Classic Audiobook Collection - Insurgent Mexico by John Reed ~ Full Audiobook [history]

Starting point is 00:00:00 insurgent mexico by john reed part one desert war chapter one urbina's country a peddler from parral came into town with a mule load of machucche you smoke machucche when you can't get tobacco and we strolled down with the rest of the population to get the news this was in magistral a derango mountain village three days ride from the railroad somebody bought a little machuche the rest of us borrowed from him and we sent a boy for some corn shucks everybody lit up squatting around the pedlar three deep for it was weeks since the town had heard of the revolution he was full of the most alarming rumors that the federals had broken out of torreon and were headed this way burning ranches and murdering pacifcos that the united states troops had crossed the rio grande that huerta had resigned that huerta was coming north to take charge of the federal troops in person that pasquo al rosco had been shot at ojinaaga that pasquo al rosco was coming south with ten thousand coloradoes he retailed these reports with a wealth of dramatic gesture stomping around until his heavy brown and gold sombrero wobbled on his head tossing his faded blue blanket over his shoulder firing imaginary rifles and drawing imaginary swords while his audience murmured ma and adieu but the most interesting rumor was that general urbina would leave for the front in two days a hostile arab named antonio suafeta happened to be driving to parral in a two-wheeled gig the next morning and allowed me to go with him as far as las neves where the general lives by afternoon we had climbed out of the mountains to the great upland plain of northern derango and were jogging down the mile-long waves of yellow prairie stretching away so far that the grazing cattle dwindled into dots and finally disappeared at the base of the wrinkled purple mountains that seemed close enough to hit with a thrown stone

Starting point is 00:02:06 the arab's hostility had thawed and he poured out his life's story not one word of which i could understand but the drift of it i gathered was largely commercial he had once been to el paso and regarded it as the world's most beautiful city but business was better in mexico they say that there are few jews in mexico because they cannot stand the competition of the arabs we passed only one human being all that day a ragged old man astride a burro wrapped in a red and black czech sarapé though without trousers and hugging the broken stock of a rifle spitting he volunteered that he was a soldier that after three years of deliberation he had finally decided to join the revolution and fight for liberty but at his first battle a cannon had been fired the first he had ever heard he had immediately started for his home in el oro where he intended to descend into a gold mine and stay there until the war was over we fell silent antonio and i occasionally he addressed a mule in faultless castilian once he informed me that that mule was all heart puro the sun hung for a moment on the crest of the red porphyry mountains and dropped behind them the turquoise cup of sky held an orange powder of clouds then all the rolling leagues of desert glowed and came near in the soft light ahead suddenly reared the solid fortress of a big rancho such as one comes on once a day in that vast land a mighty square of blank walls with loop-hold towers at the corners and an iron-studded gate

Starting point is 00:03:48 it stood grim and forbidding upon a little bare hill like any castle its adobe corrals around it and below in what had been a dry arroyo all day the sunken river came to the surface in a pool and disappeared again in the sand thin lines of smoke from within rose straight into the high last sunshine from the river to the gate moved the tiny black figures of women with water jars on their heads and two wild horsemen galloped some cattle toward the corals now the western mountains were blue velvet in the pale sky a blood-stained canopy of watered silk but by the time we reached the great gate of the rancho above was only a shower of stars antonio called for don jesus it is always safe to call for a don jesus at a rancho but that is invariably the administrator's name he finally appeared a magnificently tall man in tight trousers purple silk undershirt and a grimacreder's name and a grimacrador's name he finally appeared a magnificently tall man in tight trousers purple silk undershirt and a great Sambrero heavily loaded with silver braid and invited us in. The inside of the wall consisted of houses running all the way around. Along the walls and over the doors hung festoons of jerked meat and strings of peppers and drying clothes. Three young girls crossed a square and single file, balancing oyas of water on their heads,

Starting point is 00:05:11 shouting to each other in the raucous voices of Mexican women. At one house a woman crouched, nursing her baby. next door another kneeled to the interminable labor of grinding corn-meal in a stone trough the men-folk squatted before little corn-husk fires bundled in their faded serrapes smoking their hoias as they watched the women work as we unharnessed they rose and gathered around with soft-voiced buenos noches curious and friendly where did we come from where going what did we have of news had the maderises taken ojinaaga yet was it true that orosco was coming to kill the basificos did we know panfio silvera he was a serento one of urbina's men he came from that house was the cousin of this man ah there was too much war antonio departed to bargain for corn for the mule attentito just a little corn he whined surely don jesus won't charge him anything just so much corn as a mule could eat At one of the houses I negotiated for dinner. The women spread out both her hands.

Starting point is 00:06:22 We are all so poor now, she said. A little water, some beans, tortillas. It is all we eat in this house. Milk? No. Eggs? No. Meat? No. Coffee? Vagame Dios, no. I ventured that with this money they might be purchased at one of the other houses. kien saabe replied she dreamily at this moment arrived her husband and uprated her for her lack of hospitality my house is at your orders he said magnificently and begged the cigarette then he squatted down while she brought forward the two family chairs and bade us to seat ourselves the room was of good proportions with a dirt floor and a ceiling of heavy beams the adobe showing through walls and ceiling were whitewashed

Starting point is 00:07:16 and to the naked eye spotlessly clean. In one corner was a big iron bed, and in the other a singer-sewing machine, as in every other house I saw in Mexico. There was also a spindle-legged table, upon which stood a picture postcard of Our Lady of Guadalupe, with a candle burning before it. Above this, on the wall,

Starting point is 00:07:37 hung an indecent illustration clip from the pages of Lerere in a silver gilt frame, evidently an object of the highest veneration. arriving now various uncles cousins and compadres wondering casually if we dragged any cigarros at her husband's command the woman brought a live coal in her fingers we smoked it grew late there developed a lively argument as to who would go and buy provisions for our dinner finally they compromised on the woman and soon antonio and i sat in the kitchen while she crouched upon the altar-like adobe platform in the corner cooking over the the open fire, the smoke enveloped up, pouring out the door. Occasionally a pig or a few hens would wander in from the outside, or a sheep would make a dash for the tortilla meal, until the angry voice of the master of the house reminded the

Starting point is 00:08:30 woman that she was not doing five or six things at once, and she would rise wearily and belabor the animal with a flaming brand. All through our supper jerked meat, fiery with chili, fried eggs, tortillas, friholes, and bitter black coffee, the entire male population of the rancho bore us company, in the room and out. It seemed that some were especially prejudiced against the church. "'Preece without shame!' cried one, "'who come when we are so poor and take away a tenth of what we have.' "'And us paying a quarter to the government for this cursed war!'

Starting point is 00:09:09 "'Shut your mouth!' shrilled the woman. "'It is for God! God must eat the same as we!' her husband smiled a superior smile he had once been to himenez and was considered a man in the world god does not eat he remarked with finality the curas grow fat on us why do you give it i asked it is the law said several at once and not one would believe that that law was repealed in mexico in the year eighteen fifty seven i asked them about general urbina a good man all heart and another he is very brave the bullets bound off him like rain from a sombrero he is the cousin of my woman's first husband's sister he is bueno paro los negocius del campo that is to say he is a highly successful band and highwayman and finally one said proudly a few years ago he was just a peon like us and now he is a a general and a rich man. But I shall not soon forget the hunger-pinched body and bare feet of an old man with the face of a saint who said slowly, The revolution is good. When it is done,

Starting point is 00:10:31 we shall starve never, never, never if God is served. But it is long, and we have no food to eat or clothes to wear, for the master has gone away from the hacienda, and we have no tools or our work with, and the soldiers take all our corn and drive away the cattle. Why don't the Pacificos fight? He shrugged the shoulders. Now they do not need us. They have no rifles for us, or horses. They are winning.

Starting point is 00:11:04 And who shall feed them if we do not plant corn? No, signor. But if the Revolution loses, then there will be no more Pacificos. Then we will rise, with our knives and our horse. horsewhips. The revolution will not lose. As Antonio and I rolled up in our blankets on the floor of the granary, they were singing. One of the young bucks had procured a guitar somewhere, and two voices, clinging to each other in that peculiar strident Mexican barbershop harmony, were whining loudly something about a Trista Historia di Amor. The rancho was one of many

Starting point is 00:11:41 belonging to the hacienda of El Canotillo, and all next day we drove through. its wide lands, which covered more than two million acres, I was told. The hacandado, a wealthy Spaniard, had fled the country two years before. Who was owner now? General Urbina, said Antonio, and it was so, as soon as I saw. The great asciendas of northern Durango, an area greater than the state of New Jersey, had been confiscated for the constitutionalist government by the general, who ruled them with his own agents,

Starting point is 00:12:16 and, it was said, divided 50-50 with the revolution. We drove steadily all day, only stopping long enough to eat a few tortillas, and along about sundown we saw the brown mud wall that hemmed El Canotillo round, with its city of little houses, and the ancient pink tower of its church among the Alamo trees, miles away at the foot of the mountains. The village of Las Neves, a straggling collection of adobies the exact color of the earth of which they are built, lay before us, like some strange growth of the desert. A flashing river, without a trace of green along its banks to contrast it with the scorched plain, made a semicircle around the town. And as we splashed across the ford, between the women kneeling there at their washing, the sun suddenly went behind the western mountains.

Starting point is 00:13:10 Immediately a deluge of yellow light, thick as water, drowned the earth, and a golden mist rose from the ground, in which the cattle floated legless. I knew that the price for such a journey as Antonio had carried me was at least ten pesos, and he was an Arab to boot. But when I offered him money, he threw his arms around me and burst into tears. God bless you, excellent Arab. You are right. Business is better in Mexico.

Starting point is 00:13:38 End of Section 1 Recording by Jeff Yell www. www. jeff yell.com Section 2 of Insurgent Mexico This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.

Starting point is 00:14:11 Insurgent Mexico by John Reed. Part 1. Desert War chapter two the lion of derango at home at general urbina's door set an old peon with four cartridge belts around him engaged in the genial occupation of filling corrugated iron bombs with gunpowder he jerked his thumb toward the patio the general's house corrals and store-rooms ran around all four sides of a space as big as a city block swarming with pigs chickens and half-naked children two goats and three magnificent peacocks gazed pensively down from the roof in and out of the sitting-room whence came the phonographic strains of the dollar princess stalked a train of hens an old woman came from the kitchen and dumped a bucket of garbage on the ground all the pigs made a squealing rush for it in a corner of the house-wall sat the general's baby daughter chewing on a cartridge a group of men stood or sprawled on the ground around a well in the center of the patio. The general himself sat in their midst

Starting point is 00:15:22 in a broken wicker armchair, feeding tortillas to a tame deer and a lame black sheep. Before him kneeled a peon, pouring from a canvas sack some hundreds of mouser cartridges. To my explanations, the general returned no answer.

Starting point is 00:15:39 He gave me a limp hand, immediately withdrawing it, but did not rise. A broad, medium-sized man of dark mahogany complexion. with a sparse black beard up to his cheekbones that didn't hide the wide, thin, expressionless mouth, the gaping nostrils, the shiny, small, humorous animal eyes.

Starting point is 00:15:59 For a good five minutes, he never took them from mine. I produced my papers. I don't know how to read, said the general suddenly, motioning to his secretary. So you want to go with me to Basil? He shot at me in the coarse Spanish. Many bullets! I said nothing.

Starting point is 00:16:19 Very bien, but I don't know when I shall go. Maybe in five days. Now eat. Thanks, my general. I've already eaten. Go and eat, he repeated calmly. Andale. A dirty little man they called doctor escorted me to the dining room.

Starting point is 00:16:39 He had once been an apotheary in Paral, but was now a major. We were to sleep together that night, he said. but before we reached the dining room there was a shout of, Doctor! A wounded man had arrived, a peasant with his sombrero in his hand, and a blood-clotted handkerchief around his head. The little doctor became all efficiency. He dispatched a boy for the family scissors,

Starting point is 00:17:04 another for a bucket of water from the well. He sharpened with his knife a stick he picked up from the ground. Seating the man on a box, he took off the bandage, revealing a cut about two inches long, caked with dirt and dried blood. First, he cut off the hair around the wound, jabbing the point of the scissors carelessly into it. The man drew in his breath sharply, but did not move.

Starting point is 00:17:27 Then the doctor slowly cut the clotted blood away from the top, whistling cheerfully to himself. Yes, he remarked. It is an interesting life, the doctors. He peered closely at the vomiting blood. The peasant sat like a sick stone. And it is a life full of nobility, continued the doctor, alleviating the sufferings of others. Here he picked up the sharpened stick, thrust it deep in, and slowly worked at the entire length

Starting point is 00:17:57 of the cut. Pah, the animal is fainted, said the doctor. Here, hold him up while I wash it. With that, he lifted the bucket and poured its contents over the head of the patient, the water and blood dribbling down over his clothes. these ignorant peons said the doctor binding up the wound in its original bandage have no courage it is the intelligence that makes the soul eh when the peasant came to i asked are you a soldier the man smiled a sweet deprecating smile no signor i am only a pacifico he said i live in a canotillo where my house is at your orders some time later a good deal we all sat down to supper there was lieutenant-colonel pablo sianyes a frank engaging youth of twenty-six with five bullets in him to pay for the three years fighting

Starting point is 00:18:55 his conversation was sprinkled with soldierly curses and his pronunciation was a little indistinct the result of a bullet in the jaw-bone and a tongue almost cut in two by a sword he was a demon in the field they said and a killer muimmy matador after it. At the first taking of Torreon, Pablo and two other officers, Major Fierro and Captain Burunda, had executed alone 80 unarmed prisoners, each man shooting them down with his revolver until his hand got tired pulling the trigger. Oiga, Pablo said. Where is the best institute for the study of hypnotism in the United States? As soon as this cursed war is over, I'm going to study to become a hypnotic.

Starting point is 00:19:41 With that, he turned and began to make passes at Lieutenant Boraga, who was called derisively the lion of the Sierras, because of his prodigious boasting. The latter jerked out his revolver. I want no business with the devil, he screamed, amid the uproarious laughter of the others. Then there was Captain Fernando, a grizzled giant of a man in tight trousers, who had fought twenty-one battles. He took the keenest delight in my fragmentary Spanish. and every word i spoke sent him into bellows of laughter that shook down the adobe from the ceiling he had never been out of derango and declared that there was a great sea between the united states and mexico and that he believed all the rest of the earth to be water

Starting point is 00:20:26 next to him sat longinos cuareca with a row of decayed teeth across his round gentle face every time he smiled and a record for simple bravery that was famous throughout the army he was twenty-one and already first captain captain. He told me that last night his own men had tried to kill him. Then came Patricio, the best rider of wild horses in the state, and Fidencio next to him, a pure-blooded Indian seven feet tall, who always fought standing up. And last, Raphael Zalarzo, a tiny hunchback that Irina carried in his train to amuse him, like any medieval Italian duke. When we had burned our throat with the last enchilada and scooped up our last freehound, holly with a tortilla, forks and spoons being unknown. The gentleman each took a mouthful of water, gargled it, and spat it on the floor. As I came out into the patio, I saw the figure of the

Starting point is 00:21:24 general emerged from his bedroom door, staggering slightly. In his hand he carried a revolver. He stood for a moment in the light of another door, then suddenly went in, banging it behind him. I was already in bed when the doctor came into the room. In the other bed reposed the lion of the Sierra's and his momentary mistress, now loudly snoring. Yes, said the doctor. There has been some little trouble. The general has not been able to walk for two months from rheumatism, and sometimes he is in great pain, and comforts himself with Aguardiente. Tonight he tried to shoot his mother.

Starting point is 00:22:03 He always tries to shoot his mother, because he loves her very much. The doctor peeped at himself in the mirror, and twirte. twisted his mustache. This revolution, do not mistake. It is a fight of the poor against the rich. I was very poor before the revolution, and now I am very rich. He pondered a moment,

Starting point is 00:22:24 and then began removing his clothes. Through his filthy undershirt, the doctor honored me with his one English sentence. I have much lysis, he said, with a proud smile. I went out at dawn and walked around last night. Neves. The town belongs to General Urbina, people, houses, animals, and immortal souls. At Las Neves, he and he alone wields the high justice and the low. The town's only store is in his house, and I bought some cigarettes from the line of the Sierras, who was detailed store clerk for

Starting point is 00:23:01 the day. In the patio, the general was talking with his mistress, a beautiful, aristocratic-looking woman, with a voice like a hand saw. When he noticed me, he came up and shook hands, saying that he'd like to have me take some pictures of him. I said that that was my purpose in life, and asked him if he thought we would leave soon for the front. In about ten days, I think, he answered. I began to get uncomfortable.

Starting point is 00:23:28 I appreciate your hospitality, my general, I told him, but my work demands that I be where I can see the actual advance of Pontorion. If it is convenient, I should like to go back to Chihuahua and join General Villa, who will soon go south. Urbina's expression didn't change, but he shot at me. What is it that you don't like here? You are in your own house? Do you want cigarettes? Do you want Aguardiente, or Sotol, or cognac? Do you want a woman to arm your bed at night? Everything you want I can give you. Do you want a pistol? A horse? Do you want money?

Starting point is 00:24:07 He jerked a handful of silver dollars from his pocket and threw them jingling on the ground at my feet. I said, "'Nowhere in Mexico am I so happy and contented as in this house, and I was prepared to go further. For the next hour, I took photographs of General Urbina, General Urbina on foot, with and without sword, General Arbina on three different horses, General Urbina with and without his family,

Starting point is 00:24:35 General Urbina's three children on horseback and off. General Urbina's mother and his mistress, the entire family armed with swords and revolvers, including the phonograph, produced for the purpose, one of the children holding a placard upon which was inked, General Domas Urbina R. End of Section 2. Recording by Jeff Yell

Starting point is 00:25:03 www. www. jeff yellvoice.com Section 3 of Insurgent Mexico This is a Libravox recording All Libravox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit Libravox.org Recording by Kenji Yamada

Starting point is 00:25:30 Insurgent Mexico by John Reed Part 1, Desert War Chapter 3 The General Goes to War We had finished breakfast and I was resigning myself to the ten days in Las Neves, when the general suddenly changed his mind. He came out of his room, roaring orders. In five minutes the house was all bustle and confusion, officers rushing to pack their serapes, mosos and troopers saddling horses, peons with armfuls of rifles rushing to and fro.

Starting point is 00:26:08 Patricio harnessed five mules to the great coach, an exact copy of the Deadwood stage. A courier rode out on the run to summon the tropa, which was quartered at the canotillo. Rafaelito loaded the general's baggage into the coach. It consisted of a typewriter, four swords, one of them bearing the emblem of the knights of Pythias, three uniforms, the general's branding iron, and a twelve-gallon demijan of Sotol. And there came the tropa, a ragged smoke of brown dust miles along the road. A head flew a little squat blackfish. figure, with a Mexican flag streaming over him.

Starting point is 00:26:46 He wore a floppy sombrero, loaded with five pounds of tarnished gold braid, once probably the pride of some imperial ascendado. Following him closely were Manuel Paredes, with riding boots up to his hips, fastened with silver buckles the size of dollars, beating his mount with the flat of a saber. Isidro Amayo, making his horse buck by flapping a hat in its eyes, Jose Valiente, ringing his immense silver spurs inlaid with turquoises,

Starting point is 00:27:14 Jesus Mancilla, his flashing brass chain around his neck, Julian Reyes, with colored pictures of Christ and the virgin fastened to the front of his sombrero, a struggling tangle of six behind, with Antonio Guzman trying to lasso them, the coils of his horsehair rope

Starting point is 00:27:29 soaring out of the dust. They came on the dead run, all Indian shouts and cracking revolvers, until they were only a hundred feet away, then jerked their little cowpone, he's cruelly to a staggering halt with bleeding mouths, a whirling confusion of men, horses, and dust. This was the tropa when I first saw them.

Starting point is 00:27:49 About a hundred they were in all stages of picturesque raggedness. Some wore overalls, others the charro jackets of peons, while one or two sported tight bocero trousers. A few had shoes, most of them only cow-hide sandals, and the rest were barefooted. Savas Gutierrez was garbed in an ancient frock coat, split up the back for riding. Rifles slung at their saddles,

Starting point is 00:28:13 four or five cartridge belts crossed over their chests, high-flapping sombreros, immense spurs chiming as they rode, bright-colored serapes strapped on behind. This was their uniform. The general was with his mother. Outside the door crouched his mistress, weeping, her three children around her.

Starting point is 00:28:33 For almost an hour we waited, then Orbina suddenly burst out of the door, With scarcely a look at his family, he leaped on his great gray charger and spurred furiously into the street. Juan Sanchez blew a blast in his cracked bugle, and the tropa with a general at its head took the canotillo road. In the meanwhile, Patricio and I loaded three cases of dynamite and a case of bombs into the boot of the coach. I got up beside Patricio, the peons let go of the mule's heads, and a long whip curled around their bellies. galloping we whirled out of the village and took the steep bank of the river at twenty miles an hour away on the other side the tropa trotted along a more direct road the canotillo we passed without stopping arremulus putas ida yelled patricio the whip hissing the camino real was a mere track on uneven ground every time we took a little arroyo the dynamite came down with a sickening crash suddenly a rope broke and one case bounced off the

Starting point is 00:29:37 coach and fell upon rocks. It was a cool morning, however, and we strapped it on again safely. Almost every hundred yards along the road were little heaps of stones surmounted by wooden crosses, each one the memorial of a murder. And occasionally a tall, whitewashed cross uproze in the middle of a side road to protect some little desert rancho from the visits of the devil. Black shiny chaparral, the height of a mule's back, scraped the side of the coach, Spanish bayonet and the great barrel cactus watched us like sentinels from the skyline of the desert. And always the mighty Mexican vultures circled over us, as if they knew we were going to war.

Starting point is 00:30:20 Late in the afternoon, the stone wall which bounds the million acres of the Asienda of Torreone de Canas swung into sight on our left, marching across deserts and mountains like the Great Wall of China for more than 30 miles, and soon afterward the Asienda itself. The tropa had dismounted around the big house. They said that General Urbina had suddenly been taken violently sick and would probably be unable to leave his bed for a week. The Casa Grande, a magnificent porticoat palace, but one story high, covered the entire top of a desert rise.

Starting point is 00:30:55 From its doorway one could see 15 miles of yellow rolling plain and beyond the interminable ranges of bare mountains piled upon each other. Back of it lay the great corrals and stables, where the Thropas' evening fires already sent up myriad. columns of yellow smoke. Below in the hollow, more than a hundred peon's houses made a vast open square, where children and animals romped together, and the women kneeled at their eternal grinding of corn. Out on the desert, a troop of vacheros rode slowly home, and from the river, a mile away,

Starting point is 00:31:30 the endless chain of black-shalled women carried water on their heads. It is impossible to imagine how close to nature the peons live on these great asiendas. Their very houses are built of the earth upon which they stand, baked by the sun. Their food is the corn they grow, their drink the water from the dwindled river carried painfully upon their heads. The clothes they wear are spun from the wool, and their sandals cut from the hide of a newly slaughtered steer. The animals are their constant companions, familiars of their houses. Light and darkness are their day and night. when a man and a woman fall in love, they fly to each other without the formalities of a courtship,

Starting point is 00:32:13 and when they are tired of each other, they simply part. Marriage is very costly, six pesos to the priest, and is considered a very swagger extra, but it is no more binding than the most casual attachment, and of course jealousy is a stabbing matter. We dined in one of the lofty barren salas of the Casa Grande, a room with the ceiling 18 feet high, walls of noble proportions, covered with cheap American wallpaper. A gigantic mahogany sideboard occupied one side of the place, but we had no knives and forks. There was a tiny fireplace in which a fire was never lighted, yet the chill of death abode there day and night. The room next door was hung with heavy spotted brocade, though there was no rug on the concrete floor.

Starting point is 00:33:03 No pipes and no plumbing in all the house. You went to the well or the river for water. and candles the only light. Of course the Dueno had long fled the country, but the Asienda in its prime must have been as splendid and as uncomfortable as a medieval castle. The Cura or priest of the Asienda church presided at dinner. To him were brought the choicest viands, which he sometimes passed to his favorites after helping himself.

Starting point is 00:33:31 We drank Sotol and Aguamil, while the Cura made away with a whole bottle of looted Anaset. exhilarated by this, his reverence discanted upon the virtues of the confessional, especially where young girls were concerned. He also made us understand that he possessed certain feudal rights over new brides. The girls here, he said, are very passionate. I noticed that the rest didn't laugh much at this, though they were outwardly respectful. After we were out of the room, Jose Baliente hissed, shaking so that he could hardly speak,

Starting point is 00:34:07 I know the dirty... And my sister, the Revolutional have something to say about these curas. Two high constitutionalist officers afterward hinted at a little known program to drive the priests out of Mexico, and Villas hostility to the cuiras is well known. Patricio was harnessing the coach when I came out in the morning, and the trooper were saddling up. The doctor who was remaining with the general strolled up to my friend, Trooper Juan Vallajo. That's a pretty horse you've got.

Starting point is 00:34:38 out there, he said, and a nice rifle. Lend them to me. But I haven't any other, it began, Juan. I am your superior officer, returned the doctor. That was the last we ever saw of doctor, horse, and rifle. I said farewell to the general who was lying in torture in bed, sending bulletins to his mother by telephone every 15 minutes. May you journey happily, he said.

Starting point is 00:35:05 Write the truth. I commend you to Pavlito. End of Section 3. Section 4 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Kenji Yamada.

Starting point is 00:35:37 Insurgent Mexico by John Reed. Part 1. Desert War Chapter 4. La Tropa on the March. And so I got inside the coach with Raffa Vailito, Pablo Sejanias, and his mistress. She was a strange creature. Young, slender, and beautiful. She was poison and a stone to everybody but Pablo.

Starting point is 00:36:03 I never saw her smile and never heard her say a gentle word. Sometimes she treated us with dull ferocity, sometimes with bestial indifference. But Pablo she cradled like a baby. When he lay across the seat with his head in her lap, she would hug it fiercely to her breast, making noises like a tigress with her young. Patricio handed down his guitar from the box, where he kept it, and to Raphael's accompaniment, the lieutenant-colonel sang love ballads in a cracked voice.

Starting point is 00:36:36 Every Mexican knows hundreds of these. They are not written down, but often composed extemporaneously, and handed along by word of mouth. Some of them are very beautiful, some grotesque, and others as satirical, any French popular song. He sang, Exiled I wandered through the world, exiled by the government. I came back at the end of the year, drawn by the fondness of love. I went away with the purpose of staying away forever, and the love of a woman was the only thing that made me come back.

Starting point is 00:37:13 And then Los I am of the children of the night who wander aimlessly in the darkness. the beautiful moon with its golden rays is the companion of my sorrows. I am going to lose myself from thee, exhausted with weeping. I am going sailing, sailing by the shores of the sea. You will see at the time of our parting, I will not allow you to love another. For if so it should be, I would ruin your face, and many blows we would give one another. So I am going to become an American. go with God, Antonia.

Starting point is 00:37:52 Say farewell to my friends. Oh, may the Americans allow me to pass and open a saloon on the other side of the river. The asienda of El Centro turned out to give us lunch, and there Fidencio offered me his horse to ride for the afternoon. The tropa had already ridden on ahead, and I could see them, strung out for half a mile in the black mesquite brush, the tiny red, white, and green flag bobbing at their head.

Starting point is 00:38:21 The mountains had withdrawn somewhere beyond the horizon, and we rode in the midst of a great bowl of desert, rolling up at the edges to meet the furnace blue of the Mexican sky. Now that I was out of the coach, a great silence, and a peace beyond anything I ever felt, wrapped me around. It is almost impossible to get objective about the desert. You sink into it, become a part of it. Galloping along, I soon caught up with the tropa. i am mister they shouted here comes mr on a horse kettal mister how goes it are you going to fight with us but captain fernando at the head of the column turned and roared come here mister the big man was grinning with delight you shall ride with me he shouted clapping me on the back drink now and he produced a bottle of sotol about half full drink it all show you're a man it's too much i laughed drink it yelled the chorus

Starting point is 00:39:21 as the tropa crowded up to sea. I drank it. A howl of laughter and applause went up. Fernando leaned over and gripped my hand. Good for you, Companiero, he bellowed, rolling with mirth. The men crowded around, amused and interested. Was I going to fight with them? Where did I come from?

Starting point is 00:39:43 What was I doing? Most of them had never heard of reporters. And one hazarded the opinion darkly that I was a gringo and a porfirista and not to be shot. The rest, however, were entirely opposed to this view. No Porfirista would possibly drink that much Sotol at a gulp. Isidro Amayo declared that he had been in a brigade in the first revolution, which was accompanied by a reporter, and that he was called Corresponsal de Guerr. Did I like Mexico? I said, I am very fond of Mexico.

Starting point is 00:40:14 I like Mexicans, too. And I like Sotol, Aguardiente, Mescal, Tequila, Pulke, and other Mexican customs. They shouted with laughter. Captain Fernando leaned over and patted my arm. Now you are with the men, Los Humbres. When we win the Revolution, it will be a government by the men, not by the rich. We are riding over the lands of the men. They used to belong to the rich, but now they belong to me and to the Companeros.

Starting point is 00:40:46 And you will be the army, I asked. When the Revolution is won, was the astonishing reply. There will be no more army. The men are sick of armies. It is by armies that Don Porfirio robbed us. But if the United States should invade Mexico? A perfect storm broke everywhere. We are more valiant than the Americanos. The cursed gringos would get no further south than Juarez. Let's see them try it. We drive them back over the border on the run and burn their capital the next day. No, said Fernando. You have more money and more social. soldiers. But the men would protect us. We need no army. The men would be fighting for their houses and

Starting point is 00:41:29 their women. What are you fighting for? I asked. Juan Sanchez, the color bearer, looked at me curiously. Why, it is good fighting. You don't have to work in the mines. Manuel Paredes said, We are fighting to restore Francisco Aim Madero to the presidency. This extraordinary statement is printed in the program of the revolution, and everywhere the constitutionalist soldiers are known as Madaristas. I knew him, continued Manuel slowly. He was always laughing, always. Yes, said another. Whenever there was any trouble with a man and all the rest wanted to fight him or put him in prison, Pancho Madero said, just let me talk to him a few minutes. I could bring him around. He loved Bailes, an Indian said. Many a time I've seen him dance all night, and all the next day and the next night.

Starting point is 00:42:28 He used to come to the great asiendas and make speeches. When he began, the peons hated him. When he ended, they were crying. Here a man broke out into a droning irregular tune, such as always accompanies the popular ballads that spring up in thousands on every occasion. In 1910, Madero was imprisoned in the National Palace the 18th of February. Four days he was imprisoned in the hall of the intendancy because he did not wish to renounce the presidency. Then Blancet and Feliz Diaz martyred him there. They were the hangmen feeding on his hate.

Starting point is 00:43:06 They crushed until he fainted with play of cruelty to make him resign. Then with hot irons they burned him without mercy and only unconsciousness calmed the awful flames. But it was all invioms. vain because of his mighty courage, preferred rather to die. His was a great heart. This was the end of the life of him who was the redeemer of the Indian Republic and of all the poor. They took him out of the palace and tell us he was killed in an assault. What a cynicism. What a shameless lie.

Starting point is 00:43:44 O street of Lecumberri, your cheerfulness has ended forever, for through you past Madero to the penitentiary. That 22nd of February will always be remembered in the Indian Republic. God has pardoned him and the Virgin of Guadalupe. Goodbye, beautiful Mexico, where our leader died. Goodbye to the palace, once he issued a living corpse. Senores, there is nothing eternal, nor anything sincere in life. See what happened to Don Francisco and Madero. By the time he was halfway through the entire tropa was humming the tune, and when he finished there was a moment of jingling silence. We are fighting, said Isidro Amayo, for Libertad. What do you mean by Libertad? Libertad is when I can do what I want. But suppose it hurts somebody else? He shot back at me

Starting point is 00:44:46 Benito Juarez's great sentence. Peace is the respect for the rights of others. I wasn't prepared for that. It startled me this barefooted mestizo's conception of liberty. I submit that it is the only correct definition of liberty, to do what I want to. Americans quote it to me triumphantly as an instance of Mexican irresponsibility, but I think it is a better definition than ours. Liberty is a right to do what the courts want. Every Mexican schoolboy knows the definition of peace and seems to understand pretty well what it means too. But they say Mexicans don't want peace. That is a lie and a foolish one. Let Americans take the trouble to go through the Madarista army,

Starting point is 00:45:29 asking whether they want peace or not. The people are sick of war. But, just to be square, I'll have to report Juan Sanchez's remark. Is there war in the United States now, he asked? No, I said untruthfully. No war at all? He meditated for a moment. How do you pass the time, then?

Starting point is 00:45:53 Just about then, somebody saw a coyote sneaking through the brush, and the entire Tropa gave chase with a whoop. They scattered rollicking over the desert, the late sun flashing from cartridge belts and spurs, the ends of their bright serapes flying out behind. Beyond them, the scorched world sloped gently up, and a range of far lilac mountains jumped in the heat waves like a bucking horse. By here, if tradition is right, past the steel-armored Spaniards in their search for gold. gold, a blaze of crimson and silver that has left the desert cold and dull ever since, and topping a rise we came upon the first side of the Asienda of la Mimbrera, a walled enclosure of houses strong enough to stand a siege, stretching steeply down a hill, with a magnificent Casa Grande at the top. In front of this house, which had been sacked and burned by Orosco's

Starting point is 00:46:46 general Cheche Campa two years before, the coach was drawn up. A huge fire had been kindled, and ten companionsos were slaughtering sheep. Into the red glare of the firelight they staggered, with the struggling, squealing sheep in their arms, its blood fountening upon the ground, shining in the fierce light like something phosphorescent. The officers and I dined in the house of the Administrator, Don Jesus, the most beautiful specimen of manhood I have ever seen.

Starting point is 00:47:18 He was much over six feet tall, slender, white-skinned, a pure Spanish type of the highest breed. at one end of his dining-room i remember hung a placard embroidered in red white and green viva mexico and at the other a second which read viva jesus it was after dinner as i stood at the fire wondering where i was to sleep that captain fernando touched me on the arm will you sleep with the companeros we walked across the great open square and the furious light of the desert stars to a stone storehouse set apart inside a few candles stuck against the wall illumined the rifles stacked in the corners the saddles on the floor and the blanket rolled companeros with their heads on them one or two were awake talking and smoking in a corner three sat muffled in their serapes playing cards five or six had voices in a guitar they were singing pasquo rosco beginning They say that Pasquale Orozco has turned his coat because Don Terazas seduced him. They gave him many millions and they bought him and sent him to overthrow the government.

Starting point is 00:48:32 Orosco believed it, and to the war he went, but the Madrista canon was his calamity. If to thy window shall come, Porfirio Diaz, give him for charity some cold tortillas. If to thy window shall come, General Huerta, spit in his face. and slam the door. If to thy window shall come Innes Salazar, lock your trunk so that he can't steal. If to thy window shall come, Maclovio Herrera,

Starting point is 00:49:02 give him dinner and put the cloth on the table. They didn't distinguish me at first, but soon one of the card players said, Here comes mister! At that the others roused and woke the rest. That's right, it's good to sleep with the ombres. Take this place, Amigo. here's my saddle. Here there is no crookedness. Here a man goes straight. May you pass a happy night,

Starting point is 00:49:29 Companiero, they said, till morning then. Pretty soon somebody shut the door. The room became full of smoke and fetid with human breath. What little silence was left from the chorus of snoring was entirely obliterated by the singing, which kept up, I guess, until dawn. A Companeros had fleas. but I rolled up in my blankets and lay down upon the concrete floor very happily, and I slept better than I had before in Mexico. At dawn we were in the saddle, larking up a steep roll of barren desert to get warm. It was bitter cold. The tropa were wrapped in serapes up to their eyes,

Starting point is 00:50:13 so that they looked like colored toadstools under their great sombreros. The level rays of the sun, burning as they fell upon my face, caught them unaware, glorifying the serapes to more brilliant colors than they possessed. Isidro Amayos was of deep blue and yellow spirals. Juan Sanchez had won brick-red. Captain Fernandos was green in Ceres. Against them flashed a purple and black zig-zag pattern. We looked back to see the coach pulled to a stop,

Starting point is 00:50:44 and Patricio waving to us. Two of the mules had given out, raw from the traces and tottering with the fatigue of the last two days. The Tropa scattered to look for mules. Soon they came back, driving two great beautiful animals that had never seen harness. No sooner had they smelled the coach than they made a desperate break for freedom. And now the Tropa instantly went back to their native profession. They became bakeros.

Starting point is 00:51:13 It was a pretty sight, the rope coils swinging in the air, the sudden snake-like shoot of the loops, the little horses bracing themselves against the shock of the running mule. Those mules were deemps. time after time they broke the Riyatas. Twice they overturned horse and rider. Pablo came to the rescue. He got on Sabas's horse, drove in the spurs, and went after one mule. In three minutes he had roped him by the leg, thrown him, and tied him. Then he took the second with equal dispatch. It was not for nothing that Pablo was lieutenant colonel at 26. Not only could he fight better than his men,

Starting point is 00:51:50 but he could ride better, rope better, shoot better, chop wood better, and dance better. The mule's legs were tied, and they were dragged with ropes, to the coach where the harness was slipped on them in spite of their frantic struggles. When all was ready, Patricio got on the box, seized the whip and told us to cut away.

Starting point is 00:52:09 The wild animals scrambled to their feet, bucking and squealing. Above the uproar came the crack of the heavy whip, and Patricio's bellow, Andalé, ivan, íh, Ijos de la grand. and they jerked forward running the big coach taking the arroyos like an express train soon it vanished behind its own pile of dust and appeared hours afterwards crawling up the side of a great hill miles away panchito was eleven years old already a trooper with a rifle too heavy for him and a horse they had to lift him on his compadre was victoriano a veteran of fourteen seven others of the tropa were under seventeen and there was a sullen indian-faced woman riding side-saddle who wore two cartridge belts she rode with the ombres slept with them in the quartels

Starting point is 00:53:03 "'Why are you fighting?' I asked her. She jerked her head towards the fierce figure of Julian Reyes. "'Because he is,' she answered. "'He who stands under a good tree is sheltered by a good shade.' "'A good rooster will crow in any chicken coop, Captain Coup,' Captain Ciro. "'A parrot is green all over,' chimed in someone else. "'Faces we see, but hearts we do not comprehend,' said Hosei, sentimentally. "'At noon we roped a steer and cut his throat.

Starting point is 00:53:34 and because there was no time to build a fire, we ripped the meat from the carcass and ate it raw. Oiga, mister, shouted Jose. Do the United States soldiers eat raw meat? I said I didn't think they did. It is good for the Ombres. In the campaign we have no time for anything but carne crudo. It makes us brave.

Starting point is 00:53:56 By late afternoon we had caught up with a coach and galloped with it down through the dry arroyo and up through the other side, past the great ribota court that flanks the asienda of la serca. Unlike La Mimbrera, the Casa Grande here stands on a level place, with the peon's houses in long rows at its flanks, and a flat desert Baron of Chaparral for 20 miles in front. Cheche Campa also paid a visit to La Serca.

Starting point is 00:54:24 The big house is a black and gaping ruin. End of Section 4. Section 5 of Insurgent Mexico This is a liberal. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Kenji Yamada. Insurgent Mexico.

Starting point is 00:54:57 By John Reed. Part 1. Desert War Chapter 5. White Knights at Sarca Of course I took up quarters at the quartel. And right here I want to mention one fact. Americans had insisted that the Mexican was fundamentally dishonest, that I might expect to have my outfit stolen the first day out.

Starting point is 00:55:24 Now for two weeks I lived with as rough a band of ex-outlaws as there was in the army. They were without discipline and without education. They were, many of them, gringo haters. They had not been paid a cent for six weeks, and some were so desperately poor that they couldn't both sandals or serapes. I was a stranger with a good outfit, unarmed. I had a hundred and fifty pesos, which I put conspicuously at the head of my bed when I slept, and I never lost a thing.

Starting point is 00:55:53 But more than that, I was not permitted to pay for my food, and in a company where money was scarce and tobacco almost unknown, I was kept supplied with all I could smoke by the Companieros. Every suggestion from me that I should pay for it was an insult. The only thing possible was to hire music for a baile. long after Juan Sanchez and I rolled up in our blankets that night, we could hear the rhythm of the music and the shouts of the dancers. It must have been midnight when somebody threw open the door and yelled,

Starting point is 00:56:24 Mr. Oiga, mister, are you asleep? Come to the baile, arriva, hand aly. Too sleepy, I said. After some further argument, the messenger departed, but in ten minutes back he came. The Capitán Fernando orders you to come at once. Vamonos. Now the others woke up.

Starting point is 00:56:46 Come to the baile, mister, they shouted. Juan Sanchez sat up and began pulling on his shoes. Now we're off, said he. The mister is going to dance. Captain's orders. Come on, mister. I'll go. If all the tropa does, I said.

Starting point is 00:57:03 They raised a yell at that, and the night was full of chuckling men pulling on their clothes. Twenty of us reached the house in a body. The mob of peons blocking door and window opened to let us pass. The mister, they cried. The meester's going to dance. Capitán Fernando threw his arms about me, roaring.

Starting point is 00:57:25 Here he comes, the Companiero. Dance now. Go to it. They're going to dance the jota. But I don't know how to dance the jota. Patricio flushed and panting, seized me by the arm. Come on, it's easy. I'll introduce you to the best girl in this arka. There was nothing to do. The window was jammed with faces, and a hundred tried to crowd in at the door.

Starting point is 00:57:49 It was an ordinary room in a peon's house, whitewashed with a bumpy dirt floor. In the light of two candles sat the musicians. The music struck up, Puente Sachi Hawa. A grinning silence fell. I gathered the young lady under my own. arm and started the preliminary march around the room customary before the dance begins. We waltzed painfully for a moment or two, and suddenly they all began to yell. Oara, ora, now! What do you do now?

Starting point is 00:58:22 Welta, Welta, looser, a perfect yell. But I don't know how. The fool doesn't know how to dance, cried one. Another began the mocking song. The gringos all are fools. They've never been in Sonora, and when they want to say $10 reale, they call it dollar and a quarter. But Patricio bounded into the middle of the floor and Sabas after him,

Starting point is 00:58:46 and each seized a mouchacha from the line of women sitting along one under the room. And as I led my partner back to her seat, they've waltad. First a few walt steps. Then the man whirled away from the girl, snapping his fingers, throwing one arm up to cover his face, while the girl put one hand on her hip and danced after her. him. They approached each other, receded, danced around each other. The girls were dumpy and dull, Indian-faced and awkward, bowed at the shoulder from much grinding of corn and washing of clothes.

Starting point is 00:59:19 Some of the men had on heavy boots, some none, many wore pistols and cartridge belts, and a few carried rifles slung from their shoulders. The dance was always preceded by a grand march around. then after the couple had danced twice the circuit of the room they walked again there were two steps waltz and mazurka besides the jota each girl kept her eyes on the ground never spoke and stumbled heavily after you add to this a dirt floor full of arroyos and you have a form of torture unequaled anywhere in the world it seemed to me i danced for hours spurred on by the chorus dance mister no floche keep it up don't quit Later there was another jota, and here's where I almost got into trouble. I danced this one successfully, with another girl. And afterward, when I asked my original partner to Two-Step, she was furiously angry. You shamed me before them all, said she. You said you didn't know how to dance the jota.

Starting point is 01:00:27 As we marched around the room, she appealed to her friends. Domingo, Juan, come out and take me away from this gringo. He won't dare to do anything. Half a dozen of them started onto the floor, and the rest looked on. It was a ticklish moment. But all at once, the good Fernando glided in front, a revolver in his hand. The Americano's my friend, said he. Get back there and mind your business.

Starting point is 01:00:55 The horses were tired, so we rested today in La Serca. Behind the Casa Grande lay a ruined garden, full of gray alamo trees, figs, vines, and great barrel cactuses. It was walled around by high adobe walls on three sides, over one of which the ancient white tower of the church floated in the blue sky. The fourth side opened upon a reservoir of yellow water, and beyond it stretched the western desert, miles upon miles of tawny desolation. Trooper Marin and I lay under a fig tree, watching the vultures sail over us on quiet wing. suddenly the silence was broken by loud swift music. Pablo had found a pianola in the church,

Starting point is 01:01:45 where it had escaped Cheche Campas noticed the previous year. With it was one role, the Merry Widow waltz. Nothing would do but that we carry the instrument out into the ruined patio. We took turns playing the thing all day long, Rafaelito volunteering the information that the Merry Widow was Mexico's most popular piece. A Mexican, he said, had composed it. The finding of the pianola suggested that we give another baile that night,

Starting point is 01:02:14 in the portico of the Casa Grande itself. Candles were stuck upon the pillars, the faint light flickering upon broken walls, burned and blackened doorways, the riot of wild vines that had twisted unchecked around the roof beams. The entire patio was crowded with blanketed men, making holiday, even yet a little uncomfortable in the great house, which they had never been allowed to enter.

Starting point is 01:02:41 As soon as the orchestra had finished a dance, the pianola immediately took up the task. Dance followed dance without any rest, a barrel of Sotol further complicated things. As the evening wore on, the assembly got more and more exhilarated. Sabas, who was Pablo's orderly, led off with Pablo's mistress. I followed.

