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Page 4
I
That's no animal, I tell you! Listen to the dog bark-
ing! It must be a human being."
The woman stared into the darkness of the sierra.
"What if they're soldiers?" said a man, who sat In-
dian-fashion, eating, a coarse earthenware plate in his
right hand, three folded tortillas in the other.
The woman made no answer, all her senses directed
outside the hut. The beat of horses' hoofs rang in the
quarry nearby. The dog barked again, louder and more
angrily.
"Well, Demetrio, I think you had better hide, all the
same."
Stolidly, the man finished eating; next he reached for
a cantaro and gulped down the water in it; then he
stood up.
"Your rifle is under the mat," she whispered.
A tallow candle illumined the small room. In one cor-
ner stood a plow, a yoke, a goad, and other agricultural
implements. Ropes hung from the roof, securing an old
adobe mold, used as a bed; on it a child slept, covered
with gray rags.
Demetrio buckled his cartridge belt about his waist
and picked up his rifle. He was tall and well built, with a
sanguine face and beardless chin; he wore shirt and
trousers of white cloth, a broad Mexican hat and leather
sandals.
With slow, measured step, he left the room, vanishing
into the impenetrable darkness of the night.
The dog, excited to the point of madness, had jumped
over the corral fence.
Suddenly a shot rang out. The dog moaned, then
barked no more. Some men on horseback rode up, shout-
ing and sweating; two of them dismounted, while the
other hung back to watch the horses.
"Hey, there, woman: we want food! Give us eggs,
milk, beans, anything you've got! We're starving!"
"Curse the sierra! It would take the Devil himself
not to lose his way!"
"Guess again, Sergeant! Even the Devil would go
astray if he were as drunk as you are."
The first speaker wore chevrons on his arm, the other
red stripes on his shoulders.
"Whose place is this, old woman? Or is it an empty
house? God's truth, which is it?"
"Of course it's not empty. How about the light and
that child there? Look here, confound it, we want to
eat, and damn quick tool Are you coming out or are we
going to make you?"
"You swine! Both of you! You've gone and killed my
dog, that's what you've done! What harm did he ever do
you? What did you have against him?"
The woman reentered the house, dragging the dog be-
hind her, very white and fat, with lifeless eyes and flabby
body.
"Look at those cheeks, Sergeant! Don't get riled, light
of my life: I swear I'll turn your home into a dovecot,
see?"
"By God!" he said, breaking off into song:
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