The General and the Jaguar (39 page)

Spilsbury had lived in Mexico all his life and didn’t like what Boyd was hinting at. In a statement to army investigators,
he would later say, “I only accepted work for General Pershing to help catch Villa if possible and as soon as I saw that the
Americans were likely to force war with Mexico I tried repeatedly to get away but General Pershing would not let go and I
was afraid to try and escape and return home to my people’s ranch near Casas Grandes for fear they might punish me.”

Morey’s detachment was moving through country that was much drier than that being traversed by Boyd’s troopers. Although the
horses and men were in much better shape than they had been at the beginning of the campaign, they nevertheless experienced
a few moments of anxiety at the end of the second day’s march when they came upon a river that was supposed to have water
but was completely dry. Fortunately, they found a fresh spring about a mile and a half upstream. Worried that even worse conditions
awaited them, Morey sent a wagon and some extra horses and men back to camp so he would have fewer mouths to feed and lightened
his load by caching some of his hard bread, bacon, and grain on the prairie, intending to pick it up on the return trip.

Morey’s troopers reached the Santo Domingo ranch about five o’clock on the afternoon of June 20, where they found Captain
Boyd and his men already relaxing in the shade. The two captains compared their orders and discovered they were virtually
identical. Morey was baffled and couldn’t understand from a “tactical point of view” why they had both been sent on the same
mission. Boyd responded, “Well, I think I do understand it and know why it is.” He did not elaborate. Since Morey was the
junior officer, he agreed to place himself under Boyd’s command. The combined forces now amounted to three officers and about
eighty men.

The foreman of the ranch, an American named W. P. McCabe, told them that roughly two hundred Carrancista soldiers were garrisoned
in the little town of Carrizal, which was located seven or eight miles to the east of the ranch. He said another 250 to 300
Mexican soldiers were at Villa Ahumada, a few miles to the northeast of Carrizal. The figures were much lower than what Pershing
had been told. At that point, the general would later write, his officers could have returned to their base camps with their
reconnaissance missions accomplished. But Boyd announced that he had orders to go through Carrizal to reach Ahumada and that
was what he was going to do. “We’ll go through the town, and if they fire on our rear guard, we’ll go back through the town
and clean them up,” he said.

Morey warned Boyd that the Mexicans would likely fire on them “from the tops of the houses, from windows, and from behind
doors, the houses lining both sides of the streets.”

But Boyd shook his head. “It is not likely that they will want to bring on war between the United States and Mexico.”

McCabe then jumped into the debate, pointing out that the narrow lanes and bulletproof adobe houses posed a “nasty trap.”
He urged Boyd to go to the east of the town where there were few buildings and the ground was open. He also pointed out that
two other roads would take them to Ahumada and one of them was actually shorter than the road through Carrizal.

But Boyd could not be dissuaded. Both he and his lieutenant were convinced that the Mexicans were cowards and wouldn’t fight.
“That’s been the main trouble with our work south,” Adair observed; “we didn’t send troops around to head them off and the
Mexicans always ran and could get away.”

Lem Spilsbury cautioned that Carrizal posed an entirely different situation. “The Villistas were on the run, while these men
if they are under orders, they will have to fight, and it was my opinion they were under such orders.”

With no consensus having been reached, the meeting broke up and the officers went about their chores. At supper, the debate
resumed. “Morey,” said Boyd, “what I want is to go through that town, and we are not going to have a repetition of the Parral
incident.”

“Well, that’s good dope,” Morey responded, explaining later that he simply meant the instructions were clear. Morey took fifty-five
dollars from his saddlebags and gave it to Mr. McCabe for safekeeping, saying that he didn’t want it to fall into the hands
of the Mexicans. He sensed the other officers thought the gesture was unnecessary but no one said anything to him and the
atmosphere remained cordial.

The officers and civilians then got into a discussion about whether Boyd should request permission to march through Carrizal.
Nearly everyone present at the meeting felt it was the proper thing to do. So Boyd wrote out two identical notes in English,
one to the
jefe político
of Carrizal and another to the
jefe político
in Villa Ahumada asking for permission to go through their towns: “I am passing through your town engaging upon a peaceful
mission. The usual authority is requested. Please inform chief military official of my movements. C. T. Boyd, Captain, 10th
Cavalry.”

