We were rounded up by the men before another was word spoken. Now we were standing in front of firing squad.
"Estamos Mexicanos!" Maria made a desperate plea and pointed to herself and her brother. "Y ellos no son federales no?" She pointed to the rest of us. "No somos sus enemigos!" They didn't seem swayed.
Not far off another train of men had rounded up two other "enemigos." A teenage boy and another Mexican man. The Mexican importuned them to let him live. The boy, an American, urgently rambled on about not missing classes. He was a high school student from New Jersey.
A gentlemen in his late thirties stopped the other soldiers and seemed to rescue them. He appeared to be their leader. He preached to his comrades about being men and not savages. He let them off the hook, but did not set them free.
I looked to the man, praying he would come over by us, but he didn't seem to notice. It was taps. They held up they're guns while one of them counted. "Uno, dos-"
"No!" It was that man again. He had found his way towards us. *Oh Thank God.* Mary crossed herself.
Our savior gave a speech similar to his previous. He was so emotional and strangely empathic. I could not help looking on all of them with disdain after what happened to Columbus, but something about him made me like him on some level. He ordered his men to load us up on to a nearby wagon. I asked one of the soldiers as to whom that man was.
"Quien es el señor?" I said.
He spoke back to me in my own language. "That is my dear señorita, General Francisco Villa. You're lucky he's in one of his more sentimental moods."
So that was Pancho Villa. That famous freedom fighter and revolutionary. He sounded like a just and passionate man fighting for a noble cause from what I read in the papers.
Now that I looked on him couldn't decide how I felt. He destroyed our home and saved our lives. What most fascinated me about him was that he seemed more complicated than myself. Despite my new hatred of the man he did intrigue me so.
But being carted around in that wagon was like jail, uncomfortable, boring, and it's the only place you don't want to be at that very moment.
***
Chicago, July 1913
"Three thousand six hundred forty-six, three thousand six hundred forty-seven, three thousand six hundred forty-eight, three thousand six hundred forty-nine, three thousand six hundred fifty…" The wall was cold, but there was nothing else to lean up against and the straw in the bed poked out. A well-educated, imaginative mind was now reduced to counting for entertainment. Counting! And I kept losing count when I got into the four thousands. I did this when sinking into to foolish fantasies no longer worked.
"Alright Rose, you're free to go." Superintendent Murray always bothered me, but I could have had worse, much worse. After two weeks of being locked up I hated him for the silliest reasons. He had to sigh first before he spoke, he never shaved evenly, his stomach fat spilled over his belt unattractively, and he always stared at me with this odd look of disapproval and pity. We had a mutual contempt for one another that always stayed just below the surface.
Two weeks earlier I had been at a demonstration out on a green when things started to get a little rough between the suffragettes and the public. Agnes Plum, who was about thirty-five years older than me, and probably the scariest woman alive, in both appearance and countenance, seemed to be having a bit of a disagreement with man much smaller than her- not that this man was in any way small.
"Agnes…maybe we should just ignore him…"
"Look at this unemployed lush. I don't have to take any rude comments from this filth. Just leave you good for nothing scum or I'll make you sorry you were ever born."
"Go back home Calamity Jane. If they'll even let you back in."
"Don't talk like that to her!" I shouted. Before I had pitied him for trying to tangle with Agnes, but this was too much.
"I don't have to listen to little girls neither." He tried to put his cigarette out on me. On impulse I hit over the head with my sign. The last thing he probably saw before he passed out was the word 'Vote.'
That was how I got my two-week vacation from the world.
I rose slowly and walked out to meet Iris and Alan.
"When can I start work again?"
"Anytime you want." Alan laughed at me not quite understanding. Iris knew. She had been in there before. "I'll even give you a raise. An extra Hershey's bar." How I loved working in a candy store.
"Thanks."
"Let's go home." Iris just smiled and shook her head.
"Always a pleasure having you Rose. Maybe we'll see you again some time." Said Murray.
"God how I hate that man." I whispered once we were out of his earshot. We all laughed.
***
Then I was back to sitting in silence in the wagon. I leaned against back clutching my suitcase. My mind had gone numb. I knew I had seen much worse before, but all I wanted was to go home. Not that a drink of water and a few cigarettes would've hurt. But jail was better though; it was inside, it didn't move, and I knew when I could go home. This time there was no Iris to come and bail me out.
"I wonder what's going to happen now." Said Sammy.
"I wonder what my mother is doing now." I pondered aloud.
"I wonder what George is doing right now. Like he's so far away, what's happening to him is something so alien from what's happening to me." Mary sighed.
