The Underdogs

by Mariano Azuela

  They had to jump over a short adobe fence before they could scale the rear wall of the chapel.

  “Heaven help us,” Demetrio thought. He was the first to climb over.

  The others followed at once, climbing like monkeys until they reached the top, their hands streaked with dirt and blood. After that it was much easier: deep, worn steps along the stonework allowed them to quickly mount the chapel wall, and then the church vault itself hid them from the soldiers below.

  “Hold on there for a minute,” the townsman said. “Let me go and see about my brother. I’ll give ya a sign, and then . . . ya’all pounce on the officers. Okay?”

  But by then no one was paying any more attention to him.

  For a moment Demetrio looked at his men crowded in the church tower around him, behind the iron rail. Then he contemplated the black wavering of the soldiers’ dark coats below.

  Smiling and satisfied, he exclaimed to his men:

  “Now!”

  Twenty grenades exploded simultaneously in the middle of the Federales. Overcome with fear, they jumped to attention, their eyes wide open. But before they had a chance to recover from their surprise, another twenty grenades exploded, creating a tremendous clamor, leaving dead and wounded men scattered about.

  “No, not yet! Not yet! I can’t see my brother yet . . .” the townsman pleaded in anguish.

  An old sergeant scolds and insults the soldiers, hoping to reorganize the troop and save the day, but in vain. The scene is that of rats running about in a trap. Some try to storm the base of the stairs and there they fall, gunned down by Demetrio and his men. Others throw themselves at the feet of the twenty-some-odd specters—their heads and chests dark as iron, their legs clad in torn long white trousers— above them but are riddled with bullets down to their sandals. While still others, in the bell tower, struggle to get out from under the dead who have fallen upon them.

  “Dear leader!” Luis Cervantes exclaims, extremely alarmed. “We are out of grenades and the rifles are down in the corral! We are doomed!”

  Demetrio smiles and unsheathes a knife with a long, shiny blade. Instantly steel gleams in the hands of his twenty soldiers, some blades long and tapering to a sharp point, others wide as the palm of a hand, many heavy as machetes.

  “The spy!” Luis Cervantes cries out, triumphantly. “I told you so!”

  “Don’t kill me, Papi!” the old sergeant implores at Demetrio’s feet, just as Macías raises his blade in the air.

  The old man turns his wrinkled indigenous face toward Macías. Demetrio recognizes the man who betrayed them from the night before.

  Luis Cervantes quickly averts his gaze, horrified. The steel blade hits ribs that go crack, crack, and the old man falls back, his arms spread wide open, his eyes full of terror.

  “No, not my brother! Not him, don’t kill ’im, he’s my brother!” the townsman shouts, mad with fear as he sees Pancracio jump on a Federale.

  It is too late. In one fell swoop Pancracio has slit the man’s throat, and now two scarlet streams gush out as if from a fountain.

  “Kill the soldiers! Kill the conservative mongrels!”

  Pancracio and Lard distinguish themselves in the butchery, finishing off the wounded. Montañés drops his hands, completely exhausted. His face still has that sweet look in his eyes, glowing with the ingenuousness of a child and the amorality of a jackal.

  “I gotta live one here,” Quail shouts out.

  Pancracio runs toward him. It is the short blond captain— now pale as wax—with the Frenchified mustaches. Cowering in a corner at the top of the spiral staircase, he has stopped moving, too weak to climb down or to try anything else.

  Pancracio shoves him out to the edge of the platform. A blow with his knee to the captain’s hips, and something like a sack of stones falls twenty meters to the atrium of the church.

  “You’re such an animal!” Quail exclaims. “Ya don’t even know what ya just ruined. That was a fine pair of shoes I was gonna get for myself!”

  The men, now bent over the dead soldiers, are taking the best clothes they can find. Then they dress themselves with the spoils, joking and laughing, thoroughly enjoying themselves.

  Demetrio pushes aside the long, sweat-soaked strands of hair sticking to his forehead down to his eyes, and says:

  “Now, let’s go get the curros in town, muchachos!”

  XVIII

  Demetrio arrived in Fresnillo with a hundred men the same day that Pánfilo Natera was commencing his advance on the plaza of Zacatecas with his forces.1

  The leader from Zacatecas welcomed him cordially.

