The Forests of the Night - J P S Brown

by J P S Brown

Juan de Dios reached absently for the glass. "Good," said Poncho. "I'll have your bed ready when you want to rest." He walked toward the back room and left the old man alone.

  Juan de Dios raised his head. "Thank you," he said weakly. He cleared his throat. "Thank you, Poncho," he said clearly.

  Chombe Servín giggled softly when he saw the five men mount their mules and ride away from the light of the store. He and Celestino were hiding from them in a corral behind Poncho's warehouse.

  "How can you laugh, Chombe?" Celestino asked.

  "I have money. I am safe in the dark. I have a good little gatito, little cat servant, in you. Poncho paid you well for the beef of Juan Vogel's barren cow."

  "Fifteen hundred pesos is not a good price for 150 kilos of meat. He has always given me a better price for my beef."

  "He knows you are a thief. He's not fool enough to believe this is your own beef you are passing through his back door at night. You were stupid not to ask more money if you thought he was cheating you."

  "He'll tell on me if I argue prices with him."

  "He'll tell no one. I'll kill him before he does that. Besides, he would never confess to the law that he sells beef he buys in the night from a coward like you."

  "Poncho is a good man. He extends credit to everyone. If every man who owes him would pay him he would not have to buy stolen beef."

  "Poor baby! Get our saddle horses and the pack mule and go home. I'm going to follow the judicial to their camp."

  "You'll be caught."

  Chombe laughed. "No. They'll have a fire to comfort them. I'll watch them, listen to them. Go to any fire in the night as I do and you'll find how close you can get and how much you can learn without being discovered."

  "Where will you go after you spy on the judicial?"

  "To Guasaremos to spy on the vaqueros of Juan Vogel and take the fat, strong cattle they miss gathering."

  "And me? What about my share of the money?"

  "You go home to your fat wife and keep quiet as you always do. I'm grateful to that woman. When you are with her you never open your mouth."

  "And money?"

  Chombe handed him four banknotes off the roll Poncho had paid Celestino for the meat. Celestino held them close to his face, rubbing them carefully to see if any had stuck together. Finally, he was sure they were only four.

  "Four hundred pesos. Is that all you give me? This is our third beef. I need my whole share."

  "Four hundred pesos is better than being castrated with a sharp stick, isn't it?" Chombe laughed at Celestino in the dark as Celestino hurried away. Chombe the salamander had become a wolf.

  15

  The red rooster of Las Animas went early to the swept ground of the patio under the nacapúl tree. He spoke with a rolling growl of enthusiasm. He stamped in workmanlike exploration of the clean ground, knowing nothing was lying there to eat. He was only working the ground to get his hens out of the trees, working a fantasy that only roosters believe. He scratched and pecked without touching the ground to dirty his beak while he kept his eye on the hens in the tree. The hens were awake but had not decided to descend, and they were not fooled by the rooster into believing he was uncovering nice breakfasts for them. They knew they would have to begin another day by submitting to the rooster if he could catch them when they flew down. He did this every morning. He went through the sham he believed got his hens out of the tree. The hens knew he was there waiting for them to alight so he could breed them. Each would choose her moment to alight after the stillness of sleeping left her and she became anxious to get past the pleasure of the rooster and begin her day's business.

  "La Prieta will fly down first," Adancito said to his little brother, Robe, the Governor. The boys were sitting close together for warmth, their naked bellies showing over their belts. They did not acknowledge a need for sweaters after they had come away from their blankets a half hour before sunup.

  "La Prieta?" the Governor asked, searching the nacapúl and pointing his finger at the black hen.

  "Yes, the old black hen, Robe. She is the madrugadora, the earliest riser and the hardest worker."

  La Prieta began to cluck and move impatiently along the limb, leaving the spot her feet had warmed for the cold and less secure thin end of the limb. She was loath to leave her feet for her wings, which at best only barely slowed her plummeting body to the ground. She always toppled to a position most vulnerable to the waiting rooster. After a harsh landing on stiff feet she could always expect a harsher reception by her master who danced severely on her back and drew blood with his beak from the top of her head.

