Damn, Regales thought, these peasants had been taught well. When they drew close enough to distinguish individual heads above the parapet, he gave the command to halt and open fire. The superior marksmanship of the bandits showed at once.
Here a rifle fell outside the wall, its owner dead with a bullet through his head. There a man jerked upright and fell backward. Regales quickly noted that all access to the town had been closed off. Even the windows had been bricked up. After three rounds, according to the plan, he ordered the bandits to stop firing, and they rode back out of range and rounded the village to the eastern side.
“We can’t get in and they can’t get out,” he reported to Gustavo Carvajal.
“The ram will destroy that gate,” El Rey stated decisively. “Concentrate fire on this side while it is moved into place.”
“We charge them again?” Regales asked.
“Yes. Keep them busy.”
Now in a crescent shape, the lines of horsemen thundered down on Pueblo Viejo. Spirits ran high and they fired wildly at the walls. Then three bandits abruptly disappeared into the ground, covered by a huge cloud of dust.
Terrible shrieks of men and animals came from the pit that had suddenly opened. Without warning, camouflage covers came off of rifle pits in the grassy meadow, and village men fired pointblank into the advancing enemy.
Smoke Jensen watched with a grim expression while more men and horses plunged to death or maiming in the pits so skillfully hidden. He deeply regretted the harm done to the animals. They weren’t responsible for what had necessitated building the terrible traps. He gave the signal and the selected men, those with good throwing arms, began to light and toss out at the enemy the tile tubes with sticks of blasting powder.
Powerful explosions, and whistling shards of scrap metal, provided cover for the men in the rifle pits to withdraw to a small portal cut into the main gate. For all their inexperience, Smoke noted, they made it through the bottleneck with remarkable discipline and no sign of panic. More blasts shattered the air. Smoke took a check on the advance of the battering ram.
“They should reach the pits in the road any time now,” he informed Carbone. “Have everyone concentrate fire on the men around the ram.”
Three bandits died. More rushed forward, dodging the exposed pits, and came at the walls with scaling ladders. At once the men designated to the task dropped spiked logs over the side. Outlaws screamed and dropped from broken ladders. Several died horribly under the falling logs. Still the ram advanced on the main gate.
Certain of its destruction, Smoke turned to the scaling parties. Rocks were hurled down on them, and a number found the buried trench the hard way. Their screams joined those of others. Suddenly the call rang out to fall back.
Shaken by the ferocity of the resistance, the bandidos wasted no time in retreating. They sprinted for their horses and rode out of range. The ram continued toward its objective.
Then fate took a vengeful turn against the defenders of Pueblo Viejo. A horseman blundered into the deep pits in the road, revealing them to the driver of the ram carriage. While man and horse disappeared in a billow of dust, the double carreta turned ponderously away from danger and maneuvered around the traps.
Smoke Jensen took a quick count. Fifty-five bodies littered the ground outside the walls. Yet he knew Carvajal had enough men left to continue the attack. And they still had the ram to contend with. It began to look to Smoke as though his idea for a fortified village had turned into a prison for them.
Gustavo Carvajal also made a count of his strength. Less than a hundred fifty now. Part of him found it hard to believe that these peasants could show such fury. Another part wondered why those of his men who had survived remained loyal and had not deserted due to the high loss. Tomas Diaz provided answer to the latter.
“They are good and mad, now, Excellency. Friends have been killed and maimed. They taste peon blood and want to get to it. We should attack again, at once, not give those in the village time to rest or get fresh ammunition.”
“Yes, it is best. And the men on the ram need protection to do their work,” Carvajal observed.
A minute later, the bandit army hurtled toward the walls of Pueblo Viejo again. Their battle cry came with a low, animal ferocity that chilled many among the neophytes on the walls.
Smoke Jensen turned to face his friends. “We’re not going to hold,” he told them bluntly.
“Why not?”
“Most of our men are fighting their first battle. Fear is going to catch up to them when that ram starts pounding on the gate. If Carvajal manages to get anyone over the wall, it will turn to panic.” He considered what he had to say for a moment before he went on. “I want you both to take selected men and fall back to the Plaza de Armas. Alert everyone there and put your men in position.”
