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The Headless Horseman: A Strange Tale of Texas

Chapter Seventy Eight.
A Horse-Swop

With an oath, a sullen look, and a brow black as disappointment could make it, Calhoun turned away from the edge of the chalk prairie, where he had lost the traces of the Headless Horseman.

“No use following further! No knowing where he’s gone now! No hope of finding him except by a fluke! If I go back to the creek I might see him again; but unless I get within range, it’ll end as it’s done before. The mustang stallion won’t let me come near him – as if the brute knows what I’m wanting!

“He’s even cunninger than the wild sort – trained to it, I suppose, by the mustanger himself. One fair shot – if I could only get that, I’d settle his courses.

“There appears no chance of stealing upon him; and as to riding him down, it can’t be done with a slow mule like this.

“The sorrel’s not much better as to speed, though he beats this brute in bottom. I’ll try him to-morrow, with the new shoe.

“If I could only get hold of something that’s fast enough to overtake the mustang! I’d put down handsomely for a horse that could do it.

“There must be one of the sort in the settlement. I’ll see when I get back. If there be, a couple of hundred, ay or three, won’t hinder me from having him.”

After he had made these mutterings Calhoun rode away from the chalk prairie, his dark countenance strangely contrasting with its snowy sheen. He went at a rapid rate; not sparing his horse, already jaded with a protracted journey – as could be told by his sweating coat, and the clots of half-coagulated blood, where the spur had been freely plied upon his flanks. Fresh drops soon appeared as he cantered somewhat heavily on – his head set for the hacienda of Casa del Corvo.

In less than an hour after, his rider was guiding him among the mezquites that skirted the plantation.

It was a path known to Calhoun. He had ridden over it before, though not upon the same horse. On crossing the bed of an arroyo – dry from a long continuance of drought – he was startled at beholding in the mud the tracks of another horse. One of them showed a broken shoe, an old hoof-print, nearly eight days old. He made no examination to ascertain the time. He knew it to an hour.

He bent over it, with a different thought – a feeling of surprise commingled with a touch of superstition. The track looked recent, as if made on the day before. There had been wind, rain, thunder, and lightning. Not one of these had wasted it. Even the angry elements appeared to have passed over without destroying it – as if to spare it for a testimony against the outraged laws of Nature – their God.

Calhoun dismounted, with the design to obliterate the track of the three-quarter shoe. Better for him to have spared himself the pains. The crease of his boot-heel crushing in the stiff mud was only an additional evidence as to who had ridden the broken-shoed horse. There was one coming close behind capable of collecting it.

Once more in his saddle, the ex-officer rode on – reflecting on his own astuteness.

His reflections had scarce reached the point of reverie, when the hoof-stroke of a horse – not his own – came suddenly within hearing. Not within sight: for the animal making them was still screened by the chapparal.

Plainly was it approaching; and, although at a slow pace, the measured tread told of its being guided, and not straying. It was a horse with a rider upon his back.

In another instant both were in view; and Calhoun saw before him Isidora Covarubio de los Llanos; she at the same instant catching sight of him!

It was a strange circumstance that these two should thus encounter one another – apparently by chance, though perhaps controlled by destiny. Stranger still the thought summoned up in the bosoms of both.

In Calhoun, Isidora saw the man who loved the woman she herself hated. In Isidora, Calhoun saw the woman who loved him he both hated and had determined to destroy.

This mutual knowledge they had derived partly from report, partly from observation, and partly from the suspicious circumstances under which more than once they had met. They were equally convinced of its truth. Each felt certain of the sinister entanglement of the other; while both believed their own to be unsuspected.

The situation was not calculated to create a friendly feeling between them. It is not natural that man, or woman, should like the admirer of a rival. They can only be friends at that point where jealousy prompts to the deadliest vengeance; and then it is but a sinister sympathy.

As yet no such had arisen between Cassius Calhoun and Isidora Covarubio de los Llanos.

If it had been possible, both might have been willing to avoid the encounter. Isidora certainly was.

She had no predilection for the ex-officer of dragoons; and besides the knowledge that he was the lover of her rival, there was another thought that now rendered his presence, if not disagreeable, at least not desirable.

