Henty George Alfred
Redskin and Cow-Boy: A Tale of the Western Plains

"The doctor here is the only one wounded seriously," Sim Howlett said. "My hand and arm will soon heal up, and the loss of a finger is no great odds anyway. I don't suppose Lightning's shoulder will turn out worse than my arm. As for the doctor, he is hit hard, but he has been hit hard so many times, and has pulled through it, that I hope for the best."

"Señor Hugh," Don Ramon said, "it was indeed a fortunate day for me when I questioned you concerning my son's horse, for it was to your advice and to your enlisting your friends on my behalf that I owe it chiefly that my daughters are with me this evening. I must leave it to their mother to thank you as you deserve."

Two hours later the doctor and one of the wounded soldiers were placed on a bed laid at the bottom of a cart, and started under the escort of two soldiers, Sim Howlett accompanying them. As the girls had expressed the greatest disinclination to remain in the house where they had been prisoners and where so much blood had just been shed, they with the rest of the party returned with a sergeant and six soldiers carrying torches up the valley to the wood, where the horses had been left. Here two fires were soon blazing, and the girls were not long before they were asleep, wrapped in blankets that had been brought up from the house.

The following morning Hugh and Royce handed over their horses for the use of the girls, who were both accomplished horsewomen, and, mounting the horses of Sim and the doctor, they started with Don Ramon, his son, and daughters. Fifteen miles before they got to El Paso they passed the cart with the wounded men, and Hugh said he would ride into the fort to ensure the doctor being there when they arrived. Royce and he accompanied Don Ramon and his party to the gate of the hacienda, which they reached just at sunset. The Mexican was warm in his entreaties to Hugh to become his guest until his wound was healed, but he declined this on the ground that he should be well cared for at the fort, and should have the surgeon always at hand.

"I shall be over the first thing in the morning to see you," Don Carlos said. "I shall want my own face strapped up, and I warn you if the doctor says you can be moved I shall bring you back with me."

Royce accompanied Hugh to the fort. The commandant was highly gratified when he heard of the complete success of the expedition, and still more so when he learned that the two notorious brigands for whom he and his troopers had so often searched in vain were among the killed. Hugh was at once accommodated in the hospital, and the surgeon proceeded to examine his wound. It was so inflamed and swollen with the long ride, he said, that no attempt could be made at present to extract the ball, and rest and quiet were absolutely necessary. Two hours later the cart arrived. The doctor was laid in a bed near that of Hugh, the third bed in the ward being allotted to Sim Howlett. The doctor's wound was pronounced by the surgeon to be a very serious one.

It was some days before, under the influence of poultices and embrocations, the inflammation subsided sufficiently for a search to be made for the bullet in Hugh's shoulder. The surgeon, however, was then successful in finding it imbedded in the flesh behind the shoulder-bone, and, having found its position, he cut it out from behind. After this Hugh's progress was rapid, and in a week he was out of bed with his arm in a sling. The doctor, contrary to the surgeon's expectations, also made fair progress. The bullet could not be found, and the surgeon, after one or two ineffectual attempts, decided that it would be better to allow it to remain where it was. The stump of Sim's finger was removed the morning after he came in, and the wound had almost completely healed by the time that Hugh was enabled to leave the hospital, a month after entering it.

Don Ramon and his son had ridden over every day to inquire after the invalids, and had seen that they were provided with every possible luxury, and he carried off Hugh to the hacienda as soon as the surgeon gave his consent to his making a short journey in the carriage. Donna Maria received him as warmly as if he had been a son of her own, and he had the greatest difficulty in persuading her that he did not require to be treated as an invalid, and was perfectly capable of doing everything for himself.

For a fortnight he lived a life of luxurious idleness, doing absolutely nothing beyond going over in the carriage every day to see how the doctor was going on. Hugh saw that he was not maintaining the progress that he had at first made. He had but little fever or pain, but he lay quiet and silent, and seemed incapable of making any effort whatever. Sim Howlett was very anxious about his comrade.

