Confessions Of Con Cregan Part 36

CHAPTER XIX. ON BOARD THE 'CHRISTOBAL'

Without further delay, the men prepared to obey the summons. The boat's chain was cast off, and, as she swung out from the wall, I could see a small standard at her stern, carrying a little white flag, which, as the breeze wafted towards mer showed the enigmatical numbers '38.

I sprang to my legs and uttered a cry of surprise.

"Well, what is it, master?" said Ben, looking up, and probably expecting to see me take a header into the muddy stream.

"That's the number!" cried I, not knowing what I said. "That's the very number!"

"Very true, master, so it is, but you ha'n't got the counterpart, I guess!"

"Yes, but I have, though!" said I, producing the ticket from the pocket-book.

"Why, darn me if that a'n't himself!" cried the men; and they sung out three hearty cheers at the discovery.

"Were you there long, old fellow?" said Ben.

"About half an hour," said I.

"Tarnation! and why did ye keep us a-waitin'? didn't you see the tide was on the ebb, and that Christy was making signals every five minutes or so?"

"I was waiting--waiting--"

"Waiting for what? I 'd like to know."

"Waiting for my baggage," said I, taking a long breath.

"An' it ain't come yet?"

"No; I 'm afraid they missed the road."

"Be that as it may, master, I'll not stay longer. Come along without your kit, or stay behind with it, whichever you please."

"Hang the traps!" said I, affecting a bold carelessness; "I've a few things there I left out loose, that will do. When shall we be there?"

This was a leading question, for I did not yet know whither we were bound.

"At Galveston? Well, to-morrow evening or by nightfall, I guess, if the wind hold. Sit down there and make yourself snug; there's always a little splash of a sea in this river. And now, lads, pull away,--all together!"

A second shot from the smack announced that her anchor was tripped, and we saw her now lurch over as her foresail filled.

The men pulled vigorously, and in about twenty minutes I stood upon the deck of the "Christobal," making sundry excuses to her skipper for being late, and a.s.suring him, on the faith of a gentleman, that I had utterly forgotten all about my voyage till the last moment.

"They only sent me the number from the office late last night," said he, "and told me to look out for the gemman about the docks. But I war n't goin' to do that, I said. He's got a pa.s.sage and grub to Galveston,--as good as ere a gemman can desire; he's won a nag they says is worth seven or eight hundred dollars, with furniture and arms for the new expedition; and I take it them things is worth a-looking arter,--so darn me blue if I gives myself no trouble about 'em."

These scattered hints were all I wanted. The sea-breeze had restored me to my wonted clearness, and I now saw that "'38" meant that I had won a free pa.s.sage to Texas, a horse and a rifle when I got there; so far, the "exchange of coats" was "with a difference." It was with an unspeakable satisfaction that I learned I was the only pa.s.senger on board the "Christobal." The other "gentlemen" of the expedition had either already set out or abandoned the project, so that I had not to undergo any unpleasant scrutiny into my past life, or any impertinent inquiry regarding my future.

Old Kit Turrel, the skipper, did not play the grand inquisitor on me.

His life had been for the most part pa.s.sed in making the voyage to and from New Orleans and Galveston, where he had doubtless seen sufficient of character to have satisfied a glutton in eccentricity. There was not a runaway rogue or abandoned vagabond that had left the coast for years back, with whose history he was not familiar. You had but to give him a name, and out came the catalogue of his misdeeds on the instant.

These revelations had a prodigious interest for me. They opened the book of human adventure at the very chapter I wanted. It was putting a keen edge upon the razor to give _me_ the "last fashions in knavery,"--not to speak of the greater advantage of learning the success attendant on each, since "Kit" could tell precisely how it fared with every one who had pa.s.sed through his hands.

He enlightened me also as to these Texan expeditions, which, to use his own phrase, had never been anything better than "almighty swindles,"

planted to catch young flats from the north country, the Southerns being all too "crank" to be done.

"And is there no expedition in reality?" said I, with all the horror of a man who had been seduced from home, and family, and friends, under false pretences.

"There do be a dash now and then into the Camanche trail when buffaloes are plenty, or to bring down a stray buck or so. Mayhap, too, they cut off an Injian fellow or two, if he linger too late in the fall; and then they come back with wonderful stories of storming villages, and destroying war-parties, and the rest of it; but we knows better. Most of 'em 'ere chaps are more used to picklocks than rifles, and can handle a 'jemmy' better than a 'bowie-knife.'"

"And in the present case, what kind of fellows are they?"

He rolled a tobacco quid from side to side of his mouth, and seemed to hesitate whether he would speak out.

