Near the center of camp stood a tall, woven wire fence like that used for stock pens. It surrounded a rectangular area maybe a hundred feet on each side. Eight heavily armed guards, two to a side, paced back and forth, meeting at the middle, doing a smart half turn, then marching back to their respective corner post before snapping around again to pace toward the middle.
Inside the pen, at least thirty or forty dirty, ragged men, obviously prisoners, some wearing peon straw hats, most bareheaded, shuffled about, stirring the dust into little clouds around their feet. I retrieved my old field glasses from my saddlebags and studied their faces. I jerked back in surprise when I saw the emaciated face of Jesús, my young helper on the march to Agua Prieta. My heart sank in despair at seeing him in the custody of the gringos. Not yet sixteen years old, marching or riding across burning deserts and frozen mountains, filthy rags his only protection, never having enough to eat, his body covered with sores, he had worked to exhaustion bringing me men who might survive after being shot to pieces in Villa’s foolish charges against trenches and barbed wire.
I cursed Villa for leading such a fine young man and thousands like him straight into hell’s jaws, fighting hacendados and corrupt government, their reward slaughter in raids and foolish battles, or being herded into pens like livestock waiting for slaughter.
“Oh, God,” I moaned, “where is the justice in all this? Where is the justice?”
I was a useless guard. I paid no attention to anything or anyone except Jesús. I conjured how to get him out of there, measuring every guard’s move, noting where we could hide after I stole him, wondering if we had any chance of getting away without killing soldiers or being killed ourselves.
The sun was no more than a bright glow in a cloudless sky behind the western sierras when I felt Yellow Boy squeeze my shoulder before he sat down beside me. “You see Jesús?”
“Sí, I’ve spent all afternoon trying to figure out how to get him without killing soldiers or our being killed. He might be a big help guiding us to Villa, but I don’t care if he can’t or won’t help, just so we get him out of there. I can’t abide him being kept like an animal ready for slaughter. Will you help me free him?”
“Sí, we free Jesús. I have plan.”
I grinned. I should have known he wouldn’t leave our old friend to the dogs of war. “Bueno. Tell me.”
He pointed toward the north edge of the camp where the troops kept their mounts tied to long ropes, feeding and grooming them after the afternoon drill. About three hundred yards west of the horse lines was a supply dump, smaller than the big one near the prisoner pen. Heavily guarded and covered with large pieces of canvas, its supplies were stacked on a wooden floor of some kind.
Yellow Boy said, “I watch the place where soldiers guard supplies under canvas. Watch soldiers put boxes in pile.” Hefting his big, brass telescope, he said, “Big Eye show boxes of bullets, many bullets. We take Jesús? You shoot pile. I stampede horses. Many soldiers chase. Soldiers forget prisoners when they chase horses and dodge own bullets. You let prisoners go. Take Jesús, ride for Galena. I find you on road to Galena.”
It was a good plan, far better than anything I’d dreamed up during my watch, and it might work if it drew the guards away from the fence. I could only hope it didn’t get us shot or stuck behind the wire ourselves. In the falling twilight, we worked out the plan’s details: my crawling as close as I could to the fence before shooting the ammunition dump, Yellow Boy waiting just long enough to free the horses in order to make it look like they’d broken the rope line in fright because of the explosion and bullets flying in every direction, and Yellow Boy grabbing a horse and meeting us in the south pass on the Galena road between Colonia Dublán and Casas Grandes. We stripped off our shirts in the chilly air and covered our bodies and faces with bacon grease and fire charcoal to make our skin black against the night.
We wanted to get into position before the moon rose over the mountains and be ready to move as soon as twilight dissolved into cold, black air. The wind died. The air was still. Frogs croaked and night birds called. Across the river, the camp relaxed, men going to mess tents, lanterns inside creating eerie golden glows across acres of tents. We could hear occasional laughs or curses from poker games as we saddled our horses and readied our gear.
