The Headless Horseman: A Strange Tale of Texas

Without adding another word, the young gentleman – one of the somewhat rare types of Southern chivalry – sprang to his saddle; gave the word, to his horse; and rode hurriedly through the saguan.

Calhoun stood upon the stones, till the footfall of the horse became but faintly distinguishable in the distance.

Then, as if acting under some sudden impulse, he hurried along the verandah to his own room; entered it; reappeared in a rough overcoat; crossed back to the stable; went in; came out again with his own horse saddled and bridled; led the animal along the pavement, as gently as if he was stealing him; and once outside upon the turf, sprang upon his back, and rode rapidly away.

For a mile or more he followed the same road, that had been taken by Henry Poindexter. It could not have been with any idea of overtaking the latter: since, long before, the hoofstrokes of Henry’s horse had ceased to be heard; and proceeding at a slower pace, Calhoun did not ride as if he cared about catching up with his cousin.

He had taken the up-river road. When about midway between Casa del Corvo and the Fort, he reined up; and, after scrutinising the chapparal around him, struck off by a bridle-path leading back toward the bank of the river. As he turned into it he might have been heard muttering to himself —

“A chance still left; a good one, though not so cheap as the other. It will cost me a thousand dollars. What of that, so long as I get rid of this Irish curse, who has poisoned every hour of my existence! If true to his promise, he takes the route to his home by an early hour in the morning. What time, I wonder. These men of the prairies call it late rising, if they be abed till daybreak! Never mind. There’s yet time for the Coyote to get before him on the road! I know that. It must be the same as we followed to the wild horse prairies. He spoke of his hut upon the Alamo. That’s the name of the creek where we had our pic-nic. The hovel cannot be far from there! The Mexican must know the place, or the trail leading to it; which last will be sufficient for his purpose and mine. A fig for the shanty itself! The owner may never reach it. There may be Indians upon the road! There must be, before daybreak in the morning!”

As Calhoun concluded this string of strange reflections, he had arrived at the door of another “shanty” – that of the Mexican mustanger. The jacalé was the goal of his journey.

Having slipped out of his saddle, and knotted his bridle to a branch, he set foot upon the threshold.

The door was standing wide open. From the inside proceeded a sound, easily identified as the snore of a slumberer.

It was not as of one who sleeps either tranquilly, or continuously. At short intervals it was interrupted – now by silent pauses – anon by hog-like gruntings, interspersed with profane words, not perfectly pronounced, but slurred from a thick tongue, over which, but a short while before, must have passed a stupendous quantity of alcohol.

“Carrambo! carrai! carajo – chingara! mil diablos!” mingled with more – perhaps less – reverential exclamations of “Sangre de Cristo! Jesus! Santissima Virgen! Santa Maria! Dios! Madre de Dios!” and the like, were uttered inside the jacalé, as if the speaker was engaged in an apostrophic conversation with all the principal characters of the Popish Pantheon.

Calhoun paused upon the threshold, and listened.

“Mal – dit – dit – o!” muttered the sleeper, concluding the exclamation with a hiccup. “Buen – buenos nove-dad-es! Good news, por sangre Chrees – Chreest – o! Si S’ñor Merican – cano! Nove – dad – es s’perbos! Los Indyos Co – co – manchees on the war-trail —el rastro de guerra. God bless the Co – co – manchees!”

“The brute’s drunk!” said his visitor, mechanically speaking aloud.

“H’la S’ñor!” exclaimed the owner of the jacalé, aroused to a state of semi-consciousness by the sound of a human voice. “Quien llama! Who has the honour – that is, have I the happiness – I, Miguel Diaz – el Co – coyoté, as the leperos call me. Ha, ha! coyo – coyot. Bah! what’s in a name? Yours, S’ñor? Mil demonios! who are you?”

Partially raising himself from his reed couch, the inebriate remained for a short time in a sitting attitude – glaring, half interrogatively, half unconsciously, at the individual whose voice had intruded itself into his drunken dreams.

The unsteady examination lasted only for a score of seconds. Then the owner of the jacalé, with an unintelligible speech, subsided into a recumbent position; when a savage grunt, succeeded by a prolonged snore, proved him to have become oblivious to the fact that his domicile contained a guest.

“Another chance lost!” said the latter, hissing the words through his teeth, as he turned disappointedly from the door.

“A sober fool and a drunken knave – two precious tools wherewith, to accomplish a purpose like mine! Curse the luck! All this night it’s been against me! It maybe three long hours before this pig sleeps off the swill that has stupefied him. Three long hours, and then what would be the use of him? ’Twould be too late – too late!”

As he said this, he caught the rein of his bridle, and stood by the head of his horse, as if uncertain what course to pursue.

“No use my staying here! It might be daybreak before the damned liquor gets out of his skull. I may as well go back to the hacienda and wait there; or else – or else – ”

The alternative, that at this crisis presented itself, was nor, spoken aloud. Whatever it may have been, it had the effect of terminating the hesitancy that living over him, and stirring him to immediate action.

Roughly tearing his rein from the branch, and passing it over his horse’s head, he sprang into the saddle, and rode off from the jacalé in a direction the very opposite to that in which he had approached it.

