River to Cross, A (23 page)

Camp Annex

Jake yawned and rubbed his face
with both hands, rasping the bristles on his jaw. He still wasn’t caught up. His desk was littered with papers: Ranger evaluations, schedules, weekly reports.

Six hours in a saddle didn’t faze him, but six hours at a desk kinked every muscle he had. He leaned back in his chair and rolled his shoulders to loosen them.

And ferrying Elizabeth around—when she so obviously thought it unnecessary—didn’t help any. But her father had explained the situation to her. She argued with Jake, but she didn’t argue with him.

“Like it or not, this man,” her father had said, pointing to Jake, “is your bodyguard. Those are my wishes, Elizabeth. And fortunately, he and Colonel Gordon concur. When Jake isn’t available, someone else will take his place. It’s not permanent, so do what you can to help these men keep you alive.”

Taking her into town this afternoon had gone well. She hadn’t protested once. Either Jake was doing something right or Elizabeth was simply getting used to it.

Or figuring out ways to get around all of them and do as she pleased.

No, that wasn’t fair to her. She’d deal with it, and deal with him, up front.

Even though the Army and the Rangers considered it work, he liked spending time with her. A couple of mornings when she needed to finish up an article for the paper, like the one on military medicine, he and Gus took her to the hospital for breakfast with Suzanne.

Gus had added a personal touch to that article, and Elizabeth included his remarks that Fort Bliss was fortunate to have a good Army surgeon and dedicated nurses on staff. That article was forwarded by Colonel Gordon to Army headquarters.

At a light tapping on the door, he raised his head and called, “Come in.”

When the door opened, he smiled and sprang to his feet. Hand outstretched, he crossed the room quickly and greeted his Gypsy friend Laszlo.

“Any trouble getting here?” Jake asked.

Laszlo shook his head. “Only problem was getting past the guard at the entrance. And still he followed me right to your door.”

Jake pulled up a chair for Laszlo, then sat and faced him.

“Remember when I told you Gypsies have ways of finding things out?” Laszlo said.

“I remember very well, and I’m listening.”

“I knew you would, which is why I came.” Laszlo leaned forward, his eyes locked with Jake’s. “Diego is coming after our Hoopa lady.”

Jake dragged a hand down his face and rose from his chair. “From the day we got back, I’ve been afraid of that.” Standing by his desk, he looked at Laszlo. “How did you find this out?”

“One of my people cleans Diego’s office.”

“And?”

“He hears things.”

“What else?”

“There’s an old Gypsy saying that goes, ‘A little wine goes in, a little truth comes out.’ ”

Jake nodded. “I’ve heard that. What came out?”

“That Diego is getting very close to overthrowing Hector Guevara. However, he needs an angry response from the United States. He thinks taking Elizabeth again will bring that about. He also intends to increase the guerrilla attacks on Texas ranchers. Right now he’s at his camp, but I know where he goes to hide, if you want to go after him.”

“If I could, I’d go tonight, but that’s a decision someone in my government has to make. I can’t just ride into Mexico and kidnap one of their generals and put him on trial. He’ll swear he’s innocent, deny everything. And the next thing I know, he’s free, and I’m in jail. As a result, Mexico and the United States would be at each other’s throats again.” Jake leaned forward. “It’s getting too late for you to start back. You had anything to eat lately?”

Laszlo shook his head. “Not since breakfast this morning. I was in a hurry.”

“Let’s go over to the fort. We’ll have a quick supper, and afterward we’ll share your information with some people I know. You’ve got contacts in Mexico that just might be useful to them.”

He owed this man. Laszlo had taken a big risk to get them out of Mexico and back to Texas. And now he’d come on his own to Texas to warn him of a threat to Elizabeth.

“We have plenty of beds here at the Annex. Later, you’re welcome to stay the night with us.”

Laszlo’s dark eyes lit up. “You mean it? Here, in the Ranger camp?”

Jake nodded.

Laszlo smiled. “I’d like that very much. You make this poor Gypsy feel important.”

Laszlo
was
important. He had no idea how important.

“Let’s go eat,” Jake said.

The Officers’ Club was on a side street, down two doors from the commissary, and well away from the living quarters for both officers and the men.

