Overland Part 32

"A dozen!" chuckled Texas, "besides the wounded. Let's hev a look at the dead uns."

Going into Meyer's room, he found one of the Apaches still twitching, and immediately cut his throat. Then he climbed to the roof, gloated over the three bodies there, dragged them one by one to the ledge, and pitched them into the plaza.

"That'll settle 'em," he remarked with a sigh of intense satisfaction, like that of a baby when it has broken its rattle. Coming down again, he looked all the corpses over again, and said with an air of disappointment which was almost sentimental, "On'y a dozen!"

"I kin keer for the Injuns," he volunteered when the question came up of burying the dead. "I'd rather keer for 'em than not."

Before Thurstane knew what was going on, Texas had finished his labor of love. A crevice in the northern wall of the enclosure looked out upon a steep slope of marl, almost a precipice, which slanted sheer into the boiling flood of the San Juan. To this crevice Texas dragged one naked carca.s.s after another, bundled it through, launched it with a vigorous shove, and then watched it with a pantherish grin, licking his chops as it were, as it rolled down the steep, splashed into the river, and set out on its swift voyage toward the Pacific.

"I s'pose you'll want to dig a hole for _him_" he said, coming into the Casa and looking wistfully at the body of poor young Shubert.

Sergeant Meyer motioned him to go away. Thurstane was entering in his journal an inventory of the deceased soldier's effects having already made a minute of the date and cause of his death. These with other facts, such as name, age, physical description, birthplace, time of service, amount of pay due, balance of clothing-account and stoppages, must be more or less repeated on various records, such as the descriptive book of the company, the daily return, the monthly return, the quarterly return, the muster-roll from which the name would be dropped, and the final statements which were to go to the Adjutant-General and the Paymaster-General. Even in the desert the monstrous accountability system of the army lived and burgeoned.

Nothing of importance happened until about noon, when the sentinel on the outer wall announced that the Apaches were approaching in force, and Thurstane gave orders to barricade one of the doors of the Casa with some large blocks of adobe, saying to himself, "I ought to have done it before."

This work well under way, he hastened to the brow of the hill and reconnoitred the enemy.

"They are not going to attack," said Coronado. "They are going to torture the girl Pepita."

Thurstane turned away sick at heart, observing, "I must keep the women in the Casa."

CHAPTER XXIV.

When Thurstane, turning his back on the torture scene, had ascended to the roof of the Casa, he found the ladies excited and anxious.

"What is the matter?" asked Clara at once, taking hold of his sleeve with the tips of her fingers, in a caressing, appealing way, which was common with her when talking to those she liked.

Ordinarily our officer was a truth-teller; indeed, there was nothing which came more awkwardly to him than deception; he hated and despised it as if it were a personage, a criminal, an Indian. But here was a case where he must stoop to falsification, or at least to concealment.

"The Apaches are just below," he mumbled. "Not one of you women must venture out. I will see to everything. Be good now."

She gave his sleeve a little twitch, smiled confidingly in his face, and sat down to do some much-needed mending.

Having posted Sweeny at the foot of the ladders, with instructions to let none of the women descend, Thurstane hastened back to the exterior wall, drawn by a horrible fascination. With his field-gla.s.s he could distinguish every action of the tragedy which was being enacted on the plain. Pepita, entirely stripped of her clothing, was already bound to the sapling which stood by the side of the rivulet, and twenty or thirty of the Apaches were dancing around her in a circle, each one approaching her in turn, howling in her ears and spitting in her face. The young man had read and heard much of the horrors of that torture-dance, which stamps the American Indian as the most ferocious of savages; but be had not understood at all how large a part insult plays in this ceremony of deliberate cruelty; and, insulting a woman! he had not once dream'ed it. Now, when he saw it done, his blood rushed into his head and he burst forth in choked incoherent curses.

"I can't stand this," he shouted, advancing upon Coronado with clenched fists. "We must charge."

The Mexican shook his head in a sickly, scared way, and pointed to the left. There was a covering party of fifty or sixty warriors; it was not more than a quarter of a mile from the eastern end of the enclosure; it was in position to charge either upon that, or upon the flank of any rescuing sally.

"We can do it," insisted the lieutenant, who felt as if he could fight twenty men.

"We can't," replied Coronado. "I won't go, and my men shan't go."

