Chapter XI Meester’s Flight
Juan Vallejo was already far ahead, running doggedly with his rifle in one hand. I shouted to him to turn off the high road, and he obeyed, without looking back. I followed. It was a straight path through the desert toward the mountains. The desert was as bald as a billiard table here. We could be seen for miles. My camera got between my legs. I dropped it. My overcoat became a terrible weight. I shook it off. We could see the compañeros fleeing wildly up the Santo Domingo road. Beyond them unexpectedly appeared a wave of galloping men—the flanking party from the south. The shooting broke out again—and then pursuers and pursued vanished around the corner of a little hill. Thank God the path was diverging from the road!
I ran on—ran and ran and ran, until I could run no more. Then I walked a few steps and ran again. I was sobbing instead of breathing. Awful cramps gripped my legs. Here there was more chaparral, more brush, and the foothills of the western mountains were near. But the entire length of the path was visible from behind. Juan Vallejo had reached the foothills, half a mile ahead. I saw him crawling up a little rise. Suddenly three armed horsemen swept in behind him, and raised a shout. He looked around, threw his rifle far into the brush, and fled for his life. They shot at him, but stopped to recover the rifle. He disappeared over the crest, and then they did, too.
I ran. I wondered what time it was. I wasn’t very frightened. Everything still was so unreal, like a page out of Richard Harding Davis. It just seemed to me that if I didn’t get away I wouldn’t be doing my job well. I kept thinking to myself: “Well, this is certainly an experience. I’m going to have something to write about.”
Then came yells and hoofs drumming in the rear. About a hundred yards behind ran little Gil Tomas, the ends of his gay serape flying out straight. And about a hundred yards behind him rode two black men with crossed bandoliers and rifles in their hands. They shot. Gil Tomas raised a ghastly little Indian face to me, and ran on. Again they shot. One bullet z-z-z-m-m-d by my head. The boy staggered, stopped, wheeled, and doubled suddenly into the chaparral. They turned after him. I saw the foremost horse’s hoofs strike him. The colorados jerked their mounts to their haunches over him, shooting down again and again....
I ran into the chaparral, topped a little hill, tripped on a mesquite root, fell, rolled down a sandy incline, and landed in a little arroyo. Dense mesquite covered the place. Before I could stir the colorados came plunging down the hillside. “There he goes!” they yelled, and, jumping their horses over the arroyo not ten feet from where I lay, galloped off into the desert. I suddenly fell asleep.
I couldn’t have slept very long, for when I woke the sun was still in about the same place, and a few scattered shots could be heard way to the west, in the direction of Santo Domingo. I stared up through the brush tangle into the hot sky, where one great vulture slowly circled over me, wondering whether or not I was dead. Not twenty paces away a barefooted Indian with a rifle crouched on his motionless horse. He looked up at the vulture, and then searched the face of the desert. I lay still. I couldn’t tell whether he was one of ours or not. After a little time he jogged slowly north over a hill and disappeared.
I waited about half an hour before crawling out of the arroyo. In the direction of the hacienda they were still shooting—making sure of the dead, I afterward learned. I couldn’t see it. The little valley in which I was ran roughly east and west. I traveled westward, toward the sierra. But it was still too near the fatal path. I stooped low and ran up over the hill, without looking back. Beyond was another, higher, and then another still. Running over the hills, walking in the sheltered valleys, I bore steadily northwest, toward the always-nearing mountains. Soon there were no more sounds. The sun burned fiercely down, and the long ridges of desolate country wavered in the heat. High chaparral tore my clothes and face. Underfoot were cactuses, century plants, and the murderous espadas, whose long, interlaced spikes slashed my boots, drawing blood at every step; and beneath them sand and jagged stones. It was terrible going. The big still forms of Spanish bayonet, astonishingly like men, stood up all around the skyline. I stood stiffly for a moment on the top of a high hill, in a clump of them, looking back. The hacienda was already so far away that it was only a white blur in the immeasurable reaches of the desert. A thin line of dust moved from it toward the Puerta—the colorados taking back their dead to Mapimi.
