The Lone Ranch by Mayne Reid (new reading .txt) 📕
"But what can he do to us?"
"Caballero, that question shows you have not been very long in this country, and are yet ignorant of its customs. In Mexico we have some callings not congenial to your people. Know that stilettoes can here be purchased cheaply, with the arms of assassins to use them. Do you understand me?"
"I do. But how do you counsel me to act?"
"As I intend acting myself--take departure from Chihuahua this very day. Our roads are the same as far as Albuquerque, where you will be out of reach of this little danger. I am returning thither from the city of Mexico, where I've had business with the Government. I have an escort; and if you choose to avail yourself of it you'll be welcome to its protection."
"Colonel Miranda, again I know not how to thank yo
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“In what way?”
“Well, you desired a pretext, didn’t you?”
“To do what?”
“Court-martial your prisoners, condemn, and execute them. The attempt on your life will cover all this, so that the keenest scandal-monger may not open his lips. It will be perfectly en regie for you to hang or shoot Don Valerian Miranda—and, if you like, the doctor, too—after ten minutes’ deliberation over a drum’s head. I’m ready to organise the court according to your directions.”
To this proposal Uraga replies with a significant smile, saying:
“Your idea is not a bad one; but I chance to have a better. Much as I hate Miranda and wish him out of the way, I don’t desire to imbrue my hands in his blood; don’t intend to, as I’ve already hinted to you.”
Roblez turns upon his superior officer a look of incredulous surprise, interrogating,—
“You mean to take him back, and let him be tried in the regular way?”
“I mean nothing of the kind.”
“I thought it strange, after your telling me he would never leave this place alive.”
“I tell you so still.”
“Colonel! you take pleasure in mystifying me. If you’re not going to try your prisoners by court-martial, in what way are your words to be made good? Surely you don’t intend to have them shot without form of trial?”
“I’ve said I won’t imbrue my hands in their blood.”
“True, you’ve said that more than once, but without making things any clearer to me. You spoke of some plan. Perhaps I may now hear it?”
“You shall. But first fill me out another capita of the Catalan. That affair has made me thirsty as a sponge.”
The adjutant, acting as Ganymede, pours out the liquor and hands the cup to his colonel, which the latter quaffs off. Then, lighting a fresh cigar, he proceeds with the promised explanation.
“I spoke of events, incidents, and coincidences—didn’t I, ayadante?”
“You did, Colonel.”
“Well, suppose I clump them altogether, and give you the story in a simple narrative—a monologue? I know, friend Roblez, you’re not a man greatly given to speech; so it will save you the necessity of opening your lips till I’ve got through.”
Roblez, usually taciturn, nods assent.
“Before coming out here,” continues the Colonel, “I’d taken some steps. When you’ve heard what they are I fancy you’ll give me credit for strategy, or cunning, if you prefer so calling it. I told you I should take no prisoners back, and that Don Valerian and the doctor are to die. They will go to their graves without causing scandal to any of us. To avoid it I’ve engaged an executioner, who will do the job without any direct orders from me.”
“Who?” asks the adjutant, forgetting his promise to be silent.
“Don’t interrupt!”
The subordinate resumes silence.
“I think,” continues Uraga, in a tone of serio-comicality, “you have heard of a copper-coloured gentleman called ‘Horned Lizard.’ If I mistake not, you have the honour of his acquaintance. And, unless I’m astray in my reckoning, you’ll have the pleasure of seeing him here this evening, or at an early hour to-morrow morning. He will make his appearance in somewhat eccentric fashion. No doubt, he’ll come into our camp at a charging gallop, with some fifty or a hundred of his painted warriors behind him. And I shouldn’t wonder if they should spit some of our gay lancers on the points of their spears. That will depend on whether these valientes be foolish enough to make resistance. I don’t think they will. More likely we shall see them gallop off at the first whoop of the Indian assailants. You and I, Roblez, will have to do the same; but, as gallant gentlemen, we must take the women along with us. To abandon them to the mercy of the savages, without making an effort to save them, were absolute poltroonery, and would never bear reporting in the settlements. Therefore, we must do our best to take the ladies along. Of course, we can’t be blamed for not being able to save our male prisoners. Their fate, I fear, will be for each to get half a dozen Comanche spears thrust through his body, or it may be a dozen. It’s sad to think of it, but such misfortunes cannot always be avoided. They are but the ordinary incidents of frontier life. Now, señor ayadante, do you comprehend my scheme?”
“Since I am at length permitted to speak, I may say I do—at least, I have an obscure comprehension of it. Fairly interpreted, I take it to mean this. You have arranged with the Horned Lizard to make a counterfeit attack upon our camp—to shoot down or spear our poor devils of soldiers, if need be?”
“Not the slightest need of his doing that, nor any likelihood of his being able to do it. They’ll run like good fellows at the first yell of the Indians. Have no apprehensions about them.”
“In any case, the Horned Lizard is to settle the question with our captives, and take the responsibility off our hands. If I understand aright, that is the programme.”
“It is.”
Having returned to his original design—the scheme of atrocity so coolly and jestingly declared, Uraga takes steps towards its execution.
The first is, to order his own horse, or rather that of Hamersley, to be saddled, bridled, and tied behind his own tent. The same for that ridden by Roblez. Also the mustang mare which belongs to Adela Miranda—her own “Lolita”—and the mule set apart for the mestiza. The troop horses already caparisoned are to remain so.
Ignorant of their object, the troopers wonder at these precautions, though not so much as might be expected. They are accustomed to receive mysterious commands, and obey them without cavil or question.