“But, our place is on the wall,” Carbone protested.
“I know it’s a matter of honor for you. I learned this from the Indians. A man who fights and is wise enough to withdraw to a better position lives to fight again. I keep the defenders here as long as I can, then join you.”
“It is better if I stay with you,” Carbone urged. “Martine can prepare at the plaza. They are his people after all.”
Smoke pondered this. “All right. Take the south side, that’s where the walls are lowest. I’ll stay here.”
Gunfire began to crackle along the walls. With a mighty roar, the bandit army closed and began to raise ladders. They took care to avoid the trench, the ladders slanted sharply so that men had to bend forward to ascend. Smoke Jensen stepped to the parapet to look down.
Below he saw that planks had been stripped from outbuildings and used to bridge the trench. Slowly the ram rolled into position. Riders at the end of heavy ropes spurred their horses away from the wall. The arm of the ram swung backward. One of the bandits pulling on it took a round in the shoulder. He jerked in reaction and continued to haul on his rope. At a signal, they let it go.
A loud crack and boom sounded when the heavy head smashed into the thick planks of the gate. Smoke felt the impact through his boots. At once more riders took up the ropes and hauled the ram back again. Shots cracked all around them.
“They’re excited, not taking time to aim,” Smoke Jensen told Juan Murial.
The wounded man from Merced nodded understanding. “What comes next?”
“We shoot our last round,” Smoke told him. He leaned over the inside edge of the battlement and shouted below, “Fire the trench!”
Another tremendous crash came from the gate, while men bent to touch torches to the oil-soaked wood in the trench. Slowly the branches caught fire. Another hollow, shuddering boom came from the gate, accompanied by a splintering sound. Black smoke began to coil up from the trench. Tongues of flame licked high here and there. The clothing of the men on the ladders began to smolder.
Spurred by this incentive, the bandits scurried up the ladders with alacrity. They smashed aside the resistance and shouted in triumph when they set foot on the battlements. The ram hammered into the gate again. Hinges creaked and the cross-bar splintered. Smoke Jensen looked around and made a painful judgment.
“Pull back! Off the walls!” he bellowed his command.
“They’ve carried the walls, Excellency,” Humberto Regales shouted exuberantly.
“Splendid. One more try with the ram, then get it out of the way,” Carvajal answered soberly, his mind on the toll this had taken.
A messenger sped up on a lathered horse. “Fifty men are inside. More go over the walls every minute. The people of Pueblo Viejo run like frightened sheep.”
“Good. Good. We will join our victorious soldiers at once,” Carvajal decided.
Another thunderous smash of the ram was followed by a screech and roar as one panel of the gate gave way and fell inward. A ragged cheer rose from the bandits as they surged through the opening. Behind them, flames licked hungrily at the bridging planks and wheels of the lead cart. Smiling, eyes alight, Gustav
o Carvajal gigged his palomino and advanced on the doomed village.
One hundred five men entered Pueblo Viejo. They soon found that the “frightened sheep” had sharp teeth. Every window of the dwellings near the walls had been heavily shuttered, with firing loops cut in them. Doors had been reinforced also, and from all of these, rifle and revolver barrels protruded. Muzzle flashes spurted into the streets and powder smoke combined with dust to obscure the view. Shouting and cursing, the bandits pressed into the face of unexpected fire.
Screams came from behind them as the ram caught fire and blocked the gate. It spurred the attackers to greater effort. Slowly they fought their way past the defenders, isolating them and ignoring their deadly stings. The cost was counted by those who followed.
Angry, the last of the outlaw army to scale the walls set fire to the houses. Mercilessly they gunned down the occupants as they rushed outside to escape the flames. Salvador Montez felt a sharp pain between his shoulder blades as he blasted the life from an old man in the doorway of one house.
A spent round? he wondered a moment before another hot point of agony exploded along his jaw. He ignored a third hit as he angrily sought the source of the torment. He saw two small boys with slingshots on the roof of an adobe hut and raised his .45 to end their harassment.
Little Raul cheered lustily when his father popped out of an alleyway and used his machete to decapitate Salvador Montez. Then he sobered as his parent shook an angry fist at him.
