Four horses milled about nervously as a train’s brakes cloaked them in hot steam. Tossing their reins to the others, Chancho and Ah Puch dismounted. Summer had sunk its teeth into the countryside months ago and not yet relented.

“Load the horses as planned.” Through successive waves of heat Chancho strode toward the lead passenger car, intent on reaching it before the train settled to a complete stop. Ah Puch followed close on his heels.

Both men wore the stolid gray and braided silver of the Mexican Rurales, despite the alleged disbanding of the infamous Guardia Rural fourteen months earlier in July, 1914. Chancho straightened his black tie and tipped his sombrero over his brow while Ah Puch slung his carbine over his back, positioning his saber neatly at his hip.

“Who the hell are you? And why have you stopped my train?” The general himself swelled to block their path. The right sleeve of his starched Constitutional uniform ended abruptly at the elbow, looming above Chancho’s head. The empty, cut-off sleeve emphasized the absence of the arm that had been there only five months earlier—until the battle at Celaya.

Chancho wasted no time. “Rurales of Coahuila on special assignment, with information about Villista activity in the area.”

Obregón betrayed his surprise with a subtle twitch of his left brow. “Rurales. Villistas.” He spat out both words. “You still haven’t explained why you presumed to stop my train.” He patted his left hand gently on his holster.

“General, your train would have been stopped one way or the other. The Villistas have disabled the track 30 km north of here.”

General Obregón dismissed them with a quick jerk of his head and disappeared into the train while barking orders. “Seat these men in my private quarters, and tell the engineer to get this damn train rolling.” Two Constitutional infantrymen stood aside in the doorway while Chancho and Ah Puch squeezed past them in time to see the door leading to the adjacent car slide shut behind the General’s backside.

An infantryman crowded Ah Puch roughly until he slipped a dagger from his belt, flipped it around backwards in his grip and touched the tip to the man’s nether region firmly enough to convey his meaning. The man coughed and stood down. Ah Puch grinned crookedly over his shoulder as the two men progressed at their own pace toward the general’s quarters. After the Rurales entered, the nervous infantryman shut the door behind them.

A bead of sweat rolled down the small of Chancho’s back. “Do you think he bought it?”

“He hates the Rurales almost as much as Villa. That’s our advantage. He can’t see past his hatred.”

“Ah, but will he stop the train?” Chancho bounced up and down on the general’s cushioned couch.

Ah Puch shrugged, then stiffened. Heavy boots approached in the corridor. Chancho jumped up from the couch as the general threw the door open violently. “More of your men have boarded my train!”

Chancho didn’t budge. “It is not safe even for Guardia Rural to ride about today’s Mexico in pairs. Two more of my men have loaded our horses.” Obregón opened his mouth to speak but Chancho continued. “We will not be left on the border without transport.”

The general’s fingers twitched. Realizing his mouth was still open, he shut it and narrowed his eyes to slits. Chancho resisted the urge to smile. Mentioning their intention to reach the border and then disembark there had been perfectly played.

“Tell me what you know of the Villistas.” The general moved past them and dropped onto his couch as the train shook and lurched along the tracks.

“It’s been done before.” Ah Puch interjected.

The general slammed his fist against the wall of his personal quarters. “I will not yield to that jackal, Villa.”

The windows remained shut despite the three bodies in close proximity. Chancho dabbed his brow against the stifling heat. “He will have organized a hundred of his most experienced cavalry for this mission.” Chancho emphasized the word “this” subtly, causing Obregón to tense and lean forward.

“General,” Chancho continued. “If we Rurales know this train holds special interest for President Carranza, then Villa will know as well.” Carranza and his troops had only been in Mexico City for a month, and it pained Chancho to address him as president, but he swallowed his pride for now.

“This train,” Obregón gripped the two men with his iron stare long enough for Chancho to count two lengths of rail clack beneath them, “is my responsibility. And no number of ignorant and mislead peons will stop it—”

“From reaching Corpus Christi?” Chancho leaned against the door and crossed his legs.

“With its precious cargo.” Ah Puch added just as casually.

The general’s jaw popped.

“It is our job to know everything happening in Coahuila, before it happens.”

“It is also our job to protect the Mexican government’s interests.”

“We are good at our job.” Sensing the general’s breaking point, Chancho put on formal airs before continuing. “We are here to be of service to you and your detachment in the completion of your mission.”

The train car shuddered and bucked as it coursed along a rougher section of track. Only two years old, the jarring stemmed from insufficient roadbed material and haste of application rather than age. Even as provincial governor, Carranza had known the importance of connecting the scattered, short sections of track throughout Coahuila into the continuous Tex-Mex Railway. The temporary alliance between Pancho Villa and Venustiano Carranza against President Huerta had provided the opportunity for the project to be completed.

The general took a deep breath and suddenly slapped his thigh, forcing a loud laugh. “Very well, Guardia Rural.” He scrutinized them again. “You are absolutely sure of your report?” The two men nodded. “I need to talk with my officers.” Obregón rose to take his leave.

Before he could squeeze past the two men Chancho addressed him. “General, we humbly request to see to our horses and check in with our fellow Rurales in preparation for the conflict.”

