When the Owl Cries

by Paul Alexander Bartlett

  7

  Lying in the palmera, Raul wiped his handkerchief over his face. TheAugust heat sopped matted fronds of trees, trickled down lianas, webbedladders of foliage. A cooked iguana revolved on the bamboo spit infront of Raul. Manuel, squatting on his heels, turned the iguana overa tiny fire. Raul sat up and removed his revolver from its holster andbegan reloading, cursing the border fracas that had taken them so farfrom Petaca. As he shoved in a greasy bullet, the earth commenced torock, trees shook, lianas bent.

  The men gaped at one another. A growl drummed underneath them, drummedat the palmera, rattled rocks and seemed, somehow, part of both earthand sky. Raul felt the sand give underneath him and sprang up,revolver in hand. The palm next to him, a tree many years old, leanedover, and then the growl passed farther away and disappeared.

  "That was a bad one," Manuel said.

  "The volcano," said Raul.

  Another shock reached them as they ate their iguana: the sand heaved,palms waved like flags; numbness hung in the air; the sun died out;birds cried as though in pain. A full-grown _tigre_ rushed pastManuel, crazed with fear. His plunge sent up a flock of birds thatcackled insanely.

  "Let's get where we can see the volcano," said Raul, stuffing his mouth.

  "Listen," said Manuel.

  A volcanic explosion sounded like air passing through a bamboo tube.

  "I'll see about the horses," cried Manuel.

  They were yanking at their ropes as Manuel raced toward them, whackingfoliage aside, hoping he could get to them before they broke away. Hetied them to a ceiba, where they had some sort of forage.

  Another explosion told Raul the volcano had let loose; he planned topush through the palmera to the closest hill and take stock of theeruption. With his hunting knife, he sliced more iguana and, puttingon his hat, lunged after Manuel. Rolling their eyes and snuffing, thehorses dragged at their reins and kicked. Raul grabbed Chico, andhanded Manuel a chunk of meat.

  "We can eat as we ride," he said. "Let's make for the nearest hill.Maybe we can see what's happened."

  As Raul mounted, yellow cup-shaped primavera flowers spattered hissaddle, hat, and shoulders. The tree, loaded with blossoms, had been alandmark for the last few miles. Manuel swung onto his horse, took amouthful of iguana, checked his rifle in its scabbard, and nodded toRaul.

  Here no trail cut through and both horse and rider had to worm ahead, aslow, painful ride, Chico rebelling, fighting back at fronds andlianas. Parrots sputtered and he snuffed and threw his head. When hetried to plunge through bamboo, Manuel dismounted and swung his machete.

  "We'll have to do it slow. You take my horse, Raul."

  A great hive of maggots, a brown clot, in the arms of a red birch,broke as Manuel swung the knife. Sweat dripped from his face and arms.He stopped to peel off his shirt and knot it around his waist. HisNegroid features, streaked with dust and pocked with leaf fragments,had whitened. He worked with big long sweeps of the machete, realizinghaste was futile. His eyes became slits, and he called back at Raul:

  "There ought to be a place to break through soon ... soon now."

  "You ride, Manuel. I'll cut."

  "No ... you ride," said Manuel, wheezing as he chopped.

  "I wonder what happened at Petaca?" Raul said.

  "Plenty."

  Raul left his saddle and slashed with the bone-handled knife and a loadof ants sprayed over him. He backed away, shouting:

  "Next time, I'll look, and then cut."

  Before long, they reached a hill strewn with wreckage from a forestfire: old palm logs humped the sand and rocks; the horses walked acrossfronds so burned and fragile their ashes rose in spurts. From thecrest they saw the volcano.

  A black horse's tail, some twenty thousand feet long, arched above thepeak. The smoke seemed too enormous to be moved by any wind. Lower,behind other mountain ranges, ranges that flanked the cone, black teethof rain gaped, ready to bite into the earth.

