“I wouldn’t know. Say, you still ain’t told me about that.”
“What?”
“Growin’ up rich. How was it?”
“I wouldn’t know, either,” Arthur said. “I grew up in an orphanage.”
“You what?”
“That’s right. Until I was nine; then the Colonel and his wife came and got me.”
“Well, if that don’t beat everything! Same age as I was made a orphan, you got yourself a family!”
RIDING ALONGSIDE STRUCKER, THE COLONEL returned to the subject of an American war with Mexico, about which he had some notions of his own. Before leaving El Paso, he’d sent a confidential wire to William Randolph Hearst telling him the situation in hopes the Hearst newspapers would kindle a fire under President Wilson to intervene. He had not, however, told Hearst of the kidnappings or of his plan to go after Villa personally, since for obvious reasons he didn’t wish that news to become public. Instead he relied on Hearst’s sense of greed, telling him he was in danger of losing his own vast Mexican holdings.
“Hearst got us Cuba,” the Colonel continued. “Now let’s see if he can get us Mexico, too.”
“I didn’t know a man could be so powerful who just published newspapers,” the German remarked. “It’s not that way in my country.”
“Well, he is, the old parvenu,” the Colonel responded disingenuously. “Why, my father was a United States senator when his family were digging up worms to sell.” In fact, the Colonel’s father had made his fortune not much earlier than the Hearsts, but it made him feel better telling it his way. “Still,” Shaughnessy said, “I give it to him, he’s built an empire on gossip and slander and the fear of the people.”
Strucker was taken aback by the Colonel’s contempt of the famous publisher, but tried not to show it. “Is he not an honest man?”
“Oh, yes, he has integrity, of course. He’s actually a decent sort, too, but pompous. He believes his own bullshit and when he doesn’t get his way he throws a tantrum like a child, except that in his case he throws it in front of twenty million readers.”
Integrity or not, Hearst had broken Colonel Shaughnessy’s confidentiality request immediately after getting his telegram. He sent one of his reporters to El Paso to find out more, and when the reporter informed Hearst that the Colonel had gone after Villa’s band because they’d kidnapped his grandchildren, Hearst correctly smelled a sensational story.
THEY RODE ON IN SILENCE FOR A WHILE and the Colonel became preoccupied with thoughts of long ago. This valley was a place such as he would have liked to take a girl; Beatie in the old days. She was lovely and smiling then, adventurous, too; now she’d become tiresome and a scold. He wondered how that had happened. He figured it had somehow started when she stopped going to baseball games with him. He didn’t think he’d changed much himself, except to get a little wiser and a lot richer. Yes, he’d had other women, including the showgirl Beatie had found him out on, but it had meant nothing—a fling. He wished he could bring Beatie back to her old self. He didn’t need beauty anymore; at his age he’d settle for real companionship.
ARTHUR’S THOUGHTS, TOO, WERE INFLUENCED by the pastoral wilds of the place. He regretted not having more time with Xenia before all these troubles began. He hadn’t been a very good husband, being so much in Chicago, and he knew he had sulked around her salon to the point of peevishness.
He determined to change that, once this was over and he had settled with Mick. He looked back at the column of men and horses winding along behind them, which suddenly reminded him of a host of pilgrims, even crusaders on a sacred quest: the most vigorous cowboys, rovers, and mountain men available in El Paso, plus a few oddities like Crosswinds Charlie and Ah Dong. But all in all, Arthur thought, they were a sturdy bunch, men who rode tall in the saddle; men to be proud of. Armed and dangerous.
As the afternoon wore on, a strange black storm cloud rose without warning over the mountains to the west and lowered on the valley ahead with distant bolts of lightning and thunder. Arthur pointed it out to his father, who’d been riding behind them.
He cast his eyes upward and intoned, “Deliver us, please, from immoderate weather!”
The sky directly above remained clear as the storm from the west bore down, and the riders picked up their pace to a trot. Then dark thunderheads began to build to the east as well, towering high over the mountain peaks, and it wasn’t long before these, too, began boiling into the little valley so as to converge with the tempest racing toward them from the west. Stranger still, the sky overhead was bright and blue as the tempests closed in on them from opposite directions. Soon they became bathed in a strange orange glow.
