Chapter Thirteen.
A Party not to be pursued.
For some seconds, Rufino Valdez is in a state of semi-bewilderment, from his lips proceeding exclamations that tell of surprise, but more chagrin. Something of weird terror, too, in the expression upon his sallow, cadaverous face, as the grey dawn dimly lights it up.
“Mil demonios!” he mutters, gazing distractedly on the ground. “What does this mean? Is it possible the gringo’s got away? Possible? Ay, certain. And his animal, too! Yes, I remember we left that, fools as we were, in our furious haste. It’s all clear, and, as I half anticipated, he’s been able to climb on the horse, and’s off home! There by this time, like enough.”
With this double adjuration, he resolves upon dismounting, to make better inspection of the place, and, if possible, assure himself whether his victim has really survived the murderous attack. But just as he has drawn one foot out of the stirrup and is balancing on the other, a sound reaches his ear, causing him to reseat himself in the saddle, and sit listening. Only a slight noise it was, but one in that place of peculiar significance, being the hoof-stroke of a horse.
“Good!” he ejaculates in a whisper, “it must be his.”
Hearkening a little longer, he hears the sound again, apparently further off, and as his practised ear tells him, the distance increasing.
“It must be his horse,” he reiterates, still continuing to listen. “And who but he on the animal’s back? Going off? Yes; slowly enough. No wonder at that. Ha! he’s come to a halt. What’s the best thing for me to do?”
He sits silently considering, but only for a few seconds; then glancing around the glade, in which yester eve he had shed innocent blood, at the same time losing some of his own, he sees another break among the bushes, where the tapir path goes out again. Faint as the light still is, it shows him some horse-tracks, apparently quite fresh, leading off that way.
He stays not for more, but again plying the spur, re-enters the thicket, not to go back to the ford, but on in the opposite direction. The tapir path takes him up an acclivity, from the stream’s edge to the level of the higher plain, and against it he urges his horse to as much speed as the nature of the ground will permit. He has thrown away caution now, and presses forward without fear, expecting soon to see a man on horseback, but so badly crippled as to be easily overtaken, and as easily overcome.
What he does see, on reaching the summit of the slope, is something very different—two horses instead of one, with a man upon the back of each! And though one may be wounded and disabled, as he knows him to be, the other is not so, as he can well see. Instead, a man in full health, strength, and vigour, one Rufino Valdez fears as much as hates, though hating him with his whole heart. For it is Gaspar, the gaucho, once his rival in the affections of a Paraguayan girl, and successful in gaining them.
That the vaqueano’s fear now predominates over his antipathy is evident from his behaviour. Instead of dashing on after to overtake the horsemen, who, with backs towards him, are slowly retiring, he shows only a desire to shun them. True, there would be two to one, and he has himself but a single arm available—his left, broken and bandaged, being now in a sling. But then only one of the two would be likely to stand against him, the other being too far gone for light. Indeed, Halberger—for Valdez naturally supposes it to be he—sits drooped in his saddle, as though he had difficulty in keeping to it. Not that he has any idea of attacking them does the vaqueano take note of this, nor has he the slightest thought of attempting to overtake them. Even knew he that the wounded man were about to drop dead, he knows the other would be more than his match, with both his own arms sound and at their best, for they have been already locked in deadly strife with those of the gaucho, who could have taken his life, but generously forebore. Not for the world would Rufino Valdez again engage in single combat with Caspar Mendez, and soon as setting eyes on the latter he draws bridle so abruptly that his horse starts back as if he had trodden upon a rattlesnake.
Quieting the animal with some whispered words, he places himself behind a thick bush, and there stays all of a tremble, the only thing stedfast about him being his gaze, fixed upon the forms of the departing travellers. So carefully does he screen himself, that from the front nothing is visible to indicate the presence of anyone there, save the point of a spear, with dry blood upon the blade, projecting above the bushes, and just touching the fronds of a palm-tree, its ensanguined hue in vivid contrast with the green of the leaves, as guilt and death in the midst of innocence and life!
Not till they have passed almost out of his sight, their heads gradually going down behind the culms of the tall pampas grass, does Rufino Valdez breathe freely. Then his nerves becoming braced by the anger which burns within—a fierce rage, from the old hatred of jealousy, interrupted by this new and bitter disappointment, the thwarting of a scheme, so far successful, but still only half accomplished—he gives utterance to a string of blasphemous anathemas, with threats, in correspondence.