"I wonder what's happening in Columbus right now." Said Maria.
"I was supposed to see Fannie Prescott today. I wonder what happened to her. I hope she's alright." My throat was going dry and I needed nicotine.
"I wonder what my wife…ex-wife is doing now. And I hope it's worse than this." Bookie had loved his wife, more than she loved him apparently. She grew tired of his lack of responsibility and threw him out of the house. She moved in with another man not long after that. A month later Bookie hopped on a boat and headed for America hoping that the New World would bring him a new life. Whatever it was he had to get as far away as possible from Marion. I think that was her name. He didn't like to talk about that much. That was all he ever told me.
But what had become of Columbus? Maybe most of the citizens were left untouched, but the center of town, where we lived, was surely destroyed. And Camp Furlong, the military outpost must have been the first thing they hit. But maybe they fought them off. Maybe they were still fighting. Cristo! Who knows?
Columbus. That scenic shithole, that desolate paradise. What had happened to it? The place where I had met my new family, saw my first crane, (there were beautiful cranes that lived in the area), the place where I had fallen in love again…well almost, but I did love Manny and I stuck to that sentiment like glue.
That night we camped somewhere out in the desert. Our gang was untied and they let us set up camp with them. The lot of us were crouched by a small fire with a new friend Bookie had found. His name was Diego. He spoke English rather well too. Unfortunately, poor Diego, thinking he would be of some assistance to this hapless bunch, came under a firing squad of questions.
It started out slightly civil. One would say something like: "What was your goal?"
He would tell us it was a supply raid, they were low, they did not go after any civilians, we would probably not been shot dead if we stayed in the Saloon.
"What was in Columbus?"
"Horses, ammunitions in Camp Furlong, if they went after your restaurante it was food, and somebody from Columbus sold Villa movie blanks instead of actual ammo."
"Why invade the US?"
"We lost so many men at Celaya, 14,000 I think, well it was so bad your President
recognized Carranza's faction as the legitimate government of Mexico. That might have set him off. Then the US aided the ambush on us at Agua Prieta and let Carranza use your railroads, the list goes on. So it's a little personal too."
Then questions got a little more intense. For example "What about all those people that lived there?" He really didn't know how to answer that one. Or "What about my fucking restaurant?!" Then we pulled Maria away and Mary took her to go find a drink a water to calm her down.
After Maria nearly killed him I asked him one more question. "What are *you* fighting for?"
"Well not to insult you señorita, but isn't it obvious? Carranza and his rich friends took everything from us and sold off our lands to your country-"
"No!" General Villa interrupted. He picked scooped up a handful of dirt from the ground and held it to my face. "We fight for the this. Just to own piece of it. We fight to raise crops, to feed our children, to live our lives! Este es nos revolución. Go home niña. Go back to your fat, rich country. We don't need you!"
I knew what it was like to have life dictated for me and not be heard. I had gained freedom, it was more frightening than oppression, but without freedom you cannot truly live your life. As proud as am I can never say I won my freedom alone. I had help. This was a different situation but it was the same thing. Freedom.
"I'm staying. I will fight. Someone once showed me the way to freedom, I had help getting where I am today. I had the chance and I don't deny to anyone else, especially on a larger scale. I'll fight with you. Let me stay."
He smiled at me, not sure whether to be pleased or confused. "Ah, woman!" He laughed and gave me a merry slap on the back. I coughed. "Diego! Give the girl a job!"
*What an amazing man. I wish Manuel had that sort of passion…NO…this is purely an intellectual fixation.* I'd only seen that one burning fire inside in one person…ever. General Villa had something close. Burning passion for something. Drive, ambition, sentiment. Villa had it.
"Nice speech. Were you trying to out do him?" Manny asked bringing me back to reality.
"No."
"What was the whole thing about gaining freedom?"
"Maybe later."
The next day we were on the move again. I, being a woman, got to look after horses and load guns. I resented it, but I still did it. The others joined too. They really had no other place to go and I guess no wanted to say no after I gave my little speech. Maria was a little angry, but growing up in Mexico and being less than warm towards Carranza most of her life she agreed to join the revolution.
We stopped in a cantina while waiting for a train to Ciudad Guerrero. The longer we waited the more nervous I got. I kept listening to other people's conversations. "It's full of federales. We get our asses shot off."
"Rose talk. You're making yourself crazy."
"Shut up Sam. Damn it I got everyone in to this and now I'm turning chicken. This is my responsibility. You guys do not have to be here." To be frank, the idea of death really didn't scare me anymore, but I had dragged others into it now. "Go home."
I huffed the smoke out of my mouth. It was the first cigarette I'd had in two days.
