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

by Clifford Irving

  He would have died before he called me “sir,” or even “colonel.” and what he really wanted to say was that as far as he was concerned the only good Mexican was a dead one; but he assumed from the angle of my jaw and the hoarseness of my voice that I was fighting mad, and he didn’t yet know how many men we might have on the other side of the hill. Still, he wasn’t taking any guff. That wasn’t Patton’s style.

  “You’re in United States territory, and I want to know what the hell for.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, toward the border. “Your war’s down there.”

  “Lieutenant,” I said, “we have a wounded officer in our wagon. He has a broken ankle, and fever. We were north of Ascensión when it happened. The nearest surgeon is in El Paso.”

  Julio had appeared over the crest of the hill with the wagon and our horses.

  “Why didn’t you take him to Juárez?” Patton asked.

  “The Carranzistas hold it. If we went to Juárez, our officer would lose more than his leg. And he’d have company.”

  “How large a force are you?”

  I waved in Julio’s direction. “What you see.”

  “Let’s have a look at this man,” Patton said, when the wagon jolted closer. He treated me as if he were the colonel and I were the lieutenant.

  He strode over, shot a quick look at Julio and then peered in at Fierro, who was awake, propped up on one elbow and glaring at the soldiers. Fierro kept one hand under his serape, and I knew the finger would be wrapped around the trigger of his pistol. But he kept his mouth shut. His face was white except for a high flush on the cheekbones. His forehead glistened with sweat. The ankle was dark purple and swollen to the size of the calf.

  Patton’s eyes locked with his. Then he turned to me. “What are the names of these two men?”

  “Colonel Cárdenas and … the wounded man is Captain Garcia.”

  He nodded. “The man’s obviously a soldier, and he’ll lose his leg if you don’t get him to a doctor. I’ll send a detail downriver with you to El Paso. If you try any monkey business, they’ll be under orders to shoot.”

  I couldn’t figure him out. He was doing the right thing, but in the wrong spirit.

  “Take it easy,” I said. “You’re not at war with us. The last time I met Black Jack Pershing he took me and Pancho Villa to a baseball game, and then we had pineapple upside-down cake at General Scott’s.”

  He stared at me for a while, then smiled as if something had only just come clear to him. “When did you last see a newspaper, Mix?”

  “Is there news?” I asked uneasily.

  His smile faded. “Mr. Wilson finally made up his mind. Four days ago, the United States recognized the Carranza government—which means that for Mr. Wilson, and for General Pershing, and for me, Venustiano Carranza is the legitimate President of Mexico. Which also means that Pancho Villa is now a goddam outlaw. He’s had his last shipment of rifles and his last pineapple upside-down cake at General Scott’s. As for the rest of you people, you’re all officers in an illegal revolutionary army. That army is the enemy of a duly constituted government recognized by the United States. You hang around in this country after you’ve delivered your man to the doctor in El Paso, and we’ll hand you over to the Carranzista authorities in Juárez.

  “In your particular case,” he said, “it will be a special pleasure. Your purpose is humane or I’d do it right now. I’ll give you and your gang of pirates forty-eight hours. Then get your ass across the border. And don’t come back.”

  We reached El Paso at dusk, the soldiers trotting along behind us under the command of a tight-lipped Apache scout named Sergeant Chicken. After I told Julio and Candelario what Patton had told me, there was no more to say. Carranza, in the eyes of the United States, was President of Mexico. We were indeed outlaws.

  No news could have depressed me more, other than the death of the chief. I wondered if he knew. Even if he licked the Carranzista force at Agua Prieta, he couldn’t use Douglas as a port of entry. The Americans would supply Obregón, and we would be back where we were two and a half years ago in the desert of Chihuahua, having to steal every bullet and tortilla. It just didn’t seem possible. But I knew Patton wasn’t lying.

