They had waited on the bluff until Villa’s soldiers disappeared behind a bend, and then some. They climbed the rock pile at the entrance to the little box canyon and beheld the grim theater. The bodies of Luis, Rafael, and Casa Grande lay where they were killed, drying and shriveling in the sun like dead fish. Gourd Woman had propped Johnny’s head up on a rock and was kneeling over him, trying to give him some shade. She noticed them when they began climbing over the barrera of logs.“Is he still with us, sister?” Flipper asked when they were within talking distance.“No thanks to you,” she said, stroking Johnny’s face.“What happened? Did the bull get him?” He was just trying to open a conversation.“As if you didn’t know,” she replied. Nearby her was a box with some sort of food—beans, peppers, flour, dried corn. “They send you back to finish the job?”“We ain’t with them,” said Flipper. “We just watched this bullfight thing from up there.” He indicated the top of the canyon.“Then what are you doing here?”
