by Jay Lake
Thinking this over, I saw why the chief had asked about the strength of our guns. I thought, too, that this might be one reason why we were so welcome here—three men with rifles would be a great help to him if an attack should come, even though one of us was crippled. I wondered, too, why he had not planned to keep the other Americans here until he knew whether the barbaros were coming this way. So I asked the guard whether they had warned the white men about these savages before they left.
He said no. They themselves had not heard of the wild men until yesterday, he said, and the white men then had been gone for days. He added that he hoped the whites would meet the marauders somewhere up the river, because then there would be a fight, and of course the men with guns would kill all those brutes.
I had some doubt about this, for I thought the soldiers would find fighting in thick jungle to be far different from what they had been accustomed to in Europe. But I told him the white men would surely kill every one of the savages if they met them. Then we went back to Horner, much better satisfied with these people than we had been at first.
“Sure, I knew you’d like these brown boys after you got their range,” said the Trumpeter, when we told him we had changed our ideas. “When you thought they were sneaks you were overshooting. I’m satisfied to stay here until I’m ready to go down river. So you guys needn’t worry about me, and if you want to move on don’t let me block you.”
We urged him again to come with us, but he flatly refused. Then we went to the chief and asked him whether he had any real reason to expect an attack. He seemed a little surprised that we had learned of this; but he said there was nothing to show that their enemies were coming here, and his men were watching only because they always did so when they heard that bad men were near. So, since the blond American would not go with us, and since we could not dally here long, we decided to continue our homeward journey the next day.
* * * *
But the next day brought squalls. Soon after our morning meal, while we were talking with Horner and the chief and preparing to go, the sunlight was blotted out. Thunder crashed and sheets of lightning dazzled us. A flood of rain fell, driven slantwise by a fierce wind. And when the storm had passed, the chief advised us to stay over for another day.
He said such sudden storms were not uncommon here at this time of year, and that a squall so early in the day would be followed by others. If we went on now we should meet worse weather before long, he told us, and if we were not swamped by some sudden blast of wind we should at least sleep wet and uncomfortable that night. He added that the rains today would make the waters rise, so that we should gain rather than lose by waiting. So why not remain here and be comfortable and visit his people, whom we might never see again?
This sounded sensible, and we were pleased by his honest way of speaking. So we decided to stay until the next morning, and then start early. And we were glad we tarried.
For one thing, we found that he knew the weather. More squalls did come, and they were heavy. Besides this, the people were agreeable companions, and they brought us fresh food, which was a welcome change from the rations we had recently been eating. So, between watching the lightning, eating huge meals, listening to the Trumpeter’s bugle, and talking with the chief and others, we spent the day very pleasantly.
While we talked we cleaned our rifles, which had grown rusty. The chief was much interested in these weapons, partly because he knew little about them and partly because Pedro’s gun and mine were different from that of Horner. Ours were the American repeating rifles generally used in our region, with the lever behind the trigger and a bore of .44 caliber. The Trumpeter’s gun also would repeat, but it looked much different and its action was not the same. The wood under the barrel ran almost to the muzzle, and it was cocked not by a lever but by a sort of handle on the bolt. The bore was much smaller than ours, but Horner insisted that the power of his gun was far greater than that of our big-bulleted weapons. We did not believe him until he told us his was an army rifle. Then we knew it must be high-powered.
The bony man who led him and his comrades here, he said, had managed to get enough of these rifles to arm every man in the party, as well as the flat pistols to which they were accustomed. He added that besides these guns he had something more deadly than any bullet. Then, twitching from his belt a long knife which we had taken for a sort of machete, he snapped it onto the gun under the muzzle.
“That’s the real killer,” he said. “A guy can get all shot up and still live, but when you slide this little old toothpick into a man he’s through. Hot lead is all right, but the cold steel is the stuff that mops ’em up.”
Dropping the blade into a line with my stomach, he made a playful jab upward. I fell over my own feet and knocked Pedro down in dodging away from it. Then Horner chuckled, the chief grinned, and I laughed rather foolishly.
“Don’t feel very good to see that thing start for your lunch basket, does it, even though I’m only a one-legged crip sitting down?” asked the blond man. “Then figure out how Fritz felt when he saw hundreds of ’em coming over. He sure made himself AWOL, and then some.”
After he explained what AWOL meant, I said I did not blame Fritz for going somewhere else without orders. I added that in this thick jungle of ours such a weapon was likely to be more useful in a fight than a far-shooting gun. His answer disturbed me a little.
“Yep, and if I hook up with any tough nuts before I hit the Amazon I may have to use it. The gang carried off all the ammunition with them, and all I’ve got left is two clips for the rifle and one for the pistol. But when I get my legs under me again I can show anybody that wants a row some wicked bayonet stuff.”
Pedro and I glanced at each other, but said nothing. Our cartridges would not fit his gun, so that even if we could have spared any they would have been useless to him. We could do nothing to help him—or so we thought. Yet before we were many hours older we were to help him much.
