XLI: JAKE BETTERS THE "EXCHANGE"
By the time Jake caught up with the others that inner humane being,whose occasional appearances caused him so much disconcertion, hadwithdrawn within his usual cynical shell. His face, when Lee inquiredfor Sliver, expressed surprise that she should have thought it worthwhile to inquire.
"_Him?_ Oh, he's back there a-holding 'em off while we gain a spell."
Though delivered with masterly unconcern, his explanation did notaltogether relieve her anxiety. "But--how will he find us again?"
Jake's shrug was fine in its indifference. "He'll play a lone han',Missy; plug straight for the border. Being alone that-a-way, he'lllikely beat us to it."
"You really think so?"
"He'll be there to meet us."
Jake's tone carried conviction even to Gordon. Only Bull was notdeceived. After the other two had ridden on he looked at Jake. A lift ofthe eyebrow, slight shake of the head, touch of the forefinger to theknee--he knew all. Thereafter each burst of rifle-fire, long pause,explained itself. He saw Sliver waiting till the _revueltosos_ came outin the open. The slow rhythm of later shots showed him firing along theridge. A sudden burst of sharpshooting at sundown, following silence,explained themselves. His glance at Jake, the latter's slow shake of thehead, signaled then that all was over.
While they were traveling down the long slope toward the railroad thesun had lowered till they could see the telegraph-poles running, a sharpblack fence, across the smoldering sky. Southward a toy station rosefrom the dead-flat plain under a velvet plume of smoke. Bull had laidhis course to cross the tracks miles ahead of it. By traveling allnight, they could then gain the mountains that bared iron teeth alongthe western sky-line; but they would be no nearer the border than whenthey began the fight that morning.
The thought was strong in their minds when Jake leveled his rangeglasses at the dark smoke plume. "Enjine an' five cars."
He handed the glasses to Bull, and before the latter's keen sight thelenses laid the familiar outlines, of a revolutionary train, a-bristleon top with humanity. Even at the distance, the flash and flare of gay_rebozos_ told they were mostly women, and that told all. "Nobody therebut women and wounded. Belongs to the gang that's chasing us."
"A hundred miles to El Paso," Jake spoke. "Three days' horseback? Threehours with that old mogul?"
"Golly!" The idea fastened on Gordon. "Couldn't we?" In place of theirpresent plodding he saw the telegraph-poles, rocks, hills, flying pastas they sped northward in the engine.
"On'y women and wounded?" Jake repeated it, musingly.
"Dark in half an hour?" Bull added: "They kedn't tell us from their own.'Course we should lose the horses." With his accustomed caution he readthe reverse of the shield. "If anything went wrong--we'd be left afooton the desert."
"No worse than we are," Jake argued. "These beasts have been runningsence daylight; are clean plugged out. Even if they carry us across tothe mountains we're not sure of feed nor water--an' still a hundredmiles from the border."
"But Sliver?" Lee protested. "We can't leave him."
She was looking at Bull. He looked at Jake, who looked away, in his minda picture of Sliver dead among the rocks. Then with that readiness andsteadiness that had always filled poor Sliver with envy he lied to agood end. "The last thing he tol' me, Missy, was not to wait. ''Twouldhinder me an' hinder you-all. I'll make my run alone.'"
"Very well." Her sigh would have fitted an anxious mother who felt thather boy would be safer under her own eye. "Very well, but I _do_ wish hewere here."
Again Bull glanced at Jake, who once more looked away; but neitherspoke.
While riding slowly forward Bull laid out their plan. "It 'ull be up toyou an' Missy," he told Gordon, "to take care of the engineer while Jakean' me stan' off the crowd. She kin hold a gun to his head while youpitch the stuff aboard."
The sun had now set. The dusk thickened as they advanced and through itswarm curtain presently broke the distant gleam of cooking-fires. Somewere down on the tracks; others on the car-roofs built on rude hearthsof earth within stone circles. When Bull called a halt and surveyed thescene through the glasses it presented the familiar spectacle of a_revueltosos'_ train-camp: women bending over the fires; some on theirknees at the _metates_, others stirring their clay cooking-pots, allgossiping at their work. Here and there a man's face showed in the fireglow; but always an arm in a sling, crutch, or bandage explained hispresence there. Unsuspecting, believing that in those wide spaces therailway presented the one avenue of attack, they kept no watch; werestricken dumb when, half an hour thereafter, a stern command to hold uptheir hands issued from the darkness beyond the firelight. Only one manraised a gun, and as Bull's rifle spat he threw up his hands and plungedheadlong from the top of the car to the ground.