She remembered the chase of the sham Indians, and its ending. She knew that among the Texans there had been much conjecture as to her abrupt disappearance, after appealing to them for protection.

She had her own motive for that, which she did not intend to declare; and the man about meeting her might be inclined to ask questions on the subject.

She would have passed with a simple salutation – she could not give less than that. And perhaps he might have done the same; but for a thought which at that moment came into his mind, entirely unconnected with the reflections already there engendered.

It was not the lady herself who suggested the thought. Despite her splendid beauty, he had no admiration for her. In his breast, ruthless as it might have been, there was no space left for a second passion – not even a sensual one – for her thus encountered in the solitude of the chapparal, with Nature whispering wild, wicked suggestions.

It was no idea of this that caused him to rein up in the middle of the path; remove the cap from his crown; and, by a courtly salutation, invite a dialogue with Isidora.

So challenged, she could not avoid the conversation; that commenced upon the instant – Calhoun taking the initiative.

“Excuse me, señorita,” said he, his glance directed more upon her steed than herself; “I know it’s very rude thus to interrupt your ride; especially on the part of a stranger, as with sorrow I am compelled to call myself.”

“It needs no apology, señor. If I’m not mistaken, we have met before – upon the prairie, out near the Nueces.”

“True – true!” stammered Calhoun, not caring to dwell upon the remembrance. “It was not of that encounter I wished to speak; but what I saw afterwards, as you came galloping along the cliff. We all wondered what became of you.”

“There was not much cause for wonder, cavallero. The shot which some of your people fired from below, disembarrassed me of my pursuers. I saw that they had turned back, and simply continued my journey.”

Calhoun exhibited no chagrin at being thus baffled. The theme upon which he designed to direct his discourse had not yet turned up; and in it he might be more successful.

What it was might have been divined from his glance – half connoisseur, half horse-jockey – still directed toward the steed of Isidora.

“I do not say, señorita, that I was one of those who wondered at your sudden disappearance. I presumed you had your own reasons for not coming on to us; and, seeing you ride as you did, I felt no fear for your safety. It was your riding that astonished me, as it did all of my companions. Such a horse you had! He appeared to glide, rather than gallop! If I mistake not, it’s the same you are now astride of. Am I right, señora? Pardon me for asking such an insignificant question.”

“The same? Let me see? I make use of so many. I think I was riding this horse upon that day. Yes, yes; I am sure of it. I remember how the brute betrayed me.”

“Betrayed you! How?”

“Twice he did it. Once as you and your people were approaching. The second time, when the Indians —ay Dios! not Indians, as I’ve since heard – were coming through the chapparal.”

“But how?”

“By neighing. He should not have done it. He’s had training enough to know better than that. No matter. Once I get him back to the Rio Grande he shall stay there. I shan’t ride him again. He shall return to his Pastures.”

“Pardon me, señorita, for speaking to you on such a subject; but I can’t help thinking that it’s a pity.”

“What’s a pity?”

“That a steed so splendid as that should be so lightly discarded. I would give much to possess him.”

“You are jesting, cavallero. He is nothing beyond the common; perhaps a little pretty, and quick in his paces. My father has five thousand of his sort – many of them prettier, and, no doubt, some faster than he. He’s a good roadster; and that’s why I’m riding him now. If it weren’t that I’m on my way home to the Rio Grande, and the journey is still before me, you’d be welcome to have him, or anybody else who cared for him, as you seem to do. Be still, musteño mio! You see there’s somebody likes you better than I do.”

The last speech was addressed to the mustang, who, like its rider, appeared impatient for the conversation to come to a close.

Calhoun, however, seemed equally desirous of prolonging, or, at all events, bringing it to a different termination.

“Excuse me, señorita,” said he, assuming an air of businesslike earnestness, at the same time speaking apologetically; “if that be all the value you set upon the grey mustang, I should be only too glad to make an exchange with you. My horse, if not handsome, is estimated by our Texan dealers as a valuable animal. Though somewhat slow in his paces, I can promise that he will carry you safely to your home, and will serve you well afterwards.”

