THE PACT OF BLOOD.
Behind the fugitives, the rattle of dropping shots had gone on for an hour so that Oregon Oliver's prophecy of the possible duration of such skirmishing bid fair to be verified.
The Indians mode of warfare is to force a retrograde movement by the gradual concentration of fire, and at the moment a retreat is begun, whatever the cause—strategetic or from pure weakness or cowardice—a charge is made by the best warriors in a body, whooping and brandishing their weapons.
Knowing something of how resistless was such a rush, our old acquaintance Don Aníbal, alias The Slayer of Seven, was in no humour for awaiting one. Already, from the glimpse he had of the young Mexican girl borne away among the stampeded horses, his desire for retaliation on don Benito had inspired him with a novel idea; he hoped, against all precedent, to unite the Apaches with him in the same purpose.
It was, indeed, our old acquaintance, the reader will see, perfectly unscrupulous by what means he obtained his ends.
The miracle to which he owed the preservation of his rascally life had been a lesson only for the time being.
When, plunging off the islet into the Gulf in order to elude the infuriated husband of doña Dolores, the pirate was swimming for an offing, he became the aim of more than one shark. Twice he escaped being swallowed more or less in the maw of the most swift, for each time he had swerved on one side as it blindly turned back downward for the terrible bite. But, when so near the shore as to hope for full immunity from this living danger at least, one of the tintoreras, fearless of the shoaling water, flew forward like a flash of lightning, and, amid an eddy of the churning water, poor Matasiete was seized by the leg, and suffered the anguish of its being torn from half the thigh. His scream was stifled as he was dragged down, and when he arose, he was cast upon the strand. With the strength of infernal pain and the madness of despair he not only dragged himself up under cover of the mangroves, but twisted his cravat as a tourniquet around the severed limb. Then he fainted away.
It was not until the morning that the pearl fishers were attracted to him by his piteous groans. They had been so generously paid by Mr. Gladsden after his securing the treasure that they took great care of the dismembered Mexican, believing him one of the brigantine crew, in which belief he took heed not to disturb them in his rare lucid moments. They rewarded themselves by stripping him and cutting off his silver buttons, and after a few weeks, changing their fishing ground, left him in their best hut. Fever had gone, but he was as weak as a child, and for some months seemed able only to crawl about. Thus he had ample time for repentance even of so long a career of guilt.
He was penitent in his helplessness, and had such a man as Father Serafino encountered him then, he might never have recurred to his former life. But no one came near the crippled hermit but sea otter hunters, and pearl and whale fishers, and they were rough, unsympathetic souls, who only landed to buy, or take by force, the vegetables which he raised.
In this way, chained to the spot by his loss of limb, with the perpetual presence of the reef where that treasure had been drawn up, to embitter his thoughts and his dreams, Matasiete nursed projects of vengeance, not merely against the Englishman and don Benito, but against all human kind.
At last, nearly four years in this almost solitary existence having passed, and his little hoard of earnings by the supply of green meat to the whalers swelling out so that he feared he would be robbed, he took advantage of the offer of an officer of a British man-of-war, surveying the Gulf, to transport him to Guaymas.
People and things had changed there; the prospect of the railways connecting the port with the United States and Mexico City had galvanised it into a life he had never known before. Most of his associates had disappeared; but he found Don Stefano Garcia humbly "clerking it" in a merchant's, and very reticent about a fortnight in the chain gang, which punishment he had undergone for some little playfulness in his banking business.
Wary, tenacious, exacting, the returned salteador fastened himself upon the clerk and blackmailed him almost daily, spending the extorted money in the sailors' drinking dens. At last, seeing that his Old Man of the Sea was doomed to be his destruction, Garcia made an effort, gave the robber a large sum of money once for all, and started him for the northern interior. The former rover of the Sierras had expressed a desire to resume the old life of freedom, tempered with depredation and debauchery.
Soon, indeed, to the nucleus of a few chosen scoundrels with whom he had beguiled the intervals between revels and card play in the Guaymas groggeries, with stories of the merry life on the prairies, the captain added the floating scum of Upper Sonora. But this time he did not hesitate to venture into New Mexico and run off cattle from the American settlers. Thus he acquired a wider fame than before, and on both sides of the border the One-legged Rustler had a price set on his head.
