El Paso: A Novel (30 page)

“The Centaur. The Centaur of the North,” Villa said magisterially. “Well, maybe I won’t be a centaur anymore, huh? Maybe I’ll just be a horsefly. But I tell you this, señor, I’ll be the most annoying horsefly ever.”

THIRTY

T
hey had been on the move for nearly eighteen hours, but the last of the gigantic herd was probably just leaving Valle del Sol property, twenty miles back. Still, Shaughnessy was relieved because they were now beyond and to the west of Chihuahua City and were so far unmolested by Pancho Villa.

“Look at that!” the Colonel exclaimed. He was seated on a camp stool beside Arthur, next to the chuckwagon, where Ah Dong was boiling coffee and frying bacon and hotcakes in big pans over an open fire. While other crews of cowboys continued north with the herd, some had stopped to eat breakfast. In the east, the aurora of a new day’s sun glowed golden behind the mountains, while all around were the grunts and lowings of tens of thousands of cattle. The Colonel had just remarked on a lone rider who was slowly approaching their front.

Even in the dim light, the Colonel made out that he was probably not a Mexican. He didn’t dress like one, anyway. He was wearing a brown duster and a gray western hat creased in the middle.

“Wonder what he wants out here this time of day,” the Colonel said suspiciously.

Arthur gave no reply. He still seethed from Xenia’s revelations, yet despite the horrible story she’d told, he felt at least a slight relief that the disquietude she’d shown over the past couple of months was due to that, and not from any deeper problem she had with their marriage.

The horseman finally reached the camp of the Colonel’s band of drovers. “Mornin’,” he said.

“Mornin’,” the Colonel responded. “Are you just out for an early ride?”

“You might put it that way. I been over to Chihuahua City, where it got a little hot, so I decided to move on.”

“The fighting, you mean?” asked the Colonel, taking note that the man was dressed like a cowboy. He was about forty years old and rawboned, with a shock of blond hair, deep brown eyes, and a nose like a squash. Beneath the duster he had on a red flannel shirt with flaps that buttoned across his chest.

“Like I said, it got a little hot.”

“Who’s winning?”

“Couldn’t tell. Villa got there two days ago and that’s when I skedaddled—before the shooting started. You fixing to take them cows up north?” he said, eyeing the seemingly endless stream of cattle.

“And who might you be, stranger?” the Colonel asked, still wary of a lone rider way out on the range.

“Name most people call me is Cowboy Bob.”

“Where you from?”

“Amarillo, originally. I hang around El Paso now.”

“Are you down here on vacation or something?” queried the Colonel.

Cowboy Bob eyed the breakfast hungrily. “No, sir. You see, I’m kind of a guide. I brought a man from El Paso that said he wanted to meet Pancho Villa.”

“You know Villa?” said the Colonel.

“Yep. Knowed him for years.”

“You see a young woman with him? He kidnapped the wife of one of my ranch hands.”

“Nope,” said Cowboy Bob. “But I was only there one night. I just delivered this old guy to him and cut out. With Villa, it ain’t smart to hang around long. Somethin’ unfortunate might happen.”

“This person you ‘delivered’ to Villa,” Shaughnessy asked, “what of him?”

“Said his name was Jack Robinson, is all I know,” said Cowboy Bob. Talked about havin’ been in the Civil War. Prob’ly was, too. He must’ve been seventy years old. Had a kind of nasty wit about him, like he’s mad at everything.”

“You’re a guide, you say? You know your way around this territory, do you?” asked the Colonel.

“Not nearly like I do Texas. I runned a lot a herds in Texas.”

Arthur wondered about this cowboy. He was smooth enough that he might actually be working for Villa; after all, what would be more cagey than to send out a gringo scout? He kept his thoughts to himself, however.

“Tell you what,” said the Colonel. “Why don’t you get down and have some coffee and breakfast? If you’re headed back to Texas, you can sign on with me, ’cause that’s where I’m taking these cows.”

“Thank you kindly,” Cowboy Bob said, dismounting. “If you’re going to Texas, you are headed in the right direction. That’s a damn good-size herd, from what I can see here. How many head?”

“Don’t know exactly,” replied the Colonel, “but I expect it goes back fifteen, twenty miles or more.”

“Huh?” said Cowboy Bob, “fifteen miles, that’s—”

“Like I said,” interrupted the Colonel, “we’re taking these cows to El Paso, Texas.”

THEY HAD BEEN ON THE TRAIL FOR SEVEN DAYS
and Cowboy Bob had proven himself valuable to the expedition, scouting and reconnoitering. The Colonel and Arthur found him good company, as well. They had plotted a route along the Santa Clara River as far as it went, so as to water the cattle. To ensure speed, the Colonel had decreed there was to be no rounding up of single strays, but he knew the pace of the drive would leave the cows thirsty. By midmorning they ran out of river and reached the outskirts of the Great Chihuahuan Desert.

Along the river route, they had passed by any number of villages. Arthur marveled that despite their distressing poverty, practically every one seemed to be holding or had recently held some sort of fiesta.

“Any excuse to keep from work,” the Colonel said when Arthur commented on this.

“I’ve never seen people so poor,” Arthur said. “It’s enough to turn you into a socialist.”

“Don’t say that even in jest,” reprimanded the Colonel.

Arthur tried to let the matter drop. He didn’t want to get his father started on Roosevelt again, “the traitor to his class.”