  A gust of a small breeze convinced her to fly while she could control her attitude and give her the most distance from El Gallo. El Gallo, anticipating the wind, velocity, range, and direction of his hen ran to intercept her on landing. She descended with her motor squawking. She bounced on her brisket and froze in submission to his digging beak, prancing feet, and warm, quick quivers.

  "You see, Robe. La Prieta always lets herself be stepped on first," Adancito said. "Now the red hen, La Colorada, will come down while he is crowing and being proud of himself. Watch her! See! You dumb rooster! You let La Colorada get away again," Adancito scolded El Gallo. El Gallo watched the fat red hen land on the other side of the patio and run for cover in the calf corral. He stretched his neck and whipped his tall comb from side to side and ran after her a few steps without forgetting he still had three more wives in the tree. He almost missed La Canela, the youngest, a cinnamon-colored hen. She was still a light pullet and a good flier. Thinking she would escape her duties to El Gallo she flew from the topmost branches of the nacapúl gathering all the speed and momentum she could muster to clear the patio. In the last instant of flight she looked into the eye of El Gallo and saw she was lost. She veered away from him with great effort still flying and then looked into the eyes of the boys. Silent and wild-eyed she struck the ground and bounced off the coop for setting hens. She spun on one wing and lolled, stunned, long enough for El Gallo to take his pleasures of her.

  "¡Ay, La Güera!" Adancito warned El Gallo, but the cock had not completed his strutting and blinking of eyes over La Canela to be effective in a chase after La Güera, the white hen. La Güera landed and outran him to the shelter of the stable of El Toro Buey. At the edge of the patio El Gallo turned quickly to the sound of the wings of La Grulla, his favorite, a smoke-colored young hen with scrolled feathers. She alighted softly, walked a second with stately regard for El Gallo's approach and then squatted with tail up and head down while El Gallo sliced his wing tips in half circles on the ground in a dance for her.

  "Ya son todas. That's all of them, Robe," said Adancito.

  "Adán," Lucrecia's soft voice called. "Adancito." The boy did not answer. He knew he would betray himself to discomfort if he did. His mother was warming water for baths. If he stalled he could at least take his bath after the sun came up.

  "Adán," persisted his mother. His mother always called him softly, with patience in her voice. Adancito frowned and picked with much care at a perfectly whole and healthy toe.

  "Adancito."

  "Noooooooooo! I don't want to bathe," Adancito sang mournfully. "Bathe my brothers first."

  "But I don't want you to bathe yet, Adán. I want you to catch the turkey gobbler. Catch me the gobbler, run, won't you?"

  Adancito thumped the toe against the patio, too surprised at this reprieve to become suddenly obedient to his mother.

  "Noooooooooo!" he cried.

  "Meat!" exclaimed the Governor matter-of-factly and pointed a soft but rigid finger at the gobbler who had appeared in the patio as though summoned. El Guijolo was preening with his chin tucked in, his nose pecker drooping like a slobber, his bald head and wattled neck changing colors from blue to red, his tail feathers erect and fanning while they flashed their copper tints, his pace that of a king trailing a long cloak. Adancito looked at him and could not believe this patriarchal bird could be transformed into meat in the pot and b
ones in a soup.

  "Hurry, Adán. Your father will be here before we are ready," Lucrecia said gently. At that moment the sun appeared and Adán Martinillo threw his shadow over his sons. The boys looked up at the tower of their father and they smiled, surprised so much they could say nothing as he scooped them off the ground with his hug, kissed their necks, and grinned in their faces. "Quiet!" he urged them as he carried them toward the kitchen.

  "Papá, " said the Governor, sticking his pointing finger into his father's mouth. Adán bit it gently and licked it before it got away from him.

  "Yes, your father, little son," Lucrecia said quietly, thoughtfully, unaware Adán was home. She watched a kettle, waiting for its water to boil, her soft hands idling over the towels she would use to dry her sons. She picked one with frayed edges and pulled loose threads away until she could see how best to repair it. While she was absently examining them her husband walked up behind her carrying their sons and kissed her softly on her neck. She was not surprised. She walked away from him shaking her head. The large gold earrings she wore because she knew he liked them flashed against her high and glowing cheekbones.

