When the Owl Cries

by Paul Alexander Bartlett

  2

  The hacienda of Petaca dated from 1619. The deed--signed inColima--lay in a cedar jewel box in the living room. The Jesuit paper(some lawyer had gotten hold of ecclesiastical stationery) bore thecross-and-crown watermark. Flowery signatures in brown ink were fadinginto the foxed sheets that had frayed and chipped edges.

  Petaca stretched over 1,580,000 acres: sugarcane fields, corn land,wheat land, cattle country, hills, valleys, rivers, lava beds, half avolcano, a lagoon, a pre-Columbian pyramid, villages with their gardensand orchards. The main house was thirty miles from Colima, the capitalof the state. Peasants of the neighboring haciendas had dubbed Petacathe "Hacienda of the Clarin." Their ironical name referred to Raul'sfather, not the mockingbirds in the grove behind the residence. He hadmade many a man "sing." The nickname, said with a ttck of the tongue,conveyed their condemnation.

  Fernando Medina, the Clarin, lay in bed, propped on pillows. His bedfaced a tall grilled window, its wooden shutters flung back. As he layagainst his pillows, one hand twitched nervously. He was seventy-nine,white-headed, ashen and scrawny, part Coro, part Spanish. Bowled overby a stroke, he still had a patriarchal air. His eyes could stillexplode. The white eyebrows, though thin, arched imperially. Decayingand absent teeth had crumpled his mouth; only when he was angry couldit regain its forcefulness; at all other times it mocked the man. DonFernando had been rebellious. As a young fellow, he had quarreled withhis father over a trivial matter and shot and killed him. This was thevenom of his life. No law had punished Fernando.

  As he lay against his pillow, his hand trembling, he coughed andmoaned. He hated inactivity; he hated being alone; he hated his room;lifting a small copper bell from the bed table, he clanged iterratically. As his hand quivered more violently, he plunged it underthe sheet and pinned it down.

  "Did you ring, Don Fernando?"

  "Of course I rang. Bring me a cigarette and light it, Chavela."

  "But Dr. Velasco asked me not to ... you..."

  "Get a cigarette and be quick about it! Don't tell me what Dr. Velascosaid, and don't run to him with your prattles."

  "Si, Don Fernando," she said, cringing a little.

  As he waited for the cigarette (she had to go to the kitchen for alight), he eyed the grilled window. The bronze bars had a chunk oflandscape wedged between them: a strap of corn land with giantchirimoya trees beyond. The chirimoyas had green limbs, and their matof branches formed an umbrella cap of foliage. Don Fernando's sightwas weak and branches did not exist for him. The umbrella seemed tofloat in mid-air. The effect annoyed him. He clanged his bell.

  Chavela, a fat Tarascan peasant in her twenties, hurried back, acigarette in one hand and a charcoal ember in the other. Pincher-wiseshe gripped the glowing ember between splints of wood, tongs she hadimprovised.

  "Light my cigarette, you fool, before the charcoal falls on the bed!Did you have to bring it here? Don't you ever think for yourself?"

  Chavela's broad chocolate face looked troubled; her big steady handsseemed to lift on strings as she brought the ember to the tip of hercigarette and puffed violently, close to Fernando's bed. Smokecorkscrewed from her nose and mouth, and she frowned and coughed, andthen grinned. Carefully, she placed the cigarette between his lips.

  "There," she said. For a second, her eyes narrowed; she turned away,repelled, and as she turned, the ember dropped alongside the bed.

  "You could have burned me!" wailed Fernando. "Where's Angelina? ...get her!"

  "She's outdoors, playing with the children."

  "Playing with the children: doesn't she do anything else? Doesn'tanybody do anything here?"

  A heavy tread outside Fernando's room made Chavela glance toward thedoor; a spur dragged its wheel over tiles; it was Jorge Farias, thecorn-production manager, a hungry-looking man, half Spanish, halfTarascan. He removed his wide-brimmed straw hat as he halted in thebedroom doorway; the rough brim scraped across his trousers.

  "Farias wants to see you," said Chavela, and went out.

  "May I come in?" asked Farias.

  Don Fernando motioned him inside with childish gesture. As Fariasentered, the old man spat on the floor.

  Farias was dressed in soiled brown trousers and a white shirt designedlike a four-pocketed jacket, he had on black riding boots spurred withstar-shaped rowels, polished from use. He stood stiffly erect. Hedisliked the old man. Nearly fifty, he felt that his years of service,doled out to the Clarin, had been largely wasted; yet he liked his joband was proud of any help he could render his own people wheneverFernando's vigilance slackened.

