It was my turn to stare at the fire. I glanced across the flames at Yellow Boy, and then at Jesús. “We’ve come for the general. Do you know how to find him?”
Jesús said, “No, not exactly. I can guess from what I have heard. It’s a good thing you seek him. I’ve heard stories that he was shot just below the knee in the battle at Guerrero and hides in a cave nearby. My amigos say he has great pain, pain so great he tries to kill himself. I’ve also heard he is at a rancho south of San José del Sito. I don’t know where he is, but I’ll help you find him if you want.”
I nodded. “Sí, Jesús, we want your help. An army Apache scout Muchacho Amarillo knows said the gringos believed the general hides south of San José del Sito. We ought to look there first.”
Jesús smiled, his teeth showing bright against his brown skin. “Bueno, Doctor Grace. Sí, I’ll help you find the general. It’s my great honor to ride with you . . . if I have something to ride.”
We all laughed, and I said, “Didn’t your namesake, Jesus, who walked all the time, ride an ass into Jerusalem? You’ll ride your own pony into San José del Sito.”
We ate the bacon and drank the rest of the coffee before covering the fire and mounting up. Jesús couldn’t weigh much more than a hundred pounds, and Satanas easily carried us together. We returned back down the Colonia Dublán road and headed for the foothill pass outside of Casas Grandes and near the road to Galeana.
CHAPTER 51
TRAIL TO LAS CRUCES, MEXICO
Leaving Rojo’s camp, Yellow Boy and I expected to live off the land and not pack supplies around in the middle of a war where they might be confiscated or, more likely, stolen. Now Jesús rode with us, making a group of three, far more noticeable and easier to spot even in the dark than two fast-moving shadows. Although Jesús had known hunger and thirst on long marches with his mount, if he had one, starving, ready to collapse with the next step, I didn’t think it was necessary to travel that way unless we had to. I waited for daylight in Casas Grandes to buy supplies while Yellow Boy and Jesús rode on to make a camp in the south pass off the road to Galena.
At a livery stable, the Mormon owner, Burklam Jones, looked me in the eye and gave me a good, steady handshake. He made and I accepted a reasonable offer on a sturdy tan mustang, a well-worn saddle, and a new bridle, its leather well-oiled and flexible. As an afterthought, I bought a little brown jenny with excellent conformation and a packed rig for her to carry all our gear.
When I gave Burklam Mexican silver for the animals and equipment, his ancient, wrinkled face cracked with a big smile and he wrote a note for me to give his brother, Emerald Jones, who operated a mercantile store a couple of blocks down the street. The note said I paid for my animals and gear with hard money, and that Emerald was to give me a twenty-percent discount on anything I bought in the store. Emerald came through with the discount and was generous in the weight of supplies he apportioned for the price. Since I had three animals and relatively little weight in personal supplies, I bought twice the grain I normally would, a Dutch oven, and a sack of cornmeal, all luxuries on a rough trail. For Jesús, I bought pants and shirts, boots, a sombrero, underwear, a cup, pan, and spoon, and a long-used but serviceable Winchester ’73 with a hundred cartridges.
Outside of Casas Grandes, I saw a glint several times, far off near the top of the north side of the main pass. Someone was using field glasses to watch the traffic on the main road toward the north pass. I smiled and wondered if it was our friends Runs Far and his women looking for Yellow Boy and me. I told myself vigilance was its own reward and to stay alert.
The sun stood nearly straight overhead when I found Yellow Boy’s camp hidden next to a spring in the south pass. Yellow Boy and Jesús had just swapped guard duties, Jesús to watch and Yellow Boy to sleep. I unloaded the horses after Yellow Boy silently gave me the all clear signal from where he lay and nodded approval when I showed him the jenny.
Jesús, teary-eyed, thanked me many times when I gave him the mustang and gear I’d bought. I found a place under a juniper, the tart smell of its sap filling my nose, unrolled my horse blanket, crawled up under its deep shadow, and collapsed into deep sleep.
