U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [138]
-322-the line. On sidings were many boxcars loaded with troops, but nobody seemed to know what side they were on. Mac looked out at the endless crisscross ranks of centuryplants and the crumbling churches and watched the two huge snowy volcanos, Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihatl, change places on the horizon; then there was another goldenbrown cone of an extinct volcano slowly turning before the train; then it was the bluewhite peak of Orizaba in the distance grow-ing up tal er and tal er into the cloudless sky. After Huamantla they ran down through clouds. The
rails rang under the merry clatter of the wheels curving down steep grades in the misty winding val ey through moist forestgrowth. They began to feel easier. With every loop of the train the air became warmer and damper. They began to see orange and lemontrees. The windows were al open. At stations women came through sel ing beer and pulque and chicken and tortil as.
At Orizaba it was sunny again. The train stopped a long time. Mac sat drinking beer by himself in the station res-taurant. The other passengers were laughing and talking but Mac felt sore.
When the bel rang he didn't want to go back to
Concha and her mother and their sighs and their greasy fingers and their chickenwings. He got on another car. Night was coming on ful of the smel s of flowers and warm earth. It was late the next day when they got into Vera Cruz. The town was ful of flags and big red banners stretched from wal to wal of the orange and lemon and banana-colored streets with their green shutters and the palms waving in the seawind. The banners read:
"Viva Obre-gon," " Viva La Revolucion Revindicadora, " " Viva El Partido Laborista. " In the main square a band was playing and people
were dancing. Scared daws flew cawing among the dark umbrel ashaped trees.
-323-Mac left Concha and her bundles and the old woman and Antonio on a bench and went to the Ward Line office to see about passage to the States. There everybody was talking about submarine warfare and America entering the Great War and German atrocities and Mac found that
there was no boat for a week and that he didn't have enough cash even for two steerage passages. He bought himself a single steerage passage. He'd begun to suspect that he was making a damn fool of himself and decided to go without Concha.
When he got back to where she was sitting she'd bought custardapples and mangos. The old woman and Antonio had gone off with the bundles to find her sister's house. The white cats were out of their basket and were curled up on the bench beside her. She looked up at Mac with a quick confident blackeyed smile and said that Porfirio and Venustiano were happy because they smelt fish. He gave her both hands to help her to her feet. At that moment he couldn't tel her he'd decided to go back to the States without her. Antonio came running up and said that they'd found his aunt and that she'd put them up and that every-body in Vera Cruz was for the revolution. Going through the main square again Concha said she was thirsty and wanted a drink. They were looking around for an empty table outside of one of the cafés when they caught sight of Salvador. He jumped to his feet and em-braced Mac and cried, " Viva Obregon, " and they had a mint julep American style. Salvador said that Carranza had been murdered in the mountains by his own staff-officers and that onearmed Obregon had ridden into Mex-ico City dressed in white cotton