Patriot

By Hanes Segler

Never before in history has the population of a country suffered more than during the Mexican Revolution. For over a decade, the poor of that country carried on a struggle against the government, the rich landowners and even the Catholic Church.

Benito, a young man wishing to become a true revolutionary patriot, joins the forces of Pancho Villa, only to find that his duties make him little more than a horse thief! When he is saved from a government death squad by wealthy Mexican-American rancher Alejandro Guerra, he decides to change his occupation, using his skills with livestock to repay his newfound benefactor.

However, Benito soon learns, along with Guerra, that La Revolucin is bent on drawing everything and everyone into the bloody conflict. Along the way, both men find the war's treacherous combatants and ever-shifting alliances will shape life-and death-for years to come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 13, 2004
• ISBN: 9780595762835

Hanes Segler

Hanes Segler was born in San Antonio in 1949. Son of a career military man, he lived in Germany for three years as a young child before returning to Central Texas where he attended school. After a decade of odd jobs, he entered the commercial banking industry and remained for many years. Upon retirement, he returned to San Antonio where he continues to work occasionally and travel at every opportunity; however, writing remains his true passion. Traveling extensively throughout South Texas and Mexico, he observes and enjoys the culture, history and people—good and bad—of the Border Region. The Truth, Very Rare is his ninth novel set in the region and the fifth of the Carlton Westerfield Series. See the author’s entire body of work and contact him with questions or comments at www.hanessegler.com.

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Copyright © 2004, 2007 by Hanes A.Segler

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

ISBN-13: 978-0-595-31468-3 (pbk)

ISBN-13: 978-0-595-76283-5 (ebk)

ISBN-10: 0-595-31468-6 (pbk)

ISBN-10: 0-595-76283-2 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

FOREWORD

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

EPILOGUE

Foreword

Patriot: (pá tri ot) fellow countryman; a person who loves and loyally supports his own country.

History is filled with men and women who fit that description, usually by conscious decision, but sometimes cast in the role by circumstance or fate. In the most common context, the word bestows a positive label upon its bearer, but a closer study reveals that a patriot can be entirely dependent upon one s point of view. In fact, the subjectivity of the term makes it impossible to determine with certainty what makes a patriot...or a traitor.

Perhaps nowhere and at no time in history did the term evoke stronger emotions than during the Mexican Revolution of the early twentieth century. It was a time of shifting loyalties; devastating rifts constantly occurred between groups of fellow countrymen for obscure reasons, and even stranger alliances developed out of a powerful desire to defeat the country’s corrupt ruling forces composed of State and Church. The results exemplified power corrupts; no sooner did one group rise to power than did its members immediately assume the same brutal policies of their predecessors, thus perpetuating the bloodshed.

Porfirio Díaz, president for over three decades, finally replaced in 1911 by the charismatic but ineffective Francisco Madero, himself arrested and executed by ambitious General Victoriano Huerta.. .and so on, for over thirteen years. Some of the most colorful names in history owe their fame (or infamy) to La Revolución, citizens from all levels on the socio-economic ladder: Governors Abraham González of Chihuahua and Maytorena of Sonora; Generals Pascual Orozco, Venustiano Carranza and Alvaro Obregón; the uneducated rebel leaders Emiliano Zapata, and of course, Francisco (Pancho) Villa.

The revolution occurred all over the country, north and south, from tiny villages to Mexico City and even spilling over the border to Mexico’s neighbor to the north. Exploits of the irascible Villa prompted U. S. President Woodrow Wilson to send John Blackjack Pershing on a long (and unsuccessful) pursuit of the revolutionary bandit, who is still revered by many Mexicans as the ultimate hero and patriot. By venturing into Texas and New Mexico, committing banditry and murder, he tried to draw the attention of Americans to the plight of his countrymen. He succeeded; however, the confusion of the Mexican political scene baffled U. S. government officials, from low-level diplomats to ambassadors and even President Woodrow Wilson. Assistance was given to factions and individuals who did not necessarily represent the best interests of the Mexican people. Consequently, some historians blame the duration of the conflict on U. S. policy, which shifted with the winds of war blowing in Mexico.