Starting point is 01:03:06 Immediately afterward, hit her on the head with the butt end of his revolver, and said he'd shoot her if she'd dance with anyone else, and her partner too. After sitting some moments meditating, Sabas rose, pulled his revolver, and informed the harpist that he had played a wrong note. Then he shot at him.

Starting point is 01:03:27 Other Companeros disarmed Sabas, who immediately went to sleep in the middle of the dance floor. The interest in Meester's dancing soon shifted to other phenomena. I sat down beside Julian Reyes, he with a Christ and Virgin on the front of his sombrero. He was far gone in Sotol, his eyes burned like a fanatic's. He turned on me suddenly. Are you going to fight with us? No, I said. I am a correspondent. I am forbidden to fight. It is a lie, he cried. You don't fight because you are afraid to fight.

Starting point is 01:04:04 In the face of God, our cause is just. Yes, I know that, but my orders are not to fight. What do I care for orders? he shrieked. We want no correspondence, we want no words printed in a book, we want rifles and killing, and if we die, we shall be caught up among the saints. Coward! Wartista! That's enough, cried someone, and I looked up to see Longinos Guareka standing over me. Julian Reyes, you know nothing.

Starting point is 01:04:33 His companioner comes thousands of miles by the sea and the land to tell his countrymen the truth of the fight for liberty. He goes into battle without arms. He's braver than you are, because you have a rifle. Get out now and don't bother him anymore. He sat down where Julian had been, smiled his homely, gentle smile, and took both my hands in his.

Starting point is 01:04:57 We shall be compadres, eh? said Longhinos Guareca. We shall sleep in the same blankets and always be together. And when we get to the kambes, I shall take you to my home, and my father shall make you my brother. I will show you the lost gold mines of the Spaniards, the richest mines in the world. We'll work them together, eh? We'll be rich, eh? And from that time on until the end, Longinos Guareca and I were always together.

Starting point is 01:05:29 But the violin grew wilder and wilder. Orchestra and pianola alternated without a break. Everybody was drunk now. Pablo was boasting horribly of killing defenseless prisoners. Occasionally some insult would be passed, and there would be a snapping of rifle levers all over the place. Then perhaps the poor, exhausted women would begin to go home, and what an ominous shout would go up.

Starting point is 01:05:55 No, Baya, don't go, stop. Come back here and dance. Come back here. And the dejected procession would halt and strangle back. A four o'clock, when somebody started the report that a gringo whartista spy was among us, I decided to go to bed. But the baile kept up until seven. End of Section 5. Section 6 of Insurgent Mexico.

Starting point is 01:06:28 This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visitlibravox.org. Recording by Kenji Yamata. Insurgent Mexico by John Reed Part 1, Desert War Chapter 6 Kien Vibbe

Starting point is 01:06:54 At dawn I woke to the sound of shooting and a cracked bugle blowing wildly. Juan Sanchez stood in front of the quartel, sounding revely. He didn't know which call Revely was, so he played them all. Patricio had roped a steer for breakfast. The animal started on a plunging, bellowing run for the desert,

Starting point is 01:07:18 desert, Patricio's horse galloping alongside. The rest of the tropa, only their eyes showing over their serapes, kneeled with their rifles to their shoulders. Crash! In that still air, the enormous sound of guns labored heavily up. The running steered jerked sideways, his screaming reached us faintly. Crash! He fell headlong, his feet kicked in the air, Patricio's pony jerked roughly up, and his serapapap flapped like a banner. Just then the enormous sun rose bodily out of the east, pouring clear light over the barren plain like a sea. Pablo emerged from the Casa Grande, leaning on his wife's shoulder. I am going to be very ill, he groaned, suiting the action to the word.

Starting point is 01:08:08 Juan Reed will ride my horse. He got into the coach, weakly took the guitar, and sang. I remained at the foot of a green magey, My ungrateful love went away with another. I awoke to the song of the lark. Oh, what a hangover I have, and the bar keeps won't trust me. Oh, God, take away this sickness. I feel as if I were surely going to die.

Starting point is 01:08:35 The virgin of pulke and whiskey must save me. Oh, what a hangover, and nothing to drink. It is some 65 miles from La Sarka to the Asienda of La Cadena, where the tropa was to be stationed. We rode it in one day, without water and without food. The coach soon left us far behind. Pretty soon the barrenness of the land gave way to spiny, hostile vegetation, the cactus and the mesquite.

Starting point is 01:09:05 We strung out along a deep rut between the gigantic chaparral, choked with the mighty cloud of alkali dust, scratched and torn by the thorny brush. Sometimes emerging in an open space, we could see the straight road climbing the summits of the rolling desert until the eye couldn't follow it. But we knew it must be there, still farther and farther again. Not a breath of wind stirred. The vertical sun beat down with a fury that made one real.

Starting point is 01:09:36 And most of the troop, who had been drunk the night before, began to suffer terribly. Their lips glazed, cracked, turned dark blue. I didn't hear a single word of complaint. but there was nothing of the light-hearted joking and rollicking of other days. Jose Valiente taught me how to chew mesquite twigs, but that didn't help much. When we had been writing for hours, Fidencio pointed ahead, saying huskily, here comes a Cristiano. When you realize that word Cristiano, which now means simply man,

Starting point is 01:10:12 is descended among the Indians from immeasurable antiquity, and when the man that says it looks exactly as Guatemoisin might have looked, it gives you curious sensations. The Cristiano in question was a very aged Indian driving a burro. No, he said he didn't carry any water, but Saba leaped from his horse and tumbled the old man's pack on the ground. Ah, he cried, fine, three piedras, and held up a root of the Sotol plant,

Starting point is 01:10:43 which looks like a varnish sentry plant. and oozes with intoxicating juices. We divided it as you divide an artichoke. Pretty soon everybody felt better. It was at the end of the afternoon that we rounded a shoulder of the desert and saw ahead the gigantic ashen alamo trees that surrounded the spring of the Asienda of Santo Domingo.

Starting point is 01:11:05 The pillar of brown dust, like the smoke of a burning city, rose from the corral, where bakeros were roping horses. desolate and alone stood the Casa Grande, burned by Cheche Campa a year ago, and by the spring at the foot of the Alamo trees, a dozen wandering peddlers squatted around the fire, their burros munching corn. From the fountain to the adobe houses and back moved an endless chain of women water carriers,

Starting point is 01:11:36 the symbol of northern Mexico. Water, we shouted, joyously, galloping down the hill. The coach horses were already at the spring with Patricio. Leaping from their saddles, the tropa threw themselves in their bellies. Men and horses indiscriminately thrust in their heads and drank and drank. It was the most glorious sensation I have ever felt. Who has a cigaro? cried somebody. For a few blessed minutes we lay on our backs smoking.

Starting point is 01:12:06 The sound of music, gay music, made me sit up. And there, across my vision, moved the strangest procession in the world. first came a ragged peon, carrying the flowering branch of some tree. Behind him another bore upon his head a little box that looked like a coffin, painted in broad strips of blue, pink, and silver. There followed four men, carrying a sort of canopy made of gay-colored bunting. A woman walked beneath it, though the canopy hid her down to the waist, but on top lay the body of a little girl,

Starting point is 01:12:42 with bare feet and little brown hands crossed on her breast. There was a wreath of paper flowers in her hair, and her whole body was heaped with them. A harpist brought up the rear, playing a popular waltz called Recuerdos de Durango. The funeral procession moved slowly and gaily along, passing the Ribota court, where the players never ceased their handball game,

Starting point is 01:13:08 to the little Campo Santo. Bach, spat Julian Reyes furious. that is a blasphemy to the dead. In a late sunshine the desert was a glowing thing. We rode in a silent, enchanted land that seemed some kingdom under the sea. All around were great cactuses colored red, blue, purple, yellow as coral is on the ocean bed.

Starting point is 01:13:33 Behind us to the west, the coach rolled along in a glory of dust like Elijah's chariot, eastward under a sky already darkening to stars were the rumbled mountains, behind which lay la Cadena, the advance post of the Maderista army. It was a land to love, this Mexico, a land to fight for. The ballad singer suddenly began the interminable song of The Bull Fight, in which the Federal Chiefs are the Bulls and the Madrista generals, the Toreros. And as I looked at the gay, lovable, humble ombres who had given so much of their lives

Starting point is 01:14:11 and of their comfort to the brave fight, I couldn't help but. but think of the little speech via made to the foreigners who left Chihuahua in the first refugee train. This is the latest news for you to take to your people. There shall be no more palaces in Mexico. The tortillas of the poor are better than the bread of the rich. Come. It was late night, past eleven, when the coach broke down on a stretch of rocky road between high mountains. I stopped to get my blankets, and when I started on again,

Starting point is 01:14:43 the Companeros had long vanished down the winding road. Somewhere near I knew was La Cadena. At any minute now a sentinel might start up out of the Chaparral. For about a mile I descended a steep road that was often the dried bed of a river, winding down between high mountains. It was a black night without stars and bitter cold. Finally the mountains opened into a vast plain, and across that I could faintly see the tremendous range of the cadena

Starting point is 01:15:14 and the pass that the Tropa was to guard. Barely three leagues beyond that pass, Le Mapimi, held by 1,200 Federals. But the Asienda was still hidden by a roll of the desert. I was quite upon it, without being challenged, before I saw it, an indistinct white square of buildings on the other side of a deep arroyo, and still no sentinel.

Starting point is 01:15:41 That's funny, I said to myself, They don't keep very good watch here. I plunged down into the arroyo and climbed up the other side. In one of the great rooms of the Casa Grande were lights and music. Peering through, I saw the indefatigable Sabbathas whirling in the mazes of the Jota, and Isidro Amayo and Jose Baliente. A baile. Just then, a man with a gun lounged out of the lighted doorway.

Starting point is 01:16:11 "'Kien Vieve,' he shouted lazily. Madero, I shouted. May he live, returned the sentinel, and went back to the baile. End of Section 6. Section 7 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.

Starting point is 01:16:44 Recording by Anise. Insurgent Mexico by John Reed, Part 1, Desert War, Chapter 7. an outpost of the revolution. There were 150 of us stationed at La Cedena, the advance guard of all the Matarista army to the west. Our business was to guard a pass, the Puerta de la Cedena, but the troops were quartered at the hacienda ten miles away. It stood upon a little plateau, a deep arroyo on one side,

Starting point is 01:17:13 at the bottom of which a sunken river came to the surface for perhaps a hundred yards, and vanished again. As far as the eye could reach up and down the broad valley was the fiercest kind of desert, dried creek beds and the thicket of Chaparro, cactus, and sword plant. Directly east lay the puerta, breaking the tremendous mountain range that blotted out half the sky and extended north and south beyond vision,

Starting point is 01:17:39 wrinkled like a giant's bedclothes. The desert tilted up to meet the gap, and beyond was nothing but the fierce blue of stainless Mexican sky. From the Puerta you could see 50 miles across the vast, arid plain that the Spaniards named Yano Dulossigantes, where the little mountains lie tumbled about, and four leagues away, the low gray houses of Mapimi. There lay the enemy, twelve hundred Colorado's or federal irregulars under the infamous Colonel Argumento. The Coloradoes are the bandits that made Orozco's revolution. They were so called because their flag was red, and because their

Starting point is 01:18:18 hands were red with slaughter too. They swept through northern Mexico, burning, pillaging, and robbing the poor. In Chihuahua they cut the souls from the feet of one poor devil, and drove him a mile across the desert before he died. And I have seen a city of four thousand souls reduced to five after a visit by the Colorado's. When Via took Torreon, there was no mercy for the Colorado's. They are always shot. The first day we reached La Cedena, twelve of them rode up to reconnoiter. Twenty-five of the trope were in guard at the Puerto.

Starting point is 01:18:57 They captured one Colorado. They made him get off his horse and took away his rifle, clothes, and shoes. Then they made him run naked through a hundred yards of Chaparro and cactus shooting at him. Juan Sanchez finally dropped him screaming and thereby won the rifle,

Starting point is 01:19:13 which he brought back as a present to me. the coloraro they left to the great mexican buzzards which flapped lazily above the desert all day long when all of this happened my compadre captain longinus guerrica and trooper juan valo and i had borrowed the colonel's coach for a trip to the dusty little rancho of bricquia on guino's home it lay four desert leagues to the north where a spring burst miraculously out of a little white hill old guerrica was a white-haired peon in sandals he had been a little white-haired peon in sandals He had been born a slave on one of the great haciendas, but years of toil, too appalling to realize, had made him that rare being in Mexico, the independent owner of a small property. He had ten children, soft, dark-skinned girls, and sons that looked like New England farmhands, and a daughter in the grave. The Greticas were proud, ambitious, warm-hearted folk.

Starting point is 01:20:11 Longino said, This is my dearly loved friend, Juan Reed, and my father. brother. And the old man and his wife put both their arms around me and patted me on the back, in the affectionate way Mexicans embrace. My family owes nothing to the Revolution, said Gino proudly. Others have taken money in horses and wagons. The hefes of the army had become rich from the property of the great haciendas. Guedicas have given all to the Maduristas, and have taken nothing but my rank. The old man, however, was a little bitter.

Starting point is 01:20:45 holding up a horsehair rope, he said, Three years ago I had four Riyatas like this. Now I have only one. One the Coloradoes took, and the other urbanist people took, and the last one, Jose Bravo. What difference does it make which side robs you? But he didn't mean it all.

Starting point is 01:21:03 He was immensely proud of his youngest son, the bravest officer, in all the army. We sat in the long adobe room, eating the most exquisite cheese and tortillas with fresh goat butter, the deaf old mother apologizing and a loud voice for the poverty of the food, and her warlike son reciting his personal Iliad

Starting point is 01:21:23 of the nine days fight around Torillon. We got so close, he was saying, that the hot air and burning powder stung us in the face. We got too close to shoot, so we clubbed our rifles. Just then all the dogs began to bark at once. We leaped from our seats. One didn't know what to expect in the canana,

Starting point is 01:21:43 those days. It was a small boy on horseback, shouting that the Colorado's were entering the door, and off he galloped. Longinos roared to put the mules in the coach. The entire family fell to work with a fury, and in five minutes Longinos dropped on one knee and kissed his father's hand, and we were tearing down the road. Don't be killed! Don't be killed! Don't be killed! We could hear the signora wailing. We passed a wagon loaded with cornstalks, with a whole family of women children, two tin trunks, and an iron bed perched on top. The man of the family rode a burrow. Yes, the Colorados were coming. Thousands of them pouring through the porta. The last time the Colorados had come they had killed his daughter. For three years there had been war in the

Starting point is 01:22:31 valley, and he had not complained, because it was for the Petria. Now they would go to the United States where, but Juan lashed the mules cruelly, and we heard no more. Farther along was old man without shoes, placidly driving some goats. Had he heard about the Coloradoes? Well, there had been some gossip about Colorado's. Were they coming through the puerta? And how many? Well, kin sabe, seor! At last, yelling at the staggering mules, we came into camp just in time to see the victorious tropa struggling across the desert, firing off many more rounds of ammunition than they had used in the fight. They moved low along the ground, and they moved low along the

Starting point is 01:23:13 ground, scarcely higher on their broncos than the drab mesquite through which they flashed, all big sombreros and flapping gay serapes, the last sunshine on their lifted rifles. That very night came a courier from General Urbina, saying that he was ill, and wanted Pablo Cienes to come back. So off went the great coach in Pablo's mistress and Raphaelito, the hunchback, and Fidensio and Petricio. Pablo said to me, Juanito, if you want to come back with us, you shall sit beside me in the coach. Patricio and Raffolito beg me to come. But I had got so far to the front now that I didn't want to turn back.

Starting point is 01:23:52 Then the next day my friends and Companeros of the Tropa, whom I had learned to know so well in our march across the desert, received orders to move to Haralitos. Only Juan Balejo and Longinos Quereca stayed behind. The Cadenas knew garrison were a different kind of men. God knows where they came from, but it was a place where the troopers had literally starved. They were the most wretchedly poor peons that I have ever seen. About half of them didn't have serapes.

Starting point is 01:24:24 Some fifty were known to be Nuevos who had never smelt powder, about the same number were under a dreadfully incompetent old party named Major Salazar, and the remaining fifty were equipped with old carbines and ten rounds of ammunition apiece. Our commanding officer was Lieutenant Colonel Petrozzar. Ronald Fernandez, who had been six years a major in the Federal Army, until the murder of Madeiro drove him to the other side. He was a brave, good-hearted little man, with twisted shoulders, but years of official Army red tape had unfitted him to handle troops like these. Every morning he issued an order of the day, distributing guards, posting sentinels, and naming the officer

Starting point is 01:25:05 on duty. Nobody ever read it. Officers in that army have nothing to do with the discipline, or ordering of soldiers. They are officers because they have been brave, and their job is to fight at the head of their troop. That's all. The soldiers all look up to some one general, under whom they are recruited, as to their feudal lord. They call themselves his hente, his people, and an officer of anybody else's hente hasn't much authority over them. Pektonila was of Urbina's hente, but two-thirds of the cadena garrison belonged to Erietta's division, That's why there were no sentinels to the west and north. Lieutenant Colonel Alberto Redondo guarded another pass, four leagues to the south,

Starting point is 01:25:51 so we thought we were safe in that direction. True, 25 men did outpost duty at the porta, and the puerta was strong. End of Section 7, recording by a niece in Portland, Oregon. Section 8 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Anise. Insurgent Mexico by John Reed. Part 1, Desert War. Chapter 8. The Five Musketeers. The Casa Grande of La Cedina had been sacked, of course, by Chece Acampa the year before. and the patio were corralled the officer's horses.

Starting point is 01:26:49 We slept on the tiled floors of the room surrounding it. In the sala of the owner, once barbarically decorated, pegs were driven into the walls to hang saddles and bridles on, rifles and sabres were stacked against the wall, and dirty blanket rolls lay flung into the corner. At night a fire of corncobbs was built in the middle of the floor, and we squatted around it, while a polonario and 14-year-old Gil Tomas,

Starting point is 01:27:14 who was once a Colorado, told stories of the bloody three years. At the taking of Durango, said Apollinario, I was of the hente of Captain Borunda, he that they call the Matador, because he always shoots his prisoners. But when Urbina took Durango, there weren't many prisoners.

Starting point is 01:27:33 So Burunda, thirsty for blood, made the rounds of all the saloons, and in every one he would pick out some unarmed man and ask him if he were a federal. No, signor, the man would say, you deserve death because you have not told the truth yelled burunda pulling his gun bang we all laughed heartily at this that reminds me broke in gil of the time i fought with rojas in oroscos cursed be his mother revolutioned an old pofrista officer deserted to our side and orosco sent him out to teach the coloradoes animals how to drill there was one droll fellow in our company oh he had a fine sense of humor he pretended he was was too stupid to learn the manual of arms. So this cursed old Huartista, may he fry in hell,

Starting point is 01:28:21 made him drill alone. Shoulder arms. The Companiero did it all right. Present arms. Perfectly. Port arms. He acted like he didn't know how, so the old fool went around and took hold of the rifle. This way, says he, pulling on it. Oh, says the fellow, that way, and he let him have the bayonet right in the chest. After that, Fernando Salvera, the paymaster, recounted a few anecdotes of the Chirass, or priests, that sounded exactly like terrain in the 13th century, or the feudal rights of landlords over their women tenants before the French Revolution. Fernando ought to have known, too, for he was brought up for the church. There must have been about 20 of us sitting around that fire,

Starting point is 01:29:06 all the way from the most miserably poor Pian in the trope, up to first captain Longinos Quedica. There wasn't one of those men who had any religion at all, although once they had all been strict Catholics. But three years of war have taught the Mexican people many things. There will never be another Porifero Diaz. There will never be another Arosco Revolution, and the Catholic Church in Mexico will never again be the voice of God. Then Juan Santinias, a 22-year-old subteniente, who seriously informed me that he was descended from the great Spanish hero, Gilblas, piped up the ancient disreputable ditty, which begins, I am Count Oroveros of the Spanish artillery.

Starting point is 01:29:50 Juan proudly displayed four bullet wounds. He had killed a few defenseless prisoners with his own gun, he said, giving promise of growing up to be Mue Matador, a great killer, someday. He boasted of being the strongest and bravest man in the army. His idea of humor seemed to be breaking eggs into the pocket of my coat. Juan was very young for his years, but very likable. But the best friend I had besides Guino Guernica was subteniente, Luis Martinez. They called him Gachapine, the contemptuous name for Spaniards,

Starting point is 01:30:25 because he might have stepped out of a portrait of some noble Spanish youth by Greco. Luis was pure race, sensitive, gay, and high-spirited. He was only twenty and had never been in battle. Around the contour of his face was a faint, black, beard. He fingered it, grinning. Nikonar and I made a bet that we wouldn't shave until we took Torillon. Luis and I slept in different rooms, but at night when the fire had gone out and the rest of the fellows were snoring, we sat at each other's blankets, one night in his quartel, the one next to mine, talking about the world, our girls, and what we were going to be and to do when we really

Starting point is 01:31:05 got at it. When the war was over, Luis was coming to the United States to visit me. and then we were both coming back to Durango City to visit the Martinez family. He showed me the photograph of a little baby, proudly boasting that he was an uncle already. What will you do when the bullets begin to fly? I asked him. "'Kenzave,' he laughed. "'I guess I'll run.' It was late. A sentinel at the door had long since gone to sleep.

Starting point is 01:31:33 "'Don't go,' said Luis, grabbing my coat. "'Let's gossip a little longer.' guino juan santillanes silvera louis juan vallello and i wrote up the arroyo to bathe at a pool that was rumored to be there it was a scorched river-bed filled with white-hot sand rimmed with dense mesquite and cactus every kilometer the hidden river showed itself for a little space only to disappear at a crackling white rim of alkali first came the horse-pool the troopers and their wretched ponies gathered around it one or two squads cutting on the rim, scooping water up against the animal's sides with calabashes. Above them kneeled the women at their eternal laundry on the stones. Beyond that, the ancient path from the hacienda cut across, where the never-ending line of black-shalled women moved with water-jars on their heads. Still farther up were women bathers, wrapped round and round with yards of pale blue or white cotton,

Starting point is 01:32:32 and naked brown babies splashing in the shallows. And last of all, naked brown men, with sombreros on and bright-colored sarapes draped over their shoulders, smoked their ojas, squatting on the rocks. We flushed a coyote up there and scrambled steeply up to the desert, pulling at our revolvers. There he went. We spurred into the Chaparral on the dead run, shooting and yelling. But, of course, he got away.

Starting point is 01:32:58 And later, much later, we found the mythical pool, a cool deep basin worn in the solid rock, with green weeds growing on the bottom. When he got back, Gino Gwerca became greatly excited because his new Tordillo horse had come from Brucilla, a four-year-old stallion that his father had raised for him to ride at the head of his company. If he is dangerous, announced Juan Santillanes as we hurried out, I want to ride him first. I love to subdue dangerous horses. A mighty cloud of yellow dust filled all the corral, raising high into the still air.

Starting point is 01:33:33 Through it appeared the dim, chaotic shapes of many running-classes. horses. Their hoofs made dull thunder. Men were vaguely visible, all braced legs and swinging arms, handkerchiefs bound over their faces, widespread rope coils lifted, circling. The big gray felt the loop tightened on his neck. He trumpeted and plunged. The vicaro twisted the rope around his hip, lying back almost to the ground, feet plowing the dirt. Another new script the horse's hind legs, and he was down. They put a saddle on him and a rope halter. Want to ride him, Juanito? grinned Gino.

Starting point is 01:34:11 After you, answered Juan with dignity, he's your horse. But Juan Viejo already was a stride, shouting to them to loose the ropes. With a sort of squealing roar, the Tordillo struggled up, and the earth trembled to his furious fight. We dined in the ancient kitchen of the hacienda, sitting on stools around a packing box. The ceiling was a rich, greasy brown, from the small. of generations of meals. One entire end of the room was taken up by immense adobe stoves, ovens, and fireplaces, with four or five ancient crones bending over them, stirring pots and

Starting point is 01:34:49 turning tortillas. The fire was our only light, flickering strangely over the old women, lighting up the black wall, up which the smoke fled, to wreath around the ceiling, and finally pour from the window. There were Colonel Petronilo, his mistress, a strangely beautiful peasant woman with a pockmarked face, who always seemed to be laughing to herself about something, Don Tomas, Luis Martinez, Colonel Redondo, Major Salazar, Nicanor, and I. The Colonel's mistress seemed uncomfortable at the table, for a Mexican peasant woman as a servant in her house. But Don Pertanillo always treated her as if she were a great lady. Redondo had just been telling me about the girl he was going to marry. He showed me her picture. She was even then on the way to Chihuahua

Starting point is 01:35:34 to get her wedding dress. As soon as we take Torillon, he said. Oiga, Signor, Salazar touched me on the arm. I have found out who you are. You are an agent of American businessmen who have vast interests in Mexico. I know all about American business. You are an agent of the trusts. You come down here to spy upon the movement of our troops, and then you will secretly send them word. Is it not true? How could I secretly send anybody any word from here? I asked. We're forward. day's hard ride from a telegraph line. Ah, I know, he grinned cunningly, wobbling a finger at me. I know many things. I have much in the head.

Starting point is 01:36:14 He was standing up now. The Major suffered badly from gout. His legs were wrapped in yards and yards of willing bandages, which made them look like tamales. I know all about business. I have studied much in my youth. These American trusts are invading Mexico to rob the Mexican people. You're mistaken, Major.

Starting point is 01:36:34 interrupted Don Petronilo sharply. This signor is my friend and my guest. Listen, be coronel, Salazar burst out with unexpected violence. This signor is a spy. All Americans are Porfaristas and Huartistas. Take this warning before it is too late. I have much in the head. I am a very smart man.

Starting point is 01:36:55 Take this gringo out and shoot him at once. Or you will regret it. A clamor of voices burst out altogether from the others, but it was interrupted by another sound, a shot, and then another, and men shouting. Came a trooper running. Mutiny in the ranks, he cried. They won't obey orders.

Starting point is 01:37:13 Who won't? snapped Don Petronilo. The hente of Salazar. Bad people, exclaimed the Conor as we ran. They were Colorado's captured when we took Torillon. Joined us so we wouldn't kill him. Ordered out tonight to guard the puerta. Till tomorrow, said Salazar at this point. I'm going to bed.

Starting point is 01:37:34 The Pion's houses at La Cedena, where the troops were quartered, enclosed a great square like a walled town. There were two gates. At one we forced our way through a mob of women and Pionts fighting to get out. Inside there were dim lights from doorways, and three or four little fires in the open air. A bunch of frightened horses crowded one another in a corner. Men ran wildly in and out of their quartels,

Starting point is 01:37:58 with rifles in their hands. In the center of the open space stood a group of about, about fifty men, mostly armed as if to repel an attack. "'Guard those gates!' cried the colonel. "'Don't let anybody out without an order from me.' The running troops began to mass at the gates. Don Petronilo walked out alone into the middle of the square. "'What's the trouble, Companeros?' he asked quietly.

Starting point is 01:38:22 "'They were going to kill us all,' yelled somebody from the darkness. "'They wanted to escape. They were going to betray us to the Colorado's. "'It's a lie,' cried those in the center. we are not Don Petanilo's gente. Our hefe is Manuel Arieta. Suddenly Longinus Quercca, unarmed, flashed by us and fell upon them furiously, wrenching away their rifles

Starting point is 01:38:44 and throwing them far behind. For a moment it looked as if the rebels would turn on him, but they did not resist. Disarmed them, or did Don Petronilo, and locked them up. They herded the prisoners into one large room with an armed guard at the door, and long after midnight I could hear

Starting point is 01:39:02 them hilariously singing. That left Don Peternilo with a hundred effectives, some extra horses with running sores on their backs, and two thousand rounds of ammunition, more or less. Salazar took himself off in the morning, after recommending that all his hente be shot. He was evidently greatly relieved to be rid of them. Juan Santillanes was in favor of execution too, but Don Peternilo decided to send them to General Urbina for trial. End of Section 8. Recording by Anise in Portland, Oregon. www. strange-medicine.com

Starting point is 01:39:41 Section 9 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Insurgent Mexico by John Reed, part one, Desert War, Chapter 9 The Last Light The days at La Cadena were full of color. In the cold dawn, when the river pools were filmed with ice,

Starting point is 01:40:17 a trooper would gallop into the great square with a plunging steer at the end of his rope. Fifty or sixty ragged soldiers, only their eyes showing between serapes and big sombreros, would begin an amateur bullfight to the roaring delight of the rest of the Campaneros. they waved their blankets shouting the correct bull-fight cries one would twist the infuriated animal's tail another more impatient beat him with the flat of a sword instead of bandarias they stuck daggers into his shoulders his hot blood splattering them as he charged and when at last he was down and the merciful knife in his brain a mob fell upon the carcass cutting and ripping and bearing off chunks of raw meat to their curatelles. Then the white burning sun would rise suddenly behind the puerta, stinging your hands and face, and the pools of blood, the faded patterns of the serapes, the far reaches of umber desert glowed and became vivid. Don Petronillo had compensated several coaches in the campaign. We borrowed them

Starting point is 01:41:27 for many an excursion, the five of us. Once it was a trip to San Pedro Delgado to see a cockfight, appropriately enough. Another time Gino Gwerca and I went to see the fabulously rich lost gold mines up to Spaniards, which he knew. But we never got past Bukia, just lounged in the shade of the trees and ate cheese all day. Late in the afternoon, the Puerta Guard trotted out to their post. The late sun soft on their rifles and cartridge belts. At long after dark, the detachment relieved came jingling in out of the mysterious dark. The four peddlers who I had seen in Santo Domingo arrived that night. They had four borough loads of Macchet to sell the soldiers. It's mister, they cried, when I came down to the little fire.

Starting point is 01:42:18 What tal, mister? How goes it? Aren't you afraid of the Colorado's? How is business, I asked, accepting the heaped-up thanks of macchet they gave me. They laughed uproariously at this. Business, far better for us if we had stayed. in Santa Domingo, these trappa couldn't buy one cigaro if they clubbed their money. One of them began to sing the extraordinary ballad the morning song to Francisco Villa. He sang one verse, and then the next man sang a verse, and so on around, each man composing

Starting point is 01:42:51 a dramatic account of the deeds of the great captain. For half an hour I lay there, watching them as they squatted between their knees, serapes draped loosely from their shoulders. the firelight red on their simple dark faces. While one man sang, the other stared upon the ground, wrapped in composition. Here is Francisco Villa, with his chiefs and his officers, who come to saddle the short horns of the federal army. Get ready now, Colorado. Who have been taking so loud, for Villa and his soldiers will soon take off your hides?

Starting point is 01:43:28 Today has come, your tamer, the father of rooster tamers, to run you out of the Torreon to the devil with your skins. The rich, with all their money, have already got their lashing. All the soldiers of the Urbina can tell, and those of Malkovio Hedera. Fly, fly away, little dove, fly over all the prairies, and say that Via has come to drive them all out forever. Ambition will ruin itself, and justice will be the winner, for Villa has reached Torreon to punish the avarition,

Starting point is 01:44:02 fly away royal eagle these laurels carry to via for he has come to conquer bravo and all his colonels now you sons of the mosquito your pride will come to an end if via has come to to to tolion it is because he could do it viva villa and his soldiers viva herrera and his gent you have seen wicked people what a brave man can do with this now i say good-bye by the rose of castile here is the end of the rhyme to the great general after a while i slipped away and i doubt if they ever saw me go they sang around the fire for more than three hours but in our cartel there was other entertainment the room was full of smoke from the fire on the floor through it i dimly made out so that they sang around the fire for more than three hours but in our cartel there was other entertainment the room was full of smoke from the fire on the floor through it i dimly made out so some thirty or forty troopers squatting or sprawled at full length, perfectly silent, as the Silve Arab read aloud a proclamation from the governor of Durango, forever condemning the lands of the great haciendas to be divided among the poor. He read, Considering that the principal cause of disconsent among the people in our state,

Starting point is 01:45:11 which forced them to spring to arms in the year 1910, was the absolute lack of individual property, and that rural classes have no means of substance, in the present, nor any hope for the future except to serve as peons on the haciendas of the great landowners who have monopolized the soil of the state. Considering that the principal branch of our national riches is agriculture, and there can be no true progress in agriculture, without that the majority of farmers have a personal interest in making the earth produced. Considering, finally, that the rural towns have been reduced to the deepest misery because the common lands which they

Starting point is 01:45:49 once owned, have gone to augment the property of the nearest haciendas, especially under the dictatorship of Diaz, with which the inhabitants of the state lost their economic, political, and social independence, then passed from the rank of citizens to that of slaves, without the government being able to lift the moral level through education because the hacienda, where they lived, is private property. Therefore, the government of the state of Durango declares it a public necessity that the inhabitants of the inhabitants of the landings of the city of of the towns and villages be the owners of agricultural lands. When the paymaster had painfully waded through all the provisions that followed,

Starting point is 01:46:29 telling how the land was to be applied for, etc., there was a silence. That, said Martinez, is the Mexican Revolution. It is just what Villas doing in Chihuahua, I said. It's great. All you fellows can have a farm now. An amused chuckle ran around the circle. Then a little bald-headed man with yellow stained. whiskers sat up and spoke. Not us, he said, not the soldiers.

Starting point is 01:46:54 After a revolution is done, it wants no more soldiers. It is the pacificos who will get the land, those who did not fight, and the next generation, he paused and spread his torn sleeves to the fire. I was a schoolteacher, he explained, so I know that revolutions like republics are ungrateful. I have fought three years, at the end of the first revolution, that great man, father madeero invited his soldiers to the capital he gave us clothes and food and bullfights we returned to our homes and found the greedy again in power i ended the war with forty-five pesos said a man you were lucky continued the schoolmaster no it is not the troopers that starved unfed common soldiers who profit by the revolution officers yes some for they get fat on the blood of patria but we no "'What on earth are you fighting for?' I cried.

Starting point is 01:47:53 "'I have two little sons,' he answered, "'and they will get their land, and they will have other little sons. "'They, too, will never want for food.' The little man grinned. "'We have a proverb in Guadalajara. "'Do not wear a shirt of eleven yards, "'for he who wants to be a redeemer will be crucified.' "'I've got no little son,' said fourteen-year-old Gil, Thomas, amid shouts of laughter.

Starting point is 01:48:16 "'I'm fighting so I can get a thirty-three rifle from some. some dead federal and a good horse that belongs to a millionaire. Just for fun, I asked a trooper with a photo button of Madero pinned to his coat, who that was. "'Pues, Kienzabe signor,' he replied. "'My captain told me he was a great saint. I fight because it is not so hard as to work. "'How often are you fellows paid?'

Starting point is 01:48:40 "'We were paid three pesos just nine months ago to-night,' said the schoolmaster, and they all nodded. "'We are the real volunteers. The gentta of Villa are professionals. Then Louis Martinez got a guitar and sang a beautiful little song, which he said a prostitute had made up one night on the Bordel. The last thing I remember of that memorable night was Gino Guerica lying near me in the dark talking.

Starting point is 01:49:06 Tomorrow, he said, I shall take you to the lost gold mines of the Spaniards. They are hidden in a canyon in the western mountains. Only the Indians know of them, and I. The Indians go out there sometimes with knives and dig the raw gold out of the ground will be rich. End of Section 9 Section 10 of Insurgent Mexico This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 01:49:39 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Insurgent Mexico by John Reed Part 1, Desert War chapter x the coming of the coloradoes before sunrise next morning fernando severa fully dressed came into the room and said calmly to get up that the coloradoes were coming juan valetho laughed how many fernando about a thousand he answered in a quiet voice rummaging for his bandolier the patio was unusually full of shouting men saddling horses i saw don petronillo half-dressed at his door his mistress buckling on his sword juan sainz was pulling at his trousers with furious haste there was a steady rattle of cliques as cartridges slipped into rifles a score of soldiers ran to and fro aimlessly asking every one where some one where some sort of the same way to and fro aimlessly asking everyone where something was. I don't think we, any of us really believed it.

Starting point is 01:50:45 The little square of quiet sky over the patio gave promise of another hot day. Roosters crowed. A cow that was being milked, bellowed. I felt hungry. How near are they, I asked. Near. But the outpost, the guard at Puerta. Asleep, Fernando said as he strapped on his cartridge belt.

Starting point is 01:51:06 Pablo Areola clanked in, crippled by his bed. big spurs. A little bunch of twelve rode up. Our man thought it was only the daily reconnaissance, so after they drove them back, the Puerta guards sat down to breakfast. Then Argumento himself, and hundreds. Hundreds. But twenty-five could hold that pass against an army until the rest got there. They're already past a Puerto, said Pablo, shouldering his saddle. He went out. The, tore Juan Santaynes, spinning the chambers of his revolvers. Wait till I get at them. Now Mister's going to see some of those shots he wanted, cried Gil Thomas. How about it, Mister, feel scared? Somehow the whole business didn't seem real. I said to myself, you lucky devil,

Starting point is 01:51:52 you're actually going to see a fight. That will round out the story. I loaded my camera and hurried out in front of the house. There was nothing much to see. A blinding sun rose right in the puerta over the leagues and leagues of dark desert to the east nothing lived but the morning light not a movement not a sound yet somewhere out there a mere handful of men were desperately trying to hold off an army the smoke floated up in the breathless air from the houses of the peons it was so still that the grinding of tortilla meal between two stones was distinctly audible and the slow minor song of some woman at her work way round the casa Grand. Sheep were mying to be let out of the corral. On the road to Santa Domingo, so far away, that they were mere colored accents in the desert, the four peddlers sauntered behind their burrows. Little knots of peons were gathered in front of the hacienda, pointing and looking east, and around the gate of the big enclosure where the soldiers were quartered a few troops

Starting point is 01:52:57 held their horses by the bridle. That was all. Occasionally the door of the Casagrante vomited mountain men, two or three at a time, who galloped down the Puerta Road with their rifles in their hands. I could follow them as they rose and fell over the waves of the desert, growing smaller all the time, until they mounted the last roll, where the white dust they kicked up, caught the fierce light of the sun, and the eye couldn't stand it. They had taken my horse, and Juan Vallejo didn't have one. He stood beside me, cocking and firing his empty rifle.

Starting point is 01:53:32 Look, he shouted suddenly. The western face of the mountains that flanked the puerto was in shadow still. Along their base, to the north and to the south, too, wriggled little lines of dust. They lengthened out, oh, so slowly. At first there was only one in each direction. Then two others began farther down, nearer, advancing relentlessly, like raveling in a stocking, like a crack in thin glass. the enemy spreading wide around the battle to take us in the flank still the little knots of troopers poured from the casa grande and spurred away pablo ariola went and nicanor waving to me brightly as they passed

Starting point is 01:54:13 longinos guerracka rocketed out on his big podillo horse yet only half broken the big gray put down his head and buck jumped four times across the square to-morrow for the minds yelled gino over his shoulder i'm very busy to-day very rich the lost minds of but he was too far away for me to hear martinez followed him shouting to me with a grin that he felt scared to death then others it made about thirty so far i remember that he was about thirty so far i remember that he was about three so far i remember that that most of them wore automobile goggles. Don Petronillo sat his horse with field glasses to his eyes. I looked again at the lines of dust. They were curving slowly down, the sun glorifying them, like scimitars. Don Thomas galloped past, Gill Thomas at his heels. But someone was coming. A little running horse appeared on the rise, headed our way. The rider outlined in a radiant dust. He was going at furious speed, dipping and rising over the rolling land, and as he spurred wildly up the little hill where we stood, we saw a horror.

Starting point is 01:55:21 A fan-shaped cascade of blood poured from the front of him. The lower part of his mouth was quite shot away by a soft-nosed bullet. He reined up beside the colonel, and tried earnestly, terribly to tell him something, but nothing intelligible issued from the ruin. Tears poured down the fellow's cheeks. He gave a hoarse cry, and, driving his spurs deep into the horse, fled up the Santo Domingo Road. Others were coming, too, on the dead run, those who had been the Puerto Guard. Two or three of them passed right through the hacienda without stopping.

Starting point is 01:55:55 The rest threw themselves upon Don Petronillo, in a passion of rage. More ammunition, they cried, more cartridges. Don Petronillo looked away. There isn't any. They went mad, cursing and hurling their guns on the ground. round. Twenty-five more men at the puerta shouted the colonel. In a few minutes, half of the new men galloped out of the cartel and took the eastern road. The near ends of the dust lines were now lost to view behind a swell of ground. Why don't you send them all, Don Petronillo, I yelled. Because my young friends, a whole company of Colorado's is riding down that arroyo. You can't see them from here, but I can. He had no sooner spoken than a rider whirled around the corner of the house, pointing to the back over his shoulder to the south once he had come. They're coming that way, too, he cried, thousands, through the other pass. Redondo had only five men on guard. They took them prisoner,

Starting point is 01:56:50 and got into the valley before he knew it. Thal shame deos, muttered Don Petronillo. We turned south. Above the umber rise of desert loomed a mighty cloud of white dust, shining in the sun, like the biblical pillar of smoke. The rest of you fellows get out there and hold them off. The last 25 leafs to their saddles and started southward. Then suddenly the great gate of the walled square belched men and horses, men without rifles, the disarmgente

Starting point is 01:57:19 of Salazar. They milled around as if in a panic. Give us our rifles, they shouted, where's our ammunition? Your rifles are in the quartel, answered the journal, but your cartridges are out there killing Coloradoos. A great cry went up. They've taken away our arms. They want to

Starting point is 01:57:35 murder us. How can we fight man? What can we do without Rifles screamed one man in Don Petronillo's face. Come on, Companieros! Let's go out and strangle him with our hands. The Colorado, yelled one. Five struck spurs into their horses and sped furiously toward the Puerta, without arms, without hope. It was magnificent. We'll all get killed, said another. Come on. And the other 45s swept wildly out on the road to Santo Domingo. The 25 recruits that had been ordered to hold the southern side had ridden

Starting point is 01:58:07 about half a mile, and there stopped, seeming uncertain what to do. Now they caught sight of the disarmed fifty, galloping for the mountains. The Camponeros are fleeing! The Camponeros are fleeing! For a moment there was a sharp exchange of cries. They looked at the dust-cloud towering toward them. They thought of the mighty army of merciless devils who made it. They hesitated, broke, and fled furiously through the chaparral toward the mountains. I suddenly discovered, that I had been hearing shooting for some time. It sounded intensely far away, like nothing so much as a clicking typewriter.

Starting point is 01:58:45 Even while it held our attention, it grew. The little trivial pricking of rifles deepened and became serious. Out in front now, it was practically continuous, almost the roll of a snare drum. Don Petronillo was a little white. He called a polonario and told him to harness the mules to the coach. If anything happens that we get the worst of it, he said lightly to juan vilejo call my woman and you and reed go with her in the coach come on fernando juanito silvera and juan santiens spurred out the three vanished towards the puerta

Starting point is 01:59:20 we could see them now hundreds of little black figures riding everywhere through the chaparral the desert swarmed with them savage indian yells reached us a spent bullet droned overhead then another then one unspent and then a whole flock singing fiercely thud went the adobe walls as bits of clay flew peons and their women rushed from house to house distracted with fear a trooper his face black with powder and hateful with killing and terror galloped passed, shouting that all was lost. Apollinario hurried out the mules with their harness on their backs. He began to hitch them to the coach. His hands trembled. He dropped a trace, picked it up, and dropped it again. He shook all over.

Starting point is 02:00:06 All at once he threw the harness to the ground and took to his heels. Juan and I rushed forward. Just then, a stray bullet took the off-mule in the rump. Nervous already, the animal plunged wildly. The wagon tongue snapped with the report of a rifle. the mules raced madly north into the desert. And then came the route, a wild huddle of troopers altogether, lashing their terrified horses.

Starting point is 02:00:30 They passed us without stopping, without noticing, all blood and sweat and blackness. Don Thomas, Pablo Aviola, and after them Little Gil Thomas, his horse staggering and falling dead right in front of us. Bullets whipped the wall on all sides of him. Come on, mister, said Juan. Let's go.

Starting point is 02:00:49 We began to run. As I panted up the steep opposite bank of the Arroyo, I looked back. Gilles Thomas was right behind me, with a red-and-black checked surrepe around his shoulders. Don Petronilla came in sight, shooting back over his shoulder, with Juan Santaynes at his side. In front raced Fernando Silviera, bending low over his horse's neck. All around the hacienda was a ring of galloping, shooting, yelling men, and as far as the eye could reach, on every rise of the desert came more. End of Section 10. Chapter 11 of Insurgent Mexico.

Starting point is 02:01:33 This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Timothy Livwright. Meester's flight. Juan Vallejo was already far ahead, running doggedly with his rifle in one hand. I shouted to him to turn off the high road, and he obeyed without looking back. I followed.

Starting point is 02:02:15 It was a straight path through the desert toward the mountains. The desert was as bald as a billiard table here. We could be seen for miles. My camera got between my legs. I dropped it. My overcoat became a terrible weight. I shook it off. We could see the Companeros fleeing wildly up the Santo Domingo Road.

Starting point is 02:02:43 Beyond them, unexpectedly appeared a wave of galloping men, the flanking party from the south. The shooting broke out again, and then pursuers and pursued vanished around the corner of a little hill. Thank God the path was diverging from the road. I ran on, ran and ran and ran until I could run no more. Then I walked a few steps and ran again. I was sobbing instead of breathing. awful cramps gripped my legs.

