Complete Works of Frank Norris

by Frank Norris

  “Monday, about eleven o’clock. — No change. The heat is appalling. There is just a ——

  “Later. — I was on the point of saying that there was just a mouthful of water left for each of us in our canteens when Estorijo and Idaho both at the same time cried out that they were moving in. It is true. They are within rifle range, but do not fire. We, as well, have decided to reserve our fire until something more positive happens.

  “Noon. — The first shot — for to-day — from the Red One. We are halted. The shot struck low and to the left. We could see the sand spout up in a cloud just as though a bubble had burst on the surface of the ground.

  “They have separated from each other, and the whole eight of them are now in a circle around us. Idaho believes the Red One fired as a signal. Estorijo is getting ready to take a shot at the One with the Feather. We have the ponies in a circle around us. It looks as if now at last this was the beginning of the real business.

  Later, twelve-thirty-five. — Estorijo missed. Idaho will try with the Winchester as soon as the One with the Feather halts. He is galloping toward the Red One.

  “All at once, about two o’clock, the fighting began. This is the first let-up. It is now — God knows what time. They closed up suddenly and began galloping about us in a circle, firing all the time. They rode like madmen. I would not have believed that Indian ponies could run so quickly. What with their yelling and the incessant crack of their rifles and the thud of their ponies’ feet our horses at first became very restless, and at last Idaho’s mustang bolted clean away. We all stood to it as hard as we could. For about the first fifteen minutes it was hot work. The Spotted One is hit. We are certain of that much, though we do not know whose gun did the work. My poor old horse is bleeding dreadfully from the mouth. He has two bullets in the stomach, and I do not believe he can stand much longer. They have let up for the last few moments, but are still riding around us, their guns at ‘ready.’ Every now and then one of us fires, but the heat shimmer has come up over the ground since noon and the range is extraordinarily deceiving.

  “Three-ten. — Estorijo’s horse is down, shot clean through the head. Mine has gone long since. We have made a rampart of the bodies.

  “Three-twenty. — They are at it again, tearing around us incredibly fast, every now and then narrowing the circle. The bullets are striking everywhere now. I have no rifle, do what I can with my revolver, and try to watch what is going on in front of me and warn the others when they press in too close on my side.” [Karslake nowhere accounts for the absence of his carbine. That a U. S. trooper should be without his gun while traversing a hostile country is a fact difficult to account for.]

  “Three-thirty. — They have winged me — through the shoulder. Not bad, but it is bothersome. I sit up to fire, and Bunt gives me his knee on which to rest my right arm. When it hangs it is painful.

  “Quarter to four. — It is horrible. Bunt is dying. He cannot speak, the ball having gone through the lower part of his face, but back, near the neck. It happened through his trying to catch his horse. The animal was struck in the breast and tried to bolt. He reared up, backing away, and as we had to keep him close to us to serve as a bulwark Bunt followed him out from the little circle that we formed, his gun in one hand, his other gripping the bridle. I suppose every one of the eight fired at him simultaneously, and down he went. The pony dragged him a little ways still clutching the bridle, then fell itself, its whole weight rolling on Bunt’s chest. We have managed to get him in and secure his rifle, but he will not live. None of us knows him very well. He only joined us about a week ago, but we all liked him from the start. He never spoke of himself, so we cannot tell much about him. Idaho says he has a wife in Torreon, but that he has not lived with her for two years; they did not get along well together, it seems. This is the first violent death I have ever seen, and it astonishes me to note how unimportant it seems. How little anybody cares — after all. If I had been told of his death — the details of it, in a story or in the form of fiction — it is easily conceivable that it would have impressed me more with its importance than the actual scene has done. Possibly my mental vision is scaled to a larger field since Friday, and as the greater issues loom up one man more or less seems to be but a unit — more or less — in an eternal series. When he was hit he swung back against the horse, still holding by the rein. His feet slid from under him, and he cried out, ‘My God!’ just once. We divided his cartridges between us and Idaho passed me his carbine. The barrel was scorching hot.

