The Missourian Part 6

Whereupon Din Driscoll, as he was called anywhere off the muster roll, informed Don Anastasio that he would continue with him on into the interior. And as seen already, Murguia humbly excused delay, though his guest was not invited, not wanted, and cordially hated besides. That meek smirk of Don Anastasio's was the absurdest thing in all psychology.

Yet what perhaps aggravated the old man most was curiosity. He craved to know the errand of his young despot. In the doorway of the Tampico meson he still hovered near, and ventured more questions.

"How was it that, that _you_ happened to be sent, senor?" he asked.

"Well now," observed the trooper, "there you go figuring it out that I was sent at all."

"It must have been--uh, because you know Spanish. Are you a--a Texan, Senor Coronel?"

"They raised me in Missouri," said the colonel. "But I learned to talk Pan-American some on the Santa Fe trail. We had wagon trains out of Kansas City when I was a good sight younger."

"I thought," said the old man suspiciously, "that perhaps you learned it with Slaughter's army, along the Rio Grande. Slaughter, he's near Brownsville yet, isn't he?"

"Is he?"

"With about twenty-five thousand men?"

"Lord, I've clean forgot, not having counted 'em lately."

"Where did you come from then, when you came to Mobile?"

"W'y, as I remember, from Sand Spring, Missouri, near the Arkansas line."

A more obscure crossroads may not exist anywhere, but its bare mention had a curious effect on the prying Don Anastasio. In the instant he seemed to cringe before his late pa.s.senger.

"Then you--Your Mercy," he exclaimed, "belongs to Shelby's Brigade?"

The Missourian nodded curtly. His questioner was extraordinarily well informed.

"And, and how many men has Shelby at Sand Spring?"

"Oh, millions. At least millions don't appear to stop 'em any."

"But senor, how, how many Confederates are there altogether west of the Mississippi?"

Driscoll, though, had had enough. "Look here Murgie," he said, "if you keep on crawling, you'll crawl up on a mongoose one of these days, and _those_ things have teeth."

He might have gone further into natural history, but a sudden commotion down the street interrupted. "It's a race!" he cried. "No--Lordsake, if they ain't fighting!"

He drew off his coat, took the pipe from his mouth, and shoved it into his hip pocket, all with the air of a man who has smoked enough and must be getting to work. His brown eyes quickened. It was akin to the satisfaction a merchant feels who scents an unexpected order. He was ready to deliver the goods instantly. His heavy boots went clattering and his great spurs jangling, and soon he was stooping over two men rolling in the dust. But he straightened and thrust his hands into his pockets. He was disappointed. The unexpected order was a hoax. The combatants were one to one, and he could not fairly enter into compet.i.tion. Then an unaccustomed method for getting into the bidding occurred to him. He might be peacemaker. He leaned over again, to separate them. Each long-fingered hand reached for a collar. Yet even as he caught hold one of his prizes went limp in his grasp. He pulled out the survivor, who proved to be a ragged Mexican with a knife. The other was a French sailor. Driscoll shook the native angrily, whereupon the little demon swung the knife with vicious intent. But Driscoll held him at arm's length, and the sweeps fell short, to the amazement and rage of his captive.

"You miserable little chocolate-hided galoot, why couldn't you wait for me?"

But the chocolate-hided only squirmed to get away. Driscoll glanced up the street whence the two had come. At the next corner, before a cafe, he saw things more promising. A ranchero with a drawn revolver was holding off a young officer in sky-blue uniform, while around them a swarm of natives and ten or eleven sailors were circling uneasily, as if waiting for some sign to begin hostilities. The joy of battle dilated the trooper's nostrils.

"W'y, here I've been wasting time on a smaller edition."

So saying, he flung aside his prisoner; and in another minute he was the centre of the main affair, and having an excellent time.

CHAPTER VI

A BRUISING OF ARMS FOR JACQUELINE

"Then John bent up his long bende-bowe, And fetteled him to shoote."

--_Robin Hood._

Into the crowd before the cafe, the Storm Centre pushed the argument of shoulders, and quickly gained for himself the place which his pseudonym indicated. Then he stopped, and looked puzzled. Which side to take? The French, being outnumbered, offered the larger contract.