Squatted, at supper, with his women by a fire under the lee of themogul, the Mexican engineer proved easy game. A poke in the side fromGordon's gun emphasized his command to cut the engine off the train.Trembling, the fellow obeyed and stood mute, shaking with fear, withLee's gun pressed into the nape of his neck, while Gordon pitched theirstuff into the cab. When, moreover, after firing a few warning shotsalong the length of the train, Jake and Bull climbed aboard he openedwide the throttle and sent the mogul spinning northward.
The instant they started Gordon grabbed the fireman's shovel. "Here'swhere I fulfil one of my kid ambitions."
Looking back from the seat where she had climbed beside Bull to watchthe tracks ahead, Lee saw his face focused in brilliant red light as heshoveled and raked the clinker off the bars. Jake, with his usualcaution, sat with the engineer; from whom he prodded valuableinformation with the muzzle of his gun.
His strident repetitions thereof carried above the roar and rattle ofthe speeding engine across the cab. "He says the half of Valles's armyis scattered like pin feathers afore a north wind!... With what's lefthe's making a las' stan' north of Chihuahua!... He still bosses all thecountry from here to Juarez!... This outfit was out raiding haciendas tosupply the new base!" The next item of news he delivered with a cheer."Hooray! the line's open clean to the border! He don't know of anytrains being run to-night! Thinks we'll have a clear track!"
Just then lights and the ruddy glow of fires flashed out as the enginecame spinning out of a cut through low hills. It was merely a sectiongang, and as they sped past they obtained a glimpse of curious brownfaces.
They suggested Bull's question, "Ask him if there's any revueltosos onthe way."
"At La Mancha!" Jake yelled back. "About thirty miles this side of theborder!... Half of the brigada Gonzales is holding the town for Valles!"
The _brigada_ Gonzales! The command that had furnished the murderers ofMary Mills. A spasm of hate writhed over Bull's dark face. His big handsclenched. He turned and looked out of the cab window till he regainedcontrol of his voice.
"Does he allow we kin run through there?"
Jake nodded. "If we douse the headlight and race by afore they have timeto block us."
Looking back, just then, at Gordon, now stripped to his undershirt andgrowing sootier every minute, Lee heard the answer. She did not,however, give it much thought. The hills and rocks that took on queershapes in the dim light of a rising moon, giant _sahuaros_ that wentslipping past like huge ghosts, the occasional fires and lights,glimpses of strange brown faces, the rush and roar of the enginespeeding through mysterious night, held her senses. Yet it stuck in hermind, came popping out when, as the engine rounded a sharp curve, theheadlight beam struck full on a sheaf of glittering wires.
"Oh!" she called out in sudden alarm. "We ought to have cut the wires!"
It was a vital error. Gordon's whistle expressed their joint dismay; butJake, with his intense practicability, recovered first. "Well, what's todo--stop an' cut them?"
Bull shook his head. "Too late! We've been running over an hour. Nothingleft but to take a chanst."
Jake nodded. But presently he spoke again. "Chanst? If they pull up arail an' ditch us
at La Mancha, I'd hardly call it a chanst with half ofthe brigada Gonzales shooting us up from all around. We'd be pickled forkeeps."
During their "rustler days" it had always been Jake's craft that pulledthem out of tight places. Habit held Bull silent till, after he hadspoken to the engineer, Jake went on: "He says the track runs two percent. down into La Mancha. We kin shut off steam an' pussy-foot it thelast few miles. So here's the dope. We drop you-all"--his glance took inthe others--"a mile this side of the station, give you two hours to goaround, then shoot ahead. If we get through, you-all strike a light an'we'll stop and pick you up. If we don't--we don't. But you'll be less 'nthirty miles from the border an' have all night to make your getaway."
"But--"
Gordon's objection, however, was nipped by Bull. "It goes."
Lee, however, was not so easily silenced. Climbing down, she crossed thewabbling cab with unsteady steps and caught Jake's arm. "Oh, don't takethe risk. We'll abandon the engine. Come with us!"
