A CRUISE IN NORTHERN MEXICO.--VI.
On this occasion we encountered in his shop a character well known in
this part of the world, one "Apache Bill" by name, who was at present
residing in Ascension, but had been absent when we previously passed
through the town. "Apache" was a ragged, six-foot, dark-eyed,
dark-haired, bottle-nosed, bibulous-looking, able-bodied "loafer," who
wore mocassins _in town_, and whose hands were never out of his pockets
save for the purpose of lifting a glass, rolling a cigarette, or making
an elaborate bow. He had a glib tongue, and spoke Spanish admirably,
with the language having picked up something of the flowery politeness,
though not the dignity, of the better class of native. It is odd how
often good linguists lack common sense and stability. I have noticed
this frequently all the world over. A trim tongue and a ragged coat is
always a suspicious combination anyhow, and this instance was no
exception to the rule. Bill was a fine, candid, unaffected liar. I have
encountered many men celebrated for their address in the ways of
untruthfulness, who, to keep him in sight, would have been forced to
take a long pull at the bottle, and launch out very recklessly indeed.
His artless style reminded me a good deal of a Levantine servant that I
once had, who had a great gift in this way, and who, upon my
remonstrating energetically with him one day for so constantly abusing
it, said plaintively: "Mais, Monsieur, c'est mon habitude."
Apache had worked once on a ranch of the Colonel's, but finding that
cattle were not to be handled by the simple exercise of eloquence, nor
posts set and pastures fenced in by the profession of virtuous
convictions, had not remained long in his service. When I say "worked,"
I believe I do him an injustice. It is not on record that he ever did
that, save on one occasion, and this was when the authorities at
Ascension condemned him to provide a dollar a day to keep and cure a
Mexican whom he had wounded in a drunken brawl. Dollars were not easily
earned there, for labour was cheap, and a dollar a day for lying in bed
was the best billet that that Mexican had ever had. As may be supposed,
he was in no hurry to get well, and the matter (over which Bill waxed
positively tearful when he alluded to it) was long the subject of
amusement and laughter in the neighbourhood.
At one time he had been chief of scouts in an Apache war, his knowledge
of the country in Northern Mexico being really considerable. In this
capacity he had been brought into contact with Navajo Bill. The
patronising style in which he talked of this personage was delicious.
"Navajo Willy?" he said; "oh, yes, I know Willy--a good boy, sir, a good
boy!--ignorant, of course--no education, you know, sir; but he means
well--he does what he can. He served under me once, but I found him
quite useless. If I sent him out anywhere, he only got lost. However, I
wasn't hard on him. We were down at Lake Palomas once, and General Bewel
wanted a messenger to take a note over to a detachment of troops camped
about ten miles off. So I started Willy off. I showed him the way
myself. But it was no good--not a bit. In two hours he came back; _he_
couldn't find it. I sent a Mexican then, and when he brought the answer,
I gave it to Willy. 'Here, Willy,' said I, 'take it to Bewel and say
that you fetched it.'"
In point of age there was but little to choose between the two Bills,
both being men of about five-and-forty. In conversational talents there
was also some resemblance between them, although, in all other
particulars, Navajo was an immeasurably better man than his former
chief.
Apache's anxiety in behalf of his children was very touching. Paternal
solicitude was a fine theme for him, and he often enlarged upon it.
"There's the boys," he would say, "they're growing up, sir, and down
here I can't give them the education they ought to have. I want to take
'em back to do their schooling in the States. If I could only get some
regular work there--I shouldn't care how hard it was, or how poor the
pay was--I would slave like a nigger to get my children well educated.
And there's the girls; this ain't any place to raise girls; they don't
get any virtue into 'em here. It ain't right. I do what I can, of
course; I try to teach 'em what's right, and I set 'em a good example.
'Be good to your mother, boys,' I always say; 'think of your mother, and
be kind to her. If you get any money, give her half. And be honest! No
matter how poor a man is, let him be honest.' My honour--my honour is
what I look at! And I try to bring the boys up the same way. Am I right,
gentlemen?--I leave it to you." We naturally applauded these noble
sentiments. "Well, then, let's take a drink on it--let's hit her a
lick;" and reaching for the bottle, he would proceed to fill all our
glasses, and his own too.
