There was a restaurant in the depot. It was run by one of the amazing Chinese who pop up forever in these troubled places in Mexico. They live somehow, seem to prosper slimly and grow very hard. Pidgin Spanish is something at which to wonder.
Slices of dusty, jerked beef hung from a wire stretched at the side of the room where the stove smoked. There were fresh goat chops and steaks. The cooking was a mere formality. The result was a slightly scorched chunk of raw goat.
Across the tracks three vaqueros were corraling a herd of steers. They wore leather clothes. One of them had angora chaps and a green sombrero. The capitan of the train guard did not make any move to confiscate their cattle. This was remarked with emphasis by Don Roberto.
The vaqueros were conscious of the audience the train had brought. Mexican vaqueros are great ropers, although it is complained that they do not accomplish the amount of work done by cowboys north of the Rio Grande.
One of them rode along the herd at a dead run. He kept rolling vertically at his side a loop of rope as tall as he and his horse. Another was swinging his rope in a double strand, an habitual action to keep the cattle headed in. He allowed a steer to bolt past him. Then, very casually, he cast the quick-striking lariat over his shoulder. He was lighting a cigarette as his mount braced himself for the shock. The rope straightened. The steer stood on his nose with his tail and hind hoofs in the air.
The passengers applauded as the train dragged itself away from the adobe station. The lavender and copper streaks in the hills were dissolving into purple and then into a feathery gray mist. A valkyrie storm of clouds rolled in the west like powerful, sure machines of fate. High in their somber mass was a smear of glowing crimson.
It was an ominous spectacle for those in the train. The worst of the trip was ahead—the Laguna district where Don Pancho had taken Orñelas from the train. Would he come dashing out of his hiding place in the Santa Clara cañon to meet this train? The night wind from the hills reached across the desert with cold hands. There was a shiver in the air.
Night stalked in like a gray specter. The moon was a fuzzy suggestion of light behind tumbling masses of clouds. The light in the window of the Chino’s restaurant looked very friendly and secure—and far in the past—as it disappeared in the haze.
“The setting for a melodrama,” said El Humoristo to Don Felipe. “In Mexico somehow the stage seems always to be setting itself for the actors and the scenes we know too well, compañero mio. Mexico and melodrama. They are synonymous as well as alliterative, eh, amigo? In Mexico it is always the end of the second act, with the villain not quite foiled yet.
“And, more’s the pity, with little chance of his being foiled in the third act nor yet in the epilogue. Virtue seeking its own reward assumes the rôle of the searching Diogenes. The actors never fail their stage setting.
“It’s all so unbelievable and it’s all so true. Death in a graceful gesture. Tragedy met with a sweep of the sombrero. Cruel and beautiful country. Viva Mexico !”
He begged the lantern of the brakeman, who paraded the car tops miraculously with a homemade wooden stump for a leg. With the lantern he lighted a cigarette. He and the brakeman, sheltered behind the caboose lookout, sang a soft duet. The song was a gay warning to girls not to coquette. It pointed out that all men were bad. They promised a girl everything, said the song, and all they gave her was—well, all they gave her was a pun. The more decent meaning of which was a beating with a stick.
The brakeman’s light, held under his coat, was the only light on the train. No need of signalling an invitation to the outlaws. If they had piled ties on the track—then the buen Dios sharpen the engineer’s eyes! A spark from the shot-battered funnel brought a mutter through the cars. There was otherwise a heavy hush where the exiles sat. In the dark could be seen the round, wondering eyes of the children. Black silhouettes were marked against the gray oblongs of windows.
In the sky to the west shot a flame. A fire on the giant headlands that guard the entrance to Santa Clara cañon like a mighty feudal castle. A signal light? Touched off by one of Don Pancho’s sentries? If it was, the train would be stopped at Laguna. Who would be killed this time? And how many? Quien sabe? Who knows? The fangs of the wolf do not have eyes when they strike among the flocks at night.
It would be sad to be killed returning from exile. But if the buen Dios willed it——
“I feel certain,” Don Roberto said, “that it is only the fire of some woodcutter. But that may be just what Don Pancho wants us to feel.”
