Most likely they still thought that Curtin had played a trick on them in some way or other. They felt sure that only one shot could be expected when storming the trench. All lay down on the ground and crawled farther on toward Curtin. The last third of their way they meant to run and so make it impossible for Curtin to shoot more than once or twice. A few appeared not to be patient enough to go slow, for the one who had the gringo by the collar first would have his choice of the guns of the victim. They jumped up and began to run out of line. Hardly had they risen when again four shots were fired, and three men seemed to have been hit. None was dead, however, so far as the partners could see. They still seemed to be in possession of all their faculties. Anyway, the lesson they had received made them more careful. That four shots had been fired twice and that all had been well aimed upset their plans. None knew what to think of the situation. There might be two dozen soldiers in this trench. Yet when they arrived once more at the bushes and discussed new plans, they came to the conclusion that if there really were two dozen men hidden in the trench, they would have attacked from ambush just before the bandits entered the camp, where they would have had no chance to defend themselves.
Morning came in a hurry.
The bandits now settled down to cook their breakfast. The hurt were doctoring their wounds in a way that would have thrown a hospital interne into a coma. They spat into their wounds, rubbed dirt and chewed leaves plucked from the bushes into them to stop bleeding, and bandaged them with strips of their filthy shirts.
In the trench the partners also had their breakfast. It is a strict rule of Mexican bandits and of Mexican soldiers fighting bandits or revolutionaries that no attack be made by either side while they have their meals. To do so would be considered as tactless as shooting at trucks bearing the Red Cross sign or at men waving a white flag among civilized nations at war.
“Now, don’t you boys make any mistake,” Howard warned them when Curtin mentioned that they might be left alone from now on. “You don’t know them if you think that. They will come again, likely late in the afternoon. They need our guns and our ammunition more than they need bread. The more we shoot, the better they know that here is a sort of armory worth fighting for. If I judge these killers right, they are not going to repeat the attack the same way. They will look for a new way to get us. Every shot we fire is a shot lost to them. They don’t want us to waste the ammunition which they feel is theirs already. I mean to say, they are going to prevent us from shooting, some way or other.”
“I’d like to know how they think they can get us without making us fire at them,” Lacaud said.
“Let’s wait and see. Don’t forget all these men have been soldiers during the last revolutions, or if not soldiers, then fighters against the regulars. They are trained and have all sorts of experience. I’ll get a rest now.”
The old man made himself comfortable on the ground. So did Lacaud. Curtin and Dobbs were watching the camp leisurely.
The bandits had gone down the trail, except two who were left to keep watch. They got drowsy after half an hour and fell asleep.
About the middle of the forenoon Curtin called Dobbs: “Do you see what I see?”
“Those goddamned devils! If we could only send them all to hell!” Dobbs answered as he roused Howard and Lacaud.
“What is it?” Howard asked. “Coming again?”
“Just have a look at a fine performance; you don’t have to go to the movies this afternoon to learn new tricks.” Dobbs whistled through his teeth out of excitement.
Howard watched the bandits for half a minute. “I reckon they are going to trap us now. We have to think awfully fast to meet their old Indian trick. Doggone it to hell, I’ve got to get an idea what to do now and, hell knows, I haven’t any. If none of you mugs knows anything new, and pretty quick too, then we may as well say our last prayers, if you still know some.”
The bandits were busy cutting saplings, branches, and twigs. They were constructing movable barricades, Indian-fashion. Once ready, they would push these barricades before them, using them as shields while steadily moving on. All the attacked could do would be to fire against the thickly interwoven branches and foliage. The bullets might not even penetrate, and the man crawling behind could not be aimed at. The possibility of being hit was reduced tenfold. It could be reduced still more by forming two attacking lines, one closing in behind the first.
“If they use that trick at night or early before sunrise,” Howard said, watching them eagerly, “then we haven’t even a Bolshevik’s chance. We’ll be killed like rats. My gold mine for two dozen grenades or one Jack Johnson! Oh hell, I’d exchange it for an old minnie, or even for half a dozen smoke candles, my swell mine. Well, partners, to tell you the Bible’s truth, this is what we may call H-hour for us. If my mother were still alive I’d ask her forgiveness for having stolen her jam and then lying about it, cross my heart.”
“It looks to me,” said Dobbs, “as if all we can do now is to sell our hides for the highest price possible, and at the last minute, when they jump in here, send as many of those sons of bitches to hell as we can.”
“And don’t you forget one last bullet to blow your head off yourself,” Curtin suggested. “I pray to all the gods in heaven that I don’t fall into their hands alive. If you can’t shoot yourself, try to stab yourself to death. It will still be sweeter than being peeled by them. Hell forbid they hand you over to those we wounded.”
Lacaud had become very pale. He tried to grin at the jokes cracked by the other fellows, but he failed in his effort.
Howard looked at him and felt pity. He slapped him on his back and said: “Well, buddy, if you had asked me before, I’d have told you in my most straightforward manner that gold is always very expensive, no matter how you get it or where you get it.”
Hearing this, Curtin had an idea: “Perhaps if we offer them our goods and the guns, they will let us off.”
“No, honey dear, you still misjudge them,” Howard said. “This race has lived for four hundred years under conditions in which it never paid to trust anyone, it never paid to build a good house, it never paid to take your little money to a savings bank or invest it in some decent enterprise. You can’t expect them to treat you in any other way, considering how they have been treated by the church, by the Spanish authorities, and by their own authorities for four hundred years. If you offer them your gold and your guns, they will take them and promise to let you go. But they won’t let you go. They’ll torture you just the same, to find out if there isn’t more than you offered them. Then they kill you just the same, because you might give them away. They have never known what justice is, so you can’t expect them to know it now. Nobody has ever shown them loyalty, so how could they show it to you? None has ever kept any promise to them, so they can’t keep any promise they may have made you. They all say an Ave Maria before killing you, and they will cross you and themselves before and after slaying you in the most cruel way. We wouldn’t be any different from them if we had had to live for four hundred years under all sorts of tyrannies, superstitions, despotisms, corruptions, and perverted religions.”
“I’d like to know,” Curtin broke in, “why they didn’t come out with that old redskin trick earlier?”
“Huh, they are lazier than an ol’ mule.” Dobbs really smiled. “Too lazy for that. They tried to catch us without so much work. Only when they saw they couldn’t get us any other way did they come to that smart tank attack. I bet they’re cursing now that they have to work so hard to catch us.”