“Stay out of this, niño,” his father roared. “Keep out of sight.”
“Sí, Pappa,” a subdued Raul replied.
Eighty-nine of Carvajal’s army of hardcases survived to reach the Plaza de Armas. Half of them were mounted. Swelled with victory, they sensed the end close at hand. With a howl of glee they chased the fleeing peons across the park in the center of the square. Suddenly the cry of kill lust ceased in the throats of four horsemen. Seemingly out of nowhere, a narrow net, much like that the pampered elite used to play badminton back in the American East, swung up in front of them.
Unable to halt their horses in time, they went headfirst into its mesh. It broke the neck of one and hanged the other three, suspended off the ground by some five feet. Their mounts charged on, riderless. For a while the net jerked and swayed, then sagged motionless.
Elsewhere, bandidos came under fire from second floor windows. Quickly Gustavo Carvajal took stock of what this meant. To his dismay, he discovered this, too, was a trap. Smoke Jensen! The name reverberated in his mind. He is behind this. Carvajal shouted commands to rally his remaining troops. He looked about, expecting them to comply.
That’s when he saw the carts being wheeled into place to block all of the streets. They had been piled high with shocks of tinder-dry straw and sticks of firewood. Slowly they began to close all avenues of escape. Grinning peasants put fire to the loaded vehicles. Frantically, Carvajal screamed for his men to join together and force their way out.
“This way, this way, you fools. Form up and ride down those peons.”
Few listened to him. The volume of gunfire had increased, and the plaza cracked, hummed, and howled with a deadly rain of bullets. Speechless, Carvajal watched dumbly while two men flew from their saddles, shot by snipers strategically placed on rooftops.
“Ruin—ruin!” El Rey del Norte wailed. In that terrible moment, he saw his world crumbling all around him.
Smoke Jensen stood slightly back from the open doors to the largest cantina on the plaza. He took time to reload one .44 Colt, while the fighting intensified all around him. Over at the bar, Carbone conferred with Pablo Alvarez, Martine’s segundo. Their words came to Smoke as from the bottom of a well.
“Miguel has done well,” Carbone observed.
“Men are closing off the six exits now, Don Esteban. All but a handful of Carvajal’s men are in the plaza.”
“Good. Smoke, what do you think, amigo? Should the snipers concentrate on those outside our little trap? Smoke?”
Smoke Jensen brought his random thoughts back to the present. “If we have control in the plaza, yes. Are we sure the fires from those carts won’t spread?”
“All of the buildings are adobe. There is a bucket brigade standing by,” Carbone stated.
“Then set the carts on fire and let’s see what Carvajal does,” Smoke ordered.
So many men dead, Smoke’s thoughts continued to mock him. Farmers, herdsmen, shopkeepers, all dead to achieve what? To keep this land and the right to hold up their heads in freedom, another part of him answered. What was it that Ben Franklin said? “The tree of liberty must often be watered by the blood of patriots.” These Mexican peasants and tradesmen know that well. Not twenty years ago they expelled the ambitious French from their country.
It’s been longer than that since we Americans have had to fight for our beliefs,-he acknowledged. Tempered by that, Smoke’s rebellious imagination surrendered. Jefferson said it all, he admitted. “Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.” If these folks had been prepared, guarded against slime like Carvajal, none of this would have happened.
“The bandidos are rallying,” came a shout through the doorway.
More trouble, Smoke admitted as he started out the door to direct the fight.
Twenty-six
Two slugs smacked into the carved and painted wooden representation of a large glass of beer next to Smoke Jensen’s head. He ducked the flying splinters and snapped off a round at the bandit who had shot at him. He fired again as he moved to the protection of a stone water trough.
A cry of anguish rewarded his shooting skill. Smoke cut his eyes to the left and saw a weakness. Some better shots among the outlaws had cut down the peons who tended to the carretas that should have closed off the western exit to the plaza. Already a dozen bandits streamed through the opening. Smoke opened fire and shouted to attract the attention of other defenders.
“Over there. Pick them off. You men, close that gap.”
