In silence the encounter continued. The besieged townspeople retreated to the walls. Which were smooth and straight. Without a place to hide in, without a handhold to climb by. The children became entangled in the adults’ legs; they lost their balance; they could not get up from the ground; they were trampled on. They were the first to begin to cry.

Suddenly a howl went up and the Chamulas hurled themselves on their victims. They put their hands on the women, ripped off their clothes, laughed uproariously at their nakedness. They played at tossing the children into the air and running them through with the points of their spears. The old men implored their pity in vain. They died trembling ignobly.

One of the Indians applied himself to cutting apart a corpse, carefully, painstakingly. He wanted to find something that was different from an animal’s carcass or an Indian’s remains. The thing that allowed the Ladinos to command. Not finding it, he moved his head, dissatisfied, uncertain. He abandoned that useless corpse to look for another.

Those who had come down from the highest mountains were hungry for women. Who was there to stop them? They raped the nubile young girls, the pregnant wives, the old women. They concluded their work with a blow to the skull, a gunshot at pointblank range, or by lopping off a limb.

Others opened up a path to the altar, it didn’t matter how, in order to satisfy their craving to profane the objects of worship. They broke the chalices, shattered the monstrances, ripped the wigs off the saints and tore out their glass eyes. The uprooted mannikins and broken cases tumbled to the ground. False eyelashes were scattered across the floor.

After some time, the episode ended. The Indians were tired and the air inside the church was unbreathable. They came out bloodstained, with bits of brain encrusted in the soles of their sandals. Their booty was scant. But many of them made do with it and returned to their villages.

Others, however, as soon as they learned what had happened, began gathering together provisions in order to leave. Without order, without regularity, senselessly, the raids, the looting, the torching continued. The settlements became heaps of ashes, the planted fields were razed, the flocks were sent stampeding.

Up the mountain go those who are fleeing and those who pursue. Each side is afraid to confront the other. They run into each other because there is only one spring to drink from, one cave to hide in, one trail going up or down.

Inchinton, Ya’alcuc, Corralchen, Bechiltic. Where haven’t the Indians gone? With hunger, despair, rage.