About a year before, he had an accession to his band in the person of no less than the ex-banker, don Stefano Garcia. That estimable gentleman, from forgery to forgery, had contrived to bring the credulous foreign firm that employed him to bankruptcy, and, well supplied with funds, thus shamefully acquired, was encountered by his old associate gambling it away in the Green Ranch. They were scandalous rogues, born to travel in harness, and Garcia at once stepped into the lieutenancy of the formidable band. Too corpulent to be agile, except in the dance, in which he excelled like most Mexicans, he preferred to win by astuteness, and was no more daring when his neck was concerned than El Manco himself.
It was he who earnestly approved his superior's idea of stopping the desultory fighting and becoming friends with the Apaches. For one knew as well as the other that they were wolves whose hide would cost dear, and then be worthless.
The Apaches, as we have elsewhere remarked, are about the most ferocious and barbarous nation in the great Southwest. Neither Sioux nor Pawnees attain their perfection in cruelty, and they are matchless as the Comanches in horse stealing.
They are tyrants of the wilderness, in short, who see no life worth living without murder, pillage, torture, and conflagrations. They make no nice distinctions in attacking any beings, white, red, or mixed blood, merely out of an implacable hatred for those born beyond their pale. It is said that when other supply of foemen fall short, they will quarrel among themselves and cross knives in the council lodge itself for the sheer relish of bloodshedding.
Such were the demons to whom the Mexican Ishmael wanted to propose a temporary alliance to attack and carry by storm the hacienda of don Benito de Bustamente.
All at once, therefore, Captain Pedrillo bid one of his men sound a bugle in imitation of the notes of the cry used by the Apaches for "cease firing!" and, immediately, one of his lieutenants, risking his life, sprang from behind a tree towards the red man, waving a blanket in a peculiar manner which kept it flat but undulating in the air, whilst he shouted "Paz—peace!" As a rule, such overtures are disregarded by Indians in combat, but the incertitude about their beloved chief made them accept it. Their missiles were no longer heard whistling, and, in a few minutes spent in consultation, one of the subchiefs leaped into the clear ground, and waved a white buffalo robe.
With bravado, in order to indicate that fear had nothing to do with this offering and assent to the truce, both parties showed themselves.
On the one side, more than a hundred red men appeared, bristling with spears and arrows held on the bow, or displaying guns and hatchets. On the other, upon an earthwork hastily thrown up with knives, the ruffians presented themselves, to the number of sixty at least enveloped in their zarapés, coiled up to protect vital parts of the body, their heads shaded with sombreros, or capped with skins of animals, still showing their teeth and claws; their guns and their machetes gleamed brightly. Both seemed tough morsels, and though the Indians uttered no comments on the parade, their glances among themselves expressed the same sentiment of admiration which the Mexicans muttered.
The alférez and the Apache chief slowly advanced, step for step, so as to meet midway between the lines; as they came on nearer and nearer, they threw down weapon after weapon so as, at last, when they stood within arm's length, to be totally disarmed, in all appearance. No doubt both had a concealed knife, for treachery is always suspected in prairie warfare.
When they actually met, and the Mexican spokesman had repeated his mission to propose peace, on the grounds that there was no quarrel between the noble Apaches and the bandits, who were in no way connected with those infernal North American heretics who had intruded within the Rancho Verde, the Indian made a sign to his friends. Instantly, in a majestic manner, several chiefs came forward towards him, a movement imitated by Pedrillo and his subleaders, and soon the two groups were facing one another.
Profoundly distrustful, though no weapons were visible, both parties fully aware of the rascality of either, the Apaches nevertheless recognised that the pair of fugitives who had slain their chief after beating the Rustlers in the barroom, and were speeding away on re-stolen horses, were no friends of the Mexicans. The proposal, therefore, that the two forces should unite in their mutual hate for the strangers, by whose deeds both suffered, was congenial. Always repulsed when they attacked the fortified houses of the rich farmers, the Indians hoped for better results if they were aided by men accustomed to fight on foot and to manage a siege.
Consequently, not ten minutes of explanation had passed before the half dozen principals were seated in a circle in the centre of the clearing before the smoking ruins of Tío Camote's luckless hostelry, with the calumet circulating for a council.
One little detail had been promptly debated and settled; apart from the bloodshed due to Mr. Gladsden and his hunter guide, five of the Apaches had been slain by Mexican bullets, while only three of the bandits had lost their lives in the skirmish. Now, inasmuch as the code "a life for a life," rules the savage practice, the Rustlers owed two lives to the Apaches, who could not, with a debt of blood unpaid, enter into alliance with the debtors.
With a sharklike grin, the worthy Captain Pedrillo removed this difficulty.
