Читать книгу The Trapper's Daughter - Gustave Aimard - Страница 10

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At the shot fired by Pedro Sandoval, after the fashion, of a peroration to his too lengthened story, as we have seen, the Apaches, who had hitherto kept out of earshot, ran up at full speed. Red Cedar hurried in pursuit of Bloodson, but uselessly; he could not catch up to him, and was compelled to rejoin his comrades. The latter were already making preparations to bury the old pirate, whose body they could not leave to be devoured by the wild beasts and birds of prey. Sandoval was a great favourite of the Apaches, with whom he had lived a long time, and they had on many occasions, been able to appreciate his courage and marauding talents.

Stanapat had assembled his band, and was at the head of a certain number of resolute warriors, whom he divided into two parties, and then approached Red Cedar.

"Will my brother listen to the words of a friend?" he said.

"My father can speak; although my heart is very sad, my ears are open," the squatter answered.

"Good," the chief continued; "my brother will take a party of my young men, and put himself on the trail of the palefaces, while I pay the white warrior the duties proper for him."

"Can I thus leave a friend, before his body is placed in the ground?"

"My brother knows what he ought to do, but the palefaces are rapidly retiring."

"You are right, chief; I go, but I leave you my warriors—my comrades will be sufficient for me. Where shall I find you again?"

"At Bloodson's teocali."

"Good; will my brother soon be there?"

"In two days."

"The second sun will find me with all my warriors by the side of the sachem."

Stanapat bowed in reply: Red Cedar approached the corpse of Sandoval, bent down, and seized his frigid hand.

"Farewell, brother," he said, "pardon me for not being present at your funeral, but an important duty claims me; I am going to avenge you. Farewell, my old comrade, rest in peace, your enemies will not live many days—farewell!"

After this funeral oration, the squatter gave his comrades a signal, bowed once again to Stanapat, and started at a gallop, followed by the other pirates. When their allies were out of sight, the Apaches began the funeral ceremony, which had been interrupted by the conversation between their chief and the pirate. Stanapat ordered the corpse to be washed, the face painted of various colours, while the other Indians surrounded it, bewailing. Some, whose grief was more powerful or exaggerated, made incisions in their arms, or chopped off a joint of one of the left hand fingers, in sign of morning. When all was ready, the sachem placed himself by the head of the corpse, and addressing the company, said:

"Why do you weep? Why do you lament? See, I do not weep; I, his oldest and most devoted friend. He has gone to the other land, the Wacondah has recalled him; but if we cannot bring him back among us, our duty is to avenge him. The palefaces have lulled him, we will kill as many palefaces as we can, in order that they may accompany him, and wait on him, and that he may enter the presence of the Wacondah as a great warrior should appear. Death to the palefaces!"

"Death to the palefaces!" the Indians shouted, brandishing their weapons.

The chief turned his head away, and a smile of contempt curled his thin lips at this enthusiastic explosion. But this, smile lasted no longer than a lightning flash. Reassuming at once, the Indian stoicism, Stanapat, with all the decorum customary on such occasions, clothed the body in the richest robes to be found, and the handsomest blankets. The corpse was then placed in a sitting posture, in the grave dug for it, whose bottom and sides had been lined with wood; a whip, weapons, and some other articles were added, then the earth was thrown in, and the whole covered with heavy stones so that the coyotes could not pull out the body. This duty accomplished, at a signal from their chief the Apaches remounted their horses, and started at a gallop on the road leading to Bloodson's teocali, thinking no more of the comrade from whom they had separated for ever, than if he had never existed.

The Apaches marched for three days; at the evening of the fourth, after a fatiguing day across the sands, they halted at about a league from the Rio Gila, in a thick wood, where they hid themselves. So soon as the encampment was formed, Stanapat sent off scouts in various directions, to discover whether the other war parties of the allied nations were near, and to try and discover at the same time Red Cedar's trail.

When the sentinels were posted, for several warlike tribes of the Far West guard themselves with great care when on the war trail, Stanapat visited all the posts, and prepared to listen to the reports of the scouts, several of whom had already returned. The three first Indians whom he questioned, announced but little of importance; they had discovered nothing.

"Good," said the chief; "the night is dark, my young men have moles' eyes; tomorrow, at sunrise, they will see more clearly; they can sleep this night. At daybreak, they will start again, and perhaps discover something."

