The Friends of Pancho Villa

by James Carlos Blake

  The gringo said he couldn’t answer that, but he did think Villa should keep in mind that the British navy was the most powerful in the world, a fact of no small importance in resolving various of Britain’s past international disputes.

  Villa rubbed his face hard and stared at him as if he couldn’t see him very well. He leaned toward me and whispered loudly: “What the hell can anybody’s navy do to me in Chihuahua?” It rankled him to be asked so damn many questions. “Goddammit, I’m the governor! A governor governs, he doesn’t explain!”

  When the British demanded the return of Benton’s body, Villa relayed his deep regret that he could not give it to them. He said that an ancient Mexican law, unwritten but sacred since long before the arrival of the Conquistadors, prohibited certain acts of disturbance to the dead—such as the transfer of remains from one grave to another. I was surprised nobody inquired further into this “ancient law.” Until the moment Pancho mentioned it, I’d never heard of it. None of us had. It was just his diplomatic way of making it clear that nobody made demands of Pancho Villa, not in northern Mexico.

  But he did agree to give the Brits the full details of Benton’s trial. He figured it was worth it if it would bring the matter to a close. And so we sent them everything—trial transcripts, witness depositions, court orders, and reports of every kind. Our legal people worked around the clock to produce it all. From this mass of evidence, the newspapers reconstructed Benton’s trial in every aspect. Reading all about it, I was certainly convinced of the justness of the verdict and the sentence passed on the Scotsman.

  But the Brits still weren’t satisfied. They wanted an autopsy done on Benton, with one of their own doctors present. And because the body would go back into the same grave, the Brits argued, there would be no violation of the sacred law Villa had previously cited.

  We were with our chief medical officer, discussing improvements Villa wanted to make on the hospital trains, when this latest British demand reached us. “Oh, what the hell,” Villa said. ‘‘Why not let them dig up their compadre and look at the hole in his head? Anything to put an end to this goddamn business!”

  “Listen,” I said, “there’s something you ought to know.”

  When he heard how Benton had actually died, he understood our problem: as soon as they dug him up they’d see that, contrary to our claim, he hadn’t been killed by a bullet—and then some people were sure to think we hadn’t been absolutely truthful about other details of the incident, as well.

  “All right,” Pancho said, “here’s what we do. We dig him up, shoot him in the head, and put him back in the ground. Then we let them come and dig him up for their goddamn autopsy.” His patience was wearing thin, and his tone dripped sarcasm as he said to me, “And listen, try not to lose your temper with him this time, eh?”

  “Excuse me—excuse me, my general,” the doctor said. He was a new man we’d recently recruited, damn good at his work but still very nervous to find himself working for Pancho Villa. He explained that Villa’s solution to our problem with Benton wouldn’t work. “An autopsy, my general, will show without doubt that the deceased was shot after he was already dead.”

  “A doctor can know that about a dead guy just by cutting him open and looking at his insides?” Urbina said in wonder. “Holy Mother of God. Sounds like witchcraft to me. I once knew a witch who could see the future in the eyes of dead dogs. She told me, ‘I see money coming to you very soon.’ She was right: two minutes later I robbed her.’’ He cackled loudly over this fond memory and took another drink.

  Villa squinted intently at the doctor and said, “And what did your autopsy reveal about the damned Scotsman, Señor Doctor?”

  “Pardon me, my general?” the doctor said, looking confused. “My autopsy, but I haven’t—” His eyes widened as Villa drew his pistol and placed it on the table.

  “Your autopsy,” Villa said. “The one you did on Señor Benton just this morning.”

  “This morning . . . ? Ah, yes!” the doctor exclaimed, tapping his forehead with his palm in a theatrical manner I couldn’t help smiling at. “My autopsy, of course! What an accursed memory I have! Just this morning, yes, and my finding—my unmistakable finding—was that Señor Benton died of a gunshot wound to the head, yes.” He looked from Pancho to Tomás to me. “I mean . . . that is what my autopsy unmistakably revealed . . . ?”

