like a furious bull in the middle of the arena, cast
fierce glances at all the bystanders, Luis Cervantes, Anastasio,
Manteca, and the others.

"Goddamn you! You've taken my gun away! Christ! As if I needed any gun
to beat the hell out of you."

Flinging out his arms, beating and pummeling, he felled everyone within
reach. Down they rolled like tenpins. Then, after that, Luis Cervantes
could remember nothing more. Perhaps his bride, terrified by all these
brutes, had wisely vanished and hidden herself.

"Perhaps this bedroom communicates with the living room and I can go in
through there," he thought, standing at the threshold. At the sound of
his footsteps, War Paint woke up. She lay on the rug close to Demetrio
at the foot of a couch filled with alfalfa and corn where the black
horse had fed.

"What are you looking for? Oh, hell, I know what you want! Shame on
you! Why, I had to lock up your sweetheart because I couldn't struggle
any more against this damned Demetrio. Take the key, it's lying on that
table, there!"

Luis Cervantes searched in vain all over the house.

"Come on, tell me all about your girl."

Nervously, Luis Cervantes continued to look for the key.

"Come on, don't be in such a hurry, I'll give it to you. Come along,
tell me; I like to hear about these things, you know. That girl is your
kind, she's not a country person like us."

"I've nothing to say. She's my girl and we're going to get married,
that's all."

"Ho! Ho! Ho! You're going to marry her, eh? Trying to teach your
grandmother to suck eggs, eh? Why, you fool, any place you just manage
to get to for the first time in your life, I've left a hundred miles
behind me, see. I've cut my wisdom teeth. It was Meco and Manteca who
took the girl from her home: I knew that all the time. You just gave
them something so as to have her yourself, gave them a pair of cuff
links ... or a miraculous picture of some Virgin.... Am I right? Sure,
I am! There aren't so many people in the world who know what's what,
but I reckon you'll meet up with a few before you die!"

War Paint got up to give him the key but she could not find it either.
She was much surprised. Quickly, she ran to the bedroom door and peered
through the keyhole, standing motionless until her eye grew accustomed
to the darkness within. Without drawing away, she said: "You damned
Blondie. Son of a bitch! Come here a minute, look!"

She went away laughing.

"Didn't I tell them all