THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ

BOOK SEVEN: THE SECOND of the BOOKS of CHANGE

CHAPTER EIGHT

Torreon...

Hot as Santa Cruz del Bravo had been, but not such a humid place. The summer wind kicked up dust rather than sand; dust that settled into one's eyes, one's clothes, one's meals... even into the crevices of unprotected rifles and artillery, causing them to misfire at the most inappropriate of occasions.

A Federal officer, peering though field glasses on which the dust had already begun to blur, lowered them with a sigh.

"Inform General Velasco," he said, "that more of the Dorados are arriving."

"How many?" asked his messenger, a Corporal.

"Perhaps five hundred," said the officer, resting his back against the ledge of the church tower, which had served as an observation post for the Federal army. "Perhaps a thousand."

The Corporal glanced towards the mountains but, without the glasses, they seemed rusty, dead. "Perhaps, now that there are plenty of Villistas, General Bravo will be moved to reinforce us for attack," he suggested.

The officer grunted.

"Attack a force only twice as large as our own? Nonsense! The General always waits until Villa has at least five time our number before he dares make a move." Sneering, he tapped the glasses against his knee. "When we had four times the number of these cattle rustlers, we stood a chance of wiping them out... but I must have misunderstood this General's intentions. He sits in his office drawing little lines this way and that across maps, and then gets up and takes a few steps forward, a few steps back and looks down and makes a few more marks, and crosses out some of the others... and this goes on for hours!"

"He is holding Bermejillo for us..."

"Then how long may we expect to hold out?" the officer asked. "Colonel Lazaro has informed the alcalde that General Bravo sometimes begins talking to the walls... to spiders, the Colonel thinks, although his offices is swept twice daily and netting is put over the window so thickly that not even a mosquito can enter.

"I have heard that the General's afraid of insects..."

"Not merely insects, Jorge, animals of any type, and the smaller and more insignificant, the worse it goes. He will not leave his office for his fear of dogs, of chickens...anything! He avoids the stables as if they were the Devil's own lair. Imagine... a General afraid of horses!"

"After all, I understand the man has reached his eightieth year," said the Corporal. "At such an age, men are known to acquire… ah… curious beliefs."

"Worst of all are the snakes. Outside Piedras Negras, a crotalo snapped at his horse and the General, although unhurt and not even dismounted, ordered the Company to retreat. We might have given the Constitutionalists their death blow but for these phobias."

"All of the good soldiers are dead," the lookout glumly muttered, "or they have been driven into exile or retirement, or over to the side of the bandits. Even Bravo claims to long for reassignment to Quintana Roo, of all places! President Huerta treats the Army the way that Porfirio Diaz feared and mismanaged his ministries... destroying every scrap of competence and talent in its cradle to prevent anyone ever developing the capability to succeed him."

"Where does that leave us?"

"To make our own way," said the lookout, raising his eyes past the other to the sullen mountains. "If you understand my meaning..."

"Well I don't care for Villa," the messenger said. "But if the opportunity came to throw in with Carranza... well, he is a decent sort."

"At least he looks the part, rather like Father Christmas with his beard," the lookout smiled. "A practical man... he's thrown in with Reyes, Madero, De la Barra... every strongman that the Republic has had in the last five years." He refocused his field glasses. "A train. They're sending out the Americans."

"They always know when the game is up," said the Corporal. "Not all of Huerta's enemies are the enemies of Mexico whatever the Americans say. Their Minister Bryan thinks him a splendid fellow, but President Wilson will never extend recognition. Maybe, if nothing happens, the Constitutionalists will resume fighting among themselves again. Where is Obregon?"

"Guaymas," the lookout replied. "The President called Felix Diaz back, he's sending him to Japan to discuss, with the Mikado, his plot to colonize Morelos with Japanese. Maybe Obregon will wonder why he should fight for the benefit of Zapata."

"I thought he'd been killed," the Corporal admitted.

