“Señor Robinson, we will be ready in about twenty minutes. Do you want some lunch?”
“No, thank you,” Bierce said. He didn’t like it that Crucia was going to be the one to do him in. He considered the lieutenant an inferior species and wondered if the man would cut off his nose afterward to add to the necklace.
“I wish you’d change your mind,” Reed told him. “Please just consider it.”
“Thank you,” Bierce said. “It’s been interesting getting to know you, Reed. I only wish I had more time to turn you away from Bolshevism. It’s a repugnant philosophy.”
Reed momentarily considered offering to renounce his beliefs if only Bierce would apologize and save his life, but he realized he couldn’t do it. Thereby Reed learned something about the “principles” whereof Bierce had spoken. He shook Bierce’s hand and asked if he could take any last message to anyone.
“No,” Bierce told him. “But in my bag is a notebook with some letters I have written to a Miss Christiansen in Washington City. They’re all addressed and stamped. I’d appreciate it if you’d mail them to her, without comment.”
Reed nodded, then walked away sadly.
They marched Bierce to a whitewashed wall in the village and lined him up facing the firing squad, his hands tied behind his back. Bierce counted seven of them, including Crucia, who’d found a sword and a gold sash someplace to give the occasion formality. Villa was there, too, as was Fierro. They offered Bierce a blindfold but he refused. Crucia gave the orders.
“Ready!” The firing squad raised their guns and locked the shells in their chambers.
“Aim!” The squad pointed their rifles at Bierce.
“Wait a minute!” Bierce said. “Don’t I get a last request?”
Crucia seemed uncertain and glanced at Villa, who nodded his head.
“What is it?” Crucia wanted to know.
“I’d like a cigar,” Bierce told him. There was a small ironic smile on his lips, which showed through his beard, which was beginning to go white, since a week ago he had run out of the shoe polish he’d been dyeing it with. But his voice was steady and his eyes steely.
“Here’s one already lit for you,” Fierro said, taking his cigar out of his mouth and handing it to Crucia, who walked over and stuck it in Bierce’s mouth. The firing squad was still poised with their rifles at the ready.
“There’s something else,” Bierce said. Crucia was getting annoyed.
“What?” he asked.
“I’m told it is the custom in your army to give condemned men the opportunity to signal for the execution to be performed.”
“It is,” Villa said.
“Well, I’d like to do that.”
“Okay,” Villa told him, “if it’s what you want.”
“Right when the ash falls off the end of the cigar,” Bierce told them, “before it hits the ground—do it then.”
Crucia looked to Villa for guidance. The sun was hot and he was ready to get on with it, but Villa shrugged and nodded his head again. He didn’t see how it could hurt anything.
The soldiers were still poised with their rifles shouldered. The sun beat down. Only the noise of their breathing could be heard.
The ash on the cigar was not a very large one at first, maybe a quarter inch. Bierce was relieved that it was a good make of cigar, because well-made cigars tend to have long-lasting ashes, especially when they are smoked right. Bierce always enjoyed a good cigar. He made sure to puff very gently. The sunshine was so bright it dazzled the eyes. Bierce could see the sweat begin to seep through the shirts of the firing squad, some of whose rifles were beginning to wobble noticeably.
Minutes passed, five, seven, nine. The firing squad stood with knees locked, which restricted the flow of blood. Suddenly the silence was shattered by the clatter of a rifle hitting the dirt. The man who had held it followed, passed out from leg-lock and sunstroke. The others held their places. Bierce took an imperceptible puff on the cigar. The ash was now more than half an inch long.
Villa was wondering how this was going to turn out. He was feeling a little queasy himself and shifted around on his feet. Lieutenant Crucia remained at ramrod-straight attention, the sword poised in his right hand ready to drop the instant the ash fell off the cigar. A little wisp of smoke continued to curl up around the cigar. A bumblebee suddenly appeared and began to buzz around Bierce’s beard. He wanted to bite his lip to keep still but couldn’t, with the cigar in his mouth. He kept still anyway. The sun beat down.
