Before dawn, they left for Tepatitlan. Their silhouettes wavered
indistinctly over the road and the fields that bordered it, rising and
falling with the monotonous, rhythmical gait of their horses, then
faded away in the nacreous light of the swooning moon that bathed the
valley. Dogs barked in the distance.
"By noon we'll reach Tepatitlan, Cuquio tomorrow, and then ... on to
the sierra!" Demetrio said.
"Don't you think it advisable to go to Aguascalientes first, General?"
Luis Cervantes asked.
"What for?"
"Our funds are melting slowly."
"Nonsense ... forty thousand pesos in eight days!"
"Well, you see, just this week we recruited over five hundred new men;
all the money's gone in advance loans and gratuities," Luis Cervantes
answered in a low voice.
"No! We'll go straight to the sierra. We'll see later on."
"Yes, to the sierra!" many of the men shouted.
"To the sierra! To the sierra! Hurrah for the mountains!"
The plains seemed to torture them; they spoke with enthusiasm, almost
with delirium, of the sierra. They thought of the mountains as of a
most desirable mistress long since unvisited.
Dawn broke behind a cloud of fine reddish dust; the sun rose an immense
curtain of fiery purple. Luis Cervantes pulled his reins and waited for
Quail. "What's the last word on our deal, Quail?"
"I told you, Tenderfoot: two hundred for the watch alone."
"No! I'll buy the lot: watches, rings, everything else. How much?"
Quail hesitated, turned slightly pale; then he cried spiritedly:
"Two thousand in bills, for the whole business!"
Luis Cervantes gave himself away. His eyes shone with such an obvious
greed that Quail recanted and said:
"Oh, I was just fooling you. I won't sell nothing! Just the watch, see?
And that's only because I owe Pancracio two hundred. He beat me at
cards last night!"
Luis Cervantes pulled out four crisp "double-face" bills of Villa's
issue and placed them in Quail's hands.
"I'd like to buy the lot.... Besides, nobody will offer you more than
that!"
As the sun began to beat down upon them, Manteca suddenly shouted:
"Ho, Blondie, your orderly says he doesn't care to go on living. He
says he's too damned tired to walk."
The prisoner had fallen in the middle of the road, utterly exhausted.
"Well, well!" Blondie shouted, retracing his steps. "So little mama's
boy is tired, eh? Poor little fellow. I'll buy a glass case and keep
you in a corner of my house just as if you were the Virgin Mary's own
little son. You've got to reach home first, see? So I'll help you a
little, sonny!"
He drew his sword out and struck the prisoner several times.
"Let's have a look at your rope, Pancracio," he said. There was a
strange gleam in his eyes. Quail observed that the prisoner no longer
moved arm or leg. Blondie burst into a loud guffaw: "The Goddamned
fool. Just as I was learning him to do without food, too!"
"Well, mate, we're almost to Guadalajara," Venancio said, glancing over
the smiling row of houses in Tepatitlan nestling against the hillside.
They entered joyously. From every window rosy cheeks, dark luminous
eyes observed them. The schools were quickly converted into barracks;
Demetrio found lodging in the chapel of an abandoned church.
The soldiers scattered about as usual pretending to seek arms and
horses, but in reality for the sole purpose of looting.
In the afternoon some of Demetrio's men lay stretched out on the church
steps, scratching their bellies. Venancio, his chest and shoulders
bare, was gravely occupied in killing the fleas in his shirt. A man
drew near the wall and sought permission to speak to the commander. The
soldiers raised their heads; but no one answered.
"I'm a widower, gentlemen. I've got nine children and I barely make a
living with the sweat of my brow. Don't be hard on a poor widower!"
"Don't you worry about women, Uncle," said Meco, who was rubbing his
feet with tallow, "we've got War Paint here with us; you can have her
for nothing."
The man smiled bitterly.
"She's only got one fault," Pancracio observed, stretched out on the
ground, staring at the blue sky, "she goes mad over any man she sees."
They laughed loudly; but Venancio with utmost gravity pointed to the
chapel door. The stranger entered timidly and confided his troubles to
Demetrio. The soldiers had cleaned him out; they had not left a single
grain of corn.
"Why did you let them?" Demetrio asked indolently.
The man persisted, lamenting and weeping. Luis Cervantes was about to
throw him out with an insult. But Camilla intervened.
"Come on, Demetrio, don't be harsh, give him an order to get his corn
back."
Luis Cervantes was obliged to obey; he scrawled a few lines to which
Demetrio appended an illegible scratch.
"May God repay you, my child! God will lead you to heaven that you may
enjoy his glory. Ten bushels of corn are barely enough for this year's
food!" the man cried, weeping for gratitude. Then he took the paper,
kissed everybody's hand, and withdrew.