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The Headless Horseman: A Strange Tale of Texas

Chapter Eighty One.
Heads Down – Heels Up!

Without suspicion that he had been seen leaving the house – except by Pluto, who had saddled the grey mustang – Calhoun rode on across the prairie.

Equally unsuspicious was he, in passing the point where Zeb Stump stood crouching in concealment.

In the dim light of the morning he supposed himself unseen by human eye; and he recked not of any other.

After parting from the timbered border, he struck off towards the Nueces; riding at a brisk trot – now and then increasing to a canter.

Por the first six or eight miles he took but little note of aught that was around. An occasional glance along the horizon seemed to satisfy him; and this extended only to that portion of the vast circle before his face. He looked neither to the right nor the left; and only once behind – after getting some distance from the skirt of the chapparal.

Before him was the object – still unseen – upon which his thoughts were straying.

What that object was he and only one other knew – that other Zeb Stump – though little did Calhoun imagine that mortal man could have a suspicion of the nature of his early errand.

The old hunter had only conjectured it; but it was a conjecture of the truth of which he was as certain, as if the ex-captain had made him his confidant. He knew that the latter had gone off in search of the Headless Horseman – in hopes of renewing the chase of yesterday, with a better chance of effecting a capture.

Though bestriding a steed fleet as a Texan stag, Calhoun was by no means sanguine of success. There were many chances against his getting sight of the game he intended to take: at least two to one; and this it was that formed the theme of his reflections as he rode onward.

The uncertainty troubled him; but he was solaced by a hope founded upon some late experiences.

There was a particular place where he had twice encountered the thing he was in search of. It might be there again?

This was an embayment of green sward, where the savannah was bordered by the chapparal, and close to the embouchure of that opening – where it was supposed the murder had been committed!

“Odd he should always make back there?” reflected Calhoun, as he pondered upon the circumstance. “Damned ugly odd it is! Looks as if he knew – . Bah! It’s only because the grass is better, and that pond by the side of it. Well! I hope he’s been thinking that way this morning. If so, there’ll be a chance of finding him. If not, I must go on through the chapparal; and hang me if I like it – though it be in the daylight. Ugh!

“Pish! what’s there to fear – now that he’s safe in limbo? Nothing but the bit of lead; and it I must have, if I should ride this thing till it drops dead in its tracks. Holy Heaven! what’s that out yonder?”

These last six words were spoken aloud. All the rest had been a soliloquy in thought.

The speaker, on pronouncing them, pulled up, almost dragging the mustang on its haunches; and with eyes that seemed ready to start from their sockets, sate gazing across the plain.

There was something more than surprise in that stedfast glance – there was horror.

And no wonder: for the spectacle upon which it rested was one to terrify the stoutest heart.

The sun had stolen up above the horizon of the prairie, and was behind the rider’s back, in the direct line of the course he had been pursuing. Before him, along the heaven’s edge, extended a belt of bluish mist – the exhalation arising out of the chapparal – now not far distant. The trees themselves were unseen – concealed under the film floating over them, that like a veil of purple gauze, rose to a considerable height above their tops – gradually merging into the deeper azure of the sky.

On this veil, or moving behind it – as in the transparencies of a stage scene – appeared a form strange enough to have left the spectator incredulous, had he not beheld it before. It was that of the Headless Horseman.

But not as seen before – either by Calhoun himself, or any of the others. No. It was now altogether different. In shape the same; but in size it was increased to tenfold its original dimensions!

No longer a man, but a Colossus – a giant. No longer a horse, but an animal of equine shape, with the towering height and huge massive bulk of a mastodon!

Nor was this all of the new to be noted about the Headless Horseman. A still greater change was presented in his appearance; one yet more inexplicable, if that could possibly be. He was no longer walking upon the ground, but against the sky; both horse and rider moving in an inverted position! The hoofs of the former were distinctly perceptible upon the upper edge of the film; while the shoulders – I had almost said head– of the latter were close down to the line of the horizon! The serapé shrouding them hung in the right direction – not as regarded the laws of gravity, but the attitude of the wearer. So, too, the bridle reins, the mane, and sweeping tail of the horse. All draped upwards!

When first seen, the spectral form – now more spectre-like than ever – was going at a slow, leisurely walk. In this pace it for some time continued – Calhoun gazing upon it with a heart brimful of horror.

