El Paso: A Novel (25 page)

“Yes, well, if you’ll just tell him it is the White House calling . . .” said the voice.

“No, señor, the Colonel, he having his siesta now. Be one more hour.” She then hung up the phone. Five minutes later it rang again.

“
Sí?
” Señora Pardenas answered, annoyed. The phone, even when the lines were working, often didn’t ring more than a few times a week—and now twice in a few minutes. She didn’t like answering the phone anyway because she didn’t trust it. Voices coming out of a little box; it seemed sacrilegious, or worse.

“This is the White House calling,” said the voice, peevishly. “We need to speak to Colonel Shaughnessy, please.”

“Señor, I already tell you, Colonel taking siesta. Colonel say nobody wake him up while he taking siesta.”

“But madam,” the voice pleaded, “this is important. You must tell Colonel Shaughnessy that this is the White House.”

“Not matter to me, señor,
what color
house it is,” Señora Pardenas answered. “Colonel no like be waked up from his siesta.
Buenas tardes
.” She hung up the receiver once again, and this time the phone did not ring anymore. Later that evening she reported the incident to Colonel Shaughnessy.

“Well, my word, woman,” he exclaimed, “it’s probably too late to call them back now. Somebody should have woke me up. It was the White House! The president of the United States!” he growled. “Don’t you people understand anything? My word!”

“Yes, Señor Shaughnessy,” Señora Pardenas replied. “We understand you not wish to be got up from your siesta.”

Just then the phone rang again, and Shaughnessy answered it himself. Finally he got his conversation with Woodrow Wilson. He catalogued the list of depredations at Valle del Sol by Villa and his men: sabering to death his ranch manager, killing his prize fighting bull, brutally clubbing his young ward Johnny Ollas and kidnapping his wife.

“Not only that, Mr. President, but they are rustling off my cattle at night,” the Colonel blustered. The president listened patiently but said nothing.

“Well, sir, we are American citizens. What do you intend to do about it?”

The thin voice of Woodrow Wilson finally replied to him through the miracle of the telephone. “Colonel Shaughnessy, you must understand this is a delicate situation. It involves more than your ranch and livestock. Mexico’s a nation of twenty million people along our very borders in great turmoil. The interest of the United States government is to stabilize the situation, not add to it. Any suggestion of intervention on our part will undoubtedly make matters down there worse. The citizens of Mexico have suffered enough.”

“Citizens of Mexico!” the Colonel fumed. “Hell with citizens of Mexico—I’m talking about United States property!”

“You have cattle belonging to the U.S. government?” the president inquired.

“No, of course not, but they are property of a U.S. citizen—me—and they feed other U.S. citizens and taxpayers, maybe even you, for all I know, and I can’t see why the American government can’t come down here and do something about Mr. Villa and his companions. What do we have an army for in the first place?”

“Colonel Shaughnessy, if you had chosen to raise your cattle in the United States or its territories, I assure you the government would protect you,” the president said. “But we can’t interfere with the internal affairs of a foreign power just because someone’s stealing your livestock.”

“Well, they’re also molesting Mr. Harriman’s railroads and Mr. Guggenheim’s mineral mines and everything else. Why, sir, you invaded Veracruz just a year or so ago over a diplomatic insult. Why can’t you do something now?”

“Because Mr. Bryan and I both feel that Mexico must be let alone for the time being. We are aware of Mr. Villa’s activities, which is one reason we have chosen to recognize General Carranza as president. Another is that he seems to be winning now. When Carranza subdues Mr. Villa and his associate Mr. Zapata, peace will be restored to Mexico. That is our policy.”

“
Mister?
Mr. President,” the Colonel shouted, “these people are criminals! And your Secretary Bryan doesn’t know his ass from live steam. Besides,” he added as an afterthought, “he is some kind of religious nut!” After a grumbling a thanks-for-nothing good-bye, Shaughnessy put the phone down angrily and waved his hands in frustration. “This is what happens when you put damn Virginians in the White House.” The Colonel had barely concluded his fulminating when Rodrigez, the new ranch manager, came through the door to report more cattle rustling the previous evening.

