Last Train From Cuernavaca

by Lucia St. Clair Robson

  Rubio also must have lumbered straight from Rico’s empty jail cell to the printer’s shop. A messenger had arrived this morning with hundreds of handbills to distribute among the locals. They offered a substantial reward to anyone who brought in the fugitive, dead or alive. They included a drawing of Rico and a description of his horse. One of them had been posted in plain sight on the depot’s wall. Juan had hustled Señora Knight past it, talking all the while to distract her.

  Juan knew Rubio would not stop until someone, preferably Rubio himself, brought in Rico’s corpse draped across the back of a horse, donkey, burro, or dung cart. Rubio thrived on grudges the way mules relished thistles. Juan imagined how purple Fatso’s face must have turned when he found out Rico not only had escaped the noose, but had taken his grandfather’s prized Andalusian with him.

  Now Rico had the best, or worst, possible reason to join Venustiano Carranza’s army. He was a walking dead man in Morelos. Juan was packed and ready to go with him.

  It would be a long ride. Carranza’s home state of Coahuila lay over five hundred miles to the north. Maybe when they left Morelos they could take the train.

  Juan had emerged from the barracks this morning to find an urchin waiting for him with a note. He recognized the handwriting, which was helpful since the unsigned message contained only two words. “Goat hut.”

  He threw some of his clothes into his saddlebag and set out for the abandoned goat herders’ shack in a shallow canyon not far above the train station. It sat in the middle of a high meadow surrounded by juniper and piñon trees. When Juan arrived he found Grullo tearing at rangy tufts of grass. He tethered his own horse nearby. Grullo seemed glad for the company.

  The hovel’s plank door hung askew on its leather hinges. Rico sat on an upturned wooden bucket in the doorway and leaned a shoulder against the frame. His hair was tousled and the stubble of a beard made his face look haggard. His eyes were closed, either in sleep or to block out the midday sunlight.

  “You look terrible, brother,” said Juan.

  Rico stood up and the two friends clasped each other’s arms, then embraced.

  “Carajo, niño.” Juan stepped back and wrinkled his nose. “You stink of the calaboose. Rubio only has to follow his nose.”

  “You heard what happened?”

  “Everyone in Morelos has heard what happened. Or at least Fatso’s version of it.”

  Rico laid into the food Juan brought like a starving wolf feasting on a fresh sheep carcass. When he had licked the last of the pork grease off his fingers Juan handed him a bundle of clothes held together with a tooled leather belt. Rico recognized the silver buckle on the belt. Juan considered it his lucky charm.

  He held it up. “Thank you, brother.”

  Juan started off to retrieve his horse. He called back over his shoulder. “I’ll return at sunset and we can ride north.”

  “I’m going to Las Delicias first.”

  Juan did an about-face. “Rico, it is not safe for you in Morelos. Rubio has put a bounty on your head.”

  “I won’t go to Carranza empty-handed, like a pelado, a pauper. We need money and supplies and men. I know at least twenty of our workers who would agree to come north with us.”

  “Las Delicias will be the first place Fatso looks.”

  “Rubio fears my grandfather.”

  “God fears your grandfather.” Juan crossed himself to neutralize any celestial offense his irreverence might have caused.

  It wasn’t a bad plan though. Rico’s grandfather might even sympathize with his grandson for perhaps the first time ever. The Old Man considered a coarse, low-class brute like Huerta useful as a general, but he hated him as president. Venustiano Carranza, on the other hand, oozed gentility. His skin, pale as any Swede’s, raised him high in the Old Man’s estimation.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “It would be better if you stayed here, Juancito. We need to know what Rubio is up to.”

  Rico didn’t mention that there was no sense in both of them getting killed if they were sighted. Nor did he remind Juan that his grandfather would not be happy to see him. The Old Man considered Juan of common birth and would almost certainly insult him.

  Juan amused himself pitching centavos while Rico bathed in the spring bubbling up among rocks nearby. When he finished he put on Juan’s clothes—tight leather pants, a white linen shirt, short wool jacket, and a vaquero’s felt hat with a jaunty brim. Juan’s striker had polished the black half-boots until he could see his reflection in them.