“What, señor!” exclaimed the lady, in evident astonishment, “exchange your grand American frison for a Mexican mustang! The offer is too generous to appear other than a jest. You know that on the Rio Grande one of your horses equals in value at least three, sometimes six, of ours?”

Calhoun knew this well enough; but he knew also that the mustang ridden by Isidora would be to him worth a whole stableful of such brutes as that he was bestriding. He had been an eye-witness to its speed, besides having heard of it from others. It was the thing he stood in need of – the very thing. He would have given, not only his “grand frison” in exchange, but the full price of the mustang by way of “boot.”

Fortunately for him, there was no attempt at extortion. In the composition of the Mexican maiden, however much she might be given to equestrian tastes, there was not much of the “coper.” With five thousand horses in the paternal stables, or rather straying over the patrimonial plains, there was but slight motive for sharp practice; and why should she deny such trifling gratification, even though the man seeking it was a stranger – perhaps an enemy?

She did not.

“If you are in earnest, señor,” was her response, “you are welcome to what you want.”

“I am in earnest, señorita.”

“Take him, then!” said she, leaping out of her saddle, and commencing to undo the girths, “We cannot exchange saddles: yours would be a mile too big for me!”

Calhoun was too happy to find words for a rejoinder. He hastened to assist her in removing the saddle; after which he took off his own.

In less than five minutes the horses were exchanged – the saddles and bridles being retained by their respective owners.

To Isidora there was something ludicrous in the transference. She almost laughed while it was being carried on.

Calhoun looked upon it in a different light. There was a purpose present before his mind – one of the utmost importance.

They parted without much further speech – only the usual greetings of adieu – Isidora going off on the frison; while the ex-officer, mounted on the grey mustang, continued his course in the direction of Casa del Corvo.

Chapter Seventy Nine.
An Untiring Tracker

Zeb was not long in arriving at the spot where he had “hitched” his mare. The topography of the chapparal was familiar to him; and he crossed it by a less circuitous route than that taken by the cripple.

He once more threw himself upon the trail of the broken shoe, in full belief that it would fetch out not a hundred miles from Casa del Corvo.

It led him along a road running almost direct from one of the crossings of the Rio Grande to Fort Inge. The road was a half-mile in width – a thing not uncommon in Texas, where every traveller selects his own path, alone looking to the general direction.

Along one edge of it had gone the horse with the damaged shoe.

Not all the way to Fort Inge. When within four or five miles of the post, the trail struck off from the road, at an angle of just such degree as followed in a straight line would bring out by Poindexter’s plantation. So confident was Zeb of this, that he scarce deigned to keep his eye upon the ground; but rode forwards, as if a finger-post was constantly by his side.

He had long before given up following the trail afoot. Despite his professed contempt for “horse-fixings” – as he called riding – he had no objection to finish his journey in the saddle – fashed as he now was with the fatigue of protracted trailing over prairie and through chapparal. Now and then only did he cast a glance upon the ground – less to assure himself he was on the track of the broken shoe, than to notice whether something else might not be learnt from the sign, besides its mere direction.

There were stretches of the prairie where the turf, hard and dry, had taken no impression. An ordinary traveller might have supposed himself the first to pass over the ground. But Zeb Stump was not of this class; and although he could not always distinguish the hoof marks, he knew within an inch where they would again become visible – on the more moist and softer patches of the prairie.

If at any place conjecture misled him, it was only for a short distance, and he soon corrected himself by a traverse.

In this half-careless, half-cautious way, he had approached within a mile of Poindexter’s plantation. Over the tops of the mezquite trees the crenelled parapet was in sight; when something he saw upon the ground caused a sudden change in his demeanour. A change, too, in his attitude; for instead of remaining on the back of his mare, he flung himself out of the saddle; threw the bridle upon her neck; and, rapidly passing in front of her, commenced taking up the trail afoot.

The mare made no stop, but continued on after him – with an air of resignation, as though she was used to such eccentricities.

To an inexperienced eye there was nothing to account for this sudden dismounting. It occurred at a place where the turf appeared untrodden by man, or beast. Alone might it be inferred from Zeb’s speech, as he flung himself out of the saddle:

“His track! goin’ to hum!” were the words muttered in a slow, measured tone; after which, at a slower pace, the dismounted hunter kept on along the trail.