Starting point is 02:03:26 Here there was more chaperal, more brush, and the foothills of the western mountains were near. But the entire length of the path was visible from behind. Juan Vallejo had reached the foothills half a mile ahead. I saw him crawling up a little rise. Suddenly, three armed horsemen swept in, behind him and raised a shout. He looked around through his rifle far into the brush and fled for his life. They shot at him, but stopped to recover the rifle. He disappeared over the crest, and then they did, too.

Starting point is 02:04:10 I ran, I wondered what time it was. I wasn't very frightened. Everything still was so unreal like a page out of Richard Harding Davis. It just seemed to me that if I didn't get away, I wouldn't be doing my job well. I kept thinking to myself. Well, this is certainly an experience. I'm going to have something to write about. Then came yells and hoofs drumming in the rear. About a hundred yards behind ran little Gil Tomas, the ends of his gay sarop. flying out straight, and about a hundred yards behind him rode two black men with crossed bandoliers and rifles in their hands. They shot. Gil Tomas raised a ghastly little Indian face to me and ran on. Again they shot. One bullet z-z-n by my head. The boy staggered, stopped,

Starting point is 02:05:19 wheeled, and doubled suddenly into the chaparral. They turned after him. I saw the foremost horse's hoofs strike him. The Colorado's jerked their mounts to their haunches over him, shooting down again and again. I ran into the chaparral, topped a little hill, tripped on a mesquite route, fell, rolled down a sandy incline, and landed in a little arroyo. dense mesquite covered the place before i could stir the coloradoes came plunging down the hillside there he goes they yelled and jumping their horses over the arroyo not ten feet from where i lay galloped off into the desert i suddenly fell asleep i couldn't have slept very long for when i woke the sun was still in about the same place and a few scattered shots could be heard way to the west in the direction of Santo Domingo. I stared up through the brush tangle into the hot sky where one great vulture slowly circled over me,

Starting point is 02:06:37 wondering whether or not I was dead. Not 20 paces away, a barefooted Indian with a rifle crouched on his motionless horse. He looked up at the vulture and then searched the face. of the desert, I lay still. I couldn't tell whether he was one of hours or not. After a little time, he jogged slowly north over a hill and disappeared. I waited about half an hour before crawling out of the Arroyo. In the direction of the Hasi Enda, they were still shooting, making sure of the dead I afterward learned. I couldn't see it. The little valley in which I was ran roughly east and west. I traveled westward toward the Sierra,

Starting point is 02:07:30 but it was still too near the fatal path. I stooped low and ran up over the hill without looking back. Beyond was another higher and then another still. Running over the hills, walking in the sheltered valleys, I bore steadily northwest toward the always nearing mountains. Soon there were no more sounds. The sun burned fiercely down, and the long ridges of desolate country wavered in the heat.

Starting point is 02:08:07 High chaparral tore my clothes and face. Underfoot were cactuses, century plants, and the murderous espadas, whose long interlaced spike slashed my boots drawing blood at every step. And beneath them sand and jagged stones, it was terrible going. The big still forms of Spanish bayonet, astonishingly like men, stood up all around the skyline. I stood stiffly for a moment on the top of a high hill and a clump of them looking back. The Hacienda was already so far away that it was only a white blur in the immeasurable reaches of the desert.

Starting point is 02:08:57 A thin line of dust moved from it toward the puerta. The Colorado is taking back their dead to Mapimi. Then my heart gave a jump. A man was coming silently up the valley. He had a green serapi over one arm, and nothing on his head but a blood-clotted handkerchief. His bare legs were covered with blood from the espadas. He caught sight of me all of a sudden and stood still.

Starting point is 02:09:31 After a pause, he beckoned. I went down to where he was. He never said a word but led the way back down the valley. About a hundred yards farther he stopped and pointed. A dead horse sped. sprawled in the sand, its stiff legs in the air. Beside it lay a man, disemboweled by a knife or a sword. Evidently a Colorado, because his cartridge belt was almost full.

Starting point is 02:10:04 The man with a green serapi produced a wicked-looking dagger, still ruddy with blood, fell on his knees and began to dig among the espadus. I brought rocks. We cut a branch of mesquite and made a cleft across out of it. And so we buried him. Where are you bound, Companero? I asked. For the Sierra, he answered.

Starting point is 02:10:31 And you? I pointed north where I knew the Gereca's ranch lay. The Palayo is over that way, eight leagues. What is the Paloio? Another hacienda. There are some of hours at the Palaiso, I think. We parted with an adios. For hours I went on running over the hilltop, staggering through the cruel espadas,

Starting point is 02:11:00 slipping down the steep sides of dried river beds. There was no water. I hadn't eaten or drunk. It was intensely hot. About 11, I rounded the shoulder of a little. mountain and saw the small gray patch that was brukia here passed the Camino real and the desert lay flat and open a mile away a tiny horseman jogged along he seemed to see me he pulled up short and looked in my direction a long time i stood perfectly motionless pretty soon he went on getting smaller and smaller until at last there was nothing but a little puff of dust. There was no other sign of life for miles and miles.

Starting point is 02:11:53 I bent low and ran along the side of the road where there was no dust. Half a league westward lay the Gareka's house, hidden in the gigantic row of alamo trees that fringed its running brook. A long way off I could see a little red spot on the top of the low hill beside, it. When I came nearer, I saw it was Father Gareka, staring toward the east. He came running down when he saw me, clenching his hands. What has passed? What has passed? Is it true that the Colorado's have taken the cadena? I told him briefly what had happened. And Longinos, he cried, wrenching at my arm. Have you seen Longinos? No, I said. The Companeros.

Starting point is 02:12:45 all retreated to Santo Domingo. You must not stay here, said the old man, trembling. Let me have some water, I can hardly speak. Yes, yes, drink. There is the brook. The Colorado must not find you here. The old man looked around with anguish at the little rancho. He had fought so hard to gain. They would destroy us all. Just then, the old mother appeared in the doorway.

Starting point is 02:13:14 Come here, Juan Reed, she cried. Where is my boy? Why doesn't he come? Is he dead? Tell me the truth. Oh, I think they all got away all right, I told her. And you, have you eaten? Have you breakfast?

Starting point is 02:13:30 I haven't had a drop of water since last night, nor any food, and I came all the way from La Cadena on foot. Poor little boy, poor little boy. She wailed, putting her arms around me. Sit down now. I will cook you something. Old Garaka bit his lip on an agony of apprehension. Finally, hospitality won. My house is at your orders, he muttered. But hurry, hurry, you must not be seen here. I will go up on the hill and watch for dust. I drank several quarts of water and ate four

Starting point is 02:14:09 fried eggs and some cheese. The old man had returned and was fidgeting around. I sent all my children to Haral Grande, he said. We heard this morning the whole valley is fleeing to the mountains. Are you ready? Stay here, invited the signora. We will hide you from the Colorado's until Longinos comes home. Her husband screamed at her.

Starting point is 02:14:35 Are you mad? He mustn't be found here. Are you ready now? Come on then. I limped along down a burnt yellow quarter. Hornfield. Follow this path, said the old man. Through those two fields in the Chaparral, it will take you to the high road to the Palaiso. May you go well? We shook hands, and a moment later I saw him shuffling back up the hill with flapping sandals. I crossed an immense

Starting point is 02:15:06 valley covered with mesquite as high as my head. Twice horsemen passed, probably only Pacificos, but I took no chances. Beyond that valley lay another about seven miles long. Now there were bare mountains all around, and a head loomed a range of fantastic white, pink, and yellow hills. After about four hours with stiff legs and bloody feet, a backache and a spinning head, I rounded these and came inside of the Alamo trees and low adobe walls of the Hacieno da Palo. The peons gathered around, listening to my story. "'Kekaravi, they murmured. But it is impossible to walk from La Cadena in one day.

Starting point is 02:16:02 Pobracito, you must be tired. Come now and eat, and tonight there will be a bed. My house is yours, said Don Felipe, the blacksmith. But are you quite sure the Colorado's are not coming this way? The last time they paid us a visit, he pointed to the blackened walls of the Casa Grande. They killed four Pacificos who refused to join them. He put his arm through mine.

Starting point is 02:16:30 Come now, Amigo, and eat. If there were only someplace to bathe first. At this they smiled and led me behind the Hacienda along a little stream overhung with willows, whose banks were the most vivid green. The water gushed out from under a high wall, and over that wall reared the gnarled branches of a giant alamo. We entered a little door. There they left me.

Starting point is 02:17:01 The ground inside sloped sharply up in the wall. It was faded pink, followed the contour of the land. Sunk in the middle of the enclosure was a pool of crissue. crystal water. The bottom was white sand. At one end of the pool, the water founted up from a hole in the bottom. A faint steam rose from the surface. It was hot water. There was a man already standing up to his neck in the water, a man with a circle shaved on the top of his head. Señor, he said, are you a Catholic? No. Thank God, he returned briefly. We Catholics are liable to be intolerant.

Starting point is 02:17:45 Are you a Mexican? No, Signor. It is well, he said, smiling sadly. I am a priest and a Spaniard. I have been made to understand that I am not wanted in this beautiful land, senor. God is good, but he is better in Spain than he is in Mexico. I let myself slowly down into the pellucid, hot depths. The pain and the soreness and the weariness fled shuddering up my body.

Starting point is 02:18:18 I felt like a disembodied spirit. Floating there in the warm embrace of that marvelous pool with the crooked gray branches of the alamo above our heads, we discussed philosophy. The fierce sky cooled slowly and the rich sunlight climbed little by little up the pink wall. Don Felipe insisted that I sleep in his house, in his bed. This bed consisted of an iron frame with loose wooden slats stretched across it. Over these was laid one tattered blanket. My clothing covered me. Don Felipe, his wife, his grown son and daughter,

Starting point is 02:19:05 as two small infants, all of whom had been accustomed to use the bed, lay down upon the soft floor. There were also two sick persons in the room, a very old man covered with red spots, too far gone to speak, and a boy with extraordinarily swollen tonsils. Occasionally a centenarian hag entered and ministered unto the patients. Her method of treatment was simple.

Starting point is 02:19:36 The old man, she merely heated a piece, of iron at the candle and touched the spots. For the boy's case she made a paste of cornmeal and lard and gently rubbed his elbows with it loudly saying prayers. This went on at intervals all night. Between treatments the babies would wake up at intervals and insist upon being nursed. The door was shut early in the evening and the windows there. There were in none. Now all this hospitality meant a real sacrifice to Don Felipe, especially the meals, at which he unlocked a tin trunk and brought me with all reverences precious sugar and coffee. He was, like all peons, incredibly poor and lavishly hospitable. The giving up of his bed was a mark

Starting point is 02:20:35 of the highest honor, too, but when I tried to pay him in the morning, he wouldn't hear of it. My house is yours, he repeated. A stranger might be God, as we say. Finally, I told him that I wanted him to buy me some tobacco, and he took the money. I knew then that it would go to the right place. Poor Mexican can be trusted never

Starting point is 02:21:01 to carry out a commission. He is delightfully irresponsible. At six o'clock in the morning, I set out for Santo Domingo in a two-wheeled cart driven by an old peon named Froilan Mandares. We avoided the main road, jolting along by a mere track that led behind a range of hills. After we had traveled for about an hour, I had an unpleasant thought. What if the Companeros fled beyond Santo Domingo, and the Co-Domingo, and the Co-Cohelago? Polarados are there.

Starting point is 02:21:41 What indeed? Murmored Froelan, chirruping to the mule. But if they are, what do we do? Froelan thought a minute. We might say we were cousins to President Huerta, he suggested, without a smile. Froelan was a barefooted peon, his face and hands incredibly damaged by age and dirt. I was a ragged gringo. We jogged on for several hours.

Starting point is 02:22:13 At one place, an armed man started out of the brush and hailed us. His lips were split and leathery with thirst. The espadas had slashed his legs terribly. He had escaped over the Sierra, climbing and slipping all night. We gave him all the water and food we had, and we went on toward the Paloio. Long afternoon, our cart topped the last desert rise, and we saw sleeping below us the long spread-out Hacienda of Santo Domingo, with its clump of tall alamos like palm trees around the oasis like spring. My heart was in my mouth as we drove down, and the big Robota court, the peons were playing handball.

Starting point is 02:23:03 Up to spring moved the long line of water, carriers, a fire sent up thin smoke among the trees. We came upon an aged peon carrying faggots. No, he said, there had been no colorados. The madaristas, yes, they had come last night, hundreds of them all running. But at dawn they had gone back to La Cadena to lift the fields. Barry the dead. From around the fire,

Starting point is 02:23:36 under the Alamos came a great shout. The mister, here comes the mister. Que ta, companionero. How did you escape? It was my old friends, the peddlers. They crowded around eagerly, questioning, shaking my hand, throwing their arms around me. Ah, but that was close.

Starting point is 02:23:57 Caramba, but I was lucky. Did I know that Longinos Garaka was killed? Yes, but he shot six Colorado's before they got him. and Martinez also and Nicanor and Redondo. I felt sick, sick to think of so many useless deaths in such a petty fight, and blithe, beautiful Martinez, Gino Gareka, whom I learned to love so much, Redondo, whose girl was even then on her way to Chihuahua to buy her wedding dress and jolly Nicanor.

Starting point is 02:24:34 It seems that when Redondo, found that his flank had been turned, his troop deserted him, so he galloped alone toward La Cadena and was caught by 300 Colorado's. They literally shot him to pieces. Gino and Luis Martinez and Nicanor with five others held the eastward side of the Hacienda unaided until their cartridges were gone. And they were surrounded by a ring of shooting men. Then they died. The Colorado's carried off the colonel's woman. But there's a man who's been through it all, said one of the peddlers. He fought till his last cartridge was gone, and then cut his way through the enemy with a saber. I looked around,

Starting point is 02:25:28 surrounded by a ring of gaping peons, his lifted arm illustrating the great deed was a polonario. he caught sight of me nodded coldly as to one who was run from the fight and went on with his recital all through the long afternoon froiland and i played rabota with the pions it was a drowsy peaceful day a gentle wind rustled the high branches of the great trees and the late sun from behind the hill that is back of santa domingo warmed with color their lofty tides and the late sun from behind the hill that is back of santa domingo warmed with color their lofty tides it was a strange sunset the sky became overcast with light cloud toward the end of the afternoon first it turned pink then scarlet then of a sudden the whole firmament became a deep bloody red an immense drunken man an indian about seven feet tall staggered out in the open ground near the rebota court with a violin in his hand he tucked it under his chin and sawed raggedly on the strings staggering to and fro as he played. Then a little one-armed dwarf sprang out of the crowd of peons and began to dance. A dense throng made a circle around the two roaring with mirth.

Starting point is 02:26:51 And just at that moment there appeared against the bloody sky over the eastern hill the broken defeated men on horseback and on foot wounded and whole, weary, sick, disheartened, reeling, and limping down to Santo Domingo. End of Chapter 11 Chapter 12 of Insurgent Mexico This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox

Starting point is 02:27:33 org. Recording by Timothy Livright. Chapter 12, Elisabetha. So, against a crimson sky, the beaten, exhausted soldiers came down the hill. Some rode, their horses hanging weary heads, occasionally too, on a horse. Others walked with bloody bandages around their foreheads and arms. cartridge belts were empty rifles gone their hands and faces were foul with sweaty dirt and stained still with powder beyond the hill across the twenty-mile arid waste that lay between us in la cadena they straggled there were not more than fifty left including the women the rest had dispersed in the barren mountains and the folds of the deserts of the deserts

Starting point is 02:28:33 But they stretched out for miles. It took hours for them to arrive. Don Petronilo came in front with lowered face and folded arms, the reins hanging loose upon the neck of his swaying, stumbling horse. Right behind him came Juan Santayanes, gaunt and white, his face years older. Fernando Silveira all rags dragged along at his saddle. As they waited the shallow stream, they looked up and saw me. Don Petronilo weakly waved his hand. Fernando shouted, why, there's Mister.

Starting point is 02:29:14 How did you escape? We thought, sure, they had shot you. I ran a race with the goats, I answered. Juan gave a laugh. Scared to death, eh? The horses thrust eager muzzles into the stream, sucking fiercely. Juan cruelly spurred across, and we felt, into each other's arms. But Don Petronilo

Starting point is 02:29:37 dismounted in the water, dully, as if in a dream, and waiting up to the tops of his boots, came to where I was. He was weeping. His expression didn't change, but slow, big tears fell silently down his cheeks. The Colorado's captured his wife, murmured Juan in my ear. I was filled with pity for the man. It's a terrible thing. coronel, I said gently, to feel the responsibility for all these brave fellows who died, but it was not your fault. It is not that, he replied slowly, staring through tears at the pitiful

Starting point is 02:30:18 company crawling down the desert. I too had many friends who died in the battle I went on, but they died gloriously, fighting for their country. I do not weep for them, he said, twisting his hands together. This day I have lost all that is dear to me. They took my woman who was mine and my commission and all my papers and all my money. I'm wrenched with grief when I think of my silver spurs, inlaid with gold which I bought only last year in Mapimi, he turned away, overcome. And now the peons began to come down from their houses with pitying cries and loving offers. They threw their arms around the soldiers' necks, assisting the wounded, patting them shyly on the shoulders and calling them brave. Desperately poor themselves, they offered food and beds and fodder

Starting point is 02:31:15 for the horses, inviting them to stay at Santo Domingo until they should become well. I already had a place to sleep. Don Pedro, the chief goat herd, had given me his room and his bed in a gush of warm-hearted generosity, and had removed himself and his family to the kitchen. He did so without hope of recompense, for he thought I had no money. And now everywhere men, women, and children left their houses to make way for the defeated and weary troops. Fernando Juan and I went over and begged some tobacco from the four peddlers camped under the trees beside the spring.

Starting point is 02:31:57 They had made no sails for a week and were almost starving, but they loaded us lavishly with Makuche. We talked of the battle, lying there on our elbows, watching the shattered remnants of the garrison topped the hill. You have heard that Gino Gareka fell, said Fernando. Well, I saw him. His big gray horse that he rode for the first time was terrified by the bridle and saddle, but once he came where the bullets were flying and the guns roaring he's steadied at once. Pure race that horse. His father must have been all warriors.

Starting point is 02:32:37 Around Gino were four or five more heroes with almost all their cartridges gone. They fought until on the front and both sides double galloping lines of Colorado's closed in. Gino was standing beside his horse, suddenly a score of shots hit the animal all at one. and he sighed and fell over. The rest ceased firing in a sort of panic. We're lost, they cried. Run while there is yet a chance. Gino shook his smoking rifle at them. No, he shouted, give the Companiero's time to get away. Shortly after that, they closed around him and I never saw him until we buried his body this morning. It was the devil's hell out there. The rifles were so hot you couldn't touch the barrels, and the whirling haze that belched out when they shot twisted everything

Starting point is 02:33:31 like a mirage. Juan broke in. We rode straight out toward the puerta when the retreat began, but almost immediately we saw it was no use. The Colorado's broke over our little hands full of men like waves of the sea. Martinez was just ahead. He never had a chance even to fire his gun, and this was his first battle too. They hit him as he rode. I thought how you and Martinez loved each other. You used to talk together at night so warmly and never wished to leave each other to sleep. Now the tall naked tops of the trees had dulled with the passing of the light and seemed to stand still among the swarming stars in the deep dome overhead. The peddlers had kindled their tiny fire, the low contented murmur of their gossip floated to us.

Starting point is 02:34:27 Open doors of the peon's huts shed wavering candlelight. Up from the river wound a silent line of black-robed girls with water jars on their heads. Women ground their cornmeal with a monotonous stony scraping. Dogs barked, drumming hoofs marked the passing of the caballada to the river, Along the ledge in front of Don Pedro's house, the warriors smoked and fought the battle over again, stamping around and shouting descriptive matter. I took my rifle by the barrel and smashed in his grinning face just as someone was narrating with gestures. The peons squatted around breathlessly listening,

Starting point is 02:35:12 and still the ghastly procession of the defeated straggled down the road and across the river. It was not quite dark. I wandered down to the bank to watch them in the vague hope of finding some of my compadres who were still reported missing. And it was there that I first saw Elisabetha. There was nothing remarkable about her. I think I noticed her chiefly because she was one of the few women in that wretched company. She was a very dark-skinned Indian girl, about 25 years old, with the squat figure of her drudging

Starting point is 02:35:48 race. Pleasant features, hair hanging forward over her shoulders in two long plates, and big shining teeth when she smiled. I never did find out whether she had been just a peon woman working around La Cedena when the attack had come, or whether she was a Vieja, a camp follower of the army. Now she was trudging stolidly along in the dust behind Captain Felix Romero. horse and had trudged so for thirty miles he never spoke to her never looked back but rode on unconcernedly sometimes he would get tired of carrying his rifle and handed back to her to carry with a careless here take this i found out later that when they returned to lacedana after the battle to bury the dead he had found her wandering aimlessly in the hacienda apparently out of her mind and that needing a woman he had ordered her to follow him, which she did unquestioningly after the custom of her sex and country. Captain Felix led his horse drink. Elizabeth halted to, knelt and plunged her face in the water. Come on, ordered the captain. Andalais! She rose without a word and waited through

Starting point is 02:37:10 the stream. In the same order they climbed the near bank, and there the captain dismounted, held out his hand for the rifle she carried and said, Get me my supper. Then he strolled away toward the houses where the rest of the soldiers sat. Elisabeta fell upon her knees and gathered twigs for her fire. Soon there was a little pile burning.

Starting point is 02:37:34 She called a small boy in the harsh whining voice that all Mexican women have. Aye, Chimaco, fetch me a little water and corn that I may feed my man. And rising upon her knees, above the red glow of the flame she shook down her long straight black hair she wore a sort of blouse of faded light blue rough cloth there was dried blood on the breast of it what a battle seorita i said to her her teeth flashed as she smiled and yet there was a puzzling vacancy about her expression indians have mask-like faces under it i could see that she was desperately tired and a little hysterical, and she spoke, tranquilly enough. Perfectly, she said,

Starting point is 02:38:22 Are you the gringo who ran so many miles with the Colorado's after you shooting? And she laughed, catching her breath in the middle of it as if it hurt. The Chumaco shambled up with an earthen jar of water and an armful of corn ears that he tumbled at her feet. Elisa Betta unwound from her shawl, the heavy little stone trough that Mexican women carry. and began mechanically husking the corn into it. I do not remember seeing you at Lacadena, I said. Were you there long?

Starting point is 02:38:57 Too long, she answered simply, without raising her head, and then suddenly, Oh, but this war is no game for women, she cried. Don Felix loomed up out of the dark with a cigarette in his mouth. My dinner, he growled. Is it pronto? Loego, leuego, she answered. He went. away again. Listen, senor, whoever you are, said Elisa Baita, swiftly looking up to me.

Starting point is 02:39:24 My lover was killed yesterday in the battle. This man is my man, but by God and all the saints, I can't sleep with him this night. Let me stay them with you. There wasn't a trace of coquetry in her voice. This blundering, childish spirit had found itself in a situation it couldn't bear, and had chosen the instinctive way out. I doubt. if she even knew herself why the thought of this new man so revolted her with her lover scarcely cold in the ground i was nothing to her not she to me that was all that mattered i assented and together we left the fire the captains neglected corn spilling from the stone trough and then we met him a few feet into the darkness my dinner he said impatiently his voice changed where are you going i'm going with the seigneur eliza bata answered nervously i'm going to stay with him you began don felix gulping you are my woman oiga seor this is my woman here yes i said she is your woman i have nothing to do with her but she is very tired and not well and i have offered her my bed for the night this is very bad seor exclaimed the captain in a tightening voice you are the guest of the Tropa and the colonel's friend, but this is my woman and I want her.

Starting point is 02:40:53 Oh, Elizabeth cried out, until the next time, Signore, she caught my arm and pulled me on. We had been living in a nightmare of battle and death, all of us. I think everybody was a little dazed and excited. I know I was. By this time, the peons and soldiers had begun to gather around us, and as we went on, the captain's voice rose as he retailed his injustice to the crowd. I shall appeal to the colonel, he was saying. I shall tell the colonel. He passed us, going toward the colonel's quartel with averted mumbling face.

Starting point is 02:41:34 Oh, egan my coronel, he cried. This gringo has taken away my woman. It is the grossest insult. Well, returned the colonel calmly. If they both want to go, I guess. there isn't anything we can do about it, eh? The news had traveled like light. A throng of small boys followed us close behind, shouting the joyful indelicicacies they shout behind rustic wedding parties. We passed the ledge where the soldiers and the wounded sat, grinning and making rough, genial remarks as at a marriage.

Starting point is 02:42:09 It was not coarse or suggestive of their banter. It was frank and happy. They were honestly glad for us. As we approached Don Pedro's house, we were aware of many candles within. He and his wife and daughter were busy with broom sweeping and resweeping the earth and floor and sprinkling it with water. They put new linen on the bed and lit the rush candle before the table altar of the virgin. Over the doorway hung a festoon of paper blossoms,

Starting point is 02:42:42 faded relics of many a Christmas Eve celebration. for it was winter and there were no real flowers. Don Pedro was radiant with smiles. It made no difference who we were and what our relation was. Here were a man and a maid, and to him it was a bridle. May you have a happy night, he said softly and closed the door. The frugal Elisabeth immediately made the rounds of the room extinguishing all the candles but one.

Starting point is 02:43:14 And then outside we heard music. beginning to tune up. Someone had hired the village orchestra to serenade us. Late into the night, they played steadily right outside our door. In the next house, we heard the moving chairs and tables out of the way, and just before I went to sleep, they began to dance there, economically combining a serenade with a baile. Without the least embarrassment, Elizabetta laid down beside me on the bed, her hand reached for mine, She snuggled against my body for the comforting human warmth of it, murmured, until morning, and went to sleep, and calmly, sweetly, sleep came to me.

Starting point is 02:43:58 When I woke in the morning, she was gone. I opened my door and looked out. Morning had come dazzlingly, all blue and gold, a heaven of flame-trimmed, big white clouds and windy sky in the desert brazen and luminous. Under the ashy bare trees the peddlers' morning fire leaped horizontal in the wind. The black women with wind-folded draperies crossed the open ground to the river and single file, with red water jars on their heads. Cox, crew, goats clamored for milking, and a hundred horses drummed up the dust as they were driven to the water.

Starting point is 02:44:38 Elisabeth was squatted over a little fire near the corner of the house, patting tortillas for the captain's breakfast. She smiled as I came up and politely asked me if I had slept well. She was quite contented now. You knew from the way she sang over her work. Presently the captain came up in a surly manner and nodded briefly to me. I hope it's ready now, he grunted taking the tortillas she gave him. You take a long time to cook a little breakfast.

Starting point is 02:45:11 Caramba. Why is there no coffee? He moved off, munching. Get ready. He flung back over his shoulder. We go north in an hour. Are you going? I asked curiously.

Starting point is 02:45:24 Elisabeta looked at me with wide open eyes. Of course I am going. Seguro. Is he not my man? She looked after him admiringly. She was no longer revolted. He is my man, she said. He is very handsome and very brave.

Starting point is 02:45:42 Why, in the battle the other day? Elizabetha had forgotten her lover. End, chapter 12. Section 13 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Ginger Cucolo.

Starting point is 02:46:13 Insurgent Mexico by John Reed. 13. via accepts a medal part two francisco via chapter i it was while villa was in chihuahua city two weeks before the advance of torreon that the artillery corps of his army decided to present him with a gold medal for personal heroism on the field in the audience hall of the governor's palace in chihuahua a place of ceremonial great lustre chandeliers heavy crimson portiers and gaudy american wall-paper there were a place of ceremonial great lustre chandeliers heavy crimson portiers and gaudy american wall-paper there were is a throne for the governor. It is a gilded chair with lion's claws for arms placed upon a daze under a canopy of crimson velvet, surmounted by a heavy, gilded wooden cap, which tapers up to a crown. The officers of artillery in smart blue uniforms, faced with black velvet and gold, were solidly banked across one end of the audience hall, with flashing new swords and their

Starting point is 02:47:12 gilt-braided hats stiffly held under their arms. From the door of that chamber around the gallery down the state staircase across the grandiose inner court of the palace and out through the imposing gates to the street stood a double line of soldiers with their rifles at present arms four regimental bands grouped in one wedged in the crowd the people of the capital were massed in solid thousands on the plaza d'armus before the palace ya vien here he comes viva via viva mendero via the friend of the poor the roar began at the back of the crowd and swept like fire in heavy-growing crescendo until it seemed to toss thousands of hats above their head the band in the courtyard struck up the mexican national air and via came walking down the street he was dressed in an old playing khaki uniform with several buttons lacking he hadn't recently shaved wore no hat and his hair had not been brushed He walked a little pigeon-toed, humped over, with his hands in his trousers' pockets. As he entered the aisle between the rigid lines of soldiers, he seemed slightly embarrassed, and grand and nodded to a compadre here and there in the ranks. At the foot of the grand staircase, Governor Chow and Secretary of State Tarazas

Starting point is 02:48:30 joined him in full dress uniform. The band threw off all restraint, and as Via entered the audience chamber, at his signal from someone in the balcony of the palace, the great throng in the Plaza d'Armas uncovered, and all the brilliant crowd of officers in the room saluted stiffly. It was Napoleonic. Via hesitated for a moment, pulling his mustache and looking very uncomfortable, finally gravitated toward the throne,

Starting point is 02:48:57 which he tested by shaking the arms and then sat down, with the governor on his right and the Secretary of State on his left. Signor Boschakade stepped forward, raised his right hand to the exact position which Cicero, took when denouncing catelline and pronounced a short discourse in dicting via for personal bravery on the field on six counts which he mentioned in florid detail he was followed by the chief of artillery who said the army adores you we will follow you wherever you lead you can be what you desire in mexico then three officers spoke in the high-flung extravagant periods necessary to mexican oratory they called him the friend of the poor the invincible general the inspirer of courage and patriotism the hope of the indian republic and through it all via slouched on the throne his mouth hanging open his little shrewd eyes playing around the room once or twice he yawned but for the most part he seemed to be speculating with some intense interior amusement like a small boy in church what it was all about he knew of course that it was the proper thing and perhaps felt a slight vanity that all this conventional ceremonial was addressed to him but it bored him just the same

Starting point is 02:50:14 finally with an impressive gesture colonel sarvon stepped forward with a small pasteboard box which held the medal general child nudged via who stood up the officers applauded violently the crowd outside cheered the band in the court burst into a triumphant march Via put out both hands eagerly like a child for a new toy. He could hardly wait to open the box and see what was inside. An expectant hush fell upon everyone, even the crowd in the square. Via looked at the metal, scratching his head, and, in a reverent silence, said clearly, This is a hell of a little thing to give the man for all that heroism you are talking about. And the bubble of empire was pricked then and there with a great shout of laughter. they waited for him to speak to make a conventional address of acceptance but as he looked around the room at those brilliant educated men who said that they would die for via the peon and meant it and as he caught sight through the door of the ragged soldiers who had forgotten their rigidity and were crowding eagerly into the corridor with eyes fixed eagerly on the compiero that they loved he realized something of what the revolution signified

Starting point is 02:51:28 puckering up his face as he did always when he concentrated intensely he leaned across the table in front of him and poured out and a voice so low that people could hardly hear there is no word to speak all i can say is my heart is all to you then he nudged chow and sat down spitting violently on the floor and chow pronounced the classic discourse end of section thirteen recording by ginger cuckolo Section 14 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Libravox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Ginger Cucolo. Insurgent Mexico by John Reed.

Starting point is 02:52:22 14. The Rise of a Bandit. Part 2. Francisco Villa. Chapter 2. Via was an outlaw for 22 years. when he was only a boy of sixteen delivering milk in the streets of chihuahua he killed a government official and had to take to the mountains the story is that the official had violated his sister but it seems probable that via killed him on account of his insufferable insolence that in itself would not have outlawed him long in mexico where human life is cheap but once a refugee he committed the unpardonable crime of stealing cattle from the rich and from that time to the outbreak of the madeiro revolution the mexican government had a price on his head via was the son of ignorant peons he had never been to school he had in the slightest conception of the complexity of civilization and when he finally came back to it a mature man of extraordinary native shrewdness he encountered the twentieth century with the naive simplicity of a savage

Starting point is 02:53:25 it is almost impossible to procure accurate information about his career as a bandit there are accounts of outrages he committed in old files of local newspapers and government reports but those sources are prejudiced and his name became so prominent as a bandit that every train robbery in holdup and murder in northern mexico was attributed to via but an immense body of popular legend grew up among the peons around his name there are many traditional songs and ballads celebrating his exploits you can hear the shepherd singing them around their fires in the mountains at night repeating verses handed down by their fathers or composing others extemporaneously for instance they tell the story of how via fired by the story of the misery of the peons on the hacienda of los salemos gathered a small army and descended upon the big house which he looted and distributed the spoils among the poor people he drove off thousands of cattle from the terraces range and ran them across the border he would suddenly descend upon a prosperous mine and seize a bullion when he needed corn he captured a granary belonging to some rich man he recruited almost openly in the villages far removed from the well-travelled roads and railways organizing the outlaws in the mountains many of the present rebel soldiers used to belong to his band and several of the constitutionalist generals like urbina His range was confined mostly to southern Chihuahua and northern Durango, but it extended from Cojia right across the Republic to the state of Sinaloa. His reckless and romantic bravery is the subject of countless poems.

Starting point is 02:55:03 They tell, for example, how one of his band named Reza was captured by the Rurales and bribed to betray Villa, via heard of it and sent word into the city of Chihuahua, that he was coming for Reza. In broad daylight he entered the city on horseback, took ice cream on the plaza, The ballot is very explicit on this point, and rode up and down the streets until he found Reza, strolling with his sweetheart in the Sunday crown on the Paceo Boulevard, where he shot him and escaped. In time of famine he fed whole districts, and took care of entire villages evicted by the soldiers under Porfirio Diaz's outrageous land law. Everywhere he was known as the friend of the poor, he was the Mexican Robin Hood.

Starting point is 02:55:47 In all these years he learned to trust nobody. often in his secret journeys across the country with one faithful companion he camped in some desolate spot and dismissed his guide then leaving a fire burning he rode all night to get away from the faithful companion that is how via learned the art of war and in the field to-day when the army comes into camp at night via flings the bridle of his horse to an ordeley takes a serrappi over his shoulder and sets out for the hills alone he never seems to sleep and the dead of night-night he will appear somewhere along the line of outposts to see if the sentries are on the job, and in the morning he returns from a totally different direction. No one, not even the most trusted officer of his staff, knows the least of his plans until he is ready for action. When Madero took the field in 1910, Viyah was still an outlaw.

Starting point is 02:56:41 Perhaps, as his enemies say, he saw a chance to whitewash himself. Perhaps, as seems probable, he was inspired by the revolution of the people, Anyway, about three months after they rose in arms, Via suddenly appeared in El Paso and put himself, his band, his knowledge of the country and all for his fortune at the command of Madero. The vast wealth that people said he must have accumulated during his 20 years of robbery turned out to be 363 silver pesos badly worn. Via became a captain in the Meraista army and as such went to Mexico City with Madero and was made honorary general of the new Ruralas. He was attached to Huerta's army when it was sent north

Starting point is 02:57:24 to put down the Orosco Revolution. Via commanded the garrison of Paral and defeated Orosco with an inferior force in the only decisive battle of the war. Huerta put Via in command of the advance and let him and the veterans of Medeiro's army do the dangerous and dirty work while the old-line federal regiments lay back under the protection of their artillery. In Jimenez Huerta, suddenly summoned Via before a court-martial and charged him with insubordination, claiming to have wired an order to Via and Paral, which order, Via said he never received. The court-martial lasted 15 minutes, and Huerta's most powerful future antagonist, was sentenced to be shot.

Starting point is 02:58:05 Alfonso Madero, who was on Huerta's staff, stayed the execution, but President Modero forced to back up the orders of his commander in the field, imprisoned Villa in the penitentiary of the capital. During all this time, Via never wavered, and his loyalty to Madero, an unheard-of thing in Mexican history. For a long time he had passionately wanted an education. Now he wasted no time in regrets or political intrigue. He set himself with all his force to learn to read and write,

Starting point is 02:58:33 via had the slightest foundation to work upon. He spoke the crude Spanish of the very poor, what is called palado. He knew nothing of the rudiments or philosophy of language, and he started out to learn those first, because he always must know the why, of things. In nine months he could write a very fair hand and read the newspapers. It is interesting now to see him read, or rather, hear him, for he has to drone the words aloud like a small

Starting point is 02:59:00 child. Finally, the Medero government connived at his escape from prison, either to save Huerta's face because Via's friends had demanded an investigation, or because Medeiro was convinced of his innocence and didn't dare openly to release him. From that time to the outbreak of the last Revolution, Villa lived in El Paso, Texas, and it was from there that he set out in April 1913 to conquer Mexico with four companions, three lead horses, two pounds of sugar and coffee, and a pound of salt. There is a little story connected with that. He had money enough to buy horses, nor had any of his companions, but he sent two of them to a local livery stable to rent riding horses every day for a week. They always paid carefully at the end of the ride, so when they

Starting point is 02:59:46 asked for eight horses the livery stable man had no hesitation about trusting them with them six months later when via came triumphantly into waters at the head of an army of four thousand men the first public act he committed was to send a man with double the price of the horses to the owner of the livery stable he recruited in the mountains near san andres and so great was his popularity that within one month he had raised an army of three thousand men in two months he had driven the federal garrisons all over the state of Chihuahua back into Chihuahua City. In six months he had taken Torreon, and in seven and a half, Juarez had fallen to him. Mercalo's federal army had evacuated Chihuahua, and northern Mexico was almost free. End of Section 14. Recording by Ginger Cucolo. Section 15 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Ginger Cucolo

Starting point is 03:00:58 Insurgent Mexico by John Rhee Part 2. Francisco Villa Chapter 3 A Pion in Politics Via proclaimed himself military governor of the state of Chihuahua and began the extraordinary experiment, extraordinary because he knew nothing about it, of creating a government for 300,000 people out of his head. It has often been said that V has succeeded because he had educated advisers.

Starting point is 03:01:27 As a matter of fact, he was almost alone. What advisors he had spent most of their time answering his eager questions and doing what he told them. I used sometimes to go to the governor's palace early in the morning and wait for him in the governor's chamber. About 8 o'clock, Sylvester Terrazas, the Secretary of State, Sebastian Vargas, the state, the state treasurer, Emmanuel Chau, then Interventor, would arrive, very bustling and busy, with huge piles of report, suggestions, and decrees which they had drawn up. Via himself came in about 8.30, threw himself into a chair and made them read out loud to him. Every minute he would interject a remark, correction, or suggestion.

Starting point is 03:02:09 Occasionally, he waved his finger back and forward and said, No, Syriva. When they were all through, he began rapidly, and without a halt, to outline the policy of the state of Chihuahua, legislative, financial, judicial, and even educational. When he came to a place that bothered him, he said, how do they do that? And then, after it was carefully explained to him, why? Most of the acts and usages of government seemed to him extraordinarily unnecessary and snarled up. For example, his advisors proposed to finance a revolution by issuing state bonds, bring 30 or 40 percent interest. He's

Starting point is 03:02:47 said, I can understand why the state should pay something to people for the rent of their money, but how is it just to pay the whole sum back to them three or four times over? He couldn't see why rich men should be granted huge tracts of land, and poor men should not. The whole complex structure of civilization was new to him. You had to be a philosopher to explain anything to VIA, and his advisors were only practical men. There was a financial question. It came to VIA in this way. He noticed all of a sudden that there was no money in circulation. The farmers who produced meat and vegetables refused to come into the city markets anymore because no one had any money to buy from them. The truth was that those possessing silver or Mexican banknotes buried them in the ground.

Starting point is 03:03:33 Chihuahua, not being a manufacturing center and the few factories there have been closed down, there was nothing which could be exchanged for food. So, like a blight, the paralysis of the production of food began all at once, and actual starvation stared at the town populations. I remember hearing vaguely of several highly elaborate plans for the relief of this condition put forward by VIA's advisors. He himself said, why, if all they need is money, let's print some. So they inked up the printing press in the basement of the governor's palace and ran off two million pesos on strong paper, stamped with the signatures of government officials and with VIA's name printed across the middle in large letters. The counterfeit money, which

Starting point is 03:04:16 afterward flooded El Paso, was distinguished from the original by the fact that the names of the officials were signed instead of stand. This first issue of currency was guaranteed by absolutely nothing but the name of Francisco Villa. It was issued chiefly to revive the petty internal commerce of the state so that the poor people could get food. And yet almost immediately it was bought by the banks of El Paso at 18 to 19th, on the dollar because Via guaranteed it. Of course, he knew nothing of the accepted ways of getting his money into circulation. He began to pay the army with it. On Christmas Day, he called the poor people of Chihuahua together and gave them $15 a piece outright. Then he issued a short decree,

Starting point is 03:05:00 ordering the acceptance of his money at par throughout the state. The succeeding Saturday, the marketplaces of Chihuahua, and the other nearby town swarmed with farmers and with buyers. issued another proclamation, fixing the price of beef at seven cents a pound, milk at five cents a quart, and bread at four cents a loaf. There was no famine in Chihuahua. But the big merchants who had timidly reopened their stores for the first time since his entry into Chihuahua, placarded their goods with two sets of price marks, one for Mexican silver money and bank bills, and the other for VIA money. He stopped that by another decree, ordering 60 days imprisonment for anybody who discriminated against his currency. But still, the silver and bank bills refused to

Starting point is 03:05:47 come out of the ground, and these via needed to buy arms and supplies for his army. So he simply proclaimed to the people that after the 10th of February, Mexican silver and bank bills would be regarded as counterfeit, and that before that time they could be exchanged for his own money at par in the state treasury. But the large sums of the rich still eluded him. Most of the financiers declared that it was all a bluff and held on. But lo! On the morning of February 10th, a decree was pasted up on the walls all over Chihuahua City, announcing that from that time on, all Mexican silver and banknotes were counterfeit, and could not be exchanged for via money in the treasury, and anyone attempting to pass them was liable to 60 days in the penitentiary.

Starting point is 03:06:31 A great how went up, not only from the capitalists, but from the shrewd miseries of distant villages. About two weeks after the issue of this decree, I was taking lunch with Via in the house which he had confiscated from Manuel Gomeros and used as his official residence. A delegation of three peons and sandals arrived from a village in the Terre Moucère to protest against a counterfeit decree. But, me general, said the spokesman, we did not hear of the decree until today. We have been using bank bills and silver in our village. We had not seen your money, and we did not know. "'You have a good deal of money,' interrupted Via suddenly. "'Yes, me general.

Starting point is 03:07:10 Three or four or five thousand, perhaps. More than that, me general. Signores,' Via squinted it then ferociously. Samples of my money reached your village within 24 hours after it was issued. You decided that my government would not last. You dug holes under your fireplaces and put the silver and banknotes there. You knew my first proclamation a day after it was posted up in the streets of Chihuahua, and you ignored it.

Starting point is 03:07:34 the counterfeit decree you also knew as soon as it was issued you thought there was always time to change if it became necessary and then you got frightened and you three who have more money than any one else in the village got on your mules and rode down here seores your money is counterfeit you are poor men valgamma dios cried the oldest of the three sweating profusely but we are ruined me general i swear to you we did not know we would have accepted there is no food in the village the general and chief meditated for a moment i will give you one more chance he said not for you but for the poor people of your village you can buy nothing next wednesday at noon bring all your money every cent of it to the treasury and i will see what can be done to the perspiring financiers who waited hat in hand out in the hall the news spread by word of mouth and wednesday at high noon one could not pass the treasury door for the eager mob gathered there he his great passion was schools he believed that land for the people in schools would settle every question of civilization schools were an obsession with him often i have heard him say when i passed such and such a street this morning i saw a lot of kids let's put a school there Chihuahua has a population of under 40,000 people. At different times, he established over 50 schools there. The great dream of his life has been to send his son to school in the United States,

Starting point is 03:09:00 but at the opening of the term in February, he had to abandon it because he didn't have enough money to pay for a half-year's tuition. No sooner had he taken over the government of Chihuahua than he put his army to work, running the electric light plant, the street railways, the telephone, the waterworks, and the terraces flower mill. soldiers to administer the great haciendas which he had confiscated. He manned the slaughterhouse with soldiers and sold Tarazas beef to the people for the government. A thousand of them he put in the streets of the city as civil police, prohibiting on pain of

Starting point is 03:09:33 death stealing, or the cell of liquor to the army. A soldier who got drunk was shot. He even tried to run the brewery soldiers, but failed because he couldn't find an expert mulster. The only thing to do with soldiers in time of peace, said Via, is to put them to work. An idle soldier is always thinking of war. In the matter of the political enemies of the revolution, he was just as simple, just as effective. Two hours after he entered the governor's palace, the foreign consuls came in a body to ask his protection for 200 federal soldiers who had been left as a police force at the request of the foreigners.

Starting point is 03:10:09 Before answering them, Via said suddenly, Which is the Spanish Council? Scoble, the British Vice Council said, I represent the Spaniards. "'All right,' snapped Villa. "'Tell them to begin to pack. "'Any Spaniard caught within the boundaries of this state "'after five days will be escorted to the nearest wall by a firing squad.' "'The councils gave a gasp of horror.

