With a panicked, rasping gasp, the young woman sits up in bed. She stares, transfixed to the far wall that dances with the faint light of a dying fire in a nearby stove. Her hands slowly rise to her face, fingers playing lightly over the lattice of scars gracing her face. Tears began to well in her eyes, her breath growing shallow as she digs her fingers into the fresh scars.
The hypnotic trance breaks and in a flurry of bed covers and nightgown, she sets to searching her body. Sure enough, she finds a trail of knotted scars climbing her body, starting from above her knee and climbing up her thigh, her hip, her stomach, once in the shoulder, and one barely missing her heart.
By the time her hand returns to her puckered jaw the hysterical cries turn to frenetic laughter, each bout ending with her whole body in shivers.
“I”m alive.” she says, though her tone betrays her disbelief, “I’m alive, I’m alive I’m alive I’m aliveI’maliveI’maliveI’ma-”
“ Cállate!” a rough voice by the fire grumbles. “Trying to get some goddamn sleep here.”
“What happened?” The woman demands, her left eye nearly closing fully as she squints into the dark, “Who are you? Where am I?”
“Slow down!” the voice replies. It picks up a piece of tinder from the stove, briefly illuminating a heavy set face with a salt-and-pepper handlebar mustache that dangles dangerously close to the kindling. The tinder floats through the dark farmhouse before coming to rest in an oil lantern hanging over the bed.
The girl watches with a near animalistic caution. She presses herself to the wall, black eyes constantly searching for every detail.
She sees an older man - no, an old man. Despite the confident, near powerful way he carries himself, there is a certain fatigue in his surprisingly kind eyes. He wears a simple peasant’s outfit with worn black trousers and leather bandoliers criss-crossing his half-buttoned white shirt despite the hour.
The man drops himself into a nearby wooden chair and draws a pipe out of the darkness to light with the same tinder. Heavy, cloying smoke catches the faint lantern light, causing the woman to break into a wet cough. She wipes her mouth on the sleeve of the dressing gown as he flicks the tinder back into the stove from across the room. Her eyes only leave him for a moment to see blood glitter on her wrist.
“Good of you to finally wake up.” He begins casually, though his eyes follow her as closely as she with him. “I was beginning to think you wouldn’t.”
“Who are you?” She demands again.
The man lets out a growl of a laugh and brushes a bit of ash from his shirt, “Sales. Doroteo Sales.”
“Never heard of him.” She says, drawing out another brutal laugh.
“Sense of humor too!” His gaze shifts, turning from thinly veiled pity to a shimmer of opportunism. “We sure could use that.”
“We who, Sales Doroteo Sales?” Her shoulders slowly sink away from her ears, her face still and serious, though a glimmer of humor flickers through her eyes. It vanishes as fast as it had appeared.
“Teo’s fine, mija. Generale Teo?” He tries, thick eyebrows raising slightly, “I rode right hand to Pancho Villa at Aguascalientes? Third general of the big three Conventionalistas?”
“Is that why Obregon beat you?”
Teo huffed, then ducked his head, “Sure was. Villa ran us right into that trap. I barely got out of there with a few men… well, that and Obregon’s right arm.”
A soft chuckle leaks out of the man, followed by a long silence that takes the place of the pipe-smoke, cut only by the crackle of the fire.
“Did we win?”
Laughter suddenly shakes the thin shutters in their frame, Teo’s head leaning further back with each guffa, redoubled when he caught her glare. He soon recovers his composure, head shaking slowly.
“No, no mija you did not win. Right now, Carannza’s men are drunk and merry in Merida. There wasn’t even a fight, they just walked right in.”
“But Generale Argumendo-”
“That rat took off on the first train out of town with a state’s worth of gold. He was gone many, many hours before you even caught those bullets.” He reaches back to pull a dusty mirror from the wall. He holds it out to her, but after a few long moments of distrustful stares, settles on tossing it on the bed at her side. “Yucatan is under Constitutionista control now. Your little rebellion failed, little girl.”
