Chapter X The Coming of the Colorados
Before sunrise next morning, Fernando Silveyra, fully dressed, came into the room and said calmly to get up, that the colorados were coming. Juan Vallejo laughed: “How many, Fernando?”
“About a thousand,” he answered in a quiet voice, rummaging for his bandolier.
The patio was unusually full of shouting men saddling horses. I saw Don Petronilo, half dressed, at his door, his mistress buckling on his sword. Juan Santillanes was pulling at his trousers with furious haste. There was a steady rattle of clicks as cartridges slipped into rifles. A score of soldiers ran to and fro aimlessly, asking everyone where something was.
I don’t think we any of us really believed it. The little square of quiet sky over the patio gave promise of another hot day. Roosters crowed. A cow that was being milked bellowed. I felt hungry.
“How near are they?” I asked.
“Near.”
“But the outpost—the guard at the Puerta?”
“Asleep,” Fernando said, as he strapped on his cartridge-belt.
Pablo Arriola clanked in, crippled by his big spurs.
“A little bunch of twelve rode up. Our men thought it was only the daily reconnaissance. So after they drove them back, the Puerta guard sat down to breakfast. Then Argumedo himself and hundreds—hundreds——”
“But twenty-five could hold that pass against an army until the rest got there....”
“They’re already past the Puerta,” said Pablo, shouldering his saddle. He went out.
“The ————!” swore Juan Santillanes, spinning the chambers of his revolver. “Wait till I get at them!”
“Now meester’s going to see some of those shots he wanted,” cried Gil Tomas. “How about it, meester? Feel scared?”
Somehow the whole business didn’t seem real. I said to myself, “You lucky devil, you’re actually going to see a fight. That will round out the story.” I loaded my camera and hurried out in front of the house.
There was nothing much to see there. A blinding sun rose right in the Puerta. Over the leagues and leagues of dark desert to the east nothing lived but the morning light. Not a movement. Not a sound. Yet somewhere out there a mere handful of men were desperately trying to hold off an army.
Thin smoke floated up in the breathless air from the houses of the peons. It was so still that the grinding of tortilla meal between two stones was distinctly audible—and the slow, minor song of some woman at her work way around the Casa Grande. Sheep were maaing to be let out of the corral. On the road to Santo Domingo, so far away that they were mere colored accents in the desert, the four peddlers sauntered behind their burros. Little knots of peons were gathered in front of the hacienda, pointing and looking east. And around the gate of the big enclosure where the soldiers were quartered a few troopers held their horses by the bridle. That was all.
Occasionally the door of the Casa Grande vomited mounted men—two or three at a time—who galloped down the Puerta road with their rifles in their hands. I could follow them as they rose and fell over the waves of the desert, growing smaller all the time, until they mounted the last roll—where the white dust they kicked up caught the fierce light of the sun, and the eye couldn’t stand it. They had taken my horse, and Juan Vallejo didn’t have one. He stood beside me, cocking and firing his empty rifle.
“Look!” he shouted suddenly. The western face of the mountains that flanked the Puerta was in shadow still. Along their base, to the north and to the south, too, wriggled little thin lines of dust. They lengthened out—Oh so slowly. At first there was only one in each direction; then two others began, farther down, nearer, advancing relentlessly, like raveling in a stocking—like a crack in thin glass. The enemy, spreading wide around the battle, to take us in the flank!
Still the little knots of troopers poured from the Casa Grande, and spurred away. Pablo Arriola went, and Nicanor, waving to me brightly as they passed. Longinos Güereca rocketed out on his great tordillo horse, yet only half broken. The big gray put down his head and buck-jumped four times across the square.
“To-morrow for the mines,” yelled ‘Gino over his shoulder. “I’m very busy to-day—very rich—the lost mines of——” But he was too far away for me to hear. Martinez followed him, shouting to me with a grin that he felt scared to death. Then others. It made about thirty so far. I remember that most of them wore automobile goggles. Don Petronilo sat his horse, with field-glasses to his eyes. I looked again at the lines of dust—they were curving slowly down, the sun glorifying them—like scimitars.
Don Tomas galloped past, Gil Tomas at his heels. But someone was coming. A little running horse appeared on the rise, headed our way, the rider outlined in a radiant dust. He was going at furious speed, dipping and rising over the rolling land.... And as he spurred wildly up the little hill where we stood, we saw a horror. A fan-shaped cascade of blood poured from the front of him. The lower part of his mouth was quite shot away by a soft-nosed bullet. He reined up beside the colonel, and tried earnestly, terribly, to tell him something; but nothing intelligible issued from the ruin. Tears poured down the poor fellow’s cheeks. He gave a hoarse cry, and, driving his spurs deep in his horse, fled up the Santo Domingo road. Others were coming, too, on the dead run—those who had been the Puerta guard. Two or three passed right through the hacienda without stopping. The rest threw themselves upon Don Petronilo, in a passion of rage. “More ammunition!” they cried. “More cartridges!”
