TOM MIX AND PANCHO VILLA: A Novel of Mexico and the Texas border

by Clifford Irving

  It sounded like fuzzy thinking to me, although I knew he was still upset over the Benton affair, and I didn’t take him too seriously. As it turned out, I was right.

  “How, chief? What is it that you want to know?”

  One of his problems, he believed—one that he could control—was that he didn’t appear respectable. If he had, Mr. Letcher might have given him the benefit of the doubt. So … should he buy a general’s uniform?

  “Well, nothing fancy. You don’t want to look like Napoleon, or Kaiser Wilhelm waving his sword at the Yellow Peril. No sashes or medals. But on the whole, it’s not a bad idea.”

  . He banged on the door to my room three days later, just as Rosa and I were contemplating a siesta. He wore a new tan tunic that buttoned tightly over his paunch and right up to his jowls, a visored military cap and a brand-new pair of shiny cowhide boots.

  “How do I look?”

  “Good. How do you feel?”

  “Hot. And my feet hurt.” He ripped open the top button of the tunic, and it popped. “That’s better.” He hesitated a minute, then turned to Rosa. “What do you think, my Indian dove? Am I not irresistible?”

  “To most women, yes,” she said.

  “Oh?” Villa frowned. “And to whom would I not be so?”

  “To those who have not had the joy to meet you,” she replied prudently.

  He raised an eyebrow at me. “Your dove has grown sharp claws,” he murmured. “She suits you, Tomás.”

  He had also brought with him a jovial, middle-aged man in rumpled civilian clothes whom he introduced to us as Dr. Ludwig Rauschbaum. He looked Mexican, but he was a German-born physician who had emigrated to Chihuahua ten years ago. He was one of the doctors who had provided the autopsy on Benton. His Spanish was awful, but he had excited Villa’s imagination by telling him that if he ate no meat it would cure his terrible temper.

  Rauschbaum explained it again for my benefit.

  “Man is an animal, ja? This is so, ja? But he is so little! So schwach! Weak, ja? He must kill other animals or he die. Not enough bananas. I speak of millions of years ago, ja? So he kill, and he eat the meat. Zebra, antelope, monkey—I speak of Africa, ja? Long ago. Now he is different! He is civilized! But he still eat meat, ja? And he remember. Deep inside him, even if with his brain he don’t know, he remember. He eat the meat, and he think—kill! Toten! Angreifen! The meat get him excited, ja? Meat is bad. Make you crazy.”

  “Are you going to do it?” I asked Villa.

  “Yes. I’ll try anything.”

  “Ja, gut,” Rauschbaum said happily. “Fruit and vegetables. Auch keinen alcol. “

  “Do you speak any German, Tomás?”

  “I think he means no hard liquor.”

  “Then I understood. I don’t drink liquor anyway,” Villa explained to Dr. Rauschbaum. “If I did, I would be impossible.”

  I hadn’t yet told Rosa about the clarity of my new plans with Hannah. That was a subject we never discussed, although I thought the time was fast approaching when it would become necessary. But when I got back to Chihuahua City, one night in a cantina, thinking that he would be pleased, I told Candelario. He didn’t smile and clap me on the back as I thought he would.

  “Let me give you a piece of advice,” he replied, “if it doesn’t offend you.”

  “You think I’m making a mistake,” I blurted. “You think I should stay with Rosa! But you’ve never even met Hannah!”

  “What I think about that,” he said, “is beside the point. In these matters no man can counsel another. Just do what your cock tells you to do, then you can’t go wrong.”

  He lit one of those crumbly Mexican cigarettes and with his stubby fingers held it between his teeth, puffing hard until the ash glowed a bright cherry-red. His eye glinted sharply, but his voice was calm and purposeful.

  “What I have to say is this. Before you tell your woman that you’re going off to marry someone else—get the gold out of Tomochic.”

  “You don’t think … ?”

  “Who knows? Just remember, half the gold is mine. I would be unhappy to lose it. Not that I worked very hard to get it, but when you have something for a while, even if it came to you as a gift from heaven, you get used to the idea that it’s yours.”

  “Rosa wouldn’t do that.”

