The Warlords Read online

  “We are planning more raids,” he said. “Apart from that, there is little immediate news. I came here only because you insist on meeting every day.”

  “Not without purpose,” Mueller informed him. “Unlike you, I must answer to my superiors, and they require detailed reports. To be precise, I need the latest advisory from Monterrey. How many men have been recruited?”

  “I received a letter this morning from Hilario Hinojosa, the comandante of our training camp. So far, we have three thousand men.”

  Garza’s features betrayed nothing. The actual number was slightly more than two thousand, but he felt no compunctions about lying to Mueller. He had every confidence Hinojosa would bring the squadron to full strength by the time of the invasion. He saw no reason to concern the Germans.

  “Three thousand,” Mueller repeated, staring across his desk. “You were provided with sufficient rifles for four thousand men. Will you fall short, Herr Garza?”

  “There will be a man for every rifle, and more. You can assure your superiors we will invade with a full cavalry squadron.”

  “Even so, we need far more to pose a serious threat to the American government. You assured me all these raids would draw thousands of Tejanos to your ranks. Why have so few enlisted?”

  “We’ve discussed this before,” Garza said. “They will rally to our cause once we cross the river in force. They merely await proof that we are in earnest.”

  “Not good enough,” Mueller said firmly. “You must prepare their minds to accept the inevitability of rebellion. Prove you are in earnest now, today.”

  Garza raised an eyebrow. “How would I accomplish that?”

  “Provide them with an object lesson. Kill Tejanos who refuse to join your army, and announce the reason. The others will rush to enlist.”

  “You want me to kill my own people?”

  “Not in great numbers,” Mueller explained. “Forty or fifty will do nicely. Sufficient to make the point.”

  “No,” Garza said stiffly. “We do not kill our own.”

  “Indeed? Correct me if I am wrong, Herr Garza. When you served under General Huerta, didn’t you execute prisoners from Carranza’s army? Stand them against a wall and shoot them—all in the name of the Revolución?”

  “Yes, but that was different.”

  “Oh, different in what way?”

  “We were fighting to free Mexico.”

  “You make fine distinctions,” Mueller said with heavy sarcasm. “You are fighting now to liberate Texas, and ultimately return General Huerta to power in Mexico. Are the lives of a few Tejanos too great a sacrifice?”

  Garza thought back to conversations he’d had with Vasquez and Pizana. He recalled how they were infuriated by Tejanos who refused to join in the aftermath of a raid. Time and again, when their gringo masters were killed before their eyes, Tejanos stood mute when asked to volunteer. Their fear was but a form of treason.

  Hector Martinez, the recruiting sergeant, came to mind as well. Frustrated with Tejanos who ignored the call to arms, Martinez had risked insubordination and demanded to be assigned to a field unit. Perhaps, in the end, the lives of a few Tejanos was the price required to kindle a people’s rebellion. Sometimes a sacrifice was needed to serve the greater good.

  “You have a point,” Garza said at length. “I will order the death of selected Tejanos, at the right place and the right time. An example to those who refuse to join the fight for liberty.”

  “I applaud your foresight, Herr Garza. A commander must sometimes make hard decisions.”

  Mueller thought no man was immune to German logic. He wasn’t fully convinced that Garza was telling him the truth about the number of men being trained outside Monterrey. But for the purposes of his communiqué to Colonel von Kleist, he could only report what he’d been told. The actual number seemed immaterial to him anyway. A thousand men invading Texas would still start a war.

  After Garza left, he completed his report. He sealed the envelope with wax and took it to the counselor’s office, where it would be dispatched by diplomatic courier to New York. His relationship with Erwin Reinhardt remained distant, and he often thought the consular preferred not to know the details of the conspiracy. Which was just as well, for he rarely told Reinhardt anything.

  As was his custom, Mueller left the consulate early. He walked to the Bezar Hotel, where he was now on cordial terms with the manager and the staff. In his suite, he bathed, changed into a fresh suit, and prepared for the night ahead. Over the past two months, he’d grown accustomed to the leisurely pace of Matamoras, and found that he could separate his professional life from his personal life. His nights were devoted to long dinners and the convivial company of those who frequented the nightclub. And finally, to Maria Dominguez.

