The Underdogs

by Mariano Azuela

  Demetrio fixed his eaglet eyes on Luis Cervantes. He tapped his teeth with his fingernails, and said: “Don’t get all worked up now . . . Listen, don’t come tellin’ me about all that! We all know that what’s yours is yours, and what’s mine’s mine. You got that little box, okay then. I got the pocket watch, and tha’s that.”

  And the two, very much in harmony now, showed each other their “advance.”

  Meanwhile, War Paint and her companions were searching through the rest of the house.

  Quail walked into a room where he found a twelve-year-old girl, her forehead and arms already marked with copper-colored stains. Astounded, both remained still as they contemplated the piles of books on the carpet, tables, and chairs, the broken mirrors pulled off the walls, and the furniture and knickknacks in pieces. Quail sucked in his breath and stared at his prey with avid eyes.

  Outside, in a corner of the patio, amid the suffocating smoke, Lard was roasting small ears of corn, feeding the fire with books and papers that went up in bright flames.

  “Ah!” Quail suddenly shouted, “look at what I found me! Perfect saddle blankets for my mare!”

  And with one swift motion he yanked down a plush curtain, which came crashing down, with curtain rod and everything, and landed on the finely carved headpiece of a large chair.

  “Look at this . . . look at all these bare, naked women!” exclaimed Quail’s young girl, amused and entertained by the pages of a deluxe volume of the Divine Comedy. “I like this one, this one I’m takin’ for myself.” And she began to tear out the engravings that most drew her attention.

  Demetrio got up and took a seat next to Luis Cervantes. He ordered a beer, handed a bottle to his secretary, and drank his down in one long gulp. Then, drowsy again, he half-closed his eyes and fell back asleep.

  “Listen,” a man in the doorway said to Pancracio. “At what time could I speak to the general?”

  “You can’t talk to ’im at any time. He woke up with a hangover,” Pancracio answered. “What do ya want?”

  “I want to buy one of those books that they’re burnin’ over there.”

  “I can sell those to ya myself.”

  “How much you want for them?”

  A perplexed Pancracio knitted his eyebrows: “Well, let’s see. The ones with pictures in ’em, those are five cents each. The others . . . I’ll give ya the whole lot of ’em for free if ya buy all the books with pictures.”

  The man came back for the books with a bushel basket.

  “Demetrio, ol’ man, Demetrio, wake up already,” War Paint yelled. “Stop sleepin’ like a fat pig! Look who’s here! It’s Towhead Margarito! Don’t ya know what kind of man this towhead is?”

  “General Macías, I have come to tell you that I have the greatest admiration for you, that I have a very strong will, and that I like your manner of doing things very much. Therefore, if you are not opposed to it, I would like to transfer into your brigade.”

  “What’s your rank?” Demetrio asked.

  “First captain, General.”

  “Come on, then. Come with me and I’ll make you a major.”

  Towhead Margarito was a short, chubby man, with handlebar mustaches and very evil blue eyes that disappeared between his cheeks and his forehead when he laughed. Formerly a waiter in the Delmónico restaurant in Chihuahua, he now proudly wore three brass bars, the insignia of his rank in the northern division.

  Towhead Margarito poured praise upon Demetrio and his men, and this was all it took for a box of beer to be emptied in a flash.

  All of a sudden War Paint appeared in the middle of the room, parading about in a splendid silk gown with very fine lace.

  “The only thing missing are the stockings!” Towhead Margarito exclaimed, splitting his sides with laughter.

  Quail’s girl also burst out laughing loudly.

  But War Paint remained unperturbed. She shrugged off the comments, plopped down on the rug, and kicked off her white satin slippers, waving with evident pleasure her previously entombed bare toes in the air. Then she said: “Hey, you, Pancracio! Go get me a pair of blue stockings from my ‘advances.’”

  The room was getting more and more crowded with new friends and old battle comrades. Becoming lively again, Demetrio was starting to recount in minute detail some of his most notable feats of arms.

  “Hey, what’s that noise?” he asked all of a sudden, surprised by the tuning of strings and brass instruments in the patio of the house.

