The Lone Ranche

Chapter Seventy.

A Scheme of Atrocity

Discomfited – chagrined by his discomfiture – burning with shame at the pitiful spectacle he has afforded to his followers – Uraga returns within his tent like an enraged tiger. Not as one robbed of its prey – he is still sure of this as ever; for he has other strings to his bow, and the weak one just snapped scarce signifies.

But for having employed it to no purpose he now turns upon Roblez, who counselled the course that has ended so disastrously.

The adjutant is a safe target on which to expend the arrows of his spleen, and to soothe his perturbed spirit he gives vent to it.

In time, however, he gets somewhat reconciled; the sooner by gulping down two or three glasses of Catalan brandy. Along with the liquor, smoking, as if angry at his cigar, and consuming it through sheer spite, Roblez endeavours to soothe him by consolative speech.

“What matters it, after all!” puts in the confederate. “It may be that everything has been for the best. I was wrong, no doubt, in advising as I did. Still, as you see, it’s gained us some advantage.”

“Advantage! To me the very reverse. Only to think of being chased about my own camp by a man who is my prisoner! And before the eyes of everybody! A pretty story for our troopers to tell when they get back to Albuquerque! I, Colonel commanding, will be the jest of the cuartel!”

“Nothing of the kind, colonel! There is nothing to jest about. Your prisoner chanced to possess himself of your sword – a thing no one could have anticipated. He did it adroitly, but then you were at the time unsuspecting. Disarmed, what else could you do but retreat from a man, armed, desperate, determined on taking your life. I’d like to see anyone who’d have acted otherwise. Under the circumstances only an insane man would keep his ground. The episode has been awkward, I admit. But it’s all nonsense – excuse me for saying so – your being sensitive about that part of it. And for the rest, I say again, it’s given us an advantage; in short, the very one you wanted, if I understand your intentions aright.”

“In what way?”

“Well, you desired a pretext, didn’t you?”

“To do what?”

“Court-martial your prisoners, condemn, and execute them. The attempt on your life will cover all this, so that the keenest scandal-monger may not open his lips. It will be perfectly en regie for you to hang or shoot Don Valerian Miranda – and, if you like, the doctor, too – after ten minutes’ deliberation over a drum’s head. I’m ready to organise the court according to your directions.”

To this proposal Uraga replies with a significant smile, saying:

“Your idea is not a bad one; but I chance to have a better. Much as I hate Miranda and wish him out of the way, I don’t desire to imbrue my hands in his blood; don’t intend to, as I’ve already hinted to you.”

Roblez turns upon his superior officer a look of incredulous surprise, interrogating, —

“You mean to take him back, and let him be tried in the regular way?”

“I mean nothing of the kind.”

“I thought it strange, after your telling me he would never leave this place alive.”

“I tell you so still.”

“Colonel! you take pleasure in mystifying me. If you’re not going to try your prisoners by court-martial, in what way are your words to be made good? Surely you don’t intend to have them shot without form of trial?”

“I’ve said I won’t imbrue my hands in their blood.”

“True, you’ve said that more than once, but without making things any clearer to me. You spoke of some plan. Perhaps I may now hear it?”

“You shall. But first fill me out another capita of the Catalan. That affair has made me thirsty as a sponge.”

The adjutant, acting as Ganymede, pours out the liquor and hands the cup to his colonel, which the latter quaffs off. Then, lighting a fresh cigar, he proceeds with the promised explanation.

“I spoke of events, incidents, and coincidences – didn’t I, ayadante?”

“You did, Colonel.”

“Well, suppose I clump them altogether, and give you the story in a simple narrative – a monologue? I know, friend Roblez, you’re not a man greatly given to speech; so it will save you the necessity of opening your lips till I’ve got through.”

Roblez, usually taciturn, nods assent.

“Before coming out here,” continues the Colonel, “I’d taken some steps. When you’ve heard what they are I fancy you’ll give me credit for strategy, or cunning, if you prefer so calling it. I told you I should take no prisoners back, and that Don Valerian and the doctor are to die. They will go to their graves without causing scandal to any of us. To avoid it I’ve engaged an executioner, who will do the job without any direct orders from me.”

“Who?” asks the adjutant, forgetting his promise to be silent.

“Don’t interrupt!”

The subordinate resumes silence.

