The Red Track: A Story of Social Life in Mexico

"Have mercy, heaven! have mercy!"

The struggle had been short but terrible; faith had conquered doubt, and humanity had regained its rights.

The general then had with the monks a conversation, protracted far into the night, in which he confessed all his crimes and sins, and humbly asked pardon of God whom he had outraged, and before whom he was about to appear.

The next day, a little after, sunrise, one of the monks, who had been absent about an hour, returned, bringing with him the general's capataz. It had only been with extreme reluctance that Carnero had consented to come, for he justly dreaded his old master's reproaches.

Hence his surprise was extreme at being received with a smile, and kindly, and on finding that the general did not make the slightest allusion to his treachery, which the evidence before the court-martial had fully revealed.

Carnero looked inquiringly at the two monks, for he did not dare put faith in his master's words, and each moment expected to hear him burst out into reproaches. But nothing of the sort took place; the general continued the conversation as he had begun it, speaking to him gently and kindly.

At the moment when the capataz was about to withdraw, the general stopped him.

"One moment," he said to him; "you know Don Valentine, the French hunter, for whom I so long cherished an insensate hatred?"

"Yes," Carnero stammered.

"Be kind enough to ask him to grant me the favour of a short visit; he is a noble-hearted man, and I am convinced that he will not refuse to come. I should be glad if he consented to bring with him Don Martial, the Tigrero, who has so much cause to complain of me, as well as my niece, Doña Anita de Torrés. Will you undertake this commission, the last I shall doubtless give you?"

"Yes, general," the capataz answered, affected in spite of himself by such gentleness.

"Now go; be happy and pray for me, for we shall never meet again."

The capataz went out in a very different frame of mind from that in which he had entered the capilla, and hastened off to Valentine. The hunter was not at home, for he had gone to the presidential palace, but he returned almost immediately. The capataz gave the message which his old master had entrusted him with for him.

"I will go," the hunter said simply, and he dismissed him.

Curumilla was at once sent off to Mr. Rallier's quinta with a letter, and during his absence Valentine had a long conversation with Belhumeur and Black Elk. At about five in the evening, a carriage entered the courtyard of Valentine's house at a gallop; it contained Mr. Rallier, Anita, and Don Martial.

"Thanks!" he said, on seeing them.

"You ordered me to come, so I obeyed as usual," the Tigrero answered.

"You were right, my friend."

"And now what do you want of us?"

"That you should accompany me to the place whither I am going at this moment."

"Would it be indiscreet to ask you – "

"Where?" the hunter interrupted him with a laugh.

"Not at all; I am going to lead you, Doña Anita, and the persons here present, to the capilla in which General Guerrero is confined."

"The capilla?" the Tigrero exclaimed in amazement, "for what purpose?"

"What does that concern you? The general has requested to see you, and you cannot refuse the request of a man who has but a few hours left to live."

The Tigrero hung his head without answering.

"Oh! I will go!" Doña Anita exclaimed impulsively, as she wiped away the tears that ran down her cheeks.

"You are a woman, señorita, and therefore good and indulgent," the hunter said; then turning to the Tigrero, he said, with a slight accent of reproach, "you have not yet answered me, Don Martial."

"Since you insist, Don Valentine, I will go," he at length answered, with an effort.

"I do not insist, my friend; I only ask, that is all."

"Come, Martial, I implore you," Doña Anita said to him gently.

"Your will be done in this as in all other things," he said. "I am ready to follow you, Don Valentine."

Valentine, Doña Anita, Mr. Rallier, and Don Martial got into the carriage. The two Canadians and the chief followed them on horseback, and they proceeded at a gallop to the chapel where the condemned man was confined.

All along the road they found marks of the obstinate struggle which had deluged the city with blood a few days previously; the barricades had not been entirely removed, and though the distance was, in reality, very short, they did not reach the prison till nightfall, owing to the detours they were forced to make.

Valentine begged his friends to remain outside, and only entered with Doña Anita and the Tigrero. The general was impatiently expecting them, and testified a great joy on perceiving them.

