The Lone Ranche

“Take this.” Here Uraga hands him the sealed paper. “See you show it to no one you may chance to meet passing out from the settlements. Give it to Barbato, or hand it to the Horned Lizard himself. He’ll know who it’s for. You are to ride night and day, as fast as the animals can carry you. When you’ve delivered it you needn’t wait, but come back – not here, but to the Alamo. You know the place – where we met the Tenawas some weeks ago. You will find me there. Vaya!”

On receiving these instructions Pedrillo vanishes from, the room; a strange sinister glance in his oblique Indian eyes telling that he knows himself to be once more – what he has often been – an emissary of evil.

Uraga takes another turn across the floor, then, seating himself by the table, seeks rest for his passion-tossed soul by drinking deep of the mescal of Tequila.

Chapter Forty Five.

The Staked Plain

The elevated table-land known as Llano Estacado is in length over three hundred miles, with an average width of sixty or seventy. It extends longitudinally between the former Spanish provinces of New Mexico and Texas; their respective capitals, Santa Fé and San Antonia de Bejar, being on the opposite side of it. In the days of vice-royal rule, a military road ran across it, connecting the two provincial centres, and mule trains of traders passed to and fro between. As this road was only a trail, often obliterated by the drifting sands of the desert, tall stakes were set up at intervals to indicate the route. Hence the name “Llano Estacado” – literally, Staked Plain.

In those days Spain was a strong, enterprising nation, and her Mexican colonists could travel over most parts of their vast territory without fear of being assaulted by the savages. At a later period, when Spanish power began to decline, all this became changed. Cities fell to ruin, settlements were deserted, mission establishments abandoned, and in the provinces of Northern Mexico white travellers had to be cautious in keeping to the most frequented roads, in some districts not daring even to venture beyond the walls of their haciendas or towns. Many of these were fortified against Indian attack, and are so to this day.

Under these circumstances the old Spanish trail across the Staked Plain fell into disuse; its landmarks became lost, and of late years only expeditions of the United States army have traversed it for purposes of exploration.

In physical aspect it bears resemblance to the table lands of Abyssinia and Southern Arabia, and at its northern end many outlying spurs and detached mesas remind the traveller of the Abyssinian hills – known as ambas. A portion of this singular territory belongs to the great gypsum formation of the south-western prairies, perhaps the largest in the world; while a highly-coloured sandstone of various vivid hues, often ferruginous, forms a conspicuous feature in its cliffs. Along its eastern edge these present to the lower champaign of Texas a precipitous escarpment several hundred feet sheer, in long stretches, tending with an unbroken façade, in other places showing ragged, where cleft by canons, through which rush torrents, the heads of numerous Texan streams. Its surface is, for the most part, a dead horizontal level, sterile as the Sahara itself, in places smooth and hard as a macadamised road. Towards its southern end there is a group of medanos (sandhills), covering a tract of several hundred square miles, the sand ever drifting about, as with dunes on the seashore. High up among their summits is a lakelet of pure drinking water, though not a drop can be found upon the plateau itself for scores of miles around. Sedge and lilies grow by this tarn so singularly situated.

Here and there the plain is indented by deep fissures (barrancas), apparently the work of water. Often the traveller comes upon them without sign or warning of their proximity, till, standing on the edge of a precipitous escarpment, he sees yawning below a chasm sunk several hundred feet into the earth. In its bed may be loose boulders piled in chaotic confusion, as if cast there by the hands of Titans; also trunks of trees in a fossilised state such as those observed by Darwin on the eastern declivity of the Chilian Andres.

Nearly all the streams that head in the Staked Plain cut deep channels in their way to the outer world. These are often impassable, either transversely or along their course. Sometimes, however, their beds are worn out into little valleys, or “coves,” in which a luxuriant vegetation finds shelter and congenial soil. There flourish the pecan, the hackberry, the black walnut, the wild china, with evergreen oaks, plums, and clustering grapevines; while in the sterile plain above are only seen those forms of the botanical world that truly indicate the desert – various species of cactaceae, agaves, and yuccas – the palmilla and lechuguilla, dwarf-cedars, and mezquites, artemisia, and the strong-smelling larrea, or “creosote plant.”

Animals are rare upon the Llano Estacado, although the prong-horn antelope – true denizen of the desert – is there found, as also its enemy, the Mexican jackal, or coyote. To the rattlesnake and horned lizard (agama) it is a congenial home; and the singular snake-bird (paisano) may frequently be seen running over the arid waste, or skulking through the tortuous stems of the nopals. In the canons of the stream the grizzly bear makes his haunt, and in times not long gone by it was ascended and traversed by the unwieldy buffalo. The wild horse (musteno) still occasionally courses across it.

