Читать книгу The War Trail: The Hunt of the Wild Horse - Reid Mayne - Страница 3

The centre of the piazza presents a salient point in the picture. There the well (el poso), with its gigantic wheel, its huge leathern belt and buckets, its trough of cemented stone-work, offers an Oriental aspect. Verily, it is the Persian wheel! ’Tis odd to a northern eye to find such a structure in this Western land; but the explanation is easy. The Persian wheel has travelled from Egypt along the southern shores of the Mediterranean. With the Moors it crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and the Spaniard has carried it over the Atlantic. The reader of the sacred volume will find many a familiar passage illustrated in the customs of Mexico. The genius of the Arab has shaped many a thought for the brain of the Aztec!

My eye rests not long upon the well, but turns to gaze on the scene of active life that is passing near and around it. Forms, and varied ones, I trow, are moving there.

Gliding with silent step and dubious look – his wide calzoneros flapping around his ankles, his arms and shoulders shrouded in the mottled serape, his black broad-brimmed hat darkening still more his swarth face – goes the poblano, the denizen of the adobe hut. He shuns the centre of the piazza, keeping around the walls; but at intervals his eyes are turned towards the well with a look of mingled fierceness and fear. He reaches a doorway – it is silently opened by a hand within – he enters quickly, and seems glad to get out of sight. A little afterwards, I can catch a glimpse of his sombre face dimly visible behind the bars of the reja.

At distant corners, I descry small groups of his class, all similarly costumed in calzoneros, striped blankets, and glaze hats; all, like him, wearing uneasy looks. They gesticulate little, contrary to their usual habit, and converse only in whispers or low mutterings. Unusual circumstances surround them.

Most of the women are within doors; a few of the poorer class – of pure Indian race – are seated in the piazza. They are hucksters, and their wares are spread before them on a thin palm-leaf mat (petaté), while another similar one, supported umbrella-like on a stem, screens them and their merchandise from the sun. Their dyed woollen garments, their bare heads, their coarse black hair, adorned with twists of scarlet worsted, impart to them somewhat of a gipsy look. They appear as free of care as the zingali themselves: they laugh, and chatter, and show their white teeth all day long, asking each new-comer to purchase their fruits and vegetables, their piñolé, atolé, and agua dulce. Their not unmusical voices ring pleasantly upon the ear.

Now and then a young girl, with red olla poised upon her crown, trips lightly across the piazza in the direction of the well. Perhaps she is a poblana– one of the belles of the village – in short-skirted, bright-coloured petticoat, embroidered but sleeveless chemisette, with small satin slippers upon her feet; head, shoulders, and bosom, shrouded in the blue-grey reboso; arms and ankles bare. Several of these may be seen passing to and fro. They appear less uneasy than the men; they even smile at intervals, and reply to the rude badinage uttered in an unknown tongue by the odd-looking strangers around the well. The Mexican women are courageous as they are amiable. As a race, their beauty is undeniable.

But who are these strangers? They do not belong to the place, that is evident; and equally so that they are objects of terror to those who do. At present they are masters here. Their numbers, their proud confident swagger, and the bold loud tone of their conversation, attest that they are masters of the ground. Who are they?

Odd-looking, I have styled them; and the phrase is to be taken in its full significance. A more odd-looking set of fellows never mustered in a Mexican piazza, nor elsewhere. There are fourscore of them; and but that each carries a yäger rifle in his hand, a knife in his belt, and a Colt’s pistol on his thigh, you could not discover the slightest point of resemblance between any two of them. Their arms are the only things about them denoting uniformity, and some sort of organisation; for the rest, they are as unlike one another as the various shapes and hues of coarse broadcloth, woollen jeans, cottonades, coloured blankets, and buckskin, can make them. They wear caps of ’coon-skin, and cat’s-skin, and squirrel; hats of beaver, and felt, and glaze, of wool and palmetto, of every imaginable shape and slouch. Even of the modern monster – the silken “tile” – samples might be seen, badly crushed. There are coats of broadcloth, few in number, and well worn; but many are the garments of “Kentucky jeans” of bluish-grey, of copper-coloured nigger cloth, and sky-coloured cottonade. Some wear coats made of green blankets, others of blue ones, and some of a scarlet red. There are hunting-shirts of dressed deerskin, with plaited skirt, and cape, fringed and jauntily adorned with beads and embroidery – the favourite style of the backwoods hunter, but others there are of true Indian cut – open only at the throat, and hanging loose, or fastened around the waist with a belt – the same that secures the knife and pistol. There are cloth jackets too, such as are worn by sailors, and others of sky-blue cottonade – the costume of the Creole of Louisiana; some of red-brown leather – the jaqueta of the Spano-American; and still another fashion, the close-fitting embroidered “spencer” of the Mexican ranchero. Some shoulders are covered by serapes, and some by the more graceful and toga-like manga. Look lower down: examine the limbs of the men of this motley band: the covering of these is not less varied than their upper garments. You see wrappers of coarse cloth, of flannel, and of baize: they are blue, and scarlet, and green. You see leggings of raw hide and of buckskin; boots of horse-leather reaching to the thighs; “nigger boots” of still coarser fabric, with the pantaloons tucked under brogans of unstained calf-skin, and moccasins of varied cut, betokening the fashion of more than one Indian tribe. You may see limbs encased in calzoneros, and others in the heavy stamped leather botas of the Mexican horseman, resembling the greaves of warriors of the olden time.

