Pershing said, “Well, we still have to go after Villa.”
He was a lean, gray-faced man, a good soldier, one of the best Fargo had ever known. Fargo had sized him up when, years before, sent to tame the southern Philippines, Pershing had begun by learning the local dialects. They had known each other a long time, but Fargo was never wholly easy in Pershing’s presence. The man lived inside himself in some secret place; maybe because his wife and three children had died in a fire back east not long ago. Nevertheless, he and Pershing could talk frankly and had. “I told you it wasn’t Villa. So did Mrs. Baines here, and so did Carlos O’Brien. He sang like a bird. You know it was all O’Brien’s doing. Not Villa’s, not Carranza’s, not anybody’s, but his.”
“And Germany’s,” Pershing said.
“And Germany’s,” Fargo added. Liz and O’Brien had been taken from the room, their testimony transcribed. Now, three days after the Columbus raid, he was alone with the General in his Fort Bliss headquarters.
“Nevertheless,” Pershing said, “we’ll have to go after Villa.” He leaned forward across his desk. “O’Brien succeeded to some extent. Because of the President’s delicate manipulation to keep us out of war, we don’t dare reveal the true story. That might mean war with Germany and we’re not ready for that yet. So Villa still has to be the bad man, Fargo, do you see?”
“No, I don’t,” said Fargo. “We killed about two hundred of the raiders, with those machine guns Lucas set up, and they killed less than a dozen soldiers and about that many civilians. We came out on top—”
“Thanks to you and Lucas ... The fact remains that if the truth came out, the country would clamor to go to war on Germany and we’re not prepared. We won’t be for a couple of years. Meanwhile, a little war against Villa could be very helpful.”
“You’ll never catch Pancho,” Fargo rasped.
Pershing almost smiled. “Maybe we don’t intend to. Maybe it’s just a kind of drill. We go into Mexico, but we stay clear of Villa and Carranza both. We just chase around and give our troops experience for the big war that may come later—and chase Germany out of Mexico. She’ll back off when we come in, especially when she hears we have O’Brien. Meanwhile, we’ll have maneuvers, get appropriations from Congress we badly need, and—we won’t hurt Villa and he won’t hurt us. We’ll get the practice, he gets to be the hero who is to get Germany out of Mexico. This will do it. It’ll be a fake war, Fargo, but useful to all the factions.”
“That’s the damndest thing I ever heard,” Fargo said.
“Maybe, but it’s practical. We won’t carry rifles, only side-arms. We’ll stick to the countryside, not go into the villages. We’ll do our best not to catch Pancho Villa, Fargo. And he’d have to be slope-headed and club-footed to let us. In short, we go into Mexico to satisfy the American public. We don’t catch Villa, don’t irritate Carranza, train our troops, and President Wilson gets re-elected. After that, he’s got a free hand to do what he thinks is best.”
“It’s a hell of a way to run a country,” Fargo said. “But maybe it makes sense.”
“War with Mexico and Germany right now doesn’t. Neither does the request from Theodore Roosevelt that you be made second in command, head of civilian scouts, of the expedition. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
“No,” Fargo said, “Because then I’d have to choose between you and Villa.”
“Right, and it would present me with a choice as well. I’d have to bring you under military discipline, and ... You might wind up the scapegoat.”
Fargo blinked. “I don’t understand.”
“If we don’t catch Villa, somebody will have to suffer. I don’t want it to be you. But it would be easy, too easy, to designate you as a spy, a double agent, working for us and Villa both. And then ... I’d have no choice but to bring you before a firing squad. It’s like chess, Fargo; do you play chess?”
“Never had time to learn. But I’ve already been before a firing squad.”
“I won’t ask about that. Just stay clear. We’ll be in Mexico several months, walking on eggs. Just take a holiday somewhere else. Hawaii, Australia, anywhere. But don’t go back to Mexico. If I find you there, I might have to shoot you.”
He sat down. “You understand? You’re not stupid, you’ve got to understand. This is a fake war, not a real one. The real one comes later, with Germany and Austria, if you don’t push us into, the fake one.”
Fargo understood, all right. It was not what he had counted on, but he’d been in enough wars and revolutions to understand complexities. And this was his old commander. “All right, sir. I’ll stay clear of Mexico for a year.”
“Good,” said Pershing. “May I suggest Australia? It’s a fine country for a man with talents like yours.”
“I’ll think about it," Fargo said.
“We’ll be glad to pay your fare.”
Fargo laughed. “I make up my own mind where to go and pay my own way. But no Mexico for a year.” He came to attention. “General.”
“Yes, Fargo?”
“O’Brien goes back to Carranza?”