“What conflict?” The general puffed out his chest. Chancho raised a brow and waited until Obregón dismissed them with a nod of his head, allowing the two men to exit the posh personal quarters back into the echoing corridor that ran the length of one side of the train car. What had remained a muffled clacking from inside the general’s quarters thundered as a pulsing rhythm off the hardwood paneling in the hall. The smell of spent coal wafted through an open window.

“You’ll find them toward the back, if you can get there.” Obregón brushed his empty sleeve, along with its ghost arm, against Chancho’s side.

The sensation unsettled him, and Chancho knew at once why the general had chosen to leave the three-quarter sleeve stabbing awkwardly into space.

“Now excuse me.” Without further discussion the general slid the door open and leapt to the neighboring car, leaving Chancho and Ah Puch to follow him toward the rear of the train on their own.

“What did he mean by ‘If we can get there’?” Chancho waited until both men had stepped out onto the small platform at the back of the general’s train car and slid the door shut behind them.

“No doubt the gold is in a car between here and there. It will be heavily guarded by the general’s most trusted men. Apparently he does not intend to instruct them to let us pass.” Ah Puch sucked his teeth and glanced back through the glass window the way they'd come. The corridor of the General’s private car was still empty.

“No matter.” Chancho breathed deep. “We just need to identify which car contains the gold. As long as we have men in position when the time comes, the plan is good to go.”

“Nothing is good to go if we don't divert the train.”

Chancho rested his hand on Ah Puch's shoulder. “In due time.” He steadied himself with the handhold before leaping across the gap to the next car.

“But you have no sense of time.” Ah Puch complained as they slipped into the officers' car which had been designed much like the general’s, but less posh. On their way down the corridor they overheard Obregón asking his top men for options.

Sliding open the solid metal door to the next car, a wall of hot air and stale body odor swam over them. Packed beyond capacity, the creaking passenger car contained more than a hundred regulars, infantrymen in patchwork Constitutional uniforms. The newly conscripted wore the BEF style hat with huaraches on their feet. Some sat backwards chatting to neighbors, but most stared blankly out windows.

Upon noticing the Rurales, each soldier fell silent and stared at his lap with sudden interest. Every man, on both sides of the conflict, could tell stories of swift and brutal judgement levied by the Guardia Rural over the last several decades. The relative rarity of encountering one of the silver-braided rural police in recent years only fanned the folklore into flame.

The two men strode confidently down the aisle and out the metal door on the other end of the car without contest. Again in the swirling wind between train cars Chancho shook his head. “Any one of those men could be my brother. They're just peons trying to feed their families.”

“They lack only initiative. Perhaps today we will give it to them.” Ah Puch gestured for them to jump to the next car.

“But what if we, what if they…” Chancho rubbed his tired eyes. “We’ve been winning, haven't we? Since May? I mean, the revolution?”

Ah Puch nodded. “The revolution has gotten smarter with your leadership. The bleeding has stopped. If today's plan works the tables will be turned. Carranza needs the United States, and he needs the treasure on this train to get their attention.”

“How much gold do you think there is?” Chancho glanced sideways at Ah Puch who couldn't resist smiling at the question.

“All of it. Carranza is clever, but he's a politician. He sees the small, targeted attacks in rural areas as the dying breath of the revolution rather than a new tactic for which he has no counter. I would bet my boots his entire treasury is onboard, everything he can spare anyway.”

Chancho nodded. “Hmmm. I could use anther pair of boots.”

“What's wrong with the pair I made you?” Ah Puch glared at his friend.

“Nothing. It's just,” Chancho shrugged, “a man can always use a second pair.”

“A second pair! No other pair like them exists! Yours have more features even than—”

Chancho held up his hands in surrender. “Relax before you burst a seam, my friend. Of course you are right. Now don't you think we should get on with robbing this train?”

Ah Puch paused, his hand resting on the door handle of the next car. From the landing it appeared at first to be another passenger car, but steel-backed window facades revealed someone wanted a freight car to appear as if it carried human lives. The two men tensed. The ruse meant the car carried cargo considered more precious than human life. This had to be the one.

The metal door grated open an inch at a time. Both men remained clear of the opening until the gap grew large enough to skinny through. Chancho glanced at Ah Puch. No angry voices came from inside. They heard nothing over the pulse of the rails beneath them and the wind whipping past.

There was no point in peeking inside. It would take several seconds for their eyes to adjust to the darkness, and under the circumstances, caution would come across as guilt. Chancho shrugged. Removing his sombrero and crushing it up against his chest, he swung around Ah Puch and slipped through the narrow opening without a sound.

Once on the inside he crouched low in the darkness. Immediately he felt Ah Puch settle in behind him. Senses heightening, he waited for his eyes to make the adjustment. The scent of decay crowded him, like a muggy open air market after a rain. Dust motes swam in the slice of light pouring through the opening. Chancho couldn’t detect any threatening noise, nothing other than the expected rocking of the rails and the closeness of cargo squeaking against its restraints.

Ah Puch placed a quick hand on his shoulder. Chancho tilted his head and closed his eyes. Finally, less than a few meters away a pattern distinguished itself from the rhythm of the rails. A regular breathing, verging on snoring, rose above the din.

At a disadvantage in the relative dimness, Ah Puch slid the metal door slowly shut. Swallowed up in complete darkness, Chancho groped along the floor for his bearings. Identifying an isle through the cargo, the two men slipped further into the middle of the car until a safe distance from the sleeping guard.

