Knight of the Tiger

by W. Michael Farmer

  Carothers asked, “Who were the officers with Villa?”

  Maud said, “Cervantes, Fernández, and Ortiz. When they came back to the arroyo, they were in a big argument. Villa thought the cavalry garrisoned at Columbus too big for an attack. Said he didn’t want to waste his men on what he called a ‘piss-ant town.’

  “Cervantes claimed the garrison didn’t have more than fifty men and they’d be wiped out in a couple of hours. They must have argued back and forth for two or three hours before Villa finally threw up his hands and ordered the attack, telling Cervantes to send some men in to scout the town. The rest of the men and animals rested on empty bellies. Villa probably thought they’d find plenty to eat in Columbus.

  “Last night was very cold, and the jefes roused the men around two o’clock. Freezin’ and glad to get goin’, I prayed I’d get away in all the thunder and confusion that goes on in a battle. Villa had changed into a uniform and sat in the saddle on his big paint stud . . .” She paused, staring into space.

  Carothers urged her to continue. She nodded. “Sorry. Villa rode up on the side of the arroyo and made a speech to fire up his soldiers. I’ve never heard such swearin’ and name callin’ in any language in all my life. He didn’t talk long, but he blamed the gringos for all the starvation and poverty they endured in Mexico and for their defeats at Agua Prieta and Hermosillo.

  “Then he shook a newspaper at them and roared that the gringos had burned twenty of their brothers to death just this past week in the El Paso jail. He said it was time for payback and finished by yellin’, ‘Let’s go kill some gringos, boys!’

  “I’ve never seen such an angry crowd of men. I was beginnin’ to wonder if I’d live through the night. We mounted and rode slow and easy toward Columbus. We finally stopped about a mile off, behind that little hill over on the other side of the train tracks on the south side of town.”

  Stone raised his brows, “Any idea what time that was, Mrs. Wright?”

  “I’d guess it must have been about three o’clock or so. It was very dark, just light from a fingernail moon. We dismounted, and Villa and his officers looked over the men to pick out the ones who were to be in the attack. I stayed back with the horse holders. They were so short of bullets that the horse holders were told to give their bullets to the men in on the attack. One bunch started north, and one went east, but I didn’t see any on horses. I believe Villa and his officers rode up to the top of the little hill to watch.

  “After the shootin’ started, I didn’t hear much except a lot of yellin’ and screamin’. I knew when the army got into it, because I heard machine guns.

  “The Mexicans started gettin’ the worst of it after they torched the buildin’s. In a while, bullets started landin’ back where we held horses. One hit the dirt in front of my mule and one grazed him in the mane. He was kinda hard to hold there for a while.

  “They started bringin’ the wounded back to the horse holders. They didn’t have a single doctor that I knew of, just a few boys who worked as medicos, and all they did was lay the wounded, most of ’em boys not over fifteen or sixteen, on their blankets to moan and cry.”

  Carothers asked, “Did Villa stay up on that hill the entire time of the battle?”

  She shook her head. “No, sir. He went into town. I heard a man come running up to get another stallion. He said Villa was on foot because the paint had been shot out from under him. Near the end of the battle, the soldiers came running up with their loot to get their horses and mules. Some of ’em looked like big fat men ’cause they had so much stuff in their shirts.

  “Villa came runnin’ after ’em. He was yellin’, ‘Muchachos! Don’t run! Stand and fight like men!’ He shot his pistol in the air, tryin’ to make ’em stop. A few did take a knee and shoot toward the Americans, but it wasn’t long before all the horses were racing south for the holes in the border fence wire.

  “We rode past the Moore ranch, and Villa came chargin’ up to try and get in front of ’em and stop the retreat. He emptied his pistol in the direction of his soldiers, yellin’, ‘Stop! Stop!’ It didn’t do any good. They were like cattle stampeding. Villa didn’t show any fear. I believe he wanted to fight the entire US Army.

  “After we rode through the holes in the border fence, Villa came ridin’ back to me and said, ‘You want to return to the United States?’

  “I said, ‘Yes, please.’

  “He said, ‘You can go. Take your mule and saddle with you.’

  “Needless to say, I turned back toward Columbus, but my mule, so spooked by the rush and the smell of blood and death, kept trying to turn back and run with the others. I finally had to dismount and lead him back, and that’s when my feet got all tore up.

