expected--they all come for me! Cursing my fool soul, I jumped for the
gun. I almost had my hand on it when a rock took me behind the ear and
laid me on the grass. It was up to Mr. William De La Tour Saunders to
put his feet under him with celerity and hike out of that. It was
painful--sufferin' Moses! How I hated to run from that crowd! I snorted,
but run was the word, and run I did, with them hollering and laughing at
me. Inside, I grabbed two of the guns from the counter, called to Pedro
and the other two, and started back. I met the gang right at the door.
It was curious how making me run had braved them; they were for tearing
everything apart now. Well, our meeting was a surprise to both parties.
I've had to be grateful all my life that my hands think faster than my
head. I put four shots into that crowd before I thought at all. The man
who picked up my revolver fired and missed me from a three-foot range. I
got some of the powder, also a knife in the shoulder, but four men laid
out discouraged 'em and they broke again. I put it to them with both
hands, Pedro and the other boys cutting in before they found shelter.
By this time I was wild--wanted to go after them and hunt 'em out. Pedro
and the other two fastened on me and dragged me in.
"More shall come, Beel!" cried Pedro.
"We must have care--do not to go, I implore!"
He not only implored, but half-strangled me; they hauled me back and
shut the door.
"Listen, all," says Pedro. "This is not the end. Others will come with
guns, and then!--But now to see what is outside." He stationed us each
where we could peek through cracks, and so cover the store from all
sides. There was barrels of ammunition, General Pedro issued commands to
blaze away at a sight.
The folks outside kept up a stream of cursing and abuse, jeers and
threats, and we returned a revolver fire just as effective. It was too
far for a short gun.
We had two rifles in the shop. I wasn't then, and never have been, as
good a shot with a rifle as with a pistol. Gonzales, though, had been a
hunter. He took the rifle with a pleased smile.
"You make _me_ run," says he, playfully, to outdoors. "Now I make _you_
jump! It is thus we amuse ourselves." A man showed his head, to the
sound of an instant crash from the rifle. He jumped, all right.
"The old church shall say mass for your soul, Juan," says Gonzales. "You
are the best dead man in the country."
After that, they were careful. I thought they'd leave, seeing they
couldn't do anything with us, till Pedro explained they were probably
holding us till armed men came. I should have felt dismal once more at
this news, if I'd had nothing to do. The darkened store wore on my
feelings. One feller I shot wriggled in a funny fashion as he lay on the
ground. He was still wriggling--I could see him every time I stopped to
think. He gave a long twist, like a snake, bringing his face to the
light, at the last. He looked as if he felt perfectly disgusted. He
hadn't ought to have looked that way. It bothered me.
The other three stood the gaff of waiting much better than I. In fact, I
was frantic inside me, though I made a good chest of it. "Pede," I says,
"let me have the other rifle--I'm going scouting."
"That is well," says Gonzales. "If you can get up on the hill without
being seen, you can drive them out, and we shall have a shot."
So I took the rifle and squirmed through the brush and rocks back of the
store until I was a hundred yards or so up the hill. It was a steep
slant. In going so far I'd risen nearly a hundred feet. I could see part
of our besiegers plain. Some ten of 'em lay behind boulders, smoking
cigarettes and taking it easy. Another batch sat under the bridge. The
rest I couldn't see.
I had a particular grudge against the feller who challenged me to fight.
I searched carefully, and finally made him out, under a rock about three
hundred yards away, sitting with his back to me, and playing a game with
the man in front of him.
His fat back made a corking target. I rested the gun between two stones
and had him dead to rights. I was ready to listen to the report and see
him fall over, when, by the gods of war! my finger wouldn't pull the
trigger. I hadn't the least feeling about killing that treacherous
skunk, so far as I knew, but all the same, I could _not_ pull that
trigger. I was surprised, plenty. "Why, you damn fool!" I says to
myself, "what's eating you! That lad would 'a' slaughtered your entire
family, by this time!"
True, too, but it didn't make the gun go off. It's mighty queer how an
unexpected "me" will jump out of you at times. There was one Bill
Saunders just as anxious to do that blackguard as a man could be, and
there was another--and the boss, too--who wouldn't stand for it.
I cussed between my teeth. "If you'd look at me, instead of turning your
back, you dog!" I whispered, "I'd heap you up quick." I broke out into a
sweat of shame, knowing how my friends were putting their faith in my
gathering a man or two. I could have cried with mortification. Suddenly
my lad jumped up and pointed, forgetting where he was. The next second
the finger jammed into the ground, and the whang of Gonzales's rifle cut
through the valley.