“Adelita.” She replied bluntly.
“Mucho gusto.” he nods, tipping an invisible sombrero before pushing his wild hair from his face. “Thirsty?”
Adelita gives a quick nod and the big man gets to his feet with a heavy sigh. “Lucky I was the one that found you, neh? The doctor, he said you were ready to meet your ancestors. The priest, he said you deserved it and I should let you die. Fucked up, ain’t it?”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Teo had returned with a dirty tin cup and a clay pitcher of water, setting both on a nearby rickety table. Adelita tries to wait, to watch Teo closely, but she downs a cupful before he can return to his seat. The water is warm, but to the burning desert in her throat, it was as cool as the ocean, as soothing as the sea.
“He said we’d be heroes.”
“I’m sure.”
“He said we’d finally be free to rule ourselves.”
“I bet.”
“He said we’d make our families proud and rich.”
Teo gives a snort of amusement and leans his head back to rest against the stucco wall. “Little girl, did you live through all that just to complain?”
Adelita downs a second, then a third cup of water.
“How long was I out?”
“Few months, give or take. I don’t blame you not remembering, you were real in-and-out for a while there.”
She picks up the mirror he’d left her hesitantly. A silence presses over the cabin as she stares with fascinated horror at her new complexion. Enough time had passed that the wounds were sealed yet an angry red web still surrounds both wounds still healing. She tries on a few expressions, but each smile, each frown, every change in her face caused her to recoil in disgust.
“What now?” Adelita asks.
The young woman tears her eyes from her image with difficulty. Sympathy - no, pity - fills his gaze, though all it achieves is hardening her heart. He pulls a black bandana from his pocket and tosses it on the bed beside her.
“Well, that’s up to you, isn’t it?” Teo responds, leaning in conspiratorially and putting up three fingers, “Way I see it, you have three choices.”
He pushes the first finger down with his other hand, “You could go home, forget this ever happened. Treat it like a bad dream and a bad rash and go back to farming or whatever.”
“Fis-”
“Second,” he continues heedlessly, though Adelita’s expression begins to darken, “You join what’s left of the rebellion. We train you up, you take vengeance by overthrowing that shithead in Mexico City with me, we make this world a better place.”
He pushes the last down, then shakes the now closed fist inspirationally. Adelita’s frown deepens with every word, her fingers drumming on her knees impatiently, “Third, the best one, you come with me on a little trip to meet Villa and Zapata. We tell your story, use you to inspire the people to rise up once more. You don’t even have to raise a finger, you just gotta tell people what happened to you and I’ll do the rest.”
“No!” She finally bursts out, spiking the tin cup into the floorboards, “No more! I’m not doing it!”
“What part?” Doroteo asks cooly, his somber gaze fixed on the dented cup rolling under the bed.
“All of it! Fighting someone else’s fight, for some Generale who I’ve never met - and those I’ve met, for that matter.” She cut in before Teo could object, “If I’m going to shoot another gun, it’s gonna be for me and no one else.”
She ends her speech with a jab of her thumb to her chest. She tries not to react as pain glitters through her body, flickering up and down the ladder of bullet wounds. Once again, silence prevails.
“So the question still stands. What now?” He demands.
Adelita stares at the bandana on the bed, her eyes searching as though there were answers hidden in the weave of the fabric. Fear, rage, disgust, hope, and many more unrecognizable emotions play out through her mind and across her face as she considers the question. Finally, she scoots to the edge of the bed, picking up the bandana and tying it behind her head. She pulls the cloth up over her nose, then leans in, putting up seven fingers
“The big meatslab,” she starts, putting down fingers with each one, “the kid, the sleazebag, the old man, the twins,”
Finally, she pulls the bandana back down for a brief moment, to point at her face “and last, The Captain.”
One of the man’s eyebrows had begun to rise when she began listing and now threatens to merge into his hairline. Adelita continues to hold his gaze, her eyes full of cold steel now.
