Майн Рид
Headless Horseman
Chapter Seventy Nine. An Untiring Tracker.
Zeb was not long in arriving at the spot where he had “hitched” his mare. The topography of the chapparal was familiar to him; and he crossed it by a less circuitous route than that taken by the cripple.
He once more threw himself upon the trail of the broken shoe, in full belief that it would fetch out not a hundred miles from Casa del Corvo.
It led him along a road running almost direct from one of the crossings of the Rio Grande to Fort Inge. The road was a half-mile in width — a thing not uncommon in Texas, where every traveller selects his own path, alone looking to the general direction.
Along one edge of it had gone the horse with the damaged shoe.
Not all the way to Fort Inge. When within four or five miles of the post, the trail struck off from the road, at an angle of just such degree as followed in a straight line would bring out by Poindexter’s plantation. So confident was Zeb of this, that he scarce deigned to keep his eye upon the ground; but rode forwards, as if a finger-post was constantly by his side.
He had long before given up following the trail afoot. Despite his professed contempt for “horse-fixings” — as he called riding — he had no objection to finish his journey in the saddle — fashed as he now was with the fatigue of protracted trailing over prairie and through chapparal. Now and then only did he cast a glance upon the ground — less to assure himself he was on the track of the broken shoe, than to notice whether something else might not be learnt from the sign, besides its mere direction.
There were stretches of the prairie where the turf, hard and dry, had taken no impression. An ordinary traveller might have supposed himself the first to pass over the ground. But Zeb Stump was not of this class; and although he could not always distinguish the hoof marks, he knew within an inch where they would again become visible — on the more moist and softer patches of the prairie.
If at any place conjecture misled him, it was only for a short distance, and he soon corrected himself by a traverse.
In this half-careless, half-cautious way, he had approached within a mile of Poindexter’s plantation. Over the tops of the mezquite trees the crenelled parapet was in sight; when something he saw upon the ground caused a sudden change in his demeanour. A change, too, in his attitude; for instead of remaining on the back of his mare, he flung himself out of the saddle; threw the bridle upon her neck; and, rapidly passing in front of her, commenced taking up the trail afoot.
The mare made no stop, but continued on after him — with an air of resignation, as though she was used to such eccentricities.
To an inexperienced eye there was nothing to account for this sudden dismounting. It occurred at a place where the turf appeared untrodden by man, or beast. Alone might it be inferred from Zeb’s speech, as he flung himself out of the saddle:
“His track! goin’ to hum!” were the words muttered in a slow, measured tone; after which, at a slower pace, the dismounted hunter kept on along the trail.
In a little time after it conducted him into the chapparal; and in less to a stop — sudden, as if the thorny thicket had been transformed into a chevaux-de-frise, impenetrable both to him and his “critter.”
It was not this. The path was still open before him — more open than ever. It was its openness that had furnished him with a cause for discontinuing his advance.
The path sloped down into a valley below — a depression in the prairie, along the concavity of which, at times, ran a tiny stream — ran arroyo. It was now dry, or only occupied by stagnant pools, at long distances apart. In the mud-covered channel was a man, with a horse close behind him — the latter led by the bridle.
There was nothing remarkable in the behaviour of the horse; he was simply following the lead of his dismounted rider.
But the man — what was he doing? In his movements there was something peculiar — something that would have puzzled an uninitiated spectator.
It did not puzzle Zeb Stump; or but for a second of time.
Almost the instant his eye fell upon it, he read the meaning of the manoeuvre, and mutteringly pronounced it to himself.
“Oblitturatin’ the print o’ the broken shoe, or tryin’ to do thet same! ’Taint no use, Mister Cash Calhoun — no manner o’ use. Ye’ve made yur fut marks too deep to deceive me; an by the Eturnal I’ll foller them, though they shed conduck me into the fires o’ hell?”
As the backwoodsman terminated his blasphemous apostrophe, the man to whom it pointed, having finished his task of obscuration, once more leaped into his saddle, and hurried on.
On foot the tracker followed; though without showing any anxiety about keeping him in sight.
