El Paso: A Novel (37 page)

“You been there yourself?” the Colonel said.

“Lots of times,” Slim said. “But that don’t mean I know where Pancho is. Like I told you, that place is thousands of square miles and a maze of canyons. And there’s lots of dangers besides Pancho Villa.”

“But you might have some notion of where he is, though? What part he might have located himself in?”

“I might,” Slim said. “But it’s no guarantee.”

“Good,” said the Colonel. “You’re hired.”

“For what?”

“To join our expedition against Mr. Villa and redeem my grandchildren.”

“I didn’t mean it that way, sir,” Slim said. “I meant, what’s the pay?”

Arthur said, “You name it.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

A
rthur thought it might be the screwiest scheme he’d ever heard of, but what choice did they have? It turned out raising an army was not so easy as the Colonel had predicted. On the cattle drive they’d had more than seventy-five Mexican drovers from Valle del Sol, but almost to a man they declined the Colonel’s offer to go after Pancho Villa.

That afternoon Colonel Shaughnessy dispatched Cowboy Bob and Death Valley Slim with rolls of ten-dollar bills in their pockets. They went to dragoon the bars, whorehouses, stockyards, saloons, and flophouses of El Paso, offering a twenty-dollar sign-up bonus and ten dollars a day for any man willing to enlist in “Shaughnessy’s Partisan Rangers,” the name by which he had styled his expedition. If they were successful, the cost would be cheap at a thousand times the price.

Unfortunately, what turned up next morning was unsatisfactory soldier material, to say the least. Bob and Slim managed to enlist more than a hundred men, but less that half that number showed up, and of these, most were too drunk, too old, or a combination of both. Many had even lied about whether they owned horses and, for that matter, their own rifles or sidearms. There had been a lot of saloon talk during the enlisting process the previous evening, but in the light of a new day, as Cowboy Bob was fond of saying, “What we got here is a bunch of ‘big hats, no cattle.’”

The Colonel was furious and tried to hold Bob accountable.

“You’ve always stepped up and done your duty,” he told Bob, “but this time you’ve failed me.”

“Well, last night they sure looked better than now, I give you that,” Bob said defensively. “But, hell, Colonel, it was dark in them places. They was most of ’em makin’ sense like a drunk’ll do till he gets too drunk to stand up. Besides, where else was I s’posed to go? There ain’t but ten or fifteen thousand people in this city. You expect to find a soldier for this kind of thing by visiting peoples’ homes at night or canvassing the churches? I doubt it, sir. Slim and I did the best we could.”

Death Valley Slim was standing beside Cowboy Bob and agreed.

“Colonel,” Slim said, “I tell you what. While y’all been talking, I been lookin’ over this crowd. You might be tarring them all with the same brush—some of ’em ain’t as bad as they look.” He took the Colonel aside.

“I know you was a big military man in the Spanish War an’ all,” Slim said, “but if I was you, I wouldn’t want all these people with me anyway—even if they was perfect soldiers. What I’d do, I was you, is start whittling down. You know what I mean?”

“No, I don’t,” the Colonel said. He looked peevish and highly annoyed.

“Well, sir, here’s the way I see it. What you’re gonna come up against in them mountains, I don’t know if you understand it quite yet, Colonel. Them mountains, they’re not some joking matter. It was me, I’d take men with me who ever’ one of ’em knowed pretty much what he was doin’. Even if I didn’t take but fifteen or twenty. With that terrain in there, likely in a fight you couldn’t engage that many at one time anyhow. And you could travel faster and lighter that way. Havin’ a lot of people slows you down, you know?”

“Do you have some kind of military experience yourself?” the Colonel asked sarcastically.

“Matter of fact, sir, I have. I was with the Second Cavalry for seven years. We was the ones that captured Geronimo.”

“I’ll be damned,” said the Colonel.

“Yessir, not too far from where I expect Villa’s headed to hole up right now. In fact, I was a first sergeant. We chased that ol’ bastid day and night for three years.”

Arthur said, “You ought to listen to this man, Papa, he knows his way around.”

