El Paso: A Novel (66 page)

“General, I don’t understand why I’m being blamed—”

“Shut up!” Villa shouted. “And now you come and insult me with a handful of centavos and expect me to do what you want. Well, I won’t.” He turned to Fierro.

“General, lock this son-of-a-bitch up until I can decide what to do with him.”

Fierro stuck his head out the door and said something to one of the guards. A few moments later four soldiers came into the room and marched Mick Martin outside.

“What do you think I should do with that gringo?” Villa asked Fierro. He was having another of his headaches and his mood was pitch-black.

“Do you think he brought the fifty thousand with him?” Fierro asked sensibly.

“How would I know? Have your men searched his baggage?”

“Suppose he did?” Fierro asked.

“Then take the money and distribute it to the men. As for him, I don’t care what happens. Use your own judgment. He’s no friend of ours.”

VILLA’S ARMY WAS ON THE MOVE AT FIRST LIGHT
and two days later were poised in a little village called Los Palomas, only a stone’s throw from Columbus. They were just a day’s march from El Paso, too, where Pershing kept a good portion of the twenty thousand troops he commanded. But at Columbus there was only a small garrison.

When Bierce found out Villa was planning to kill Americans, it was too much for the old Civil War soldier. He approached Villa in his headquarters tent.

“General, I’m an old man and I’ve seen a lot in my life, including killing on a scale that is probably unimaginable to you. After that I devoted my entire life to making idiots feel uncomfortable. Therefore I feel perfectly secure in telling you that what you are contemplating is the most idiotic thing I have ever heard of. Not only that, it is sinful, wicked, and unlawful.”

Bierce was poised to go on, but Villa cut him off. Like a fire that had been creeping up behind walls and beneath floors, Villa’s rage suddenly exploded in full fury.

“That will be enough from you, Señor Robinson! You’ve spoken your last criticism of me. If you have a wish for death, consider it fulfilled.”

Villa ordered the guards to arrest Bierce on the spot, and hold him until a firing squad could be organized. Even as he made his decision, Villa felt a rare tinge of remorse. In a way, he actually had become fond of the old buzzard and was going to miss having him around.

When Reed found out what had happened, he immediately went to Bierce, who was seated on a bench in a small adobe house guarded by two soldiers.

“You’ve got to apologize,” Reed told him.

“I won’t do it. He’s wrong and he knows it.”

“What does it matter?” Reed countered. “He’ll shoot you, you know.”

“I expect he will.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?’

“Of course it does. Nobody likes to die,” Bierce told him.

“Then why not apologize?”

“Because I’m right.”

“So, what,” Reed exclaimed. “are you doing this merely out of pride?”

“Principle,” Bierce informed him. He had clenched his jaws and pursed his lips so that he looked like he had just eaten something sour.

“Please,” Reed pleaded, “don’t do this.”

Bierce said nothing in reply. So far he’d enjoyed most of his adventure with Villa, but the notion of being any part of killing Americans was the end of it, as far as he was concerned. He could apologize, as Reed suggested, and maybe Villa would let him go off to America. But he didn’t want to do that. He’d left America for good, and there wasn’t any other place he wanted to go; he’d already been just about everywhere else. Plus there was the fact that he’d never apologized to anyone in his life and didn’t want to start now, just because he was about to be shot.

Lieutenant Crucia was chosen to command the firing squad. He came to see Bierce.

“Señor Robinson, we will be ready in about twenty minutes. Do you want some lunch?”

“No, thank you,” Bierce said. He didn’t like it that Crucia was going to be the one to do him in. He considered the lieutenant an inferior species and wondered if the man would cut off his nose afterward to add to the necklace.

“I wish you’d change your mind,” Reed told him. “Please just consider it.”

“Thank you,” Bierce said. “It’s been interesting getting to know you, Reed. I only wish I had more time to turn you away from Bolshevism. It’s a repugnant philosophy.”

