The Headless Horseman: A Strange Tale of Texas

“So far as I am concerned, I’m quite contented to wait for your return; the more willingly that I know you are acting on the side of justice. But what would you have me do?”

“Keep back the trial, Maje – only that. The rest will be all right.”

“How long? You know that it must come on according to the usual process in the Criminal Court. The judge of this circuit will not be ruled by me, though he may yield a little to my advice. But there is a party, who are crying out for vengeance; and he may be ruled by them.”

“I know the party ye speak o’. I know their leader; an maybe, afore the trial air over, he may be the kriminal afore the bar.”

“Ah! you do not believe, then, that these Mexicans are the men!”

“Can’t tell, Maje, whether they air or ain’t. I do b’lieve thet they’ve hed a hand in the bizness; but I don’t b’lieve thet they’ve been the prime movers in’t. It’s him I want to diskiver. Kin ye promise me three days?”

“Three days! For what?”

“Afore the trial kims on.”

“Oh! I think there will be no difficulty about that. He is now a prisoner under military law. Even if the judge of the Supreme Court should require him to be delivered up inside that time, I can make objections that will delay his being taken from the guard-house. I shall undertake to do that.”

“Maje! ye’d make a man a’most contented to live under marshul law. No doubt thur air times when it air the best, tho’ we independent citizens don’t much like it. All I’ve got to say air, thet ef ye stop this trial for three days, or tharahout, preehaps the prisoner to kim afore the bar may be someb’y else than him who’s now in the guard-house – someb’y who jest at this mom’t hain’t the smallest serspishun o’ bein’ hisself surspected. Don’t ask me who. Only say ye’ll streetch a pint, an gi’ me three days?”

“I promise it, Mr Stump. Though I may risk my commission as an officer in the American army, I give you an officer’s promise, that for three days Maurice the Mustanger shall not go out of my guard-house. Innocent or guilty, for that time he shall be protected.”

“Yur the true grit, Maje; an dog-gone me, ef I don’t do my beest to show ye some day, thet I’m sensible o’t. I’ve nuthin’ more to say now, ’ceptin’ to axe thet ye’ll not tell out o’ doors what I’ve been tellin’ you. Thur’s them outside who, ef they only knew what this coon air arter, ’ud move both heving an airth to circumwent his intenshuns.”

“They’ll have no help from me – whoever it is you are speaking of. Mr Stump, you may rely upon my pledged word.”

“I know’t, Maje, I know’t. God bless ye for a good ’un. Yer the right sort for Texas!”

With this complimentary leave-taking the hunter strode out of head-quarters, and made his way back to the place where he had left his old mare.

Once more mounting her, he rode rapidly away. Having cleared the parade ground, and afterwards the outskirts of the village, he returned on the same path that had conducted him from Casa Del Corvo.

On reaching the outskirts of Poindexter’s plantation, he left the low lands of the Leona bottom, and spurred his old mare ’gainst the steep slope ascending to the upper plain.

He reached it, at a point where the chapparal impinged upon the prairie, and there reined up under the shade of a mezquit tree. He did not alight, nor show any sign of an intention to do so; but sate in the saddle, stooped forward, his eyes turned upon the ground, in that vacant gaze which denotes reflection.

“Dog-gone my cats!” he drawled out in slow soliloquy. “Thet ere sarkimstance are full o’ signiferkince. Calhoun’s hoss out the same night, an fetched home a’ sweetin’ all over. What ked that mean? Durn me, ef I don’t surspect the foul play hev kum from that quarter. I’ve thort so all along; only it air so ridiklous to serpose thet he shed a killed his own cousin. He’d do that, or any other villinous thing, ef there war a reezun for it. There ain’t – none as I kin think o’. Ef the property hed been a goin’ to the young un, then the thing mout a been intellygible enuf. But it want. Ole Peintdexter don’t own a acre o’ this hyur groun’; nor a nigger thet’s upon it. Thet I’m sartin’ ’beout. They all belong to that cuss arready; an why shed he want to get shot o’ the cousin? Thet’s whar this coon gets flummixed in his kalkerlations. Thar want no ill will atween ’em, as ever I heerd o’. Thur’s a state o’ feelin’ twixt him an the gurl, thet he don’t like, I know. But why shed it temp him to the killin’ o’ her brother?

“An’ then thur’s the mowstanger mixed in wi’ it, an that shindy ’beout which she tolt me herself; an the sham Injuns, an the Mexikin shemale wi’ the har upon her lip; an the hossman ’ithout a head, an hell knows what beside! Geesus Geehosofat! it ’ud puzzle the brain pan o’ a Looeyville lawyer!

“Wal – there’s no time to stan’ speklatin’ hyur. Wi’ this bit o’ iron to assiss me, I may chance upon somethin’ thet’ll gie a clue to a part o’ the bloody bizness, ef not to the hul o’ it; an fust, as to the direcshun in which I shed steer?”

He looked round, as if in search of some one to answer the interrogatory.

“It air no use beginnin’ neer the Fort or the town. The groun’ abeout both on ’em air paddled wi’ hoss tracks like a cattle pen. I’d best strike out into the purayra at onst, an take a track crossways o’ the Rio Grande route. By doin’ thet I may fluke on the futmark I’m in search o’. Yes – ye-es! thet’s the most sensiblest idee.”

