AN OLD WOUND REOPENED
If it was a strange coincidence that had thus suddenly brought these two
old foes together, face to face, in this remote quarter of New Mexico,
it was a coincidence no less strange that they were both there for the
same object. For Mr. Backus, too, was after the lost silver mine. Ever
since his marriage with the daughter of a Mexican peasant he had made a
tolerably easy living in a small way by keeping a country store, and in
the knowledge which he thus gained of the common pursuits and dominant
ideas among the Mexicans, what fascinated him particularly were the
tales of hidden mines and buried treasures so often to be heard amongst
them. Of all these tales, the legend of the secret mine of the Indians
of Santiago had excited his interest most, so that when he learned that
the San Remo stage station in their immediate neighbourhood was vacant,
and afforded an opening for a store such as his, he speedily arranged to
take charge of it and to transfer himself, his family, and his goods to
the spot. He had as yet no definite plan of operations beyond keeping
his ears open for every scrap of information that might come into his
way from any quarter, and doing all he knew to ingratiate himself with
the Indians themselves; but the very first step he had proposed to take
was to find out about this white man who was said to be living among
them, and to discover what his objects were and how much he knew.
Fortune had favoured him so far, and here he was shaking hands with the
man himself, who had thus unexpectedly proved to be no other than his
ancient enemy.
At the moment when the pair were thus exchanging signs of amity, the
doorway was darkened by the form of a tall, swarthy, well-dressed
Mexican. Mr. Backus hailed the new-comer instantly.
"Welcome, Don Nepomuceno. You come at a good hour. See the wonderful
thing that has happened. This American señor that you were telling me of
only yesterday, who lives with the Indians of Santiago, has turned out
to be the very same man that plugged me in the great fight at Apache
Cañon nine years ago. We were just shaking hands over it as you came in,
and I've been showing him a little mark over my lungs that he gave me as
a remembrancer." Mr. Backus was speaking in Spanish, and Manuelita was
drinking in every syllable with intense interest.
"Well, if you come to that," returned Stephens, baring his left arm and
displaying the scar of an old bullet wound between the elbow and wrist,
"I can do ditto. Perhaps you didn't know that your bullet took me
through the fleshy part of the arm here," and he pointed with his finger
to the place where the ball had entered.
Don Nepomuceno Sanchez, who had seen fighting in the wars with the
Navajos, and knew well what wounds were, came forward to examine the
scars of either man with critical eyes. "Truly these are honourable
scars," he said; "tell me about it, please, if you don't mind talking
over old war times."
"Well, señor," said Backus, in his rapid, fluent Spanish, "it was like
this: we were fighting there in the hills, on opposite sides, as of
course you know; and naturally, being all frontiersmen on both sides, we
advanced under cover as much as ever we could, firing as we got a
chance. And so it came about that he and I, sudden-like, found ourselves
quite close to one another in the brush, and we both fired as it might
be at the same moment. He must have missed me clean that time, but
according to the way he tells it, I must have plugged him right through
that left arm of his; I didn't even know as I'd touched him though, for
it never seemed to phase him, and we both of us set to reloading in a
hurry, you bet. We both put in the powder, and both rammed down the
bullets, and I had got a trifle ahead of him as I brought up my gun to
the hip in order to have it ready to put on the cap. Wal', I'm jiggered
if he didn't leave out the capping part of the business, and brought his
piece straight up to his shoulder to draw a bead on me. You bet I just
thought I knowed as I'd got the deadwood on him then. 'Got ye, Yank,' I
called out, slipping the cap on my tube, 'ye haint capped yer gun.'
'Don't want to,' sez he; and whang-g-g! she went, and took me right here
through the lung; and that was the last I ever knowed of anything for
about a day and a half. You see, he had some kind of a gol-durned,
stem-winding trick on his gun that did the capping for him, that I
didn't know nothing about."
"Well, now it's all over," said Stephens frankly, "I'm real glad to
learn that your wound wasn't mortal. My company fell back directly after
we exchanged shots, so that I never knew what had become of you."
