Bitter Trail and Barbed Wire

by Elmer Kelton

  In the main, it seemed to Frio, Matamoros was still a more solid-looking town than Brownsville. It was larger, had more fine homes, had most of the better eating and drinking places and the only real theater. One had to overlook the fringe of primitive jacales and tents and open-air campers who had swelled the city of late. One also had to overlook the many cheap cantinas and gambling places and rowdy sporting houses that had sprung up to accommodate the flush pockets of freighters and sailors and traders, Confederate soldiers and plain salt-sweat laborers.

  Two men entered the bar and ordered drinks. One of them spotted Frio, spoke quickly to the other, then began walking in Frio’s direction. He was a portly man with a florid face and eyes that somehow reminded Frio of a coyote’s. The clothes he wore had been well tailored and bespoke easy money, but now they looked as if he might have slept in them.

  “Hello, Frio Wheeler,” he said loudly, as if he had found a long-lost friend. He walked up and slapped Frio’s shoulder with a big soft hand. “Been hopin’ I’d run into you someplace.”

  Frio’s voice lacked enthusiasm. “Hello, Trammell.” He didn’t offer to shake.

  Trammell hailed the other man with a broad sweep of his hand. “Guffey, come over here. I want you to meet the best cotton freighter on the whole Mexico trail.”

  Frio didn’t stand up nor did he offer his hand to the tall, consumptive-looking Guffey. Trammell was telling him Guffey was a cotton buyer out of New York—strictly nonpolitical—but Frio only half listened. He already knew Guffey by sight and reputation. Trammell said in his big, loud voice, “How about havin’ a drink with us, Frio?”

  It graveled Frio a little, this careless use of his first name. In his view that was a privilege granted only to friends. He did not count Trammell as a friend. “I’ve already got a drink. Thanks anyway.” He hoped this might discourage Trammell and that the man would go away. Instead, Trammell scraped a chair across the floor and seated himself uninvited. “Let’s sit down here, Guffey. I got some business I want to talk over with Frio.”

  Frostily Frio said, “We got no business together.”

  “You don’t know it, but we do.”

  A waiter brought a bottle and two glasses. Trammell poured a glass full and swallowed it down in two long gulps. His face twisted sourly, and he rasped a long “Ahhhh!” Across the table, the lank Guffey only sipped at the whiskey, his nose wrinkling as if he smelled something dead. Frio scowled, looking the two men over, sorely tempted to get up and walk out but realizing Blas wouldn’t know where to hunt for him.

  Here’s a real pair for you, he thought. Trammell was a trader who had gotten fat buying cotton from poor farmers in East Texas and selling it to the Confederacy at high prices. It had been charged but never proven that he bribed government buyers to give him a premium. Now he had found there was even more cream to be skimmed by not dealing with the Confederacy at all, but by hauling his cotton to the border and selling it directly to the buyers from overseas. That way it wound up to his credit in European banks. None of it had to be traded for war goods.

  As for Guffey, he was a Yankee cotton buyer. How he did it Frio could only guess, but Guffey actually was getting his hands on arms and ammunition that were being manufactured for the Union army. He was shipping them to Matamoros and trading them to the Confederate government in return for cotton, which he could sell at ruinous prices to fiber-hungry mills in the east.

  The .36-caliber Navy Colt that Frio carried on his belt had been Union war goods that had come through Guffey’s hands.

  Trammell set his glass down with a hard thump. “Frio, how would you like to make yourself a big pile of money? Good gold money that spends anywhere you want to take it.”

  “I’m doin’ all right.”

  “Join up with me, man, and you’ll make more than you’ll know how to spend. You could buy yourself the best ranch in Mexico and have all the pretty señoritas a man could ever want, a different one for every day.”

  Frio could feel color rising warm in his cheeks. His narrowed eyes fastened on his glass to avoid looking at Trammell. “That might be to your taste. It isn’t to mine.”

  “Just a figure of speech is all. Hell, money’s to everybody’s taste. You can do anything you want to with it.”

  Frio said, “Bad money breeds only trouble, and yours is bad money. I don’t want any part of it.”

