CHAPTER VII.
THE ATTACK.
It must have been nearly ten o'clock when my mule suddenly stopped, turned around, and set up that peculiar nickering bray by which these animals hail the approach of strangers. As soon as he ceased his unwelcome noise I listened, and distinctly heard the clatter of hoofs in the road, about half a mile in the rear. That my pursuers were rapidly approaching there was now very little doubt. It was useless to attempt to reach San Miguel, which must be still four or five miles distant. I had no time, and resolved at once to make for a little grove some three or four hundred yards to the right. As I approached the nearest trees I was rejoiced to see something like a fence. A little farther on was a gray object with a distinct outline. It must be a house. There was no light; but I soon discovered that I was within fifty yards of a small adobe building. My mule now pricked up his ears, snuffed the air wildly, and absolutely refused to move a step nearer. I dismounted, and tried to drag him toward the door. His terror seemed unconquerable. With starting eyes, and a wild blowing sound from his nostrils, he broke away and dashed out into the plain. I speedily lost sight of him.
This time I had taken the precaution to secure my papers and pistol on my person. The mule had taken the direction of San Miguel; but, even should I be unable to recover him, the loss would not be so great as before. However, it was no time to calculate losses. The clatter of hoofs grew nearer and nearer, and soon the advancing forms of two mounted men became distinctly visible in the moonlight. There was no alternative but to seek security in the old adobe. I ran for the door and pushed it open. The house was evidently untenanted. No answer was made to my summons save a mocking echo from the bare walls. My pursuers must have caught sight of me as they approached. I could hear their imprecations as they tried to force their animals up to the door. One of the party—the Colonel, whose voice I had no difficulty in recognizing, said,
"Blast the fellow! what did he come here for?"
The other answered with an oath and a brutal laugh,
"We've got him holed, any how. It won't take long to root him out."
They then dismounted and proceeded to tie their horses to the nearest tree. I could hear them talk as they receded, but could not make out what they said.
While this was going on I had closed the door, and was looking for some bolt or fastening, when I heard the low, fierce growl of some animal. There was no time to conjecture what it was; the next moment a furry skin brushed past, and the animal sprang through an opening in the wall.
A wooden bar was all I could find; but the iron fastening had been broken, and the only way of securing the door was to brace the bar against it in a diagonal position. The floor was of rough hard clay, and served in some sort to prevent the brace from slipping. A few moments of painful anxiety passed. I had drawn my revolver, and stood close against the inner wall, prepared to fire upon the first man that entered. Presently the two men returned, approaching stealthily along the wall, so as to avoid coming in range of the door. The sharp, hard voice of the Colonel first broke the silence.
"Come," said he, "open the door! You can't help yourself now! It is all up with you, my fine fellow!"
I knew the villains wanted to find my position, and made no answer.
"You may as well come out at once," said the Colonel; "you have no chance. There is nobody here to stand by you as there was last night. Your friend is keeping camp with a bullet through his head and a gash in his throat."
Pressed as I was, this news shocked me beyond measure. The unfortunate man who had befriended me had paid the penalty of his life for his kindness.
"Out with you!" roared the Colonel, fiercely, "or we'll burst the door down. Come, be quick!"
THE ATTACK.
Another pause. I heard a low whispering, and stood with breathless anxiety with my finger upon the trigger of my pistol. In that brief period it was wonderful how many thoughts flashed through my mind. I knew nothing of the construction of the house; had no time even to look around and see if there was any back entrance. A faint light through one small window-hole in front, within three feet of the door, was all I could discern. Every nerve was strained to its utmost tension. My sense of hearing was painfully acute. The low whispering of the two ruffians, the faint jingling of their spurs, the very creaking of their boots, as they stealthily moved, was fearfully audible. With an almost absolute certainty of death, without the remotest hope of relief, it was strange how my thoughts wandered back upon the past; how the peaceful fireside of home was pictured to my mind; how vividly I saw the beloved faces of kindred and friends; how all that were dear to me seemed to sympathize in my unhappy fate. Yet it was impossible to realize that my time had come. The whole thing—the camp, the dark, murderous faces, the chase, the blockade—resembled rather some horrible fantasy than the dread truth. Strange, too, that I should have noticed something even grotesque in my situation; run into a hole, as the ruffian Jack had said, like a coyote or a badger. Five minutes—it seemed a long time—must have passed in this way, when I became conscious of a gradual darkening in the room. A low, heavy breathing attracted my attention. I looked in the direction of the window, and thought I could detect something moving; but the darkness was so impenetrable that it might be the result of imagination. Should I fire and miss my mark, the flash would reveal my position and be certain destruction. The dark mass again moved. I could distinctly hear the respiration. It must be one of the men trying to get in through the small window-hole. I raised my pistol, took dead aim as near as possible upon the centre of the object, and fired. The fall of a heavy body outside, a groan, an imprecation, was all I could hear, when a tremendous effort was made to force the door, and two shots were fired through it in quick succession. The wood was massive, but much decayed; and I saw that it was rapidly giving way before the furious assaults that were made upon it from the outside, evidently with a heavy piece of timber. Another lunge or two of this powerful battering-ram must have borne it from its hinges or shattered it to fragments.
