The firing lessened, then slowly died out. Luis Cervantes, who had been
hiding amid a heap of ruins at the fortification on the crest of the
hill, made bold to show his face. How he had managed to hang on, he did
not know. Nor did he know when Demetrio and his men had disappeared.
Suddenly he had found himself alone; then, hurled back by an avalanche
of infantry, he fell from his saddle; a host of men trampled over him
until he rose from the ground and a man on horseback hoisted him up
behind him. After a few moments, horse and riders fell. Left without
rifle, revolver, or arms of any kind, Cervantes found himself lost in
the midst of white smoke and whistling bullets. A hole amid a debris of
crumbling 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. You
see, they thought I was dead. There was nothing I could do!" Luis
Cervantes explained apologetically. Then:
"Nobody threw me down," Solis said. "I'm here because I like to play
safe."
The irony in Solis' voice brought a blush to Cervantes' cheek.
"By God, that chief of yours is a man!" Solis said. "What daring, what
assurance! He left me gasping--and a hell of a lot of other men with
more experience than me, too!"
Luis Cervantes vouchsafed no answer.
"What! Weren't you there? Oh, I see! You found a nice place for
yourself at the right time. Come here, Luis, I'll explain; let's go
behind that rock. From this meadow to the foot of the hill, there's no
road save this path below. To the right, the incline is too sharp; you
can't do anything there. And it's worse to the left; the ascent is so
dangerous that a second's hesitation means a fall down those rocks and
a broken neck at the end of it. All right! A number of men from Moya's
brigade who went down to the meadow decided to attack the enemy's
trenches the first chance they got. The bullets whizzed about us, the
battle raged on all sides. For a time they stopped firing, so we
thought they were being attacked from behind. We stormed their
trenches--look, partner, look at that meadow! It's thick with corpses!
Their machine guns did that for us. They mowed us down like wheat; only
a handful escaped. Those Goddamned officers went white as a sheet; even
though we had reinforcements they were afraid to order a new charge.
That was when Demetrio Macias plunged in. Did he wait for orders? Not
he! 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 wear
eagle'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 fellow
stepped wild and fell headlong into the pit. In a few seconds the
others appeared at the top of the hill, storming the trenches and
killing the Federals by the thousand. With his rope, Demetrio lassoed
the machine guns and carried them off, like a bull herd throwing a
steer. Yet his success could not last much longer, for the Federals
were far stronger in numbers and could easily have destroyed Demetrio
and his men. But we took advantage of their confusion, we rushed upon
them and they soon cleared out of their position. That chief of yours
is a wonderful soldier!"
Standing on the crest of the hill, they could easily sight one side of
the Bufa peak. Its highest crag spread out like the feathered head of a
proud Aztec king. The three-hundred-foot slope was literally covered
with dead, their hair matted, their clothes clotted with grime and
blood. A host of ragged women, vultures of prey, ranged over the tepid
bodies of the dead, stripping one man bare, despoiling another, robbing
from a third his dearest possessions.
Amid clouds of white rifle smoke and the dense black vapors of flaming
buildings, houses with wide doors and windows bolted shone in the
sunlight. The streets seemed to be piled upon one another, or wound
picturesquely about fantastic corners, or set to scale the hills
nearby. Above the graceful cluster of houses, rose the lithe columns of
a warehouse and the towers and cupola of the church.
"How beautiful the revolution! Even in its most barbarous aspect it is
beautiful," Solis said with deep feeling. Then a vague melancholy
seized 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 of
shot rings through the air save from the mob as carrion-like it falls
upon 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 two
hundred thousand monsters of exactly the same sort. People without
ideals! A tyrant folk! Vain bloodshed!"
Large groups of Federals pushed up the hill, fleeing from the "high
hats." A bullet whistled past them, singing as it sped. After his
speech, 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's
get away from here!"
So scornfully Luis Cervantes smiled that Solis sat down on a rock quite
calm, bewildered. He smiled. His gaze roved as he watched the spirals
of smoke from the rifles, the dust of roofs crumbling from houses as
they fell before the artillery. He believed he discerned the symbol of
the revolution in these clouds of dust and smoke that climbed upward
together, met at the crest of the hill and, a moment after, were
lost....
"By heaven, now I see what it all means!"
He sketched a vast gesture, pointing to the station. Locomotives
belched huge clouds of black dense smoke rising in columns; the trains
were overloaded with fugitives who had barely managed to escape from
the captured town.
Suddenly he felt a sharp blow in the stomach. As though his legs were
putty, he rolled off the rock. His ears buzzed... Then darkness ...
silence ... eternity....