Hello. I’m very pleased to meet you. My name is Rose Westmoreland. My very proper in-laws in Ohio were appalled when I insisted on coming, by myself, to El Paso, Texas. But here I am, looking for my missing husband. I’m lucky to be boarding with two smart, sympathetic women, Martha Garlick, a retired actress of a certain age, and Luisa Villanueva, a young woman, about my own age, who had found it necessary to run away from her own family in Mexico. Young as she is, Luisa has what is euphemistically called “a past,” and a secret of her own. Women here, at least some of them, seem to have more leeway in shaping their own lives than I’m used to. Maybe it’s because they have to.

Right now, I’m trying to talk to people who might know something about my husband’s disappearance. I’ve been making appointments with detectives, the police department, and the oil company office where he was sent to do an audit. So far, I’m getting only odd conflicting information and veiled warnings to mind my own business. And why does that sleazy man who claims to be with some government agency called the Bureau of Investigation keep trying to ask me questions? I’ve never even heard of a federal group called the Bureau of Investigation, have you?

When I don’t have someone to meet, I explore the city with my camera. Photography is my passion, and I sometimes daydream about becoming a professional. I had been led to believe that El Paso was a village of dirt hovels and children riding burros. The last thing I expected was a modern city, with eight and ten story buildings, electric streetlights, and streetcars to take me anywhere I want to go. I hear as much Spanish spoken as English, and I’m picking up a few basic words. The heart of the city is San Jacinto Plaza, where everyone comes to meet with friends, sit on the benches in the shade˗˗even now, in early May, the afternoon heat is uncomfortable˗˗and listen to musicians playing on the bandstand. And right in the middle of the Plaza, if you can believe it, is a pond full of alligators! In a city surrounded by desert! I was taking pictures of these creatures when I was shanghaied by local reporter Timothy Turner to photograph leaders of the Mexican Revolution, including the infamous Pancho Villa. He wasn’t what I was expecting, either˗˗a weather-beaten buddha with a sense of humor and an insatiable sweet tooth.

Why, you may wonder, were these men sitting in an ice cream parlor in El Paso discussing strategy? Let me explain. Perhaps the oddest thing about the city is the tense, expectant atmosphere, as if the entire populous is holding its breath. At the south end of the city is the Rio Grande, a river so shallow now that it can be waded. On the other side two armies nervously wait: one the federal army of Mexico, the other, rebels intent on overthrowing their president. This promises to be the battle that determines the future of the country. Many people in El Paso have friends, family, or business interests there, and are concerned for them. Others are just cold-bloodedly waiting to watch the biggest spectacle the city has ever seen. And I don’t believe the absurd rumors that my husband is some kind of secret agent. All I want is to find him and go home. At least, I think that’s all I want.

Death in the Time of Pancho Villa by Sandra Marshall is the first book in the NEW “Rose in Old El Paso” historical mystery series, coming August 25, 2020.

The in-laws were aghast when Rose Westmoreland boarded the train alone, bound for the far edge of the country, to find her missing husband. Unthinkable in 1911. Now she’s in El Paso, a city holding its breath, anticipating a spectacle. A decisive battle of the Mexican Revolution is about to erupt right across the Rio Grande. Husband Leonard, sent there by his employer Stoneman Petroleum, apparently first went native, then disappeared, leaving behind a fiery rebel mistress and rumors he was sent to offer the rebels money in exchange for favorable drilling rights.

Alone in this liminal place, Rose is befriended by two women, a retired thespian and a young Mexican expatriate, who suggest coping methods that would throw the folks back in Shaker Heights into a tizzy. A reporter recruits Rose, who is a talented amateur photographer, to immortalize the Mexican leaders: a sardonic, strawberry soda-sipping Pancho Villa and visionary Francisco Madero, who communes with the shades of Napoleon and Beníto Juárez. Rose is caught up in the intrigues of the Revolution, the unfamiliar culture of the borderlands, and the deadly competition between international oil companies. When the only person to offer real information is killed by what is, perhaps, a stray bullet, she finds her own life in danger. While victory is celebrated across the river, Rose learns the truth about Leonard. But where one door closes, another opens, and on the border there are many doors.

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Meet the author
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 has settled 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 and Croak and Dagger Chapters.

All comments are welcomed.