Knight of the Tiger

by W. Michael Farmer

  I shook my head.

  “No, señores, none for me or the general. You drink it.”

  They smiled and bowed, quickly shaking their heads. “Oh no, señor, coffee is far too strong for us. We drink only green tea.”

  Villa watched this little exchange, curiosity filling his eyes. “Hey, amigos, I’ll have a cup of your coffee. Pour me some coffee in that blue cup with the bird on the side.”

  The one who spoke almost perfect Spanish reached for the cup.

  I said, “General, drink that coffee, and you’ll die in three days. It’s poisoned, part of a gringo plot to kill you.”

  I knew several Japanese at Leland Stanford’s college, but none were ever as pale as those two when I said they’d poisoned the coffee. They shook their heads and held up their hands, palms out. One of them said, “Oh, no, no, no. No plot. No plot. No poison. No.”

  Villa’s eyes narrowed into thin, sharp blades, slicing through their deception. “Traitors! I ought to make you drink the whole pot. I’m surrounded by traitors.”

  He clenched his teeth and spoke in the same guttural growl I’d heard him use on Thigpen and Miller at Agua Prieta and with the priest in San Pedro de la Cueva. “Leave now, señores. Never let me find you in Mexico again. If our trails cross, I’ll kill you on sight. Comprenden?”

  They bowed, stepping backwards out the door, their hands pressed together in steeples pointing at their chins, and said, “Sí, general. We understand. Adiós,” We heard their shoes slap a fast tattoo against the hall floor tiles as they ran for the door at the end of the hall.

  I knew if I weren’t still in the equation, he would have called for his dorados and had the Japanese men shot. Villa laughed, his eyes crinkled in pain. “How did you know this, Hombrecito? Why didn’t you let them poison me?”

  I closed the door, seeing the flash of light from the door opening and closing at the end of the hall as the Japanese left. “Quentin Peach told me privately four days ago when our trail crossed the gringo general’s. I didn’t think they could poison you. You’re too careful, but we pushed hard to get here to stop them just in case you let your guard down. You deserve to die like a man, General, not like a sheep killed by a coyote.”

  Saying nothing, clenching his teeth, his hands trying to make fists but failing, he stared at me, unblinking. I admired his courage.

  At a light tapping at the door, I said, “Entre.” The door swung open, and Jesús, surrounded by a cloud of steam, brought in a half-full, five-gallon galvanized tub of steaming water. He raised his eyebrows, questioning where to set it, and I motioned toward the table against the far wall. He sat the tub down and frowned as he stepped back to close the door.

  “What goes on?” he asked.

  “Sit down, Jesús. I have a confession to make.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed, his eyes flicking back and forth between Villa and me. Villa turned his head away.

  “What?”

  “I’ve deceived you. I let you think I was hunting the general to offer medico help, but that wasn’t true. I planned to kill him.”

  His eyes grew round. “Why, señor? You’re a medico, not a pistolero. General Villa is your amigo.”

  “Remember the executions of the village men at San Pedro de la Cueva? Remember how I tried to stop General Villa after he murdered the priest, and then how I left the same afternoon with Camisa Roja? Do you remember? What did you think of those things?”

  “Sí. I remember all of those things. I didn’t want you to go, but it was a good thing. Hombres who don’t respect the general face the firing squad. All understand in División del Norte his authority is absolutamente. Because you were his long-time amigo, he let you go, even sent Camisa Roja to show you the trail. We all thought that was a good thing, señor. Besides, the general he says you have important business at your home. All of the soldiers, we think it is a good thing for the general not to execute you because of your disrespect and attack on him personally.”

  “You don’t think he was wrong to murder the priest and all those men for their understandable mistake?”

  “War, Doctor Grace, we all make mistakes in war. Always men die. Most deaths in war are not just. The night you left, General Villa, he cried in his wagon, cried like a woman, sorry for what happened, sorry he sent you away. Old Juan, his cook, he told me so . . . Why do you ask?”

