Mysteries of the missing

by Edward H. Smith

In 1918 was heard the first report on Bierce which seemed to have some basis in fact. A traveler had heard in Mexico City and at several points along the railroad that an aged American, who was supposed to have been fighting with either Villa or Carranza, had been executed by order of a field commander. From descriptions, this man was supposed to have been Bierce. At any rate, he might have been Bierce as well as another, and, since Bierce was both conspicuous and missing, there was some reason for credence. But no one could get any details or give the scene of the execution. The report was finally discarded as no more reliable than several others.

Another year went by. In February, 1919, however, came a report which carries some of the marks of credibility.

One of the several persons who set out to clear up the Bierce enigma was Mr. George F. Weeks, an old friend and close associate of the old writer’s, who went to Mexico City and later visited the various towns in northern Mexico where Bierce was supposed to have been seen shortly before his death. Weeks went up and down and across northern Mexico without finding anything definite. Then he returned to Mexico City and by chance encountered a Mexican officer who had been with Villa in his campaigns and had known Bierce well. Weeks mentioned Bierce to this soldier and was told this story:

Bierce actually did join the Villista forces soon after January, 1914, when he wrote his last letter from Chihuahua. He said to those who were not supposed to know his affairs too intimately that he, like other American journalists and writers, had gone to Mexico to get material for a book on conditions in that unhappy country. In reality, however, he was acting as adviser and military observer with Villa, though not attached to the eminent guerilla in person. The Mexican officer related that Bierce could speak hardly any Spanish and Villa’s staff hardly any English. On the other hand, this particular man spoke English fluently. Naturally, he and Bierce had been thrown together a great deal and had held numerous conversations. So much for showing that he had known Bierce well, and how and why.

After Chihuahua, the officer continued, he and Bierce had parted company, due to the exigencies of military affairs, and he had never seen the American alive again. He had often wondered about him and had made inquiries from time to time as he encountered various commandos of the Constitutionalist army. Finally, about a year later, which is to say some time toward the end of 1915, the relating officer met a Mexican army surgeon, who also had been with Villa, and this surgeon had told him a tale.

Soon after the breach between Villa and Carranza in 1915, a small detachment of Carranza troops occupied the village of Icamole, east of Chihuahua State in the direction of Monterey and Saltillo. The Villista forces in that quarter, commanded by General Tomas Urbina, one of the most ruthless of all the Villa subcommanders, who was himself later put to death, were encamped not far from Icamole, attempting to beleaguer the town or, at least, to cut the Carranza garrison off from its base of supplies and the main command. Neither side was strong enough to risk an engagement and the whole thing settled down into a waiting and sniping campaign.

In the gray of one oppressive morning toward the end of 1915, according to the surgeon who was with Urbina, one of that commander’s scouts gave an alarm, having seen four mules and two men on the horizon, making toward Icamole. A mounted detachment was at once sent out and the strangers were brought in. They turned out to be an American of advanced years but military bearing, a nondescript Mexican, and four mules laden with the parts of a machine gun and a large quantity of its ammunition.

Both men were immediately taken before General Urbina, according to the surgeon’s story, and subjected to questioning. The Mexican said that he had been employed by another Mexican, whose name he did not know, to conduct the American and his convoy to Icamole and the Carranza commander. Urbina turned to the American and started to question him, but found that the man could speak hardly any Spanish and was therefore unable to explain his actions or to defend himself.

It may be as well to note the first objections to the credibility of the story here. Bierce had been in Mexico almost two years, according to these dates. He was a man of the keenest intelligence and the quickest perceptions. He had also lived in California for many years, where Spanish names are common and Spanish is spoken by many. It seems hard to believe that such a man could have survived to the end of 1915 in such ignorance of the speech of the Mexican people as to be unable to explain what he was doing or to tell his name and who he was. It seems hard to believe, also, that Bierce would have been doing any gun-running or that he could have been alive twenty months after the Chihuahua letter without communicating with some one in the United States, without being found or heard of by the military and diplomatic agents who had then already been seeking him for more than a year. Also, it is necessary to explain how the man who went down to fight with Villa happened suddenly to be taking a gun and ammunition to Villa’s enemies, though this might be reconciled on the theory that Bierce had gone to fight with the Constitutionalists and had remained with them when Villa rebelled. But we may disregard these minor discrepancies as possibly capable of reconciliation or correction, and proceed further with the surgeon’s story.

Urbina, after questioning the captives for a little while, lost patience, concluded that they must be enemies at best and took no half measures. Life was cheap in northern Mexico in those days, judgments were swift and harsh, and Urbina was savage by nature. He took away the lives of these two with a wave of the hand. Immediate execution was their fate.