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

by Clifford Irving

  I sat silently for a while, wiping the milk from my mustache with a white cloth napkin.

  “What am I to tell him, señora? He’s asked me to find out your terms for the divorce. Forgive me—I wouldn’t offend you for the world— but I’ve got to send him an answer.”

  “I won’t divorce him,” she said. “Do you think that if I did, and he married this Conchita, she would let him marry other women as I do?”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it.”

  “I love him too much to let him make a fool of himself. I think you’re intelligent, Tomás, and you have a warm heart. So you’ll understand.”

  “You’re a remarkable woman, señora. You accept things as they are. Not many people can do that.”

  “My husband’s road is a long one. He grows weary and stops to pray in many churches, but he worships in only one cathedral. I could never rob him of that true faith.”

  I digested this morsel and found it satisfying.

  I stood up. “I’ll give him your message.”

  “Tell him we miss him, and we’ll come whenever he calls.”

  She asked me if I wanted more milk and pie, but I explained that I was going from her house to see my family and Mama would be hurt if I didn’t eat until I let out two notches in my belt.

  “You’re a good man, Tomás,” she said gravely. “But you look unhappy. Don’t get killed.”

  I remembered the Indian women wailing that to their sons as they marched off with us in the desert of Chihuahua, when we first crossed the Rio Bravo two years ago. Why did I look unhappy?

  “The revolution’s almost over, señora. I’m just doing a few favors for your husband, but I’ve quit the fight.”

  “I knew you were clever,” Luz said, kissing me.

  Things happened quickly then. The next morning, keeping one eye skinned for that fellow who had tried to shoot me nearly a year ago, I picked up my new uniform.

  Then I went to see Sam Ravel in his office, to find out more about Felix before I showed up on his doorstep. Some strands of gray had begun to show in Sam’s black hair.

  “You look splendid, Tom. Better steer clear of Fort Bliss, though. If General Pershing sees those eagles he’ll figure that within a year he’ll be saluting you. “

  “I’ve already quit, Sam. I’m just putting in a bit of overtime.”

  “Smart man,” he said, and I was glad everyone thought so. “How soon will it be over?” he asked

  “Most people guess by the spring. But most people are usually wrong.”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed that too.” He gave me a wintry smile. “But now that Gutiérrez is gone—”

  “Gutiérrez? Gone where?”

  As he spoke in his easy drawl I found it difficult to believe that so much had happened in just a few days. But volcanos don’t erupt gradually; they do it with a suddenness that sends everyone running for their lives.

  Sam told me that Villa, true to his word, had signed the order for the execution of Paulino Martinez, the journalist. Fierro had carried it out with the aid of a firing squad. President Gutiérrez became enraged at that and other political executions, and also at what everyone but he had seemed to understand from the beginning—that Pancho Villa was running the government from Calle Liverpool. He got to worrying that the next firing squad might be for him.

  In the middle of the night, driving a campesino’s wagon and carrying thirteen million pesos stolen from the national treasury, Gutiérrez made his escape. When he reached his home in San Luis Potosí he declared that he was now loyal to Obregón.

  “And where the hell is Obregón?” I asked.

  “He turned up somewhere near Puebla, with a big army. To stop Zapata.”

  I remembered Felipe Angeles’ worries, but I said nothing to Ravel. He seemed to think the situation was under control. Pershing had already called Villa “the man of the hour,” and Ravel offered his opinion that if the chief could strike quickly and avoid killing any more Englishmen, Mr. Wilson would be more than glad to accept him as President of Mexico. Wilson’s concentration was elsewhere, on the war in Europe and the growing peril of German submarines.

  “Now tell me about Felix,” I said.

  “They just brought him home from the hospital.”

  “I’m on my way to see him.”

  “What’s happening with you and Hannah?”

  “We’re getting married,” I said, “and I’m going to go into the business. One day you and I will be partners, Sam.”

  That pleased him, and he solemnly shook my hand.

