No Job for a Lady

by Carol McCleary

  “What is it?”

  “Did the creature you saw remind you of anything?”

  “No, I’ve never seen anything like it. And I got only a brief glimpse of it through a dirty window in the dark.”

  “Could it have been a mask?”

  “A mask? Yes, I suppose it could have been. It was rather feline, like a cat—maybe a mountain lion.”

  “How about a jaguar?”

  “A jaguar? I don’t know. They look rather like big cats, don’t they? Like cougars, what we call mountain lions?”

  “Yes, similar to your mountain lions, but bigger. Jaguars can weigh several hundred pounds. They are quite fierce animals. To the ancient Mexicans, jaguars were not just kings of the jungle but also sacred beasts with magical powers.”

  It’s obvious she is trying to tell me something but is having a hard time getting it out.

  “Gertrude, what are you trying to say? That I saw a jaguar last night? Because if that is so, they are wandering around on two feet and slicing people’s throats with big hunting knives.”

  “Maybe…”

  “Maybe? Now you’re sounding like me.”

  “Hear me out. Don Antonio told us that after the Spanish conquest, many Aztecs hid their treasures. But that’s not all that happened. A resistance arose, a secret society devoted to driving out the Spanish. It never created a major revolt against the invaders; instead, the members operated as assassins who attacked Spaniards, most often at night along lonely roads.”

  “Sounds like other assassination cults in history. Wasn’t there a Jewish group around the time of Christ that killed the Roman invaders of Israel?”

  “The Sicarii. What the Romans called ‘dagger men.’ Judas Iscariot might have been a member. During the Crusades, an Islamic group of assassins, the Hashshashin, arose to attack Christian leaders. It’s where we got the word assassin. The secret Aztec group had the same purpose—to drive out the enemy that had enslaved its people.

  “They were known as the Cult of the Jaguar because they worshiped the jungle beast as their god of war. They even dressed as jaguars when they attacked the Spanish. The garb was based upon preconquest elite Aztec warriors known as Jaguar Knights. The Jaguar Knights were considered the toughest warriors in the empire and also acted as personal guards of the emperors.

  “Don Antonio says we will see street entertainers dressed as Jaguar Knights performing for tourists in Mexico City. He says the Cult of the Jaguar has significance for the indios today because there is still deep rooted resentment and even hatred over the way those with pure indio blood are treated as second-class citizens by the rest of Mexican society.”

  “That’s why you want to know if the thing I saw could have had jaguar features. Good Lord, are there people running around wearing jaguar masks and killing people?”

  “Well, I don’t know if I would go that far, but for certain, jaguar masks exist and have a lot of symbolism.”

  I chew on her information for a moment before asking, “Did your uncle suggest that some Cult of the Jaguar members could have killed the prospector?”

  “Not at all. In fact, I learned about the cult from my history studies at Oxford.” She shoots a glance around and leans in closer to whisper. “When I mentioned it to Don Antonio this morning, he became rather agitated. He hates anything that reflects negativity on Mexico. Your being a news reporter has made him redouble his efforts to keep a lid on anything that doesn’t reflect well on the country. I think that’s why he had Thompson at breakfast—to convince you that you hadn’t really seen anything worth reporting.”

  “It wouldn’t make any sense anyway. Howard was a down-on-his-luck prospector, not a Spanish grandee enslaving indios on a hacienda. There wouldn’t be any motive for cult members to attack him.”

  Gertrude glances around again before speaking in a conspiratorial tone. “Nellie, this seems incredible, but Don Antonio said something this morning that I found stunning when I broached the subject of the cult. He said that many people believe that the cult members were, or are, the keepers of the disk of the sun god.”

  “No! Do you realize—”

  “Of course. Your prospector claimed to have a map identifying where the disk is hidden.”

  “Not just that, Gertrude. It means something else.”

  “What?”

  “If it is worth killing for, it probably is the actual map to the treasure.”

  “You’re right. No one would kill him for one of those maps you buy off a street corner.”

  I jump up from my seat to leave.

  “Where are you going?” She grabs my hand.

  “To tell Roger and everyone else on this train that I am not crazy.”

  “Nellie, you promised not to say a word to anyone.”

  “Oh, you’re right.” I flop back down in the seat and cross my heart. “A promise is a promise. And I will keep it. I’m sorry. All I could think of was that now I wouldn’t have to endure those looks. But, hey, if I told this story about the jaguar, I’d probably be put in a straitjacket. It’s bizarre. I mean, could this really be true—that some ancient cult killed poor Howard?”

  “I don’t know what happened to the man, but you haven’t heard the most bizarre part yet.”

  “Good Lord, what you’ve told me already has left me gasping.”

  Gertrude smiles. “This is the best part. In Europe, we have legendary beasts called werewolves, shape-changers who turn from human to beast.”

  “We have them, too. They start growing hair when it’s a full moon. I’m almost afraid to ask, but are you going to tell me that the man was attacked by a werewolf?”

  “Close. Part of the legend of the Cult of the Jaguar is that certain high priests of the cult acquired the ability of shape-changing.”

  “From man to jaguar?”

  “Yes. Were-jaguars.”

