“Keep it up, Panther! Keep it up!” cried Smith. “We need every minute of time that we can get.”
While the Mexicans hesitated the Panther sent another fatal bullet among them. Then they spread out swiftly in a thin half circle, and advanced again. All the six Texans now opened fire, and they were also helped by some of the men from the boat. But a part of the attacking force had gained cover and the fire was not now so effective.
Nevertheless the rush of the Mexicans was checked, and under the directions of Roylston the reloading of the schooner was proceeding rapidly. They hoisted the last of the powder and rifles over the side, and two of the boats were putting back for the defenders. The schooner, meanwhile, had taken in her anchor and was unfurling her sails. Roylston was in one of the boats and, springing upon the bank, he shouted to the defenders:
“Come, lads! The supplies are all back on board! It’s for your lives now!”
All the men instantly abandoned the defence and rushed for the bank, the Panther uttering a groan of anger.
“I hate to leave six good horses to Urrea, an’ that gang,” he said, “but I s’pose it has to be done.”
“Don’t grieve, Panther,” cried Smith. “We’ll take three for one later on!”
“Hurry up! Hurry up!” said Roylston. “There is no time to waste. Into the boats, all of you!”
They scrambled into the boats, reached the schooner, and pulled the boats to the deck after them. There was not a minute to lose. The schooner, her sails full of wind, was beginning to move, and the Mexicans were already firing at her, although their bullets missed.
Ned and Will Allen threw themselves flat on the deck, and heard the Mexican bullets humming over their heads. Ned knew that they were still in great danger, as it was a mile to the open sea, and the Mexicans galloping along by the side of the cove had begun a heavy fire upon the schooner. But the Panther uttered a tremendous and joyous shout of defiance.
“They can’t hurt the ship as long as they ain’t got cannon,” he said, “an’ since it’s rifles, only, we’ll give it back to ’em!”
He and the other sharpshooters, sheltering themselves, began to rake the woods with rifle fire. The Mexicans replied, and the bullets peppered the wooden sides of the schooner or cut holes through her sails. But the Texans now had the superiority. They could shelter themselves on the ship, and they were also so much better marksmen that they did much damage, while suffering but little themselves.
The schooner presently passed between the headlands, and then into the open sea. She did not change her course until she was eight or ten miles from land, when she turned northward.
CHAPTER XX
THE CRY FOR VENGEANCE
As soon as the schooner was out of range Ned and his comrades stood up on the deck, and looked back at the long low coastline, which had offered to them so much danger. At first they saw Mexican horsemen on the beach, but as they went further and further out to sea they disappeared.
A strong wind hummed through the sails and the schooner, heeling over a little, went swiftly northward, leaving a long white wake. Ned and his comrades sat on the benches that ran around the sides of the deck. Some of the rich brown color faded from the Panther’s face, and his eyes looked a little bit uneasy.
“I’m glad to be here,” he said, “glad to be out of reach of the Mexicans, but I wish I was on somethin’ a lot steadier than this.”
Obed White, familiar with the waters of the Maine coast, laughed.
“This is just a spanking good breeze,” he said. “Look how the waves dance!”
“Let ’em dance,” said the Panther, “an’ they can do my share of dancin’, too. I never felt less like roarin’ an’ t’arin’ an’ rippin’ in my life.”
“Any way, we’re getting a fine rest,” said Will Allen. “It’s pleasant to be out here, where nobody can drop suddenly on you from ambush.”
The schooner made another curve to the eastward, the water became smoother and the Panther’s qualms disappeared. Food and water were brought to them on deck, and they ate and drank with good appetites. Then John Roylston, who had gone below, as soon as they were out of range, reappeared. He went directly to Ned, shook hands with him with great energy, and said in a tone of deep gratitude:
“I had given you up for lost. But you reappeared with your friends, just in time to save the most valuable of all cargoes for the Texans. I should like to hear now how you rose from the dead, because I had direct information that you were in the Alamo, and I know that everybody there perished.”
“I come, nevertheless, as the bearer of bad news,” said Ned, with Goliad fresh in his mind.
“How is that?”
