El Paso

by Winston Groom

  “You own a railroad, don’t you?”

  “No. My father does, but it’s broke, anyway.”

  “Is that a fact? What’s wrong with it?”

  “It’s in debt. There’s more money going out than coming in.”

  “Railroads have property, don’t they? Cash some in and I’ll give you back these kids.”

  Arthur heard his father clear his throat again. “I think the person you want to ransom is me,” the Colonel said.

  “You? Who are you?”

  “I am Colonel Shaughnessy. I own the railroad.”

  “I have met you before, señor. You’ve aged.”

  “So have you, but it’s beside the point. Why don’t you turn those children loose and take me instead? I’m the only one who can raise a ransom.” Arthur wanted to turn and look at his father, but knew if he did Villa’s riflemen could blow him and everybody else to Kingdom Come.

  “You’ve injured yourself, señor,” Villa observed.

  “I broke my leg trying to find you. Release these children and take me in their place. I’ll see what I can do. They can’t get you any money, but I can.”

  Villa considered this for a moment. He didn’t want to waste time, seeing as how a gun barrel was pointed at his heart, and might even go off accidentally.

  “Colonel—” Arthur began. He hadn’t taken his steely glare off of Villa, but his father cut him short.

  “Don’t contradict me, son,” the Colonel growled.

  “You’d better to do it, Chief.” These tense words belonged to Tom Mix, who’d been watching from the crowd.

  “Who asked you?” Villa snapped. “I don’t take orders from capitanes.”

  Mix went on. “I’ve been the one responsible for taking care of those kids and they don’t belong out here; too many things can happen.”

  Villa mulled this over, too. He wanted to get this over with and not have a gun pointing at him. “Those kids have been a burden to me,” he said finally. “Besides, they need to be in school.”

  “What about my wife?” Johnny Ollas asked.

  “I’ll throw her in for good measure. She’s rude to me and calls me names,” Villa told him.

  The Colonel nudged his horse forward. “Somebody’ll have to help me down,” he said. Villa motioned for some soldiers to assist the Colonel.

  Arthur felt completely undone by what was happening. It wasn’t supposed to have gone this way, but he could see the perfect sense in his father’s argument. The children would be free, and at least the Old Man might be able to hold his own with someone like Villa. Still, he was torn by the idea that now his father would have to survive in the hands of such a creature. Would it never end? He could think of nothing to say, and while he was saying nothing Villa told Mix to bring the children.

  “What’s to keep you from killing us all once I take this gun off you?” Arthur asked prudently.

  “My word says so,” Villa responded.

  “All right, I’ll take it,” Arthur said. “But before I put this back in its holster, I also want your word that you’ll keep open some kind of line of communication with us. Keep us informed about my father. We’re going back to El Paso. The telegraph depot will know how to reach us.”

  “Done,” Villa said.

  Katherine and Timmy were standing in front of Arthur’s horse. Donita Ollas had already swung up behind Johnny. Arthur took Katherine, and Cowboy Bob pulled Timmy up in the saddle in front of him.

  “I hope you’re a man of your word,” Arthur said to Villa.

  “Ask around,” the general told him.

  With deep reservation as well as great relief, Arthur eased the hammer down on his revolver and put it away. He looked down at his father.

  “Papa, I don’t know what to say to you except that this is the most generous and honorable thing I’ve ever heard of.”

  “We’re a generous and honorable family, son,” the Old Man replied. “And don’t worry about me, I enjoy adventures and General Villa and I can get to renew our acquaintance.”

  Arthur nodded. When he looked into his father’s pale eyes, he saw a different man; for the first time he seemed much older and frail. But there was nothing left to say, so he turned the horse and rode off east, toward the railroad. They’d gone a long way before he unclenched his teeth and let his muscles relax. They topped a rise and could see the river. Arthur’s heart lifted; they were almost there.

  SEVENTY

  Villa invited the Colonel to enjoy the remainder of the piñata celebration with him. Villa’s men had long since eaten up all the cattle Villa had rustled from Valle del Sol, but they’d stolen others at Reyes. The men enjoyed a feast of flank steak barbecued in an open pit, yet the too-familiar smell of beans and peppers offended the Colonel.

