How Few Remain (61 page)

“For boys to become men is good,” Geronimo said. “Your son, I hear, did something very brave, something very fine. What is-it?”

“The Yankees were attacking,” Stuart answered, “and all the officers of higher rank in his regiment were killed or wounded.” That was oversimplifying, but the Indian wouldn’t know the difference, and explaining it struck Stuart as more trouble than it was worth. “He took charge of the regiment and fought back against the Yankees and stopped their attack.”

After that was translated, Geronimo and Chappo went back and forth for a couple of minutes, as if the old man was making sure he understood correctly. Then he said, “But your son, with only Chappo’s years—how did the other soldiers, the men who were soldiers for a long time, how did they obey him? They were already men, and he a boy in his first fight, not so?”

“Yes,” Stuart said. “But he had higher rank”—again, oversimplifying—”and so they had to obey.”

“Foolish to make men who have been in many fights obey a boy in his first. He might lead them wrongly,” Geronimo said. Under normal circumstances, he would have had a point. Circumstances where Jeb Jr. was hadn’t been normal. And, realizing he might have been tactless, the Indian added, “But this is your son, and he did well in the fight, you say. This is good. A father is always glad when his son grows up well.” He set a hand on Chappo’s shoulder, to show that he too had a son of whom he was proud.

They would have gone on, but the
alcalde
of Cananea came up and waited for Stuart to notice him.
Señor
Salazar was a round-bellied little man who wore a dirty red sash of office over a black jacket, ruffled shirt, and tight trousers that had all seen better days. “Yes, sir? What is it?” Stuart asked him, respecting the dignity of his office.

Salazar, fortunately, spoke fair English; the U.S. border lay only a few miles to the north. “Can I talk wit’ you, General, by yourself?” His black eyes flicked to Geronimo and Chappo. The Apaches, Stuart had discovered, frightened the whey out of him and out of everybody in Cananea. The farmers had scarcely dared work their parched, meager fields since Maximilian’s National Guards withdrew in the wake of the Confederate occupation.

Geronimo sent
Señor
Salazar the sort of look a coyote gave a pork chop, which did nothing for the
alcalde’s
composure. Stuart had mercy on the petty official. “Well, yes,
señor
, I suppose so.” He stepped a few paces away from the two Indians. Salazar followed with obvious relief.

Geronimo and Chappo both frowned, though their unhappy expressions did not make Stuart start to turn to jelly, as they did with Salazar. The Confederate officer understood why the Apaches were unhappy. The
alcalde
made Major Horatio Sellers seem as if he were on the Indians’ side. Salazar not only feared the Apaches, he hated them with a Latin passion beside which Sellers’ feeling toward them hardly rated more than the name of mild distaste. He would have slaughtered them all if he could. He only hated them the more because he couldn’t.

To forestall him, Stuart said, “I do hope you will remember, the Apaches are our allies.”

“Oh,
sí
, General Stuart, I remember this.” Salazar’s eyes flashed. He might remember, but he didn’t like it for hell. He needed a deliberate effort of will to set aside his anger. Stuart watched him make it. Like ocean waves with oil poured over them, his face smoothed. “I don’t want to talk about no Apaches.”

“That’s good,” Stuart said equably. “What do you want to talk about, then?”

“We have a ball tonight,” Salazar said, “to commence when the sun go down. We have dancing and music and good food and
mescal
. You do us the honor to come? You and so many officers from your country—officers from this country now, I should say—you want to bring?”

If Cananea boasted good food, Stuart had yet to see it. The locals mostly ate
atole
, a cornmeal gruel that reminded him of library paste. Sometimes they enlivened it with chilies that would have made a man sweat at the North Pole, let alone in the middle of the Sonoran desert. As for
mescal
, it gave the vilest North Carolina moonshine a run for its money. Major Sellers swore the Mexicans distilled the stuff from kerosene, but that oath came the morning after a night of copious indulgence.

As much as anything else, curiosity impelled Stuart to say, “Thank you very much,
Señor
Salazar. My men and I will be there.” Wickedly, he added, “Does your generous invitation also extend to the leaders of the Indians?”

