The Headless Horseman: A Strange Tale of Texas

“But it is not all, Señor Don Miguel; and that’s why I’ve come to see you now. I’m on an errand to the pueblita. This will explain it.”

“Ha! Another letter?”

“Si, Señor! This time the original itself, and not a poor copy scribbled by me.”

With a shaking hand Diaz took hold of the paper, spread it out, and read: —

Al Señor Don Mauricio Gerald.

Querido amigo!

Otra vez aqui estoy – con tio Silvio quedando! Sin novedades de V. no puedo mas tiempo existir. La incertitud me malaba. Digame que es V. convalescente! Ojala, que estuviera asi! Suspiro en vuestros ojos mirar, estos ojos tan lindos y tan espresivos – a ver, si es restablecido vuestra salud. Sea graciosa darme este favor. Hay – opportunidad. En una cortita media de hora, estuviera quedando en la cima de loma, sobre la cosa del tio. Ven, cavallero, ven!

Isidora Covarubio de los Llanos.

With a curse El Coyote concluded the reading of the letter. Its sense could scarce be mistaken. Literally translated it read thus: —

“Dear Friend, – I am once more here, staying with uncle Silvio. Without hearing of you I could not longer exist. The uncertainty was killing me. Tell me if you are convalescent. Oh! that it may be so. I long to look into your eyes – those eyes so beautiful, so expressive – to make sure that your health is perfectly restored. Be good enough to grant me this favour. There is an opportunity. In a short half hour from this time, I shall be on the top of the hill, above my uncle’s house. Come, sir, come!

“Isidora Covarubio De Los Llanos.”

“Carajo! an assignation!” half shrieked the indignant Diaz. “That and nothing else! She, too, the proposer. Ha! Her invitation shall be answered; though not by him for whom it is so cunningly intended. Kept to the hour – to the very minute; and by the Divinity of Vengeance —

“Here, José! this note’s of no use. The man to whom it is addressed isn’t any longer in the pueblita, nor anywhere about here. God knows where he is! There’s some mystery about it. No matter. You go on to the posada, and make your inquiries all the same. You must do that to fulfil your errand. Never mind the papelcito; leave it with me. You can have it to take to your mistress, as you come back this way. Here’s a dollar to get you a drink at the inn. Señor Doffer keeps the best kind of aguardiente. Hasta luejo!”

Without staying to question the motive for these directions given to him, José, after accepting the douceur, yielded tacit obedience to them, and took his departure from the jacalé.

He was scarce out of sight before Diaz also stepped over its threshold. Hastily setting the saddle upon his horse, he sprang into it, and rode off in the opposite direction.

Chapter Forty Eight.

Isidora

The sun has just risen clear above the prairie horizon, his round disc still resting upon the sward, like a buckler of burnished gold. His rays are struggling into the chapparal, that here and there diversifies the savanna. The dew-beads yet cling upon the acacias, weighting their feathery fronds, and causing them to droop earthward, as if grieving at the departure of the night, whose cool breeze and moist atmosphere are more congenial to them than the fiery sirocco of day. Though the birds are stirring – for what bird could sleep under the shine of such glorious sunrise? – it is almost too early to expect human being abroad – elsewhere than upon the prairies of Texas. There, however, the hour of the sun’s rising is the most enjoyable of the day; and few there are who spend it upon the unconscious couch, or in the solitude of the chamber.

By the banks of the Leona, some three miles below Fort Inge, there is one who has forsaken both, to stray through the chapparal. This early wanderer is not afoot, but astride a strong, spirited horse, that seems impatient at being checked in his paces. By this description, you may suppose the rider to be a man; but, remembering that the scene is in Southern Texas still sparsely inhabited by a Spano-Mexican population – you are equally at liberty to conjecture that the equestrian is a woman. And this, too, despite the round hat upon the head – despite the serapé upon the shoulders, worn as a protection against the chill morning air – despite the style of equitation, so outré to European ideas, since the days of La Duchesse de Berri; and still further, despite the crayon-like colouring on the upper lip, displayed in the shape of a pair of silken moustaches. More especially may this last mislead; and you may fancy yourself looking upon some Spanish youth, whose dark but delicate features bespeak the hijo de algo, with a descent traceable to the times of the Cid.

If acquainted with the character of the Spano-Mexican physiognomy, this last sign of virility does not decide you as to the sex. It may be that the rider in the Texan chapparal, so distinguished, is, after all, a woman!

On closer scrutiny, this proves to be the case. It is proved by the small hand clasping the bridle-rein; by the little foot, whose tiny toes just touch the “estribo” – looking less in contrast with the huge wooden block that serves as a stirrup; by a certain softness of shape, and pleasing rotundity of outline, perceptible even through the thick serapé of Saltillo; and lastly, by the grand luxuriance of hair coiled up at the back of the head, and standing out in shining clump beyond the rim of the sombrero. After noting these points, you become convinced that you are looking upon a woman, though it may be one distinguished by certain idiosyncrasies. You are looking upon the Doña Isidora Covarubio de los Llanos.

You are struck by the strangeness of her costume – still more by the way she sits her horse. In your eyes, unaccustomed to Mexican modes, both may appear odd – unfeminine – perhaps indecorous.

The Doña Isidora has no thought – not even a suspicion – of there being anything odd in either. Why should she? She is but following the fashion of her country and her kindred. In neither respect is she peculiar.

