Seneca Book 4: De Dos Del Nortes
Copyright© 2026 by Zanski
Chapter 6. 1875: The Eye, El Paso, Texas
I was waiting outside the stairway door to the Pinkerton office at five minutes of eight when Ray Dugan walked from around the corner half a block north where he crossed the street and strode toward me.
“Good morning, Seneca. Are you ready for more?”
“If ‘more’ means more of your coffee, I’m more than ready.”
He smiled and went to unlock the stairway door, which was in the center of the adobe building, between a dress shop and a barber shop. The other occupant on the second floor was an attorney. As Dugan opened the door, he said, “I’ve got more of these door keys upstairs; I’ll get you one.”
Then, as he climbed the stairs, he said, over his shoulder, “As to the coffee, I have several particulars. Firstly, I have the grocer roast the beans to a lighter color than most prefer. Then I move the pot off the stove to allow the water to cool a couple minutes from the boil before adding the coffee. My final trick is to put the ground-up coffee in what they call a tea infuser, which is a little metal ball — well, I’ll show you. It’s meant to contain the bits of tea leave in a pot, but it works just as well for ground coffee, though I had a tin-smith make me one bigger than a tea ball, and with more holes, though they’re smaller than in a tea ball.”
“Whatever it is,” I replied, “it tastes better than most coffee I’ve had and I don’t have to pick coffee grounds out of my teeth.”
Dugan grinned at me. “Some men like to chew on the grounds. But I’m glad you like it. I picked up most of the technique at the restaurant of The Palmer House, in Chicago. The Agency had me working in their kitchen, trying to find out who was stealing from the inventory’”
“Is that a fancy place?”
He shrugged, crouched at the stove as he built a fire. “Fancy enough. It opened in ‘seventy, then burned in the big fire in ‘seventy-one. But they were already building a new and bigger hotel. That’s where I worked. It was seven stories, built to be fire-proof.”
“Did you learn any more recipes?”
He laughed. “The only reason I learned that one is because the coffee urn was near the counter they brought the dirty dishes. That’s what I did for two weeks: washed dishes.”
He stood and pointed to a couple small desks pushed against the wall, each with a straight-back chair tucked against it. “Those two desks will be for the field agents when they’re working at the office. Keep it neat. Each desk has two drawers. Pick one drawer for your possibles; that drawer will be yours to use, though you will likely share the desk with other agents. Don’t leave the office without clearing your stuff away into your drawer.” He pointed at the ink well on his desk. “For now, we’ll share just the one ink well, else if we had others they’d likely dry out from under-use.”
“Is that what I am, a field agent?”
“Yep, that’s what the company calls you.”
“What do they call you?”
“I’m a field office manager and this type of office is called, as you might well imagine, a field office.”
“Will you hire more field agents?”
“I intend to. If we have sufficient business.”
I observed, “That Juan Artigas seems to be on the ball. You should try recruiting him.”
Dugan nodded. “I’ve tried, but he seems to favor public service.”
“So I’m your only field agent?”
“Maybe not. There’s a man I met in Chicago. He’s fascinated by the western frontier. I’m trying to persuade him to come down.”
“The frontier has moved to western New Mexico and Arizona.”
Dugan chuckled. “Compared to Chicago, this will be plenty frontier enough. Cherry’s originally from Boston. He thought Chicago was barely civilized.”
“Cherry? Is that his name?”
“Cherubim O’Malley. He goes by Cherry, which suits his red hair and ruddy skin.”
“Cherubim? What is that? It sounds like a dessert treat.”
“Cherubim are a class of angel, like the archangels.”
“Oh, like Michael and Gabriel in the New Testament.”
“Exactly. Those two were archangels.”
“When is Mister O’Malley coming down?”
“He says he’s saving up some money to get set-up down here.”
That brought to mind another question. “A couple years ago, I met a Pinkerton agent at Fort Davis. He had a badge. Do I get a badge?”
“Depends. What was that agent doing at Fort Davis?”
“There’d been a passel of counterfeit bills showed up in our payroll. He was looking into that.”
Dugan nodded grimly. “That’s why he had a badge. He was working on a government contract, likely for the Treasury Department. The government contracts often grant law enforcement authority to the assigned agents. But that’s not us. You’ll have an identification card, but no badge. Sorry.”
