THE HERO OF RIO FRIO
Day was breaking when Cliffe saw Rio Frio loom out above low-lying mist.
There was no perceptible light in the sky, but the scattered clumps of
trees were growing blacker and more distinct, and the town began to
stand out against a dusky background. It had an unsubstantial look, as
if it might suddenly fade away, and Cliffe felt that he was doing
something fantastic and unreal as he watched the blurred forms of his
companions move on. To some extent, want of sleep and weariness
accounted for this, because he had marched all night, but the silence
with which the rebels advanced helped the illusion. A number of them
were barefooted and the raw-hide sandals of the others made no sound in
the thick dust.
Cliffe marched near the head of the straggling battalion, a
cartridge-belt round his waist and a rifle on his shoulder. His light
clothes were damp and stained with soil. His costly Panama hat hung,
crumpled and shapeless, about his head, and he did not differ much in
external appearance from the men around him. They were a picturesque,
undisciplined band, but Cliffe knew that they meant business. He
recognized that there was something humorous about his marching with
them. He belonged to the orderly cities, where he had been treated as a
man of importance, but now he was swayed by primitive impulses and had
cast off the habits of civilization.
The rebel leader had promised to make inquiries about Evelyn, but had
learned nothing. Cliffe imagined that the man, having other things to
think about, had not been very diligent. He held Gomez accountable for
the distress he felt. The rogue had cheated him and stolen his daughter.
Cliffe sternly determined that he should pay for it. Gomez, however, was
in Rio Frio and, since he could not be reached by other means, Cliffe
was ready to fight his way into the town. The curious thing was that
instead of finding the prospect disagreeable he was conscious of a
certain fierce satisfaction. The commander of the detachment had treated
him well, but his limited knowledge of Castilian had made it necessary
that he should take his place in the ranks.
The leading files halted, and from their disjointed remarks Cliffe
gathered that a picket of the enemy's had been surprised by the scouts.
He had heard no shots, but he could imagine the dark-skinned men, many
of whom had Indian blood in them, crawling silently through the long
grass with unsheathed knives. It was not a pleasant picture; but the
road was clear.
The light was growing when they went on, moving faster. The need for
haste was obvious. As they were not numerous, they must enter the town
while darkness covered their approach, and they were late. Another
detachment should have met them, but it had not arrived. On the whole,
Cliffe did not think their chances good, but that did not daunt him, and
he trudged on with the rest, the dust rolling like a fog about his
head.
After a while the advance split up into two streams of hurrying men,
and, going with one body, Cliffe saw the flat-topped houses near ahead.
Stumbling among small bushes, and gazing between the shoulders of the
men in front, he made out a shadowy opening in the line of buildings. A
few minutes later the clatter of sandals rose from slippery stones,
there were blank walls about him, and he was in the town. It was hard to
believe they had entered unopposed, without a shot being fired, but he
supposed the guard had been surprised and overpowered by friends inside.
The backs of the leading files obstructed his view, but now that they
were moving down a narrow lane the air throbbed with the sound of their
advance. Rifle slings rattled, feet fell with a rapid beat, and now and
then an order broke through the jingle of steel. Then a shot rang out
and the men began to run, two or three falling out here and there, with
the intention, Cliffe supposed, of occupying friendly houses. A little
later, the advance guard swung out into a wider street, and a group of
men began tearing up the pavement; it had been loosened beforehand, and
the stones came up easily. Another group were throwing furniture out of
the houses. They worked frantically, though they were fired at, and
Cliffe could hear the bullets splash upon the stones.
For the most part, the men were wiry peons, some toiling half naked, but
there were a number who looked like prosperous citizens. The light,
however, was dim and they were hard to distinguish as they flitted to
and fro with their loads or plied the shovel. A barricade was rising
fast, but the alarm had spread. Detached shouts and a confused uproar
rolled across the town, the call of bugles joined in, and the sharp
clang of the rifles grew more frequent. Cliffe could see no smoke, but
he imagined that the roofs farther on were occupied by the troops Gomez
was no doubt hurrying into action.
