Chasing Pancho Villa

by R. L. Tecklenburg

  The column moved as quickly as the wagons allowed, until finally reaching the edge of the Sierra Madre Mountains. Around midday they entered a small, isolated settlement of adobe huts situated in the foothills. It was the first village they had encountered. Here they stopped to water and rest the horses and mules. Harrison looked around the Indian settlement, a dozen small adobe huts spread out around a central area. He saw garden plots with broken stalks of corn, brown and withered, just beyond. Dogs barked everywhere, announcing their arrival. He saw no horses.

  At first, the adults stayed away from the village center. Only the children gathered around the riders as they dismounted. Finally, recognizing Maria, both men and women left their thick-walled adobe houses to greet her. The Indians had chopped, shoulder length black hair, and were dressed in brightly colored homespun cotton. They stood around the wagons. Harrison felt uneasy and stepped closer to Maria to protect her.

  “Don’t worry, Harry.” She touched his arm. “They are friends.” She motioned to her brother, who walked to the back of the lead wagon.

  “Venga!” he yelled, waving to the men from the village. He threw back a canvas cover to reveal sacks of grain stacked three deep.

  The men gathered around the wagon, but waited. Finally, an older man approached from behind the group. He stood directly in front of Daniel. Holding something in his hand, he began to speak.

  “Who is he?” Harrison asked Maria softly.

  “He is the Elder,” she whispered. “He is thanking us for the grain.”

  When the chief finished speaking, he handed Daniel an object wrapped in sheep skin. Daniel unwrapped it. He held it up. It was a wool blanket woven of many bright colors.

  “Gracious,” Daniel said. He had taken off his sombrero and held it at his side.

  The chief bowed, and then waved for the others to come forward.

  *

  They rode across the rough lands and mountains of Sonora, then down into the desert again. After three more days of hard travel, they met and followed a road near the sea. Late the fourth day, they arrived in Guaymas, on the Gulf of the California coast.

  The night before arriving at their destination, Maria unexpectedly rode off toward the east. The hour was late. She had told Harrison nothing. He spent the time she was gone raging and walking around the camp. Shortly after dawn, as the sun inched above the mountains, she returned.

  “God damn it,” he said to her.

  “Yes, my love?” she answered, smiling.

  “I worried about you. Anything could have happened. They could have kidnapped you.” Harrison did not bother to mask his anger.

  “You are right,” she said, pulling him into the shadows, kissing him. “But they did not.” She wrapped her serape around both of them, then she fumbled with Harrison’s belt. “Now,” she whispered. I must have you now, my love.” She threw off his belt and reached into his trousers.

  Harrison’s anger quickly dissipated. He unbuckled her gun belt and let it drop to the ground. Then he reached up under her blouse, feeling for her breasts.

  Both giggled while they removed their boots and jeans. “Shhh,” Maria whispered. “Or Mr. Jones will catch us.” Both were naked from the waist down and still standing. Harrison’s hands moved across her body, massaging.

  “Hold me,” she whispered in his ear. “Hold me and I will take your anger, my love.” Maria jumped into his arms, wrapping her legs around him.

  He held her by her thighs, bracing his back against a small white pine, while she slowly raised and lowered herself.

  ““We must be fast, my love. But not so very fast,” she said. Then she kissed him hard on his lips, holding his head in her hands.

  *

  The trip had been wearing for both riders and beasts. Arriving in the seaside pueblo of Guaymas late in the afternoon, Maria immediately found the single hotel.

  “Stay with the men and make sure the mules and horses are rested, fed, and watered. And here is money to buy food for the men,” she ordered, giving Jose a handful of Mexican silver dollars. “Be ready to leave by sunup.”

  Daniel and Harrison followed her as she climbed to the veranda of the wood and adobe two-story hotel near the waterfront.

  “Look there! Out on the water,” Maria said, pointing at a pair of two-masted schooners anchored a hundred yards off shore in the azule waters of the Gulf of California. “Those are our ships. Daniel, tell Mr. Jones that the ships are here,” she ordered. “He will know what to do.”

