Last Train From Cuernavaca

by Lucia St. Clair Robson

  The introductions were brief. No one asked for an explanation of Rico’s connection with Grace. They had more important questions.

  “What’s happening?” asked Calisto.

  “Porfirio Díaz’s cousin Felíz and about fifteen hundred followers have taken over the armory. Madero has put Huerta in charge of defeating them.”

  “Huerta?” Grace blurted out. “He’s counting on General Huerta?”

  Rico’s glance let her know he had the same misgivings.

  No one had to ask why Felíz Díaz had assembled an army. They all assumed he intended to take the country back for his cousin Porfirio.

  Rico continued. “The insurgents have freed two thousand criminals from Belen prison. And a lot of electrical wires are down.”

  As if on cue, the lights went out. Calisto lit candles and oil lamps.

  “What about Cuernavaca?” asked Grace.

  “As far as I know, the trouble hasn’t spread outside the capital.”

  They heard engines and Calisto opened the gate to let in the Nike and the Minerva.

  He turned to Grace and Rico. “Come with us.”

  “I have to return to Tres Marías,” said Rico. “A train will leave the capital tomorrow with troops to protect Cuernavaca.”

  “And I have to go home,” said Grace.

  “God go with you then.”

  As the men distributed themselves in the two cars, Calisto took Rico aside and gave him something. He embraced Grace, shook Rico’s hand, and made the sign of the cross over all of them. He slid into the passenger seat of the roadster and rested the butt of his Mauser on his thigh.

  Grace knew that “Be careful,” was a stupid thing to say, but she said it anyway.

  Calisto smiled. “No man dies before his time.” He waved and the little caravan pulled out.

  Rico closed the gates after them and shot the big iron bolt home.

  They went into the house. Rico lifted the straps of his canvas satchel over his head and gave it to Grace.

  “I thought you might be hungry, querida. I brought some tamales from Tres Marías.” To head off the question she was bound to ask, he added, “They do not contain iguana meat.”

  He stretched out in a big overstuffed arm chair while Grace dampened a rag and cleaned the blood from his cheek.

  “Did you take the train here?” she asked.

  “I walked.”

  “It’s more than thirty miles over that terrible cobblestone road.”

  “No one wanted to risk bringing the train in today.” He pulled her onto his lap, put his arms around her waist, and kissed her. “I couldn’t bring Grullo into the city to be killed by a stray bullet from one of those Judases.”

  “What about your family?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You should find them.”

  “My grandfather doesn’t need my help. I would rather be with you here, now, than anywhere else.”

  “What did Calisto say to you just before he left?”

  “Nothing, my love.”

  “Tell me, Federico.”

  Rico sighed. When she called him Federico she expected answers.

  “He gave me this.” Rico held up a small pistol. “And these.” He opened his palm to show her a pair of 32-caliber bullets.

  She stared at the pistol. “That won’t stop anyone.”

  “It’s deadly at very close range.”

  The silence lengthened as Grace realized that the bullets were for her and Rico, should insurgents or marauders get inside the house

  “I see.”

  “Don’t worry, mi cielo. It won’t come to that.”

  Grace could tell that exhaustion was about to overcome him.

  Before he drifted off he mumbled, “They’re calling it the ‘fiesta of bullets.’”

  “Who is calling it that?”

  But he had already fallen asleep in her arms.

  21

  Under Cover

  Maintaining two personas, one male and one female, required planning. No one who had known Angel as a scabby-kneed hoyden would have described her as a planner, yet she had worked out the logistics of a double life.

  Every so often she put on a flowered blouse and a long skirt with a flounce around the hem and went to Tres Marías. Her mission was to beguile information from the soldiers quartered there. She was good at it.

  On her first foray she had met Berta, who sold tamarind candy to the soldiers and the passengers. Berta was seventeen. She was small, dark, and delicate, with a soft laugh. Angel trusted her with the secret of her real identity. Berta shared her candy so Angel could pose as one of the women who walked alongside the passenger cars, calling softly, “What will you take?”