“He can’t be the only one.” Chancho squatted with his back against a wooden crate and focused his eyes intently into the blackness where he knew Ah Puch’s face should be.

“At least one more at the other end.”

“What are the chances they’re both asleep?” Finally Chancho’s eyes seized on the cumulative traces of light seeping through holes where bolts had gone missing. Distinguishing the outline of his friend, he continued. “Right. So what now? I was expecting to sweet talk our way to this point.”

“Find the gold. We have to confirm its exact location.”

“Right.” Chancho pivoted his head slowly trying to discern the best path to take through the stacks of crates surrounding them. He stopped when Ah Puch gripped his shoulder.

“Don’t worry. We’ll probably still need to sweet talk our way out of this.”

Chancho grinned. He could see Ah Puch’s ironic smile perfectly in his mind’s eye—a reminder to both of them that they were doing what they loved. “I’ll see you back here in ten minutes.” He squeezed Ah Puch’s arm. “If the devil don’t get me.”

As he turned from his friend the train shimmied along another rough patch of rail. Groping in the dark for balance he gripped something leather—leather and unsecured. Rather than stabilizing himself he fell backwards, pulling the object with him. Only when the object jerked suddenly from his grasp did he realize he had been holding a boot.

“What in the… Guzman? That you? Dammit, stop playing.” Chancho froze. “It hasn’t been an hour yet. Guzman?”

Chancho cleared his throat while scrambling to his feet. Behind him he could hear Ah Puch shifting his weight, preparing for a fight. He decided on a gravely voice, “Like hell it hasn’t. Get your lazy ass out of bed.”

“Hey!” There was a sudden shifting in the darkness, followed by the sound of a pistol slipping from its holster. “Who the hell are you?”

“Plan B,” Chancho mumbled. Cocking his right leg toward the sound of the guard's voice, he yanked up on his inner bootstrap while extending the leg into a full kick. The kicking motion fell just short of the groggy guard’s face who flashed his pistol blindly in the dark. But the strap, upon extending into a pull cord, ignited a small explosion in the tip of Chancho’s boot. Among dissipating sparks a cloud of fine powder burst into the guard’s face.

“What in the—” the pistol fired. Whizzing past Chancho’s ear the bullet ricocheted and dug into a wooden crate.

“Chili!” Chancho warned Ah Puch before crashing into a web of hemp rope. He shielded his face from the spreading cloud.

Choking, the guard squeezed off another round. “Santa Maria! It burns!” His pistol clanked to the ground.

Chancho knew the guard had failed to resist touching his face, grinding the chili dust further into his skin. A new voice echoed in the dark.

“Torres? What the hell is going on? Ruiz?”

Peeking from under his sombrero Chancho saw the outline of Ah Puch, crouching two meters away—outside the effective range of the chili. On the edge of the cloud, Chancho felt the sudden urge to sneeze.

The guard who had caught the brunt of it, Torres, continued to choke on every breath. “Intru— intru—” he coughed in between each attempt to sound the warning, unable to string together three syllables without the powder triggering the reflex.  Chancho struggled to contain his giddy excitement over how beautifully the chili bomb had incapacitated the man.

“Someone’s in here with us, sir.”

“Ruiz? How the hell did someone get in between us?”

“I… uh—”

“Dammit, do you know who fired?”

“It wasn’t me, sir.”

Chancho knew the two guards would be forced to act soon, and he and Ah Puch were both exposed to opposite lines of sight in their current positions. Torres was the problem. He occupied the only nook out of sight from the others, and his being at risk elevated the situation. Not only did the two friends need to not die, they had to convince the general the whole thing was a friendly misunderstanding.

Chancho tied a bandana around his nose and mouth, tipped his sombrero low over his eyes and bumped his way toward Torres. He needed to get the incapacitated guard to the front end of the car, where Ruiz had been sleeping, and away from Guzman, their commanding officer. This would keep the scales tipped to their advantage.

Even through the bandana his throat itched with every breath. Locating Torres by his groaning, Chancho kicked the pistol out of the way and tugged him off his cot by both legs. The guard hit the ground with an ooff. As Chancho dragged him kicking and clawing, Ah Puch leaned in close to the guard’s ear. “Now go. That way if you want to live.” Both men pulled Torres up on his feet and shoved him toward Ruiz’s end of the car.

“Torres, that you?”

“Intruders!” Torres finally pronounced the word he had struggled with for several seconds.

“We figured that. Are you alright?”

Having cleared the area of human threat, Ah Puch and Chancho leapt onto the cot and leaned against the outer wall of the freight car above the lingering chili dust. With crates stacked to the ceiling on both sides, they were finally out of sight. “He’ll be fine.” Chancho spoke loudly enough to address the guards. “Chili powder. It burns like hell, but nothing like your mother’s salsa the next morning. You know what I mean?”

Chancho and Ah Puch held their breath, suppressing the urge to sneeze or cough until the fine chili powder had settled among the shifting dark. The guards hesitated as well. Nothing came from Guzman’s end of the car while Torres’ muffled swearing drifted from the front.

Growing impatient to resolve the situation and move the plan forward, Chancho addressed them. “My friends, this bashfulness is getting us nowhere. Guzman, it was Guzman, right? Of course. You cannot leave your post unattended to go and get help, and besides the next car contains nothing but cargo, correct?”

