Knight of the Tiger

by W. Michael Farmer

  Quent nodded and smiled. “Sure. I’d be happy for you to come with me. I’ll introduce you around to some of the folks I know. You might find some of the officers useful contacts.”

  CHAPTER 44

  GENERAL PERSHING

  I took Susan Moore to the Hotel Dieu Hospital run by the Sisters of Mercy in El Paso. When Maud called her friends, they begged her to stay with them, and, giggling with relief, she promised to be there soon. I pressed a few dollars into her hand, paid for the taxi to take her to her friends, and promised I’d stay in touch with George Carothers and the State Department and call her as soon as I learned anything about Johnnie’s status. Quent insisted I stay with him and Persia at their home, and I promised to show up as soon as I could arrange for a surgeon to look at Susan’s wound.

  The superb nurses at the Hotel Dieu bathed Susan, changed her bandages, fed her, helped her into a bed, and introduced me to Doctor Rose, an old white-haired gentleman with twinkling blue eyes who specialized in gunshot wounds. After examining Susan’s wounds and complimenting me for not trying to dig the bullet out of her hip, he chatted with her about how she was feeling, how her hip felt when she moved her leg in opposing directions, whether she’d passed blood in her urine or stool, and whether she had continued to move after she was shot. He took copious notes all the while, nodding or stopping to ask clarifying questions. When he finished, he told her that he wanted to discuss her hip wound with his colleagues to be certain of his conclusions, and he’d return to talk with her in the afternoon.

  As I left, a nurse handed me a note. Quent had called and requested I telephone him at the Herald as soon as possible. I found a telephone and put through the call. It took a couple of minutes for the man who answered to find Quent, who sounded out of breath when he spoke into the horn.

  “Henry, can you leave the hospital in half an hour?”

  “I’m ready now.”

  “Okay! I’ll be by to pick you up in front of the hospital in twenty or thirty minutes.”

  The late afternoon sun was warm and comforting when Quent came roaring up in his shiny black Model-T with the roof down. I tossed my bags in the back seat and jumped in, barely closing the door before the wheels began turning.

  “What’s going on?”

  Quent looked over at me with a big toothsome smile. “Less than an hour ago, Newton Baker, new Secretary of War and a pacifist to boot, came out of a cabinet meeting with Woodrow Wilson and announced the United States is undertaking a Punitive Expedition against Pancho Villa in Mexico. Wilson is trying to throw Senator Fall enough red meat to keep him from stirring up a full-scale invasion of northern Mexico and, at the same time, assuring the Carrancistas we’re not invading Mexico, and that our sole purpose is to find Villa and his men and wipe ’em out.

  “Most Herald reporters think that General Funston over in San Antonio will lead the forces goin’ after Villa. Slater thinks Funston is too hotheaded and blunt-spoken to be runnin’ around at the head of an army in Mexico, and that the army’s top commanders, old Hugh Scott and Tasker Bliss, will convince Mr. Baker that General Black Jack Pershing, who commands the 8th Brigade at Fort Bliss, is the man for the job. Slater wants me to interview General Pershing at Fort Bliss as soon as I can. If we’re lucky, we might even find out who’s going to lead the expedition.”

  “What makes you think he’ll talk to you?”

  “I’ve already interviewed him twice and minded my manners about what I wrote. He thinks I’m a tame reporter. I just hope I don’t persuade him otherwise if I get this interview.”

  The long shadows from the Franklin Mountains, their ridgeline glowing bright gold in the late afternoon sunlight, reached for the western edge of Fort Bliss as we parked at the commander’s office. Young officers scurried in and out the doorway. Everywhere I looked, everyone ran. Quent looked around, nodding. “I’d say Slater has it about right. Let’s go see.”

  We stepped through the office door and confronted a big, black desk, behind which sat a ramrod straight lieutenant who was the gatekeeper to Pershing’s office. The sign on the desk read Lt. Martin C. Shallenberger. We stood in front of the desk until Lieutenant Shallenberger looked up from his paperwork and said, “Gentlemen? What can I do for you?”

