“Tequila! Dream on! It’s raw sotol and rotgut. Okay, let’s get going. I should warn you that the guys from the 11th Battalion will be there and from the 5th Regiment as well. You don’t know them, but you’ll see soon enough what a rowdy time they can have.”
The pair left the shop revitalized, talking a mile a minute. Together they crossed the forlorn plaza shimmering in the heat beneath an intense blue sky.
CHAPTER 2
How Lovely!
Second Lieutenant Mercado stopped inside the doorway of the inn and listened to the pleasant sound of loud voices and laughter surging above the clatter of dishes and the clinking of forks and knives on plates and glasses.
He balked when he saw some twenty military men seated at a long table. Their faces gritty and dark, all but a few of the men talked, ate, and drank.
The place was more of a shop than a tavern or an inn. The shelves were crammed with empty bottles and the long countertop, covered with a greasy cloth and crowded with plates and beer bottles, served as a table.
Miguel recognized the military men as high-ranking officers of the 5th Regiment, the 11th Battalion, and the public security forces of Chihuahua.
“This place is swarming with superiors,” he said nervously to Gerardo, but the lieutenant grabbed Mercado by the arm and pulled him in. There was still plenty of room at one end of the long counter, and as the two sat down, the little lieutenant yelled out, “Cuca, two plates.”
Nobody even noticed the arrival of the two young men. Thoughtfully, Miguel listened to the conversation that surged noisily in the wake of satisfied hunger.
As he cast his eyes around at the contented faces, Miguel recognized his worst enemy, Second Lieutenant Castorena of the 9th Battalion, a chubby adolescent with an unusually deep voice and a head of saffron-colored ringlets. For no particular reason, Miguel politely loathed him.
As appetites were sated, there was more drinking and talking as a mildly inebriated Castorena improvised toasts in rapid-fire verse. A smattering of applause came from some, while others continued to exchange desultory chatter.
Two overworked serving girls came and went carrying plates and bottles of beer. Fair and tall, they wore dresses of white percale and had red kerchiefs tied around their necks.
“One thing’s for sure,” began a lieutenant wearing a corsair’s uniform and sporting a thick gray mustache, from the 11th Battalion. “Things are starting to heat up. The time is right. We’ve got enough men to make mincemeat out of them. Give us an hour … the dust won’t even have time to settle.”
“More like twenty minutes, comrade,” countered a major.
“Colonel Torres is coming from Sonora with a hundred men from the 11th Battalion and a group of Pima Indians who are primed for action and know those mountains like the back of their hand.”
Then he recounted the reasons for the September 2 defeat to the captain of the Ninth, who was sitting across from him. The attack had not been well planned and the terrain was unfamiliar. And then there was the inexplicable betrayal by Santa Ana Perez. It was said that he had shamelessly defected to the enemy side, along with more than sixty men from the Chihuahua state forces.
“Major, sir,” chimed in Castorena. “Are these men actually what they’re made out to be? Up and down the state of Chihuahua that’s all you hear anymore … some even say that bullets don’t penetrate their flesh.”
“Comrade, they’re ferocious. Their Winchesters are second nature to them. They’ve fought Apaches and outlaws their entire lives. They can run blindfolded through the mountains without faltering once. But they’re an ignorant, insolent lot. They’ve never been truly educated, but they’re determined to free themselves from the only two powers they’ve obeyed up to now: the clergy and the government. It’s a mad fixation with them. Where do they get these ideas? They refuse to recognize any authority; attempts have been made to reason with them, but they ask for the impossible. We have to finish them off once and for all. It’s cruel but necessary. They must be put down!”
At that moment the smiling Cuca, a plump little woman with beautiful black eyes, brought Gerardo and Miguel two bowls of steaming soup, which both men slurped up noisily. Then they waited patiently for the next course to be served, while listening to the major discuss the enemies they were going to vanquish in Tomochic.