  Sergeant Chicken’s orders were to let us go when we reached the city limits. We crossed into Texas over the Borderland Bridge, and the Apache scout watched us disappear down North Mesa Street. There were a few El Pasoans sauntering along the sidewalks in the cool evening air, but when we came clopping into view they ducked into the nearest doorway or behind parked cars. I couldn’t blame them—we were a ragged, barbarous trio, and Rodolfo’s face, peering up over the sideboard of the wagon, looked like the joker’s in a pack of cards.

  We brought him straight to Hipólito’s house, and I pounded on the door. Hipólito came out, jowly and red-eyed, wearing an undershirt, his paunch hanging over baggy duck trousers. He didn’t look like the man I had known.

  “Tomás! But this is good! And these other two! Madre de Dios! It must be Christmas! What do you bring me, a wagonload of pulque?”

  “A wagonload of Rodolfo Fierro.”

  An hour later Fierro was in a dimly lit little hospital on Third Street in Little Chihuahua. The doctor said he could save the leg, since gangrene hadn’t yet appeared. There was nothing we could do after that except go back to Montana Street, where Mabel Silva brewed coffee and fried some chickens, and Hipólito told us all he knew.

  A conference on the so-called “Mexican problem” had been held in Washington, attended by the foreign ministers of all interested parties. Carranza’s envoys hadn’t been invited, but they came anyway and hung around to assure the delegates that Don Venus would guarantee the property rights of foreigners under his new regime. It sounded like Porfirio Díaz all over again.

  The only one who raised any fuss was General Hugh Scott, but no one listened. Felipe Angeles had never managed an interview with President Wilson. The American people were fed up with the Mexican rumbling and more interested in who was slaughtering whom in Europe.

  On October 19 Wilson recognized Carranza as the de facto leader of his country. Patton was right. With the stroke of a pen, we had all been made outlaws.

  “It’s what Wilson always wanted to do,” Hipólito said, “ever since my brother murdered that Englishman. But naturally, being a politician, Mr. Wilson couldn’t do it as long as Pancho looked to be the next president. After our garrison surrendered in Juárez, he decided that the tide had turned for good … at least, that’s what he thinks. Don Venus is back in the capital. Obregón controls the rest of the country. What’s left to us? A few pueblos, just like the old days.”

  He hawked, spat neatly into a brass cuspidor, then turned to Candelario. “What are our chances in Sonora? Don’t lie to me … not too much, anyway. I need some good news.”

  “We hold the Pulpito,” Candelario declared. “We’ve got nearly nine thousand men. If we win at Agua Prieta, we’ll take all of Sonora. You know your brother—he’ll never give up. He always has a plan.” Candelario’s tone turned a little cruel. “What are you worried about? You’re not going to fight. You haven’t fought in a year. You’ve lost your casinos, but you must be a rich man by now. Enjoy your good life here in Texas.”

  Hipólito’s face darkened at the insult. But then a sheepish smile spread over his pudgy features.

  “If that were true,” he said, “we’d be drinking champagne instead of tequila. I made a lot of money but I gambled too often at Touché’s.”

  “I thought the wheel was rigged,” Candelario said, perplexed. “Couldn’t you read the marks on your own cards?”

  “Pancho said the purpose of the revolution was to correct such abuses.” Hipólito laughed. “I corrected them, and the house percentage killed me. I’ll go to Sonora with you and fight.”

  Candelario embraced him. All was forgiven, and all was well again.

  “The problem is supplies,” Hipólito said gloomily. “No more bullets. No coal.”

&nb
sp; I thought fleetingly of Franz von Papen, wondering if Villa was doing the same. Then I said, “We’ll have to see Sam Ravel and Felix, if he’s still in business. They’ll figure a way to get things across the border. They always did.”

  Hipólito looked even gloomier. “Tomás, I thought you knew. Felix died last April. And Ravel switched sides. He’s supplying Obregón.”

  That night on the porch of Hipólito’s house, after we let the air out of a second tequila bottle, Candelario announced that he was leaving for Columbus early the next morning. “I’m going to find Marie-Thérése and marry her,” he said drunkenly. “Yvette, too, if she’s willing.”

  “You’re married already,” I reminded him.

  “If the chief can have three wives, why can’t I? There must be some privileges that go with being a general.”

