Chapter 3: 1885: U.S. Territory of New Mexico

I finished reviewing the year-end financial statement from Guerrero Trade & Supply Company and handed the two pages of ruled folio to Feliza, who was seated next to me. The report represented the Guerrero Company’s annual fiscal report for eighteen eighty-four. Hector had handed it to me just that morning as we boarded the train.

It showed a net profit of fifteen thousand three hundred twenty-nine dollars and sixty-six cents, of which twenty percent was mine, or rather, ours. Feliza managed our household and its expenses, as well as keeping track of my earnings as a deputy marshal and completing the proper applications for reimbursement, requiring only my signature. With her able management, and my supplementary earnings of the occasional fugitive reward, we had been able to purchase additional shares of the Guerrero Trading Company.

Our household, which included Abuela Estela, Neto’s grandmother, operated quite comfortably on about six hundred fifty dollars a year. My earnings as a deputy and the incidental bounties pretty much covered that cost. We owned our home, which had been my gift to Feliza at our wedding. I had purchased the six-room, traditional courtyard home on two acres with well and stable for seven hundred dollars. It was situated on the east side of Taos about half a mile from the central plaza, on the lower slope of the mountains.

Feliza and I would have to decide what to do with the three thousand and more dollars the Guerrero investment had brought us this year. I was reluctant to purchase a bigger share of the business as I actually had very little to do with its operation or management, while Hector and his uncle and cousin were fully involved. I felt it was their business and I didn’t want to push my nose further under the tent. Feliza and I would have to discuss it. At that moment, she lowered the report, looked at me, and smiled softly, nodding, as if she read my thoughts.

We were on the train to Santa Fe, en route to the inauguration of Edmund Ross as Governor of the Territory of New Mexico. Neto was in the seat in front of us, on his knees, his nose pressed to the window. Next to him sat his Abuela (grandmother), Estela, who was holding our infant daughter, Roberta, or “Bertie,” as Neto insisted we call his baby sister.

Across the aisle sat my brother-in-law, Hector Guerrero, and his wife, Paulina, who was Feliza’s sister. In front of them was seated Taos County Sheriff Manuel Gonzales, now also my brother-in-law, and his wife, Fatima, sister to Paulina and Feliza. Our group only lacked my third brother-in-law, Mora County Sheriff Matias Salazar, who was married to the fourth de Lorenzo sister, Maria-Sofia.

Matias and Sofia, who lived in Mora on the east side of the Sangre de Cristos, would be joining us in Santa Fe as all had received invitations to the new Governor’s inauguration. My brothers-in-law and I knew that the invitations were due more to the fact that our wives were all of the de Lorenzo family, and were the granddaughters of the last Mexican Governor of Nuevo Mexico (NWAY-voh MEH-hee-coh) before the Mexican-American War and the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, when major parts of the southwest became U.S. territory.

Their grandfather, Ramon de Lorenzo, had been a leader of the Nuevo Mexico provincial militia and was first appointed Governor when he put down a revolt in the northern part of that territory in eighteen thirty seven, a revolt during which the prior Governor had been killed. In eighteen forty-one, during his second term as Governor, de Lorenzo led a small force of Mexican federal dragoons and a slightly larger Nuevo Mexican militia to repel an invasion from the Republic of Texas, which nation had made claims to major portions of Nuevo Mexico as supposedly being part of Texas. A second Texan incursion, in eighteen forty-three, was likewise repulsed.

Finally, in eighteen forty-six, during his third term as Governor, the U.S. declared war on Mexico. When faced with a superior and better armed American invasion force under General Stephen Kearny, and with no help being offered by Mexico City, de Lorenzo negotiated a peaceful surrender of Nuevo Mexico, that agreement preserving Mexican citizens’ land titles and the business partnerships with American merchants. He then retired from public service but remained popular both north and south of the border, and served as an advisor to the appointed American Governors. He lived out his days in the Mesilla Valley in southern New Mexico Territory.

His son, Miguel de Lorenzo -- our wives’ father -- was a hero of the U.S. Civil War, who led a company of New Mexico militia at the eighteen sixty-two Battle of Valverde, New Mexico, where he was killed by a Confederate sharpshooter while defending a Union artillery battery.