The attack had obviously been well timed and arranged with the
cooeperation of revolutionaries in the town, but while the rebels had
gained an entrance, they seemed unable to follow up their success, and
it remained to be seen if they could hold their ground until
reenforcements arrived. Finding no opportunity for doing anything
useful, Cliffe sat down on the pavement and lighted a cigarette. He did
not feel the nervousness he had expected, but he was tired and hungry.
It was four o'clock on the previous afternoon when he shared the
officers' frugal dinner, and he had eaten nothing since. There was no
use in speculating about what was likely to happen in the next few
hours, but he meant to have a reckoning with Gomez if he came through
alive.
Then, as he watched the blurred figures swarming like ants about the
barricade, he broke into a dry smile, for the situation had an
ironically humorous side. He had thought himself a sober, business man;
and now he was helping a horde of frenzied rebels to overthrow the
government he had supported with large sums of money. This was a novelty
in the way of finance. Moreover, it was strange that he should derive a
quiet satisfaction from the touch of the rifle balanced across his
knees. He was better used to the scatter-gun, and did not altogether
understand the sights, but he was determined to shoot as well as he
could.
An opportunity was soon offered him. Some one gave an order, and after
some pushing and jostling he squeezed himself between the legs of a
table on the top of the barricade. A ragged desperado, who scowled
furiously and used what seemed to be violently abusive language, had
contested the position with him, and it struck Cliffe as remarkable that
he should have taken so much trouble to secure a post where he might get
shot. He was there, however, and thought he could make pretty good
shooting up to a couple hundred yards.
He had got comfortably settled, with his left elbow braced against a
ledge to support the rifle, when a body of men in white uniform appeared
at the other end of the street. An officer with sword drawn marched at
their head, but they did not seem anxious to press forward, or to be
moving in very regular order. The distances were uneven, and some of the
men straggled toward the side of the street, where it was darker close
to the walls. Cliffe sympathized with them, although he felt steadier
than he had thought possible.
A rifle flashed on a roof and others answered from the barricade, but
only a thin streak of gray vapor that vanished almost immediately marked
the firing. It looked as if the rebels had obtained good powder. After a
few moments Cliffe heard a shrill humming close above his head, and
there was a crash as a man behind him fell backward. Then he felt his
rifle jump and jar his shoulder, though he was not otherwise conscious
that he had fired. He must have pulled the trigger by instinct, but he
did not try to ascertain the result of his shot. He had not come to that
yet.
There was a sharp patter on the front of the barricade and splinters
sprang from the table legs. Some one near Cliffe cried out, and the
patter went on. Raising his head cautiously, he saw that a number of
soldiers were firing from the roofs, while the rest ran steadily up the
street. They must be stopped. Dropping his chin upon the stock, he
stiffened his arms and held his breath as he squeezed the trigger.
After this, he was too busy to retain a clear impression of what
happened. His rifle jumped and jarred until it got hot, his shoulder
felt sore, and he found he must pull round his cartridge-belt because
the nearer clips were empty. He did not know how the fight was going;
the separate advancing figures he gazed at through the notch of the rear
sight monopolized his attention, but there was thin smoke and dust
about, and he could not see them well. It seemed curious that they had
not reached the barricade, and he felt angry with them for keeping him
in suspense. Then the firing gradually slackened and died away.
Everything seemed strangely quiet, except that men were running back
down the street in disorder. The rebels had held their ground; the
attack had failed.
After a few moments, he noticed that the sun shone down between the
houses and it was getting hot. He felt thirsty, and the glare hurt his
eyes, which smarted with the dust and acrid vapor that hung about the
spot. All the soldiers, however, had not gone back; several lay in
strange, slack attitudes near the front of the barricade, and a rebel
who sprang down, perhaps with the object of securing fresh cartridges,
suddenly dropped. The rest lay close and left the fallen alone. Then a
tall priest in threadbare cassock and clumsy raw-hide shoes came out of
a house and with the help of two or three others carried the victims
inside. Cliffe heard somebody say that it was Father Agustin.
Soon afterward a man near Cliffe gave him a cigarette, and he smoked it,
although his mouth was dry and the tobacco had a bitter taste. The heat
was getting worse and his head began to ache, but he was busy wondering
what would happen next. Gomez must have more troops than the handful he
had sent; the rebels could not hold the position against a strong force,
and their supports had not arrived. He hoped Gomez had no machine-guns.
