Death in the Time of Pancho Villa: A Rose in Old El Paso Mystery

By Sandra Marshall

The in-laws are aghast when Rose Westmoreland boards a train alone, bound for the far edge of the country in search of her missing husband. Unthinkable for a lady in 1911. Now she's in El Paso, a city holding its breath, anticipating a spectacle. A decisive battle of the Mexican

• Language: English
• Publisher: Historia
• Release date: Aug 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781947915695

Sandra Marshall

Sandra Marshall was raised in Texas. She holds degrees in anthropology and public history and had an extended career as an archaeologist and architectural historian, primarily in the American Southwest. Now a writer and photographer, she lives in southern New Mexico with her husband, historian George Matthews, and tabby cat Fog. Recipient of the 2018 William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic Grant, she is a proud member of Sisters in Crime, Guppy Chapter.

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Sandra Marshall

DEATH IN THE TIME OF PANCHO VILLA

A Rose in Old El Paso Mystery

First published by Level Best Books 25 August 2020

Copyright © 25 August 2020 by Sandra Marshall

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Sandra Marshall asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

First edition

ISBN: 978-1-947915-69-5

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To my L.B.B

Thank you.

El Paso had been a small town, but it never was really small towny.

Timothy G. Turner

Bullets, Bottles and Gardenias

Chapter One

Monday, May 1, 1911

The Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe engine thrummed through the dusty late afternoon, south toward Texas. It lurched slightly as it rolled over the conjoining of two tracks, knocking my right elbow off the armrest, again. My forehead thumped against the window. Again. I’d been trying to doze, to at least temporarily forget about what I was doing.

What was I doing? The people I knew back in Shaker Heights lived life at a remove; they hired detectives to find missing spouses. No one, especially a woman, would pack a bag and buy a train ticket to the far edge of the country, where the mountains were bare of trees, the houses made of dirt, and the people just across a shallow, muddy, wadeable river were killing each other in a bloody revolution.

I straightened up, again, stretching my back. The slippery green horsehair upholstery worked with my gray wool traveling skirt to keep me sliding down onto my spine. I gave up trying to sleep, braced my toes against the lower edge of the seat in front of me, and stared out the window.

Leonard, my husband of three years, had taken this route two months ago, from Cleveland to El Paso by way of Chicago, St. Louis and Albuquerque, on an assignment from his employer, the Stoneman Petroleum Company. He was a loyal employee, a smart, hardworking accountant, who should normally have taken no time at all to find where funds were leaking out of the subsidiary office of Pearson-Woods Oil Company, plug the hole, and come back home where I waited, where we would decide whether or not we wanted to remain married. And if we did not, then what? Divorce was no longer unthinkable, but still embarrassing, even shaming for the upper middle-class family I had married into. Only undertaken for shameful reasons: adultery, beatings, abandonment. Not because the bride and groom found out, too late, that neither was the person the other had expected. Rose and Len, the ideal couple. Ha!

Since leaving Albuquerque that morning I had tried to distract myself by attempting to make sense of the strange landscape outside the passenger car window. To my right, the closest side, ran a broad ribbon of trees interrupted in places by plowed fields, some already green with crops, some still brown, but most with small channels of water running in straight lines through them. As the light changed throughout the day the channels changed color, sometimes sparkling silver, sometimes dark, almost black. At times they reflected, with the exactness of a highly polished mirror, the clouds hanging in the uncannily blue sky, as dense and white as freshly washed sheep’s wool, flipping the perspective upside down and making me slightly dizzy.

The land out the left side was like a different country. Long, dry, pebbly hills were covered with scraggly shrubs, all growing to an almost uniform height and covered with tiny, dark, olive-green leaves and minute yellow balls. Fruit or flowers? I couldn’t tell. The shrubs stood spaced as though they couldn’t bear to be too close, much like me and Leonard at a social gathering. Beyond these were intermittent lines of bare mountains, rising abruptly out of the earth, arching and then sinking again. Earlier in the day they had looked flat and black; now they were turning pink. In fact, everything, even the air, began to glow a rosy gold. A strange, all-over sort of sunset. Light seemed to radiate out of the trunks and leaves of trees, from the dry ground, and from the occasional mud brick house or wall and I, enchanted and disbelieving, stared. Then, as if it could no longer sustain the glory, the color gave up and, within a few minutes, faded to blue-gray.