  “Rosa is a wonderful girl. She has the best tits I’ve ever seen, and a brain, and I love her like a sister. But in this life, my friend, anything is possible. Don’t tell her about your marriage until we have the gold. That’s all I have to say.”

  It was still April of 1914, and I didn’t think we would get to Mexico City until early fall, when the rains ended, which meant that I would be at least half a year more in Mexico. Candelario’s reasoning didn’t impress me; I would have trusted Rosa with my life. She had known about Hannah from the beginning, and I had told no lies to her since then; but it struck me that it would be an unnecessary cruelty, this far in advance, to announce my impending marriage. When the day came, when it was time to leave, I would tell her, and I would go quickly.

  And, of course, it was easier this way.

  By the end of April the Northern Division was ready to strike southward. The new Belgian artillery and Pennsylvania coal had arrived from Sommerfeld’s warehouses. The Packard broke down because Martin Lopez had never checked the oil, cracking the block, but Pancho Villa quickly ordered Hipólito to send a new engine and six spare tires from El Paso. He fired Lopez, commissioned him a lieutenant and made his brother Pablo the chauffeur. He added a new company of Dorados, promoted Julio to colonel and gave him its command under Candelario.

  As the day of our great move approached, Villa decided that he lacked a qualified artillery commander for the attack he planned. Some time ago a Federal general named Felipe Angeles, long suspected of being a Madero sympathizer, had been sent by Porfirio Díaz to Europe to study with the French army; he probably would have been shot if he had not been the oldest son of a rich Mexico City family. Returning from France, he had joined Obregón’s forces in Sonora, and it was rumored that he was responsible for the big victory against the Federals at Hermosillo.

  After the capture of Juárez, Felipe Angeles had telegraphed his personal compliments to Villa, casually adding that his greatest wish as an officer would be to serve under him.

  “I need this man,” Villa said to me. “He’s everything I’m not. Do you know that he speaks four languages? How can one man do that? You’d think his mind would burst with so many words. Angeles knows more about artillery than Medina will ever learn—these Belgian guns are complicated. I’d even give him command of the Division if he wanted it. What can I do?”

  “Ask for him. If Angeles likes you so much, Obregón may be glad to see him go. But keep the Division for yourself,” I counseled.

  Villa fired off a telegraph message that day, and in the evening he received a reply. He could have Felipe Angeles.

  He was delighted, and even more so when Angeles arrived in Chihuahua City with one hundred first-rate loyal artillery officers and gunners, most of them former Federals.

  “Now we’ll win,” Villa said. “I never had any doubts, but if I did, they’re gone.”

  The next day we received word that Obregón had been named chief general of the Army Corps of the Northwest, which by Carranza’s fiat included the state of Chihuahua. Villa himself was still only a brigadier general. Carranza also announced that he would move Constitutionalist headquarters to Chihuahua City, timing the move so that he arrived after the Northern Division had chugged off for battle in the south.

  “Piss on it,” Villa said. “I’ll fight the revolution while they fight over the titles. Obregón knows enough to stay out of my business.”

  But later he grew dejected. “Why do they try to humiliate me, Tomás? Is it the Benton affair? I’ve pledged my loyalty a dozen times. What more can I do?”

  “I’ll tell you one thing. If Carranza’s coming to Chihuahua City, you can move that gold somewhere else
.”

  Instead, he had a steel door built for the laundry room in the Fermont. He told the commander whose brigade would stay behind in the city that it contained the divisional pay records and other important documents.

  Two keys were made. Villa wore one around his neck on a cheap brass chain, and the other he gave to me. I had never told him how the padlock key had helped save my life.

  “You won’t steal the gold, Tomás. You have enough already in Tomochic.”

  Candelario hadn’t told him, and surely not Rosa. He would never tell me how he knew, and I would never ask. I had come to enjoy these mysteries.

  This key I didn’t hang around my neck—I didn’t anticipate needing such distractions a second time—but instead asked Rosa to sew it into the back pocket of my Levi’s, which were worn so thin that no one would consider stealing them. The poorest campesino had better pants.

