XXXI: "BRAINS WIN"
Two days later Bull awoke from a wild nightmare through which drunkenfaces, infuriated faces, maudlin women faces, had whirled in a madphantasmagoria, devil's dance of singing, drinking, swearing, fighting.As though it were another, he dimly saw himself hurling men through awindow while glass crashed and furniture crumbled around him. Moreclearly, a second picture stood out--of a big black rustler--to wit,himself--set up against a wall before a firing-squad. He even saw therifles aimed, and yet--his brain cool and that enormous desire gone, helay in a little cell-like adobe room. Light streamed over the sheetacross the doorway, and as, rising, he looked out into the _patio_ ofthe German Club he heard far off the boom of cannon punctuating thestaccato pulsations of rifle-fire.
"The battle's on!"
As the thought passed through his mind it was killed by sudden agony,poignant, though mental, as physical pain. His great hands went up andcovered his face, but could not shut out despair. "My God! I've fallendown!"
Outside people were moving and talking. But he paid no heed; just stood,face buried in his hands, till he recognized the "dean's" voice.
"Well, come on, fellows! They're going to it again. Let's get out wherewe can see."
"I'll take a look at Diogenes first," came the voice of his friend. "Youchaps go on. I'll catch up."
Bull dropped his hands, revealing bleared eyes and swollen face to thecorrespondent's gaze. "Well! well! Up and bright as a cricket! You wentit some in El Paso, Diogenes; but--last night!" He shook his head inmock reproof.
"What did you do? What didn't you do? Drank up all the whisky here, thenwent out and tried to dry up the cantinas. A few are still inbusiness--those you didn't break up. It took a troop to round you up.They had you stuck against a wall when Enrico, my amigo, happened along.Remembering that he had seen you with me, he brought you over here."
"Well, I'm sorry! damned sorry that he did!" Bull shrugged. "On'y to beshot, like a soldier, would be too good a death for me. My kind smotherin the gutter."
His bitterness touched the other. "Look here, old man, don't take it sohard. We all of us have our slips. The only thing to do is to get up andgo on again."
Underneath his first lightness and present sympathy a heavier feelinghad made itself felt. Bull had stretched out again on the cot, and now,as he stood looking down upon him, the correspondent's face grew grave.Once he opened his lips; then, unconsciously, Bull opened the way.
"Where's Benson?" He looked up. "Did he go again to Valles?"
"Unfortunately, yes. His consul warned him against it--without avail.What happened we can only guess. You know his temper; remember what hesaid on the train. Perhaps he threatened Valles. He could not have donemuch more, for he left his guns in the car with the Chinaman. 'So if theson of a gun kills me,' he told him, 'the boys will know it for murder.'He must have had a hunch, for he never came back."
"Dead?" Bull broke a shocked silence.
The other nodded. "They acknowledge it--say he tried to kill Valles,which is, of course, all rot."
Bull had leaped up. "Dead! And I did it! Drunken swine that I am! It'sno use." He waved away expostulations. "You yourself warned me not tolet him go alone!" He started out the door.
"Here!" the correspondent seized him. "Where are you going?"
"Out--to get drunk--get killed if I kin!"
Though he waved like a blown leaf at the end of the club-like arm, thecorrespondent stuck. "All right! all right! But what's your hurry?You'll be a long time dead, old man. If you must get killed, come withme."
Through Bull's black despair flashed a sardonic gleam. "Humph! Stand ona hill with a pair of glasses five miles off?"
"Not on your life, hombre! When we interviewed him yesterday that'sexactly the crack Valles made about 'gringo correspondents' and'long-distance reporting.' I'm going to show the beggar. It's me for theoutposts where folks get killed."
Now, in his turn, Bull showed no concern. "Don't be a fool! You're paidto get the news, not to do Valles's fighting."
The change of positions was so swift, the correspondent could notrepress a grin. "What's sauce for Diogenes is sauce for me. If you havea right to get yourself killed, so have I."