  “I already know of you and your men! I’ve already heard the news of the thrashing that you’ve been giving the Federales from Tepic to Durango! ”2

  Natera shook Macías’s hand effusively, and Luis Cervantes declaimed:

  “With men such as General Natera and Colonel Macías, our motherland will witness nothing but glory.”

  Demetrio immediately understood the intention behind those words as he heard himself referred to as colonel.

  Wine and beer were served at once. Demetrio clinked his glass with Natera’s many times. Luis Cervantes delivered a toast: “To the triumph of our cause, which is the sublime triumph of Justice. So that we may soon see realized the ideals of redemption of this, our long-suffering and noble people, and so that the same men who have watered the earth with their own blood may now be the ones who harvest the fruits that legitimately belong to them.”

  Natera glared sternly at the chatterbox, but only for an instant. Then, giving him his back, he began chatting with Demetrio.

  One of Natera’s officers had slowly approached, looking closely at Luis Cervantes. He was a young man with a sincere, cordial expression.

  “Luis Cervantes?”

  “Señor Solís?”

  “I thought I recognized you from the moment all of you entered . . . and it is you! But even as I stand here looking at you, I do not believe it.”

  “Yes, it is I, believe it . . .”

  “So you . . . ? Come, let us have a drink, shall we?

  “Well!” Solís continued, offering Luis Cervantes a seat. “So when did you become a revolutionary, señor?”

  “It has been two months now.”

  “Ah, that explains why you still speak with that enthusiasm and faith that we all had when we first came here!”

  “Have you lost yours already, señor?”

  “Listen, comrade, do not be taken aback when I address you in confidence so soon after we just meet. Around here, one misses so much speaking with people of common sense, that when such a person appears, one yearns to speak with him as anxiously as one yearns for a pitcher of cold water after walking for hours on end in the heat, under the blazing sun . . . But honestly, before we go any further, I need you to explain to me. I do not understand how the correspondent for El País at the time of Madero,3the man who wrote furious articles for El Regional,4and who so lavishly used the epithet of ‘bandits’ to describe us, is now fighting among our very rank and file.”

  “Truthfully, quite truthfully, they simply convinced me!” Cervantes replied emphatically.

  “They convinced you?”

  Solís let out an audible sigh. He filled their glasses, and they drank.

  “Have you grown tired, then, of the revolution?” Luis Cervantes asked aloofly.

  “Tired? I am twenty-five years old and, as you see, I have good health to spare . . . Disillusioned? Perhaps.”

  “You must have your reasons . . .”

  “I imagined a flowering prairie at the end of the road . . . and instead found myself in a swamp. My friend: there are events and men out here who are nothing but pure bile. And that bile drips on one’s soul one drop at a time, until everything becomes soured, poisoned. Enthusiasm, dreams, ideals, joy . . . nothing! Before long none of that is left. Either one turns into a bandit just like them, or one disappears from the scene, hiding behind the walls of an impenetrable and fierce
selfishness.”

  The conversation was torture to Luis Cervantes. Hearing such words—so untimely and out of place—was physically painful to him. To avoid having to say anything, he invited Solís to recount in detail the events that had led him to such a state of disenchantment.

  “Events? Insignificant ones, little things, really: facial expressions that go unnoticed by others, a brief glimmering in a pair of eyes as lips curl, the fleeting meaning of a phrase quickly left behind. Yet when these events, when these gestures and expressions logically and naturally accumulate, they constitute and integrate the grotesque, frightful grimace of a race . . . Of a race still waiting for its redemption!” Solís downed another glass of wine, paused for a long while, then continued: “You will ask me then why do I stay on with the revolution. And the answer is this: the revolution is a hurricane, and when a man surrenders himself to her, he ceases to be a man and becomes, instead, a lowly leaf blown wildly about by the winds . . .”

  Demetrio Macías walked up to them, and Solís stopped talking.

  “We’re off, curro . . .”

  Alberto Solís used his free-flowing words and the same deeply sincere tone to congratulate Macías effusively for his deeds in battle and for his great adventures, all of which had made him famous, known even by the men of the powerful northern division.5

  Demetrio was charmed as he heard the recounting of his exploits, composed and embellished in such a manner that he himself almost did not recognize them. In fact, the tales sounded so good that he ended up recounting them in the same way and in the same tone, and even believing that that was how they had actually occurred.

