General Wheeler, 'Fightin' Joe' from the Confederate side in the Civil War now thirty-three years later an old man with a white beard; sees the Spanish pulling back at Las Guasimas and says, 'Boys, we got the Yankees on the run.' Man like that directing a battle. . . .
Tell the whole story if you gonna tell it, go back to sitting in the hold of the ship in Port Tampa a month, not allowed to go ashore for fear of causing incidents with white people who didn't want the men of the Tenth coming in their stores and cafes, running off their customers. Tell them--so we land in 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 people march off to meet the enemy and win some medals, yeah, and would've been wiped out at El Caney and on San Juan Hill if the colored boys hadn't come along and saved Colonel Teddy's ass and all his Rough Rider asses, showed them how to go up a hill and take a blockhouse. Saved them so the Rough Riders could become America's heroes.
All this in Bo Catlett's head and the banners welcoming Capt. 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 brought his claybank around and began talking to them, glancing back at the porch now and again with his mean look. The two 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 mounts and followed the other two along the street to a place called 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 colored people could not be relied on in war. But why? There were some colored people that went out and killed wild animals, even lions, with a spear. No gun, a spear. And made hats out of the manes. See a colored man standing there in front of a lion coming at him fast as a train running down grade, stands there with his spear, doesn't move, and they say colored men 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 were pinned down in the guinea grass, the Spanish sharpshooters picking at them from up in the blockhouses. So the Tenth showed the white boys how to go up the hill angry, firing and yelling, making noise, set on driving the garlics clean from the hill. . . .
Found Bren Early and his company lying in the weeds, the scrub--that's all it was up that hill, scrub and sand, hard to get a footing in places; nobody ran all the way up, it was get up a ways and stop to fire, covering each other. Found Bren Early with a whistle in his mouth. He got up and started blowing it and waving his sword--come on, boys, to glory--and a Mauser bullet smacked him in the butt, on account of the way he was turned to his people, and Bren Early grunted, dropped his sword, and went down in the scrub to lay there cursing his luck, no doubt mortified to look like he got shot going the wrong way. Bo Catlett didn't believe Bren saw him pick up the sword. Picked it up, waved it at the Rough Riders 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 right out of their blockhouse. It was up on the crest Catlett got shot 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 and 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 yellow fever. Saw President McKinley when he came by September third and made a speech, the President saying what they did over there in Cuba 'commanded the unstinted praise of all your countrymen.' Till he walked away from Montauk and came back into the world, Sergeant Major Catlett actually did 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 the hero of San Juan Hill how his heinie was and if he was getting much unstinted praise. If Bren didn't come pretty soon, Catlett decided he'd see him another time. Get a horse out of the livery and ride it up to White Tanks.
THE FOUR CIRCLE-EYE riders sat at a front table in the Belle Alliance with a bottle of Green River whiskey, Macon staring out the window.
The hotel was across the street and up the block a ways, but Macon could see it, the colored man in the suit of clothes still sitting on the porch, if he tilted 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, 'Macon can't get over it.'
Macon's gaze came away from the window. 'It was your 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 down to hit the floor hard. They watched him get up without another word and walk out.
'I never thought much of coloreds,' one of the Circle-Eye riders said, 'but you never hear me take on about 'em like Macon. What's his trouble?'
'I guess he wants to shoot somebody,' Wayman said. 'The 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 through the doors and go to the claybank, the reins looped once around the tie rail. He didn't touch the reins, though. What he did was reach into a saddlebag and bring out what Catlett judged to be a Colt .44 pistol.
Right 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 dull and it appeared to be an old model.
Monty the desk clerk, standing there looking at Catlett 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 off down the street. He said, 'You see that young fella coming 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 the 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 know whether to shit or go blind, eyes wide open, turn and run back in the lobby.
The cowboy, Macon, stood in the middle of the street now 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 up the street now from the barroom. When he looked at the hotel porch again, Catlett was standing at the railing, his bedroll upright next to him leaning against it.
'I can be a mean rascal too,' Catlett said, unbuttoning his suit coat.
'I want you to know that before you take this too far. You understand?'
'You insulted Colonel Roosevelt and his Rough Riders,' the cowboy said, 'and you insulted Wayman's brother, killed in action over there in Cuba.'
'How come,' Catlett said, 'you weren't there?'
'I was ready, don't worry, when the war ended. But we're talking about you. I say you're a dirty lying nigger and have no respect for people better'n you are. I want you to apologize to the colonel and his men and to
