by Lou Cameron
Then things got worse. Everyone stopped singing “La Cucaracha” as the sounds of a familiar gas buggy approached from the north, tingling the night air as, again, someone insisted on driving that poor Maxwell full-choke in low gear. Stringer had set it full choke in neutral when he’d parked it out front of Villa’s tent that time, a time that now seemed long ago indeed. He got up and tagged along as everyone flocked to admire the second motor vehicle most of them had ever seen in their backward lives. As the Maxwell, beige as the army truck now, its black factory finish coated with desert dust, pulled into the square and stopped with a tinny gargle and a backfire, Villa strode over to shake with his segundo, Hernan. They were both grinning like kids who’d been swiping apples. Villa cocked an eyebrow at the eleven dusty soldados crowded into the five passenger touring car to demand, “How the hell did you muchachos make it? Didn’t they hit our camp?”
Hernan climbed out stiffly, saying, “With artillery, too. I think they were lobbing 105s. They really tore the shit out of things. Was a very cruel way to treat women and horses. But, as you see, this tin caballo is tough. After dark, we crept back to push it back up on its wheels and so here we are, My General. I don’t know how many others made it. These are all I could find in the dark.”
Stringer drifted over to join them. If he could persuade Villa to part with just that Maxwell and a full tank…
But he couldn’t. Villa waved him closer, grinning ear to ear as he chortled, “Now we are back in business. We got two gasolino wagons to carry almost a full platoon into battle and at least half you muchachos can hit the side of the granero as long as you stand inside it. Listen, Hernan, I just got a new plan. We shall move like the wind up the river, so we can hit the mining settlement from two sides at once before they know we are anywhere near them. Maybe I plan a diversion. Do any of you from the camp have any nail bombs left?”
Hernan shrugged and said, “Sure. We got a sack of them in the back. In God’s truth, they still throw more smoke than nails, though. I saw one of our pobrecitos toss one right at a federale rider and the bastard just rode through the ball of smoke and sabered him.”
Villa grinned and said, “Is not important. We just need lots of noise and smoke. Stringer, here, will be in command of that detail.”
Stringer started to argue, then just sighed and said, “Why not? The sooner I can get you loco bastards out of my hair the better. So let’s get it over with.”
Stringer hoped they’d strike at dawn. He’d punched the army truck south through the chaparral to the east of the dry river bed, driving with the headlamps extinguished and hoping Villa, in the passenger seat, knew where the hell they were. Hernan was supposed to be driving south on the far side, if the gears of the abused Maxwell held out. Stringer had tried to show the segundo how to shift gears before they’d left that village. But Hernan was an independent thinker.
Most of Villa’s new “army”, green or seasoned, was naturally with Stringer and Villa. Hernan’s four sharpshooters were picked for that detail because they didn’t have to stand inside a barn to hit it broadside, if that was what Hernan wanted them to hit. Stringer was still slightly vague on the overall plan. Villa and Hernan had ridden together long enough to savvy each other’s intentions without having to discuss things all that much. Villa filled Stringer in better during the long desert drive. Stringer was glad he and the two kids assigned to him weren’t being asked to kill anyone.
Of course, if the others messed up, that’d leave him and two scared peons in a swell position, on foot in the chaparral against an outfit too tough for the deadly Villa. But as the sky began to pearl the starry sky to the east, Stringer consoled himself with the thought that they were, most likely, lost.
Then Villa, one booted foot out on the running board to the west, snapped, “Aqui! We made it! Stop the engine before we wake up the soon-to-be-dead!”
