Seneca Book 4: De Dos Del Nortes
Copyright© 2026 by Zanski
Chapter 10. 1878: The Eye, El Paso, Texas
“Buenos días, Agente Becker. Tuviste un buen viaje? (Good morning, Agent Becker. Did you have a pleasant trip?) This greeting was from our newest fellow agent, Eloy Cabrera, a second-generation citizen, from a family of the Spanish gentry who had settled in New Orleans. However, his parents raised Cabrera strictly in English, to make him more American. As a consequence, though he had the looks of a Spanish aristocrat — tall, slim, dark, with a thin mustache over a devil-may-care smile — he’d arrived in El Paso four months earlier knowing fewer than a dozen words of Spanish. He’d been studying to learn the language ever since.
Cabrera made the third field agent in our office. Along with Cherry O’Malley and our manager, Ray Dugan, there were four of us working out of the El Paso field office of the Pinkerton Detective Agency.
Grinning, I said, “Bien dicho, Agente Cabrera. Tu español está perdiendo el acento francés.” (Well said, agent Cabrera. Your Spanish is losing the French accent.) Ironically, from growing up in New Orleans, Cabrera spoke French fluently.
By the stove, Cherry O’Malley was pouring coffee. Speaking over his shoulder, he interjected, “Excepto que ambos suenan como un par de novillos longhorn de Texas con lomo musgoso rumiando.” (Except you both sound like a couple mossy-back Texas longhorn steers chewing your cud.) O’Malley had learned what he considered proper Spanish as a youngster, when he’d lived in Mexico City, where his father had been a consular officer. O’Malley always insisted that our Texican accent was an affront to the national language of Mexico.
He turned toward me holding up the coffee pot and added, in English, “Want some coffee, Seneca? This is Ray’s makin’s.”
“Oh, you bet. Thanks, Cherry. I’ve missed good coffee.” I’d been gone for almost three weeks, chasing down rustlers over in the Big Bend country. “Where is Ray?”
“He’s having breakfast with some Mexican Army officer.”
“What’s that about?”
“He didn’t say. I don’t think he knew what he wanted.”
Eloy asked, “Will you have to go back to Fort Davis for a trial?”
“No. The Rurales caught the few rustlers who made it to the border. The others were killed during the running gun fight down to the Rio.”
“The ranch hands made a good showing, then?”
“They did,” I reported. “‘Bout all I had to do on my own was the tracking. Only bad news was that their foreman died when they shot his horse and he went flying.” I shook my head. “Broke his neck.”
“Poor bastard,” Cherry observed.
I moved to my desk, now in the front corner of the room, opposite the entrance door; Ray had purchased another desk, so we didn’t have to share. As I parked my butt in the chair I said, “I need to write it all up, now. But how’s it happen that both of you are here at the same time?” It was unusual for all three of us field agents to be in the office all at once.
Cherry explained, “I just got back from chasing irrigation vandals up near Las Cruces. It was a bunch a’ young Mexican men who had been listening to the stories their fathers told, how they’d been swindled and cheated out of their water rights.” Cherry shrugged. “And maybe they were, but that’s a matter for the courts, not destructive vandalism.” Then he hooked a thumb toward Cabrera. “But he’s the feather merchant. Our four-eyed numbers tracker has been sitting at his desk, drinking Ray’s coffee, while turning the heavy pages of the account books of the Adler and Sons bank.”
Cabrera wore reading glasses for doing paperwork, hence the nickname. Before joining The Eye, he had been apprenticed as a bookkeeper and accountant at a lending house in New Orleans, so much of his detective work was searching out fraud and embezzlement, with the majority of his time spent examining business records.
I replied, “Makes you wish you’d studied harder in school rather than at the card tables, eh, Cherry?”
“What?” O’Malley said. “And miss all the fresh air and sunshine the Agency is so generous with?”
“And dust, and horse sweat, and sunburn, and swollen piles,” Cabrera added.
“Hey!” O’Malley came back. “I’ve known men got swollen piles just from sitting at a desk.”
Scoffing, Cabrera said, “I’ll take my chances.” Actually, Cabrera did his share of field work, when called for, and he knew which end was the front of a horse.