They were still standing in the Toltec Hotel lobby, and somehow Arthur began to feel better about the expedition. Between Cowboy Bob and Slim and the Colonel, maybe they could do something after all.

IN AN OPEN PLOT BETWEEN BUILDINGS
off of El Paso’s main street, Colonel Shaughnessy, Bob, Slim, and Arthur began to check out the motley would-be “Partisan Rangers.” Some could barely stand and a few actually fell down in the dust. Some still had bottles they were drinking from, bought with the Colonel’s enlistment bonus. The Colonel and his party moved from man to man. If the man looked sober, they sometimes asked questions. If he looked too old or infirm, they moved on. But just as Slim had suggested, they found a number of the prospects who looked rigorous and in remarkably good shape.

One character the Colonel put on the roster was a daredevil stuntman and aviator called “Crosswinds” Charlie Blake, who’d been left behind by a flying circus after he fell off a barstool and fractured his arm. At least the man was sober, clean-cut, and well spoken, unlike so much of the other drunken riffraff that morning. He was short and slender, with short dark hair, gunmetal-blue eyes, and a rather long nose and prominent ears. He looked rather ratlike, in fact, but was as distinctive as he was unattractive. Arthur was impressed as soon as he learned he was a flier.

By noon, Colonel Shaughnessy had enlisted twenty-nine handpicked men and, that being accomplished, the Colonel interviewed Cowboy Bob about his progress in outfitting the bunch. Bob and Death Valley Slim had spent the morning acquiring the best rifles, pistols, ammunition, pack animals, dusters, wagons, field glasses, blankets, ropes and harnesses, and other hard supplies and extra equipment that could be had in El Paso. But that was when trouble appeared.

They were standing in the street talking when two U.S. Army officers walked up. Both were dressed in starched cavalry twill trousers, blouses, Sam Brown belts, and polished puttees. One was wearing the gold stars of a general.

“Sir, I am General John Pershing, commander of this military district,” said the older man. “Lieutenant George S. Patton here is my aide.”

“Pleased to meet you,” the Colonel replied nicely.

“And I take it, then, that you are the Mr. Shaughnessy who is trying to raise some kind of military force?”

“I am Shaughnessy. This is my son, Arthur.” He also introduced Bob and Slim. Patton seemed to be eyeing Arthur suspiciously.

“May I ask what the purpose of your endeavor is?” Pershing said.

“We have property down in Mexico that needs to be rescued,” the Colonel replied evasively.

“From what?” Pershing inquired.

“From the Mexicans,” said the Colonel, “who are lawless.”

Pershing twitched his mouth and stroked his mustache with his thumb. “My people tell me you are signing on an organized force. Do you intend to represent the United States government?”

“Hell, no, General,” said Shaughnessy. “I’m just gathering some men to help me protect my interests.”

“Well, in that case I can’t stop you,” Pershing said, “but I warn you that Mexico is in turmoil right now and under our present orders we cannot protect you against harm.”

“I know that already,” Shaughnessy said. “I just got back from there. And as far as protecting us, I already talked to that namby-pamby in the White House and got back the answer.”

“Might I ask what property it is you’re trying to protect or rescue?” Patton asked. He couldn’t help noticing that the streets were packed with the Colonel’s cattle.

“You may not,” Shaughnessy told him, “unless you want to come with us.”

“Our situation vis-à-vis the government of Mexico is highly delicate,” Pershing said. “We are not to cross the border unless attacked.”

“Yes, that’s been conveyed to us,” Arthur broke in. “Say, you wouldn’t have any idea of the whereabouts of Pancho Villa right now, would you?”

“He just fought a big battle in Chihuahua City and got licked,” Pershing said. “We heard he’s split his army up and is probably headed for Coahuila.”

“Thank you,” Arthur replied. “I read that in the newspapers.”

“Well, I appreciate your time, Mr. Shaughnessy,” Pershing said. “I hope you won’t do anything you’ll regret.”

“That’s the army for you,” snorted the Colonel when the two officers were out of earshot. “Not only won’t help, but try to discourage those who do. Those two men will never amount to anything.”