  And then, suddenly (it seemed to happen almost capriciously, but I knew better), Villa announced that we were ready and would attack. He always did this, let his army savor its triumphs for a while, celebrate, rearm and solidify its position, and then when he smelled the restlessness of the men and their readiness to do battle again, he would seize on the moment and whip them into a frenzy of war.

  This was to be our final campaign. Our objectives were Torreón, which Villa had abandoned to seize Juárez, and then the fortress city of Zacatecas nine thousand feet above sea level. From Zacatecas to Mexico City was only two hundred miles with a good railbed and a straight paved road. There were no Federal garrisons of any size between it and the capital.

  Villa said, “When Zacatecas falls, they’ll feel our breath on their necks. Then Huerta can decide. A last battle, which he can’t win, or surrender. You’ll see, Tomás—after we take Zacatecas, the war will be over.”

  I barely had time to kiss Rosa goodbye before the Northern Division struck to the south with ten full brigades and two regiments of artillery under Felipe Angeles. The women would follow in a caravan of trains, and Rosa would go as usual with the French whores, who treated her almost like a daughter to be cared for and protected from the rabble.

  A torrent of dust rose from the corrals. Horses milled and stumbled, while vaqueros coiled their reatas and cut out their mounts. Men strapped on their cartridge belts, buttoned their thin cotton jackets; women shrilled advice and goodbyes. For miles near the Chihuahua railroad yards the desert seemed to writhe with troopers urging their horses toward the boxcars. In a great caravan the trains grunted forward, mile by mile, through the foothills of the Sierra Madre Mountains.

  Night struck, with a rising chill wind. The engines clicked southward, streaming fire from the coal boxes, thin lines of brilliant red sparks vanishing into the darkness. A few hardy women soldiers cooked on the swaying platforms; inside, guitars twanged a dozen different songs. The engines labored up grades.

  It began to rain, and the women wailed, then groaned miserably. The men sitting next to me shouted with glee, “To Torreón!”

  “Válgame Dios! How drunk we’ll get!”

  Two roosters wandered up and down the aisles, eating crumbs and cigarette butts. Someone thrust his rifle out the window and fired a clip of bullets at the desert. The train jerked forward with a screech, a clank, then gathered speed … toward Torreón … again.

  Bermejillo fell, and Villa found a working telephone there at the tiny post office. Miraculously, after cranking it and plugging in at random here and there in the switchboard, he got through directly to General Velasco, the Federal commander in Torreón.

  “Who is speaking?”

  “Francisco Villa. Your servant, my general, who begs you to end your useless resistance and save the lives of many Mexicans.”

  “That can’t be done, General Villa.”

  “Too bad, because we’re coming for you in just a moment.”

  “You will be welcomed properly.”

  “Good. Fix supper.”

  “We’ll have something warm for you. Are there many of you? I’d like to tell my chefs.”

  “Not so many, Señor Velasco. Just a couple of regiments of artillery and fourteen thousand men.”

  But the Northern Division, with its pent-up energy and awesome power, was not to be denied. Gómez Palacio fell, and we stormed Torreón. We were approaching a hill outside the city with Candelario’s Dorados when Villa noticed six or seven long-haired Otomi Indians standing near some cottonwood trees. The men were half-naked, and one of the women clasped a baby at her breast. As the baby sucked, they watched us silently.

  “For Christ’s sake . . Villa yelled to me. “Ride over there! Tell them they could be in our line of fire!”

  I reined up in a spill of dust and finally found one of the Otomis who spoke some Spanish. I explained the situation.

  “But, señor,” the man said humbly, “this is where we always stand to watch the battle for Torreón.”

  The battle took ten days, and it was hard. This time there was no marimba band on the grass outside the Hotel Salvador, no fiesta at the casino. Blood ran darkly down the worn cobblestones as if bulls had been skinned after a corrida. I walked my sweating horse carefully down from La Pila to the Plaza de Armas, following the relentless course of that muddy crimson stream.

  When I saw Villa in the familiar bridal suite at the Hotel Salvador, he was still covered with dust and dried sweat. Felipe Angeles was with him, bathed and shaved, but there were black shadows under his melancholy eyes. The map of Mexico was spread before him on the coffee table. Angeles wore a brown cashmere sweater with leather elbow patches, and his handsome profile, flared mustache and dark sunglasses made him look like a gentleman pirate.

