by Tony Masero
Turning they both looked up at the hillside. There, spread along the entire skyline was the enemy, silhouetted against the dawn sky and standing silently looking down on the embattled mission.
“Dear God!” Ellen gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. “There are thousands of them.”
Gringo pushed her gently towards the door of the mission house. “There won’t be half as many in a short while,” he smiled at her encouragingly. “You have my pistol still?”
She nodded.
“Keep it to hand,” he said.
“Take care, my love,” she whispered as he turned and loped over to the walls.
As he took his place alongside Le Touquet and Alcazar, the Frenchman turned to him. “I have a thought, Mister Wade.”
Gringo turned to look at him and followed the Boosway’s gaze. He was looking back at the mission house, up at the empty bell apertures.
“A man up there with a long gun could wreak some damage, do you not think? And one like yours with percussion caps can outshoot the flintlocks for speed, so they say. What do you think, Mister Wade?”
They were interrupted as screams and chanting began coming down from the Indians on the hillside. A great rush of threatening noise, that ran in taunting waves along their battle line.
Gringo nodded at Le Touquet as they both looked back at the bell tower. “Why, that is for me, sir,” he said. “If only for the view.”
“Something has occurred to me also,” added Alcazar. “Let us release the oxen and a few mules, it may tempt some of them away. With a few prizes earned without bloodshed they may be content.”
“A good thought,” agreed Le Touquet. “I leave it to you.”
Gringo and Alcazar left for their various missions as a new wave of wailing began from the Indians.
Inside the mission house, Gringo could see Ellen and her mother still busily tending the wounded that lay spread on the flag stoned floor. He turned aside searching to discover the narrow entranceway that would lead up to the bell tower. He found the opening hidden in a deeply shadowed corner. Set into the stones of the building, the narrow passageway had barely enough space for him to squeeze through as he climbed with his shoulders rubbing against each side. The steep stone steps rose directly up to a low doorway that led onto the planking of the roof. Ancient support timbers creaked ominously underfoot as Gringo stepped out onto the roof, carefully he sidestepped quickly up onto the more secure stone frontispiece that housed the old bell tower.
Here, the triangle of four foot high openings were raised above him and Gringo took up a squatting position at the nearest of the three. Poking the barrel of his musket through, he laid a handful of paper cartridge’s and percussion caps within easy reach on the small shelf at the base of the archway and looked out.
From up here he had a fine view of the battleground. As the Indians continued their loud chanting, both dancing and leaping as they worked themselves up into an eager readiness, Gringo glanced down and could make out the barrel of the great cannon below. It gleamed dull silver in the morning light, the long tube with two heavy re-enforcing bands around its girth poked bluntly forward. A hefty, menacing looking object. At rest now but ready to spit fire and death as soon as it was asked. Beside it stood Brewster and his fire team, a slow match already smoldering in the gunner’s hand.
Beyond the gun lay the courtyard and the crumbling walls with their defenders. From his vantage point it seemed that there were far too few men along the stretch of wall. Some work had been done to build up the walls but he could see all too plainly many gaps that were indefensible. It was there that the half buried heads of the seemingly innocent gunpowder barrels lay.
Alcazar and his men released the oxen and mules, ushering them out with loud haloos and sending them in the direction of the Indians. The creatures wandered aimlessly off to Gringo’s left and out beyond the outbuildings. It appeared to him that the Indians paid them little heed and only continued to taunt and wave their weapons in an attempt to draw the defenders out.
Then, surprisingly, a horde of Indians broke away. The most excitable and wild, who rushed forward without order, leaping and bounding they made their berserk way down towards the mission. A stream of blue and white appeared, a fluttering of red and green as a pennant opened with a snap. It was Alcazar and his lancers. Whilst freeing the cattle they had also mounted their own horses and apparently were determined to fulfill their role in defense as Presidential Lancers.