Looking down into her face, Jake's bleak eyes were almost soft. Hegently patted her hand. "Now don't be jumping at conclusions, Missy. Weneed the enjine to go on, but I ain't a-going to commit suicide. If thetracks are blocked we'll back right off. Then I'll take to the bushesan' follow you round."
With that she had to be content. But, realizing the danger, she climbedup and sat beside him while the mogul rolled and racked and plungedforward through the night. She was still sitting there when, an hourlater, a headlight flashed up far away.
"They've wired ahead!" Bull yelled across the cab. "Make him stop, Jake!We'll take to the bushes here."
"Oh! now you come with us!" Lee cried.
But Jake's answer wiped out her happiness. "No, Missy, I'll pull 'emalong for a few miles while you-all make your getaway afore I drop off."
Already the throttle was closed. Slowing under the brakes, the mogulglided to a stop. Leaping down, Gordon caught the provisions,ammunition, and rifles as Bull threw them down. Meanwhile Lee stoodlooking up at Jake with wide, distressed eyes.
"Come on, dear!" Gordon called up from below.
"No time to waste." Bull touched her shoulder.
Still she stood. "Oh, I hate to leave you. _Do_ come!"
"Oh, shore!" Jake laughed, patting her cheek. "I'll jine you in a fewhours--or at El Paso, if I miss you here."
Because of his cynical outer crust, she had given him, perhaps, theleast affection of the Three. But in the last few weeks she had sensedbeneath it his loyal human feeling. Now, trembling, she put out herhand, then, reaching suddenly, she pulled down his head and kissed hischeek. The next second she leaped from the cab into Gordon's arms.
Bull had already jumped. Left alone, Jake stood still while the engineerthrew the reversing lever and opened the throttle. As the mogul began toglide slowly backward he raised his hand and touched the spot her lipshad pressed. Perhaps it revived some memory of his boyhood, somereverent memory of the days when other women than wantons had held himin love and respect. His face was very soft; so soft and tender it wouldnever have been recognized by his dance-hall flames.
The engine had moved back a hundred yards with increasing speed beforehe even moved. Then just as ice spreads its frozen mask over pleasantwaters so the outer crust that hid the real Jake from the undiscerningspread again over his lantern features. In sudden shame at being caughtby himself in such softness, he turned furiously upon the engineer.
"What are you grinning at?"
The man was not. He was far too much afraid. But though he asserted hisseriousness with profuse apologies, it made no difference to Jake.
"The trouble with you, Alberto, ain't that you Mexicans are a dirty,lying, thieving, murdering lot so much as you're too plumb ignorant toknow your betters when they chanst around. In that brown pudding youcall a face there ain't a gleam to show you're sensible of the honoryou've jest been paid. You don't know it, Alberto, an' you probablynever will, but take it from me that if you was president of this rottencountry 'twouldn't come near it. If I don't blow the top of your headoff during the next hour--which I likely will--you'll be able to tell itto your descendants that a white girl once rode in your cab. If they'resmart they won't believe you. But it's the closest to fame you'll everget, so play it for all it's worth. Now listen, Alberto"--he shook hisfinger in the engineer's frightened face--"if you ever expect to hand itdown to them descendants aforesaid, cut out them grins and get down tobusiness."
Delivered in English, the harangue flew high over the Mexican's head.But it did Jake lots of good. Having, as it were, palliated his shamefulemotions, he followed his own advice and turned to the business in hand.
"How far is that enjine, Alberto?" He poked the question in with hisgun.
"Five miles, senor."
"Jest an enjine?"
"No, senor, it rides too steadily. It draws two cars; no more or itcould not take the grade at this speed."
"How long afore they catch us?"
"Ten more miles, senor. They travel two to our one."
"All right, slow up a bit."
With hollow clank of drivers the mogul moved on at slackened speed untilless than half a mile intervened. It was running, of course, reversed,and across the intervening space the headlights stared. When, obedientto Jake's order, the throttle was thrown wide again the two engines ranlike giant insects through the night, one in chase of the other,thundering across bridges, whizzing around curves, shooting throughcuts, chimneys spitting smoke and flame, headlights flashing defiancelike fiery eyes.
