CHAPTER XXI
DRIVING A BARGAIN
And why was this debate between the American and the Navajos so stubbornand tedious?
When two shrewd men are each determined to drive the best bargain hecan, and neither trusts the other, the diplomacy between a frontiersmanand a redskin may be as lengthy as if it were between rival ambassadorsof contending empires. In their secret hearts both Stephens andMahletonkwa were anxious to come to an understanding, but each thoughtit politic to simulate comparative indifference, and not to give anyadvantage to his opponent by betraying undue eagerness.
Stephens demanded at the outset the immediate restoration of the captiveto her father, safe and sound. Granted that, he was willing to promisefair compensation for the Navajo who had been slain, and amnesty for thesubsequent outrage of carrying off the girl; and also he was ready inperson to guarantee these terms. He could offer no less, much as helonged to see her abductors punished, because it was obvious that, aslong as they were not secure from retaliation, they would prefer to keeppossession of her to the last possible moment, and take their punishmentfighting.
To this first demand Mahletonkwa signified his willingness to agree,but only on conditions. Stephens's offer was an amnesty and faircompensation. That was precisely what he wanted. Fair compensation, plusan amnesty. But the question arose, what was fair compensation? and herefor a time they split. Stephens maintained that Don Nepomuceno's offerof a hundred and twenty-five dollars cash, was fair. Mahletonkwa wouldnot hear of it. His dead brother was worth a great deal more than that.He had asked a thousand dollars for him, and a thousand dollars heintended to have. Apart from that he had no use for the captive.
"Pay the bill, and take the girl," that was the sum and substance of hisargument; "and if her father won't pay, will you?"
Right here the American saw it was essential to make a stand. If heweakly yielded to this preposterous claim, Mahletonkwa would be sure toconclude that he was scared into acquiescence and could have no soldiersor Indian scouts in any force to back him up. That being so, most likelythe Navajo would raise his terms, and ask perhaps double, treble,quadruple,--anything he pleased in short,--till the whole affair becamea farce! No, Mahletonkwa's thousand-dollar demand was almost certainly abluff. Then why shouldn't he try a bluff, too?
"I can't do it, Mahletonkwa," said he with an air of finality, butspeaking more in sorrow than in anger, as one who sees good businessslipping through his fingers. "I'd like to come to terms first-rate, butI can't meet you there. You're too stiff in your figures. It's not adeal."
He thought of the girl sitting there all alone in the cave, and hiskindly heart longed to say, "What's a thousand dollars, more or less?Hang it all, here, take it! or rather, take my word for it, and let's beoff home." But prudence whispered, No.
Mahletonkwa calmly repeated his demand. He, too, thought it wisest toplay the part of the close-fisted trader, and show no hurry to make abargain.
"Well, look here then, Mahletonkwa and Navajos all," said the American,appealing directly to the cupidity of the followers as well as of thechief. "It's a big thing I've offered you on my own hook already in thismatter of the amnesty. It's a big thing for me to say I'll stand betweenyou and Uncle Sam" (he did not say Uncle Sam, but the Great Father atWashington); "but I stick by that, and I'll do it. And I've offered youpayment for the dead man, same as Don Nepomuceno, a hundred andtwenty-five dollars; and you say it aint enough. Now, I can't meet youthe whole way, but I'll raise my offer a bit, and you can take it orleave it. It's my last word." He rose to the level of the part he wasplaying, and threw himself into it with all the sincerity he was masterof. "You see that rifle"--he pointed to the long, heavy, muzzle-loadinghunter's rifle that lay beside Mahletonkwa's right knee--"well, I'llgive you the weight of that rifle in silver dollars. Me, looking as Ido, I'll see that you get them. There's my word upon it. This is mypersonal offer to compensate you for your dead brother. You shall havesilver dollars enough to weigh down that rifle on the scales. I don'tknow how many that'll take, but it's bound to be a right big pile. Nowunderstand me, you chaps, we'll take a balance, a fair and squarebalance, and put the rifle in one scale and pour silver dollars into theother till the rifle kicks the beam. _Sabe?_"
The sons of the desert looked one at another, and curious excitedsounds came from their lips, and significant gestures were made. Some ofthem had actually seen scales used to weigh out the rations at FortDefiance, and they quite understood what they were for, and made thething clear to the less instructed among them. The American saw that hisoffer had created an impression, and he did his best to rub it in.