In a little time after it conducted him into the chapparal; and in less to a stop – sudden, as if the thorny thicket had been transformed into a chevaux-de-frise, impenetrable both to him and his “critter.”

It was not this. The path was still open before him – more open than ever. It was its openness that had furnished him with a cause for discontinuing his advance.

The path sloped down into a valley below – a depression in the prairie, along the concavity of which, at times, ran a tiny stream – ran arroyo. It was now dry, or only occupied by stagnant pools, at long distances apart. In the mud-covered channel was a man, with a horse close behind him – the latter led by the bridle.

There was nothing remarkable in the behaviour of the horse; he was simply following the lead of his dismounted rider.

But the man – what was he doing? In his movements there was something peculiar – something that would have puzzled an uninitiated spectator.

It did not puzzle Zeb Stump; or but for a second of time.

Almost the instant his eye fell upon it, he read the meaning of the manoeuvre, and mutteringly pronounced it to himself.

“Oblitturatin’ the print o’ the broken shoe, or tryin’ to do thet same! ’Taint no use, Mister Cash Calhoun – no manner o’ use. Ye’ve made yur fut marks too deep to deceive me; an by the Eturnal I’ll foller them, though they shed conduck me into the fires o’ hell?”

As the backwoodsman terminated his blasphemous apostrophe, the man to whom it pointed, having finished his task of obscuration, once more leaped into his saddle, and hurried on.

On foot the tracker followed; though without showing any anxiety about keeping him in sight.

There was no need for that. The sleuth hound on a fresh slot could not be more sure of again viewing his victim, than was Zeb Stump of coming up with his. No chicanery of the chapparal – no twistings or doublings – could save Calhoun now.

The tracker advanced freely; not expecting to make halt again, till he should come within sight of Casa del Corvo.

Little blame to him that his reckoning proved wrong. Who could have foretold such an interruption as that occasioned by the encounter between Cassius Calhoun and Isidora Covarubio de los Llanos?

Though at sight of it, taken by surprise – perhaps something more – Zeb did not allow his feelings to betray his presence near the spot.

On the contrary, it seemed to stimulate him to increased caution.

Turning noiselessly round, he whispered some cabalistic words into the care of his “critter;” and then stole silently forward under cover of the acacias.

Without remonstrance, or remark, the mare followed. He soon came to a fall stop – his animal doing the same, in imitation so exact as to appear its counterpart.

A thick growth of mezquite trees separated him from the two individuals, by this time engaged in a lively interchange of speech.

He could not see them, without exposing himself to the danger of being detected in his eaves-dropping; but he heard what they said all the same.

He kept his place – listening till the horse trade was concluded, and for some time after.

Only when they had separated, and both taken departure did he venture to come forth from his cover.

Standing upon the spot lately occupied by the “swoppers,” and looking “both ways at once,” he exclaimed —

“Geehosophat! thur’s a compack atween a he an’ she-devil; an’ durn’d ef I kin tell, which hez got the bessest o’ the bargin!”

Chapter Eighty.
A Doorway Well Watched

It was some time before Zeb Stump sallied forth from the covert where he had been witness to the “horse swop.” Not till both the bargainers had ridden entirely out of sight. Then he went not after either; but stayed upon the spot, as if undecided which he should follow.

It was not exactly this that kept him to the place; but the necessity of taking what he was in the habit of calling a “good think.”

His thoughts were about the exchange of the horses: for he had heard the whole dialogue relating thereto, and the proposal coming from Calhoun. It was this that puzzled, or rather gave him reason for reflection. What could be the motive?

Zeb knew to be true what the Mexican had said: that the States horse was, in market value, worth far more than the mustang. He knew, moreover, that Cassius Calhoun was the last man to be “coped” in a horse trade. Why, then, had he done the “deal?”

The old hunter pulled off his felt hat; gave his hand a twist or two through his unkempt hair; transferred the caress to the grizzled beard upon his chin – all the while gazing upon the ground, as if the answer to his mental interrogatory was to spring out of the grass.

