When the Women Come out to Dance (2002) (17 page)

Meaning a colored man. What did a colored man do. Lik
e most people the boy not knowing anything about Negro soldiers in the war. This one squinting at him had size and maybe got his way enough he believed he could say whateve r he pleased, or use a tone of voice that would irritate the perso n addressed. As he did just now.

"What did I do over there?" Catlett said. "What everybod
y did, I was in the war."

"You wrangle stock for the Rough Riders?"

"Where'd you get that idea?"

"I asked you a question. Is that what you did, tend thei
r stock?"

Once Catlett decided to remain civil and maybe this bo
y would go away, he said, "There wasn't no stock. The Roug h Riders, even the Rough Riders, were afoot. The only peopl e had horses were artillery, pulling caissons with thei r Hotchkiss guns and the coffee grinders, what they called th e Gatling guns. Lemme see," Catlett said, "they had som e mules, too, but I didn't tend anybody's stock."

"His brother was a Rough Rider," Macon said, raising on
e hand to hook his thumb at Wayman. "Served with Colone l Teddy Roosevelt and got killed in an ambush--the only wa y greasers know how to fight. I like to hear what you peopl e were doing while his brother Wyatt was getting killed."

You people. Look at him trying to start a fight.

"You believe it was my fault he got killed?"

"I asked you what you were doing."

It wasn't even this kid's business. Catlett thinking, Well
, see if you can educate him, and said, "Las Guasimas. You eve r hear of it?"

The kid stared with his eyes half shut. Suspicious, or letting you know he's serious, Catlett thought. Keen-eyed and mean; you're not gonna put anything past him.

"What's it, a place over there?"

"That's right, Las Guasimas, the place where it happened.

On the way to Santiago de Coo-ba. Sixteen men killed tha
t day, mostly by rifle fire, and something like fifty wounded.

Except it wasn't what you said, the dons pulling an ambush.

It was more the Rough Riders walking along not lookin
g where they was going."

The cowboy, Macon, said, "Je-sus Christ, you saying th
e Rough Riders didn't know what they were do ing?" Like thi s was something impossible to believe.

"They mighta had an idea what they was doing," Catlet
t said, "only thing it wasn't what they shoulda been doing." H
e said, "You understand the difference?" And thought, What'r e you explaining it to him for? The boy giving him that mean look again, ready to defend the Rough Riders. All right, h e was so proud of Teddy's people, why hadn't he been over ther e with them?

"Look," Catlett said, using a quiet tone now, "the way i
t was, the dons had sharpshooters in these trees, a thicket o f mangoes and palm trees growing wild you couldn't see into.

You understand? Had men hidden in there were expert wit
h the rifle, these Mausers they used with smokeless powder.

Teddy's people come along a ridge was all covered with thes
e trees and run into the dons, see, the dons letting some of th e Rough Riders pass and then closing in on 'em. So, yeah, it wa s an ambush in a way." Catlett paused. "We was down on th e road, once we caught up, moving in the same direction." H
e paused again, remembering something the cowboy said tha t bothered him. "There's nothing wrong with an ambush--lik e say you think it ain't fair? If you can set it up and keep you r people behind cover, do it. There was a captain with th e Rough Riders said he believed an officer should never tak e cover, should stand out there and be an example to his men.

The captain said, 'There ain't a Spanish bullet made that ca
n kill me.' Stepped out in the open and got shot in the head."

A couple of cowboys looking like the two who wer
e mounted had come out of the Chinaman's picking their teet h and now stood by to see what was going on. Some people wh o had come out of the hotel were standing along the steps.

Catlett took all this in as he paused again, getting th
e words straight in his mind to tell how they left the road, som e companies of the Tenth and the First, all regular army, wen t up the slope laying down fire and run off the dons before th e Rough Riders got cut to pieces, the Rough Riders volunteer s and not experienced in all kind of situations--the reason the y didn't know shit about advancing through hostile country or , get right down to it, what they were doing in Cuba, thes e people that come looking for glory and got served sharpshooters with Mausers and mosquitoes carrying yellow fever. Tell these cowboys the true story. General Wheeler, "Fightin' Joe"
f rom the Confederate side in the Civil War now thirty-thre e years later an old man with a white beard; sees the Spanis h pulling back at Las Guasimas and says, "Boys, we got th e Yankees on the run." Man like that directing a battle. . . .

Tell the whole story if you gonna tell it, go back to sittin
g in the hold of the ship in Port Tampa a month, not allowed t o go ashore for fear of causing incidents with white people wh o didn't want the men of the Tenth coming in their stores an d cafes, running off their customers. Tell them--so we land i n Cuba at a place called Daiquiri . . . saying in his mind then , Listen to me now. Was the Tenth at Daiquiri, the Ninth at Siboney. Experienced cavalry regiments that come off frontier station after thirty years dealing with hostile renegades, cutthroat horse thieves, reservation jumpers, land in Cuba and they put us to work unloading the ships while Teddy's peopl e march off to meet the enemy and win some medals, yeah, an d would've been wiped out at El Caney and on San Juan Hill i f the colored boys hadn't come along and saved Colonel Teddy'
s ass and all his Rough Rider asses, showed them how to go u p a hill and take a blockhouse. Saved them so the Rough Rider s could become America's heroes.

All this in Bo Catlett's head and the banners welcomin
g Captain Early hanging over him.

One of the cowboys from the Chinaman's must've asked what was going on, because now the smart-aleck one brough t his claybank around and began talking to them, glancin g back at the porch now and again with his mean look. The tw o from the Chinaman's stood with their thumbs in their belts , while the mounted cowboy had his hooked around his suspenders now. None of them wore a gun belt or appeared to be armed. Now the two riders stepped down from their mount s and followed the other two along the street to a place calle d the Belle Alliance, a miners' saloon, and went inside.