Leaving the pass while the moon glowed brightly behind the mountains to the northeast, we rode out on the llano parallel to and about a mile south of the road that ran from Casas Grandes to Galena, tracking southeast toward a few twinkling lights in Galeana ten or twelve miles away. American trucks, their lantern headlights filling the rough roadway, continued hauling supplies south to some new, unknown logistical supply point Pershing wanted beyond Colonia Dublán. Among the trucks, an occasional automobile chugged along, probably carrying businessmen, reporters, photographers, members of Pershing’s staff, or even Carranza government officials running errands.
Within a couple of miles of Galeana, we hit the Santa María, a wide, shallow river running south. Jesús said we could travel much faster and probably avoid American and Carrancista patrols if we stayed between the river and the road running from Galeana to Buenaventura. The riverbed was dry in a few places and then showed long, slow stretches of water that became deeper and wider as we approached Buenaventura.
At Buenaventura, we swung west around the village and southeast into the rapidly narrowing valley as the sky began to turn gray. An hour later we were near the entrance to the canyon that Jesús said led to Las Cruces and then to Namiquipa. The tall, ragged mountaintops in front of us were outlined in brilliant gold when we rode up a small creek feeding the river. We’d covered a lot of ground, by my estimate maybe as much as forty miles, and we needed to eat and rest.
Over a cup of coffee, I said to Jesús, “Why do you think I left the general at San Pedro de la Cueva?”
Staring at his coffee, he shrugged and looked at me from under his brows. “The general, he told the hombres with him you had to go. We were surprised the general didn’t speak of putting you in front of a firing squad for attacking him. We thought it was because you were old amigos. The way he said you had to go, it sounded like you had very important business at your village. Was there a bad problem at your hacienda that you had to leave, Señor Grace? You must have been in a great hurry. None of us, your amigos, saw you to say adiós.”
Yellow Boy’s stoic face never changed, but I saw him squint at Jesús, studying the honesty in his eyes. I said, “Sí, mi amigo. I’m sorry I had to leave pronto and not tell mis amigos adiós. There was important business I had to settle in my village. I didn’t even tell mi amigo, Camisa Roja, adiós. When did you see him last? Is he still with the general?”
Jesús nodded. “Sí, he was with the general when I left for home. I saw him a few days after you left. He was beat up bad. He said he was ambushed and nearly killed by San Pedro de la Cueva men who escaped the general’s execution orders and were hiding in the mountains. He looked lucky to be alive.”
“What did you think of the executions in San Pedro de la Cueva?”
He stared at his coffee cup for a couple of minutes, sighed, and slowly shook his head. “Those villagers, they just made a mistake. It was not right for the general to execute them. You ask me what I think? The general went a little loco. The priest. Doctor Grace, he shot a priest. That was a bad thing for all of us. Mi madre, she says Dios will strike us all because the general murdered a priest and we did nothing. It was a bad, bad thing. What do you think Doctor Grace?”
“Your madre is right, Jesús. God will strike him for murdering a priest. Maybe God will strike us all because we were part of the general’s army and didn’t stop him. Killing those people wasn’t war. It was murder. I believe there’s hard justice in this world. We all get our due, and none of us have clean hands. Comprende?”
“Sí, comprendo. Still I’m glad you go to help the general. He’s a great man.” I saw Yellow Boy cut his eyes to look in my face. I said nothing, only nodded.
As the sun slipped behind the western mountains, we headed upriver into the long, winding canyon with sides a thousand fe
et high and the trail so black with shadows from moonlight blocked by the high mountain ridges, we had to pick our way along the river trail very carefully. I doubted we could have made it without Yellow Boy’s catlike night vision.
It was nearing dawn and very cold when we saw white adobe buildings and a tall church tower in Las Cruces. Three or four miles upriver from the village, we made our day camp in piñons up a creek that ran into the river from the west. Jesús had an uncle who lived in Las Cruces, and after we camped, he left to learn news of Villa and the gringo army chasing him.