Chancho paused briefly, but no response came. “And Ruiz, you also do not want to leave your post while Torres, ah, my sincerest apologies for the chili, is incapacitated. And besides you would need a command from our laryngitic Guzman. So, I’ll make you a deal. Send Torres to fetch the general, and I promise my friend and I will remain quite still until he returns. Hmm?”

He waited another moment. “We’re Rurales on special assignment to help you guys protect this precious cargo from nasty revolutionaries. All just a misunderstanding.” Finally movement echoed about the car. A gash of light and rumbling of rails spilled into the confined space as Torres presumably fumbled through the opened door and closed it behind him. “Ah, very good. Hopefully the poor guy can find his way.”

Ah Puch placed his hand on Chancho’s shoulder and nodded toward the crate they were standing on. The two men stepped down and tested the air quality, finding it back to normal. Ah Puch rubbed his hand on the side of the box and whispered, “When the door was open, I caught a glimpse. Help me crack this open.”

The two men worked quietly, jimmying their blades under the edge of the box all the way around three sides until the lid creaked open. “Mother Mary.” Even in the minimal lighting the luminescent ocean of gold cast an eerie glimmering onto their hands and faces. They allowed themselves a single smirk before replacing the lid and snugging it down. “It’s real now. It’s real, and we’re going to liberate it.” Chancho sat down on the crate and leaned back against the wall.

“All the generations of my family put together have never seen so much wealth.” Ah Puch’s hoarse whisper grew ragged around the edges. “Only the smallest fraction of it would have provided a full life for my parents, a chance to start over—escape the hacienda where they died without two kernels of corn to rub together.”

“I’m sorry, my friend. It should never have happened.” Chancho shook his head in the dark. “But we will ensure it never happens again.” He nudged his friend with his elbow. “What are you going to do with your share?”

“We have not succeeded yet.”

“Oh come on. I’ve waited this long to ask.”

Ah Puch sat quietly for several seconds. “I’m going to buy the hacienda where my parents died, and distribute the land to the peons still enslaved there—legally. I’ll make sure no one takes it from them again.”

“Will you stay there and farm?”

Ah Puch snorted. “Me? I’m no farmer. I’ve been a bandit since I was a child. There’s nothing after the revolution for me.”

“Nonsense. You could come with me to the orphanage.” Chancho leaned back. “That’s what I’m going to do with my share. I still feel guilty for abandoning the sisters. Hey,” he nudged Ah Puch, “a bunch of nuns living in the wilderness. They could use some hired protection. You know, the sort an old bandit could provide?”

Before Ah Puch could respond the door to the car slid open forcefully, flooding the space with light and the general’s thunderous voice, “Dammit! Why can’t you two stay out of trouble?”

“Chili powder?” Standing in the open door of the armored freight car the general scrutinized the two Rurales anew.

Chancho relaxed. If the general had intended to throw them underneath the moving train, he wouldn’t have dismissed everyone but Guzman. “Even the Guardia, despite our reputation, know when to kill,” he shrugged, “and when to simply spice things up.”

Obregón barked an abrupt, high-pitched laugh. He shook his head and turned serious. “You still insist on petting your horses, or will you stay out of my way?” 

Lengths of track clacked past them. Chancho felt the effects of waining adrenaline on his muscles. “General. You’ve had time to discuss the matter with your officers. I’m positive they have not provided you with a satisfactory scenario for today’s events.”

“I do not need my officers’—”

Chancho continued, “What you need is a means to deliver your cargo to Corpus Christi. I can give you what you need.”

“You two are chapping my hide. If I wanted Rurales to drive my train—” the general stopped himself.

“Four Rurales will not help much in a shootout with Villa’s cavalry, not while we are sitting ducks. But there doesn’t need to be a shootout.”

Obregón nodded impatiently, “Go on.”

“There is an alternate track, an abandoned rail running parallel for twenty kilometers. It is long enough to bypass the Villista ambush.”

“Villa is not so stupid to choose a place that could so easily be—”

“It accesses an old silver mine, abandoned over 15 years ago. Goes through some rough country. Most of Villa’s men were only children when it was in use. As you know, Villa grew up in Chihuahua. They don’t know it exists. Did you?”

The general quipped back, “And you?”

“I grew up here, and again, it is my job to know everything about Coahuila. We rode the entire length of it only two months ago. It is old, but functional. You will barely need to slow down.”

“Indeed.” Obregón rubbed the nub of his amputated arm, hidden high in his sleeve, through the dense material of his uniform.

“You cannot continue as you are. Your train will be derailed and torn apart.” Chancho tilted his head. “You cannot go back and wait.”

As if it were simply impossible for the general to consider advice from Rurales, he turned to the weary soldier standing beside Ah Puch. “Guzman?”

“If these men are telling the truth about the alternate track, it would be our best option, sir. Plus,” he half-grinned, half-snarled, “it would humiliate Villa.”

Chancho cursed himself silently for not thinking of that himself. Guzman had turned out to be helpful after all.

The general nodded. “And if they are not telling the truth?”

Guzman turned his gaze toward Chancho. “Then we use them as shields against Villa.”

“Very well. While I appreciate the suggestion, I’m afraid they’re right about our options. If they are lying about the alternate track we will indeed kill them, but we will not fight Villa today. It will be inconvenient, but reinforcements could arrive by tomorrow morning at the latest.” Obregón turned toward Chancho. “Now tell me where to expect the signal for this alternate track. Then Guzman will escort you to see your horses, where I will expect you to stay until you are called upon.”

