At the noise of the Apache charge Thurstane sprang in two bounds to
Coronado's entrance, and threw himself inside of it with a shout of
"Indians!"
It must be remembered that, while a doorway of the Casa was five feet in
depth, it was only four feet wide at the base and less than thirty inches
at the top, so that it was something in the way of a defile and easily
defensible. The moment Thurstane was inside, he placed himself behind one
of the solid jambs of the opening, and presented both sabre and revolver.
Immediately after him a dozen running Indians reached the portal, some of
them plunging into it and the others pushing and howling close around it.
Three successive shots and as many quick thrusts, all delivered in the
darkness, but telling at close quarters on naked chests and faces, cleared
the passage in half a minute. By this time Texas Smith, Coronado, and
Shubert had leaped up, got their senses about them, and commenced a fire
of rifle shot, pistol shot, and buck-and-ball. In another half minute
nothing remained in the doorway but two or three corpses, while outside
there were howls as of wounded. The attack here was repulsed, at least for
the present.
But at the other door matters had gone differently, and, as it seemed,
fatally ill. There had been no one fully awakened to keep the assailants
at bay until the other defenders could rouse themselves and use their
weapons. Half a dozen Apaches, holding their lances before them like
pikes, rushed over the sleeping Sweeny and burst clean into the room
before Meyer and his men were fairly on their feet. In the profound
darkness not a figure could be distinguished; and there was a brief
trampling and yelling, during which no one was hurt. Lances and bows were
useless in a room fifteen feet by ten, without a ray of light. The Indians
threw down their long weapons, drew their knives, groped hither and
thither, struck out at random, and cut each other. Nevertheless, they were
masters of the ground. Meyer and his people, crouching in corners, could
not see and dared not fire. Sweeny, awakened by a kneading of Apache
boots, was so scared that he lay perfectly still, and either was not
noticed or was neglected as dead. His Mexican comrade had rushed along
with the assailants, got ahead of them, gained the inner rooms, and
hastened up to the roof. In short, it was a completely paralyzed defence.
Had the mass of the Apaches promptly followed their daring leaders, the
garrison would have been destroyed. But, as so often happens in night
attacks, there was a pause of caution and investigation. Fifty warriors
halted around the doorway, some whooping or calling, and others listening,
while the five or six within, probably fearful of being hit if they spoke,
made no answer. The sentinel on the roof fired down without seeing any
one, and had arrows sent back at him by men who were as blinded as
himself. The darkness and mystery crippled the attack almost as completely
as the defence.
Sweeny was the first to break the charm. A warrior who attempted to enter
the doorway struck his boot against a pair of legs, and stooped down to
feel if they were alive. By a lucky intuition of scared self-defence, the
little Paddy made a furious kick into the air with both his solid army
shoes, and sent the invader reeling into the outer darkness. Then he fired
his gun just as it lay, and brought down one of the braves inside with a
broken ankle. The blaze of the discharge faintly lighted up the room, and
Meyer let fly instantly, killing another of the intruders. But the Indians
also had been able to see. Those who survived uttered their yell and
plunged into the corners, stabbing with their knives. There was a wild,
blind, eager scuffling, mixed with another shot or two, oaths, whooping,
screams, tramplings, and aimless blows with musket-butts.
Reinforcements arrived for both parties, four or five more Apaches
stealing into the room, while Thurstane and Shubert came through from
Coronado's side. Hitherto, it did not seem that the garrison had lost any
killed except the sentry who had fallen outside; but presently the
lieutenant heard Shubert cry out in that tone of surprise, pain, and
anger, which announces a severe wound.
The scream was followed by a fall, a short scuffle, repeated stabbings,
and violent breathing mixed with low groans. Thurstane groped to the scene
of combat, put out his left hand, felt a naked back, and drove his sabre
strongly and cleanly into it. There was a hideous yell, another fall, and
then silence.
After that he stood still, not knowing whither to move. The trampling of
feet, the hasty breathing of struggling men, the dull sound of blows upon
living bodies, the yells and exclamations and calls, had all ceased at
once. It seemed to him as if everybody in the room had been killed except
himself. He could not hear a sound in the darkness besides the beating of
his own heart, and an occasional feeble moan rising from the floor. In all
his soldierly life he had never known a moment that was anything like so
horrible.
At last, after what seemed minutes, remembering that it was his duty as an
officer to be a rallying point, he staked his life on his very next breath
and called out firmly, "Meyer!"
"Here!" answered the sergeant, as if he were at roll-call.
"Where are you?"
"I am near the toorway, Leftenant. Sweeny is with me."
