Part 9 (1/2)
The last stand of three troopers and a scout overtaken by a band of hostile Indians
_Drawn by Frederic Remington. Courtesy of Collier's Weekly._]
”We think now that they followed us without attacking for so long because they were waiting till the lay of the land suited them. They wanted--no doubt--an absolutely flat piece of country, with no depressions, no hills or stream-beds in which we could hide, but which should be high upon the edges, like an amphitheatre. They would get us in the centre and occupy the rim themselves. Roughly, this is the bit of desert which witnesses our 'last stand.' On three sides the ground swells a very little--the rise is not four feet. On the third side it is open, and so flat that even lying on the ground as we do we can see (leagues away) the San Jacinto hills--'from whence cometh no help.' It is all sand and sage, forever and forever. Even the sage is spa.r.s.e--a bad place even for a coyote. The whole is flagellated with an intolerable heat and--now that the shooting is relaxed--oppressed with a benumbing, sodden silence--the silence of a primordial world. Such a silence as must have brooded over the Face of the Waters on the Eve of Creation--desolate, desolate, as though a colossal, invisible pillar--a pillar of the Infinitely Still, the pillar of Nirvana--rose forever into the empty blue, human life an atom of microscopic dust crushed under its basis, and at the summit G.o.d Himself. And I find time to ask myself why, at this of all moments of my tiny life-span, I am able to write as I do, registering impressions, keeping a finger upon the pulse of the spirit.
But oh! if I had time now--time to write down the great thoughts that do throng the brain. They are there, I feel them, know them. No doubt the supreme exaltation of approaching death is the stimulus that one never experiences in the humdrum business of the day-to-day existence. Such mighty thoughts! Unintelligible, but if I had time I could spell them out, _and how I could write then_! I feel that the whole secret of Life is within my reach; I can almost grasp it; I seem to feel that in just another instant I can see it all plainly, as the archangels see it all the time, as the great minds of the world, the great philosophers, have seen it once or twice, vaguely--a glimpse here and there, after years of patient study. Seeing thus I should be the equal of the G.o.ds. But it is not meant to be. There is a sacrilege in it. I almost seem to understand why it is kept from us. But the very reason of this withholding is in itself a part of the secret. If I could only, only set it down!--for whose eyes? Those of a wandering hawk? G.o.d knows. But never mind. I should have spoken--once; should have said the great Word for which the World since the evening and the morning of the First Day has listened.
G.o.d knows. G.o.d knows. What a whirl is this? Monstrous incongruity.
Philosophy and fighting troopers. The Infinite and dead horses. There's humour for you. The Sublime takes off its hat to the Ridiculous. Send a cartridge clas.h.i.+ng into the breech and speculate about the Absolute.
Keep one eye on your sights and the other on Cosmos. Blow the reek of burned powder from before you so you may look over the edge of the abyss of the Great Primal Cause. Duck to the whistle of a bullet and commune with Schopenhauer. Perhaps I am a little mad. Perhaps I am supremely intelligent. But in either case I am not understandable to myself. How, then, be understandable to others? If these sheets of paper, this incoherence, is ever read, the others will understand it about as much as the investigating hawk. But none the less be it of record that I, Karslake, SAW. It reads like Revelations: 'I, John, saw.' It is just that. There is something apocalyptic in it all. I have seen a vision, but cannot--there is the pitch of anguish in the impotence--bear record.
If time were allowed to order and arrange the words of description, this exaltation of spirit, in that very s.p.a.ce of time, would relax, and the describer lapse back to the level of the average again before he could set down the things he saw, the things he thought. The machinery of the mind that could coin the great Word is automatic, and the very force that brings the die near the blank metal supplies the motor power of the reaction before the impression is made ... I stopped for an instant, looking up from the page, and at once the great vague panorama faded. I lost it all. Cosmos has dwindled again to an amphitheatre of sage and sand, a vista of distant purple hills, the s.h.i.+mmer of scorching alkali, and in the middle distance there, those figures, blanketed, beaded, feathered, rifle in hand.
”But for a moment I stood on Patmos.
”The Ridiculous jostles the elbow of the Sublime and shoulders it from place as Idaho announces that he has found two more cartridges in Estorijo's pockets.