Chancho and Ah Puch both nodded.

Wiser than most soldiers Ah Puch had encountered, Guzman followed him and Chancho at a safe distance. While remaining clear of any quick movements and gripping his knife tightly, he allowed the Rurales to saunter through the armored freight car on their way toward the back of the train. With light coming through the door where Obregón had exited, Chancho used the opportunity to let his eyes wander about the cargo.

Most of it seemed common: a dozen crates of coffee beans, an equal amount labeled “cerveza” but most likely packed with tequila, and several dozen crates of vegetables to make the whole shipment appear as mundane as possible. Near the far end of the car, stashed in the shadows, Chancho strained to read the label on a dozen oversized metal boxes, “Geological Survey—Secretariat of the Interior.” Without time to ponder its contents they reached the metal door, and Ah Puch tugged it open.

The blistering sun greeted them. With Guzman watching from inside the armored car they leapt across the coupling and waved goodbye from the neighboring car. Shutting its door behind them, they returned to suffocating darkness. “Cheery fellow.”

Ah Puch grunted. They staggered forward in the dark until Chancho bumped into bales of hay. The car echoed and rattled, revealing its relative emptiness. Its smell informed them it contained mostly feed and grain. They bumped their way to the other end and heaved the door open to let in light. Their partners in crime, Jorge and Emilio, waved at them from the railing of an open-air livestock car containing several horses, their four included.

Chancho gave them the thumbs up. “Any trouble with the caboose?” They shook their heads and smiled. Chancho breathed a sigh of relief before settling back on a bale of hay to map out their next steps.

Ah Puch searched the shadows of the car to ensure they were alone, finally joining his friend. “Things are going well,” he offered.

“Hmmm? Oh, yes. Did you see those metal boxes?” Chancho scratched his chin.

“Mining. I’ve seen them used before in mining.” Ah Puch stretched, touching his toes.

“I wonder what’s inside them.”

“Rocks, dirt, ore.” Ah Puch cracked his neck and shrugged. “There’ll be plenty of time to look later if this plan works.” The second half of the sentence sounded more negative than he had intended.

“Oh it’ll work. What is there to go wrong now?”

“What is there—” Ah Puch shook his head. “Everything we’ve done up to this point has been easy.” He leaned forward. “This is not a game. There are over a hundred people on this train that will kill us if they find out what we are doing, several who will try to hunt us down and kill us if we succeed.”

“No one will find out what we are doing. The four of us are together, we're in position, and besides only two people on this train have even seen our faces. They’ll be too busy losing a revolution to find us.”

Ah Puch grunted and sat back. “One thing at a time.” He knew Chancho would be useless if he grew distracted or discouraged at this point. A sly grin crept across his face. “The boot bomb worked pretty well.”

Chancho laughed. “Pretty well? It was incredible. Torres is wishing he could've been strapped naked to a cactus instead. The only problem is now I have a hole in my boot.” He held the tip of his boot up for Ah Puch to inspect.

“Bah. It’s nothing. I could fix it in five minutes if I had my tools.”

Chancho slapped Ah Puch’s leg. “I can't wait to try out the spurs.”

Ah Puch settled onto his stool and adjusted the knob on the kerosene lantern for more light. The rising hiss bounced off the nearness of the rock floor and ceiling, creating the sensation of having been swallowed by a living stone monster.

He plucked an awl from his lips. Gripping it with his nippers, he worked it lightning fast along the seam running up the side of the boot. He stopped to check the placement of the magnetized plate sown into the back of the heel for the fourth time. Reaching inside the boot, he straightened the ripcord for the chili bomb and continued stitching the seam. “By tomorrow you will own the best pair of boots in the world.”

Chancho looked up from his work on a massive wall of gears, grease streaking his face and hands. “Better even than your own?”

“Mine were the prototype. I have made improvements since.”

“Incredible. I will keep them for life.” Chancho adjusted the positioning of a long, metal camshaft with a wrench until the teeth lined up with an even larger gear.

“Damn right. And if your life is any less than fifty years I’m taking ‘em back.”

“I’ll do my best, friend.” He put the wrench down before pounding the shaft further into the heart of the sprawling wall of machinery with a wooden mallet.

“Don’t worry. I’ve put too much work into these boots to let you die now.” Ah Puch snickered at his own joke.

“There!” Chancho tossed the mallet into the corner. He snapped a leather belt with his fingers to test its tautness. “If this machine doesn’t chew me to death when we start it, I’ll consider it a success.”

Ah Puch put down his work to take in the entirety of the contraption. Chancho stood on a metal grate over forty-feet long and ten-feet wide with steel beams connecting it to the roof of the cave every four feet. Where Chancho had been working, a series of gears, pulleys and belts covered the entire far side of the cave, dipping below the grate and out of view. “And this thing will lift a train?”

“Well, not the whole train,” he grinned. “But enough of it.”

“This is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Says the man holding gadget boots in his hands.”

“Sure, they have a few special additions, but they are just a pair of boots. This…” Ah Puch indicated the entirety of the room they were in. “This. None of this was even here two months ago.” His voice echoed off the chiseled rock walls. The light from the kerosene lamp fell short of the distant corners of the cave.