"Somebody is always being reported having shot Zapata," the officer spat. "And then he shows up again. Worse, Carranza has the Federals, under Maas, pinned down at Monclova. They won't be of any use to us. Well, that's to be expected since Huerta makes Generals of all his relatives... and some of the President's friends are even more a burden. According to Lazaro, General Bravo goes way back with the President... once he heard him begin cursing at a cat in one of those Indian languages he picked up in the territory. There was something about a million paper pesos, reduced to a wet bowl of hariña by devils, but the Colonel is a cautious man, and thought it better not to ask Bravo about the matter."

"How do these things get out? I've heard something about Bravo and dogs myself. Baja?"

"Quintana Roo." The Corporal made a face of abhorrence. "It's the doing of that wife of the alcalde in Bermajillo, he tells her everything! Soon enough the women know it, and then their husbands."

"They say Pancho Villa talks to his horse," the messenger wondered. "But that is a natural thing for a General, perhaps a good thing. No one has ever said that he is afraid of dogs or chickens, let alone an insect. Although I hear he is most severe with the chinos."

"Keep your eyes on Carranza," said the lookout, rising from his seat and rubbing his glasses with his shirt before replacing them in their container. "Villa isn't half the drinker that they say he is, but some of those so-called Generals of his shoot at captured Federals for sport... soldados as well as officers. Carranza's a businessman... you know where you stand with him. Besides, Pascual Orozco's two thousand Federals already have turned away from Torreon. He's gone to Chihuahua instead. Maybe Bravo will follow. I hear the fighting is better in Veracruz but, of the twenty seven states, all but two are hostile to President Huerta."

"I suppose I'd better go inform the General." The Cabo shuddered. "I am not fond of bringing that man more bad news."

"Don't worry about the General. Pass the word on to that Major of his who's always hanging around, looking for favors. Let him decide whether or not to take the risk."

They departed the church, crossing three streets towards General Velasco's headquarters only to see the General and a Colonel of his artillery burst through the door without even responding to the officer's salute, let alone remaining to hear news. Much relieved, the two continued onward, finding the beribboned and polished Major glowering by General Velasco's desk. The Major pointed to the telephone.

"What sort of world is this, gentlemen, when contending armies may just pick up this device and talk to one another like clerks of the bank? Angeles called!"

"By telephone?" the Cabo wondered.

"Yes, and he informed Velasco he has taken Bermejillo. General Bravo divided his forces and most of them were wiped out; Bravo is fleeing south. You see, Bravo was supposed to have fifteen hundred men but Angeles laughed at us, he said there were no more than six hundred Federals, and now there are less than half of that. Where does President Huerta find such Generals?"

"It seems the President values loyalty over everything else, including competency. Perhaps he thinks some of his Generals would do to him what he did to Madero. Bravo's a carcelero... as useless in the field as he was in Quintana Roo. All he knows is how to hang men."

"It's not only the rope," the messenger spoke up, "but that he has a way of shooting at things without warning. The last time I saw him, he ignored the message and took my hand. He said something about white cows and began to cry. I apologized as best I could and got out of there quickly but halfway down the stairs I heard shots and was certain that he'd killed himself... but I kept going, leaving someone else to make that discovery. And of course he hadn't. What he was shooting at, I do not care to speculate."

"How does the Republic survive such imbeciles?" the Major wondered, fingering one of his shiny buttons and glancing longingly at General Velasco's telephone. "Well, if we are to die, I'm going to have a bit of sport first. Watch this!" he told the two visitors and after performing some engineering upon the device, declared into the telephone "With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"

He held the receiver at some distance from his head, and so permitted the other officer and the Cabo to hear the booming but high-pitched response. "With Francisco Villa."

"Very well; we are going there in a few moments," the Major promised.

"Come right ahead, gentlemen," Pancho Villa invited.

"Good." The Major winked at his audience. "You may prepare us some supper."

"I think there will be no one of you left to eat it by the time you arrive."

"That's all right, but we are coming anyway."

"Very good," said Villa. "And as we do not care to molest you, we will not go, although we have come many miles just to look at you."

"And are you many?" the Major ventured.

"Not many, but just enough. We are two regiments of cavalry and ten thousand boys, and we'll entertain you."

"Fine." The Major wrote these numbers down on the back of an envelope. "So we will go there and rumple you up."

"You ought to be a good soldier, for your words are smoky," all heard Villa say; the line was cut at this moment and the conversation ended.

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