El Paso

  Bob wasn’t sure what Arthur had meant, but the way he’d said it made Bob think it was something more than reading somebody else’s mail.

  Arthur suddenly wanted to blurt it all out, tell them about the rape, about Xenia carrying Mick’s child. All this time he had kept it to himself. He couldn’t tell the Colonel; he couldn’t tell anybody. But for a moment he thought that if he unburdened himself now, the secret would be kept with these two cowboys. In the end, though, he just kept quiet.

  “Well, it sounds like he’s got what he deserved, then,” Slim said.

  “I wouldn’t have wished that on him,” Arthur said after a pause.

  No, Arthur thought, Mick hadn’t deserved to die that way. Arthur would have rather done it himself. At least then there would have been a final understanding between them. He tried not to imagine Mick’s last, terrifying moments, but couldn’t help himself.

  “It’s an old Indian torture,” Bob told him. “Cut off a rattler’s tail and he’ll go crazy, bite anything.”

  After Arthur left Mick’s death cell, Bob had found the snake twisted onto itself in a corner, bled to death. It looked like it had been biting at pieces of wood. “I heard stories they used to do it as punishment for a man who offended another man’s wife,” Bob said. “Put him in a pit and then throw one of them things down there with him. They say they’d give the man a rock to defend himself, but the snake invariably won.”

  Actually, Bob had made up the part of the story about the other man’s wife, thinking it might make Arthur feel better.

  “Whatever else, he came here to help me,” Arthur said wearily. “And got killed for it.” Arthur remembered when Mick had come to his defense at Groton. He’d asked nothing for it. He’d done it out of friendship, and then the friendship grew even stronger. Arthur had often told him whatever he had was his.

  “He must’ve done somethin’ to piss Villa off bad,” Slim said. “Villa’s a killer, but I’ve never known him to do it without a reason, even if it’s a bad one.”

  “Unless he’s just decided to start killing Americans,” Bob told him. “In Villa’s book, that could be reason enough.”

  “Let’s hope not,” Arthur said. He knew they couldn’t just keep shadowing Villa forever, and the graves behind them told him negotiation wasn’t going to work, either. Night had come, and Venus was outshining everything in heaven. “Either of you know what day this is?” Arthur asked.

  “Yeah, it must be Sunday,” Slim said. “All them Mexican’s was in church.”

  “You’re wrong,” Arthur told them. “For what it’s worth, it’s Christmas Eve.”

  Arthur went to sleep and dreamed a familiar dream, one of a dark reverie wrought of frustration and visions of killing Pancho Villa. He woke briefly and saw the glowing sparks from the fire wafting into the dark desert night. He slept again, and dreamed again, this time of himself roped to a boulder in the canyon where the bullfight had taken place, and what he heard was his own maddening screams echoing down the endless canyon walls.

  JOHN REED WAS NO LONGER WITH VILLA’S ENTOURAGE. After the Columbus raid and the death of the old man Robinson, he said his good-byes and headed for the border. His heart wasn’t in it anymore, at least not with Villa’s army.

  Before he left, he said to Villa, “General, I’m close to home now and I think my work is done. I’d like your permission to move on.”

  “Is it because of Señor Robinson?” Villa asked.

  “Partly,” he said evasively. “But I think my publishers will want me to start writing my story now. I’ve been out of touch for a long time.”

  “Will you write nice things about me?” Villa asked.

  “I’ve seen nothing to move me otherwise,” Reed told him, knowing full well that was only partly true.

  “What do you suppose is going to happen to us?” Villa asked.

  “Why, I don’t know,” Reed said, unprepared for such a question.

  “Well, my army has just about evaporated. Carranza has fifty thousand men at his disposal to hunt me down, and I suppose the American army will march on me, too.”

  “I don’t understand why you attacked Columbus,” Reed said. “Was it because of Strucker, or because of what the Americans did at Agua Prieta?”

  “A little of all that,” Villa replied. “You see, Mexico is a strange place. The things we do don’t always make sense to you Americanos, but that’s not the important thing. The important thing is that they make sense to us.”