  “They have drawn off a little and for fifteen minutes, though they still circle us slowly, there has been no firing. Forty cartridges left. Bunt’s body (I think he is dead now) lies just back of me, and already the gnats — I can’t speak of it.”

  [Karslake evidently made the next few entries at successive intervals of time, but neglected in his excitement to note the exact hour as above. We may gather that “They” made another attack and then repeated the assault so quickly that he had no chance to record it properly. I transcribe the entries in exactly the disjointed manner in which they occur in the original. The reference to the “fire” is unexplainable.]

  “I shall do my best to set down exactly what happened and what I do and think, and what I see.

  “The heat-shimmer spoiled my aim, but I am quite sure that either

  “This last rush was the nearest. I had started to say that though the heat-shimmer was bad, either Estorijo or myself wounded one of their ponies. We saw him stumble.

  “Another rush ——

  “Our ammunition

  “Only a few cartridges left.

  “The Red One like a whirlwind only fifty yards away.

  “We fire separately now as they sneak up under cover of our smoke.

  “We put the fire out. Estorijo—” [It is possible that Karslake had begun here to chronicle the death of the Mexican.]

  “I have killed the Spotted One. Just as he wheeled his horse I saw him in a line with the rifle-sights and let him have it squarely. It took him straight in the breast. I could feel that shot strike. He went down like a sack of lead weights. By God, it was superb!

  “Later. — They have drawn off out of range again, and we are allowed a breathing-spell. Our ponies are either dead or dying, and we have dragged them around us to form a barricade. We lie on the ground behind the bodies and fire over them. There are twenty-seven cartridges left.

  “It is now mid-afternoon. Our plan is to stand them off if we can till night and then to try an escape between them. But to what purpose? They would trail us so soon as it was light.

  [Illustration: CAUGHT IN THE CIRCLE.

  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 sparse — 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
od 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 gods. 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? God 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. God knows. God 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 clashing 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 space 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 shimmer 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 shells 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 brass 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 bloody business.

  “Later. — The Red One got off his horse and bound up the creature’s leg. One of us hit him, evidently. A little higher, it would have reached the heart. Our aim is ridiculously bad — the heat-shimmer ——

  “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 hit 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 Washington, 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.

  “Five-fifteen — about. — They have ceased firing, and draw together in a bunch. I have four cartridges left” [see conflicting note dated five o’clock], “but am extremely weak. Idaho was the best friend I had in all the Southwest. I wish i
t to be known that he was a generous, open-hearted fellow, a kindly man, clean of speech, and absolutely unselfish. He may be known as follows: Sandy beard, long sandy hair, scar on forehead, about six feet one inch in height. His real name is James Monroe Herndon; his profession that of government scout. Notify Mrs. Herndon, Trinidad, New Mexico.

  “The writer is Arthur Staples Karslake, dark hair, height five feet eleven, body will be found near that of Herndon.

  “Luis Estorijo, Mexican ——

  “Later. — Two more cartridges.

  “Five-thirty. — Estorijo dead.

  “It is half-past five in the afternoon of April fifteenth. They followed us from the eleventh — Friday — till to-day. It will

  [The MS. ends here.]

  TWO HEARTS THAT BEAT AS ONE

  “Which I puts it up as how you ain’t never heard about that time that Hardenberg and Strokher — the Englisher — had a friendly go with bare knuckles — ten rounds it was — all along o’ a feemale woman?”

  It is a small world and I had just found out that my friend, Bunt McBride — horse-wrangler, miner, faro-dealer and bone-gatherer — whose world was the plains and ranges of the Great Southwest, was known of the Three Black Crows, Hardenberg, Strokher and Ally Bazan, and had even foregathered with them on more than one of their ventures for Cyrus Ryder’s Exploitation Agency — ventures that had nothing of the desert in them, but that involved the sea, and the schooner, and the taste of the great-lunged canorous trades.