"Look here, Tenderfoot, I want to tell you something," Camilla called
to Luis Cervantes, as he made his way to the hut to fetch some boiling
water for his foot.
For days the girl had been restless. Her coy ways and her reticence had
finally annoyed the man; stopping suddenly, he stood up and eyeing her
squarely:
"All right. What do you want to tell me?"
Camilla's tongue clove to her mouth, heavy and damp as a rag; she could
not utter a word. A blush suffused her cheeks, turning them red as
apples; she shrugged her shoulders and bowed her head, pressing her
chin against her naked breast. Then without moving, with the fixity of
an 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 for
his 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 and
gave him rags. He was careful to avoid questioning her. Three days
later, Camilla reappeared, more coy and eager than ever.
The more distrait and indifferent Luis Cervantes grew, the bolder
Camilla. At last, she said: "Listen to me, you nice young fellow, I
want to tell you something pleasant. Please go over the words of the
revolutionary 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? Then
when 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 knife
drawn over the side of a glass bottle. Blissfully unaware of the effect
they had produced, she proceeded, candid as ever:
"Well, I want to tell you something. You don't know that your chief is
a wicked man, do you? Shall I tell you what he did to me? You know
Demetrio won't let a soul but Mamma cook for him and me take him his
food. Well, the other day I take some food over to him and what do you
think he did to me, the old fool. He grabs hold of my wrist and he
presses 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 shameless
creature. You've got no manners, that's the trouble with you.' So I
wrestled with him, and shook myself free, like this, and ran off as
fast 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 into
laughter again and repeated the question. A sense of confusion came
upon her. Disturbed, troubled, she said brokenly:
"Yes, it's the truth. And I wanted to tell you about it. But you don't
seem to feel at all angry."
Once more Camilla glanced adoringly at Luis Cervantes' radiant, clean
face; at his glaucous, soft eyes, his cheeks pink and polished as a
porcelain doll's; at his tender white skin that showed below the line
of his collar and on his shoulders, protruding from under a rough
woolen poncho; at his hair, ever so slightly curled.
"What the devil are you waiting for, fool? If the chief likes you, what
more do you want?"
Camilla felt something rise within her breast, an empty ache that
became a knot when it reached her throat; she closed her eyes fast to
hold back the tears that welled up in them. Then, with the back of her
hand, she wiped her wet cheeks, and just as she had done three days
ago, fled with all the swiftness of a young deer.