  Neither Raul nor Manuel spoke. Faces streaked, their white clothesfilthy, they merely looked, steadying their horses. A chain of yellowtraveled through the volcanic smoke and then the flame became red andgradually bloomed into more smoke.

  "I've never seen so much smoke," Raul said.

  "Lava must be pouring down," Manuel said, recalling his mother'ssobbing, when he was a boy; the peak had threatened them then and theground had trembled drunkenly. Some said she had been all right tillthat day. Some said a man had quarreled with her, beaten her, andhurled her into a corner of their hut. Manuel reached into his pocketfor a shred of iguana and chewed it and said:

  "What do you think ... Do you think it will get worse?"

  "I don't think so. The cone is blown open now." Raul sat erect, hisface set. "We have a long way to go and I'm worried about Petaca."

  They soon found a trail and trotted their horses, horses and menswaying to avoid lianas and thorned branches. Manuel had his machetein its case. He slouched over the pommel and munched iguana, as if itwere chewing gum. Thirsty, he wanted to drink from their gourd butsomething kept him from taking a sip.

  Early that morning, men had fired on them as they searched for Farias,missing along the del Valle boundary. While completing his check ofthe upper corn crops in Sector 11, he had been taken prisoner, he andhis son, Luis.

  For Raul and Manuel, it had been a dismal and useless search; thehacienda people had said they knew nothing about Farias and Luis andyet someone had tipped off Raul, telling him Luis had escaped and goneback to Petaca.

  Again they rode through cactus country, sandy but free of boulders, thecactus tall and strong, with lianas and vines swinging from the top ofone to the top of another, a desolate camouflage, suggesting primordialdays.

  Sky had darkened appreciably and explosions indicated furthereruptions, yet no quakes rumbled or shook the ground. When the riderstopped a ridge, long-tailed, blue flycatchers winged from cactus tocactus, and parrots clattered in a forgotten language. An iguana slepton a log ... all seemed normal here.

  Feeling his cinch strap slip, Manuel got off, checked the strap andyanked it up a notch. A shot rang out as he pulled the leather.

  Raul felt something burn his shoulder; he felt he had been slapped by aheavy branch; then he remembered that they had not been moving and puthis hand to his shoulder and saw blood.

  Swiftly, throwing himself off his saddle, he lay on the ground andshouted:

  "Down, Manuel. They hit me!"

  Manuel let go his bridle and yanked his rifle, tearing it from itsscabbard. With rifle in his arms, he looped his bridle over Chico'shead and then--all in a rolling motion--buried himself in the bush.

  Quietly, he asked:

  "Can you shoot, Don Raul? See anyone?"

  Raul hunched along the sand, dug his toes and squirmed behind a heap ofvines and bush.

  "Hope they don't get our horses," he muttered.

  Pain drenched in a kind of perspiration over his brain and he laymotionless, eyes shut, gasping for breath. He thought: It's Pedro ...if I could only get him! It's no good, I've got to sit up, thinkstraight. That damn bullet can't be so bad. Can't seem to seeclearly. Now ... now, that's better. Cabrones, to chase us, hunt us.God damn them! Ai, chingado!

  Manuel had begun firing, shooting across the trail, picking at treesand vines. His bullets clicked dry stuff and some of it shattered andthe dry shattering sound emphasized the danger. A parrot squawked. Acouple of shots spanged near Raul and he rolled on his uninjured side,forced himself to sit up and saw three men rushing through the bush,bent double.

  "There they go!" he shouted.

  Manuel fired several times, his old Remington shooting fast ... thensilence.

  Raul could hear Manuel crawling toward him; the horses were movingnoisily, tangled among bushes; he recognized Chico's snuffling;Manuel's gun clicked against a rock; leaves scraped close by; his headappeared.

  "Where did you get hit?" he asked, dragging himself closer.

  "My
shoulder."

  "How does it feel?"

  "Can scarcely see ... for the pain."

  "I saw the men, had a good look. Who the hell does Pedro think he is!Here, let me pull open your shirt, Raul. You're bleeding."

  "A handkerchief in my back pocket."