  “Were-jaguars.” I shake my head as I repeat the word. It not only has a strange ring to it but it conjures up so many weird thoughts in my already overworked imagination, I’m afraid my head will explode.

  “The tale goes,” Gertrude continues, her tone revealing that she is relishing the gory details, “that the high priests used magic mushrooms and drank the blood of sacrificed victims to accomplish the change. When they changed form, they didn’t become four-legged jaguars, but walked on two feet as men while taking on some of the features and the strength of the great cat.”

  “And all of this is true? You read this in a history book?”

  “Well … not quite a history book. It’s a collection of the mysterious and magical folktales of Mexico.”

  “Ah. I see. And I thought an Oxford scholar would be at least slightly less whimsical than I am.”

  She jabs my shoulder with a forefinger. “To quote my history master, ‘Folktales are history disguised as literature.’ But I am also not advocating that you saw a were-jaguar attacking your friend—either the mythical beast or someone with a mask. But you have to admit that the link is interesting and provocative.”

  That is an understatement.

  My head swirls as I try to digest the strange tale and the attack on the old prospector.

  “I can’t imagine why anyone would wear a mask to attack the man. It’s a mere accident that I was even there at that moment to see it.”

  I bend over and hold my head in my hands. “I don’t know what to think.” I look back up to Gertrude. “I love a mystery and magic and the occult, but making a link between what I saw and an ancient murder cult is too far a reach even for me. Maybe it was nothing more than the bag on his shoulder that I saw.”

  “And maybe you’d better hope that whatever you saw isn’t still on the train.”

  22

  Try as I might to doze off, it’s another night of no sleep. When I close my eyes, my imagination goes wild and I get flashes of that strange face I saw. Then the face forms into a bedroll, all twisted out of shape, and I’m standing in a room with people laughing at me as I cringe with humil
iation.

  I’m oversensitive, I know. My mother says it’s because I always want to win, to be the best. Rather than reliving last night’s humiliation, I need to focus on this moment and the rest of my trip and return home. I’m a good reporter and will make it as a foreign correspondent. I need to stick to the wonderful people and interesting things about the south-of-the-border culture I see all around. And heed my mother’s advice about reining in my imagination and sticking my nose in places where it doesn’t belong. The old prospector no doubt was making a fast getaway from the train and I probably frightened him with my screams as much as thinking I was seeing some kind of creature scared me.

  Hell and damnation! I can’t just lie in the bunk; my mind won’t let my body rest. There is no avoiding it: Sleep is escaping me and I might as well get up. Thank goodness last night Roger was gracious enough to lend me his robe and never asked for it back.

  I slip quietly down from the upper berth, this time managing to do so without falling on top of him. I make a little noise, but with that snoring, the train would have to derail to wake him up.

  There is empty seating at the front of the car. As quiet as a mouse, I make my way to it in the dim light and take a seat. I am at the opposite end from the washrooms where I had witnessed the incident, and that suits me fine. However, it has the same dirty-windowed door that leads to the gangway to the next car, but the window has less impact on my nerves and imagination.

  Once seated, I stare out the window, listening to the rolling thunder of the steel wheels on the track, watching sandy mounds and cactus slip by. The moon is full and bright and I watch a flock of ducks rise in dark clouds at the approach of the train and move off to a more secluded spot to be alone and not have their sleep disturbed. I wish I could join them.

  All I want is peace and quiet—to think and try to sort out what happened, to get a handle on Gertrude’s incredible tale of were-jaguars and the scenario Thompson came up with and had Sundance reenact.

  Nothing my mind conjures up erases Howard’s terrified expression that I observed through the dirty window. Or the grotesque face of the thing that had a grip on him and slid a knife across his throat.

  How could I have imagined that? It’s too vivid in my mind, and the hairs stand straight up on the back of my neck every time I think about it. That tells me more about what I saw than other people’s theories.

  Good Lord—what would Don Antonio say if I insisted that it was a were-jaguar that attacked the man and that I would report it as such in the first missive I sent from Mexico City?

  It doesn’t take much imagination to conclude that he would declare me persona non grata in Mexico and have me taken off this train and put on the next one back to El Paso.

  Oh my God! I smother a laugh of hysteria. What would they say in the newsroom at the Dispatch if I told them I got thrown out of Mexico because I saw a mythical man-jaguar kill someone—a werewolf with a cat’s face? I can just see Mr. Madden’s expression, and my poor mother would have me institutionalized for my own protection if Mr. Madden didn’t beat her to it.

  I lean back and close my eyes. Maybe I can get some sleep and discover this was all just a bad dream when I awake. Wouldn’t that be lovely!

  Bam!

  I’m woken by a loud slamming noise and I sit straight up.

  Staring at me through the dirty window of the door to the gangway is the porter who made up our berths. His features are twisted with shock and surprise. He then slowly, almost mechanically, slides to the side, moving away from the window.

  There is a movement beyond him, as if someone else is on the gangway, too, but it’s too dark for me to see who or what it is—all I see is a shadow, a silhouette of someone.

  The porter disappears from the gangway window and I catch the flash of his white uniform as he flies by my window.

