A Volunteer with Pike Part 28

Small wonder was it that I chafed during the many days which yet intervened before I was free to fare away on the road which led toward my lady! First of all came our check at the west base of the mountains, where a vast line of sand hills blocked our advance into the valley and compelled us to skirt along some distance to the south before we could march out toward the river. It took yet two more days for us to reach the main stream and cross over, up one of its tributaries, to a favorable site for our stockade.

The first few days of February we spent in hunting and in hewing down cottonwood trees for the stockade. Of buffalo we saw no sign in the valley, but succeeded in killing a few deer, and sighted such vast droves that the last thought of famine was dispelled.

As soon as we had made some progress on the fort, I pressed the Lieutenant to permit me to return for our comrades on the back track.

But he, knowing the keenness of my desire to be off southward, positively forbade my returning, and instead detailed Corporal Jackson and four men to bring in Sparks, Dougherty, and Menaugh, together with the four packs we had been forced to leave behind. Baroney and Smith, we thought, could wait on the Arkansas until later, when the horses should have had more time to regain strength.

It had been arranged that Jackson and his men should leave on the afternoon of the seventh. But I did not linger to see them start. Making hasty preparation, I marched in the opposite direction at sunrise of the same day. The parting with my fellows in the midst of this remote and unknown wilderness affected me deeply. Despite all our sharing of famine and toil and bitter cold, I had not before realized the warmth of attachment between us. The men crowded around to grasp my hand and wish me G.o.dspeed, and one and all swore that if I came to harm among the Spaniards, they would follow their commander to the death in his effort to avenge me.

After this Pike walked out with me half a mile or so on my way, where we could say our farewells in private, and none might see the tears which would come despite our efforts at calmness. By now he was quite convinced that I was going to my death.

"Farewell, my friend, my companion!" he exclaimed, wringing my hand.

"G.o.d keep you from harm!"

"Wish me more than that, Montgomery," I protested.

"Ah, more--more, with all my heart!" he cried. "G.o.d grant you win your way to your lady--that you win her sweet self!"

"My thanks, dear friend!" I choked, gripping him by the shoulders. "We talk of patriotism; but I know, and you know, it is for her sake alone I am putting my neck into the noose."

"No, no," he rejoined. "It is not alone love, it is duty as well that calls you. And I fear the worst. Would that I might even now dissuade you from the attempt!"

"Dissuade me?--now? I should go, even though I felt as sure as you do that the outcome will be the garrotte or a blank wall and a firing squad. No; what grieves me most is the thought that we may never again meet. I hope to win my way to Chihuahua; I must win my way to--her! But can I then leave New Spain? Never one of Nolan's men has come home."

"It may chance that you will wish to stay, John."

"No, not even for her sake, unless--" I hesitated--"unless the Spanish creoles rise and throw off the rule of Old Spain."

"A revolution? That would be a grand opening for you!" His eyes flashed with militant fire, only to darken again with grief. "But the people of New Spain are too dispirited to revolt. If you linger in that tyrannical land, it will be as a prisoner in one of their foul gaols--or worse!"

"For her I'd risk the worst a thousand times over! Take cheer! They will never suspect me as a spy. The Le Lande claim will carry me through."

"G.o.d grant it!" he cried.

I gave his hand a last grip. "Farewell for a long time, my friend! That you may not waste thought over the chance of my return, I confess that I have resolved to go to my lady, whatever may befall."

"Then you will not come back even if they rebuff you at the upper settlements?"

"I have crossed the Barrier. Now I go to Chihuahua."

"Farewell; G.o.d keep you!" he repeated.

A final glance at the little log fort, with its shallow moat, bristling, staked abatis, and loopholed walls, above which floated our glorious banner, then I tore myself from him, and started off on my solitary journey.

Having meat enough to last me some time, I did not stop to hunt, but continued on at my best pace, southwest and then more nearly south.

Mid-morning of the second day I came upon a pair of the ugliest Indians I had ever seen. Fortunately they were not so stupid as their swarthy, flat faces made them appear. After no little sign talk, I at last overcame their fear of me, and by an offer of a few trinkets, gained their a.s.sent to take me into the Spanish settlements.

