“Can I have your leftovers?” the girl said. “I’m so hungry. I haven’t eaten in days. Sir, can I have the scraps from your food? But please… please don’t hit me afterward.”

The girl held out a trembling hand, while her other instinctively caressed the raised, white scars that mapped her arms. “The patrón… he always hits me when I ask for his scraps.”

Pancho Villa’s blood ran cold. The creature spoke of beatings the way others speak of the weather.

“What patrón, muchacha?” Villa set his plate aside. His voice was deeper than usual.

“The one from the big hacienda, sir.” Her enormous eyes filled with tears. “Are you… are you going to hit me too if I eat something, compadre?”

The Chihuahuan desert shimmered under a sun that melted the very stones. Villa and his Dorados had made camp on the outskirts of Santo Domingo after three days of hard riding, fleeing a column of Federals that had been hunting them since Torreón. The town was just a handful of adobe houses scattered around a half-ruined church, but it had water and shade, and that was enough.

The horses drank from a muddy trickle in a near-dry creek bed while the men shared hard tortillas and watery beans, bought with ammunition in the last town. Villa was sitting on a blanket, thoughtfully chewing a piece of jerky, when the girl appeared.

He didn’t see her arrive. She just materialized by the fire, as if the desert itself had given birth to her. Nine, maybe ten years old, thin as a dry mesquite, barefoot, wearing a dress that had once been white but was now the color of dust and old blood. What struck Villa most wasn’t her obvious poverty, but the way her eyes darted—always alert, like an animal that has learned to survive by dodging kicks.

“What’s your name, muchacha?” Villa asked, pushing his own plate of food toward her.

The girl stared at it, suspicious, as if it were a trap. “Laurinda, sir.”

“And where do you come from, Laurinda?”

“The San Cayetano hacienda. I work there.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but every word carried the weight of a confession.

Villa watched as she constantly touched her arms, her fingers tracing the marks that stood out under the threadbare fabric. They weren’t normal scars, not from hard work or accidents. These had a pattern, a repetition that spoke of something deliberate, systematic.

“How old are you, Laurinda?”

“Nine, sir. I’ll be ten, if I don’t die first.”

The casualness with which she mentioned her own death made Rodolfo Fierro, who was cleaning his rifle nearby, look up. Fierro had seen much in his life. He had killed more men than he could count. But something in that girl’s voice stirred a part of him he thought was long buried.

“Why would you say that, about dying?” Villa asked, though a dark part of him didn’t want the answer.

“Because Don Dalton says lazy children are worthless, and I’ve been very lazy lately.” She touched her ribs, which jutted out like the bars of a cage. “Yesterday, I couldn’t carry the sack of corn to the granary. It fell on me. Don Dalton said tomorrow he’s going to ‘teach me’ what happens to children who are no good.”

Villa felt something ignite in his chest, a flame he knew well. It was the same fire he’d felt in Río Grande when he saw Federals burn three farmers alive. The same that had driven him to hunt the Rurales who had violated a woman in San Luis Potosí. But this was different. This was a child, and her resigned, matter-of-fact acceptance of horror broke his soul in a new way.

“What is he going to do to you tomorrow, this Don Dalton?” The question came out harder than he intended.

Laurinda flinched, as if expecting the blow. “He’ll put me on the post, sir. Like always.”

“The post?” Villa didn’t understand.

“Yes. The post where they tie us to whip us. In the hacienda courtyard. All the children know the post.” Her eyes went distant, remembering. “The last time… it was because I dropped an egg. Don Dalton says we have to be taught young not to waste the patrón’s things.”

Fierro had approached without a sound, moving like a mountain cat. His eyes, usually as cold as the steel of his pistol, now held a dangerous glint. “How many children work at this hacienda?” he asked in a controlled voice.

“About twenty, sir. Some are the children of the peones. Others, like me… we have no family. They ‘collect’ us from the village when our parents die or leave.” She spoke as if describing the weather, but Villa saw her hands tremble. “Don Dalton says it’s better to teach us to work when we’re small, before we get used to ‘vagrancy’.”

Villa stood up slowly. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with hands that could break a man in two or stroke a horse with a mother’s tenderness. At that moment, those hands clenched into fists that could have ground stone. Something in Laurinda’s story resonated deep in his memory, in the corners where he kept his own childhood on the López Negrete hacienda. He remembered the constant fear, the feeling of walking on broken glass, knowing that any mistake, no matter how small, would be paid for in pain.

“Laurinda, does Don Dalton hit the children often?” he asked, though he already knew.

