Chapter 5: 1885: U.S. Territory of New Mexico

I stepped off the train onto the Mesilla platform at just past three in the morning. Andy’s train would arrive much later, a few minutes past ten o’clock that night. My plan was to get a few hours sleep at the hotel, then to visit the Old Pueblo Saloon, owned by Hershel Brinke, who had been a sergeant in Governor Ross’s company during The War. El Mesilla Posada (The Mesilla Inn) was just two doors away from the saloon. I walked there and obtained a room.

Hershel Brinke was a tall, gray-haired, broad-shouldered man with a full black beard showing streaks of gray. He was friendly enough and invited me into a back room to talk.

“So how’s the Major?” Brinke (BRINK-eh) asked, with a faint German accent tempering his country drawl. Governor Ross had attained the rank of major during The War.

“He seems to fit that Governor’s chair just fine. He wanted me to extend his regards. He said you and him had some exciting times, especially at Little Blue River.”

“I’ll say. If he hadn’t grabbed my collar and dragged me behind cover, we’d not be talkin’ here today. Joe Shelby’s Graycoats were all over us. We were defendin’ a bridge crossin’ but the Rebs had forded the river upstream.” He looked off into the middle distance, silent for a moment. Then he turned to me. “Were you in? You look a mite young.”

“Joined a regiment of Ohio volunteers when I was eighteen, in the spring of ‘sixty-four, then was transferred as a scout-sharpshooter to the regulars. Served mostly in Georgia and Tennessee with General Scholfield’s Army of the Cumberland. After The War I did a stint in Texas with the Twenty-fourth, lastly at Fort Davis.”

He was nodding. “So ye seen the elephant.”

“Once or twice.”

He laughed, “I’ll just bet.” He turned to a bottle on a narrow table behind him. “Care for a snort?” He went about filling two small glasses with tequila.

“Sure, if we drink to the Governor.”

“Suits me down to the ground. He’s a fine man.”

We each took a drink of the rather smooth tipple. “So why did the Major send you down here, Mister Becker?”

“I’m interested in the Doña Ana militia.”

He gave a snort. “That bunch,” he muttered. “Interested in what way?” There was suspicion in his voice.

“Well, I heard that they had a cadre that rode full time as regular militiamen.”

“Thinking of joining?” His tone was borderline hostile.

“Mister Brinke, I’m simply asking what the Governor sent me down here to ask.”

“The Major wants to know?”

“It’s more that the Governor wants me to know.”

He looked at me thoughtfully for most of a minute, then he said, somewhat abruptly, “I got no love for that Elijah Pritchard and his gang a’ thugs.” He eyed me, awaiting my reaction.

“I was getting that impression,” I said, smiling. I reached into my coat pocket and brought out my badge case, which I offered to him. “I’m a United States Marshal sent down here to investigate Major Pritchard. I’d as soon you keep that to yourself.”

He looked at the star and read the commission card, then handed back the wallet. “Just appointed last week, huh?”

“The day after the Governor’s swearing-in.”

“What’d you do before that?”

“I was a Deputy Marshal, worked from Taos.”

“Oh? Then you were in on catchin’ that El Paso gang that was stealin’ Mexican horses a couple years back. Heard there were a bunch a’ Deputy Marshals in that posse.”

“I was.”

“Got that asshole Zach Albertson, didn’t you?”

“Both him and his brother.”

“What brother?”

“Zebedee Albertson. He was a Texas state brand inspector; he fixed it so the rustled horses looked like a legal sale.”

“Well I’ll be damned.”

We both took sips of the tequila. I asked, “So what can you tell me about Pritchard and the militia?”

He grimaced. “Well, Pritchard’s got a ranch near to the Organ Mountains, south a’ Las Cruces, maybe ten miles due east a’ here. He’s got it built up like a ‘dobe fort. That’s where them paid militia live. An’ it’s where the rest a’ the militia gathers once a month for drills. But that’s only fifteen more men, an’ they’re all Mexicans, to meet that four-out a’ ten rule the law says. Rumor has it they get paid, too. I think Pritchard just pays the Mexicans to show up for drills. They all wear red kerchiefs at their necks, but the twenty paid men have black shirts, trousers, hats, an’ boots, an’ ride black horses with black saddles. Ah, they wear a red kechief, too, but look like Sunday chapel. They make quite a’ parade.”