“I’ll be happy when we don’t have to work in the belly of the whale any more."

“The whale?” Ah Puch returned to his stitching.

“Oh yes. I forget you are a very bad Catholic.”

“I’m not a bad Catholic. I’m a good bandit. Although many of the Catholics I’ve known have been both.”

“It’s too bad.” Chancho unscrewed a cap from a large tank half-buried in the wall and sniffed its contents. “You should meet the sisters someday. They would set you straight.” He hefted a fuel can from the floor, directing its funnel into the tank.

“Oh I’m sure they would. But for now I’ve got no problem with being crooked.” He stopped his work to take a swig from a clear glass bottle. “So explain to me again how all my digging in this whale belly is going to win the revolution.”

Wind tugging his sombrero, Chancho cracked the heel of his boot hard on the coupling. The deteriorating railroad ties of the alternate track blurred beneath his feet. Ah Puch steadied him as he twisted the heel around 90 degrees.

With a quick yank Chancho ripped it from the rest of the boot. A phosphorus- and potassium-covered fuse trailed from the detached heel, the friction of the tug sparking it to life. After Chancho slapped the magnetized metal of the heel down on the coupling, Ah Puch pulled him onto the platform of the armored freight car.

On cue Emilio and Jorge leapt from the top of the feed and grain car to the top of the armored car. The magnets in their boots clanked onto the metal roof loudly. With one last glance back at the burning fuse Chancho flicked his spurs from their usual resting place until they were underneath the soles of his boots—the sharp tips protruding out the front.

Quickly Emilio and Jorge laid down on the roof, dangling their arms over the edge. Clasping at the wrists, they heaved Ah Puch and Chancho up to join them, just in the nick of time.

The metal door at the rear of the armored car slid open, tentatively at first, before eventually opening wide. “They’re on the roof!” a voice barked. Without warning the heel charge detonated. Blasting apart the coupling, the explosion buffeted the train cars with a deafening roar.

On the roof Chancho struggled to gain his balance. Perched with the half-moon shape of his magnetic spurs under the balls of his feet, he locked their harness firmly into place. Clanking loudly, magnet on metal, he darted for the front of the car.

Still at the back of the armored car, Jorge, Emilio and Ah Puch stood in a triangle. With Ah Puch facing toward the front of the train, Jorge and Emilio latched onto his arms from behind. “Launch me, boys.”

As one they moved to the back edge of the roof while Ah Puch, the smallest of the four, flipped his legs up and over his head. Swinging him full-circle, Emilio and Jorge fell to their knees and then flat on their stomachs. With their heads and arms dangling over the edge, they sent Ah Puch careening through the opened doorway below, feet first.

With his momentum carrying him into a second backflip, Ah Puch’s left boot struck flesh as his right rotated underneath him more quickly. He caught himself hands-first before finally gathering his knees underneath him and crashing awkwardly into a stack of vegetable crates. From beside came muffled swearing. Behind he heard Jorge and Emilio’s magnetic boots drop onto the landing.

From the top of the train Chancho could see the tunnel approaching fast in the distance. Timing was critical. Running as best he could on the balls of his feet, the wind and rocking motion tried to tug him off the side. Finally he reached the front of the car.

Sliding feet-first, he grabbed the lip as he went over the edge and swung down onto the landing. The sudden proximity of the closed door leading to the armored car, as well as the door across the way leading to over a hundred more Constitutional soldiers, sparked an even greater urgency in him.

Gripping his remaining heel he twisted it 90 degrees and tugged it from the sole of his boot, flicking its chemical-laden fuse to life in the process. As steadily as his nerves allowed he stepped down onto the coupling to place the charge. But before he could reach the joint the metal door behind him slid violently open.

Plunging downward Chancho latched the magnetic-heel explosive to the coupling as gunfire echoed in the confined space between the two cars. The near miss ricocheted off the passenger car laden with Constitutional conscripts. Off balance and flailing for some part of the train that would keep him from being shot, Chancho grabbed the bottom of the passenger car platform.

A second bullet missed just right of his handhold as his boots bounced off the ties rushing past. Chancho glanced over his shoulder at the burning fuse. He would catch a bullet before it went off, but even if he didn’t, he was too close for comfort. “My friend! Let’s not be—” but before he could finish his sentence he heard two bodies colliding, followed by a grunt. Pulling himself up, he turned to see Ah Puch heaving the much larger Guzman off the landing.

“Do hurry.” Chancho leapt across the gap back onto the armored car just as the door to the passenger car slid open. “I’m afraid he had a short fuse.”

Ah Puch’s eyes flashed as he took in both the imminent explosion and the rifles leveled from the back door of the passenger car.

Hooking his friend around the waist as he rushed past, Chancho slung Ah Puch before diving head first through the opened door of the armored car. Simultaneously his heel charge and the powder of multiple rifles flared behind them.

The two friends smashed into a pile of crates as the armored car lurched free from the rest of the train. Seconds later bullets commenced bouncing about the cramped quarters until Chancho shoved the door closed with his foot. Swallowed once again by darkness, both men remembered the belly of the whale lurking several hundred meters down track. Chancho rose to his knees, suddenly aware of a miscalculation in his plans. “How much do you think those geological survey boxes could weigh?”

“What? Who cares? And how should I know. We don’t have time to—”

“The weight! It matters. Momentum equals mass times velocity. I estimated close enough on the speed of the train, but the car could be considerably heavier than I anticipated!”

