Chasing Pancho Villa Read Online Free PDF Page A

Bart and he had only limited contact with their parents. They had been raised by servants, under the supervision of Jonathan, mother’s most trusted servant and confidant. The love Harrison had for his brother was the only nurturing experience inside those great walls. For his mother he felt nothing. She had given him nothing that he could love.
    Harrison also knew that it had been different for Bart. His brother, younger by five years, had always strived to please his mother, and she had responded by lavishing her attention on him. Bart was everything she had wanted in a son. But Harrison was never jealous of his little brother. He understood.
    Thinking about his mother, Harrison sighed long and hard. He tried not to blame her. That was always difficult and now that Bart had died—perhaps by his own hand—it had become impossible.
    It had been four years since he was home. He had returned on that occasion only to bury his father. He was not surprised that his mother had not changed during his long absence in Europe. She remained slim, her silver hair piled high on her head, beautifully coifed and jeweled. When he arrived, she greeted him in a formal gown of deep blue. She came down the stairway slowly. Like a queen, he thought, a true blueblood. Her eyes were the first things he always noticed about her. They had remained young…and very hard.
    At first, like Bart, he had made excuses for her snobbishness and cold, calculating behavior. “It was because she had a childhood of poverty, growing up in the tenements of Chicago,” they told their friends. The family secret—that she was a downstairs maid their father had fallen madly in love with—could never be revealed. But now, after all these years, it didn’t seem to matter to anyone but her. She had with great cruelty, cunning, and spirit created her own kingdom within Midwestern high society. In her world she ruled supreme. But, Harrison knew, in her soul, mother would always be that scheming, grasping maid.
    â€œYou might have taken your hat off upon entering my home, Harrison,” she said when she reached the bottom of the stairs. They were the first words she had spoken to him. “Perhaps the people you know in Europe have more unique customs.”
    She’ll never change, Harrison thought, feeling the chill.
    â€œYour brother is buried,” she stated directly, staring into his eyes. “I laid him to rest in the family plot last week, beside his father.” She stared at him with distaste. “Tonight we will talk. Rest now,” she ordered and abruptly turned to walk away. “Jonathan will take your bags up.” It was pointless to try to continue the conversation, so he followed the butler up the curved staircase. His old room was at the far end of the hallway, next to Bart’s. The door to Bart’s room was closed and, he discovered upon trying to open it, locked.
    â€œYour mother has the only key,” Jonathan stated, flatly. And that was that.
    Sitting in his room that evening, he looked over the many photographs adorning the wall and dresser. Most were of him and Bart. The last photograph of the two of them together was on the nightstand next to the bed. It was taken only four years earlier at their father’s funeral, just before Bart had gone to Washington to work in the War Department. He took the photo from the frame and folded it carefully into his jacket pocket.
    *
    In the darkness of the train, James touched his chest pocket to make sure it was there.
That’s all
I have left of my brother, he thought.
    *
    â€œHarrison,” his mother said later that first night, following dinner, “I have heard of your dalliances in Paris, Monte Carlo, and Madrid. Also of your gambling and fighting. Have you no shame?”
    â€œI’m sorry, mother. Do I embarrass you?” he had asked sarcastically.
    â€œYou’re a disgrace to our family,” she stated coldly.
    â€œTo