El Paso

by Winston Groom

  After Shaughnessy explained his own dire situation to Strucker and said what he intended to do about it, the German thought what an idiot the man was, to have put the children in such danger. He liked those children. But of course he mainly sniffed an opportunity here. It might not be the ideal way to get to Villa, but at the moment it seemed the only one. Strucker immediately signed on with the Colonel’s little army.

  That evening after dinner, the Colonel, Strucker, and Death Valley Slim went to their rooms, and Cowboy Bob was about to say his good nights, too, when Arthur asked him to stay for a nightcap. A fire burned low in the Toltec’s lobby fireplace. Arthur had something on his mind that surprised Bob.

  “I wonder if I can impose on you for a favor.”

  “What’s that?” Bob said.

  “Your experience, your skills—I need them, and there’s not much time.”

  “I ain’t sure what you mean,” said Cowboy Bob.

  “Let me put it this way,” Arthur told him. “We’re headed out against a dangerous band of criminals that are holding my two children. We’re going into a savage territory, and I found it pretty awkward just going on the cattle drive. The fact is, I wasn’t cut out for this sort of thing.”

  “I thought you done okay,” Bob said. But Arthur went on.

  “I don’t know how to shoot a pistol at all. I know something about shotguns, but I’ve only fired a rifle a few times in my life. I don’t know much about anything else. But you grew up with it. So I need you to help me learn, because if it ever comes down to it, if I ever have to fight this Villa or anybody else, I’d like to be up to it.”

  “So, you still fancy yourself some kind of tenderfoot, huh, even after all that on the trail?”

  “Yeah, that’s what you’d call it, I guess.”

  “And you want to ride, shoot, be a tough guy, is it?” Bob chuckled. Bob had come to like Arthur, appreciated his company, but until now figured him as pretty much a poo-bah of the big American rich—come down here and think they just picked it all up in a week or two, then go back to their yachts and lawn parties and tell everybody they’d been a cowboy. He’d been impressed, however, at Arthur’s adaptation to life on the cattle drive. Arthur had pulled his weight, learned, ate beef and beans, asked questions when he didn’t know the answers. As Bob glanced down at the flaked, sunburned skin on his own big hands, he thought of all the broken ribs and arms and the smashed nose and the times he almost died from frostbite and sunstroke and starvation and a prairie fire, even suffered a bullet or two in his body, but he kept those thoughts to himself.

  “Something like that,” Arthur said. “I know it doesn’t sound likely, does it?” He was smiling what Bob thought was a strange smile.

  Bob studied his drink for a moment. “Tell you what, compadre, just stick close with ol’ Cowboy Bob, an’ every spare minute I got, I’ll do my best.”

  Bob suddenly got an uneasy feeling about what he was hearing, because there was something in the tone of how Arthur said it, and the sheepish look in his eyes. Bob had seen it before, where a perfectly normal guy gets a bee up his ass, and suddenly you got a crazy would-be killer on your hands. He had a feeling there were other things going on there besides what Arthur had told him. It made Bob a little uncomfortable.

  “I appreciate that very much,” Arthur said quietly.

  “Not a’tall,” Bob replied.

  PART FOUR

  THE BARRANCAS

  THIRTY-NINE

  Pancho Villa was on the move for a week before he reached the foothills of the Sierra Madre. But he still had more distance to cover before reaching his refuge, the barrancas, which lay within the mountains. The previous evening, Villa turned up at the campfire of Tom Mix and his captives, Katherine, Timmy, and Donita Ollas. Villa’s face was freshly scrubbed; he wore a new suit of clothes and smelled of perfume. He held something in his hands and smiled wolfishly, licking his lips with his thick tongue, like a man with something important on his mind.

  Katherine and Timmy shrank back. They’d been seated on a log by the fire after a meager supper of stewed beef and beans. The weather was turning colder and they’d drawn themselves closer to the fires in the last few days. Villa had visited their camp several times since they were captured, but the children remained fearful of him. So far he hadn’t spoken to them, but instead just stared at them while he talked to Mix or his aides. But tonight when Villa entered the little clearing he seated himself on the opposite end of the log Katherine and Timmy were sitting on.