He made a signal with his hand to dismiss the scouts, who bowed respectfully to the chief, and retired in silence. Only one remained impassive and motionless, as if the words had not been addressed to him as well as to the others. Stanapat turned and looked at him for some seconds.

"My son, the Swift Elk, did not hear me doubtless," he said; "he can rejoin his comrades."

"The Elk heard his father," the Indian replied, coolly.

"Then why does he remain?"

"Because he has not told what he saw, and what he saw is important to the chief."

"Wah!" said Stanapat, "And what has my son seen which his brothers did not discover?"

"The warriors were seeking in another direction, that is why they did not perceive the trail."

"And my son has found one?"

Swift Elk bowed his head in affirmation.

"I await my son's explanation," the chief went on.

"The palefaces are two bowshot lengths from my father's camp," the Indian answered laconically.

"Oh! Oh!" the chief said doubtfully; "That seems to me too much."

"Will my father see?"

"I will see," Stanapat said as he rose.

"If my father will follow me, he will soon see."

"Let us go."

The two Indians started. Swift Elk led the sachem through the wood, and on reaching the river bank, he showed him a short distance off a rock, whose black outline rose silent and gloomy over the Gila.

"They are there," he said, stretching out his arm in the direction of the rock.

"My son has seen them."

"I have seen them."

"That is the Rock of Mad Buffalo, if I am not mistaken."

"Yes," the Indian answered.

"The position will be difficult to carry," the sachem muttered, as he carefully examined the rock.

This place was called the rock or hill of Mad Buffalo, which name it indeed still bears, for the following reasons. The Comanches had, some fifty years ago, a famous chief who rendered his tribe the most warlike and redoubtable of all in the Far West. This chief, who was called the Mad Buffalo, was not only a great warrior, but also a great politician. By the aid of sundry poisons, but especially of arsenic, which he purchased of the white traders for furs, he had succeeded, by killing all those who opposed him, in inspiring all his subjects with an unbounded superstitious terror. When he felt that death was at hand, and understood that his last hour had arrived, he indicated the spot he had selected for his sepulchre.

It was a pyramidal column of granite and sand about four hundred and fifty feet in height. This pillar commands for a long distance the course of the river which washes its base and which, after making numberless windings in the plain, comes back close to it again. Mad Buffalo ordered that his tomb should be erected on the top of this hill, where he had been accustomed to go and sit. His last wishes were carried out with that fidelity the Indians display in such matters. His body was placed at the top of the hill, mounted on his finest steed, and over both a mound was formed. A pole stuck in the tomb bore the banner of the chief, and the numerous scalps which he had raised from his enemies in action.

Hence the mountain of Mad Buffalo is an object of veneration for the Indians, and when a redskin is going to follow the war trail for the first time, he strengthens his courage by gazing on the enchanted hill which contains the skeleton of the Indian warrior and his steed.

The chief carefully examined the hill: it was, in truth, a formidable position. The whites had rendered it even stronger, as far as was possible, by cutting down the tallest trees they found, and forming thick palisades lined with pointed stakes and defended by a ditch eighteen feet in width. Thus protected, the hill had been converted into a real impregnable fortress, unless regularly besieged.

Stanapat re-entered the wood, followed by his comrade, and went back to the bivouac.

"Is the chief satisfied with his son?" the Indian tasked ere he retired.

"My son has the eyes of a tapir; nothing escapes him."

Swift Elk smiled proudly as he bowed.

"Does my son," the chief continued, in an insinuating voice, "know the palefaces who are entrenched on the hill of Mad Buffalo?"

"Swift Elk knows them."

"Wah!" said the sachem; "my son is not mistaken; he has recognised the trail?"

"Swift Elk is never mistaken," the Indian answered in a firm voice; "he is a renowned warrior."

"My brother is right; he can speak."

"The pale chief who occupies the Rock of Mad Buffalo is the great white hunter whom the Comanches have adopted, and who is called Koutonepi."

Stanapat could not check a movement of surprise.

"Wah!" he exclaimed; "Can it be possible? My son is positively sure that Koutonepi is entrenched on the top of the hill?"

"Sure," the Indian said without hesitation.