  “And attacking Columbus made sense to you?”

  “It did at the time,” Villa told him, with a pithiness that Reed never forgot. “The difference between you and us, Señor Reed, is that you are just playing with all this, and we are living it.”

  KATHERINE KNEW WHAT DAY IT WAS. Christmas morning she presented Tom Mix with a gift she’d been working on.

  From some of the worn out clothing she’d won from Villa in the chess matches, Katherine selected four colored squares—blue, red, green, and white—that she stitched together into a neckerchief, which she understood as an ascot. On the white square she’d embroidered “Tom Mix” with red thread.

  “Every time you ask me what day it is, I get embarrassed,” Mix complained sheepishly. “Birthdays, Christmases, and I never have any present to give you back.”

  Mix was delighted with the neckerchief and put it on then and there.

  Afterward, he sneaked off to see Villa.

  “Did you know this was Christmas, Chief?”

  “Well, what is that to me?” Villa grumbled. He’d been feeling blue about killing Robinson, and about Reed’s leaving, too—and even about Strucker’s bad luck. Worse, last night he believed he’d seen Sanchez’s ghost again, out in the desert. As he was squinting at it just before it disappeared, it seemed for a moment to transform itself into Robinson. He’d had Sanchez hung at Christmastime.

  “What I mean,” Mix went on, “is the children. I expect they’ll be missing their mama and papa, and I just thought we might do something for them.”

  “Like what?” Villa asked.

  “A piñata,”

  “A piñata?” Villa asked. “Where in hell would we get a piñata?”

  “Make one,” Mix told him. “We’ve got some big water ollas in the wagons. We could use one of those for the piñata. And the men, I mean, I guess everybody might put something in it, just a little things, to fill it up. If they wanted to.”

  Villa digested this suggestion. “Okay, Capitán Mix, have your piñata. Tell everybody I said so; that might make your gift-collecting a little easier.”

  SIXTY-NINE

  The chilly, open desert felt refreshing to Xenia after being cooped up in El Paso all this time. She’d hired a big convertible Oldsmobile motorcar to accompany Pershing’s expedition into Mexico. The general had been warm and understanding when she went to him after her conversation with Patton. He told her that she must keep out of harm’s way, but that he was confident his army was quite strong enough to protect her.

  They were deep into Chihuahua by now, and Xenia was thinking of the children and wondering what, if anything, they were doing for Christmas. She longed for them to all be back home and out of this terrible place, with a blazing fire, a tree, gifts, a fat Christmas turkey, and Katherine singing and playing for them. Of course, for all she knew, they might be on their way to El Paso with Mick at this very moment, but deep down she doubted it.

  That afternoon the expedition was following south along the railroad tracks and sending scouting parties to the east and west. When they stopped for a short break, Xenia noticed Patton standing beside his Packard, a polished boot up on the running board as he stared pensively at the sky.

  “Are you thinking of home, too, Lieutenant Patton?” Xenia asked.

  “No, ma’am, I’m thinking about catching that shameless bandit and punishing him.”

  “Doesn’t the army permit you to think about home on Christmas Day?” she asked.

  “It does, but I won’
t. First, it doesn’t do any good, and second, I don’t want to. It distracts me.”

  Just then a rider appeared and galloped up to them. The rider was a staff sergeant.

  “Lieutenant, some of our scouts saw a band of men that might be Villa.”

  “Where?” Patton cried. “Somebody get the maps out!”

  “It’s not too far from here,” the sergeant said. “About eight or ten miles.” He got down from his horse and looked at the maps Patton had ordered spread out on the hood of his Packard.

  “You see this road that we’re on?” the sergeant said. “Well, if we take it and turn off down this other road here, there’s this little rise. But there’s a river here, you see. The scouts spotted them on the other side of the river.”

  “How many men?”

  “They counted about twenty, maybe twenty-five,” the sergeant told him.

  “That’s all?”

  “Yessir. That’s all they could see. One of them Mexicans we’ve got with us looked through a spyglass and thought he recognized Pancho Villa.”