  Late that evening, after her last show, Maria came to the suite. She still had her own room in the hotel, but for all practical purposes she was living with Mueller. One of the closets in the bedroom was filled with her clothes, and the scent of her perfume and bath salts permeated the air. Tonight, as she did every night, she took special pains to make herself alluring and desirable before she joined Mueller in bed. Her passion, though largely pretense in the beginning, was now genuine. She made love to him in ways he’d never imagined.

  Somewhere after midnight, she lay snuggled in his arms, drifting on a quenched flame. Despite his stolid manner, he was an ardent lover, and generous with gifts and flowers and tokens of affection. She knew he was infatuated with her, and while she didn’t love him, she felt a fondness more intense than she’d experienced with other men. Yet she was honest with herself, and readily admitted that part of it was mercenary. She thought he might be her ticket out of Matamoras.

  “Querido mio,” she said softly. “Are you awake?”

  Mueller stirred. “Awake but unconscious. You’ve drained me of strength.”

  “And it is the same for me, sweet Otto. You take my breath.”

  “Ummm, I know the feeling.”

  She was still a moment. “I was wondering . . .”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know when you will return to Berlin?”

  “No, not yet,” Mueller said sleepily. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well . . .”she paused, then rushed on. “I’ve seen nothing of the world, and from all you’ve said, Berlin sounds so sophisticated. I was thinking it might be fun.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Of course I’m serious. I couldn’t bear for you to leave without me.”

  “Nor I,” Mueller said, suddenly wide awake. “But I must tell you we couldn’t be married. The Kaiser forbids foreign wives for . . . government officials.”

  “Who cares?” she said gaily. “I will be your mistress.”

  “You will?”

  “Do you doubt me?”

  She snuggled closer, nibbled his ear. Her hand crept lower and suddenly all of Mueller was awake. She laughed a low throaty laugh.

  “Ummm, what have we here?”

  Mueller groaned, his mouth thick and pasty with lust. He thought of Berlin in the springtime . . .

  And Maria.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  On Monday morning Gordon and Maddox were summoned to Fort Brown. The day was hot and sticky, and they were sweating heavily by the time they walked into post headquarters. Sergeant Major O’Meara greeted them with a bluff smile.

  “You gentlemen look a little wilted. Hot enough for you?”

  Maddox removed his Stetson and mopped his forehead with a kerchief. “They’re fryin’ eggs on the sidewalk uptown, but it’s not all that bad. I’ve seen worse.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Gordon said. “I need a bucket of ice and a wet towel.”

  “Well, sir,” O’Meara said, deadpan, “a day like today puts me in mind of the remark by General Phil Sheridan. You’ll recollect he was posted to Texas after the Civil War.”

  “That was a bit before my time, Sergeant Major. What was it he said?”

  “Gen
eral Sheridan allowed that if he owned Texas, he’d rent it out and live in hell. There’s many who would agree with him.”

  “Sheridan was a Yankee,” Maddox grumbled trenchantly. “Probably a sissy to boot. Texas is man’s country.”

  “Guess that makes me a sissy,” Gordon said with a laugh. “Gets any worse, I’m liable to melt.”

  Sergeant Major O’Meara nodded, a sly glint in his eye. He rapped lightly on the door of the inner office and held it open for them. General Parker was seated at his desk, an overhead fan shoving hot air around. He motioned them to chairs.

  “Good morning,” he said, waiting for them to be seated. “I appreciate your coming by on such short notice.”

  Maddox hung his Stetson on his knee. “Your message sounded like it was important, General.”

  “You be the judge.”

  Parker spread a map of the lower Rio Grande across his desk. He pointed to Reynosa, a town on the Mexican side of the border, some fifty miles upriver. His forefinger tapped along the shoreline.

  “I received a report from Colonel Bullard, who commands the battalion in the area. One of his patrols spotted six boat landings over the weekend.”