  "Can't you bear to look at me?" said Fernando.

  "I'm at your service," said Farias.

  "Sit down ... sit down!"

  The spurs dragged. The chair by the window squeaked. Farias supposedhe would be told to check the crops along the boundary line of theSanta Cruz del Valle hacienda, where it adjoined Petaca. He dreadedthe journey through the mountains, but remembered he could take his sonalong, unless the Clarin had another job for Luis. But the Clarin'smind was slipping. Last week, he had ordered Felipe locked in thepillory; Felipe had not been guilty of stealing; it had been CarlosVasconcales who had robbed the corn bins; nothing Farias could say hadaltered the Clarin's decision. Farias studied a crack in the redtiles; the crack wandered like a river toward the old man's bed.Farias found himself staring at Don Fernando. Cigarette smoke hoodedhis face--a falcon's hood of gray.

  "I want you to leave here early tomorrow. Check the crops along SantaCruz del Valle. Go armed."

  "Yes, sir."

  "There's something else. Check the stone fences along our property;take time to fix them if they're down; we can't have cattle foraging onour corn. Understand?"

  "Yes, sir. I'll check thoroughly. Anything else?"

  "Expect trouble.... You may go."

  Fernando attempted to see Farias walk to the door, but his eyes hadshifted out of focus; he saw a brownish blur; he shook himself andwaited. The click of spurs faded. He raised his cigarette and inhaleddeeply. Slowly, his sight cleared. The window and its barredlandscape returned. He welcomed the sight now, thinking of death witha throb of panic: death would remove all landscapes, however blurred.His shaky hand carried the cigarette to his mouth and then let it fall.He slept.

  He dreamed of a fracas over the impounding of a stream on the lowerslope of the volcano; that quarrel had taken place thirty or more yearsago; yet now, in the dream, the angry voices of workers rose; his_administrador_ drew a revolver; a peasant yanked away the gun....

  Waking, Fernando clattered his copper bell, and this time his sonappeared.

  "Yes, Father," said Raul, near the bed.

  "A drink of water."

  "Yes."

  Raul poured a glass of water from a bed-table water bottle; a greatgreen fly buzzed about the mouth of the bottle; his father reached forthe glass; the hand shook and drops spilled.

  The room had been papered in egg-white paper with brown aviariestriangled on it; from every aviary a flock of birds--all resemblingswallows--cascaded. A black wooden wardrobe that weighed half a tonfilled one wall. Its double doors, sides, and corners were ornamentedwith carved eagles and brass gewgaws. Some of the eagles hadconch-shell eyes. The eyes peered into a full-length mirror, framed incarved wood. Above a washstand hung a Swiss etching of the Matterhorn,a sketchy rendering. Fernando's bed was four-posted and canopied witha dingy white cloth.

  Raul glimpsed himself in the mirror as he held his father's glass, andthe reflection startled him. Catching the resemblance, he set down theglass with a jerk and began to walk out of the room.

  "Raul," said his father.

  "What is it, Father?" said Raul, compelling himself to speak politely.

  "I sent Farias to check the corn fences."

  "He'll check them carefully," said Raul.

  "Will Velasco come this afternoon?"

  "He'll come unless he has a sick person to take care of."

&n
bsp; "I feel bad. I feel as if ... Raul, it's bad."

  "But you've felt that way before."

  "Yes, I have. Still, I feel...." He said no more.

  "Velasco usually comes about seven."

  "Very well," said Fernando.

  Raul waited, and as he waited, standing in the door, his father dozed.He called Chavela and instructed her to check from time to time.Stepping into the patio, he paused to take in the warm sun; he feltmore like himself as he assimilated the light and air, heard laughterin the kitchen, and listened to the twittering and jabbering ofparrots, thrushes and doves in their wall cages, cages that decoratedall sides of the patio. A stone fountain centered the patio. Manyyears ago, the pink stones had been brought by oxcart from aprehistoric pyramid in Sector 9. Carved snakes wound from stone blockto stone block, to vanish, with reptilian grace, over the rim. Raulsat on the curb, under the cypress. A dragonfly rode a lily pad.Where bougainvillaea climbed the wall a white butterfly, as big as awoman's cupped hands, descended: it seemed to be coming down an aerialstairway a step at a time. Raul shut his eyes, wanting to forget hisproblems, the ugly face of his father, the threat of dissolvingtraditions.