Even so, the family name remained influential and the sisters, being the only heirs, were beneficiaries of a trust which controlled significant holdings. At the time of our marriage, the trust was being managed for the benefit of all of our children, Ramon de Lorenzo’s great-grandchildren.

As we pulled into the Española station, Neto startled his sleeping sister, squealing with delight as he gazed through the window, “It’s Tio Zeke, Papa, and Yio Ferran!” Neto was fascinated by the vaquero lifestyle that my two friends led. He loved to hear their stories of chasing wild cattle and life on the range. My own adventures, frequently of a less savory nature, were not something I often shared with Neto. Feliza, however, heard it all.

We disembarked at Española. We were all staying at the Castellano ranch because the flood of visitors attending the inauguration had fully occupied accommodations in Santa Fe. The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad was running special shuttles from nearby towns to and from the various inaugural events. The children would be tended by Señora Estela at the Castellano ranch while we attended the ceremony and festivities at Santa Fe, thirty miles, an hour’s train ride, further south.

It was already a madhouse, and I expected the next day’s activities to be even worse.

And they were.

The interminable speeches, endless reception lines, an overabundance of rich and spicy food, a surfeit of intoxicating drink, accompanied by a like profusion of boorish behavior took us only to noon.

One rough-dressed fellow bumped rudely into Feliza as we walked the busy street with Hector and Paulina toward my favorite bakery; I wanted them to sample the pastry known as a Napoleon.

The clumsy lout, obviously in his cups, looked up at Feliza and said, “Ah, just what I need, a fancy spic whore. How much for the night, coozie?”

I reached to grasp the man’s shoulder, but Feliza laid a restraining hand on my arm. “He’s drunk, Judah.”

“But worth a hundred fifty dollars to the Bank of New Mexico,” I said in return, at which point she withdrew her hand.

“Really?” Hector asked.

I spun the man around and pushed him to the ground, then pressed my knee into his back so that I could bring his hands behind him; he was too drunk to offer much resistance. In my pocket were a coil of piggin’ strings, lengths of cord meant to bind a calf’s feet during branding. I pulled one from the bunch that I always carried just for this purpose, when I didn’t have my shackles with me...

As I tied his hands, I told them, “This is Bob MacCuffie. I saw the notice when I deposited my last reimbursement draft at the bank. He and his brother, Angus, robbed the bank’s branch in Gallup last month.” I removed a small pistol from MacCuffie’s trouser pocket and handed it to Hector.

MacCuffie tried to jerk away. “Lemme go, asshole. I jus’ wanted some fun with the whore.” I cuffed him on the ear and he said “Ow!,” but settled down.

At that, a gun sounded and I saw Feliza’s skirt pull sideways, as she stood behind me. Drawing my thirty-eight from under my coat, I saw a man duck between two buildings.

I looked to Feliza but she said, “Go, I’m fine.”

I gave a glance at Hector and saw that he was still holding the pistol. “I’ve got them,” he said, moving the sisters closer together against the display window of the hardware store we’d been passing, and then stepping in front of them. Nearby, people were backing away in alarm.

I slapped MacCuffie’s head and growled, “Stay there.” As I rose, Hector put his foot on MacCuffie’s back. With one more glance at Feliza, I ran the forty feet to the opening where the gunman, likely Angus MacCuffie, had disappeared.

Looking cautiously between the buildings, I saw Angus, some thirty-five feet away, struggling to regain his feet from where he lay sprawled on an overtipped rain barrel. As he retrieved his handgun from the muddy sand next to him, I shouted, “I’m a federal marshal. Do not take up that gun!”

But MacCuffie rolled over to face me, sitting up in the mud, his back against the barrel, and aimed the pistol my way. After the briefest of debates with myself, I shot him in the forehead.

Clearing up that mess with the city police occupied me for the next half hour, though I had sent Feliza and the Guerreros off to the bakery without me. And we still had a barbecue in the afternoon and two inaugural balls to attend that evening.