“Aw, shucks, why not? Please, Paw, please can I have a badge?”
He held up the coffee ball he’d had made as if it were a treasure. “How ‘bout some nice, smooth coffee, instead?”
We both chuckled and I was glad he had a sense of humor this early in the day.
While he fixed the coffee, I went over to the small desks.
The Pinkerton office was one room, roughly fifteen by twenty feet. Dugan’s desk was near the corner furthest from the door, next to one of the two windows that overlooked the street.
“Can I turn this desk around, to face the room?”
“Sure, but turn them both around and put them side-by-side, but a couple feet apart.”
I moved the two straight-back chairs out of the way, then slid the desks around so they’d be were situated left-side-on to one of the windows that opened on the alley, and facing the same direction as Dugan’s desk, though also facing the door. I replaced the chairs and sat down at the desk that was nearest the window. There was a supply of the standard forms in a basket on the desk and I looked through them, noting the itemized entries, thinking about how I’d elicit the information from our clients.
The stove was in the corner across from Dugan’s desk. He put the coffee pot on and sat down at his desk.
I asked, “So, do you have another job for me?”
“I do. Let me get the file out.” He opened a drawer, and brought out a file. He started to summarize it.
“Ronnie Ziegler, a young man of seventeen, is charged with horse theft and aggravated assault. He was arrested by a detective from the Greater Western Anti-Horse Theft Association and turned over to the El Paso City Marshal. Bail was set at his arraignment at five hundred dollars. His father pledged the deed to his livery stable and farrier shop as bond. However, Ronnie fled across the border and didn’t return for the trial.
“The judge granted a continuance for ten days, that means ten business days, which are up nine calendar days from now, at ten o’clock on the morning of Friday, September tenth.”
“And they want us to bring him back? Can we do that? Just truss him up and drag him back across the border?”
Dugan raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “Technically speaking, yes, it is possible to bring someone back against their will. The question is, ought one to do so?
“For one thing, it’s considered kidnapping in Mexico and is against the law in most places — in fact, all places that I know of. Secondly, it makes you and the Agency liable for damage claims by the individual. So, while that might be an effective way to handle it, it’s not advisable.”
“Aren’t there treaties between countries for this kind of thing?”
“Sometimes. They’re called extradition treaties. We have an extradition treaty with Mexico. The problem is, its ponderous and expensive, and it often involves bribes at several levels.”
“Do we do bribes?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes, if the client can afford it. But not this time. Besides, we only have nine days.”
“Then how do we get him back? And do we even know where he is?”
“According to our client, Ronnie Ziegler is at a boarding house just across the river in Del Norte.”
El Paso and El Paso del Norte were one and the same town, which Mexico originally knew as El Paso del Norte. Except now it was split in two by the later addition of an international border along the river which flowed through the town. The Anglos on the American side, in typical fashion, had shortened the name to El Paso while the Mexican side was still called by the old name, El Paso del Norte, though Anglos often shortened even that to Del Norte.
“You mean the boy’s father can’t talk him into coming back?”
“According to our client, Mister Ziegler doesn’t want his son to come back. It’s the son who’s insisting that his father allow him to return.”
“But won’t the father lose his business if his son doesn’t return for trial? For that matter, how is he affording to pay us if he couldn’t pay for his son’s bail?”
“The Zieglers are not our clients. Enoch Yocum is our client. He’s the one Ronnie Ziegler stole the horse from and assaulted.”
I felt like I was missing something. “Let me understand this: Enoch Yocum — the victim — is willing to pay us fifty dollars up front and another hundred dollars on delivery if the boy is produced for trial. The boy wants to return for trial, but the father wants his son to remain in Mexico, even if it costs the father his business. Is that a fair description?”
“That’s pretty much on the nose,” Dugan allowed, adding, “Yocum had rented the horse from Ziegler the elder for stud use. He was taking it back to his stable when Ziegler the younger took the horse, assaulting Yocum during the theft.”
I frowned. “Enoch Yocum seems to have a pretty keen sense of justice. What did he pay for the stud fee?”
“Ten dollars for thirty days.”
“Must be a pretty good horse.”
“It’s a fine example of a palomino. Yocum wants to breed it.”
“And the boy won’t return it?”