  Presently, he went to the stable where Chico stood, brushed andsaddled, tail switching. Manuel was polishing the cantle, chattingwith other men; hens and roosters scratched in the floor straw; the airboomed with flies.

  "The sacks are on," said Manuel, punching a corn sack behind Chico'ssaddle.

  "Let's go, then," said Raul. "Are you ready?"

  "I'm all set," said Manuel.

  The palomino's beauty was obvious in many ways: bone structure, slantof ears, line of hocks, texture of mane and tail. Chico swung his headto watch Raul mount; his teeth ground his bit slightly. Lagoon andvolcano came alive as the men rode side by side, Manuel on an Arabianbay. Each rider had a western saddle ornamented with silver, tasseledwith red. They left the hacienda by the main road, lined on both sideswith eucalyptus trees, four and five feet in diameter and fifty tosixty feet tall. The fragrant foliage sweetened the air; birds sang;dust puffs fitted like leggings around the horse's hoofs. Manuel'sArabian carried the heaviest sack of corn, but did not seem to mind.Raul packed a revolver in a new holster. Manuel had two pistols slungon a full cartridge belt. Both were dressed in white and wore strawhats with quail feathers under the bands.

  Again volcano and lagoon swung with the riders; at a curve in the road,with the shore line close, ducks swam across the volcano's reflection.The double line of eucalyptus rambled on, but at the end of the lane,where a road intersected, they spread into a grove. Close to thegrove, a white wooden cross pegged a hill. A tall man was loopingdried marigold strands on an arm of the cross, his back toward Raul andManuel. When he heard the horses, he faced about, his face luxuriouslybearded with curly white hair. Picking up his hat out of the weeds, hewalked toward the road.

  "It's Alberto, the musician," said Raul, pleased.

  "Ah, so it is. I hear he's been very sick," said Manuel.

  "Good morning," said Alberto, smiling, bowing a little, big hatdangling in front of his stomach, gripped by both hands. Hisimmaculate whites must have been ironed that morning.

  "Good morning, Alberto," said Raul. "Sorry to hear you've been sick.I didn't know. How are you feeling?"

  "Ai, patron, I feel better, thank God. My legs troubled me. I'm old... it is nothing. It will pass."

  "When are you coming again to play for us?"

  "Soon--God willing."

  "Here's something for you."

  Alberto limped close to Chico and patted his mane. The horse shied andblew through his nose, clicking his bit.

  "Steady now, Chico," Raul said, and handed a few coins to Alberto. Theold man accepted the money graciously, jingling it before pocketing it.For Raul, there was Christ in Alberto's face, the Christ of his ownhacienda, of many haciendas. A few thorns, he thought, a few drops ofblood ... He remembered Alberto at a fiesta years before: a drunk hadstruck him in the mouth. Alberto had toppled. Yet he had notcomplained. The jingle of coins in the open air, the cross on thehill, made Raul taste betrayal--he was offering the vinegar sop to hispeople. He hadn't the guts to free them! He jerked Chico's bitangrily, the horse reared, and Raul went on down the road.

  Disturbed, Manuel eyed his friend doubtfully as they jogged along.Huts lay around another bend, and they rode slowly, over badly placedcobbles. The area was semi-arid, the soil rocky and alkaline. A fewstone huts pimpled the ground among maguey and tangles of prickly pearand candelabra. Each hut resembled a cairn topped by a straw wig. Theunmortared walls were made of lava, rough, porous, grayish-lavender.Big and suckling pigs slumped in front of a wooden watering trough thathad a leak at one end; chickens fed here and there; dogs yapped at thehorsemen.

  Raul dismounted in front of a doorless hut, and began to pull off hiscorn sack, tugging at the leather thongs and henequen cords. A deepvoice said, "Bueno," and Raul looked into the face of Salvador, thehead man of the hutment, a three-hundred-pound fellow, with a paunch, astevedore's shoulders, grinning jowl and swooping mustache.

  "Let me take the sack, patron."

  "I heard you had no corn here," Raul said, backing away.

  "No corn for three days."

  "You should have come to me."

  "Sometimes it's better to wait. We have our chickens and pigs. We'renot starving."

  "You can't make tortillas out of chickens and pigs," said Raul.

  Salvador laughed soundlessly, and the upper part of his body shook. Heuntied the corn sack and shouldered its weight easily. Barefooted,standing there, legs spread, one hand balancing the burlap, he facedRaul, the sun streaming over his whites.

