The Underdogs — Part 2, chapters 1-2
I
Demetrio, nonplussed, scratched his head: "Look here, don't ask me any more questions....
You gave me the eagle I wear on my hat, didn't you?
All right then; you just tell me: 'Demetrio, do this or do that,' and that's all there is to it."
To champagne, that sparkles and foams as the beaded bubbles burst at the brim of the glass, Demetrio preferred the native tequila, limpid and fiery.
The soldiers sat in groups about the tables in the restaurant, ragged men, filthy with sweat, dirt and smoke, their hair matted, wild, disheveled.
"I killed two colonels," one man clamored in a guttural harsh voice.
He was a small fat fellow, with embroidered hat and chamois coat, wearing a light purple handkerchief about his neck.
"They were so Goddamned fat they couldn't even run.
By God, I wish you could have seen them, tripping and stumbling at every step they took, climbing up the hill, red as tomatoes, their tongues hanging out like hounds.
'Don't run so fast, you lousy beggars!'
I called after them.
'I'm not so fond of frightened geese--stop, You bald-headed bastards: I won't harm you!
You needn't worry!'
By God, they certainly fell for it.
Pop, pop!
One shot for each of them, and a well-earned rest for a pair of poor sinners, be damned to them!"
"I couldn't get a single one of their generals!"
said a swarthy man who sat in one corner between the wall and the bar, holding his rifle between his outstretched legs.
"I sighted one: a fellow with a hell of a lot of gold plastered all over him.
His gold chevrons shone like a Goddamned sunset.
And I let him go by, fool that I was.
He took off his handkerchief and waved it.
I stood there with my mouth wide open like a fool!
Then I ducked and he started shooting, bullet after bullet.
I let him kill a poor cargador.
Then I said: 'My turn, now!
Holy Virgin, Mother of God!
Don't let me miss this son of a bitch.'
But, by Christ, he disappeared.
He was riding a hell of a fine nag; he went by me like lightning!
There was another poor fool coming up the road.
He got it and turned the prettiest somersault you ever saw!"
Talk flew from lip to lip, each soldier vying with his fellow, snatching the words from the other's mouth.
As they declaimed passionately, women with olive, swarthy skins, bright eyes, and teeth of ivory, with revolvers at their waists, cartridge-belts across their breasts, and broad Mexican hats on their heads, wove their way like stray street curs in and out among groups.
A vulgar wench, with rouged cheeks and dark brown arms and neck, gave a great leap and landed on the bar near Demetrio's table.
He turned his head toward her and literally collided with a pair of lubric eyes under a narrow forehead and thick, straight hair, parted in the middle.
The door opened wide.
Anastasio, Pancracio, Quail, and Meco filed in, dazed.
Anastasio uttered a cry of surprise and stepped forward to shake hands with the little fat man wearing a charro suit and a lavender bandanna.
A pair of old friends, met again.
So warm was their embrace, so tightly they clutched each other that the blood rushed to their heads, they turned purple.
"Look here, Demetrio, I want the honor of introducing you to Blondie.
He's a real friend, you know.
I love him like a brother.
You must get to know him, Chief, he's a man!
Do you remember that damn jail at Escobedo, where we stayed together for over a year?"
Without removing his cigar from his lips, Demetrio, buried in a sullen silence amid the bustle and uproar, offered his hand and said: "I'm delighted to meet you!"
"So your name is Demetrio Macias?"
the girl asked suddenly.
Seated on the bar, she swung her legs; at every swing, the toes of her shoes touched Demetrio's back.
"Yes: I'm Demetrio Macias!"
he said, scarcely turning toward her.
Indifferently, she continued to swing her legs, displaying her blue stockings with ostentation.
"Hey, War Paint, what are you doing here?
Step down and have a drink!"
said the man called Blondie.
The girl accepted readily and boldly thrust her way through the crowd to a chair facing Demetrio.
"So you're the famous Demetrio Macias, the hero of Zacatecas?"
the girl asked.
Demetrio bowed assent, while Blondie, laughing, said: "You're a wise one, War Paint.
You want to sport a general!"
Without understanding Blondie's words, Demetrio raised his eyes to hers; they gazed at each other like two dogs sniffing one another with distrust.
Demetrio could not resist her furiously provocative glances;
he was forced to lower his eyes.
From their seats, some of Natera's officers began to hurl obscenities at War Paint.
