Keeping Secrets (16 page)

His report of what had happened was soon to blacken the headlines of the American press, and cause outrage in Washington. I had been told that Villa in defeat could be as bloodthirsty and cruel as he was magnanimous and friendly in victory.

But for the sporadic wire service between San Antonio and Mexico, we would have known before we read the newspapers that Ralph Jones was not among those killed. Yet because Emory believed he might be, we spent two very long days agonizing over the matter. Conditions in Chihuahua territory had been so dangerous that a good many of the mining men had been out of there for some weeks, and now, under the assurance by Carranza that they could safely return, many of them were going back to work.

Although I thought the miners were a bit dense for failing to listen to the cautions later added by Carranza agents that Villistas were in the immediate area and they ought to stay out for the time being, I was as frightened as Emory that Ralph might be on that coach. He was known to have been near there picking up supplies, and could easily have taken that train. After two days of conflicting reports as to the number of men killed and their names, and a frustrating attempt at getting information from closer to the site, which had Emory pacing the floor in his nightshirt and sending thunderous clouds of cigar smoke into the air, while Nathan was dispatched to send telegrams to every possible address where Ralph might be, were he safe, we received the wire confirming he was in El Paso. All of us breathed a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, the relief was not to last.

Several nights later we got word Ralph had been killed in a knife fight in El Paso. I couldn't believe it was all happening as I packed a suitcase for Emory before daybreak. Still pale from his illness, he hurriedly dressed for the trip to the border town. Nathan, roused from his sleep, dressed and went out to warm up the automobile while I fried bacon and eggs and made coffee. I was too shocked to react. Only hours earlier, Emory had gotten a wire from Ralph's parents, who lived in Michigan, thanking him for the wire he'd sent them several days previous, with the message, “I trust you have been notified of your son's safety.” The exchange between them had astonished me, and brought to mind that side of Emory he kept in check most of the time … that compassion for others which emerged so unexpectedly now and then. I would have looked for Emory to be angry at the loss of a valued employee, but not to have a thought for the feelings of the man's loved ones.

By midmorning Emory was well on his way and Nathan was at the office. I sat down with the paper and a cup of coffee, looking for an account of the strange and tragic event. I read something of an American man being killed in a bar in El Paso, at the hand of a Mexican, but there were no names mentioned and by that time a new and more formidable news story had largely displaced items of interest to a relative few. General Pershing, in charge of Fort Bliss, had declared martial law in El Paso because of widespread street fighting brought on by the massacre of the train passengers.

Adolph Tetzel had heard the news of Ralph's death, and stopped by after dinner. It was unusual for him to pay an impromptu call, and I wondered at first how he'd found out about Ralph, before I realized that, of course, Nathan might have told him during the day. He handed me a note with a name and address included on it, and asked it be given to Emory. “I'm leaving town early in the morning. Please see that Cabot gets this name. I think the man might be able to take over operations for him down there. Tell Cabot to contact the man immediately. I'll return in two weeks,” he said brusquely, then added almost apologetically, “It was a very sad thing about Jones, eh?”

His early appearance with Ralph's replacement seemed almost cold-blooded, but then that was business, I supposed, and anyway, Tetzel had been very understanding about the reduced production of the past few months, and had extended notes on money borrowed as well as lending more to Emory, until things could get straightened out. It escaped me how anyone could be helped very much by depending upon Mexican copper, especially when in the market for quantities huge enough to make munitions to fight a war, but then I really never was very clear on how much production went on—perhaps more than anyone could have imagined—and I'd heard that lately a Frenchman had paid two and a half million dollars to buy the big El Oro mine in Mexico. I guessed prospects down there must be fairly good for anyone able to hold out a little longer. I shook my head, frustrated by my own ignorance of the situation.

Emory was kept away almost as long as Tetzel. After identifying Ralph's body, he felt it his duty to accompany it by rail all the way to Michigan, remain long enough for the funeral, then travel back home. When he arrived at mid-day in a taxi, he looked tired and drawn again, and more depressed than I had ever seen him. I gave him Tetzel's note, which he folded and put into his pocket without reading. “I talked to Ralph's buddies in El Paso,” he said. “It seems one of his best friends was on that train Villa massacred and since then Ralph had spent most of his time drowning his sorrow in whiskey. He got into a fight with a Mexican one night; the Mexican pulled a knife, and that was the end for him. Damn it, he ought to have known better.”

“Did they get the Mexican?”

“No, he disappeared, a very easy thing to do down there.”

“Why don't you try and get some rest.”

“I can't. I've got to get right down to the office. I can't seem to get anything done anymore.”

I watched him walk toward the garage, a beleaguered-looking figure with shoulders a bit more angular than they used to be, his black suit rumpled from the trip, and hanging more loosely on him than it used to. I thought with a shudder, is the world changing, Emory, or just your luck?

Although Emory did not go into Mexico during the first few months of 1916, he carried on a constant exchange of letters with Barrista, who seemed often to be looking for ways out of the movement the men had begun together. Each time Carranza made some positive attempt at restoring order in the country, or announced some new phase of his reconstruction plans, Barrista would write about it.

His white stationery was like an ebbing flag in Emory's hand, as he read the messages again and again, then fired back with six new reasons why they should go on with the Plan de Pacifica Reforma. I sometimes felt sorry for Barrista. He was so tired of the bloodshed of his countrymen, so weary of the separation from his daughter—he could not bring Aegina back until he was assured of her safety—that he was willing to compromise if Carranza could do the job even half as well as he himself could have done. He often reminded Emory that Carranza was stubborn but reasonable, and he was sure that the man would not be so arrogant as to turn the foreign investor out.

One day in February as Emory angrily wadded up a letter from Barrista, he grumbled, “Well, at least his daughter's got some fight in her.”

