by Pastor, Juan
"You intend to go up on the roof of the Clinic, and shoot one of the drones down, don't you?" I ask.
Yep." Sin says. "Just on principle."
All I could do was shake my head.
"Quail shooting in Mexico." Sin says.
"Do you want to die, you bastardo loco viejo?" I ask.
"When you're hunting grouse or quail, they say your target is really two crossed pencils with an acorn on the end of one of them."
"How so?" I ask.
"The spine, the wingbones, and the head." Sin says. "If just one particle of shot hits either of those things, the bird is dead. Well, at least the spine or head."
"What does that have to do with anything?" I ask.
"Do you know why a drone is so quiet when it flies?" Sin asks.
"No, I don't." I say.
"It has wooden propellers." Sin says. "If my frag load can send just one ball bearing through a propeller blade, the engine, or the camera, it's a dead bird."
"I'll ask again." I say. "Do you really want to die?"
"Have you ever heard of the term Deus ex machina?"
"Yes." I say. "It means God and machine."
"Well." Sin says. "Not exactly. In Spanish, it would be Dios de la máquina."
"God from the machine?" I ask. "What does that mean?"
"I had a teacher explain it like this." Sin says. He said a German engineering crew was once establishing a railway in Africa. A tribal chief wanted a ride on one of the locomotives, and in return he would grant permission for the railway to cross the lands of his kingdom. After the ride, the chief asked one of the engineers how the train worked. All of the engineers, taking turns, set out to explain the workings of the steam locomotive in detail, pointing out, as they did so, all the working parts of the locomotive. When they were done the chief said that he understood how all the parts of the machine worked, but he couldn't understand where the spirit was kept that made the train move."
"So the spirit was like the God that came from the machine that was the train?" I ask. "Or God is like the spirit in the machine?"
"No." Sin says. "My teacher was wrong. The term comes all the way from the Greek ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός (apò mêkhanễs theós). It referred to using a device like a crane to either lower an actor (who was playing a god in a theater setting) onto a stage or lift him through a trapdoor on the stage. Purists considered it a bail‐out for a play whose plot was going nowhere. Other critics considered it a creative way to give plays an interesting twist, or a somewhat credible way to introduce a divine being or divinity into the affairs of common men."
"I bet a lot of people who may have found Greek theater a little stuffy saw this device as a bit of magic." I say.
"And there was the problem." Sin says. "It grew old very quick, because it was used too much, in place of good playwriting or acting. Kind of like CGI today."
"So, what does any of this have to do with the drones?" I ask.
"They are not machines built to deliver gods into our midst." Sin says. "They were made to deliver demons. They're part of the Consequence Delivery System."
"Have you ever heard of Paulo Coelho?" I ask.
"I've heard the name."
"He's a writer. He's Brazilian." I say. "I like one of his quotes. It might be my favorite quote."
"What is it?" Sin asks.
"The universe conspires to make the dreamer's dream come true."
"I'm assuming you mean the good dreamers." Sin says.
Two Birds With One Stone
Miguel says, "We will not be hunting Gambel's
quail. We will be hunting Moctezuma quail. We will hunt tomorrow.
"Is that what you call Mearn's quail?" Sin asks. "Moctezuma quail?"
Miguel looks at me. I look at Miguel. Miguel and Sin have known each other for decades. I have just met Miguel. But my bond is closer with Miguel than mine with Sin, or Sin's with Miguel. Sin, wise as he is about Mexican culture, has just committed several common faux pas.
The first is, don't insist rudely on doing anything today that can be done just as well mañana. There is more time than life, and there will always be another mañana, even if you are not necessarily here, alive, to greet it.
The second is, if a Mexican host is kind and generous enough to invite you to do something, like go hunting, and he lets you stay in his home until he is ready to do it, he will tell you what it is you are going to hunt. It is bad form for you to tell him.
Third, and very important is this. In Mexico, there is no such word as Montezuma. Americans always say it wrong. It is Moctezuma. Moctezuma was the last great Aztec emperor of Mexico.
I, Pequeña, foolish little girl‐woman that I am, get it. We will be hunting, not today, but tomorrow. Not here, but further south, on Miguel's ranch. Not Gambel's quail, Scaled quail, or Mearn's quail, or Montezuma quail, but Moctezuma quail, with a "c".
To Miguel, any quail but the Moctezuma quail represents America, where they sing the song, "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli." Miguel wants no part of that.
A friend of Miguel's is to accompany us, and bring his pointer, Cisco, a legend in the hunting world. Or so the friend says. Since Moctezuma quail are mountain quail, and Miguel's ranch is not in the mountains but nestled in the valley between the mountains like a sleeping baby's head between its mother's breasts, it will be necessary to go to the mountains. It will be necessary to make an early start, which reminds me of another Mexican truth. Plan to start early, as planning shows good intention, but as long as the venture is begun by early afternoon, that's just as good. Buenos tardes.
