IT TOOK TWO steam engines and more than three hundred men to pull the Ruffin out of the river. Before that a steep slip had to be built, and after it was, its timbers were adzed smooth and smothered with everything greasy that could be found. Engine oil, axle grease, hot fat, candle wax. The slip was steep and the stern of the boat had to have wedged supports driven under it to keep it from sliding back into the river. Then the work began.
The sky was clear and the sun was fierce. Maxims and cannons were set up on the landing and patrols had been sent up- and downriver to watch for enemy action. The men working on the ram were protected against long-range sniping from the far side of the river. Suarez’s men were still there, but remained hidden. Gatling nearly always saw some signs of life when he used his binoculars. He knew they were watching because frequently he caught the flash of a telescope. He knew they could be building rafts back there under the trees. He didn’t think so. Rafts meant to carry many men would be immensely heavy and hard to get to the river. And Suarez’s men were a lazy, undisciplined rabble with no liking for hard work.
Tents to house the main force of the New Columbians had been set up after the corral rails had been removed. Three cook shacks had been built to feed them. Tolliver allowed them beer, but no rum. Once, Tolliver took time out to ride to the general’s house to see how he was getting along. He came back and told Gatling the old man seemed to have gone completely off his head. The guards said he had tried everything—bribes, threats, cajolery—in an effort to get out of his locked room. The guards were fed up with the old man’s abuse and wanted to be at the landing, where the excitement was.
“Just as long as they don’t let him escape,” Gatling said.
There was no sign of Otis Kilby. He had disappeared in the confusion after the Ruffin came back across the river. Tolliver said the guards at the house hadn’t seen him. Neither had anyone else. His spirited Arabian was still in the Kilby stables.
Tolliver said, “New Columbia takes in a lot of territory, half of it still not settled. So the son of a bitch could be anywhere. Heading for the mountains or skulking in the jungle. Or it could be he’s managed to get across the river to join his friends.”
The carpenters were fitting a great wooden ram to the front of the boat. It was high and solid and stuck out about five feet. They had to put it up in sections. Each section weighed about three hundred pounds. On the third day of building the wooden part of the ram, it was finished after nightfall.
Gatling and Tolliver slept in the frame house and were up before first light the next morning. That evening they ate with the men before they went to the house and they sat up drinking beer before they went to bed. The lamp in the kitchen was turned down low and the shades were pulled.
“Wonder where old Otis is,” Tolliver said. “That not-so-young boy sure messed himself up. Had it not been for his craziness, everything the general has would come to him. Maybe all the Kilbys are crazy.”
Gatling wasn’t too interested in Otis Kilby at the moment. The work on the boat was going good, the beer was good, and he was looking forward to bed.
“Something I can’t decide,” Tolliver said. “Did Otis manage to warn Suarez of the attack? Or were they just there?”
Gatling poured more beer in his mug. “We’ll never know unless the men you sent to look for Otis catch him and bring him here. Not much we haven’t figured, but there’s got to be some things he can tell us we don’t know about. He’ll talk loud and clear if I get my hands on him. A man looking at a red-hot knife blade always wants to talk. If none of that happens, so be it. Suarez will kill him if that’s where he’s gone.”
“I’m so sick of killing,” Tolliver said.
They were asleep when one of the patrols brought Otis Kilby to the house. Gatling was at the door with the Colt in his hand before Tolliver got out of bed. Otis’s clothes were damp and muddy; his face was smeared with dirt, and leaves stuck to him. One look told Gatling he was completely sober. Maybe Gatling wouldn’t have to use the knife on Otis; the promise of a drink, a lot of drinks, would work just as well.
“Caught him by that shack he built as a boy,” the patrol sergeant said. “Way back in the jungle. Just like you figured, Tolliver. Place has long caved in, rotted timbers full of snakes, but that’s where he was. Lying by it. What you want to do with him?”
“Leave him here.” Tolliver thanked the men, gave them beer, and they left. Gatling sat Otis Kilby down at the kitchen table, then filled a mug with beer and drank it off. Kilby licked his lips, but didn’t say anything. He looked like a man in a cell waiting to be hanged. Gatling poured another mug of beer and sat across the table from him.
“Listen good, Otis,” Gatling said. “We know most everything there is to know about you.” He kept it short. He told Kilby what they knew. Pike’s murder. The stealing of the money. The Indian killer with the blowgun. The sneak work with Suarez. Everything.
