Plain Mary Smith Part 22

"I have?" says I, rousing up. "Well, then, why didn't I holler for water?"

"You did," says Jim.

"There, there!" says the doctor. "No more talk! Lie still, young man, and sleep, if you can."

It was two days later when I got particulars. Seems I was out of my head for four hours, and like to die any minute; that I had a hole in the lower leg, another in the hip, a streak across the top of my head, and a bullet in the shoulder. Also a slash across the right hand, and another on the right forearm, and a stab in the same upper arm. I suppose that was during the hand-to-hand at the window and the door. I have a faint memory of getting the knife by pulling it out of my own arm. But the bullet-holes knocked me. I don't remember getting shot at all--only a dizziness when one man fired in my face. I guess that was the streak across the head.

I was the star performer. The other boys drew a couple of holes apiece or so. Gonzales wasn't even laid up, though Pedro had his arm shattered.

Well, they kept me quiet, although I was crazy to talk. At the third day I demanded food, instead of swill. The doctor looked troubled and shook his head.

"See here, Doc," says I, "how am I going to manufacture good new blood, without the raw material? Just let me have a half-a-dozen eggs and a hunk of bacon and a loaf of bread, and I'll do credit to you."

He snorted at the idea, but I begged so hard he says at last: "Well, all right; you are the toughest piece of humanity I ever struck; maybe it _will_ do you good."

When I got outside that first square meal, William De La Tour Saunders felt less naked and ashamed inside of him, and proceeded to get better a mile a minute.

The fourth day I could sit up and hear Jim tell me all about it.

He had found a feller in the camp preaching revolution. For some time this had been expected. It was known that a General Zampeto was setting up for President, and it was also known that Belknap was backing him, although he took great care not to be mixed in it by name. But Zampeto and Belknap had fooled our crowd plenty, by being all ready for action when it was supposed they were just starting in.

When Jim caught and thumped that first revolutionist, he tumbled at once that things were about to boil, so he flew for help. His camp was a sort of turning-point. The two sides were about evenly divided as to forces, and, as Jim worked nearly three hundred men, it meant a great deal which side they fought on.

Jim's men were mainly peaceful, quiet fellows, like Gonzales and that other feller--(Pepe something-or-other--I don't know as I ever learned his full name)--and Jim had great authority with them. If the rebels smashed Jim on the start, his men would fall in on the winning side, or at worst remain neutral. Neither Zampeto nor Jim had the least idea they'd fight hard--it was just the moral effect of it, and then, too, the supplies in the store were valuable.

Jim could have rounded up enough of the boys to lick the hide off this gang of rebels, if it wasn't, as I said, that, knowing 'em to be nice quiet lads, like Pedro, he felt sure they'd quit in a mess. "And never will I be such a fool as that again," says Jim. "I knew you'd give 'em war, but to think of Pedro! I told him to run and save himself!"

Our boys, being scattered and without a leader, simply had to submit to being chased out of the country. Chance led Gonzales and Pepe to fly to the store.

So much for us. No one knew what was doing in Panama. The country was full of rebels around us, and Jim found himself too busy gathering an army to ride to town and see.

He finally had some three or four hundred men, armed after a fashion, that he drilled from morning till night.

And here was I, stuck in bed! Doc wouldn't let me try the game leg, although I felt sure it would hold me.

"You stay there till I tell you," says he, "and then you'll get up and be useful; if you try now, you'll only go back again to be a nuisance to your friends."

He put it that way to make it a cinch I'd stay. n.o.body ever was kinder than him and the rest. Each day some one was with me to play cards, or checkers, or talk. Old Jim couldn't do enough for me. I think he'd spent all his time in the house if it wasn't that he must take hold outside.

"Boy, I know what you did for me," he said. "There ain't no use talking about it between us, but what I have is yours."

Just the same, I _knew_ that leg was all right, so one day, when I found myself alone, I got up to walk to the water-pail. I laid down on the floor so hard I near bu'sted my nose. "Guess I don't want any drink,"

thinks I. "I'll go to bed, instead." I couldn't make that, neither. My arms only held me for a second, then they sprung out at the elbow. I sweat and swore at the cussed contraptions that wouldn't work. Tears of rage come free and fast. Them arms and legs of mine had served me so long, I couldn't believe they'd gone back on me like that, and I was so ashamed to have the doctor come and ketch me that I flew into a fit, foamin' and fumin' and snarlin' like a trapped bear.

It was then the doctor entered on the scene. What he said was never intended to be repeated. Lord save us! He put my case in juicy words!

"Now, you red-headed young fool!" says he, as he rolled me in bed, "I want you to understand I'd beat your head off, if you were a well man, for this trick!" He shook his fist under my nose. "Wait till you get up!" says he.

"Ain't I?" says I, feeling good-natured once more to see him in such a wax. "Ain't I waiting?"

"I won't talk to you!" says he, and slams himself out of the room.

