TOM MIX AND PANCHO VILLA: A Novel of Mexico and the Texas border Read Online Free PDF Page B

we can get. So!” He turned back to me. “Do you still want to join us? Do you have any idea what we’re fighting for?”
    “Land and liberty,” I said. I had read that in the Herald.
    “Good! Very good! Listen—” He grasped my shoulders. “For nearly four hundred years the people of this miserable country have been slaves. First to the Spaniards, who stole our gold and gave us religion. Then to the rich Mexicans, who stole our land and gave us pulque. If the revolution triumphs, the poor will get everything back that they lost. Then—so that they can keep it!—their children will learn to read and write. The little Señor Madero explained all that to me before those bastards, Huerta and Orozco, killed him. So now we follow Señor Carranza, the First Chief, and we’re blessed with a common enemy. Huerta controls the Federal Army—it’s the same army that Diaz used to keep the people in line. They’re professional soldiers, which means that the people are their natural enemy. Orozco, on the other hand, has a volunteer army, the Redflaggers, that he pays in silver. Their task is to kill revolutionists. Their flag is red, and so are their hands, with the blood of the people. They’re mercenaries, by their own choice. To them we’ll show no mercy.”
    “How many of them are there?”
    “A lot,” he said grimly. “The pay is good.”
    “And how many men do you have in your own army, chief?”
    “Five here. That’s counting you and me. Four waiting for me across the river in El Paso. That’s … let’s see …” He counted rapidly on his fingers. “That’s nine.”
    “That’s all? I thought you already had an army!”
    “I’ll get one.”
    “Nine men?”
    “With nine men, loyal and brave, I can recruit nine thousand more. Then I’ll need horses for them to ride, trains for them to travel on, food for them to eat, rifles for them to shoot and bullets to put into the rifles.” A pop-eyed smile lit up his face. “None of this will be very difficult. The people know me. They’ll follow me. Look how easily I convinced you to do it, and you’re a gringo.” His eyes grew a shade more solemn. “I need men like you, Tomás. You’re young, but you’re clever and you want to learn. Moreover, as Candelario said, you’re lucky. Once we have a real army, you’ll have the rank of captain. If I forget, remind me.”
    A captain! I hadn’t counted on that at all, but it made me feel wonderful.

Chapter 3
    “He may at pleasure whip,
    or hang, or torture.”
    A Yaqui Indian woman cooked our meal inside the hut. Like most Yaquis she was a nutty-brown color, flat-nosed and silent; I judged her more young than old. As she passed close to Villa, on the way to the little fire she had built on the broken dog irons, he gave her a friendly pat on the rump. It occurred to me then that she might be the woman into whom he had spilled his juices the night before, so that his aim at the cartridge was just that hairbreadth off. She was cooking frijoles, with some bits of brown meat simmering in a pan, waiting to be rolled into the tortillas. The smell of meat in that tiny space set my mouth to watering. From the pocket of his dirty shirt Candelario produced a crumpled pack of Sweet Caporal cigarettes which he offered round. Hipólito dug a bottle of mezcal from a dark corner, and it passed from one man to another. Although that frontier scamper juice could draw a blood blister on a rawhide boot, I took a healthy swallow.
    I had always heard that Villa didn’t drink alcohol, and it proved to be true: he let the bottle pass by him. They were talking idly about a man named Urbina who was waiting somewhere to the south in Durango to join up with them, when we heard the hoof beats of trotting horses outside. Everyone fell silent.
    “Just two,” Villa said, even before Julio went out the door. Then the hoof beats slowed, and I heard a Mex voice say something indistinctly. Hipólito peered out, black and bulky against the