She is young, but yet a woman. She has seen twenty summers, and perhaps one more. Passed under the sun of a Southern sky, it is needless to say that her girlhood is long since gone by. In her beauty there is no sign of decadence. She is fair to look upon, as in her “buen quince” (beautiful fifteen), Perhaps fairer. Do not suppose that the dark lining on her lip damages the feminine expression of her face. Rather does it add to its attractiveness. Accustomed to the glowing complexion of the Saxon blonde, you may at first sight deem it a deformity. Do not so pronounce, till you have looked again. A second glance, and – my word for it – you will modify your opinion. A third will do away with your indifference; a fourth change it to admiration!

Continue the scrutiny, and it will end in your becoming convinced: that a woman wearing a moustache – young, beautiful, and brunette – is one of the grandest sights which a beneficent Nature offers to the eye of man.

It is presented in the person of Isidora Covarubio de los Llanos. If there is anything unfeminine in her face, it is not this; though it may strengthen a wild, almost fierce, expression, at times discernible, when her white teeth gleam conspicuously under the sable shadow of the “bigotite.”

Even then is she beautiful; but, like that of the female jaguar, ’tis a beauty that inspires fear rather than affection.

At all times it is a countenance that bespeaks for its owner the possession of mental attributes not ordinarily bestowed upon her sex. Firmness, determination, courage – carried to the extreme of reckless daring – are all legible in its lines. In those cunningly-carved features, slight, sweet, and delicate, there is no sign of fainting or fear. The crimson that has struggled through the brown skin of her cheeks would scarce forsake them in the teeth of the deadliest danger.

She is riding alone, through the timbered bottom of the Leona. There is a house not far off; but she is leaving it behind her. It is the hacienda of her uncle, Don Silvio Martinez, from the portals of which she has late issued forth.

She sits in her saddle as firmly as the skin that covers it. It is a spirited horse, and has the habit of showing it by his prancing paces. But you have no fear for the rider: you are satisfied of her power to control him.

A light lazo, suited to her strength, is suspended from the saddle-bow. Its careful coiling shows that it is never neglected. This almost assures you, that she understands how to use it. She does – can throw it, with the skill of a mustanger.

The accomplishment is one of her conceits; a part of the idiosyncrasy already acknowledged.

She is riding along a road – not the public one that follows the direction of the river. It is a private way leading from the hacienda of her uncle, running into the former near the summit of a hill – the hill itself being only the bluff that abuts upon the bottom lands of the Leona.

She ascends the sloping path – steep enough to try the breathing of her steed. She reaches the crest of the ridge, along which trends the road belonging to everybody.

She reins up; though not to give her horse an opportunity of resting. She has halted, because of having reached the point where her excursion is to terminate.

There is an opening on one side of the road, of circular shape, and having a superficies of some two or three acres. It is grass-covered and treeless – a prairie in petto. It is surrounded by the chapparal forest – very different from the bottom timber out of which she has just emerged. On all sides is the enclosing thicket of spinous plants, broken only by the embouchures of three paths, their triple openings scarce perceptible from the middle of the glade.

Near its centre she has pulled up, patting her horse upon the neck to keep him quiet. It is not much needed. The scaling of the “cuesta” has done that for him. He has no inclination either to go on, or tramp impatiently in his place.

“I am before the hour of appointment,” mutters she, drawing a gold watch from under her serapé, “if, indeed, I should expect him at all. He may not come? God grant that he be able!

“I am trembling! Or is it the breathing of the horse? Valga me Dios, no! ’Tis my own poor nerves!

“I never felt so before! Is it fear? I suppose it is.

“’Tis strange though – to fear the man I love – the only one I over have loved: for it could not have been love I had for Don Miguel. A girl’s fancy. Fortunate for me to have got cured of it! Fortunate my discovering him to be a coward. That disenchanted me – quite dispelled the romantic dream in which he was the foremost figure. Thank my good stars, for the disenchantment; for now I hate him, now that I hear he has grown —Santissima! can it be true that he has become – a – a salteador?

“And yet I should have no fear of meeting him – not even in this lone spot!

“Ay de mi! Fearing the man I love, whom I believe to be of kind, noble nature – and having no dread of him I hate, and know to be cruel and remorseless! ’Tis strange – incomprehensible!

“No – there is nothing strange in it. I tremble not from any thought of danger – only the danger of not being beloved. That is why I now shiver in my saddle – why I have not had one night of tranquil sleep since my deliverance from those drunken savages.

“I have never told him of this; nor do I know how he may receive the confession. It must, and shall be made. I can endure the uncertainty no longer. In preference I choose despair – death, if my hopes deceive me!

“Ha! There is a hoof stroke! A horse comes down the road! It is his? Yes. I see glancing through the trees the bright hues of our national costume. He delights to wear it. No wonder; it so becomes him!

“Santa Virgin! I’m under a serapé, with a sombrero on my head. He’ll mistake me for a man! Off, ye ugly disguises, and let me seem what I am – a woman.”

Scarce quicker could be the transformation in a pantomime. The casting off the serapé reveals a form that Hebe might have envied; the removal of the hat, a head that would have inspired the chisel of Canova!

A splendid picture is exhibited in that solitary glade; worthy of being framed, by its bordering of spinous trees, whose hirsute arms seem stretched out to protect it.

A horse of symmetrical shape, half backed upon his haunches, with nostrils spread to the sky, and tail sweeping the ground; on his back one whose aspect and attitude suggest a commingling of grand, though somewhat incongruous ideas, uniting to form a picture, statuesque as beautiful.