  “General Demetrio Macías,” Luis Cervantes said solemnly. “It is a banquet that your old friends and comrades offer you in celebration of the feat of arms of Zacatecas and your well-deserved promotion to general.”

  III

  “General Macías, allow me to present to you my future wife,” Luis Cervantes announced emphatically, leading a girl of unusual beauty into the dining room.

  Everyone turned toward her, and she opened her large blue eyes, bewildered.

  She was perhaps fourteen years of age. Her skin was ruddy and smooth as a rose petal, her hair was blond, and her eyes had a trace of malignant curiosity and much vague childish fear in them.

  Luis Cervantes noticed that Demetrio fixed his bird-of-prey eyes on her, and felt satisfied.

  They made room for her to sit between Towhead Margarito and Luis Cervantes, facing Demetrio.

  There were numerous bottles of tequila among the fine glasses, porcelain, and flower vases.

  The Indian came in, sweating and cursing, carrying a box of beers on his shoulder.

  “You all don’t know what this towhead is all about yet,” War Paint said, noticing that the man she was referring to did not once take his eyes from Luis Cervantes’s fiancée. “He’s real smart, all right, and I never seen a quicker man in the whole wide world.”

  She shot him an insinuating glance, then added:

  “Tha’s why I can’t stand to look at ’im, any which way!”

  The orchestra broke into a splendid bullfighting march.

  The soldiers bellowed with joy.

  “This menudo1is wonderful, General! I swear I have never had one prepared as well as this in my entire life,” Towhead Margarito said, as he reminisced about the Delmónico in Chihuahua.

  “You really like it, Towhead?” Demetrio replied. “In that case, have ’em keep servin’ it until ya’re all full.”

  “Tha’s exactly how I like it,” Anastasio Montañés agreed. “Tha’s how it’s good. I like a good stew until . . . until . . . I’m so stuffed I’m burpin’ it out.”

  Sounds of slurping and big swigs followed. Everyone drank copiously.

  At the end, Luis Cervantes lifted a glass of champagne and stood up:

  “My esteemed General . . .”

  “H’m!” War Paint interrupted. “Here comes the speech, and that always really bores me. I’m off to the corral instead, since there’s no more to eat anyhow.”

  Luis Cervantes presented Demetrio Macías a black cloth escutcheon with a small brass eagle. And he accompanied it with a toast that no one understood but which everyone applauded vigorously.

  Demetrio grabbed the insignia representing his new rank. Then, with his face very flushed, his eyes sparkling, and his teeth gleaming, he said, full of ingenuousness: “And what am I supposed to do with this buzzard?”

  Anastasio Montañés stood up and said, trembling, “My dear compadre, I don’t need to tell ya . . .”

  Entire minutes passed by, but the damned words would not come to compadre Anastasio. His face turned red, making the beads of sweat on his dirt-encrusted forehead glow like pearls.

  “Well . . . I don’t need to tell ya . . . that you know that I’m your compadre . . .”

  And as everyone had applauded Luis Cervantes when he had finished, Anastasio gave the sign for everyone to applaud him as well, by clapping very seriously himself.

  But it turned out just fine, for his awkwardness served as an incentive to the others, and Lard and Quail also made toasts.

  It
was about to be the Indian’s turn when War Paint appeared, shouting out in jubilation. Clicking her tongue, she was trying to lead a beautiful jet-black mare into the dining room.

  “My ‘advance’! My ‘advance’!” she exclaimed, patting the fiery animal’s arched neck.

  The mare resisted coming through the door, but a pull on its halter and a whip snapped on its croup made it enter, spiritedly and clamorously.

  The enthralled soldiers stared at the rich catch with ill-concealed envy.

  “I don’t know how this damned War Paint does it, but she always beats us to the best ‘advances’!” Towhead Margarito exclaimed. “That is how it has been with her since she joined us in Tierra Blanca.”2

  “Hey, you, Pancracio, go fetch me a bundle of alfalfa for my mare,” War Paint ordered curtly.

  Then she handed the rope off to a soldier.

  Once again all the cups and glasses were filled. Some of the men were beginning to tilt back, close their eyes, and nod off, while most still yelled loudly and joyfully.

