Don Sebastian’s guards, plus Colonel Armendariz and his men, were camped circling them to prevent escape. The hacienda guards and the colonel’s men were cooking some cabrito they had taken from a local farmer’s goatherd. Charley’s group could smell the goat meat as it cooked over the open fires, but they made do with their jerky because there wasn’t one of them who would stoop to asking for a handout. After soaking it in his bowl of beans, Charley took a bite of jerky, wiggling the piece of dried beef back and forth, hoping to break off a chunk he could chew instead of breaking a tooth. When he finally accomplished that task, Roscoe turned to him just as he took a bite. “It ain’t as easy when ya don’t got yer own choppers,” he said. He attempted to chomp down on his own jerky. Nothing happened, so he dipped the dried beef into his bowl of beans as he’d seen Charley do, then tried again. The dried meat appeared to have softened up some, so he bit into the jerky one more time and pulled even harder, until both his uppers and lowers popped free of his mouth.