"He don't seem to me to try to get well," he said to Hugh. "It looks to me like as if he thought he had done about enough, and was ready to go. If one could rouse him up a bit I believe he would pull round. He has gone through a lot has the doctor, and I expect he thinks there ain't much worth living for. He just smiles when I speak to him, but he don't take no interest in things. Do you get talking with me when you go in, Lightning, and asking about what we have been doing, and I will tell you some of the things he and I have gone through together. Maybe that may stir him up a bit."

"How long have you known him, Sim?"

"I came across him in '49. I came round by Panama, being one of the first lot to leave New York when the news of gold came. I had been away logging for some months, and had come down at the end of the season with six months' money in my pocket. I had been saving up for a year or two, and was going to put it all in partnership with a cousin of mine, who undertook the building of piers and wharves and such like on the Hudson. Well, the first news that met me when I came down to New York was that Jim had busted up, and had gone out west some said, others that he had drowned hisself. I was sorry for Jim, but I was mighty glad that I hadn't put my pile in.

"Waal, I was wondering what to start on next when the talk about gold began, and as soon as I larned there were no mistake about it I went down to the wharf and took my passage down to the isthmus. I had been working about three months on the Yuba when I came across the doctor. I had seen him often afore we came to speak. If you wur to see the doctor now for the first time when he is just sitting quiet and talking in that woman sort of voice of his and with those big blue eyes, you would think maybe that he was a kind of softy, wouldn't you?"

"I dare say I might, Sim. I saw him for the first time when he came up with you to take my part against that crowd of Mexicans. There didn't look anything soft about him then, and though I was struck with his gentle way of talking when I met him afterwards I knew so well there was lots of fight in him that it didn't strike me he was anything of a softy, as you say."

"No? Waal, the doctor has changed since I met him, but at that time he did look a softy, and most people put him down as being short of wits. He used just to go about the camp as if he paid no attention to what wur going on. Sometimes he would go down to a bit of a claim he had taken up and wash out the gravel, just singing to himself, not as though it wur to amuse him, but as though he did not know as he wur singing, in a sort of curious far-off sort of voice; but mostly he went about doing odd sorts of jobs. If there wur a man down with the fever the doctor would just walk into his tent and take him in hand and look after him, and when he got better would just drift away, and like enough not seem to know the man the next time he met him.

"Waal, he got to be called Softy, but men allowed as he wur a good fellow, and was just as choke-full of kindness as his brain would hold, and, as he walked about, any chap who was taking his grub would ask him to share it, for it was sartin that what gold he got wouldn't buy enough to keep a cat alive, much less a man. Waal, it was this way. I got down with fever from working in the water under a hot sun. I hadn't any particular mates that time, and wur living in a bit of a tent made of a couple of blankets, and though the boys looked in and did any job that wur wanted I wur mighty bad and went off my head for a bit, and the first thing I seen when I came round was Softy in the tent tending me. Ef he had been a woman and I had been his son he couldn't have looked after me tenderer.

"I found when I began to get round he had been getting meat for me from the boys and making soups, but as soon as I got round enough to know what was going on I pointed out to him the place where I had hid my dust, and he took charge of it and got me what was wanted, till I picked up and got middling strong again. As soon as I did Softy went off to look after someone else who was bad, but I think he took to me more than he had to anyone else, for he would come in and sit with me sometimes in the evening, and I found that he wurn't really short of wits as people thought, but would talk on most things just as straight as anyone. He didn't seem to have much interest in the digging, which wur about the only thing we thought of; but when I asked him what he had come to the mining camps for, if it wasn't to get gold, he just smiled gently and said he had a mission.

"What the mission wur he never said, and I concluded that though he was all there in other things his brain had somehow got mixed on that point, onless it wur that his mission was to look after the sick. Waal, we were a rough lot in '49, you bet. Lynch-law hadn't begun, and there wuz rows and fights of the wust kind. Our camp had been pretty quiet ontil someone set up a saloon and gambling shop, and some pretty tough characters came. That was just as I wur getting about agin, though not able to work regular. It wurn't long before two fellows became the terror of the camp, and they went on so bad that the boys began to talk among themselves that they must be put down; but no one cared about taking the lead. They had shot four fellows in the first week after they came.