  “What a pleasant man, that General Natera!” Luis Cervantes remarked to Demetrio Macías on their way back to the tavern. “But that little Captain Solís . . . what a nuisance! ”

  Demetrio did not hear him. Thrilled, he grabbed one of Cervantes’s arms and said softly to him:

  “I’m really a colonel now, curro. And you, you’re my secretary . . .”

  Macias’s men also made many new friends that night, and much mezcal and other spirits were drunk “for the pleasure of meeting you.” Since not everyone is compatible and since alcohol is sometimes a bad adviser, there were naturally some disagreements as well. But everything was settled in good form and always outside the bars, the eating houses, or the brothels, so that no one was overly upset.

  The following morning a few showed up dead: an old prostitute with a gunshot in her gut, and two recruits from Macías’s group, their skulls riddled with bullets. Anastasio Montañés went to tell his leader, who shrugged his shoulders, and said:

  “Pshaw! Have ’em buried . . .”

  XIX

  “Here come the ‘big hats,’ they’re back already,” the people of Fresnillo cried when they learned that the attack of the revolutionaries on Zacatecas had failed.

  They were an unruly mob of parched, filthy, barely clad men, their heads covered by palm-leaf sombreros with tall cone-shaped crowns and immense brims that hid half their faces.

  Thus the mob were called big hats. And the big hats were returning as happy as when they had marched off before, plundering every town, every hacienda, every rancho, and even the most miserable hut they had found along the way.

  “Who wants to buy this here machine?” one of them shouted out, beet red and exhausted from lugging the heavy weight of his "advance.”1

  It was a new typewriter; everyone was drawn to the dazzling glare reflecting off its nickel surface.

  The “Oliver” had had five different owners in just one morning. It began at a value of ten pesos and depreciated by one or two pesos with each change in ownership. The truth was that it weighed too much and that no one could bear to carry it for longer than half an hour or so.

  “I’ll give ya a peseta for it,” Quail offered.

  “It’s yours,” the latest owner replied, quickly handing it over, clearly afraid that the other would change his mind.

  For twenty-five cents, Quail had the pleasure of lifting the machine in his hands and hurling it hard against a big stone, where it shattered loudly.

  This was like a signal: everyone who had been carrying heavy or awkward objects began to get rid of them, smashing them against the rocks. Shards of glass and fragments of porcelain flew about everywhere. Bulky mirrors, brass candelabra, elegant little statues, fine china, and all the other superfluous things from that day’s “advance” ended up shattered and abandoned along the road.

  Demetrio did not share in such joy, completely unrelated as it was to the results of the military operations. He called Montañés and Pancracio over, and said to them:

  “These men don’t have enough nerve. It’s not that hard to take a plaza. Listen, first ya open wide like this, then ya come together, ya come together . . . and bang! And tha’s it!” And he made a big, round gesture, spreading out his strong, well-defined arms; then he slowly brought them together, drawing out the motion as he spoke, until his arms were tight against his broad chest.

  Anastasio and Pancracio found the explanation extremely simple and clear, and were fully convinced of what Macías was saying.

  “Tha’s the truth, chief! They don’t have no nerve!” they said.

  Demetrio’s men set up camp in a corral.

  When they were all lying down and yawning with fatigue, Demetrio asked, “Do ya remember Camila, compadre Anastasio? ” and sighed deeply.

  “Who’s Camila, compadre?”

  "That girl who made my food back there, in that little rancho ...”

  Anastasio shrugged as if to say: “I’m not interested in such questions about women.”

  “I just can’t stop thinkin’ about ’er,” Demetrio continued, with a cigar in his mouth. “I was real bad off back then. And then I drank a jug of refreshing blue water. ‘Don’t ya want more?’ that sweet little dark girl asked me . . . Well, that was that, I was done in by the fevers, and all it took was seein’ a bowl of blue water and hearin’ that soft little voice askin’, ‘Don’t ya want more . . .’ And that voice, compadre, was like a silver flute in my ears . . . Pancracio, how ’bout it, whatta’ya say? Come to that little rancho with me?”