”They rushed again. Eight more cartridges gone. Twenty-one left. They rush in this manner--at first the circle, rapid beyond expression, one figure succeeding the other so swiftly that the dizzied vision loses count and instead of seven of them there appear to be seventy. Then suddenly, on some indistinguishable signal, they contract this circle, and through the jets of powder-smoke Idaho and I see them whirling past our rifle-sights not one hundred yards away. Then their fire suddenly slackens, the smoke drifts by, and we see them in the distance again, moving about us at a slow canter. Then the blessed breathing-spell, while we peer out to know if we have killed or not, and count our cartridges. We have laid the twenty-one loaded sh.e.l.ls that remain in a row between us, and after our first glance outward to see if any of them are down, our next is inward at that ever-shrinking line of bra.s.s and lead. We do not talk much. This is the end. We know it now. All of a sudden the conviction that I am to die here has hardened within me. It is, all at once, absurd that I should ever have supposed that I was to reach La Paz, take the east-bound train and report at San Antonio. It seems to me that I _knew_, weeks ago, that our trip was to end thus. I knew it--somehow--in Sonora, while we were waiting orders, and I tell myself that if I had only stopped to really think of it I could have foreseen today's b.l.o.o.d.y business.
”Later.--The Red One got off his horse and bound up the creature's leg.
One of us. .h.i.t him, evidently. A little higher, it would have reached the heart. Our aim is ridiculously bad--the heat-s.h.i.+mmer----
”Later.--Idaho is wounded. This last time, for a moment, I was sure the end had come. They were within revolver range and we could feel the vibration of the ground under their ponies' hoofs. But suddenly they drew off. I have looked at my watch; it is four o'clock.
”Four o'clock.--Idaho's wound is bad--a long, raking furrow in the right forearm. I bind it up for him, but he is losing a great deal of blood and is very weak.
”They seem to know that we are only two by now, for with each rush they grow bolder. The slackening of our fire must tell them how scant is our ammunition.
”Later.--This last was magnificent. The Red One and one other with lines of blue paint across his cheek galloped right at us. Idaho had been lying with his head and shoulders propped against the neck of his dead pony. His eyes were shut, and I thought he had fainted. But as he heard them coming he struggled up, first to his knees and then to his feet--to his full height--dragging his revolver from his hip with his left hand.
The whole right arm swung useless. He was so weak that he could only lift the revolver half way--could not get the muzzle up. But though it sagged and dropped in his grip, he _would_ die fighting. When he fired the bullet threw up the sand not a yard from his feet, and then he fell on his face across the body of the horse. During the charge I fired as fast as I could, but evidently to no purpose. They must have thought that Idaho was dead, for as soon as they saw him getting to his feet they sheered their horses off and went by on either side of us. I have made Idaho comfortable. He is unconscious; have used the last of the water to give him a drink. He does not seem----
”They continue to circle us. Their fire is incessant, but very wild. So long as I keep my head down I am comparatively safe.
”Later.--I think Idaho is dying. It seems he was. .h.i.t a second time when he stood up to fire. Estorijo is still breathing; I thought him dead long since.
”Four-ten.--Idaho gone. Twelve cartridges left. Am all alone now.
”Four-twenty-five.--I am very weak.” [_Karslake was evidently wounded sometime between ten and twenty-five minutes after four. His notes make no mention of the fact_.] ”Eight cartridges remain. I leave my library to my brother, Walter Patterson Karslake; all my personal effects to my parents, except the picture of myself taken in Baltimore in 1897, which I direct to be” [_the next lines are undecipherable_] ”...at Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., as soon as possible. I appoint as my literary--
”Four forty-five.--Seven cartridges. Very weak and unable to move lower part of my body. Am in no pain. They rode in very close. The Red One is---- An intolerable thirst----
”I appoint as my literary executor my brother, Patterson Karslake. The notes on 'Coronado in New Mexico' should be revised.
”My death occurred in western Arizona, April 15th, at the hands of a roving band of Hunt-in-the-Morning's bucks. They have----
”Five o'clock.--The last cartridge gone.
”Estorijo still breathing. I cover his face with my hat. Their fire is incessant. Am much weaker. Convey news of death to Patterson Karslake, care of Corn Exchange Bank, New York City.