"Oh," said the Texan, "they patched me up in the hospital somehow or
another, and then I was took in and nursed in a Mexican family, and the
end of it was I married one of the darters and settled in the Territory,
and here I am with a wife and three kids, and running a store. I do keep
a little good whisky, too, you may like to know. Say, won't you take a
drink? It's my treat. You'll join us in a _tragito_, won't you, Don
Nepomuceno?"
"I'll drink with you with pleasure," said Stephens, "if you'll allow me
to take it in something like a lemon soda. Whisky's a thing I don't use,
if you'll excuse me."
"Surely, surely," in amiable tones remarked Mr. Backus, who was setting
out on the counter a three-parts full decanter and some glasses. "I'll
try and mix something of the lemon-soda order as near as I can fix it."
He had hoped to get Stephens into a loquacious mood and pump him over a
few social drinks, but he was too cunning to show any trace of
disappointment. "Every man has a right to choose his own liquor; I don't
quarrel with no man's taste," he said, as he passed the decanter to Don
Nepomuceno, with a familiar "Help yourself, friend," and busied himself
in searching for materials for concocting some kind of a temperance
drink for his other guest.
Sanchez poured a little of the strong spirit into a glass and filled it
up with water. "You are coming to take dinner in my house presently, are
you not, Don Estevan?" he said in his courteous tones, addressing
Stephens, who accepted the invitation cordially. "Manuelita, my child,"
he turned to his eldest daughter, "run home now quick with Altagracia,
and tell your aunt that Don Estevan is coming and to have dinner ready
soon."
The temperance drink was compounded, and the three men clinked glasses
and pledged each other.
"And what have you bin' doing ever since our last meeting?" said Mr.
Backus genially to his former foe. "I've give ye my story; now let's
hear yourn."
"Mining," said Stephens with curt emphasis. The word made the Texan give
a start of surprise. "Yes," he continued, "it's mining and prospecting
for gold and silver that has been my trade ever since; and, what's more,
I've travelled over a good part of the Pacific slope at it, too. It's a
game you get terribly stuck on after once you take to it."
"Mining, eh?" said the Texan with affected indifference. "Wal', that
ar's a thing as I dunno nothin' at all about."
He gave a careless laugh. "Oh, by the way," he said, turning his back on
the two men and rummaging on the shelf behind him for a couple of cans
of oysters which he displayed with a great show of earnestness, "that's
the brand of oysters, Don Nepomuceno, that I meant to bring to your
notice, first chance. I can recommend 'em; they're prime."
"Yes," he continued, turning again to Stephens, "you was saying as how
you was interested in mines; but as far as that goes, why there ain't no
mines being worked in this part of the country, not as I know of." A
suspicious man might have guessed that Backus's interest in the
possibility of a mine in the neighbourhood of Santiago was a good deal
stronger than he chose to let appear, but John Stephens was not of a
suspicious nature.
"No," he said in reply, "there aren't any now, but there have been, and
there will be again, if I'm any judge." Then, reflecting that he might
say too much, and checking himself he went on more cautiously. "But I
don't see any opening here myself. I guess I'm about through with New
Mexico for the present, and I calculate to light out for Colorado pretty
soon. The railroads have got in there, and there's a boom on."
Mr. Backus was sharp at reading other people's motives, and saw in an
instant that Stephens was trying to disguise his. So much the more
reason for finding out what they were.
"What! going off to Colorado?" he exclaimed with an air of surprise.
"Why, I'd understood from the folks here that you had settled down in
Santiago for keeps. That's really how I come to hear of you; I heard
that you was a white man living amongst them Indians, and had joined the
tribe; so I supposed you was adopted by them, and had gone and got
hitched up with a squaw."
Stephens's eyes flashed.
"Shouldn't wonder if that drawed him out a bit," reflected Mr. Backus
privately to himself.
"If anyone told you so," said the prospector stiffly, "let me tell you
that you have been misinformed. No sir, squaws aren't in my line; I'm
not that sort of a man. I never have proposed to go outside of my own
colour, and I never will."
Mr. Backus gave a short laugh. The word colour touched him on the raw.
He was married to a Mexican, and many Americans are undiscriminating
enough to class the Mexicans with coloured people. The Mexicans
themselves naturally resent such a slight on their race; although a part
of them have more or less Indian blood in their veins, they prefer to
ignore that side of their pedigree and trace their descent solely back
to the conquering cavaliers of Spain. But Mr. Backus was himself a
quarter-blooded Indian. He called himself a Texan, and passed as such;
though he was born in the Indian Territory and his mother had been a
half-breed Cherokee.
