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The superhero figures for 7 year olds under 100 dollarsUnderdogs

by

Mariano Azuela

Mariano Azuela, the first of the "novelists of the Revolution," wasborn in Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco, Mexico, in 1873. He studied medicinein Guadalajara and returned to Lagos in 1909, where he began thepractice of his profession. He began his writing career early; in 1896he published Impressions of a Student in a weekly of Mexico City. Thiswas followed by numerous sketches and short stories, and in 1911 by hisfirst novel, Andres Perez, maderista.

Like most of the young Liberals, he supported Francisco I. Madero'suprising, which overthrew the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz, and in1911 was made Director of Education of the State of Jalisco. AfterMadero's assassination, he joined the army of Pancho Villa as doctor,and his knowledge of the Revolution was acquired at firsthand. When thecounterrevolutionary forces of Victoriano Huerta were temporarilytriumphant, he emigrated to El Paso, Texas, where in 1915 he wrote TheUnderdogs (Los de abajo), which did not receive general recognitionuntil 1924, when it was hailed as the novel of the Revolution.

But Azuela was fundamentally a moralist, and his disappointment withthe Revolution soon began to manifest itself. He had fought for abetter Mexico; but he saw that while the Revolution had correctedcertain injustices, it had given rise to others equally deplorable.When he saw the self-servers and the unprincipled turning his hopes forthe redemption of the under-privileged of his country into a ladder toserve their own ends, his disillusionment was deep and often bitter.His later novels are marred at times by a savage sarcasm.

During his later years, and until his death in 1952, he lived in MexicoCity writing and practicing his profession among the poor.

The Underdogs

by

Mariano Azuela

A Novel of the Mexican Revolution

Translated by E. Munguia, Jr.

Original Title: LOS DE ABAJO

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART III

PART ONE

"How beautiful the revolution!
Even in its most barbarous aspect it is beautiful,"
Solis said with deep feeling.

I

"That's no animal, I tell you! Listen to the dog barking! It must be ahuman being."

The woman stared into the darkness of the sierra.

"What if they're soldiers?" said a man, who sat Indian-fashion, eating,a coarse earthenware plate in his right hand, three folded tortillas inthe other.

The woman made no answer, all her senses directed outside the hut. Thebeat of horses' hoofs rang in the quarry nearby. The dog barked again,louder and more angrily.

"Well, Demetrio, I think you had better hide, all the same."

Stolidly, the man finished eating; next he reached for a cantaro andgulped down the water in it; then he stood up.

"Your rifle is under the mat," she whispered.

A tallow candle illumined the small room. In one corner stood a plow, ayoke, a goad, and other agricultural implements. Ropes hung from theroof, securing an old adobe mold, used as a bed; on it a child slept,covered with gray rags.

Demetrio buckled his cartridge belt about his waist and picked up hisrifle. He was tall and well built, with a sanguine face and beardlesschin; he wore shirt and trousers of white cloth, a broad Mexican hatand leather sandals.

With slow, measured step, he left the room, vanishing into theimpenetrable darkness of the night.

The dog, excited to the point of madness, had jumped over the corralfence.

Suddenly a shot rang out. The dog moaned, then barked no more. Some menon horseback rode up, shouting and sweating; two of them dismounted,while the other hung back to watch the horses.

"Hey, there, woman: we want food! Give us eggs, milk, beans, anythingyou've got! We're starving!"

"Curse the sierra! It would take the Devil himself not to lose his way!"

"Guess again, Sergeant! Even the Devil would go astray if he were asdrunk as you are."

The first speaker wore chevrons on his arm, the other red stripes onhis shoulders.

"Whose place is this, old woman? Or is it an empty house? God's truth,which is it?"

"Of course it's not empty. How about the light and that child there?Look here, confound it, we want to eat, and damn quick tool Are youcoming out or are we going to make you?"

"You swine! Both of you! You've gone and killed my dog, that's whatyou've done! What harm did he ever do you? What did you have againsthim?"

The woman reentered the house, dragging the dog behind her, very whiteand fat, with lifeless eyes and flabby body.

"Look at those cheeks, Sergeant! Don't get riled, light of my life: Iswear I'll turn your home into a dovecot, see?"

"By God!" he said, breaking off into song:

"Don't look so haughty, dear,
Banish all fears,
Kiss me and melt to me,
I'll drink up your tears!"

His alcoholic tenor trailed off into the night.

"Tell me what they call this ranch, woman?" the sergeant asked.

"Limon," the woman replied curtly, carrying wood to the fire andfanning the coals.

"So we're in Limon, eh, the famous Demetrio Macias' country, eh? Do youhear that, Lieutenant? We're in Limon."

"Limon? What the hell do I care? If I'm bound for hell, Sergeant, Imight as well go there now. I don't mind, now that I've found as good aremount as this! Look at the cheeks on the darling, look at them!There's a pair of ripe red apples for a fellow to bite into!"

"I'll wager you know Macias the bandit, lady? I was in the pen with himat Escobedo, once."

"Bring me a bottle of tequila, Sergeant: I've decided to spend thenight with this charming lady.... What's that? The colonel? ... Why inGod's name talk about the colonel now? He can go straight to hell, forall I care. And if he doesn't like it, it's all right with me. Come on,Sergeant, tell the corporal outside to unsaddle the horses and feedthem. I'll stay here all night. Here, my girl, you let the sergeant frythe eggs and warm up the tortillas; you come here to me. See thiswallet full of nice new bills? They're all for you, darling. Sure, Iwant you to have them. Figure it out for yourself. I'm drunk, see: I'vea bit of a load on and that's why I'm kind of hoarse, you might callit. I left half my gullet down Guadalajara way, and I've been spittingthe other half out all the way up here. Oh well, who cares? But I wantyou to have that money, see, dearie? Hey, Sergeant, where's my bottle?Now, little girl, come here and pour yourself a drink. You won't, eh?Aw, come on! Afraid of your--er--husband ... or whatever he is, huh?Well, if he's skulking in some hole, you tell him to come out. What thehell do I care? I'm not scared of rats, see!" Suddenly a white shadowloomed on the threshold.

"Demetrio Macias!" the sergeant cried as he stepped back in terror.

The lieutenant stood up, silent, cold and motionless as a statue.

"Shoot them!" the woman croaked.

"Oh, come, you'll surely spare us! I didn't know you were there. I'llalways stand up for a brave man."

Demetrio stood his ground, looking them up and down, an insolent anddisdainful smile wrinkling his face.

"Yes, I not only respect brave men, but I like them. I'm proud andhappy to call them friends. Here's my hand on it: friend to friend."Then, after a pause: "All right, Demetrio Macias, if you don't want toshake hands, all right! But it's because you don't know me, that's why,just because the first time you saw me I was doing this dog's job. Butlook here, I ask you, what in God's name can a man do when he's poorand has a wife to support and kids? ... Right you are, Sergeant, let'sgo: I've nothing but respect for the home of what I call a brave man, areal, honest, genuine man!"

When they had gone, the woman drew close to Demetrio.

"Holy Virgin, what agony! I suffered as though it was you they'd shot."

"You go to father's house, quick!" Demetrio ordered. She wanted to holdhim in her arms; she entreated, she wept. But he pushed away from hergently and, in a sullen voice, said, "I've an idea the whole lot ofthem are coming."

"Why didn't you kill 'em?"

"Their hour hasn't struck yet."

They went out together; she bore the child in her arms. At the door,they separated, moving off in different directions.

The moon peopled the mountain with vague shadows. As he advanced atevery turn of his way Demetrio could see the poignant, sharp silhouetteof a woman pushing forward painfully, bearing a child in her arms.

When, after many hours of climbing, he gazed back, huge flames shot upfrom the depths of the canyon by the river. It was his house,blazing....

II

Everything was still swathed in shadows as Demetrio Macias began hisdescent to the bottom of the ravine. Between rocks striped with hugeeroded cracks, and a squarely cut wall, with the river flowing below, anarrow ledge along the steep incline served as a mountain trail.

"They'll surely find me now and track us down like dogs," he mused."It's a good thing they know nothing about the trails and paths uphere.... But if they got someone from Moyahua to guide them ..." Heleft the sinister thought unfinished. "All the men from Limon or SantaRosa or the other nearby ranches are on our side: they wouldn't try totrail us. That cacique who's chased and run me ragged over these hills,is at Mohayua now; he'd give his eyeteeth to see me dangling from atelegraph pole with my tongue hanging out of my mouth, purple andswollen...."

At dawn, he approached the pit of the canyon. Here, he lay on the rocksand fell asleep.

The river crept along, murmuring as the waters rose and fell in smallcascades. Birds sang lyrically from their hiding among the pitayatrees. The monotonous, eternal drone of insects filled the rockysolitude with mystery.

Demetrio awoke with a start. He waded the river, following its coursewhich ran counter to the canyon; he climbed the crags laboriously as anant, gripping root and rock with his hands, clutching every stone inthe trail with his bare feet.

When he reached the summit, he glanced down to see the sun steeping thevalley in a lake of gold. Near the canyon, enormous rocks loomedprotrudent, like fantastic Negro skulls. The pitaya trees rose tenuous,tall, like the tapering, gnarled fingers of a giant; other trees of allsorts bowed their crests toward the pit of the abyss. Amid the starkrocks and dry branches, roses bloomed like a white offering to the sunas smoothly, suavely, it unraveled its golden threads, one by one, fromrock to rock.

Demetrio stopped at the summit. Reaching backward, with his right armhe drew his horn which hung at his back, held it up to his thick lips,and, swelling his cheeks out, blew three loud blasts. From across thehill close by, three sharp whistles answered his signal.

In the distance, from a conical heap of reeds and dry straws, man afterman emerged, one after the other, their legs and chests naked, lambentand dark as old bronze. They rushed forward to greet Demetrio, andstopped before him, askance.

"They've burnt my house," he said.

A murmur of oaths, imprecations, and threats rose among them.

Demetrio let their anger run its course. Then he drew a bottle fromunder his shirt and took a deep swig; then he wiped the neck of thebottle with the back of his hand and passed it around. It passed frommouth to mouth; not a drop was left. The men passed their tonguesgreedily over their lips to recapture the tang of the liquor.

"Glory be to God and by His Will," said Demetrio, "tonight or tomorrowat the latest we'll meet the Federals. What do you say, boys, shall welet them find their way about these trails?"

The ragged crew jumped to their feet, uttering shrill cries of joy;then their jubilation turned sinister and they gave vent to threats,oaths and imprecations.

"Of course, we can't tell how strong they are," said Demetrio as hisglance traveled over their faces in scrutiny.

"Do you remember Medina? Out there at Hostotipaquillo, he only had ahalf a dozen men with knives that they sharpened on a grindstone. Well,he held back the soldiers and the police, didn't he? And he beat them,too."

"We're every bit as good as Medina's crowd!" said a tall,broad-shouldered man with a black beard and bushy eyebrows.

"By God, if I don't own a Mauser and a lot of cartridges, if I can'tget a pair of trousers and shoes, then my name's not AnastasioMontanez! Look here, Quail, you don't believe it, do you? You ask mypartner Demetrio if I haven't half a dozen bullets in me already.Christ! Bullets are marbles to me! And I dare you to contradict me!"

"Viva Anastasio Montanez," shouted Manteca.

"All right, all right!" said Montanez. "Viva Demetrio Macias, ourchief, and long life to God in His heaven and to the Virgin Mary."

"Viva Demetrio Macias," they all shouted.

They gathered dry brush and wood, built a fire and placed chunks offresh meat upon the burning coals. As the blaze rose, they collectedabout the fire, sat down Indian-fashion and inhaled the odor of themeat as it twisted on the crackling fire. The rays of the sun, fallingabout them, cast a golden radiance over the bloody hide of a calf,lying on the ground nearby. The meat dangled from a rope fastened to ahuizache tree, to dry in the sun and wind.

"Well, men," Demetrio said, "you know we've only twenty rifles, besidesmy thirty-thirty. If there are just a few of them, we'll shoot untilthere's not a live man left. If there's a lot of 'em, we can give 'em agood scare, anyhow."

He undid a rag belt about his waist, loosened a knot in it and offeredthe contents to his companions. Salt. A murmur of approbation roseamong them as each took a few grains between the tips of his fingers.

They ate voraciously; then, glutted, lay down on the ground, facing thesky. They sang monotonous, sad songs, uttering a strident shout aftereach stanza.

III

In the brush and foliage of the sierra, Demetrio Macias and histhreescore men slept until the halloo of the horn, blown by Pancraciofrom the crest of a peak, awakened them.

"Time, boys! Look around and see what's what!" Anastasio Montanez said,examining his rifle springs. Yet he was previous; an hour or moreelapsed with no sound or stir save the song of the locust in the brushor the frog stirring in his mudhole. At last, when the ultimate faintrays of the moon were spent in the rosy dimness of the dawn, thesilhouette of a soldier loomed at the end of the trail. As theystrained their eyes, they could distinguish others behind him, ten,twenty, a hundred. ... Then, suddenly, darkness swallowed them up. Onlywhen the sun rose, Demetrio's band realized that the canyon was alivewith men, midgets seated on miniature horses.

"Look at 'em, will you?" said Pancracio. "Pretty, ain't they? Come on,boys, let's go and roll marbles with 'em."

Now the moving dwarf figures were lost in the dense chaparral, now theyreappeared, stark and black against the ocher. The voices of officers,as they gave orders, and soldiers, marching at ease, were clearlyaudible. Demetrio raised his hand; the locks of rifles clicked. "Fire!"he cried tensely.

Twenty-one men shot as one; twenty-one soldiers fell off their horses.Caught by surprise, the column halted, etched like bas-reliefs in stoneagainst the rocks.

Another volley and a score of soldiers hurtled down from rock to rock.

"Come out, bandits. Come out, you starved dogs!"

"To hell with you, you corn rustlers!"

"Kill the cattle thieves! Kill 'em!"

The soldiers shouted defiance to their enemies; the latter, givingproof of a marksmanship which had already made them famous, werecontent to keep under cover, quiet, mute.

"Look, Pancracio," said Meco, completely black save for his eyes andteeth. "This is for that man who passes that tree. I'll get the son ofa ..."

"Take that! Right in the head. You saw it, didn't you, mate? Now, thisis for the fellow on the roan horse. Down you come, you shave-headedbastard!"

"I'll give that lad on the trail's edge a shower of lead. If you don'thit the river, I'm a liar! Now: look at him!"

"Oh, come on, Anastasio don't be cruel; lend me your rifle. Come along,one shot, just one!"

Manteca and Quail, unarmed, begged for a gun as a boon, imploringpermission to fire at least a shot apiece. "Come out of your holes ifyou've got any guts!"

"Show your faces, you lousy cowards!"

From peak to peak, the shouts rang as distinctly as though utteredacross a street. Suddenly, Quail stood up, naked, holding his trousersto windward as though he were a bullfighter flaunting a red cape, andthe soldiers below the bull. A shower of shots peppered upon Demetrio'smen.

"God! That was like a hornet's nest buzzing overhead," said AnastasioMontanez, lying flat on the ground without daring to wink an eye.

"Here, Quail, you son of a bitch, you stay where I told you," roaredDemetrio.

They crawled to take new positions. The soldiers, congratulatingthemselves on their successes, ceased firing when another volley rousedthem.

"More coming!" they shouted.

Some, panic-stricken, turned their horses back; others, abandoningtheir mounts, began to climb up the mountain and seek shelter behindthe rocks. The officers had to shoot at them to enforce discipline.

"Down there, down there!" said Demetrio as he leveled his rifle at thetranslucent thread of the river.

A soldier fell into the water; at each shot, invariably a soldier bitthe dust. Only Demetrio was shooting in that direction; for everysoldier killed, ten or twenty of them, intact, climbed afresh on theother side.

"Get those coming up from under! Los de Abajo! Get the underdogs!" hescreamed.

Now his fellows were exchanging rifles, laughing and making wagers ontheir marksmanship.

"My leather belt if I miss that head there, on the black horse!"

"Lend me your rifle, Meco."

"Twenty Mauser cartridges and a half yard of sausage if you let mespill that lad riding the bay mare. All right! Watch me.... There! Seehim jump! Like a bloody deer."

"Don't run, you half-breeds. Come along with you! Come and meet FatherDemetrio!"

Now it was Demetrio's men who screamed insults. Manteca, his smoothface swollen in exertion, yelled his lungs out. Pancracio roared, theveins and muscles in his neck dilated, his murderous eyes narrowed totwo evil slits.

Demetrio fired shot after shot, constantly warning his men of impendingdanger, but they took no heed until they felt the bullets spatteringthem from one side.

"Goddamn their souls, they've branded me!" Demetrio cried, his teethflashing.

Then, very swiftly, he slid down a gully and was lost....

IV

Two men were missing, Serapio the candymaker, and Antonio, whoplayed the cymbals in the Juchipila band. "Maybe they'll join usfurther on," said Demetrio.

The return journey proved moody. Anastasio Montanez alone preserved hisequanimity, a kindly expression playing in his sleepy eyes and on hisbearded face. Pancracio's harsh, gorillalike profile retained itsrepulsive immutability.

The soldiers had retreated; Demetrio began the search for the soldiers'horses which had been hidden in the sierra.

Suddenly Quail, who had been walking ahead, shrieked. He had caughtsight of his companions swinging from the branches of a mesquite. Therecould be no doubt of their identity; Serapio and Antonio they certainlywere. Anastasio Montanez prayed brokenly.

"Our Father Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdomcome..."

"Amen," his men answered in low tones, their heads bowed, their hatsupon their breasts....

Then, hurriedly, they took the Juchipila canyon northward, withouthalting to rest until nightfall.

Quail kept walking close to Anastasio unable to banish from his mindthe two who were hanged, their dislocated limp necks, their danglinglegs, their arms pendulous, and their bodies moving slowly in the wind.

On the morrow, Demetrio complained bitterly of his wound; he could nolonger ride on horseback. They were forced to carry him the rest of theway on a makeshift stretcher of leaves and branches.

"He's bleeding frightfully," said Anastasio Montanez, tearing off oneof his shirt-sleeves and tying it tightly about Demetrio's thigh, alittle above the wound.

"That's good," said Venancio. "It'll keep him from bleeding and stopthe pain."

Venancio was a barber. In his native town, he pulled teeth andfulfilled the office of medicine man. He was accorded an unimpeachableauthority because he had read The Wandering Jew and one or two otherbooks. They called him "Doctor"; and since he was conceited about hisknowledge, he employed very few words.

They took turns, carrying the stretcher in relays of four over the barestony mesa and up the steep passes.

At high noon, when the reflection of the sun on the calcareous soilburned their shoulders and made the landscape dimly waver before theireyes, the monotonous, rhythmical moan of the wounded rose in unisonwith the ceaseless cry of the locusts. They stopped to rest at everysmall hut they found hidden between the steep, jagged rocks.

"Thank God, a kind soul and tortillas full of beans and chili are neverlacking," Anastasio Montanez said with a triumphant belch.

The mountaineers would shake calloused hands with the travelers, saying:

"God's blessing on you! He will find a way to help you all, never fear.We're going ourselves, starting tomorrow morning. We're dodging thedraft, with those damned Government people who've declared war to thedeath on us, on all the poor. They come and steal our pigs, ourchickens and corn, they burn our homes and carry our women off, and ifthey ever get hold of us they'll kill us like mad dogs, and we dieright there on the spot and that's the end of the story!"

At sunset, amid the flames dyeing the sky with vivid, variegatedcolors, they descried a group of houses up in the heart of the bluemountains. Demetrio ordered them to carry him there.

These proved to be a few wretched straw huts, dispersed all over theriver slopes, between rows of young sprouting corn and beans. Theylowered the stretcher and Demetrio, in a weak voice, asked for a glassof water.

Groups of squalid Indians sat in the dark pits of the huts, men withbony chests, disheveled, matted hair, and ruddy cheeks; behind them,eyes shone up from floors of fresh reeds.

A child with a large belly and glossy dark skin came close to thestretcher to inspect the wounded man. An old woman followed, and soonall of them drew about Demetrio in a circle.

A girl sympathizing with him in his plight brought a jicara of bluishwater. With hands shaking, Demetrio took it up and drank greedily.

"Will you have some more?"

He raised his eyes and glanced at the girl, whose features were commonbut whose voice had a note of kindness in it. Wiping his sweating browwith the back of his palm and turning on one side, he gasped: "May Godreward you."

Then his whole body shook, making the leaves of the stretcher rustle.Fever possessed him; he fainted.

"It's a damp night and that's terrible for the fever," said Remigia, anold wrinkled barefooted woman, wearing a cloth rag for a blouse.

She invited them to move Demetrio into her hut.

Pancracio, Anastasio Montanez, and Quail lay down beside the stretcherlike faithful dogs, watchful of their master's wishes. The restscattered about in search of food.

Remigia offered them all she had, chili and tortillas.

"Imagine! I had eggs, chickens, even a goat and her kid, but those damnsoldiers wiped me out clean."

Then, making a trumpet of her hands, she drew near Anastasio andmurmured in his ear:

"Imagine, they even carried away Senora Nieves' little girl!"

V

Suddenly awakening, Quail opened his eyes and stood up.

"Montanez, did you hear? A shot, Montanez! Hey, Montanez, get up!"

He shook him vigorously until Montanez ceased snoring and in turn wokeup.

"What in the name of ... Now you're at it again, damn it. I tell youthere aren't ghosts any more," Anastasio muttered out of a half-sleep.

"I heard a shot, Montanez!"

"Go back to sleep, Quail, or I'll bust your nose."

"Hell, Anastasio I tell you it's no nightmare. I've forgotten thosefellows they hung, honest. It's a shot, I tell you. I heard it allright."

"A shot, you say? All right, then, hand me my gun."

Anastasio Montanez rubbed his eyes, stretched out his arms and legs,and stood up lazily.

They left the hut. The sky was solid with stars; the moon rose like asharp scythe. The confused rumor of women crying in fright resoundedfrom the various huts; the men who had been sleeping in the open, alsowoke up and the rattle of arms echoed over the mountain.

"You cursed fool, you've maimed me for life."

A voice rang clearly through the darkness.

"Who goes there?"

The shout echoed from rock to rock, through mound and over hollow,until it spent itself at the far, silent reaches of the night.

"Who goes there?" Anastasio repeated his challenge louder, pulling backthe lock of his Mauser.

"One of Demetrio's men," came the answer.

"It's Pancracio," Quail cried joyfully. Relieved, he rested the butt ofhis rifle on the ground.

Pancracio appeared, holding a young man by the arms; the newcomer wascovered with dust from his felt hat to his coarse shoes. A freshbloodstain lay on his trousers close to the heel.

"Who's this tenderfoot?" Anastasio demanded.

"You know I'm on guard around here. Well, I hears a noise in the brush,see, and I shouts, 'Who goes there?' and then this lad answers,'Carranza! Carranza!' I don't know anyone by that name, and so I says,'Carranza, hell!' and I just pumps a bit of lead into his hoof."

Smiling, Pancracio turned his beardless head around as if solicitingapplause.

Then the stranger spoke:

"Who's your commander?"

Proudly, Anastasio raised his head, went up to him and looked him inthe face. The stranger lowered his tone considerably.

"Well, I'm a revolutionist, too, you know. The Government drafted meand I served as a private, but I managed to desert during the battlethe day before yesterday, and I've been walking about in search of youall."

