El Paso

  “I’m all right,” Katherine said.

  “What happened?” asked Timmy.

  “I don’t know, there was a shot. Just one. We hid behind rocks.”

  “Who was it?” Timmy said. He leaned over conspiratorially. “Do you think it was Grandpapa and Daddy?”

  “I don’t know,” Katherine repeated. Mix was rubbing the salve on her knees.

  “Could have been anybody,” he said, but he said it without conviction. Somebody had fired that shot, but he couldn’t imagine who or why. The Federales would have ambushed them in force with machine guns. So would anybody else with a brain. A single shot, then nothing. Who knew what it meant?

  Pancho Villa was thinking exactly the same thing, with one exception—Sanchez’s ghost. A lone rifle shot that had missed, but was that the plan?

  A warning?

  If Sanchez had wanted him dead, why not kill him? He was a big target. Also, he thought, the shooter might be one of the remnants of the Apaches. It was said a few might still be roaming the canyons after all these years. Whatever or whoever it was, Villa understood there was a price on his head in Mexico City, and it was a cheerless feeling, knowing that so many people wanted to kill him.

  It was nearly half an hour before Julio and Gourd Woman made their way back to Johnny Olla’s place in the rear of the caravan. Rafael was already there and had related the confusion in Villa’s camp when the shot was fired. Rafael had sidled past various soldiers in the outfit until he got close enough to Villa’s tents to see what was going on. He didn’t know that because Villa had taken the walk with Katherine he wasn’t even there. Rafael hung around at the edges of the encampment, smoking and trying to look inconspicuous. When the shot rang out, almost everyone jumped to their feet, and there was a great commotion. In the faint light, Rafael could see Mix’s campfire, with Donita and Timmy and several others around it. Everyone stood up, and several men ran off toward the sound, but Tom Mix didn’t, as Johnny Ollas had hoped he would. When Julio and Gourd Woman reappeared, they, too, wanted to know what happened.

  “They did not abandon her entirely,” Rafael said. “The Americano moved in close with her and the little boy and he looked pretty wary.”

  “I could have killed him,” Julio said of Villa. “It was just luck and the last of the light that let me find him alone—or out with the little girl.”

  “And they came after you?” Johnny asked.

  “Oh, yes,” said Julio. “First a bunch of soldiers came running to where Villa had hid himself and the girl behind rocks. Then they started shooting, and that’s when we got out of there. But I could see they had got together a party to come after us on horseback. They rode up the canyon, probably close to where I’d been.”

  “He could have killed him, all right,” Gourd Woman said. “He had plenty of time.”

  “She’s got good eyes,” Julio said.

  “I see what God wants me to see,” Gourd Woman replied.

  “For a moment, I had his back right in my sights,” Julio said.

  “Well, it’s not what we want quite yet,” said Johnny. “If we killed him, who knows what would happen? They might murder Donita on the spot. We need to be patient a little while longer.”

  FORTY-SEVEN

  For several days it was uncertain whether Bomba was going to live or die, but hot soups and warm compresses slowly restored his health. He remained weak but was finally able to sit up near the edge of the cave and look out over the ravine. The man had dressed him in warm clothing made of the skins of animals he had killed for food—deer, rabbit, squirrel. In time Bomba managed to walk around and explore the cliff dwelling. To his astonishment it contained dozens of rooms in vast catacombs deep inside the cliff. Bats hung from the roofs and swarmed out at twilight.

  A spring burbled from the rocks, providing water. Pieces of pottery, broken and whole, were everywhere—as was a great scattering of bones, animal and human. One cavernous room was covered in layers of ossified human feces; in another were stacks of mummies wrapped in clay. Strange pictures were carved into the walls that told a story Bomba understood—of a people who lived in the wild and worshipped many gods. It was a creepy place, especially for a man of Bomba’s strong superstitions.

  The man whose cave Bomba had stumbled on was named Henry O. Flipper, and in a land of strange stories, he had one of the strangest of all. He tried to convey it to Bomba over a period of several days, but wasn’t sure how much got through. Flipper, it turned out, had been the first Negro graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point.