“Maybe we do that,” Salazar said, but he made no effort to hide his scorn for the Apaches. “We do it before. We get them plenty drunk, get them
loco
with
mescal
, then kill all we can. We do it three, four times, every few years. Stupid Apaches come every time. They like to drink plenty
mescal.”

“And you wonder why the ones you don’t kill want to kill
you?” Stuart said. The
alcalde’s
answering shrug was as old as time. Whether Mexicans had first wronged Apaches or Apaches Mexicans no longer mattered much. Each side had been going after the other for so long, the CSA would need lots of years or lots of troops or more likely both to bring firm order here.

“You will come, and not the Indians?”
Señor
Salazar persisted.

“We will come, and not the Indians,” Stuart agreed. Salazar bowed stiffly from the waist and departed.

As soon as he was gone, Geronimo and Chappo hurried up to Stuart. “What did he want?” Geronimo demanded. Stuart could hear the hard suspicion underlying the Apache words even before Chappo translated. “That man is a rattlesnake in stupid Mexican clothes. He would murder every one of us if he had the way and the courage to do it.”

That being obviously true, Stuart ignored it. “What he said had nothing to do with you,” he answered, which wasn’t true but would keep the lid on the kettle. “He invited me and some of my officers to a ball in town tonight.”

“Ah,” Geronimo said when that was translated. He knew what a ball was, and what accompanied it.
“Mescal.”
Longing filled his voice. He ran his tongue over his lips. Stuart hadn’t altogether believed
Señor
Salazar’s claim that the Apaches would frequently come into town for ardent spirits and lay themselves open to massacre. The warriors he’d seen in action had appeared too levelheaded for that. Now, he decided the
alcalde
had been telling nothing but the truth.

The explanation did satisfy the old medicine man and his son. To Stuart’s relief, they didn’t seek to invite themselves to the ball. The commander of the Trans-Mississippi had no trouble finding enthusiastic celebrants among his officers. Those who held a high opinion of
señoritas
were eager to dance and drink with them; those who held a low opinion were even more eager.

At the appointed hour, Stuart led his contingent of officers into Cananea’s central square. An orchestra of two drums, two fiddles, and an accordion greeted them with a squeaky rendition of what, about three-quarters of the way through the piece, Stuart recognized as “Dixie.” It was, in its way, a compliment. So was the roast pork, basted in a red, no doubt fiery, sauce.

And so was the tumbler of
mescal Señor
Salazar pressed into Stuart’s hand. The
alcalde
was armed with a similar tumbler. He
raised it. “To the Confederate States of America!” he said in English and Spanish. He gulped down half his tumbler.

Stuart had to follow suit. He felt as if a shell had exploded in his stomach. His eyes crossed. His ears rang. Dimly, he realized he had to offer a return toast. He wondered if he could still talk. Duty required him to make the effort. “To Sonora and to Cananea!” he croaked, and everyone within six inches of him could hear his voice. He tried it again, and succeeded in making himself understood the second time. The Cananeans burst into applause. Stuart drank the rest of the tumbler. That he didn’t fall over proved he was made of stern stuff.

“Your glass is empty,” Salazar said sympathetically. He filled it from an earthenware jug. Stuart stared, glassy-eyed. The
mescal
didn’t seem to bother the
alcalde
.

Food helped. The sauce on the pork was as spicy as it smelled. It started a fire of its own in Stuart’s belly, and seemed to counteract the fire from the firewater. He ate bread, too, hoping it would help absorb some of the second tumbler of
mescal
.

Disappointingly few
señoritas
were in evidence. The band thumped out something that might have been a dance tune or an improvisation. Whatever it was, people started dancing to it. About seven out of eight were men. Nobody cared much. After more
mescal
flowed, nobody cared at all.

In the middle of a quadrille with the colonel of the Fifth Confederate Cavalry, Stuart said, “If a horse danced the way you do, they’d shoot it.”

“If a
camel
danced the way you do, they’d shoot it,” retorted Colonel Calhoun Ruggles, who, when it came to camels, knew whereof he spoke. Being considerably elevated by
mescal
, he needed a moment to remember proper military courtesy. “Sir.”