He formally introduced us to every other man who entered the shop,
usually concluding the introduction with some such remark as: "This is a
good man, gentlemen; he used to be _presidente_ of the town. Treat him,
gentlemen; he may be useful to you some day." Treating the new
acquaintance necessitated treating Bill as well. I merely note this as a
coincidence, and do not in the least degree wish to insinuate that any
base thought of self influenced his interest in our welfare.
To pass the time in the evening we had him into our room to talk to us;
and, as he had never seen Joe before, represented the latter as being a
"tender-foot," or new-comer on the frontier. Since Joe was much better
dressed than the rest of us, and, talking but little, did not betray his
familiarity with frontier life, Apache believed us, and anxious to
astonish "a gentleman from New York," surpassed himself. We had provided
a bottle of _mascal_ to prime him with, but maliciously delayed
producing it. By degrees, as he talked, his throat got drier and drier;
he coughed and expectorated, and expectorated and coughed, and crossed
first one leg and then the other, shifting in his seat, and fidgeting to
such an extent that finally Don Cabeza could bear the exhibition of so
much torture no longer, and told Navajo to hand him the bottle. With a
look of gratitude that would have softened the heart of a Thug, Bill
raised it to his lips. When he set it down again he had almost exchanged
conditions with it. Now he was another man, and for the benefit of the
"tender-foot," he "spread himself."
"Tracks! Well, when it came to tracking, he believed that he 'took the
cake.' Tracks! ----! Why, he could tell whether they were made by a
horse or a mare, and there was a slight difference, too, in geldings'
tracks, which he would be only too glad to show the gentleman any day.
He could tell whether the horse that he was tracking ran loose, or was
ridden, packed, or led, and whether it belonged to a white man or an
Indian. He could tell from the 'sign,' what part of the country, even
what particular ranch it had fed on. It was a fact, that when he had
handled cattle in Colorado, and in a part, too, where half-a-dozen herds
ran together, and ranged over the same country, he had never wasted time
in following up strays belonging to his neighbours, because he knew the
track of every hoof in his own herd!"
But enough of Bill! He was fairly started now, and he did himself
credit. _In vino veritas_, they say. But in Apache there was no
_veritas_, and so the _mascal_ could not affect him in this way. I have
often thought that this proverb would have made an excellent text for
one of Charles Lamb's "Popular Fallacies."
One of the horses fell sick during the night, and it became necessary to
purchase a substitute before we set out next morning. This delayed us
for some time. When finally we started with the invalid in tow, the
Colonel discovered an ambition to invent a short cut, which took us
three or four miles astray. Returning, we had proceeded a mile or more
along the road that we did know, when it was found that the grain-sack
had been left behind, and consequently we were forced to go back to
Ascension. We had started a little "on edge" that morning, and we
reappeared at Don Juan's in the severest silence. Unconscious of his
danger, that worthy taunted us with our oversight and made merry at our
expense.
"He's taking big chances if he only knew it, ain't he?" said Navajo
grimly, jerking his thumb towards Juan.
"Don't you feel, Joe, like getting down and beating him up a little,
eh?" drawled the Colonel. "Couldn't you swing him around by the heels
some--dust the side-walk, and knock a few flies off the wall with him?"
"No," replied Joe sturdily; "I haven't got any kick against Don Juan. He
has treated us like a gentleman. _He_ didn't leave the grain behind, and
_he_ didn't take us any short cut. Quite right, Don Juan, 'No valle
nada,' these chaps, eh?--They can't remember anything."
But long before we pitched camp in the evening, we had had a hearty
laugh over the morning clouds.
The Boca Grande was an "Indian place," and strategically speaking there
was no point in it that was fit to camp in, no point where, aided by
cotton-woods, willow-bushes, cane-brake, long grass, broken ground, or
the river bed, a band of Indians might not have approached unobserved
within a few yards of a traveller. We trusted to luck, therefore, and
chose a site without reference to the Apaches. The odds, of course, were
always long against their showing at any given place, but there was
never any certainty about it; and this was one of their haunts.
