He knows he will be carried to the top where he will be sacrificed. He hears the rituals of the aztecas and knows he is ascending the steps of the sacrifice. He awakens on his back, naked and tied in ropes. No, ni siquiera tiempo, más bien como si en ese hueco él hubiera pasado a través de algo o recorrido distancias inmensas (185). He then feels like he has been transported through time and space: tenía la sensación de que ese hueco, esa nada, había durado una eternidad. The blurred line between reality and dream continues: se oía toser, respirar fuerte, a veces un diálogo en voz baja (184), ¿Quién hubiera pensado que la cosa iba a acabar así? (184). The patients at the hospital are convinced it is la fiebre, but it is more. He kills some enemies that attack him, but is eventually caught with a rope. He is again in confusion, but soon realizes that la guerra florida había empezado for tres días y tres noches (183). He has la fiebre (182), allowing him to fall in and out of consciousness. He just wakes up, and finds himself thirsty and in a cast. When he smells the smell he fears most, he wakes up with a fright. He stands there, nervous from unexpected sounds around him, clutching his stone dagger. Y todo era tan natural, tenía que huir de los aztecas que andaban a caza (hunt) de hombre, y su única probabilidad era la de esconderse en lo más denso de la selva los motecas conocían (180). He is in a strange dream, with fragrances. He is taken to the hospital, where a hombre de blanco approaches him con algo que le brillaba en la mano (180).
(178) When he comes to, he realizes he is bloody, his knee is hurt, his right arm is in pain, and his eyebrow has a large gash. He swerves out of the path of a woman crossing the street, but as a consequence, goes unconscious. The father says, "You couldn't even help me by telling me you could hear the dogs."Īn unnamed man is in the modern world, riding his motorcycle through town. They reach the town, the father puts Ignacio's limp down and it's then he hears the dogs barking.
Then, he feels his son's body loosen and what feels like tears are falling on the fathers head. The father continues to scold him for having ruined his life, telling him the only reason he's doing this is because his mother (who had died giving birth to Ignacio's would-be brother) would have wanted it so, but makes it clear that he (the father) has cursed the blood that runs through his veins. His friends were killed and Ignacio was hurt. It seems the son and his friends were making a living by holding up travelers on the road and robbing them of their possessions, and in the last hold-up, they were attacked. The old man scolds the son for having brought this upon himself. The son's weight is getting to be too much. But it seems as though they go on forever without reaching it. They were told they would reach it right after climbing over the big hill. He asks him is he can hear the dogs barking. On the way, the old man keeps asking his son (Ignacio) if he sees the town (Tonaya) they're looking for. Something has happened to the son he is having convulsions of some sort due to being hurt, which is why the man is carrying him -to find a doctor to help him. The story is about a man who is carrying his son (who is not a boy anymore) on his back through wilderness and countryside during the night, the moon shining the way.