The Forests of the Night - J P S Brown

by J P S Brown

  The trail left the bare nopal, vinarama, and brasil level and entered high oak country. This country was so high and steep that grass was untouched by livestock. Livestock did not use this country this time of year because it was too far from water. Adán found a grassy, leafy place under a big oak and lay down. He slept too long. He awoke chilled from a great amount of sweat that had accumulated in pools over his still body. A large pool lay in the hollow of his throat. He bent his shirt collar, gripping it with his chin and chest, to sop the sticky water into his shirt. He sat up and his teeth chattered. He made himself move swiftly as he gathered up his gear. His first step as he left the place stumbled because of his haste to get away from the discomfort that stillness had brought on him. He found that he could see too clearly. The day with the sun setting hurt him with its brilliance. As he warmed in climbing, his body seemed to float underneath his bright vision. He followed the track with dangerous ease, moving faster after a warm sweat covered him.

  Before dark, he gained some bluffs crowning the brow of Contreras Peak. The bluffs rose to a cloud that moved over the peak. The cloud shone with the setting sun. He forced himself to stop and watch the cloud because he knew his fever was carrying him along too fast. He must calm himself again even if it meant letting sickness and discomfort catch up to him again. He squatted with his back against the bluff and looked down at El Yoco's track in the soft yellow dirt the bluff had shed. He wondered at the miracle that had carried him through this long day over broken leagues of country to still have the same track fresh under his sight. He felt as confident that he would kill El Yoco as he would if he had the jaguar in the sights of his rifle. He let his gear swing off his shoulders and his huaraches slide out until his legs were resting on the warm ground. He smoked.

  His damp body and clothes cooled at dusk but did not chill him. He moved on so he could reach a place he knew under Contreras Peak by full darkness. El Yoco was easy to follow because he had stayed against the bluff.

  Adán only hoped El Yoco had not gained ground above him and was waiting for him to separate him from his head and spinal column.

  At dark the ground Adán searched was so broken that most of the bluff fell away at his feet and he had to hug sandy rock and feel with his toes for his footing. He saw a cave across the space of a steep and narrow chute. Water had cut through the chute making a chasm hundreds of feet deep. The cave was in the base of Contreras Peak. The top of the peak was close, and Adán realized he had accidentally found an access to the peak that no one of the Sierra knew. Water from a spring filled a bowl in the top of the chute. Adán could hear it and smell it, but only thought he could see it. The mouth of the cave was still darker than the night. He knew all the reaches below this spot and the country behind the cave. He felt sure this was the nesting place El Yoco would have used if he was in the mood for denning. He could be here now. Adán knew this mountain and knew this cave was a dead end for two-footed creatures. Adán made sure of the load in his rifle, left it off safety, and stood it on the step in front of him. He kept the cave in sight while he found his two heavy clubs of pitch pine. He took out his flint and oak punk hiesca. He struck the top of the blade to the flint and blew on a coal the spark caused in the hiesca. He laid a patch of corn leaf on the coal and caught the flame of it with the pitch. He looked away so as not to candle his eyes with the flame and blind himself to the night. He lit both torches, and when hot blaze was popping over them and threatening to burn him, he threw one of them over the chasm into the mouth of the cave. He held the second torch ready while he watched the cave. El Yoco might leave the cave now. lf he came out Adán would bracket him by placing the second torch ahead of him. The torches would bother El Yoco's vision and light him as a target. Adán picked up his rifle. The torch in the entrance of the cave was lighting it well.

  He waited a long time. He heard nothing but the spitting and hissing of the pitch in the torches. He lost all the thrill of his expectancy. He used the torch in his hand to light his way and climbed to the pool. He laid the torch by the spring. This must be the spring of La Tiruta he had heard his Tio Pascual describe. The trail to La Tiruta had been used by livestock when Tio Pascual was a boy. Now the bluff had deteriorated so much it closed the trail to any animal but the most wild and shy. He squatted by the mossy bowl of water. The bowl was a watering place for El Javali, the wild, tusky, peccary pig of the Sierra. This peak had always been abudant with javelina. A large bunch was watering here and probably using the cave for a den. Adán climbed to the cave. He smothered the torch lying in the entrance by rolling it in powdery dust that clearly showed El Yoco's track. He held the other torch high and walked into the long, roomy cave.

