TOM MIX AND PANCHO VILLA: A Novel of Mexico and the Texas border (42 page)

We all sat down, while the band gathered in the corridor and began to play. The big bass drum boomed in my ears, and it was hard to hear what the two chiefs were saying.

“…a beautiful sombrero, Señor Zapata. It must keep you very cool in the hot weather.”

“Very cool.”

“I used to wear a sombrero, but in battle … hard to see the enemy if … what? A present from my wife in Chihuahua. Teddy Roosevelt … at San Juan Hill.”

Candelario whispered again in my ear, “Don’t you wa nt to go to a cantina with me and get drunk?”

I shook my head. I had waited too long for this. Shy as a girl and boy introduced by their families for the purpose of marriage, the two great revolutionists continued their historic discussion. Finally the talk edged round to the subject of Carranza, and it was as if the boy and girl had discovered they both loved cherries and hated prunes. Each in turn damned the former First Chief, men who slept in soft beds, drank chocolate instead of black coffee and were oblivious to the suffering of the people.

“No man can be a true revolutionist, General Zapata, if he hasn’t slept under a mesquite tree on a cold winter night.”

“That’s true, General Villa. The people still don’t believe it when you say to them, ‘This land is yours.’ We must teach them.”

“In the next life, Señor Zapata, I’ll be a farmer myself. I believe there is going to be another life. But if there’s not, I have forty thousand Mausers, seventy-six cannon and sixteen million cartridges for this one. And thirty thousand men who know how to use them.”

“You are a fighter, Señor Villa. There’s no doubt of it.”

“What else can a man do?”

“You don’t want to rule Mexico, Pancho?”

“No more than you, Emiliano.”

That point was settled. The fencing was over. The band struck up with “Adelita” for the second time. Zapata, in his soft voice, murmured something that I didn’t hear.

“Well, is there a more private place?” Villa asked eagerly.

We withdrew to a little classroom on the second floor, leaving most of the retinue behind. Zapata and Villa mounted the wooden steps first, boots thumping, arms linked together, still murmuring in each other’s ears. We trailed along, but none of us could hear what they said. Angeles, Urbina, Fierro and I were followed by three Zapatista generals who looked very much like their chief except that their sombreros were smaller.

We all sat down in the classroom.

“…good,” Zapata was saying. “After we’ve stood Obregón against a wall, we’ll pick the man together.”

Immediately we realized that something had been settled on the staircase amid those unheard whispers and soft squeezes of arms. Between the first and second floor the two generals had agreed to join forces in war against Carranza and Obregón. This was a decision that would affect millions of lives, cause thousands of deaths, but it had been accomplished swiftly, simply and privately.

Urbina, when he realized what had happened, grinned widely, showing broken teeth. Angeles looked startled. He had been ordered to work out a strategy; but then he had not been consulted.

“For the moment we’ll let Gutiérrez stay on as president,” Villa said. “When we’ve defeated our enemies, we’ll have an election. One man, one vote. Any woman who can sign her name will have the vote too. In that, we’ll even be ahead of the gringos.”

Zapata shrugged. He waved his hand languidly, an instant convert to suffrage.

Now the talk became more practical, as the two men bent their heads together behind children’s desks and swiftly planned the military campaign. We listened intently, but they did it alone, as they seemed intent on doing everything alone.

The strategy was simple. Villa would strike to the north, against González and Obregón. Zapata would march east and capture Puebla, then descend the eastern Sierra Madres to tropical Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico, destroying whatever army Carranza might have mustered.

“Find Don Venus,” Villa said, “and stand him against a wall.”

He would need cannon, Zapata declared. Villa nodded emphatically.

Felipe Angeles cleared his throat to voice his opinion, but the chief silenced him by raising his palm. Clearly Villa felt that this was a time for only the heads of armies to speak.

“There is another matter to discuss,” Zapata murmured. He explained that during the convention a onetime colonel of his had defected to the side of Obregón and was now in Mexico City, appointed by Gutiérrez to some official position. He asked Villa to find the man and deliver him to Cuernavaca to be shot.

“With pleasure,
compañero.”
Villa turned to Fierro, who sat, as always, attentive and silent, yet somehow managed with his calm gaze to project an air of indisputable menace. “Make a note of that, Rodolfo,” he said, and Fierro nodded.

