Wood Rangers: The Trappers of Sonora

At this moment the five other Indians returned armed from head to foot, and now joined the rest. Fabian looked with profound compassion at the unlucky white man, who with haggard eye, and features distorted by terror, waited in horrible anguish until the signal was given. But the Blackbird pointed to the bare feet of his warriors, and then to the leather buskins which protected the feet of the white man. They then saw the latter sit down and take them off slowly, as if to gain a few seconds.

“The demons!” cried Fabian.

“Hush!” said Bois-Rose, “do not by discovering yourself destroy the last chance of life for the poor wretch!”

Fabian shut his eyes so as not to witness the horrible scene about to take place. At length the white man rose to his feet, and the Indians stood devouring him with their looks, until the Blackbird clapped his hands together, and then the howlings which followed could only be compared to those of a troop of jaguars in pursuit of a deer. The unlucky captive ran with great swiftness, but his pursuers bounded after him like tigers. Thanks to the start which he had had, he cleared safely a part of the distance which separated him from the river, but the stones which cut his feet and the sharp thorns of the nopals soon caused him to slacken his pace, and one of the Indians rushed up and made a furious thrust at him with his lance. It passed between his arm and his body, and the Indian losing his equilibrium, fell on the sand.

Gayferos, for it was he, appeared to hesitate a moment whether he should pick up the lance which the Indian had let fall, but then rapidly continued his course. That instant’s hesitation was fatal to him. All at once, amidst the cloud of dust raised by his feet, a hatchet shone over the head of the unfortunate Mexican, who was seen falling to the earth.

Bois-Rose was about to fire, but the fear of killing him whom he wished to defend, stopped his hand. For a single moment the wind cleared away the dust, and he fired, but it was too late, the Indian who fell under his ball was brandishing in his hand the scalp of the unhappy man. To this unexpected shot, the savages replied with howls, and then rushed away from what they believed to be only a corpse. Soon, however, they saw the man rise, with his head laid bare, who after straggling a few paces, fell again, while the blood flowed in torrents from his wounds.

“Ah!” cried Bois-Rose, “if there remains in him a spark of life – and people do not die only from scalping – we shall save him yet; I swear we shall!”

Chapter Forty One

Indian Cunning

As the Canadian uttered the generous oath, wrung from him by indignation, it seemed to him that a supplicating voice reached him. “Is not the poor wretch calling for aid?” And he raised his head from behind its shelter.

At sight of the fox-skin cap which covered the head of the giant, and of the long and heavy rifle which he raised like a willow wand, the Indians recognised one of their formidable northern enemies, and recoiled in astonishment – for the Blackbird alone had been instructed as to whom they were seeking. Bois-Rose, looking towards the shore now perceived the unlucky Gayferos stretching out his arms towards him, and feebly calling for help. The dying Indian still held the scalp in his clenched hand.

At this terrible spectacle the Canadian drew himself up to his full height. “Fire on these dogs!” cried he, “and remember – never let them take you alive.”

So saying, he resolutely entered the water, and any other man would have had it up to his head, but the Canadian had all his shoulders above the surface.

“Do not fire till after me,” said Pepé to Fabian; “my hand is surer than yours, and my Kentucky rifle carries twice as far as your Liege gun.” And he held his rifle ready to fire at the slightest sign of hostility from the Indians.

Meanwhile, Bois-Rose still advanced, the water growing gradually shallower, when an Indian raised his rifle ready to fire on the intrepid hunter; but a bullet from Pepé stopped him, and he fell forward on his face.

“Now you, Don Fabian!” said Pepé, throwing himself on the ground to reload, after the American custom in such cases.

Fabian fired, but his rifle having a shorter range, the shot only drew from the Indian at whom he aimed a cry of rage. But Pepé had reloaded, and stood ready to fire again.

There was a moment’s hesitation among the Indians, by which Bois-Rose profited to draw towards him the body of the unlucky Gayferos. He, clinging to his shoulders, had the presence of mind to leave his preserver’s arms free; who, with his burden, again entered the water, going backwards. Then his rifle was heard, and an Indian’s death-cry immediately followed. This valiant retreat, protected by Pepé and Fabian, awed the Indians, and some minutes after, Bois-Rose triumphantly placed the fainting Gayferos on the island.

“There are three of them settled for,” said he, “and now we shall have a few minutes’ truce. Well, Fabian, do you see the advantage of firing in file? You did not do badly for a beginner, and I can assure you that when you have a Kentucky rifle like us, you will be a good marksman.” Then to Gayferos, “We came too late to save the skin of your head, my poor fellow, but console yourself, it is no such dreadful thing. I have many friends in the same condition, who are none the worse for it. Your life is saved – that is the great thing – and we shall endeavour to bind up your wounds.”

