An Indian bivouac. It is upon a creek called "Pecan," a confluent of
the Little Witchita river, which heads about a hundred miles from the
eastern edge of the Llano Estacado.
There are no tents in the encampment; only here and there a blanket or
buffalo robe extended horizontally upon upright poles--branches cut from
the surrounding trees. The umbrageous canopy of the pecans protects the
encamped warriors from the fervid rays of a noonday sun, striking
vertically down.
That they are on the maraud is evidenced by the absence of tents. A
peaceful party, in its ordinary nomadic passage across the prairies,
would have lodges along with it--grand conical structures of painted
buffalo skins--with squaws to set them up, and dogs or ponies to
transport them when struck for another move.
In this encampment on the Pecan are neither squaws, dogs, nor ponies;
only men, naked to the breech clout, their bodies brightly painted from
hip to head, chequered like a hatchment, or the jacket of a stage
harlequin, with its fantastic devices, some ludicrous, others grotesque;
still others of aspect terrible--showing a death's-head and cross-bones.
A prairie man on seeing them would at once say, "Indians on the war
trail!"
It does not need prairie experience to tell they are returning upon it.
If there are no ponies or dogs beside them, there are other animals in
abundance--horses, mules, and horned cattle. Horses and mules of
American breed, and cattle whose ancestral stock has come from Tennessee
or Kentucky along with the early colonists of Texas.
And though there are no squaws or papooses in the encampment, there are
women and children that are white. A group comprising both can be seen
near its centre. It does not need the dishevelled hair and torn dresses
to show they are captives; nor yet the half-dozen savages, spear-armed,
keeping guard over them. Their drooping heads, woeful and wan
countenances, are too sure signs of their melancholy situation.
What are these captives, and who their captors? Two questions easily
answered. In a general way, the picture explains itself. The captives
are the wives and children, with sisters and grown-up daughters among
them, of Texan colonists. They are from a settlement too near the
frontier to secure itself against Indian attack. The captors are a
party of Comanches, with whom the reader has already made acquaintance;
for they are no other than the sub-tribe of Tenawas, of whom the Horned
Lizard is leader.
The time is two weeks subsequent to the attack on Hamersley's train;
and, judging by the spectacle now presented, we may conclude that the
Tenawa chief has not spent the interval in idleness. Nearly three
hundred miles lie between the place where the caravan was destroyed and
the site of the plundered settlement, whose spoils are now seen in the
possession of the savages.
Such quick work requires explanation. It is at variance with the
customs and inclinations of the prairie freebooter, who, having acquired
a booty, rarely strikes for another till the proceeds of the first be
squandered. He resembles the anaconda, which, having gorged itself,
lies torpid till the craving of a fresh appetite stirs it to renewed
activity.
Thus would it have been with the Tenawa chief and his band, but for a
circumstance of a somewhat unusual kind. As is known, the attack on the
prairie traders was not so much an affair of the Horned Lizard as his
confederate, the military commandant of Albuquerque. The summons had
come to him unexpected, and after he had planned his descent on the
Texas settlement. Sanguinary as the first affair was, it had been
short, leaving him time to carry out his original design, almost equally
tragical in its execution. Here and there, a spear standing up, with a
tuft of light-coloured hair, blood-clotted upon its blade, is proof of
this. Quite as successful, too. The large drove of horses and horned
cattle, to say nothing of that crowd of despairing captives, proves the
proceeds of the later maraud worth as much, or perhaps more, than what
had been taken from the traders' waggons.
Horned Lizard is jubilant; so, also, every warrior of his band. In loss
their late foray has cost them comparatively little--only one or two of
their number, killed by the settlers while defending themselves. It
makes up for the severe chastisement sustained in their onslaught upon
the caravan. And, since the number of their tribe is reduced, there are
now the fewer to share with, so that the calicoes of Lowell, the gaudy
prints of Manchester, with stripes, shroudings, and scarlet cloth to
bedeck their bodies, hand mirrors in which to admire themselves, horses
to ride upon, mules to carry their tents, and cattle to eat--with white
women to be their concubines, and white children their attendants--all
these fine things in full possession have put the savages in high
spirits--almost maddened them with delight.