  “Well, let’s get going!” Patton said. “There’s no time for horses, pile everybody into these cars.” He turned to Xenia. “Ma’am, I’m going to have to commandeer your automobile,” he said. “We need all the transportation we can get.”

  “As long as I’m in it, as well,” Xenia replied.

  “Now, Mrs. Shaughnessy—Xenia,” Patton said. “That wasn’t your agreement with General Pershing. He said to keep you strictly out of harm’s way.”

  “I won’t be in harm’s way, Lieutenant Patton,” she told him calmly. “I’ll be with you.”

  “Ma’am, please!” But Xenia opened the car door, stepped into the backseat, and sat with arms folded, chin high, looking forward.

  “Oh, to hell with it,” Patton muttered. “Some of you men come and get in this automobile.” They started out in a westwardly direction, with Patton riding on the running board and holding on to the windshield. After about five miles they were out of the desert and on some rolling plains where stands of trees began to appear and the land was covered in waving sedge grass.

  EARLIER THAT MORNING Arthur ran fresh out of patience. He’d discussed his decision with his father and the others after they’d come into the camp with Henry Flipper in the lead. It had been nearly a week and both the Colonel and Johnny Ollas had recuperated enough to be on horseback, though Johnny had to be strapped into his saddle. Riding was painful, but little more so than bouncing around in the back of Ah Dong’s infernal wagon. Ah Dong had made crutches for both of them so they could hobble around.

  “We can’t keep on following him all over Mexico,” Arthur said. “I’m going to make my move.”

  He told them he was going to ride ahead with Bob and Slim and confront Villa personally, and alone.

  “Not so long as I can still sit a horse,” the Colonel told him. “I’ve come too far and been through too much to squat on the sidelines now.” Johnny Ollas insisted on coming, too. “It’s my wife,” he told Arthur. By the time it was over, all of them said they were going—even Flipper, who, against his better judgment, refused to be left behind. By late afternoon, they had caught up with Villa’s party, who had camped in a grove of trees.

  Some kind of celebration was in progress. Through his field glasses Arthur could see that they had strung a large object from a tree branch and somebody was swatting at it clumsily with a stick. From the distance faint sounds of laughter wafted back toward them. Arthur motioned them forward at a slow, even pace so they wouldn’t be taken for attackers.

  TIMMY HAD BEEN SWATTING AT THE PIÑATA for nearly ten minutes, blindfolded, as was the Mexican custom. He’d only hit it once or twice, and it remained intact. When it was Katherine’s turn she, too, stumbled around swiping thin air, but finally with a lucky strike whacked it solid, and the piñata burst open, showering them with the little gifts Tom Mix had collected from the men. There wasn’t much of real value, but everybody had contributed something. There were centavo coins and some little paper Mexican flags, and someone had even thrown in some used pencils.

  There was a faded picture of a soldier and his wife, and a pair of shoelaces, and some brass cartridge casings that had been hammered into tiny candlesticks, as if for an altar. Also a number of good-luck charms—rabbits’ feet, bear claws, buckeyes, and other jujus. Someone had coughed up a tooled leather belt, and the mess men had baked a lot of cookies and cakes, in fact used up nearly all their sugar. Villa himself had even whittled a couple of his little wooden animals, one in the shape of the jaguar that Katherine had had her run-in with. He’d also considered carving a gila monster but thought better of it.

  The soldiers surrounded Katherine and Timmy, laughing and drinking coffee, and pointing as they examined their tender treasures being found. There were more smiles than anyone had seen in months. Just then came a cry from one of the guards.

  “Vaqueros!”

  They all turned toward the party of people riding slowly toward them. Villa thought he recognized the woman who hobbled behind on foot. As they got closer, he recognized Johnny Ollas, too, minus a leg. He shook his head. Who was going to turn up next—that old gringo Jack Robinson? Villa’s men had mounted and now rode out to the edge of the woods to meet them, rifles at the ready.

  Arthur had put on his most somber expression and his mood matched it. Far as he was concerned, it had come down to live or die. Mick’s death still lay heavily upon him. It was as if, by dying to help save Arthur’s children, Mick had somehow cheated him out of vengeance. Arthur no longer felt angry with Mick; he didn’t feel sorrow, either; instead there was just an awful sad weight that nagged in his mind.

