The Friends of Pancho Villa

by James Carlos Blake

  According to Villa, Soledad knew all about Austroberta but didn’t give a damn. I didn’t say so, but I didn’t think she gave a damn about anything except making fools of men for the fun of it. If she’d demanded to live out at the hacienda with Villa, I don’t believe he would have been able to refuse her, despite his desire not to offend Austroberta. But Soledad didn’t want anything to do with the hacienda. “Your country hen can have that big house in the sticks with all those animals and stupid peons,” she told Villa. She said she’d had enough of that kind of life to last her forever. She liked the streetcars and the music halls and the restaurants, the fashions, the radio programs, the big markets, everything about the city. “This is the place for me, Francisco,” she told him. She always called him Francisco—except during their fights, when she’d call him horse-ass or shithead, among other things. Villa called her his chulita brujita, his “sweet little witch”—except during their fights, when he’d just call her “you crazy bitch.”

  •

  He was always being asked for interviews. Requests arrived in the post every day—from newspapers all over the country, from European publishers, from South America, and of course from the United States, which couldn’t seem to get its fill of stories about the “Centaur of the North.” They’re a confused people, the gringos: one day they’re sending thousands of soldiers to try to kill a man they hate, and the next they’re treating that same man like some kind of storybook hero. They never know what they really think about anything, not for long.

  In the first year of his retirement, he granted an interview to a group of gringo reporters who drove out to Canutillo from Parral after receiving permission to come see him. A large table with chairs and refreshments was set up in the main courtyard, and Trillo served as translator for the gringos who couldn’t speak Spanish. Pancho had expected them to ask him about life on Canutillo and wanted to show the place off, but all their questions were about his views on Mexican politics. They wanted to know what he thought of the new president, Alvaro Obregón, who’d been his friend in the wars against Díaz and Huerta, then his enemy in the war against Carranza, and was now, presumably, his friend once again.

  Villa refused to discuss politics and Obregón. He reminded them that he was completely retired from politics and was now dedicated “in body and soul” to work and study. “Ask me about my farm,” Pancho said, “ask me about my fine racehorses.”

  But gringos being gringos, they persisted in their line of questioning: one of them wanted to know if there was any possibility he would ever take up arms again. Villa gave him an exasperated look. “Listen, shitface,” he said, “the only reason I’d ever go to war again is if your troops invaded Mexico again. I’ll fight to the death against you gringo bastards.”

  Trillo edited the profanity out of his answer, but there was no hiding the anger in Villa’s face. I could see him trying to get his temper under control. More calmly, he said that the only other reason he’d ever fight again would be to help “my little brother Fito,” meaning Adolfo de la Huerta. “Unlike some politicians who I won’t name,” he said, “Fito is a man I trust completely. He is much like Madero: his only faults come from his goodness, his trust in men who don’t deserve it. I think he would make a wonderful president, and if he should ever need my help in any way, he knows he can count on it.”

  Trillo didn’t want to translate that, and I knew why. He was worried it would get back to the capital and stir alarm among the many enemies Pancho still had in the government, including Alvaro One-Arm himself. But a couple of the reporters understood Spanish well enough to tell the others what Villa had said, and they all scribbled hastily in their little notebooks. Trillo shook his head at Villa in reproval, and Pancho’s face got dark and tight with the realization that the reporters had got the best of him, after all. Then one of them who knew some Spanish said he’d always heard that Villa was a great shot with a pistol and asked if he’d put on a shooting exhibition for them.

  That did it. “Fuck you!” Villa shouted. “I’m not some goddamn circus performer! Did you come here for me to amuse you? Get the hell out of here, all of you—now!—or I’ll show you some fucking shooting!” He stomped off into the house, and Trillo hustled the gringos back to their car and sent them on their way.

  After that, all mail requests for interviews were answered with a dignified form letter written by Trillo for Villa’s signature: it very politely explained that he was retired from all political activity, and expressed regret that his duties and responsibilites at Canutillo kept him much too occupied to grant interviews to anyone.