"There is no danger with me, Captain; I am an Englishman, a perfect stranger here, and have never seen or heard of a man amongst them."

"I see _that_," said he; "and your friends must be rank green 'uns to let you go and join this trail,--that's a fact."

"But what are they?"

"Well, they call 'emselves horse-dealers; but above Austin there, and along by Bexar, they call 'em horsestealers!" and he laughed heartily at the excessive drollery of the remark.

"And where do they trade with their cattle?"

"They sells 'em here, or up in the States away north sometimes; but they picks up the critters along the Chehuhua Line, or down by Aguaverde, or San Pueblo. I 've known 'em to go to Mexico too. When they don't get scalped, they 've rather good fun of it; but they squable a bit now and then among 'emselves; and so there's a Texan proverb that 'buffalo-meat in spring is as rare as a mustang merchant with two eyes!'"

"What does that mean?"

"They gouge a bit down there, they do,--that's a fact. I 've known two or three join the Redmen, and Say Injians was better living with, than them 'ere."

"I own your picture is not flattering."

"Yes, but it be, though! You don't know them chaps; but I know 'em,--ay, for nigh forty year. I 'm a-livin' on this 'ere pa.s.sage, and I've seen 'em all. I knew Bowlin Sam, I did!" From the manner this was said, I saw that Bowlin Sam was a celebrity, to be ignorant of whom was to confess one's self an utter savage.

"To be sure, I was only a child at the time; but I saw him come aboard with the negro fellow that he followed up the Red River trail. They were two of the biggest fellows you could see. Sam stood six feet six-an'-a-quarter; the Black was six feet four,--but he had a stoop in his shoulders. Sam tracked him for two years; and many's the dodge they had between 'em. But Sam took him at last, and he brought him all the way from Guajaqualle here, bound with his hands behind him, and a log of iron-wood in his mouth; for he could tear like a juguar.

"They were both on 'em ugly men,--Sam very ugly! Sam could untwist the strongest links of an iron boat-chain, and t' other fellow could bite a man-rope clean in two with his teeth. 'The Black' eat nothing from the time they took him; and when they put him into the sh.o.r.e-boat, in the river, he was so weak they had to lift him like a child. Well, out they rowed into the middle of the stream, where the water is roughest among the 'snags,' and many a whirlpool dashing around 'atween the bows of the 'sawyers.' That's the spot you 're sure to see one of these young sharks,--for the big chaps knows better than to look for their wittals in dangerous places,--while the water is black, at times, with alligators. Well, as I was sayin', out they rowed; and just as they comes to this part of the stream, the black fellow gives a spring, and drives both his heavy ironed feet bang through the flooring-plank of the boat. It was past bailin'; they were half swamped before they could ship their oars; the minute after, they were all struggling in the river together. There were three besides the n.i.g.g.e.r; but he was the only one ever touched land again. He was an Antigua chap, that same n.i.g.g.e.r; and they knows sharks and caymans as we does dog-fish: but, for all that, he was all b.l.o.o.d.y, and had lost part of one foot, when he got ash.o.r.e."

"Why had he been captured? What had he done?" "What had n't he done!

That same black murdered more men as any six in these parts; he it was burned down Che-coat's mill up at Brandy Cove, with all the people fastened up within. Then he run away to the 'washings' at Guajaqualle, where he killed Colonel Rixon, as was over the 'Placer.' He cut him in two with a bowie-knife, and never a one guessed how it happened, as the juguars had carried off two or three people from the 'washins '; but the n.i.g.g.e.r got drunk one night, and began a-cuttin' down the young hemlock-trees, and sayin', 'That's the way I mowed down Buckra'

Georgy,'--his name was George Rixon. Then he bolted, and was never seen more. Ah, he was a down-hard 'un, that fellow Crick!"

"Crick,--Menelaus Crick!" said I, almost springing up with amazement as I spoke.

"Just so. You 've heard enough of him 'fore now, I guess."

The skipper went on to talk about the negro's early exploits, and the fearful life of crime which he had always pursued; but I heard little of what he said. The remembrance of the man himself, bowed down with years and suffering, was before me; and I thought how terribly murder is expiated, even in those cases where the guilty man is believed to have escaped. So is it; the dock, the dungeon, and the gallows can be mercies in comparison with the self-torment of eternal fear, the terror of companionship, or the awful h.e.l.l of solitude! The scene at Anticosti and the terrific night in the Lower Town of Quebec rose both together to my mind, and so absorbed my thoughts that the old skipper, seeing my inattention, and believing that I was weary and inclined for sleep, left me for the deck; and I lay still, pondering over these sad themes.