Without paying the slightest attention, she said: "General Natera is going to hand you out a little general's eagle.
Put it here and shake on it, boy!"
She stuck out her hand at Demetrio and shook it with the strength of a man.
Demetrio, melting to the congratulations raining down upon him, ordered champagne.
"I don't want no more to drink," Blondie said to the waiter, "I'm feeling sick.
Just bring me some ice water."
"I want something to eat," said Pancracio.
"Bring me anything you've got but don't make it chili or beans!"
Officers kept coming in; presently the restaurant was crowded.
Small stars, bars, eagles and insignia of every sort or description dotted their hats.
They wore wide silk bandannas around their necks, large diamond rings on their fingers, large heavy gold watch chains across their breasts.
"Here, waiter," Blondie cried, "I ordered ice water.
And I'm not begging for it either, see?
Look at this bunch of bills.
I'll buy you, your wife, and all you possess, see?
Don't tell me there's none left--I don't care a damn about that!
It's up to you to find some way to get it and Goddamned quick, too.
I don't like to play about; I get mad when I'm crossed....
By God, didn't I tell you I wouldn't stand for any backchat?
You won't bring it to me, eh?
Well, take this...."
A heavy blow sent the waiter reeling to the floor.
"That's the sort of man I am, General Macias!
I'm clean-shaven, eh?
Not a hair on my chin?
Do you know why?
Well, I'll tell you!
You see I get mad easy as hell; and when there's nobody to pick on, I pull my hair until my temper passes.
If I hadn't pulled my beard hair by hair, I'd have died a long time ago from sheer anger!"
"It does you no good to go to pieces when you're angry," a man affirmed earnestly from below a hat that covered his head as a roof does a house.
"When I was up at Torreon I killed an old lady who refused to sell me some enchiladas.
She was angry, I can tell you; I got no enchiladas but I felt satisfied anyhow!"
"I killed a storekeeper at Parral because he gave me some change and there were two Huerta bills in it," said a man with a star on his hat and precious stones on his black, calloused hands.
"Down in Chihuahua I killed a man because I always saw him sitting at the table whenever I went to eat.
I hated the looks of him so I just killed him!
What the hell could I do!"
"Hmm!
I killed...."
The theme is inexhaustible.
By dawn, when the restaurant was wild with joy and the floor dotted with spittle, young painted girls from the suburbs had mingled freely among the dark northern women.
Demetrio pulled out his jeweled gold watch, asking Anastasio Montanez to tell him the time.
Anastasio glanced at the watch, then, poking his head out of a small window, gazed at the starry sky.
"The Pleiades are pretty low in the west.
I guess it won't be long now before daybreak...."
Outside the restaurant, the shouts, laughter and song of the drunkards rang through the air.
Men galloped wildly down the streets, the hoofs of their horses hammering on the sidewalks.
From every quarter of the town pistols spoke, guns belched.
Demetrio and the girl called War Paint staggered tipsily hand in hand down the center of the street, bound for the hotel.
II
"What damned fools," said War Paint convulsed with laughter!
"Where the hell do you come from?.....
Soldiers don't sleep in hotels and inns any more.......
Where do you come from?
You just go anywhere you like and pick a house that pleases you, see.
When you go there, make yourself at home and don't ask anyone for anything.
What the hell is the use of the revolution?
Who's it for?
For the folks who live in towns?
We're the city folk now, see?
Come on, Pancracio, hand me your bayonet.
Damn these rich people, they lock up everything they've got!"
She dug the steel point through the crack of a drawer and, pressing on the hilt, broke the lock, opened the splinted cover of a writing desk.
Anastasio, Pancracio and War Paint plunged their hands into a mass of post cards, photographs, pictures and papers, scattering them all over the rug.
Finding nothing he wanted, Pancracio gave vent to his anger by kicking a framed photograph into the air with the toe of his shoe.
It smashed on the candelabra in the center of the room.
They pulled their empty hands out of the heap of paper, cursing.
But War Paint was of sterner stuff; tirelessly she continued to unlock drawer after drawer without failing to investigate a single spot.
In their absorption, they did not notice a small gray velvet-covered box which rolled silently across the floor, coming to a stop at Luis Cervantes' feet.
Demetrio, lying on the rug, seemed to be asleep; Cervantes, who had watched everything with profound indifference, pulled the box closer to him with his foot, and stooping to scratch his ankle, swiftly picked it up.