  Trammell stared incredulously. “There’s no such thing as bad money. All I want you to do is haul my cotton. You’re a good freighter, and you’ve got fifteen good wagons.”

  “Fourteen,” Frio corrected him. “Lost one.”

  “Haul for me and you can have thirty wagons before you know it. I’ll pay you twice what the government does.”

  Frio shook his head. “Not interested.”

  Trammell argued, “Look, man, I got more than four thousand bales of cotton bought in East Texas. Bought cheap. They stand to make me a fortune if I can get them down to the border. I’ll split the profit with you if you’ll haul them. Now, what could be more fair than that?”

  “Sell them to the government.”

  “Sell … Man, you’re crazy! I’m offerin’ you a chance to make a small fortune, and you sit here starin’ at me like some dumb Mexican.” The big man grabbed Frio’s shoulder and shook it. “Think of all that cotton, Frio. Think what I’ve got tied up in it. Think of me!”

  Frio’s hating gaze cut him like a knife. “I am thinkin’ of you, Trammell, and the thought makes me a little bit sick. You take cotton the Confederacy needs and sell it for gold to line your own pockets. Now take your hand off of me before I shoot it off!”

  Trammell jerked his hand away.

  Frio turned to the Yankee. “And you, Guffey, you’re just as bad. Sure, the Confederacy needs all the guns it can get. But I mortally hate a man who would steal from his own side and sell guns to the enemy, even when we’re the enemy.”

  Trammell sputtered, “You got no call to talk to us like that, Frio. We come for a nice, friendly little business talk and you—”

  “I didn’t invite you,” Frio said flatly. “But now I’m invitin’ you to leave. In fact, I’m tellin’ you to.”

  Trammell backed toward the door, shaking his fist. “You’ll regret this, Wheeler. We’ll meet again.”

  “As long as I can see you,” Frio said, “I won’t be worried.”

  * * *

  BLAS CAME, BY and by. He simply stood in the doorway and nodded, and Frio knew everything had been arranged. Walking outside, he saw half a dozen Mexicans a-horseback, waiting. Blas said, “I hire these to help us put the mules across the river.”

  “And that other little job?”

  Blas winked. “I have fix that also.”

  They rode out to Gutierrez’s. Frio placed the money in the big man’s greedy hands and watched gold-lust dance in the dark eyes. The Mexicans harnessed the mules, then strung them out along the river, headed for the ferry.

  Riding off behind the mules, Frio and Blas passed a tall stone fence and found four young Mexicans sitting there on their horses, waiting. They made no sign of recognition, but Frio saw Blas give them a quick nod as he rode by. Frio looked back over his shoulder a minute later and saw them riding leisurely toward the wagonyard.

  After taking his mules to the Texas side, Frio rode the ferry back to Matamoros and returned once more to the bar near the consulate. He hadn’t been there long when Blas came, bringing the same bag in which Frio had taken the money to Gutierrez.

  “Did they take out their share?” he asked, not wanting to open the bag here.

  Blas nodded. “Funny thing. When they rob him they find he has more money there than you give him. They take their share from El Gordo’s money. You will find yours here, all of it.”

  Frio smiled, then suddenly the smile fell away. “El Gordo … I hope they didn’t kill him.”

  Blas shook his head. “No, they don’t kill him. One of the boys, he’s make El Gordo saddle a horse, and he’s take him for a long ri
de down the river. He’s going to let El Gordo walk back.”

  Frio could picture Gutierrez wobbling along afoot, carrying his great bulk on legs unaccustomed to walking.

  “He’ll know who arranged it, of course.”

  Blas shrugged. “Of course, but what can he do? You know who is steal your mules, but what could you do?”

  Frio laughed all the way back to the consulate.

  4

  Frio knew where Tom McCasland lived in Matamoros, but he had never gone there to look for him before. Now and again he and Tom would meet by accident somewhere in the city. They were always civil meetings, but inevitably the barrier of war and the conflict of loyalties stood like a stone wall between the two men. Such meetings only aroused in Frio a painful memory of things that used to be—the hunting and fishing they had done together, horses they had broken, cattle work with the two of them and Blas Talamantes as a happy team. With these memories always came a fear that when the war ended, that friendship would never again be the same. Always when he saw Tom, Frio felt an aching sense of loss. He avoided a meeting if he had the chance.

