The Road to Monterey/Chapter 27
GENERAL GARVANZA arrived about midafternoon, unattended, as he had been instructed to come. Simon opened the gate to him with a feeling of weakness over him like a man rising too soon from a consuming illness.
"So I find you here, traitor!" General Garvanza said, giving the frightened sentinel a look that was his trial and condemnation.
"It will not shoot," Simon whispered, touching his gun. "They forced me to join them. I selected a gun that will not shoot. Pass, your grace. You are where there is a friend."
Roberto looked at the fellow curiously, and at the gun with sharp eagerness, verifying at a glance the truth of Simon's statement. The gun lacked a hammer; it was as harmless as a stick.
But it was through no contrivance of Simon that he bore such a useless piece. Felipe had seen to that particular. Felipe needed his dependable guns for dependable men. His purpose was to double Simon's peril in giving him one that would not shoot.
Roberto was dressed in the uniform of his rank, to which he had added something in the way of adornment, it appeared, over the amount his predecessor had borne on his shoulder and breast. He rode forward with a sharp spurring of his horse, expressive of the defiance and contempt of those who had commanded him in the power of a situation which fortune had placed in their hands. Within a rod of the spot where Henderson and Felipe stood to receive him, Roberto threw his weight back on the reins, bringing the headlong advance to a spectacular and dusty stop.
Out of the dust of his defiant coming Roberto scowled on the two men who confronted him, his petulant long lip stretching at the corners as if he mouthed a bit. The end of a plaster covering the wound his own soldier had given him in the plaza came down to his eyebrow. He waited for them to speak; they, with more dignity, in spite of the dust of his trampling in which they stood, were determined that he must begin. Roberto must take the place of one who had come to sue, not to demand.
Roberto's anger swelled as they stood in silence. General that he was, his disposition was not founded on any great or substantial dignity. Seeing now that his consequence was not rated very seriously by the men before him, he boiled over like a pot of brose.
"If you have touched Don Abrahan you shall hang!" he said, his voice high and strained in passionate note. "Where is he? Produce him this instant!"
"Your bluster would not add an hour to Don Abrahan's life if the time came to take it," Henderson told him, contemptuous of his wrath. "We sent for you, Roberto, to give you our terms, not to hear any from you."
"The terms I have to offer outlaws and murderers are settled in advance," Roberto replied. "I have come to demand my father, and the surrender of his property untouched. When that is complied with, then you shall hear my conditions touching yourselves."
"You may go back to the pueblo, Roberto," Henderson said, turning away as he would from a passionate, bigoted boy, considering the brief parley at an end.
"I will come back with a hundred soldiers!" Roberto threatened.
"When you are ready," Henderson replied indifferently.
"I tell you gravely," Roberto said, controlling his foolish anger, becoming more of a man, "that you are in a hopeless situation. You have played your hand, and what have you won? Nothing but a cannon and a few rounds of ammunition. You think with threats against my father's life and property you can compel me to grant amnesty for your offenses against the republic—permit you to leave, perhaps. Or you may think you can hold me off by these means until the Americans come from Monterey, where you have heard they are. That is a vain hope, poor rascals! It is founded on a lie. The Americans have not taken Monterey; they cannot take it, or any other port or city that the valiant army of the republic guards."
"That is immaterial," Henderson said, his indifference seeming to increase as in a man who held a strong blow in reserve.
Felipe produced a cigarette, and the sun-glass for lighting it. He turned his back on General Garvanza to bring the little point of heat to the cigarette's tip. Where Henderson was merely indifferent, Felipe was lightly insolent. He jerked his shoulders; he sniffed with audible sound as he blew smoke out of his nose.
"And so you send your only cannon to the pass to stop the march of a lie," Felipe said, after a due and impressive silence.
"I believed the rumor until two hours ago," Roberto confessed, with what appeared sincerity. "Dispatches arrived after your foray on my poor cowards. If you had waited, you might have taken the messenger and confirmed what I tell you for yourselves. The United States navy has not been in the bay of Monterey; there are no United States ships on this coast."
"That was the smallest of our hopes," Henderson declared.
They had met Roberto about midway between the cannon and the gate. Roberto scowled as he looked around in the pause that followed Henderson's last word, pulling his long lip, flattening it against his teeth. He saw the few men under arms, and the nature of their weapons. None knew better than Roberto what uncertain material such soldiers were.
"So that is your perilous situation," Roberto said, still gathering up in his eyes the details of their defense, open and unmasked as it was. He looked a moment at the flag, saying nothing of what passed in his thoughts on that particular. "If you expect offers and conditions from me, you expect too much."
