Ride The Pink Horse

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  A nice white headstone. Maybe with an angel praying on top it. Here lies. He didn’t know when the old lady was born or where. Died: Chicago slums, 1936. Rest in peace. The only peace she’d ever known.

  He was inside the red murk of the bar and the stench turned his stomach. Rotgut. And marijuana. But he had to find Ignacio, find out where Pancho slept. He went along the bar, craning his head into men’s faces, dark, ugly faces, sotted with cheap liquor, babbling in their strange tongues. He went along smelling their dirty pants and dirty shirts, their dried sweat and dung and foul breaths. Until he found Ignacio.

  He demanded, “Where’s Pancho?”

  Ignacio looked at him as if he’d never seen Sailor before. Blank, black eyes, sad drunken eyes in his half-starved face. He said something in Spanish. “Quien es Pancho?”

  The language barrier was stifling. More stifling than the foul smell of the dive. “Pancho,” Sailor shouted. He remembered then, Pancho Villa was the name he had given the fat man; he didn’t know the man’s real name. He said, “Your boss. The fat guy. The guy who runs the merry-go-round.” He found the Spanish. “Tio Vivo.”

  The cadaver continued to look at him out of sad, blank eyes.

  But he’d been talking too loud and the others at this end of the bar were listening, watching. Suspicious of Sailor’s city suit and hat, matted as it was; suspicious of his nose and his eyes and his English-speaking tongue. Suspicious and wary, waiting for Sailor to edge across the line, waiting with knives for him to start something. His fists knotted as the squat man behind Ignacio stumped forward. But the man didn’t lash at him, he grinned from behind his snag teeth.

  “He say who ees Pancho,” the man said, grinning like a monkey. His accent was thick as the red smoke. “He no spic the Englees. He no understand what you say. I taal him.” He tapped his wilted blue shirt.

  “Listen, you—”

  “I am Pablo Gonzalez’” the man said. “I speak the Englees. He no speak the Englees. I taal him.”

  “Tell him I want to know where Pancho is.” He scowled quickly. “His name isn’t Pancho. He’s the big guy. The boss of the merry-go-round. Tio Vivo.”

  Pablo Gonzalez rattled Spanish at the blank eyes. Sailor waited, hopeful, hopeless. The thin guy was shaking his thin head.

  “For Christ’s sake, he works for the guy—”

  Pablo interrupted patiently. “He does not know where ees Don José Patrico Santiago Morales y Cortez—” his grin was more monkey— ”that you call Pancho.”

  That ended it. He flipped a quarter at the monkey face. “Buy yourself five drinks,” he growled. He got out of the dive fast.

  Ignacio was lying. Or the monkey face didn’t spic the Englees any better than the guitarist. The barrier of language was even more frustrating. If he could talk to Ignatz he’d find out where the long name was. Pancho had a name like a duke, not like a guy playing the carnivals.

  He couldn’t talk Spanish and that left him where he’d been before, on the street. Walking up the narrow street, pounding the pavement of a hick town. Standing on a street corner in a dark strange town, with colored lights festooned above his head and grotesque paper masks leering at him.

  There was nothing to do about it now but camp on the Sen’s doorstep. Give the old biddy at the desk a tall tale and get to the Sen. Scorn in the clean blue eyes of Iris Towers wasn’t as important as getting between the sheets. He walked on, past the dark shops, past the dim lighted pane of the hotel where his bag was parked, on to the corner. But he didn’t cross to the hulk of hotel. He stayed his steps. Stayed them to a voice in the night. A voice in song.

  Through the trees he saw the gentle rocking of a gondola of Tio Vivo. The song came from there, a ragged minor song, lifted into the night. He turned his back on the hotel and he walked towards the little merry-go-round.

  Sailor remained in shadow until the song was done. “Adios,” the singer sang. “Adios, mi amigo.” The sweet voice trailed into silence. But the silence was not the silence of the dark street with the mean shops. The leaves in the trees were rustling and the gondola creaking and the echoes of the sad song were in the ears. Pancho gurgled a bottle to his mouth. He lay sprawled in a gondola, his girth swinging it gently. His hat was on his knees and his bare feet were propped on the seat across. He lowered the bottle, smacked his lips, corked it and laid it in his hat. He saw Sailor then.