  This time he felt he had to see Tom, had to try to talk sense.

  Frio knocked at the door of the small frame house. For a moment he thought there would be no answer, then he heard someone walking softly. The door opened just a little, and dark eyes peered out cautiously. A woman’s eyes.

  “Quién es?” she asked suspiciously.

  Frio removed his hat. “I’m lookin’ for Tom McCasland.”

  “He is not here. Go away.” She closed the door.

  Frio rapped again. The door opened once more, a little wider this time. She was a Mexican woman in her mid-twenties—not a beauty, perhaps, but more than passable—and she was angry. “Look,” she said in English that was surprisingly good, “I tell you already, he is not home. He has ride for you already one time this week. Why you don’t leave him alone?”

  “You got me mixed up with somebody else, ma’am. I’m a friend of his. I just want to talk with him.”

  The door opened a little wider. “You come to talk war? I don’t want for him to ride out anymore. Next time they kill him maybe.”

  “I don’t want him to ride out anymore either. That’s what I came to talk to him about.”

  The anger began to fade from her eyes. “You are not another of those from the yanqui government, wanting him to do the dangerous things?”

  Frio shook his head. “I’m from el otro lado, the other side of the river. Name’s Frio Wheeler.”

  “Wheeler.” She frowned, slowly testing the word on her tongue. “Yes, I have hear him speak that name. You are a friend.”

  “I used to be. I hope I still am.”

  The door swung open. “Tom is not here, Señor Wheeler. But come in. Maybe we should talk together.”

  The room was not cool, for she had kept the front door closed against intrusion from the foot traffic on the street. He felt some flow of air through open side windows and a back door. The room was simply furnished, nothing fancy. He saw curtains, though, and a bowl of cut flowers adding a splash of color. Tom wasn’t living here by himself.

  “I haven’t met you before,” Frio said.

  She had a handsome figure, and from the lightness of her complexion he thought she might be pure Spanish. There was still pride in the people of the sangre puro, the unmixed blood. He sensed that she was a lady, or had been.

  “I am Luisa Valdez.”

  She would have stopped there, but Frio glanced at her hand and saw the rings. Then she went on, for his eyes were asking the question he was too polite to speak. “Yes, I am a married woman, or was. My husband is one time an officer for the Juaristas. The Crinolinos, they kill him. Tom McCasland, he is good friend of my husband and me. When my husband is die, I have no people anymore, no money. For a woman without these things, there is but one way to live in Matamoros. I would die first. So I am come to Tom, and he is give me a place to live.” She paused. “I know what you think, but he is a good man.”

  Frio said, “I know that, ma’am, a good man.” He twisted his hat. “You in love with him?”

  She was slow to answer. Then, nodding, she replied, “Yes, I love him.”

  “You figurin’ on marryin’ him?”

  She dropped her chin. “He has ask me, and I am tell him no. I love him, Señor Wheeler, but war has make me a widow one time. I do not want that it makes me a widow again. I tell Tom that when his war is over, when there is no more fight, then I marry him. Not before that. I do not want to be widow ever again.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to be. I want to have Tom stay in Matamoros where he won’t be gettin’ hurt. You know where he’s at right now?”

  She shook her head. “He is tell me he has government business. He says he will be back tonight and take me to the fandango.”

  Frio had heard something about the big dance while he was sitting in the bar waiting for Blas. “You think if I went to the fandango I’d get a chance to see him?”

  “He will be there.”

  Frio said, “Then so will I.”

  He started to back toward the door. Luisa Valdez stared at him with eyes that seemed to weep for sadness. She shifted to Spanish because the words came easier to her that way. “Señor Wheeler, there is much I do not understand. Where is there reason in all this war? You and Tom, you are friends, but one of you is on one side and one is on the other. You are friends and yet you are enemies. Where is there reason in this?”

