Last Train from Cuernavaca (14 page)

The gunfire stopped. Rico opened the front gate a crack and looked out. The sun wouldn't rise for another hour. The city lay dark and it stank of decay. The boulevard in front of the house was empty of vehicles and people.

He gave Grace the white flag to carry so he could hold one of his Colts half-cocked and pointed down at his side. He took Grace's hand. No matter what happened, he would not become separated from her. The two of them kept close to the fronts of the houses as they headed for the train station.

Rico had gone scouting the night before and he knew where some of the machine gun emplacements were. He had mapped out various routes, but the best way to reach the station meant skirting the main plaza. He saw flickering light from that direction and wondered who might be warming their hands at a fire.

The closer he and Grace came to the center of town the more electrical wires draped across their path. Rubble obstructed the sidewalks, forcing them to walk in the deserted streets. The buildings' dark silhouettes against the pre-dawn sky had large chunks taken out of them. The smell of gasoline and decay became stronger.

Grace stepped on the bloated hand of a corpse lying in deep shadow. She screamed and ran, dragging Rico after her. He held her in his arms until she stopped shaking

When they reached the plaza they saw the source of the illumination. Burning bodies lit the area. When carrying off the dead proved dangerous, a few courageous souls must have waved white flags, darted out, and poured kerosene over the corpses. They tossed lighted matches and sprinted for cover.

The night sky was fading to dawn's dove gray when Rico pulled Grace into a doorway. He studied the open ground between them and the train station. A few soldiers milled around outside.

“On whose side are they?” Grace asked.

“I don't know.”

“We have no choice, do we?”

“No.”

From the center of the city behind them, gunshots resumed. Grace hiked up her skirts, ready to race to the station. Rico held her back.

“Running might draw more fire than walking.”

Rico had feared the train had already left, but white smoke from the engine's stack rose above the station roof. All Rico had to worry about now was convincing whomever was in charge to let Grace board a troop transport while a battle was going on.

When he left Tres Marías he brought all the cash he had on hand. He had even been desperate enough to borrow from Juan. He hoped it would be enough for a bribe.

Hand in hand, he and Grace walked across the small park. Usually, twenty-five or thirty of the horse-drawn taxis lined up. Today only one brave soul had parked there.

The empty expanse in front of the station gave no indication of the chaos inside. As Rico and Grace entered the big front door the din reverberated off the high ceiling and stone walls. A lot of the noise came from the pigs, sheep, and chickens the soldiers were loading aboard. The soldiers might belong to the federal army, but they knew better than to expect their government to feed them.

Most of them were conscripts from a thousand miles to the north. They were as poor and shoeless as the rebels they were supposed to fight. They knew their lives counted for little with those who had transported them here. They brought with them everything that might be of value, and many things that had no worth beyond sentiment. Some carried pet crows or parrots on their shoulders. Others held aloft bamboo birdcages. Their dogs milled around, growling at each other.

They filled the five second-class coaches. Then they piled into the box cars and sat on crates of guns and ammunition. Their women and children climbed the metal rungs to the roofs. A few of the camp followers slung hammocks between the truss rods under the train. Rico assumed that many of the women only wanted to flee the capital and weren't connected with the army. Given the proclivities of human nature, they probably would be by the time they reached Cuernavaca.

Hundreds of upper-class civilians were having a more difficult time than the conscripts and their entourage. Even if the colonel in charge had allowed them to ride on the roof or between the wheels, they would have declined.

Women in silk stockings sobbed and pleaded for a seat. Their men shoved, threatened, and shouted. In the fray they lost their bowler hats and dislodged the gold stickpins anchoring wide silk ties to their starched shirt fronts. The soldiers guarding the train's doors fixed their bayonets and stood their ground.

Rico went looking for the colonel in charge. He turned out to be an old colleague of the Martín family. That didn't mean he would do a favor for free, but at least bribing him cost less than if Rico hadn't known him at all. The challenge was to spirit Grace aboard without causing a riot among the stickpins and silk stockings.

