The Little Tigress: Tales out of the Dust of Old Mexico

by Wallace Smith

  Yes, quite a joke. An overdone jest, though. He was weary of it. He had been foolish to drink the water that had scum on top of it. He had felt too strong. Nothing could hurt him. That was the trouble. He had been careless.

  Kind Mother Nature was a relentless old hag. Get careless with her and see what happens. She demanded her pound of flesh—she was getting it from him. Millions of amœba gnawing at the lining of his stomach—mining through his intestines for the heart and liver. When they reached there it was the end. It was supposed to take three weeks.

  Like being tortured on an ant-heap. Only instead of twenty minutes the dead-line was drawn out for three weeks. When had he drunk the scummy water? Three weeks ago and more. He had been a fool to wait so long.

  His hands were like claws. As dark and dried and skinny, and about as useless, as a mummy’s hands. It had been a stubborn fool’s trick to wait so long—too long—before hunting up a doctor. Twenty doctors wouldn’t do any good now.

  In the Big Bend

  The rebel hospitals had disappeared in the shattering of the rebel army. His camp jokes had been too excellent and too partisan. He could not go into a Mexican town——

  There came a foul stench. A dry rustle. El Humoristo lifted his head. It was a mighty effort. He saw that the buzzard had hopped close. Its red, raw neck was stretched in calculating curiosity. When he moved his head, the buzzard hopped clumsily back. An apologetic undertaker who had arrived before his task was ready——

  El Humoristo’s hand struggled toward his revolver. He’d fool that buzzard. Let it be a cannibal feast for other buzzards. Other buzzards. Hundreds of other buzzards. There were two others now, gliding in from the sky. He couldn’t kill all the buzzards in Mexico——

  He dragged himself to the tree in the shade of which he lay. He raised himself and propped his body in a sitting position against its roots. They were above the ground. They looked like arms with twisted, starved tendons.

  His revolver, in its holster, was under him. It hurt. But he was too weary to move. The buzzards made the situation impossible. Their beaks and talons stripped bones so clean. They had silently boasted of this hour. He’d show them——

  If he had only been executed by the firing squad. At heart he was a sentimentalist. He desired a flourish for the end——

  What a patriot! He had smiled to himself at the protestations of his compañeros. They fought for liberty! All men were born equal! They were right, at that. The rifle made all men equal. Dysentery, too——

  The revolver which had been his friend might do a final act of comfort. No. Not with these buzzards waiting. There were three of them now, sitting in a half-circle, patiently waiting. He would not hasten their meal for them. They looked so sure——

  If he could only have a final joke—if he could only live until Chico Renterias and his men came up. He knew they were on their way to the border to surrender. They would make camp here. If they came, he could die and be buried in a grave with heavy, comforting rocks on top—he must try to live for that——

  It was a definite aim. His head was very warm. It was the fever. It must be getting on toward sun-down. At sun-down the fever always rose. The desert was varnished freshly with gold. The buzzards had streaks of gilt in their feathers.

  Other times when he had been close to death, El Humoristo had the illusion that it was not he, but some one else, who suffered. He did not deceive himself this time. He knew it was El Humoristo who was dying——knew it in every hurting, tired shred of his body.

  The hill breeze was cold where it struck his fevered body. He began to shiver miserably. His sarape was on his horse, on the other side of the pool.

  There was a dull knife hacking deliberately at his stomach. Mosquitoes settled hungrily on his face and hands. Other insects. He was too exhausted to lift his hand to brush them off—too exhausted to care——

  He wanted to sleep—a good, long sleep. But there was something to be done—mustn’t sleep yet—what was there he had to do first?—a dry sound of gristle scraping—oh, yes, the buzzards——

  He’d show them—a nice grave with heavy, comforting stones piled on it—a long rest——

  The first coyote yip-yipped——

  Chico Renterias saw the horse first. It made the approach to the oasis more cautious for him and his seven riders. As they came up three buzzards lumbered away, croaking an old man’s protest. Then they took the air in lazy, patient circles——

  Held up by the roots of the tree, that were like arms, they found El Humoristo. He was doubled up as the body of a sleeping child cuddles in protecting arms. There were lumps on his face, where the insects had been. A trickle of blood was clotted on the cheek. One outstretched hand was the hand of a mummy——

  An American patrol halted the party as it crossed the border. Four of the men, walking, carried a man in whose emaciated body there seemed to be no life.

  “He is an Americano, señores,” said Chico Renterias. “He is very sick, as you may see. He gave me this money to pay for the hospital. We surrender.”

  From his waist Chico Renterias unstrapped his own money belt. And handed it over to the cavalry sergeant.

  In a city far to the north of the border lived for many months a young man with thin, nervous fingers and an empty, seeking look in his eyes. They did not call him El Humoristo.

  They believed that he had suffered from one of those tropical fevers. Malaria or something.

  When he disappeared from the neighborhood they wondered briefly. It was said that he had gone to a hospital. That he had died there. He had always looked very sad.

  But there is a letter. It was received by a friend who knew him as well as one man may know another. The letter said, at the end:

  And so I go back to the desert again. To fill my nostrils with the rare, sweet smell that comes at dawn; to feed my eyes on the glorious colors that paint the hills and sky. A pink mission with green, bronze bells. I want to hear the cathedral bells at dusk in some jasmina patio and see the ancient city turned to soft silver and ebony shadows at moonlight. I want to be alone in the desert at night and feel the sky folding down over me. I want to ride again with my compañeros who sing with the hearts of children and die with the hearts of heroes. Whose life is always a graceful gesture.

  Mexico has been cruel to me but I cannot deny my love for her. I would rather die slowly there—as the good doctor says I assuredly shall—than live anywhere else with an empty heart, with an eternal homesickness.

  There is a saying that once the dust of Mexico has settled on your heart there can be no rest for you in any other land. Adiosl

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