All the while Jake timed the distance. "Cut her off a notch," he orderedwhen the mogul began to gain. "I wanter draw 'em on as far as I kin."
But out of the dim smoke that trailed behind the pursuing engine broke,just then, a series of red flashes in furious staccato. The drummingreports were drowned in the roar and clank of the racing engines; butthe hail of bullets that rattled and glanced from the mogul's side wasunmistakable.
"Machine-guns!" Jake exclaimed. "Chuck her into high, Alberto!" As,under a full head of steam, the engine picked up and ran through thenight like a frightened girl, he added: "Sheer accident, they hit us,anyway. They kain't do it again."
Proving his words, the next burst of firing went wide. Only one bulletstruck the cowcatcher, and, leaping like a horse from the spur, themogul launched in dizzy flight down grade; had drawn two miles ahead bythe time she took the next sharp curve.
"Hold her at that," Jake ordered.
But again he had failed to reckon with the wires, which, after blockingtheir advance, now cut off retreat. Shortly thereafter came a flash oflight as the engine shot from a cut through the first of the series ofstations they had passed on their way up.
In accordance with the inscrutable law which governs the location ofMexican stations, it stood a half-mile from the little adobe town thatdragged its unclean, brown skirts across the tracks. If the inhabitantsthereof had been content to obey telegraphed orders to build an obstacleand let it go at that, the mogul would probably have gone into the ditchwithout a second's warning. But, desiring to see the smash, they hadlighted a huge fire alongside the tracks, and under its glare the pileof ties, earth, and stones stood out plain as by day. Wheels grinding,blue sparks shooting from the sanded rails, the mogul stopped within ahundred yards.
After he had closed the throttle and thrown on the brakes the engineer'seye had gone to the cab door. Then it switched to the ugly, black muzzleof Jake's gun. Releasing the brakes, he reversed and opened thethrottle.
A sputter of musketry had followed the first yell of disappointment thatwent up from the rabble of _peon_ watchers. Fired from ancient pieces,however, the bullets fell short or rebounded like peas from the mogul'ssides. Picking up her stride, she outran their feeble pursuit in ahundred yards.
It was then that the engineer's voice rose in protest: "But, senor, weshall run into the other train! Mira! Mira! it is now only a mile away!"
Jake's eye measured the distance. Then, in dry soliloquy that, even ifit had n
ot been couched in English, would still have gone over theother's head, he spoke. "Do you know what a maquina loca is, Alberto?You don't? You s'prise me." Scared out of his small wits, the poor devilhad not even answered. "It's the one great invention your pais hasproduced. 'Twas first used by Mr. Orozco shortly after he graduated froma mule's tail to be commander-in-chief of Madero's army. He designed itfor the extirpation of Huertistas that got to tagging after him likethese gents is trailing us. 'Twas very simple. He'd load up half a tonof dynamite on an enjine cowcatcher an' turn her loose with the throttlewide open jest where she'd catch a troop-train in a blind cut. Mightyeffective, it was, too. Some o' them Huertistas was so elevated abovetheir normal they hain't finished raining down yet. Of course we're shyon the dynamite. But a forty-ton mogul careering along at sixty miles anhour ain't to be despised. Anyway, we'll try it. At this gait we ortercatch 'em in the cut beyond the station. Hit her up."
While talking he had not been idle. First he laid his rifle by the cabdoor, ready to jump; then slipped over his head and shoulder thebandoliers of cartridge-clips Gordon had left for him. Meanwhile theMexican's frightened glance swung between him and the tracks which wereslipping faster and faster under the mogul. Beyond the station a faintglow, reflection from its headlight, marked the entrance of the_revueltosos'_ train into the cut. In his mind the engineer's horror,burning, mangling, scalding, fought for supremacy with his fear ofJake--and won. Selecting the moment that the latter's two hands wereengaged with the bandoliers, the engineer crossed the cab in one leapand plunged down and out.
"You son of a gun!" Grabbing his rifle, Jake jumped after.
But in the few seconds that elapsed between their leaps the mogulcarried Jake a hundred yards. A second to a bump and each roll as hestruck rebounded and turned over and over lost more time. A few morewere required before he picked himself up. Then his glance went afterthe mogul, now shooting like a comet toward the cut from which the_revueltosos'_ train had just emerged. In the glare of the headlightseach vividly illuminating the other, like two dragons breathing fire andsmoke, they flew at each other's throats.