  Today, Angel had learned about the battles raging in the capital. Not even the soldiers at Tres Marías’ barracks knew what to make of it, but they thought maybe the troops arriving on tomorrow’s train could tell them more. Angel left with Berta to retrieve the trappings of her other life.

  The folk of Berta’s village had been relatively well off until nine years ago. When the local hacienda owner moved the boundary post for water rights, the communal irrigation ditches dried up. Local officials, even under Francisco Madero’s post-Revolution government, continued to ignore pleas for justice. Angel found sympathy there.

  For a silver ten-centavo piece the size of a shirt button, Berta’s widowed mother let Angel leave her trousers, shirt, sombrero, saddle, and weapons in her one-room hut on the outskirts of the village. Angel’s belongings took up more of the dirt-floor space in the tiny house than the family’s did. Berta’s younger brother pastured her mare, since a poor Indian woman riding such a fine animal would rouse suspicions among the soldiers of el gobierno.

  Whenever Angel returned from Tres Marías, Berta’s mother insisted she share their evening meal. While Angel ate, the widow mended what ever rips had appeared in her clothes since the last visit. Berta had already reinforced the threadbare seat and knees of Angel’s trousers with scraps of canvas. Like most of the Zapatistas, Angel called herself guacho, orphan. For her, these simple kindnesses were gifts beyond price.

  As for the spying, Angel enjoyed fooling men into divulging information, but she preferred trousers to a skirt. She felt safer as a soldier than as a woman, and not because of the Winchester 30-30 slung across her back. As a soldier she faced threats from federales in battle. As a woman, men of both armies, and civilians, too, might menace her on any given day.

  Angel had just changed into her shirt and trousers when she heard a stifled cry behind the house. She grabbed her carbine and ran outside, scattering the small flock of chickens scratching in the dust. She rounded the corner and saw that a man had pinned Berta against the back wall of the compound. He held one hand over her mouth and tore at her clothes with the other.

  Angel could smell the rotten stench of pulque. She wasn’t surprised to see that Berta’s attacker was Ambrozio Nuñez. She was no stranger to coincidence where he was concerned. God must have a grudge against either Nuñez or her to keep inserting him into her life to plague her.

  The thought also occurred to her that he had come here to cause trouble for her while her men weren’t around. If that had been his plan, the lovely Berta had distracted him from it.

  “Let her loose, cabrón.”

  He gave her hardly a glance. “Go to the devil, coño.”

  That he didn’t seem surprised to see her made Angel think that neither God nor coincidence had anything to do with his presence here. His original plan might even have been to rape her.

  Angel didn’t consider him worth the waste of a cartridge. She grasped the carbine by the barrel and swung it with both hands. Ambrozio Nuñez was extraordinarily stupid as well as drunk, but even he must have expected her to attack. He dodged, but the walnut stock glanced off his skull with enough force to knock him out. He pitched backward onto the cone-shaped corncrib, crashing through its cornstalk and mud-plaster wall.

  Angel dragged him
out of the wreckage by his heels.

  “Berta, help me carry him.”

  Angel picked him up under his arms and Berta grabbed his ankles. They hauled him to the public fountain where Berta’s mother and several other women were gossiping while they filled their water jars. Angel didn’t have to say anything. Berta’s torn clothes told the story.

  Ambrozio was beginning to stir as Angel finished stripping off his clothes and shoes. She left him naked to the women’s tender mercies. They went at him with what ever hard objects came to hand. The last she saw of him were his bare soles and blanched backside and women in noisy pursuit.

  Angel retrieved her saddle and belongings from the house. On the way to the forest clearing to get her mare, she threw Ambrozio’s flea-infested clothes into a ravine. She hummed “Valentina” as she rode away. She looked forward to sharing this story with her comrades. Then she would play cards for cartridges until nightfall when she had plans that included Antonio.