  "I'll need it for the wound."

  "Wait ... have to move," said Raul, sitting up, so Manuel could pullout the handkerchief. "Got to move more ... this way ... try to shakethe pain."

  "Do you think you'll be able to ride?"

  "Later ... I'll manage."

  "You're hit deep.... Let me tear the handkerchief and make a wad."

  "Aah ... aah ... I taste blood."

  "You're not hit in the chest. You're imagining that. Here, I'll tearmy shirt and bind your chest and shoulder."

  He was aware of the darkening sky as he ripped the shirt. He wasaware, too, of the dark stalks of cactus and bush around them, thenervousness of the horses. All right, it was going to rain. Allright, they'd be on their way soon enough. He'd have to steady Raul,help him mount. Lucienne's place was the closest. Tighten thebandage, help him get up. That crazy Chico might refuse to stand. Allright, he would use his own horse.

  Rifle in hand, he walked alongside Raul, his eyes mere slits. Raulrocked in his saddle, pain making it impossible for him to sit erect.

  "Slow enough?" asked Manuel.

  "It's not bad."

  "I'm taking you to Dona Lucienne's. It's the nearest place. Chico'scoming along behind."

  "We'd better ride home," said Raul.

  "It's too far to Petaca."

  "I can make it."

  "No, it's much too far."

  The horse shied at something and the jerk cracked pain throughoutRaul's body; without Manuel he would have fallen. They rode insilence, the rain coming in little spurts. Manuel sniffed the air--hisnose opening wide.

  "The rain smells bitter with smoke," Manuel said. "Can you taste it?Let me get in front, to keep the branches from hitting you."

  From time to time he stopped, suspecting ambush; he wanted a chance tothink out his route, make it as short and easy as possible for Raul,whose gray, tense face haunted him. Such a tortured look! What anunlucky day--the eruption, the shoulder wound. It was as if old DonFernando had power over everything.

  Had he clipped one of Fernando's men? Pedro's silver-buttoned trousershad seemed close. But firing, lying down on rough ground, wasn'taccurate. A bush could deflect a shot.

  In a gully, among mesquite, cacti and palms, Manuel removed the bloodyhandkerchiefs, brushed off ticks, and wadded a strip of shirt. Theirwater gourd held half and he made Raul drink and then sopped the insideof his hat.

  To Raul, for all the pain, the care meant a great deal, it slid himback into the past, when he had broken his arm while playing ball withManuel; he recalled another morning on the lagoon, when the canoe hadoverturned ... he grinned at Manuel.

  "You've been around a long time," he managed.

  "Got to take care of you. Can you ride again?"

  "Yes."

  "Have some more water."

  "I can't. You drink, Manuel."

  "I can wait. Let's go on, to Lucienne's."

  Raul wondered, as they rode, whether neighborhood haciendas had beendamaged by the shocks: maybe San Cayetano, Palma Sola, Fortaleza, SantaCruz del Valle.

  At del Valle the Jesuits had a _mayordomo_ nobody could reason with;someday, when things calmed down a little, he would visit Senor Oc.This Farias trouble had to be thrashed out. The hacienda folkmentioned Pedro, not Oc. Was that out of fear? He knew he wasn'tthinking clearly. These border fracases were bound to lead to seriouscomplications. Everyone said the Jesuits mismanaged del Valle throughabsentee supervision but something had to be done.

  Jab after jab of horseback pain did away with his thinking. His eyesfogged. Clinging to the pommel, he ducked when Manuel directed, lethimself be supported, swayed, straightened. Lucienne's? Where? When?They could miss the hacienda in the growing dark. The rain was turningcold.

  But, as they neared the ocean, the rain stopped and the sky cleared andshortly after dusk they reached her home. A frenzy of dog barks metthem, then they heard the surf and then they heard women wailing in theopen, in front of the chapel. Two bodies lay just inside the door,covered with burlap, candles beside them.