The jibes were interrupted by the sound of familiar footfalls on the stairs. We all three glanced at the Seth Thomas wall clock. It was only a few minutes after eight, which seemed too soon for Dugan to have finished a breakfast meeting with a potential client. But the footsteps sounded like Dugan’s and we all turned toward the door.
A few seconds later, Ray Dugan opened the door and stepped partway into the room, his hand remaining on the doorknob. He looked around, grinning at us. “Mornin’, gents. It’s another glorious day working for the largest private detective and security firm in the world.”
O’Malley said, “Funny you should mention that, boss. We’ve all been offered jobs mucking out stalls over at the livery and we’ve just finished writing our letters of resignation.” O’Malley held out a random sheet of paper.
Dugan nodded, “I’ll be sorry to see you go, O’Malley. But now I can offer raises to Becker and Cabrera.”
“Boss,” I said, “before you get drawn into the usual morning lamentations, what happened to your breakfast meeting?” I had, to a large degree, been pegged as Dugan’s unofficial chief deputy. One reason for that was my tendency to bring us back from the numerous distractions that four smart men can so easily manufacture as a means of bringing humor to sometimes grim, often boring, but always demanding work.
Dugan looked at me. “In fact, Judah, the client has specifically asked for you. I trust you’re capable of having a second breakfast?”
I grinned. “I’ll give it my best effort, boss, but Señora Vasquez made her buttermilk pancakes this morning. With some pork sausage on the side. So who’s the client?”
“Turns out it’s our old friend Capitan Luis Carranza. But now he’s a teniente coronel, a lieutenant colonel.” We both knew Carranza from a cross-border incident some years prior.
“Good for him. Last I heard he was a major.”
“Well, revive your appetite. He’s buying.”
As we ate, we did some catching-up. Carranza had explained that he was currently assigned to the army’s military district of Estado Libre y Soberano de Chihuahua de Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos (the Free and Sovereign State of Chihuahua of the United Mexican States). Carranza was, in effect, what the U.S. Army would call the executive officer for the Mexican Army’s Chihuahua military district. In that role he was, to a large degree, the district’s second in command.
However, rather than travel in uniform, he had come to El Paso dressed in rather ordinary civilian business clothes. In broad terms, he said his mission was to interdict the current rash of cross-border gun smuggling that was supplying arms to rebel groups in Chihuahua and other northern states. Many of the supposed rebel groups, he explained, with a hint of frustration, were hardly indistinguishable from marauding bandits.
As we were finishing our food, Dugan asked, “What is it exactly you want from us, Coronel?”
Before answering, Carranza had asked the waiter to clear the rest of our dishes from the table, leaving just our coffee cups. Then Carranza had offered us cheroots, which Ray had accepted, but I had turned down.
As they lit their cigars, Carranza reminded us that it was only earlier that year that the U.S. had reestablished diplomatic relations with Mexico. The State Department had withdrawn the U.S. ambassador from Mexico City following the eighteen seventy-six coup staged by the current president, Porfirio Diaz. Diaz, however, appeared to be a positive influence to official U.S. observers. Diaz had launched several domestic reforms meant to combat government corruption. He also backed measures aimed at banking stabilization along with programs to expand the telegraph and railway systems to more rural areas.
Moreover, contrary to what had become common practice among earlier elected presidents who had attempted to establish permanent tenancy in that office, Diaz had pledged that he would only serve for one term. He had gone so far as to support an amendment to the Mexican Constitution that would prohibit presidents from being reelected. Noting his efforts at reform, the State Department had again recognized a legitimate government in Mexico City and reopened our embassy there.
Despite the reforms, Diaz had to deal with pockets of rebellion. Of particular concern was one faction which wanted to return the deposed president, Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada, to power. The legitimacy of Lerdo’s claim to the office had been, at best, questionable.
Still, those problems were not the concern of the U.S. government. Rather, as Carranza explained it, Washington City wanted Diaz’s government to further demonstrate its legitimacy by suppressing the cross-border incursion of Mexican bandits and marauders into the U.S. That these bandits and marauders were the same groups who claimed to be revolutionaries south of the border was a fact that seemed to escape the State Department’s assessment.
