Читать книгу The Adventurers - Gustave Aimard - Страница 4

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During my last sojourn in America, chance, or rather my good star, led me to form an acquaintance with one of those hunters, or wood rangers, the type of whom has been immortalized by Cooper, in his poetical personage, Leather-Stockings.

The strange circumstance by which we were brought together was as follows. Towards the end of July, 1855, I had left Galveston, terrified at the fevers prevalent there, which are so fatal to Europeans, with the intention of visiting the north-west portion of Texas, a country I was then unacquainted with.

A Spanish proverb somewhere says, "It is better to go alone than in bad company;" and, like all other proverbs, this possesses a certain foundation of truth, particularly in America, where the traveller is exposed at each instant to the chance of meeting rogues of every hue, who, thanks to their seducing exterior, charm him, win his confidence, and take advantage of the first occasion to remorselessly plunder and assassinate him.

I had profited by the proverb, and, like a shrewd old traveller of the prairies, as I knew no one who inspired me with sufficient sympathy to lead me to make him my travelling companion, I had bravely set out alone, clothed in the picturesque dress of the inhabitants of the country, armed to the teeth, and mounted upon an excellent half wild horse, which had cost me twenty-five piastres—an enormous sum in those countries, where horses are considered as worth little or nothing.

I carelessly wandered here and there, living that nomadic life which is so full of attractions; at times stopping at a toldería, at others encamping in the desert, hunting wild animals, and plunging deeper and deeper into unknown regions. I had, in this fashion, passed through, without any untoward accident, Fredericksburgh, the Llana Braunfels, and had just left Castroville, on my way to Quichi. Like all Spanish-American villages, Castroville is nothing but a miserable agglomeration of ruined cabins, cut at right angles by streets choked with weeds, growing undisturbed, and concealing multitudes of ants, reptiles, and even rabbits of a very small breed, which spring up beneath the feet of the few passengers. The pueblo is bounded on the west by the Medina, a slender thread of water, almost dry in the great heat seasons; and on the east by thickly-wooded hills, the dark green of which forms a pleasing contrast with the pale blue of the sky.

At Galveston I had undertaken to deliver a letter to an inhabitant of Castroville. The worthy man lived in this village like La Fontaine's rat in the depths of its Dutch cheese. Charmed by the arrival of a stranger, who, no doubt, brought him news for which he had been long anxious, he received me in the most cordial manner, and thought of every expedient to detain me. Unfortunately, the little I had seen of Castroville had sufficed to completely disgust me with it, and my only wish was to get out of it as quickly as possible. My host, in despair at seeing all his advances repulsed, at length consented to allow me to continue my journey.

"Adieu, then," he said, warmly pressing my hand, with a sigh of regret; "since you are determined to go, may God protect you! You are wrong in setting out so late; the road you have to travel is dangerous; the Indios bravos are up; they assassinate without mercy all the whites who fall into their hands—beware!"

I smiled at this warning, which I took for a last effort of the worthy man to detain me.

"Bah!" I replied gaily; "the Indians and I are too old acquaintances for me to fear anything on their account."

My host shook his head sorrowfully, and retreated into his hut, making me a last farewell greeting. I again set forward. I soon began to reflect that it was full late, and pressed my horse, in order to pass, before nightfall, a chaparral, or large thicket of underwood, of at least two miles in length, against which my host had particularly warned me. This ill-famed spot had a very sinister aspect. The mezquite, the acacia, and the cactus constituted its sole vegetation, while here and there, whitened bones and planted crosses plainly designated places where murders had been committed. Beyond that extended a vast plain, called the Leona, peopled by animals of every description. This plain, covered by grass at least two feet in height, was dotted at intervals with thickets of trees, upon which warbled thousands of golden-throated starlings, cardinals, and bluebirds. I was anxious to reach the Leona, which I saw in the distance; but ere I did so, I had to cross the chaparral. After examining my weapons, and looking carefully in all directions, as I could perceive nothing positively suspicious, I resolutely spurred my horse forward, determined, if attacked, to sell my life as dearly as possible.

The sun, in the meantime, was sinking rapidly towards the horizon, the ruddy hues of closing day tinged with their changing reflections the summits of the wooded hills, and a fresh breeze agitated the branches of the trees with mysterious murmurs. In this country, where there is no twilight, night was not long in enveloping me in thick darkness, and that before I had passed through two-thirds of the chaparral.

I was beginning to hope I should reach the Leona safe and sound, when, all at once, my horse made a violent bound on one side, pricking up its ears, and snorting loudly. The sudden shock almost threw me out of the saddle, and it was not without trouble that I recovered the mastery over my horse, which displayed signs of the greatest terror. As always happens in such cases, I instinctively looked round me for the cause of this panic; and soon the truth was revealed to me. A cold perspiration bedewed my brow, and a shudder of terror ran through my whole frame, at the horrible spectacle which met my eyes. Five dead human bodies lay stretched beneath the trees, within ten paces of me. Among them was one of a woman, and one of a girl about fourteen years of age. They all belonged to the white race. They appeared to have fought long and obstinately before they fell; they were literally covered with wounds; and long arrows, with jagged barbs, and painted red, stood out from the bodies, which they had pierced through and through. The victims had all been scalped. It was evidently the work of Indians, marked with their sanguinary rage, and their inveterate hatred for the white race. The form and colour of the arrows told me that the perpetrators of this atrocity were the Apaches, the most cruel plunderers of the desert. Around the bodies I observed fragments of both wagons and furniture. The unfortunate beings, assassinated with refined cruelty, had, no doubt, been poor emigrants on their way to Castroville.

