by J P S Brown
"Buena, have you put an end to the scourge, cousin?"
Juan Vogel asked as he rode up to the corral.
"Not yet, cousin," Adán smiled seeing Juan Vogel was sour because he had been moving cattle over hard, dry country all day and at sundown found himself hours away from camp.
"I brought you cattle I found in a box canyon in the gorge."
"I see them. You did well," Juan Vogel relented. "We missed the black Brahma cow last year. I'm glad you hunted the gorge. I didn't see how we were going to find time to do it. The cattle we have gathered have nothing to eat. We have to get them out right now. The wild cattle we miss are just going to have to get along on their own without any help from me, as usual."
"I didn't search the entire gorge. I followed the figre into the box where these cattle were trapped. They would not have swum out without encouragement. Someone will have to search the gorge all the way. A year like this! No one can tell how many cattle are trapped in broken country like the gorge."
"Did your tigre go up the gorge?"
"He left the gorge."
"I was going to say you could watch for cattle as you hunted him up there."
Adán looked at Juan Vogel without answering. He did not want to hunt any more that day.
"You better come on to Gilaremos with us," Juan Vogel said, relenting again. "You look sick. Your face just turned the color of butter." He gave Adán two fat aspirin like mejorales. "These help. I should have brought ten kilos of mejoral."
Adán took the pills wordlessly and without looking into Juan Vogel's face. He walked to the pool chewing the pills. He swallowed the paste with a palmful of water. He crossed the stream, caught up with Juan Vogel, and went on to help the vaqueros with the herd.
The men penned the cattle in the rock corral at Gilaremos an hour after dark. Adán walked with them to the portal of the house. Juan Vogel handed him two water buckets to take to the stream to fill. Adán filled them to the brim and brought them back. He was sniffling. Juan Vogel dipped a cup into a bucket before Adán emptied the buckets into the olla. Juan Vogel dropped two Seltzer tablets into the cup and watched them dissolve. When he was sure the dose was thoroughly prepared, he handed it to Adán and watched him carefully while he drank it.
Adán ate his supper in a dream, his cheeks hot as he squatted by the fire, his spine cold, a dry wind in his throat. He did not look at anyone. He went to his blanket after Juan Vogel gave him two more mejorales to take during the night for the sweating.
Adán was up and gone from camp with Juan Vogel's .30-.30 rifle an hour before daylight. He did not remember much about his supper but he knew the vaqueros needed meat and bones. They had already eaten all the meat and bones of the brown bull. He climbed the mountain to Agua Zarca. He knew of a spring where deer watered. An early morning wind was on his back. The spring wind was hurrying the remaining moisture of the Sierra Madre away. This year the wind was more bothersome because it began an hour before daylight, taking a head start against the light dew that might moisten the brow of the Sierra. Adán climbed on with the heavy rifle.
At sunup he stalked the spring. Two bucks arrived at the same time Adán came in sight of the spring. Adán was breathing heavily. He took a deep breath, squatted out of sight of the deer, and tried to calm his breathing. He thought how dumb a hunter he was to walk up in the sight of his prey with his lungs pumping. He was dizzy. He let his head sink down between his knees and had to put a hand out clumsily when he lost his balance. He breathed with his mouth wide open to keep away the sound of the air he used. He recovered, crawled forward up the hill, raised the rifle, sighted it with the first color of a buck, felt the kick of the rifle before he steadied his sight, and saw he had missed. He sighted again and killed a buck with a shot under the ear, but he had missed a shot and the other buck was lost bounding to the safety of a canyon, He went to his kill and bared its beautiful, tight throat. He touched the throat lightly, careful not to bully it with his knife, and opened a font for the blood. The dry earth quickly took the deer's blood.