Though the major expressed himself rationally and reasonably, Second Lieutenant Mercado remained perplexed. He couldn’t imagine why that ignorant lot persisted in rebelling. By nature both skeptical and astute, Miguel Mercado thought he smelled a rat.
With beer running down his dusty jacket, his face purple, Castorena suddenly stood up, raised his glass, and cried out:
Yes, indeed, we’ll put an end
To their fanatic prancing.
To Tomochic! We’ll win the day
Then do our own hard-won dancing.
This vulgar toast was enthusiastically received by all except Second Lieutenant Mercado. Castorena’s crude humor was not to his liking.
Glasses were next raised in honor of the brave men who were defending the government, which, according to the major, represented “order, peace, civilization, and so forth.” Then the major respectfully toasted “General Porfirio Díaz, the triumphant rebuilder of the fatherland, and so on.”1
Miguel listened while devouring a bloody slice of roasted meat. He was still uncomfortable in these noisy reunions among comrades thrown together by fate—perhaps on the eve of a great catastrophe.
It had been two years since Mercado entered the ranks of the 9th Battalion. After completing three years of engineering at the military academy, he was forced by dire family circumstances to give up his studies, along with his melancholy bohemian existence, and go directly into military service.
A single fateful turn of events had forever cut him off from the beautiful future he had dreamed of. What had happened was this: His mother separated from her second husband, who had abused her. Sick and penniless, she was bound for the poorhouse when Miguel intervened, volunteering for the military so that he could relieve her destitution—on his miserable second lieutenant’s wages. He had intended to continue his studies in his free time but found it was impossible. He fell into bad habits, hit the bottle instead of the book, and became a drunk.
The monotony of garrison life made him lazy, and for a long time he didn’t even open a book. Under the rugged discipline of barracks life, Mercado sank into the lonely oblivion of alcohol.
His intelligence, his imagination, and his fine feelings didn’t flourish amid the banalities of military life. He could solve problems involving the subtlest of calculations or debate the laws of war, but he was at a total loss when commanding a platoon of soldiers. Indeed, he cut a very poor figure as an officer.
Moreover, his physical makeup at that time was very delicate. He was exceedingly thin, pale, and nervous. His face was long like an old man’s—how ironic for someone in the full bloom of youth—and sadness inhabited those large green eyes. In short, Miguel Mercado inspired nothing so much as pity and contempt.
With his eternal melancholy, he was something of an exotic flower in this happy-go-lucky atmosphere. The battalion was made up of boisterous youths and daredevils who were, nonetheless, gallant and dedicated servicemen, fine sons of the military academy.
Mercado vainly tried to be as jocular and fun loving as the other soldiers. Though they treated him with scorn, deep down they were fond of him. But try as he might, he could not fraternize with men who made him the butt of their cruel jokes even as he acknowledged them as superior soldiers. And their trivial conversations irritated him.
On that day Mercado contemplated his empty plate in silent melancholy amid the continuing blasts of beer kegs being opened. When a glass of beer overflowing with foam was passed to him, Mercado forced himself to his feet to make a timid toast, cup in hand: “Gentlemen,” he said, “I toast to the triumph of our government forces, to the quelling of all rebellion, to law and order which re
presents peace and progress.”2
Glasses clinked, splattering the coarse tablecloth. A heavy silence reigned in the warm, humid establishment while these noble sentiments hung in the air.
Just then a tall young woman came into the hall. Slender and agile, the girl wore her hair in a thick braid down her back. She was dressed in a berry-colored wool skirt, and a black- and red-checked shawl was draped across her shoulders. Miguel was unable to get a good look at this graceful girl’s face as she quickly crossed the room and disappeared into the kitchen.
A serving girl removed the officer’s empty plate, replacing it with another of beans, and murmured in his ear, “That girl is from Tomochic, and they say she is St. Joseph’s daughter.”
As Mercado prepared to ask for more details, a lieutenant from general staff, who was standing by the door next to Cuca, the proprietress, exclaimed, “There’s a roll call at headquarters. Let’s get going!”
