Part 20 (2/2)

We strengthened the doors and windows by piling more boxes up, leaving only holes to shoot through. Then we waited. The dark heat in the store just melted you; outside the sun hammered fit to knock your eye out.

When it comes hot and still--deadly still--I can remember that hour's waiting in the store. I couldn't hold on to what I was thinking of for a minute; all my ideas flipped around like scart birds, and I sweat and sweat, and I was sick at my stomach, and the man I shot kept squirming.

It was the same as sitting up in bed to find out your nightmare is real.

To the devil with waiting! I tried to clamp my attention on mother, on Mary, on everybody I knew. Useless. I didn't seem to know anybody--they were only jokes, and mostly, the faces, as they skipped by, turned on me and grinned. At the same time I kept talking with the other boys and even laughed once in a while. I know they thought I was cool as a watermelon. I'm even with them there; I thought _they_ were, too.

When Gonzales called, with a click in his voice, ”Hist! _Quid'ow!_ They come!” I could have raised both hands to heaven in thanks. There's nothing one-eighth as bad in getting killed as sitting around waiting for it.

I jumped for my window. There ain't a bit of what was in front of me but what's with me to stay. I could only see a small s.p.a.ce that day--anything that wasn't in a ten-foot circle was dark. I leave the why to the doctors. It never troubled me again.

I had the south window, kind of slantwise facing the road, and about twenty foot from it, where it pa.s.sed the store. There was a breastwork of canned goods shoulder high, with lots of loose cartridges spread on the inner top box. The box near me was open, and red labels on quart cans of tomatoes shone out--”Pride of the Garden.” I wonder if the man that raised 'em, or he that canned 'em, ever imagined they were going to become the bulwarks of the State of Panama?

The shutters were heavy, with holes in 'em about four inches wide, which you could cover with a round piece of wood that swung on a screw. These holes were right in height for me to shoot through. The other boys had to stand on boxes, being shorter.

I took a peep through my gun-hole. There come the rebels, flap-flapping down the road in their bare feet, trailing their guns, their wide-brimmed hats shaking comical. And I felt happy when I saw it. These were real men, and for the last hour I'd been fighting ghosts. We didn't want 'em to hit us in a body, so I called cheerful to the other boys, ”Bet you a can of tomatoes I draw first blood!” and let her flicker through the loop-hole.

XV

TOMATOES BY THE QUART

The barefoot soldiers expected to walk right through us. They come straight and fairly bunched, while we dropped them. They kept coming and we kept dropping them. Streaks of white flew out of the shutters and whiskers grew on the walls, but not a man of us was touched, while we laid them out something awful.

It wasn't we was crack shots, neither, excepting Gonzales. We were, for all practical purposes, cool.

Speaking for myself, I felt neither hope nor fear. I had but one ambition--to make the party that arrived as small as possible. It would surprise me to learn that our boys missed two shots out of five. And there isn't any crowd, white, brown, nor black, that can stand a gaffing like that.

They had no plan. As I say, they thought all they had to do was walk up and take us. When we put every third man on the gra.s.s, they halted, bunching closer, and we pumped it to 'em for keeps. They melted down the road, panic-struck.

We had no cheers of victory, being much too busy. By just keeping industriously at work instead of hollering we put three or four more out of the game. It was business, for us.

The smoke drifted slowly up the hillside; some of the wounded men began hollerin' for water; one got to his knees and emptied his gun at us.

Gonzales was for removing him, but I held his hand. ”Let him ease his mind,” I said, ”he can't hit anything.” And just to make me out a liar, the beggar covered me with splinters from the shutter. Gonzales shot, and that was over. I began to wish they'd hustle us again.

The sweat poured off us. We panted like running dogs. Outside there, where the valley rippled with sun-heat, all was still, except that cry--”Water! water! For the love of G.o.d, water!” I've needed water since. I know what that screech means. Lord! that hour!--a blaze of sun, blue shadows, wisps of smoke curling up the hill, and the lonesome cry in the big silence--”Water! water! For the love of G.o.d, water!” That's what it come to; them fellers didn't care much for victory--they wanted water.

It wore on me, like the barking of a dog. I grabbed the water-pail and started for the door.

”Here!” cries Pedro, ”what will you make?”

”I want to stop that noise.”

”Put down the pail!” says Pedro. ”Foolish fellow! Do you not know they keel you at once?”

”Pede,” I says, ”I can't sit here and hear 'em holler like that--there's no d.a.m.n use in talking.”

”Listen,” says Pedro, grabbing me by the coat. ”See what you do; here are friends; for them you care not. Eef you are keeled, so much the worse are we--are we not more than they? You leave us, and you shall be keeled and our hope goes--I ask you, is that good?”

”No,” I says, putting down the pail. ”It ain't, Pede. You're right,” and one of 'em outside struck a new note that stuck in me and quivered.

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