“Almost every day, sir. He says it’s to educate us. The other children’s parents can’t say anything, because they all owe Don Dalton money. And those of us without parents…” She shrugged, a single gesture that contained years of abandonment. “Well, we have no one to speak for us.” Her voice broke. “Sometimes I think it would be better to be dead like my mama. At least she doesn’t feel pain anymore.”

The silence that followed was as heavy as a tombstone. The other Dorados nearby had stopped their tasks and drawn closer, pulled by an gravity in the conversation. They were hard men, calloused by years of war, but they all had sisters, daughters, nieces. They all knew the smell of innocent fear.

Villa felt their eyes on him, waiting. They knew that look on his face. It meant someone was about to pay, and pay dearly.

“Where, exactly, is this hacienda?” Villa asked, his voice so low it was almost a growl.

“Half an hour’s ride north, sir. You can see it from the Hill of the Crosses. It’s big, with a white house and large corrals.” Laurinda looked at him with curiosity. “Why do you ask, sir?”

Villa didn’t answer right away. He was thinking, calculating, feeling the rage organize itself in his mind with the precision of a military plan. This wasn’t politics. This wasn’t strategy. It was simpler, and more powerful. It was the primitive need to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

“Laurinda, do you know who I am?”

The girl shook her head.

“My name is Francisco Villa. But people call me Pancho Villa.”

Laurinda’s eyes widened, not with fear, but with something that looked like hope. “You… you’re General Villa? The one who fights the Federals?”

“Yes, muchacha. And I’m going to tell you something. Tomorrow, you are not going back to that hacienda. You are going to stay here, in this village, with people who will care for you. And Don Dalton…” Villa paused, choosing his words. “Don Dalton is going to learn what it feels like to be on the receiving end.”

That night, while Laurinda slept wrapped in a thick blanket by the fire, watched over by the village blacksmith’s wife, Villa gathered his men under the desert stars.

Twenty-eight Dorados formed a circle in the pre-dawn quiet, their weathered faces lit by the low fire. Fierro sat on his heels, meticulously cleaning the cylinder of his revolver, but Villa knew his most trusted man was absorbing every word.

“Boys, tomorrow we’re doing something different.” Villa spoke in the low voice he used when a decision was final. “We’re not fighting Federals. We’re not taking a town. We’re not after guns or money. We’re going to deliver justice.”

His eyes swept the circle. “A justice the Mexican government won’t deliver. A justice the authorities don’t want to deliver. A justice no one else will deliver, because there’s no money in it.”

Fierro looked up. “What’s the target, jefe?”

“A hacienda to the north, San Cayetano. There’s a son of a bitch there named Dalton Sartunino, who has a habit of torturing children for sport.” Villa let the words hang in the air. “I’m not talking about working them hard. I’m talking about tying them to a post and flogging them unconscious. Children. Nine, ten years old. For dropping an egg. For not being able to carry a sack of corn that weighs more than they do.”

The silence that followed was different. It was charged with something more primal than discipline. It was the silence of men who had just heard something that turned their stomachs.

Sabino Cisneros, a veteran from Chihuahua who’d lost two sons in a Federal bombardment, spat into the dirt. “That bastard needs to be taught some manners, jefe.”

“It’s not that simple, Sabino. The hacienda is protected. The owner has connections to the district’s Jefe Político. He pays bribes to the Federal garrison in Parral. If we ride in with guns blazing, the guilty ones might slip away, and the victims will be caught in the crossfire. We need to know what’s happening inside. How many armed men. Where the children are. We need a plan that ensures, when we strike, the only ones who pay are the ones who deserve it.”

Fierro snapped the cylinder of his revolver shut. The click sounded like a bone breaking. “I’ll infiltrate, jefe.”

“You?” Villa looked at him. “Fierro, you have a price on your head from Sonora to Veracruz. Your face is on posters all over northern Mexico.”

“Exactly.” Fierro’s smile was a dangerous razor’s edge. “No one expects Rodolfo Fierro to be asking for work as a peón on some lost hacienda. Besides, I know how to work the land. Before I rode with you, I made my living with my hands.”

The proposal made sense. But Villa knew sending Fierro on a reconnaissance mission was like sending a tiger to guard sheep. Rodolfo Fierro was not known for his patience.

“Fierro, this requires self-control. You’ll see things that will make you want to kill someone on the spot. You cannot. You have to watch, you have to listen, and you have to report back. Can you do that?”

“I can do whatever is necessary to make those bastards pay, jefe.”