Not all of the revolutionists attained the stature of Carranza and Obregon, or the almost mythical fame of Villa or Zapata; indeed, only a few of the names are so well-known to history. But every town in Mexico has at least one statue, a park or a street named after some participant of the conflict, often a local combatant in one of the myriad battles of the revolution. And to those townspeople, their home-grown freedom fighter remains nothing less than a hero...and a true patriot.

PROLOGUE

The tour bus wheezed to a stop in front of the station, diesel smoke curling from the back and swirling over the small knot of people assembled at the edge of the pavement.

The driver emerged and announced to the crowd, We will be here for twenty minutes. Please do not board until the passengers are off the bus, and do not take the seats which have their belongings.

The tired passengers began piling off the bus, stretching and yawning, some blinking in the bright afternoon sunlight before donning sunglasses and pulling down hat brims. An older group, two couples and a single man, converged in the gravel parking lot to discuss what to do during the impromptu layover.

Let’s take a walk. I’m damn tired of sitting on that bus already, and we’ve got four more hours before we reach the border, the single man said, frowning as he looked at his cell phone. Still no signal. Probably won’t have one until we’re fifty miles or so from El Paso.

Okay by me. Kathy? And how about you two? one of the other men asked, looking at his companions.

That’s fine, answered Kathy. Twenty minutes really means an hour, anyway.

The older of the couples nodded their assent to the suggestion, and the five set off toward el centro, the town square, little more than a squalid patch of grass and weeds, but the center of all social activity in this northern Mexican village, the name of which escaped all of the passengers at this moment.

I wonder what that plaque says, Kathy said, pointing to a bronze-looking metal shield bolted haphazardly to a lamp post in the middle of the weeds.

You won’t find out from me, answered her husband, George. Harold, can you read this stuff?

I don’t know. My high school Spanish is a little rusty after sixty years. Let’s go see. The group waded through the weed patch and peered up at the shield. It says something about the Mexican Revolution, Harold informed them. The date, August 3, 1911, something apparently happened here, said the cell phone worrier. "Jeez, what could possibly have happened in this backwater burg?"

CHAPTER 1

The sound of gunfire punctured the peace and quiet of the late afternoon. The timing between shots was even, six resounding percussions in all, perhaps someone emptying a six-shot revolver at a target. Or perhaps the shooter was quickly walking from target to target, execution style.

Benito had recently witnessed just such a scene in his own village, although the victims numbered only three. But something about the cadence of the sounds refreshed the image in his mind. The thought sent a chill through his body, starting low in his back and progressing upward, terminating with an involuntary shiver of his shoulders.

He dismissed the thought as being too dramatic, too much like a silly old woman, and he shifted around in an attempt to get more comfortable. Not an easy task, given his cramped position on the cold ground in a shallow depression. There wasn’t enough room for his legs, so he had curled them under him, sitting on his feet. It had kept his feet warm, an added bonus, since his feet seemed always to be cold. They had gone completely numb, oblivious to the cold, and the blessed numbness was now interrupted by painful tingling which made him flinch as the renewed blood flow warmed idle nerves.

Mixed blessings. Siempre la bendición mixta.

He was seated near the top of a hill, closely surrounded by big rocks, except for a gap directly in front of him. An ocotillo bush blocked his position from detection, but he could view the entire area below by moving his head slightly to see around and through its sparse foliage. The location enabled him to view a broad expanse of the land around him, nearly half the surrounding countryside. Looking to his right was almost due north, with miles of rolling hills much like the one he sat atop. In front of him, to the west-southwest, more of the same, their crowns of boulders visible only on the nearer ones.