  Villa smiled and nodded, and the doctor grinned like a lunatic. “Yes! Just so! And I must apologize, my general, but I have been so busy today that I have not quite completed the autopsy report. I assure you, however, it will be in your hands within the hour.”

  “I know it will,” Villa said.

  And it was. And by the following day the British had it, together with a letter signed by Villa, stating that he hoped everything was now to their satisfaction.

  It wasn’t. The Brits said they had “reservations” about the validity of our report. They persisted in their demand to make their own examination of Benton’s corpse.

  “Those arrogant sons of bitches!” Villa shouted. “Now they don’t think a Mexican doctor can perform a proper autopsy, is that it? Well, no more fucking autopsies, not by anybody! Those milk-face bastards! How many times do they want to desecrate that poor man’s grave, anyway?”

  The gringo envoy came to see us again, this time wearing white linen. He said we were putting his government on the spot: the Americans couldn’t permit the British to take direct action against us, but they couldn’t refuse to pursue their case for them, either.

  “Goddamn it, General,” he said after supper when he was half-crocked on brandy. “If only you boys hadn’t tried to be so damn legal about it. The Limeys can’t stand to see one of theirs get it in the neck from a foreigner. They think they’re above everybody’s laws but their own. If this coot Benton had been plugged by a bandido or some drunk in the street, everybody would’ve said it was a damn shame but what the hell, those things happen down Mexico way. But when they hear he was executed, well now, that’s another story. You should’ve just ordered one of your men to go over to his ranch and bushwhack the old son of a bitch. Then you try one of your men as the murderer and hang him and that takes care of that—everybody’s satisfied, see? Justice done and everything all nice and neat. None of this diplomatic hullabaloo.”

  Urbina leaned across the table and said, “You gringo fuck. You talk about hanging one of our boys like it’s just another one of your goddamn deals.”

  The Yankee envoy drew back from him, his eyes suddenly bright with alarm. “Hey now, amigo,” he said, “don’t take it like that.” He wasn’t too drunk to see how deadly drunk Tomás was. His eyes jumped around to all our faces. “Listen,” he said to Villa, “I’m an official representative of the United States government. You remember that.”

  Pancho stared at him without expression and shrugged.

  “Everything’s a deal with you people,” Urbina said. “You talk about killing a man the same way you talk about business, the same way you talk about politics. Well, let’s see you make a deal with this!” He pulled out his revolver and held the muzzle within inches of the gringo’s forehead. I was wearing a new leather jacket and was going to give Tomás hell if it got splattered with blood.

  The gringo pressed back into his chair, his eyes huge with fear, and raised his hands in front of his face. “Hold on now!” he said. “Wait a minute!”

  Urbina cocked the gun. “Oh God don’t!” the gringo said in English. I could see Urbina was going to do it—but then the gringo gave a loud cry and broke into tears. He covered his face and sobbed like a woman.

  Urbina lowered the gun and stared at him in astonishment, as if the Yankee had just pulled a magic trick. The rest of the boys looked somewhat puzzled and a little embarrassed, and then began to exchange grins, and then they all started laughing. Urbina put away his pistol, shaking his head in disgust. “Hey, I never shot a little girl in my
life,” he said, “and I’m not going to start now.”

  Villa laughed until his face was as bright with tears as the gringo’s. Then he dried his eyes with his shirtsleeve and ordered a couple of the boys to escort the envoy back to the border. “And listen,” he said to the red-faced gringo as he was being led off: “Tell your chiefs I’m through with all this Benton bullshit. Tell your British cousins. Tell them all Pancho Villa said fuck you. And tell them to find you a pair of balls or give you a dress to wear.”

  But of course the Brits weren’t about to let the matter drop, and the situation got even worse. Our headquarters was besieged by reporters, by diplomatic couriers, by new Yankee envoys trying to get Villa to permit the Brits to come into Mexico with their own investigation team. U.S. troops were building up at the border. Villa was looking as crazy-eyed as a cornered cat. But just when it seemed Pancho would shoot the next reporter who pestered him about Benton, Venustiano Carranza, first chief of the Constitutionalist alliance, stepped in and got us out of the mess.