"There are four of my men, Chief Iron Shirt," said he, leaning towards the successor of Tiger Cat, "rank weeds, unruly, who have secreted unfair shares of plunder, and who contemplate desertion to go to Ures, and, perhaps, betray me and their valiant comrades to the police. I will arrange, on our march, to send them away as a detached scouting party, and your young men may take and wear their scalps at their girdles. Four scalps for two lives! Applaud my generosity!"
"It is a bargain," said the Apaches, grimly enjoying the joke.
Iron Shirt was a notorious villain, having twice at least mingled with the Cheyennes and passed himself off for one of them in order to obtain from the United States agent arms and ammunition which he meant, even as he received them with protestations of lip service, to essay upon the very official who gave them. Hence he was the man particularly to appreciate double-dealing and applaud it when he was not the dupe. He derived his singular but veritable appellation—for he is like other characters in our narrative, a figure in border annals—not from his ever wearing a shirt of mail, but from his good fortune in escaping body wounds. He attributed it to his "medicine," but the white hunters thought him very dexterous in the use of the small shield which Indian cavalry carry, and which, while not defying a rifle ball, will fend off an arrow and stop a revolver bullet.
The pipe of council went twice around the ring, till Pedrillo spoke again from his elevated perch on the horse, the others squatting in the Indian fashion.
"My Apache brothers are great warriors," he said, "so I am wishful to prove my esteem for them by having them join me, or taking me and my band in conjunction with them," changing the form of offer on seeing the Indian wince in wounded pride, "to make complete the successful coup which they have already struck at the hacienda of the Treasure Hill. This time, my red brothers will return to their villages, not merely with a few horses and one paleface girl, but with a long train of mules packed with booty and fifty women to sew their clothes, fetch water and cook their meals. The scalps are of no value to us, and they will be the Apaches' prize! As for the plunder of the rich farm, we divide it fairly between us. What does the chief say?"
Each of the Apaches answered in order of rank "it is good! The chief says we will fall on the hacienda in concert, and the plunder will be equally shared among the warriors."
The settlement of details was made whilst this favourable decision upon the preliminaries was carried to the subordinates, interestedly awaiting. General satisfaction was manifested, but the wary bandits and red men took care not to mingle or fraternize, save with arms at hand, even where several recognised acquaintances and hailed them cordially.
There was no doubt, as happens with more important treaty makers in Europe, each contracting party reserved in secret the right to keep none of the pledges given and to seize the spoil the moment he felt strong enough to defy the consequences of such treachery.
Meanwhile, Pedrillo called for a keg of spirits saved from the wreck of the ranch, and all drank to cement the negotiation.
Tío Camote had emerged from his retreat, and his two bartenders, more frightened than hurt when the roof collapsed with them, saw the unburnt stores of his tavern shared between the allies, as a commencement of their active brotherhood, without too much resentment. Forced to enlist actively among the banditti lest the rear guard of the Apaches immolated him on the smouldering ruins, where their greatest chief was inextricably buried to appease his manes, Uncle Sweet Potato still wondered that he lived and breathed with his head thatched as nature provided. As for his assistants, they were highwaymen when out of a situation, and they entered the ranks again under Pedrillo's colours without demur.
Just before sunset, the troops, united in sentiment though divided, as independently pursuing their respective purposes in a parallel course solely by accident, took up the ride towards Monte Tesoro. As they had no doubt that the fugitives would be lodged, for Doña Perla's sake, in her father's house, they had no reason to try to overtake them.
The first interruption to the rapid progress of the two troops, and at the same time the first intimation they had of the revolt of the peons, was their riding into the midst of the column shattered by the sham lancers of Oregon Oliver. The severed portions of this column, like one of those fabulous serpents which had the power of healing its wounds, and joining its segments, had rallied into one mass. The leaders were hesitating on the course to take when the Mexicans appeared, and they feared a renewal of the disaster. Fortunately, before the panic was revived, the Apaches delighted them, for they saw friends in men of their colour if not of their race. An understanding was soon arrived at. Needless to say, Pedrillo and Garcia congratulated themselves on having such allies, and the prospect of overcoming not merely the farm of don Benito, but of many another, made their faces radiant with smiles.
Thus reinforced, the squadrons resumed the advance, followed closely by the peons, who derived much enheartenment from such warlike adherents, and, passing the detachment from Monte Tesoro still ensconced in the pine and cedar woods, the throng poured into the valley with loud clamour echoed by the assembled rebels. This joyous uproar did not tend to reassure the beleaguered Mexicans, though its cause was not perceptible.