  Quent handed Shallenberger his business card and motioned toward me. “I’m Quentin Peach, reporter for the El Paso Herald, and this is Doctor Henry Grace, who is the State Department representative for Mrs. Maud Wright. We both know Villa well and have information we believe will interest General Pershing.”

  Shallenberger raised his brow and said in a slow, dismissive voice, “I see. Well, General Pershing is very busy right now. Give me your information, and I’ll see he gets it.”

  Quent smiled at Shallenberger and shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Just give my card to the general, and tell him we’re waiting to see him.”

  Shallenberger sighed and nodded at some chairs along the wall facing his desk. “Very well, have a seat, but you’ll have to wait awhile.”

  We sat down in the chairs facing Shallenberger’s desk as he put Quent’s card aside and returned to the paperwork on his desk. I steeled myself for an interminable wait, wondering exactly what Quent thought we knew that might be of value to General Pershing.

  We weren’t seated more than five minutes before Pershing’s door opened and a lean, blond, sinewy gentleman in his mid-fifties and wearing a big star on each side of his shirt collar appeared. His face was lined, and there was an air of sadness and loss about him that I recognized and instinctively understood. “Shallenberger! Get me the map of—” He saw Quent and smiled. “Mr. Peach, what are you doing here? I thought you’d be in Columbus with all the action.”

  “We’ve already been there and come back. General, this is Doctor Henry Grace. He and Villa go way back. We’ve seen Villa up close and personal during the past six months, and Doctor Grace is helping Mrs. Maud Wright get her little boy back. We think we can give you some information that might be of use to the Commander of the Punitive Expedition.”

  Pershing smiled, nodded, and waved us into his office as he said, “Shallenberger, get me the map of Casas Grandes, Colonia Dublán area.” Shallenberger snapped a quick salute and stepped around the desk and out to the porch.

  We sat down facing Pershing’s big mahogany desk, which was spilling over with maps and reports. Pershing, wearing riding boots, sat down straight in his big office chair and, looking us in the eye, didn’t waste a second getting to the point. “What do you have?”

  Quent gave him the most important information he’d learned from Maud during her interview with George Carothers and E.B. Stone. “Sir, according to Mrs. Wright, Villa didn’t use more than about five hundred men in the raid. She told me later that she had overheard one of them say most were from Namiquipa and initially recruited by General Nicolás Fernández for Villa’s army.”

  Pershing, his right hand under his chin, scratched his jaw and listened intently. “Five hundred, you say? Colonel Slocum claims there were probably over two thousand men in on the Columbus raid. Do you dispute that number?”

  Quent didn’t flinch from Pershing’s rebuttal. “Sir, Mrs. Wright said the first day’s rest she got was in Cave Valley about thirty miles from her ranch, and that there were about two thousand men there, but desertions were terrible as they marched north, and she went all the way to Columbus with them. She said she stayed with the horse holders when Villa picked the men who went in on foot. She’s very steady, very forthright in her statements. If anything, you’d think she might exaggerate the number of men, since Villa executed her husband and a friend of the family, Frank Hayden, who was helping them get their ranch in Mexico going again. If I had to choose, I’d believe her.”

  Pershing squinted, the deep lines around his eyes growing deeper as he gave a short, quick nod. “All right. What else?”

  “His men are in terrible shape. According to Mrs. Wright, they were on the edge of starvation and running so low on ammuniti
on they had to share bullets. However, I know from personal experience, having covered him during the war with Díaz, that he has ammunition and guns buried all over Chihuahua, especially in the Sierra Madre, and that’s probably where he’ll head.”

  “That’s consistent with reports my officers have prepared for me. Why did he attack Columbus? The reports say his men were searching for a Sam Ravel, who cheated him out of supplies.”

  Quent shook his head. “Balancing accounts with Ravel was a secondary objective. Villa was the best friend the United States had in Mexico until President Wilson let Carrancistas take trains across the border to Douglas and march into Agua Prieta to defeat his forces. Villa swore after that, and Doctor Grace and I know this for a fact since we were with him at Agua Prieta, he’d never waste another bullet on a Mexican brother. He wants to use them all on gringos.