Of all the living things it is least frequented by man. Even the Indian rarely strays into its solitudes; and the white man, when necessitated to enter them, does so with fear and trembling, for he knows there is danger.

This is chiefly due to the absence of water; but there is also the chance of going astray – getting lost in the absence of landmarks. To be astray in a wilderness of any kind is a perilous predicament for the traveller – in one without water it is death.

After their affair with the Tenawas, the Texan Rangers directed their course towards the Llano Estacado. On starting, it was their intention to strike north, and get upon the main stream of the Canadian, then follow it up to the place where the prairie traders met their murderous doom. From the country of the Tenawa Comanches this would be the correct route, and was the same taken by these freebooters returning with the spoils of the caravan. But from the mouth of the Pecan Creek is one more direct, leading across a spur of the plateau itself, instead of turning its north-eastern extremity.

It was not known to the Rangers, though Cully remembered having heard something about it. But the Mexican renegade declared himself familiar with, and counselled taking it. There had been hesitation before acceding to his counsel. Of course, they could have no confidence in such a man, but rather suspicion of all he said or did. In guiding them across the Staked Plain he might have some sinister purpose – perhaps lead them into a trap.

After all, how could he? The tribe of savages with which he had been consorting was now so terribly chastised, so effectually crushed, it was not probable – scarce possible – they would be encountered again. Certainly not for a season. For weeks there would be weeping and wailing in the tents of the Tenawas. If the renegade had any hope of being rescued from his present captivity, it could not be by them. He might have some thought of escape, taking the Rangers by the route he proposed to them. On this score they had no apprehension – not the slightest. Suspicious, they would keep close watch upon him; shoot him down like a dog at the first sign of his attempting to deceive them. And, as Cully remembered having heard of this trail over the Staked Plain, it was most probable the Mexican had no other object than to bring them to the end of their journey in the shortest time and straightest course. All knew it would be a near cut, and this decided them in its favour.

After parting from Pecan Creek, with their faces set westward, they had a journey before them anything but easy or pleasant. On the contrary, one of the most difficult and irksome. For it lay across a sterile tract – the great gypsum bed of North-western Texas, on which abut the bluffs of the Llano Estacado. Mile after mile, league after league; no “land in sight,” to use a prairie-man’s phrase – nothing but level plain, smooth as a sleeping sea; but, unlike the last, without water – not a sheet to cheer their eyes, not a drop to quench the thirst, almost choking them. Only its resemblance, seen in the white mist always moving over these arid plains – the deluding, tantalising mirage. Lakes lay before them, their shores garlanded by green trees, their bosoms enamelled with islets smiling in all the verdure of spring – always before them, ever receding; the trees, as the water, never to be reached!

Water they do arrive at more than once – streams rushing in full flow across the barren waste. At sight they ride towards them rapidly. Their horses need not to be spurred. The animals suffer as themselves, and rush on with outstretched necks, eager to assuage their thirst. They dip their muzzles, plunge in their heads till half-buried, only to draw out again and toss them aloft with snorts of disappointment shaking the water like spray from their nostrils. It is salt!

For days they have been thus journeying. They are wearied, worn down by fatigue, hungry; but more than all, tortured by the terrible thirst – their horses as themselves. The animals have become reduced in flesh and strength; they look like skeletons staggering on, scarce able to carry their riders.

Where is the Mexican conducting them? He has brought them into a desert. Is the journey to end in their death? It looks like enough.

Some counsel killing him, and returning on their tracks. Not all; only a minority. The majority cry “Onward!” with a thought beyond present suffering. They must find the bones of Walt Wilder and bury them! Brave men, true men, these Texan Rangers! Rough in outward appearance, often rude in behaviour, they have hearts gentle as children. Of all friends the most faithful, whether it be affection or pure camaraderie. In this case a comrade has been killed – cruelly murdered, and in a strange manner. Its very strangeness has maddened them the more, while sharpening their desire to have a last look at his remains, and give them Christian burial. Only the fainthearted talk of retreating; the others do not think of it, and these are more than the majority.

On, therefore, they ride across treeless, grassless tracks; along the banks of streams, of whose bitter, saline waters they cannot drink, but tantalising themselves and their animals. On, on!

