El Paso

by Winston Groom

  “Yes, and how long do you think that would take? Besides, what guarantees do you have? Deliver such money to a madman and simply hope and pray the children are returned? Villa will laugh at fifty thousand dollars. He has overestimated me. He expects real money.”

  “So what in hell can we do?” Arthur said.

  “First, we need to get Beatie and Xenia out of there before something like this happens to them,” said the Colonel. “Trains ought to be running the next day or so, and if we find out it’s safe for them to return, that’s the first order of business. Then, what we need most is intelligence. Right now we don’t even know where to locate the son of a bitch to give him any ransom even if we had it.”

  “We need information,” Arthur said starkly. “We will find it right here,” he said. “Here in El Paso. You can find out anything in El Paso, isn’t that what you said, Father?”

  In that, Arthur was correct, but the problem was how to identify phony information from the real thing. He turned to Cowboy Bob.

  Bob had an old compadre called Death Valley Slim, who’d been a cavalryman and later a mineral prospector down in Chihuahua, and who was not only familiar with Villa himself but also with his elaborate network of spies hanging around El Paso picking up information and intelligence. When Cowboy Bob explained the situation to him, Slim said he’d return in an hour with solid news.

  Meantime, Colonel Shaughnessy got on the phone and rang up the White House again. President Woodrow Wilson was having his breakfast when he took the Colonel’s call.

  “I believe I explained the situation to you before,” the president said after listening to the Colonel’s tale. “I am very sorry about your family, Shaughnessy, but we can’t just go changing American foreign policy and possibly start a war over a man like Pancho Villa.”

  The Colonel fumed. “Roosevelt did it! Remember: ‘Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead!’” he said, referring to an incident in Morocco some years earlier when a Berber bandit named Raisuli kidnapped and held for ransom an American named Perdicaris. Roosevelt had sent in the Marines.

  “Well, that was President Roosevelt’s way of dealing with things,” Wilson said regally.

  “Yes, and he said something else, too: ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick,’” the Colonel reminded him.

  “It wasn’t Roosevelt said that,” Wilson corrected him. “It was his secretary of state John Hay.”

  “Whatever,” snapped Colonel Shaughnessy. “How about you, Mr. President? Where is your ‘big stick’?”

  “I have one, Colonel Shaughnessy, but must use it wisely,” the president said. “However,” he concluded in the barest whisper, “I do believe I speak softly.”

  Furious, the Colonel hung up. “That man is an ass,” he said to himself, wishing, despite everything, that he’d supported Roosevelt.

  By midmorning, Death Valley Slim found Arthur and the Colonel standing in the lobby of the Toltec.

  “What’s left of his army’s back over in Coahuila lickin’ their wounds,” Slim said, “but ol’ Pancho, he’s took to the hills.”

  “What hills?” Arthur asked. He moved them all to a table.

  “Well, they’re not hills, exactly,” said Slim. “He’s gone to hide out in the Sierra Madre. That’s where he usually goes when he needs some time to regroup.”

  “How many men does he have with him?” demanded the Colonel.

  “Regiment—maybe less,” Slim answered. “It’s tough travelin’ in them mountains with anything more’n that. Tough enough travelin’ in there anyway,” he added.

  “A regiment,” said the Colonel. “Well, now, that’s all he’s got?”

  “All he took,” Slim said.

  “Why, hell, I can raise a regiment!” the Colonel declared.

  “What are you talking about?” said Arthur.

  “Look, if Villa’s separated himself from most of his army, then why don’t we just raise us an army here in El Paso and go after him, before he pulls himself together and reunites himself with his band?”

  “How are you going to raise an army?” Arthur said, trying to hide his astonishment at such a crackpot notion.

  “Son, in case you forgot, I raised one right there in Boston back in ’98 and took it up San Juan Hill with T.R. I’m not exactly unaccustomed to fighting these beaners.”

  “Yes, but—look, we need to be realistic here. For Katherine and Timmy.”

  The Colonel rose up from the table and motioned for Arthur to come with him. They went to a quiet spot in a corner of the lobby.

