men to fetch his coat from the cantina when the sound of the helicopters abruptly diminished.
Vargas still could not see the enemy without the assistance of Morita's technology. But the change in the noise level was unmistakable. The helicopters were leaving. Without accomplishing anything. They had not even had the guts to make one attempt to land their cargoes of troops.
'They're going,' Morita said. His surprised voice was already audible at the level of normal speech.
Vargas smiled at the weakening darkness.
'No balls,' he said.
He strutted back toward the cantina, resettling his gunbelt under his belly. One more time, the gringos had failed to take him. He felt a renewed sense of confidence — and something greater, as well. It was as if the revolution, with all its excesses, with all its failures, had been vindicated in his person. And it would go on being vindicated. He would live to fuck their daughters and piss on their graves.
The scout's ramblings, all the spooky nonsense, had briefly unsettled him. But it was all right now.
'We wasted too many missiles,' the Japanese said.
Vargas had been only faintly conscious of the smaller man trailing beside him in the street. He wiped his hand across the grizzle of his chin, cleaning the night from his lips. He spit into the pale gray morning.
'It don't matter, Morita. You got to learn. Those missiles were the price of victory.' He laughed out loud. 'The gringos were probably shitting in their pants.
Vargas pushed through the draped blanket and entered the sweet dark warmth of the cantina.
'Hey.' he shouted. 'Let's have some fucking light in here.'
'My colonel,' a voice called from the shadow's. It was Ramon, one of his captains. 'I've been calling around to the outposts on the field telephone. Station number four doesn't answer.'
Vargas grunted. Another deserter. He had watched his band dwindle from a full brigade in the Camacho Division of the North to the handful of half-organized survivors his will and their crimes had kept by his side. More and more, the men just disappeared into the mountains, or sneaked off to a woman in Guadalajara, or to a promise of amnesty.
The gringos were insidious. With their promises. But Varsas suspected that no amnesty would ever stretch to cover him.
A storm lantern sparked to life at the touch of a match. Through the gap in the doorway where the blanket did not reach. Vargas could see that it was already lighter outside than it was in the musty shadows of the barroom. It was a lean, half-blighted place.
'Hey. Morita,' Vargas called. 'Come on. We're celebrating.' Vargas hammered on the bar. 'Where's the fucking bartender? Hey, you bastard. Show some respect, before I have your eggs for breakfast.'
'I don't want to drink,' Morita said wearily. 'It s time to sleep.'
'First, we drink.' Vargas insisted. He could feel the overtired village losing consciousness all around him. But he did not yet feel ready to lie down. There was still something chewing at him. Something he could not quite explain. He hammered the bar again. 'Hey, you fucking dog of a bartender.' Then he repeated himself to Morita. 'First, we drink. Like two great big pricks. The biggest pricks in Mexico. Then maybe we go to sleep.
A ripple of explosions rattled the bottles on the shelf behind the bar. Before the glass had finished chiming, a new low-pitched rumble filled the morning. Vargas imagined that he felt the earth moving under his knees.
'What the fuck?' he said, in English, to Morita.
The Japanese looked blank.
A few weapons began to sound. Seconds later the morning had filled with the sounds of a pitched battle. The big rumbling sound grew louder with each instant, approaching the village, a tide of noise, as unrecognizable as it was powerful,
At first Vargas thought it was an earthquake. Then another series of explosions reawoke him to the immediacy of combat.
He ran for the doorway, drawing his pistol as he went. The thundering sound, utterly unfamiliar, seemed to engulf the entire mountaintop now.
He shoved the blanket aside to the sound of shots and shouts and wild howling. Stepping down into the street, he stared off toward the long meadow that began just past the last shacks of the village. And he stopped in amazement.
Cavalry. The gringo sonsofbitches were on horses. Ghosts from another century, galloping down from the western ridge where the trail came up from the valley. He just had time to see the full spectacle of the charge, as eerie as it was violent, before the first section of horsemen burst into the main street of the village, blocking his view' of the rest of the action, The riders screamed like lunatics, firing their automatic weapons from the saddle.
But he knew it was already too late. He fired twice in the general direction of the horsemen, while beside him one of his men fell to a sniper's bullet.
The fucking gringos had used the noise of the helicopters to cover the approach of their goddamned horses. Right up the damned trail. And they had infiltrated snipers into the village. The machine guns had never had a chance to speak.
A fucking horse cavalry charge. Who would ever have thought of such a crazy idea?
Down the street, men in U.S. Army uniforms began to swing from their saddles, smashing and shooting their way into the buildings. Others rode onward, shrieking at the top of their lungs and laying down suppressive fire in their path.
Suddenly, Vargas knew exactly who had thought of such a crazy idea. He felt his shooting hand waver. The one of whom the scout had spoken. This fucking El Diablo.
Vargas could see the details of the riders' helmets and flak jackets in the pure mountain light. He could see their jouncing hand grenades and the drab cloth bandoliers. He could see their faces. And the flaring nostrils and huge eyes of the horses.
He ran back for the cover of the cantina, careening off Morita in his haste. Instantly, the Japanese threw up his hands at the morning and tumbled back through the blanketed doorway, exploding with blood.
The bullet had been intended for Vargas.
There were times when you were beaten. All you could do was survive to take your revenge another day.
With the enemy's horses pounding in the street behind him, Vargas raced through the front room of the cantina, sweeping chairs out of his way with a crazy hand. He pushed through the living quarters of the bartender and his family. A woman screamed in the body-scented dusk, and Vargas banged his knee against a jut of furniture.
Cursing, he ripped open the flimsy back door and was about to dash for the nearest animal shed when he saw that the gringos had already beaten him to it.
They were everywhere.
He jerked inside the cantina building just as a splash of bullets struck the nearby wall.
Behind his back, the bartender's wife shrieked and prayed, while her man cursed her and told her to shut up. Annoyed at his helplessness, Vargas turned around and shot them both.
Back in the barroom, he hurriedly smashed out the storm lantern with the butt of his pistol. But it was already light enough for him to see Morita's wondering stare. The man's corpse continued to discharge blood over the splintering planks.
Outside the shooting dwindled. Vargas heard Anglo voices calling out commands in elementary Spanish. Officers to prisoners.
He crouched behind the bar. There was a broken-out the window across the room, but he knew instinctively that it offered no safety. He considered surrendering. But his fear of punishment held him back. He had done things that he did not believe the gringos were ready to forgive.
With shaking fingers, he stripped off the precious gunbelt he had taken from the American general and stuffed it into a cabinet, hiding it behind dusty bottles of beer.
He was very much afraid. And he was aware of his fear. He had not believed that he, of all men, could ever be this afraid.
Now there was only the occasional snort of a horse, a resting hoof. The world had become an astonishingly
