“Alright, bring on the next one!” The Captain shouts.

A lumbering mountain of muscle lurches out of the firing line and unties the body from the metal loop that had been driven into the dry earth. He tosses the still-warm corpse onto the pile forming against a dilapidated corner of free-standing brick wall. The wall is pitted with holes and stained with fresh blood - a sharp contrast to the empty blue sky. The huge man’s baleful eyes trace the horizon from mountains to the sea… anywhere but here, really.

A shout rings out, clear and frantic, as the next is brought forward from the line.

A young woman, swaddled in a dirty-spackled white dress, screams and kicks as she’s dragged forward. She nearly breaks free of the two soldiers who had come to move up the line. A soldier with slicked back hair steps in to help the old man and the fresh-faced recruit, providing a forceful, but wandering, hand that gropes the woman as much as it guides her to the spot. She lunges at him with a feral snarl and he leaps back with barely a chuckle. He slaps the blindfolded young woman repeatedly while the old man ties her shackles to the loop. His laughter nearly drowns out her deserate cries.

The soldiers retreat to the line, each unslinging their rifle from their back. Seven hammers cock and seven bayoneted barrels rise to point at the trembling woman. Tears leak from under the dirty white blindfold, hysterical sobs vanishing into the empty blue sky. As the Captain began to count down, a sabre raised to the air, she promises to return home and vows to never take up arms again.

“Fire!”

The girl jerks back as rosey-red blooms sprout from her legs, her stomach, and chest. She slumps to the ground, held upright in a pose of ghoulish prayer by the tether. The Captain approaches, drawing a revolver from his hip, and takes a wide stance. He leans forward on his front leg, flicking his arm out to train the gun on her temple.

The whinnying of horses draws his eyes up and he fires carelessly. He glances down with disgust, whiping a bit of blown-out jaw-and-cheek slurry off of his boots.

“Bien. Get the next ready.” He ordered. He straightened his uniform and stepped briskly over, in his professional opinion, another waste of good bullets. The muscled mountain steps up to untie the body once more, the two fetching the next, the rest idly chatting as they reloaded.

The rider stops a few dozen feet from the Captain and calls, “State your name and rank!”

“Francisco Fernandez de Vega de Granada y Lopez, Captain under General de los Toribio,” comes the response with an impatient snap of fingers, "Hurry up, hand it over.”

The rider hands over a sheet of paper and the Captain walks away without another word, reading it over with a steadily darkening expression. A curse slips from his lips as he stalks back to the team. The soldier with the slicked hair and thin mustache begins the count, his finger eagerly toying the trigger. On one, the Captain raises his hand.

“Hold!” He orders. One of the two identical soldiers under his command fires anyway. The round digs into the wall just above his target, who screams. His shuddering cries echo through this abandoned corner of the town.

“Untie him.” the Captain ordered, gesturing first to the young man, then to the line of nearly 80 more prisoners behind. “Mount up and bring the rest.”

“What?” the twins demand in unison, turning with disappointment to their commander. In response, he passes the note to the youngest recruit.

“By order of General Alvarado, acting Governor of the State of Yucatan, Captain Fernández de Vega de Granada y López is to cease executions of… Prisoners captured at… Hacienda Poc Boc, Hacienda Blanca Flor, and the town of Campeche…” He glances to the pile of corpses forty-some strong with a tinge of guilt. “They are to be imprisoned as a favor to the people of Yucatan and… and citizens of Merida.”

The young prisoner slowly sinks to the ground, shaking and nearly screaming with each relieved breath. The roots of his hair seeming to shimmer silver. His eyes brim with tears that break loose the moment the blindfold is lifted. He stares into the face of the muscle-mountain, at a kindly smile framed by a grand mustache, as he’s untied from the metal ring. A warm, kindly voice encourages him as he runs into the arms of his squadmates and friends.

In minutes, the firing squad mount up, corral the remaining prisoners, and take off east towards the capital. They leave the bodies piled there in the street, in the abandoned corner of a rural town under the uncaring, desolate, empty blue sky.