  "Will you go inside and wait for me?" Salvador asked.

  "I want to talk to you," said Raul.

  He entered the low hut and sat on the packed earth floor and took acigarette paper from his pocket. Presently, Salvador came in and satagainst the wall opposite Raul, across the hut. Their feet almosttouched. A broken candle lay on a termite-riddled chest that had beenpatched with a triangle of pine from which dangled a rusty padlock.Clothes and a folded hammock hung on pegs. There were no otherfurnishings. Outside, women gabbled over the corn sacks and childrendashed about crying: "We've got corn.... Come, see the corn!"

  Salvador fished out paper and tobacco and paper and tobacco became acigarette with magical dexterity. The two smoked silently. They hadmet in this hut quite a few times through the years. Last Septemberthey had weathered a hurricane's tail behind these walls. As Raulsmoked, he kept seeing the musician's face and sensing his ownobligations.

  "I want you to move to the house in a few days," Raul said. "I needyour help, Salvador. I want you to turn out several carts; that meanswheels, frames, and yokes."

  "But Don Fernando doesn't want them," said Salvador, and his lip pulledaway from his cigarette with a scrap of paper clinging to it. What wasDon Raul thinking? What kind of quarrel would come of this?

  "You do the job for me. I'm not waiting any longer. I've made up mymind to take over Petaca. We can't go on waiting and waiting. Myfather's day is over."

  Raul felt his voice was trembling, and tried to distract himself withthe ash of his cigarette.

  "There will be a lot of trouble," said Salvador, skeptical of such adecision. "People will take sides. We'll have our hands full."

  "Are you afraid?" scoffed Raul.

  "Of course not, patron."

  "Our people are hungry and sick," said Raul, staring at a stoneembedded in the wall.

  "I'll do my part," said Salvador humbly, picking the shred of paperfrom his lip. "I know that we need new carts, that carts needrepairing.... There's a lot that needs doing."

  "When you come to the house, bring Teresa. She can help us."

  "I'm glad to move, but I must continue to look after these people, too.They're my friends." A hunch of his shoulder indicated those who livedin the surrounding huts.

  "You c
an do both jobs," said Raul, and glanced at Salvador confidently.

  As Raul smoked, tasting the cigarette, liking the cool, rocky interior,a leghorn hen scratched, found a grub and beaked it in the sunlight.

  Raul felt easier in his mind. The new responsibility was a challenge;he had no doubt as to his administrative ability. Back against therocks, he smoked in silence. He was on the side of freedom.

  As they headed for the hacienda house, Manuel rode in front.

  Raul called him: "Ride beside me, Manuel."

  Manuel checked his horse and gave his cartridge belt a yank.

  A buzzard circled above them.

  "I've made up my mind," Raul said, and his face brightened. "I've toldSalvador that I will manage the hacienda from now on."

  Manuel's fingers tightened with pleasure on the rein, his eyes becameslits, and a slow grin began. He glanced at Raul and nodded, and thenglanced away.

  "I told Salvador to move to Petaca and make us new carts and repair oldones. We must begin to improve things."

  "But your father?" Manuel asked, almost mechanically, fearing DonFernando's domination; for a moment he felt his conflicting sense ofduty, acquired through the years.

  "I'll have it out with him," said Raul, working his horse closer toManuel's, his knee rubbing the Arabian. "Things have gone much toofar. He sent Farias to check the corn fences; you know how manyboundary troubles have come of that; there's never any attempt to workout a sensible relationship with the del Valle people." His thin lipsnarrowed. "I want corn distributed to all sectors where there's ashortage. I want our people to know my father is not in control."

  "He'll strike back," said Manuel.

  "I've stood enough intolerance," Raul exclaimed.

  Manuel was satisfied to jog along behind Raul, he wanted to weigh theabrupt change and consider possibilities; he was eager to accept andparticipate. Slit-eyed, he gazed about him. His nostrils expanded ashe remembered Don Fernando had once whipped a young boy until bloodstreaked his back ... Tonio Enriques. Manuel rubbed his hand over thebullets in his cartridge belt and clucked to his horse.

  For Raul, the return trip was melancholy and yet beautiful: Petacaappeared on the gradual slope above the lagoon. It was his job toadminister the million and a half acres, to supervise crops, gardens,people ... little Carmen might race to him and cry, "Can we haveanother jug of milk for supper?" Gasper might come to the office andsay, "Mama's sick, she's passing bile--" Dr. Velasco could live at thehacienda and receive annual wages, instead of having to make the longride from town, at the beck and call of everyone. Should he beunwilling, Dr. Hernandez would consent. Gabriel Storni would have hisstained-glass windows for the chapel.... Some prayers would beanswered. Debts would be canceled. Of course, it would take time.