“How about a drink first?” Jake said, sliding onto a high-backed stool at the bar. “A sarsaparilla for me,” he said to the bartender.

Laszlo nodded at the bartender. “I’ll have a beer.”

Through the double doors leading from the bar to the dining room, Jake watched officers and their families lining up at the buffet table for Beef and Beer Night. Though the food was casual, fresh flowers and white tablecloths were the order of the day. Pride and a certain elegance was unmistakable. Even the greeter at the door wore a suit and tie, and bowed as the officers entered.

Officers were treated with formal respect, almost a requirement, especially for those forts far out in the backcountry. It was intended as a reminder of the privileges U.S. Army officers were entitled to—no matter where they were or how lonely the post in which they found themselves.

“Thanks,” Jake said as the bartender slid the mugs in front of them. They carried their drinks to a table by the window, then went into the dining room to the buffet table to get their food.

Back at their table, Jake looked up at Laszlo and said, “Elizabeth asked me to find someone who could fix her house, repair the damage so she can move back in. How are you at work like that?”

“I built my own vardo,” Laszlo said.

“Nice work. I’m impressed. So I can tell her you’d be interested in the job?”

“I’d be interested in any job,” Laszlo replied. His eyes filled and he looked away quickly.

“Good,” Jake said with a smile. “This week we’ll go out to the house and see what all needs to be done.” His expression then turned serious. “Now let’s go talk to Colonel Gordon and see what he wants us to do about Diego.”

The next day, on a narrow strip of beach
on the Mexican shore, Major Chavez and General Diego, both wearing civilian clothes, walked their horses into the Rio Grande near Socorro, downstream from El Paso.

Diego, an excellent horseman, led the way across.

Chavez followed, chafing at his position. He should have been leading, not Diego. Chavez knew the route; the general did not. He swallowed his irritation, knowing full well that generals don’t like following lowly majors.

When they’d reached the other side, Diego looked for an easy way up the riverbank to the road.

“Which way, Major?” Diego asked.

Chavez smiled. “Follow me, General,” he said, pulling around Diego and starting up an incline so steep, his horse lunged like a mountain goat. At the edge of a road at the top, he looked down at the general. Diego nodded, kicked his horse hard, and leaped up the bank to the top.

Looking around, Diego said in disgust, “More sand. So, how far to El Paso?”

“Fifteen miles maybe,” Chavez said. “This is called the Old Road. It’s not as good as the new one, lots of deep ruts, but it has advantages. Few people use it, so we won’t be noticed. And if we stay on it, we can miss El Paso completely and ride on to Lloyd Madison’s house.”

“And how far is Madison’s from El Paso?” Diego asked.

“Three miles, no more,” Chavez answered.

General Diego nodded.

“We’re wasting time,” he said. “Let’s head out.” Then he gave his horse another powerful kick.

El Paso

“This is it.”
Elizabeth leaned forward and pointed to a white house with black shutters, set well back off the road and overlooking the juncture of the Rio Grande and, upstream, the bubbling rapids where the Little Pine Creek flowed in.

Jake turned the buggy through the main gate and drove up the lane to C. E. Kaufman’s house.

Kaufman, a prominent attorney in town, had offered his home and grounds to the Wesley Women’s Society, which was sponsoring a town picnic that included educating the women about weapons.

Jake glanced at the paper in Elizabeth’s lap.

The headline read,
Texas Rangers Teach El Paso Women to Shoot
. Elizabeth had run two articles on it, giving the time and date of the picnic. Men were invited to the picnic, but the lesson on weapons afterward was for women only, the article said, offered for their and their families’ protection.

“Good advertising for the paper as well as your picnic,” Jake said. He chuckled. “Still don’t understand how you talked Kaufman into this gun picnic idea.”

“Shhh, don’t call it that. I met him in church. You were with me the day he and his wife introduced themselves, remember?”

Jake nodded. “Don’t remember you asking him to do this, though.”

“I didn’t then. His wife stopped by the paper the next week, and I suggested it.” The buggy went over a rut then, and she bounced up and down in the seat. “I’m so excited. I hope it goes well.”

People were coming from every direction—ranch wives, farm wives, women who felt vulnerable when they were alone. A few who lived in town came, well-dressed women wearing gloves and big hats.

