The Guerilla Chief, and Other Tales

It was no great consolation to know, that much of that spoilation had been done by Mexicans themselves – the patrolled prisoners, who had gone up the road before us.

The same deteriorating influence had been at work upon their moral principles for a like period of time; and the intermittent glimpses they had got of a republic, had been too evanescent to have left behind much trace of its civilising power.

As we rode onward among the unburied dead, I was impressed by a singular circumstance. The corpse of no Mexican appeared to have suffered mutilation; while that of an American soldier, who had fallen by some stray shot, was stripped of its flesh – almost to the making a skeleton of it!

It was the work of wolves – we had no doubt about that. We several times saw the coyotes skulking under the edge of the chapparal, and at a greater distance the gaunt form of the large Mexican wolf. We saw great holes eaten in the hips of horses and mules; but not a scratch upon the corpse of a Mexican soldier!

“Why is it?” I asked of a singular personage who was riding immediately behind me, unattached to my troop, and whose experience over Texan and New Mexican battlefields I presumed would help me to an explanation. “Why is it that the wolves have left their bodies untouched?”

“Wagh!” exclaimed the individual thus interrogated, with an expression of scornful disgust suddenly overspreading his features. “Wolves eat ’em! No – nor coyot’s neyther. A coyot won’t eat skunk; an’ I reck’n thur karkidges aint less bitterer than the meat o’ a skunk.”

“You think there’s something in their flesh that the wolves don’t relish – something different from that of other people?”

“Think! I’m sartin sure o’t. I’ve see’d ’em die whar we killed ’em – when the Texans made their durned foolish expedishun northart to Santa Fé. I’ve seed ’em lyin’ out in the open paraira, for hul weeks at a time, till they had got dry as punk – jest like them things they bring from somewhar way out t’other side of the world. Durn it, I dis-remember the name o’ the place, an’ the things themselves. You know what I’m trackin’ up, Bill Garey? We seed ’em last time we wur at Sant Looey – in that ere queery place, whur they’d got Ingun things, an’ stuffed bufflers, an’ the like.”

“Mummeries?” replied the person thus appealed to, another unattached member of the corps of rifle-rangers. “Are that what you’re arter, old Rube?”

“Preezackly, Bill Mum’ries; ay, the name war that – I reccolex it. They gits the critters out o’ large stone buildin’s, shaped same as the rockly islands we seed, when we were trappin’ that lake out t’ords California.”

“Pyramids!” exclaimed the old trapper’s companion, in a tone indicative of a more enlightened mind. “Pyramids o’ Eegip! That’s where they get ’em – so the feller sayed, as showed ’em to us.”

“Wal, wherever they gets ’em. I don’t care a durn whur; but as I wur tellin’ the capten, I’ve seed dead Mexikins as like them mum’ries as one buffler air to another. I’ve seed ’em lie out thur on the dry paraira, an’ neer a coyot, nor a wolf, nor even a turkey-buzzart go near ’em, let alone eat o’ thur meat. That’s what I’ve seed, and so’ve you, Bill Garey.”

“Ye’re right, old hoss; I’ve seed what you says.”

“Wagh! what, then?” interrogated the first speaker, “what do ye konklude from thet?”

“Wal,” drawlingly responded his younger compeer; “I shed say by that thet thar meat warn’t eatable, nohow.”

“Ah! there you’d be right, Bill Garey. There ain’t a critter on all the paraira as will stick a tooth into the meat o’ a reg’lar Mexikin. Coyot won’t touch it; painter won’t go near it; or buzzart, that’ll eat the durndest gurbage as ever wur throwed out o’ a tent, – even to the flesh o’ a Injun – won’t dig its bill into the karkidge o’ a yeller-belly. I’ve seed it, an’ I knows it.”

“Well,” I said, yielding to a belief in this curious theory – not propounded to me for the first time – “how do you account for this predilection, or rather dégoût, on the part of the predatory animals?”

“Digou!” replied the old trapper; “if ye mean by that ’ere a hanger agin ’em, ’taint nothin’ o’ the sort. It be the pure stink o’ the anymal as keeps ’em off. How ked they be other’ise, eatin’ nothin’ but them red peppers, an’ thur garlic, an’ thur half-rotten jirk-meat? ’Taint a bit strange, I reckin, that neyther wolf nor buzzarts’ll have anythin’ to do wi’ their karkidges. Is it, Billee?”

“No,” replied the individual thus appealed to; “not a bit, though some other sort o’ anymal ’haint been so pertikler. If their skins hain’t been touched, somebody’s been tolerable close to ’em, an’ taken thar shirts. I calclate it’s been some o’ thar own people as have jest gone up the road.”