Adán draped the deer over his neck and shoulders and started back to Gilaremos. On his way down he found the remuda of horses and mules the vaqueros would need for the day's work. He followed the remuda to camp. He laid the deer under a tree at the edge of the patio. Ruelas and Alfredo lifted the deer's head respectfully by the antlers and exclaimed on its nice weight and size. They hung it from a limb of the tree. They turned the deer slowly where it swung and admonished Adán for carrying it so far. They went back to the fire where they refilled their, coffee cups and began sharpening their knives. Celestino the cuckold, the easily irritated shooter of faithful dogs, the bad shot, the one always ready to grouch up the day, came into view from around the rock corral. Adán bowed his head and doubled his concentration on the drinking of his coffee and the sharpening of Juan Vogel's skinning knife.
Celestino stopped at the edge of the portal. "Buenos dias, " he murmured blankly, expressionlessly. He leaned against the horcón pillar at the corner of the portal. The crew of Gilaremos was angry with Celestino for shooting Mariposa, but everyone answered his greeting. Each man prepared himself for his day's work with coffee, knife, reata, or the stirring of fire under the beans. No one but Juan Vogel looked at Celestino. Celestino sighed after noting each man had answered him. His eye fell on Adán and his gaze remained fixed there. He rested one foot on top of the other and watched Adán without using his eyes at all. Adán glanced at him. Ah, he is trying to remember what he did to cause him preoccupation at the sight of me, Adán thought, smiling to himself. Dim, cheerless, friendless Celestino. Old and faithful antagonist who has never missed a tree to hide behind to snipe at me; never faltered in his purpose to flail at me when he could; never missed a conversation in which he could drop an adverse word about me or mine, whether it be my smallest son, or my toro buey, my crop, my woman, or my sore toe. Celestino Reyes the inbred son of first cousins, the poisonous, backbiting, cow-thieving, dog-shooting, stalker of deserted camps, and visitor of husbandless families. The one person who decided, since the day he had his first thought, that the purpose of his life would be to pick at Adán Martinillo from beneath any rock he could find.
"Celestino the heavenly!" announced Juan Vogel. "What brings you here? We are happy because we know you must have come to work. You see we have meat and beans, potatoes, onions, eggs, and coffee, and best of all, hot fat tortillas served three times a day. Almost as good as all these goodnesses, we pay cash wages."
"How much do you pay?" Celestino asked, looking up at the patch of bark he was trying to peel from the horcón.
"The same as always."
Celestino concentrated on the tiniest bit of bark he could manage.
"Fifteen pesos and your food and very diversionary days of work, comradeship, and good fellowship," Juan Vogel added. The thumb of the right hand of Celestino the celestial caused the fine brown bark of the solid horcón to fly as he finished up the chore of cleaning the patch. "No, I don't think so," he said.
"Don't think so the wages, don't think so the food, or don't think so the fun?" Juan Vogel demanded. He spoke to Celestino as though Celestino was so far above him in the heavens he could not hear him well.
"I don't think so because it is not convenient"
"Why, not convenient?"
"No one works for those wages in this region any more. I can get eighteen pesos building the road for the mines at Las Tunas."
"Ah, but the food, the fun, man! The comradeship. The vaquero does not do common labor with his back like the road worker. These vaqueros are all friends using legs and brains to head the cow. A day of gathering and working cattle is a fiesta of jokes here."
"Not convenient. I'll work on the road for better money and be home every evening"
"Three pesos. You turn down your friends who need you, hope you will lend them a hand, for a difference of only three pesos? Come on, man."
"Not convenient."
"Very well, then," Juan Vogel
said abruptly, closing negotiations and grinning at his crew. Some men smiled, relieved Celestino had not accepted the work. They had all known by Juan Vogel's tone that he did not intend to hire Celestino. He knew Celestino would not work. Celestino, however, was feeling good for the chance to refuse Juan Vogel a favor.
