Tales of Trail and Town - Bret Harte (best short novels of all time .TXT) 📗

A hot afternoon on the plains. A dusty cavalcade of United States cavalry and commissary wagons, which from a distance preserved a certain military precision of movement, but on nearer view resolved itself into straggling troopers in twos and fours interspersed between the wagons, two noncommissioned officers and a guide riding ahead, who had already fallen into the cavalry slouch, but off to the right, smartly erect and cadet-like, the young lieutenant in command. A wide road that had the appearance of being at once well traveled and yet deserted, and that, although well defined under foot, still seemed to disappear and lose itself a hundred feet ahead in the monotonous level. A horizon that in that clear, dry, hazeless atmosphere never mocked you, yet never changed, but kept its eternal rim of mountains at the same height and distance from hour to hour and day to day. Dust—a parching alkaline powder that cracked the skin—everywhere, clinging to the hubs and spokes of the wheels, without being disturbed by movement, incrusting the cavalryman from his high boots to the crossed sabres of his cap; going off in small puffs like explosions under the plunging hoofs of the horses, but too heavy to rise and follow them. A reeking smell of horse sweat and boot leather that lingered in the road long after the train had passed. An external silence broken only by the cough of a jaded horse in the suffocating dust, or the cracking of harness leather. Within one of the wagons that seemed a miracle of military neatness and methodical stowage, a lazy conversation carried on by a grizzled driver and sunbrowned farrier.

“‘Who be you?’ sezee. ‘I’m Philip Atherly, a member of Congress,’ sez the long, dark-complected man, sezee, ‘and I’m on a commission for looking into this yer Injin grievance,’ sezee. ‘You may be God Almighty,’ sez Nebraska Bill, sezee, ‘but you look a d—d sight more like a hoss-stealin’ Apache, and we don’t want any of your psalm-singing, big-talkin’ peacemakers interferin’ with our ways of treatin’ pizen,—you hear me? I’m shoutin’,’ sezee. With that the dark-complected man’s eyes began to glisten, and he sorter squirmed all over to get at Bill, and Bill outs with his battery.—Whoa, will ye; what’s up with YOU now?” The latter remark was directed to the young spirited near horse he was driving, who was beginning to be strangely excited.

“What happened then?” said the farrier lazily.

“Well,” continued the driver, having momentarily quieted his horse, “I reckoned it was about time for me to wheel into line, for fellers of the Bill stripe, out on the plains, would ez leave plug a man in citizen’s clothes, even if he was the President himself, as they would drop on an Injin or a nigger. ‘Look here, Bill,’ sez I, ‘I’m escortin’ this stranger under gov’ment orders, and I’m responsible for him. I ain’t allowed to waste gov’ment powder and shot on YOUR kind onless I’ve orders, but if you’ll wait till I strip off this shell* I’ll lam the stuffin’ outer ye, afore the stranger.’ With that Bill just danced with rage, but dassent fire, for HE knew, and I knew, that if he’d plugged me he’d been a dead frontiersman afore the next mornin’.”

* Cavalry jacket.

“But you’d have had to give him up to the authorities, and a jury of his own kind would have set him free.”

“Not much! If you hadn’t just joined, you’d know that ain’t the way o’ 30th Cavalry,” returned the driver. “The kernel would have issued his orders to bring in Bill dead or alive, and the 30th would have managed to bring him in DEAD! Then your jury might have sat on him! Tell you what, chaps of the Bill stripe don’t care overmuch to tackle the yaller braid.”*

* Characteristic trimming of cavalry jacket.

“But what’s this yer Congressman interferin’ for, anyway?”

“He’s a rich Californian. Thinks he’s got a ‘call,’ I reckon, to look arter Injins, just as them Abolitionists looked arter slaves. And get hated just as they was by the folks here,—and as WE are, too, for the matter of that.”

“Well, I dunno,” rejoined the farrier, “it don’t seem nateral for white men to quarrel with each other about the way to treat an Injin, and that Injin lyin’ in ambush to shoot ‘em both. And ef gov’ment would only make up its mind how to treat ‘em, instead of one day pretendin’ to be their ‘Great Father’ and treatin’ them like babies, and the next makin’ treaties with ‘em like as they wos forriners, and the next sendin’ out a handful of us to lick ten thousand of them— Wot’s the use of ONE regiment—even two—agin a nation—on their own ground?”

