The truth is that even to the most careless observer, Troncoso’s mental state was worsening day by day, hour by hour. He was barely sleeping, and it was useless to try to lock him in the wagon — it only enraged him — so I chose to release him under the watch of the nurses and myself. On his own, he needed ten times the attention of the other four patients combined. He had adopted the custom of apostrophizing the rising sun each morning, pacing back and forth on a short imaginary line, always in profile against the red disc as it rose slowly from the horizon, and addressing it, shaking raised arms in its direction without looking at it directly (he tried it several times, but always at the noon hour, so it was impossible to gaze for long — he would grimace, face darkened and flooded with winding trails of sweat that soaked his shirt at the neck and back). When the convoy set out in the morning, he would mount his roan and spring ahead in a gallop until he almost disappeared on the horizon, but immediately we would see him return, the horse’s slate-colored coat crackling with sweat, veins bulging and body throbbing. His agitation seemed to increase with the heat, which, in those days — it had been more than fifteen since our departure — could drive one to distraction. On one hand, everyone marveled at Troncoso’s wild ways and, on the other, at the horse’s tolerance, forced, in that harsh and unbearable climate, to submit to its rider’s every nervous start. There are many who think madness contagious: If so, it is less because those who surround a madman take on those same symptoms in his presence than it is because madness is so corrosive as to alter those who must coexist with it, bringing out their own symptoms which would have lain dormant in ordinary times; as that alteration results from neural pathways, but without the intervention of the will or reason of those afflicted, it would not be so strange if Troncoso’s horse had gone mad just from living with him. The truth is, an event took place in this already-delicate situation that, though we had feared it since before departure, we would rather not have had transpire: Some travelers had come across the followers of Josesito, or whomever he was, and the tragic circumstance of discovering their remains fell to us.