Rico needed a diversion. For a hundred more
pesos
the colonel agreed to play along. Rico told Grace to stand near the doorway of the first-class car while he walked back along the platform. When he reached the boxcars he took two handfuls of small change out of his pocket and heaved it straight up. The coins chimed against the ceiling, then fell in a silver and copper shower. The soldiers and their women and children made a rush for them. Even
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craned to see what the ruckus was about.

The colonel gave the sentry a wave of the hand and he stood aside so Grace could hurry up the steps. Rico found her standing in the crowded aisle. She knew to stay at the front of the car. The front seats swayed less and were farther from the stench of the overflowing lavatories at the rear.

The officers who occupied those seats knew it, too. Rico used the last of his funds to persuade them to move. Rico nodded an apology to Grace and brushed past her to take the window seat. He wedged his Mauser between the seat and the side of the car and offered a hand to help her settle in.

Anyone occupying an aisle seat in a car this crowded was bound to be jostled, but it was safer than the window.

“Do you think the rebels will attack us?” she asked.

“I doubt it, but it's best to be prepared.”

“Will Colonel Rubio have you courtmartialed for desertion?”

“Rubio is on a spree in Cuernavaca and Juan is telling convincing lies as to my whereabouts.”

“Juan is good at that.”

Rico could tell Grace was keeping a stiff upper lip, as she would put it. He wished she would cry rather than bottling up the horror of what she had seen this morning.

“Do you know what the original term for ‘bonfire' was?” she asked.

“No.”

“It's a contraction of ‘bone fire.' The Celts used to burn animal bones to ward off evil spirits.” She paused. “Do you think the fires in the plaza will burn those poor people's bones, too?”

“I doubt it.”

“I saw their faces as we passed them. Some of those bodies were women.”

“Try to sleep,
querida.
”

Rico put an arm around her so her head rested in the hollow below his shoulder. He wasn't surprised that the train didn't leave for another hour. Grace was asleep when it finally started to move. She looked peaceful. Rico prayed to God that nothing would disturb that peace on this journey.

He knew God hadn't granted his request when the shriek of brakes woke him. The sudden stop threw him and Grace headfirst against the seats in front of them. That was fortuitous.

Whichever rebel fired the opening rounds knew that the officers rode in the first-class car. He was either an ace shot or very lucky. Two bullets broke the window. They whined past at head-height and two inches from the seat-back on which Rico and Grace had been leaning. They were the first lead snowflakes in a blizzard.

Rico threw Grace to the floor, which was none too clean. She landed on her back and he covered her with his body. Their faces were very close.

“Dab hand,” she said.

Rico could hardly hear her over the yelling and the gunfire reverberating inside the coach and out.

“What?”

“Dab,” she repeated. “Adept. Good shot. As in, ‘Dab,' quoth Dawkins when he hit his wife in the arse with a pound of butter.”

It was a ridiculous thing to say. Maybe he should have wondered if she'd lost her mind, but he assumed she was just being Grace. He laughed and kissed her. Then he got to his knees and looked out the window.

The first grenade sailed past farther down the line and the shape of its container looked familiar. Rico realized he had seen similar ones in the Colonial's gift shop. Clay pots were ubiquitous though. That one could have come from anywhere. Surely Grace's friend José had nothing to do with any of this.

Rico knocked out the rest of the window glass with the butt of his rifle. He braced the barrel on the sill and began picking his targets. From overhead came the jaw-jarring pulse of machine-gun fire.

Rico had to admit that the colonel in charge of the troop train had more brains than the average field-grade officer. He had ordered two machine guns mounted onto the roofs and covered with canvas. Thanks to them, the rebels decided to retreat and allow the train to limp on to Tres Marías with its cargo intact. And they would keep the train safe for the rest of its run.

Rico wanted to go on to Cuernavaca with Grace, but he knew he shouldn't. Not yet.

