MADAM WHAILAHAY
No sooner had they reached the outskirts of the village than they saw a
man on foot, whose dress proclaimed him to be a white man, approaching
from the San Remo direction, not by the road, but by a path that led
through the plough-lands. They turned aside to meet him, and as he drew
nearer it proved to be no other that Mr. Backus himself.
"You'd better go ahead," said Stephens to his three Indian companions as
he reined up his mare in order to speak to him. "I'll catch you up in a
few minutes, but I just want to hear if he knows anything"; and they
rode forward accordingly.
"This is a devil of a business," he began abruptly, addressing the
storekeeper, "and I should like to hear what you've got to say about
it." His lips closed tightly, and there was a dangerous light shining in
his eyes.
"Ah, about the carrying off of the Sanchez girl," said Backus, with a
nervous affectation of taking it all rather lightly; "well, yes, it is a
devil of a business, as you say; it's the impidentest thing as ever I
heard of. Who ever saw the like of it?"
"It's a serious matter, I'd have you to know," returned the prospector
with rapidly rising anger; "it's a dreadful thing for a woman to be
carried off by these infernal scoundrels, and for you of all men to
speak lightly of it is nothing less than an outrage. You mark my words."
He was exceedingly indignant with this man for his previous conduct, and
that he should assume a flippant tone now was unbearable.
"Wal', I'm sorry, real sorry about it, of course," said Backus; "and
it's spoilt our little game we had on for getting that information out
of them Navajos, for the present anyway."
"I'll trouble you not to talk about 'our' little game," retorted the
other hotly. "I cautioned you against mixing yourself up with those
scoundrelly Navajos, and don't you go to imply that I'm involved with
you in any way; I could never look Don Nepomuceno in the face again if I
shared your responsibility for encouraging the villains."
"Seems to me," sneered Backus, "that for a man as puts on so much style,
and takes up such tonified notions as you, talking about 'never going
outside your own colour' and the like, you make pretty considerable of a
fuss about a Mexican ranchero and the trouble he's got himself into."
"I call him a whiter man than you, for one thing," exclaimed Stephens;
"and for another, mark me, I hold you personally responsible for this
outrage. It's a more serious matter for you than you seem to be aware
of. You've made yourself liable by the way you behaved yesterday with
those redskins, giving them that whiskey and letting them shoot all
about your place."
"Why, you was shooting with 'em yourself for one thing," retorted the
Texan with intentional insolence in his tone; "and, for another, you
mark me, I didn't _give_ 'em no whiskey." He was deliberately mocking
Stephens; but the latter was in no mood to put up with it, and flinging
his right leg over the mare's neck he jumped to the ground facing the
quarter-blood Cherokee. He threw the mare's rein to Faro to hold; it was
a trick he had taught him, and the dog stood there obediently with it in
his jaws.
"I say you _sold_ them the whiskey, then, if you didn't _give_ it," he
exclaimed, full of scorn for the mean evasion of the storekeeper. "They
were excited with liquor when I came down there yesterday. I smelt it on
them right there at your house. Don't you dare open your lips to deny
it."
"It's no such a d----d thing!" cried the storekeeper with an ugly look,
confident that no one had seen him hand over the two bottles to
Mahletonkwa; the next instant he felt Stephens's clenched fist strike
him full on his lying mouth, and he went staggering backward.
Recovering himself, with a look of fury he threw back his right hand to
his hip for a pistol; it was in vain; he had come without one; he cast a
meaning look at the revolver belted round the prospector's waist.
"You're a d----d brave man, aren't you?" he sneered, "when you know
you're heeled and I aint."
For answer Stephens instantly unbuckled his belt and hung the pistol
over the horn of his saddle. "There, then," he said, and he advanced
with his hands up towards the Texan, "if you want a fist fight you can
get it right here."