Starting point is 03:10:31 "'Skobel began a violent protest, but Via cut him short. "'This is not a sudden determination on my part,' he said. "'I have been thinking about this since nineteen ten. "'The Spaniards must go.' "'Letcher, the American consul said, "'Generol, I don't question your motives, but I think you are making a grave political mistake in expelling the Spaniards. The government at Washington will hesitate a long time

Starting point is 03:10:55 before becoming friendly to a party which makes use of such barbarous measures. Senior counsel answered Via, we Mexicans have had 300 years of the Spaniards. They have not changed in characters since the conquistadors. They disrupted the Indian Empire and enslaved the people. We did not ask him to mingle their blood with ours. Twice we drove them out of Mexico, and allowed them to return with the same rights as Mexicans,

Starting point is 03:11:21 and they use these rights to steal away our land, to make the people's slaves, and to take up arms against the cause of liberty. They supported Porfirio Diaz. They are perniciously active in politics. It was the Spaniards who framed the plot that put Huerta in the palace. When Madero was murdered, the Spaniards in every state in the republic held banquets of rejoicing.

Starting point is 03:11:42 They trust on us their greatest superstition the world has ever known, the Catholic Church. They ought to be killed for that alone. I consider we are being very generous with them. Scoboble insisted vehemently that five days was too short a time, that he couldn't possibly reach all the Spaniards in the state by that time. So he extended the time to ten days. The rich Mexicans who had oppressed the people and opposed the revolution, he expelled promptly from the state and confiscated their vast holdings. By a simple stroke of the pen, the 17 million acres at the innumerable business enterprise of the Tarasasas family became the property of the constitutionalist government, as well as the great lands of the Kral family and the magnificent palaces which were their townhouses.

Starting point is 03:12:28 Remembering, however, how the Tarasas exiles had once financed the Orozco Revolution, he imprisoned Don Luis Terrace's Jr. as a hostage in his own house in Chihuahua. Some particularly obnoxious political enemies were promptly executed in the penitentiary. The revolution possesses a black book and when, which are set down the names, offenses, and property of those who have oppressed and robbed the people. The Germans, who had been particularly active politically, the Englishmen and Americans, he does not yet dare to molest. Their pages in the black book will be open when the constitutionalist government is established in Mexico City,

Starting point is 03:13:06 and there too he will settle the account of the Mexican people with the Catholic Church. Bia knew that the reserve of the Banco Minero, amounting to about 500,000 gold, was hidden somewhere in Chihuahua. Don Louis Terrace, Jr. was a director of that bank. When he refused to divulze a hiding place of the money, Via and a squad of soldiers took him out of his house one night, rode him on a mule out into the desert, and strung him up to a tree by the neck. He was cut down just in time to save his life and led Via to an old forge in the Terrace's ironworks, under which was discovered the reserve of the Banco Minero.

Starting point is 03:13:42 Tarazas went back to prison badly shaken, and Via sent word to his father in El Paso that he would release the son upon payment of $500,000 ransom. End of Section 15. Recording by Ginger Cucolo Section 16 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Libravox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 03:14:12 For more information, volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Ginger Cucolo. Insurgent Mexico by John Reed. 16. The Human Side. Part 2. Francisco Villa Chapter 4. Via has two wives. One, a patient, simple woman who was with him during all his years of outlawry, who lives in El Paso, and the other, a cat-like, slender young girl, who is the mistress of his house in Chihuahua. He is perfectly open about it, though lately the educated conventional Mexicans who have been gathering about him in ever-increasing numbers have tried to hush up the fact. Among the peons, it is not only not unusual but customary to have more than one mate.

Starting point is 03:15:01 One hears a great many stories of Vias violating women. I asked him if that were true. He pulled his mustache and stared at me for a minute with an inscrutable expression. I never take the trouble to deny such stories, he said. They say I am a bandit, too. Well, you know my history. But tell me, have you ever met a husband, father, or brother of any woman that I have violated? He paused. Or even a witness?

Starting point is 03:15:30 It is fascinating to watch him discover new ideas. Remember that he is absolutely ignorant of the troubles and confusions and readjustments of modern civilization. socialism he said once when i wanted to know what he thought of it socialism is it a thing i only see it in books and i do not read much once i asked him if women would vote in the new republic he was sprawled out on his bed with his coat unbuttoned why i don't think so he said startled suddenly sitting up what do you mean vote do you mean elect a government and make laws i said i did and that women already were doing it in the united States. Well, he said, scratching his head. If they do it up there, I don't see that they shouldn't do it down here. The idea seemed to amuse him enormously. He rolled it over and over in his mind, looking at me and away again. It may be, as you say, he said, but I have never thought about it. Women seem to be things to protect, to love. They have no sternness of mind. They can't consider anything for its right or wrong. They are full of pity and softness. Why,

Starting point is 03:16:40 He said, A woman would not give an order to execute a traitor. I am not so sure of that, me general, I said. Women can be crueler and harder than men. He stared at me, pulling his mustache, and then he began to grin. He looked slowly to where his wife was setting the table for lunch. He said, come here. Listen, last night, I caught three traitors crossing the river to blow up the railroad.

Starting point is 03:17:05 What should I do with them? Shall I shoot them or not? embarrassed she seized his hand and kissed it oh i don't know anything about that she said you know best no said via i leave it entirely to you those men were going to try to cut our communications between warres and chihuahua they were traitors federalis what shall i do shall i shoot them or not oh well shoot them said mrs via via chuckled delightedly there is something in what you say he remarked and for days after went around asking the cook and the chamber mains, whom they would like to have for president of Mexico. He never missed a bullfight, and every afternoon at four o'clock he was to be found at the cockpit,

Starting point is 03:17:49 where he fought his own birds with the happy enthusiasm of a small boy. In the evening he played Pharaoh in some gambling hall. Sometimes in the late morning he would send a fast courier after Louis Leone, the bullfighter, and telephone personally to the slaughterhouse, asking if they had any fierce bulls in the pen. They almost always did have, and we would all get on horseback and galloped through the streets about a mile to the big adobe corrals. Twenty cowboys cut the bull out of the herd,

Starting point is 03:18:17 threw and tied him, and cut off his sharp horns, and then Villa and Louis Leone said anybody else who wanted would take the professional red cape and go down and do the ring. Louis Leone, with professional caution, Via is stubborn and clumsy as the bull, slow on his feet, but swift as an animal with his body and arms. Villa would walk right up to the pawing, infuriated animal, and, with his double cape, slap him insolently across the face, and for half an hour would follow the greatest sport I ever saw. Sometimes the sawed-off horns of the bull would catch Via in the seat of the trousers and propel him violently across the ring.

Starting point is 03:18:53 Then he would turn and grab the bull by the head and wrestle with him with the sweat streaming down his face until five or six. Companeros seized the bull's tail and hauled him plowing and bellowing back. via never drinks nor smokes but he will out dance the most ardent novio in mexico when the order was given for the army to advance of bontorion villa stopped at the carmargo to be best man at the wedding of one of his old compadres he danced steadily without stopping they said all monday night all tuesday and all tuesday night arriving at the front on wednesday morning with bloodshot eyes and an air of extreme lassitude End of Section 16. Recording by Ginger Cucolo. Section 17 of Insurgent Mexico. This is the Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.

Starting point is 03:19:56 Recording by Ginger Cucolo. Insurgent Mexico by John Reed. Part 2. Francisco Villa. Chapter 5. The funeral of Abram Gonzalez The fact that Via hates useless pomp and ceremony makes it more impressive when he does appear on a public occasion. He has a knack of absolutely expressing the strong feeling of the great mass of the people.

Starting point is 03:20:22 In February, exactly one year after Abram Gonzalez was murdered by the Federals at Bacimba Canyon, Via ordered a great funeral ceremony to be held in the city of Chihuahua, Two trains carrying the officers of the army, the consuls, and representatives of the foreign colony, left Chihuahua early in the morning to take up the body of the dead governor from its resting place under a rude, wooden cross in the desert. Villa ordered Mayor Fiero, his superintendent of railroads, to get the trains ready. But Fierro got drunk and forgot, and when Villa and his brilliant staff arrived at the railway station the next morning, the regular passenger train to Juarez was just leaving, and there was a little. no other equipment on hand. Villa himself leaped onto the already moving engine and compelled

Starting point is 03:21:09 the engineer to back the train up to the station. Then he walked through the train, ordering the passengers out, and switched it in the direction of Bacimba. They had no sooner started than he subbed Fierro before him and discharged him from the superintendency of the railroads, appointing Calzado in his place, and ordered the latter to return at once to Chihuahua and be thoroughly informed about the railroads by the time he returned. At Bacimba Villa stood silently by the grave, with the tears rolling down his cheeks. For Gonzales had been his close friend. Ten thousand people stood in the heat and dust at Chihuahua Railway Station when the

Starting point is 03:21:46 funeral train arrived and poured weeping through the narrow streets behind the army, at the head of which walked Via beside the hearse. His automobile was waiting, but he angrily refused to ride, stumbling stubbornly along in the dirt of the streets with his eyes on the ground. That night there was a velada in the theater of the heroes, an immense auditorium packed with emotional peons and their women. The ring of boxes was brilliant with officers in their full dress, and wedged behind them up the five high balconies where the ragged poor.

Starting point is 03:22:18 Now the vellada is an entirely Mexican institution. First there comes a speech, then a recitation, on the piano, then a speech, followed by a patriotic song, rendered by a chorus of awkward little Indian girls from the public school with squeaky voices, another speech, and a soprano solo from Travatori, by the wife of some government official, still another speech, and so on, for at least five hours. Whenever there is a prominent funeral, or a national holiday, or a president's anniversary, or, in fact, an occasion of the least importance, a villada must be held. It is a conventional and respectable way of celebrating anything.

Starting point is 03:22:58 Via sat in the left-hand stage box and controlled the proceedings by tapping a little bell. The stage itself was brilliantly hideous, with black bunting, huge masses of artificial flowers, abominable crayon portraits of Madeiro, Pino Suarez, and the De Governor, and red, white, and green electric lights. At the foot of all this was a very small plain, black wooden box, which held the body of Abram Gonzalez. the velada proceeded in an orderly and exhausting manner for about two hours local orators trembling with stage fright mouthed the customary castilian extravagant phrases and little girl stepped on their own feet and murdered tostice goodbye via with his eyes riveted on that wooden box never moved nor spoke at the proper time he mechanically tapped the little bell but after a while he couldn't stand it any longer a large flesy mexican was in the middle of handel's largo on the grand piano when Via stood erect. He put his foot on the railing of the box and leaped to the stage,

Starting point is 03:24:00 knelt, and took up the coffin in his arms. Handel's Largo petered out. Silent astonishment paralyzed the audience. Holding the black box tenderly in his arms, as a mother with her baby, not looking at anyone, Via started down the steps of the stage and up the aisle. Instinctively, the house rose, and as he passed out through the swinging door as they followed on, silently behind him he strode down between the lines of waiting soldiers his sword banging on the floor across a dark square to the governor's palace and with his own hands put the coffin on the flowered bank table waiting for it in the audience hall it had been arranged that four generals in turn should stand the death-watch each for two hours candles shed a dim light over the table and the surrounding floor but the rest of the room was in darkness a dense mass of silent breathing people back the doorway. Via unbuckled his sword and threw it clattering into a corner. Then he took his rifle from the table and stood the first watch.

Starting point is 03:25:05 End of Section 17. Recording by Ginger Cucolo Section 18 of Insurgent Mexico. This is the Libravox recording. All Leoprovox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. by ginger cuckolo insurgent mexico by john reed eighteen via and caranza part two francisco villa chapter six it seems incredible to those who don't know him that this remarkable figure who has risen from obscurity to the most prominent position in mexico in three years should not covet the presidency of their republic but that is in entire accordance with the simplicity of his character when asked about it he answered as always with perfect directness just in the way that you put it to him he didn't quibble over whether he could or could not be president of mexico he said i am a fighter not a statesman i am not educated enough to be president i only learned to read and write two years ago how could i who never went to school hoped to be able to talk with the foreign ambassadors and the cultivated gentlemen of a congress it would be bad for mexico if an uneducated man were to be president there is one thing that i will not do and that is to take a position for which i am not fitted

Starting point is 03:26:35 there is only one order of my hefe caranza which i would refuse to obey if he would command me to be a president or a governor on behalf of my paper i had to ask him this question five or six times finally he became exasperated i have told you many times he said that there is no possibility of my becoming president of mexico are the newspapers trying to make trouble between me and my hefe this is the last time that i will answer that question the next correspondent that asked me i will have him spanked and sent to the border for days afterward he went about grumbling humorously about the chatito pugnows who kept asking him whether he wanted to be president of mexico the idea seemed to amuse him whenever i went to see him after that he used to say at the end of our talk well aren't you going to ask me to-day whether i want to be president he never referred to karanza except as my hefe and he obeyed implicitly the slightest order from the first chief of the revolution his loyalty to coranza was perfectly obstinate he seemed to think that in caronza were embodied the entire ideals of the revolution this in spite of the fact that many of his advisers tried to make him see that caronza was essentially an aristocrat and a reformer and that the people were fighting for more than reform cronza's political program as set forth in the plan of guadalupe carefully avoids any promise of settlement of the land question except a vague endorsement of madeiro's plan of san luy potosi and it is evident that he does not intend to advocate any radical restoration of the land to the people until he becomes provisional president and then to proceed very cautiously in the meantime he seems to have left it to via judgment as well as all other details of the conduct of the revolution in the north

Starting point is 03:28:25 but via being a peon and feeling with them rather than consciously reasoning it out that the land question is the real cause of the revolution acted with characteristic promptness and directness no sooner had he settled the details of government of chihuahua state and appointed chow his provisional governor than he issued a proclamation giving sixty-two and one-half acres out of the confiscated lands to every male citizen of the state and declaring these lands inalienable for any cause for a peasant period of ten years. In the state of Durango, the same thing has happened, and as other states are free of federal garrisons, he will pursue the same policy. End of 18. Recording by Ginger Cucolo Section 19 of Insurgent Mexico. This is the Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravoc.org. Recording by Ginger Cuccolo. insurgent mexico by john reed part two francesco via chapter seven on the field too via had to invent an entirely original method of warfare because he never had a chance to learn anything of accepted military strategy

Starting point is 03:29:49 in that he is without the possibility of any doubt the greatest leader mexico has ever had his method of fighting is astonishingly like napoleons secrecy quickness of movement the act adaptation of his plans to the character of the country and of his soldiers. The value of intimate relations with the rank and file and of building up a tradition among the enemy that his army is invincible, and that he himself bears a charm life. These are his characteristics. He knew nothing of accepted European standards of strategy or of discipline. One of the troubles of the Mexican Federal Army is that its officers are thoroughly saturated with conventional military theory. The Mexican soldier is still mentally at the end of the 18th century.

Starting point is 03:30:30 He is, above all, a loose individual guerrilla fighter. Red tape simply paralyzes the machine. When Villa's army goes into battle, he is not hampered by salutes or rigid respect for officers, or trigonometrical calculations of the trajectories of projectiles, or theories of the percentage of hits in a thousand rounds of rifle fire, or the function of cavalry infantry and artillery in any particular position, or rigid obedience to the secret knowledge. of its superiors. It reminds one of the ragged Republican army that Napoleon led into Italy. It is probable that Via doesn't know much about those things himself, but he does know that

Starting point is 03:31:12 guerrilla fighters cannot be driven blindly in platoons around the field in perfect stead, that men fighting individually and of their own free will are braver than long-valling rows in the trenches, lashed to it by officers with the flat of their swords. And where the fighting is fiercest, when a ragged mob of fierce bruce, round men with hand bombs and rifles rushed the bullet-swept streets of an ambushed town. Via is among them, like any common soldier. Up to his day, Mexican armies had always carried with them hundreds of the women and children of the soldiers.

Starting point is 03:31:46 Via was the first man to think of swift force marches of bodies of cavalry, leaving their women behind. Up to his time, no Mexican army had ever abandoned its base. It had always stuck closely to the railroad and the supply trains. but via struck terran to the enemy by abandoning his trains and throwing his entire effective army upon the field as he did at gomez palacio he invented in mexico that most demoralizing form of battle the night attack when after the fall of torreon last september he withdrew his entire army in the face of a roscoe's advance from mexico city and for five days unsuccessfully attacked chihuahua it was a terrible shock to the federal general when he waked up one morning and found that via had sneaked around the city, under cover of darkness, captured a freight train at Tarasas, and descended with his entire army upon the comparatively undefeited city of Juarez. It wasn't fair. Via found that he

Starting point is 03:32:41 hadn't enough trains to carry all his soldiers, even when he had ambushed and captured a federal troop train, sent south by General Castro, the federal commander in Juarez. So he telegraphed that gentleman as follows, signing the name of the colonel in command of the troop train. Engine broken down at Maktezuma. Send another engine in five cars. The unsuspecting Castro immediately dispatched a new train. Via then telegraphed him. Wires cut between here and Chihuahua, large force of rebels approaching from South.

Starting point is 03:33:10 What shall I do? Castro replied, return at once. And Via obeyed telegraphing cheering messages at every station along the way. The federal commander got wind of his coming about an hour before he arrived and left without informing his garrison, so that outside of his garrison. of a small massacre, Via took Juarez almost without a shot, and with the border so near, he managed to smuggle across enough ammunition to equip his almost armless forces, and a week later sallied out and routed the pursuing federal forces with greater slaughter at Tierra Blanca.

Starting point is 03:33:43 General Hugh L. Scott, in command of the American troops at Fort Bliss, sent via a little pamphlet containing the rules of war, adopted by the Hague Conference. He spent hours pouring over it interested and amused him hugely. He said, what is this Hague conference? Was there a representative of Mexico there? Was there a representative of the constitutionalist there? It seems to me a funny thing to make rules about war. It's not a game. What is the difference between civilized war and any other kind of war? If you and I are having a fight in a canina, we're not going to pull a little book out of our pockets and read over the rules? It says here that you must not use lead bullets, but I don't see why not. They do the work. For a long time afterward, he went around popping questions at his officers like this. If an invading army takes the city of the enemy, what must you do with the women and children? As far as I could see, the rules of war didn't make any difference in Via's original method of fighting. The Colorados, he executed, wherever he captured them, because he said, they were peons like the revolutionists, and that no peon would volunteer against the cause of liberty unless he were bad.

Starting point is 03:34:51 The federal officers, also he killed, because he explained, they were educated men and ought to know better. But the federal common soldiers he set at liberty, because most of them were conscripts, and thought that they were fighting for the patriot. There is no case on record where he wantonly killed a man, anyone who did so he promptly executed, except Fiero. Fierro, the man who killed Benton, was known as the butcher throughout the army. He was a great, handsome animal, the best and cruelest writer and fighter, perhaps, and all the Revolutionary forces. In his furious lust for blood, Fierro used to shoot down a hundred prisoners with his own revolver, only stopping long enough to reload. He killed for the pure joy of it. During the two weeks that I was in Chihuahua, Fierro killed 15 inoffensive citizens in cold blood.

Starting point is 03:35:39 But there was always a curious relationship between him and Via. He was Via's best friend, and Via loved him like a son and always pardoned him. But Via, although he had never heard of the rules of war carried with his army the only filled hospital of any effectiveness that any Mexican army has ever carried. It consisted of 40 box cars, enameled inside, fitted with operating tables and all the latest appliances of surgery, and manned by more than 60 doctors and nurses. Every day during the battle, shuttle trains, full of the desperately wounded, ran from the front to the base hospitals at Paral, Jimenez, and Chihuahua. He took care of the federal wounded just as carefully as of his own men.

Starting point is 03:36:21 Ahead of his own supply train went another train, carrying 2,000 sacks of flour, and also coffee, corn, sugar, and cigarettes to feed the entire starving population of the country around Durango City and Torreon. The common soldiers adore him for his bravery and his coarse, blunt humor.

Starting point is 03:36:39 Often I have seen him slouched on his cot and the little red caboose in which he always traveled, cracking jokes familiarly, with twenty ragged private sprawled on the floor, chairs and tables. When the army was in training or detraining, Via personally would be on hand in a dirty old suit without a collar, kicking mules in the stomach and pushing horses in and out of the stock cars. Getting thirsty all of a sudden, he would grab some soldiers canteen and drain it, in spite of the indignant protests of its owner, and then tell him to go over to the river and say that Pancho Villo said that he should fill it there.

Starting point is 03:37:13 End of Section 19. Recording by Ginger Cucolo. section 20 of insurgent mexico this is a libravox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox dot org recording by ginger cuckolo insurgent mexico by john reed part twenty the dream of poncho via part two francisco via chapter eight it might not be uninteresting to know the passionate dream, the vision which animates this ignorant fighter, not educated enough to be president of Mexico. He told it to me once in these words. When the new republic is established, there will never be any more army in Mexico. Armies are the greatest support of tyranny. There can be no dictator without an army. We will put the army to work. In all parts of the republic, we will establish military colonies composed of the veterans of the revolution. The state will

Starting point is 03:38:23 give them grants of agricultural lands and establish big industrial enterprises to give them work. Three days a week they will work and work hard because honest work is more important than fighting, and only honest work makes good citizens. And the other three days they will receive military instruction and go out and teach all the people how to fight. Then, when the patria is invaded, we will just have to telephone from the palace at Mexico City, and in half a day all the Mexican people will rise from their fields and factories, fully armed, equipped, and organized to defend their children and their homes. My ambition is to live my life in one of those military colonies, among my compageros whom I love, who have suffered so long and so deeply with me. I think I would

Starting point is 03:39:11 like the government to establish a leather factory there where we could make good saddles and bridles, because I know how to do that, and the rest of the time I would like to work on my little farm, raising cattle and corn. It would be fine, I think, to help make Mexico a happy place. End of Section 20. Recording by Ginger Cucolo. Section 21 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Recording by Anne Boulet. insurgent mexico by john reed part three himenez and points west chapter one dono louisa's hotel

Starting point is 03:40:08 I went south from Chihuahua on a troop train bound for the advance near Escalon. Attached to the five freight cars, filled with horses and carrying soldiers on top, was a coach in which I was allowed to ride with 200 noisy pacificos, male and female. It was grossly suggestive. Car windows smashed, mirrors, lamps, and plush seats torn out, and bullet holes after the manner of a frieze. The time of our departure was not. fixed, and no one knew when the train would arrive. The railroad had just been repaired.

Starting point is 03:40:44 In places where there had once been bridges, we plunged into Oroyo's and snorted up the farther bank on a rickety new-laid track that bent and cracked under us. All day long the roadside was lined with immense distorted steel rails, torn up with a chain and a backing engine by the thorough Orozco last year. There was a rumor that Castillo's, bandits were planning to blow us up with dynamite sometime during the afternoon. Payons with big straw sombreros and beautifully faded serrapes, Indians with blue working clothes and cowhide sandals, and squat-faced women with black shawls around their heads and squalling babies, pack the seats, aisles and platforms,

Starting point is 03:41:30 singing, eating, spitting, chattering. Occasionally they're staggered by a ragged man with a cap labeled conductor in tarnished gold letters, very drunk, embracing his friends and severely demanding the tickets and safe conduct of strangers. I introduced myself to him by a small president of United States currency. He said, Signor, you may travel freely over the Republic henceforth without payment. Juan Al-Gomero is at your orders. An officer smartly uniformed with a sword at his side was at the rear of the car.

Starting point is 03:42:07 He was bound for the front, he said, to lay down his life for his country. His only baggage consisted of four wooden bird cages, full of metal larks. Farther to the rear, two men sat across the aisle from each other, each with a white sack containing something that moved and clucked. As soon as the train started, these bags were opened to disgorge two large roosters, who wandered up and down the aisles, eating crumbs and cigarette butts. The two owners immediately raised their voices. Cock fight, seigneur, five pesos on this valiant and handsome rooster.

Starting point is 03:42:45 Five pesos, seigneur. The males at once deserted their seats and rushed clamoring toward the center of the car. Not one of them appeared to lack the necessary $5. In ten minutes to two promoters were kneeling in the middle of the aisle, throwing their birds. And as we rattled along, swaying from side to, aside, swooping down into the gullies and laboring up the other bank. A whirling mass of feathers and flashing steel rolled up and down the aisle. That over, a one-legged youth stood up and

Starting point is 03:43:19 played whistling Rufus on a tin flute. Someone had a leather bottle of tequila, of which we all took a swig. From the rear of the car came shouts of, Vaminus ah, Bailar, come on and dance. And in a moment, five guys. couples, all men, of course, were madly two-stepping. A blind old peasant was assisted to climb upon his seat, where he quaveringly recited a long ballad about the heroic exploits of the great general Maclovio Herrera. Everybody was silently attentive and showering pennies into the old man's sombrero. Occasionally, there floated back to us the singing of the soldiers on the box cars in front and the sound of their shots, as they caught sight of a kai'iouki.

Starting point is 03:44:06 Gulloping through the mesquite. Then everybody in our car would make a rush for the windows, pulling at their revolvers, and shoot fast and furiously. All the long afternoon, we ambled slowly south, the western rays of the sun burning as they struck our faces. Every hour or so, we stopped at some station, shot to pieces by one army or the other during the three years of the revolution. There the train would be besieged by vendors of cigarettes, pine nuts, bottles of milk, comotes and tamales rolled in corn husks. Old women, gossiping, descended from the train, built themselves a little fire and boiled coffee. Squatting there, smoking their corn husks cigarettes, they told one another interminable love stories. It was late in

Starting point is 03:44:56 the evening when we pulled into Jimenez. I shouldered through the entire population, come down to meet the train, pass between the flaring torches of the small row, of candy booths and went along the street, where drunken soldiers alternated with painted girls, walking arm in arm, to Donio Luis's station hotel. It was locked. I pounded on the door and a little window opened at the side, showing an incredibly ancient woman's face,

Starting point is 03:45:23 crowned with straggly white hair. This being squinted at me through a pair of steel spectacles and remarked, Well, I guess you're all right. Then there came a sound of bars being taken down, and the door swung open. Donio Luisa herself, a great bunch of keys at her belt, stood just inside.

Starting point is 03:45:44 She held a large Chinaman by the ear, addressing him in fluent and profane Spanish. Chango, she said. What do you mean by telling a guest at this hotel that there wasn't any more hot cakes? Why didn't you make some more? Now take your dirty little bundle and get out of here. With a final wrench, she released the squealing Oriental.

Starting point is 03:46:06 He's damn heathen, she announced in English, the nasty beggars. I don't take any lip from a dirty Chinaman who can live on a nickels worth of rice a day. Then she nodded apologetically toward the door. There's so many damn drunken generals around today that I've got to keep the door locked. I don't want the blankety-blank Mexican blanks in here. Donia Louisa is a small dumpy American woman, more than 80 years of age, a benevolent New England grandmother sort of person. For 45 years she has been in Mexico, and 30 or more years ago, when her husband died, she began to keep the station hotel.

Starting point is 03:46:46 War and peace make no difference to her. The American flag flies over the door, and in her house, she alone is boss. Then Pasqual Oresco took Jimenez, his men began a drunken reign of terror in the town. Orozco himself, Orozco, the invincible, the fierce, who would as soon kill a person as not, came drunk to the station hotel, with two of his officers and several women. Donia Luisa planted herself across the doorway, alone, and shook her fist in his face. Pasquale Orosco, she cried, take your disreputable friends and go away from here. I'm keeping a decent hotel. And Orosco went. End of Section 21.

Starting point is 03:47:39 Section 22 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Liebervox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Recording by Anne Boulay. Insurgent Mexico by John Reed. Part 3. Jimenez and Points West, Chapter 2. Duayo a la Frigada I wandered up the mile long, incredibly dilapidated street that leads to the town. A streetcar came past, drawn by one galloping mule, and bulging with slightly intoxicated soldiers. Open Surries full of officers with girls on their laps rolled along. Under the dusty bare Alamo trees, each window held it Senorita, with a blanket-wrapped Caballero in attendance. There were no lights. The night was dry and cold. and full of a subtle exotic excitement.

Starting point is 03:48:39 Guitars twanged, snatches of song and laughter, and low voices, and shouts from distant streets filled the darkness. Occasionally little companies of soldiers on foot came along, or a troop of horsemen in high sombreros and serrapes, jingled silently out of the blackness and faded away again, bound probably for the relief of guard. In one quiet stretch of street near the bull ring, where there are no houses,

Starting point is 03:49:06 I noticed an automobile speeding from the town. At the same time, a galloping horse came from the other direction, and just in front of me, the headlights of the machine illumined the horse and the rider, a young officer in a Stetson hat. The automobile jarred to a grinding stop, and a voice from it cried, Atoye! Who speaks? asked the horseman, pulling his mount to its haunches. I, Guzman, and the other leaped to the ground and came into the light, a coarse fat Mexican with a sword at his belt. Como le va, my capitan? The officer flung himself from his horse.

Starting point is 03:49:45 They embraced, patting each other on the back with both hands. Very well, and you, where are you going? To see Maria. The captain laughed. Don't do it, he said. I'm going to see Maria myself, and if I see you there, I shall certainly kill you. But I am going just the same, and I am as quick with a pistol as you.

Starting point is 03:50:06 seor. But you see, returned the other mildly, we both cannot go. Perfectly. Oiga, said the captain to his chauffeur, turn your car so as to throw the light evenly along the sidewalk, and now we will walk 30 paces apart and stand with our backs turned until you count three. Then the man who puts a bullet through the other man's hat wins. Both men drew immense revolvers and stood a moment in the lights, spinning the chambers. listo ready cried the horseman hurry it said the captain it is a bad thing to bach love back to back they had already begun to pace the distance one shouted the chauffeur two but quick as a flash the fat man wheeled in the trembling uncertain light threw down his lifted arm and a mighty roar went soaring slowly into the heavy night the stetson of the other man whose back was still turned took an odd leap ten feet beyond him. He spun around, but the captain was already climbing into his machine.

Starting point is 03:51:12 Bueno, he said cheerfully. I win. Until tomorrow then, Amigo. And the automobile gathered speed and disappeared down the street. The horseman slowly went to where his hat lay, picked it up, and examined it. He stood a moment meditating and then deliberately mounted his horse, and he also went away. I had already started sometime before. In the plaza, the the regimental band was playing El Pagare, the song which started Orozco's revolution. It was a parody of the original, referring to Mandero's payment of his family's $750,000 war claims as soon as he became president. That spread like wildfire over the republic, and had to be suppressed with police and soldiers. El Pagare is even now taboo in most revolutionary circles, and I have

Starting point is 03:52:03 heard of men being shot for singing it. But in Jimenez, at this time, the utmost license prevailed. Moreover, the Mexicans, unlike the French, have absolutely no feeling for symbols. Bitterly antagonistic sides use the same flag. In the plaza of almost every town still stand eulogistic statues of Porfirio Diaz. Even at officers' mess in the field, I have drug from glasses stamped with the likeness of the old dictator, while federal armed armed uniforms are plentiful in the ranks. But El Pagare is a swinging glorious tune, and under the hundreds of little electric light globes strung on the plaza a double procession march gaily round and round. On the outside, in groups of four, went the men, mostly soldiers.

Starting point is 03:52:52 On the inside, in the opposite direction, the girls walked arm and arm. As they passed, they threw handfuls of confetti at one another. They never talked to one another, never stopped, but as a girl caught a man's fancy, he slipped a lover's note into her hand as she went by, and she answered with a smile if she liked him. Thus they met, and later the girl would manage to let the caballero know her address. This would lead to long talks at her window in the darkness, and then they would be lovers. It was a delicate business, this handing of notes. Every man carried a gun, and every man's girl was his jealously guarded property. It was a killing matter to hand a note to someone else's girl.

Starting point is 03:53:35 The close-packed throng moved gaily along, thrilling to the music. Beyond the plaza, gave the ruins of Marcos Rusek's store, which these same men had looted less than two weeks before, and at one side, the ancient pink cathedral towered among its fountains and great trees, with the iron and glass illuminated sign,

Starting point is 03:53:55 Santo Cristo de Burgos, shining above the door. There, at the side of the plaza, I came upon a little, group of five Americans, huddled upon a bench. They were ragged beyond belief, all except a slender youth in leggings and a federal officer's uniform who wore a crownless Mexican hat. Feet protruded from their shoes. None had more than the remnants of socks. All were unshaven. One mere boy wore his arm in a sling made of a torn blanket. They made room for me gladly, stood up,

Starting point is 03:54:28 crowded around, cried how good it was to see another American among all these damn greasers. What are you fellows doing here? I asked. We are soldiers of fortune, said the boy with the wounded arm. Ah, interrupted another. Soldiers of. Ye see as that way, began the soldierly looking youth. We've been fighting right along in the Brigada Zaragoza, was at the Battle of Ohinaga and everything. And now comes in order from VIA to discharge all the Americans in the ranks and ship them back to the border. Ain't that a hell of a note? Last night they gave us our honorable discharges and threw us out of the quartel, said a one-legged man with red hair. And we ain't had any place to sleep and nothing to eat, broke in a little gray-eyed boy whom they called the major.

Starting point is 03:55:20 Don't try and panhandle the guy, rebuked the soldier indignantly. ain't we each going to get 50 mecks in the morning? We adjourned for a short time to a nearby restaurant, and when we returned, I asked them what they were going to do. The old U.S. for mine, breathed the good-looking black Irishman who hadn't spoken before. I'm going back to San Fran and drive a truck again. I'm sick of greasers, bad food, and bad fighting.

Starting point is 03:55:49 I got my two honorable discharges from the United States Army, announced the soldierly youth proudly. Serve through the Spanish war, I did. I'm the only soldier in this bunch. The other sneered and cursed sullenly. Guess I'll re-enlist when I get over the border. Not for mine, said the one-legged man. I'm wanted for two murder charges.

Starting point is 03:56:11 I didn't do it, I swear to God I didn't. It was a frame-up. But a poor guy hasn't got a chance in the United States. When they ain't framing up some fake charge against me, they jail me for a vat. I'm all right, though, he went on earnestly. I'm a hardworking man, only I can't get no job. The major raised his hard little face and cruel eyes.

Starting point is 03:56:33 I got out of a reform school in Wisconsin, he said. And I guess there's some cops waiting for me in El Paso. I always wanted to kill somebody with a gun, and I'd done it at Ohi Naga. And I ain't got a bellyful yet. They told us we could stay if we signed Mech Citizenship Papers. I guess I'll sign tomorrow morning. The hell you will, cried the others. That's a rotten thing to do.

Starting point is 03:57:00 Suppose we get intervention and you have to shoot against your own people. You won't catch me signing myself away to be a greaser. That's easy fix, said the major. When I go back to the states, I leave my name here. I'm going to stay down here till I get enough of a stake to go back to Georgia and start a child labor factory. The other boy had suddenly brought. burst into tears. I got my arm shot through in Ohinaga, he sob, and now they're turning me loose without any money, and I can't work. When I get to El Paso, the cops will jail me, and I have to

Starting point is 03:57:35 write my dad to come and take me home to California. I run away from there last year, he explained. Look here, Major, I advise. You better not stay down here if Via wants Americans out of the ranks. being a Mexican citizen won't help you if intervention comes. Perhaps you're right, agreed the major thoughtfully. Aw, quit your ball and Jack. I guess I'll beat it over to Galveston and get on a South American boat. They say there's a revolution started in Peru. The soldier was about 30, the Irishman 25, and the three others somewhere between 16 and 18.

Starting point is 03:58:14 What did you fellows come down here for? I asked. excitement answered the soldier and the irishman grinning the three boys looked at me with eager earnest faces drawn with hunger and hardship lute they said simultaneously i cast an eye at their dilapidated garments at the throngs of tattered volunteers parading around the plaza who hadn't been paid for three months and restrained a violent impulse to shout with mirth soon i left them hard cold misfits in a passionate country despising the cause of the cause of for which they were fighting, sneering at the gaiety of the irrepressible Mexicans. And as I went away, I said, By the way, what company did you fellows belong to? What did you call yourselves? The red-haired youth answered, the Foreign Legion, he said. I want to say right here that I saw a few soldiers of fortune except one,

Starting point is 03:59:11 and he was a dry-as-dust scientist, studying the action of high explosives and field guns, who would not have been tramps in their own country. It was late at night when I finally got back to the hotel. Donia Luisa went ahead to see to my room, and I stopped a moment in the bar. Two or three soldiers, evidently officers, were drinking there, one pretty far gone. He was a pock-faced man, with a trace of mustache. His eyes couldn't seem to focus. But when he saw me, he began to sing a pleasant little song.

Starting point is 03:59:43 I have a pistol with Monago de Marfil to matter to most gringoes that are in por ferro carillo. I have a pistol with a marble handle with which to kill all the Americans who come by railroad. I thought it diplomatic to leave because you can never tell what a Mexican

Starting point is 04:00:04 will do when he's drunk. His temperament is much too complicated. Donio Luisa was in my room when I got there. With a mysterious finger to her lips, she shut the door and produced from beneath her skirt a last year's copy of the Saturday evening post in an incredible state of disillusion. I got it out of the safe for you, she said. The damn thing's worth more than anything in the house. I've been offered $15 for it by Americans going out to the mines. You see, we haven't had any American magazines in a year now. End of Section 22. Section 23 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Libervox recording.

Starting point is 04:00:54 All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Anne Boulay. Insurgent Mexico by John Reed. Part 3. Jimenez and Points West, Chapter 3. Saved by a wristwatch. After that, what could I do but read the precious magazine, although I had read it before.

Starting point is 04:01:22 I lit the lamp, undressed, and got into bed. Just then came an unsteady step on the gallery outside, and my door was flung violently open. Framed in it stood the pockmarked officer who had been drinking in the bar. In one hand, he carried a big revolver. For a moment he stood blinking at me, malevolently, then stepped inside and closed the door with a bang.

Starting point is 04:01:48 I am Lieutenant Antonio Montoya at your orders, he said. I heard there was a gringo in this hotel, and I have come to kill you. Sit down, said I politely. I saw he was drunkenly in earnest. He took off his hat, bowed politely, and drew up a chair. Then he produced another revolver from beneath his coat and laid them both on the table. They were loaded. Would you like a cigarette?

Starting point is 04:02:16 I offered him the package. He took one, waved it in thanks, and lit it at the lamp. Then he picked up the guns and pointed them both at me. His fingers tightened slowly on the triggers, but relaxed again. I was too far gone to do anything, but just wait. My only difficulty, said he, lowering his weapons, is to determine which revolver I shall use. Pardon me, I quavered, but they both appear a little obsolete.

Starting point is 04:02:47 That Colt 45 is certainly an 1895 model, and as for the Smith and Wesson, between ourselves, it is only a toy. True, he answered, looking at them a little ruefully. If I had only thought, I would have brought my new automatic. My apologies, signor. He sighed and again directed the barrels at my chest, with an expression of calm happiness. However, since it is so, we must make the best of it. I got ready to jump, to duck, to scream. Suddenly his eye fell upon the table where my two-dollar wrist

Starting point is 04:03:24 watch was lying. What is that? he asked. A watch. Eagerly I demonstrated how to fasten it on. Unconsciously, the pistol slowly lowered. With parted lips and absorbed attention, he watched it delightedly, as a child watches the operation of some new mechanical toy. Ah, he breathed. Que ista bonita. How pretty! It is yours, I said, unstrapping it and offering it to him. He looked at the watch, then at me, slowly brightening and glowing with surprise joy.

Starting point is 04:04:00 Into his outstretched hand, I placed it. Reverently, carefully, he adjusted the thing to his hairy wrist. Then he rose, beaming down. upon me. The revolvers fell unnoticed to the floor. Lieutenant Antonio Montoya threw his arms around me. Ah, compadre, he cried emotionally. The next day I met him at Valiante Adiana's store in the town. We sat amicably in the back room, drinking native Aguardiente,

Starting point is 04:04:32 while Lieutenant Montoya, my best friend in the entire constitutionalist army, told me of the hardships and peril. of the campaign. For three weeks now, Maclovio Herrera's brigade had lain at Jimenez under arms, waiting the emergency call for the advance on Torreone. This morning, said Antonio, the constitutionalist spies intercepted a telegram from the federal commander in Zacatecas city to General Velasco and Torreone. He said that upon mature judgment, he had decided that Zucketechus was an easier place to attack than to defend. Therefore, he reported that his plan of campaign was this. Upon the approach of the constitutionalist forces, he intended to evacuate the city and then take it again.

Starting point is 04:05:22 Antonio, I said, I am going a long journey across the desert tomorrow. I am going to drive to Magistral. I need a mozo. I will pay three dollars a week. Stop bueno, cried Lieutenant Montoya. Whatever you wish, so that I can go with my Amigo. But you are on active service, said I. How can you leave your regiment? Oh, that's all right, answered Antonio. I won't say anything about it to my colonel. They don't need me. Why, they've got 5,000 other men here. End of Section 23. Section 24 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Libervox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 04:06:14 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Recording by Anne Boulay. Insurgent Mexico by John Reed. Part 3. Jimenez and Points West, Chapter 4. Symbols of Mexico. In the early dawn, when yet the low gray houses and the dusty trees were stiff with cold, we laid a bullwhip on the backs of our two mules and rattled down the uneven street. of Jimenez and out into the open country. A few soldiers wrapped to the eyes in their serrapes,

Starting point is 04:06:52 dozed beside their lanterns. There was a drunken officer sleeping in the gutter. We drove an ancient buggy whose broken pole was mended with wire. The harness was made of bits of old iron, raw hide and rope. Antonio and I sat side by side upon the seat, and at our feet dozed a dark, serious-minded youth named Primitivo Aguilar. Privativo had been hired to open and shut gates, to tie up the harness when it broke, and to keep watch over wagon and mules at night, because bandits were reported to infest the roads. The country became a vast fertile plain, cut up by irrigating ditches, which were overshadowed by long lines of great Alamo trees, leafless, and gray as ashes. Like a furnace door, the white-hot sun blazed,

Starting point is 04:07:42 upon us and the far-stretching barren fields reeked a thin mist a cloud of white dust moved with us and around us by the church of ascienda san pedro we stopped and dickered with an aged peon for a sack of corn and straw for the mules farther along was an exquisite low building of pink plaster set back from the road in a grove of green willows that said antonio oh that is nothing but a flour mill we had lunch in the long whitewashed dirt-floored room of a peon's house at another great asienda whose name I forget but which I knew have once belonged to Luis Terrazas and was now the confiscated property of the constitutionalist government and that night we made camp beside an irrigation ditch miles from any house in the middle of the abandoned territory after a dinner of chopped-up meat and peppers tortillas beans and black coffee Antonio and I gave Primitivo his instructions. He was to keep watch beside the fire with Antonio's revolver, and, if he heard anything, was to wake us. But on no account was he to go to sleep. If he did, we would kill him. Primitivo said, Yes, signor, very gravely, opened his eyes wide and gripped the pistol. Antonio and I rolled up in our blankets by the fire. I must have gone to sleep at once, because we're When I was wakened by Antonio's rising,

Starting point is 04:09:14 my watch showed only half an hour later. From the place where Primitivo had been placed on guard came a series of hearty snores. The lieutenant walked over to him. Primitivo, he said, no answer. Primitivo, you fool. Our sentinel stirred in his sleep and turned over with noises indicative of comfort.

Starting point is 04:09:36 Primitivo, shouted Antonio, violently kicking him. He gave absolutely no. no response. Antonio drew back and launched a kick at his back that lifted him several feet into the air. With a start, Primitivo woke. He started up alertly, waving the revolver. Kianvieve! cried Primitivo. The next day took us out of the lowlands. We entered the desert, winding over a series of rolling plains, sandy and covered with black mesquite, and here and there an occasional cactus. Now we began to see beside the road those sinister little wooden crosses that the country people erect on the spot where some man died of violent death.

Starting point is 04:10:21 Around the horizon, barren purple mountains hemmed us in. To the right, across a vast dry valley, a white and green and gray hacienda stood like a city. An hour later, we passed the first of those great fortified square ranchos that one comes across once a day, lost in the folds of this tremendous country. Night gathered straight above in the cloudless zenith, while all the skyline still was luminous with clear light, and then the day snuffed out, and stars burst out in the dome of heaven like a rocket. Antonio and Primitivo, in that queer, harsh Mexican harmony, which sounds like nothing so much as a fiddle with frazzled strings, sang Esperanza as we jogged along. It grew cold. For

Starting point is 04:11:08 leagues and leagues around was a blasted land, a country of death. It was hours since we had passed a house. Antonio claimed to know of a waterhole somewhere vaguely ahead, but toward midnight, which was black and without a moon, we discovered that the road upon which we were traveling suddenly petered out in a dense mesquite thicket. Somewhere we had turned off the Camino Real. It was late and the mules were worn out. There seemed nothing for it but a dry. camp, for so far as we knew there was no water anywhere near. Now we had unharnessed the mules and fed them, and were lighting our fire, when somewhere in the dense thicket of chaparral, stealthy footsteps sounded.

Starting point is 04:11:53 They moved to space, and then were still. Our little blaze of greasewood crackled fiercely, lighting up a leaping growing radius of about ten feet. Beyond that, all was black. Primitivo made one backward leap into the sheltering, of the wagon. Antonio drew his revolver, and we froze beside the fire. The sound came again. Who lives? said Antonio. There was a little shuffling noise out in the brush, and then a voice. What party are you? It asked hesitantly.

