The Lone Ranche

Chapter One.

A Tale of the Staked Plain.

“Hats Off!”

Within the city of Chihuahua, metropolis of the northern provinces of Mexico – for the most part built of mud – standing in the midst of vast barren plains, o’ertopped by bold porphyritic mountains – plains with a population sparse as their timber – in the old city of Chihuahua lies the first scene of our story.

Less than twenty thousand people dwell within the walls of this North Mexican metropolis, and in the country surrounding it a like limited number.

Once they were thicker on the soil; but the tomahawk of the Comanche and the spear of the Apache have thinned off the descendants of the Conquistadores, until country houses stand at wide distances apart, with more than an equal number of ruins between.

Yet this same city of Chihuahua challenges weird and wonderful memories. At the mention of its name springs up a host of strange records, the souvenirs of a frontier life altogether different from that wreathed round the history of Anglo-American borderland. It recalls the cowled monk with his cross, and the soldier close following with his sword; the old mission-house, with its church and garrison beside it; the fierce savage lured from a roving life, and changed into a toiling peon, afterwards to revolt against a system of slavery that even religion failed to make endurable; the neophyte turning his hand against his priestly instructor, equally his oppressor; revolt followed by a deluge of blood, with ruinous devastation, until the walls of both mission and military cuartel are left tenantless, and the redskin has returned to his roving.

Such a history has had the city of Chihuahua and the settlements in its neighbourhood. Nor is the latter portion of it all a chronicle of the olden time. Much of it belongs to modern days; ay, similar scenes are transpiring even now. But a few years ago a stranger entering its gates would have seen nailed overhead, and whisked to and fro by the wind, some scores of objects similar to one another, and resembling tufts of hair, long, trailing, and black, as if taken from the manes or tails of horses. But it came not thence; it was human hair; and the patches of skin that served to keep the bunches together had been stripped from human skulls! They were scalps– the scalps of Indians, showing that the Comanche and Apache savages had not had it all their own way.

Beside them could be seen other elevated objects of auricle shape, set in rows or circles like a festooning of child peppers strung up for preservation. No doubt their procurement had drawn tears from the eyes of those whose heads had furnished them, for they were human ears!

These ghastly souvenirs were the bounty warrants of a band whose deeds have been already chronicled by this same pen. They were the trophies of “Scalp Hunters” – vouchers for the number of Indians they had killed.

They were there less than a quarter of a century ago, waving in the dry wind that sweeps over the plains of Chihuahua. For aught the writer knows, they may be there still; or, if not the same, others of like gory record replacing or supplementing them.

It is not with the “Scalp Hunters” we have now to do – only with the city of Chihuahua. And not much with it either. A single scene occurring in its streets is all of Chihuahuaense life to be depicted in this tale.

It was the spectacle of a religious procession – a thing far from uncommon in Chihuahua or any other Mexican town; on the contrary, so common that at least weekly the like may be witnessed. This was one of the grandest, representing the story of the Crucifixion. Citizens of all classes assisted at the ceremony, the soldiery also taking part in it. The clergy, of course, both secular and regular, were its chief supports and propagators. To them it brought bread, and if not butter – since there is none in Chihuahua – it added to their incomes and influence, by the sale of leaden crosses, images of the Virgin Mother, and the numerous sisterhood of saints. In the funcion figured the usual Scripture characters: – The Redeemer conducted to the place of Passion; the crucifix, borne on the shoulders of a brawny, brown-skinned Simon; Pilate the oppressor; Judas the betrayer – in short, every prominent personage spoken of as having been present on that occasion when the Son of Man suffered for our sins.

