Overland Part 16

Presently he saw that two of his rancheros had been lanced, and that there were but four left. A thrill of alarm, a commencement of panic, a desire to save himself at all hazards, crisped his heart and half paralyzed his energy. Remembering with perfect distinctness that four of his barrels were empty, he would perhaps have tried to retreat at the risk of being speared in the back, had he not at this critical moment been joined by Texas Smith.

That instinctive, ferocious, and tireless fighter, while seeming to be merely circling and curveting among his a.s.sailants, contrived to recharge two barrels of his revolver, and was once more ready for business. Down went one Apache; then the horse of another fell to reeling and crouching in a sickly way; then a charge of half a dozen broke to right and left in irresolute prancings. At sight of this friendly work Coronado drew a fresh breath of courage, and executed his greatest feat yet of horsemanship and swordsmanship. Spurring after and then past one of the wheeling braves, he swept his sabre across the fellow's bare throat with a drawing stroke, and half detached the scowling, furious, frightened head from the body.

There was a wide s.p.a.ce of open ground before him immediately. The Apaches know nothing of sabre work; not one of those present had ever before seen such a blow or such an effect; they were not only panic-stricken, but horror-stricken. For one moment, right between the staring antagonists, a b.l.o.o.d.y corpse sat upright on a rearing horse, with its head fallen on one shoulder and hanging by a gory muscle. The next moment it wilted, rolled downward with outstretched arms, and collapsed upon the gravel, an inert ma.s.s.

Texas Smith uttered a loud scream of tigerish delight. He had never, in all his pugnacious and sanguinary life, looked upon anything so fascinating. It seemed to him as if _his_ heaven--the savage Walhalla of his Saxon or Danish berserker race--were opened before him. In his ecstasy he waved his dirty, long fingers toward Coronado, and shouted, "Bully for you, old hoss!"

But he had self-possession enough, now that his hand was free for an instant from close battle, to reload his rifle and revolver. The four rancheros who still retained their saddles mechanically and hurriedly followed his example. The contest here was over; the Apaches knew that bullets would soon be humming about their ears, and they dreaded them; there was a retreat, and this retreat was a run of an eighth of a mile.

"Hurrah for the waggins!" shouted Texas, and dashed away toward the train.

Coronado stared; his heart sank within him; the train was surrounded by a mob of prancing savages; there was more fighting to be done when he had already done his best. But not knowing where else to go, he followed his leader toward this new battle, loading his revolver as he rode, and wishing that he were in Santa Fe, or anywhere in peace.

We must go back a little. As already stated, the main body of the Apaches had perceived the error of the emigrants in separating, and had promptly availed themselves of it to charge upon the train. To attack it there were seventy ferocious and skilful warriors; to defend it there were twelve timorous muleteers and drivers, four soldiers, and Ralph.

"Fall back!" shouted the Lieutenant to his regulars when he saw the equestrian avalanche coming. "Each man take a wagon and hold it."

The order was obeyed in a hurry. The Apaches, heartened by what they supposed to be a panic, swarmed along at increased speed, and gave out their most diabolical screeches, hoping no doubt to scare men into helplessness, and beasts into a stampede. But the train was an immovable fortress, and the fortress was well garrisoned. Although the mules winced and plunged a good deal, the drivers succeeded in holding them to their places, and the double column of carriages, three in each rank, preserved its formation. In every vehicle there was a muleteer, with hands free for fighting, bearing something or other in the shape of a firelock, and inspired with what courage there is in desperation. The four flankers, necessarily the most exposed to a.s.sault, had each a United States regular, with musket, bayonet, and forty rounds of buck and ball. In front of the phalanx, directly before the wagon which contained the two ladies, sat as brave an officer as there was in the American army.

The Apaches had also committed their tactical blunder. They should all have followed Coronado, made sure of destroying him and his Mexicans, and then attacked the train. But either there was no sagacious military spirit among them, or the love of plunder was too much for judgment and authority, and so down they came on the wagons.

