Overland Part 24

The chief and several others accompanied the cavalcade for eight or ten miles in order to set it on the right trail for the river. But not one would volunteer as a guide; all shook their heads at the suggestion.

"Navajos! Apaches! Comanches!"

They had from the first advised against the expedition, and they now renewed their expostulations. Scarcely any gra.s.s; no water except at long distances; a barren, difficult, dangerous country: such was the meaning of their dumb show. On the summit of a lofty bluff which commanded a vast view toward the north, they took their leave of the party, struck off in a rapid trot toward the pueblo, and never relaxed their speed until they were out of sight.

The adventurers now had under their eyes a large part of the region which they were about to traverse. For several miles the landscape was rolling; then came elevated plateaux rising in successive steps, the most remote being apparently sixty miles away; and the colossal scene was bounded by isolated peaks, at a distance which could not be estimated with anything like accuracy. Ranges, b.u.t.tes, pinnacles, monumental crags, gullies, shadowy chasms, the beds of perished rivers, the stony wrecks left by unrecorded deluges, diversified this monstrous, sublime, and savage picture. Only here and there, separated by vast intervals of barrenness, could be seen minute streaks of verdure. In general the landscape was one of inhospitable sterility. It could not be imagined by men accustomed only to fertile regions. It seemed to have been taken from some planet not yet prepared for human, nor even for beastly habitation. The emotion which it aroused was not that which usually springs from the contemplation of the larger aspects of nature. It was not enthusiasm; it was aversion and despair.

Clara gave one look, and then drew her hat over her eyes with a shudder, not wishing to see more. Aunt Maria, heroic and constant as she was or tried to be, almost lost faith in Coronado and glanced at him suspiciously. Thurstane, sitting bolt upright in his saddle, stared straight before him with a grim frown, meanwhile thinking of Clara.

Coronado's eyes were filmy and incomprehensible; he was planning, querying, fearing, almost trembling; when he gave the word to advance, it was without looking up. There was a general feeling that here before them lay a fate which could only be met blindfold.

Now came a long descent, avoiding precipices and impracticable slopes, winding from one stony foot-hill to another, until the party reached what had seemed a plain. It was a plain because it was amid mountains; a plain consisting of rolls, ridges, ravines, and gullies; a plain with hardly an acre of level land. All day they journeyed through its savage interstices and struggled with its monstrosities of trap and sandstone. Twice they halted in narrow valleys, where a little loam had collected and a little moisture had been retained, affording meagre sustenance to some thin gra.s.s and scattered bushes. The animals browsed, but there was nothing for them to drink, and all began to suffer with thirst.

It was seven in the evening, and the sun had already gone down behind the sullen barrier of a gigantic plateau, when they reached the mouth of the canon which had once contained a river, and discovered by the merest accident that it still treasured a shallow pool of stagnant water. The fevered mules plunged in headlong and drank greedily; the riders were perforce obliged to slake their thirst after them. There was a hastily eaten supper, and then came the only luxury or even comfort of the day, the sound and delicious sleep of great weariness.

Repose, however, was not for all, inasmuch as Thurstane had reorganized his system of guard duty, and seven of the party had to stand sentry. It was Coronado's _tour_; he had chosen to take his watch at the start; there would be three nights on this stretch, and the first would be the easiest.

He was tired, for he had been fourteen hours in the saddle, although the distance covered was only forty miles. But much as he craved rest, he kept awake until midnight, now walking up and down, and now smoking his eternal cigarito.

There was a vast deal to remember, to plan, to hope for, to dread, and to hate. Once he sat down beside the unconscious Thurstane, and meditated shooting him through the head as he lay, and so making an end of that obstacle. But he immediately put this idea aside as a frenzy, generated by the fever of fatigue and sleeplessness. A dozen times he was a.s.saulted by a lazy or cowardly temptation to give up the chances of the desert, push back to the Bernalillo route, leave everything to fortune, and take disappointment meekly if it should come. When the noon of night arrived, he had decided upon nothing but to blunder ahead by sheer force of momentum, as if he had been a rolling bowlder instead of a clever, resolute Garcia Coronado.

