Bitter Trail and Barbed Wire

by Elmer Kelton

  9

  In the following weeks it gradually dawned upon Union General Dana in partially repaired Fort Brown that the federal occupation of Brownsville suffered serious shortcomings, that the “sealed-up” border had some bad holes in it. Slowly at first, then more and more frequently, Confederate wagon trains were appearing on the south bank of the river, hauling their heavy loads of cotton into the market at Matamoros, the teamsters gleefully thumbing their noses at the bluecoat troops north of the Rio.

  That damnable Frio Wheeler had been only the first of them. Others, caught midway down from San Antonio by the sudden Union offensive, had simply been diverted upriver to points such as Rio Grande City. There they came under the protection of a bold troop of Texas-Mexican militia commanded by one Colonel Santos Benavides, whose watchful eyes stayed on the trains until they crossed over the river to safe ground. With Wheeler’s lead to guide them, the algodones then followed the Mexican trail on down to Matamoros. True enough, the detour added many long miles to the haul from San Antonio. But the presence of the Yankees proved of little more than nuisance value. Within weeks the movement of cotton into Matamoros and the northward flow of imported war supplies was almost as large as it had ever been.

  Once Dana sent a steamer upriver in hopes of cutting off some of the wagon crossings. But the drought still held, and the river was so shallow that sand bars stopped the vessel before it got as far as Roma.

  He sent mounted troops to capture Rio Grande City, but they were unable even to reach there. Always they encountered the wily Benavides, his guerillalike troop of ranch-trained vaqueros darting in and out of the brush, striking with the swiftness of a rattlesnake and retreating into the chaparral so quickly that the federals hardly knew what had hit them. Pursuit was useless, for the Union cavalrymen knew little about the border country. If they strayed far from the river they might starve, for drought had left most of the waterholes dry. Benavides and his men knew the trails, knew the location of every single waterhole that still remained on the Wild Horse Desert.

  Of course there were appeals to General Juan Cortina, who held control of Matamoros. Cortina had the power to cut off the cotton trade with a word, a single action. He professed his friendship for the Union, entertained Union officers in his quarters, and in turn was treated most cordially by Dana and his staff. The Mexican general even gave the Union officers full use of three Kennedy & Co. steamboats that had been registered under Mexican names and employed by the Confederacy. But he did not cut off the cotton trade. Though he hated Texans, he knew that so long as Matamoros prospered, he prospered. When it suffered, he would suffer. Without the border trade, Matamoros would sicken unto death.

  This, then, was the situation in which Dana found himself. He held what was supposed to have been the key city, yet the enemy was outflanking him at points beyond his reach. He had several thousand troops at his command, while the Confederacy had at best only a few home guard units scattered along the entire stretch of the Mexican border. He could not send troops across into Mexico. The same restrictions that once had stopped the Confederacy now conspired to stop Dana. Nor could he touch the neutral vessels that flaunted the Union blockade by clustering around the mouth of the Rio Grande in full sight of federal gunboats. Even as it was, the Lincoln government had its hands full, trying to keep England and France from swinging the full weight of their support behind the Confederacy. An angry incident at the Boca Chica might be all that was needed to touch off an international crisis, to turn Europe against the United States.

  To make it worse, spy reports indicated that the Texas Colonel Rip Ford was mustering troops in the San Antonio area, planning to come down and wrest the border away from the Union again. To be sure, Ford wouldn’t be able to amass men in numbers equal to those of the federals—at least, Dana doubted it. But if they were all of the same caliber as those hard-riding Mexicans under Benavides, it wouldn’t take as many.

  The Union general, visiting the Matamoros side of the river, watched Frio Wheeler come into town with his second wagon train of cotton since the federal occupation. The man had thirty wagons with him this time. He was a wheelhorse, this blocky-built, dusty-faced, bewhiskered Texan. He had led the way, and others were following. Frio Wheeler was regarded by the Texans as a leader in the border trade, a man to follow, a man to imitate.

  Well, the general thought grimly, to kill a snake you cut off its head!