The result of eons of erosion, the exposed boulders ringing the hilltops ranged in color from dark red to pale orange. Miniature landslides of crumbling rocks decorated the sides of some of the hills, extending from the boulder-crown halfway to the base in colorful, vee-shaped swaths.

His own perch had been the source of such an event a hundred, or a thousand, or ten thousand years ago—or maybe not so long ago. Just this afternoon, while Benito had negotiated his way through some of the loose rubble to get to this spot, a misstep had created a tiny slide of rocks, proof that the process was ongoing and eternal.

The setting sun adorned the summit to the southwest with a pale golden sheen as it slid downward, rapidly closing the gap to the horizon. By leaning forward and looking to his left, he could see beyond the eroded hills to the hazy, purple mountains of northern Mexico to the south.

Benito’s turn at watch had begun hours before, before sunrise, and the vista before him had seemed as peaceful and uneventful as always, save the gunfire. He had seen no sign of human life anywhere in the many-square-kilometer patch before him, despite frequent sweeps with the binoculars. He hadn’t expected to see anyone, and the binocular exercises were more a response to curiosity than anything else.

The magnifying apparatus was new to Benito, and he felt more important at this dull task assigned to him using the modern equipment. The binoculars were said to have been entrusted to José for this excursion by Villa himself. Of that, Benito could not say, although he did not doubt it. Where else would they have gotten such an expensive item? Only someone as important as Villa would have such a thing, or have the authority to assign its use to a group of cattle thieves. José had given Benito the binoculars earlier in the day, before they left for their lookouts, with instructions on their use and an order to watch for livestock to steal, as well as human activity.

Adjusting the knurled ring on each eyepiece changed the focus of the view, and Benito found he could make the scene before his eyes a bizarre combination of hazy blur to the left and sharp clarity to the right, or vice-versa. However, he preferred the magical moment when he twisted the knobs just so, bringing a distant scene into crystal-clear focus, and saw tiny things appearing as though they were only a few meters away.

At first, he had kept himself entertained by looking at various birds, the soaring zopilotes in particular. After some practice, he was able to follow their flight and watch their ugly red heads twisting and turning as they looked for the carcass of some unfortunate earth-bound creature which had met its demise.

After awhile, Benito decided he had best watch the ground area as he was told, and substituted land animals and plants for the soaring vultures. Besides, the vultures represented Death, and there had been plenty of death already. Watching death right now was not a reasonable way to pass the time. Watching the area below would be more pleasant, not unlike hunting for a deer or a wild pig to shoot, as he had heard the wealthy landowners did just for sport.

In fact, he had earlier watched several of the big mule deer nervously grazing the thin grass at the base of his observation hill. Nibbling at the stems, each one raised its head every three or four seconds to survey the surroundings. Their huge ears rotated on heads held perfectly still, straining to pick up any uncommon sound, and flared nostrils scanned the air for any foreign scent. By constantly alternating between eating and observing, the four animals had at least two of their group effectively on alert for danger all the time. The deer had instinctively perfected the fool-proof lookout arrangement, just as nature had intended. And no doubt they were more effective at the lookout job than he and his companions squatting on neighboring hills were performing. After all, here he was spending time with the magical mechanical eyes looking at deer instead oflooking for men, the most dangerous of all animals.

But I would see them if they came, yes, even without these mechanical eyepieces, I would see them.

Watching the deer for a few more seconds, Benito wondered if he would ever do something so akin to wealth as hunting for mere sport. His thoughts drifted back to the earlier gunfire. Someone would probably be sent to check out the shots, but it was unlikely that the shooter would be located. The direction of any sound was difficult to determine among the surrounding hills, especially a sound that reverberated so much as gunfire. The search would be half-hearted at best.

Benito wondered what they would do, even if they found out who fired the shots, and why. He’d leave that up to the leader, José, who had undoubtedly heard the shots from the encampment, providing he had returned from his search for cattle. He would surely send someone to investigate, maybe the young boys at the camp.