"I hadn't seen Softy for ten days. He had been away nussing a woodman as had his leg broke by the fall of a tree. I was sitting outside my tent with a chap they called Red Sam. We had a bottle of brandy between us, when them two fellows came along, and one of them just stooped and took up the bottle and put it to his lips and drank half of it off, and then passed it to the other without saying by your leave or anything. Red Sam said, 'Well, I'm blowed!' when the fellow who had drunk whipped out his bowie – six-shooters had hardly come in then – and afore Red Sam could get fairly to his feet he struck him under the ribs. Waal, I jumped up and drew my bowie, for it wur my quarrel, you see. He made at me. I caught his wrist as the knife was coming down, and he caught mine; but I wur like a child in his arms. I thought it wur all over with me, when I heard a shout, and Softy sprang on the man like a wild cat and drove his knife right into him, and he went down like a log.

"The other shouted out an oath and drew. Softy faced him. It wur the strangest sight I ever seen. His hat had fallen off, and his hair, which wur just as white then as it is now, fell back from his face, and his eyes, that looked so soft and gentle, wur just blazing. It came across me then, as it have come across me many a time since, that he looked like a lion going to spring; and I think Buckskin, as the man called himself, who had often boasted as he didn't fear a living thing, was frighted. They stood facing each other for a moment, and then Softy sprang at him. He was so quick that instead of Buckskin's knife catching him, as he intended, just in front of the shoulder and going straight down to the heart, it caught him behind the shoulder, and laid open his back pretty near down to the waist.

"But there wur no mistake about Softy's stroke. It went fair between the ribs, and Buckskin fell back dead, with Softy on the top of him. Waal, after that it wur my turn to nuss the doctor, for no one called him Softy after that. He wur laid up for over a month, and I think that letting out of blood did him good and cleared his brain like. When he got well he wur just as you see him now, just as clear and as sensible a chap as you would see. Why, he has got as much sense as you would find in any man west of Missouri, and he's the truest mate and the kindest heart. I have never seen the doctor out of temper, for you can't call it being out of temper when he rises up and goes for a man; that is his mission. He has never got that out of his head, and never will ontil he dies.

"He can put up with a deal, the doctor can; but when a man gits just too bad for anything, then it seems to him as he has got a call to wipe him out, and he wipes him out, you bet. You don't want lynch-law where the doctor is: he is a judge and a posse all to himself, and for years he was the terror of hard characters down in California. They was just skeered of him, and if a downright bad man came to a camp and heard the doctor wur there, he would in general clear straight out agin. He has been shot and cut all over, has the doctor, and half a dozen times it seemed to me I should never bring him round agin.

"It ain't no use talking to him and asking him why he should take on hisself to be a jedge and jury. When it's all over he always says in his gentle way that he is sorry about it, and I do think he is, and he says he will attend to his own business in future; but the next time it is just the same thing again. There ain't no holding him. You might just as well try to stop a mountain lion when he smells blood. At such times he ain't hisself. If you had once seen him you would never forget it. There wur a British painting fellow who wur travelling about taking pictures for a book. He wur in camp once when the doctor's dander rose, and he went for a man; and the Britisher said arterwards to me as it were like the bersek rage. I never heard tell of the berseks; but from what the chap said I guessed they lived in the old time. Waal, if they wur like the doctor I tell you that I shouldn't like to get into a muss with them. No, sir."

"Do you know what the doctor's history is, Sim?"

"Yes, I do know," he said, "but I don't suppose anyone else does. Maybe he will tell you some day if he gets over this."

"Oh! I don't want to know if it is a secret, Sim."

"Waal, there ain't no secret in it, Lightning; but he don't talk about it, and in course I don't. It is a sort of thing that has happened to other men, and maybe after a bit they have got over it; but the doctor ain't. You see he ain't a common man: he has got the heart of a woman, and for a time it pretty nigh crazed him."

CHAPTER XX.
THE AVENGER

HUGH told the coachman to go back to the hacienda, and to return for him late in the afternoon, and then went in with Sim. The doctor smiled faintly as Hugh sat down beside him and asked how he was getting on.

"I am getting on, lad," he said. "I reckon I shall be there before long."

Hugh affected to misunderstand him.

"You must pick up strength," he said, "or we shall never carry out that expedition among the Apaches, you know."

"If you wait for that you will wait a long time," the doctor said quietly.