Bob said to Arthur, “I don’t like the looks of this. Never seen nothin’ like it, but they say anything can happen in these mountains.” He began motioning for everyone to hurry up. “Big storm comin’! Run, now!” Cowboy Bob yelled, pointing to a narrow gap in the boulders ahead.
Just then the two storms collided and mingled overhead with tremendous fury. Lightning lit up the sky while thunder crashed and echoed up and down the mountain walls. Breathtaking bursts of frigid air and electricity raised the hairs on men’s necks.
Horses began to rear and plunge and the men had trouble controlling them. The pack burros balked and screamed. One of the wagons overturned. Then huge flakes of wet snow and bites of hail burst down upon them, too. Arthur thought it was like entering the maw of a netherworld. He looked behind for a moment, back to where they had come from. The storm was closing in fast there as well, but the sun was still shining, and to his amazement a big rainbow arced across the valley floor.
If this was an omen, Arthur didn’t know what to make of it, but he wasn’t a man of omens anyway. One thing he’d learned so far, though—in this land, peace and beauty could vanish as soon as they appeared.
FORTY-TWO
Timmy’s gila monster bite was worse than they’d feared. It wasn’t just a fang bite that a snake might make; instead, while injecting its venom, the monster had gnawed and chewed Timmy’s arm, leaving deep gashes and a septic wound. Villa’s doctor abraded the lacerations, pared away the torn flesh, and administered some kind of antiseptic powder, plus a native remedy extracted from a cactus plant. The doctor poured some ether on a cloth and placed it over Timmy’s face during the procedure, and when he woke up he was both nauseated from the anesthetic and in pain from the bite.
Villa had Timmy placed in one of the little ammunition wagons and told the doctor to ride with him. Katherine was in the wagon, too, and Tom Mix rode behind. As Villa’s troop wound its way through tall forests of pines and upward across rolling meadows and steep ravines, Timmy developed a fever, and after a few days his swollen arm had turned from pink, to red, to grayish purple. The doctor periodically pared away more flesh when he changed the bandages, so much so that finally he was forced to loosely stitch up the wounds.
Katherine held Timmy’s good hand and wiped his tears and perspiration and clenched her teeth. The doctor was a young Mexican of Spanish extraction and had graduated from medical school in Mexico City only two years earlier. He was sympathetic toward Katherine and devoted all his energies ministering to Tim, but Katherine was not placated. She had begun for the first time to think that Timmy might actually die and, for that matter, herself, too. All this time she had remained convinced that any day her father and grandfather would come to their rescue, but as time went by this hope faded. She said her “Now I lay me down to sleep” prayer every night and the words began to take on a new but hollow meaning. At one point the doctor said, “He may have to lose that arm, you know.”
Katherine merely stared at him with a steely look in her eyes. At night, when they camped, Mix and Villa spent time with Timmy, and so did Reed and Bierce.
“He needs to be got to a proper hospital,” Bierce said one evening.
“Well, there’s not any around here,” Villa replied, “but he’s in good hands.”
“He’s out in the open air
,” Bierce responded. “That’s bad enough in itself. How far is the closest hospital?”
Villa was gazing upward at the tall purplish brown mountains that had darkened in the gathering gloom of night. He shook his head. “He’s better off here with us. It’s too far.”
“Well, where is it?” Bierce persisted.
“Up over the border, in the United States. El Paso is the closest that I know of with a hospital.”
“Well, can’t somebody take him down to where there’s a train? He might die.”
“We’re headed that way. He’ll come with us. Doc’ll see to him. He knows about these things.” Villa had his back to Bierce and there was a tone in the general’s voice that indicated he was not in a mood for discussion.
“What does the doctor say about it?” Bierce continued.
“Nothing,” Villa replied, walking off toward his tent.