Starting point is 04:12:27 Madaristas, answered Antonio. Pass. Is it safe for pacificos? queried the invisible one. On my word, I cried. Come out that we may see you. At that very moment, two vague shapes materialized on the edge of the firelight glow, almost without a sound. Two peons, we saw as soon as they came close, wrapped tightly in their torn blankets. One was an old, wrinkled, bent man, wearing homemade sandals, his trousers hanging in rags upon his shrunken legs, the other of very tall, barefooted youth, with a face so pure and so simple as to almost verge on idiocy. Friendly, warm as sunlight, eagerly curious as children,

Starting point is 04:13:13 they came forward, holding out their hands. We shook hands with each of them in turn, greeting them with elaborate Mexican courtesy. Good evening, friend. How are you? Very well, Grazie, and you? Well, gracias. And how are all your people? Well, thanks. And yours? Well, thanks. What have you, of new here. Nada. Nothing. And you? Nothing.

Starting point is 04:13:40 Sit down. Oh, thanks, but I am well standing. Sit down, sit down. A thousand thanks. Excuse us for a moment. They smiled and faded away once more into the thicket. In a minute they reappeared, with great armfuls of dried mesquite branches for our fire.

Starting point is 04:14:00 We are rancheros, said the elder bowing. We keep a few goats, and our houses are at your orders, and our carouse for your mules, and our small stock of corn. Our ranchitos are very near here in the mesquite. We are very poor men, but we hope you will do us the honor of accepting our hospitality. It was an occasion for tact. A thousand times many thanks, said Antonio politely, but we are, unfortunately, in great haste and must leave early.

Starting point is 04:14:31 We would not like to disturb your household at that hour. They protested that their families in their houses were entirely ours to be used as we saw fit with the greatest delight on their part. I do not remember how we finally managed to evade the invitation without wounding them, but I do recall that it took half an hour of courteous talking. For we knew, in the first place, that we would be unable to leave for hours in the morning if we accepted, because Mexican manners are that haste to leave a house signifies dissoninginges, satisfaction with the entertainment, and then two, one could not pay for one's lodging, but would have to bestow a handsome present upon the host, which we could none of us afford. At first they politely refused our invitation to dine, but after much urging, we finally persuaded them to accept a few tortillas and Chile. It was ludicrous and pitiful to see how wretchedly hungry

Starting point is 04:15:28 they were, and how they attempted to conceal it from us. After dinner, when they had brought us a bucket of water, out of sheer kindly thoughtfulness, they stood for a while by our fire, smoking our cigarettes, and holding out their hands to the blaze. I remember how their serapes hung from their shoulders, open in front so the grateful warmth could reach their thin bodies, and how gnarled and ancient were the old man's outstretched hands, and how the ruddy light glowed upon the other's throat, and kindled fires in his big eyes. Around them stretched the desert, held off only by our fire, ready to spring in upon us when it should die. Above the great stars would not dim.

Starting point is 04:16:13 Coyotes wails somewhere out beyond the firelight, like demons in pain. I suddenly conceived these two human beings as symbols of Mexico, courteous, loving, patient, poor, so long slaves, so full of dreams, so soon to be free. When we saw your wagon coming here, said the old man smiling, our hearts sank within us we thought you were soldiers come perhaps to take away our last few goats so many soldiers have come in the last few years so many it is mostly the federals the maderistas do not come unless they are hungry themselves poor maderistas ay said the young man my brother that i love very much died in the eleven days fighting around torreon thousands have died in mexico and still more than the young man my brother that i love very much died in the eleven days fighting around torreon thousands have died in mexico and still more four thousands shall fall. Three years. It is long for war in a land. Too long. The old man murmured. Malgame Dios, and shook his head. But there shall come a day. It is said, remarked the old man

Starting point is 04:17:19 quaveringly, that the United States of the North covets our country, that gringo soldiers will come and take away my goats in the end. That is a lie, exclaimed the other animated. It is the rich Americanos who want to rob us. Just as the rich Mexicans want to rob us. It is the rich all over the world who want to rob the poor. The old man shivered and drew his wasted body nearer to the fire. I have often wondered, he said mildly, why the rich, having so much, wants so much.

Starting point is 04:17:52 The poor having nothing wants so very little, just a few goats. His compadere lifted his chin like a noble, smiling gently. I have never been out of this little country here, not even to Jimenez, he said, but they tell me that there are many rich lands to the north and south and east, but this is my land and I love it. For the years of me and my father and my grandfather, the rich men have gathered the corn and held it in their clenched fists before our mouths, and only blood will make them open their hands to their brothers. The fire died down. At his post slept the alert, Tivo, Antonio stared into the embers, a faint glorified smile upon his mouth, his eyes shining like stars.

Starting point is 04:18:39 Adio, he said suddenly, as one who sees a vision. When we get into Mexico City, what a baile shall be held. How drunk I shall get! End of Section 24. Section 25 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Insurgent Mexico by John Reed Part 4 A People in Arms Chapter 1

Starting point is 04:19:22 On Tutorion At Yermot, there is nothing but leagues and leagues of sandy desert sparsely covered with scrubby mesquite and dwarf cactus, stretching away on the west to jagged tawny mountains, and on the east to a quivering skyline of plain. A battered water tank, with two little dirty alkali water, a demolished railway station shot to pieces by Orozcos Cannon two years before, and a switch track composed the town.

Starting point is 04:19:53 There is no water to speak of for 40 miles. There is no grass for animals. For three months in the spring, bitter parching winds drive the yellow dust across it. Along the single track in the middle of the dead, desert lay ten enormous trains, pillars of fire by night and of black smoke by day, stretching back northward farther than the eye could reach. Around them, in the chaperow, camped nine thousand men without shelter. Each man's horse tied to the mesquite beside him, where hung his one serrape and red strips

Starting point is 04:20:27 of drying meat. From fifty cars, horses and mules were being unloaded. Covered with sweat and dust, a ragged trooper plunged into a, a cattle car among the flying hooves, swung himself upon a horse's back, and jabbed his spurs deep in with a yell. Then came a terrific drumming of frightened animals, and suddenly a horse shot violently from the open door, usually backward, and the car belched flying masses of horses and mules. Picking themselves up, they fled and tear, snorting through wide nostrils at the smell of the open. Then the wide, washful circle of troopers turned Vacheros lifted great

Starting point is 04:21:06 coils of their lassoos through the choking dust, and the running animals swirled round and round upon one another in a panic. Officers, orderlies, generals with their staves, soldiers with halters, hunting for their mounts, galloped and ran past an inextricable confusion. Bucking mules were being harnessed to the caissons. Troopers who had arrived on the last trains wandered about looking for their brigades. Way ahead some men were shooting at a rabbit. From the tops of the box cars and the flat cars, where they were camped by hundreds, the soldaderas and their half-naked swarms of children looked down, screaming shrill advice and asking everybody in general if they had happened to see Juan Moneros, or Jesus Hernandez, or whatever the name of their man happened to be.

Starting point is 04:21:50 One man trailing a rifle wandered along, shouting that he had had nothing to eat for two days, and he couldn't find his woman who made his tortillas for him, and he opined that she had deserted him to go with some of another brigade. The woman on the roofs of the cars said, Vagame, Dios! And shrugged their shoulders. Then they dropped him down some three days old tortillas and asked him for the love he bore Our Lady of Guadalupe

Starting point is 04:22:15 to lend them a cigarette. A clamorous, dirty throng stormed the engine of our train, screaming for water. When the engineer stood them off with a revolver, telling them there was plenty of water in the water train, they broke away and aimlessly scattered, while a fresh throng took their places. Around the twelve immense tank cars,

Starting point is 04:22:36 a fighting mass of men and animals struggled for a place at the little faucets ceaselessly pouring. Above the place, a mighty cloud of dust, seven miles long and a mile wide, towered up into the still hot air, and, with the black smoke of the engines,

Starting point is 04:22:52 struck wonder and tear into the federal outpost fifty miles away on the mountain's back of Mapimi. When Ville left Chihuahua-Fatorion, He closed the telegraph wires to the north, stopped train service to Juarez, and forbade on pain of death that anyone should carry or send news of his departure to the United States. His object was to take the Federals by surprise,

Starting point is 04:23:14 and it worked beautifully. No one, not even via staff, knew when he would leave Juawa. The army had delayed there so long that we all believed it would delay another two weeks. And then Saturday morning we woke to find the telegraph and railway cut. and three huge trains carrying the brigada gonzalez otega already gone the zaragoza left the next day and via his own troops the following morning moving with the swiftness that always characterizes him via had his entire army concentrated at yermo the day afterward without the federals knowing that he had left chihuahua there was a mob around the portable field telegraph that had been rigged up in the ruined station inside the instrument was clicking soldiers and officers indiscriminately choked up the windows in the door and every once in a while the operator would shout something in spanish and a perfect roar of laughter would go up

Starting point is 04:24:10 it seemed that the telegraph had accidentally tapped a wire that had not been destroyed by the federals a wire that connected with the federal military wire from mappimi to listen cried the operator colonel argmedo in command of the cabesillos coloradoes in mappimi is telegraphing to general velasco and torreon he says that he sees smoke and a big dust cloud to the north and he thinks that some rebel troops are moving south from escalon night came with a cloudy sky and a rising wind that began to lift the dust along the miles and miles of trains the fires of the soldareros flared from the tops of the freight cars out into the desert so far that finally there were mere pinpoints of flames stretched the innumerable campfires of the army, half obscured by the thick, billowing dust. The storm completely concealed us from federal watchers. Even God, remarked Major Leva. Even God is on the side of Francisco Villa.

Starting point is 04:25:10 We sat at dinner in our converted box car, with young, great-limbed expressionless General Maximo Garcia and his brother, the even huge or red-faced Benito Garcia, and little major manuel a costa with the beautiful manners of his race garcia had long been holy in the advance at escalon he and his brothers one of whom jose garcia the idol of the army had been killed in battle but a short four years ago were wealthy hasandados owners of immense tracts of land they had come out with madero i remember that he brought us a jug of whisky and refused to discuss the revolution declaring that he was fighting for better whisky As I write this comes a report that he is dead from a bullet wound received in the Battle of Sacramento. Out in the dust storm, on a flat car immediately ahead of ours, some soldiers lay around their fire with their heads in their woman's laps singing, The Cacroach, which tells in hundreds of satirical verses what the constitutionalists would do

Starting point is 04:26:09 when they captured Juarez and Chihuahua from Mercado and Orozco. Above the wind, one was aware of the immense sullen murmur of the host, and occasionally some sentry challenged in a falsetto howl. And the answer, Diapas! What people? Chao! Through the night sounded the eerie whistle of the ten locomotives at intervals,

Starting point is 04:26:34 as they signaled back and forth to one another. End of Section 25. Recording by Jeff Yale. www. jeff yell.com Section 26 of Insurgent Mexico This is a Libravox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibraVox.org.

Starting point is 04:27:08 Insurgent Mexico by John Reed. Part 4. A People in Arms Chapter 2. The Army at Yermot At dawn the next morning, General Torribio Ortega came to the car for breakfast. A lean, dark Mexican, who is called the Honorable and the Most Brave by the Soldiers. He is by far the most simple-hearted and disinterested soldier in Mexico. He never kills his prisoners. He has refused to take assent from the revolution beyond his meeker salary.

Starting point is 04:27:42 Via respects and trusts him, perhaps, beyond all his generals. Ortega was a poor man, a cowboy. He sat there with his elbows on the table, forgetting his breakfast. His big eyes flashing, smiling his gentle, crooked smile, and told us why he was fighting. I am not an educated man, he said. But I know that to fight is the last thing for any people. Only when things get too bad to stand, eh? And if we are going to kill our brothers, something fine must come out of it, eh?

Starting point is 04:28:17 You in the United States do not know what we have seen, we Mexicans? We have looked on at the robbing of our people, the simple, poor people for 35 years, eh? We have seen the Rurales and the soldiers of Porfirio Diaz shoot down our brothers and our fathers, and justice denied to them. We have seen our little fields taken away from us, and all of us sold into slavery, eh?

Starting point is 04:28:46 We have longed for our homes and for schools to teach us, and they have laughed at us. all we ever wanted was to be let alone to live and to work and make our country great and we are tired tired and sick of being cheated outside in the dust that whirled along under a sky of driving clouds long lines of soldiers on horseback stood in the obscurity while their officers passed along in front peering closely at cartridge belts and rifles geronimo said a captain to one trooper go back to the ammunition train and fill up the gaps in your cartushera you fool you've been wasting your cartridges shooting coyotes across the desert westward toward the distant mountains rode strings of cavalry the first to the front about a thousand went in ten different lines diverging like wheel spokes and the jingle of their spurs ringing their red white and green flags floating straight out crossed banduleers gleamed dully rifles flopping across their saddles heavy high sombreros and many colored blankets behind each company plotted ten or twelve women on foot carrying cooking utensils on their heads and backs and perhaps a pack-mule loaded with sacks of corn and as they passed the cars they shouted back to their friends on the trains poeco time california cried one oh there's a colorado for you yelled another

Starting point is 04:30:15 I'll bet you were with Salazar in Orosco's Revolution. Nobody ever said Poco Tiempo, California, except Salazar when he was drunk. The other man looked cheapish. Well, maybe I was, he admitted. But wait till I get a shot at my old Campaneros. I'll show you whether I'm a Marorista or not. A little Indian in the rear cried. I know how much of a Matarista you are, Luicito.

Starting point is 04:30:42 At the first taking of Torillon, Vee gave you the choice of turning your coat or getting a cabronassso or ballazzo through the head. And joshing and singing, they jogged southwest, became small, and finally faded into the dust. Vee himself stood leaning against a car, hands in his pockets. He wore an old slouch hat, a dirty shirt without a collar, and a badly frayed and shiny brown suit. all over the dusty plain in front of him men and horses had sprung up like magic there was an immense confusion of saddling and bridling a cracked blowing of tin bugles The Brigada Zaragoza was getting ready to leave camp, a flanking column of two thousand men who were to ride southeast and attack Tuahuiloh and Sacramento.

Starting point is 04:31:33 Via, it seemed, had just arrived at Yermo. He had stopped off Monday night at Camarago to attend the wedding of a compadre. His face was drawn into lines of fatigue. Karamba, he was saying with a grin. We started dancing Monday evening, danced all night, all the next day, and last night too. What a baile!

Starting point is 04:31:56 And what muchas! The girls of Camargo and Santa Rosalia are the most beautiful in Mexico. I am worn out. Rendido! It was harder work than twenty battles. Then he listened to the report of some staff officer who dashed up on horseback,

Starting point is 04:32:14 gave a concise order without hesitating, and the officer rode off. He told Signor Calzado, general manager of the railroad, in what order the train should proceed south. He indicated to Signor Uro, the quartermaster general, what supplies should be distributed from the troop trains. To Signor Munoz, director of the telegraph,

Starting point is 04:32:36 he gave the name of a federal captain surrounded by Urbina's men a week before, and killed with all his men in the hills near La Cadeña, and ordered him to tap the federal wire and send a message to General Velasco in Torreon, purporting to be a report from his captain. from Conejos and asking for orders. He seemed to know and order everything. We had lunch with General Eugenio Aguirre Benevides, the quiet, cross-eyed little commander of the Zaragoza Brigade,

Starting point is 04:33:05 a member of one of the cultivated Mexican families that gathered around Madero in the First Revolution, with Raul Madero, brother of the murdered president, second in command of the brigade, who was a graduate of an American university and looks like a Wall Street bond salesman, with colonel guera who went through cornel a major leva ortega's nephew a historic fullback on the notre dame football team in a great circle ready for action the artillery was parked with caissons open and mules corralled in the centre colonel servin commander of the guns sat perched high up on an immense bay horse a ridiculous tiny figure not more than five feet tall he was waving his hand and shouting a greeting across to general anhele

Starting point is 04:33:51 Carranza's Secretary of War, a tall gaunt man, bareheaded in a brown sweater with a war map of Mexico hanging from his shoulder, who straddle a small burrow. In the thick dust clouds, sweating men labored. The five American artillery men had squatted down in the lee of a cannon smoking. They hailed me with a shout. Say, Bo! What in the hell did we ever get into this mess for? Nothing to eat since last night. Worked twelve hours. say take her pictures will you there passed by with a friendly nod the little cockney soldier that had served with kitchener and then the canadian captain treston bawling for his interpreter so that he could give his men some orders about the machine guns and captain marinelli the fat italian soldier of fortune pouring an interminable and unintelligible mixture of french spanish and italian into the ear of a bored mexican officer fiero rode by cruelly rowling his horse whirro roveling his horse with his horse with the bloody mouth, Fierro, the handsome, cruel, and insolent, the butcher they called him, because he killed defenseless prisoners with his revolver, and shot down his own men without provocation.

Starting point is 04:35:04 Late in the afternoon, the Brigada Zaragoza rode away southeast over the desert, and another night came down. The wind rose steadily in the darkness, growing colder and colder. Looking up at the sky, which had been ablazed with polished stars, I saw that all was dark with cloud. through the roaring whirls of dust a thousand thin lines of sparks from the fires streamed southward the coaling of the engine's fire-boxes made sudden glares along the miles of trains at first we thought we heard the sound of big guns in the distance but all at once unexpectedly the sky split dazzlingly open from horizon to horizon thunder fell like a blow and the rain came level and thick as a flood for a moment the human hum of the army was silenced all the fires disappeared at once and then came a vast shout of anger and laughter and discomfiture from the soldiers out on the plain and the most amazing wail of misery from the women that i have ever heard the two sounds only lasted a minute the men wrapped themselves in their serrapes and sank down in the shelter of the chaparral and the hundreds of women and children exposed to the cold and the rain on the flat cars and the tops of the box cars silently and with indian stoicism settled down to wait for dawn in general maclovio horace car ahead was drunk in laughter and singing to a guitar daybreak came with a sound of all the bugles and the world blowing and looking out of the car door i saw the desert for miles boiling with armed men saddling and mounting a hot sun popped over the westward

Starting point is 04:36:41 mountains burning in a clear sky for a moment the ground poured up billowing steam and then there was dust again and a thirsty land there might never have been rain a hundred breakfast fires smoked from the car tops and the women stood turning their dresses slowly in the sun chattering and joking hundreds of little naked babies danced around while their mothers lifted up their little clothes to the heat a thousand joyous troopers shouted to each other that the advance was beginning A way off to the left, some regiment had given away to joy, and was shooting into the air. Six more long trains had come in during the night, and all the engines were whistling signals. I went forward to get on the first train out, and as I passed the car of Trinidad Rodriguez, a harsh, feminine voice cried, "'Hey, kid, come in and get some breakfast!' Leaning out of the door were Beatrice and Carmen.

Starting point is 04:37:37 Two noted Juarez women that had been brought to the front by the Rodriguez brothers, I went in and sat down at the table with about twelve men, several of them doctors in the hospital train, one French artillery captain and an assortment of Mexican officers and privates. It was an ordinary freight boxcar, like all the private cars, with windows cutting the walls, partitions built to shut out the Chinese cook in the kitchen, and bunks arranged across sides and end. breakfast consisted of heaping platters of red meat with Chile, bowls of frioles, stacks of cold flour patillas, and six bottles of Monopoly Champagne. Carmen's complexion was bad, and she was a little stupid from the gastronomic combination, but Beatrice's white, culless face and red hair-cut buster-brown fashion fairly radiated a sort of malicious glee. She was a Mexican, but talked tenderloin English without an accent. Jumping up from the table, she danced around it, pulling the men's hair. "'Hello, you damn gringo,' she laughed at me.

Starting point is 04:38:43 "'What are you doing here? You're going to get a bullet in if you don't get careful.' A morose young Mexican, already a little drunk, snapped at her furiously in Spanish. "'Don't you talk to him? Do you understand? I'll tell Trinidad how you asked the gringo in to breakfast, and he'll have you shot.' beatrice threw back her head and roared did you hear what he said he thinks he owns me because he once stayed with me in huarez my god she went on how funny it seems to travel on the railroad and not have to buy a ticket look here beatrice i asked her we may not have such an easy time of it down there what will you do if we get licked who me she cried why i guess it won't take me long to get friends in the federal army i'm a good mixer What is she saying? What do you say? asked the others in Spanish. With the most perfect insolence Beatrice translated for them, and in the midst of the uproar that followed, I left.

Starting point is 04:39:44 End of Section 26. Recording by Jeff Yale. www. jeff yellvoice.com Section 27 of Insurgent, Mexico. This is a Librevox recording. All Libre Rock's recordings are in the public to mine. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox, George Orr. Recording by April Gonzalez

Starting point is 04:40:15 Insurgent Mexico by Jean Reeb. Part 4 A People in Arms Chapter 3 First Blood The water train pulled out first. I rode in a cow-catcher of the engine, which was already occupied with a permanent home to two women and five children. they had built a little fire of mesquite twigs on a narrow iron platform and were baking tortillas there over their heads against the windier-row of the boiler fluttered a little line if you are so

Starting point is 04:40:48 it was a brilliant eye hot sunshine octonating with big white clouds in two thick columns worn on each side of the train the army was already moving south as far as your eye could reach a mighty double cloud of dust floated over them and little straggling groups of mountain men jogged along with every now and then a big mexican flag between slowly moved the trains the pillars of black smoke from the engines irregular intervals growing smaller until over the northern horizon only a dirty mis appeared i went down into the caboose to get the drink of water and there found the conductor of the train lying in his bunk reading the bible he was so interested and amused that he didn't notice me for a minute. When he did, he cried delightedly. Oiga, I found a great story about a chap called Samson, who was my hombre, a good deal of a man and his woman. She was a Spaniard, I guess, from the main trick she played on him. He started out being a good revolutionist, a maderista, and she made felon,

Starting point is 04:41:56 means literally crop head. And it's a long term for a federal soldier, because the federal army is largely recruited from the prisons. Our advance guard, where the telegraph field operator, had gone on to Conejos the night before, and they met the train the great excitement. The first blood of the campaign had been spilt.

Starting point is 04:42:18 A few Colorado scouting northward from Bromehielio had been surprised and killed just behind the shoulder of the big mountain, which lies to the east. The telegrapher also had news. He had again topped the federal wire, and sent to the federal commander to torreon signing the dead captain's name and asking for orders since a large force of rebels seems to be approaching from the north general velasca replied that the captain should halt gunnejos and throw outpost to the north to try and discover how large the force was at the same time the telegrapher had heard a message from argonedo in command at mappini saying that the entire north of mexico was coming down on torion together with gringo army connohurst was just like yerma except that there was no water tank a thousand men with the white-bedded old general rosalia hernandez riding ahead went out almost at once

Starting point is 04:43:18 and the repair train followed them few miles to replace where the federals had burned two railroads bridges a few months before out beyond the last little bevoque of the inn meyenne's army spread around us the desert slept silently in the heat waves There was no wind. The men gathered with their women on the flat cars, guitars came out, and all night hundreds of seeing voices came from the trains. The next morning I went to see Villiers in his car. There was a red caboose with a chintz curtains in the windows, the famous little caboes which Villiers had used in all this journey since the fall of Juarez. It was divided by partitions into two rooms,

Starting point is 04:43:59 the kitchen and the Grinerap's bedroom. This tiny room, ten-bed, by twenty feet as to heart a constitution of his army. They were held all the councils of war, and there was casually room enough of fifteen generals who met there. In these councils, the vital immediate questions of the campaign were discussed. The general decided what was to be done, and then Willa gave his orders to suit himself.

Starting point is 04:44:26 It was painted a dirty grey, all the walls were to attack photographs of showy ladies in theatrical poses, a large picture of Caranza, one of Fierro, and a picture of Villa himself. Two double-wood wooden bunk folded up against the wall, in one of which Villar and General Angelus left, and in the other, Husserodriguez, and Dr. Rashbane, Vilia's personal physician. That was all.

Starting point is 04:44:54 What do you want? said Villar, sitting on the end of the bunk in Ben and their clothes, The troopers who launch around the place lazily made way for me. I want a horse. With hand tral. Katrae, our friend, here, wants a horse. Greenville sarcastically amid a burst of laughter from the others. Why, your correspondence will be waiting on an automobile next?

Starting point is 04:45:20 Oiga, senior reporter. Do you know that about a thousand men in my army have no horses? Here's the train. What do you want for a horse? So I can ride with advance. no he smiled there are too many balasasas too many bullets flying in advance he was hurrying into his clothes as he talked and gulping coffee from the side of the dirty tin coffee-pot somebody handed him his gold-handled sort no he said contemptuously this is to be a fight not a parade give you my rifle he suited the door of his caboose for a moment talkfully looking at the long lines of mountain men picture as in a cross-cartridge belt and varied equipment then he gave a quick few orders and mounted his big stallion vamo nos cried The bugle sprayed and the subject silver-clicking ringing sounded,

Starting point is 04:46:17 as their company's wheeled and shot it southward in their dust. And so the army disappeared. During the day, we thought we had canadading, from the southwis where Urbina was reported to be coming down from the mountains to attack Mapimi. And late in the afternoon news came of the capture of Bemahilio, and a choreo from Benavides said that he had taken Clowalillo. We were in a fever and patience to be off. About sundown, Signor,

Starting point is 04:46:44 remarked the repair train would leave in an hour, so we'll grab a blanket and walk a mile up with the line of trains to it. End of Section 27. Recording by April Gonzalez in Cavita, Philippines. Section 28 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.

Starting point is 04:47:19 Cunningham. Insurgent Mexico by John Reed. Part 4. People in Arms, Chapter 4, On the Cannon Car. The first car of the repair train was a steel-en-en-cased flat car, upon which was mounted the famous constitutionalist canon El Nino, with an open cason full of shells behind it. Behind that was an armored car full of soldiers, then a car of steel. Then a car of steel. steel rails, and four loaded with railroad ties. The engine came next. The engineer and firemen hung with cartridge belts, their rifles handy. Then followed two or three box cars full of soldiers and their women. It was a dangerous business. A large force of Federals were known to be in Mapimi, and the country swarmed with their outposts. Our army was already far ahead,

Starting point is 04:48:15 except for 500 men who guarded the trains at Conejos. If the enemy could capture or wreck the repair train, the army would be cut off without water, food, or ammunition. In the darkness, we moved out. I sat upon the breach of El Nino, chatting with Captain Diaz, the commander of the gun, as he oiled the breech lock of his beloved cannon, and curled his vertical moustachios. In the armored recess behind the gun, where the captain slept,

Starting point is 04:48:45 I heard a curious, subdued, rustling noise. What's that? Eh? cried he nervously. Oh, nothing, nothing. Just then there emerged a young Indian girl with a bottle in her hand. She couldn't have been more than seventeen, very lovely. The captain shot a glance at me, and suddenly whirled around.

Starting point is 04:49:08 What are you doing here? He cried furiously to her. Why are you coming out here? I thought you said you wanted a drink, she began. I perceived that I was one too many and excused myself. They hardly noticed me. But as I was climbing over the back of the car, I couldn't help stopping and listening.

Starting point is 04:49:27 They had gone back to the recess, and she was weeping. Didn't I tell you, stormed the captain, not to show yourself when there are strangers here? I will not have every man in Mexico looking at you. I stood on the roof of the rocking steel car, as we nosed slowly along. lying on their bellies on the extreme front platform two men with lanterns examined each foot of the track for wires that might mean mines planted under us beneath my feet the soldiers and their women were having dinner around fires built on the floor smoke and laughter poured out of the loopholes there were other fires aft brown-faced ragged people squatting at them on the car tops overhead the sky-blazed stars without a cloud

Starting point is 04:50:15 It was cold. After an hour of riding, we came to a piece of broken track. The train stopped with ajar. The engine whistled, and a score of torches and lanterns jerked past. Men came running. The flares clustered bobbing together as the foreman examined the damage. A fire sprang up in the brush, and then another. Soldiers of the train guard straggled by, dragging their rifles,

Starting point is 04:50:41 and formed impenetrable walls around the fires. iron tools clanged and the way hoi of men shoving rails off the flat-core a chinese dragon of workmen passed with a rail on their shoulders then others with ties four hundred men swarmed upon the broken spot working with extraordinary energy and good humor until the shouts of gangs setting rails and ties and the rattle of sledges on spikes made a continuous roar it was an old destruction probably a year old made when these same constitutionalists were retreating north in the face of mercado's federal army and we had it all fixed in an hour then on again sometimes it was a bridge burned out sometimes a hundred yards of track twisted into grape-vines by a chain and a backing engine we advanced slowly at one big bridge that it would take two hours to prepare i build a little i built by myself a little fire in order to get warm calzado came past and hailed me we've got a hand-car up ahead he said and we're going along down and see the dead men want to come what dead men why this morning an outpost of eighty rarales was sent scouting north from the bermejillo we heard about it over the wire and informed benavides on the left he sent a troop to take them in the rear and drove them north in a running fight for fifteen miles until they smashed up against our main body, and not one got out alive.

Starting point is 04:52:16 They're scattered along the whole way just where they fell. In a moment we were speeding south on the hand car. At our right hand and our left rode two silent, shadowy figures on horseback, cavalry guards, with rifles ready under their arms. Soon the flares and fires of the train were left behind, and we were enveloped and smothered in the vast silence of the desert. Yes, said Calzado. the rurales are brave they are mui ombres rurales are the best fighters deis and huerta ever had they never desert to the revolution they always remain loyal to the established government because they are the police

Starting point is 04:52:57 it was bitter cold none of us talked much we go ahead of the train at night said the soldier at my left so that if there are any dynamite bombs underneath we could discover them and dig them out of them out of the train at night said the soldier at my left so that if there are any dynamite bombs underneath we could discover them and dig them out and put water in them. Caramba, said another sarcastically. The rest laughed. I began to think of that, and it made me shiver. The dead silence of the desert seemed an expectant hush. One couldn't see ten feet from the track. Oiga! shouted one of the horsemen.

Starting point is 04:53:31 It was just here that one lay. The brakes ground, and we tumbled off and down the steep embankment, our lanterns jerking ahead. something lay huddled around the foot of a telegraph pole, something infinitely small and shabby, like a pile of old clothes. The Rurale was upon his back, twisted sideways from his hips. He had been stripped of everything of value by the thrifty rebels, shoes, hat, underclothing. They had left him his ragged jacket with the tarnished silver braid because there were seven bullet holes in it, and his trousers soaked with blood. He had evidently been much bigger. He had evidently been much bigger,

Starting point is 04:54:10 when alive. The dead shrink so. A wild red beard made the pallor of his face grotesque until you noticed that under it and the dirt and the long lines of sweat of his terrible fight in hard riding, his mouth was gently and serenely open as if he slept. His brains had been blown out. "'Caray,' said one guard. "'There was a shot for the dirty goat, right through the head.' The others laughed. why you don't think they shot him there in the fight do you pendejo cried his companion no they always go around and make sure afterward hurry up i found the other shouted a voice off in the darkness we could reconstruct this man's last struggle he had dropped off his horse wounded for there was blood on the ground into a little dry oroyo we could even see where his horse had stood while he pumped shells into his mouser with fever first hands, and blazed away first to the rear, where the pursuers came running with

Starting point is 04:55:13 Indian yells, and then at the hundreds and hundreds of bloodthirsty horsemen pouring down from the north, with the demon Poncho Villa at their head. He must have fought a long time, perhaps until they ringed him round with living flame, for we found hundreds of empty cartridges. And then, when the last shot was spent, he made a dash eastward, hid at every step, hid for a moment under the little railroad bridge, and ran out upon the open desert where he fell. There were twenty bullet holes in him. They had stripped him of all save his underclothes. He lay sprawled in an attitude of desperate action, muscles tense, one fist clenched and spread across the dust as if he were dealing a blow, the fiercest, exultant grin on his face.

Starting point is 04:56:03 Strong, savage, until one looked closer, and saw the subtle touch of weakness, that death stamps on life, the delicate expression of idiocy over it all. They had shot him through the head three times, how exasperated they must have been, crawling south through the cold night once more, a few miles and then a bridge dynamited, or a strip of track wrecked, the stop, the dancing torches, the great bonfires leaping up from the desert, and the four hundred wild men pouring furiously out and falling upon their work. Via had given orders to hurry. About two o'clock in the morning I came upon two soldaderas squatting around a fire, and asked them if they could give me tortillas and coffee.

Starting point is 04:56:51 One was an old, gray-haired Indian woman with a perpetual grin, the other a slight girl, not more than twenty years old, who was nursing a four-months baby at her breast. They were perched at the extreme tip of a flat car, their fire built upon a pile of sand as the train jolted and swayed along. Around them, backed against them, feet sticking out between them, was a great inconglomerate mass of sleeping, snoring humans. The rest of the train was by this time dark. This was the only patch of light and warmth in the night. As I munched my tortilla, and the old woman lifted a burning coal in her fingers to light her cornhusk cigarette, wondering where her Pablo's brigade was this night, and the girl nursed her child crooning to it, her blue enameled earrings

Starting point is 04:57:40 twinkling. We talked. Ah, it is a life for us, viejas, said the girl. Adio, but we follow our men out in the campaign, and then we do not know from hour to hour whether they live or die. I remember well when Philadelpho called me one morning in the little morning before it was light. We lived in Pachuca, and said, Come, we are going out to fight because the good Pancho Medero has been murdered this day. We had only been loving each other eight months, too, and the first baby was not born. We had all believed that peace was in Mexico for good.

Starting point is 04:58:17 Philadelpho saddled the borough, and we rode out through the streets just as light was coming, and into the fields where the farmers were not yet at work, and I said, Why must I come? And he answered, shall I starve then? Who shall make my tortillas for me, but my woman? It took us three months to get north,

Starting point is 04:58:36 and I was sick, and the baby was born in a desert just like this place, and died there because we could not get water. That was when Via was going north after he had taken Torillon. The old woman broke in. Yes, and all that is true. When we go so far and suffer so much for our men,

Starting point is 04:58:55 we are cruelly treated by the stupid animals of general, I am from San Luis Potosi, and my man was in the artillery of the Federation when Mercado came north. All the way to Chihuahua we traveled, the old fool of a Mercado grumbling about transporting the Fiejas. And then he ordered his army to go north and attack Via in Juarez, and he forbade the women to go. Is that the way you are going to do, disgracado? I said to myself. And when he evacuated Chihuahua and ran away with my man, To Ohinaga, I just stayed right in Chihuahua and got a man in the Madarista army when it came in. A nice, handsome young fellow, too, much better than Juan.

Starting point is 04:59:39 I'm not a woman to stand being put upon. How much are the tortillas and coffee, I asked. They looked at each other startled. Evidently, they had thought me one of the penniless soldiers crowded on the train. What you would like, said the young woman faintly. I gave them a peso. the old woman exploded in a torrent of prayer god his sainted mother the blessed ninio and our lady of wual lupe have sent this stranger to us to-night here we had not a centavo to buy coffee and flower with i suddenly noticed that the light of our fire had paled and looked up in amazement to find it was dawn just then a man came running along the train from up front shouting something unintelligible while after in shouts burst out in his wake

Starting point is 05:00:26 the sleepers raised their curious heads and wanted to know what was the matter in a moment our inanimate car was alive the man passed still yelling something about padre his face exultant was some tremendous joke what is it i asked "'Oh!' cried the old woman. "'His woman on the car ahead has just had a baby. "'Just in front of us lay Burmajillo, "'its pink and blue and white plastered adobe houses "'as delicate and ethereal as a village of porcelain. "'To the east, across a still dustless desert, "'a little file of sharp-cut horsemen,

Starting point is 05:01:03 "'with a red, white, and green flag over them, "'we're riding into town. "'Eend of Section 28, recording by Patty Cunningham Section 29 of Insurgent Mexico This is a Libervox recording All Libervox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer

Starting point is 05:01:30 Please visit Libervox.org Insurgent Mexico by John Reed Part 4 A People in Arms Chapter 5 at the gates of Gomez We had taken Burmaquillo 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 route southward, a running fight that lasted five miles as far as the hacienda of Santa Clara,

Starting point is 05:02:02 and killing 106 Colorado. Within a few hours afterward, Urbina came in sight above Mapini, and the 800 Colorado's 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 Recueros of Durango, to which I had so often bilayed with the tropa.

Starting point is 05:02:43 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, Hubert Patricio, General Urbina's fighting stage-driver, at whose side I had so often ridden and danced. He threw his arms around me, yelling,

Starting point is 05:03:05 Juanito! Here is Juanito, me 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 Seannes, and Raphaelito? And right in the midst of it, somebody shouted, Viva Rubina! And the old general himself stood at the top of the steps,

Starting point is 05:03:31 the lion-hearted hero of Durango. He was lame and leaned upon two soldiers. He held a rifle on his hand. an old discarded spring-filled 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 me and you've come down to torreon to run again when i began to run from la cadena i remarked nettled dom petronila 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 companionro he said across the desert the wounded had begun to strangle in from the battle of tillawah wahilo to the the hospital train, which lay far up near the front of the line of trains. On the flat barren plain,

Starting point is 05:04:45 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 him, and in the still hot night we could hear from our cars 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.

Starting point is 05:05:22 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 18 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 Burmaquillo, 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 banked desolation we had just passed through.

Starting point is 05:05:58 Here were cotton fields, the white tufts unpicked and rotting on their stocks, cornfields with sparse green blades just showing. Along the big ditches flowed swift, deep water in the shade. Bird 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 mass columns of the army halted and began to defile, to left and right,

Starting point is 05:06:37 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 fields, 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.

Starting point is 05:07:08 In the center, level with them, came the cannon car, and beside that, Via rode with his staff. At the little villages along the way, the big-hatted white blouse 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 hooves, and they passed. At the village of Brittingham, the great line halted, while Via and his staff galloped up to the peons watching from their little mound. Oyes! shouted Via, have any troops passed through here lately? See, signor, answered several men at once.

Starting point is 05:07:53 Some of Don Carlo Agamendo's Chente went by yesterday pretty fast. Hmm, Via meditated. Have you seen that bandit Pancho Villa around here? No, signor, 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's success, cried the Pacificos politely. You never saw him, did you?

Starting point is 05:08:17 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. End of Section 29. Section 30 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. Daniel Fraser. Insurgent Mexico by John Reed. Part 4, A People in Arms. Chapter 6,

Starting point is 05:09:12 the Companeros, reappear. Such had been the surprise of the Federals, and they had fled in such a hurry, that for many miles the railroad was intact. But toward afternoon, we began to find little bridges burned and still smoking, and telegraph poles cut down with an axe, badly and hastily and hastily done bits of destruction that were easily repaired. But the army had got far ahead, and by nightfall, about eight miles from Gometh Palacio,

Starting point is 05:09:45 we reached the place where eight solid miles of torn-up track began. There was no food on our train. We had only a blanket apiece, and it was cold. In the flare of torches and fires, the repair gang fell upon their work. Shouts and hammering sands,

Starting point is 05:10:03 and hammering steel, and a thud of falling ties. It was a black night with a few dim stars. We had settled down around one fire, talking and drowsing, when suddenly a new sound smote the air, a sound heavier than hammers, and deeper than the wind. It shocked and were still. Then came a steady roll, as of distant drums, and then shock, shock, shone, and then shock, shock. The hammers fell, voices were silent, we were frozen. Somewhere ahead, out of sight, in the darkness, so still it was that the air carried every sound. Bia and the army had flung themselves upon Gometh Palacio, and the battle had begun. It deepened steadily and slowly, until the booths of cannon fell echoing upon each other, and the rifle fire rippled like steel rain.

Starting point is 05:11:03 Andalais, screamed a horse voice from the roof of the cannon car. What are you doing? Get at that track. Pancho Bia is waiting for the trains. And, with a yell, 400 raging maniacs flung themselves upon the brake. I remember how we besought the colonel in command to let us go to the front. He would not. Orders were strict that no one should leave the trains. We pled with him, offered him money. almost got on our knees to him. Finally, he relented a little.

Starting point is 05:11:38 At three o'clock, he said, I'll give you the sign and countersign and let you go. We curled miserably about a little fire of our own, trying to sleep, trying at least to get warm. Around us and ahead, the flares and the men danced along the ruined track, and every hour or so the train would creep forward a hundred feet and stop again. It was not hard to repair, the rails were intact. A wrecker had been hitched to the right-hand rail,

Starting point is 05:12:10 and the ties twisted, splintered, torn from their bed. Always, the monotonous and disturbing, furious sound of battle filtered out of the blackness ahead. It was so tiresome, so much the same, that sound, and yet I could not sleep. About midnight, one of our outposts galloped from the rear of the trains, to report that a large body of horsemen had been challenged coming from the north, who said they were Urbina's hente from Mapimi.

Starting point is 05:12:42 The colonel didn't know of any body of troops that were to pass at that time of night. In a minute everything was a fury of preparation. Twenty-five armed and mounted men galloped like mad to the rear, with orders to stop the newcomers for fifteen minutes. If they were constitutionalists, by order of the constitutionals, by order of the country, colonel, if not by holding them off as long as possible. The workmen were hurried back to the train and given their rifles. The fires were put out, the flares, all but ten, extinguished. Our guard of 200 slipped silently into the thick brush, loading their rifles as they went. On either side of the

Starting point is 05:13:26 track, the colonel and five of his men took up their posts unarmed, with torches held high, over their heads, and then, out of the blackness, the head of the column appeared. It was made up of different men from the well-clothed, well-equipped, well-fed soldiers of Beers' army. These were ragged, gaunt people, wrapped in faded, tattered serapes, without shoes on their feet, crowned with the heavy, picturesque sombreros of the back country. Lasso ropes hung coiled at their saddles, their mounts, were the lean, hard, half-savage ponies of the Durango Mountains. They rode sullenly, contemptuous of us. They neither knew the countersign, nor cared to know it. And as they rode,

Starting point is 05:14:17 whole file sang the monotonous, extemporaneous ballads that the peons composed and sang to themselves, as they guard the cattle at night on the great upland plains of the north. And suddenly, as I stood at the head of the line of flares, a passing horse was jerked to his haunches, and a voice I knew cried, Hey, mister! The enfolding serapae was cast high in the air. The man fell from his horse,

Starting point is 05:14:44 and in a moment I was clasped in the arms of Isidro Omaier. Behind him burst forth a chorus of shouts. What tal, mister? Oh, Juanito, how glad we are to see you! Where have you been? They said you were killed in La Cadena. Did you run fast from the Colorado's? Much susto, eh? They threw themselves to the ground, clustering around,

Starting point is 05:15:10 fifty men reaching at once to pat me on the back. All my dearest friends in Mexico, the Companieros of La Tropa and the Cadena. The long file of men, blocked in the darkness, raised a chorus of shouts. Move on. on us. What's the matter? Hurry up. We can't stay here all night. And the others yelled back, He is meister. Here's the gringo we were telling you about. Who danced the hota in Le Thaka.

Starting point is 05:15:41 Who was in La Cedena? And then the others crowded forward too. There were twelve hundred of them. Silently, sullenly, eagerly, sniffing the battle ahead. They defiled between the double line of high-held torches. And every tenth man I had known before. As they passed, the colonel shouted to them, What is the countersign? Turn your hats up in front. Do you know the counter sign? Horsely, exasperatedly, he bawled at them. Serenely and insolently, they rode by, without paying the least attention to him. To hell with the countersign, they hooted, laughing at him. We don't know. need any counter sign. They'll know well enough which side we're on when we begin to fight. For hours it seemed, they jogged past, fading into the darkness. Their horses, with nervous heads

Starting point is 05:16:37 turned to catch the sound of the guns. The men, with glowing eyes fixed on the darkness ahead, rowed into battle with their ancient Springfield rifles that had seen service for three years, with their meagre ten rounds of ammunition. And when they had all gone, the battle seemed to brighten and quicken with new life. End of Section 30. Recording by Daniel Fraser. Section 31 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Livervox recording.

Starting point is 05:17:15 All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visitlibrovox.org. Recording by Patty Cunningham. Insurgent Mexico by John Reed. Part 4. People in Arms Chapter 7. The Bloody Dawn The steady noise of the battle filled all the night. Ahead, torches danced, rails clanged, sledges drummed on the spikes.

Starting point is 05:17:46 The men of the repair gang shouted in the frenzy of their toil. It was after twelve. Since the trains had reached the beginning of the torn track, we had made half a mile. Now and then a straggler from the main body came down the line of trains, shuffled into the light with his heavy mouser awry across his shoulders and faded into the darkness toward the debauch of sound in the direction of gomez palacio the soldiers of our guard squatting about their little fires in the fields relaxed their tense expectancy three of them were singing a little marching song which began i don't want to be a porphyrista i don't want to be an oroschista but i want to be a volunteer in the army madarista curious and excited we hurried up and down the trains asking people what they knew what they thought i had never heard a real killing sound before and it made me frantic with curiosity and nervousness we were like dogs in a yard when a dog-fight is going on outside finally the spell snapped and i found myself desperately tired i fell into a dead sleep on a little ledge under the lip of the cannon where the laborers

Starting point is 05:19:01 tossed their wrenches and sledgehammers and crowbars when the train moved forward a hundred feet and piled on themselves with shouts and horseplay. In the coldness of before dawn I woke with the colonel's hand on my shoulder. You can go now, he said. The sign is Argosa and the counter sign Guerrero. Our soldiers will be recognized by their hats pinned up in front. May you go well. It was bitter cold. We threw our blankets. around us, Serrape fashion, and trudged down past the fury of the repair gang as they hammered at it under the leaping flares, past the five armed men slouching around their fire on the frontier of the dark. Are you off to the battle, Campaneros? cried one of the gang. Look out for the bullets. At that they

Starting point is 05:19:51 all laughed. The sentries cried, Adios, don't kill them all. Leave a few pelones for us. Beyond the last torch where the torn track was wrenched and tumbled about on the uprooted road bed, a shadowy figure waited for us. Vominos together, he said, peering at us, in the dark, three are an army. We stumbled along over the broken track silently, just able to make him out with our eyes. He was a little dumpy soldier with a rifle and a half-empty cartridge belt over his breast. He said that he had just brought a wounded man from the front to the hospital train and was on his way back. Feel this, he said, holding out his arm. It was drenched. We could see nothing. Blood, he continued

Starting point is 05:20:39 unemotionally. His blood. He was my compadre in the Brigada Gonzales-Ortega. We went in this night down there, and so many, so many, we were cut in half. It was the first we had heard or thought of wounded men. All of a sudden we heard the battle. It had been going on steadily all the time, but we had forgotten. The sound was so monstrous, so monotonous. Far rifle fire came like the ripping of strong canvas. The cannon shocked like pile drivers. We were only six miles away now. Out of the darkness loomed a little knot of men, four of them, carrying something heavy and inert in a blanket slung between. Our guide threw up his rifle and challenged, and his answer was a wretching groan from the blanket.

