by Robert Hough
Accordingly, the worry so firmly etched into the faces of the townspeople eased, making room for expressions of gaiety. Music, produced by accordions or wind-up Victrolas, could now be heard coming from windows in the early evenings. With full bellies, the residents took to walking the plaza after dinner, a profoundly Mexican pastime that had been lost during the revolution, when roving bands of psychopaths were a chronic preoccupation. Carlos Hernandez’s cantina was now so busy in the evenings he had to import homemade liquor from other towns to keep his customers satisfied and his pulque buckets full. The town store, which was operated by a hirsute individual named Fajardo Jiminez, did a roaring trade in tortillas, toothpaste, soap, salsa, dried cornmeal … in all of the staples that, in times of deprivation, the poor spent hours each day making for themselves. Soon the residents of Corazón de la Fuente grew used to sounds that had all but disappeared over the past decade: the sound of happy chatter, of accordion music being played by jubilant fingers, of boots tapping the dust in impromptu waltzes, of children excited by the end of the school year, of men bragging about things they’d done when young and strong and filled with bravado, of women gracefully burping away the indigestion caused by heavy meals, of couples celebrating in the way that couples always will — in the early hours, their children asleep, their hammocks swaying with movements inspired by merriment and love.
For Francisco Ramirez, the coming of summer had definite, if unintended, consequences. In his final exam of the school year he was too distracted by the promise he had made to Malfil Cruz: maybe he could ask to borrow one of Antonio Garcia’s horses to use in his search for Violeta’s brother. Francisco considered the notion some more, growing so excited that he botched a series of questions regarding the Pythagorean theorem. The more he thought about it, the more he felt it would succeed. The hacendero was nothing if not an honourable man, a lover of women and horses, a believer in tradition, a student of México and all its glorious conceits. Above all else, he was a subscriber to the time-honoured code that exists among gentlemen, and it was for this reason that Francisco visited the hacendero the very next morning, his disastrous mathematics exam already a trivial memory.
He found him right where he knew he would find him: in the small paddock siding his artillery-ravaged mansion, happily brushing the stallion he had recently purchased from a fellow rancher who lived near the border of Chihuahua. It was good to see the hacendero looking so content; while everyone in town had suffered personal losses during the revolution, nobody had lost as much financially as Señor Garcia. Before the start of the fighting, he had owned a body of land whose head lay just shy of Piedras Negras, whose feet lay close to Sabinas, and whose belly was sufficiently concave to allow for the existence of Corazón de la Fuente. Likewise, the hacendero’s horses had enjoyed the run of a ten-hectare enclosure, and they were kept at night in an enormous ventilated barn constructed by members of a Mennonite community who farmed wheat southeast of Chihuahua City. Then came the series of violent coups that comprised the revolution.
Porfirio Díaz had fled like a frightened preschooler, and the army of Francisco Madero was the first to requisition some of the hacendero’s land, which was put to use as a campground for revolutionary forces. This requisitioning happened again under Carranza, and again under Huerta, and again under Obregón. With time, the various revolutionary governments sold off most of the hacendero’s land and converted what little was left into the communally owned ejido, the beneficiaries of which were mostly tubercular peasants from the south. Each day, it seemed, another family arrived and another tin-roofed hovel, reeking of sweat and smouldering coal, was erected on land that had been lovingly tended by generations of Garcias. Scattered in and amongst the shantytown was the farming equipment donated by one of the provisional governments. Most of it was never touched, the peasants having neither the knowledge nor the inclination to use it. As a consequence, it was mostly left to rust in the harsh northern weather, its principal function now to give lockjaw to shoeless children, who regularly cut themselves while playing war games with old scythes and tillers.
— Francisco! exclaimed the hacendero. — How are you? Have you met Diamante, my new caballo?
Francisco reached out to touch the horse on his muzzle, only to have Diamante snort haughtily and retreat a few steps.
— Careful, primo, cautioned the hacendero. — He’s got a bit of a temper.
