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caught in a single tear."
Then he continued to talk like a madman, but like a
madman whose vast prophetic madness encompassed all
about him, the dusty weeds, the tumbled kiosk, the gray
houses, the lovely hills, and the immeasurable sky.
IV
Juchipila rose in the distance, white, bathed in sunlight,
shining in the midst of a thick forest at the foot of a
proud, lofty mountain, pleated like a turban.
Some of the soldiers, gazing at the spire of the church,
sighed sadly. They marched forward through the canyon,
uncertain, unsteady, as blind men walking without a hand
to guide them. The bitterness of the exodus pervaded
them.
"Is that town Juchipila" Valderrama asked.
In the first stage of his drunkenness, Valderrama had
been counting the crosses scattered along the road, along
the trails, in the hollows near the rocks, in the tortuous
paths, and along the riverbanks. Crosses of black timber
newly varnished, makeshift crosses built out of two logs,
crosses of stones piled up and plastered together, crosses
whitewashed on crumbling walls, humble crosses drawn
with charcoal on the surface of whitish rocks. The
traces of the first blood shed by the revolutionists of
1910, murdered by the Government.
Before Juchipila was lost from sight, Valderrama got off
his horse, bent down, kneeled, and gravely kissed the
ground.
The soldiers passed by without stopping. Some laughed
at the crazy man, others jested. Valderrama, deaf to all
about him, breathed his unctuous prayer:
"O Juchipila, cradle of the Revolution of 1910, 0
blessed land, land steeped in the blood of martyrs, blood
of dreamers, the only true men . . ."