  And shortly afterward, Union Major Luther Quayle found himself seated at a dirty little table in a dark and odorous Matamoros cantina, staring across a flickering candle into the evil face of Florencio Chapa.…

  * * *

  FRIO COUGHED AS the south wind whipped up dust from the edge of the trail. He could imagine how much worse it must be in the drags, where Happy Jack Fleet was not so happy, bringing up the rear of Frio’s train along the Mexican side of the river.

  It seemed to Frio that this drought would never end. It conspired to make a difficult situation almost impossible—compounded the misery that already was bad enough, bringing these groaning wagons and these thirsting mules the long way around on a trail woefully short of feed. All winter he had watched Mexican teamsters on the oxcart trains, burning the thorns from prickly pear and feeding the pear to their oxen. But mules wouldn’t eat prickly pear, with or without the thorns. So all winter Frio had had to devote space to maize and corn, space that would better have gone to cotton.

  The river had receded to shoals in many places. Once he saw the steamer Mustang snagged on a sand bar. The Union officer in charge of troops aboard paced back and forth, swearing. The ship’s crew was making signs of trying to free the little ship, but Frio knew their hearts weren’t in it. Their loyalty remained with the Kennedy & Co. leadership and the Confederacy. They were doing only what they had to do for the Union, and taking their own sweet time about even that.

  From the rear of the train, Happy Jack Fleet yelled at the troops, “Why don’t you Yanks get off and push?”

  What the soldiers yelled back at him was unintelligible, but its general meaning was plain enough.

  The train’s entry into Matamoros attracted much less attention than had the first one, only days after the Union had taken Brownsville. Frio understood this; Texas wagons were arriving in Matamoros almost every day now. They were becoming commonplace. Yet he was aware of one thing: People were looking upon him personally with an interest they had never shown before. He was the one who had first beaten the Yankees, the one who had shown the others the way. Suddenly he was no longer “Frio” as much as he was “Mr. Wheeler.”

  Coming up in the world, he thought, finding it somehow a little humorous. He hadn’t sought this new importance, and he didn’t take it very seriously.

  He led the wagons into the Confederate cottonyard and shook hands with Hugh Plunkett. Plunkett grunted. “Brought me some more work, is all you done. Don’t a man ever get any rest?”

  “I haul it, you sell it. This war ever gets over with, maybe we can both rest.”

  Frio saw a young Union lieutenant in dusty blue leaning against a gatepost. Plunkett explained: “They got a man over here all the time now, not doin’ a thing but watchin’ what we do, countin’ how much cotton we get, how much stuff we ship in and out. It don’t do them any good to know—just makes them mad. Looks to me like they’d be happier just to stay ignorant.”

  Frio grinned. “You got anything around here to take the chill off a man? We used up our whole medicine supply on sick teamsters.”

  “Got some Scotch I swapped off of an English cotton buyer. It’s in the shack yonder.” He pointed toward a small frame building he was using as an office.

  Frio walked up to the lieutenant. “Yank, we’re fixin’ to have us a drink. How about takin’ one with us?”

  The federal’s face was blue from cold, and his eyes lighted at the prospect. Then he shook his head. “I don’t drink with the enemy.”

  Frio said, “We’re south of the river. There’s no such thing here
as enemies.”

  The officer glanced across the river as if he thought someone might be watching him from the other side. He hung back a moment, then nodded assent. “If you don’t tell them, I won’t. It can get almighty chilly here even if it is so far south.”

  In the shack Hugh Plunkett fetched out the bottle. There were no such refinements as glasses. They simply passed the bottle around. Frio watched warmth touch the young officer, putting a healthy color back into his pinched, blue face. He sat and pondered the foolishness, the contradictions of this war. If he and the officer were to meet on the other side of the river, they would try their best to kill each other. Here they sat together without enmity, taking the edge off their chill by drinking out of the same bottle.

  Frio guessed this might be the deadliest war of its kind in history, with the friendliest enemies.

  “Where you from, lieutenant?”