  He answered her in English, for though he understood Spanish well enough, he could not always express himself as he wanted. It was common on the border to hear bilingual conversations, each party using the language that came easiest. “Well, Mrs. Valdez, it’s this way.…” His voice trailed off, for he knew he couldn’t explain it to her. He couldn’t explain it to himself.

  “War,” she said gravely, “is a useless thing, a foolishness that men create for themselves. They fight wars like they would race horses or gamble with cards or put roosters in a pit. It is the woman who suffers, because she must live on alone when her man has died. The men fight, but it is the women who must cry the tears and live an empty life after the foolish game of the men is over. If it were left to the women, there would be no wars.”

  Frio tried to meet her accusing gaze but looked away. There was no arguing with her, because he could find no answer for what she had said.

  “You are a soldier?” she asked him.

  He shook his head. “No, I am a rancher and a freighter. I freight cotton to the river and haul merchandise north.”

  “You are not a soldier, but your wagons carry the goods that go to fight the war. Is there really a difference?”

  “Not much,” he admitted, “when you think about it. But it’s somethin’ somebody has to do, and it seems I’m the one. Our side didn’t ask for this war, ma’am. It was somethin’ they forced us to.”

  Her eyes seemed to pity him. “I suppose the other side feels the same way about it.”

  Frio dropped his gaze. “I hadn’t done much thinkin’ on it thataway.”

  “It is how Tom feels. Strange, isn’t it? Both of you feel the same way, yet you find yourselves on opposite sides, against each other. Perhaps both of you need to do some thinking. Perhaps each of you could see the other’s viewpoint if you tried.”

  Uncomfortable, completely out of answers, Frio found himself edging again toward the door. This was no ordinary woman, he could see that. Luisa Valdez had a mind of her own, a strong one.

  He said, “Tell Tom, will you, that I’ll see him at the fandango. No, on second thought, don’t tell him. He might not go.”

  “He will go,” she promised. “I will see to it.”

  He stepped outside. He started to put his hat on and walk toward the sorrel, but he turned back to Luisa Valdez. “Hang on to him, Mrs. Valdez, and keep him out of trouble. I’d like to see you married to him. I’d like to have you for a friend.”

  Her lips turned upward wi
th a thin semblance of a smile. “Ojalá. You are a good man too, I think. I would hope we can be friends.”

  * * *

  THE MATAMOROS FANDANGO was more than a dance. It was a meeting place for friends who hadn’t seen each other in a long time. It was a whole-family affair and a drinking bout and a gamblers’ haven, all rolled into one. It wouldn’t get started until nine o’clock, because darkness wouldn’t come until after eight. The last of the diehards wouldn’t leave before daylight had come again.

  Frio went back on the ferry to the Brownsville side to bathe and shave and put on fresh clothes. He also took the opportunity to be sure his recovered mules had been given plenty of feed and fresh water. They had already taken on a good fill by the time he saw them. Tomorrow or the next day they would be ready for the trail.

  He dropped by the McCasland place to visit a little more with Meade, and to see Amelia again. Amelia’s eyes widened when he told her where he was going tonight. “The fandango? What do you want to go there for?”

  “For one thing, they’re fun. For another, I’ve got some business.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What kind of business? What does she look like?”

  Frio tried to keep his face serious. “Well, she stands about six-and-a-half feet tall, has one blue eye and one brown one. Get tired of one color, you just look at the other eye awhile.”

  “I’m green with jealousy.” Excitement kindled in her face. “Frio, I’ve never been to a fandango. Take me with you.”

  “Amelia, a fandango across the river isn’t like the dances you see over here. They’re not what you’re used to.”

  “That suits me fine,” she said eagerly. “I’ve heard about them, but I’ve never had anyone to take me. I certainly couldn’t go by myself. Now I’ve got somebody to go with, and I want to see one.” Her eyes were aglow. She squeezed his hands. “Please, Frio.”

  “I’ll level with you, Amelia. Main reason I’m goin’ is to have a talk with Tom.”

  “I’d like to see him too.”