Not one of the ten but would cut a throat at Gil Uraga’s bidding, without asking the reason why.
The picket placed on a spin of the cliff has orders to signal if any one is seen coming up the creek. If Indians appear he is to gallop into the camp, and report in person.
The alarm thus started will easily be fostered into a stampede, and at the onslaught of the savages the lancers will rush to their horses and ride off without offering resistance. In the sauve qui peut none of them will give a thought to the two prisoners lying tied under the tree. These are to be left behind to the tender mercies of the Tenawa chief. It will be an act of gallantry to save the female captives by carrying them off. This Uraga reserves for himself, assisted by Roblez.
Such is his scheme of vicarious assassination; in the atrocity of conception unequalled, almost incredible. He has no anxiety as to its success. For himself he is more than ever determined; while Roblez, restrained by the fiasco following his advice, no longer offers opposition.
Uraga has no fear the Tenawa chief will fail him. He has never done so before, and will not now.
The new proposal, which the colonel supposes to have reached the hands of Horned Lizard in that letter carried by Pedrillo, will be eagerly accepted. Barbato will bring the chief with his cut-throats to the Arroyo de Alamo, sure as there is a sun in the sky.
It is but a question of time. They may come up at any hour—any minute; and having arranged all preliminaries, Uraga remains in his tent to await the cue for action. He little dreams at the moment he is thus expecting his red-skinned confederate, that the latter, along with the best braves of his band, has gone to the happy hunting grounds, while his go-between, Barbato, is in safe keeping elsewhere.
As the hours pass, and no one is reported as approaching, he becomes impatient; for the time has long elapsed since the Tenawa chief should have been upon the spot.
Chafing, he strides forth from the tent, and proceeds towards the place where the look-out has been stationed. Reaching it, he reconnoitres for himself, with a telescope he has taken along, to get a better view down the valley.
At first, levelling the glass, no one can be seen. In the reach of open ground, dotted here and there with groves, there are deer browsing, and a grizzly bear is seen crossing between the cliffs, but no shape that resembles a human being.
He is about lowering the telescope when a new form comes into its field of view—a horseman riding up the creek. No the animal is a mule. No matter the rider is a man.
Keenly scrutinising, he perceives it is an Indian, though not one of the wild sort. His garb betokens him of the tamed.
Another glance through the glass and his individuality declares itself, Uraga recognising him as one of the messengers sent to the Tenawas’ town. Not the principal, Pedrillo, but he of secondary importance, José.
“Returning alone!” mutters the Mexican to himself. “What does that mean? Where can Pedrillo be? What keeps him behind, I wonder?”
He continues wondering and conjecturing till José has ridden up to the spot, when, perceiving his master, the latter dismounts and approaches him.
In the messenger’s countenance there is an expression of disappointment, and something more. It tells a tale of woe, with reluctance to disclose it.
“Where is Pedrillo?” is the first question asked in anxious impatience.
“Oh, señor coronel!” replies José, hat in hand, and trembling in every joint. “Pedrillo! Pobre Pedrillito!”
“Well! Poor Pedrillito—what of him? Has anything happened to him?”
“Yes, your excellency, a terrible mischance I fear to tell it you.”
“Tell it, sirrah, and at once! Out with it, whatever it is!”
“Alas, Pedrillo is gone!”
“Gone—whither?”
“Down the river.”
“What river?”
“The Pecos.”
“Gone down the Pecos? On what errand?” inquired the colonel, in surprise.
“On no errand, your excellency.”
“Then what’s taken him down the Pecos? Why went he?”
“Señor coronel, he has not gone of his own will. It is only his dead body that went; it was carried down by the flood.”
“Drowned? Pedrillo drowned?”
“Ay de mi! ’Tis true, as I tell you—too true, pobrecito.”
“How did this happen, José?”
“We were crossing at the ford, señor. The waters were up from a norte that’s just passed over the plains. The river was deep and running rapid, like a torrent, Pedrillo’s macho stumbled, and was swept off. It was as much as mine could do to keep its legs. I think he must have got his feet stuck in the stirrups, for I could see him struggling alongside the mule till both went under. When they came to the surface both were drowned—dead. They floated on without making a motion, except what the current gave them as their bodies were tossed about by it. As I could do nothing there, I hastened here to tell you what happened. Pobre Pedrillito!”
The cloud already darkening Uraga’s brow grows darker as he listens to the explanation. It has nothing to do with the death of Pedrillo, or compassion for his fate—upon which he scarce spends a thought—but whether there has been a miscarriage of that message of which the drowned man was the bearer. His next interrogatory, quickly put, is to get satisfied on this head.
“You reached the Tenawa town?”
“We did, señor coronel.”
“Pedrillo carried a message to the Horned Lizard, with a letter for Barbato. You know that, I suppose?”
“He told me so.”
“Well, you saw him deliver the letter to Barbato?”
“He did not deliver it to Barbato.”
“To the chief, then?”
“To neither, your Excellency. He could not.”
“Could not! Why?”
“They ere not there to receive it. They are no longer in this world—neither the Horned Lizard nor Barbato. Señor Coronel, the Tenawas have met with a great misfortune. They’ve had a fight with a party of Tejanos. The chief is killed, Barbato is killed, and nearly half of their braves. When Pedrillo and I reached the town we found the tribe in mourning, the women all painted black, with their hair cut off; the men who had escaped the slaughter cowed, and keeping concealed within their
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