The column halted between the adobe walls. Several men vaulted over them and there were a few gunshots. Then the officers came down the line singling out men. McDowell stopped in front of Charley and said, “You handled that gun well back there, Evans,” and Charley wondered when the captain had got time to notice. McDowell said, “You’ll go with me around to the left. We’ll cut through town around from the east side and meet the others on the square. You too, Randolph.”
After that, in company with half a dozen others, Charley followed the red-bearded captain past the end of the adobe wall and, cautiously, around a building corner. They skirted the edge of town, making a quarter-circle around it, and met no resistance, though Charley kept his rifle cocked and jumped several times when he saw what appeared to be movements in the shadows. They passed slot-windowed adobes one by one; each time McDowell would kick the door open and lunge inside, and each time the building would prove to be empty. McDowell said, “They were ready for us. They’re all probably forted up in the middle of town.”
Charley swept the rooftops and inspected shadows until his eyes began to ache. A slight tremor had invaded his hands and he was afraid that even if he did shoot at something, he would probably miss. He kept having the vision of the crowd of Mexicans coming down the road to avenge their gunshot leader—a mass of bodies and eyes, arms and legs into which he had poured his ammunition. He did not know whether he had hit anyone, but had the feeling he must have. It was strange, he thought, that he felt no particular reaction—unless he were to count the trembling.
“Look out, now,” McDowell said. They were slipping along the side wall of a ’dobe. McDowell flattened himself against the end of the wall and poked his head around for a look down the street. Then he gestured with his free hand and went around out of sight.
Bill Randolph followed him; Charley was right behind Bill. The three of them stopped at the head of the street. From here they could see part of the plaza, two blocks distant. The twin domes of the church lifted above the rooftops of squat yellow-gray buildings. Bill’s tongue came out and moistened his lips. His head was defiantly set back on his thick Prussian neck. The three other men came around the corner and stood with them. The street appeared deserted—dry, sunlit, dusty. Quite crisp and loud was the sound of Bill’s rifle-hammer drawing back to full cock. There was sweat on Charley’s palms and he rubbed them, one at a time, against the coarse grain of his trousers. His hat felt tight and he pushed it back an inch. From some other part of town came the rapid chatter of gunfire. It lasted only a short while. “Come on,” McDowell said. “Stay close to the buildings.”
Bill Randolph and two of the others trotted across the head of the street and started down the opposite side. Charley got up on the sidewalk behind McDowell. They walked forward putting one boot in front of the other. Once Charley thought he saw a man’s hatbrim outlined above a roof across the street, but when he turned it was gone. A few more shots went off in another part of town. He wondered where everyone had gone. Had they deserted the town in the face of the gringo riflemen? It didn’t seem likely.
A Mexican in a wide sombrero with crossed belts running from shoulder to waist came in a rush from a doorway a block down the street, shouting in Spanish. He had a musket and he lifted it. Charley thought it was aimed right at him. He tried to bring his gun around, but it swung with ponderous slowness. A single shot crashed against his ears and the Mexican spun half-around, dropped his gun, and wheeled back into the doorway from which he had come. McDowell stopped to reload his rifle. “We’ll have to go in after that one,” he said. “He’ll probably have a knife.”
But then the Mexican leaped out of the doorway again. Somewhere he had armed himself with a huge flintlock horse pistol, over which he leaned. It was a strange sight—the man standing in the middle of the street bent over a pistol, trying to get it cocked. Charley heard a roar of laughter and saw Bill Randolph take a casual aim and shoot. The Mexican’s feet slipped out from under him and he fell in an ungainly sprawl. The pistol flipped away from him. He raised his head and stared at it. Standing where he was, Bill Randolph calmly reloaded and took aim again, but then the Mexican’s face turned and dropped into the dirt, and Bill did not fire. “Jesus Christ,” Charley heard McDowell mutter. “What a Goddamn mess.” They went foot by foot downstreet toward the edge of the plaza. At every window they stopped to reconnoiter; at every door they stopped and pushed inside, guns ready. Every place seemed deserted. Furniture stood empty. In a window across the street, behind Bill and his men, a Mexican appeared with a shotgun. Charley’s breath hung up in his chest. The shotgun muzzle lifted and Charley turned his gun on that man and fired. He had not aimed his shot; he had only pointed and pulled the trigger. But the Mexican sagged across the sill and dropped his shotgun. Charley swallowed. The Mexican did not move at all. Still, he was far enough away to remain an impersonal target. Charley had yet to see death close up.