  “Because, General Villa told Camisa Roja to kill me, and he nearly did. That’s why. I sent Roja back tied across his saddle, with a note stuck on his red shirt saying I’d be back to repay his betrayal of me and of so many in the revolución, and I came back. I would have come back crawling across the fires of hell to repay blood for blood as my Apache father taught me.”

  Jesús peered at Villa and then me. He slowly shook his head, looking at the floor. At last, he said, “But, Doctor Grace, you lied to me to find General Villa. You betrayed me to find the man who betrayed you.”

  “I’m very sorry, Jesús. I never intended to deceive you. I had to find General Villa to set things right for betraying me, for betraying all those men in senseless charges against machine guns in trenches and barbed wire, for those murders at San Pedro de la Cueva, for a thousand betrayals no one will ever mention but will never forget. I had to have your help to make things right, even if I didn’t tell you. Don’t you understand why I deceived you? It was for justice. It was to give Villa what he deserves.”

  Jesús stared at me, his eyes clear, honest. “Your hands aren’t clean to deliver the thing you call justice, señor. You must not commit this murder. You’re a better man, a bigger man than this one. But you and the general, you are only men, and men make mistakes they wish they never made. We never get what we deserve for our evil. Even I, a boy, know this.”

  There it was, like a flash of lightning, like the instant sting from a slap across the face, the dream fulfilled, the metaphor completed, the epiphany clear. Villa, the jaguar, the tiger on fire in my dream, tearing at my soul, the unseen shadow coming to pull me from its claws—it was Jesús, as if he were his namesake, rescuing me, rescuing me from becoming a cold-blooded murderer, rescuing me from being bound forever to the dark side of life because I killed a tiger, a tiger burning bright.

  I sighed and eased down on a chair, feeling a peace I hadn’t known in a long time and knowing without doubt that now I was doing the right thing. Jesús and Villa stared at me, apparently puzzled and wondering what I’d do next, wondering what they’d do next. I let the revolver’s hammer down to safety, flipped open the loading gate, and began punching the shells out of the cylinder into my palm. The last cartridge fell into my palm.

  I looked up at Jesús and shook my head. “Help me get the general on his bed, and let’s see if we can’t fix that leg.”

  CHAPTER 57

  ESCAPE

  Villa shook his head and held up his hand to stop us from helping him onto the bed. “Call Gamberro. He’s strong enough to move me without driving me insane with the pain.”

  Jesús passed through the door and charged down the hall. Villa stared at me with hooded eyes, still not believing I wouldn’t kill him. “So, Hombrecito, you lied to the muchacho to find me? I know you. You won’t give up so easy trying to kill me. But if you try something with this leg, Gamberro will shoot you where you stand.”

  “I no longer have a desire for revenge, Jefe. Today I finally understand a dream I’ve had many times since I returned to New Mexico from medical school. Until now, I didn’t understand it was warning me against killing you. It was trying to tell me how killing you would pull me into the fire consuming you. I’m a medico, trained to heal. I swore an oath to heal all who need my help. I’ll do my best for you now and never return. This part of my life is finished. I give you the rest of yours. Use it as you choose.”

  Villa snorted, shook his head, and rolled his eyes, saying nothing more as Gamberro, the big Yaqui in charge at the side door of the hacienda, strode into the bedroom, Jesús right behind him.

  Sighing, V
illa said, “Ah, Gamberro, here you are. Help me onto the bed, por favor. The medicos need to look at my wound and maybe they can help make it better. You stay here, too, and help look after them, eh?”

  Gamberro was one of the strongest men I’d ever seen. He walked over to Villa’s chair, slid one arm under his shoulders and the other under his legs, and, with no more than a small grunt, lifted Villa out of his chair, carried him the three steps to the bed, and with a splay-legged squat, placed him in the center of the bed. Villa, over six feet tall, was at least two hundred twenty pounds of pure muscle and dead, awkward weight.

  After putting him on the bed, Gamberro moved the chair in which Villa had been sitting so he had a clear view of us while we worked. Gamberro put his big pistol in his lap where it was easy to reach, took the makings for a cigarillo out of his vest pocket, and nodded at Villa.

