Chapter 87

“Martinez, Moses and I have a business question to ask you,” Eli said as they settled into their seats for the last part of their trip down to El Paso.

“Si, Marshal Eli, what business will it be?”

“I heard you and Don Cowden talking about cattle prices the day you arrived at Pecan Ridge and you told him cattle was selling for eighteen American dollars in Mexico.”

“Si, we have been trying to sell our big herd, but no one has dinero.”

“Would you sell the whole herd for twenty dollars American, per head?”

“Marshal Eli, that is five dollars more than we were told last year, are you sure?”

“Moses wants to buy your entire herd and we’re going to take them back to Pecan Ridge. We’ve bought a big valley northeast of the new lands and we’ll take them up there when we get back.”

“Papâ will be a very happy man, Marshal. He was so worried that we will never see our cattle again, now we are getting the best price. How many American dollars will that be?”

“Two hundred thousand if you have exactly ten thousand head.”

“That is mucho, mucho American dollars. We will take it already!”

“When we get down to El Paso, you need to send your vaqueros over to see about the cattle before sunup. Tell them to make sure they’re still there and to see how many men are watching them. We may change our plans and have them drive the cattle across the Rio Grande at the same time we hit that hacienda and rescue Rosa.

“That is if all goes well,” Eli added.

El Paso, Texas
April 30, 1889

“Yes Sir, I want to send a telegraph message to the main man with the ATSF railroad back in Kansas City, Missouri,” Eli told the telegraph operator as the man looked up.

“You mean the main bossman over the whole she-bang?”

“Yep, I can’t think of his name, but he knows me.”

“Tell me what you want to say and we’ll send it on up there. You know it’s mighty early for some folks back there to be at work, don’t you?”

“Yep, but send it and I’ll come back later on to see if you’ve got an answer. Be sure and put urgent on it, so they’ll know to get it to him.”

“What was it you wanted to tell him?”

Marshal Eli Crow needs two hundred forty cattle cars

Las Cruces New Mexico Territory

As soon as possible

“What in the hell would you need that many cattle cars for? There’s not that many cows up there in that town!”

“There will be when I drive my cattle up there.”

“You fixin’ to buy a few herds of Mexican cattle?” The man asked as he tapped out the message on his clicker.

“Yep. That is if they still got a good deal on all of them when we get there.”

While Eli was in the train station, Moses had the four Kansas boys put the thirteen extra horses in a corral at the livery stable until they checked out the place across the border, just upriver from El Paso where the Rio Grande bends back north into New Mexico Territory.

“Moses, I got the telegraph message sent. Did Martinez send his vaqueros to check on the herd?” Eli asked as he met Moses and the others out by the rail yard where their horses were tied.

“He sent them as soon as they were saddled up. Here he comes now,” Moses said as Martinez rode up on his horse.

“Martinez, if you’re gonna show us that place before sunup, we better ride,” Eli told him.

“Si. Let us ride Amigos,” Martinez said, spurring his horse as he rode off into the darkness.

They rode hard for over an hour before Martinez suddenly raised his hand and slowed his horse when they came to a big bend in the river. He pointed to the lights across the Rio Grande that were reflecting on the water in the pre-dawn light.

The outline of the hacienda was well lit by lanterns hung from atop the adobe walls and along the upper level of the second floor balcony. The walls extended toward the river over a hundred and fifty feet from each end of the hacienda, ending just a few feet from the high bank of the river.

In the yellow glow of the lanterns, the garden plants, trees and flowers could be seen. The walkways were lined with small, neatly trimmed bushes.

At the end of each adobe wall near the river, there was a sleeping guard sitting on a small ledge, leaning back against the wall with his sombrero down over his face. There was a rifle leaning against the end of the wall beside each of the sleeping guards.

Atop both walls, there was an armed guard leaning against the corner of the hacienda where the walls joined it.

“Four guards is all I see, Martinez. Do you see anymore?” Eli whispered as they hunkered down across the river.

“No. Four is all I see. Sometimes when we are here, we see more in the garden. Then when they bring Rosa to the garden, there will be another young woman with her.

“When sun is up and Rosa is bathing, there are more guards who stand and watch her bathe,” Martinez told them.

“You mean she bathes naked in front of them every day?” Albert asked.

“Si, but Rosa, she’s in a dream, like she was not good awake.”

“They drug her all the time? She must be addicted to that pêyotê by now!” Albert said, with a look of anger on his face as he looked at Eli and Moses.

“Pêyotê not like that. Last one day then gone.”

“You’ve taken it too?” Albert asked.

“I have chewed the pêyotê button and drink the tea also.”

“They make tea with it too?” Eli asked.

“Si, cook the button to make the drink. It too will make one see things in a dream.”

The group moved back away from the river’s edge as the sun came up. To be sure they were hidden, the men were over a hundred yards from the river, looking through their binoculars, spotting scopes and rifle scopes as they watched the hacienda for signs of movement from behind rocks and thick brush.

They waited for close to an hour before anyone came from a door on the upper level.

“There she is! There is Rosa! Mi Dios está desnuda!“ Martinez all but yelled when his sister walked out onto the balcony naked.

“I have never seen her so bold. I know they must kept her drugado and sedado!”