There is, or was then, an American hotel in Chihuahua, or at least one conducted in the American fashion, though only a mere posada. Among its guests was a gentleman, stranger to the town, as the country. His dress and general appearance bespoke him from the States, and by the same tokens it could be told that he belonged to their southern section. He was in truth a Kentuckian; but so far from representing the type, tall, rough, and stalwart, usually ascribed to the people “Kaintuck,” he was a man of medium size, with a build comparable to that of the Belvidere Apollo. He had a figure tersely set, with limbs well knitted; a handsome face and features of amiable cast, at the same time expressing confidence and courage. A costly Guayaquil hat upon his head, and coat to correspond, bespoke him respectable; his tout ensemble proclaimed him a man of leisure; while his air and bearing were unmistakably such as could only belong to a born gentleman.

Why he was in Chihuahua, or whence he had come to it, no one seemed to know or care. Enough that he was there, and gazing at the spectacular procession as it filed past the posada.

He was regarding it with no eye of wonderment. In all likelihood he had seen such before. He could not have travelled far through Mexico without witnessing some ceremony of a similar kind.

Whether interested in this one or no he was soon notified that he was not regarding it in the manner proper or customary to the country. Standing half behind one of the pillars of the hotel porch, he had not thought it necessary to take off his hat. Perhaps placed in a more conspicuous position he would have done this. Frank Hamersley – for such was his name – was not the sort of man to seek notoriety by an exhibition of bravado, and, being a Protestant of a most liberal creed, he would have shrunk from offending the slightest sensibilities of those belonging to an opposite faith – even the most bigoted Roman Catholic of that most bigoted land. That his “Guayaquil” still remained upon his head was due to simple forgetfulness of its being there; it had not occurred to him to uncover.

While silently standing with eyes turned towards the procession, he observed scowling looks, and heard low growlings from the crowd as it swayed slowly past. He knew enough to be conscious of what this meant; but he felt at the same time disinclined to humiliate himself by a too facile compliance. A proud American, in the midst of a people he had learned to despise – their idolatrous observances along with them – no wonder he should feel a little defiant and a good deal exasperated. Enough yielding, he thought, to withdraw farther back from behind the pillar, which he did.

It was too late. The keen eye of a fanatic had been upon him – one who appeared to have authority for meting out chastisement. An officer, bearded and grandly bedizened, riding at the head of a troop of lancers, quickly wheeled his horse from out of the line of march, and spurred him towards the porch of the posada. In another instant his bared blade was waving over the hatted head of the Kentuckian.

“Gringo! alto su sombrero! Abajo! a sus rodillas!” (“Off with your hat, greenhorn! Down upon your knees!”) were the words that came hissing from the moustached lips of the lancer.

As they failed to beget compliance, they were instantly followed by a blow from the blade of his sabre. It was given sideways, but with sufficient sleight and force to send the Guayaquil hat whirling over the pavement, and its wearer reeling against the wall.

It was but the stagger of a sudden and unexpected surprise. In another instant the “gringo” had drawn a revolving pistol, and in yet another its bullet would have been through the brain of the swaggering aggressor, but for a third personage, who, rushing from behind, laid hold of the Kentuckian’s arm, and restrained the firing.

At first it seemed to Hamersley the act of another enemy; but in a moment he knew it to be the behaviour of a friend – at least a pacificator bent upon seeing fair play.

“You are wrong, Captain Uraga,” interposed he who had intermeddled, addressing himself to the officer. “This gentleman is a stranger in the country, and not acquainted with our customs.”

“Then it is time the heretico should be taught them, and, at the same time, respect for the Holy Church. But what right, Colonel Miranda, have you to interfere?”

“The right, first of humanity, second of hospitality, and third that I am your superior officer.”

“Bah! You mistake yourself. Remember, señor coronel, you are not in your own district. If it was in Albuquerque, I might take commands from you. This is the city of Chihuahua.”

“Chihuahua or not, you shall be made answerable for this outrage. Don’t imagine that your patron, Santa Anna, is now Dictator, with power to endorse such base conduct as yours. You seem to forget, Captain Uraga, that you carry your commission under a new regime – one that holds itself responsible, not only to fixed laws, but to the code of decency – responsible also for international courtesy to the great Republic of which, I believe, this gentleman is a citizen.”

