Shortly after the safe arrival of the train at the base of the Moqui
bluff, and while the repulsed and retreating warriors of Delgadito were
still in sight two strange Indians cantered up to the park of wagons.
They were fine-looking fellows, with high aquiline features, the prominent
cheek-bones and copper complexion of the red race, and a bold, martial,
trooper-like expression, which was not without its wild good-humor and
gayety. One was dressed in a white woollen hunting-shirt belted around the
waist, white woollen trousers or drawers reaching to the knee, and
deerskin leggins and moccasins. The other had the same costume, except
that his drawers were brown and his hunting-shirt blue, while a blanket of
red and black stripes drooped from his shoulders to his heels. Their
coarse black hair was done up behind in thick braids, and kept out of
their faces by a broad band around the temples. Each had a lance eight or
ten feet long in his hand, and a bow and quiver slung at his waist-belt.
These men were Navajos (Na-va-hos).
Two jolly and impudent braves were these visitors. They ate, smoked,
lounged about, cracked jokes, and asked for liquor as independently as if
the camp were a tavern. Rebuffs only made them grin, and favors only led
to further demands. It was hard to say whether they were most wonderful
for good-nature or impertinence.
Coronado was civil to them. The Navajos abide or migrate on the south, the
north, and the west of the Moqui pueblas. He was in a manner within their
country, and it was still necessary for him to traverse a broad stretch of
it, especially if he should attempt to reach the San Juan. Besides, he
wanted them to warn the Apaches out of the neighborhood and thus avert
from his head the vengeance of Manga Colorada. Accordingly he gave this
pair of roystering troopers a plentiful dinner and a taste of aguardiente.
Toward sunset they departed in high good-humor, promising to turn back the
hoofs of the Apache horses; and when in the morning Coronado saw no
Indians on the plain, he joyously trusted that his visitors had fulfilled
their agreement.
Somewhere or other, within the next day or two, there was a grand council
of the two tribes. We know little of it; we can guess that Manga Colorada
must have made great concessions or splendid promises to the Navajos; but
it is only certain that he obtained leave to traverse their country.
Having secured this privilege, he posted himself fifteen or twenty miles
to the southwest of Tegua, behind a butte which was extensive enough to
conceal his wild cavalry, even in its grazings. He undoubtedly supposed
that, when the train should quit its shelter, it would go to the west or
to the south. In either case he was in a position to fall upon it.
Did the savage know anything about Coronado? Had he attacked his wagons
without being aware that they belonged to the man who had paid him five
hundred dollars and sent him to harry Bernalillo? Or had he attacked in
full knowledge of this fact, because he had been beaten off the southern
trail, and believed that he had been lured thither to be beaten? Had he
learned, either from Apaches or Navajos, whose hand it was that slew his
boy? We can only ask these questions.
One thing alone is positive: there was a debt of blood to be paid. An
Indian war is often the result of a private vendetta. The brave is bound,
not only by natural affection and family pride, but still more powerfully
by sense of honor and by public opinion, to avenge the slaughter of a
relative. Whether he wishes it or not, and frequently no doubt when he
does not wish it, he must black his face, sing his death-song, set out
alone if need be, encounter labors, hardships, and dangers, and never rest
until his sanguinary account is settled. The tyranny of Mrs. Grundy in
civilized cities and villages is nothing to the despotism which she
exercises among those slaves of custom, the red men of the American
wildernesses. Manga Colorada, bereaved and with blackened face, lay in
wait for the first step of the emigrants outside of their city of refuge.
We must return to Coronado. Although Clara's rejection of his suit left
him vindictively and desperately eager for a catastrophe of some sort, a
week elapsed before he dared take his mad plunge into the northern desert.
It was a hundred miles to the San Juan; the intervening country was a
waste of rocks, almost entirely destitute of grass and water; the mules
and horses must recruit their full strength before they could undertake
such a journey. They must not only be strong enough to go, but they must
have vital force left to return.
It is astonishing what labors and dangers the man was willing to face in
his vain search for a spot where he might commit a crime in safety. Such a
spot is as difficult to discover as the Fountain of Youth or the
Terrestrial Paradise. More than once Coronado sickened of his seemingly
hopeless and ever lengthening pilgrimage of sin. Not because it was
sinful--he had little or no conscience, remember--only because it was
perplexing and perilous.
It was in vain that Thurstane protested against the crazy trip northward.
Coronado sometimes argued for his plan; said the route improved as it
approached the river; hoped the party would not be broken up in this
manner; declared that he could not spare his dear friend the lieutenant.
Another time he calmly smoked his cigarito, looked at Thurstane with
filmy, expressionless eyes, and said, "Of course you are not obliged to
accompany us."
"I have not the least intention of quitting you," was the rather indignant
reply of the young fellow.
At this declaration Coronado's long black eyebrows twitched, and his lips
curled with the smile of a puma, showing his teeth disagreeably.
"My dear lieutenant, that is so like you!" he said. "I own that I expected
it. Many thanks."
Thurstane's blue-black eyes studied this enigmatic being steadily and
almost angrily. He could not at all comprehend the fellow's bland
obstinacy and recklessness.
"Very well," he said sullenly. "Let us start on our wild-goose chase. What
I object to is taking the women with us. As for myself, I am anxious to
reach the San Juan and get something to report about it."
"The ladies will have a day or two of discomfort," returned Coronado; "but
you and I will see that they run no danger."
Nine days after the arrival of the emigrants at Tegua they set out for the
San Juan. The wagons were left parked at the base of the butte under the
care of the Moquis. The expedition was reorganized as follows: On
horseback, Clara, Coronado, Thurstane, Texas Smith, and four Mexicans; on
mules, Mrs. Stanley, Glover, the three Indian women, the four soldiers,
and the ten drivers and muleteers. There were besides eighteen burden
mules loaded with provisions and other baggage. In all, five women,
twenty-two men, and forty-five animals.
The Moquis, to whom some stores and small presents were distributed,
overflowed with hospitable offices. The chief had a couple of sheep
slaughtered for the travellers, and scores of women brought little baskets
of meal, corn, guavas, etc. As the strangers left the pueblo both sexes
and all ages gathered on the landings, grouped about the stairways and
ladders which led down the rampart, and followed for some distance along
the declivity of the butte, holding out their simple offerings and urging
acceptance. Aunt Maria was more than ever in raptures with Moquis and
women.
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 grass; 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, buttes, 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 grass
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
cañon 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 assaulted 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 circumstances 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
passed 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 destitute 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 sparse grass,
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 cañons 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 assistance, 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 masses
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 thorny
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 God, 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 God 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 gratitude 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 grass,
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-glass, and jotted down
topographical notes in his journal. Suddenly he beckoned to Coronado,
quietly put the glass 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 pronounced Thurstane, facing about
toward the caravan and making a signal to mount.