All of a sudden it assumed a change. Its regular outlines became confused by a quick transformation; the horse having turned, and gone off at a trot in the opposite direction, though still with his heels against the sky!

The spectre had become alarmed, and was retreating!

Calhoun, half palsied with fear, would have kept his ground, and permitted it to depart, but for his own horse; that, just then shying suddenly round, placed him face to face with the explanation.

As he turned, the tap of a shod hoof upon the prairie turf admonished him that a real horseman was near – if that could be called real, which had thrown such a frightful shadow.

“It’s the mirage!” he exclaimed, with the addition of an oath to give vent to his chagrin. “What a fool I’ve been to let it humbug me! There’s the damned thing that did it: the very thing I’m in search of. And so close too! If I’d known, I might have got hold of him before he saw me. Now for a chase; and, by God, I’ll grup him, if I have to gallop to the other end of Texas!”

Voice, spur, and whip were simultaneously exerted to prove the speaker’s earnestness; and in five minutes after, two horsemen were going at full stretch across the prairie – their horses both to the prairie born – one closely pursuing the other – the pursued without a head; the pursuer with a heart that throbbed under a desperate determination.

The chase was not a long one – at least, so far as it led over the open prairie; and Calhoun had begun to congratulate himself on the prospect of a capture.

His horse appeared the swifter; but this may have arisen from his being more earnestly urged; or that the other was not sufficiently scared to care for escaping. Certainly the grey steed gained ground – at length getting so close, that Calhoun made ready his rifle.

His intention was to shoot the horse down, and so put an end to the pursuit.

He would have fired on the instant, but for the fear of a miss. But having made more than one already, he restrained himself from pulling trigger, till he could ride close enough to secure killing shot.

While thus hesitating, the chase veered suddenly from off the treeless plain, and dashed into the opening of the timber.

This movement, unexpected by the pursuer, caused him to lose ground; and in the endeavour to regain it, more than a half mile of distance was left behind him.

He was approaching a spot well, too well, known to him – the place where blood had been spilt.

On any other occasion he would have shunned it; but there was in his heart a thought that hindered him from dwelling upon memories of the past – steeling it against all reflection, except a cold fear for the future. The capture of the strange equestrian could alone allay this fear – by removing the danger he dreaded.

Once more he had gained ground in the chase. The spread nostrils of his steed were almost on a line with the sweeping tail of that pursued. His rifle lay ready in his left hand, its trigger guard covered by the fingers of his right. He was searching for a spot to take aim at.

In another second the shot would have been fired, and a bullet sent between the ribs of the retreating horse, when the latter, as if becoming aware of the danger, made a quick curvet to the off side; and then, aiming a kick at the snout of his pursuer, bounded on in a different direction!

The suddenness of the demonstration, with the sharp, spiteful “squeal” that accompanied it – appearing almost to speak of an unearthly intelligence – for the moment disconcerted Calhoun; as it did the horse he was riding.

The latter came to a stop; and refused to go farther; till the spur, plunged deep between his ribs, once more forced him to the gallop.

And now more earnestly than ever did his rider urge him on; for the pursued, no longer keeping to the path, was heading direct for the thicket. The chase might there terminate, without the chased animal being either killed or captured.

Hitherto Calhoun had only been thinking of a trial of speed. He had not anticipated such an ending, as was now both possible and probable; and with a more reckless resolve, he once more raised his rifle for the shot.

By this time both were close in to the bushes – the Headless Horseman already half-screened by the leafy branches that swept swishing along his sides. Only the hips of his horse could be aimed at; and upon these was the gun levelled.

The sulphureous smoke spurted forth from its muzzle; the crack was heard simultaneously; and, as if caused by the discharge, a dark object came whirling through the cloud, and fell with a dull “thud” upon the turf.

With a bound and a roll – that brought it among the feet of Calhoun’s horse – it became stationary.

Stationary, but not still. It continued to oscillate from side to side, like a top before ceasing to spin.

The grey steed snorted, and reared back. His rider uttered a cry of intensified alarm.

And no wonder. If read in Shakespearean lore, he might have appropriately repeated the words “Shake not those gory locks”: for, on the ground beneath, was the head of a man – still sticking in its hat – whose stiff orbicular brim hindered it from staying still.

