El Paso: A Novel (29 page)

“You’re sick, you’re crazy,” Xenia told him. It was all she could do to keep from shouting, even from scratching his eyes. No, nothing could make it right. Mick, the man of action—but that’s all he was, with none of Arthur’s refinement or decency.

He began to weep inconsolably. She sat and watched him for a long time until he finally sobbed himself out.

Xenia made the decision. She would keep this thing to herself. Even if Arthur believed her, and she knew he probably would, the impact it would have upon them all could be devastating. And, worse, she decided it had been her fault, too. She’d had no business to go for drinks with him, let alone get talked into going up to his room. That was why there were rules, and she had broken them.

Finally, when Mick was reduced to quiet little choking noises and trying to struggle to his feet, Xenia shook her head sadly and spoke. “You have always been a friend to Arthur, Mick. And he cares for you. So he isn’t going to hear of what happened from my lips, because it might well ruin all our lives, if it hasn’t already. But I don’t wish to ever see you again. I hope you understand that.”

“I have always considered you and Arthur my family,” he said.

“Arthur and I have our own family.” There was a cold composure in her eyes.

Mick seemed finally to understand. He rose and took his hat and looked at her for a long moment. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I think I’m beginning to see, and I’m very sorry.”

She looked away until she heard the door close. I hate myself, she thought, as she heard his car start up and drive away. It’s my fault, too, and I hate myself . . . She sat in the parlor, where the sun streamed in through the windows, for such a long time that the downstairs maid finally knocked on the door to see if she was all right. She wasn’t. This was a scourge that would not wash away, at least not that she could foresee—it was an indelible stain on her whole being.

ARTHUR REACTED WITH A STEELY ANGER
that he’d never felt in his life. He’d tried to interrupt several times to clarify some point that Xenia had told him, but she had waved him off until she got the whole story out. There was so much to take in, Arthur could barely comprehend it, but two things above all were clear: his best friend had raped his wife and left her to bear his child.

He fought to control his outrage.

“Does he know?” he said finally.

“No, not about the baby,” she replied.

“Do you . . . are you going to . . . ?”

“I can’t see anything else,” she said.

“Well, there are people who can do things . . . ?”

“I’ve considered that. It isn’t right, I’ve thought about it long and hard.”

“I’ll agree to what you say,” he told her, “but he must be dealt with, too. I will see to it.”

“That’s something I’ve also thought about,” she told him, “and the best thing is to let it go.”

“Leave it!” Arthur cried, rising, fists clenched. “He’s a brute and a coward, and if it’s the last thing I do on this earth I will make him pay for what he’s done to you.”

“I knew that’s how you’d feel,” she said, “but I think when you’ve had time to consider it, you will see it more my way.”

“But what of this baby?” he said. “Every time we look at it, we’ll think of this.” He felt suddenly ashamed of saying that.

“No,” Xenia told him. “We can’t let that happen. It certainly was not the baby’s fault. We can’t put it in an orphanage.”

“No, not that, never.” Arthur’s stomach was in knots and he felt light-headed and sickened, and had to sit down. He felt he must stay with Xenia now and not go on the Colonel’s cattle drive, but how could he ever explain that to his father without the whole story? Xenia must have sensed what he was feeling, because she came to him and put her hands on his shoulders.

“So when do we go to this country place?” she asked.

“Today, in a little while,” Arthur said. “They’ll get your things together. Bomba will drive all of you there. He’ll stay with you.”

“Well, you, my darling, take care,” Xenia said tenderly, “and come back soon and get us.” She kissed him on his forehead. “Because you are truly the only love of my life.” She meant it now, more than ever.

TWENTY-NINE

A
mbrose Bierce sat in the shade of a willow tree writing in a tablet of stationery, tired and a little cranky after a lunch of cold beans and tortillas—what he wouldn’t have paid for a fresh ham sandwich on hot rye bread with mustard, Swiss cheese, and a glass of sweet milk. Instead he’d dutifully scooped up a portion of the beans from the pot in Villa’s mess area and washed them down with a cup of stale, tepid coffee.

Villa’s headquarters camp had become nearly deserted now except for some mess cooks and a few other flunkies. Everybody else was down where the fighting continued, and which Bierce could see fairly well from his position under the tree on the slope of a hill. The dull thud of artillery fire rumbled continuously back toward him and he could see soldiers moving in the smoky din, like ants whose hill had been disturbed. Bierce still could not get used to the constant staccato rattle of machine gun fire. If they had had those things back in ’63, he thought, well . . . what? The very notion of it made him shudder. There were also numerous loud booms he couldn’t account for; it wasn’t artillery; maybe they were using some kind of bomb.

The fighting had been going on for nearly seven hours, and from what Bierce could tell from his vantage point, the issue from Villa’s point of view was in doubt:

You might not believe this
[Bierce wrote Miss Christian],
but General Pancho Villa postponed the Battle of Chihuahua City until after sunrise this morning in order to have himself filmed by an American moving picture crew, leading the charge. His army attacked the well-fortified presidio and from what I can see, with little success. They have continued attacking it all day with artillery and infantry charges and mortars. A few chunks have been blown away but the Federals seem to be no worse for wear. The enemy have constructed trenches and barbed wire like they do in the European War and the toll Villa is taking from their machine guns must be terrible. I can see dead horses scattered all over the battlefield.

The general opened the battle with what one of his lieutenants described variously as “the sombrero gambit,” or “the Mexican hat trick.” During the night he had thousands of his soldiers remove their sombreros and spread them on a hillside. From the city it would look to the enemy like thousands of Villa’s troops were massed there for attack. From here, however, it looked like the hillside was full of toadstools. Unfortunately it did not work. Down below I saw several battalions who appeared to be re-forming for another assault but, in fact, they turned out to have been made prisoners.