“Three or four hundred head this time, boss,” said Rodrigez. “My people saw them but they’re afraid to chase when those guys might have got machine guns.”

“Yes, I can understand that,” the Colonel said dejectedly. He sank back in a chair. “You sure this is Villa’s doing?”

“No, sir,” explained Rodrigez, who had gone to school in New Mexico and spoke English well. “There’s several bandit bunches operating out in those hills.”

“Hell,” said the Colonel, slumping deeply into the chair.

AFTER DINNER THAT EVENING
the Colonel announced his decision. The family was gathered around the huge formal Honduran mahogany table, being served grilled veal chops and asparagus fresh from Valle del Sol’s vegetable garden. Mexicans still grew good food.

“The news is final,” proclaimed Colonel Shaughnessy. “We are on our own. No help at all from the imbeciles in Washington.”

“What does it mean, John?” asked Beatie, who had left the table but wandered back into the room after hearing loud voices, thinking coffee might be served.

“It means that if I’m going to lose this land I’ll be damned if I’ll sit around and lose everything on it as well. We’ve got a million and maybe more dollars of prime beef on the hoof that are going to be stolen away piecemeal unless I can get them up north and safely across the border. Those cows are worth ten times as much as I paid for this entire property. Furthermore, from all that’s gone on here recently it is obvious this place is far too dangerous for you women and children to remain. I had no idea; I shouldn’t have brought you.” This was about as close as the Colonel ever came to an apology.

“You mean we can’t stay?” Katherine asked.

“That’s right, honey,” said the Colonel. “I’m going to have to get you all up to Chihuahua City as soon as we can and put you on the first train back to El Paso.”

“But Grandpapa, you said I could ride the horses we saw. You said . . . Please.” She said it so softly, as she always did; the mere sound of her voice gave the Colonel pleasure.

“I know I did,” replied Colonel Shaughnessy. “But Mr. Woodrow Wilson just told me we are on our own. And we know what Villa’s capable of. I just can’t risk it.”

Arthur shot a glance at Xenia, who looked absolutely crestfallen, her eyes glistening as if about to tear. She didn’t look at him, but stared straight down at the table as if she could see a thousand miles.

After dinner the Colonel summoned Arthur to his private study. Along the walls were photographs of his famous bulls, including Toro Malo, as well as the ears and tails of others that had been raised to be killed in the ring. Matadors, including Johnny Ollas, had presented them to him over the years.

“You’ll be coming along on the drive, Arthur?” he asked, more as a statement than a question.

Arthur assumed that was why he’d been summoned. It made him cringe. This was the kind of thing for which he felt entirely ill suited. He could ride, of course, but this—some kind of screwy cattle drive over miles of desolate terrain . . . and with a madman like Pancho Villa on the loose . . . Arthur certainly wasn’t a coward; at least he didn’t think he was. But he was a businessman accustomed to fine suits, leather chairs, private cars, the telephone, and clubs and financial discourse. He was also a pilot, but that was different. Danger wasn’t really a factor in a thing with so much passion. About the closest he came to enjoying the great outdoors was when he was out collecting his butterflies.

On the other hand, he was troubled by his father’s recent behavior; the crazy trip to Ireland on the
Ajax
, the startling revelation of his personal financial decline, the impulsive insistence on a trip to Mexico in the midst of a war, and the baffling story Arthur had been told about the acquisition of a bear on the train at Memphis. Might be, Arthur thought, the Old Man needed looking after.

“Who’s going to stay with Mother and Xenia and the children?” Arthur asked. “If they’re going to Chihuahua to catch the train, they need a man along. And even if—”

“Of course they do,” the Colonel interrupted, “and I’m going to send Bomba with them, as well as several of my best men. They’ll be well taken care of.”

