The Forests of the Night - J P S Brown

by J P S Brown

  "Laughing at me," murmured Juan de Dios, who had thought he would allow himself to rest when he arrived at the rocks the jokesters were sitting on. "Lack of respect this early in the project is bad." He looked down at the rocks and saw they would be comfortable places to sit. Rocks warmed by the sun were good places for him to sit because they comforted his hemorrhoids, which now were being agitated by dust. He moved on, not realizing great movement because his tender white feet in his thin, hot oxfords were no longer good at finding steps for the columns of his fat legs. He could barely swing the legs forward uphill, and his soles never planted themselves evenly on the rocky ground. Not one step ever placed itself where it should, as a playing card dealt on a trail could never lie flat. They turned, bounced, returned, flopped, and teetered on their edges.

  He looked at his deputies who seemed to be racing away from him, their heads down as they conversed secretly to one another, too far ahead for him to hear what they were saying, going so far ahead they soon would leave him out of sight. He grunted and said, "How much farther?" He cleared his throat, dared not stop, for one step lost would put him completely out of hearing, made his voice gruff, and said, "Wait, now!" The two closest to him turned to him. "How much farther?" he repeated.

  "¿Mande?" the least insolent of the two said with some respect, as though truly waiting on the mandate of Juan de Dios.

  Juan de Dios stopped and straightened his back, his spine being the only part of him he could still control. He beckoned abruptly to the man who had answered him in the same way he would beckon to a shoeshine boy. He kept silent until the man stood close to him. "Where are you leading me?" he asked. "I thought you said the horses were near town. What are you trying to do, walk me to death?"

  "But the horses are close. See, we only have to climb this hill, go through the pass there and down the other side to the ranch of Bacajaqui. You can rest there while we get the horses and send the mule back to San Bernardo for our saddles and provisions."

  "¡Qué Bacajaqui, ni qué caballajaqui! Don't cow me a jaqui nor horse me a jaqui! All this walking could have been saved me. I should have stayed in San Bernardo near a phone and other communication. This trekking is typical of you cheritos, bean-fed to bean-brained ranchers. You walk a thousand kilometers laughing and talking so you can lay down and rest when you get to the place where the work should begin."

  "But the ranch at Bacajaqui has a telephone, Jefe. You said you needed exclusive use of a telephone at your headquarters. The ranch belongs to my father-in-law. You will be well attended there."

  "Fine. This is my wish," Juan de Dios said, stepping out again. "Lead the way then. But if it is much farther you and your companions are going to begin earning your pay as pack animals by carrying me. We'll see if you are good for that."

  The hours of walking over the pass and down into the canyon of Bacajaqui were the most tortured of the life of Juan de Dios. He did not thank the ranch women for the coffee they served him nor the cot they gave him to rest on when he arrived. He had spent himself in wasting an entire day, was forced to wait longer on these Indians for the horses he needed, and was so sore and tired he was unable to supervise them further to hurry them. He slept through the afternoon while the four capitalists and the peón went after the horses.

  The peón of Don Jilo found the track of the bald-faced mule in the canyon of Bacajaqui. The mule had joined a band of mares and run with them up the canyon. The capitalists joined him and hurried on the track. They hurried for the first time that day. The men had only enough light remaining in the day to find and catch the mule. They would have to take him back to Bacajaqui in the dark and use him to wrangle the saddle horses the next morning. They were beginning to feel ashamed that they were taking so long to catch one mule. They did pride themselves in being able to procure animals from the brush when they wanted them. They could only excuse themselves because Patas de Baraja had held down their pace. If he became angry with them they could find themselves without a job before they had a chance to become heroes.

  The canyon was long. Someone was going to have to get ahead of the band and turn it into a box canyon called Ojo de Agua, or they were going to be following the mares all the way into the state of Chihuahua.

  The peón went out of the canyon, got on the rim, saw the mares as they were nearing Ojo de Agua, ran hard to get ahead of them, and turned them into the box canyon. The eight dogs caught up to him, passed him, and ran into the box canyon after the mares, raising a scandal of barking. The pain stopped and waited for the capitalists at the mouth of Ojo de Agua. The dogs came back and lay around him panting.