  “Ai yai!” he cried. “Mi amigo!” His face dented with smiles. His arms flopped open, warm and wide. “Mi amigo! Where have you gone to? Come have a drink.”

  Sailor unlatched the gate and entered the enclosure. “I don’t want a drink,” he said. “I want a bed.”

  “I will share with you my bed,” Pancho vowed. “But first we will have a drink.” He held up the unlabeled bottle, peered through the glass and beamed. “We will have a drink and another drink. And I will sing for you.” He pulled the cork with his teeth, held out the bottle.

  Sailor said, “No, thanks. All I want is some sleep.” The fat man could sing him all the lullabies he wanted if he’d just show him a bed.

  “But no!” Pancho’s mouth dropped. His whole face drooped. “You are my friend, no? You are my friend and you will not drink with me?” He looked as if he were going to cry. He’d killed half the pint already. Even without the evidence you’d know that; he was too ready to laugh, to cry, to sing, to vow friendship.

  Sailor took the bottle. You couldn’t argue with a drunk. He wiped the mouth with the palm of his hand, tipped and drank. Only friendship kept him from sputtering as he set the bottle away. The stuff burned like lye; it tasted like pepper, black pepper. He pushed the bottle back to Pancho.

  “Ahh!” The fat man nuzzled it. “It is good, no? Tonight we drink tequila. Not pulque. Not sotol. Tequila. Because it is Fiesta.” He drank, corked the bottle and replaced it in his hat. He moved his bare feet. “Be seated, my friend. You think business is not good with me? But tonight it is tequila. That is good, no?”

  Sailor slid into the gondola beside the bare feet. He’d like to take off his own shoes. They were hot and heavy after this day. “That’s swell, Pancho,” he said. The gondola was set in motion as he sat in it. It stirred with the dark, glittering leaves over the square, and the ponies stirred gently as if in sleep. Sailor pushed back his hat and the night was cool on his forehead.

  “Zozobra is dead,” Pancho said. “Viv’ las Fiestas!” He uncorked the bottle and passed it in one swoop. “We will have a drink, no, because business it is good?”

  “No more,” Sailor said. He stymied the sad face. “Promised my mother when I was a kid. One drink, no more. My old man was a drunk.”

  Pancho shrugged. “Sometimes it is good for a man to be drunk.” He tipped the bottle. There couldn’t be more than one drink left after this swig. One more and he’d herd the fat man to that bed. Pancho smacked his lips. He began to sing dolefully, “Adios, adios, mi amigo . . .” His eyes swiveled sly. “Where is the Indian girl?” he asked.

  “I left her here,” Sailor said. “With you.”

  “She was most unhappy you leave her,” Pancho said.

  “I had business.”

  “Always you think of business.” Pancho was sad. Only for a moment. His mouth twinkled. “But it is good business for me you think of business. Hola! I drink tequila.”

  ‘You find me a bed and I’ll buy you another bottle tomorrow night,” Sailor promised.

  “With you I will share my bed.” Pancho repeated the vow. “I will share my serape. You are my friend. But first another drink.” He tipped the bottle but the bottle smile didn’t come over his face. “Aaah,” he grunted. He tossed the bottle into the shadows that flickered under a tree.

  “I’ll buy you another tomorrow,” Sailor told him again. “Let’s go to bed now.” He stirred the gondola.

  “One moment,” Pancho stayed him. “First we drink together.”His big hand brought forth in triumph from his hip another pint of the colorless liquid. He grinned as his teeth pulled th
e cork. He proffered the bottle. Sailor said, “Remember? My promise.”

  “It is true,” Pancho sighed. “I too have given my promise. Many times.” The twinkle bobbed back to his lips. “But this is Fiesta. Tonight we will drink.”

  Sailor took the bottle. He wasn’t a drinking man and this Spanish white mule wasn’t a drink fit for man or mule. It was like fire in your gullet. Nevertheless he drank. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered further tonight. If he couldn’t sleep, he would drink. There was no reason for him to be alert. He drank, choked, and passed the bottle over to Pancho.

  “Bueno!” Pancho applauded. “That is good, no?” He gurgled it, repeated his ritual of recorking the bottle, standing it in his greasy hat. “The little Indian girl. . .” he began slyly.

  “Her friends had ditched her.” Sailor put his foot on that idea. “I didn’t know what to do with her. She was trailing me around. So I gave her a pop and a ride on your merry-go-round. She’d never ridden on one.”