I looked where he pointed. Here come a string of men with guns,
dog-trotting. I up and pasted into them. The shot started those below.
Some jumped up. I could have whaled it to them all right now, but a
shell jammed. Our boys socked it to them from the store, while I clawed
at the durned cartridge. Got it out with my knife at last and banged
away, first below and then at the approaching soldiers. I dropped a man
and the soldiers scattered behind rocks and trees.
There was no use staying longer. I had only three cartridges left;
nothing much I could do anyhow, as they would sneak up from this on;
besides, I stood to get cut off from the store, so I carefully picked my
way back, not wanting them to learn there was no one on the hill. In
such a case as ours, you fight for time. I hoped nothing from time, but
every minute you lived was clear gain. Out here in the country prisoners
of war were stood against a wall.
So long as they thought we had men on the hill, they'd be cautious.
Likely they'd send men around to clear the hill, first, and that would
give us some minutes.
The other boys had seen the arrival of the soldiers. They were quiet,
but hopeless. Gonzales shrugged his shoulders and examined his rifle.
"How many?" he asked.
"Soldiers and all, or just soldiers?"
"All."
"Nigh a hundred."
"_Ay de mi! Adios el mundo!_ Four men against a hundred! Well, they
shall speak of us after--not a hundred will they be, when we leave."
The feeling that you'll leave a good name behind to comfort your last
minutes, is a mighty good thing. Wish I had it. It didn't matter a darn
to me. All I could think of was that they shouldn't get me--not if they
was a million--and I proposed to work on those lines with force.
"Perhaps they won't jump us," I said with more wish than hope. "If they
try any other play, we can hold 'em a week."
I had some contempt for those soldiers. I parted with it later. You see,
they were barefoot, ragged, and dirty. Not a thing marked 'em for
soldiers, but the guns and the orders. I hadn't seen many soldiers, but
what I had seen was gay with uniforms and a brass band. Now, if they'd
come at our store with a brass band, it would have been something like.
This was only a rucus, with us holding the working end of the mule. No
glory, no uniforms, no band, no nothing, but just getting holes shot in
you, and it wouldn't be no more than truthful for me to admit I was
perfectly contented with my hide as she was.
We strengthened the doors and windows by piling more boxes up, leaving
only holes to shoot through. Then we waited. The dark heat in the store
just melted you; outside the sun hammered fit to knock your eye out.
When it comes hot and still--deadly still--I can remember that hour's
waiting in the store. I couldn't hold on to what I was thinking of for a
minute; all my ideas flipped around like scart birds, and I sweat and
sweat, and I was sick at my stomach, and the man I shot kept squirming.
It was the same as sitting up in bed to find out your nightmare is real.
To the devil with waiting! I tried to clamp my attention on mother, on
Mary, on everybody I knew. Useless. I didn't seem to know anybody--they
were only jokes, and mostly, the faces, as they skipped by, turned on me
and grinned. At the same time I kept talking with the other boys and
even laughed once in a while. I know they thought I was cool as a
watermelon. I'm even with them there; I thought _they_ were, too.
When Gonzales called, with a click in his voice, "Hist! _Quid'ow!_ They
come!" I could have raised both hands to heaven in thanks. There's
nothing one-eighth as bad in getting killed as sitting around waiting
for it.
I jumped for my window. There ain't a bit of what was in front of me but
what's with me to stay. I could only see a small space that
day--anything that wasn't in a ten-foot circle was dark. I leave the why
to the doctors. It never troubled me again.
I had the south window, kind of slantwise facing the road, and about
twenty foot from it, where it passed the store. There was a breastwork
of canned goods shoulder high, with lots of loose cartridges spread on
the inner top box. The box near me was open, and red labels on quart
cans of tomatoes shone out--"Pride of the Garden." I wonder if the man
that raised 'em, or he that canned 'em, ever imagined they were going to
become the bulwarks of the State of Panama?
The shutters were heavy, with holes in 'em about four inches wide, which
you could cover with a round piece of wood that swung on a screw. These
holes were right in height for me to shoot through. The other boys had
to stand on boxes, being shorter.
I took a peep through my gun-hole. There come the rebels, flap-flapping
down the road in their bare feet, trailing their guns, their
wide-brimmed hats shaking comical. And I felt happy when I saw it. These
were real men, and for the last hour I'd been fighting ghosts. We didn't
want 'em to hit us in a body, so I called cheerful to the other boys,
"Bet you a can of tomatoes I draw first blood!" and let her flicker
through the loop-hole.