  I pointed out that the girls would probably never leave the United States for Mexico.

  “Then I’ll stay here,” Candelario decided. “This crazy lieutenant won’t find us. I’ll shave off my beard. I speak a few words of English, and I can learn the rest—I’m just as smart as Rosa. I like the United States. I like the movies. I’ll get a job on a ranch. Or I’ll open a restaurant. I have some money put away somewhere,” he said, leering.

  “I’ll be your partner,” Julio said glumly, snatching the bottle. “Hipólito, stay with us. You’re too fat to fight. You’ll just get killed in Sonora.”

  Hipólito rubbed his belly. “I could lose weight.”

  “You’ll lose plenty,” said Candelario, “when you’re lying dead in a well. You can be a waiter in my restaurant.”

  “Mabel doesn’t want me to fight, either.”

  “So that settles it.” Candelario uncorked yet another bottle, took a swig and passed it to Julio. “We’re retired. We’ll all get fat and rich. If you’re not rich, Tomás, if you can’t get a job as an actor, you can always get a free meal at my restaurant. This is a wonderful idea. Why didn’t we think of it before?”

  “Because you were never so drunk before,” I said.

  “Are you serious? I’ve been drunk for a year, at least between battles. What else is there to do in life except fight and fuck and drink?” He peered at me carefully, as if he saw me through a haze—which was probable. “What are you trying to say, Tomás?”

  “That I’m going to Sonora.”

  “To fight?”

  “Well, not to fuck and drink.”

  “You believe this lieutenant will really come after you if you stay here?”

  “That’s not it. I haven’t given up. Neither has the chief. So what if Carranza’s president? Huerta was president before him, and we licked Huerta. The revolution’s not dead. It can’t die as long as Pancho Villa lives.”

  “Jesus,” Candelario muttered to the others. “He’s become more Mexican than the rest of us.”

  “No,” I said, “I just remember why I joined up with you idiots in the first place. Anyway, the second place. And that hasn’t changed.”

  But the next morning before the rest of us were awake, Candelario left on the train for Columbus. After we had thrown buckets of water over our heads to cure the worst part of our hangovers, Julio, Hipólito and I went to the hospital on Third Street to see how Fierro was doing. The doctor told us he had saved the leg, and he thought the bone would heal well enough so that Rodolfo could walk and ride without any trouble.

  Then I went to Sam Ravel’s office in the Toltec Building. I had to try and talk him out of switching sides.

  I had a garden of reasons, and I plucked them out one by one, weeds and all, and slung them across his desk. But Sam just tapped his fingers impatiently.

  “Things change, Tom. That’s something you’ve got to realize … for your own sake.”

  ‘“Why? What do you want me to do?”

  “Villa hasn’t won a battle since before the convention. He’s finished.”

  “Not if he can get arms. The people will always be with him. And he’s the only one who really gives a damn about the people.”

  “That’s how Hannah used to talk when she was a kid. Tom, wake up. The people backed Villa when they thought he was a hero, when they believed he could win something for them. Now they see he has feet of clay. He’s lost. Not even the campesinos will support him after this. I’m not supplying Obregón because I think he’s any better than Villa. I’m doing it because he and Carranza are the only ones left who can lead Mexico out of its bloodbath. You’re an intelligent man, and you’ve got a future. Don’t turn your back on it. I need you in Columbus, and that offer I made to you still goes, no matter what happened between you and Hannah. You should take it.”

  I felt no small irritation at his quick change of sides—even if he had what he considered a decent reason—and even more at the fact that he thought I would go along with him.

  “You want me to work for you against Villa? No, Sam … if that’s waking up, I’ll stay asleep.”

  “But you were going to quit last December! You were going to marry Hannah after the new year. What the hell ever happened to make you stay down there?”

  “I got more involved,” I said, keeping it simple.

  “And you don’t even ask about Hannah?”

  I couldn’t explain all that to him. Besides, I had already heard from Hipólito that she was well and thriving, and that my fleeing to Mexico hadn’t ruined her life or driven her to a convent. I may not have loved Hannah anymore, but I respected her ability to survive and track down whatever it was she wanted in life.