The chief made Swift Elk a sign to retire, and, letting his head fall in his hands, he reflected profoundly.

The Apache had seen correctly; Valentine and his comrades were really on the rock. After the death of Doña Clara, the hunter and his friends started in pursuit of Red Cedar, not waiting, in their thirst for vengeance, till the earthquake was quite ended, and nature had resumed its ordinary course. Valentine, with that experience of the desert which he possessed so thoroughly, had, on the previous evening, discovered an Apache trail; and, not caring to fight them in the open, owing to the numerical weakness of his party, had scaled the hill, resolved to defend himself against any who dared to attack him in his impregnable retreat.

In one of his numerous journeys across the desert, Valentine had noticed this rock, whose position was so strong that it was easy to hold it against an enemy of even considerable force, and he determined to take advantage of this spot if circumstances compelled him at any time to seek a formidable shelter.

Without loss of time the hunters fortified themselves. So soon as the entrenchments were completed, Valentine mounted on the top of Mad Buffalo's tomb, and looked attentively out on the plain. It was then about midday: from the elevation where Valentine was, he surveyed an immense extent of country. The prairie and the river were deserted: nothing appeared on the horizon except here and there a few herds of buffaloes, some nibbling the thick grass, others carelessly reclining.

The hunter experienced a feeling of relief and indescribable joy on fancying that his trail was lost by the Apaches, and that he had time to make all preparations for a vigorous defence. He first occupied himself with stocking the camp with provisions, not to be overcome by famine if he were, as he supposed, soon attacked. His comrades and himself, therefore, had a grand buffalo hunt: as they killed them, their flesh was cut in very thin strips, which were stretched on cords to dry in the sun, and make what is called in the pampas charqué. The kitchen was placed in a natural grotto, which was in the interior of the entrenchments. It was easy to make a fire there with no fear of discovery, for the smoke disappeared through an infinite number of fissures, which rendered it imperceptible. The hunters spent the night in making water bottles with buffalo hides: they rubbed fat into the seams to prevent them leaking, and they had time to lay in a considerable stock of water. At sunrise Valentine returned to his look-out, and took a long glance over the plain to assure himself that the desert remained calm and silent.

"Why have you made us perch on this rock like squirrels?" General Ibañez suddenly asked him.

Valentine stretched out his arm.

"Look," he said; "what do you see down there?"

"Not much; a little dust, I fancy," the general said cautiously.

"Ah!" Valentine continued, "Very good, my friend. And do you know what causes that dust?"

"I really do not."

"Well, I will tell you; it is the Apaches."

"Caramba, you are not mistaken?"

"You will soon see."

"Soon!" the general objected; "Do you think they are coming in this direction?"

"They will be here at sunset."

"Hum! You did well in taking your precautions, well, comrade. Cuerpo de Cristo! we shall have our work cut out with all these red demons."

"That is probable," Valentine said with a smile.

And he descended from the top of the tomb where he had hitherto been standing.

As the reader has already learned, Valentine was not mistaken. The Apaches had really arrived on that night at a short distance from the hill, and the scout found the trail of the whites. According to all probability, a terrible collision was imminent between them and the redskins; those two races whom a mortal hatred divides, and who never meet on the prairie without trying to destroy each other. Valentine noticed the Apache scout when he came to reconnoitre the hill; he then went down to the general, and said with that tone of mockery habitual to him—

"Well, my dear friend, do you still fancy I am mistaken?"

"I never said so," the general exclaimed quickly; "Heaven keep me from it! Still, I frankly confess that I should have preferred your being mistaken. As you see, I display no self-esteem; but what would you have? I am like that, I would sooner fight ten of my countrymen than one of these accursed Indians."

"Unfortunately," Valentine said with a smile, "at this moment you have no choice, my friend."

"That is true, but do not be alarmed; however annoyed I may feel, I shall do my duty as a soldier."

"Oh! Who doubts it, my dear general?"

"Caspita, nobody, I know: but no matter, you shall see."

"Well, good night; try to get a little rest, for I warn you that we shall be attacked tomorrow at sunrise."

"On my word," said the general with a yawn that threatened to dislocate his jaw, "I ask nothing better than to finish once for all with these bandits."

An hour later, with the exception of Curumilla, who was sentry, the hunters were asleep; the Indians, on their side, were doing the same thing.