Thousands of human and animal feet and wagon wheels soon turned the road to Colonia Morelos, once hard-packed caliche, into a fine, white powder the lightest breeze lifted and flung at the men and animals. The road stayed within sight of the Río Bavispe most of the way. At least we no longer suffered from thirst, but day-by-day hunger gnawed at empty bellies.
Villa sent sorties off along the river, gathering what they could to feed the men—fish, frogs, turtles, cattails, anything that would fill starving bellies. He sent hunting parties into the foothills of the eastern side of the Sierra Madre and into the Tigre Mountains on the western side of the Bavispe. He took corn from two or three tiny Mexican villages and a couple of big ranchos along the way, leaving enough for the villagers to get through the winter, but leaving nothing at the ranchos. Most of the men made it through the worst of the march. Still, many died. Those who collapsed in their tracks and had no strength to stand again were laid in many rough, quickly dug graves along the trail.
Late in the afternoon of the third day out of Colonia Oaxaca, the dark outlines of houses and stores emerged in the dusty light. We’d reached Colonia Morelos, where the Bavispe joins the Río San Bernardino and makes a long, sweeping turn to run south on the western side of the Tigre Mountains.
That evening, Juan handed Villa a cup of pungent piñon-nut coffee. He took a few sips and stared a long time at the División del Norte fires stretching far up the San Bernardino River.
When we learned the Mormons were no longer in Colonia Morelos, Doctor Oñate, the other medicos, and I decided to make our patients comfortable in the back storeroom of a large mercantile building and leave several medico assistants to change bandages and give them my pain-killing concoctions until they all could be taken home. Villa approved our plan but worried about having enough medicos at Agua Prieta if so many had to stay at Colonia Morelos. We were discussing what else might be done when I glanced across the fire and saw Yellow Boy standing there with his arms crossed.
I grinned and shook my head. Villa saw me and looked over his shoulder. He whooped, “Madre a Dios! There you stand! We’ve missed you many days, amigo. All is well?”
Yellow Boy walked around the fire and sat down between Villa and me. He took a long slurp from the steaming cup Juan handed him and nodded. “Sí, Jefe, all is well. Yaqui scouts, they leave. Watch División del Norte no more.”
Villa grinned. “Ha. Probably stayed long enough to count us and then take the numbers to El Perfumado, who will tell Calles, digging the trench at Agua Prieta, to save his men and leave. The División will massacre them in one charge. Any sign of the Carrancista army?”
“No sign, Jefe. I search mountains on both sides of río.”
“Do you bring us meat, amigo? My hombres are near to starving. Now they live only on what we can find on the land. We’re not Apache. They don’t find much.”
“Sí, Jefe. I bring a deer. Mañana I find more.”
“Ah. Bueno. Bueno. The wild game saves our lives.”
“Sí, Jefe. But taking the animals leaves Apaches hungry in the Season of the Ghost Face.”
Villa squinted at Yellow Boy and slowly nodded his head. “If they touch my men or supplies, I’ll send my dorados after them, and they’ll be no more. This I swear.”
Yellow Boy looked Villa in the eye. “Sí, Jefe, comprendo. This I say to Rojo when I see him. Rojo understands.”
Villa grinned and relaxed. “Bueno. Apaches are our amigos. I have no desire to strike them. When Agua Prieta is taken, I’ll help mis amigos. How fares Rojo?”
“Days are hard. Too many warriors die in raids. Boys have no uncles or brothers, no teachers. Most warriors have two, maybe three, wives now. Food and supplies run low. The ranchos on the east side of the sierras have only a few cattle.”
Villa nodded. “Sí, mi amigo. Days are hard. They’ll be better when I whip the Carrancistas and El Perfumado.”
CHAPTER 22
UP THE SAN BERNARDINO
Yellow Boy left before dawn, leading our pack mule to look for game. He said he planned to range the hills back toward the village of Bavispe because there were too many sorties ranging the mountains north of Morelos. Every available officer hunted. Even the Butcher, Rodolfo Fierro, led five men into the Tigre Mountains off to the southwest looking for mines to raid, deer to hunt, or deserters to execute.
I’d come to hate the sight of Fierro. I’d never known anyone who enjoyed killing more. Most of the men in División del Norte hated and feared him.