  “No,” Pancho said. His eyes roved across the width of the Plaza to the museum portal where the Indians slept silently. “No.” It might only have occurred to him now. “The Indian children they do not ride Tio Vivo.”

  “Don’t have the price?” Sailor asked blackly.

  “Maybe no, maybe yes,” Pancho shrugged. He passed the bottle. Sailor took it and drank. “The Indians they are funny peoples. They are proud, the Indians. Maybe they do not wish their little ones to be bumped about by the Mexicans and the Gringos. Maybe they do not wish them to be screamed at, ‘Get out of here, you dirty Indians.’ The Indians are funny. They stay to themselves.” He took a philosophic swig. “The Spanish people say that they are proud peoples. Maybe one time, yes. Maybe they come on their horses, a proud peoples, with gold on their saddles. It is said this is true. That is why there is the Fiesta. Because the proud Spanish conquered the Indian. Don Diego de Vargas in his coat of mail and riding in his fine leather saddle on his fine proud horse. That is what they say.”

  Sailor remembered vague history. “I guess it’s in the books,” he said. The gondola stirred gently and the dark glittering leaves were a-rustle in the night.

  “It is not good to be a conqueror, I think,” Pancho said. “The Spanish were a proud peoples when they conquered but they are no longer proud. The Gringos came after and conquered the Spanish. Not by the sword. With business.” His lip drooped and he winked at Sailor. “Business it is. Land and hides and wool and the buying and selling of money. That I do not understand. The buying and selling of money. But the Gringo sonnama beetches, they understand it.” He took a big happy breath. “They are funny peoples, the Gringos, no? Maybe once they were proud peoples but I do not think so.” His nose wrinkled. “No, I do not think so. Proud peoples do not root like pigs for fifty cents, two bits, a dollar, do they? Proud peoples are too proud.”

  “What about those proud Spanish people of yours?” Sailor asked. He didn’t wait for invitation; he reached out and took the bottle from the hat. “Weren’t they money grubbers too? Didn’t you just say they were rooting for the almighty dollar too?”

  “No, no,” Pancho denied. “They were not looking for two bits fifty cents. They look for gold—mucho oro—the seven golden cities of Cibola. Do you think once there was the seven golden cities?”

  “Could be,” Sailor said. If going after big dough instead of little made you proud, he’d be pretty proud himself tomorrow. He wasn’t listening very hard. The cradle was rocking and the leaves were rocking and there was a quietness in him, a peace in the gentle rocking darkness.

  “Maybe so, maybe not,” Pancho sighed. “The Spanish was a proud peoples then. But they was not good peoples. They was greedy and selfish and cruel peoples. They do not come with peace in their hearts and love. Love for the sky and the earth and the peoples of this land. They come to steal.” His eyes glittered like the dark leaves over the Plaza. “Something happen to them. The land do not like them. They are cruel to its peoples. I am an Indian.”

  “I thought you were,” Sailor murmured. Like Pila. There was a sameness in the big man and the stone girl; he didn’t know what it was but he recognized it as there.

  “My grandmother was an Apache,” Pancho said. “I am Spanish also. The Spanish they are good peoples now. Because they are humble peoples. It is good for them to be humble as it is good for the Indian peoples to be proud. It is the way this land would have it be.”

  The way Pancho talked about this country you’d think it was some heathen god that must be obeyed. That you had to sacrifice to. Not just a lot of wasteland stretching on and on until the mountains stopped it. Until the mountains uprose, a barrier against the sky.

  ”What about the white folks?” Sailor asked.

  “The Gringos, pah!” Pancho scorned. “They are not of this land. They do not bring nothing to this land. All they want is to take away the two bits fifty cents. Never are they of this land.”

  The aliens. The ones without existence.

  Pancho said comfortably. “I am an Indian and I am Spanish. My grandfather was a Spanish don. That is why I am called Don Jose Patricio Santiago Morales y Cortez. It is the name of my grandfather. My grandmother was his slave.”