The young lady could not restrain her emotion, and threw herself into her uncle's arms with an outburst of passionate grief. The general pressed her tenderly to his bosom, and kissed her on the forehead.

"I am the more affected by these marks of affection, my child," he said with much emotion, "because I have been very harsh to you. Can you ever forgive me the sufferings I have caused you?"

"Oh, uncle, speak not so. Are you not, alas! the only relation I have remaining?"

"For a very short time," he said with a sad smile, "that is the reason why I ought, without further delay, to provide for your future."

"Do not talk about that at such a moment, uncle," she continued, bursting into tears.

"On the contrary, my child, it is at this moment when I am going to leave you, that I am bound to insure you a protector. Don Martial, I have done you great wrong; here is my hand, accept it as that of a man who has completely recognized his faults, and sincerely repents the evil he has done."

The Tigrero, more affected than he liked to display, took a step forward, and cordially pressed the hand offered him.

"General," he said, in a voice which he tried in vain to render firm, "this moment, which I never dared hope to see, fills me with joy, but at the same time with grief."

"Well, you can do something for me by proving to me that you have really forgiven me."

"Speak, general, and if it is in my power – ," he exclaimed warmly.

"I believe so," Don Sebastian answered, with his sad smile. "Consent to accept my niece from my hand, and marry her at once in this chapel."

"Oh, general!" he began, choking with emotion.

"Uncle, at this awful moment!" the young lady murmured, timidly.

"Allow me the supreme consolation of dying under the knowledge that you are happy. Don Valentine, you have doubtless brought some of your friends with you?"

"They are awaiting your commands, general," the hunter answered.

"Let them come in, in that case, for time presses."

One of the monks had prepared everything beforehand.

When the hunters and the French banker entered, followed by Curumilla, and the officer commanding the capilla guard, who had been warned beforehand, the general walked eagerly toward them.

"Señores," he said, "I would ask you to do me the honour of witnessing the marriage of my niece, Doña Anita de Torrés, with this caballero."

The newcomers bowed respectfully. At a signal from one of the Franciscans they knelt down and the ceremony began. It lasted hardly twenty minutes, but never had a marriage mass been read or listened to with more pious fervour. When it was ended, the witnesses wished to retire.

"One moment, señores, if you please," the general said to them. "I now wish to make you witnesses of a great reparation."

They stopped, and the general walked up to Valentine.

"Caballero," he said to him, "I know all the motives of hatred you have against me, and those motives I allow to be just. I am now in the same position in which I placed Count de Prébois Crancé, your dearest friend. Like him, I shall be shot tomorrow at daybreak; but with this difference, that he fell as a martyr to a holy cause, and innocent of the crimes of which I accused him, while I am guilty, and have deserved the sentence passed on me. Don Valentine, I repent from the bottom of my heart the iniquitous murder of your friend. Don Valentine, do you forgive me?"

"General Don Sebastian Guerrero, I forgive you the murder of my friend," the hunter answered, in a firm voice. "I forgive you the life of grief to which I am henceforth condemned by you."

"You pardon me unreservedly?"

"Unreservedly I do."

"Thanks! We were made to love instead of hate each other. I misunderstood you; but yours is a great and noble heart. Now, let death come, and I shall accept it gladly; for I feel convinced that God will have pity on me on account of my sincere repentance. Be happy, niece, with the husband of your choice. Señores, all, accept my thanks. Don Valentine, once more I thank you; and now leave me all, for I no longer belong to the world, so let me think of my salvation."

"But one word," Valentine said. "General, I have forgiven you, and it is now my turn to ask your pardon. I have deceived you."

"Deceived me!"

"Yes: take this paper. The President of the Republic, employing his sovereign right of mercy, has, on my pressing entreaty, revoked the sentence passed on you. You are free."

His hearers burst into a cry of admiration.

The general turned pale; he tottered, and for a moment it was fancied that he was about to fall. A cold perspiration stood on his temples. Doña Anita sprang forward to support him, but he repulsed her gently, and, with a great effort, exclaimed, in a choking voice —

"Don Valentine, Don Valentine, such then is your revenge. Oh! blind, blind that I was to form such an erroneous opinion of you! You condemn me to live. Well, be it so; I accept, and will not deceive your expectations. Fathers," he said, turning to the monks, "lead me to your monastery. General Guerrero is dead, and henceforth I shall be a monk of your order."

