Agua Prieta was a huddle of gaunt adobe buildings in the windswept desert just yards from the American border town of Douglas. From the look of it, Agua Prieta was aptly named: a filthy little river ran through the town. Villa had positioned his artillery east and west to keep from throwing shells across the border and starting an incident. A little earlier, he had crawled atop the rise and studied the garrison through field glasses. He was surprised to find that the Federals had strung barbed wire in many rows in front of the garrison. That would make things more difficult because his artillery now had to open up sooner than he wanted, so as to cut the wire. Bierce advised him against attacking at all, but Villa was in no mood to listen to that kind of talk.
“Señor Robinson, we have been up against barbed wire before and succeeded,” he said patiently, as if talking to a child.
“You didn’t succeed at Chihuahua City,” Bierce reminded him. “I was there, remember?”
“I wish you hadn’t been,” Villa said. “All you have done in the past weeks is make unwelcome remarks to me.”
“I’m sorry if you see it that way, General Villa,” Bierce replied. “I thought you’d requested my advice, and so I gave it.”
“Well, stop giving it,” Villa told him. “It’s causing me a headache.”
A PASSENGER EMERGED FROM THE PLANE. The pilot then turned it around and took off.
Mick was a little disoriented by the landing. He had seen Villa’s people from the air when he and Charlie had circled, but he was surprised there were so many. He’d only expected a troop. But Charlie had recognized the distinctive flags and simply told him that, whatever the case, this was Villa’s army. Now on the ground, Mick at first began walking the wrong way before several men shouted to him to come to the little rise they were on. He was stumbling over rocks when he saw a big rattlesnake flinch out from under a little scrub bush in front of him and slither off without rattling. It nearly startled him to death. Mick had never liked snakes; they gave him the willies. He stumbled to the top of the rise, where people pulled him down and escorted him to the general, who was sitting in a field chair peeling an apple. He looked angry when Mick was presented to him. Mick began to say something, but Villa cut him off.
“I don’t care who you are or what you want,” Villa spat. “You may have ruined our whole plan!”
“I’m here to talk about the two children you’re holding,” Mick said. “I’m an attorney and am authorized to work something out.”
Villa gaped at him. “You came here about that! On the eve of a battle! You must be loco!”
“I didn’t know anything about a battle,” Mick said. “The parents of those kids are worried sick. And I went to a lot of trouble to come see you. I nearly got bit by a goddamn snake just a minute ago.”
Fierro, sitting beside Villa, took patriotic exception. “A serpent is part of our national emblem,” he told Mick. “We don’t need any gringos running it down.”
“It’s going to have to wait until this fight is finished,” Villa said. “And you better pray to whatever god you pray to that your coming here didn’t upset my plan.”
SIXTY-SIX
Villa’s artillery opened up at midnight. The attack began an hour later and was a total disaster. Villa’s soldiers surged forward toward Agua Prieta, when suddenly their ranks were illuminated by huge searchlights. At once a hail of fire from dozens of machine guns in the Federal garrison broke out. For Bierce, Reed, Strucker, and the others who’d stayed behind, it sounded like a roomful of people furiously typing away on typewriters. Villa’s men dropped dead in their tracks in windrows twenty feet apart. He ordered more troops sent in; the same thing happened. Rifle and machine gun fire hit them, too, sounding like the tearing of a giant canvas.
From what Villa could tell, the searchlights were coming from the American side of the border at Douglas, where a detachment of the U.S. Army was located. Green flashes of illumination shells from Villa’s artillery lit up the garrison, and from this, he believed he could count many more guns firing at his men than he’d ever expected. Thousands of little flashes of gunfire were coming from irrigation ditches outside Agua Prieta. His men were not only blinded by the illumination from the searchlights, but those few of them who actually reached the barbed wire were horrified when they discovered the wire had been electrified. Villa finally understood, with ratlike realism, that he’d been led into a trap.
Daybreak revealed a pitiless carnage on the desert sands. Villa’s soldiers lay in grotesque positions where they had fallen in their ranks. Officers’ horses, broken and mutilated, lay among them. In less than two hours more than six hundred of his men had perished.
Villa now went into one of his towering rages. Two things he knew: the American searchlights had ruined the attack, and either there were a lot more Federal troops in the Agua Prieta garrison than there were supposed to be or the Americans had joined in the fight. He pulled the remnants of his army away from Agua Prieta not long after sunup and headed east toward El Paso. Along the way he spotted an open motorcar and a contingent of American soldiers leaning on the wire fence that marked the international border. Villa rode up to them and singled out a young lieutenant who was chewing on a piece of straw.
It was Patton.
“You people turned your searchlights on us last night. That was an act of war.”
“I don’t know a thing about that, General,” Patton told him.
“Like hell you don’t,” Villa replied. “You’re a liar like the rest of your stinking race.”
“Why don’t you climb over this fence and say that again,” Patton told him, “and I’ll throw your fat ass in jail.”
“Why don’t you climb over it yourself on this side, and I’ll shoot you so full of holes you’ll look like a side of Swiss cheese,” Villa retorted.