There was no need for that. The sleuth hound on a fresh slot could not be more sure of again viewing his victim, than was Zeb Stump of coming up with his. No chicanery of the chapparal — no twistings or doublings — could save Calhoun now.
The tracker advanced freely; not expecting to make halt again, till he should come within sight of Casa del Corvo.
Little blame to him that his reckoning proved wrong. Who could have foretold such an interruption as that occasioned by the encounter between Cassius Calhoun and Isidora Covarubio de los Llanos?
Though at sight of it, taken by surprise — perhaps something more — Zeb did not allow his feelings to betray his presence near the spot.
On the contrary, it seemed to stimulate him to increased caution.
Turning noiselessly round, he whispered some cabalistic words into the care of his “critter;” and then stole silently forward under cover of the acacias.
Without remonstrance, or remark, the mare followed. He soon came to a fall stop — his animal doing the same, in imitation so exact as to appear its counterpart.
A thick growth of mezquite trees separated him from the two individuals, by this time engaged in a lively interchange of speech.
He could not see them, without exposing himself to the danger of being detected in his eaves-dropping; but he heard what they said all the same.
He kept his place — listening till the horse trade was concluded, and for some time after.
Only when they had separated, and both taken departure did he venture to come forth from his cover.
Standing upon the spot lately occupied by the “swoppers,” and looking “both ways at once,” he exclaimed —
“Geehosophat! thur’s a compack atween a he an’ she-devil; an’ durn’d ef I kin tell, which hez got the bessest o’ the bargin!”
Chapter Eighty. A Doorway Well Watched.
It was some time before Zeb Stump sallied forth from the covert where he had been witness to the “horse swop.” Not till both the bargainers had ridden entirely out of sight. Then he went not after either; but stayed upon the spot, as if undecided which he should follow.
It was not exactly this that kept him to the place; but the necessity of taking what he was in the habit of calling a “good think.”
His thoughts were about the exchange of the horses: for he had heard the whole dialogue relating thereto, and the proposal coming from Calhoun. It was this that puzzled, or rather gave him reason for reflection. What could be the motive?
Zeb knew to be true what the Mexican had said: that the States horse was, in market value, worth far more than the mustang. He knew, moreover, that Cassius Calhoun was the last man to be “coped” in a horse trade. Why, then, had he done the “deal?”
The old hunter pulled off his felt hat; gave his hand a twist or two through his unkempt hair; transferred the caress to the grizzled beard upon his chin — all the while gazing upon the ground, as if the answer to his mental interrogatory was to spring out of the grass.
“Thur air but one explication o’t,” he at length muttered: “the grey’s the faster critter o’ the two — ne’er a doubt ’beout thet; an Mister Cash wants him for his fastness: else why the durnation shed he a gin a hoss thet ’ud sell for four o’ his sort in any part o’ Texas, an twicet thet number in Mexiko? I reck’n he’s bargained for the heels. Why? Durn me, ef I don’t suspect why. He wants — he — heigh — I hev it — somethin’ as kin kum up wi’ the Headless!
“Thet’s the very thing he’s arter — sure as my name’s Zeb’lon Stump. He’s tried the States hoss an foun’ him slow. Thet much I knowd myself. Now he thinks, wi’ the mowstang, he may hev a chance to overhaul the tother, ef he kin only find him agin; an for sartin he’ll go in sarch o’ him.
“He’s rad on now to Casser Corver — maybe to git a pick o’ somethin’ to eat. He won’t stay thur long. ’Fore many hours hev passed, somebody ’ll see him out hyur on the purayra; an thet somebody air boun’ to be Zeb’lon Stump.
“Come, ye critter!” he continued, turning to the mare, “ye thort ye wur a goin’ hum, did ye? Yur mistaken ’beout that. Ye’ve got to squat hyur for another hour or two — if not the hul o’ the night. Never mind, ole gurl! The grass don’t look so had; an ye shell hev a chance to git yur snout to it. Thur now — eet your durned gut-full!”
