Safe Passage

by Carla Kelly

  Blue bottle flies hummed everywhere in the privy. The younger members of the current household had missed a few times, so he stepped carefully. A handkerchief to his nostrils, General Salazar leaned into the privy, then leaned out even faster.

  Good. The lid to the second hole remained nailed in place. He took out his knife and pried it up. Perfect. When he reached his hand inside, Salazar gasped. Ammon grinned and ran his hand along the boards. His grin widened as he felt the strong box.

  “Aquí está,” he said.

  “You drop it, you’ll go diving after it,” Salazar said, then stepped out of Ammon’s line of sight.

  Quickly, he set the box on the floor, then reached inside again, groping against the back of the vault. He smiled as his fingers touched the tarred rope. He closed the hole and tapped the nails back in place. When he carried the strong box outside, tucked under his arm so no one could see it, Salazar backed away, shaking his head.

  “General, you cannot deny it is a good place. Hold it while I mount, please.”

  Ammon wished he could have had Addie’s Kodak Brownie to snap a picture of the reluctance on General Salazar’s face as he held the stinking strong box. He made Salazar hold it again when he dismounted in front of the North Western Railway depot. “I want to find out when the next train leaves,” he said and went inside before Salazar could say anything.

  All the stationmaster could do was shrug his shoulders and say, “It will be here sometime, señor, if no rebels have cut the line. Ojalá,” he added, helpful if vague. He glanced out the door then and saw General Salazar. He gulped. “It will be here this evening, on the dot.” The dot of what, he did not say.

  As he started to leave, Ammon noticed a familiar face, one of the clerks from the lumber company, sitting on a bench, looking dejected. “I’ve been waiting a day, Ammon,” he said ruefully. “Just trying to get out of this country.”

  Ammon looked out the window, where General Salazar sat, his frown deepening, not a patient man. “Tell me, John, is there anyone at Colonia Juárez?”

  “One or two men. Not everyone left when your leaders said to.”

  B

  When they turned the bend and headed closer to the river again, Salazar signaled for his troopers to ride ahead. For a terrifying moment, Ammon wondered if the general planned to shoot him. He gave his word of honor warred with, this is revolution, until all he could do was close his eyes and pray.

  “Open the box,” Salazar demanded, his hand nowhere near his sidearm.

  Ammon did as he said. He looked down on hard-earned money, freighting in the furnace of summer and the icy grip of winter, always in danger from one faction or other. Greenbacks, pesos, francs even, paper money, and coins. He glanced at the general, hoping it was enough, and was rewarded with General Salazar’s look of enormous satisfaction.

  “Your arms dealer is in Douglas, Arizona?” Salazar asked.

  “Pablo Rincón, and he’s not my arms dealer,” Ammon protested with a laugh. “I do know he has no love for General Huerta.”

  “Very well.” The general closed the lid. “I am taking my troops that way, anyway. We’ll just leave sooner.”

  “And the women?”

  “On tonight’s train. I still expect the doctor, may boils smite his worthless hide.”

  “I gave you my word, General.”

  B

  Dusk came earlier now. It had been several weeks since Ammon had seen a calendar, but he reckoned it was the middle of September when even Mexico began to recover from the heat.

  Addie and Graciela were both in the kitchen, his wife gamely slapping out her less-than-perfect tortillas. The Empress of Siam just stood against the back wall, unable to do much of anything because she was gentry cut loose in a land in revolt against people just like her. All her life she had been waited on by servants who now carried guns and weren’t particularly concerned with her well-being.

  The light in Addie’s eyes when she saw him took the tired right out of his bones, even as his body cried out for sleep. He sat at the kitchen table and ate the beans and tortillas Addie put before him. Even more than food, he relished the way her hand rested on his shoulder. She ran her thumb across the back of his neck, a gesture soothing and edgy at the same time.