There was a great flurry as the men rose, pushing back their chairs, downing the last drops of beer, and wiping their mouths on the tablecloth. Then the men paid Cuca three reales each.3
While waiting for his five-centavo bill in change, Miguel, who was the last to leave, approached the kitchen door.4 Beneath the clatter of plates and silverware he heard a gentle voice tinged with melancholy softly intone these words: “Yes, Don Bernardo says that the day after tomorrow we’re heading for Tomochic. Blessed Mary!”
As he turned to leave, letting his sword belt out a notch, Mercado carried the luminous impression of the graceful girl with him. So, St. Joseph’s daughter was also on her way to Tomochic.
Thinking about her grace, her rhythmic walk, and all her adolescent charms, Mercado felt a breath of fresh air enter his lungs in the swelter of midday, and he murmured, “How lovely!”
CHAPTER 3
Heroic Troops
On the dreary afternoon of October 3, 1892, Mercado sat at the common table in a cantina in the Peralvillo district of Mexico City. After he had eaten, he put the finishing touches on an eloquent letter to his mother.
He cherished his mother, who was currently staying with a woman friend in Tacubaya, and had sacrificed his education at the military academy for her. Meanwhile, her second husband was in the grips of a newly acquired vice—gambling—and was leading the jaded, perverse life of an adventurer. To think of his mother in the arms of such a man!
Miguel, more pale than ever, was full of melancholy thoughts that October afternoon. On the verge of tears, he folded his letter, wrote the address on the envelope, and then, leaning his elbows on the table, he drifted into a reverie when suddenly a corporal appeared at his side. The battalion adjutant had ordered Miguel to report immediately to the barracks across the street from the inn.
Mercado was stunned to discover that half the battalion was leaving by train for Chihuahua that very night. Miguel asked no questions, however, and a few hours later, in a train compartment crammed with soldiers and their gear, he was traveling at top speed as the train devoured kilometers at an impossible rate. Dumbfounded, he listened to the clap, clap of the iron wheels on the rails whenever the sliding door opened in a cold flash of noise and shadows. Miguel had never traveled, and he was ecstatic to be thrust into new sensations, possibly a new life.
After a trip of two days and two nights they arrived in Chihuahua. At eight o’clock on the second night he found himself in front of the deserted railway station, standing in formation for several hours with his two companies.
Flanked by the rows of soldiers, he finally crossed the city, where he found a good night’s rest waiting for him. The next day, while talking with officers from another battalion, he reflected on what was going on in the state of Chihuahua.
A renegade group had taken up arms against the government and they were making a defiant stand in the heart of the Sierra Madre mountains. Many officers had died in the fighting, and Lieutenant Colonel Ramírez of the 11th Battalion had been taken prisoner.
What kind of rebellion was this?
The rebels’ cause seemed just, although their political objectives were unclear. Their bravery and gift for warfare, however, were legendary throughout the state. What’s more, they were admirable, heroic, and had unsurpassed skills as marksmen.
At that time the inhabitants of Chihuahua were ignorant though brave and haughty. Their sullen antipathy toward the officer corps was replaced by extravagant praise when they referred to the sons of Tomochic. In fact they spoke of little else.
The Tomochic fighters were demigods; they were brave, confident, and invincible. These tigers of the mountains would vanquish all comers. Throughout the state of Chihuahua admirers exclaimed, Oh yes! and How great and grand they are!
Miguel was convinced that they were truly fearless, almost unimaginably so; their strategy was to target officers and commanders. The Tomochic warriors knew that once the leadership was out of the way, the troops would disband of their own accord; this had proven painfully true in the combat of September 2. Their triumph made them even haughtier, and from that day forward they believed that victory was certain.
Their leader, Cruz Chávez, preached a strange religion, a nonclerical Catholicism combined with extravagant ideas of saintliness typical of ignorant people lacking in culture, but all the same credulous and fierce. For the moment this was all Miguel could determine, although he continued to speculate on the nature of this unique rebellion, as foolhardy as it was heroic.