  Donita Ollas, who’d also been seated on the log, rose huffily and moved to a log of her own. She was perturbed of spirit and light-headed from lack of sleep and worse, in pain from a rash on her bottom from endless days in the wagon. But she’d be damned if she’d let anyone in Villa’s party know that, and still winced whenever Villa came into her sight. Why, he’s licking his chops, she thought—he’s standing there looking at me and licking his chops!

  “So, Señor Mix, have these two muchachos been behaving themselves?” Villa asked pleasantly. Shadows from the firelight flickered gently on his face.

  “Yes, sir, General,” Mix replied. “They been proper little troopers so far.”

  Katherine had taken Timmy’s hand. His mouth was dropped open and his eyes large and apprehensive. Villa turned and fixed them both with a benign look. He handed an object to each of them, something he’d been holding. They were little wooden animals about two inches high and had been carved out of fresh pine, and the aroma of the pine was still with them. Timmy got a dog, Katherine a cat. The children examined them in the firelight, unsure how to react. Villa broke the silence.

  “I would have made one of these for you, too, Señora Ollas, but you so ugly to me, I don’t think it would do any good. Maybe I will have to give you jewelry, eh?”

  “You can give me my freedom,” Donita snapped. “And while you’re at it, turn these kids loose, too.”

  “All in good time, señora,” the general replied. “We got lots of time. It’s boring in the saddle all day. I amuse myself with my little knife on these trinkets. Do you think these kids like them?”

  “What do you say?” Tom Mix nodded at the children.

  “Thank you,” Katherine said flatly.

  “Thank you, ‘General,’” Mix reminded her.

  “Thank you, General,” Timmy said. He didn’t know what to make of the gift. In a way, he was flattered that the powerful man had given it—had even taken the time to carve it himself. But what did it mean—that he wanted to be friends after all he’d done? Anyway, Timmy felt he was too old for this kind of toy.

  “I give you the cat, little señorita, because it’s feminine,” Villa went on. “And the dog for the boy because the dog is masculine. Do you have a dog at home, boy?”

  “No.”

  “No, ‘General,’” Mix corrected him.

  “My father won’t let us have dogs, General,” Timmy said. He was wondering why, if Villa had kidnapped him, he would care one way or the other if he owned a dog.

  “Why not?” Villa said with surprise.

  “We used to have one, but a car hit it,” Katherine said. “We were all so upset, Papa said he didn’t think we ought to get another pet.”

  “Why, that doesn’t make sense,” Villa said. “I think he should have got you another dog right away. You soon forget the old one.”

  “Oh, no,” Katherine said, “not Ranger. We loved Ranger too much.”

  “Then did your father shoot the driver of the car that killed him?”

  The children were dumbfounded and looked at one another and back to Villa, and then to Mix. Timmy thought it was a bizarre question to ask, though at the time of the accident he’d felt so much hurt and anger that he would have been glad to see the driver injured, too.

  “I guess not,” the general said. “Americanos have no sense of honor.”

  “Why should he shoot him?” Timmy blurted out.

  “Well, for one reason, then he would never do it ag
ain. And for another, you would feel avenged.”

  “We didn’t feel venged in the first place,” Katherine said. “We were just sad.” She felt somehow emboldened that the great general of the army was sitting there talking to them and treating them with civility. She felt the little carved cat in her hand. It was the first nice gesture she and her brother had received since they’d arrived. Actually, that wasn’t so, she realized. Tom Mix, too, had been kind, in his way. Katherine found him terribly handsome and dashing but at the same time detested him for holding them prisoner.

  “Yes, well, you are good kids, I guess,” Villa said, rising. He reached out and gave a quick playful pinch of Katherine’s cheek between his thumb and forefinger, but she instinctively recoiled. Villa turned to Mix. “Señor, I think from now on you should move your camp to my headquarters. I want to personally keep an eye on these kids because they are so nice. It’s good to have children around—makes you feel young, you know? And tomorrow we come to a big river, so finally everyone gets a good bath, eh?”

  The very word struck music to Katherine’s ears, till she wondered how, with all these men . . .