"I hope not," Hugh said cheerily. "By the way, Sim, you told me you would tell me some of your adventures in the early days of California. I am interested in that, because I had an uncle there. He was ten years or so out there."

"What was his name, Lightning?" Sim asked.

"His name was Will Tunstall."

An exclamation burst from both his hearers.

"Your uncle!" Sim exclaimed. "Waal, that beats all, and to think that we should have been all this time together and never known that. Is your name Tunstall too?"

"Yes, Hugh Tunstall."

"To think now, doctor!" Sim said; "and we never knowed him except as Hugh or Lightning, and he is Will Tunstall's nephew. Why, lad, Bill – English Bill we called him – was a mate of ours, and a better mate men never worked with."

"You are like him, lad," the doctor said in a voice so different from that in which he had before spoken that Hugh quite started. "I thought you reminded me of someone, and now I know. It was English Bill. He was just as tall and as straight as you are, and laughed and talked just as you do. I wonder, Sim, we didn't notice it at once. Well, well, that is strange!"

Hugh was greatly surprised. It was indeed strange that he should have met these two mates of his uncle. Stranger still that they should have entertained such evident affection for a man who seemed to him to differ in character so widely from them. He was surprised, too, at the doctor's remarks about his resemblance to his uncle, for he could see no likeness whatever.

"Well," he said, "I should have had no idea that I was like my uncle. I think you must have forgotten his figure. He is tall and muscular certainly, but he is much darker than I am, and, I think, altogether different."

The doctor and Sim looked at each other with astonishment.

"There must be some mistake," Sim said. "Do you say your uncle is alive now?"

"Certainly I do," Hugh replied, in turn surprised.

"Ah! then, it isn't the same man," Sim said. "Our Bill Tunstall was killed ten years ago. It is odd, too; Tunstall ain't a common name, at least not in these parts. If you had ever said your own name before I should have noticed it, and asked you about it; but Royce always called you Lightning, or Hugh, and one may know men here for years by the name they have got without ever thinking what name they might be born with."

"Is Tunstall a common name in England, Lightning?" the doctor asked.

"No, I don't think so, doctor. I never met any others. We came from the north of England, from Cumberland."

"So did English Bill," Sim said. "Never heard tell of a chap that came out from there of that name, a tall, straight, strong fellow like you? He must have come out before you wur born, though, of course, we didn't know him for years afterwards."

"My uncle came out here before I was born," Hugh said; "but I never heard of anyone else of the same name doing so; still, if your friend is dead, of course it isn't the same, for my uncle is alive. At least he was two years ago. He is strong, and active, and well knit; but he is not as tall as I am by two inches, I should say."

"Lift me up in bed, Sim," the doctor said excitedly. "How long ago did your uncle return?"

"Over six years ago," Hugh replied, surprised at this strange excitement upon the part of a man who, ten minutes before, had seemed to have no further interest in anything.

"Six years ago, Sim? You hear that; six years ago!"

"Gently, doctor, gently; what are you driving at?" Sim asked, really alarmed at his mate's excitement.

The doctor paid no attention to him. "And he had been a great many years away? Went away as a boy, and when he came back was so changed they wouldn't have known him?"

"Yes, that was so," Hugh said, more and more surprised.

"You hear that, Sim? you hear that?" the doctor exclaimed sharply.

"I hear it, mate, but do you lie down. You are not strong enough to be exciting yourself like this, though I am blamed if I can see what it is about."

"What did he go home for?" the doctor asked, still unheeding Sim.

"He went home because my father had died, and he came in for a considerable property, and he was one of my guardians."

"Do you hear that, Sim?" the doctor cried in a loud shrill voice that was almost a scream; "do you see it all now?"

"Just you run and call the surgeon, Lightning; the doc's going clear off his head."

"Stop!" the doctor said, as Hugh was about to hurry off. "If Sim wasn't that thick-headed he would see what I see. Give me a drink."

Hugh handed him a glass of lemonade, which he tossed off.

"Now, then, Sim, haven't I told you this young fellow was like someone, though I couldn't mind who. Don't you see it is our mate, English Bill?"

"Yes, he is like him," Sim said, "now you name it. He is a bit taller, and his figure is loose yet, but he will widen out ontil he is just what Bill wur."