Night came on quickly now and my worries became more immediate and practical. Would I be able to find a safe and decent place to stay if I had to be there any length of time? I didn’t know where Leonard stayed. He had instructed me to send his mail to general delivery, El Paso. In his letters he had described the low, flat-roofed hovels made of mud bricks, even plastered with mud, like something from Stanley’s adventures in Africa. His postcards showed brown, barefoot children piled two or three on the backs of small donkeys. Was that the normal means of transportation in this unlikely place?

The train began curving to the left, toward a gap in the mountains. Of course, El Paso. It meant the pass. As we approached, a different kind of glow began to separate itself into three entities. Out of the opposite windows I thought I glimpsed the Gates of Hell. From the tops of four columns, smokestacks rising high into the sky, rolled black, gray, and yellow smoke, tinted infernal shades of red on the bottom from the lights of buildings below. What on earth was this and what was it doing here, in the middle of nowhere? Out of the window next to me was a broad flatness, like a darkened mirror, reflecting the pink clouds of perdition roiling above. Beyond this, in the darkening shadows, were what seemed to be campfires, perhaps a hundred or more, flickering yellow and orange. Who did these belong to? Maybe Red Indians?

The engine began slowing as it approached the third glow. Shapes sorted themselves out. Houses, made of red brick, not mud, with porches and peaked roofs. Buildings, large ones, some looking like warehouses, some like tall hotels or office buildings; And lines of what appeared to be electric streetlights. A city. Had I been on the wrong train all this time? But, no. The conductor made his way through the car calling "El Paso. All out for El Paso. Ya llegamos a El Paso."

The slowing wheels screeched against the rails. I pushed myself upright, again, slid the suit jacket on over my white shirtwaist, and pulled my small portmanteau from under the seat. I’d packed only the one bag, dreading having to wrestle baggage through train stations and hoping that anything extra I might need could be purchased in this back of nowhere. It now seemed that would not be a problem. Caroline, my camera, had ridden beside me on the seat in her leather case with the folding tripod strapped to it.

The train squealed and hissed to a stop next to the depot, a large red brick building with a square, steeple-topped tower on one corner. The passengers stood up and shuffled to either end of the car. As a porter handed me down, I asked him about finding a respectable hotel.

Yes, ma’am. Go straight through the building here, out to the front of the depot. They’ll be a mess of streetcars parked there. Get on the one with the MESA sign on it. It’ll take you straight to San Jacinto Plaza. Four or so real nice hotels around the plaza. Lots of folks are partial to the Sheldon.

The Sheldon?

Yes, ma’am.

Thank you.

Yes, ma’am!

Even at this hour the two-story lobby echoed with voices welcoming, saying goodbye, and calling for porters. At least I assumed that’s what I heard, because half of it was in Spanish. The rapping of men’s boots and the tapping of women’s high-buttoned shoes on the elaborate mosaic floor merged with the voices rising above the mezzanine that wrapped around the four sides of the huge room, and up to the arched windows just below the ceiling. Ornate wall sconces threw rays of light up between the windows, like multiple rising suns. I hadn’t expected anything like this.

I exited the front doors and there were the streetcars, just as the porter had said. As I maneuvered to climb the steps of the MESA car, with my portmanteau in one hand, Caroline in the other, and trying to clutch enough of my skirt to keep myself from stepping on it and tripping myself, the conductor reached down and hauled up the bag.

Here you go, ma’am.

Thank you. Ma’am again. Must be peculiar to this part of the country. Can you tell me when we get to San Jacinto Plaza? I’m looking for the Sheldon Hotel.

Yes, ma’am. Let you right off in front.

The streetcar rolled off on rails laid down the center of the broad street, rods running from the roof to the overhead electric lines giving off sparks at the connections. Now that I was actually here, weariness was quickly catching up with me. I wanted to look around, but my eyes kept drooping. I caught glimpses of people walking on wide concrete sidewalks. Darkened shop windows, bright restaurant interiors. Horse-drawn carriages, some carts hitched to mules, here and there an automobile. Round-globed electric streetlights rhythmically flickered by. Mesmerizing.

Here you go, ma’am. Hotel Sheldon.

My head jerked up. I had dozed off.