Came a yell! a crash! Then darkness, hazy with steam, wiped out all butscreams and agonized curses.
"_God!_" It burst from Jake. "If Bull could on'y have been here!"
Both while in the air and rolling over and over he had an impressionthat he must have jumped almost on top of the engineer. But now, lookingaround, he became aware--first, that he was standing directly oppositethe station; second, of a dark figure in the lighted doorway; third, ofa flash, pistol-crack, of a bullet singing by his ear; lastly of abaker's dozen of other dark figures rushing at him from all around.
In a pinch--how well Sliver and Bull had known it!--Jake could always becounted upon to do the unexpected. Behind him stretched an open, moonlitplain where he would be easily shot down or overtaken. Grabbing the bullby the horns, he rushed straight at the figure in the doorway. Into itsdark midst went the butt of his rifle. Bang! he slammed the door, aheavy, three-inch affair of oak that fitted against stone jambs andlintels; was secured by iron swing-bars. As he dropped these in placethe panels quivered under the impact of many shoulders. Leaving the manhe had overthrown writhing and holding his middle, Jake crossed quicklyto the window.
In readiness for just such contingencies, its iron grill had been setout six inches to permit a raking fire along the wall, and shooting atten feet into the convulsive movement at the door Jake's first shotdropped a man. As the others dodged around the corner a yell told ofanother wounded.
A smaller window commanded that side, and, crossing over, Jake raked thefugitives in their flight with a galling fire till the last dim figuredisappeared in the brush. Then, after he had noted with satisfactionthat the window rose high above the ground, he turned to his captive,who still lay groaning on the floor.
"Git up!"
Steel eyes and ugly pistol muzzle enforced the order.
The man, a fat Mexican with a yellow, bilious face and small, beadyeyes, arose. "If you will only let me live, senor--"
"Shut up!" Jake cut him off. "You're the station agent?"
"Si, senor!"
"What's in those boxes?"
"Powder, senor, giant powder that was brought in by revueltosos from agringo mine. It is to be shipped on the train to-morrow to Valles, whowill have it made into bombs for use in his trenches."
"Thought so." Jake grinned at the pile of boxes. "'Tain't no trick totell gringo dynamite. The markings fairly scream, 'Made in America!' SoValles is going to make bombs of it? Well, well!"
"Senor, you will--"
"Now, Alberto, cut that out." Having thus transferred the cognomen fromthe engineer to his present captive, Jake went on. "That preciousexistence o' yourn depends altogether upon your paisanos outside. Thelonger I hold 'em off the longer you live. Get it? Bueno! Now trot overto the window. The second you see any one--yelp! If you don't--" Hetapped his gun significantly.
The agent thus placed, he looked around the room, The blackened stone ofthe walls told that it had already been burned in one or other of therevolutions. He grinned again, noting that the original roof had beenreplaced with laminated iron. "Kain't roast us out, anyway, Alberto."
On the rough table a one-wick lamp shed light over the usual litter of asmall freight-office. These days there was little real business. Only afew barrels and bundles stood with the dynamite against the back wall.Crossing the room, Jake pried off the lids, then, while the agentwatched him with fearful eyes, he carried and piled the boxes in a solidblock close to the table. That done, he returned to the larger window.
Beyond the tracks the plains ran off and away under the moonlight.Northward a cloud of steam hung over the cut, cloaking the salvage ofdead and wounded from the wreck. From it issued an occasional cry,command, mutter of voices. Raising his rifle, he sighted into the midst,then dropped it again.
"'Tain't square, shooting wounded." But there was no pity in his eyes.His mouth drew into a hard grin as he muttered: "I'd like to know jesthow many I got! Must have been a tidy mess. Well, well! look who'shere!"
It was a bullet that had flattened against the stone lintel. His quickeye had picked the flash out of a bunch of chaparral a couple of hundredyards away, and he searched the patch with sweeping muzzle emptying thechamber along its front. Then he waited. But came no answer.
"Afraid I've spoiled another of your colleagues." He turned to theagent. "They ain't very keen, anyway. You Mexes like a sure thing. It'sa cinch they're not a-going to try anything till the moon goes down, an'I simply kain't waste any more of my valuable time on them. You kin keepwatch, Alberto."