I spent most of the day helping Doctor Oñate and six assistants set up a little hospital in Colonia Morelos for the men left behind. We did all we could to make the hospital’s patients comfortable, and before leaving a couple of hours before sundown, I brewed up a fresh batch of painkiller, showing the assistants how to make it.
The infantry and wagons wouldn’t make more than five or six miles on the soft, sandy road before stopping for the day. Riding Satanas, I knew it would be easy enough for me to catch up with them before dark.
A couple of miles upriver from Colonia Morelos, I saw four or five riders sitting on their horses, casually smoking and watching something thrash around in the river. As I drew closer, I could see a horse floundering in soupy sand and a man trapped on it, bellowing in rage at the men watching him. Galloping up to the little group, I heard, “You sorry sons-of-whores, get me out of here! Throw me a rope! . . . Goddamn you! . . . I’ll cut off your cojones and strangle you with your own mierda . . . I’ll . . . get me out of here! Hurry up, goddamn it!”
The men sat unmoving as Rodolfo Fierro sank deeper and deeper into the muck. The horse’s strength was gone, and its struggles grew weaker. The deeper the man sank, the more he screamed orders and threats. Water was filling the impression in the sand made by the sinking man and horse. By the time I rode up to the men watching him, Fierro was up to his chest in the thick soup, and his horse snorted to keep water out of her nostrils, her grunts pitiful. Fierro’s screams and orders croaked into a pleading tone that sounded even more obnoxious than his original outraged orders and curses.
I peeled off several coils of my reata to make a big loop as the mare struggled and thrashed to pull herself out, but her nose slid under the thick, sandy water.
A dorado who outranked the others shook his head. “No reata, Doctor. General Fierro stood many of our men against a wall, ordered them shot to pieces. He did this even to the Generalissimo’s most loyal soldiers because he thought they looked at him wrong. He has cursed God and threatened to kill us all at one time or another. Now let him pull his own way out. This is justice from God. Don’t interfere.”
By this point, Fierro had his head tilted back to keep the water at his chin, and he was begging as he puffed and gasped for breath, “Por favor . . . por favor, señores. I forget all this . . . just pull me out.”
I stared at the dorados for a moment and shook my head. I whirled the reata loop and threw, but from my unpracticed hands, it fell short. Then Fierro’s face slid under the water, and he was gone.
The dorado nodded and said, “There is justice in this world, Doctor. You see it here. It’s too bad about the mare.” The horsemen rode up to the road, never looking back, and disappeared. I coiled up the rope, wondering if I’d really just seen God’s justice.
A couple of days later I spoke to the dorado and asked what happened. I believe he spoke the truth. He said, “Doctor Grace, we hunted all day and found nothing. On the way back to the column, we stopped to fill a water cask. Fierro’s mare saw a coiled rattlesnake and crow-hopped out of the way just as he was dismounting. He fell backwards, his boot hanging in the stirrup. In a panic, the mare ran, dragging Fierro into the wet sand there by the river.”
I said, “Señor, I won’t say anything to General Villa unless he asks me directly.”
A smile flashed on the dorado’s face. “Ah, muchas gracias, Doctor Grace, that’s all we ask.”
In his grief over losing Fierro, Villa never asked, and I never told.<
br />
On the sixth day out of Colonia Morelos, we camped about six miles down the San Bernardino River from John Slaughter’s Rancho San Bernardino, which spread out across both sides of the border. After supper, Villa asked Yellow Boy and me to join him in his wagon for coffee. Villa sat in his chair behind his battered field desk, I on a stool across from him, and Yellow Boy, as usual, on the floor. The air cool and pleasant, dusk not quite gone, a coal-oil lantern spread golden light and dark shadows in his office while we relaxed with our scalding-hot coffee.
Staring out the door, Villa thoughtfully scratched the stubble on his chin and cleared his throat. “Amigos, we’re within three days’ march of the border, and the road west from the Rancho San Bernardino is another three days’ march to Agua Prieta. Hombrecito, mañana mount your great black horse and ride north to the Rancho San Bernardino. The rancho hacienda has a teléfono. Tell the rancher you ride with Francisco Villa and ask him to let you call Señor Peach in El Paso. You know how to find Queentin using the teléfono?”