The black shadow again wrapped Bull. "I've good reason. If I kin gitmyself shot, like a man, I'm just that much ahead. But you--"
"Aw, shut up! Do you think I am going to let that greasy bandit get awaywith a crack like that? We're doing too much talking. Come on!"
"I'd--" Bull hesitated. "I'd like to see--_his_ consul first. Hiswife--she'd naterally like to know. She's in El Paso, just now, an' Iknow her address."
"We go past there. Then I want a minute with our consul. In case I don'tturn up, I wouldn't want my San Francisco girl to be wearing weeds toolong."
Going out, Bull stopped at the bar. "You needn't to be scairt." Heanswered the other's look. "My thirst's over--for a while. But I need abracer." Yet the half-glass of raw brandy he swallowed had a deadliersignificance. It marked the utter abandonment of hope, sealed his returnto the old life.
Shortly thereafter the two entered the British consulate. With the quietof despair he listened while the consul talked.
"I did my best to prevent Mr. Benson from going back, and thought I'dsucceeded. If it hadn't been that he was seen going in, he would simplyhave disappeared. As it is, the cuartel general has given out severalstories. First, that he tried to shoot Valles; which is absurd, for hecarried no gun. Then that he was shot while trying to escape after beingplaced under arrest. Lastly--to satisfy me and give his murder thesemblance of a military execution--that he was tried by drumheadcourt-martial and fusiladoed for his attempt on the life of the general.But of one thing I can assure you, Mr. Perrin"--he went on from a heavypause--"this does not end it. Already the particulars are entered uponmy records, and the British government never forgets. It may be oneyear--it may be ten. But when peace is restored this business will comeup again. No matter how high the murderer may have risen, how low he mayhave fallen, the case will never be dropped till there appears oppositethe name of William Benson in our archives, 'The murderer was brought tojustice.'"
The quiet surety of his speech, based on a record of centuries amongwild peoples, made it impressive. Outside, the correspondent commentedthereon in his breezy fashion.
"That's Johnny Bull for you, dignified, slow in speech, but surer thanhell! One of his subjects is killed in a far corner of Afghanistan. Upgoes a regiment and decimates the tribe--or a brigade, or an army, ifnecessary; in which case, to offset the expense, the country becomes aBritish province. Hombre! how long do you suppose it would take that fatold fellow to settle this Mexican affray? Humph! He'd make shorter workof these mushroom generals and sawdust presidents than he did of theHindu rajahs."
In another way the scene at the American consulate was equallyimpressive. When they entered the single little stuffy room, twelve feetsquare and entered from an alley, that conserved the dignity of theUnited States the consul looked up, then handed the correspondent aletter.
"Hum! Last call for Americans to get out of Mexico!" He coughedironically. "Know ye, all gringos, by these presents: Owing to the factthat four hundred of you have been murdered, ravished, or tortured, andin order to remove further temptation from the path of the gentleMexican, you are hereby ordered, without regard to your financialability, consideration for the lives you endanger in transit, orproperty left behind, to return to your own country and thereby savethis department from further annoyance by your kicks and complaints!Oyez! Oyez! Frankly," he turned to the consul, "what do you think ofit?"
The consul shrugged his shoulders. "You wish to register?"
His pen scratched in the silence for a while, setting down thecorrespondent's name and commission. "Anybody else you wish to notify?"
The pen scratched on in silence the name of the San Francisco girl. Thenhe reached for the letter the correspondent handed.
"To be sent, in case of your death. Now, Mr. Perrin?"
&n
bsp; The pen scratched Lee's name and address.
"Anything to send?"
"Nothing!"
"Very well, gentlemen!" His superficial cheerfulness was denied by hishandshake--the sympathetic pressure of comrades under stress. "I shallobserve your wishes--if possible. Well--" His shoulders rose again."Hasta luego! Till we meet again."
"A brave man in a weak place!" The correspondent rightfully placed him,outside. "Now, Diogenes, for the front."
An hour later, after a heart-bursting run on foot for the lastquarter-mile through small fountains of dust raised by shrapnel andrifle-bullets, the pair gained the uttermost outpost, a low wall ofstones on the crest of a small hill that lay like a halved orange on theflat of the desert. A mile eastward, from the crest of the other half, abattery of French "threes" was spitting shrapnel with the feverishenergy of an angry cat.