“Reload,” McDowell told him, and went on down the street.
CHAPTER 20
“God damn it,” said Jim Woods, “I knew there was something crazy. It’s April Fool’s Day!”
A rattle of laughter went around the big room. Crabb’s voice cut across it sharply: “Watch your posts.”
Men crouched with their rifles laid across windowsills. The massive front door was barred with a heavy timber. In a back bedroom two wounded men lay on luxurious beds. Furniture had been pushed aside in the big parlor; supplies were stacked in the center of the room. Periodically a shot came from the church across the square where the Mexican troops had fortified themselves. In the front windows, Bill Randolph and Norval Douglas and five other men answered the fire. The smell and taste of powdersmoke was powerful and bitter. Charley sat in a front corner pressing the bandage that covered a bullet-burn on his left arm. Around him men cursed and fretted. He felt detached and cool and slightly lightheaded. The events of the last hour were a blur in his mind—battling armies surging back and forth across the square; a line of men driving the Mexicans into the walls of the church while behind them another line of men feverishly unloaded the pack animals and rushed the supplies into this thick-walled mansion opposite the church. He had only a vague idea of what had happened; he did not understand how they had achieved the sanctuary of this fortress-like house and in the doing of it only suffered two minor casualties and a few bullet scratches like his own. Across the room a small group of men was laughing and spraying obscenities, talking contemptuously of Mexican marksmanship. The Mexicans had been scared; but Charley did not laugh at them. He knew how they felt. He remembered the women, the children, the old men spilling back from invaded homes, driven back from all sides and trapped in the open plaza, fired at from the streets and falling back into the convent beside the old church. Horses rearing and screaming. Men cutting the packsaddle cinches and dragging the loaded saddles back into the big house. A line of men crouched down and squinting across their sights. The Mexican troops, confused and leaderless, backing into the church. A stocky Mexican officer who looked more like a miner than a soldier, finally taking charge and laying siege to the Americans who had gathered in this great sprawling house which must have belonged to the wealthiest citizen of Caborca.
Old John Edmonson came over and stooped over him, looming in the strange shadows. “Do you want a drink?”
“Yes.”
Edmonson went away and presently returned with a canteen. Charley swallowed the tepid water. “What’s going on?” he said.
“The Mexicans have moved back in the church. Some of them are up in the towers shooting at us. A few of them tried to run for the next buildings.”
Tried. Charley looked at the blank casual expression on the old man’s face. What had the last hour done to him? Edmon-son carried his revolver in his fist. Charley got up and handed the canteen back and went to the window nearest him. Norval Douglas looked up and said mildly, “Keep your head back, Charley.”
“If I do that I can’t see anything.”
“All right.” He turned back to his corner. Across the room Crabb was in conference with his officers. They seemed to be arguing. A bullet poked a small hole in the back wall; it must have come through one of the windows. Edmonson sat down beside him; his look had turned sour. He said, “How old are you, Charley? Fifteen? Sixteen? You don’t belong here.”
“Nobody belongs here.”
“I suppose not.” Douglas fired and the shot was deafening. Edmonson said, “This is ridiculous. We’re not savages.”
“Aren’t we?”
“I hope to God we’re not. What’s the point of all this? Charley, what in God’s name are we doing here?”
His voice had risen. Men were looking at him. Edmonson trailed off and turned his face into the shadows. His plea rang in Charley’s ears. Charley felt very calm next to him. He put his hand on the old man’s arm. Edmonson looked up, perhaps with gratitude, and got up stiffly to leave. He was muttering when he walked away.
The man at the second window cried out and rolled back from his post. A bullet had seared the top of his shoulder. Charley crawled forward and took that man’s place; the injured man went back with two others attending him.