  “Doctors, the general is waiting. Proceed carefully, por favor. I’d hate to shoot you if you make a mistake, but I will.”

  We said nothing, put some pillows under Villa’s lower thigh and heel to help support his leg, and began unwinding the dirty bandage. We found two large mallow leaves separating the flesh around the wound from the bandage cloth.

  Mallow leaves can be used to make a good soothing poultice that reduces pain and inflammation. Whoever used the leaves had a clear idea of what would cut down on inflammation and infection, but raw leaves external to the wound probably weren’t doing much good except to keep the cloth from sticking to the infection. Before I removed the mallow leaves, I paused to take some soap out of my bag and use some of the boiled water in a hand bowl to wash up and pour carbolic acid over my hands.

  As I lifted the leaves off the wound, Villa clenched his teeth and desperately sucked in air as pus and small chunks of matter flowed from the open sore. I let the wound drain while I looked at the rest of his leg. The bullet had entered from the back about six or seven inches below the knee joint, and went straight through, apparently passing between the tibia and fibula, probably nicking both and making many small bone fragments, but not shattering either major bone. The entrance wound had closed and apparently healed on its own, but the exit wound on his shin was a mess. It was closing with a pus hole just above it. Villa moaned as I gently touched the area around the pus hole and felt bone fragments.

  “General, you’re at risk of losing your leg below the knee if I don’t clean the wound and open it up to pick out the bone fragments. Once I do that, it ought to heal in a month or so, and you’ll feel a lot better. How about it?”

  He eyed Gamberro, who sat impassively watching, cigarillo smoke drifting from his nose. Gamberro shrugged and took another puff. Villa’s feverish brown eyes studied my face, and he slowly nodded. “Go on and do it,” he said, his voice churlish. “No hombre lives forever. But if I die, so will you. Show us your skill, Doctor Hombrecito.”

  I took a bottle and a gauze patch out of my bag, holding them up for Villa and Gamberro to see. “This is chloroform. A few whiffs and you’ll sleep so you feel no pain while I work.”

  Villa shook his head. “I can stand the pain. I don’t want to be asleep.”

  “You have to be still while I work, or I’ll make the wound worse, and you’ll take longer to heal. If not the chloroform, then drink the gin in that bottle on your nightstand.”

  “No. It makes my head hurt when I wake up after I drink it.”

  I saw it was his way or nothing. “Very well, then have Gamberro hold you down while I work. You can’t be thrashing around when I start picking the bone fragments out of that pus-filled wound.”

  Jesús, standing at the foot of the bed, said, “Por favor, General, take the chloroform. It’s the best thing. Gamberro will watch over you with his pistola.”

  Villa looked at Gamberro and stared at the ceiling for a few moments. Then he said, “Very well, Hombrecito, do your work. I hope you live until the end of the day, because it means I’m still alive. If I live, Gamberro, you take good care of our guests.”

  It took over an hour to clean the wound. I had to reopen the healed exit hole and find the bone splinters, making the wound a running sore. After I finished, I flushed it out with carbolic acid and put a poultice of yerba mansa on it. With Villa snoring, all that was left to do was wait. If the fever broke, I’d know we were in time to stop a major infection and Villa would, at least, keep his leg. If the leg didn’t show signs of healing, then we’d have to figure out how to get out of Gamberro’s tight hold and far away from the hacienda sooner rather than later.

  I left Jesús to clean up and motioned Gamberro out into the hall. With the door to the bedroom closed, I said, “Señor, I believe I found all the bone splinters, and General Villa will recover soon. When he wakes up, he’ll be very thirsty. Give him a little water at first, and then more as he becomes fully awake. Jesús and I will camp outside and—”

  Gamberro shook his head, a sarcastic sneer twisting his lips. “Oh, no, Doctor Grace. As the general recovers, you’ll need to give him quick attention in case your medicine doesn’t do so good. You and the muchacho stay in the room next to him. It has a connecting door. He calls; you answer. Comprende? We’ve already put your horses in the corral and taken good care of them. You stay here and look after the general, eh?”

  I smiled. “Sí, comprendo.”