Wading into the river, we were halfway across when Yellow Boy stopped and pointed toward the prisoner pen. Two lights six or seven feet apart on the front of a truck, its engine chugging, transmission grinding, moved toward the pen. We retreated across the river, and I frantically pulled out my field glasses to stare at the lights heading for the prisoner pen. There wasn’t enough light to see much of the truck, except that it looked like some kind of motorized covered wagon, and there were two soldiers with rifles riding in the back with their legs hanging off the tailgate.
The truck made a big, swooping curve and backed up to within twenty feet of the pen gate. A number, 1079, was painted in white figures about a hand-width high on the front bumper. The driver hopped out of the open cab and gave the guard some papers. They chatted a couple of minutes and then stood around as if waiting for someone.
Soon a line of soldiers with rifles on their shoulders and carrying lanterns marched down an aisle between the tents. They marched to the pen gate, their leader saluted the guard who had the trucker’s papers, and he ordered his men, rifles at the ready, to form a double row about four feet apart and facing each other between the gate and the truck.
The guard with the paper unlocked the gate and was followed inside by soldiers with rifles at the ready. We could hear names being shouted inside the pen: Gomez . . . Padilla . . . Muñoz . . . Soon after we heard a name, a man or boy appeared at the gate and was escorted down the aisle between the soldiers and climbed in the truck.
My mind raced to understand what was going on. Were the soldiers taking the prisoners somewhere to execute them? They obviously couldn’t take all of them in one truck. I remembered Peach telling me the objective of the Punitive Expedition would be to kill or catch Villa and as many of his men as possible; or, bring them back to the United States, give them a trial, and hang them, every one, with Villa to be last. I thought this must be a load of prisoners heading north, heading for a trial and a hanging. I prayed that Jesús wouldn’t be part of the group. How in creation could we stop a truck? They could be in Columbus by sunrise.
Something deep in my guts told me it was going to happen, and it did. The man calling out names yelled, “Avella!” Soon Jesús appeared at the gate and walked with his escort to climb in the truck.
Frowning, Yellow Boy looked at me. I raised my arm and held my hand above my head as if I was holding a piece of rope and cocked my head to one side and then pointed north. He jerked his head toward the horses. I took a last look at the truck but didn’t see anything that distinguished it from any other we’d seen that day except the number, 1079. I took a long look at the driver’s face, swung up on Satanas, and raced after Yellow Boy, already low in the saddle, galloping north up the trail by the Río Casas Grandes.
CHAPTER 50
THE RESCUE
We put the horses into a fast gallop, hoping to get far enough ahead of the truck carrying Jesús to set up an ambush. Luckily, no other trucks were rolling on the road now, and the very bright moon made it easy to see the land. The dusty caliche hardpan out of the army camp ran due north out across the llano. After eight or nine miles, our horses tiring, we came to a big, reddish rock on the right side of the road just before it dropped down into an arroyo, its sides showing twisted shelves of rock that looked like some gigantic thumb had flipped the pages of a stone book.
Yellow Boy reined in his paint and carefully followed the road down into the arroyo. He stopped and stared back up the road’s ruts to the edge of the arroyo and then up and down the arroyo filled with mesquite bushes deep in shadows. He said, “We stop iron wagon in this place. You kill iron wagon with Shoots-Today-Kills-Tomorrow?”
I shrugged, not know
ing much more about trucks than he did. I knew if I hit the motor or the radiator in the right place, it might stop. “Probably not, unless I’m lucky.”
He dismounted and pulled his nearly empty grain sack off the back of his saddle. He pointed toward the top of the rock on the right side of the arroyo road.
“Tie horses behind big rock. Climb on top of rock. Watch for iron wagon. Call like nightjar if you see. I come soon.”
He walked down the arroyo toward a mesquite thicket. I led the horses up the road and around behind the big rock, tied them off on a mesquite, and climbed to the top of the rock, which sloped back toward the arroyo. I found a spot to stretch out that gave plenty of cover, pulled out Big Eye, Yellow Boy’s big brass telescope, and looked down the road. A point of light twinkled in the distance. Seeing it didn’t surprise me. The truck was coming, but so far away the lamps on each side appeared as one. Ten minutes passed, fifteen. The single point of light became two.
