I must keep myself together, keep myselfwithin the
middle place, where I am still. They went to the outerdoorway,
obediently.
Kate pressedher hands against her body, as she
sat.
She realized that she didntmind dying so long as
she died with that man.
I hope I may perish before I make abig
mistake.
She started as a rushing hiss broke on the
air.
In the revolutions, many of thechurches in Mexico
have been used for stables and for barracks.
Timesuddenly fell off, the days walked naked and
timeless, in the old,uncounted manner of the past. There was a muffled crybelow, and
a sudden volley of shots. This was unusual, and Kate noticed it in himwith
displeasure.
Ramón unlocked the church doors and flung them
open. And from the soldiers,and from the kneeling crowd, a ragged, muttered, strange
repeatingof Adiós!
As they approached, the ring of men round the drum
opened, andspread into a crescent. The crowdmurmured and swayed on its knees. But it
was Sunday morning, and something was due to happen.
Don Cipriano is very much General Viedma at the
moment, hereplied. Still and soft in watchful concentration,almost like silence
itself.
Then something stirred deep in her, she flew along
theterrace and up the steps to the roof. How lonely, stonilylonesome and forlorn the
hacienda could feel!
For answer, a confused noise from the courtyard,
and several shots.
And even as he leaped, Ramón shot the knife, that
was all brightred as a cardinal bird.
In the end, the victimspull down their victimizer,
like a pack of hyenas on an unwarylion. In silence, men sprinkledsalt on the thick
slice of cucumber sold by the woman under thetree. Slowly the sky wasclouding for
the thunder and the rain. In silence, Ramón kindled shreds of cane and ocote,with a
burning-glass. It is a long, long way From Mexico to the Pool of Heaven.