El Paso: A Novel (50 page)

“Still mad?” Bomba asked.

“Damn right I am,” said Flipper. “Besides, let me ask you this: Do you think that if Pancho Villa had captured
you
, instead—that this Colonel Shaughnessy or any of his people would come looking for you in these wild mountains? Hell, no, they wouldn’t.”

Bomba sat motionless, his eyes looking into the eyes of his newfound friend. He knew about loyalty, too, though he couldn’t really put a definition on it. For him, it was inborn. He received good food, shelter, clothing, money, but there was more than that. There was a bond between him and the Colonel in which Bomba felt he was a member of the family, as well as their guardian.

“Aw, c’mon, now,” Flipper said. “You did all you could. You almost died protecting those people. You gotta let it go. Save yourself. These are perilous times. People are being murdered by the millions. What chance you think a couple of niggers like us got against the likes of Pancho Villa and his army?”

Bomba continued to look at Flipper. He knew he was asking a lot. Maybe more than a lot. But it was the Colonel’s grandkids, whom he’d known since they were in swaddling clothes. What else could he do? How could he go back, assuming he got back, and face the Colonel?

“Hell, you’ll never locate them out there in those canyons,” Flipper continued. “It’s a maze. I even get lost there myself, and I been working down here for twenty-five years. It’s a crazy idea, simply insane.”

“Rabbit cooked,” Bomba said finally. He lifted the meat off the fire.

“Now, there’s the spirit,” Flipper said. “Let’s eat a good supper, and tomorrow you’ll rethink all this and we can figure a way to get ourselves back to the U.S. of A.”

FORTY-EIGHT

V
illa and his people had been moving through the canyons nearly a week when Reed and Bierce began arguing over whether or not Villa was a socialist. Reed insisted that he was. They were riding side by side down a desolate stretch of canyon so narrow that the sun only made it to the bottom a few minutes a day. All in all, it was a cool, pleasant morning.

“Look what he did when he had control of Northern Mexico,” Reed said ardently. “He took over the railroads, mines, manufacturing, utilities, telephones, broke up the big landholdings, and redistributed the property among the people. He only left the rich Americans alone, and finally he’s going for them, too.”

“Yes, and all at the point of a gun,” Bierce reminded him.

“There are times it’s the only way, Mr. Robinson,” Reed countered.

“And how much do you expect he will keep for himself?”

Reed was silent on this question.

Bierce normally didn’t converse with socialists, but he felt the need to talk to somebody, and Reed was one of the few respectable conversationalists in camp.

“And what about in America?” Bierce asked. “What will happen there?”

Reed squinted and looked skyward. “They’d tried it by the ballot, and look where it’s got them,” he said. The big industrialists had bought off voters with whiskey and cash, threatened their jobs, stuffed ballot boxes, and threw their organizers in prison. They couldn’t even organize a union without fear of being beaten, shot, or jailed.

“The people won’t stand for it much longer,” he told Bierce.

Bierce had been irritable all morning because of a saddle sore on his buttock. At least talking might keep his mind off it.

“Are these
people
you’re talking about the same ones who are presently blowing up buildings and assassinating our presidents?” Bierce asked.

Reed was actually enjoying the conversation; was grateful for it. And despite the fact that he and Bierce disagreed on almost everything, Reed had come to like the old gentleman “Jack Robinson,” in spite of himself. The man was witty and informed and willing to listen. If there was to be a peaceful socialist revolution in America, Reed understood it was the Jack Robinsons of the nation who would have to be convinced. Once that was accomplished, the path was clear.

“You frighten me, Mr. Reed,” Bierce said.

“Why is that?”

“Because according to your creed, you’d be willing to tear up the Constitution of the United States.”

“It’s a piece of paper,” Reed said. “A good one, mind you,” he added. “But a piece of paper nonetheless. Times change. Ideas change.”

They rode awhile in silence as Bierce digested this last statement with mounting disgust. The sun was high and finally reaching the bottom of the canyon. He thought he felt a headache coming on.

“Where did you attend school, Mr. Reed?” Bierce inquired.

“Harvard.”

“I thought so.”

“And you, Mr. Robinson?”

“I didn’t,” Bierce said.

“I thought so.”

THE FIRST SIGN REED AND BIERCE NOTICED
was a thin hum in the air. Then the blood bees swarmed. They weren’t actually bees and they didn’t actually sting—they bit. They bit hands and faces and also through clothes. Others ahead and behind were having the same trouble. Horses began to buck and scream and plunge, and everyone was frantically swatting at themselves.

Reed and Bierce loosed their reins and spurred their horses after the others at a gallop. It took what seemed to be eternity, but after a while they slowed up and the blood bees had gone away.

In their way, two of the supply wagons had turned over and everybody in the party had nasty little stinging bites, which quickly began to itch. As people began righting the overturned wagons, Villa’s doctor began dispensing ointments and poultices, and by afternoon everyone had at least several of these pressed on.

