"They're coming back!"
It was with amazement that the inhabitants of Fresnillo learned that
the rebel attack on Zacatecas had failed completely.
"They're coming back!"
The rebels were a maddened mob, sunburnt, filthy, naked. Their high
wide-brimmed straw hats hid their faces. The "high hats" came back as
happily as they had marched forth a few days before, pillaging every
hamlet along the road, every ranch, even the poorest hut.
"Who'll buy this thing?" one of them asked. He had carried his spoils
long: he was tired. The sheen of the nickel on the typewriter, a new
machine, attracted every glance. Five times that morning the Oliver had
changed hands. The first sale netted the owner ten pesos; presently it
had sold for eight; each time it changed hands, it was two pesos
cheaper. To be sure, it was a heavy burden; nobody could carry it for
more 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 feared
Quail might change his mind. Thus for the sum of twenty-five cents,
Quail was afforded the pleasure of taking it in his hands and throwing
it with all his might against the wall.
It struck with a crash. This gave the signal to all who carried any
cumbersome objects to get rid of them by smashing them against the
rocks. Objects of all sorts, crystal, china, faience, porcelain, flew
through the air. Heavy, plated mirrors, brass candlesticks, fragile,
delicate statues, Chinese vases, any object not readily convertible
into cash fell by the wayside in fragments.
Demetrio did not share the untoward exaltation. After all, they were
retreating 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 like
this. First, you open up, this way...." He sketched a vast gesture,
spreading his powerful arms. "Then you get close to them, like
this...." 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 explanation
answered:
"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 on
his 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 was
half 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 any
more?' 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 not
believe 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 pretty
far. Demetrio, you should see the scars they've given me ... all over
my body, not to speak of my soul! To hell with women. They're the
devil, that's what they are! You may have noticed I steer clear of
them. You know why. And don't think I don't know what I'm talking
about. 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 we
all can enjoy her when you bring her over," Manteca murmured.
"That's right, Pancracio, bring one-eyed Maria Antonia. We're all
getting pretty cold around here," Meco shouted from a distance.
The crowd broke into peals of laughter. Pancracio and Manteca vied with
each other in calling forth oaths and obscenity.