“Have you ever been to this ‘fort?’”

“Oh, sure. Pritchard throws a big barbecue on the Fourth of July. It’s open t’ ever’body, though it’s a potlatch with folks ‘spected to bring some covered dish t’ share. Pritchard spits the beeves an’ hogs an’ taps the kegs a’ beer.”

“What’s the inside like?”

“Like a fort, an’ he’s proud of it. Even got a couple them mountain howitzers mounted on the rampart. But it ain’t that large, maybe sixty, seventy feet to a side, ten foot walls.”

“Howitzers? Do you mean that type that can be broken down and packed on mules?”

Nodding, Brinke took another sip of the tequila, then added, “He shoots ‘em off at the end a’ the fireworks in the evenin’.”

“And have you seen his militia mounted?”

“He parades ‘em on the Fourth, the Anglos in their black duds and the Mexicans all wearing the white cotton camisa, pantalones, y huarache (shirt, pants, and sandal) and a sombrero with a black band. And the red kerchief, a’ course.”

“So the Mexicans are just wearing their usual white work clothes?”

“Well, they look like work clothes, but they’re all as neat and clean as the black shirts are.”

“Have you seen these ‘black shirts’ out and about at other times?”

“They come through town now an’ again on what they call ‘patrol’ but its just a cover for whatever mischief they get up to.”

“Just the black shirts? No Mexicans?”

“No Mexicans. Sometimes with Pritchard in the lead, though he wears a tan uniform, might even be called butternut, though he wears the red scarf. Other times it’s just his second in command leadin’ ‘em.”

“Do they pack the howitzers with them?”

“Not usually.”

“When you say mischief, what do you mean?”

He looked uncertain for a moment, then said, “Last year there was a news article in the Las Cruces weekly yellow sheet, The Crusader, that described a militia action in which they drove off a large force of Mexican marauders from where they’d been attackin’ a rancho along the Rio, south a’ here. S’posedly, the militia arrived after the villa was destroyed an’ its occupants had been killed, along with all the hired hands that were there at the time. Since the militia was so outnumbered, they had to use a howitzer to root out the raiders, but they escaped across the border.”

He took a taste of the tequila before continuing. “The odd thing was, the rancho that was destroyed happened to be the home of a patron who controlled some water rights that some Anglo ranchers had wanted to buy, though they were told that the water shares weren’t for sale. Sadly, the patron was killed by the Mexican raiders. But because a’ the raid and the use of artillery, the irrigation system was damaged beyond reasonable repair, and the dead patron’s heirs sold the water rights t’ the Anglo ranchers cheap.”

After a few moments of reflection, I asked, “Were there any other witnesses who saw those Mexican bushwhackers?”

He lifted the tequila bottle and, shaking his head, said, “I ain’t heard a’ none else that seen ‘em.” He topped up both of our glasses, though mine was still half full.

I took a thoughtful sip, savoring the earthy flavor. Tequila always reminded me of cucumbers or of fresh nopales (no-PAH-lehz). Nopales were pads from the nopal or “prickly pear” cactus, which grew wild throughout New Mexico. Trimmed of their spines, they were featured in several popular dishes.

I asked, “How does he afford to mount a militia? Is Pritchard rich?”

Brinke raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “He wasn’t ‘til a few years ago. Before that, he had a reputation for shady land and stock dealin’s and hung around the saloons. Even had a faro table at a saloon down in El Paso for a while, or so I heard.” He tipped up his glass and took a healthy swallow. I did the same.

He went on, “Then, about three years ago, he comes back up here from El Paso and bought that land an’ built his half-pint redoubt. Maybe his faro table paid off.”

I nodded. “That was about when that militia bill was passed.”

“Yeah, might’a been,” Brinke agreed.

“I also heard that most a’ those ‘black shirts’ are men that came from Texas.”

Nodding, Brinke said, “That’s the rumor. I only know one local boy signed on, Cletus Zsolt. He was the foreman for one of the Anglo ranchers just west a’ here.”

“Jhoyt?,” I tried to repeat. “How’s that spelled?”