Through the window Charley could see the front of the church. It was a tall two-domed structure. He dragged his rifle up and laid it across the sill, and sat looking out the corner of the opening. He laid his ammunition out beside him on the floor. A bird flew across the square and some fool shot at it, missing it, and McDowell’s voice bawled, “Cut that out!” Charley couldn’t see anyone inside the dark windows of the church, but a shot plunked into the wall of the house and he saw a drift of muzzle smoke. Two others fired on it before he cocked his rifle.
“Charley.”
It was Bill Randolph, beside him at the next window. Charley said, “What?”
“Nothing,” Bill said. When his gun went off it startled Charley. Bill pulled the gun in and began to pour powder down the barrel. He said, “On April eighteenth of ’Forty-seven, I fought under Lieutenant Tom Sweeny at the battle of Cerro Gordo. This ain’t the first time I’ve shot at Mexicans, by God. In August that year I was at Churubusco.” Bill carried his battle flags with pride. “I accounted for sixteen greasers at Cerro Gordo,” he said. “I didn’t count at Churubusco. Ain’t none of them can fight worth a damn. I think we ought to bust out of here and pull that Goddamn church down around their ears. Don’t know what we’re waiting for.”
Charley did not know either. Across the room Crabb and the officers were still arguing. The Mexicans fired four or five shots from the church. Charley shot back and reloaded and shot again.
McDowell hunkered on his haunches, glowering at the floor in the center of the little circle of officers. Crabb’s indecision so irritated him that he wanted very much to wring the man’s neck. On the one hand Crabb was listening to McCoun, who wanted to retreat immediately to the border and give up the whole project. On the other hand he was listening to Holliday, who thought they ought to abandon Caborca and head downstream along the Rio Concepcion to meet Cosby’s troops, which by now must be on their way upriver not far away. McDowell’s own feeling was that they should storm the church and rout the Mexicans. They had only an inexperienced lieutenant to lead them now that the captain, Rodriguez, was dead on the road between the wheat fields, and the lieutenant obviously had no imagination, since he had done nothing but fort his men up and shoot petulantly across the square. And Crabb was also listening to Colonel Johns, who thought it might be a good idea to wait here for Cosby’s army, meanwhile hoping a higher-ranking Mexican officer might arrive and indicate the real intentions of Pesquiera’s government. The soldiers in the church were apparently local militia, and had perhaps reacted out of suspicion and unknowing fear. It was not possible to be certain they accurately reflected Pesquiera’s own frame of mind.
Crabb sat and talked, and talked. He had an irritating way of going off the subject, and then of returning to it and methodically listing all the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative plan. McDowell had to put down the impulse to shout at him.
For a while Crabb quieted down. McDowell looked bleakly at Lieutenant Will Allen, who answered his look with a dour downturn of his lips. Finally Crabb shook his head, tugged his beard, and said, “Gentlemen, we did not anticipate a reception anything like what happened this morning. I am certain that today’s violence was caused by the blundering inexperience of the local officers. I do not believe this hostility represents the feelings of the government. After all, we have a written agreement with Pesquiera, and I have always regarded him as a man of his word. But in spite of that, we are faced with a situation that is patently military in nature. Frankly, I suggest under the circumstances that we allow the military minds to guide our actions. Captain McDowell, what is the West Point answer to our predicament?”
“Attack,” McDowell said immediately.
“I tend to agree,” Crabb said. McDowell looked at him. Every once in a while the general surprised him. Crabb said, “After all, no matter what the larger picture may be, we have been attacked belligerently and besieged. We are certainly within our rights to retaliate.”
“I don’t like it,” McCoun said flatly. “Men are bound to get hurt, perhaps killed—no, I’ll make that stronger: they are bound to get killed.” McCoun always talked like the captain of a debating team. No set of circumstances seemed adequate to shake him. He said, “Obviously Mexico is hostile to us. Obviously Pesquiera does not intend to keep his bargain. We have nothing to gain by staying here, except perhaps the satisfaction of stubborn pride. It’s folly to do anything but retreat; it’s more than folly to attack—it is criminal negligence.”
“You are free to voice your opinion,” Crabb said coolly. “I for one do not intend to let these people get away with the affront they have presented to us.”
“Oh, God,” McCoun said softly. McDowell glared at him.