For the night they took me to a camp in the woods where their women were waiting. Being unacquainted with the customs of these savages,--who I afterwards learned were Yutahs,--I pa.s.sed the night without sleep, for fear of treachery. But whether because of my rifle and pistols, or owing to their treaty with the Spanish whites, my ugly guides made no attempt to attack me. Next morning we set out upon our way to Agua Caliente, the first of the Spanish towns, which we reached mid-afternoon of the same day.

It was with the keenest of emotions that I first made out what I took to be the mud-wall stockade, or rampart, of this northernmost of the Spanish settlements. At last I had arrived at the inhabited parts of New Spain,--I was about to venture into the midst of our secretly, if not openly, hostile Spanish neighbors. For all I knew, the long-threatened war might have broken out months past; it might now be raging with utmost fury. Yet even the thought of this far from improbable situation did not cause me to waver for an instant. I needs must go on in search of my lady, though a thousand Spaniards lined the road with guns loaded and primed to shoot me down.

As we drew near the town gate, one of the tame Indians of the place ran in with the news of my coming. I stopped, and was in the midst of paying over the agreed articles to my guides, when a bewhiskered Spanish corporal and a squad of dragoons came charging out as if to ride me down. Some held their long lances levelled at my breast; others, who had rushed off without their lances, flourished the short rifles which they call _escopettes_; while one man had only his big horse pistol. All, however, carried their thick leather shields, which it seems the soldiers in these parts bear as a protection against the arrows of the savages.

Greatly to my relief, I soon perceived that all this display of weapons and horsemanship was intended rather as a greeting than a menace. As they replaced their lances in the sockets and brought their curvetting mounts to a stand, the corporal saluted me in a most hospitable manner.

At this, having good reasons for concealing what little knowledge of Spanish I possessed, I demanded, in French, to be taken before the commanding officer of the place. Whether or not the fellow understood my words, he sprang off courteously beside me, and made a sign for me to accompany him into the town. The others took his horse in lead, and followed us at a few paces.

As we pa.s.sed the gate, I perceived that what I had taken for a great stockade of unbaked mud brick was in fact no other than the rear walls of a continuous row of houses, built in the form of a hollow square, and with inward-facing doors. The town was thus of itself a most effectual fortification against the savages of this region, the walls of the houses extending up above the flat roofs so as to form a convenient parapet for the defenders against the arrows and even the guns of their a.s.sailants. Very few of these Southwest Indians, however, possess firearms, and as they also lack scaling ladders, it does not detract from the effectiveness of the defence that none of the houses is above a story in height. This last was also true of the rows of like buildings laid off in streets within the square.

At the time, however, I had little opportunity to observe either this Moorish architecture, which the Spaniards brought with them from Old Spain, or the curious appearance of the tame Indians, who made up the majority of the town's inhabitants. The corporal at once led me into the presence of the commandant, who, finding that I claimed to be of French blood, expressed himself in French as vastly astonished at the presence of an American in this remote region, particularly in view of the season.

Before we had finished our interview, I was no less astonished to learn that I was not the first American to arrive in the country. This does not refer to the French creole Le Lande, who had settled between here and Santa Fe and had done so well with his stolen goods that he was already known as a _rico_. Something over a year before our coming, one of our daring Western fur-hunters named Pursley, an American by blood as well as allegiance, had traversed the prairies from the Missouri, and falling in with a great party of Kyoways and Comanches near our Grand Peak, had come down with them to the Spanish settlements.

I received this account while dining with the commandant, he being so hospitable as to invite me to his table, notwithstanding my tattered and wretched appearance. But first, having learned my ostensible reason for coming to New Mexico, he had sent off a soldier, post-haste, with despatches to Governor Allencaster at Santa Fe.

After weeks and months of dieting on the flesh of wild game, much of the time without salt, and even longer without so much as corn to vary the monotony, it was only with the greatest effort that I could restrain myself from gluttonizing on my host's fiery _chili con carne_, his hot corn-cakes and beans, his delicious chocolate and _dulces_. All the time he was repeating polite apologies for the meagreness of his fare. To me it was no less than a banquet, and I feasted until prudence forced me to deny myself another mouthful.

That night, for the first time in seven months, I slept upon a mattress, which, according to the custom of New Spain, was laid upon the floor.