  “Buenas tardes,” Villa said. Katherine had a pincer grip on her brother’s arm to keep him from shouting out. She wasn’t sure what the plan was, but didn’t want to spoil anything.

  “I recognize Señor Ollas here,” Villa said. “I’m glad he survived his ordeal. And I’m surprised to see old Bob, and Slim, too, as well as this woman. So I suppose I can guess you must be Shaughnessy.”

  “That would be me. I am Arthur Shaughnessy, and I’ve come for my children.”

  “Then I expect you have come here to kill me, huh?” Villa’s eyes were narrowed. A little smile began to curl beneath his mustache, but his hands remained by his sides.

  “Whoever says that is a liar,” Arthur said.

  “I believe it is so,” the general replied.

  “Why?”

  “Because everybody says it is so. They believe that you were responsible for the attack on my headquarters back at Reyes.”

  “Do you always believe what everybody says?” Arthur asked. He leaned back in the saddle and crooked his leg over the pommel so that he was sitting brazenly and impertinently, almost sidesaddle.

  “Of course I do,” Villa answered. He spat on the ground.

  “Well, General,” Arthur continued, “do you always believe what everybody says about you?

  “What do they say about me?”

  “That you’re a lying, thieving, kidnapping, no-good son-of-a-bitch.”

  Villa looked puzzled for a moment. He squinted even harder and turned his head slightly to the left, as though he hadn’t heard correctly. From the blue sky behind Pancho Villa, unexpectedly there emerged a small butterfly that fluttered about his hat. It was a white-darted yellowheart, an extremely rare species Arthur had seen in picture books but had not yet collected, or even seen. In fact, the only known collected specimen had been lost in a fire.

  “They say this about me?” the general asked.

  “I’m saying it,” Arthur replied, and with an almost noiseless motion, so deft and smooth and sudden even the ferocious Fierro did not detect it in time, Arthur whipped his revolver out of its holster so that in a flash it was cocked and leveled at Pancho Villa.

  “And,” Arthur continued, “if you don’t return my children right now, I’ll blow your greasy head off.”

  Villa looked as though his feel
ings were hurt. Behind them, Colonel Shaughnessy cleared his throat, plainly not approving of the way the conversation was developing.

  Villa looked back at his men, who had by this time raised up their weapons. Then he turned to Fierro and asked something in Spanish.

  “Greasy,” the butcher replied. “You know—greasy.” He tapped his head. “He called you ‘greasy,’” Fierro said.

  Pancho Villa began to scowl and turned icily on Arthur’s little band. “I wasn’t sure I heard you right,” he told Arthur.

  The white-darted yellowheart butterfly continued to flit around Villa’s head, rare and beautiful as the Hope diamond. Arthur couldn’t help imagining how impressive it would look pinned in a special case in his collection on the wall of his study back in Boston, and the thought of a net fleetingly crossed his mind. At almost the same moment an irony occurred to him: that he was actually in one of those famous Mexican standoffs he’d read about.

  “I apologize for any offense,” Arthur said. “I just want my children back.”

  Villa couldn’t tell exactly where this was headed. Of course, his men could blow Arthur to rags, but he doubted they could do it before Arthur put a hole through him first.

  “You sent a man to negotiate a ransom,” Villa said.

  “And you murdered him in a despicable way.”

  “So why can’t you and I negotiate something? Just us two parties.”

  “I’m negotiating right now,” Arthur said. “Your life for my children. Take your pick.”

  He was hoping Villa would blink, but it occurred to him they could also stay here all night and somebody would get tired or mad and call his bluff.

  But Villa saw something in Arthur Shaughnessy’s eyes he didn’t like, and the way the words rolled off Arthur’s tongue sent chilling reverberations through his body.

  “I don’t like holding people’s children,” Villa informed him. “I’d much rather go for bigger game.”

  “What might that be?”

  “You.”

  “Why? I don’t have any money.”