Chapter 41 - Wood Rangers: The Trappers of Sonora by Mayne Reid
Indian Cunning
As the Canadian uttered the generous oath, wrung from him by indignation, it seemed to him that a supplicating voice reached him. “Is not the poor wretch calling for aid?” And he raised his head from behind its shelter.
At sight of the fox-skin cap which covered the head of the giant, and of the long and heavy rifle which he raised like a willow wand, the Indians recognised one of their formidable northern enemies, and recoiled in astonishment—for the Blackbird alone had been instructed as to whom they were seeking. Bois-Rose, looking towards the shore now perceived the unlucky Gayferos stretching out his arms towards him, and feebly calling for help. The dying Indian still held the scalp in his clenched hand.
At this terrible spectacle the Canadian drew himself up to his full height. “Fire on these dogs!” cried he, “and remember—never let them take you alive.”
So saying, he resolutely entered the water, and any other man would have had it up to his head, but the Canadian had all his shoulders above the surface.
“Do not fire till after me,” said Pepé to Fabian; “my hand is surer than yours, and my Kentucky rifle carries twice as far as your Liege gun.” And he held his rifle ready to fire at the slightest sign of hostility from the Indians.
Meanwhile, Bois-Rose still advanced, the water growing gradually shallower, when an Indian raised his rifle ready to fire on the intrepid hunter; but a bullet from Pepé stopped him, and he fell forward on his face.
“Now you, Don Fabian!” said Pepé, throwing himself on the ground to reload, after the American custom in such cases.
Fabian fired, but his rifle having a shorter range, the shot only drew from the Indian at whom he aimed a cry of rage. But Pepé had reloaded, and stood ready to fire again.
There was a moment’s hesitation among the Indians, by which Bois-Rose profited to draw towards him the body of the unlucky Gayferos. He, clinging to his shoulders, had the presence of mind to leave his preserver’s arms free; who, with his burden, again entered the water, going backwards. Then his rifle was heard, and an Indian’s death-cry immediately followed. This valiant retreat, protected by Pepé and Fabian, awed the Indians, and some minutes after, Bois-Rose triumphantly placed the fainting Gayferos on the island.
“There are three of them settled for,” said he, “and now we shall have a few minutes’ truce. Well, Fabian, do you see the advantage of firing in file? You did not do badly for a beginner, and I can assure you that when you have a Kentucky rifle like us, you will be a good marksman.” Then to Gayferos, “We came too late to save the skin of your head, my poor fellow, but console yourself, it is no such dreadful thing. I have many friends in the same condition, who are none the worse for it. Your life is saved—that is the great thing—and we shall endeavour to bind up your wounds.”
Some strips torn from the shirt of Gayferos served to bind around his head a large mass of willow leaves crushed together and steeped in water, and concealed the hideous wound. The blood was then washed from his face.
“You see,” said Bois-Rose, still clinging to the idea of keeping Fabian near him, “you must learn to know the habits of the desert, and of the Indians. The villains, who see, by the loss of three of their men, what stuff we are made of, have retired to concoct some stratagem. You hear how silent all is after so much noise?”
The desert, indeed, had recovered its silence, the leaves only trembled in the evening breeze, and the water began to display brilliant colours in the setting sun.
“Well, Pepé, they are but seventeen now!” continued Bois-Rose, in a tone of triumph.
“Oh! we may succeed, if they do not get reinforcements.”
“That is a chance and a terrible one; but our lives are in God’s hands,” replied Bois-Rose. “Tell me, friend!” said he to Gayferos, “you probably belong to the camp of Don Estevan?”
“Do you know him then?” said the wounded man, in a feeble voice.
“Yes; and by what chance are you so far from the camp?”
The wounded man recounted how, by Don Estevan’s orders, he had set off to seek for their lost guide, and that his evil star had brought him in contact with the Indians as they were hunting the wild horses.
“What is the name of your guide?”
“Cuchillo.”
Fabian and Bois-Rose glanced at each other.
“Yes,” said the latter, “there is some probability that your suspicions about that white demon were correct, and that he is conducting the expedition to the Golden Valley; but, my child, if we escape these Indians, we are close to it; and once we are installed there, were they a hundred, we should succeed in defending ourselves.”
This was whispered in Fabian’s ear.
“One word more,” said Bois-Rose to the wounded man, “and then we shall leave you to repose. How many men has Don Estevan with him?”
“Sixty.”
Bois-Rose now again bathed the head of the wounded Gayferos with cold water: and the unhappy man, refreshed for the moment, and weakened by loss of blood, fell into a lethargic sleep.
“Now,” continued Bois-Rose, “let us endeavour to build up a rampart which shall be a little more ball and arrow-proof than this fringe of moving leaves and reeds. Did you count how many rifles the Indians had?”
