by Lyle Brandt
“Hold on,” the gringo urged. “We need him to find out who else he told about us at the army base.”
Reluctantly, Guillermo took a step back, lowering his knife. “Bien,” he said. “But I can help you make him talk.”
“I had another thought on that score,” said the gringo, turning to his right and gesturing to someone whom Diego could not see.
Del Paso felt his stomach turning over as a trio of Apaches stepped up to surround him. Two of them were holding tomahawks, the third a skinning knife. Another urge to vomit overtook him, but his empty stomach merely curled into a painful knot.
“We need to know whatever he knows,” the gringo advised his Mescalero friends. “Can do?”
One of the Natives, with a bandage wrapped around one arm, replied in English, “When we finish, you will know him better than he knows himself.”
The two uninjured Mescaleros grabbed del Paso underneath his arms and started dragging him away toward outer darkness. Sobbing now, his vision blurred, Diego saw the village headman staring after him with hatred in his eyes, his weathered face a mask of disappointment that he had to miss out on the show.
Before they cleared the village square, before the three Apaches had a chance to work on him, Diego del Paso began to scream, a helpless sound that echoed through the desert like a dying night bird’s mournful cry.
* * *
* * *
The federale raid had claimed four lives in Agua Fria, with another five villagers wounded. Funerals would have to wait for sunrise, but removal of the fallen soldiers was the top priority. Crude litters were constructed, large enough to haul two corpses at a time, and they were dragged a half mile from the settlement, three teams of two men each repeating round trips by moonlight while selected women bearing tree branches followed the litters, wiping out their tracks.
The destination was a ragged gully that sporadic rainfall sometimes turned into a rushing stream. Upon arrival, the transporters dumped their loads into the quebrada, piling tumbleweeds on top of them until such time as the ever-hungry vultures and coyotes sniffed them out.
Four federale horses had been killed as well, the rest dispersed by gunfire while the battle raged. Given the dearth of food available, the village butcher and his young apprentice were assigned to clean the carcasses and slice them into pieces that could be explained away as food stores once the meat was smoked and aged.
Dolores and Sonya Aguirre helped the villagers clean up as best they could, aware that certain residents of Agua Fria must be blaming them for the attack. Diego del Paso had stopped screaming by then, his three interrogators coming back and huddling with Clint Parnell to share what they had learned up to his dying breath. The sisters watched Clint nodding, frowning thoughtfully, before he joined them by a bonfire in the central plaza.
“Well?” Dolores prodded him.
“The federales’ base is roughly eight miles east of here,” Clint said. “The captain who ran out of luck tonight was comandante of the post. Whatever men he left behind will wait for him, likely the best part of tomorrow, till they figure out that he’s not coming back. Before they start another search, we need to get away from here as far as possible.”
“And go where?” Sonya inquired.
“I’m hoping Kuruk and his men will have a lead on that,” Parnell replied.
As if on cue, their party’s three surviving Mescalero volunteers approached the fire. Dolores tracked them with her eyes, pretending not to see the streaks of blood drying on Nantan Lupan’s hands.
“What did he say?” Clint asked Kuruk, the commander of their dwindling Apache allies on the journey through Chihuahua.
“The traitor told us everything he knew,” Kuruk replied, the past tense verifying what Dolores had surmised about his fate. “He came to hate the other people of his village, thinking they despised him, but he was afraid to leave without making some profit from it. When we came in seeking shelter for the night, he saw his chance. The federales, as they always do, deceived him.”
“What about the other?” Clint inquired.
“He had no knowledge of our mission,” Kuruk answered, “but a rumor reached his ears from strangers, mexicano riders passing through, about . . . how you say it, jefe militar?”
“ ‘Warlord’ in English,” Clint translated.
“Yes. Same thing,” Kuruk agreed. “A warlord of bandidos who supposedly acquired a herd of horses in el norte earlier this week.”
“This warlord have a name by any chance?”
“The coward only called him by the Spanish word for a small town. Villa.”
Dolores interjected, “Pancho Villa?”
Kuruk shrugged. “He did not say, señora.”
“That is name enough,” Dolores said. Turning to Clint, she asked, “You’ve heard of him?”
Parnell nodded. Stories of Pancho Villa’s banditry across Chihuahua and Sonora were reported, possibly exaggerated, even in New Mexico, although there had been no accounts so far of him crossing the Rio Grande with his men.
“I don’t suppose he told you where to find this Villa?” Clint inquired.
“They were his last words,” said Kuruk, “though not precise. Somewhere northwest of where we stand, around Ascensión.”
“Sounds like our next stop,” Clint replied. “Assuming that we ever get that far.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ascensión lay thirty-odd miles to the north-northwest of Agua Fria. Clint Parnell had mixed feelings as his riders departed from the village, leaving fresh graves in their wake and misery that would endure long after they were gone. Ahead of him lay nothing but uncertainty, the risk of more lives being thrown away.