  Villa wanted to know how they came to locate him, and Colonel Shaughnessy proudly obliged, describing their trek across the desert from the train tracks and recounting their ordeals in the mountains with storms, bears, cold, and so forth. Villa was amazed to hear they’d trailed him across half of Mexico.

  “You are persistent people,” he told the Colonel.

  “It’s a splendid trait of my nation,” Shaughnessy replied. “It’s why we’re a great people, where others fail.”

  “There may be something to that,” Villa said, offering the Colonel a cigar. “With my country, it’s always mañana.”

  “Why did your soldiers destroy the village near the tin mines?” Shaughnessy asked. “You killed your own people, and left a ruin of sad women and orphans.”

  Villa was surprised to learn of the massacre and denied it was his men, even after Shaughnessy described the slaughter to him in detail.

  “But they all said it was,” the Colonel told him.

  “Then I’ll conduct an investigation,” Villa replied. “I’m not going to kill any more of my countrymen. It pains me.” Great God, Villa thought, this fool is worse than Jack Robinson.

  Colonel Shaughnessy wanted to know about Strucker, and Villa told him what had happened. Strucker, he lied, had been most anxious to go on the raid.

  “That’s shocking. The man was a decent sort and had a family back in Germany,” said the Colonel.

  “I’m sorry we didn’t have time to bring him back for a burial,” Villa said, “but things were getting close.

  “And that lawyer you sent to negotiate with us, a snake bit him.”

  “So I heard, “Shaughnessy said. “He was a nice boy.” Arthur had not told the Colonel about Mick Martin’s crime.

  “Bad things happen to nice boys, too,” Villa replied. “The offer he made in your name was insulting, and it would have taken too many men to watch over him as we marched. Women and children are one thing. A grown man is another.”

  Just then two riders appeared over the rise, galloping hell-for-leather. They were escorted to Villa’s headquarters.

  “Generale,” one said, “the American soldiers are coming our way!”

  Villa asked for details and was told that a dozen automobiles full of soldiers had pulled up at the edge of the river less than a mile away and the party was looking for a place to ford.

  “I’ll go take a look, Chief,” Fierro said. He began barking orders, and presently a dozen men were saddled and ready to ride.

  “Take care of yourself, General,” Villa cautioned him. “Fighting Americans likely won’t be like fighting that stinking scum Carranza.”

  Fierro nodded and went on his way, hoping he’d get a chance to kill gringos on Mexican soil.

  ARTHUR’S PARTY REACHED THE RIVER just as Patton’s detachment pulled up on the other side. At first Patton thought they were Villa’s men, but a quick look through the field glasses told him otherwise. “That’s Americans of some description,” Patton announced, “and they’ve got children riding with them.”

  “May I see, please?” Xenia asked. Patton handed her the glasses.

  “It’s them!” she cried in a high, choked whisper. She stood up in the back of the car.r />
  Henry Flipper was familiar with this river. He’d once prospected not far from here looking for a nonexistent silver vein, and was apprehensive when Arthur went down to cross. There was quicksand in the river bottom and they would have to be careful, so he cautioned them to wait while he cut a long branch to test the route. Meantime, Xenia, Patton, and all his soldiers were waving and shouting at them from the other side.

  Flipper found a safe crossing, and they waded the horses into the river. It was muddy brown from rains upriver, and the current was running strong and high as they picked their way to the other side, with Flipper and Slim in the lead. Arthur, Bob, and Johnny Ollas waited with their precious cargoes until the others had gotten over; they’d come too far to make mistakes now.

  The conversation between the two groups was so animated, it didn’t make much sense for a few minutes. Patton finally ascertained what had happened and that indeed Villa and his band were near at hand. The problem was that the river was just high enough with the flood that their cars couldn’t cross and he didn’t want to lead his men on foot against armed horsemen. After all, he was a cavalry officer.

