Читать книгу West of the Pecos - Zane Grey - Страница 5

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THE Colorado River from the far eastern ridge top resembled a green snake with a shining line down the center of its back, crawling over rolling, yellow plains. In this terrain ragged black streaks and spots, and great patches stood out clearly in the morning sunlight. Only a few were visible on the north side of the river; southward from the very banks these significant and striking contrasts to the yellow and gray of plain extended as far as the eye could see, dimming in the purple obscurity of the horizon.

These black patches were buffalo. There were thousands in the scattered head of the herd, and in that plain-wide mass far to the south there were millions. The annual spring migration north was well on its way.

The hunters yelled lustily. Lambeth rode back to speak to Terrill, his black eyes shining. He seemed a changed man. Already sun and wind and action had begun to warm out the havoc in his face.

“Rill, they’re heah,” he called, exultantly. “What do you think of that sight?”

“Glorious!” replied Terrill, under her breath. She was riding beside Sambo on the wagon seat. Dixie had fallen lame, and Terrill, after riding two of the harder-gaited horses, had been glad of a reprieve from the daily saddle.

“Missy Rill, yo sho will kill yo’ first buffalo today,” declared the negro.

“Sambo, I’m not crazy aboot firing that Henry rifle again,” laughed Terrill.

“Yo didn’t hold it tight,” explained Sambo. “Mighty nigh kick yo flat.”

Despite a downhill pull the wagons did not reach the Colorado until late in the afternoon. Hudkins, the leader of the expedition, chose a wooded bend in the river for a camp site, where a cleared spot and pole uprights showed that it had been used before. The leaves on the trees were half grown, the grass was green, flowers on long stems nodded gracefully, and under the bank the river murmured softly.

“Wal, you fellars fix camp while I go after a buffalo rump,” ordered Hudkins, and strode off with what Terrill had heard him call his needle gun. She wondered what that meant, because the gun was almost as big as a cannon.

Terrill sat on the wagon seat and watched the men. This arriving at a new camp and getting settled had a growing attraction for her. Even if this life in the open had held no appeal for her, she would still gladly have accepted it because of the change it wrought in her father’s health and spirits. How resolutely had he turned his back upon ruin and grief! He was not rugged, yet he did his share of the work. Sambo, however, was the one who had changed most. On the plantation he had not seemed different from the other negroes, except when on horseback. Here he appeared to be in his element and the laziness of a cotton-picker had departed. He wore boots and overalls. There was a gun belted around his lean hips. When he swung an ax and carried the heavy picks his splendid physique showed to advantage. He whistled as he worked, and like Mauree had fallen happily into this new way of life.

Presently Terrill’s father came to her, carrying the Henry rifle.

“Rill, from now on you pack this on your hoss, in the wagon, by your bed, and everywhere.”

“But, Dad, I’m afraid of the darned thing,” expostulated Terrill.

Colonel Lambeth laughed, but he was inexorable. “Rill, farther west we’ll hit the badlands. Indians, outlaws, bandits, Mexicans! And we may have to fight for our lives. Red Turner has been across the Pecos. He told me today what a wild country it was. Cattle by the thousand and just beginnin’ to be worth somethin’.... So come out and practice a little. Stuff a towel inside your shirt aboot where the gun kicks your shoulder.”

Terrill accompanied Lambeth down to the river bank, where he directed Terrill how to load, hold, aim, and fire the big Henry. Terrill had to grit her teeth, nevertheless there was a zest in the thing her father insisted upon—that she fill the boots of a son for him. Five shots from a rest she fired, squeezing the rifle with all her might. The first shot was not so terrible, after all, but the bullet flew wide of the target. She did better on the second and third. And the last two she hit the black across the river, to her father’s sober satisfaction. How seriously he took all this! It was no game to him.

“Sambo will clean the rifle for you,” he said. “But that you should learn also. Familiarize yourself with the gun. Get used to handlin’ it. Aim often at things without shootin’. You can learn to shoot as well that way without wastin’ too many bullets.”

Hudkins returned with the hump of a buffalo, from which were cut the steaks these hunters praised so much. Lambeth appeared as greedy as any of them. They made merry. Some one produced a jug of liquor which went the rounds. For a moment Terrill’s heart stood still. She feared her father might ask her to take a drink. But he did not overstep the bounds of reason in his obsession to see in Terrill a son.

“Sonny, how you like rump steak?” asked Hudkins, merrily, of Terrill.

“It’s got a kind of wild flavor,” replied Terrill. “But I certainly like it.”