“Meaning—”

“We won’t stop in time!” Bullets continued to bounce off the front of the armored car, but from a greater distance as the gap between them and the rest of the train expanded.

Ah Puch stood and helped Chancho to his feet. “One thing at a time. First we have to hit the switch.”

With impeccable timing, Emilio’s voice called from the blackness. “We’re getting close. Jorge! Give us some light.” The back door to the armored car slid open and Emilio found Ah Puch and Chancho tangled in some webbing. “We need to get to the front of the car and hit the switch.” He revealed a heavy metal pipe taken from the livestock car.

“Good man.” Chancho reached for the pipe.

“No.” Ah Puch stopped him. “We’re still in range of their fire. We’ll have to hit it from the back.”

“Okay. But it’ll be harder.” Emilio shrugged.

“Not much.” Chancho untangled himself and flicked his spurs back into their resting position. “I don’t know, my friend. I think we’ve still got work to do on these magnet spurs.”

“Fine, fine. You can replace them with jet packs. Just get moving.”

“Really? That would be great!”

“Chancho!”

“Okay, Okay, my friend. Keep your magnet boots on.”

Chancho blinked furiously from the combination of bright sun and whipping wind. Ah Puch held him by his bandoliers while the others stood clear of the swinging pipe. “We only get one chance at this.” Ah Puch cautioned.

“Yes, yes. Miss it and the tail-end of the train will be kissing ours goodbye.” Chancho shook tears from his eyes, watching the tunnel entrance rush toward them faster than he liked. “I’m more concerned with the possibility that we may not stop at all.” He cringed. “Or we’ll wish we hadn’t.”

“You mean we’ll be sitting ducks when the rest of the train returns with all of its angry soldiers.”

“If we aren’t crushed by the deadman.” Chancho tried wiping away tears with his shoulder.

“This just keeps getting better.” Ah Puch shifted his grip on Chancho’s bandoliers, but in the process one of them snapped. Chancho dipped forward unevenly, dangling too far over the railing.

“Hold me steady! We’re almost to the switch!” The throw bar, topped with a red octagonal sign, swept into view as the front of the armored car passed it. The whole of the car had already passed the switch itself, but it was the trailing three cars that concerned the revolutionaries at the moment. “I don’t want to throw it with my face!”

“Dammit, your bandolier.” Ah Puch clutched at Chancho’s clothing, scratching for something solid to yank him backwards by.

“Ah Puch!” Chancho attempted to hold the heavy bar in front of his face in the hopes of deflecting the brunt of the collision. At the last second Ah Puch lunged further forward, gripping Chancho under his armpits. Digging his feet against the bottom of the railing he lurched back. With a final bunt-like swing Chancho whacked the flat portion of the throw bar as the two of them tumbled backwards onto the platform.

“Did you get it?”

“I don’t know. I think so. I hit it anyway.”

“We’ll know soon enough.” For a moment they watched the freight car, the flatbed with their horses and the caboose clack along the rails, already several hundred meters behind them. Emilio cleared his throat from the doorway of the armored car.

“The deadman!” Chancho jumped to his feet.

“That’s what we’re about to be.” Emilio shrugged.

Ah Puch continued his pessimism from before. “We’re going too fast to throw the—”

“Give me a boost.” Chancho cut him off.

“What?”

“Quickly. We’re entering the tunnel. I can trigger the mechanism. Just give me a boost, now!” The sky disappeared as the armored car shot into the tunnel, still clipping at over 20 kilometers per hour. Ah Puch obeyed instantly. Taking a wide stance on the metal grate of the landing he laced his fingers together and clasped the back of Chancho’s boot where the missing heel would have been. Chancho rested his other boot on the top of the railing and poised himself for the jump.

“How can you even see it? It’s too dark.”

“I know where I put it! Get ready! Three, two, now!”

Ah Puch launched Chancho forward into the oily darkness of the tunnel, confident he’d just thrust his friend face-first into solid rock. Chancho shot forward, searching the glimmering darkness for whispers of light reflecting off the metal lever he had placed in the wall.

Catching a glint no more than a meter from his face, he flung his defective bandolier at it like a lasso as he rushed by. With a jerk and pulse of lightning in his shoulder sockets the bandolier caught. Flipping the lever into its recessed position, he ripped free and smashed hard into the wall of the tunnel before crumpling to the ground.

Through the ringing in Chancho’s ears a four-stroke, diesel engine pulsed to life, followed by a small explosion detonating the deadman. Cringing, he waited less than three seconds for what he knew was coming next. Thankfully the crashing of the armored car into the deadman sounded little worse than overly rambunctious freight cars coupling—no secondary clatter of a car derailed.

He checked his person for major injury. While bleeding in a few places, nothing seemed to be broken. He gave a second thought to the trailing train cars, but figured they would have run him over already had they been coming. Wrapping his bandolier securely around his waist, he hobbled toward the armored car on heelless boots. “Ah Puch? Emilio? Jorge?” He arrived at the landing on the back where Ah Puch was picking himself up.

“I think I should be a better Catholic, after surviving that.”

“I hope that doesn’t mean you’ll be a worse bandit.” Chancho dusted him off.