  As he walked through, Adán expected the cave to come to an abrupt end around each bend he lighted. The dust on the floor was fine and deep, a sign that moisture never settled here and much animal traffic still passed through. The odor of the musk of javelina was strong, almost covering the smell of blood. Adán saw shreds of javelina hide. He stopped and found fresh cleaned bones. El Yoco must have surprised the does nursing their babies. He had eaten the milky teats of the javelina mothers first for blood and milk and then eaten the babies, bones and all. El Yoco was sly about taking his favorite meat. This large a denful of the spearing, gutting tusks of El Javali was a dangerous place to sup for any animal. El Javali was mean and always liable to fight. He won as often as he lost. Any animal who preyed on grown javelina was as liable to become a meal as to take a meal, but he was a jaguar's favorite meat and El Yoco knew javelina were most vulnerable when the males were out grazing and the mother does were nursing their young. Adán now knew why El Yoco had passed up the meat of El Solitario, He had passed over El Solitario meat as a king passes over beans. To show his contempt for the plate of El Solitario, he had sullied the meat like a fat man Adán had once seen putting out his cigarette in his serving of beans. El Yoco was taking on the vices of people, the first characteristic of the cebado. The more choices he accumulated for himself to eat, the more he wasted. He would never pass his side dishes to someone who had no choices.

  Adán walked on through the cave and saw the chewed heads of three of the mother doe javelina lying apart. The skulls had been cracked carefully and the brains, tongues, and eyes cleaned out. El Yoco had certainly taken his fill. His capacity for eating had been at its greatest. He had not eaten since Adán had begun tracking him. Adán found the exit El Yoco had used. The opening overlooked a small meadowlike mesa.

  Adán did not want to rest now that El Yoco had eaten. El Yoco was too full to move on very far, but Adán had to take time in the dark to rest and nurse the grippe. The dust in the cave had set him to coughing a cough that hurt and made him sweat.

  Adán came to a corner where men had used fire and found a deep stone bowl carved on three legs. A cup for drinking had been fitted inside the bowl. The cup was fashioned from the same stone as the bowl. The cup and bowl were as exact in symmetry as a man's hand could make them. Beside the bowl and its vessel Adán found a hardwood arma, a throwing stick good for infighting. The weapon was of dark red palo dulce wood and hardened by fire. It was two feet long, rounded and tapered from the middle to sharp points on each end. Adán picked up the arma in the same condition it had been the day it had been laid down. The smooth hard stick was heavy and not splintered.

  However brave and good with his hands the man who made that weapon had been, he had left this shelter in a hurry without his cup. Some cebado aloof to natural laws had probably made him leave. This was not a burial cave. No mummies hid their faces between their legs here.

  Adán built a small fire outside the entrance of the cave. At suppertime the lighted outline of the entrance was the place for his supper and not the battleground between Adán and a scourge of his world. He swallowed some lechuguilla. The mezcal warmed him. It cleared his head and gave him the impulse to drink his coffee, eat his supper, and smoke his tobacco. He rolled in his blanket with his feet to the fire.

  H
e awoke from his first sleep an hour after midnight, bathed in a cold sweat again. The night had tumed cold. He did not want to move in the sweat. His cough gave him discomfort, but he had been pushing himself so hard no discomfort could keep away his sleep. He wanted to sleep quickly to keep from thinking of the good reasons for him to walk home and tell his wife he had lost the track near the top of Contreras at a cave above a spiraling trail no one knew about, a trail above a chasm where a man would never be found. The beautifully intact arma and cup would be enough evidence to prove Adán had done well in following El Yoco as far as he had. With rest at home the grippe would catch up to him and he would be sick enough so anyone would say he had been wise in leaving the track. He sank into the sleep that kept these excuses away. He awoke from his second sleep without needing more rest.