  Daniel walked rapidly away.

  “Here waiting for us, Harry,” she said, smiling happily at him. “This is a very good sign.”

  “They gave the American gun boats the slip, Maria?”

  “The cargo came in on an ocean liner. We moved the guns to smaller boats—these sailing ships,” she told him as they entered the lobby of the hotel. “The Americans did not see.”

  “You planned well.” Harrison took her arm. Things would work out, he thought.

  “The gunrunners are expensive, and very greedy,” she said, fretting. “They will take some of our profits.”

  As they walked together to the front desk, someone called out for Maria. “Fraulein Washington. Welcome!” A light-complected man came face to face with the two. He wore a gray uniform, beautifully tailored to his slim figure.

  “Colonel Von Moltke. How nice to see you,” Maria replied in a soft, feminine voice. She held out her hand.

  The officer delicately lifted her fingers and bowed over them.

  “I am most pleased to see you. And on time, too,” he said with a German accent. “Ja, and your associate?” He straightened up to look at James.

  “This is Mr. Harrison James, colonel.” Maria saw a twitch on the German’s scarred cheek as he looked directly at Harrison.

  “James?” Von Moltke asked as he held out his hand.

  Harrison guessed Von Moltke to be about 40. He had a narrow face with sandy brown hair cropped close to the skull. Although blue like his own,, Von Moltke’s eyes were more like those of Harrison’s mother—hard and pitiless. Two scars slashed across the pale skin of each cheek. A thin, arched nose dominated the skull-like face. The narrowest of mustaches slashed across his upper lip. He was otherwise clean-shaven, and by the sharpest of razors, Harrison noticed. “Bartlett James was my brother,” he said, releasing Von Moltke’s hand.

  “Captain James, sir? Ja, I met your brother.” The cold, blue stare held steady. “I was sorry to hear he died. Most unfortunate. A worthy adversary,” Von Moltke added.

  Harrison nodded in return. The colonel was a German aristocrat, he knew. He had heard the family name mentioned in European political circles. He recalled many Frenchmen still discussing Von Moltke the Elder in reference to their defeat at the hands of the Germans in 1871. For all his perfect manners, there was something frightening, almost grotesque, about Von Moltke the Younger. “Are you related to Helmuth Von Moltke, Chief of Staff of the German Army?” Harrison asked.

  The German obviously was surprised that Harrison knew anything about the German Army. “He is my brother, sir. Do you know him?”

  “Only of him, sir.”

  Von Moltke insisted they have tea and relax before any discussion of business. As they sat in the dining room,Von Moltke dominated the conversation. “It has been difficult to train these natives to be good soldiers,” he stated with contempt. “They have no appreciation of discipline.” He looked at Maria as he spoke.

  Harrison looked at Maria for her reaction. He was unprepared when, suddenly, soldiers converged on the table with rifles aimed. Harrison attempted to pull his revolver from its holster, but stopped when he felt the cold barrel of a rifle at the back of his head.

  Colonel Von Moltke, watching the two of them, smiled thinly. “Please, Herr James, give me your weapon. And yours, too, Fraulein Washington.” He held out his hand.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “You will turn over the guns to me,
as we agreed,” Von Moltke said in a cold, crisp voice. “Please, be comfortable. You are my guests.” He removed a pre-rolled cigarette from a silver case and offered Harrison one. “Herr James?”

  “I don’t indulge, sir,” Harrison answered. He was studying the guards.

  “Colonel, we will take our payment and go, as we agreed,” Maria told him, beginning to stand.

  “You will stay, fraulein,” Von Moltke ordered icily. “There is a change in plan.” The German stared at her. “There will be no payment. Did you think, Fraulein Washington, that General Obregon would allow a half-breed whore to profit from the Mexican Army?”

  “If I don’t give you the guns, colonel?” she responded with a flash of anger. “You need a password to get them unloaded.”