Edmund Ross had, in effect, been drummed from the ranks of the Republican party when he and a handful of other Republican Senators joined Senate Democrats in voting for the acquittal of President Andrew Johnson following Johnson’s eighteen sixty-eight impeachment trial. That political battle had been joined because Johnson had dismissed Edwin Stanton from his post as Secretary of War in spite of the fact that Congress had passed a law requiring the President to seek Senate approval to remove Cabinet ministers. Ross took the brunt of the blame because his was the last Republican vote cast in a poll that blocked, by a single vote, the two-thirds majority required to convict, thus thwarting the Republican-held Senate’s attempt to oust the President.

After a failed bid to run for Governor as a Democrat in his home state of Kansas, Ross had moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico Territory, where he established a law practice. While avoiding active politics, he was soon identified as a supporter of the policies of New Mexico Governor Lionel Sheldon in his efforts to see a more even-handed treatment of Indios and Mexicans under the law. All in the interest of preparing New Mexico to be admitted as a U.S. state...

Governor Sheldon, a Republican, had tendered his resignation following the inauguration of President Grover Cleveland in March of eighteen eighty-five. Cleveland was the first Democrat elected as president since James Buchanan’s election in eighteen fifty-six, just before The War,. After The War, Republicans had dominated both Washington and New Mexico politics. When the Democratic President, Cleveland, looked around for a new Governor, Edmund Ross was the most prominent -- if not an original Democrat, then at least a convert -- in the territory.

New Mexico, as a federal territory, elected its own legislature, territorial judges, and local officials, but its Governor and its military commander were appointed by the President. Further, as a federal territory, the U.S. Justice Department held more than the usual authority one might find in a U.S. state. For instance, while only federal crimes could involve U.S. Marshals in a state, in a federal territory, the Marshal’s jurisdiction extended everywhere. Even so, Deputy U.S. Marshals were not intended to supplant elected county sheriffs or local township or city law enforcement, but only to step in if required. As a general rule, a marshal’s primary job was pursuing fugitives and transporting prisoners.

Two years before, I had had occasion to work on a couple cases in which Edmund Ross had represented the defendants in federal court. He and I were what I thought of as friendly acquaintances, though not friends, as such. So I was a mite surprised to find a note from the new Governor awaiting me at the train depot in Española when we returned there late that evening, following the inaugural festivities at Santa Fe’s central plaza in front of the Palace of the Governors.

Judah,

With apologies for the short notice, please join me and a few others for breakfast at ten o’clock tomorrow, Wednesday, morning at the Governor’s Palace. I would ask that you be discreet in this regard.

Edmund Ross

I showed the message to Feliza. She gave me a quizzical look. I just shrugged and shook my head. She handed back the page and I pushed it behind my deputy marshal’s credentials in the thin wallet that also held a nickel-plated five-point star-in-a-circle, the outer ring stamped, “United States Marshal” around the top half and “Deputy” underneath.

I was at the Española depot at five-thirty the next morning to hitch a ride on a southbound livestock train for the trip back to Santa Fe. When I’d asked the night before, the station-master had said there were two freight trains coming through before ten: the five-thirty livestock express and an eight o’clock mixed freight. But while the livestock train would be going directly to the AT&SF -- Acheson, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad -- exchange yard at Lamy, the general freight train would be stopping to pick up or set off cars along the way at various spurs and sidings and there was no certainty that it would reach Santa Fe before ten o’clock. So it looked like the five-thirty train was the more dependable choice.

With any luck, I’d be able to join Feliza and the children on that evening’s passenger train back to Embudo, where we’d left our carriage and horses. Except we’d planned for the family to spend a few days at the Ojo Caliente Hot Springs resort before returning home. The Guerreros, the Gonzaleses, and the Salazars intended to join us.

Four bits to the conductor earned a ride in the livestock train’s caboose. I was deposited at the D&RG -- Denver and Rio Grande Railroad -- depot in Santa Fe at twenty past six, just as daylight was making itself felt. I walked toward the U.S. Marshals Office, intending to write a report on the MacCuffie encounter. However, I was betrayed by my hunger and thoughts of the nearby bakery and the Napoleon I’d been deprived of the MacCuffie set-to the prior noon.

Rationalizing that there was no law limiting a U.S. citizen to only one breakfast in the same twenty-four hour period, I walked past the government office building and to the bakery. There, I was sorely disappointed to learn that the Napoleons would not be ready until about seven thirty, which, I learned, was the usual time for them to be finished and set out in the display case. I consoled myself by purchasing two praline croissants, which I took to the Marshals Office.

