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, Señor, 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 vergüenza!" 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 Señor 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."
He put it that way to make it a cinch I'd stay. Nobody ever was kinder than him and the rest. Each day some one was with me to play cards, or checkers, or talk. Old Jim couldn't do enough for me. I think he'd spent all his time in the house if it wasn't that he must take hold outside. "Boy, I know what you did for me," he said. "There ain't no use talking about it between us, but what I have is yours."
Just the same, I knew that leg was all right, so one day, when I found myself alone, I got up to walk to the water-pail. I laid down on the floor so hard I near bu'sted my nose. "Guess I don't want any drink," thinks I. "I'll go to bed, instead." I couldn't make that, neither. My arms only held me for a second, then they sprung out at the elbow. I sweat and swore at the cussed contraptions that wouldn't work. Tears of rage come free and fast. Them arms and legs of mine had served me so long, I couldn't believe they'd gone back on me like that, and I was so ashamed to have the doctor come and ketch me that I flew into a fit, foamin' and fumin' and snarlin' like a trapped bear.
It was then the doctor entered on the scene. What he said was never intended to be repeated. Lord save us! He put my case in juicy words!
"Now, you red-headed young fool!" says he, as he rolled me in bed, "I want you to understand I'd beat your head off, if you were a well man, for this trick!" He shook his fist under my nose. "Wait till you get up!" says he.
"Ain't I?" says I, feeling good-natured once more to see him in such a wax. "Ain't I waiting?"
"I won't talk to you!" says he, and slams himself out of the room.