  "Noooooooooo, stranger," she said, and he followed her along grinning and biting the back of her dress and letting it snap away, biting her hair, snufling at her neck. He set his squirming sons down then and she smiled and turned to kiss him so quickly he thought she might be going for his throat with her teeth. Her earrings struck him beside his eyes and her clear, dark eyes glinted in the sunlight like agate.

  16

  Juan Vogel's camp at Guasaremos was in the deep bottom of a cone of mountains. He sat in the shade of a breezeway between the two main rooms of the house. He was smoking and watching his vaqueros drive a band of mules across the brightness of a dry cornfield at midmorning. The morning was getting hot, the sky clear as usual, but Juan Vogel, sitting like a boulder in the shade, felt a new humidity in the mountains. He watched his mounted vaqueros and the remuda of mules move slowly. The animals ambled through heat waves that distorted their forms. The shade where he sat was solid, but his canvas brush jacket bothered him because it was lined with wool. His leggings were hot on his legs, his short spurs heavy on his heels. He only moved to smoke and to light a new cigarette off the butt of the old one. He looked into the brightness of the level field and knew water was coming this day, the day of San Juan, the day that tradition held that rain should come but never did. This was Juan Vogel's saint's day.

  The vaqueros corraled the mules in a high rock corral shaded by a great mesquite, caught their mounts for the day, led them to the house and saddled them. Juan Vogel still had not moved except to smoke. He heard the pounding of the engine of an airplane against the mountains long before the busy vaqueros did and still he did not move. He began to pluck out the hairs along the top of his mustache when the vaqueros saw the aircraft was circling the camp, descending into the cone of Guasaremos.

  "Here he comes!" announced Neli Pesqueira happily.

  "Who?" asked Juan Vogel, plucking his mustache.

  "¿Quién sabe?" said Neli. "He's yellow and white."

  "Is it El Bayito, the little buckskin plane?"

  "Probably. Yes, it's El Bayito."

  "Let's see," said Juan Vogel. He stood up, straightened his sore back, poked at the sorest spot on his spine with his thumb, and walked out to the edge of the portal. He leaned against an horcón and searched for the airplane in the sounds the engine made against the mountains. He saw the airplane circling against the brown velvet of Contreras mountain in morning shade. It banked against the mountain and descended into the basin, leveled over the long cornfield and pointed toward the house.

  "El Bayito," said Juan Vogel. "The crazy maverick, Jim Kane."

  "Is he going to land?"

  "Where would he land? Who knows? He's crazy," said Juan Vogel.

  "Here he comes. Here he comes. Here he comes," said Neli happily.

  A parcel on a white streamer struck the patio violently, scattering the mules. A line, moist spray settled upon the men and animals as though to cool the confusion.

  "Beer," snuffed Juan Vogel. A vaquero was already picking up two of the biggest parts of the bombardment and examining the smaller parts on the ground, which had skimmed and bounced away.

  "Beer," said the vaquero, Ruelas. He picked up each can. They had all burst. He hurried to hold them upright to see if he could save some beer. Juan Vogel smoked and watched him.

  "They all splattered," said Ruelas. "Lastima. A shame."

  A whiteness stretched in a glide, rolled and tumbled, glinting against the clean sky. lt touched the ground in the field. Neli rode out, reached down without dismounting and picked it up. "A new hat," he called, smiling.

  He rode back holding the hat carefully.

  Ruelas picked up the smashed beer cartons. He grinned and took a whole beer out of a mass of cardboard. "One was saved. Felicitations," he said, handing a bent red can of hot beer to Juan Vogel.

  "Happy saint's day. Here's a message"

  Juan Vogel broke the top of the can open carefully and caught the foam in his mustache. "¡Chingado! " he said. He sipped at the beer as El Bayito rattled the house in salute. He did not look up.

  He looked at a ruined envelope Ruelas had handed him. He took off his yellowed, broken, sweated hat, threw it behind him, and put on the new palm hat.

  The address on the envelope in Jim Kane's handwriting read:

  Sr. Juan Vogel

  El Limbo,

  Eternidad

  He opened the envelope. A message from his wife read:

  I am happy and content when my husband absents himself from this town.