“Is that so?” I said, bristling. “And what does she do that's so important to the revolution?”

“She writes literature, for one thing. Her essays tell young people about the educational opportunities promised.”

“And her writings are circulated across the border?”

“Yes.”

“I'd like to meet her sometime.”

“She wouldn't interest you.”

“She interests you, no doubt.”

He smiled and put a hand under my chin. “Something tells me you are a little jealous.” I looked away. “Why do you hide things so? You didn't always do that. You're getting very matronly, Electra.”

I caught his hand, and held it against my neck. “How would you know, as much as you stay gone?”

He pulled his hand away. “I'm busy. You know how much I'm involved in. If you wanted a husband who worked from seven till six and came home for lunch, you ought to have thought twice before you took up with me.”

“Emory, let's go away together for a little while. Maybe to Corpus Christi for a few days. Wouldn't it be nice to get away, just the two of us?”

“Yes, yes, we will when I have some time. Right now I'm too busy. And I'll be late tonight. I have a meeting.”

“With Aegina?”

“No, damn it, with somebody else,” he said, and strutted up the stairs.

Oh God, I hate this, I thought; who does he think he is fooling?

Later as I lay in bed I thought once again of leaving Emory. I was quite objective about it all for a few minutes, until I thought of the afternoon he tapped on my door at the Menger and gave me the chance for something better than I'd ever had before. Surely if he'd wanted only a replacement for Aegina as his bride, he wouldn't have reached back twenty years to find her.

After that I just lay there and let tears stream down my face. I didn't beat the pillow in frustration, or even cry hard. I just let the sadness come warm and soft across my cheeks, and thought how much easier it would have been had we both come into this marriage with nothing behind us.

19

Many times I found myself in agreement with Emory about his views that we were all being duped, led along by the nose, and being robbed of our freedom little by little. German U-boat warfare continued right into 1916, though it was dealt with through reams of paper memoranda between our government and theirs that often dwelled more on legal terms than on human rights. The German Government was unwilling to accept an agreement for settlement, terming the
Lusitania
incident of so many months ago “illegal,” so we batted back through the embassies a substitute word: “unintentional.” I don't suppose one word or another made much difference to the families of all the people who lost their lives when the steamer was torpedoed.

At the same time, the British arrogantly continued to confiscate the cargo of our merchant ships and had begun the further assault of our mails: opening and inspecting them as they saw fit. One mention of this sent Woody into outrage. To be sure, Wilson was caught squarely in the middle … at this point, both sides seemed to be doing their utmost to alienate our friendship and force us down a neutral course in Europe.

To make matters worse, he still could not extricate us from troubles to the south. Border raids continued to erupt like infected sores in Mexico, while Carranza pranced around the peaceful part of the country bragging about his reforms in progress. Yet it struck me as ironic that as Wilson himself toured the United States speaking on the importance of national preparedness, the need for a League of Nations that would ensure freedom of the seas for world powers and sovereignty of small nations (costing a few more tax dollars), the President seemed to forget these high ideals momentarily when Pancho Villa raided Columbus, New Mexico. He immediately requested permission of Congress to send a battery of our troops down into the Mexican interior to pursue the troublesome “outlaw.” This would be, Wilson promised, a “punitive” expedition, which must have been a handy word to substitute for the much-hated term “intervention.” When Carranza demanded to know how far we proposed to come into his country with our guns and troops, and how long we intended to stay, and whether he'd have reciprocal rights to cross our border if need be, I couldn't help noticing that the First Chief added he was bound to protect the “sovereignty” of Mexico, using Wilson's own words to slap him in the face.

When in the spring of the year we learned Pershing would take nineteen thousand troops south of the border, Emory remarked, “Hell, that's nearly the whole army. We'd be in a hell of a fix if we got into the war in Europe.”

Nathan, seated at the dinner table, turned pale. “Oh, you don't think—”

Then Emory leaned back and eyed him, puffing on his cigar. “They might have to increase the forces, pass a conscription bill in Congress, just to be on the safe side.”

“But they'd federalize the state militia instead of that, didn't they say so?” Nathan asked anxiously.

“Yes, but in all-out war, there wouldn't be enough. Young … single men … would go first,” he added, drawing out the words cruelly.

Nathan started to raise his fork, then put it down and took his napkin from his lap. “I'm not very hungry. I think I'll go to my room.”

When he was gone I told Emory, “It's too bad Nathan isn't smaller. Then you could capture him in a jar and stick pins in him.”

“What goes on between Nathan and me is none of your business,” he said, then left the table and went out the back door.

I felt sorry for Nathan, and felt I ought to apologize for Emory's vicious behavior. While a lot of young men were talking earnestly about joining to go down with Pershing's forces, Nathan clearly wanted no part of it, at least at this early point, and I saw no reason he should be shamed for his feelings. It wasn't as though we were being threatened with a massive attack on our country.

I knocked on his door. “Can I come in for a moment?”

“If you want to.”

He sat at his rolltop desk piled high with papers, trying, I am sure, to look much busier than he was. Without looking up he said, “It's those new income tax laws, new rules coming out all the time. You can spend all your time filling out forms.”

“Nathan, I'm sure Emory didn't mean to sound quite so cruel just then—”

“Oh yes, he did,” he quickly answered, then paused. “Of course, when it came down to it Cabot would try to figure out a way to keep me from going into the service because I know too much … about his business affairs. I mean, no one could walk in and take my place, and he knows that.”

“Well Emory has a lot on his mind lately … things are getting so complicated in Mexico. There is still so much fighting down there that Carranza might use it as an excuse to bend the rules and put off regular elections. If that happens, Barrista might be forced into an all-out revolt, with more guns and smoke and blood.”

“Good. Then Cabot will have his fight.”