  The two men rode together as far as the first fork in the trail.

  “I will meet you at Rosa’s cantina in three days,” Rico said. “If I have not returned by the fourth day, ride north without me.”

  They leaned across from their saddles and clasped arms again. Without looking back, Rico rode away. Juan dismounted, tied the reins to a tree, and climbed to an outcrop. From there he could see the trail snake downhill for a mile or more before it lost itself in a disorder of rocks and brush.

  He drew his sword and stood on the highest point of the ledge. He grasped the tip of the blade in both hands and held it straight up with arms fully extended. The blade, hilt, and handguard formed a slender cross. It was an ancient Crusader’s salute given by warriors who believed they would not see their comrade again. At least not alive.

  41

  Homecoming

  The quantity of Lyda’s Mexico City purchases and the fact that she didn’t trust them to ride in the baggage car should have given Grace a clue. More must be amiss than a temporary decrease in the Colonial’s room reservations. But she fell asleep too quickly to wonder about the sacks and boxes stuffed onto the luggage rack overhead, stashed under all four seats, and stacked on the floor and on the empty seat next to her. She awoke only when the train pulled into Cuernavaca’s station and the usual uproar started.

  Before the engine came to a stop the local touts swarmed aboard. Each one tried to outshout the others in praise of what ever hotel, restaurant, or hackney driver had hired them. Lyda bellowed above the din and enlisted three of them as porters. The muchachos, as she called them, passed her boxes and sacks through the window to compatriots on the platform. Lyda leaned out of a nearby window with her derringer cocked and made sure none of the goods vanished.

  As Grace tried to descend the steps without getting knocked down by the mob of passengers pushing to board, she heard Lyda swearing behind her. Americans, Grace thought, swore with such conviction and originality. She admired that about them. Grace could imagine her and Lieutenant Angel getting along splendidly. Yanks, after all, were old hands at rebellion.

  Grace had become so used to wearing khaki trousers and shirt with rope sandals that she didn’t notice the stares from the two hundred or so foreigners and correctos milling about on the platform. Their lace-trimmed parasols and plumes, their buttoned spats, straw boaters, baggy golf pants, and matching luggage gave the place a festive air, as if they were all headed off on holiday.

  Grace dodged among handcarts heaped with steamer trunks, satchels, and carpet bags. She soon realized that the mood in the station was frantic, not festive. The owners of the baggage wrangled with porters who knew to a centavo the price of desperation. Hats in hands they smiled like deacons and demanded highwaymen’s fees.

  Hiring the two horse-drawn victorias proved easy. More people were coming to the station than were leaving it. Lyda supervised the loading of the baggage, leaving Grace nothing to do but sink back into the tufted leather seat and enjoy the ride. Four of Lyda’s muchachos stood on the running boards of the second taxi.

  Trees lined the busy boulevard leading from the station to the center of town. Two things told Grace she was home—the smell of flowers and the music of cascading water. Along the way, each blue army uniform caused Grace’s heart to race until the carriage came close enough to see that Rico was not wearing it.

  The victorias pulled up to the Colonial. As the muchachos unloaded Lyda’s purchases,
Grace pushed on the gate. It pushed back. The sun would not set for an hour and Grace had never locked the gate in the daytime.

  Leobardo swung it open when she knocked. Leobardo had the quality most desireable in a gatekeeper, imperturbability. He took off his hat and greeted Grace as if she had just returned from an errand or a stroll on the plaza. However, besides his rifle he now carried a machete and a pistol.

  Annie dodged around him and ran to look for Socorro. Leobardo kept a wary eye on the muchachos as they stacked Lyda’s purchases in the courtyard.

  “Why is the door locked?” asked Grace.

  “Thievery,” he said.

  “Thievery?”

  “People are hungry, Mamacita.”

  Grace looked at Lyda for an explanation.

  “Darlin’, when I saw you on that railroad platform in Tres Marías you looked like you’d been dunked in a river, beaten on a rock, and run through a wringer. I didn’t want to give you all the bad news at once.”