  As he rode between the rows of tall eucalyptus, he felt that time washis friend. Perhaps current political and economic tensions wouldease. President Diaz was not his man ... his corrupt regime would lastas long only as he could make it last. Reason told Raul that hehimself could not alter, singlehanded, the feudalistic setup of thehacienda system. It was Petaca he wanted to change.

  Breaking off twigs from a low eucalyptus branch, he crumpled thefoliage in his fingers. As he went inside the house he smelled thearoma of the crushed leaves; as he stood in the doorway of his bedroomhe sensed the oily pungency.

  He found Angelina sitting in front of her circular mirror, brushing herhair. Gazing into the mirror, she smiled at Raul and went on brushing.

  "You're back quickly," she said, covering her knees with her skirt.

  "I was down along the lagoon," he said.

  "I was playing with the children in the garden and messed up my hair."

  He tossed his belt and revolver on their bed. Going up to her, hewanted to touch her, stroke her hair, but instead he thought ofLucienne and remembered her smile. Angry with himself, he said, loudly:

  "I've told Salvador and Manuel that I'm taking over the hacienda.Sectors are in need of grain. People are hungry. I want Velasco tomove here and help the sick. I want no more beatings. I can't waitany longer. It's my job now!"

  Angelina stared at him in the glass, until his eyes found hers, and hesensed her disapproval at once. She did not speak. Her brush in herlap, she was thinking that he was a dumb fool, that from now onstability would be a thing of the past. Still looking at him, shereached for her comb, and her brush fell to the floor.

  He stooped to pick it up and said, "I'd like to change things slowly."

  "Your father will fight you," she said.

  Her fingers rolled her hair into a competent bun. She slid a darkgreen band of velvet around the pile of black hair and got up andpaused by the window. Their room was on the upper floor, facing bothfront and patio sides, a long, broad room with shuttered windows oneach side, allowing cross ventilation, so desirable in the summer. Hestood beside her and they watched a boy spin a wooden top in thesunlight by the serpent fountain. Someone was patting tortillas in thekitchen. The smell of stewing beef crossed the patio.

  "I'm going to the corral and stables. I know the animals haven't beengetting enough grain," he said.

  "What about Pedro?" she asked. "Have you thought of him?"

  "I'll dismiss him," Raul said.

  "I wonder whether you can do that?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "He works for your father."

  "Pedro's been a killer long enough. I'll get him out of here!"

  "Remember, change things slowly," she warned, huskily.

  "I'll do the right things," he protested. "Pedro will be the first manto go. I can't work with him here. I see no reason for delaying hisdismissal. With all there is to do, I want no complications."

  "Pedro has friends. Talk with Gabriel. Maybe he'll be helpful. Yourfather will know of your decision by tonight, because someone will tellhim. Manuel and Salvador will talk, and the news will travel fast."Angelina's voice had taken on a harsh quality. She stared at the sky,dreading responsibilities. "There are so many of us here at thehacienda," she said.

  The boy went on spinning his top by the fountain.

  From the corrals came the noise of a horse being shod: the crack ofhammer against nail sounded as if it had all the time in the worldbehind it.

  Raul decided to talk with Gabriel. Perhaps Gabriel, who had thehacienda problems at heart, could judge things reasonably.

  Angelina had gone back to her dressing table and was scenting her hair.A peacock screamed in the garden and from somewhere along the lagoonanother answered, putting in amorous cackles, ironical and derisivecries.

  When Raul went out, she leaned far back in her chair and stretched andyawned. It had been nice in the garden, nicer still playing the organfor Caterina in the chapel, the chapel cool, Caterina singing, humming,tapping the organ keys ... que chula ... her face serious, why soserious, as if she were old? She would be able to play pretty wellsoon. She'll play for me and I'll sit and gaze through the ex-eyewindow ... cielito voices.... When St. Catherine played, the rosesfell about her ... Philadelphia organ ... in gold letters on the front... a long way to Philadelphia, a long way to happiness sometimes.

  Tears came but she squeezed them back with her knuckles.

  Tears ... why tears? We buried our love long ago. Go to Guadalajara,see Carlos and Rico, see Estelle....