"It's true enough!"

"Well, but ... look here, let's have a drink, come along." Then:

"Hm," Solis went on, offering Cervantes a chair, "since when have you turned rebel?"

"I've been a rebel the last two months!"

"Oh, I see! That's why you speak with such faith and enthusiasm about things we all felt when we joined the revolution."

"Have you lost your faith or enthusiasm?"

"Look here, man, don't be surprised if I confide in you right off. I am so anxious to find someone intelligent among this crowd, that as soon as I get hold of a man like you I clutch at him as eagerly as I would at a gla.s.s of water, after walking mile after mile through a parched desert. But frankly, I think you should do the explaining first. I can't understand how a man who was correspondent of a Government newspaper during the Madero regime, and later editorial writer on a Conservative journal, who denounced us as bandits in the most fiery articles, is now fighting on our side."

"I tell you honestly: I have been converted," Cervantes answered.

"Are you absolutely convinced?"

Solis sighed, filled the gla.s.ses; they drank.

"What about you? Are you tired of the revolution?" asked Cervantes sharply.

"Tired? My dear fellow, I'm twenty-five years old and I'm fit as a fiddle! But am I disappointed? Perhaps!"

"You must have sound reasons for feeling that way."

"I hoped to find a meadow at the end of the road. I found a swamp.

Facts are bitter; so are men. That bitterness eats your heart out; it is poison, dry rot. Enthusiasm, hope, ideals, happiness-vain dreams, vain dreams.... When that's over, you have a choice. Either you turn bandit, like the rest, or the timeservers will swamp you...."

Cervantes writhed at his friend's words; his argument was quite out of place ... painful.... To avoid being forced to take issue, he invited Solis to cite the circ.u.mstances that had destroyed his illusions.

"Circ.u.mstances? No--it's far less important than that. It's a host of silly, insignificant things that no one notices except yourself ... a change of expression, eyes shining-lips curled in a sneer-the deep import of a phrase that is lost! Yet take these things together and they compose the mask of our race ... terrible ... grotesque ... a race that awaits redemption!"

He drained another gla.s.s. After a long pause, he continued:

"You ask me why I am still a rebel? Well, the revolution is like a hurricane: if you're in it, you're not a man ... you're a leaf, a dead leaf, blown by the wind."

Demetrio reappeared. Seeing him, Solis relapsed into silence.

"Come along," Demetrio said to Cervantes. "Come with me."

Unctuously, Solis congratulated Demetrio on the feats that had won him fame and the notice of Pancho Villa's northern division.

Demetrio warmed to his praise. Gratefully, he heard his prowess vaunted, though at times he found it difficult to believe he was the hero of the exploits the other narrated. But Solis' story proved so charming, so convincing, that before long he found himself repeating it as gospel truth.

"Natera is a genius!" Luis Cervantes said when they had returned to the hotel. "But Captain Solis is a n.o.body ... a timeserver."

Demetrio Macias was too elated to listen to him. "I'm a colonel, my lad! And you're my secretary!"

Demetrio's men made many acquaintances that evening; much liquor flowed to celebrate new friendships. Of course men are not necessarily even tempered, nor is alcohol a good counselor; quarrels naturally ensued.

Yet many differences that occurred were smoothed out in a friendly spirit, outside the saloons, restaurants, or brothels.

On the morrow, casualties were reported. Always a few dead. An old prost.i.tute was found with a bullet through her stomach; two of Colonel Macias' new men lay in the gutter, slit from ear to ear.

Anastasio Montanez carried an account of the events to his chief.

Demetrio shrugged his shoulders. "Bury them!" he said.

XIX

"They're coming back!"

It was with amazement that the inhabitants of Fresnillo learned that the rebel attack on Zacatecas had failed completely.

"They're coming back!"

The rebels were a maddened mob, sunburnt, filthy, naked. Their high wide-brimmed straw hats hid their faces. The "high hats" came back as happily as they had marched forth a few days before, pillaging every hamlet along the road, every ranch, even the poorest hut.

"Who'll buy this thing?" one of them asked. He had carried his spoils long: he was tired. The sheen of the nickel on the typewriter, a new machine, attracted every glance. Five times that morning the Oliver had changed hands. The first sale netted the owner ten pesos; presently it had sold for eight; each time it changed hands, it was two pesos cheaper. To be sure, it was a heavy burden; n.o.body could carry it for more than a half-hour.

"I'll give you a quarter for it!" Quail said.

"Yours!" cried the owner, handing it over quickly, as though he feared Quail might change his mind. Thus for the sum of twenty-five cents, Quail was afforded the pleasure of taking it in his hands and throwing it with all his might against the wall.

It struck with a crash. This gave the signal to all who carried any c.u.mbersome objects to get rid of them by smashing them against the rocks. Objects of all sorts, crystal, china, faience, porcelain, flew through the air. Heavy, plated mirrors, bra.s.s candlesticks, fragile, delicate statues, Chinese vases, any object not readily convertible into cash fell by the wayside in fragments.

Demetrio did not share the untoward exaltation. After all, they were retreating defeated. He called Montanez and Pancracio aside and said:

"These fellows have no guts. It's not so hard to take a town. It's like this. First, you open up, this way...." He sketched a vast gesture, spreading his powerful arms. "Then you get close to them, like this...." He brought his arms together, slowly. "Then slam! Bang!

Whack! Crash!" He beat his hands against his chest.

Anastasio and Pancracio, convinced by this simple, lucid explanation answered:

"That's G.o.d's truth! They've no guts! That's the trouble with them!"

Demetrio's men camped in a corral.

"Do you remember Camilla?" Demetrio asked with a sigh as he settled on his back on the manure pile where the rest were already stretched out.

"Camilla? What girl do you mean, Demetrio?"

"The girl that used to feed me up there at the ranch!"

Anastasio made a gesture implying: "I don't care a d.a.m.n about the women ... Camilla or anyone else...."

"I've not forgotten," Demetrio went on, drawing on his cigarette. "Yes, I was feeling like h.e.l.l! I'd just finished drinking a gla.s.s of water.

G.o.d, but it was cool.... 'Don't you want any more?' she asked me. I was half dead with fever ... and all the time I saw that gla.s.s of water, blue ... so blue ... and I heard her little voice, 'Don't you want any more?' That voice tinkled in my ears like a silver hurdy-gurdy! Well, Pancracio, what about it? Shall we go back to the ranch?"