With one final ripping squall the day ended. Before the rain stopped the light had gone. A moonless night followed. As we intended to start early the next day, we soon got into our hammocks. Before we slept the Trumpeter blew again, loud and clear, that song of Taps.
“Why do you do that, senhor?” asked Pedro. “There are no dead soldiers here.”
“Right. But Taps isn’t just a dead man’s tune. It means ‘good night—sleep tight—all’s well.’ I’m just saying good night to that bunch of gorillas that beat it upstream while I was away. They can’t hear it, but they’re getting ready to snooze now somewhere up there, and maybe they’re thinking about me.”
Though he spoke lightly, we could see that his heart was lonely for the companionship of those “gorillas.” We said no more. Soon we slept.
* * * *
Before daybreak Pedro and I awoke and arose. Around us it was very dark, but not silent. Horner was trumpeting through his nose, and from other little huts near by the snores of sleeping Indians came back like echoes. Outside we could see nothing but the vague loom of the jungle against the star-spattered sky. So, since it was too dark to take down our hammocks, we sat down in them again and smoked, waiting for the shadows to lift.
Soon a wan light dawned on the clearing. The trees became trees instead of a black blot. The sun was not up, and a thin mist blurred the air, but day had come. We snapped our cigarette butts through the doorway, and stood up.
Then came war. A long harsh trumpet-blast tore across the gurgling chorus of snores. A roar of yelling voices followed. Out from the edge of the jungle sprang naked warriors. Through the mist they came bounding toward the huts, howling and brandishing spears and clubs and bows. Other cries answered them: shouts of men springing awake, screams of women terrified by that awful trumpeting—the deadly blare of the turé, war-horn of brutal murderers.
We swooped up our guns, sprang outside, opened fire. The leaping brutes nearest us swerved and fell. Others screeched sharply in shocked surprise and stopped. They had not expe
cted to find men with guns here. For an instant they wavered. While they hesitated we dropped several more of them. Then our hammers snapped down on empty chambers. But as we turned toward our door, the barbaros also turned and ran.
It was only those fronting us, though, who fled. The rest, though they slowed and looked toward the roar of our rifles, came on. But now they ran into a rain of arrows shot by the Indians who had sprung from their houses, and more of them fell. We saw nothing further just then, for we dashed into our hut to get more cartridges.
The American was sitting up, and he asked no questions—he was a soldier. As we swiftly reloaded and shoved our remaining cartridges into our pockets he said with a tight-faced grin:
“Go to it, buddies! Blow ’em wide open! Get around behind the house! I’ll handle anything in front.”
He was sitting on the edge of his hammock, with his crippled leg resting in it and the other foot on the ground to steady him. On his lap he held his rifle, pointing toward the door, and the long hungry-looking knife gleamed at its muzzle. We saw this in a flash, and then we were outside again.
Even as I left the door I met a big savage running toward it. He hurled a short spear, but I ducked and shot him in the stomach. Pedro’s rifle cracked twice, but I did not look around, for I knew he had killed his men. The American’s order to get behind the house was a good one, and I followed it. At a rear corner I halted and looked about.
The barbaros had swept in from all sides at once, and fierce close fighting was going on everywhere. A few arrows darted out from the houses, but the combat was mostly hand-to-hand. Stabbing, clubbing, choking and clawing and breaking bones, small knots of men struggled desperately for mastery. Caught by surprise and perhaps outnumbered as well, the townsmen seemed to be getting the worst of it; but they fought furiously to protect their women and children, who kept screaming as if they were already being murdered.
Picking my men, I fired again and again into the battling barbaros. Behind me, on the other side of the hut, sounded Pedro’s gun. Then from the house itself came a shot—a sharp crack not like the blunt bark of our own weapons. Twice more that army gun cracked, and then it was still.
When my gun was empty again I shouted to Horner, asking if all was well. In answer his bugle rang out. Above the screams, the fighting yells, and the hoarse bellowing of the savage turé it sounded—quick, sharp blasts on the same note, lifting suddenly to two higher ones, dropping back then to the same tone as before. And it did not stop. Over and over it blared defiantly, hammering away at our ears until the men defending their homes seemed to gain fresh strength from it.
Whether the urge of that trumpet really did give them new power, or whether it and our bullets together brought fear into the minds of the wild men, I do not know. But I do know that soon the fighting died. While I was emptying my gun once more I saw that the attackers were giving way toward the bush and our friends were battling harder than ever. Before I had filled my magazine again the savages on my side of the town were gone.
Running around to the front, I found that there too the space was clear except for the townsmen and a few men grappling on the ground. The battered defenders pounced on these small groups, and when they turned away the barbaros who had been fighting there were dead.
The war-horn had stopped blowing. The cries of the children too had ended, and the yelling men were still. Only the bugle sang on in the same quick tune. Then, with one long flare, it became silent.
“Pretty slow stuff!” grumbled the Trumpeter as we stepped into the hut. “If that’s the best your South American badmen can do I don’t think much of them. All I had to do was to pot two or three out front here and then toot my horn to pass away the tune.”
“You did not see much of the fight, senhor,” Pedro reminded him. “You are inside, and the walls shut out most of it. Yet it was not such close work as some I have seen—at least not for us three. Our friends had their hands full beating them off.”
