Overland Part 30

"Do be careful, oh my dear friend!" was the last whisper of Clara as Thurstane quitted the tower. Then she pa.s.sed the day in ascending and descending between heights of happiness and abysses of anxiety. Her existence henceforward was a Jacob's ladder, which had its foot on a world of crime and sorrow, and its top in heavens pa.s.sing description.

As for Thurstane, he had to think and act, for something must be done with Texas Smith. He queried whether the fellow might not have seen Clara when she pushed him out of the crevice, and would not seize the first opportunity to kill her. Angered by this supposition, he at first resolved to seize him, charge him with his crime, and turn him loose in the desert to take his chance among the Apaches. Then it occurred to him that it might be possible to change this enemy into a partisan. While he was pondering these matters his eye fell upon the man. His army habit of authority and of b.u.t.ting straight at the face of danger immediately got the better of his wish to manage the matter delicately, and made him forget his promises to be prudent. Beckoning Texas to follow him, he marched out of the plaza through the nearest gap, faced about upon his foe with an imperious stare, and said abruptly, "My man, do you want to be shot?"

Texas Smith had his revolver and long hunting-knife in his waist-belt. He thought of drawing both at once and going at Thurstane, who was certainly in no better state for battle, having only revolver and sabre. But the chance of combat was even; the certainty of being slaughtered after it by the soldiers was depressing; and, what was more immediately to the point, he was cowed by that stare of habitual authority.

"Capm--I don't," he said, watching the officer with the eye of a lynx, for, however unwilling to fight as things were, he meant to defend himself.

"Because I could have you set up by my sergeant and executed by my privates," continued Thurstane.

"Capm, I reckon you're sound there," admitted Texas, with a slight flinch in his manner.

"Now, then, do you want to fight a duel?" broke out the angry youngster, his pugnacity thoroughly getting the better of his wisdom. "We both have pistols."

"Capm," said the bravo, and then came to a pause--"Capm, I ain't a gentleman," he resumed, with the sulky humility of a bulldog who is beaten by his master. "I own up to it, Capm. I ain't a gentleman."

He was a "poor white" by birth; he remembered still the "high-toned gentlemen" who used to overawe his childhood; he recognized in Thurstane that unforgotten air of domination, and he was thoroughly daunted by it.

Moreover, there was his acquired and very rational fear of the army--a fear which had considerably increased upon him since he had joined this expedition, for he had noted carefully the disciplined obedience of the little squad of regulars, and had been much struck with its obvious potency for offence and defence.

"You won't fight?" said the officer. "Well, then, will you stop hunting me?"

"Capm, I'll go that much."

"Will you pledge yourself not to harm any one in this party, man or woman?"

"I'll go that much, too."

"I don't want to get any tales out of you. You can keep your secrets. d.a.m.n your secrets!"

"Capm, you're jest the whitest man I ever see."

"Will you pledge yourself to keep dark about this talk that we've had?"

"You bet!" replied Texas Smith, with an indescribable air of humiliation.

"I'm outbragged. I shan't tell of it."

"I shall give orders to my men. If anything queer happens, you won't live the day out."

"The keerds is stocked agin me, Capm. I pa.s.s. You kin play it alone."

"Now, then, walk back to the Casa, and keep quiet during the rest of this journey."

The most humbled bushwhacker and cutthroat between the two oceans, Texas Smith stepped out in front of Thurstane and returned to the cooking-fire, not quite certain as he marched that he would not get a pistol-ball in the back of his head, but showing no emotion in his swarthy, sallow, haggard countenance.

Although Thurstane trusted that danger from that quarter was over, he nevertheless called Meyer aside and muttered to him, "Sergeant, I have some confidential orders for you. If murder happens to me, or to any other person in this party, have that Texan shot immediately."

"I will addend to it, Leftenant," replied Meyer with perfect calmness and with his mechanical salute.

"You may give Kelly the same instructions, confidentially."

"Yes, Leftenant."

Texas Smith, fifteen or twenty yards away, watched this dialogue with an interest which even his Indian-like stoicism could hardly conceal. When the sergeant returned to the cooking-fire, he gave him a glance which was at once watchful and deprecatory, made place for him to sit down on a junk of adobe, and offered him a corn-shuck cigarito. Meyer took it, saying, "Thank you, Schmidt," and the two smoked in apparently amicable silence.