“Did I get it right, Otis? True or false. Speak up, as your father would say.”
Kilby began to shake. “For pity’s sake give me a drink. Beer. Anything. A drink.”
Gatling sipped his second mug of beer. “Not just yet, Otis. You’ve got to sing for your supper. You see the beer and there’s liquor in the cupboard. Did you do everything I said you did? Answer up.”
“I did.” Kilby was sober, so he didn’t mumble. But his shakes got worse as he looked at Gatling’s beer mug. “What else do you want to know?”
Gatling drank beer. “Did you tell Suarez about the general’s plan?”
“I did. Let me have a drink—please! I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I warned Suarez. I got to Parimba and warned him. You were training the men all week. I wanted to stay in Parimba, but Suarez made me come back here. He said I was more use to him here. Now can I have a drink?”
“Later,” Gatling said. “Tell us about Suarez. What’s he like? What does he do with himself? You were in Parimba. You ought to know.”
“He thinks he’s going to be the emperor of Brazil someday. He already calls himself Pedro III and makes the men call him that.” Kilby was talking fast. He wasn’t talking for his life because he wasn’t looking that far ahead. He was talking for a drink. “The governor’s palace is heavily guarded and he never leaves it. A white Brazilian escaped murderer leads his men. An ex-army officer named Da Silva. Suarez thinks he’s a man of destiny and doesn’t want to be killed. He wants to live a long time and become a part of history.”
Gatling got a bottle and glass from the cupboard. He put the bottle where Kilby couldn’t grab it. Kilby’s eyes were frantic. Gatling said, “What are the defenses like in Parimba? Just a few more straight answers and you’ll get your drink.’’
“Just the palace is guarded,” Kilby said, looking at the bottle of rum. “Heavily guarded. About fifty men guard the town, keep the people in line. You know where the rest of them are. Across the river.”
“Thanks to you,” Tolliver put in.
“Now, for the Rio Ganoza,” Gatling said. “How did you get to Parimba? By the river?”
Sweat dripped from Kilby’s chin. “No. Through the jungle. Suarez’s man got me across the river in a canoe. You can’t buck twenty-five miles of fast river in a canoe. We went through the jungle.”
“Then you don’t know anything about the river. Like logjams and chains?”
“I don’t know a thing. I swear it.” Kilby staggered up from his chair and made a grab for the bottle. Gatling let him do it.
Kilby slopped rum into the glass and drank it standing up. Then he drank another and another. Tolliver looked disgusted. Gatling didn’t give a damn. The rum hit Kilby hard and he collapsed after the fifth drink. He lay between the table and the stove and began to snore. It would be hours before he woke up and wanted another drink.
“I’m going to get a pillow and smother him.” Tolliver got up from the table.
“Wait. Will you wait? We’ll take Otis along for the ride.”
“What the hell for?” Tolliver sat down again.
“I don’t know. Maybe we owe him a nice ride after all the nice things he’s done.” An easy, quick death was too good for Kilby, Gatling thought. He had betrayed his people to Suarez, and he would have to face Suarez’s guns. He had been below decks during the fight on the river. In the next battle, he’d be given a rifle and forced to fight.
“I think you’re crazy,” Tolliver said. “But I’m tired. I’m going back to bed. You want me to tie him or will you do it?”
“I’ll do it.” Gatling had seen a coil of rope in the agent’s office and went to get it. He roped Kilby good and then locked him in the small windowless room where the agent had his safe.
“At least we got something out of him,” he said to Tolliver.
“I still think it’s crazy and you’re crazy to take him along.” Tolliver yawned and went to his room. Gatling heard him muttering to himself before he got into bed. Then the muttering stopped and after that it was quiet.
It was morning and they were boarding the Ruffin when the two men who’d been left to guard the general rode up and told Tolliver the old man was dead. “Looks like he died in his sleep,” one of them said. “Went up with his morning coffee and there he was dead. On the way through town we told some women who’ll look after him.”
“Sorry to hear it,” Tolliver said. He told the two young guards to get aboard. It was a blazing hot day without a cloud in the sky. The Ruffin moved away from the landing, heading for midriver. Then it turned and the gun crews opened up with the Maxims and the cannons. Machine gun bullets and cannon shells tore up the jungle where Suarez’s men were. The barrage was Gatling’s idea. “Show them what we’ve got,” he told Tolliver. “Show them that we mean business.”