Chapter Thirty Six.

Three Travellers on the same Track

No one can deny, that a ride upon a smooth-turfed prairie is one of the most positive pleasures of sublunary existence. No one will deny it, who has had the good fortune to experience the delightful sensation. With a spirited horse between your thighs, a well-stocked valise strapped to the cantle of your saddle, a flask of French brandy slung handy over the “horn,” and a plethoric cigar-case protruding from under the flap of your pistol holster, you may set forth upon a day’s journey, without much fear of feeling weary by the way.

A friend riding by your side – like yourself alive to the beauties of nature, and sensitive to its sublimities – will make the ride, though long, and otherwise arduous, a pleasure to be remembered for many, many years.

If that friend chance to be some fair creature, upon whom you have fixed your affections, then will you experience a delight to remain in your memory for ever.

Ah! if all prairie-travellers were to be favoured with such companionship, the wilderness of Western Texas would soon become crowded with tourists; the great plains would cease to be “pathless,” – the savannas would swarm with snobs.

It is better as it is. As it is, you may launch yourself upon the prairie: and once beyond the precincts of the settlement from which you have started – unless you keep to the customary “road,” indicated only by the hoof-prints of half a dozen horsemen who have preceded you – you may ride on for hours, days, weeks, months, perhaps a whole year, without encountering aught that bears the slightest resemblance to yourself, or the image in which you have been made.

Only those who have traversed the great plain of Texas can form a true estimate of its illimitable vastness; impressing the mind with sensations similar to those we feel in the contemplation of infinity.

In some sense may the mariner comprehend my meaning. Just as a ship may cross the Atlantic Ocean – and in tracks most frequented by sailing craft – without sighting a single sail, so upon the prairies of South-western Texas, the traveller may journey on for months, amid a solitude that seems eternal!

Even the ocean itself does not give such an impression of endless space. Moving in its midst you perceive no change – no sign to tell you you are progressing. The broad circular surface of azure blue, with the concave hemisphere of a tint but a few shades lighter, are always around and above you, seeming ever the same. You think they are so; and fancy yourself at rest in the centre of a sphere and a circle. You are thus to some extent hindered from having a clear conception of “magnificent distances.”

On the prairie it is different. The “landmarks” – there are such, in the shape of “mottes,” mounds, trees, ridges, and rocks – constantly changing before your view, admonish you that you are passing through space; and this very knowledge imbues you with the idea of vastness.

It is rare for the prairie traveller to contemplate such scenes alone – rarer still upon the plains of South-western Texas. In twos at least – but oftener in companies of ten or a score – go they, whose need it is to tempt the perils of that wilderness claimed by the Comanches as ancestral soil.

For all this, a solitary traveller may at times be encountered: for on the same night that witnessed the tender and stormy scenes in the garden of Casa del Corvo, no less than three such made the crossing of the plain that stretches south-westward from the banks of the Leona River.

Just at the time that Calhoun was making his discontented departure from the jacalé of the Mexican mustanger, the foremost of these nocturnal travellers was clearing the outskirts of the village – going in a direction which, if followed far enough, would conduct him to the Nueces River, or one of its tributary streams.

It is scarcely necessary to say, that he was on horseback. In Texas there are no pedestrians, beyond the precincts of the town or plantation.

The traveller in question bestrode a strong steed; whose tread, at once vigorous and elastic, proclaimed it capable of carrying its rider through a long journey, without danger of breaking down.

Whether such a journey was intended, could not have been told by the bearing of the traveller himself. He was equipped, as any Texan cavalier might have been, for a ten-mile ride – perhaps to his own house. The lateness of the hour forbade the supposition, that he could be going from it. The serapé on his shoulders – somewhat carelessly hanging – might have been only put on to protect them against the dews of the night.

But as there was no dew on that particular night – nor any outlying settlement in the direction he was heading to – the horseman was more like to have been a real traveller —en route for some distant point upon the prairies.

For all this he did not appear to be in haste; or uneasy as to the hour at which he might reach his destination.

On the contrary, he seemed absorbed in some thought, that linked itself with the past; sufficiently engrossing to render him unobservant of outward objects, and negligent in the management of his horse.

The latter, with the rein lying loosely upon his neck, was left to take his own way; though instead of stopping, or straying, he kept steadily on, as if over ground oft trodden before.

Thus leaving the animal to its own guidance, and pressing it neither with whip nor spur, the traveller rode tranquilly over the prairie, till lost to view – not by the intervention of any object, but solely through the dimness of the light, where the moon became misty in the far distance.

Almost on the instant of his disappearance – and as if the latter had been taken for a cue – a second horseman spurred out from the suburbs of the village; and proceeded along the same path.

From the fact of his being habited in a fashion to defend him against the chill air of the night, he too might have been taken for a traveller.

A cloak clasped across his breast hung over his shoulders, its ample skirts draping backward to the hips of his horse.

Unlike the horseman who had preceded him, he showed signs of haste – plying both whip and spur as he pressed on.

He appeared intent on overtaking some one. It might be the individual whose form had just faded out of sight?