“It was the boy’s horse — or rather his father’s, by rights. The boy raised it. And the horse has already been returned and is at Yocum’s place for the month. The theft was broken up by the anti-horse theft detective when he captured Ronnie.”
“I never heard of an anti-horse theft detective. What’s that about?”
“They work for anti-horse theft associations, though they go by different names and offer varying service. They’re essentially private vigilance committees organized by horse-breeder and horse-owner organizations in various locales. Most of them espouse horse identification standards, like branding and brand registries, and they promote uniform document-based bills-of-sale for the transfer of ownership. Some of them employ watchmen to patrol pastures and paddocks, and a few have detectives on their payroll, to trace stolen horses. As you might imagine, there are more of them back east, where there are more horses and more people. But there are some in the west, nowadays. In our case, the detective is from one of those outfits, the Greater Western Anti-Horse Theft Association out of Fort Smith, Arkansas.”
“Fort Smith? That throws a pretty wide loop.”
Dugan shrugged. “I imagine we’ll see groups organized closer to home as more breeders set up shop in Texas and get organized.”
“How does that anti-theft outfit figure into this case?”
‘The detective is a witness to Ronnie Ziegler attacking Enoch Yocum.”
“You’re saying that the detective was there when the horse was taken by the boy?”
Dugan nodded. “The detective shut the corral gate that kept Ronnie from escaping with the horse.”
“The boy stole the horse but never got it out of the corral?”
Dugan just shrugged in response.
The notion of it began to exasperate me. “This is starting to sound like a story that ends with a bad joke.”
Dugan nodded. “I’m hoping you can sort things out.”
“You haven’t told me how I can get the boy back across the border.”
“Why don’t you figure out what’s going on, first? Then we can talk about it.”
Resigned to unraveling a mare’s nest, I wearily agreed. “Where should I start?”
“The only common thread through the whole affair is the kid.”
“You think he’ll talk to me?”
“There’s an obvious way to find out.”
“You sure I can’t have a badge?”
The boarding house was on Avenida Vega, barley a stone’s throw from the Rio Grande and less than a half mile from where the new bridge was proposed. But the man who stepped out onto the shaded porche was older and angrier than the youthful Ronnie Ziegler I was expecting. This man stepped sullenly onto the covered front entrance, a scowl on his face, and a hand on a revolver that was tucked into the belt at his waist.
“What you want?” he snarled.
I was wearing what I thought of as my working-man’s suit, with the dungaree trouser’s, the canvas jacket, a collared shirt, and my pistol in a shoulder holster. So as not to provoke the man, I kept my hands low, away from my body.
I decided to take a guess. “Are you Helmut Ziegler, Ronnie’s father? My name is Judah Becker. I work for the Pinkerton Detective Agency. I’m not here to do anything other than ask a few questions.”
His scowl softened a bit — I hoped.
“What questions do you ask?” Now I could hear a German accent to his speech.
“Mister Ziegler, the Pinkerton Detective Agency has been hired to convince your son to return to El Paso for trial. However, the situation is confusing and I want to understand it better.”
“You are working for that Enoch Yocum?”
I shook my head. “Our policy is that we don’t say who’s hired us, Mister Ziegler. Our work is confidential.”
“I know it is Yocum. Verdammt. Er hat diese Scharade inszeniert. (Damn it. He has engineered this charade.) Uh, that bastard Yocum has, ah, he has, uhm, he has arranged this, ah, theater ... this play-acting. It is his doing. He wants Ronnie’s horse and he wants to put me out of business.”
I shrugged and shook my head, my expression intended to tell him I didn’t understand. “I’d like to understand everything that’s happened.”
He gave me an exasperated look and called, “Ronnie, komm bitte hier raus (please come out here).”
A tall, tow-headed young man stepped out the door. He displayed an uncertain smile on an otherwise pleasant face.
“Yes, Poppa?”
“Talk to this man, bitte. Explain it to him.”
I smiled at him and offered my hand. “Ronnie, my name is Judah Becker. I am in the employ of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. I’m supposed to convince you to come back to face trial.”
The strength of his grip suited his work-calloused hand. “That is what I want, Mister Becker. My father wants me to stay here.”