  “Listen, compadre Demetrio, I know ya don’t believe me, but I have lots of experience in this question of the ladies. Ah, women! Good for a little while . . . and what a good little while! If I was to tell ya all the pocks and scratches that they’ve left on my scalp! The evil eye on ’em! They’re the evilest of enemies. Really, compadre, don’t ya believe me? That’s why not even if . . . Ya know I have lots of experience with all that.”

  “What day should we go to the little rancho, Pancracio?” Demetrio insisted, exhaling a mouthful of gray smoke.

  “All ya gotta do is say the word . . . Ya know that I left my love back there . . .”

  “Yours . . . and mine,” Quail said, sleepily.

  “Yours . . . and mine, too. Be good, have some sympathy, go get ’em for us, really,” Lard murmured.

  “Yeah, Pancracio, ol’ friend, it’s gettin’ cold ’round here. Go bring yourself the one-eyed María Antonia, she’ll keep ya nice and warm,” the Indian shouted from a distance.

  Many burst out laughing, while Lard and Pancracio commenced their bout of insults and obscenities.

  XX

  “Villa’s coming!”

  The news spread as quick as lightning.

  Ah, Villa! The magic name. The profile of a great man; the unconquerable warrior who even from a distance exerts the fascination of a great boa.

  “Our Mexican Napoleon!”1Luis Cervantes exclaims.

  “Yes, ‘the Aztec eagle who pierced the snake head of Victoriano Huerta with his steel beak,’ as I proclaimed in a speech in Ciudad Juárez,” Alberto Solís—Natera’s assistant— says in something of an ironic tone.

  The two were sitting at the counter in a tavern chasing back tall glasses of beer.

  And as they ate and drank without stopping, the big hats—with their calloused, cowboy hands,
wearing scarves around their necks and thick leather boots on their feet— spoke only of Villa and his troops.

  The stories told by Natera’s men left Macías’s astonished and openmouthed.

  “Oh, Villa! The battles of Ciudad Juárez, of Tierra Blanca, of Chihuahua, of Torreón!”2

  But having seen and lived through the events was nothing compared to hearing the telling of Villa’s formidable feats, in which acts of surprising magnanimity are immediately followed by the most bestial of deeds. Villa is the untamable master of the Sierra, the eternal victim of all governments, who pursue him as if he were an animal. Villa is the reincarnation of the old legend: the providential bandit blazing through the world with the bright torch of an ideal—to steal from the rich and give to the poor! And the poor carve out his legend, which time will be certain to adorn so it may live for generations to come.

  “And I can tell ya for sure, my friend Montañés,” one of Natera’s men said, “that if General Villa is happy with ya, he’ll give ya a hacienda. But if he’s not . . . he’ll send ya before the firing squad!”

  “Ah, Villa’s troops! All pure men from the north, dressed to kill, with Texan sombreros, brand new khaki suits, and four-dollar pair a’ shoes from the U.S.”

  As Natera’s men recounted all this, they looked at each other dejectedly, entirely aware that their own large palm-leaf sombreros were worn down by the sun and rain, and that their shirts and trousers were rags in tatters barely covering their dirty, lice-ridden bodies.

  “Because no one goes hungry when they’re with Villa. Their wagons are full of oxen, sheep, cows. Cars with clothes. Trains packed with equipment, supplies, and weapons. And enough food for everyone to eat till they’re stuffed.”

  Then they spoke of Villa’s aeroplanes.3

  “Ah, the aeroplanes! When they’re on the ground, and you’re right next to ’em, you don’t know what they are. They look like canoes, like chalupa-shaped rafts. But when they start to go up, compadre, the sound they make is ear-piercing, it leaves you stunned. Then it’s kind of like an automobile going real strong. Try to imagine a large bird, a very large bird, that looks all of a sudden like it’s not even moving. And here’s the best part: inside this metal bird, a gringo carries thousands of grenades. Just imagine what that’s like! When it’s time to fight, it’s like feeding corn to the chickens, just droppin’ fistful after fistful of lead on the enemy . . . And before long all that’s left on the battlefield is a cemetery: dead over here, dead over there, dead every which way!”