"It is not that," he replied slowly, staring through tears at the pitiful company crawling down from the desert.
"I, too, had many friends who died in the battle," I went on. "But they died gloriously, fighting for their country."
"I do not weep for them," he said, twisting his hands together. "This day I have lost all that is dear to me. They took my woman who was mine, and my commission and all my papers, and all my money. But I am wrenched with grief when I think of my silver spurs inlaid with gold, which I bought only last year in Mapimi!" He turned away, overcome.
And now the peons began to come down from their houses, with pitying cries and loving offers. They threw their arms around the soldiers' necks, assisting the wounded, patting them shyly on the shoulders and calling them "brave." Desperately poor themselves, they offered food, and beds, and fodder for the horses, inviting them to stay at Santo Domingo until they should become well. I already had a place to sleep. Don Pedro, the chief goatherd, had given me his room and his bed in a gush of warm-hearted generosity, and had removed himself and his family to the kitchen. He did so without hope of recompense, for he thought I had no money. And now everywhere men, women and children left their houses to make way for the defeated and weary troops.
Fernando, Juan and I went over and begged some tobacco from the four peddlers camped under the trees beside the spring. They had made no sales for a week, and were almost starving, but they loaded us lavishly with macuche. We talked of the battle, lying there on our elbows watching the shattered remnants of the garrison top the hill.
"You have heard that 'Gino Güereca fell," said Fernando. "Well, I saw him. His big gray horse that he rode for the first time was terrified by the bridle and saddle. But once he came where the bullets were flying and the guns roaring, he steadied at once. Pure race, that horse.... His fathers must have been all warriors. Around 'Gino were four or five more heroes, with almost all their cartridges gone. They fought until on the front and on both sides double galloping lines of colorados closed in. 'Gino was standing beside his horse—suddenly a score of shots hit the animal all at once, and he sighed and fell over. The rest ceased firing in a sort of panic. 'We're lost!' they cried. 'Run while there is yet a chance!' 'Gino shook his smoking rifle at them. 'No,' he shouted. 'Give the compañeros time to get away!' Shortly after that they closed around him, and I never saw him until we buried his body this morning.... It was the devil's hell out there. The rifles were so hot you couldn't touch the barrels, and the whirling haze that belched out when they shot twisted everything like a mirage...."
Juan broke in. "We rode straight out toward the Puerta when the retreat began, but almost immediately we saw it was no use. The colorados broke over our little handfuls of men like waves of the sea. Martinez was just ahead. He never had a chance even to fire his gun—and this was his first battle, too. They hit him as he rode.... I thought how you and Martinez loved each other. You used to talk together at night so warmly, and never wished to leave each other to sleep...."
Now the tall, naked tops of the trees had dulled with the passing of the light, and seemed to stand still the swarming stars in the deep dome overhead. The peddlers had kindled their tiny fire; the low, contented murmur of their gossip floated to us. Open doors of the peons' huts shed wavering candlelight. Up from the river wound a silent line of black-robed girls with water-jars on their heads. Women ground their corn-meal with a monotonous stony scraping. Dogs barked. Drumming hoofs marked the passing of the caballada to the river. Along the ledge in front of Don Pedro's house the warriors smoked and fought the battle over again, stamping around and shouting descriptive matter. "I took my rifle by the barrel and smashed in his grinning face, just as——" some one was narrating, with gestures. The peons squatted around, breathlessly listening.... And still the ghastly procession of the defeated straggled down the road and across the river.
It was not yet quite dark. I wandered down to the bank to watch them, in the vague hope of finding some of my compadres who were still reported missing. And it was there that I first saw Elizabetta.
There was nothing remarkable about her. I think I noticed her chiefly because she was one of the few women in that wretched company. She was a very dark-skinned Indian girl, about twenty-five years old, with the squat figure of her drudging race, pleasant features, hair hanging forward over her shoulders in two long plaits, and big, shining teeth when she smiled. I never did find out whether she had been just a peon woman working around La Cadena when the attack had come, or whether she was a vieja—a camp follower of the army.