"So he's a Government soldier, eh?" A murmur of incredulity rose fromthe men, interrupting the stranger.

"So that's what you are, eh? One of those damn half-breeds," saidAnastasio Montanez. "Why the hell didn't you pump your lead in hisbrain, Pancracio?"

"What's he talking about, anyhow? I can't make head nor tail of it. Hesays he wants to see Demetrio and that he's got plenty to say to him.But that's all right: we've got plenty of time to do anything we damnwell please so long as you're in no hurry, that's all," said Pancracio,loading his gun.

"What kind of beasts are you?" the prisoner cried. He could say nomore: Anastasio's fist, crashing down upon his face, sent his headturning on his neck, covered with blood.

"Shoot the half-breed!"

"Hang him!"

"Burn him alive; he's a lousy Federal."

In great excitement, they yelled and shrieked and were about to fire atthe prisoner.

"Sssh! Shut up! I think Demetrio's talking now," Anastasio said,striving to quiet them. Indeed, Demetrio, having ascertained the causeof the turmoil, ordered them to bring the prisoner before him.

"It's positively infamous, senor; look," Luis Cervantes said, pointingto the bloodstains on his trousers and to his bleeding face.

"All right, all right. But who in hell are you? That's what I want toknow," Demetrio said.

"My name is Luis Cervantes, sir. I'm a medical student and ajournalist. I wrote a piece in favor of the revolution, you see; as aresult, they persecuted me, caught me, and finally landed me in thebarracks."

His ensuing narrative was couched in terms of such detail and expressedin terms so melodramatic that it drew guffaws of mirth from Pancracioand Manteca.

"All I've tried to do is to make myself clear on this point. I want youto be convinced that I am truly one of your coreligionists...."

"What's that? What did you say? Car ... what?" Demetrio asked, bringinghis ear close to Cervantes.

"Coreligionist, sir, that is to say, a person who possesses the samereligion, who is inspired by the same ideals, who defends and fightsfor the same cause you are now fighting for."

Demetrio smiled:

"What are we fighting for? That's what I'd like to know."

In his disconcertment, Luis Cervantes could find no reply.

"Look at that mug, look at 'im! Why waste any time, Demetrio? Let'sshoot him," Pancracio urged impatiently.

Demetrio laid a hand on his hair which covered his ears, and stretchinghimself out for a long time, seemed to be lost in thought. Having foundno solution, he said:

"Get out, all of you; it's aching again. Anastasio put out the candle.Lock him up in the corral and let Pancracio and Manteca watch him.Tomorrow, we'll see."

VI

Through the shadows of the starry night, Luis Cervantes had not yetmanaged to detect the exact shape of the objects about him. Seeking themost suitable resting-place, he laid his weary bones down on a freshpile of manure under the blurred mass of a huizache tree. He lay down,more exhausted than resigned, and closed his eyes, resolutelydetermined to sleep until his fierce keepers or the morning sun,burning his ears, awakened him. Something vaguely like warmth at hisside, then a tired hoarse breath, made him shudder. He opened his eyesand feeling about him with his hands, he sensed the coarse hairs of alarge pig which, resenting the presence of a neighbor, began to grunt.

All Luis' efforts to sleep proved quite useless, not only because thepain of his wound or the bruises on his flesh smarted, but because hesuddenly realized the exact nature of his failure.

Yes, failure! For he had never learned to appreciate exactly thedifference between fulminating sentences of death upon bandits in thecolumns of a small country newspaper and actually setting out in searchof them, and tracking them to their lairs, gun in hand. During hisfirst day's march as volunteer lieutenant, he had begun to suspect theerror of his ways--a brutal sixty miles' journey it was, that left hiships and legs one mass of raw soreness and soldered all his bonestogether. A week later, after his first skirmish against the rebels, heunderstood every rule of the game. Luis Cervantes would have taken up acrucifix and solemnly sworn that as soon as the soldiers, gun in hand,stood ready to shoot, some profoundly eloquent voice had spoken behindthem, saying, "Run for your lives." It was all crystal clear. Even hisnoble-spirited horse, accustomed to battle, sought to sweep back on itshind legs and gallop furiously away, to stop only at a safe distancefrom the sound of firing. The sun was setting, the mountain becamepeopled with vague and restless shadows, darkness scaled the rampartsof the mountain hastily. What could be more logical then, than to seekrefuge behind the rocks and attempt to sleep, granting mind and body asorely needed rest?

But the soldier's logic is the logic of absurdity. On the morrow, forexample, his colonel awakened him rudely out of his sleep, cuffing andbelaboring him unmercifully, and, after having bashed in his face,deprived him of his place of vantage. The rest of the officers,moreover, burst into hilarious mirth and holding their sides withlaughter begged the colonel to pardon the deserter. The colonel,therefore, instead of sentencing him to be shot, kicked his buttocksroundly for him and assigned him to kitchen police.

This signal insult was destined to bear poisonous fruit. Luis Cervantesdetermined to play turncoat; indeed, mentally, he had already changedsides. Did not the sufferings of the underdogs, of the disinheritedmasses, move him to the core? Henceforth he espoused the cause ofDemos, of the subjugated, the beaten and baffled, who implore justice,and justice alone. He became intimate with the humblest private. More,even, he shed tears of compassion over a dead mule which fell, load andall, after a terribly long journey.

From then on, Luis Cervantes' prestige with the soldiers increased.Some actually dared to make confessions. One among them, conspicuousfor his sobriety and silence, told him: "I'm a carpenter by trade, youknow. I had a mother, an old woman nailed to her chair for ten years byrheumatism. In the middle of the night, they pulled me out of my house;three damn policemen; I woke up a soldier twenty-five miles away frommy hometown. A month ago our company passed by there again. My motherwas already under the sod! ... So there's nothing left for me in thiswide world; no one misses me now, you see. But, by God, I'm damned ifI'll use these cartridges they make us carry, against the enemy. If amiracle happens (I pray for it every night, you know, and I guess ourLady of Guadalupe can do it all right), then I'll join Villa's men; andI swear by the holy soul of my old mother, that I'll make every one ofthese Government people pay, by God I will."

Another soldier, a bright young fellow, but a charlatan, at heart, whodrank habitually and smoked the narcotic marihuana weed, eyeing himwith vague, glassy stare, whispered in his ear, "You know, partner ...the men on the other side ... you know, the other side ... youunderstand ... they ride the best horses up north there, and all over,see? And they harness their mounts with pure hammered silver. But us?Oh hell, we've got to ride plugs, that's all, and not one of them goodenough to stagger round a water well. You see, don't you, partner? Yousee what I mean? You know, the men on the other side-they get shiny newsilver coins while we get only lousy paper money printed in thatmurderer's factory, that's what we get, yes, that's ours, I tell you!"

The majority of the soldiers spoke in much the same tenor. Even a topsergeant candidly confessed, "Yes, I enlisted all right. I wanted to.But, by God, I missed the right side by a long shot. What you can'tmake in a lifetime, sweating like a mule and breaking your back inpeacetime, damn it all, you can make in a few months just runningaround the sierra with a gun on your back, but not with this crowd,dearie, not with this lousy outfit ...."

Luis Cervantes, who already shared this hidden, implacably mortalhatred of the upper classes, of his officers, and of his superiors,felt that a veil had been removed from his eyes; clearly, now, he sawthe final outcome of the struggle. And yet what had happened? The firstmoment he was able to join his coreligionists, instead of welcoming himwith open arms, they threw him into a pigsty with swine for company.

Day broke. The roosters crowed in the huts. The chickens perched in thehuizache began to stretch their wings, shake their feathers, and flydown to the ground.

Luis Cervantes saw his guards lying on top of a dung heap, snoring. Inhis imagination, he reviewed the features of last night's men. One,Pancracio, was pockmarked, blotchy, unshaven; his chin protruded, hisforehead receded obliquely; his ears formed one solid piece with headand neck--a horrible man. The other, Manteca, was so much human refuse;his eyes were almost hidden, his look sullen; his wiry straight hairfen over his ears, forehead and neck; his scrofulous lips hungeternally agape. Once more, Luis Cervantes felt his flesh quiver.

VII

Still drowsy, Demetrio ran his hand through his ruffled hair, whichhung over his moist forehead, pushed it back over his ears, and openedhis eyes.

Distinctly he heard the woman's melodious voice which he had alreadysensed in his dream. He walked toward the door.

It was broad daylight; the rays of sunlight filtered through the thatchof the hut.

The girl who had offered him water the day before, the girl of whom hehad dreamed all night long, now came forward, kindly and eager as ever.This time she carried a pitcher of milk brimming over with foam.

"It's goat's milk, but fine just the same. Come on now: taste it."

Demetrio smiled gratefully, straightened up, grasped the clay pitcher,and proceeded to drink the milk in little gulps, without removing hiseyes from the girl. She grew self-conscious, lowered her eyes.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Camilla."

"Ah, there's a lovely name! And the girl that bears it, lovelier still!"

Camilla blushed. As he sought to seize her wrist, she grew frightened,and Picking up the empty pitcher, flew out the door.

"No, Demetrio," Anastasio Montanez commented gravely, "you've got tobreak them in first. Hmm! It's a hell of a lot of scars the women haveleft on my body. Yes, my friend, I've a heap of experience along thatline."

"I feel all right now, Compadre." Demetrio pretended he had not heardhim. "I had fever, and I sweated like a horse all night, but I feelquite fresh today. The thing that's irking me hellishly is that Goddamnwound. Can Venancio to look after me."

"What are we going to do with the tenderfoot we caught last night?"Pancracio asked.

"That's right: I was forgetting all about him."

As usual, Demetrio hesitated a while before he reached a decision.

"Here, Quail, come here. Listen: you go and find out where's thenearest church around here. I know there's one about six miles away. Goand steal a priest's robe and bring it back."

"What's the idea?" asked Pancracio in surprise.

"Well, I'll soon find out if this tenderfoot came here to murder me.I'll tell him he's to be shot, see, and Quail will put on the priest'srobes, say that he's a priest and hear his confession. If he's gotanything up his sleeve, he'll come out with it, and then I'll shoothim. Otherwise I'll let him go."

"God, there's a roundabout way to tackle the question. If I were you,I'd just shoot him and let it go at that," said Pancraciocontemptuously.

That night Quail returned with the priest's robes; Demetrio ordered theprisoner to be led in. Luis Cervantes had not eaten or slept for twodays, there were deep black circles under his eyes; his face wasdeathly pale, his lips dry and colorless. He spoke awkwardly, slowly:"You can do as you please with me.... I am convinced I was wrong tocome looking for you."

There was a prolonged silence. Then:

"I thought that you would welcome a man who comes to offer his help,with open arms, even though his help was quite worthless. After all,you might perhaps have found some use for it. What, in heaven's name,do I stand to gain, whether the revolution wins or loses?"

Little by little he grew more animated; at times the languor in hiseyes disappeared.

"The revolution benefits the poor, the ignorant, all those who havebeen slaves all their lives, all the unhappy people who do not evensuspect they are poor because the rich who stand above them, the richwho rule them, change their sweat and blood and tears into gold..."

"Well, what the hell is the gist of all this palaver? I'll be damned ifI can stomach a sermon," Pancracio broke in.

"I wanted to fight for the sacred cause of the oppressed, but you don'tunderstand ... you cast me aside.... Very well, then, you can do as youplease with me!"

"All I'm going to do now is to put this rope around your neck. Lookwhat a pretty white neck you've got."

"Yes, I know what brought you here," Demetrio interrupted dryly,scratching his head. "I'm going to have you shot!"

Then, looking at Anastasio he said:

"Take him away. And ... if he wants to confess, bring the priest tohim."

Impassive as ever, Anastasio took the prisoner gently by the arm.

"Come along this way, Tenderfoot."

They all laughed uproariously, when a few minutes later, Quail appearedin priestly robes.

"By God, this tenderfoot certainly talks his head off," Quail said."You know, I've a notion he was having a bit of a laugh on me when Istarted asking him questions."

"But didn't he have anything to say?"

"Nothing, save what he said last night."

"I've a hunch he didn't come here to shoot you at all, Compadre," saidAnastasio.

"Give him something to eat and guard him."

VIII

On the morrow, Luis Cervantes was barely able to get up. His injuredleg trailing behind him, he shuffled from hut to hut in search of alittle alcohol, a kettle of boiled water and some rags. With unfailingkindness, Camilla provided him with all that he wanted.

As he began washing his foot, she sat beside him, and, with typicalmountaineer's curiosity, inquired:

"Tell me, who learned you how to cure people? Why did you boil thatwater? Why did you boil the rags? Look, look, how careful you are abouteverything! And what did you put on your hands? Really.... And why didyou pour on alcohol? I just knew alcohol was good to rub on when youhad a bellyache, but ... Oh, I see! So you was going to be a doctor,huh? Ha, ha, that's a good one! Why don't you mix it with cold water?Well, there's a funny sort of a trick. Oh, stop fooling me ... theidea: little animals alive in the water unless you boil it! Ugh! Well,I can't see nothing in it myself."

Camilla continued to cross-question him with such familiarity that shesuddenly found herself addressing him intimately, in the singular tu.Absorbed in his own thoughts, Luis Cervantes had ceased listening toher. He thought:

Where are those men on Pancho Villa's payroll, so admirably equippedand mounted, who only get paid in those pure silver pieces Villa coinsat the Chihuahua mint? Bah! Barely two dozen half-naked mangy men, someof them riding decrepit mares with the coat nibbled off from neck towithers. Can the accounts given by the Government newspapers and bymyself be really true and are these so-called revolutionists simplybandits grouped together, using the revolution as a wonderful pretextto glut their thirst for gold and blood? Is it all a lie, then? Weretheir sympathizers talking a lot of exalted nonsense?

If on one hand the Government newspapers vied with each other in noisyproclamation of Federal victory after victory, why then had a paymasteron his way from Guadalajara started the rumor that President Huerta'sfriends and relatives were abandoning the capital and scuttling away tothe nearest port? Was Huerta's, "I shall have peace, at no matter whatcost," a meaningless growl? Well, it looked as though therevolutionists or bandits, call them what you will, were going todepose the Government. Tomorrow would therefore belong wholly to them.A man must consequently be on their side, only on their side.

"No," he said to himself almost aloud, "I don't think I've made amistake this time."

"What did you say?" Camilla asked. "I thought you'd lost yourtongue.... I thought the mice had eaten it up!"

Luis Cervantes frowned and cast a hostile glance at this little plumpmonkey with her bronzed complexion, her ivory teeth, and her thicksquare toes.

"Look here, Tenderfoot, you know how to tell fairy stories, don't you?"

For all answer, Luis made an impatient gesture and moved off, thegirl's ecstatic glance following his retreating figure until it waslost on the river path. So profound was her absorption that sheshuddered in nervous surprise as she heard the voice of her neighbor,one-eyed Maria Antonia, who had been spying from her hut, shouting:

"Hey, you there: give him some love powder. Then he might fall for you."

"That's what you'd do, all right!"

"Oh, you think so, do you? Well, you're quite wrong! Faugh! I despise atenderfoot, and don't forget it!

IX

Ho there, Remigia, lend me some eggs,will you? My chicken has been hatching since morning. There's somegentlemen here, come to eat."

Her neighbor's eyes blinked as the bright sunlight poured into theshadowy hut, darker than usual, even, as dense clouds of smoke rosefrom the stove. After a few minutes, she began to make out the contourof the various objects inside, and recognized the wounded man'sstretcher, which lay in one corner, close to the ashy-gray galvanizediron roof.

She sat down beside Remigia Indian-fashion, and, glancing furtivelytoward where Demetrio rested, asked in a low voice:

"How's the patient, better? That's fine. Oh, how young he is! But he'sstill pale, don't you think? So the wound's not closed up yet. Well,Remigia, don't you think we'd better try and do something about it?"

Remigia, naked from the waist up, stretched her thin muscular arms overthe corn grinder, pounding the corn with a stone bar she held in herhands.

"Oh, I don't know; they might not like it," she answered, breathingheavily as she continued her rude task. "They've got their own doctor,you know, so--"

"Hallo, there, Remigia," another neighbor said as she came in, bowingher bony back to pass through the opening, "haven't you any laurelleaves? We want to make a potion for Maria Antonia who's not so welltoday, what with her bellyache."

In reality, her errand was but a pretext for asking questions andpassing the time of day in gossip, so she turned her eyes to thecorner where the patient lay and, winking, sought information as to hishealth.

Remigia lowered her eyes to indicate that Demetrio was sleeping.

"Oh, I didn't see you when I came in. And you're here too, Panchita?Well, how are you?"

"Good morning to you, Fortunata. How are you?"

"All right. But Maria Antonia's got the curse today and her belly'saching something fierce."

She sat Indian-fashion, with bent knees, huddling hip to hip againstPanchita.

"I've got no laurel leaves, honey," Remigia answered, pausing a momentin her work to push a mop of hair back from over her sweaty forehead.Then, plunging her two hands into a mass of corn, she removed a handfulof it dripping with muddy yellowish water. "I've none at all; you'dbetter go to Dolores, she's always got herbs, you know."

"But Dolores went to Cofradia last night. I don't know, but they saythey came to fetch her to help Uncle Matias' girl who's big with child."

"You don't say, Panchita?"

The three old women came together forming an animated group, andspeaking in low tones, began to gossip with great gusto.

"Certainly, I swear it, by God up there in heaven."

"Well, well, I was the first one to say that Marcelina was big withchild, wasn't I? But of course no one would believe me."

"Poor girl. It's going to be terrible if the kid is her uncle's, youknow!"

"God forbid!"

"Of course it's not her uncle: Nazario had nothing to do with it, Iknow. It was them damned soldiers, that's who done it."

"God, what a bloody mess! Another unhappy woman!"

The cackle of the old hens finally awakened Demetrio. They kept silentfor a moment; then Panchita, taking out of the bosom of her blouse ayoung pigeon which opened its beak in suffocation, said:

"To tell you the truth, I brought this medicine for the gentleman here,but they say he's got a doctor, so I suppose--"

"That makes no difference, Panchita, that's no medicine anyhow, it'ssimply something to rub on his body."

"Forgive this poor gift from a poor woman, senor," said the wrinkledold woman, drawing close to Demetrio, "but there's nothing like it inthe world for hemorrhages and suchlike."

Demetrio nodded hasty approval. They had already placed a loaf of breadsoaked in alcohol on his stomach; although when this was removed hebegan to be cooler, he felt that he was still feverish inside.

"Come on, Remigia, you do it, you certainly know how," the women said.

Out of a reed sheath, Remigia pulled a long and curved knife whichserved to cut cactus fruit. She took the pigeon in one hand, turned itover, its breast upward, and with the skill of a surgeon, ripped it intwo with a single thrust.

"In the name of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," Remigia said, blessing theroom and making the sign of the cross; next, with infinite dexterity,she placed the warm bleeding portions of the pigeon upon Demetrio'sabdomen.

"You'll see: you'll feel much better now."

Obeying Remigia's instructions, Demetrio lay motionless, crumpled up onone side.

Then Fortunata gave vent to her sorrows. She liked these gentlemen ofthe revolution, all right, that she did--for, three months ago, youknow, the Government soldiers had run away with her only daughter. Thishad broken her heart, Yes, and driven her all but crazy.

As she began, Anastasio Montanez and Quail lay on the floor near thestretcher, their mouths gaping, all ears to the story. But Fortunata'swealth of detail by the time she had told half of it bored Quail and heleft the hut to scratch himself out in the sun. By the time Fortunatahad at last concluded with a solemn "I pray God and the Blessed VirginMary that you are not sparing the life of a single one of thoseFederals from hell," Demetrio, face to wall, felt greatly relieved bythe stomach cure, and was busy thinking of the best route by which toproceed to Durango. Anastasio Montanez was snoring like a trombone.

X

"Why don't you call in the tenderfoot to treat you, Compadre Demetrio,"Anastasio Montanez asked his chief, who had been complaining daily ofchills and fever. "You ought to see him; no one has laid a hand to himbut himself, and now he's so fit that he doesn't limp a step."

But Venancio, standing by with his tins of lard and his dirty stringrags ready, protested:

"All right, if anybody lays a hand on Demetrio, I won't be responsible."

"Nonsense! Rot! What kind of doctor do you think you are? You're nodoctor at all. I'll wager you've already forgotten why you ever joinedus," said Quail.

"Well, I remember why you joined us, Quail," Venancio replied angrily."Perhaps you'll deny it was because you had stolen a watch and somediamond rings."

"Ha, ha, ha! That's rich! But you're worse, my lad; you ran away fromyour hometown because you poisoned your sweetheart."

"You're a Goddamned liar!"

"Yes you did! And don't try and deny it! You fed her Spanish fly and..."

Venancio's shout of protest was drowned out in the loud laughter of theothers. Demetrio, looking pale and sallow, motioned for silence. Then,plaintively:

"That'll do. Bring in the student."

Luis Cervantes entered. He uncovered Demetrio's wound, examined itcarefully, and shook his head. The ligaments had made a furrow in theskin. The leg, badly swollen, seemed about to burst. At every move hemade, Demetrio stifled a moan. Luis Cervantes cut the ligaments, soakedthe wound in water, covered the leg with large clean rags and bound itup. Demetrio was able to sleep all afternoon and all night. On themorrow he woke up happy.

"That tenderfoot has the softest hand in the world!" he said.

Quickly Venancio cut in:

"All right; just as you say. But don't forget that tenderfoots are likemoisture, they seep in everywhere. It's the tenderfoots who stopped usreaping the harvest of the revolution."

Since Demetrio believed in the barber's knowledge implicitly, when LuisCervantes came to treat him on the next day he said:

"Look here, do your best, see. I want to recover soon and then you cango home or anywhere else you damn well please."

Discreetly, Luis Cervantes made no reply.

A week, ten days, a fortnight elapsed. The Federal troops seemed tohave vanished. There was an abundance of corn and beans, too, in theneighboring ranches. The people hated the Government so bitterly thatthey were overjoyed to furnish assistance to the rebels. Demetrio'smen, therefore, were peacefully waiting for the complete recovery oftheir chief.

Day after day, Luis Cervantes remained humble and silent.

"By God, I actually believe you're in love," Demetrio said jokingly onemorning after the daily treatment. He had begun to like thistenderfoot. From then on, Demetrio began gradually to show anincreasing interest in Cervantes' comfort. One day he asked him if thesoldiers gave him his daily ration of meat and milk; Luis Cervantes wasforced to answer that his sole nourishment was whatever the old ranchwomen happened to give him and that everyone still considered him anintruder.

"Look here, Tenderfoot, they're all good boys, really," Demetrioanswered. "You've got to know how to handle them, that's all. You markmy words; from tomorrow on, there won't be a thing you'll lack."

In effect, things began to change that very afternoon. Some ofDemetrio's men lay in the quarry, glancing at the sunset that turnedthe clouds into huge clots of congealed blood and listening toVenancio's amusing stories culled from The Wandering Jew. Some of them,lulled by the narrator's mellifluous voice, began to snore. But LuisCervantes listened avidly and as soon as Venancio topped off his talkwith a storm of anticlerical denunciations he said emphatically:"Wonderful, wonderful! What intelligence! You're a most gifted man!"

"Well, I reckon it's not so bad," Venancio answered, warming to theflattery, "but my parents died and I didn't have a chance to study fora profession."