  Built in 1820, Palma Sola had the white spread of seaside haciendas ofthat period: its porch stalked on salt gnawed posts, its Marseillestiled roof defied storm and quake, every wall was thick and everywindow deep set. Grilles were salty green and shutters were paintless.Nestled under palms, Palma Sola looked as though it could last anotherhundred years.

  Manuel and a servant helped Raul into the living room, and Luciennehurried in.

  "What happened, Raul? Is he badly hurt, Manuel?"

  "It's his shoulder, Dona Lucienne."

  "Did Chico throw you? No--there's blood."

  "Sit down, Don Raul," said Manuel, helping him.

  "Not bad," said Raul.

  "Sit here," said Lucienne, pulling up a chair.

  Raul felt around for the chair. Dimly, he made out Lucienne; then, asstrength returned, as he drank water, he saw her, her auburn hair, herlook of concern. She touched him and at the same time he received ashock for there, at his feet, sat Mona, Caterina's fuzzy dog, tonguelolling. She barked happily; the bullet pain dug deeper; he tried torise.

  "Please sit down, Raul," said Lucienne, restraining him. "Jesus Pezais here. He can help you. Marta, run for Jesus."

  Marta, a pigtailed girl, Lucienne's maid, dashed out of the livingroom, with Mona at her heels.

  Raul fought his dizziness and tugged at his belt.

  "Drink this," said Lucienne.

  Someone had brought tequila.

  Raul smelled it and the strong smell helped him before he could get itto his lips: tequila almendrada: he let the fiery stuff grab him. Whynot get drunk? Why not wipe out pain that way? What could Peza do?

  "Here's Peza," said Manuel, stripping off Raul's wet shirt.

  "Well, Raul, what happened, man? I see you got drenched."

  "Hello, Jesus."

  "Where are you hit?"

  "In the shoulder," said Manuel.

  "Shoulder ... hmm, hmm," said Jesus, and peered into his friend's face."The last time I saw you was when I filled a molar. A month ago, maybetwo, wasn't it? Well, I can help you. I'll fix your shoulder.... Youjust settle back in that chair."

  Jesus Peza had fixed many wounds in and around Colima: _tequila_wounds, dog bites, stone wounds, wire, gun, knife and horse wounds: asdentist, teeth and mouth often came last. He had not brought his kitto Palma Sola but borrowed a poniard-like knife from Ponchito,Lucienne's gardener. Jesus had the head of a gamecock and as he peckedat Raul's wound he talked fast:

  "Fetch me several clean towels, Marta.... Hmm, I tell you that was abad-enough earthquake; I don't know what's got into that volcanolately.... Fetch me a basin of water and some soap, Manuel.... Hmm,this knife is not so damn dull.... Hell broke loose in Colima, theysay; I've got to get back.... Did you hear about the church, Raul ...hmm?"

  "No," moaned Raul, barely hearing anything he said.

  "Don't be brutal," said Lucienne, backing away.

  "I'm not brutal," Jesus objected. "People who don't know anythingabout surgery always accuse me of being brutal. Hmm, the probe isalready underneath the bullet. It's not so deep. I'll wiggle thething out in a jiffy ... now, a towel, please. Madre de Dios, no,don't tell me I'm brutal; it would be brutal to leave the bullet in...."

  Raul gasped.

  "Whose bullet is it?" Jesus asked. "A friend of yours, maybe."

  "Pedro Chavez," said Manuel, rolling and lighting a cigarette, wantingto give it to Raul.

  "Bad chap, that Pedro. The rurales should kill him," said Jesus, andhe sucked through his stained teeth for the bleeding annoyed him. Hisgamecock head bobbed; his comb of hair leaned to one side; he gruntedand pu
shed.

  Lucienne held another glass of tequila for Raul; she wanted to runbecause she could no longer look.

  "Ah," said Raul, blacking out.

  "Almost two hundred people were killed in the cathedral," Jesus wenton, speaking of the Colima church. "Funeral ... that stupid richNavarro died and everybody went to the funeral and the roof caved in onthe people ... hmm, bad, very bad."