“Bah!” once more exclaimed the bedizened bully. “Preach your palabras to ears that have time to listen to them. I shan’t stop the procession for either you or your Yankee protégé. So you can both go to the devil.”

With this benevolent permission the captain of lancers struck the spurs into his horse, and once more placed himself at the head of his troop. The crowd collected by the exciting episode soon scattered away – the sooner that the strange gentleman, along with his generous defender, had disappeared from the portico, having gone inside the inn.

The procession was still passing, and its irresistible attractions swept the loiterers along in its current – most of them soon forgetting a scene which, in that land, where “law secures not life,” is of too frequent occurrence to be either much thought of or for long remembered.

Chapter Two.

A Friend in Need

The young Kentuckian was half frenzied by the insult he had received. The proud blood of his republican citizenship was boiling within his veins. What was he to do?

In the agony of his dilemma he put the question to the gentleman who, beyond all doubt, had restrained him from committing manslaughter.

The latter was an entire stranger to him – never seen him before. He was a man of less than thirty years of age, wearing a broad-brimmed hat upon his head, a cloth jacket, slashed calzoneras, and a red crape scarf around his waist – in short, the ranchero costume of the country. Still, there was a military bearing about him that corresponded to the title by which the lancer captain had addressed him.

“Caballero,” he said in reply, “if your own safety be of any consequence to you I should advise you to take no further notice of the incident that has arisen, however much it may have exasperated you, as no doubt it has done.”

“Pardon me, señor; but not for all the world would I follow your advice – not for my life. I am an American – a Kentuckian. We do not take blows without giving something of the same in return. I must have redress.”

“If you seek it by the law I may as well warn you, you won’t have much chance of finding it.”

“I know that. The law! I did not think of such a thing. I am a gentleman; I suppose this Captain Uraga supposes himself to be the same, and will not refuse to give me the usual satisfaction.”

“He may refuse, and very likely will, on the plea of your being a stranger – only a barbarian, a Tejano or gringo, as he has put it.”

“I am alone here – what am I to do?”

The Kentuckian spoke half in soliloquy, his countenance expressing extreme chagrin.

“Fuez, señor!” responded the Mexican colonel, “if you’re determined on a desafio I think I might arrange it. I feel that I am myself a little compromised by my interference; and if you’ll accept of me for your second, I think I can answer for it that Captain Uraga will not dare to deny us.”

“Colonel Miranda – your name, I believe – need I attempt to express my thanks for so much generosity? I cannot – I could not. You have removed the very difficulty that was in my way; for I am not only a stranger to you, but to every one around. I arrived at Chihuahua but yesterday, and do not know a soul in the place.”

“Enough; you shall not be disappointed in your duel for the want of a second. As a preliminary, may I ask if you are skilled in the use of the sword?”

“Sufficiently to stake my life upon it.”

“I put the question, because that is the weapon your adversary will be certain to choose. You being the challenger, of course he has the choice; and he will insist upon it, for a reason that may perhaps amuse you. It is that we Mexican gentlemen believe you Americans somewhat gauche in the handling of the rapier, though we know you to be adepts in the use of the pistol. I take Captain Gil Uraga to be as thorough a poltroon as ever wore epaulettes, but he will have to meet you on my account; and he would perhaps have done so anyhow – trusting to the probability of your being a bad swordsman.”

“In that he may find himself disappointed.”

“I am glad to hear it; and now it only needs to receive your instructions. I am ready to act.”

The instructions were given, and within two hours’ time Captain Gil Uraga, of the Zacatecas Lancers, was in receipt of a challenge from the Kentuckian – Colonel Miranda being its bearer.

With such a voucher the lancer officer could not do otherwise than accept, which he did with cooler confidence for the very reason Miranda had made known. A Tejano, was his reflection – what should he know of the sword?

And swords were the weapons chosen.

Had the captain of Zacatecas Lancers been told that his intended adversary had spent a portion of his life among the Creoles of New Orleans, he would have been less reliant on the chances likely to turn up in his favour.