Their perseverance is at length rewarded. Before their eyes looms up a line of elevated land, apparently the profile of a mountain.

But no; it cannot be that.

Trending horizontally, without curvature, against the sky, they know it is not a mountain, but a mesa – a table-land.

It is the Llano Estacado.

Drawing nearer, they get under the shadow of its beetling bluffs.

They see that these are rugged, with promontories projecting far out over the plain, forming what Spanish Americans, in their expressive phraseology, call ceja.

Into an embayment between two of the out-stretching spurs Barbato conducts them.

Joyously they ride into it, like ships long storm-tossed entering a haven of safety; for at the inner end of the concavity there is a cleft in the precipitous wall, reaching from base to summit, out of which issues a stream whose waters are sweet!

It is a branch of the Brazos River, along whose banks they have been some time travelling, lower down finding its waters bitter as gall. That was in its course through the selenite. Now they have reached the sandstone it is clear as crystal, and to them sweeter than champagne.

“Up it lies our way,” says the renegade guide, pointing to the portals of the canon through which the stream debouched from the table to the lower plain.

But for that night the Rangers care hot to travel further. There is no call for haste. They are en route to bury the bones of a dead man, not to rescue one still living.

Chapter Forty Six.

A Brilliant Band

Just as the Texan Rangers are approaching the Staked Plain on its eastern edge, another body of horsemen, about their equal in number, ascends to the same plateau, coming from the very opposite direction – the west.

Only in point of numbers, and that both are on horseback, is there any similitude between the two troops. Individually they are unlike as human beings could be; for most of those composing the Texan party are great, strapping fellows, fair-haired, and of bright complexions; whereas they coming in the counter direction are all, or nearly all, small men, with black hair and sallow visage – many of them dark as Indians. Between the horses of the two troops there is a proportionate disparity in size; the Texans bestriding animals of nearly sixteen hands in height, while they approaching from the west are mounted on Mexican mustangs, few over fourteen. One alone at their head, evidently their leader, rides a large American horse. In point of discipline the second troop shows superiority. It is a military organisation pur sang, and marches in regular formation, while the men composing it are armed and uniformed alike. Their uniform is that of Mexican lancers, very similar to the French, their arms the same. And just such are they; the lancers of Colonel Uraga, himself at their head.

Having crossed the Rio Pecos bottom, and climbed up the bluffs to the higher bench of the Llano Estacado, they strike out over the sterile plain.

As it is early morning, and the air is chilly, they wear their ample cavalry cloaks of bright yellow cloth. These falling back over the flanks of their horses, with their square lancer caps, plumed, and overtopped by the points of the pennoned lances, give them an imposing martial appearance. Though it is but a detachment of not over fifty men – a single troop – riding by twos, the files stretch afar in shining array, its sheen all the more brilliant from contrast with the sombre sterility of the desert.

A warlike sight, and worthy of admiration, if one knew it to be an expedition directed against the red pirates of the plains, en route to chastise them for their many crimes – a long list of cruel atrocities committed upon the defenceless citizens of Chihuahua and New Mexico. But knowing it is not this – cognisant of its true purpose – the impression made is altogether different. Instead of admiration it is disgust; and, in place of sending up a prayer for its success, the spectator would feel apprehension, or earnestly desire its failure.

Its purpose is anything but praiseworthy. On the contrary, sinister, as may be learnt by listening to the conversation of the two who ride at the head of the detachment, some paces in advance of the first file. They are its chief and his confidential second, the ruffian Roblez.

Uraga is speaking.

“Won’t our worthy friend Miranda be surprised when he sees us riding up to the door of his jacal, with these fifty fellows behind us? And the old doctor, Don Prospero? I can fancy his quizzical look through those great goggle spectacles he used to wear. I suppose they are still on his nose; but they’ll fly off as soon as he sees the pennons of our lances.”

“Ha! ha! ha! That will be a comical sight, colonel. But do you think Miranda will make any resistance?”

“Not likely. I only wish he would.”

“Why do you wish that?”

“Ayadante! you ask a stupid question. You ought to have a clearer comprehension in the brisk, bright atmosphere of this upland plain. It should make your brain more active.”

“Well, Coronel mio, you’re the first man I ever saw on the way to make a prisoner who desired to meet resistance. Carrambia! I can’t understand that.”

“I don’t desire to make any prisoner – at least, not Don Valerian Miranda. For the old doctor, I shan’t much care one way or the other. Living or dead, he can’t do any great harm. Miranda I’d rather take dead.”