The flame continued to struggle in the folds of the night. A long, lead-toned strip, sullenly luminous, appeared between the train and the fascinating flame. It was the lake that gives the district its name. A shot from ahead. Another fire. Laguna station! And a red lantern making excited circles over the tracks. It was here that Orñelas——
Soldiers were running up and down the length of the train. They were the federalista guard at Laguna. Dios be thanked!
“Any gringos there?” they were shouting at the car windows. Looking for gringos! Another one of them up to some knavery, no doubt. But regretfully the passengers informed the soldiers that there were no gringos on board.
On the top of the caboose two smiles turned to El Humoristo.
“‘In the night all cats are gray,’” he quoted.
“It is best for you not to speak Spanish,” suggested Don Felipe. “It may be, shall we say, too excellent and Castillian not to arouse the suspicions of these pelados—these skinned ones.”
He smiled again. El Humoristo’s Spanish was an old jest between them.
From the train the soldiers were questioned about Don Pancho. Had he been in the neighborhood? How many men did he have? Oh, yes. He had attacked the station with a great force. But the guard had beaten him off after a bloody battle.
“Liars! Foul braggarts! Who shoot cows!” hissed Don Roberto for the benefit of the caboose top. “If Don Pancho had been here these heroes would now be dead or refugees or recruits in Don Pancho’s army. Where were these valiant ones when Orñelas was killed?”
The engine sighed deeply and gathered itself for the last sprint through the gray dark. As it plunged into the gloom once more the moon triumphed over the clouds. The train swung from side to side like a man in pain. A deeper silence was in the cars. Not long now. If only nothing happened. Now and then a whisper of the name of a protecting saint. Arms and legs grew stiff with anxiety——
Far ahead a dark spot was touched by the moon. It seemed to move toward the train.
“The end of the long journey,” said El Humoristo. “What dull affairs these trips are getting to be.”
Chihuahua with the moon full on it was a city of ebony and silver. The exiles came from the cars with their ludicrous luggage. They were strangely quiet.
The bell of the cathedral sounded. Far away came the whining song of a sentry. A distant shot. The cry of a coyote. The fragrance of the jasmina was in the air. A night bird spoke sleepily in the great cottonwood. The dust of Mexico ! The same dust that was on their hearts—
The exiles stood in a little, silent group. They stood as in awe at some miraculous shrine.
“Ai Chihuahua!”
They breathed together the ecstasy of the name. In the sound of their hushed voices was the tired sigh of a sleeping child snuggling to its mother’s breast. There was the whisper of a prayer of humble thanks in a vast temple. There was the murmur of a lover that caresses the ear of his sleeping loved one in the gray hours of early morning.
“Ai Chihuahua!”
VIVA MEXICO!
It is an unwritten and an unbroken law in Mexico never to rob the man who is to be executed. After he has been killed and the mercy shot has been fired—that is another matter. There is a humorous saying that the executed man does not complain at the loss of his shoes.
It seems preposterous that this sentimental custom should stand out of all the drama and delicacy of gesture that is an official slaying in Mexico. And dem
and to be written first in the record of an execution.
But it is so. And so it is written.
Many of these firing squad tragedies in color disturb the dust of memory. Executions notable for the prestige of their chief actors. Executions remembered for the number of their victims. Some of Fierro’s affairs, staged with the eye of a born showman. It was even complained that Fierro almost stole the act, a professional actor’s saying, from the man supposed to be the star. Some of Jesus Lastro’s efforts——
Some other time, it may be. For this purpose an ordinary execution. Literally, one of the every-day incidents that cross-hatched with hundreds and hundreds of colored crosses the history of rebel days.
Memory considers and selects the killing of Joselito Sanchez, patriot and campaigner under Don Pancho. Joselito Sanchez’ crime is vaguely recalled. Larceny, perhaps, was the official charge. He had looted the store of the merchant whose throat he had slit.