"Indians!" said the Colonel when some one alluded to them. "Well, if I
kill four I shall be satisfied. If they come we can't help it; but
they'd better not!--they won't. They know more in a day than we could
tell them in a week. What a battle it would be, though, if they did
come! Gettysburg and those kind would be just flirtations to it. There'd
be you charging 'em; and Navajo, he'd get around behind them, and take
them in rear, and scare the quill feathers out of them. And there'd be
Joe raking them fore and aft, and enfilading them, and out-manoeuvring
them, and reconnoitring and changing his front, and just a-sousing it to
them red-hot all the time. And as for me, I'd sit right here on this
stone, under the bank, and sing to them, just to lure them on, like the
Lorelei, and let you boys have all the glory of killing them. Or, maybe,
I'd get on one of the six-shooter horses--a six-shooter horse is a heap
better than a six-shooting gun in these cases--I'd get on one of them
and go right back to Ascension to fetch up some help for you. I'm not
wanting to put myself forward, anyhow; there isn't anything mean about
me."
"That'd be all right, Colonel," said Navajo; "we should know where to
find you when there was any fighting to be done. The boys do say that
you're on hand _then_--sure!"
"How do you want these potatoes cut up?" irrelevantly inquired Joe, who
was phlegmatically attending to business, and peeling some potatoes for
supper.
"Cut them up just as you'd cut up the Apaches, Joe," said the Colonel.
"Well, how are they going to be cooked?"
"Saratoga chips are good enough for me," suggested the modest Navajo.
"Saratoga chips go then. Joe, you hear what the gentleman says,"
observed Don Cabeza. He was "bossing" the cooking himself that evening,
and at that moment was engaged in stirring some beans that he was frying
in the Mexican style, bacon-fat being substituted for lard. Cook-like he
tasted them now. "Well, there!" he ejaculated admiringly--"there! When I
get through with this, it will make you laugh. You boys won't know
whether you are here, or sitting at the corner table at Delmonico's."
"No," said Joe, with a twinkle of dry humour in his kindly eyes, "we
shan't know the difference. I always have beans and bacon-fat at
Delmonico's--when there's enough to go round, that is."
"If we had only got into camp earlier, we might have shot some ducks,"
regretted Bill.
"There isn't anybody here that could have made a duck stew," remarked
Joe gravely.
"Can you make a duck stew, Colonel?" I asked laughingly--for this was
his _chef-d'oeuvre_ in culinary art.
"Can I make a duck stew! Can I make a _duck_ stew!" he echoed
rapturously. "Well, you may talk about your chickabiddies, and you
chickaweewees, and your Smart Alicks, and your Joe-dandies and daisies,
but when it comes to making a duck stew, I'm a darling! I can show you a
trick with a hole in it. I don't want to make any boast about it,
though; I can't help cooking well any more than Joe can help cooking
badly. It's a gift. But duck stews! Lord! I can make a stew with ducks,
and teal, and snipe, and potatoes, and chilies, and--and things of that
kind, that will make a rheumatic man go out after dinner, and begin
jumping backwards and forwards over the house, he'll feel so good."
Joe grunted disparagingly. "If it weren't any better than this coffee,
he wouldn't jump far before he lay down and died," he observed, grimly.
"The coffee is bad," assented the _chef_; "it's bad coffee. But all that
you have to do, Joe, is to step right down to the store, close by here,
and get some more. There is no reason why you should put up with
anything bad when you're camping out in the middle of a big city like
this." And he proceeded to prove conclusively, that the fact that the
coffee was of inferior quality, was entirely the fault of the Deming
store-keeper.
"When we get back, then, we must just drive up and shoot the handle off
his door," said Joe cheerfully.
"Why, cer'nly," chimed in Navajo; "like those chaps used to up to Lone
Mountain."
The particular incident to which he referred had taken place at a little
mining village in New Mexico. It had become a custom amongst certain of
the miners, when they came into town on Sunday "to have a time," sooner
or later in the day to indulge in revolver practice at the handle of the
door of Platt's saloon. Platt could not be said exactly to have
encouraged this; but since it brought him custom, and opposition might
have transferred the attentions of his clients from the door-handle to
himself, he submitted to it with more or less grace. One day he engaged
a quiet and industrious youth--a Dutch boy--to assist him in his
business, and as he intended to be absent from home on the following
Sunday, he informed him of the above circumstance. The good youth
evinced a disposition to resist the ungodly miners. Upon the whole,
Platt counselled him not to do so, but at his request left a Winchester
and six-shooter with him, and gave him free permission to exercise his
own discretion in the matter. On Saturday evening the young bar-tender
removed an adobe brick from the wall beside the door, and commending
himself to Heaven, slept peacefully, confident of the justice of his
cause. The following morning the miners appeared as usual in town, and
drank freely. But when the boy demanded payment for what he supplied
them with, they took advantage of his youth, and replied that "There was
no hurry about it, for he was still young; they thought that they might
perhaps pay him some day. He might ask them again when his moustache had
grown a little mite." Things got lively, and finally they repaired to
the street and commenced shooting at the door-handle. This was where the
real trouble originated. But it was soon over. Putting the muzzle of his
Winchester through the loophole, the bar-tender began to shoot, too.