  "Is it bad, Raul?" asked Lucienne.

  "Hmm ... one should never go to funerals; I tell all my friends that.See, look, here I have it. Here's your bullet! Rifle bullet. Quite achunk. I thought so. No wonder it went in deep." Jesus juggled thebullet in his palm and poked it with the point of the poniard, one eyeshut. He was a connoisseur of bullets. Crimes of every sortinterested him. Grumbling about powder and various calibers, he workedover Raul, stopped the bleeding and bandaged the shoulder.

  Gradually, Raul sensed relief. Shifting in his chair he inspected theservants who had been watching. Lucienne ordered Marta to clean up,and the bloody towels and bowl disappeared. Peza, still grumbling,went outside for a cigarette. For the moment, the cool, long room,with its gray shuttered windows, belonged to Raul and Lucienne. Shehelped him to her sofa, backed him with pillows and opened windows. Aglass between her fingers, she sipped and talked. The sea rolled itswatery sound. Raul let his eyes close, and tried to imagine he had nobranding iron of pain.

  "... Two men died at the mill, when beams dropped and part of the millfell on them. You remember Ortiz and Gonzales?"

  She was dressed in dark gray, a flowing pleated skirt with a pleatedjacket.

  "... The men are lying in the chapel....

  "... Jesus is going back to Colima right away. He's worried."

  He tried to say he was worried about Petaca but he couldn't manage aword.

  "Some of the chapel walls have cracked," she said, still standing byhim.

  Voices outside the house rose: a man shouted and boys began analtercation; a dog started barking.

  Lucienne sat on the sofa, touched his face, his hands. For a second,she felt he was hers and the illusion pleased her; the day's trialsdropped away and left her thinking of another day, on the beach. Tidelow, they had walked to a cove where red-barked trees shaded the sand.Some baby manta rays had been washed onto the beach; seagulls flew low... Raul had said....

  Jesus was saying goodbye.

  "Goodbye, Jesus," said Lucienne. "Thank you so much. I hopeeverything's all right at your home in Colima, with your family. Tellthe padre about Ortiz and Gonzales. Perhaps he can send someone tobury them tomorrow. If not, we'll bury them without a priest. Whatelse can we do?"

  Jesus wore boots of brown English leather and seemed to be memorizingtheir creases as Lucienne spoke. His small figure, in neat khakitrousers and blue shirt, looked pitiful.

  When he had gone, Raul had a cognac. He asked himself whether anybones had been broken? By the shot or by the fall, when he hurledhimself from the saddle.

  A white peacock perched in a long open window. It was quiet now andthe surf-sound fumbled over the dark furnishings, desks, tables, chairsand sofas from the 70's. Things had not been well cared for and yettheir good craftsmanship fought neglect and climate. The woods weremahogany, oak, rosamorada and magnolia. On the walls hung Directoireprints, oil portraits and a poor copy of an Ingres nude, all of thempalely lit by a brass center lamp that swung from the ceiling on abrass chain.

  "Are you feeling any better?" she asked, from a high armchair. "Howfar you had to ride to get here. Manuel is wonderful to you...."

  "We should have been more alert."

  "You can't always be," she said.

  "I suppose not. Anything can happen in the campo."

  "I'll fix you something to eat. Manuel must get you out of those wettrousers."

  "Lucienne ... you must send word to Petaca."

  "Should Manuel go?"

  "I think that's best."

  "Try to rest.... I'll see about it," she said.

  Pain kept Raul awake most of the night. All her doctoring helped verylittle; again and again he saw Lucienne by the lamplight of theadjoining bedroom; she would come and bend over him and whispersomething.

  "Try to sleep....

  "Are you thirsty?"

  In the dim light, his face had about it the tragic quality that hadhaunted her at the burial. Death was such a wearisome thing. DearRaul, sleep, sleep. This is really your home. We've always been kindto one another ... we can go on being kind. We have that assurance.Only a little while ago you and I were children, playing together....I can see you in the dining-room doorway, tears streaming down yourface, Mama and Papa lying dead on the floor, just as they were whenthey took them from the sea. Oh, love, I want to share your pain."Let me get a hammock for you," she said, "to let the air come allaround you. Maybe that will help you rest."