Reed momentarily considered offering to renounce his beliefs if only Bierce would apologize and save his life, but he realized he couldn’t do it. Thereby Reed learned something about the “principles” whereof Bierce had spoken. He shook Bierce’s hand and asked if he could take any last message to anyone.

“No,” Bierce told him. “But in my bag is a notebook with some letters I have written to a Miss Christiansen in Washington City. They’re all addressed and stamped. I’d appreciate it if you’d mail them to her, without comment.”

Reed nodded, then walked away sadly.

They marched Bierce to a whitewashed wall in the village and lined him up facing the firing squad, his hands tied behind his back. Bierce counted seven of them, including Crucia, who’d found a sword and a gold sash someplace to give the occasion formality. Villa was there, too, as was Fierro. They offered Bierce a blindfold but he refused. Crucia gave the orders.

“Ready!” The firing squad raised their guns and locked the shells in their chambers.

“Aim!” The squad pointed their rifles at Bierce.

“Wait a minute!” Bierce said. “Don’t I get a last request?”

Crucia seemed uncertain and glanced at Villa, who nodded his head.

“What is it?” Crucia wanted to know.

“I’d like a cigar,” Bierce told him. There was a small ironic smile on his lips, which showed through his beard, which was beginning to go white, since a week ago he had run out of the shoe polish he’d been dyeing it with. But his voice was steady and his eyes steely.

“Here’s one already lit for you,” Fierro said, taking his cigar out of his mouth and handing it to Crucia, who walked over and stuck it in Bierce’s mouth. The firing squad was still poised with their rifles at the ready.

“There’s something else,” Bierce said. Crucia was getting annoyed.

“What?” he asked.

“I’m told it is the custom in your army to give condemned men the opportunity to signal for the execution to be performed.”

“It is,” Villa said.

“Well, I’d like to do that.”

“Okay,” Villa told him, “if it’s what you want.”

“Right when the ash falls off the end of the cigar,” Bierce told them, “before it hits the ground—do it then.”

Crucia looked to Villa for guidance. The sun was hot and he was ready to get on with it, but Villa shrugged and nodded his head again. He didn’t see how it could hurt anything.

The soldiers were still poised with their rifles shouldered. The sun beat down. Only the noise of their breathing could be heard.

The ash on the cigar was not a very large one at first, maybe a quarter inch. Bierce was relieved that it was a good make of cigar, because well-made cigars tend to have long-lasting ashes, especially when they are smoked right. Bierce always enjoyed a good cigar. He made sure to puff very gently. The sunshine was so bright it dazzled the eyes. Bierce could see the sweat begin to seep through the shirts of the firing squad, some of whose rifles were beginning to wobble noticeably.

Minutes passed, five, seven, nine. The firing squad stood with knees locked, which restricted the flow of blood. Suddenly the silence was shattered by the clatter of a rifle hitting the dirt. The man who had held it followed, passed out from leg-lock and sunstroke. The others held their places. Bierce took an imperceptible puff on the cigar. The ash was now more than half an inch long.

Villa was wondering how this was going to turn out. He was feeling a little queasy himself and shifted around on his feet. Lieutenant Crucia remained at ramrod-straight attention, the sword poised in his right hand ready to drop the instant the ash fell off the cigar. A little wisp of smoke continued to curl up around the cigar. A bumblebee suddenly appeared and began to buzz around Bierce’s beard. He wanted to bite his lip to keep still but couldn’t, with the cigar in his mouth. He kept still anyway. The sun beat down.

Two of the firing squad men could not keep their weapons at the ready any longer. The rifles weighed about ten pounds, and keeping them locked up to the shoulder still and straight for this length of time was excruciating. Crucia motioned for the two to retire. It was a long-standing custom of firing squads that if for any reason a man could not continue, such as if he became queasy about his duty, nauseated, uneasy, then he must leave the squad in disgrace. Crucia was now down to three men. Bierce guessed that the ash at this point amounted to nearly an inch, and that more than fifteen minutes had passed. In a perverse way, he was actually enjoying himself.