“In due time, and Carranza will surely shoot him.”
“Then that ends it,” Fargo said, and he saluted. Pershing returned the salute briskly. Then he stared. “Sergeant Fargo.”
“Yes, sir.”
“That old hat looks like hell. I think you’d better turn it in and draw a new one.”
Fargo gave his wolf’s grin. “General, you try to take my hat away, you might have a real war on your hands.”
Pershing looked at him and then a rare grin broke the gray face. “Forget it. Goodbye, Sergeant, and good luck.”
“Goodbye, General.” Fargo about-faced and went out.
~*~
It was the best uptown hotel in El Paso. When Fargo shut the room’s door behind himself, Liz Baines was sitting on the bed in the best and sheerest nightgown the town’s stores could afford. She stood up, flesh shimmering through the translucent fabric. Came to Fargo, wrapped her arms around him, kissed him hard. “Neal, how did it go?”
“Not like I expected,” Fargo said. “But well enough. It made sense. What you said, I said, and O’Brien said, swung the balance okay. They’ll chase Pancho, but they won’t catch him. And they’ll be no war between Mexico and the States.”
“Thank God,” she said, body pressed against his. Then she pulled away. Going back to the bed, she sat there cross-legged. “Well, where does that leave us?”
“Me,” Fargo said, “I’ve got to stay out of Mexico for a year.”
“And me? Madame Lucy from the Rio Rest has already been here. She wants me back.”
Fargo took out a cigar. “What did you tell her?”
“I said, I’d let her know tomorrow.”
Elizabeth Baines’ breasts swelled beneath the nightgown’s lace. Then she sighed, slumped back on the pillows. “But, of course, I suppose I’ll have to go. I’ve got to go somewhere, and I’m dead broke.”
“No, you’re a lot of things, but dead broke ain’t one of them.” Fargo reached in his pocket. “I went by the bank.” He tossed the packet of greenbacks in her lap. “Ten thousand, in five hundreds.”
Liz’s jaw dropped as she stared down at the money. “Ten thousand—”
“My rake-off from Pancho Villa. I can’t go to Mexico, but I’ve got friends who can. I’ve made arrangements to get his machine gun ammunition to him, and I draw another twenty thousand later. Meanwhile, I got plenty.”
Liz kept on staring at the money, and her face worked convulsively. When she raised her head, her eyes were full of tears. “But … But Neal. Don’t you understand? This is the stake I’ve always wanted. With this much money I can go somewhere where no one knows me or my mother. Start all over. In a respectable business … somewhere … ”
Fargo said, “Have you ever thought about Australia?”
“Australia?”
“It’s a growin’ country, and awfully tough. General Pershing just suggested I might spend a year there myself. The idea appeals to me. It’s horse and cow country, and that’s my style.”
“Australia.” Her hands played over the money. “A fresh start. Nobody to know I’m a whore, and—Jesus!”
“You earned it,” Fargo said. “From now on, you can be anybody you want to be.”
“In Australia, yes. And … you’ll come?”
Fargo nodded. “I might as well. Yeah. We’ll go together.”
“Oh … Neal!”
He thought of Carlos O’Brien. Eventually, O’Brien would be turned over to Carranza’s forces up the line, in Coahuila. His right arm had been amputated, but he could hold the cigarette in his left hand as, inevitably, later on, he faced the firing squad.
“You can start all over, too!” Liz’s voice soared. “In Australia, you can begin a new life! You can even change your name! You could forget the old Neal Fargo and start fresh.”
Fargo stared at her, astounded. “Good God, woman,” he said, “if I wasn’t Fargo, who would I be?” He shook his head impatiently. “We’ll talk about that later, if at all. There’ll be time on the ship … ”
“Yes,” she whispered, and she threw the money off her lap. “But now—” She reached for him. “Fargo. Australia.” Then she drew back. “Neal, wait a minute. Over there on the table … ”
He turned and saw the bottle, with the fat white worm floating at its base. “Mescal?”
“I seem to have a taste for it, worm and all. Pour us two drinks, will you, before you come to bed?”
“Yes,” Fargo said, and did. He gave her one and sipped the other. Its liquorish sharpness lingered in his throat, conjured up a thousand memories of the southwest and Mexico. He would go away for a while, but he would come back.
Then he turned, set the drained glass aside. She had the nightgown off.
Fargo said thickly, “Tomorrow, we’ll book our passage.” Then he came to her.
Much later, the fat white worm lay naked in the bottom of a glass in the darkened room. Across the river in Mexico, there was gunfire, but, then, somebody was always shooting somewhere. Maybe even in Australia, Fargo thought.