XV
TOMATOES BY THE QUART
The barefoot soldiers expected to walk right through us. They come
straight and fairly bunched, while we dropped them. They kept coming and
we kept dropping them. Streaks of white flew out of the shutters and
whiskers grew on the walls, but not a man of us was touched, while we
laid them out something awful.
It wasn't we was crack shots, neither, excepting Gonzales. We were, for
all practical purposes, cool.
Speaking for myself, I felt neither hope nor fear. I had but one
ambition--to make the party that arrived as small as possible. It would
surprise me to learn that our boys missed two shots out of five. And
there isn't any crowd, white, brown, nor black, that can stand a gaffing
like that.
They had no plan. As I say, they thought all they had to do was walk up
and take us. When we put every third man on the grass, they halted,
bunching closer, and we pumped it to 'em for keeps. They melted down the
road, panic-struck.
We had no cheers of victory, being much too busy. By just keeping
industriously at work instead of hollering we put three or four more out
of the game. It was business, for us.
The smoke drifted slowly up the hillside; some of the wounded men began
hollerin' for water; one got to his knees and emptied his gun at us.
Gonzales was for removing him, but I held his hand. "Let him ease his
mind," I said, "he can't hit anything." And just to make me out a liar,
the beggar covered me with splinters from the shutter. Gonzales shot,
and that was over. I began to wish they'd hustle us again.
The sweat poured off us. We panted like running dogs. Outside there,
where the valley rippled with sun-heat, all was still, except that
cry--"Water! water! For the love of God, water!" I've needed water
since. I know what that screech means. Lord! that hour!--a blaze of sun,
blue shadows, wisps of smoke curling up the hill, and the lonesome cry
in the big silence--"Water! water! For the love of God, water!" That's
what it come to; them fellers didn't care much for victory--they wanted
water.
It wore on me, like the barking of a dog. I grabbed the water-pail and
started for the door.
"Here!" cries Pedro, "what will you make?"
"I want to stop that noise."
"Put down the pail!" says Pedro. "Foolish fellow! Do you not know they
keel you at once?"
"Pede," I says, "I can't sit here and hear 'em holler like that--there's
no damn use in talking."
"Listen," says Pedro, grabbing me by the coat. "See what you do; here
are friends; for them you care not. Eef you are keeled, so much the
worse are we--are we not more than they? You leave us, and you shall be
keeled and our hope goes--I ask you, is that good?"
"No," I says, putting down the pail. "It ain't, Pede. You're right," and
one of 'em outside struck a new note that stuck in me and quivered.
"Remember," I says, "that I died admitting you were right." Darn it, I
was risking my own hide. But Pede had the truth of it. I oughtn't to
have done it. So I grabbed the pail and went out.
I was considerable shot at, but not by the wounded men.
The first lad was a shock-headed half-Injun, with a face to scare a
mule. He was blue-black from loss of blood. "Drink, pretty creature,
drink," says I. He grabbed the pail and proceeded to surround the
contents. "Whoa, there!" says I, "there are others!" I had to yank the
pail away from him. He looked at me with his fevered eyes, and held out
his big, gray, quivering hands--"For the love of God, Senor,
_poquito--poquito_!"
"No more for you," I said, and he slumped back, his jaw shaking. It was
a waste of water, really; he'd been bored plumb center. So I went the
rounds, having to fight 'em away as if they was wolves. Lord! how they
wanted that water!
When I got to next to the last man, some better marksmen up the road
shot my hat off. That riled me. It would make anybody mad. I stopped on
the spot and expressed my sentiments.
"You're a nice lot of rosy-cheeked gentlemen, you are," says I. "You
damned greasy, smelly, flat-footed mix of bad Injun and bad white! If I
could get hands on one of you, I'd shred him so fine he'd float on the
breeze. Now, you sons of calamity, you shoot at me once more, and I'll
call on you!"
I was ready to go right up. I waited a minute, but no more shots came.
"All right," says I. "_Sin vergueenza!_" and more I won't repeat. The
Spaniard has nice ideas about a good many things, but he cusses by the
hog-pen. So I told 'em what I could remember that was disrespectful, fed
the last man his water, and returned. I stopped to look at my first man.
He'd passed on. Well, I wasn't sorry he'd had a drink.
"Ha-ha, Pede!" says I when I got back, "I fooled you!"