"'Yis I be," interjected Sweeny.
Thurstane, feeling his way cautiously, advanced to the entrance and found
the two men standing on one side of it.
"Where are the Indians?" he whispered.
"I think they are all out, except the tead ones, Leftenant."
Thurstane gave an order: "All forward to the door."
Steps of men stealing from the inner room responded to this command.
"Call the roll, Sergeant," said Thurstane.
In a low voice Meyer recited the names of the six men who belonged to his
squad, and of Shubert. All responded except the last.
"I am avraid Shupert is gone, Leftenant," muttered the sergeant; and the
officer replied, "I am afraid so."
All this time there had been perfect silence outside, as if the Indians
also were in a state of suspense and anxiety. But immediately after the
roll-call had ceased, a few arrows whistled through the entrance and
struck with short sharp spats into the hard-finished partition within.
"Yes, they are all out," said Thurstane. "But we must keep quiet till
daybreak."
There followed a half hour which seemed like a month. Once Thurstane stole
softly through the Casa to Coronado's room, found all safe there, and
returned, stumbling over bodies both going and coming. At last the slow
dawn came and sent a faint, faint radiance through the door, enabling the
benighted eyes within to discover one dolorous object after another. In
the centre of the room lay the boy Shubert, perfectly motionless and no
doubt dead. Here and there, slowly revealing themselves through the
diminishing darkness, like horrible waifs left uncovered by a falling
river, appeared the bodies of four Apaches, naked to the breechcloth and
painted black, all quiet except one which twitched convulsively. The clay
floor was marked by black pools and stains which were undoubtedly blood.
Other fearful blotches were scattered along the entrance, as if grievously
wounded men had tottered through it, or slain warriors had been dragged
out by their comrades.
While the battle is still in suspense a soldier looks with but faint
emotion, and almost without pity, upon the dead and wounded. They are
natural; they belong to the scene; what else should he see? Moreover, the
essential sentiments of the time and place are, first, a hard egoism which
thinks mainly of self-preservation, and second, a stern sense of duty
which regulates it. In the fiercer moments of the conflict even these
feelings are drowned in a wild excitement which may lie either exultation
or terror. Thus it is that the ordinary sympathies of humanity for the
suffering and for the dead are suspended.
Looking at Shubert, our lieutenant simply said to himself, "I have lost a
man. My command is weakened by so much." Then his mind turned with
promptness to the still living and urgent incidents of the situation.
Could he peep out of the doorway without getting an arrow through the
head? Was the roof of the Casa safe from escalade? Were any of his people
wounded?
This last question he at once put in English and Spanish. Kelly replied,
"Slightly, sir," and pointed to his left shoulder, pretty smartly laid
open by the thrust of a knife. One of the Indian muleteers, who was
sitting propped up in a corner, faintly raised his head and showed a
horrible gash in his thigh. At a sign from Thurstane another muleteer
bound up the wound with the sleeve of Shubert's shirt, which he slashed
off for the purpose. Kelly said, "Never mind me, sir; it's no great
affair, sir."
"Two killed and two wounded," thought the lieutenant. "We are losing more
than our proportion."
As soon as it was light enough to distinguish objects clearly, a lively
fire opened from the roof of the Casa. Judging that the attention of the
assailants would be distracted by this, Thurstane cautiously edged his
head forward and peeped through the doorway. The Apaches were still in the
plaza; he discovered something like fifty of them; they were jumping about
and firing arrows at the roof. He inferred that this could not last long;
that they would soon be driven away by the musketry from above; that, in
short, things were going well.
After a time, becoming anxious lest Clara should expose herself to the
missiles, he went to Coronado's room, sent one of the Mexicans to
reinforce Meyer, and then climbed rapidly to the tower, taking along
sabre, rifle, and revolver. He was ascending the last of the stepped
sticks, and had the trap-door of the isolated room just above him, when he
heard a shout, "Come up here, somebody!"
It was the snuffling utterance of Phineas Glover, who slept on the roof as
permanent guard of the ladies. Tumbling into the room, Thurstane found the
skipper and two muleteers defending the doorway against five Apaches, who
had reached the roof, three of them already on their feet and plying their
arrows, while the two others were clambering over the ledge. Clara and
Mrs. Stanley were crouched on their beds behind the shelter of the wall.