Out on the road, a line of wagons, buggies, and men on horseback waited to turn in through the gate.

Sergeant Gus Dukker in a purple- and yellow-striped shirt manned the gate, directing the drivers to park in a field at the other end of the picnic area. Being a Ranger, with a gun on each hip, he was also checking the occupants of each buggy or wagon to make sure no troublemakers showed up.

The grounds had been decorated with red, white, and blue streamers and hand-lettered signs. Balloons were tied to every table and handed out to the children. From the far side of the grounds came shouts of laughter. A blue haze rose when another string of firecrackers went off.

“The people of El Paso have done everything right,” Jake said to Elizabeth. “To someone passing by, it looks like a town picnic.”

“Which it is,” she said.

“But with a difference. There’s more weaponry at this picnic today than in some entire towns.”

Sheriff Bud Wagner, his wounded leg propped on a bench, sat with Deputy Morgan at a table laid out with guns under a sign that said,
Law Enforcement
.

Women in long white aprons worked at a yard-long griddle borrowed from a local restaurant and hung over a wood fire. Sausages and Red Hots sizzled.

Next to the griddle, a side of beef turned in a huge fire pit. Peppery steam swirled and rose from it, stinging their eyes. From time to time, Reverend Sam Lewis painted it with more hot sauce.

The old national flag of what used to be the Republic of Texas—red, white, and blue with a single star—fluttered proudly alongside the Stars and Stripes.

Jake pulled up with the buggy, helped Elizabeth down, and unloaded boxes of rifles and ammunition. Six Rangers from D Company rode in right behind them. They tied up their horses and Jake’s buggy and came back to get the teachers’ tables set up. Each table displayed an assortment of rifles and pistols. Rangers would demonstrate care and handling of the different types of weapons. Out in the field behind a barn, paper targets had been set in a line.

One table was already surrounded by ladies and girls, all of them smiling at the young officer in the dark blue Cavalry coat and sky blue trousers so familiar on the frontier. The broad yellow stripe down each trouser leg announced his officer status, as did the wide-brimmed black campaign hat trimmed with gold and tipped up at the side.

Lieutenant Mark Taylor, the officer who had brought the telegram to Jake the day Elizabeth was kidnapped, waved to Jake as he passed.

Jake came over and nodded at the girls gathered around the table. “Glad you came in uniform,” he said to the lieutenant. “It shows everyone how neighborly El Paso and Fort Bliss are.” He smiled, lowered his voice and added, “And the ladies seem to love that uniform.”

Ignoring Jake’s comment, Lieutenant Taylor said, “As you can see, I brought a Springfield military rifle and two Army Colts for my demonstration. By the way, thanks for asking for me. My captain was very impressed.” He grinned. “That pretty lady with you a minute ago—at the next table—is that Elizabeth Evans?”

Jake turned, glanced at Elizabeth, who was talking and laughing with one of his Rangers. “That’s her,” he said.

“No wonder you were so determined to get her back.”

Jake laughed, clapped Taylor on the shoulder. “And I’m going to keep her away from you in that uniform.”

“Anyone with property to protect, over here, please,” a Ranger called. Behind him, the deputy sheriff had set up a blackboard. People crowded around. The Ranger and the sheriff drew roads in and out of El Paso and sketched in the Rio Grande for reference. They circled properties that might be at risk.

At one of the Ranger tables, Fred Barkley stripped a rifle. In half a minute he’d taken the weapon completely apart. Next, he took out the firing pin, the spring, all while explaining what each piece did. Then, just as quickly, he put the pieces back together. The women gathered around, listening to him describe each step.

He showed a woman how to hold the rifle, get comfortable with it, then pass it along to the woman next to her. After everyone had a chance to hold the gun and sight it, then came the actual shooting at targets. A Ranger stood behind each woman taking a turn, holding her left elbow and guiding the rifle against her shoulder.

“Why that’s not hard at all!” one said, lining up for a second turn.

Confident and smiling, some of them sought out Elizabeth, who was standing in the next line for her third chance with a Winchester Model 1886.

The afternoon flew by. Finally, Jake cast an anxious look at the setting sun and called an end to the target practice.

Over the groans and pleas to shoot a while longer, he said, “For shooting, you need good light. Remember, ladies—always think safety.”