  •

  Not long after the interview with the gringos, Villa received a present from Alvaro One-Arm—a pair of American machine guns. They arrived with a note saying, “Some men feel safe with only God’s protection; others of us require a little more than that.” He signed it, ‘‘Your old and sincere friend, Alvaro.” Trillo thought the gift was Obregón’s way of showing Pancho he’d taken no offense at what he’d told the Yankee reporters, but I figured it was a warning to Villa to keep his mouth shut if he didn’t want the kind of trouble not even machine guns could deal with.

  We took the guns out behind the stables and had a good time firing them for about thirty seconds—they just poured bullets with a squeeze of the trigger—and then they jammed, both of them. It took a good five minutes to clear them, and then, after firing another few fast rounds, they both jammed again.

  “I get it,” Villa said with a laugh. “My old and sincere friend gives me guns that don’t work worth a shit to defend myself against my enemies. I get it.”

  Some of those enemies were damn close by—like the friends of Maclovio Herrera’s family who hadn’t forgotten that Villa had personally shot all the Herrera men in revenge for Maclovio’s desertion of us. There was a small army garrison on the edge of town under the command of Colonel Felix Lara, but as far as the army was concerned, Villa’s protection was his own business.

  That was the way we preferred it. I was chief of the ­bodyguards—a cadre of seven sharp-eyed Dorados who would not have hesitated to shoot their own mother if they thought she was trying to harm Villa. On the hacienda, they carried carbines and pistols. They kept him in view at all times when he was outdoors and posted themselves around the house when he was inside. In town, I had them flank him close on all sides and made sure there were always at least two shotguns in the party. But when he went to the house on Zaragoza Street, I took only our two best pistoleros—Claro Hurtado and Daniel Tamayo—and left the rest of the boys with Trillo at the Hotel Hidalgo.

  On our first visits to Parral, people nearly ran to get the hell away from us wherever we went. It bothered Pancho that the sight of him caused such fearful stirs among the citizens, and so he made it a point to stop in at a variety of shops whenever we were in town; he’d buy things he didn’t really need, just for the chance to chat pleasantly with the proprietors and the other customers. Most of the townspeople gradually got used to us and came to see Villa as the benign fellow citizen he insisted he was.

  The children all loved him, of course. As soon as our motorcar rolled into town, they’d flock to it like magpies, shoving and elbowing each other for the privilege of riding on the running board. Rosalío hated having all those kids hanging onto “his” automobile, but Villa was delighted by their excitement and would chide Rosalío for trying to smack them away. He made sure we never left Canutillo without a sack of wrapped candies in the front seat of the car, and he’d fling handfuls of it into the mob of kids every time we arrived at the Hotel Hidalgo. In no time at all he knew every boy in town by name.

  •

  Trillo was not only the most educated among us—and one of the funniest storytellers—he was for damn sure the biggest worrier. One of the things he used to worry about was that three men weren’t enough to guard Villa on the nights he spent with Soledad. We’d been living the hacendado life for about s
ix months when he finally got all the proof he needed that Pancho was sufficiently protected at the Zaragoza house.

  Late one afternoon, after concluding some business with a Durango cattleman and putting him up for the night at the Hotel Hidalgo, Villa got behind the wheel of the Dodge and headed for Soledad’s house across town. I sat beside him, and Claro and Daniel sat in back. The sun had gone down behind the distant mountains but the dusty evening light was still rosy. The air was full of the smells of good cooking. Swallows were flocking to their roosts in the trees. A few fireflies were already flashing in the shadows. Daniel was telling a story he’d heard from Trillo about a blind whore and deaf and dumb customer.