  “Illinois. We have a farm back there—my folks do, I mean.”

  Frio nodded. “My folks did some farmin’ too, once, and raised stock. I’ve sort of got away from the plow, but I still raise cattle.”

  “We have milk stock,” the lieutenant said. “Good-blooded cattle.”

  “Mine are just plain native cows,” said Frio. “You couldn’t get a bucket of milk out of a dozen of them.”

  The lieutenant was plainly homesick. And now the conversation had opened a way for him to begin talking about his home. He seemed oblivious to Frio—asked him questions and then went right on talking without giving time for an answer. He talked of the green fields of Illinois, his eyes going soft and blurry, and for a little while the war was forgotten. Frio just sat back and listened, seeing in his mind’s eye the land the young officer described, knowing he would never get to go there and see it for himself. For a while, then, they were friends, and there was no war, no North or South.

  At length the lieutenant squared his shoulders and handed the bottle back to Hugh Plunkett. “I guess I had better go. I have to count those bales.”

  Frio said, “I’ll save you the trouble. There are thirty wagons, four hundred and eighty bales.”

  The officer stared quizzically. “That’s military information. Why are you willing to tell me about it?”

  “You’d get it anyway. Thought I’d save you the work.”

  The lieutenant smiled. “This is a crazy war.”

  When the Yankee was gone, Hugh offered Frio the bottle again. Frio declined. “We better be unloadin’ those wagons.”

  Plunkett put away the bottle and turned, worry in his eyes. “Frio, I don’t know how you done it, but you’ve made yourself some good friends among these Mexicans. Do you remember an old fiddler, one they call Don Sisto?”

  “I know him. I’ve done him a favor or two.”

  “He was over here. Said I better tell you Florencio Chapa’s been seen around town. Rumor among the Mexicans is that he aims to kill you.”

  “He’s tried before.”

  “Maybe this time he figures on doin’ the job right. Was I you, Frio, I’d keep some good men around me, and I wouldn’t sleep sound till I saw them shovelin’ dirt in Chapa’s face.”

  * * *

  TO THE SINGLE men of the wagon train, Matamoros afforded a chance to relax from the grinding toil of the trails, to jam into crowded cantinas, get drunk on raw liquor, seek the warm excitement of some willing señorita. Those men who had homes here or in Brownsville could spend a couple or three nights with their wives and children. The Mexican teamsters passed with comparative freedom back and forth across the river, for to the Yankees one brown face looked like another. To Anglos like Frio and Happy Jack, however, the river was a barrier they dared not cross. They could only stand on the south bank and gaze across at the lamplight of Brownsville, sadly remembering the time when they had not been in exile.

  Frio intended to spend a couple or three days in Matamoros before starting the long return trip upriver. The mules needed rest. They needed green feed, too, but they couldn’t get it. Frio wished he could loose-herd them on grass a few days and let them fill their bellies. There was no chance. The long drought had left little grass. And the Mexicans with their own herds of cattle, their countless burros and scrubby horses, had kept the land so overstocked that it would be a long time before there was feed enough again.

  So, in lieu of pasture grazing, he turned his mules loose in a big brush-fence corral, for which he had paid the owner a small rental. He fed them all they wanted of hay, which he bought from a few Mexicans who irrigated small fields out of the river. He circled the empty wagons outside the corral and set up his camp.

  He remembered what Hugh Plunkett had told him about Chapa, but he had never felt unsafe in Matamoros. He thought it unfair to make a bunch of the young men forgo the city’s pleasure and stay for his protection. He let all of them go except a small guard of three, who would remain around camp, mostly to prevent pilfering. These three would be chosen each night by the men themselves, cutting cards. The married men with families here were exempt. Besides the three young men, a couple of the older ones elected to remain in camp. Both had families in San Antonio and considered themselves too far along in years to work up a fever over the flashing eyes and pinched-in waists of the dark-haired señoritas. They were content to buy a bottle and stay with the wagons.