Gringo watched in amazement as Alcazar drew his men up in a single parade line to each side of himself, a line that stretched across the entire front of the mission and directly facing the advancing band of Indians. The lancers sat still and steady with eager horses under them, the creatures were raring to go but kept firmly in check. Each man sat rigidly erect and held his lance perfectly upright. It was a parade ground display of perfect order. Alcazar drew his saber, in a gleaming arc he presented it to his side.
There would be no cavalry charge here, thought Gringo, there is no flat land only a steep rise before them, surely Alcazar does not intend to run uphill across such inhospitable ground.
With a sharp command from Alcazar, the lances were lowered, each one couched in a steady position. A second command and the outer wings of his line move in. Gringo sees the captain’s intention as the wings of his troop formed a broad semi-circle to enclose the attackers. The charging Indians paid little attention to the maneuver, they had never faced trained cavalry before and ran on heedlessly bellowing their war cries.
Alcazar raised his saber before him then brought it down fast and at a walking pace the lancers moved forward to meet their foe. The long poles of the lances pointed directly in front of them in a lethal hedge and as the two sides closed, Alcazar shouted a sharp command and the lancers jerked into action. Their horses released from restraint, leapt forward, the dark lances with their needlepoints mercilessly rammed into the first line of attackers.
The running Indians, unable to stop their reckless downhill charge, were pinioned on the sharp tips, in many cases the lances completely passing through a body and out the other side. Those coming behind did not balk but ran on over and past their fallen companions and leapt up to attack the horsemen. The lancers swung around their short muskets and fired into the horde but many were dragged from their horses. Blood flowed as skulls were crushed under swinging war clubs and throats were cruelly slashed beneath knife blades.
Gringo watches as Alcazar urged his mount boldly forward, his saber swinging in the air, cutting and thrusting as he moved into the press. It was difficult for the mountain men behind the walls to give firing support, they held back as the tumble of bodies made it impossible to tell friend from foe.
Then a cry comes from the hilltop. A great ringing scream soaring over the sound of battle, so intense was the awful cry that it raised the hair on Gringo’s neck. A great rain of arrows fill the sky in a black cloud and the remaining army of Indians catapulted in a whooping mass down the hillside, they flowed in a human tide, some braves falling and rolling in their attempts to be the first into the fray.
It was over for the lancers and Gringo saw Alcazar’s horse take a spear in its chest and stumble as the unseated captain lurched forward over the horse’s head. Hands reached up to grasp him and he was pulled from the saddle, the sleeve being ripped from his tunic as he disappeared into the crowded Indians.
Le Touquet roared at his men to open fire and obediently flints fell and powder was ignited with sparking flashes. A great balloon of smoke and flame poured out from the trained muskets. Gringo knew their capacity to load and fire swiftly, each man capable of loosing off between two and four lead balls a minute. He was also aware, that the dry air here in the desert would make a great difference, as the hygroscopic black powder was less likely to misfire as it did in damper climates.
He watched the men below as their swift rate of fire brought down a mass of the enemy. Indians screamed and fell, hazy images amongst the pall of gun smoke. T
hey tumbled down over the writhing mass of dying and wounded at their feet. Bodies were piled and the forward line of Indians shivered and was stilled for a moment but those behind swept on over the dead and dying lancers and forced those in front forward, running fast now they came, intent for the adobe walls.
Gringo picked his mark and began systematically to drop the oncoming Indians as they fell across his aim. It was a bloody slaughter but the numbers were overwhelming and they continued to pour in towards the broken walls.
Le Touquet waved at both his own men and those left of the few remaining Cazedores, ordering them to fall back towards the mission house. Gringo saw the tall figure of Judas in the thick of it, swinging braves around bodily, picking them up and shaking them by the neck as if they are rats in a hunting dog’s jaws. Alumette was there beside him, with rifle and broad bladed knife, thrusting and cutting as he moved backwards.
The Indians were over the walls now, surging forward.
