It is January of 1915 when destiny and a dangerous scheme bring two former West Point classmates together once again. Samuel Jenkins has lured Daniel Taylor to Terlingua, Texas, with the promise of earning high wages at a quicksilver mine. Although Taylor suspects Jenkins' motives, he has no idea that Jenkins is secretly hoping to involve him in a fraudulent deal to rob Pancho Villa of his remaining wealth before the war ends. Upon arriving, Taylor forms a tenuous friendship with a naïve commander who is awed by Taylor's experiences, yet disturbed by his relationship with infamous war profiteers. It is not long before Lieutenant Jack Thompson is ordered to assist Marshal Navarro, who repeatedly uses the young commander and his soldiers as violent instruments of his unique form of border justice. Ultimately, when Navarro bushwhacks Taylor and Jenkins during the Second Punitive Expedition into Mexico, the Lieutenant is forced to make an agonizing choice between duty and friendship. Populated with dynamic characters drawn from the 1910 Mexican Revolution, Boquillas Crossing weaves a lively tale of adventure, deception, and love as it celebrates monumental historical events and the natural beauty of the Big Bend region of far west Texas.

BOQUILLAS CROSSING

By Rawles Williams

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Rawles Williams
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4697-3925-0

Chapter One

Texas, West of the Pecos River

January 14, 1915

Daniel Taylor woke to the sway of a moving train and the sound of an old man talking. It took him a moment to orient to his transient surroundings. He sat upright and yawned.

"A good morning to you, sir," called the gray-bearded conductor from two rows forward in the train car where he had been chatting with another passenger.

Daniel acknowledged the conductor with a nod. "Good morning." He looked past his own reflection in the darkened window, where the pale orange glow of daylight reflected a menacing line of blue-black clouds along the northern horizon. "What time is it?"

The conductor fingered the gold watch that dangled from his wool vest and walked toward Daniel. "Ten minutes past eight o'clock."

Daniel turned up his jacket collar and stared through the drafty window. "That looks like a storm coming."

"It does indeed. That storm looks and feels like a blue norther'," said the conductor. "It was seventy-five degrees here yesterday, and today it might snow. The damned weather here in the Big Bend appears to have a mind of its own."

Daniel smiled at the old man's joke and pulled a blue glass bottle from his jacket pocket. As he did so, a piece of paper fell to the floor. Daniel retrieved the fallen paper, a telegram from Samuel Jenkins. Samuel had been Daniel's army companion in Cuba. He now claimed to be a commodities broker, trading cattle for munitions with Villa's army. Although Daniel suspected that much of Samuel's business included contraband, he had allowed his old friend to entice him into accepting employment as a smelter engineer at a quicksilver mine in Terlingua, Texas.

"Why is this place called the Big Bend?" asked Daniel, stuffing the telegram back into his pocket.

The conductor laughed. "Can you picture a map of Texas?"

"Yes I can," said Daniel.

"As the Rio Grande flows from El Paso to Del Rio, it forms a large elbow before running to the Gulf of Mexico; therefore, Texans call this region of the Texas Trans-Pecos, the Big Bend."

"I see," said Daniel. "What time are we due to arrive in Marathon?"

"Around four o'clock this afternoon," replied the conductor. "Your accent sounds Appalachian."

"You're correct."

"Where are you from, sir?" the conductor asked.

"I was born and raised in Eastern Tennessee, near Johnson City."

"What brings you to Marathon?"

"I have employment in Terlingua."

"Terlingua?" said the conductor. "How did you manage to find employment in such a remote location? Do you know people here?"

"A friend from El Paso secured my employment."

"It's good to have influential friends."

"Yes it is, if their intentions lack subterfuge," said Daniel with a laugh. In dealing with Samuel, Daniel had learned to anticipate a certain amount of pretense.

"What is your profession?"

"I'm an engineer."

"You look more like a soldier than an engineer," said the conductor.