  First she had news to deliver.

  She called out greetings and traded insults as she rode among the men squatting in small groups around their cookfires. Colonel Contreras had found a good bivouack site for his hundred or so troops. This mountain glen wasn’t far from Zapata’s temporary headquarters in Ajusco. It was densely wooded and could be reached only by an easily guarded defile.

  Contreras’s men didn’t even have to worry about the smoke from their fires, although they weren’t in the habit of worrying anyway. Two companies of federales were garrisoned at Tres Marías, only enough to patrol the tracks. They didn’t stray far into the countryside. Since Madero had called Huerta back to Mexico City, the rebels and the government troops had operated on an unspoken agreement. As long as Zapata’s people left the train alone the federales didn’t go looking for them.

  Angel brought information that would change everything. As she approached the farm house where Contreras stayed, she rehearsed what she would say about the battle raging in Mexico City. The squabbles in the Capital meant nothing to her, but she understood that the consequences could affect them all.

  Many of the men in Contreras’s units neither knew nor cared who occupied the president’s seat in Mexico City. They pinned their loyalty on General Zapata and Colonel Contreras, and trusted them to tell them whom to fight. Like the other local chiefs, Contreras led by consensus. He was also the one who gave Angel and the rest their chivo, their pay, although not much and not often.

  To be honest, while Angel waited to see Contreras, she was thinking about how she would torment Antonio when she finished here. He fretted whenever she left to mingle with the federales soldiers. She planned to tease him about her flirtation with the soldier called Juan.

  Antonio said he was worried that el gobierno would discover who she was and hang her, but he also suffered a chronic case of jealousy. She knew how to reassure him on that second concern.

  Wherever Angel’s band camped, she and Antonio looked for a place they could be alone. Here they had found the vine-covered ruin of a one-room stone cottage whose thatched roof had long since rotted away. It wasn’t far from camp, but it had a reputation for an infestation of snakes so people avoided it. Angel and Antonio took stout sticks to beat the vines and walls thoroughly to evict the reptiles, scorpions, and spiders lurking there.

  They had progressed well into the exploration phase of love. Angel shook her head in an attempt to stop thinking about the warm, hard contours of Antonio’s bare body, and the feel of his strong, calloused hands stroking her.

  Tonight might be their last chance for days to come to lay out their blankets and entwine among the vines. Government troop trains carried guns, ammunition, and food. Angel knew that when she told the colonel about the train leaving Mexico City tomorrow, he would decide to attack it.

  No matter what the outcome, Angel and her people would have to go on the run again. She hoped they would be better armed and fed when they did.

  22

  Bone Fires

  The gunfire stopped. Rico opened the front gate a crack and looked out. The sun wouldn’t rise for another hour. The city lay dark and it stank of decay. The boulevard in front of the house was empty of vehicles and people.

  He gave Grace the white flag to carry so he could hold one of his Colts half-cocked and pointed down at his side. He took Grace’s hand. No matter what happened, he would not become separated from her. The two of them kept close to the fronts of the houses as they headed for the train station.

  Rico had gone scouting the night before and he knew where some of the machine gun emplacements were. He had mapped out various routes, but the best way to reach the station meant skirting the main plaza. He saw flickering light from that direction and wondered who might be warming their hands at a fire.

  The closer he and Grace came to the center of town the more electrical wires draped across their path. Rubble obstructed the sidewalks, forcing them to walk in the deserted streets. The buildings’ dark silhouettes against the pre-dawn sky had large chunks taken out of them. The smell of gasoline and decay became stronger.

  Grace stepped on the bloated hand of a corpse lying in deep shadow. She screamed and ran, dragging Rico after her. He held her in his arms until she stopped shaking

  When they reached the plaza they saw the source of the illumination. Burning bodies lit the area. When carrying off the dead proved dangerous, a few courageous souls must have waved white flags, darted out, and poured kerosene over the corpses. They tossed lighted matches and sprinted for cover.