  “Buenas tardes, everyone,” Villa said.

  After he’d gone, Katherine lay under her blanket by the fire, gazing at the cold, hard stars. Villa had looked at her in a way she’d only begun to notice but didn’t understand. She did, however, understand that he’d looked, that he’d fixed her with a stare, or tried to, anyway. She’d noted the fresh suit, the scrubbed face, the combed hair, even smelled the cheap perfume, and it had somehow made him more human to her, less the brute. She was not attracted to him, of course, but she felt his attraction. Things were changing more quickly in her life than she could often make sense of. Katherine fell asleep in a reverie of confused dreams and musings of cool green New England autumns on horseback as leaves were beginning to turn. As she drifted to sleep, she clutched the little carved cat Villa had whittled for her; but it meant nothing, meant nothing—it was just something to hold on to.

  LUCKILY, THE CATTLE HERD WAS FAR BACK from the main body of Villa’s troops, even though it was also a long ways from Donita. Johnny Ollas and his brothers were enemies in the midst of the enemy camp, and the fact that they were isolated and less subject to discovery was a good thing. Every day Villa’s soldiers would arrive and cut out a couple of cows they were going to butcher. From subtle conversations, Johnny learned that Donita—or at least a woman—was still with Villa’s headquarters.

  But he had wracked his brain and still hadn’t come up with a plan to rescue her and deal with Villa at the same time. He figured there probably would be just one chance—if that. For the time being, however, he and the cuadrilla were walking very close to the precipice.

  Johnny Ollas had so far acted with extreme caution. But one evening Johnny’s brother Rigaz did not return to Johnny’s camp. He’d been away since morning at the drag end of the cattle drive and hadn’t returned for lunch, which wasn’t so unusual, because the men often took a little something to eat with them on the trail; but when Rigaz didn’t come in at dark, Johnny began to worry. He took Julio and went looking for him. Nothing. Not a trace. They backtracked, but in the dark their search was almost impossible, even with the moon: too many hoofprints from the herd. Johnny came back to the camp, where Gourd Woman had a pot of beans going over the fire and a rack of beef ribs cooking on a spit.

  “It’s like he just vanished,” Johnny said.

  “People don’t vanish,” Gourd Woman replied, “unless they’re ghosts.”

  “I can’t believe he’d desert us,” Johnny said.

  “Maybe, I don’t know,” said Luis. “Could be he got scared. Being this close to Pancho Villa is a dangerous business.”

  “You shut up,” Julio snarled. “Rigaz ain’t scared of nothin’.”

  “Okay, okay,” Johnny said. “Maybe he’ll turn up before morning.”

  “But unless he’s a ghost,” Gourd Woman repeated, “he don’t just vanish.”

  At sunrise, Rigaz was still missing. Johnny was apprehensive about getting help, but he did it anyway. The search party Johnny led was composed of a dozen men from Villa’s main group. They began working backward, fanning out from the cattle trail on both sides, until about noontime a cry went out and they rode over to find Rigaz’s horse grazing alone among some trees. They fanned out again and an hour later found Rigaz. His body was wedged in the crook of a tree, his neck had been broken, and he’d been eviscerated. Johnny felt sick, felt faint, as they moved Rigaz from the tree and laid him on the ground.

  Nothing had been taken from Rigaz—not his rifle or pistol or his belt or his watch or his saddle, or his innards, and there was still money in his pockets. This meant it was just plain murder. But who would do this, and why? Johnny and his little group sadly buried their brother, while the others rode back to report the incident. Some took out their weapons and had them at the ready.

  Half an hour later Pancho Villa himself appeared on the scene. He wanted to be taken to the site of the killing. Villa seemed highly agitated. In fact, ever since the news was brought to him he’d been thinking of Sanchez’s ghost. He got off his horse and studied the ground around the tree where Rigaz had been found. There were no hoofprints, footprints, nothing. No clues at all. This worried him further. He solemnly ordered a detachment of soldiers to be sent to flank the herd day and night. Villa wasn’t sure what good this would do, but at least it made him feel better. As they rode back past the herd, Villa suddenly jerked his horse up short.