  As I had explained to Gamberro, Villa awoke about an hour after we finished, desperately thirsty and groggy from the chloroform. His thirst satisfied, he wanted to sleep more, and told Gamberro to reload the revolver I had emptied. He went back to sleep with his arms crossed at his chest like a body ready for burial, the pistol in his right hand ready for instant use. As we watched, Villa slept the rest of the afternoon and well into the night.

  Gamberro opened the door between the bedrooms and motioned us to follow him inside the adjoining bedroom. “Doctor Grace, this door stays open. You only go to the hall through the general’s door. An hombre guards the way. I told him to kill you if you try to run. I have business outside. Take good care of the general when he calls.”

  “Sí, señor. The general is my patient, and I’m his doctor.”

  Gamberro locked our bedroom door to the hall from the outside. I hated being trapped like that and prayed Villa would awaken in a good mood and feeling better; otherwise, he’d probably decide we were charlatans deserving the firing squad.

  I didn’t sleep well. Expecting to be called at any time, I awakened from a shallow, fitful sleep as the casement clock down the hall struck twice. My eyes popped open. Something didn’t feel right. I started to sit up, when a powerful hand forced me back down on the bed. I said nothing and strained to see in the pitch black. A faint whisper filled my ear, “Hombrecito, we go now?”

  Relief washed over me like a plunge in a cold winter river. “Sí. First I speak with Jesús. Where will you be?”

  “Go out the kitchen door to the garden behind the hacienda. You can wade across the river. There I wait with the horses. At the door of Arango, a guard sits, but he is no more. Move pronto.”

  The hand’s weight on my chest disappeared. A shadow floated through the half-opened doorway to Villa’s room and out the open door to the hall.

  I knelt by Jesús’s bed. His short, excited breaths told me he was awake. Next to his ear, I whispered, “Yellow Boy waits across the river. We go now, pronto.”

  I felt him staring at me. His hand found my shoulder and pulled my ear close as he whispered, “No, Doctor Grace, I need to stay here. The general needs me.”

  “He’s liable to kill you if you stay and I’m gone.”

  “Sí, this I know, but there is nowhere else for me to go. Vaya con Dios y muchas gracias.”

  I was tempted to cold-cock him and carry him with me, but as the Apaches had taught me, he was a man, and it was his choice to make. I found his hand and shook it. “Adiós, my good friend. Vaya con Dios.”

  I grabbed my doctor’s bag from the foot of the bed, took my hat off the bedpost, slid out through the bedroom doors, and
glided down the hall. Out the kitchen door, I stayed in the shadows, slid under the last rail of the fence, stepped on rocks scattered on the long, sloping banks of the river, and found an exposed rock shelf that let me step off into the water without making a splash. Yellow Boy was right. The river was not much over knee-deep. The current was very slow, and the burbling water and thousands of frogs croaking along the banks made it easy to wade across without making any appreciable noise. I came out the other side in dark shadows and stayed in them until, nearing our camp, I heard a horse snort and Yellow Boy whispered, “Here.”

  Never so glad to see anyone, I found him in the shadows under the pale light of a fingernail moon. I whispered, “Grandfather, you saved me again in the middle of the night. How did you get the horses?”

  “Humph,” he grunted, “Am I Apache? Villa lives? Jesús stays?”

  “Sí.”

  “Before moon rose above sierras, Camisa Roja returned. Yaqui told him you here and Villa let you live. Camisa Roja full of fire. He said he knows what Villa wants and swears he kills you mañana. Leave now. Mañana Camisa Roja follows. Maybe you get lucky with Shoots-Today-Kills-Tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 58

  A CHANGE IN TACTICS

  We crossed the river about three-quarters of a mile north of the hacienda, followed a dry arroyo to the main road, and set the horses on a pace that ate up the miles. The morning sky was turning a light, gauzy turquoise blue as we splashed across the Conchos River at the little village of La Joya. Its silent, scattered adobe houses and church stood cold and somber. We rode into a canyon on the far side of the river, picking our way up a dangerous, loose gravel trail, twisting and turning up the south side of the canyon until we gained a ridge overlooking the village.