  Villa parked in the alley alongside the house and gave a couple of urchins a silver peso apiece to wipe the dust off the car. Daniel was just getting to the punch line of the story as we walked to the front corner of the building. He and Claro were two steps ahead of me and Pancho. As they started to turn the corner, Daniel suddenly shoved Villa back toward me and Claro yelled, “Assassins!” I grabbed Pancho by the shoulders and wrestled him back into the alley in the same instant that Daniel and Claro opened fire with their shotguns and pistol shots rang out from the front of the house. They scuttled sideways into the street, moving fast, pumping and firing from the hip, the shotguns thundering and muzzles flashing—and then they dropped the empty shotguns and pulled their .45s and ran forward, shooting as fast as they could pull the trigger, no longer drawing fire. Villa wrestled free of my grip, cursing me hotly, and we both dashed around the corner with our pistols raised and ready.

  But it was all over. Claro was sliding a fresh magazine into his pistol and jacking a round in the chamber while Daniel kept his other pistol—a revolver—trained on the four bloody bodies sprawled in the street, all of them in postures only dead men can assume. Claro stepped up and shot each one in the head once more, just to be sure.

  It looked like they’d been lying in wait for us in the alley on the far side of the house, not sure which side of the building we’d park on, since sometimes Pancho used one side and sometimes the other. He still kept to his old practice of never following a routine. When they saw us turn into the other alley, they’d decided to come around in front of the house rather than wait for us to step out into the open, like they should have done. Stupid clumsy amateurs. They never stood a chance against the likes of us.

  After giving the last coup shot, Claro looked at Daniel with a grin and said, “So what did the blind whore say, anyway?”

  “Oh yeah,” Daniel said, holstering his pistols. “She says, ‘Well, for Christ’s sake, amigo, why didn’t you just tell me that’s how you like it?’”

  They laughed like happy schoolboys who’d just won a ballgame. Claro had a bloody sleeve, but the round had torn through the flesh without hitting bone, so it wasn’t anything serious. Daniel would later find two bullet holes in his jacket, though he hadn’t gotten a scratch.

  A crowd had begun to gather, and the two kids who’d been wiping down the car were running around the bodies, aiming their index fingers at them and yelling, “Bang-bang-bang!” while a frisky pup chased after them, barking and barking.

  Daniel gave me a cigarette and struck a match to light it for me. As I took a deep drag, I saw Soledad standing in the front doorway as Villa mounted the steps toward her, her hands to her mouth, her eyes huge and bright with thrill.

  The gunmen turned out to be two cousins of Maclovio Herrera and two of his close friends. Their bodies were put on display in front of the undertaker’s parlor the next day so everybody could have a good look at what happened to fools who thought they could kill Pancho Villa.

  Nobody tried it again. Not for more than two years.

  TWENTY

  The Parral cockpit was in a converted warehouse alongside the railyard. There were matches every night of the week, but the Sunday afternoon fights always drew the best cockfighters in the region and attracted the biggest crowds of bettors. The pit itself was enclosed by wooden walls three feet high and surrounded by tiers of dimly lit bleachers. On those packed afternoons the air was hot and thick with smoke and sweat, and the place reverberated with the roars of the spectators. We showed up every Sunday with a few of Villa’s best birds—and our ­shotguns—and usually came out well ahead at the end of the day.

  Until Villa began pitting his birds in Parral, the champion cockfighter had been Melitón Lozoya. He was a vain man with a tough reputation who owned a large and profitable cattle ranch a few miles from town. Like Villa, he had his share of enemies—and like Villa, he never left home without an escort of bodyguards. Occasionally, one of Villa’s birds would lose a fight to one of Lozoya’s, but during the three years we’d now been living in the region, it was mostly the other way around—which gave Pancho great pleasure because he’d disliked Lozoya from the moment he met him. “He’s a phony bastard,” Pancho said. “A cheat, a backshooter. It’s in his eyes.”

  Lozoya usually accepted his losses with an exaggerated shrug of indifference. He was one of those guys who preferred to swallow his anger rather than give anybody who’d got the best of him the satisfaction of seeing it. But one Sunday his cool facade failed him badly. He bragged that his new cock could beat any bird Villa pitted against it, but Pancho was so confident in the superiority of his roosters that he put his second-best bird—a muscular red named Chico—against Lozoya’s new champion. In less than five minutes Chico crippled Lozoya’s bird to win the fight—and a stake of a thousand pesos in addition to the side bets.