If Mexico City's troubles headed for Cuernavaca the news would reach this telegraph office first. If rogue federal soldiers intended to take Cuernavaca, they would pass through here. All he had to do was tell Grace that she would have to leave without him. He gave her the news as they stood on the platform with the engine's steam swirling around their legs.

“Juan says Cuernavaca is calm. Rubio is on his way here, but he left Colonel Rodriguez in charge of enough troops to keep peace in the city.”

“You're staying in Tres Marías?” She blinked back tears.

“Rubio will arrive this afternoon. I'll request to be assigned to Cuernavaca. If the situation has calmed in the capital, I'll see you tomorrow night.”

If Rubio doesn't grant the request, Rico thought, I'll see you anyway.

 

Grace couldn't sleep, but she wouldn't want to if she could. Her dreams were populated with bodies enveloped in flames, and not all of them were dead. She turned on the lamp on the nightstand by her bed. Its steady glow made her appreciate an aspect of her electric light that hadn't occurred to her before. It couldn't be used to ignite anyone.

It illuminated the chubby clock whose hands registered almost two in the morning. Grace propped herself up on the pillows and looked around at the bedroom, parlor, and bath she called the Snuggery. Her rooms had an eclectic flair some might call bohemian. Wool rugs from Oaxaca adorned the wide-plank oak floor. A Persian rug hung on the wall.

Grace had found the slender-legged Queen Anne dressing table that had come from England at the Bank of Pity, the national pawnshop in Mexico City. One of
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must have fallen on hard times, a common enough occurrence in Porfirio Díaz's regime. In a way, the pawned dressing table symbolized why Francisco Madero's revolution had succeeded. It had not begun as a struggle to right the injustices done to Mexico's poor. What started it was middle class discontent with rising prices, limited career options, and a stagnating economy.

Grace's husband had been a diplomat. They had lived in official residences for most of their short time together. These three small rooms were the only real home Grace had ever known. She had thought them perfectly suited to her until Rico carried her through the door that night of tango. He added love and laughter. Without him even the furniture seemed dispirited.

Three gilt frames sat on her bureau. One held a daguerreotype of Grace's mother and father in their stage costumes. It was the only likeness of them she had. The second was a portrait of Rico, with the blue of his dress uniform hand-tinted. From the third frame smiled Rico and Grace, arm-in-arm in front of the bandstand.

In a rosewood box Grace kept Rico's letters, each in its envelope. Often, when he was gone and she couldn't sleep, she read some of them. What she loved about them were the turns of phrase written in English but Mexican through and through. “Against love and fate there is no defense,” he wrote. And her favorite: “Love and a canteloupe cannot be hidden.”

She was reading one of his letters when she heard the faint notes of a trumpet. She put on her kimono and ran barefoot down the stairs and along the open corridor to the ballroom. A gas-lamp sconce illuminated the far corner where the piano stood. Rico sat sideways on its bench, his face in profile. He had put a mute in the bell of his trumpet and was playing “La Paloma.”

Of the infinite number of songs about love's lethal effect, this had to be the saddest. Grace knew the words. Everyone in Mexico did, with the possible exception of the redoubtable Mrs. Fitz-Goring.

 

How he suffered for her.

Even after death he called to her.

They swear that the dove,

Is his very soul

Awaiting the return of his love.

 

Cucurrucucú, paloma, ya no llores.

Little dove, don't cry anymore.

 

Rico rested his elbows on his knees, dangled the trumpet by two fingers hooked through the back loop of the tuning slide, and turned his head sideways to look up at her.

“Panchito is dead.” He said it softly, as if to avoid disturbing Francisco Madero's eternal rest.

“Oh, that poor little man.” Grace wanted to ask if Huerta had killed him, but she couldn't bring herself speak the man's name. “And his wife?”

“They say she's been spirited out of the country. Francisco's brother and the vice president also have been shot. I don't know any details.”

Grace sat next to him and he put an arm around her. She leaned against his shoulder. His face was dirty and his clothes were dusty. He had about him the earthy perfume of his horse's sweat. His indifference to his appearance showed how deeply ran his distress.