The Scalp Hunters

“Then, my dear sir, it is a mistake. You think you are talking to somebody else, and bidding for some other horse.”

“Oh, no! He is yours. A black stallion with red nose and long full tail, half-bred Arabian. There is a small mark over the left eye.”

This was certainly the description of Moro; and I began to feel a sort of superstitious awe in regard to my mysterious neighbour.

“True,” replied I; “that is all correct; but I bought that stallion many months ago from a Louisiana planter. If you have just arrived from two hundred miles down the Rio Grande, how, may I ask, could you have known anything about me or my horse?”

“Dispensadme, caballero! I did not mean that. I came from below to meet the caravan, for the purpose of buying an American horse. Yours is the only one in the caballada I would buy, and, it seems, the only one that is not for sale!”

“I am sorry for that; but I have tested the qualities of this animal. We have become friends. No common motive would induce me to part with him.”

“Ah, señor! it is not a common motive that makes me so eager to purchase him. If you knew that, perhaps – ” he hesitated a moment; “but no, no, no!” and after muttering some half-coherent words, among which I could recognise the “Buenos noches, caballero!” the stranger rose up with the same mysterious air that had all along characterised him, and left me. I could hear the tinkling of the small bells upon the rowels of his spurs, as he slowly warped himself through the gay crowd, and disappeared into the night.

The vacated seat was soon occupied by a dusky manola, whose bright nagua, embroidered chemisette, brown ankles, and small blue slippers, drew my attention. This was all I could see of her, except the occasional flash of a very black eye through the loophole of the rebozo tapado. By degrees, the rebozo became more generous, the loophole expanded, and the outlines of a very pretty and very malicious little face were displayed before me. The end of the scarf was adroitly removed from the left shoulder; and a nude, plump arm, ending in a bunch of small jewelled fingers, hung carelessly down.

I am tolerably bashful; but at the sight of this tempting partner, I could hold in no longer, and bending towards her, I said in my best Spanish, “Do me the favour, miss, to waltz with me.”

The wicked little manola first held down her head and blushed; then, raising the long fringes of her eyes, looked up again, and wits a voice as sweet as that of a canary-bird, replied —

“Con gusto, señor.” (With pleasure, sir.)

“Nos vamos!” cried I, elated with my triumph; and pairing off with my brilliant partner, we were soon whirling about in the mazy.

We returned to our seats again, and after refreshing with a glass of Albuquerque, a sponge-cake, and a husk cigarette, again took the floor. This pleasurable programme we repeated some half-dozen times, only varying the dance from waltz to polka, for my manola danced the polka as if she had been a born Bohemian.

On one of my fingers was a fifty-dollar diamond, which my partner seemed to think was muy buenito. As her igneous eyes softened my heart, and the champagne was producing a similar effect upon my head, I began to speculate on the propriety of transferring the diamond from the smallest of my fingers to the largest of hers, which it would, no doubt, have fitted exactly. All at once I became conscious of being under the surveillance of a large and very fierce-looking lepero, a regular pelado, who followed us with his eyes, and sometimes in persona, to every part of the room. The expression of his swarth face was a mixture of jealousy and vengeance, which my partner noticed, but, as I thought, took no pains to soften down.

“Who is he?” I whispered, as the man swung past us in his chequered serape.

“Esta mi marido, señor,” (It is my husband, sir), was the cool reply.

I pushed the ring close up to the root of my finger, shutting my hand upon it tight as a vice.

“Vamos a tomar otra copita!” (Let us take another glass of wine!) said I, resolving to bid my pretty poblana, as soon as possible, a good-night.

The Taos whisky had by this time produced its effect upon the dancers. The trappers and teamsters had become noisy and riotous. The leperos, who now half-filled the room, stimulated by wine, jealousy, old hatreds, and the dance, began to look more savage and sulky. The fringed hunting-shirts and brown homespun frocks found favour with the dark-eyed majas of Mexico, partly out of a respect for, and a fear of, courage, which is often at the bottom of a love like theirs.

