The Attack on the Ranch

The Attack on the Ranch is preceded by an armed visit from the Mexican Revolutionary Army that exposes the household’s vulnerability and deepens the scarcity shaping ranch life. The later bandit attack has more lasting consequences: Chencha is assaulted, Mama Elena is left paralyzed, and Tita returns to a home whose old bonds have been changed by violence.

The Earlier Revolutionary Visit

Several days before the bandit attack, the ranch was already struggling to replace animals killed during a food shortage. Only a few animals had survived the Mexican Revolutionary Army’s visit, so the household used a surviving pig as fully as possible, making sausage as well as salt pork, ham, bacon, and lard. The preparations show how political violence reached the ranch not only through armed encounters but through the depletion of food and livestock.

When word came that soldiers were approaching, Mama Elena took up her shotgun and ordered Tita and Chencha, along with the pig, to hide in the cellar. She had heard reports of destruction and sexual violence by the rebels and prepared to defend the house. At the entrance, she faced the captain with her shotgun concealed in her petticoats and farmhands beside her. He recognized her resolve and ordered his soldiers not to enter the house, though they could search elsewhere on the property.

The soldiers found the vast dovecote beneath the two slopes of the house’s roof. Reaching it required a twenty-foot ladder; once inside, they shut the door and narrow windows to keep the birds from escaping, then trapped enough doves and pigeons to feed the entire battalion for a week. Their seizure of the birds made the ranch’s remaining resources part of the army’s supply, even as the captain departed without entering the house. The episode establishes the armed threat surrounding the household before the later bandit attack brings direct harm to Chencha and Mama Elena.

The Night Attack and Its Immediate Consequences

Before Chencha could deliver the cover story she had devised, a band of attackers struck the ranch. Her planned explanation was that she had encountered Tita, dressed as a beggar in Eagle Pass, and that Tita had refused to return because she felt unworthy of her mother. Chencha would have told Mama Elena that Tita still loved and respected her and intended to come back. The attack interrupted the lie before it could be spoken.

The violence left both women changed: Chencha was assaulted, and Mama Elena, attempting to defend her honor, was struck in the spine and paralyzed from the waist down. Neither was in a condition to discuss Chencha’s news. When Tita later returned after hearing of the calamity, her radiant appearance would have made Chencha’s invented account impossible to sustain.

Mama Elena received Tita without speaking. For the first time, Tita met her gaze firmly, and Mama Elena lowered her eyes. Although Mama Elena had disowned her, she now depended on Tita’s care while recovering. Their silent exchange carried mutual reproaches and marked the severing of the blood-and-obedience bond that had governed their relationship; Tita nevertheless resolved to care for her mother as well as she could.

Care After the Attack

Tita’s response took shape in the kitchen: she prepared her mother’s meal with particular care, making ox-tail soup with seasoned broth, potatoes, and beans. The soup was intended to help Mama Elena recover, though the care behind it did not restore their former obedience-bound relationship. In the aftermath of the attack, practical dependence and emotional estrangement occupied the same household: Mama Elena needed Tita’s attention, while Tita’s attentive cooking expressed a choice to care for her despite the rupture between them.

Revolution Beyond the Ranch

The attack belongs to a wider revolutionary setting in which women’s exposure to violence contrasts with women’s exercise of power. Gertrudis later returns as a general in the Mexican Revolutionary Army, having risen through its ranks by fighting in the field; she is also happily married to Juan Alejandrez. Her public authority and freedom of movement offer a sharp counterpoint to the vulnerability of the household during the raid and the bandit attack.

When Gertrudis learns that her mother has died, a cup of chocolate brings back the tastes of home, while Tita’s cooking becomes a link to the family’s past: Gertrudis silently hopes Tita will live many years, since neither she nor Rosaura knows how to make the inherited recipes. Soon afterward, Gertrudis must leave because her orders are to attack Zacatecas. She urges Tita not to give up on Pedro before riding away. The contrast places the ranch’s intimate losses within a conflict that also carries Gertrudis into military command, marriage, and continued movement through the world.