  He closed his eyes when he finished eating and pillowed his head on his arms for a few minutes before General Salazar strode into the kitchen and shook him awake. “Your horse is saddled and here is your safe conduct pass,” the general said. “Tomás and Joaquin will ride with you. They insisted on safe conduct passes too, like silly women! My soldiers! You will ruin me, Mormon. If you do anything other than snatch the doctor and bring him back here, they will shoot you. Go now.”

  Ammon hung back. “A moment, por favor, with my wife,” he requested. Salazar shrugged and walked away, calling to his next in command, his mind already on a thousand other details.

  Ammon took Addie’s hand and walked her out of the hacienda at the ornate front entrance. “Salazar will take the two of you to the train depot in Pearson,” he said, his arm twined through hers. “Keep your eyes down and stay close to Graciela. It’s usually about five hours to El Paso, but who knows? Addie, I love you.”

  She turned to him and rested her head against his chest, her arms tight around him. “I’d rather wait here for you to return.”

  He held her off from him and looked into her eyes, then pulled her close again. “Chihuahua is a powder keg. Get Graciela …”

  “I know, I know,” she grumbled, impatient with him. “Get that silly woman on the train!”

  He kissed her hair. “When you get to El Paso, have someone direct you to the lumberyard. My folks will be there, and your father will have five hundred dollars for—”

  “I don’t want it!” she insisted, her voice fierce.

  “Then give it to Graciela,” he said, patient with her. “Which reminds me: where is the money that was in the canvas bag?”

  She managed a slight smile and patted the front of her dress. “I’ll give that to Graciela. Who knows what the doctor will do or where her parents are?”

  He hesitated, and she saw his indecision. She took his hand and pressed it to her lips.

  “You know where they are, don’t you?” she asked quietly.

  Holding her close, he told her about the horse barn at Hacienda Chavez, and the bodies jumbled together. “I thought at first they were stable boys, but no. I suppose the soldiers left the women there when they finished with them,” he whispered.

  Addie gasped, her hand to her mouth. “Are you certain?”

  He nodded. “As near as I can be. Graciela’s mother had such long blonde hair. Remember?” He pressed his forehead to Addie’s. “Don’t say anything to Graciela. I don’t know … maybe her father escaped.” He sighed. “She’ll need money; give her all you can.”

  “I’ll tell her, once we’re on the train,” Addie told him, her voice low. “She has to know.”

  They had walked to the horse corral where two mounted soldados waited, Blanco between them. He stood there, Addie pressed so close to him. He hesitated again, but she knew him.

  “You’re not coming out, once you finish here,” she said. It was no question.

  He hated to tell her. The firm way she had pressed her lips together told him she wasn’t going to make it easy for him. “No. This is my home. I’m going to Colonia Juárez and see who is there. Addie, I never planned to go back. I was just going to rescue you, apologize for being a fool two years ago, and get you on the train.”

  “We still have a problem, then, but it’s a different one,” she told him, her voice unsteady now. “I love you too.” She looked away. “I think there’s more, but it can wait.” She took his hand. “When will I see you again?”

  “Revolutions don’t last forever.”

  “Our marriage does, Am.” She kissed him and clung to him, letting him lift her off her feet and hold her close. “Our war is over,” she whispered into his ear, then made him set her d
own. “Vayas con Dios.” She gave him a long look, then turned around decisively and started back to the hacienda. She was just a small woman trapped in a nasty war, a soldadera americana who had killed three mountain lions and driven off wolves, if he could believe Salazar’s troops and their breathless account this afternoon on the way back from Pearson.

  As he watched, she stopped, then bent over suddenly as though someone had cut her in two. She rested her hands on her knees, head down, and wailed. He closed his eyes and put his hands to his ears.

  When she was silent, she did not look back, but continued on her decisive way. He mounted Blanco and tugged on his reins to point him east to Carrizal.

  EIGHTEEN

  TO LISTEN TO Tomás and Joaquin tell it, kidnapping el médico Menendez would be a simple matter, on the order of a stroll through the plaza in Chihuahua City, without the mariachi bands and young lovers. To Ammon’s astonishment, they were almost right.