  She slung a long white hammock for him and he found it more restfullying crosswise, swaying a little....

  Mona wandered in and licked his fingers, when his hand hung over theside of the hammock. She lay underneath, on the cool tiles.

  Strange, lying here in her bedroom, strange to be alive, strange thatCaterina is dead ... stranger still is Angelina's coldness, her sorrow,her introversion ... what is it we say to one another, or don't say?What is it that heals us? Something for one, something else foranother. She wouldn't like to care for me but she would like to lookafter a child. Strange sound the sea makes, strange what life is.

  In a few days I'll be back at Petaca. I'll see her and she'll askabout my shoulder and I'll ask about the earthquake. There must be away to change ourselves. Lucienne says there is no God. How does sheknow? Has she searched? She spends her time with her plants and herfriends. Gabriel has said "God is." For him it's as simple as that.And I must talk to him, to change myself. Caterina didn't live fornothing. Her faith was real to her....

  Lying alone in Lucienne's tiny servant's room (a room that had nofurniture), Manuel saw his soul sitting in front of him, about threefeet high, made of clay. He had often seen it. It had a bulgingforehead, close cropped hair and scraggly beard. It spoke in anAfrican tongue, faintly. He listened and tried to understand. Wasn'tit repeating the same things? The voice rose. The soul seemed tograpple with something; it snuffed the air ... Manuel, breathing hard,turned restlessly on a dusty straw mat, woke and gazed about at thetiny room.

  Up long before dawn, he washed in the sea, ate, talked with Lucienneabout Raul's condition and then saddled his horse for Petaca.

  Flashes of lightning streaked the gray sky and before he had ridden farit began to rain. He welcomed it, glad the stink of smoke and ashwould vanish. A borrowed poncho wrapped around him, he felt warm andcomfortable; he was sure none of Pedro's men would be out in thedownpour. Passing a stone roadside cross, he thought of Ortiz andGonzalez, dead in Lucienne's chapel. A man's luck gave out at thestrangest moments. Raul's luck had died out yesterday. He would haveto fight back....

  Slashes of rain struck across the road and men on burros appeared outof the rain, the riders crouched under raincoats of palm, fibrous,soppy masses. Each man bore a hoe. The burros trotted wearily, headsdown.

  An embankment, gutted by years of erosion, led onto a bridge ofsixteenth century red masonry, crumbling and narrow. In the center, ona limestone panel, a Humboldt had had a sonnet carved, before his sugarplantation had collapsed or before his mine had petered out in Jalisco.Empire builders, those Humboldts. Beyond the bridge, sweeping overfields, the rain rippled over sugar cane, breast high. Above, on arocky hill, was the stone fence line of the Medina property, a greatcrooked L.

  For Manuel, the green sweep of cane held a promise: he hoped for a fewacres and felt that Raul would let him have them soon. Many men hopedfor acres of their own. Pedro had promised land, if men sided withhim, land he had never owned.

  Ping of a muzzle-loader stirred a flock of duck from a Medina pond anda scrawny, lame man popped out of bushes and hailed Man
uel, a duckslapping his leg.

  "Cubo," said Manuel.

  "Manuel--que tal?"

  Manuel rolled a cigarette, the man walking toward him.

  "Any word about Farias?" he asked of this family servant.

  "Not a word."

  "Raul was shot by one of Pedro's men. He's at Palma Sola. I've justcome from there."

  "Is he badly hurt?"

  "Pretty bad. In the shoulder."

  "Madre de Dios."

  His old musket and old bare legs and thin arms seemed to have beeneaten by the rain. His torn whites stuck to the quivering bird.Thinking of Raul, he rubbed his fingers over his powder horn.