Switching off the ignition was no problem. Stringer still couldn’t see anything interesting in the dim light surrounding them. Then he, too, heard the babble of running water, or at least a mighty leaky tap. As Villa dropped to the ground and headed for the soft wet sounds, Stringer followed after. It was a short scout to the east bank of the dry river. It was only dry to the north. A flat expanse of shiny India ink reflected the stars above as far upstream as they could see, which was less than a few hundred yards, but still added up to a hell of a lot of imprisoned water. There wasn’t enough of a head to the long, low dam built across the river bed to worry about hydraulic power. The silver company had simply dammed the stream to hog such water as there was for its steam engines and such, out of sight upstream in this light. The water they’d heard running was pouring through a rusty floodgate on their side of the dam. It probably wasn’t supposed to be running at all. But they had plenty more upstream and the few gallons a minute they were losing couldn’t amount to the loss to evaporation when the Chihuahua sun was up. The rivulet from the leaky floodgate just soaked into the dry river bed before it could do anyone or anything any good. Villa said, “Bueno. You stay here. I’ll send in the muchachos with the sack of bombs before I lead the others up to the mine on foot. Don’t do anything until you hear Hernan open up from the high ground on the far side. Then make all the noise you can down here to convince them this dam is the main objective. The farmers downstream have been complaining about this dam ever since the silver company built it. Some of the company guards will rush down here to save the dam. Others will be trading shots with Hernan’s detail, expecting to be rushed, if they get rushed at all, by wild men from the hills. That is when me and the main force will charge in from the open desert and…”
“You call that truck load of guys a main force?” Stringer cut in, adding, “Pancho, you’re taking too much of a chance. They’re sure to have all approaches covered, stuck as they are out here in the middle of nowhere.”
But Villa insisted, “That is why I am a general and they are not. Sure they’ll have what they consider their weaker points covered. But both bandits and Yaqui like to charge downhill and does not that shitty floodgate tell you they are a cheap? The owners live far away, on your street of walls. They don’t give a shit for anyone down here, as long as the mine makes a profit. I could tell you tales of absentee owners who would rather see a child torn up by their mill machinery than pay for a guard rail, or, hell, hire someone old enough to watch what she was doing. But right now I have to take them out, not talk about them. So hasta la vista and try not to fuck up.”
Then he was gone. Stringer hunkered down on his spurred bootheels and thoughtfully began to roll a smoke as, somewhere in the night, a borrowing owl called his name. That was what the Mi wok back home said owls were calling when you were up to something dumb as hell in the dark. Like most Indians, the Miwok considered the owl the totem of Old Woman, or Death. She sent owls out to gather the spirits. Everybody had four spirits and at least one went to live with Old Woman in her lodge, somewhere up north. The northern lights were the glow from Old Woman’s lodge fire, when she left her smoke ears open to sing with all her spirit guests.
He licked the gummed seal of his rolled smoke and lit it, shielding the flame with his cupped palms against the eyes of Owl, or anyone else out there who might be interested. Having one of his four spirits picked up by Owl seemed easy enough at the rate things were going. Even the Indians seemed confused about the three spirits left over. It was sort of like getting a sensible explanation of The Trinity from a sky pilot. He still recalled how Crazy Aunt Ida had fussed at him for bringing that note home from Sunday school that time. In the end, Uncle Don had saved him from a licking. Uncle Don had said he’d never entirely savvied the point of The Trinity, and allowed that even in Gaelic that story about shamrocks didn’t prove anything save for the fact that some weeds had three leaves. Crazy Aunt Ida had insisted it was supposed to be a mystery and that they’d end up in Hades, she never said Hell, if they didn’t both just hush!
The two kids from the village came to join him. Now that th
ey had gun belts crossed on their skinny chests they still just looked like kids to Stringer. One had the feed sack of grenades. As the two of them hunkered down by Stringer, the one carrying the sack asked where to set them if they wanted to blow the dam.
Stringer said, “I’ve been wondering about that, myself. That earthfill dam looks pretty solid. Those cannisters offer more sound than fury. You could play hell with a man’s hide if you set one off anywheres near him. But I doubt they’d dig a footdeep hole in soft ground and that dam’s tamped clay with a tar facing.”
One of the kids said, “The great Pancho Villa said he is counting on us to blow that dam, no?” To which Stringer replied, “No. He wants us to make the guards upstream think that’s what we’re doing. The noise ought to carry. We can make swell clouds down here if we bury them under piles of fine dust before we light the fuses. So that’s how we’d better begin.”