  He lay still in his blanket until he quit sweating. He waited until a chill was nearly on him and then stood up with the blanket as a cloak. He stamped his feet and flapped his arms with the blanket to fan and dry himself. The cough was leaving a metallic, almost plastic, taste that framed his breathing. He built his fire and went to find more wood to fuel it. He hovered over his fire and sipped lechuguilla while the fire stilled his shivers. He banked small sparking coals around his coffee bottle. He spread more coals and warmed a thin piece of loin from the brown bull and a bean burro Lucrecia had put together for him the last night he had been home. He should have eaten this burro long ago except fresher food had always been available at his times for eating. Now he was glad he still had Lucrecia's burro. lt made him remember her hands. It had her caress on it. He took the lid off his coffee and a faint wraith of steam followed his hand from the lip of the bottle. He bit the hot meat, cooled it with the warm beans and tortilla of the burro, and tasted the coffee. He ate slowly, savoring each mouthful, conditioning himself to the repast, so that after his last swallow he was satisfied and did not want or need the taste of more food. He carefully wrapped his bottles in the empty flour sack and placed them in his morral. He picked up his blanket, rifle, and bule and walked out through the cave.

  He spent the morning tracking El Yoco to a place where he had sunned and rested the day before. The resting place was near the summit of Contreras in the middle of a savannah shaded by oak and pine. The savannah was shaped like a big hat with a shallow crown upside down. El Yoco had slept in the open knowing no enemy could surprise him there. A cool breeze had comforted him, barely stirring his whiskers. Adán could imagine El Yoco lying full in the sun with his ear to the ground and no preoccupation of any kind. The animal had rested from his killing and his pursuer, from what he had done and would do, in peace, luxury, and safety. He still might not even be aware of Adán. El Yoco must be more right in his daily occupation than Adán was. El Yoco could change his occupation any time at all with no qualm. He could leave the region any time he tired of what he was doing without ever being in danger from Adán. Twenty years from now the region would not remember or give any importance to Adán's perseverance. Adán would not be given any importance for his effort one month from now if he killed El Yoco today.

  Adán put his head down and stopped thinking. He knew he was practically raving at himself because of the fever. He stopped the thoughts just before he began waving his arms and shouting at himself. He followed El Yoco's track along the Contreras cordón.

  He spent the afternoon following the track off the cliffs to the bottom of the gorge of Tepochici. He rested near the blue water in the gorge where El Yoco had watered and bathed. He had come from the thin air of mountains to the breezeless arroyo, and a spell of coughing wounded and scraped the junction of his throat and lungs. He lay on the clean gravel beside the stream and sipped at the bottle of lechuguilla until the weight on his eyelids lessened and he began to sweat. He waited for the full effect of the drink to nerve him and he followed the track up the gorge. The gorge was so deep that in many places he could not see the sky. The gorge was filled with box canyons stoppered by boulders that caused water to be trapped in deep, clear pools. The gorge was full of green grass and high, thick leafy bamboo untouched by cattle. Then Adán came upon a box canyon grazed clean. Cattle had been in this box. Water diverted by a row of boulders in the mainstream had cut a tunnel in the canyon wall. The floor of the tunnel was swirled, pocked and hilled with line sand. Snags of tall cedarlike tascate, and pine, great oak, and other trees from far away in higher climates had been locked in the tunnel.

  Cattle ran away from him as he emerged from the tunnel. They were wild and thin. He stopped and squatted on the sand in the shade of the tunnel. The cattle bunched to watch him. They had no way to escape him. They were all grown and carried full sets of smooth, sharp horns. They were led by a big, high-horned black Brahma cow. They milled desperately, rattling horns and hooves against each other when Adán stood up. They rushed past him for the mouth of the tunnel, sidling, shying, and hooking at him as they went by.

  Adán found the spot where the cattle had entered the gorge. The spot was level with his eyes. The cattle had come down over the rock to the lush feed and jumped from the last high step into the gorge and been trapped there. No bovine could jump back from sand and hold that first narrow rock

  foothold.

  Adán saw El Yoco had left the gorge by leaping from the sand to the rock. Adán, alone now in this hidden place, did not wonder that El Yoco had not stayed here to kill cattle. This small herd was much more dangerous to him than El Toro Buey, and he must respect El Toro Buey very much.

