Safe Passage

by Carla Kelly

  “Just enough,” Joaquin replied with another of his elaborate shrugs. “You know General Salazar does not want us to injure the doctor’s valuable hands.”

  B

  They rode all night, passing easily through other Salazar and Orozco troops, who laughed at Menendez. Joaquin stayed close to his prisoner while Tomás dozed in the saddle, leaving Ammon the odd man out. He rode ahead of the others, chiding himself for his misgivings and miserable because when he returned to Rancho San Diego, Addie would be gone.

  He knew it was what he wanted, the reason he had come to Mexico. Despite their private pain, she was still his wife when he set out from El Paso, and he felt honor-bound to get her to a safe place. He hadn’t really counted on falling in love with her all over again, which made him think he hadn’t fallen out of love in the first place. Now she would be safe, and her father would probably whisk her away to Utah. Maybe he could visit her at Christmastime, but then they would have to begin all over again. How many times could they do that before it was just too hard?

  First things first, he told himself as they came to the dry wash that had turned into a river only a day ago. Sure enough, it was dry again. He looked back at the doctor, who rode so close to Joaquin, the gag down around his neck now. They seemed to be deep in conversation, even arguing, which puzzled Ammon. Earlier, Dr. Menendez had objected to beans and tortillas in that little village, reminding Ammon of Graciela and her superior airs. Ammon had plunked down his own money again to get the man a plate of eggs and chorizo, which made Tomás pout.

  Ammon rode ahead of the trio, wanting to put miles between them and their monumental silliness. He was tired of company that wasn’t Addie, with her good nature and her self-confidence that had bloomed the farther they had ventured into Mexico. He wanted her with all his heart in all those ways that a man wants his wife, but especially because she made him happy.

  That was it, then, he decided as dusk approached and they neared the great valley of the San Diego Ranch. He would give up his own dreams and get on that train with the doctor. Eventually he might get used to life in the United States.

  They had never really left the land of undulating hills, but the hills seemed more pronounced now as they approached the foothills of the Sierra Madre. They had passed several patrols of Salazar’s men, who glanced at their safe conduct papers and waved them on, intent on their search for Huerta’s men, or Villa’s troops, or Zapata’s guerillas. And now they spoke of Venustiano Carranza, another contender for power. Each faction picked at the barely breathing carcass of Mexico, and Ammon was tired of it all.

  He glanced behind, realizing how far ahead of the others he had traveled, nourishing his own black mood, and decided to wait. He knew they were close to the ranch, because just ahead were the railroad tracks of the North Western that had carried away all the women and children from the colonies, and Addie and Graciela by now.

  He remembered that Joaquin’s horse had shied away from the tracks on the way to Carrizal, so he rose in his stirrups to remind the corporal. He watched in stupefied amazement as Joaquin took out his pistol and shot Tomás between the eyes.

  “Viva Huerta!” Joaquin shouted, and the doctor laughed.

  Ammon stared, unable to say anything. He reached for his rifle, forgetting his scabbard was empty. Joaquin rode toward him, his pistol still out, with Dr. Menendez right behind, his hands untied now and gripping his reins, a smile on his face.

  “No, wait,” Ammon said, raising his hands to protect his face as Joaquin stopped and aimed at his forehead.

  Nothing. Ammon put his hands down in time to watch the corporal clutch at an arrow between his eyes, then fall to the earth like a sack of wet meal. His eyes wide with fright, the doctor had raised his hands and was staring over Ammon’s shoulder. He turned around too but saw nothing.

  He looked again, as dusk played its own trick on him. The land seemed to open up to reveal a single Indian. He looked closer and clutched at his saddle horn.

  “Joselito?” he quavered, barely believing his eyes.

  “At your service, señor,” the Tarahumara said. “What should I do with this other one?”

  The doctor started to cry, which made Joselito snort in disgust. Menendez made a half-hearted attempt to flee until Ammon roped him and yanked him from the saddle. Menendez sat on the ground and sobbed as his horse, moving faster without a rider, quickly became a distant memory.

  “Oh, stop it,” he said to Menendez as he dismounted. “You’re still alive.”