I lit a fire in the stove, then filled the coffee pot with water from the metal tank at the corner of the building. I set the pot on the stove and sat down at the large oak table, having withdrawn both an incident report form and a pencil from the shelf against the wall.

Thirty minutes later, report complete and in Marshal Garrison’s mail basket, and with the croissants having taken the edge off my hunger, I leaned my chair back against the wall, put my feet up on another chair, and promptly fell asleep.

A metallic clatter awoke me to the view of Marshal Garrison crouching by the stove and mending the fire. I dropped my feet to the floor and he said, “Good morning, Seneca. Are you still hungry enough to partake of breakfast with the Governor?” He rose to his feet and turned to regard me with a smile. On the table, next to the open paper wrapper from my croissants, there sat a single Napoleon on a paraffin paper wrapper.

He said, “Madame Dubois mentioned that you had been in earlier and had appeared crestfallen when there were no Napoleons yet finished.” Clarisse Dubois (doo-BWAH) was the owner of the bakery. Her husband, Jean, (zhahw) was a watchmaker. He had a small shop just off the central plaza. They had moved to Santa Fe from New Orleans right after the Mexican-American War.

“Well, thanks, Marshal.” I began digging in my pocket for a dime, the usual price for the pastry.

“No, no. This one is on Madame Dubois,” Garrison said, waving off the proffered coin. “She said she can’t abide watching a grown man cry.” He laughed.

I said, “I wished I’d ‘a known that would work years ago.”

He chuckled and said, “The coffee needs to warm up a bit.”

“What time is it?”

“A few minutes after eight.” He nodded toward his desk. “I saw your incident report. You do have a knack for stumblin’ into fugitives.”

I shook my head. “It’s not much to do with me, except maybe for my memory for detail, bt that’s just a method. Truth is, you gotta figure there’re dozens of criminals wandering the territory. Coming across one or two now and again just ain’t that unlikely, not when you move around like the deputies do, and in the company we frequent.”

He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “When you put it that way, maybe you’re right. But how did you recognize MacCuffie?”

“He was easy. His likeness was on the reward notice I saw. His brother’s, too. They’d been photographed by the Saint Louis police department a couple years ago.”

He nodded. “I hear Denver’s been taking booking photos, too,” he said, “at least of felony suspects.”

“I reckon it’s costly, but it sure seems worth it,” I commented.

Then he said, “I’m invited to the Governor’s breakfast, too.”

“Oh? Do you know what it’s about?”

He shook his head. “No tellin’, unless it’s just a new broom sweeping clean.”

“That’s kind a’ what I figured, too. I’m just not sure what that would have to do with me. Or you.” The governor did not appoint the federal marshal or his deputies. Those appointments were a collaboration between the presiding district federal judge and the federal Department of Justice.

Garrison shrugged. “Reckon we’ll find out in a couple hours.”

“Reckon so.”

We were shown to a room off the courtyard of the Palace of the Governors just before ten o’clock.

Built by the Spanish in sixteen ten, the Palace itself was a fairly modest adobe building occupying the width of the northeast side of the central plaza, roughly a city block. It was but a single story with a long, covered veranda, supported by a rustic log colonnade, across its front. The interior was likewise homely, with terracotta floor tiles and dark wood trims providing the main decorative features. The Palace enjoyed a fairly large courtyard, for its size, which served as the meeting place for larger groups or as the site of occasional social functions, as it had served the afternoon before, hosting one of the inaugural balls.

This morning, however, Governor Edmund Ross welcomed us to a small dining room with a mesquite fire crackling in the kiva fireplace in the corner. Also present were Judge Hiram Bergman, presiding justice of the federal district court, and Anton Dahl, the newly-appointed U.S. Attorney, replacing Pete Ferguson, who had been been recruited by the Texas Attorney General’s office.

Leaning against a window sill across the room was U.S. Deputy Marshal Charlie Hackett, Marshal Garrison’s chief deputy. Charlie was posted to Albuquerque, where he was active in Bernalillo County politics; Ross had had his law practice in Albuquerque prior to his current appointment. While I was mildly surprised to find Charlie there, apparently Marshal Garrison was not.

