The Wild Huntress Part 45

After the meal the men of us sat around the fire, indulging in that luxury--esteemed sweet by the prairie traveller--the fumes of the Nicotian weed. Marian had retired to her tent; and, for a few minutes, was lost to our sight. After a short time she came forth again; but, instead of joining us by the cheerful _hearth_, she was seen sauntering down in the direction of the stream. This caused a defection in our party. The young backwoodsman rose to his feet; and silently, but with rather an awkward grace, walked towards the tent--not Marian's. He might as well have spared himself the trouble of taking up some of his accoutrements, and pretending to examine them. The feint was perfectly transparent to the rest of us--especially when the action ended, by his strolling off almost on the identical track taken by the huntress-maiden!

"_Amantes_?" (lovers), whispered Archilete, half-interrogatively, as with a smile of quiet significance he followed the receding form of the hunter. "Yes; lovers who have been long separated."

"_Carrambo_! Do you say so? This then should be the rival of the false husband?" I nodded a.s.sent. "_Por Dios, Senor_; it is not to be wondered at that the canting _heretico_ stood no chance in that game-- had it been played fairly. Your _camarado_ is a magnificent fellow. I can understand now why the wild huntress had no eyes for our _mountain-men_ here. No wonder she sighed for her far forest-home. _Ay de mi, cavallero_! Love is a powerful thought, even the desert will not drive it out of one's heart. No, no; _valga me dios_! no!"

The tone in which the Mexican repeated the last words had a tinge of sadness in it--while his eyes turned upon the fire with an expression that betrayed melancholy. It was easy to tell that he too--odd, and even ludicrous as was his personal appearance--either was, or had been, one of love's victims. I fancied he might have a story to tell--a love story? and at that moment my mind was attuned to listen to such a tale.

Sure-shot had also left us--our animals picketed a few paces off requiring his attention--and the two of us were left alone by the fire.

If the trapper's tale should prove a sentimental romance--and such are not uncommon in the Mexican border land--the moment was opportune.

Seeing that my new acquaintance was in the communicative mood, I essayed to draw him forth.

"You speak truly," I said. "Love _is_ a powerful pa.s.sion, and defies even the desert to destroy it. You yourself have proved it so, I presume? You have souvenirs?"

"Ay, senor, that have I; and painful ones."

"Painful?"

"As poison--_Carrai-i-i_!"

"Your sweetheart has been unfaithful?"

"No."

"Her parents have interfered, I suppose, as is often the case? She has been forced against her will to marry another?"

"Ah! _senor_, no. She was never married."

"Not married? what then?"

"She was _murdered_!"

Regret at having initiated a conversation--that had stirred up such a melancholy memory--hindered me from making rejoinder; and I remained silent. My silence, however, did not stay the tale. Perhaps my companion longed to unburden himself; or, with some vague hope of sympathy, felt relief in having a listener. After a pause he proceeded to narrate the story of his love, and the sad incidents that led to its fatal termination.

CHAPTER NINETY TWO.

GABRIELLA GONZALES.

"_Puez, Senor_!" commenced the Mexican, "your comrades tell me, you have been campaigning down below on the Rio Grande."

"Quite true--I have."

"Then you know something of our Mexican frontier life--how for the last half century we have been hara.s.sed by the _Indios bravos_--our _ranchos_ given to the flames--our grand _haciendas_ plundered and laid waste--our very towns attacked--many of them pillaged, destroyed, and now lying in ruins."

"I have heard of these devastations. Down in Texas, I have myself been an eye-witness to a similar condition of things."

"Ah! true, _senor_. Down there--in Tejas and Tamaulipas--things, I have heard, are bad enough. _Carrai_! here in New Mexico they are ten times worse. There they have the Comanches and Lipanos. Here we have an enemy on every side. On the east Caygua and Comanche, on the west the Apache and Navajo. On the south our country is hara.s.sed by the Wolf and Mezcalero Apaches, on the north by their kindred, the Jicarillas; while, now and then, it pleases our present allies the Utahs, to ornament their shields with the scalps of our people, and their wigwams with the fairest of our women. _Carrambo! senor_! a happy country ours, is it not?"

The ironically bitter speech was intended for a reflection, rather than an interrogation, and therefore needed no reply. I made none. "_Puez, amigo_!" continued the Mexican, "I need hardly tell you that there is scarce a family on the Rio del Norte--from Taos to El Paso--that has not good cause to lament this unhappy condition of things; scarce one that has not personally suffered, from the inroads of the savages. I might speak of houses pillaged and burnt; of maize-fields laid waste to feed the horses of the roving marauder; of sheep and cattle driven off to desert fastnesses; bah! what are all these? What signify such trifling misfortunes, compared with that other calamity, which almost every family in the land may lament--the loss of one or more of its members-- wife, daughter, sister, child--borne off into hopeless bandage, to satisfy the will, or gratify the l.u.s.t, of a merciless barbarian?"

"A fearful state of affairs!"

"_Ay senor_! Even the bride has been s.n.a.t.c.hed off, from before the altar--from the arms of the bridegroom fondly clasping, and before he has had time to caress her! _Ay de mi, cavallero_! Truly can I say that: it has been my own story."

"Yours?"

"Yes--mine. You ask _me_ for souvenirs. There is one that will cling to me for life!" The Mexican pointed to his mutilated limb.