Ruelas' wife, Lucia, had come back. She set a cup of coffee on the table by the sugar bowl. She balanced a clean spoon on the cup. "Drink coffee," she ordered Celestino. She did not fool with him as Juan Vogel had done. She served him coffee, remembering that she had never been invited to sit and rest nor been offered a drink of water when passing the house of Celestino. The Reyes' never offered rest, food, or drink to anyone they could hide from. Their house on the main trail to Chinipas always seemed deserted when anyone passed by unless he was a Juan Vogel or some old cacique, owner and lord, who happened back to the Sierra and might make life more convenient for Celestino. Celestino Reyes usually hid behind a tree rather than offer hospitality. His place always looked deserted because he and his fat wife and fat daughters were hiding and holding their breath like snakes surprised in the sun.
Celestino sighed again and began shoveling spoonfuls of sugar into the small cup of black coffee. He stirred, tasted, and put the spoon covered with coffee syrup down on the pool of coffee syrup he had slopped on Lucia's clean tablecloth. He went back to the corner harcón, sipped the coffee noisily until he had swallowed it all, held the empty cup with a finger through the handle in case he was offered more, rested the back of one foot behind a knee, and stared at Adán's bowed head. When he saw Juan Vogel was watching him, he gestured toward Adán by pursing his lips in Adán's direction. He grinned and showed the teeth stained yellow by coffee.
"Has he surrendered his pursuit of the devil now?" he asked Juan Vogel, grinning patronizingly.
"Who?" asked Juan Vogel brusquely.
"Your cousin," Celestino answered, gesturing with chin and lips toward Adán again.
"What cousin? What about my cousin?"
"Martinillo," Celestino said weakly. He cleared his throat. "Martinillo," he said louder.
"Me? What do you want, Celestino?" Adán said, raising his head to stare at Celestino. "Don't be inbred. Ask me your questions. I'm at your service."
"I thought if he has surrendered he might be going home," Celestino said to Juan Vogel. "Since I just came from his house I know more about his woman and children than he does. A pretty woman like that, left all alone, can be prey for all who hunt in the Sierra, even though the 'Lord Hunter' is supposed to be her protector."
"You come from Las Animas? When were you there? What business did you have at my home?" Adán demanded.
"I looked in on the poor woman and found her sick with grief and fear, her children secluded in their beds. I asked for Martinillo and she said he was hunting El Yoco. Her trouble was that same El Yoco. He was at Las Animas last night and Martinillo wasn't there. The animal went in close enough to kill the buckskin mare and to fight the bull. The neck of the mare was broken and she was lying dead not more than ten paces from this man's back door."
"And the bull?" Adán asked.
"Isn't he going to ask about his wife and children?" Celestino asked Juan Vogel.
"You told us about Lucrecia and the boys," Juan Vogel said.
Adán forced himself to relax and be patient. He tried the blade of Juan Vogel's knife at shaving the hair on the back of his hand. He would not ask Celestino another question. Celestino was going to savor giving each bit of information in his own time and manner. He would only tease if Adán questioned him.
"Well, the bull is surely good enough for jerky now after this last encounter with the animal, whatever it is. When I left Las Animas the poor woman was carrying water to him. He couldn't go to water by himself."
"You are sure Lucrecia didn't need your help?" Juan Vogel asked.
"Of course she did. I wanted to stay but I thought it better to try and find this man if he was still in the region. I thought to find him nearer his home, close on the track of the animal. Undoubtedly the same animal he is following killed the mare. I never thought to find him sitting by a fire in a camp. I only came here to warn these vaqueros to notify the man his woman needed him if they saw him. He is needed if for nothing else than to butcher the mare and the bull so the poor woman and those children can salvage the meat. She and those little creatures of hers can subsist alone for quite awhile on that meat when this man leaves them again. I feel very sorry for the poor woman and those sweet children. I thought of taking the little children home with me for my wife to care for."
"Did you see the track of the animal, Celestino?" Adán asked.
"I did."
"Describe it, if you please, Celestino."
"Now, don't think I am an expert on the devil jaguar like some people think they are, but I have seen my share of tracks and I would not say the track I saw was the track of a jaguar."
"Would you say it was the track of a javelina, a house cat, an elephant, a gringo?" Adán asked unsmilingly. His companions laughed, though none looked at Celestino.