"You'll find it pay you to accept, Mahletonkwa," he said. "You'll beable to fix things in grand style with all that silver. Here, let's havea look at that rifle of yours, and let me heft it." He put out his handcautiously--no objection was offered; he laid it on the piece--still noobjection; he raised the rifle slowly on both palms, dandling it, as itwere, up and down. "Why, it's a real heavy gun. It don't weigh less thantwelve or thirteen pounds, I reckon. I tell you that'll come to no endof a lot of silver; all silver dollars, mind you; and it'll takehundreds of them, you bet, to weigh down this gun." He turned his eyesfrom one to the other of the redskins, and they seemed to understand himas he laid it down again beside the chief.
It was clear that his way of putting it had a great effect on theNavajos. To tell the truth, most of Mahletonkwa's followers had by thistime begun to tire of their recent escapade. They had sallied out fromtheir own country under his leadership, at the summons of Ankitona, theheadman of their clan, to obtain the redress for the death of a memberof their clan called for by their peculiar religion. But so far they hadnot taken much by their move. They had not as yet got any compensation;they had carried off a Mexican girl; and now they were beginning to feelthat in doing so they had decidedly risked putting their heads in anoose. They began to believe they were in danger of being surrounded byUnited States soldiers, here in the Lava Beds, and were likely to havean extremely unpleasant time of it ere long unless they succeeded inescaping to a new hiding-place. The cool confidence shown by thissolitary man coming forward so boldly to treat with them convinced themthat he must have a strong force behind him. And now he was making anoffer of a complete amnesty, plus a heap of silver dollars. First oneand then another began to urge Mahletonkwa to close the bargain. He wasa chief, of course, and upon him, as such, rested the responsibility ofmaking decisions; but a Navajo chief is practically very much in thehands of his followers. When actually under fire they may obey him wellenough, but when it comes to questions of policy, if the greater numberare dissatisfied with his schemes or his methods, they simply leave him,and he finds himself deserted. He has no power to coerce them. Call thisanarchy, if you will, or call it liberty, it is at all events the veryopposite of despotism. No Navajo chief can play the despot; andMahletonkwa, conscious that his authority was slipping from him, accededto the terms, which indeed gave him nearly all he wanted.
"_Bueno_, Sooshiuamo", said he, using Stephens's Indian name in afriendly way, "I accept your offer, and there shall be peace between us.But you must agree to stay with us when we come out from the Lava Beds,and you must go with us all the way to San Remo for the money, and youmust prevent any trouble with the soldiers or with the Mexicans if theytry to hurt us. You promise that?"
"Yes," said Stephens slowly, weighing every word of the Indian'sspeech, "I'll promise that. I'll see you safe to the settlement and payyou the money with my own hands. And if we meet any Americans orMexicans who are after you, I'll explain that it is peace, and they arenot to attack. I'll guarantee that much."
"Then," said the Indian, "it is peace between us; peace is made andsure."
"Peace it is," said Stephens, rising; "and now by your leave I'll go andtell the senorita, and then go and tell my men."
He hurried back to the cave where he had left her, and found her on herknees. He had laughed at the orisons offered up by the Santiago peoplebefore blasting the a
cequia; he did not laugh at hers.
She sprang up at his approach.
"We've fixed it all right," he said, "so don't you fret, senorita. I wasreal sorry to have to keep you so long in suspense, but I couldn't wellhelp it. I'll explain all that to you later. But peace is made, andwe're going back to San Remo together, you and me, along with theNavajos, and we'll start right away. But I've got to go over to where Ileft my party yonder in the Lave Beds, and explain the whole arrangementto them. Otherwise there might be considerable of a fuss. Now, don't youfret," he took her hand again to reassure her, "you'll be all right, andI won't be gone many minutes. You're sure, now, you won't get scared?"
"If you say you will come back," she answered, "I know you will comeback, and I will try to be brave till you do."
With one glad pressure of her hand and one more long look into her eyeshe turned away and left her. She watched his active steps as hehastened across the oasis and sprang up the broken lava rocks beyond. Onthe summit he turned and looked back in her direction, and waved hishand as a signal to her that all was well. Five minutes later he boundeddown into the grassy opening where his mare was feeding with the fourhorses of the Pueblos. The cacique and the three others ran to meet him.
"How have you succeeded?" exclaimed the cacique. "Who was that shooting?Have you shot any of them?"