As if fully satisfied on this score, he took up his bridle-rein, muttered some words to his mare, and commenced moving off along the edge of the chapparal.

Having advanced about a mile in the direction of the Nueces river, he abruptly changed his course; but with a coolness that told of a predetermined purpose.

It was now nearly due west, and at right angles to the different trails going towards the Rio Grande.

There was a simultaneous change in his bearing – in the expression of his features – and his attitude in the saddle. No longer looking listlessly around, he sate stooping forward, his eye carefully scanning the sward, over a wide space on both sides of the path he was pursuing.

He had ridden about a mile in the new direction, when something seen upon the ground caused him to start, and simultaneously pull upon the bridle-rein.

Nothing loth, the “critter” came to a stand; Zeb, at the same time, flinging himself out of the saddle.

Leaving the old mare to ruminate upon this eccentric proceeding, he advanced a pace or two, and dropped down upon his knees.

Then drawing the piece of curved iron out of his capacious pocket, he applied it to a hoof-print conspicuously outlined in the turf. It fitted.

“Fits!” he exclaimed, with a triumphant gesticulation, “Dog-goned if it don’t!”

“Tight as the skin o’ a tick!” he continued, after adjusting the broken shoe to the imperfect hoof-print, and taking it up again. “By the eturnal! that ere’s the track o’ a creetur – mayhap a murderer!”

Chapter Seventy Three.

The Prairie Island

A herd of a hundred horses – or three times the number – pasturing upon a prairie, although a spectacle of the grandest kind furnished by the animal kingdom, is not one that would strike a Texan frontiersman as either strange, or curious. He would think it stranger to see a single horse in the same situation.

The former would simply be followed by the reflection: “A drove of mustangs.” The latter conducts to a different train of thought, in which there is an ambiguity. The solitary steed might be one of two things: either an exiled stallion, kicked out of his own cavallada, or a roadster strayed from some encampment of travellers.

The practised eye of the prairie-man would soon decide which.

If the horse browsed with a bit in his mouth, and a saddle on his shoulders, there would be no ambiguity – only the conjecture, as to how he had escaped from his rider.

If the rider were upon his back, and the horse still browsing, there would be no room for conjecture – only the reflection, that the former must be a lazy thick-headed fellow, not to alight and let his animal graze in a more commodious fashion.

If, however, the rider, instead of being suspected of having a thick head, was seen to have no head at all, then would there be cue for a thousand conjectures, not one of which might come within a thousand miles of the truth.

Such a horse; and just such a rider, were seen upon the prairies of South-Western Texas in the year of our Lord 1850 something. I am not certain as to the exact year – the unit of it – though I can with unquestionable certainty record the decade.

I can speak more precisely as to the place; though in this I must be allowed latitude. A circumference of twenty miles will include the different points where the spectral apparition made itself manifest to the eyes of men – both on prairie and in chapparal – in a district of country traversed by several northern tributaries of the Rio de Nueces, and some southern branches of the Rio Leona.

It was seen not only by many people; but at many different times. First, by the searchers for Henry Poindexter and his supposed murderer; second, by the servant of Maurice the mustanger; thirdly, by Cassius Calhoun, on his midnight exploration of the chapparal; fourthly, by the sham Indians on that same night: and, fifthly, by Zeb Stump on the night following.

But there were others who saw it elsewhere and on different occasions – hunters, herdsmen, and travellers – all alike awed, alike perplexed, by the apparition.

It had become the talk not only of the Leona settlement, but of others more distant. Its fame already reached on one side to the Rio Grande, and on the other was rapidly extending to the Sabine. No one doubted that such a thing had been seen. To have done so would have been to ignore the evidence of two hundred pairs of eyes, all belonging to men willing to make affidavit of the fact – for it could not be pronounced a fancy. No one denied that it had been seen. The only question was, how to account for a spectacle so peculiar, as to give the lie to all the known laws of creation.

At least half a score of theories were started – more or less feasible – more or less absurd. Some called it an “Indian dodge;” others believed it a “lay figure;” others that it was not that, but a real rider, only so disguised as to have his head under the serapé that shrouded his shoulders, with perhaps a pair of eye-holes through which he could see to guide his horse; while not a few pertinaciously adhered to the conjecture, started at a very early period, that the Headless Horseman was Lucifer himself!

In addition to the direct attempts at interpreting the abnormal phenomenon, there was a crowd of indirect conjectures relating to it. Some fancied that they could see the head, or the shape of it, down upon the breast, and under the blanket; others affirmed to having actually seen it carried in the rider’s hand; while others went still further, and alleged: that upon the head thus seen there was a hat – a black-glaze sombrero of the Mexican sort, with a band of gold bullion above the brim!

There were still further speculations, that related less to the apparition itself than to its connection with the other grand topic of the time – the murder of young Poindexter.

Most people believed there was some connection between the two mysteries; though no one could explain it. He, whom everybody believed, could have thrown some light upon the subject, was still ridden by the night-mare of delirium.