The next three days and nights passed uneventfully, albeit not too pleasantly. They wended their way up over the Sierras without meeting anyone and were on the eastern slope, just making camp in another hollow after a long overnight ride, when their luck ran out.
The little party had it down to a routine by now. Rosalita was helping her brother with the ponies, and Captain Gringo had just set up the Maxim when Gaston, crouched on a boulder above them, whistled for attention and called out, “Down there in that dry wash, by the salt cedars!”
Captain Gringo looked down the long, bare slope just in time to see two shadowy figures taking cover in the wan dawn light. He called back, “I see ’em. Looks like two Mexican vaqueros. They have us spotted, too, or they wouldn’t be ducking.”
Gaston snorted, “Vaqueros, in this part of the country? They are Yaqui, and there are more than two of them. At least a half dozen. They have no horses, so it’s a raiding party. The Yaqui fight on foot.”
“Come on, the men I just spotted were wearing sombreros and white cotton.”
“What did you expect, Sioux bonnets and war paint? The Yaqui are skulkers. Of course they dress like Mexicans. Whom did you think they intended to get close to, Scotchmen in kilts?”
“I’ll take your word for it. Tico, move out to my right and take cover behind that boulder with your rifle. Rosalita, over to my left behind that other rock. I’m going to move the horses back.”
Gaston snapped. “No! Lay the horses on their sides with their hooves tied. They’ll start by trying to panic them into running away from us!”
Tico said, “I’ll put the horses down, Captain Gringo. Your place is at the machine gun!”
The American didn’t answer. Despite Gaston’s obvious disgust, he’d taught the two young Mexicans how to work their guns. He didn’t know if they could hit anything with them, but they were bright and quick to learn. He squatted behind the Maxim and started to load it.
But Gaston called down, “Bring that thing up here.”
“Why? If they rush us up this slope I’ll have a clear field of fire.”
“Sacre! Don’t you think they can see that? One man or even a boy can defend us on that side with a single rifle. We need that fucking gun up here!”
The American picked up the Maxim, tripod and all, and struggled up to Gaston, asking, “What’s on the far side?”
“Cover. It’s steep as a bitch, but overgrown with greasewood. They didn’t let us spot their point because they want to die.”
Captain Gringo stood by Gaston’s shoulder and stared down the south slope of their ridge. The canyon below was choked with house-sized boulders and brush, ink black in the dawn light. He nodded and placed the gun in position to rake. Since taking it from the Rurales he’d had time to adjust the traverse for a wide sweep to either side. He depressed the muzzle and noticed the jacket was leaking. That was nice. He’d refilled the cooling jacket twice since they’d been in the mountains and could only hope there was enough water left to matter. They’d told him these things tended to blow up in one’s face if the barrel overheated.
“What do we do now?” he asked.
“We wait. They’ll let the others work around to what they think is our rear. Then they’ll start a parley to distract us while the real attack comes up through that brush.”
Gaston turned and called down, “Tico? When the one with the white flag comes partway up the slope, don’t shoot at him. Don’t pay any attention to anything he says, either.”
The boy called back, “My father told me about Los Yaqui, señor”
The sun rose above the distant horizon. Tico called out, “Here it comes!” and Captain Gringo looked back over his shoulder to see a tiny, distant figure moving up across the clear slope waving a handkerchief.
Gaston said, “The other way, you fool. They’ll crawl as far up as they can, like lizards. Observe! That clump down there to the left!”
“I saw it move. You figure they’re in line abreast or single file?”
“Abreast. They want to make this ridge together and come boiling over it while we discuss the terms with the others, like idiotic Mexicans. It’s a very tedious trick, but it always seems to work on Mexicans. Latin armies are in the habit of talking before they get down to business.”
Gaston slid off the boulder and took his place beside the gun, saying, “I’ll feed it as you fire. What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation?”
“I want ’em within a hundred yards.”
“This gun carries at least three times that far, on the level.”
“I know. Got another one spotted, over to the right.”
Behind them, a distant voice was calling, “Hey, muchachos, for why are you afraid of us? We are simple wood cutters. We have come up here to make charcoal. Do you have any tobacco?”
Tico didn’t answer. Tico was shaping up.
Captain Gringo asked Gaston. “What’s their usual signal?” and the Frenchman said, “The one doing the talking will pretend to be insulted and go away. Then he’ll fire a shot as he reaches cover. These others creeping up can’t hear his voice on this side of the ridge, but when they hear the shot. . .”