Between the hills ran a trench lined with thousands of revolutionists,whose incessant fire shrouded the front in bluish haze that was shotthrough and through with darting puffs. To the west and a quarter-milein the rear, a second battery occupied a smaller elevation, protectingthat flank.
Of the enemy, thirty thousand Carranzistas, out there on the plain wereto be seen only lines of smoke that hung low over sand and chaparral ina great half-moon, the tips of which extended beyond the Vallistapositions. But they could hear, too plainly, the twit! twit! of theceaseless leaden rain passing overhead. Now and then a bullet wouldstrike the wall with the sharp ring of a hammer on stone. Slippingthrough an embrasure, one pierced the brain of a revolutionist.
Seizing the dead man's rifle, Bull stepped into his place.
It was not that he particularly desired to kill Carranzistas. He wouldhave shot Vallistas with equal will. But besides wringing a moment'ssurcease from his black despair, the instant his eye fell to the sightsand he felt the familiar pressure of the butt, the old daredevil rustlerspirit revived. As on the night he fought off Livingstone and his_vaqueros_ on the Little Stony, as on a hundred other occasions, everyother feeling was drowned in a heady lust for fight. Just as carefullyas though his life depended on it, he drew his beads on the lighterpuffs that peppered the distant smoke. Watching him load and fire,grimly earnest, the sweat trickling in pale runlets down through thedust on his face, the correspondent nodded his satisfaction.
"Poor old Diogenes! But if he keeps busy he'll soon get over it."
Drawing his own weapons, a pencil and pad, he sat down on a boulder andbegan to take notes. And surely there was no lack of material. Thespitting guns, trenches crammed with brown, ant-like men, the cracklingrifle-fire, the desert shining like brass under the intolerable glare ofthe sun beyond the smoke haze, formed the background for a queer mixtureof dirty comedy and squalid tragedy.
A few yards away, behind a second short wall, a brown girl sat on herheels patting out _tortillas_ while she gossiped with another girl, incomplete indifference to the bullets flying overhead. At least she wasindifferent until, glancing from the top stones, one upset hercoffee-pot and quenched her little cooking-fire. Then, pretty faceconvulsed with rage, she shook her fist at the distant smoke-line whilescreaming frightful curses.
"Damned dogs of Carranzistas!" she finished with her last, spent breath."Wait! Wait for the Valles riders! Then there will be a scampering withtails between the legs!"
Her mishap had drawn a roar of laughter from the revolutionists. Thefellow that stood next to Bull now turned his grinning, sweaty face."Ole, Amalia! Bring me a drink and thou shalt have the knifing of myfirst prisoner."
Her coarse answer drew a second roaring laugh. Nevertheless, whilemaking it, she picked up her water-bottle. Less than a score of yardsseparated the two walls, yet it afforded stage room for the tragedy thatburst in the middle of the comedy. For as she ran with a swift,shuffling step across it, the bullet of an invisible enemy found itsmark; she collapsed in a heap.
Bull, also, had looked around. Now, heedless of the correspondent'syell: "Come back, you fool! She's dead! shot through the head!" he ranout, picked up the poor creature and brought her behind the wall.
As he laid her down the other girl came running across the bullet-sweptspace and threw herself on the body with cries and lamentations. She wasnot dead! She could not be dead, Amalia! the friend of her soul! For awhile she ran on in a passion of grief. Then, springing up, eyesflashing white in her furious, distorted face, she flung her franticcurses at the distant line.
"Kill them, the damned Carranzistas! He who kills the most this dayshall be my lover!"
"And here comes he that will do it!" The man on Bull's left touched hisshoulder.
Up the hill behind them a battery was coming, stretched on a scramblinggallop. Alongside the guns, urging the drivers on, a man rode a greatblack stallion at the head of a cavalry detachment. Even at a distancethe harsh, monotonous voice rose above the rattle of the limbers,rifle-fire, booming guns.
