Stringer and the Border War

by Lou Cameron

  Horses had to be rested after they’d run a few miles. Horses had no sense about a lot of things. So even though the artillery barrage seemed too close for comfort to their northeast, they reined in for a breather when they found themselves in a prickly pear flat instead of out on open ground.

  Nobody had ever explained pear flats to Stringer’s satisfaction. Prickly pear just seemed to grow close together in little dry jungles or not at all. The ten or twelve foot walls of mushy cactus pads all around them afforded more cover from the human eye than bullets or even arrows. But as Villa cheerfully pointed out, you had to see a cabron to shoot at him, and both the army bay and his own white charger were badly winded after running so far under double loads. So they all got off and the two girls, without being told, commenced to feed and water the stock at the same time by peeling and feeding them pear pads. The cactus was not in fruit, so the four human fugitives were out of luck unless they were thirsty enough to chew what tasted like soapy sponges. Both saddles had canteens lashed to their swells. So Stringer asked the adelitas if they were thirsty.

  They just looked at him. He could see they were both more Indian than Spanish. So it had likely been a dumb question. He’d been told by Miwok, back on the Mother Lode range where it rained more often, that white folk sure drank a lot of liquids.

  The one Villa had rescued wasn’t bad, if one liked one’s women plump and moon-faced. The raggedy waif Stringer had saved was closer to what a white man considered pretty. When he handed her his pocket knife so she could peel cactus pads with less damage to her small, strong fingers, she demurely informed him she was called Felicidad and that she’d love him forever, even if he married some other adelita. He said he loved her, too, but to hold the thought for now. He turned back to Villa and said, “I think we made it, for the moment. Now what? Over the Hatchet Range into Hidalgo County, New Mexico? The border cuts south about thirty miles on the far side of the divide, you know.”

  Villa grimaced and said, “Of course I know. I got to keep an eye on where I am, even when I don’t want the other side to know. The last time I got licked I hid out in Texas for a while. But I don’t wish to hide out in New Mexico. Would make me feel bad if Los Gringos there were nice to me. I don’t like to kill anyone who has been nice to me, and New Mexico owes me, no?”

  Stringer frowned dubiously to ask, “Owes you what, Pancho? I thought we just tangled with your own federates.”

  Villa swore and then growled, deep in his throat, “You must not call them my federales. Diaz owns them, along with the honor of their mothers. That town back there, Columbus, was in on it with Diaz, no?”

  Stringer shook his head and said, “No. I was in Columbus when your segundo picked me up. They were selling tickets to watch you slug it out with Terrazas. They’d have been asking for more per seat had they expected the whole Mex Army to show up. You can’t blame the town of Columbus for what happened just now.”

  But Villa insisted, “Sure I can. Someday I go there back to get me some lying gringos. But not yet. First I got to put my army back together.”

  Stringer smiled incredulously and said, “I hate to be a wet blanket, General. But don’t you think we’d better worry about the army on our heels before we worry about anything else?”

  Villa said, “You could be right. I don’t hear them shelling, now. They’ll be mopping up the battlefield right now. Then, as always, they’ll spread out for to track down the survivors.”

  They all heard a distant pistol shot. Stringer said, “I follow your drift. Where do we go from here if you don’t like mountain scenery?”

  Villa said, “The scenery up there is nice. The Yaqui are not. I think we better head due south, sticking to the flats for a hundred miles or so.”

  Stringer whistled softly and observed, “It’s your country. But I hope you know what you’re doing, Pancho. We’re talking mighty dry country at the best of times, and this year you seem to be having a drought even you guys call dry!”

  Villa shrugged and said, “We can’t stay here. They know about pear flats, too. You are right about the drought. Won’t be no water in the Rio Casas Grandes a few hour’s ride to the south. But maybe Los Federales will expect us to make for there. Better we follow the aprons of the foothills south. Lousy country for man or beast and, once we get a few days upstream, might be a little water in the river bed.”