  I jump up, letting out a scream that could be heard back in Cochran’s Mills—a long, agonizing, piercing cry.

  Stumbling, I get to the emergency cord and collapse down to my knees. Somehow, I force myself back up and grab the cord and pull and pull and—

  Nothing.

  No horrific screech of locked steel wheels skidding along steel tracks.

  No sudden violent stop that sends passengers and luggage flying.

  Nothing as I pull the cord again and again.

  The train continues rolling smoothly along.

  I let go of the emergency cord and it dangles loosely next to me. It’s broken. The engineer in the locomotive all the way at the front of the train didn’t get my signal. But plenty of passengers heard my screams.

  Passengers have gotten out of their bunks. After their first excited exclamations, they grow silent and stare at me, like a lynch mob.

  The man who accused me of spreading rumors about the train’s being robbed steps in front of his wife to shield her from me.

  “She’s dangerous!”

  23

  “You will not be put off at the next stop,” Don Antonio tells me in his calm, diplomatic, reassuring voice, “regardless of what the conductor told you.”

  Despite his cool, calm diplomatic veneer, I am certain that I will be facing a firing squad or at the very least be set off the train at any of the small watering holes we are passing, now that I’ve admitted seeing the porter airborne outside my window.

  He shoots a glance to Gertrude, who avoids his eye, just as she has been avoiding mine.

  Thank you, Gertrude for coming to my aid, I silently convey to her with a small, helpless grin. How I had managed to jump out of the frying pan and into the pot or into a fire, or however that expression goes, is beyond me. At the moment, I am unable to defend myself and barely able to present myself at the breakfast table. I refused to go to breakfast when Roger asked me to, and it wasn’t until I got a message—a command—from Don Antonio that I made my way to the dining car—not without a few stares and glares from my fellow passengers.

  “I have taken care of it. But, my dear, you must promise me that you will not ever, under any circumstances, even if your life depends upon it—”

  “Pull that cord. Or scream. I promise. I will not pull the cord. I will not scream. Even if I am being murdered. But—”

  “No ifs or buts. You will not do anything to disturb the passengers or crew of this train. Is that understood, young lady?”

  I hang my head. I have no defense. I am guilty as charged. But …

  “I just don’t understand. The porter—”

  “I have told you there is no porter missing.”

  He did tell me. And I refused to take his word this morning, just as I refused to take the word of the conductor and went on a search myself, speaking to all the porters on the train about their missing comrade, in a futile attempt to establish that he did indeed exit. All I got from them were head shakes, shrugs, and rolling eyes when I asked them to confirm that one of their members had been an indio who was now missing.

  “But he was the only indio porter I saw on the train. I can’t believe no one else saw him.”

  I am so frustrated, I could scream. I just don’t understand how no one on the train could remember the only obvious indio porter. Gertrude did say that people don’t remember waiters and porters.

  She’s right, which is why even she didn’t notice we had an indio-looking porter on the train. I am aware of it because I am actively studying people for my article. And it didn’t help my case when the regularly assigned porter for our compartment claimed to have prepared our berths—and Roger didn’t deny that it was this man.

  But even if passengers don’t particularly remember porters, how about the man’s fellow porters? Wouldn’t they know if one of their own was missing?

  It occurs to my paranoid mind that in this poor country, which universally operates off a system of mordida, it wouldn’t take much to get porters to forget about a missing porter. But not only can’t I come up with a reason for that; I don’t think they would have a conspiracy of silence to protect a killer.


  Turning over the coin, the indio porter wasn’t always around. He seemed to have taken the place of the regular porter who turned down our berths and that of another porter in the dining room, but he didn’t appear to do either job on a regular basis. Could he have passed around bribes to be permitted aboard to spy on people?

  So who was this indio porter, what happened to him, and why has everyone conveniently forgotten he existed?

  I tried this line of reason on Don Antonio for about three seconds before his eyes grew wide and I saw myself on a train northbound in their reflection.

  I glare at Roger, who has been listening quietly as he puffs on his pipe. Like Gertrude, he avoids my eye, and my ire.

  “Roger, how could you not remember that the porter who made up our compartment last night was an indio?”

  “What?” Don Antonio asks. “What do you mean—‘our compartment?’”

  Oh crap.

  Here are buried cities older than Pompeii, sculptures thousands of years old, hieroglyphics for the wise to study, and everywhere the picturesque people in their garb and manners of centuries ago—and all this within a day’s travel from the city. Surely in all the world there is none other such wonderful natural museum.

  —NELLIE BLY, Six Months in Mexico

  24

  Leaving the dining car, I hurry away, refusing to talk to Roger or anyone else as I escape the meeting with Don Antonio. I’m fleeing my big mouth and the look of shock on the faces of both the consul and Gertrude when they discovered I’m sharing a compartment with Roger.

  I am also annoyed at Roger’s failure to recall the ethnicity of the porter who prepared our berths—especially when I had pointed out to him that the porter was not the one who had greeted us originally.

  I can excuse the failure of the porter’s not being particularly noticed at dinner—as Gertrude pointed out, one doesn’t notice people serving you. Not, at least, if one happens to be used to being served. But I can’t excuse Roger.