Gringo spotted a buried gunpowder barrel as they ran across it. He sighted on the barrel and fired, the red-hot ball from his smoothbore smashing through the wooden wall and igniting the powder inside. With a great bang the gunpowder exploded, raising a column of dust and smoke as its load of stones were sprayed indiscriminately into those charging forward. The explosion lifted some bodily and seared others with the stones. Flying body parts and shredded limbs were scattered across the courtyard.
Still they came on and Gringo estimated that there must be more than two hundred braves pressing into the courtyard. Those defenders left alive made it to the mission steps and the way was left clear, it was now Caleb Brewster’s opportunity to prove his mettle. He lunged forward but as he moved a flying spear flew from the mob and pierced his chest. Staggering back, Brewster looked down at the sturdy feathered spear shaft protruding from his body as if it were a disdainful offense. He tried to pull it free but it has penetrated too deeply. Bowley and Kirby stand by him were fighting bravely and trying to protect Jinks who has fallen beneath the hail of arrows. As more arrows flew in and pinned Brewster he dropped to his knees. Gringo could see him mouthing curses as he struggled to touch the slow match to the cannon’s vent hole. His bulk was a forest of shafts and with blood pumping from between his lips. He crawled forward in one final attempt and as he finally collapsed he pressed the match to the vent. With a whoosh the powder lit and snaked inside the barrel setting off the charge within. The cannon exploded with a mighty roar, the concussion throwing Gringo back from his viewpoint in the bell tower as parts of its brickwork were broken away and thrown high by the vicious blast which shook the whole building.
The ground seemed to quiver and rise up, the dreadful noise echoing and bouncing back from the rock wall of the precipice behind the mission. There was a simmering intake as if a great vacuum in space had opened then filled, it seemed to Gringo as if the air itself held its breath. His hearing was foggy and distant as if he were underwater, the shockwave from the momentous explosion deafening him momentarily.
When he regained his feet and looked through the shattered bell tower to the courtyard below he saw only a devastated wasteland.
Even the ground had been shredded. Veins of smoke ran in rivers across the heaped bodies, everything was tainted gray, turned to ash by the effects of the mighty blast. The waste metal shot from the cannon had cleared all before it, both Indians and adobe walls have been swept away leaving a huge area of blackened and burnt ground fanning out in a wide path from the cannon’s mouth.
The cannon itself was useless now, the torn mouth ripped and bent, the smoking metal burst apart in a splayed star by the blast. By what means Gringo was not sure, perhaps too heavy a charge or maybe the cannon was as inherently weak as its earlier sister models. One thing was for sure, he knew it would never fire again.
Gringo’s hearing came back in a rush. A sudden crunching crash came from behind him. He spun around to see a second boulder fall from above and smash through the frail planks of the mission’s roof. Above, at the lip of the overhang, a group of Indians struggled to lever a third boulder, the size of a small cart over the edge.
Snatching up his musket Gringo took aim and fired, he was gratified to see one of those above clutch at his chest and tumble forward, describing a slow curve as he descended head over heels to land in a cloud of dust out of sight beyond the edge of the mission house. It was only then that Gringo noticed the long rope at the opposite end of the roof. It snaked down from above and there at its base, just releasing his hold, stood a solitary Indian.
Gringo began to swiftly prime his musket as the Indian loped towards him along the peaked crest of the roof. The mountain man could hear the timbers creaking and cracking as the man came at the run, war hatchet in hand. Gringo bit into the paper cartridge and poured the contents into the barrel. The Indian was nearing, a grimly determined look on his painted face. Ramming home the ball, Gringo looked up to see the brave’s tomahawk rushing towards him in spinning arcs that flashed in the early light. Dropping to one side, Gringo heard the metal blade chip stone from the bell tower behind him and drop with a clatter to the rooftop then slide down over the edge.
Gringo raised his musket but it was too late, the Indian launched himself into the air and was upon him.
It had been Asesino’s plan. He knew the white men would fall back into the mission house once the attack forced them. It was their last redoubt and to that end he and a small band had spent the pre-dawn hours scaling the cliff face. Their view below had not been clear over the bulging lip but Asesino was sure that once rolled, the boulders they had selected would drop vertically down and crush the mission.