“I think,” continues Uraga, in a tone of serio-comicality, “you have heard of a copper-coloured gentleman called ‘Horned Lizard.’ If I mistake not, you have the honour of his acquaintance. And, unless I’m astray in my reckoning, you’ll have the pleasure of seeing him here this evening, or at an early hour to-morrow morning. He will make his appearance in somewhat eccentric fashion. No doubt, he’ll come into our camp at a charging gallop, with some fifty or a hundred of his painted warriors behind him. And I shouldn’t wonder if they should spit some of our gay lancers on the points of their spears. That will depend on whether these valientes be foolish enough to make resistance. I don’t think they will. More likely we shall see them gallop off at the first whoop of the Indian assailants. You and I, Roblez, will have to do the same; but, as gallant gentlemen, we must take the women along with us. To abandon them to the mercy of the savages, without making an effort to save them, were absolute poltroonery, and would never bear reporting in the settlements. Therefore, we must do our best to take the ladies along. Of course, we can’t be blamed for not being able to save our male prisoners. Their fate, I fear, will be for each to get half a dozen Comanche spears thrust through his body, or it may be a dozen. It’s sad to think of it, but such misfortunes cannot always be avoided. They are but the ordinary incidents of frontier life. Now, señor ayadante, do you comprehend my scheme?”

“Since I am at length permitted to speak, I may say I do – at least, I have an obscure comprehension of it. Fairly interpreted, I take it to mean this. You have arranged with the Horned Lizard to make a counterfeit attack upon our camp – to shoot down or spear our poor devils of soldiers, if need be?”

“Not the slightest need of his doing that, nor any likelihood of his being able to do it. They’ll run like good fellows at the first yell of the Indians. Have no apprehensions about them.”

“In any case, the Horned Lizard is to settle the question with our captives, and take the responsibility off our hands. If I understand aright, that is the programme.”

“It is.”

Chapter Seventy One.

A Bootless Journey

Having returned to his original design – the scheme of atrocity so coolly and jestingly declared, Uraga takes steps towards its execution.

The first is, to order his own horse, or rather that of Hamersley, to be saddled, bridled, and tied behind his own tent. The same for that ridden by Roblez. Also the mustang mare which belongs to Adela Miranda – her own “Lolita” – and the mule set apart for the mestiza. The troop horses already caparisoned are to remain so.

Ignorant of their object, the troopers wonder at these precautions, though not so much as might be expected. They are accustomed to receive mysterious commands, and obey them without cavil or question.

Not one of the ten but would cut a throat at Gil Uraga’s bidding, without asking the reason why.

The picket placed on a spin of the cliff has orders to signal if any one is seen coming up the creek. If Indians appear he is to gallop into the camp, and report in person.

The alarm thus started will easily be fostered into a stampede, and at the onslaught of the savages the lancers will rush to their horses and ride off without offering resistance. In the sauve qui peut none of them will give a thought to the two prisoners lying tied under the tree. These are to be left behind to the tender mercies of the Tenawa chief. It will be an act of gallantry to save the female captives by carrying them off. This Uraga reserves for himself, assisted by Roblez.

Such is his scheme of vicarious assassination; in the atrocity of conception unequalled, almost incredible. He has no anxiety as to its success. For himself he is more than ever determined; while Roblez, restrained by the fiasco following his advice, no longer offers opposition.

Uraga has no fear the Tenawa chief will fail him. He has never done so before, and will not now.

The new proposal, which the colonel supposes to have reached the hands of Horned Lizard in that letter carried by Pedrillo, will be eagerly accepted. Barbato will bring the chief with his cut-throats to the Arroyo de Alamo, sure as there is a sun in the sky.

It is but a question of time. They may come up at any hour – any minute; and having arranged all preliminaries, Uraga remains in his tent to await the cue for action. He little dreams at the moment he is thus expecting his red-skinned confederate, that the latter, along with the best braves of his band, has gone to the happy hunting grounds, while his go-between, Barbato, is in safe keeping elsewhere.

As the hours pass, and no one is reported as approaching, he becomes impatient; for the time has long elapsed since the Tenawa chief should have been upon the spot.

Chafing, he strides forth from the tent, and proceeds towards the place where the look-out has been stationed. Reaching it, he reconnoitres for himself, with a telescope he has taken along, to get a better view down the valley.

At first, levelling the glass, no one can be seen. In the reach of open ground, dotted here and there with groves, there are deer browsing, and a grizzly bear is seen crossing between the cliffs, but no shape that resembles a human being.

He is about lowering the telescope when a new form comes into its field of view – a horseman riding up the creek. No the animal is a mule. No matter the rider is a man.

Keenly scrutinising, he perceives it is an Indian, though not one of the wild sort. His garb betokens him of the tamed.

Another glance through the glass and his individuality declares itself, Uraga recognising him as one of the messengers sent to the Tenawas’ town. Not the principal, Pedrillo, but he of secondary importance, José.

“Returning alone!” mutters the Mexican to himself. “What does that mean? Where can Pedrillo be? What keeps him behind, I wonder?”

He continues wondering and conjecturing till José has ridden up to the spot, when, perceiving his master, the latter dismounts and approaches him.

In the messenger’s countenance there is an expression of disappointment, and something more. It tells a tale of woe, with reluctance to disclose it.