They escaped this day’s lookout duty, so it would be fitting for José to send them!

The idea gave him little comfort since he had no faith in Jaime’s or Rafael’s ability to do such a task without being detected by the shooter. Or maybe they would become lost in the vast area of rocky hills. Both were barely out of their teen years, likable enough, with that confident air so common to young men, but not very experienced in life. They were so youthful in appearance and mannerisms, and all their conversations revolved around the glory that would be theirs and how that glory would bring them many women. But out here there were no women.

No women—and no glory, either!

The young men’s swagger would probably melt away the minute some angry norteamericano rancher or a scared young mexicano soldier pointed a gun at them. And most certainly when he pulled the trigger.

Or, Madre de Dios, what of the rinches, the Rangers?

The norteamericanos who lived in the region just north of Mexico relied heavily on the group of men they called Rangers, a hard and dangerous group of men who served as a kind of state police or militia. They were somewhat like the rurales, the federal police force charged with keeping law and order in remote, rural areas of Mexico.

The rurales, a product of President Dfaz’s increased pressure on the poor, were generally despised throughout rural Mexico, although they did attempt to keep a semblance of law and order. But unlike the rurales, the soldados gringos, or the regular lawmen, these Rangers showed no mercy, not even justice to those they apprehended. Captured criminals were straightaway hung from the nearest tree, or lacking a tree, a quick bullet to the head was standard. And as Benito himself had witnessed, even more brutal methods were employed by the proud force known as the Texas Rangers.

Whether fact or fiction, it was widely accepted that the Rangers only set out to pursue those who presented a grave danger to the outlying citizens of this area, such as livestock thieves, bank robbers or murderers. Petty thieves and other criminals of a less sinister nature were supposedly left up to local lawmen, who were to bring them in and perform a proper trial under the laws of the state. But the Rangers seemed immune to such issues, and when they captured their target, a trial was not considered necessary.

Benito had seen the Rangers’ handiwork after only his third day with this group led by José. They had managed to gather a small herd of ten or so cattle from a ranch near Santa Elena, a tiny village on the Rio Grande in the area where the river makes its big southern loop into Mexico. As they herded the cows toward the river a few kilometers away, they suddenly heard wild yelps and screams approaching from behind and gaining on them quickly.

Before they could pick up the pace toward the river and safety, a group of three horsemen raced headlong into the group, wildly firing and continuing the insane yelping and whooping. The noise spooked the cattle, and they began to mill around blindly, knocking Benito from his mount. He was unhurt and quickly rolled out of the way under a cenizo bush, hoping the cattle would step around it rather than crush him in their panic.

Benito peered out from his hiding place to see the rest of the group fleeing to the river some two kilometers away, the cattle forgotten. The Rangers did not even bother to give chase; one of them simply steadied his horse and pulled a rifle from its scabbard. Two quick shots resulted in two of José’s men falling from their horses. Another of the Rangers performed a similar feat, but with a pistol, from an incredible range!

The third Ranger spurred his horse over to the fallen men, one of which was still alive and struggling to sit up. Loosening his rope, he tossed a loop over the dazed man’s torso and spurred his horse again, dragging the poor man across the rocky ground, back to the other two who sat astride their horses, calmly reloading their weapons. From his vantage point beneath the thick bush, Benito could see that the Rangers hardly took notice of the wounded man moaning at the end of the rope. Benito lay silent under the bush, afraid even to breathe lest they discover his hiding place.

The horsemen conversed for a moment, then turned their attention to the scattered cattle. Again spurring his horse, the Ranger dragging the man used the gruesome arrangement as a tool, circling the strays and herding them back by means of the bouncing, screaming man at the end of the rope. But thankfully, the screams did not last long.