They did. Neither farm boy argued as they piled all the grenades in one spot on the higher ground just east of the dam and scooped double handfuls of dust over them. Anyone could see the results would be a mighty pillar of smoke and dust against the morning sky, if morning ever got here. But when they asked him again what damage all this might do to the dam, Stringer said only, “Let’s see,” and moved over to the floodgate.
Despite the way it was leaking, the big rusty plate didn’t want to budge when Stringer tried turning the wheel crank to lift it. He said, “Shit,” and told them to help. With all three of them straining, the gate stayed as if it had been welded shut. “Harder,” he grunted, “All together,” and suddenly something snapped and he gasped, “Basta!” as water began to run indeed. It was almost as hard to crank the floodgate shut again and once they had, anyone could see it was leaking worse, now. He grimaced and said, “We may have started something. So what could be keeping Hernan? It’s getting lighter by the minute.”
All three of them could see the rocky slopes to the west of the river had turned blood red against the still-dark sky over that way. Stringer turned the other way to see the distant army truck outlined against the pearly dawn. That was something to think about. But the gas gauges read low, now, and he’d have to kill these two young boys to get enough of a lead to matter, now that the others had that Maxwell to track him with if he messed up Villa’s plan.
But, what was going wrong with Villa’s plan? The time for a sunrise attack was right about now, with the sun in the eyes of the attackees. As if to prove him right, the sun came up making his eyes water as he tried to make out details against its hot, angry stare. “There’s never going to be a better time for Villa to make his move,” he muttered, “Something’s gone wrong!”
Then something went wrong in a big way. It sounded like God kicking one hell of a bucket when the floodgate, further weakened by their tampering, gave way all at once to let the imprisoned water go anywhere it wanted with a deep-throated roar.
“Oh, shit, back to the truck, pronto!” as he hunkered to light the exposed fuse of his ammunition pile with his cigarette. Then he was off and running, too. But when he got to the army truck, he saw only one of the kids had beaten him there. He turned to see the other, watching by the bank in fascination as the white water arced out at express train speed to dig itself a pot hole downstream. Stringer yelled and, when that didn’t work, he drew his .38 and fired in the air. The distant kid turned with a curious smile. Then the pile of grenades went off less than ten feet from him, and he wasn’t there anymore.
The explosion sent a huge mustard colored mushroom skyward, turning a dirty shade of dusty rose as the sun hit it higher up. The kid next to Stringer gasped, “Ay carramba! I bet they can see that in Ciudad Mejico! Pero, what has become of Ramon?”
Stringer sighed and said, “Welcome to the club. A good soldado takes orders. Ramon didn’t. So now he’s what we call a casualty. It sounds nicer than blown to shit. Get in the cab. It’s time to put some distance between ourselves and that distraction. If it worked, we ought to have a lot of distracted company down this way, poco tiempo.”
That was easier said than done. When Stringer cranked the big four banger engine, it just coughed and tried to bust his arm with the kickback. He checked the gas gauge again. Low as it read, it seemed over-optimistic. He told the bewildered young Mex, “We have to run for it, Vamanos!”
They ran for it, straight at the sunrise at first, both to get away from the river, and to make themselves tougher to aim at. Then Stringer heard the crackle of small arms fire to their right and grunted, “Lesson numero dos: when in doubt, move on the sound of the guns” and headed in that direction.
The kid gasping in his wake demanded to know why, panting, “It sounds like a big fight that way, no?”
Stringer answered, “Safety in numbers. Alone out here, we’re dead meat. Are you any good with that military rifle?”
The kid said he didn’t know. He hadn’t fired it yet. Stringer swore softly and took it from him, saying soothingly, “Don’t look so sad. You can carry the ammo, see?”