Then Ned told for the second time the dreadful deed done by order of Santa Anna, and it seemed to him as he told it that all the details were as vivid and terrible as ever. His desire for revenge upon the dictator and the Mexicans had not diminished a particle. Roylston’s face, usually a mask, showed horror.
“It was an awful thing to do,” he said, “but it means now that Santa Anna will never conquer Texas. No man can do such a deed and yet triumph. Now, tell me how it is that you are not among the slain in the Alamo.” Ned related the story anew, and he dwelt upon the fact that Santa Anna had spared him at the mention of Roylston’s name. But when the story was finished, the merchant was silent for quite a while. Ned knew by the contraction of the lines upon the great brow that he was thinking. At last, he broke the silence.
“No doubt you have wondered that my name had so much influence with Santa Anna,” he said. “I have hinted at it before, but I will explain more fully now. I am, as you know, a merchant. I trade throughout the whole southwest, and I have ships in the Gulf and the Caribbean. One of them, the ‘Star of the South,’ on which we now are, can show her heels to anything in these seas.
“Earlier in my life I came in contact with Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Like many others I fell for a while under his spell. I believed that he was a great and liberal man, that he would even be able to pull Mexico out of her slough of misrule and ignorance. I helped him in some of his young efforts. The splendid hacienda that he has near Vera Cruz was bought partly with money that I furnished.
“But our friendship could not last. Vain, ruthless, cruel, but with genius, Santa Anna can have no friends except those whom he may use. Unless you submit, unless you do everything that he wishes, you are, in his opinion, a traitor to him, a malefactor and an enemy, to be crushed by trickery or force, by fair means or foul. How could I have continued dealings with such a man?
“I soon saw that instead of being Mexico’s best friend he was her worst enemy. I drew away in time, but barely. I was in Mexico when the break came, and he would have seized and imprisoned me or had me shot, but I escaped in disguise.
“I retained, too, a hold upon Santa Anna that he has sought in vain to break. Such a man as he always needs money, not a few thousands, but great sums. He has been thrifty. The treasury of Mexico has been practically at his mercy, but he does not trust the banks of his own land. He has money not only in the foreign banks of Mexico, but also large amounts of it in two of the great banks of London. The English deposits stand as security for the heavy sums that he owes me. His arm is long, but it does not reach to London.
“He cannot pay at present without putting himself in great difficulties, and, for the time being, I wish the debt to stand. It gives me a certain power over him, although we are on opposite sides in a fierce war. When you gave him my name in San Antonio, he did not put you to death because he feared that I would seize his English money when I heard of it.
“The younger Urrea has heard something of these debts. He is devoted to Santa Anna, and he knew that he would have rendered his chief an immense service if he could have secured his release from them. That was what he tried to force from me when I was in his hands, but you and your friends saved me. You little thought, Edward Fulton, that you were then saving your own life also. Otherwise, Santa Anna would have ha
d you slain instantly when you were brought before him at San Antonio. Ah, how thoroughly I know that man! That he can be a terrible and cruel enemy he has already proved to Texas!”
The others listened with deep interest to every word spoken by Roylston. When he was through, the Panther rose, stretched his arms, and expanded his mighty chest. All the natural brown had returned to his cheeks, and his eyes sparkled with the fire of confidence.
“Mr. Roylston,” he said, “the hosts of our foe have come an’ they have devoured our people as the locusts ate up Egypt in the Bible, but I think our worst days have passed. We’ll come back, an’ we’ll win.”
“Yes,” said Ned. “I know as truly as if a prophet had told me that we’ll square accounts with Santa Anna.”
He spoke with such sudden emphasis that the others were startled. His face seemed cut in stone. At that moment he saw only the Alamo and Goliad.
The “Star of the South” sped northward, and Edward Fulton sat long on her deck, dreaming of the day when the Texans, himself in the first rank, should come once more face to face with Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.