"Yes," said the other, "and then have your infernal dog lay hold of me,"
and he backed away from Stephens. In height and weight Backus knew
himself to be a match for the prospector, but there was a grim
determination about the latter which cowed him. "I'll pay you out for
this," he said with oaths, still retreating before Stephens, "but I'll
choose my own time for it."
Right behind him ran the acequia, brimming full, as it had been ever
since the blasting, but Backus, stepping backwards with his eyes fixed
on his enemy, forgot that it was there; he put one foot over the edge of
the bank, lost his balance, and fell with his whole length in the water.
He emerged, streaming, on the opposite bank, and rescued his hat which
had fallen off and was floating away. Then rising, he shook his fist and
poured out more curses upon Stephens, who, thinking him sufficiently
punished, did not choose to follow him farther. He waited a minute in
silence till he saw Backus walk off towards the pueblo, then turning his
back on his late adversary he remounted and quickly loped on to overtake
his companions.
The prospector's brain was in a whirl as he rode through the fresh
morning air and thought over the exciting events that had crowded one
upon another since sunrise: the beating of Josefa, the arrest of the
cacique, the news of the abduction of Manuelita, and lastly his
collision with Backus. The first was already past history, and he had
satisfied himself that though the Indian girl must have suffered a good
deal she would undoubtedly recover and be all right again; what began to
bother him a little now was the somewhat equivocal position in which he
had placed himself with regard to her by taking her under his protection
and establishing her next door to him in the pueblo under the care of
Reyna.
"Well," he thought, "folks may say what they like about it. I didn't see
any other way on the spur of the moment to make her safe; and now,
looking back, I don't see that I could have done anything different. If
folks want to talk they must just talk, and that's all there is in it. I
guess I can stand the racket. If Tito brings Felipe back alive they
shall get married right away, but if the cacique's bullet has laid the
poor chap out, then I shall see what I can do to fix her up good somehow
when I get back."
It was perhaps characteristic of him that now, when he was embarked on
an expedition full of unknown perils, he said to himself easily "when I
get back," without considering for a moment that ere that time came his
bones might be bleaching white in some remote gulch, like those of the
lone prospector whose tragic end had afforded so much amusement to
Mahletonkwa and his band.
As for the arrest of the cacique, that, too, was past history, seeing
that it was made for an offence that he had now settled to condone. He
did not repent of his own action in the matter, either of the arrest or
the condonation, but he could not help feeling a certain surprise as he
thought of the ease with which the arrest had been effected. The angry
chieftain had certainly proved astonishingly meek. As a fact, Stephens
mixed so little with men that he was unconscious himself of the power
there was in him to dominate others when possessed by strong
indignation, and roused to defend the weak from wrong, as he had been
that morning. Ordinarily quiet and self-contained in manner, speaking in
a gentle voice, and showing an expression of mildness in the blue eyes
that had gained him the name of Sooshiuamo, he was capable at times of
being transformed by an energy that seemed something outside his common
self, and by the contrast made him appear to be the very embodiment of
superior and irresistible force.
It was perhaps as well for Backus that Stephens did not know that the
storekeeper's greed of gain was at the bottom of the trouble; since he
had deliberately whetted the Navajos' craving for whiskey and then
doubled the price of it to them. It was their desire to compel Sanchez
to pay them off instanter, and enable them to procure more liquor at any
price, that had moved them to the extreme step of seizing his daughter.
But Stephens could not know this. All he knew was that she was gone, and
that his one burning desire now was to rescue her from this most
miserable fate that had overtaken her. Of what that fate was likely to
be, there was in his own mind at this moment no manner of doubt
whatever. Sioux and Shoshones, Cheyennes and Arapahoes, Kiowas and
Comanches, the wild Indians, one and all, dealt out the same horrible
fate to those who were unhappy enough to fall alive into their hands.
The men were tied to the stake, or spread-eagled on the ground, and
roasted by a slow fire, the fiends, who danced round with hideous yells,
cutting slices from the living flesh of their victim and eating them
before his eyes. No refinement of torture was spared until death
mercifully released him from his agonies. The fate of a woman was worse.
