Chapter 28 - The Hunt of the Wild Horse by Mayne Reid
Rube roasted alive
Doomed beyond doubt—doomed to quick, awful, and certain death was the earless trapper. In five minutes more he must perish. The wall of flame, moving faster than charging cavalry, would soon envelope him, and surer than the carbine’s volley or the keen sabre-cut was the death borne forward upon the wings of that hissing, crackling cohort of fire.
Here and there, tall jets, shooting suddenly upward, stalked far in advance of the main line—fiery giants, with red arms stretched forth, as if eager to grasp their victim. Already their hot breath was upon him; another minute, and he must perish!
In a sort of stupor we stood, Garey and I, watching the advance of the flames. Neither of us uttered a word: painful emotions prevented speech. Both our hearts were beating audibly. Mine was bitterly wrung; but I knew that the heart of my companion was enduring the very acme of anguish. I glanced upward to his face: his eye was fixed, and looked steadfastly in one direction—as though it would pierce the sheet of flame that rolled farther and farther from where we stood, and nearer to the fatal spot. The expression of Garey’s eye was fearful to behold; it was a look of concentrated agony. A single tear had escaped from it, and was rolling down the rude weather-bronzed cheek, little used to such bedewing. The broad chest was heaving in short quick spasms, and it was evident the man was struggling with his breath. He was listening through all this intensity of gaze—listening for the death-shriek of his old comrade—his bosom-friend!
Not long was the suspense; though there was no shriek, no cry of human voice, to indicate the crisis. If any arose, it was not heard by us. It could not have been; it would have been drowned amid the roar of the flames, and the crackling of the hollow culms, whose pent-up gases, set free by the fire, sounded like the continuous rolling of musketry. No death-cry fell upon our ears; but, for all that, we were satisfied that the drama had reached its dénouement: the unfortunate trapper had been roasted alive!
Already the flames had passed over the spot where we had last seen him—far beyond—leaving the ground charred and black behind them. Though the smoke hindered our view of the plain, we knew that the climax had passed: the hapless victim had succumbed; and it remained only to look for his bones among the smouldering ashes.
Up to this moment Garey had stood in a fixed attitude, silent and rigid as a statue. It was not hope that had held him thus spell-bound; he had entertained no such feeling from the first: it was rather a paralysis produced by despair.
Now that the crisis was over, and he felt certain that his comrade had perished, his muscles, so long held in tension, suddenly relaxed—his arms fell loosely to his sides—the tears chased each other over his cheeks—his head reclined forward, and in a hoarse husky voice he exclaimed:
“O God! he’s rubbed out, rubbed out! We’ve seed the last o’ poor Old Rube!”
My sorrow, though perhaps not so keen as that of my companion, was nevertheless sufficiently painful. I knew the earless trapper well—had been his associate under strange circumstances—amid scenes of danger that draw men’s hearts more closely together than any phrases of flattery or compliment. More than once had I seen him tried in the hour of peril; and I knew that, notwithstanding the wildness and eccentricity of his character—of his crimes, I might add—his heart, ill directed by early education, ill guided by after-association, was still rife with many virtues. Many proofs of this could I recall; and I confess that a feeling akin to friendship had sprung up between myself and this singular man.
Between him and Garey the ties were still stronger. Long and inseparable companionship—years of participation in a life of hardships and perils—like thoughts and habitudes—though perhaps dispositions, age, and characters a good deal unlike—all had combined to unite the two in a firm bond of friendship. To use their own expressive phrase, they “froze” to each other. No wonder then that the look, with which the young trapper regarded that black plain, was one of indescribable anguish.
To his mournful speech I made no reply. What could I have said? I could not offer consolation. I was grieving as well as he: my silence was but an assent to his sad soliloquy.
After a moment he continued, his voice still tremulous with sorrow—
“Come, commarade! It are no use our cryin like a kupple o’ squaws.”
With his large finger he dashed the tears aside, as if ashamed of having shed them.
“It are all over now,” he continued. “Let’s look arter his bones—that is, if thar’s anythin left o’ ’em—and gie ’em Christyun burial. Come!”