“Where is Pedrillo?” is the first question asked in anxious impatience.

“Oh, señor coronel!” replies José, hat in hand, and trembling in every joint. “Pedrillo! Pobre Pedrillito!”

“Well! Poor Pedrillito – what of him? Has anything happened to him?”

“Yes, your excellency, a terrible mischance I fear to tell it you.”

“Tell it, sirrah, and at once! Out with it, whatever it is!”

“Alas, Pedrillo is gone!”

“Gone – whither?”

“Down the river.”

“What river?”

“The Pecos.”

“Gone down the Pecos? On what errand?” inquired the colonel, in surprise.

“On no errand, your excellency.”

“Then what’s taken him down the Pecos? Why went he?”

“Señor coronel, he has not gone of his own will. It is only his dead body that went; it was carried down by the flood.”

“Drowned? Pedrillo drowned?”

“Ay de mi! ’Tis true, as I tell you – too true, pobrecito.”

“How did this happen, José?”

“We were crossing at the ford, señor. The waters were up from a norte that’s just passed over the plains. The river was deep and running rapid, like a torrent, Pedrillo’s macho stumbled, and was swept off. It was as much as mine could do to keep its legs. I think he must have got his feet stuck in the stirrups, for I could see him struggling alongside the mule till both went under. When they came to the surface both were drowned – dead. They floated on without making a motion, except what the current gave them as their bodies were tossed about by it. As I could do nothing there, I hastened here to tell you what happened. Pobre Pedrillito!”

The cloud already darkening Uraga’s brow grows darker as he listens to the explanation. It has nothing to do with the death of Pedrillo, or compassion for his fate – upon which he scarce spends a thought – but whether there has been a miscarriage of that message of which the drowned man was the bearer. His next interrogatory, quickly put, is to get satisfied on this head.

“You reached the Tenawa town?”

“We did, señor coronel.”

“Pedrillo carried a message to the Horned Lizard, with a letter for Barbato. You know that, I suppose?”

“He told me so.”

“Well, you saw him deliver the letter to Barbato?”

“He did not deliver it to Barbato.”

“To the chief, then?”

“To neither, your Excellency. He could not.”

“Could not! Why?”

“They ere not there to receive it. They are no longer in this world – neither the Horned Lizard nor Barbato. Señor Coronel, the Tenawas have met with a great misfortune. They’ve had a fight with a party of Tejanos. The chief is killed, Barbato is killed, and nearly half of their braves. When Pedrillo and I reached the town we found the tribe in mourning, the women all painted black, with their hair cut off; the men who had escaped the slaughter cowed, and keeping concealed within their lodges.”

A wild exclamation leaps from the lips of Uraga as he listens to these disclosures, his brow becoming blacker than ever.

“But, Pedrillo,” he inquires, after a pause; “what did he say to them? You know the import of his message. Did he communicate it to the survivors?”

“He did, your Excellency. They could not read your letter, but he told them what it was about. They were to meet you here, he said. But they refused to come. They were in too great distress about the death of their chief, and the chastisement they had received. They were in fear that the Tejanos would pursue them to their town; and were making preparations to flee from it when Pedrillo and myself came away. Pobre Pedrillito!”

Uraga no longer stays listening to the mock humanity of his whining messenger. No more does he think of the drowned Pedrillo. His thoughts are now given to a new design. Murder by proxy has failed. For all that, it must still be done. To take counsel with his adjutant about the best mode of proceeding, he hastens back to the camp; plunges into his tent; and there becomes closeted – the lieutenant along with him.

Chapter Seventy Two.

A Mock Court-Martial

For the disaster that was overtaken the Tenawa chief and his warriors, Gil Uraga does not care a jot. True, by the death of Horned Lizard he has lost an ally who, on some future scheme of murder, might have been used to advantage; while Barbato, whose life he believes also taken, can no more do him service as agent in his intercourse with the red pirates of the prairie.

It matters not much now. As military commander of a district he has attained power, enabling him to dispense with any left-handed assistance; and of late more than once has wished himself rid of such suspicious auxiliaries. Therefore, but for the frustration of his present plans, he would rather rejoice than grieve over the tidings brought by the returned emissary.

His suit scorned, his scheme of assassination thwarted, he is as much as ever determined on the death of the two prisoners.

In the first moments of his anger, after hearing José’s tale, he felt half inclined to rush upon Miranda, sword in hand, and settle the matter at once. But, while returning to the camp-ground, calmer reflections arose, restraining him from the dastardly act, and deciding him to carry out the other alternative, already conceived, but kept back as a dernier ressort.

“Sit down, camarado!” he says, addressing the adjutant on entering. “We must hold a court-martial, and that is too serious a ceremonial to be gone through without the customary forms. The members of the court should be seated.”