  Ojo de Agua was only one hundred meters long but so deep in sheer, black, obsidianlike rock that the clear pool of water in the end was in shade all the time except at noon on summer days. The vainoro was so thick in the canyon that a machete trail had to be cleared through it each year so livestock could water there. A large chapote tree grew halfway to the spring and its heavy top was even with the rim of the canyon. The trunk of the chapote was fifteen meters in diameter, its top was as wide as the canyon, and its boughs and leaves were so dense a man could not see past the bottom branches of the tree. The chapote of Ojo de Agua was a king of trees and had definite fame as a great tree in a region where immense trees were common.

  The box canyon of Ojo de Agua, though short and lying by the much-used trail of Bacajaqui, was a wild place seldom entered by the people of the region. The people were accustomed to the wilds of the Sierra, respected them, even loved them, though they never voiced this love. But respect was the only feeling they had for Ojo de Agua. Ojo de Agua was a place where predators trapped livestock. A place for big snakes, Gila monsters, lions, vipers, and other vicious beings that hid there to prey and to water. A man stooping and crawling in that canyon was not in his most defensible position.

  Men had entered Ojo de Agua without meaning to, from the top. The brush around the rim of the canyon was impenetrable and a man had to stand on the brink of the rim to see the chasm. If a man happened on the end of the canyon above the pool, he did not see the eye of the pool unless he was leaning dangerously over the brink. A goatherd once stepped into the canyon with every confidence his next step was going to be on smooth green matting. He was looking for a stray goat, found him, and saw him run ahead and disappear. He thought the goat had run across a clean open space covered by a matting of thick green leaves. The goatherd, wondering that he had never seen the matted space, stepped into the top of the chapote of Ojo de Agua expecting solid turf. He caught himself as he fell through the lower branches, broke his fall, and landed hard but unhurt beside the goat. The goat, who had no hands with which to catch at branches, was lying dead of a broken neck at the bottom of the tree.

  These were the reasons why the peón of Don Jilo was not going into Ojo de Agua, and the reasons the dogs had calmed themselves and returned to pant close at his feet without smiling or looking at him. The peón watched the arrival of the capitalists and listened to them make their plans for capture of the ba1d-faced mule.

  "I'll go in with one of you," said the man everyone called El Puros Ojos, All-Eyes. He was called El Puros Ojos because his bulging green eyes took up half the space of his face. His face was all shining green orbs in dark and cavernous sockets. He was the most enterprising of the four, the most mobile, the most cynical, and the one who won all the card games. He took the initiative in assuming the mantle of hero.

  "The other two of you will remain here," he said. "Be ready with your reatas to catch the mule when he comes out if we miss him at the spring. Turn him back into the Ojo de Agua if you miss. Four of us heroes with reatas should have no trouble catching one bald-faced mule." He started into the canyon, sensed he was alone and turned to see who would come with him. No one had moved, not even the dogs. The dogs and the other capitalists were looking at infinity. The peón was looking at the ground.

  "Accompany me," El Puros Ojos ordered the peón.

  The peón looked away until
El Puros Ojos thought he was not going to answer. Then the peón shifted his feet until they were planted comfortably in the sand and said, "I won't go. Not even for your mother."

  "Well, come on, one of you heroes!" El Puros Ojos said to his companions.

  "I guess I'll go," said the one whose father-in-law owned the ranch at Bacajaqui. "I don't like the place, but I've been there before and nothing happened to me." He moved quickly, like a man plunging into a cold bath, and a moment later the two men were stooping and grappling through the vainoro. The dogs, brave with the example of men, passed them and moved ahead of them out of sight.

  El Puros Ojos and his companion tired of the trail before they reached the chapote. They stopped to rest and smoke. They heard the dogs raising a new scandal over some inhabitant of the chapote. El Puros Ojos turned to see up the trail. He heard a dog cry, hurt. He saw the dogs suddenly, very close in a bunch, running at him as fast as eight dogs can run and stay together. He had time to raise himself before they hit him. The pack cried when it saw its way blocked, rammed El Puros Ojos, knocked him aside and cut eight trails over his companion as they snapped at him and plowed furrows with worn claws through his clothing and through his scalp and carried his hat away floating over their backs.

