The Battle of Tomochic

by Heriberto Frías

  Your mother, Angela

  Now my mother! Leaving me for that evil man who is not even my father … The pair of them leaving together! The unhappy second lieutenant felt as though the ground had given way beneath him. His chest tightened and his eyes clouded over as he began to sob. He continued to cry in a corner of the doorway behind the guard post. This was a crushing blow. Now there was nothing left in this world for him. Life itself was false, reality gruesome. His own mother was abandoning him to his own devices, all alone in the world.

  Alone, what a frightening word! It conjured up the misfortune of his ill-starred life, the bitterness, disappointment, and infinite monotony he saw himself perpetually condemned to. Such an oversensitive young man, such a weak, emotional soul … vibrating like a snapped string, flung by fate who knows where? Scrambling through treacherous bushes and over boulders, he had been swept into the crater of the volcano, until he was staring down into the apex of horror. Duty, hatred, vice, war, love, and pain, all had forged him. Having the soul of a poet and philosopher, he felt how deeply he had sunk. Humanity nauseated and embittered him, and he heard himself repeating the familiar, gloomy refrain: it would have been better if I had never been born. Then he thought bitterly, “Nothing is sacred. Not the poetry of war or heroism, not even the poetry of motherhood … I’m all alone, totally alone! A curse on me!”

  In his desperation, he nonetheless possessed the rare lucidity to understand that he was probably in the grip of madness. He took up his rifle, which was leaning against the stone archway under the lantern, and then mechanically put his kepi on his head. In a daze, having lost all sense of time, he felt for his cartridges and then stood listlessly watching the happy officers come and go.

  “With your permission, second lieutenant, sir, it’s time for the changing of the guard,” said a corporal.

  Miguel came to with a start. He felt fatigued and cold all over again. But he was accustomed to peremptory orders from above; after all, he had been educated in the iron discipline of the military academy. Miguel answered energetically, “Fine. And make sure the one guarding the female prisoners doesn’t let anyone in, and that means the officers too. Understood?”

  Second Lieutenant Mercado took leave of the guards and headed for the camp. Around a soothing fire, a handful of officers were conversing with the famous Reyes Domínguez, brother-in-law of Cruz Chávez and sole survivor of Tomochic. He was relating some of the sordid details of the insanity that had afflicted his homeland, which seemingly took hold of the dogs and even the stones.

  As he listened to the torrent of words, Miguel learned more about what he already knew: it had been atrocious and terrible in Tomochic. It was the subject that everyone kept silent about.

  The rebellion involved a handful of men. Although intelligent and strong, they were ignorant. They were short on education and long on iconography. These proud souls adhered to an odd religion that reached way beyond the bounds of convention to schism and lunacy. Then there was Teresa of Cahora, along with those who fanned the flames of her sainthood. There had been grand schemes within, though only a few sparks could be gleaned from the outside: excesses perpetrated by local authorities, sinister bosses, outrages committed by soldiers, and mysterious alliances.

  Once again, Miguel realized that it was thanks to the strong arm of General Díaz that the nation had stamped out the rebellion with one brutal blow. The proud, mystical war cry of Tomochic, backed by audacity and a few Winchester rifles wielded skillfully in the depths of the mountains, had to be mercilessly smothered.

  The second lieutenant tried to imagine the consequences of the Tomochic contagion spreading to Chihuahua, Sonora, north and south through the Sierra Madre. How much needless blood would be spilled then? How soon would the ambitious politicians, greedy and the hypocritical, have exchanged the “chilapeno” hats they wore in the uprisings for the top hats worn at official banquets?1

  From Miguel Mercado’s perspective, everything had been inexorably ordained by fate. If the people of Tomochic had been heroic, and if they had shown themselves worthy of a better destiny, so too had the troops and the heroic officers. The small tactical errors, the pathetic vices and routines revealed the outmoded Mexican military at its worst. All of it was a symptom of an evil that resided deep within the army itself. It was a manifestation of a systemic illness that would inevitably yield to the times.