  “Listen, Arthur, you asked me yesterday what I suggested we do. First, Wilson isn’t going to do anything, so any help from our government is out. He offered to have our ambassador in Mexico City contact the Carranza government, but what in hell good would that do? Carranza can’t even find Villa himself.”

  Arthur listened.

  “Second, we don’t have the money to pay the ransom, and every minute we wait, Villa’s going to be harder to catch up with, and every minute the children remain in danger. So the choice is either to sit on our hands here in El Paso and hope something happens or take action.”

  “Action . . . ?”

  “Yes, action! At the best, we might have a chance to sneak in and bring the kids out, because I imagine that’s the last thing he’ll be expecting. The other possibility is that if we do catch up with him and a rescue isn’t possible, at least we might be able to negotiate, like you say.”

  Arthur closed his eyes and shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair.

  “Suppose we try to rescue them and fail?” The bright faces of Katherine and Timmy kept flashing in Arthur’s mind.

  “You know Villa pretty well,” Arthur said to Death Valley Slim after he and his father rejoined the group. “Do you think he’ll harm those children?”

  “Let me put it this way: I wouldn’t put nothin’ past him.”

  “I say since we know where he is we ought to at least give it a try,” Colonel Shaughnessy said. “I’m not an unreasonable man. I think once we smoke him out, I’ll just let him know it’s not him we’re after, but those children, and if he releases them, he’ll not be molested any further by me.”

  “Father, that’s . . .” Arthur’s voice trailed off. He could not remember a time in his life when he felt real fear, real panic, at least not for any length of time. But now he felt frightened in himself, unsure of whatever decision he made, yet he knew he would ultimately have to be the one to decide.

  “Excuse me, Colonel,” Death Valley Slim put in, “you said ‘since we know where he is.’ Now, that’s not exactly what I said. I said he’s gone to the mountains. That ain’t like saying he’s down the street at Mr. Foote’s Saloon. Do you understand how large them mountains are? I mean, just in area, if you could scoop ’em all up together they’d prob’ly fill up the entire state of Texas—and Texas is big enough being flat. You got to appreciate what kind of mountains these is, Colonel,” Slim continued. “You know the Rockies, and the Sierras up in California . . . well, these ain’t like them. Those got civilization—roads, towns. These mountains here ain’t got nothing like that. All that lives up there is a handful of Indians that came down from the Toltecs. Everything else is, well, just wild. There ain’t even maps for most of it.”

  “So how does Villa get around there?” the Colonel asked, now annoyed.

  “He knows the place,” Slim said. “He’s been in there a lot—ever since he was just a kid—and he’s also got a few of those Indians—they call themselves Rarámuris—anyhow, they go with him. They know their way around.”

  “You been there yourself?” the Colonel said.

  “Lots of times,” Slim said. “But that don’t mean I know where Pancho is. Like I told you, that place is thousands of square miles and a maze of canyons. And there’s lots of dangers besides Pancho Villa.”

  “But you might have some notion of where he is, though? What part he might have located himself in?”

  “I might,” S
lim said. “But it’s no guarantee.”

  “Good,” said the Colonel. “You’re hired.”

  “For what?”

  “To join our expedition against Mr. Villa and redeem my grandchildren.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way, sir,” Slim said. “I meant, what’s the pay?”

  Arthur said, “You name it.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Arthur thought it might be the screwiest scheme he’d ever heard of, but what choice did they have? It turned out raising an army was not so easy as the Colonel had predicted. On the cattle drive they’d had more than seventy-five Mexican drovers from Valle del Sol, but almost to a man they declined the Colonel’s offer to go after Pancho Villa.

  That afternoon Colonel Shaughnessy dispatched Cowboy Bob and Death Valley Slim with rolls of ten-dollar bills in their pockets. They went to dragoon the bars, whorehouses, stockyards, saloons, and flophouses of El Paso, offering a twenty-dollar sign-up bonus and ten dollars a day for any man willing to enlist in “Shaughnessy’s Partisan Rangers,” the name by which he had styled his expedition. If they were successful, the cost would be cheap at a thousand times the price.