"We could've said no."
"I'm going to get a drink. Want?"
"No thanks."
After I got my drink I caught part of another discussion. That high school kid from Jersey was still there too. He was sitting with another Mexican, José, and a Belgian, Remy Baudouin. Jones was his name. Henry Jones Jr. He went around calling himself Indy, after his dog. I'd heard of his father, Professor Henry Jones of Princeton University.
At this moment young Indy was attempting to write his father explaining why he joined the Mexican Revolution. It wasn't going well.
"How's it going?" I asked.
"Not well." Responded Remy.
Indy just groaned. I wondered how I would start a letter to my mother telling her I joined the Mexican Revolution.
"Tell him you're furthering your education. Quote his favorite philosopher."
"Tried that." He said and tossed up another crumpled up piece of paper.
"Well good luck." I said. The three of them gave me a little wave. "Nice hat." I pointed to Indy.
"Ready everybody?" Diego was rounding us up. They put him in charge of watching us gringos. "Rosa how do you except to move like that?" I had my suitcase strapped to my back with two leather belts. Everyone else packed their belongings in some form of duffel or sack, I was the only with a hard suitcase. The only form of luggage I had was my suitcase.
"I can handle it. It's small." Well it was.
"Have it your way gringa. What is with you Americans? You're obsessed material possessions. You have to lug all your stupid shit everywhere."
"This is all I have to show for my twenty-one years and some of this 'shit' is damn important."
"It always is." I gave him a cynical little smile as I tightened one of the belt straps. "Take this." He tossed me something.
"What the hell is this?"
"What does it look like? It's a pistol. You'll need it."
"Christ."
"Have you ever killed a man before?"
"…n-no."
"There's first time for everything."
"WHAT?!"
"This is a war remember. And I heard your little speech. You better live up to it."
I sighed and got on my horse. "Fine." I tied the sheath around my waist. "What's in Ciudad Guerrero?"
"Gold, dinero. Federales. Lots of them."
"Lovely." *I can't KILL anybody. Maybe there was that spider once when I was eight…*
Diego hopped on the side of the train. "I grew up there. It's my hometown. You help free my people, no?"
"Yes."
"Rose!" Maria rode up behind me with Mary practically on her clinging to her.
"Hey you guys."
Diego tried to look at Mare's face, but it was buried in Maria's back.
"What's the matter with her?" he asked.
"Sorry I've never gone into battle before."
"I've never had someone's nose shoved two inches into my back. So there's a new experience for everyone today."
"You'll see some action today kid." Diego laughed and shook his head.
"I saw 'action' once. Tenth Avenue in Manhattan. Carmine Andolini beat the living hell out some guy that made a move on his mother. I know one his brothers, Sonny. Emily beat him up once when they were twelve. He's about her age."
"You're rambling." Maria jutted her back out, knocking Mary.
"Sorry I'm only a little petrified."
"Only one rule," said Diego, "stay alive. Vamanos!"
We got closer and Ciudad Guerrero was in sight. The train would soon be knocking threw the wall.
I had all my friends in sight. Mary and Maria to my left, Sammy and Manuel to my right, Bookie behind, and the train to the right, of course, with Diego watching over us.
We got closer and closer until we could the Federales lined up around the city walls. One of them called out.
"Villistas!"
Now this was it we were being fired at. Now I had to act. I pulled out my gun, pulled back the hammer and-suddenly I felt like someone had broken my fingers and my gun was no longer in my hand. *Shit.*
"I lost my gun!"
"At least you had one!" shouted Mary and Maria.
"Then duck!" shouted Manny as he fired off a round and pushed my head down.
Then they uncoupled the flatcar full of explosives. It detached and rammed into the wall in chorus of explosions and fire.
We broke through the city. I looked around ducked having no way to attack or to protect myself. I couldn't see very well either, the sun kept getting in my eyes. I kept reaching my hand out towards Maria and Mary, trying to keep them close by clinging to their sleeves.
When we broke into the city I dismounted my horse and found a stray gun on the ground.
I even felt guilty about leaving the poor horse alone. I tried to direct it under an awning.
"Go there! Stay. Stay under there." I waved finger at it. It listened.
I picked up my gun and searched around for my friends. I'd lost them. I was alone.
Someone came up behind. I tried to see, but all I really could see was dust and bright white light. I shielded my eyes and squinted trying to place the man running towards me.
The picture slowly became clearer. A man with a gun running towards me. I didn't recognize him. *A Federale?*
*Oh fuck!*
I fired my gun and he fell. He writhed on the ground clutching his arm. I hit him in the arm or I scathed him at least. He was bleeding rather badly.