"That's easy to remedy, I'm sure. Once our cause is victorious, you caneasily get a degree. A matter of two or three weeks' assistant's workat some hospital and a letter of recommendation from our chief andyou'll be a full-fledged doctor, all right. The thing is child's play."

From that night onward Venancio, unlike the others, ceased calling himTenderfoot. He addressed him as Louie.

It was Louie, this, and Louie, that, right and left, all the time.

XI

"Look here, Tenderfoot, I want to tell you something," Camilla calledto Luis Cervantes, as he made his way to the hut to fetch some boilingwater for his foot.

For days the girl had been restless. Her coy ways and her reticence hadfinally annoyed the man; stopping suddenly, he stood up and eyeing hersquarely:

"All right. What do you want to tell me?"

Camilla's tongue clove to her mouth, heavy and damp as a rag; she couldnot utter a word. A blush suffused her cheeks, turning them red asapples; she shrugged her shoulders and bowed her head, pressing herchin against her naked breast. Then without moving, with the fixity ofan idiot, she glanced at the wound, and said in a whisper:

"Look, how nicely it's healing now: it's like a red Castille rose."

Luis Cervantes frowned and with obvious disgust continued to care forhis foot, completely ignoring her as he worked. When he had finished,Camilla had vanished.

For three days she was nowhere to be found. It was always her mother,Agapita, who answered Cervantes' call, and boiled the water for him andgave him rags. He was careful to avoid questioning her. Three dayslater, Camilla reappeared, more coy and eager than ever.

The more distrait and indifferent Luis Cervantes grew, the bolderCamilla. At last, she said: "Listen to me, you nice young fellow, Iwant to tell you something pleasant. Please go over the words of therevolutionary song 'Adelita' with me, will you? You can guess why, eh?I want to sing it and sing it, over again often and often, see? Thenwhen you're off and away and when you've forgotten all about Camilla,it'll remind me of you."

To Luis Cervantes her words were like the noise of a sharp steel knifedrawn over the side of a glass bottle. Blissfully unaware of the effectthey had produced, she proceeded, candid as ever:

"Well, I want to tell you something. You don't know that your chief isa wicked man, do you? Shall I tell you what he did to me? You knowDemetrio won't let a soul but Mamma cook for him and me take him hisfood. Well, the other day I take some food over to him and what do youthink he did to me, the old fool. He grabs hold of my wrist and hepresses it tight, tight as can be, and then he starts pinching my legs.

"'Come on, let me go,' I said. 'Keep still, lay off, you shamelesscreature. You've got no manners, that's the trouble with you.' So Iwrestled with him, and shook myself free, like this, and ran off asfast as I could. What do you think of that?"

Camilla had never seen Luis Cervantes laugh so heartily.

"But it is really true, all this you've told me?"

Utterly at a loss, Camilla could not answer. Then he burst intolaughter again and repeated the question. A sense of confusion cameupon her. Disturbed, troubled, she said brokenly:

"Yes, it's the truth. And I wanted to tell you about it. But you don'tseem to feel at all angry."

Once more Camilla glanced adoringly at Luis Cervantes' radiant, cleanface; at his glaucous, soft eyes, his cheeks pink and polished as aporcelain doll's; at his tender white skin that showed below the lineof his collar and on his shoulders, protruding from under a roughwoolen poncho; at his hair, ever so slightly curled.

"What the devil are you waiting for, fool? If the chief likes you, whatmore do you want?"

Camilla felt something rise within her breast, an empty ache thatbecame a knot when it reached her throat; she closed her eyes fast tohold back the tears that welled up in them. Then, with the back of herhand, she wiped her wet cheeks, and just as she had done three daysago, fled with all the swiftness of a young deer.

XII

Demetrio's wound had already healed. They began to discuss variousprojects to go northward where, according to rumor, the rebels hadbeaten the Federal troops all along the line.

A certain incident came to precipitate their action. Seated on a cragof the sierra in the cool of the afternoon breeze, Luis Cervantes gazedaway in the distance, dreaming and killing time. Below the narrow rockPancracio and Manteca, lying like lizards between the jarales along oneof the river margins, were playing cards. Anastasio Montanez, lookingon indifferently, turned his black hairy face toward Luis Cervantesand, leveling his kindly gaze upon him, asked:

"Why so sad, you from the city? What are you daydreaming about? Come onover here and let's have a chat!"

Luis Cervantes did not move; Anastasio went over to him and sat downbeside him like a friend.

"What you need is the excitement of the city. I wager you shine yourshoes every day and wear a necktie. Now, I may look dirty and myclothes may be torn to shreds, but I'm not really what I seem to be.I'm not here because I've got to be and don't you think so. Why, I owntwenty oxen. Certainly I do; ask my friend Demetrio. I cleared tenbushels last harvest time. You see, if there's one thing I love, that'sriling these Government fellows and making them furious. The lastscrape I had--it'll be eight months gone now, ever since I've joinedthese men--I stuck my knife into some captain. He was just a nobody, alittle Government squirt. I pinked him here, see, right under thenavel. And that's why I'm here: that and because I wanted to give mymate Demetrio a hand." "Christ! The bloody little darling of my life!"Manteca shouted, waxing enthusiastic over a winning hand. He placed atwenty-cent silver coin on the jack of spades.

"If you want my opinion, I'm not much on gambling. Do you want to bet?Well, come on then, I'm game. How do you like the sound of this leathersnake jingling, eh?"

Anastasio shook his belt; the silver coins rang as he shook themtogether.

Meanwhile, Pancracio dealt the cards, the jack of spades turned up outof the deck and a quarrel ensued. Altercation, noise, then shouts, and,at last, insults. Pancracio brought his stony face close to Manteca,who looked at him with snake's eyes, convulsive, foaming at the mouth.Another moment and they would have been exchanging blows. Havingcompletely exhausted their stock of direct insults, they now resortedto the most flowery and ornate insulting of each other's ancestors,male and female, paternal or maternal. Yet nothing untoward occurred.

After their supply of words was exhausted, they gave over gambling and,their arms about each other's shoulders, marched off in search of adrink of alcohol.

"I don't like to fight with my tongue either, it's not decent. I'mright, too, eh? I tell you no man living has ever breathed a word to meagainst my mother. I want to be respected, see? That's why you've neverseen me fooling with anyone." There was a pause. Then, suddenly, "Lookthere, Tenderfoot," Anastasio said, changing his tone and standing upwith one hand spread over his eyes. "What's that dust over there behindthe hillock. By God, what if it's those damned Federals and we sittinghere doing nothing. Come on, let's go and warn the rest of the boys."

The news met with cries of joy.

"Ah, we're going to meet them!" cried Pancracio jubilantly, first amongthem to rejoice.

"Of course, we're going to meet them! We'll strip them clean ofeverything they brought with them."

A few moments later, amid cries of joy and a bustle of arms, they begansaddling their horses. But the enemy turned out to be a few burros andtwo Indians, driving them forward.

"Stop them, anyhow. They must have come from somewhere and they'veprobably news for us," Demetrio said.

Indeed, their news proved sensational. The Federal troops had fortifiedthe hills in Zacatecas; this was said to be Huerta's last stronghold,but everybody predicted the fall of the city. Many families had hastilyfled southward. Trains were overloaded with people; there was ascarcity of trucks and coaches; hundreds of people, panic-stricken,walked along the highroad with their belongings in a pack slung overtheir shoulders. General Panfilo Natera was assembling his men atFresnillo; the Federals already felt it was all up with them.

"The fall of Zacatecas will be Huerta's requiescat in pace," LuisCervantes cried with unusual excitement. "We've got to be there beforethe fight starts so that we can join Natera's army."

Then, suddenly, he noted the surprise with which Demetrio and his mengreeted his suggestion. Crestfallen, he realized they still consideredhim of no account.

On the morrow, as the men set off in search of good mounts beforetaking to the road again, Demetrio called Luis Cervantes:

"Do you really want to come with us? Of course you're cut from anothertimber, we all know that; God knows why you should like this sort oflife. Do you imagine we're in this game because we like it? Now, I likethe excitement all right, but that's not all. Sit down here; that'sright. Do you want to know why I'm a rebel? Well, I'll tell you.

"Before the revolution, I had my land all plowed, see, and just rightfor sowing and if it hadn't been for a little quarrel with Don Monico,the boss of my town, Moyahua, I'd be there in a jiffy getting the oxenready for the sowing, see?

"Here, there, Pancracio, pull down two bottles of beer for me and thistenderfoot.... By the Holy Cross ... drinking won't hurt me, now, willit?"

XIII

I was born in Limon, close by Moyahua, right in the heart of theJuchipila canyon. I had my house and my cows and a patch of land, see:I had everything I wanted. Well, I suppose you know how we farmers makea habit of going over to town every week to hear Mass and the sermonand then to market to buy our onions and tomatoes and in generaleverything they want us to buy at the ranch. Then you pick up somefriends and go to Primitivo Lopez' saloon for a bit of a drink beforedinner; well, you sit there drinking and you've got to be sociable, soyou drink more than you should and the liquor goes to your head and youlaugh and you're damned happy and if you feel like it, you sing andshout and kick up a bit of a row. That's quite all right, anyhow, forwe're not doing anyone any harm. But soon they start bothering you andthe policeman walks up and down and stops occasionally, with his ear tothe door. To put it in a nutshell, the chief of police and his gang area lot of joykillers who decide they want to put a stop to your fun,see? But by God! You've got guts, you've got red blood in your veinsand you've got a soul, too, see? So you lose your temper, you stand upto them and tell them to go to the Devil.

"Now if they understand you, everything's all right; they leave youalone and that's all there is to it; but sometimes they try to talk youdown and hit you and--well, you know how it is, a fellow'squick-tempered and he'll be damned if he'll stand for someone orderinghim around and telling him what's what. So before you know it, you'vegot your knife out or your gun leveled, and then off you go for a wildrun in the sierra, until they've forgotten the corpse, see?

"All right: that's just about what happened to Monico. The fellow was agreater bluffer than the rest. He couldn't tell a rooster from a hen,not he. Well, I spit on his beard because he wouldn't mind his ownbusiness. That's all, there's nothing else to tell.

"Then, just because I did that, he had the whole God-damned FederalGovernment against me. You must have heard something about that storyin Mexico City--about the killing of Madero and some other fellow,Felix or Felipe Diaz, or something--I don't know. Well, this man Monicogoes in person to Zacatecas to get an army to capture me. They saidthat I was a Maderista and that I was going to rebel. But a man like mealways has friends. Somebody came and warned me of what was coming tome, so when the soldiers reached Limon I was miles and miles away.Trust me! Then my compadre Anastasio who killed somebody came andjoined me, and Pancracio and Quail and a lot of friends andacquaintances came after him. Since then we've been sort of collecting,see? You know for yourself, we get along as best we can...."

For a while, both men sat meditating in silence. Then:

"Look here, Chief," said Luis Cervantes. "You know that some ofNatera's men are at Juchipila, quite near here. I think we should jointhem before they capture Zacatecas. All we need do is speak to theGeneral."

"I'm no good at that sort of thing. And I don't like the idea ofaccepting orders from anybody very much."

"But you've only a handful of men down here; you'll only be anunimportant chieftain. There's no argument about it, the revolution isbound to win. After it's all over they'll talk to you just as Maderotalked to all those who had helped him: 'Thank you very much, myfriends, you can go home now....'"

"Well that's all I want, to be let alone so I can go home."

"Wait a moment, I haven't finished. Madero said: 'You men have made mePresident of the Republic. You have run the risk of losing your livesand leaving your wives and children destitute; now I have what Iwanted, you can go back to your picks and shovels, you can resume yourhand-to-mouth existence, you can go half-naked and hungry just as youdid before, while we, your superiors, will go about trying to pile up afew million pesos....'"

Demetrio nodded and, smiling, scratched his head.

"You said a mouthful, Louie," Venancio the barber put inenthusiastically. "A mouthful as big as a church!"

"As I was saying," Luis Cervantes resumed, "when the revolution isover, everything is over. Too bad that so many men have been killed,too bad there are so many widows and orphans, too bad there was so muchbloodshed.

"Of course, you are not selfish; you say to yourself: 'All I want to dois go back home.' But I ask you, is it fair to deprive your wife andkids of a fortune which God himself places within reach of your hand?Is it fair to abandon your motherland in this solemn moment when shemost needs the self-sacrifice of her sons, when she most needs herhumble sons to save her from falling again in the clutches of hereternal oppressors, executioners, and caciques? You must not forgetthat the thing a man holds most sacred on earth is his motherland."

Macias smiled, his eyes shining.

"Will it be all right if we go with Natera?"

"Not only all right," Venancio said insinuatingly, "but I think itabsolutely necessary."

"Now Chief," Cervantes pursued, "I took a fancy to you the first time Ilaid eyes on you and I like you more and more every day because Irealize what you are worth. Please let me be utterly frank. You do notyet realize your lofty noble function. You are a modest man withoutambitions, you do not wish to realize the exceedingly important roleyou are destined to play in the revolution. It is not true that youtook up arms simply because of Senor Monico. You are under arms toprotest against the evils of all the caciques who are overrunning thewhole nation. We are the elements of a social movement which will notrest until it has enlarged the destinies of our motherland. We are thetools Destiny makes use of to reclaim the sacred rights of the people.We are not fighting to dethrone a miserable murderer, we are fightingagainst tyranny itself. What moves us is what men call ideals; ouraction is what men call fighting for a principle. A principle! That'swhy Villa and Natera and Carranza are fighting; that's why we, everyman of us, are fighting."

"Yes ... yes ... exactly what I've been thinking myself," said Venancioin a climax of enthusiasm.

"Hey, there, Pancracio," Macias called, "pull down two more beers."

XIV

"You ought to see how clear that fellow can make things, Compadre,"Demetrio said. All morning long he had been pondering as much of LuisCervantes' speech as he had understood.

"I heard him too," Anastasio answered. "People who can read and writeget things clear, all right; nothing was ever truer. But what I can'tmake out is how you're going to go and meet Natera with as few men aswe have."

"That's nothing. We're going to do things different now. They tell methat as soon as Crispin Robles enters a town he gets hold of all thehorses and guns in the place; then he goes to the jail and lets all thejailbirds out, and, before you know it, he's got plenty of men, allright. You'll see. You know I'm beginning to feel that we haven't donethings right so far. It don't seem right somehow that this city guyshould be able to tell us what to do."

"Ain't it wonderful to be able to read and write!"

They both sighed, sadly. Luis Cervantes came in with several others tofind out the day of their departure.

"We're leaving no later than tomorrow," said Demetrio withouthesitation.

Quail suggested that musicians be summoned from the neighboring hamletand that a farewell dance be given. His idea met with enthusiasm on allsides.

"We'll go, then," Pancracio shouted, "but I'm certainly going in goodcompany this time. My sweetheart's coming along with me!"

Demetrio replied that he too would willingly take along a girl he hadset his eye on, but that he hoped none of his men would leave bittermemories behind them as the Federals did.

"You won't have long to wait. Everything will be arranged when youreturn," Luis Cervantes whispered to him.

"What do you mean?" Demetrio asked. "I thought that you and Camilla..."

"There's not a word of truth in it, Chief. She likes you but she'safraid of you, that's all."

"Really? Is that really true?"

"Yes. But I think you're quite right in not wanting to leave anybitter feelings behind you as you go. When you come back as aconqueror, everything will be different. They'll all thank you for iteven."

"By God, you're certainly a shrewd one," Demetrio replied, patting himon the back.

At sundown, Camilla went to the river to fetch water as usual. LuisCervantes, walking down the same trail, met her. Camilla felt herheart leap to her mouth. But, without taking the slightest notice ofher, Luis Cervantes hastily took one of the turns and disappeared amongthe rocks.

At this hour, as usual, the calcinated rocks, the sun-burnt branches,and the dry weeds faded into the semi-obscurity of the shadows. Thewind blew softly, the green lances of the young corn leaves rustling inthe twilight. Nothing was changed; all nature was as she had found itbefore, evening upon evening; but in the stones and the dry weeds, amidthe fragrance of the air and the light whir of falling leaves, Camillasensed a new strangeness, a vast desolation in everything about her.

Rounding a huge eroded rock, suddenly Camilla found herself face toface with Luis, who was seated on a stone, hatless, his legs dangling.

"Listen, you might come down here to say good-bye."

Luis Cervantes was obliging enough; he jumped down and joined her.

"You're proud, ain't you? Have I been so mean that you don't even wantto talk to me?"

"Why do you say that, Camilla? You've been extremely kind to me; why,you've been more than a friend, you've taken care of me as if you weremy sister. Now I'm about to leave, I'm very grateful to you; I'llalways remember you."

"Liar!" Camilla said, her face transfigured with joy. "Suppose I hadn'tcome after you?"

"I intended to say good-bye to you at the dance this evening."

"What dance? If there's a dance, I'll not go to it."

"Why not?"

"Because I can't stand that horrible man ... Demetrio!"

"Don't be silly, child," said Luis. "He's really very fond of you.Don't go and throw away this opportunity. You'll never have one like itagain in your life. Don't you know that Demetrio is on the point ofbecoming a general, you silly girl? He'll be a very wealthy man, withhorses galore; and you'll have jewels and clothes and a fine house anda lot of money to spend. Just imagine what a life you would lead withhim!"

Camilla stared up at the blue sky so he should not read the expressionin her eyes. A dead leaf shook slowly loose from the crest of a treeswinging slowly on the wind, fell like a small dead butterfly at herfeet. She bent down and took it in her fingers. Then, without lookingat him, she murmured:

"It's horrible to hear you talk like that.... I like you ... no oneelse.... Ah, well, go then, go: I feel ashamed now. Please leave me!"

She threw away the leaf she had crumpled in her hand and covered herface with a corner of her apron. When she opened her eyes, LuisCervantes had disappeared.

She followed the river trail. The river seemed to have been sprinkledwith a fine red dust. On its surface drifted now a sky of variegatedcolors, now the dark crags, half light, half shadow. Myriads ofluminous insects twinkled in a hollow. Camilla, standing on the beachof washed, round stones, caught a reflection of herself in the waters;she saw herself in her yellow blouse with the green ribbons, her whiteskirt, her carefully combed hair, her wide eyebrows and broad forehead,exactly as she had dressed to please Luis. She burst into tears.

Among the reeds, the frogs chanted the implacable melancholy of thehour. Perched on a dry root, a dove wept also.

XV

That evening, there was much merrymaking at the dance, and a greatquantity of mezcal was drunk. "I miss Camilla," said Demetrio in a loudvoice. Everybody looked about for Camilla.

"She's sick, she's got a headache," said Agapita harshly, uneasy as shecaught sight of the malicious glances leveled at her.

When the dance was over, Demetrio, somewhat unsteady on his feet,thanked all the kind neighbors who had welcomed them and promised thatwhen the revolution had triumphed he would remember them one and all,because "hospital or jail is a true test of friendship."

"May God's hand lead you all," said an old woman.

"God bless you all and keep you well," others added.

Utterly drunk, Maria Antonia said: "Come back soon, damn soon!"

On the morrow, Maria Antonia, who, though she was pockmarked andwalleyed, nevertheless enjoyed a notorious reputation--indeed it wasconfidently proclaimed that no man had failed to go with her behind theriver weeds at some time or other--shouted to Camilla:

"Hey there, you! What's the matter? What are you doing there skulkingin the corner with a shawl tied round your head! You're crying, Iwager. Look at her eyes; they look like a witch's. There's no sorrowlasts more than three days!"

Agapita knitted her eyebrows and muttered indistinctly to herself.

The old crones felt uneasy and lonesome since Demetrio's men had left.The men, too, in spite of their gossip and insults, lamented theirdeparture since now they would have no one to bring them fresh meatevery day. It is pleasant indeed to spend your time eating anddrinking, and sleeping all day long in the cool shade of the rocks,while clouds ravel and unravel their fleecy threads on the blue shuttleof the sky.

"Look at them again. There they go!" Maria Antonia yelled. "Why, theylook like toys."

Demetrio's men, riding their thin nags, could still be descried in thedistance against the sapphire translucence of the sky, where the brokenrocks and the chaparral melted into a single bluish smooth surface.Across the air a gust of hot wind bore the broken, faltering strains of"La Adelita," the revolutionary song, to the settlement. Camilla, whohad come out when Maria Antonia shouted, could no longer controlherself; she dived back into her hut, unable to restrain her tears andmoaning. Maria Antonia burst into laughter and moved off.

"They've cast the evil eye on my daughter," Agapita said in perplexity.She pondered a while, then duly reached a decision. From a pole in thehut she took down a piece of strong leather which her husband used tohitch up the yoke. This pole stood between a picture of Christ and oneof the Virgin. Agapita promptly twisted the leather and proceeded toadminister a sound thrashing to Camilla in order to dispel the evilspirits.

Riding proudly on his horse, Demetrio felt like a new man. His eyesrecovered their peculiar metallic brilliance, and the blood flowed, redand warm, through his coppery, pure-blooded Aztec cheeks.

The men threw out their chests as if to breathe the widening horizon,the immensity of the sky, the blue from the mountains and the freshair, redolent with the various odors of the sierra. They spurred theirhorses to a gallop as if in that mad race they laid claims ofpossession to the earth. What man among them now remembered the sternchief of police, the growling policeman, or the conceited cacique? Whatman remembered his pitiful hut where he slaved away, always under theeyes of the owner or the ruthless and sullen foreman, always forced torise before dawn, and to take up his shovel, basket, or goad, wearinghimself out to earn a mere pitcher of atole and a handful of beans?

They laughed, they sang, they whistled, drunk with the sunlight, theair of the open spaces, the wine of life.

Meco, prancing forward on his horse, bared his white glistening teeth,joking and kicking up like a clown.

"Hey, Pancracio," he asked with utmost seriousness, "my wife writes meI've got another kid. How in hell is that? I ain't seen her sinceMadero was President."

"That's nothing," the other replied. "You just left her a lot of eggsto hatch for you!"

They all laughed uproariously. Only Meco, grave and aloof, sang in avoice horribly shrill:

"I gave her a penny
That wasn't enough.
I gave her a nickel
The wench wanted more.
We bargained. I asked
If a dime was enough
But she wanted a quarter.
By God! That was tough!
All wenches are fickle
And trumpery stuff!"

The sun, beating down upon them, dulled their minds and bodies andpresently they were silent. All day long they rode through the canyon,up and down the steep, round hills, dirty and bald as a man's head,hill after hill in endless succession. At last, late in the afternoon,they descried several stone church towers in the heart of a bluishridge, and, beyond, the white road with its curling spirals of dust andits gray telegraph poles.

They advanced toward the main road; in the distance they spied a figureof an Indian sitting on the embankment. They drew up to him. He provedto be an unfriendly looking old man, clad in rags; he was laboriouslyattempting to mend his leather sandals with the help of a dull knife. Aburro loaded with fresh green grass stood by. Demetrio accosted him.

"What are you doing, Grandpa?"

"Gathering alfalfa for my cow."

"How many Federals are there around here?"

"Just a few: not more than a dozen, I reckon."

The old man grew communicative. He told them of many important rumors:Obregon was besieging Guadalajara, Torres was in complete control ofthe Potosi region, Natera ruled over Fresnillo.

