Chasing Pancho Villa (21 page)
“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.
“SÃ, 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.”
“Señorita, gasolina. Gasolina,” one of the teamsters called out from the far side of the building. Everyone immediately stopped what they were doing to smell.
“No!” The men ran to the door and began pounding. “No! No!” they yelled.
*
Seconds later, in the darkness, they heard gunfire, yelling, and then nothing.
“Who's there?” Maria called out. There was no reply.
Then, one of the large doors slowly creaked open. It was Mr. Jones. “They have Daniel, and I do not know about Mr. James,” she told him, excited. “I must ride to Villa and warn him. The general will surely kill Daniel, along with the Carrancistas.”
Mr. Jones nodded his head. Behind him, three Mexican soldiers lay dead on the ground, their rifles beside them. A torch made of rags lay smoldering on the ground beside one.
“What do you mean, señorita?” José asked, surprised.
“I made a deal with him, José. I told him about the shipment and where it was going. General Villa is waiting in the foothills.” She shook her head. “I have no time to explain. We must act quickly. Find Harry. Daniel is with the German and will be caught in the middle of the fighting.”
The older man now held her firmly. Her efforts to break free were futile.
“You knew of this, Viejo?” José looked at Mr. Jones for an answer.
The old man again nodded.
“You make deals, señorita,” José said angrily, “and with muchachos we cannot trust.”
“Did you expect me to allow Obregon and his Germans to destroy the revolution?” she hissed. “Now, I must go.”
“No, señorita!” José told her. “It is too dangerous for you. I will go.”
Maria nodded, appearing to acquiesce. Hesitating at first, Mr. Jones finally let her go.
Before either man could react, she jerked out the old man's automatic. “Lo siento, amigos. I got us into this. Now, I will get us out of it.” Maria held the weapon in the air for everyone to see, then ran toward Mr. Jones' mount just outside the door. It was her own stallion. She smiled at them, took the reins, and swung easily into the saddle. “Wait for me up the coast. You know where,” she said, throwing down the saddlebags.
Mr. Jones picked up the bags.
“There is enough money to take care of everyone,” she said. “If I do not return in one day, go to the hacienda.” She spun the horse and left. Seeing no soldiers, she headed up the street to the hotel to find James.
“What happened to the tall American?” she asked the desk clerk in Spanish.
Finding that her man, too, was taken by the soldiers, she rode off toward the south at a full gallop, keeping the Gulf on her right.
*
The train of seven heavily loaded wagons was escorted by 20 riders. The trip down the coast had been fast, with the road clear all the way. Harrison rode in the lead beside Colonel Von Moltke, his wrists loosely tied in front of him, while Daniel was tightly bound, hands behind his back, in the second wagon. A Mexican soldier sat on each side of him.
On the first day, the group traveled for only several hours, then made camp. But by evening of the third day they had reached Culiacan, a Carranza stronghold. Here, they rested the animals and men to prepare them for the journey through the mountains.
Very little had been said between the two white men during the trip south to Culiacan. After arriving in the dusty little pueblo, the Colonel immediately circled the wagons just outside of town and stationed guards to protect the valuable cargo.
Harrison insisted that both he and Daniel were civilians and noncombatants. Von Moltke ordered that they be treated as criminals. “You do not have proper papers, Herr James. The Mexican Government will determine your fateâwith my help,” Von Moltke stated when Harrison demanded an explanation. “I suspect that both of you are spies for the Villaistas,” he said. “I suggest you prepare a defense.” The German smiled.
“What good am I to you, Colonel?” Harrison asked when they arrived in Culiacan. “You know I'm not a spy.”