  “What bad news?”

  “Rubio ordered barricades set up on the roads in the countryside. I reckon his plan is to capture any Zapatistas stupid enough to blunder into them. But his men assume that everyone is a rebel and they are terrorizing the indios. The villagers can’t bring produce to market. If it weren’t for the train we would be in a bad way for supplies.”

  Grace decided to worry about that tomorrow. She had a more urgent concern.

  “Is Captain Martín here, Señor Leobardo?”

  “No, Mamacita.”

  Annie came running from the kitchen. “Socorro is gone!”

  María and the maids followed and clustered around her, all talking at once in Nahuatl and Spanish. Socrates arrived still holding the chamois cloth he had been using to buff the lacquer on the Pierce.

  “Where is Socorro?” Grace asked.

  “God alone knows, Señora Knight.” Socrates told her about Colonel Rubio’s attempt to ravish Socorro, the fight with Captain Martín, and the captain’s escape from jail. He neglected to mention that José was the one who had helped him escape.

  “Does anyone know where Captain Martín went?”

  “No, señora,” said Leobardo, “but the general has offered a reward of five hundred pesos to anyone who shoots him.” Leobardo was blunt as well as imperturbable.

  “That son of a bitch.” Grace headed for the front gate.

  “Where are you going?” asked Lyda.

  “To the Governor’s Palace.”

  “General Rubio is not there, señora,” said Socrates. “He marched his men away three days ago with a great waving of flags and tooting of horns.”

  “Their strumpets and brats followed them,” María added.

  “The general said he would return bringing a wagonload of the rebels’ heads, with General Zapata’s on top,” added Leobardo.

  All Grace heard was that a five-hundred-peso bounty had been set on Rico. That was more than the average laborer could earn in a year. Grace kept walking even though her knees wobbled and she feared she would faint.

  Lyda grabbed her arm in the doorway. “Wait, Gracie.”

  “Someone at the palace will know where Rubio is.”

  “They will ask you where you’ve been. They might think you’re in sympathy with the rebels.”

  “Rubio intends to kill him.”

  “Rico’s smarter than Rubio and all that unshod rabble Fatso calls an army.”

  Grace tried to pull free, but Lyda was strong. With her free hand she pointed toward the stairs and made the motion of opening a spigot. One of the maids hurried off to turn on the water heater and start the bath running in Grace’s apartment.

  “It’s Saturday night, Gracie, and the boss is away. His underlings will all be tipling in the cantinas. Some of them might even come here to get drunk.”

  “I have to do something.” Grace started to cry.

  “Take a hot soak. Get a night’s sleep. When you wake up, put on something that doesn’t make you look like a Zapatista.” She surveyed Grace’s soiled outfit and wrinkled her nose. “Tomorrow we’ll burn those clothes and think of a plan.”

  Lyda and Annie went home. Grace started up the stairs, but stopped when Socrates cleared his throat.

  She turned to look at him. “Yes?”

  “Captain Martín’s grandfather was a famous judge. He knows many important people who can help the captain.”

  “Where is his grandfather?” Grace realized that although Rico had mentioned his parents dying when he was young, he rarely spoke of his family.

  “I think maybe he’s in Mexico City.”

  “Thank you.”

  Grace climbed the stairs. She walked down the corridor to her room as if in a dream, or a nightmare. She didn’t expect to sleep. She knew the sort of man Rubio was. What he lacked in intelligence he made up for in spite, bulldoggedness, and brutality.

  Already she was thinking of people who might help her. At the top of the list was her old acquaintance, President Huerta. Maybe she could convince him to pardon Rico and call off his beast of a general. And she would look for Rico’s grandfather.

  Gunfire woke Grace. Still more than half asleep, she threw back the covers and tried to bolt. She flailed for balance when her feet hit air instead of the ground. She landed on the floor with a thud. She lay in the dark trying to remember where she was. She groped with her hand until she touched the bed, the first clue.

