Ho there, Remigia, lend me some eggs, will you? My chicken has been
hatching since morning. There's some gentlemen here, come to eat."
Her neighbor's eyes blinked as the bright sunlight poured into the
shadowy hut, darker than usual, even, as dense clouds of smoke rose
from the stove. After a few minutes, she began to make out the contour
of the various objects inside, and recognized the wounded man's
stretcher, which lay in one corner, close to the ashy-gray galvanized
iron roof.
She sat down beside Remigia Indian-fashion, and, glancing furtively
toward where Demetrio rested, asked in a low voice:
"How's the patient, better? That's fine. Oh, how young he is! But he's
still 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 over
the corn grinder, pounding the corn with a stone bar she held in her
hands.
"Oh, I don't know; they might not like it," she answered, breathing
heavily 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, bowing
her bony back to pass through the opening, "haven't you any laurel
leaves? We want to make a potion for Maria Antonia who's not so well
today, what with her bellyache."
In reality, her errand was but a pretext for asking questions and
passing the time of day in gossip, so she turned her eyes to the
corner where the patient lay and, winking, sought information as to his
health.
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's
aching something fierce."
She sat Indian-fashion, with bent knees, huddling hip to hip against
Panchita.
"I've got no laurel leaves, honey," Remigia answered, pausing a moment
in 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 handful
of it dripping with muddy yellowish water. "I've none at all; you'd
better go to Dolores, she's always got herbs, you know."
"But Dolores went to Cofradia last night. I don't know, but they say
they 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, and
speaking 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 with
child, 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, you
know!"
"God forbid!"
"Of course it's not her uncle: Nazario had nothing to do with it, I
know. 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 silent
for a moment; then Panchita, taking out of the bosom of her blouse a
young 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's
simply something to rub on his body."
"Forgive this poor gift from a poor woman, senor," said the wrinkled
old woman, drawing close to Demetrio, "but there's nothing like it in
the world for hemorrhages and suchlike."
Demetrio nodded hasty approval. They had already placed a loaf of bread
soaked in alcohol on his stomach; although when this was removed he
began 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 which
served to cut cactus fruit. She took the pigeon in one hand, turned it
over, its breast upward, and with the skill of a surgeon, ripped it in
two with a single thrust.
"In the name of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," Remigia said, blessing the
room and making the sign of the cross; next, with infinite dexterity,
she placed the warm bleeding portions of the pigeon upon Demetrio's
abdomen.
"You'll see: you'll feel much better now."
Obeying Remigia's instructions, Demetrio lay motionless, crumpled up on
one side.
Then Fortunata gave vent to her sorrows. She liked these gentlemen of
the revolution, all right, that she did--for, three months ago, you
know, the Government soldiers had run away with her only daughter. This
had broken her heart, Yes, and driven her all but crazy.
As she began, Anastasio Montanez and Quail lay on the floor near the
stretcher, their mouths gaping, all ears to the story. But Fortunata's
wealth of detail by the time she had told half of it bored Quail and he
left the hut to scratch himself out in the sun. By the time Fortunata
had at last concluded with a solemn "I pray God and the Blessed Virgin
Mary that you are not sparing the life of a single one of those
Federals from hell," Demetrio, face to wall, felt greatly relieved by
the stomach cure, and was busy thinking of the best route by which to
proceed 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 of
chills and fever. "You ought to see him; no one has laid a hand to him
but 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 string
rags 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 no
doctor at all. I'll wager you've already forgotten why you ever joined
us," 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 some
diamond rings."
"Ha, ha, ha! That's rich! But you're worse, my lad; you ran away from
your 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 the
others. 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 it
carefully, and shook his head. The ligaments had made a furrow in the
skin. The leg, badly swollen, seemed about to burst. At every move he
made, Demetrio stifled a moan. Luis Cervantes cut the ligaments, soaked
the wound in water, covered the leg with large clean rags and bound it
up. Demetrio was able to sleep all afternoon and all night. On the
morrow 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 like
moisture, they seep in everywhere. It's the tenderfoots who stopped us
reaping the harvest of the revolution."
Since Demetrio believed in the barber's knowledge implicitly, when Luis
Cervantes came to treat him on the next day he said:
"Look here, do your best, see. I want to recover soon and then you can
go 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 to
have vanished. There was an abundance of corn and beans, too, in the
neighboring ranches. The people hated the Government so bitterly that
they were overjoyed to furnish assistance to the rebels. Demetrio's
men, therefore, were peacefully waiting for the complete recovery of
their chief.
Day after day, Luis Cervantes remained humble and silent.
"By God, I actually believe you're in love," Demetrio said jokingly one
morning after the daily treatment. He had begun to like this
tenderfoot. From then on, Demetrio began gradually to show an
increasing interest in Cervantes' comfort. One day he asked him if the
soldiers gave him his daily ration of meat and milk; Luis Cervantes was
forced to answer that his sole nourishment was whatever the old ranch
women happened to give him and that everyone still considered him an
intruder.
"Look here, Tenderfoot, they're all good boys, really," Demetrio
answered. "You've got to know how to handle them, that's all. You mark
my words; from tomorrow on, there won't be a thing you'll lack."
In effect, things began to change that very afternoon. Some of
Demetrio's men lay in the quarry, glancing at the sunset that turned
the clouds into huge clots of congealed blood and listening to
Venancio's amusing stories culled from The Wandering Jew. Some of them,
lulled by the narrator's mellifluous voice, began to snore. But Luis
Cervantes listened avidly and as soon as Venancio topped off his talk
with 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 the
flattery, "but my parents died and I didn't have a chance to study for
a profession."
"That's easy to remedy, I'm sure. Once our cause is victorious, you can
easily get a degree. A matter of two or three weeks' assistant's work
at some hospital and a letter of recommendation from our chief and
you'll be a full-fledged doctor, all right. The thing is child's play."
From that night onward Venancio, unlike the others, ceased calling him
Tenderfoot. He addressed him as Louie.
It was Louie, this, and Louie, that, right and left, all the time.