  By the time Manuel reached Petaca it was nearly noon; pigeons drowsedon the roof; dogs snoozed on the cobbles. Manuel stabled and rubbedhis horse and, while he rubbed the flanks, whistling a little, a manhurried in: El Cisne, the stable hands called him, a flour-skinnedfellow, young, tubercular looking.

  "Farias is back," he said. "And Luis, too."

  "Good," said Manuel. "I want to talk to Farias. Where is he?"

  "He's at the mill."

  Manuel's horse pushed her nose against her feedbox to ward off flies.

  "I'll be right along."

  "Where's Don Raul?"

  "Injured--at Palma Sola."

  "Que malo!"

  They walked toward the mill, the flour-skinned fellow behind Manuel,his whites billowing with air as he strode.

  Here and there, tiles had crashed during the quake; an adobe hut, whereplows were stored, had collapsed, dumping adobes like dominoes. From adistance, the residence seemed to have escaped. Manuel did notquestion El Cisne. The path led quickly through an orange grove to themill, an eighteenth century building, with French earmarks, even a fewfleurs-de-lis. A Medina had hired a Gascon architect to do both milland house but the French influence had long ago disappeared from thehouse, due to quakes and remodelings.

  New ragged cracks appeared in the east wall of the mill, Manuel noted.Men sat by the pool, Farias among them. He and Manuel greeted eachother heartily, slapping each other on the back.

  "Tell me what happened."

  "Pedro tried to keep me, a deliberate mix-up with some del Valle men,to cause trouble. It's just as Luis told you. They'd have kept usboth if they could."

  "You got away today?"

  "I got away yesterday, but it took time to reach Petaca."

  "The fools--to keep you. Raul is wounded and at Palma Sola. Pedrotried to get him when we were riding in the campo."

  Several workers stood up. One of them stopped whittling.

  "What's that?" demanded Farias, instantly blaming Don Fernando. "Tellus again."

  "They tried to get Raul, out in the campo. A rifle shot. It's a nastywound ... deep in the shoulder."

  "Did you see Pedro's men?" someone asked.

  "Sure, we saw them," said Manuel.

  "God damn that Chavez," a man cried.

  "Jesus Peza removed the bullet.... When did Luis come in?" Manuelasked Farias. "We lost him day before yesterday."

  "He came in yesterday," said Farias. "He's dog tired but he's allright. They stole his horse."

  Above the mill, the volcano released streamers of smoke, smoke thatfanned wider and wider as it climbed. It had commenced as they talked;now everyone saw it, considered it silently, as if hypnotized. Manuelthought, as he looked, Raul will die. The haciendas will fall. In thesmoke he saw the bodies of peasants, dead cattle, rifles, machetes,trees, women, children. Destiny ... the force that takes us, one byone.

  Farias stepped up close to Manuel.

  "The Clarin tried to kill Raul," he said. "The man's insane." Yearsof resentment went into his remark; he rubbed chaffed wrists and galledhands and regarded his Petacan friends, most of them bearded, in theirfifties and sixties; they had stomached Don Fernando with patientdesperation; all of them craved freedom.

  "Don Fernando wanted another killing," someone said.

  "You'd think he'd have enough by now."

  "Of course he put Pedro up to it."

  "His own son ... anything to have power over us."

  "Times will go worse for us, now that Raul's wounded," said a one-eyedman, with machete dangling from a cord around his neck.

  Almost superstitiously, they felt the old man would regain his powerand impose his violence. Hunger, sickness and fear had crucified theirfaces and yet there seemed to be room for this new dread. A paunchedman tipped back his hat and fumbled a cigarette. Another coughed andspat....

  Ashes from the volcano sifted on the pool, gray, powder-fine, moving intiny eddies; the same ash flecked the men's hats, beards, shoulders andsleeves. A swallow dipped over the pool and then banked away, as ifrepulsed by the ash. Silence kicked at the walls of the mill, at thejacarandas and palms, at the fields beyond them.

  "I must go and speak to the senora about Don Raul," Manuel said,heading toward the main house. "See me later, in the kitchen, Farias."