  El Yoco's track showed clearly in the deep sand. Adán did not want to turn back here. If he left the track now he could not imagine when he would be able to return to this gorge and pick it up again. But he knew the cattle would starve if he left them. The cattle did not have a bite of feed left. Adán could not go on unconcerned like El Yoco had done the day he had seen the hawk swooping on the duck. On the track of El Yoco a thousand chances could keep him from returning before the cattle perished.

  Adán knew he was close to El Yoco, but he had just enough daylight remaining to drive these cattle, swimming each box canyon, down the gorge to the corrals at the roundup camp at Gilaremos before dark. He turned back and followed the cattle through the tunnel. He came in sight of them again and lay down his bule, rifle, morral, and reata by the entrance of the tunnel. The cattle bunched by the edge of a pool they would have to swim to leave the box. Adán would have to make the cattle swim around a boulder and continue through a strait that angled blindly between more boulders. He ran at the cattle like a banshee, yelling and waving his blanket. The bunch milled and pushed two bulls into the pool. Adán gave the cattle room so they would watch the bulls and follow them. He threw rocks and shouted to make the bulls swim into the strait. He charged the cattle again and more cattle went into the water after the bulls.

  He ran to head back the black Brahma cow. She hooked and snorted at Adán and charged to trample him. He blanketed her eyes as he stepped out of her path. He slipped in shallow water and fell. He saw the cow's eyes start and fix for impact as she lunged at the blanket. Her front legs stiffened and left the ground. Her hind legs bunched and scrambled as though cranked by her wringing tail and she bounded over the blanket leading the rest of the cattle away from the pool. Adán's paraphernalia was a sentinel on the tunnel and the black cow shied away from it. She stopped, arched her back, raised her head and stared at Adán. The other cattle ran up behind and caused her to start in panic, but she stood her ground while she examined her route through the tunnel. Adán picked up his blanket and trotted after the cattle. The black Brahma cow whirled and led the cattle back to the pool. Adán was close behind them with his blanket and voice. The black cow tucked her feet under her and went into the pool with a high, arching leap. She struck the water flat on her belly. The other cattle followed her, entering the water carefully without wetting their heads. The black cow broke the surface with a lunge upwards for breath that carried her front feet pawing and flailing the surface.

  Adán pick
ed up his gear and climbed the boulders to follow the cattle. He drove them swimming the large pools out of the gorge of Tepochici to a corral above the pool of the duck and the hawk. He penned the cattle there when he saw the vaqueros of Juan Vogel coming off Contreras mountain with more cattle.

  Adán was hot. He stripped and waded into the pool of the duck and the hawk. He dunked his shirt and drawers into the water ahead of him and scrubbed them with sand. His gold medal with the countenance of his friend, the Virgin of Guadalupe, tapped his breast lightly for company. He left his clothes weighted down with sand under the water and swam out on the surface of the pool. He dove into the cold water of the shady bottom thinking of the duck he had seen, the hawk that had kept the duck in the water. Adán decided not to be unconcerned about himself. If he could show concern for cattle, he could show it for himself. Tonight he was going to have supper at the camp at Gilaremos, take some medicine, have a swallow of mezcal, converse with his friends and comrades, recoup. Maybe El Yoco would hunt and kill again tonight, unconcerned. Adán could not prevent it. Adán would fight his fever with Juan Vogel's remedies and track El Yoco again when he felt better.

  He surfaced in the pool. He floated on his back in the current until his shoulders touched gravel. He rubbed his back and legs, rolling like a horse against gravel close under the surface. He got his clothes, wrung them out, and laid them over a boulder to dry. He sat on the boulder and sunned himself and felt the cough might be loosening its hold in his chest. No breeze stirred the warmth of the canyon away. Water ran slowly off his body past places already dry. He did not move during the last hour of the sun as it glazed his skin with its warmth. He dressed himself and picked up his gear when he heard the cattle and men nearing the corral. A vaquero called a greeting to him and went to the stream to drink. Two more went by and then Juan Vogel reined La Bomba from behind the herd and went to the stream. He dismounted, took off his hat and lay flat to drink with his wild hair dipping into the water. Adán kept the herd from straying while the men watered. When they were at their posts around the herd again, he opened the gate of the corral and let his wild cattle out. The vaqueros hurried to keep the wild cattle in the bounds of the herd as they let it move down the arroyo of Tepochici.