Then my heart gave a jump. A man was coming silently up the valley. He had a green serape over one arm, and nothing on his head but a blood-clotted handkerchief. His bare legs were covered with blood from the espadas. He caught sight of me all of a sudden, and stood still; after a pause he beckoned. I went down to where he was; he never said a word, but led the way back down the valley. About a hundred yards farther he stopped and pointed. A dead horse sprawled in the sand, its stiff legs in the air; beside it lay a man, disemboweled by a knife or a sword—evidently a colorado, because his cartridge-belt was almost full. The man with the green serape produced a wicked-looking dagger, still ruddy with blood, fell on his knees, and began to dig among the espadas. I brought rocks. We cut a branch of mesquite and made a cleft cross out of it. And so we buried him.
“Where are you bound, compañero?” I asked.
“For the sierra,” he answered. “And you?”
I pointed north, where I knew the Güerecas’ ranch lay.
“The Pelayo is over that way—eight leagues.”
“What is the Pelayo?”
“Another hacienda. There are some of ours at the Pelayo, I think....”
We parted with an “adios.”
For hours I went on, running over the hilltops, staggering through the cruel espadas, slipping down the steep sides of dried river beds. There was no water. I hadn’t eaten or drunk. It was intensely hot.
About eleven I rounded the shoulder of a mountain and saw the small gray patch that was Bruquilla. Here passed the Camino Real, and the desert lay flat and open. A mile away a tiny horseman jogged along. He seemed to see me; he pulled up short and looked in my direction a long time. I stood perfectly motionless. Pretty soon he went on, getting smaller and smaller, until at last there was nothing but a little puff of dust. There was no other sign of life for miles and miles. I bent low and ran along the side of the road, where there was no dust. Half a league westward lay the Güereca’s house, hidden in the gigantic row of alamo trees that fringed its running brook. A long way off I could see a little red spot on the top of the low hill beside it; when I came nearer, I saw it was father Güereca, staring toward the east. He came running down when he saw me, clenching his hands.
“What has passed? What has passed? Is it true that the colorados have taken the Cadena?”
I told him briefly what had happened.
“And Longinos?” he cried, wrenching at my arm. “Have you seen Longinos?”
“No,” I said. “The compañeros all retreated to Santo Domingo.”
“You must not stay here,” said the old man, trembling.
“Let me have some water—I can hardly speak.”
“Yes, yes, drink. There is the brook. The colorados must not find you here.” The old man looked around with anguish at the little rancho he had fought so hard to gain. “They would destroy us all.”
Just then the old mother appeared in the doorway.
“Come here, Juan Reed,” she cried. “Where is my boy? Why doesn’t he come? Is he dead? Tell me the truth!”
“Oh, I think they all got away all right,” I told her.
“And you! Have you eaten? Have you breakfasted?”
“I haven’t had a drop of water since last night, nor any food. And I came all the way from La Cadena on foot.”
“Poor little boy! Poor little boy!” she wailed, putting her arms around me. “Sit down now, and I will cook you something.”
Old Güereca bit his lip in an agony of apprehension. Finally hospitality won.
“My house is at your orders,” he muttered. “But hurry! Hurry! You must not be seen here! I will go up on the hill and watch for dust!”
I drank several quarts of water and ate four fried eggs and some cheese. The old man had returned and was fidgeting around.
“I sent all my children to Jarral Grande,” he said. “We heard this morning. The whole valley is fleeing to the mountains. Are you ready?”
“Stay here,” invited the Señora. “We will hide you from the colorados until Longinos comes home!”
Her husband screamed at her. “Are you mad? He mustn’t be found here! Are you ready now? Come on then!”