Yellow Boy appeared, carrying his grain sack tied off at the top. He pointed down the road. “Iron wagon comes.” I handed him Big Eye. He looked for a moment and handed it back to me. “Bueno, only one.”
“Grandfather, what’s in the sack?”
He dropped it at my feet. Instantly the sack heaved, a loud distinctive rattle filling our ears.
“A rattlesnake? I know you despise snakes. It must be mighty powerful medicine for you to handle one. How are you going to stop a truck with a rattlesnake?”
He laughed and said, “Ha! Watch, you see.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Iron wagon stops at bottom of arroyo. Take guards and driver prisoner. Free Jesús. Let other prisoners go. Tie guards and driver. Leave in iron wagon. Sun come, iron wagons from north or Casas Grandes find guards and driver. Sun come, we south with Jesús.”
Still not understanding exactly how this was going to work, I asked, “Where do you want me to wait?”
He pointed toward a shelf of rocks about halfway down the side of the arroyo and about five yards off the side of the road. I offered him back his telescope before I left, but he shook his head and pointed at his eyes. “See enough. Go now.”
I got a rope off Satanas, took the position where Yellow Boy wanted me, and he took a spot in the big rock’s shadow by the side of the road just as it started down the arroyo’s bank. We waited in the cold, still air. Soon we heard the muttering truck motor, the whine of the truck’s transmission, and saw occasional flashes of light on the roadway as it ran up and down over the shallow, rolling hills.
Yellow Boy opened the sack and tossed the snake out on the ground by the road. It headed for cover. Yellow Boy was on it like a bird on a grasshopper. He grabbed it behind its head and at the base of its tail so it couldn’t rattle. It was the biggest rattlesnake I’d seen since I was a boy helping Rufus Pike on his ranch, at least six or seven feet long, its head the size of my palm. The snake, enraged, twisted and turned to free itself, its jaws spread, fangs bared to bite anything, all of which Yellow Boy wanted as he stepped back in the shadows to wait.
The truck drew closer and, above the mutter of the motor and whine of the gears, we heard the driver singing “Camptown Races” at the top of his lungs and one of the guards yelling, “Shut up! Shut up, you fool, and give us a little peace and quiet back here.”
Just as the truck reached the top of the arroyo and started down the bank Yellow Boy stepped out of the shadows and tossed the snake directly into the truck’s cab.
We heard the snake rattling even above the gurgle of the motor and grind of the gears. The driver’s singing stopped, and he yelled, “What the . . . Oh, damn!” He was out the far side of the truck, moving as if his pants were on fire, scrambling up the road’s ruts to the top of the arroyo, yelling, “Snake! Snake!” Without the driver’s foot on the brake, the truck gained speed as it rolled down the arroyo bank. With the snake in the truck’s cab rattling for all it was worth, the four guards came flying out across the tailgate, scrambled up the bank behind the driver, and left the prisoners to fend for themselves.
When the last guard reached the top of the bank, gasping for air, they gathered around the driver to watch the truck roll to the bottom of the arroyo and start up the other side. But the engine, not getting enough gas, coughed, sputtered, and died, leaving the truck stopped. The rattling stopped, and I saw the snake crawl out of the truck cab and disappear into the brush.
Yellow Boy stepped out of the shadows, a ghoulish specter shining in bacon grease and charcoal black, and levered a shell into the Henry to catch the attention of the soldiers who turned toward the sound, their eyes big and round. Yellow Boy said, “Señores, drop your guns, raise your arms.” All but one instantly threw down their rifles and pistols. Yellow Boy shot the campaign hat off the head of the one who hesitated, and the last rifle and automatic pistol instantly hit the sand as the last pair of hands reached for the stars. “Bueno, señores.” He called to me, “Bring, your reata pronto.” To the soldiers, he said in a commanding voice, “Sit down!”
The deadly rifle stayed pointed at them until I appeared with the reata to tie each of them together with their hands behind their backs. When I finished, Yellow Boy nodded for me to go to the truck and let the prisoners go.