If she escaped being scalped and mangled on the spot, because her
captors preferred to carry her away with them, she became the common
property of the band, and the helpless victim of brutal outrage.
Stephens had seen one sad-eyed, heart-broken captive who had been
rescued from the clutches of the Sioux, and the memory of her woful tale
seemed to ring in his ears now as he rode. And he had been in Denver
when the dead body of a white woman, on which the Cheyenne Dog-Soldiers
had worked their will, was brought in from the burnt ranch where they
found her. The mangled body was placed in a room before burial, and the
men of the city were taken in, a few at a time, to view the ghastly
mutilation, and learn what an Indian war meant for their wives and
daughters. Denver was young then, and three-fourths of its people were
men of fighting age. Stephens could never forget the faces of those men
as they returned from that room where the poor remains lay. Some came
out sick and faint; some with faces deadly pale and burning eyes and
tight-shut lips; and some blaspheming aloud and hurling curses on the
monsters whose pleasure and delight it was to work such abhorred wrong
on poor human flesh.
How vividly it all came back to him as he pressed rapidly forward after
his companions; his heart grew hot within him while he pictured to
himself the girl whose charming face he knew so well, and whom he had
come to regard with such a friendly liking, now in the grasp of ruthless
hands. Well, he would rescue, if indeed any rescue were possible, or
perish in the attempt.
"More he could not; less he would not;
Forwards, till the work be done."
The hoof-strokes of the mare seemed to beat time to the verse.
He overtook the cacique and the two younger men just where the trail
they were following left the valley and entered the mountains. It was
rougher going here, and Alejandro jumped off and ran behind to ease the
mule as they pushed in single file up the rocky path. After journeying
thus for some time they came to a beautiful little grassy park of a few
acres, ringed around with dark pines, and with a small stream running
through it. The Indians dismounted; the prospector sat in his saddle and
looked at them. Were they in earnest in this expedition, or were they
only trifling with him? They had hardly been going three hours, and here
they were calling a halt already.
"Dismount for a short instant, Sooshiuamo," said the cacique. "We will
give the beasts water here, and let them eat a few mouthfuls of grass.
It is better so."
Stephens was not aware that it was the custom of the Indians to halt
every couple of hours or so on a journey; they believe that the few
minutes' rest given thus to their horses enables them to last out
better, while American frontiersmen commonly make longer stages and
longer halts. But as he had deliberately put himself under the guidance
of these men, he thought it better to adopt their methods. He slacked
his cinch, and, pulling off the bridle, allowed the mare to graze.
The Indians rolled cigarettes and smoked.
"Beautiful place, Sooshiuamo," said the cacique, who was standing up and
looking around admiringly on the little valley. "How good the mountain
grass is. I love this valley."
"Yes, it's just what you say, Cacique," answered Stephens; he knew the
Indians loved this country which they now, as always, regarded as their
own. He often wondered how much they felt the beauty of it in their
souls, or whether with them it was a sort of physical instinct, like the
yearning horses and cattle feel for their native pastures.
"I love this valley," repeated the cacique; "just down there is where,
with one companion, I killed seven Navajos." He pointed with the hand
that held the cigarette to the lower end of the park.
"You killed seven Navajos!" said Stephens, looking at him with surprise.
"When was that? How did you manage it?"
"It was in the time of the war," answered the other proudly. "The
Navajos used to hide here in the mountains all the time, and fall upon
our people when we were at work in our lands. We could not stir outside
the pueblo then without arms for fear of being waylaid by the rascals.