We caught our horses, and mounting, rode off over the burnt ground.
The hoofs of the animals tossed up the smouldering ashes as we advanced, the hot red cinders causing them to prance. The smoke pained our eyes, and prevented us from seeing far ahead; but we guided ourselves as well as we could towards the point where we had last seen the trapper, and where we expected to find his remains.
On nearing the spot, our eyes fell upon a dark mass that lay upon the plain: but it appeared much larger than the body of a man. We could not make out what it was, until within a few feet of it, and even then it was difficult to recognise it as the carcass of a buffalo—though truly in reality it was. It was no doubt the game which the hunter had killed. It rested as it had fallen—as these animals usually fall—upon the breast, with legs widely spread, and humped shoulders upward.
We could perceive that the unfortunate man had nearly finished skinning it—for the hide, parted along the spine, had been removed from the back and sides, and with the fleshy side turned outward, was hanging to the ground, so as to conceal the lower half of the carcass. The whole surface was burnt to the colour of charcoal.
But where were the remains of the hunter? They were nowhere to be seen near the spot. The smoke had now cleared away sufficiently to enable us to observe the ground for several hundred yards around us. An object of small dimensions could have been distinguished upon the now bare surface; but none was seen. Yes! a mass lay close to the carcass, which drew our attention for a moment; but on riding up to it we perceived that it was the stomach and intestines of the buffalo, black and half broiled.
But where were the bones of Rube? Had he got away from the spot, and perished elsewhere?
We glanced towards the fire still raging on the distant plain.
No: it was not probable he had moved thence. By the last look we had obtained of him, he did not appear to be making any effort to escape, and he could scarcely have gone a hundred yards before the flames swept over the spot and must have enveloped him.
How then? Were his bones entirely consumed—calcined—reduced to ashes? The lean, withered, dried-up body of the old mountain-man favoured such a supposition; and we began seriously to entertain it—for in no other way could we account for the total absence of all remains!
For some moments we sat in our saddles under the influence of strange emotions, but without exchanging a word. We scanned the black plain round and round. The smoke no longer hindered our view of the ground. In the weed-prairies there is no grassy turf; and the dry herbaceous stems of the annuals had burned out with the rapidity of blazing flax, so that nothing was left to cause a smoke. The fire was red or dead in an instant. We could see clear enough all the surface of the ground, but nothing that resembled the remains of a human being!
“No,” said Garey, with a long-drawn sigh. “Poor Old Rube! The classed thing has burned him to ashes—bones an all! Thur ain’t as much o’ ’im left as ’ud fill a tabacca-pipe!”
“The hell, thur ain’t!” replied a voice that caused both of us to start in our saddles, as if it had been Rube’s ghost that addressed us—“the hell, thur ain’t!” repeated the voice, as though it came out of the ground beneath our feet. “Thur’s enough o’ Ole Rube left to fill the stummuk o’ this hyur buffler; an by the jumpin Geehosophat, a tight fit it ur! Wagh! I’m well-nigh sufflocated! Gie’s yur claws, Bill, an pull me out o’ this hyur trap!”
To our astonishment the pendent hide of the buffalo was raised by an invisible hand; and underneath appeared, protruding through a hole in the side of the carcass, the unmistakable physiognomy of the earless trapper!
There was something so ludicrous in the apparition, that the sight of it, combined with the joyful reaction of our feelings, sent both Garey and myself into convulsions of laughter. The young trapper lay back in the saddle to give freer play to his lungs; and his loud cachinnations, varied at intervals by savage yells, caused our horses to dance about as if they anticipated an onslaught of Indians!
At first I could detect a significant smile at the angles formed by Rube’s thin lips; but this disappeared as the laughter continued too long for his patience.
“Cuss yur larfin!” cried he at length. “Kum, Billee, boy! Lay holt hyur, an gi’ me a help, or I must wriggle out o’ meself. The durned hole ain’t es big es twur when I krep in. Durn it, man, make haste! I’m better’n half-baked!”