The Colonel, long ago, had decided that the world had begun to unravel when Carnegie started giving away all his money. Now just look at things: dynamite bombs set off everywhere by labor unions; some Americans actually voting for Marxists; anarchists killing off the kings of Europe; then an unimaginable war in Europe, and even the Congress supporting an income tax.

“Your grandchildren will probably wind up in the poorhouse,” the Colonel predicted, but Arthur didn’t rise to the bait.

The sun had risen high, and his father wiped a bit of sweat from his brow. Arthur knew the Colonel had the perfect motto, if the Shaugnesseys had a family crest—which, being descended from bog Irish, of course they did not:
Fidas Non Virum
. Trust No Man.

SEVERAL DAYS LATER THEY BEGAN ENTERING
the bleak scrub country: creosote bush, mesquite, crucifixion thorn, and all variety of cacti. In the distance to both east and west were the two chains of sierras, which were too far away to see even in the clear desert air.

On the edge of this vast wasteland, Cowboy Bob suggested that they reshape the drive into one huge and continuous line about ten miles across and two miles deep. This, he argued, would get them across the desert faster, which was important because, with the scantiness of water, thirst would become a problem. The Colonel liked the idea and began giving orders to his drovers.

As night fell on the fifteenth day, there came a sinister grumbling of thunder from the west. The sky turned gray and blotted out the stars. It was a surprise to everyone, as rain was rare on this high plateau, nearly a mile elevated.

Arthur was seated on a log somebody had drawn up to the fire, with a cup of Ah Dong’s mutton stew in his lap. The Colonel had spied a Mexican desert sheep and dispatched it with his custom-made 30.06 rifle. Some of the cowboys were telling stories of the desert—of venomous reptiles; horses, cattle, and men going mad with thirst—but Arthur’s thoughts were far away.

He’d said his good-byes to his mother, Xenia, and the children at the hacienda while Bomba was loading their luggage into one of the big Packard convertibles. It hadn’t been a scary or awkward parting, but there was a sense of danger, of uneasiness in the air, at least for Arthur. The women and children trusted him, trusted the Colonel, that they were all doing the right thing, but shadowy premonitions had gnawed at Arthur ever since they’d left Valle del Sol.

He missed his beautiful blond Katherine, with her bright smile and sparkling blue eyes and merry laugh, and Timmy, who was growing into a perfect gentleman, kind, respected, and smart, even though the Colonel thought he was pampered and didn’t hesitate to say so.

The appalling insult by Mick Martin came back to him all too often; whenever it did, Arthur shivered. He knew he was no match for Mick physically, but there were equalizers such as guns—or lead pipes, if it came to that. Xenia had been right about one thing: it would do no good to press charges. Courts required corroborating evidence in rape, and in this case there was none except, of course, the baby—but who could prove it, and the scandal would leave no one unstained. So the hate in Arthur simmered, pushing out other thoughts, and he sat on his log eating his stew meanly and trying to keep his emotions under control.

As a nightcap, right before he was about to turn in, Arthur had just polished off a tin cup of his father’s brandy when the skies above suddenly began to light up with blinding flashes of lightning. The acute smell of ozone and a chill rose simultaneously in the desert air, and huge claps of rolling thunder exploded all around them. Some of the cowboys muttered apprehensively to each other that there was no place here to hide. Some went to their saddles for rain gear; others looked to their horses. There were restless sounds from the herd.

The first raindrops were tiny, stinging, then hail began to fall. By the light of the campfire Arthur saw hailstones the size of a golf balls bounce on the sandy ground. Then one the size of an orange landed directly in the fire, which exploded and hissed and sparked. Colonel Shaughnessy had turned in early in the back of his personal wagon, where they had set up a sort of bedroom cabin for him. He emerged from this only to be conked on the head by a baseball-sized hailstone that left a deep gash in his scalp.

Arthur dived under the chuckwagon along with a dozen other drovers; the rest were left to fend for themselves. Men knelt like ostriches, covering their heads, trying to expose as little of their bodies as possible.

One attempted to hide under his horse but was trampled when a hailstone hit the animal. Arthur saw some hailstones roll into view that were the size of actual grapefruits. Out in the darkness, the cattle were being struck, too, and frenzied shrieks and bellows rose up from the herd.

Then, quick as the storm fell, it ended. Only a light drizzle lingered, and bewildered men began to come out from what few hiding places they had found, or simply rose up from the ground where they had lain, pelted, covering their heads with their hands or saddles. People attended to the prostrate bodies of two cowboys in the dim recesses of the campfire light. Arthur was wondering about the cattle when the Colonel appeared, blood running down his face from the cut.

“Good God,” he said. “What about the herd?” The ground as far as they could see was covered with thousands of hailstones; walking became nearly impossible—the hailstones had to be kicked out of the way. The canvas of the chuckwagon hung in tatters; the fire pit smoked and hissed with melting ice.

Cowboy Bob peered out from under one of the wagons, wild-eyed and wary-looking.

“Colonel, I didn’t hear no stampede, but there was so much noise, who knows? We’ll get a look soon as it lightens up a bit.”

Ah Dong, who had protected himself in the chuckwagon beneath wooden boxes of onions and peppers, examined the Colonel’s wound.

“You need salve,” he said, and struggled back to the wagon, where the medicine chest was kept.

“I thought it wasn’t supposed to rain in the desert this time of year,” Arthur muttered.

“Me, too,” the Colonel replied shakily.