The truth is, that his circ.u.mstances were too mighty for him. He had launched them, but he could not steer them as he would, and they were carrying him he knew not whither. At one o'clock he awoke Texas Smith, who was now his sergeant of the guard; but instead of enjoining some instant atrocity upon him, as he had more than once that night purposed, he merely pa.s.sed the ordinary instructions of the watch; then, rolling himself in his blankets, he fell asleep as quickly and calmly as an infant.

At daybreak commenced another struggle with the desert. It was still sixty miles to the San Juan, over a series of savage sandstone plateaux, said to be entirely dest.i.tute of water. If the animals could not accomplish the distance in two days, it seemed as if the party must perish. Coronado went at his work, so to speak, head foremost and with his hat over his eyes.

Nevertheless, when it came to the details of his mad enterprise, he managed them admirably. He was energetic, indefatigable, courageous, cheerful. All day he was hurrying the cavalcade, and yet watching its ability to endure. His "Forward, forward," alternated with his "Carefully, carefully." Now "_Adelante_" and now "_Con juicio_"

About two in the afternoon they reached a little nook of spa.r.s.e gra.s.s, which the beasts gnawed perfectly bare in half an hour. No water; the horses were uselessly jaded in searching for it; beds of trap and gullies of ancient rivers were explored in vain; the horrible rocky wilderness was as dry as a bone. Meanwhile, the fatigue of scrambling and stumbling thus far had been enormous. It had been necessary to ascend plateau after plateau by sinuous and crumbling ledges, which at a distance looked impracticable to goats. More than once, in face of some beetling precipice, or on the brink of some gaping chasm, it seemed as if the journey had come to an end. Long detours had to be made in order to connect points which were only separated by slight intervals. The whole region was seamed by the jagged zigzags of canons worn by rivers which had flowed for thousands of years, and then for thousands of years more had been non-existent. If, at the commencement of one of these mighty grooves, you took the wrong side, you could not regain the trail without returning to the point of error, for crossing was impossible.

A trail there was. It is by this route that the Utes and Payoches of the Colorado come to trade with the Moquis or to plunder them. But, as may be supposed, it is a journey which is not often made even by savages; and the cavalcade, throughout the whole of its desperate push, did not meet a human being. Amid the monstrous expanse of uninhabited rock it seemed lost beyond a.s.sistance, forsaken and cast out by mankind, doomed to a death which was to have no spectator. Could you have seen it, you would have thought of a train of ants endeavoring to cross a quarry; and you would have judged that the struggle could only end in starvation, or in some swifter destruction.

The most desperate venture of the travellers was amid the wrecks of an extinct volcano. It seemed here as if the genius of fire had striven to outdo the grotesque extravagances of the genii of the waters. Crags, towers, and pinnacles of porphyry were mingled with huge convoluted ma.s.ses of light brown trachyte, of tufa either pure white or white veined with crimson, of black and gray columnar basalts, of red, orange, green, and black scoria, with adornments of obsidian, amygdaloids, rosettes of quartz crystal and opalescent chalcedony. A thousand stony needles lifted their ragged points as if to defy the lightning. The only vegetation was a spiny cactus, clinging closely to the rocks, wearing their grayish and yellowish colors, lending no verdure to the scene, and harmonizing with its th.o.r.n.y inhospitality.

As the travellers gazed on this wilderness of scorched summits, glittering in the blazing sunlight, and yet drawing from it no life--as stark, still, unsympathizing, and cruel as death--they seemed to themselves to be out of the sweet world of G.o.d, and to be in the power of malignant genii and demons. The imagination cannot realize the feeling of depression which comes upon one who finds himself imprisoned in such a landscape. Like uttermost pain, or like the extremity of despair, it must be felt in order to be known.

