Home to Texas: Recollections of a Texas Badman - Part 4

there aint a lot in mexico that a bandit could rob. that made me decide not to ride with the bandits. some of the banditos robbed the villages, but that was just dumb, cause of there aint nothin to steal from em. other banditos crossed the border, but that part of Texas was just as poor as mexico. you might as well rob a chicken as rob the villagers in the south of Texas down thru the north of mexico. there was always cattle ruslting going both ways, but I sure as hell didnt want to end up pointing my guns at anyone from the ranch.

when I tell of this part, I aint namin any of the generales. some of those vicious bastardos are still powerful men, and my folk still live on the ranchero. Ill just call em pancho or pedro or so.

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there was no shortage of generales that was warrin with each other. i think that was how you got elected as presidente in mexico. they had chased the frenchies outa mexico, but they was still fightin each other. sos I joined with generale pedro. when I walked into their camp, I figger they was set to hang me for bein a gringo, but I had good enuff espanol to talk em into signin me up instead. I had to shoot one of em who called me a yankee. sos I told the rest of them they could lay any dirty word they wanted onto me, cept for that one. I was, and always would be, sick about the War, and havin to run from the goddammed yankees. as far as I was concerned, they was still the enemy.

generale pedro and his men was little morern banditos themselves. their method of war was to ride around lookin for a group of the other fellas that was smaller then their group. then they would try to wipe em out. othern that, theyd keep busy by takin over a village. they musta heard bout the makin tortilla trick, cause they sure used it a lot. I kept myself busy lookin for willin women instead. that tortilla trick turned out to be a whole lot less funny if you had ta watch it instead a havin a viejo tell it as a joke.

there was a lot of battles, but there werent a lot of them that was memorable. the mexicans was about as good fighters as the goddammed yankees. fightin for money aint near as fun fightin for glory, and ridin with the mexicans was startin to git borin, and it just felt wrong besides. no doubt I killed a bunch of em, but there was no point in countin coup. and for one of the few times in my life, I got into trouble from somethin other then a pair of pretty dark eyes.

generale pedro had a boss come to inspect the troops. this was generale juan, who musta been in a million battles, cause he had more medals on him then the number of soldiers he had. sos we was all lined up when this little tiny man, and all a his medals marches out in front of us. I spect I snickered a bit, cause that generale give me a dirty look, but I dont think I got caught it. but then that night, comin back from the cantina, a damn horse took a kick at me as I stabled my own. so I shot the goddammed animal. the stable boy started cryin like a girl. come to find out, Id shot generale juans horse. I rode out south for a while, but the humor of it caught me, besides bein drunk, and I musta fell offa my horse bout fifteen times laffin my ass off.

I got to saltillo, and figgered to rob a bank there, but saltillo was both pretty and peaceful, so what I did mostly was spend the rest of my money just sittin in the courtyard of this cantina, restin in the sun and enjoyin the smilin of the senoritas.

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I had a spell of good luck, for just as I ran out of money, I met a italian who wanted to go to new orleans for tradin. he was scairt to leave his quartros by himself, and needed a escort, cause of his hired men had deserted him in saltillo. I didnt feel like ridin back through all the generales and their million little battles , so I had the italian ease off to the coast, and we rode the ocean to new orleans.

folks say mexicans are lazy, but as damn hot as it is down there, I didnt run around workin a lot myself.

I was tolt much later that over the years, with all the generales earnin all those shiny medals, one in every four mexicans got kilt. a lot of em was just women and brats. Im glad they never hung any medals on me down there.

John Stevens

Wallace always liked Mexican folk, although he cussed Mexicans in general like every Texan does. Once he got back from his Mexican wars, he never cussed Mexicans again. He cussed quite a few Mexican generals, by name, and fair harshly, too. But never just regular Mexicans.