I ran to side and put my hand on his arm.
"I'm so sorry! I didn't mean it! Are you hurt?"
He punched me in the face. It was the hardest I'd ever been hit in my life. It flung me to the ground. My back was in shock. I forgot about my suitcase.
He stood over me aiming his gun at my face. I might have had some time to act, he was trying to get it to fire. Maybe he was out? I tried to focus on him. He hit so hard I thought I would see stars.
This was it. No help in sight. If only I could just get up. I could feel something warm spreading through my mouth. Blood.
*Goodbye Bookie, Sammy, Manny, Maria, and Mary. Hello again Jack, Papa, Alice, Trudy, and Maximillion Hound.*
*No! No Rose. Don't give up. I'm not going to allow myself to let go just because I get knocked down.*
I could feel the life returning to my body. *Only one rule. Stay Alive.* Then a gunshot blast.
The man fell on top of me. I screamed and jumped out from under him. I was dizzy, I couldn't think.
Looking up I saw Diego. He just tipped his hat and smiled. That was the last time I ever saw him.
Moments later a plane flew overhead. Everyone turned their guns up to shoot at it. It was one of General Pershing's men. They had followed us in. It began dropping bombs all over the city. Then came Yankee canon fire. Now I was being attacked by my own people. Who were my people now?
After that us Villistas…I was a Villista now. Funny. Anyway after that we cleared out.
The next day we were headed for a hacienda owned by William Randolph Hearst. Mary, Sammy, Bookie, Maria and Manuel were all alive and well. I was the only one with an injury. There was a gigantic, swelling bruise on the right side of my face. It gave me a temporary lisp.
But Diego didn't make it. Poor soul. He died at home at least.
Camping out that night I listened in on an exchange between Villa and one of his men. The man asked if we really wanted war with the US. Villa said yes, then Carranza would get caught in the middle.
*See? He doesn't hold any malice against America. It's a war strategy. What am I saying? This is crazy, you're not in love with Pancho Villa. This is TRANSFERNCE. Yes transference!*
I was young, engaged, and still lonely. In psychological terms what I was experiencing is called transference. Every bit of passion and feeling I felt for and saw in Jack, who was now four years gone, I was now transferring to General Villa: a man of great passion and determination and love for his home. I laughed at the thought of Jack valiantly fighting to free the people of Wisconsin.
I'd get over it soon, but what about Manny? It wasn't fair to him. I would never love him like he deserved. He didn't deserve to live with a wife who carried a torch for a dead man. But how was I supposed to terminate the engagement at a time like this?
There was no one at Hearst's Hacienda when we arrived.
"All this wealth and he just leaves it here." Manny said to me.
"People with a lot of money throw it around. This is probably the most modest place he owns." I told him.
Inside it was elegantly rustic being a vacation home. It was the first fancy place I'd been in since I left home. It felt…strange.
Inside people began looting everything they found. Someone shouted something about there being a cinema downstairs. Bookie yanked my arm. "Come on!"
For those of us that had actually been to a cinema it had been a long time. Everybody went downstairs to the cinema. I sat with my closest friends among the motley crew of revolutionaries. We sat around watching a Civil War short. Then the news reel. Mostly about the war in Europe which now seemed to be of disinterest to Maria, then about the raid of Columbus.
The kid, Indiana Jones, was still there, translating the English. During the news he began to purposely misinterpret it. The American public now had very negative feelings towards General Villa. He edited those parts out and changed the words.
The angry Villistas obviously didn't believe Indy and shot at the screen. Everyone started to clear out after that. My group sat there for a spell.
"This isn't my revolution." Mary leaned over to whisper to Maria.
"What makes you think it's mine?"
Now everyone in our little group was concentrating on each other. "Anybody else?" Sammy sighed.
"They could be fighting for everything good and pure, but this just isn't our place." Said Bookie.
"Rose?" Sammy asked remembering what I had said to Villa.
"No, no you're right. We're all gringos at heart here. We can't help these people. I think Diego knew that."
"Pobre Diego." Sighed Manuel.
"We can't fight for him. We should go home. To Columbus or what's left of it, or America, but this is not where we belong. We're all Americans in one way or another." Said Maria.
"Let's go home then," said Sammy, "We'll ride in to Veracruz and we'll catch a boat to Texas or Louisiana or somewhere."
In Veracruz an old man told me something I will never forget. Revolutions come and go, dictators rise and fall, they all preach freedom, they all steal. The only thing that changes is the name of the man oppressing you.
We stayed in Veracruz for a while, getting ourselves together. We got on boat and left for Texas and arrived in Galveston on April 1st.