  Lozoya hadn’t shown much emotion during the fight, but when his maimed rooster couldn’t face off anymore, he began cursing loudly, then stalked into the pit and kicked the bird to death.

  Villa laughed out loud and said to me and Trillo, “Now, there’s a guy who could do with a little self-control’’—which, coming from him, made me laugh even louder than I had at Lozoya.

  On the following Sunday Lozoya brought another new cock to the pits, a big black named Brujo which we heard he’d bought for five thousand pesos from Durango’s best breeder. He challenged Villa to put up his best bird in a match for a thousand-peso stake. Villa said, “Hell, son, I’ll put up Chico. And why not make it two thousand?” Lozoya said, “Why not?” And the cocks were pitted.

  The black cock flew at Chico like something set loose out of hell. They smacked together in a scattering of feathers and slashing steel spurs, and it was over in less than a minute when the black put a spur through Chico’s eye. As Brujo stood over Chico’s corpse and crowed in triumph, Lozoya swaggered over to our side of the pit to collect the stake. It was the first time in a long while that Pancho had lost—and the first time in an even longer while that anybody had smirked at him like Lozoya was doing as he stood in front of him with his hand out.

  “Two thousand pesos, my general,” Lozoya said. “And better luck next time.”

  Trillo started to extract the money from his coat pocket but Villa stopped him with a raised hand, his eyes hard on Lozoya. “Another match,” Pancho said. “I’ll bet three thousand against your two.”

  Lozoya dropped his hand and quit smiling, as though he’d suddenly remembered who he was dealing with. But his eyes met Villa’s steadily and he said, “Very well, General, as you wish.”

  Pancho’s best rooster was a golden brute named Dorita, and his match with Brujo was a cockfight to remember. It lasted almost an hour and they fought in a frenzy the whole time except for the brief respites when their handlers were permitted to pick them up and wipe them with cool wet cloths and blow cigarette smoke in their faces to keep them in a fury. Near the end, both of them were badly torn and bloody, and each had lost an eye—and still they lunged at each other, pecking and slashing. The crowd’s yelling had gone hoarse.

  Suddenly Brujo made a desperate rush that staggered Dorito. The black struck him again and knocked him down. Brujo leaped on Dorito, slashing and stabbing with his spurs, a
nd in a few seconds more it was over. There was cheering and groaning and cursing, and lots of money changing hands.

  Brujo stood swaying over the dead cock and crowed weakly. Then his head blew apart in the blast of a gunshot.

  The whole place went silent as Villa stood up and reholstered his pistol. He turned to Trillo and said, “Pay the fucker for the damn bird too.”

  Claro and Daniel had smoothly and quietly edged up beside Pancho, smiling and bright-eyed, holding their shotguns down along their legs. They and I and Rosalío were the only guards he kept around him anymore. I’d already drawn my .45 and thumbed off the safety. Beside me, Rosalío had his hand in his jacket and on his gun. Lozoya’s boys looked fearful that their boss might say the wrong thing, but he was wise enough to keep his mouth shut. The only sound in the place was of Trillo’s boots as he walked across the pit, stepping carefully around the two dead cocks, and handed Lozoya ten thousand pesos. And then we left.

  •

  For the first few miles of the ride back to Canutillo, Villa stared out at the passing landscape and didn’t say much. The road was in rough shape—it hadn’t been smoothed in weeks and a long dry spell had baked it to powder. The Dodge trailed a high plume of pale dust as it clattered along. A pair of hawks spiraled slowly over a patch of yellow pasture. Pancho sat against the passenger-side front door, with Trillo squeezed between him and the driver, Rosalío. Claro and Daniel were in the backseat with me, joking and talking about some girls they’d met at the riverside park the day before.

  Finally Pancho said, ‘‘That was a damn fine rooster, that black, a real bravo. I shouldn’t have shot him. It’s just that son of a bitch Lozoya. I can’t stand to lose to him.”