Bamboo Tales

by Ira L. Reeves

I started on a tour of inspection at about 9:30, visiting first the post on the railroad on the left of the line, then taking the other posts in succession down toward the right It had rained in torrents for several days, and wide, deep pools of water had formed everywhere along the way. Because of these pools, I was wearing high-topped rubber boots. Shortly after ten o’clock I arrived at the next to the last post on the line, which was about two hundred and fifty yards farther on. Between these two pickets was the most dense growth of bamboo trees and banana stalks to be found in that neighborhood, and the entire distance was a continuous chain of diminutive lakes. There was a path leading through this net-work from one picket to the other.

It was drizzling. The immense spreading leaves of the banana and thickly matted foliage of the bamboo formed a canopy that shut out every trace of light. No dungeon was ever darker than this path.

Notwithstanding the gloomy surroundings caused by the death-like stillness, the darkness of the night, the water dripping from the overhanging vegetation and completely saturating my clothes, my occasionally colliding with a thorny shrub, or tripping over a low-hanging vine, I was in excellent spirits. I groped along the cave-like way, humming in a low tone “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” and had reached a point about midway between the pickets. Then, although I could see no one, I suddenly became aware of the presence of a human being.

I stopped as if I had been struck dead, and strained my eyes. There, just in front of me, near enough for me to grasp with my hands, I saw the dim outlines of a short, thick-set man. Was he one of my men? No, for no man would dare to leave his post at that time of night. Should he be discovered in such an act, the penalty for his crime would be death.

“Hello! Who are you?” I said. There was no answer from the man; instead, I saw his right hand quickly strike out from his shoulder, and the flash of a glistening blade. I threw up my left hand, and our wrists met in heavy collision; but his blow was stronger than my ward, for I felt a sharp sting in my face just below the left eye, and a moment later the warm blood trickled down my cheek. With my left hand I grabbed his wrist just below the thumb and gripped it like grim death, but he was not to be beaten thus. I felt the sinews of his wrist rise, and the grinding of the muscles, and then the same stinging sensation that I had felt in my face I now felt in my wrist.

I could count the cuts as he made them—one, two, three—all on my left wrist and hand, and then the blood began to run down my forearm, as our hands were elevated.

This occupied but a second of time. He raised his left hand, and I saw another flash. What it was I knew not, but I immediately grasped his wrist and tried to force this hand behind him. Before I could do so, he fired, and the ball passed through my left boot-leg. The muzzle was so close to me that the force of the powder almost threw me to the earth. I ground my teeth in a desperate effort to force his hand behind him. My left hand, cut and bleeding, still held his right. Now forcing the fight with the revolver, he tried vainly to raise it and shoot me in the body. Throwing my whole strength on my right arm, I succeeded in forcing back his revolver hand. At this he began to shoot at my feet.

The first shot missed, but he immediately followed it with another. It struck, for my right foot felt as if it had been hit with a club, and grew numb. Four more shots came in quick succession. One of them—which I cannot tell—struck the same foot and broke the bridge, as I knew from the immediate loss of strength in that member.

Now all was quiet. We stood with our heaving chests touching. I felt his breath in my face, and his heart palpitating against my breast. There was a lull in the battle. I felt safe, as far as the revolver was concerned, for he had emptied that, but the deadly knife was still poised over my head. My life depended entirely on the strength of my wounded hand and wrist, which were holding the knife away from my throat.

Now I remembered that bolomen never travel alone. That he had comrades within a few feet of me, who were trying to distinguish between us, so that they might be sure that their knifes should enter my back instead of his, I was certain. My flesh cringed at the thought; I could almost feel the cold steel enter my body.