  “If you do not, then I will kill your brother,” Von Moltke told her calmly. “Your brother and your men are also my guests. See for yourself.” He escorted her to the open door of the hotel. Harrison quietly followed the two, with a guard at his heels. Two Mexican soldiers dragged a bound figure out of the doorway of the adobe jail. While one man kept his rifle pointed at Daniel’s head, the other threw him into the dusty street. “Those are two of my best men,” Von Moltke said distinctly. “But they will not kill him. Instead, I will cut him to pieces with a saber. One piece at a time.”

  Frightened for Daniel, Maria tried to run into the street, but Harrison grabbed her, holding her tightly.

  “Maria,” he cautioned.

  She caught herself. Fighting to hold back her growing rage and fear, Maria glared at the German officer now standing beside her. “What kind of a man are you?”

  “Fraulein, I am a soldier, dealing with bandits.” They turned back into the hotel. “Now, we understand each other,” Von Moltke told her.

  With Mexican soldiers posted at the windows, the three sat in the lobby’s wicker chairs waiting for the weapons to be off-loaded from the ships and onto the wagons.

  A soldier entered and whispered something into Von Moltke’s ear. “Good, good,” he said with a smile. The soldier turned and left the room. “It turns out we didn’t need your password, fraulein. My men were evidently persuasive enough. The weapons have been loaded into the wagons.”

  “Was there ever any money to pay for the weapons, colonel?” Maria asked, bitterly.

  “Of course,” The German replied with contempt in his voice. “However, now it will be appropriated by the German Government for other purposes.”

  “Colonel, why do you care what goes on here in Mexico? I would think the German Army has more important things to worry about,” Harrison said, directing the conversation away from Maria.

  “Nein, Herr James. Mexico is an important part of our plans. The Kaiser himself has stated so.”

  “Plans for what, colonel?”

  Von Moltke smiled. “I am rebuilding the Mexican Army. Soon it will be strong enough to finally defeat all the rebel factions. General Obregon will unite Mexico under the banner of El Presidente Carranza.”

  “How will this help the German Empire, sir?”

  “Mr. James, you are an educated man. Consider. A united Mexico will become an important strategic ally of the German Empire.”

  “With its great oil reserves?” Harrison asked, putting it together.

  “Of course, that, too, Mr. James.”

  “You are wrong, colonel,” Maria said flatly. “Not even Carranza would betray Mexico to serve the will of the Germans. Not for the Americans, and not for you.”

  Harrison frowned at her, willing her to be silent.

  Lighting another cigarette, Colonel Von Moltke smiled. “Betray Mexico, señorita? Certainly not. Rather to serve her, by gaining back Texas. Perhaps even more of the former territories taken from her by the Americans.”

  Both Harrison and Maria understood immediately what Von Moltke meant.

  “My intelligence suggests that many along the border would welcome that arrangement,” he went on. “Our spies tell us that many areas are ripe for re-conquest, even now.” Von Moltke’s cigarette smoke hung drifting in the hotel lobby. “Perhaps that was why Pancho Villa invaded and why the American Army chased him,” Von Moltke said. He looked at Harrison. “But your army failed to defeat even a bandit. How can you expect to defeat Germany, Mr. James?”

  “Tell me about my brother. How did you know him?” Harrison asked, tiring of the subject.

  “When we met, Herr James, our countries were not at war, so circumstances were different. I believed there would be war between our countries. Your brother shared that opinion, but we became associates, in a way, here in Mexico,” he stated, inhaling lightly on the cigarette. “He was engaged in building spy services, as I was later to discover.”

  “What do you mean, sir?” Harrison asked, pretending ignorance.

  “Captain James was engaged in espionage against the German Empire,” Von Moltke answered. Then he added contemptuously, “I see that you yourself have managed to remain disengaged? From the war. And apparently very well off.”

  “My brother commanded a company of infantry, sir.”

  “Your brother was like myself,” Von Moltke answered. With his expressionless narrow face, he reminded Harrison of one of the large, scaled lizards he had seen on the trip down the coast. “He was doing many things while your American Army blundered through the countryside like a blind elephant.”