After a while, Stuart decided to take a blow. While he leaned against an adobe wall and watched his officers and the Cananeans cavorting,
Señor
Salazar tapped him on the shoulder. The
alcalde
swayed where he stood; by now, whatever his capacity, he’d illuminated himself even more generously than the Confederates. But he spoke with great earnestness: “Do you know, General, those
Indios
will take your guns and take your bullets and go up into the Sierra Madre”—he pointed west, then, correcting himself, east—”and they be
bandidos
there. They go up there, they be
bandidos
forever.”

“They can be
bandidos
against the United States,” Stuart said. “They won’t be
bandidos
against your people any more.”

“Maybe you are right.
¿Quién sabe?”
The
alcalde
smiled a sweet, sad, drunk smile. “But if you are right, then the
Estados Unidos”
—his English was slipping—”will get
Indios
to be
bandidos
against us. It will be the same in the end. For us, it is
siempre
the same in the end.”

How many years of disasters—and how many tumblers of
mescal
—went into that resignation? Stuart shook his head, which was beginning to throb. “It won’t be the same any more. You’re in the Confederate States of America now. You’re going places, and you’d better believe it.”

The only place the
alcalde
was going was to sleep. His eyes closed. He sagged against the wall and slumped to the ground. Jeb Stuart laughed. Five minutes later, he joined
Señor
Salazar.

    “Well, Colonel,” Henry Welton said, “I trust your stay in Fort Benton, and also in Great Falls, has been a pleasant one.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you very much,” Theodore Roosevelt answered. “Pleasant in ways I couldn’t have anticipated when you ordered me down from my regimental headquarters, as a matter of fact.”

Colonel Welton grinned a sly grin. “When I ordered you down, you thought you were coming for nothing but work.”

“That’s true, sir,” Roosevelt said, “but it’s not precisely what I meant. The usual pleasures of Fort Benton—and even of Great Falls—are easily named: saloons, dance halls, bathtubs with hot water.” A couple of other pleasures were easily named, too, but he declined to name them.

“Hot water, yes.” Henry Welton nodded. “You do miss it in the field.”

But Roosevelt hadn’t finished. “As I say, sir, those are the usual pleasures, the commonplace pleasures. Hearing Abe Lincoln speak, though: that I had not looked for, and I expect I’ll remember it all my days.”

“After he finished, you and he were going at it hammer and tongs there for a while,” Henry Welton said. “You made him stop and be thoughtful once or twice, too.” He chuckled. “You make everybody you meet stop and be thoughtful, seems to me. Twenty-two—you ought to be illegal.”

“Twenty-three soon, sir,” Roosevelt said with a grin, which
made Welton grimace and mime pathetic decrepitude. Roosevelt went on, “Plainly, Lincoln has a faction that
will
heed him in all he says. As plainly, there is a large faction that
will not
heed him in anything he says.” He laughed. “He has me speaking like him, even yet—he is a demon on the stump. But both those factions I mentioned have their homes in the Republican Party. It could split on account of him.”

“It could split if we lose this war, too,” Welton replied, which was plain common sense. “Of course, if we lose this war, not enough men will admit to being Republicans for it to matter much whether the party splits or not.”

“These things do matter, sir—they always matter,” Roosevelt said seriously. “Look what happened when the Democrats, like Gaul, were divided
in partes tres
in 1860. Had that not happened, the United States might well be the only nation lying between Canada and the Empire of Mexico.”

“Maybe you’re right. I’m just a soldier, and soldiers are better off not meddling in politics,” Welton said. “If we hadn’t already learned that lesson, the War of Secession would have driven it home like a schoolmaster with a hickory switch.” He slapped Roosevelt on the back. “Here come the stablehands with your horse, Colonel. Have a safe trip back to the Unauthorized Regiment, and I hope to see you again before too long.”

“Likewise, whether here or in the field,” Roosevelt said. “And, thanks to your generous permission, I will be sending A Troop here for rest and recreation as soon as I can draft the orders.”

“That will be fine,” Colonel Welton said. “I do very much approve of an officer who looks out for the well-being of his men.”

Roosevelt mounted and rode out of Fort Benton, pausing in the gateway to wave back at Welton. His mount, which had done next to nothing since he’d come down to Fort Benton, felt lively, almost electric, under him. He had to hold the animal under tight rein to keep its trot from exploding into a gallop.