Hours later, Benito recovered his bravery enough to crawl from the bush and run to the river. He crossed to the other side and hurried through the thick brush for another kilometer, where he was gladdened to the point of tears by the sight of two of his group who had stayed behind for him. He mounted on the rear of one of the horses, and the three quickly retreated to camp. It was Benito’s first introduction to the fabled Texas Rangers, and one he would not soon forget.

It was because of the Rangers that Benito thought they should stay farther west, in the area still known as a territorio of los Estados Unidos, called Nuevo México. There had been talk recently that it too, would soon be a true state, and then it would be more heavily patrolled by the soldados gringos. Until then, federal marshals were few and far between, enabling raiding parties from Mexico to enjoy great success in stealing cattle, horses and supplies. So long as one stayed well away from the fortín where the soldados lived, it was relatively safe.

But soldados of any nationality were nothing compared to the Rangers. To be sure, the American soldiers were disciplined and well-equipped; impressive to look at, with their crisp, tan uniforms adorned with yellow rank stripes, and always displaying brightly colored unit guidons and flags. Already the conflict in Mexico had created increased attention from the leaders of los Estados Unidos, and cavalry units sporadically patrolled the border area.

Benito himself had viewed a patrol on the day before the fateful meeting with the Rangers. José, Benito and the rest had dismounted and peered from behind some boulders in a canyon as the powerful-looking fighters, erect in their saddles, trotted along an established trail within a hundred meters of their hiding place. Their horses and guns gave them superiority over any force which chose to stay and fight, so Benito and the others had watched quietly while the patrol passed, then slipped out the back of the canyon to find cattle.

Engaging the heavily armed soldiers in battle was out of the question, anyway. It was far wiser to view the eye-pleasing formations from a distance, as though looking at a beautiful woman with a jealous husband, then slip away without confrontation. Safety lay just across the Rio Grande, and no one was so foolish not to stay near that safety.

But with the Rangers in pursuit, one could not know if even the river were safe. Those rinches were likely to ignore international law and ride across, capturing and killing those they pursued. Who would stop them? The Mexican army? Perhaps, if the force were large enough and near enough. But the revolution had stretched thin the army’s ranks, and smaller groups would have no chance against a similar-sized band of Rangers. They were diablos, those Rangers. Besides, an outright battle with the army might only incite the norteamericanos to try to capture more Mexican territory, a philosophy the texicans had never completely given up anyway, despite the supposed peace between Mexico and los Estados Unidos.

Unfortunately, the horses and cattle needed to survive and carry on with La Revolución were in short supply in the area known as Territorio de Nuevo México, and were becoming harder to find anywhere near the river. The recent unrest in Mexico had made the ranchers nervous, and many of them moved their herds to the east, nearer to the ring of forts which defined the outer limits of most of the state’s population. But here, deeper in Tejas, in this vast ranchland far north of the river, were huge ranches with cattle for the taking. And sometimes horses, too, if one were brave enough to raid the pens near the ranch houses.

Cattle could more easily be taken and not missed; horses were a different matter. These Texans, they loved their horses, the descendants of horses that had been brought here by Benito’s ancestors from Spain almost four hundred years before. It was their strange attachment to horses that angered the rancheros when they were stolen, reasoned Benito, more so than the loss of a few cattle. And that anger resulted in their summoning the dreaded Rangers, an event almost certain to result in someone’s death. So far on this trip, there had been no sign of Rangers, which Benito took as a true blessing from God. He had seen death administered too many times already.

Benito pushed the morbid thoughts of the Rangers and death from his mind and began to chew on the politics of his own informal group of revolutionaries. José, who was in charge, seemed little more qualified to be leading them than the two boys, Jaime and Rafael. Benito thought that one of the older members of the group might have been better suited to lead, but José had exerted his influence early on. He had simply talked more and sounded more authoritative than the rest, actual knowledge aside. And Villa had agreed, or at least hadn’t disagreed, that José would lead the group into the north to steal cattle and horses to feed and supply his ragged band.

