by Joe Nobody
“Yes… yes, that would solve one of our problems, but what about the Salineros? I don’t see how helping us is going to free your wife and child.”
“I will negotiate a separate deal with Culpepper – one that would allow him to feed his people without squeezing your village dry. After tempers have died down, if you both want to open up again for trade, then that will be up to you.”
Rocco put his finger to his lips, contemplating Bishop’s words. “Go on,” he said, evidently waiting for the rest of the outline.
“I can broker an arrangement that would allow both of you to trade with multiple parties for what you need. The Tejanos could basically ignore Culpepper and his lot, or you could mend fences and become good neighbors again.”
“But what about the discrimination, Señor Bishop? You seem to think our struggle is purely about salt, and while that mineral has been the catalyst, our fight is over having to live like second-class citizens. For 150 years, the ranchers like Culpepper have treated my people like dogs.”
Bishop was shocked by his host’s words. “What? What are you talking about? Culpepper’s men and you both told me this war was over salt. Nobody said anything about discrimination.”
“I think you’ve misunderstood,” Rocco replied. “Salt is a simple thing, and we are well aware that there may be other sources. But that isn’t the primary fuel that burns the fire of our cause. We want equality… we want to be treated the same as everyone else.”
Bishop’s anger started to build, a burning frustration welling up inside him. “I don’t get it. I’m sorry, Rocco, but I just can’t understand. If Culpepper and his lot treat you like shit, then don’t go around them. If every Texan on the other side of the Rio Grande is a horrible racist or bigot, then don’t do business with them. Do you genuinely hope to change their minds by exchanging bullets?”
The local jefe’s temper rose a notch as well. “The people of this region have suffered from those holding power on both sides of the border for 100 years. If it wasn’t the Mexican government, then it was the cartels. If it wasn’t either of those, it was the army or local police. Corruption, mismanagement, and graft have held these people down for generations. And then… poof! It was all gone; the veil of repression was lifted. After the collapse, there wasn’t any government, or army, or police force. For the first time in over a century, the people here controlled their own destiny.”
Bishop struggled to regulate his voice, well aware of the men nearby who ran the town. “So you’re telling me that you are fighting to keep the Salineros from reestablishing that same oppressive dominance?”
“I know it may sound silly to you, Señor. But to us, the Salineros and their demands for salt are a prediction… a glimpse of the future. They know why we need the salt, yet they demand ever more in trade. Why? It’s not because they are in need; it’s because they want to push us down. They want our people to die; they desire nothing more than to keep my village hungry.”
Bishop didn’t respond, his mind trying desperately to sort it all out.
Rocco continued, “If you can provide any other explanation… give me any other logic regarding why they have acted in such a way, I will listen with an open heart and mind. But I will tell you, Señor, you won’t be able to do so. There’s no justification for their actions. They simply don’t want us to walk as equal men and are willing to do just about anything to keep us in our place.”
“Have you said this to them? What was their response?” the Texan asked.
A frown crossed his host’s face. “Yes, in the early days of the war, I tried to reason with them. This was the response.”
Rocco pulled up his shirt and turned around, displaying several rows of raised lash marks across his back. Bishop found it sickening, but his host wasn’t done. Turning back to face the Texan, Rocco lifted the cloth even further to show the star-shaped scar of a bullet wound. How it had missed the man’s heart was nothing short of a miracle.
“They whipped me for over an hour,” he said. “I had approached the Culpepper ranch alone, unarmed, and carrying a white flag. They didn’t even try to negotiate or talk. They tied me to the corral gate and used a bullwhip until their arms got tired. Mr. Culpepper himself then shot me in the chest.”
Bishop looked down, hating what he was being told. The injustice of it was bad enough, the fact that his wife was now under the control of such men adding to his emotions.
“They sent my horse back into the desert with my body draped on its back. I was lucky, our healers telling me that the bullet could have only missed my heart by a hair’s breadth.”
“I’m sorry this has happened to you, Rocco. I can’t explain or justify Culpepper’s actions. But I have to ask you this, can there be peace between you, or has this all gone too far?”
Bishop determined the village leader hadn’t expected that question. Either that or he didn’t have an answer. Rocco partially turned away, almost as if he didn’t want any stranger to see his face. He sighed loudly and said, “I don’t know the answer to that, Señor. Honestly, I just don’t have any idea. I am focused only on killing and winning; I can’t think about peace anymore. The concept is beyond me… out of my reach.”
And then, without another word, Rocco ambled off, leaving Bishop with an even deeper dilemma.
Terri sat on the main house’s back porch, snapping beans. Hunter, utterly fascinated with an old set of tin measuring cups, was playing on a blanket at her feet.
Pausing to study her son’s activities, she grunted as his face furrowed in concentration, each tiny hand sporting a utensil. “You’re just like your father,” she whispered sweetly. “Fascinated with cup sizes.”
The joke was lost on the boy, but it didn’t matter. The always-welcome sound of his mother’s voice elicited a toothless smile across his baby-fat cheeks.
Terri had rolled up her sleeves and demanded to do her share around the house. Part of that drive was due to an internal value system, always feeling the need to contribute when there were chores to be done. Nervous energy, fueled by constant images of her husband being beaten, tortured, or worse, was also a credit to her work ethic.