The light was a lot better now. They could see more smoke rising above sunlit tin roofing and a tall smelter stack as they waded south through waist-high chaparral. After that, it was up for grabs. They could hear guns going off, a lot of guns going off, but they couldn’t tell who was winning, or even where everybody was. Then the kid gasped, “Behind us!” and Stringer dove headfirst to land on one shoulder and roll with the rifle held across his chest, as another rifle squibbed in the distance. Stringer got behind a clump of creosote bush and worked the bolt of the army rifle as he rose on one knee for a look-see. The kid he’d been with was down out of sight. A trio of riders were coming his way from the north. They reined in when they spotted his hat to take better aim. Stringer knew the one with the rifle was the one he had to worry about the most, so he spilled him first. Then he got one of the pistol hands as they quickly lost interest in him. The last survivor came closer to making it as he streaked away to the north, crouched low over the horn. But Stringer took careful aim and put a .30-06 slug up his ass, or close enough to the actual point of aim to lift him out of his saddle and somersault him out of sight. Then Stringer muttered, “That’s better. Hey, Tomas? Come out come out wherever you are.”
There was no answer. He found the kid less than fifty feet away, face up, with a shy little smile on his face and a little blue hole in his forehead. Stringer muttered, “You’re supposed to hit the dirt, not just stand there.”
Then he stripped the thin corpse of its ammo belts and strapped them across his own chest, muttering, “Viva Villa, you poor skinny little idiot.”
Then he pressed on to see who’d won, knowing he was in deep shit if Villa had lost again.
CHAPTER
TEN
But this time Villa had won. It hadn’t been easy. He’d lost four men, or boys, from that village, hitting the mining layout from the east when the diversionary explosion to the north and falling water had given him little other choice. As Stringer joined Villa and his tiny army on the veranda of the manager’s combined office and quarters, Villa said he didn’t know what had happened to Hernan, either. But he waved expansively at the few bodies sprawled out front to add, “Was easier than we had the right to hope for. Was only a handful of gringo supervisors here. The armed guards are in my army, now. Was stupid to hire Mexicans of my class as guards, no?”
Stringer suggested, “Maybe they were trying to save money. I’m sorry I went off early like that. I had to when I saw the water was going down on its own. I lost those two kids. I shot three company men. They looked Anglo to me.”
Villa nodded and said, “Bueno. The one captive we took alive says the manager and a couple of assistants got away by running for it. They must have worked in Mexico a while. We just blew the safe, so now we have a war chest and the fourteen armed guards and their rifles will more than make up our losses, even if we’ve lost Hernan and his sharpshooters. What do you think might have happened to them? Is nothing but Yaqui over that way.”
> Stringer said, “You might have just answered your own question. Hadn’t we ought to think about getting the hell out of here, now?”
Villa shook his head. He said, “Not yet. We got to wait for Hernan. It will take Los Federales at least a full day and night to decided what to do, even if they know what we have done here. No federale is going to risk his fancy ass before he knows just what he might be up against. By now, word is spreading far and wide that Villa rides again! Maybe we wait here a few days and see how many flock to join us, no?”
“I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you just shove a gun up your nose and pull the trigger? You can’t make a stand here, Pancho. You just took the place with a handful of men and there’s no line of retreat if those hills to the west are infested with Yaqui!”
Villa shrugged and said, “I don’t like to retreat in any case. It gives a general a bad name and I’ve already been whipped once this week. Do you know how to work a telegrafo? We did not have time to cut the wire, as I’d planned. Is a set inside. I would like to know what the world is saying about me right now.”
Stringer said he’d try, so Villa led the way into the main office, where the floor was littered with papers and a blond girl in a dirty white uniform was kneeling by the open safe trying to do something about the shattered head of an elderly Anglo gent even Stringer could see was beyond medical help. Villa waved at the wide-eyed girl and explained, “She is the live captive I mentioned. Maybe later, I marry her. She’s got lots of guts. We found her here, trying to help that old man, when she could have gotten away with the others.”
Stringer knew they were talking about some length of time by now. If the girl really was a nurse, she’d had plenty of time to notice her patient was dead. Stringer switched to English to say, “You’ve done all you can for him, Miss.” But she just stared back, wide-eyed. He nodded to himself and told Villa in Spanish, “She’s in a state of shock. I don’t think she wants to marry anybody. That could be one of the things that’s bothering her, right now. Would you mind if I sort of took her under my wing?”