"What's the row?" Driscoll inquired of Ney. But he was ignored. "Might answer," he suggested insidiously, "for it's only a toss-up anyhow which way I enlist. Look here, Sky-Blue, if you don't understand Spanish, just say so, and tell me why you don't start the game."

Ney shoved him aside impatiently, but he calmly stepped back again.

"Come now," he argued plaintively, "let me in, don't be selfish?

But--goodness gracious, man, why don't you draw your gun?"

"Because, my good fellow, I haven't any."

The mystery cleared at once, for now Driscoll understood the strategic outlay. Its key was Fra Diavolo, with a pistol at Ney's head, and quite statuesque the romantic Mexican looked. But out of the tail of his eye Fra Diavolo noted the American, at first with contemptuous amus.e.m.e.nt only. Then, as though such had been the situation from the start, he grew aware of an ugly black muzzle under his chin. For very safety he froze rigid, and dared not turn his own weapon from Ney to his new aggressor. But he wondered how the ugly black muzzle came there. He had not seen the American move. But for those who did see, the action seemed deliberate, with no hint of the actual panther-like turn of the wrist from the waist outward.

With his left hand Driscoll next drew forth the second of the brace, and held it out to Ney in his palm. The Cha.s.seur seized the weapon joyfully.

He straightened as the humiliation of a disarmed soldier fell from him.

But at once his face clouded, and with an oath he handed back the navy-six.

"W'y, what's the matter?" asked Driscoll.

"You are trifling, man. That thing has no trigger."

Much as an artisan would explain the peculiarities of a favorite tool, Driscoll said, "Now look here, you strip it--this way--so."

And as he explained, he ill.u.s.trated. He raised the hammer under his thumb, he released it on the cartridge, and Fra Diavolo's sombrero flew off.

Fra Diavolo threw up his hand involuntarily, and there was a second report. Fra Diavolo's pistol twisted out of his grasp. The brace of navies had not gone higher than the American's waist.

"So," Driscoll concluded.

At the same moment one of the sailors, a bullet-headed lad of Normandy, was observed to do a very peculiar thing. Jumping in front of Fra Diavolo he drew up one knee, for all the world like a dancer who meant then and there to cut a pigeon's wing. His foot described a circle under the knee, then the performer turned partly round, and as a lightning bolt his leg straightened out full against Fra Diavolo's stomach. The ranchero dropped like a bag of sand, except that he groaned. Ney captured the fallen pistol. A musket blazed, and a sailor cursed. And forthwith the maelstrom began. It went swirling round, with weird contortions and murderous eddies, but always its seething vortex was the lone trooper.

Luckily, firearms were out of the question where both sides were so mixed together. But Mexicans and sailors plied their knives instead, so that there was much soppy red spreading over the yellowish white of s.h.i.+rts, and over the blue of jackets. The pigeon-wing diversion, called the savate, also played its bizarre role, for wherever a Frenchman found s.p.a.ce for the straightening out of a leg, in that instant a little native shot from him as a cat from the toe of a boot. Fra Diavolo was deposited flat on his back each time he tried to rise, till the sole of a foot took on more terror than a cannon's mouth. As for Michel Ney, he was beautiful and gallant, now that what he had to do came without thinking. He achieved things splendidly with the b.u.t.t of his enemy's revolver, and exhorted his men the while to the old, brilliant daring of Frenchmen.

The Storm Centre, though, was merely workmanlike. He put away the six-shooters, and strove barehanded with joy and vigor, which was delightful; yet so systematic, that it was anything rather than romance.

It might have been geometry, in that a foe is safer horizontal than perpendicular, and the theorem he applied industriously, with simple faith and earnest fists.

Yet, all told, it was a highly successful affair. Din Driscoll objected to the brevity, but that could hardly be altered for his sake. The little demons of Mexicans crawled from the outskirts of the mess, here one, there two or three, and now many, limping and nursing heads, and rubbing themselves dubiously, with hideous grimaces.