The Colonel and his party repaired to the Toltec Hotel bar to plot their strategy, and there received some good news at last. The trains would be running again first thing in the morning. The Colonel instructed Cowboy Bob to hurry over to the rail depot and make sure they all had passage, including the horses, donkeys, and equipment. Then he went the hotel desk and wrote out a telegraph for the ranch, telling them to get Xenia and Beatie out of Valle del Sol quickly as possible and take the first train to El Paso. As he finished writing, a familiar voice addressed Colonel Shaughnessy from behind.

“Ah, my friend, so you, too, have returned to America—or did you ever leave?”

The voice belonged to the German, Strucker. He had just come back from Mexico City, where he claimed to have met with President Carranza about buying oil leases.

In fact, Strucker had done his best in Mexico City to persuade Carranza to nationalize the vast U.S. oil holdings around Tampico and Veracruz, hoping that would provoke a Mexican-American war. Unsuccessful in this, and because rail communications in central Mexico were then still cut, the German caught a steamer to San Diego, where he took a train back to El Paso. All along the way, Strucker smoked cigarettes, cigars, and drank brandy, considering what to do next. With no help from the Carranza government, his only option now was trying the idea out on Villa. Problem was, since Villa’s defeat at Chihuahua City, he wasn’t as formidable as he’d once been.

After Shaughnessy explained his own dire situation to Strucker and said what he intended to do about it, the German thought what an idiot the man was, to have put the children in such danger. He liked those children. But of course he mainly sniffed an opportunity here. It might not be the ideal way to get to Villa, but at the moment it seemed the only one. Strucker immediately signed on with the Colonel’s little army.

That evening after dinner, the Colonel, Strucker, and Death Valley Slim went to their rooms, and Cowboy Bob was about to say his good nights, too, when Arthur asked him to stay for a nightcap. A fire burned low in the Toltec’s lobby fireplace. Arthur had something on his mind that surprised Bob.

“I wonder if I can impose on you for a favor.”

“What’s that?” Bob said.

“Your experience, your skills—I need them, and there’s not much time.”

“I ain’t sure what you mean,” said Cowboy Bob.

“Let me put it this way,” Arthur told him. “We’re headed out against a dangerous band of criminals that are holding my two children. We’re going into a savage territory, and I found it pretty awkward just going on the cattle drive. The fact is, I wasn’t cut out for this sort of thing.”

“I thought you done okay,” Bob said. But Arthur went on.

“I don’t know how to shoot a pistol at all. I know something about shotguns, but I’ve only fired a rifle a few times in my life. I don’t know much about anything else. But you grew up with it. So I need you to help me learn, because if it ever comes down to it, if I ever have to fight this Villa or anybody else, I’d like to be up to it.”

“So, you still fancy yourself some kind of tenderfoot, huh, even after all that on the trail?”

“Yeah, that’s what you’d call it, I guess.”

“And you want to ride, shoot, be a tough guy, is it?” Bob chuckled. Bob had come to like Arthur, appreciated his company, but until now figured him as pretty much a poo-bah of the big American rich—come down here and think they just picked it all up in a week or two, then go back to their yachts and lawn parties and tell everybody they’d been a cowboy. He’d been impressed, however, at Arthur’s adaptation to life on the cattle drive. Arthur had pulled his weight, learned, ate beef and beans, asked questions when he didn’t know the answers. As Bob glanced down at the flaked, sunburned skin on his own big hands, he thought of all the broken ribs and arms and the smashed nose and the times he almost died from frostbite and sunstroke and starvation and a prairie fire, even suffered a bullet or two in his body, but he kept those thoughts to himself.

“Something like that,” Arthur said. “I know it doesn’t sound likely, does it?” He was smiling what Bob thought was a strange smile.

Bob studied his drink for a moment. “Tell you what, compadre, just stick close with ol’ Cowboy Bob, an’ every spare minute I got, I’ll do my best.”

Bob suddenly got an uneasy feeling about what he was hearing, because there was something in the tone of how Arthur said it, and the sheepish look in his eyes. Bob had seen it before, where a perfectly normal guy gets a bee up his ass, and suddenly you got a crazy would-be killer on your hands. He had a feeling there were other things going on there besides what Arthur had told him. It made Bob a little uncomfortable.