We need not describe the duel, which, if different from other encounters of the kind, was by being on both sides bitter, and of deadly intent. Suffice it to say, that the young Kentuckian displayed a skill in swordsmanship sufficient to disarrange several of Gil Uraga’s front teeth, and make an ugly gash in his cheek. He had barely left to him sufficient command of his mouth to cry “Basta!” and so the affair ended.

“Señor Hamersley,” said the man who had so effectively befriended him, after they had returned from the encounter, and were drinking a bottle of Paso wine in the posada, “may I ask where you intend going when you leave Chihuahua?”

“To Santa Fé, in New Mexico; thence to the United States, along with one of the return caravans.”

“When do you propose starting?”

“As to that, I am not tied to time. The train with which I am to cross the plains will not be going for six months to come. I can get to Santa Fé by a month’s travel, I suppose?”

“Less than that. It is not a question of how soon you may arrive there, but when you leave here. I advise you to start at once. I admit that two days is but a short time to see the sights of even so small a place as Chihuahua. But you have witnessed one of them – enough, I should say. If you take my advice you will let it content you, and kick the Chihuahua-ense dust from your feet before another twenty-four hours have passed over your head.”

“But why, Colonel Miranda?”

“Because so long as you remain here you will be in danger of losing your life. You don’t know the character of the man with whom you have crossed swords. I do. Although wearing the uniform of an officer in our army, he is simply a salteador. A coward, as I told you, too. He would never have met you if he had thought I would have given him a chance to get out of it. Perhaps he might have been tempted by the hopes of an easy conquest from your supposed want of skill. It would have given him something to boast about among the dames of Chihuahua, for Captain Gil deems himself no little of a lady-killer. You have spoilt his physiognomy for life; and, depend upon it, as long as life lasts, he will neither forget nor forgive that. I shall also come in for a share of his spite, and it behoves both of us to beware of him.”

“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 you. I accept your friendly offer.”

“Reserve your thanks till I have done you some service beyond the simple duty of a gentleman, who sees another gentleman in a dilemma he had no hand in creating. But enough, señor; we have no time to spend in talking. Even now there may be a couple of poignards preparing for us. Get your things ready at once, as I start two hours before sunset. In this sultry weather we are accustomed to travel in the cool of the evening.”

“I shall be ready.”

That same afternoon, two hours before the going down of the sun, a party of horsemen, wearing the uniform of Mexican dragoons of the line, issued from the garita of Chihuahua, and took the northern road leading to Santa Fé, by El Paso del Norte. Colonel Miranda, his ranchero dress changed for the fatigue uniform of a cavalry officer, was at its head, and by his side the stranger, whose cause he had so generously and gallantly espoused.

Chapter Three.

The Colonel Commandant

Six weeks have elapsed since the day of the duel at Chihuahua. Two men are standing on the azotea of a large mansion-like house close to the town of Albuquerque, whose church spire is just visible through the foliage of trees that shade and surround the dwelling. They are Colonel Miranda and the young Kentuckian, who has been for some time his guest; for the hospitality of the generous Mexican had not terminated with the journey from Chihuahua. After three weeks of toilsome travel, including the traverse of the famed “Dead Man’s Journey,” he was continuing to extend it in his own house and his own district, of which last he was the military commandant, Albuquerque being at the time occupied by a body of troops, stationed there for defence against Indian incursions.

The house on whose roof the two men stood was that in which Colonel Miranda had been born – the patrimonial mansion of a large estate that extended along the Rio del Norte, and back towards the Sierra Blanca, into territories almost unknown.

Besides being an officer in the Mexican army, the colonel was one of the ricos of the country. The house, as already said, was a large, massive structure, having, like all Mexican dwellings of its class, a terraced roof, or azotea. What is also common enough in that country, it was surmounted by a mirador, or “belvedere.” Standing less than half a mile distant from the soldier’s cuartel, the commandant found it convenient to make use of it as his headquarters. A small guard in the saguan, or covered entrance below, with a sentinel stationed outside the gate in front, indicated this.