I nodded. Villa said, “Ask Queentin to take the early morning train from El Paso and get off at the San Bernardino cattle pens. They’re far from anyone else and right at the tracks. The railroad calls the place San Bernardino Crossing. The train from El Paso should be there by the middle of the afternoon, day after tomorrow. San Bernardino Crossing is about a two-hour ride from the San Bernardino rancho casa. I ask that you and Muchacho Amarillo meet him there with the horse you saved for him and bring him back to the rancho hacienda. I’ll meet you there, and we’ll talk of my plans for the attack on Agua Prieta and learn what he knows about Wilson and Carranza.”
Puzzled, I asked, “Why use Rancho San Bernardino? Why not pick Quent up in Douglas and bring him back to you on the trail? Are you friends with the owner of the rancho?”
Villa grinned. “Sí, Texas John Slaughter is un amigo bueno. In fact he’s my banker.”
I was surprised. I remembered Rufus Pike telling me stories about Texas John Slaughter and how he was sheriff in Cochise County back in the days when the Earps and Clantons were going at it. “How’d he get to be your banker?” I asked.
Villa laughed and slapped his knee. “It’s a good story, Hombrecito. I first met Señor Slaughter when he caught me taking some of his cattle for my army when we were fighting Díaz in the revolución. I tell you, Hombrecito, Slaughter is fearless. There I was with his cows and twenty men, but he had a big shotgun and would have fought us all until we were dead or gone if I hadn’t paid him for the cows I was taking. I gave him a few gold reales for the cattle. He tested every one with his teeth before he let us have the cattle. He said to me, ‘Pancho, when the fighting is over, come back and see me. I’ll tell you how to make gold honestly with cattle.’
“After Madero came to power, there was no more fighting. I go back to Rancho San Bernardino and speak with Señor Slaughter. He tells me he owns two butcher shops in Bisbee and had a meat market in Charleston before the great earthquake destroyed the town. I had mucho dinero I saved from the ranchos the hacendado families left during the revolución. I asked him to keep mi dinero safe and invest it for me. I went back to Chihuahua and started four butcher shops myself. As he told me they would, the butcher shops made mucho dinero, and the dinero I gave him, he has multiplied many times over in other businesses. Huerta, that old son-of-a-bitch, took all my property in Chihuahua. My only pesos are in the care of Señor Texas John Slaughter, and now I need them. The hombres of División del Norte have much hunger. Perhaps he’ll lend me more. He’s very honest. He’ll give me my dinero. Soon we have a good visit at the Rancho San Bernardino, eh, Hombrecito?”
CHAPTER 23
SAN BERNARDINO CROSSING
A large, one-story ranch house with a big front porch glowed white in the afternoon sun. I tied Satanas to the white rail fence around an emerald green yard and walked up a hard caliche path to the porch in front of a carved, Mexican-style door. I knocked and heard the creak of a chair and the shuffle of feet. John Slaughter, wearing his famous pearl-handled .44 and looking out of place in his slippers, opened the door. He was short, with fearless eyes that directly challenged mine, a fine, white beard covering his chin, and thinning gray hair wrinkled by a distinct hat line.
“Mr. Slaughter?”
“They call me Texas John Slaughter. What can I do for yuh? We ain’t hirin’ right now.” He looked over my shoulder at Yellow Boy, who stood behind me and added, “Especially Apaches, we ain’t hirin’. They’s supposed to be on the reservation.”
“Sir, I’m Doctor Henry Grace. Pancho Villa sent me ahead of the División del Norte to ask if I may use your telephone to call a gentleman in El Paso. The gentleman with me is Señor Muchacho Amarillo. He’s a member of the tribal police on the Mescalero Reservation over in New Mexico.”
Mentioning Pancho Villa brought a smile to Texas John, and he opened the door wide for us to come in.
“Why shore, be glad to lend ’er to yuh. Just don’t want my throat cut by no Apache desperado. It’s a-hangin’ on the wall right over there. Come on in the kitchen when yer finished. I’ll get Maria to make us some coffee. She’s a damn good Mex cook.”
Yellow Boy found a place to sit on the floor and kept an eye on Texas John. Calling the Herald, I reached Quent on the first try. Quent promised he’d be on the train out of El Paso early the next morning and would meet us at San Bernardino Crossing that afternoon. I rang off, relieved that the telephone connection was so easily made.