Since they had crossed the Rio Grande, his team had lost three men and killed some forty enemies including the first Chiricahua band that had waylaid them. Add to that five dead in Agua Fria, with the traitor factored in, and five more suffering from wounds. Toss in the dead and injured from the bandit raid on Alejandro’s hacienda that began all of the bloodletting, and Parnell felt the butcher’s bill trying to smother him, as if it were a shroud.
Against that stood his solemn promise to retrieve Aguirre’s stolen herd and save the family that he had served with pride for years.
But at what final human cost?
And if Aguirre’s daughters fell along the way, how would Clint live with that?
The simple answer: he would not. If it came down to his life or those of the twins, he was prepared to die for them without a second thought. In fact, after all they had been through in their first day on the trail, Clint wondered whether that might not come as a relief.
Stop it! he thought, scolding himself. Defeatist thinking never helped in any situation, and the worse Clint’s troubles seemed, the more he had to focus on the goal of ultimate success.
Sonya’s unexpected voice beside him, on his right, drew Clint’s thoughts from himself before he had to ruminate upon them any longer. “What’s your plan for finding Pancho Villa?” she inquired.
“I haven’t worked the details out,” he said. “It’s obvious we can’t just ride into Ascensión, asking if anybody’s seen him lately.”
“Not if we plan on riding out alive,” Sonya agreed.
“The farthest that I’ve thought it through so far, we could send one man in who claims he wants to be a part of Villa’s outfit. Ride the outlaw trail, whatever. That removes suspicion of a whole group passing through and questioning the locals.”
“Did you have someone in mind?” she asked.
“I’ve ruled out the Mescaleros,” Clint replied. “With Cantú injured, that leaves Fuentes or Lagüera who could likely pass inspection.”
“I could go along with one of them,” Sonya suggested.
“As what, exactly?” Parnell challenged.
“Well . . .”
“Forget about i
t. I’m not sending you to look for Villa, putting you in any further danger. That goes for Dolores, too.”
“But—”
“No!” he cut her off. “Your father’s lost enough already, and there’s still a good chance that we may not get his horses back. You want to sacrifice yourself down here, at least be kind enough to shoot me first, will you?”
That silenced Sonya for a somber moment, then she smiled, turning away, and said, “I’ll think about it.”
Parnell glanced over his shoulder, saw her riding back to join sister Dolores in the line of march, and wondered how the other twin was holding up after their bloody day crossing Chihuahua. He had been aware of her attachment to Paco Yáñez, had seen the looks exchanged between them, and had caught them sneaking off for private moments on a few occasions, though he didn’t know whether Alejandro was aware of what was going on under his very nose around the ranch. It was not part of Clint’s job to report on Alejandro’s children to their father, and he’d kept that to himself, but he understood that she was grieving for Yáñez, although she tried to cover it.
He only hoped that grief would not lead to Dolores being killed before Clint finished up the task that he had been assigned—the deadly job for which both twins had volunteered over their father’s sage advice.
In any case, it was too late for them to turn back now. The only thing their team could do was press ahead, attempt to do their job, and somehow make it home alive.
* * *
* * *
West of Ascensión, Chihuahua
Pancho Villa stuffed the final bite of a chile verde burrito in his mouth, slowly chewing the chunks of pork shoulder slow cooked in a green chile sauce of jalapeño peppers, garlic, and tomatillos, wrapped in a corn tortilla. The mixture set his mouth on fire but in a good way, helping to distract him from the problem foremost on his mind.
Finally, after he’d washed the last bit of his spicy breakfast down with cold cerveza, Villa asked his second-in-command, “Do you believe we’re wasting time here, waiting for Zapata?”
Javier Jurado thought about that, shrugged, and then replied, “I don’t think so, jefe. He wants the horses, certainly. But as to when he might arrive or whether he will have enough dinero, well . . .” Jurado shrugged again and let the still-unfinished sentence trail away.
“He could be dead by now for all we know,” Villa surmised. “The federales have been hunting him, and with reports of trouble yesterday, I wonder if he’s finally run out of time.”
Sipping coffee generously flavored with tequila, Javier considered that, then slowly shook his head. “I doubt that,” he said at last. “Díaz would surely make it known if he had bagged Emiliano. It would make him feel muy valiente, even though he had no hand in it himself. Good for the old fool’s withering machismo, eh?”
“So, if the soldiers weren’t fighting Zapata’s men, then what was happening?” Villa countered.
During yesterday afternoon and earlier this very morning, close to dawn, had come reports of two engagements where soldados had been killed. One had occurred at Lake Guzmán, the other at a flyspeck of a settlement called Agua Fria. Villa had sharp eyes and ears throughout Chihuahua, some across the border in Sonora, who kept track of information that might possibly concern him, passing it along and pocketing some pesos in return. Around two dozen federales had been slain in widely separated incidents, and if they had not tangled with Zapata’s men, what did it mean in fact?
Jurado drained his coffee cup, set it beside one of his dusty boots, and then unleashed a wet belch as he straightened up again. Villa scowled at him. Asked his aide, “Is that your answer, then?”
“No, jefe,” Javier replied. “The fighting could mean anything or nothing. At Laguna de Guzmán I understand that Chiricahuas were involved somehow.”