“Z-s-o-l-t. He claims it’s Hungarian and means ‘psalm.’” He chuckled. “Psalm, another odd spelling. I think that’s funny.”

I smiled. “Who did he work for? As a foreman, I mean.”

He showed a slight frown. “Far as I know, he’s still a foreman, ‘cept now it’s for Pritchard’s militia. But the rancher he worked for was Ira Drummond, one a’ those that bought the irrigation rights from that ranchero got destroyed.”

Brinke went to top off my tequila but I raised a hand. “Not for me, thanks.”

He nodded, put the cork in the bottle, and returned it to the table against the wall.

“What else can you tell me about Cletus Zsolt?”

“He’d come in, now and again, usually with other hands from Drummond’s ranch. Never seemed very friendly. Last time he was in with his pals, some vaqueros came in and took a table. I serve everybody, no matter who their pa was. Be that as it may, there’s more Mexes around than Anglos, so I’d be stupid t’ turn their business away. I got no problem with ‘em. Both Mexes and Anglos are just tryin’ to get by.

“But Zsolt was havin’ none of it that. When I brought the vaqueros the beers they’d asked for, Zsolt jumped up from his chair, spit on the floor toward the vaqueros’ table and then told me that he’d never come in this ‘pigsty’ again. Then he left in a huff. Good riddance, far as I was concerned.

“That was the last I seen of ‘im,” Brinke concluded, “‘til I saw ‘im ridin’ with the Black Shirts, at the head of the column, Pritchard’s second-in-charge.”

We talked for a few more minutes, but I learned nothing else of significance. We finished our drinks and then he begged off in order to lay out the saloon’s luncheon meats and breads as the noon hour was approaching. I asked him what time he closed of an evening and he said usually by ten o’clock, which meant the saloon would probably be closed when Andy arrived that evening. I thanked Brinke with sincerity and bid him good day, promising to carry his respects to the Governor.

I calculated my next step would be to interview the District of New Mexico military commander, who was the nominal military authority in militia matters. His headquarters was at Fort Union, which was about 25 miles north-northwest of Las Vegas and about fifteen miles nearly due west of Mora. However, Watrous was the closest stop on the AT&SF, about nine miles south of Fort Union. There was a rail spur to the fort, but it was strictly freight service and had no regular or scheduled trains, in any event.

According to th Territories Militia Act, it was the District Military Commander’s responsibility to review and approve each militia’s compliance with the specified military protocols. That Military Commander was Colonel Jameson Westerly.

However, before going to Fort Union, I planned to stop over a day at Socorro, to visit young Señor Baca in the Socorro County jail. But that would be after I met with attorney Anderson Etheridge. Andy and I had agreed to meet on the train itself.

Rather than either of us spend the night in Mesilla simply for the purpose of a relatively brief discussion, I would board the northbound that night at six minutes past ten, the same train that Andy would have boarded at El Paso an hour earlier. We would then ride together north to Rincon, which would allow us close to an hour to discuss my El Paso arrest warrant. At Rincon, we would both debark. Andy would have about a six hour lay-over awaiting the southbound train. That train would return him to El Paso at twenty minutes before seven, meaning he would be absent from home for fewer than ten hours. The Santa Fe, which intersected with the Southern Pacific Railroad at Rincon, had a Harvey House there and I had arranged a room for Andy so that he could rest comfortably and perhaps get a few hours of sleep during his lay-over.

At Rincon I would transfer to the northbound Santa Fe train, which originated at Rincon in coordination with the SP train’s arrival schedule. The northbound AT&SF train would then bring me to Socorro about a quarter to three in the morning. Charlie Hackett had recommended a hotel in Socorro and I had sent them a wire regarding my arrival. Like most transient lodging facilities in train-stop towns, a clerk would be available to register guests according to the passenger train schedule, even in the middle of the night.

After a ham sandwich and a beer at Brinke’s barroom, I spent the afternoon napping at the posada, arose to partake of their fine supper, then returned to my room for another nap. At nine p.m. the innkeeper awoke me and I washed up and shaved. I had become more fastidious in my grooming since courting and marrying Feliza. I had begun the practice of shaving myself daily rather than to depend on a barber once or twice a week. As had been my practice since my later Army days, I wore a heavy but close-trimmed mustache, and was otherwise clean shaven.