  Alicia Maria Vogel S.

  "¡Chingado! " Juan Vogel said, and drank the rest of the beer.

  "¡Nada! Not even one more beer with beer in it!" said Ruelas, who had been searching through the debris of the bombardment.

  "We should have opened our mouths when we looked up," laughed Neli. "We might each have caught a drop."

  "¡Chingado! " said Juan Vogel. "Where's Miguelito with the demijohn? We'll forget beer and remember our saint with his stuff."

  "He's still sick," said Neli. He's crazy with the grippe and his own lechuguilla. He sent the boy to tell you to go up to his house."

  "¡Chingado! " Juan Vogel saddled his mule and rode up the mountain toward Miguelito's house. He rode impatiently as always. He smoked to please himself and spurred the mare mule so that she strained continuously to keep pace with him. The hair on her flanks was shaved away in the spots his spurs worked on her. He passed under a big tree by a spring near Miguelito's house.

  "Stop, Juanito!" a soft voice ordered. Juan Vogel reined the mule toward the sound. Miguelito was standing on a hill above the trail.

  "Here's your drink," Miguelito said. He lowered the demijohn on his reata to the trail. Juan Vogel struck a match to a new cigarette and watched him carefully. Miguelito was staggering from weakness and fever. He was also very drunk.

  "Come down and drink with me, Miguelito," Juan Vogel said. "Come to the shade. Today is my saint's day."

  "No. No shade for me. The grippe. The rheum."

  Juan Vogel laughed at him. "Come on. l brought your medicine."

  "Your yori medicine gave me the rheum. All my people had the grippe. They didn't take your white man's medicine and they are well. I took it and I've got the rheum. I can't go to the shade. I can't go in my house."

  "Why not? Go to your house if you are sick. All people stay in the house when they feel bad."

  "The shade stiffens me. I don't want anyone to catch my rheum. I can't go home."

  "But why not, man?"

  "My people will stiffen as I have. They'll die."

  "Man, don't be foolish. Take your medicine. You won't die. The grippe can hurt you and cause rheumatism, but it can't kill you. You have fever which causes your bones to ache and is worse because your bones have been broken."

  "No, this is the stiffness of death and I don't
want anyone to catch it. I'm on my way to my death now. I only stopped to give you your saint's day drink."

  Juan Vogel laughed. "Well don't worry. The death is not far away from any of us. You're not alone."

  "Don't think it is so easy."

  "It's only hard when you are afraid and give up in the face of it."

  "Dying is hard, don't think it isn't."

  Juan Vogel reached down without dismounting and picked up the demijohn. He untied the reata from the handle. He spurred the mule so hard she scrambled frantically for footing on the rock. He laughed, uncorked the jug, and drank on his way.

  17

  Miguelito, the Guarijía, on his way to his death stopped once for a last look at his house. His mother's fire glowed out of the night. His mother's hands were caring for the fire. He climbed to the escarpment of Guasisaco where he had left his death long ago as a young man. He had once fallen from that escarpment trying to take a panal of honey. His mother's hands had saved him from his death. Now he felt his death claiming him and leading him back by the rheum in the bones he had broken in that fall. Time now for his death, no more, no less.

  He built a fire at the place at the foot of the escarpment to subdue the clutching rheum. He sat close to the fire and stared into it while he rolled the smooth, tallowed braids of his companion reata in his fingers.

  He knew every inch of his reata. He made very good reatas. This one was as fine as any he had made in his life. This one was probably the best one. He knew he could depend on it. He was not sorry he would never make another one. His mother knew his every thought and intention. She had watched him in the house as he kept his eyes away from his reata. She had known the minute he decided to use it to go to his death. She knew he could not work, so he could not say he was going to work and walk casually to the wall to take it. She had watched it carefully and shielded him from it. His mother believed his reata was his inseparable companion in his work and his life, and he would be sinful to use it in his death. He had feigned sleep and stolen it when his mother left the house.

  He needed help to go to his death. His good reata was the only helpmate he trusted. The guasima tree bending away from the cliff would also help him. These were servants even of a Guarijía.