While all four men were sitting on the peak watching every move the bandits made below in the valley, Lacaud told the story of the bandits.
Chapter 12
At a little, unimportant station of the railroad which links the western states of the republic with the eastern, the passenger train stopped only long enough to take on the mail and express, if any, and to hand out mail_bags, a few chunks of ice, and a few goods ordered by the merchants. The town, a very small one, was located three miles away from the depot, and connected with it by a poor dirt road on which a rattling flivver would occasionally be seen asthmatically making its way.
Passengers boarding the train or leaving it at this station were seldom many. Half a week would pass by at times without any arrivals or departures.
The east-bound train stopped about eight in the evening, which in a tropical country is pitch-dark summer and winter alike.
Anyway, neither the station-master nor the conductor of the train was very much surprised when, one Friday night, more than twenty passengers, all mestizos, boarded the train at the depot. From their simple clothing they were sure that they were peasants and small farmers going to the Saturday market in one of the bigger towns or working-men on their way to a mine or to road work. The station-master, nevertheless, thought it a bit strange that these men did not buy tickets from him. Still, this happened frequently, particularly if there were many and if they were late. They might arrange the fare with the conductor on the train. He was glad in a way that they did not ask him for their tickets, because he was busy enough checking the express and seeing to his many duties as the only depot official.
The mestizos wore their huge palm hats pulled rather low on their foreheads, for the wind would blow their hats off when riding on the train, as they prefer to stand on the platform or sit on the steps, partly because they feel uneasy inside the train, partly owing to their fear of train-wrecks. They were clad in white, brown, or yellow cotton pants; some wore half-woolen shirts, others had on dirty-looking cotton shirts, some torn, some crudely patched. On their feet some wore low boots, others sandals; some were barefooted; a few had on one foot a boot and on the other a well-worn sandal; some had their calves covered with weather-beaten boot-hose of leather. And there were two who had a boot-hose on only one leg, while the other was covered by pants.
All had bright-colored woolen blankets tightly wrapped around their bodies, for the night was rather cool; and, as these people usually do, they wore their blankets wrapped around them so high up that their faces were covered up to the nose. With their hats pulled close to their eyes, only a very narrow strip of their faces could be seen.
Nothing was unusual or strange about the way they wore their hats and their blankets, for every Indian or mestizo farmer will do the same if he feels cold. So no one on the train, neither trainofficials nor passengers nor the military convoy paid the slightest attention to these men when they got on.
They looked around for seats, or at least they pretended to. There was only standing-room in the second-class cars which the new-corners had boarded. The men distributed themselves slowly over both the second-class cars and the one first-class car.
Crowding the train far above its capacity were families with children, women traveling alone, salesmen, merchants, farmers, workers, lower officials. In the first-class car the well-to-do people were reading, talking, playing cards, or trying to sleep. Two Pullman cars occupied by tourists, high officials, and rich merchants were coupled to the first-class car at the end of the train.
In the second-class car which came after the express car the first benches were occupied by the convoy. This convoy consisted of fifty federal soldiers, among them a first lieutenant as commander, a top sergeant, and three cabos or corporals. The lieutenant had gone to the dining-car for his supper, leaving the convoy in charge of the top sergeant. Some of the soldiers had their rifles between their knees, some had laid them on the bench against their backs, and others had put theirs up in the racks.
Some of the soldiers were drowsing, others were playing games to pass the time. Most of them, however, had their first readers upon their knees and were studying the basic elements of education. Those who had reached the second grade were helping those who had just started first-grade work.
A train-employee walked along the aisles offering bottled beer, soda-water, candy, cigarettes, chewing-gum, magazines, papers, and books.
Most of the passengers made crude preparations to pass the next hours sleeping. The inside of the cars, particularly the second-class cars, made in the uncertain and not too bright light a colorful picture. Whites, mestizos, Indians, men, women, children, clean people and dirty, many women and little girls dressed gaudily in the costumes of their native state, all crowded together.
The train had picked up speed and was hurrying to reach the next station, which was about thirty_two minutes away.
While taking up standing-room, the rnestizos saw to it that they had all the entrances to the cars well covered. No suspicion was aroused by the new-corners’ standing by the doors, as it was practically the only place where enough space for them was left, the aisles being so crowded that even the conductors had difficulty in walking through to inspect the tickets.
The train was now running at full speed.
All of a sudden and without the faintest warning the mestizos opened their blankets, brought out rifles and guns, and began to fire among the crowded and huddled passengers, not minding men, women, children, or babies at the naked breasts of their mothers.
The soldiers had been cornered so perfectly that before they had time even to grasp their rifles and get them up they fell, fatally shot, from their seats and rolled about the floor. In less than fifteen seconds no soldier was left able to fight. Those who still had life enough to moan or to move received another bullet or were knifed or had their skulls crushed.
Some of the trainofficials were dead, some so wounded that they staggered about or dragged their bodies along the floor.
For a few seconds all the people in the passenger cars behaved as if paralyzed. They sat stiff, with eyes wide open, looking at the killers and hearing the shots, as if they perceived something which simply could not be true, which must be a nightmare out of which they might awake any moment and find everything all right.
This strange sensation of feeling unable to move or to cry, coupled with a ghastly silence in the face of such a catastrophic interruption of the most peaceful occupation, lasted only a few seconds.
Then came an outcry which seemed to rise in unison from all human lips present. It was the cry with which man awakes from a horrible nightmare. Men were shouting and cursing, and some were attempting to resist the killers or to escape through the windows. Whoever reached a window and lifted his body to drag himself out was shot in the back or mercilessly clubbed to death. Many tried to protect with their bodies their women and children. Others tried to crawl under the seats or into corners to hide behind baggage.