  In the middle of it all, Luis Cervantes’s girl, who had spilled all her wine on a handkerchief, looked around everywhere with her big blue eyes full of astonishment.

  “Muchachos,” Towhead Margarito shouted in a sharp, guttural voice, standing and making himself heard over the din, “I am tired of living, I feel like killing myself now. I am sick and tired of War Paint already . . . And this little cherub from heaven will not even deign to look at me . . .”

  Luis Cervantes noticed that the last few words were directed at his girlfriend, and with much surprise he realized that the foot he felt between those of the girl’s was not Demetrio’s but Towhead Margarito’s. Indignation burned in his chest.

  “Look here, muchachos,” Towhead continued, holding up his revolver. “I am going to shoot myself right in the middle of my forehead!”

  And he aimed at the large mirror at the end of the room, where he could see his entire body reflected.

  “Do not budge, War Paint!”

  The mirror shattered in long, sharp pieces. The bullet had whizzed past War Paint’s head, but she had not even flinched.

  IV

  In the afternoon, Luis Cervantes awoke, rubbed his eyes, and sat up. He had been lying on the hard ground, among the flowerpots of the orchard. Near him Anastasio Montañés, Pancracio, and Quail breathed loudly, deep asleep.

  He felt his lips cracked and his nose swollen and dried out, saw that he had blood on his hands and on his shirt, and all of a sudden recalled what had happened. He quickly got up and walked toward a room, pushed at the door several times, but was unable to open it. He stood indecisively for a few moments, uncertain what to do.

  Because it was all true; he was certain that he had not dreamed it. He had gotten up from the dining room table with his girl and had led her to the room. But before they closed the door behind them, Demetrio had hurried after them, staggering drunk. Then War Paint had followed Demetrio, and they started to struggle. Demetrio—his eyes burning like red-hot coals, with clear threads of spittle on his coarse lips—had avidly sought out the girl, while War Paint forcefully shoved him, trying to hold him back.

  “What’re ya doing? What d’ya think ya’re doin’?” Demetrio was howling, exasperated.

  War Paint stuck one of her legs between his, took leverage, and threw Demetrio lengthwise, outside the room.

  He got up, furious.

  “Help! Help! She’s tryin’ to kill me!”

  War Paint vigorously grabbed Demetrio’s wrist and redirected the barrel of his pistol.

  The bullet shot into the bricks. War Paint continued to bellow. Anastasio Montañés came up behind Demetrio and disarmed him.

  Macías turned around, his eyes wild like those of a bull in the middle of the plaza. Luis Cervantes, Anastasio, Lard, and many others surrounded him.

  “Damn ya! You’ve taken my gun! As if I needed a weapon to deal with the likes of ya!”

  And swinging his arms, he began to throw quick, vigorous punches, knocking anyone he could reach to the brick floor.

  And then? Luis Cervantes could not recall what had happened next. Everyone must have ended up receiving quite a beating and passing out. And his girlfriend, afraid of so many animals, must have taken the wise prevention of locking herself up somewhere.

  “Perhaps that room over there connects with the hall and I can get in that way,” he thought.

  His footsteps woke up War Paint, who was sleeping near Demetrio on the carpet, at the feet of a love seat piled with alfalfa and corn, which the black mare was calmly eating.

  “What d’ya want?” the young woman asked. “Oh, yeah. I know what ya want, ya lowlife! Listen, I locked up your girlfriend ’cause I couldn’t hold back this dog Demetrio no more. Grab the key, it’s over there on the table.”

  Luis Cervantes searched throughout the house in vain.

  “Let’s see, curro, tell me what the story is with that girl of yours.”

  A very nervous Luis Cervantes continued looking for the key.

  “Don’t get all anxious, man, I’ll give it ya. But tell me . . . I really like all those kind of stories. That little curra is just like ya . . . She’s not country folk like us.”

  “I have nothing to tell . . . She is my girlfriend and that is that.”

  “Ha, ha, ha! Your girlfriend and tha’s . . . no! Listen, curro. I’m way ahead of ya. I have hard fangs where ya have baby teeth. Lard and the Indian grabbed her outta her house; that much I know already . . . But ya must’a given ’em somethin’ for her . . . some gold-plated cuff links . . . Some miraculous little stamp of Our Lord of la Villita . . . Am I right, curro? I know these people exist, I just know it! The thing is to find one of ’em! Isn’t that right?”