He changed the subject abruptly. "Fill your glass again, Don," he said,
pushing the decanter towards the Mexican. "It's good whiskey, real old
Bourbon. 'There isn't a headache in a hogshead of it,' as the Irishman
said."
"A thousand thanks, no, if you will excuse me," replied the Mexican, "I
have sufficient. I think I must be going," he went on, for indeed he
felt a little out of it, seeing that the two Americans had dropped back
instinctively into talking in their own language, of which he knew but a
few words. "I shall see you again, then, presently, Don Estevan, at my
house," and bowing politely he departed homewards.
"That man's darned well fixed, I can tell you," remarked the
storekeeper, refilling his own glass and tossing it off as soon as the
Mexican had gone. "And what's more, he's a square man, too. I don't mind
saying that Nepomuceno Sanchez can just have all the credit he wants at
this store. He's one of the heirs to the Sanchez grant, and that gives
him the use of all the pasture land he needs for his sheep. He's a very
peart business man, for a Mexican. I used to come across him over in
Peña Blanca, you know. He's a relation of old man Baca's by marriage,
and he's got a lot of his sheep on shares and makes a good thing of it."
The personage irreverently referred to by the Texan as "old man Baca"
was the head of the family of that name, and a man of no small position
and wealth. The old families of New Mexico own immense flocks of hardy
little Mexican sheep, whose numbers often run into hundreds of
thousands. Their flocks are divided into bands of a few thousand and let
out on shares to retainers, who return a rent in kind of the wool and
the increase. The relation between these retainers and the heads of the
great families is semi-feudal.
"Yes," said Stephens, "taking sheep on shares is a good business. I've
seen his son, young Andrés Sanchez, up there on that Sanchez grant with
their sheep herd when I've been out on the mountains."
"Oh, you've been up on the mountains round here?" said Backus, who saw
his chance to lead the conversation once more in the direction he
wanted. "Mining, I suppose?" he added, as if it were an afterthought.
"Well, I've prospected some," returned the other. "But you've heard me
say I didn't think much of the opening here."
"Ever take any of the Indians out prospecting with you?" inquired the
Texan. "They've bin here so long they'd ought to know if there's
anything lying around worth looking at. Did they never tell you anything
about mines?" He let these last words fall after a pause with studied
carelessness.
"No, sir," said the prospector, "I've learnt nothing from the Indians,
and it's highly possible that they've nothing to tell."
"You never thought to ask 'em, I suppose?" suggested Backus.
"Why should I?" returned the other quietly. "May I ask, Mr. Backus, if
you've any special reason for these questions?"
The Texan hesitated; he felt sure now that his old antagonist was not at
Santiago by mere chance, but had an object in view which he did not
care to disclose. He quickly decided to try and gain his confidence by a
show of openness.
"Wal', yes, I have," he admitted; "I guess I've got some information
that might be of value to anyone as knew how to use it."
"What could he mean?" Stephens thought. "Was this information the
knowledge of the secret mine? If so, it might be worth while to make
terms with him, as the Indians seemed to be so impracticable."
"If anyone will show me a mine," said the prospector, "I can tell him if
it's worth working, and how to work it."
"Yes," returned Backus, "and if so what terms would you expect?"
"A half-interest," said Stephens. "If I thought it good enough I'd take
a half-interest and bear my share of the expenses."
"That's a square offer," replied the Texan. "Now look at here. Now,
s'posin' I was to tell you of a mine in this neighbourhood, you'd be
willing to do that with me?"
"Are you referring to the lost mine of the Indians?" asked the
prospector. It was not worth while to make any further mystery of the
matter, for the Texan had obviously heard the story.
"That's just what I am," said Backus. "I thought as how you must have
heard some talk about it. Now you allow as you don't know where it is."
"I do not," said the other.
"Wal', I do," said Backus. "And I'll tell it to you on your own terms,
and that's a half-interest for each of us. It's on the Indian grant up
in the mountains."
"Well, I knew that much," said Stephens.