“Alright. You leave at dawn. You are Juan Herrera, from Durango. The drought wiped out your harvest. You’re a widower. You need any work you can get.” Villa stared at him. “And Fierro. This is important. No matter what you see, do not break cover. We need that information to save all of them. If you kill someone too soon, we might lose our chance.”

The next day, as the sun began to warm the desert air, Fierro rode north on a tired old horse, dressed in peasant’s clothes and a frayed straw hat, the forced humility of a desperate man radiating from him. His weapons were hidden, save for a small knife in his boot.

The hacienda was just as Laurinda had described: large, prosperous, with a two-story main house painted a white that gleamed like the teeth of a skull. The corrals were full of fat cattle, a grotesque contrast to the starving girl.

Fierro headed for the foreman’s office. A stout man with gray mustaches and small, pig-like eyes emerged. “Work? Where from?”

“Durango, patrón. Juan Herrera, at your service. The drought… I’ll take anything.”

The foreman, Ugalde, looked him up and down like livestock. “Don Dalton decides who stays. But we can try you out. You work hard, maybe he lets you stay. But I warn you: here, we work. No laziness. No complaints. The patrón does not tolerate indiscipline.”

Fierro nodded with practiced submission, but he was cataloging every detail. He was put to work mending fences with another laborer, Jacinto. He was a man in his forties, his skin weathered, but his eyes held a sorrow deeper than exhaustion.

“You been here long?” Fierro asked as they worked.

Jacinto eyed him carefully. “Fifteen years. Since before Don Dalton… became what he is.”

“What was he like before?”

“Hard, but fair. Things changed when his wife died, five years back. Died in childbirth, the baby too. Since then… it’s like something rotted inside him.” Jacinto paused. “He hates children. Hates seeing them happy. Says their joy mocks his pain. That’s why he punishes them. It’s not discipline. It’s… his suffering calms him.”

Fierro felt the muscles in his neck tighten. “And nothing can be done? The authorities?”

Jacinto laughed, a bitter, hollow sound. “The authorities work for Don Dalton. The Jefe Político is his compadre. The priest owes him money. The Federals from Parral come here to eat every month. There is no higher authority than Don Dalton for fifty kilometers.”

As if summoned by the conversation, a child’s scream cut the morning air. It was not a scream of play. It was a scream of pure, absolute terror.

Fierro straightened like a spring. Jacinto turned pale. “Again.”

The scream came again, followed by the unmistakable thwack of leather on flesh. Fierro’s instincts screamed at him to run, to kill.

“Don’t look,” Jacinto whispered, grabbing his arm. “If Don Dalton sees you watching, he’ll know you’re curious. He gets rid of the curious ones.”

But Fierro had to see. He moved carefully, finding a spot where he could observe the main courtyard. What he saw burned itself into his memory.

In the center of the courtyard stood the mesquite post. Hanging from iron rings bolted to the wood was a boy no older than eight. Don Dalton Sartunino stood before him, holding a braided leather whip. He was tall, thin, and dressed in an immaculate white suit that contrasted obscenely with the scene. He wore an expression of calm concentration, like an artisan at his work. There was no rage in his face. There was methodical pleasure.

“Why did you hit my dog, Toñito?” Don Dalton asked, his voice soft, almost paternal.

“I… I didn’t, patrón! I just shooed him… he was eating the chickens’ corn!” the boy sobbed.

Don Dalton smiled. “Are you calling me a liar?” The whip whistled and struck the boy’s back, tearing a shriek from him.

Fierro’s hands clenched so tightly his nails dug into his palms, drawing blood. He wanted to leap the fence, to take that whip and shove it down the man’s throat. But Villa’s voice echoed in his head: Do not break cover.

“Every lie costs five lashes, Toñito,” Don Dalton continued, preparing the next blow. “That’s ten. Do you want to keep lying?”

“I didn’t lie, patrón! I swear!”

The second lash opened the boy’s shirt, leaving a red line that immediately welled with blood. The third tore the shirt completely. Fierro saw other workers standing around the courtyard, heads bowed, forced to watch. Among them was Doña Milian, the boy’s mother, her hands pressed to her mouth to stifle her screams, tears carving paths through the dust on her face.

At the fifth lash, Toñito fainted. Don Dalton calmly walked to a water barrel, filled a bucket, and dashed it over the boy’s head. Toñito woke up, choking and vomiting, hanging like a broken doll.

“Good,” Don Dalton said. “You’re awake for the rest. It would be a shame for you to miss your own education.”

Fierro had to turn away. If he watched one more second, he would not be able to stop himself. He leaned against a tree, fighting the bile and rage rising in his throat.

Jacinto joined him. “It’s always like this. Three times a week, sometimes more.”