"All right," said Demetrio, "you can go where you're headed for, see,but you be damn careful not to tell anyone you saw us, because if youdo, I'll pump you full of lead. And I could track you down, even if youtried to hide in the pit of hell, see?"

"What do you say, boys?" Demetrio asked them as soon as the old man haddisappeared.

"To hell with the mochos! We'll kill every blasted one of them!" theycried in unison.

Then they set to counting their cartridges and the hand grenades theOwl had made out of fragments of iron tubing and metal bed handles.

"Not much to brag about, but we'll soon trade them for rifles,"Anastasio observed.

Anxiously they pressed forward, spurring the thin flanks of their nagsto a gallop. Demetrio's brisk, imperious tones of order brought themabruptly to a halt.

They dismounted by the side of a hill, protected by thick huizachetrees. Without unsaddling their horses, each began to search for stonesto serve as pillows.

XVI

At midnight Demetrio Macias ordered the march to be resumed. The townwas five or six miles away; the best plan was to take the soldiers bysurprise, before reveille.

The sky was cloudy, with here and there a star shining. From time totime a flash of lightning crossed the sky with a red dart, illuminingthe far horizon.

Luis Cervantes asked Demetrio whether the success of the attack mightnot be better served by procuring a guide or leastways by ascertainingthe topographic conditions of the town and the precise location of thesoldiers' quarters.

"No," Demetrio answered, accompanying his smile with a disdainfulgesture, "we'll simply fall on them when they least expect it; that'sall there is to it, see? We've done it before all right, lots of times!Haven't you ever seen the squirrels stick their heads out of theirholes when you poured in water? Well, that's how these lousy soldiersare going to feel. Do you see? They'll be frightened out of their witsthe moment they hear our first shot. Then they'll slink out and standas targets for us."

"Suppose the old man we met yesterday lied to us. Suppose there arefifty soldiers instead of twenty. Who knows but he's a spy sent out bythe Federals!"

"Ha, Tenderfoot, frightened already, eh?" Anastasio Montanez mocked.

"Sure! Handling a rifle and messing about with bandages are twodifferent things," Pancracio observed.

"Well, that's enough talk, I guess," said Meco. "All we have to do isfight a dozen frightened rats."

"This fight won't convince our mothers that they gave birth to men orwhatever the hell you like...." Manteca added.

When they reached the outskirts of the town, Venancio walked ahead andknocked at the door of a hut.

"Where's the soldiers' barracks?" he inquired of a man who came outbarefoot, a ragged serape covering his body.

"Right there, just beyond the Plaza," he answered.

Since nobody knew where the city square was, Venancio made him walkahead to show the way. Trembling with fear, the poor devil told themthey were doing him a terrible wrong.

"I'm just a poor day laborer, sir; I've got a wife and a lot of kids."

"What the hell do you think I have, dogs?" Demetrio scowled. "I've gotkids too, see?"

Then he commanded:

"You men keep quiet. Not a sound out of you! And walk down the middleof the street, single file."

The rectangular church cupola rose above the small houses.

"Here, gentlemen; there's the Plaza beyond the church. Just walk a bitfurther and there's the barracks."

He knelt down, then, imploring them to let him go, but Pancracio,without pausing to reply, struck him across the chest with his rifleand ordered him to proceed.

"How many soldiers are there?" Luis Cervantes asked.

"I don't want to lie to you, boss, but to tell you the truth, yes, sir,to tell you God's truth, there's a lot of them, a whole lot of 'em."

Luis Cervantes turned around to stare at Demetrio, who feignedmomentary deafness.

They were soon in the city square.

A loud volley of rifle shots rang out, deafening them. Demetrio's horsereared, staggered on its hind legs, bent its forelegs, and fell to theground, kicking. The Owl uttered a piercing cry and fell from his horsewhich rushed madly to the center of the square.

Another volley: the guide threw up his arms and fell on his backwithout a sound.

With all haste, Anastasio Montanez helped Demetrio up behind him on hishorse; the others retreated, seeking shelter along the walls of thehouses.

"Hey, men," said a workman sticking his head out of a large door, "gofor 'em through the back of the chapel. They're all in there. Cut backthrough this street, then turn to the left; you'll reach an alley. Keepon going ahead until you hit the chapel."

As he spoke a fresh volley of pistol shots, directed from theneighboring roofs, fell like a rain about them.

"By God," the man said, "those ain't poisonous spiders; they're onlytownsmen scared of their own shadow. Come in here until they stop."

"How many of them are there?" asked Demetrio.

"There were only twelve of them. But last night they were scared out oftheir wits so they wired to the town beyond for help. I don't know howmany of them there are now. Even if there are a hell of a lot of them,it doesn't cut any ice! Most of them aren't soldiers, you know, butdrafted men; if just one of them starts mutinying, the rest will followlike sheep. My brother was drafted; they've got him there. I'll goalong with you and signal to him; all of them will desert and followyou. Then we'll only have the officers to deal with! If you want togive me a gun or something...."

"No more rifles left, brother. But I guess you can put these to someuse," Anastasio Montanez said, passing him two hand grenades.

The officer in command of the Federals was a young coxcomb of a captainwith a waxed mustache and blond hair. As long as he felt uncertainabout the strength of the assailants, he had remained extremely quietand prudent; but now that they had driven the rebels back withoutallowing them a chance to fire a single shot, he waxed bold and brave.While the soldiers did not dare put out their heads beyond the pillarsof the building, his own shadow stood against the pale clear dawn,exhibiting his well-built slender body and his officer's cape bellyingin the breeze.

"Ha, I remember our coup d'etat!"

His military career had consisted of the single adventure when,together with other students of the Officers' School, he was involvedin the treacherous revolt of Feliz Diaz and Huerta against PresidentMadero. Whenever the slightest insubordination arose, he invariablyrecalled his feat at the Ciudadela.

"Lieutenant Campos," he ordered emphatically, "take a dozen men andwipe out the bandits hiding there! The curs! They're only brave when itcomes to guzzling meat and robbing a hencoop!"

A workingman appeared at the small door of the spiral staircase,announcing that the assailants were hidden in a corral where they mighteasily be captured. This message came from the citizens keeping watchon housetops.

"I'll go myself and get it over with!" the officer declared impetuously.

But he soon changed his mind. Before he had reached the door, heretraced his steps.

"Very likely they are waiting for more men and, of course, it would bewrong for me to abandon my post. Lieutenant Campos, go there yourselfand capture them dead or alive. We'll shoot them at noon wheneverybody's coming out of church. Those bandits will see the exampleI'll set around here. But if you can't capture them, Lieutenant, killthem all. Don't leave a man of them alive, do you understand?"

In high good humor, he began pacing up and down the room, formulatingthe official despatch he would send off no later than today.

To His Honor the Minister for War, General A. Blanquet,
Mexico City.

Sir:

I have the honor to inform your Excellency that on the morning of ... arebel army, five hundred strong, commanded by ... attacked this town,which I am charged to defend. With such speed as the gravity of thesituation called for, I fortified my post in the town. The battlelasted two hours. Despite the superiority of the enemy in men andequipment, I was able to defeat and rout them. Their casualties weretwenty killed and a far greater number of wounded, judging from thetrails of blood they left behind them as they retreated. I am pleasedto state there was no casualty on our side. I have the honor tocongratulate Your Excellency upon this new triumph for the Federalarms. Viva Presidente Huerta! Viva Mexico!

"Well," the young captain mused, "I'll be promoted to major." Heclasped his hands together, jubilant. At this precise moment, adetonation rang out. His ears buzzed, he--

XVII

"If we get through the corral, we can make the alley, eh?" Demetrioasked.

"That's right," the workman answered. "Beyond the corral there's ahouse, then another corral, then there's a store."

Demetrio scratched his head, thoughtfully. This time his decision wasimmediate.

"Can you get hold of a crowbar or something like that to make a holethrough the wall?"

"Yes, we'll get anything you want, but ..."

"But what? Where can we get a crowbar?"

"Everything is right there. But it all belongs to the boss."

Without further ado, Demetrio strode into the shed which had beenpointed out as the toolhouse.

It was all a matter of a few minutes. Once in the alley, hugging to thewalls, they marched forward in single file until they reached the rearof the church. Now they had but a single fence and the rear wall of thechapel to scale.

"God's will be done!" Demetrio said to himself. He was the first toclamber over.

Like monkeys the others followed him, reaching the other side withbleeding, grimy hands. The rest was easy. The deep worn steps along thestonework made their ascent of the chapel wall swifter. The churchvault hid them from the soldiers.

"Wait a moment, will you?" said the workman. "I'll go and see where mybrother is; I'll let you know and then you'll get at the officers."

But no one paid the slightest attention to him.

For a second, Demetrio glanced at the soldiers' black coats hanging onthe wall, then at his own men, thick on the church tower behind theiron rail. He smiled with satisfaction and turning to his men said:

"Come on, now, boys!"

Twenty bombs exploded simultaneously in the midst of the soldiers who,awaking terrified out of their sleep, started up, their eyes wide open.But before they had realized their plight, twenty more bombs burst likethunder upon them leaving a scattering of men killed or maimed.

"Don't do that yet, for God's sake! Don't do it till I find mybrother," the workman implored in anguish.

In vain an old sergeant harangued the soldiers, insulting them in thehope of rallying them. For they were rats, caught in a trap, no more,no less. Some of the soldiers, attempting to reach the small door bythe staircase, fell to the ground pierced by Demetrio's shots. Othersfell at the feet of these twenty-odd specters, with faces and breastsdark as iron, clad in long torn trousers of white cloth which fell totheir leather sandals, scattering death and destruction below them. Inthe belfry, a few men struggled to emerge from the pile of dead who hadfallen upon them.

"It's awful, Chief!" Luis Cervantes cried in alarm. "We've no morebombs left and we left our guns in the corral."

Smiling, Demetrio drew out a large shining knife. In the twinkling ofan eye, steel flashed in every hand. Some knives were large andpointed, others wide as the palm of a hand, others heavy as bayonets.

"The spy!" Luis Cervantes cried triumphantly. "Didn't I tell you?"

"Don't kill me, Chief, please don't kill me," the old sergeant imploredsquirming at the feet of Demetrio, who stood over him, knife in hand.The victim raised his wrinkled Indian face; there was not a single grayhair in his head today. Demetrio recognized the spy who had lied to himthe day before. Terrified, Luis Cervantes quickly averted his face. Thesteel blade went crack, crack, on the old man's ribs. He toppledbackward, his arms spread, his eyes ghastly.

"Don't kill my brother, don't kill him, he's my brother!" the workmanshouted in terror to Pancracio who was pursuing a soldier. But it wastoo late. With one thrust, Pancracio had cut his neck in half, and twostreams of scarlet spurted from the wound.

"Kill the soldiers, kill them all!"

Pancracio and Manteca surpassed the others in the savagery of theirslaughter, and finished up with the wounded. Montanez, exhausted, lethis arm fall; it hung limp to his side. A gentle expression stillfilled his glance; his eyes shone; he was naive as a child, unmoral asa hyena.

"Here's one who's not dead yet," Quail shouted.

Pancracio ran up. The little blond captain with curled mustache turnedpale as wax. He stood against the door to the staircase unable tomuster enough strength to take another step.

Pancracio pushed him brutally to the edge of the corridor. A jab withhis knee against the captain's thigh--then a sound not unlike a bag ofstones falling from the top of the steeple on the porch of the church.

"My God, you've got no brains!" said Quail. "If I'd known what you weredoing, I'd have kept him for myself. That was a fine pair of shoes youlost!"

Bending over them, the rebels stripped those among the soldiers whowere best clad, laughing and joking as they despoiled them. Brushingback his long hair, that had fallen over his sweating forehead andcovered his eyes, Demetrio said:

"Now let's get those city fellows!"

XVIII

On the day General Natera began his advance against the town ofZacatecas, Demetrio with a hundred men went to meet him at Fresnillo.

The leader received him cordially.

"I know who you are and the sort of men you bring. I heard about thebeatings you gave the Federals from Tepic to Durango."

Natera shook hands with Demetrio effusively while Luis Cervantes said:

"With men like General Natera and Colonel Demetrio Macias, we'll coverour country with glory."

Demetrio understood the purpose of those words, after Natera hadrepeatedly addressed him as "Colonel."

Wine and beer were served; Demetrio and Natera drank many a toast.Luis Cervantes proposed: "The triumph of our cause, which is thesublime triumph of Justice, because our ideal--to free the noble,long-suffering people of Mexico--is about to be realized and becausethose men who have watered the earth with their blood and tears willreap the harvest which is rightfully theirs."

Natera fixed his cruel gaze on the orator, then turned his back on himto talk to Demetrio. Presently, one of Natera's officers, a young manwith a frank open face, drew up to the table and stared insistently atCervantes.

"Are you Luis Cervantes?"

"Yes. You're Solis, eh?"

"The moment you entered I thought I recognized you. Well, well, evennow I can hardly believe my eyes!"

"It's true enough!"

"Well, but ... look here, let's have a drink, come along." Then:

"Hm," Solis went on, offering Cervantes a chair, "since when have youturned rebel?"

"I've been a rebel the last two months!"

"Oh, I see! That's why you speak with such faith and enthusiasm aboutthings we all felt when we joined the revolution."

"Have you lost your faith or enthusiasm?"

"Look here, man, don't be surprised if I confide in you right off. I amso anxious to find someone intelligent among this crowd, that as soonas I get hold of a man like you I clutch at him as eagerly as I wouldat a glass of water, after walking mile after mile through a parcheddesert. But frankly, I think you should do the explaining first. Ican't understand how a man who was correspondent of a Governmentnewspaper during the Madero regime, and later editorial writer on aConservative journal, who denounced us as bandits in the most fieryarticles, is now fighting on our side."

"I tell you honestly: I have been converted," Cervantes answered.

"Are you absolutely convinced?"

Solis sighed, filled the glasses; they drank.

"What about you? Are you tired of the revolution?" asked Cervantessharply.

"Tired? My dear fellow, I'm twenty-five years old and I'm fit as afiddle! But am I disappointed? Perhaps!"

"You must have sound reasons for feeling that way."

"I hoped to find a meadow at the end of the road. I found a swamp.Facts are bitter; so are men. That bitterness eats your heart out; itis poison, dry rot. Enthusiasm, hope, ideals, happiness-vain dreams,vain dreams.... When that's over, you have a choice. Either you turnbandit, like the rest, or the timeservers will swamp you...."

Cervantes writhed at his friend's words; his argument was quite out ofplace ... painful.... To avoid being forced to take issue, he invitedSolis to cite the circumstances that had destroyed his illusions.

"Circumstances? No--it's far less important than that. It's a host ofsilly, insignificant things that no one notices except yourself ... achange of expression, eyes shining-lips curled in a sneer-the deepimport of a phrase that is lost! Yet take these things together andthey compose the mask of our race ... terrible ... grotesque ... a racethat awaits redemption!"

He drained another glass. After a long pause, he continued:

"You ask me why I am still a rebel? Well, the revolution is like ahurricane: if you're in it, you're not a man ... you're a leaf, a deadleaf, blown by the wind."

Demetrio reappeared. Seeing him, Solis relapsed into silence.

"Come along," Demetrio said to Cervantes. "Come with me."

Unctuously, Solis congratulated Demetrio on the feats that had won himfame and the notice of Pancho Villa's northern division.

Demetrio warmed to his praise. Gratefully, he heard his prowessvaunted, though at times he found it difficult to believe he was thehero of the exploits the other narrated. But Solis' story proved socharming, so convincing, that before long he found himself repeating itas gospel truth.

"Natera is a genius!" Luis Cervantes said when they had returned to thehotel. "But Captain Solis is a nobody ... a timeserver."

Demetrio Macias was too elated to listen to him. "I'm a colonel, mylad! And you're my secretary!"

Demetrio's men made many acquaintances that evening; much liquor flowedto celebrate new friendships. Of course men are not necessarily eventempered, nor is alcohol a good counselor; quarrels naturally ensued.Yet many differences that occurred were smoothed out in a friendlyspirit, outside the saloons, restaurants, or brothels.

On the morrow, casualties were reported. Always a few dead. An oldprostitute was found with a bullet through her stomach; two of ColonelMacias' new men lay in the gutter, slit from ear to ear.

Anastasio Montanez carried an account of the events to his chief.Demetrio shrugged his shoulders. "Bury them!" he said.

XIX

"They're coming back!"

It was with amazement that the inhabitants of Fresnillo learned thatthe rebel attack on Zacatecas had failed completely.

"They're coming back!"

The rebels were a maddened mob, sunburnt, filthy, naked. Their highwide-brimmed straw hats hid their faces. The "high hats" came back ashappily as they had marched forth a few days before, pillaging everyhamlet along the road, every ranch, even the poorest hut.

"Who'll buy this thing?" one of them asked. He had carried his spoilslong: he was tired. The sheen of the nickel on the typewriter, a newmachine, attracted every glance. Five times that morning the Oliver hadchanged hands. The first sale netted the owner ten pesos; presently ithad sold for eight; each time it changed hands, it was two pesoscheaper. To be sure, it was a heavy burden; nobody could carry it formore than a half-hour.

"I'll give you a quarter for it!" Quail said.

"Yours!" cried the owner, handing it over quickly, as though he fearedQuail might change his mind. Thus for the sum of twenty-five cents,Quail was afforded the pleasure of taking it in his hands and throwingit with all his might against the wall.

It struck with a crash. This gave the signal to all who carried anycumbersome objects to get rid of them by smashing them against therocks. Objects of all sorts, crystal, china, faience, porcelain, flewthrough the air. Heavy, plated mirrors, brass candlesticks, fragile,delicate statues, Chinese vases, any object not readily convertibleinto cash fell by the wayside in fragments.

Demetrio did not share the untoward exaltation. After all, they wereretreating defeated. He called Montanez and Pancracio aside and said:

"These fellows have no guts. It's not so hard to take a town. It's likethis. First, you open up, this way...." He sketched a vast gesture,spreading his powerful arms. "Then you get close to them, likethis...." He brought his arms together, slowly. "Then slam! Bang!Whack! Crash!" He beat his hands against his chest.

Anastasio and Pancracio, convinced by this simple, lucid explanationanswered:

"That's God's truth! They've no guts! That's the trouble with them!"

Demetrio's men camped in a corral.

"Do you remember Camilla?" Demetrio asked with a sigh as he settled onhis back on the manure pile where the rest were already stretched out.

"Camilla? What girl do you mean, Demetrio?"

"The girl that used to feed me up there at the ranch!"

Anastasio made a gesture implying: "I don't care a damn about the women... Camilla or anyone else...."

"I've not forgotten," Demetrio went on, drawing on his cigarette. "Yes,I was feeling like hell! I'd just finished drinking a glass of water.God, but it was cool.... 'Don't you want any more?' she asked me. I washalf dead with fever ... and all the time I saw that glass of water,blue ... so blue ... and I heard her little voice, 'Don't you want anymore?' That voice tinkled in my ears like a silver hurdy-gurdy! Well,Pancracio, what about it? Shall we go back to the ranch?"

"Demetrio, we're friends, aren't we? Well then, listen. You may notbelieve it, but I've had a lot of experience with women. Women! Christ,they're all right for a while, granted! Though even that's going prettyfar. Demetrio, you should see the scars they've given me ... all overmy body, not to speak of my soul! To hell with women. They're thedevil, that's what they are! You may have noticed I steer clear ofthem. You know why. And don't think I don't know what I'm talkingabout. I've had a hell of a lot of experience and that's no lie!"

"What do you say, Pancracio? When are we going back to the ranch?"Demetrio insisted, blowing gray clouds of tobacco smoke into the air.

"Say the day, I'm game. You know I left my woman there too!"

"Your woman, hell!" Quail said, disgruntled and sleepy.

"All right, then, our woman! It's a good thing you're kindhearted so weall can enjoy her when you bring her over," Manteca murmured.

"That's right, Pancracio, bring one-eyed Maria Antonia. We're allgetting pretty cold around here," Meco shouted from a distance.

The crowd broke into peals of laughter. Pancracio and Manteca vied witheach other in calling forth oaths and obscenity.

XX

"Villa is coming!"

The news spread like lightning. Villa--the magic word! The Great Man,the salient profile, the unconquerable warrior who, even at a distance,exerts the fascination of a reptile, a boa constrictor.

"Our Mexican Napoleon!" exclaimed Luis Cervantes.

"Yes! The Aztec Eagle! He buried his beak of steel in the head ofHuerta the serpent!" Solis, Natera's chief of staff, remarked somewhatironically, adding: "At least, that's how I expressed it in a speech Imade at Ciudad Juarez!"

The two sat at the bar of the saloon, drinking beer. The "high hats,"wearing mufflers around their necks and thick rough leather shoes ontheir feet, ate and drank endlessly. Their gnarled hands loomed acrosstable, across bar. All their talk was of Villa and his men. The talesNatera's followers related won gasps of astonishment from Demetrio'smen. Villa! Villa's battles! Ciudad Juarez ... Tierra Blanca ...Chihuahua ... Torreon....

The bare facts, the mere citing of observation and experience meantnothing. But the real story, with its extraordinary contrasts of highexploits and abysmal cruelties was quite different. Villa, indomitablelord of the sierra, the eternal victim of all governments ... Villatracked, hunted down like a wild beast ... Villa the reincarnation ofthe old legend; Villa as Providence, the bandit, that passes throughthe world armed with the blazing torch of an ideal: to rob the rich andgive to the poor. It was the poor who built up and imposed a legendabout him which Time itself was to increase and embellish as a shiningexample from generation to generation.

"Look here, friend," one of Natera's men told Anastasio, "if GeneralVilla takes a fancy to you, he'll give you a ranch on the spot. But ifhe doesn't, he'll shoot you down like a dog! God! You ought to seeVilla's troops! They're all northerners and dressed like lords! Youought to see their wide-brimmed Texas hats and their brand-new outfitsand their four-dollar shoes, imported from the U. S. A."

As they retailed the wonders of Villa and his men, Natera's men gazedat one another ruefully, aware that their own hats were rotten fromsunlight and moisture, that their own shirts and trousers were tatteredand barely fit to cover their grimy, lousy bodies.

"There's no such a thing as hunger up there. They carry boxcars full ofoxen, sheep, cows! They've got cars full of clothing, trains full ofguns, ammunition, food enough to make a man burst!"

Then they spoke of Villa's airplanes.

"Christ, those planes! You know when they're close to you, be damned ifyou know what the hell they are! They look like small boats, you know,or tiny rafts ... and then pretty soon they begin to rise, making ahell of a row. Something like an automobile going sixty miles an hour.Then they're like great big birds that don't even seem to movesometimes. But there's a joker! The God-damn things have got someAmerican fellow inside with hand grenades by the thousand. Now you tryand figure what that means! The fight is on, see? You know how a farmerfeeds corn to his chickens, huh? Well, the American throws his leadbombs at the enemy just like that. Pretty soon the whole damn field isnothing but a graveyard ... dead men all over the dump ... dead menhere ... dead men there ... dead men everywhere!"

Anastasio Montanez questioned the speaker more particularly. It was notlong before he realized that all this high praise was hearsay and thatnot a single man in Natera's army had ever laid eyes on Villa.

"Well, when you get down to it, I guess it doesn't mean so much! Noman's got much more guts than any other man, if you ask me. All youneed to be a good fighter is pride, that's all. I'm not a professionalsoldier even though I'm dressed like hell, but let me tell you. I'm notforced to do this kind of bloody job, because I own ..."

