by B. TRAVEN
In the afternoon the soldiers approached a big hacienda where the officer had decided to spend the night with his men. The soldiers rode into the wide inner patio of the hacienda, and the officer, after greeting the hacendado, asked him if he had seen ten men on horseback coming that way. The hacendado denied having seen a single soul the whole day long and added that he should know whether or not men had passed the hacienda during the day, since he had been at home all the time.
For some reason the officer changed his mind about staying here overnight, but he told the hacendado that he had to search the hacienda, to which the hacendado answered that the officer might do as he pleased.
No sooner did the soldiers come near the main building than they received a good greeting of bullets from all directions. One fell dead and three were wounded when the soldiers in retreat reached the main gate of the hacienda.
Haciendas are often built almost like fortresses, with all the buildings inside of a very wide patio, which is surrounded by stone walls crowned at intervals by little towers.
As soon as the last soldier left, the huge gate was closed from the inside. And now a real battle began. The officer of course might go back to headquarters and ask for more men and machine-guns. But he is a true soldier and does not run away from bandits. Nor would his men like him to do so. He would lose their respect. He has to accept battle and fight until the last cartridge is gone.
Since revolutionary times both parties know that the battle will end only with the destruction of one of them, and that no quarter will be asked or given. The besieged bandits know they have nothing to lose. They are shot anyway if caught alive. The same will happen to the soldiers if they don’t win the fight. If you wish to survive, you have to win the battle.
The officer ordered all the horses led behind a hill so that they would not be shot. The bandits do not waste bullets on the horses, for they know they must save their ammunition, the more so since their arms are not all alike, so that the same cartridges cannot be used by everyone. Besides they also hope to win the battle, and it would be bad economy to shoot the horses which they would own if they win.
The soldiers found they were not in a good position. The hacienda was located on a plain, and every soldier approaching could be seen as if marching on an ice-covered lake.
First, just to get the thing under way, the officer ordered a general attack on all four sides of the hacienda. The soldiers, well trained in modern warfare, scattered and crawled along the ground, making only short forward jumps, without waiting for the officer to whistle.
The officer took advantage of the fact that the hacienda had two gates, one in front, one at the back. He let his men go on, keeping up a slow fire to keep the besieged busy. A few soldiers reached the walls, but they were too high and could not be climbed without sacrificing every man who tried to get over.
After two hours’ fighting in this ineffectual way, the officer sent word round to all his men to be ready for the final attack. He gathered the greater number in front of the main gate and by a few tricks made the bandits believe that the attack would take place immediately, with an effort to break in the main gate. While the bandits concentrated all their attention on this gate, a small group of soldiers took the back gate, which was defended by only three men. Far less strong than the main gate, this one was easily opened by a man who, catlike, squeezed himself through a crack in the wall near it. The moment the bandits found the back gate in the hands of the soldiers, they were so confused that they all forgot about the main gate and put their whole force against the invaders at the back. Having foreseen that this would happen to a body undisciplined and without definite leadership, the officer now stormed the main gate with all his might. Before the bandits could think of organizing again to defend the main gate, it had been opened and the soldiers swarmed into the patio.
Here, of course, the fight became fiercest—man against man. Guns could no longer be used, and knives, stones, fists, had to take their places. The battle was finally carried inside the house, into the living-rooms and bedrooms.
Three hours after the soldiers arrived at the hacienda, the fight was over, won by the soldiers. Four of them were dead, three badly wounded, and ten had received slighter wounds. The officer had been shot twice, but he was still up and in full command.
The ten bandits had been joined by three other men who were hiding in the hacienda when the bandits arrived. The hacendado was found dead, so he could not be questioned to ascertain whether he himself was an accomplice of the bandits or whether he had been forced by them to take their side. Seven bandits were dead, two were wounded, and so was one of the three who had joined the bandits in their fight. The wounded and the sound alike were executed against the back wall half an hour later. Who would be so stupid as to take a bandit to a hospital to be cured and made fit once more to follow his trade? Not the officer and the soldiers sent after bandits to rid the country of public enemies, the pets of sob-sisters and prison-reformers. Rattlesnakes are killed whenever found near the dwellings of human beings. If man wants to follow his peaceful occupations, he cannot have a live rattlesnake in the neighborhood.
The peons of the hacienda went into hiding when the battle began. They now came out of their holes and helped the soldiers to get in the horses. The family of the hacendado were away on a visit in the capital.
In the pockets of the dead and the executed were found purses, jewelry, train-tickets, dollar bills, ladies’ handbags, and other things that come into the possession of active bandits. So there was no doubt that the officer again had got the right men. And again he got them in the right way—that is to say, he killed the rats first and afterwards looked them over to find out if they carried the pest. Luckily there were no reporters or photographers around to fill the papers with stories of heroic bandits fighting and dying bravely.