Arthur had been trying to get a grasp of his father’s scheme for moving the cattle. If the railroads had been running, of course, they could have simply herded them to the railheads and loaded them on the cars. But this was very different, to drive that many cows hundreds of miles across a desert. He could hardly imagine it. How many head would they lose? Arthur had checked the wholesale price of beef in Chicago before they left: it was low—$75 a head. And how would the arrival of this huge herd affect that price? What could they hope to collect at the end of it, and how long could such a welcome infusion of cash affect the operation of the NE&P?

“What do you think we will make out of this?” Arthur asked his father.

Without blinking, the Old Man said, “Maybe two million dollars at best.”

“Based on what price?” Arthur asked.

“Twelve cents a pound. That’s been the usual price of beef lately.”

“Well, when I left Chicago it was nine-point-eight,” Arthur informed him. “And don’t you think those cows are going to lose a lot of weight on this drive—let alone the ones that die or get lost? And have you considered what will happen to the price when that many cattle are flooded into the market? And have you calculated the expense of shipping them, and the auctioneers’ fees, and the feedlot fees, and—”

“Dammit, Arthur,” the Colonel cut in, “we have to get those cows out of here before Pancho Villa and his gang run off the whole herd, or we won’t have any cents’ worth.”

“The way I’m figuring it,” Arthur said, “you’ll be lucky to get half of what you think.” He ran his fingers through his hair. Whether or not moving the cattle across the border and selling them would keep the railroad afloat, he knew the Old Man needed him just now. In a way, it was almost flattering, and for chrissakes, somebody had to keep an eye on him.

“I’m thinking tomorrow,” replied the Colonel. “We’ll put the family in the cars, and we’ll swing up north of Chihuahua, away from Villa’s operations. The cattle will be safe enough with us as anyplace else. I’ll have a good many men riding herd.”

“I guess I’d best go and start packing,” Arthur said.

“Oh, there’s plenty of time for that,” the Colonel replied merrily. “Why don’t you stay and have a drink?”

Arthur didn’t stay or go straight to bed, or pack. Instead, he went into the parlor and privately poured a large tumbler of whiskey while he fretted over Xenia and what might be happening to the two of them.

In the past few years she’d immersed herself in pursuit of art and intellectuals, while he drifted deeper into the task of saving the NE&P. Until her recent bout with melancholia, he’d watched impotently while Xenia grew more outgoing and ebullient and he wasn’t feeling that way at all. It was like they were two comets whose orbits had matched for years but were now beginning to spin away in opposite directions.

A lot of it was his own fault. He didn’t particularly enjoy Xenia’s friends; this new crowd of thinkers and doers who talked a mile a minute, much of it in a language he didn’t understand.

They spoke of transcendentalism and of the greed of the psalm-singing Chautauqua programs. They talked excitedly of Vachel Lindsay, Carl Sandburg, Edgar Lee Masters, and Amy Lowell, and smoked cigars and swooned over realist painters like George Bellows or abstractionists such as Stuart Davis.

Xenia’s smart set spurned
Collier’s
and the
Saturday Evening Post
for the
New Republic
and
Seven Arts
, and some spoke openly of socialism and free thought. On nights when Xenia held her salons, young men such as Walter Lippmann or Van Wyck Brooks might turn up, and the rooms would be animated and gay in a haze of alcohol and blue tobacco smoke, while Arthur often found himself standing in a corner, alone.

When he and Xenia were by themselves she often tried to draw him into conversations with which he felt uncomfortable, either from ignorance or the radicalism of the topic. Much of the talk was either against his upbringing or so silly he didn’t want to expend the energy on something he couldn’t agree with anyway. To avoid this he became taciturn and distant, but this seemed only to drive Xenia deeper into the fantastical world of her friends.

He even considered the old “If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em” solution, but quickly discarded that as impractical. Arthur was a man of commerce and honestly didn’t much care what most of those friends of hers were talking about; many of their ideas seemed weird, even dangerous.