Tom Mix had told the cook to make up some sort of beef broth and he brought a bowl of it to Katherine to give to Tim.
“I’m sorry about this,” he said. “It’s one of those things out here. He’ll be okay. Doc knows what he’s doing.”
“He’ll die, or lose his arm,” Katherine said icily. She had lifted Timmy’s head a bit and was able to force a little of the broth between his lips. She was exhausted and had only slept a few hours at a time since the incident. It seemed like years since their capture; she’d made a calendar and kept notes in it. It was just a few weeks till her thirteenth birthday. Her parents had promised her a big party. and now here she was, almost getting used to things, bad as they were.
“Look, the general isn’t going to let anything happen to your brother. I promise you,” Mix said.
“How do you know that? You said you just do what you’re told. If you were a real man, you would set us free.”
Mix had no answer for this. Something in him told him she was in the right. For the past several weeks Mix had begun to feel he had taken a wrong turn when he joined Villa, and had begun to think of getting away.
Reed and Bierce had been seated on a log by the fire, listening to the conversation. Bierce started to interrupt but decided against it. He understood that the girl was upset, and there was no good reason to make it worse. He got up and went to his place at another campfire. Reed followed him. This was a miserable situation and he thought the old man might have an idea.
“Here,” Katherine said, handing Mix back the bowl of broth. Timmy had gotten down all he could.
“Like I said, it’s going to be all right.”
Katherine lay down next to Timmy and pulled her blanket over herself, turning away from the fire, but not to sleep. With her eyes shut, she could hear the horses snorting, tethered in the woods. Her heart felt gripped and she wanted to cry but forced herself not to.
“YOU KNOW, ROBINSON, IF I WERE YOU, I’d be a little careful how you speak with Villa. He’s known to have a temper,” Reed said when they were out of earshot of the camp.
“So I’ve heard,” Bierce replied.
“Well, sometimes you seem to be trying to provoke him,” Reed continued. They had sat down on some rocks in the darkness. The wind had come up again, a little chilly. Bierce adjusted his hat to keep his head warm. He knew from experience that when your head gets cold, everything in your body gets cold. He hadn’t expected cold in Mexico.
“How’s that?”
“Arguing with him. I think there’s a point when he might explode. He’s got a lot on his mind.”
“Obviously it’s not about that boy,” Bierce shot back. “That boy’s in trouble, and you damn well know it.”
“Sure I do, but there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“Not while Villa is holding him for ransom,” Bierce said.
“What makes you say that?” said Reed.
“You know good and well that’s what he’s doing. He doesn’t have those kids along for their safety—I don’t care what he says. He’s famous for kidnapping people, and from what I understand of it, their family’s got a hay load of money.”
“Yes, the Shaughnessys,” Reed said patronizingly, “they own railroads.”
“Exactly,” said Bierce.
“And from what the girl says,” Reed continued, “they own a huge chunk of Mexico, too, which I expect they got for practically nothing and enslave the peons on it.”
“There’s no slavery in Mexico,” Bierce reminded him.
“There’s about the same thing when you have an entire class of people dependent on one big landholder.”
“Why, Mr. Reed, you sound like a socialist.”
“I am,” Reed said proudly as he stood up and dusted the seat of his trousers.
Way back at the tail end of the caravan, Johnny Ollas and his people huddled around their fire, too. A cold wind was whipping in from the northeast and they were camped in an unsheltered meadow with the herd. Clouds had moved across the sky, blotting the tops of the mountain peaks, and gauzy mists began to descend. A pall of despondence had hung over them since the death of Rigaz, and Johnny knew the deeper they went into the Sierra Madre wastelands, the harder it would be to rescue Donita.
“I’ve got to make his ear twitch,” Johnny said glumly. Julio, Luis, and Rafael knew what he meant, but Gourd Woman didn’t.
“I bet his ears would twitch to hear you talking now,” she said.
“Just get him in his querencia,” Johnny continued. “I can’t kill him now, I know that. It would probably be too difficult. But I think I saw something that day when Rigaz died, when he came up and found out about that fighting bull. It was a look in his eyes; the way Villa was looking around at everything, talking about an old man on a horse, like deep down he’s scared of something.”