Don Sebastian's conversion was sincere. Grace had touched him, and he persevered. Two months after professing, he died in the Franciscan Monastery, crushed by remorse and worn out by the cruel penance he inflicted on himself.

Two days after the scene we have described, Valentine and his companions left Mexico, and returned to Sonora. On reaching the frontier, the hunter, in spite of the pressing entreaties of his friends, separated from them, and returned to the desert.

Don Martial and Doña Anita settled in Mexico, near the Ralliers. A month after Valentine's departure, Doña Helena returned to the convent, and at the end of a year, in spite of the entreaties of her family, who were surprised at so strange a resolution, which nothing apparently explained, the young lady took the vows.

When I met Valentine Guillois on the banks of the Rio Joaquin, some time after the events recorded in this long story, he was going with Curumilla to attempt a hazardous expedition across the Rocky Mountains, from which, he said to me, with that soft melancholy smile which he generally assumed when speaking to me, he hoped never to return.

I accompanied him for several days, and then we were compelled to separate. He pressed my hand, and, followed by his dumb friend, he entered the mountains. For a long time I looked after him, for I involuntarily felt my heart contracted by a sad foreboding. He turned round for the last time, waved his hand in farewell, and disappeared round a bend of the track.

I was fated never to see him again.

Since then nothing has been heard of him, or of Curumilla. All my endeavours to join them, or even obtain news of them, was vain.

Are they still living? – no one can say. Darkness has settled down over these two magnificent men, and time itself will, in all probability, never remove the veil that conceals their fate; for all, unhappily, leads me to suppose that they perished in that gloomy expedition from which Valentine hoped, alas! never to return.

END OF RED TRACK

A BUFFALO HUNT 6

A STUDY OF THE AMERICAN WILD BULL

Certain reasons, unnecessary to state here, had somewhat accidentally led me to a Sonorian hacienda, called the Hacienda del Milagro, situated a few leagues from Hermosillo, close to the Indian border, and belonging to Don Rafael Garillas de Saavedra, one of the richest landowners in the province.

Don Rafael had spent what is called in Europe a wild life, and for many years had traversed the deserts of Apacheria in company of a Canadian adventurer of the name of Belhumeur. Although enormously rich, married to a woman he adored, and surrounded by a delightful family, Don Rafael had now and then moments of gloom, in which he regretted the time when, unhappy and disinherited, he wandered, under the name of Loyal-heart, from Arkansas to Apacheria, leading the precarious existence of wood rangers, living from hand to mouth, forgetful of a past which only summoned up bitter griefs, and careless about a future which he believed would never realize the dreams of his poetical imagination.

Like all men who have suffered and passed through a hard apprenticeship of life, Don Rafael was kind and indulgent to others, and ever ready to excuse a fault when it only emanated from a forgetfulness of propriety or an error of judgment.

Two days after my arrival at the Hacienda del Milagro, thanks to the cordial reception given me, I was regarded as forming part of the family, and was as much at my ease as if I had lived for years with these new friends, who soon grew so old in my heart, and whose memory will be ever dear to me.

One evening a new guest arrived at the hacienda, where he was literally received with open arms, which greatly surprised me; for I knew the prejudices of Spaniards against Indians, and the newcomer was simply a redskin. It is true that this redskin was the first sachem of a powerful Comanche tribe, which was explained to me in two words by Belhumeur, the Canadian hunter, with whom I had struck up a great friendship from my first arrival at the hacienda.

This sachem was called Eagle-head. He came, in the name of his tribe, to invite Don Rafael, whom he obstinately called Loyal-heart, to a great buffalo hunt which was to come off in Apacheria toward the middle of the "Moon of the wild oats," that is to say, about September 15th.