Suddenly the attack recommenced. There were more soldiers, and a rattle
of firing that broke out farther up the street suggested that the
revolutionaries were being attacked in flank. Some of the men seemed to
hesitate and began to look behind them, but they got steadier when an
officer called out; and Cliffe understood that a detachment had been
sent back to protect their rear. In the meantime, the soldiers in front
were coming on. They were slouching, untidy fellows, but their brown
faces were savage, and Cliffe knew they meant to get in. It was,
however, his business to keep them out, and he fired as fast as he could
load. When the barrel got so hot that he could hardly touch it, he
paused to cool the open breach and anxiously looked about.
The street seemed filled with white figures, but they had opened out,
and in the gaps he could see the dazzling stones over which the hot air
danced. There was a gleam of bright steel in the sun, and he noticed
that the walls were scarred. Raw spots marked where the chipped
whitewash had fallen off and the adobe showed through. But there was no
time to observe these things; the foremost men were dangerously near.
Finding he could now hold his rifle, Cliffe snapped in a cartridge and
closed the breach. Then he spent a few tense minutes. The enemy reached
the foot of the barrier and climbed up. Rifles flashed from roofs and
windows, streaks of flame rippled along the top of the barricade, and
one or two of the defenders, perhaps stung by smarting wounds or
maddened by excitement, leaped down with clubbed weapons and
disappeared. Cliffe kept his place between the table legs and pulled
round his cartridge-belt.
The tension could not last. Flesh and blood could not stand it. He
understood why the men had leaped down, courting death. He hoped his own
nerve was normally good, but if the struggle was not decided soon, he
could not answer for himself. He must escape from the strain somehow, if
he had to charge the attackers with an empty rifle.
There was a sudden change. The climbing white figures seemed to melt
away, and though the rifles still clanged from roofs and windows the
firing slackened along the barricade. The troops were going back,
running not retiring, and trying to break into houses from which men
with rude weapons thrust them out. It looked as if the inhabitants were
all insurgents now.
Soon the priest reappeared, and Cliffe left his post and sat down where
there was a strip of shade. He had helped to beat off two attacks, but
he was doubtful about the third. While he rested, a fat, swarthy woman
brought him a cup of _cana_, and he was surprised when he saw how much
of the fiery spirit he had drunk. The woman smiled, and went on to the
next man with the cup.
Cliffe wondered how long he had been fighting, for he found his watch
had stopped; but the sun was not high yet. After all, the reenforcements
he had begun to despair of might arrive in time. While he comforted
himself with this reflection, some of the other men dug a trench behind
the barricade, and citizens, loading the earth into baskets, carried it
off. Cliffe did not know what this was for, but he supposed the baskets
would be used to strengthen defenses somewhere else. It was a long time
since he had handled a spade, but if they needed his help he could dig.
Pulling himself up with an effort, he took a tool from a breathless man
and set to work.
After a time a citizen appeared with a bundle of papers and a white
flag. An officer signed him to come forward, and taking the papers from
him threw them among the men. Cliffe got one, and finding a man who
spoke a little English, asked him what the notice meant. The man said it
was a proclamation by Gomez, stating that, as the people had serious
ground for dissatisfaction with the President's administration and were
determined to end it, he must accede to the wish of the leading
citizens, who had urged him to form a provisional government. He
promised a general amnesty for past offenses and the prompt redress of
all grievances.
"So the dog turns on his master!" the translator remarked with bitter
scorn. "Altiera was a tyrant, but this rogue would be worse!"
The insurgent leader, standing on top of the barricade, read the
proclamation in a loud, ironical voice, and when he tore it up with a
dramatic gesture, the roar of mocking laughter that rang down the street
showed what all who heard it thought of Gomez's claim. Then people ran
out of the houses and pelted the messenger with stones as he hurriedly
retired, until a few shots from a roof cleared the street.
"The dog has bought the soldiers! Altiera should have been his own
paymaster," the man whom Cliffe had questioned remarked.