  He was born in Georgia, where his parents had been slaves before the Civil War. After he was commissioned a lieutenant, he was sent to Arizona to serve with the “Buffalo Soldiers” of the Tenth Cavalry regiment, chasing Indians. Five years later, while he was acting as commissary officer, several thousand dollars turned up missing, and Flipper was accused and court-martialed. The court acquitted him of embezzlement but found him guilty of “conduct unbecoming an officer,” and he was kicked out of the army.

  Humiliated, for the next twenty-five years Flipper used his West Point training to make a living as a surveyor and mining engineer, mostly in Mexico, where he was trusted and respected by the mine owners and managers. Now in his fifties, Flipper had been on what he decided was his last mining expedition when the Mexican Revolution exploded.

  Recently Villa’s people had swept through the gold, silver, copper, and tin mining towns in the sierras, driving out the gringos. A few weeks earlier they had murdered a dozen American mining engineers by shoving their train into a tunnel and then setting the tunnel on fire. Word of this quickly spread through the mining community, and scores of gringo miners scrambled best they could toward the border. Flipper himself had been trying to sneak toward Chihuahua City to catch a train north when he learned Villa was loose in the mountains. Since this was familiar terrain to him, he’d holed up in the cave of the mummies to await further developments.

  When Bomba was able to convey what he was doing in this untamed wilderness, Flipper was amazed the man was still alive. Flipper felt lucky to be alive himself. He had stumbled on this particular cave by accident some weeks earlier, and considered himself especially fortunate to have come across it when it was almost winter.

  “Pancho Villa and his ilk have even less liking of us than they do the white Americans,” Flipper stated bluntly. “When they shoot us, they shoot us twice—once to kill us, and once to kill our ghost.”

  Bomba grunted. He had seen Villa’s penchant for violence.

  Flipper was impressed with Bomba’s ability to read the pictographs on the cave walls. Over the years Flipper had become an expert on native languages and learned to decipher ancient symbols, but Bomba picked it up so quickly Flipper decided he must be a genius. Once, however, he stopped Bomba from entering a large and uncharted chamber of the labyrinth. Treasure or not, Flipper had never darkened that forbidding portal because of an inscription etched over the door. When Bomba started to cross the opening, Flipper restrained him, pointing up at the inscription.

  “It’s a curse,” Flipper said.

  Bomba studied the writing but could make nothing of it. There were no pictures, only language-like symbols.

  Flipper translated:

  “As for the one who will violate this tomb, he shall be seized by Itzcoatl. He shall be for the flame of the Tepanec. He is an enemy and so is his son. May donkeys fuck him, may donkeys fuck his wife, may his wife fuck his son.”

  Bomba replied with a grunt.

  “I don’t much believe in curses myself,” the old soldier said, “but this one seems sincere.”

  “Whose is it?” Bomba asked.

  “Who knows?” Flipper answered. “And it may be a bunch of shit, too, but why take the chance?”

  When he recovered sufficient strength, Bomba asked Flipper if he could help him find Pancho Villa and the children. The two men were sitting on rocks by the fire on the ledge of the cave.

  “You m
ust be out of your mind,” Flipper responded. “Do you realize what he’ll do to you if he catches you—me, too, for that matter?” A misty rain was falling and Flipper had cooked up some beans and corn, along with a rabbit he’d caught in a snare and was roasting slowly on a spit over hot coals.

  Bomba tried to explain about Katherine and Timmy and the family, but Flipper was having none of it.

  “I understand loyalty,” he said. “Hell, I was the epitome of loyalty myself once—to an entire government—until that goverment turned on me and framed me and swept me back under the rug where they felt I belonged.”

  “Still mad?” Bomba asked.

  “Damn right I am,” said Flipper. “Besides, let me ask you this: Do you think that if Pancho Villa had captured you, instead—that this Colonel Shaughnessy or any of his people would come looking for you in these wild mountains? Hell, no, they wouldn’t.”