Don Rafael was greatly inclined to accept this invitation, but a sorrowful look, which his wife gave him aside, made him understand how anxious his absence would make her. He therefore expressed his inability to be present at this hunt, which he would have so much liked to be, but very important business compelled him to remain at the hacienda. He added, however, that his friend Belhumeur would be happy to take his place, in order to prove to Eagle-head the value he set on his invitation and his lively desire to show him all the deference which so great a chief as he merited.

After a few words whispered in his ear, Belhumeur introduced me to the Indian chief, to whom he mentioned that, as I had never witnessed a buffalo hunt, I should be delighted with his permission to attend the present one. The chief politely replied that Belhumeur was an adopted son of the tribe, and that any persons he thought proper to bring with him would be received not only with great pleasure, but with the greatest kindness, according to the consecrated customs of Indian hospitality.

I warmly thanked, as I was bound to do, the chief, who was flattered to hear me express myself with some degree of elegance in his own language; and we agreed to meet at the winter village of the Comanches of the Lakes, on the fifth sun of the Moon of the wild oats.

Eagle-head took leave of us the same evening, in spite of all our efforts to keep him at least till the next morning. He started in the direction of the desert with the light and gymnastic step peculiar to the redskins, which a trotting horse could not keep up with, and which enables them to cover an enormous distance in a relatively very short period.

Two days later, Belhumeur, myself, and another Canadian hunter attached to the hacienda, by the name of Black Elk, mounted on excellent mustangs, and armed to the teeth, took leave of Don Rafael, who saw us depart with a sigh of regret, and we proceeded in the direction of the great western prairies.

Belhumeur was a first-rate companion, of tried bravery; a thorough adventurer, gay, daring, and reckless, whose life had been almost entirely spent in the desert, and whom his attachment for Don Rafael had alone determined to give up the free and independent life of a hunter to confine himself, as he said with a smile, within stone walls, where he ofttimes felt that fresh air was wanting for his lungs.

Belhumeur was a book of which I turned over the leaves of at my pleasure, and each page was full of attractions for me, and offered me agreeable surprises.

Although I had myself long lived in the desert, I had as yet only traversed countries where buffalo is never met; hence I was extremely anxious to obtain some positive information about this interesting animal, so useful to the Indians, who profess for it a respect almost approaching to veneration. In this way I hoped not to be quite a novice when I joined the redskins, and would know not only in what way to attack the new enemy I was about to confront, but also how to behave, so as not to appear an utter ignoramus in the sight of the Indians.

One evening, while seated at our watch fire after supper, smoking my Indian pipe charged with morrichée, or prairie tobacco, I asked Belhumeur, whose good nature was inexhaustible, to give me the most circumstantial information about the buffalo, which he at once did with his usual goodwill.

This is what I learned in substance. I will ask my reader's pardon for substituting my recollections for the Canadian's prolix narration, for what they may lose in simplicity of expression they will gain in brevity, which is not a thing to be so much despised as might be supposed at the first blush.

I am bound to state that all Belhumeur then told me about the manners and habits of these singular animals was most rigorously exact, as I was in a position to convince myself at a later date. This, then, was Belhumeur's account.

The Indians say proverbially that bees are the advanced guard of the palefaces, and the buffaloes the vedettes of the redskins. In fact, although it is impossible to explain the reason, bees constantly seek to advance into the desert, and when they appear at the border of clearings, it is certain that two or three days later emigrants will turn up, with rifles on their shoulders, and followed by a long file of waggons, carts, horses, and cattle. These bold pioneers of civilisation come, impelled by their adventurous instincts, to set up their tents in the heart of the desert, on the shady banks of some unknown river, and their unceasing activity soon changes the character of the landscape.

In the same way when the traveller advances into the savannahs, so soon as he sights the buffalo he may be certain that he has reached the territory of the redskins.

Now, it appears to us that everything relating to so interesting an animal as the buffalo, which is fatally destined so soon to disappear, unless care be taken, and which is so eminently useful, is worth recording.

Purchas in his "Pilgrimage" (London edition, 1614), says that in certain respects the buffalo resembles the lion, and in others the camel, ox, horse, sheep, and goat. Civilization in its continuous onward march destroys the great animals, and drives back the redskin and even the hunter, unless he consent to modify his fashion of living.

