Rain drummed all the way and the road became a mire in places. They had to pull off to bypass a wagon and the carriage sank to the hubs. Manuel put his cowboy escort to work, but it was a difficult job, with one of the whippletrees splintered. Angelina sat on a valise under her umbrella, a shawl around her, hating the rain and mud.
Colima's streets and houses were a glad sight, but at the railway station they learned from the telegraph operator that the rails had been ripped up by rebels, somewhere miles along the line.
"It will be days before a train can get through," he explained, wanting to be sympathetic.
Raul slipped some money into his hands.
"Keep me informed," he said. "I'll be in touch with you."
He took Angelina to Federicka's, but she could not shake her pessimism; she felt defeated, fated to die at Petaca; she complained of a sick stomach; her head ached. When Federicka urged her to remain in Colima she consented, sullen, ready to go to bed, unwilling to say goodbye to Raul. She shut herself in her room, telling herself: I'll stay here till the train runs.
Raul learned every inch of Colima's time-gnawed station before the train ran again: the scaled walls, the stink of urine, the fruit peels on the floor, peasants sleeping among cockroaches.... Vicente sometimes waited with him, disgusted, a boy in school clothes. Raul was usually hatless, in tight gray trousers and a snow-white pocketed jacket-shirt.
Vicente chewed sugar cane. "It's going to be bad in Guadalajara," he said.
"It may be bad here."
"I don't like the Colegio Francés."