"Like what his uncle was," the doctor broke in; "don't you see, Sim, his uncle was our mate."

"But how can that be, doctor? Don't you hear him say as his uncle is alive in England, and didn't we bury poor Bill?"

"You've heard Hugh say what his uncle came home for. What was Bill going home for, Sim?"

"Ah!" Sim exclaimed suddenly, as a light flashed across him, "it was just what Lightning has been saying. His brother was dead, and he was going home to be guardian to his nephew; and because he had come into an estate."

"Quite so, only he never went, Sim; did he?"

"No, certainly he never went, doc. There is no doubt about that."

"But somebody did go," the doctor said, "and we know who it was. The man who killed him and stole his papers."

An exclamation of astonishment broke from Hugh, while Sim exclaimed earnestly:

"By thunder, doctor, but you may be right! I reckon it may be as you say, though how you came to figure it out beats me. That must be it. We never could make out why he should have been killed. He had money on him, but not enough to tempt the man as we suspected."

"Suspected? No! the man we knew did it," the doctor broke in. "You see now, Lightning, how it is. It was known in camp that our mate had come into an estate in England. He said good-bye to us all and started, and his body was found a few miles away. We felt pretty sure of the man who had done it, for he was missing. He was a gambler. Bill had been pretty thick with him for some time, and I allow the fellow had got the whole story out of him, and knew the place he was going to, and knew where it was, and had wormed a whole lot out of him that might be useful to him. Then he killed him, and wasn't seen any more in these parts. I searched for him for a year up and down California, and Nevada, and New Mexico, and down into Northern Mexico, but I never came across his track. If I had got as much as a sign which way he had gone, I would have hunted him down all over the world; but there was not a sign from the day he had left the camp. Nobody ever heard of him again. I found out he had a wife down in Southern California, a Mexican girl, and I went down there to hunt her out, but she had gone too – had left a few days after he had disappeared. Now we are on his track again, Sim. I guess in a week I will be up, and you and I will go straight off with this young fellow to England, and see this thing out. Lay me down now. I must be quiet for a bit. Take Lightning out and talk it over with him, and tell the cook to let me have some strong soup, for I have got to get out of this as soon as possible."

"Can all this be true, Sim, do you think?" Hugh said; "or is the doctor light-headed? Do you think it is possible that the man who murdered my uncle is the one who has taken his place all these years."

"It is gospel truth, Lightning. At least it is gospel truth that your uncle was murdered here, for there can't be no doubt that your uncle Bill Tunstall and our mate is the same man; but I can't say whether the one as you thought was your uncle is the one that killed him. Your description is like enough to him. Tell me a little more about him."

"He is rather dark, with a moustache but no whiskers; he has a quiet manner; he is slight, but gives you the idea of being very strong. He has very white well-made hands. He shows his teeth a little when he smiles, but even when I first knew him I never liked his smile; there was something about it that wasn't honest. And he brought over with him a Mexican wife."

"That's him," Sim said in a tone of conviction; "you have just described him. He has a light sort of walk like a cat, and a tigerish way with him all over. There ain't a doubt that is the man. And what is the woman like?"

"She has always been very kind and good to me," Hugh said. "No aunt could have been kinder. I am awfully sorry for her, but I hated the man. That was why I left England. I came into the room one day and found that he had knocked his wife down, and I seized him. Then he knocked me down, and I caught up the poker. I was no match for him then in strength. Then he drew a pistol, but I hit him before he could aim; and as he went down his head came against a sharp corner of a piece of furniture, and I thought that I had killed him, so I bolted at once, made my way to Hamburg, and crossed to New York. That is how I came to be here."

"Has he got much of the property, lad?"

"He has got what was my uncle's share," Hugh replied. "Now that I know who he is I can understand things. I could not understand before. If I had died before I came of age he would have had the whole of the property. He used to get the most vicious horses he could find for me to ride, and I remember now when we were in Switzerland together he wanted to take me up mountains with him, but my aunt wouldn't let me go. Then he offered to teach me pistol-shooting, but somehow he dropped that, and my aunt taught me herself. I think she must have stopped him. Thinking it all over now, I feel sure that he must have intended to kill me somehow, and that she managed to save my life. There were often quarrels between them, but she didn't seem to be afraid of him. I think that she must have had some sort of hold over him."