“Thur air but one explication o’t,” he at length muttered: “the grey’s the faster critter o’ the two – ne’er a doubt ’beout thet; an Mister Cash wants him for his fastness: else why the durnation shed he a gin a hoss thet ’ud sell for four o’ his sort in any part o’ Texas, an twicet thet number in Mexiko? I reck’n he’s bargained for the heels. Why? Durn me, ef I don’t suspect why. He wants – he – heigh – I hev it – somethin’ as kin kum up wi’ the Headless!

“Thet’s the very thing he’s arter – sure as my name’s Zeb’lon Stump. He’s tried the States hoss an foun’ him slow. Thet much I knowd myself. Now he thinks, wi’ the mowstang, he may hev a chance to overhaul the tother, ef he kin only find him agin; an for sartin he’ll go in sarch o’ him.

“He’s rad on now to Casser Corver – maybe to git a pick o’ somethin’ to eat. He won’t stay thur long. ’Fore many hours hev passed, somebody ’ll see him out hyur on the purayra; an thet somebody air boun’ to be Zeb’lon Stump.

“Come, ye critter!” he continued, turning to the mare, “ye thort ye wur a goin’ hum, did ye? Yur mistaken ’beout that. Ye’ve got to squat hyur for another hour or two – if not the hul o’ the night. Never mind, ole gurl! The grass don’t look so had; an ye shell hev a chance to git yur snout to it. Thur now – eet your durned gut-full!”

While pronouncing this apostrophe, he drew the head-stall over the ears of his mare; and, chucking the bridle across the projecting tree of the saddle, permitted her to graze at will.

Having secured her in the chapparal where he had halted, he walked on – along the track taken by Calhoun.

Two hundred yards farther on, and the jungle terminated. Beyond stretched an open plain; and on its opposite side could be seen the hacienda of Casa del Corvo.

The figure of a horseman could be distinguished against its whitewashed façade – in another moment lost within the dark outline of the entrance.

Zeb knew who went in.

“From this place,” he muttered, “I kin see him kum out; an durn me, ef I don’t watch till he do kum out – ef it shed be till this time o’ the morrow. So hyur goes for a spell o’ patience.”

He first lowered himself to his knees. Then, “squirming” round till his back came in contact with the trunk of a honey-locust, he arranged himself into a sitting posture. This done, he drew from his capacious pocket a wallet, containing a “pone” of corn-bread, a large “hunk” of fried “hog-meat,” and a flask of liquor, whose perfume proclaimed it “Monongahela.”

Having eaten about half the bread, and a like quantity of the meat, he returned the remaining moieties to the wallet; which he suspended over head upon a branch. Then taking a satisfactory swig from the whiskey-flask, and igniting his pipe, he leant back against the locust – with arms folded over his breast, and eyes bent upon the gateway of Casa del Corvo.

In this way he kept watch for a period of full two hours; never changing the direction of his glance; or not long enough for any one to pass out unseen by him.

Forms came out, and went in – several of them – men and women. But even in the distance their scant light-coloured garments, and dusky complexions, told them to be only the domestics of the mansion. Besides, they were all on foot; and he, for whom Zeb was watching, should come on horseback – if at all.

His vigil was only interrupted by the going down of the sun; and then only to cause a change in his post of observation. When twilight began to fling its purple shadows over the plain, he rose to his feet; and, leisurely unfolding his tall figure, stood upright by the stem of the tree – as if this attitude was more favourable for “considering.”

“Thur’s jest a posserbillity the skunk mout sneak out i’ the night?” was his reflection. “Leastways afore the light o’ the mornin’; an I must make sure which way he takes purayra.

“’Taint no use my toatin’ the maar after me,” he continued, glancing in the direction where the animal had been left. “She’d only bother me. Beside, thur’s goin’ to be a clurrish sort o’ moonlight; an she mout be seen from the nigger quarter. She’ll be better hyur – both for grass and kiver.”

He went back to the mare; took off the saddle; fastened the trail-rope round her neck, tying the other end to a tree; and then, unstrapping his old blanket from the cantle, he threw it across his left arm, and walked off in the direction of Casa del Corvo.

He did not proceed pari passu; but now quicker, and now more hesitatingly – timing himself, by the twilight – so that his approach might not be observed from the hacienda.

