of large boulders on a ridge overlooking the fallen cottonwood.
“How do you know that?” Fernando asked.
“Scouted several years in the Mexican army.”
“Why did you quit?” the engineer asked.
“A bullet through the knee.”
“I wouldn’t mind trying something different, amigo,” Fernando said. “Is the army all right? You like it before you got shot, I mean?”
“It’s okay if you’re loco-estúpido.”
“Speaking of soldados,” Carlos said, “they’re up by the tree.”
“We better help them,” Fernando said.
“Have them scout that terrain first,” Antonio repeated.
“We’ll be lucky if we can get them to move the tree,” Carlos said.
By that time, Antonio was jogging along the boxcar roofs, heading back toward Eléna and Rachel.
He didn’t like this stop at all.
PART V
You and I are going into the war business.
—RICHARD RYAN to Major Mateo Cardoza
Chapter 20
The Señorita Dolorosa entered the palace antechamber, where she was to meet her stepson, Eduardo, and El Presidente de Méjico Porfirio Díaz. She was the first one there, and took a moment to study the room. The walls and ceiling were almost blindingly white—in fact, every wall inside and outside the vast palace seemed to sparkle. She’d ordered her workers to grind the gypsum, which blanketed the edges of so many of the region’s riverbeds, to a fine powder. After mixing it with water, they then gessoed the adobe walls of all her buildings, whitewashing them to a dazzling alabaster.
The sala was also filled with polychromatic light, which flowed through a dozen leaded, stained glass windows. At least six feet high, four feet wide, and five feet off the floor, the multicolored panes cast iridescent designs on the walls, ceiling, and polished hardwood floors.
She casually reviewed the room’s layout. She wanted everything right for El Presidente. In the palace, even the antechambers were grand halls—this one had eight chairs spread throughout the middle of the room in the shape of an octagan. Their arms, legs, and tall narrow backs were made of exquisitely carved teak and upholstered with rich Moroccan leather. In between the chairs were small round tables of the finest teak. Underneath all of the tables were varguenos. These ancient chests contained seemingly countless drawers—some with secret compartments—tastefully inlaid with ivory, gold, and silver. To one side was a vast fieldstone fireplace almost forty feet across. Above its granite hearth thick, soot-blackened fire tools hung from its huge maw. Off to the side was a long, narrow teak table set with silver goblets and decanters. She knew from past experience the decanters would be filled with fine wines, cognacs, and champagnes. Still no one except the Señorita was allowed to sample her private stock of Madeira.
Catching her reflection in a gilt-framed wall mirror, she paused to observe her short, close-fitting tunic of scarlet silk. A black tasseled cord tightly cinched her waist. Today, she favored black stockings and black shoes with three-inch heels.
El Presidente Porfirio Díaz entered next. A stocky man with a square frame and a huge head, he sported one of those heavy, downward-turning Mexican mustaches. He wore gray trousers, a matching military shirt and jacket, heavy brown boots, and a big holstered .45 caliber Remington on his hip. Crossing the room, he took the Señorita in his arms and attempted to kiss her on the mouth, a maneuver she artfully parried.
“Ah, my guapolita [little cutie], you look ravishing as ever.”
“And you, my oso mucho malo [big bad bear], you look mean enough to murder God.”
“Only because you mock my love.”
It was a game they played. It delighted El Presidente no end and bored Dolorosa to distraction.
“I almost forgot how much I missed you,” he said.
Again, he tried to take her in his arms.
Again, she decorously deflected his advances.
“My moronic stepson is late again,” she pointed out.
She walked over to the table and filled a goblet to the brim with her scrupulously hoarded Madeira.
“I need something to get me through this hideous meeting,” she said with a painful grimace.
“He’ll be here soon.”
As if on cue, her stepson walked through the door.
“Ah, your sainted stepson honors us with his presence,” Díaz said with a transparently fulsome smile.
“Dishonors us, you mean,” the Señorita said.
“How is our wicked araña [spider] today? Still spinning her murderous webs?”
“¿Araña? What do you know, Porfirio? El Idioto learned a new word. Could it be he’s trying to read books again? His lips and fingers must get awfully tired trying to follow all those words.”
El Presidente gave them a broad smile, put an arm around each of them, and pulled them both together. “Come, children, can’t we all be friends—one big happy family?”
“I have no friends,” the Señorita Dolorosa said curtly, extricating herself from his arm, “least of all with abyectos retardos like El Imbecilio here. Anyway you said we were here on business.”
“Just so. Let us sit.”
The dictator got himself a large crystal goblet of Napoleon 1811 Grande Reserve cognac, and they each took one of the straight-backed chairs.
“We are preparing a new offensive against Sonora,” Díaz said. “We will combine both our Sinaloan and Chihuahuan forces and crush them in an overpowering frontal attack. I thought you might be interested in haranguing our multitudes the night before our assault—something to raise their morale. You know they do love and revere their Señorita.”
“You mean fear and loathe her,” Eduardo said.
“Nonetheless, many will die that morning, and afterward we shall be doubling their taxes. There will be serious unrest . . . even after our inevitable, overwhelming victory.”
“Of course, any unrest will be forcefully, terminally... put down,” the Señorita said, yawning.
“Of course. That is why God gave you so many slave-labor ranchos and prison mines,” Díaz said. “You are in constant need of replacement prison labor, and our political opponents supply us with endless quantities of such fodder. It is my honor to hand them over to you. Still our people will not be pleased with all the death, destruction, and destitution that the coming conflict will force upon them.”
“And I’m supposed