Some strips torn from the shirt of Gayferos served to bind around his head a large mass of willow leaves crushed together and steeped in water, and concealed the hideous wound. The blood was then washed from his face.

“You see,” said Bois-Rose, still clinging to the idea of keeping Fabian near him, “you must learn to know the habits of the desert, and of the Indians. The villains, who see, by the loss of three of their men, what stuff we are made of, have retired to concoct some stratagem. You hear how silent all is after so much noise?”

The desert, indeed, had recovered its silence, the leaves only trembled in the evening breeze, and the water began to display brilliant colours in the setting sun.

“Well, Pepé, they are but seventeen now!” continued Bois-Rose, in a tone of triumph.

“Oh! we may succeed, if they do not get reinforcements.”

“That is a chance and a terrible one; but our lives are in God’s hands,” replied Bois-Rose. “Tell me, friend!” said he to Gayferos, “you probably belong to the camp of Don Estevan?”

“Do you know him then?” said the wounded man, in a feeble voice.

“Yes; and by what chance are you so far from the camp?”

The wounded man recounted how, by Don Estevan’s orders, he had set off to seek for their lost guide, and that his evil star had brought him in contact with the Indians as they were hunting the wild horses.

“What is the name of your guide?”

“Cuchillo.”

Fabian and Bois-Rose glanced at each other.

“Yes,” said the latter, “there is some probability that your suspicions about that white demon were correct, and that he is conducting the expedition to the Golden Valley; but, my child, if we escape these Indians, we are close to it; and once we are installed there, were they a hundred, we should succeed in defending ourselves.”

This was whispered in Fabian’s ear.

“One word more,” said Bois-Rose to the wounded man, “and then we shall leave you to repose. How many men has Don Estevan with him?”

“Sixty.”

Bois-Rose now again bathed the head of the wounded Gayferos with cold water: and the unhappy man, refreshed for the moment, and weakened by loss of blood, fell into a lethargic sleep.

“Now,” continued Bois-Rose, “let us endeavour to build up a rampart which shall be a little more ball and arrow-proof than this fringe of moving leaves and reeds. Did you count how many rifles the Indians had?”

“Seven, I believe,” said Pepé.

“Then ten of them are less to be feared. They cannot attack us either on the right or the left – but perhaps they have made a détour to cross the river, and are about to place us between two fires.”

The side of the islet opposite the shore on which the Indians had shown themselves was sufficiently defended by enormous roots, bristling like chevaux-de-frise; but the side where the attack was probably about to recommence was defended only by a thick row of reeds and osier-shoots.

Thanks to his great strength, Bois-Rose, aided by Pepé, succeeded in dragging from the end of the islet which faced the course of the stream, some large dry branches and fallen trunks of trees. A few minutes sufficed for the two skilful hunters to protect the feeble side with a rough but solid entrenchment, which would form a very good defence to the little garrison of the island.

“Do you see, Fabian,” said Bois-Rose, “you’ll be as safe behind these trunks of trees as in a stone fortress. You’ll be exposed only to the balls that may be fired from the tops of the trees, but I shall take care that none of these redskins climb so high.”

And quite happy at having raised a barrier between Fabian and death, he assigned him his post in the place most sheltered from the enemy.

“Did you remark,” said he to Pepé, “how at every effort that we made to break a branch or disengage a block of wood, the island trembled to its foundation?”

“Yes,” said Pepé, “one might think that it was about to be torn from its base and follow the course of the stream.”

The Canadian then cautioned his two companions to be careful of their ammunition, gave Fabian some instructions as to taking aim, pressed him to his heart, squeezed the hand of his old comrade, and then the three stationed themselves at their several posts. The surface of the river, the tops of the aspens growing on the banks, the banks themselves and the reeds, were all objects of examination for the hunters, as the night was fast coming on.

“This is the hour when the demons of darkness lay their snares,” said Bois-Rose, “when these human jaguars seek for their prey. It was of them that the Scriptures spoke.”

No one replied to this speech, which was uttered rather as a soliloquy.

Meanwhile, the darkness was creeping on little by little, and the bushes which grew on the bank began to assume the fantastic forms given to objects by the uncertain twilight.

The green of the trees began to look black; but habit had given to Bois-Rose and to Pepé eyes as piercing as those of the Indians themselves, and nothing, with the vigilance they were exerting, could have deceived them.