Ride The Pink Horse

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  There wasn’t a place to sit down. Every inch of curb, the concrete wall around the small memorial shaft, even the corner steps that led into the square were packed tight with people. You had to step over them to get back into the street. Sailor stepped over a woman with a baby sucking at her breast, to get out of the stifling square into the street again. To escape the trap of Fiesta. He escaped and he looked back at the box.

  At Fiesta. At the crowded little park, hung with faded banners and grotesque masks and colored electric-light bulbs strung on wires. Smelling of chile and pop and dung and cheap perfume and sweat and diapers; chaotic with music and laughter and screams and insults and jabber and crying kids. For this Zozobra had burned. So these people could believe that this tawdry make-believe was good. He slanted through the jostling, careless street strollers and reached the opposite curb, stepped over more people to stand under the portal of the museum. This too was crowded, too crowded to fight through. The costumed and the city visitors, uncostumed—he’d been here long enough to spot the stranger—were blocking sidewalk traffic, bending over the Indian wares spread on the walk.

  The Indians alone were not a part of the maelstrom. They sat against the wall, their bright calicos billowing about them, their black eyes inscrutable, ironic. They sat in silence, not speaking unless spoken to, not offering their goods, selling if asked, their brown hands exchanging goods for money with amusement if not scorn. Because they knew this to be make-believe; because in time these strange people did not exist. Pila was once a child sitting here with almond black eyes, inscrutable as her elders and as aloof. Sailor couldn’t push through the crowd, he managed to twist back to the curb, to step over the heads of the curb squatters into the street.

  He couldn’t spend three hours fighting this Fiesta saturated mob. He couldn’t spend three hours on his feet. The sun and heat and the lunch he’d put away combined to hit him with the full weight of his weariness. He wanted only to lie down and sleep.

  He knew it was hopeless but it was something to do. There was always a chance. He made the rounds again of the hotels. It was to no avail as he’d known it would be. There were no rooms. There wasn’t even a vacant chair in a lobby or on the Cabeza de Vaca porch. The only thing the round trip availed him was, for a brief spell, to get him out of the stench of Fiesta. But he returned to it. With a hopeless kind of fatality, because there was no place else to go, because all directions led to the Plaza.

  The streets were whirling louder, faster; on the bandstand a fat black-haired singer blasted the microphones and the crowds screamed, “Hola! Hola!” as if it were good. A running child with remnants of pink ice cream glued on his dirty face bumped into Sailor’s legs, wiped his sticky hands there. Sailor snarled, “Get out of my way.” A balloon popped behind him and the kid who held the denuded stick squalled.

  He had to get out of this. His feet burned and his eyes ached and his nose stunk. If he could reach Pancho, the brigand would know somewhere he could rest. He’d know a cool quiet bar that opened its back door on Sunday. A bar with cold beads on the beer bottles and without any Spanish music. He rammed through the revelers until he was on the outskirts of the solid phalanx surrounding Tio Vivo. Twice as many as before. He was stopped there. Kids were unyielding in mass. Or too fluid. If he advanced past one child, six more cut in front of him, jabbing elbows and knees in him, wiping the dirt of their hands and feet on his neat dark suit The kids were like ants. They multiplied as he stood there. They were terrifying; he knew if he should be knocked over in their rush, they would swarm over him, devour him without knowing or caring what they did. Pancho was as far away from him here as if he were marooned on the Wrigley Tower.

  He turned away, more frightened than angry. If he didn’t find a place to rest, he wouldn’t be fit to face the Sen at five. And without warning his eyes came against the eyes of Pila. He had the same shock he’d had last night when he first looked upon her. The same remembrance of terror, of a head of stone which reduced him to non-existence. His first quick reaction was to turn away, not to recognize her. But he could not. She was there. She existed. He was the one without existence, the dream figure wandering in this dreadful nightmare.