The grim smile which accompanies his words shows that he means them in jest only as regards the manner of proceeding. For the earnestness of his intention there is that in his eyes – a fierce, lurid light, which Roblez can read.

In rejoinder the adjutant asks, —

“You are still resolved upon the death of the prisoners?”

“Still resolved! Carramba! An idle question, after what has occurred! They die within the hour. We shall try, condemn, and then have them shot.”

“I thought you had arranged it in a different way?”

“So I had. But circumstances alter cases. There’s many a slip ’twixt cup and lip, and I’ve just heard of one. The Horned Lizard has failed me.”

“How so, colonel?”

“You see that Indian outside. He’s one of my muleteers I’d sent as a messenger to the Tenawa town. He returns to tell me there’s no Horned Lizard in existence, and only a remnant of his tribe. Himself, with the best of his braves, has gone to the happy hunting grounds; not voluntarily, but sent thither by a party of Tejanos who fell foul of them on a foray.”

“That’s a strange tale,” rejoins Roblez, adding, “And Barbato?”

“Dead, too – gone with his red-skinned associates.”

“Certainly a singular occurrence – quite a coincidence.”

“A coincidence that leaves me in an awkward predicament, without my expected executioners. Well, we must supply their places by substituting our own cut-throats.”

“You’ll find them willing, colonel. The little interlude of Miranda getting loose, and making to run you through, has been all in your favour. It affords sufficient pretext for court-martialling and condemning both prisoners to be shot I’ve heard the men say so, and they expect it.”

“They shall not be disappointed, nor have long to wait. The court has finished its sitting, and given its verdict. Without dissenting voice, the prisoners are condemned to death. So much for the sentence. Now to carry it into execution.”

“How is the thing to be done?”

“Call in the sergeant. With him I shall arrange that. And when you’re out, go among the men and say a word to prepare them for the measure. You may tell them we’ve been trying the prisoners, and the result arrived at.”

The adjutant steps out of the tent; and while Uraga is swallowing another cup of Catalan to fortify him for his fearful purpose, the sergeant enters.

“Sergente! there’s some business to be done of a delicate nature, and you must take direction of it.”

The Serjeant salutes, and stands awaiting the explanation. The colonel continues: —

“We intend taking our prisoners no farther – the men, I mean. With the women we have nothing to do – as prisoners. After what you saw, we deem it necessary that Don Valerian Miranda should die; and also the other, who is equally incriminated as a traitor to the State – a rebel, an old conspirator, well known. Lieutenant Roblez and I have held a court, and decreed their death. So order the men to load their carbines, and make ready to carry out the sentence.”

The sergeant simply nods assent, and, again saluting, is about to retire, when Uraga stays him with a second speech.

“Let all take part in the firing except Galvez. Post him as sentry over the square tent. Direct him to stand by its entrance and see that the flap is kept down. Under no circumstances is he to let either of its occupants out. It’s not a spectacle for women – above all, one of them. Never mind; we can’t help that I’m sorry myself, but duty demands this rigorous measure. Now go. First give Galvez his orders; then to the men and get them ready. Make no more noise than is necessary. Let your lancers be drawn up in line; afoot, of course, and single file.”

“Where am I to place the prisoners, colonel?”

“Ah! true; I did not think of that.”

Uraga steps to the entrance of the tent, and, looking forth, takes a survey of the camp-ground. His eyes seek the spot occupied by the prisoners. They are both again together, under the same tree where first placed, a sentry keeping guard over them. The tree is a cottonwood, with smooth stem and large limbs extending horizontally. Another is near, so similar as to seem a twin; both being a little out from the thick timber, which forms a dark background behind them.

After regarding them a moment, scanning them as a lumberman would a log intended for a saw-mill, Uraga directs.

“Raise the prisoners upright, and tie one to each of those two trees. Set their backs to the trunk. They’ve both been army men, and we won’t disgrace the cloth by shooting them from behind. That’s grace enough for rebels.”

The sergeant, saluting, is again about to go, only staying to catch some final words of direction. They are —

“In ten minutes I shall expect you to have everything ready. When you’ve got the stage set I shall myself appear upon it as an actor – the Star of this pretty play!”

And with a hoarse laugh at his horrid jest, the ruffian retires within his tent.

Chapter Seventy Three.

The Hand of God

The sun is descending towards the crest of the Cordillera, his rays becoming encrimsoned as twilight approaches. They fall like streams of blood between the bluffs enclosing the valley of the Arroyo de Alamo, their tint in unison with a tragedy there about to be enacted – in itself strangely out of correspondence with the soft, tranquil scene.

The stage is the encampment of Uraga and his detachment of lancers, now set for the terrible spectacle soon to take place.

The two tents are still standing as pitched, several paces apart. At the entrance of the square one, with its flap drawn close and tied, a soldier keeps sentry; that of conical shape being unguarded.