I looked over at the father, broader of shoulder but shorter than his son, though with the same blonde hair and, I presumed, a pleasant face when he wasn’t so angry. His back was to us as he was leaning, with outstretched arm, against a porch rail, and seemed to be watching the children playing along the river in the willow flats.
Addressing the boy, but facing the father’s back, I asked, “Ronnie, does your father realize that he could lose his business to the court if you don’t return?”
The father turned partially and said, over his shoulder. “Ja, ja (Yah, yah, yes.yes), I know dat.” Without turning to us, he waved his free hand and added, “Tell him, Ronnie.”
The boy looked uncertain and he frowned. Possibly stalling for time to compose his thoughts, he said, “Perhaps we can sit down, Mister Becker?” He gestured toward the front edge of the porch, the floor a raised sawn-lumber platform about four-by-eight feet and covered by a shed roof. There was little space for furniture, and there was none anyway, so we sat on the front edge of the wooden deck, our shoes resting on the sandy ground. Helmut sniffed once and seemed to wipe his eyes on a sleeve, then he turned toward us and sat down next to his son.
“I didn’t know my father had rented out Kaiser to Mister Yocum for stud. I was walking back to the stable and I saw Mister Yocum and another man leading Kaiser out of the corral. I knew Mister Yocum wanted to buy Kaiser, but my father wouldn’t sell him.
“When Mister Yocum saw me, he pointed toward me and said something to the other man, who I found out later was an anti-horse theft detective.”
At this point, I brought a small note pad from a jacket pocket, along with a stub pencil.
“What are you doing? What are you writing down?” Helmut demanded.
“Like I said, Mister Ziegler, I’m trying to understand this. I want to write down things so I can remember it later.”
He waved a dismissive hand, then stood up and began pacing the narrow strip of land between the porch and the street.
I said, “Please continue, son.”
“So, after Mister Yocum spoke to the detective, the man started toward me, looking angry.
“I thought they were stealing Kaiser, so I whistled to call him toward me. Kaiser turned to come to me, but Mister Yocum had hold of his bridle and wouldn’t let go. The detective heard Mister Yocum cursing, and he turned back toward the ruckus. Mister Yocum had a quirt and he started hitting Kaiser’s head with it. I picked up a horse turd from the street and threw it at Mister Yocum, hitting him on the shoulder.
“Kaiser pulled away and I climbed over the corral fence to calm him down. Then I jumped up on his back and made for the gate, but the detective swung it closed. The top rail is at five feet, so we had no hope of jumping it. Then the detective drew out a pistol and threatened to shoot Kaiser.
“When I climbed down, the detective clouted me with his pistol, and I woke up in a jail cell.”
Mister Ziegler stopped his pacing and turned toward me, a fist with pointed finger raised in obvious anger. “Dey waited in das corral for near an hour. When I asked varum, I mean, why dey was still der, dey said it was to make sure Kaiser was...
“Familiar,” the boy replied.
“Dey said to make Kaiser more familiar wit dem. But I tink dey was waiting for Ronnie to come back from the post office.”
I said, “You think they set it up so Ronnie would think they were stealing the horse?”
“Ja, ja, genau (Yes, yes, exactly).”
I knew a little German from my parents, not that I could speak it, but I recognized some words and phrases.
“But why should Yocum or anyone else be willing to pay us good money to bring Ronnie back? If someone wants your business, it’ll soon be auctioned at a sheriff’s sale.”
“Ja, but den de price may be five hundred dollars or more. If you bring Ronnie back, den Yocum offers to drop the charges — in exchange for Kaiser and my business location, right at der edge of town. He’ll get it all for whatever fee he pays you and does not have to go against other bidders in an auction. Enoch Yocum is not the first man that’s wanted to buy my business. Likely others would come to bid.” I noticed, as he calmed down, Ziegler’s English improved again.
I turned toward Ronnie. “Do you think your father’s right?”
He shrugged. “All I know is that all they had to do was tell me they’d paid my father a stud fee and I’d understood. Instead, Mister Yocum sent that detective after me.”
“Tell me that part again. Start from where you first saw them.”
“I had stopped by the feed store to place an order, then I went to the post office; I go there every morning. I was walkin’ back home and when I turned the corner, I saw two men in the corral with Kaiser. At first, I thought it would be my father and another man, but as I got closer, I realized neither of them was Pa.”
