El Paso: A Novel (26 page)

Arthur disliked the notion of sending Xenia back to those people. He had begun to believe they had somehow corrupted her and were a part of whatever was causing her troubles. He wished he could take her to El Paso and the two of them could climb into
Grendel
and just fly west, and keep on flying.

TWENTY-SEVEN

V
illa’s whole army had moved out of Coahuila now, southwestward toward Chihuahua City. In the vanguard, journalist Reed rode next to a dark sour-looking aide to Butcher Fierro, a Lieutenant Crucia, who was wearing a charm necklace that Reed had trouble taking his eyes off of. There were dozens of blackened, dried fleshy objects strung on a piece of twine. They reminded Reed of noses.

“What are those on your necklace?” Reed inquired.

“Noses,” Crucia replied.

Reed leaned over in his saddle and peered closer. He felt himself shudder. “Why noses?” he asked reflexively, and because he thought at least he ought to respond in some way.

“Perhaps the owners stuck them where they did not belong,” Crucia said, his face suddenly cold and distant.

Reed pulled back on the reins imperceptibly, trying not to give the impression of drifting away from Lieutenant Crucia. He took an instinctive dislike to Crucia, whose eyes were narrow and slitty and who had a long a face with big ears. His head was shaped like a meat axe and, Reed suspected, contained about as much brains. But Reed justified his current position by telling himself that being on the righteous side of politics—such as glorious revolutions—often brought you strange allies. These were amazing people, Reed thought: perfect peasants, mostly Indians and Mestizos, subsistence farmers, but also former shopkeepers and tradesmen, mine workers, peaceful men in real life, salt of the earth, roused to such revolutionary fury they would collect other peoples’ noses for souvenirs.

In the present world the masses were so thoroughly oppressed, reduced to poverty and powerlessness and hopelessness, Reed believed that without the great revolutionary struggle to throw off the yoke of the past they’d sooner or later devolve into an entire race of undignified animals—a separate and lower species entirely. But here was the beginning of this grand insurrection that would sweep the world and awaken the giant sleeping masses of czarist Russia and middle Europe, of India, China, and South America—yes, even the jaded and complacent United States of America.

Bierce rode up on a sleek black stallion Villa had lent him after the horse he’d bought from Cowboy Bob turned up lame. It was typical of Pancho Villa: kill a man in one breath, give away a horse in another.

“Well, are you getting an eyeful, young fellow?” Bierce said.

“Do you suppose this . . . this attack . . . is very important?” Reed asked in reply.

“All attacks are important,” said Bierce, “especially to those doing the attacking.” For a while after Reed arrived, Bierce had kept his distance, worrying that even in his disguise Reed might identify him as who he was, and not as “Jack Robinson,” but after a few days the young reporter still hadn’t seemed to recognize him and Bierce let down his guard.

“I mean, is it critical?” Reed asked.

“Well, Carranza’s Federals are in Chihuahua City, and whoever controls Chihuahua City generally controls Chihuahua.” Bierce, who had risen to the rank of major in the Union Army, already fancied himself a strategist where the war in Northern Mexico was concerned. He had picked up just enough information among Villa’s entourage to sound convincing.

“Chihuahua’s right in the center of a state that’s almost as large as England, France, and Germany put together,” Bierce said authoritatively. “All lines of communication go through it. You ask me, I’d say it is damned crucial.”

To Bierce’s immense delight, Pancho Villa had taken him on as sort of a staff confidant. The general had been impressed by Bierce’s knowledge of tactics and engineering and was proud to have a former Union major from the great American Civil War to lend further legitimacy to his cause.

“General Villa believes there are about twenty thousand Federal troops in Chihuahua,” Bierce continued. “But he doesn’t see it as a problem, even if they outnumber him two-to-one, because he says they don’t have the heart to fight. Of course, if the general had forty or fifty thousand men, like he did last year, instead of these ten thousand now, I’m sure he’d feel a little more comfortable. But his policy is to attack and not let the enemy have time to fortify. Besides, it’s General Villa’s studied opinion that the Federales in Chihuahua by now will have drunk up all the liquor in town and be nursing hangovers precisely at the moment of his assault.”

“That’s good thinking,” Reed said. “But it seems like a strange way to fight a war.”

“Not a war like this one,” said Ambrose Bierce.

“Did you know one of General Fierro’s men wears a necklace made of human noses?”

“That not surprising,” Bierce replied. “They’re savages.”

“You’re wrong,” Reed said. “They’re men caught up in savagery, but they aren’t savages themselves. The war’s made it so, but when it’s over, they’ll go back to being men.”

“So you say, Mr. Reed. But most of these soldiers are direct descendants of tribal Indians. Killing and maiming each other and even collecting people’s ears and noses has been their natural condition since the dawn of their existence.”

Reed was silent on this declaration, but Bierce certainly believed it was in their blood. The ancestors of these people, the Aztecs, before them the Toltecs, were the very same people who plucked out the still-beating hearts from their sacrifice victims’ chests and ate them in front of God before they chucked the bodies down the sides of their temple steps. If that wasn’t savagery, Bierce didn’t know what was.