But the even bigger surprise was the young man standing behind the Governor -- Amador Cabal. Cabal was one of the two young men who had apparently been responsible for the accidental shooting death of Ernesto Guerrero, Feliza’s first husband. Even more, Cabal, from Mora, was the son of Feliza’s cousin. I had arrested Cabal and his cousin and brought them to jail to answer federal murder charges.

After we shook hands with Judge Bergman, Mister Dahl, and greeted Charlie, Governor Ross stepped aside so that he could introduce the young man. “Marshal Garrison, Deputy Becker, I believe you both know Amador Cabal?” Ross had represented Cabal and his cousin and fellow defendant, Rudolfo Manzaneres, in the homicide case that had been prosecuted by Pete Ferguson when he was U.S. Attorney. Ferguson, an opponent of Governor Sheldon, had hoped the case might cause trouble among the Mexican citizenry, thwarting Sheldon’s efforts to improve race relations. Ross, as their defense attorney, and with the help of Hector Guerrero, had arranged for the boys to plead guilty to a charge of reckless endangerment and they were sentenced to a year’s confinement, which they served near their homes at the Mora County jail.

Amador shook hands with the Marshal, then he reached for my hand, a big smile on his face. “Deputy Becker, it is very good to see you again.”

“Same here, Amador, and please call me Judah.”

“May I call you Seneca?”

I gave him a resigned smile. “If you want.”

His smile became even broader. “Wait until I tell Rudolfo.”

“Is he here, too?” I asked.

“No. Rudolfo is working at the Guerrero grist mill in Mora, for Señora Salazar.” Señora Salazar was Sofia, Sheriff Matias Salazar’s wife and my wife’s sister. Sofia was managing the Guerrero business interests in Mora County.

Cabal said, “Let me show you to your seats, gentlemen,” and he extended an arm toward the table, which was set for seven with pewter dishware on a crisp white linen cloth, not particularly fancy, but of practical and substantial charm.

Ross, himself, pulled out the heavy, dark-lacquered chair at the foot of the table and said, “Judge Bergman, may I seat you?” The chairs at the table’s head and foot had leather-padded arm rests, the other chairs, of similar turning and finish, did not have arms. It appeared the table could seat at least ten; indeed, three chairs had been set against the wall, opposite the two windows looking out toward the courtyard. Two chairs were at the table on the window side, three chairs across from them.

Meanwhile, Amador Cabal pulled out the chair to Bergman’s right and said, “Marshal Garrison,” then he moved to the next place and said, “Señor Seneca, I believe this place is yours.” It was then that I noticed that the setting contained the only plate featuring any food -- a Napoleon on a white paper doily. I heard chuckles from around the room, but I wasn’t about to complain. I only hoped there might be more served later.

Anton Dahl took the seat to the Governor’s right and Cabal to his left, next to me. Charlie Hackett was seated to the Judge’s left, across from me and Marshal Garrison.

Ross said, “Gentlemen, for those so inclined, I invite you to take a private moment to invoke God’s blessing.” I bowed my head and thought through the brief Spanish grace we intoned before meals at home, including a traditional cruciform self-blessing:

Padre celestial, bendicenos mientras compartimos los dones que recibimos de tu bondad. Amen. (Heavenly Father, bless us as we share the gifts which we receive from your goodness.)

Once everyone had raised his head, Ross rang a small bell he had next to his plate. A moment later two waiters appeared, one with a tray of pastries, the other with a coffee pot. Ross said, “Gentlemen, there will be eggs, potatoes, bacon, biscuits, and sausage gravy, and cheese and fruit in due course, so pace yourselves accordingly.”

I was able to snag a second Napoleon.

Forty minutes later I was nibbling apple slices accompanied by cubes of a salty Mexican cheese, debating with myself the advisability of trying to cram any more food down my gullet. With that question unresolved, I watched as Governor Ross took a swallow from his water glass, then sat up in his chair and said, in an assertive voice, “My friends, as you know, there is no such thing as a free lunch -- nor are there free breakfasts. And I need your help.”

Relaxing a bit, both in posture and tone, he looked directly at me with an indulgent smile and said, “But please, gentleman, be at ease in your further enjoyment of this toothsome fare as I invite your consideration and participation.”