I walked to the back of the truck and said in a loud voice, “Jesús! Come out!”
There were sounds of chains dragging across the bed of the truck. Jesús reached the tailgate, grabbed it with both hands, and swung over it to the ground. His hands and ankles were manacled and attached to a long chain that fed back into the truck. I called to Yellow Boy, “Keys!”
He herded the soldiers to the truck, patted them down until he found the one with the keys, and gave them to me. I removed Jesús’s manacles, told him to put them on the guard who had the keys, and then to go to the top of the arroyo and stay by the rock with the horses. As the prisoners climbed out of the truck, we unlocked their chains and put them on the soldiers, chaining them together, and then made them climb back into the truck. Three of the men didn’t want anywhere near the truck, afraid the big rattler was still around, but Yellow Boy’s Henry convinced them the snake was the lesser of two evils. When they were all inside, we locked the end of the chain to the truck and bade them adiós.
Off to one side, out of the soldiers’ hearing, I asked the prisoners if any of them could drive the truck. Two of the men said they could. I told them they could walk away or drive the truck to Janos, which I guessed was about twenty-five miles, and that they should be in Janos well before midnight. I said that if they took the truck, they were under obligation to me not to harm the soldiers, and to leave the truck with the soldiers near the road used by the supply trucks from the north. An older man who knew how to drive promised to do everything I asked. The driver and one of the other men cranked and started the truck without a problem, and slowly drove it up the bank and disappeared into the night.
When Yellow Boy and I reached the horses, Jesús was grinning from ear to ear and pacing about, slapping his arms and stamping his feet to stay warm in the cold air. He said, “Doctor Grace, muchas gracias for saving me from the gringos, but why are you in Chihuahua?”
The adrenaline that had me ready to fight was fading away. I was so cold from the icy night air with nothing on my torso that I began to shake before I could answer.
Yellow Boy said, “Agua down the arroyo. I find snake there. Come. Make fire. Make coffee. Wash before we ride and talk.”
Jesús made coffee while Yellow Boy and I rubbed our bodies with sand, to take off most of the charcoal and grease, and washed the dust and sand off in a small standing pool. It felt good to be clean again and to feel my shakes disappear into the warm glow of the fire and the cover of a shirt and coat. I gave Jesús my change of clothes and told him to wash as well. He’d been in the prisoner pen for so long, we preferred to stand upwind from him.
The coffee was strong and hot, something we all needed as we listened to coyotes singing in the distance
under the cold, bright moon. I said to Jesús, “You asked why we saved you from the gringos. The gringos were taking you to Columbus to put you on trial and hang you for the Columbus raid. We couldn’t let this happen to our amigo and compadre. Did you ride with Villa in the raid on Columbus?”
He stared at the cup, slowly nodding his head, his mouth pulled to one side that spoke volumes of regret. “Sí, I was at Columbus. I held the horses and worked as a medico when they brought in the wounded. The general didn’t want to risk his best medico being shot. That says a lot, doesn’t it, Doctor Grace, that I was his best medico? Me, a kid who barely knows what to do for any medico problem except boil water or carry a stretcher.”
I took a swallow of coffee and said, “At least he did something right, protecting his medico. How did the gringos catch you?”
He shook his head, made a clicking noise, and tapped his temple with his forefinger. “I have no brain. After the fight at Guerrero, the general says for me and other hombres to go home, hide our arms and wait. He says he will call us after the gringos get tired of chasing him and leave Mexico. This I did.
“Soon the gringos came. They searched all the houses in my village. They found a dress that a raider at Columbus gave me for the señorita I want for my wife. The gringos, they arrested me and other hombres who had such things. They took us to the camp at Colonia Dublán, and I waited in that pen for over seven days before they loaded us on the truck. You’re right, Doctor Grace, they planned to give us a trial and hang us. The guards told us this and laughed. I’m very thankful you save me from the gringos, but Doctor Grace, I ask again, why are you here? It’s very dangerous, and I don’t want mis amigos shot.”
Knight of the Tiger Page 28