"By one eench!" says he, looking at my hat.
"Inch is as good as a mile, and that cussed noise is stopped for a
while, anyhow."
A stone rattled back of us.
"Look to the doors, quick!" says Pedro.
We hopped to our places.
"Many coming down the hill!" says Gonzales.
It wasn't that I had scared or impressed my friends by my oration that
they hadn't shot further; no, they simply took advantage of the
opportunity to work a sneak on us from behind. I call that low-down.
Howsomever, it didn't matter what I called it. They were at our back
door, knocking hard.
Skipping gaily from tree to rock, they was full as well sheltered as we.
Worst of all, when the store was built, the stones from the cellar had
been placed in a row behind--not fifteen feet from the back door. There
was no way under heaven we could keep them from lining up behind that
stone wall, and hitting us all in a lump when they got ready.
We shut and barricaded the front door. That side of the store must take
care of itself. We simply had to put all hands to meet the rush.
In a few minutes, stones, clubs, and a few shots fell on the front of
the store, to draw us--this was the other lads, not the soldiers.
Gonzales made a quick move, fired half a dozen shots in that direction,
and then came back.
A white handkerchief on a stick waved behind the wall.
"We wish to talk!" said a voice.
"Talk later, we're busy now!" says Pedro.
"We shall spare your lives, if you yield the store. We only wish to
destroy this because it belongs to Holton, who supports the iniquitous,
the government that now is. On our word of honor, you shall live, if you
yield the store."
"Well," whispered Pedro to us, "what do you say?"
"Tell him the fortune-teller fooled him," says I.
"Tell him to go to hell," says Gonzales.
"It is a trick," says the other man.
"So think I," says Pedro. He called aloud: "We are large healthy men. To
make us live is necessary we have more than your word of honor--do not
play further, cowards that you are! The store you may have when we give
it to you. We will kill you all--all!"
All four of us yelled and hooted at 'em. We were strung tight now.
Thirty-odd men ready to climb at you, fifteen feet away, thirty or forty
more all ready to whack at you from behind, takes the slack out.
There was just one second of hush, and then hell bu'st her b'iler. Lord!
Lord! Of all the banging and yelling and smashing you ever did hear!
Noise enough for Gettysburg. They come at us from all around. We
scrambled like monkeys, shooting; jumping elsewhere; shooting
again--zip, zip, zip--fast as you could clap your hands. They bored in
so they could hammer on the door. I was helping there until I heard a
crash from my window, and saw a head coming in. I caved that head with
my rifle-barrel and fired into a swarm over the remains. They fired
right back again; lead sung like a bees' nest. Flame and smoke spurted
out all over. You couldn't see any more in the store. I snapped at the
crowd until I found there was no results, my magazine being empty; and,
there scarcely being time to load, I poked 'em with the muzzle. In the
middle of this razzle-dazzle come another crash and a flood of light. I
saw the front door down; men tumbling through the opening.
I screeched to the other boys, grabbed cans of tomatoes, and pasted the
heap. It sounds like a funny weapon, but I want you to understand that
when an arm like mine heaves a quart can of tomatoes at you, some little
time will pass before you see the joke. I hit one man under the nose and
lifted him three feet.
I followed this up with a box in one lump, clubbed my rifle, and lit
into 'em. It was then that one of our boys shot me in the leg by
mistake. You couldn't tell what you were doing. It was all a mess of
noise and lunacy. The leg-shot brought me to my knees and the gang atop.
I worked lively before I was free. Somehow I got a knife--I'll never
tell for sure how, nor when. But at last I was loose with a crowd in
front looking at me and calling for guns.
"Beel, Beel! Help!" called Pedro. How was I to help? The moment I turned
my back that outfit would swarm in.
It was all over. I heard Gonzales curse above all the other noises. And
then, as I stood there, sick, knowing I must drop in a minute, I saw a
change on the faces in front of me. Things were swimming considerable
and I smiled at my own foolishness. I must have lost sight for a second,
for when I saw again, the crowd was leaving, tight as they could pelt.
As I gracefully put my ear in a spittoon, I heard a tremendous firing,
and the next minute, through the doorway, beheld the soles of barefooted
soldiers' feet.
Somebody shook me by the shoulders. I came out of dreamland long enough
to see Pedro with the tears running down his face. "Beel!" he screamed;
"Beel! by the mercy of God, it is Senor Holton with men!"
Then his voice changed. "What ees eet? You are hurt, no?"
"No," says I. "I just wanted to listen to the spittoon."
