Wood Rangers: The Trappers of Sonora

Pale, but with flashing eyes; uncertain whether in Cuchillo he beheld a saviour or an executioner, Don Estevan did not stir.

“It was foretold that I should die in a desert; I am, what you are pleased to call, convicted and condemned. God has reserved forme the infinite disgrace of dying by the hand of this man. I forgive you, Fabian; but may not this bandit prove as fatal to your life, as he will be to that of your father’s brother, as he was – ”

A cry from Cuchillo – a cry of alarm, here interrupted the Duke de Armada.

“To arms! To arms! yonder come the Indians!” cried he.

Fabian, Bois-Rose, and Pepé rushed to seize their rifles.

Cuchillo took advantage of this short instant, and sprang towards Don Antonio. The latter with his neck stretched forward, was also examining the wide extent of the plain, when Cuchillo twice plunged the poignard into his throat.

The unfortunate Mediana fell to the ground, vomiting forth torrents of blood.

A smile relaxed Cuchillo’s lips: Don Antonio had carried out of the world the secret which he dreaded.

Chapter Fifty One

The Judgment of God

An instant of stupor succeeded to the murder so suddenly accomplished. Don Antonio did not stir; Fabian seemed to forget that the bandit had only hastened the execution of the sentence which he himself had pronounced.

“Wretch!” cried he, rushing towards Cuchillo, with the barrel of his carbine in his hand, as though he did not deign to raise its butt against the executioner.

“There, there!” said Cuchillo, drawing back, whilst Pepé, more ready to acquit Don Antonio’s murderer, interposed between them; “you are as quick and passionate as a fighting-cock, and ready every instant to sport your horns, like a young bull. The Indians are too busy elsewhere to trouble themselves about us. It was a stratagem of war, to enable me more speedily to render you the signal service required of me. Do not therefore be ungrateful; for, why not admit it? you were just now a nephew, most unsufferably encumbered with an uncle; you are noble, you are generous; you would have regretted all your life that you had not pardoned that uncle? By cutting the matter short for you, I have taken the remorse upon myself; and so the affair is ended.”

“The rascal knows what he is about, undoubtedly,” remarked the ex-carabinier.

“Yes,” replied Cuchillo, evidently flattered, “I pride myself upon being no fool, and upon having some notion of the scruples of conscience. I have taken your doubts upon mine. When I take a fancy to people, I sacrifice myself for them. It is a fault of mine. When I saw, Don Tiburcio, that you had so generously pardoned me the blow – the scratch I inflicted upon you – I did my best to deserve it: the rest must be settled between me and my conscience.”

“Ah!” sighed Fabian, “I hoped yet to have been able to pardon him.”

“Why trouble yourself about it?” said the ex-carabinier. “Pardon your mother’s murderer, Don Fabian! it would have been cowardice! To kill a man who cannot defend himself, is, I grant, almost a crime, even after five years’ imprisonment. Our friend Cuchillo has saved us the embarrassment of choosing: that is his affair. What do you say, Bois-Rose?”

“With proofs such as those we possess, the tribunal of a city would have condemned the assassin to atone for his crime; and Indian justice could not have done less. It was God’s will that you should be spared the necessity of shedding the blood of a white man. I say as you do, Pepé, it is Cuchillo’s affair.”

Fabian inclined his head, without speaking, in acquiescence to the old hunter’s verdict – as though in his own heart he could not determine, amidst such conflicting thoughts, whether he ought to rejoice, or to grieve over this unexpected catastrophe.

Nevertheless, a shade of bitter regret overspread his countenance; but accustomed, as well as his two companions, to scenes of blood, he assented, though with a sigh, to their inexorable logic.

In the mean time, Cuchillo had regained all his audacity, things were turning out well for him.

He cast a glance of satisfied hatred upon the corpse of him who could never more speak, and muttered in a low voice:

“Why trouble one’s self about human destiny? – for twenty years past, my life has depended upon nothing more than the absence of a tree.”

Then addressing himself to Fabian:

“It is, then, agreed, that I have rendered you a great service. Ah! Don Tiburcio, you must resolve to remain in my debt. I think generously of furnishing you with the means of discharging it. There is immense wealth yonder; therefore it would not do for you to recall a promise given to him who, for your sake, was not afraid – for the first time, let me tell you – to come to an open rupture with his conscience.”

Cuchillo, who, notwithstanding the promise Fabian had made – to satisfy his cupidity by the possession of the gold, – knew that to make a promise, and to keep one, are two different things. He waited the reply with anxiety.

“It is true; the price of blood is yours,” said Fabian to the bandit.

Cuchillo assumed an indignant air.

“Well, you will be magnificently recompensed,” continued the young man, contemptuously; “but it shall never be said that I shared it with you: – the gold of this place is yours.”

“All?” cried Cuchillo, who could not believe his ears.

“Have I not said so?”

“You are mad!” exclaimed Pepé and Bois-Rose, simultaneously, “the fellow would have killed him for nothing!”

“You are a god!” cried Cuchillo; “and you estimate my scruples at their real value. What! all this gold?”

“All, including the smallest particle,” answered Fabian, solemnly: “I shall have nothing in common with you – not even this gold.”

And he made a sign to Cuchillo to leave the ground.

The bandit, instead of passing through the hedge of cotton-trees, took the road to the Misty Mountains, towards the spot where his horse was fastened.

A few minutes afterwards he returned with his serapé in his hand. He drew aside the interlacing branches which shut in the valley, and soon disappeared from Fabian’s sight. The sun, in the midst of his course, poured down a flood of light, causing the gold spread over the surface of the valley to shoot forth innumerable rays.

A shudder passed though Cuchillo’s veins, as he once more beheld it.

His heart beat quick at the sight of this mass of wealth. He resembled the tiger which falling upon a sheepfold cannot determine which victim to choose. He encompassed with a haggard glance the treasures spread at his feet; and little was wanting to induce him, in his transports of joy, to roll himself in these floods of gold.

Soon, however, restored to calmer thoughts, he spread his mantle on the sand; and as he saw the impossibility of carrying away all the riches exposed to his view, he cast around him a glance of observation.

In the meantime, Diaz, seated at some distance on the plain, had not lost a single detail of this melancholy scene.

He had seen Cuchillo suddenly appear, he had imagined the part he would be required to fulfil, he heard the bandit’s cry of false alarm, and even the bloody catastrophe of the drama had not been unseen by him.

Until then he had remained motionless in his place, mourning over the death of his chief, and the hopes which that death had destroyed.

Cuchillo had disappeared from their sight, when the three hunters saw Diaz rise and approach them.

He advanced with slow steps, like the justice of God, whose instrument he was about to become.

His arm was passed through his horse’s bridle; and his face, clouded by grief, was turned downwards.

The adventurer cast a look full of sadness upon the Duke de Armada lying in his blood; death had not effaced from that countenance its look of unalterable pride.

“I do not blame you,” said he; “in your place I should have done the same thing. How much Indian blood have I also not spilt to satisfy my vengeance!”

“It is holy bread,” interrupted Bois-Rose, passing his hand through his thick grey hair, and directing a sympathetic glance toward the adventurer. “Pepé and I can say that, for our part – ”

“I do not blame you, friends, but I grieve because I have seen this man, of such noble courage, fall almost before my eyes; a man who held in his hand the destiny of Sonora. I grieve that the glory of my country expires with him.”