  The doctor sobbed until his nose ran, then checked his pockets for a handkerchief. “Use your sleeve,” Ammon said.

  “I could never!”

  “Heaven help us, Joselito.”

  The Indian toed the dead man. Ammon flinched when he yanked out the arrow, wiped it on the doctor’s sleeve, then put it in his quiver again. Menendez had gone deathly pale. He stared at his gory sleeve, then held his arm out to Ammon, as if expecting him to make it better. Ammon just shook his head.

  Joselito squatted by the doctor and Ammon joined him. “Why on earth are you here?” he asked.

  The Indian sighed, and it was a great, put-upon sigh. “My woman said I had to follow you.”

  “Why?”

  “Pardon me, señor, she said you were a special kind of fool and I had to keep an eye on you, even after García.”

  “Has she been talking to my wife?” Both men chuckled. “Let us parlay in a moment,” he said, and the Indian nodded.

  Menendez stared at them both, as though they had lost all reason. “What about me?”

  Ammon turned to look at him, regarding him in silence as he put it all together. “Now I understand why Joaquin was so insistent on safe conduct tarjetas. Where were you two really headed? Obviously Tómas wasn’t in on your grand scheme.”

  “El Paso,” the doctor said, his voice sulky now. “We are at the railroad right now, right through the middle of Salazar’s country. General Huerta seems to think I can assist him in negotiating with your ambassador to Mexico.”

  “Not mine,” Ammon said mildly. “You were just going to use that safe conduct pass all through Chihuahua?”

  “We nearly did.”

  “True.” Ammon looked toward the other dead man. “Poor, dumb Tomás.” And poor, dumb me, he thought. Joselito’s wife is right.

  Dr. Menendez watched him expectantly, as though he was certain of a favor. “Nothing has changed. I told you yesterday I am to take you to Rancho San Diego, because Colonel Ochoa is badly wounded. Once you have done all you can for him, you are to get on the train to El Paso. Your wife is already there.”

  “You know Salazar will never let me leave San Diego alive.”

  Ammon looked at the pitiful man on the ground in front of him. He was probably right. Depending on his mood, Salazar could be kind or cruel, but it was unlikely he would forgive a traitor, even if he did promise.

  “Doctor, you’re not very good at this revolution business,” he began.

  Menendez started to cry again.

  “If it’s any consolation, neither am I.” Ammon sighed. “But you did save my life in that logging camp and I am in your debt. Take Joaquin’s horse and get out of here.”

  The doctor stared at him, then got to his feet, his eyes on Joselito and his bow and arrow. He took a few steps. When the Indian did nothing, he took a few more steps. He started running then and grabbed the reins to Joaquin’s horse.

  “Make sure you have your safe conduct pass,” Ammon called after him. “And good luck to you if you find Graciela!” He started to laugh, flopping back on the ground, tired right down to his toenails, but glad he had not sent a man to his death. He looked over at Joselito. “Did you follow me all the way from García?”

  “Oh, no. I wasn’t going to follow you at all, but my woman …” He shook his head. “They can make life so miserable.”

  Or wonderful, Ammon thought. He raised up on one elbow to regard the man who was probably his best friend in Mexico, considering.
“I gave you all my cattle. Why does she think I am a fool?”

  Joselito touched the fox fur stole around Ammon’s neck. “It was this. You told me it was a valuable totem and it would bring me luck.”

  “Yeah, I did. Um, it will.”

  “I believed you, señor, until my sister saw it,” Joselito said, not disguising the reproach in his voice. “She laughed at me, at Joselito!”

  “Your sister? I don’t understand.”

  “Before the troubles started, she was a servant on Rancho Medina, washing the ladies’ clothes. When the soldiers turned on each other, she ran back to the mountains.”

  “Wise of her.”

  Joselito touched the fox fur again. “She told me rich women, not warriors, wear these and the eyes are glass.”

  I owe this man an apology, Ammon thought, embarrassed and wondering how to begin. “Joselito, it was like this …”

  The Indian gave Ammon a little slap, as he probably slapped his children to get their attention. “My woman started to cry and wail! She is certain you do not know your totem is worthless, and she is grateful for the cattle. She wanted me to follow you and keep you safe, because a fox fur with glass eyes won’t. I am sorry to tell you that, but it is true.”

