The mask of his face, stained with dust, remained fixed and awake. He was waiting for the first line of dawn to show itself: the fourth day, according to orders. Almost no one slept, they were watching him from a distance as he sat with his knees tucked up, wrapped in the serape, unmoving. Those who tried to close their eyes had to fight their thirst, hunger, and fatigue. Those who weren't looking at the captain looked toward the line of horses, all with their forelocks parted. Their bridles were tied to the thick mesquite protruding out of the earth like a lost finger. The tired horses stared at the ground. The sun should be appearing from behind the mountain about now. It was time.
They were all waiting for the moment when the captain stood up, tossed aside the blue serape, and revealed himself: his chest covered with cartridge belts, the shining buckle on his officer's tunic, his pigskin puttees. Without a word, the detachment got to its feet and went over to the horses. The captain was right: a fan-shaped glow flared up from behind the lowest peaks, casting an arch of light to which unseen birds added a chorus. They kept their distance but they were the real owners of the vast silence of this abandoned land. He signaled to the Yaqui Indian Tobias and said to him, in his own language, "You stay to the back. As soon as we catch sight of the enemy, race back to headquarters."
The Yaqui nodded, putting on his narrow-brimmed hat, which had a round crown and a single red feather stuck in the band. The captain leaped onto his horse, and the line of men began a light trot toward the entrance to the sierra: a canyon with ocher-faced defiles.
There were three bluffs overhanging three passes through the mountain. The detachment headed for the second, the narrowest, along which the horses would have to pass in single file, with the steep cliff wall on one side and the ravine on the other. The path led to the spring; the canteens broadcast their emptiness as they bounced off the men's hips. The clatter of the rocks glancing off the horses' shoes repeated a deep, empty sound which, like the single dry beat of a drum, vanished without an echo down the canyon. Seen from above, the short column of horsemen seemed to be groping its way forward. Only he kept his eyes on the top of the canyon wall, squinting against the sun, letting his horse find the path. At the head of the detachment, he felt neither fear nor pride. He'd left his fear behind, not in his first battles, but in the long series of skirmishes which had made danger normal for him and turned safety into something disturbing. The absolute silence of the canyon secretly alarmed him, and he tightened the reins and flexed the muscles of his right arm and hand so he could swiftly pull out his pistol. He thought he was devoid of arrogance-earlier, because of his fear, and now out of habit. He had no sense of pride when the first bullets whistled past his ear and life like a miracle went on each time another shot missed its mark. He felt only astonishment at the blind wisdom of his body as it avoided danger by standing or crouching, his face hidden behind a tree trunk-astonishment and scorn, when he thought about the tenacity with which his body, faster even than his will, safeguarded itself. He felt no pride when, later, he didn't even hear that pertinacious, all-too-familiar whistle. He lived a dry but controlled dread in those minutes when unforeseen tranquillity surrounded him. He jutted out his jaw in a gesture of doubt.
A soldier's insistent whistle behind him confirmed the danger
of this march through the canyon. The whistle was broken by a sudden volley of small-arms fire and a howl he knew only too welclass="underline" Villa's cavalry was charging down the almost vertical face of the canyon in a suicide attack, while the riflemen dug in on the third bluff fired at his men, whose bleeding horses, enveloped in a din of dust, reared and plunged into the pit of sharp rocks. He was the only one able to look back to see Tobias imitate Villa's men by galloping down the steep slope in a vain attempt to carry out his orders. The Yaqui's horse lost its footing and for an instant flew through the air, until it crashed at the foot of the canyon wall, crushing its rider under it. The howl grew, accompanied by heavy firing; he slipped off the left side of his horse and rolled down the ravine, controlling his fall to the bottom with somersaults and occasional handholds. In his fractured vision, the bellies of the rearing horses pulsated above him, accompanied by the useless shots of the men who'd been surprised on that narrow ledge, where there was no chance to take cover or maneuver the horses. As he fell, clawing at the steep slope, Villa's cavalrymen attacked from the second peak and the hand-to-hand fighting began. Up above, the savage whirlwind of tangled men and crazed horses continued, while down below he was touching the dark floor of the canyon with his bloody hands. He took out his pistol. Only a renewed silence awaited him. His strength was completely drained. He dragged himself forward, his arm and leg in agony, toward a gigantic rock.
"It's time to give up. Come on out of there, Captain Cruz."
His throat dry, he answered, "Why? So you can shoot me? I think I'll stay right here."
But his right hand, numb with pain, could barely hold the pistol. As he raised his arm, he felt a sharp pain in his stomach. He fired with his head down because the pain would not let him lift it. He kept on firing until the trigger only repeated its metallic clicking. He threw the pistol over the rock, and the voice from above shouted again: "Come out with your hands on the back of your neck."
On the other side of the boulder, more than thirty horses were scattered, dead or dying. Some were trying to lift their heads; others leaned on a bent leg; most had red bullet holes in their foreheads, their necks, or their stomachs. Sometimes on top, sometimes beneath the animals, the men on both sides had assumed distracted positions: face up, as if they were trying to drink the thin stream of the dry creek; face down, hugging the rocks. All dead, except this man who was groaning, trapped under the weight of a bay mare.
"Let me bring this man out," he shouted to the group up above. "He might be one of yours."