There was no family inside, wife, woman, or child; for the colonel, still a young man, was a bachelor. Only peons in the field, grooms and other servants around the stables, with domestics in the dwelling – all, male and female, being Indians of the race known as “Indios mansos” – brown-skinned and obedient.

But though at this time there was no living lady to make her soft footsteps heard within the walls of the commandant’s dwelling, the portrait of a lovely girl hung against the side of the main sola, and on this his American guest had more than once gazed in silent admiration. It showed signs of having been recently painted, which was not strange, since it was the likeness of Colonel Miranda’s sister, a few years younger than himself – at the time on a visit to some relatives in a distant part of the Republic. Frank Hamersley’s eyes never rested on it without his wishing the original at home.

The two gentlemen upon the housetop were leisuring away the time in the indulgence of a cigar, watching the water-fowl that swam and plunged on the bosom of the broad shallow stream, listening to the hoarse croakings of pelicans and the shriller screams of the guaya cranes. It was the hour of evening, when these birds become especially stridulent.

“And so you must go to-morrow, Señor Francisco?” said his host, taking the cigaritto from between his teeth, and looking inquiringly into the face of the Kentuckian.

“There is no help for it, colonel. The caravan with which I came out will be leaving Santa Fé the day after to-morrow, and there’s just time for me to get there. Unless I go along with it, there may be no other opportunity for months to come, and one cannot cross the plains alone.”

“Well, I suppose I must lose you. I am sorry, and selfishly, too, for, as you see, I am somewhat lonely here. There’s not one of my officers, with the exception of our old medico, exactly of the sort to be companionable. True, I have enough occupation, as you may have by this time discovered, in looking after our neighbours, the Indios bravos, who, knowing the skeleton of a regiment I’ve got, are growing saucier every day. I only wish I had a score or two of your stalwart trappers, who now and then pay a visit to Albuquerque. Well, my sister will soon be here, and she, brave girl, has plenty of life in her, though she be but young. What a joyous creature she is, wild as a mustang filly fresh caught. I wish, Don Francisco, you could have stayed to make her acquaintance. I am sure you would be delighted with her.”

If the portrait on the wall was anything of a faithful likeness, Hamersley could not have been otherwise. This was his reflection, though, for certain reasons, he did not in speech declare it.

“It is to be hoped we shall meet again, Colonel Miranda,” was his ingenious rejoinder. “If I did not have this hope, I should now be parting from you with greater regret. Indeed, I have more than a presentiment we shall meet again; since I’ve made up my mind on a certain thing.”

“On what, Don Francisco?”

“On returning to New Mexico.”

“To settle in the country?”

“Not exactly that; only for a time – long enough to enable me to dispose of a cargo of merchandise in exchange for a bag of your big Mexican dollars.”

“Ah! you intend to become one of the prairie merchants, then?”

“I do. That intention has been the cause of my visiting your country. I am old enough to think of some calling, and have always had a fancy for the adventurous life of the prairie trader. As I have sufficient means to stock a small caravan for myself, I think now of trying it. My present trip has been merely one of experiment and exploration. I am satisfied with the result, and, if no accident arise, you may see me back on the Del Norte before either of us be twelve months older.”

“Then, indeed, is there a hope of our meeting again. I am rejoiced at it. But, Señor Don Francisco,” continued his host, changing to a serious tone, “a word lest I might forget it – a word of counsel, or warning, I may call it. I have observed that you are too unsuspicious, too regardless of danger. It does not all lie upon the prairies, or among red-skinned savages. There is as much of it here, amid the abodes of our so-called civilisation. When you are travelling through this country bear your late antagonist in mind, and should you at any time meet, beware of him. I have given you some hints about the character of Gil Uraga. I have not told you all. He is worse than you can even imagine. I know him well. Do you see that little house, out yonder on the other side of the river?”