“How many children?” Fierro forced the words out.

“Twenty, maybe twenty-one. Some are workers’ kids, others orphans Don Dalton ‘rescues’ to teach them a trade.” Jacinto spat. “Truth is, he uses them as slaves. And for this.”

The whipping had stopped. Don Dalton was addressing the assembled workers. “I hope you all learned something. At San Cayetano, obedience is not a suggestion. It is the law.”

Doña Milian ran to her son, untied his raw wrists, and carried him away.

“Is there a way to get the children out?” Fierro asked, his mind already shifting to tactics.

Jacinto looked at him, startled. “Why?”

“To get them somewhere safe. Before someone comes to settle accounts with Don Dalton.”

Jacinto’s eyes lit with a dangerous spark. “Do you know someone? Someone who would dare?”

“Maybe. But I need to know everything. How many armed men? Where do the children sleep? Where does Dalton keep his weapons?” Fierro met his gaze. “And I need to know if there are men inside willing to help when the time comes.”

Jacinto looked down, his hands trembling. “I lost a daughter. Three years ago. Esperanza. She was seven. Don Dalton… he punished her for dropping a jug of milk. Fifteen lashes. Her heart stopped after the tenth.” He looked up, his eyes burning. “If you truly know someone who can bring justice… count me in. And there are others. We are all afraid. But if someone like… like Pancho Villa, for example… were to come, I think many men here would risk their lives to see that bastard pay.”

Fierro spent the rest of the day observing. He counted seventeen armed men, including Ugalde. He located the armory. He identified the children’s barracks—a long hut behind the kitchen, its door locked from the outside. And he identified five men, like Jacinto, who had personal accounts to settle.

At dawn, Fierro slipped away and rode like the wind back to Santo Domingo.

He found Villa by the fire. Laurinda was nearby, helping the blacksmith’s wife pat out tortillas. She had slept, and the haunted, animal alertness was already fading from her eyes.

“Jefe.” Fierro dismounted before the horse even stopped.

Villa stood and walked with him, out of the girl’s earshot. “What did you see?”

Fierro took a deep breath. “Jefe, what that girl told us… it wasn’t half the truth. What’s happening at San Cayetano… It’s like hell opened a branch office on Earth.”

He recounted everything: Toñito, the post, Doña Milian, the methodical sadism, the corrupt officials, and Jacinto’s dead daughter. When he finished, Villa was silent, his face a mask of cold fury.

“Fierro,” Villa said. “Go back. Tell Jacinto and the others that they will have visitors tonight. Tell them to have the children awake, but quiet. And tell them to open the armory door when they hear the signal.”

Villa whistled. His men gathered.

“Boys, tonight we ride.” His voice was flat, devoid of emotion. “This isn’t a battle. It’s an execution. We go in, we secure the children, we get them out. Then… we capture Don Dalton. And he is going to learn. He’s going to meet the same post. He’s going to feel the same whip. He will experience the same pain he caused, multiplied by every child he hurt.”

Some of the younger men looked uneasy. They were soldiers, not executioners.

“Does anyone have a problem with that?” Villa asked. “Because if anyone thinks a man who tortures children deserves a quick, merciful bullet, you can stay here and guard the horses.”

Sabino Cisneros stepped forward. “Jefe, I have kids. If anyone did to my children what that bastard did… I would want to kill him with my bare hands, and I’d want it to take all day. I’m with you.”

One by one, the others nodded, their discomfort replaced by grim determination.

As the men prepared, Villa knelt by Laurinda. “I’m going back to San Cayetano tonight. I’m going to bring the other children.”

The girl looked at him, her

nine-year-old face old with trauma. “General Villa? Will he… will Don Dalton suffer? Like we suffered?”

Villa met her gaze. “Yes, muchacha. He will suffer exactly as you suffered. It is only just.”

“Good,” Laurinda whispered, turning back to the tortilla dough. “It’s his turn.”

The new moon conspired with Villa, plunging the hacienda into a blackness broken only by the stars. The Dorados moved like ghosts, dismounting and encircling the compound. Fierro was already inside, his signal fire lit.

At 2 a.m., Villa and eight men moved to the barracks. Three soft knocks. The door opened. It was Doña Milian. “General Villa… Thank God.”

Inside, twenty children were huddled on their sleeping mats, awake, terrified, but silent. Villa removed his hat. “My name is Pancho Villa. We are getting you out of here. You will hear gunfire. Do not be afraid. My men will protect you.”

“And… Don Dalton?” a small boy whispered.

“Don Dalton won’t be looking for anyone. Ever again,” Villa said.