When he had finished, five of his late customers lay stretched out on
the road, four of whom died immediately, and the fifth shortly
afterwards. It is recorded that so pleased was Mr. Platt with his
assistant's devotion that he advanced him rapidly in his service, and
subsequently took him into partnership with him. I suppose that he
married his master's daughter eventually, and lived happily ever
afterwards.
The history is, probably, the American version of the everlasting tale
of that artful young clerk who dropped a pin unnoticed in the presence
of his master, the great merchant, and when the latter _was_ looking,
ostentatiously picked it up again and set it in the collar of his coat.
A rather amusing yarn followed this, detailing an incident that had
taken place at the little neighbouring village of Eureka. Mr. McKees,
the superintendent of a mine there, had nailed up a board notice outside
the office, forbidding revolver practice on the premises. News of this
was brought by some one who had seen it to a saloon hard by, where Black
Jack, Russian Bill, Broncho Billy, and some other well-known "rustlers"
were drinking.
"How's that for high, boys?" concluded the narrator, when he had told
his tale.
"That's on top," declared Black Jack; "that takes the cake. It's coming
to something, if a chap can't shoot his gun off where he likes in a free
country."
"It's a perfect outrage," said Broncho.
"Let's go right down and attend to it at once," proposed Russian Bill.
Black Jack assented, suggesting that Russian Bill, who was a scholar,
should read the notice aloud, and he himself then shoot it off.
They started, two or three of their associates, armed with Winchesters,
going with them, to occupy a position behind the "dump," near the mouth
of the shaft, and see fair play. Russian Bill having read the notice,
Black Jack drew a long six-shooter, and opened fire. The office was
constructed of boards, and afforded but little protection, therefore, to
its inmates. The first shot spoilt the leg of the chair in which the
superintendent of the mine was seated; the second lodged in his desk.
But Mr. McKees had already left the room, and gone to "take the air"
upon the hill-side, nor did he return until the nobility and gentry who
were visiting him had shot the board off, and carried the splinters away
in triumph.
Black Jack was a fine shot, and remarkably quick. He prided himself upon
his ability as a hair-cutter, and was jealous of any rivalry in this
line. A friend of his once had the temerity to advance his own claims to
distinction as a barber.
"Oh, pshaw, Jack!" he said, "I can cut hair every durned bit as good as
you."
But the words had scarcely left his lips when there was a report, and a
bullet ploughed through his locks, just grazing the skin, and leaving a
bald track.
"I guess you can't," rejoined Black Jack. "Look at that!"
Such tales as these are current coin out West, and the number of them in
circulation is countless. How far they are true no one can pretend to
say, nor does it matter much.
We sought the blankets early, and were up again before it was light;
indeed, by the time that
"Night was flung off like a mourning suit,
Worn for a husband or some other brute,"
we had almost finished breakfast.
The gray was worse to-day. As we proceeded he grew weaker and weaker,
and less and less disposed to follow, until, ten miles from Smith's
Wells, we were obliged to leave him. The halter was removed, and the
tried, but now tired out servant, that had been our companion on many a
long trip, was left alone in the midst of an arid plain. The breeze had
subsided; the afternoon was growing mellow and still; on the summit of a
rise, with the blue sky and sun behind him, the old nag stood still, in
mid trail, looking stupidly after us as we receded. Without changing his
position, he turned his head from side to side, to gaze around him at
the desert once. Then, seeming to have realised that we had deserted
him, and in that one brief survey of the ground to have recognised that
his position was hopeless, his glance followed us again. There was
something touching in the immovability with which he accepted the
situation.