Though Francisco did not own a horse and was not from a family of horsemen, he was nonetheless a norteño, born with an appreciation of things equine as surely as he had been born with feet and hands.
— Ay sí, said Francisco. — He is magnificent. You’re one lucky hombre.
The two chit-chatted for a few minutes, mostly about the hacendero’s new horse, the heat, and, naturally enough, Dr. Brinkley’s tower. When there was a natural pause in the conversation, Francisco finally cleared his throat and announced his purpose.
— Señor Garcia, I came here today because I need to ask you a favour.
— And what would that be?
— I was wondering if … pues … I was wondering if I could borrow one of your horses.
— And what do you plan to do with it?
Francisco hesitated, cleared his throat, and spoke. — I am searching for the son of Malfil Cruz.
The hacendero paused, forcing himself not to grin. — Well, then, he said. — When a woman requires our help, we must do what we can. How long will you be gone?
— I don’t know. As long as is required.
— And you do realize that there is bus service in northern México now?
— I do.
— Yet you want to feel the wind in your hair, and hear the drum of hooves on hard-packed earth. You want to be free, and not bound by bus schedules and clanking diesel engines. I understand this, Francisco. Diamante, of course, is out of the question, as he would kill you within the hour. You can take one of the grullos.
Francisco followed the hacendero towards the corner of his once-great paddock, where a pair of ancient mares were gumming a lunch of hay stalks. Each regarded Francisco with a dull, unblinking gaze.
— Estrella’s on the left, said the hacendero. — Beatriz is on the right. Take your pick.
— Which one do you recommend?
— It doesn’t matter, mijo. They’re both slow as molasses, but as dependable as the rise and fall of the sun. Either one will get you there.
Estrella released a foul cloud of undigested carrot, which Francisco chose to interpret as a gesture of assent. — That one, he said.
Siding the paddock was a creaky old barn that, thanks to revolutionary cannon fire, was missing a goodly portion of its rear wall. The hacendero walked towards it whistling, and when he returned he was carrying an old saddle and bit. He stopped before Francisco and blew on the saddle, disturbing a layer of settled dust. They both entered the corral.
Despite the fact that Estrella hadn’t been ridden in years, she didn’t whinny, try to move away, or in any way complain when the hacendero placed the saddle on her topside. In fact, as the hacendero cinched the straps beneath her low, sagging belly, Francisco began to wonder if the old horse had fallen asleep. Only when the hacendero reached into a pocket and produced an apple did Estrella turn her head and accept it with a snort.
The hacendero led her out of the paddock and walked her towards the heat-deadened avenue. He handed Francisco the reins.
— Don’t worry, joven. She’s a good horse, even if she’s a little long in the tooth. Give her lots of water and feed her whatever you can. Road grass will do; she’s not particular. Be nice to her and tell her she’s pretty. Tickle her behind the ears and tell her what a good caballo she is. Once upon a time she meant a lot to my family, and my only request is that you be kind and respectful and don’t punish her without good reason.
— I understand.
— Adiós, Francisco.
— Adiós, Señor Garcia. And gracias.
Before leaving town, Fra
ncisco led Estrella towards the village store and tied her to one of the hitching posts erected outside. Once inside, he called the name of the store’s owner, who was originally from a little village in Zacatecas where a genetic disorder called hypertrichosis caused many of its residents to be covered, head to toe, in thick whorls of hair. The trapdoor leading to the cellar opened, its rusting hinges producing a muffled creak. Fajardo emerged, a row of pearl-white teeth showing through his mat of coarse copper fur.
— Hola, Francisco. I was just downstairs. I got a shipment of calabazas today.
— Hola, Señor Jimenez.
— I heard you are taking a trip.
— Sí.
— Well, let’s get you stocked up then.