Returning at midmorning, Jesús brought a basket full of tortillas and a pot of beans seasoned with fiery red chilies from his aunt. His uncle had learned from a peddler just the day before that Villa was seen outside of San Francisco de Borja and that there was a gringo cavalry squadron no more than a day behind him and gaining. There was also news that some Carrancista soldiers northwest of Guerrero mutinied, intending to join the Villistas.
Jesús shook his head. “Señores, we must be very careful who we speak with from now on. I have no more uncles farther south.”
CHAPTER 52
FINDING GENERAL PERSHING
More than half the trail to Namiquipa was through rough, hilly country that gradually smoothed out into open fields along the river. Yellow Boy often paused to survey the countryside, looking for shadows that should not be moving, looking for Runs Far and his women, looking for any mounted horses. We passed Namiquipa and later passed east of Santa Ana de Bavícora. Desert bushes were reclaiming the land that once supported huge croplands of the hacendados, and off in the distance in every direction, we saw the trembling light from orange fires where potential enemies gathered to ward off the night’s chill.
Jesús thought a cluster of lights off to the east must be Rubio. We camped for the day two or three miles past Rubio in a grove of cottonwoods and willows by the river. The animals held up well through the long nights of hard travel. Even the little jenny, carrying the heaviest load, showed no signs of sores on her back or of not being able to keep up when we put the horses into a steady gallop.
The next evening, we rode through San Jose Pass. Near dawn we saw stars reflecting off a huge lake in front of us, and rode around its western edge toward the lights of Anáhuac. I was a little nervous. There was no apparent place to hide a camp, and daylight was coming fast. However, we crossed a small river that fed the big lake and, following the river, soon came to long stretches of trees that could hide us very well.
Crows roosting in the trees began to fly out toward the hills on the other side of the lake, and birds began to call as light came. While Jesús made a fire, Yellow Boy and I climbed up the creek bank, careful to stay hidden in the dark shadows of the trees, and surveyed the countryside. Yellow Boy thought he might have seen someone behind us, but looking down our back trail in the dawn light, he saw nothing.
I said, “If they’re behind us out on the flats, won’t we see them when there’s enough light?”
He shook his head. “No. Old trick. Make horse lie down on side and stay. Man searching for riders never see rider and horse when they lie down in grass or near bushes.”
About a half-mile south, I saw glints off something sitting in a field near the lake. The light was too poor to tell if it was a man with binoculars, farm machinery, some kind of vehicle, or maybe a shed with a new roof. I pulled out my binoculars, and the first thing I saw made me take steps farther back into the shadows. A man moved around in front of field machinery. I nodded for Yellow Boy to use his telescope in that direction. He saw the man but recognized nothing else.
Shivering in the cold, gray air, we waited for good light and the revelation of who and what we’d seen. As the sun finally popped over the mountains, I recognized the mechanical thing as three automobiles and a truck parked to form a square. The man, tall and thin, maybe middle-aged, looked familiar. He put on a shirt after he finished washing in a zinc bucket sitting on a stool. I recognized his thin face and said, “That sorry woman, Fate, loves us today, Grandfather.”
“You see woman, Hombrecito?”
“Take a look with your Big Eye. You’re looking at Big Star’s camp. The tall, thin one outside the cars and truck is General Pershing, Big Star. I’ll bet you beans on a plate that Quentin Peach is sleeping inside the area formed by the cars and truck. Come on, let’s go have a look.”
We told Jesús what we’d seen, that we’d have a look, and for him to stay near the fire and wait for us in case someone in the group might recognize him. I told him to watch us with my binoculars, and if he saw anyone coming to check our story, to say that he was our guide and cook.
Saddling the horses, we rode up the bank and out onto the pool-table-flat field between where we’d camped on the creek and the motorized fort by the lake. We weren’t a hundred yards out of the trees before someone pointed at us and yelled to the others. We let the horses casually saunter across the field toward the little fort and saw at least ten rifle barrels level down on us. Pershing casually finished buttoning his shirt, stuffed its tails in his pants, and stood watching us, arms folded across his chest. Several curious, protective men soon joined him. Off to his left, with a Cheshire Cat grin, Quentin Peach appeared from behind the truck.
