The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya

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The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya 8extra clear, and the stars seemed to slowly pulse rather than rapidly twinkle. He looked at his body,still unconscious on the ground, just to make sure it was still there. It was. He decided he would stareup at the stars a while longer, since their slow pulsing was more like a form of dance than it wasanything else.He was still staring at the stars when the first horse began to brush past him. It was followed bya score of others, strung out in a long line abreast. They were beautiful animals. They were moving inslow time, just like everything else, and Jose could see every powerful bundle of muscle and tendon asthey glided over the dirt and rocks of the desert floor. The dust they raised behind them in their pathcurled slowly upwards, and had a beauty of its own. Jose found that he could see through it, when thatwas what he chose to do.The men atop the horses were not nearly so beautiful as their mounts. They were the first lineof Villa's cavalry charge against Agua Prieta's defenses. Some had faces twisted and bent by rage,scowling and furious; others looked more terrified than anyone Jose had ever seen before. All had theirgazes decidedly fixed in the direction of the trenches that they soon hoped to reach. All had their riflesat the ready. All were prepared to kill or to die, or both. Of all the strange things that Jose had seenthat night, and of all the strange things that he was still to see, and of all the strange things that hewould see over the course of his lifetime, those men on their blind charge to destruction were easily themost frightening.It was easy for Jose to keep up with the cavalry charge just by walking. He felt a littleconcerned about leaving his body lying in the desert, since he was now retracing his steps of thatmorning and returning to Agua Prieta, but he decided that since there was apparently nothing he coulddo in his disincorporated state to protect his body anyway, he might as well go along and see whatwould come next.Jose watched as the Villistas began to open fire in the direction of the Agua Prieta trenches.

The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya 9Flames blossomed and extended into the most beautiful yellow flowers at the ends of their riflemuzzles. Jose wondered that these machines, these rifles, which were designed solely for the purposeof killing, could create such beauty. It was an epiphany, this symmetry he found in the clear night airof the desert: Death could be beautiful. Beauty can kill you.The riders continued their charge toward the trenches, firing their rifles, intent on theirdestination. Jose continued to walk along with them, wondering when the flowers would bloom fromthe machine guns he had seen that morning. So far, they had not fired back even a single round. Heturned around and looked back for his body. It was still where he had left it, apparently unharmed, butat this distance it was only a small bump on the desert floor.He turned his attention back towards the trenches, and as he did so the most intense light he hadever seen hit him full in the face. He shied away instinctively for a moment, and then realized that hecould adjust his vision to it. The Villista horses and riders had no such ability, however. All aroundhim the horses were beginning to rear up in surprise and terror; the riders had stopped firing and weretrying to find enough free hands to simultaneously shield their eyes and cling desperately to theirpanicked mounts. From all along the trenches, the federalista machine guns now began to blossomwith their own flowers of flame, larger and more intense than the Villista blooms had been.As the horses reared around him, Jose had time to appraise the situation. The mysteriouscovered objects that he had seen that morning were in fact powerful searchlights. The clever federalistadefenders of the city had waited until the Villistas, charging through the darkness, had reached a pointwhere they could not turn back. The defenders then hit them in the face with the full power of thelights. Illuminated and confused, the Villistas were easy targets for the federalista machine gunners.The bullets, each bigger than one of Jose’s fingers, were entering flesh, severing arteries, tearingmuscles, shattering bone. Horses and men were beginning to fold up in slow motion and drop to theground, horses on top of men and men on top of horses. Here and there, where a man was killed

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