only to pick up from the ground?”
“Nevertheless,” responded the trapper, “it is my resolution, fixed and firm. I have other objects to follow. I have given myself, body and soul, to aid my comrade there in an enterprise—my comrade of ten years’ standing.”
During this conversation the words gold and treasure, frequently pronounced, appeared to produce their magic influence on Pepé. Every now and then he turned himself, as if about to protest against the refusal of Bois-Rose, so definitively given. It was evident he was not sleeping very soundly while the talk was going on.
“This Don Estevan de Arechiza, of whom you speak,” resumed the Canadian; “he is the same we saw at La Poza is he not—the chief of the expedition?”
“The same.”
“Ha! is that the name he goes by here?” cried Pepé, suddenly rousing himself from his apparent sleep.
“You know him, then?” said Tiburcio, interrogatively.
“Yes—yes,” replied Pepé; “he is an old acquaintance, with whom I have some back debts to settle—and that is why you see me in this part of the country. But if you desire to have the whole story—and from what has happened I fancy you will—I promise to tell it to you by-and-bye. I begin to fancy that our cause is a common one; and if so, I shall be able to lend you a hand. But there’s a time for everything; and now, the most important thing for me is to get some sleep, so as to be ready for whatever turns up.”
As Pepé said this, he made a movement to return to the horizontal position from which he had temporarily raised himself.
“Stay! Pepé!” interrupted the Canadian, with an air of good-humour; “one instant before you fall asleep, or I shall say that you deserved the name of Pepé the Sleeper. Hear me! This young man has made us an offer. He wishes us to accompany him to a placer he knows of, where you have only to stoop down and gather the gold in handfuls.”
“Carramba!” exclaimed Pepé; “you have accepted the offer, of course?”
“On the contrary, I have refused it.”
“Then you’ve done wrong, Bois-Rose! That’s a thing that deserves consideration; but we can talk it over by-and-bye—I must have some sleep first.” And as he uttered the last words he lay down again; and the instant after a loud snore announced that he was soundly asleep!