“Let’s throw their timing off. Tico! Do you think you can hit the one with the flag of truce?”
“Perhaps, but is it honorable, Captain Gringo?”
“Listen to me. I want you to count to one hundred silently and fire at him. I’m not going to make another sound. Pay no attention to anything he says or does until you reach one hundred. Understand?”
“I will try, señor.”
Gaston murmured, “Eh bien. Half of them, don’t speak Spanish. They may think we’ve left this ridge if there is an interval of silence. On the other hand, they may have us spotted, despite this brush.”
“Doesn’t matter; not if they have an agreed-on signal both parties are counting on. They can’t count more than two heads up here and won’t expect anything worse than rifle fire at close range.”
“Yes, but speaking of range, that bush I just saw move can’t be more than fifty meters down the slope!”
Before the American could answer, Tico’s rifle squibbed behind them, and a long, ragged row of brown figures materialized above the olive-gray, waist-deep brush just a few dozen yards below them!
Captain Gringo opened fire as the Yaqui were leaning into their final rush for the top. He started on his left and traversed the gun methodically to his right, aiming not at the men but into the brush at about mid-shin level. He cut at least two off at the knees before the others, as expected, dropped behind the bushes they’d been using for cover and, just as he’d expected, it didn’t do them much good!
The Maxim snarled its woodpecker song of death in another blue haze of cordite smoke as, down in the target area, dust, pebbles, shattered twigs, and gobs of bloody, tattered flesh geysered off the side jot the mountain. One man broke and sprang to his feet in panic, as one man always did. The American ignored him as he finished his first traverse and hosed the muzzle back for another sweep of lead slugs. Someone, seeing the first man running and not getting hit, jumped to his feet to follow, as someone always did. As Captain Gringo completed his traverse he ceased fire. By now seven men were up and loping down the slope in individual clouds of dust, neither screaming, which was to their credit, nor cool enough to dive for cover, which was foolish. Captain Gringo opened fire again and swept the slope at higher elevation, cutting all but one Yaqui down on his first traverse. He swung the muzzle back and chopped the running Indian’s spine in two at the waist. Then he snapped, “Cover my back!” and rose to his feet, yanking the machine gun from its mount.
He turned, bracing the breech on his hip as he held the scalding-hot jacket with his free hand, raising it to a forty-five-degree angle. As Gaston rolled away from his boots, aiming his own rifle down the slope they’d just smoked up, Captain Gringo glanced down, saw Tico and the girl were all right, and, ignoring the white dot sprawled in the dust two thirds of the way down, fired the Maxim.
He hozed a stream of lead up into the sky and could see, as dust puffs tap-danced along the valley floor, that he had the elevation right. He sent a burst of plunging fire into the clump of trees down in the wash and a dozen running figures exploded out of it, running in confused circles and then, as he’d hoped, bunching up to run away en masse. He laughed and raised the barrel to follow them with his plunging fire. The stream of bullets came down on them like thunderbolts from the blue and they started dropping. There was a tinny click as the belt ran dry and he dropped the hot barrel, swearing in pain. But not one of the rag-doll figures sprawled in the slowly clearing cloud of dust down there were moving.
Favoring his burned palm, he put the gun back on its mount and fumbled another ammo box open. Gaston said, “I see no need to reload. Merde alors! Can you imagine what it would be like if anyone ever had a serious war with these things? Those last poor bastards are at least a full kilometer away!”
“You mean they were. Think anyone down in that brush is still alive?”
“If he is, you just made a Christian out of him. Wounded men simply die in these mountains. Survivors spread the word to be more cautious. I doubt if we’ll see any more of this particular band. The Yaqui are most truculent, but hardly given to suicide. This thing frightens the devil out of me!”
“Yeah, and I just blew away half our ammunition. That’s the weak spot of this weapon. That and having to keep filling it up with water. I’ll bet I boiled the jacket dry just now.”
He wrapped a pocket kerchief around his injured hand and gingerly unscrewed the little radiator valve atop the jacket. A faint whisp of steam curled out and he said, “Dry as a bone. I thought it felt light this time. Let’s see what it did to my hand.”
He unwrapped the kerchief and blew on his red palm. His hands were calloused for an officer’s, but, yeah, he was going to have some blisters there. He frowned and said, “That’s funny. The first time I tried firing from the hip I blistered hell out of myself. This time I fired much longer and it wasn’t as bad.”