The bee landed in Bierce’s beard. He could feel it crawling around and wondered if it would sting him. That would pose a major problem and he steeled himself for it. How perfectly ironic, it crossed Bierce’s mind, to be done in after all by an insect. He had hoped the smoke from the cigar would drive the bee away, but it hadn’t. Two more of the firing squad could not hold their weapons up any longer and retired in odium. Lieutenant Crucia was drenched with sweat and Bierce could see, in his glare of hatred mixed with fear, that he was afraid he would screw up his task in front of his boss. The sun beat down. The last member of the firing squad dropped his rifle and sank to his knees.

Crucia was beside himself. There were no regulations governing this kind of thing. If he’d thought to bring his pistol, he could have drawn it and performed the execution himself. But all he had was the sword and he wasn’t sure if Villa would want it done that way. Finally the general himself solved the problem.

“Okay,” he said to Crucia. “Take your men and go away.”

“
Sí, sí,
General,” Crucia said in a mixture of confusion, anger, fear, and utter humiliation.

The ash on the cigar was still burning, longer than ever. Villa walked up to him.

“Well, Señor Jack Robinson,” he said, “so you have made fools of our young lieutenant and his men. I hope you enjoyed your reprieve.”

Bierce grunted. He still didn’t want to lose the ash on the cigar. Villa reached into his pocket and pulled out the little ivory-handled, nickel-plated derringer that Bierce had given him as a gift on that long-ago day when he had joined Villa’s army.

“You remember this, don’t you?” Villa asked nicely, towering over Bierce.

Bierce grunted again. He didn’t really feel unkindly toward Villa; in fact, he thought he understood him, at least until the decision to attack Americans. He thought of apologizing and maybe shaking hands and going on back home anyway. A vision came upon him, as visions often do at such times, and it began to reveal the mystery of himself. He was a writer, a thinker, and his writings moved the minds of others. There might still be words he could write that would make a difference to people, almost like those of a teacher.

Villa bent forward, pursed his lips, and blew on the cigar ash. It glowed orange for an instant, almost like it was breathing itself, and then dropped noiselessly to the ground. Villa smiled.

“Do you know why you are doomed, Señor Robinson?”

Bierce shook his head. In fact, he had begun to believe he hadn’t been doomed.

“If a man is born under the wrong star,” said Pancho Villa, “it will shine on his ass always—even when he is seated.”

Bierce was pondering this when Villa stuck the derringer between Bierce’s eyes and pulled the trigger.

SIXTY-SEVEN

M
ick Martin got his wish to see the children anyway. After the battle at Agua Prieta General Fierro had told Tom Mix to take charge of Mick in his guard of prisoners and captives. Katherine and Timmy were delirious to see him.

“Your mummy wanted me to try to negotiate for your release so you can go home,” he told them.

“General Villa said he’s going to let us go,” Katherine told him.

Mick was surprised. That wasn’t the way it had sounded to him.

“When did he tell you that?”

“A week or so ago,” Katherine said. “He said that if he got some money from somebody, I think it was Germans, and won the battle, he’d turn us loose.”

“Well, he didn’t win the battle,” Mick said. “I don’t know about the money.”

“Do you think he’ll let us go anyway?” Timmy asked.

“Yes, I’m certain he will,” Mick told them. “I have faith in it.”

They were riding in one of the wagons and Katherine knew the teamster driving it didn’t understand English.

“Do you know that Papa came and tried to rescue us?” she asked.

“Yes. I was there when he returned. It would have been a blessing if he had been successful, but I thought it was a dangerous thing to do.”

“Is that how you got your face hurt, Uncle Mick?” Timmy said.

“Yes. There was a big fight, but your father’s safe and sound.”

“Is Mummy scared for us?” Katherine asked.

“Of course, but she’s being very brave. She’s in El Paso, waiting for you.”