"Because I own over twenty oxen, whether you believe it or not!" Quailsaid, mocking Anastasio.

XXI

The firing lessened, then slowly died out. Luis Cervantes, who had beenhiding amid a heap of ruins at the fortification on the crest of thehill, made bold to show his face. How he had managed to hang on, he didnot know. Nor did he know when Demetrio and his men had disappeared.Suddenly he had found himself alone; then, hurled back by an avalancheof infantry, he fell from his saddle; a host of men trampled over himuntil he rose from the ground and a man on horseback hoisted him upbehind him. After a few moments, horse and riders fell. Left withoutrifle, revolver, or arms of any kind, Cervantes found himself lost inthe midst of white smoke and whistling bullets. A hole amid a debris ofcrumbling stone offered a refuge of safety.

"Hello, partner!"

"Luis, how are you!"

"The horse threw me. They fell upon me. Then they took my gun away. Yousee, they thought I was dead. There was nothing I could do!" LuisCervantes explained apologetically. Then:

"Nobody threw me down," Solis said. "I'm here because I like to playsafe."

The irony in Solis' voice brought a blush to Cervantes' cheek.

"By God, that chief of yours is a man!" Solis said. "What daring, whatassurance! He left me gasping--and a hell of a lot of other men withmore experience than me, too!"

Luis Cervantes vouchsafed no answer.

"What! Weren't you there? Oh, I see! You found a nice place foryourself at the right time. Come here, Luis, I'll explain; let's gobehind that rock. From this meadow to the foot of the hill, there's noroad save this path below. To the right, the incline is too sharp; youcan't do anything there. And it's worse to the left; the ascent is sodangerous that a second's hesitation means a fall down those rocks anda broken neck at the end of it. All right! A number of men from Moya'sbrigade who went down to the meadow decided to attack the enemy'strenches the first chance they got. The bullets whizzed about us, thebattle raged on all sides. For a time they stopped firing, so wethought they were being attacked from behind. We stormed theirtrenches--look, partner, look at that meadow! It's thick with corpses!Their machine guns did that for us. They mowed us down like wheat; onlya handful escaped. Those Goddamned officers went white as a sheet; eventhough we had reinforcements they were afraid to order a new charge.That was when Demetrio Macias plunged in. Did he wait for orders? Nothe! He just shouted:

"'Come on, boys! Let's go for them!'

"'Damn fool!' I thought. 'What the hell does he think he's doing!'

"The officers, surprised, said nothing. Demetrio's horse seemed to weareagle's claws instead of hoofs, it soared so swiftly over the rocks.'Come on! Come on!' his men shouted, following him like wild deer,horses and men welded into a mad stampede. Only one young fellowstepped wild and fell headlong into the pit. In a few seconds theothers appeared at the top of the hill, storming the trenches andkilling the Federals by the thousand. With his rope, Demetrio lassoedthe machine guns and carried them off, like a bull herd throwing asteer. Yet his success could not last much longer, for the Federalswere far stronger in numbers and could easily have destroyed Demetrioand his men. But we took advantage of their confusion, we rushed uponthem and they soon cleared out of their position. That chief of yoursis a wonderful soldier!"

Standing on the crest of the hill, they could easily sight one side ofthe Bufa peak. Its highest crag spread out like the feathered head of aproud Aztec king. The three-hundred-foot slope was literally coveredwith dead, their hair matted, their clothes clotted with grime andblood. A host of ragged women, vultures of prey, ranged over the tepidbodies of the dead, stripping one man bare, despoiling another, robbingfrom a third his dearest possessions.

Amid clouds of white rifle smoke and the dense black vapors of flamingbuildings, houses with wide doors and windows bolted shone in thesunlight. The streets seemed to be piled upon one another, or woundpicturesquely about fantastic corners, or set to scale the hillsnearby. Above the graceful cluster of houses, rose the lithe columns ofa warehouse and the towers and cupola of the church.

"How beautiful the revolution! Even in its most barbarous aspect it isbeautiful," Solis said with deep feeling. Then a vague melancholyseized him, and speaking low:

"A pity what remains to do won't be as beautiful! We must wait a while,until there are no men left to fight on either side, until no sound ofshot rings through the air save from the mob as carrion-like it fallsupon the booty; we must wait until the psychology of our race,condensed into two words, shines clear and luminous as a drop of water:Robbery! Murder! What a colossal failure we would make of it, friend,if we, who offer our enthusiasm and lives to crush a wretched tyrant,became the builders of a monstrous edifice holding one hundred or twohundred thousand monsters of exactly the same sort. People withoutideals! A tyrant folk! Vain bloodshed!"

Large groups of Federals pushed up the hill, fleeing from the "highhats." A bullet whistled past them, singing as it sped. After hisspeech, Alberto Solis stood lost in thought, his arms crossed.Suddenly, he took fright.

"I'll be damned if I like these plaguey mosquitoes!" he said. "Let'sget away from here!"

So scornfully Luis Cervantes smiled that Solis sat down on a rock quitecalm, bewildered. He smiled. His gaze roved as he watched the spiralsof smoke from the rifles, the dust of roofs crumbling from houses asthey fell before the artillery. He believed he discerned the symbol ofthe revolution in these clouds of dust and smoke that climbed upwardtogether, met at the crest of the hill and, a moment after, werelost....

"By heaven, now I see what it all means!"

He sketched a vast gesture, pointing to the station. Locomotivesbelched huge clouds of black dense smoke rising in columns; the trainswere overloaded with fugitives who had barely managed to escape fromthe captured town.

Suddenly he felt a sharp blow in the stomach. As though his legs wereputty, he rolled off the rock. His ears buzzed... Then darkness ...silence ... eternity....

PART TWO

I

Demetrio, nonplussed, scratched his head: "Look here, don't ask me anymore questions.... You gave me the eagle I wear on my hat, didn't you?All right then; you just tell me: 'Demetrio, do this or do that,' andthat's all there is to it."

To champagne, that sparkles and foams as the beaded bubbles burst atthe brim of the glass, Demetrio preferred the native tequila, limpidand fiery.

The soldiers sat in groups about the tables in the restaurant, raggedmen, filthy with sweat, dirt and smoke, their hair matted, wild,disheveled.

"I killed two colonels," one man clamored in a guttural harsh voice. Hewas a small fat fellow, with embroidered hat and chamois coat, wearinga light purple handkerchief about his neck.

"They were so Goddamned fat they couldn't even run. By God, I wish youcould have seen them, tripping and stumbling at every step they took,climbing up the hill, red as tomatoes, their tongues hanging out likehounds. 'Don't run so fast, you lousy beggars!' I called after them.'I'm not so fond of frightened geese--stop, You bald-headed bastards: Iwon't harm you! You needn't worry!' By God, they certainly fell for it.Pop, pop! One shot for each of them, and a well-earned rest for a pairof poor sinners, be damned to them!"

"I couldn't get a single one of their generals!" said a swarthy man whosat in one corner between the wall and the bar, holding his riflebetween his outstretched legs. "I sighted one: a fellow with a hell ofa lot of gold plastered all over him. His gold chevrons shone like aGoddamned sunset. And I let him go by, fool that I was. He took off hishandkerchief and waved it. I stood there with my mouth wide open like afool! Then I ducked and he started shooting, bullet after bullet. I lethim kill a poor cargador. Then I said: 'My turn, now! Holy Virgin,Mother of God! Don't let me miss this son of a bitch.' But, by Christ,he disappeared. He was riding a hell of a fine nag; he went by me likelightning! There was another poor fool coming up the road. He got itand turned the prettiest somersault you ever saw!"

Talk flew from lip to lip, each soldier vying with his fellow,snatching the words from the other's mouth. As they declaimedpassionately, women with olive, swarthy skins, bright eyes, and teethof ivory, with revolvers at their waists, cartridge-belts across theirbreasts, and broad Mexican hats on their heads, wove their way likestray street curs in and out among groups. A vulgar wench, with rougedcheeks and dark brown arms and neck, gave a great leap and landed onthe bar near Demetrio's table.

He turned his head toward her and literally collided with a pair oflubric eyes under a narrow forehead and thick, straight hair, parted inthe middle.

The door opened wide. Anastasio, Pancracio, Quail, and Meco filed in,dazed.

Anastasio uttered a cry of surprise and stepped forward to shake handswith the little fat man wearing a charro suit and a lavender bandanna.A pair of old friends, met again. So warm was their embrace, so tightlythey clutched each other that the blood rushed to their heads, theyturned purple.

"Look here, Demetrio, I want the honor of introducing you to Blondie.He's a real friend, you know. I love him like a brother. You must getto know him, Chief, he's a man! Do you remember that damn jail atEscobedo, where we stayed together for over a year?"

Without removing his cigar from his lips, Demetrio, buried in a sullensilence amid the bustle and uproar, offered his hand and said:

"I'm delighted to meet you!"

"So your name is Demetrio Macias?" the girl asked suddenly. Seated onthe bar, she swung her legs; at every swing, the toes of her shoestouched Demetrio's back.

"Yes: I'm Demetrio Macias!" he said, scarcely turning toward her.

Indifferently, she continued to swing her legs, displaying her bluestockings with ostentation.

"Hey, War Paint, what are you doing here? Step down and have a drink!"said the man called Blondie.

The girl accepted readily and boldly thrust her way through the crowdto a chair facing Demetrio.

"So you're the famous Demetrio Macias, the hero of Zacatecas?" the girlasked.

Demetrio bowed assent, while Blondie, laughing, said:

"You're a wise one, War Paint. You want to sport a general!"

Without understanding Blondie's words, Demetrio raised his eyes tohers; they gazed at each other like two dogs sniffing one another withdistrust. Demetrio could not resist her furiously provocative glances;he was forced to lower his eyes.

From their seats, some of Natera's officers began to hurl obscenitiesat War Paint. Without paying the slightest attention, she said:

"General Natera is going to hand you out a little general's eagle. Putit here and shake on it, boy!"

She stuck out her hand at Demetrio and shook it with the strength of aman. Demetrio, melting to the congratulations raining down upon him,ordered champagne.

"I don't want no more to drink," Blondie said to the waiter, "I'mfeeling sick. Just bring me some ice water."

"I want something to eat," said Pancracio. "Bring me anything you'vegot but don't make it chili or beans!"

Officers kept coming in; presently the restaurant was crowded. Smallstars, bars, eagles and insignia of every sort or description dottedtheir hats. They wore wide silk bandannas around their necks, largediamond rings on their fingers, large heavy gold watch chains acrosstheir breasts.

"Here, waiter," Blondie cried, "I ordered ice water. And I'm notbegging for it either, see? Look at this bunch of bills. I'll buy you,your wife, and all you possess, see? Don't tell me there's none left--Idon't care a damn about that! It's up to you to find some way to get itand Goddamned quick, too. I don't like to play about; I get mad whenI'm crossed.... By God, didn't I tell you I wouldn't stand for anybackchat? You won't bring it to me, eh? Well, take this...."

A heavy blow sent the waiter reeling to the floor.

"That's the sort of man I am, General Macias! I'm clean-shaven, eh? Nota hair on my chin? Do you know why? Well, I'll tell you! You see I getmad easy as hell; and when there's nobody to pick on, I pull my hairuntil my temper passes. If I hadn't pulled my beard hair by hair, I'dhave died a long time ago from sheer anger!"

"It does you no good to go to pieces when you're angry," a man affirmedearnestly from below a hat that covered his head as a roof does ahouse. "When I was up at Torreon I killed an old lady who refused tosell me some enchiladas. She was angry, I can tell you; I got noenchiladas but I felt satisfied anyhow!"

"I killed a storekeeper at Parral because he gave me some change andthere were two Huerta bills in it," said a man with a star on his hatand precious stones on his black, calloused hands.

"Down in Chihuahua I killed a man because I always saw him sitting atthe table whenever I went to eat. I hated the looks of him so I justkilled him! What the hell could I do!"

"Hmm! I killed...."

The theme is inexhaustible.

By dawn, when the restaurant was wild with joy and the floor dottedwith spittle, young painted girls from the suburbs had mingled freelyamong the dark northern women. Demetrio pulled out his jeweled goldwatch, asking Anastasio Montanez to tell him the time.

Anastasio glanced at the watch, then, poking his head out of a smallwindow, gazed at the starry sky.

"The Pleiades are pretty low in the west. I guess it won't be long nowbefore daybreak...."

Outside the restaurant, the shouts, laughter and song of the drunkardsrang through the air. Men galloped wildly down the streets, the hoofsof their horses hammering on the sidewalks. From every quarter of thetown pistols spoke, guns belched. Demetrio and the girl called WarPaint staggered tipsily hand in hand down the center of the street,bound for the hotel.

II

"What damned fools," said War Paint convulsed with laughter! "Where thehell do you come from?..... Soldiers don't sleep in hotels and innsany more....... Where do you come from? You just go anywhere you likeand pick a house that pleases you, see. When you go there, makeyourself at home and don't ask anyone for anything. What the hell isthe use of the revolution? Who's it for? For the folks who live intowns? We're the city folk now, see? Come on, Pancracio, hand me yourbayonet. Damn these rich people, they lock up everything they've got!"

She dug the steel point through the crack of a drawer and, pressing onthe hilt, broke the lock, opened the splinted cover of a writing desk.Anastasio, Pancracio and War Paint plunged their hands into a mass ofpost cards, photographs, pictures and papers, scattering them all overthe rug. Finding nothing he wanted, Pancracio gave vent to his anger bykicking a framed photograph into the air with the toe of his shoe. Itsmashed on the candelabra in the center of the room.

They pulled their empty hands out of the heap of paper, cursing. ButWar Paint was of sterner stuff; tirelessly she continued to unlockdrawer after drawer without failing to investigate a single spot. Intheir absorption, they did not notice a small gray velvet-covered boxwhich rolled silently across the floor, coming to a stop at LuisCervantes' feet.

Demetrio, lying on the rug, seemed to be asleep; Cervantes, who hadwatched everything with profound indifference, pulled the box closer tohim with his foot, and stooping to scratch his ankle, swiftly picked itup. Something gleamed up at him, dazzling. It was two pure-waterdiamonds mounted in filigreed platinum. Hastily he thrust them insidehis coat pocket.

When Demetrio awoke, Cervantes said:

"General, look at the mess these boys have made here. Don't you thinkit would be advisable to forbid this sort of thing?"

"No. It's about their only pleasure after putting their bellies up astargets for the enemy's bullets."

"Yes, of course, General, but they could do it somewhere else. You see,this sort of thing hurts our prestige, and worse, our cause!"

Demetrio leveled his eagle eyes at Cervantes. He drummed with hisfingernails against his teeth, absent-mindedly. Then:

"Come along, now, don't blush," he said. "You can talk like that tosomeone else. We know what's mine is mine, what's yours is yours. Youpicked the box, all right; I picked my gold watch; all right too!"

His words dispelled any pretense. Both of them, in perfect harmony,displayed their booty.

War Paint and her companions were ransacking the rest of the house.Quail entered the room with a twelve-year-old girl upon whose foreheadand arms were already marked copper-colored spots. They stopped short,speechless with surprise as they saw the books lying in piles on thefloor, chairs and tables, the large mirrors thrown to the ground,smashed, the huge albums and the photographs torn into shreds, thefurniture, objets d'art and bric-a-brac broken. Quail held his breath,his avid eyes scouring the room for booty.

Outside, in one corner of the patio, lost in dense clouds ofsuffocating smoke, Manteca was boiling corn on the cob, feeding hisfire with books and paper that made the flames leap wildly through theair.

"Hey!" Quail shouted. "Look what I found. A fine sweat-cover for mymare."

With a swift pull he wrenched down a hanging, which fell over ahandsomely carved upright chair.

"Look, look at all these naked women!" Quail's little companion cried,enchanted at a de luxe edition of Dante's Divine Comedy. "I like this;I think I'll take it along."

She began to tear out the illustrations which pleased her most.

Demetrio crossed the room and sat down beside Luis Cervantes. Heordered some beer, handed one bottle up to his secretary, downed hisown bottle at one gulp. Then, drowsily, he half closed his eyes, andsoon fell sound asleep.

"Hey!" a man called to Pancracio from the threshold. "When can I seeyour general?"

"You can't see him. He's got a hangover this morning. What the hell doyou want?"

"I want to buy some of those books you're burning."

"I'll sell them to you myself."

"How much do you want for them?"

Pancracio frowned in bewilderment.

"Give me a nickel for those with pictures, see. I'll give you the restfor nothing if you buy all those with pictures."

The man returned with a large basket to carry away the books....

"Come on, Demetrio, come on, you pig, get up! Look who's here! It'sBlondie. You don't know what a fine man he is!"

"I like you very much, General Macias, and I like the way you dothings. So if it's all right, I'd like very much to serve under you!"

"What's your rank?" Demetrio asked him.

"I'm a captain, General."

"All right, you can serve with me now. I'll make you major. How's that?"

Blondie was a round little fellow, with waxed mustache. When helaughed, his blue eyes disappeared mischievously between his foreheadand his fat cheeks. He had been a waiter at "El Monico," in Chihuahua;now he proudly wore three small brass bars, the insignia of his rank inthe Northern Division.

Blondie showered eulogy after eulogy on Demetrio and his men; thisproved sufficient reason for bringing out a fresh case of beer, whichwas finished in short order.

Suddenly War Paint reappeared in the middle of the room, wearing abeautiful silk dress covered with exquisite lace.

"You forgot the stockings," Blondie shouted, shaking with laughter.Quail's girl also burst out laughing. But War Paint did not care. Sheshrugged her shoulders indifferently, sat down on the floor, kicked offher white satin slippers, and wiggled her toes happily, giving theirmuscles a freedom welcome after their tight confinement in theslippers. She said:

"Hey, you, Pancracio, go and get me my blue stockings ... they're withthe rest of my plunder."

Soldiers and their friends, companions and veterans of other campaigns,began to enter in groups of twos and threes. Demetrio, growing excited,began to narrate in detail his most notable feats of arms.

"What the hell is that noise?" he asked in surprise as he heard stringand brass instruments tuning up in the patio.

"General Demetrio Macias," Luis Cervantes said solemnly, "it's abanquet all of your old friends and followers are giving in your honorto celebrate your victory at Zacatecas and your well-merited promotionto the rank of general!"

III

"General Macias, I want you to meet my future wife," Luis Cervantessaid with great emphasis as he led a beautiful girl into the diningroom.

They all turned to look at her. Her large blue eyes grew wide inwonder. She was barely fourteen. Her skin was like a rose, soft, pink,fresh; her hair was very fair; the expression in her eyes was partlyimpish curiosity, partly a vague childish fear. Perceiving thatDemetrio eyed her like a beast of prey, Luis Cervantes congratulatedhimself.

They made room for her between Luis Cervantes and Blondie, oppositeDemetrio.

Bottles of tequila, dishes of cut glass, bowls, porcelains and vaseslay scattered over the table indiscriminately. Meco, carrying a box ofbeer upon his shoulders, came in cursing and sweating.

"You don't know this fellow Blondie yet," said War Paint, noticing thepersistent glances he was casting at Luis Cervantes' bride. "He's asmart fellow, I can tell you, and he never misses a trick." She gazedat him lecherously, adding:

"That's why I don't like to see him close, even on a photograph!"

The orchestra struck up a raucous march as though they were playing ata bullfight. The soldiers roared with joy.

"What fine tripe, General; I swear I haven't tasted the like of it inall my life," Blondie said, as he began to reminisce about "El Monico"at Chihuahua.

"You really like it, Blondie?" responded Demetrio. "Go ahead, call formore, eat your bellyful."

"It's just the way I like it," Anastasio chimed in. "Yes, I like goodfood! But nothing really tastes good to you unless you belch!"

The noise of mouths being filled, of ravenous feeding followed. Alldrank copiously. At the end of the dinner, Luis Cervantes rose, holdinga champagne glass in one hand, and said:

"General..."

"Ho!" War Paint interrupted. "This speech-making business isn't for me;I'm all against it. I'll go out to the corral since there's no moreeating here."

Presenting Demetrio with a black velvet-covered box containing a smallbrass eagle, Luis Cervantes made a toast which no one understood buteveryone applauded enthusiastically. Demetrio took the insignia in hishands; and with flushed face, and eyes shining, declared with greatcandor:

"What in hell am I going to do with this buzzard!"

"Compadre," Anastasio Montanez said in a tremulous voice. "I ain't gotmuch to tell you...."

Whole minutes elapsed between his words; the cursed words would notcome to Anastasio. His face, coated with filth, unwashed for days,turned crimson, shining with perspiration. Finally he decided to finishhis toast at all costs. "Well, I ain't got much to tell you, exceptthat we are pals...."

Then, since everyone had applauded at the end of Luis Cervantes'speech, Anastasio having finished, made a sign, and the company clappedtheir hands in great gravity.

But everything turned out for the best, since his awkwardness inspiredothers. Manteca and Quail stood up and made their toasts, too. WhenMeco's turn came, War Paint rushed in shouting jubilantly, attemptingto drag a splendid black horse into the dining room.

"My booty! My booty!" she cried, patting the superb animal on the neck.It resisted every effort she made until a strong jerk of the rope and asudden lash brought it in prancing smartly. The soldiers, half drunk,stared at the beast with ill-disguised envy.

"I don't know what the hell this she-devil's got, but she always beatseverybody to it," cried Blondie. "She's been the same ever since shejoined us at Tierra Blanca!"

"Hey, Pancracio, bring me some alfalfa for my horse," War Paintcommanded crisply, throwing the horse's rope to one of the soldiers.

Once more they filled their glasses. Many a head hung low with fatigueor drunkenness. Most of the company, however, shouted with glee,including Luis Cervantes' girl. She had spilled all her wine on ahandkerchief and looked all about her with blue wondering eyes.

"Boys," Blondie suddenly screamed, his shrill, guttural voicedominating the mall, "I'm tired of living; I feel like killing myselfright now. I'm sick and tired of War Paint and this other little angelfrom heaven won't even look at me!"

Luis Cervantes saw that the last remark was addressed to his bride;with great surprise he realized that it was not Demetrio's foot he hadnoticed close to the girl's, but Blondie's. He was boiling withindignation.

"Keep your eye on me, boys," Blondie went on, gun in hand. "I'm goingto shoot myself right in the forehead!"

He aimed at the large mirror on the opposite wall which gave back hiswhole body in reflection. He took careful aim....

"Don't move, War Paint."

The bullet whizzed by, grazing War Paint's hair. The mirror broke intolarge jagged fragments. She did not even so much as blink.

IV

Late in the afternoon Luis Cervantes rubbed his eyes and sat up. He hadbeen sleeping on the hard pavement, close to the trunk of a fruit tree.Anastasio, Pancracio and Quail slept nearby, breathing heavily.

His lips were swollen, his nose dry and cold. There were bloodstains onhis hands and shirt. At once he recalled what had taken place. Soon herose to his feet and made for one of the bedrooms. He pushed at thedoor several times without being able to force it open. For a fewminutes he stood there, hesitating.

No--he had not dreamed it. Everything had really occurred just as herecalled it. He had left the table with his bride and taken her to thebedroom, but just as he was closing the door, Demetrio staggered afterthem and made one leap toward them. Then War Paint dashed in afterDemetrio and began to struggle with him. Demetrio, his eyes white-hot,his lips covered with long blond hairs, looked for the bride, indespair. But War Paint pushed him back vigorously.