He had need of this caution: for the ground which he had to pass was like a level lawn, without copse or cover of any kind. Here and there stood a solitary tree – dwarf-oak or algarobia, but not close enough to shelter him from being seen through the windows – much less from the azotea.

Now and then he stopped altogether – to wait for the deepening of the twilight.

Working his way in this stealthy manner, he arrived within less than two hundred yards of the walls – just as the last trace of sunlight disappeared from the sky.

He had reached the goal of his journey – for that day – and the spot on which he was likely to pass the night.

A low stemless bush grew near; and, laying himself down behind it, he resumed the espionage, that could scarce be said to have been interrupted.

Throughout the live-long night Zeb Stump never closed both eyes at the same time. One was always on the watch; and the unflagging earnestness, with which he maintained it, proclaimed him to be acting under the influence of some motive beyond the common.

During the earlier hours he was not without sounds to cheer, or at least relieve, the monotony of his lonely vigil. There was the hum of voices from the slave cabins; with now and then a peal of laughter. But this was more suppressed than customary; nor was it accompanied by the clear strain of the violin, or the lively tink-a-tink of the banjo – sounds almost characteristic of the “negro-quarter,” at night.

The sombre silence that hung over the “big house” extended to the hearths of its sable retainers.

Before midnight the voices became hushed, and stillness reigned everywhere; broken only at intervals by the howl of a straying hound – uttered in response to the howl-bark of a coyoté taking care to keep far out upon the plain.

The watcher had spent a wearisome day, and could have slept – but for his thoughts. Once when these threatened to forsake him, and he was in danger of dozing, he started suddenly to his feet; took a turn or two over the sward; and, then lying down again, re-lit his pipe; stuck his head into the heart of the bush; and smoked away till the bowl was burnt empty.

During all this time, he kept his eyes upon the great gateway of the mansion; whose massive door – he could tell by the moonlight shining upon it – remained shut.

Again did he change his post of observation; the sun’s rising – as its setting had done – seeming to give him the cue.

As the first tint of dawn displayed itself on the horizon, he rose gently to his feet; clutched the blanket so as to bring its edges in contact across his breast; and, turning his back upon Casa del Corvo, walked slowly away – taking the same track by which he had approached it on the preceding night.

And again with unequal steps: at short intervals stopping and looking back – under his arm, or over his shoulder.

Nowhere did he make a prolonged pause; until reaching the locust-tree, under whose shade he had made his evening meal; and there, in the same identical attitude, he proceeded to break his fast.

The second half of the “pone” and the remaining moiety of the pork, soon disappeared between his teeth; after which followed the liquor that had been left in his flask.

He had refilled his pipe, and was about relighting it, when an object came before his eyes, that caused him hastily to return his flint and steel to the pouch from which he had taken them.

Through the blue mist of the morning the entrance of Casa del Corvo showed a darker disc. The door had been drawn open.

Almost at the same instant a horseman was seen to sally forth, mounted upon a small grey horse; and the door was at once closed behind him.

Zeb Stump made no note of this. He only looked to see what direction the early traveller would take.

Less than a score of seconds sufficed to satisfy him. The horse’s head and the face of the rider were turned towards himself.

He lost no time in trying to identify either. He did not doubt of its being the same man and horse, that had passed that spot on the evening before; and he was equally confident they were going to pass it again.

What he did was to shamble up to his mare; in some haste get her saddled and bridled; and then, having taken up his trail rope, lead her off into a cover – from which he could command a view of the chapparal path, without danger of being himself seen.

This done, he awaited the arrival of the traveller on the grey steed – whom he knew to be Captain Cassius Calhoun.

He waited still longer – until the latter had trotted past; until he had gone quite through the belt of chapparal, and in the hazy light of the morning gradually disappeared on the prairie beyond.

Not till then did Zeb Stump clamber into his saddle; and, “prodding” his solitary spur against the ribs of his roadster, cause the latter to move on.

He went after Cassius Calhoun; but without showing the slightest concern about keeping the latter in sight!

He needed not this to guide him. The dew upon the grass was to him a spotless page – the tracks of the grey mustang a type, as legible as the lines of a printed book.

He could read them at a trot; ay, going at a gallop!