The face was toward Calhoun – upturned at just such an angle as to bring it full before him. The features were bloodstained, wan, and shrivelled; the eyes open, but cold and dim, like balls of blown glass; the teeth gleaming white between livid lips, yet seemingly set in an expression of careless contentment.

All this saw Cassius Calhoun.

He saw it with fear and trembling. Not for the supernatural or unknown, but for the real and truly comprehended.

Short was his interview with that silent, but speaking head. Ere it had ceased to oscillate on the smooth sward, he wrenched his horse around; struck the rowels deep; and galloped away from the ground!

No farther went he in pursuit of the Headless Horseman – still heard breaking through the bushes – but back – back to the prairie; and on, on, to Casa del Corvo!

Chapter Eighty Two.
A Queer Parcel

The backwoodsman, after emerging from the thicket, proceeded as leisurely along the trail, as if he had the whole day before him, and no particular motive for making haste.

And yet, one closely scrutinising his features, might there have observed an expression of intense eagerness; that accorded with his nervous twitching in the saddle, and the sharp glances from time to time cast before him.

He scarce deigned to look upon the “sign” left by Calhoun. It he could read out of the corner of his eye. As to following it, the old mare could have done that without him!

It was not this knowledge that caused him to hang back; for he would have preferred keeping Calhoun in sight. But by doing this, the latter might see him; and so frustrate the end he desired to attain.

This end was of more importance than any acts that might occur between; and, to make himself acquainted with the latter, Zeb Stump trusted to the craft of his intellect, rather than the skill of his senses.

Advancing slowly and with caution – but with that constancy that ensures good speed – he arrived at length on the spot where the mirage had made itself manifest to Calhoun.

Zeb saw nothing of this. It was gone; and the sky stretched down to the prairie – the blue meeting the green in a straight unbroken line.

He saw, however, what excited him almost as much as the spectre would have done: two sets of horse-tracks going together – those that went after being the hoof-marks of Calhoun’s new horse – of which Zeb had already taken the measure.

About the tracks underneath he had no conjecture – at least as regarded their identification. These he knew, as well as if his own mare had made them.

“The skunk’s hed a find!” were the words that escaped him, as he sate gazing upon the double trail. “It don’t foller from thet,” he continued, in the same careless drawl, “thet he hez made a catch. An’ yit, who knows? Durn me, ef he moutn’t! Thur’s lots o’ chances for his doin’ it. The mowstang may a let him come clost up – seein’ as he’s ridin’ one o’ its own sort; an ef it dud – ay, ef it dud —

“What the durnation am I stannin’ hyur for? Thur ain’t no time to be wasted in shiller-shallerin’. Ef he shed grup thet critter, an git what he wants from it, then I mout whissel for what I want, ’ithout the ghost o’ a chance for gettin’ it.

“I must make a better rate o’ speed. Gee-up, ole gurl; an see ef ye can’t overtake that ere grey hoss, as scuttled past half-a-hour agone. Now for a spell o’ yur swiftness, the which you kin show along wi’ any o’ them, I reckon – thet air when ye’re pressed. Gee-up!”

Instead of using the cruel means employed by him when wanting his mare to make her best speed, he only drove the old spur against her ribs, and started her into a trot. He had no desire to travel more rapidly than was consistent with caution; and while trotting he kept his eyes sharply ranging along the skyline in front of him.

“From the way his track runs,” was his reflection, “I kin tell pretty nigh whar it’s goin’ to fetch out. Everything seems to go that way; an so did he, poor young fellur – never more to come back. Ah, wal! ef t’aint possible to ree-vive him agin, may be it air to squar the yards wi’ the skunk as destroyed him. The Scripter sez, ‘a eye for a eye, an a tooth for a tooth,’ an I reckin I’ll shet up somebody’s daylights, an spoil the use o’ thur ivories afore I hev done wi’ him. Somebody as don’t suspeeshun it neyther, an that same – . Heigh! Yonner he goes! An’ yonner too the Headless, by Geehosophat! Full gallup both; an durn me, if the grey aint a overtakin’ him!

“They aint comin’ this way, so ’tain’t no use in our squattin’, ole gurl. Stan’ steady for all that. He mout see us movin’.

“No fear. He’s too full o’ his frolic to look anywhar else, than straight custrut afore him. Ha! jest as I expected – into the openin’! Right down it, fast as heels kin carry ’em!

“Now, my maar, on we go agin!”