As the swarthy swarm approached, it spread out until it covered the front of the train and overlapped its flanks, ready to sweep completely around it and fasten upon any point which should seem feebly or timorously defended. The first man endangered was the lonely officer who sat his horse in front of the line of kicking and plunging mules. Fortunately for him, he now had a weapon of longer range than his revolver; he had remembered that in one of the wagons was stored a peculiar rifle belonging to Coronado; he had just had time to drag it out and strap its cartridge-box around his waist.

He levelled at the centre of the clattering, yelling column. It fluctuated; the warriors who were there did not like to be aimed at; they began to zigzag, caracole, and diverge to right or left; several halted and commenced using their bows. At one of these archers, whose arrow already trembled on the string, Thurstane let fly, sending him out of the saddle. Then he felt a quick, sharp pain in his left arm, and perceived that a shaft had pa.s.sed clean through it.

There is this good thing about the arrow, that it has not weight enough to break bones, nor tearing power enough to necessarily paralyze muscle.

Thurstane could still manage a revolver with his wounded arm, while his right was good for almost any amount of slashing work. Letting the rifle drop and swing from the pommel, he met the charge of two grinning and scowling lancers. One thrust he parried with his sabre; from the other he saved his neck by stooping; but it drove through his coat collar, and nearly unseated him. For a moment our bleeding and hampered young gladiator seemed to be in a bad way. But he was strong; he braced himself in his stirrups, and he made use of both his hands. The Indian whose spear was still free caught a bullet through the shoulder, dropped his weapon, and circled away yelling. Then Thurstane plunged at the other, reared his tall horse over him, broke the lance-shaft with a violent twist, and swung his long cavalry sabre. It was in vain that the Apache crouched, spurred, and skedaddled; he got away alive, but it was with a long b.l.o.o.d.y gash down his naked back; the last seen of him he was going at full speed, holding by his pony's mane. The Lieutenant remained master of the whole front of the caravan.

Meantime there was a busy popping along the flankers and through the hinder openings in the second line of wagons. The Indians skurried, wheeled, pranced, and yelled, let fly their arrows from a distance, dashed up here and there with their lances, and as quickly retreated before the threatening muzzles. The muleteers, encouraged by the presence of the soldiers, behaved with respectable firmness and blazed away rapidly, though not effectively. The regulars reserved their fire for close quarters, and then delivered it to b.l.o.o.d.y purpose.

Around Sweeny, who garrisoned the left-hand wagon of the rearmost line, the fight was particularly noisy. The Apaches saw that he was little, and perhaps they saw that he was afraid of his gun. They went for him; they were after him with their sharpest sticks; they counted on Sweeny. The speck of a man sat on the front seat of the wagon, outside of the driver, and fully exposed to the tribulation. He was in a state of the highest Paddy excitement. He grinned and bounced like a caravan of monkeys. But he was not much scared; he was mainly in a furious rage. Pointing his musket first at one and then at another, he returned yell for yell, and was in fact abusive.

"Oh, fire yer bow-arreys!" he screamed. "Ye can't hit the side av a waggin. Ah, ye b.l.o.o.d.y, murtherin' nagers! go 'way wid yer long poles. I'd fight a hundred av the loikes av ye wid ownly a shillelah."

One audacious thrust of a lance he parried very dexterously with his bayonet, at the same time screeching defiantly and scornfully in the face of his hideous a.s.sailant. But this fellow's impudent approach was too much to be endured, and Sweeny proceeded at once to teach him to keep at a more civil distance.

"Oh, ye pokin' blaggard!" he shouted, and actually let drive with his musket. The ball missed, but by pure blundering one of the buck-shot took effect, and the brave retreated out of the melee with a sensation as if his head had been split. Some time later he was discovered sitting up doggedly on a rock, while a comrade was trying to dig the buckshot out of his thick skull with an arrow-point.

"I'll tache 'em to moind their bizniss," grinned Sweeny triumphantly, as he reloaded. "The nasty, hootin' nagers! They've no rights near a white man, anyhow."