Then, as if he were taking orders for delivery of inanimate machinery, Villa addressed Zapata again. “Is there anyone else?”

“Yes,” Zapata said. “I have a list.”

“Good. So do I.”

The man who headed Villa’s list was Paulino Martinez, the editor of the newspaper in Cuernavaca, who had published articles several years ago damning President Madero as a weakling and charlatan. That had been Zapata’s expressed opinion too, but it seemed that insults which would be forgiven on the part of the great general of Morelos, our new ally, were enough to condemn his lackeys to execution. At that moment Martinez sat downstairs in the schoolhouse, joking with Candelario.

Zapata was affable about it. “You can have Martinez. I don’t want you to think I’m a difficult man to deal with.”

This time Zapata turned to Fierro, whose reputation was known and whose role in the proceedings was clear, and said, “Do you know the man, Colonel Fierro?”

“No, Señor General, I’ve not had that pleasure.”

“I’ll introduce you later,” Zapata said.

“That’s very kind of you,” Fierro replied.

They understood each other perfectly, and I had the feeling that they would make a fine pair. Even Villa frowned slightly, but said nothing.

Matters of war and vengeance being settled, we all clumped downstairs to a restaurant where the town authorities had prepared a little banquet of hot chile, roast kid, pulque and beer. Halfway through the meal Villa made a little speech that began, “You are going to hear sincere words spoken from the heart of an uneducated man…”

And then Paulino Martinez, a florid, slant-eyed man who had no way of knowing that his general had just traded away his life, rose to heap praise on the occasion. “This date,” he intoned, “should be engraved with diamonds in our history. It is the dawn of our salvation because two pure men, men without duplicity, men born of the people, know their griefs and fight for their well-being.”

Villa smiled crookedly, and I lost most of my appetite and couldn’t finish my kid and beer. I remembered Hipólito, back in the stockyards of Torreón, saying that the revolution was turning to shit. I had hoped he was wrong; but so had Paulino Martinez.

After the meal Zapata called for a bottle of Hennessy cognac. He poured two tumblers and set one in front of Pancho Villa, who frowned. “
Compañero,
you know that I don’t drink.”

“You must,” Zapata said softly. “To seal our friendship.”

Villa hesitated, then tilted his head and drained the glass dry with one swallow. Fresh tears burst from his already red eyes. “Get me some water, for God’s sake.”

Such was the historic meeting of the men whom the people called the Centaur of the North and the Attila of the South. They agreed to meet in a few days in Mexico City at the National Palace, and in the middle of the afternoon we called for our horses and left for the capital.

We rode in silence for a while, each with his own thoughts.

The mountains and plain were covered with a golden light haze that turned first smoky blue, then dull violet. Finally, as it chilled, the peaks stood out sharp against a slate sky, and the land seemed a soft velvet brown. There was a last dying flash of green color. On the outskirts of the city we dismounted to piss. Villa slouched over to where Angeles, Urbina and I stood together. Our breath blew puffs of vapor into the cold evening air. Villa stuck out his jaw toward Angeles.

“Well, Felipe? You wanted to speak in Xochimilco and I stopped you. What was it?”

“I don’t think you want to hear it.”

Even in the gloom, Villa’s eyes glittered. “Speak your mind.”

“Very well.” Angeles straightened his shoulders under his thin sweater. “I don’t like the man we met today. He reminded me of the young French officers I knew in Saumur, the ones who wanted to fight duels instead of battles. And he insulted you by forcing you to drink. But I now speak only as a military man, and as someone whose opinions in these matters I hope you respect.”

“Felipe, get on with it.” Villa shuffled his feet. “I’m freezing my ass off.”

Angeles got on with it. He felt it was a serious strategic mistake to have given Zapata the task of taking Puebla. Venustiano Carranza was a relentless politician. Obregón was not a bad general. Given time, they would organize their forces, make promises they couldn’t keep and rally the dissident generals throughout the country.

“Throw the Northern Division against Carranza at once,” Angeles counseled. “And stop only after we’ve defeated him and pushed his General Murguia into the Gulf.”

“Zapata will do that. He said so.”