  But the plump adelita Villa had saved, whose name was Ynez, took a deep breath, then dared to say, “Not for nearly a week in the saddle, my Hero. You speak of country I know well. I ran away from a hacienda near the headwaters of the Casas Grandes because my mistress beat me and my master was almost as bad in bed. The river comes down from the Sierra Madre, even in summer, only to sink into the sand as it runs north almost to the border and, in a very wet year, hairpins around to water a desert play a to the south. In dry weather like this, the river bed is dry as a bone north of Los Gringos who have a dam across the river, see?”

  Villa said, “Let’s mount up. If the journey is dry and difficult, Los Federales may not follow us too far.”

  So a few minutes later they’d broken through the far side of the pear flat to drift slow and steady through the cholla and grease wood, trying not to raise any dust, and looking back a lot.

  To the north, the horizon was obscured by the slowly settling haze of battle. From time to time they still heard distant shots as yet another wounded survivor met a lonely end. Stringer knew he was just about as far south as he really wanted to be. It wasn’t his fight, and he could no doubt make the border if he simply holed up somewhere until dark and took his chances alone. Then the girl clinging to him from behind murmured, softly, “Do you think we are going to be caught by Los Federates, mi soldado?”

  To which he could only reply, “Not if I can help it. I’m not as casual about deserting my friends as some gents I could mention.”

  Sunset found them camped in a dry arroyo with not enough water in their canteens to mention. A fire was out of the question with federates scouting the desert for them and Yaqui haunting the purple crest to their west. Stringer knew their mounts needed the rest. But suggested, as they all sat around a sort of picnic blanket with no picnic on it, “If I was in charge, Pancho, I’d move out again around midnight. I’ve interviewed many an old Apache fighter and they all agreed it’s best to ride by night and hole up by day in Apache country.”

  Villa snorted in disgust and said, “Apaches squat to piss. This is Yaqui country. They got eyes like cats. They fight better in the dark than any other time. If we’ve been spotted from the ridges to our west they are laying for us, right row, on the trail ahead. You let me worry about our pagan playmates, my gringo Apache fighter. Yaquis don’t like to fight in the open with the sun revealing all their sins. They are formidable close range fighters, but lousy shots. Some of them still got bows and arrows. Is safer we ride by daylight, steering wide of any ambush sites, eh?”

  “Won’t that leave us exposed to any army patrols on the flats?” Stringer asked.

  Villa replied with a yawn, “I spit in their mother’s milk. Better to fight a hundred federales than one Yaqui woman. Yaqui women are really wicked.”

  The young mestiza woman snuggled against Stringer’s left side gulped and softly asked, “What if they move in on us in the dark? “Madre de Dios,`’ Villa muttered, “does everybody in this army want to be the general? I just told you Yaqui like to spring surprises. They do not like to be surprised. If they even know we are here, they know we got guns. Three pistols and my saddle carbine, anyway. They expect us to be on the alert, with at least one of us on guard, see?”

  “Don’t you think we ought to think about posting a night watch up on the rim, then?” Stringer asked.

  To which Villa replied with another yawn, “For why? I just told you they expect us to. So why bother? You got to learn to relax between fights, muchacho. The secret of living as we must is to take it easy and enjoy life as much as you can, while you still got it. We have had a rough da
y. I could use a warm meal right now, too. But I got some tequila in my saddle bag and if we marry these two women we might not notice how hungry we are, eh?”

  The two adelitas laughed expectantly. Stringer had to grin, but asked, “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, Pancho. The last time we met you’d just married the alcalde’s daughter, or said you had. Am I missing something in the translation? Where I come from the term means something more, ah, formal.”

  “Hey, I’m as formal as any damned gringo. You take me for a caballero with no respect for women? I always marry women before I make love to them. Would not be decent to treat them like putas, see?”

  “I’m trying to. I’m sure my readers will be interested in just how you go about it.”

  “Is simple. If a captain of a ship can marry men and women it stands to reason a general can. You two, hold hands. Ynez, give me your pretty little paw.”

  Stringer suddenly found his left hand gripped in both of Felicidad’s brown hands as Villa said, “Bueno. I now pronounce us man and wife. You two, as well, Stringer.”