I climbed down in front of a five-story red brick building with an elegantly columned entrance marred by a huge electric star and signs spelling out HOTEL SHELDON and CAFÉ DOWNSTAIRS in blazing light bulbs. A hanging sign bearing the blue-and-white Bell Telephone logo swung underneath. As the streetcar pulled away I looked around to see what kind of a place I had landed in. Catty-corner across the street, figures strolled in a pleasant-looking square. Directly across stood an office building at least ten-stories high with the top still under construction. Suddenly a flash of light made me blink. On the roof of a building several blocks away a scaffolding supported three words stacked one on-top the other, all made up of lightbulbs and each a full story high: USE/ ELECTRIC/ LIGHTS.

I hitched up Caroline and my bag and dragged my exhausted self in through the open doors and down the long marble-paneled lobby lined with chairs full of men reading newspapers, chatting and smoking cigars. A few were accompanied by bored-looking women. Male heads turned as I approached the marble front desk.

Can I help you, madam?

Yes. I need a room with a private bath, please.

May I ask, ah, are you alone? The clerk twitched his graying mustache nervously and glanced behind me. The Hotel Sheldon doesn’t usually cater to single female guests.

I sighed heavily. Tending since childhood to be short-tempered when tired, I’d been forever chastised, first by my mother then my mother-in-law, for unladylike comments and sarcastic retorts. But right now I didn’t care.

Sir, I don’t know what you are implying, but I’m too tired to argue. I leaned forward and looked him in the eye. I just came straight through by train from Cleveland, Ohio, to meet my husband. I can’t contact him until tomorrow. The Sheldon was recommended to me, but if you can’t find me a room I’m sure there are other hotels that accommodate respectable women.

Behind me voices called out.

That’s right, ma’am. You tell ’im.

Yah, Roberts. Can’t you tell she’s a lady?

Leave it to olʽ Bobsie to mistake a lady for a floozy. He don’t know many of either one.

Ceptin’ maybe his mother.

My unasked-for defenders laughed. The clerk, apparently named Roberts, raised his eyebrows in alarm and took a step back.

My apologies, madam.

He turned the register around, dipped the pen, and handed it to me. As I signed, he retrieved a key from the wall of pigeon holes behind him and set it on the counter.

I’m afraid the room is small, he glanced at my signature, Mrs. Westmoreland. We have a lot of guests just now, in anticipation of the battle, you know. But it does have a private bath. Juan will help you with your bags.

He tapped the desk bell and a small brown-complected boy in a red brass-buttoned uniform trotted up to the desk and reached for my bag and Caroline’s case.

I’ll carry my camera, I said and gave Juan my bag.

Oh, said the clerk, you’re a photographer lady. I should have realized that you weren’t…but then some are so well-mannered. I mean…never mind. Please enjoy your stay.

***

My irritation with the clerk floated away in the hot bath I had drawn for myself. The incident had really been pretty amusing, all in all. Had he said something about a battle? I must have misunderstood. I dried off and slipped into my shift. I thought I’d lie down for a few minutes before dressing and going down to dinner.

***

I woke up, still in my shift, to light coming through the window shade. It was Tuesday morning. I’d fallen asleep the night before and missed dinner. So, where to start? With breakfast. And then finding a decent boarding house. I didn’t know how long I’d need to be here, and the cost of a hotel would add up quickly. Under the circumstances, I didn’t want to ask my in-laws for money if I didn’t have to.

Standing in front of the mirror, pinning up my hair, I paused to take stock of myself. People considered me attractive, but I would never have called myself beautiful. Middling height, middling good figure. My large brown eyes were my best feature. If only I’d been a little taller and my brown wavy hair a bit redder. Ah, well. I locked my room and went down to the lobby.

A different clerk stood behind the big counter, a cheerful and expansive young man in a natty plaid suit and carefully waxed moustache. A small bellboy in an oversized red uniform dozed on a stool behind him

Good morning, Miss… He glanced at my left hand. Ah, Mrs.…?

Westmoreland.

Mrs. Westmoreland. The photographer lady! Seems my arrival the night before had been a topic of conversation. I hope you slept well. I apologize for the small room. So many people in town for the battle, as you know. Just milling around over there so far, but when the shooting starts there’ll be plenty of opportunities for pictures. You can do well in the postcard trade if you can get some action shots. Firing squads sell like hotcakes. Is there anything we can do for you in the meantime?

