The Forests of the Night - J P S Brown

by J P S Brown

  "Just don't drown me," he said when he was finally sure he would live. "Kill me, but don't drown me."

  The force lifted him again by sore arm and sore scalp and drove him to the tree where the girl was tied. The girl was still hiding. The force piled him at the base of the tree and Chombe looked up and saw Adán untying the knot of the rope on the limb. This was the first sight Chombe had of the man since he had seen him running down the bank of the stream.

  Adán tied the end of the horsehair rope around Chombe's neck and only when he tried to pull in the slack of the other end did he realize something alive was on it.

  "¡Qué hijas de lu chingada has hecho aqui! What have you sons of the fornication done here now!" Adán said, pulling on the live, hidden weight at the end of the rope. Chombe jumped up to run, and Adán jerked him down onto his back with the choke loop. "Sit where I left you sitting or I'll kill you," he said. He pulled angrily on the rope and the girl came to him through brush and boulders. Her hands covered her face. Adán pulled the hands away roughly, cruelly.

  "Luz del Carmen, you with this idiot murderer?" Adán said.

  "Leave her alone. She is not any of your business. She is mine, right, little daughter?" Chombe said, as though conspiring with the girl.

  Luz del Carmen covered her face and kept still as though expecting a blow or a rebuke. Adán examined the hair collar on Luz del Carmen. The girl's neck had been cut and worn by the rope. Adán cut the collar away from her. He felt like weeping, understanding suddenly the extent of the bad treatment the girl had been enduring. He was also sad for himself for having discovered this crime. He walked over to Chombe and struck him behind the ear with the butt of his rifle in exactly the same way he would have struck a crippled animal to give him respite from misery. He stretched the boy out and tied him securely to the tree. He stood his rifle by the tree and went to wash the ooze of Chombe from his hands. When he came back with his gear to the tree he saw the girl had taken his rifle and was pointing it at him with no immediate intent to kill him. He paid her no mind. He looked at his knots on Chombe. He sat at the base of the tree in the shade and got his tobacco and corn leaf out of a waterproof plastic bag in his morral and made a cigarette. The tobacco smoke left a comfortably numb taste that soothed him.

  "Let him go," the girl said, steadying the rifle at Adán.

  "Don't you want to see your father, girl?"

  "No."

  "Why?"

  "How could I face my father now?"

  "Could you have faced your father yesterday?"

  "Yes, but then I was helping him, and Chombe had not come."

  "Why does Chombe make any difference? He's not your father."

  "He has me now."

  "Does he own you? Did you give yourself to him? Do you love him and wish to serve him?"

  "No. But he has me now to use."

  "Who else knows this?"

  "No one."

  "How do you know this man disgraced you?"

  "He tied me, beat me, choked me, tore me inside, and opened me for himself."

  "Did you want him to?"

  "No."

  "Do you want him to do more of these things to you and then kill you when he is tired of you?"

  "No, but he took me. I have to go with him and you have to let him go."

  "Ah! You lost your purity, is that it?"

  "Yes."

  "Who told you that you would no longer be chaste and pure after you had been raped?"

  "The padre cura from Chihuahua who gave us girls instruction said we must fight until we die for our purity or we will go to hell. Other girls became saints because they fought the men until the men stabbed them or choked them to death. I fought little. This man was too strong for me. He took me easily. What good man would have me now? No one will want me, not even my father."

  "How do you know? Did he tell you? Have you seen him?"

  "No. He did not come home last night from his work. But he'll look at me and know I'm not clean."

  "Listen, girl. Because this man didn't kill you while he was playing with himself with you doesn't make you impure. This man raped you. He forced you. You did not help him. He hurt you to make you submit to the badness he was doing to himself. He hurt your body, but it will heal with no trace of him. You can forget him. Remembering him is not to your advantage. Going with him is not to your advantage. In order for you to lose your purity you have to want to do what he did to you."

  "Anyone who does this is impure."

  "Who told you that?"

  "The priest."

  "You understood wrongly. Do you consider your poor mother impure because she conceived you? I don't consider Lucrecia impure because she gives herself to me. She loves me and I love her. Nor should you consider yourself impure because this man abused himself with you. You gave him nothing. He only used you for his masturbation. You are chaste and you will make a good wife. When you love a man you will know the difference between impurity and chastity more than most women do. I don't believe the padre in Chinipas would consider his own mother impure for having loved his father and given him birth. You become unchaste only when you want to do something which dirties you. You have not done that."

  "I wish he had killed me."

  "From the standpoint of his soul, he could have done no worse by killing you. From your standpoint and mine and your father's it would have been terribly sad if he killed you. You have your life. I'm grateful to God. In less than a week you'll be grateful too, and someday you'll find you are just as pure as you were before that idiot oozed into your camp. That is impurity, that oozing thing I tied under the tree. You see?"

  "I know everyone will look at me. I'll have a baby.

  They're going to say I'm Chombe's puta. "

  "Worry if you want to when you start getting a big belly. Not now. Babies are beautiful and innocent. Anyone can make a baby, even bad men. Good mothers sometimes make them nice people."