Some rifle fire came from the jungle, but it did no damage. The Ruffin was sandbagged to a fare-thee-well and the riflemen stayed under cover and took no part in the show of force. The boat picked up speed and headed upriver. The ram loomed up high at the front of the boat. The huge wooden ram was sheathed in three layers of corrugated iron, and there had been enough left over to face the sides. Artillery could do the New Columbians in when they were in the narrow tributary. But Suarez had no artillery. Gatling knew that because there had been more questions and answers before Kilby got his morning drink.
The men were quiet. Tolliver had picked the best he could find. Gatling told him to pick men who were good haters. Good haters for any reason. “Men who have been sentenced for drunk and disorderly,” Gatling said. “Wild drinkers but not drunks. Men who hate their mothers-in-law and can’t stand their wives. Men who lost friends or kin in the first fight, later on the beach. Good haters make good fighters.”
“Sure will be a cantankerous little army,” Tolliver said. “But you know they won’t be all like that. Wait a minute. They all hate Suarez.”
“That’ll do,” Gatling said.
The Ruffin was making good time. No boats were in sight. No river navy patrol boats, no steamboats coming down from Peru. The Ruffin’s engines, boilers and stern wheel had been worked on; nothing had been neglected. The boat was moving too fast for anybody to follow them upriver at the edge of the jungle.
Otis Kilby knew about his father’s death, but he showed no emotion. He sat in the shade of the upper deck holding his rifle. Gatling had let him clean himself up before he boarded. Like the rest of the men, his pockets bulged with ammunition. He was still wearing the Norfolk jacket he’d worn on the beach. He had no liquor flask and he drank more water than anybody on board.
They started up the Rio Ganoza about noon. It was hotter there than it had been on the Amazon. The river was wide where it emptied into the Amazon. It would get narrower the farther upriver they went. Gatling didn’t expect an attack that far from Parimba. He figured they would be a lot closer when they had to fight.
As the stern wheel rolled the miles away behind them, some of the men began to think they wouldn’t have to fight their way through to the city. That could be, Gatling thought, but he didn’t believe it for a minute. If Da Silva had pulled back to Parimba, then there would be an attack. What form it would take he had no way of knowing. But he felt sure it would come. So far it had been too easy.
The sniping started when they were about ten miles from Parimba, and it came from both sides of the river. It was light at first and Gatling figured not many men had been able to get so far downriver. Since the jungle was dense on both banks, Suarez’s men would have had to hack their way through with machetes. A riflemen got a flesh wound in the upper arm when he jumped up to fire his rifle. “Riflemen keep to cover!” Tolliver roared at him. “Let the heavy guns do the work!”
The firing picked up and Tolliver ordered the gun crews to cut loose with the Maxims and the cannons. Machine gun bullets and exploding shells chewed up the jungle on both sides of the river, ripping into tree trunks and clipping off dangling vines. Gatling doubted if they had inflicted much damage on an enemy they couldn’t see. He hadn’t fired the light gun or the Hotchkiss machine gun. He wanted to wait until he had something to shoot at.
Fire from the jungle grew heavier until it seemed that both banks of the river were lined with hidden shooters. A loader for one of the cannons was killed because the gun had no shield. None of them had. The sandbags were stopping a lot of bullets, but there had to be spaces between them so the guns could be fired and the barrels swung one way or the other. A man ran crouching to take the dead loader’s place and was ready with a fresh magazine when the shells already loaded in the gun were fired.
No one else was killed or wounded for another mile, then a Maxim gunner got a bullet through the forehead and died instantly. A new gunner dragged the body out of the gunner’s seat and started firing. Training fifty gun crews instead of thirty was paying off. Gatling was behind the Hotchkiss machine gun when somebody yelled, “Logjam! Logjam up ahead!”
Gatling ran forward at a crouch and cursed silently when he saw what they had to get through. A mass of floating trees, their branches tangled together, choked the river from one side to the other, and it looked like the jam ran back for about three hundred feet. The man in the wheelhouse had already run stop engines. “You better take over the wheel,” Gatling told Tolliver. “I’ll see what I can do about the jam.”