Something gleamed up at him, dazzling.
It was two pure-water diamonds mounted in filigreed platinum.
Hastily he thrust them inside his coat pocket.
When Demetrio awoke, Cervantes said: "General, look at the mess these boys have made here.
Don't you think it would be advisable to forbid this sort of thing?"
"No. It's about their only pleasure after putting their bellies up as targets for the enemy's bullets."
"Yes, of course, General, but they could do it somewhere else.
You see, this sort of thing hurts our prestige, and worse, our cause!"
Demetrio leveled his eagle eyes at Cervantes.
He drummed with his fingernails against his teeth, absent-mindedly.
Then: "Come along, now, don't blush," he said.
"You can talk like that to someone else.
We know what's mine is mine, what's yours is yours.
You picked the box, all right; I picked my gold watch; all right too!"
His words dispelled any pretense.
Both of them, in perfect harmony, displayed their booty.
War Paint and her companions were ransacking the rest of the house.
Quail entered the room with a twelve-year-old girl upon whose forehead and arms were already marked copper-colored spots.
They stopped short, speechless with surprise as they saw the books lying in piles on the floor, chairs and tables, the large mirrors thrown to the ground, smashed, the huge albums and the photographs torn into shreds, the furniture, objets d'art and bric-a-brac broken.
Quail held his breath, his avid eyes scouring the room for booty.
Outside, in one corner of the patio, lost in dense clouds of suffocating smoke, Manteca was boiling corn on the cob, feeding his fire with books and paper that made the flames leap wildly through the air.
"Hey!"
Quail shouted.
"Look what I found.
A fine sweat-cover for my mare."
With a swift pull he wrenched down a hanging, which fell over a handsomely carved upright chair.
"Look, look at all these naked women!"
Quail's little companion cried, enchanted at a de luxe edition of Dante's Divine Comedy.
"I like this;
I think I'll take it along."
She began to tear out the illustrations which pleased her most.
Demetrio crossed the room and sat down beside Luis Cervantes.
He ordered some beer, handed one bottle up to his secretary, downed his own bottle at one gulp.
Then, drowsily, he half closed his eyes, and soon fell sound asleep.
"Hey!"
a man called to Pancracio from the threshold.
"When can I see your general?"
"You can't see him.
He's got a hangover this morning.
What the hell do you want?"
"I want to buy some of those books you're burning."
"I'll sell them to you myself."
"How much do you want for them?"
Pancracio frowned in bewilderment.
"Give me a nickel for those with pictures, see.
I'll give you the rest for nothing if you buy all those with pictures."
The man returned with a large basket to carry away the books....
"Come on, Demetrio, come on, you pig, get up!
Look who's here!
It's Blondie.
You don't know what a fine man he is!"
"I like you very much, General Macias, and I like the way you do things.
So if it's all right, I'd like very much to serve under you!"
"What's your rank?"
Demetrio asked him.
"I'm a captain, General."
"All right, you can serve with me now.
I'll make you major.
How's that?"
Blondie was a round little fellow, with waxed mustache.
When he laughed, his blue eyes disappeared mischievously between his forehead and his fat cheeks.
He had been a waiter at "El Monico," in Chihuahua;
now he proudly wore three small brass bars, the insignia of his rank in the Northern Division.
Blondie showered eulogy after eulogy on Demetrio and his men; this proved sufficient reason for bringing out a fresh case of beer, which was finished in short order.
Suddenly War Paint reappeared in the middle of the room, wearing a beautiful silk dress covered with exquisite lace.
"You forgot the stockings," Blondie shouted, shaking with laughter.
Quail's girl also burst out laughing.
But War Paint did not care.
She shrugged her shoulders indifferently, sat down on the floor, kicked off her white satin slippers, and wiggled her toes happily, giving their muscles a freedom welcome after their tight confinement in the slippers.
She said: "Hey, you, Pancracio, go and get me my blue stockings ...
they're with the rest of my plunder."
Soldiers and their friends, companions and veterans of other campaigns, began to enter in groups of twos and threes.
Demetrio, growing excited, began to narrate in detail his most notable feats of arms.
"What the hell is that noise?"
he asked in surprise as he heard string and brass instruments tuning up in the patio.
"General Demetrio Macias," Luis Cervantes said solemnly, "it's a banquet all of your old friends and followers are giving in your honor to celebrate your victory at Zacatecas and your well-merited promotion to the rank of general!"