Whatever the charge, Joselito Sanchez was to be shot at sunrise. The sincerity of such a statement is not convincing to those in a land where “shot at sunrise” is a vaudeville joke
It is real enough in Mexico.
The Mexican execution would be absurdly theatrical if it were not so sincerely part of the natural melodrama of the country. Melodrama has been the order of things since the days of the Toltec. And there is melodrama even in the historic mystery preceding that.
The Mexican lives an appreciation of his background. And he dies the same way. He is not afraid to die. Indeed, under proper circumstances, he seems to enjoy it. Which will not sound convincing, either, in the land which has sent so many pith-helmetted heroes strutting through romantic fiction of the tropics. The bullet from a dusty, mud-caked Mauser bites as hard as the bullet from politer weapons——
“Tiro de Gracia,” “The Mercy Shot”
Joselito Sanchez was young. How many times, writing of these fierce desert fighters, it is remarkable that they were young. One did not grow old, of course, in the service of Don Pancho. And boys enlisted at fourteen. If there were old faces they seemed to grow old overnight. There was no tentative, artist sketching by age. It drew in the lines made by hunger and hardship in a few swift, knowing strokes. But chiefly in these riders of the desert the impression was of youth.
Joselito Sanchez was just beyond twenty. He had campaigned for two years. He was not eager to die. For the current “cause” or for a slit throat or for any other reason. But he was not afraid. And he was appreciative of the honor that was to be his. It was to be his grand moment, after all. He wanted to play the part nobly, as was fitting in a veteran. He was mindful of traditions.
In the penitentiary at sunrise Joselito Sanchez hummed little tunes. He sang verse after verse of La Cucaracha as he set his clothes straight. He chose carefully the angle for his sombrero’s brim.
It was chilly when the firing squad marched to the penitentiary gates. The men of the squad, half of them barefooted, kicked up the white dust, which smelled damp and sweet. The capitan of the guard, with Indian stamped on his surly face, carried a cavalry saber. Tucked in his belt was the decreto of death. These were especial marks of honor. There was a red stripe down the seams of his khaki breeches, which had been washed white.
His half-dozen men were muffled in sarapes—crimson, purple and vermillion. They pulled them over their noses and mouths to cheat the morning cold with a simulation of warmth.
Cartridge belts criss-crossed over their shoulders. Others made bulky lines of their waists. They carried rifles of various lengths. They had the attitudes of sleepy men.
The capitan waved his sword before the prison gate and called on the prison governor to turn over to him Joselito Sanchez. There was an exchange of graceful compliments.
Through the doorway stepped Joselito Sanchez. He had the air of a matinée idol responding to his entrance cue. At his throat was an orange neckerchief, fastened with a bright silver concho in which a topaz was set. The metal buttons and braid of his leather jacket gleamed dully. His spurs sounded in cadence with his stride.
Over his arm was a sarape of gray and green with stripes of yellow at the edge. He would not put the sarape around his shoulders. Lest the watchers think something else than the cold of early morning chilled him.
“Joselito Sanchez is ready, my capitan,” said the prisoner. He and the capitan bowed. Joselito Sanchez stepped between the two files of soldiers.
As the march started, the lavender shadows of the men were powdered with the golden grains which the horizontal sun made of the desert dust. The lavender made curious pastel shades on their faces.
The governor, who liked Joselito Sanchez, called orders to a boy bugler. The boy, who had been watching the ceremony eagerly, ran to join the procession. On his long, dented bugle, twined with heavy cords of scarlet and gold, he blew a lusty, flourishing call. It gave the men of the firing squad an interest. They straightened up and began to emerge from their sarapes. Men and women and children were watching from the colorful adobe houses.
In the midst of the firing squad, Joselito Sanchez marched as proudly as a young prince with his chosen bravos. The barbaric colors of the crosses in the cemetery stood out like the marks a child makes with its first set of crayons. There was a crowd at the execution wall. Joselito Sanchez drew himself up. The firing squad began to march like soldiers on parade. Their bare feet seemed to be made of horn and tough as the hide of a rhinoceros.