I reckon that joke was too much for me, in my condition. It takes a
strong man to stand the wear of things like that. Anyhow, my next
appearance in active life found me all bandaged up neat as a Sailors'
Home, and a very nice-looking gentleman holding my wrist with one hand,
with a glass of truck to throw into me in the other, and Jim was
swearing a prayer to the doctor not to let me go.
"Oh, I wasn't thinking of going anywhere," says I, to relieve his mind.
"What are you laughing at? I wasn't."
"That's right, Bill," says Jim, taking my hand. "Just stay right here."
The doctor fed me something that I felt clear down to my toes, still
keeping his hand on the wrist.
"Good!" says he. "The effect of shock is over--it's only the lost blood
now--he must have lost a gallon, from his appearance."
"Durn careless of me," says I, still hazy. "But what in thunder am I
doing here? What's all this about?"
"Lie down, Bill," says Jim. "You have three knife-cuts and four
bullet-holes in you."
"I have?" says I, rousing up. "Well, then, why didn't I holler for
water?"
"You did," says Jim.
"There, there!" says the doctor. "No more talk! Lie still, young man,
and sleep, if you can."
It was two days later when I got particulars. Seems I was out of my head
for four hours, and like to die any minute; that I had a hole in the
lower leg, another in the hip, a streak across the top of my head, and a
bullet in the shoulder. Also a slash across the right hand, and another
on the right forearm, and a stab in the same upper arm. I suppose that
was during the hand-to-hand at the window and the door. I have a faint
memory of getting the knife by pulling it out of my own arm. But the
bullet-holes knocked me. I don't remember getting shot at all--only a
dizziness when one man fired in my face. I guess that was the streak
across the head.
I was the star performer. The other boys drew a couple of holes apiece
or so. Gonzales wasn't even laid up, though Pedro had his arm shattered.
Well, they kept me quiet, although I was crazy to talk. At the third day
I demanded food, instead of swill. The doctor looked troubled and shook
his head.
"See here, Doc," says I, "how am I going to manufacture good new blood,
without the raw material? Just let me have a half-a-dozen eggs and a
hunk of bacon and a loaf of bread, and I'll do credit to you."
He snorted at the idea, but I begged so hard he says at last: "Well, all
right; you are the toughest piece of humanity I ever struck; maybe it
_will_ do you good."
When I got outside that first square meal, William De La Tour Saunders
felt less naked and ashamed inside of him, and proceeded to get better a
mile a minute.
The fourth day I could sit up and hear Jim tell me all about it.
He had found a feller in the camp preaching revolution. For some time
this had been expected. It was known that a General Zampeto was setting
up for President, and it was also known that Belknap was backing him,
although he took great care not to be mixed in it by name. But Zampeto
and Belknap had fooled our crowd plenty, by being all ready for action
when it was supposed they were just starting in.
When Jim caught and thumped that first revolutionist, he tumbled at once
that things were about to boil, so he flew for help. His camp was a sort
of turning-point. The two sides were about evenly divided as to forces,
and, as Jim worked nearly three hundred men, it meant a great deal which
side they fought on.
Jim's men were mainly peaceful, quiet fellows, like Gonzales and that
other feller--(Pepe something-or-other--I don't know as I ever learned
his full name)--and Jim had great authority with them. If the rebels
smashed Jim on the start, his men would fall in on the winning side, or
at worst remain neutral. Neither Zampeto nor Jim had the least idea
they'd fight hard--it was just the moral effect of it, and then, too,
the supplies in the store were valuable.
Jim could have rounded up enough of the boys to lick the hide off this
gang of rebels, if it wasn't, as I said, that, knowing 'em to be nice
quiet lads, like Pedro, he felt sure they'd quit in a mess. "And never
will I be such a fool as that again," says Jim. "I knew you'd give 'em
war, but to think of Pedro! I told him to run and save himself!"
Our boys, being scattered and without a leader, simply had to submit to
being chased out of the country. Chance led Gonzales and Pepe to fly to
the store.
So much for us. No one knew what was doing in Panama. The country was
full of rebels around us, and Jim found himself too busy gathering an
army to ride to town and see.
He finally had some three or four hundred men, armed after a fashion,
that he drilled from morning till night.
And here was I, stuck in bed! Doc wouldn't let me try the game leg,
although I felt sure it would hold me.
"You stay there till I tell you," says he, "and then you'll get up and
be useful; if you try now, you'll only go back again to be a nuisance to
your friends."