  This “rogue” officer would soon be out for good, thought Miguel. He was the worst of his kind, with his alcoholic breath, as quick with his bravado as he was to loot, proud of his vices and his ignorance, trusting in the cowardice of others more than in his own bravery—if he had any at all. Soon there would be no more rogue officers to make jokes at the expense of the strategies, mathematics, and clean uniforms of the students of Chapultepec military academy.

  Chapultepec. The Aztec name vibrated in the thoughtful officer’s unhappy soul. It was an epic poem, a glorious reveille that called one to the struggle, to duty, to life.

  Chapultepec. That unforgettable, glorious place! In a flash it evoked the legend of Mexico in all its glory: the triumphant Netzahualcoyotl, Moctezuma’s pomp and ceremony.

  Chapultepec. It also signified the heroism of the child martyrs of 1847, who had illuminated the Mexican darkness with a rainbow of blood.

  With the vision of the Chapultepec military academy resting on the presidential fortress of the victor, Miguel once again believed in redemption and triumph, in his country’s future and in his own, for he too was a son of Chapultepec!

  CHAPTER 41

  It Had to Be

  After moving away from the rowdy group of men surrounding Reyes, the officer on guard duty felt reality return. Leaning on his rifle, Second Lieutenant Mercado contemplated the farthest reaches of the valley below. The moonlight made it look as though sleet was falling over the desolate landscape.

  The luminous red stains between the thick columns of black smoke rising from the burning structures were gone. Now the valley was teeming with scattered pinpoints of bright light, like the bonfires of a ghostly camp where mountains of human flesh burned silently in the gloomy peace of the moonlit Tomochic valley.

  Impassively, Reyes talked about the fallen heroes. “Yes indeed, chiefs, they were honorable, manly, and loyal. Even the youngest and poorest spoke true. Their word was as good as a king’s.”

  Miguel smiled. He knew just how far you could trust the word of the majority of statesmen, presidents, dictators, and kings.

  Reyes continued. “They were hard workers. They’d have nothing to do with drunks or slackers. They threw that bandit Bernardo Carranza out on his ear. But first Cruz made full use of him, for he was gifted with a vast knowledge.”

  Once again, Miguel smiled. This wasn’t the only noble Mexican caudillo who, believing he was defending a righteous cause, ended up using the traitors and the bandits, paying them more than he paid the faithful and true.

  “Oh, how clean they were! They were very clean, my good sirs. Nobody went without shoes, nobody went around in their undershorts, even in the heat. Well, it’s true they didn’t shave and they didn’t cut their hair. To them, it was a sin. You saw them here with long hair and big beards. Most of them looked like bears decked out as Christians. Then with their powerful voices, their haughtiness, their unflinching, steely gazes, never lowering their eyes. Add to that their terrible strength, a diabolical agility, a gift for aiming true, never missing their mark, and belts full of cartridges and a few Winchester repeating rifles, from twelve to eighteen shots.”

  “All right. Enough. We know about that much better than you do, my friend,” interrupted Castorena. The bitter irony in his voice chilled all of them. A vision of those last terrible battles and comrades shot down by Winchester rifles passed through his comrades’ minds. The old Remingtons the troops used were blunderbusses in comparison.

  “And what women, eh?” commented Lieutenant Soberanes, a brave, gallant officer.

  “Ay! Even good enough for u
s. The best … huge black eyes, a little sad, fine long hair, firm breasts. Obedient, quiet, good workers, wonderful women, and very pretty.”

  The words struck Miguel in his heart. So naive he couldn’t hold his tongue when he felt something intensely, he exclaimed, “It’s so true. I swear it is. Very beautiful and so kind. Beautiful!” The second lieutenant’s words registered such sincere emotion that faces turned toward him with surprise and curiosity.

  “Hey, you hypocrite. You’ve been holding out on us. Where are you hiding your Tomochic dove?” asked Castorena as he gave Miguel a not unfriendly slap on his shoulder.

  “And what will the government do with all those poor orphans and widows?” a second lieutenant asked Reyes.

  “They’ll go to the most reputable families in Chihuahua, so that they can be used for the good of the state and bring forth more serviceable heroes.”

  “Those women deserved their men! I’ll never forget how the last of them died with great dignity,” said a lieutenant of the 5th Regiment.