“Perhaps your hands are getting used to your unusual style of warfare?”
“I don’t think that’s it. I think the empty jacket insulated me from the barrel’s heat. Jesus, if it was dry even before I stood up with it—”
He took the armorer’s wrench from its clip on the gun mount and unbolted the retaining bands holding the water jacket around the long barrel. He slid the empty jacket off and gingerly touched the Parkerized steel of the much thinner barrel. It was hot, but no hotter than many a rifle he’d felt after an hour on the firing range.
He said, “Shit, this water jacket’s just a tinker’s notion! The gun works good enough without it!”
Gaston started to object. Then he shrugged and said, “You may be right. Most weapons systems are over-designed. On the other hand, if it were to overheat and warp while one was firing it.”
“No,” the American insisted, “Maxim designed these things to be used in siege situations, not in the field. If you had to fire it for hours you’d need more than the water jacket. You’d need a hose line running constant cooling to it. You’d need a trainload of ammunition, too. In any casual firefight, this thing should be able to fire dry for at least a full belt. Without the jacket, it would cool even faster as you stopped to put another belt in. Hell, I see no sense in packing this jacket along all over Mexico!”
“It’s always best to travel fight as possible. It is also your neck.”
“I’ve got to think up some sort of handle for the barrel before I try any more hip shooting. First I’ll see how the kids are and figure our next move. We can’t stay here. No telling how many Indians got clear, or who may have heard all the shooting.”
“You go. I’ll stay up here on lookout.-”
“That’s what I just said.”
“You did? Ah, old soldiers need not indulge in idle chatter, hein? It is refreshing to meet a fighting man who doesn’t pontificate about details all soldiers know in advance.”
Leaving Gaston, Captain Gringo slid down the slope to Rosalita and Tico. The boy was still staring down at the man he’d shot, his Krag in his hands. He said, “It’s fantastic! The first time I ever fired a gun I hit the pobrecito dead center!”
“Don’t get cocky, Tico. I’ve fired too many rounds to remember, and I still miss from time to time. Let’s get the horses up and loaded. We can’t stay here.”
“We are moving in broad daylight, Captain Gringo? I thought you said this was dangerous!”
“It is. Aside from remembering all soldiers miss, remember all military maxims are only true ninety per cent of the time. There was a man named Custer, once, who wrote a very good manual on Indian fighting that the U.S. Army still uses. He got killed following his own rules, and they were very good rules, nine times out of ten.”
“I understand. I take the advice of Mother Church with a grain of salt. What mistake did this Custer make, following the book too closely?”
“Tell you later. They don’t apply here either way. Are you all right, Rosalita?”
“Yes. I shot my pistol, too. It jumped all over the place and I did not hit anybody.”
“Good girl. Let’s get moving.”
As he started to unhobble the nearest pony Tico asked, “Where are we going? Back the way we came?”
“No. Down the slope to that valley. That dry wash must run downhill and I want to clear these mountains fast.”
“But you said it was best to ride the high country.”
“Goddamn it, do as you’re told!”
Then, noting the hurt look in the boy’s eyes, he added, “You did well in that fight just now, but if you want to be a fighting man, you have to obey orders. We’re not under fire now, so I’ll take the time to explain this once. There’s no time for discussion when bullets are flying. We’re changing our style because by now the Indians will know our style. They fought us in the high country. If they come back, that’s where they’ll expect to find us. On the other hand, that dry wash promises a fast, smooth ride, and the Yaqui are on foot. Gaston says the Chihuahua desert is just over those ridges to the east, and I’m betting the wash leads to and through a pass. Now, is there anything else you have to ask, or can we get our poor behinds out of here?”
Tico refused to meet his eyes as he asked quietly, “Yes. I would like to know what this business of orders and commands means. I do not remember anyone saying you were our commander. You may be Captain Gringo, but you are not a real captain, and in any case this is not an army and I am not a soldier. I will take suggestions, but I am not certain I have to take orders”
Rosalita said, “Tico, my brother, you are speaking like a child!”
“I am not a child, woman. I am the man of this family. What will anyone do if I decide I don’t like to take orders?”
The American said, flatly, “Let me put it this way, Tico. If I give you an order, any order, and you don’t follow it to the letter, I’m going to kill you. Are there any other questions?”
There weren’t.
He hadn’t expected any.