"What damned fools," said War Paint convulsed with laughter! "Where the
hell do you come from?..... Soldiers don't sleep in hotels and inns
any more....... Where do you come from? You just go anywhere you like
and pick a house that pleases you, see. When you go there, make
yourself at home and don't ask anyone for anything. What the hell is
the use of the revolution? Who's it for? For the folks who live in
towns? We're the city folk now, see? Come on, Pancracio, hand me your
bayonet. Damn these rich people, they lock up everything they've got!"
She dug the steel point through the crack of a drawer and, pressing on
the hilt, broke the lock, opened the splinted cover of a writing desk.
Anastasio, Pancracio and War Paint plunged their hands into a mass of
post cards, photographs, pictures and papers, scattering them all over
the rug. Finding nothing he wanted, Pancracio gave vent to his anger by
kicking a framed photograph into the air with the toe of his shoe. It
smashed on the candelabra in the center of the room.
They pulled their empty hands out of the heap of paper, cursing. But
War Paint was of sterner stuff; tirelessly she continued to unlock
drawer after drawer without failing to investigate a single spot. In
their absorption, they did not notice a small gray velvet-covered box
which rolled silently across the floor, coming to a stop at Luis
Cervantes' feet.
Demetrio, lying on the rug, seemed to be asleep; Cervantes, who had
watched everything with profound indifference, pulled the box closer to
him with his foot, and stooping to scratch his ankle, swiftly picked it
up. Something gleamed up at him, dazzling. It was two pure-water
diamonds mounted in filigreed platinum. Hastily he thrust them inside
his coat pocket.
When Demetrio awoke, Cervantes said:
"General, look at the mess these boys have made here. Don't you think
it would be advisable to forbid this sort of thing?"
"No. It's about their only pleasure after putting their bellies up as
targets for the enemy's bullets."
"Yes, of course, General, but they could do it somewhere else. You see,
this sort of thing hurts our prestige, and worse, our cause!"
Demetrio leveled his eagle eyes at Cervantes. He drummed with his
fingernails against his teeth, absent-mindedly. Then:
"Come along, now, don't blush," he said. "You can talk like that to
someone else. We know what's mine is mine, what's yours is yours. You
picked the box, all right; I picked my gold watch; all right too!"
His words dispelled any pretense. Both of them, in perfect harmony,
displayed their booty.
War Paint and her companions were ransacking the rest of the house.
Quail entered the room with a twelve-year-old girl upon whose forehead
and arms were already marked copper-colored spots. They stopped short,
speechless with surprise as they saw the books lying in piles on the
floor, chairs and tables, the large mirrors thrown to the ground,
smashed, the huge albums and the photographs torn into shreds, the
furniture, objets d'art and bric-a-brac broken. Quail held his breath,
his avid eyes scouring the room for booty.
Outside, in one corner of the patio, lost in dense clouds of
suffocating smoke, Manteca was boiling corn on the cob, feeding his
fire with books and paper that made the flames leap wildly through the
air.
"Hey!" Quail shouted. "Look what I found. A fine sweat-cover for my
mare."
With a swift pull he wrenched down a hanging, which fell over a
handsomely carved upright chair.
"Look, look at all these naked women!" Quail's little companion cried,
enchanted at a de luxe edition of Dante's Divine Comedy. "I like this;
I think I'll take it along."
She began to tear out the illustrations which pleased her most.
Demetrio crossed the room and sat down beside Luis Cervantes. He
ordered some beer, handed one bottle up to his secretary, downed his
own bottle at one gulp. Then, drowsily, he half closed his eyes, and
soon fell sound asleep.
"Hey!" a man called to Pancracio from the threshold. "When can I see
your general?"
"You can't see him. He's got a hangover this morning. What the hell do
you want?"
"I want to buy some of those books you're burning."
"I'll sell them to you myself."
"How much do you want for them?"
Pancracio frowned in bewilderment.
"Give me a nickel for those with pictures, see. I'll give you the rest
for nothing if you buy all those with pictures."
The man returned with a large basket to carry away the books....
"Come on, Demetrio, come on, you pig, get up! Look who's here! It's
Blondie. You don't know what a fine man he is!"
"I like you very much, General Macias, and I like the way you do
things. So if it's all right, I'd like very much to serve under you!"
"What's your rank?" Demetrio asked him.
"I'm a captain, General."
"All right, you can serve with me now. I'll make you major. How's that?"
Blondie was a round little fellow, with waxed mustache. When he
laughed, his blue eyes disappeared mischievously between his forehead
and his fat cheeks. He had been a waiter at "El Monico," in Chihuahua;
now he proudly wore three small brass bars, the insignia of his rank in
the Northern Division.
Blondie showered eulogy after eulogy on Demetrio and his men; this
proved sufficient reason for bringing out a fresh case of beer, which
was finished in short order.
Suddenly War Paint reappeared in the middle of the room, wearing a
beautiful silk dress covered with exquisite lace.
"You forgot the stockings," Blondie shouted, shaking with laughter.
Quail's girl also burst out laughing. But War Paint did not care. She
shrugged her shoulders indifferently, sat down on the floor, kicked off
her white satin slippers, and wiggled her toes happily, giving their
muscles a freedom welcome after their tight confinement in the
slippers. She said:
"Hey, you, Pancracio, go and get me my blue stockings ... they're with
the rest of my plunder."
Soldiers and their friends, companions and veterans of other campaigns,
began to enter in groups of twos and threes. Demetrio, growing excited,
began to narrate in detail his most notable feats of arms.
"What the hell is that noise?" he asked in surprise as he heard string
and brass instruments tuning up in the patio.
"General Demetrio Macias," Luis Cervantes said solemnly, "it's a
banquet all of your old friends and followers are giving in your honor
to celebrate your victory at Zacatecas and your well-merited promotion
to the rank of general!"