"It's Valles!"
As the correspondent pointed, looking back at Bull, the great blackhorse launched out and shot up the hill.
"Make way, hombres, for the guns!"
Amber eyes aflame, brute mouth working, face quivering like shakenvitriol, he was herding the men aside when his glance fell on thecorrespondent. Then, though his face drew into a grin, comprehensionflashed in his hot eyes.
"Ole, companero!" His wave of the hand took in all. "Hot work! butnothing to that which is to come. Mira!"
Following his pointing finger, they saw to the westward a great cloud ofdust, long, thick, and low, rolling in upon their right flank."Carranzista cavalry! But--look again!"
Looking always to their front, they had seen nothing of the cavalry,brigade after brigade, which was forming under cover of the hill to thewest and behind them. Ten thousand wild horsemen were in the mass.Thousands of others were streaming out of the town. Big hands clutchingas though he had them already in his grasp, eyes again aflame, Vallesshook his fist at the distant dust.
"Wait, my dear amigos los Carranzistas! Wait!"
The guns just then topped the hill, and, sitting the great black horsewith reckless hardihood out in the open, indifferent to the whistlingbullets, he directed their emplacement. "To the left, hombres! a littlemore! To the right! easy! not quite so much!" The last one set, herasped out a last command: "Bueno! Now shoot into the dust!" Thenfollowed by his staff he went galloping down the hill.
"He bears a charmed life!" The man next Bull spoke again. "Out of ahundred battles he has come with never a hurt." He added, with a wink,"An' it was not always from his front the bullets came."
Bull had looked on, brows bent in a heavy glower. Now the coal eyes litwith a sudden inspiration. The man had turned again to his shooting. Theartillerymen were laying their guns. They fired just as Bull threw uphis rifle and drew a bead on the black horse and rider. Sweeping back,the smoke blotted all out. As it cleared, and his eye dropped again tothe sights, the correspondent struck up the muzzle.
"What are you trying to do?"
"Justice on that grinning devil."
"Good job no one saw you." A quick glance around showed the artillerymenand revolutionists absorbed in their own work "Do you know what theywould have done to both of us--skinned us alive, boiled us in oil, orsomething equally nice. Have a heart! If you don't care yourself, justthink what nice reading it would make for my San Francisco girl, 'Havingtoasted him on one side, they then proceeded to fry the other.'"
"I hadn't thought of that. But if I'd been alone--"
He sent a black flash after the receding figure, then turned again tohis loophole.
On his part the correspondent watched till Valles disappeared in themassed cavalry below. Shortly thereafter it began to move, a huge, brownblanket embroidered with the flashing gold and silver of guns andsabers, _machetes_, accoutrements. For a while it was in full view. Thenthe impalpable desert dust enveloped it in rolling clouds from which,like the roar of distant surf, issued the thunder of pounding hoofs.Like the rolling, twisting funnel of a cyclone, it swept tow
ard thatother distant cloud, and when they met and merged the greater cloudrolled backward, slowly at first, then with increasing speed.
"Weekes was wrong!" It came out of the correspondent in an excited yell."He's smashed 'em to smithereens! Me for a wire at once!" But as thecloud continued to sweep on he added a qualification, "That is, ifValles stops and comes back."
When, later, the cloud drew steadily down the horizon the doubt evolvedinto criticism. "Whatever is he thinking of? There he's gone with allthe cavalry and left his flank exposed!"
At intervals along the far blue haze the flash of cannon now broke withgreater frequency. The rifle-fire rivaled the rapid roll of a thousanddrums. Answering the "threes," shrapnel shell came on long, shriekingcurves and burst around them. In as many minutes one blew up the nextwall, killing half its defenders. A second disabled a gun. The man nextto Bull collapsed without a groan.
Turning his glasses eastward, the correspondent saw men piling in heapswhere shrapnel was bursting on the edge of the trench. On the far hillcame the flash of explosions among the Valles guns.
"Brains win! They were only playing with us, using less than a third oftheir guns! They've drawn Valles off with a false retreat! Now they'llflank us! My God! there they come!"