  She was there, in the same bedraggled flowered skirt, the same blouse in which the embroidery had run in savage purple and red streaks. Her black hair hung straight down her back and the red flower was falling to her temple. She stood motionless. She didn’t speak to him. But her eyes, black and empty and wise, were on his face as the blind stone eyes once had been.

  He said roughly, “Hello.”

  She said, “Hello.” Her mouth had been painted like the mouths of Rosita and Irene but she’s smeared it somehow, pop or hot dog or chile, not man; it stained her face as the embroidery stained her blouse.

  He said, “Want another ride on the merry-go-round?”

  “No,” she said. She didn’t offer any explanation but the flicker of her glance at the churning, pushing children was Indian. It was the look in the eyes of the fat calico women sitting silently against the museum wall, aloof, disdainful of the vulgarians who pushed by.

  Pila didn’t say any more and he started past her, wanting to get away, away from the nightmare and the recurring figure in the dream of this girl woman, of stone made flesh. And then he laughed, laughed harshly at himself for letting a hick carnival get him down. Him, a Chicago mug, getting nerves because a dumb Indian girl didn’t know how to talk slick. She wasn’t a spook, she was a gift from Heaven.

  He went over to her and he grabbed her arm. “You’ve got a room, haven’t you?” he demanded. She looked up at him blankly. “You’ve got a place to sleep, haven’t you? A bed?”

  She said, “Yes.”

  He tightened his hold on her arm. “We’re going there now,” he told her. He began walking her through the crowd, not caring who he bumped or shoved. “How far is it?”

  She said, “About a mile.”

  “We’ll take a cab.” He pushed her out of the Plaza and Fiesta, towards the frame shack where the pink neon sign had flashed taxi last night.

  They were in luck. An old black sedan, dented, scaling, loose-jointed, was pulling up in front. Sailor knew it was a taxi because the word was stenciled on the door. “Come on,” he said.

  She wasn’t pulling back but he could feel the reluctance pressing through her arm. He repeated, “Come on,” and she spoke then. “I cannot take you to this house.”

  It was he who was stopped cold. Before they reached the cab. He didn’t know how much he’d counted on that hour in bed until her refusal sharpened his want. “You can’t, can’t you?” His demand was ugly. “Why not?”

  She stood unmoving where he had released her. Like a sack of flour; like something hewed from stone. She wasn’t moved by his anger, neither troubled nor embarrassed nor curious. She repeated without any inflection, “I cannot take you to this house.”

  “Why not?” he demanded again. “What’s the matter with ‘thees house’? Don’t you think I’m good enough—” He began to laugh then. He thought what she’d probably been thinking since he’d grabbed her in the Plaza.

  He laughed, “For God’s sake, Pila. I don’t want you. I just want a place to sleep for a little while.” She was as safe with him as she’d be behind the convent wall. He didn’t knock up fourteen-year-old kids. He didn’t want her; he wanted her bed.

  He stopped laughing because of the look on her face, the older-than-time look. It wasn’t the look of a floozie like Rosie and yet he knew that if he’d wanted her he could have had her. As easy as he could give her a pop or a ride on Tio Vivo. He was no more important to her than that.

  He wouldn’t have her on a bet. Because he was uneasy, he blustered, “You don’t need to worry about your old man knocking you around.”

  She said, “My father is at the pueblo.”

  He didn’t know what a pueblo was or where but he knew from the way she said it that her old man wasn’t around town. She didn’t have to worry about him tur
ning up. It wasn’t that bothering her. Not understanding made him mad. He demanded, “Then what’s eating you? Let’s go.”

  She parroted, “I cannot take you to this house.”

  He was really mad by now. He was good enough to buy soda pop for her but he wasn’t good enough to take home. He might not look like any prize package at this moment but he was still good enough to go to an Indian shack. He said, “Okay. If that’s the way it is. Skip it.” He swung away from her up the street, not having any direction in his head, only to get away from a snotty Indian kid who didn’t think he was good enough to take home. He pounded on the broken bricks of the sidewalk, ignoring the presence on the walk of Fiesta.

