My Dear Venancio:
Due to the pressure of professional duties I have been unable to answer
your letter of January 4 before now. As you already know, I was
graduated last December. I was sorry to hear of Pancracio's and
Manteca's fate, though I am not surprised that they stabbed each other
over the gambling table. It is a pity; they were both brave men. I am
deeply grieved not to be able to tell Blondie how sincerely and
heartily I congratulate him for the only noble and beautiful thing he
ever did in his whole life: to have shot himself!
Dear Venancio, although you may have enough money to purchase a degree,
I am afraid you won't find it very easy to become a doctor in this
country. You know I like you very much, Venancio; and I think you
deserve a better fate. But I have an idea which may prove profitable to
both of us and which may improve your social position, as you desire.
We could do a fine business here if we were to go in as partners and
set up a typical Mexican restaurant in this town. I have no reserve
funds at the moment since I've spent all I had in getting my college
degree, but I have something much more valuable than money; my perfect
knowledge of this town and its needs. You can appear as the owner; we
will make a monthly division of profits. Besides, concerning a question
that interests us both very much, namely, your social improvement, it
occurs to me that you play the guitar quite well. In view of the
recommendations I could give you and in view of your training as well,
you might easily be admitted as a member of some fraternal order; there
are several here which would bring you no inconsiderable social
prestige.
Don't hesitate, Venancio, come at once and bring your funds. I promise
you we'll get rich in no time. My best wishes to the General, to
Anastasio, and the rest of the boys.
Your affectionate friend,
Luis Cervantes
Venancio finished reading the letter for the hundredth time and,
sighing, repeated:
"Tenderfoot certainly knows how to pull the strings all right!"
"What I can't get into my head," observed Anastasio Montanez, "is why
we keep on fighting. Didn't we finish off this man Huerta and his
Federation?"
Neither the General nor Venancio answered; but the same thought kept
beating down on their dull brains like a hammer on an anvil.
They ascended the steep hill, their heads bowed, pensive, their horses
walking at a slow gait. Stubbornly restless, Anastasio made the same
observation to other groups; the soldiers laughed at his candor. If a
man has a rifle in his hands and a beltful of cartridges, surely he
should use them. That means fighting. Against whom? For whom? That is
scarcely a matter of importance.
The endless wavering column of dust moved up the trail, a swirling ant
heap of broad straw sombreros, dirty khaki, faded blankets, and black
horses....
Not a man but was dying of thirst; no pool or stream or well anywhere
along the road. A wave of dust rose from the white, wild sides of a
small canyon, swayed mistily on the hoary crest of huizache trees and
the greenish stumps of cactus. Like a jest, the flowers in the cactus
opened out, fresh, solid, aflame, some thorny, others diaphanous.
At noon they reached a hut, clinging to the precipitous sierra, then
three more huts strewn over the margin of a river of burnt sand.
Everything was silent, desolate. As soon as they saw men on horseback,
the people in the huts scurried into the hills to hide. Demetrio grew
indignant.
"Bring me anyone you find hiding or running away," he commanded in a
loud voice.
"What? What did you say?" Valderrama cried in surprise. "The men of the
sierra? Those brave men who've not yet done what those chickens down in
Aguascalientes and Zacatecas have done all the time? Our own brothers,
who weather storms, who cling to the rocks like moss itself? I protest,
sir; I protest!"
He spurred his miserable horse forward and caught up with the General.
"The mountaineers," he said solemnly and emphatically, "are flesh of
our flesh, bone of our bone. Os ex osibus meis et caro de carne mea.
Mountaineers are made from the same timber we're made of! Of the same
sound timber from which heroes ..."
With a confidence as sudden as it was courageous, he hit the General
across the chest. The General smiled benevolently.
Valderrama, the tramp, the crazy maker of verses, did he ever know what
he said?
When the soldiers reached a small ranch, despairingly, they searched
the empty huts and small houses without finding a single stale
tortilla, a solitary rotten pepper, or one pinch of salt with which to
flavor the horrible taste of dry meat. The owners of the huts, their
peaceful brethren, were impassive with the stonelike impassivity of
Aztec idols; others, more human, with a slow smile on their colorless
lips and beardless faces, watched these fierce men who less than a
month ago had made the miserable huts of others tremble with fear, now
in their turn fleeing their own huts where the ovens were cold and the
water tanks dry, fleeing with their tails between their legs, cringing,
like curs kicked out of their own houses.
But the General did not countermand his order. Some soldiers brought
back four fugitives, captive and bound.