"Waal, there is one thing," Sim said after a pause; "I believe this here discovery has saved the doctor's life. He had made up his mind that he had done with it, and wasn't going to try to get better. Now, you see, he is all eagerness to get on this fellow's scent. If he had been a blood-hound he could not have hunted the country closer than he did for that thar tarnal villain. He had an idee it wur his business to wipe him out, and when the doctor gets set on an idee like that he carries it out. It will pull him round now, you see if it don't."

"I do hope so, indeed, Sim," Hugh said warmly. "The doctor is a wonderful fellow, and if it hadn't been for him we should never have arrived at this discovery. Well, I am glad. Of course I am sorry to hear that my uncle was murdered, but as I never saw him that does not affect me so much; but I am glad to hear that this man whom I hated, a man who ill-treated his wife and who spent all his time at horse-racing and gambling, is not my uncle, and has no right to a share in the property that has been in our family for so many years. I only hope that this excitement will not do the doctor any harm."

"I am sure that it will do him good," Sim said confidently; "but it wur strange to see a man who looked as if he wur just dying out wake up like that; but that has always been his way; just as quiet as a woman at most times, but blazing out when he felt thar wur a great wrong, and that it wur his duty to set it right. I can tell you now what I know about his story. Now he knows you are English Bill's nephew he won't mind your knowing. Waal, his story ain't anything much out of the way. There are scores who have suffered the like, but it didn't have the effect on them like it did on the doctor.

"He is really a doctor trained and edicated. He married out east. He wur a quiet little fellow, and not fit to hustle round in towns and push hisself forward; so he and his wife came round and settled in Californy somewhere about '36. Thar wurn't many Americans here then, as you may guess. He settled down in the south somewhere a hundred miles or so from Los Angeles. He had some money of his own, and he bought a place and planted fruit trees and made a sort of little paradise of it. That is what he told me he lived on, doctoring when it came in his way. There wur some rich Mexicans about, and he looked after most of them; but I guess he did more among the poor. He had four children, and things went on peaceable till '48. Then you know gold was discovered, and that turned Californy upside down.

"It brought pretty nigh all the roughs in creation there. They quarrelled with the Mexikins, and they quarrelled with the Injuns, and there was trouble of the wust kind.

"There was gangs of fellows as guessed they could make more money by robbing the miners than they could by digging for gold, and I reckon they was about right; and when they warn't robbing the miners they was plundering the Mexikins. Waal, I never heard the rights of it, the doctor never could bring hisself to talk about that, but one day when he had been twenty miles away to visit a patient, he came back and found his place burned down, and his wife and the four children murdered. He went off his head, and some of the people as knew him took him down to Los Angeles, and he wur a year in the madhouse thar. He wur very quiet. I believe he used ter just sit and cry.

"After a time he changed. He never used to speak a word, but just sot with those big eyes of his wide open; with his face working, as if he seen an enemy. Waal, after a year he got better, and the Mexikins let him out of that madhouse. Someone had bought his place, and the money had been banked for him. He took it and went off. He never got to hear who the gang wur as had been to his house. I think the idee comes to him ever since when he comes across a really bad man, that he wur one of that lot, and then he goes for him. It is either that, or he believes he has got a sort of special call to wipe out bad men. As I told you, he is always ready to do a kindness to anyone, and ef he has killed over a score or more of the wust men in Californy, I guess he has saved five times as many by nussing them when they are ill, only he will never give them medicine. One of his idees is that if he hadn't gone on doctoring, he wouldn't have been away when that gang came to his house, and that is why he will never do anything as a doctor again. He is just a nuss, he says, and nothing more.

"Now, don't you go for to think, Lightning, that the doctor is the least bit mad, because he ain't, and never have been since I first knew him, and I should like to see the man as would say that he wur. He is just as sensible as I am; that ain't saying much; he is ten times as sensible. He always knows the right thing to do, does the doctor, and does it. He air just an ornary man, with heaps of good sense, and just the kindest heart in the world, only when thar is a regular downright bad man in the camp, the doctor takes him in hand all to hisself."