“I’ve asked you not to call me than, Sohnchen (Sonny).”
“I’m sorry, Vater.”
Trying to keep the impatience from my voice, I prompted, “So you realized neither man was your father. What then?”
“I started walking faster, and they saw me. When they turned toward me, I saw it was Miser Yocum with a bigger man I didn’t know. Mister Yocum pointed toward me and said maybe only a couple words to the detective. The detective put on a mean look and started toward me.”
“What made him seem to have ‘a mean look’?”
“Uh, well, he, uh, looked angry, I reckon, like I’d done something bad to him, like he had it in for me. The way he walked toward me looked like he wanted to wallop me.”
“Okay. Then what?”
“Well, Mister Yocum has a reputation for underhanded dealings, so I figured he was up to something with Kaiser. I whistled for Kaiser, then ran crosswise toward the corral fence, trying to get past the detective.”
“Does Kaiser know your whistle?”
The boy beamed. “I started teaching him that from when he was weaned. He’ll run to me when he hears it. I started out by giving him sugar, but now he just comes to me.”
“What happened after you whistled?”
“Kaiser tried to pull away from Mister Yocum, then Mister Yocum started hitting Kaiser with a quirt.”
“Where did he get a quirt?”
“He always carries it, on a thong he loops around his wrist.”
The elder Ziegler added, “He makes like the big man, snapping the quirt against his boot top or a counter to let people know he means business. Was fur ein Narr (What a fool.)”
“Go on, Ronnie,” I said.
“Mister Yocum was hitting Kaiser on his eyes. That’s when I picked up the dung and threw it.”
“Fresh dung? Dry dung? How much did you throw?”
“One turd ball. It wasn’t fresh, but it still had some weight. Maybe a few hours old.”
“They say you threw a rock.”
“If there’d been a rock, I’d a’ thrown it. But it’s all sand and clay along there. The only rocks are near the river.”
“Go ahead with your story.”
“Uhm, oh yeah. So the detective looked around about then and saw the trouble Kaiser was giving Mister Yocum, and he hurried back into the corral. But Mister Yocum had let go of Kaiser when the dung hit him, and Kaiser ran to the other end of the corral. I climbed over the fence and whistled for him, and he came right over. I tried to calm him down.”
What were Mister Yocum and the detective doing?”
“I don’t know. I was trying to gentle down Kaiser. They were behind me.”
“When did you first see them again?”
“When I mounted Kaiser.”
“Where were they then?”
“Pretty much where Mister Yocum had been when Kaiser pulled away, maybe thirty feet from the corral gate.”
“And what were they doing when you first saw them again?”
Ronnie paused a moment, in thought. Then he shrugged and said, “They were standing there, watching me and Kaiser.”
“Just standing there, not coming toward you?”
He shrugged again, “No, just standing there, watching.”
I nodded as I made a note. “Then what did you do?”
“I had Kaiser head for the gate.”
“Directly toward the gate, on a straight line?”
“Well, no. Mister Yocum and the detective were between us and the gate. I meant to ride around them.”
“Why ride around them?”
He looked at me in some confusion. “Well ... I mean ... It wasn’t ... I mean, I didn’t want to hurt anybody.”
“Then what happened?”
“The detective hurried to the gate, which had mostly swung closed. That’s how it was made to do. He reached it and closed it the rest of the way.”
“What was Mister Yocum doing?”
He shook his head, “I’m not sure. Oh — he started shouting. ‘Stop thief,’ and like that.”
“Did he come toward you?”
“Not that I saw.”
“Then what happened?”
“Well, the detective pulled a pistol from under his frock coat and pointed it at Kaiser. The he said, ‘Get down, kid, I won’t shoot you, but I’ll put a bullet into this animal’s head if you don’t get down right now.’
“So I got down, but Kaiser was still some jumpy, so I held his bridle and was talking to him when the detective clouted me.”
“You didn’t threaten the detective?”
“No,” he said, with emphasis.
“Did you call him any names?”
“No, I didn’t say anything to him or Mister Yocum at all.”
“You didn’t ask about them stealing your horse?”
“I was calming Kaiser. I was talking to him. The man had a gun. There was nothing I could do.”
“Anything else happen that you remember?”
