That very night came a courier from General Urbina, saying that he was ill and wanted Pablo Seañes to come back. So off went the great coach, and Pablo's mistress, and Raphaelito, the hunchback, and Fidencio, and Patricio. Pablo said to me: "Juanito, if you want to come back with us, you shall sit beside me in the coach." Patricio and Raphaelito begged me to come. But I had got so far to the front now that I didn't want to turn back. Then the next day my friends and compañeros of the Tropa, whom I had learned to know so well in our march across the desert, received orders to move to Jarralitos. Only Juan Vallejo and Longinos Güereca stayed behind.
The Cadena's new garrison were a different kind of men. God knows where they came from, but it was a place where the troopers had literally starved. They were the most wretchedly poor peons that I have ever seen—about half of them didn't have serapes. Some fifty were known to be nuevos who had never smelt powder, about the same number were under a dreadfully incompetent old party named Major Salazar, and the remaining fifty were equipped with old carbines and ten rounds of ammunition apiece. Our commanding officer was Lieutenant-Colonel Petronilo Hernandez, who had been six years a Major in the Federal army until the murder of Madero drove him to the other side. He was a brave, good-hearted little man, with twisted shoulders, but years of official army red tape had unfitted him to handle troops like these. Every morning he issued an Order of the Day, distributing guards, posting sentinels, and naming the officer on duty. Nobody ever read it. Officers in that army have nothing to do with the disciplining or ordering of soldiers, They are officers because they have been brave, and their job is to fight at the head of their troop—that's all. The soldiers all look up to some one General, under whom they are recruited, as to their feudal lord. They call themselves his gente—his people; and an officer of anybody else's gente hasn't much authority over them. Petronilo was of Urbina's gente; but two-thirds of the Cadena garrison belonged to Arrieta's division. That's why there were no sentinels to the west and north. Lieutenant-Colonel Alberto Redondo guarded another pass four leagues to the south, so we thought we were safe in that direction. True, twenty-five men did outpost duty at the Fuerta, and the Puerta was strong....
CHAPTER VIII
THE FIVE MUSKETEERS
The Casa Grande of La Cadena had been sacked, of course, by Che Che Campa the year before. In the patio were corraled the officers' horses. We slept on the tiled floors of the rooms surrounding it. In the sala of the owner, once barbarically decorated, pegs were driven into the walls to hang saddles and bridles on, rifles and sabers were stacked against the wall, and dirty blanket-rolls lay flung into the corner. At night a fire of corn-cobs was built in the middle of the floor, and we squatted around it, while Apolinario and fourteen-year-old Gil Tomas, who was once a colorado, told stories of the Bloody Three Years.
"At the taking of Durango," said Apolinario, "I was of the gente of Captain Borunda; he that they call the Matador, because he always shoots his prisoners. But when Urbina took Durango there weren't many prisoners. So Borunda, thirsty for blood, made the rounds of all the saloons. And in every one he would pick out some unarmed man and ask him if he were a Federal. 'No, señor,' the man would say. 'You deserve death because you have not told the truth!' yelled Borunda, pulling his gun. Bang!"
We all laughed heartily at this.
"That reminds me," broke in Gil, "of the time I fought with Rojas in Orozco's—(cursed be his mother!)—Revolucion. An old Porfirista officer deserted to our side, and Orozco sent him out to teach the colorados (animals!) how to drill. There was one droll fellow in our company. Oh! he had a fine sense of humor. He pretended he was too stupid to learn the manual of arms. So this cursed old Huertista—(may he fry in hell!)—made him drill alone.
"'Shoulder arms!' The companero did it all right.
"'Present arms!' Perfectly.