Looking across the square, he watched one group pass into the midmorning shadow of the church. They moved along the west wall, carrying their homemade wine and mescal, and lunches of bread-small loaves baked in the shapes of death's heads for the occasion.
Take a bite of death on the grave of your father.
Death and the devil are one. Show him you aren't afraid and he'll stay in hell where he belongs. But take another drink before it wears off and he comes leaping out.
Lamas Duro smiled. Children of the ignorant whore Superstition. But he thought: You believe in nothing, now; yet you conduct yourself in this manner every day. What does it mean?
He looked out over the square, at the shadow of the obelisk which was the only thing about the square that ever changed, and made the scene seem more monotonous because the change itself was a dull, inching thing that wasn't worth thinking about.
It means you're sick of life…but afraid of death, so you take the in-between, and that's mescal. You didn't begin that way. Even a year ago there was no fear, but that was before Diaz…and his rurales…his bandits, which is what they are.
It came suddenly, and he wasn't aware of the reason-though it must have been the picture of himself as he had once been, for that flashed in his mind, differently than it had the many times before, for consciously now he saw himself as he had been and, at the same time, as he was now-and he knew then that he would leave.
And the plan of what he would do fell into place quickly…remembering the bounty money in his possession and Lazair away from the pueblo and Santana due in from patrol that morning but being weary should be in the mescal shop or at camp and the entire population of Soyopa celebrating Dia de Los Muertos… No one, no one would notice alone rider leaving Soyopa!
He would ride north…across the border. That was it. Living among the Americans would be something to get used to, but at least the bounty money would make the getting used to it less unbearable. And it now seemed so simple, so elementary, that he wondered why it had not occurred to him before this. He inhaled deeply, feeling his shirt tighten against his chest, then moved away from the veranda railing and went into the office.
A half-full mescal bottle that he had started only that morning was on the desk. He picked it up by the neck and was smiling as his arm swung wide and let it go. The bottle smashed against the far wall-shattering, flying glass and the liquid burst of it beginning to run down to the floor.
Entering the square, Bowers glanced at Santana. "What was that?"
Santana smiled through the sweat-streaked dust on his face. "This is a feast day. Many bottles are opened, some of them are dropped."
They were passing Duro's house, less than a hundred feet away, and nodding toward it Bowers said, "Sounded like it came from there."
Santana answered, "Lieutenant Duro has never dropped a bottle in the entirety of his life."
They stopped in front of Las Quince Letras, Bowers and Santana, with a few of the rurales pulling even with them now. Most of the rurales had swerved from the square down the street leading to their camp.
Bowers came off the saddle stiff-legged. It seemed a long time since dawn; riding steadily for hours with nothing happening made it seem like days. There were no Apaches, not even a pony sign all day yesterday or that morning. But the thought was in Bowers' mind all during the patrol that probably it was just as well. Santana wouldn't have been ready for Apaches had they appeared. He allowed his patrol to stretch thin. There was more than just talking in ranks-loud laughter, even drinking. Almost, it seemed to Bowers, as if their purpose was to ride through the brush to flush out game for a hunting party ahead. Santana failed to send out flankers. He kept two men riding advance, but each time the twenty-man patrol caught up with them they were dismounted, lying in the shade, if there was shade, or else with sombreros tilted over their faces. When they reached Alaejos, two men were missing. The two straggled in almost an hour later, and Santana said nothing to them. In more than a dozen places along the way, three Apaches could have annihilated a good half of the patrol. Bowers kept his thoughts to himself. By the time they had reached Alaejos, that afternoon, he realized it wasn't a lack of discipline; Santana didn't know what he was doing…in spite of his years in the army. He thinks he's a soldier, Bowers had thought, but he isn't even close to being one.
When they left Alaejos, a man in white peon clothes was with them. He rode between two rurales and his hands were tied to the saddle horn. A middle-aged man with tired eyes that looked at nothing. Santana said he was a thief and one purpose of the patrol was to bring him back to Soyopa to be tried by Duro. "What did he steal? I don't know. What difference does it make? I have the name and this is the man who answers to it."
A few miles out of Alaejos Bowers noticed Santana nod to one of the men next to the peon. The rurale dropped back half a length and suddenly slapped the peon's mount across the rump. Santana waited, deliberately. No one had moved. Bowers looked at Santana quickly, with astonishment that turned to shock as Santana smiled, waiting, then with the smile in the tone of his voice shouted for his men to stop him.
A dozen rurales fired, and when the man was on the ground motionless some of them were still firing.
"Why do they always try to escape?" Santana had said, then shrugged. "Ley fuga. It saves the cost of a trial."
They had made camp later on and started for Soyopa again with the first light.
Now it was midmorning as they entered Las Quince Letras.
"Mescal?" Santana asked, and when Bowers nodded he said, "This time on me."
Bowers waited as Santana paid for the bottle. He was more than a little tired of Santana now, after a full day and a half of him, but if he wanted to buy a drink that was all right. After, he would go to Hilario's house and wait for Flynn. Today was supposed to be the day.
He was surprised at the amount of people in the shop and then he remembered that this was a festival day. There was a hum of talking spotted with laughter and the sounds of glasses and bottles. And going over the room his eyes hesitated on the table where the four Americans sat. The same table as before. One of them was the man who had torn the girl's dress off. God, he must live here. And with the same three friends. No, one of them wasn't here the other day. His eyes moved on and came back to the bar and Santana was coming toward him with bottle and glasses. There was a vacant table in front of them and they sat down at it.
"Good crowd," Bowers said, "for before noon."
Santana smiled. "Preparing themselves for the graves."
"Part of the festival?"
"The big part. Dia de Los Muertos lasts these three days. On this the first day, the graves of ancestors are visited. They are mourned, toasted and finally eaten over before the day is through. By the third day death is convinced that we aren't afraid of him."
Now they did not speak. As if there was nothing more in common between them which they had not already spoken of. Bowers, out of politeness, thought for something to say, but the things that occurred to him weren't worth talking about. There was the mescal to drink and many faces about and movements in the room to attract attention, so talk wasn't necessary. Bowers sank back into the cane-bottomed chair and sipped the sweet liquor, now and then thinking about the peon. "Why do they always try to escape?" Santana had said that, smiling. Bowers thought: If they were going to hang the man anyway, what difference does it make? But it did make a difference. It didn't seem right. Two men and a girl laughing at the next table and the girl saying something as she laughed, a phrase she repeated three, four times. The words had almost a musical sound and Bowers repeated the phrase in his mind trying to translate it. It's an idiom that you can't translate word for word. You have to concentrate, pick up the idioms, if you get those you've got the language. There's no reason in the world why you should think that peon was treated unfairly. He was a thief. He would have been tried and hanged. Their justice is somewhat more harsh, and they cut corners administering it. Now he heard the girl's voice at the next table again. He glanced that way, but a man's legs and stomach and chest were there. Two, three feet away, standing, and now Bowers looked up at him, recognizing the new man he had seen at the Americans' table and at the same quick moment he knew who the man was…though the first and only time he had seen him had been through field glasses focused on the man's back as he rode out of the canyon shadow.