Demetrio was gathering all the horses that had been left behind, hidden in the Sierra.

All of a sudden Quail shouted from where he was marching out in front: he had just seen the missing comrades, hanging from the branches of a mesquite tree.

It was Serapio and Antonio. When they recognized them, Anastasio Montañés muttered a prayer between his teeth:

“Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name . . .”

“Amen,” the others murmured, their heads bowed, their hats off, held tightly against their chests.

Afterward, they immediately set off along Juchipila canyon, heading north, without taking any rest at all, even though it was already well past nightfall.

Quail did not leave Anastasio’s side for a single moment. The silhouettes of men hanging and swaying softly in the breeze—necks limp, arms drooping, legs rigid—would not fade from his memory.

The next day Demetrio began to complain heavily about his wound. He could no longer ride his horse. To be able to continue from there they had to improvise a stretcher out of oak branches and bundles of grass.

“You’re still bleeding, compadre Demetrio,” Anastasio Montañés said. So he tore off one of the sleeves from his shirt, ripped a long strip from it, and tied it firmly around Demetrio’s thigh, just above the bullet wound.

“Okay,” Venancio said. “That’ll stop the bleeding and ease the pain.”

Venancio was a barber, and in his town he pulled molars and applied caustics and leeches. To a certain extent, the men looked up to him because he had read The Wandering Jew and The Sun of May.2He was a man of few words who was well satisfied with his own wisdom, and whom everyone called doctor.

They took turns carrying the stretcher, four at a time, through barren, rocky mesetas and along very steep slopes.

At noon, when the heat was stifling and a low-lying haze made sight uncertain, the only sounds to be heard were the measured, monotone complaints of the wounded man accompanied by the incessant singing of the cicadas.

They stopped and took their rest at every small hut they found along the way, always tucked into the craggy boulders of the Sierra.

“Thank God that there’s always a compassionate soul waitin’ with a big ol’ bowl of chilies and frijoles!” Anastasio Montañés said, burping.

And very enthusiastically shaking the calloused hands of Demetrio Macías’s men, the men from the Sierra would exclaim:

“God bless you! God help you and lead you along the road! Today you’re heading out. Tomorrow, we’ll run too, running from the draft, chased by those damned government criminals who have declared a war to the death on all us poor people. You know that they steal our pigs, our chickens, and even the little bit of corn that we have to eat. You know that they burn our houses and take our women. And then, wherever they track you down, right there and then they finish you off as if you was a rotten dog.”

As the sun set in a sudden blaze that imbued the sky with bright, vivid colors, they saw up ahead a handful of small, drab houses huddled together in a clearing between the bluish mountains. Demetrio had his men take him there.

They found a few very poor straw huts at the river’s edge, surrounded by newly sprouted corn and frijole seedlings.

They set the stretcher down on the ground; Demetrio called out in a weak voice, asking for a drink of water.

Faded skirts, bony chests, and disheveled heads gathered in the dark mouths of the humble dwellings, while bright eyes and ruddy cheeks stayed congregated inside.

A chubby little boy with shiny dark skin went up to see the man on the stretcher. He was followed by an old woman, and then everyone else came out and surrounded Demetrio.

A very friendly girl brought a jícara3filled with blue water. Demetrio grabbed the gourd with his trembling hands and drank avidly.

“Want any more?”

Demetrio raised his eyes: the young woman had a very ordinary face, but her voice was filled with much sweetness.

He wiped the sweat spotting his forehead with the back of his fist, turned over to one side, and uttered weakly:

“May God bless you for this!”

Then he began to shiver so strongly that the grass bed and the legs of the stretcher started to shake as well. The fever finally made him lethargic.

“It’s gettin’ damp out and tha’s bad for the fever,” said Señora Remigia, a barefoot, hunched-over old woman wearing a coarse cotton rag across her chest as a shirt. She invited the men to bring Demetrio into her hut.

Pancracio, Anastasio Montañés, and Quail lay down at the foot of the stretcher like loyal dogs, attentive to anything their leader might need.

The others headed out in search of food.

Señora Remigia offered them what she had: chilies and tortillas.

“Just imagine! Not long ago I had eggs, chickens, there was even a baby goat that was born here. But these damned Federales cleaned me out.”

Later, cupping her hands around her mouth, she whispered into Anastasio’s ear:

“Just imagine! They even took Señora Nieves’s youngest daughter!”

V

Quail opened his eyes and sat up, startled:

“Montañés, didya hear that? A gunshot! Montañés . . . wake up!”

Quail pushed Montañés hard several times, until he got him to move and stop snoring.

“Son of a ... ! You botherin’ me again? I tell ya that the dead don’t come back to haunt us . . .” Anastasio muttered, half awake.

“I heard a gunshot! Montañés!”

“Go to sleep, Quail, or you’re gonna get it . . .”

“No, Anastasio. I’m tellin’ ya this is no nightmare. I’ve stopped thinkin’ about those men that was hung.