"It seems as if Satan had chosen this land for himself," was the perfectly serious and natural remark of Thurstane.

Clara shuddered; the same impression was upon her mind; only she felt it more deeply than he. Gentle, somewhat timorous, and very impressionable, she was almost overwhelmed by the terrific revelations of a nature which seemed to have no pity, or rather seemed full of malignity. Many times that day she had prayed in her heart that G.o.d would help them. Apparently detached from earth, she was seeking nearness to heaven. Her look at this moment was so awe-struck and piteous, that the soul of the man who loved her yearned to give her courage.

"Miss Van Diemen, it shall all turn out well," he said, striking his fist on the pommel of his saddle.

"Oh! why did we come here?" she groaned.

"I ought to have prevented it," he replied, angry with himself. "But never mind. Don't be troubled. It shall all be right. I pledge my life to bring it all to a good end."

She gave him a look of grat.i.tude which would have repaid him for immediate death. This is not extravagant; in his love for her he did not value himself; he had the sublime devotion of immense adoration.

That night another loamy nook was found, clothed with a little thin gra.s.s, but waterless. Some of the animals suffered so with thirst that they could not graze, and uttered doleful whinneys of distress. As it was the Lieutenant's tour on guard, he had plenty of time to study the chances of the morrow.

"Kelly, what do you think of the beasts?" he said to the old soldier who acted as his sergeant.

"One more day will finish them, Leftenant."

"We have been fifteen hours in the saddle. We have made about thirty-five miles. There are twenty-five miles more to the river. Do you think we can crawl through?"

"I should say, Leftenant, we could just do it."

At daybreak the wretched animals resumed their hideous struggle. There was a plateau for them to climb at the start, and by the time this labor was accomplished they were staggering with weakness, so that a halt had to be ordered on the windy brink of the acclivity. Thurstane, according to his custom, scanned the landscape with his field-gla.s.s, and jotted down topographical notes in his journal. Suddenly he beckoned to Coronado, quietly put the gla.s.s in his hands, nodded toward the desert which lay to the rear, and whispered, "Look."

Coronado looked, turned slightly more yellow than his wont, and murmured "Apaches!"

"How far off are they?"

"About ten miles," judged Coronado, still gazing intently.

"So I should say. How do you know they are Apaches?"

"Who else would follow us?" asked the Mexican, remembering the son of Manga Colorada.

"It is another race for life," calmly p.r.o.nounced Thurstane, facing about toward the caravan and making a signal to mount.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Yes, it was a life and death race between the emigrants and the Apaches for the San Juan. Positions of defence were all along the road, but not one of them could be held for a day, all being dest.i.tute of gra.s.s and water.

"There is no need of telling the ladies at once," said Thurstane to Coronado, as they rode side by side in rear of the caravan. "Let them be quiet as long as they can be. Their trouble will come soon enough."

"How many were there, do you think?" was the reply of a man who was much occupied with his own chances. "Were there a hundred?"

"It's hard to estimate a mere black line like that. Yes, there must be a hundred, besides stragglers. Their beasts have suffered, of course, as well as ours. They have come fast, and there must be a lot in the rear.

Probably both bands are along."

"The devils!" muttered Coronado. "I hope to G.o.d they will all perish of thirst and hunger. The stubborn, stupid devils! Why should they follow us _here_?" he demanded, looking furiously around upon the accursed landscape.

"Indian revenge. We killed too many of them."

"Yes," said Coronado, remembering anew the son of the chief. "d.a.m.n them! I wish we could have killed them all."

"That is just what we must try to do," returned Thurstane deliberately.

"The question is," he resumed after a moment of business-like calculation of chances--"the question is mainly this, whether we can go twenty-five miles quicker than they can go thirty-five. We must be the first to reach the river."

"We can spare a few beasts," said Coronado. "We must leave the weakest behind."

"We must not give up provisions."

"We can eat mules."