He wondered if opportunists were exploiting the bravery of these backwoods men. Were they offering them protection while stoking ancient enmities in their fierce, simple souls? Were they provoking them into battle against the sad valor of federal bayonets?
This was the inevitable topic of conversation. Names were mentioned that insinuated themselves mutely, malevolently throughout the district of Rayón and major regions of Chihuahua, and even made their way into the ranks of the bright, youthful officers of the 9th Battalion.
After their recent defeat, the federal government was gathering considerable military forces in Guerrero against Tomochic, located some 180 miles away. From the Ninth, 250 men had been sent in, along with several squads of state security forces, the 5th Regiment, and a company from the 11th Battalion that had survived the September 2 disaster.
Moreover, a small-caliber Hotchkiss cannon had been brought from Mexico City for a trial in the mountains. It was accompanied by a hundred grenades and a hundred boxes of shells, as well as a lieutenant and his corps of six artillerymen. General Rosendo Márquez would command this small brigade; his second in command was General Colonel José María Rangel, chief of the Second Military Zone with headquarters in Chihuahua.
Colonel Gómez, head of the 5th Regiment, was charged with procuring saddle horses for the 9th Battalion officers. Fresh out of the military academy and engaging in their first foray, they would find the six-day march from Chihuahua to Concepción, Guerrero, no easy undertaking.
The march began on the tenth of the month, and the two companies arrived in Concepción on October 15, after crossing the lonely wild lands and rocky, inhospitable hills. At that time, the area was nothing but desert. Nowadays, with the advent of the railway, the area between Chihuahua and the Sierra Madre mountains was slowly becoming settled and farmed.
The troops resented these long days, and for good reason. For more than eight years the 9th Battalion had been sitting pretty in the capital city, strutting in parades or as honor guards, displaying their perfect formation and brilliant military appearance in marches and lineups. Those officers were a sight to see, promenading the gold on their uniforms through the halls of the palace or at table in the banquets of Plateros, spruced up and handsome, their jackets always buttoned and their sabers hanging from their belts—spanking new, clanking, virgin sabers. What a sight those officers were! To see them on the cracked, dry path as they rode, dusty, battered, and darkened by the sun. They rode their horses side by side with soldiers shod in thick huaraches, their pant legs rolled up to t
he thighs and the ends of their underwear hanging out.1
These foot soldiers carried bulky rucksacks on their backs; their kerchiefs protected their heads from the sun and their rifles were slung over their shoulders, as they tramped the dusty road stretching on, bitter, monotonous, interminable, toward the horizon.
Not a single tree in that silent wasteland! Nothing but the motionless, unadorned hills on the vast horizon, their undulating ridges etched against the intense blue sky. And beyond the interminable steppes could be glimpsed the Sierra Madre towering over all.
Their day’s march would end in some miserable rancho that was short on provisions but long on the surly arrogance of its inhabitants; a guard would be appointed and the rancho appropriated for the troops, who happily stretched out on the ground to ease their weary, aching, sweaty limbs.2 Then the parched, ravenous off-duty officers would go in search of meat, bread, cheese, sausage, and sotol, which was sold to them—when it was sold at all—unwillingly, with icy reserve, sidelong looks, and surly gestures.3
Sometimes the poor devils came back with their hands and stomachs empty, railing against such stingy, inhospitable folk. On other occasions it was apparent that the natives were on the receiving end of the inevitable abuses that tired, hungry soldiers commit.
The miserable soldiers fought blindly for concepts as lofty and incomprehensible as national tranquility, order, peace, progress, duty. What fault was it of the troops if they gave in to hunger, if they appropriated or brutishly snatched up whatever lay in their path?
Freebooting soldiers—a term invented, no doubt, by well-fed men in spacious offices—thought Miguel indignantly. He understood now that these troops could not be blamed for acting out of hunger. It’s what city people did out of perverse ambition, wearing their white gloves and affecting the best manners.
The Battle of Tomochic Page 6