In this way all the bandits were caught sooner or later and executed on the spot. The country has its sporadic spells of banditry, but banditry never has become an institution, not even when, as may occasionally happen, a general or a politician uses hordes of bandits to further his own ends.
8
“That is all I know about this train assault and about the rounding up of the bandits,” Lacaud concluded his report. “Part of it I had from don Genaro, who read it to me from the papers, and part of it I heard on my way down to the village and from villagers who had been to market in town.”
For a minute Lacaud was silent. Then he asked: “Now that you know these men, do you still think me a spy or an accomplice of those murderers now on their way up here? Just answer me.”
“We have never said you are, and not for a minute do we think you have any connection with these women-killers,” Howard said. “Well, partners, I guess the question of confidence in our new partner is now settled.”
“All right with me.” Dobbs stretched out his hand to Lacaud. “Shake, partner,” he said.
“Welcome here.” Curtin offered Lacaud his hand.
Howard suddenly took a deep breath. “Why, the hell, then these men must be the last of the criminals the government is so hot to corner.”
“I’m sure of that,” Lacaud admitted. “In the papers there was something about a gang still not caught, and the leader of this group, the worst of the whole lot, was described as wearing a gold-painted palm hat.”
Curtin made a face. “If that is as you say, Lak, then it sure will be no laughing matter for us.” He climbed upon the rock and looked down the valley. After some time he said: “I can’t see these devils any longer. They must have gone another way.”
“Now, don’t you be so sure, kid,” Howard corrected him. “They are by now at the loop. You can’t see it from here. But as you can’t see them anywhere else, I’ll lay you any bet that they are right on the road up here. Let’s all go over to that side of the rock. There we may see them again when they have passed the loop and turned into that path crossing the naked rock. They ought to be on that path inside of a few minu
tes. If we don’t see them, they may have given up coming here. Otherwise—well, we’ll have to face the enemy.”
13
They were all sitting at their second look-out watching for the bandits to come out of the loop, to make sure that they were on their way up.
“How many did you say you counted, Curty?” asked Howard.
“Fifteen or sixteen.”
Howard addressed Lacaud: “According to what you told us, there could not be that many left in this part of the mountains.”
“Certainly not. But they may have been joined by another stray group not yet captured.”
“It looks like it,” Howard said. “Well, there are hard times coming for us. The peasants down in the village, to get rid of them as quick as possible, have told them that up here there is a hunter who has guns and plenty ammunition. That’s what they want, because they may need them badl y. We’d better start thinking of our defense.”
Howard directed the plans, while Curtin, having the best eyes, was to stay at the look-out to make sure that the bandits really were coming.
The burros were brought in from the pasture and taken into a thicket in a ravine near by, where they were tied to prevent them from running away.
Right at the base of the naked rock that formed a sort of wall for the camp, there was, almost the whole length of this rock, a narrow and not very deep ravine, which appeared to have been washed out by the rain. This ravine was like a natural trench. Howard was quick to choose this as the main bulwark in his tactics. This trench could hardly be attacked from the back, because the rock was rather high, and its form was not straight, but rounded. Anybody on the top could not shoot anybody in the trench. Only with the help of long ropes would it have been possible for a man to come down from the top to the trench, and in a fight he would never set foot in the trench alive.
The trench could not be flanked either, as rocks also prevented this. On one side the rocks had to be climbed almost from the valley up, and it had to be done just at this slope, which could be scaled only by experienced alpinists with perfect equipment. The other side was partly walled in by rocks, and the only opening could easily be covered by the gun of one man in the trench, whose duty would be to watch this opening.
The bandits had no choice but to pass the whole camp if they wished to attack the trench. The camp offered no ambush, and the defenders in the trench had only to take aim to finish any bandit who came in sight.
The buckets were filled with water and brought into the trench. The tent and all the belongings of the partners, including provisions, were also taken into this fortress.
“We have to keep them away from the mine,” said Howard.
“From the mine?” Lacaud asked. “I haven’t seen a mine yet.”
“Now you know it, you jackass,” Dobbs sneered. “The cat is out of the bag. Did you think we were up here to tell one another bedtime stories, you mug?”
“We can keep them away best by holding them here,” Howard explained. “We’ll make them believe that this is the only camp we have. Besides, they won’t come across the mine anyway, even should they try to corner us from that side. The mine is not in their way, whatever they do to try to lure us out of our hole.”
“They couldn’t do anything with the mine anyhow, even if they found it.” Dobbs was gathering the ammunition out of the bags.
“No,” said Howard, “you are right, they could do nothing with it; I mean they could steal nothing. But—and this would be just too bad—they could destroy everything there. Still, come to think of it, it wouldn’t matter so much; that would save us the labor of breaking it down ourselves when we leave.”