Nevertheless, Texas knew that his doom was sealed if murder should occur in the expedition; for, as to the protection of Coronado, he did not believe that that could avail against the uniform; and as to finding safety in flight, the cards there were evidently "stocked agin him."

Indeed, what had quelled him more than anything else was the fear lest he should be driven out to take his luck among the Apaches. Suppose that Thurstane had taken a fancy to swap him for that girl Pepita? What a bright and cheerful fire there would have been for him before sundown! How thoroughly the skin would have been peeled off his muscles! What neat carving at his finger joints and toe joints! Coa.r.s.e, unimaginative, hardened, and beastly as Texas Smith was, his flesh crawled a little at the thought of it. Presently it struck him that he had better do something to propitiate a man who could send him to encounter such a fate.

"Sergeant," he said in his harsh, hollow croak of a voice.

"Well, Schmidt?"

"Them creeturs oughter browse outside."

"So. You are right, Schmidt."

"If the Capm'll let me have three good men, I'll take 'em out."

Meyer's light-blue eyes, twinkling from under his sandy eyelashes, studied the face of the outlaw.

"I should zay it was a goot blan, Schmidt," he decided. "I'll mention it to the leftenant."

Thurstane, on being consulted, gave his consent. Meyer detailed Shubert and two of the Mexican cattle-drivers to report to Smith for duty. The Texan mounted his men on horses, separated one-third of the mules from the others, drove them out of the enclosure, and left them on the green hillside, while he pushed on a quarter of a mile into the plain and formed his line of four skirmishers. When a few of the Apaches approached to see what was going on, he levelled his rifle, knocked over one of the horses, and sent the rest off capering. After four or five hours he drove in his mules and took out another set. The Indians could only interrupt his pastoral labors by making a general charge; and that would expose them to a fire from the ruin, against which they could not retaliate. They thought it wise to make no trouble, and all day the foraging went on in peace.

Peace everywhere. Inside the fortress sleeping, cooking, mending of equipments, and cleaning of arms. Over the plain mustangs filling themselves with gra.s.s and warriors searching for roots. Not a movement worth heeding was made by the Apaches until the herders drove in their first relay of mules, when a dozen hungry braves la.s.soed the horse which Smith had shot, dragged him away to a safe distance, and proceeded to cut him up into steaks. On seeing this, the Texan cursed himself to all the h.e.l.ls that were known to him.

"It's the last time they'll catch me butcherin' for 'em," he growled. "If I can't hit a man, I won't shute."

One more night in the Casa de Montezuma, with Thurstane for officer of the guard. His arrangements were like Meyer's: the animals in the rear rooms of the Casa; Coronado's squad in one of the outer rooms, and Meyer's in the other; a sentry on the roof, and another in the plaza. The only change was that, owing to scarcity of fuel, no watch-fires were built. As Thurstane expected an attack, and as Indian a.s.saults usually take place just before daybreak, he chose the first half of the night for his tour of sleep. At one he was awakened by Sweeny, who was sergeant of his squad, Kelly being with Meyer and Shubert with Coronado.

"Well, Sweeny, anything stirring?" he asked.

"Divil a stir, Liftinant."

"Did nothing happen during your guard?"

"Liftinant," replied Sweeny, searching his memory for an incident which should prove his watchfulness--"the moon went down."

"I hope you didn't interfere."

"Liftinant, I thought it was none o' my bizniss."

"Send a man to relieve the sentry on the roof, and let him come down here."

"I done it, Liftinant, before I throubled ye. Where shall we slape? Jist by the corner here?"

"No. I'll change that. Two just inside of one doorway and two inside the other. I'll stay at the angle myself."

Three hours pa.s.sed as quietly as the wool-clad footsteps of the Grecian Fate. Then, stealing through the profound darkness, came the faintest rustle imaginable. It was not the noise of feet, but rather that of bodies slowly dragging through herbage, as if men were crawling or rolling toward the Casa. Thurstane, not quite sure of his hearing, and unwilling to disturb the garrison without cause, c.o.c.ked his revolver and listened intently.