El Paso: A Novel (57 page)

“Where is that?” Reed asked.

“Right across from your American border,” Villa said. “So they can get a good look at how Mexicans fight.”

“How far is it?” asked Bierce.

“A few days away if we rode straight there. I told you I was going to be a pesky horsefly, didn’t I? Well, let’s see how long that bastard Carranza can keep putting out fires I start all over this territory. Pretty soon I’ll have him running around like a chicken with his head cut off.”

Reed was trying to digest the news he’d just heard and fit it into a story he would write. But Bierce had gone beyond that, apprehending that by revealing the information, Villa had already decided that neither of them was going to be given any opportunity to file stories.

“This town Agua Prieta,” Beirce said. “
Agua
is water. What—”

“In your language, señor, it means, ‘Dirty Water,’” Villa said.

When they camped that night, Katherine continued the reading lessons she’d begun with Villa. She had written out an alphabet for him to memorize and was amazed when he’d learned it in a single day. For his first writing lesson she told him to copy it down several times. Now she was working him through some simple sentences, such as “This is a cat” and “See the cat run.” She wished she had an English-language dictionary, and Villa had promised to send somebody to find one when they got close to the border.

Since he hadn’t wished for others to know what they were up to, Villa insisted that the lessons be done in private, and the routine was that after supper they would go off where they could be alone and Katherine would pull out the papers and pencils Villa had provided.

Invariably Tom Mix would find an occasion to pass by or pretend to do something in the distance, just keeping an eye on things. She couldn’t help being drawn to Mix: he was so handsome, and there was an almost childlike aura about him; almost everything was a happy surprise to him. Sometimes Katherine thought Villa sat too close to her, but he made no move to touch her. Once when it looked about to happen Mix suddenly materialized to ask the chief an inane question, and the look in Mix’s eyes told Katherine he was being watchful over her.

Actually, she was softening a little toward Villa, as well. He seemed very tired, she thought, and worried. But he exerted his best efforts in the reading-and-writing endeavor and she was impressed. They were getting places.

“I been observing you, señorita,” Villa said when they took a little break. There was a fine chill in the air and Villa stuck his hands in his pockets. “You are a good rider and have adapted yourself to the trail. That’s tough to do.”

“I do what I have to. For myself and my brother.”

“He beat me at checkers yesterday,” Villa said.

“You let him win. I thought that was a nice thing to do.”

“How do you know he didn’t beat me fair and square?”

“I watched.”

“You watch good,” Villa said.

“We’d better get back to the lessons,” Katherine told him. “We’re running out of light.”

“I think I am going to set you free,” Villa said suddenly. Katherine looked at him, not believing what she’d heard.

“First I have to go to a bank and get some of that German’s money. Then we are going up to your American border, and after I defeat my enemies there, I’ll take you across the river and deliver you to the gringo soldiers on the other side.”

“You’ll do it!” Katherine gasped.

“I will,” Villa told her. “If I get my German money and I destroy those people at the border.”

“But what if you don’t?” she asked. “What happens to us then?”

“I don’t know,” he told her. “You better say your prayers.”

She put her hands to her mouth and, somewhere between elation and fear, she began to cry. Villa stepped to her and took her in his arms. It was a fatherly embrace, and she could smell his cheap perfume mixed with sweat and the stench of cigars.

“Let’s get back to the reading, little señorita,” Villa said. “Like you said, time’s running short.”

Timmy had been curled up with Pluto when Katherine arrived back with the news. At first he seemed hesitant.

“When?” Timmy asked.

“Soon as he gets to the border and fights his enemies,” Katherine said.

“When is that?”

“He didn’t say.”

“He’s a bloodthirsty liar,” said Donita Ollas. “All along he’s been telling people we’re not kidnapped, but we are. What kind of man would refuse me even to see my dying husband? He’s a monster!” Ever since the bullfight in the box canyon she had refused to speak to anyone, until now. Katherine took her anger as a good sign.

“But how long will it be?” Timmy asked.

Mix had been whittling on a stick and listening. “A week, maybe two,” he said. “Maybe less.” Mix was surprised at the news and wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. If Villa had said that to Katherine, he obviously had a reason. But Mix wasn’t sure what to make of his own feelings about this, either, assuming it was true. On the one hand, he’d be relieved to get shut of the responsibility of babysitting, and maybe even be able to get away from there. On the other, he’d grown fond of the kids and even enjoyed the company of Donita on those infrequent occasions when she chose to be pleasant.

“Who are these enemies he talks about?” Katherine asked.

“General Carranza,” Mix replied.

“I know that. What I meant was, who are his enemies at the border?”

“Carranza has a Federal post there—about fifteen hundred troops.”

“But if they are there, why doesn’t General Villa just go somewhere else?”

“The general commands an army, missy. Armies only have one reason to exist, and that’s to fight.”

“But why?” she asked.

“Who knows?” Mix told her. “These people been fighting each other so long they’ve forgot what they’re fighting about.”

JUST BEFORE THEY BEDDED DOWN FOR THE NIGHT
, Katherine went to Mix and excused herself to go into the bushes. It was the most humiliating part of her experience in Villa’s company, but she’d had to get used to it. Pluto was barking at something in the darkness when Katherine walked out of camp. The canyon floor was broad and open, and she had to find some low scrub near a little rivulet that cascaded down from the side of the bluffs.

She had just pulled down her pants and squatted when she heard a noise that sounded like a large piece of furniture being moved. She didn’t give it much thought until she heard it again. A quarter moon gave off just enough light to see a bit, once the eyes adjusted. Suddenly she had the cold, breathless feeling that something was lurking. When she heard the noise again, Katherine thought it sounded like a large animal. She could feel its presence, its heavy breathing, like a dragon in a fairy tale. Immediately she straightened up and began backing away slowly toward the camp. Then in the faint light of the moon she saw its eyes, bright, wild, yellow.