  “I got back to the Moore ranch, went in the corral, and watered my mule. I took a long drink myself right out of the horse trough, walked up to the ranch house, and saw a dead man by the side of the porch. I tried to see if anybody else might be there when I heard this low noise in the bushes behind the house. Then I saw the troopers with Mrs. Moore.

  “When I came up to ’em, she saw me. She was clenching her teeth in pain. She said, ‘Where did you come from? I don’t think I know you.’ I said, ‘Ma’am, I’ve been Villa’s prisoner for the last nine days.’ She said, ‘You look mighty hungry. Have you had any breakfast?’

  “I said, ‘I haven’t had much of anything to eat since I was taken prisoner.’ She shook her head and said, ‘Well, when we get to town, you go to any restaurant and eat all you want and tell ’em Mrs. Susan Moore will pay for it. Will you please stay with me and ride into town in the ambulance and help me get a doctor?’ I took her hand, gave it a little squeeze, and said, ‘Of course, I will.’

  “She didn’t let go of my hand and seemed to relax a little after that. In about an hour, the ambulance came. She decided to take a room in the Hoover Hotel, and that’s where Doctor Grace stepped up to look after us.”

  Quent finished his notes about a minute after Maud finished her statement. Carothers and Stone continued writing their notes for another five or ten minutes. Carothers looked up as he closed his portfolio and said, “Mrs. Wright, you’re a very courageous woman. I’ve never heard of one any braver, and I can assure you the United States and the State Department will do everything in its power to get your little boy back.”

  CHAPTER 40

  SUSAN MOORE

  The interview with Maud finished midafternoon. After Carothers and Stone left, I told Maud, “I’m going down to the Hoover to check on Mrs. Moore. I expect to be back to check on you before dark. I want you to get all the rest you can.”

  Her face muscles sagged with fatigue, but she smiled and said, “Thank you for sitting through that interview with me. You’ve been a great help and support. Please give Mrs. Moore my best regards.”

  When Quent and I got to the main part of town, he made a face and pointed to tall columns of greasy, black smoke. “This stink makes me want to gag. The army must be cremating the Mexicans they killed last night. Come on, Henry, let’s get down to the Hoover so we can get out of this.”

  I smiled as we hurried to the Hoover, where we heard Will and Mrs. Hoover patiently telling people there were no rooms to be had in the Hoover and that they could try at houses up the street that might take in a boarder or two.

  Mrs. Hoover saw us and came bustling over, sweat streaming down the sides of her face as she mopped her brow with a lacey white handkerchief. “Doctor Grace, I’m so glad you came. Our patient woke up about a quarter of an hour ago. The shot you gave her is starting to wear off, and she may need another.”

  I nodded and checked my pocket watch. “Yes, ma’am, I need to change her bandages and give her another shot of morphine. I plan to take her to an El Paso hospital on the four a.m. train. After I tend to her, I’ll be back around sundown to check on her again. She’ll likely be hungry if she wakes up before I return. Don’t give her any solid food, just water and thin soup. Can you do that, Mrs. Hoover?”

&nbs
p; “Of course, I can.” She frowned at Quent and looked him up and down. “I don’t believe I’ve met this gentleman.”

  I said, “Forgive my bad manners, Mrs. Hoover. This is my friend Quentin Peach. He’s a reporter for the El Paso Herald. Perhaps you’ve read some of his columns and his stories on the Mexican revolución.”

  Her jaw dropped and she said, “Why land o’ Goshen. Of course, we know of Mr. Peach. We read all his stories. Mr. Peach, I’m Sara Hoover. My son, William, and I own this hotel. It’s so nice to meet a famous writer. Won’t you stay with us this evening?”

  Quent shook her hand and said, “So nice to meet you, Sara. I’m delighted you like my work. I’d be honored to stay here tonight, but I thought you had a full house.”

  “Well, we nearly do, but we’ll find room for a distinguished gentleman like yourself.”

  I left Quent to keep Mrs. Hoover company and walked down the hall to Mrs. Moore’s room. Her eyes flicked open when I came through the door, but she said nothing. I suspected she was still disoriented from the morphine.