“What about a retreat?” Lacaud suggested. “It might be better strategy not to fight at all—just to hide out and let them leave with long faces.”
“I’ve thought of that also,” Howard answered. “In the first place, there’s no other road out of here but the one on which we’d have to meet them. If it comes to a fight, we are better off here than on the road or anywhere else. Of course, we can hide somewhere near; we might even try to go across the rocks, but we might break our necks in doing that. What is worse, we could take nothing along with us. We’d lose the burros and our whole outfit. The outfit we could bury or hide somehow. But do you think they would leave us alone? They would be after us whatever trail we took. In finding trails in the Sierra we can’t beat these men. At that they are experts and we bad amateurs. Better not think of that any more.”
“You’re right, old man, as usual.” Dobbs patted him on the back.
At this moment Curtin called from his look-out: “They are at the loop now and turning into the trail up here.” He jumped down and came to the others, who were completing the last things to be done.
“You know the trail best, Curty,” Howard said. “How long do you think it will take them to get here?”
“With their tired horses it will take them two hours at least. Of course, they may be lazy and take a rest, or have difficulty making out the trail and the shortest route. So it may be as much as four hours.”
“All right.” Howard jumped into the trench. “Let’s say for sure two hours. Two hours in our favor. Let’s make the best of it. Have our eats now, so we waste no time when the dance starts.”
2
They sat down, built a fire, and cooked their meal. All this was done inside the trench.
Curtin did the cooking while the others were busy building stations and getting all the guns and ammunition at hand.
“If nobody objects, I’ll take command. Right by you, partners?” Howard asked.
“No objection,” was the answer.
“I’ll take the left center. You, Lacaud, take the right center. Dobbs, you take your station at the left corner, and, Curtin, you take the right corner. This corner you are to hold, Curty, is important, for here is where, through that crack in the rocks, a guy may sneak in. So you watch that side well, and Lacaud may also have a look at that flank.”
When the meal was ready, they sat down and had their final war-council while eating.
3
The partners were still strengthening their stations with piled-up earth, so that they could hide their heads while shooting, when the first bandits appeared on the glade.
Howard hissed to get the boys’ attention. A hiss was a very good signal, invented by the old man, as it was not different from the natural sounds of the vicinity and so was noticed only by those who were meant to hear it.
Three men were standing in the narrow opening of the bush. One of them was the man with the huge gilded palm hat. They stood for a while rather bewildered, seeing the place bare and no sign of a human being near. They called back to the other men coming into the clearing. It seemed they had left their horses on a little plateau, located some hundred and fifty feet below on the road, where there was a bit of thin pasturage. Since this last part of the trail was the hardest to make with animals, they had left the horses farther down and so reached the camp earlier than the boys had figured they would.
Two minutes later all men save two who guarded the horses were on the camp-site. What they said the boys in the trench could not hear; the distance was too great.
All the men carried guns on their hips—guns of different types and calibers. Four men carried shotguns, and two had rifles. All were in rags and had not washed or shaved for weeks; for months they had had no haircuts. Most of them wore the usual sandals; a few had boots, but ripped open and with torn soles; some had on leather pants like those worn by cowboys or cattle-farmers. All carried cheap woolen blankets over their shoulders.
Two men ventured farther into the camp-site. They noted that a tent had been pitched and a fire built not long before. Then they looked around and, on seeing no other sign, returned to the other men, now squatting on the ground near the opening.
From the spot where they were sitting, it was hard to tell that there was a ravine at the opposite part of the camp.
They were smoking a
nd talking. The boys in the trench could see from the gestures of the men that they did not know what to make of all this or what to do. A few were heard quarreling because they had made so hard a trip without the slightest gain.
Some rose and began again to walk about the place to see if there was any trace of the hunter supposed to be there. When they returned to the main group it seemed as if they had decided to leave the camp, go down the valley, and look there for further adventures.
There was a long discussion about several points. A few men went to the middle of the camp and sat down there. Now they had to talk louder so that all the men spread over a wider space could understand what was said and give their opinions. The leader seemed to have little authority, nor was there any sort of discipline among them. Each had his own opinion, and each thought his own advice should be followed by the others.
One proposed that they use this site for headquarters from which to raid the villages in the valley.
“That would be the god-damned worst thing they could do,” said Dobbs to Howard in a hushed voice.
“You bet it would, but be quiet, so that we can listen in better.”
“I wonder,” said Curtin to Lacaud, “if it wouldn’t be best to bump them all off right now; none could escape alive. Give the word to the old man and ask him what he thinks.”
The word came back from Howard that he meant to wait; they might change their plans yet and go.
“Just look at these guys nearest here.” Curtin spoke again to Lacaud. “A fine bunch they are; they have hanging around their necks medals and pictures of the saints and the Virgin to protect them from the devil. That’s something, oh boy!”
