The General and the Jaguar (45 page)

Lieutenant Lucas received no medals for his role in the Columbus affair but would become a highly decorated and much-loved
officer in the years to come. During World War I, he was detailed to the Signal Corps and received a severe head wound that
would result in headaches for the rest of his life. He remained in the army when armistice was declared and eventually achieved
the rank of major general. During World War II, he commanded the American and British forces in the Anzio landing but was
relieved of duties for making insufficient progress. (“They will end up by putting me ashore with inadequate forces and get
me in a serious jam,” he wrote in his diary. “Then, who will take the blame?”) He received two Distinguished Service Medals,
a Purple Heart, a Silver Star, and numerous other honors during his long military career.

Although Herbert Slocum had been officially exonerated of any blame in the Columbus raid, he was not promoted in the great
expansion of the army leading up to World War I nor did he go overseas. The War Department apparently had no quarrel with
him and his name topped the list of colonels selected by the board of general officers who were entitled to promotion to brigadier
general, but someone crossed his name off the list. In a letter to one of his sons, Slocum spoke of being passed over with
a studied nonchalance and also alluded to the reasons for it: “I am not worrying at all about promotion, knowing as I do that
my name headed the list of Colonels selected by the board of General officers as those entitled to promotion and my name was
‘blue penciled’ by those in authority on account of circumstances over which I had no control and I was made a victim of such
circumstances, together with politics, which is a part of our great Government. The wound is still there, of course and always
will be there, but I do not intend to embitter my remaining days and I shall finish my remaining service until next April
and give my country my best efforts as I have always tried to do.”

In April of 1918, while Slocum was stationed at Brownsville, a young army officer named J. J. Dickinson passed through on
an inspection. Afterward he went to dinner with the colonel and Mrs. Slocum and several other officers and their wives. Out
of a “sense of delicacy,” Dickinson carefully avoided all mention of the Columbus raid. To his surprise, Slocum himself brought
it up when they were having their after-dinner coffee. Dickinson listened carefully and wrote a lengthy story based upon the
conversation that was published a year later in the
Mississippi Valley Magazine.

According to Slocum’s version, George Seese, the intrepid Associated Press reporter, had made arrangements for Villa to give
himself up to his old “amigo”—Slocum—who, however, knew nothing of the plan. “But when Villa’s men learned of the plan, they
threatened to mutiny and Villa convinced them the report was a lie and vowed to proceed with the attack that night.” One of
the primary targets of the raid was Slocum’s wife, Mary: “The only object of Villa’s raid was to seize Mrs. Slocum, after
Villa personally had murdered Col. Slocum, carry her off to a virtually inaccessible fastness in the Sierra Madre and hold
her for a huge ransom. Villa knew that Col. Slocum was one of the principal heirs of the great fortune of Russell Sage, of
whose widow, only recently dead, Col. Slocum was a nephew and a designated heir and trustee of the immense Sage estate, one
of the world’s biggest fortunes.” The Slocums learned of the plot from Maud Wright, who had been taken to their house after
the raid. “It was from her that the Slocums obtained the first faint hints of the amazing plot. She understood Spanish, and
heard the whole tragic plan discussed in the Villa camp—both the original plan that meant safety for Villa, and the changed
plan upon which the murderous chieftain made the raid.”

Dickinson went on to say that Slocum had obtained affidavits from George Seese, which were then forwarded to the State Department,
the Department of Justice, and the War Department. But those affidavits have never been found, nor have any other documents
supporting Colonel Slocum’s version of events. What’s more, Maud Wright, in her statements to George Carothers and E. B. Stone,
made no mention of such a plot.

Still, Slocum’s story, particularly the part about Villa’s plan to hold his wife for ransom, seemed somewhat plausible. Villa
had often held prominent citizens and foreigners for large ransom payments, which he used to help finance his army. Mary Slocum
also talked of the noise that the bullets made as they struck the walls of their house on the morning of the raid and clothing
shredded by bullets—evidence that Villa’s men had been there.

Slocum retired on April 25, 1919, and moved back to Washington, D.C., where he lived another nine years. When he died, on
March 29, 1928, he left an estate valued at roughly three to four million dollars, which was divided principally among his
wife and two sons and a few close friends. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full honors. One of the pallbearers
was his old friend Hugh Scott.