  I changed her bandages, and it was obvious her hip wound was giving her a lot of pain. I wished I could remove the bullet, but couldn’t take the risk that it was near major blood vessels. A probe or cut a millimeter or two in the wrong direction, and she’d bleed to death. As I examined her after changing the bandages, I saw tears at the edges of her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Moore. I’ll make this as quick as I can, and then I’ll give you another morphine injection.”

  Lying on her left side, she shook her head a little. “You’re very gentle, Doctor. I’m just recalling how my husband was murdered by the raiders.”

  “Tell me about it. It’ll make you feel better to get it out, and I want to know what happened.”

  She paused a few moments, sniffed, and then spoke in a remarkably calm voice. “All during the attack in town, we hid in our house with the shades drawn. Just before sunup, the road in front of our house filled with running, dirty, ragged men. Some stumbled and staggered forward, wounded, blood all over their clothes, others, on running horses, barely hanging on.

  “Doctor Grace, they were so young. Most of them were just boys not more than fourteen or fifteen years old. Some of them stopped in our corral to drink and water their animals. An officer came riding up on a big white horse and ordered several of them to search our house.

  “They climbed up on the porch, and when they found the door was locked, they broke out the window in the bedroom. John, my husband, told me to go to the dining room and then opened the front porch door. He stepped out on the porch into the middle of men all pointing their guns at him. The officer asked him if he knew where Sam Ravel was. John said he didn’t know—and he didn’t. He never lied.

  “The officer says, ‘Very well.’ And then, and then . . . Oh, God . . . they started stabbing him with their bayonets and hacking at him with their swords and knives, and then they shot him. The sounds of it all . . . his groans . . . their yells of blood lust, it all plays like terrible music in my head.”

  She sobbed for a minute or two as I tried to soothe her by smoothing her hair back on her forehead. She became very still and quiet. I didn’t see her cry again. After a few moments, she said, “John never had a chance. They squatted beside his body like buzzards and picked over him, taking his ring and watch and wallet. Then they remembered me and came in the house, saying they wanted bread and gold. They had me by each arm, and I thought I was going to die at the hands of those wretched boys. I even recognized one, an officer who had come in our store during the afternoon of the day before to buy a pair of pants.

  “They saw my jewelry and demanded I take it off and give it to them. As I tried to slide my wedding rings off I decided to fight back, thinking they planned to kill me anyway. I looked out the door and screamed at the top of my lungs. They jerked around to look at the door and loosened their grips just enough for me to snatch myself away from them, hike my skirts, and run out the back door.

  “Some soldiers shot at me when I ran by. I felt a stinging in my right leg and knew I’d been hit but ran on anyway. I was hit again, and it knocked me down, but I got up and kept running until I made it to the barbed wire around our central lot, somehow got over it, and crawled to hide in a clump of mesquite. Then I passed out.

  “When I first came to, feeling my drawers sticking to my legs and dampness all over my backside, I knew blood must be flowing. I tore a ruffle off my petticoat and tried to bind my wounds, but the pain made me pass out again. The second time I woke up, I heard horsemen and realized it was our soldiers. I hung my handkerchief on one of the mesquite branches and called for help.

  “They found me and tried to make me comfortable when out of nowhere, I saw the dirtiest young woman I’d ever seen. Of course you know that was Maud Wright. Such a kind and caring person, she stayed with me until you came and helped us.”

  I again felt the fire and anger against Villa growing hot in my soul. I wished I had Villa and Camisa Roja in the sights of Little David. I’d blow them both straight to hell and gone. I said, “Don’t worry, Mrs. Moore. I’m sure your husband will be avenged.”

  Her eyes flooded as she croaked, “I don’t care about revenge. I just want my husband back.” It was beyond my ken back then to understand what she meant.

  I patted her on the shoulder and told her I planned to take her to El Paso as soon as I could get us on a train, maybe as early as four a.m. the next morning. I gave her a morphine injection and promised to return in two or three hours. She whispered her drowsy thanks before slipping into unconsciousness.

  CHAPTER 41

  YELLOW BOY TO THE RESCUE

  Quent and I left the Hoover to find a place to eat. The stink of burned flesh permeated the air. Trains rumbled up and down the tracks bringing more soldiers and their supplies. The road between Columbus and Deming, filled with curiosity seekers on horses, in wagons, and trembling, gurgling automobiles, stayed under a thick, brown dust plume visible for miles. A tent city grew in the creosotes and mesquite behind Camp Furlong to the east and south of the railroad tracks.

