Wood Rangers: The Trappers of Sonora

Tiburcio stretched himself upon the grass, and overcome by fatigue and the many violent emotions he had that day experienced, soon fell into a lethargic slumber.

For some time Bois-Rose sat regarding the sleeper in silence, but with an air of strange interest.

“What age do you think he is?” he at length inquired of his comrade.

“Twenty-four, I should fancy,” replied the ex-coast-guard.

“Just what I was thinking,” said the Canadian, speaking in a tone of half soliloquy, while a melancholy expression appeared to tone down his rude physiognomy. “Yes, just the age he ought to be if still alive.”

“He! who are you talking of?” brusquely interrupted his companion, in whose heart the words of the Canadian seemed to find an echo.

“No matter,” said Bois-Rose, still speaking in a tone of melancholy; “the past is past; and when it has not been as one would have wished it, it is better forgotten. But come! let us have done with idle regrets and finish our supper – such souvenirs always spoil my appetite.”

“The same with me,” agreed Pepé, as he seized hold of a large mutton-bone, and commenced an attack upon it in a fashion that proved that his appetite was not yet quite gone.

After a while Pepé again broke the silence.

“If I had the pleasure,” said he, “of a personal acquaintance with this Don Augustin Peña, who appears to be the proprietor here, I would compliment him upon the fine quality of his mutton; and if I thought his horses were of as good a sort, I think I should be tempted to borrow one – one horse would never be missed out of the great herds we have seen galloping about, no more than a sheep out of his vast flocks; and to me a good horse would be a treasure.”

“Very well,” said the Canadian. “If you feel inclined for a horse, you had better have one; it will be no great loss to the owner, and may be useful to us. If you go in search of one, I can keep watch over this young fellow, who sleeps as if he hadn’t had a wink for the last month.”

“Most probably no one will come after him; nevertheless, Bois-Rose, keep your eye open till I return. If anything happens, three howls of the coyote will put me on my guard.”

As he said this, Pepé took up a lazo that lay near, and turning his face in the direction in which he was most likely to find a drove of horses, he walked off into the woods.

Bois-Rose was left alone. Having thrown some dry branches upon the fire, in order to produce a more vivid light, he commenced regarding anew the young man who was asleep; but after a while spent in this way he stretched himself alongside the prostrate body, and appeared also to slumber.

The night-breeze caused the foliage to rustle over the heads of these two men, as they lay side by side. Neither had the least suspicion that they were here re-united by strange and providential circumstances – that twenty years before, they had lain side by side – then lulled to sleep by the sound of the ocean, just as now by the whispering murmurs of the forest.

Chapter Thirty

Bois-Rose and Fabian

For twenty years the murderer of the Countess de Mediana had gone unpunished. For twenty years the justice of heaven had remained suspended; but the time of its accomplishment was not far off. Soon was it to open its solemn assizes; soon would it call together accuser and criminal, witness and judge – not from one part of a country to another, but from opposite sides of the globe; and, as if led by some invisible hand, all would have to obey the terrible summons.

Fabian de Mediana and the Canadian sailor lay side by side – just as they had done twenty years ago, at three thousand leagues distance from Sonora. And yet they had no suspicion of ever having met before, though a single chance word might at that moment have brought either to the memory of the other.

It was just about this time that Don Estevan and his party rode off from the hacienda.

The Canadian, according to the counsel of his comrade Pepé, slept with one eye open. At short intervals he contrived to awake himself, and raising his head slightly, cast around him a scrutinising glance. But on each of these occasions, the light of the fire showed him Tiburcio still tranquilly asleep; and this appearing to satisfy him, he would again compose himself as before.

About an hour had passed, when the sound of heavy footsteps awakened him once more, and listening a moment, he distinguished them as the hoof-strokes of a horse.

A few moments after, Pepé made his appearance within the circle of the blaze, leading a horse at the end of his lazo – a magnificent animal, that snorted and started back at sight of the fire. Pepé, however, had already given him more than one lesson, and his obedience was nearly complete; so that, after a short conflict, the trapper succeeded in bringing him nearer and attaching him to the trunk of a tree.

“Well,” said Pepé, wiping the perspiration from his forehead with an old ragged handkerchief, “I’ve had a tough struggle with him; but he’s worth it, I fancy. What think you, Bois-Rose? Isn’t he the most splendid quadruped that ever galloped through these woods?”

In truth it was a beautiful creature, rendered more beautiful by the terror which he was exhibiting at the moment, as he stood with his fine limbs stretched, his head thrown high in the air, his mane tossed over his wild savage eyes, and his nostrils spread and frothy. Strange enough that fear, which renders vile and degraded the lord of the creation, should have an opposite effect on most of the lower animals – especially on the horse. This beautiful creature under its impulse only appears more beautiful!

Little as Bois-Rose delighted in horse-flesh, he could not withhold his approval of the capture which his comrade had made.

“He looks well enough,” was his sober reply; “but he’ll be a rough mount, I reckon.”