“We are considered enemies here,” Crabb said. “None of us can doubt that. We must act accordingly.” He stood up and walked to the center of the room, by the piled supplies. He said, “I want your attention.”
Men turned to face him, all but those who guarded the windows. Crabb said, “The natives here have seen fit to treat us with malice and violence. They must be taught that this is not acceptable conduct. I propose to lead an attack against the troops in the church. We will charge the convent and gain entrance through that side of the building. I now call for volunteers.”
Men looked at one another. McDowell shouldered his rifle and stepped forward, looking around the room with measured contempt. Norval Douglas came away from his post and stood beside him. Jim Woods came up. William Chaney, Clark Small. Bill Randolph came over. Lieutenant Will Allen walked across the room to stand by McDowell. McDowell looked at them one by one. Randolph—that one would go anywhere to find violence. Allen, a good soldier. Chaney—a Nevadan with cool gray eyes and a crippled shoulder. Woods—an ex-saloonkeeper with leather skin and a sure grip on his gun. Clark Small, a nondescript man with a nondescript expression. Norval Douglas—tough and proud. Others came over, some of them reluctantly. He had a glimpse of the boy, Charley Evans, posted by a window with his rifle, looking at Norval Douglas in a strange, uncertain way; but the boy did not move.
“Is this all?” Crabb said.
“I count fifteen of us,” McDowell said. “It should be enough.”
“All right. Come on,” Crabb said.
McDowell pointed to Bill Randolph. “You—bring one of those powder kegs and a slow-match fuse.” Then he turned and followed Crabb to the door.
Crabb was businesslike. He took out his revolver and inspected its load, then said, “Give me a hand here,” and helped lift down the heavy timber that barred the door. It was a massive wooden door; musket balls would not penetrate it. Crabb looked around. “Is everyone ready?”
“All set,” McDowell said. Just before he flung the door open, he had a
swift contemptuous look around the room at the fifty-odd men who had not volunteered. They sat packed along the side walls, crouched behind the supply piles, crowded into doorways. He said to the men at the windows, “Lay down a heavy fire against the church to keep their heads down until we’re across the plaza.” Men came forward out of the shadows and crowded against the windows, some of them looking half-shamefaced but aiming steadily enough through the openings. McDowell said, “Keep your eyes open,” and pulled the door open.
A flurry of shots issued from the windows of the long, low-roofed house. McDowell plunged through the doorway, broke out into the sunlight and ran with legs pumping toward the convent. He saw no one in the church windows; the heavy fire had driven the Mexicans back. It was a long run. He slammed up against the convent wall, his back to it and his chest heaving. Crabb and Allen and Randolph were close on his heels; the others were strung out across the square. He whirled and made a low dive through an open window. A woman screamed; there was a succession of gunshots loud in his ears. He saw a Mexican soldier looming with a big-bore musket, and shot the man down point-blank. Someone came in through the window behind him and knocked him down. Women and loud little children were squeezing in panic through a back door. A nun in black stood calmly by the wall, her arms folded. Bill Randolph was standing with his feet spread, leaning forward, pumping shots out of his revolver. McDowell scrambled to his feet, drawing his pistol. A soldier swung through the church door to investigate, wheeled back and pushed the door shut. McDowell ran to it but the door was barred. He heard crashing noises beyond the door—the Mexicans were barricading it with furniture. A little girl ran past him, crying. The nun stooped and picked up the child and carried her outside through the back door. Crabb and Will Allen had crossed the room to guard that door. Bill Randolph was trying to hold onto the powder keg and reload his pistol at the same time. A group of soldiers plunged in through the back door, forcing Crabb and Allen back, firing savagely. McDowell emptied his gun into them and felt his body lurch and buck. The Mexicans retreated and Jim Woods sprang forward to shut the door, but just as he reached it a bullet caught him in the throat and he pitched outward through the doorway. One of the men dragged him back and slammed the door and barred it. When McDowell looked down he saw that his right arm was bleeding profusely; later when he counted the wounds he found that he had been hit nine times in that arm. Most of the wounds were superficial; one bullet had sliced through a muscle and he could not move the arm. He shifted the revolver to his left hand and grimly tried to reload.
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