When Reed sent his first dispatch to New York, noses would not be mentioned, and this old fool wasn’t going to convince him otherwise.

NEXT DAY, VILLA’S ARMY ARRIVED
at the outskirts of Chihuahua City and camped behind a low ridge of hills that wound around the eastern part of the city, inside the mountain range that ringed it. The trains of Villa’s men began converging, too, carrying the main body of troops, cannons, mortars, mounds of equipment, and the general’s pride and joy, twenty-eight immaculate hospital cars (which he had liberated from the previous government) containing operating theaters lined with white porcelain tile and staffed by sixty trained doctors (whom he had also liberated).

Villa didn’t really need to study the terrain; he knew it by heart. He usually planned a predawn attack, which had become something of his specialty, but this time he reconsidered for a peculiar reason.

A week earlier, about the time Reed and Bierce had joined his army, a motion picture crew from California had also arrived, with a request that they be allowed to film him in battle. One of Villa’s favorite pastimes had been going to moving pictures. He especially enjoyed American cowboy films, newsreels, and the Keystone Cops.

The enthusiastic Hollywood crew persuaded Villa that a movie of him leading his army in battle would add vast political value to his cause in the United States, if not the entire world. So when he issued his final battle orders, General Villa set the time of attack at six-fifteen a.m., shortly after sunrise, hoping the day would be clear and the light good enough for the cameras to record his victorious assault. That, if nothing else, would certainly get the attention of the doubting Americans.

In the evening, he held a counsel of war, carefully giving instructions to his generals. First the presidio on the northeast side of town must be reduced. He would lead the attack himself, captured on film. As the battle progressed, other regiments of the Grand Army of the North would move in a vast sweep east to west against the city. There was a long sloping plain ending at the outskirts of town where Villa hoped for the main breakthrough. Federales would be manning positions in and around the rickety houses, and consequently speed was important—get into the city and let the fighting be in the streets. This would mitigate the Federales’ artillery and manpower and throw them into confusion so he could bring up the reserves for the final coup.

Bierce was silent through it all.

It was a good plan, as far as he could tell, but he was dubious about how the army would fare against entrenched machine guns and barbed wire. Just one of those vicious little hornets would have been worth the firepower of an entire company of riflemen during his war. He’d suggested to Villa a siege instead, but the chief reminded him that the Federales were likely sending up reinforcements from the south even as they spoke. Bierce was sitting on an ammunition crate next to Reed when Villa pointed a finger at Butcher Fierro.

“And you, General, I must spare for something more important,” Villa said.

Fierro, who had been absently throwing a knife into the dirt, jerked his head up with a furrowed brow.

“We are going to need further provisions, however this fight comes out,” Villa said. “Especially if it does not go our way. I never like to think of this possibility, but it remains, and if we are forced to withdraw, we will need beef—great quantities of it. Enough for ten thousand men for as long as, well, who knows? The few cows we were able to pick up in Coahuila are not nearly enough to feed this army. And the only place I can think to get such a herd is back at that stinking Shaughnessy place down near the San Paolo River. I want you to take a company—a regiment, if necessary—go there and liberate as many beefs as you think practical and have them back here as soon as you can.”

“But General—” Fierro protested.

“Tonight,” Villa said. “It’s urgent.”

Fierro began to protest again but Villa waved him off. “Enough. Get it done, General. Do you think I waste my generals on trivial things?”

Fierro spat on the ground and slouched away. Sometimes the chief really pissed him off, but even Fierro knew not to buck him. He’d not only seen the consequences of that, but in fact had often been the instrument of such consequences. His firing squad was considered one of the best in the army.

VILLA RETURNED TO HIS TENT
and lay down on a cot. He had a headache and felt apprehensive over what would happen tomorrow—above all because he thought he’d seen Sanchez’s ghost again. The last time he’d had the vision was six months ago, and they’d lost a battle. Villa never saw Sanchez clearly, just a shadowy outrider on a horse who cast no shadow. Villa had suspected Sanchez of being a turncoat. The flimsy evidence later proved to be untrue, but at the time Villa had had him executed. “General Villa, at least shoot me like a soldier,
por favor
,” the old man had pleaded. “Do not hang me like a dog.”

Villa had hanged him anyway.

Once Sanchez had stopped kicking, they all noticed his body seemed to cast no shadow on the ground.

Afterward, when the real traitor was caught red-handed in a telegraph office, Villa felt sorry about Sanchez; then he began to feel guilty, and finally afraid.

AMBROSE BIERCE NOTED AN AIR OF MERRIMENT
in Villa’s camp that night. Hundreds of fires blazed across the broad plain that swept up to the foothills, beyond which lay Chihuahua City and the Federal army. The sounds of singing wafted in the air and somewhere a mariachi band played “La Cucaracha”; the skies were clear and there seemed to be little in the mood to indicate that a great battle was to take place the following day. While he walked to another section of the bivouac, Bierce noticed the handsome dark-haired man he’d seen around Villa’s staff doing tricks on a big palomino horse for a pretty brunette seated on a stump. She did not look happy but nodded in acknowledgment as the man made the horse paw the air, bow, and sit on the ground.