Don Petronilo looked away. “There isn’t any!” The men went mad, cursing and hurling their guns on the ground.
“Twenty-five more men at the Puerta,” shouted the Colonel. In a few minutes half of the new men galloped out of their cuartel and took the eastern road. The near ends of the dust lines were now lost to view behind a swell of ground.
“Why don’t you send them all, Don Petronilo?” I yelled.
“Because, my young friend, a whole company of colorados is riding down that arroyo. You can’t see them from there, but I can.”
He, had no sooner spoken than a rider whirled around the corner of the house, pointing back over his shoulder to the south, whence he had come.
“They’re coming that way, too,” he cried. “Thousands! Through the other pass! Redondo had only five men on guard! They took them prisoner and got into the valley before he knew it!”
“Valgame Dios!” muttered Don Petronilo.
We turned south. Above the umber rise of desert loomed a mighty cloud of white dust, shining in the sun, like the biblical pillar of smoke.
“The rest of you fellows get out there and hold them off!” The last twenty-five leaped to their saddles and started southward.
Then suddenly the great gate of the walled square belched men and horses—men without rifles. The disarmed gente of Salazar! They milled around as if in a panic. “Give us our rifles!” they shouted. “Where’s our ammunition?”
“Your rifles are in the cuartel,” answered the Colonel, “but your cartridges are out there killing colorados!”
A great cry went up. “They’ve taken away our arms! They want to murder us!”
“How can we fight, man? What can we do without rifles?” screamed one man in Don Petronilo’s face.
“Come on, compañeros! Let’s go out and strangle ’em with our hands, the—colorados!” yelled one. Five struck spurs into their horses, and sped furiously toward the Puerta—without arms, without hope. It was magnificent!
“We’ll all get killed!” said another. “Come on!” And the other forty-five swept wildly out on the road to Santo Domingo.
The twenty-five recruits that had been ordered to hold the southern side had ridden out about half a mile, and there stopped, seeming uncertain what to do. Now they caught sight of the disarmed fifty galloping for the mountains.
“The compañeros are fleeing! The compañeros are fleeing!”
For a moment there was a sharp exchange of cries. They looked at the dust cloud towering over them. They thought of the mighty army of merciless devils who made it. They hesitated, broke—and fled furiously through the chaparral toward the mountains.
I suddenly discovered that I had been hearing shooting for some time. It sounded immensely far away—like nothing so much as a clicking typewriter. Even while it held our attention it grew. The little trivial pricking of rifles deepened and became serious. Out in front now it was practically continuous—almost the roll of a snare-drum.
Don Petronilo was a little white. He called Apolinario and told him to harness the mules to the coach.
“If anything happens that we get the worst of it,” he said lightly to Juan Vallejo, “call my woman and you and Reed go with her in the coach. Come on, Fernando—Juanito!” Silveyra and Juan Santillanes spurred out; the three vanished toward the Puerta.
We could see them now, hundreds of little black figures riding everywhere through the chaparral; the desert swarmed with them. Savage Indian yells reached us. A spent bullet droned overhead, then another; then one unspent, and then a whole flock singing fiercely. Thud! went the adobe walls as bits of clay flew. Peons and their women rushed from house to house, distracted with fear. A trooper, his face black with powder and hateful with killing and terror, galloped past, shouting that all was lost....
Apolinario hurried out the mules with their harness on their backs, and began to hitch them to the coach. His hands trembled. He dropped a trace, picked it up, and dropped it again. He shook all over. All at once he threw the harness to the ground and took to his heels. Juan and I rushed forward. Just then a stray bullet took the off mule in the rump. Nervous already, the animals plunged wildly. The wagon tongue snapped with the report of a rifle. The mules raced madly north into the desert.
And then came the rout, a wild huddle of troopers all together, lashing their terrified horses. They passed us without stopping, without noticing, all blood and sweat and blackness. Don Tomas, Pablo Arriola, and after them little Gil Tomas, his horse staggering and falling dead right in front of us. Bullets whipped the wall on all sides of us.
“Come on, meester!” said Juan. “Let’s go!” We began to run. As I panted up the steep opposite bank of the arroyo, I looked back. Gil Tomas was right behind me, with a red- and black-checked serape round his shoulders. Don Petronilo came in sight, shooting back over his shoulder, with Juan Santillanes at his side. In front raced Fernando Silveyra, bending low over his horse’s neck. All around the hacienda was a ring of galloping, shooting, yelling men; and as far as the eye could reach, on every rise of the desert, came more.