The innkeeper had a pot of fresh coffee ready for me and I filled two small, blanket-insulated canteens I had purchased earlier at the mercantile. The coffee would cool sufficiently by the time I boarded the train. Andy and I could each just sip directly from the canteens; an open cup of coffee on a train was simply inviting trouble.

Mesilla was the first regular stop for the northbound Southern Pacific train after departing El Paso, and it was even a couple minutes early arriving at Mesilla. I was carrying saddlebags in place of a valise, on the chance that I might have to do some riding, so, with those over one shoulder and the canteens over the other, I swung up the platform steps to enter the back door of the rearmost passenger coach, which is where I expected to find Andy.

As soon as I passed through the door, I heard him say, “Right here, Judah,” and I found him seated on my left in the last row, with a facing seat just ahead of him.

I said, “Hey, Andy, it’s good to see you. I appreciate you meeting me this way.” I held out the canteen straps. “Here, take these. It’s fresh coffee.”

He reached for the straps, grinning, and said, “Ah, good for you.”

I heaved the saddle bags onto the overhead rack, then stood a moment and looked around the car. There were six other men, possibly all drummers, sample cases and suitcases stowed above them, with two sitting together and the rest nearby in middle of the coach. At the far end were two women seated together, likely Mexican or Indio, if their colorful skirts and blouses were a sign. On the shelf over their heads were four large woven baskets.

I dropped down into the seat facing Andy’s. “This seems private enough.”

He handed me a canteen. “It should suit. So, how’re you doin’?”

I reached into my coat pocket, withdrew the badge case, and handed it to him.

He accepted it, opened it, glanced at it, then said, “Looks like you need a new badge. The word ‘Deputy’s’ been pure worn off this one.” He looked up, grinning. “Congratulations, Judah. Did Garrison retire?”

I shook my head as I accepted the case back from him. “No, he’s still going strong. I’ve been appointed at large for the territory, working directly for Governor Ross. I’m what he’s calling a ‘special investigator’.””

He was sipping at the coffee but he paused to ask, “What’s that all about?”

“He’s picked up where Governor Sheldon had been working, trying to reduce hostility between the Anglos and everybody else. I’m to look into cases and situations that might make things worse along those lines.”

“Okay, I can understand him wanting someone like you doing that, and I think you’re exactly the man for it. Now tell me, how’s married life? How’s the new baby?” Andy had attended our wedding, in the company of Marcela Ortiz, whom I had met the year before on my last abbreviated visit to El Paso.

“Married life is every bit as good as it could be. And little Bertie is fine.”

“‘Bertie’ is it?”

“Neto dubbed her that. He said it sounded more like a little sister. He dotes on her.”

“Everyone is well?”

“Other than the occasional sniffles over the winter, everyone’s fine.” We both sipped the coffee, then I asked, “And Señorita Marcela? Is she still ‘keeping house?’”

“She’s been promoted.”

“Oh, really? To what? Secretary?”

“Fiance.”

He had surprised me, but maybe I shouldn’t have been. “Seriously? Congratulations!” I reached to shake his hand. “Feliza and I are both impressed by her. Feliza thought it would get more serious; I’m pleased she was right. When do you tie the knot?”

“About a month after I get your charges dismissed. We want you both to attend.”

“I’m sure Feliza will want us to. And we’re moving to Santa Fe, so the trip won’t be quite as far.”

“So let’s get down to business. Maricela’s chomping at the bit to become Missus Etheridge. We’re going to buy a house on the north side of town.”

We spent the next twenty minutes discussing the pending murder charge and the various avenues that were open.

Andy concluded by saying, “So it will first depend on the prosecutor. I’ll start with him. If he’s not amenable, I’ll talk to the district judge. We’ll just have to see how far it will need to go. I’ll write twice a month at a minimum to keep you posted. Do you know where you’ll be living?”

“Ah, we’re still looking. Just send it to me in care of the US Marshals Office at the government office building on East Marcy Street. I’ll be working from there. I’ll ask Marshal Garrison to keep an eye out.”

“You’re sharing his office?”