"Estamos Mexicanos!" Maria made a desperate plea and pointed to herself and her brother. "Y ellos no son federales no?" She pointed to the rest of us. "No somos sus enemigos!" They didn't seem swayed.
Not far off another train of men had rounded up two other "enemigos." A teenage boy and another Mexican man. The Mexican importuned them to let him live. The boy, an American, urgently rambled on about not missing classes. He was a high school student from New Jersey.
A gentlemen in his late thirties stopped the other soldiers and seemed to rescue them. He appeared to be their leader. He preached to his comrades about being men and not savages. He let them off the hook, but did not set them free.
I looked to the man, praying he would come over by us, but he didn't seem to notice. It was taps. They held up they're guns while one of them counted. "Uno, dos-"
"No!" It was that man again. He had found his way towards us. *Oh Thank God.* Mary crossed herself.
Our savior gave a speech similar to his previous. He was so emotional and strangely empathic. I could not help looking on all of them with disdain after what happened to Columbus, but something about him made me like him on some level. He ordered his men to load us up on to a nearby wagon. I asked one of the soldiers as to whom that man was.
"Quien es el señor?" I said.
He spoke back to me in my own language. "That is my dear señorita, General Francisco Villa. You're lucky he's in one of his more sentimental moods."
So that was Pancho Villa. That famous freedom fighter and revolutionary. He sounded like a just and passionate man fighting for a noble cause from what I read in the papers.
Now that I looked on him couldn't decide how I felt. He destroyed our home and saved our lives. What most fascinated me about him was that he seemed more complicated than myself. Despite my new hatred of the man he did intrigue me so.
But being carted around in that wagon was like jail, uncomfortable, boring, and it's the only place you don't want to be at that very moment.
***
Chicago, July 1913
"Three thousand six hundred forty-six, three thousand six hundred forty-seven, three thousand six hundred forty-eight, three thousand six hundred forty-nine, three thousand six hundred fifty…" The wall was cold, but there was nothing else to lean up against and the straw in the bed poked out. A well-educated, imaginative mind was now reduced to counting for entertainment. Counting! And I kept losing count when I got into the four thousands. I did this when sinking into to foolish fantasies no longer worked.
"Alright Rose, you're free to go." Superintendent Murray always bothered me, but I could have had worse, much worse. After two weeks of being locked up I hated him for the silliest reasons. He had to sigh first before he spoke, he never shaved evenly, his stomach fat spilled over his belt unattractively, and he always stared at me with this odd look of disapproval and pity. We had a mutual contempt for one another that always stayed just below the surface.
Two weeks earlier I had been at a demonstration out on a green when things started to get a little rough between the suffragettes and the public. Agnes Plum, who was about thirty-five years older than me, and probably the scariest woman alive, in both appearance and countenance, seemed to be having a bit of a disagreement with man much smaller than her- not that this man was in any way small.
"Agnes…maybe we should just ignore him…"
"Look at this unemployed lush. I don't have to take any rude comments from this filth. Just leave you good for nothing scum or I'll make you sorry you were ever born."
"Go back home Calamity Jane. If they'll even let you back in."
"Don't talk like that to her!" I shouted. Before I had pitied him for trying to tangle with Agnes, but this was too much.
"I don't have to listen to little girls neither." He tried to put his cigarette out on me. On impulse I hit over the head with my sign. The last thing he probably saw before he passed out was the word 'Vote.'
That was how I got my two-week vacation from the world.
I rose slowly and walked out to meet Iris and Alan.
"When can I start work again?"
"Anytime you want." Alan laughed at me not quite understanding. Iris knew. She had been in there before. "I'll even give you a raise. An extra Hershey's bar." How I loved working in a candy store.
"Thanks."
"Let's go home." Iris just smiled and shook her head.
"Always a pleasure having you Rose. Maybe we'll see you again some time." Said Murray.
"God how I hate that man." I whispered once we were out of his earshot. We all laughed.
***
Then I was back to sitting in silence in the wagon. I leaned against back clutching my suitcase. My mind had gone numb. I knew I had seen much worse before, but all I wanted was to go home. Not that a drink of water and a few cigarettes would've hurt. But jail was better though; it was inside, it didn't move, and I knew when I could go home. This time there was no Iris to come and bail me out.
"I wonder what's going to happen now." Said Sammy.
"I wonder what my mother is doing now." I pondered aloud.
"I wonder what George is doing right now. Like he's so far away, what's happening to him is something so alien from what's happening to me." Mary sighed.
"I wonder what's happening in Columbus right now." Said Maria.