Returning to the unsnapped bushel basket of beans, Terri reinitiated her task, thankful the mindless activity allowed her time to think.
Hampered with Hunter, without transportation or communication, she couldn’t come up with a solution. With a baby in tow, there was no way she could attempt any sort of cross-desert excursion without a vehicle. Calling for help was also out of the question.
Instinct told her that brokering a peace treaty of some sort was the answer, but the Culpepper crew had been adamant – the Tejanos were near savages, untrustworthy and bent on slaughtering anyone associated with the ranch.
The fact that she didn’t buy into that argument 100% wasn’t an overly important factor at the moment. Mr. Culpepper and his management team did, and they were the ones who would have to agree to any sort of arrangement.
Reflecting on the current state of affairs, Terri’s mind settled on a curious introspective, a realization the council’s directives had indeed been sage. A single line of communication could have solved this regional problem… one radio or phone line or messenger could have prevented a lot of needless butchery, agony, and grief.
The Salineros, as they liked to call themselves, wouldn’t have depended so much on the villagers if they knew about the markets and recovery available in Alpha and Meraton.
Mr. Culpepper would have been able to work with other ranchers in the area, perhaps salvaging his herd without all this drama. Less than 100 miles away were solutions to all the problems, assets and services available that might have kept things from spiraling into a shooting war. Yet, neither combatant had been aware. Communications, she thought, another vote for the fourth directive.
Her analysis was interrupted by the kitchen’s squeaky screen door. Terri glanced up to see Mr. Culpepper coming to join her.
The elderly rancher rarely made eye
contact, something that at first, had bothered Terri. After a few days, she’d come to understand that her host was always checking his land, scanning the horizon for trouble or opportunity. The habit wasn’t due to any shifty avoidance or dishonestly, but based on the need to know what was happening around him. It was probably how he’d survived all these years.
“How did it all get started?” Terri asked after the two had exchanged greetings.
“What? The war?”
“Yes. Tell me more of the early history, if you don’t mind.”
Mr. Culpepper hesitated, unsure of where to start. “I guess it all got started years and years ago. If you want to really understand the root of the problem, you have to go back to when white settlers moved to this part of Texas.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, I’d say that is a good place to start dissecting this whole mess. There’s always been a rub between the two different cultures. European whites came from a background of individual property ownership, fence lines, and borders. Our Mexican and Indian friends, on the other hand, held more to a sharing of community assets, tribal usage of the land, a more nomadic utilization of natural resources. This fundamental difference has probably fueled the vast majority of the clashes between the two sides.”
Terri nodded her understanding, “I’ve read where the concept of land ownership was completely foreign to the native peoples, that they didn’t even have words to describe it in their languages.”
Culpepper continued, “But it wasn’t just land. My daddy fought rustlers for years. On the few occasions when he did catch someone stealing cattle, more often than not they were from the other side of the Rio Grande. Not always, but mostly. They weren’t professional thieves, just deprived people who saw a cow wandering the desert and decided it would feed their family for weeks.”
Pausing for a moment to scoot his chair over and grab a handful of beans, the old rancher then continued. “On most occasions, I ignored it after taking over for my dad. While there were years when a few less losses would have made a big difference to our operation and profitability, I also knew those folks over there were dirt poor. If they culled out some meat once or twice a year, it wasn’t the end of the world for us. I didn’t like it, sometimes calling the sheriff, other times walking over myself and warning them to leave my livestock alone. It didn’t do much good, and jurisdictional boundaries prevented law enforcement from eradicating the problem.”
Hunter chose that moment to fuss, one of his toys slightly out of reach. He was soon content, thanks to his mother’s longer limb.
After kissing her son’s forehead, Terri said, “So this war y’all are fighting has deep roots. Most do, I suppose.”
Culpepper frowned, “Yes, yes I suppose it does. But things didn’t seem to get out of control until about four months after the civilized world vanished. That’s when the rustling got really, really serious. Sometimes four or five head per week.”
“I assume you went to the village and confronted them?” Terri replied.
“We tried. You have to understand that there’s not just one village. There is an entire conglomeration of hamlets, outlying ranches and farms. Everybody denied knowing anything about rustlers.”
Terri mulled over the statement, choosing her next words carefully. “But you were sure.”
“We caught three of them red-handed,” Culpepper remembered. “They had two of our branded steers roped and in tow. We backed them into a small box canyon and they came out shooting. I lost my first two men that day. But we killed all of them.”
“And you knew they were from the villages?”
“No, not at first. We took the bodies across the river and rode up into the square, asking if anyone could identify the men we had killed. The wailing wives and mothers confirmed our beliefs. I lost another two riders getting out of there after they opened fire on us.”
Culpepper grimaced, the memories flooding back. “That night, my riders wanted blood. One of the dead men had three brothers working our spread, another of the casualties was survived by a father and uncle. There was still hard liquor in several of the hands’ lockers, and before I knew it, there was a large mob of angry, drunken cowboys demanding revenge. When I forbade it, they up and quit on me, taking off in a full gallop, brandishing whiskey bottles and Winchester rifles.”