Yellow Boy and I had a cup of coffee with Texas John. “So, ol’ Pancho is movin’ that army of his west?” Slaughter said.
“Yes, sir, General Villa marched the División del Norte across the Sierra Madre via El Paso Púlpito and then from Colonia Oaxaca to Colonia Morelos and up the Río San Bernardino.”
Texas John frowned. “Great day in the mornin’! You mean he actually got his army cross El Paso Púlpito without losin’ ever’ one of ’em? Most generals I know on both sides of the border say it ain’t possible, but if you say so, I guess he done it. I read all sorts of speculatin’ in the papers about what he’d do if he made it across the mountains. What’s he plannin’?”
“I understand that when he gets to your ranch, he’ll turn west and take Agua Prieta.”
“That there might be harder than he thinks. But I ain’t one to underestimate ol’ Pancho. He’n get ’er done. So he sent you over here to call somebody in El Paso?”
I took another swallow of Texas John’s coffee, feeling my body start to fill with nervous energy. “Yes, sir. Yellow Boy and I plan to meet Quentin Peach, the gentleman I just called, a reporter for the El Paso Herald, at San Bernardino Ranch crossing tomorrow afternoon.”
Texas John grinned. “Quentin Peach? You just called Quentin Peach? Ain’t it a small world? Why I read his column in the Herald all the time. Be interestin’ to meet Mr. Peach. When’s Pancho comin’?”
“I understand General Villa plans to visit you in the afternoon and discuss some banking business before leaving for Agua Prieta.”
“That’ll be fine. I’ll make us up some ice cream.”
I said, “Yes, sir, I know he’s partial to ice cream. How do you make it way out here in the desert without ice?”
He grinned, “Aw, ain’t nothin’ to it. Got me a good ice house, and bring it over by the wagonload from Douglas. If yuh got ice, all yuh got to do is keep stirrin’ the recipe until she freezes and eat ’er while she’s still froze.”
I said, “Mr. Slaughter, it’s getting late in the afternoon. I wonder if you’d mind if we made camp outside your yard fence before it gets dark?”
“Why, hell yes, I’d mind. Ain’t no need for you boys to camp outside. Maria’s a good cook, and I want you to have supper with me. I got a spare bedroom or two. Come on and sleep inside. Be my guests.” He was right. Maria was a very good cook, but Yellow Boy decided he’d sleep on the porch.
We reached Slaughter’s cattle pens next to the train tracks around midday. A tin-roofed lean-t
o provided shade, and the air was cool and comfortable in the bright sunshine. We relaxed in the shade and waited for Quent.
While we waited, Yellow Boy smoked, and I walked around the mesquite looking for peyote buttons and other plants I could use for medicines. No more than an hour passed when Yellow Boy stood up and stared off down the tracks. There was a black smudge in the sky just about where the tracks ought to be. He walked over to the rails and put his ear against one. In a few seconds, he nodded and said, “Iron wagon come.” I checked my watch. The train was about two hours early. I thought, Strange. Trains run late, never early.
We waited. Before long, the engine came in sight followed by a long string of cars, maybe sixty or more, far more than normal for a daily passenger run that very rarely had more than three or four passenger cars.
The engine showed no signs of slowing down and swept past us like a big black bullet. Amazed, I stared at the passenger cars. They were packed with soldiers wearing Mexican army uniforms. Between the passenger cars were several flatcars loaded with machine guns, quite a few large artillery pieces, barbed wire, and boxes of ammunition and artillery shells. Three flatbed cars followed, each carrying a gigantic searchlight that must have been at least five feet in diameter.
Yellow Boy and I looked at each other and frowned. “Weren’t those Carrancistas?”
Yellow Boy nodded.
“What are they doing on a train north of the border? Have we been invaded by Mexico? Where do you think they’re going?”
Yellow Boy shrugged his shoulders and returned to the lean-to shade. I followed him. Surely that wasn’t Quent’s train. If we’re lucky, he’ll be along later like he said. Maybe he’ll know what’s going on.
I finished gathering medicinal plants, andYellow Boy napped. I tried to make sense of why Carrancistas were on a train in the United States, but I drew nothing but blanks. It just didn’t make sense. When I was ready to stretch out on my blanket, Yellow Boy said he’d keep watch.
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