Mix heard the scream and bolted from his blanket bootless and wearing only pants. He grabbed his pistol and the end of a burning log from the fire and dashed toward the sounds. He spotted Katherine in the moonlight, slowly backing through the scrub, and then he saw the jaguar, too. It was a huge cat, two or three hundred pounds, and looked like it was seven feet long, teeth to tail. It was stalking her, crouched, from about twenty feet away; with each step she took backward, the jaguar would take one of its own.

Mix arrived at her side, brandishing the burning log, and the cat halted and hissed. Its fangs were bared and ferocious-looking, and its quick breath made little white clouds in the chill air.

“Get on behind me,” Mix told her under his breath, “but for heaven’s sake don’t run.”

Katherine backed farther away. Mix was backing, too, but the jaguar was moving in on him now. Mix turned a moment to see where Katherine was, and as he did he stumbled over something and lost his balance. He caught himself from falling with a hand on the ground, but the cat sensed a kill and sprang at him. Mix managed to hit it in the face with the glowing log and the jaguar recoiled, screaming. Others in the camp heard this and dashed toward the scene. The cat recovered and was about to spring again when Mix shot it straight in the eye with his pistol. The creature spun five feet in the air, twisting and shrieking, hit the ground, and keeled over, finally still. Mix was trembling, and a shiver ran up his spine. The smoke from his revolver hung in the air and his ears rang from the shot.

Half a dozen armed men rushed up to Mix, who was about to squeeze off another round into the thing to make sure it was dead. He’d killed men before, but this . . .

“
Jesús
, Capitán!” one man exclaimed. “You killed a
tigre
?”

“If he’s dead,” Mix replied. He took a few steps to pick up the glowing log and tentatively approached the creature with it. The others followed with cocked guns.

“
Sí,
he is dead, Capitán,” one man observed.

“That’s a big one,” another remarked. “I never seen a
tigre
that big!”

“You ought to get the cooks to skin him for you,” somebody said. “Make a good blanket—or a rug.”

“Not a bad idea,” Mix said. He turned and walked back toward the camp. He realized his feet were cut and scuffed up from running across the rocky ground barefoot. Katherine was waiting for him by the fire with a blanket around her shoulders.

“What was it?” she asked, still trembling, “a mountain lion?”

“A jaguar,” he said, “worse than a mountain lion. The Mexican’s call ’em
tigres
. Only thing bigger or meaner than a jaguar is an African lion or a tiger from India.” Mix sat down and looked at his feet. They were bleeding and he reached for his shirt to wipe them off, but Katherine said, “No, wait—I have some clean cloths in my bag.” She dipped a cloth in a pot of water they’d boiled earlier for coffee and gently began wiping off Mix’s feet.

“There’s some salve in my kit,” he told her. Katherine got it and applied this, too.

“Did you . . . kill it?” she asked.

“I did,” Mix told her. “Otherwise, you’d likely be cat food by now.”

Her mother had always admonished her, “Darling, before you do anything, always ask yourself first, where is this leading me?” She’d remembered that starkly on the day she’d been captured; and had ground it into her mind ever since. But that night, against her better judgment, Katherine began to have very changed feelings about Tom Mix.

FIFTY-EIGHT

T
wo days later, Villa’s troops were out of the canyons and entered a terrain of grassy valleys and rolling hills surrounded by lilac-hued mountains that could have been the subject of a Chinese watercolor. At last there were signs of civilization: wagon tracks, pepper trees, fruit groves, sheep and goats. Hungry for sheep meat, the soldiers stole and slaughtered a dozen of these.

They traveled most of the day beside a clear rocky stream until at dusk they came to the outskirts of a village. Along a dusty road they passed miserable hovels and filthy, naked children playing in the dirt among chickens or the occasional pig. Here the stream ran a murky yellowish brown and stank of sewage and the children’s eyes were hollow, filled only with hunger and sadness. When Villa’s riders approached, some of the women gathered their children inside and closed their doors. A sinister atmosphere reeked over everything.

Such as it was, the town consisted of half a dozen low adobe buildings and a morose two-story frame structure that was both the cantina and the whorehouse. There they stopped and tethered their horses. Despite the breathtaking poverty, preparations for a fiesta were in progress. Bright banners had been strung along the street and a small grandstand had been erected. Inside the cantina a handful of peons were drinking pulque served by a scrawny saloon-keep who had one of the most unattractive faces you could find outside of an ape house. In the corner a drunk Mexican was trying to negotiate a tune out of a piano as Villa led the way in, followed by his officers and entourage.

“What is this place?” Villa asked of the saloon-keep.

“Reyes,” replied the man.

“Never heard of it,” the general said.

When the man did not respond, Villa sat down and requested a lemonade.

“
No tengo
,” the man told him.

“What?” Villa said. “You got no lemons?”

“No.”

“Oranges?” Villa said. “I’ll take an orangeade.”

“
No tengo
.”

“Do you know who I am?” he asked.

“No, señor.”

“I am General Villa.”

“
Sí.
”

“Now do you know who I am?”

“
Sí,
you are General Villa,” the man said stupidly.

“Well, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll find me some lemons and make a lemonade.”

“Peaches,” the man said. “That’s all I got.”

“Hell with it, then,” Villa grumbled. “All right, squeeze me some peaches and I’ll have a peachade—with plenty of sugar.” What Villa really craved was ice cream, but he realized that was out of the question.

The man nodded and disappeared into a back room. The drunk at the piano had gotten a load of Villa’s conversation with the saloon-keep and wisely slunk out of the room.