The Creed of Violence by Boston Teran

Author:Boston Teran
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Fiction, Technology & Engineering, 1910-1920, Historical, Mexico, Petroleum industry and trade, Petroleum, Fathers and sons, Mexican-American Border Region, General, Literary, Historical fiction, Mexico - History - Revolution, Nineteen tens, Illegal arms transfers
ISBN: 9781582435251
Publisher: Counterpoint
Published: 2009-11-01T06:49:46.677767+00:00

PAT II

TWENTY-ONE

IRE ROAD TO Casas Grandes lay to the south. The father drove to occupy his time; the son fought to keep at bay the rising pain from the beating with the black stick that the road made all the more merciless. When he stopped to urinate, the dust around his boots ran wet with red.

"McManus knew his trade," said the father. "You'll be fine in a day or two. Or you won't."

They drove on in the shadow of barren mountains and the son came to see and understand they were being stripped down, mile after mile, one as much as the other, till there would be nothing left between them but who they truly were.

Out of nowhere the father said, "Hammer and anvil. Each will have its turn."

THEY FOLLOWED THE line of the rail tracks for hours and finally came upon Spartan columns of smoke rising above a stand of cottonwoods clinging to the banks of a sorry creek. The siding that was their destination came complete with water tower and warehouses and a repair shed for locomotives.

Approaching the river, they could see through the trees a camp had been established with well over a hundred men. Two trains were being outfitted for a journey. Spanning the narrow river was a slat bridge that had been retrussed to support the weight of trucks with cargo. A couple of wretched-looking gringos on the far side flagged them to stop. When asked their business, Rawbone handed over Hecht's note. One of them read it using a finger on each word before passing it back. He pointed with a filthy hand toward a campaign tent that had been set up in the dry grass beside where the trains were being readied. They would find Doctor Stallings there.

It was a formidable collection of ruffians they encountered driving through the camp and looking over those trains left no uncertainty wherever this expedition was going would be a long way and one should expect violence. The first train had a 0-6-0 locomotive and tender and an open coal car that was out front. The interior of the coal car was being rigged with a shooting platform. The second train had an imposing 4-8-0 Mastodon. That's what the son said the locomotive was named, as he had worked on them at the railyard in El Paso. Built for pulling heavy freight over mountains like the Sierra Madres, it would haul two passenger cars behind the tender, a boxcar after that for mounts, then three flatcars where tanker trucks were being hoisted up and lashed down and lastly another passenger car.

A campaign tent had been set up beside the last car, where about two dozen Mexican women were preparing a meal and setting it out on long tables.

Rawbone downshifted as he pulled up to the tent. The flap was pushed aside and stepping out into the hard daylight was the man John Lourdes had viewed in that flickering newsreel the night before at the funeraria.

Doctor Stallings was recently shaved and neatly attired in a gray suit.

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