Summary

They stop along the Leon River, and eat their roasted chicken. The Captain has one of his nightmares about himself on the battlefield, and sleep for most of the next day as well. The next day, they drive twenty-miles before a company of cavalry stop their wagon. The major warns the Captain of raiders in the hill country. After the cavalrymen leave them, the Captain drifts off into thoughts of San Antonio, where he once lived with his wife. He thinks about the city’s Spanish inhabitants who found themselves “increasingly hemmed in” (155) by the city’s new German and Irish Catholic inhabitants. He then thinks about the print shop he had on Plaza de Armas, and misses his wife. He thinks about death, which makes him “mad” (155) because the dead leave and “never [say] another word to you again” (155).

Eventually, Johanna and the...