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24 Three Hundred and Seventy-Two Miles from Home Chihuahua, 1846 1. Twelve days later the army moved out with only half its feet. He had two and hands that could peel cactus or pick the edible flower, so he survived— sweating under the brim of his hat and the weight of his shirt. In a year of dried skins, thistles, and spider eggs, men would leave their shadows for dead. 2. Before the pea field melted to smoldering pods, she wore a skirt embroidered with camellias the color of blanched tomatoes or a young woman’s knuckles down a washboard. What did he think of her between flags? A man no different than those beside him, bound to their muscled beliefs and the sweating haunches of mules. She was only a blouse strung on a line to dry white as hound-bones, a musk-melon patch, too common 25 for remembrance when so much is staked, when so many men die staring into each other’s eyes. ...

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