So we all hop in the Miguel's doctor friend's Range Rover.
"It's a piece of crap." The doctor friend (I will never hear his name, and I will never get the chance to ask it) says. "But it's very prestigious to own one."
I'm surprised when Sin asks, "I don't have a small game license. Will that be a problem?"
"Yes." The doctor says.
"No." Miguel says. "Not as long as you're with me."
"He really should have one." The doctor insists.
"If a warden appears, he can give me the gun." Miguel says.
"So you can shoot the game warden?" The doctor asks.
"Only if I have to." Miguel says. “But it will be quick, and he will not have to suffer.”
It takes an hour and a half to get into the 10,000 foot high range of the closest mountain, even with the doctor driving like a maniac. It is at 10,000' and higher where the Moctezuma quail live, and this is where Miguel wants to hunt.
The doctor lets Cisco out of his cage, and the dog runs around in ecstasy. Then he starts making game.
"It's about time." I think to myself. It is getting on late afternoon.
We are on a high mountain plateau, and from it we can see Miguel's expansive ranch below. The mountains are starting to cast shadows across it. The trip has been dusty. I get out my canteen.
"Don't bother." Sin says. "Let me show you something."
Sin cuts the stem of a dried thistle. Then he cuts the dry thistle flower off. He cuts the top off one arm of a cactus‐like plant that looks a little like Spanish bayonet. The thistle stem is hollow. Sin shaves one end to a point, much like one might find on the straw of a Juice Box. Sin inserts it, just like such a straw, into the exposed sap, which he calls agua miel (honey water).
Cisco doesn't need a straw. He climbs the open plant, dives headfirst, without any heed of the plant's spines, toward the cup‐shaped open chamber at the plant's heart, and slurps noisily at the honey water that has collected there.
"What are these plants?" I ask.
"Maguey." Miguel says.
I take a sip. It is very good, very refreshing, sweet without being too sweet. I look up. I notice there are long straight rows of this plant on the plateau, there are hundreds of rows, and possibly tens of thousands of these cacti‐like plants. I vaguely remember my father calling these plants agave. And I have also heard them called century plants, but
I'm not sure why, or if that name was correct. And I'm pretty sure these are blue agave, but I know better than to dispute Miguel.
I see the doctor looking at me.
"This is one of the ways Miguel makes all his money." The doctor says.
"Si." Miguel says. "But I make a lot more from the poppies and coca."
I can't be sure if he is joking, or serious, or joking and serious.
Miguel sees my concern.
"Sólo estoy tomando el pelo (I'm just pulling your leg), my innocent girl." He says. "But a lot of land around here is owned by cartels. And you'd be surprised by how many of those cartels are financed by good old American dollars."
"How do you make money from sweet cactus sap?" I ask.
"The sweet is the key." Miguel says, accentuating the word "key". "We ferment it. The resultant liquor comes out in three grades. The most inferior, but most popular because it is the most affordable, is called pulque."
"Is that what you make?" I foolishly ask.
Miguel seems insulted. Miguel's friend the doctor laughs.
"The next best grade is called mescal." Miguel says.
I remain silent.
"The quality of the grade is determined by locale, soil, climate, plant variety and quality, and know‐how of the person making the various liquors." Miguel says. "When one becomes an artist like me, tequila is the result."
"One of my favorites." Sin says.
"If my friend Pecado here had bought stock in my company years ago," Miguel says, "he'd be a rich man today."
I notice Miguel uses the Spanish word for Sin.
"I thought it more important to guarantee your success by buying as much product as possible." Sin says.
"That's why I consider you are the best of my friends." Miguel answers.
It will be dark in a few hours, and the shadows from the agave, excuse me, the maguey, some of which reach three meters high, throw shadows across the weeds that grow among the cacti. It is in these weeds that the Moctezuma quail live and thrive.
The pointer works in careful "Z"s through the weeds. He soon nails a covey and freezes into a statuesque point.
That's when we see it. A small, slow moving aircraft coming out of the sun, low on the horizon in the west.
"What the fuck?" Miguel says.
"Excuse him." The doctor says to me. "He's just trying to impress you with his fluency in Mexican."
"Yes, you laugh." Miguel says. "But I'm tired of these things flying over all the time. Goddam drones. I'd like to know who's responsible for them."
As it happens, only two of us have guns. The doctor carries his Belgian Browning over/under. It looks like it has never seen a day in the field.
"Bored skeet 1 and skeet 2." He says. "Like a good quail gun should be."
Miguel has let me carry his bruised and battered old L. C. Smith side by side. Sin has refused to carry it because of the "license" thing. Hard to believe for a guy whose already used a Barrett on a border watchtower, and has been working on a fragging RPG.