  "No one would want me if I show with the baby of this salamander."

  Adán laughed. "You haven't got a baby yet. You don't get babies every time a man uses you, thank God. Men will love you and you will have your choice of whom you want to marry, you don't need to worry about that. Choose the man who will love your children whether or not they are his and you don't have to tell anyone who the father is. I won't tell anyone."

  "The salamander will."

  "Him? He probably will. So what? You don't owe any explanations. You just keep quiet until your belly starts growing. If you don't grow, keep on being quiet. People get tired asking questions when you just look at them until they realize they have no business asking questions. You can do that, can't you?"

  "Yes."

  "That's all you have to do, Luz del Carmen. Forget it. You don't have to worry about Chombe. He is a burnt-out light bulb. As soon as he revives, we're taking him to Avena so we can call for the authorities."

  "I won't go to Avena. I can't even walk."

  "I'll carry you."

  "Not to Avena with the people. I want to go home."

  "No. I'll go for the authorities in Chinipas. It's just as close. I know a good place for you there. But let's go now so I can come back for Chombe tonight."

  Adán shouldered his gear and picked the girl up on his back. The girl's head was asleep on his back before he remembered he had not looked for Chombe's rifle under the horse. He coughed and hurried on. He would hurry back. Chombe could not escape the Sierra Madre unless a salamander could become a wolf.

  12

  Celestino Reyes hurried on against all his premonitions. He was always afraid when he traveled at night. He was especially afraid when big animals were known to be out killing other big animals. He was thirsty when he arrived at the pool of the duck and the hawk. The moon was so pale and small rising on the horizon it was serving only to make deeper shadows to hide animals who could hurt him and obscure objects lying malignantly in wait to turn his ankles or make ominous sounds he did not want to hear. Celestino, walkin
g at night over country a long way from home moved so fast he cast almost no shadow and left no sound.

  He hated to make sounds. He hated to tarry over any step. He was afraid to make any noise that would cause other beings to make noises and sights that scared him. He held his breath half the time. He was thirsty with fear and with breathing through his mouth to breathe quieter. But home was still at least two hours away and he didn't think he could make the climb in comfort unless he stopped for a drink of water. The pool of the duck and the hawk was open and well lighted under the moon. He stopped and looked around after he crossed the stream. Aside from a strange light spot under the big tree, he could see no dangerous beings to keep him from drinking. Rigid with fear he knelt to drink. His foot slipped and plunged a knee into the water. He kept drinking as fast as he could.

  He raised his head for breath and saw a grayish boulder in the water close to him that he had never noticed in the hundreds of times he had passed and drunk at this pool. These boulders changed positions often during the rainy season, but the rainy season was three months away. He moved toward the shape, sniffing it. His eyes were wide as he could open them. He stayed low on his hands and knees though he was cold in the water. He did not travel far in that manner, water-bound. He reached forward and touched the gray hair on the gray shape of the drowned horse and at that moment identified the smell of a drowned horse. He floundered, sank to his shoulder in the deep hole by the horse and wet himself to his chin before he steadied himself. He found himself looking at a saddle on a dead horse and not mossy, brushy trash on a boulder.

  He looked around slyly until he was sure no one was watching to see he intended to take the saddle. Those eyes he thought he saw under the tree were undoubtedly not real eyes because his vision was always cowardly at night. He told himself he was not seeing eyes but only felt he was being watched. He always felt that way when he was about to steal something. He had not truly meant to steal the saddle. No one yet could have seen him steal a saddle because he had not even seen a way to get it loose from the carcass. He backed carefully, even with some dignity, out of the water and stood cold and undecided, watching the light spot with eyes under the tree. The spot moved.

  "Who are you?" he murmured, afraid of the sound of his own voice. "Let me see you," he begged when he got no answer. He started to sidle away.

  "I'm Chombe and don't move. I have you in the sights of my pistol."

  Celestino looked away from the light spot. The spot had not moved again, and he was sure it did not have eyes and positive it was not pointing a gun at him.

  "Chombe? Little Chombe? How have you been behaving, Chombito? I was just on my way home. Did you see this saddle on the dead horse? The saddle is getting wet. Where are you? I don't see you."

  "That is my horse. My saddle. My sights are on your heart."

  "You should get the saddle out of the water. I'm sorry I can't help you because I'm wet and cold and I have to go home." Celestino tried to move.

  "You are moving, Celestino. I'm going to kill you for that"

  "Kill me? Why? You wouldn't kill me, Chombe, would you? It would not be very convenient for you to do that."

  "Least of all convenient for you. I won't kill you if you help me."

  "Of course, Chombe. Anything. I'm here to be of any service possible. What can I do?"

  "I'm hurt. I can't move my shoulder. You are going to be a good neighbor and help me."

  Celestino moved toward the sound of the voice. "Of course, where are you, poor boy?"

  "Stand and listen."

  "Of course." Celestino stopped so suddenly he stumbled.

  "Take the saddle off the horse."