“Those are bold words for a man who’s just got his butt handed to him in a battle,” Patton said.
“Yes, and only because you gringos joined in without even a declaration of war.”
“We joined in nothing, General,” Patton said. “That was your own countrymen you were fighting.”
“There were supposed to be twelve hundred. It had to be five times that many.”
“I’d suggest you ask General Obregón about it,” Patton told him.
“What’s Obregón got to do with it?”’
“He talked to our General Pershing at El Paso last week and asked if he could use our rail lines to transport some of his troops out of Coahuila to Agua Prieta. The general told him yes, so long as it was to make a fool of you.”
Villa’s hand dropped to his waist where his pistol was, but when he did it, half a dozen American soldiers drew up their rifles and the sound of clicking safeties told Villa this wasn’t the time.
“So what you are telling me is that your General Pershing allowed Obregón’s soldiers to cross over to here on American soil and on American railroads to defeat me?”
“That’s about the size of it, General,” Patton said. “You got a beef, you can take it up with President Wilson.”
“Okay, Lieutenant, so now I know. And I pity any of you gringos that comes in my way from now on.”
“You might ingratiate yourself with my country if you release those American children you’re holding,” Patton said. “They’re pretty important to some good people. The whole country would be impressed by such a gesture.”
“I’m not releasing anybody,” Villa told him. “You gringos have laid down with the dogs, now you’ll get up with fleas.”
“I’m just making a recommendation,” Patton said. “The mother of those children is in El Paso right now, worried to death about them. It’s cruel of you not to turn them loose.”
“You haven’t seen cruelty yet, Lieutenant,” Villa replied. “There are worse things than murder, in case you don’t know it.” He wheeled his horse and galloped off across the dusty desert to join his passing army.
TO STRUCKER’S UTTER AMAZEMENT, a telegram came to Pan
cho Villa in Cabullona two days later informing him that the money from Germany had arrived and was being held for him at the bank in Juárez. For Villa it meant he could pay his army, or what remained of it.
“So, Señor Strucker, now you will get your wish,” Villa told him a day afterward. “I would have attacked them even without the money, after what happened at Agua Prieta.” They were in one of the dusky little adobe buildings in an unnamed village that Villa had commandeered for his headquarters.
“I don’t think you’ll regret it, General,” Strucker said. “The Americans no doubt will come after you, and when they do, your enemies here will be forced to fight them. American soldiers on Mexican soil will be intolerable. It will present you with a perfect opportunity.”
“You’ll be coming along with us, of course,” Villa announced.
“Into the United States?” Strucker said.
“Don’t you want to see how your money’s being spent?”
“Well, yes, but it puts me in a delicate position, you see. I am a German national. If something should happen, if I should be captured . . .”
“Surely you wouldn’t want to miss this,” Villa responded. “In fact, I’m gonna insist on it.”
Strucker was thoroughly nonplussed at this development, and felt suddenly sick to his stomach.
“Well, General,” he managed, “if you put it that way, I suppose I’ve got no choice. But afterward, I’d like to take my leave and go back to Germany. Will that be possible?”
“Certainly,” Villa said. “As a matter of fact, the train runs not far from Columbus. If you want to, get on it and go.”
“Where did you say?” Strucker asked.
“Columbus, New Mexico,” Villa told him. “It’s where I am going to attack the American army.”
“Why there?” Strucker had never heard of the place.
“Because they are there and I can beat them,” Villa said.
VILLA DIDN’T KNOW WHAT THE REACTION WOULD BE when he attacked the American outpost at Columbus but he didn’t think it could hurt anything. After all, it was a small outpost and he figured he’d have no trouble overrunning it. If the Americans reacted by crossing over the border as Strucker predicted, then Villa was pretty sure, like the German said, Carranza’s government would have no choice but to fight them, buying Villa time against Carranza fighting him. If they didn’t, nothing much would be lost anyway and he still had the German gold in the bank.
Finally, after supper, he summoned Mick Martin for an audience.
“So now what’s this about those children?” he inquired.
“I came at the behest of their family. I’m an attorney and I want to negotiate for their release.”
“Negotiate?” Villa snapped. “I don’t negotiate, I dictate. Do you have the million dollars?”
“Well, no, frankly,” Mick said. “We think that’s excessive.”
“I don’t give a damn what you think. I set the price and expect it to be paid.”
“The children’s family don’t have a million dollars.”
“Do you actually want me to believe that?” Villa retorted.
“It’s the truth,” Mick said. “I didn’t believe it at first when I heard it, either.”
“Then maybe it’s not the truth,” Villa said. “This Colonel Shaughnessy, he owns an American railroad, doesn’t he, as well as the property he stole from us down here?”
“The railroad is broke,” Mick told him. “So is the Colonel.”
“That’s his problem. I just want the money for keeping these children safe. I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to make sure nothing happens to them.”
“May I see them?” Mick asked.