For the next half hour everything was quiet, but Cliffe felt uneasy. One
could not tell what Gomez was doing, but it was plain that he must make
a resolute attempt to crush the rebels before he turned his forces
against the President. He must have felt reasonably sure of his ground
when he made his last daring move. As his terms had been scornfully
rejected, the country would soon be devastated by three hostile
factions, which would make Evelyn's danger very grave. Cliffe forgot
that he was thirsty and there was a pain in his left side brought on by
want of food. If help did not come by sunset, his friends would be
overwhelmed by numbers when it was too dark to shoot straight.
Then he saw that they were threatened by a more urgent danger. The end
of the street opened into the plaza, which had been deserted. The houses
on its opposite side were shuttered, and the sun burned down into the
dazzling square, except for a strip of shadow beneath one white wall.
Now, however, a body of men appeared, carrying something across the
uneven pavement. When they stopped and began to put the separate parts
together, Cliffe saw that it was a machine-gun. He wondered why Gomez
had not made use of it earlier, unless, perhaps, it had formed the main
defense of the _presidio_.
The barrel, thickened by its water jacket, gleamed ominously in front of
the steel shield as the men got the gun into position; but it was
unthinkable that they should be left to do so undisturbed, and Cliffe
scrambled back to his post when an order rang out. He felt that he hated
the venomous machine, which had perhaps been bought with his money.
Steadying his rifle, he fired as fast as he could.
Though the smoke was thin, it hung about the rebels' position, making it
hard to see, and Cliffe feared their shots were going wide, but after a
few moments the barricade trembled, and there was a curious, whirring
sound above his head. Dust and splinters of stone were flung up, and
large flakes fell from the neighboring walls. All this seemed to happen
at once, before he was conscious of a measured thudding like a big
hammer falling very fast which drowned the reports of the rifles and
dominated everything. The flimsy defenses were pierced. Gaps began to
open here and there, and men dropped back into the trench. Then a fierce
yell rang across the city, and although Cliffe heard no order the rebel
fire slackened. Peering through the vapor, he saw the soldiers were
frantically dragging the gun into a new position; the shield no longer
hid the men at the breach, but Cliffe did not shoot. He felt paralyzed
as he watched to see what was happening.
The hammering began again, and flashes that looked pale in the sunshine
leapt about the muzzle of the gun. Soldiers lying down behind it were
using their rifles, and another detachment hurriedly came up. Cliffe's
view of the plaza was limited. He could not see one side of it, where an
attack was evidently being made, but presently a mob of running men
swept into sight. A few dropped upon the pavement and began to fire, but
the main body ran straight for the gun, and he noticed with a thrill
that they were led by a light-skinned man. Some of them fell, but the
rest went on, and the rebels behind the barricade began to shout. The
eagerly expected reenforcements had arrived.
The man with the fair skin was the first to reach the gun. Cliffe saw
his pistol flash; but the struggle did not last. Gomez's men fell back
and the others swung round the gun. Then, as flame blazed from its
muzzle, a triumphant yell rose from the barricade, and Cliffe, springing
up on the table, waved his hat and shouted with the rest. Grahame, with
his handful of peons, had saved the day.
In a few seconds Cliffe felt dizzy. His head was unsteady, his knees
seemed weak, and as he tried to get down he lost his balance. Falling
from the top of the barricade, he plunged heavily into the trench, where
his senses left him.
It was some time afterward when he came to himself, and, looking round
in a half-dazed manner, wondered where he was. The big room in which he
lay was shadowy and cool, and he did not feel much the worse except that
his head ached and his eyes were dazzled. A tumult seemed to be going on
outside, but the room was quiet, and a girl in a white dress sat near
by. He thought he ought to know her, although he could not see her face
until she heard him move and came toward him.
"Evelyn!" he gasped.
"Yes," she answered, smiling. "How do you feel?"
"Dizzy," said Cliffe. "But this is Rio Frio, isn't it? How did you get
here?"
"You mustn't talk," she said firmly, and he saw that she had a glass in
her hand. "Drink this and go to sleep again."
Cliffe did not mean to go to sleep, although he drained the glass
because he was thirsty. There was much he wanted to know; but he found
it difficult to talk, and Evelyn would not answer. After a futile effort
to shake it off, he succumbed to the drowsiness that was overpowering
him.