It was easy to imagine a world of pathos in his heavy attitude and
lowered crest, to picture immeasurable reproach in his great swimming
eyes--eyes that had never looked viciously at any one. Poor beast! He
could not even ask: "Did I ever abandon you when you were sick?" Again
and again I looked back. The wheel-ruts and trail led my glance straight
to him. The black shadow cast before him on the ground seemed like a
thing of evil omen. He looked so forlorn. However simple the
illustration may be, there is always a fascination in the old, cruel
tale--Deserted. And to desert even a horse in extremity seems cowardly.
However, we yet expected to see him again.
"Has the old pillar of salt started after us?" inquired the Colonel
prosaically.
"No." Nor did he move as long as we remained in sight.
"He'll be along directly--just as soon as he has rested. You can't leave
those old cusses behind when they know the road."
Don Cabeza was right. Before we had finished supper at Smith's Wells,
the horse appeared at the drinking-trough there.
It was the last typical evening that I expected to spend on the
frontier, after nine months of almost uninterrupted life amongst
rancheros and miners, cow-boys and teamsters, gamblers and traders, and
all the nondescript flotsam and jetsam of humanity that drift "out West"
from the cradles of mankind, and find rough rest upon the shores of
unskilled labour. A curious kaleidoscopic field of character lies here.
Men grow as chance will have them. No rules of etiquette or fashions
trim and compress them into stereotyped moulds. At least they retain
some originality, and are not wholly copyists. Rough characters may be
found amongst the many fine fellows that one meets, and to spare--men
who are narrow-minded, bigoted, and intolerant to a degree that is
extraordinary. But since they make no pretence to be what they are not,
at least they are not vulgar or snobbish. However marked the faults in
any nature may be, if in the main it is natural, it can never be wholly
repulsive. The roughest cow-boy is a gentleman by comparison with the
effeminate New York dude, who copies his very soul from a flash model in
London, or the "society man" of San Francisco who in turn imitates the
dude. The one, at any rate, is true metal of its kind, the others are of
the poorest kind of pinchbeck.
There is a great charm in the climate "out West." The sun gilds
everything. It matters little how poor a cabin be, if the owner live
almost entirely outside it. Old Sol sheds a halo of contentment
everywhere. A scarcely minor attraction exists in the sense of freedom
and independence--of empire, in fact, that the vast stretches of open
country which occupy most of the West beget in the native of a land
where walls and hedges, gates, fences, and trespass notices bristle at
every turn, and create a constant and irritable impulse to lift the
elbows and draw deep breaths.
Supper was over, and news of the old gray's reappearance had taken us
out into the open air.
"The sun was gone now, the curled moon
Was like a little feather
Fluttering far down the gulf----."
A certain clear obscurity was gathering upon the _vega_; the outlines of
things were unnaturally distinct, but their shading was becoming
confused. Where the sun had set, still glowed a luminous field of amber
light. And in the vault thus formed hung tiny isolated clouds of various
tints like crushed blossoms from an Indian garden. Hills above hills and
long cloud-reefs were mingled together on the near horizon, and
stretched farther and farther away until the former resembled
silhouettes of tissue paper, the latter something even more delicate
still.
Sixty, seventy, eighty, a hundred miles of country lay before us. And
over all the twilight deepened, slowly invading even the mountain-tops,
where still some light clung tenderly. Once more the impalpable canopy
of darkness drooped over the quiet plains--tissues of gray dusk and soft
blue sky, shot with a silver thread of moonlight, all tasselled by dim
stars, and crossed by the filmy figure of a bat. With an amnesty of
sweet repose Night had begun her reign, but her dream subjects flocked
to her sable standard swiftly; the haunted air became filled with the
vague population of fancy, and Silence was revealed in all its eternal
nakedness, that for once Sound had lost the power to hide. It was a
strange night--a night when the spirits of Destiny seemed to hover near,
and Mystery to be half-indifferent even if her veil were lifted, and her
secrets penetrated--a night that inspired odd speculation. But the voice
of the coyote, baying unceasingly in the silence--fit symbol of human
interest in the world--kept calling us back, calling us back to earth,
and let no thought escape and fairly rise above the dust and ashes of
this life.
THE END.
CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.
End of Project Gutenberg's Saddle and Mocassin, by Francis Francis Jr.