“Apaches.” Villa spoke the tribe’s name like a curse and spat into the sand.
“As for the other thing,” Jurado forged ahead, “it could be possible the Agua Fria villagers were smuggling.”
“Smuggling what?” Villa challenged. “They barely have a pot to cook un pollo in.”
Jurado forced a laugh at that, adding, “If they could find a chicken. Still, could be anything.”
“If they were smugglers, we would know about it,” Villa said. “They would be paying tribute for the privilege.”
“Then something else,” Jurado answered back. “It’s said they fired upon the federales, who killed several of the villagers in turn.”
“And that’s another thing,” said Villa. “You have been to Agua Fria, ¿sí?”
“I was not much impressed,” Javier said.
“Which is my point, exactly. Did they strike you as a group that would attack soldados? And if so, attack with what?”
“Guns are not difficult to find, jefe,” Jurado said.
“Not if you have dinero, Javier. But Agua Fria? Seriously? They must rank among Chihuahua’s poorest of the poor. It would surprise me if they had one decent rifle in the village, and they could not overcome a troop of federales with their rakes and hoes.”
“What, then, jefe?” Jurado asked his leader, frowning.
“No lo sé,” Villa replied. “I don’t know, Javier, and that’s what troubles me.”
Jurado rolled a cigarette as he responded. “Let me put your mind at ease, Pancho. The Agua Fria campesinos know nothing about us that could not be heard in any other village. Whatever the federales wanted with them, they are dead now and the secret died with them.”
“I hope that you are right,” Villa replied. “If not . . .”
He let the sentence trail away, thinking, It could mean death for all of us.
* * *
* * *
Dolores saw her sister riding back from where she had engaged in conversation with the foreman of their father’s hacienda. Sonya reined in as her twin caught up to her, glancing along the shortened line of vaqueros and Mescaleros trailing them.
Three dead so far, out of the dozen riders they had started with—one out of four—and two more wounded but still capable of fighting. How many would remain to bring the stolen livestock home, assuming that they ever found the herd at all?
“Well?” asked Dolores as Sonya’s varnish roan fell into step beside her snowflake Appaloosa.
“He’s devised a plan, if you can call it that,” Sonya replied.
“And . . . ?”
“Send one of the hands into Ascensión, pretending that he wants to work for Villa. Bring back word of whatever he learns, where he is hiding out or has the horses stashed away. Then make another plan for the attack.”
Dolores recognized her sister’s skepticism, knew it sounded vague, but what more could Parnell have said before they reached the desert city where Diego del Paso, dead now, claimed that Pancho Villa could be found? She reckoned that the traitor had shared everything he knew, if only to relieve the pain inflicted on him by the Mescaleros, but that did not mean his words were true.
Even a dying man in agony could only spill the information he possessed, and if del Paso had been wrong about where Villa spent his time . . . well, they could wind up wasting days on end with further searching, while more federales caught their scent and rode to intercept them.
“Who will he send?” Dolores asked.
“Arturo or Ignacio,” Sonya replied. “Joaquín is still recovering and might appear suspicious.” With a sidelong glance, Sonya added, “He would not hear of sending us.”
“Why would he?” asked Dolores. “It is only sentido común.”
“I know it’s common sense,” said Sonya. “Still . . .”
She let the statement die there, but Dolores knew her sister understood the folly of dispatching women to Ascensión with questions about Villa and his hideaway. The men who rode with Pancho Villa were the kind who married late or not at all, spending their time with prost
itutes whenever brothels were available, more likely to assault a woman traveling alone—much less a pair of twins—than to sit down with one or both and spill the secrets of their outlaw gang.
Dolores understood that Clint was looking out for them and honoring the promises he’d made to Alejandro when his last surviving children insisted on joining the trek to save their horses and the hacienda’s future.
“Maybe—” she began, then stopped.
“Maybe what, hermana?” Sonya prodded her.
“I was about to say maybe we should have stayed at home and taken care of Papa.”
“Bite your tongue!” Sonya hissed back at her. “Who else remained to represent the family?”
“Clint represents us. All of the vaqueros riding with him represent our family.”
“But it is not the same. You know it’s not.”
“I know we’re killers now,” Dolores answered back. “I’m not sure that confession and a few Our Fathers ever washes that away.”
“You doubt the church now?”
“I’ve begun to question everything,” Dolores said. “It’s one thing, doing man’s work at the rancho, but to hunt down other men and kill them . . .”
“Only if they try to kill us first,” Sonya cut in.
“And what about the federales? Here we are in their country, killing soldados who enforce the law.”
“What law?” The scorn in Sonya’s voice was obvious. “They are no better than bandidos, thieves, and rapists, killing their own people for Díaz.”
“I know that,” said Dolores. “Still . . .”
“Still nothing,” Sonya cut her off. “If they knew Villa had our horses, they would take them from him for themselves.”
“Of course, you’re right,” Dolores said.
“But you feel sympathy for them? I think the sun has baked your brain, hermana.”