“By no means. I hear the Church needs a good bandit every now and then.” The two friends allowed themselves a smile before checking on Emilio and Jorge, who were fine despite being buried in lettuce and tomato guts. Finally Ah Puch brought them back to reality. “Chancho, the train will be returning.”

“Right. Everything’s fired up. I’ll start the lift. But after that collision we’ll need to clear the tracks. We can’t leave anything behind, or all of this will be for nothing.”

“No evidence. We’ll take care of that. Just make sure the belly is ready for its meal.” Ah Puch and the others scurried to the front of the car to clean up any debris and ensure the deadman would either retract or detach. Chancho inched along the wall until he found a control box dangling by its electrical wires.

He hit the first button. An orange-yellow light banished the darkness as three fixtures in the ceiling, still swinging from the impact of the armored car, flicked to life. The second button caused the floor of the cave to shift. It dropped a centimeter before cranking upwards at a rate of a centimeter per second.

He stood still, listening to the creaks and groans, thinking it indeed sounded like a behemoth of a whale slowly rising to the surface. The air in the tunnel tasted like the oil soaked dirt crusted on the fenders of the tractor he had maintained at the orphanage, before he’d left. The memory gave him both hope and guilt.

He waited a moment longer until it was safe to lay the control box on the slowly rising floor of the tunnel. He ran along the rail until he reached the end of the lift and jumped down to the original level. Breathing heavy a sudden dread overtook him as he watched the lower level rise to fill the tunnel.

An engine of sorts emerged from its earthly womb. Just born, and yet only moments away from its inevitable end—a harbinger of death being its only purpose in life. Painted dull black, it absorbed the sickly yellow light. Against the starkness of the moment, Chancho realized this contraption of his design was merely a diesel-powered rocket on wheels.

It was gruesome, and he hated that he had built it. But the plan—the life of the plan drove him on. He jumped down to the track that would become the new floor of the tunnel and scooted behind the rocket engine’s controls. Designed for one simple reason, the device took to its role quickly. The motor fired and pulsed up to speed, surrounded by nothing but a jacket of dynamite and iron plating.

The engine waited for its moment without complaint. Having set the wheels in motion the plan now drove itself forward, with or without Chancho’s assent. Momentarily he glazed over with doubt. But the lift’s gears tugged the armored car upward, gradually closing off his only means of exit. In reluctant surrender to the plan of his own initiating, he hoisted himself up to the original level of the tunnel and then jumped to reach the level where the armored car rested.

Dangling from the lift as it rose closer to the roof of the tunnel, Chancho realized he never thought the plan would actually work. He’d seen these last stages of the plan as a vague generality, thus proceeding through the early stages without acknowledging their end.

He swung his leg up and over the edge of the lift, rolling onto the uneven tracks just as they pushed past the roof of the tunnel and settled into place. Ah Puch had been right. Chancho played the revolution like a game, but human lives were at stake, many more than just his own.

He heard the rocket engine chug free of its restraints in the tunnel below. The lights flicked on automatically now that the electrical connection had been completed by the lift itself. No more kerosene lamps, the belly of the whale buzzed with diesel-powered electricity.

Ah Puch reached down to help him up, a grin stretching both corners of his mouth. “You did it. Your crazy plan actually worked.”

Chancho dusted himself off and felt the sudden urge to see the grisly conclusion of what he had set in motion. He needed to see it for it to be real. “Let’s get topside.”

“Good idea. It should be quite a show, and we need to make sure before we celebrate. Who would've thought you’d be the pragmatist.” Ah Puch slapped the side of the armored car as they squeezed past it toward the ladder going topside. “Jorge, hit the latch. We’re going up to see the fireworks. Then we’ll come back down to run our fingers through some of that gold.” He slapped Chancho on the shoulder and laughed.

Chancho reached the ladder first and flew up the rungs. In seconds he reached the trapdoor. With the mechanical lock having been thrown from below, he could see faint cracks of light around its edges. Shoving it upward with his shoulder, dirt and sunlight sifted through the opening. He emerged onto the surface in a daze. Shielding the sun he scrambled toward an outcropping of rock and followed the distant track with his eyes until he saw it.

The dull black engine chugged forward at an increasing speed. It even looked like a rocket, its huge cowcatcher making up a third of its length. It was an ingenious design, created to derail and incapacitate an object of much greater mass—to create chaos and distraction.

The others joined him on the rock. Chancho spoke to Ah Puch without shifting his gaze. “We did it, didn’t we? I mean, changed the revolution?” The general’s train came into view around the bend, returning to collect its lost prize. “It was worth it, right?”

Ah Puch knew what his friend was getting at. “Yes. It was worth it. You’ve made Mexico a better place today, my friend. You’ve proven the ideals of the revolution can and will prevail.”

The moment of impact came. The rocket engine slammed underneath the passenger car full of Constitutional soldiers, heaving it upward and derailing it. The rocket continued its forward momentum until it reached the officer’s car, bucking it off the rails as well. But before it could reach the General’s private car it detonated with an ear-clapping concussion. Flame and smoke burst outward before being swallowed by a larger surge of destructive force that tossed fragments of steel and iron arching in every direction.

“Aye yi yi yi yi!" Ah Puch and the others danced about, waiving their sombreros over their heads. Meanwhile, a half-dozen riders, one of them Pancho Villa himself, rode around the backside of the hill with the four victorious revolutionaries’ horses in tow.