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

by Clifford Irving

  Birds chirped in the patchy sunlight of the little garden, which they had quite to themselves, Villa having ordered it closed to everyone else. The señora began the conversation over her sherry by relating to him the troubles of the del Hierro family, who had owned silver mines near Zacatecas. They had never mistreated the mine workers, she stressed, and therefore weren’t as rich as some of the other owners, but their historical kindliness was of no avail when the revolution began.

  “So I gathered she needed money,” Villa said to me, “and I immediately wrote out a draft for five thousand pesos. But there was more. She thanked me, and then she explained that Conchita was religious and would be glad to give herself to me in marriage … if I would divorce my other wives. The stars had foretold our union, she said! Can you imagine? Conchita was destined to marry a great man astride a prancing black horse. I told her it sounded like she would become the next Señora Carranza, but the old bitch didn’t even smile.”

  “Will you do it?” I asked.

  “Marry her, yes. Divorce the others, no. Tomás, I’m their lighthouse and their shepherd. Can a lighthouse darken its beam? Can a shepherd turn his back and leave his flock bleating in misery—dishonored? It would be unthinkable. And yet I love this girl—I must have her.”

  He waited for me to comment, but I wasn’t particularly moved. I sat on an antique wooden footstool, restlessly scuffing my boots at a pile of ashes he had dropped on the carpet. It struck me that he had more important things to worry about, but I knew the power of love and how it twisted the imagination.

  “Can’t you have an affair with her,” I suggested, “and let things take their natural course?”

  “She’s willing,” he said darkly, “and she’s already given me a little taste of her honey. I suppose she thinks she can trap me that way. She’s getting advice from the aunt, I’m sure. But what hold can a man have on a woman if she’s not his wife? She can leave him anytime she pleases. Look at that Indian one you had, that Rosa. She left you, didn’t she? Could you stop her?”

  “It wasn’t quite the same,” I said unhappily.

  He ignored that. “Tomás, I offered Conchita my love and my name. Don’t you think that’s honorable? But she still won’t marry me! I thought of going to a curandera. “

  “For a potion?”

  “They say it can work. Some men carry a dead hummingbird in their pocket, or put the leg of a beetle in the girl’s glass of soda pop. You can also use powder made of crushed bones from a human skull, but too much of it makes her crazy. I’ve seen a curandera in Durango treat a bad dose of clap by rubbing the pecker with a live black chicken. The chicken became crippled. The pecker stood up and was fine. What should I do?”

  He was quite serious, as I found out later, but clearly pessimistic. Besides, unlike most men, he wasn’t bent on seduction without marriage. Beyond stating the obvious, I couldn’t help him.

  “Have an affair, chief. You’ll get tired of her, just as you do in your marriages. Then you’ll pay her off, just as you do with your wives. It all comes to the same thing in the end. Meanwhile,” I said, “pay more attention to the war, or the revolution, or whatever you call it these days.”

  That wasn’t what he wanted to hear, and he realized he wasn’t going to get any more solace from me if he kept up his laments.

  “It helped me to talk to you, Tomás,” he said, a bit coldly, “even if we didn’t find an answer. Now, what can I do for you? Why did you come by?”

  “I’m ready to head for Texas. I wanted to know when we’re going to meet Zapata.”

  “Tomorrow,” he said. “It’s been arranged—at Xochimilco. Be ready to leave at dawn.”

  The village of Xochimilco was a Zapatista stronghold near the floating flower gardens south of Mexico City. We rode on horseback, with a cloudless sky and the sun like a ripe tomato rising above the snowy peak of Popocatépetl.

  Trotting through cobbled streets that smelled of sizzling corn oil, Villa tilted his hat back and closed his eyes. Despite his troubles with Conchita del Hierro, his mouth drooped in a lazy smile; through the figurehead of Gutiérrez, he ruled Mexico. That wasn’t what he wanted—he had always said so—but it didn’t seem to displease him.

  On the edge of Xochimilco we were met by Professor Otilio Montaño, the burly schoolteacher who had translated all of Zapata’s thoughts into the Plan of Ayala. It was the best revolutionist document I had ever read, because it was the shortest.

  While the horses drank from goatskin buckets of water brought by Indian women, children ran out with wreaths of poppies and roses that they dumped in our path. The sun shone brightly on a breathlessly hot morning; the scent of the flowers was overpowering.

  Villa began to sneeze.

  “My hay fever is coming back.” He turned to me, groaning quietly. “I’ll be dead by the time we get there.”

  The village band of Xochimilco, a few trumpets, a tuba and a bass drum, played “Las Mañanitas,” and then the legendary leader from Morelos appeared, sauntering down the dusty main street with his retinue as we dismounted in front of the schoolhouse. I had seen pictures of Zapata, a former melon grower and army sergeant, but I still wasn’t prepared for the man in the flesh.

  Pancho Villa had come dressed in the clothes he had worn in the northern campaigns—his tan sweater with its frayed elbows, baggy khaki pants and riding boots, and the cool pith helmet that was now stained much the same color as his shirt. The rest of us, except for Rodolfo Fierro, wore our Texas scout hats and cartridge belts.

  Zapata looked as if the finest tailors in Mexico City had prepared him for the occasion and sewn his clothes around his body. His black charro pants were so tight that his private parts bulged like an apple with a thick stem, and the seams glittered in the sunlight with oversized silver buttons. He wore a brilliant lavender shirt, a blue neckerchief and a short black silk jacket from whose pockets protruded two scarlet handkerchiefs. He was a short man, and his pointed Spanish boots sported four-inch-high heels. The gold-braided twenty-gallon sombrero made it dangerous to come within two feet of him without risking that the brim might cut your throat. His mustache extended beyond his cheeks; his dark eyes were large, liquid and mysterious.

  Candelario whispered to me, “He looks like the leader of a mariachi band.”

  But Villa, eyes leaking tears from the bouquets of flowers the children had pressed into his arms, ducked under the sombrero and gave Zapata the promised abrazo.

  “Señor General, today I realize my dream. I meet the chief of the great revolution of the south.”

  In a languid voice, Zapata replied, “And I meet with honor the chief of the Northern Division.”

  Arm in arm they strolled into the schoolhouse where a large wooden table, scratched with the initials of children and lovers, had been placed in the center of a small classroom whose flaking walls were yellowed with age. Termites worked busily in the wooden beams overhead, so that peppery brown dust dropped steadily on our papers. Zapata had with him his brother Eufemio, Otilio Montaño, three generals and a journalist named Paulino Martinez.

  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 f
ormer 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.”