  “Lincoln freed the slaves,” Sailor said. He said it like he was reading from a book, a history book in grade school and outside the window the smoke and grime and cold of a Chicago winter rattled skeleton claws. He went to school because it was warm in school. He’d rather have hung around the pool hall, it was warm there too, but the truant snoops were always busting into the pool hall looking for kids. And the fat guy who ran the pool hall didn’t want any trouble with the officers. He peddled reefers under the table and he couldn’t afford to get mixed up with the truant officers. He’d push the kids right into the snoops’ hands. The kids were afraid to snitch on him about the reefers because they’d seen him kill a man once. Picked the guy up and broke his back like you’d break a stick. He was so fat you wouldn’t think he could move so quick or be so strong. He didn’t get sent up for breaking the guy’s back. Everybody in the place, even the kids, swore it was self defense. The guy was doped and had pulled a knife on the fat guy. Besides the coppers probably knew about the reefers anyhow. Anybody could smell them that walked by. You didn’t have to go inside. The same sick smell like in the dive where Sailor’d found Ignatz tonight. The coppers probably got their cut. If he hadn’t gone to school to keep warm, kept going even to high school, the Sen wouldn’t have picked him out of the bums in the corner pool hall. The Sen wouldn’t have sent him to college, yeah, the University of Chicago, for a year and a half. He’d had a good education. He wasn’t any bum.

  Pancho was shrugging. “Who is this Mr. Lincoln? The Spanish peoples do not know of him. The Indian do not know he has free them. They are poor slaves. After while the Gringos come and say Mr. Lincoln free the slaves. You do not be slaves. You go home now. And you Mexican sonnama beetches you work for us now.” He smiled. “You know why you are my friend, Senor Sailor?”

  “Haven’t any idea,” Sailor yawned.

  “Because I am an Indian,” Pancho said. “And you are good to a little Indian girl. You do not say to her come to my bed and I will give you a ride on old Tio Vivo.”

  He didn’t say, “I haven’t got a bed.” He said, “For God’s sake, she’s only fourteen.”

  “Does it matter?” Pancho shrugged. “She is older I think at fourteen than the pale lily Gringos are at twice fourteen. But you are a good man. You buy her pop and a fine fast ride on Tio Vivo with music playing. On the pink horse.” He smile was open, warm. “You do this for her only that she may have pleasure. Not to steal nothing from her. You are my friend.” He broke into song again. “Mi amigo, mi amigo, mi amigo, amo te mucho . . .”

  “That’s fine,” Sailor said. He was awake again. The bottle was almost empty. He left enough for one last drink for Pancho. “Let’s go to bed, ok?”

  ‘You are also my friend,” Pancho said with a sly squint, “because y
ou do not say, You goddamn Mexican, give this girl a ride or I—’ with your hand on the gun in your pocket.”

  Sailor’s hand went quick to his right-hand pocket. The gun was still there, safe. But how had Pancho known it was there? Did McIntyre know? He didn’t want any trouble.

  Pancho was effusive. “No, no. You are a good man. You pay much money for the favor. For the little Indian Pila to ride on the pink horse. You make rich presents to poor Pancho and to poor Ignacio and poor old Onofre Gutierrez. You make everyone happy for the Fiesta.”

  “Zozobra is dead,” Sailor quoted ironically. “Viva las Fiestas.” He laughed out loud. The laugh startled the quivering black night Nobody had ever called him a good man. Nobody had any reason ever to call him good.

  “Thus you are my friend, my primo. I too am a good man. A proud man and a good man.”

  The old brigand had probably killed a dozen men in his day. Broken their backs like he was breaking sticks.

  “Unless you are good you cannot be proud,” Pancho said. He lifted the farewell drink, squinted at its meagerness. If he had another pint hidden in the elephant hide of his jeans, he, Sailor, would pop the old devil. “You cannot be proud if you are afraid, hiding in the corners. You cannot be proud if you are bowing this way and that way to the Gringo sonnama beetches. You cannot be proud and be scheming to steal two bits fifty cents. No, no. Only the Indians are proud peoples.”

  ”Sure,” Sailor said. “Let’s go.”

  “Because they do not care for nothing. Only this their country. They do not care about the Gringos or even the poor Mexicanos. These peoples do not belong to their country. They do not care because they know these peoples will go away. Sometime.”

  “A long time,” Sailor said, seeing the little shops, the dumps and the dives. It wasn’t easy to get rid of the stuff that brought in the two beets feefty sants.

  “They can wait,” Pancho said patiently. “The Indians are a proud peoples. They can wait. In time . . .”