He paused and smiled widely as though he hadn’t just been speaking alarmingly violent gobbledygook. I decided to remain composed and carry on as though he were really sane.

No, I’m just going downstairs for some breakfast. But I may be here for a week or so. Do you know how I might find a respectable ladies’ rooming house?

Yes, ma’am. Things are tight right now because of the upcoming battle, like I said. But the best way is to check notices in the newspaper. Here you go. He handed a neatly folded copy of the El Paso Morning Times across to me. Complements of the Sheldon. And, oh—he leaned over the counter and lowered his voice—if you see any notices for female boarding on South Utah Street, I’d skip those, if you know what I mean. He lowered his eyes and gave a small knowing nod.

I lowered my voice, too. I’ll remember that. Thank you.

Yes, ma’am.

I think I knew what he meant, but was a little surprised to hear a hotel clerk giving out that kind of advice to a guest. I smiled and turned away to look for the restaurant. A sign over a flight of stairs leading down read CAFÉ. At the bottom landing a maître d’ approached, smiling deferentially.

Good morning, ma’am. Are you meeting anyone?

No, just myself.

I see. He looked disappointed.

He led me to a small table behind a potted palm and asked if I wanted coffee. While I waited, I opened the newspaper. HOT FIGHTING IN SONORA. I didn’t think that was anywhere near. MADERO ACTING FOR ALL REBELS—SAYS HE WILL ABIDE BY TREATY. That sounded promising. No battles around here, only peace talks. Maybe the clerk really was addled. NO AMERICAN MONEY IN REVOLT. Well, of course not. What intelligent person would get involved in that!

A waiter brought coffee and I ordered toast. I turned to page eleven, the classifieds, found Rooms, board, etc., and skimmed down the column. Furnished room with housekeeping. No sick. Nice cool furnished room. Not much to tell places apart. Large comfortable room with board, Sunset Heights. Mrs. Garlick. Phone 2084.

Sunset Heights. It sounded romantic. And Mrs. Garlick! I pictured a large, smiling garlic bulb wearing a Mother Hubbard and holding a broom, and chuckled silently. For some reason Leonard always found my little flights of fancy annoying. I’d learned to keep them to myself. The waiter returned with my toast.

Excuse me. Are you familiar with the Sunset Heights neighborhood? Is it a nice area? Oh, yes, ma’am. Nice uptown neighborhood. Lots of rich folks building houses there. Even some well-to-do Mexican families. I hear that General Villa’s main wife has a house there. Can I get you anything else?

Just when things began feeling normal, more like home, someone here slipped in another cryptic remark. General Villa’s main wife. The waiter seemed to think it was an attribute. After all, it was the main wife, not some subsidiary wife.

I finished breakfast and now I needed to find a telephone. As I stood and turned in the direction of the stairs, my face squarely met the chest of a monster of a man. I staggered back a step, my eyes watering from the pain in my nose, the billow of dust rising from the man’s jacket, and the overwhelming smell of old perspiration. Looking down at me over a black walrus mustache were two black, coldly-burning eyes. I involuntarily gasped and stepped back.

"Eh, Fierro. Stop scaring the gringas."

This came from another mustachioed man sitting at a table, wearing a not-too-clean chesterfield jacket, a round-brimmed wide-awake hat, and tall gaiters with multiple buckles up the sides. He took a pull from a bottle of strawberry soda, then smiled sweetly. He resembled a weather-beaten Buddha.

The giant, bowing slightly, muttered "Perdón, señora," and joined the other man. They put their heads together and began whispering intently in Spanish, not looking in my direction. Flustered, I turned and walked back upstairs to the lobby, fingering my tender nose.

Back at the front desk I borrowed the telephone and gave the operator the number from the paper. After three rings a warm female voice said Hello. Martha Garlick speaking.

I quickly explained what I was looking for and she said Well, hon’, I think we can fix you up. Where are you now? Oh, the Sheldon. Well, you can catch the Heights streetcar right at the front door, take it up Oregon Street. She gave me the house number. Yellow house on the corner. We’ll be expecting you.

***

I got off the streetcar at the corner of Oregon and Rio Grande and looked around. The neighborhood was on a high point. Between the mostly new bungalows I could look out over the rooftops below, over the railroad lines, to the river. At this point it was a wide and winding swath of