THE ROAD TO BEAR CREEK, by Robert E. Howard
When Pap gets rheumatism, he gets remorseful. I remember one time particular. He says to me—him laying on his ba’r-skin with a jug of corn licker at his elbow—he says: “Breckinridge, the sins of my youth is ridin’ my conscience heavy. When I was a young man I was free and keerless in my habits, as numerous tombstones on the boundless prairies testifies. I sometimes wonders if I warn’t a trifle hasty in shootin’ some of the men which disagreed with my principles. Maybe I should of controlled my temper and just chawed their ears off.
“Take Uncle Esau Grimes, for instance.” And then pap hove a sigh like a bull, and took a drink, and said: “I ain’t seen Uncle Esau for years. Me and him parted with harsh words and gun-smoke. I’ve often wondered if he still holds a grudge against me for plantin’ that charge of buckshot in his hind laig.”
“What about Uncle Esau?” I said.
Pap perjuiced a letter and said: “He was brung to my mind by this here letter which Jib Braxton fotched me from War Paint. It’s from my sister Elizabeth, back in Devilville, Arizona, whar Uncle Esau lives. She says Uncle Esau is on his way to Californy, and is due to pass through War Paint about August the tenth—that’s tomorrer. She don’t know whether he intends turnin’ off to see me or not, but suggests that I meet him at War Paint, and make peace with him.”
“Well?” I demanded, because from the way pap combed his beard with his fingers and eyed me, I knowed he was aiming to call on me to do something for him.
Which same he was.
“Well,” said pap, taking a long swig out of the jug, “I want you to meet the stage tomorrer mornin’ at War Paint, and invite Uncle Esau to come up here and visit us. Don’t take no for a answer. Uncle Esau is as cranky as hell, and a peculiar old duck, but I think he’ll like a fine upstanding young man as big as you be. Specially if you keep yore mouth shet as much as possible, and don’t expose yore ignorance.”
“But I ain’t never seen Uncle Esau,” I protested. “How’m I goin’ to know him?”
“He ain’t a big man,” said pap. “Last time I seen him he had a right smart growth of red whiskers. You bring him home, regardless. Don’t pay no attention to his belly-achin’. He’s a peculiar old cuss, like I said, and awful suspicious, because he’s got lots of enermies. He burnt plenty of powder in his younger days, all the way from Texas to Californy. He was mixed up in more feuds and range-wars than any man I ever knowed. He’s supposed to have considerable money hid away somewheres, but that ain’t got nothin’ to do with us. I wouldn’t take his blasted money as a gift. All I want is to talk to him, and git his forgiveness for fillin’ his hide with buckshot in a moment of youthful passion.
“If he don’t forgive me,” said pap, taking another pull at the jug, “I’ll bend my .45 over his stubborn old skull. Git goin’.”
* * * *
So I saddled Cap’n Kidd and hit out across the mountains, and the next morning found me eating breakfast just outside War Paint. I didn’t go right into the town because I was very bashful in them days, being quite young, and scared of sheriffs and things; but I’d stopped with old Bill Polk, an old hunter and trapper which was camped temporary at the edge of the town.
War Paint was a new town which had sprung up out of nothing on account of a small gold rush right recent, and old Bill was very bitter.
“A hell of a come-off this is!” he snorted. “Clutterin’ up the scenery and scarin’ the animals off with their fool houses and claims. Last year I shot deer right whar their main saloon is now,” he said, glaring at me like it was my fault.
I said nothing but chawed my venison which we was cooking over his fire, and he said: “No good’ll come of it, you mark my word. These mountains won’t be fit to live in. These camps draws scum like a dead horse draws buzzards. Already the outlaws is ridin’ in from Arizona and Utah, besides the native ones. Grizzly Hawkins and his thieves is hidin’ up in the hills, and no tellin’ how many more’ll come in. I’m glad they catched Badger Chisom and his gang after they robbed that bank at Gunstock. That’s one gang which won’t bedevil us, becaze they’re in jail. If somebody’d just kill Grizzly Hawkins, now—”
About that time I seen the stagecoach fogging it down the road from the east in a cloud of dust, so I saddled Cap’n Kidd and left old Bill gorging deer meat and prophecying disaster and damnation, and I rode into War Paint just as the stage pulled up at the stand, which was also the post office and a saloon.