“Did they ever come back?”
“No, never laid eyes on ’em again. But I heard later that they did horrible things to some Tejano women… some things I would never have sanctioned.”
Terri shook her head, the story familiar and not uncommon. It was easy to see how the situation had spiraled out of control. “So I have to ask, is this mendable? Can there be peace between the two sides? Are you like Israel and Egypt, where a treaty and lasting peace can be negotiated, or like Israel and Palestine where so much bad water has passed under the bridge there’s no hope? Are both sides so entrenched in their hatred that neither will be able to see a better way? Are the Tejanos leader and you wise enough to walk the path to armistice if it presents itself?”
The old rancher’s head snapped up at the analogy, a flash of anger flickering in his eyes. A harsh reprimand formed in his throat, but then he stopped himself.
The young woman sitting across the basket of beans wasn’t afraid of him. She stared back, firm in resolve, confident in her place. True, she didn’t work for the ranch, wasn’t in his employ. But there was more to it than that.
It took Culpepper a moment to put his finger on his guest’s attitude. She’s playing poker with me, he finally realized. And she knows she has the winning hand. Be careful with this one, you old fool. She’ll turn you inside out and laugh while your guts spill out on the ground.
Some men would have been angry. Some would have dismissed Terri’s posture as nothing more than a bluff. Despite the fact that she was sitting on his back porch, snapping his beans, and being an uninvited guest in his house, Mr. Culpepper realized he respected the woman sitting across from him. There was an authority there… a level of self-assurance he rarely encountered from man, woman, or beast.
Why? He asked himself. What gives some folks that rod of steel in their cores?
The rancher’s thoughts then returned to the instant the woman had first learned her husband was a prisoner of the Tejanos. Her angry, blurted words came back into his mind. “I need to get to Alpha,” she had said. “I need to get there right fucking now. I will have 10,000 men with battle tanks and Apache helicopters hit that village in less than two hours.” An interesting reaction from a woman stranded alone in the desert.
“I don’t know the answer to your question, young lady. I do know this; there’s more to you than meets the eye. I think you’re holding back on me.”
Terri didn’t want to go there, still regretting her previous outburst. She instantly flipped on the innocent charm, fluttering a smile and dismissing her host’s observations. “Why, Mr. Culpepper, would you hold it against a proper lady if she kept a few aces up her sleeve? Think about my current predicament – I’m alone with a small child in tow… without the benefit of my husband or other resources. I am completely at the mercy of strangers, depending wholly on the benevolence of men I’ve never known. Wouldn’t you hold a few things close to the vest if you were in my shoes?”
“Yes, ma’am… I suppose I would. But like most things on this earth, it’s what I don’t know that concerns me the most.”
“I’m no threat to you, Mr. Culpepper. Hunter and I are peaceable folks,” she said, bending to pick up her son and rest him on her knee. “I only want to find my husband and get back home.”
“I wish I could make that come true, ma’am. But for the time being, that’s a problem I can’t solve.”
“My experience has been there’s always an answer, sir. It will come…. I have to keep the faith…. It will come.”
The announcement of a town-wide feast surprised Victor. Turning his booth over to a subordinate, he immediately headed for the doctor’s home upon
hearing the news.
When the loud knock had sounded at his door, Dr. Hanes had nearly suffered a coronary. He’d been working tirelessly on his potion of venomous potato juice, the evidence of his crime spread all over the kitchen.
Victor’s face peering through the front door glass, rather than the mugs of the chief or his goons, had brought immediate relief.
“Why are you out of breath?” asked the merchant as he was shown in.
“You scared the shit out of me,” replied the physician. “I could feel the noose tightening around my neck.”
Cory appeared around the corner, a large butcher knife still in his hand. After seeing Victor’s glance at the weapon, the co-conspirator flushed with embarrassment and lowered the blade. “Sorry,” he explained, “I’m not going to be taken alive.”
For some reason, Cory’s statement brought home the seriousness of their activities. All three stood silently with their thoughts. It was the doctor who spoke first, “So did you come over here to help us press potatoes, or just to make it easier for Stan and his thugs to gather all of us up in one place?”
“Neither,” responded Victor, shaking himself out of morbid thoughts of capture. “Mr. Gospel, savior of our town and benevolent leader of all that surrounds him, has declared a feast will occur tomorrow afternoon right on the courthouse square. It occurred to me that your concoction might spice up the festivities.”
Grunting at his friend’s choice of words, Dr. Hanes nodded. “That’s excellent luck. I would think debuting my little witch’s brew there would be a whole lot easier than breaking into the school and poisoning Stan’s henchmen. Still…”
“Why not do both?” Cory interrupted.
“Because I can’t be sure of how much each person will consume,” replied the doctor. “If we spray our potion on the chicken, and some fool eats three times the normal serving, then our potion could kill. On the other hand, we need to make sure enough people get good and sick, or Stan won’t be concerned enough to tip his hand.”
“We need to make sure Stan is one of the victims,” added Victor, the bitterness bleeding through in his voice. “That’s the only way to be sure that asshole will break out the goodies and expose his greed and deception.”