“Like he seen a ghost maybe,” Julio said.
“He ain’t expecting it from the inside,” Johnny said. “I imagine he’s always expecting it from the outside. And I sure don’t think he’s expecting it from us. So I think maybe we give it to him both ways. It has to be a perfect thing.”
“You got an idea, then, boss?” Rafael asked.
“Not exactly, but soon,” Johnny replied. “May be anytime.”
“So you gonna fight him like in a bullring or something, then?” said Gourd Woman.
“Yeah, like I told you, it’s the only way I know how.” It would have to be a neat trick, Johnny knew, but if he could taunt Villa, drive him crazy, then the general might become so enraged that he would charge straight and blind like he was in traces. That’s when the chance would come.
FOR THE NEXT WEEK VILLA’S TROOPS CLIMBED UPWARD until they were in the high sierras where the air was thin and the pines and firs sparser, and a few times it began to snow. Several times they spotted bear sign, and once someone reported a mountain lion. Surprisingly, Timmy’s arm began to improve. It might have been the clear, thin air, or the drugs and potions the doctor was administering, or perhaps the venom had simply run its course, but finally he was able to sit up and take food, and his spirits improved; and so, likewise, did Katherine’s. Villa had brought along with his caravan half a dozen of his fighting cocks, which rode in cages in the back of one of the ammunition wagons. He’d also brought along a cage of hens to keep the cocks happy, and each morning he made sure that eggs from these were sent to Mix so that Katherine, Timmy, and Donita could have them at breakfast.
In the evenings after they camped Villa paid visits to Timmy to check on his condition, and by the week’s end he and Timmy were playing checkers together. Villa was an excellent checkers player and never lost, which, considering he was a grown man playing against an injured nine-year-old boy, made Katherine angry. She’d watched Tom Mix also play checkers with Timmy and noted that he always managed to lose about half the time. Finally, one evening she said to the general:
“Anybody can play checkers, but chess takes real skill and brains.”
If this brazen declaration had any effect on Villa he did not show it, but merely replied, “Yes, I have seen them play chess. It look
s interesting—perhaps you can teach me?”
Katherine was secretly glad, because her father had taught her to play chess from the age of seven and she was quite good at the game. Might be, she thought, that somehow she could get Villa to bet with her and, if she played her board right, maybe even win their freedom. At least it was something to hang on to.
Afterward, every evening Villa would appear at their fireside, reeking of perfume and often in clothes scrubbed fresh in a mountain stream, his face shiny and shaven clean except for the big bushy mustache. He’d had one of his crew make a chessboard and ordered him to carve out wooden chessmen based on drawings Katherine had made. But for the time being they played with tree leaves that Katherine had cut up for players. Villa was having trouble remembering all the moves of the different chessmen, so Katherine drew a board out on a piece of paper and drew the players in, writing notations on how they functioned. Villa glanced at it, folded it once, smiled embarrassedly, and put it in his pocket.
“I think I do better if you just show me,” he said.
Finally, after a few days of Katherine explaining the rules and moves, they were ready for the first match. Naturally, it was not much of a contest; Villa still didn’t understand the movement of the knights and often let his castles and bishops be taken. Katherine checkmated him five times both before and after supper. But Villa was good-natured about it all and, uncharacteristically to anyone who had known him for long, even seemed to delight in losing.
“Beautiful little señorita,” he would bellow, “you are too smart for me, I think!”
Despite herself, Katherine enjoyed the games, not only because she won, but because she sensed it somehow gave her leverage against Villa. But there was something else, too, that both agitated and startled her—she began to sense that Villa was overly interested in her, but she had no idea what to make of that.
But she did have an idea about the chess. One day she let herself be checkmated. Villa was happy as a child and whooped and hollered and called for all those within earshot to come and look at how he had beaten the smart, beautiful señorita. Shrewdly, Katherine won the next three games, but each time allowed Villa to take a few more pieces before losing.