They was three passengers, and none of ’em was tenderfeet. Two was big hard-looking fellows, and t’other’n was a wiry oldish kind of a bird with red whiskers, so I knowed right off it was Uncle Esau Grimes. They was going into the saloon as I dismounted, the big men first, and the older fellow follering them. I touched him on the shoulder and he whirled most amazing quick with a gun in his hand, and he looked at me very suspicious, and said: “What you want?”
“I’m Breckinridge Elkins,” I said. “I want you to come with me. I recognized you as soon as I seen you—”
I then got a awful surprise, but not as awful as it would have been if pap hadn’t warned me that Uncle Esau was peculiar. He hollered: “Bill! Jim! Help!” and swung his six-shooter against my head with all his might.
Them two fellows whirled and their hands streaked for their guns, so I knocked Uncle Esau flat to keep him from getting hit by a stray slug, and shot one of them through the shoulder before he could unlimber his artillery. The other’n grazed my neck with a bullet, so I perforated him in the arm and again in the hind laig and he fell down across the other’n. I was careful not to shoot ’em in no vital parts, because I seen they was friends of Uncle Esau; but when guns is being drawn it ain’t no time to argue or explain.
Men was hollering and running out of saloons, and I stooped and started to lift Uncle Esau, who was kind of groggy because he’d hit his head against a hitching post. He was crawling around on his all-fours cussing something terrible, and trying to find his gun which he’d dropped. When I laid hold on him he commenced biting and kicking and hollering, and I said: “Don’t ack like that, Uncle Esau. Here comes a lot of fellers, and the sheriff may be here any minute and ’rest me for shootin’ them idjits. We got to get goin’. Pap’s waitin’ for you, up on Bear Creek.”
But he just fit that much harder and hollered that much louder, so I scooped him up bodily and jumped onto Cap’n Kidd and throwed Uncle Esau face-down across the saddle-bow, and headed for the hills. A lot of men yelled at me to stop, and some of ’em started shooting at me, but I give no heed.
I give Cap’n Kidd the rein and we went tearing down the road and around the first bend, and I didn’t even take time to change Uncle Esau’s position, because I didn’t want to get arrested. I’d heard tell them folks in War Paint would even put a fellow in jail for shooting a man within the city limits.
* * * *
&n
bsp; Just before we reached the place where I aimed to turn off up into the hills I seen a man on the road ahead of me, and he must have heard the shooting and Uncle Esau yelling because he whirled his horse and blocked the road. He was a wiry old cuss with gray whiskers.
“Where you goin’ with that man?” he yelled as I approached at a thundering gait.
“None of your business,” I retorted. “Git outa my way.”
“Help! Help!” hollered Uncle Esau. “I’m bein’ kidnaped and murdered!”
“Drop that man, you derned outlaw!” roared the stranger, suiting his actions to his words.
Him and me drawed simultaneous, but my shot was a split-second quicker’n his’n. His slug fanned my ear, but his hat flew off and he pitched out of his saddle like he’d been hit with a hammer. I seen a streak of red along his temple as I thundered past him.
“Let that larn you not to interfere in family affairs!” I roared, and turned up the trail that switched off the road and up into the mountains.
“Don’t never yell like that,” I said irritably to Uncle Esau. “You like to got me shot. That feller thought I was a criminal.”
I didn’t catch what he said, but I looked back and down over the slopes and shoulders and seen men boiling out of town full tilt, and the sun glinted on six-shooters and rifles, so I urged Cap’n Kidd and we covered the next several miles at a fast clip. They ain’t a horse in southern Nevada which can equal Cap’n Kidd for endurance, speed and strength.
Uncle Esau kept trying to talk, but he was bouncing up and down so all I could understand was his cuss words, which was free and fervent. At last he gasped: “For God’s sake lemme git off this cussed saddle-horn; it’s rubbin’ a hole in my belly.”
So I pulled up and seen no sign of pursuers, so I said: “All right, you can ride in the saddle and I’ll set on behind. I was goin’ to hire you a horse at the livery stable, but we had to leave so quick they warn’t no time.”
“Where you takin’ me?” he demanded.
The Second Western Megapack Page 84