  Mrs. Sommerfeld opened the door for me and almost started to cry. Hannah was out riding, she explained. “Would you like to say hello to Felix? He heard you were coming. He’s asked for you, Tom.”

  I had never been upstairs in this house; the davenport was more my territory. It was cool and pleasant up there, richly furnished. A lot of good it would do Felix. He was dying, and you could see it. He didn’t look like a frog anymore, except for his greenish pallor. He was so thin he could have taken a bath in a shotgun barrel. He wore a little black skullcap on his head, and there was a Hebrew prayer book on the bedside table next to a syringe and some bottles of pills.

  The room smelled of decay and laudanum. His watery blue eyes fixed weakly on me as I forked a chair beside his bed.

  “Well, Tom … I can’t give you a birthday party this year.”

  “You’ll be around awhile, Felix. You’re a tough bird.”

  “Smoked myself to death,” he whispered. “Told Sarah to send the funeral bill to the Murad Company.” A little smile wrinkled the transparent mask of his skull. “How are you, Tom? You staying this time?”

  “Yes,” I said. “You’re stuck with me now.”

  “When’s the wedding?”

  “Soon, I hope. If she’ll still have me.”

  “She will.” He coughed harshly out of his rotten lungs, closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and rattled a sigh. “I remember in Columbus how I laughed at you. Wet behind the ears. Full of piss and vinegar. I liked you a lot.” He began to cough again. “You changed, but it was good to see.”

  “You should rest, Felix.”

  He beckoned with his fingers, and I saw that under his pajama sleeves hardly any flesh remained on the arm. His body was so bony it hardly made the counterpane rise. I leaned closer and sniffed the sour odor of laudanum on his breath.

  “I had a son once. Before Hannah. Died young, in the cradle. Wish he’d lived. Wish he could have known you.”

  My eyes were blurred now. I had always liked Felix. He had always been straight with me. Treated me, I realized, like the son he had lost and never seen grow to manhood. That’s what he was trying to say to me.

  “I’ll rest now, Tom. Take care of yourself, and Hannah.”

  I clasped the bones of his cold, skeletal hand and then left the room.

  Alone with my thoughts and a cup of coffee that Mrs. Sommerfeld gave me, I sat in the parlor awhile and then walked out on the veranda to wait for Hannah. A fresh breeze stirred the linden trees on the street, and the foliage cast fat dark gray shadows on the pavement. I had never seen a man I cared for turning into a rotted bag of skin. War was awful, no doubt of it, but there was something to say for the way it put a period to your troubles.

  Hannah came back in about an hour, wearing jodhpur boots, derby and tucked twill riding jacket. Her cheeks were flushed from the desert air. I was in deep shadow, and she didn’t see me until she mounted the steps of the veranda and shook her hair loose from under the hat. It was an unguarded moment … her cupid’s-bow lips were parted, her blue eyes a little lonely.

  When I cleared my throat she clapped a hand to her mouth, as if she had seen a ghost. But then she rushed softly across the creaking floor, into the shadows and into my arms. The smell of horse and woman flooded my nostrils, and she started to cry.

  “Oh, Tom … thank God…”

  Later that day we walked through the hot streets of El Paso to San Jacinto Park. W
e sat on an iron bench there, eating vanilla ice cream cones we bought from a vendor. Birds warbled in the chestnut trees, and the shade covered us like a cool umbrella. Hannah had become quieter and certainly looked thinner than when I had last seen her. Chin down, she studied her hands, then fixed me with a mournful look.

  “It was such a long time, Tom.”

  “For me too.”

  “You left in April. You said it would be all over by summer, and then we’d be married. Now it’s nearly Christmas.”

  “I know, Hannah. I’m sorry.” The words lacked proper weight. I wasn’t sorry at all. For her, yes, but not for what I had done. That had only been what I wanted to do. I felt a great listlessness and ennui, as if I were somewhere else, outside my skin, and the man here on the park bench was a sham.