Starting point is 05:21:32 Oiga, compadre, lisped one of the bearers huskily, where for the love of the virgin is the hospital train. About a league. Valga me, Dios! How can we? Water, have you any water? They stood with a blanket tot between them, and something fell from it. Drip, drip, drip, drip on the ties.

Starting point is 05:21:53 That awful voice within screamed once, to drink. and fell away to a shuddering moan we handed our canteens to the bearers and silently beastially they drained them the wounded man they forgot then sullen they pitched on others appeared singly or in little groups they were simply vague shapes staggering in the night like drunkards like men incredibly tired one dragged between two walkers his arms around their shoulders a mere boy reeled along their shoulders a mere boy reeled along with the limp body of his father on his back. A horse passed, with his nose to the ground, two bodies flopping sideways across the saddle, and a man walking behind and beating the horse on the rump, cursing shrilly. He passed, and we could hear his falsetto fading dissonantly in the distance. Some groaned with the ugly, deadened groan of uttermost pain. One man slouched in the saddle of a mule, screamed mechanically every time the mule took a step. Underdard,

Starting point is 05:22:57 two tall cottonwood trees beside an irrigation ditch, a little fire glowed. Three sleepers with empty cartridge belts sprawled snoring on the uneven ground. Beside the fire set a man holding with both hands his legs straight out to the warmth. It was a perfectly good leg as far as the ankle. There it ended in a ragged, oozing mess of trousers and shattered flesh. The man simply sat looking at it. He didn't even stir as we came near. And yet his chest, rest rose and fell with calm breathing, and his mouth was slightly open as if he were daydreaming. By the side of the ditch knelt another. A soft lead bullet had entered his hand between the two middle fingers, and then spread until it hollowed out a bloody cave inside. He had wrapped a rag

Starting point is 05:23:45 around a little piece of stick, and was unconcernedly dipping it in the water and gouging out the wound. Soon we were near the battle. In the east, across the vast level country, a faint gray light appeared. The noble Alamo trees towering thickly in massy lines along the ditches to the west burst into showers of birdsong. It was getting warm, and there came the tranquil smell of earth and grass and growing corn, a calm summer dawn. Into this the noise of battle broke like something insane, the hysterical chatter of rifle fire that seemed to carry a continuous undertone of screaming, although when you listened for it, it was gone. The nervous, deadly stab, stab, stab, stab, stab of the machine guns, like some gigantic

Starting point is 05:24:35 woodpecker, the cannon booming like great bells and the whistle of their shells. Boom! And that most terrible of all sounds of war, shrapnel exploding. Crash! The great hot sun swum up in the east through a faint, smoke from the fertile land, and over the eastern barons the heat waves began to wiggle. It caught the startlingly green tops of the lofty alamos, fringing the ditch that paralleled the railroad on our right. The trees ended there, and beyond the whole rampart of bare mountains,

Starting point is 05:25:17 piled range on range, grew rosy. We were now in scorched desert again, thickly covered with dusty mesquite. Except for another line of alimaux, straggling along from east to west, close to the city, there were no trees in all the plain but two or three scattered ones to the right. So close we were, barely two miles from Gomez Palacio, that we could look down the torn track right into the town. We could see the black round water tank, and back of that, the roundhouse, and across the track from them both, below adobe walls of the Brittingham Corral. The smokestacks and buildings and trees, of La Esperanza soap factory rose clear and still, like a little city to the left.

Starting point is 05:26:05 Almost directly to the right of the railroad track, it seemed the stark, stony peak of the Cerro de la Pila, mounted steeply to the stone reservoir that crowned it, and sloped off westward in a series of smaller peaks, a spiny ridge a mile long. Most of Gomez lay behind the shoulder of the Cerro, and at its western end the vias and gardens of Lerdo made a vivid patch of green in the desert. The great brown mountains on the west made a mighty sweep around behind the two cities, and then fell away south again in folds-on-folds of gaunt desolation, and directly south from Gomez stretched along the base of this range, Leitoreon, the richest city of northern Mexico. The shooting never ceased, but it seemed to be subdued to a subordinate place

Starting point is 05:26:55 in a fantastic and disordered world. Up the track in the hot morning light, straggled a river of wounded men, shattered, bleeding, bound up in rotting and bloody bandages, inconceivably weary. They passed us, and one even fell and lay motionless nearby in the dust, and we didn't care. Soldiers with their cartridges gone wandered aimlessly out of the chaparral, dragging their rifles, and plunged into the brush again on the other side of the railroad, black with powder, streaked with sweat, their eyes vacantly on the ground. The thin, subtle dust rose in lazy clouds at every footstep and hung there, parching throat and eyes. A little company of horsemen jogged out of the thicket and drew up on the track looking toward town. One man got down from his saddle and squatted beside us.

Starting point is 05:27:49 It was terrible, he said suddenly. caramba we went in there last night on foot they were inside the water tank with holes cut in the iron for rifles we had to walk up and poke our guns through the holes and we killed them all a death trap and then the corral they had two sets of loopholes one for the men kneeling down and the other for the men standing up three thousand rurales in there and they had five machine guns to sweep the road and the round house with three rows of trenches outside and subterranean passages so they could crawl under and shoot us in the back. Our bombs wouldn't work. And what could we do with rifles? Madre de Dios!

Starting point is 05:28:33 But we were so quick, we took them by surprise. We captured the roundhouse and the water tank. And then this morning thousands came. Thousands. Reinforcements from Torreone. And their artillery. And they drove us back again. They walked up to the water tank.

Starting point is 05:28:51 tank and poke the rifles through the holes and killed all of us, the sons of devils. We could see the place as he spoke, and hear the hellish roar and shriek, and yet no one moved, and there wasn't a sign of the shooting, not even smoke, except when a shrapnel shell burst, yelling down in the first row of trees a mile ahead, and vomited a puff of white. The cracking rip of rifle fire, and the staccato machine guns, and even the hammering cannon, didn't reveal themselves at all. The flat, dusty plain, the trees and chimneys of Gomez, and the stony hill, lay quietly in the heat. From the alamos off to the right came the careless song of birds. One had the impression that his senses were lying. It was an incredible dream,

Starting point is 05:29:40 through which the grotesque procession of wounded filtered like ghosts in the dust. End of Section 31. by Patty Cunningham Section 32 of Insurgent Mexico This is a Libervox recording All Lipervox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit livervox.org

Starting point is 05:30:13 Insurgent Mexico by John Reed Part 4, People in Arms Chapter 8 The Artillery Comes Up Over to the right along the base of the line of trees, heavy dust billowed up, men shouted, whips snapped, and there was a rumble and a jangling of chains. We plunged into a little path that wound among the chaperil, and emerged upon a tiny village lost in the brush near the ditch. It was strikingly

Starting point is 05:30:47 like a Chinese or Central American village, five or six adobe huts thatched with mud and twigs. It was called San Ramon, and there was a little struggling knot of men swayed about every door, clamoring for coffee and tortillas, and waving fiat money. The Pacificos squatted in their tiny corrals, selling macuche at exorbitant prices. Their women sweated over the fire, hammering tortillas and pouring villainous black coffee. All around in the open spaces lay sleepers like the dead, and men with bloody arms and heads, tossing and groaning. Presently an officer galloped up, streaked with sweat, and screamed, Get up, you fools, bendecos!

Starting point is 05:31:30 Wake up and get back to your companies. We're going to attack. A few stirred and stumbled, cursing to their weary feet. The others still slept. Icho, Stella, snapped the officer and spurred his horse upon them, trampling, kicking. The ground-boiled men scrambled out of the way and yelling. They yawned, stretched, still half asleep, and sifted off slowly toward the front in an aimless way.

Starting point is 05:31:55 The wounded only dragged themselves listless. to the shade of the brush. Along the side of the ditch went a sort of wagon track, and up this the constitutionalist artillery were arriving. One could see the gray heads of the straining mules, and the big hats of their drivers, and the circling whips, the rest was massed in dust. Slower than the army, they had been marching all night.

Starting point is 05:32:19 Past us rumbled the carriages and cassons, the long, heavy guns yellow with dust. The drivers and gunners were, in fine good humor. One, an American, whose features were absolutely indistinguishable in the all-mantling mud of sweat and earth, shouted to know if they were in time, or if the town had fallen. I answered in Spanish that there were lots of coloradoes yet to kill,

Starting point is 05:32:44 and a cheer ran along the line. Now we'll show them something, cried a big Indian on a mule. If we could get into their cursed town without guns, what can we do with them? The Alamos ended just beyond San Ramon. and under the last trees, Via, General Angelles, and the staff sat on horseback at the bank of the ditch. Beyond that ditch ran naked across the naked plain into the town, where it took water from the river. Via was dressed in an old brown suit without a collar and an ancient felt hat.

Starting point is 05:33:17 He was covered with dirt and had been riding up and down the lines all night, but he bore no trace of fatigue. When he saw us, he called out, "'Hello, machochos. Well, how do you like it? Fine, me, General.' We were worn out and very dirty. The sight of us amused him profoundly. He could never take the correspondence seriously anyway, and it seemed to him very droll that an American periodical would be willing to spend so much money just to get the news. "'Good,' he said with a grin. "'I'm glad you like it, because you're going to get all you want.' The first gun had now come opposite the staff, and unlimbered. The gunners ripping off the

Starting point is 05:33:55 canvas covers and tilting up the heavy casson. The captain of the battery screwed on the telescopic sight and the crank of the raising lever spun. The brass butts of heavy shells shone in gleaming rows. Two men staggered under the weight of one and rested it on the ground while the captain regulated the shrapnel timer. The breech lock crashed shut and we ran far back. Crack! Boom! Shock! A soaring whistling flew high after the shell. and then a tiny white smoke flowered at the foot of the Cerro de la Pila, and minutes after, a far detonation. About 100 yards apart, all along in front of the gun,

Starting point is 05:34:39 picturesque ragged men stared motionless through their field glasses. They burst into a chorus of yells, Too low, too far to the right, their guns are all along the ridge, time it about 15 seconds later. Down front, the rifle fire had frittered away to ragged sputter, and the machine guns were silent. Everybody was watching the artillery duel. It was about 5.30 in the morning, and already very hot.

Starting point is 05:35:04 In the fields behind sounded the parched shirp of crickets. The lofty fresh tops of the alamos rustled in a high, languid breeze. Birds began to sing again. Another gun wheeled into line, and the breech block of the first clacked again. There came the snap of the trigger, but no roar. The gunners wrenched open the breach and hurled the smoking brass projectile on the grass. bad shell i saw general ancalais in his faded brown sweater hatless peering through the sight and cranking up the range vea was spurring his reluctant horse up to the casson crack boom shock the other gun this time we saw the shell burst higher up the stony hill this time and then four booms floated to us and simultaneously the enemy shells which had been exploding desutorially over the line of trees

Starting point is 05:35:59 nearest the city, marched out into the open desert, and leaped toward us in four tremendous explosions, each nearer. More guns had wheeled into line, others filed off to the right, along a diagonal of trees, and a long line of heavy trucks, plunging mules and cursing, shunning men, choked up the dusty road to the rear. The unlimbered mules jingled back, and the drivers threw themselves, exhausted under the nearest chaparral. The federal shrapnel, well-fired and excellently timed was bursting now only a few hundred yards in front of our line, and the minute boom of their guns was almost incessant. Crash!

Starting point is 05:36:39 Over our head snapped viciously in the leafy trees, saying the rain of lead. Our guns replied spasmodically. The homemade shells fashioned on converted mining machinery in Chihuahua were not reliable. Galloped past stout Captain Maronelli, an Italian soldier of fortune, staring as near the newspaperman as possible, with a serious Napoleonic look on his face. He glanced once or twice at the cameraman, smiling graciously, but the latter coldly looked away. With a workman-like flourish, he ordered the wheeling of his gun into position and sighted it himself. Just then a shell burst deafeningly about a hundred yards in front.

Starting point is 05:37:20 The Federals were getting the range. Maranelli bounded away from his cannon, mounted his horse, limbered up, and came, galloping dramatically back with his gun rumbling at a dead run behind. None of the other guns had retreated. Pulling up his foaming charger in front of the cameraman, he flung himself to the ground and took a position. Now, he said, you can take my picture. Go to hell, said the cameraman, and a great shout of laughter went up along the line.

Starting point is 05:37:48 The high-cracked note of a bugle thrilled through the racking roar. Immediately mules dragging their jangling limbers appear, and shouting men. The Cason snapped shut. Going down front, shouted Colonel Zervin, not hitting, too far away here. And the long halted line snapped tot and wound out into the open desert

Starting point is 05:38:10 under the bursting shells. End of Section 32. Section 33 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Libervox recording. All Libervox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Insurgent Mexico by John Reed, Part 4, A People in Arms

Starting point is 05:38:44 Chapter 9, Battle We returned along the winding path through the mesquite, crossed the torn-up track, and struck out across the dusty plain southeastward. Looking back along the railroad, I could see smoke, and the round front of the first train miles away, and in front of it throngs of active little dots swarming on the right of way, distorted like things seen in a wavy mirror. We strode away in a haze of thin dust. The giant mesquite dwindled until it scarcely reached to our knees. To the right the tall hill and the chimneys of the town swam tranquilly in the hot sun. Rifle fire had almost ceased for the moment, and only dazzling

Starting point is 05:39:29 bursts of thick white smoke marked our occasional shells along the ridge. We could see our drab guns rocking down the plain, spreading along the first line of Alamos, where the searching fingers of the enemy's shrapnel probed continually. Little bodies of horsemen moved here and there over the desert, and stragglers on foot, trailing their rifles. An old peon stooped with age and dressed in rags, crouched in the low shrub, gathering mesquite twigs. Say, friend, we. We asked him. Is there any way we can get close to see the fighting? He straightened up and stared at us. If you have been here as long as I have, said he, you wouldn't care about seeing the fighting. Caramba! I have seen them take Torreon seven times in three years. Sometimes they attack from

Starting point is 05:40:16 Gomez Palacio and sometimes from the mountains, but it is always the same, war. There is something interesting in it for the young, but for us old people we are tired of war. He paused and stared out over the plane. Do you see this dry ditch? Well, if you will get down in it and follow along, it will lead you into the town. And then, as an afterthought, he added in curiously, What party do you belong to? The constitutionalists. So, first it was madaristas, and then the Oroquistas, and now the, what did you call them? I am very old, and I have not long to live, but this war it seems to me that all it accomplishes is to let us go hungry go with god seorres and he bent again to his slow task while we descended into the arroyo it was a disused irrigation ditch running a little south of west its bottom covered with dusty weeds and the end of its straight length hidden from us by a sort of mirage that looked like a glaring pool of water stooped so little so as to be hidden from the outside

Starting point is 05:41:27 we walked along, it seemed, for hours, the cracked bottom and dusty sides of the ditch reflecting the fierce heat upon us until we were faint with it. Once horsemen passed quite near on our right, their big iron spurs ringing, we crouched down until they passed, for we didn't want to take any chances. Down in the ditch, the artillery fire sounded very faint and far away, but once I cautiously lifted my head above the bank and discovered that we were very near the first line of trees. shells were bursting along it and i could even see the belch of furious haze hurling out from the mouths of our cannon and feel the surf of sound waves hit me like a blow when they fired we were a good quarter of a mile front of our artillery and evidently making for the water tank on the very edge of town as we stooped again the shells passing overhead wind sharply and suddenly across the arc of sky and were cut off abruptly until the sullen echoes boof of their explosion there ahead where the railroad trestle of the main line crossed the arroyo huddled a little pile of bodies evidently left from the first attack hardly one was bloody their heads and hearts were pierced with the clean tiny holes of steel mouser bullets

Starting point is 05:42:44 they lay limply with the unearthly calm lean faces of the dead some perhaps their own thrifty companeros had stripped them of arms shoes hats and serviceable clothing one sleeping soldier, squatting on the edge of the heap with his rifle across his knees, snored deeply. Flies covered him, the dead hummed with them, but the sun had not yet affected them. Another soldier leaned against the townward bank of the ditch, his feet resting on a corpse, banging methodically away at something he saw. Under the shadow of the trestle, four men sat playing cards. They played listlessly, without talking, their eyes read with lack of sleep. The heat was frightful. Occasionally a stray bullet came by, screaming,

Starting point is 05:43:31 We're whiz. This strange company took our appearances as a matter of course. The sharpshooter doubled out of range and carefully put another cartridge clip in his rifle. You haven't got another drop of water in that canteen, have you? He asked. Adieu, we haven't eaten or drunken since yesterday. He guzzled the water furtively watching the card players, lest they too should be thirsty.

Starting point is 05:43:55 They say we are to attack the water, tank and the corral again when the artillery is in position to support us. Chihuahua, ombre, but it was duro in the night. They slaughtered us in the streets there. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hands and began firing again. We lay beside him and looked over. We were about two hundred yards from the deadly water tank. Across the track and the wide street beyond lay the brown mud walls of the Brittingham

Starting point is 05:44:22 Corral, innocent looking enough now, with only black dots to show the double line of loop-holes. There are the machine guns, said our friend. See them, those slim barrels peering over the edge? We couldn't make them out. Water tank, corral, and town lay sleeping in the heat. Dust hovered still in the air, making a thin haze. About 50 yards in front of us was a shallow, exposed ditch,

Starting point is 05:44:48 evidently once a federal trench, for the dirt had been piled on our side. Two hundred drab dusty soldiers lay in it now, facing townward. the Constitutionalist Infantry. They were sprawled on the ground in all attitudes of weariness, some sleeping on their backs, facing up to the hot sun, others wearily transferring the dirt with their scooped hands from rear to front. Before them they had piled up irregular heaps of rocks. Now infantry in the Constitutionalist Army is simply cavalry without horses.

Starting point is 05:45:21 All via soldiers are mounted except the artillery, and those for whom horses cannot be procured. of a sudden the artillery in our rear boomed altogether, and over our heads a dozen shells screamed toward the serro. That is the signal, said the man at our side. He clambered down into the ditch and kicked the sleeper. Come on, he yelled. Wake up! We're going to attack the pelones! The snorer groaned and opened his eyes slowly. He yawned and picked up his rifle without a word. The card players began to squabble about their winnings. A violent dispute broke out as to who owned the pack of cards. grumbling and still arguing, they stumbled out and followed the sharpshooter up over the edge of the ditch.

Starting point is 05:46:04 Rifle fire rang along the edge of the trench in front. The sleepers flopped over on their stomachs behind their little shelters. Their elbows worked vigorously pumping the guns. The hollow steel water tank resounded to the rain of thumping bullets. Chips of Adobe flew from the wall of the corral. Instantly the wall bristled with shining barrels and the two awoke crackling, with hidden vicious firing bullets roofed the heavens with whistling steel drummed the smoking dust up until a yellow curtain of whirling cloud veiled us from the houses and the tank we could see our friend running low along the ground the sleepy man following standing erect still rubbing his eyes Behind strung out the gamblers, squabbling yet. Somewhere in the rear, a bugle blue. The sharpshooter, running in front, stopped suddenly, swaying as if he had run against solid wall.

Starting point is 05:46:58 His left leg doubled under him, and he sank crazily to one knee in the exposed flat, whipping up his rifle with a yell. "'Bleep, bleep, the dirty monkeys!' He screamed, firing rapidly into the dust. "'I'll show the bleep, the cropped heads, the jailbirds!' he shook his head impatiently like a dog with a herd ear blood-drops flew from it bellowing with rage he shot the rest of his clip and slumped to the ground and thrashed to and fro for a minute the others passed him with scarcely a look now the trench was boiling with men scrambling to their feet like worms when you turn over a log the rifle fire rattled shrilly from behind us came running feet and men in sandals with blankets over their shoulders came forth a fire and the rifle fire rattled shrilly from behind us came running feet and men in sandals with blankets over their shoulders came from

Starting point is 05:47:44 falling and slipping down the ditch, and scrambling up the other side. Hundreds of them, it seemed. They almost hid from us the front, but through the dust and spaces between running logs, we could see the soldiers in the trench leap their barricade like a breaking wave. And then the impenetrable dust shut down, and the fierce stabbing needle of the machine gun sewed the mighty jumble of sounds together. A glimpse through a rift in the cloud torn by a sudden hot gust of wind, we could see the first brown line of men reeling altogether like drunkards, and the machine guns over the wall spinning

Starting point is 05:48:20 sharp, red dole in the sunshine. Then a man came running out of it, the sweat streaming down his face without a gun. He ran fast, half sliding, half falling down into our ditch, and up the other side. Other dim forms loomed up in the dust ahead. What is it? How is it going? I cried. He answered nothing but ran on. Suddenly, and terribly, the monstrous crash and scream of shrapnel burst from the turmoil ahead. The enemy's artillery. Mechanically, I listened for our guns, except for an occasional boom they were silent. Our homemade shells were failing again. Two more shrapnel shells. Out of the dust cloud, men came running back, singly, in pairs, in groups, a stampeding mob. They fell over us, around us, drowned us in a human flood, shouting,

Starting point is 05:49:11 To the Alamos! To the trains! The Federation is coming! We struggled up among them, and ran too. Straight up the railroad track. Behind us roared the shells searching in the dust and the tearing musketry. And then we noticed that all the wide roadway ahead was filled with galloping horsemen, yelling shrill Indian cries and waving their rifles, the main column. We stood to one side as they whirled. passed, about five hundred of them, watched them stoop in their saddles and began to shoot.

Starting point is 05:49:42 The drumming of their horses' hooves was like thunder. Better not go in there, it's too hot, cried one of the infantry with a grin. Well, I'll bet I'm hotter, answered a horseman, and we all laughed. We walked tranquilly back along the railroad track, while the firing behind wound up to a continuous roar. A group of peons, Pacificos, in dull sombreros, blankets, and white cotton blouses, stood along here with folded arms, looking down the track torn down. Look out there, friends, Jost a soldier.

Starting point is 05:50:13 Don't stand there, you'll get hit. The peons looked at each other and grinned feebly. But, signor, said one, this is the way we always stand when there is a battle. A little farther along I came upon an officer, a German, wandering along, leading his horse by the bridle. I cannot ride him any more, he said to me earnestly. He is quite too tired. I'm afraid he will die if he does not sleep. The horse, a big chestnut stallion, stumbled and swayed as he walked.

Starting point is 05:50:43 Enormous tears trickled from his half-shut eyes and rolled down his nose. I was dead tired, reeling from lack of sleep and food, and the terrible heat of the sun. About a half mile out I looked back and saw the enemy shrapnel poking into the line of trees more frequently than ever. They seemed to have thoroughly got the range. And just then I saw the gray line of guns. limbered to their mules, began to crawl out from the trees toward the rear at four or five different points. Our artillery had been shelled out of their positions. I threw myself down to rest in the shade of a big mesquite bush. Almost immediately a change seemed to come in the sound of the

Starting point is 05:51:20 rifle fire, as if half of it had been suddenly cut off. At the same time, twenty bugles shrilled. Rising, I noticed a line of running horsemen fleeing up from the track, shouting something. More followed, galloping, at the place where the railroad passed. beyond the trees on its way into town. The cavalry had been repulsed. All at once the whole plane squirmed with men, mounted and on foot, all running rearward. One man threw away his blanket, another his rifle. They thickened over the hot desert, stamping up the dust until the flat was crowded with them. Right in front of me a horseman burst out of the brush, shouting, The Federals are coming, to the trains! They are right behind! The entire constitutionalist army

Starting point is 05:52:03 was routed. I caught up my blanket and took to my heels. A little way farther on, I came upon a cannon abandoned in the desert, traces cut, mules gone. Underfoot were guns, cartridge belts, and a dozen serapes. It was rout. Coming to an open space, I saw ahead a large crowd of fleeing soldiers without rifles. Suddenly, three men on horseback swept across in front of them, waving their arms and yelling, go back, they cried. They aren't coming out. Go back for the love of God. I didn't recognize. The other was via. End of Section 33. Section 34 of Insurgent Mexico.

Starting point is 05:52:49 This is a Libervox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Margaret Espionate. Insurgent Mexico by John Reed. Part 34 Between Attacks A People in Arms, Chapter 10. About a mile back the flight was stopped. I met the soldiers coming back with the relieved expression of men

Starting point is 05:53:16 who have feared an unknown danger and been suddenly set free from it. That was always Via's power. He could explain things to the great mass of ordinary people in a way that they immediately understood. The Federals, as usual, had failed to take advantage of their opportunity to inflict a lasting defeat upon the constitutionalists. Perhaps they feared an ambush like the one Bia had arranged at Mapula, when the victorious Federals sallied out to pursue Via's fleeing army

Starting point is 05:53:49 after the first attack on Chihuahua, and were repulsed with heavy slaughter. Anyway, they did not come out. The men came straggling back, hunting in the mesquite for their guns and blankets, and for other people's guns and blankets. You could hear them shouting and joking all over the plane. oiga what are you doing with that rifle that's my water-bag i dropped my serrape right here by this bush and now it's gone oh juan cried one man to another i always told you i could beat you running but you didn't comrade i was a hundred meters ahead flying through the air like a cannon-ball the truth was that after riding twelve hours the day before fighting all night and all morning in the blazing sun, under the frightful strain of charging an entrenched force in the face of artillery and machine guns.

Starting point is 05:54:47 Without food, water, or sleep, the Army's nerve had suddenly given way. But from the time that they returned after the flight, the ultimate result was never in doubt. The psychological crisis was passed. Now the rifle fire had altogether ceased, and even cannon shots from the enemy were few and far between. At the ditch under the first line of trees our men entrenched themselves. The artillery had withdrawn to the second line of trees a mile back, and under the grateful shade, the men threw themselves heavily down and slept. The strain had snapped. As the sun rose toward noon, the desert, hill, and town throbbed silently in the intense heat. Sometimes in exchange of shots far to the right or left told where the outposts were exchanging compliments,

Starting point is 05:55:42 but even that soon stopped. In the cotton and cornfields to the north, among the sprouting green things, insects chirped. The birds sang no more because of the heat. It was breathless. The leaves stirred in no wind. Here and there little fires smoked, where the soldiers rolled tortillas from the scanty flour they had brought in their saddle-bags, and those who didn't have any swarmed around baking a crumb. Everybody simply and generously divided the food. I was hailed from a dozen

Starting point is 05:56:20 fires with, Hey, Companiero, have you breakfasted? Here's a piece of my tortilla. Come and eat. Rows of men lay on their stomachs along the irrigation ditch, scooping up the dirty water in their palms. Three or four miles back, we could see the can of the can of the in the first two trains, opposite the big ranch of El Bergel, with the tireless repair gang, hard at it in the hot sun. The provision train had not come up yet. Little Colonel Servine came by, perched on an immense bay horse, still dapper and fresh after the terrible work of the night. I don't know what we shall do yet, he said. Only the general knows that, and he never tells. but we shall not assault again until the Brigada Saragossa returns.

Starting point is 05:57:12 Benavides has had a hard battle over there at Sacramento, 250 of hours killed, they say, and the general has sent for General Robles and General Contreras, who have been attacking from the South to bring up all their men and join him here. They say, though, that we are going to deliver a night attack next, so that their artillery won't be effective. He galloped on. About midday, thin columns of sluggish dirty smoke began to rise from several points in the town,

Starting point is 05:57:45 and toward afternoon a slow, hot wind brought to us the faintly sickening smell of crude oil mingled with scorched human flesh. The Federals were burning piles of the dead. We walked back to the trains and stormed General Benavides' private car in the Brigad the Saragossa train. The major in charge had them cook us something to eat in the general's kitchen. We ate ravenously, and afterward went along the line of trees and slept for hours. Late in the afternoon we started once more for the front. Hundreds of soldiers and peons of the neighborhood, ravenously hungry, prowled around the trains, hoping to pick up discarded food

Starting point is 05:58:31 or slops, or anything at all to eat. They were ashamed of themselves, however, and affected a sauntering indolence when we passed. I remember that we sat for a while talking with some soldiers on top of a box car, when a boy criss-crossed with cartridge belts and lugging a huge rifle came past beneath, his eyes searching the ground. A stale d'ordia, half-rotting, crunched into the dirt by many passing feet, caught his attention. He pounced upon it and bit a piece out. Then he looked up and saw us.

Starting point is 05:59:09 As if I were dying of hunger, he said scornfully, and tossed it away with contempt. Down in the shade of the Alamos, across the ditch from San Ramon, the Canadian captain Treston was bivouacked with his machine-gun battery. The guns with their heavy tripods were unloaded from the mules, and all around lay the unlimbered field pieces. Their animals grazing in the rich green fields, the men squatted around their fires,

Starting point is 05:59:39 or lines stretched out on the bank of the ditch. Tristan waved in ashy tortilla he was munching, and bawled. Say, read. Please come here and interpret for me. I can't find my interpreters, and if we go into action, I'll be in a hell of a fix. You see, I don't know the damn language, and when I came down here, Bea hired two interpreters to go around with me all the time, and I can't ever find the sons of guns. They always go off and leave me in a hole. I took part of the proffered delicacy and asked him if he thought there was any chance of going into action. I think we'll go in tonight as soon as it's dark, he answered. Do you want to go along with machine guns and interpret? I said I did. A ragged man near the fire, whom I had

Starting point is 06:00:29 never seen before, rose and came across smiling. I thought when I looked at you that you seemed to be an ombre who hadn't tasted tobacco for a while. Will you take half my cigarette? Before I could protest, he produced a lopsided brown cigarette and tore it across in two pieces. The sun went gloriously down behind the notched purple mountains in front of us, and for a minute a clean fan of quivering light poured. up the high arc of stainless sky. The birds awoke in the trees, leaves rustled. A fertile land exhaled, a pearly mist. A dozen ragged soldiers lying close together began to improvise the air and words of a song

Starting point is 06:01:17 about the Battle of Torreon. A new ballad was being born. Other singing came to us through the still, cool dusk. I felt my whole being going out. to these gentle, simple people, so lovable they were. It was just after I had been to the ditch for a drink that Treston said casually, by the way, one of our men found this floating in the ditch a little while ago. I can't read Spanish, so I didn't know what the word meant. You see, the water from these ditches all comes from the river inside the town, so I thought it might be a federal paper. I took it from his hand. It was a little folded white piece of wet paper like the corner in front of a package. In large black letters was printed on the front,

Starting point is 06:02:07 arsenico, and in smaller type, Cuidado, Beneno, arsenic. Beware, poison. Look here, I demanded, sitting up suddenly. Have there been any sick people around here this evening? That's funny, asking, he said. A good many of the men have had bad cramps in the stomach, and I don't feel altogether well. Just before you came, a mule suddenly keeled over and died in that next field, and a horse across the ditch, fatigue or sunstroke, probably. Fortunately, the ditch carried a large body of swiftly running water, so the danger was not great. I explained to him that the Federals had poisoned the ditch. My God, said Tristan.

Starting point is 06:02:55 Perhaps that is what they were trying to tell me. About twenty people have come up to me and said something about enveninado. What does that mean? That's what it means, I answered. Where can we get about a quart of strong coffee? We found a great can of it at the nearest fire and felt better. Oh, yes, we knew, said the men.

Starting point is 06:03:18 That is why we watered the animals at the other ditch. We heard long ago. They say that ten horses are dead down in front, and that many men are rolling very sick on the ground. An officer on horseback rode by, shouting that we were all to go back to El Bergel and camped there beside the trains for the night, that the general had said that everyone but the advance guards

Starting point is 06:03:42 were to get a good night's sleep out of the zone of fire, and that the commissary train had come up and was just behind the hospital train. Bugles sounded, and the men struggled up off the ground, catching mules, fastening their harness on amid shouting and braying and jingling, saddling horses, and limbering guns. Treston got on his pony, and I walked along beside him. So there was to be no night attack then.

Starting point is 06:04:12 It was now almost dark. Across the ditch we fell in with the shadowy forms of a company of soldiers trotting northward, all muffling blankets and big hats and ringing spurs. They hailed me. Hey, Companiero, where's your horse? I admitted I had none. Jump up behind me then, chimed in five or six altogether. One pulled up right beside me, and I mounted with him. We jogged on through the mesquite and across a dim, lovely field. Someone began to sing, and two more joined in. A round, full moon bubbled up in the clear night. Oiga, how do you say mullah in English? asked my horsemen.

Starting point is 06:04:58 God-dam, stubborn fat-head mule, I told him. And for days entire, strangers would stop me and ask me, with roars of laughter, how the Americans said mula. Around the ranch of Elbergel, the army was encamped. We rode into a field dotted with fires, where aimless soldiers wandered around in the dark, shouting to know where the Brigada Gonzales-Ortega was, or Jose Rodriguez's Henta, or the Ametraaders.

Starting point is 06:05:32 Townward, the artillery was unlimbering in a wide, alert half-circle, guns pointing south. To the east, the camp of Benavides' Brigada Saragosa, just arrived from Sacramento, made an immense glow in the sky. From the direction of the provision train, a long ant-like file of men bore sacks of flour, coffee, and packages of cigarettes. A hundred different singing choruses swelled up into the night. It comes to my mind with particular vividness how I saw a poor poisoned horse suddenly double up and fall, thrashing, how we passed a man, bent to the ground in the darkness, vomiting violently,

Starting point is 06:06:19 How, after I had rolled up on the ground in my blankets, terrible cramps suddenly wrenched me, and I crawled out away into the brush and didn't have the strength to crawl back. In fact, until gray dawn, I rolled very sick on the ground. End of Section 34. Section 35 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.

Starting point is 06:06:57 Recording by Margaret Espayat. Insurgent Mexico by John Reed Part 35, An Outpost in Action Chapter 11 A People in Arms Tuesday, early in the morning, the army was in motion again toward the front, straggling down the track and across the field. Four hundred raging demons sweated and hammered at the ruined track, the foremost train had made half a mile in the night horses were plenty that morning and i bought one saddle and all for seventy-five pesos about fifteen dollars in gold

Starting point is 06:07:35 trotting down by san ramon i fell in with two wild-looking horsemen in high sombreros with little printed pictures of our lady of guadalupe sewed on the crowns they said they were going out to an outpost upon the extreme right wing near the mountains above l'erdo where their company was posted to hold a hill. Why should I want to come with them? Who was I, anyway? I showed them my pass, signed by Francisco Villa. They were still hostile. Francisco Villa is nothing to us, they said. And how do we know whether this is his name

Starting point is 06:08:11 written by him? We are of the Brigada Juarez, Calixto Contreras, but after a short consultation, the taller grunted, come. We left the protection of the trees, striking out diagonally across the ramparted cotton fields, due west, straight for a steep, high hill that already quivered in the heat. Between us and the suburbs of Gomez Palacio stretched a barren flat plain, covered with low mesquite and cut by dry irrigation ditches.

Starting point is 06:08:47 The Cerro de la Pila, with its murderous concealed artillery, lay perfectly quiet, except that up one side of it, so clear was the air we could make out a little knot of figures dragging what looked like a cannon. Just outside of the nearest houses some horsemen were riding around. We immediately struck north, making a wide detour, carefully on the watch for this intermediate ground was overrun by pickets and scouting parties. About a mile beyond, almost along the foot of the hill, ran the high road from the north to Lerdo. We reconnoitered this carefully from the brush. A peasant passed whistling, driving a flock of goats. On the very edge of this road, under a bush, was an earthen jar full of milk.

Starting point is 06:09:41 Without the least hesitation, the first soldier drew his revolver and shot. The jar split into a hundred pieces, milk spurting everywhere. Poisoned, he said briefly. The first company stationed over here drank some of that stuff. Four died. We rode on. Up on the hill crest, a few black figures squatted. Their rifles tilted against their knees.

Starting point is 06:10:08 My companions waved to them, and we turned north along the bank of a little river that unrolled a narrow strip of green grass in the midst of desolation. The outpost was camped on both sides of the water in a sort of meadow. I asked where the colonel was, and finally found him stretched out in the shade of a tent that he had made by hanging his serapé over a bush. Get down from your horse, friend, he said. I am glad to welcome you here. My house, pointing quizzically to the roof of his tent, is at your disposal. here are cigarettes there is meat cooking on the fire upon the meadow fully saddled grazed the horses of the troop about fifty of them

Starting point is 06:10:55 the men sprawled on the grass in the shade of the mesquite chatting and playing cards this was a different breed of men from the well-armed well-mounted comparatively disciplined troops of via's army they were simply peons who had risen in arms like my friends of la tropa a tough happy race of mountaineers and cowboys among who were many who had been bandits in the old days unpaid ill-clad undisciplined their officers merely the bravest among them armed only with aged springfields and a handful of cartridges apiece they had fought almost continuously for three years for four months they and the irregular troops of such guerrilla chiefs as we had fought almost continuously for three years for four months they and the irregular troops of such guerrilla chiefs as urbina and robles had held the advance ground around torreone fighting almost daily with federal outposts and suffering all the hardships of the campaign while the main army garrisoned chihuahua and juarez these ragged men were the bravest soldiers in bia's army i had lain there about fifteen minutes watching the beef sizzle in the flames and satisfying the eager curiosity of a crowd as to my curious profession when there was a sound of galloping and a voice they're coming out of lerdo to horse half a hundred men reluctantly and in a leisurely manner made for their horses the colonel rose yawning he stretched blank blank the animals of federals he growled they stay on our minds all the time you never have time to think of more pleasant things it's a shame they won't even let us eat our dinner

Starting point is 06:12:46 they were mounted soon trotting down the bank of the stream far in front sounded the pin-pricking rifles instinctively without order we broke into a gallop through the streets of a little village where the pacificos stood on the roofs of their houses looking off to the south little bundles of their belongings beside them so they could flee if the battle went against us for the federals cruelly punished villages which have harbored the enemy. Beyond lay the stony little hill. We got off our horses, and throwing the reins over their heads, climbed on foot. About a dozen men already lay there,

Starting point is 06:13:30 shooting spasmodically in the direction of the green bank of trees, behind which lay Lerdo. Unseen, scattering shots ripped from the blank desert between. About half a mile away, small brown figures dodged around in the brush. A thin dust cloud showed where another detachment was marching slowly

Starting point is 06:13:53 north in their rear. We already got one sure, and another one in the leg, said a soldier, spitting. How many do you make them out? asked the colonel. About two hundred. The colonel stood bold upright, carelessly looking out over the sunny plain. Immediately a roll of shots swept along their front. A bullet chirped overhead. Already the men had gone to work, unordered. Each soldier picked out a smooth place to lie, and piled up a little heap of stones in front to shield him. They lay down, grunting, loosening their belts, and taking off their coats to be perfectly comfortable. Then they began slowly and methodically to shoot. There goes another, announced the colonel. Yours, Pedro. Not Pedro's at all, interrupted another man fretfully. I got him. Oh, the devil you did,

Starting point is 06:14:51 snapped Pedro. They quarreled. The firing from the desert was now pretty general, and we could see the Federals slipping toward us under the protection of every bush and arroyo. Our men fired slowly and carefully, aiming a long time before they pulled the trigger, for the months with scanty ammunition around Torreone had made them economical. But now every hill and bush along our line held a little knot of sharpshooters, and looking back on the wide flats and fields between the hill and the railroad, I saw innumerable single horsemen and squads of them spurring through the brush. In ten minutes we would have five hundred men with us. The rifle fire along the line swelled and deepened until there was a solid mile of it. The Federals had stopped.

Starting point is 06:15:46 Now the dust clouds began slowly to move backward in the direction of Lerdo. The fire from the desert slackened. And then from nowhere we suddenly saw the broad-winged vultures sailing, serene and motionless in the blue. The Colonel, his men, and I democratically ate lunch in the shade of the village houses. our meat was, of course, scorched, so we had to do the best we could with jerked beef and pignolle, which seems to be cinnamon and bran,

Starting point is 06:16:17 ground fine. I never enjoyed a meal so. And when I left, the men made up a double handful of cigarettes as a present. Said the colonel, Amigo, I am sorry that we had not time for a talk together. There are many things I want to ask you about your country. Whether it is true for,

Starting point is 06:16:38 example, that in your cities, men have entirely lost the use of their legs, and don't ride horseback in the streets, but are born about in automobiles. I had a brother once who worked on the railroad track near Kansas City, and he told me wonderful things. But a man called him a greaser one day, and shot him without that my brother did anything to him. Why is it your people don't like Mexicans? I like many Americans. I like you. here is a gift for you he unbuckled one of his huge iron spurs inlaid with silver and gave it to me but we never had any time here for talk these blanks always annoy us and then we have to get up and kill a few of them before we can have a moment's peace under the alimot trees i found one of the photographers and a moving picture man they were lying flat on their backs near a fire around which they were lying flat on their backs near a fire around which they were a which squatted twenty soldiers, gorgeing ravenously flour tortillas, meat, and coffee.

Starting point is 06:17:45 One proudly displayed a silver wristwatch. That used to be my watch, explained the photographer. You see, we hadn't had anything to eat for two days, and when we came past here, these boys called us and gave us the most magnificent feed I ever tasted. After that I just couldn't help giving them a present. The soldiers had accepted the greek. gift communally, and were agreeing that each should wear it for two hours, from then on until the end of life.

Starting point is 06:18:16 End of Section 35. Chapter 12 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Timothy and Live Right. Chapter 12 Contreras Men Assault Wednesday, my friend the photographer and I were wandering across a field

Starting point is 06:18:58 when Via came by on his horse. He looked tired, dirty but happy, reigning up in front of us the motions of his body, as easy and graceful as a wolf's. He grinned and said, Well, boys, how's it going now? We answered that we were perfectly contented. I haven't time to worry about you, so you must be careful not to go into danger.

Starting point is 06:19:22 It is bad, the wounded. Hundreds. They are brave, those muchachos, the bravest people in the world. But, he continued delightedly, you must go and see the hospital train. There is something fine for you to write your papers about. And truly, it was a magnificent thing to see. The hospital train lay. right behind the work train now.

Starting point is 06:19:46 Forty box cars enameled inside, stenciled on the side with a big blue cross and the legend Servicio Sanitario handled the wounded as they came from the front. They were fitted inside with the latest surgical appliances and manned by 60 competent American and Mexican doctors. Every night, shuttle trains carried the seriously hurt back to the base hospitals at Chihuahua and Paral.

Starting point is 06:20:14 We went down through San Ramon and beyond the end of the line of trees out across the desert. It was already stinging hot in front a snake of rifle fire unfolded along the line and then a machine gun. As we emerged into the open, a lone mouser began cracking down to the right somewhere. We paid no attention to it at first, but pretty soon we noticed that there was a little plumping sound on the ground around us. Puffs of dust flew up every few minutes. By God, said the photographer, some beggars sniping at us. Instinctively, we both sprinted. The rifle shots came faster. It was a long distance across the plane. After a little, we reduced it to a jog trot. Finally, we walked along with the

Starting point is 06:21:05 dust spurting up as before and a feeling that, after all, it wouldn't do any good to run. Then we forgot it. hour later we crept through the brush a quarter of a mile from the outskirts of gomez and came upon a tiny ranch of six or eight adobe huts with a street running between in the lee of one of the houses lounged and sprawled about sixty of contreras ragged fighters they were playing cards and talking lazily down the street just around the corner which pointed straight as a die toward the federal positions a storm of bullets swept continually whipping up the dust. These men had been on duty at the front all night. The counter sign had been no hats, and they were bareheaded in the broiling sun. They had had no sleep and no food, and there wasn't any water for half a mile. There is a federal quartel up ahead there that is firing explained a boy about 12 years old. We've got orders to attack when the artillery comes, and an old man squatting against the wall asked me where I came from. I said New York,

Starting point is 06:22:14 Well, he said, I don't know anything about New York, but I'll bet you don't see such fine cattle going through the streets as you see in the streets of Jimenez. You don't see any cattle in the streets of New York, I said. He looked at me incredulously. What, no cattle, you mean to tell me that they don't drive cattle through the streets up there? Or sheep? I said they didn't. He looked at me as if he thought I was a great liar. And he cast his eyes on the ground and thought deeply.