Benito hadn’t concurred, nor had he really opposed José’s appointment to leadership. His ideas hadn’t been bad, but not any better than anyone else’s. His talk apparently had shown more fire, or something that Villa viewed as leadership qualities. Presently, Villa himself held no official rank or title, although he was referred to by his followers as General. At the request of his friend Abraham González, he had simply joined the anti-reelectionists to oppose the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz.

But no one questioned Villa’s decisions, certainly not one regarding leadership of thieves sent to steal cattle! Benito had said nothing when José was chosen to lead them, despite his private misgivings. He thought it wise to let it pass, biding his time until something happened to tell him differently.

That situation had provided an example of just one shortcoming of the theory of anarchism: it never lasted very long in groups of men, even groups as small as two, and certainly not in the nine peasants who were now far north of the border and the relative safety of Mexico. Someone always had to step forward and give orders, thus nullifying the very reason for anarchy’s occurrence in the first place. Human beings seemed unable to operate in the absence of power; something in the social nature of man required that he lean toward one or more of his kind who had the power to control, or at least the desire to. And it was always explained off as a need for order, a requirement for survival from...from what? Past oppression? Future oppression? One another?

In the beginning, no one had been the boss, el jefe. It was just a group who gathered from time to time to talk and plan how they could join the revolution, be patriotas and still remain every man for himself. As though a band of peasants lacking horses, guns, or even a compass could affect the revolution! What could farmers, workers of the poor soil, possibly do in an armed conflict covering hundreds of kilometers of harsh Chihuahuan Desert?

But the talk of patriotism had persisted, and when one of the Villa’s men came to Benito’s village to muster help, he had promised horses to those who proved themselves competent. José had rather boldly suggested to the recruiter that they could even supply their own horses by raiding a nearby ranch. The Patrón surely wouldn’t miss a few horses among the dozens in his stables, would he? Remembering this part of the recruitment process, Benito now realized that José’s idea had been passed along to Villa. That must have been why José was singled out to lead them.

The proposed horse raid had worked, somewhat. Benito and José had both worked with the rich man’s horses from time to time, and their familiarity with the animals enabled them to enter the barn without spooking them. Benito placed a lead rope around the necks of the ones closest to the door and handed them to José, one by one. In turn, he led them to the door, where their accomplices rode off into the night at a full gallop.

A total of four horses were stolen and successfully delivered to Villa’s men, but three of the villagers had been killed for their efforts. The Patrón had sent his men the following day to round up anyone who even had knowledge of the theft. In their haste to punish someone, the Patrón’s men hadn’t bothered to determine guilt or innocence. One of the men executed had been an old man, muy viejo, and quite addled in the mind. He hadn’t even known what the commotion was about, but they shot him in the back of the head anyway, just like the others.

Watching the bright red fountains of blood pour from holes in the heads of his fellow villagers onto the dusty street, Benito hadn’t thought the trade-off worthwhile, but apparently it had impressed Villa. To him, the acquisition of horses outweighed the loss of a few men, men who were destined to die anyway. But the revolution was destined to live, and in order to live, it had to have horses—and patriots to steal them!

So they had joined La Revolución, this group of villagers, by traveling to Hidalgo de Parral, a small settlement near Ciudad Chihuahua, far to the south. Benito, José, Rafael, Jaime, Francisco, Ediberto and the others, all determined to do their part, whatever that part might be, to win the war against oppression! How little they had known, how naive they had been about the glories of war and battle.

By observing Villa’s followers and the conditions they lived in, after the first two days Benito understood that the reality was quite different from their dreams of glory in the village. But they had joined, and they had to see it through. No one questioned that; no one suggested that they change their minds.

It had been a true adventure at first, this joining the revolution. For Benito, the turmoil occurring in his country had, until now, created little impact. Indeed, there was only occasional vague news of the ongoing events, and the action seemed far away from his village. His life had been an exercise in tedium, hard work in