  Katherine and Timmy were hugging Xenia, who was sobbing with joy, while Arthur looked on. Flipper, Bob, and Slim were standing with Patton over the hood of his Packard, trying to pinpoint Villa’s location on the map. About that time Fierro’s bunch arrived on the other side of the river. The Butcher pulled out his field glasses and eventually swung them onto the group huddled around the car. Immediately he recognized the insolent young American officer who’d insulted him back in El Paso.

  So now, Fierro thought, that stinking gringo lieutenant is finally in Mexico and still wonders how well I can shoot. He remembered telling Patton that if he ever found out, it would be the last thing he’d ever know. But he realized that the shot right now was too far for accuracy, even with the American Springfield rifle, so he’d have to get closer until only the river was between them. Fierro told his posse to wait and rode his horse to the river’s edge, but the distance was still a bit too far. He waded his horse out in the muddy current, a hundred, two hundred, three hundred feet, almost to the middle. Now he had the range.

  Some of Patton’s soldiers were shouting about Mexicans and that a Mexican horseman was in the water, but Patton was preoccupied with the maps where he’d been told the main body of Mexican troops would be, and waved them off. Fierro raised the rifle in a deliberate and careful way and adjusted the sights and windage. He put the bead directly on Patton’s chest, but in that same instant Patton raised his head and turned to say something to his sergeant. When Fierro squeezed the trigger, the rifle recoiled, and by the time he was able to get his bearings again, Fierro saw a tall blondish man in a red cowboy shirt topple over the hood of the car.

  Fierro’s bullet had hit Cowboy Bob in the chest. Bob didn’t have much time to consider it, though for an instant it flickered in Bob’s mind that he had a few things he wanted to say. Flipper and Slim caught him before he could fall and laid him gently onto the ground. Patton yelled for his men to shoot the horseman, but they needn’t have bothered. Fierro had nudged his horse one step too many, and the quicksand had him. At least it got his horse, and the animal was sinking quickly. It took Fierro a moment to realize what was happening, but he managed to dismount, taking the rifle with him in the rushing current. Immediately he discovered the gun was dragging him down and he let go of it.

  Then he felt something else dragging him down. All these long days Fierro had carried with him the bars of gold he’d personally stolen from Colonel Shaughnessy’s safe at Valle del Sol. He’d sewn them into the seams of his duster, and now the gold was pulling him under in the quicksand just as if a heavy hand had seized him by the legs. Fierro struggled to get the duster off, but it was too late.

  Lieutenant Crucia saw his boss in trouble and bolted out into the stream. He put his horse alongside Fierro and snatched up a piece of his duster to pull him to safety. Then he realized that his own horse was being pulled into the quicksand.

  Fierro felt the water pour into his lungs when he tried to come up for air, and he choked to spit it out but instead took in another gulp. The water was only four feet deep, but the quicksand was sucking at his feet and down he went, despite Crucia’s efforts. He didn’t even have time for last words.

  ARTHUR HAD RUSHED TO BOB when he realized what had happened. Patton’s men were firing furiously across the river at Villa’s soldiers, who had come to the riverbank and were milling back and forth on their horses at the sight of their commander going under. But at the shots, they quickly hightailed it back toward Villa’s camp. By then both Fierro and his horse had disappeared under the swift, growling water. Lieutenant Crucia’s horse was dragged down also, and he had slid off and was still futilely holding on to some part Fierro’s duster under the water. Without any gold to drag him down, however, Crucia could still float.

  “Aw, hell, Arthur, I don’t believe somebody shot me,” Bob croaked. Arthur could see the pallor starting in Bob’s face and noticed his eyes were beginning to dim.

  “Bob, please hold on. There’s a medic here.”

  “I don’t think so,” Bob said weakly. “I don’t feel good. My wages . . . would you give ’em to . . .”

  “Yes, who, Bob?” Arthur bit his lip so hard he bit a hole in it. Bob couldn’t get the word out because he was blowing out little bubbles of blood, but managed to point feebly at Slim.

  Arthur looked to Patton pleadingly, but the lieutenant shook his head. There was no medic and it wouldn’t have helped anyway. Cowboy Bob was gone.