Starting point is 06:22:42 Well, he pronounced finally, then I don't want to go there. Two skylarking boys started a game of tag. In a minute, 20 full-grown men were chasing each other around in great glee. The card players had one short deck of torn cards, and at least eight people were trying to play some game, and arguing about the rules at the top of their voices, or perhaps there weren't enough cards to go around. Four or five had crawled into the shade, of the house singing satirical love songs. At this time, the steady infernal din up ahead never relented, and the bullets spattered in the dust like raindrops. Occasionally one of the men would slouch over, poke his rifle around the corner, and fire. We stayed there about half an hour, then two great cannons came rocketing out of the brush behind and wheeled into position in a dry ditch 75 yards,

Starting point is 06:23:42 away on the left. I guess we're going in a minute, said the boy. At that moment, three men galloped up from the rear, evidently, officers. They were entirely exposed to rifle fire over the roofs of the huts, but jerked up their horses with the shots, yelling all around them, contemptuous of them. The first to speak was Fiero, the superb great animal of a man who had murdered Benton. He sneered down at the ragged soldiers,

Starting point is 06:24:12 from his saddle. Well, this is a fine-looking crowd to take a city with, he said. But we've got nobody else down here. Go in when you hear the bugle. Pulling cruelly on the bit so that his big horse reared straight up and whirled on his hind legs. Fiero galloped off rearward, saying as he went, useless those simple fools of Contreras. Death to the butcher, said a man furiously, that murderer killed my compadre in the streets of Durango for no crime or insult. My compadre was very drunk, walking in front of the theater. He asked Fierro what time it was and Fiero said, You!

Starting point is 06:24:56 How dare you speak to me before I speak to you first? But the bugle was blowing and up they got grabbing their guns. The tag game tried to stop but couldn't. Furious card players were accusing each other of stealing the dead. deck. Oiga Financio, cried one soldier. I bet you my saddle, I come back and you don't. This morning I want a nice bridle from Juan. All right, very bien, my new pinto horse. Laughing, joking, rollicking, they swept out of the shelter of the houses into the rain of steel. They scuttled awkwardly up the street like little brown animals unused to running.

Starting point is 06:25:38 Billowing dust veiled them in a hell of noise. End of Chapter 12. Section 37 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Timothy Livright. Part 4 of People in Arms.

Starting point is 06:26:13 Chapter 13 A Night Attack Two or three of us had a sort of camp beside the ditch far up along the Alamos. Our car with its food supply, clothes, and blankets was still 20 miles back. Most of the time we went without meals. When we could manage to bake a few cans of sardines or some flour from the commissary train, we were lucky. Wednesday, one of the crafts,

Starting point is 06:26:43 had managed to get hold of tinned salmon, coffee, crackers, and a big package of cigarettes. And as we cooked dinner, Mexican after Mexican, passing on his way to the front, dismounted and joined us. After the most elaborate exchange of courtesies in which we had to persuade our guests to eat hugely of the dinner, and we had painfully foraged for ourselves, and he had to comply out of politeness, he would mount and ride away without gratitude, though full of friendliness. We stretched out on the bank and the golden twilight smoking. The first train headed by a flat car, upon which was mounted the cannon El Nino, had now reached a point opposite the end of the second line of trees, scarcely a mile from town. As far as you could see ahead of her,

Starting point is 06:27:37 the repair gang toiled on the track. All at once there came a terrific boom and a little puff of smoke lifted from the front of the train, far cheering scattered among the trees and fields. El Niño, the darling of the army, had got within range at last. Now the Federals would sit up and take notice. She was a three-inch gun, the largest we had. Later, we found out that an exploratory engine, engine had sallied forth from the Gomez roundhouse and that a shot from El Niño had hit her square in the middle of the boiler and blown her up. We were to attack that night, they said, and long after dark I got my horse Busephalus and rode down front. The sign of Herrera and the counter sign Chihuahua number four. So, as to be sure of recognition as one of ours, the command was to pin your hat up behind. Everywhere the strictest orders have been sent out that no fire should be lit in the zone of fire, and that anyone striking a match until the battle began should be shot by the centuries. Busephalus and I jogged slowly along in the moonless and absolutely silent night.

Starting point is 06:28:58 Nowhere was there a light or a stir all over the vast plain before Gomez except the far hammering of the tireless repeal. air gang working on the track. In the town itself, the electric lights shone brightly, and even a streetcar bound for Laredo lost itself behind the Cerro de la Pila. Then I heard a tiny murmuring of human voices in the darkness near the ditch ahead, evidently an outpost. Quien Vive came a shout, and before I had a chance to answer, bang, he fired, the bullet went past my head. Beow! No, Oh, no, you fool, droll, an exasperated voice. Don't shoot as soon as you challenge. Wait until he gives the wrong answer.

Starting point is 06:29:45 Listen to me now. This time, the formality was satisfactory to both sides, and the officer said, Pase Usted, but I could hear the original century growling. Well, I don't see what difference it makes. I never hit anybody when I shoot. Feeling my way carefully through the darkness, I stumbled into the rancho of San Ramon. I knew the Pacificos it all fled, so it surprised me to see light shining around the chinks of a door. I was thirsty and didn't care to trust the ditch.

Starting point is 06:30:18 I called. A woman appeared with a little brood of four babies clinging to her skirts. She brought water and all of a sudden burst out with, Oh, signor, do you know where the guns of the Brigada Zaragoosa are? My man is there and I haven't seen him for seven days. then you are not a pacifico truly i am not she returned indignantly pointing to her children we belong to the artillery down front the army lay stretched along the ditch at the foot of the first line of trees in absolute darkness they whispered to each other waiting until the word of via to the advanced guard a quarter of a mile ahead should precipitate the first rifle shots where are your rifles i asked this brigade is to use no rifles to-night answered a voice over on the left where they are to attack the entrenchments there are rifles but we must capture the brittainham corral to-night and rifles are no good we are contraris men the brigada huarez see we have orders to walk up to the walls and throw these bombs inside he held out the bomb it was made of a short stick of dynamite sewed in a

Starting point is 06:31:32 strip of cowhide, with a fuse stuck in one end. He went on. General Robles-Gente are over there on the right. They too have granados, but rifles also. They're going to assault the Cerro de la Pila. And now down the warm still night came suddenly the sound of heavy firing from the direction of Lardo, where McClio Herrera was going in with his brigade, almost simultaneously from dead ahead rifle fire awoke sputtering. A man came down the line with a lighted cigar glowing like a firefly in the hollow of his hands. Light your cigarettes from this, he said, and don't set fire to your fuses until you're right up under the wall. Captain Caramba, it's going to be very, very duro. How shall we know the right time? Another voice, deep, rough, spoke up in the dark. I'll tell you, just come along with me. A whispered,

Starting point is 06:32:29 smothered shout of viva via burst from them on foot holding a lighted cigar in one hand for he never smoked and a bomb in the other the general climbed the bank of the ditch and plunged into the brush the others pouring after him all along the line now the rifle fire roared though down behind the trees i could see nothing of the attack the artillery was silent the troops being too close together in the dark to permit the use of of shrapnel by either side. I rode back and over to the right where I climbed my horse up to the steep ditch bank. From there I could see the dancing tiny fires of the guns at Lerdo and scattered spurts like a string of jewels all along our front. Over to the extreme left, a new and deeper noise told where Benavides was making a demonstration against Torreone proper with quick-firing guns. I stood tensely awaiting the attack.

Starting point is 06:33:33 It came with the force of an explosion in the direction of Brittenham Corral, which I could not see, the syncopated rhythm of four machine guns and a continuous inhuman blast of volleying rifles made the previous noise seemed like the deepest silence. A quick glare reddened the heaven above

Starting point is 06:33:53 and then the shocking detonations of dynamite. I can imagine the yelling savages, sweeping up the street against that withering flame, wavering, pausing, struggling on again, with Via just in front talking to them back over his shoulder as he always did. Now, more furious firing over to the right indicated that the attack against the Cerro de la Pila had reached the foot of the hill, and all at once on the far end of the ridge towards Lardo, there were flashes. Maclovio must have taken Lairdo.

Starting point is 06:34:29 lo! All at once appeared a magical sight. Up the steep slope of the Cerro, around three sides of it, slowly rose a ring of fierce light. It was the steady flame of rifle fire from the attackers. The summit, too, streamed fire, which intensified as the ring converged toward it, raggeder now. A bright glare burst from the top, then another. A second later arrived the dreadful repeat, ports of cannon. They were opening upon the little line of climbing men with artillery, but still they rose upon the black hill. The ring of flame was broken now in many places, but it never faltered. So until it seemed to merge with a venomous spinning blaze at the summit, then all at once it seemed to wither completely, and little single fireflies kept dropping down the slope, all that were left.

Starting point is 06:35:26 And when I thought that all was lost and marveled at the useless heroism of these peons who walked up a hill in the face of artillery, behold, the ring of flame was creeping slowly upward again. That night they attacked the Serro seven times on foot, and at every attack seven-eighths of them were killed. All this time, the infernal roaring and the play of red light over the corral did not stop. Occasionally, there seemed to come a lull, but it recommenced only more terribly. They assaulted the corral eight times. The morning that I entered Gomez, although the Federals had been steadily burning bodies for three days, they were so thick in the wide space before the Britannam Corral that I could hardly ride through on horseback, and around the Cerro were seven distinct ridges of rebel dead. The wounded began creeping through the plain, obscurely in the dense darkness. Their cries and groans could be distinctly heard, though the battle noise drowned every other sound.

Starting point is 06:36:37 You could even hear the rustle of the bushes as they crept through and their dragging feet on the sand. A horseman passed along the path below me, cursing furiously that he must leave the battle because his arm was broken and weeping between curses. Then came a footman who sat at the foot of my bank and nursed a hand talking without cessation about all sorts of things to keep from a nervous breakdown. How brave we Mexicans are, he said droly, killing each other like this.

Starting point is 06:37:12 I soon went back to camp sick with boredom. A battle is the most boring thing in the world if it lasts any length of time. It is all the same. And in the morning I went to get the news at headquarters. We had captured Lardo, but the Cerro, the Corral, and the Quartel were still the enemies. All that slaughter for nothing. End. Section 37.

Starting point is 06:37:44 Section 38 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Timothy Livwright. Part 4 of People in Arms, Chapter 14 The Fall of Gomez Palacio. El Niño was now within half a mile of the town,

Starting point is 06:38:18 and the workmen of the repair gang labored on the last stretch of track under heavy shrapnel fire. The two cannon on the front of the trains bore all the brunt of their artillery, and bravely did they return the fire, so well, in fact, that after one federal shell had killed ten workmen, El Niño's captain put two guns on the Cerro out of action. So the Federals left the trains alone, and turned their attention to shelling Herrera out of Lardo. The Constitutionalist army was terribly shattered. In the four days fighting, about a thousand men had been killed and almost two thousand more wounded. Even the excellent hospital train was inadequate to handle the wounded.

Starting point is 06:39:10 Out on the wide plain where we were, the faint smell of dead bodies pervaded everything. In Gomez, it must have been hoaxed. horrible. Thursday, the smoke from 20 funeral pyres stained the sky. But Via was more determined than ever. Gomez must be taken and quickly. He didn't have ammunition or supplies enough for siege, and moreover, his name was a legend already with the enemy. Wherever Pancho Villa appeared in battle, they had begun to believe it lost. And the effect on his own troops was more important. too. So he scheduled another night attack. The track is all repaired, reported Calsato, superintendent of the railways. Good, said Viam. Bring up all the trains from the rear tonight,

Starting point is 06:40:05 because we're going into Gomez in the morning. Night fell, breathless silent night with a sound of frogs along the ditches. Across the front of the town, the soldiers lay waiting for the word to attack. Wounded, worn out, nervously broken, they straggled to the front, keyed up to the last notch of desperation. This night would not be repulsed. They would take the town or die where they stood. And as nine o'clock approached the hour at which the attack had been set, the tension became dangerous. Nine o'clock came and passed, not a sound or movement. For some reason, the order was withheld. Ten o'clock. Suddenly, off to the right, a volley burst from the town. All along our line awoke the answer. But after a few more volleys, the federal fire altogether ceased.

Starting point is 06:41:05 From the town came other more mysterious sounds. The electric lights went out, and in the darkness there was a subtle stir and movement, indefinable. At length, the order was given to advance but as our men crept forward in the dark the front rank suddenly gave a yell and the truth spread through the ranks and out into the country in one triumphant shout gomez palacio had been evacuated with a great babel of voices the army poured into the town a few scattered shots sounded where our troops caught some of the federal's lootings for the federal army had gutted the whole town before it left, and then our army began to loot. Their shouts and drunken singing and the sounds of smashing doors reached us out on the plane. Little tongues of flame flickered up where the soldiers were burning some house that had been a fort of Federals.

Starting point is 06:42:11 But the looting of the rebels was confined, as it almost always is, to food and drink and clothes to cover them. They disturbed no private house. The chiefs of the army winked at this. A specific order was issued by VIA, stating that whatever any soldier picked up was his and could not be taken from him by an officer. Now up to this time, there was not much of stealing in the army, at least so far as we were concerned. But the morning of the entry into Gomez, a curious change had come over the psychology of the soldiers. I woke up at our camp beside the ditch to find my horse gone. Busephalous had been stolen in the night and I never saw him again. During our breakfast, several troopers dropped in to share our meal. When they had gone,

Starting point is 06:43:05 we missed a knife and a revolver. The truth was that everybody was looting from everybody else, so I too stole what I needed. There was a great gray mule grazing in the field nearby with a rope around his neck. I put my saddle on him and rode down toward the front. He was a noble animal worth at least four times as much as Busephalus as I soon discovered. Everybody I met coveted that mule. One trooper marching along with two rifles hailed me. "'Oa, Companiero, where did you get that mule?' "'I found him in a field,' said I, unwisely. "'It is just as I thought,' he exclaimed. "'That is my mule. Get off and give him to me at once.' "'And this is your saddle?' I asked. "'By the mother of God it is.'

Starting point is 06:43:59 "'Then you lie about the mule, for the saddle is my own.' I rode on, leaving him yelling in the road, A short distance farther on, an old peon walking along suddenly ran up and threw his arms around the animal's neck. Ah, at last my beautiful mule which I lost, my Juanito! I shook him off in spite of his entreaties that at least I should pay him fifty pesos as compensation for his mule. In town a cavalryman rode across in front of me, demanding his mule at once. He was rather ugly and had a revolver. I got away by saying that I was a captain of artillery

Starting point is 06:44:41 and that the mule belonged to my battery. Every few feet, some owner of that mule sprang up and asked me how dared I ride his own dear Panchito or pedrito or Tomasito. At last one came out of a quartel with a written order from his colonel who had seen the mule from his window. I showed them my pay.

Starting point is 06:45:04 signed by Francisco Villa. That was enough. Across the wide desert where the constitutionalists had fought so long, the army was winding in from every direction in long snake-like columns,

Starting point is 06:45:19 dust hanging over them. And along the track, as far as the eye could reach, came the trains, one after another blowing, triumphant whistles, crowded with thousands of women and soldiers cheering.

Starting point is 06:45:32 Within the city, dawn had brought absolute quiet in order. With the entrance of Via and his staff the looting had absolutely ceased, and the soldiers again respected other people's property. A thousand were hard at work gathering up the bodies and carrying them to the edge of the city where they were set on fire. 500 more policed the town. The first order issued was that any soldier caught drinking should be shot. In the third train was our car, the private box car, fitted up for the correspondence, photographers, and moving picture men. At last we had our bunks, our blankets, and fong, our beloved Chinese cook. The car was switched up near in the railway station, in the very front rank of trains,

Starting point is 06:46:23 and as we gathered in its grateful interior, hot, dusty, and worn out, the Federals in Torreone, dropped a few shrapnel shells right close beside us. I was standing in the door of the car at the time and heard the boom of cannon, but paid no particular attention to it. Suddenly I noticed a small object in the air like an exaggerated beetle, trailing a little spiral of black smoke behind it. It passed the door of the car with a z-z-noise, and about 40 feet beyond burst with a frightful crash.

Starting point is 06:46:59 "'Wo!' among the trees of a park where a company of cavalry and their women were camping. A hundred men leaped for their plunging horses in a panic and galloped frantically toward the rear, the women streaming after them. Two women had been killed, it seemed, and a horse. Blankets, food, rifles. All were discarded in the panic. Pough! Another burst of the other side of the car. They were very close. Behind us on the tree. track twenty long trains laden with shrilly screaming women were trying to back out of the yards all at once with a mighty hysterical tooting of whistles two or three more shells follow then we could hear el nino replying but the effect on the correspondence and newspaper men was peculiar no sooner had the first shell exploded than someone produced the whiskey jug entirely of his own impulse and we passed it around

Starting point is 06:47:59 no one said a word but everybody drank a stiff swig as it came his way every time a shell would explode near by we would all wince and jump but after a while we did not mind it then we began to congratulate each other and ourselves for being so brave as to stay by the car under artillery fire our courage increased as the firing grew far between and finally quit altogether and as the whisky grew low everybody forgot dinner i remember that in the darkness two belligerent anglo-saxons stood at the door of the car challenging the soldiers who passed and abusing them in the most discourteous language We fell out amongst ourselves, too, and one man almost choked a driveling old fool who was with the moving picture outfit. Late that night, we were still trying earnestly to persuade two of the boys not to sally forth without the password and reconnoiter the federal lines at Torreone. Ah, what's there to be afraid of, cried they. A Mexican greaser hasn't got any guts. One American can lick 50 Mexicans.

Starting point is 06:49:14 Why, did you see how they ran this afternoon when the shells hit that grove? And how we... Hi, we stayed by the car. End of Section 38. Section 39 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.

Starting point is 06:49:46 Insurgent Mexico by John Reed. Part 5. Caranza and Impression. When the Treaty of Peace was signed in Juarez, which ended the revolution of 1910, Francisco Madero proceeded south toward Mexico City. Everywhere he spoke to enthusiastic and triumphant throngs of peons who acclaimed him the Liberator. In Chihuahua, he addressed the people from the balcony of the governor's palace, as he told of the hardships endured and the sacrifices made by the little band of men

Starting point is 06:50:19 who had overthrown the dictatorship of Diaz forever, he was overcome with emotion. Reaching inside the room, he pulled out a tall, bearded man of commanding presence, and, throwing his arm about his shoulder, he said, in a voice choked with tears, This is a good man, love and honor him always. It was Venus diano Carranza, a man of upright life and high ideals, an aristocrat descended from the dominant Spanish race, a great landowner, as his family had always been great landowners, and one of those Mexican nobles who, like a few French nobles, such as Lafayette in the French Revolution, threw themselves heart and soul into the struggle for liberty. When the Madero Revolution broke out,

Starting point is 06:51:08 Carranza took the field in truly medieval fashion. He armed the peons who worked upon his great estates, and led them to war like any feudal overlord. And when the revolution was done, Medero made him governor of Coahuila. There he was when Madero was murdered at the capital, and Werta, seizing the presidency, sent a circular letter to the governors of the different states, ordering them to acknowledge the new dictatorship.

Starting point is 06:51:37 Carranza refused even to answer the letter, declaring that he would have no dealings with a murderer and a usurper. He issued a proclamation, calling the Mexican people to arms, proclaiming himself first chief of the revolution, and inviting the friends of liberty to rally around him. Then he marched out from his capital and took the field, where he assisted in the early fighting around Torreon. After a short time, Carranza marched his force from Coahuila, where things were happening, straight across the Republic into the state of Sonora, where nothing was happening. Via had begun heavy fighting in Chihuahua State, Urbina and Herrera in Durango, Blanco and others in Coahuila, and Gonzales near Tampico. In times of upheaval like these, it is inevitable that there shall be some preliminary squabbling over the ultimate spoils of war. Among the military leaders, however, there was no such dissension.

Starting point is 06:52:39 via having just been unanimously elected general chief of the constitutionalist army by a remarkable gathering of all the independent guerrilla leaders before Torreone, an unheard of event in Mexican history. But over in Sonora, Mitrena and Pesquiera were already squabbling over who should be governor of the state and threatening revolutions against each other. Carranza's reported purpose in crossing to the west with his army was to settle this dispute but that doesn't seem possible other explanations are that he desired to secure a seaport for the constitutionalists on the west that he wanted to settle the yaki land question and that in the quiet of a comparatively peaceful state he could better organize the provisional government of the new republic he remained there six months apparently doing nothing whatever keeping a force of more than six thousand good fighters practically inoperative

Starting point is 06:53:39 attending banquets and bullfights establishing and celebrating innumerable new national holidays and issuing proclamations his army twice or three times as big as the disheartened garrisons of guaymas and mazatlan kept up a lazy siege of those places mazatlan fell only a short time ago i think as did guaymas only a few weeks ago provisional governor maitorena was threatening counter-revolutions against against General Alvardo, chief of arms of Sonora, because he would not guarantee the governor's safety, and evidently proposing to upset the revolution, because Maiteurino was uncomfortable in the palace at Hermosillo. During all that time not a word was said about any aspect of the land question, as far as I could learn. The Yaqui Indians, the expropriation of whose lands is the blackest spot in the whole black history of the Diaz regime, got nothing but a vague promise. Upon that the whole tribe joined the revolution, but a few months later, most of them went back to their homes and began again their hopeless campaign against the white man.

Starting point is 06:54:53 Carranza hibernated until early in the spring of this year, when, the purpose of his Sonora sojourn, evidently having been accomplished, he turned his face toward the territory where the real revolution was being fought. Within that six months, months, the aspect of things had entirely changed. Except for the northern part of Nuevo Leon and most of Coahuila, northern Mexico was constitutionalist territory almost from sea to sea, and Villa, with a well-armed, well-disciplined force of ten thousand men, was entering on the Torreone campaign. All this was accomplished almost single-handed by Villa. Caranza seems to have contributed nothing but congratulations. He had, indeed, formed a provisional government.

Starting point is 06:55:41 An immense throng of opportunist politicians surrounded the first chief, loud in their protestations of devotion to the cause, liberal with proclamations, and extremely jealous of each other and of VIA. Little by little, Carranza's personality seemed to be engulfed in the personality of his cabinet, although his name remained as prominent as ever. It was a curious situation. Correspondents who were with him during these months have told me how secluded the first chief finally became. They almost never saw him. Very rarely did they speak with him. Various secretaries, officials, cabinet members stood between them and him, polite, diplomatic, devious gentleman, who transmitted their questions to Carranza on paper and brought them back his answers written out, so that there would be no mistake. But whatever he did, Carranza left Via strictly alone to undergo defeats if he must or make mistakes, so much so that Via himself was forced to deal with foreign powers as if he were the head of the government.

Starting point is 06:56:50 There is no doubt that the politicians at Hermosillo sought in every way to make Carranza jealous of Villa's growing power in the north. In February, the first chief began a leisurely journey northward, accompanied by 3,000 troops, with the ostensible object of sending reinforcements to Villa, and of making his provisional capital in Juarez, when Via left for Torreone. Two correspondents, however, who had been in Sonora, told me that the officers of this immense bodyguard believed that they were to be sent against Via himself. In Hermosillo, Carranza had been remote from the world's new centers. No one knew but what he might be accomplishing.

Starting point is 06:57:33 great things. But when the first chief of the revolution began to move toward the American border, the attention of the world was concentrated upon him, and the attention of the world revealed so little to concentrate upon that rumors rapidly spread of the non-existence of Carranza. For example, one paper said that he was insane, and another alleged that he had disappeared altogether. I was in Chihuahua at the time. My paper wired me these things. rumors and ordered me to go and find Carranza. It was at the immensely exciting time of the Benton murder. All the protestations and half-failed threats of the British and American governments converged upon Via. But by the time I had received the message, Caranza and his cabinet had

Starting point is 06:58:22 arrived at the border, and broken the six-month silence in a startling way. The first chief's declaration to the State Department was practically this. Quote, You have made a mistake in addressing representations in the Benton case to General Via. They should be addressed to me as first chief of the revolution and head of the provisional constitutionalist government. Moreover, the United States has no business to address, even to me, any representations concerning Benton, who was a British subject. I have received no envoy from the government of Great Britain. Until I do, I will make no answer to the representations of any other government. Meanwhile, a thorough investigation will be made of the circumstances of Benton's

Starting point is 06:59:09 death, and those responsible for it will be judged strictly according to law." End quote. At the same time, Via received a pretty plain intimation that he was to keep out of international affairs, and Via gratefully shut up. That was the situation when I went to Nogales. Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, really form one big straggling town. The international boundary runs along the middle of the street, and at a small customs house, lounge a few ragged Mexican sentries, smoking interminable cigarettes, and evidently interfering with nobody, except to collect export taxes from everything that passes to the American side. The inhabitants of the American town go across the line to get good things to eat,

Starting point is 06:59:59 to gamble, to dance, and to feel free. The Mexicans crossed to the American side when somebody is after them. I arrived at midnight and went at once to a hotel in the Mexican town, where the cabinet and most of the political hangers-on of Carranza were staying, sleeping four in a room, on cots in the corridors, on the floor, and even on the stairs. I was expected, a temperamental constitutionalist consul up the line to whom I had explained my errand evidently considered it of great importance, for he had telegraphed to Nogales that the entire fate of the Mexican Revolution depended upon Mr. Reed's seeing the first chief of the revolution immediately upon his arrival. However, everybody had gone to sleep, and the proprietor, routed out of his back office,

Starting point is 07:00:52 said that he hadn't the slightest idea what the names of any of the gentlemen were, or where they slept. Yes, he said, he had heard that Carranza was in town. We went around kicking doors and Mexicans until we stumbled upon an unshaven but courteous gentleman, who said that he was the collector of customs for the whole of Mexico under the new government. He waked up in turn, the Secretary of the Navy, who routed out the Secretary of the Treasury. The Secretary of the Treasury finally flushed the secretary of Asienda, who finally brought us to the room of the Secretary of Foreign Relations, Signor Isidro Fabella. Signor Fabella said that the first chief had retired and couldn't see me, but that he himself

Starting point is 07:01:38 would give me immediately a statement of just what Carranza thought about the Benton incident. Now, none of the newspapers had ever heard of Signor Fabella before. They were all clamoring to their correspondence wanting to know who he was. He seemed to be such an important member of the provisional government, and yet his antecedents were not known at all. At different times, he apparently filled most of the positions of the First Chief's Cabinet. Rather medium height and distinguished-looking, suave, courteous, and evidently very well-educated, his face was decidedly Jewish. We talked for a long time, sitting on the edge of his bed, he told me what the first chief's aims and ideals were but in them i could discern nothing of the first chief's personality whatever oh yes he said of course i could see the first chief in the morning of course he would receive me

Starting point is 07:02:36 but when we came right down to cases signor fabela told me that the first chief would answer no questions outright they had all to be put in writing he said and submitted to fabela first he would then take the first to Carranza and bring back his answer. Accordingly, the next morning I wrote out on paper about twenty-five questions and gave them to Fabela. He read them carefully. "'Ah,' he said, "'there are many questions here that I know the first chief will not answer. I advise you to strike them out.' "'Well, if he doesn't answer them,' I said, all right, but I would like to give him a chance to see them. He could only refuse to answer them. no said fabela politely you had better strike them out now i know exactly what he will answer and what he will not you see some of your questions might prejudice him against answering all the rest and you would not want that to occur would you

Starting point is 07:03:36 signor fabela i said are you sure that you know just what don venustiano won't answer i know that he won't answer these he replied indicating four or five which dealt rather specifically with the platform of the constitutionalist government, such as land distribution, direct elections, and the right of suffrage among the peons. I will bring back your answers in 24 hours, he said, now I will take you to see the chief, but you must promise me this, that you will not ask him any questions, that you will simply go into the room, shake hands with him, and say, how do you do, and leave again immediately.

Starting point is 07:04:19 i promised and together with another reporter followed him across the square to the beautiful little yellow municipal palace we stood awhile on the patio the place was thronged with self-important mexicans buttonhulling other self-important mexicans who rushed from door to door with portfolios and bundles of papers occasionally when the door of the department of the secretarieship opened a roar of typewriters smote our ears officers in uniform stood about on the portico waiting for orders. General Obregon, commander of the Army of Sonora, was outlining in a loud voice the plans for his march south upon Guadalajara. He started for Hermosillo three days afterward, and marched his army 400 miles through a friendly country in three months. Although Obregon had shown no startling capacity for leadership, Carranza had made him general-in-chief of the Army of the Northwest. with a rank equal to Villas. Talking to him was a stout, red-haired Mexican woman in a black satin

Starting point is 07:05:27 princess dress embroidered with jet, with a sword at her side. She was Colonel Ramona Flores, chief of staff to the constitutionalist General Carrasco, who operates in Tepeake. Her husband had been killed while an officer in the First Revolution, leaving her a gold mine, with the proceeds of which she had raised a regiment and taken the field. Against the wall laid two sacks of gold ingots, which she had brought north to purchase arms and uniforms for her troops. Polite American concession seekers shifted from one foot to the other had in hand. The ever-present arms and ammunition drummers poured into the ears of whoever would listen, praises of their guns and bullets. Four-armed sentries stood at the palace doors, and others lounged around the patio.

Starting point is 07:06:18 There were no more in sight, except two who flanked a little door halfway down the corridor. These men seemed more intelligent than the others. Anybody who passed was scrutinized carefully, and those who paused at the door were questioned according to some thorough formula. Every two hours this guard was changed. The relief was in charge of a general, and a long-combed. colloquy took place before the change was effected. "'What room is that?' I asked Signor Fabela. "'That is the office of the First Chief of the Revolution,' he answered. I waited for perhaps an hour, and during that time I noticed that nobody entered the room

Starting point is 07:06:59 except Signor Fabela and those he took with him. Finally he came over to me and said, "'All right, the First Chief will see you now.' We followed him, the soldiers on guard, threw up their rifles. Who are these seignores? asked one. It's all right, they are friends, answered Fabella, and opened the door. It was so dark within that at first we could see nothing. Over the two windows, blinds were drawn. On one side was a bed, still unmade, and on the other a small table covered with papers, upon which stood a tray containing the remains of breakfast.

Starting point is 07:07:37 A tin bucket full of ice with two or three bottles of wine stood in a corner. As our eyes became accustomed to the light, we saw the gigantic, khaki-clad figure of Don Venustiano Carranza sitting in a big chair. There was something strange in the way he sat there, with his hands on the arms of the chair, as if he had been placed in it and told not to move. He did not seem to be thinking, nor to have been working. You couldn't imagine him at the same. that table. You got the impression of a vast, inert body, a statue. He rose to meet us, a towering figure seven feet tall, it seemed. I noticed with a kind of shock that in that dark room he wore smoked glasses, and, although ready and full-cheeked, I felt that he was not well, the thing you feel

Starting point is 07:08:29 about tuberculosis patients. That tiny dark room, where the first chief of the revolution slept and ate and worked, and from which he hardly ever emerged, seemed too small, like a cell. Fabela had entered with us, he introduced us one by one to Carranza, who smiled a vacant, expressionless smile, bowed slightly, and shook our hands. We all sat down, indicating the other reporter, who could not speak Spanish, Fabela said, these gentlemen have come to greet you on behalf of the great newspapers which they represent this gentleman says that he desires to present his respectful wishes for your success caranza bowed again slightly and rose as fabela stood up as if to indicate that the interview was over allow me to assure the gentleman he said of my grateful acceptance of their good wishes again we all shook hands but as i took his hand i said in spanish seor don venusiano my paper is your friend and the friend of the constitutionalists

Starting point is 07:09:38 he stood there as before a huge mask of a man but as i spoke he stopped smiling his expression remained as vacant as before but suddenly he began to speak to the united states i say the benton case is none of your business benton was a british subject but suddenly he began to speak to the united states i say the benton case is none of your business benton was a british subject I will answer to the delegates of Great Britain when they come to me with representations of their government. Why should they not come to me? England now has an ambassador in Mexico City, who accepts invitations to dinner from Werta, takes off his hat to him, and shakes hands with him. When Madero was murdered, the foreign powers flocked to the spot-like vultures to the dead, and fawn upon the murderer because they had a few subjects in the Republic, who were petty tradesmen doing a dirty little business.

Starting point is 07:10:29 The first chief ended as abruptly as he had begun, with the same immobility of expression, but he clenched and unclenched his hands and nod his mustaches. Fabella hurriedly made a move toward the door. The gentlemen are very grateful to you for having received them, he said nervously, but Don Venustiano paid no attention to him. Suddenly he began again,

Starting point is 07:10:54 his voice pitched a little higher and louder. These cowardly nations thought they could secure advantages by standing in with the government of the usurper, but the rapid advancement of the constitutionalists showed them their error, and now they find themselves in a predicament. Fibela was plainly nervous. When does the Torreone campaign begin?

Starting point is 07:11:17 He asked, attempting to change the subject. The killing of Benton was due to a vicious attack on by an enemy of the revolutionists, roared the first chief, speaking louder and louder in more rapidly. And England, the bully of the world, finds herself unable to deal with us unless she humiliates herself by sending a representative to the constitutionalists, so she tried to use the United States as a cat's paw. More shame to the United States, he cried, shaking his fists, that she allowed herself to join with these infamous powers. the unhappy fabela made another attempt to damn the dangerous torrent but caranza took a step forward and raising his arm shouted

Starting point is 07:12:04 i tell you that if the united states intervenes in mexico upon this petty excuse intervention will not accomplish what it thinks but will provoke a war which besides its own consequences will deepen a profound hatred between the united states and the whole of latin america a hatred which will endanger the entire political future of the united states he ceased talking on a rising note as if something inside had cut off his speech i tried to think that here was a voice of aroused mexico thundering at her enemies but it seemed like nothing so much as a slightly senile old man tired and irritated then we were outside in the sunlight with signor fabela agitatedly telling me not to publish what i had heard or at least to let him see the dispatch i stayed at nogales a day or two longer the next day after my interview the typewritten paper upon which my questions had been printed, was returned to me, the answers written in five different hand-writings. Newspaper men were in high favor at Nogales. They were treated always with the utmost courtesy by the members of the provisional cabinet, but they never seemed to reach the first chief. I tried often to get from these cabinet members the least expression

Starting point is 07:13:27 of what their plans were for the settlement of the troubles which caused the revolution, but they seemed to have none except a constitutional government. During all the times I talked with them, I never detected one gleam of sympathy for or understanding of the peons. Now and again, I surprised quarrels about who was going to fill the high posts of the New Mexican government. Via's name was hardly ever mentioned. When it was, it was in this manner. We have every confidence in Via's loyalty and obedience.

Starting point is 07:14:01 as a fighting man via has done very well very well indeed but he should not attempt to mingle in the affairs of government because of course you know via is only an ignorant peon he has said many foolish things and made many mistakes which we will have to remedy and scarcely a day passed but what caranza would give out a statement from headquarters there is no misunderstanding between general via and myself he obeys my orders he obeys my orders without question, as any common soldier. It is unthinkable that he would do anything else. I spent a good deal of time loafing around the municipal palace, but I never saw Carranza again but once. It was towards sunset, and most of the generals, drummers, and politicians had gone to dinner. I lounged on the edge of the fountain in the middle of the patio, talking with some soldiers. Suddenly the door of that little office opened, and Carranza, him stood framed in it, arms hanging loosely by his sides, his fine old head thrown back,

Starting point is 07:15:08 as he stared blindly over our heads across the wall to the flaming clouds in the west. We stood up and bowed, but he didn't notice us. Walking with slow steps, he came out and went along the portico toward the door of the palace. The two guards presented arms. As he passed, they shouldered their rifles and fell in behind him. At the doorway he stopped and stood there a long time, looking out on the street. The four sentries jumped to attention. The two men behind him grounded their arms and stopped. The first chief of the revolution clasped his hands behind his back, his fingers working violently.

Starting point is 07:15:48 Then he turned, and, pacing between the two guards, went back to the little dark room. End of Section 39. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Insurgent Mexico by John Reed, Part 6, Mexican Knights. Chapter 1. El Cosmopolita. El Cosmopolita is Chihuahua's fashionable gambling hall. It used to be owned by Jacob Latucci, the Turk, a fast.

Starting point is 07:16:36 shambling man who came to Chihuahua barefooted with a dancing bear twenty-five years ago and became many times a millionaire. He owned an extravagant residence on the Paseo Bolivar, which was never called anything but the palace of tears, because it was built with the proceeds of the Turks' gambling concessions, which ruined many families. But the wicked old man slunk away with Mercado's retreating Federal Army, and when Via came to Chihuahua, he gave the Palace of Tears to General Ortega as a Christmas present, and confiscated El Cosmopolita. Having a few idle pesos from my expense account, we used to frequent El Cosmopolita. Johnny Roberts and I stopped on her way from the hotel to take a few hot Tom and Jerry's at a Chinese bar, run by a Hori Mongolian named Chi Li. From there, we proceeded to

Starting point is 07:17:32 the gambling tables with the leisurely air of Russian Grand Dukes at Monte Carlo. One entered first a long, low room, lighted with three smoky lanterns, where the roulette game was. Above the table was a sign which read, Please do not get on the roulette table with your feet. It was a vertical wheel, not a horizontal one, bristling with spikes which caught a flexible steel strip, and finally stopped the wheel opposite a number. Each way the table extended 12 feet, always crowded with at least five rows of small boys, peons, and soldiers, excited and gesticulating, tossing a rain of small bills on the numbers and colors, and arguing violently over the winnings. Those who lost would set up terrible screams of rage as the croupier raked their money into the drawer, and often the wheel was quiet for three-quarters of an hour, while some player, who had lost ten cents,

Starting point is 07:18:32 exhausted his vocabulary upon the treasurer, the owner of the palace, and his ancestors and descendants ten generations each way, and upon God and his family, for allowing such injustice to go unpunished. Finally, he would take himself off, muttering ominously, Aver, we shall see, while the others would sympathetically make way for him murmuring, Ah, what mala suerte! Near where the croupier sat was a wiserie sat was a wiserie. worn place in the cloth with a small ivory button in the center. And when anyone was winning largely at the wheel, the croupier would press this little button, which stopped the wheel where he wished,

Starting point is 07:19:13 until the winner was discouraged from playing further. This was looked upon as perfectly legitimate by all present. Since, Caramba, there is no sense in operating a gambling house at a loss. The most amazing diversity of money was used. Silver and copper had longed. since been forced out of circulation in Chihuahua because of revolutionary hard times. But there were still some Mexican bank bills. Besides these, there was Fiat money, printed on ordinary writing paper by the Constitutionalist Army, and worth nothing, script issued by the mining companies, IOUs, notes at hand, mortgages, and a hundred different valets of various railroads, plantations, and public service corporations.

Starting point is 07:20:02 but the roulette table did not long interest us. There was not enough action for your money. So we shouldered our way into a small room, blue with smoke, where a perpetual poker game was going at a fan-shaped, base-covered table. At a little recess at the straight side of the table sat the dealer. Chairs were distributed around the circumference where the players sat. One played against the bank, the dealer scraping into the drawer a tenth of every pot, the house's commission. Whenever anyone began to plunge and displayed a large wad, the dealer would give a shrill

Starting point is 07:20:38 penetrating whistle, and two suave gentlemen, who were employed by the house, would come running and take a hand. There was no limit as long as you had chips, or if your stack was underlaid with bank bills. The gentleman in possession of the buck had the say whether it was to be draw poker, serrado or stud aberto. Stud was the most fun because a Mexican could never realize that the next card would not give him a magnificent hand, and he bet increasing amounts on every card with wildly growing excitement. The strict rules of the American game, which so restrict freedom of action, were absent here. Johnny and I would lift a corner of our cards as soon as they were dealt to show each other, and when I seemed to be drawing ahead, Johnny would impulsively push his whole stack over to me.

Starting point is 07:21:31 With the next card, Johnny's hand would seem to have more promise than mine, and I would push both stacks back to him. By the time the last card was dealt, all the chips would be laying neutrally between us, and whoever had the best hand bet our entire joint capital. Of course, nobody objected to this way of playing, but to offset it, the dealer would whistle shrilly to the two house players and slyly deal them each a hand off the bottom of the pack. Meanwhile, a Chinaman would be dashing madly between the table and a lunch counter across the street, bearing sandwiches, Chile con carne, and cups of coffee to the players, who ate and drank loudly during the game, and spilled coffee and food into the jackpot.

Starting point is 07:22:17 Occasionally, some player who had traveled extensively in foreign lands got up and walked around his chair, to dispel a run of bad luck, or asked for a new deck with an offhand expansive air. The dealer would bow politely, sweep the deck into his drawer, and produce another one. He had only two decks of cards in the house. Both were about a year old, and largely decorated with the meals of former players. Of course, the American game was played, but there would sometimes enter a Mexican who was not intimately acquainted with the subtleties of the American deck. In the Mexican deck, for example, the seven, eight, and nine spots were omitted. One such person, a pompous, pretentious Mexican, sat in one night just as I had called for a

Starting point is 07:23:05 hand of stud. Before the dealer could whistle, the stranger had produced a great wad of money, all sorts, sizes, and denominations, and bought one hundred pesos worth of chips. The game was on. I drew three hearts in rapid succession, secured Roberts' pile, and began to play for a flush. The stranger gazed at his cards for a long time as if they were new to him. Then he flushed the deep red of intense excitement and pushed in $15. With the succeeding card he turned quite pale and pushed in $25, and when he looked at his last card he turned red again and bet $50. By some miracle I had filled a flush, but the man's wild betting scared me.

Starting point is 07:23:52 I knew that a flush was good for almost anything in stud poker, but I couldn't keep up with that pace, so I passed the bet to him. He rose at that and protested violently. How do you mean pass the bet? he cried, shaking both fists. It was explained to him, and he subsided. Very well then, he said, since this $15 is all I have and you will not let me buy any more chips, I will bet everything, and he pushed it into the center. I called him. What have you got? He almost screamed,

Starting point is 07:24:29 leaning, trembling over the table. I spread out my flush. With an excited laugh, he banged the table a great blow. Straight, he cried, and turned up four, five, six, ten jack. He had already reached out an arm, to gather in the money when the entire table burst into a clamor. It is wrong. It is not a straight. The money belongs to the gringo. He lay sprawled out on the table with both arms round the pot. How? He cried sharply, looking up. It is not a straight. Look here. Four, five, six, ten nave. The dealer interposed. But it should have been four, five, six, seven, eight, he said.

Starting point is 07:25:13 in the American pack there are seven, eight, and nine. How ridiculous, sneered the man. I have played cards all my life, and never, never have I seen a seven, eight, or nine. By this time most of the roulette table throng had swarmed in at the door. They added their clamor to ours. Of course it is not a straight. Of course it must be, is there not four, five, six, ten knave? But the American pack is different.

Starting point is 07:25:42 But this is not the United States. This is Mexico. Hey, poncho, shouted the dealer. Go at once and notify the police. The situation remained the same. My opponent still lay upon the table with the jackpot in his arms. A perfect pandemonium of argument filled the place. In some cases it had developed a personal note, and hands were stealing to hips. I unobtrusively pushed my chair against the wall. Presently, the chief of police arrived with four or five gendarmes. He was a large, unshaven man whose mustaches twisted up to his eyes, dressed in a loose, dirty uniform with red plush appellets. As he came in, everybody began explaining to him at once. The dealer made a megaphone

Starting point is 07:26:31 out of his hands and shouted through the din. The man on the table turned up a livid face, insisting shrilly that it was an outrage for Gringo rules to spoil a perfectly good Mexican game like stud poker. The chief listened, curling his mustaches, his chest swelling with the importance of being the deciding factor in an argument involving such large sums of money. He looked at me. I said nothing but bowed politely. He returned the bow. Then, turning to his policeman, he pointed a dramatic finger at the man at the table. arrest this goat he said it was a fitting climax shrieking and protesting the unfortunate mexican was led into a corner where he stood facing the table the money belongs to this gentleman continued the chief of police as for you you evidently do not understand the rudiments of this game i have a mind perhaps said roberts politely nudging me the signor captain would like to show the gentleman I should only be too glad to loan him a few chips, I added, raking in the pile.

Starting point is 07:27:43 Oiga, said the chief, I will be glad to do so. Superlative, thanks, sir. He drew up a chair, and out of politeness the buck was given to him. Aberto, he said, with the air of an old hand. We played. The chief of police won. He rattled his chips like a professional gambler, slapping the buck to his neighbor, and we played again. You see, said the chief of police, it is easy if you observe the rules. He twisted his mustache, ruffled the cards,

Starting point is 07:28:16 and pushed in $25. He won again. After some time, one of the policemen approached him respectfully and said, I beg your pardon me, Capitan, but what shall we do with the prisoner? Oh, said the chief, staring, he waved his hand casually.

Starting point is 07:28:34 Just release him and return to your station, long after the last wheel had been spun on the roulette table, the lamps blown out, and the most feverish gambler ejected into the street, we sat playing in the poker room. Roberts and I were down to about three pesos apiece. We yawned and nodded with sleepiness. But the chief of police had his coat off and was crouched like a tiger over his cards. Now he was losing steadily. Section 41 of Insurgent Mexico. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Insurgent Mexico by John Reed. Part 6, Mexican Nights, Chapter 2, Happy Valley.

Starting point is 07:29:34 It happened to be the day of a fiesta, and, of course, nobody worked in Vallele. The cockfight was to take place at high noon in the open space back of Catarino Cabrera's drinking shop, almost directly in front of Dionysio Aguirre's, where the long burrow pack trains rest on their mountain journeys, and the mule tears swap tails over their tequila. At one, the sunny side of the dry arroyo that is called a street was lined with double rows of squatting peons, silent, dreamily sucking their corn husk cigarettes as they waited. The bibulously inclined drifted in and out of Caterinos, whence came a cloud of tobacco smoke and a strong reek of Aguardiente.

