Chapter V At the Gates of Gomez
We had taken Bermejillo the afternoon before,—the army breaking into a furious gallop five kilometers north of the town and pouring through it at top speed, driving the unprepared garrison in a rout southward,—a running fight that lasted five miles, as far as the Hacienda of Santa Clara,—and killing a hundred and six colorados. Within a few hours afterward Urbina came in sight above Mapimi, and the eight hundred colorados there, informed of the astonishing news that the entire Constitutionalist army was flanking them on their right, evacuated the place, and fled hotly to Torreon. All over the country the astounded Federals were falling back in a panic upon the city.
Late in the afternoon a dumpy little train came down the narrow-gauge track from the direction of Mapimi, and from it proceeded the loud strains of a string orchestra of ten pieces playing “Recuerdos of Durango,”—to which I had so often baile’d with the Tropa. The roofs, doors and windows were packed with Mexicans, singing and beating time with their heels, as they fired their rifles in a sort of salute upon entering the town. At the station this curious equipage drew up, and from it proceeded—who but Patricio, General Urbina’s fighting stage-driver at whose side I had so often ridden and danced! He threw his arms around me, yelling: “Juanito! Here is Juanito, mi General!” In a minute we were asking and answering each other a million questions. Did I have the photographs I took of him? Was I going to the battle of Torreon? Did he know where Don Petronilo was? And Pablo Seañes? And Raphaelito? And right in the midst of it somebody shouted “Viva Urbina!” and the old General himself stood at the top of the steps,—the lion-hearted hero of Durango. He was lame, and leaned upon two soldiers. He held a rifle in his hand,—an old, discarded Springfield, with the sights filed down,—and wore a double cartridge-belt around his waist. For a moment he remained there, absolutely expressionless, his small, hard eyes boring into me. I thought he did not recognize me, when all at once his harsh, sudden voice shot out: “That’s not the camera you had! Where’s the other one?”
I was about to reply when he interrupted: “I know. You left it behind you in La Cadena. Did you run very fast?”
“Yes, mi General.”
“And you’ve come down to Torreon to run again?”
“When I began to run from La Cadena,” I remarked, nettled, “Don Petronilo and the troops were already a mile away.”
He didn’t answer, but came haltingly down the steps of the car, while a roar of laughter went up from the soldiers. Coming up to me he put a hand over my shoulder and gave me a little tap on the back. “I’m glad to see you, compañero,” he said....
Across the desert the wounded had begun to straggle in from the battle of Tlahualilo to the hospital train, which lay far up near the front of the line of trains. On the flat barren plain, as far as I could see, there were only three living things in sight: a limping, hatless man, with his head tied up in a bloody cloth; another staggering beside his staggering horse; and a mule mounted by two bandaged figures far behind them. And in the still hot night we could hear from our car groans and screams....
Late Sunday morning we were again on “El Niño” at the head of the repair train, moving slowly down the track abreast of the army. “El Chavalito,” another cannon mounted on a flat-car, was coupled behind, then came two armored cars, and the work-cars. This time there were no women. The army wore a different air, winding along in two immense serpents each side of us—there was little laughter or shouting. We were close now, only eighteen miles from Gomez Palacio, and no one knew what the Federals planned to do. It seemed incredible that they would let us get so close without making one stand. Immediately south of Bermejillo we entered a new land. To the desert succeeded fields bordered with irrigation ditches, along which grew immense green alamos, towering pillars of freshness after the baked desolation we had just passed through. Here were cotton-fields, the white tufts unpicked and rotting on their stalks; corn-fields with sparse green blades just showing. Along the big ditches flowed swift, deep water in the shade. Birds sang, and the barren western mountains marched steadily nearer as we went south. It was summer—hot, moist summer, such as we have at home. A deserted cotton-gin lay on our left, hundreds of white bales tumbled in the sun, and dazzling heaps of cotton-seed left just as the workmen had piled it months before....
At Santa Clara the massed columns of the army halted and began to defile to left and right, thin lines of troops jogging out under the checkered sun and shade of the great trees, until six thousand men were spread in one long single front, to the right over fields and through ditches, beyond the last cultivated field, across the desert to the very base of the mountains; to the left over the roll of the flat world. The bugles blared faintly and near, and the army moved forward in a mighty line across the whole country. Above them lifted a five-mile-wide golden dust-glory. Flags flapped. In the center, level with them, came the cannon-car, and beside that Villa rode with his staff. At the little villages along the way the big-hatted, white-bloused pacificos stood in silent wonder, watching this strange host pass. An old man drove his goats homeward. The foaming wave of troopers broke upon him, yelling with pure mischief, and all the goats ran in different directions. A mile of army shouted with laughter,—the dust rolled up from their thousand hoofs, and they passed. At the village of Brittingham the great line halted, while Villa and his staff galloped up to the peons watching from their little mound.
“Oyez!” said Villa. “Have any troops passed through here lately?”
“Si, señor!” answered several men at once. “Some of Don Carlo Argumedo’s gente went by yesterday pretty fast.”
“Hum,” Villa meditated. “Have you seen that bandit Pancho Villa around here?”
“No, señor!” they chorused.
“Well, he’s the fellow I’m looking for. If I catch that diablo it will go hard with him!”
“We wish you all success!” cried the pacificos, politely.
“You never saw him, did you?”
“No, God forbid!” they said fervently.
“Well!” grinned Villa. “In the future when people ask if you know him you will have to admit the shameful fact! I am Pancho Villa!” And with that he spurred away, and all the army followed....