He might be having more luck on the western side of town; you can hear heavy rifle fire from there and at least some of his soldiers seem to have gotten into the city streets. There has been a steady line of wounded, walking and otherwise, returning from the outskirts of the city. These are being attended at his hospital train. I went to it a while ago and was struck by the gore. Many men had arms and legs missing—horrible wounds. I was told the Federal troops are using some kind of explosives against them. I did not join in this attack as I feel I am too old for such things. Besides, I have a panoramic view of it from here.

As I write, a battery of artillery is being moved across my front toward the west, which seems like the best area to concentrate if Villa is to reduce the city. There is much activity all along the outskirts but difficult to tell exactly what is happening there. I wish I had a pair of binoculars or a spyglass.

Villa himself is somewhere down in the thing. I haven’t seen him since dawn but he must be all right since an orderly rode up a while ago and rummaged in his tent for some cigars to take to him. A young reporter for the New York World named Reed is down there too. He’s nice enough but just another dunderhead who believes all this is being done in the name of
humanity
.

Bierce stopped writing for a moment and put down his tablet. An entourage came riding up the slope toward him and he recognized the bull-like figure of Villa in the lead. Behind him were several officers plus the moving-picture crew. As they reached the field headquarters, Bierce stood up to greet them.

“Well, General, how is it going?” Bierce asked. Villa’s khaki shirt was drenched in sweat and his face was grimy. He seemed weary, too.

“Tough fight, Señor Robinson,” the general said. “I figured they’d run away, but so far they haven’t.” He went to a large
olla
filled with water and dipped out a ladelful. “Pepe,” he said to one of the cooks, “fix me some lemonade.”

“I thought I saw some of your people have gotten inside the town,” Bierce said. “Any success?”

“A little. Those stinking Federales are throwing dynamite sticks at them.” Villa took off his hat and plopped down in a folding camp chair. The film crew began setting up the camera to shoot more footage.

“When do you think the outcome will be known?” Bierce asked.

“Can’t be too long,” the general replied. “My army has to eat sometime and rest, too. I think if it ain’t settled by tomorrow morning we better go off to fight again another day. It’s been a long war.”

“There’s much truth in that,” Bierce responded. “It’s a wonder you keep on doing it.” Bierce scratched himself, shifted his footing; he felt stiff and tired and old, suddenly wanting of a drink of whiskey.

“Oh, I know exactly why we keep on doing it,” Villa said, squinting at Bierce quite deliberately. It gave the old columnist an uncomfortable feeling. “Our government treats my people like donkeys.”

Bierce nodded, and the two men were locked in a somber gaze that might have been even more unsettling if Bierce had really known what Villa was thinking. In fact Villa was experiencing the onset of one of his famous rages. Some old gringo coming here and even hinting that they ought to give it up. He felt the rage well up, but took a breath and choked it back down. He liked the old man in spite of himself; otherwise he’d have killed him on the spot. He’d killed people for far less.

Villa remained civil; he went on: “I was born in this country, Señor Robinson. Far as I know, my people have lived here forever. But do you know who claims to own this state, a single state in Mexico, which is three times as big as Spain? Your Mr. Harrimans and Mr. Guggenheims, and Mr. Hearsts and Mr. Whitneys and Mr. Shaughnessys, and a lot of other rich gringos, as well as the stinking Spanish, that’s who. Tell me, what right do they have to own Mexico? Just because the crooks in Mexico City sold it to them for a handful of pesos? What right do any foreigners have being here? Even those
gachupín
?” He felt the fury again but restrained it.

“I’ll tell you how bad it is,” Villa continued. “Last year a delegation of Japanese came to see me, all the way up at Juárez, because I had the biggest army in Mexico at that time. Know what they wanted? They wanted me to sell
them
the Baja. Can you imagine it? Bunch of beady-eyed Japanese in top hats and striped pants. Offered ten million, in gold!”

“The Japanese want to buy the Baja Peninsula?” Bierce said. “Whatever for?”

“To keep a fleet there, I suppose,” Villa replied. “Set up a coaling station and resupply, or so they said. Does everybody in the world think this country is for sale?”

“Seems that way,” Bierce said cautiously.

“Can you imagine what you could do with this country after the revolution is won?” Villa had it already pictured: irrigation ditches for hundreds of miles—endless hectares of crops, mounds of fertilizer, corn, peppers, melons, tomatoes, instead of dust and scrub.

“Why, we might even raise bananas,” Villa suggested.

“Little dry for that, no?” Bierce noted, becoming more at ease.

Villa shrugged. He had it all laid out. “Our own prosperity, that’s what we’re fighting for, Señor Jack Robinson, and you Americanos would do well to understand it.”

“General, that’s nicely put,” Bierce said. He meant it, too. After all, his own country had fought a revolution a hundred and forty years earlier for more or less the same reasons, and crushed a rebellion eighty years after that. But this war was so much more confused than that, with all the factions. Villa’s people may have known what they were fighting for, but did they know who they were fighting? Friends became enemies, and enemies became friends, with such startling regularity that it was hard to keep straight.

“What if you lose this fight here, General?” Bierce asked. “Last year your army had over fifty thousand troops. Now you’re down to ten thousand. What’s next?”

“Do you know what the newspapers used to call me, Señor Robinson?” Villa said, ignoring the question and fixing him with a dark-eyed stare. He suddenly liked this old man for his courage.