  Harrison quietly listened.

  “Your brother was a courageous, intelligent soldier. He even used several of my own employees. He bribed one to obtain the details of a proposed alliance, defensive of course, that the Reich was negotiating secretly with the government of Mexico. Foreign Secretary Zimmermann was most upset that Captain James had discovered its terms.”

  “Encouraging the Mexicans to invade the United States and retake Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona?” James asked.

  “You are too dramatic.” Von Moltke snapped. “That was, in reality, only a little incentive that the Secretary offered the Mexicans for signing the agreement.” He made a visible effort to calm himself.

  “So you see, the Americans already knew the details of our proposed treaty before the English told them. All this, because of your brother.” Then Von Moltke smiled his thin smile. “That is another excellent reason for my satisfaction at finding you, Herr James, to be another of my guests.”

  Harrison observed the last rays of a January sun lengthening across the wood floor. He wondered what would happen next.

  Von Moltke smiled at Maria. “It is time to go.” He turned to the Mexican guards. “Take the prisoners to the dock.”

  “My brother?” Maria asked as a Mexican soldier pulled her up and pushed her toward the door.

  “For now, he will remain where he is,” Von Moltke replied.

  The group arrived in time to see the last of the weapons from the two schooners loaded into the heavy wagons. Ten armed Mexican soldiers surrounded laborers conscripted from the town. Maria’s men were nowhere to be seen.

  “Release the hostages from the ships. Tell their crews they will get their money when all the weapons are loaded,” Von Moltke ordered. “Take the whore to the warehouse with the others. Tie her up. Mr. James and her brother will accompany me.”

  “Wait! Take me as your hostage,” Maria pleaded. “Do with me what you will, but let my brother go. He’s of no use to you.”

  “You life is of no value to me,” the German said with a scoff. “A whore that not even Villa wants. Anyway fraulein, El Presidente will not hang a woman for spying, and we must hang someone as an example. Politics you understand.”

  “My brother? He’s no spy,” Maria said with dread in her voice.

  “You are the American spy. Yes, I know this,” Von Moltke said. “But he will do. I suggest that you return to the border quickly or your fate will be worse than that worthless brother of yours.”

  “You bastard son of a snake,” she hissed in English. Two soldiers carried her away kicking
and screaming. “Bastardo! Hijo del Diablo!”

  “Fraulein Washington, I wish you a pleasant evening, and thank you for your assistance to the Mexican Government.” He smiled and bowed with elaborate courtesy. Von Moltke then turned to one of his soldiers. “Prepare the hostages for travel, sergeant,” he ordered.

  “Sí, Colonel,” the young man responded.

  A third soldier roughly bound Maria’s hands with rawhide rope. Then all three dragged her through the wide doorway of an old wooden warehouse standing near the wharf.

  “Bastardo,” she hissed at the soldier tying her hands. “Hijo de la bruja!”

  “Ha, puta,” one solder laughed as he threw her forward into the darkness. “Silencia puta!”

  The other soldiers closed and bolted the double doors.

  In the damp, musty darkness of the wooden building, Maria struggled to her feet, her cheek burning and slightly bruised from hitting the floor. While twisting her wrists in the rope, she called out to each of her men and they all responded, except Mr. Jones. “Señor Jones, donde esta?” she called out. Then, through the cracks in the old wood planks, she saw guards moving about.

  “Tranquilo!” one of them called. “Silencio!” He pounded against the wood door with his rifle butt.

  “En Engles,” she ordered.

  “He disappeared just before the soldiers came,” José answered. In the shadows, her muchachos gathered around her, including the teamsters. All had been disarmed and were bound. From the wide cracks, slivers of light broke through.

  “Untie me, quickly,” she ordered José, turning her back to him.

  “Señorita Washington, they took our guns and horses,” he said as he worked the rope loose with his fingers. “They are many, no? How can we chase them?”

  “They will kill Daniel,” she said, working Jose’s rope loose from behind her. Finally, both were freed. Maria began to pace about the building, thinking. “I know this.”