The stern wheel was no longer moving; the boat was dead in the water. Fire from both banks was murderous. Two men were killed and one wounded, all from the gun crews. The Maxims and the cannons were laying down heavy fire, but it wasn’t enough to drive the attackers out of their positions. A box of dynamite heavily sandbagged was on the deck right behind the gigantic ram. Gatling pushed the sandbags aside and opened the box. The sticks in it were capped and ready. The box of dynamite had to remain open, no help for that. Breaking up the jam had to be done fast or they’d be trapped. If a bullet hit the box, goodbye Ruffin, goodbye everybody.
He already had the cigar lit. He had four sticks of dynamite in his left hand. He touched off a stick and threw it with his right. He had to stand up to do it. The stick of dynamite sailed up high and landed where he wanted it to go. A fuse would burn underwater. The first stick exploded and the boat shuddered from the force of the explosion. Fire from the jungle got even heavier; the Maxims blazed back and the cannons loosed a string of shells. The jam didn’t budge until he threw the third stick. Then it moved and kept on moving. A hole in the jam had been opened, but it wasn’t enough. Up in the wheelhouse, Tolliver eased the boat into the gap. Tree trunks bumped against the sides of the boat as it crept forward, going dead slow.
Gatling threw stick after stick while the gunners tried to protect him. The boat crept along behind the explosions. Gatling knew men were being hit, but there was no time to do anything but keep throwing dynamite. He threw one last stick and that was enough to get the boat through to open water. Then it was full speed ahead. Up in the wheelhouse Tolliver started blasting with the steam whistle. Gatling closed the dynamite box and sandbagged it.
The boat ran up the middle of the river with nobody shooting at it. The bastards had been counting on the logjam to finish off the Ruffin. The biggest concentration of riflemen had been there, waiting for the boat to come to a stop, and they were left behind as the boat rolled on toward Parimba. Gatling didn’t know how many men had been killed or wounded. He didn’t want to go into a subject he couldn’t do anything about. It was a waste of time.
Tolliver came down on deck after turning over the wheel to the helmsman. “Holy Christ! I didn’t think you could do it, but you did it. I figure we’re only about five miles from the city. Those fuckers will have to run fast to get there before we do.”
Gatling took a drink of water. “One mile or five miles, we’re not there yet.” He went back to the Hotchkiss machine gun. He hadn’t killed anybody with it yet, but he hoped to before the fighting was over.
They put two more miles behind them and still no shooting. If they had been sailing in flat country they would have been able to see the city. At least they would have seen the governor’s palace and the bell tower of the church. But the jungle blocked out everything. They wouldn’t see Parimba until they were right on top of it.
The thick chain stretched across the river was two miles ahead. No one knew it was there; it was too far away to be seen. On a dark night they would have run into it, and even in daylight they came close to running into it. The river was dark and the chain was black. Standing to one side of the prow, Gatling and Tolliver saw it together. Tolliver cursed and ran back to the wheelhouse, his actions alerting the men to the presence of the chain. Gatling ordered everybody aft. Four men helped him to pile sandbags around the Maxims and the cannons. The boat was moving as fast as it would go. It would hit the chain in minutes. The time to test the ram had arrived. All that work, all that wood and iron! They’d know in a minute. Gatling braced himself and counted the seconds.
The sharp-pointed ram stuck the chain with terrific force. Sandbags toppled and some of the guns fell over. Men were yelling in the back of the boat. The chain broke with a sound like a cannon shot. The sound echoed up and down the river. Gatling let go of the rail and went forward to see if any damage had been done. The ram hadn’t shifted an inch. It had been worth all the long days of hard work. The Ruffin had taken the worst punishment a boat could take, and it came out of it in one piece.
The boat eased back to normal speed and after another mile or so they could see Parimba. The men stared at it from a distance with sullen eyes. Parimba had come to be everything they hated. And they hadn’t taken it yet. There was no cheering or yelling. Time enough for cheering when the city was in their hands.
The landing and the city started to take shape. Some rifle fire came at the Ruffin when it cut engines and drifted in toward the landing. The men defending the landing were in what looked like a warehouse of some kind. It was a very old building, and when a string of shells knocked it down it started to burn. The Maxims cut down four men trying to run up into the town.