I limped along down through a burnt, yellow cornfield. “Follow this path,” said the old man, “through those two fields and the chaparral. It will take you to the highroad to the Pelayo. May you go well!” We shook hands, and a moment later I saw him shuffling back up the hill with flapping sandals.
I crossed an immense valley covered with mesquite as high as my head. Twice horsemen passed, probably only pacificos, but I took no chances. Beyond that valley lay another, about seven miles long. Now there were bare mountains all around, and ahead loomed a range of fantastic white, pink, and yellow hills. After about four hours, with stiff legs and bloody feet, a backache and a spinning head, I rounded these and came in sight of the alamo trees and low adobe walls of the Hacienda del Pelayo.
The peons gathered around, listening to my story.
“Que carrai-i-i-i!” they murmured. “But it is impossible to walk from La Cadena in one day! Pobrecito! You must be tired! Come now and eat. And to-night there will be a bed.”
“My house is yours,” said Don Felipe, the blacksmith. “But are you quite sure the colorados are not coming this way? The last time they paid us a visit” (he pointed to the blackened walls of the Casa Grande) “they killed four pacificos who refused to join them.” He put his arm through mine. “Come now, amigo, and eat.”
“If there were only some place to bathe first!”
At this they smiled and led me behind the hacienda, along a little stream overhung with willows, whose banks were the most vivid green. The water gushed out from under a high wall, and over that wall reared the gnarled branches of a giant alamo. We entered a little door; there they left me.
The ground inside sloped sharply up, and the wall—it was faded pink—followed the contour of the land. Sunk in the middle of the enclosure was a pool of crystal water. The bottom was white sand. At one end of the pool the water fountained up from a hole in the bottom. A faint steam rose from the surface. It was hot water.
There was a man already standing up to his neck in the water, a man with a circle shaved on the top of his head.
“Señor,” he said, “are you a Catholic?”
“No.”
“Thank God,” he returned briefly. “We Catholics are liable to be intolerant. Are you a Mexican?”
“No, señor.”
“It is well,” he said, smiling sadly. “I am a priest and a Spaniard. I have been made to understand that I am not wanted in this beautiful land, señor. God is good. But He is better in Spain than He is in Mexico....”
I let myself slowly down into the pellucid, hot depths. The pain and the soreness and the weariness fled shuddering up my body. I felt like a disembodied spirit. Floating there in the warm embrace of that marvelous pool, with the crooked gray branches of the alamo above our heads, we discussed philosophy. The fierce sky cooled slowly, and the rich sunlight climbed little by little up the pink wall.
Don Felipe insisted that I sleep in his house, in his bed. This bed consisted of an iron frame with loose wooden slats stretched across it. Over these was laid one tattered blanket. My clothing covered me. Don Felipe, his wife, his grown son and daughter, his two small infants, all of whom had been accustomed to use the bed, lay down upon the soft floor. There were also two sick persons in the room—a very old man covered with red spots, too far gone to speak, and a boy with extraordinarily swollen tonsils. Occasionally a centenarian hag entered and ministered unto the patients. Her method of treatment was simple. With the old man she merely heated a piece of iron at the candle and touched the spots. For the boy’s case she made a paste of corn-meal and lard, and gently rubbed his elbows with it, loudly saying prayers. This went on at intervals all night. Between treatments the babies would wake up at intervals and insist upon being nursed.... The door was shut early in the evening, and windows there were none.
Now all this hospitality meant a real sacrifice to Don Felipe, especially the meals, at which he unlocked a tin trunk and brought me with all reverence his precious sugar and coffee. He was, like all peons, incredibly poor and lavishly hospitable. The giving up of his bed was a mark of the highest honor, too. But when I tried to pay him in the morning he wouldn’t hear of it.
“My house is yours,” he repeated. “‘A stranger might be God,’ as we say.”
Finally I told him that I wanted him to buy me some tobacco, and he took the money. I knew then that it would go to the right place, for a Mexican can be trusted never to carry out a commission. He is delightfully irresponsible.