  “You’re always sorry,” she said, with bite. “You’ll be sorry when you look at me one day and there’s an old maid staring you in the face. Sometimes I think you’re more engaged to Pancho Villa than you are to me. What do you think I do when you’re not here? I wait. I sew. I do the crossword puzzles. I practically live at horse shows. I’m bored, Tom! Tell me—are we getting married while Daddy’s still alive?”

  I took her hand, but she was still angry and she shook it loose. The ice cream broke from the cone and fell into her lap. She uttered a little screech and jumped to her feet, so that the milky vanilla rolled down the length of her dress, then plopped on her suede shoes.

  “Just look!”

  I yanked out a bandanna, which awakened memories, and tried to wipe it off her shoe. But she pulled away, sitting down swiftly. She let the ice cream stay where it was, evidence of her misery.

  Then I smiled.

  “We’ll get married whenever you like, dear. Next week, next month. I love you, Hannah. I’m not engaged to Pancho Villa anymore. I quit the revolution.”

  I didn’t bother to tell her that I had to go to Chihuahua City and Parral on those last two errands—it would have spoiled the moment.

  All the flash left her eyes; they glistened with tears. Her voice grew

  soft.

  “Oh, Tom, now you’ve made me happy.”

  So it was settled. A winter wedding, she said, right after the first of the year. Quiet, with just a few friends and the family. I kept nodding in agreement. I found a clean part of the bandanna, untouched by vanilla ice cream, and dabbed at her stained cheeks. I remembered the tears sliding down Rosa’s cheek that last night in Zacatecas. I hadn’t been able to wipe those tears away, so this was a form of penance.

  “I’ll go tell my folks,” I said, as I gently kissed her cheek. “That will make it official.”

  Mama and my sister embraced me. Papa pumped my hand, but then he frowned. I asked him what was the matter.

  “I keep thinking that those people killed Christ.”

  “That was a long time ago. And it’s just a rumor.”

  “People still believe.”

  “Hannah had nothing to do with it, Papa.”

  Hipólito gave a small engagement party for us on New Year’s Eve, as we all considered it unseemly to hold it in the Sommerfeld house with Felix dying one floor above the festivities. With my back pay I bought a little diamond ring at a Juárez jeweler who owed some favors to the revolution, slipping it on Hannah’s finger just before Mabel Silva announced that the buffet was ready. So many tongues wagged at me, and I had to shake so many hands of people I didn’t know, that I was busier than a one-armed man saddling a green bronc.

  Hannah clung to my arm, a single orchid pinned to the breast of her red silk dress, her hair falling in chestnut ringlets to bare shoulders. She was a virgin, even after the one night in Hipólito’s back bedroom. I understood the sacrifice she had been willing to make that April night. She was a hotblooded girl with some lively desires, but in those days, all things considered, she had gone awfully far with no guarantees.

  I loved her for it. In fact, I was going to marry her for it.

  The next morning Hipólito shook me awake. He clamped a mug of black coffee in my hand and waited patiently until I had survived the first two swallows, which nearly boiled my gullet but served to shake my brains back into working order. Then he told me the news that had come in on the wire to our commander in Juárez, who had sent a whitefaced captain straight across the river at dawn.

  Four of our brigades had been stationed in Guadalajara, the second largest city in Mexico, when a Carranzista general named Treviño suddenly appeared with five thousand men and a regiment of artillery armed with new German cannon. The battle had lasted only three days, but when it was over, half the Northern Division was in flight. They had retreated in an easterly direction to the town of Irapuato, where Villa heard the report and then ordered the commanders shot.

  “Our men had no will to fight,” Hipólito explained gravely. “They were confused. No one knew where Pancho was. Their artillery had been shipped to the south, to Zapata. Treviño came on them without warning. He went through the brigades like butter. He hanged all the Villista prisoners.”

  “Jesus. What’s happening in the south?”

  “Obregón took Puebla back from the Zapatistas.”