  “Will you see her?” Sam asked.

  “It’s over between us,” I said.

  “She talks about you an awful lot. If you wanted…”

  “I don’t want.”

  We shook hands, even though he was going to supply bullets to men who would try to kill me with them. I suppose he didn’t think of it that way, if at all.

  “If you change your mind, Tom, let me know.”

  “I won’t change my mind. Take care now, Sam.”

  “I’m sorry about all this.”

  “Well, business is business, as they say.”

  His handsome smile faded a bit at that. I regretted the remark right away—we had been through a lot together, horse-trading and jawing over bottles of brandy and cigars. I had always respected the man, and he had helped to save my life by the Stanton Street Bridge.

  But I didn’t apologize. There are some things you can’t do and still lock eyes each morning with that fellow in the shaving mirror. I had started to get a glimmer that when things busted apart at the seams, what kept you whole inside your own skin was a blind—some would say senseless— loyalty to the people who counted on it. There certainly wasn’t much else that lasted.

  When I woke early the next morning, I heard Candelario’s raucous voice. I pulled on my boots and stomped into the front room. He was drinking coffee with Julio, and their blanket rolls, saddlebags and rifles were piled by the door. Julio was stuffing cartridge boxes among the socks and shirts in his war bag. Mabel Silva was in the kitchen. I smelled eggs frying in butter.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Ah, Tomás!” Candelario sighed. “When did the course of true love ever run smooth? I found the ladies at Doña Margarita’s whorehouse. They say business has picked up—the cavalry has been reinforced at Camp Furlong. Yvette looks well, although Marie Thérése has grown a little too thin. We spent a pleasant night. I fucked them both, vigorously. But they both declined the pleasure of marrying me, and they won’t come to Sonora. They seem to have lost faith in the chiefs future. They send their love and many kisses. Do you want them from me, or do you take my word for it?” He grinned, showing his broken teeth.

  I pointed to the blanket rolls. “What are you doing now?”

  “The train for Arizona leaves in an hour. Hipólito’s gone to the bank to get the rest of his money.”

  “I thought you were all staying in Texas.”

  “Amigo, we were drunk, didn’t you know that? It
sounded like a good idea at the time. And how could we let you go alone? Besides, none of us are good for anything but fighting.”

  “You drink pretty well too,” I said.

  “I fuck even better. Not that it does me much good.”

  “You had me scared the other night,” I admitted.

  “You? That’s hard to believe, my friend. Doubting, yes. Scared, never. I know you too well.”

  We stabled the horses, piled into Hipólito’s Cadillac and bumped across town in the sunshine to the railroad station. When we got near it, turning into Dallas Street, we heard the rumble of horses’ hoofs on pavement and the dragging of boots. Hipólito hit the brakes.

  “What’s that?” Candelario muttered.

  The cross street was blocked by policemen and wooden barricades. Beyond them a mass of Mexican soldiers marched in ragged formation toward the station; they wore sombreros and cartridge belts and carried the usual varied assortment of rifles, and they were singing “La Cucaracha.” A crowd had gathered.

  The clop of hoofs grew louder, and when we looked beyond the soldiers we saw hundreds of horses and mules being herded down Wyoming Avenue toward the staging yards. Vaqueros were cracking bullwhips; horseshit steamed on glistening tar. I couldn’t count the men, but within our view there must have been at least a battalion.

  “Who are they?” Julio murmured.

  “How should I know?” Candelario scratched his beard so vigorously I thought he had discovered a nest of fleas. “But we should ask. Tomás, you go. Speak English. Be clever.”

  Quickly I jumped out of the car and trotted up to the nearest barricade. A red-faced copper in a blue uniform stood there, waving his billy at the crowd to keep them in check.

  “Are we being invaded?” I asked. “Which one is Pancho Villa? How come the army’s letting these chiles march through town?”

  “Uncle Sam’s orders, lad. A free ride for them on the El Paso & Southwestern.”