"My father-"
"John, just listen, right now. This is imperative. When Justice Knox comes to see you, you're to say nothing unless I'm in the room. Do you understand? Nothing."
John Lourdes was swimmy and confused.
"A politician in Tampico was allegedly murdered and there is a suggestion you were somehow involved."
What surprised Wadsworth Burr was that John Lourdes laughed. It was gravelly and ironic and self-possessed, it was a laugh he had heard before.
THE HOSPITAL WAS on the Fort Brown military post. The window in John Lourdes's room looked out toward the Resaca. At night the soldiers would play cards along the shore in the lamplight. John Lourdes spent the weeks there recuperating fundamentally alone. He had a masculine thirst for silence and used it to revisit his life and the fallen adversary that had become again his father.
Justice Knox arrived with a stenographer. Burr was present as John Lourdes accurately detailed the events in Mexico, which were corroborated in his notes, even down to turning the munitions over to a group of campesinos. The only fact overlooked-his being the son of that common assassin.
The front of the hospital had a long covered portico with brick archways where one could avoid the searing Texas sun. Justice Knox excused the stenographer, and he and Wadsworth Burr started down that walkway alone.
"He'll have to resign."
"Oh," said Wadsworth Burr, "at the very least."
Burr took a cigarette case from his coat pocket. "The notes my client sent to you. A copy was also sent to me. I immediately hired detectives in Mexico to begin my own investigation. Cigarette?"
Knox shook his head no. This news did not sit well. There was a bench nearby where Burr went.
"A man named Tuerto was hired by Doctor Stallings through Agua Negra to photograph the oil fields, wharfs, river, harbor, rail lines."
"Which sounds like a useful policy for a security firm."
Burr crossed his legs and lit the cigarette. "I have a signed affidavit from this Mr. Tuerto that he delivered copies of the photographs to Mr. Robert Creeley, who as you know from John's notes and briefing, or your own investigation, is adjunct to the U.S. consulate in Mexico. "
"There is nothing extraordinary about that either. The oil companies, as well as others, have been making their case about field security since the first hints of a revolution."
"Mr. Creeley was staying at the Southern. The same hotel as my client . . . clients. As were two other gentlemen, Olsen and Hayden. Who, as you probably know through your own investigation, as I do through mine, are information gatherers for the Department of State."
Justice Knox had been standing under an archway, but now he went and sat at the far end of the same bench as Wadsworth Burr. "I know where you're going. The meeting at the house."
"You have an official of the U.S. consulate. Field officers for the Department of State. An American businessman procuring illegal munitions. A former Ranger heading a security firm for the oil companies receiving that shipment of munitions."
"Creeley, Hayden, and Olsen," said Justice Knox, "all acknowledge they were invited to a dinner by the mayor, as was Doctor Stallings. The mayor, for his part, wanted to make the case for American military protection. The oil companies are a significant tax base for him. Hecht denies being at the meeting. Creeley and the others state he was not there. As for the munitions, Hecht says he helped smooth the way for a shipment he was told was the parts of an icehouse to be delivered to the oil fields. He denies even knowing Stallings."
"I have in my possession a film," said Burr, "one of those newsreels Diaz shot to advertise the grand achievements of his administration, though they were, in fact, a tome of aggrandizement to his royal self. It shows clearly that Hecht and Stallings were acquainted."
"Stallings is dead."
"You have my client's statement about what transpired."
"I have your client's statement he delivered munitions to a group intent on overthrowing the government."
"You don't think you're going to get to pick and choose which of these statements are fact and which are not? You're going to have to deal with the whole body of evidence."
Justice Knox looked into that pale stare. Burr was frail. The way he crossed his legs seemed at times effeminate. But he was not subject to intimidation.
Burr sat quietly for now. He looked out upon the Resaca and a line of troops going about their drills on the dusty parade grounds. He blew on the tip of his cigarette, which pulsed intensely while he considered, then considered further, before he spoke.
"I'm going forward on the basis that you're an honest man. Knowing full well honest men, sometimes the most honest, are in positions of default. The evidence, even as you lay it out, favors two possibilities. Because the munitions themselves can never be separated from the facts.
"One possibility . . . the men at the meeting were part of an attempt to make a case for military intervention. Possibly heightening or exaggerating the evidence to make such a case. We might even conclude that Doctor Stallings was a rogue element working independently for such an end.
"The other possibility ... in that meeting they were not making a case for intervention, they were creating a case for intervention. And they were not beyond using the most nefarious of methods to achieve such an end. And you know what that can lead to. Coup d'etat .. . assassination."
Burr rose and walked to the archway. His sunken features were intently grave. "I do not envy your position. The public discussion of such matters would put you at the center of a controversy. That is the perfect battlefield for an attorney, but not the head of the B01, who represents not only his organization, but the government of Texas as well."
While they faced each other a nurse pushing a wheelchair passed by. The patient, missing an arm and a leg, wasn't much more than thirty. He saluted both men in an offhanded manner. The wheels definitely needed oiling and when that sound was far down the shaded walkway, Burr said, "I've been told many of the permanents here served in Manila and Cuba. Was that war worth it?"
"We're not discussing that war."
"But we are in discussion."
Justice Knox acknowledged that with a nod. He took off his glasses and rubbed at the pinch marks the frames left on his nose. Burr already recognized from previous meetings the gesture meant he was troubled and needed time to think.
"I should never have sent John."
"The practical application of strategy," said Burr.
"It's not a question of his courage or dedication."
"I know your worldview. The practical application of strategy has its place. But taken to an ultimate end do you know what else it can be?" Burr paused for a half breath to accent his point. "It's Washington not crossing the Delaware ... it's Lincoln not freeing the slaves."
Wadsworth Burr took a last quiet draw on his cigarette then crushed it under the heel of his finely made shoes. "I will wait to hear where your thoughtful and, I'm certain, difficult deliberations take you before I determine a course of action for my client."
JOHN LOURDES AND Wadsworth Burr returned to El Paso by train a month later. John Lourdes had received word he would be given a letter of commendation for "his dedication in uncovering the illegal shipment of arms to a foreign country." On that day, at that hour, the commendation and all it said and did not say was, to John Lourdes, mere dust in the wind.
They drove in Burr's Cadillac from his home to Concordia Cemetery. Burr had taken it upon himself to have Rawbone brought back to Texas and buried beside John Lourdes's mother. The headstone was simple. It had his name and a bookmark of dates. The cemetery was on a flat plain, rough and with a few trees. The sky was crisp blue that day but the cemetery seemed so much more spare than John Lourdes even remembered.