Then his eyes moved man-to-man, his gaze resting briefly on each of us as he announced, in a more dramatic tone, “It is my intention to continue the policy of Governor Sheldon to ease tensions between Anglos and the other racial, cultural, and ethnic populations in our territory. That cause is essential to this Territory’s quest for admission to the Union of American States.”

Now he rested his folded hands on the table and spoke more conversationally. “Granted, it’s a tall order, I know. Frankly, my realistic expectation is that we might simply be able to reduce incidents of race-based violence and institutional fraud by some measurable degree.” His tone became more grave and a he tapped a pointed finger against the table, adding, “But it has to change.” With a sad shake of his head, he concluded his point: “This continuing discord is bad for the Territory, it’s bad for the people, it’s bad for business, and it hurts us as a candidate for statehood.”

I knew that when the Governor cited “institutional fraud” he was referring to the practice of Anglo-dominated courts and local officials “legally” depriving Mexican and Indio groups of their property, such as communal irrigation systems or land grants, based on the supposed irregularities of apparent ownership under U.S. laws and regulations ... In addition, a number of suspicious county courthouse fires in New Mexico had destroyed the Mexican property records that had been recognized by the Hidalgo Treaty, thus fostering further confusion in ownership claims. Such fires were a notable phenomenon throughout the southwestern states and territories that had been former Mexican possessions, as were the abuses that followed. In all, these methods served as prelude to Anglo takeovers of vast tracts of lands, natural resources, water rights, and irrigation systems.

Completing his overview, Ross said, “In other words, while I might dream of universal inter-cultural harmony, what I hope for are a few less killings and land grabs, and fewer displaced populations.”

He took another sip of water, and shifted topics. “To spearhead this effort, I am going to task the US Attorney,” Ross reached to grasp the wrist of Anton Dahl where it rested on the table, “the territory’s ranking administrative officer for the United States Department of Justice.” Releasing Dahl’s wrist, Ross looked down the table to Marshal Garrison. “As part of this responsibility, I would request that Mister Dahl direct the Marshal’s Service to track and report on all significant incidents that stem from differences between cultural groups in each of the twelve counties in the territory.

Garrison gave a resigned smile and an uncertain nod.

While Judge Bergman supervised the Marshals Service in the Territory and lent it his authority, we were employed by the U.S. Department of Justice. Anton Dahl was the senior official of that Department in the Territory. Judge Bergman, on the other hand, belonged to that Constitutional faction known as the “Independent Judiciary” and was directly responsible to no one, though subject to censure from higher courts and to impeachment and dismissal by Congress.

Ross went on, “What I want to do, over the next year, is establish a base count of such incidents so that, later, as our efforts become established, we will have some objective measure against which to judge our success or failure. It seems probable that county sheriffs will have to be enlisted in this effort. We may be able to provide some small financial incentives to gain that cooperation in the form of grants to provide clerical assistance in their offices.

“To further aid the deputy marshals in evaluating and reporting, I have asked Deputy Marshal Hackett to work with Marshal Garrison and Mister Dahl in developing some simple guidelines and an equally simple reporting process for the deputy marshals to use. Mister Cabal will be the record-keeper for the project and will advise each of us here of any problems that might surface, as well as distributing monthly and cumulative summary reports.”

As tasks were being assigned to the others, I began to feel uneasy about the purpose of my presence at this meeting. My unease was about to find warrant.

Ross said to Garrison, “Marshal, to make your job just a bit more difficult, I am going to deprive you of one of your deputies.”

Then the Governor turned his eyes fully on me, a determined but kind look on his face. “Seneca, with the ready cooperation of Mister Dahl and Judge Bergman, I have arranged for you to be appointed a United States Marshal for the territory at large. You will operate independently of, but in cooperation with, Marshal Garrison’s bureau. As a federal officer, you will remain directly under the authority of Judge Bergman and will have rank over, but not direct command of, the Deputy Marshals, who remain deputized to Marshal Garrison. However, in practice, you will report to me.” He nodded emphatically and pointed to himself at the last.

This took me totally off guard. My mind seemed to have shut down. I just stared at the Governor. Marshal Garrison leaned toward me and whispered, much too loudly, “For the dignity of our shared status, you might want to close your mouth now, Marshal Becker.”