The young man's first desperate impulse was to rush out and fight hand to
hand. But remembering the dexterity of Indians in single combat, he halted
just in time to escape a flight of missiles, placed himself behind the
jamb of the doorway, and fired his rifle. At that short distance Sweeny
would hardly have missed; and the nearest Apache, leaning forward with
outspread arms, fell dead. Then the revolver came into play, and another
warrior dropped his bow, his shoulder shattered. Glover and the muleteers,
steadied by this opportune reinforcement, reloaded and resumed their
file-firing. Guns were too much for archery; three Indians were soon
stretched on the roof; the others slung themselves over the eaves and
vanished.
"Darned if they didn't reeve a tackle to git up," exclaimed Glover in
amazement.
It appeared that the savages had twisted lariats into long cords, fastened
rude grapples to the end of them, flung them from the wall below the Casa,
and so made their daring escalade.
"Look out!" called Thurstane to the investigating Yankee. But the warning
came too late; Glover uttered a yell of surprise, pain, and rage; this
time it was not his nose, but his left ear.
"Reckon they'll jest chip off all my feeturs 'fore they git done with me,"
he grinned, feeling of the wounded part. "Git my figgerhead smooth all
round."
To favor the escalade, the Apaches in the plaza had renewed their
war-whoop, sent flights of arrows at the Casa, and made a spirited but
useless charge on the doorways. Its repulse was the signal for a general
and hasty flight. Just as the rising sun spread his haze of ruddy gold
over the east, there was a despairing yell which marked the termination of
the conflict, and then a rush for the gaps in the wall of the enclosure.
In one minute from the signal for retreat the top of the hill did not
contain a single painted combatant. No vigorous pursuit; the garrison had
had enough of fighting; besides, ammunition was becoming precious. Texas
Smith alone, insatiably bloodthirsty and an independent fighter, skulked
hastily across the plaza, ambushed himself in a crevice of the ruin, and
took a couple of shots at the savages as they mounted their ponies at the
foot of the hill and skedaddled loosely across the plain.
When he returned he croaked out, with an unusual air of excitement, "Big
thing!"
"What is a pig ding?" inquired Sergeant Meyer.
"Never see Injuns make such a fight afore."
"Nor I," assented Meyer.
"Stranger, they fowt first-rate," affirmed Smith, half admiring the
Apaches. "How many did we save?"
"Here are vour in our room, und the leftenant says there are three on the
roof, und berhabs we killed vour or vive outside."
"A dozen!" chuckled Texas, "besides the wounded. Let's hev a look at the
dead uns."
Going into Meyer's room, he found one of the Apaches still twitching, and
immediately cut his throat. Then he climbed to the roof, gloated over the
three bodies there, dragged them one by one to the ledge, and pitched them
into the plaza.
"That'll settle 'em," he remarked with a sigh of intense satisfaction,
like that of a baby when it has broken its rattle. Coming down again, he
looked all the corpses over again, and said with an air of disappointment
which was almost sentimental, "On'y a dozen!"
"I kin keer for the Injuns," he volunteered when the question came up of
burying the dead. "I'd rather keer for 'em than not."
Before Thurstane knew what was going on, Texas had finished his labor of
love. A crevice in the northern wall of the enclosure looked out upon a
steep slope of marl, almost a precipice, which slanted sheer into the
boiling flood of the San Juan. To this crevice Texas dragged one naked
carcass after another, bundled it through, launched it with a vigorous
shove, and then watched it with a pantherish grin, licking his chops as it
were, as it rolled down the steep, splashed into the river, and set out on
its swift voyage toward the Pacific.
"I s'pose you'll want to dig a hole for _him_" he said, coming into the
Casa and looking wistfully at the body of poor young Shubert.
Sergeant Meyer motioned him to go away. Thurstane was entering in his
journal an inventory of the deceased soldier's effects having already made
a minute of the date and cause of his death. These with other facts, such
as name, age, physical description, birthplace, time of service, amount of
pay due, balance of clothing-account and stoppages, must be more or less
repeated on various records, such as the descriptive book of the company,
the daily return, the monthly return, the quarterly return, the
muster-roll from which the name would be dropped, and the final statements
which were to go to the Adjutant-General and the Paymaster-General. Even
in the desert the monstrous accountability system of the army lived and
burgeoned.
Nothing of importance happened until about noon, when the sentinel on the
outer wall announced that the Apaches were approaching in force, and
Thurstane gave orders to barricade one of the doors of the Casa with some
large blocks of adobe, saying to himself, "I ought to have done it
before."
This work well under way, he hastened to the brow of the hill and
reconnoitred the enemy.
"They are not going to attack," said Coronado. "They are going to torture
the girl Pepita."
Thurstane turned away sick at heart, observing, "I must keep the women in
the Casa."