Captain Morey, who had attended the same tactics class as Captain Boyd at West Point, said jokingly, “You are violating one
of the first principles of tactics by planning these messages so far ahead.”

“Well, we may be making history tonight,” replied Boyd. “I want these notes properly written and do not wish to be bothered
with them in the field.”

At about four o’clock the following morning, the troops saddled up and rode east toward Carrizal. Halfway there, Boyd stopped
and ordered the troopers to load their pistols and check their rifles. He repeated his determination to go through town and
warned the men that if they were fired upon they should kill whoever did it and then continue through the village at a leisurely
pace. Once they reached the other side, they would turn back and attack.

About 8:30 a.m. they stopped at an irrigation ditch on the outskirts of Carrizal to water their horses. Directly to the east
of them was an open field, then another irrigation ditch that ran in a north-south direction and some cottonwood trees. On
a slight hill beyond the trees they could see the flat-roofed adobe houses of Carrizal and the little Catholic church.

Captain Boyd sent one of their Mexican interpreters into town with his note asking for permission to go through. Before the
messenger returned, Lieutenant Colonel Genovevo Rivas Guillén and about eight Mexican soldiers rode out to meet them.

“Adónde va?”
asked Rivas.

With Spilsbury acting as interpreter, Boyd rattled off two lies: he said that they were looking for a deserter and were also
searching the area for bandits. Rivas, who somehow intuited that Boyd was lying, regarded him skeptically. The deserter, he
responded sarcastically, was probably in El Paso and if there were any bandits in Carrizal, they were looking at them. Abruptly,
he added, “I have orders to stop your advance until further conference.”

While they were talking, the messenger returned with a note from General Félix Gómez inviting the U.S. soldiers into town
for a conference. “Please come over to this [town] with the force which you have in order that we may have a conference.”
Boyd considered the invitation a trap and told Rivas that he would like to speak to the general right away. A Mexican soldier
was promptly dispatched to retrieve him.

Boyd then instructed the troopers to move east across the open field until they were perhaps six hundred yards from the trees.
While the men were moving into their new positions, General Gómez rode out onto the field. He asked Boyd the same questions
that Rivas had posed and was given the same evasive answers. Then he abruptly changed his tone. “I have orders from General
Treviño to stop any American forces going east, west or south,” he said, adding that Boyd was no doubt aware of the ultimatum.
Boyd acknowledged that he was, but insisted that he had orders to go through town.

Gómez repeated his own orders and said that if the Americans advanced, he would have no choice but to fire on them. Then,
in one last effort to avoid a fight, he suggested that Boyd wait while he conferred with Treviño himself to see if an exception
could be made.

Instead of taking up the offer, Boyd rejected it, thinking that Gómez was simply stalling until reinforcements arrived. “Tell
the son of a bitch that we’re going through,” he ordered Spilsbury.

Gómez glared at him. He understood those English words.
“Bueno,”
he responded. “You may go through, but you’ll have to walk over our dead bodies before you do!” Then he turned and rode back
to his command.

Boyd also returned to his troops. “It looks very promising,” he said, apparently pleased that a confrontation was imminent.
“The general says that we can go north or west but not east. We are going east.”

Adair and the other members of Troop C were spread out on the left side of the dirt lane leading to the little village. Two
hundred yards away, on the right side of the lane, were Morey and Troop K.

While the conferences were being held, the cavalrymen noticed that dozens of Mexican soldiers, both mounted and unmounted,
were taking up positions behind the ditches and cottonwood trees. Several Mexican women, also carrying rifles, had appeared
beside them. Two machine guns were brought forward and aimed at the cavalrymen and snipers appeared on top of the houses in
the little town. Protected by the trees and the ditch and situated on rising ground, the Mexicans had an enormous tactical
advantage. Some of the Mexican horsemen had also begun to edge around Boyd’s left flank and other soldiers on foot had begun
to move around Morey’s right flank.

The U.S. troops advanced on horseback another three hundred yards. Boyd cautioned the men not to fire the first shot or he
would spend the next fifty years trying to explain it. Then he yelled, “Prepare to fight on foot!”