"No, ha, ha," said Celestino. "Though I wouldn't know the track of an elephant because that animal is not of this region. The elephant is of other regions unknown to me." He showed his teeth in the yellow smile from which all the coffee had almost slipped.
"Can you describe the track, Celestino, as a track of an animal of this region since you saw it in this region?"
"Well, yes, I saw the track and followed it away from Las Animas. I did not follow it far, you understand, because the poor woman was in no mood to be left alone. In fact, I would still be there had not--"
"Yes, Celestino, we know all about the poor woman. We now want to know about the track."
"Larger than my fist. The track belonged to a large puma or león parda, perhaps. I don't think the track was made by a jaguar. There are no tigres in this region. They have been gone for a long time. I had no way of being sure, you see, because I did not follow the track long enough to see the animal. You see, I was unarmed and leaving the poor woman alone and also unarmed. But I seriously considered going after the animal while he was nearby even though I didn't even have a dog to help me find him or to defend me. I even thought perhaps if I hurried with a rock I might cause the animal to pause, and I might kill it or even cripple it."
"Too bad about the poor woman," Juan Vogel said. "You surely would have killed the animal if not for her. With a rock, even."
Celestino grinned and sighed again. "I'm very good at throwing rocks, large ones too, but I returned instead to the poor woman's side." He straightened and rested one foot on the instep of the other. "Those big animals are very cowardly. ¡Lástima tamaño! What a waste of size and strength. To be so big and that large in cowardice as well!"
"Then the animal was big, Celestino?" Adán asked.
"Immense! And by this I mean very big," assured Celestino. "Haven't I been telling you?"
Adán rose. He was dizzy and hot. He coughed and picked up his rifle and gear. He took medicine for the grippe from a box of provisions. He went to the hanging deer, skinned a front quarter and took the quarter, leaving the sleeve of hide hanging slack. He wrapped the meat in the flour sack in his morral.
The Mariposa dog had been lying near the fire all morning after coming in alone from a hunt. Adán called him. The dog came to him happily, lifting his head to smell and lick the dry blood on his hands.
"We'll see each other," Adán said to the crew and left the camp.
Juan Vogel stirred fire into a smoking log, lit his cigarette with its flame hot on his hand and face, drew on the cigarette, crossed his legs as he turned away from the fire, narrowed his yellow eyes against the smoke, and said, "He won't work now. And to finish me off he took that good dog of his."
10
Lucrecia had lighted her lamps. The boys were playing on the kitchen floor. Adán climbed his stoop and stood inside the door. Mariposa, wiggling slightly with shy pleasure, went into the kitchen
ahead of him to lick the boys. Lucrecia leaned backward from her hearth to see into her front room and saw Adán. She did not change expression. She straightened and watched her cooking. The dog licked the face of the Governor, who bellowed and slapped him. Mariposa backed off and went for Memín who liked to be licked. Adancito grabbed the dog and hugged him.
'Mamá, the Mariposa," Adancito said. "And where do you come from, dog?" he crooned.
"With your father. Maybe he brought him. Run and see, sons," Lucrecia said. Rolando saw his father first and said, "¡Ahí no viene?" "Isn't that him?" The boys stood and looked at their father. The Governor was held back by new advances of Mariposa, who was examining his chin and cheek for some sweet smear he might be wearing. Adán laid down his gear and walked into the warm kitchen. He bent and kissed each of his boys. The Governor, fascinated by the sight of his father, did not move or speak. Adán embraced Lucrecia who still had not turned to face him.
"No!" she said. He kissed the corner of her mouth. He stood off and looked at her and saw a clear spot of honey stuck below the corner of her mouth. He kissed the place and licked the honey. "No! I don't love you. Vagabond," she said. She turned to look at him and he knew she was examining him to confirm some suspicion. "You're sick. What do you do to yourself? Look at the condition in which you return yourself to me, animal. If you could see yourself!"