While pronouncing this apostrophe, he drew the head-stall over the ears of his mare; and, chucking the bridle across the projecting tree of the saddle, permitted her to graze at will.
Having secured her in the chapparal where he had halted, he walked on — along the track taken by Calhoun.
Two hundred yards farther on, and the jungle terminated. Beyond stretched an open plain; and on its opposite side could be seen the hacienda of Casa del Corvo.
The figure of a horseman could be distinguished against its whitewashed façade — in another moment lost within the dark outline of the entrance.
Zeb knew who went in.
“From this place,” he muttered, “I kin see him kum out; an durn me, ef I don’t watch till he do kum out — ef it shed be till this time o’ the morrow. So hyur goes for a spell o’ patience.”
He first lowered himself to his knees. Then, “squirming” round till his back came in contact with the trunk of a honey-locust, he arranged himself into a sitting posture. This done, he drew from his capacious pocket a wallet, containing a “pone” of corn-bread, a large “hunk” of fried “hog-meat,” and a flask of liquor, whose perfume proclaimed it “Monongahela.”
Having eaten about half the bread, and a like quantity of the meat, he returned the remaining moieties to the wallet; which he suspended over head upon a branch. Then taking a satisfactory swig from the whiskey-flask, and igniting his pipe, he leant back against the locust — with arms folded over his breast, and eyes bent upon the gateway of Casa del Corvo.
In this way he kept watch for a period of full two hours; never changing the direction of his glance; or not long enough for any one to pass out unseen by him.
Forms came out, and went in — several of them — men and women. But even in the distance their scant light-coloured garments, and dusky complexions, told them to be only the domestics of the mansion. Besides, they were all on foot; and he, for whom Zeb was watching, should come on horseback — if at all.
His vigil was only interrupted by the going down of the sun; and then only to cause a change in his post of observation. When twilight began to fling its purple shadows over the plain, he rose to his feet; and, leisurely unfolding his tall figure, stood upright by the stem of the tree — as if this attitude was more favourable for “considering.”
“Thur’s jest a posserbillity the skunk mout sneak out i’ the night?” was his reflection. “Leastways afore the light o’ the mornin’; an I must make sure which way he takes purayra.
“’Taint no use my toatin’ the maar after me,” he continued, glancing in the direction where the animal had been left. “She’d only bother me. Beside, thur’s goin’ to be a clurrish sort o’ moonlight; an she mout be seen from the nigger quarter. She’ll be better hyur — both for grass and kiver.”
He went back to the mare; took off the saddle; fastened the trail-rope round her neck, tying the other end to a tree; and then, unstrapping his old blanket from the cantle, he threw it across his left arm, and walked off in the direction of Casa del Corvo.
He did not proceed pari passu; but now quicker, and now more hesitatingly — timing himself, by the twilight — so that his approach might not be observed from the hacienda.
He had need of this caution: for the ground which he had to pass was like a level lawn, without copse or cover of any kind. Here and there stood a solitary tree — dwarf-oak or algarobia, but not close enough to shelter him from being seen through the windows — much less from the azotea.
Now and then he stopped altogether — to wait for the deepening of the twilight.
Working his way in this stealthy manner, he arrived within less than two hundred yards of the walls — just as the last trace of sunlight disappeared from the sky.
He had reached the goal of his journey — for that day — and the spot on which he was likely to pass the night.
A low stemless bush grew near; and, laying himself down behind it, he resumed the espionage, that could scarce be said to have been interrupted.
Throughout the live-long night Zeb Stump never closed both eyes at the same time. One was always on the watch; and the unflagging earnestness, with which he maintained it, proclaimed him to be acting under the influence of some motive beyond the common.
During the earlier hours he was not without sounds to cheer, or at least relieve, the monotony of his lonely vigil. There was the hum of voices from the slave cabins; with now and then a peal of laughter. But this was more suppressed than customary; nor was it accompanied by the clear strain of the violin, or the lively tink-a-tink of the banjo — sounds almost characteristic of the “negro-quarter,” at night.
The sombre silence that hung over the “big house” extended to the hearths of its sable retainers.