Starting point is 07:30:21 Small boys played leapfrog with a large yellow sow, and on opposite sides of the arroyo, the competing roosters, tethered by the leg, crewed defiantly. one of the owners, an ingratiating business-like professional, wearing sandals and one serice sock, stalked around with a handful of dirty bank bills, shouting, "'Dest pesos, seigneur, only ten dollars!' It was strange, nobody seemed too poor to bet ten dollars. It came on toward two o'clock, and still no one moved,

Starting point is 07:30:56 except to follow the sun a few feet as it swung the black edge of the shadow eastward. The shadow was very cold and the sun white-hot. On the edge of the shadow, Le Ignacio, the violinist, wrapped in a tattered Serapé, sleeping off a drunk. He can play one tune when intoxicated, Tostis goodbye. When very drunk, he also remembers fragments of Mendelssohn's spring song. In fact, he is the only high-brow musician in the whole state of Durango and possesses a just celebrity.

Starting point is 07:31:30 Ignacio used to be brilliant and industrious. His sons and daughters are innumerable, but the artistic temperament was too much for him. The color of the street was red, deep, rich red clay, and the open space where the burros stood, olive drab. There were brown, crumbling adobe walls and squat houses, their roofs heaped high with yellow cornstalks or hung with strings of red peppers. A gigantic green mesquite tree with roots like a chicken's foot, thatched on every branch with dried hay and corn. Below, the town fell steeply down the arroyo. Roofs tumbled together like blocks, with flowers and grass growing on them, blue feathers of smoke waving from the chimneys, and occasional palms sticking up between. They fell away to the yellow plain where the horse races

Starting point is 07:32:23 are run, and beyond that, the barren mountains crouched, Tanya's lions, then faintly blue, then purple and wrinkled, notched and jagged across the fierce bright sky. Straight down and away through the Arroyo, one saw a great valley, like an elephant's hide, where the heat waves buck jumped. A lazy smoke of human noises floated up, roosters crowing, pigs grunting, burros giving great racking sobs, the rustling crackle of dried cornstalks being shaken out of the mesquite tree, a woman singing as she mashed her corn on the stones, the wailing of a myriad of babies. The sun fairly blistered. My friend Atonacio sat upon the sidewalk thinking of nothing. His dirty feet were bare except for sandals. His mighty sombrero was of a faded dull brick color

Starting point is 07:33:15 embroidered with tarnished gold braid, and his serapae was of the potter. blue one-seasoned Chinese rugs and decorated with yellow suns. He rose when he saw me. We removed our hats and embraced after the Mexican fashion, patting each other on the back with one hand while we shook the other. "'Buenos tardes, amigo,' he murmured. "'How do you seat yourself?' "'Very well, much thanks. And you, how have they treated you?' "'Dilicious, superlative thanks. I have longed to see you again.' and your family how are they it is considered more delicate in mexico not to ask about one's wife because so few people are married their health is of the best great great thanks and your family bien i saw your son with the army at himines he gave me many many remembrances of you would you desire a cigarette thanks permit me a light you are in vallelegr many days

Starting point is 07:34:20 for the fiesta only seor i hope your visit is fortunate seor my house is at your orders thanks how is it that i did not see you at the byle last night seor you who were always such a sympathetic dancer. Unhappily, Juanita is gone to visit her mother in El Oro, and now, therefore, I am a platonico. I grow too old for the seoritas. Ah, no, seor, a caballero of your age is in the prime of life. But tell me, is it true what I hear, that the mareristas are now at Mapimi? me si seor signor soon bia will take torreone they say and then it is only a matter of a few months before the revolution is accomplished i think that yes but tell me i have great respect for your opinion which cock would you advise me to bet on we approached the combatants and looked them over while their owners clamored in our ears they sat upon the curbing negligently hurting their birds apart it was getting toward three of of the afternoon. But will there be a cockfight? I asked them. Gain save, drawled one. The other murmured that possibly it would be manana. It developed that

Starting point is 07:35:40 the steel spurs had been forgotten in El Oro, and that a small boy had gone after them on a burro. It was six miles over the mountains to El Oro. However, no one was in any hurry, so we sat down also. Appeared then, Caterino Cabrera, the saloon-keeper, and also the constitutionalist hefe politico of Vallelegre, very drunk walking arm and arm with Don Prisiliano's Sauc-Sides, the former hefe under the Dias government. Don Prisiliano is a fine-looking, white-haired old Castilian, who used to lend money to the peons at 20 percent. Don Caterino is a former schoolman, an ardent revolutionist. He lends money at a slightly less rate of usury to the same parties. Don Catarino wears no collar, but he sports a revolver and two cartridge belts. Don Prisiliano,

Starting point is 07:36:38 during the first revolution, was deprived of most of his property by the maderistas of the town, and then strapped naked upon his horse and beaten upon his bare back with the flat of a sword. I, he says to my question, the revolution. I have most of the revolution upon my back. And the two pass on to Don Prisiliano's house, where Caterino is courting a beautiful daughter. Then, with the thunder of hoofs, dashes up the gay and gallant young Jesus Triano, who was a captain under Orosco, but Vallelegr is a three-days ride from the railroad, and politics are not a burning issue there. so jesus rides his stolen horse with impunity around the streets he is a large young man with shining teeth a rifle and bandolier and leather trousers fastened up the side with buttons as big as dollars his spurs are twice as big they say that his dashing ways and the fact that he shot emittario flores in the back have won him the hand of dolores youngest daughter of manuel paredes the charcoal contractor he plunges down the o's

Starting point is 07:37:49 a rollo with a gallop, his horse-tossing bloody froth from the cruel curb. Captain Adolfo Melendez, of the Constitutionalist Army, slouches around the corner in a new bottle-green corduroy uniform. He wears a handsome gilded sword, which once belonged to the knights of Pitheus. Adolfo came to Vallelegre on a two-week's leave, which he prolonged indefinitely in order to take to himself a wife, the 14-year-old daughter of a village aristocrat. They say that his wedding was magnificent beyond belief, two priests officiating, and the service lasting an hour more than necessary. But this may have been good economy on Adolfo's part, since he already had one wife in Chihuahua, another in Paral, and a third in Monterey,

Starting point is 07:38:39 and, of course, had to placate the parents of the bride. He had now been away from his regiment three months, and told me simply that he thought they had forgotten all about him by this time. At half-past four, a thunder of cheers pronounced the arrival of the small boy with the steel spurs. It seems that he had got into a card game at El Oro, and had temporarily forgotten his errand. But of course, nothing was said about it. He had arrived, which was the important thing. We formed a wide ring in the open space where the burros stood, and the two owners stood, and the two owners began to throw their birds. But at the first onslaught, the foul upon which we had all bet our money spread its wings, and, to the astonishment of the assembled company, soared screaming

Starting point is 07:39:27 over the mesquite tree and disappeared toward the mountains. Ten minutes later, the two owners unconcernedly divided the proceeds before our eyes, and we strolled home well content. Fidencio and I dined at Charlie Cheese Hotel. Throughout Mexico, in every little town, you will find China men monopolizing the hotel and restaurant business. Charlie and his cousin, Fu, were both married to the daughters of respectable Mexican villagers. No one seemed to think that strange. Mexicans appeared to have no race prejudices whatever. Captain Adolfo, in a bright yellow khaki uniform and another sword, brought his bride, a faintly pretty brown girl with her hair in a bang,

Starting point is 07:40:13 wearing chandelier lusters as earrings. Charlie banged down in front of each of us a court bottle of Aguardiente, and, sitting down at the table, flirted politely with Senora Melendez, while Fu served dinner, enlivened with gay social chatter in Pigeon Mexican. It seemed that there was to be a baile at Don Presiliano's that evening, and Charlie politely offered to teach Adolfo's wife a new step, which he had learned in El L'Leste. Paso, called the Turkey Trot. This he did until Aldofo began to look sullen and announced that he didn't

Starting point is 07:40:50 think he would go to Don Prisiliano's, since he considered it a bad thing for young wives to be seen much in public. Charlie and Fu also tendered their regrets, because several of their countrymen were due in the village that evening from Paral, and said that they would, of course, want to raise a little Chinese held together. So Fidencio and I finally departed, after solemnly promising, that we would return in time for the Chinese festivities after the dance. Outside, strong moonlight flooded all the village. The jumbled roofs were so many tipped up silvery plains, and the treetops glistened. Like a frozen cataract, the Arroyo fell away, and the great valley beyond lay drowned in rich, soft mist. The life sounds quickened in the dark. Excited laughter of young girls, a woman catching her breath at a window to the swift,

Starting point is 07:41:45 hot torrent of a man's speech as he leaned against the bars, a dozen guitars syncopating each other, a young buck hurrying to meet his novia, spurs ringing clear. It was cold. As we passed Cabrera's door, a hot, smoky, alcoholic breath smote us. Beyond that, you crossed on stepping-stones the stream where the women washed their clothes. Climbing the other bank, we saw the brilliant windows of Don Prisiliano's house, and heard the far strains of Vallelegre's orchestra. Open doors and windows were choked with men, tall, dark, silent peons,

Starting point is 07:42:25 wrapped to the eyes in their blankets, staring at the dance with eager and solemn eyes, a forest of sombreros. Now Fidencio had just returned to Vallelegger, after a long absence, and as we stood on the outside of the group, a tall young fellow caught sight of him, and, whirling his serape like a wing, he embraced my friend crying. Happy return, Fidencio! We looked for you many months. The crowd swayed and rocked like a windy wheat-field, blankets flapped dark against the night. They took up the cry.

Starting point is 07:43:02 Fidencio! Fidencio is here. Your Carmencita is inside Fidencina. you had better look out for your sweetheart you can't stay away as long as that and expect her to remain faithful to you those inside caught the cry and echoed it and the dance which had just begun stopped suddenly the peons formed a lane through which we passed patting us on the back with little words of welcome and affection and at the door a dozen friends crowded forward to hug us faces alight with pleasure carmencita a dumpy small indian girl dressed in a screaming blue ready-made dress that didn't fit stood over near the corner by the side of a certain pablito her partner a half-breed youth about sixteen years old with a bad complexion she affected to pay no attention to fidensio's arrival but stood dumbly with her eyes on the ground as is proper for unmarried mexican women Fidencio swaggered among his compadres in true manly fashion for a few minutes, interspersing his conversation with loud virile oaths. Then, in a lordly manner, he went straight across the room to Carmenita, placed her left hand within the hollow of his right arm, and cried, Well now, let's dance. And the grinning, perspiring musicians nodded and fell too.

Starting point is 07:44:27 There were five of them, two violins, a cornet, a flute. and a harp. They swung into tres piedras, and the couples fell in line, marching solemnly around the room. After parading around twice, they fell to dancing, hopping awkwardly over the rough, hard-packed dirt floor with jingling spurs. When they had danced around the room two or three times, they walked again, then danced, then walked, then danced, so that each number took about an hour. It was a long, low room with whitewashed walls and a beamed ceiling waddled with mud above, and at one end was the inevitable sewing machine, closed now, and converted into a sort of an altar by a tiny embroidered cloth upon which burned a perpetual rush flame before a tawdry color

Starting point is 07:45:16 print of the virgin which hung on the wall. Don Prisiliano and his wife, who was nursing a baby at her breast, beamed from chairs at the other end. Innumerable candles had been heated on one side and stuck against the wall all around, whence they trailed sooty snakes above them on the white. The men made a prodigious stamping and clinking as they danced, shouting boisterously to one another. The women kept their eyes on the floor and did not speak. I caught sight of the pimply youth glowering with folded arms upon Fidencio from his corner, and as I stood by the door, fragments of the peon's conversation floated into me. Fidencio should not have stayed away so long. Caramba, see the way Pablito scowls there, he thought surely Fidencio was dead, and that

Starting point is 07:46:09 Carmencita was his own. And then a hopeful voice, perhaps there will be trouble. The dance finally ended, and Fidencio led his betrothes. correctly back to her seat against the wall. The music stopped. The men poured out into the night, where, in the flare of a torch, the owner of the losing rooster sold bottles of strong drink. We toasted each other boisterously in the sharp dark. The mountains around stood dazzling in the moon. And then, for the intervals between dances were very short, we heard the music erupt again, volcanically and exuberantly into a waltz. The center of twenty curious and enthusiastic youths, for he had traveled, Fidencio strutted back into the room. He went straight to Carmencita,

Starting point is 07:46:58 but as he led her out upon the floor, Pablito glided up behind, pulling out a large obsolete revolver. A dozen shouts rang. Quidado, Fidencio, look out! He whirled to see the revolver pointed at his stomach. For a moment, no one moved. Fidencio and his rival looked at each other with wrathful eyes. There was a subdued clicking of automatics everywhere, as the gentleman drew and cocked their weapons, for some of them were friends of Pabloitos. I heard low voices muttering, Porfirio, go home and get my shotgun. Vittoriano, my new rifle, it lies on the bureau in mother's room. A shoal of small boys, like flying fish, scattered through the moonlight to get firearms. Meanwhile, the status quo was preserved.

Starting point is 07:47:50 The peons had squatted out of the range of fire, so that just their eyes showed above the window-sills, where they watched proceedings with joyous interest. Most of the musicians were edging toward the nearest window. The harpist, however, had dropped down behind his instrument. Don Prisiliano and his wife, still nursing the infant rose and majestically made their way to some interior part of the house it was none of their business besides they did not wish to interfere with the young folks pleasure with one arm fidoncio carefully pushed carmencita away holding his other hand poised like a claw in the dead silence he said you little goat don't stand there pointing that thing at me if you're afraid to shoot it pull the trigger while i am unarmes I am not afraid to die, even at the hand of a weak little fool who doesn't know when to use a gun.

Starting point is 07:48:47 The boy's face twisted hatefully, and I thought he was going to shoot. Ah, murmured the peons. Now, now is the time. But he didn't. After a few minutes, his hand wavered, and with a curse he jammed the pistol back into his pocket. The peon straightened up again and crowded disappointedly around the doors and windows. The harpist got up and began to tune his harp. There was much thrusting back of revolvers into holsters, and the sprightly social conversation grew up again. By the time the small boys arrived with a perfect arsenal of rifles and shotguns,

Starting point is 07:49:26 the dance had been resumed, so the guns were stacked in a corner. As long as Carmen Sita claimed his amorous attention, and there was a prospect of friction, Fidencio stayed. He swaggered among the men and basked in the admiration of the ladies, outdancing them all in speed, abandon, and noise. But he soon tired of that, and the excitement of meeting Carmencita palled upon him. So he went out into the moonlight again and up the arroyo

Starting point is 07:49:56 to take part in Charlie Chee's celebration. As we approached the hotel, we were conscious of a curious low morning, sound, which seemed akin to music. The dinner table had been removed from the dining room into the street, and around the room turkey-trotted foo and another celestial. A barrel of Aguardiente had been set up on a trestle in one corner, and beneath it sprawled Charlie himself, in his mouth a glass tube which siphoned up into the barrel. A tremendous wooden box of Mexican cigarettes had been smashed open on one side, the packages tumbling out upon the floor. In other parts of the room, two more Chinamen slept the profound sleep of the very drunk, wrapped in blankets. The two who danced

Starting point is 07:50:45 sang, meanwhile, their own version of a once popular ragtime song called Dreamy Eyes. Against this marched magnificently the Pilgrim's chorus from Tanhouser, rendered by a phonograph set up in the kitchen. Charlie removed the glass tube from his mouth, put a thumb over it, and welcomed us with a hymn which he sang as follows. Pool for the shore, sailor, pool for the shore. He'd not the lowling lave, but pool for the shore. He surveyed us with a bleary eye and remarked, "'Bledlau, je caliste is with us here to nigh.' After which he returned the siphon to his mouth. We blended into these festivities. Fidencio offered to exhibit the steps of a new Spanish Fandango

Starting point is 07:51:35 the way it was danced by the damned grasshoppers, as Mexicans call the Spaniards. He stamped, bellowing around the room, colliding with the Chinamen, and roaring La Paloma. Finally, out of breath, he collapsed upon a nearby chair, and began to descant upon the many charms of Adolfo's bride, whom he had seen for the first time that day. He'd a decont. He'd a that it was a shame for so young in blithe spirit to be tied to a middle-aged man he said that he himself represented youth strength and gallantry and was a much more fitting mate for her he added that as the evening advanced he found that he desired her more and more charlie chee with the glass tube in his mouth nodded intelligently at each of these statements i had a happy thought why not send for adolfo and his wife and invite them to join our festivities the china men asleep on the floor were kicked awake and their opinion asked since they could understand neither spanish nor english they answered fluently in chinese fidensio translated they say he said that charlie ought to be sent with the invitation we agreed to that charlie rose while foo took his place at the glass tube

Starting point is 07:52:55 he declared that he would invite them in the most irresistible terms and strapping on his revolver departed ten minutes later we heard five shots we discussed the matter at length not understanding why there should be any artillery at that time of night except that probably two guests returning from the by-lay were murdering each other before going to bed charlie took a long time in the meanwhile and we were just considering the advisability of sending out an expedite to find him when he returned. Well, how about it, Charlie, I asked. Will they come? I don't think so, he replied doubtfully, swaying in the doorway. Did you hear the shooting? asked Fidensio. Yes, very close, said Charlie. Foo, if you will kindly get out from under that tube. What is it, we asked.

Starting point is 07:53:52 Well, said Charlie, I knocked at Adolfo's door. and said we were having a party down here and wanted him to come. He shot at me three times, and I shot at him twice. So, saying, Charlie seized Fu by the leg and composedly laid down under the glass tube again. We must have stayed there some hours after that. I remember that toward morning, Ignacio came in and played us Tusti's Goodbye, to which all the China men danced solemnly around. At about four o'clock, a Tenacio appeared. He burst open the door and stood there very white

Starting point is 07:54:30 with a gun in one hand. Friends, he said, a most disagreeable thing has happened. My wife, Juanita, returned from her mother's about midnight on an ass. She was stopped on the road by a man muffled up in a poncho, which gave her an anonymous letter in which were detailed all my little amusements when I last went for recreation to Juarez. I have seen the letter. It is astonishingly accurate. It tells how I went to supper with Maria and then home with her. It tells how I took Anna to the bullfight. It describes the hair, complexion, and disposition of all those other ladies and how much money I spent on them. Caramba, it is exact to a cent. When she got home, I happened to be down at Caterinos, taking a cup with an old friend. This mysterious stranger appeared at the kitchen door with

Starting point is 07:55:26 another letter, in which he said I had three more wives in Chihuahua, which God knows is not true, since I only have one. It is not that I care, amigos, but these things have upset Juanita horribly. Of course, I denied these charges, but Valga me Dios, women are so unreasonable. I hired Dionysio to watch my house, but he has gone to the baile, and so, arousing and dressing my small son, that he may carry me word of any further outrages, I have come down to seek your help in preserving my home from this disgrace. We declared ourselves willing to do anything for Atonacio, anything that is, that promised excitement. We said that it was horrible, that the evil stranger ought to be exterminated. Who could it be?

Starting point is 07:56:18 Attenacio replied that it was probably Flores, who had had a baby by his wife before he married her, but who had never succeeded in quite capturing her affections. We forced Aguard Viente upon him, and he drank moodily. Charlie Chi was pried loose from the glass tube, where Fu took his place, and sent for weapons. And in ten minutes he returned with seven loaded revolvers of different makes. Almost immediately came a furious pounding on the door, and Atonacio's young son flung himself in. "'Papa!' he cried, holding out a paper. "'Here is another one. The man knocked at the back door, and when Mama went to find out who it was, she could only see a big red blanket covering him entirely up to the hair. He gave her a note and ran away,

Starting point is 07:57:10 taking a loaf of bread off the window. With trembling hands, Atonaccio unfolded the paper, paper and read aloud. Your husband is the father of forty-five small children in the state of Kwawila, signed, someone who knows him. Mother of God, cried Atanasio, springing to his feet in a transport of grief and rage. It is a lie. I have always discriminated. Forward, my friends, let us protect our homes. Seizing our revolvers, we rushed out into the night. We staggered panting up the steep hill to Atonacio's house, sticking close together so no one could be mistaken by the others for the mysterious stranger. Atonacio's wife was lying on the bed weeping hysterically. We scattered into the brush and poked into the alleys around the house,

Starting point is 07:58:03 but nothing stirred. In a corner of the corral lay Dionysio, the watchman, fast asleep, his rifle by his side. We passed on up the hill until we came to the the edge of the town. Already dawn was coming. A never-ending chorus of roosters made the only sound, except the incredibly soft music from the bylay at Don Prisiliano's, which would probably last all that day and the next night. A far, the big valley was like a great map, quiet, distinct, immense. Every wall-corner, tree-branch, and grass-blade on the roofs of the houses were pricked out in the wonderful clear light of before dawn. in the distance over the shoulder of the red mountain went a man covered up in a red serapae aha cried atonacio there he goes

Starting point is 07:58:55 and with one accord we opened up on the red blanket there were five of us and we had six shots apiece they echoed fearfully among the houses and clapped from mountain to mountain reproduced each one a hundred times of a sudden the village belched half-dressed men and women in children and children of a sudden the village belched half-dressed men and women in children children. They evidently thought that a new revolution was beginning. A very ancient crone came out of a small brown house on the edge of the village, rubbing her eyes. "'Oiga!' she shouted, "'what are you shooting at?' "'We are trying to kill that accursed man in the red blanket, who is poisoning our homes and making Vallelegr a place unfit for decent women to live in,' shouted Atonacio, taking another shot. The old woman bent her bleary eyes upon our target. But, she said gently, that is not a bad man, that's only my son going after the goats. Meanwhile, the red-blanketed figure, never even looking back, continued his placid way over the top of the mountain and disappeared. End of Section 41.

Starting point is 08:00:17 Section 42 of Insurgent Mexico This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Insurgent Mexico by John Reed. Part 6 Mexican Knights, Chapter 3. Los Pastores. The romance of gold hangs over the mountains of northern Durango like an old perfume. There it is rumored was that mythical Ophir, whence the Aztec and their mysterious predecessors drew the red gold that Cortes found in the treasury of Montezuma. Before the dawn of Mexican history, the Indians scratched these barren hillsides with dull copper knives. You can still see the traces of their workings. And after them, the Spaniards, with flashing bright helmets and steel breastplates, filled from these mountains the lofty treasure-ships of the Indies.

Starting point is 08:01:16 Almost a thousand miles from the capital, over trackless deserts and fierce stony mountains, a tiny colorful fringe of the most brilliant civilization in Europe flung itself among the canyons and high peaks of this desolate land. And so far was it from the seat of change that long after Spanish rule had disappeared from Mexico forever, it persisted here. The Spaniards enslaved the Indians of the region, of course, and the torrent-worn narrow valleys are still sinister with legend. Almost anybody around Santa Maria del Oro can tell you the stories of the old days when men were flogged to death in the mines, and the Spanish overseers lived like princes. But they were a hearty race these mountaineers. They were always rebelling. There is a legend of how

Starting point is 08:02:06 the Spaniards, finally discovering themselves alone, 200 leagues from the sea coast, in the midst of an overwhelmingly hostile native race, attempted one night to leave the mountains. Fires sprang up on the high peaks, and the mountain villages throbbed to the sound of drums. Somewhere in the narrow defiles, the Spaniards disappeared forever. And from that time, until certain foreigners secured mining concessions there, the place had an evil name. The authority of the Mexican government barely reached it. There are two villages which were the capitals of the gold-seeking Spaniards in this region, and where the Spanish tradition, and where the Spanish tradition is still strong. Inde and Santa Maria del Oro, usually called El Oro. Inde, the Spaniards

Starting point is 08:02:54 romantically named from their persistent dream that this new world was India. Santa Maria del Oro was called so on the same principle that one sung a te deum in honor of bloody victory, a gratefulness to heaven for the finding of red gold, our lady of the gold. In El Oro, one can still see the ruins of a monastery. They call it now vaguely the Collegio, the pathetic little arched roofs of a row of monkish cells built of adobe, and now fast crumbling under hot suns and torrential rains. It partly surrounds what was once the patio of the cloister, and a great mesquite tree towers there over the forgotten headstone of an ancient grave, inscribed with the lordly

Starting point is 08:03:39 name of Donya Isabella Guzman. Of course, everybody has entirely forgotten who, Donia Isabella was, or when she died. There still stands in the public square a fine old Spanish church with a beamed ceiling, and over the door of the tiny Palacio Municipal is the almost erased carving of the arms of some ancient Spanish house. Here is romance for you, but the inhabitants have no respect for tradition and hardly any memory of the ancients who left these monuments. The exuberant Indian civilization has entirely obliterated all traces of the conquistadores. El Oro is noted as the gayest town of all the mountain region.

Starting point is 08:04:24 There are Bailes almost every night, and far and near, it is a matter of common knowledge that El Oro is the home of the prettiest girls in Durango. In El Oro, too, they celebrate feast days with more ebulence than in other localities. All the charcoal burners and goat herds and pack-train drivers and ranchers for miles around come there on holidays, so that one feast day generally means two or three without work, since there must be one day for celebrating and at least another for coming and returning home. And what pastorillas they have in El Oro. Once a year, on the feast of the Santos Reyes, they perform Los Pastores all over this part of the country.

Starting point is 08:05:07 It is an ancient miracle play of the kind that used to take place all over Europe in the Renaissance, the kind that gave birth to Elizabethan drama, and is now extinct everywhere in the world. It is handed down by word of mouth from mother to daughter, from the remotest antiquity. It is called Lusbel, the Spanish for Lucifer, and depicts perverse man in the midst of his deadly sin, Lucifer, the great antagonist of souls, and the everlasting mercy. of God made flesh in the child Jesus. In most places there is only one performance of Los Pastores, but in El Oro, there are three or four on the night of the Santos Reyes,

Starting point is 08:05:50 and others at different times of the year as the spirit moves. The Cura, or village priest, still trains the actors. The play takes place no longer in the church, however, it is added to, from generation to generation, sometimes being twisted to satirize persons, in the village. It has become too profane, too realistic for the church, but still it points the great moral of medieval religion. Fidencio and I dined early on the night of the Santos Reyes. Afterward, he took me along the street to a narrow alleyway between adobe walls,

Starting point is 08:06:26 which led through a broken place into a tiny corral behind a house hung with red peppers. Under the legs of two meditative burrows, scurried dogs and chickens, pig or so and a swarm of little naked brown children. A wrinkled old Indian hag, smoking a cigarette made of an entire corn husk, squatted upon a wooden box. Upon our appearance, she arose, muttering toothless words of greeting, lifted the lid of the box, and produced an oya full of new-made Aguardiente. The distillery was in the kitchen. We paid her a silver peso, and circulated the jug among the three of us, with many polite wishes for health and prosperity. Over our heads the sunset sky yellowed and turned green, and a few large mountain stars blazed out. We heard laughter

Starting point is 08:07:18 and guitars from the lower end of the town, and the uproarious shouts of the charcoal burners finishing their holiday strong. The old lady consumed much more than her share. "'Oh, mother!' said Fidencio. "'Where are they going to give the Pastores to-night?' there are many pastores she answered with a leer caramba what a year it is for pastores there is one in the school-house and another back of don pedros and another in the casa of don marillo and still another in the house of perdita who was married to thomas redondo who was killed last year in the mines may god have mercy on his soul which will be the best demanded fidencio kicking a goat which was trying to enter the kitchen "'Quain saabe,' she shrugged vaguely. "'Were my old bones not so twisted, I would go to Don Pedro's, but I would be disappointed.

Starting point is 08:08:15 There are no pastores nowadays, such as the ones we used to give when I was a girl.' We went then to Don Pedro's, down a steep, uneven street, stopped every few feet by boisterous bankrupts, who wanted to know where a man could establish credit for liquor. Don Pedro's was a considerable house, for he was the village rich man. The open square which his buildings enclosed would have been a corral ordinarily, but Don Pedro could afford a patio, and it was full of fragrant shrubs and barrel cacti, a rude fountain pouring from an old iron pipe in the center.

Starting point is 08:08:54 The entrance to this was a narrow black archway, in which sat the town orchestra playing. A pine torch was stuck by its pitch against the outside wall, and under this a man took up 50-cent pieces for the entrance fee. We watched for some time, but nobody seemed to be paying anything. A clamorous mob stood around him, pleading special privilege, that they ought to get in free. One was Don Pedro's cousin, another his gardener, a third had married the daughter of his mother-in-law by his first marriage. One woman insisted that she was the the mother of a performer. There were other entrances at which no guardian stood, and through these, when they found themselves unable to cajole the gentleman at the main door, the crowd placidly sifted.

Starting point is 08:09:42 We paid our money amid an odd silence and entered. White burning moonlight flooded the place. The patio sloped upward along the side of the mountains, where there was no wall to stop the view of the great plains of shining upland, tilted to meet the shallow jade sky. To the low roof of the house, a canopy of canvas drooped out over a flat place, supported by slanting poles, like the pavilion of a Bedouin king. Its shadow cut the moonlight blacker than night. Six torches stuck in the ground around the outside of the place sent up thin lines of pitchy smoke. There was no other light under the canopy, except the restless gleams of innumerable cigarettes. Along the wall of the house stood black-robed women with

Starting point is 08:10:30 black mantillas over their heads, the men-folks squatting at their feet. Wherever there was a space between their knees were children. Men and women alike smoked their cigarros, handing them placidly down so that the little ones might take a puff. It was a quiet audience, speaking little and softly, perfectly content to wait, watching the moonlight on the patio, and listening to the music, which sounded far away in the arch. A nightingale burst into song somewhere among the shrubs, and all of us fell ecstatically silent listening to it. Small boys were dispatched to tell the band to stop while the song went on. That was very exciting. During all this time, there was no sign whatever of the performers. I don't know how long we sat there. I don't know how long we sat there.

Starting point is 08:11:19 there, but nobody made any comment on the fact. The audience was not there primarily to see the Pastores. It was there to see and hear whatever took place, and everything interested it. But being a restless, practical westerner, alas, I broke the charmed silence to ask a woman next to me when the play would begin. Who knows? she answered tranquilly. A newcomer, after turning my question in the answer over in his mind leaned across. Perhaps tomorrow, he said. I noticed that the band was playing no longer. It appears, he continued, that there are other pastores at Donya Perdita's house. They tell me that those who were to have performed here have gone up there to see them,

Starting point is 08:12:06 and the musicians also have gone up there. For the past half hour, I have been considering seriously going up there myself. We left him, still considering, still considering, seriously. The rest of the audience had settled down for an evening of pleasant gossip, having apparently forgotten the Pastores altogether. Outside, the ticket-taker with Arpeso had long since gathered his companions to him, and sought the pleasing hilarity of a canteena. And so we strolled slowly up the street, toward the edge of town, where the white-washed plaster walls of rich men's houses give way to the undecorated adobes of the poor. There, all pre-tebrowed, tents of streets ended, and we went along burrow paths between huts, scattered according to their

Starting point is 08:12:53 owner's whims, through dilapidated corrals to the house of the widow Don Tomas. It was built of sun-dried mud bricks, jutting partway into the mountain itself, and looked as the stable of Bethlehem must have looked. As if to carry out the analogy, a great cow lay in the moonlight just beneath the window, breathing and chewing her cod. Through the window and the door, over a throng of heads, we could see candlelight playing on the ceiling and hear the whining chant sung by girlish voices, and the beat of crooks keeping time on the floor with jingling bells. It was a low, dirt-floored, white-washed room, raftered and waddled with mud above, like any peasant dwelling in Italy or Palestine. At the end farthest from the door was a little

Starting point is 08:13:42 table heaped with paper flowers, where two tall church candles burned. Above a little, and it on the wall hung a chromo of the virgin and child, and in the middle of the flowers was set a tiny wooden model of a cradle in which lay a leaden doll to represent the infant Jesus. All the rest of the room, except for a small space in the middle of the floor, was packed with humanity, a fringe of children sitting cross-legged around the stage, half-grown-ups and girls kneeling, and behind them, until they choked the doorway, blanketed peons with their hats off, eager and curious. By some exquisite chance, a woman sat next to the altar, her breast exposed as she nursed her baby. Other women with their babies stood along the wall on both

Starting point is 08:14:29 sides of her, except for a narrow, curtained entrance into another room where we could hear the giggling of the performers. "'Has it begun?' I asked the boy next to me. "'No,' he answered. They just came out to sing a song to see if the stage was big enough.' it was a merry noisy crowd bandying jokes and gossip across each other's heads many of the men were exhilarated with a guardiente singing snatches of ribald songs with their arms around each other's shoulders and breaking out every now and then into fierce little quarrels that might have led to anything for they were all armed and right in the middle of everything a voice said sh they're going to begin now the curtain was lifted and lucifer hurled from heaven because of his invincible pride, stood before us. It was a young girl. All the performers were girls, in distinction to the pre-Elizabethan miracle plays, where the actors were boys.

Starting point is 08:15:31 She wore a costume whose every part had been handed down from a measurable antiquity. It was red, of course, red leather, the conventional medieval color for devils. But the exciting thing about it was that it was evidently the traditional rendering of the universe. form of a Roman legionary, and the Roman soldiers who crucified Christ were considered a little less than devils in the Middle Ages. She wore a wide, skirted doublet of red leather, under which were scalloped trousers, falling almost to the shoe tops. There doesn't seem to be much connection here until you remember that the Roman legionnaires in Britain and in Spain wore leather trousers. Her helmet was greatly distorted, because feathers and flowers had been fastened.

Starting point is 08:16:17 to it, but underneath you could trace the resemblance to the Roman helmet. A cuiress covered her breast and back. Instead of steel, it was made of small mirrors, and a sword hung by her side. Drawing the sword, she strutted about, pitching her voice to imitate a man's. "'Yo soi loo'-loose, ay, in my nombre se ve, "' pues con la l'hue, that baue, to the abysmo incendi. A splendid soliloquy of Lucifer hurled from heaven. Light am I, as my name proclaims, and the light of my fall kindled all the great abyss.

Starting point is 08:16:56 Because I would not humble myself, I, who is the captain general, be it known to all men, am today the accursed of God. To thee, O mountains, and to thee O sea, I will make my complaint, and thus, alas, relieve my overburdened breast. Cruel fortune, why art thou so inflexibly severe? I who yesterday dwelt serene in yonder starry vault am today disinherited, abandoned. Because of my mad envy and ambition, because of my rash presumption,

Starting point is 08:17:30 gone is my palace of yesterday, and today finds me sad among these mountains, mute witnesses of my grievous and pitiful state. O mountains, happy art thou, happy art thou, happy art thou in all, bleak and bare or gay with leafy verdure. Oh, ye swift brooks flowing free, behold me. Good, good, said the audience. That's the way Werta is going to feel when the Maderistas enter Mexico City, shouted one irrepressible revolutionist amid laughter. Behold me in my affliction and guilt, continued Lusbell. Just then a large dog came through the curtain, cheerfully wagging his tail. Immensely pleased with himself, he nosed among the children, licking a face here and there. One baby slapped him violently, and the dog, heard and astonished,

Starting point is 08:18:25 made a rush between Lucifer's legs in the midst of that sublime peroration. A second time Lucifer fell, and, rising amid the wild hilarity of the house, laid about her with her sword. At least fifty of the house descended upon the dog and ejected him howling, and the play went on. Laura, married to Arcadio, a shepherd, appeared singing at the door of her cottage, that is to say, through the curtain. How peacefully falls the light of the moon and the stars the supremely beautiful night! Nature appears to be on the point of revealing some wonderful secret. The whole world is at peace, and all hearts, methinks, are overflowing with joy and condescending. but who is this of such pleasing presence and fascinating figure.

Starting point is 08:19:15 Lucifer Prinkton strutted, avowing with Latin boldness his love for her. She replied that her heart was Arcadios, but the archdevil dwelt upon her husband's poverty, and himself promised her riches, towering palaces, jewels, and slaves. I feel that I am beginning to love thee, said Laura. Against my will, I can't. cannot deceive myself. At this point there was smothered laughter in the audience. "'Antonia, Antonia!' said everybody, grinning and nudging. "'That's just the way Antonia left Enrique. I always thought the devil was in it,'

Starting point is 08:19:54 remarked one of the women. But Laura had pangs of conscience about Port Arcadio. Lucifer insinuated that Arcadio was secretly in love with another, and that settled it. So that thou mayest not be troubled, Lauda said calmly, and so that I may be free from him, I shall even watch for an opportunity to kill him. This was a shock even to Lucifer. He suggested that it would be better to make Arcadio feel the pangs of jealousy, and in an exultant aside, remarked with satisfaction that her feet are already on the direct pathway to hell. The women apparently felt a good deal of satisfaction at this. They nodded virtuously to one another, but one young girl leaned over to another, and sighing said, Ah, but it must be wonderful to love like that.

Starting point is 08:20:48 Arcadio returned, to be reproached by Laura with his poverty. He was accompanied by Bato, a combination of Iago and Autolacus, who attended the dialogue between the shepherd and his wife with ironic. assides. By means of the jeweled ring that Lucifer had given Laura, Arcadio's suspicions were aroused, and when Laura had left him in haughty insolence, he gave vent to his feelings. Just when I was happy in her fidelity, she, with cruel reproaches, embitters my heart. What shall I do with myself?' "'Look for a new mate,' said Bato. That being rejected, Bato gave the following modest prescription for settling the difficulty. Kill her without delay. This done, take her skin and carefully folded away. Shouldst thou marry again, let the bride's sheet be that skin, and thus

Starting point is 08:21:44 prevent another gilting. To still further strengthen her virtue, tell her gently but firmly, sweetheart, this thy sheet was once my wife, see that thou dost carry thyself circumspectly, lest thou too come to the same end. Remember, that I am a hard and peevish man who does not stick at trifles. At the beginning of this speech, the men began to snicker, and when it ended they were gaffying loudly. An old peon, however, turned furiously on them. There is a proper prescription, he said, if that were done more often, there would not be so many domestic troubles. But Archadio didn't seem to see it, and Bato recommended the philosophic attitude.

Starting point is 08:22:30 stop thy complaining and leave laura to her lover free thus from obligations thou wilt become rich and be able to eat well dress well and truly enjoy life the rest matters but little seize therefore this opportunity toward thine own good fortune and do not forget i beg thee once thy fortune is made to regal this meagre paunch of mine with good cheer shame cried the women chuckling how false the desgraciado a man's voice piped up there is some truth in that seoras if it weren't for the women and children we all might be able to dress in fine clothes and ride upon a horse a fierce argument grew up around this point arcadio lost patience with batto and the latter plaintively said if thou hast any regard for poor batto let us go to supper arcadio answered firmly not until he had unburdened his heart unburden and welcome said batto until thou art tired as for me i shall put such a knot in my tongue that even shouldst thou chatter like a parrot i shall be mute he seated himself on a large rock and pretended to be asleep. And then for fifteen minutes, Arcadio unburdened himself to the mountains and the stars. O, Laura, inconstant, ungrateful and inhuman! Why hast thou caused me such woe? Thou hast wounded my faith and my honour, and hast put my soul in torment. Why dost thou mock my ardent

Starting point is 08:24:08 love? O thou steep hills and towering mountains, help me to express my woe! And thou, stern immovable cliffs, and thou, silent woods, help me to ease the heart of its pain." Amid heartfelt and sympathetic silence the audience mourned with Arcadio. A few women sobbed openly. Finally, Bato could stand it no longer. Let us go to supper, he said, better it is to suffer a little at a time. A perfect gale of laughter cut off the end of the sentence. Arcadio, to thee only Bato have i confided my secret butto aside i do not believe i can keep it already my mouth itches to tell it this fool will learn that a secret and a pledge to none should be entrusted enter a group of shepherds with their shepherdesses singing they were dressed in their feminine sunday best with flowery summer hats and carried enormous wooden apostolic crooks hung with paper flowers and strings of bells beautiful is this night beyond compare beautiful and peaceful as never before and happy the mortal who beholds it everything proclaims that the son of god the word divine made human flesh will soon be born in bethlehem and mankind's ransom be complete

Starting point is 08:25:34 then followed a dialogue between ninety-year-old miserly fabio and his sprightly young wife to which all present contributed upon the subject of the great virtues of women and the great failings of men The audience joined violently in the discussion, hurling the words of the play back and forward, men and women drawing together in two solid hostile bodies. The women were supported by the words of the play, but the men had the conspicuous example of Laura to draw from. It passed soon into argument about the virtues and failings of certain married couples in El Oro. The play suspended for some time. Bras, one of the shepherds, stole. Fabio's wallet from between his knees as he slept. Then came gossip and backbiting. Batto

Starting point is 08:26:24 forced Bras to share with him the contents of the stolen wallet, which they opened to find none of the food they expected. In their disappointment, both declared their willingness to sell their souls to the devil for a good meal. Lucifer overheard the declaration and attempted to bind them to it. But after a battle of wits between the rustics and the devil, the audience solid to a man against the underhanded tactics of Lucifer, it was decided by a throw of the dice, at which the devil lost, but he had told them where food could be obtained, and they went for it. Lucifer cursed God for interfering in behalf of two worthless shepherds. He marveled that, a hand mightier than Lucifer's, has been stretched out to save. He wondered at the everlasting

Starting point is 08:27:13 mercy toward worthless man, who has been a persistent sinner down the ages, while he, Lucifer, had felt God's wrath so heavily. Sweet music was suddenly heard, the shepherds singing behind the curtain, and Lucifer mused upon Daniel's prophecy that the divine word shall be made flesh. The music continued, announcing the birth of Christ among the shepherds. Lucifer, enraged, swore that he would use all his power to the end that all mortals shall at some time taste hell, and commanded hell to open and receive him in its center. At the birth of Christ, the spectators crossed themselves, the women muttering prayers. Lucifer's impotent raging against God was greeted with shouts of,

Starting point is 08:28:03 blasphemy, sacrilege, death to the devil for insulting God. Brasenbato returned, ill from overeating, and, believing they were about to die, called wildly for help. Then the shepherds and shepherdesses came in, singing and pounding the floor with their crooks, as they promised they would cure them. At the beginning of Act two, Bato and Bras, fully restored to health, were discovered again plotting to steal and eat the provisions laid by for a village festival, and as they went out to do so, Laura appeared, singing of her love for Lucifer. heavenly music was heard rebuking her for her adulterous thoughts, whereupon she renounced all desire for guilty love, and declared that she would be content with Arcadio. The women of the audience rustled and nodded and smiled at these exemplary sentiments.

Starting point is 08:28:58 Sighs of relief were heard all over the house that the play was coming out right. But just afterward, the sound of a falling roof was heard, and comic relief, in the persons of bras and buries. Bato entered, carrying a basket of food and a bottle of wine. Everybody brightened up at the appearance of these beloved crooks. Anticipatory mirth went around the room. Bato suggested that he eat his half while Bras stood guard, whereupon Bato ate Bras's share too. In the midst of the quarrel that followed, before they could hide the traces of their guilt, the shepherds and shepherdesses came back in search of the thief. Many, and absurd, were the reasons invented by Bato and Bras to explain the presence of the food and drink, which they finally managed

Starting point is 08:29:46 to convince the company was of diabolical origin. In order to further cover their traces, they invited the others to eat what is left. This scene, the most comic of the whole play, could hardly be heard for the roars of laughter that interrupted every speech. A young fellow reached over and punched a compadre. Do you remember how we got out of it when they caught us milking Don Pedro's cows? Lucifer returned and was invited to join the feast. He incited them maliciously to continue discussion of the robbery, and little by little to place the blame upon a stranger whom they all agreed having seen.

Starting point is 08:30:26 Of course they meant Lucifer, but, upon being invited to describe him, they depicted a monster a thousand times more repulsive than the reality. None suspected that the apparently amiable stranger seated in their mis. midst was Lucifer. How Bato and Bras were at last discovered and punished, how Laura and Arcadio were reconciled, how Fabio was rebuked for his avariciousness, and saw the error of his ways, how the infant Jesus was shown lying in his manger with the three strongly individualized kings out of the east, how Lucifer was finally discovered and cast back into hell I have not space here to describe. The play lasted for three hours, absorbing all the attention of the audience. Bato and Braz,

Starting point is 08:31:15 especially Bato, received their enthusiastic approbation. They sympathized with Laura, suffered with Arcadio, and hated Lucifer with the hatred of gallery gods for the villain in the melodrama. Only once was the play interrupted when a hatless youth rushed in and shouted, A man has come from the army who says that Urbina has taken Mapimi. Even the performers stopped singing. They were pounding the floor with jingling crooks at the time, and a whirlwind of questions beat upon the newcomer. But in a minute the interest passed, and the shepherds took up their song where they had dropped it. When we left Donya Perdita's house about midnight, the moon had already gone behind the western mountains, and a barking dog was all the noise in the dark, sharp night. It flashed upon,

Starting point is 08:32:07 me, as Fidencio and I went home with our arms about each other's shoulders, that this was the kind of thing which had preceded the golden age of the theater in Europe, the flowering of the Renaissance. It was amusing to speculate what the Mexican Renaissance would have been if it had not come so late. But already around the narrow shores of the Mexican Middle Ages beat the great seas of modern life, machinery, scientific thought, and political theory. Mexico would have to have to be the great seas of modern life, machinery, scientific thought, and political theory. Mexico would have to have to be the world. Mexico would have to to skip for a time her golden age of drama. End of Section 42. End of Insurgent Mexico by John Reed.

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