  Arthur rose up in a rage and stormed toward the river with his pistol in his hand and began firing into the water where Fierro had sunk and Crucia was floating until the chambers were empty, then kept snapping the trigger until the clicking sound became a monotonous reverberation that was almost obscene. He must have hit Crucia several times, and the rebel lieutenant floated lifelessly downstream along with his grisly necklace.

  Patton walked toward Arthur and several of his troops followed him. By then Arthur had returned his aim to the spot where Fierro had sunk, and continued his futile trigger-snapping of the empty gun until one of the enlisted men finally said, “Sir, that man was drownded.”

  They went back to Bob, who was lying in the grass beside Patton’s car. Bob’s eyes were still open and the last light from the setting sun had transfixed them into a wistful gaze that for a strange and horrid instant reminded Arthur of the old elephant the Colonel had shot in Africa years before, when Arthur had been a boy.

  Slim was standing by Patton’s car, holding on to the door and shaking his head with shock and grief.

  Arthur knelt down. By that time Xenia was there. Arthur took Bob’s head in his hands and cradled it. He began to choke up quietly.

  “Darling, please,” Xenia said, but she had never seen him like this. As she walked back to the children, Xenia realized that life was likely to be different from now on.

  Slim and Ah Dong finally had to draw Arthur away from Bob’s corpse. Xenia shielded the children from the sight. Arthur’s eyes were stinging and not clear. After all those days on the trail, he’d thought he might almost have found the big brother he’d always wanted, or the friend of a lifetime, but now that was gone forever as the sun went down over a cold Christmas Day.

  MEANTIME, AT THE THIRD CAR, Patton was having a conversation with Henry Flipper.

  “I’ve heard of you,” Patton told him. “You were the one who got court-martialed, is that right?”

  “They did it, yes,” Flipper told him.

  “Well, all that’s behind you now. You’ve made something of yourself. You’ve got a reputation all over this part of the world.”

  Flipper didn’t know whether to thank him or not. It didn’t sound like much of a compliment, even if Patton had meant it as one.

  “You know this country pretty well, don’t you?” Patton asked.

  “Yes,” Flipper said.

  “Well, I
believe I’m authorized to hire you in the name of the United States Army as a scout. We need to find Villa.”

  Flipper looked at him numbly. “No, thank you,” he said.

  “No?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  SEVENTY-ONE

  Patton was thoughtful enough to lend one of the army automobiles to carry Bob’s remains back to El Paso, where they went to the best funeral home in town. Since Bob wasn’t known to any of the few churches in the area, Arthur arranged a meeting with a young Episcopal priest and described to him what he knew of Bob’s life.

  The first night, when they got back to the Toltec Hotel, Arthur had gone down to the bar to get a bottle of rye to take back to his room. He hadn’t had a proper drink in quite a while, and was startled to find the grimy old prospector they had met in the sierras standing at the counter, drinking tequila.

  “Did you ever find what you were after?” the man asked him.

  “Yes,” Arthur said, “we did.”

  “You found Pancho Villa?”

  “And more,” Arthur told him.

  “I’d say you were lucky to escape out of Mexico,” said the prospector. “These are perilous times over there.”

  “What are you doing on Wednesday?” Arthur asked. The man seemed nonplussed.

  “Because I want you to come to a funeral,” Arthur told him.

  THE FUNERAL SERVICE WAS IN A FINE SMALL CHAPEL not far from the hotel. An organist was playing the old Episcopal hymn “The Prayer of Thanksgiving.” Arthur had been worried there wouldn’t be many people there, but a lot more showed up than expected; in fact, he needn’t have invited the prospector at all. It seemed Bob had made a lot of friends among the stockyard and saloon crowd in El Paso, who had found out what had happened from the newspapers. The priest went through the traditional funeral service. Then he said:

  “I did not know Bob Braswell personally but I am told he led an exemplary life. He was orphaned at the age of nine and forced to work his way through the world. He survived the Indian wars, miscarriages of justice, and the rough life of a plainsman, only to perish at the cruel hands of a killer while helping rescue children from harm. Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for a friend.” The organist concluded the service by playing the old gospel hymn “Going Home” as pallbearers from Bob’s old haunts in the saloons and stockyards slowly moved Bob’s casket out the door and on to the local boot hill.