The nearest approach to a bedstead in this benighted land is a bench-like bank of mud brick along the wall, in some of the houses.

Chairs and divans are none too plentiful, even in the homes of the cultured rich, the people in general preferring to recline or to sit Turk-fashion upon mats or mattresses laid along the floor.

Early in the morning I was informed that an escort was in waiting to guide me to Santa Fe. The kindness of the commandant in providing me with numerous articles of civilized comfort induced me to accede without protest to his politely worded hint that it would be better for me to leave behind my weapons and ammunition, which he promised to send on in a few days.

Having given myself singly into the hands of the Spanish, I knew that diplomacy was now my sole resource, the thought of a resort to force being sheer madness.

CHAPTER XX

A MESSAGE TO MY LADY

During the journey to Santa Fe, while stopping over at the town of San Juan, where I was treated with the utmost warmth of hospitality, I was able to inform myself as to the prosperous condition of the trader Le Lande, who had married and settled in the vicinity. But my apprehensions as to my reception by the Governor of this remote province prevented me from taking as deep an interest either in that rascal or in the strange customs and appearance of these Mexican people as I should have felt in easier circ.u.mstances.

Unlike Agua Caliente and some of the other small settlements we had pa.s.sed, I found Santa Fe a town widely scattered in the outskirts. Many of the low adobe buildings which made up the bulk of the place stood each in its tiny patch of field, which, early as was the season, the people were beginning to cultivate with their rude ploughs and mattocks.

Within these suburbs, however, the houses crowded closer and closer together, until they were for the most part separated only by streets that were no less narrow and crooked than dirty. A more striking difference between this two-century-old settlement and the ones up-country was the presence of the two huge adobe churches which towered among the hovels, all the more imposing for the contrast. Their windows, like those of the better houses, were glazed with sheets of thin, transparent talc.

I was at once taken past the rectangle of the soldiers' barracks to the great open court, or plaza, in the midst of the town, where we came to the house of the Governor. By this time I and my escort were surrounded by a number of _mestizos_ and tame Indians, all of whom, however, drew away when we entered the palace through an open, brick-paved portico, or shed. After the plainness of the exterior, I was astonished by the ornate furnishings of the rooms within, whose limed walls were hung with bright-figured drapes and whose floors of beaten clay were spread with skin rugs.

Little time was given me to wonder at what to my unaccustomed eyes seemed most magnificent decorations. I was quickly shown on into a large apartment, at the upper end of which sat a sallow-faced, corpulent Spanish don. I had no need to look at the secretary and the other attendants grouped about his high chair to realize that I was in the presence of Don Joachin Allencaster. The harshness of his glance as I was led before him was enough of proof; for until now, all whom I had met, even to the most ignorant and dogmatic of the priests, had treated me with the deference of true hospitality.

Not until this moment had I fully realized the wretchedness of my appearance. Though the kindness of the commandant at Agua Caliente had provided me with a bath and a cotton shirt, I still wore my tattered buckskins; upon my head was my old c.o.o.nskin cap, which had been half singed by a fall in the fire; my limbs and feet were clad in moccasins and leggings of fresh buffalo hide, the raw surface outward; while about my shoulders my unkempt hair fell down in loose and s.h.a.ggy locks, as barbarous as the eight months' beard upon my lean, starved face.

"_Por Dios!_" exclaimed His Excellency. Having doubtless been informed in the despatches that I claimed to be a Frenchman, he addressed me in that language: "_Sacre!_ You have come here, the second American in two years, to spy upon my province!"

"Your Excellency," I replied, "I had thought the Commandant of Agua Caliente wrote you regarding the purpose of my visit to New Spain. As to this Pursley, if it is to him you refer as my fellow spy, I had never before so much as heard of the man until told at Agua Caliente. The Commandant can tell you how astonished I was when he informed me of Pursley's exploit in penetrating the wilderness. For my part, I should surmise that he is no more than one of our venturesome fur-hunters. But if you insist upon your suspicions, why not include Baptiste Le Lande with us in a trio of spies?"

Throughout this the Governor had continued to regard me with great austerity. Quite unmoved by my attempt at lightness, he now signed to his secretary, and spoke to me in a most peremptory tone: "Your papers, fellow!"