“No doubt of that,” assented Pepé. “I know he’ll be rough at first; but the main thing was to get hold of him. I had a lucky hand to hook him as I did.”

“I hope your neck will prove as lucky as your hand. For my part, I’d rather walk ten leagues than be on his back for ten minutes. But see, comrade!” continued the big trapper, pointing to the stars, “they’re gone down yonder! you’ll need some sleep before morning. Lie down while I take my turn of the watch.”

“I’ll take your advice,” replied Pepé, at the same time stretching himself out upon his back, with his feet to the fire – in which attitude he was soon asleep.

The Canadian rose to his feet, took several turns round the fire – as if to drive away any remains of sleep that might be lurking in his eyes – then sat down again, with his back resting against the stump of a tree.

He had not been long seated before he got up once more, and, approaching with caution, stood over Tiburcio. For several minutes he remained in this attitude, attentively examining the features of the young man: he then returned to his seat by the stump.

“Just about his age, if he is still living,” muttered he to himself. “But what chance have I to recognise in a grown man the features of an infant scarce four years old?”

A smile of disdain played for an instant on his lips, as if he were chiding himself for the silliness of his conjectures.

“And yet,” he continued, his countenance changing its expression, “I have seen and taken part in too many strange events – I have been too long face to face with Nature – to doubt the power of Providence. Why should I consider this a miracle? It was not one when I chanced upon the boat adrift that carried that poor infant and its murdered mother! No, it was the hand of God. Why might not the same hand restore him to me in the midst of the desert? The ways of Providence are inscrutable.”

As if this reflection had given birth to new hopes, the Canadian again rose to his feet, and approaching, stooped once more over the prostrate form of Tiburcio.

“How often,” said he, “have I thus gazed on my little Fabian as he slept! Well, whoever you are, young man,” continued he, “you have not come to my fire without finding a friend. May God do for my poor Fabian what I am disposed to do for you!”

Saying this, he once again returned to his seat, and remained for a long time reflecting upon incidents that had transpired twenty years before in the Bay of Biscay.

It should here be stated that up to this hour Bois-Rose and Pepé had not the slightest suspicion that they had ever met, before their chance encounter upon the prairies of America. In reality they had never met – farther than that they had been within musket-range of each other. But up to this hour Pepé knew not that his trapping comrade was the gigantic smuggler he had fired at from the beach of Ensenada; and Bois-Rose was equally ignorant that Pepé was the coast-guard whose “obstinacy and clumsiness” he had spoken of to his lieutenant.

The cause of this mutual ignorance of each other’s past was that neither of them had ever mentioned the word Elanchovi in the hearing of the other. The Canadian had never thought of communicating the incidents of that night to his prairie comrade; and Pepé, on his side, would have given much to have blotted them altogether from the pages of his memory.

The night became more chilly as the hours passed on, and a damp dew now fell upon the grass and the foliage of the trees. It did not wake the sleepers, however, both of whom required a long rest.

All at once the silence was broken by the horse of Pepé, that neighed loudly and galloped in a circle at the end of his lazo: evidently something had affrighted him. Bois-Rose suddenly started from his reverie, and crept silently forward, both ear and eye set keenly to reconnoitre. But nothing could be heard or seen that was unusual; and after a while he glided back to his seat.

The noise had awakened Tiburcio, who, raising himself into a sitting posture, inquired its cause.

“Nothing,” answered the trapper, whose denial, however, was scarce sincere. “Something indeed,” continued he, “has frightened the horse. A jaguar, I fancy, that scents the skins of his companions, or, more likely, the remains of our roast mutton. By the way, you can eat a bit now; I have kept a couple of pieces for you.”

And as he said this he handed two goodly-sized pieces of mutton to Tiburcio.

This time the young man accepted the invitation to eat. Rest had given him an appetite; and after swallowing a few mouthfuls of the cold mutton, warmed up by a glass of the brandy already mentioned, he felt both his strength and spirits restored at the same time. His features, too, seemed to have suddenly changed their hue, and now appeared more bright and smiling.

The presence of the hunter also added to the pleasure thus newly arisen within his breast. He remembered the solicitude which the Canadian had exhibited in dressing his wound – which he now extended even to giving him nourishment – and the thought occurred to him that in this man he might find a friend as redoubtable for his herculean strength as for his dexterity and courage. He no longer felt so lone in the world – so abandoned.

On the other hand, Bois-Rose sat looking at his protégé and apparently delighted to see him enjoy his repast. The heart of the trapper was fast warming into a strong friendship for this young man.

“Stranger!” said he, after a considerable interval of silence, “it is the custom of the Indians never to inquire the name or quality of a guest until after he has eaten of their bread. I have followed their example in regard to you; and now may I ask you who you are, and what happened at the hacienda to drive you forth from it?”

“I shall willingly tell you,” answered Tiburcio. “For reasons that would have no interest for you, I left my hut and started on a journey to the Hacienda del Venado. My horse, overcome by thirst and fatigue, broke down on the way. It was his dead body, as you already know, that attracted the jaguars, so adroitly destroyed by you and your brave comrade.”