“Pancho, I’ve studied his campaigns. I’ve spoken at length to his officers, and now I’ve met the man himself. There’s no doubt he’s a patriot, a good revolutionist. He’s a brilliant guerrilla fighter. He attacks with surprise, he harasses his enemy from all sides, he withdraws cleverly. But does that make him the general of an army that can cross half of Mexico? Has he ever commanded a complicated battle such as Torreón? He captures villages and garrisons! He’s never even left the south!” Angeles shook his head. “You’ve seen his soldiers. They’re half-witted peasants! Whenever they stop to rest, they blot out what few brains they have with marijuana. Once they leave Morelos and find themselves in flatlands and tropics, without their women and their safe hideaways … will they stay to fight? If they suffer a defeat of any kind, will they regroup? I don’t think so, Pancho.”

For a while Villa seemed to consider this seriously. But then he said, “Zapata asked to go to Veracruz. I’ve promised him half my artillery. If I go back on my word, how can I convince him that we’re partners in war?”

“You shouldn’t be partners,” Angeles said flatly. “That was your mistake. You should be in command.”

“I am,” Villa said, annoyed.

“That wasn’t obvious. If so, why is he going after Carranza while we’re chasing after isolated brigades in the north? Carranza’s no general, but he has plenty of men, and Murguia to command them. González and Obregón are like hats hanging on a rack. The rack is Carranza, and the best use of our forces is not to pick off the hats one by one, but to topple the rack. Then all the hats will fall.”

Villa frowned. “If Zapata can’t give Carranza a bath in the Gulf, we’ll come down and do it for him. What do you think, Tomás?”

He had turned to Tomás Urbina, not me. Urbina tugged at his drooping mustache. As the last scarlet band of sunset vanished in the gloom, I couldn’t see his eyes. If I had, perhaps I would have understood.

“Let’s go to Chihuahua and fight González,” he said. “We’re always lucky there.”

“I’ll think more about it, Felipe,” Pancho Villa promised, but it was clear to all of us that he wasn’t about to change his mind.

We mounted our shivering horses and trotted off in the bright starlight toward Mexico City. Tomorrow, I thought, I’ll say my goodbyes. Then I’d head for Texas. Whatever Villa did from now on, I would have to read about in the newspapers.

Conchita del Hierro and her aunt occupied the top floor of Villa’s house on Calle Liverpool. The second floor, in a picturesque state of disarray, was Villa’s, and the ground floor was given over to the conducting of government business. I had been quartered with Candelario and Julio in a heated apartment not far away. I strolled over to Calle Liverpool through the gas-lit streets, and Villa took me upstairs to his second-floor office, so strewn with documents and petitions that I wondered how he managed to live in such chaos.

When I commented on it, he said, “I know where everything is. However, it’s true that if I were to die or lose my memory, the Gutiérrez government would collapse within hours.” Dropping into a leather chair, he hunched forward to clasp his hands. The light of a single lamp cast harsh shadows on his face, making him look older, a man weighed down by the need for decision.

“Tomás, I know you’re going. I have one more thing to ask of you, one final favor. It won’t take you very long, and if there was anyone else I could trust as I trust you, I would. But … you’ll see … only you can…”

He broke off, and I waited, trying to appear patient. But he seemed nervous. He got up and began to prowl the room, rumpling his already unkempt hair. Lines of worry slashed from the tip of his runny nose to the fleshy lips.

I was already uneasy about the whole meeting. God knows what Hannah was thinking, knowing that I had promised to return when Mexico City fell. Why, I wondered now, had I delayed even this much? Would she tolerate it? Women were supposed to sit and wait, but for how long?

There were three things, Villa said, since I was going to El Paso anyway.

“When you get there, go see Luz. I’ll give you a letter stating that you speak on my authority. She likes you—she’d probably throw anyone else out on his ear.” Then he flushed a dusky red. “I want a divorce, so that I can marry Conchita. Ask Luz, and find out her terms.”

He thrust his jaw forward, clamping his teeth so that his cheekbones jutted through the puffy flesh, as if he understood his cowardice and needed to show the face of a resolute man.

“Do you want a drink, Tomás? I should have asked you before. That banker left me a bar that you wouldn’t find in the best hotel in the city.”

“No, thanks. What else?”

“Will you do this for me with Luz, as a favor?”

“What are the other two things?” I asked.