“A nation,—and on their own ground,—that’s just whar you’ve hit it, Softy. That’s the argument of that Congressman Atherly, as I’ve heard him talk with the kernel.”

“And what did the kernel say?”

“The kernel reckoned it was his business to obey orders,—and so should you. So shut your head! If ye wanted to talk about gov’ment ye might say suthin’ about its usin’ us to convoy picnics and excursion parties around, who come out here to have a day’s shootin’, under some big-wig of a political boss or a railroad president, with a letter to the general. And WE’RE told off to look arter their precious skins, and keep the Injins off ‘em,—and they shootin’ or skeerin’ off the Injins’ nat’ral game, and our provender! Darn my skin ef there’ll be much to scout for ef this goes on. And b’gosh!—of they aren’t now ringin’ in a lot of titled forriners to hunt ‘big game,’ as they call it,—Lord This-and-That and Count So-and-So,—all of ‘em with letters to the general from the Washington cabinet to show ‘hospitality,’ or from millionaires who’ve bin hobnobbin’ with ‘em in the old country. And darn my skin ef some of ‘em ain’t bringin’ their wives and sisters along too. There was a lord and lady passed through here under escort last week, and we’re goin’ to pick up some more of ‘em at Fort Biggs tomorrow,—and I reckon some of us will be told off to act as ladies’ maids or milliners. Nothin’ short of a good Injin scare, I reckon, would send them and us about our reg’lar business. Whoa, then, will ye? At it again, are ye? What’s gone of the d—d critter?”

Here the fractious near horse was again beginning to show signs of disturbance and active terror. His quivering nostrils were turned towards the wind, and he almost leaped the centre pole in his frantic effort to avoid it. The eyes of the two men were turned instinctively in that direction. Nothing was to be seen,—the illimitable plain and the sinking sun were all that met the eye. But the horse continued to struggle, and the wagon stopped. Then it was discovered that the horse of an adjacent trooper was also laboring under the same mysterious excitement, and at the same moment wagon No. 3 halted. The infection of some inexplicable terror was spreading among them. Then two noncommissioned officers came riding down the line at a sharp canter, and were joined quickly by the young lieutenant, who gave an order. The trumpeter instinctively raised his instrument to his lips, but was stopped by another order.

And then, as seen by a distant observer, a singular spectacle was unfolded. The straggling train suddenly seemed to resolve itself into a large widening circle of horsemen, revolving round and partly hiding the few heavy wagons that were being rapidly freed from their struggling teams. These, too, joined the circle, and were driven before the whirling troopers. Gradually the circle seemed to grow smaller under the “winding-up” of those evolutions, until the horseless wagons reappeared again, motionless, fronting the four points of the compass, thus making the radii of a smaller inner circle, into which the teams of the wagons as well as the troopers’ horses were closely “wound up” and densely packed together in an immovable mass. As the circle became smaller the troopers leaped from their horses,—which, however, continued to blindly follow each other in the narrower circle,—and ran to the wagons, carbines in hand. In five minutes from the time of giving the order the straggling train was a fortified camp, the horses corralled in the centre, the dismounted troopers securely posted with their repeating carbines in the angles of the rude bastions formed by the deserted wagons, and ready for an attack. The stampede, if such it was, was stopped.

And yet no cause for it was to be seen! Nothing in earth or sky suggested a reason for this extraordinary panic, or the marvelous evolution that suppressed it. The guide, with three men in open order, rode out and radiated across the empty plain, returning as empty of result. In an hour the horses were sufficiently calmed and fed, the camp slowly unwound itself, the teams were set to and were led out of the circle, and as the rays of the setting sun began to expand fanlike across the plain the cavalcade moved on. But between them and the sinking sun, and visible through its last rays, was a faint line of haze parallel with their track. Yet even this, too, quickly faded away.

Had the guide, however, penetrated half a mile further to the west he would have come upon the cause of the panic, and a spectacle more marvelous than that he had just witnessed. For the illimitable plain with its monotonous prospect was far from being level; a hundred yards further on he would have slowly and imperceptibly descended into a depression nearly a mile in width. Here he not only would have completely lost sight of his own cavalcade, but have come upon another thrice its