Before midnight the voices became hushed, and stillness reigned everywhere; broken only at intervals by the howl of a straying hound — uttered in response to the howl-bark of a coyoté taking care to keep far out upon the plain.
The watcher had spent a wearisome day, and could have slept — but for his thoughts. Once when these threatened to forsake him, and he was in danger of dozing, he started suddenly to his feet; took a turn or two over the sward; and, then lying down again, re-lit his pipe; stuck his head into the heart of the bush; and smoked away till the bowl was burnt empty.
During all this time, he kept his eyes upon the great gateway of the mansion; whose massive door — he could tell by the moonlight shining upon it — remained shut.
Again did he change his post of observation; the sun’s rising — as its setting had done — seeming to give him the cue.
As the first tint of dawn displayed itself on the horizon, he rose gently to his feet; clutched the blanket so as to bring its edges in contact across his breast; and, turning his back upon Casa del Corvo, walked slowly away — taking the same track by which he had approached it on the preceding night.
And again with unequal steps: at short intervals stopping and looking back — under his arm, or over his shoulder.
Nowhere did he make a prolonged pause; until reaching the locust-tree, under whose shade he had made his evening meal; and there, in the same identical attitude, he proceeded to break his fast.
The second half of the “pone” and the remaining moiety of the pork, soon disappeared between his teeth; after which followed the liquor that had been left in his flask.
He had refilled his pipe, and was about relighting it, when an object came before his eyes, that caused him hastily to return his flint and steel to the pouch from which he had taken them.
Through the blue mist of the morning the entrance of Casa del Corvo showed a darker disc. The door had been drawn open.
Almost at the same instant a horseman was seen to sally forth, mounted upon a small grey horse; and the door was at once closed behind him.
Zeb Stump made no note of this. He only looked to see what direction the early traveller would take.
Less than a score of seconds sufficed to satisfy him. The horse’s head and the face of the rider were turned towards himself.
He lost no time in trying to identify either. He did not doubt of its being the same man and horse, that had passed that spot on the evening before; and he was equally confident they were going to pass it again.
What he did was to shamble up to his mare; in some haste get her saddled and bridled; and then, having taken up his trail rope, lead her off into a cover — from which he could command a view of the chapparal path, without danger of being himself seen.
This done, he awaited the arrival of the traveller on the grey steed — whom he knew to be Captain Cassius Calhoun.
He waited still longer — until the latter had trotted past; until he had gone quite through the belt of chapparal, and in the hazy light of the morning gradually disappeared on the prairie beyond.
Not till then did Zeb Stump clamber into his saddle; and, “prodding” his solitary spur against the ribs of his roadster, cause the latter to move on.
He went after Cassius Calhoun; but without showing the slightest concern about keeping the latter in sight!
He needed not this to guide him. The dew upon the grass was to him a spotless page — the tracks of the grey mustang a type, as legible as the lines of a printed book.
He could read them at a trot; ay, going at a gallop!
Chapter Eighty One. Heads Down — Heels Up!
Without suspicion that he had been seen leaving the house — except by Pluto, who had saddled the grey mustang — Calhoun rode on across the prairie.
Equally unsuspicious was he, in passing the point where Zeb Stump stood crouching in concealment.
In the dim light of the morning he supposed himself unseen by human eye; and he recked not of any other.
After parting from the timbered border, he struck off towards the Nueces; riding at a brisk trot — now and then increasing to a canter.
Por the first six or eight miles he took but little note of aught that was around. An occasional glance along the horizon seemed to satisfy him; and this extended only to that portion of the vast circle before his face. He looked neither to the right nor the left; and only once behind — after getting some distance from the skirt of the chapparal.
Before him was the object — still unseen — upon which his thoughts were straying.
What that object was he and only one other knew — that other Zeb Stump — though little did Calhoun imagine that mortal man could have a suspicion of the nature of his early errand.
The old hunter had only conjectured it; but it was a conjecture of the truth of which he was as certain, as if the ex-captain had made him his confidant. He knew that the latter had gone off in search of the Headless Horseman — in hopes of renewing the chase of yesterday, with a better chance of effecting a capture.
