complete-guide

XII
Demetrio's wound had already healed. They began
to discuss various projects to go northward where,
according to rumor, the rebels had beaten the Federal
troops all along the line.
A certain incident came to precipitate their action.
Seated on a crag of the sierra in the cool of the afternoon
breeze, Luis Cervantes gazed away in the distance,
dreaming and killing time. Below the narrow rock Pancracio
and Manteca, lying like lizards between the
jarales along one of the river margins, were playing
cards. Anastasio Montanez, looking on indifferently,
turned his black hairy face toward Luis Cervantes and,
leveling his kindly gaze upon him, asked:
"Why so sad, you from the city What are you daydreaming
about Come on over here and let's have a
chat!"
Luis Cervantes did not move; Anastasio went over to
him and sat down beside him like a friend.
"What you need is the excitement of the city. I wager
you shine your shoes every day and wear a necktie. Now,
I may look dirty and my clothes may be torn to shreds,
but I'm not really what I seem to be. I'm not here because
I've got to be and don't you think so. Why, I own twenty
oxen. Certainly I do; ask my friend Demetrio. I cleared
ten bushels last harvest time. You see, if there's one
thing I love, that's riling these Government fellows and
making them furious. The last scrape I had--it'll be eight
months gone now, ever since I've joined these men--I
stuck my knife into some captain. He was just a nobody,
a little Government squirt. I pinked him here, see,
right under the navel. And that's why I'm here: that and
because I wanted to give my mate Demetrio a hand."
"Christ! The bloody little darling of my life!" Manteca
shouted, waxing enthusiastic over a winning hand. He
placed a twenty-cent silver coin on the jack of spades.