  War Paint got up to give him the key and was very surprised when she did not find it either.

  She stood for a long while, thinking.

  All of a sudden she ran at full speed toward the door of the next room and looked through the keyhole. She remained still until her eyesight became accustomed to the dark. Directly, and without looking away, she muttered:

  “Oh, Towhead . . . Son of a ... ! Step right up, curro!”

  And she moved out of the way, laughing loudly.

  “Like I said, never in my life have I seen a smoother man than that one in there!”

  The next morning, War Paint waited to feed her horse until she spotted Towhead coming out of the room.

  “You young thing, you! Go on, go on home! These men are liable to kill ya! Go on, run!”

  And she draped Lard’s louse-ridden blanket over the girl with the large blue eyes and the virgin expression on her face, as she was wearing only stockings and a nightgown. Then she took her by the hand, led her out to the street, and exclaimed:

  “Good Lord! Now, I really . . . Oh, how I love that Towhead! ”

  V

  Demetrio’s men cross the Sierra like the colts that neigh and frolic at the first thunders of May.

  “To Moyahua, muchachos!”

  “To the land of Demetrio Macías.”

  “To the land of the cacique Don Mónico!”

  The landscape clears, the sun peeks out from behind a scarlet girdle over the diaphanous sky.

  Gradually the cordilleras emerge like variegated monsters with sharply angled vertebrae: hills like the heads of colossal Aztec idols—with giant faces, grimacing frightfully and grotesquely—which alternately make one smile or leave one with a vague sense of terror, something akin to a mysterious foreboding.

  At the head of the troop rides Demetrio Macías with his general staff: Colonel Anastasio Montañés, Lieutenant Colonel Pancracio, and Majors Luis Cervantes and Towhead Margarito.

  They are followed, in the second row, by War Paint and Venancio, who is wooing her in a very refined manner, reciting the despairing verses of Antonio Plaza.1

  Four abreast, they began to enter Moyahua, blowing their clarions as the rays of the sun skirted the low outlying walls surrounding the
houses of the town.

  The roosters crowed a deafening sound, and the dogs barked loudly, in warning. But there was no sign of human life anywhere.

  War Paint snapped her black mare with her whip and in one leap was riding next to Demetrio. She wore a silk dress and long gold earrings with pride and joy; the pale blue of the fabric accentuated the olive tint of her face and the coppery stains of the damage. With open legs, she had her skirt pulled up to her knees to reveal her worn-out stockings, full of holes. She carried a revolver at her chest and a cartridge belt crossed over the front of her saddle.

  Demetrio was also in full dress: a gallooned hat, suede pants with silver buckles, and a sheepskin jacket embroidered with gold thread.

  The forcing open of doors began. The soldiers, already spread out through the town, were gathering weapons and mounts from everywhere in the surrounding area.

  “We’re gonna stop by Don Mónico’s house today,” Demetrio announced in a serious tone, as he dismounted and handed his horse’s reins to a soldier. “We’re gonna have lunch with Don Mónico . . . an old friend who really cares for me . . .”

  His general staff smile a sinister smile.

  Dragging their spurs loudly along the sidewalks, they head toward a large, pretentious house, which could only be the residence of the cacique.

  “It’s shut tight,” Anastasio Montañés said, pushing at the door with all his might.

  “But it’s about to open right up,” Pancracio replied, quickly bringing his rifle to the mouth of the lock.

  “No, no,” Demetrio said. “Knock first.”

  Three blows with the butt of the rifle, and another three, but no one answers. Pancracio curses and no longer follows his orders. He fires, the lock snaps, and the door opens.

  They see the bottoms of skirts and the legs of children, all scattering to hide inside the house.

  “Wine, I want wine! Bring me wine right here!” Demetrio demands with an imperious voice, pounding his fist hard and repeatedly on the table.

  “Have a seat, friends.”

  A woman slowly emerges, then another, and another. From between their black skirts the heads of frightened children peek out. One of the women, trembling, walks toward a cupboard, takes out glasses and bottles, and serves wine.