The Underdogs Part 20

The latter wrinkled his brow but made no answer.

War Paint called Camilla aside.

"Hey you ... what are you gobbling about? Blondie's my man, understand?

From now on, you know how things are: whatever you've got against him you've got against me too! I'm warning you."

Camilla, frightened, hurried back to Demetrio's side.

X

The men camped in a meadow, near three small lone houses standing in a row, their white walls cutting the purple fringe of the horizon.

Demetrio and Camilla rode toward them. Inside the corral a man, clad in shirt and trousers of cheap white cloth, sat greedily puffing at a cornhusk cigarette. Another man sitting beside him on a flat cut stone was sh.e.l.ling corn. Kicking the air with one dry, withered leg, the extremity of which was like a goat's hoof, he frightened the chickens away.

"Hurry up, 'Pifanio," said the man who was smoking, "the sun has gone down already and you haven't taken the animals to water."

A horse neighed outside the corral; both men glanced up in amazement.

Demetrio and Camilla were looking over the corral wall at them.

"I just want a place to sleep for my woman and me," Demetrio said rea.s.suringly.

As he explained that he was the chief of a small army which was to camp nearby that night, the man smoking, who owned the place, bid them enter with great deference. He ran to fetch a broom and a pail of water to dust and wash the best corner of the hut as decent lodging for his distinguished guests.

"Here, 'Pifanio, go out there and unsaddle the horses."

The man who was sh.e.l.ling corn stood up with an effort. He was clad in a tattered shirt and vest. His torn trousers, split at the seam, looked like the wings of a cold, stricken bird; two strings of cloth dangled from his waist. As he walked, he described grotesque circles.

"Surely you're not fit to do any work!" Demetrio said, refusing to allow him to touch the saddles.

"Poor man," the owner cried from within the hut, "he's lost all his strength.... But he surely works for his pay.... He starts working the minute G.o.d Almighty himself gets up, and it's after sundown now but he's working still!"

Demetrio went out with Camilla for a stroll about the encampment. The meadow, golden, furrowed, stripped even of the smallest bushes, extended limitless in its immense desolation. The three tall ash trees which stood in front of the small house, with dark green crests, round and waving, with rich foliage and branches drooping to the very ground, seemed a veritable miracle.

"I don't know why but I feel there's a lot of sadness around here,"

said Demetrio.

"Yes," Camilla answered, "I feel that way too."

On the bank of a small stream, 'Pifanio was strenuously tugging at a rope with a large can tied to the end of it. He poured a stream of water over a heap of fresh, cool gra.s.s; in the twilight, the water glimmered like crystal. A thin cow, a scrawny nag, and a burro drank noisily together.

Demetrio recognized the limping servant and asked him: "How much do you get a day?"

"Eight cents a day, boss."

He was an insignificant, scrofulous wraith of a man with green eyes and straight, fair hair. He whined complaint of his boss, the ranch, his bad luck, his dog's life.

"You certainly earn your pay all right, my lad," Demetrio interrupted kindly. "You complain and complain, but you aren't no loafer, you work and work." Then, aside to Camilla: "There's always more d.a.m.ned fools in the valley than among us folk in the sierra, don't you think?"

"Of course!" she replied.

They went on. The valley was lost in darkness; stars came out. Demetrio put his arm around Camilla's waist amorously and whispered in her ear.

"Yes," she answered in a faint voice.

She was indeed beginning to "fall for him" as she had expressed it.

Demetrio slept badly. He flung out of the house very early.

"Something is going to happen to me," he thought.

It was a silent dawn, with faint murmurs of joy. A thrush sang timidly in one of the ash trees. The animals in the corral trampled on the refuse. The pig grunted its somnolence. The orange tints of the sun streaked the sky; the last star flickered out.

Demetrio walked slowly to the encampment.

He was thinking of his plow, his two black oxen--young beasts they were, who had worked in the fields only two years--of his two acres of well-fertilized corn. The face of his young wife came to his mind, clear and true as life: he saw her strong, soft features, so gracious when she smiled on her husband, so proudly fierce toward strangers. But when he tried to conjure up the image of his son, his efforts were vain; he had forgotten....

He reached the camp. Lying among the farrows, the soldiers slept with the horses, heads bowed, eyes closed.

"Our horses are pretty tired, Anastasio. I think we ought to stay here at least another day."

"Well, Compadre Demetrio, I'm hankering for the sierra.... If you only knew.... You may not believe me but nothing strikes me right here. I don't know what I miss but I know I miss something. I feel sad ...

lost...."

"How many hours' ride from here to Limon?"

"It's no matter of hours; it's three days' hard riding, Demetrio."

"You know," Demetrio said softly, "I feel as though I'd like to see my wife again!"

Shortly after, War Paint sought out Camilla.

"That's one on you, my dear.... Demetrio's going to leave you flat! He told me so himself; 'I'm going to get my real woman,' he says, and he says, 'Her skin is white and tender ... and her rosy cheeks.... How beautiful she is!' But you don't have to leave him, you know; if you're set on staying, well--they've got a child, you know, and I suppose you could drag it around...."

When Demetrio returned, Camilla, weeping, told him everything.

"Don't pay no attention to that crazy baggage. It's all lies, lies!"

Since Demetrio did not go to Limon or remember his wife again, Camilla grew very happy. War Paint had merely stung herself, like a scorpion.

XI

Before dawn, they left for Tepat.i.tlan. Their silhouettes wavered indistinctly over the road and the fields that bordered it, rising and falling with the monotonous, rhythmical gait of their horses, then faded away in the nacreous light of the swooning moon that bathed the valley. Dogs barked in the distance.

"By noon we'll reach Tepat.i.tlan, Cuquio tomorrow, and then ... on to the sierra!" Demetrio said.