T
HE LEADERS
of the Mexican Revolution all died violent deaths. Venustiano Carranza assumed the presidency in mid-March of 1917 and returned
to Mexico City. Emiliano Zapata, who had carried on his fight for agrarian reform in nearby Morelos, had continued to taunt
Carranza, writing insulting letters to him that were published in the daily newspapers. In an intricate plot, Carranza succeeded
in having Zapata and his bodyguards assassinated on April 10, 1919.

The relationship between Carranza and Álvaro Obregón grew strained as the presidential elections of 1920 drew near. Obregón,
who had done more than anyone else to ensure Carranza’s triumph, expected Carranza to step aside so that he could become president.
But Carranza was reluctant to give up power, especially to a military man like Obregón. The Mexican Constitution banned the
reelection of the president so Don Venustiano, unable to run again, did the next best thing and threw his support to Ignacio
Bonillas, a minor politician whom he thought he could control. In response, Obregón’s home state of Sonora declared that Carranza
was no longer Mexico’s legitimate president and named Adolfo de la Huerta, the Sonoran governor, as the interim leader. Other
leaders throughout Mexico joined the revolt.

Carranza, realizing his time had come, decided to leave Mexico City. But first he systematically looted the government treasury,
exhibiting the “quiet, tireless sleepless greed” that Edith O’Shaughnessy had once spoken of. (During his tenure, theft was
so common that a new verb,
carrancear,
was coined.) Onto a long train, he loaded millions of dollars in gold and silver, priceless antiques, presses and ink used
to print paper money, and even disassembled airplanes. As the train chugged toward Veracruz, it was attacked by insurgents
and smashed by a locomotive loaded with dynamite. High in the mountains, the presidential entourage was finally halted at
a point where the tracks had been torn up. Carranza proceeded on horseback, carrying what he could on pack mules and leaving
millions in gold and silver behind. In the remote village of Tlaxcalantongo, he took refuge in an earthen hut. He ate with
his usual deliberateness and then retired for the evening. At four o’clock on the morning of May 21, 1920, he awoke to the
sound of gunfire and the cries
“Viva Obregón!”
and
“Muera a Carranza!”
He screamed at his guards to save themselves as multiple bullets slammed into his chest, killing him. He was sixty years
old.

The Mexican legislature appointed Adolfo de la Huerta to serve as interim president until the elections could be held. An
urbane and friendly man, de la Huerta wanted to heal the wounds of the revolution and granted amnesty to numerous revolutionaries.
To Spanish author Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, de la Huerta seemed like “a virgin lost in a crowd of rabid and shrewd old hags who
think they can become young again by rubbing against her.”

With his bitter enemy dead, Pancho Villa was eager to reach some sort of peaceful resolution with the Mexican government.
His army had once again dwindled to a few hundred guerrilla fighters and he was living the hunted-animal life he so despised.
He had managed to retain his puckish sense of humor, though, and had named one of his favorite mules President Wilson. But
the days of Wilson were drawing to a close; a presidential election was pending and Villa was worried that a new effort to
catch him might be launched. Adolfo de la Huerta, who had no entanglements with Villa, was in favor of granting him amnesty
and managed to persuade Obregón and other generals that it would be best for their war-torn country if he could be enticed
to lay down his arms.

The actual process of reaching a peace accord was a treacherous dance. Villa had been almost captured twice while making friendly
overtures and knew that to get what he wanted he would have to negotiate from a position of strength rather than one of weakness.
In a desperate and audacious gamble, Villa embarked on a forced march to Sabinas, Coahuila, a town located roughly 120 miles
west of Laredo, Texas. To get there, he traveled for three days through a fierce desert in the middle of July. Water holes
and springs were dried up and both men and horses died from thirst. The troops reached Sabinas at about four o’clock on the
morning of July 26. As dawn broke over the pretty little town, it seemed as if they had entered the promised land. Coahuila
had not suffered the depredations of Chihuahua and was enjoying a mild prosperity. Crops were ripening in the fields and horses
moved across the green pastures.