Seating himself at the table, he produced the pack he always carried andlaid out the first cards in a game of solitaire. As he played game aftergame Jake's brow puckered, the corners of his mouth loosened andtightened again in accordance with the fluctuations of his luck. Hecould not have been more interested, absorbed if, instead of playingwith fate on the edge of the grave, he were cleaning out cowboys in afrontier bunk-house.
In the eyes of the Mexican, watching fearfully, the cold, grim faceloomed in the yellow lamplight, a mask of terror. Yet his fright heldhim the more closely to his work. Not a leaf stirred in the brush, puffof dust raised under the night wind, without his notice; and while hewatched the darkening plains one second, the grim, hard face under thegold of the lamp the next, Jake played steadily on, played till, havingcompassed her circle, the moon rolled down to the horizon and hungpoised, a huge silver ball, on the tip of a far-off peak.
Rising, then, he walked to the large window, threw the shutters andlooked out over the plains, dim and mysterious in the fading light. Astir of movement, buzz of voices, told of the attack that was preparingin the chaparral behind the station. The hard line of his mouth curledin derision, but as his gaze traveled northward to where the black peaknow pierced the bright face of the moon its contempt faded.
Lee's face, whitely anxious for him, was in his mind, the thrill of herarms around his n
eck, when he murmured, "On'y thirty miles to theborder, a clean getaway."
Ranging southward again, his glance brought up on the dim, dark rangethat marked Sliver's last stand. Once more Jake saw him lying, faceturned up, among the rocks. But the vision brought no grief. His smallnod expressed merely approbation. Till the moon went out and darknesssettled over the plains he stood there, thinking; stood till, with asharp ping! a bullet whistled past his ear. Then, after closing theshutters, he returned to the table--not any too soon; for as he sat downand picked up the cards came the crash of a volley fired at short range,the splitting and splintering of bullet-pierced shutters.
Through all, as a rat in a corner might watch a cat, the agent hadwatched him with deadly fascination. From the north window where hestood it was but a step to the door. Apparently Jake did not notice himtake it, for he did not look up--even when the agent's hand touched theupper bar.
"If I was you, Alberto, I'd come away from there."
The agent froze. But Jake had spoken in English. The hand went again tothe bar, was slowly lifting it when, following a second splinteringcrash, he fell forward on his face with a hollow cough.
"Through the lungs, I reckon." Jake looked down at the gross body,writhing in its death agony. "I told you to keep away, Alberto."
The man's last convulsive clutch had swung the upper bar clear of itssockets, but Jake did not move. The lower bar still held and, standingup, he watched the oaken panels quiver and split under heavy blows. Withrhythmic regularity came the crash of volleys fired point-blank into theshutters. Bullets, too, were spitting through the side window--to strikeand flatten on the opposite wall. Over all, above the crash ofrifle-fire, thud of the beam they were using on the door, rose the roarand howl of a blood-mad _peon_ rabble.
"The hull town has come to the funeral," Jake muttered. "Well, they'llsee some wake."
As the door crashed in he stooped and blew out the light. Darkness fellthrough the room--darkness that pulsed with convulsive movement. Overthe body of the agent the leaders tripped and fell. Upon them otherspiled in a heap, yet under the pressure of the howling crowd outsidestill others streamed in. Above the oaths, curses, mad howls, rose yellsfor some one to bring a light.
Presently it came, a piece of engine waste soaked in alcohol at the endof a stick; and when it did, the rolling eyeballs, furious faces,vicious mouths, stood out for a second, writhing in murderous lust, thenset in sudden horror.
For the bluish flare fell full on a grim figure, tall, lean, topped witha hard face, steel-point eyes. The muzzle of Jake's gun touched the toplayer of powder. Cold, weird, satanic, he must have loomed in theirvision as the Evil One in whose existence they all believed. Paralyzedby the impending doom, some stood staring. Others, screaming hoarsely,fought in vain to beat back through the crowd. Till the last moment,yes, till one hardier scoundrel raised a gun, Jake held them in torture,then--
Both shots were wiped out by the tremendous explosion whose thunder andred sky-flash were heard and seen by Bull fifteen miles away.