She went to bed early, tired out from the jolting she had undergone on the high wagon seat. There were sundry places on her anatomy sore to the touch. And soon slumber claimed her. Some time in the night she awoke, an unusual thing for her. A noise had disturbed her rest. But the camp was dark and silent. A low rustle of leaves and a tinkle of water could scarcely have been guilty. Then from across the river a howl that curdled her blood. She sat up quivering in every muscle, and her first thought was that the dreaded Comanches were upon them. The howl rose again, somehow different. It seemed like the bay of a hound, only infinitely deeper, wilder, stranger, with a fierce, mournful note. Answers came from above camp, and then a chorus of chirping, shrieking barks. These sounds she at once associated with the wolves and coyotes that the hunters said followed the buffalo in packs. So Terrill lay back in relief and listened. It was long, however, before she stopped shivering and fell asleep again.

After all, Sambo and not her father took Terrill out to see the buffalo and perhaps shoot one. Lambeth had gone with the hunters.

“Missy Rill——”

“Say Master Rill, you pestifercatin’ nigger,” interrupted Terrill, only half in fun.

“Sho I done forgot,” replied Sambo, contritely. “Wal, Massa Rill, tain’t goin’ be no trick atall fo’ yo’ to kill a buffalo. An’ it’ll sho tickle the Kuhnel.”

No boy could have been any more eager than Terrill, nor half so scared. She trotted along beside the striding negro, packing the heavy rifle, all eyes and ears. She saw birds and rabbits, and presently had her first view of wild turkeys and deer. The surprise to Terrill was their exceeding tameness. Then she heard the boom of guns far over the ridge of grassy ground. Sambo said the hunters were at it and that Terrill would soon see buffalo at close range.

Suddenly Sambo dragged her into the cover of the trees and along the edge of the woods to a log. This appeared to be at a bend of the river from where Terrill could discern a slope rising gradually to the high bank.

“Bunch a-comin’, Massa Rill,” said Sambo, examining his rifle.

“I heah slopping in the water,” replied Terrill, excitedly.

“Sho. Det’s some buffs. Dey’se wadin’ across an’ll come out on det sandbar.”

Suddenly a shaggy, elephantine beast hove in sight directly in front of Terrill. Her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. It was an enormous bull. Another climbed out of the shallow water, and then dozens of woolly, hump-backed buffalo swarmed over the dry sandbar. Some were black, some were tawny. Terrill thought she saw little ones in behind the others. Terrill heard them pant. She heard them rub together. She smelled them.

“Rest yo’ gun heah, Miss Rill,” whispered Sambo. “Hol’ tight an’ aim low.”

“But—but it’s like murdering cows,” protested Terrill.

“Sho is. But it’ll please yo’ Dad.”

“Won’t they r-run o-over us?”

“Naw, Missy, dey won’t run atall. Don’t be afeared. We kin hide heah....‘Member how. Hol’ tight an’ aim low.”

Terrill seemed monstrously divided between two emotions. The stronger forced her down over her rifle, made her squeeze it tight, squint along the barrel, and align the sight generally on that wide, shaggy, moving mass, and pull the trigger. The recoil threw her to her knees and the smoke blinded her. Then Sambo’s gun boomed.

“Oh, I hope I missed!” cried Terrill.

“Yo’ sho didn’t, Miss Rill....Look! Dat bull tryin’ climb. He’s shooted through....Dar he goes down, Missy Rill...he’s sho a-rollin’....Now he’s kickin’. Ain’t yo’ gonna look, gal?”

Terrill wanted to look, but she could not. She let her rifle balance on the log on which she sank down, rubbing her shoulder, fighting her fears.

“Daid!...‘Em both daid. We sho is de hunters, Massa Rill, we sho is! Dat tickle yo’ Dad ’most to death.”

“Where are—the others?” gasped Terrill, fearfully.

“Dey’s mozied round de bend. Look Massa Rill.... Dat big bull closest to us is yo’s. Ain’t he sho black an’ shiny? Dar’s yo’ buffalo robe, Missy, an’ we is gonna skin it off right now.”

“We is—not,” retorted Terrill, still shakily, though now she had the courage to peep over the log. There, scarcely a hundred steps away, lay a huge, black buffalo flat on the sand, motionless. Beyond and to the left was another. Terrill experienced a wild thrill, instantly checked by a pang.

“Yo’ gonna help me skin off dat buffalo robe of yo’s?” queried the negro.

“Skin the—poor creature!” cried Terrill. “No, indeedee, I’m not. It was awful enough to—kill it.”

“Please yo’self, Missy. But I done tell yo’ whar yo’s gwine yo’ll soon git over squackishness at daid things an’ hair an’ blood,” replied Sambo, philosophically. Then bidding Terrill wait there, he made for the buffalo. She watched long enough to see him draw a bright blade and drop to his knees. Then she backed out of sight of that sandbar.