One bird takes off and heads directly away from us.
The doctor empties skeet 1 at it, then skeet 2, then stands there, dumbfounded, as quail take off in all different directions and angles.
Cisco holds his point in the weeds between the rows. By weeds I mean a mix of soybeans, oxalis, and thistle, along with what looks like sedge grasses.
"He's still got one." Sin says.
A very colorful bird explodes out of the weeds and heads right toward me, gaining height as it accelerates. The head is black and white. I amaze myself by throwing the gun to my shoulder and following the bird with the barrels. I can see the bird over the rib of the side by side double. The sides of the bird are covered with obvious white dots. The breast of the bird is a pattern of russet and velvet black.
Somehow, instinctively, I blot out the bird with the barrels, to lead it, and pull the right forward trigger. The bird wavers in flight but keeps coming.
"Shoot again." Sin yells.
I manage to find the left rear trigger, re‐establish lead by blocking out the bird again, and fire again.
The bird flaps its wings violently and begins a perfectly vertical climb.
"It's towering." Sin says. "I once saw a grouse do this. It flew until it was out of sight, and, seconds later, came crashing back to earth."
"What makes them do this?" Miguel asks, hardly believing what he is seeing.
"One or more of the pellets have hit an optic nerve." Sin says. "It can't see anymore."
"A pellet has hit an auditory nerve." The doctor says. "It no longer has a sense of orientation. It's experiencing vertigo while in flight."
"Anyway," Sin says, "it has no idea where it is, and the only thing it is now aware of is gravity, so it's going to fight gravity until its heart gives out."
We all crane our necks backward to keep looking up. The bird climbs ever higher. Bird and unmanned aircraft collide. The bird instantly becomes a large cloud of feathers. The aircraft slows violently, starts its dive, then spirals slowly earthward, disintegrating as its descent speed increases.
The craft hits earth, and feathers drift down like snowflakes.
"Now I've seen everything." Miguel says.
"Can you imagine the poor guy in New Mexico remote piloting that thing?" The doctor says. "The last thing you saw was WHAT?"
"I've heard of doubles in upland bird shooting." Sin says. "But this takes the cake."
Cisco goes over to the wreckage of the craft. He sniffs it, wondering, most likely, why it smells like a quail. He looks to consider peeing on it, but then lowers his leg.
"Well, young lady." Sin says. "You've just become a legend. We'll be telling our grandchildren about this. We'll be telling YOUR grandchildren about this. What do you have to say for yourself?"
"I'm speechless." I manage to say.
"Just like grouse shooting in New England, huh?" Sin says. "The only thing now is the bird you just knocked down is worth four million dollars."
"It's not nice to mess with Moctezuma." The doctor says. "Right, Miguel?"
You Got To Let Me Know
Yeshua, you will have to say yes or no soon." The
woman says.
The woman is old, but very very pretty. Kind of
Mediterranean. Her hair is very white and very long. At least it would have been except that the woman wears it in braids, and the braids are coiled with silver roping into a regal arrangement on top of her head. I know this because I see what Yeshua sees.
"Yes, Mother." Yeshua says.
"Either they both have to die, or one of them has to die
while the other lives, or they both have to live." Yeshua's Mother says. "But you have to decide! You can't play with the asynchronicity too much longer ‐ not here."
Yeshua and his Mother talk about us. I know because I
can see through the eyes of Yeshua's Mother, and Yeshua. And what Yeshua's Mother and Yeshua see is two young girls lying in the sand, on the desert floor.
"The Salvadorian is already dead." Yeshua says. "She has been dead for some time now."
Yeshua is quite handsome. He has long hair pulled into a pony tail. He has a beard. His eyes are blue with flecks of gold in them. He has a suntan. He wears his coveralls with no shirt. He has a tattoo on his left bicep. The tattoo is three crosses. The middle cross is larger. He wears no shoes, not even sandals. I can feel the lust welling up in me even though I am dieing.
"You know how to beat death now." Yeshua's Mother says. "Bring the Salvadorian back."
Yeshua raises his right hand. He touches his index finger to his lips. He seems uncomfortable with his Mother's insistence. I see the stigmata on the back of his hand. It makes me uncomfortable to think who I've been lusting over. I feel ashamed. I wonder if Maria Magdalena felt such shame.
"I've never meddled." Yeshua says. "I'm not going to start now. The Guatemalan will live. The Salvadorian will have to be her spirit guide."
"I don't like this a
t all." Yeshua's Mother says. "If anyone has the power to do anything about this sad state of affairs, it is us. I don't understand why we don't just get more pro‐active. Honestly, one of these times I'm just going to lose my patience."
"I don't know how many times we have to discuss this Mother." Yeshua says. "But if things are a certain way, and not another way, there must be sufficient reason, without us, why they are that way."