"Not me," replied Stephens. "I've been making peace, I have. I foundMahletonkwa had just as lief trade as fight, and a bit more so. 'Ditto,'says I to that, and just talked peace talk to him, and we made thingssquare. Cacique, you were plumb right about Whailahay; they haven'tharmed the girl. I've fixed it up with them about compensation for theirdear departed, and we 're all going back to San Remo together, to takeher home and get the silver for them. See?"
The cacique looked rather disconcerted. "I don't want to join companywith these Navajos out here," he said decidedly.
"Oh, I didn't mean you," rejoined the American; "I quite understand thatyou might feel a delicacy in obtruding yourself on them out here inNo-man's-land. They might have heard of that little affair of the sevenNavajos in the sweat-house, eh? and this might seem a good time andplace to pay off old scores?" His spirits had gone up with a bound, andhe found it impossible not to chaff the cacique a little. "No, Cacique;you brought me here upon their trail just like a smell-dog, as I wantedyou to do, and I've managed the rest of the business myself. Now, whatI want you to do is to take their back trail and meet Don Nepomuceno andhis party--they're sure to have found it again by now and to befollowing it up--and you tell them how I've fixed things, and say thesenorita's all right and we'll meet them in San Remo. Stop, I'll writeit down here on a scrap of paper and you can take it to them; that'll bebest." He produced a pencil and a small note-book, tore out a leaf andhastily wrote on it his message to the Mexican. "There, Cacique," saidhe handing it to him, "give that to Don Nepomuceno when you see him, andtell him the whole show. I'd like to have you wait and meet us at SanRemo if you get back there before us. _Hasta luego._"
He gathered up the riata of the mare, and started to pick his way withher through the Lava Beds to the oasis where the Navajos were camped,while the Pueblos speedily made themselves scarce in the oppositedirection.
By the time Stephens reached the camp the Navajos had collected theirscanty equipment and bound it on their saddles; they all took a longdrink of pure, cool water from the hidden "tinaja" or rock-cistern, and,leading their animals, made the best of their way over the Lava Beds tothe open country. Stephens explained to Mahletonkwa before starting thathe had arranged for his party to return to San Remo by the route theycame.
"_Bueno_," said Mahletonkwa shortly, "and we will go by another. I knowmany trails through the sierra; there is one that I like well, and Iwill take you by it."
"Right you are," said Stephens, "that suits me. Lead on." His object nowwas to avoid any chance of a collision between the Navajos and Mexicanstill they should meet at San Remo.
Manuelita walked beside him as they followed the winding and difficulttrail taken, by the Navajos through the Lava Beds, but as soon as theyemerged from them and found themselves on the smooth ground beyond, hespread a blanket over the saddle to make it easy for her, and insistedon her riding Morgana while he ran alongside.
After a while the leading Indians came to a halt, and were seen to beexamining the ground intently. When Stephens and the girl came up tothem he found that they had cut their own trail made by themselves theprevious day. But there were more hoof-marks in it now than those of theeleven ponies, and they were busily studying the newer signs. Stephenslooked at them, too; they were undoubtedly the tracks of the pursuingparty under Don Nepomuceno; it was hard to say just how many of themthere were, as they were confused with those of the Indians, and theMexican horses being barefooted, like the Indian ponies, it wasimpossible to distinguish them. But there were more than a dozen atleast, and not one of them wore shoes.
"No soldiers in this party," said Mahletonkwa, looking up at Stephenssuspiciously. United States army horses are always shod, as he wellknew.
"Certainly not," answered the American unhesitatingly. "These are notthe tracks of my party. I never was over this piece of ground before. Myscouts cut your trail farther on."
"You had the Santiago scouts with you?" said the Navajo; "I was sure ofthat when you came to the Lava Beds so quick. Which of them did youhave?--the cacique?" His dark eyes snapped as he mentioned him."Miguel, perhaps, that tall, slim one with the scar on his cheek?" Heknew a good deal about the Santiago folk; after the submission of theNavajos had ended the long wars, there had been some intercourse betweenthe former enemies.
Stephens thought it better not to give any names. "Oh, I got some goodtrailers," he said easily; "but there are other Pueblos besidesSantiago, and there are trailers in all of them. Cochiti has men who arefirst-class on reading signs."
"I know you had that Santiago cacique," said Mahletonkwa cunningly.
"Then if you think so, you'd better ask him to tell you about it when weget back to the settlement," rejoined the American.