"I was supposed to see Fannie Prescott today. I wonder what happened to her. I hope she's alright." My throat was going dry and I needed nicotine.
"I wonder what my wife…ex-wife is doing now. And I hope it's worse than this." Bookie had loved his wife, more than she loved him apparently. She grew tired of his lack of responsibility and threw him out of the house. She moved in with another man not long after that. A month later Bookie hopped on a boat and headed for America hoping that the New World would bring him a new life. Whatever it was he had to get as far away as possible from Marion. I think that was her name. He didn't like to talk about that much. That was all he ever told me.
But what had become of Columbus? Maybe most of the citizens were left untouched, but the center of town, where we lived, was surely destroyed. And Camp Furlong, the military outpost must have been the first thing they hit. But maybe they fought them off. Maybe they were still fighting. Cristo! Who knows?
Columbus. That scenic shithole, that desolate paradise. What had happened to it? The place where I had met my new family, saw my first crane, (there were beautiful cranes that lived in the area), the place where I had fallen in love again…well almost, but I did love Manny and I stuck to that sentiment like glue.
That night we camped somewhere out in the desert. Our gang was untied and they let us set up camp with them. The lot of us were crouched by a small fire with a new friend Bookie had found. His name was Diego. He spoke English rather well too. Unfortunately, poor Diego, thinking he would be of some assistance to this hapless bunch, came under a firing squad of questions.
It started out slightly civil. One would say something like: "What was your goal?"
He would tell us it was a supply raid, they were low, they did not go after any civilians, we would probably not been shot dead if we stayed in the Saloon.
"What was in Columbus?"
"Horses, ammunitions in Camp Furlong, if they went after your restaurante it was food, and somebody from Columbus sold Villa movie blanks instead of actual ammo."
"Why invade the US?"
"We lost so many men at Celaya, 14,000 I think, well it was so bad your President
recognized Carranza's faction as the legitimate government of Mexico. That might have set him off. Then the US aided the ambush on us at Agua Prieta and let Carranza use your railroads, the list goes on. So it's a little personal too."
Then questions got a little more intense. For example "What about all those people that lived there?" He really didn't know how to answer that one. Or "What about my fucking restaurant?!" Then we pulled Maria away and Mary took her to go find a drink a water to calm her down.
After Maria nearly killed him I asked him one more question. "What are *you* fighting for?"
"Well not to insult you señorita, but isn't it obvious? Carranza and his rich friends took everything from us and sold off our lands to your country-"
"No!" General Villa interrupted. He picked scooped up a handful of dirt from the ground and held it to my face. "We fight for the this. Just to own piece of it. We fight to raise crops, to feed our children, to live our lives! Este es nos revolución. Go home niña. Go back to your fat, rich country. We don't need you!"
I knew what it was like to have life dictated for me and not be heard. I had gained freedom, it was more frightening than oppression, but without freedom you cannot truly live your life. As proud as am I can never say I won my freedom alone. I had help. This was a different situation but it was the same thing. Freedom.
"I'm staying. I will fight. Someone once showed me the way to freedom, I had help getting where I am today. I had the chance and I don't deny to anyone else, especially on a larger scale. I'll fight with you. Let me stay."
He smiled at me, not sure whether to be pleased or confused. "Ah, woman!" He laughed and gave me a merry slap on the back. I coughed. "Diego! Give the girl a job!"
*What an amazing man. I wish Manuel had that sort of passion…NO…this is purely an intellectual fixation.* I'd only seen that one burning fire inside in one person…ever. General Villa had something close. Burning passion for something. Drive, ambition, sentiment. Villa had it.
"Nice speech. Were you trying to out do him?" Manny asked bringing me back to reality.
"No."
"What was the whole thing about gaining freedom?"
"Maybe later."
The next day we were on the move again. I, being a woman, got to look after horses and load guns. I resented it, but I still did it. The others joined too. They really had no other place to go and I guess no wanted to say no after I gave my little speech. Maria was a little angry, but growing up in Mexico and being less than warm towards Carranza most of her life she agreed to join the revolution.
We stopped in a cantina while waiting for a train to Ciudad Guerrero. The longer we waited the more nervous I got. I kept listening to other people's conversations. "It's full of federales. We get our asses shot off."
"Rose talk. You're making yourself crazy."
"Shut up Sam. Damn it I got everyone in to this and now I'm turning chicken. This is my responsibility. You guys do not have to be here." To be frank, the idea of death really didn't scare me anymore, but I had dragged others into it now. "Go home."
I huffed the smoke out of my mouth. It was the first cigarette I'd had in two days.
"We could've said no."