The capitan cried out a command. The boy bugler performed a frenzied intricacy on the dented instrument. On the cemetery wall were the familiar pockmarks of bullets. They are on many Mexican buildings. Bullets do not penetrate far into adobe. It makes an excellent breastwork. Such marks on walls are as frequent as the pockmarks on Mexican faces. The mark that was left, they say, with other marks by the Spanish conquerors.
The capitan shouted his men to a halt and flourished the cavalry saber. The crowd murmured its applause.
“Will you favor me?” the capitan said to Joselito Sanchez. He indicated the wall that was the backdrop for the tragedy.
“It is nothing, my capitan,” replied Joselito Sanchez. “But one moment, if you please.”
The moment was granted with a gesture. Joselito reached to his throat and unfastened the silver concho with its topaz. He called the boy bugler to him and placed the jewel in his hand. The capitan frowned. He rather fancied that concho himself. The bugler saw the frown and faltered in the midst of a grateful blast of his battered horn.
“Thank you, my capitan, you are gracious,” Joselito said and strode to the wall. There he wheeled grandly and stood with his head up, his shoulders squared.
The sun was wiping out the lavender shadows. It was drawing sharp black outlines to the shadows. A roaming dog started sniffing toward the wall. One of the crowd slashed a metal-braided quirt across his back. The dog, its back bleeding, howled and ran.
Joselito frowned at this impropriety. The capitan hissed for silence. From his belt he drew the decreto of death. With another wave of the sword, he read the crime and the sentence. He read “with feeling.” Another flourish from the boy bugler. Another applauding murmur from the crowd.
Joselito and the capitan bowed to each other.
“Friend of mine,” asked the capitan, “is there any last thing you wish before I do that which I have to do?”
“A cigarette, if you will favor me,” responded Joselito.
“It is nothing,” said the capitan. “Shall I prepare it for you?”
“My fingers do not tremble,” replied Joselito, haughtily. “There is no fear in Joselito Sanchez.”
The capitan offered him his packet of cigarettes. Joselito selected one. The crowd watched. This was a real test of nerves. Joselito unrolled the husk. He poured its hard, black tobacco into his hand. He pinched out just the right proportion. The husk he ripped lengthwise and the salvaged portion was twisted about the tobacco. Joselito was playing his rôle for everything that was in it. The crowd was enthusiastic. Que
hombre! What a man!
Joselito accepted the light offered by the capitan. In compliment the capitan lighted his own cigarette from the same match. Joselito puffed deeply. Twice. He cast the cigarette aside with an elegant gesture. The capitan made as if to follow suit. He thought better of it and concealed the cigarette in the palm of his hand.
“I am ready, my valiant capitan,” Joselito said.
“Is there anything you wish to say?” from the capitan.
Was there? This was the grand moment. Joselito Sanchez swept his sombrero from his head and whirled it to the ground with one motion. Only the pelados—the lowly ones—die with their hats on. Or blindfolded. His black hair made a streak across his forehead. It had a violet color with the sun straight on it. The sarape followed the sombrero. Its colors writhed in the dust.
Joselito talked. He began with his beginning on a peaceful hacienda in Durango. He told of his sacrifices for the “cause.” He flowed into a few of his major exploits in campaigns of the past.
Was there anything to say? Joselito dwelt on his long effort to win freedom for his countrymen. He regretted the unfortunate misunderstanding that was bringing his career to such a permanent end.
His pantomiming shadow on the cemetery wall was dwindling. The capitan coughed discreetly. The firing squad began to fuss with its guns.
Joselito Sanchez concluded. A fervid paragraph that tingled the spine.
He stepped forward with his arms extended at his side. The palms of his hands turned toward the squad. A gesture of sacrifice. His boyish face was calm and pale.
The capitan spoke to his men. The rifles levelled clumsily. At another command the eyes of the rifles steadied and looked at the chest of Joselito Sanchez. It swelled in a deep breath. Joselito shouted the final words of all true patriots:
The Little Tigress: Tales out of the Dust of Old Mexico Page 6