"What the hell is the matter with you? What the hell are you trying todo?" he demanded, furious.

War Paint put her leg between his, twisted it suddenly, and Demetriofell to the ground outside of the bedroom. He rose, raging.

"Help! Help! He's going to kill me!" she cried, seizing Demetrio'swrist and turning the gun aside. The bullet hit the floor. War Paintcontinued to shriek. Anastasio disarmed Demetrio from behind.

Demetrio, standing like a furious bull in the middle of the arena, castfierce glances at all the bystanders, Luis Cervantes, Anastasio,Manteca, and the others.

"Goddamn you! You've taken my gun away! Christ! As if I needed any gunto beat the hell out of you."

Flinging out his arms, beating and pummeling, he felled everyone withinreach. Down they rolled like tenpins. Then, after that, Luis Cervantescould remember nothing more. Perhaps his bride, terrified by all thesebrutes, had wisely vanished and hidden herself.

"Perhaps this bedroom communicates with the living room and I can go inthrough there," he thought, standing at the threshold. At the sound ofhis footsteps, War Paint woke up. She lay on the rug close to Demetrioat the foot of a couch filled with alfalfa and corn where the blackhorse had fed.

"What are you looking for? Oh, hell, I know what you want! Shame onyou! Why, I had to lock up your sweetheart because I couldn't struggleany more against this damned Demetrio. Take the key, it's lying on thattable, there!"

Luis Cervantes searched in vain all over the house.

"Come on, tell me all about your girl."

Nervously, Luis Cervantes continued to look for the key.

"Come on, don't be in such a hurry, I'll give it to you. Come along,tell me; I like to hear about these things, you know. That girl is yourkind, she's not a country person like us."

"I've nothing to say. She's my girl and we're going to get married,that's all."

"Ho! Ho! Ho! You're going to marry her, eh? Trying to teach yourgrandmother to suck eggs, eh? Why, you fool, any place you just manageto get to for the first time in your life, I've left a hundred milesbehind me, see. I've cut my wisdom teeth. It was Meco and Manteca whotook the girl from her home: I knew that all the time. You just gavethem something so as to have her yourself, gave them a pair of cufflinks ... or a miraculous picture of some Virgin.... Am I right? Sure,I am! There aren't so many people in the world who know what's what,but I reckon you'll meet up with a few before you die!"

War Paint got up to give him the key but she could not find it either.She was much surprised. Quickly, she ran to the bedroom door and peeredthrough the keyhole, standing motionless until her eye grew accustomedto the darkness within. Without drawing away, she said: "You damnedBlondie. Son of a bitch! Come here a minute, look!"

She went away laughing.

"Didn't I tell them all I'd never seen a smarter fellow in all my life!"

The following morning, War Paint watched for the moment when Blondieleft the bedroom to feed his horses....

"Come on, Angel Face. Run home quick!"

The blue-eyed girl, with a face like a Madonna, stood naked save forher chemise and stockings. War Paint covered her with Manteca's lousyblanket, took her by the hand and led her to the street.

"God, I'm happy," War Paint cried. "I'm crazy ... about Blondie ...now."

V

Like neighing colts, playful when the rainy season begins, Demetrio'smen galloped through the sierra.

"To Moyahua, boys. Let's go to Demetrio Macias' country!"

"To the country of Monico the cacique!"

The landscape grew clearer; the sun margined the diaphanous sky with afringe of crimson. Like the bony shoulders of immense sleepingmonsters, the chains of mountains rose in the distance. Crags therewere like heads of colossal native idols; others like giants' faces,their grimaces awe-inspiring or grotesque, calling forth a smile or ashudder at a presentment of mystery.

Demetrio Macias rode at the head of his men; behind him the members ofhis staff: Colonel Anastasio Montanez, Lieutenant-Colonel Pancracio,Majors Luis Cervantes and Blondie. Still further behind came War Paintwith Venancio, who paid her many compliments and recited the despairingverses of Antonio Plaza. As the sun's rays began to slip from thehousetops, they made their entrance into Moyahua, four abreast, to thesound of the bugle. The roosters' chorus was deafening, dogs barkedtheir alarm, but not a living soul stirred on the streets.

War Paint spurred her black horse and with one jump was abreast withDemetrio. They rode forward, elbow to elbow. She wore a silk dress andheavy gold earrings. Proudly her pale blue gown deepened her olive skinand the coppery spots on her face and arms. Riding astride, she hadpulled her skirts up to her knees; her stockings showed, filthy andfull of runs. She wore a gun at her side, a cartridge belt hung overthe pommel of her saddle.

Demetrio was also dressed in his best clothes. His broad-brimmed hatwas richly embroidered; his leather trousers were tight-fitting andadorned with silver buttons; his coat was embroidered with gold thread.

There was a sound of doors being beaten down and forced open. Thesoldiers had already scattered through the town, to gather togetherammunition and saddles from everywhere.

"We're going to bid Monico good morning," Demetrio said gravely,dismounting and tossing his bridle to one of his men. "We're going tohave breakfast with Don Monico, who's a particular friend of mine ...."

The general's staff smiled ... a sinister, malign smile....

Making their spurs ring against the pavement, they walked toward alarge pretentious house, obviously that of a cacique.

"It's closed airtight," Anastasio Montanez said, pushing the door withall his might.

"That's all right. I'll open it," Pancracio answered, lowering hisrifle and pointing it at the lock.

"No, no," Demetrio said, "knock first."

Three blows with the butt of the rifle. Three more. No answer.Pancracio disobeys orders. He fires, smashing the lock. The door opens.Behind, a confusion of skirts and children's bare legs rushing to andfro, pell-mell.

"I want wine. Hey, there: wine!" Demetrio cries in an imperious voice,pounding heavily on a table.

"Sit down, boys."

A lady peeps out, another, a third; from among black skirts, the headsof frightened children. One of the women, trembling, walks toward acupboard and, taking out some glasses and a bottle, serves wine.

"What arms have you?" Demetrio demands harshly.

"Arms, arms...?" the lady answers, a taste of ashes on her tongue."What arms do you expect us to have! We are respectable, lonely oldladies!"

"Lonely, eh! Where's Senor Monico?"

"Oh, he's not here, gentlemen, I assure you! We merely rent the housefrom him, you see. We only know him by name!"

Demetrio orders his men to search the house.

"No, please don't. We'll bring you whatever we have ourselves, butplease for God's sake, don't do anything cruel. We're spinsters, lonewomen ... perfectly respectable...."

"Spinsters, hell! What about these kids here?" Pancracio interruptsbrutally. "Did they spring from the earth?"

The women disappear hurriedly, to return with an old shotgun, coveredwith dust and cobwebs, and a pistol with rusty broken springs.

Demetrio smiles.

"All right, then, let's see the money."

"Money? Money? But what money do you think a couple of spinsters have?Spinsters alone in the world....?"

They glance up in supplication at the nearest soldier; but they areseized with horror. For they have just seen the Roman soldier whocrucified Our Lord in the Via Crucis of the parish! They have seenPancracio!

Demetrio repeats his order to search.

Once again the women disappear to return this time with a moth-eatenwallet containing a few Huerta bills.

Demetrio smiles and without further delay calls to his men to come in.Like hungry dogs who have sniffed their meat, the mob bursts in,trampling down the women who sought to bar the entrance with theirbodies. Several faint, fall to the ground; others flee in panic. Thechildren scream.

Pancracio is about to break the lock of a huge wardrobe when suddenlythe doors open and out comes a man with a rifle in his hands.

"Senor Don Monico!" they all exclaim in surprise.

"Demetrio, please, don't harm me! Please don't harm me! Please don'thurt me! You know, Senor Don Demetrio, I'm your friend!"

Demetrio Macias smiles slyly. "Are friends," he asked, "usuallywelcomed gun in hand?"

Don Monico, in consternation, throws himself at Demetrio's feet, claspshis knees, kisses his shoes: "My wife! ... My children! ... Please,Senor Don Demetrio, my friend!"

Demetrio with taut hand puts his gun back in the holster.

A painful silhouette crosses his mind. He sees a woman with a child inher arms walking over the rocks of the sierra in the moonlight. A housein flames....

"Clear out. Everybody outside!" he orders darkly.

His staff obeys. Monico and the ladies kiss his hands, weeping withgratitude. The mob in the street, talking and laughing, stands waitingfor the general's permission to ransack the cacique's house.

"I know where they've buried their money but I won't tell," says ayoungster with a basket in his hands.

"Hm! I know the right place, mind you," says an old woman carrying aburlap sack to hold whatever the good Lord will provide. "It's on topof something ... there's a lot of trinkets nearby and then there's asmall bag with mother-of-pearl around it. That's the thing to look for!"

"You ain't talking sense, woman," puts in a man. "They ain't such foolsas to leave silver lying loose like that. I'm thinking they've got itburied in the well, in a leather bag."

The mob moves slowly; some carry ropes to tie about their bundles,others wooden trays. The women open out their aprons or shawlscalculating their capacity. All give thanks to Divine Providence asthey wait for their share of the booty.

When Demetrio announces that he will not allow looting and orders themto disband, the mob, disconsolate, obeys him, and soon scatters; butthere is a dull rumor among the soldiers and no one moves from hisplace.

Annoyed, Demetrio repeats this order.

A young man, a recent recruit, his head turned by drink, laughs andwalks boldly toward the door. But before he has reached the threshold,a shot lays him low. He falls like a bull pierced in the neck by thematador's sword. Motionless, his smoking gun in his hand, Demetriowaits for the soldiers to withdraw.

"Set fire to the house!" he orders Luis Cervantes when they reach theirquarters.

With a curious eagerness Luis Cervantes does not transmit the order butundertakes the task in person.

Two hours later when the city square was black with smoke and enormoustongues of fire rose from Monico's house, no one could account for thestrange behavior of the general.

VI

They established themselves in a large gloomy house, which likewisebelonged to the cacique of Moyahua. The previous occupants had alreadyleft strong evidences in the patio, which had been converted into amanure pile. The walls, once whitewashed, were now faded and cracked,revealing the bare unbaked adobe; the floor had been torn up by thehoofs of animals; the orchard was littered with rotted branches anddead leaves. From the entrance one stumbled over broken bits of chairsand other furniture covered with dirt.

By ten o'clock, Luis Cervantes yawned with boredom, said good night toBlondie and War Paint, who were downing endless drinks on a bench inthe square, and made for the barracks. The drawing room was alonefurnished. As he entered, Demetrio, lying on the floor with his eyeswide open, trying to count the beams, gazed at him.

"It's you, eh? What's new? Come on, sit down."

Luis Cervantes first went over to trim the candle, then drew up a chairwithout a back, a coarse rag doing the duty of a wicker bottom. Thelegs of the chair squeaked. War Paint's black horse snorted and whirledits crupper in wide circles. Luis Cervantes sank into his seat.

"General, I wish to make my report. Here you have ..."

"Look here, man, I didn't really want this done, you know. Moyahua isalmost like my native town. They'll say this is why we've beenfighting!" Demetrio said, looking at the bulging sack of silverCervantes was passing to him. Cervantes left his seat to squat down byDemetrio's side.

He stretched a blanket over the floor and into it poured the ten-pesopieces, shining, burning gold.

"First of all, General, only you and I know about this.... Secondly,you know well enough that if the sun shines, you should open thewindow. It's shining in our faces now but what about tomorrow? Youshould always look ahead. A bullet, a bolting horse, even a wretchedcold in the head, and then there are a widow and orphans left inabsolute want! ... The Government? Ha! Ha! ... Just go see Carranza orVilla or any of the big chiefs and try and tell them about yourfamily.... If they answer with a kick you know where, they'll saythey're giving you a handful of jewels. And they're right; we did notrise up in arms to make some Carranza or Villa President of ourRepublic. No--we fought to defend the sacred rights of the peopleagainst the tyranny of some vile cacique. And so, just as Villa orCarranza aren't going to ask our consent to the payment they're gettingfor the services they're rendering the country, we for our part don'thave to ask anybody's permission about anything either."

Demetrio half stood up, grasped a bottle that stood nearby, drained it,then spat out the liquor, swelling out his cheeks.

"By God, my boy, you've certainly got the gift of gab!"

Luis felt dizzy, faint. The spattered beer seemed to intensify thestench of the refuse on which they sat; a carpet of orange and bananapeels, fleshlike slices of watermelon, moldy masses of mangoes andsugarcane, all mixed up with cornhusks from tamales and human offal.

Demetrio's calloused hands shuffled through the brilliant coins,counting and counting. Recovering from his nausea, Luis Cervantespulled out a small box of Fallieres phosphate and poured forth rings,brooches, pendants, and countless valuable jewels.

"Look here, General, if this mess doesn't blow over (and it doesn'tlook as though it would), if the revolution keeps on, there's enoughhere already for us to live on abroad quite comfortably."

Demetrio shook his bead.

"You wouldn't do that!"

"Why not? What are we staying on for? ... What cause are we defendingnow?"

"That's something I can't explain, Tenderfoot. But I'm thinking itwouldn't show much guts."

"Take your choice, General," said Luis Cervantes, pointing to thejewels which he had set in a row.

"Oh, you keep it all.... Certainly! ... You know, I don't really carefor money at all. I'll tell you the truth! I'm the happiest man in theworld, so long as there's always something to drink and a nice littlewench that catches my eye...."

"Ha! Ha! You make the funniest jokes, General. Why do you stand forthat snake of a War Paint, then?"

"I'll tell you, Tenderfoot, I'm fed up with her. But I'm like that: Ijust can't tell her so. I'm not brave enough to tell her to go plumb tohell. That's the way I am, see? When I like a woman, I get plain silly;and if she doesn't start something, I've not got the courage to doanything myself." He sighed. "There's Camilla at the ranch forinstance.... Now, she's not much on looks, I know, but there's a womanI'd like to have......."

"Well, General, we'll go and get her any day you like."

Demetrio winked maliciously.

"I promise you I'll do it."

"Are you sure? Do you really mean it? Look here, if you pull that offfor me, I'll give you the watch and chain you're hankering after."

Luis Cervantes' eyes shone. He took the phosphate box, heavy with itscontents, and stood up smiling.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he said. "Good night, General! Sleep well."

VII

"I don't know any more about it than you do. The General told me,'Quail, saddle your horse and my black mare and follow Cervantes; he'sgoing on an errand for me.' Well, that's what happened. We left here atnoon, and reached the ranch early that evening. One-eyed Maria Antoniatook us in.... She asked after you, Pancracio. Next morning LuisCervantes wakes me up. 'Quail, Quail, saddle the horses. Leave me minebut take the General's mare back to Moyahua. I'll catch up after abit.' The sun was high when he arrived with Camilla. She got off and westuck her on the General's mare."

"Well, and her? What sort of a face did she make coming back?" one ofthe men inquired.

"Hum! She was so damned happy she was gabbing all the way."

"And the tenderfoot?"

"Just as quiet as he always is, you know him."

"I think," Venancio expressed his opinion with great seriousness, "thatif Camilla woke up in the General's bed, it was just a mistake. Wedrank a lot, remember! That alcohol went to our heads; we must havelost our senses."

"What the hell do you mean: alcohol! It was all cooked up betweenCervantes and the General."

"Certainly! That city dude's nothing but a ..."

"I don't like to talk about friends behind their backs," said Blondie,"but I can tell you this: one of the two sweethearts he had, one wasmine, and the other was for the General."

They burst into guffaws of laughter.

When War Paint realized what had happened, she sought out Camilla andspoke with great affection:

"Poor little child! Tell me how all this happened."

Camilla's eyes were red from weeping.

"He lied to me! He lied! He came to the ranch and he told me, 'Camilla,I came just to get you. Do you want to go away with me?' You can besure I wanted to go with him; when it comes to loving, I adore him.Yes, I adore him. Look how thin I've grown just pining away for him.Mornings I used to loathe to grind corn, Mamma would call me to eat,and anything I put in my mouth had no taste at all."

Once more she burst into tears, stuffing the corner of her apron intoher mouth to drown her sobs.

"Look here, I'll help you out of this mess. Don't be silly, child,don't cry. Don't think about the dude any more! Honest to God, he's notworth it. You surely know his game, dear? ... That's the only reasonwhy the General stands for him. What a goose! ... All right, you wantto go back home?"

"The Holy Virgin protect me. My mother would beat me to death!"

"She'll do nothing of the sort. You and I can fix things. Listen! Thesoldiers are leaving any moment now. When Demetrio tells you to getready, you tell him you feel pains all over your body as though someonehad hit you; then you lie down and start yawning and shivering. Thenput your hand on your forehead and say, 'I'm burning up with fever.'I'll tell Demetrio to leave us both here, that I'll stay to take careof you, that as soon as you're feeling all right again, we'll catch upwith them. But instead of that, I'll see that you get home safe andsound."

VIII

The sun had set, the town was lost in the drab melancholy of itsancient streets amid the frightened silence of its inhabitants, who hadretired very early, when Luis Cervantes reached Primitivo's generalstore, his arrival interrupting a party that promised great doings.

Demetrio was engaged in getting drunk with his old comrades. The entirespace before the bar was occupied. War Paint and Blondie had tied uptheir horses outside; but the other officers had stormed in brutally,horses and all. Embroidered hats with enormous and concave brims bobbedup and down everywhere. The horses wheeled about, prancing; tossingtheir restive heads; their fine breed showing in their black eyes,their small ears and dilating nostrils. Over the infernal din of thedrunkards, the heavy breathing of the horses, the stamp of their hoofson the tiled floor, and occasionally a quick, nervous whinny rang out.

A trivial episode was being commented upon when Luis Cervantes came in.A man, dressed in civilian clothes, with a round, black, bloody hole inhis forehead, lay stretched out in the middle of the street, his mouthgaping. Opinion was at first divided but finally all concurred withBlondie's sound reasoning. The poor dead devil lying out there was thechurch sexton.... But what an idiot! His own fault, of course! Who inthe name of hell could be so foolish as to dress like a city dude, withtrousers, coat, cap, and all? Pancracio simply could not bear the sightof a city man in front of him! And that was that!

Eight musicians, playing wind instruments, interrupted their labors atCervantes' command. Their faces were round and red as suns, their eyespopping, for they had been blowing on their brass instruments sincedawn.

"General," Luis said pushing his way through the men on horseback, "amessenger has arrived with orders to proceed immediately to the pursuitand capture of Orozco and his men."

Faces that had been dark and gloomy were now illumined with joy.

"To Jalisco, boys!" cried Blondie, pounding on the counter.

"Make ready, all you darling Jalisco girls of my heart, for I'm comingalong too!" Quail shouted, twisting back the brim of his hat.

The enthusiasm and rejoicing were general. Demetrio's friends, in theexcitement of drunkenness, offered their services. Demetrio was sohappy that he could scarcely speak. They were going to fight Orozco andhis men! At last, they would pit themselves against real men! At lastthey would stop shooting down the Federals like so many rabbits or wildturkeys.

"If I could get hold of Orozco alive," Blondie said, "I'd rip off thesoles of his feet and make him walk twenty-four hours over the sierra!"

"Was that the guy who killed Madero?" asked Meco.

"No," Blondie replied solemnly, "but once when I was a waiter at 'ElMonico,' up in Chihuahua, he hit me in the face!"

"Give Camilla the roan mare," Demetrio ordered Pancracio, who wasalready saddling the horses.

"Camilla can't go!" said War Paint promptly.

"Who in hell asked for your opinion?" Demetrio retorted angrily.

"It's true, isn't it, Camilla? You were sore all over, weren't you? Andyou've got a fever right now?"

"Well--anything Demetrio says."

"Don't be a fool! say 'No,' come on, say 'No,"' War Paint whisperednervously into Camilla's ear.

"I'll tell you, War Paint.... It's funny, but I'm beginning to fall forhim.... Would you believe it!" Camilla whispered back.

War Paint turned purple, her cheeks swelled. Without a word she wentout to get her horse that Blondie was saddling.

IX

A whirlwind of dust, scorching down the road, suddenly broke intoviolent diffuse masses; and Demetrio's army emerged, a chaos of horses,broad chests, tangled manes, dilated nostrils, oval, wide eyes, hoofsflying in the air, legs stiffened from endless galloping; and of menwith bronze faces, ivory teeth, and flashing eyes, their rifles intheir hands or slung across the saddles.

Demetrio and Camilla brought up the rear. She was still nervous,white-lipped and parched; he was angry at their futile maneuver. Forthere had been battles, no followers of Orozco's to be seen. A handfulof Federals, routed. A poor devil of a priest left dangling from amesquite; a few dead, scattered over the field, who had once beenunited under the archaic slogan, RIGHTS AND RELIGION, with, on theirbreasts, the red cloth insignia: Halt! The Sacred Heart of Jesus iswith me!

"One good thing about it is that I've collected all my back pay," Quailsaid, exhibiting some gold watches and rings stolen from the priest'shouse.

"It's fun fighting this way," Manteca cried, spicing every other wordwith an oath. "You know why the hell you're risking your hide."

In the same hand with which he held the reins, he clutched a shiningornament that he had torn from one of the holy statues.

After Quail, an expert in such matters, had examined Manteca's treasurecovetously, he uttered a solemn guffaw.

"Hell, Your ornament is nothing but tin!"

"Why in hell are you hanging on to that poison?" Pancracio askedBlondie who appeared dragging a prisoner.

"Do you want to know why? Because it's a long time since I've had agood look at a man's face when a rope tightens around his neck!"

The fat prisoner breathed with difficulty as he followed Blondie onfoot; his face was sunburnt, his eyes red; his forehead beaded withsweat, his wrists tightly bound together.

"Here, Anastasio, lend me your lasso. Mine's not strong enough; thisbird will bust it. No, by God, I've changed my mind, friend Federal:think I'll kill you on the spot, because you are pulling too hard.Look, all the mesquites are still a long way off and there are notelegraph poles to hang you to!"

Blondie pulled his gun out, pressed the muzzle against the prisoner'schest and brought his finger against the trigger slowly ... slowly....The prisoner turned pale as a corpse; his face lengthened; his eyelidswere fixed in a glassy stare. He breathed in agony, his whole bodyshook as with ague. Blondie kept his gun in the same position for amoment long as all eternity. His eyes shone queerly. An expression ofsupreme pleasure lit up his fat puffy face.

"No, friend Federal," he drawled, putting back his gun into theholster; "I'm not going to kill you just yet.... I'll make you myorderly. You'll see that I'm not so hardhearted!"

Slyly he winked at his companions. The prisoner had turned into ananimal; he gulped, panting, dry-mouthed. Camilla, who had witnessed thescene, spurred her horse and caught up with Demetrio.

"What a brute that Blondie is: you ought to see what he did to awretched prisoner," she said. Then she told Demetrio what had occurred.The latter wrinkled his brow but made no answer.

War Paint called Camilla aside.

"Hey you ... what are you gobbling about? Blondie's my man, understand?From now on, you know how things are: whatever you've got against himyou've got against me too! I'm warning you."

Camilla, frightened, hurried back to Demetrio's side.

X

The men camped in a meadow, near three small lone houses standing in arow, their white walls cutting the purple fringe of the horizon.Demetrio and Camilla rode toward them. Inside the corral a man, clad inshirt and trousers of cheap white cloth, sat greedily puffing at acornhusk cigarette. Another man sitting beside him on a flat cut stonewas shelling corn. Kicking the air with one dry, withered leg, theextremity of which was like a goat's hoof, he frightened the chickensaway.