"I was a soldier, but now I'm an engineer." Daniel laid an arm over the seat rest and twisted to one side, then the other, adjusting his spine with audible cracks.

"Did you serve in the Philippines?"

"Yes, and in Cuba," said Daniel.

"How exciting!" the conductor exclaimed.

"Not really. War is a terrible business, regardless of the cause."

"Did you fight with Roosevelt?"

"Not under his direct command, but in the same vicinity."

"Is this your first trip west of the Pecos?"

"Yes," replied Daniel, lifting his brimmed hat and running a hand through his gray-streaked auburn hair, currently longer than he normally wore it.

"Settlement has changed things a great deal," said the conductor, launching into a boredom-inspired monologue. "For instance, when I first arrived in the Big Bend there were no trains. A man had to walk or ride a horse to get from one place to another. It was the winter of 1884, and the Mescalero Apaches were angry about our government's insistence that they stay on their reservation in New Mexico. Why in those days ..."

Only half-listening to the conductor's long-winded story, Daniel opened the blue glass bottle he had been holding and drank two swallows of the bittersweet laudanum. The conductor talked without interruption about far-west Texas while Daniel's mind drifted to arriving in Marathon—the anticipation of a decent meal, a hot bath, and a good night's sleep between clean sheets.

Yawning, Daniel returned the laudanum bottle to his jacket pocket, nodded at the talkative conductor, closed his eyes, and embraced the narcotic bliss of dreamless sleep.

Chapter Two

Marathon, Texas

"Marathon, Texas!"

Daniel sat upright on the wooden bench, gathered his hat, and admired the white steeple of a neatly kept church surrounded by a tight cluster of ramshackle adobe homes. Outside the train, a lone cowboy hurried past, guarding his eyes against the wind with his hand, his scarf tied tight around his face.

"Marathon, Texas!" called the conductor again as he passed forward through the train.

Daniel followed the conductor onto the platform, held his hat by the brim, dipped a shoulder into the wind, and turned toward the baggage car to collect his freight: saddle, rifle, lariat, rain slicker, bedroll, and saddlebags that contained a change of clothes and other necessities. He could carry all of his possessions if the distance was not too far.

After collecting his baggage and squinting against the wind, Daniel moved toward the station and fought the wind as he opened and then closed the station door. Inside, he piled his gear against a wooden bench. The station lobby was empty except for a crackling cast-iron stove. Daniel pulled off his gloves and warmed himself at the stove. Through the barred ticket window, he heard muffled quips of the conductor's conversation with an unseen man inside the station office. Rocking on his boot heels in front of the stove, Daniel alternately warmed his hands, and then his backside.

"Safe travels, sir," called the conductor, passing through the station lobby and back onto the train.

Daniel nodded at the conductor then turned again to face the stove.

The stationmaster was perched on the stool behind the ticket counter, his trousers barely containing his poorly buttoned white shirt. He picked at his bald head and examined the newly arrived stranger. This stranger stood with a straight spine. He was lean and muscled, six-feet tall or more. His face was weather beaten, but he was not like the local desert folks. With obvious curiosity, the stationmaster asked, "Are you in need of a horse, mister?"

"Why? Have you got one back there you're in need of selling?" said Daniel, enjoying the warmth of the stove, not turning to face the stationmaster.

"No, sir, I didn't mean to pry. You certainly don't appear to be a man looking for day labor."

"No, I'm not," said Daniel, his steel-gray eyes glancing over his shoulder at the stationmaster.

"I mean, although you look like a man familiar to hard work, you don't present yourself like the typical sun-baked cowboy around these parts."

Daniel continued to look at the stationmaster but did not respond. He rubbed his hands together in front of the stove, then turned and stared past his reflection in the window, studying the storm.

The stationmaster cleaned his glasses with a white kerchief, inspecting his spectacles against the window light. "What is your destination?"

A cold wind rattled the windowpane. "Terlingua is...