At the aspect of this heartbreaking spectacle, I cannot express the pity and grief which weighed upon my spirits; high in the air, urubus and vultures hovered with lazy wings over the bodies, uttering lugubrious cries of joy, whilst in the depths of the chaparral the wolves and jaguars began to growl portentously.

I cast a melancholy glance around: all immediately near to me was quiet. The Apaches had, according to all appearances, surprised the emigrants during a halt. Gutted bales were still ranged in a symmetrical circle, and a fire, near which was a heap of dry wood, was not yet extinguished.

"No!" said I to myself, "whatever may happen, I will not leave Christians without burial, to become, in this desert, the prey of wild beasts."

My resolution, once formed, was soon carried into execution. Springing to the ground, I hobbled my horse, gave it some provender, and cast some branches of wood upon the fire, which soon sparkled and sent into the air a column of bright flame. Among the necessaries of the emigrants were spades, pickaxes, and other agricultural instruments, which, being of no use to the Indians, they had disdainfully left behind them. I seized a spade, and, after having carefully explored the environs of my encampment, to assure myself that no immediate danger need be apprehended, I set to work to dig a grave.

The night had now set in; one of those American nights, clear, silent, full of intoxicating odours, and mysterious melodies chanted by the desert in praise of God. Extraordinary to say, all my fears had vanished, as if by enchantment! Though alone in this sinister place, close to these frightfully-mutilated carcasses, watched in the darkness, no doubt, by the unseen eyes of wild beasts, and, perhaps, of the murderous Indians, some incomprehensible influence sustained me, and gave me strength to accomplish the rude but sacred task I had undertaken. Instead of thinking of the dangers which surrounded me, I found myself yielding to a pensive melancholy. I thought of these poor people, who had come from distant lands, full of hope for the future, to seek in the New World a little of the comfort and well-being which were denied to them at home, and who, scarcely landed, had fallen, in an obscure corner of the desert, by the hands of ferocious savages. They had left in their own country friends, perhaps relations, to whom their fate would for ever remain a mystery, and who would for years reckon the hours with anxiety, looking for their much-wished return, or for intelligence of their success in their bold undertaking.

Except two or three alarms caused by the rustling of the leaves in the bushes, nothing occurred to interrupt my melancholy duty. In less than three-quarters of an hour I had dug a grave large enough to contain the five bodies. After extracting the arrows by which they were transfixed, I raised them one after the other in my arms, and laid them gently side by side at the bottom of the grave. I then hastened to throw in the mould again, till it was level with the sod; and that being done, I dragged upon the surface all the large stones I could find, to keep wild beasts from profaning the dead. This religious duty accomplished, I breathed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and bowing my head towards the ground, I mentally addressed a short prayer to the Almighty, for the unfortunate beings I had buried.

Upon raising my head, I uttered a cry of surprise and terror, while at the same time mechanically feeling for my revolver; for, without the least noise having given me warning of his approach, a man was standing within four paces of me, watching me earnestly, and leaning on his long rifle. Two magnificent Newfoundland dogs were lying carelessly but quietly at his feet. On observing my gesture, the unknown smiled with a kindly expression, and holding out his hand to me over the grave, said—

"Fear nothing! I am a friend. You have buried these poor people; I have avenged them—their assassins are dead!"

I silently pressed the hand that was so frankly extended to me. Acquaintance was formed—we were friends—we are so still! A few minutes later we were seated near the fire, supping together with a good appetite, while the dogs kept watch against intruders.

The companion I had fallen in with in so curious a manner was a man of about forty-five years of age, although he did not appear to be more than thirty-two. He was tall and well made; his broad shoulders and muscular limbs denoting extraordinary strength and agility. He wore the picturesque hunter's costume in all its purity, that is to say, the capote, or surtout (which is nothing but a kind of blanket worn as a robe, fastened to the shoulders, and falling in long folds behind), a shirt of striped cotton, large mitasses (drawers of doeskin, stitched with hair, fastened at distances, and ornamented with little bells), leather gaiters, moccasins of elk skin, braided with beads and porcupine quills, and a checked woollen belt, from which hung his knife, tobacco pouch, powder horn, pistols, and medicine bag. His headdress consisted of a cap made of the skin of a beaver, the tail of which fell between his shoulders. This man was a type of a hardy race of adventurers who traverse America in all directions. A primitive race, longing for open air, space, and liberty, opposed to our ideas of civilization, and consequently destined to disappear before the immigration of the laborious races, whose powerful agents of conquest are steam and the application of mechanical inventions of all kinds.

This hunter was a Frenchman, and his frank, manly countenance, his picturesque language, his open and engaging manners, notwithstanding his long abode in America, had preserved a reflex of the mother country which awakened sympathy and created interest.

All the countries of the New World were familiar to him; he had lived more than twenty years in the depths of the woods, and had been engaged in dangerous and distant excursions among the Indian tribes. Hence, although myself well initiated in the customs of the redskins, and though a great part of my existence had been passed in the desert, I have felt myself often shudder involuntarily at the recital of his adventures. When seated beside him on the banks of the Rio Gila, during an excursion we had undertaken into the prairies, he would at times allow himself to be carried away by his remembrances, and relate to me, as he smoked his Indian pipe, the strange history of the early days of his abode in the New World. It is one of these recitals I am about to lay before my readers—the first in order of date, since it is the history of the events which led him to become a wood ranger. I do not venture to hope that my readers will take the interest in it which it excited in me; but I beg them to have the kindness to recollect that this narrative was told me in the desert, amidst that grand, vast, and powerful nature, unknown to the inhabitants of old Europe, and that I had it from the lips of the man who had been the hero.