And our scouts used to come up here in the mountains, too, and watch
along the trails to see if any of the Navajos were prowling about, and
give the alarm. Once I came up here on scout with another man of
Santiago; and we hid and lay all night in that hill," he pointed to a
rocky summit shaggy with pines that rose hard by. "And we struck the
tracks of seven Navajos who were prowling about here to wait for their
chance to make a descent upon our people in their fields. And for days
we lay up there and watched them, and they never knew it, for we kept
very still. And the third day we saw them making a sweat-house, and we
knew they were going to have a bath. They built their house down there
in the brush by the creek, and they covered it with willow twigs and
sods to keep in the steam, and they made a fire and heated the stones
red-hot, and carried them into the house and poured on water. And six of
them left their arms outside with their clothes, and went into the bath,
and the seventh covered the door with a blanket to keep in the hot
steam. And my comrade and I crawled up on them through the brush very
quickly, and making no noise, while the seventh Indian held the blanket
over the door. And there I shot him with my gun,"--he threw up his rifle
to his shoulder, and took aim at an imaginary Navajo as he spoke, his
face glowing with pride and excitement over the recollection,--"and
there he fell down dead. And we leaped forward, for we had stolen up
very close behind his back, and the six Navajos inside came scrambling
out of the sweat-house one after another, and we cracked their skulls,
so, with our tomahawks, crack, crack, crack,"--he made an expressive
pantomime of dealing heavy blows on a stooping foe,--"and we killed them
all, every one. There was no chance for them; they could not escape. And
we took their scalps and the plunder, and brought them home. It was a
great triumph. Yes, I do love this valley."
"I don't doubt it," said the American; "you must have been very much
pleased with yourselves. You scored there."
"Oh, we always scored against the Navajos," returned the other,
"whenever we had fair play. The only way they ever could best us was by
sneaking round like wolves and catching some of our men at work and off
their guard; but fighting man to man we were far the better warriors. We
always beat them then, as I did right here. Yes, I love this place. But
come, Sooshiuamo, it is time for us to be moving again."
Forwards, forwards ever, through the shadow of the pine woods, over the
silent carpet of brown fir-needles, where the sudden squirrel chattered
and barked his alarm ere he rushed to the safety of his tree-top, over
open grassy meadows and along willow-fringed streams where the mountain
trout leaped and darted in the eddies. It was indeed a lovely land, rich
in timber, rich in pasture, rich, too, as Stephens knew, in gold and
silver, perhaps even in diamonds--who could tell? What tragedies,
though, of torturer and tortured it had seen in the past,--ay, and was
likely to see again; nay, what hideous things might not that unhappy
girl be enduring now somewhere in its wild recesses! That thought never
left Stephens for a single moment. The high, park-like country up here
was much more open now that the trail had left the rugged defiles that
led up into it. He urged his mare forward alongside the cacique's horse.
"When we catch up with the Navajos, Cacique," said Stephens, "what is
your plan?"
"Ah," answered the cacique, "we must try the best way we can. If we can
catch them off their guard we will fight them perhaps, and give it them
hot. But if they are in a strong place like the Lava Beds ahead of us
where we cannot get at them, we must try and make terms with them. But
it will not be easy to catch them at a disadvantage and fight them; so
very likely Don Nepomuceno will be glad to make terms. If he pays them
well and gets his daughter back, it will be the best thing we can do."
There was a certain businesslike air of familiarity with the whole
matter apparent in the cacique that struck Stephens. Evidently the
carrying off of Manuelita belonged to a class of incidents that were by
no means unusual according to his experience. As the prospector rode
along pondering this fact, he reflected that Salvador was a man now
about forty years of age, and that for thirty-five out of those forty
years his people and the Navajos had been deadly enemies. It was only
the recent conquest of the latter by the Americans that had put them on
the novel footing of peace. Mutual slaughter and the carrying off of
women had been the normal condition of things during the greater part
of his life.
"I gather from what you say about ransom," said the American after a
short silence, "that you think the Navajoes would be willing to restore
the señorita if they were paid. But do you think Don Nepomuceno and Don
Andrés will be content to recover her like that? Will not the Navajos be
certain to have treated her shamefully, and will her father and her
brother be content to get her back without taking vengeance? Will they
be content before they have shed blood for her wrongs?"