  Felicidad said she was so happy and kissed him. She kissed pretty good for such a simple country girl. When they came up for air Stringer laughed weakly, and asked Villa, “How many women does one man get to marry, according to your version of a religion I always assumed was more serious about such matters, Pancho?”

  Villa said, “Was not a Catholic ceremony. Do I look like a priest? I got the idea from some Mormon settlers near Durango. They came down here to practice their most sensible marriage customs when your Utah became a state and started acting picky. I don’t know much about Mormons. Some day I gotta take back all that land Diaz sold them. But I like the way they get married. It makes the women just as happy and is not so hard on the men, eh?”

  Stringer laughed again and would have asked more questions about Villa’s religious views, but the lusty Mex cut him off with “Let’s go to bed, damn it. Can’t you see I’m on my honeymoon?”

  Felicidad nudged Stringer to murmur, “We had better move up a ways. I do not think they wish for us to watch.” Villa rolled Ynez atop the blanket and proceeded to undress her, so Stringer got up, helped Felicidad to her feet, and led her and their pony around a bend in the sandy arroyo.

  They didn’t even have the tequila. But there was a bedroll strapped to the bay’s saddle. Felicidad had been bouncing on it all day. He started to unlash it, feeling awkward. But she told him that was an adelita’s job and shoved him aside to get right to work. She worked with practiced skill and had the bedding spread out before Stringer finished tethering the pony to a mesquite limb. As he turned, he saw her spread out on the blankets in the starlight, naked as a jay. He was beginning to see what Villa meant about taking life as it came on the owlhoot trail. He didn’t want her to think him a sissy. He knew she couldn’t really see his red face or dawning erection in this dim light, so he sat down beside her to shuck off his duds. It took him a lot longer, since he started out wearing more clothing than Felicidad. He rolled his gun rig up in his hat and placed it handy in the nearby sand with its grips pointing up for a sudden grab. By this time, she’d grabbed him, and it was pretty hard to begin with. So he grabbed her back and they were too busy to talk for a delirious spell. He hadn’t known how much he needed the release until he came in her, hard. From the way she responded he knew she, too, was acting as much by instinct as amour. Poleaxed steers and men getting hung shot their wads with their last dying twitches, too. It was probably a reflex left over from before mammals had crawled out on dry land, it made sense for a fish to try for one last chance at breeding when it was dying or scared. But, since they were both human beings and weren’t really dying, it felt a heap better to come together over and over until they just had to stop for breath.

  Felicidad hugged him tight with her strong tawny limbs as she cooed, “Maria, Jose y Jesus, that was oh, so lovely, my husband!” And while he had to agree it sure beat dying, her words left him feeling somewhat low.

  “I hope you understand it was Pancho’s idea to say that about us, querida. I like you a lot. I even meant most of what I was saying, just now, but…”

  “Do not burst my bubble.” She cut in, adding with a sad little sigh, “I know what I really am to you. But even an adelita likes to dream, and we do have this one small slice of forever all to ourselves, no?”

  He kissed her gently and replied, “It’s about as nice a slice of eternity as I’ve had so far. I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I was trying not to, when this forever sort of slips away on us.”

  She hugged him tighter and said, “I know. Make it last as long as such forevers ever can. I shall not shame you before your real woman, if she ever knows of this moment with an adelita.”

  He started to say he was single. But that could have been even tougher on her. So he asked, “Just what do you folk mean by an adelita? I know that’s what they call you girls. But I don’t see why. It sounds like a girl’s name, not a military title.”

  She replied, “It is a girl’s name, from a most sad corrida about the first Adelita and her soldado.”

