CHAPTER VII

Nuevo Mundo! shouted the sailors. The sea was rippling like the bottom of a woven grassrope chair. A new world! Taking out their finest satins and putting on new armor the commanders of the little party ordered boats to be made ready and the royal standards of Aragon and Castile to be taken into men meanwhile feeling the balmy air and seeing green and a shore for the first time in two months were greedily talking of fresh fruit--after their monotonous and meager diet of meat--of milk, of a chance to walk free in the air, to escape their commanders, and of women. Yes perhaps there would be women, beautiful savages of manifold charms. But most of all they were filled with the wild joy of release from torment of the mind. For not one among them but expected to be eaten by a god or a monster long since or to have been boiled alive by a hypertropical sea. Excitedly they went down the ladders and took their places at the words of the boatswain spoken in the Castilian tongue.

Of Columbus' small talk on that occasion nothing remains but it could not have been of Eric the Discoverer. Nor of the parties of Asiatics and Islanders--Pacific Islanders who had in other ages peopled the continents from the east. No matter: _Nuevo Mundo_! had shouted the sailors and _Nuevo Mundo_ it was sure enough as they found out as soon as they had set foot on it and Columbus had kneeled and said prayers and the priest had spoken his rigmarole in the name of Christ and the land was finally declared taken over for Ferdinand and Isabella the far distant king and queen.

Yes it was indeed a new world. They the product of an age-long civilization beginning in India, it is said, and growing through conquest and struggle of all imaginable sorts through periods of success and decline, through ages of walkings to and fro in the fields and woods and the streets of cities that were without walls and had walls and burst their walk and became ruins again; through the changes of speech: Sanscrit, Greek, Latin growing crooked in the mouths of peasants who would rise and impose their speech on their masters, and on divisions, in the state and savage colonial influences, words accurate to the country, Italian, French and Spanish itself not to speak of Portuguese. Words! Yes this party of sailors, men of the sea, brothers of a most ancient guild, ambassadors of all the ages that had gone before them, had indeed found a new world, a world, that is, that knew nothing about them, on which the foot of a white man had never made a mark such as theirs were then making on the white sand under the palms. _Nuevo Mundo_!

The children released from school lay in the gutter and covered themselves with the fallen poplar leaves.--A new world! All summer the leaves had been thick on the branches but now after the heat and the rain and the wind the branches were beginning to be bare. More sky appeared to their eyes than ever before. With what relief the children had pranced in the wind! Now they lay half covered in the leaves and enjoying the warmth looked out on the new world.

And he was passing and saw them. And wondered if it were too late to be Eric. What a new world they had made of it with their Cortezes, their Pizarros yes and their Lord Howes, their Washingtons even. The Declaration of Independence. I wonder, he said, whether it could be possible that the influence of the climate--I wonder if the seed, the sperm of that, existed in Columbus. Was it authentic? Is there a word to be found there? Could it be that in those men who had crossed, in the Norse as; well as the Mongols, something, spontaneous could not have been implanted out of the air? Or was the declaration to be put to the credit of that German George? Was it only the result of local conditions?

"A new declaration of independence, signed by Columbus, found in Porto Rico."

Indians in any case, pale yellow and with lank black hair came to the edge of the bushes and stared: The Yaquis territory lay north of the river Fuertes. To the south was Carrancista territory. The valley was, fertile, the Indians wanted it.

During the week of November 13th, 17th, 1916--word reached Los Mochis that Gen. Banderas and the Villistas from Chihuahua had been defeated by the Carrancistas near Fuertes and were in retreat. During this week two Indians were captured by Los Mochis police and hung on willow trees below the Jaula.

On Saturday November 13th, Col. Escobar and his Carrancistas of the Fifth regiment of Sinaloa were withdrawn from Los Mochis and Aguila and concentrated in San Blas. Banderas and his Villistas meanwhile had come down the Fuertes, effected a junction with Bacomo and his Mayo Indians, and Monday night crossed the river above Los Tastos, tore out the telephone at the pumps and started for Los Mochis. All gate keepers encountered on the road were killed as were their families. Mr. Wilcox estimated the combined forces participating in the raid and on the other side of the river at 6,000.

The first intimation of the raid was at one o'clock in the morning of Tuesday when with a "_Villa! Vive Villa! Vive Villa_!" the raiders swarmed into Los Mochis from three sides, shooting cursing as they galloped into town. From all over the town came the sound of smashing doors and windows, shots, yells and screams.

When I came here the Indians all used bows and arrows. Conscripted during the many revolutions they had deserted with their rifles until at last, after 800 of them, in a body, went over they used the rifle extensively. Wilcox lived at the pumps with his wife and daughter. A cocky Englishman, he poopooed the danger. He had been in the habit of telephoning into the town, seven miles, whenever a raid was coming. It was agreed we Americans were to keep to our houses, take our animals off the roads and wait with more or less excitement until it was over. We never notified the Mexicans. Had we done so once we should not have escaped the next raid. This time the Villistas were with the Indians. As you saw the first thing they did was to rip out the wires. Washington had just accepted Carranza as the power in authority and the Villistas were angry.

Wilcox and his wife and daughter were locked in a room all the first night while Banderas and Bacomo argued over their fate. Banderas was for killing Wilcox and taking over his wife and daughter for camp women. But the Indian stood out against him. It seems Wilcox had at one time given the Indians some sacks of beans when they were hard up for food. They remembered this. It was a good thing for the three.

At a previous raid an American engineer living near Wilcox was found dead. He was supposed to have run. Looked just like a pin-cushion, with the feathered arrows that were in him. Funniest thing you ever saw in your life. There were four bullets in him also.

The Americans were too scattered to resist. It was decided to save the few guns by hiding them. Bacomo rode up to the house with his escort,--ordered to give up all guns and cartridges. At the last moment he turned back from the stairs, entered Mrs. Johnson's room where the ladies were sitting on the beds and ordered them to get up. Under the mattress a miscellaneous collection of riot guns, rifles, shot guns, automatics, pistols and cartridges were found. When all the guns and cartridges to the last shell had been loaded on the horses behind the drunken soldiers Bacomo refused C.'s request for one of the riot guns and with a polite bow and a "_Con permiso, senores_," he rode off.

In Mr. Johnson's cellar they had found all sorts of bottles from Scotch to German _Scheiswasser_ and had drunk it all indiscriminately.

Cattle had eaten the standing rice. The pigs had got loose and over-run everything. Returning there were corpses on all sides. About one of these a triple battle raged. The pigs were ranged on one side, the dogs on another and from a third a flock of vultures crept up from time to time. The pigs and dogs would make a united rush at the birds who would fly a few feet into the air and settle a yard or so away.

These pictures are of Bacomo taken a year later just as he was being taken from the train by his captors. He was a physical wreck at the time but at the time of the raid he was a magnificent specimen of a man. It seemed there was some silver buried near Los Mochis which they wanted. He would not disclose its whereabouts unless they freed him and they would not free him unless he spoke first.

The end is shown in this picture. Here he is with the pick and spade at his feet surrounded by the Carrancista soldiers. He dug his grave and was shot and they buried him there.

The Indians have made a local saint of him and every night you will see candles burning on the spot and little plates of rice and other food placed there for his spirit.--

For a moment Columbus stood as if spell-bound by the fact of this new country. Soon however he regained his self-possession and with Alonzo Pinzon ordered the trunks of trifles to be opened which, being opened, the Indians drew near in wonder and began to try to communicate with these gods.

It was indeed a new world.