River to Cross, A (20 page)

The Following Week
Fort Bliss Emergency Room

“Hello. What time tonight
, and what are you wearing?” Elizabeth asked as she came through the door. She’d stopped by the hospital before she left for El Paso. She needed to check when they planned to leave for the band concert to be sure she got back in time.

The Fourth Cavalry military band was giving a concert in Riverside Park in El Paso, a weekly event the whole town looked forward to. Free entertainment, compliments of Fort Bliss.

The relationship between El Paso and Fort Bliss was a special one. For years, the nearby Army post had protected the territory from marauding Indians. El Paso reciprocated by donating money, land, and sites for a new fort every time the government wanted to move it—including one site right downtown. El Paso wanted her fort as close as she could get it. When the railroads came in and laid the tracks right up the middle of the fort’s parade grounds, the city council shook their heads. A minor inconvenience. A nearby fort with a large payroll and lots of guns meant safety and a thriving economy for the town.

They were on Site Number Five, and El Paso had its fingers crossed that the government didn’t move it again.

At her desk, Suzanne put her pencil down and looked up from a patient’s chart. “The escort wagon leaves at six from the commissary. And I’m wearing nothing fancy, just a skirt and blouse.”

She leaned forward on her elbows and rubbed her eyes. “My feet hurt,” she said. “I spent the whole crazy morning running back and forth to doctors in different examining rooms, taping up sprained or broken ankles. One man had a sprained toe. How does one go about spraining a toe?”

Basic Training was winding down and the Infantry companies were into the mandatory fifteen-mile road marches. As a result, half of Fort Bliss was hobbling.

Suzanne folded her arms and smiled at Elizabeth. “What do you hear from the infamous B-Team?”

“See some of them every day, usually Jake, unless he’s tied up, like today. You have anyone specific in mind—like Gus Dukker?” She gave Suzanne a wide-eyed, innocent look.

“Of course not,” Suzanne answered quickly.

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. Master Sergeant Gus Dukker had been appearing every day in the Emergency Room to pass along some trivial message from Jake to Elizabeth. And to hang around Suzanne.

Elizabeth smiled and motioned her head toward the front door. “Mention his name and look who waltzes through the door.”

“I didn’t mention his name,” Suzanne muttered.

With a loose-boned, rolling walk, Gus ambled across the waiting room, pulling off his gloves.

Suzanne rolled her eyes. “He drives me nuts.”

“He’s cute, though.”

Suzanne sniffed. “You think a streetcar’s cute. If he’d just be serious once in a while, instead of teasing all the time.”

“Then pay some attention to him,” Elizabeth said quietly. “That’s what he wants.”

“Morning, ladies,” Gus said as he approached the desk.

“I’m being stood up for lunch again, right?” Elizabeth said.

Gus nodded and checked his watch. “Boss is probably in El Paso with the police chief as we speak. Seems he wants to keep the bad Mexican kids in Juarez where they belong, not El Paso.”

Elizabeth shrugged. “I figured something like that as soon as you walked in.”

“Jake said he’ll be back in plenty of time for the concert tonight. We don’t have to leave the post until six. It’ll take close to an hour to get to town. He said to tell you the escort driver will pick up everyone at the commissary.”

Gus turned to Suzanne and grinned. “How you doing, Suzanne? I’m going to drive Elizabeth into town and back, but I’m free for lunch . . . if you were to ask me, that is.”

“Sorry, I’m on a diet,” she said.

“I can see why.”

Her back stiff, she turned and started for the door.

Gus held his hand out. “Just teasing.”

“You’ll notice I’m not laughing,” she said, and walked away.

That evening, as always, the Fourth Cavalry Regimental Band was a crowd-pleaser. People came from miles around to listen to a special March Program that had everyone tapping their feet to the stirring music. Everyone loved the marches and were on their feet clapping and cheering for several minutes afterward. The conductor and the band stood and took three bows.

More entertainment followed when the Fourth Cavalry’s bugler stepped onstage in his fancy dress uniform and played a familiar bugle call on his shiny bugle.

“El Paso, which one was that?” the bugler called.

“Charge!” the crowd shouted back.

Then came a couple more familiar calls: “Reveille!” and “Taps!”

But the next ones he played were all met with puzzled looks and absolute silence. The bugler laughed. “Never heard those before, have you?” He made a loud, rude
blat
on his horn. “Those calls were instructions to the horses: Right, Walk Forward, Trot, Gallop, Turn Around, Halt, and Lie Down. In a battle, with all the noise and gunfire, they can’t hear shouted orders. Cavalry horses know these calls and many more! Come out to the post and watch our horses drill. And while you’re out there, if you hear the bugler sound ‘Feeding Time at the Stable,’ get out of the way!”

