War Paint put her leg between his, twisted it suddenly,
and Demetrio fell to the ground outside of the bedroom.
He rose, raging.

"Help! Help! He's going to kill me!" she cried, seizing
Demetrio's wrist and turning the gun aside. The bullet
hit the floor. War Paint continued to shriek. Anastasio dis-
armed Demetrio from behind.

Demetrio, standing like a furious bull in the middle of
the arena, cast fierce glances at all the bystanders, Luis
Cervantes, Anastasio, Manteca, and the others.

"Goddamn you! You've taken my gun away! Christ!
As if I needed any gun to beat the hell out of you."

Flinging out his arms, beating and pummeling, he felled
everyone within reach. Down they rolled like tenpins.
Then, after that, Luis Cervantes could remember nothing
more. Perhaps his bride, terrified by all these brutes, had
wisely vanished and hidden herself.

"Perhaps this bedroom communicates with the living
room and I can go in through there," he thought, stand-
ing at the threshold. At the sound of his footsteps, War
Paint woke up. She lay on the rug close to Demetrio at
the foot of a couch filled with alfalfa and corn where the
black horse had fed.

"What are you looking for? Oh, hell, I know what you