  Bomba sat motionless, his eyes looking into the eyes of his newfound friend. He knew about loyalty, too, though he couldn’t really put a definition on it. For him, it was inborn. He received good food, shelter, clothing, money, but there was more than that. There was a bond between him and the Colonel in which Bomba felt he was a member of the family, as well as their guardian.

  “Aw, c’mon, now,” Flipper said. “You did all you could. You almost died protecting those people. You gotta let it go. Save yourself. These are perilous times. People are being murdered by the millions. What chance you think a couple of niggers like us got against the likes of Pancho Villa and his army?”

  Bomba continued to look at Flipper. He knew he was asking a lot. Maybe more than a lot. But it was the Colonel’s grandkids, whom he’d known since they were in swaddling clothes. What else could he do? How could he go back, assuming he got back, and face the Colonel?

  “Hell, you’ll never locate them out there in those canyons,” Flipper continued. “It’s a maze. I even get lost there myself, and I been working down here for twenty-five years. It’s a crazy idea, simply insane.”

  “Rabbit cooked,” Bomba said finally. He lifted the meat off the fire.

  “Now, there’s the spirit,” Flipper said. “Let’s eat a good supper, and tomorrow you’ll rethink all this and we can figure a way to get ourselves back to the U.S. of A.”

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Villa and his people had been moving through the canyons nearly a week when Reed and Bierce began arguing over whether or not Villa was a socialist. Reed insisted that he was. They were riding side by side down a desolate stretch of canyon so narrow that the sun only made it to the bottom a few minutes a day. All in all, it was a cool, pleasant morning.

  “Look what he did when he had control of Northern Mexico,” Reed said ardently. “He took over the railroads, mines, manufacturing, utilities, telephones, broke up the big landholdings, and redistributed the property among the people. He only left the rich Americans alone, and finally he’s going for them, too.”

  “Yes, and all at the point of a gun,” Bierce reminded him.

  “There are times it’s the only way, Mr. Robinson,” Reed countered.

  “And how much do you expect he will keep for himself?”

  Reed was silent on this question.

  Bierce normally didn’t converse with socialists, but he felt the need to talk to somebody, and Reed was one of the few respectable conversationalists in camp.

  “And what about in America?” Bierce asked. “What will happen there?”

  Reed squinted and looked skyward. “They’d tried it by the ballot, and look where it’s got them,” he said. The big industrialists had bought off voters with whiskey and cash, threatened their jobs, stuffed ballot boxes, and threw their organizers in prison. They couldn’t even organize a union without fear of being beaten, shot, or jailed.

  “The people won’t stand for it much longer,” he told Bierce.

  Bierce had been irritable all morning because of a saddle sore on his buttock. At least talking might keep his mind off it.

  “Are these people you’re talking about the same ones who are presently blowing up buildings and assassinating our presidents?” Bierce asked.

  Reed was actually enjoying the conversation; was grateful for it. And despite the fact that he and Bierce disagreed on almost everything, Reed had come to like the old gentleman “Jack Robinson,” in spite of himself. The man was witty and informed and willing to listen. If there was to be a peaceful socialist revolution in America, Reed understood it was the Jack Robinsons of the nation who would have to be convinced. Once that was accomplished, the path was clear.

  “You frighten me, Mr. Reed,” Bierce said.

  “Why is that?”

  “Because according to your creed, you’d be willing to tear up the Constitution of the United States.”

  “It’s a piece of paper,” Reed said. “A good one, mind you,” he added. “But a piece of paper nonetheless. Times change. Ideas change.”

  They rode awhile in silence as Bierce digested this last statement with mounting disgust. The sun was high and finally reaching the bottom of the canyon. He thought he felt a headache coming on.

  “Where did you attend school, Mr. Reed?” Bierce inquired.

  “Harvard.”

  “I thought so.”

  “And you, Mr. Robinson?”

  “I didn’t,” Bierce said.

  “I thought so.”