Another stage of trotting – with his eyes kept steadfastly fixed upon the chapparal gap – brought Zeb to the timber.

Although the chase had long since turned the angle of the avenue, and was now out of sight, he did not go along the open ground; but among the bushes that bordered it.

He went so as to command a view of the clear track for some distance ahead; at the same time taking care that neither himself, nor his mare, might be seen by any one advancing from the opposite direction.

He did not anticipate meeting any one – much less the man who soon after came in sight.

He was not greatly surprised at hearing a shot: for he had been listening for it, ever since he had set eyes on the chase. He was rather in surprise at not hearing it sooner; and when the crack did come, he recognised the report of a yäger rifle, and knew whose gun had been discharged.

He was more astonished to see its owner returning along the lane – in less than five minutes after the shot had been fired – returning, too, with a rapidity that told of retreat!

“Comin’ back agin – an so soon!” he muttered, on perceiving Calhoun. “Dog-goned queery thet air! Thur’s somethin’ amiss, more’n a miss, I reck’n. Ho, ho, ho! Goin’, too, as if hell war arter him! Maybe it’s the Headless hisself, and thur’s been a changin’ about in the chase – tit for tat! Darn me, ef it don’t look like it! I’d gie a silver dollar to see thet sort o’ a thing. He, he, he, ho, ho, hoo!”

Long before this, the hunter had slipped out of his saddle, and taken the precaution to screen both himself and his animal from the chance of being seen by the retreating rider – who promise soon to pass the spot.

And soon did he pass it, going at such a gait, and with such a wild abstracted air, that Zeb would scarce have been perceived had he been standing uncovered in the avenue!

“Geehosophat!” mentally ejaculated the backwoodsman, as the passion-scathed countenance came near enough to be scrutinised. “If hell ain’t arter, it’s inside o’ him! Durn me, ef thet face ain’t the ugliest picter this coon ever clapped eyes on. I shed pity the wife as gets him. Poor Miss Peintdexter! I hope she’ll be able to steer clur o’ havin’ sech a cut-throat as him to be her lord an master.

“What’s up anyhow? Thar don’t ’pear to be anythin’ arter him? An’ he still keeps on! Whar’s he boun’ for now? I must foller an see.

“To hum agin!” exclaimed the hunter, after going on to the edge of the chapparal, and observed Calhoun still going at a gallop, with head turned homeward. “Hum agin, for sartin!

“Now, ole gurl!” he continued, having remained silent till the grey horse was nearly out of sight, “You an me goes t’other way. We must find out what thet shot wur fired for.”

In ten minutes after, Zeb had alighted from his mare, and lifted up from the ground an object, the stoutest heart might have felt horror in taking hold of – disgust, even, in touching!

Not so the old hunter. In that object he beheld the lineaments of a face well known to him – despite the shrivelling of the skin, and the blood streaks that so fearfully falsified its expression – still dear to him, despite death and a merciless mutilation.

He had loved that face, when it belonged to a boy; he now cherished it, belonging not to anybody!

Clasping the rim of the hat that fitted tightly to the temples – Zeb endeavoured to take it off. He did not succeed. The head was swollen so as almost to burst the bullion band twisted around it!

Holding it in its natural position, Zeb stood for a time gazing tenderly on the face.

“Lord, O Lordy!” he drawlingly exclaimed, “what a present to take back to his father, to say nothin’ o’ the sister! I don’t think I’ll take it. It air better to bury the thing out hyur, an say no more abeout it.

“No; durn me ef I do! What am I thinkin’ o’? Tho’ I don’t exackly see how it may help to sarcumstantiate the chain o’ evvydince, it may do somethin’ torst it. Durned queery witness it ’ll be to purduce in a coort o’ justis!”

Saying this, he unstrapped his old blanket; and, using it as a wrapper, carefully packed within it head, hat, and all.

Then, hanging the strange bundle over the horn of his saddle, he remounted his mare, and rode reflectingly away.

Chapter Eighty Three.
Limbs of the Law

On the third day after Maurice Gerald became an inmate of the military prison the fever had forsaken him, and he no longer talked incoherently. On the fourth he was almost restored to his health and strength. The fifth was appointed for his trial!

This haste – that elsewhere would have been considered indecent – was thought nothing of in Texas; where a man may commit a capital offence, be tried, and hanged within the short space of four-and-twenty hours!