Two of the firing squad men could not keep their weapons at the ready any longer. The rifles weighed about ten pounds, and keeping them locked up to the shoulder still and straight for this length of time was excruciating. Crucia motioned for the two to retire. It was a long-standing custom of firing squads that if for any reason a man could not continue, such as if he became queasy about his duty, nauseated, uneasy, then he must leave the squad in disgrace. Crucia was now down to three men. Bierce guessed that the ash at this point amounted to nearly an inch, and that more than fifteen minutes had passed. In a perverse way, he was actually enjoying himself.
The bee landed in Bierce’s beard. He could feel it crawling around and wondered if it would sting him. That would pose a major problem and he steeled himself for it. How perfectly ironic, it crossed Bierce’s mind, to be done in after all by an insect. He had hoped the smoke from the cigar would drive the bee away, but it hadn’t. Two more of the firing squad could not hold their weapons up any longer and retired in odium. Lieutenant Crucia was drenched with sweat and Bierce could see, in his glare of hatred mixed with fear, that he was afraid he would screw up his task in front of his boss. The sun beat down. The last member of the firing squad dropped his rifle and sank to his knees.
Crucia was beside himself. There were no regulations governing this kind of thing. If he’d thought to bring his pistol, he could have drawn it and performed the execution himself. But all he had was the sword and he wasn’t sure if Villa would want it done that way. Finally the general himself solved the problem.
“Okay,” he said to Crucia. “Take your men and go away.”
“Sí, sí, General,” Crucia said in a mixture of confusion, anger, fear, and utter humiliation.
The ash on the cigar was still burning, longer than ever. Villa walked up to him.
“Well, Señor Jack Robinson,” he said, “so you have made fools of our young lieutenant and his men. I hope you enjoyed your reprieve.”
Bierce grunted. He still didn’t want to lose the ash on the cigar. Villa reached into his pocket and pulled out the little ivory-handled, nickel-plated derringer that Bierce had given him as a gift on that long-ago day when he had joined Villa’s army.
“You remember this, don’t you?” Villa asked nicely, towering over Bierce.
Bierce grunted again. He didn’t really feel unkindly toward Villa; in fact, he thought he understood him, at least until the decision to attack Americans. He thought of apologizing and maybe shaking hands and going on back home anyway. A vision came upon him, as visions often do at such times, and it began to reveal the mystery of himself. He was a writer, a thinker, and his writings moved the minds of others. There might still be words he could write that would make a difference to people, almost like those of a teacher.
Villa bent forward, pursed his lips, and blew on the cigar ash. It glowed orange for an instant, almost like it was breathing itself, and then dropped noiselessly to the ground. Villa smiled.
“Do you know why you are doomed, Señor Robinson?”
Bierce shook his head. In fact, he had begun to believe he hadn’t been doomed.
“If a man is born under the wrong star,” said Pancho Villa, “it will shine on his ass always—even when he is seated.”
Bierce was pondering this when Villa stuck the derringer between Bierce’s eyes and pulled the trigger.
SIXTY-SEVEN
Mick Martin got his wish to see the children anyway. After the battle at Agua Prieta General Fierro
had told Tom Mix to take charge of Mick in his guard of prisoners and captives. Katherine and Timmy were delirious to see him.
“Your mummy wanted me to try to negotiate for your release so you can go home,” he told them.
“General Villa said he’s going to let us go,” Katherine told him.
Mick was surprised. That wasn’t the way it had sounded to him.
“When did he tell you that?”
“A week or so ago,” Katherine said. “He said that if he got some money from somebody, I think it was Germans, and won the battle, he’d turn us loose.”
“Well, he didn’t win the battle,” Mick said. “I don’t know about the money.”
“Do you think he’ll let us go anyway?” Timmy asked.
“Yes, I’m certain he will,” Mick told them. “I have faith in it.”
They were riding in one of the wagons and Katherine knew the teamster driving it didn’t understand English.
“Do you know that Papa came and tried to rescue us?” she asked.
“Yes. I was there when he returned. It would have been a blessing if he had been successful, but I thought it was a dangerous thing to do.”
“Is that how you got your face hurt, Uncle Mick?” Timmy said.