  “Doctor Grace was with him and saw most of the remainder of División del Norte wiped out at Hermosillo. At Agua Prieta, anger at the US nearly drove Villa crazy. After Hermosillo, he slid off the deep end, executing anyone he thought might have connections with the gringos. Fortunately, Doctor Grace got away and made his way back to the United States. My opinion is Villa wants to start a war with the United States that will turn the Mexicans against Carranza and put him at the head of an army to fight the invaders.”

  Pershing listened carefully to everything we could tell him about Villa’s mental state and what we thought he might do next. We talked for fifteen or twenty minutes before Lieutenant Shallenberger knocked on the door with the maps Pershing wanted. Pershing waved him in with the maps and then waved him out.

  “Gentlemen, you’ve given me some very useful information. More, in fact, than my intelligence staff has been able to provide about Villa and his capabilities in the last year. It would be helpful if you came along with me. Doctor Grace, I can always use your medical expertise along with your insights on Villa. Mr. Peach, I’d trust you as my lead correspondent. What do you say?”

  Quent smiled. “Sir, is it safe to assume that you’ve been given command of the Punitive Expedition to find and destroy Pancho Villa?”

  Pershing’s thin line of a mouth, reminding me ofYellow Boy’s, quivered on the edge of a smile. “That is a safe assumption, Mr. Peach.”

  “Then, sir, I’ll be joining you.”

  “Good. Just be sure you run any newspaper reports by me first, before you file them. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Pershing raised his brows. “And you, Doctor Grace, can I count on you also?”

  “General Pershing, I have some personal business I have to take care of first. I’ll join you later in Mexico if you like.”

  He leaned back in his chair to study me a moment. “Very well. Come when you can. Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do. Mr. Peach, we’ll leave Columbus and cross the border on the fifteenth of March. Come by here tomorrow, and Lieutenant Shallenberger will have papers for you and Doctor Grace that will give you access to me wherever the army goes in Mexico. If you learn anything more before we advance, please let me know.”

  We shook hands with Pershing and left the commander’s office under Shallenberger’s curious stare.

  CHAPTER 45

  LITTLE JOHNNIE

  Maud and I sat on a bench in the shade of the Juárez train station platform. We were practically alone except for a few pigeons cooing in the eaves of the roof over us, and two men in tan uniforms who paced the station’s perimeter with rifles on their shoulders. A Carrancista colonel and a squad of soldiers had come early and run off everyone in the station except a local photographer, Maud, and me.

  She stared, as if in a trance, down the long, shiny steel rails curving away east. Her right heel tapped a rapid tattoo, reminding me of a fast train clicking off the miles as it rolled down the tracks.

  The past five days had been a nightmare. The Department of State and the Carranza government haggled over every little detail of Johnnie’s transfer to ensure that the Carrancistas kept their word in returning Maud’s little boy, that they received proper international recognition for their good deed, and that they wouldn’t let Villistas steal the child again. My brief service to the State Department convinced me I’d never, ever, serve in the diplomatic corps.

  A sporadic wind increased the morning chill. Maud’s friends in El Paso had helped her find clothes to replace the ones Mrs. Slocum had lent her. Her plain wool skirt reaching to the top of her brown brogans, knee-length corduroy coat, blue turban hat with a stylish bow on the side, and kid leather gloves fit her well and kept her warm. She could walk without limping, and the lower part of her face and neck, once red and ruddy, had faded to a nice tan.

  I checked my watch and said, “The train’s not due for another half hour. Can I get you anything? Maybe a burrito and coffee?”

  The steady tap of her brogan stopped. She turned her sad, gray eyes to me and said, “Henry, you’re very kind, but no, thank you. All I want is Johnnie back.”

  She stared off down the tracks, and I decided to ask her a question that had been on my mind for several days. “After you were kidnapped, did you see a man wearing a bright red shirt around Villa?”