Francisco bought deer jerky, apples, a jute cloth filled with flour tortillas, and a bottle of drinking water. After thanking Fajardo, he walked Estrella diagonally across the town’s central plaza, the clopping of hooves resounding off the crumbling pink façade of the town hall. He walked Estrella past Violeta’s house, past the Callejón of Slumbering Bitches, past the House of Gentlemanly Pleasures, and, finally, past the ascending radio tower of John Romulus Brinkley, which had reached a height of about fifty metres, the three sides of the tower now having met like a touching of vines. Francisco stopped, craned his neck upwards, and watched Kickapoo workers shooting rivets into the upstanding girders, the whole time marvelling at the way in which this tower, this lofty assembly of lug nuts and steel, was gradually altering his conception of what was and was not possible. It, Francisco realized with a start, was the reason he felt he would succeed in his mission.
Francisco put a boot into Estrella’s stirrup and threw a leg over, the horse’s only reaction being to sag noticeably in the midsection. After getting his bearings, he ordered Vamanos and made an encouraging noise by sucking air through the teeth on the right side of his mouth. Estrella stared forward. Francisco called louder — Vamonos, vamonos — and made a rocking motion with his pelvis that, under any other circumstances, would have been considered lascivious. When Estrella did nothing more than belch loudly, Francisco lightly touched his spurs against the horse’s flank.
Estrella responded by whinnying and shedding a portion of dead skin from her sides. She then ambled in the direction of Francisco’s destiny, her head hanging low, a cloud of poorly digested feed grass wafting along behind them.
{ 7 }
AS PREPOSTEROUS AS IT MAY HAVE SEEMED, THERE were people in town who disliked that Dr. Brinkley had chosen Corazón de la Fuente as the recipient of his tower. Foremost among these was the curandera, the bristle-faced old witch who lived in a shack out in the desert. Her real name was Azula Mampajo, and it was becoming more and more common to see her patrolling the perimeter of the work site, waving bunches of smouldering herbs while simultaneously moaning. This unnerved the Kickapoo Indians labouring on the tower, all of whom followed the same belief system as the curandera. The accident rate at the building site — which had not been low to begin with — increased. One unlucky indigenous, upon hearing the curandera’s incantations, lost his balance and fell from the second tier of the tower, breaking an arm and a smattering of ribs.
The next day, one of the sub-foremen, accompanied by Geraldo the translator, confronted the woman, who was performing a fitful jig while waving around bunches of stinkweed. She stopped and regarded them through eyes that, over the years, had grown milky and weak.
— Lady, said the foreman. — Y’all cain’t be distractin’ my workers like that.
The curandera turned to the translator, who interpreted the sub-foreman’s request as follows: — He said to fuck off back to hell, you malodorous witch. If you don’t, we’ll drown you in the river.
She withdrew, muttering, kept to herself for a few days, and was then seen off in the distance, performing spooky rituals by herself. Over the next week or so she inched towards the work site, until the day came when the workers again started misfiring their riveting guns and walking off crossbeams. One of the sub-foremen was again dispatched to talk to her, and again she was told to fuck off by Geraldo, who this time emphasized the sentiment by pushing her into the dirt. Nothing if not resilient, the old woman picked herself up and directed the less filmy of her eyes towards Geraldo.
— This tower, she pronounced, — is the work of the devil.
She then punctuated this sentiment by kicking Geraldo in the shin. He leapt around on one foot, swearing as only a Mexicano can swear, while the old woman walked off snickering.
Yet the person who most resented the project was the man who, ironically enough, benefited the most from all of the new wealth in town. For this reason, the cantina owner, Carlos Hernandez, had to suffer in silence. He had to fake joyfulness every time someone commented on how the project was increasing the amount of money the workers were spending in his cantina. He had to feign high spirits whenever a customer said I bet you love this tower! over a cup of frothing pulque. He had to chuckle sincerely every time someone ordered a cerveza and offered the following opinion: This tower is like a gift from heaven for you, sí, Carlito?
This, the cantina owner found, was difficult. It was the way the structure was growing — so unbending, so powerfully bolted, so incorrigibly rigid. It was the way in which it was beginning to penetrate the white-blue sky. It was the way in which, every weekday, it grew bigger, mightier, more prominent, a development that mocked both the cantina owner and the problem that plagued not only his every waking moment but many of his sleeping ones as well. Even in his dreams, he was hounded by images of drooping water hoses, of wilting flowers, of finding a fine young mare in the desert and, no matter how hard he spurred her flank, not being able to make her gallop.