Though bestriding a steed fleet as a Texan stag, Calhoun was by no means sanguine of success. There were many chances against his getting sight of the game he intended to take: at least two to one; and this it was that formed the theme of his reflections as he rode onward.
The uncertainty troubled him; but he was solaced by a hope founded upon some late experiences.
There was a particular place where he had twice encountered the thing he was in search of. It might be there again?
This was an embayment of green sward, where the savannah was bordered by the chapparal, and close to the embouchure of that opening — where it was supposed the murder had been committed!
“Odd he should always make back there?” reflected Calhoun, as he pondered upon the circumstance. “Damned ugly odd it is! Looks as if he knew — . Bah! It’s only because the grass is better, and that pond by the side of it. Well! I hope he’s been thinking that way this morning. If so, there’ll be a chance of finding him. If not, I must go on through the chapparal; and hang me if I like it — though it be in the daylight. Ugh!
“Pish! what’s there to fear — now that he’s safe in limbo? Nothing but the bit of lead; and it I must have, if I should ride this thing till it drops dead in its tracks. Holy Heaven! what’s that out yonder?”
These last six words were spoken aloud. All the rest had been a soliloquy in thought.
The speaker, on pronouncing them, pulled up, almost dragging the mustang on its haunches; and with eyes that seemed ready to start from their sockets, sate gazing across the plain.
There was something more than surprise in that stedfast glance — there was horror.
And no wonder: for the spectacle upon which it rested was one to terrify the stoutest heart.
The sun had stolen up above the horizon of the prairie, and was behind the rider’s back, in the direct line of the course he had been pursuing. Before him, along the heaven’s edge, extended a belt of bluish mist — the exhalation arising out of the chapparal — now not far distant. The trees themselves were unseen — concealed under the film floating over them, that like a veil of purple gauze, rose to a considerable height above their tops — gradually merging into the deeper azure of the sky.
On this veil, or moving behind it — as in the transparencies of a stage scene — appeared a form strange enough to have left the spectator incredulous, had he not beheld it before. It was that of the Headless Horseman.
But not as seen before — either by Calhoun himself, or any of the others. No. It was now altogether different. In shape the same; but in size it was increased to tenfold its original dimensions!
No longer a man, but a Colossus — a giant. No longer a horse, but an animal of equine shape, with the towering height and huge massive bulk of a mastodon!
Nor was this all of the new to be noted about the Headless Horseman. A still greater change was presented in his appearance; one yet more inexplicable, if that could possibly be. He was no longer walking upon the ground, but against the sky; both horse and rider moving in an inverted position! The hoofs of the former were distinctly perceptible upon the upper edge of the film; while the shoulders — I had almost said head — of the latter were close down to the line of the horizon! The serapé shrouding them hung in the right direction — not as regarded the laws of gravity, but the attitude of the wearer. So, too, the bridle reins, the mane, and sweeping tail of the horse. All draped upwards!
When first seen, the spectral form — now more spectre-like than ever — was going at a slow, leisurely walk. In this pace it for some time continued — Calhoun gazing upon it with a heart brimful of horror.
All of a sudden it assumed a change. Its regular outlines became confused by a quick transformation; the horse having turned, and gone off at a trot in the opposite direction, though still with his heels against the sky!
The spectre had become alarmed, and was retreating!
Calhoun, half palsied with fear, would have kept his ground, and permitted it to depart, but for his own horse; that, just then shying suddenly round, placed him face to face with the explanation.
As he turned, the tap of a shod hoof upon the prairie turf admonished him that a real horseman was near — if that could be called real, which had thrown such a frightful shadow.
“It’s the mirage!” he exclaimed, with the addition of an oath to give vent to his chagrin. “What a fool I’ve been to let it humbug me! There’s the damned thing that did it: the very thing I’m in search of. And so close too! If I’d known, I might have got hold of him before he saw me. Now for a chase; and, by God, I’ll grup him, if I have to gallop to the other end of Texas!”
