VI
So worthless were the federal troops that many Americans whom I met during my trip professed a preference for bandits.
SO WORTHLESS WERE THE FEDERAL TROOPS THAT MANY AMERICANS PROFESSED A PREFERENCE FOR BANDITS
One, operating a mine in Hidalgo in a town that had never contained a Carranza garrison, had experienced no difficulty at all. Twice he had been visited by members of Pelaez’s gang, and on both occasions the rebels had paid for whatever they took from the company’s stores. When the governor of Hidalgo announced that he was sending troops to guard the mine—for which courtesy the mining company was supposed to pay—the American protested that he needed no troops. The soldiers were sent, despite the protest. On the night of their arrival, the company stores were looted by “bandits.”
While I was in Manzanillo, thieves raided the ranch of Tom Johnson, an American living a few miles south of the port. Among other plunder, they took away five mules. A few days later a Carranzista lieutenant rode up to the ranch-house with the animals, announcing that he had recaptured them, and demanding a reward.
“Reward!” exclaimed Johnson. “Why, you’re being paid by your government to recapture stolen property. I won’t pay you a damned centavo!”
The lieutenant laughed.
“Very well, señor.”
And he rode away, taking the mules with him.
In recognizing Carranza, our State Department had merely created trouble for Americans living in the territory controlled by other leaders.
Several weeks later, in Vera Cruz, I was to meet Dr. Charles T. Sturgis and his wife, who had been held prisoners for many months by Zapatistas in Chiapas. Dr. Sturgis, a retired dentist, had lived a quiet life for years upon his farm in Southern Mexico, practicing his profession gratis among the peons of his neighborhood. One day a party of rebels kidnapped him and his wife, and brought him to the bandit camp on the Rio de la Venta, where they set the Doctor to work on the bandits’ teeth, while Mrs. Sturgis was assigned to labor with the native women. Mrs. Sturgis’ mother, who also had been kidnapped, died after a few weeks. Neither the Doctor nor his wife were young, or robust, yet Cal y Mayor, the Zapatista chieftain, constantly added insult and injury to their toil and privation.
“Why do you go out of your way to hurt us?” Mrs. Sturgis asked him.
“Because your Gringo president has recognized my enemy!” he answered.
For months they remained prisoners. The chieftain used Mrs. Sturgis as a messenger to other bandits, on missions which he considered unsafe for his own men, always holding her husband as hostage for her return. At last, when illness had rendered the Doctor unfit for further work, they were released, with one horse for the two of them, and with only five tortillas as food for their journey of sixty miles through a tropical jungle. When, after six days, they reached their farm, they found that the Carranza government had declared them rebel sympathizers and had confiscated their property. Strange natives were gathering the crops they had sowed. Friends provided funds for their journey to Vera Cruz, where they were to embark for New Orleans. When I met the frail, gray-haired couple in the Vera Cruz consulate, they were on the verge of nervous breakdown.
Yet compared with some Americans, they were fortunate. Many of the stories one picked up at that time were unprintable, particularly those of young girls who fell into bandit hands.
“We went up to Washington,” said one Old-Timer, “with actual photographs of two American women after the rebels were through with them. And those fellows in the State Department just raised both hands and shook their heads, and told us: ‘But such things can’t possibly be true!’”