A new era has dawned upon the tribe of which Horned Lizard is head.
Hitherto it has been a somewhat starving community, its range lying amid
sterile tracts, on the upper tributaries of the Red River and Canadian.
Now, before it is a plentiful future--a time of feasting and revelry,
such as rarely occurs to a robber band, whether amidst the forest-clad
mountains of Italy, or on the treeless steppes of America.
The Tenawa chief is both joyous and triumphant. So, too, his second in
command, whose skin, with the paint cleansed from it, would show nearly
white. For he is a Mexican by birth; when a boy made prisoner by the
Comanches, and long since matriculated into the mysteries of the
redman's life--its cunning, as its cruelties.
Now a man, he is one of the chiefs of the tribe, in authority only less
than the Horned Lizard himself, but equal to the latter in all the cruel
instincts that distinguish the savage. "El Barbato" he is called, from
having a beard, though this he keeps clean shaven, the better to
assimilate himself to his beardless companions; while, with painted face
and hair black as their own, he looks as Indian as any of them. But he
has not forgotten his native tongue, and this makes him useful to those
who have adopted him, especially when raiding in the Republic of Mexico.
It was through him the Tenawa chief was first brought to communicate
with the military robber, Uraga.
The Indian bivouac is down in the creek bottom in a little valley, on
both sides flanked by precipitous cliffs. Above and below these
approach each other, so near as to leave only a narrow path along the
edge of the stream.
The savages are resting after a long, rapid march, encumbered with their
spoils and captives. Some have lain down to sleep, their nude bodies
stretched along the sward, resembling bronze statues tumbled from their
pedestals. Others squat around fires, roasting collops from cattle they
have killed, or eating them half raw.
A few stand or saunter by the side of the captives, upon these casting
covetous glances, as if they only waited for the opportunity to
appropriate them. The women are all young; some of them scarce grown
girls, and some very beautiful.
A heart-harrowing sight it would be for their fathers, brothers,
husbands and sweethearts, could they but witness it. These may not be
far off.
Some suspicion of this has carried the Horned Lizard and El Barbato up
to the crest of the cliff. They have been summoned thither by a sign,
which the traveller on the prairies of Texas or the table plains of
Mexico never sees without stopping to scrutinise and shape conjecture
about its cause. Before entering the canon through which runs Pecan
Creek, the Tenawa chief had observed a flock of turkey-buzzards circling
about in the air. Not the one accompanying him and his marauders on
their march, as is the wont of these predatory birds. But another quite
separate gang, seen at a distance behind, apparently above the path
along which he and his freebooters had lately passed.
As the Comanche well knows, a sign too significant to be treated lightly
or with negligence. And so, too, his second in command. Therefore have
they climbed the cliff to obtain a better view of the birds--those
flying afar--and, if possible, draw a correct conclusion as to the cause
of their being there.
On reaching the summit they again see them, though so far off as to be
barely visible--black specks against the blue canopy of the sky. Still
near enough to show a large number circling about over some object that
appears stationary.
This last observation seems satisfactory to the Tenawa chief, who,
turning to his fellow-freebooter, shouts out,--
"Nothing to fear. Don't you remember, Barbato, one of our horses gave
out there, and was left? It's over him the zopilotes are swooping.
He's not dead yet; that's why they don't go down."
"It may be," rejoins the renegade. "Still I don't like the look of it.
Over a dead horse they'd hardly soar so high. True, they keep in one
place. If it were Texans pursuing us they'd be moving onward--coming
nearer and nearer. They're not. It must be, as you say, the horse. I
don't think the people of the settlement we struck would be strong
enough to come after us--at least not so soon. They may in time, after
they've got up a gathering of their Rangers. That isn't likely to be
till we've got safe beyond their reach. They won't gain much by a march
to the Witchita mountains. _Por cierte_! the zopilotes out yonder are
over something; but, as they're not moving on, most likely it's the
horse."
Again the Horned Lizard gives a grunt, expressing satisfaction; after
which the two scramble back down the cliff, to seek that repose which
fighting and forced marching make necessary to man, be he savage or
civilised.