In a twist that further confounded that disregard, Carranza’s mission was to prevent illegal forays of American smugglers into Mexico, an activity which seemed to be taking place right under the noses of responsible American officials.
As he explained it, unscrupulous American opportunists had apparently established a more-or-less routine delivery of surplus U.S. military arms — primarily the remaining stocks of field-abused Spenser repeating carbines and discontinued models of the Springfield rifle — into the hands of so-called revolutionaries and flagrant outlaw gangs in Mexico. This was a particular problem in both Chihuahua and Coahuila, Chihuahua’s neighboring state to the southeast, which had become the hotbed of the pro-Lerdo faction. Both Chihuahua and Coahuila bordered Texas. The Rio Grande’s Big Bend region, which bordered Chihuahua, was the more sparsely settled and provided greater opportunity for the gun-runners to operate without interference.
By this time, both Dugan and I had brought out small notebooks and stub pencils from our pockets and had been making notes.
As Carranza explained, he and his men were traveling in mufti so as not to draw attention to what was, effectively, an unsanctioned incursion of the Mexican Army into the United States. Carranza pointed out that their civilian dress would also serve to keep them from being noticed by any of the smugglers or their associates, but possibly more important, they hoped to hide from whatever spy his commanding officer suspected the smugglers had in the Army, itself.
Thinking about the potential legal questions, I looked at Dugan and asked, “The Agency’s okay with this?”
He shrugged. “Chicago sent me the signed contract, without much explanation, other than that I should expect a contact from the Mexican Army. So they must know who it is they’re dealing with.”
Carranza explained, “It is an equivocal diplomatic situation, at best. It seems there may be elements within your State Department and War Department working at cross purposes. In any event, I am carrying papers authorizing me to purchase horses and mules for the Mexican Army. That is my ostensible purpose here in Texas.
“You are being hired to provide a local guide who can also verify my status as a legitimate business representative of the Mexican Army. To that purpose, I have traveled by stage coach and have papers establishing me as a purchasing agent seeking mounts and pack animals to purchase for our military. My men are following, individually, also by coach.”
Dugan asked, “Why hasn’t the US Army gotten involved with catching these gunrunners?”
Carranza shook his head. “Mexico is not, at present, your country’s primary concern. Even though diplomatic relations have been reestablished, your State Department’s position seems to be that the Diaz government must demonstrate that it is capable of governing the entire country, not just the precincts around Mexico City. At the same time, it is our suspicion that finding a lucrative market for surplus Springfield Armory munitions may be an objective within your War Department.”
Dugan seemed skeptical. “You think our government is agreeable to someone selling our war surplus to Mexican rebels?”
Carranza gave an expressive shrug.
Dugan looked at me, the question written on his face.
I said to him, “I was only a sergeant.” Now I tipped my head toward Carranza. “But I do know that the US Army had absolutely no misgivings about letting its troops, especially its colored troops, go into battle with inferior equipment. Seems to me it was always a matter of money. I don’t reckon Mexicans are seen as more valuable than our own colored soldiers.” Now it was my turn to shrug. “I don’t know if the Coronel is correct, but I can’t say I know anything to argue he’s wrong, either.”
Dugan looked down momentarily, then, looking rueful and gently shaking his head, he said, “Yeah, maybe it’s not so hard to believe.” He looked at us, observing, “When you strip away the red, white, and blue bunting, I reckon we are a decidedly mercenary country.”
To counter his somber reaction, I said, with wry intent, “Look at the bright side, boss.” Tipping my head to indicate Carranza, I added, “It means more business for us.”
He said to me, with a gently mocking tone. “When did you become such a money-grubber?”
Thinking quickly, I replied, “Since I’ve seen some of the Morgan stock that the Zieglers are raising. I’m going to want one of those horses.”
He chuckled, nodding his head, and the three of us talked about horses for a few minutes. But then the conversation returned to gun smuggling.
I asked Carranza, “Do you think they could be using Tornillo Creek Canyon to approach that Rio ford?”
“They may have used it one or more times, but we believe they used it at least once,” he replied. “It is somewhat longer, but is a more open, easier route.”