"Return in peace," said Henderson, again starting to leave.
"I must see my father."
"That is impossible."
Roberto drew his eyes small, his long lip pressed thin again in that trick which gave an expression of inflexibility, of stern determination, to his face.
"I assure you as solemnly as man ever spoke that no help will come to you from Monterey. I ask you to believe me sincere and earnest when I tell you this, which I do to save, if possible, the tragic consequences of this foolish stand, if you persist in it. There is no hope for you."
It was difficult to conclude whether Roberto was telling what he believed to be true. Like all people of light and shallow conscience, Roberto had the faculty of giving the color of sincerity to the very thing that he intended for the deepest deceit. Henderson had seen many instances of this light regard for verity in the young man; he was not disposed to borrow any trouble on the account opened by Roberto's declaration now.
"My countrymen may not have taken Monterey yet, but if they have not it is simply because they have not arrived," Henderson returned. "We are well situated here; we can wait till they come."
"I will return in an hour to drag down that caricature of a base flag," Roberto threatened, his face growing dark with anger.
"I'll hang your father in your sight at the first shot you fire," Henderson declared.
"My father's life must not stand between me and my duty to my country," Roberto said. "But if you venture any further indignation upon his person, then I swear I'll burn you like a toad!"
"I wouldn't expect anything less from a coward in the coat of a soldier, who would murder a woman for a public show and a private jealousy," Henderson returned. "Now, get out of here!"
Roberto closed his mouth on useless words of retort. He had not lived long, but long enough to understand when there was no more to be said. As he passed through the gate Simon crowded close to his stirrup.
"Take me with you, your grace!" he implored. "That savage Don Gabriel"
"You can serve me better here," Roberto cut his plea. "Tell those monkeys who are marching around with guns that I am coming back in an hour with two hundred men. I will hang every one of them to a tree that stands against me with a gun. Tell them this; fill them with a fear that will make them run."
Henderson and Felipe watched this little passage between the two at the gate, Felipe with hand on his pistol.
"Let the double traitor start to leave!" he said.
Simon closed the gate behind Roberto, and turned again with as much show of ease and loyalty in his bearing as he could assume before the two who watched him, and read what was in his tricky mind.
"It would not give Roberto much grief to see his father hanging from a tree," Henderson said, looking after the young man as he rode swiftly between the olive trees.
"Nothing would please him better, although he would make it a pretense to cover his personal hate against you if you stumbled into his hands," Felipe returned. "He has been chafing over money since he came home from the capital; he was called back on account of his extravagance there. Roberto has wild desires which Don Abrahan refuses him the means to indulge."
"That angle of the case is to be considered," said Henderson, thoughtfully.
They were returning slowly to the place where the cannon stood. Old Pablo was emerging from the passage in the warehouse through which Henderson had made his dash to liberty on the day he broke from Don Abrahan's prison. Pablo had hidden Benito there, out of the danger of bullets.
"What do you think of Roberto's declaration that there is nothing in the news from Monterey?"
"I think he is lying," Felipe returned confidently. "It may be that a small force took the place, and is holding it, not attempting to march into the south. That is the way it looks to me, Gabriel."
"Roberto appeared easy and confident," Henderson said, doubt rising sharply again. "I believe he intends to attack us, as he threatened, and force our hands. The question is: Are we going to hang Don Abrahan in that event, or turn the cannon against the house and threaten to batter it down? Which, in your opinion, would Roberto place the greater value on, his father's life or his father's house?"
"The house, by all means," Felipe declared.
"My strategy is weak, I fear, Felipe," Henderson confessed gravely. "I made a mistake in my estimate of Roberto's filial affection and respect. And we are here, instead of on the road to Monterey, through my blundering."
"We have the cannon," said Felipe proudly. "It was a masterful stroke to take the cannon, Gabriel. We can cut them down like fire eats dry grass. Pah! Roberto and his hundred men! They are nothing—they are leaves in the wind."
"Yes, we've got the cannon," Henderson said, drawing a breath of self-justification, a sweet refreshment to a man in a doubtful crisis of his own contriving.
"And Roberto hasn't got a hundred men. I doubt if he will come back, Gabriel, at least before night. He may attempt something at night, but we shall be awake—the cannon will not sleep."
"We haven't got much ammunition for a siege, Felipe."
"There is powder by the keg in Don Abrahan's storehouse—have you forgotten your invoice, Gabriel—polboro, you wrote it, the way the peones sounded it, instead of polvora."