  Gordon suddenly forgot the heat. “What sort of boat landings?”

  “Quite well engineered, actually,” Parker said. “On the order of twenty feet wide, with skids to maneuver boats into the water. The landings weren’t there on Saturday and they were on Sunday morning. We deduce they were constructed overnight.”

  “Damn,” Maddox said. “Take a lot of men to build all that in one night.”

  “Indeed it would,” Parker agreed. “Colonel Bullard inspected the landings quite carefully through binoculars. Hidden in the brush, he also saw sixty boats set back from the riverbank. He estimated each boat would carry twenty men.”

  Gordon studied the map. “We have to assume they’re planning the invasion from Reynosa. We’re talking twelve hundred men.”

  “Something funny here.” Maddox thoughtfully rubbed his jaw. “Mexicans generally operate with cavalry as their main force. Those boats sound like they’ve got some foot troops.”

  “So it does,” Parker agreed. “Or the boats may be to ferry across munitions and supplies. In any event, I believe we’ve sadly underestimated Mr. Garza.”

  “By how much?” Gordon asked. “What’s the ratio of infantry to cavalry?”

  Parker considered a moment. “The Mexican Revolution provides an excellent gauge. Their forward elements are heavily weighted toward cavalry, usually two to one. We could be looking at an invasion force of four thousand, perhaps more.”

  “Up till now we’ve just been guessin’,” Maddox said. “Appears like they’ve done a helluva recruitin’ job at Monterrey. Four thousand men’s nothin’ to sneeze at.”

  “Unless, of course, we’re wrong,” Parker said. “Even with German funding, where would they obtain three thousand horses? And how would they move four thousand men from Monterrey by early September? We really need better intelligence.”

  Gordon glanced at a calendar on the wall. The date was August 23, which meant early September might be only a week away. “I’ll talk to Martinez,” he said, nodding to Parker. “We’ll invent a plausible reason for him to contact Garza. Let’s hope he uncovers something.”

  “Sooner rather than later,” Parker said. “Colonel Bullard brought another matter to my attention which bears on our discussion. Are Tejanos actually being killed by Garza’s raiders?”

  “Yessir, they sure are,” Maddox affirmed. “Two raids over the weekend, one led by Vasquez and the other by Pizana. Killed thirty-four Tejanos altogether.”

  “What do you make of that, Sergeant?”

  “Well, sir, they made it pretty plain. Any Tejano that don’t volunteer for the Army of Liberation risks gettin’ killed. Serve or die, that’s the message.”

  Parker grimaced. “The threat of death to force Tejanos to join in a mass uprising. Gentlemen, I think we’re very close to an invasion.”

  Gordon again glanced at the calendar. A week, two weeks, certainly no more than three. And so many unknowns, all too much guesswork.

  Time was running out.

  The sky was clear, black as pitch, the Big Dipper at its zenith. Starlight blanketed the countryside in a silvery cast so bright the leaves of trees glittered like fireflies. Somewhere off in the distance, the hoot of an owl broke the stillness.

  Tandy’s Creek gurgled beneath a railroad bridge, then followed a serpentine path through a landscape dotted with brush. Luis Vasquez stood in dappled light under a stand of cottonwoods, forty men and their horses waiting in the shadows. His eyes were fixed on the rail line to the north.

  The bridge was ten miles northwest of Brownsville. Earlier, working with crowbars, Vasquez and his men had removed spikes anchoring a section of rail to the cross ties. By now, everyone knew that soldiers were assigned to guard the railways, and their mission was to derail the train due into Brownsville at midnight. None of the soldiers were to leave the wreck alive.

  A light pierced the darkness to the north. Some moments later the rumbling throb of a locomotive sounded as it rattled along the railroad tracks. The headlamp on the front of the engine grew brighter as the train approached, misty white swirls from the smokestack fleeting skyward in a rush of wind. Vasquez watched as the train loomed out of the night, the dim glow of lanterns spilling through the windows of three passenger coaches. His eyes narrowed, his mouth a tight crease.

