The Tiger-Slayer: A Tale of the Indian Desert

by Gustave Aimard

The most singular of these ruins is indubitably that known by the name of the Casa Grande of Moctecuhzoma, which rises about two miles from the muddy banks of the Rio Gila, in an uncultivated and uninhabited plain, on the skirt of the terrible sand desert known as the Del Norte. The site on which this house is built is flat on all sides. The ruins which once formed a city extend for more than three miles in a southern direction: and also in the other directions all the ground is covered with potsherds of every description. Many of these fragments are painted of various colours—white or blue, red or yellow—which, by the by, is an evident sign not only that this was an important city, but also that it was inhabited by Indians differing from those now prowling about this country, as the latter are completely ignorant of the art of making this pottery.

The house is a perfect square, turned to the four cardinal points. All around are walls, indicating an enceinte inclosing not only a house, but other buildings, traces of which are perfectly distinct; for a little to the rear is a building having a floor above, and divided into several parts. The edifice is built of earth, and, as far as can be seen, with mud walls; it had the stories above the ground, but the internal carpentry has long ago disappeared. The rooms, five in number on each floor, were only lighted, so far as we can judge from the remains, by the doors, and round holes made in the walls facing to the north and south. Through these openings the man Amer (el hombre Amargo, as the Indians call the Aztec sovereign) looked at the sun, on its rising and setting, to salute it.

A canal, now nearly dry, ran from the river and served to supply the city with water.

At the present day these ruins are gloomy and desolate: they are slowly crumbling away beneath the incessant efforts of the sun, whose burning rays calcine them, and they serve as a refuge to the hideous vultures and the urubus which have selected it as their domicile. The Indians carefully avoid these sinister stations, from which a superstitious terror, for which they cannot account, keeps them aloof.

Thus the Comanche, Sioux, Apache, or Pawnee warrior, whom the accidents of the chase, or any other fortuitous cause, had brought to the vicinity of this dangerous ruin on the night of the fourth or fifth day of the cherry moon—champasciasoni—that is to say, about a month after the events we described in the last chapter—would have fled at the top speed of his horse, a prey to the wildest terror, at the strange spectacle which would have presented itself to his awe-stricken gaze.

The old palace of the Aztec kings threw out its gigantic outline on the azure sky, studded with a brilliant belt of stars. From all the openings—round or square—formed by human agency or by time in its dilapidated walls poured floods of reddish light; while songs, shouts, and laughter incessantly rose from the ruined apartments, and troubled in their dens the wild beasts, surprised by these sounds, which disturbed in so unusual a manner the silence of the desert. In the ruins, beneath the pallid rays of the moon, might be distinguished the shadows of men and horses grouped round enormous braseros, while a dozen horsemen, well armed, and leaning on spears, stood motionless as bronze equestrian statues at the entrance of the house.

If within the ruins all was noise and light, outside all was shadow and silence.

The night slipped away: the moon had already traversed two thirds of her course; the badly tended braseros went out one after another; the old mansion alone continued to gleam through the darkness like an ill-omened lighthouse.

At this moment the sharp and regular sound of a horse trotting on the sand re-echoed in the distance. The sentinels stationed at the entrance of the house with difficulty raised their heads, oppressed by sleep and the vivid cold of the first morning hours, and looked in the direction whence the noise of footsteps was audible.

A horseman appeared at the corner of the road leading to the ruins. The stranger, paying but little heed to what he saw, continued to advance boldly toward the house. He passed the ruined wall, and on arriving within ten paces of the sentries, dismounted, threw the bridle on his horse's neck, and walked with a firm step toward the sentries, who awaited him silent and motionless. But when he was about two swords' lengths from the party all the lances were suddenly levelled at his breast, a hoarse voice shouted, "Halt!"