"Ah," returned the Texan, "but I can tell you more'n that. The Indians
haint got no right to keep it; that grant haint been confirmed to them
by act of Congress."
"But, my dear sir," returned Stephens, with something that savoured of
contempt, "you're revealing to me as your precious secret what's matter
of common knowledge. If you ask anyone in the office at Santa Fé,
they'll tell you that the grant to the Indians of four square leagues
round the pueblo has been confirmed to them, and that they own it from
grass-roots to Hades by a perfectly indefeasible title; but they'll tell
you there, too, in the office, that the twenty miles square that they
claim in the mountains has never been confirmed, and for that matter is
overlapped by half a dozen unconfirmed Mexican grants as well. The real
title to that land is in the United States Government. That's as old as
a last year's bird's-nest."
"I see you're well posted in the business," said Backus; "but maybe you
don't know that the secret mine's on the Cerro de las Viboras. I can
tell you that."
"If you can show it to me up there on that Rattlesnake Mountain, Mr.
Backus," was Stephens's reply, "I'm ready to acknowledge at once that
you'll show me something I don't know. But as you know so much you are
probably aware that the mine has been closed for a hundred years or
more, and that rumour locates it in a dozen different places, and that
to look for it on the Cerro without knowing where it is is to look for a
needle in a haystack. I've been all around that Cerro, you can bet, but
I haven't run across the mine. The Cerro's a mountain five miles round
and five thousand feet high, and a precious rough mountain at that. I'm
willing to go up there again; I'm ready to start to-morrow if you like;
and if you'll show me the mine there I'm ready to do as I said with you
about working it; but unless you can do that I don't consider that what
has passed constitutes any claim between us on either side."
"Wal'," said the Texan, "I couldn't leave the store here just yet, not
till I get things straightened out and settled down. Nor I won't swear
for sartin as I can put you right on to the exact spot, seein' as how
I've not been up thar myself yet; but mebbe I can before long, and I
reckon that ought to be enough for ye. Say, look here, couldn't we work
it between us, somehow, to get them Indians to show us the spot?"
This intrusive Texan had so far told Stephens nothing he did not know
already, and now here he was wanting to poach on the prospector's
private preserve--his personal influence with the Indians.
"That's what I've been trying to do already, Mr. Backus," said Stephens
irritably; "and, to be plain with you, I'm not looking out for a partner
in this matter."
"Ah, but mebbe that's just what you want," returned the storekeeper
imperturbably; "mebbe the reason as you haint won nary trick so far is
that you've bin playing a lone hand. Now, I'll gamble from what you said
just now that you've bin trying to get the secret out of the bucks over
there, and that you haven't tried the women for it at all. Now, aint I
right?" and he gave the other a cunning look.
"I've never seen any reason to think that the women know anything about
it," returned Stephens. "It isn't likely they would." The idea had
never even occurred to him.
"Ah, and I'll gamble they do," replied Backus. "I know a thing or two
about Indians myself, and it's a great trick of theirs to let some of
the squaws--only some, mind you--keep some of the secrets of the tribe.
You see they don't go and get killed off like the bucks, so it acts as a
kind of safeguard against losing the knowledge of a thing entirely that
way. Aint there some extra high-toned women, now, in the Santiago
tribe,--chief's darters and the like, eh?" His keen black eyes were
turned on the other with a cunning inquisitiveness. "Yes, by the way,
aint there a white squaw in the tribe somewheres?"
Stephens was startled. "You've taken a lot of trouble to find out
things, I fancy, Mr. Backus," he said rather suspiciously; "a great deal
more, indeed, than you seemed inclined to let on at first. But you're
quite right. Yes, there is a white squaw in the tribe, and she's the
daughter of the cacique."
Backus listened with extreme interest. "You reckon she's an Indian,
then?" he said. "You don't think she's a white girl they've picked up
and adopted, by any chance? I've seen a good few sorts of Indians, but
never any white ones yet."
"Oh no, she's Indian, right enough," said Stephens; "she's a natural
Indian blonde, as fair-complected as I am. They're none so rare among
these Pueblo Indians. There's twenty or thirty of them over in Zuñi."