  Until now, Carranza had said nothing at all about the Benton business, and we figured the old goat was smiling through his whiskers about Pancho’s troubles with the Brits and Americans. Some of Villa’s political advisors believed Carranza actually wanted to see Pancho provoke the gringos into sending their troops across the river: if Villa was killed in a fight with U.S. soldiers, it would put an end to everybody’s problems with him—Carranza’s as well as the Brits’. Such talk only made Villa more irritable.

  The situation being what it was, we were all surprised by the arrival of the first chief’s directive from Nogales saying that, above all, Mexican sovereignty was to be protected, and he was therefore officially denying permission for British investigators to enter the country. The orders also specified that Villa was to make no more statements about the Benton incident to anyone representing a foreign government or publication. The directive concluded with instructions to inform “all interested parties” that any further questions pertaining to the Benton matter should be addressed to the headquarters of the first chief of the Constitutionalist alliance.

  “He’s jealous!” Urbina yelped when the orders were read to him. “The old bastard can’t stand to see Pancho getting so much attention from the newspapers and all these gringos in suits.” I thought so too. It must have chafed Carranza’s sense of importance to see so many reporters and diplomats addressing Villa as if he was the head of the revolutionary alliance. The whitebeard’s orders were meant to remind everybody who the first chief really was.

  That was just fine with Villa. These were orders he was happy to obey. He ordered the regimental commanders to muster the troops aboard the trains and start heading south. To avoid the hordes of reporters on the lookout for him, he waited until the streets were jammed with our boys heading for the railyard, and then he and Tomás and I slipped down the alleyway to a stable a few blocks away.

  As we saddled up, one of Villa’s spokesmen was reading a statement to the mob of reporters and emissaries gathered in front of the headquarters building. He was telling them that General Villa regretted he could not stand before them in person, but he had just received orders to move immediately to engage federal forces massing to the south. Nevertheless, although the war against tyranny demanded his full attention, General Villa continued to share the desire of all interested parties to obtain complete clarification of the legally prescribed and fully sanctioned proceedings against Señor William Benton of Los Remedios. However, all further inquiries pertaining to that matter should be directed to the headquarters of the first chief in Nogales.

  Even from the stable, we could hear the clamor of the frustrated reporters. “Just listen to that,” Urbina said. He grunted with the pain of his rheumatism as he mounted up. “Like dogs under a cat in a tree. I don’t know why you guys took the trouble to learn to read. What can people like that write that anybody would want to know?”

  “Shut up, Tomás,” Villa said. He was still a little testy from the recent strains of press conferences and international diplomacy. He kept shooting me hard looks while he cinched his saddle.

  As we rode out of town, he suddenly reined over beside me and smacked me with his Texas hat. “Goddamn it, Rudy!” he said. “No more hitting them on the head, you hear me! From now on you do like always and you shoot the bastards!”

  Laughing like hell, we rode back to the kind of warfare we could understand.

  PART TWO

  The

  Rich Smells

  of

  Triumph

  “The Revolution was not the work of saints

  but of men of flesh and blood, men of passions

  and many defects.”

  —Francisco L. Urquizo

  SEVEN

  While we’d been busy in northern Chihuahua, the federals had once again occupied Torreón. In the early spring we retook it. This time the region was defended by some of Huerta’s best troops, and the fighting was the roughest we’d seen yet. The ground we gained in the mornings they took back in the afternoons. Our cavalries charged and countercharged; our infantries shoved each other back and forth over the bloody cottonfields. The nights shook with cannonfire and flashed with small arms. The dust never settled, the war cries never stopped, the smell of gunsmoke and burned flesh carried on the wind. At last, Angeles’s artillery blasted an opening for us and we pushed into town. The fighting was house-to-house and hand-to-hand. When the Huertistas finally waved the white flag, more than a thousand of our boys were dead and thousands more were wounded. The federal losses were of course even greater: our prisoners dug graves from dawn to dusk for more than a week before all the dead were buried.

