To forestall him, Stuart said, "1 do hope you will remember, the Apaches arc our allies."
"Oh, si, General Stuart, I remember this." Salazar's eyes flashed. He might remember, but he didn't like it for hell. He needed a deliberate effort of will to set aside his anger. Stuart watched him make it. Like ocean waves with oil poured over them, his face smoothed. "I don't want to talk about no Apaches."
"That's good," Stuart said equably. "What do you want to talk about, then?"
"We have a ball tonight," Salazar said, "to commence when the sun go down. We have dancing and music and good food and mescal. You do us the honor to come? You and so many officers from your country-officers from this country now, I should say-you want to bring?"
If Cananca boasted good food, Stuart had yet to see it. The locals mostly ate atole, a cornmeal gruel that reminded him of library paste.
Sometimes they enlivened it with chilies that would have made a man sweat at the North Pole, let alone in the middle of the Sonoran desert. As for mescal, it gave the vilest North Carolina moonshine a run for its money. Major Sellers swore the Mexicans distilled the stuff from kerosene, but that oath came the morning after a night of copious indulgence.
As much as anything else, curiosity impelled Stuart to say, "Thank you very much, Senor Salazar. My men and I will be there." Wickedly, he added, "Does your generous invitation also extend to the leaders of the Indians?"
"Maybe we do that," Salazar said, but he made no effort to hide his scorn for the Apaches. "We do it before. We get them plenty drunk, get them loco with mescal, then kill all we can. We do it three, four times, every few years. Stupid Apaches come every time. They like to drink plenty mescal."
"And you wonder why the ones you don't kill want to kill you?" Stuart said. The alcalde's answering shrug was as old as time. Whether Mexicans had first wronged Apaches or Apaches Mexicans no longer mattered much. Each side had been going after the other for so long, the CSA would need lots of years or lots of troops or more likely both to bring firm order here.
"You will come, and not the Indians?" Senor Salazar persisted.
"We will come, and not the Indians," Stuart agreed. Salazar bowed stiffly from the waist and departed.
As soon as he was gone, Geronimo and Chappo hurried up to Stuart. "What did he want?" Geronimo demanded. Stuart could hear the hard suspicion underlying the Apache words even before Chappo translated. "That man is a rattlesnake in stupid Mexican clothes. He would murder every one of us if he had the way and the courage to do it."
That being obviously true, Stuart ignored it. "What he said had nothing to do with you," he answered, which wasn't true but would keep the lid on the kettle. "He invited me and some of my officers to a ball in town tonight."
"Ah," Geronimo said when that was translated. He knew what a ball was, and what accompanied it. "Mescal." Longing filled his voice. He ran his tongue over his lips. Stuart hadn't altogether believed Senor Salazar's claim that the Apaches would frequently come into town for ardent spirits and lay themselves open to massacre. The warriors he'd seen in action had appeared too level-headed for that. Now, he decided the alcalde had been telling nothing but the truth.
The explanation did satisfy the old medicine man and his son. To Stuart's relief, they didn't seek to invite themselves to the ball. The commander of the Trans-Mississippi had no trouble finding enthusiastic celebrants among his officers. Those who held a high opinion of senoritas were eager to dance and drink with them; those who held a low opinion were even more eager.
At the appointed hour, Stuart led his contingent of officers into Cananea's central square. An orchestra of two drums, two fiddles, and an accordion greeted them with a squeaky rendition of what, about three-quarters of the way through the piece, Stuart recognized as " Dixie." It was, in its way, a compliment. So was the roast pork, basted in a red, no doubt fiery, sauce.
And so was the tumbler of mescal Senor Salazar pressed into Stuart's hand. The alcalde was armed with a similar tumbler. He raised it. "To the Confederate States of America!" he said in English and Spanish. He gulped down half his tumbler.
Stuart had to follow suit. He felt as if a shell had exploded in his stomach. His eyes crossed. His ears rang. Dimly, he realized he had to offer a return toast. He wondered if he could still talk. Duty required him to make the effort. "To Sonora and to Cananea!" he croaked, and everyone within six inches of him could hear his voice. He tried it again, and succeeded in making himself understood the second time. The Cananeans burst into applause. Stuart drank the rest of the tumbler. That he didn't fall over proved he was made of stern stuff.
"Your glass is empty," Salazar said sympathetically. He filled it from an earthenware jug. Stuart stared, glassy-eyed. The mescal didn't seem to bother the alcalde.
Food helped. The sauce on the pork was as spicy as it smelled. It started a fire of its own in Stuart's belly, and seemed to counteract the fire from the firewater. He ate bread, too, hoping it would help absorb some of the second tumbler of mescal.
Disappointingly few senoritas were in evidence. The band thumped out something that might have been a dance tune or an improvisation. Whatever it was, people started dancing to it. About seven out of eight were men. Nobody cared much. After more mescal flowed, nobody cared at all.
In the middle of a quadrille with the colonel of the Fifth Confederate Cavalry, Stuart said, "If a horse danced the way you do, they'd shoot it."
"If a camel danced the way you do, they'd shoot it," retorted Colonel Calhoun Ruggles, who, when it came to camels, knew whereof he spoke. Being considerably elevated by mescal, he needed a moment to remember proper military courtesy. "Sir."
After a while, Stuart decided to take a blow. While he leaned against an adobe wall and watched his officers and the Cananeans cavorting, Senor Salazar tapped him on the shoulder. The alcalde swayed where he stood; by now, whatever his capacity, he'd illuminated himself even more generously than the Confederates. But he spoke with great earnestness: "Do you know, General, those Indios will take your guns and take your bullets and go up into the Sierra Madre"-he pointed west, then, correcting himself, east-"and they be bandidos there. They go up there, they be bandidos forever."
"They can be bandidos against the United States," Stuart said. "They won't be bandidos against your people any more."
"Maybe you are right. Quien sabe?" The alcalde smiled a sweet, sad, drunk smile. "But if you are right, then the Estados Unidos" -his English was slipping-"will get Indios to be bandidos against us. It will be the same in the end. For us, it is siempre the same in the end."
How many years of disasters-and how many tumblers of mescal -went into that resignation? Stuart shook his head, which was beginning to throb. "It won't be the same any more. You're in the Confederate States of America now. You're going places, and you'd better believe it."
The only place the alcalde was going was to sleep. His eyes closed. He sagged against the wall and slumped to the ground. Jeb Stuart laughed. Five minutes later, he joined Senor Salazar.
"Well, Colonel," Henry Welton said, "I trust your stay in Fort Benton, and also in Great Falls, has been a pleasant one."
"Yes, sir. Thank you very much," Theodore Roosevelt answered. "Pleasant in ways I couldn't have anticipated when you ordered me down from my regimental headquarters, as a matter of fact."
Colonel Welton grinned a sly grin. "When I ordered you down, you thought you were coming for nothing but work."
"That's true, sir," Roosevelt said, "but it's not precisely what I meant. The usual pleasures of Fort Benton -and even of Great Falls -are easily named: saloons, dance halls, bathtubs with hot water." A couple of other pleasures were easily named, too, but he declined to name them.