  Children ran and played “raid” in the streets. Some pretended to be Villa’s men while others, army heroes, were on their knees, swinging their machine-gun broom handles on tops of wooden boxes and yelling bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. The raiders flopped in the dust only to get up and began the raid again.

  Telephone lines were overloaded, leaving Quent to forward his article for the Herald via the telegraph office. We headed for the cantina Yellow Boy and I had used during our trip to El Paso to fetch Quent. I’d seen no trace of Yellow Boy since we’d arrived, and I worried that maybe he was wounded and lying out in the mesquite somewhere, or that Villa’s men might have caught and executed him.

  Cowboys, peddlers, and businessmen surrounded the cantina door, waiting to get a seat. I was ready to pass on and find somewhere else rather than wait, but Quent convinced me we ought to stick our heads inside and look around.

  The same fat Mexican who ran the place when Yellow Boy and I had been there in September met us with his hand up, palm out, to stop us. “Perdón, señores, but there ees no place for you to—” Then he recognized me and said, “Ah, señor, your compañeros have your table by the window. Go join them, por favor, and I’ll bring you chairs.”

  Quent looked at me, his eyebrows raised. I shrugged. We walked around the corner of the bar where the Mexican pointed. My knees sagged with relief. Yellow Boy sat at the table with a tortilla in one hand, his knife spearing a piece of meat with the other. In the chair across from him sat the grizzled old veteran, Sergeant Sweeny Jones.

  Yellow Boy saw us, raised his knife, and waved us over. Before we managed to squeeze through the crowd, the manager appeared at their table with a couple of chairs.

  Sergeant Jones stood as we approached, and we shook hands. He smiled as he took Quent’s hand. “I don’t believe I’ve met you, sir. I’m Sergeant Sweeny Jones, US Army, 13th Cavalry. Me an’ Yellow B
oy rode together back in the Geronimo War days. Looks like we may be fightin’ together again, ’cept the enemy this time is that no good son-of-a-bitch, Pancho Villa.”

  Quent grinned as he sat down. “Yes, sir, that might be. From what I hear, the army’s heading for Mexico.”

  Jones grinned and nodded. “Don’t know nothin’ for sure. But the US Army ain’t about to let no Mexican bastard come in here, shoot us up, burn half the town down, an’ git away with it.

  “ ’Member me, Doctor Grace?”

  I laughed. “You’re a hard man to forget, Sweeny Jones.”

  I turned to Yellow Boy and said, “Grandfather, my eyes are glad to see you. Were you here during the raid?”

  Sergeant Jones slapped the table and bellowed, “Was he here during the raid? Hell, yes, he was here. He saved my damned bacon and then did hisself proud ridin’ with Major Tompkins a-chasin’ Villa and his boys. Go on Yellow Boy. Tell ’em what happened.”

  We all looked at him and grinned. He shrugged, leaned back in his chair, and crossed his arms. “Before sun comes, moon hides. Mucho dark. See light from iron wagon. Iron wagon follows iron road toward rising sun and El Paso on Río Grande. I ride for iron wagon light, find iron road. See light at town where iron wagon stops. Ride beside iron road toward light. Hear many guns. Mexican hombres yell. Soldiers yell. Women scream. Horses squeal.

  “I tie my horses in mesquite. Take rifle. Run toward battle. Stay by iron wagon road. Get close to soldiers on rising-sun side of army camp. Mexicans everywhere. Many bullets fly. Watch. See Sweeny Jones by guard tent. Mexicans come. Nearly shoot Sweeny Jones. I shoot Mexicans. Rifle no miss. Sweeny Jones happy Yellow Boy comes. We move north around town. Shoot more Mexicans. No see good, stay in mesquite. Mexicans many times yell, ‘Where is Sam Ravel?’

  “Mexicans shoot many times, in hotel . . . many die. Mexicans go in trading posts, take many things. Mexicans burn hotel and trading posts. Fires give good light, Sweeny Jones and Yellow Boy shoot Mexicans. Army uses shoots-many-times guns, kill many Mexicans. Sun comes. Mexicans leave.