As his men began leading the children out toward the safety of the hills, the first shots echoed from the stables. Fierro and Jacinto had opened the armory and armed the loyal workers. The hacienda’s guards, surprised and confused, were quickly overwhelmed.

Villa, Fierro, and six others stormed the main house. They kicked open the door.

“Don Dalton Sartunino!” Villa’s voice boomed through the opulent hall. “I hear you’re fond of giving lessons! Your class is about to begin!”

A few panicked shots came from the main salon. The Dorados returned fire, and a moment later, Ugalde, the foreman, and two guards stumbled out, hands high. Don Dalton was dragged out last, his white pajamas soaked in sweat, his face pale with a terror he had only ever inflicted.

“What do you want?” he stammered. “Money? I have gold! I have connections—”

“I want justice,” Villa interrupted. He nodded to Fierro.

His men dragged Don Dalton into the courtyard, where the workers were now gathering. Fierro and Jacinto appeared, carrying the heavy mesquite post, which they planted firmly in the center of the yard.

“You… you recognize this, don’t you, Don Dalton?” Villa asked, coiling a new, stiff whip in his hand. “I thought you’d like to see it from a different perspective.”

As they moved to tie him, Don Dalton’s eyes rolled back, and he collapsed in a heap, feigning a heart attack.

Villa watched him with academic interest. He signaled Fierro.

Fierro, understanding, stepped forward and, without warning, brought the whip down hard across the “unconscious” man’s back.

Dalton shrieked, scrambling to his feet, his eyes wide with pain and the shock of being caught.

“Well, look at that!” Villa announced to the crowd. “It seems I’ve found the cure for death, muchachos! And the cure is one hundred lashes! Ninety-nine to go, Don Dalton. I hope you enjoyed your nap, because you’re going to want to be wide awake for what comes next.”

They tied him to the post.

“For years,” Villa said, his voice carrying over the man’s sobs, “you used this whip to ‘educate’ children. Now, I will educate you.”

The first lash struck. “One! This is for Laurinda, who asked me for scraps because she was afraid to go home.”

The second. “Two! This is for Toñito, who you whipped for shooing your dog.”

The third. “Three! This is for Esperanza, Jacinto’s daughter, who died at this post for dropping a jug of milk!”

With every strike, Villa named a victim, giving voice to years of silent suffering. “Ten! This is for the human dignity you stomped on! Eleven! This is for the mothers who had to watch! Twelve! This is for the fathers who lost their children!”

At fifty lashes, Dalton passed out. Villa doused him with a bucket of water. “Welcome back, Don Dalton! We’re only halfway through!”

Dalton tried to bargain, to offer gold, to offer weapons.

“Seventy-one!” The whip fell. “This is for believing money can buy your soul! Seventy-two! This is for not understanding that the innocent are not for sale!”

Dalton tried to justify himself. “I… I was teaching them! The world is hard! I was making them strong!”

“Eighty-one!” The blow nearly tore Dalton from the post. “This is for lying to yourself to justify your evil! You weren’t educating them, you cabrón! You were torturing them because you are sick in your soul! And sick souls need strong medicine!”

At ninety-five, Dalton’s back was a ruin of raw meat. He gathered his last ounce of strength and screamed, “Please! No more! Put a bullet in my head, you monster! End this!”

Villa stopped, the whip held high. He smiled, a terrible, grim smile. He let the whip fall, and in one fluid motion, drew his pistol.

The shot was deafening in the courtyard. Don Dalton Sartunino slumped against his bonds, a look of final, absolute surprise on his face.

“Your wish is my command,” Villa said, holstering his weapon. “Vengeance is done. Justice is restored.”

Jacinto was the first to move. He walked to the body, spat on it, and whispered, “For Esperanza. Rest now, hijita.”

Villa turned to the silent workers. “This hacienda is yours. You worked it with your blood. Divide it. Raise your children in freedom. And remember, in Chihuahua, touching the innocent has consequences.”

As the sun began to light the eastern mountains, Villa made one last stop in the village. He found Laurinda, already helping the blacksmith’s wife. Her eyes were bright.

“General Villa,” she said. “Is it true? Will anyone ever hit us again?”

Villa knelt to her level. “Never again, muchacha. And if another man like Don Dalton ever appears, you send for me. I will always come when children need protection.”

He mounted his horse and rejoined his men, who were already riding out, the rescued children safe in wagons bound for new homes. Villa looked back at the rising sun. It hadn’t been war. It hadn’t been politics. It had been the application of basic human justice, the kind that only comes when men are willing to deliver it.