The Fifth Horseman by José Antonio Villarreal

First published: 1974

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Historical realism

Time of plot: 1893-1915

Locale: The north of Mexico

Principal characters

• Heraclio Inés, a horseman and a revolutionary
• David Contreras, his boyhood friend turned mortal enemy
• Carmen Becerra, the patrón’s daughter
• Pancho Villa, a bandit turned rebel leader
• Marcelina Ortiz, Heraclio’s devoted wife
• Xóchitl Salamanca, Heraclio’s mistress

The Story:

After Heraclio Inés’s mother dies while giving birth to him and his father dies while attempting to tame a wild stallion five years later, he is sent to be a lowly shepherd on the Hacienda de la Flor, even though his family enjoys the protection of the patrón, Don Aurelio Becerra, who is also his godfather. Heraclio leaves behind his fellow pastor, the young but already embittered David Contreras, Don Aurelio’s illegitimate son by María Contreras, who is thought to be a witch. Heraclio’s brothers treat him cruelly in his new home, forcing him to break horses as they once did and to be brave beyond his years. Under the threat of a lashing should he return home on foot, the brothers leave Heraclio, the proud and diffident fifth horseman, to tame a wild stallion thirty kilometers away from the hacienda.

When Heraclio is rude to the patrón’s children, Crispín and Carmen Becerra, Don Aurelio does not rebuke him because Don Aurelio is inordinately fond of his godson and asks only that he provide the two with riding lessons. For the haughty Carmen, these occasions soon turn into opportunities for sexual encounters that all would frown upon for their scandalous violation of the church’s moral teachings as well as for their violation of society’s strict class boundaries. Heraclio’s discovery of their irreconcilable worldviews concerning the future of Mexico leads him to tell Carmen about her father’s sexual exploitation of the native women living on the Hacienda de la Flor; he discloses this before she and her brother leave to attend the university in Seattle. In their absence, Carmen’s dissolute cousin from Spain, Domingo Arguiú, arrives to fulfill a contract to unite in marriage the Becerra fortune with the noble name of his family. Heraclio takes an immediate dislike to his dandified elitism but perversely thinks that Domingo might make a suitable husband for Carmen.

Some time later, the patrón organizes a fiesta to welcome home his children from the United States. Carmen, more eager than Heraclio to continue their illicit relationship, eventually discloses the situation to her parents. The knowledge prompts Don Aurelio to plan a hasty marriage for the boy. Meanwhile, Crispín vows never to succeed his father as patrón in such an oppressive social order, and he goes to the United States with his American wife. After the Inés brothers dominate the hacienda’s equestrian competition, winning and sharing prizes in every category of horsemanship, Heraclio kills the patrón’s contador, Juan Vásquez, who came upon him making love to Carmen. He thereupon flees to the hills, where he joins a bandit group that includes his childhood friend David Contreras.

The aged Ysabel Pulido, leader of the thieves who redistribute their booty among the rural poor, is taking his men to join forces with the emerging rebel hero, Pancho Villa, when he dies suddenly in his sleep. Though he is still a teenager, Heraclio declares himself the new leader of this rebel band, much to the envy of David and to the amusement of Villa. David tries to shoot Heraclio in the back at Juárez. Upon his return to the hacienda during a lull in the fighting, Heraclio marries the saddlemaker’s daughter, Marcelina Ortiz, and spends the night with María Contreras. David’s robbery and murder of a merchant seals his fate as an outlaw. Soon, though, Heraclio is called to rejoin the ever more powerful and seemingly unstoppable Villa, who is celebrating victories in Jiménez and Chihuahua. Villa sets up his revolutionary headquarters in Chihuahua, and he passes the virginal Indian circus performer Xóchitl Salamanca on to Heraclio to be his mistress; she has innocently declared that she would prefer to be violated by the more handsome of the two men. Decisive rebel victories follow at Torreón and Zacatecas, where the foolish Domingo perishes during a bandit attack; Domingo goes against Heraclio’s advice not to surrender.

After a variola plague in Zacatecas kills off the devoted Xóchitl, Heraclio loses his revolutionary fervor and returns to resume his family life on the Hacienda de la Flor, where he expresses his condolences to the widowed Carmen. In a brutal attack that seethed inside him since the night his revered Ysabel Pulido died, David kills Heraclio’s baby daughter and rapes Marcelina, who also dies. This forces Heraclio to murder David in revenge. Heraclio refuses Carmen’s suggestion that he marry her and become patrón. Instead, he travels a great distance by train to kill the traitorous General Celestino Gámez. He decides against wedding his brother Concepción’s widow, Otilia, for whom he always felt a great affection, and flees into California to begin a life in exile. Villa’s decimated Division of the North heads for sure defeat.

Bibliography

Bratcher, James T. “José Villarreal, Evil Eye, and a Cultural Strangehold.” Journal of the West 45, no. 4 (Fall, 2006): 3-6. Provides history and criticism of Villarreal’s work, focusing on his novels The Fifth Horseman, Pocho, and Clemente Chacón. Describes how these novels contain themes of ethnic identity, revolutionaries, culture, and the evil eye.

Jiménez, Francisco, ed. The Identification and Analysis of Chicano Literature. New York: Bilingual Press, 1979. A comprehensive collection of scholarly essays that chronicle the history of the rise of Chicano literature, with an emphasis on current critical approaches to Chicano literary texts. Provides detailed analysis of important trends, the role of women, and the issue of Mexican American identity.

Parotti, Phillip. “Heroic Conventions in Jose Antonio Villareal’s The Fifth Horseman.” Bilingual Review 17, no. 3 (September-December, 1992): 237. An analysis of the novel, discussing its epic structure, its literary technique, and other characteristics.

Rocard, Marcienne. The Children of the Sun: Mexican-Americans in the Literature of the United States. Translated by Edward G. Brown, Jr. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989. Examines the forging of Chicano identity from both the Anglo and the Hispanic perspective. The work is notable for its careful tracing of the progression of Chicano cultural attitudes and their influence on self-representation.

Shirley, Carl R., and Paula W. Shirley. Understanding Chicano Literature. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988. Considers the canon of Chicano literature largely along generic lines and contains a separate section on literatura chicanesca, works about Chicanos by non-Chicano authors. Provides thumbnail sketches of Villarreal’s three novels.

Sommers, Joseph, and Tomäs Ybarra-Frausto, eds. Modern Chicano Writers: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1979. An excellent volume of diverse essays exploring the historical and cultural influences on contemporary Chicano literature, from indigenous folkloric traditions to the impact of the Mexican-American War. A narrative section focuses on Tomäs Rivera.

Tatum, Charles. Chicano Literature. Boston: Twayne, 1982. Places Villarreal among the pioneer novelists of Chicano literature. While critical of the author’s black-and-white portrayal of good versus evil, the study praises his evocative depiction of Mexico’s exploitative prerevolutionary social order centered on the hacienda.