Defending Saddlers GulchChapter 3
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The next morning began with a rain of bullets against the church. The rain metaphor was appropriate, because the sound of the bullets striking the adobe walls was similar to a heavy rain against a wooden building. It sounded like every rifle in the world was shooting and all of the bullets were headed their way. The bullets were not accomplishing much, unless they were serving to vent frustration on the part of the Mexicans. Nobody in the church could figure out why so many bullets were being wasted, since there was no chance that a bullet could come through the thick adobe walls.
There was no chance of sneaking up on the church under cover of the "suppressing" fire, since the men on the roof were not being shot at, and they could see all around the church. It suddenly occurred to Jed that this might be a diversion to draw the defenders attention away from the jail. Perhaps, this hail of bullets was a precursor to a sneak attack on the jail while all attention was focused on the church.
Jed went up on the roof, and, carefully keeping his head down, he looked around for signs of an incipient attack on their other strong point. There they were! A mass of troops, he couldn't tell how many, were working their way down from the north toward the jail. With that back door now demolished, there was no way they could stop a determined attack on the jail, unless they could find a way to block the opening.
The only thing available to block the doorway was the furniture from the apartment that was part of the jail. Jed hated to sacrifice their furniture, but he didn't know what else to do.
Jed ran back into the church and gathered the remaining men from his mobile unit. He went to the church door and opened it a little. Very few bullets were coming this way, so he yelled across the street, "OPEN UP! WE'RE COMING OVER!" Jed saw motion at the front door, so he and his men ran as fast as they could across the street and into the jail.
He told Sam Hudson what he had seen of the attack coming this way. Jed ordered the furniture stripped out of his apartment and used to fill the open doorway at the back of the jail. If enough furniture was piled in the doorway and immediately behind it, it would be impossible for anybody to charge into the jail from that direction.
Meanwhile, Jed would take his mobile force out and try to get behind the attackers. He was sure that they could be driven off if he attacked the Mexicans from their northern flank while men shot at them from the jail roof. Jed had brought some dynamite with him from the church; he ordered the men on the jail roof to use the dynamite as hand grenades if the Mexicans got too close.
Jed led his men back out the front door of the jail. They stayed as close as they could to the buildings on the east side of the street as they worked their way north. The Mexicans did not spot them as the Anglos were on the west side of the stores and the Mexicans were on the east side of those same stores.
Jed led his men down the alley between the burned out saloon and the first of the buildings still standing on that side of the street. He carefully looked around the corner of the building, exposing as little of himself as possible, and saw the Mexicans bunching up and getting ready to charge the jail. He wanted to get a little closer to the Mexicans before opening fire, so he sent one man at a time creeping toward the Mexicans to find a good place to establish a firing station.
It turned out that this took too long, and the Mexicans attacked the jail before all of Jed's men were in position. Jed was forced to order his men to start shooting at the charging Mexicans even though they were not all in good positions. Nevertheless, in the chaos of battle, the Mexicans were slow to recognize that they were being attacked from two sides. Many Mexicans were killed or wounded by men on the jail roof and by Jed's men before they discovered that there were two groups of gringos shooting at them. Panic ensued!
The Mexicans threw down their rifles and ran in the only direction available to them: toward the arroyo. Along here, the bank was a 12-foot drop to the bottom of the arroyo, and the bank was too steep to slide down. The Mexicans, in their panic, jumped into the arroyo. None were killed by the jump, but almost every one suffered at least one broken bone. Jed ordered his men to ignore any one who had jumped into the arroyo—there was too much chance of being shot by a soldier on the opposite bank. Instead, he had his men hurry back to the church. They simply left the Mexican dead and wounded lying where they had fallen.
A watchman had been posted to open the door when Jed's men returned to the church, so there were no casualties on this leg of the venture. Jed's men had returned to the church totally unhurt; Jed estimated that they had killed or wounded 30 to 40 of the Mexicans. This number, combined with the number killed or wounded the day and night before, must total around 50 or 60 men, a significant percentage of the total attacking force. Jed was sure that if they could take out 20 more men, the attackers would have to retreat back to Mexico, their morale completely destroyed.
To that end, Jed planned a raid for that night. He wanted to take his mobile force and sneak up on the Mexican encampment while they were asleep. He and his men would throw dynamite hand grenades in among the sleeping men. This could prove to be the last straw for the Mexicans. If Jed and his men were successful, the Mexicans might be gone by daylight.
The rest of the day saw little fighting, mostly stray sniping by one side or the other, neither one accomplishing anything. Most of the afternoon was spent getting on each other's nerves; too many children were jammed into too little space, and they were driving the women to exasperation. If something wasn't done pretty soon, there would be more fighting inside the church than outside.
When it was finally dark enough, Jed let his men out and to the south to the main Mexican encampment. Security was abysmal around the camp, so Jed's force had no trouble getting in close. The two men with the best "throwing arms" had been selected to do the actual throwing of the dynamite, two men lit the fuses, and the last man, plus Jed, acted as guards.
The "thrower" picked up a stick of dynamite with a 5-second fuse and selected a target. The stick was held out to a "lighter" who lit the fuse with a glowing cigar coal, and the "thrower" hurled the dynamite at his target. The lighter and thrower worked so well together that the second stick of dynamite was in the air before the first had exploded.
The confusion in the camp was so complete that they were able to get off a total of 10 throws before anybody in the camp realized what was going on. Jed decided that this was enough, so they picked up the rest of their dynamite and ran back to the church.
The next morning, most of the attacking Mexicans had disappeared, and the rest left before noon. The victory by the residents of Saddlers Gulch was almost anticlimactic, but nobody really cared. They were just happy to escape from the church with as few casualties as they had. They had lost a total of 3 killed and 7 wounded; that seemed like a small price to pay for those who escaped injury.
The rest of the day was spent in surveying the damage and starting to pick up the pieces. The only two buildings totally destroyed were the Methodist church and one saloon, though every other building in town suffered some damage, most of it minor.
Most of the items looted from the two general stores were recovered, but the missing liquor appeared to be a total loss. Many of the men felt that the greatest tragedy of the whole experience was that Saddlers Gulch was now totally "dry!" Even the cantina had been emptied!
Strangely enough, the telegraph system was fully operational. Nobody could figure out why, but the Mexicans had made no effort to cut the line. The railroad was notified that the track was now clear of bandits and trains could run again, as soon as the track was checked out.
The merchants were able to use the telegraph to order what they needed for restocking, and the burned-out saloon was temporarily replaced with a huge tent. All of the merchants had their gold sequestered in safes, so there was adequate money around to rebuild and restock. Saddlers Gulch would be back to normal in no time.
Mary gave their apartment a thorough cleaning before they moved their furniture back into place. There was no physical damage, except for a few scratches, so they were able to resume a normal life by supper that evening. Jed hung an old blanket across the open doorway in the back until the town could get a new door installed.
Jed was the hero of the day, and Mary was very proud of him. Jed knew how much the praise was worth, so he didn't let it go to his head. He did get several free drinks out of it, so he was satisfied.
The "Mexican" community bore the brunt of the ill will from the Anglos. Jed knew that they really had no choice and had run away when the bandits showed up, so he wouldn't let the Anglos do any more than curse the "greasers" for their lack of support during the attack. In less than two weeks, the animosity had fallen back to an insignificant level, and the two groups were getting along about as well as they ever had.
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