The grove seemed dreamy and silent. Presently Terrill found a grassy seat, and reclining there in the sun-flecked shade, with sweet fragrance all around and pale-blue flowers peeping up at her from the green, she felt the slow receding of excitement and fear and nausea. That buffalo was the first creature she had ever wittingly killed in all her life. She sensed the truth in Sambo’s practical words, but not yet could she bear to dwell upon it. After all, she was not a man and she never would be a man.

Birds and squirrels and rabbits soon trusted her. Finding in her nothing to fear, they came close and pleased her with their soft-hued beauty and saucy barking and nibbling at the grass. She was distracted from these, however, by a rustling of brush, a queer sound like put-put, put, put, put. Then she heard a gobble. Wild turkeys near! This would be an event. And presently she espied a huge gobbler, bronzed and flecked, with a purple beard and red comb. How stately he strutted! Then he stopped under a tree to scratch in the leaves and grass. Other turkeys appeared, some smaller, sleeker, with subdued colors and wild bearing. These were the hens. They came close to Terrill, eyed her with curiosity, and passed on, put-put, put, put, put. Terrill went back to lesser attractions, vaguely content. She was sorry when Sambo disrupted the spell, as he crashed along the edge of the brush, bowed under a heavy burden.

“Massa Rill, whar yo’ is?” he called.

Terrill hurried up, and securing her rifle ran out to join him.

“Aw, dar yo’ is. I done feared the Comanches had got yo’....Heah’s yo’ robe, Missy. Look dar.”

The heavy, black mass thumped on the ground. Sambo laid aside his rifle and spread the magnificent buffalo hide out on the grass. Terrill could not believe her eyes.

“Dey don’t come any finer,” he declared. “Now, Missy, yo’ take my gun, so I kin pack dis dog-gone heavy hide to camp. Den I’ll fetch in de meat.”

Soon they reached camp, having been gone only a few hours. Mauree was still alone. When Sambo exhibited the hide and extolled Terrill’s prowess the negress rolled the whites of her handsome eyes.

“Fer de land’s sake! Yo’ done dat, Rill? I sho is s’prised. I sho is! An’ I sho is sorry—dat no-good niggah husband of mind done make a killer out of yo’.”

About mid-afternoon several of the hunters returned to hitch up the wagons and drive back to fetch the proceeds of the hunt. At sunset Lambeth rode in, covered with dust and lather. His horse was spent. Hands and face were begrimed. He yelled for water. Presently, after he had washed, he espied the great buffalo hide which Sambo had carefully stretched where it must command instant attention.

“You hoss-ridin’ nigger!” he exclaimed. “Been huntin’ yourself.”

“Yas, suh. Yas, Kuhnel, I ben. Ain’ dat a mighty fine hide?”

“Best I ever saw,” declared Lambeth, smoothing the glossy fur. “Biggest I ever saw, too....Sambo, see heah. You give it to me.”

“I’se powerful sorry, Kuhnel,” replied Sambo, shaking his kinky head. “But I done cain’t do it.”

“Reckon you gave it to Rill?”

Sambo shook his head solemnly.

“No, sah. I didn’t. Missy Rill killed de buffalo dat wore dat hide. Jest one shot, Kuhnel. Plumped over de biggest bull in de herd.”

“Terrill!”

“Yes, Dad,” replied Terrill, coming out from her hiding-place.

“Is this heah nigger lyin’ to me? Did you shoot a buffalo?”

“Yes, Daddy,” she returned, nonchalantly. “Aboot like murderin’ a cow, I’d say. I don’t think much of buffalo-huntin’.”

Lambeth whooped and gave Terrill a tremendous hug. When the other hunters returned he proudly acclaimed Rill’s achievement, which indeed immediately took precedence over many and eventful deeds of the day. Nineteen buffalo, selected for their hides, had been killed by the party, all, in fact, that could be skinned and cut up and hauled in that day. They could not leave the meat out on the prairie for the wolves to haggle. Lambeth had accounted for three of the slain beasts, and appeared elated. He loved the chase and had never indulged it as now appeared possible. If the camp had been a merry one before, it was this night a circus for Terrill. The hunters had too many drinks from the jug, perhaps, but they were funny. They stretched and pegged buffalo hides until midnight.

“A hunter’s life for me!” sang Hudkins. “Too bad one more day will load us up. They shore come too easy.”

On the morning of the third day after this successful start the hunters were packed and ready to return to San Antonio. Lambeth’s horses were headed west from the Colorado. Here was the parting of the ways for the hunters and the pioneers. For Lambeth the real journey began from this camp.

“Stick to your direction an’ don’t git off. Four days...eighty miles to San Saba River,” advised Red Turner. “Then haid west an’ keep yore eye peeled.”

Many were the gay and kindly good-bys directed at Terrill, one of which, from the old Texan, Hudkins, she thought she would never forget.

“Good-by, sonny. Hang on to thet rifle an’ yore curly hair.”