The buffalo, which, on its discovery in 1582 by Lusman, in the province of Sinaloa, extended its wanderings over nearly the whole of North America, now restricts its excursions more and more, and is only met with at present in the wildest deserts situated to the west of the Rocky Mountains, which proves a considerable diminution in their numbers, and this is probably augmented by the Indian custom of only killing cows and leaving the bulls.

The Americans, however, ought to interfere, for the buffalo is capable of being tamed, and crossing it with the European ox would produce a strong, patient, and courageous breed, whose services would be of immense utility in the immense settlement of the new states. We saw at a Texan hacienda completely tamed buffaloes, which, according to their owners, were an excellent substitute for the common ox.

The buffalo lives longer than the domestic ox: its proportions are greater, and though its front is ungraceful, the hinder parts are handsome. The buffalo is generally brown, though spotted ones are met with, and even some completely white; its face is very like that of the bull; its head covered with thick wool, the long beard hanging from its lower jaw, and its melancholy, gentle, and almost stupid eye give it a singular and almost strange appearance. Its horns are short, rounded, and capable of taking a fine polish; it has between its shoulders a very prominent hump, whilst its hinder parts are covered with short, straight hair, like that of European ruminants; its short tail terminates in a tuft of curly hair. The age of a buffalo is discovered by the rings on its horns, the first four counting for the first year.

The meat of the cows is considered more delicate than that of the bulls, especially in the rutting season. The parts most appreciated are the heart, the tongue, the liver, the short rib, and the part called the hunter's joint, that is to say, the chine near the shoulder blade. Eight bones are considered marrowbones, they are those of the legs and thighs. A cow supplies about three hundred pounds of excellent meat, exclusive of the head, and several other parts of the animal; the marrow of a single bone is sufficient for a meal. The Indians, in order to obtain it, throw the bone into the fire after removing the meat, let it grill for a few minutes, take it out, break it, and remove the marrow, which is eaten, without seasoning, by means of a sharp stick. This marrow is very delicate and succulent, and when baked, it assumes the colour and consistency of meat; some hunters prefer to eat it raw, but we did not find it so good in that state.

When a manada of buffaloes is hunted, especially if it be composed of bulls, a strong smell of musk is exhaled; when full galloping, their hoofs crack the grass, as if it was dried. They have an extraordinary fine scent, and smell a man two or even three miles off.

This animal is extremely difficult to kill. On a certain occasion we lodged sixteen bullets in the body of a buffalo, ere we could succeed in killing. Wishing to assure oneself of the truth of a fact, which physicians and hunters had affirmed, namely, that the frontal bone of a buffalo is bullet-proof, we discharged our rifle, at ten paces' distance, at the head of a dead bull. The bullet did not penetrate, but was caught in the hair, where we found it again; still it had struck exactly in the centre of the forehead, for it had left its mark there before rebounding.

We have not very exactly followed Belhumeur's account, for, carried away by our sympathy for the noble animal he described to us, we have placed our ideas in the stead of his. We openly confess here that we are among those who sincerely regret that the proposal made in 1849, by Mr. Lamarre Picquot, to introduce into France the buffalo, as at once suitable for draught and for consumption, was not seriously discussed and taken into consideration, for this animal is one of the most useful, and would, we feel convinced, render valuable services.

Our journey lasted more than a month; for the winter village of the Comanches of the Lakes is hidden in a canyon, in the middle of the first spurs of the Rocky Mountains. Mounted on a vigorous mustang, I generally rode at the head of our small party, which I liked to do, in order to be more by myself, and observe more at my ease.

One morning I saw, at a spot where the trail I followed was wide and open, and some distance ahead of me, a large hawk, which appeared to be suffering, and making efforts to fly away. When I drew near enough I found that it was enfolded by a long whip snake, which had writhed several times round its body, and the bird had only one wing at liberty.

In all probability the hawk had been the aggressor, and had dashed down at the snake, but the latter, by cleverly enfolding its enemy, had succeeded in escaping the danger.