  THE FIRST SIGN REED AND BIERCE NOTICED was a thin hum in the air. Then the blood bees swarmed. They weren’t actually bees and they didn’t actually sting—they bit. They bit hands and faces and also through clothes. Others ahead and behind were having the same trouble. Horses began to buck and scream and plunge, and everyone was frantically swatting at themselves.

  Reed and Bierce loosed their reins and spurred their horses after the others at a gallop. It took what seemed to be eternity, but after a while they slowed up and the blood bees had gone away.

  In their way, two of the supply wagons had turned over and everybody in the party had nasty little stinging bites, which quickly began to itch. As people began righting the overturned wagons, Villa’s doctor began dispensing ointments and poultices, and by afternoon everyone had at least several of these pressed on.

  Reed was particularly put out because it had begun as such a fine day and to have his conversation interrupted this way seemed unfair.

  He said to Tom Mix, who was applying poultices on Katherine and Timmy, “It was positively savage. They might have killed us if we were on foot.”

  “Them things have got a vengeful nature,” Mix responded.

  “So what do you think happened? Did somebody disturb their hive or something?”

  “Who knows?” Mix told him. “Its a pretty chancy life out here.”

  “I’m curious,” Bierce interjected. “With all that clover you Harvard fellows must have been rolling in, didn’t you ever encounter bees?”

  “Different kind of clover, different kind of bees,” Reed told him with a wry smile, figuring that their conversation had come to an end anyway.

  THAT EVENING, INSTEAD OF THE CHESS GAME when Villa came by Mix’s campfire, he asked Katherine again to take a walk with him. She was apprehensive and still aching from the bites, but dared not refuse. This time, instead of going outside the security of the encampment, Villa escorted her a short way to clearing in a grove of sycamore trees, out of earshot of the others, and at least didn’t try to pinch her cheeks. She noticed that Mix had maneuvered himself to a stump in view of the clearing and was polishing his saddle in his lap with saddle soap.

  “What I was trying to ask you the other evening was for a favor,” Villa said. “But you misunderstood, and then we were interrupted.”

  “What favor?” Katherine asked.

  “I want you to teach me how to read,” he said, curtly, defensively.

  “Read?”

  “I can’t read. I never learned how.”

  “In Spanish?” Katherine asked hesitantly. “I know French but I don’t know Spa
nish.”

  “No. In English. English will be fine. Over time I’ve had to deal with communiqués from the Americans and I’m never sure if they are trying to trick me. Once I can read anything, I can read,” he said.

  “I’ve never tried to teach anybody how to read before. Why don’t you ask Mr. Robinson or Mr. Reed?”

  “Because I’m embarrassed,” Villa told her bluntly. “It would be better for you to do it.”

  “But I don’t have any books or anything,” Katherine protested. “I learned to read from books. Our teacher—”

  “I’ve seen teachers teach by writing on a blackboard,” Villa countered. “Couldn’t you just write lessons on a piece of paper?”

  “Yes—I suppose so. When do you want to begin?”

  “Is tomorrow too soon?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “How long will it take?” Villa asked.

  “I don’t know,” Katherine said truthfully. “I suppose it depends on whether you apply yourself.”

  “I’ll try, I promise. It’s a necessary thing.”

  “Why?” she asked. “Is it because you want to be president, and presidents have to read? Is that what you’re fighting a war for?”

  “No, señorita. I’m not educated enough to be president. And it’s not what I want. I’m fighting to keep somebody else from being president.”

  “Who?”

  “For the moment, General Carranza. But that could change, too.”

  “What is wrong with General Carranza?” she asked. But Villa just shook his head.

  “I want to know how to write, too,” he told her.

  “Oh,” said Katherine. “Well, I guess the two go together. We’ll see.”

  WHILE VILLA WAS ASKING KATHERINE HIS FAVOR, Bierce sat down on a log away from everybody and took out his writing tablet.

  Dear Miss Christiansen,

  Villa lost the fight at Chihuahua City and we are now deep in the mountains. His men fight like devils but are reckless, undisciplined and there is much indiscriminate firing. Their behavior would not be tolerated in an American army. A few nights ago somebody took a potshot at the general himself, but he was not injured.