On the whole, the attack lingered. The Apaches had done some damage. One driver had been lanced mortally. One muleteer had been shot through the heart with an arrow. Another arrow had sc.r.a.ped Shubert's ankle. Another, directed by the whimsical genius of accident, had gone clean through the drooping cartilage of Phineas Glover's long nose, as if to prepare him for the sporting of jewelled decorations. Two mules were dead, and several wounded. The sides of the wagons bristled with shafts, and their canvas tops were pierced with fine holes. But, on the other hand, the Apaches had lost a dozen horses, three or four warriors killed, and seven or eight wounded.

Such was the condition of affairs around the train when Coronado, Texas Smith, and the four surviving herdsmen came storming back to it.

CHAPTER XII.

The Apaches were discouraged by the immovability of the train, and by the steady and deadly resistance of its defenders. From first to last some twenty-five or twenty-seven of their warriors had been hit, of whom probably one third were killed or mortally wounded.

At the approach of Coronado those who were around the wagons swept away in a panic, and never paused in their flight until they were a good half mile distant. They carried off, however, every man, whether dead or injured, except one alone. A few rods from the train lay a mere boy, certainly not over fifteen years old, his forehead gashed by a bullet, and life apparently extinct. There was nothing strange in the fact of so young a lad taking part in battle, for the military age among the Indians is from twelve to thirty-six, and one third of their fighters are children.

"What did they leave that fellow for?" said Coronado in surprise, riding up to the senseless figure.

"I'll fix him," volunteered Texas Smith, dismounting and drawing his hunting knife. "Reckon he hain't been squarely finished."

"Stop!" ordered Coronado. "He is not an Apache. He is some pueblo Indian.

See how much he is hurt."

"Skull ain't broke," replied Texas, fingering the wound as roughly as if it had been in the flesh of a beast. "Reckon he'll flop round. May do mischief, if we don't fix him."

Anxious to stick his knife into the defenceless young throat, he nevertheless controlled his sentiments and looked up for instructions.

Since the splendid decapitation which Coronado had performed, Texas respected him as he had never heretofore hoped to respect a "greaser."

"Perhaps we can get information out of him," said Coronado. "Suppose you lay him in a wagon."

Meanwhile preparations had been made for an advance. The four dead or badly wounded draft mules were disentangled from the harness, and their places supplied with the four army mules, whose packs were thrown into the wagons. These animals, by the way, had escaped injury, partly because they had been tethered between the two lines of vehicles, and partly because they had been well covered by their loads, which were plentifully stuck-with arrows.

"We are ready to march," said Thurstane to Coronado. "I am sorry we can't try to recover your men back there."

"No use," commented Texas Smith. "The Patchies have been at 'em. They're chuck full of spear holes by this time."

Coronado shouted to the drivers to start. Commencing on the right, the wagons filed off two by two toward the mouth of the canon, while the Indians, gathered in a group half a mile away, looked on without a yell or a movement. The instant that the vehicle which contained the ladies had cleared itself of the others, Thurstane and Coronado rode alongside of it.

"So! you are safe!" said the former. "By Heavens, if they _had_ hurt you!"

"And you?" asked Clara, very quickly and eagerly, while scanning him from head to foot.

Coronado saw that look, anxious for Thurstane alone; and, master of dissimulation though he was, his face showed both pain and anger.

"Ah--oh--oh dear!" groaned Mrs. Stanley, as she made her appearance in the front of the vehicle. "Well! this is rather more than I can bear. This is just as much as a woman can put up with. Dear me! what is the matter with your arm, Lieutenant?"

"Just a pin p.r.i.c.k," said Thurstane.

Clara began to get out of the wagon, with the purpose of going to him, her eyes staring and her face pale.

"Don't!" he protested, motioning her back. "It is nothing."

And, although the lacerated arm hurt him and was not easy to manage, he raised it over his head to show that the damage was trifling.

"Do get in here and let us take care of you," begged Clara.

"Certainly!" echoed Aunt Maria, who was a compa.s.sionate woman at heart, and who only lacked somewhat in quickness of sympathy, perhaps by reason of her strong-minded notions.

"I will when I need it," said Ralph, flattered and gratified. "The arm will do without dressing till we reach camp. There are other wounded.

Everybody has fought. Mr. Coronado here has done deeds worthy of his ancestors."

"Ah, Mr. Coronado!" smiled Aunt Maria, delighted that her favorite had distinguished himself.