The troopers dismounted and the horses were led to the rear. The Americans moved up another hundred yards. Suddenly the Mexican
machine guns roared to life. Boyd’s line wavered, as if all his soldiers had been hit at once. As it turned out, the volley
was high and the horses and mules caught most of the bullets.

“Commence firing!” Boyd shouted.

Boyd had rushed forward perhaps fifteen feet when he was shot in the hand. “I’ve been wounded, you’ve got them on the go,
so go to ’em boys!” he yelled.

He waved his hat and hollered at Adair and Morey to join him, seemingly determined to draw as much fire onto himself as he
could. A second bullet struck him in the shoulder, opening a hole that was big enough for Lem Spilsbury to see the white bone.
Boyd took no notice of the wounds and dashed in front of his own line of fire and then back to the rear, where he swung his
hat in the direction of Morey’s troopers. “Come on K troop!” he screamed.

Then he turned back to his own troops and hollered, “Come on boys! Let’s get a drink out of the irrigation ditch!” The words
were hardly out of his mouth when a third bullet plowed through his eye, killing him instantly.

Generalized panic and fighting broke out everywhere. Many of the horses stampeded about the field, their entrails falling
from gaping stomach wounds. Dust and smoke obscured everything. Boyd’s troopers were cut to pieces. Four men were killed and
four others injured in the first moments of battle.

Adair and three soldiers managed to scramble across the irrigation ditch and make their way into the trees, where they engaged
in close fighting with the Mexican troops. Adair was shot in the left side but didn’t seem to notice. When they ran out of
ammunition, he calmly handed his pistol to a comrade and returned to the line to retrieve ammunition belts from the wounded.

As he was crossing back over the drainage ditch, a second bullet slammed into his chest. “Oh, I’m hit!” he screamed. He fell
backward and was caught by two privates. “I held his head up out of the water until he died,” remembered Private Melvin C.
Covington.

On the other side of the dirt lane, Morey and the soldiers of Troop K were faring no better. They had managed to advance perhaps
fifteen or twenty feet before taking cover in a shallow roadbed. Caught in a deadly cross fire, fired upon from the front,
both flanks, and possibly from behind, they flopped on their stomachs, aiming their Springfields toward the trees. One platoon
concentrated upon the Mexicans in front and to the left of them and a second focused on the Mexican soldiers who were moving
on their right flank. Bullets whizzed through the air, taking a terrible toll. In the first minutes of the fight, three of
Morey’s troopers were killed and seven wounded.

Morey looked for Boyd’s troops but it seemed as if they had all moved into the trees or were lying flat on the ground. He
could see Boyd’s horse and his trumpeter’s horse galloping wildly around the field. Morey returned his attention to his own
line and spotted the Carrancistas coming at them from the left. “Corporal Houston, look out for your left flank!” Morey screamed.

Corporal Houston had his sights on a Mexican officer who was walking back and forth between the trees, peering at the battlefield
through his field glasses. The corporal thought the man was General Gómez and he squeezed the trigger carefully and saw the
officer topple over.

Suddenly Morey yelled again. “Sergeant Page! Good god man! There they are, right up on you! Rapid fire!” The Mexicans were
fifty yards away, threatening them from the right.

Page screamed back, “Captain, we can’t stay here!”

Morey commanded him to hold steady and keep firing. Another ten or fifteen minutes passed and Page yelled again that they
were in danger of being massacred. At that moment a bullet slammed into Morey’s shoulder, knocking him backward. When he got
up, dazed and bleeding profusely, he realized they were indeed about to be overrun and ordered a retreat. The withdrawal was
orderly at first and then the U.S. soldiers broke and ran, followed by about fifty Mexican troops.

“Scatter out men! Don’t bunch up! You make too good a target!” a sergeant yelled. The soldiers moved to the northwest, crossing
the line followed by Boyd’s retreating men. Morey asked a soldier where Boyd was and was told he had been killed. Nobody seemed
to know what had happened to Adair. Morey fainted once and was helped back up on his feet. He slipped into the irrigation
ditch where they had watered their horses earlier that morning, thrashed his way out, and stumbled to an adobe house where
several injured soldiers and other troopers had gathered. A trumpeter sounded To Horse, To Recall, and Assemble but all the
cavalry calls were ignored.