They entered the sierra a little before nightfall, and were sooninvolved in a difficult and tortuous way amidst pine-crowned crags andprecipices. Sometimes their horses' feet clattered upon shady slopes ofdebris; at times they trod softly upon a padded carpet of fir-needles.They were traversing a little canyon just after sunset, when, nearly twohundred yards away on the opposite side, the forms of a herd of deerwere silhouetted against the fading sky.
Instinctively Stephens threw up his rifle to his shoulder; he got a beadas well as he could, though it was too dark to pick the exact spot onthe animal's side as he pressed the trigger, and at the sharp report theband of dark forms disappeared as if by magic, but the loud "thud" ofthe bullet proclaimed that one of them had been struck. Instantly he andthree of the Navajo young men dashed on foot across the little gorge andscaled the opposite steep, Faro leading the way. The bulldog nosedaround for a moment where the deer had been, and as the climbersemerged on top they heard him give one joyful yelp as he darted forwardon the scent; two minutes later they heard his triumphant bark, and whenthey got up to the spot they found him over the dead carcass of ayearling buck, shot through the lungs. It had run some five hundredyards before it dropped, and the bulldog coming up had seized it by thethroat and finished the business.
The Indians were loud in praise of the dog, as their knives rapidly andskilfully dressed and cut up the game, while Stephens looked on andrewarded his pet with the tit-bits. All three of the Navajos spokeSpanish well enough for him to understand them as they praised the dog,but when they turned over the deer, and found the place where theconical bullet had come out on the other side, they changed from Spanishinto Navajo, and significant laughter followed as they pointed out toone another the two holes, and then pointed to Stephens's rifle.Suddenly it flashed across him that they had got a joke on aboutsomething, and that it was not a thing new to him. Their manner made himthink instantly of the day when he drove the nail, and Mahlet
onkwapointed to his Winchester and told the funny story--funny, that is tosay, for the Navajos--about the murder of the prospector. Though heunderstood no word of what they said, their gestures were too full ofmeaning for him to mistake them.
"I say," said he abruptly, but with seeming carelessness, "aint this theplace that Mahletonkwa told that story about? About the man who was shotwith his own rifle, you know?"
The young Indian who was stooping over the game stopped and withdrew hishand from the deer. "What makes you think that?" he asked.
"Well," said Stephens, "he said it happened up in these mountains, andI heard him say, also, that he was particularly fond of this trail we'reon. So I just guessed it might have been pretty nigh where we are now."
"So it was," said the Indian, whom Stephens had learned to know asKaniache, "it was right up this gulch where it opens out above." Theyhad crossed a divide in their chase after the wounded buck, and were inanother little canyon not unlike the one where they had left the rest ofthe party. The darkness was increasing every minute, but the Indian knewprecisely where they were. Stephens marked the place in his memory aswell as he could, and resolved that he would return to it as soon asmight be, to seek out and bury the bones of the unfortunate victim ofNavajo treachery and cunning.
They gathered up the meat of their quarry, and hastening back to wherethe rest of the party were waiting for them, they pushed on for fullytwo hours by the light of the moon, in spite of the difficulty of theway. Camp was made at last by a little stream in a park, and a fire waslighted, though Mahletonkwa was so suspicious of being followed that heput a couple of scouts to watch their back trail and signal the approachof any possible pursuers.
Stephens sat down by the fire, and set to work roasting pieces of thevenison on spits of willow for Manuelita and himself. She was tired, butnot exhausted, and he could not but wonder at the power she exhibited ofenduring fatigue, she who ordinarily took no more exercise than thatinvolved in doing her share of the labours of the household, varied bywalking over to the store or paying a visit to a neighbour. But she cameof a tireless race. It might be said of the Spanish _conquistadores_,that for them--
"The hardest day was never too hard, nor the longest day too long,"
and this endurance has descended to the women sprung from them as wellas to their sons.
Stephens aired for her benefit the only wraps he had to offer her, theblankets that had been under and over the saddle; but he went to a clumpof young pines growing near, and with his hunting-knife hewed off aquantity of the small shoots from the ends of the boughs.
"You'll never guess in a month of Sundays, senorita, what we call theseon the frontier," said he, as he proceeded to arrange them in neatlayers, to make for her an elastic couch. "Give it up? We call them'Colorado feathers,' and they're no slouches in the way of feathersneither. Besides, they say the smell of turpentine's mighty wholesome.The doctors in Denver recommend camping out to the consumptives who comeout for their health, just that they may get the benefit of them. Sprucemakes the best, and it's the most aromatic."
