They have seen weapons at close hand, they know how to use them, they know how an army is organized and some have been soldiers. The smell of gunpowder excites them. And in their dreams they hurl themselves against an enemy who has no face yet, no name.

At the hour of killing they will shout: Patrón! Ladino! Caxlán! Because Caxláns die too. Have they not seen them fall at the crossroads, cut down by blows of the machete? Or burned to cinders by the flames of a raging fire?

Who wielded the machetes? Who set the fire? Indians. Indians know how to kill from behind. Now they must learn to fight head on, with their faces bared. Indians are numerous. There are many more of them than their enemies. Why should they be afraid?

Ah, how easy it is to talk, Catalina thinks. The man who talks gallops like a horseman across the plain. And suddenly he stumbles on a rock: the question, “Where are the weapons? And the money? And the leaders? Before we have raised our machetes the Ladinos will have finished us off with their bullets.”

The horseman reels, then recovers his balance.

“We must get what we need.”

Now comes the deep crevasse which went unnoticed in the vertigo of the mad dash: “How?”

And here is Pedro, assured and enigmatic, who says quickly: “I know how.”

He knows how. The others fall silent, won over by the authority of the one who affirms. And they wait.

The conversation continues outside the hut, in the village, in the fields. Catalina follows them from afar, worried, rejected. What are they saying now? Men’s words, oaths. And Winiktón does not keep Domingo out of these strong winds. Why? Domingo, Domingo. To pronounce the name is to chew a bitter root.

“They snatched him from my lap as if he were already grown up and ripened. They left me alone again. Bruja, evil woman, ilol! They punish the harm I did, the harm I want to do. San Juan Guarantor, have pity on me!