  They arrived in Carrizal on the evening of the second day, slowed by autumn rain that turned into torrents sweeping across the parched desert landscape in waves, and making riding difficult. They were alone in Chihuahua’s immensity, the smart people of the state obviously staying indoors.

  Conversation was sparse, Ammon unsure if he was a prisoner, a compadre, or a nuisance taking Tomás and Joaquin away from their own campfire. For the most part, they ignored him until the dawn of the second day when they huddled in a dry wash, and Joaquin tried to start a fire. Tomás was offering all manner of useless advice when Ammon heard the sound he dreaded.

  “Hermanos, we have to get out of this arroyo,” he said, grabbing Blanco’s reins and starting up the slope. He whistled up the other horses, which started after Blanco up the side of the dry wash.

  The soldados’ blank looks told him all he needed to know about their familiarity with rain in the desert. When he had talked at all, Tomás had told Ammon he was from the mountains of Durango and despised the desert.

  Joaquin must have thought he was trying to escape, because he snatched his rifle and started firing at Ammon, who flattened himself against the slope. To Ammon’s relief, Joaquin couldn’t shoot any better than most of Salazar’s troops; Addie was a better shot. Before he could reload, the soldier turned and gaped at the approaching wall of dirty water, dropped his rifle— no wonder Salazar needed money for weapons—and sprinted for higher ground.

  Weeping and calling on whatever saints they could think of who looked after fools, the two soldiers held out their hands to Ammon, who had reached the top of the arroyo. Mounting Blanco, he unlimbered his rope and threw a fine loop over Tomás, struggling farther below. Blanco towed him to safety, and then it was Joaquin’s turn.

  When both men were seated on the desert floor as the noisy flood rushed by below them, Joaquin dusted off his filthy jacket. “I am a corporal; you should have rescued me first,” he said, glaring at Ammon.

  Spare me from fools, Ammon thought. He pointed out in his most polite Spanish that Tomás had been farther down the slope and therefore in more immediate danger, even if he was a lowly private. Joaquin rubbed his chin, thought it through, and nodded.

  At least they were on the east side of the impromptu river. Joaquin and Tomás indulged in a lengthy debate about the difficulty of returning after the doctor was in their possession since there was no bridge in sight. Trying not to smile, Ammon explained that the river would be gone soon, soaking into parched desert soil. Their expressions told him they did not believe a word of it, but since he had saved their lives, the soldiers were not inclined to argue.

  They were inclined to answer some of Ammon’s questions as they rode steadily toward Carrizal, a pretty little town he knew well, where he liked to stop on his way to Rancho Gloriosa, another of Luiz Terrazas’s holdings.

  “Tell me, Joaquin, why it is that you all seem to know where el médico is, but no one has bothered him since he has changed sides? General Salazar is not a man to suffer fools gladly. I am surprised he left Menendez alone.”

  The two soldiers looked at each other and both shrugged. Amused, Ammon watched Joaquin’s eyes, seeing the hesitation and confusion. “What is the problem with the doctor?” he asked finally.

  “Do you know him?” Tomás asked in turn.

  “Not really. Not as a friend, anyway.”

  “He is a lot of trouble,” Tomás said.

  “He stole money from me,” Ammon said.

  Joaquin nodded sympathetically. “You see what we mean.”

  He didn’t, and it was Joaquin’s turn to observe his own confusion. The corporal must have decided he owed more explanation to the man who had saved his life, even if he was rescued after a lowly private. “It is this way, señor. The doctor is a lot of noise and bother.”

  “I think I understand now,” Ammon replied. “He is the Emperor of Siam.”

  The soldiers exchanged blank looks again and ignored him once more until they stopped for a hasty meal in a village so small there was no church or plaza. The owner of the only cantina in town shuttered his windows hastily as the three of them rode by.

  Joaquin dismounted and banged on the door, demanding entrance. The man inside declared on the bones of his late wife that he would never open the door to rascals who never paid even one cuartilla for a meal, but only left a worthless paper chit. Ammon took his turn, sliding a coin under the door, which opened almost immediately.