"I wanter know!" exclaimed the Texan, by which phrase he indicated
extreme surprise. "Wal', she might be worth trying. The cacique had
ought to know the secret if anybody does, and she'd be as likely as any
of the squaws to be let into it. Why shouldn't you tackle her? Is she
married?"
"No, she's not married yet," replied the other.
"Wal', there's yer chance," said the storekeeper, with a knowing grin;
"but I forgot, you draw the line pretty close in the matter of colour;
or mebbe, she being light-complected as yourself, you'd reckon she was
white enough to suit you."
Stephens flushed; he had given this man no right to intrude these
familiarities upon him; in silence he picked up his parcels to go. When
you have just been forgiven by a man for shooting him through the lungs,
you can hardly blaze out at him for being a trifle too personal in his
conversation.
"Wal', I'm going to be up there right along," continued the storekeeper,
seeing that Stephens volunteered no further comment, and was preparing
to start, "and then you can introduce me. I'm going to make a bid for
the trade of the pueblo anyhow, and I'll have to get on the right side
of the cacique for that, and I might as well get the inside track with
the girl, too. It's all in the family, eh?" He grinned again with a kind
of a grin that Stephens loathed. "And't won't be trespassing on your
property neither, I s'pose?"
"I leave the Indian women alone, Mr. Backus, as I think I told you
before," said Stephens haughtily, and he drew himself up and moved to
the door.
"Oh, no offence," cried the other quickly, following him; "I see you're
high-toned, of course. I didn't mean nothing low-down, nohow"; he
attended the prospector out to the hitching-post, where the mule was
fastened, and watched him as he put the parcels into his saddle-bags.
"That's a real nice California saddle of yourn," he said in a
propitiatory tone, "and an A1 mule wearing it. Wal', when are you going
to ask me to come and meet Miss Pocahontas?"
"I'm afraid I'm off to the sierra to-morrow on a hunt," was the somewhat
ungracious reply, "but we may meet again later on when I come back,
before I start for Colorado, if I decide after all to go there"; and he
swung himself into his saddle and raised his bridle rein.
"What makes ye so sot on leavin' this Territory?" queried Backus, laying
his hand on the mule's neck and walking a few paces alongside the
parting guest. "Aint it most time for ye to quit all this rovin' round,
and settle down? Why don't you ask Don Nepomuceno, now, for his darter?
She's gone on you already, if you only knowed it. When you was fingering
your revolver there in the store just now--oh, I seen what your little
game was, right enough--her eyes was just glued to you. Oh yes; if I was
watching you close, right along the hull time, you bet I kept my little
eye open for what the women thought of it all as well. You bet I aint no
innercent; I aint bin and lived here these seven years in New Mexico
without learning to watch the women every time. I'm on the spot there,
and no mistake. I know how a girl looks when she thinks as how her man's
in danger that she's gone on. You ask her father for her, and you'll
find you've got the inside track there, or my name aint Tom Backus."
"Really, Mr. Backus," replied Stephens, "you've set yourself to discuss
a matter I prefer not to talk about. I think I'll say good morning now."
With a regretful air Mr. Backus removed his hand from the mule's neck,
and remained there still looking at Stephens's back, while the animal
he bestrode, feeling its rider's spurs, quickened its pace.
"Wal', so long," he cried after him as the distance between them rapidly
increased. "You'd better think over that idea of mine. Take care of
yerself now. Good men is scarce"--"and prospectors who know a mine when
they see it are scarcer, just now, in this part of the world," he
continued to himself. "I've no fancy to have you putting out for
Colorado till you've done my bit of work for me down here, Mister
Stephens. If I can once get you to fooling with that squaw girl, I'll
bet a dollar you can get the secret of the Indians' silver mine out of
her; and if she ain't enough to keep you here you may sport around after
Miss Manuelita, but stop here you must till you've found that mine for
me. You find it and I take the profits, that's fair division," and he
gave a chuckle of satisfaction; "and when the time comes for paying you
your share, you'll find I haint forgotten how to shoot. Lord! what luck
to drop on you like this, and you as innercent as a new-born babby, for
all your fingering your six-shooter the way you did. I reckon you'll
just play the cards as I deal 'em, and never spot me a-raising a cold
deck on you, as I will."