Ronnie shook his head. “No, sir. Next thing I knew, I was on a bunk in a jail cell.”
Helmut Ziegler growled, “Dat Enoch Yocum, he set it up for my boy to go to jail.”
I leaned out a bit so I could look Helmut in the eye. Speaking in a distinct manner, I said, “Mister Ziegler, to be clear, you believe that Enoch Yocum goaded Ronnie into stealing Kaiser, while Yocum had possession. Then, he said he’d drop the charges in exchange for your business, as well as Kaiser. Is that what you believe?”
“Ja, just as you say. Yocum set it up.”
“How much did he offer to buy your business, before all this happened?”
“Three hundred fifty dollars.”
“How much did he offer for Kaiser?”
“Thirty-five dollars.”
“But the court accepted the deed as good for a five hundred dollar bond, and the value of the horse in the criminal complaint is set at sixty-five dollars.”
Dugan looked at me with a speculative frown. Then his face relaxed and he said, “So? Welcome to America. None of that is our concern. Can you get the boy to come back or not?”
“Probably, but that just makes us part of the scheme to steal from a hard-working man.”
He grimaced and shook his head. “Like I said, welcome to America. There’s nothing we can legally do about that.”
“But what Yocum is doing isn’t legal, either. They’re railroading that kid.”
“And what did Yocum do that’s illegal?” Dugan demanded.
He caught me out. “I don’t know. It just smells illegal.” Then something came to mind. “They said Ronnie threw a rock at Yocum when it was only a horse turd. That’s not a deadly weapon.”
“It may not be, but it’s still assault, under the law, and they say it was a rock.” He watched me stew for a few seconds, then asked, “Are you going to get that kid back here or not? If he doesn’t come back, he’ll have to live the life of a fugitive. If he does come back, his father loses a business site and a horse.”
That gave me another thought. “What would be included with the property bond Ziegler posted?”
“Typically, the deed to the property.
“Yeah, but what does that cover?”
“The land itself and any improvements.”
“Improvements? What’s that?”
“Things that were added to the land which are considered permanent and not ordinarily removable: buildings, fences, wells, and such, including trees that were planted, but not always crops in the ground.”
“So it wouldn’t include livestock?”
“No, but Yocum’s going to get that palomino horse, you can bet.”
“Ziegler has other horses. And I imagine he has metal stock, and smithing tools, and an anvil, and a bellows, and leather stock, saddles, tack, all manner of ... what-have-you — stuff that ain’t nailed down.”
“I would reckon,” Dugan allowed. “Why? What are you thinking?”
“Our only obligation — the Agency’s only obligation — is to get Ronnie back, right”
Hesitant, he said, “Yeah, pretty much.”
“What do you suppose all that’s worth?”
“All what’s worth?”
“Everything removable from the property? Ziegler’s other horses, and his tools, and all?”
“I don’t have any idea. What difference does it make?”
“I was just thinking...” In fact, I had been thinking that it would somehow help to buy all of that property from Ziegler and sell it back to him later. But I realized there would be no real benefit. “Never mind. It was just a wild hair.”
“Look, just do your job. There’s no fault in that. It’s legal and it’s what you’re paid to do, by your own agreement.”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
I found Ziegler loading tools and metal stock into a light freight wagon at his stable.
“What you want, Mister Becker?” He sounded surly.
“I see you’re already moving everything. I just came over to suggest that you do that.”
He paused and gave me a doubtful glare. He bobbed his head in a tell-me gesture and said, “What damn do you give, hah?”
“Look, Mister Ziegler, I know that someone set this up in order to steal your business and Ronnie’s horse. There’s nothing I can think of to do about that, believe me, I’ve tried. I just came by to...” I sighed heavily. “I don’t know why I came by. I just feel bad about this whole situation.”
He pointed to a two-inch thick, four foot by two foot plank and said, “Bring that board over here. You can help me move this anvil.
I brought Ronnie Ziegler back across the Rio Grande two days later, in the quiet of a Sunday morning in early September.
We rode on Ziegler’s freight wagon, which the old man had driven across to El Paso del Norte. Dugan was waiting for us at the river ford when we returned to the U.S. side. He climbed aboard for the ride up to the town marshal’s office where he’d arranged for us to meet with Deputy Juan Artigas.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.