  How many favors must I owe these simpletons? Ammon asked himself as they ate. The owner gave him a much larger bowl of posole than the other two, which Ammon generously shared because he wanted more answers.

  “Tell me, my friends,” he began as they left the village. “If Doctor Menendez has gone over to Victoriano Huerta’s army, are we riding into a Huerta stronghold?”

  Both men laughed. “No one wants Carrizal, señor,” Joaquin said when he had control of himself again. He gestured grandly. “This is all the possession of General Salazar and his jefe, General Orozco.”

  “Then tell me, Joaquin, why were you so careful to get yourselves safe conduct passes?” Ammon asked. “Do you need them?”

  Joaquin merely shrugged. “One can never be too careful.”

  It was food for thought, followed by the strongest urge to bid both men adiós, turn back, and hightail it to Pearson or Colonia Juárez. “I promised General Salazar and I owe it to Colonel Ochoa,” he muttered to himself in English, even as he wondered if he really was the fool that Joaquin and Tomás thought.

  As they approached Carrizal at dusk, they were surveyed at close quarters by guerillas belonging to the camp of Pascual Orozco. They, along with Salazar’s bandits, had terrorized Colonia Dublán and Colonia Juárez. He rode easily with them, listening as they boasted of skirmishes with the federales, as Madero’s power continued to dribble away. He thought suddenly of Serena Camacho in Santa Clarita, wondering if she was still alive, and of the small people of Mexico who wanted land and peace. Maybe he should meet Addie in El Paso and start over there. He didn’t want to wait for the revolution to end because he had an uneasy feeling that it was just beginning.

  Carrizal was as quiet as he remembered it, just a small town with kind people and good cheese. When she knew he was freighting toward Carrizal, Addie always reminded him to get queso for her. Again he had a strong urge to leave, but there was Joaquin, finger to his lips as they rode down a deserted side street and dismounted by an adobe house like all the other houses.

  Speaking softly, Joaquin sent Ammon to guard the back door—with what, he wanted to ask—while they went in the front. He listened to a brief scuffle inside, but no shouting came and no weapons fired. Maybe Joaquin and Tomás were more skillful than he gave them credit for. When he came around to the front, the soldados had neatly trussed and gagged a tall gentleman wearing a good suit, his hair slicked back. Dr. Menendez, I presume? Ammon wanted to ask but resisted.

  The doctor stood quietly on the dark street and looked as contemptuous as a man can, with a gag in his mouth and his arms pin
ned back. “Señor Menendez? We’re taking you back to Rancho San Diego, where your former comrade, Colonel Ochoa, lies wounded,” Ammon said, pulling down the gag, which wasn’t tight to begin with. “After you have tended him, General Salazar has promised you will be put on the train to El Paso.”

  Menendez stared at him. “I know you,” he said after a long look.

  “I think you fixed my leg in that logging camp two years ago.”

  “Ah! The compound fracture,” he said.

  “My wife and your wife are probably in El Paso now. That was also part of the agreement,” Ammon continued. “And you stole money from my privy.”

  Menendez smiled at that. He sketched a courtly bow that ended in a muffled protest when Ammon put the gag back in his mouth and tightened it. Joaquin and Tomás picked him up and threw him onto what was probably his own horse, retrieved from a stable by the back door.

  He tried to speak. Ammon pulled down the gag again.

  “My medicine bag. In the front room,” he said. Ammon replaced the gag.

  The black bag was right inside the door, next to a satchel neatly packed and ready to go. Ammon frowned. Was Dr. Menendez expecting them? He stared at the bag until Joaquin called for him to hurry up. He picked up the medical bag and left the satchel.

  They mounted and moved down the street at the same slow pace, the better not to attract attention in this little town neither side wanted. “Joaquin, he had a bag already packed, just inside the door,” Ammon said as they left town, heading west.

  Joaquin nodded and glared at the doctor, who struggled to stay in his saddle with his hands behind his back. “We must have snatched him just before someone else did.”

  “He didn’t struggle too much.”