XVI

RED PLAYS TRUMPS

Things went fast before I was around again. Jim met five hundred men sent out by Zampeto to clear the country, and killed or captured every man of 'em. The prisoners he penned close, but fed well, to teach 'em white ways.

Then he sent deceiving messengers back to Zampeto, to report how well the rebel army was doing. Victory kept perching on her standard till it was near worn out. But, all the same, another detachment, working to the east, to unite further south with the first body and sweep back toward the capital, would do excellently. The detachment was sent by Zampeto and gobbled the same as before. More victories were reported to the home rebel government, and a.s.surances given that with another body, the three could descend on that part of the city held by Perez and Orinez and crush it between their forces. Once more did Zampeto approve, to his bad fortune. And this did him up. It was all over with Belknap, Zampeto & Co., except the actual capture of their part of the town. They held Santa Ana and the church, the time-respected custom with revolutions.

Zampeto must have been a plumb fool. I saw him afterward--a fat, pompous man with a rolling, glaring eye. If Belknap had been able to step in, in person, we shouldn't have had a walk over; but while Zampeto was agreeable to advice in the beginning, he soon suffered from _cabeza grande_, which swell-headed state Jim's reports of victories raised to a fearful size, and Belknap could do nothing with him.

His losses were tremendous for that country, and there he sat at home, serene in the belief of a conqueror! We had a cinch. Not a thing to do but chase them out of their holes!

I had my plans concerning Saxton and Mary, so Jim held the final attack on the city until I was able to ride. Then he sent word to Perez and our army started--not in ma.s.s, because somebody in the rebel army might have sense enough to scout a little, but by fives and tens, slipping along back ways and short cuts until Belknap and Zampeto were surrounded on the outside by two to one, and faced by an equal force in numbers, and a far superior in courage and ability, from within.

I got Orinez and Perez to help me in the last act. We three wormed our way into the rebel town, early one morning, lying quiet in a cellar until evening came. Strange to say, the night before, Saxton met with an accident. I was handling a revolver and it went off, somehow or other, and burnt him across the back. "Christopher Columbus, Bill!" says he, "what a careless cuss you are! You've put me out of commission!"

Gracious, but I was sorry! Yet, being the guilty party, I couldn't see where with decency I might do less than carry the word to Mary. That's one reason why we went into the rebels' camp. The other had to do with Belknap. He was easily capable of explaining things to his own credit, as long as he did all the talking. Now I wanted a hand in the conversation. We hid in the trees back of the fountain. Soldiers came and went. Zampeto himself, looking like a traveling jewelry-store, made a visit, but all hands were so secure in the belief of the wonderful success of the cause that they never suspected the existence of three enemies in the same garden--or even in the same one hundred square miles, for the matter of that. At last we saw Belknap; he came to the door with Zampeto. Behind him we saw the women-folk. One looked like Mary, but I couldn't be sure. Every time she moved somebody stuck his head in the way. At last Zampeto dropped something, and as he stooped to pick it up, I saw Mary plainly. She looked thin and worn, poor girl.

Certain that both were in the house, I made a quick sneak across to the kitchen window, up the shutters, and in at a window on the second floor.

Mary had told me the room Belknap kept as his private office. It was that window I went in.

I heard my man's heavy step in the hall, as I gathered myself. I heard Mary's voice answer him in a sad and lifeless tone. "I hope it will soon be over--it seems terrible, terrible! Although the end may be good." I heard her door shut, and, Belknap coming again, I got my gun ready, put on a bashful expression, and waited. I do not lie when I say that Mr.

Belknap was astonished to find me in his private room. That expression was one of the few honest ones it had been my privilege to see upon his face.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, savage.

"Why, I only came to speak to Mary--to tell her about Mr. Saxton," I stammered, shyly, knowing that Saxton's name would wake him up.

"What about Saxton?" he asked, putting his wicked eye on me.

"Why, I want to tell Mary--I don't like to say--"

"What!" he said, dropping the sound of his voice still further and sending the meaning of it high. "What? You come into my room and won't answer my questions?" He took a quick cat-like step toward me. I saw I had a lively man to deal with, and, weak as I was, it stood me in hand to get ready. "There was a letter," I mumbled, reaching in my pocket for my gun. With my hand on that, I changed my mind. "I guess I oughtn't to let you have it, Mr. Belknap," I said.

He got gray around the mouth. "Give me that letter!" says he, in his strained whispering. "Give it to me, or, so help me G.o.d, I'll kill you where you stand."

I jumped back, terrified. "You wouldn't hurt me?" I gasped. "I shouldn't give you the letter, sir; it was intended for Mary--please don't hurt me! I've been sick!"

He drew a knife. "If you do not instantly hand me that letter," he says, and he meant every word of it, "I shall put this in your heart."

That was the justification I needed. It's queer, but I never saw a man who didn't have to have an excuse. Belknap had _his_, I reckon.

We stood there, me quivering with fear, and his bad light eyes murderous on me, while slowly, slowly, I drew out ... my gun.

"Now," whispers I, "you petrified hunk of hypocrisy, I've got you! Hand me that knife!"