  “You know very well … I was there, I saw it all … O God, what horrors went on. Imagine! When we dragged them onto the porch, we laid them out in the open,” and he gestured eloquently to a distant point. “We left them lying on their backs, and executed them just like that.”

  “Such brutality!”

  “What do you mean, brutality?” interrupted the officer on guard duty. “If we had to shoot them in the end anyway, why wait for them to recover just to put the hood on them and prolong their agony? It was better this way. Yes, my good men, it was a humane act to finish them off the way we did!”

  “The comrade is right,” agreed the lieutenant who was telling the story. “We only gave them enough time for their last wishes. They’d already had plenty of time to pray and Cruz was expecting to go straight to heaven. He begged us to put him between his brother and his woman.”

  “Priestly etiquette. What the devil!” said Castorena, adding his two cents’ worth.

  “That’s what we did. One Tomochic fighter who could hardly utter a last word managed to turn himself over and then twisted around to where they had laid the chief out, saying ‘Cruz, Cruz … the powder.’

  “‘Give it to Nicolas,’ said Cruz to a soldier of the Twelfth. This guy took him a scapular that had some of Teresa of Cabora’s magical powder in it. They said you could use the powder to resuscitate yourself.

  “I was with the dying men with a corporal from my regiment, and behind us was a firing squad of soldiers with their rifles loaded.

  “‘On your knees!’ they said to the guy who was at the far end. Meanwhile, a trembling soldier approached holding his rifle up.

  “‘I can’t.’ He tried to stand up, but the soldier fired squarely into his mouth, tearing his skull to pieces, and scorching his hair. Then the corpse collapsed face down.

  “At that moment another soldier, who had managed to get down on his knees, fired at Cruz, who fell backward, his chest pierced through, mouth agape, and eyes gazing up to the heavens.

  “The last victim received two bullets because the hand of the soldier who was aiming at him was trembling. Pointing straight at the man’s chest, he missed and hit him in the stomach. The Tomochic fighter then jumped up and yelled, ‘Long live the power of God.’

  “Then we saw the soldier load his rifle again, aim, and fire at point-blank range. The force of the bullet singed the man’s beard, put out an eye, and scattered his brains all over the place.

  “So that was how the last Tomochic fighter died. During nine days of tragic heroism, 103 of them had held out against the fire of 1,200 men equipped with a modern cannon.

  “It was necessary to do away with all of them. It had to be. It just had to be!”

  And all the young, high-minded officers in the group, true and disciplined sons of the military academy, were moved by pity and admiration. They unanimously agreed with the words of the officer of the guard. Leaning on his rifle for support, Miguel’s eyes were vacant as he contemplated the sad, silent moon shining down on that cemetery.

  CHAPTER 42

  Alone

  When the last of the officers had come in from outside where all had been conversing, the second lieutenant on guard duty ordered the corporal to bar the door of the improvised officers’ barracks. Then Miguel sat down on a worm-eaten stool in front of the blazing hearth and contemplated the crackling flames, which sent blood red streaks of light zigzagging up the barrels of the rifles stacked against the rotten wall. Wrapped in their serapes, several off-duty soldiers from the guard corps lay snoring around the luxurious fire.

  His hood pulled tightly around him, Miguel sat uncomfortably, both arms and legs extended toward the flames. Resigned to his woeful thoughts and misfortunes, he nodded off, fitfully giving into slumber.

  As usual, the indistinct sounds of sobbing children and the weak voices of the elders praying for the souls of their dead emanated from the distant shed full of captive families. Meanwhile, in the dark courtyard, under the arms stockpiles, the troops stretched out alongside their women and gear. A few of the fires still smoldering to the east and west revived with the cool winds blowing from the north, the melancholy flames rising from mounds of ash and charcoal.

  The guards passed the word along every five minutes or so, now that the enemy no longer existed. Their brusque voices rent the deep silence, “One, alerrrt! Two alerrrt! Three alerrrt!”

  Suddenly the guard posted at the back of the courtyard called out, “Corporal?”

  “What is it?” Shouted the corporal in return. Grumbling, he went to see what was the matter, then returned moments later and said to Miguel, “Second lieutenant, sir, one of the women is very sick and wants water. Apparently there isn’t any. They say she’s dying.”

