That left Don Petronilo with a hundred effectives, some extra horses with running sores on their backs, and two thousand rounds of ammunition, more or less. Salazar took himself off in the morning, after recommending that all his gente be shot; he was evidently greatly relieved to be rid of them. Juan Santillanes was in favor of execution, too. But Don Petronilo decided to send them to General Urbina for trial.
CHAPTER IX
THE LAST NIGHT
The days at La Cadena were full of color. In the cold dawn, when the river pools were filmed with ice, a trooper would gallop into the great square with a plunging steer at the end of his rope. Fifty or sixty ragged soldiers, only their eyes showing between serapes and big sombreros, would begin an amateur bull-fight, to the roaring delight of the rest of the compañeros. They waved their blankets, shouting the correct bull-fight cries. One would twist the infuriated animal's tail. Another, more impatient, beat him with the flat of a sword. Instead of banderillas, they stuck daggers into his shoulder—his hot blood spattering them as he charged. And when at last he was down and the merciful knife in his brain, a mob fell upon the carcase, cutting and ripping, and bearing off chunks of raw meat to their cuartels. Then the white, burning sun would rise suddenly behind the Puerta, stinging your hands and face. And the pools of blood, the faded patterns of the serapes, the far reaches of umber desert glowed and became vivid....
Don Petronilo had confiscated several coaches in the campaign. We borrowed them for many an excursion—the five of us. Once it was a trip to San Pedro del Gallo to see a cock-fight, appropriately enough. Another time 'Gino Güereca and I went to see the fabulously rich lost mines of the Spaniards, which he knew. But we never got past Bruquilla—just lounged in the shade of the trees and ate cheese all day.
Late in the afternoon the Puerta guard trotted out to their post, the late sun soft on their rifles and cartridge-belts; and long after dark the detachment relieved came jingling in out of the mysterious dark.
The four peddlers whom I had seen in Santo Domingo arrived that night. They had four burro loads of macuche to sell the soldiers.
"It's meester!" they cried, when I came down to their little fire. "Que tal, meester? How goes it? Aren't you afraid of the colorados?"
"How is business?" I asked, accepting the heaped-up handful of macuche they gave me.
They laughed uproariously at this.