The heels of all are armed, though their armature is as varied as the costumes. There are spurs of silver and steel, some plated, and some with the plating worn off; some strapped, and others screwed into the heel of the boot; some light, with small rowels and tiny teeth, while others are seen (the heavy spur of Mexico) of several pounds’ weight, with rowels five inches in diameter, and teeth that might be dashed through the ribs of a horse! – cruel weapons of the Mexican cavallero.

But these spurs in the piazza, these botas and calzoneros, these mangas and serapes, are not worn by Mexicans. Their present wearers are men of a different race. Most of those tall stalwart bodies are the product of the maize-plant of Kentucky and Tennessee, or the buckwheat and “hog-meat” of the fertile flats of Ohio, Indiana, and the Illinois. They are the squatters and hunters of the backwoods, the farmers of the great western slopes of the Alleghanies, the boatmen of the Mississippi, the pioneers of Arkansas and Missouri, the trappers of prairie-land, the voyageurs of the lake-country, the young planters of the lower states, the French Creoles of Louisiana, the adventurous settlers of Texas, with here and there a gay city spark from the larger towns of the “great west.” Yes, and from other sources are individuals of that mixed band. I recognise the Teutonic type – the fair hair and whitish-yellow moustache of the German, the florid Englishman, the staid Scot, and his contrast the noisy Hibernian; both equally brave. I behold the adroit and nimble Frenchman, full of laugh and chatter, the stanch soldierly Swiss, and the moustached exile of Poland, dark, sombre, and silent. What a study for an ethnologist is that band of odd-looking men! Who are they?

You have thrice asked the question. I answer it. They are a corps of “Rangers” —the guerilla of the American army.

And who am I? I am their captain – their chief.

Yes, I am the leader of that queer crew; and, despite their rough motley aspect, I dare affirm, that not in Europe, not in America elsewhere, not upon the great globe’s surface, can be found a band, of like numbers, to equal them in strength, daring, and warlike intelligence. Many of them have spent half a life in the sharpening practice of border warfare – Indian or Mexican – and from these the others have learnt. Some have been gentlemen upon whom fortune has frowned; a few have been desperadoes within the pale of civilised life; and a smaller few, perhaps, outlaws beyond it – bad materials wherewith to colonise; not so bad, if you go but to conquer.

Rude as is the coup d’oeil of the corps, I am proud to say that a high sentiment of honour pervades it – higher than will be found in the picked corps de garde of an emperor. True, they appear rough and reckless – terrible, I might say; for most of them – with their long beards and hair, dust-begrimed faces, slouched hats, and odd habiliments, belted as they are with knife, pistol, powder-horn, and pouch – present such an aspect.

But you would wrong them to take them as they look. Few among them are the pure bandits whose aim is plunder. Many a noble heart beats beneath a rude exterior – many a one truly humane. There are hearts in that band that throb under the influence of patriotism; some are guided by a still nobler impulse, a desire to extend the area of freedom: others, it is true, yearn but for revenge. These last are chiefly Texans, who mourn a friend or brother slain by Mexican treachery. They have not forgotten the cowardly assassination of Goliad; they remember the red butchery of the Alamo.

Perhaps I alone, of all the band, have no motive for being here; if one, ’tis slight – scarce so noble as vengeance. Mere chance, the love of excitement and adventure, perhaps some weak fondness for power and fame, are all the excuses I can urge for taking a hand in this affair. A poor adventurer – without friends, without home, without country, for my native land is no more a nation – my heart is not cheered by a single throb of patriotism. I have no private wrong to redress, no public cause, no country for which to combat.

During intervals of inaction, these thoughts recur to me, and give me pain.

The men have picketed their horses in the church enclosure; some are tied to trees, and others to the reja-bars of the windows: like their riders, a motley group, various in size, colour, and race. The strong high-mettled steed of Kentucky and Tennessee, the light “pacer” of Louisiana, the cob, the barb, his descendant the “mustang,” that but a few weeks ago was running wild upon the prairies, may all be seen in the troop. Mules, also, of two distinct races – the large gaunt mule of North America, and the smaller and more sprightly variety, native of the soil.

My own black steed, with his pretty fern-coloured muzzle, stands near the fountain in the centre of the piazza. My eye wanders with a sort of habitual delight over the oval outlines of his body. How proudly he curves his swan like neck, and with mock anger paws up the dust! He knows that my eyes are upon him.

We have been scarcely an hour in the rancheria; we are perfect strangers to it: we are the first American troop its people have yet seen – although the war has been going on for some months farther down the river. We have been despatched upon scouting duty, with orders to scour the surrounding country as far as it is safe. The object in sending us hither is not so much to guard against a surprise from our Mexican foe, who is not upon this side, but to guard them, the Mexicans, from another enemy – an enemy of both of us– the Comanche! These Indian Ishmaelites, report says, are upon the “war-trail” and have quite an army in the field. It is said they are foraging higher up the river, where they have it all to themselves, and have just pillaged a settlement in that direction – butchered the men, as is their wont, and carried off the women, children, and chattels. We came hither to conquer the Mexicans, but we must protect while conquering them! Cosas de Mexico!