  He walked on, away from the Plaza, anywhere to get away from the gilded muck, from people who thought they were happy because they were all dressed up in ribbons and bobbles, eating hot dogs and chile, drinking pop, listening to plinking music. The smoke of Zozobra’s pyre had blurred their eyes; they believed their cry “Old Man Gloom is dead” meant just that, that a word could be fact by the act of being spoken.

  He was halfway up the street when she brushed his shoulder. He hadn’t known she was following; it came as a surprise, a dirty surprise. He was savage, “What do you want now?”

  She said, “I will go with you.”

  He didn’t stop walking. He said, “Scram. I don’t want you.” He hit his heels harder on the walk, as if he were thumping her. It didn’t send her away. He felt the brush of her brown arm against his sleeve. “Beat it,” he said.

  He might have been talking at the stone woman in the cold corridor of the Art Museum; not to a kid, old and young, on a dirty village street in a sun hot foreign town.

  He stopped on the corner and faced her. “Go on,” he said, “beat it.”

  It had been a mistake to look at her. Because looking at her he saw her eyes, her expressionless black eyes. He’d been afraid she might be about to turn on the weeps the way he’d talked to her. He hadn’t expected her to look just the same, so terribly unchanged, as if he weren’t there. She said, “I will go with you.”

  He could have threatened her maybe and got rid of her. But he didn’t. All of a sudden it didn’t matter whether she came along or went away. It had no more importance than that; no more importance than his existence had to an Indian.

  He crossed the street and walked on past the filling station, past the big house walled to the eaves, knowing she walked with him, not knowing why, not caring. He cut across beyond the big house, across to the sound of music over by the big building set in an iron-fenced park, the Federal Building. He hadn’t meant to go there. But when he reached the walk encircling the park he turned in at the iron gate, set ajar, into quiet greenness. The music somehow went with the quietness. It wasn’t good. It was nasal and plaintive, four adolescent boys lying there on the grass, singing in harmony, “Adios, mi amigo, adios . . .” It might have been the song, the song Pancho had sung, which made it sound good in the hot afternoon with the grass smelling sweet and cool under the big trees.

  He walked across the graveled paths, away from the music, to a spot alone where the singing was a fainter quiver. He flung himself down on the spired grass. He didn’t look at Pila; he knew she was beside him. The sun sprayed through the tree leaves; heat cooled by greenness to a good warmth. He took off his hat and put it over his eyes.

  Pila said, “I would not take you to this house. You would not be welcome.”

  ”Sure,” he said. “Sure.” He’d got it a long time ago. She didn’t have to draw a picture. He didn’t give a damn now. He was comfortable, a lot more comfortable than he’d be in a flea-bitten adobe dump.

  “You would not be welcome because I bring you to this house. Because you come with an Indian to this house.”

  He shifted the hat, enough so that his eyes could see her although she could not look under the brim shadow at him. “What they got against Indians?” he demanded. “They’re Indians, aren’t they? Your uncle and aunt?”

  “My uncle, yes. He marry with a Spanish woman—Espanol—my aunt she is a Spanish woman. She, her people, do not think the Indians are so good as the Spanish people. If I take you to this house they will say you are a friend of a dirty Indian.”

  “To hell with them,” he said. Zozobra was dead and everybody was down on the Plaza acting like they were all friends, Spanish and Indian and Mexican and Gringos. But the real Indians were sitting under the portal of the museum and the rich Gringo sonnama beeches were safe behind the garden walls of La Fonda and the Mexicans were remembering they’d once been the conquerors of this land and there wasn’t any brotherhood between them even if it was Fiesta. It didn’t mean anything to him; he was an outsider who’d wandered into this foreign land; all he had to do was finish his business and get out. He wasn’t losing any sleep over Pila and her folks.

  He pulled his hat down over his eyes. “How come you’re staying with them?”

  “It is very good of them to let me stay with them for the Fiesta.”