Villa immediately sent for the president of the Sabinas brewery and ordered him to shut down the plant. Next, he summoned
the owners of the bars and cantinas and ordered them to close, warning that any merchant caught selling or giving liquor to
any of his men would be shot. Then, his auditors were dispatched to inspect the books of all the grocery and clothing stores
in town and report back with the names and locations of the most profitable enterprises. From the most affluent stores, he
“requisitioned” twenty thousand dollars’ worth of shoes, hats, breeches, underwear, socks, shirts, food, forage, horseshoes,
nails, leather, pack mules, and horses for his troops.

While his men were being fitted out, he went to the telegraph station and contacted President de la Huerta in Mexico City
and said he was ready to discuss amnesty terms. He asked de la Huerta to send General Eugenio Martínez, a former officer whom
he knew and trusted, to the bargaining table. De la Huerta, who harbored his own political ambitions, immediately agreed.
While waiting, Villa put his troops into position so they could guard the town and fend off any attackers. Martínez was to
leave his troops three miles outside of town and come into Sabinas with a hundred men. Villa’s bodyguard would consist of
roughly an equal number.

Flanked by five generals, including Nicolás Fernández, Villa opened the conference on July 28 by emphasizing that he did not
want the meeting to be considered a “surrender but a peace conference” between himself and the new government. He cursed the
leaders of the Mexican government, calling them “grafters and traitors.” Stating once again that he had killed his own people
long enough, he took out a folder and gave it to General Martínez. The folder contained the number of men he had killed with
his own hands or during battle; Villa estimated that he was responsible for the deaths of forty-three thousand men. “He stated
that he had been a bad man for years, and that this government was the first that had tried in any way to do the right thing.”
Villa said he was willing to make peace with the government but if they were unwilling to accept his olive branch, he was
prepared to make “more trouble.” Wrote Gus Jones, a congressional investigator:

He further stated that the time had come when Mexico needed men, imbued with the spirit of patriotism, and not selfish interests,
and that if they all got together, they would again build their country up and place it where it should be. He further stated
that one of his main reasons for making peace was because the days of Mr. President Wilson in Washington were short and that
soon the Republican party would be in power and that they would immediately take as a pretext for intervention, Villa and
his past deeds, and this he wished to avoid, stating that if the United States wished intervention, they would have to drum
up other causes.

By that evening, the two men had reached an accord: in exchange for laying down his arms, Villa would receive the hacienda
El Canutillo. Villa knew Canutillo well; it was in the state of Durango, only fifty miles from his beloved Parral, and encompassed
fertile grasslands and thousands of acres of rich, irrigated farmland. For a short period during the revolution, one of his
chieftains, Tomás Urbina, had occupied it. Under the terms of the agreement, Villa also would be allowed to keep a bodyguard
of fifty men, whose salaries would be paid by the Mexican government. The rest of his army would receive six months’ to a
year’s worth of wages, as well as adjoining hacienda land, or have the option of joining the federal army at their current
rank.

It was a sweet deal and Villa knew that he was not likely to get anything better. Both sides approved the arrangement, which
provoked “heated resentment” from Obregón and grudging admiration from U.S. officials. “It would appear from this that Francisco
Villa has again outgeneraled his opponents,” a U.S. Army intelligence report stated. And William Blocker, the U.S. consul,
said much the same thing in a memo to the State Department: “The organization of this ignorant man is wonderful, and I cannot
conceive how he has so easily made infants out of the Mexican commanders.”

Although many on both sides of the border doubted that Villa would refrain from politics, he kept his word and lived quietly
at Canutillo. His own bedroom was simply furnished, with the exception of a tray of unopened perfume bottles, an odd touch
for a man who had once professed such disdain for
perfumados
—sweet-smelling men. He built a school, imported modern machinery, and planted vast crops of wheat and corn and beans. He
ran the hacienda much as he did his army, with regular inspections and bugles sounding at dawn and dusk. At one point, Villa
actually asked the government to reimburse him two hundred thousand pesos for the damages suffered by his hacienda during
the revolution. “The peculiarity of the situation is that the ranches were practically worthless and that the destruction
was caused by Villa’s own followers,” wrote U.S. Army intelligence officials, who continued to closely monitor his activities
and remained suspicious of everything he did.