"Here, you get out, Faro," he apostrophised his dog, who had as usualpromptly taken possession of the blankets as soon as they were spreaddown, "you get out of that, that's not your place;" and he pushed himoff.
"Oh, don't hurt him!" cried the girl; "he likes it; let him stay."
"Well, all right, then, senorita," he said, pleased that his pet shouldfind favour, "if you don't mind having him there, he'll lie at your feetand keep them warm; and now you'd better lie down and rest yourself allyou can, for we aint home yet, and you can bet it's a 'rocky road toDublin' through this sierra that we've got to go to-morrow"; and withthese words he turned away to the fire.
"But," cried she, looking at the provision he had made for her, "youhave kept no blanket for yourself; you must take one or you willfreeze." His generosity distressed her.
"No fear," he returned without looking at her, while he deliberatelysettled himself down beside the fire and lit his pipe with a coal, "nofear, senorita. I'm calculating to keep guard anyhow, and there's lotsof firewood here. That's the beauty of a mountain camp."
"No, thank you, Mahletonkwa," this was spoken to the chief, who at thisjuncture came and offered him a blanket, being anxious to conciliate theman whom he now depended on for so much, "not for me, thank you; _muchasgratias_; I'm all right. I'm going to keep this fire warm, and watch the'Guardias' circle round the North Star." The "Warders," two bright starsof the Little Bear, act as the hour-hand of a clock which has the Polefor its centre, and by them a frontiersman on night-herd knows when hiswatch begins and ends.
The Indians, suspicious as ever of a possible attack, kept aloof fromthe fire, and lay down to sleep at a little distance outside the ring oflight. Stephens established himself on the windward side of the fire,and set up the skin of the buck he had shot as a windbreak behind hisback against the chill night air of the sierra.
Tired as he was with his long day's walk on foot, he lay there, warmingfirst one side and then the other, and replenishing the fire atintervals, while he listened to the well-known sounds that from time totime broke the silence of the hours of watch--the sough of the nightwind in the pines, like waves beating upon a far-off shore; the strange,nocturnal love-call of an unseen bird; the long-drawn, melancholy howlof a night-wandering wolf, seeking his meat abroad; and once his earsthrilled at the agonising death-cry of a creature that felt the suddengrip of the remorseless fangs of the beast of prey.
"Beasts of prey," he mused, "yes, that's just what we humans are too,the most of us, and we take our turn to be victims. Killers and killed.Well, if anybody's to blame for it, I suppose it's the nature of man."
Going back in his mind over the events of the day, he recalled thefierce desire to shed blood that had possessed him when he left thecacique and his fellows and set out to handle these Navajos alone. Itseemed as if that much-angered man with the tense-strung nerves was someother than he. Now, peace was made, the captive was safe; and as helooked at the girl sleeping there unharmed, dreaming, it might well be,of her safe return home on the morrow, he felt a sort of mechanicalwonder at the rage that had then filled his heart. He thought, too, ofthe shots that had been fired at him by the Navajo,--he had not cared toinquire which one it was,--and in imagination he felt the hot leadsplash on his cheek again. He had been mighty near the jumping-off placethat time, sure. And yet it had been all about nothing, so to speak. Ithad been a sort of mistake. He had wanted peace, really, and so hadthey; yet how near they had come to turning that little oasis into aslaughter-house. Fate was a queer thing. He looked up at the velvetblack of the sky overhead and the endless procession of the stars. Themoon had gone, but Jupiter still blazed in the western heavens. What didit all mean, and what was one put here for, anyway? He confessed tohimself that he did not know; that he had no theory of life; he livedfrom day to day, doing the work that lay next him, and doing it with hismight; but in the watches of the night he brooded now--not for the firsttime--over the old problem, "Was life worth living, and if so, why?" Tothat question he was not sure that he had any answer to give. Perhapsthe secret might lie in caring for somebody very much, and at present hecared for nobody--very much--so far as he knew. Suppose that Navajobullet had found its billet in his brain, thus it seemed to him in thesemorbid imaginings of the weary night watch, he would be sleeping now thelast sleep of all, like that other victim in the canyon over yonder; andwhat was there in that that he should mind it? Perhaps it would havebeen better so--perhaps, yes, perhaps.