Dugan asked me, “Have you been back there, since that incursion incident?”
“No,” I said. “The Army never sent us back there and this last assignment for the Eye had me further northwest, in those big valleys, on the plateaus above the canyons that feed down to the Rio.”
Puffing on the stub of his cheroot, Dugan looked at Carranza through a cloud of smoke and asked “What is it exactly you want from us, Coronel?”
Carranza nodded and leaned over the table. “There are two objectives.
“First, I want to locate one of these arm smuggling trains so that I can warn my platoon as to where they will most likely cross the border so that they may move in a timely manner to intercept them.
“Second, I want my men and I to move in behind that train in order to prevent their escape. While I will have only a squad of three lancers and a sargento, the confines of the canyon trails should allow us to effectively prevent their escape, especially as they should be reduced in force by that time.”
Now Dugan looked uncomfortable. He asked, “You intend to mount a military action against American citizens on American soil?”
Carranza assumed an indignant posture. “Of course not. My men and I will simply be defending ourselves against what we assume are a band of Mexican bandits who have just crossed the river into the US.” Then he smiled. “In fact, I have instructed Teniente Alonzo to, as much as possible, allow the smugglers to fully enter into Mexico before executing the ambuscade. His sargento will know what to do.”
I looked at Dugan, who seemed satisfied with Carranza’s rationale.
Carranza resumed speaking. “For the first objective, locating and warning the platoon in Mexico, I believe I have devised an effective plan.”
He reached into a portmanteau that he had brought and which he’d set next to his chair. He brought out a leather tube which I recognized as a map case. Indeed, Carranza removed a rolled sheet of heavy paper and spread in on the table in front of us, using our coffee cups to anchor the corners. I quickly recognized it as a detailed topographic map of the Big Bend region, though I was a bit rattled to see the amount of detail the Mexican Army had of the American side of the Rio.
Carranza must have seen the unease on my face, because he smiled and said, “Sergeant Major, you may recall that this entire territory was a possession of Spain and Mexico for nearly three hundred years. It has been part of the United States for only about forty years. For the three centuries before that, Hispanic armies had chased Comanche through these same canyons. These maps were made even before your Presidente Jefferson sent Señors Lewis and Clark to begin mapping what you call the Louisiana Purchase.”
I could hear Dugan chuckling off to my side. I gave Carranza a sheepish look and apologized. “Sorry, Coronel, I reckon this old dog needs to learn some new tricks.”
He reached over and patted my shoulder, then turned back to the map, indicating particular canyons with his finger. “These are the four trails we know they have used previously: Burro Cañon, Serrano Cañon, Arroyo Seco, and Tornillo Cañon.” He moved his finger down to the big curve in the Rio Grande. “Here, at the Rio Bravo, the fords these canyons lead to cover a stretch of nearly fifty miles along our side of the border.” I noticed that Carranza’s map had the river labeled as “Rio Bravo” rather than Rio Grande.
He swept his finger along the curve of border. “With only a platoon of twenty-five lancers as an interdiction force, I am hard-pressed to cover each of these crossings. Were I to split them into four squads, they would have, at most, seven men, with the addition of the teniente and dos (two) sargentos. It is known that the smugglers have, at a minimum, fifteen heavily armed men with each train. Among the arms they have been known to deliver have been what you call mountain howitzers. Should they be carrying one, that would seriously over-match a squad of seven lancers, especially because I have brought one of the sargentos and three lancers with me.”
He drew back from the map and looked at us. “What I need to do is to discover which crossing they intend to use next and concentrate the entire platoon there.” He tapped the map again, this time on the Texas side. “I believe I have found a means to that end.”
Carranza leaned over the map, pointing to an area well north of the river. “Here, on the Texas side, we are within the curve of the Big Bend, where things are brought closer together, unlike the Mexican side, on the outside of the curve, where distances are greater. The trails leading into these cañons, from the in-side of the Big Bend curve, are closer together as well, much closer to one another than the crossings they lead to.”
He looked at us to be sure we were following his explanation, adding, “Just as the spokes of a wagon wheel become closer together as the reach the hub.”