His enemies, who were numerous, for some reason of their own, insisted upon despatch: while his friends, who were few, could urge no good reason against it.

Among the populace there was the usual clamouring for prompt and speedy justice; fortified by that exciting phrase, old as the creation itself: “that the blood of the murdered man was calling from the ground for vengeance.”

The advocates of an early trial were favoured by a fortuitous circumstance. The judge of the Supreme Court chanced just then to be going his circuit; and the days devoted to clearing the calendar at Fort Inge, had been appointed for that very week.

There was, therefore, a sort of necessity, that the case of Maurice Gerald, as of the other suspected murderers, should be tried within a limited time.

As no one objected, there was no one to ask for a postponement; and it stood upon the docket for the day in question – the fifteenth of the month.

The accused might require the services of a legal adviser. There was no regular practitioner in the place: as in these frontier districts the gentlemen of the long robe usually travel in company with the Court; and the Court had not yet arrived. For all that, a lawyer had appeared: a “counsellor” of distinction; who had come all the way from San Antonio, to conduct the case. As a volunteer he had presented himself!

It may have been generosity on the part of this gentleman, or an eye to Congress, though it was said that gold, presented by fair fingers, had induced him to make the journey.

When it rains, it rains. The adage is true in Texas as regards the elements; and on this occasion it was true of the lawyers.

The day before that appointed for the trial of the mustanger, a second presented himself at Fort Inge, who put forward his claim to be upon the side of the prisoner.

This gentleman had made a still longer journey than he of San Antonio; a voyage, in fact: since he had crossed the great Atlantic, starting from the metropolis of the Emerald Isle. He had come for no other purpose than to hold communication with the man accused of having committed a murder!

It is true, the errand that had brought him did not anticipate this; and the Dublin solicitor was no little astonished when, after depositing his travelling traps under the roof of Mr Oberdoffer’s hostelry, and making inquiry about Maurice Gerald, he was told that the young Irishman was shut up in the guard-house.

Still greater the attorney’s astonishment on learning the cause of his incarceration.

“Fwhat! the son of a Munsther Gerald accused of murdher! The heir of Castle Ballagh, wid its bewtiful park and demesne. Fwy, I’ve got the papers in my portmantyee here. Faugh-a-ballagh! Show me the way to him!”

Though the “Texan” Boniface was inclined to consider his recently arrived guest entitled to a suspicion of lunacy, he assented to his request; and furnished him with a guide to the guard-house.

If the Irish attorney was mad, there appeared to be method in his madness. Instead of being denied admittance to the accused criminal, he was made welcome to go in and out of the military prison – as often as it seemed good to him.

Some document he had laid before the eyes of the major-commandant, had procured him this privilege; at the same time placing him en rapport, in a friendly way, with the Texan “counsellor.”

The advent of the Irish attorney at such a crisis gave rise to much speculation at the Port, the village, and throughout the settlement. The bar-room of the “Rough and Ready” was rife with conjecturers —quidnuncs they could scarcely be called: since in Texas the genus does not exist.

A certain grotesqueness about the man added to the national instinct for guessing – which had been rendered excruciatingly keen through some revelations, contributed by “Old Duffer.”

For all that, the transatlantic limb of the law proved himself tolerably true to the traditions of his craft. With the exception of the trifling imprudences already detailed – drawn from him in the first moments of surprise – he never afterwards committed himself; but kept his lips close as an oyster at ebb tide.

There was not much time for him to use his tongue. On the day after his arrival the trial was to take place; and during most of the interval he was either in the guard-house along with the prisoner, or closeted with the San Antonio counsel.

The rumour became rife that Maurice Gerald had told them a tale – a strange weird story – but of its details the world outside remained in itching ignorance.

There was one who knew it – one able to confirm it – Zeb Stump the hunter.

There may have been another; but this other was not in the confidence either of the accused or his counsel.

Zeb himself did not appear in their company. Only once had he been seen conferring with them. After that he was gone – both from the guard-house and the settlement, as everybody supposed, about his ordinary business – in search of deer, “baar,” or “gobbler.”

Everybody was in error. Zeb for the time had forsaken his usual pursuits, or, at all events, the game he was accustomed to chase, capture, and kill.

It is true he was out upon a stalking expedition; but instead of birds or beasts, he was after an animal of neither sort; one that could not be classed with creatures either of the earth or the air – a horseman without a head!