"I'm going to get a drink. Want?"
"No thanks."
After I got my drink I caught part of another discussion. That high school kid from Jersey was still there too. He was sitting with another Mexican, José, and a Belgian, Remy Baudouin. Jones was his name. Henry Jones Jr. He went around calling himself Indy, after his dog. I'd heard of his father, Professor Henry Jones of Princeton University.
At this moment young Indy was attempting to write his father explaining why he joined the Mexican Revolution. It wasn't going well.
"How's it going?" I asked.
"Not well." Responded Remy.
Indy just groaned. I wondered how I would start a letter to my mother telling her I joined the Mexican Revolution.
"Tell him you're furthering your education. Quote his favorite philosopher."
"Tried that." He said and tossed up another crumpled up piece of paper.
"Well good luck." I said. The three of them gave me a little wave. "Nice hat." I pointed to Indy.
"Ready everybody?" Diego was rounding us up. They put him in charge of watching us gringos. "Rosa how do you except to move like that?" I had my suitcase strapped to my back with two leather belts. Everyone else packed their belongings in some form of duffel or sack, I was the only with a hard suitcase. The only form of luggage I had was my suitcase.
"I can handle it. It's small." Well it was.
"Have it your way gringa. What is with you Americans? You're obsessed material possessions. You have to lug all your stupid shit everywhere."
"This is all I have to show for my twenty-one years and some of this 'shit' is damn important."
"It always is." I gave him a cynical little smile as I tightened one of the belt straps. "Take this." He tossed me something.
"What the hell is this?"
"What does it look like? It's a pistol. You'll need it."
"Christ."
"Have you ever killed a man before?"
"…n-no."
"There's first time for everything."
"WHAT?!"
"This is a war remember. And I heard your little speech. You better live up to it."
I sighed and got on my horse. "Fine." I tied the sheath around my waist. "What's in Ciudad Guerrero?"
"Gold, dinero. Federales. Lots of them."
"Lovely." *I can't KILL anybody. Maybe there was that spider once when I was eight…*
Diego hopped on the side of the train. "I grew up there. It's my hometown. You help free my people, no?"
"Yes."
"Rose!" Maria rode up behind me with Mary practically on her clinging to her.
"Hey you guys."
Diego tried to look at Mare's face, but it was buried in Maria's back.
"What's the matter with her?" he asked.
"Sorry I've never gone into battle before."
"I've never had someone's nose shoved two inches into my back. So there's a new experience for everyone today."
"You'll see some action today kid." Diego laughed and shook his head.
"I saw 'action' once. Tenth Avenue in Manhattan. Carmine Andolini beat the living hell out some guy that made a move on his mother. I know one his brothers, Sonny. Emily beat him up once when they were twelve. He's about her age."
"You're rambling." Maria jutted her back out, knocking Mary.
"Sorry I'm only a little petrified."
"Only one rule," said Diego, "stay alive. Vamanos!"
We got closer and Ciudad Guerrero was in sight. The train would soon be knocking threw the wall.
I had all my friends in sight. Mary and Maria to my left, Sammy and Manuel to my right, Bookie behind, and the train to the right, of course, with Diego watching over us.
We got closer and closer until we could the Federales lined up around the city walls. One of them called out.
"Villistas!"
Now this was it we were being fired at. Now I had to act. I pulled out my gun, pulled back the hammer and-suddenly I felt like someone had broken my fingers and my gun was no longer in my hand. *Shit.*
"I lost my gun!"
"At least you had one!" shouted Mary and Maria.
"Then duck!" shouted Manny as he fired off a round and pushed my head down.
Then they uncoupled the flatcar full of explosives. It detached and rammed into the wall in chorus of explosions and fire.
We broke through the city. I looked around ducked having no way to attack or to protect myself. I couldn't see very well either, the sun kept getting in my eyes. I kept reaching my hand out towards Maria and Mary, trying to keep them close by clinging to their sleeves.
When we broke into the city I dismounted my horse and found a stray gun on the ground.
I even felt guilty about leaving the poor horse alone. I tried to direct it under an awning.
"Go there! Stay. Stay under there." I waved finger at it. It listened.
I picked up my gun and searched around for my friends. I'd lost them. I was alone.
Someone came up behind. I tried to see, but all I really could see was dust and bright white light. I shielded my eyes and squinted trying to place the man running towards me.
The picture slowly became clearer. A man with a gun running towards me. I didn't recognize him. *A Federale?*
*Oh fuck!*
I fired my gun and he fell. He writhed on the ground clutching his arm. I hit him in the arm or I scathed him at least. He was bleeding rather badly.