"_Carrambo_!" continued he, "that is nothing. There is another wound here--here in my heart. It was received at the same time; and will last equally as long--only a thousand times more painful."

These words were accompanied by a gesture. The speaker placed his hand over his heart, and held it there to the end of his speech--as if to still the sad sigh, that I could see swelling within his bosom. His countenance, habitually cheerful--almost comic in its expression--had a.s.sumed an air of concentrated anguish. It was easy to divine that he had been the victim of some cruel outrage. My curiosity had become fully aroused; and I felt an eager desire to hear a tale, which, though beyond doubt painful, could not be otherwise than one of romantic interest.

"Your lameness, then, had something to do with the story of your blighted love? You say that both misfortunes happened to you at the same time!" My interrogatives were intended to arouse him from the reverie into which he had fallen. I was successful; and the recital was continued.

"True, _senor_--both came together; but you shall hear all. It is not often I speak of the affair, though it is seldom out of my thoughts, I have tried to forget it. _Carrambo_! how could I, with a thing like that constantly recalling it to my memory?" The speaker again pointed to his deformed foot with a smile of bitter significance. "_Por Dios, cavallero_! I think of it often enough; but just now more than common.

Their presence--" he nodded towards the lovers, whose forms were just visible in the grey twilight, "the happiness I see reminds me of my own misery. More especially does _she_ recall the misfortune to my memory-- this wild huntress who has had misfortunes of her own. But beyond that, _senor_, though you may think it strange, your _conpaisana_ is wonderfully like what she was."

"Like whom?"

"Ah! _senor_, I have not told you? She that I loved with all the love in my heart--the beautiful Gabriella Gonzales."

Men of the Spanish race--however humble their social rank--are gifted with a certain eloquence; and in this case pa.s.sion was lending poetry to the speech. No wonder I became deeply interested in the tale, and longed to hear more of Gabriella Gonzales.

"_En verdad_," continued the Mexican, after a pause, "there are many things in the character of your countrywoman to remind me of my lost love--even in her looks. Gabriella, like her, was beautiful. Perhaps your comrade yonder might not think her so beautiful as the huntress; but that is natural. In my mind Gabriella was everything. She had Indian blood in her veins: we all have in these parts, though we boast of our pure Spanish descent. No matter; Gabriella was white enough--to my eyes white as the lily that sparkles upon the surface of the lagoon.

Like yonder maiden, she inherited from her ancestors a free daring spirit. She feared neither our Indian enemies, nor danger of any kind--_Por Dios_! Not she."

"Of course she loved you?"

"Ah! that truly did she--else why should she have consented to marry me?

What was I? A poor _cibolero_--at times a hunter and trapper of beavers, just as I am now? I was possessed of nothing but my horse and traps; whiles he--_Carrambo! senor_, proud _ricos_ pretended to her hand!"

It is possible that my countenance may have expressed incredulity. It was difficult to conceive how the diminutive Mexican--as he appeared just then in my eyes--could have won the love of such a grand belle as he was describing Gabriella to be. Still was he not altogether unhandsome; and in earlier life--before his great misfortune had befallen him--he might have been gifted with some personal graces. High qualities, I had heard of his possessing--among others courage beyond question or suspicion; and in those frontier regions--accursed by the continual encroachment of Indian warfare, and where human life is every day in danger--that is a quality of the first cla.s.s--esteemed by all, but by none more than those who stand most in need of protection--the women. Often there as elsewhere--more often than elsewhere--does courage take precedence of mere personal appearance, and boldness wins the smile of beauty. It was possible that the possession of this quality on the part of Pedro Archilete had influenced the heart of the fair Gabriella. This might explain her preference.

The Mexican must have partially divined my thoughts, as was proved by the speech that followed. "Yes, _amigo_! more than one rich _haciendado_ would have been only too happy to have married Gabriella; and yet she consented to become my wife, though I was just as I am now.

May be a little better looking than at this time; though I can't say that I ever pa.s.sed for an Apollo. No--no--_senor_. It was not my good looks that won the heart of the girl."

"Your good qualities?"

"Not much to boast of, _cavallero_. True, in my youth, I had the name of being the best horseman in our village--the best _rastreador_--the most skilful trapper. I could 'tail the bull,' 'run the c.o.c.k,' and pick up a girl's ribbon at full gallop--perhaps a little more adroitly than my compet.i.tors; but I think it was something else that first gained me the young girl's esteem. I had the good fortune once to save her life-- when, by her own imprudence, she had gone out too far from the village, and was attacked by a grizzly bear. _Ay de mi_! It mattered not. Poor nina! She might as well have perished then, by the monster's claws.

She met her death from worse monsters--a death far more horrible; but you shall hear."

"Go on! From what you have disclosed, I am painfully interested in your tale."

CHAPTER NINETY THREE.

A b.l.o.o.d.y BRIDAL.

"_Puez senor_! what I am about to tell you happened full ten years ago, though it's as fresh in my mind as if it was yesterday. You may have heard of the village of Valverde? It is about fifty leagues south of Santa Fe, on the Rio del Norte--that portion of the valley we call the _Rio Abajo_. It was at one time a settlement of some importance--rich and prospering as any in New Mexico--but, in consequence of the incursions of the Apaches, it fell into decay. Is now a complete ruin without a single inhabitant."