“Yes. There was a big fight, but your father’s safe and sound.”
“Is Mummy scared for us?” Katherine asked.
“Of course, but she’s being very brave. She’s in El Paso, waiting for you.”
They asked about everybody and Mick told them what he knew.
“Your grandfather broke his leg, but he’s going to be all right. And Bomba was fine, too, last time I saw him.”
“Are they back at El Paso?” Katherine wondered.
“I don’t know, but I’m sure they will be shortly. Now I want to know about you. Have they treated you well?”
They told Mick about Timmy’s gila monster bite and about the jaguar, about going through the mountains and canyons, and Katherine described how she was teaching Villa to read and she also talked a little about Tom Mix.
“He’s really quite nice,” she said, “although I think he’s made a big mistake. He’s not like these people at all.”
“I’m sure,” Mick said. From what he’d seen of Mix so far, he was just another adventuring fool looking to earn a reputation for himself.
“Well, I don’t want you to worry anymore,” he told them. “Uncle Mick’s here now and we’ll all be going home.” Nervous and worried as he was, Mick felt better trying to reassure the children—as though in some small way he could make it right, no matter what might happen.
They traveled for nearly a week across the prairies, or llanos, to Mick’s growing concern about their ultimate fate. Mick was shocked that Villa seemed to have no interest whatever in negotiating anything. It was unlike any of his previous experience, and thus he began to look for some other way out. He noticed that in the late evening a small black Ford truck appeared toward the end of the caravan and off-loaded what probably was food to the commissary wagon; the driver then spent the night and left again in the late morning, after breakfast. By his own estimate, Mick figured they could not be more than twenty or thirty miles from the U.S. border. If he could somehow get hold of that truck by surprise, and put the kids in it, he ought to be able to outrun men on horseback. It was chancy, but being among these killers all day was chancier, Mick decided.
Working in his favor was the fact that the cowboy Tom Mix who had been taking care of the children and the Mexican woman Donita had been sent ahead for a day or so to scout. Someone had put Lieutenant Crucia in charge of the hostages. Mix had been nearly constantly with them, seeing to their food and other needs; but Crucia’s directive had simply been to guard the prisoners, and when he quickly realized there was no place for them to go, he ceased being a presence in the entourage except in the morning and evening, when he stopped by to count noses, so to speak.
Mick sprang the plan on his fellow captives the following evening. Next morning, Mick said, after Crucia’s routine visit, he would drift back toward the commissary wagon and hijack the truck. The only rub would be whether or not the key would be left in the truck; the plan would be ruined if it wasn’t, but Mick figured there’d be no reason for the driver to remove it. After all, who would steal a truck out here? He was familiar with this particular vehicle; Ford had made them by the tens of thousands. Luckily, a year or two earlier Ford had replaced the awkward—and attention-calling—hand crank with an ignition starter button on the floor next to the clutch pedal. Provided the ignition caught quickly, Mick figured he could wheel the truck along the column of men at maximum speed, slam on brakes to gather up Timmy, Katherine, Donita Ollas, and the dog, and speed north across the open prairie toward the U.S. border, outdistancing any pursuers on horseback.
Shortly after sunup, Lieutenant Crucia arrived for roll call, and then rode off to some other occupation. After positioning the kids and Donita near a small shrub, Mick sneaked down the column with his hat pulled low. The truck was parked casually about ten yards from the commissary wagon, near the reata where the horses were tethered. That would provide good cover. He could see the soldiers and others at their breakfasts.
From behind one of the chuckwagons, Mick strided into the open and quickly put himself between the reata and the truck. From there the coast was clear and he loped across to the vehicle and ducked into the cab. Immediately he saw the key was in place—as he’d guessed, the driver hadn’t bothered to lock the steering column. Mick put the gear in neutral, took a deep breath, and hit the starter button. The engine groaned and turned over but failed to catch. He exhaled, waited a moment, and tried again. Same result. Another deep breath. The starter whined and strained, as if the battery might be low. He held it down for what seemed an eternity, when suddenly the motor caught, sputtered, caught and sputtered again, and then caught for good. Mick was in the process of putting the vehicle in first gear when he felt the cold steel of a pistol barrel hard behind his left ear. He froze in midmotion, then let off the clutch and slowly raised his hands. The pistol barrel was removed and Mick slowly—slowly—turned his head to meet the grimly smirking face of Lieutenant Crucia, standing in front of the driver of the truck, who had heard his engine being started.