They got the guns off the boat and started up the slope that went to the town square. Four cannons on the boat were to shell the town as they moved in. Shells were whistling over their heads by the time they got to the top of the slope. One of Tolliver’s sergeants carried Gatling’s light gun. Gatling carried the folded tripod for the Hotchkiss machine gun. Tolliver, with his rifle stuck inside his belt, carried the gun itself. Gatling saw Kilby about ten yards in front of him; he moved like a walking dead man. He still had his rifle, but he carried it by the muzzle and the stock scraped the ground.
Shells from the Ruffin were hitting the governor’s palace, a faded pink building on the far side of the town square. Tolliver had said it had been falling down for years. Soon it would fall faster, Gatling thought. They ran into heavy fire when they got to the top of the slope. It looked like a lot of men had made it back from the river—maybe not all but a lot. There must have been hundreds of them crouched down or lying behind any cover they could find. For bandit soldiers they fought pretty well, Gatling thought. Some of the New Columbia men were dropped by the heavy fire; then the cannons and the Maxims started firing. The cannons inflicted the most damage. Every time a shell hit a wagon or a stack of barrels in front of some men, the wagon or barrels disappeared in a flash of light and sound. So did the men.
They cleared the street leading to the square, then moved into the square itself. The governor’s palace, ugly and squat and blotchy pink, stood on the far side of the square. Shells were still hitting it, some exploding inside the building. The palace had walls around it, but the massive gate wasn’t locked. Men fired from the walls until they were killed or driven off by bullets and shells. Other men were trying to close the gate. Machine gun bullets drove them back and they started to run toward the palace. Gatling set down the tripod he was carrying and Tolliver fitted the Hotchkiss machine gun to it. A circular rod slid into a slot in the tripod and held it securely. Gatling had metal trays, each holding thirty rounds. He pushed the end of a tray into the feed and opened fire on the running men. They had a good start, at least five hundred yards, but the Hotchkiss cut them down. A few not hit turned and tried to surrender. They had their hands above their heads; he killed them anyway.
The area behind the walls soon cleared and the only shooting came from two or three streets away. Tolliver’s sergeants knew what they had to do and were doing it. Gatling was pleased at the Hotchkiss gun’s performance. It had a high rate of fire and a remarkably smooth action. Tolliver handed him a canteen and he drank from it. He was handing it back when he spotted Kilby running toward the front entrance to the palace. It looked as if he had made his way to the door by running behind a long line of shrubs. Tolliver saw him too when Kilby was at the top of the steps.
“Stay with the gun. I’m going after him.” Gatling picked up the light gun case and started to run. Why in hell was Kilby running to Suarez? He had no answer to that. He slowed down when he got to the open door. There was no longer any shooting nearby; the palace was silent and looked deserted. If Suarez was up there somewhere, Gatling meant to take him alive so the bastard could strangle on a short rope. He would just shoot Kilby dead. But he wanted to capture Suarez first. Suarez was the prize.
Holding the gun case, he inched up the stairs. At the top he heard Kilby going from room to room, calling softly for Suarez to show himself. Kilby came out into the long hallway, and when he saw Gatling at the end of it he started to run. The hallway was thickly carpeted and their feet made hardly a sound. A door facing up the hall was closed. Suarez might or might not be in there. It was a very long hall. Gatling was a better runner and he began to close on Kilby. Kilby no longer had his rifle. Gatling couldn’t take a chance that Suarez wasn’t behind the closed door. One loud yell from Kilby and Suarez would start running himself. Gatling ran harder, but couldn’t use the Colt because of the noise. Kilby was no more than twenty feet from the door when Gatling opened the gun case, took out the blowgun, extended it, aimed it, and blew the poisoned dart inside it at Kilby’s back. The dart hit him just above his belt buckle. He kept on running until he nearly reached the door. His hands were in the air, clawing at nothing. Then he dropped and lay still.
Gatling cocked the Colt and slammed the door open after he turned the door handle. He jumped in ready to kill. Suarez sat behind the governor’s desk, staring at him. He was blind drunk, so drunk he could hardly focus his eyes. He slopped more rum into a gold cup and mumbled something in Portuguese.
“You’re invited to a hanging, senhor,” Gatling said.
Tolliver was waiting when Gatling came out prodding Suarez in the back with the Colt. “City’s secure,” Tolliver said. “The last of them just surrendered.”
“They’ll be sorry they did,” Gatling said.