Voice, spur, and whip were simultaneously exerted to prove the speaker’s earnestness; and in five minutes after, two horsemen were going at full stretch across the prairie — their horses both to the prairie born — one closely pursuing the other — the pursued without a head; the pursuer with a heart that throbbed under a desperate determination.
The chase was not a long one — at least, so far as it led over the open prairie; and Calhoun had begun to congratulate himself on the prospect of a capture.
His horse appeared the swifter; but this may have arisen from his being more earnestly urged; or that the other was not sufficiently scared to care for escaping. Certainly the grey steed gained ground — at length getting so close, that Calhoun made ready his rifle.
His intention was to shoot the horse down, and so put an end to the pursuit.
He would have fired on the instant, but for the fear of a miss. But having made more than one already, he restrained himself from pulling trigger, till he could ride close enough to secure killing shot.
While thus hesitating, the chase veered suddenly from off the treeless plain, and dashed into the opening of the timber.
This movement, unexpected by the pursuer, caused him to lose ground; and in the endeavour to regain it, more than a half mile of distance was left behind him.
He was approaching a spot well, too well, known to him — the place where blood had been spilt.
On any other occasion he would have shunned it; but there was in his heart a thought that hindered him from dwelling upon memories of the past — steeling it against all reflection, except a cold fear for the future. The capture of the strange equestrian could alone allay this fear — by removing the danger he dreaded.
Once more he had gained ground in the chase. The spread nostrils of his steed were almost on a line with the sweeping tail of that pursued. His rifle lay ready in his left hand, its trigger guard covered by the fingers of his right. He was searching for a spot to take aim at.
In another second the shot would have been fired, and a bullet sent between the ribs of the retreating horse, when the latter, as if becoming aware of the danger, made a quick curvet to the off side; and then, aiming a kick at the snout of his pursuer, bounded on in a different direction!
The suddenness of the demonstration, with the sharp, spiteful “squeal” that accompanied it — appearing almost to speak of an unearthly intelligence — for the moment disconcerted Calhoun; as it did the horse he was riding.
The latter came to a stop; and refused to go farther; till the spur, plunged deep between his ribs, once more forced him to the gallop.
And now more earnestly than ever did his rider urge him on; for the pursued, no longer keeping to the path, was heading direct for the thicket. The chase might there terminate, without the chased animal being either killed or captured.
Hitherto Calhoun had only been thinking of a trial of speed. He had not anticipated such an ending, as was now both possible and probable; and with a more reckless resolve, he once more raised his rifle for the shot.
By this time both were close in to the bushes — the Headless Horseman already half-screened by the leafy branches that swept swishing along his sides. Only the hips of his horse could be aimed at; and upon these was the gun levelled.
The sulphureous smoke spurted forth from its muzzle; the crack was heard simultaneously; and, as if caused by the discharge, a dark object came whirling through the cloud, and fell with a dull “thud” upon the turf.
With a bound and a roll — that brought it among the feet of Calhoun’s horse — it became stationary.
Stationary, but not still. It continued to oscillate from side to side, like a top before ceasing to spin.
The grey steed snorted, and reared back. His rider uttered a cry of intensified alarm.
And no wonder. If read in Shakespearean lore, he might have appropriately repeated the words “Shake not those gory locks”: for, on the ground beneath, was the head of a man — still sticking in its hat — whose stiff orbicular brim hindered it from staying still.
The face was toward Calhoun — upturned at just such an angle as to bring it full before him. The features were bloodstained, wan, and shrivelled; the eyes open, but cold and dim, like balls of blown glass; the teeth gleaming white between livid lips, yet seemingly set in an expression of careless contentment.
All this saw Cassius Calhoun.
He saw it with fear and trembling. Not for the supernatural or unknown, but for the real and truly comprehended.
Short was his interview with that silent, but speaking head. Ere it had ceased to oscillate on the smooth sward, he wrenched his horse around; struck the rowels deep; and galloped away from the ground!
No farther went he in pursuit of the Headless Horseman — still heard breaking through the bushes — but back — back to the prairie; and on, on, to Casa del Corvo!