“Slow stuff,” Horner repeated, yawning. “Did the chief come through all right? If so, tell him I’m hungry.”
We laughed, went out, and looked about for the chief. But we did not see him anywhere. Some of the Indians were picking up their dead and wounded, while others stood watching the jungle where their enemies had disappeared. We passed along among these, glancing at the bodies and noticing that there were more dead townsmen than savages. The wounded, of course, were defenders, for the injured attackers all had gotten away into the bush or been killed when their mates retreated. Without trying to count the dead, we could see that without our bullets to aid them our friends would have been quickly overwhelmed and butchered.
We could not find the chief among either the living or the dead there in the clearing, so we asked men what had become of him. They told us he was hurt and now was in his own house. They said also that, armed only with a club, he had killed three of the barbaros; and they showed us the bodies, each with its head crushed.
When we entered the chief’s hut we found that he had not fared any too well. His left shoulder was badly torn by a spear-thrust, and a long arrow stuck out from one leg. A little old man whom we had not seen before was working to pull out the shaft, but its head was buried so deeply in the muscles that he was only hurting the chief, who sat silent but with lips drawn tight.
Looking up and seeing us, the chief motioned for me to draw that arrow out. I did so, but I had to pull hard, with one foot against the leg to brace it. When it came away the chief rocked in his hammock with pain, though he still gave no whimper. A look at the arrowhead showed me why it had stuck so stubbornly. It had double barbs, pointing both forward and back, which tore the flesh when they went in and when they came out, and which would prevent the shaft from being removed by pushing it on through the wound instead of drawing it out backward.
It was one of the most cruel weapons we had ever seen, and the sight of it angered us. Until now we had not felt any great hatred for those wild men; we had fought only because we were attacked, and so must kill or be killed. But those barbs, deliberately placed so that they would torture a man wounded but not killed, made us hot.
“If the brute who made this is still alive I hope he has one of my bullets in his bowels,” I growled.
“And I wish I could shoot a few more of them,” said Pedro.
We talked in our own language, but the chief was watching us while the little old medicine man worked on his wounds, and perhaps he understood. He spoke, telling us to keep our guns ready for quick use when the time should come. The barbaros, he said, probably would attack again.
Somewhat surprised, I said we thought the fighting had ended. He shook his head, saying that it was not the way of those fierce men to quit while many of them were left alive. They had expected to overpower him and his people by attacking while the town still slept, but our prompt and deadly fire had surprised and confused them so that they could be fought off. But now they were preparing for another assault, and when they were ready they would come in spite of our guns, and the next fight would be to the death.
He added that unless we and our guns were strong the wild men would win. Many of his best men were dead or hurt, and he himself could not fight so well as before. He spoke very calmly, as if only saying that it might rain before night; but his eyes went to his two small children, who stood close by and watched the medicine man. We too looked at them—chubby little fellows with round faces and wide eyes—and shut our teeth. And though we knew our cartridges now were far too few, we told him our guns were strong enough to wipe out those beasts of the bush if his people would fight as bravely as before. He answered simply that they would fight until they died.
Soberly we went back to the Trumpeter, taking with us the bloody double-barbed arrow. We told him all there was to tell, and gave the arrow to him. As he studied it his face hardened.
“Dirty mutts!” he said. “If they’d shoot a thing like that into a man what would they do to the women and kids? Blast �
��em, I hope they do come back—I want another crack at them! And say, if they come don’t stick around this shack. Pick a couple of places where you can get a crossfire and make your bullets count. I’ll take care of my end of the riot.”
Then he grinned.
“Gee, but wouldn’t the gang be hopping mad if they knew they’d missed a regular row! By this time they must be halfway to Borneo, or Bolivia, or whatever you call that spiggoty country down south, and wishing something would happen. And here squats little old Jack Horner, the poor crip, with a real rough-house coming off and not another Yank to see it. If I ever meet up with that bunch of gorillas again won’t I rub it into ’em! Say, when do we eat?”
We did not eat at once, but after a time food came to us. Armed men watched ceaselessly, and nobody went close to the bush, but otherwise life went on much as usual in and around the houses. We breakfasted heartily, talked more with Horner, and tried to pick places for that crossfire he wanted. But this we could not do with any certainty because we could not guess how the next attack would be made.
All around the clearing rose the jungle, and the barbaros might burst out from any part of it. They might come as they had come before, from all points at once, or they might divide into parties and charge from several different quarters. If we fixed any particular spots for our firing we might find ourselves in the wrong places when we were needed. So, after some argument, we decided simply to take things as they came and do our best to meet whatever plan our foes had.
“One thing is pretty sure,” said Horner, “and that is that they won’t come just the way they did the first time. They attack by trumpet signal, and that shows they’ve got some idea of teamwork. Fighting men with any brains don’t pull the same stuff twice running, and you’ve got to watch out for a trick this time. Tell the chief not to let all his men go piling into the first bunch that shows up, but to hold some in reserve until he sees where he can use them best.”