Then go and steal the priest’s cassock.”

“But what are we gonna do, compadre?” Anastasio asked, dumbfounded.

“If this curro has come to kill me, it’s very easy to get the truth out of ’im. I’ll tell ’im that I’m havin’ ’im shot to death. Then Quail dresses up like a priest and takes his confession. If he confesses to the sin, I do ’im in. If not, I let ’im go.”

“H’m, so much ado! I should’ve just blasted ’im and finished it right then and there,” Pancracio exclaimed contemptuously.

That evening Quail returned with the priest’s cassock. Demetrio had the prisoner brought to him.

Luis Cervantes came in. He had not slept or eaten in two days, his face was pale, he had bags under his eyes, and his lips were colorless and parched.

He spoke slowly and awkwardly.

“Do with me what you will. I was probably wrong about you and your men.”

There was a drawn-out silence. And then:

“I thought that you would gladly accept someone who came to offer his help, as small as my help may be to you, and yet of benefit only to you. What do I care, after all, if the revolution succeeds or not?”

As he spoke out loud, he slowly began to regain his confidence, and eventually the languor in his eyes began to fade.

“The revolution benefits the poor, the ignorant. It is for him who has been a slave his entire life, for the wretched who do not even know that they are so because the rich man transforms the blood, sweat, and tears of the poor man into gold—”

“Bah! What’re we supposed to do with all of that? I never cared much for sermons!” Pancracio interrupted.

“I wanted to fight the blessed struggle of the poor and the weak. But you do not understand me, you reject me. And so I say: do with me what you will!”

“Well, maybe I’ll just put this here rope ’round your throat, which sure is nice ’n chubby ’n white, isn’t it now?”

“Yeah, I know what you’re here for,” Demetrio responded sharply, scratching his head. “I’m havin’ you shot to death, eh?”

Then, turning to Anastasio:

“Take ’im away. And if he wants to confess, bring ’im a priest.”

Impassive as always, Anastasio gently grabbed Cervantes’s arm.

“You’re comin’ with me, curro.”

When Quail showed up a few minutes later, dressed in the cassock, they all burst out laughing.

“H’m! This curro sure can talk,” he remarked. “I think he was even havin’ a laugh at me when I started askin’ ’im questions.”

“But he didn’t sing nothin’?”

“Nothin’ more than what he said last night.”

“I’m thinkin’ that he didn’t come here to do what you fear, compadre,” Anastasio noted.

“Okay then. Give ’im somethin’ to eat and keep an eye on ’im.”

VIII

The next day, Luis Cervantes could barely get up. Dragging his wounded leg about, he wandered from house to house asking for a little alcohol, some boiling water, and shreds of rags. Camila, with her tireless friendliness, supplied him with everything.

She sat next to him and watched him treat himself, observing with the curiosity typical of someone from the Sierra as he rinsed out the wound.

“Listen, and who taught ya to cure like that? And whatcha boil the water for? And the rags, whatcha sew ’em together for? Well, wouldya look at that. How curious. And what’re ya pourin’ on your hands? Is that really alcohol? Well, what d’ya know, I thought alcohol was only good for colic! Ah! So ya was gonna be a doctor, really? Ha, ha, ha! What a laugh riot! And wouldn’t it be better if ya put some cold water on there? You sure do tell some fantastic stories! Little tiny animals livin’ in the water if you don’t boil the water! Phooey! I sure don’t see nothin’ when I look at it!”

Camila continued asking him questions with such a friendly nature that before long she was addressing him informally.1

But Luis Cervantes, lost in his own thoughts, was no longer listening to her.

“So where are those admirably armed men and their steeds, those men who are receiving their wages in solid gold coins that Villa is minting in Chihuahua. Bah! All we have here is twenty-some half-naked, louse-ridden men, one of them even riding a decrepit old mare, nearly whipped to death from its withers to its tail. Could it be true, then, what the government press and what he himself had claimed before, that the so-called revolutionaries were nothing more than a bunch of bandits grouped together under a magnificent pretext just to satiate their thirst for gold and blood? Could it be, then, that everything that was said of them by those who sympathized with the revolution was a lie? But if the newspapers were still loudly touting all the many victories of the federation,2then why had a paymaster recently arrived from Guadalajara spreading the rumor that Huerta’s friends and family were abandoning the capital and heading toward the ports on their way to Europe, even though Huerta kept shouting and yelling, ‘I’ll make peace, no matter the cost.’ So the revolutionaries, or the bandits, or whatever one wished to call them—they were going to topple the government. Tomorrow belonged to them, and the only choice, the only choice really, was to join them.

“No, this time I have not made a mistake,” Luis Cervantes said to himself, almost out loud.

“What’re ya sayin’?” Camila asked. “I was startin’ to think that a cat had gotten your tongue.”

Luis Cervantes frowned and looked angrily at the girl, a kind of homely female monkey with bronze-colored skin, ivory teeth, and broad, flat feet.

“Listen, curro, ya must know how to tell stories, don’t ya now?”

Cervantes made a rude gesture and left without answering her.

Enthralled, she continued looking at him until his silhouette disappeared down the path by the river.

She was so distracted that she nearly jumped, startled, when she heard the voice of her neighbor, the one-eyed María Antonia, who was as always snooping from her hut. María Antonia had shouted at her:

“Hey, you! Give ’im some love powder. Maybe then he might fall for ya.”

“Nah. You might, but not me.”

"You bet I’d like to! But, phooey! Those curros make me sick.”

IX

“Señora Remigia, won’t you lend me some eggs, my chicken woke up all lazy. I have some señores back there who want breakfast.”

The neighbor opened her eyes wide, trying to adjust her sight as she passed from the bright sunlight into the shadows of the small hut, made darker still by the dense smoke rising from the fire. After a few brief moments she could make out the outlines of the objects in the room more distinctly, and she saw the stretcher of the wounded man in a corner, with the man’s head close to the dilapidated, greasy posts of the wall.

She crouched down next to Señora Remigia, glanced furtively toward where Demetrio was resting, and asked in a hushed voice:

“How’s this man doing? More comfortable, ya say? Tha’s good.