Thurstane thought of Clara, covered his face with his hands, and sobbed aloud. Texas Smith stared at him with a kind of contemptuous pity, and offered such consolation as it was in his nature to give.

"Capm, when they've got through this job they'll travel."

The hideous prelude continued for half an hour. The Apaches in the dance were relieved by their comrades in the covering party, who came one by one to take their turns in the round of prancing, hooting, and spitting. Then came a few minutes of rest; then insult was followed by outrage.

The girl was loosed from the sapling and lifted until her head was even with the lower branches, three warriors holding her while two others extended her arms and fixed them to two stout limbs. What the fastenings were Thurstane could guess from the fact that he saw blows given, and heard the long shrill scream of a woman in uttermost agony. Then there was more hammering around the sufferer's feet, and more shrill wailing. She was spiked through the palms and the ankles to the tree. It was a crucifixion.

"By ----!" groaned Thurstane, "I never will spare an Indian as long as I live."

"Capm, I'm with you," said Texas Smith. "I seen my mother fixed like that.

I seen it from the bush whar I was a hidin'. I was a boy then. I've killed every Injun I could sence."

Now the dance was resumed. The Apaches pranced about their victim to the music of her screams. The movement quickened; at last they ran around the tree in a maddened crowd; at every shriek they stamped, gestured, and yelled demoniacally. Now and then one of them climbed the girl's body and appeared to stuff something into her mouth. Then the lamentable outcries sank to a gasping and sobbing which could only be imagined by the spectators on the hill.

"Can't you hit some of them?" Thurstane asked Texas Smith.

"Better let 'em finish," muttered the borderer. "The gal can't be helped.

She's as good as dead, Capm."

After another rest came a fresh scene of horror. Several of the Apaches, no doubt chiefs or leading braves, caught up their bows and renewed the dance. Running in a circle at full speed about the tree, each one in turn let fly an arrow at the victim, the object being to send the missile clear through her.

"That's the wind-up," muttered Texas Smith. "It's my turn now."

He leaped from the wall to the ground, ran sixty or eighty yards down the hill, halted, aimed, and fired. One of the warriors, a fellow in a red s.h.i.+rt who had been conspicuous in the torture scene, rolled over and lay quiet. The Apaches, who had been completely absorbed by their frantic ceremony, and who had not looked for an attack at the moment, nor expected death at such a distance, uttered a cry of surprise and dismay. There was a scramble of ten or fifteen screaming hors.e.m.e.n after the audacious borderer. But immediately on firing he had commenced a rapid retreat, at the same time reloading. He turned and presented his rifle; just then, too, a protecting volley burst from the rampart; another Apache fell, and the rest retreated.

"Capm, it's all right," said Texas, as he reascended the ruin. "We're squar with 'em."

"We might have broken it up," returned Thurstane sullenly.

"No, Capm. You don't know 'em. They'd got thar noses p'inted to torture that gal. If they didn't do it thar, they'd a done it a little furder off.

They was bound to do it. Now it's done, they'll travel."

Warned by their last misadventure, the Indians presently retired to their usual camping ground, leaving their victim attached to the sapling.

"I'll fotch her up," volunteered Texas, who had a hyena's hankering after dead bodies. "Reckon you'd like to bury her."

He mounted, rode slowly, and with prudent glances to right and left, down the hill, halted under the tree, stood up in his saddle and worked there for some minutes. The Apaches looked on from a distance, uttering yells of exultation and making opprobrious gestures. Presently Texas resumed his seat and cantered gently back to the ruins, bearing across his saddle-bow a fearful burden, the naked body of a girl of eighteen, pierced with more than fifty arrows, stained and streaked all over with blood, the limbs shockingly mangled, and the mouth stuffed with rags.

While nearly every other spectator turned away in horror, he glared steadily and calmly at the corpse, repeating, "That's Injin fun, that is.

That's what they brag on, that is."

"Bury her outside the wall," ordered Thurstane with averted face. "And listen, all you people, not a word of this to the women."

"We shall be catechised," said Coronado.

"You must do the lying," replied the officer. He was so shaken by what he had witnessed that he did not dare to face Clara for an hour afterward, lest his discomposure should arouse her suspicions. When he did at last visit the tower, she was quiet and smiling, for Coronado had done his lying, and done it well.

"So there was no attack," she said. "I am so glad!"

"Only a little skirmish. You heard the firing, of course."