It jarred upon all his instincts of race feeling to even approach the
subject of Manuelita's wrongs to this Indian. The Navajoes and Pueblos
might be mutually hostile, and the Pueblo cacique for the present was
his friend, but he was an Indian after all, a member of the race to
which belonged those Sioux and Cheyennes whose dreadful deeds were
burned in upon the American's brain. Ill-treatment of women captives
makes an unbridgeable division between race and race. It constitutes
"----the inexpiable wrong, the unutterable shame,
That turns the coward's heart to steel, the sluggard's blood to
flame."
Nevertheless, so great was his anxiety on the subject that he had broken
through the reserve natural to him in this matter.
Before answering, the cacique threw a look of pity at him. It was
neither pity for her lot, nor for his state of anxious suspense
concerning it. It was the contemptuous pity of superior knowledge for
the uninstructed person who did not understand Navajos and their ways.
"She's all right," said he; "the Navajos won't do her any harm unless
they are driven to kill her."
"You don't mean to tell me that's true?" cried Stephens eagerly. "I
can't understand how it can be. I know some things about the plains
Indians, and I know no woman is spared by them for one hour after she
becomes a captive. Do you mean to say that the Navajos are different
from all other Indians?"
The cacique laughed with conscious superiority.
"Of course they are different," he answered, "and they always have been.
Didn't I say before that they are very foolish, ignorant people? And it
is quite true that they are afraid to use violence to captive women, and
I will tell you why. It is all because of a foolish religion of their
own that they have. You know they are mere heathens; they don't know
anything about heaven and purgatory and the rest of it, about all the
things the padre tells when he comes to see us. They have foolish
stories which they believe, and which the devil has taught them."
Stephens could not help interrupting him. "But how about that
turkey-feather business of your own," he asked, "and your sacred
snakes?"
The cacique looked shocked. "Oh, those are our own Santiago mysteries,"
he said seriously; "we believe what the padre tells us, but we have our
own Shiuana--the spirits--to deal with as well, and we have our own way
of doing it. That is right for us. But these Navajos have most foolish
ideas about the next world. You know they think when they die they will
go to another place?"
"Oh, yes," said the American, "the happy hunting-grounds."
"That's not the name they give it," said the cacique, "but all the same
it's a place they want to go to very much, where they can keep plenty of
sheep and horses upon grass richer than the grass of the Chusca
Mountains. But they think, silly fools, that before they can get to this
good place they have to cross a dreadful dark river that it is very hard
to get over. If they can't get over they think that they must wander
about for ever in cold and dark and misery. And they think that there is
in the next world a wonderful old woman, whom they call Whailahay, and
she lives there and knows all the fords of this river, and without her
help no one can get over it. So they all want to please her very much.
But, you see, Whailahay is a woman, and is very angry if women are
ill-treated, at least so they think; and then, if they haven't let the
women on earth have their own way in everything, and do just what they
please, Whailahay is very cross with the men, and she won't help them to
get across the dreadful dark river to the good place when they die, but
leaves them to starve for ever, wandering about shivering and wretched.
It is a most foolish story, and the result is that the Navajos spoil
their women entirely. They dare not lay a hand on them to keep them in
proper order"; he looked full in Stephens's eyes as he said this, and
Stephens looked in his eyes, and each knew the other was thinking of the
beating of Josefa.
"No, they dare not touch them in any way against their will," continued
the cacique, "and the women are masters of the men, and all in
consequence of a foolish story about an old witch. Don't you think it is
a foolish story, Sooshiuamo?"
Stephens's heart bounded with exultation, and he felt as if a heavy load
were lifted from his breast.
"Foolish!" he cried, turning in his saddle with a triumphant laugh of
joy, "why, Cacique, don't you see, if that's so she'll be safe. Foolish!
I think it's the very best story I ever heard in my life. Bully for old
Madam Whailahay!"