“Seven, I believe,” said Pepé.
“Then ten of them are less to be feared. They cannot attack us either on the right or the left—but perhaps they have made a détour to cross the river, and are about to place us between two fires.”
The side of the islet opposite the shore on which the Indians had shown themselves was sufficiently defended by enormous roots, bristling like chevaux-de-frise; but the side where the attack was probably about to recommence was defended only by a thick row of reeds and osier-shoots.
Thanks to his great strength, Bois-Rose, aided by Pepé, succeeded in dragging from the end of the islet which faced the course of the stream, some large dry branches and fallen trunks of trees. A few minutes sufficed for the two skilful hunters to protect the feeble side with a rough but solid entrenchment, which would form a very good defence to the little garrison of the island.
“Do you see, Fabian,” said Bois-Rose, “you’ll be as safe behind these trunks of trees as in a stone fortress. You’ll be exposed only to the balls that may be fired from the tops of the trees, but I shall take care that none of these redskins climb so high.”
And quite happy at having raised a barrier between Fabian and death, he assigned him his post in the place most sheltered from the enemy.
“Did you remark,” said he to Pepé, “how at every effort that we made to break a branch or disengage a block of wood, the island trembled to its foundation?”
“Yes,” said Pepé, “one might think that it was about to be torn from its base and follow the course of the stream.”
The Canadian then cautioned his two companions to be careful of their ammunition, gave Fabian some instructions as to taking aim, pressed him to his heart, squeezed the hand of his old comrade, and then the three stationed themselves at their several posts. The surface of the river, the tops of the aspens growing on the banks, the banks themselves and the reeds, were all objects of examination for the hunters, as the night was fast coming on.
“This is the hour when the demons of darkness lay their snares,” said Bois-Rose, “when these human jaguars seek for their prey. It was of them that the Scriptures spoke.”
No one replied to this speech, which was uttered rather as a soliloquy.
Meanwhile, the darkness was creeping on little by little, and the bushes which grew on the bank began to assume the fantastic forms given to objects by the uncertain twilight.
The green of the trees began to look black; but habit had given to Bois-Rose and to Pepé eyes as piercing as those of the Indians themselves, and nothing, with the vigilance they were exerting, could have deceived them.
“Pepé,” whispered Bois-Rose, pointing to a tuft of osiers, “does it not seem to you that that bush has changed its form and grown larger?”
“Yes; it has changed its form!”
“See, Fabian! you have the piercing sight that I had at your age; does it not appear to you that at the left-hand side of that tuft of osiers the leaves no longer look natural?”
The young man pushed the reeds on one side, and gazed for a while attentively.
“I could swear it,” said he, “but—” He stopped, and looked in another direction.
“Well! do you see anything?”
“I see, between that willow and the aspen, about ten feet from the tuft of osiers, a bush which certainly was not there just now.”
“Ah! see what it is to live far from towns;—the least points of the landscape fix themselves in the memory, and become precious indications. You are born to live the life of a hunter, Fabian!”
Pepé levelled his rifle at the bush indicated by Fabian.
“Pepé understands it at once,” said Bois-Rose; “he knows, like me, that the Indians have employed their time in cutting down branches to form a temporary shelter; but I think two of us at least may teach them a few stratagems that they do not yet know. Leave that bush to Fabian, it will be an easy mark for him; fire at the branches whose leaves are beginning to wither—there is an Indian behind them. Fire in the centre, Fabian!”
The two rifles were heard simultaneously, and the false bush fell, displaying a red body behind the leaves, while the branches which had been added were convulsively agitated. All three then threw themselves on the ground, and a discharge of balls immediately flew over their heads, covering them with leaves and broken branches, while the war-cry of the Indians sounded in their ears.
“If I do not deceive myself, they are now but fifteen,” said Bois-Rose, as he quitted his horizontal posture, and knelt on the ground.
“Be still!” added he. “I see the leaves of an aspen trembling more than the wind alone could cause them to do. It is doubtless one of those fellows who has climbed up into the tree.”
As he spoke, a bullet struck one of the trunks of which the islet was composed, and proved that he had guessed rightly.
“Wagh!” said the Canadian, “I must resort to a trick that will force him to show himself.”
So saying, he took off his cap and coat, and placed them between the branches, where they could be seen. “Now,” said he, “if I were fighting a white soldier, I would place myself by the side of my coat, for he would fire at the coat; with an Indian I shall stand behind it, for he will not be deceived in the same manner, and will aim to one side of it. Lie down, Fabian and Pepé, and in a minute you shall hear a bullet whistle either to the right or the left of the mark I have set up.”
As Bois-Rose said this, he knelt down behind his coat, ready to fire at the aspen.
He was not wrong in his conjectures; in a moment, the balls of the Indians cut the leaves on each side of the coat, but without touching either of the three companions, who had placed themselves in a line.