  He told me that last bit of news almost as if it were an afterthought. Of what importance was a southern city like Puebla compared to a defeat that had befallen the great Northern Division? With Villa occupied in the north, Carranza had seized the opportunity to make new promises, and in Mexico, even more than most places, the last promise shouted loud enough was the one to echo in a man’s ears. Carranza signed a pact for government aid to the newly organized national trade union, which promptly supplied four brigades of worker-soldiers. When Obregón attacked Puebla, the white-shirted Zapatistas occupying the city realized they would have to hold their ground or die. The Belgian cannon were too complicated for them to use. When the guns began to jam, they abandoned them.

  Like ghosts, they melted away into the surrounding mountain fastness. Through the forests and over back trails, they drifted back toward the safety of their patria chica in Morelos.

  So Villa and the bulk of the Northern Division were surrounded by three powerful Carranzista armies—Treviño to the west, González to the north, Obregón to the south.

  I groaned. “Felipe was right—your brother’s a damned fool. And where was Zapata? At his tailor’s shop? How could he let them give up so easily?”

  “He was in Mexico City when they heard the news of Puebla. His garrison panicked. They say he went back with them to Morelos.”

  “What do you mean, ‘they say’? Has Zapata quit? Is it true or not?”

  Hipólito smiled. “You know better than to ask such a question, Tomás. The answer is always: ‘Who knows?’”

  You had to be there to find out. I swung out of bed, reached for my boots and uniform, then hesitated.

  “Has anything happened in Chihuahua?” I asked.

  “Urbina is there. The north will always be ours.”

  “If we can stop Obregón.”

  “We?”

  I wonder now if I had been waiting for such news all along. It chilled me, but it also stirred something in me. My resolve and my loyalty had only been napping. Why hadn’t I seen it? I had fought with Villa all throughout the good times, the times when we won the battles and took the cities, and now that things had suddenly turned sour I had absented myself. Villa’s plan—the man himself—was stumbling, failing. I had forgiven him everything up until then, but I hadn’t forgiven him his inability to make the most of victory. “Once he gets what he wants, “ Luz had said, “he loses interest.” No, not interest, but clarity of vision. That’s when I had shied away, sunk in the trough of my despair over Rosa and my cynicism over the antics at Aguascalientes.

  I had quit too soon, when he still needed me. I had once believed in his revolution—not a whim, but a belief that had been built over years, despite mistakes. And even— yes—despite villainy. I still believed, and I had to go back. Would Hannah understand? Beyond the c
ertainty of desire, did / understand? If I didn’t go back I would be guilty of a second cowardice, a turning away. Once was enough for a lifetime.

  “What time does the train leave for Chihuahua City?”

  “Nine o’clock, Tomás, as always. Which is to say, anytime after nine o’clock.”

  I had to move swiftly or not at all, I knew that.

  I had barely enough time for Hipólito to drive me to the Sommerfelds. He waited in the car while a maid roused Hannah from bed. She met me halfway up the staircase. The white silk handkerchief round her head slipped a bit, and I saw that her hair was wrapped tightly in iron curlers. Then her sleepy blue eyes widened as they focused on my rifle and saddlebags at the foot of the stairs.

  “Oh, Tom, no!Why?”

  “Because I’ve got to do it. Got to do it now. I’ll be back.”

  “No!”

  I told her what had happened in the south. She stared at me, uncomprehending.

  “I have to finish what I started. All my life I was a quitter. I can’t do that anymore.”

  “You’re quitting me,” she cried. “You promised! I’ll be humiliated, I’ll look like a fool! We told everyone we were getting married next month! You can’t go.”

  “Hannah,” I said, seizing her hands. “Try to see me as a man, not just the man you love. I want to be a man. If I don’t go, I won’t be.”

  “I don’t care about that!”

  “But I do,” I said, a little coolly.

  “And don’t you care about me?”

  “You know I do.”

  “I don’t know anything anymore! All I know is that you’re leaving. And you swore you’d stay!” Her eyes glittered with something like desperation. “Last April, Tom, you got me into your bed. And all those times here in the house … Doesn’t that mean anything to you? I gave you everything I had … you don’t even care…”