The doors to the church slowly open with a creak, soft candle light stepping out to cut through the gloom of early-nightfall. Stepping out after it, though, was a heavy-set man with a heavy mustache and rough face. He glanced first one way, then the other, a hand on a revolver on his belt.

“What is it?” The priest calls out from the depths of the building and, seeing nothing, he turns back in, closing the door behind him. With him, he takes the light, a light that had kindled the dying fire in the girl… if only for a moment more. The girl spits, forcing more dirt and blood from her open cheek. The pain cuts through the rising warmth in her limbs and she cries out weakly once more.

The doors open again and light washes out like a tide of life itself. The door opens further, illuminating the twisted bundle of blood shivering at the bottom of the church steps. The man quickly makes a cross over his chest and bows his head with a hand over his heart… then closes the door once more.

“Bastard…” she rasps.

It’s getting cold out. The stars aren’t as nice here as they are on her parent’s boat. Still, if she pushes her head back and forth, with effort, they rock gently overhead. She barely registers the pairs of feet coming down the stairs to her. She barely registers the questions, barely tastes the water dripping through her cracked lips, barely hears the prayer rattled out frantically as strong hands grip her ankles and under her shoulders.

Later, she would remember being brought to a rural ranch house. She would remember the large window and the seasons that seemed to flash by it with alarming speed. She would remember the doctor, and the men who had found her, holding her down as she writhed against the stitches. However, she would also remember odd flashes, seeing the faces of Pancho Villa, of Emiliano Zapata, of other heroes of the revolution that she’d only heard of until then. She would remember wonderful visions of war and revenge and the sounds of cheering and the screams of war. Through it all, though, she would remember most the faces of the men who’d shot her, burned into her mind from the last moment she had seen them before being blindfolded.

She would remember the huge man, his mustache, his muscles.

She would remember the child, the indigenous boy who seemed so young.

She would remember the sleaze, his slicked back hair and his thin mustache.

She would remember the old man, his bitter face and defeated eyes.

She would remember the twins and their eagerness to kill.

But most of all, she would remember The Captain, his arrogant eyes and the pale skin of a Criollos.