  Unfortunately, what turned up next morning was unsatisfactory soldier material, to say the least. Bob and Slim managed to enlist more than a hundred men, but less that half that number showed up, and of these, most were too drunk, too old, or a combination of both. Many had even lied about whether they owned horses and, for that matter, their own rifles or sidearms. There had been a lot of saloon talk during the enlisting process the previous evening, but in the light of a new day, as Cowboy Bob was fond of saying, “What we got here is a bunch of ‘big hats, no cattle.’”

  The Colonel was furious and tried to hold Bob accountable.

  “You’ve always stepped up and done your duty,” he told Bob, “but this time you’ve failed me.”

  “Well, last night they sure looked better than now, I give you that,” Bob said defensively. “But, hell, Colonel, it was dark in them places. They was most of ’em makin’ sense like a drunk’ll do till he gets too drunk to stand up. Besides, where else was I s’posed to go? There ain’t but ten or fifteen thousand people in this city. You expect to find a soldier for this kind of thing by visiting peoples’ homes at night or canvassing the churches? I doubt it, sir. Slim and I did the best we could.”

  Death Valley Slim was standing beside Cowboy Bob and agreed.

  “Colonel,” Slim said, “I tell you what. While y’all been talking, I been lookin’ over this crowd. You might be tarring them all with the same brush—some of ’em ain’t as bad as they look.” He took the Colonel aside.

  “I know you was a big military man in the Spanish War an’ all,” Slim said, “but if I was you, I wouldn’t want all these people with me anyway—even if they was perfect soldiers. What I’d do, I was you, is start whittling down. You know what I mean?”

  “No, I don’t,” the Colonel said. He looked peevish and highly annoyed.

  “Well, sir, here’s the way I see it. What you’re gonna come up against in them mountains, I don’t know if you understand it quite yet, Colonel. Them mountains, they’re not some joking matter. It was me, I’d take men with me who ever’ one of ’em knowed pretty much what he was doin’. Even if I didn’t take but fifteen or twenty. With that terrain in there, likely in a fight you couldn’t engage that many at one time anyhow. And you could travel faster and lighter that way. Havin’ a lot of people slows you down, you know?”

  “Do you have some kind of military experience yourself?” the Colonel asked sarcastically.

  “Matter of fact, sir, I have. I was with the Second Cavalry for seven years. We was the ones that captured Geronimo.”

  “I’ll be damned,” said the Colonel.

  “Yessir, not too far from where I expect Villa’s headed to hole up right now. In fact, I was a first sergeant. We chased that ol’ bastid day and night for three years.”

  Arthur said, “You ought to listen to this man, Papa, he knows his way around.”

  They were still standing in the Toltec Hotel lobby, and somehow Arthur began to feel better about the expedition. Between Cowboy Bob and Slim and the Colonel, maybe they could do something after all.

  IN AN OPEN PLOT BETWEEN BUILDINGS off of El Paso’s main street, Colonel Shaughnessy, Bob, Slim, and Arthur began to check out the motley would-be “Partisan Rangers.” Some could barely stand and a few actually fell down in the dust. Some still had bottles they were drinking from, bought with the Colonel’s enlistment bonus. The Colonel and his party moved from man to man. If the man looked sober, they sometimes asked questions. If he looked too old or infirm, they moved on. But just as Slim had suggested, they found a number of the prospects who looked rigorous and in remarkably good shape.

  One character the Colonel put on the roster was a daredevil stuntman and aviator called “Crosswinds” Charlie Blake, who’d been left behind by a flying circus after he fell off a barstool and fractured his arm. At least the man was sober, clean-cut, and well spoken, unlike so much of the other drunken riffraff that morning. He was short and slender, with short dark hair, gunmetal-blue eyes, and a rather long nose and prominent ears. He looked rather ratlike, in fact, but was as distinctive as he was unattractive. Arthur was impressed as soon as he learned he was a flier.