Although the trading caravans supplied almost all the commerce of Santa Fé, and it was clearly the interest of its inhabitants to be on good terms with the traders, the two races, Anglo-American and Hispano-Indian, hated each other thoroughly; and that hate was now displaying itself on one side in bullying contempt, on the other in muttered carrajos and fierce looks of vengeance.

I was still chatting with my lively partner. We were seated on the banquette where I had introduced myself. On looking casually up, a bright object met my eyes. It appeared to be a naked knife in the hands of su marido who was just then lowering over us like the shadow of an evil spirit. I was favoured with only a slight glimpse of this dangerous meteor, and had made up my mind to “’ware steel,” when someone plucked me by the sleeve, and turning, I beheld my quondam acquaintance of the purple magna.

“Dispensadme, señor,” said he, nodding graciously, “I have just learned that the caravan is going on to Chihuahua.”

“True, there is no market here for our goods.”

“You go on then, of course?”

“Certainly, I must.”

“Will you return this way, señor?”

“It is very likely; I have no other intention at present.”

“Perhaps then you might be willing to part with your horse? You will find many as good in the great valley of the Mississippi.”

“Neither is likely.”

“But, señor, should you be inclined to do so, will you promise me the refusal of him?”

“Oh! that I will promise you, with all my heart.”

Our conversation was here interrupted by a huge, gaunt, half-drunken Missourian, who, tramping rudely upon the stranger’s toes, vociferated —

“Ye – up, old greaser! gi’ mi a char.”

“Y porque?” (And why?) demanded the Mexican, drawing in his feet, and looking up with astonished indignation.

“I’m tired jumpin’. I want a seat, that’s it, old hoss.”

There was something so bullying and brutal in the conduct of this man, that I felt called upon to interfere.

“Come!” said I, addressing him, “you have no right to deprive this gentleman of his seat, much less in such a fashion.”

“Eh, mister? who asked you to open yer head? Ye – up, I say!” and at the word, he seized the Mexican by the corner of his manga, as if to drag him from his seat.

Before I had time to reply to this rude speech and gesture, the stranger leaped to his feet, and with a well-planted blow felled the bully upon the floor.

This seemed to act as a signal for bringing several other quarrels to a climax. There was a rush through all parts of the sala, drunken shouts mingled with yells of vengeance, knives glanced from their sheaths, women screamed, pistols flashed and cracked, filling the rooms with smoke and dust. The lights went out, fierce struggles could be heard in the darkness, the fall of heavy bodies amidst groans and curses, and for five minutes these were the only sounds.

Having no cause to be particularly angry with anybody, I stood where I had risen, without using either knife or pistol, my frightened maja all the while holding me by the hand. A painful sensation near my left shoulder caused me suddenly to drop my partner; and with that unaccountable weakness consequent upon the reception of a wound, I felt myself staggering towards the banquette. Here I dropped into a sitting posture, and remained till the struggle was over, conscious all the while that a stream of blood was oozing down my back, and saturating my undergarments.

I sat thus till the struggle had ended. A light was brought, and I could distinguish a number of men in hunting-shirts moving to-and-fro with violent gesticulations. Some of them were advocating the justice of the “spree,” as they termed it; while others, the more respectable of the traders, were denouncing it. The leperos with the women, had all disappeared, and I could perceive that the Americanos had carried the day. Several dark objects lay along the floor: they were bodies of men dead or dying! One was an American, the Missourian who had been the immediate cause of the fracas; the others were pelodos. I could see nothing of my late acquaintance. My fandanguera, too —con su marido– had disappeared; and on glancing at my left hand, I came to the conclusion that so also had my diamond ring!

“Saint Vrain! Saint Vrain!” I called, seeing the figure of my friend enter at the door.

“Where are you, H., old boy. How is it with you? all right, eh?”

“Not quite, I tear.”

“Good heavens! what’s this? why, you’re stabbed in the hump ribs! Not bad, I hope. Off with your shirt and let’s see.”

“First, let us to my room.”

“Come, then, my dear boy, lean on me – so, so!”

The fandango was over.

Chapter Eight.