At once Smoke set off to the far side of the plaza, where the heavy rattle of gunfire advised him the bandits had gathered to offer resistance. “Come with me,” he ordered half a dozen men crouched behind the fountain in the center of the square.
Smoke’s boots pounded the grass into pulp as he closed on the growing firefight. His .44 Colt leading, Smoke Jensen stepped into the clear. He came nose-on against three of Carvajal’s gunhawks. Crossed bandoliers of ammunition decorated their chests, brown and brass slashes against white shirts. The wide, upturned brims of their charro sombreros undulated with the movement of their bodies. The first to snap alert to the threat of Smoke Jensen and six hastily trained vaqueros raised his Mendoza .45 and fired point blank.
His slug cut down a young ranch hand next to Smoke, who pumped a round into the precise center where the cartridge belts crossed. The bandit’s eyes bulged, and his lips formed a perfect, mustache-rimmed circle as he did a little dance of death. Smoke dropped to one knee and took aim at the outlaw on his right.
Boots thudding to a halt, the advancing gunslinger met death with a curse on his lips. He shot the hat from Smoke Jensen’s head and died a moment later when hot lead from Smoke’s .44 ripped through his chest and exited alongside his spine. He fell bonelessly to the flagstone paving of the plaza walkway.
Over the head of the last one, Smoke Jensen saw the gaudy uniform of Gustavo Carvajal. He raised his point of aim and fired. A billow of gray obscured his vision for a moment. When the air cleared, he saw that Carvajal had moved in the critical last second. But by then, Smoke had his hands full with the third bandido.
Knife in one hand, the outlaw leaped on Smoke Jensen. Smoke deflected the first slash with the barrel of his Colt. The big .44 roared beside the attacker’s head and burst his eardrum. Painfully shaken by this, he nevertheless pressed his assault. Smoke’s left hand went to his waist and drew his Bowie. Off balance, he felt his back slam against the lip of the fountain basin.
Their impact drove the chest of the bandit against Smoke.
He used that split moment of advantage to drive the blade of his knife between two ribs and deep into the outlaw’s chest cavity. Quivering with outrageous agony, the wiry thug clung to Smoke until the moment of his descent into eternal darkness. Smoke flung him away and turned to his stunned companions.
“Why didn’t you stop him?” he demanded.
“You—you were everywhere. All at once,” one awed young shepherd blurted. “It happened so fast, and we were afraid of hitting you.”
“Remember what I said about using a gun. Don’t wait for them to come to you. Act quickly and be accurate.” Letting off a little steam calmed Smoke’s racing heart. He looked about the plaza, conscious of diminished fire. “We’re too late to stop Carvajal from making an escape. Go, spread the word to keep them under fire until they are out of range.”
Quiet came at last to Pueblo Viejo. Sadly, Miguel Martine and Esteban Carbone went about counting the toll for their victory. The total seemed appalling.
“Over thirty wounded,” Martine reported to Smoke. “Fifty-three dead.”
“How about the women and children?” Smoke asked.
“None, thank God,” Carbone informed him.
“We’ll start the clean-up and restore that gate. Carvajal might be back.”
Gustavo Carvajal also took inventory of the army which had made him so proud. Staggered by the terrible reckoning, he looked over the survivors with a pale face and wan expression.
“Only fifty-seven came out of there,” Humberto Regales advised his leader.
Carvajal studied the faces of the survivors. With one accord they bore the stamp of defeat and dejection. How could this have happened to him?
“They can’t be that good,” Carvajal protested to his remaining handful of subordinate leaders. “Not Carbone, not Martine, not even Smoke Jensen. Has Quetzelcoatl turned his face from me?”
Por Dios, he’s going into that again, Regales thought forsakenly.
Fury flushed the face of Gustavo Carvajal. “It must not be! No mere man can drag down the son of the sun! Smoke Jensen is not Cortez. We cannot stop here. We must pull back to Hacienda la Fortuna and regain our strength, our numbers. Then we’ll show them. Then we will ride out in the splendor of all Tenochtitlan and devour the enemy. Ride on! Ride on to la Fortuna!”
Fury of the Mountain Man Page 25