Garey now leaped from his horse, and taking hold of his comrade by the “claws,” drew him out of his singular hiding-place. But the appearance of the old trapper, as he stood erect—red, reeking, and greasy—was so supremely ludicrous, that both Garey and I were driven off into a fresh fit of laughter, which lasted for several minutes.
Rube, once released from his uncomfortable situation, paid not the slightest attention to our mirth; but stooping down, drew out his long rifle—from where he had secured it under the hanging skin—and after having examined the piece, to see that no harm had come to it, he laid it gently across the horns of the bull. Then taking the bowie from his belt, he quietly proceeded with the skinning of the buffalo, as if nothing had happened to interrupt the operation!
Meanwhile Garey and I had laughed ourselves hoarse, and, moreover, were brimful of curiosity to know the particulars of Rube’s adventure; but for some time he fought shy of our queries, and pretended to be “miffed” at the manner in which we had welcomed him to life again.
It was all pretence, however, as Garey well knew; and the latter, having thrust into his comrade’s hand the gourd, still containing a small drop of aguardiente, soon conciliated him; and after a little more coaxing, the old trapper condescended to give us the details of his curious escapade. Thus ran his narration:—
“Ee wur both o’ yur mighty green to think thet arter fightin grizzly bar an Injun for nigh forty yeern on these hyur parairas, I wur a-gwine to be rubbed out by a spunk o’ fire like thet. Preehaps ’twur nat’ral enough for the young fellur hyur to take me for a greenhorn—seein as he oncest tuk me for a grizzly. He, he, he—ho, ho, hoo! I say it wur, an ur nat’ral enough for him to a thort so; but you mout a knowd better—you, Bill Garey, seein as ee oughter knowd me.
“Wal!” continued Rube, after another “suck” at the gourd, “when I seed the weeds afire, I knowd it wa’nt no use makin tracks. Preehaps if I’d a spied the thing when the bleeze fust broke out, I mout a run for it, an mout a hed time; but I wur busy skinnin this hyur beest, wi’ my head clost down to the karkidge, an thurfor didn’t see nuthin till I heern the cracklin, an in coorse thur wa’nt the ghost o’ a chance to git clur then. I seed thet at the fust glimp.
“I ain’t a-gwine to say I wa’nt skeeart; I wur skeeart an bad skeeart too. I thort for a spell, I wur boun to go under.
“Jest then I sot my eyes upon the burner. I hed got the critter ’bout half-skinned, as ee see; an the idee kim inter my head, I mout crawl somehow under, an pull the hide over me. I tried thet plan fust; but I kudnt git kivered to my saterfaction, an I gin it up.
“A better idee then kim uppermost, an thet wur to clur out the anymal’s inside, an thur caché. I reck’n I wa’nt long in cuttin out a wheen o’ the buffer’s ribs, an tarin out the guts; an I wa’nt long neyther in squezzin my karkidge, feet fo’most, through the hole.
“I hedn’t need to a been long; it wur a close shave an a tight fit, it wur. Jest as I hed got my head ’bout half through, the bleeze kim swizzin round, an nearly singed the ears off me. He, he, he—ho, ho, hoo!”
Garey and I joined in the laugh, at what we both knew to be one of Old Rube’s favourite jokes; but Rube himself chuckled so long, that we became impatient to hear the end of his adventure.
“Well!” interrupted Garey, “consarn your old skin! what next?”
“Wagh!” continued the trapper, “the way thet bleeze did kum wur a caution to snakes. It roared an screeched, an yowlted, an hissed, an the weeds crackled like a million o’ wagon-whups! I wur like to be spinicated wi’ the smoke; but I contruv to pull down the flap o’ hide, an thet gin me some relief—though I wur well-nigh choked afore I got the thing fixed. So thur I lay till I heern you fellurs palaverin about a ’bacca-pipe, and thurfor I knowd the hul thing wur over. Wagh!”
And with this exclamation Rube ended his narration, and once more betook himself to the butchering of the already half-roasted buffalo.
Garey and I lent a hand; and having cut out the hump-ribs and other titbits, we returned to the camp. What with broiled hyodons, roast ribs, tongue, and marrow-bones, we had no reason for that night to be dissatisfied with the hospitality of the prairies.