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Page 29
The sun, beating down upon them, dulled their minds
and bodies and presently they were silent. All day long
they rode through the canyon, up and down the steep,
round hills, dirty and bald as a man's head, hill after hill
in endless succession. At last, late in the afternoon, they
descried several stone church towers in the heart of a
bluish ridge, and, beyond, the white road with its curling
spirals of dust and its gray telegraph poles.
They advanced toward the main road; in the distance
they spied a figure of an Indian sitting on the embank-
ment. They drew up to him. He proved to be an un-
friendly looking old man, clad in rags; he was laboriously
attempting to mend his leather sandals with the help of a
dull knife. A burro loaded with fresh green grass stood
by. Demetrio accosted him.
"What are you doing, Grandpa?"
"Gathering alfalfa for my cow."
"How many Federals are there around here?"
"Just a few: not more than a dozen, I reckon."
The old man grew communicative. He told them of
many important rumors: Obregon was besieging Guada-
lajara, Torres was in complete control of the Potosi re-
gion, Natera ruled over Fresnillo.
"All right," said Demetrio, "you can go where you're
headed for, see, but you be damn careful not to tell any-
one you saw us, because if you do, I'll pump you full of
lead. And I could track you down, even if you tried to
hide in the pit of hell, see?"
"What do you say, boys?" Demetrio asked them as
soon as the old man had disappeared.
"To hell with the mochos! We'll kill every blasted one
of them!" they cried in unison.
Then they set to counting their cartridges and the hand
grenades the Owl had made out of fragments of iron
tubing and metal bed handles.
"Not much to brag about, but we'll soon trade them
for rifles," Anastasio observed.
Anxiously they pressed forward, spurring the thin flanks
of their nags to a gallop. Demetrio's brisk, imperious
tones of order brought them abruptly to a halt.
They dismounted by the side of a hill, protected by
thick huizache trees. Without unsaddling their horses,
each began to search for stones to serve as pillows.
XVI
At midnight Demetrio Macias ordered the march to
be resumed. The town was five or six miles away; the best
plan was to take the soldiers by surprise, before reveille.
The sky was cloudy, with here and there a star shining.
From time to time a flash of lightning crossed the sky
with a red dart, illumining the far horizon.
Luis Cervantes asked Demetrio whether the success of
the attack might not be better served by procuring a guide
or leastways by ascertaining the topographic conditions of
the town and the precise location of the soldiers' quar-
ters.
"No," Demetrio answered, accompanying his smile with
a disdainful gesture, "we'll simply fall on them when they
least expect it; that's all there is to it, see? We've done it
before all right, lots of times! Haven't you ever seen the
squirrels stick their heads out of their holes when you
poured in water? Well, that's how these lousy soldiers are
going to feel. Do you see? They'll be frightened out of
their wits the moment they hear our first shot. Then they'll
slink out and stand as targets for us."
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