  “Thank you, Joselito,” Ammon said, touched. “How did you pick up our trail?”

  Even sitting there on the ground, Joselito seemed to draw himself up. “I am Tarahumara,” he reminded Ammon, with some dignity. He laughed then, a low chuckle so infectious that Ammon smiled. “I wasn’t doing too well until I came to the Rio Papigochic and heard such a tale.”

  “The three pumas and wolves, and what have you?” Ammon asked.

  Joselito nodded. “The villagers said it was your woman. Señor, she is your totem.”

  Ammon knew he couldn’t speak without crying, so he waited. He didn’t want the Indian to think he was as big a ninny as Dr. Menendez. “You followed us on foot from Papigochic?”

  The Indian grinned. “Not always on foot. I rode with that midnight army. You were easy to track after that, you and your woman who brings you good luck.”

  “I believe you’re right,” he said finally. “Your woman is right too. I’m an idiot, because I sent my totem away to El Paso.”

  Joselito sucked in his breath. “You had better keep wearing the fox fur, señor, because you are a fool.”

  NINETEEN

  AMMON THOUGHT ABOUT imitating Dr. Menendez and making his own run for the border, except that his parents had raised him better. He had given his word to General Salazar, and he had to return to Rancho San Diego. He tried to explain such nobility to Joselito, but the Indian muttered something in his own language better left untranslated.

  “No wonder my woman sent me to watch you,” he did say in Spanish finally.

  “It’s my journey now, Joselito,” Ammon replied. He held out his hand, then touched the Indian’s fingertips. “Thank you for saving my life.”

  Joselito nodded as though saving lives was something he did every day. He touched Ammon in turn. “Thank you for feeding my people.”

  Ammon just nodded. A month ago, he would have mourned the loss of the Hancock herd. “Do this for me, my friend, if you can: Keep a bull and two cows in that box canyon. Maybe the herd will grow again.”

  “Will you return to García?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Joselito’s expression was kindly, concerned even. “Where will you go, señor?”

  “Not sure about that either.”

  The concern grew on the Indian’s face. “Will I see you again?”

  “That might depend on whether General Salazar is in a good mood,” Ammon told him.

  “I can ride in with you.”

  I never knew I had such friends until I returned to rescue my wife, Ammon thought. Who was rescued? When he could speak, he had both hands on Joselito’s shoulders. “It would be even more dangerous for you than me, my friend.” He didn’t care now that tears streamed down his cheeks. He wasn’t even certain why he was crying. Maybe it was for friendship, for Addie in El Paso now, for his possibly short future. “Adiós. If I live, we will probably meet again. Let us leave it at that.”

  Joselito nodded and pulled the fox stole from around Ammon’s neck, tossing it into the darkness. “You have another powerful totem,” he said kindly.

  “More powerful than my wife?”

  “Perhaps. Several times, I watched you and your woman kneel. I don’t know what you were doing, but you’re still alive. When we meet again, you will tell me more.”

  Ammon nodded, thinking of Old Ammon the Nephite, who was probably smiling down on his namesake. I will teach you more, my friend, he thought. It is a pledge.

  Ammon mounted Blanco and rode into the darkness. A mile later, he stopped and listened. To his relief, he heard nothing. Joselito would not survive a moment on Rancho San Diego, not with the Indians of the mountains always and everlastingly fair game for either side and all factions.

  Blanco was tired, so Ammon did not push the gelding. As he rode, he composed plausible excuses for Dr. Menendez’s nonattendance, each sounding more ridiculous than the one before. He decided that the truth was best, something his mother and Sister Coates, his Primary teacher, would have approved of. “I let him go because he didn’t deserve to die, even if he is a spoiled, silly man, much like his wife,” he said out loud, which made Blanco prick up his ears.

  If he was still alive after that admission to the mercurial Salazar, he could explain the dead bodies of two soldados on their way to becoming a buzzard banquet. He hated to think how many bones would litter Mexican soil before the revolution ended. Of what importance were two more? And if he joined the boneyard, three?