  She looked up and said, “Why, yes, I did. He served as some sort of scout and, unlike most of the soldiers, he rode a good horse. He’d disappear for hours and reappear out of the creosotes and mesquite to talk to Villa while they rode along together. When Red Shirt talked to him, I couldn’t hear what was said, but I saw Villa nodding or shaking his head, and then motioning in a particular direction, and away Red Shirt went.”

  It was my turn to stare off down the tracks, thinking, So Villa didn’t kill Roja after I got away. I wondered what Roja had told him about my escape. I was glad he was still with Villa because hunting them down separately might take years.

  Maud’s voice filtered back into my consciousness. “Henry? Are you still with us? How do you know the man in the red shirt?”

  I puffed out my cheeks, blew, and leaned back beside her. “Ten years ago, the man in the red shirt killed my wife and unborn child.”

  Maud caught her breath and put her fingers over her mouth as she whispered, “Oh, Henry, I’m so sorry.”

  I told her about how I’d lost Rafaela, and I then told her of the time I’d spent with Villa’s army.

  Maud shook her head. “So President Wilson’s choice of Mexico’s First Jefe and his betrayal of Villa got me kidnapped and separated from my little son and my husband and our friend murdered?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  She sighed and studied the ugly brown mountains west of Juárez. She said, “Wars truly are things of darkness, aren’t they? We blindly stumble through them tryin’ to right wrongs, always creatin’ new ones, and killin’ tens of thousands because of the passions and charisma of a few men, and vowin’ revenge against those who believe they’re actin’ honorably. This war between Villa and Carranza isn’t even a war between nations. It’s a war of vanity, like a couple of half-grown men fightin’ over a woman, and yet it’s stolen my child and killed my husband.”

  She turned to stare in my eyes and asked, “Why? Where is the right in any of it? Ed and I tried to do the right thing. We treated both sides in the revolution the same. We fed and gave water to any man, and his animals, who came to our door thirsty and hungry. We just wanted to build our ranch and be left alone. When does it end, Henry?”

  I shrugged, knowing I’d never be able to answer such questions. “I don’t know. I just know that even in times of darkness, debts are paid, justice is done, and wrongs are righted.”

  She said, “It has to end, Henry. Somehow, it just has to end.”

  Off in the distance we heard a train whistle. Staring down the tracks, Maud sprang to her feet. I was right behind her. The Carrancista colonel, smoking a cigarro, heard the whistle too, and strutted to the center of the platform, thumbs hooked in his shiny brown belt, looking smugly pleased, the phot
ographer standing not far behind him.

  An engine pulling several passenger cars, its black smoke scattered by the shifting wind, appeared in the curve of the tracks and swung down the long, straight stretch, steaming straight for us. Maud, biting on her lower lip, stared at it, her hands in front of her breasts, pressed together as if she were praying.

  Five passenger cars trailed behind the engine and coal tender as they slowed, creeping past the station platform until the engine stopped with the middle car even with the colonel. Soldiers streaming from the passenger cars, their rifles held ready in front of them, formed a shoulder-to-shoulder guard detail around the platform.

  Maud’s gaze darted from window to window, searching for her son. When the soldiers were in place, the colonel stepped forward and waved a come-out motion toward the middle car. A conductor appeared and dropped a walkway between the car’s back steps and the station platform.

  Time seemed to momentarily stand still, and then I heard Maud gasp and croak in a tear-filled whisper, “Thank you, dear God.”

  A middle-aged Mexican woman, a shawl over her shoulders and wearing a threadbare, faded red skirt, appeared on the walkway. Against her shoulder, she carried a small, blanket-wrapped child who wore a blue stocking cap and turned his head from side-to-side, curious and unafraid, as he surveyed all the strange faces.

  The woman, appearing old far beyond her years, looked around, saw Maud, and grinned broadly. Pointing toward her, she whispered something to the child, who pushed back from her shoulders and twisted in her arms. Seeing Maud, he let out a squeal of delight and yelled, “Mama, Mama!” and stretched his arms out to her. Every man in the station smiled, and I heard the colonel mutter, “Every niño knows his madre.”