THE BRIDESIT WAS a very light wind that touched their faces, and it was to them a breath of coolness, much welcome in April afternoons when all about
you appeared to burn and wilt and dry. They had just passed the asphalt highway, where waves of heat blurred their vision down onto the rutted dirt road. The carretela seemed to sink deep
into the narrow river of loose powdery dust. The horse would neigh now and then, its saliva silvery in the sun. As the driver swung his whip, the horse would kick, making ugly dustclouds in
mid-air. And save for the grating of the wheels, all was quiet.
To Mario, the trees and the fields and the little houses they saw looked old and worn-out, because the trees bent with age, the fields rolled vastly without crop, the little houses never grew.
He knew th