  The night sky was fading to dawn’s dove gray when Rico pulled Grace into a doorway. He studied the open ground between them and the train station. A few soldiers milled around outside.

  “On whose side are they?” Grace asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “We have no choice, do we?”

  “No.”

  From the center of the city behind them, gunshots resumed. Grace hiked up her skirts, ready to race to the station. Rico held her back.

  “Running might draw more fire than walking.”

  Rico had feared the train had already left, but white smoke from the engine’s stack rose above the station roof. All Rico had to worry about now was convincing whomever was in charge to let Grace board a troop transport while a battle was going on.

  When he left Tres Marías he brought all the cash he had on hand. He had even been desperate enough to borrow from Juan. He hoped it would be enough for a bribe.

  Hand in hand, he and Grace walked across the small park. Usually, twenty-five or thirty of the horse-drawn taxis lined up. Today only one brave soul had parked there.

  The empty expanse in front of the station gave no indication of the chaos inside. As Rico and Grace entered the big front door the din reverberated off the high ceiling and stone walls. A lot of the noise came from the pigs, sheep, and chickens the soldiers were loading aboard. The soldiers might belong to the federal army, but they knew better than to expect their government to feed them.

  Most of them were conscripts from a thousand miles to the north. They were as poor and shoeless as the rebels they were supposed to fight. They knew their lives counted for little with those who had transported them here. They brought with them everything that might be of value, and many things that had no worth beyond sentiment. Some carried pet crows or parrots on their shoulders. Others held aloft bamboo birdcages. Their dogs milled around, growling at each other.

  They filled the five second-class coaches. Then they piled into the box cars and sat on crates of guns and ammunition. Their women and children climbed the metal rungs to the roofs. A few of the camp followers slung hammocks between the truss rods under the train. Rico assumed that many of the women only wanted to flee the capital and weren’t connected with the army. Given the proclivities of human nature, they probably would be by the time they reached Cuernavaca.

  Hundreds of upper-class civilians were having a more difficult time than the conscripts and their entourage. Even if the colonel
in charge had allowed them to ride on the roof or between the wheels, they would have declined.

  Women in silk stockings sobbed and pleaded for a seat. Their men shoved, threatened, and shouted. In the fray they lost their bowler hats and dislodged the gold stickpins anchoring wide silk ties to their starched shirt fronts. The soldiers guarding the train’s doors fixed their bayonets and stood their ground.

  Rico went looking for the colonel in charge. He turned out to be an old colleague of the Martín family. That didn’t mean he would do a favor for free, but at least bribing him cost less than if Rico hadn’t known him at all. The challenge was to spirit Grace aboard without causing a riot among the stickpins and silk stockings.

  Rico needed a diversion. For a hundred more pesos the colonel agreed to play along. Rico told Grace to stand near the doorway of the first-class car while he walked back along the platform. When he reached the boxcars he took two handfuls of small change out of his pocket and heaved it straight up. The coins chimed against the ceiling, then fell in a silver and copper shower. The soldiers and their women and children made a rush for them. Even los correctos craned to see what the ruckus was about.

  The colonel gave the sentry a wave of the hand and he stood aside so Grace could hurry up the steps. Rico found her standing in the crowded aisle. She knew to stay at the front of the car. The front seats swayed less and were farther from the stench of the overflowing lavatories at the rear.

  The officers who occupied those seats knew it, too. Rico used the last of his funds to persuade them to move. Rico nodded an apology to Grace and brushed past her to take the window seat. He wedged his Mauser between the seat and the side of the car and offered a hand to help her settle in.

  Anyone occupying an aisle seat in a car this crowded was bound to be jostled, but it was safer than the window.

  “Do you think the rebels will attack us?” she asked.

  “I doubt it, but it’s best to be prepared.”

  “Will Colonel Rubio have you courtmartialed for desertion?”