I ran to side and put my hand on his arm.
"I'm so sorry! I didn't mean it! Are you hurt?"
He punched me in the face. It was the hardest I'd ever been hit in my life. It flung me to the ground. My back was in shock. I forgot about my suitcase.
He stood over me aiming his gun at my face. I might have had some time to act, he was trying to get it to fire. Maybe he was out? I tried to focus on him. He hit so hard I thought I would see stars.
This was it. No help in sight. If only I could just get up. I could feel something warm spreading through my mouth. Blood.
*Goodbye Bookie, Sammy, Manny, Maria, and Mary. Hello again Jack, Papa, Alice, Trudy, and Maximillion Hound.*
*No! No Rose. Don't give up. I'm not going to allow myself to let go just because I get knocked down.*
I could feel the life returning to my body. *Only one rule. Stay Alive.* Then a gunshot blast.
The man fell on top of me. I screamed and jumped out from under him. I was dizzy, I couldn't think.
Looking up I saw Diego. He just tipped his hat and smiled. That was the last time I ever saw him.
Moments later a plane flew overhead. Everyone turned their guns up to shoot at it. It was one of General Pershing's men. They had followed us in. It began dropping bombs all over the city. Then came Yankee canon fire. Now I was being attacked by my own people. Who were my people now?
After that us Villistas…I was a Villista now. Funny. Anyway after that we cleared out.
The next day we were headed for a hacienda owned by William Randolph Hearst. Mary, Sammy, Bookie, Maria and Manuel were all alive and well. I was the only one with an injury. There was a gigantic, swelling bruise on the right side of my face. It gave me a temporary lisp.
But Diego didn't make it. Poor soul. He died at home at least.
Camping out that night I listened in on an exchange between Villa and one of his men. The man asked if we really wanted war with the US. Villa said yes, then Carranza would get caught in the middle.
*See? He doesn't hold any malice against America. It's a war strategy. What am I saying? This is crazy, you're not in love with Pancho Villa. This is TRANSFERNCE. Yes transference!*
I was young, engaged, and still lonely. In psychological terms what I was experiencing is called transference. Every bit of passion and feeling I felt for and saw in Jack, who was now four years gone, I was now transferring to General Villa: a man of great passion and determination and love for his home. I laughed at the thought of Jack valiantly fighting to free the people of Wisconsin.
I'd get over it soon, but what about Manny? It wasn't fair to him. I would never love him like he deserved. He didn't deserve to live with a wife who carried a torch for a dead man. But how was I supposed to terminate the engagement at a time like this?
There was no one at Hearst's Hacienda when we arrived.
"All this wealth and he just leaves it here." Manny said to me.
"People with a lot of money throw it around. This is probably the most modest place he owns." I told him.
Inside it was elegantly rustic being a vacation home. It was the first fancy place I'd been in since I left home. It felt…strange.
Inside people began looting everything they found. Someone shouted something about there being a cinema downstairs. Bookie yanked my arm. "Come on!"
For those of us that had actually been to a cinema it had been a long time. Everybody went downstairs to the cinema. I sat with my closest friends among the motley crew of revolutionaries. We sat around watching a Civil War short. Then the news reel. Mostly about the war in Europe which now seemed to be of disinterest to Maria, then about the raid of Columbus.
The kid, Indiana Jones, was still there, translating the English. During the news he began to purposely misinterpret it. The American public now had very negative feelings towards General Villa. He edited those parts out and changed the words.
The angry Villistas obviously didn't believe Indy and shot at the screen. Everyone started to clear out after that. My group sat there for a spell.
"This isn't my revolution." Mary leaned over to whisper to Maria.
"What makes you think it's mine?"
Now everyone in our little group was concentrating on each other. "Anybody else?" Sammy sighed.
"They could be fighting for everything good and pure, but this just isn't our place." Said Bookie.
"Rose?" Sammy asked remembering what I had said to Villa.
"No, no you're right. We're all gringos at heart here. We can't help these people. I think Diego knew that."
"Pobre Diego." Sighed Manuel.
"We can't fight for him. We should go home. To Columbus or what's left of it, or America, but this is not where we belong. We're all Americans in one way or another." Said Maria.
"Let's go home then," said Sammy, "We'll ride in to Veracruz and we'll catch a boat to Texas or Louisiana or somewhere."
In Veracruz an old man told me something I will never forget. Revolutions come and go, dictators rise and fall, they all preach freedom, they all steal. The only thing that changes is the name of the man oppressing you.
We stayed in Veracruz for a while, getting ourselves together. We got on boat and left for Texas and arrived in Galveston on April 1st.