Carmen Boullosa - Texas - The Great Theft

Everyone is scratching from head to toe, eaten alive by mosquitoes.

It’s bad luck that Fragrance, General Cumin’s scout, isn’t with them. Things would have gone differently. Tracking, smelling the air — they would have understood what was going on.

The bells awaken Miss Lace but she doesn’t understand what has roused her and she feels startled and agitated by “a presence.”

She jumps out of bed in a panic. She’s certain that John Tanner, the White Indian, has arisen from the grave and has come to get her.

Joe Lieder hasn’t slept a wink. There’s only one Yamparik restraining him now — Metal Belly — who holds him firmly while he continues to ululate periodically to frighten the soldiers. As the hours have passed, their two bodies stuck together, Metal Belly has gotten a hard-on. At the same time, the one Joe had when he left the house returns.

Both erections are unwanted, but they level the playing field.

The U.S. troops and the makeshift group of volunteers (Rangers, citizens, gunslingers) enter Bruneville from the poor side of town. At the first corner they’re met with a blast of gunpowder from which they recoil. Next, a ream of Nepomuceno’s pamphlets rains down on them from a nearby rooftop, who knows who’s throwing them, you can’t see a thing, the sky is still overcast. They struggle to light the lamps the wind has extinguished.

In the center of the Market Square with the bullhorn (a new one, Stealman’s) from the barge in his hand, Nepomuceno begins to read the proclamation while the Kids’ Brigade goes from house to house distributing it.

All the town’s inhabitants have gathered thanks to the alarm bells, some carry buckets of water, ready to put out the (non-existent) fire, others are wrapped in their shawls and quilts to ward off the cold as best they can.

Everyone has a copy of the proclamation in their hands, some in English, others in Spanish.

(One confused gringo asks, “Is it the Blues versus the Reds?” A girl next to him answers in her sweet voice, “No, it’s the stinkin’ greasers!”)

Halfway through his proclamation the U.S. troops enter the square firing into the air — they don’t want to harm any civilians, “Watch out for the townspeople!”—by which they mean “the gringos,” not realizing that most of the Mexicans gathered here are Americans too.

No one returns fire, there’s not even a skirmish. The only shots are the ones La Plange takes — with his camera, his lamps, and the help of Snotty he’s doing his best to capture the moment.

The Coal Gang and the youngest Robin attack the U.S. troops from behind, starting a messy brawl, most of the soldiers are trapped between the townsfolk and the bandits, though a few manage to escape.

They lay down their weapons.

Frank, the Mexican run-speak-go-tell, is wandering around lost, wondering what’s going on — it’s unpleasant to wake up like this. “What’s going on? What’s happening?”

Metal Belly, the Yamparik who’s still holding Joe, is wondering the same thing, right before he ejaculates — he’s disgusted, he feels sick with himself. As soon as he does he heads toward Bruneville — someone else can look after the blond kid, let him rot!

In La Plange’s photo Nepomuceno is standing on the bandstand the gringos have started building in the town square, holding the proclamation in front of him, not bothering to pretend he’s reading because he knows it by heart (which is why the gringos claim that he’s illiterate).

The photo is taken in profile. He’s surrounded by Brunevillians, all wrapped in their blankets, with their frightened faces, and Mexicans, still high-spirited from their celebration. Later, Lázaro will sing:

Oh the poor gringos’ teeth

they chattered.

The cowards paralyzed by their fear.

I won’t mention Rigoberto,

the lily-livered priest.

He’d heard so much about hellfires

he hid ’tween the sheets.

Next Nepomuceno’s men go after the men on his list.

But first they have to find them.

Olga (even at a time like this she can’t resist running around spreading gossip) lets Nepomuceno’s men know: Shears is at the Smiths’ house, his wound still hasn’t healed.

They knock politely on the Smiths’ door, but as soon as the pretty Hasinai, Moonbeam, opens the door they barge rudely past her into the house while she struggles to keep them out.

They subdue her. Moonbeam smiles at them, which disarms Ludovico. He reaches toward her, “Moonbeam! My little sunbeam!”

Moonbeam is put out that “one of them” (today they’re ruffians) is talking to her this way. She pushes him away and runs into another room. Ludovico follows her, more playful than anything else. They run from room to room — back and forth across the patio — ending up in the room where a pallid Shears is resting; no sooner does he see shadows approaching than he shoots.

Moonbeam drops to the ground.

Shears drops his weapon. He shouts, “The greaser killed the Comaaaaanche!”

Ludovico falls to his knees and covers his face. He stays like that, frozen.

Dr. Schulz — medical case in hand — arrives immediately to attend to her.

“It’s too late. She’s dead. It was a crack shot.”

He glares furiously at Shears. There’s no question he’s the murderer.

Ludovico rises and leaves.

The sheriff points at him, shouting, “It was him!” He obviously doesn’t want to take the blame.

When she hears this, Caroline, the Smiths’ daughter — the one we know is in love with Nepomuceno — steps out of the wardrobe in the adjacent room, where her parents forced her to hide. She’s holding the cocked pistol they gave her to defend herself. She behaves like the madwoman she is. She runs over to Moonbeam’s body, waving the gun as if it were a fan — she’s out of control — then puts the gun to her temple and pulls the trigger.

There’s no question it’s a suicide, it couldn’t possibly be anything else. Dr. Schulz himself was a witness.

She too is dead on the spot.

Shears shouts, “It was him!” pointing to Fulgencio, the vaquero , who can’t take it anymore — he knows full well the gun smoking on the floor isn’t Ludovico’s — and he shoots Shears.

In Caroline’s head the bullet has created more havoc than ever. It would have been interesting to stay in her mind for a while: her infatuation with Nepomuceno; the death of her pretty slave, Moonbeam (her companion, who tethered her to reality); her consequent incomprehension. We already know she’s incapable of organizing her thoughts — her head and her heart are like the swamp near the Lieders’ homestead where the U.S. troops got bogged down (like flies in honey); she was setting her own traps (just as Nepomuceno’s men did): clingy weeds, varmints, ignorance, darkness. And add to that the evil moon, stagnating behind a cloud, its cold light ruling the night.

(Some say there is a God. And some of us believe it’s the moon, mutable, sometimes brutal, which calls the shots. It severs the threads of life without hesitation; it takes the good and the young, yet leaves old men who want to die living, shriveling up.)

Shears, meanwhile, moans, “It hurts, it hurts.” For weeks now his vocabulary has been limited to these two syllables — not that he had a wide vocabulary to begin with.

Fulgencio’s bullet lodged right next to his heart, without killing him, and Shears is still breathing. The bullet is like a babe in its cradle — it’s a homecoming.

One of the U.S. soldiers (Captain Ruby) goes berserk a block behind the Market Square, he was already on edge, nervous, the truth is that fear is getting to everybody — not Minister Fear’s kind of fear, but the fear of animals who find themselves cornered by a hunter.