“Carajo!” he cries, winding up with the mildest of his profane exclamations. “Ride on, señores, and get soon home! While there, be happy as you best may. Ha, ha! there won’t be much merriment in that nest now, with the young chick out of it—pet bird of the flock; nor long before the whole brood be called upon to forsake it. Soon as I can get to Assuncion and back with a dozen of our quarteleros, ah! won’t there be a wiping out of old scores then? If that young fool, Naraguana’s son, hadn’t shown so chicken-hearted, I might have settled them now; gone home with captives, too, instead of empty-handed. Well, it won’t be so long to wait. Let me see. Three days will take me to Assuncion—less if this animal under me wasn’t so near worn out; three more to return with the troop. Say a week in all; at the end of which, if there be a man named Caspar Mendez in the land of the living, it won’t be he whose head I see out yonder. That will be off his shoulders, or if on them only to help hold in its place the loop-end of my lazo. But I must make haste. For what if Halberger have recognised me? I don’t think he did or could; ’twas too dark. If he have, what—ay, what? Of course they’ll know that wasn’t likely to be the last of it, and that there’s something more to come. They’d be simpletons not to think so; and thinking it, still greater fools if they don’t take some steps to flee away from this new roost they’ve been perching upon. But whither can they? The young Tovas chief is compromised with them—dead declared as their enemy so long as he keeps that pretty creature captive in his toldo; and there are others of the tribe will stand by me, I know. The glass beads and other glistening baubles will secure the young, while a few golden onzas skilfully distributed will do the same for the sagamores. No fear then, no failure yet! With the Tovas on my side, there isn’t a spot in the Chaco to shelter them. So, caballeros! you can keep on. In a week from this time, I hope to hold an interview with you, less distant and more satisfactory to myself.”
After delivering this quaint rigmarole, he sits watching them till their heads finally sink below the sea of grass, the rheas feathers in Caspar’s high crowned hat being the last to disappear, as it were waving back defiance and to the death!
Soon as they are out of sight, and he no longer fears an encounter with his old enemy, Valdez turns to the consideration of some other things which have appeared strange to him. At first, why they are riding so slowly, for as long as seen they were proceeding in a walking-gait rarely witnessed upon the pampas, and never where the horseman is a gaucho; for he gallops if it were but to the stream, within a stone’s throw of his solitary cabin, to fetch a jar of water!
“Nothing in that,” he mutters, “now I come to think of it. Only natural they should be going at snail’s pace. Carrai! the wonder is the gringo being able for even that, or go at all. I thought I’d given him his quietus, for surely I sent my spear right through his ribs! It must have struck button, or buckle, or something, and glinted off. Mad fool of me, when I had him down, not to make sure of my work! Well, it’s no use blubbering about it now. Next time I’ll take better care how the thing’s done.”
After a short pause, he resumes his strain of interrogative conjecture now on another matter, which has also struck him as being strange.
“Why are they going off that way, I wonder? It isn’t their direct route homeward, surely? I don’t know the exact spot where the gringo has established himself; but didn’t Aguara say the nearest way to it is along the river’s bank, down to their old tolderia? If so, certainly they’re making a round about. Ha! I fancy I know the reason; natural, too, as the other. The Señor Ludwig must have known they were Tovas who attacked him, and under the belief that they’ve gone on to their former place of abode, dreads a second encounter with them. No wonder he should, having found them such treacherous allies—enemies instead of friends. Ha, ha, ha! won’t that puzzle him? Of course, he hasn’t yet heard of Naraguana’s death—couldn’t—they all said so. Well, it’s a bit of good luck for me their going that round. My road lies direct down the river, and now I may proceed upon it without fear of being spied by them. That would never do just yet. They shall have sight of me soon enough—sooner than they’ll like it. And this reminds me I mustn’t waste any more time here; it’s too precious. Now off, and home to El Supremo, who’ll jump with very joy at the news I have for him.”
Giving his horse a touch of the spur, he heads him along the high bank, still keeping within the skirt of timber, and riding slowly through the tangle of obstructing bushes; but at length getting out upon the old trail, where it goes down to the ford, he turns along it, in the opposite direction, towards the deserted tolderia. And now, with nothing further to obstruct him, he plies the spur vigorously, and keeps on at full gallop, not looking ahead, however, but with eyes all the while scanning the plain to his left, apprehensively, as fearing there to see a tall black hat, with a bunch of ostrich feathers floating above it.