  Now only the powerful federal garrison at Zacatecas stood between us and Mexico City. With Angeles advising him closely on the plan of attack, Villa began preparing to move south. Then came orders from Carranza: he was sending somebody else to take Zacatecas and wanted us to move against Saltillo, more than 150 miles due east of Torreón. The bastard. We knew what he was up to. He was afraid that once we took Zacatecas we’d roll right on down into Mexico City, and that if Villa beat him to the capital, he’d never get to be president.

  Felipe Angeles agreed with Villa that Carranza’s personal ambitions and jealousies were dictating wasteful military strategy, and he sent the whitebeard a wire requesting that he reconsider his plan and let us take Zacatecas, as we were far better equipped for the assault than any other of the Constitutionalist armies. Carranza refused.

  “The hell with it,” Pancho said. “He’s a perfumed chocolate drinker, but he’s the first chief. We’ll do it his way.”

  •

  We took Saltillo with no trouble at all and did a lot of celebrating while we waited for Pablo González and his boys to arrive and take over the occupation of the town. Because they’d been told that “Jesusita de Chihuahua” was Villa’s favorite song, a local band played it over and over without pause one evening just below the window of the hotel room where Pancho was taking his pleasure with some girl he’d married an hour earlier. Villa finally appeared at the window and yelled down that although he very much appreciated their intentions, he did not want to lose his love for “Jesusita” through so much rendition of her. If they played the song even one more time, he said, he would have them all shot on the charge of mutilation of music. The band quickly adjourned to a nearby cantina and did not play “Jesusita” again the whole time we were in town.

  During a search of the federal garrison, the boys found a motorcycle and rolled it over to show to Villa, who was entertaining a bunch of us with his rope tricks out by the garrison stable. None of us had ever sat astride one of those things in his life, but Calixto immediately bragged that he could ride it as easily as he could a horse. It took a while for him to figure out how the clutch and gears operated, but he had no problem kick-starting the motor. He put it in gear, let out the clutch, and drove smack into a corral
rail before he’d gone fifteen feet.

  Now the others started making bets that they could ride the motorcycle without crashing. One after another they veered off into the crowd, scattering the spectators like chickens and running into walls, trees, bushes, water troughs. When it was his turn, Maclovio said he knew the secret. “Watch carefully, boys, and learn something from your superior.” He twisted the throttle fully open, racing the motor deafeningly and pouring a thick cloud of smoke from the tailpipe, then let go of the clutch lever. The machine reared straight up in the air, went over backward, and just barely missed crushing him. Villa and Tomás and I laughed so hard our bellies ached.

  “Goddamn it, let me on that thing!” Tomás said, and took a long pull from his bottle to steady his nerves. Not wanting to repeat Maclovio’s mistake, he eased the clutch lever out very slowly. The motor stalled, Tomás lost his balance, and the machine fell over on him and twisted his ankle so bad he was limping for the next two weeks.

  “All right, little brother,” Villa said to me, “show them how simple it truly is.”

  “Go to hell,” I said. “If it’s so simple, you do it.”

  “You pussy. You think I won’t?”

  By now a photographer had set up his tripod, and Villa posed for a picture with the motorcycle—hatless, smiling, his hands on the grips, one foot up on a footrest as though it were a stirrup and he were about to mount a horse. He then straddled the machine and started it up. As smoothly as if he’d been riding motorcycles all his life, he rode that damn thing down the street and twice around the well in the central plaza. As he headed back toward us, gaining confidence and speed, he was leaning over the handlebars and grinning like an idiot child.

  He spotted me standing with a few of the boys next to a pigpen and swerved toward us to give us a scare. We all jumped out of the way—but the maneuver cost him control of the machine: it smashed through the railing and roared into the pen with a tremendous splash, sending pigs shrieking every which way as it abruptly bogged down and flung Villa headfirst into the wallow.