"Hurry up, 'Pifanio," said the man who was smoking, "the sun has gonedown already and you haven't taken the animals to water."

A horse neighed outside the corral; both men glanced up in amazement.Demetrio and Camilla were looking over the corral wall at them.

"I just want a place to sleep for my woman and me," Demetrio saidreassuringly.

As he explained that he was the chief of a small army which was to campnearby that night, the man smoking, who owned the place, bid them enterwith great deference. He ran to fetch a broom and a pail of water todust and wash the best corner of the hut as decent lodging for hisdistinguished guests.

"Here, 'Pifanio, go out there and unsaddle the horses."

The man who was shelling corn stood up with an effort. He was clad in atattered shirt and vest. His torn trousers, split at the seam, lookedlike the wings of a cold, stricken bird; two strings of cloth dangledfrom his waist. As he walked, he described grotesque circles.

"Surely you're not fit to do any work!" Demetrio said, refusing toallow him to touch the saddles.

"Poor man," the owner cried from within the hut, "he's lost all hisstrength.... But he surely works for his pay.... He starts working theminute God Almighty himself gets up, and it's after sundown now buthe's working still!"

Demetrio went out with Camilla for a stroll about the encampment. Themeadow, golden, furrowed, stripped even of the smallest bushes,extended limitless in its immense desolation. The three tall ash treeswhich stood in front of the small house, with dark green crests, roundand waving, with rich foliage and branches drooping to the very ground,seemed a veritable miracle.

"I don't know why but I feel there's a lot of sadness around here,"said Demetrio.

"Yes," Camilla answered, "I feel that way too."

On the bank of a small stream, 'Pifanio was strenuously tugging at arope with a large can tied to the end of it. He poured a stream ofwater over a heap of fresh, cool grass; in the twilight, the waterglimmered like crystal. A thin cow, a scrawny nag, and a burro dranknoisily together.

Demetrio recognized the limping servant and asked him: "How much do youget a day?"

"Eight cents a day, boss."

He was an insignificant, scrofulous wraith of a man with green eyes andstraight, fair hair. He whined complaint of his boss, the ranch, hisbad luck, his dog's life.

"You certainly earn your pay all right, my lad," Demetrio interruptedkindly. "You complain and complain, but you aren't no loafer, you workand work." Then, aside to Camilla: "There's always more damned fools inthe valley than among us folk in the sierra, don't you think?"

"Of course!" she replied.

They went on. The valley was lost in darkness; stars came out. Demetrioput his arm around Camilla's waist amorously and whispered in her ear.

"Yes," she answered in a faint voice.

She was indeed beginning to "fall for him" as she had expressed it.

Demetrio slept badly. He flung out of the house very early.

"Something is going to happen to me," he thought.

It was a silent dawn, with faint murmurs of joy. A thrush sang timidlyin one of the ash trees. The animals in the corral trampled on therefuse. The pig grunted its somnolence. The orange tints of the sunstreaked the sky; the last star flickered out.

Demetrio walked slowly to the encampment.

He was thinking of his plow, his two black oxen--young beasts theywere, who had worked in the fields only two years--of his two acres ofwell-fertilized corn. The face of his young wife came to his mind,clear and true as life: he saw her strong, soft features, so graciouswhen she smiled on her husband, so proudly fierce toward strangers. Butwhen he tried to conjure up the image of his son, his efforts werevain; he had forgotten....

He reached the camp. Lying among the farrows, the soldiers slept withthe horses, heads bowed, eyes closed.

"Our horses are pretty tired, Anastasio. I think we ought to stay hereat least another day."

"Well, Compadre Demetrio, I'm hankering for the sierra.... If you onlyknew.... You may not believe me but nothing strikes me right here. Idon't know what I miss but I know I miss something. I feel sad ...lost...."

"How many hours' ride from here to Limon?"

"It's no matter of hours; it's three days' hard riding, Demetrio."

"You know," Demetrio said softly, "I feel as though I'd like to see mywife again!"

Shortly after, War Paint sought out Camilla.

"That's one on you, my dear.... Demetrio's going to leave you flat! Hetold me so himself; 'I'm going to get my real woman,' he says, and hesays, 'Her skin is white and tender ... and her rosy cheeks.... Howbeautiful she is!' But you don't have to leave him, you know; if you'reset on staying, well--they've got a child, you know, and I suppose youcould drag it around...."

When Demetrio returned, Camilla, weeping, told him everything.

"Don't pay no attention to that crazy baggage. It's all lies, lies!"

Since Demetrio did not go to Limon or remember his wife again, Camillagrew very happy. War Paint had merely stung herself, like a scorpion.

XI

Before dawn, they left for Tepatitlan. Their silhouettes waveredindistinctly over the road and the fields that bordered it, rising andfalling with the monotonous, rhythmical gait of their horses, thenfaded away in the nacreous light of the swooning moon that bathed thevalley. Dogs barked in the distance.

"By noon we'll reach Tepatitlan, Cuquio tomorrow, and then ... on tothe sierra!" Demetrio said.

"Don't you think it advisable to go to Aguascalientes first, General?"Luis Cervantes asked.

"What for?"

"Our funds are melting slowly."

"Nonsense ... forty thousand pesos in eight days!"

"Well, you see, just this week we recruited over five hundred new men;all the money's gone in advance loans and gratuities," Luis Cervantesanswered in a low voice.

"No! We'll go straight to the sierra. We'll see later on."

"Yes, to the sierra!" many of the men shouted.

"To the sierra! To the sierra! Hurrah for the mountains!"

The plains seemed to torture them; they spoke with enthusiasm, almostwith delirium, of the sierra. They thought of the mountains as of amost desirable mistress long since unvisited.

Dawn broke behind a cloud of fine reddish dust; the sun rose an immensecurtain of fiery purple. Luis Cervantes pulled his reins and waited forQuail. "What's the last word on our deal, Quail?"

"I told you, Tenderfoot: two hundred for the watch alone."

"No! I'll buy the lot: watches, rings, everything else. How much?"

Quail hesitated, turned slightly pale; then he cried spiritedly:

"Two thousand in bills, for the whole business!"

Luis Cervantes gave himself away. His eyes shone with such an obviousgreed that Quail recanted and said:

"Oh, I was just fooling you. I won't sell nothing! Just the watch, see?And that's only because I owe Pancracio two hundred. He beat me atcards last night!"

Luis Cervantes pulled out four crisp "double-face" bills of Villa'sissue and placed them in Quail's hands.

"I'd like to buy the lot.... Besides, nobody will offer you more thanthat!"

As the sun began to beat down upon them, Manteca suddenly shouted:

"Ho, Blondie, your orderly says he doesn't care to go on living. Hesays he's too damned tired to walk."

The prisoner had fallen in the middle of the road, utterly exhausted.

"Well, well!" Blondie shouted, retracing his steps. "So little mama'sboy is tired, eh? Poor little fellow. I'll buy a glass case and keepyou in a corner of my house just as if you were the Virgin Mary's ownlittle son. You've got to reach home first, see? So I'll help you alittle, sonny!"

He drew his sword out and struck the prisoner several times.

"Let's have a look at your rope, Pancracio," he said. There was astrange gleam in his eyes. Quail observed that the prisoner no longermoved arm or leg. Blondie burst into a loud guffaw: "The Goddamnedfool. Just as I was learning him to do without food, too!"

"Well, mate, we're almost to Guadalajara," Venancio said, glancing overthe smiling row of houses in Tepatitlan nestling against the hillside.

They entered joyously. From every window rosy cheeks, dark luminouseyes observed them. The schools were quickly converted into barracks;Demetrio found lodging in the chapel of an abandoned church.

The soldiers scattered about as usual pretending to seek arms andhorses, but in reality for the sole purpose of looting.

In the afternoon some of Demetrio's men lay stretched out on the churchsteps, scratching their bellies. Venancio, his chest and shouldersbare, was gravely occupied in killing the fleas in his shirt. A mandrew near the wall and sought permission to speak to the commander. Thesoldiers raised their heads; but no one answered.

"I'm a widower, gentlemen. I've got nine children and I barely make aliving with the sweat of my brow. Don't be hard on a poor widower!"

"Don't you worry about women, Uncle," said Meco, who was rubbing hisfeet with tallow, "we've got War Paint here with us; you can have herfor nothing."

The man smiled bitterly.

"She's only got one fault," Pancracio observed, stretched out on theground, staring at the blue sky, "she goes mad over any man she sees."

They laughed loudly; but Venancio with utmost gravity pointed to thechapel door. The stranger entered timidly and confided his troubles toDemetrio. The soldiers had cleaned him out; they had not left a singlegrain of corn.

"Why did you let them?" Demetrio asked indolently.

The man persisted, lamenting and weeping. Luis Cervantes was about tothrow him out with an insult. But Camilla intervened.

"Come on, Demetrio, don't be harsh, give him an order to get his cornback."

Luis Cervantes was obliged to obey; he scrawled a few lines to whichDemetrio appended an illegible scratch.

"May God repay you, my child! God will lead you to heaven that you mayenjoy his glory. Ten bushels of corn are barely enough for this year'sfood!" the man cried, weeping for gratitude. Then he took the paper,kissed everybody's hand, and withdrew.

XII

They had almost reached Cuquio, when Anastasio Montanez rode up toDemetrio: "Listen, Compadre, I almost forgot to tell you.... You oughtto have seen the wonderful joke that man Blondie played. You know whathe did with the old man who came to complain about the corn we'd takenaway for horses? Well, the old man took the paper and went to thebarracks. 'Right you are, brother, come in,' said Blondie, 'come in,come in here; to give you back what's yours is only the right thing todo. How many bushels did we steal? Ten? Sure it wasn't more than ten?... That's right, about fifteen, eh? Or was it twenty, perhaps? ... Tryand remember, friend.... Of course you're a poor man, aren't you, andyou've a lot of kids to raise.... Yes, twenty it was. All right, now!It's not ten or fifteen or twenty I'm going to give you. You're goingto count for yourself.... One, two, three ... and when you've hadenough you just tell me and I'll stop.' And Blondie pulled out hissword and beat him till he cried for mercy."

War Paint rocked in her saddle, convulsed with mirth. Camilla, unableto control herself, blurted out:

"The beast! His heart's rotten to the core! No wonder I loathe him!"

At once War Paint's expression changed.

"What the hell is it to you!" she scowled. Camilla, frightened, spurredher horse forward. War Paint did likewise and, as she trotted pastCamilla, suddenly she reached out, seized the other's hair and pulledwith all her might. Camilla's horse shied; Camilla, trying to brush herhair back from over her eyes, abandoned the reins. She hesitated, losther balance and fell in the road, striking her forehead against thestones.

War Paint, weeping with laughter, pressed on with utmost skill andcaught Camilla's horse.

"Come on, Tenderfoot; here's a job for you," Pancracio said as he sawCamilla on Demetrio's saddle, her face covered with blood.

Luis Cervantes hurried toward her with some cotton; but Camilla,choking down her sobs and wiping her eyes, said hoarsely:

"Not from you! If I was dying, I wouldn't accept anything from you ...not even water."

In Cuquio Demetrio received a message.

"We've got to go back to Tepatitlan, General," said Luis Cervantes,scanning the dispatch rapidly. "You've got to leave the men there whileyou go to Lagos and take the train over to Aguascalientes."

There was much heated protest, the men muttering to themselves or evengroaning out loud. Some of them, mountaineers, swore that they wouldnot continue with the troop.

Camilla wept all night. On the morrow at dawn, she begged Demetrio tolet her return home.

"If you don't like me, all right," he answered sullenly.

"That's not the reason. I care for you a lot, really. But you know howit is. That woman ..."

"Never mind about her. It's all right! I'll send her off to hell today.I had already decided that."

Camilla dried her tears....

Every horse was saddled; the men were waiting only for orders from theChief. Demetrio went up to War Paint and said under his breath:

"You're not coming with us."

"What!" she gasped.

"You're going to stay here or go wherever you damn well please, butyou're not coming along with us."

"What? What's that you're saying?" Still she could not catch Demetrio'smeaning. Then the truth dawned upon her. "You want to send me away? ByGod, I suppose you believe all the filth that bitch..."

And War Paint proceeded to insult Camilla, Luis Cervantes, Demetrio,and anyone she happened to remember at the moment, with such power andoriginality that the soldiers listened in wonder to vituperation thattranscended their wildest dream of profanity and filth. Demetrio waiteda long time patiently. Then, as she showed no sign of stopping, he saidto a soldier quite calmly:

"Throw this drunken woman out."

"Blondie, Blondie, love of my life! Help! Come and show them you're areal man! Show them they're nothing but sons of bitches! ..."

She gesticulated, kicked, and shouted.

Blondie appeared; he had just got up. His blue eyes blinked under heavylids; his voice rang hoarse. He asked what had occurred; someoneexplained. Then he went up to War Paint, and with great seriousness,said:

"Yes? Really? Well, if you want my opinion, I think this is just whatought to happen. So far as I'm concerned, you can go straight to hell.We're all fed up with you, see?"

War Paint's face turned to granite; she tried to speak but her muscleswere rigid.

The soldiers laughed. Camilla, terrified, held her breath.

War Paint stared slowly at everyone about her. It all took no more thana few seconds. In a trice she bent down, drew a sharp, gleaming daggerfrom her stocking and leapt at Camilla.

A shrill cry. A body fell, the blood spurting from it.

"Kill her, Goddamn it," cried Demetrio, beyond himself. "Kill her!"

Two soldiers fell upon War Paint, but she brandished her dagger,defying them to touch her:

"Not the likes of you, Goddamn you! Kill me yourself, Demetrio!"

War Paint stepped forward, surrendered her dagger and, thrusting herbreast forward, let her arms fall to her side.

Demetrio picked up the dagger, red with blood, but his eyes clouded; hehesitated, took a step backward. Then, with a heavy hoarse voice hegrowled, enraged:

"Get out of here! Quick!"

No one dared stop her. She moved off slowly, mute, somber.

Blondie's shrill, guttural voice broke the silent stupor:

"Thank God! At last I'm rid of that damned louse!"

XIII

Someone plunged a knife
Deep in my side.
Did he know why?
I don't know why.
Maybe he knew,
I never knew.
The blood flowed out
Of that mortal wound.
Did he know why?
I don't know why.
Maybe he knew,
I never knew.

His head lowered, his hands crossed over the pommel of his saddle,Demetrio in melancholy accents sang the strains of the intriguing song.Then he fell silent; for quite a while he continued to feel oppressedand sad.

"You'll see, as soon as we reach Lagos you'll come out of it, General.There's plenty of pretty girls to give us a good time," Blondie said.

"Right now I feel like getting damn drunk," Demetrio answered, spurringhis horse forward and leaving them as if he wished to abandon himselfentirely to his sadness.

After many hours of riding he called Cervantes.

"Listen, Tenderfoot, why in hell do we have to go to Aguascalientes?"

"You have to vote for the Provisional President of the Republic,General!"

"President, what? Who in the devil, then, is this man Carranza? I'll bedamned if I know what it's all about."

At last they reached Lagos. Blondie bet that he would make Demetriolaugh that evening.

Trailing his spurs noisily over the pavement, Demetrio entered "ElCosmopolita" with Luis Cervantes, Blondie, and his assistants.

The civilians, surprised in their attempt to escape, remained wherethey were. Some feigned to return to their tables to continue drinkingand talking; others hesitantly stepped up to present their respects tothe commander.

"General, so pleased! ... Major! Delighted to meet you!"

"That's right! I love refined and educated friends," Blondie said."Come on, boys," he added, jovially drawing his gun, "I'm going to playa tune that'll make you all dance."

A bullet ricocheted on the cement floor passing between the legs of thetables, and the smartly dressed young men-about-town began to jump muchas a woman jumps when frightened by a mouse under her skirt. Pale asghosts, they conjured up wan smiles of obsequious approval. Demetriobarely parted his lips, but his followers doubled over with laughter.

"Look, Blondie," Quail shouted, "look at that man going out there.Look, he's limping."

"I guess the bee stung him all right."

Blondie, without turning to look at the wounded man, announced withenthusiasm that he could shoot off the top of a tequila bottle atthirty paces without aiming.

"Come on, friend, stand up," he said to the waiter. He dragged him outby the hand to the patio of the hotel and set a tequila bottle on hishead. The poor devil refused. Insane with fright, he sought to escape,but Blondie pulled his gun and took aim.

"Come on, you son of a sea cook! If you keep on I'll give you a nicewarm one!"

Blondie went to the opposite wall, raised his gun and fired. The bottlebroke into bits, the alcohol poured over the lad's ghastly face.

"Now it's a go," cried Blondie, running to the bar to get anotherbottle, which he placed on the lad's head.

He returned to his former position, he whirled about, and shot withoutaiming. But he hit the waiter's ear instead of the bottle. Holding hissides with laughter, he said to the young waiter:

"Here, kid, take these bills. It ain't much. But you'll be all rightwith some alcohol and arnica."

After drinking a great deal of alcohol and beer, Demetrio spoke:

"Pay the bill, Blondie, I'm going to leave you."

"I ain't got a penny, General, but that's all right. I'll fix it. Howmuch do we owe you, friend?"

"One hundred and eighty pesos, Chief," the bartender answered amiably.

Quickly, Blondie jumped behind the bar and with a sweep of both arms,knocked down all the glasses and bottles.

"Send the bill to General Villa, understand?"

He left, laughing loudly at his prank.

"Say there, you, where do the girls hang out?" Blondie asked, reelingup drunkenly toward a small well-dressed man, standing at the door of atailor shop.

The man stepped down to the sidewalk politely to let Blondie pass.

Blondie stopped and looked at him curiously, impertinently.

"Little boy, you're very small and dainty, ain't you? ... No? ... ThenI'm a liar! ... That's right! ... You know the puppet dance.... Youdon't? The hell you don't! ... I met you in a circus! I know you caneven dance on a tightrope! ... You watch!"

Blondie drew his gun out and began to shoot, aiming at the tailor'sfeet; the tailor gave a little jump at every pull of the trigger.

"See! You do know how to dance on the tightrope, don't you?"

Taking his friends by the arm, he ordered them to lead him to thered-light district, punctuating every step by a shot which smashed astreet light, or struck some wall, a door, or a distant house.

Demetrio left him and returned to the hotel, singing to himself:

"Someone plunged a knife
Deep in my side.
Did he know why?
I don't know why.
Maybe he knew,
I never knew."

XIV

Stale cigarette smoke, the acrid odors of sweaty clothing, the vaporsof alcohol, the breathing of a crowded multitude, worse by far than atrainful of pigs.

Texas hats, adorned with gold braid, and khaki predominate. "Gentlemen,a well-dressed man stole my suitcase in the station. My life's savings!I haven't enough to feed my little boy now!"

The shrill voice, rising to a shriek or trailing off into a sob, isdrowned out by the tumult within the train.

"What the hell is the old woman talking about?" Blondie asks, enteringin search of a seat.

"Something about a suitcase ... and a well-dressed man," Pancracioreplies. He has already the laps of two civilians to sit on.

Demetrio and the others elbow their way in. Since those on whomPancracio had sat preferred to stand up, Demetrio and Luis Cervantesquickly seize the vacant seats.

Suddenly a woman who has stood up holding a child all the way fromIrapuato, faints. A civilian takes the child in his arms. The otherspretend to have seen nothing. Some women, traveling with the soldiers,occupy two or three seats with baggage, dogs, cats, parrots. Some ofthe men wearing Texan hats laugh at the plump arms and pendulousbreasts of the woman who fainted.

"Gentlemen, a well-dressed man stole my suitcase at the station inSilao! All my life's savings ... I haven't got enough to feed my littleboy now! ..."

The old woman speaks rapidly, parrotlike, sighing and sobbing. Hersharp eyes peer about on all sides. Here she gets a bill, and furtheron, another. They shower money upon her. She finishes the collection,and goes a few seats ahead.

"Gentlemen, a well-dressed man stole my suitcase in the station atSilao." Her words produce an immediate and certain effect.

A well-dressed man, a dude, a tenderfoot, stealing a suitcase! Amazing,phenomenal! It awakens a feeling of universal indignation. It's a pity:if this well-dressed man were here every one of the generals wouldshoot him one after the other!

"There's nothing as vile as a city dude who steals!" a man says,exploding with indignation.

"To rob a poor old lady!"

"To steal from a poor defenseless woman!"

They prove their compassion by word and deed: a harsh verdict againstthe culprit; a five-peso bill for the victim.

"And I'm telling you the truth," Blondie declares. "Don't think it'swrong to kill, because when you kill, it's always out of anger. Butstealing--Bah!"

This profound piece of reasoning meets with unanimous assent. After ashort silence while he meditates, a colonel ventures his opinion:

"Everything is all right according to something, see? That is,everything has its circumstances, see? God's own truth is this: I havestolen, and if I say that everyone here has done the trick, I'm nottelling a lie, I reckon!"

"Hell, I stole a lot of them sewing machines in Mexico," exclaims amajor. "I made more'n five hundred pesos even though I sold them atfifty cents apiece!"

A toothless captain, with hair prematurely white, announces:

"I stole some horses in Zacatecas, all damn fine horses they was, andthen I says to myself, 'This is your own little lottery, Pascual Mata,'I says. 'You won't have a worry in all your life after this.' And thedamned thing about it was that General Limon took a fancy to the horsestoo, and he stole them from me!"

"Of course--there's no use denying it, I've stolen too," Blondieconfesses. "But ask any one of my partners how much profit I've got.I'm a big spender and my Purse is my friends' to have a good time on! Ihave a better time if I drink myself senseless than I would havesending money back home to the old woman!"

The subject of "I stole," though apparently inexhaustible, ceases tohold the men's attention. Decks of cards gradually appear on the seats,drawing generals and officers as the light draws mosquitoes.

The excitement of gambling soon absorbs every interest, the heat growsmore and more intense. To breathe is to inhale the air of barracks,prison, brothel, and pigsty all in one.

And rising above the babble, from the car ahead ever the shrill voice,"Gentlemen, a well-dressed young man stole ..."

The streets in Aguascalientes were so many refuse piles. Men in khakimoved to and fro like bees before their hive, overrunning therestaurants, the crapulous lunch houses, the parlous hotels, and thestands of the street vendors on which rotten pork lay alongside grimycheese.

The smell of these viands whetted the appetites of Demetrio and hismen. They forced their way into a small inn, where a disheveled old hagserved, on earthenware plates, some pork with bones swimming in a clearchili stew and three tough burnt tortillas. They paid two pesos apiece;as they left Pancracio assured his comrades he was hungrier than whenhe entered.

"Now," said Demetrio, "we'll go and consult with General Natera!"

They made for the northern leader's billet.

A noisy, excited crowd stopped them at a street crossing. A man, lostin the multitude, was mouthing words in the monotonous, unctuous tonesof a prayer. They came up close enough to see him distinctly; he wore ashirt and trousers of cheap white cloth and was repeating:

"All good Catholics should read this prayer to Christ Our Lord upon theCross with due devotion. Thus they will be immune from storms andpestilence, famine, and war."

"This man's no fool," said Demetrio smiling.