Dugan glanced at me, then said, “We’re with you, Coronel, go ahead.”
Satisfied, Carranza went on. “I believe I have located two elevated positions,” he moved his finger on the map indicating first one prominence and then another, “each of which provides an oversight of two of the upper portions of those trails. All we have to do is to occupy those two sites and keep watch for the next smugglers’ train on one of those access trails. Then we convey that information to my platoon in Mexico. I have brought two heliograph devices for that purpose. The platoon has a third set here.” His finger slid down across the Rio to a high point on the Mexican side.
He sat up, showing a satisfied smile, then continued, “From there, the Lancers should have sufficient time to place themselves at the correct river crossing. Meanwhile, the men with me will accompany me to block the retreat of any of the smugglers who may cross back over the Rio into Texas.” He was pronouncing it in it in the Spanish way, making it sound like “Tayhas.”
Dugan looked at me. “What do you think? And don’t give me any of that ‘I’m only a sergeant’ horse manure.”
I shrugged. “There are a dozen details to nail down, but it sounds workable.”
Carranza said, “We’ll need mounts and pack mules.”
Dugan looked at me and up-ticked his chin, in effect asking my opinion.
I nodded and said, “Then we should go up to Ziegler’s. He has good animals and it will keep your business away from El Paso. We can obtain what further supplies we’ll need in Mesilla or Las Cruces. Then we can head east through the salt flats north of Fort Bliss rather than come back through El Paso.”
Both men had been watching me and now Dugan turned to Carranza to gauge his reaction.
Carranza asked, “Where is this Ziegler’s you speak of?”
“Just over thirty miles north, on the Mesilla Road, in New Mexico Territory.”
“How do you propose we get there?”
“There ‘s a stagecoach leaves here every morning at eight. It passes right by Ziegler’s front gate after a noon meal stop in Mesilla.”
“They will stop at this place?”
I explained, “It’s not an express coach run, so they’ll stop as arranged or flagged down. You can tell the driver where you want to be dropped off. I plan to ride ahead and I can flag them down, just to be sure.”
Dugan again turned to watch Carranza. The Coronel looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded. “I think that will serve well. Can we leave tomorrow?”
Helmut Ziegler had recommended pack mules, but I told him mules were too noisy for our purposes. Generally I prefer mules for packing, and they make good watch animals. However, their braying can carry for a long way, especially in a canyon; we wanted to remain undetected. Horses will whinny, but that sound was generally more moderate, often limited to a quiet snort, whereas mules braying always seemed at peak intensity and usually with several repetitions.
We spent the night at the Zieglers after Carranza’s men — Sargento Juan Gomez, Cabo (Corporal) Benito Moya, and Soldados Rasos (Privates) Phillipe Garza and Lucho Secada — went into Las Cruces for supplies. Like Carranza, his men were in common Mexican dress and Carranza had directed them to set aside saluting and similar military customs.
Ronnie Ziegler, now a deliberate twenty-year-old, asked me if he could go along. He had heard that there were wild horses in the Big Bend country and he wanted to get a look at them, to see if they might be worth catching. He offered to care for the expedition’s horses and wanted only to share our camp and meals, for which he’d contribute his own provisions.
I told him he’d have to ask Coronel Carranza.
“Will you put in a good word for me?” he asked.
“You know this is more-or-less a military mission.” I had explained our purposes to the Zieglers in very general terms so they’d better understand our stock requirements. “Wild horse hunting would only be allowed strictly within the limits of the mission. You’d not be able to go off on your own.”
“But you’ll be checking trails to the river fords, right, for tracks and such?”
I nodded.
“Wild horses go to the Rio to drink and will also cross a river for various reasons. You’ve been there. The area around those canyons should be likely spots. I just want to have a look at whatever horses we come across, even from a distance. I can get a feel for their vigor, size, and numbers. Have you ever seen wild horses down there?”
I nodded again. “Once.” I gave him a long look. He’d grown two or three inches since I first new him when he was seventeen. Under his father’s tutelage he had grown into a mature and responsible man. “Okay,” I said, “I’ll go with you to see the Coronel.”