The audience howled and clapped.

As the Rangers were leaving, the escort driver who had brought them in pushed through the crowd to his group of men and women, military and civilians, waiting for their ride back to Fort Bliss.

“This place was so crowded tonight, I had to use a livery six blocks away,” he said. “Be at least thirty minutes before I get the teams hitched and get back here.”

Ranger Jose Martinez, half Navajo and half Mexican, was Company B’s communication specialist. A short man with a crooked grin, he spoke seven languages, including most of the major Indian ones. He turned and said to the others, “Got an idea. Let’s duck this crowd and walk with him to the livery. My backside’s asleep anyway.”

Elizabeth wheeled around, smiling. Walking to the livery was a great idea. She was having a good time and in no hurry to get back to the post. This was the first time they’d all gone out together. She’d looked forward to this night, to getting Jake away from the Annex and his responsibilities, to just being a normal man for a few hours. The band concert in El Paso that night had been the perfect excuse.

Jake and the teams worked most days. Sometimes they had special assignments, but lately their work in El Paso concentrated on apprehending outlaws and Mexican bandits. Although he oversaw all the groups, he worked with B Company, his old company when he could. Occasionally they trained from dawn to dusk and right through dinner.

Twice, Elizabeth took pity on them and cooked at Jake’s place for the ten of them. After eating, they fell asleep on the couch or on the floor.

She looked over at Gus, still studying the line of carriages in the street. Twice he never left the table after dinner, but instead pushed his plate aside, folded his arms on the table, and laid his head down, asleep in seconds. The only times he’d stayed awake were the nights Suzanne ate with them.

Elizabeth turned to Suzanne, standing alongside her. “Want to walk to the livery with them?”

Gus took Suzanne’s arm. “Sure, she does. She needs the exercise.”

Suzanne jerked her arm away, dark hair flying. “Why don’t you come right out and say it—you think I’m fat!”

“Aw, I do not. I never said that.” A slow, teasing grin crinkled his eyes.

They were at it again, Elizabeth thought as she narrowed her eyes at Gus.

She and Suzanne both wore white skirts that night, Elizabeth with an orange shirt and a matching silk scarf holding her hair back. Suzanne wore dangly earrings and a ribbed pink top out over her skirt. She’d knotted the sleeves of a pink sweater around her waist, partly to hide her hips, Elizabeth thought with a pang.

Suzanne wasn’t fat; she just thought she was. And Gus wasn’t helping.

Jose Martinez and their driver dodged across the street. The rest of the team, Elizabeth, and Suzanne followed, threading between the stopped buggies.

Jake’s hand closed around Elizabeth’s arm as they stepped off the sidewalk and didn’t let go until they were across the street. Gus did the same with Suzanne, who shook him off as soon as they reached the other side.

Their driver turned off busy Second Street onto Tunnel Street at the next intersection, leaving the bright lights of the pavilion and Riverside Park behind. The sidewalk ahead of them was empty, people heading down other streets for the other liveries.

Five years ago, in 1881, when four major railroads laid tracks into El Paso, the little border town mushroomed overnight. The seedier parts of town, like this section of Tunnel Street, hadn’t been upgraded yet. The business section of El Paso now had paved sidewalks with curbs, sewers, electric lights in most stores, and even a few telephones. But not Tunnel Street.

The farther they went down Tunnel, the more dilapidated the neighborhood became. The wooden sidewalks were littered and broken in places. Some storefronts had roll-down metal shades and iron gates in the doorways. Two closed businesses had boards nailed over the windows.

A tall older boy in baggy trousers and a floppy shirt leaned against a lamppost and smirked at the girls as they passed. A green bandanna trailed from a pocket. As they passed, he pulled it out and dusted his hands with it.

Gus made a growl in his throat.

Suzanne glanced up. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. The rest of you catch that scarf thing?” he said quietly.

“Yeah,” Jake said. “Stay alert. Could be a signal.”

Halfway down the block, another young man lounged against a building. This one was slightly older, twenty or so. He stood there smoking, watching them. He also wore baggy pants and had a green bandanna, knotted at the back of his neck. He patted his head as they passed.

Chalked words and odd symbols were everywhere, scribbled on walls and doors, even on sidewalks. As Elizabeth studied the chalk pictures, a press release from the newspaper syndicate on the telegraph ran across her mind. It had been an article on the growing number of big-city street gangs in Baltimore, San Francisco, and New Orleans, and how to recognize them.

She squeezed Jake’s arm. “I’m no expert, but some of that writing looks like gang markers to me.”