“You were planning a drive in the country, señor?” Crucia said nicely.
“It was on my mind,” said Mick.
CLAUS STRUCKER HAD HELPED REED BURY BIERCE following the execution.
“I enjoyed knowing Mr. Robinson,” the German told Reed. “He was a cultivated man and deserved better than this.”
They had found a coffin in Los Palomas that was waiting for an old woman to die and persuaded the family to accept ten dollars for it. Reed and Strucker took turns shoveling out a grave in a little desert plot of ground that was covered with pretty orange flowers the shape of violets, as well as some spiny cactus plants.
“He was a fool, too,” Reed said bitterly. “He might have saved himself.”
Reed wasn’t as angry or disgusted with Bierce as it sounded. He was feeling a heavy weight in his chest from the death. The two of them had come through a lot together and Reed had grown fonder than he’d realized of the old man, even though he disagreed with practically everything he said. In a way they were perfect companions: opposites attracting each other, each with a keen, witty mind and the capacity to argue without fighting.
“Well, he died a brave man,” Strucker replied. “I think facing a firing squad must take more courage than any other way of going.”
“He committed suicide, you know,” Reed told him.
“They said he died defiantly. Did you hear what he did?”
“Yes,” Reed said. “Now I wish I’d been there. To at least have been a friendly face he could recognize at the end.”
“Are you going on this raid tonight?” Strucker asked.
“No, I couldn’t do that,” Reed replied, “and Robinson was right, of course. This is a stupid plan and Villa will re
gret it.” He stopped digging and leaned on his shovel.
“I am going,” Strucker told him. “It’s a command performance.”
“Well, it was your idea in the first place, wasn’t it?”
“Listen, my country is fighting for its life and yours is aiding our enemies. It isn’t that I have anything against Americans.”
“Your nation will reap the whirlwind,” Reed informed him, “and so will England and France and everybody else mixed up in that thing, including the USA, if it goes in. And it serves them right. The only thing that’ll be left when it’s over is a brotherhood of man which will demand an end to war and injustice. This time, they’ll get it.”
“You might be right, Mr. Reed,” Strucker said. “I just hope there are enough of us left who’ve put our money in safe places so we can live our lives out in respectability.”
Reed nodded and resumed his shoveling. He might as well have been addressing one of the cacti.
STRUCKER HAD BEEN ISSUED A RIFLE AND A PISTOL to take along on the raid. He felt uncomfortable about that, but took them anyway. He’d seen firsthand what happened to people who didn’t do what they were told. Villa’s raiding party got into Columbus without a hitch. First, half the troops attacked the American garrison, shooting it up so that in the dark it sounded like a display of fireworks was being set off. Strucker’s group rode into the town proper and things quickly turned into confusion. Since the town wasn’t lighted, the riders had trouble finding the stores and banks they were looking for. One of the soldiers got the bright idea to set fire to some buildings so they could see what they were doing.
At about the same time, some of the American machine guns began to open up and there was pandemonium in the streets. People rushed from houses that had been set fire, some shooting, some just running, women in nightclothes, barefoot men in long johns, children. In the center of the main street, standing alone in his nightclothes and crying, was a little boy. He couldn’t have been more than two or three years old, and Strucker was sure he’d be shot or run down by the galloping horses if he remained there. In an unusual moment of compassion, Strucker rode out to pick the little boy up, but as he did he felt machine gun bullets slap into his horse, which collapsed on its side. Strucker managed to scramble out from under the horse and was in the process of grabbing the child when bullets struck him in the chest. He had only a few moments to consider what life had been like. Curiously, his starring role at age nine in his gymnasium class tableau was the last thing Strucker would ever remember on this earth. He’d played Tristan.