“No,” Villa replied. “It might upset them.” Actually, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do with the children. He’d promised Katherine they’d be let go if he got his gold and won the battle at Agua Prieta, but only half of that had come true. It wouldn’t hurt, he thought, to keep them a little longer and see what developed.
“General Villa, I don’t like saying this, but that’s hatefully cruel,” Mick said. “I’ve known those kids since they were babies. They’d welcome seeing me.”
“Don’t you tell me about cruel!” Villa shouted. “That’s all you stinking gringos seem to talk about. You ruined my attack on Agua Prieta and much of my army is dead on the field! And by the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you, isn’t that plane you came in the same one that those people used to attack me back in that valley?” Someone had told Villa that a red plane had been seen in the vicinity before the aborted rescue mission.
“I don’t know about that,” Mick said. “I chartered it in El Paso.”
“You’re a liar!” Villa growled. “My men tell me it’s the same one. They saw it.”
“Like I said, General—”
“How many red flying machines are there in this part of the country?” Villa asked angrily. “I don’t like being lied at by some goddamn Philadelphia lawyer.”
“I told you, General, I don’t know. And I’m from Boston.” This was not going at all as Mick had planned. In the dozens of kidnap negotiations he’d been involved with, the atmosphere had at least been civil. Villa hadn’t even invited him to sit down.
Just then Fierro entered the room, glowering and sour-faced. It had been his men who’d borne the brunt of the battle losses. He sulked in the shadows of a corner, leaning against the wall.
“I have raised fifty thousand dollars for the release of the children,” Mick stated.
Villa choked out a malevolent laugh and spat on the floor. “You people take me for a joke. First you betray me by letting that swine Obregón bring his troops across your country to thwart me, then you turn your searchlights on helpless soldiers, sending them to their deaths! I would rather lose to a Chinaman than to that traitor Obregón!” he added.
“General, I don’t understand why I’m being blamed—”
“Shut up!” Villa shouted. “And now you come and insult me with a handful of centavos and expect me to do what you want. Well, I won’t.” He turned to Fierro.
“General, lock this son-of-a-bitch up until I can decide what to do with him.”
Fierro stuck his head out the door and said something to one of the guards. A few moments later four soldiers came into the room and marched Mick Martin outside.
“What do you think I should do with that gringo?” Villa asked Fierro. He was having another of his headaches and his mood was pitch-black.
“Do you think he brought the fifty thousand with him?” Fierro asked sensibly.
“How would I know? Have your men searched his baggage?”
“Suppose he did?” Fierro asked.
“Then take the money and distribute it to the men. As for him, I don’t care what happens. Use your own judgment. He’s no friend of ours.”
VILLA’S ARMY WAS ON THE MOVE AT FIRST LIGHT and two days later were poised in a little village called Los Palomas, only a stone’s throw from Columbus. They were just a day’s march from El Paso, too, where Pershing kept a good portion of the twenty thousand troops he commanded. But at Columbus there was only a small garrison.
When Bierce found out Villa was planning to kill Americans, it was too much for the old Civil War soldier. He approached Villa in his headquarters tent.
“General, I’m an old man and I’ve seen a lot in my life, including killing on a scale that is probably unimaginable to you. After that I devoted my entire life to making idiots feel uncomfortable. Therefore I feel perfectly secure in telling you that what you are contemplating is the most idiotic thing I have ever heard of. Not only that, it is sinful, wicked, and unlawful.”
Bierce was poised to go on, but Villa cut him off. Like a fire that had been creeping up behind walls and beneath floors, Villa’s rage suddenly exploded in full fury.
“That will be enough from you, Señor Robinson! You’ve spoken your last criticism of me. If you have a wish for death, consider it fulfilled.”
Vill
a ordered the guards to arrest Bierce on the spot, and hold him until a firing squad could be organized. Even as he made his decision, Villa felt a rare tinge of remorse. In a way, he actually had become fond of the old buzzard and was going to miss having him around.
When Reed found out what had happened, he immediately went to Bierce, who was seated on a bench in a small adobe house guarded by two soldiers.
“You’ve got to apologize,” Reed told him.
“I won’t do it. He’s wrong and he knows it.”
“What does it matter?” Reed countered. “He’ll shoot you, you know.”
“I expect he will.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?’
“Of course it does. Nobody likes to die,” Bierce told him.
“Then why not apologize?”
“Because I’m right.”
“So, what,” Reed exclaimed. “are you doing this merely out of pride?”
“Principle,” Bierce informed him. He had clenched his jaws and pursed his lips so that he looked like he had just eaten something sour.
“Please,” Reed pleaded, “don’t do this.”
Bierce said nothing in reply. So far he’d enjoyed most of his adventure with Villa, but the notion of being any part of killing Americans was the end of it, as far as he was concerned. He could apologize, as Reed suggested, and maybe Villa would let him go off to America. But he didn’t want to do that. He’d left America for good, and there wasn’t any other place he wanted to go; he’d already been just about everywhere else. Plus there was the fact that he’d never apologized to anyone in his life and didn’t want to start now, just because he was about to be shot.
Lieutenant Crucia was chosen to command the firing squad. He came to see Bierce.