“An’ maybe some o’ ourn as well,” rejoined the old trapper, with a significant leer upon his wrinkled features. “Some o’ them don’t appear to be much better than the Mexikins ’emselves. Look’ee there, Cap’n!”

The speaker gave a slight inclination of his head, accompanied by an equally slight wave of the hand.

I looked in the direction indicated by this double gesture; and at once comprehended the purport of his insinuation.

Story 1, Chapter XVI

A Brace of Bad Fellows

I was at the moment riding in the rear of my troop – having fallen back to hold conversation with my two unattached followers, thus incidentally introduced. The last trooper in the rank – except the corporal, who rode alongside of him – was a man of large body, somewhat slouched and unshapen; as were also his arms, limbs, and the forage-cap on his head. Altogether, he was a slovenly specimen for a cavalry soldier – to look at from behind; and his aspect from the front did not alter the impression.

A long cadaverous countenance, bedecked with a pair of hollow-glass-like eyes; a beard long as the face, hanging down over his breast, defiled with fragments of food and the “ambeer” of tobacco; behind which appeared a row of very large white teeth, set between lips of an unnaturally red colour; above these a long nose, broken near the middle, and obliquing outward to the sinister angle of his mouth; – such was the portrait presented by the individual in question.

I did not see his face, for I was behind him; but it did not need that to enable me to identify the man. By his back, or any part of his body, I could have told that the trooper before me was Johann Laundrich, the Jew-German.

“What of him?” I inquired, in an undertone, seeing that he was the individual referred to in the speech of the old trapper.

“Don’t ’ee see, Cap’n! them theer boots! I heern ye stopped ’im from takin’ ’em last night. He’s got ’em along wi’ him for all that. Thar they be!”

Rube’s gesture was this time more definite; and pointed to the cloak of the trooper, rolled and strapped to the cantle of his saddle.

Between the folds of the cloth, ill-adjusted as they were, I saw, protruding a few inches outward, something of a buff colour, that evidently did not belong to the garment.

A slight scrutiny satisfied me that it was a boot; and, guided by what the trapper had said, I saw that it could be no other than one of the pair I had prevented Laundrich from pilfering from the corpse of the Mexican officer.

I had only hindered him for the time. He had evidently returned to the tent, and made a finish of his filthy work.

A loud angry “halt!” brought the troop to a stand.

I ordered Laundrich to ride out of the ranks; unstrap his cloak from the saddle; and spread it out. On his doing so, the buff boots fell to the ground – where they were permitted to lie.

I could not contain my temper at the double disobedience of orders; and riding alongside the ruffian, I struck him over the crown with the flat of my sabre.

He made no movement to avoid the blow, nor did he stir on receiving it – further than to show his white teeth, like a savage dog suffering chastisement.

With Laundrich once more in the saddle, we were about to move on; when the corporal, touching his cap, came up to me.

“Captain!” said he, “there’s even worse than him among the men. There’s one o’ them got in his havresack a thing I think you ought to see. It’s a scandal to the corps.”

“Which one – who?”

“Bully, the Englishman.”

“Order Bully to ride this way.”

The trooper thus designated, on being summoned by the corporal, drew his horse out of the rank, and rode up – though evidently with an awkward reluctance.

He was quite as ill-favoured as the delinquent just punished. His evil aspect was of a type altogether different. He was bullet-headed and bull-faced, with a thick fleshy neck, and jowls entirely destitute of beard; while, instead of being of dark complexion, like the Jew-German, his face was of the hue of dirty shining tallow, not adorned by a close crop of hay-coloured hair that came far down upon a low square forehead. His nose was retroussé, with nostrils widely spread, like those of a pure-bred bull dog; and his eyes were not very unlike the optics of the fierce Molossian.

The man was known by the name above given to him; though whether he answered to this appellation at roll-call, or whether it was only a sobriquet bestowed upon him by his comrades, I really do not now remember.

His appearance was simply stupid and brutal, while that of Laundrich was cunning and savage.

They were the two worst men in the troop; and I had reason to believe that both had been convicts in their respective countries; but this was not much in the ranks of a campaigning army.

“Bully!” I demanded, as he drew near; “let us see what you’ve got in your havresack!”

A hideous grin overspread the fellow’s features, as he proceeded to draw out the contents of the bag.

“What is it?” I inquired of the corporal, impatient to learn what could be carried in a cavalry havresack, calculated to set a stigma upon a whole troop.