  “All right, go with one of the soldaderas to get her some water. And quickly! Sergeant, I order you to proceed with the utmost caution. I’ll investigate what’s going on.”

  Miguel crossed the courtyard, tripping over soldiers lying on the ground, and when he arrived at the quarters of the female prisoners, he stopped on the threshold before going in. A dirty glass lantern sat on the ground and gave off a dim, yellow light that illuminated a long, low space. In the limited light Miguel made out a spectral scene: countless creatures swung listlessly this way and that projecting colossal shadows into the corners of the room, which reeked of human putrefaction.

  A number of sleeping women lay wrapped in tattered sheets. Others sat upright in anguished immobility, like abject souls resigned to their martyrdom in purgatory. Purgatory and Limbo.

  From a corner of the room came the plaintive, high-pitched whine of a child, while in the center an old hunchback was on her knees in front of an ancient chest. She probably fell asleep while praying. Her head lay in her folded arms and she was snoring.

  Then he observed a woman stooping down to speak to someone writhing in agony on the ground. Miguel thought he recognized the voice. As he approached, advancing on tiptoe, he said in a low voice, “They’re going to bring the water now. Who is dying?”

  “Yes, yes, a little water, sir,” answered a low voice that was full of sweetness. The young man stopped, struck dumb with surprise. In the darkness, he received such a shock to his system that he felt the hair on his head stand up. He tried to catch his breath. Julia! Just the thought of her!

  Cold gripped his skull. His heart contracted and he couldn’t breathe. Julia! He felt dread, pain, despair. He had found his Julia, alive but dying! He approached the pair. Mariana was standing. Julia was stretched out below her. “Is it really you?” whispered the second lieutenant softly. He leaned over, attempting to make out the face of the unfortunate woman. Abruptly the woman sat up and threw off her covering.

  Julia’s emaciated face was illuminated by fiery eyes, which shone from deep, black hollows and held him transfixed. Her shrunken breasts were visible through her torn, blood-stained shirt. No, this isn’t Julia, it can’t be Julia, thought Miguel.

  She re
peated, “Sir, I’m dying. I’m thirsty … water.”

  “Yes, Julia.” Miguel could not for the life of him utter a single word other than the name of his strange love.

  At that moment the corporal entered with a jug of water, which the second lieutenant grabbed from him. Then Miguel kneeled by the sick girl’s side and, in the solicitous voice used with a child who won’t take a bitter medicine, said to her, “Just a little, Julia … too much will harm you.” Then she lay back again, her eyes wide; she was panting and spitting up black bile. Miguel asked the feeble Mariana standing at her side, “But what happened to her? What’s wrong? Is she wounded?”

  “A bullet pierced her chest,” the old woman answered.

  “Hush, Mariana, don’t tell him, I don’t want …” A violent cough cut her words short. Then exhaustion overcame her and she closed her eyes. Her breathing became more and more labored as she flailed her arms and brought them to her face as though trying to shield herself from morbid visions.

  “Yes, sir,” said the old woman at last in a sluggish voice that echoed gloomily throughout the cold, silent quarters. “Cruz gave her his rifle so she could help, then the other day he positioned her behind an opening in the wall so she could shoot from there.” She nodded her head toward some indefinite place in the room. “A bullet entered, and that’s how it happened. God will take her to him.”

  “I don’t want to die … I’m bad, sir. I’ll go to hell. I don’t want to. No! Please forgive me,” moaned the dying woman. Delirium was setting in.

  “Julia, Julia, for God’s sake, lie down! Don’t you recognize me? Don’t you remember, my love, my heart and soul.” The officer choked back his tears.

  With barely a stitch covering her, she sat up as though trying to flee from him. But Miguel gently restrained her. When he touched her, her flesh was burning with an intense fever. Julia looked at him absently and then laughed nervously, like an anxious lover.

  “Yes … with you, yes, just with you, my love. Be gone, Don Bernardo … let him go to Tomochic. Do you hear? Such gunfire. Which one is my rifle? Death to the enemy! Give me your cartridge belt, Pedro. Long live the power of God! Death to the soldiers!”