  But his voice vibrated with passion. “My general,” he said to Villa, “in every campaign there is a single decisive battle in which the body and spirit of the losing side is broken. If the victor presses on, resistance crumbles. Now you must push to the south with all speed.”

  “And Velasco?” Villa spoke coldly and angrily.

  Seven thousand Federal soldiers under General Velasco had escaped Torreón and were heading east along the railroad line. Villa didn’t argue with Angeles’ military theory, but it troubled him deeply to have a large intact enemy force in his rear. During the battle he had taken time out to telegraph our supposed ally, Carranza’s favorite general, Pablo González, asking that González cut the eastbound railroad line—the only one Villa had been unable to reach.

  González for some reason had neglected to do it. Now, from the hotel, with Angeles, Villa telegraphed once again, begging González to attack.

  He received his reply in a wire direct from Carranza. “I do not recall ever having ordered you to take Torreón in the first place. I congratulate you, but you are under the command of General Obregón and must clear all orders through him.”

  “These bastards! Are they serious?” Villa tugged at his mustache. “How can I speed south with such people protecting my flanks? My men can barely stand up.”

  So the momentum created by the decisive battle was lost. Angeles’ advice went unheeded. Villa called a halt to the advance on Mexico City.

  “I must go north,” he said, when he had finished brooding. “I must meet this man, Venustiano Carranza, whom I serve but who doesn’t serve me.”

  Like many events, such as the Benton killing, the meeting with Carranza was to change the course of history in Mexico—for it subtly began the change in Pancho Villa’s purpose as a revolutionist.

  And anything that changed the course of the revolution changed the shape of my life as well.

  Give me the place to stand, and I will move the earth, Archimedes said, two thousand years ago. What he neglected to say is that the earth moves too. The tides sweep both ways. Men have the ability to change history and seldom can resist the beckoning of that chance. History reciprocates. The dance of life goes on—more a tug-of-war than a dance. Sometimes we are movers, sometimes we are moved. Buddha, I once read, called the process “the wheel of life.
” To liberate himself from that relentless process, a man has to disengage—has to get off the wheel, stop dancing, thumb his nose at the tides. How can he do that? Long before I left Mexico, with the aid of two women, I would begin to find out. And that knowledge, that action, would color the rest of my life. It would make me the man I became, the man who could accept success and failure, wealth and poverty, misery and its cloudy opposite, with equal calm. It would make me untouchable. It would darken my soul, because I had seen and done too much.

  But that spring of 1914, in Chihuahua, I was still on the wheel, still a victim of history and of myself. And of Pancho Villa.

  We drove up to Chihuahua City through the rich cotton fields of La Laguna and then the flat northern desert: just Villa, Felipe Angeles and I, with one bouncing truck full of soldiers as escort. Villa slumped thoughtfully in the front seat of the Packard, munching chocolate and sucking on some lemons that the chauffeur had bought for himself.

  “I haven’t eaten meat for ten days,” he announced. “Except once or twice, when I forgot. I’m going to be gentle as a rabbit. You’ll see.”

  The reception for us was at the governor’s palace, where Venustiano Carranza sat on a throne whose arms were carved in the shape of lion’s paws. I looked forward to meeting him almost as much as Villa did; after all, he was our leader, and in some ways the future of the revolution lay in his hands.

  The First Chief was a tall, imposing man in his late fifties and, so seated on the throne, he might have been an emperor except that he lacked a uniform, and his air of serene rectitude, his flowing white mustache and thick white beard, made him look more like God. He had a habit, when he was listening idly to anyone, of combing his beard with the pointed fingernails of his left hand, so that the beard became parted in the middle. He wore a well-cut dark blue pinstriped suit which disguised his portliness, and dark-blue-tinted spectacles which made it difficult to read his expression. I knew that he had trouble with his eyes, that they rarely stopped watering and were sensitive to bright light. He seldom went outdoors.

  When they were introduced, Villa stepped forward and gave Carranza a hearty hug. But the old man seemed to shy away from it, as if he hated to be touched.