  "Look at them, think of them, the dogs!" said El Puros Olos in his surprise.

  "¡Perros, hijas de lu chingada!" said his companion, touching gingerly the scratches and right of ways the dogs had cut through his hair.

  "What sent the dogs out in such a hurry?" called one of the men who had stayed in the mouth of the canyon.

  "¿. . . . sabe?" drawled El Puros Ojos, not caring if he was heard. "Who knows?"

  "They came out like a load of buckshot! They didn't stop. I think they've gone home." The men outside Ojo de Agua were laughing.

  El Puros Ojos and his companion crawled to the chapote where they could stand and straighten their backs. They saw the tracks of the dogs where they had been turned back from the tree. The two men looked into the tree.

  "What scared the dogs, Ojos?" El Puros Ojos' companion only glanced into the tree. He did not search it well.

  "¿Quién sabe?" said El Puros Ojos, not looking at his friend. He had begun to search the tree conscientiously with his good eyes and had stopped doing it without consciously knowing his reason for stopping. "Probably a solitario. Any dog who has ever faced El Solitario and survived will run home when he encounters another."

  The two men went on to the pool of Ojo de Agua. The mares turned back from the pool and stampeded past them. The men missed their loops at the bald-faced mule.

  "There they go!" shouted El Puros Ojos to warn the men at the mouth of the canyon. He and his companion heard the grunting, blaring squeal of a mule echo quickly, sharply in the canyon.

  "Be ready! They're going fast," El Puros Ojos called again. He heard the hooves of the band striking through the canyon, the bodies hurtling, rebounding, falling, breaking through in the mindless, headlong way horses stampede. He heard the shouts and low coaxing of the men outside Ojo de Agua as the mares appeared. He then heard their profanity when the mares escaped. The canyon was silent.

  "And the mule?" he heard one of the men ask the other.

  "And the mule?" they both shouted at El Puros Ojos.

  "Wasn't he with them?" shouted El Puros Ojos. "He was behind the mares."

  "He didn't come out."

  “We'll see to it! Be ready!" El Puros Ojos shouted these instructions but did not move. He and his companion were remembering the squeal of a mule. El Puros Ojos stared at his friend.

  "Have you ever seen the devil, Ojos?" asked the companion.

  "I'm not sure."

  "Look at your face in the pool, man."

  "¡Madre!" scoffed El Puros Ojos. "Let's get out of here."

  They found the mule dead at the foot of the chapote with one side of his white face caved in.

  "What kind of animal does that?" asked the friend of El Puros Oios.

  "Tigre, " said El Puros Ojos, staring at the mule.

  "How did he know we wanted the bald-faced mule?"

  "¡ . . . saaaabe!"

  "Shall we skin him for the meat and hide?"

  "Of course, let's stay here and wait for a tigre to fall on us."

  "Will he come back?"

  "Has he gone? You want to wait and see? Stay if you want to. I don't like the meat of mule."

  The two men did not find the brush so thick or tiring on the way out of Ojo de Agua.

  * * *

  Juan de Dios realized he had failed when he hobbled back to San Bernardo the next evening alone. After they said they had lost their wrangling mule to a tigre, his recruits had gone that moming on foot to find the saddle horses. Juan de Dios waited the entire day and the four men did not return. At sundown, he left Bacajaqui for San Bernardo.

  He wet his feet in the dark in the stream below San Bernardo because he stepped into the water before he saw it or remembered it or cared it was there. He hurried, extravagant of his last reserves of energy when he saw the lights of Poncho Montenegro's store. He remembered Poncho's cheeses. The women at Bacajaqui had given him only refried beans and corn tortillas while he was there. They had no other food. He got no more coffee after breakfast that morning because the women said they had no more coffee. He felt a conspiracy had been armed against him. The famous private telephone of Bacajaqui was on one line that served over fifty telephones in the Sierra Madre from San Bernardo to Chinipas to Arechuyvo.