“I’m going to find them,” Adelita states calmly, “I’m going to find them and I’m going to give them back everything those bastards put in me… and then some.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.” She nods firmly, “and when I’m done? I’m going back home. I’m going back to the sea and just... forget this whole thing, like you said.”
Teo keeps her gaze for a time that seems to drag into eternity, the only noise the chirp of wildlife in the jungle just outside.
Teo finally drops his gaze, casting his eyes skyward and leaning his chair back as he lets out a long, low whistle.
“Big plans.” He states, his tone is as serious as hers. “Can you shoot?”
“I got trained.”
Teo snorts, waving a dismissive hand, “By who? Argumedo? I know for a fact you kids didn’t get more than a day with your wet guns and… and whatever random bits of ammo you could find.”
“I shot before. Papa took me hunting.” she responds, hurt pride creeping into her tone
“That’s nothing!” Teo explodes, slamming his chair upright. Adelita winces, a tremble wracking her body and the wet cough returning in force. She pulls off the bandana to inspect the spray of blood spackling the inside.
“Sorry.” Teo relents. He leans his chair back to address the ceiling. “Joining the cause, that’ll get you trained. At least get you armed so you can get your fool head blown off again.”
“I don’-”
“Yeah, I know, you don’t fight for others anymore.” he cuts in sarcastically, “You fight for you. You’re going to be one stubborn thorn in my side, aren’t you?”
“I do my best.” She responds curtly.
“Yeah, yeah. Okay.” Doroteo gets to his feet, stretching until his belly pokes out between his shirt buttons. “Alright. You think you can ride in a few months?”
“Wait, months?” Adelita asks, sitting upright with interest.
Teo sighs, twisting his crooked mouth into a wry smile. “That’s right. I may not be a big general anymore but I still hear things. We’ve got some time - not much, hey - before your friends leave Yucatan.”
Adelita’s eyes light up and she moves to stand with him. Teo casually taps a finger on her wounded shoulder, causing her to crumple instantly with a display of pain like fireworks.
“Yeah, not happening, mija.” He chuckles, “Don’t worry. Alvarado and his men’re supposed to be here till... end of next year, minimum. That’s plenty time for you to get to fighting form, eh? After that, though, they’re all getting scattered from Quintana Roo to Chihuahua.”
Adelita sits up straight once more, her jaw set against the waves of pain. “You’re going to help me?”
“If the lone wolf don’t mind a tagalong, yeah.”
Teo begins to move around the cabin, throwing things into a leather rucksack hanging from the door, all while Adelita stares at the dying fire. She cuts through the bustling clatter with a single word.
“Why?”
The clattering stops as Doroteo hesitates, his head bowing under some immense weight in his mind.
“What else do I have to do?”
Adelita tilts her head, confused. With a sigh, he continues, both in word and in packing.
“The movement I love is dead. Villa’s stuck fighting with Texans. Zapata… he barely has enough men to go back to banditry, eh? So what else do I have? Why not? Why the hell not.”
He slings the bag over his shoulder and hefts a saddle from the ground by the door.
“Look, the Sales family, we’re fighters. We don’t die in a rocking chair, surrounded by our loved ones. We live and die on the battlefield. It don’t do me no good to sit around here.” He returns to the bed, lifting the oil lamp and snuffing the flame. His baritone rumble filters through the dark, “And if by God I live to see you put a bullet in that Capitan of yours, well… I’ll have some good stories to tell!”
His laugh echoes through the room as he stomps his way outside. With a pained cry, Adelita pulls herself to her feet once more, following him to the door by propping a hand against the wall.
“Where the hell are you going?” She calls, “I thought you were going to train me.”
“You’re no good for training right now. Rest up. I’m going to poke around, see if I can’t find some of these soldiers so we don’t go running off blind.” He quickly saddled and mounts a black horse only visible thanks to the stars. “Be ready in two months!”