  The front wheels of the locomotive hit the section of rail that had been prised sideways from the roadbed. The front of the engine barreled off the tracks, colliding at full speed with the timbers of the bridge, and toppled into the creek like a hissing dragon. Directly behind, the coal tender snapped loose from its coupling, slamming into the engineer’s cab, and dragged the coaches down a slight incline uptrack of the bridge. The coaches went airborne a moment, separating like links in a chain, then crashed to earth upright on a zigzag line. The firebox in the locomotive exploded in a thunderous burst of flame.

  Vasquez and his men swarmed over the coaches. They separated into squads, some firing through the windows and others attacking through the doors. Few of the civilians were armed, but the raiders made no distinction, killing thirteen passengers already stunned by the jarring impact of the wreck. Late-night trains usually carried workingmen, and Vasquez counted it a blessing that there were no women or children among the passengers. The conductor, who locked himself in the lavatory, was riddled with bullets through the door.

  The five soldiers riding guard were in the second coach. A brief fight ensued, with the soldiers taking cover behind seats, but they were outnumbered and outgunned. One was killed, another wounded in the shoulder, and the other three surrendered, dropping their rifles in the aisle. The third coach, often called the “Jim Crow” car, was segregated, the seating restricted to Negroes, Orientals and Mexicans. Tonight, the car carried two Negroes and four men of Mexican ancestry. By Vasquez’s order, none of them were killed.

  The prisoners were herded off to the side of the roadbed. The lanterns in the coaches were shattered, the cars quickly consumed in flame, and the terrain was bathed in eerie firelight. Vasquez placed guards on the Negroes and Mexicans, and ordered the four soldiers lined up in front of the burning coaches. He was leery of wasting time, for he had ten miles to travel to the border, and the likelihood of fighting his way through a cavalry patrol. He directed four raiders onto a line facing the soldiers.

  “You are sentenced to death,” he said in a strong voice. “We are at war, and as soldiers, you will be allowed to die by firing squad. Have you any last words?”

  The soldiers stared at him as though unable to comprehend their sudden turn of fate. One of them, a corporal in charge of the detail, thrust out his jaw. “Yeah, I got somethin’ to say. You’re the lousiest cocksuckers I ever—”

  Vasquez shouted a command. His men fired and the soldiers crumpled to the ground, their shirts splattered with blood
. The reverberation of the Winchesters echoed through the night, and without another look at the bodies, Vasquez turned to the other prisoners. He ignored the Negroes, his gaze fixed on the four Mexicans.

  “I am Captain Vasquez,” he said in Spanish. “Who among you is Tejano?”

  None of them moved. “Listen to me, hombres,” he said brusquely. “I call on you to join the Army of Liberation. Here, tonight!”

  Whether they were Tejano or Mexican, they all avoided his steely gaze. He pointed to one of them. “You, step forward.”

  The man hesitantly took a step forward. Vasquez pulled a revolver from his holster, sighted quickly in the firelight, and fired. The slug struck the man in the chest and his legs collapsed like an accordion. He fell dead on the ground.

  “Remember what you have seen,” Vasquez said to the others. “Tell our people to join in the fight for liberty or they will surely die. God wills it of all!”

  The raiders rode south only moments later. By the bridge, the flames from the engine and the coaches leaped higher, lighting the night with fiery brilliance. The two Negroes and the three remaining Mexicans stood huddled amidst the carnage.

  Their thoughts were on the last thing said by the one who called himself Vasquez. They wondered what evil God he served.

  The bridge at Tandy’s Creek was two miles outside the town of Olmito. A farmer who lived nearby had seen the flames and heard the gunshots, and never for a moment doubted that it was the work of the rebels. He drove his wagon into Olmito to notify the town marshal.

  Captain Bob Ransom and Company A arrived on the scene shortly before daybreak. They were mounted on horseback, accompanied by Gordon and Maddox. Off in the countryside, away from decent roads, Ransom had wanted his men mounted, and Gordon agreed. The horses were drawn from the remuda Company A kept corralled on the outskirts of Brownsville.