  A bunch of steers were standing in an open space by the trail. “What the hell is that?” Villa shouted. He was pointing toward them. In their midst was Casa Grande, with the big set of horns and a great hump on his shoulders, looking at him.

  “That is a fighting bull,” Villa continued, answering his own question.

  “Yes, General, it is,” Johnny said darkly. He had his sombrero pulled down over his forehead, petrified that Villa might recognize him from back at Valle del Sol.

  “Well, how did he get here?” Villa asked, dumbfounded.

  “He was here when we arrived, General,” Johnny told him. “He’s pretty calm. He’s in with those steers. I figured we’d just bring him along with us.”

  Villa peered at Casa Grande again. “He’s a big one, ain’t he? That’s a fine-looking bull.”

  “Yes, General, he is,” Johnny agreed.

  “Well,” said Villa, “you take care of him, huh? But don’t let no people get near that animal. Do you have any idea of what something like that can do to a man?”

  “Yes, General. I told my people to keep clear of him. But he’s all right. He’s pretty docile around the steers.”

  Villa snorted and shook his head. It was eerie to him: first a mysterious killing of one of his men, and then to find a fighting bull among his herd. It was like going into a henhouse and finding a wolf. An image of Sanchez swinging from his rope and casting no shadow again came to him. He’d heard strange stories, of dead people changing forms, turning themselves into cats or snakes or birds or fish. Villa was eyeing Casa Grande again when something in the trees on the side of a hill caught his attention. Maybe it was nothing, but it seemed to Villa he’d seen a man on a horse. A large dark man and just a glimpse of a silver saddle. Was this one of his men?

  “Are you all right, General?” Johnny asked.

  “All right . . . yes. I thought I saw something.”

  “You want us to go have a look?” Johnny offered. If whatever Villa had seen had anything to do with Rigaz’s death, he was ready.

  “No—I think it was nothing.”

  “Well, you want us to keep an eye out—but what for?” Johnny asked.

  Villa shook his head wearily and looked up toward the sky. He regretted hanging Sanchez more than ever now. “I don’t know,” Villa said, “but if you see an old man out there, and old man with a white beard, riding a gray horse . . . you come and tell me at once.”

  “Yes, General,” Johnny s
aid quickly. “Right away.”

  “On second thought,” Villa said, “you better go up there and have a look around now.” The sky had turned an ashen gray, through which the sun peered somberly and cast unsettling shadows for an afternoon.

  “For the old man on the horse?” Johnny said.

  “Yes,” replied the general. “If you see him, shoot him.”

  Johnny rode off toward the hillside, wondering what in hell that was all about. An old man with a beard and a gray horse. Who knew anything out here?

  IN CAMP AND AROUND THE FIRE, Rigaz’s death lay heavily upon them, and they ate their supper without relish. Johnny said, “Listen. I want you to know that from now on I release you from any pledge to go along with this. You want to leave, go home—do it. I understand. I’ll tell the sergeant you just went away.”

  “No,” Julio said. “We’re here. We’re staying.” The other two nodded.

  “Well, I appreciate it,” Johnny said.

  “Something evil is out there,” Gourd Woman said. She had been sitting in the shadows, throwing her bones in the dirt.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Johnny said.

  “Something is out there. It will return. Bones tell me.”

  “Bullshit,” said Johnny. “Those same bones told you Pancho Villa was in Creel, too—didn’t they?”

  “Like I said, maybe I didn’t throw them right that time.”

  “So what makes you think you’re throwing them right now?”

  “I don’t know; I got a bad feeling.”

  WHEN VILLA GOT BACK TO HIS HEADQUARTERS, he found more turmoil. At the river crossing, Donita had taken Katherine and Timmy down to the banks. Mix and a couple of his men followed. It was a clear refreshing stream that began in the mountains and was about a hundred yards wide and shallow, with the water gurgling around big rocks. On the sandy banks, they knelt to scoop up handfuls of water to drink, and it was sweet, tasting a little of autumn leaves. Donita and Katherine ached to wade in and scrub themselves clean of trail grime—but how to do it with these people here—or must they bathe in their clothing?