Bo Catlett was used to mean dirty looks and looks of indifference, a man staring at him as though he wasn't even there.

Now, the thing with white people, they had a hard time believing colored men fought in the war. You never saw a colored man on a U
. S
. Army recruiting poster or a picture of colored soldiers in newspapers. White people believed colore d people could not be relied on in war. But why? There wer e some colored people that went out and killed wild animals , even lions, with a spear. No gun, a spear. And made hats ou t of the manes. See a colored man standing there in front of a lion coming at him fast as a train running downgrade, stand s there with his spear, doesn't move, and they say colored me n can't be relied on?

There was a story in newspapers how when Teddy Roosevelt was at the hill, strutting around in the open, he saw colored troopers going back to the rear and he drew his revolver and threatened to shoot them--till he found out they were going after ammunition. His own Rough Riders wer e pinned down in the guinea grass, the Spanish sharpshooter s picking at them from up in the blockhouses. So the Tent h showed the white boys how to go up the hill angry, firing an d yelling, making noise, set on driving the garlics clean fro m the hill. . . .

Found Bren Early and his company lying in the weeds, th
e scrub--that's all it was up that hill, scrub and sand, hard t o get a footing in places; nobody ran all the way up, it was ge t up a ways and stop to fire, covering each other. Found Bre n Early with a whistle in his mouth. He got up and starte d blowing it and waving his sword--come on, boys, to glory-GCo a nd a Mauser bullet smacked him in the butt, on account o f the way he was turned to his people, and Bren Early grunted , dropped his sword, and went down in the scrub to lay ther e cursing his luck, no doubt mortified to look like he got sho t going the wrong way. Bo Catlett didn't believe Bren saw hi m pick up the sword. Picked it up, waved it at the Rough Rider s and his Tenth Cav troopers, and they all went up that hill together, his troopers yelling, some of them singing, actually singing "They'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight."

Singing and shooting, honest to God, scaring the dons righ
t out of their blockhouse. It was up on the crest Catlett got sho t in his right hip and was taken to the Third Cav dressing station. It was set up on the Aguadores River at a place called "bloody ford," being it was under fire till the hill was captured. Catlett remembered holding on to the sword, tight, while the regimental surgeon dug the bullet out of him an d he tried hard not to scream, biting his mouth till it bled.

After, he was sent home and spent a month at Camp Wikoff
, near Montauk out on Long Island, with a touch of yello w fever. Saw President McKinley when he came by Septembe r 3rd and made a speech, the President saying what they di d over there in Cuba "commanded the unstinted praise of all your countrymen." Till he walked away from Montauk an d came back into the world, Sergeant Major Catlett actually di d believe he and the other members of the Tenth would be recognized as war heroes.

He wished Bren would hurry up and get here. He'd ask th
e hero of San Juan Hill how his heinie was and if he was gettin g much unstinted praise. If Bren didn't come pretty soon , Catlett decided, he'd see him another time. Get a horse out o f the livery and ride it up White Tanks.

The four Circle-Eye riders sat at a front tabl
e in the Belle Alliance with a bottle of Green River whiskey , Macon staring out the window. The hotel was across the stree t and up the block a ways, but Macon could see it, the colore d man in the suit of clothes still sitting on the porch, if he tilte d his chair back and held on to the windowsill. He said, "No , sir, nobody told me they was niggers in the war."

Wayman said to the other two Circle-Eye riders, "Maco
n can't get over it."

Macon's gaze came away from the window. "It was you
r brother got killed."

Wayman said, "I know he did."

Macon said, "You don't care?"

The Circle-Eye riders watched him let his chair come dow
n to hit the floor hard. They watched him get up withou t another word and walk out.

"I never thought much of coloreds," one of the Circle-Ey
e riders said, "but you never hear me take on about 'em lik e Macon. What's his trouble?"

"I guess he wants to shoot somebody," Wayman said. "Th
e time he shot that chili picker in Nogales? Macon worked hisself up to it the same way."

Catlett watched the one that was looking for
a fight come out through the doors and go to the claybank, th e reins looped once around the tie rail. He didn't touch th e reins, though. What he did was reach into a saddlebag an d bring out what Catlett judged to be a Colt .44 pistol. Righ t then he heard: "Only guests of the hotel are allowed to sit out here."

Catlett watched the cowboy checking his loads now, turning the cylinder of his six-shooter, the metal catching a glint of light from the sun, though the look of the pistol was dul l and it appeared to be an old model.

Monty the desk clerk, standing there looking at Catlet
t without getting too close, said, "You'll have to leave. . . .

Right now."

The cowboy was looking this way.

Making up his mind, Catlett believed. All right, now
, yeah, he's made it up.

"Did you hear what I said?"

Catlett took time to look at Monty and then pointed of
f down the street. He said, "You see that young fella comin g this way with the pistol? He think he like to shoot me.

Say you don't allow people to sit here aren't staying at th
e ho-tel. How about, you allow them to get shot if they not a guest?"

He watched the desk clerk, who didn't seem to kno
w whether to shit or go blind, eyes wide open, turn and ru n back in the lobby.

The cowboy, Macon, stood in the middle of the street no
w holding the six-shooter against his leg.

Catlett, still seated in the rocker, said, "You
a mean rascal, ain't you? Don't take no sass, huh?"

The cowboy said something agreeing that Catlett didn'
t catch, the cowboy looking over to see his friends coming u p the street now from the barroom. When he looked at the hote l porch again, Catlett was standing at the railing, his bedrol l upright next to him leaning against it.

"I can be a mean rascal too," Catlett said, unbuttoning hi
s suit coat. "I want you to know that before you take this to o far. You understand?"