  He couldn’t tell if she was sarcastic or not, her voice didn’t have any inflection. Nor her face. He didn’t bother to look.

  “I must cause them no trouble. It is good of them to let me stay there.” She was repeating what someone had told her. “I have not been so lucky before. I must not bother Rosie.”

  Drowsiness was green all around him, green and grass-smelling and sun-warm. Her light voice and the singing of the lazy boys all blurred together.

  There was no period between waking and sleeping. He slept. Nor was there a period between sleeping and waking. He woke. He pushed away his hat. Pila was still sitting there, cross-legged beside him. She might not have moved in the interval.

  The sun had moved. It slanted low over the lawn. He yawned, ”What time is it?” He looked at his watch. Four-thirty. The gun was hard in his pocket.

  He had slept and he was revived. She had watched over him while he slept. He sat up, punched his battered hat in shape. “Thanks. I needed that.” He could finish the job now.

  He stood up and stretched. A dash of water in the face, comb his hair and he was ready for the Sen. Maybe not as spruce as he’d be on Michigan Boulevard but his hand was just as steady. He said, “Come on.” They walked out of the park.

  Pila said, “You slept so long you missed the parade.”

  “What parade?”

  “The De Vargas parade. It is a big parade. I could hear the horses and the music.”

  He scowled, “Why didn’t you go to it?”

  “You were asleep,” she stated.

  “What the hell—” he began.

  She said, “I did not want you to be alone while you sleep.”

  He shook his head. “Did you think something might happen to me?” She didn’t know he carried a gun. “I can take care of myself any time.”

  Her voice was soft. “When I am in a strange house I do not like to be alone while I sleep.”

  He shut up. Feeling a little queer inside. Because she’d said it, said he was a stranger, said he wasn’t he in this strange house. That he couldn’t take care of himself in this alien world. He needed a guardian, even if it was just an Indian kid.

  They could see the Plaza from the street they took, hear the muted music, the human sounds over it. They scuffed through litter, walking the last block in silence. When they reached the museum he stopped her.

  “You can’t go with me now,” he said. “I got business.” He felt good. Because he’d been wrong thinking she was hostile to the stranger; she was his friend. “Meet me later at Tio Vivo and I’ll buy you a flock of rides.” He felt better than he had since he boarded the bus in Chicago. “If the deal comes off I’ll buy you anything you want. What do you want more than anything else in the world?”

  She said solemnly, “A permanent wave.”

  He was still laughing as he swung away from her, cutting across the Plaza, to the hotel, and to the Sen.

  3

  It wasn’t more than a few minutes p
ast five when he came up from the men’s room. He’d washed up, brushed himself off as best he could. He didn’t look as if he’d been sleeping in the park. The patio was filled but quietly; a few, not many persons milled in the lobby. He started towards the Cantina. Started and didn’t dare turn aside when McIntyre rose up to meet him. Mac hadn’t any business being here yet. It wasn’t time for his appointment McIntyre said, “Hello. You’re early.”

  “A little.” It hadn’t occurred to him that Mac would be here waiting. He didn’t know what to say to the cop. He couldn’t tell him to beat it until his own private confab with the Sen was done. He had to carry Mac with him. Not knowing if the Sen would join him if he saw the cop there. Not knowing how he’d get rid of Mac for the necessary moments alone.

  “Going in now or wait for him here?” McIntyre asked.

  “Might as well go in,” Sailor said. He laughed a short one. “Maybe he’s still in there.”

  McIntyre followed Sailor this time. He said, “He isn’t. He and his party left about two o’clock.”

  McIntyre was watching close. Watching the Sen as close as he was watching Sailor.

  Sailor asked wryly, “You been counting noses in the lobby all afternoon?” But he wanted to know.

  McIntyre said, “No. I took a nap.”

  Were McIntyre’s eyes knowing? He couldn’t tell. Did McIntyre know he’d been sleeping up on the Federal lawn?