  Like these men, Frio felt little urge to try the night life. The pressures of being wagon boss had worn him out. He only wanted to rest. Besides, there was Amelia.

  He got a chuckle, watching Happy Jack. Happy was shaved, bathed, his hair plastered down with grease and smelling to heaven of something they had sprinkled on his new clothes down at the barber shop. He stood in the firelight, admiring the cut of his coat and trousers.

  “You sure you don’t want to come along, Frio? Margarita has got a sister, and she’s … Well, you’ve got to see it to appreciate it. You never saw anything like her.”

  Frio smiled. “I probably have. I’ve been around longer than you.”

  “You’re lettin’ yourself go to seed, is what you’re doin’. Man, you just got one life. You better live it.”

  “Maybe you best take care of Margarita and her sister.”

  The young man laughed. “I haven’t got that much life about me.”

  Happy walked out of the firelight and disappeared in the direction of the city. Slowly the rest of the men scattered too. Soon only Frio and the two viejos were left, and the three unlucky young ones who were to guard the wagons. Frio let the fire burn down almost to coals, so that it still put out heat but shed little light. He was wary enough not to make an easy target of himself.

  He sat and stared into the coals, watching their kaleidoscopic change of colors as the heat built and waned. Listening to the night sounds of the Mexican city, he let his mind trail back to other times—to Brownsville and Matamoros as they had been before the war, to Amelia and Tom and Meade McCasland, to the ranch he and Tom had so hopefully started. He considered his own sacrifices and knew they were small compared to those made by so many others. Many men of his acquaintance had already given their lives for the South. He, at least, was still alive, still had his ranch and his cattle. And he had Amelia. When this war was over he would have something to go home to. From what he knew of the campaign in Virginia, thousands of men would have no home left.

  He sat there remembering, and lost track of time. He was aware of the two older men turning up their bottle and dropping it on the ground empty. They weaved unsteadily toward their blankets. A guard came up and spoke to Frio and poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot at the edge of the coals.

  They heard someone approaching. The guard straightened, gun in hand. He said in Spanish, “Some of the boys coming back, probably. The foolish ones do not know how to take their time and make a night last.” He called out, “Quién viva?” Who goes there?

  A Mexican voice responded from beyond the ragged edge of firelight. “Señor Wheeler? I seek the Señor Wheeler.”

  Frio arose and drew hi
s six-shooter, keeping well back in darkness. “Come ahead, with your hands away from your sides. Stop by the fire.”

  In the dim glow of the embers he could see that this was a stranger with a wide sombrero, open leather huaraches and the loose cotton clothing of the peón. “I have come with a message for the Señor Wheeler,” the man said, taking his hat in his hands. He shivered from cold.

  “Are you by yourself?” Frio asked suspiciously.

  “Sí, señor.”

  The guard went to look. In a moment he was back. “He is alone, patrón.”

  Frio said, “What is it you want of me?”

  “You have a young friend, a gringo with hair the color of sand?”

  Frio stiffened. Happy Jack! “What about him?”

  “He is in trouble, señor. There has been a fight, a bad fight, and he is hurt. He needs your help.”

  Alarm raced in Frio. But there was also doubt. “Who sent you?”

  “A friend of the boy. A woman.”

  That added up, Frio thought. Still, there was an off chance this could be a lie, a ruse. “Where is Happy now?”

  “He is in the woman’s house. He asked for you. It is possible he dies, señor.”

  Frio could not hesitate long, even though a lingering doubt persisted. To the guard he said, “Felix, I had better go with him.”

  He could tell that the guard, too, had his doubts. “I will go with you, patrón. The other two can guard the wagons. They have the viejos for help.”

  “Thanks, Felix,” Frio said gratefully. “Happy might need both of us.”

  They paused only long enough to let the other two guards know where they were going. They trailed out into the darkness afoot, following the man who had brought the message. Frio kept the six-shooter in his hand, ready. Felix did likewise. It occurred to Frio belatedly that Felix was one of the poorest marksmen in the crew. He hoped the teamster never had to use that gun.