Whilst his fellow braves set to work, he had tied off the coil of rope he carried and lowered himself down to meet his enemy. The killer of his brother, Mapache.
They met in a hard collision that spun the musket from Gringo’s hand. The two were wedged on the sloping space between tower and roof and Asesino grappled for Gringo’s throat, his fingers digging deep into the flesh. The scout wriggled feverishly, forcing his own wrists between those of the Indian. His fingers crawled up the painted face until they reached his opponent’s eyes. He clawed with his fingertips and Asesino twisted his head away, still unwilling to relinquish his grip.
Gringo desperately coiled his body, rolling it up beneath the Indian. They were sliding down the angled roof now, moving away from the safety of the bell tower and pieces of roof timber crackled and broke under their struggling bodies. Holes appeared around them, gaping openings where the dry timbers gave way. The aged building, already having gone through earth shaking vibrations, was falling apart fast.
Gringo kicked upwards, his two feet driving into the Indian’s midriff. They flew apart, Asesino staggered backwards, one foot suddenly breaking through the rotting planks and his leg dropping into the hole up to mid-thigh. It held him, trapping him momentarily. Gringo meanwhile was sliding uncontrollably down the pitched roof. Desperately he punched at the weakened timbers, breaking through, he grasped at the jagged edge, the jaws so sharp that they cut into his hand but he managed to stay his slide.
The two faced each other from six feet apart. Gringo crawling, spider-like up over the decaying wood whilst Asesino struggled to free his trapped leg. With a resounding crash another great boulder struck the rooftop and the whole structure quivered as a large cavity collapsed inwards. Gringo just prayed that the wounded and women and children inside had been moved to safety.
The two men’s eyes met and Gringo saw the uncontrollable hatred vested in his opponent’s glare. He wondered at such venom but it told him there would be no mercy and he determined he would give none either. Hand over hand he scampered up to the struggling Indian, who was half out of the hole and had almost achieved freedom. Leaping up and running on tiptoe, Gringo swung out and punched the Indian full in the face, snapping the man’s head back and splitting his lip.
Asesino kicked himself free of the hole and came lightly to his feet. He glowered at Gringo, his
determination and hatred coming in waves.
“You fight well, white man,” he said, spitting blood “But even so, you shall still die.”
Gringo said nothing as he clawed at the stone of the bell tower, drawing himself up more securely and trying to keep his balance on the shifting planks, which swayed and heaved under his feet.
Asesino drew the knife at his side and reaching down to the scabbard at his belt Gringo also pulled out his own blade. Warily and balancing awkwardly, the two waited for the first to make his move. With his fingertips on the stone of the bell tower, Gringo steadied himself, holding the blade before him. Asesino, standing tall and slightly above, straddled the crest of the peaked roof.
The heavy boulder that fell behind them threw them both from their feet. It smashed through the spine of the roof and the entire covering began to collapse, from the center outwards it began its decline. Screeching and snapping, the wood broke apart and tumbled downwards, folding in on itself as support after support crumpled and fell. Spreading outwards like the ripples on a pool the collapse continued working its way towards the two men. With a crashing roar the heavy timbers tumbled. Bouncing and colliding with ear-splitting shrieks they smashed downwards, raising a great cloud of thick yellow dust.
Gringo felt his hand automatically reach out and grasp the bell tower shelf as the footing slid from under him. Asesino, with no handholds available, simply dropped. He disappeared from view as the timbers beneath him gave way, his body vanishing into the billowing dust cloud.
Chapter Nineteen
It was over.
The survivors picked their way slowly through the shattered remains of the mission. Gringo was amongst them, having successfully climbed safely down from his dangling position on the bell tower, the only part of the mission house that still stood. Desperately he hunted amongst the piles of rubble and broken timber. His throat dry from calling her name but, as yet, he had discovered no sign of Ellen. He had found the crushed body of Asesino though. It lay limp amongst the collapsed stones of the mission house wall.