  She was in her flat in the Colonial. She was not wrapped up in a flea-infested blanket in a dank cave. She wanted to weep with joy. Then she remembered the rest.

  Hotel guests were few and fewer. People were shooting guns in Cuernavaca again, something that hadn’t happened since the rebels thought they had won their war two years ago and installed Francisco Madero as president. And the worst, Rico was in the mountains somewhere, with a price on his head.

  Grace lit a candle, put on her kimono, and went downstairs for a predawn prowl through the premises. She needed to reassure herself that she really had come home. She checked the back courtyard, the kitchen, and the stable where the gleaming, red Pierce motorcar slept. She looked in on Leobardo, who slept in his hammock slung in the shed by the front gate. She put her head against the wall in the corridor where she could listen to the comforting hum of the electrical switching station outside.

  She returned to the lobby and sank into the huge leather easy chair. It was positioned with a view of the courtyard through the arches of the open corridor. She fell asleep curled up in it.

  She woke up at dawn. She yawned, stretched, and saw María waiting patiently, her white apron as pristinely white and starched as usual. Come war, famine, or pestilence, María would face them well laundered.

  “Señora,” she said. “El chinito has gone.”

  Grace couldn’t blame Wing Ang for leaving. According to Lyda, no one, including herself, had been paid for two weeks. The chef’s departure meant one less mouth to feed. These days there was no call for his roast beef, kidney pies, trifles, or yorkshire puddings anyway. Wing Ang was a cypher to Grace, but he was honest and hardworking, and she hoped he had found somewhere safe to go.

  “If you and Socrates want to leave, María, I understand.”

  “We will stay, Mamacita. I will cook.”

  Grace went upstairs to dress for her sortie to army headquarters in the Governor’s Palace on the far side of the main plaza. Now she had another mission, to find a source of funds. If no one at the palace would rescind the execution order, she would go to Mexico City and make her case to President Huerta. While she was in the capital she could hock her jewelry at the Bank of Pity. In the meantime she had something else of value to sell and she knew at least two people who would like to buy it.

  After hours of waiting on hardback chairs in one smoke-choked government office after another, she returned to the Colonial. Her clothes and hair smelled so strongly of cigars she wanted to go straight upstairs and take a bath. But Lyda and Annie were waiting for her. The rest of the house hold ga
thered to hear the news. They all could tell from Grace’s face that she had had no success.

  “Don’t let those petty functionaries get you down, Gracie. President Huerta will help you. He likes you. How many people can make that claim?”

  “How many people would want to.” Grace carried a cotton sack slung over one shoulder. It clinked when she hefted it with both hands onto the front desk. “They played cat-and-mouse with me at the palace, but at least I can pay your wages.”

  Grace opened the sack and poured silver coins out across the lacquered mahogany desktop.

  For once Lyda needed several seconds before she could say anything. “Where did you get that? And what possessed you to carry it through the streets? Someone could have killed you for it.”

  “I sold the Pierce.”

  When Annie translated, Socrates gave a small cry and turned away. Grace had expected he would mourn the loss of the Pierce. She called him back.

  “The gentleman who bought it offered to hire you as driver and mechanic. He says he will pay you well.”

  Socrates shook his head. “I will stay here with you, Mamacita.”

  Everyone went back to their chores. Lyda put the money in the doghouse-sized cast-iron safe in Grace’s office. She came back out and leaned her elbows on the front desk. Grace sat in the big leather chair and she and Lyda both watched the hummingbirds dart among the flowering vines covering the courtyard wall.

  “Lyda, what causes men to wage this malarial warfare?”

  “You mean why do they snatch defeat time and again from the jaws of victory?”

  “Too right.”

  “They remind me of a story.” Lyda had an endless supply of those. “One of Abraham Lincoln’s neighbors saw him striding past her house with two of his sons. Both of the boys were wailing like they had their toes in a mousetrap. The neighbor asked, ‘Why, Mr. Lincoln, what ails the lads?’ Lincoln replied, ‘Just what’s the matter with the whole world. I have three walnuts and each wants two.’”