  As he rode in cautiously, Ammon expected to see more activity around the hacienda. Hadn’t Joaquin said there was a battalion leaving to fight in Sonora? Had the troops already left? Could he be so lucky?

  Two soldados sat on the porch as he rode to the hacienda’s shallow steps. One of them lifted his hand in greeting, while the other slumbered on. He tied Blanco to the hitching rail and opened the front door.

  “¿Hay alguien? Anyone?” he asked, thinking two languages were better than one.

  Feeling like the intruder he was, Ammon walked down the corridor, pausing to look in the room where he had last seen Colonel Ochoa so near death. The room had been tidied and the bed remade, with no evidence of the suffering of a good man. Que lástima, he told himself, and closed the door quietly.

  The next door was open and he heard someone humming inside. The stuffed heads on the walls glared at him. A man was seated at the table, putting down cards in a row. He smiled the welcome of someone bored with his own company and eager for a diversion, even if it was only one dirty gringo.

  Cautious, Ammon made himself known to the soldier minus one leg, the stump of which was propped on another chair.

  “Corporal Acosta, a su servicio,” the card player said. “I would get up, but …” He dealt himself another row of cards, putting back one he did not like.

  He needed no urging to talk. Ammon’s question of “Where is everybody?” turned into a lengthy discourse on an amazing discovery of money to buy arms and ammunition and the need to saddle up and head to Sonora after a munitions dealer. The corporal politely reminded Ammon there was a war on.

  “The general is gone?” Ammon asked, hardly believing his good fortune.

  “Poof, like a hot wind,” Acosta said. He pointed to himself proudly. “I am in charge of the San Diego Ranch. Who would have thought such a thing could happen? Would that my mamá were here to see me! She used to sew for the Andrade family.” He spit on Luisa Andrade’s exquisite Persian rug.

  It seemed too easy to Ammon, especially since he had prepared the entire truth and many details for the man who wasn’t there. “I was supposed to bring a doctor for Colonel Ochoa.”

  The corporal’s face fell. “¡Pobre coronel! He did not live a day after you left.” He looked closer at Ammon,
not sure of his identity. Ammon knew that all gringos looked alike to Mexicans. “One of the women sat with him and cried and cried over him. Such a gentle lady.”

  “She has a soft heart.” Tired, and not wanting to think about that soft heart, Ammon sat down at the card table. He had to know. “Tell me, Corporal, did General Salazar do as he said he would, and get the women on the train?”

  The soldier’s expressive face collapsed again; this was clearly not a good subject, which made Ammon sit up straight. “He tried to do that. I wasn’t there”—he patted his excuse—“but my cousin said it was not a pretty sight.” He chuckled. “He said one of them got on the train so quietly and calmly. The other one? Oh, no! She fought and scratched and bit and refused to leave.” He leaned closer and whispered, even though the room was deserted. “My cousin said she even kicked the general in the shins.”

  Ammon closed his eyes, wondering into what ditch Graciela’s remains had been tossed. “What did the general do?”

  “He tried to reason with her, but by all the saints, there was no reasoning with that one.”

  He paused, triumphant in conveying his message, and laid down another row of cards. It took all of Ammon’s willpower not to grab the corporal and shake him. “Did they ever get her on the train?”

  “Oh, yes,” Acosta said with some relish.

  “That’s a relief. There were people waiting for them in El Paso.”

  “¡Pues, no, señor! What did she do but crawl out the window on the other side! The general gave up and brought her back.” He slapped down more cards, not so pleased now. “She is in the kitchen, burning beans and scorching tortillas and we wish she would go away.”

  “No one … no one hurt her, did they?” Ammon asked, thinking Dr. Menendez might want to take his chances with the Empress of Siam again, provided he quit politics and returned to medicine.

  The corporal stared at Ammon, eyes wide with fear. “Señor! There is no one in all of Chihuahua brave enough to molest the woman who killed three cougars and—”

  Ammon leaped to his feet and ran down the hall to the kitchen, calling Addie’s name. She turned around at the cooking range, wooden spoon in hand, her face joyful. He scooped her up and kissed her with such a smack that Pia Sanchez, sitting at the table, covered her face with her hands and shuddered.