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Page 14
This signal insult was destined to bear poisonous
fruit. Luis Cervantes determined to play turncoat; in-
deed, mentally, he had already changed sides. Did not
the sufferings of the underdogs, of the disinherited
masses, move him to the core? Henceforth he espoused
the cause of Demos, of the subjugated, the beaten and
baffled, who implore justice, and justice alone. He be-
came intimate with the humblest private. More, even, he
shed tears of compassion over a dead mule which fell,
load and all, after a terribly long journey.
From then on, Luis Cervantes' prestige with the sol-
diers increased. Some actually dared to make confes-
sions. One among them, conspicuous for his sobriety
and silence, told him: "I'm a carpenter by trade, you
know. I had a mother, an old woman nailed to her chair
for ten years by rheumatism. In the middle of the night,
they pulled me out of my house; three damn policemen;
I woke up a soldier twenty-five miles away from my
hometown. A month ago our company passed by there
again. My mother was already under the sod! . . . So
there's nothing left for me in this wide world; no one
misses me now, you see. But, by God, I'm damned if I'll
use these cartridges they make us carry, against the
enemy. If a miracle happens (I pray for it every night,
you know, and I guess our Lady of Guadalupe can do
it all right), then I'll join Villa's men; and I swear by the
holy soul of my old mother, that I'll make every one of
these Government people pay, by God I will."
Another soldier, a bright young fellow, but a charlatan,
at heart, who drank habitually and smoked the narcotic
marihuana weed, eyeing him with vague, glassy stare,
whispered in his ear, "You know, partner . . . the men
on the other side ... you know, the other side . . . you
understand . . . they ride the best horses up north there,
and all over, see? And they harness their mounts with
pure hammered silver. But us? Oh hell, we've got to ride
plugs, that's all, and not one of them good enough to
stagger round a water well. You see, don't you, partner?
You see what I mean? You know, the men on the other
side-they get shiny new silver coins while we get only
lousy paper money printed in that murderer's factory,
that's what we get, yes, that's ours, I tell you!"
The majority of the soldiers spoke in much the same
tenor. Even a top sergeant candidly confessed, "Yes, I
enlisted all right. I wanted to. But, by God, I missed the
right side by a long shot. What you can't make in a life-
time, sweating like a mule and breaking your back in
peacetime, damn it all, you can make in a few months
just running around the sierra with a gun on your back,
but not with this crowd, dearie, not with this lousy
outfit ...."
Luis Cervantes, who already shared this hidden, im-
placably mortal hatred of the upper classes, of his offi-
cers, and of his superiors, felt that a veil had been re-
moved from his eyes; clearly, now, he saw the final out-
come of the struggle. And yet what had happened? The
first moment he was able to join his coreligionists, in-
stead of welcoming him with open arms, they threw him
into a pigsty with swine for company.
Day broke. The roosters crowed in the huts. The
chickens perched in the huizache began to stretch their
wings, shake their feathers, and fly down to the ground.
Luis Cervantes saw his guards lying on top of a dung
heap, snoring. In his imagination, he reviewed the fea-
tures of last night's men. One, Pancracio, was pock-
marked, blotchy, unshaven; his chin protruded, his
forehead receded obliquely; his ears formed one solid
piece with head and neck--a horrible man. The other,
Manteca, was so much human refuse; his eyes were al-
most hidden, his look sullen; his wiry straight hair fen
over his ears, forehead and neck; his scrofulous lips
hung eternally agape. Once more, Luis Cervantes felt
his flesh quiver.
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