Running to our horses, he reached for our hands for a hearty shake. “Gentlemen, this is a pleasant surprise. Glad you could drop in today. General, this is Doctor Henry Grace and his Apache friend, Yellow Boy. You met Doctor Grace when we stopped by your office at Fort Bliss four or five days before you left for the Culbertson ranch.”
Pershing squinted up at me and extended his hand. “Why, yes, I remember Doctor Grace. Tell me, gentlemen, why are you in Mexico when there’s a good chance you might get shot by the US Army, Villistas, Carrancistas, or just plain old bandits? These are deadly times. Swing down and join us in an army breakfast. It’s not much, just hardtack, beans, and coffee.”
Yellow Boy and I grinned at the invitation. I said, “Thank you, sir. We’ve been riding all night and hadn’t even lighted a fire to cook anything when we saw you in front of your auto fort.”
We dismounted and were handed eating utensils out of the truck’s supplies. Squatting beside the warm little fire inside the protective automobile and truck circle, we ate the hardtack and beans and drank strong bitter coffee, glad to have it.
Hat pushed back on his head and a new army .45 hanging on a web belt, Quent sat beside us, apparently delighted to see fresh faces and hear news about what had been happening in the rest of the world. I saw him exchange glances with Pershing and knew Pershing wanted him to get as much information out of us as he could. Out of Pershing’s sight, Quent gave a little conspiratorial wink, and I gave him a tiny nod camouflaged with a shoulder stretch.
“How’d you boys come? See anything interesting?” Quent asked.
I took a slurp of coffee and scratched my chin. Yellow Boy kept his poker face. I told him our story and gave him as much detail as I could so it wouldn’t look like we were trying to hide anything.
“After we came out of the Sierra Madres, we passed by Colonia Dublán, which is gettin’ a mighty big stack of army supplies from all those trucks drivin’ back and forth from Columbus. I’ve never seen so many motorized vehicles on the road at one time—not even in San Francisco.
“I stopped by Burklam Jones’s livery in Casas Grandes and bought some supplies from him and his brother, Emerald, who runs a mercantile store. Then we rode over to Galeana and on up the river to Buenaventura and down that long, deep canyon that the Santa Maria River passes through. We camped just outside of Las Cruces for a night and went on to Namiquipa, camped outside of Rubio, and then came on over here last night.”
As Quent listened, he nodded and doodled in the sand with the point of a bayonet he’d been given along with his army ’03 Springfield.
“Where you headed today?”
“We’re gonna make camp down by the creek over yonder. That’s where we left our guide and supplies. Remem
ber Yellow Boy and I traveled at night when we took you to Villa’s camp last September? Well, there’s a whole lot more reason to travel at night now, and that’s what we’re doin’.”
He pulled a pack of Camels, the first packaged cigarettes I’d ever seen already rolled and ready to light up, from his pocket. He offered them to Yellow Boy and me and then took one himself. Yellow Boy and I weren’t quite sure what to do with ours, but we imitated Quent, tamping the tobacco on one end for our mouths and then lighting ours off his match. It was a good smoke, one of the best I’d had in a long time.
Taking a long, lazy draw from the cigarette, Quent let the smoke curl over his lips and out of his mouth before he blew the remainder into the air above his head.
“Some drummer gave me a box of these in Columbus and asked that I pass them around to the soldiers to see what they thought. It doesn’t satisfy like a good cigar or pipe, but I can see where just the sheer convenience of having a smoke any time you feel like it without having to roll your own will be addictive. So where are you headed? Must be important if you’re willin’ to risk getting your tails shot off by virtually any passerby.”
I took a deep drag and blew the smoke into a little cloud that slowly drifted away in the cold morning air. Although Pershing had his back to us and was using his binoculars to scan the country around us, I could tell he was listening.
“We’re headin’ south; we hear that Villa is somewhere south of San José del Sito, but still north of Parral, and we’re gonna find him.”
Quent grinned.
“Yeah, well get in line. Seems like most of the northern hemisphere wants to find him, as you say. Mind if I ask why you want to find him?”
Knight of the Tiger Page 29