Carranza seemed amenable to the notion of having an experienced stockman along to attend the horses, especially if it didn’t add to the expenses. Then he turned to me. “You explained he would be under orders and could not act independently?”
I nodded. “I told him he’d have to operate within our mission and that he could not go off on his own. He says his purposes can be met within those limits.”
“What do you prefer?” he asked me.
“I’ve known Ronnie going on four years. I’d be fine with having him along.”
Carranza agreed to include him.
By noon on Wednesday, September fourth, we found ourselves crossing the salt flats a half dozen miles north of Fort Bliss. It was only early September, so it was still hot most days. We passed four Mexican men near the edge of the flats. They were loading salt by the shovelful into their two-wheeled carretas, each cart with an oxen waiting stolidly in their yugo (yoke) between the two long varas, the poles by which a single draft animal drew the cart. The carts could also be rigged for two draft animals, and the two varas would be replaced by a single pertigo, or tongue.
The salt flats were blindingly-white expanses of salt playa, a flat dry lake bottom, interrupted by areas of darker hardpan and equally white low dunes near the edges. Eloy Cabrera had informed me those dunes were composed of the mineral gypsum rather than salt or sand. During heavy rains, the salt flats would once again become a lake, though only a few inches deep, and often dry again within a few days.
Since the area had first been settled by the Spanish, the salt itself had been treated as a common resource, available to all. They were certainly large enough, with a north-to-south length of over a hundred miles and a width of up to twenty-five miles. Anglo settlers had been laying claim to some sections however, and there had been armed confrontations within the past year.
The trail we were were following crossed a narrower section of the playa, just over five miles, taking advantage of some slightly higher ground that intruded into the playa. The trail took us well south of the Guadalupe mountains before we struck cross-country southeast, toward the Big Bend country. It took us four more days to reach our first destination, Serrano Cañon, which afforded a trail to a Rio crossing, some forty-eight or fifty miles southwest of the Fort Quitman settlement. Early September still saw plenty of daylight, and as all were experienced horsemen, we made good time
Along the way, we had developed a plan for the search.
Carranza had a map of the Big Bend area on both sides of the Rio.
The Big Bend was so called because, about two hundred seventy-five miles southwest of El Paso, the Rio Grande interrupted its generally southeastward course to turn sharply northeastward for about a hundred thirty miles, before turning due east and eventually southeastward again. It was a desert region of mountains, mesas, and high plateaus through which the Rio cut its own deep canyons. It was largely unsettled, as it had little to offer for farming or ranching, other than what graze might be had in late spring and early summer for the occasional flock.
There were only a few fords in that lonely stretch of river, and they were favored by smugglers. The first two trail-heads we passed, Burro Cañon and Serrano Cañon, showed no indication of recent use by either shod horses, unshod Indian mounts, or wild horses. Serrano Cañon, on the other hand, made me suspicious — not of smugglers, but of Comanche.
The tracks of unshod horses could mean wild horses or it could indicate the passage of Indians. Except that wild horses tend to travel in a bunch, while Indian raiding and war parties tend to travel single file, in order to disguise their numbers. Not that there were any discernible tracks in the dry creek beds we crossed. But the deep creek beds in canyon country tend to accumulate debris jams during the spring flood.
That term, spring flood, is used to indicate the annual period of highest water flow, though that high water does not necessarily include wide, devastating floodwaters. In any case, the highest flows tend to occur in the late spring and early summer, accounted for by spring rains and any local snow melt, or even snow melt from distant mountains.
Those high waters tend to carry accumulated oddments of trees and brush from along river banks and stream beds: large boulders at the worst, but trees, trunks, and branches are the most common, as they float, as opposed to boulders, which require an extreme flow rate and a heavy load of sediment to move large stones along. Then as the season progresses and the high waters recede, the driftwood is often deposited in the narrowest parts of canyons, where it becomes wedged and then snags other such deadwood. This can block customary trails that use the once-again dry stream beds.
If wanting to conceal their movement, Indians will open a narrow passage though such a jam, then replace the debris once they have passed through. Wild horses, if they have sufficient purpose, will simply break and trample their way through, leaving ample evidence. White men often just set a jam on fire, leaving ash and blackened remnants.
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