"Hold on, Jack!" said the wounded man in a low voice; "come here, quick! The infernal fool has shot me through the shoulder! I'm bleeding badly."
The ruffian dropped his bar, as I judged by the sound, and turned to drag his leader out of range of the door. Now was the time for a bold move. Hitherto I had acted on the defensive; but every thing depended on following up the advantage. Removing the brace from the door, I made an opening sufficient to get a glimpse of the two men. The stout fellow, Jack, was stooping down, dragging the other toward the corner of the house. I fired again. The ball was too low; it missed his body, but must have shattered his wrist; for, with a horrible oath, he dropped his burden, and staggered back a few paces writhing with pain, his hand covered with blood. Before I could get another shot he darted behind the house. At the same time the Colonel rose on his knee, turned quickly, and fired. The ball whizzed by my head and struck the door. While I was trying to get a shot at him in return, he jumped to his feet and staggered out of range. I thought it best now to rest satisfied with my success so far, and again retired to my position behind the door.
For the next ten or fifteen minutes I could hear, from time to time, the smothered imprecations of the wounded ruffians, but after this there was a dead silence. I heard nothing more. They had either gone or were lying in wait near by, supposing I would come out. This uncertainty caused me considerable anxiety, for I dared not abandon my gloomy retreat. Two or three hours must have passed in this way, during which I was constantly on the guard; but not the slightest indication of the presence of the enemy was perceptible.
Two nights had nearly passed, during which I had not closed my eyes in sleep. The perpetual strain of mind and the fatigue of travel were beginning to tell. I felt faint and drowsy. During the whole terrible ordeal of this night I had not dared to sit down. But now my legs refused to support me any longer. I groped my way toward a corner of the room to lie down. Some soft mass on the ground caused me to stumble. I threw out my hands and fell. What was it that sent such a thrill of horror through every fibre? A dead body lay in my embrace—cold, mutilated, and clotted with blood!
It has been my fortune, during a long career of travel in foreign lands, to see death in many forms. I do not profess to be exempt from the weakness common to most men—a natural dread of that undiscovered region toward which we are all traveling. But I never had any peculiar repugnance to the presence of dead men. What are they, after all, but inanimate clay? The living are to be feared—not the dead, who sleep the sleep that knows no waking. Not this—not the sudden contact with a corpse; not simply the cold and blood-clotted face over which I passed my hand was it that caused me to recoil with such a thrill of horror. It was the solution of a dread mystery. There, in a pool of clotted gore, lay the corpse of a murdered man. No need was there to conjecture who were his murderers.
I rose up, thoroughly aroused from my drowsiness. It was probable others had shared the fate of this man. If so, their bodies must be near at hand. I was afraid to open the door to let in the light, for, bad as it was to be shut up in a dark room with the victim or victims of a cruel murder, it was worse to incur the risk of a similar fate by exposing myself. After somewhat recovering my composure I groped about, and soon discovered that three other bodies were lying in the room: one on a bed—a woman with her throat cut from ear to ear—and two smaller bodies on the floor near by—children perhaps eight or ten years old, but so mutilated that it was difficult to tell what they were. Their limbs were almost denuded of flesh, and their faces and bodies were torn into shapeless masses. This must have been the finishing work of the animal—a coyote no doubt—that had startled me with a growl, and broken through the window after I had first closed the door. I could also now account for the strange manner in which the mule had snuffed the air, and his unconquerable terror in approaching the house.
Only a few articles of furniture were in the room—a bed, two or three broken stools, a frying-pan, coffee-pot, and a few other cooking utensils, thrown in a heap near the fireplace. There was no other room; nor was there any back entrance, as I had at first apprehended.
It was a gloomy place enough to spend a night in, but there was no help for it. I certainly had less fear of the dead than of the living. It could not be over two or three hours till morning; and it was not likely the two men, who were seeking my life, would lurk about the premises much longer, if they had not long since taken their departure, which seemed the most probable.
I knelt down and commended my soul to God; then stretched myself across the brace against the door, and, despite the presence of death, fell fast asleep. It was broad daylight when I awoke. The sun's earliest rays were pouring into the room through the little window and the cracks of the door. A ghastly spectacle was revealed—a ghastly array of room-mates lying stiff and stark before me.
From the general appearance of the dead bodies I judged them to be an emigrant family from some of the Western States. They had probably taken up a temporary residence in the old adobe hut after crossing the plains by the southern route, and must have had money or property of some kind to have inspired the cupidity of their murderers. The man was apparently fifty years of age; his skull was split completely open, and his brains scattered out upon the earthen floor. The woman was doubtless his wife. Her clothes were torn partly from her body, and her head was cut nearly off from her shoulders; besides which, her skull was fractured with some dull instrument, and several ghastly wounds disfigured her person. The bedclothes were saturated with blood, now clotted by the parching heat. The two children had evidently been cut down by the blows of an axe. Their heads were literally shattered to fragments. What the murderers had failed to accomplish in mutilating the bodies had been completed by some ravenous beast of prey—the same, no doubt, already mentioned.
I saw no occasion to prolong my stay. It was hardly probable the Colonel and Jack, wounded as they were, would renew their attack. They must have made their way back to camp, or at least retired to some part of the country where they would incur less risk of capture.