"I remember, Felipe. I had forgotten the powder."
"And there are pebbles for grape-shot, and round stones made by the sea when it washed against these hills, for cannon balls. Cortez used them, as we shall use them if we need them, when he battered down the walls of Montezuma's capital."
"Felipe, you're the general of this army," Henderson declared, turning to him in admiration of his resourcefulness, and his enthusiasm over the round stones.
"Not so," Felipe denied vigorously. "When did I take a cannon with my own hands? When did I charge five soldiers in the plaza and carry a lady away to life and love?"
"I'd have made a mighty poor figure that day, Felipe, if it hadn't been for you," Henderson said, laying his hand affectionately on the little man's arm.
"But where is my scoundrel that I left-to stand at the cannon?" Felipe wondered, looking about for the artilleryman. "It is strange conduct for a soldier to desert his post. He shall have a correction."
Felipe hurried to the cannon, gave one glance at its breech, and turned to Henderson, consternation, dismay, in his face.
"He has spiked it—he has fled to Roberto!"
"But no, Felipe! How"
"Look!" Felipe pointed to the touch-hole. "I cannot fire it. We are lost!"
"Easy, Felipe—the others must not know of this. It looks like the end of a file the scoundrel shoved in there and broke off—maybe we can get it out. Get a pair of pincers from the blacksmith shop and try."
Felipe was in a tremble of despair, almost panic. His reliance on the gun had been so entire, so confident, so vast, that he was now in the condition of one precipitated into the sea by an explosion that did not leave him a single plank to keep him afloat. Henderson was thankful that none of the volunteers was close enough to discover either Felipe's excitement or the cause of it. He waited at the cannon breech for Felipe to bring the pincers, inwardly dismayed, but outward calm.
The piece of steel wedged into the touch-hole—was down too far for the jaws of the pincers; a trial proved that it could not be removed that way.—Felipe threw down the useless tool, sweat of his mental turmoil streaming down his face.
"God save us! Only a drill will do it. We must fly, Gabriel, we must fly!"
"What would become of these men?" Henderson asked, as steady as if a cannon more or less mattered very little. "Roberto would hang them all."
"Their lives are not worth much," said Felipe, unmanned for the moment by this stunning loss. "The villain who has tricked us is with Roberto before this; he has told him all. Roberto will not wait the promised hour. He will come at once; he will hang us to a tree, and my God! I shudder to be hung!"
"Felipe," Henderson touched his arm, "I got you into it; I give you a free road to go. Take a horse and go, my good friend, and forgive me for bringing you into this peril."
"Not alone—never alone!" Felipe declared, steadied a little by Henderson's earnest plea that he leave him.
"Yes, alone. It's my stake, anyway. I should have gone to the north. Let me play it singlehanded now."
"We have time—we can take to the bosque," Felipe pressed.
"And leave these poor fellows to hang. Calm yourself, Felipe; don't let them know of this little accident to the gun. Go quietly and get your horse; ride out"
"And leave you and Helena to die alone! No, Gabriel, I will not go."
Henderson saw the fire in Felipe's eyes, the color come to his pale face above the black smirch of his beard. His manhood seemed to descend on him and revive him, like a cool wind.
"As long as the men know nothing of this thing, they'll make a good fight," Henderson said. "Roberto can't bring more than twenty men against us; you and I alone can hold that many off. We'll tell the men we're saving the cannon for a bigger force, and tonight we'll get the tube open."
"We might do it if we had time," Felipe agreed. "Then we could give it to them—let a hundred come if they can!"
"Call Simon; order up all the idle men and put them to work with mattocks and shovels entrenching to flank the cannon. I'm going to commandeer all the guns and ammunition I can find—I know there must be a dozen good shotguns among the paid men on this ranch."
"Yes, there are shotguns," Felipe said. "I didn't have them bring the shotguns because I didn't consider the use of them in war exactly ethical."
"This isn't a matter of ethics—it's one of saving our necks."
"Since the cannon is useless, we are driven to them," Felipe said, as if he excused their extremity to somebody who had questioned the act.
Felipe was hitnself again. He ordered Simon to him with loud and commanding voice, startling the others under arms out of their close talk in the shade of the warehouse wall, where they speculated in low tones on the result of the parley with Roberto. He posted a sentinel on the slope of the hill above Don Abrahan's house to watch for the soldiers.
"What is a cannon?" he muttered, as he watched Henderson hurrying from house to house collecting guns. "A general like Don Gabriel makes a cannon out of every man!"