Reed was particularly put out because it had begun as such a fine day and to have his conversation interrupted this way seemed unfair.

He said to Tom Mix, who was applying poultices on Katherine and Timmy, “It was positively savage. They might have killed us if we were on foot.”

“Them things have got a vengeful nature,” Mix responded.

“So what do you think happened? Did somebody disturb their hive or something?”

“Who knows?” Mix told him. “Its a pretty chancy life out here.”

“I’m curious,” Bierce interjected. “With all that clover you Harvard fellows must have been rolling in, didn’t you ever encounter bees?”

“Different kind of clover, different kind of bees,” Reed told him with a wry smile, figuring that their conversation had come to an end anyway.

THAT EVENING, INSTEAD OF THE CHESS GAME
when Villa came by Mix’s campfire, he asked Katherine again to take a walk with him. She was apprehensive and still aching from the bites, but dared not refuse. This time, instead of going outside the security of the encampment, Villa escorted her a short way to clearing in a grove of sycamore trees, out of earshot of the others, and at least didn’t try to pinch her cheeks. She noticed that Mix had maneuvered himself to a stump in view of the clearing and was polishing his saddle in his lap with saddle soap.

“What I was trying to ask you the other evening was for a favor,” Villa said. “But you misunderstood, and then we were interrupted.”

“What favor?” Katherine asked.

“I want you to teach me how to read,” he said, curtly, defensively.

“Read?”

“I can’t read. I never learned how.”

“In Spanish?” Katherine asked hesitantly. “I know French but I don’t know Spanish.”

“No. In English. English will be fine. Over time I’ve had to deal with communiqués from the Americans and I’m never sure if they are trying to trick me. Once I can read anything, I can read,” he said.

“I’ve never tried to teach anybody how to read before. Why don’t you ask Mr. Robinson or Mr. Reed?”

“Because I’m embarrassed,” Villa told her bluntly. “It would be better for you to do it.”

“But I don’t have any books or anything,” Katherine protested. “I learned to read from books. Our teacher—”

“I’ve seen teachers teach by writing on a blackboard,” Villa countered. “Couldn’t you just write lessons on a piece of paper?”

“Yes—I suppose so. When do you want to begin?”

“Is tomorrow too soon?”

“No, I guess not.”

“How long will it take?” Villa asked.

“I don’t know,” Katherine said truthfully. “I suppose it depends on whether you apply yourself.”

“I’ll try, I promise. It’s a necessary thing.”

“Why?” she asked. “Is it because you want to be president, and presidents have to read? Is that what you’re fighting a war for?”

“No, señorita. I’m not educated enough to be president. And it’s not what I want. I’m fighting to keep somebody else from being president.”

“Who?”

“For the moment, General Carranza. But that could change, too.”

“What is wrong with General Carranza?” she asked. But Villa just shook his head.

“I want to know how to write, too,” he told her.

“Oh,” said Katherine. “Well, I guess the two go together. We’ll see.”

WHILE VILLA WAS ASKING KATHERINE HIS FAVOR
, Bierce sat down on a log away from everybody and took out his writing tablet.

Dear Miss Christiansen
,

Villa lost the fight at Chihuahua City and we are now deep in the mountains. His men fight like devils but are reckless, undisciplined and there is much indiscriminate firing. Their behavior would not be tolerated in an American army. A few nights ago somebody took a potshot at the general himself, but he was not injured.

He includes in his caravan two young children, boy and girl, and a Mexican woman insisting they’ve been kidnapped. Villa claims he is only escorting them to safety, but I have my doubts. He’s a ruthless man and kidnapping is not beneath him. He is furious at the administration in Washington for recognizing his enemy Carranza as leader of Mexico, to his exclusion, and for closing the border to shipments of arms and supplies for his army.

The man Reed whom I mentioned in my last letter has revealed himself to me as a socialist. He’s decent enough but his philosophy isn’t right. It isn’t even wrong. That’s what’s scary about it
.

The weather agrees with me and even though the travel is rough and hard I feel hale for a man my age. Our diet is mainly beef and beans and onions and biscuits but I yearn for those good chicken dinners or a shad roe breakfast at the Willard.

Yours truly, A.B.

Bierce tore the paper from the tablet, sealed it in an envelope, and slipped it in his vest pocket next to the other unmailed letters he’d written to his secretary. He’d no sooner arrived back at the campfire than a gunshot rang out, zinging though the branches above and creating a little shower of leaves and twigs that floated down. Immediately there was the sound of machine guns and rifle fire ahead, where the sound of the shot had originated. In the camp there was shouting and confusion.

Villa himself had just returned from his conversation with Katherine and was standing over a kettle dishing up a plate of beans when the shot was fired. He fell flat to the ground and rolled toward the cover of a tree, cursing in Spanish.