The man waved a sheaf of printed handbills in his hand and cried:

"A quarter of a peso is all you have to pay for this prayer to ChristOur Lord upon the Cross. A quarter ..."

Then he would duck for a moment, to reappear with a snake's tooth, asea star, or the skeleton of a fish. In the same predicant tone, helauded the medical virtues and the mystical powers of every article hesold.

Quail, who had no faith in Venancio, requested the man to pull a toothout. Blondie purchased a black seed from a certain fruit whichprotected the possessor from lightning or any other catastrophe.Anastasio Montanez purchased a prayer to Christ Our Lord upon theCross, and, folding it carefully, stuck it into his shirt with a piousgesture.

"As sure as there's a God in heaven," Natera said, "this mess hasn'tblown over yet. Now it's Villa fighting Carranza."

Without answering him, his eyes fixed in a stare, Demetrio demanded afurther explanation.

"It means," Natera said, "that the Convention won't recognize Carranzaas First Chief of the Constitutionalist Army. It's going to elect aProvisional President of the Republic. Do you understand me, General?"

Demetrio nodded assent.

"What's your opinion, General?" asked Natera.

Demetrio shrugged his shoulders:

"It seems to me that the meat of the matter is that we've got to go onfighting, eh? All right! Let's go to it! I'm game to the end, you know."

"Good, but on what side?"

Demetrio, nonplussed, scratched his head:

"Look here, don't ask me any more questions. I never went to school,you know.... You gave me the eagle I wear on my hat, didn't you? Allright then; you just tell me: 'Demetrio, do this or do that,' andthat's all there's to it!"

PART THREE

"Villa? Obregon? Carranza? What's the difference? I love the revolutionlike a volcano in eruption; I love the volcano, because it's a volcano,the revolution, because it's the revolution!"

I

El Paso, Texas, May 16, 1915

My Dear Venancio:

Due to the pressure of professional duties I have been unable to answeryour letter of January 4 before now. As you already know, I wasgraduated last December. I was sorry to hear of Pancracio's andManteca's fate, though I am not surprised that they stabbed each otherover the gambling table. It is a pity; they were both brave men. I amdeeply grieved not to be able to tell Blondie how sincerely andheartily I congratulate him for the only noble and beautiful thing heever did in his whole life: to have shot himself!

Dear Venancio, although you may have enough money to purchase a degree,I am afraid you won't find it very easy to become a doctor in thiscountry. You know I like you very much, Venancio; and I think youdeserve a better fate. But I have an idea which may prove profitable toboth of us and which may improve your social position, as you desire.We could do a fine business here if we were to go in as partners andset up a typical Mexican restaurant in this town. I have no reservefunds at the moment since I've spent all I had in getting my collegedegree, but I have something much more valuable than money; my perfectknowledge of this town and its needs. You can appear as the owner; wewill make a monthly division of profits. Besides, concerning a questionthat interests us both very much, namely, your social improvement, itoccurs to me that you play the guitar quite well. In view of therecommendations I could give you and in view of your training as well,you might easily be admitted as a member of some fraternal order; thereare several here which would bring you no inconsiderable socialprestige.

Don't hesitate, Venancio, come at once and bring your funds. I promiseyou we'll get rich in no time. My best wishes to the General, toAnastasio, and the rest of the boys.

Your affectionate friend,
Luis Cervantes

Venancio finished reading the letter for the hundredth time and,sighing, repeated:

"Tenderfoot certainly knows how to pull the strings all right!"

"What I can't get into my head," observed Anastasio Montanez, "is whywe keep on fighting. Didn't we finish off this man Huerta and hisFederation?"

Neither the General nor Venancio answered; but the same thought keptbeating down on their dull brains like a hammer on an anvil.

They ascended the steep hill, their heads bowed, pensive, their horseswalking at a slow gait. Stubbornly restless, Anastasio made the sameobservation to other groups; the soldiers laughed at his candor. If aman has a rifle in his hands and a beltful of cartridges, surely heshould use them. That means fighting. Against whom? For whom? That isscarcely a matter of importance.

The endless wavering column of dust moved up the trail, a swirling antheap of broad straw sombreros, dirty khaki, faded blankets, and blackhorses....

Not a man but was dying of thirst; no pool or stream or well anywherealong the road. A wave of dust rose from the white, wild sides of asmall canyon, swayed mistily on the hoary crest of huizache trees andthe greenish stumps of cactus. Like a jest, the flowers in the cactusopened out, fresh, solid, aflame, some thorny, others diaphanous.

At noon they reached a hut, clinging to the precipitous sierra, thenthree more huts strewn over the margin of a river of burnt sand.Everything was silent, desolate. As soon as they saw men on horseback,the people in the huts scurried into the hills to hide. Demetrio grewindignant.

"Bring me anyone you find hiding or running away," he commanded in aloud voice.

"What? What did you say?" Valderrama cried in surprise. "The men of thesierra? Those brave men who've not yet done what those chickens down inAguascalientes and Zacatecas have done all the time? Our own brothers,who weather storms, who cling to the rocks like moss itself? I protest,sir; I protest!"

He spurred his miserable horse forward and caught up with the General.

"The mountaineers," he said solemnly and emphatically, "are flesh ofour flesh, bone of our bone. Os ex osibus meis et caro de carne mea.Mountaineers are made from the same timber we're made of! Of the samesound timber from which heroes ..."

With a confidence as sudden as it was courageous, he hit the Generalacross the chest. The General smiled benevolently.

Valderrama, the tramp, the crazy maker of verses, did he ever know whathe said?

When the soldiers reached a small ranch, despairingly, they searchedthe empty huts and small houses without finding a single staletortilla, a solitary rotten pepper, or one pinch of salt with which toflavor the horrible taste of dry meat. The owners of the huts, theirpeaceful brethren, were impassive with the stonelike impassivity ofAztec idols; others, more human, with a slow smile on their colorlesslips and beardless faces, watched these fierce men who less than amonth ago had made the miserable huts of others tremble with fear, nowin their turn fleeing their own huts where the ovens were cold and thewater tanks dry, fleeing with their tails between their legs, cringing,like curs kicked out of their own houses.

But the General did not countermand his order. Some soldiers broughtback four fugitives, captive and bound.

II

"WHY do you hide?" Demetrio asked the prisoners.

"We're not hiding, Chief, we're hitting the trail."

"Where to?"

"To our own homes, in God's name, to Durango."

"Is this the road to Durango?"

"Peaceful people can't travel over the main road nowadays, you knowthat, Chief."

"You're not peaceful people, you're deserters. Where do you come from?"Demetrio said, eyeing them with keen scrutiny.

The prisoners grew confused; they looked at each other hesitatingly,unable to give a prompt answer.

"They're Carranzistas," one of the soldiers said.

"Carranzistas hell!" one of them said proudly. "I'd rather be a pig."

"The truth is we're deserters," another said. "After the defeat wedeserted from General Villa's troops this side of Celaya."

"General Villa defeated? Ha! Ha! That's a good joke."

The soldiers laughed. But Demetrio's brow was wrinkled as though ablack shadow had passed over his eyes.

"There ain't a son of a bitch on earth who can beat General Villa!"said a bronzed veteran with a scar clear across the face.

Without a change of expression, one of the deserters staredpersistently at him and said:

"I know who you are. When we took Torreon you were with General Urbina.In Zacatecas you were with General Natera and then you shifted to theJalisco troops. Am I lying?"

These words met with a sudden and definite effect. The prisoners gave adetailed account of the tremendous defeat of Villa at Celaya.Demetrio's men listened in silence, stupefied.

Before resuming their march, they built a fire on which to roast somebull meat. Anastasio Montanez, searching for food among the huizachetrees, descried the close-cropped neck of Valderrama's horse in thedistance among the rocks.

"Hey! Come here, you fool, after all there ain't been no gravy!" heshouted.

Whenever anything was said about shooting someone, Valderrama, theromantic poet, would disappear for a whole day.

Hearing Anastasio's voice, Valderrama was convinced that the prisonershad been set at liberty. A few moments later, he was joined by Venancioand Demetrio.

"Heard the news?" Venancio asked gravely.

"No."

"It's very serious. A terrible mess! Villa was beaten at Celaya byObregon and Carranza is winning all along the line! We're done for!"

Valderrama's gesture was disdainful and solemn as an emperor's. "Villa?Obregon? Carranza? What's the difference? I love the revolution like avolcano in eruption; I love the volcano because it's a volcano, therevolution because it's the revolution! What do I care about the stonesleft above or below after the cataclysm? What are they to me?"

In the glare of the midday sun the reflection of a white tequila bottleglittered on his forehead; and, jubilant, he ran toward the bearer ofsuch a marvelous gift.

"I like this crazy fool," Demetrio said with a smile. "He says thingssometimes that make you think."

They resumed their march; their uncertainty translated into alugubrious silence. Slowly, inevitably, the catastrophe must come; itwas even now being realized. Villa defeated was a fallen god; when godscease to be omnipotent, they are nothing.

Quail spoke. His words faithfully interpreted the general opinion:

"What the hell, boys! Every spider's got to spin his own web now!"

III

In Zacatecas and Aguascalientes, in the little country towns and theneighboring communities, haciendas and ranches were deserted. When oneof the officers found a barrel of tequila, the event assumed miraculousproportions. Everything was conducted with secrecy and care; deepmystery was preserved to oblige the soldiers to leave on the morrowbefore sunrise under Anastasio and Venancio.

When Demetrio awoke to the strains of music, his general staff, nowcomposed chiefly of young ex-government officers, told him of thediscovery, and Quail, interpreting the thoughts of his colleagues, saidsententiously:

"These are bad times and you've got to take advantage of everythin'. Ifthere are some days when a duck can swim, there's others when he can'ttake a drink."

The string musicians played all day; the most solemn honors were paidto the barrel: but Demetrio was very sad.

"Did he know why?
I don't know why."

He kept repeating the same refrain.

In the afternoon there were cockfights. Demetrio sat down with thechief officers under the roof of the municipal portals in front of acity square covered with weeds, a tumbled kiosk, and some abandonedadobe houses.

"Valderrama," Demetrio called, looking away from the ring with tiredeyes, "come and sing me a song--sing 'The Undertaker.'"

But Valderrama did not hear him; he had no eyes for the fight; he wasreciting an impassioned soliloquy as he watched the sunset over thehills.

With solemn gestures and emphatic tones, he said:

"O Lord, Lord, pleasurable it is this thy land! I shall build me threetents: one for Thee, one for Moses, one for Elijah!"

"Valderrama," Demetrio shouted again. "Come and sing 'The Undertaker'song for me."

"Hey, crazy, the General is calling you," an officer shouted.

Valderrama with his eternally complacent smile went over to Demetrio'sseat and asked the musicians for a guitar.

"Silence," the gamesters cried. Valderrama finished tuning hisinstrument.

Quail and Meco let loose on the sand a pair of cocks armed with longsharp blades attached to their legs. One was light red; his feathersshone with beautiful obsidian glints. The other was sand-colored withfeathers like scales burned slowly to a fiery copper color.

The fight was swift and fierce as a duel between men. As though movedby springs, the roosters flew at each other. Their feathers stood up ontheir arched necks; their combs were erect, their legs taut. For aninstant they swung in the air without even touching the ground, theirfeathers, beaks, and claws lost in a dizzy whirlwind. The red roostersuddenly broke, tossed with his legs to heaven outside the chalk lines.His vermilion eyes closed slowly, revealing eyelids of pink coral; histangled feathers quivered and shook convulsively amid a pool of blood.

Valderrama, who could not repress a gesture of violent indignation,began to play. With the first melancholy strains of the tune, his angerdisappeared. His eyes gleamed with the light of madness. His glancestrayed over the square, the tumbled kiosk, the old adobe houses, overthe mountains in the background, and over the sky, burning like a roofafire. He began to sing. He put such feeling into his voice and suchexpression into the strings that, as he finished, Demetrio turned hishead aside to hide his tears.

But Valderrama fell upon him, embraced him warmly, and with afamiliarity he showed everyone at the appropriate moment, he whispered:

"Drink them! ... Those are beautiful tears."

Demetrio asked for the bottle, passed it to Valderrama. Greedily thepoet drank half its contents in one gulp; then, showing only the whitesof his eyes, he faced the spectators dramatically and, in a highlytheatrical voice, cried:

"Here you may witness the blessings of the revolution caught in asingle tear."

Then he continued to talk like a madman, but like a madman whose vastprophetic madness encompassed all about him, the dusty weeds, thetumbled kiosk, the gray houses, the lovely hills, and the immeasurablesky.

IV

Juchipila rose in the distance, white, bathed in sunlight, shining inthe midst of a thick forest at the foot of a proud, lofty mountain,pleated like a turban.

Some of the soldiers, gazing at the spire of the church, sighed sadly.They marched forward through the canyon, uncertain, unsteady, as blindmen walking without a hand to guide them. The bitterness of the exoduspervaded them.

"Is that town Juchipila?" Valderrama asked.

In the first stage of his drunkenness, Valderrama had been counting thecrosses scattered along the road, along the trails, in the hollows nearthe rocks, in the tortuous paths, and along the riverbanks. Crosses ofblack timber newly varnished, makeshift crosses built out of two logs,crosses of stones piled up and plastered together, crosses whitewashedon crumbling walls, humble crosses drawn with charcoal on the surfaceof whitish rocks. The traces of the first blood shed by therevolutionists of 1910, murdered by the Government.

Before Juchipila was lost from sight, Valderrama got off his horse,bent down, kneeled, and gravely kissed the ground.

The soldiers passed by without stopping. Some laughed at the crazy man,others jested. Valderrama, deaf to all about him, breathed his unctuousprayer:

"O Juchipila, cradle of the Revolution of 1910, O blessed land, landsteeped in the blood of martyrs, blood of dreamers, the only true men..."

"Because they had no time to be bad!" an ex-Federal officer interjectedas he rode.

Interrupting his prayer, Valderrama frowned, burst into stentorianlaughter, reechoed by the rocks, and ran toward the officer begging fora swallow of tequila.

Soldiers minus an arm or leg, cripples, rheumatics, and consumptivesspoke bitterly of Demetrio. Young whippersnappers were given officers'commissions and wore stripes on their hats without a day's service,even before they knew how to handle a rifle, while the veterans,exhausted in a hundred battles, now incapacitated for work, theveterans who had set out as simple privates, were still simpleprivates. The few remaining officers among Demetrio's friends alsogrumbled, because his staff was made up of wealthy, dapper young menwho oiled their hair and used perfume.

"The worst part of it," Venancio said, "is that we're gettin'overcrowded with Federals!"

Anastasio himself, who invariably found only praise for Demetrio'sconduct, now seemed to share the general discontent.

"See here, brothers," he said, "I spits out the truth when I seessomething. I always tell the boss that if these people stick to us verylong we'll be in a hell of a fix. Certainly! How can anyone thinkotherwise? I've no hair on my tongue; and by the mother that bore me,I'm going to tell Demetrio so myself."

Demetrio listened benevolently, and, when Anastasio had finished, hereplied:

"You're right, there's no gettin' around it, we're in a bad way. Thesoldiers grumble about the officers, the officers grumble about us,see? And we're damn well ready now to send both Villa and Carranza tohell to have a good time all by themselves.... I guess we're in thesame fix as that peon from Tepatitlan who complained about his boss allday long but worked on just the same. That's us. We kick and kick, butwe keep on killing and killing. But there's no use in saying anythingto them!"

"Why, Demetrio?"

"Hm, I don't know.... Because ... because ... do you see? ... Whatwe've got to do is to make the men toe the mark. I've got orders tostop a band of men coming through Cuquio, see? In a few days we'll haveto fight the Carranzistas. It will be great to beat the hell out ofthem."

Valderrama, the tramp, who had enlisted in Demetrio's army one daywithout anyone remembering the time or the place, overheard some ofDemetrio's words. Fools do not eat fire. That very day Valderramadisappeared mysteriously as he had come.

V

They entered the streets of Juchipila as the church bells rang, loudand joyfully, with that peculiar tone that thrills every mountaineer.

"It makes me think we are back in the days when the revolution was justbeginning, when the bells rang like mad in every town we entered andeverybody came out with music, flags, cheers, and fireworks to welcomeus," said Anastasio Montanez.

"They don't like us no more," Demetrio returned.

"Of course. We're crawling back like a dog with its tail between itslegs," Quail remarked.

"It ain't that, I guess. They don't give a whoop for the other sideeither."

"But why should they like us?"

They spoke no more.

Presently they reached the city square and stopped in front of anoctagonal, rough, massive church, reminiscent of the colonial period.At one time the square must have been a garden, judging from the barestunted orange trees planted between iron and wooden benches. Thesonorous, joyful bells rang again. From within the church, the honeyedvoices of a female chorus rose melancholy and grave. To the strains ofa guitar, the young girls of the town sang the "Mysteries."

"What's the fiesta, lady?" Venancio asked of an old woman who wasrunning toward the church.

"The Sacred Heart of Jesus!" answered the pious woman, panting.

They remembered that one year ago they had captured Zacatecas. Theygrew sadder still.

Juchipila, like the other towns they had passed through on their wayfrom Tepic, by way of Jalisco, Aguascalientes and Zacatecas, was inruins. The black trail of the incendiaries showed in the rooflesshouses, in the burnt arcades. Almost all the houses were closed, yet,here and there, those still open offered, in ironic contrast, portalsgaunt and bare as the white skeletons of horses scattered over theroads. The terrible pangs of hunger seemed to speak from every face;hunger on every dusty cheek, in their dusty countenances; in the hecticflame of their eyes, which, when they met a soldier, blazed withhatred. In vain the soldiers scoured the streets in search of food,biting their lips in anger. A single lunchroom was open; at once theyfilled it. No beans, no tortillas, only chili and tomato sauce. In vainthe officers showed their pocketbooks stuffed with bills or usedthreats:

"Yea, you've got papers all right! That's all you've brought! Try andeat them, will you?" said the owner, an insolent old shrew with anenormous scar on her cheek, who told them she had already lain with adead man, "to cure her from ever feeling frightened again."

Despite the melancholy and desolation of the town, while the women sangin the church, birds sang in the foliage, and the thrushes piped theirlyrical strain on the withered branches of the orange trees.

VI

Demetrio Macias' wife, mad with joy, rushed along the trail to meethim, leading a child by the hand. An absence of almost two years!

They embraced each other and stood speechless. She wept, sobbed.Demetrio stared in astonishment at his wife who seemed to have aged tenor twenty years. Then he looked at the child who gazed up at him insurprise. His heart leaped to his mouth as he saw in the child'sfeatures his own steel features and fiery eyes exactly reproduced. Hewanted to hold him in his arms, but the frightened child took refuge inhis mother's skirts.

"It's your own father, baby! It's your daddy!"

The child hid his face within the folds of his mother's skirt, stillhostile.

Demetrio handed the reins of his horse to his orderly and walked slowlyalong the steep trail with his wife and son.

"Blessed be the Virgin Mary, Praise be to God! Now you'll never leaveus any more, will you? Never ... never.... You'll stay with us always?"

Demetrio's face grew dark. Both remained silent, lost in anguish.Demetrio suppressed a sigh. Memories crowded and buzzed through hisbrain like bees about a hive.

A black cloud rose behind the sierra and a deafening roar of thunderresounded. The rain began to fall in heavy drops; they sought refuge ina rocky hut.

The rain came pelting down, shattering the white Saint John rosesclustered like sheaves of stars clinging to tree, rock, bush, andpitaya over the entire mountainside.

Below in the depths of the canyon, through the gauze of the rain theycould see the tall, sheer palms shaking in the wind, opening out likefans before the tempest. Everywhere mountains, heaving hills, andbeyond more hills, locked amid mountains, more mountains encircled inthe wall of the sierra whose loftiest peaks vanished in the sapphire ofthe sky.

"Demetrio, please. For God's sake, don't go away! My heart tells mesomething will happen to you this time."

Again she was wracked with sobs. The child, frightened, cried andscreamed. To calm him, she controlled her own great grief.

Gradually the rain stopped, a swallow, with silver breast and wingsdescribing luminous charming curves, fluttered obliquely across thesilver threads of the rain, gleaming suddenly in the afternoon sunshine.

"Why do you keep on fighting, Demetrio?"

Demetrio frowned deeply. Picking up a stone absent-mindedly, he threwit to the bottom of the canyon. Then he stared pensively into theabyss, watching the arch of its flight.

"Look at that stone; how it keeps on going...."

VII

It was a heavenly morning. It had rained all night, the sky awakenedcovered with white clouds. Young wild colts trotted on the summit ofthe sierra, with tense manes and waving hair, proud as the peakslifting their heads to the clouds.

The soldiers stepped among the huge rocks, buoyed up by the happinessof the morning. None for a moment dreamed of the treacherous bulletthat might be awaiting him ahead; the unforeseen provides man with hisgreatest joy. The soldiers sang, laughed, and chattered away. Thespirit of nomadic tribes stirred their souls. What matters it whetheryou go and whence you come? All that matters is to walk, to walkendlessly, without ever stopping; to possess the valley, the heights ofthe sierra, far as the eye can read.

Trees, brush, and cactus shone fresh after rain. Heavy drops of limpidwater fell from rocks, ocher in hue as rusty armor.

Demetrio Macias' men grew silent for a moment. They believed they heardthe familiar rumor of firing in the distance. A few minutes elapsed butthe sound was not repeated.

"In this same sierra," Demetrio said, "with but twenty men I killedfive hundred Federals. Remember, Anastasio?"

As Demetrio began to tell that famous exploit, the men realized thedanger they were facing. What if the enemy, instead of being two daysaway, was hiding somewhere among the underbrush on the terrible hillthrough whose gorge they now advanced? None dared show the slightestfear. Not one of Demetrio Macias' men dared say, "I shall not moveanother inch!"

So, when firing began in the distance where the vanguard was marching,no one felt surprised. The recruits turned back hurriedly, retreatingin shameful flight, searching for a way out of the canyon.

A curse broke from Demetrio's parched lips.

"Fire at 'em. Shoot any man who runs away!"

"Storm the hill!" he thundered like a wild beast.

But the enemy, lying in ambush by the thousand, opened up itsmachine-gun fire. Demetrio's men fell like wheat under the sickle.

Tears of rage and pain rise to Demetrio's eyes as Anastasio slowlyslides from his horse without a sound, and lies outstretched,motionless. Venancio falls close beside him, his chest riddled withbullets. Meco hurtles over the precipice, bounding from rock to rock.

Suddenly, Demetrio finds himself alone. Bullets whiz past his ears likehail. He dismounts and crawls over the rocks, until he finds a parapet:he lays down a stone to protect his head and, lying flat on the ground,begins to shoot.

The enemy scatter in all directions, pursuing the few fugitives hidingin the brush. Demetrio aims; he does not waste a single shot.

His famous marksmanship fills him with joy. Where he settles hisglance, he settles a bullet. He loads his gun once more ... takesaim....

The smoke of the guns hangs thick in the air. Locusts chant theirmysterious, imperturbable song. Doves coo lyrically in the crannies ofthe rocks. The cows graze placidly.

The sierra is clad in gala colors. Over its inaccessible peaks theopalescent fog settles like a snowy veil on the forehead of a bride.

At the foot of a hollow, sumptuous and huge as the portico of an oldcathedral, Demetrio Macias, his eyes leveled in an eternal glance,continues to point the barrel of his gun.

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