“Maybe she kept trying to escape and they did this to keep from locking her up,” Eli offered as they watched the beautiful young Mexican woman walk across the balcony, never stopping as she turned and paced back and forth.

“Martinez, no offense, but your sister Rosa is a beautiful woman, just as your younger sisters back at Pecan Ridge,” Albert told him truthfully, hoping to calm him down a little.

“Si, Alberto. Gracias. This hurts for hermano to see hermana this way,” he said, reflecting about a brother seeing his sister with no clothes.

“Martinez, I know how you feel. My sister Rose was the victim of a kidnapping. She was raped by the men. I killed every last one of them son-of-a-bitches!” Eli said, never taking his eyes off the scene across the river.

“The young woman with her is leading her inside now,” Amos Curtis said as they watched Rosa disappear through the door she’d come from earlier.

“She will come to the garden soon and bathe. Please do not think Rosa is a bad girl. She would never do this at home.”

As the men watched from across the Rio Grande, Rosa was led from the hacienda out into the garden area where she slowly walked to the small pool. The young girl with her also stripped, and both of them stepped down into the pool.

“Now the guards put down the guns and watch when Rosa and her friend come to bathe. Now would be the time to kill them and steal Rosa away from there,” Martinez said as they looked the scene over.

There was no way the men could look away from the two beautiful, naked young women. Both were tall and voluptuous in stature and their wet bronze skin glowed in the early sunlight.

“We’ll come back tomorrow and take Rosa from them, Martinez. Before sunup, I’ll kill the guards at the ends of the wall. Moses and Willis will take care of the ones standing atop the walls. Amos, Jubal, Roy, and Jeno will take care of any others who may come out when the shooting starts.

“You and Albert will need to be ready to grab Rosa and her friend. I see no reason to leave that girl, since she’s being drugged also,” Eli laid out the plan of attack as they watched from across the river.

“Stay down and lets get out of here. There’s nothing we can do now that won’t get those girls hurt or killed. We’ll come back in the dark tomorrow morning and take the guards by surprise,” Eli told them, motioning for them to leave.

On the way back to town, they met the vaqueros. They were told that there were only a few men staying with the herd and they were camped near the river.

Back at the train station, Eli was happy to have a reply from the railroad man in Kansas City about his need for cattle cars.

Eli Crow El Paso TX stop

One fifty arrive L C two days stop

One hundred in three days stop

“Martinez, can your four vaqueros handle the rustling of that many Longhorns, or do we need to send some more men?” Eli asked as the men relaxed in the shade of the El Paso train station.

“From what we saw back there at the hacienda this morning, we can send two more men to help with the cattle.”

“Marshal Eli, I have already talked with them about that. They will cross the river in the night and will take away the other vaqueros watching the herd. They will start to move the herd slowly toward the river and before the sun is rising up, they will have them across the water into Nuevo Mexico. From there, they will make them run. Once they start to run, they will follow the lead bull directamente a través de las puertas del infierno.“

“I’m beginning to catch a little of your Mexican words now, you said something about them Longhorns following that bull straight through the gates of hell,” Moses said as he grinned at Martinez.

“Si, Moses. You are learning to speak Mexican good.”

“Marshal, me and Jeno will go with them. We want to help Martinez and his family get their cattle back,” Jubal Hooker spoke up.

“Jeno, do you agree with your brother?” Eli asked, looking at Jeno’s smiling face.

“I want to help them too, Marshal. Martinez is going to help Jubal and me get permission from his Papâ to court Ana and Silvia when we get back,” he said, looking from Martinez to Eli, grinning at both of them.

“Martinez, will your Papâ let these men court your sisters? Will you want them to court and maybe marry your sisters?” Eli asked, wanting to be sure the young men weren’t being led on.

“Marshal, Papâ has told the sisters they can court these brothers. He likes these two Kansas hombres for being happy and making his daughters smile again.”

“What about Roy and Amos? Will they have permission to court Louisa and Marita once we return?”

“Si. Papâ say he like all the Kansas hombres really, really good.”

“I like them too, Martinez and I wanted to be sure they get what they’re expecting for this. These men and Albert are putting their lives on the line for your family.”

“Si, and my family are very agradecido, how you say? Thankful?”

“You and your family are good people, Martinez. We’ll help all of you in the coming years, even the four young vaqueros.”

“Then we will always be very thankful to you, and your friends and familia, Marshal.”

“Lets get some grub and rest up. We’ll be up most of the night getting things set up. Hell, I never had a thought I’d be down here planning a raid on Mexico one day,” Eli told them.

“Si Marshal. You are a good man to do this for us. Now we go for a fiesta and a siesta, then we will be ready for the sun coming up.

“Come, follow me and we will go to the cantina to eat. The best of Mexican food is cooked here also,” Martinez said as he stood.

El Paso, Texas
May 1, 1889

“Moses, Willis, lets get ‘em kicked out of their bedrolls and get ‘em awake. We got a job to do and I been seeing lightning flash back in the west.”

“Maybe a good rainstorm would help us do what we gotta do, Eli. After we get Rosa out from that place, that is,” Moses said as they drank the last of their coffee and stuffed their tin cups down into their bedrolls.