At six o’clock in the morning I set out for Santo Domingo in a two-wheeled cart driven by an old peon named Froilan Mendarez. We avoided the main road, jolting along by a mere track that led behind a range of hills. After we’d traveled for about an hour, I had an unpleasant thought.
“What if the compañeros fled beyond Santo Domingo and the colorados are there?”
“What indeed?” murmured Froilan, chirruping to the mule.
“But if they are, what’ll we do?”
Froilan thought a minute. “We might say we were cousins to President Huerta,” he suggested, without a smile. Froilan was a barefooted peon, his face and hands incredibly damaged by age and dirt; I was a ragged Gringo....
We jogged on for several hours. At one place an armed man started out of the brush and hailed us. His lips were split and leathery with thirst. The espadas had slashed his legs terribly. He had escaped over the Sierra, climbing and slipping all night. We gave him all the water and food we had, and he went on toward the Pelayo.
Long after noon our cart topped the last desert rise, and we saw sleeping below us the long spread-out hacienda of Santo Domingo, with its clump of tall alamos like palm trees around the oasis-like spring. My heart was in my mouth as we drove down. In the big ribota court the peons were playing hand ball. Up from the spring moved the long line of water carriers. A fire sent up thin smoke among the trees.
We came upon an aged peon carrying fagots. “No,” he said, “there had been no colorados. The Maderistas? Yes, they had come last night—hundreds of them, all running. But at dawn they had gone back to La Cadena to ‘lift the fields’ (bury the dead).”
From around the fire under the alamos came a great shout: “The meester! Here comes the meester! Que tal, compañero? How did you escape?” It was my old friends, the peddlers. They crowded around eagerly, questioning, shaking my hand, throwing their arms around me.
“Ah, but that was close! Carramba, but I was lucky! Did I know that Longinos Güereca was killed? Yes, but he shot six colorados before they got him. And Martinez also, and Nicanor, and Redondo.”
I felt sick. Sick to think of so many useless deaths in such a petty fight. Blithe, beautiful Martinez; ‘Gino Güereca, whom I had learned to love so much; Redondo, whose girl was even then on her way to Chihuahua to buy her wedding dress; and jolly Nicanor. It seems that when Redondo found that his flank had been turned his troop deserted him; so he galloped alone toward La Cadena, and was caught by three hundred colorados. They literally shot him to pieces. ‘Gino, and Luis Martinez, and Nicanor, with five others, held the eastward side of the hacienda unaided until their cartridges were gone, and they were surrounded by a ring of shooting men. Then they died. The colorados carried off the Colonel’s woman.
“But there’s a man who’s been through it all,” said one of the peddlers. “He fought till his last cartridge was gone, and then cut his way through the enemy with a saber.”
I looked around. Surrounded by a ring of gaping peons, his lifted arm illustrating the great deed, was—Apolinario! He caught sight of me, nodded coldly, as to one who has run from the fight, and went on with his recital.
All through the long afternoon Froilan and I played ribota with the peons. It was a drowsy, peaceful day. A gentle wind rustled the high branches of the great trees, and the late sun, from behind the hill that is back of Santo Domingo, warmed with color their lofty tops.
It was a strange sunset. The sky became overcast with light cloud toward the end of the afternoon. First it turned pink, then scarlet, then of a sudden the whole firmament became a deep, bloody red.
An immense drunken man—an Indian about seven feet tall—staggered out in the open ground near the ribota court with a violin in his hand. He tucked it under his chin and sawed raggedly on the strings, staggering to and fro as he played. Then a little one-armed dwarf sprang out of the crowd of peons and began to dance. A dense throng made a circle around the two, roaring with mirth.
And just at that moment there appeared against the bloody sky, over the eastern hill, the broken, defeated men—on horseback and on foot, wounded and whole, weary, sick, disheartened, reeling and limping down to Santo Domingo....