  Then she rolled him on his back and got on top to slowly move her muscular young body up and down his shaft as she began to croon the folk song. She was right about it being sad. But he had no complaints about the way she was strumming, as the song went on and on about poor Adelita tending her soldado’s wounds when he wasn’t beating her or messing with other gals. The moral of the corrida, if there was one, seemed to be that Adelita and her namesakes were just what the doctor ordered as hardworking and hot-natured camp followers. This one started moving faster before she could get to the end of her song. So he rolled her over to finish right and never heard the end of “Adelita” if it had an end. He wasn’t sure he cared to know. And later, as they shared a smoke, he asked her just what in thunder gals like her got out of trudging along behind their ragtag troops, unwed, unpaid, and sure to wind up dead, sooner or later.

  Felicidad took a luxurious drag of Bull Durham, let it out with a sigh of animal pleasure, and asked, “What better life is there for a woman of peon birth in a country such as mine? Would you have me draw water and hew firewood for a lazy grandee woman who calls me her chica when she is not cursing me? I am still young and not bad-looking. I know men want me. Why should I be passed around as a toy by land owners, who do not respect me, when I can just as well give pleasure to men I admire? Is a hard life, sure, but is a free life and, someday, whether I live to see it or not, my people will own this country. Then won’t the grandees be sorry they treated us like cockroaches instead of human beings!”

  He took the smoke back, inhaled, and let it out as he thought about that. She’d told him not to burst her bubble, so he kept his thoughts to himself. Old Diaz couldn’t last much longer, he knew. But then what? Would guys like Villa be any improvement? Diaz, himself, had started as a guerrilla leader under Juarez. He’d said he was a man of the people and he’d probably thought he was, until he’d been in power long enough to learn how power corrupts, and how nice it feels to be corrupted. It was going to take more than a man on a white horse to change things south of the border. The political hacks north of the border shit on the little guys whenever the little guys let ‘em. The problem with folk down here was that they trusted any bozo willing to promise them a fair shake or, hell, just to get off their backs. He stared up at the uncaring stars and held Felicidad closer as he murmured, “I wish there was something I could do. I like your people, Felicidad. They ask so little. They get so little. I swear I can’t see why they’re so cheerful and friendly to anyone who isn’t biting them on the leg.”

  She murmured, “You are not like other gringos. Some of them abuse us, too. Why do your people come down here to buy land and evict all the pobrecitos? Why do they call our brothers lazy greasers even though they seem most anxious to sleep with us? Why do they call us greasers? Do I feel greasy to you?”

  He held her cool naked flesh closer to his own, aware he hadn’t had a bat
h all that recently, as he assured her she felt just swell. “I don’t think all of my people investing down here worry all that much about your feelings. Diaz advertises in the Wall Street Journal, offering cheap land, cheap labor, and no labor unions to worry about. Our own Teddy Roosevelt’s started to fuss about our robber barons up north. I imagine they’re just trying to do business as usual in a land where nobody gives a damn.”

  She said, “I give a damn. Someday I’m going to catch a stuck-up gringa and snatch her baldheaded. But you I like, tonight.”

  The next day they came upon the sometimes river. Ynez had been right about it running dry, this far north. The broad bed of the Casas Grandes formed a highway of sun baked adobe, with scrubby mesquite along either bank. Villa led them down into the bed, saying it was about time they did some serious riding. Stringer told him to speak for himself. Horses could get by on cactus pads, and chewing mesquite pods beat starving, but as they rode upstream toward the everdryer south, nobody but Stringer seemed to care where they were going, or if they’d ever get to eat again. The two adelitas seemed delighted to be riding pillion instead of trudging along behind them barefoot, carrying heavy packs. Stringer had to admire Villa and his breed. No matter what the fancier folk said about them, they were tough as hell. He was beginning to see why the government couldn’t do much about their so-called bandit problem in northern Mexico.

  It was Villa who spotted something on the far bank of the dry river bed and veered closer. Stringer saw the tracks before Villa pointed at them with a merry laugh and said, “Old Hernan must have got away in that fancy horseless carriage he stole. I wonder how he made it out of camp with all those shells coming down, eh?”

  As they walked their mounts further upstream in line with the mysterious rubber tire tracks, Stringer said, “I’m not so sure. Those look more like motor truck tracks to me, Pancho. Have your federates started patrolling the desert in trucks, yet?”