He could remember how it started — in those terrible times when cannons rumbled and the peso was suddenly no good and reports of slaughter, at the hands of Villistas and federales alike, were blowing into town like gusts of bad weather. It was an afternoon on a sleepy Tuesday. The town was just coming alive after its customary siesta; the cantina owner, having enjoyed a plate of tacos al pastor, an amorous interlude with his wife, Margarita, and a nap in which his dreams had been pleasant, was reopening his cantina for those clients who needed something stronger than coffee to arouse them after their midday repose.
Suddenly he heard a commotion. From outside there came alarmed cries and dogs barking and footfalls scurrying through the dusty streets and warnings called out by frantic mothers. He opened the cantina shutters and stood on the stoop, and sure enough, people were running in every direction, most particularly the womenfolk, who were being chased into the desert by their frightened, round-faced grandmothers. When the cantina owner stopped one of his neighbours, a flushed tannery worker with ruined hands and a spider-web complexion, the man blurted Listen, Carlos, listen! Standing on his stoop, the cantina owner filtered out the sounds of people running and dogs howling and grandmothers yelling Hurry, hurry! That’s when he heard the percussive beat of horse hooves against the desert floor.
Ten minutes later they were riding through the streets of Corazón de la Fuente, whooping and firing off rounds and frightening children and wearing the gold shirts of those with a zealous loyalty to Pancho Villa. They headed straight to the House of Gentlemanly Pleasures, only to find it abandoned in the dusty heat of midday. With nothing else to do, they headed for the town’s only watering hole. There must have been twenty of them, all with sombreros, bandoliers, and moustaches as bushy as fox tails. Their Levi’s were dirtied with road dust and their fingernails were stained with the oil that sweated from the grips of their pistols. They sat, and started banging their fists against the tabletops.
The cantina owner raced to serve them cervezas and tequila and mescal and even the pulque he normally gave only to the poor ejido dwellers. As the revolutionaries got drunker and drunker they got uglier and uglier, their stubbled faces growing flushed and goblin-like. As the cantina owner worked behind the bar, cleaning glasses and pretending he was deaf, he listened t
o them badmouth the town and its people. And then one of the rebels loudly surmised that the fairer sex had been rounded up and carted off into the desert and so there were no women under the age of sixty to keep them company, and that this surely indicated that this place, this Corazón de Whatever, was a town that supported the federales. Why else, he opined, would they be so hostile to the army of the north, which was only fighting for their liberation? Why else, he snarled, would they be so niggardly with their damn women? Enraged, the Villistas all started yelling and howling and firing their pistols into the cantina’s ceiling beams. Sensing their mood, the cantina owner retreated to the room behind the saloon, emerging only to serve them.
In short order the rebels had drunk the cantina owner dry, save for a case of special añejo tequila that he kept in his basement. When the soldiers next started clamouring for drinks, the cantina owner waved his arms in the air and said We’re finished, we’re done, no hay más. At first the revolutionaries thought he was joking. They all laughed, and more than one of them slurred a variation of Come on, hombrecito, don’t be like that. The cantina owner repeated his lie — Compadres, what can I do about it? — until they finally realized he was serious. They quieted, and reflexively looked to a guy sitting in the corner, a homely and dirt-streaked hijo de puta whom they all called the capitano. He just sat there, the back of his chair leaning against the cool adobe wall, considering the news with a foul, consternated expression. He rose slowly, all eyes watching. When he reached the cantina owner, he pulled out a pistol the size of a baby’s arm and he pressed it against the cantina owner’s sweat-drenched temple. From that close, Carlos could see that the man’s right eye was made of glass, and that it had become scratched and cloudy with wear. The capitano grinned, his teeth a smear of tartar and the stringy remains of something he’d eaten.