  He climbed the hill to Poncho's store and saw five strong saddled mules standing in the lamplight from the door. He went inside and sat on a sack of beans before anyone could notice the agony he suffered walking. Five mountain men were relaxing in the store with Poncho. They stopped talking and looked at Juan de Dios. Poncho greeted him, Cut him a wedge of cheese, and handed it to him. Juan de Dios did not thank him.

  "Have you seen my men?" Juan de Dios asked Poncho.

  "They've not returned, Juan de Dios. At least I've not seen them."

  "They've deserted me. Now, instead of going back with me to Rio Alamos as representatives of the government, they'll be going as my prisoners to be punished."

  "They'll probably return soon, Juan de Dios," Poncho said gently.

  "I'm not concerned about them any more. They're deserters. I'm going on with my business. Who owns those Five mules outside?"

  "They're ours," said a tall mountain man at the counter. "At your service."

  "You bet your sweet mother those mules are at my service. I hate a mule. A mule is a natural deserter. But it appears to me I'm surrounded by mules and deserters. Therefore, I'm going to commandeer these mules for the time being, and I'm going to call for federal soldiers. We'll see if this population of mules in San Bernardo can cooperate under martial law."

  "And your authority?" asked the tall mountain man.

  "I am Juan de Dios Felix, Federal Commissioner of this district."

  "No. You are not the commissioner of any district," said the mountain man, leaning against the counter comfortably.

  "What? You don't know who I am? Ask the storekeeper."

  "I would like to see your credentials?"

  "And you? Who are you to question me?"

  "I am the chief of Federal Judicial Police for this region."

  "You? With your huaraches and leather chaparreras and mules? You don't even feel the spurs on your heels because of the dirt and calluses."

  "Si, Señor, I do."

  Juan de Dios looked closely at the tall man, investigated the faces of the other four men. All the faces looked back at him impassively. He found the proof of the mountain man's claim in the faces. He did not like good law enforcers. They were responsible for his being filed away in his dark rooms in Rio Alamos. "Well, thank God," Juan de Dios bluffed. "Now I'll have the assistance of real professionals."

  "May I please see the credential you have been showing to prove your authority?" asked the tall man.

  "Of course," said
Juan de Dios, handing him the over-sized card. The eagle and serpent and red, white, and green colors of Mexico on the credential flashed importantly in his hand.

  The tall man examined it a moment and pocketed it.

  "This card is nothing but a membership card for the association of retired officials," he said. "You have no authority here and you have abused the right to carry this card. You will hand me your pistol and return to Rio Alamos."

  Juan de Dios meekly, carefully, handed over his pistol.

  "But I can be of help to you," said he. "You have to learn how to lead these people. I have much experience." He found he could not keep his voice level or his backbone straight any more. His feet hurt so badly he felt like weeping.

  "Listen carefully, sir," said the tall man as he slid the pistol into a saddlebag on the counter. "You will leave San Bernardo by the earliest public conveyance. I hope you understand my order. The next bus. You will return to your home and await the orders of the Federal Commissioner. You will speak to no one, give no orders. You will get out of sight or I will send you back in irons under guard."

  "And you, huararhúdo? I have yet to be shown your credentials. What right have you to give me orders?"

  The tall man turned away, thanked Poncho Montenegro, paid him for provisions, and walked out with his men. Juan de Dios sat still, alarmed that he might be facing a jail sentence for his bullying. He knew the law. He had bullied himself into losing his pistol, hurting his feet, and probably going to a jail containing his enemies. In that moment, at the end of his life, he realized he was a fool and tears formed in his eyes.

  Poncho Montenegro had been moving back and forth from a back room and now came around from behind the counter. He set a chair and a small table covered with a clean tablecloth in front of the old man. He laid a hot supper and a glass of mezcal on the table.

  "Your supper, Juan de Dios," Poncho said gently. "You are tired, so take your time and drink the mezcal so you'll have a good appetite."