“Ah,” cried the Canadian, “there are whites who can fight the Indians with their own weapons; we shall presently have an enemy the less.”
And saying this he fired into the aspen, out of which the body of an Indian was seen to fall, rolling from branch to branch like a fruit knocked from its stem.
At this feat of the Canadian, the savage howlings resounded with so much fury, that it required nerves of iron not to shudder at them. Gayferos himself, whom the firing had not roused, shook off his lethargy and murmured, in a trembling voice, “Virgen de los Dolores! Would not one say it was a band of tigers howling in the darkness?—Holy Virgin! have pity on me!”
“Thank her rather,” interrupted the Canadian; “the knaves might deceive a novice like you, but not an old hunter like me. You have heard the jackals of an evening in the forest howl and answer each other as though there were hundreds of them, when there were but three or four. The Indians imitate the jackals, and I will answer for it there are not more that a dozen now behind those trees. Ah! if I could but get them to cross the water, not one of them should return to carry the news of their disaster.”
Then, as if a sudden thought had flashed across his mind, he directed his companions to lie down on their backs—in which position they were protected by the trunks of the trees. “We are in safety as long as we lie thus,” said he, “only keep your eye on the tops of the trees; it is from these only they can reach us. Fire only if you see them climb up, but otherwise remain motionless. The knaves will not willingly depart without our scalps, and must make up their minds at last to attack us.”
This resolution of the hunter seemed to have been inspired by heaven, for scarcely had they laid down before a shower of balls and arrows tore to pieces the border of reeds, and broke the branches behind which they had been kneeling a minute before. Bois-Rose pulled down his coat and hat, as though he himself had fallen, and then the most profound silence reigned in the island, after this apparently murderous fire. Cries of triumph followed this silence, and then a second discharge of bullets and arrows.
“Is not that an Indian mounting the willow?” whispered Pepé.
“Yes, but let us risk his fire without stirring; lie all of us as if we were dead. Then he will go and tell his companions that he has counted the corpses of the palefaces.”
In spite of the danger incurred by this stratagem, the proposition of Bois-Rose was accepted, and each remained motionless, watching, not without anxiety, the manoeuvres of the Indian. With extreme precaution the red warrior climbed from branch to branch, until he had reached a point from which he could overlook the whole islet.
There remained just sufficient daylight to observe his movements when the foliage itself did not hide them. When he had reached the desired height, the Indian, resting on a thick branch, advanced his head with precaution. The sight of the bodies extended on the ground appeared not to surprise him, and he now openly pointed his rifle towards them. This he did several times, apparently taking aim, but not one of the hunters stirred. Then the Indian uttered a cry of triumph. “The shark takes the bait,” muttered Bois-Rose.
“I shall recognise this son of a dog,” rejoined Pepé, “and if I do not repay him for the anxiety he has caused me, it is because the bullet he is about to send will prevent me.”
“It is the Blackbird,” said Bois-Rose, “he is both brave and dexterous—lie close!”
The Indian once more took aim, and then fired; a branch knocked from a tree just above Pepé, fell upon him and hurt his forehead. He stirred no more than the dead wood against which he leaned, but said, “Rascal of a redskin, I’ll pay you for this before long.”
Some drops of blood fell upon the face of the Canadian.
“Is any one wounded?” said he, with a shudder.
“A scratch, nothing more,” said Pepé, “God be praised!”
Just then the Indian uttered a cry of joy, as he descended from the tree on which he had mounted, and the three friends again breathed freely.
And yet some doubt seemed to remain in the minds of the Indians, for a long and solemn silence followed the manoeuvre of their chief.
The sun had now set, the short twilight had passed away, night had come on, and the moon shone on the river, yet still the Indians did not stir.
“Our scalps tempt them, but they still hesitate to come and take them,” said Pepé, who was becoming very tired of doing nothing.
“Patience!” whispered Bois-Rose, “the Indians are like the vultures, who dare not attack a body until it begins to decay. We may look out for them by-and-bye. Let us resume our position behind the reeds.”
The hunters again quickly knelt down and continued to watch their enemies.
Before long an Indian showed himself very cautiously, another then joined him, and both approached with increasing confidence, followed by others, until Bois-Rose counted ten in the moonlight.
“They will cross the river in file, I expect,” said he. “Fabian, you fire at the first, Pepé will aim at the centre, and I at the last but one. In that way they cannot all attack together. It will be a hand-to-hand struggle, but you, Fabian, while Pepé and I wait for them knife in hand, shall load our rifles and pass them to us. By the memory of your mother, I forbid you to fight with these wretches.”
As the Canadian uttered these words, a tall Indian entered the river, followed by nine others. All advanced with the utmost caution; they might have been taken for the shades of warriors returned from the land of spirits.