  Celestino splashed into the water. He was no longer cold. He moved so fast he made the water churn and muddy itself. He did not immediately discover the ends of the latigo and the cinch buckle, so he pounded the water as though to clear the way for his hands to the cinch buckle. He held his breath so long he became exhausted from his great flurry of energy and he stumbled into the deep hole by the horse. He came up knowing he had taken a good look at his own death.

  "Chombe!" he cried, choking on water.

  "Right! I'll kill you or the water will if you don't calm yourself. Hear me?"

  "Yes. All right," Celestino said, trying for control. Chombe laughed. "Sing a song for me. Singing will comfort you and steady my aim. When I shoot, you want me to shoot straight, don't you?"

  "No, don't."

  "You wouldn't want me to shoot straight? What if I miss your head or your heart and hit your spine and cripple you, or worse, what if I break your bones three or four times before I send the bullet that stops your pain?"

  "Yes, but no, don't shoot. I sing, not well, but I know how." He went back to the cinches and luckily found the end of the latigo he needed to untie and free the saddle.

  "Well, sing then."

  "I have a sweetheart named Panchita. She has black eyes and a little mouth," Celestino murmured, singing.

  "What? Sing loudly. I want to hear the echoes. If the next sound you make is not the loudest you have ever made it will be the last sound you ever make."

  "I don't know what to do with her, Mamá, " Celestino brayed into the canyon. "Sooooo that she'll love me. That Panchita's got me crazy with her fooling around." He jerked the saddle free of the horse.

  "Now bring the saddle to the bank."

  Celestino dragged the saddle out of the water and relaxed his lingers so it fell on the bank. He looked at the boughs of the tree much in the same way he had seen pictures of Christian martyrs look beseechingly at the heavens just before they were eaten alive.

  "Now, listen carefully, Celestino, my friend. A man is tied to that tree you are facing. The man is unconscious. Carry the rifle from the saddle scabbard to the tree. Loose the man's bonds, but don't look at him or wonder who he is. He is only a poor half-dead bale of flesh who is of no concern to you. After the man is free you hurry back to the saddle. Now do it quickly. Quickly! And make no mistakes; I'm tired of doing your thinking for you."

  Celestino went to the tree with the rifle. He stumbled over Chombe and skinned his face against the tree in his hurry. He leaned the rifle against the tree, found the hair rope and freed Chombe. He stood over the body, unsure of what his instructions had been. He looked down at Chombe's face. He did not recognize him in the shadows of the moon. Chombe rolled out from underneath him, grabbed the rifle, and levered a shell into the chamber.

  "Thank you, Celestino," Chombe grinned.

  "Is it you, Chombe?"

  Chombe kept grinning at him.

  "But who is the other man who has been talking to me?

  He has your voice."

  Chombe laughed. "He's gone, I guess. You wouldn't know him."

  "What do you want with me, Chombe?"

  "Go back to the saddle like the man instructed you and tell him you have freed me."

  Celestino hurried back to the saddle. "Chombito is no longer tied," he said loudly.

  "Bring the saddle and build a fire, Celestino. I guess the man has gone."

  Celestino built a fire under the tree. As he worked he remembered how afraid he had been walking the trail alone in the dark. How different that fear had been from real fear. He had been afraid all his life, hour by hour, by the minute, sick with fear, but he had never known the cause of his fright. Now, this moment, he knew. Chombe was the catalyst to the end of Celestino's chosen fears. Celestino's freedom was over and so was his life.

  "What have you got in your morral to eat, Celestino?"

  Chombe asked good--naturedly.

  "A little coffee and tortilla. Very little. I'll give it all to you, though."

  "Good. Get it for me."

  "But who was that man with your voice? Won't he come back to bother us?"

  "No, because we are going home. Sing as you go. I'll follow you closely. Sing all the way home and don't look back."

  13

  The town of Chinipas was awakening when Adán Martinill
o arrived with Luz del Carmen. He had to dodge and hide on the river side of the town so no one would see them. He stood in brush beside the air strip watching the town. He heard the sound of the route plane that came to Chinipas three times a week. The sound of the engine rattled against escarpments along the river, and Adán saw the craft begin to spiral down to the canyon. He moved around the stip, knowing the pilot was concentrating on his approach and would see Adán if he crossed the strip. He knelt behind boulders at the edge of town when a boy driving a herd of cows to pasture passed close to him. He let the herd go on, located the door of the house he would enter, and sprinted the last two hundred meters across backyards and under clotheslines without being seen. He went through the back door of the house and stood in the silent, dark interior. He held the girl and looked at her. She seemed like any child who felt safe in sleep. Her face no longer seemed as devastated as it was when he found her.

  He laid the child on a sofa and covered her with a robe he had used many times to cover himself, a robe his grandmother had given to the woman who lived in this house. He was still until he located the woman's breathing. He followed the sound into a bedroom. She was lying deep under the covers with her reddish-blond hair barely showing, her face toward the wall in her pillow.

  He watched her while he decided how to awaken her. Since childhood she had always slept without moving, leaving her body deep in comfort and going away on glorious ventures while it rested.