Through the shadows of the starry night, Luis Cervantes had not yet
managed to detect the exact shape of the objects about him. Seeking the
most suitable resting-place, he laid his weary bones down on a fresh
pile of manure under the blurred mass of a huizache tree. He lay down,
more exhausted than resigned, and closed his eyes, resolutely
determined to sleep until his fierce keepers or the morning sun,
burning his ears, awakened him. Something vaguely like warmth at his
side, then a tired hoarse breath, made him shudder. He opened his eyes
and feeling about him with his hands, he sensed the coarse hairs of a
large pig which, resenting the presence of a neighbor, began to grunt.
All Luis' efforts to sleep proved quite useless, not only because the
pain of his wound or the bruises on his flesh smarted, but because he
suddenly realized the exact nature of his failure.
Yes, failure! For he had never learned to appreciate exactly the
difference between fulminating sentences of death upon bandits in the
columns of a small country newspaper and actually setting out in search
of them, and tracking them to their lairs, gun in hand. During his
first day's march as volunteer lieutenant, he had begun to suspect the
error of his ways--a brutal sixty miles' journey it was, that left his
hips and legs one mass of raw soreness and soldered all his bones
together. A week later, after his first skirmish against the rebels, he
understood every rule of the game. Luis Cervantes would have taken up a
crucifix and solemnly sworn that as soon as the soldiers, gun in hand,
stood ready to shoot, some profoundly eloquent voice had spoken behind
them, saying, "Run for your lives." It was all crystal clear. Even his
noble-spirited horse, accustomed to battle, sought to sweep back on its
hind legs and gallop furiously away, to stop only at a safe distance
from the sound of firing. The sun was setting, the mountain became
peopled with vague and restless shadows, darkness scaled the ramparts
of the mountain hastily. What could be more logical then, than to seek
refuge behind the rocks and attempt to sleep, granting mind and body a
sorely needed rest?
But the soldier's logic is the logic of absurdity. On the morrow, for
example, his colonel awakened him rudely out of his sleep, cuffing and
belaboring 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 with
laughter begged the colonel to pardon the deserter. The colonel,
therefore, instead of sentencing him to be shot, kicked his buttocks
roundly for him and assigned him to kitchen police.
This signal insult was destined to bear poisonous fruit. Luis Cervantes
determined to play turncoat; indeed, mentally, he had already changed
sides. Did not the sufferings of the underdogs, of the disinherited
masses, move him to the core? Henceforth he espoused the cause of
Demos, 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 and
all, after a terribly long journey.
From then on, Luis Cervantes' prestige with the soldiers increased.
Some actually dared to make confessions. One among them, conspicuous
for his sobriety and silence, told him: "I'm a carpenter by trade, you
know. I had a mother, an old woman nailed to her chair for ten years by
rheumatism. 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 from
my hometown. A month ago our company passed by there again. My mother
was already under the sod! ... So there's nothing left for me in this
wide world; no one misses me now, you see. But, by God, I'm damned if
I'll use these cartridges they make us carry, against the enemy. If a
miracle happens (I pray for it every night, you know, and I guess our
Lady of Guadalupe can do it all right), then I'll join Villa's men; and
I swear by the holy soul of my old mother, that I'll make every one of
these Government people pay, by God I will."
Another soldier, a bright young fellow, but a charlatan, at heart, who
drank habitually and smoked the narcotic marihuana weed, eyeing him
with vague, glassy stare, whispered in his ear, "You know, partner ...
the men on the other side ... you know, the other side ... you
understand ... 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 good
enough to stagger round a water well. You see, don't you, partner? You
see what I mean? You know, the men on the other side-they get shiny new
silver coins while we get only lousy paper money printed in that
murderer'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 top
sergeant 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't
make in a lifetime, sweating like a mule and breaking your back in
peacetime, damn it all, you can make in a few months just running
around 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 mortal
hatred of the upper classes, of his officers, and of his superiors,
felt that a veil had been removed from his eyes; clearly, now, he saw
the final outcome of the struggle. And yet what had happened? The first
moment he was able to join his coreligionists, instead of welcoming him
with open arms, they threw him into a pigsty with swine for company.
Day broke. The roosters crowed in the huts. The chickens perched in the
huizache began to stretch their wings, shake their feathers, and fly
down to the ground.
Luis Cervantes saw his guards lying on top of a dung heap, snoring. In
his imagination, he reviewed the features of last night's men. One,
Pancracio, was pockmarked, blotchy, unshaven; his chin protruded, his
forehead receded obliquely; his ears formed one solid piece with head
and neck--a horrible man. The other, Manteca, was so much human refuse;
his eyes were almost hidden, his look sullen; his wiry straight hair
fen over his ears, forehead and neck; his scrofulous lips hung
eternally agape. Once more, Luis Cervantes felt his flesh quiver.