From the chaparral, on their right, had burst a new, thick line ofsmoke. Bullets were slipping like hail along their flank, tumbling men.He leaped and caught Bull's arm.
"Come on! Let's get while we can!"
They could already see the Carranzistas, thousands of them, half-wild,maniacal figures, looming through the smoke. Yet Bull shook his head.
"Some chance for shooting now. Light out yourself."
"Man! Valles is defeated!" The other seized and shook him. "Do you knowwhat that means? This army will be scattered throughout northern Mexico.If you won't consider yourself, think of your girl! Are you going toleave her to face this bandit rabble, stung by defeat, mad againstAmericans?"
Bull had turned on him with suppressed fury. But through the din andsmoke, into that hell of cries and groans, whistling, crashing shells,there came to him first the old wistful vision of Mary and Betty Mills;then the feel of Lee's soft, cool arms on his neck. Himself forgotten,the lust of battle suddenly chilled, he shook with fear.
"Come on!"
Turning, he ran down the hill toward the chaparral where they had hiddentheir horses, half a mile away. Coming in they had faced only the rainof bullets curved over the hill. Now, from the flank, they came fast andlow, a heavy cross-fire. Yet while they ran breathlessly through thedust under the merciless blaze of the sun the correspondent cracked hisjokes.
"Consolation race! Odds a hundred to one!" he gasped. "Gosh! but thatchaparral is going faster the other way!"
A few minutes later he dropped, almost on its edge. Yet even in thatdire moment he remained his cheerful self.
"Shot in the leg! I always said that was the only way they'd ever getme. Here's my notes, Diogenes! Give them to Weekes and tell him to chuck'em on to the wires. Now, _run like hell_!"
And Bull did "run like hell"--with the correspondent across hisshoulders, into the chaparral where the rain of bullets slacked; fadedout by the time he reached the horses. The bullet had gone through theknee. All that he could do was to stop the bleeding with a handkerchieftwisted tight above. Then, with the correspondent lying forward in hissaddle, arms around his horse's neck, he headed for the town.
As they rode, in their rear rose a huge, raucous voice, the chargingyell of the Carranzistas pouring in a brown flood over the trenches.Followed the terrible roar of a rout--yells, shrieks, curses, victoriousshouts, scattering shots, occasional volleys. On the edge of the town itcaught and engulfed them, that mad rout. Helpless jetsam, they floatedabove, a stream of wild, sweating faces, powder-grimed, bloody, fleckedwith a yeast of glistening, fearful eyes, floated through the paintedadobe streets to the railroad yards.
There fugitives were already piling by thousands on top of the trainsand increasing the confusion; there came, just then, a flash from thehills they had left. Followed the shriek, rising crescendo of the shell,then--the explosion smoke cleared, showing a splintered massbe-spattered with mangled humanity that had been, a moment before,sentient human beings. The Carranzistas were shelling the station withValles's own guns.
"We're farther up!" the correspondent whispered through white, drawnlips. "We bribed the engineer, last night, to pull us out on the mainline to insure our getaway."
He spoke again, with an effort, when they had ridden another half-mile."That's queer. It stood about here, yet I don't see the placards.Perhaps we have overshot."
But as Bull made to turn a man slipped from the brake-rods under a carahead. "Here, senores! This way!"
Just then, too, the door rolled back and the "dean" looked out. "Hurryup! Ten minutes more and you would have been too late. The GonzalesBrigada played discretion for the better part of valor and made a quicksneak. We go next! We tore off the signs for fear they might cut us out.We're traveling, for the present, incognito. You're hurt! Here, youfellows, lift him in and shut the door quick!"
After the correspondent had been laid in his bunk the "dean" turned toBull. "That chap outside has been here ever since yesterday morning,looking for you. He said his business was muy importante, so theChinaman kept him fed. Perhaps you had better see what he wants."
But when Bull looked out the man was gone. Also, just then, a welcomeaccompaniment to the roar of the mad rout outside, came the groan, bang,and rattle of cars starting in succession under the engine's tug.
Over the Border: A Novel Page 31