  By noon, Colonel Shaughnessy had enlisted twenty-nine handpicked men and, that being accomplished, the Colonel interviewed Cowboy Bob about his progress in outfitting the bunch. Bob and Death Valley Slim had spent the morning acquiring the best rifles, pistols, ammunition, pack animals, dusters, wagons, field glasses, blankets, ropes and harnesses, and other hard supplies and extra equipment that could be had in El Paso. But that was when trouble appeared.

  They were standing in the street talking when two U.S. Army officers walked up. Both were dressed in starched cavalry twill trousers, blouses, Sam Brown belts, and polished puttees. One was wearing the gold stars of a general.

  “Sir, I am General John Pershing, commander of this military district,” said the older man. “Lieutenant George S. Patton here is my aide.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” the Colonel replied nicely.

  “And I take it, then, that you are the Mr. Shaughnessy who is trying to raise some kind of military force?”

  “I am Shaughnessy. This is my son, Arthur.” He also introduced Bob and Slim. Patton seemed to be eyeing Arthur suspiciously.

  “May I ask what the purpose of your endeavor is?” Pershing said.

  “We have property down in Mexico that needs to be rescued,” the Colonel replied evasively.

  “From what?” Pershing inquired.

  “From the Mexicans,” said the Colonel, “who are lawless.”

  Pershing twitched his mouth and stroked his mustache with his thumb. “My people tell me you are signing on an organized force. Do you intend to represent the United States government?”

  “Hell, no, General,” said Shaughnessy. “I’m just gathering some men to help me protect my interests.”

  “Well, in that case I can’t stop you,” Pershing said, “but I warn you that Mexico is in turmoil right now and under our present orders we cannot protect you against harm.”

  “I know that already,” Shaughnessy said. “I just got back from there. And as far as protecting us, I already talked to that namby-pamby in the White House and got back the answer.”

  “Might I ask what property it is you’re trying to protect or rescue?” Patton asked. He couldn’t help noticing that the streets were packed with the Colonel’s cattle.

  “You may not,” Shaughnessy told him, “unless you want to come with us.”

  “Our situation vis-à-vis the government of Mexico is highly delicate,” Pershing said. “We are not to cross the border unless attacked.”

  “Yes, that’s been conveyed to us,” Arthur broke in. “Say, you wouldn’t have any idea of the whereabouts of Pancho Villa right now, would you?”

  “He just fought a big battle
in Chihuahua City and got licked,” Pershing said. “We heard he’s split his army up and is probably headed for Coahuila.”

  “Thank you,” Arthur replied. “I read that in the newspapers.”

  “Well, I appreciate your time, Mr. Shaughnessy,” Pershing said. “I hope you won’t do anything you’ll regret.”

  “That’s the army for you,” snorted the Colonel when the two officers were out of earshot. “Not only won’t help, but try to discourage those who do. Those two men will never amount to anything.”

  The Colonel and his party repaired to the Toltec Hotel bar to plot their strategy, and there received some good news at last. The trains would be running again first thing in the morning. The Colonel instructed Cowboy Bob to hurry over to the rail depot and make sure they all had passage, including the horses, donkeys, and equipment. Then he went the hotel desk and wrote out a telegraph for the ranch, telling them to get Xenia and Beatie out of Valle del Sol quickly as possible and take the first train to El Paso. As he finished writing, a familiar voice addressed Colonel Shaughnessy from behind.

  “Ah, my friend, so you, too, have returned to America—or did you ever leave?”

  The voice belonged to the German, Strucker. He had just come back from Mexico City, where he claimed to have met with President Carranza about buying oil leases.

  In fact, Strucker had done his best in Mexico City to persuade Carranza to nationalize the vast U.S. oil holdings around Tampico and Veracruz, hoping that would provoke a Mexican-American war. Unsuccessful in this, and because rail communications in central Mexico were then still cut, the German caught a steamer to San Diego, where he took a train back to El Paso. All along the way, Strucker smoked cigarettes, cigars, and drank brandy, considering what to do next. With no help from the Carranza government, his only option now was trying the idea out on Villa. Problem was, since Villa’s defeat at Chihuahua City, he wasn’t as formidable as he’d once been.