by J P S Brown
On the last day of November the crew moved camp to El Aguaje de la Morita, named after a blue mustang filly who was seen to water there on the same day long ago that it had been discovered by some Spaniard or some vaquero. The famous cardon cactus grew there, the rare big brother of the saguaro that yields a white fruit and protects itself with thicker, longer spines than the saguaro.
The pack train approached the Spring of the Blue Filly. Paul was relaxed and happy as he led the remuda behind Mikey. He called his son's attention to the pretty ways the summer died in lost bloom and leaf and faded colors. All of a sudden he went silent, stopped his horse, and hissed for Mikey to stop. Gato was behind him with the pack train, but the rest of the crew had gone on to repair traps that would be worked from La Morita.
Paul sent Gato to the other side of the spring, handed the lead animals in the strings of horses and mules to Mikey, and motioned for him to hold fast behind a thicket of tesota. He then rode in a circle to get below the spring without being seen. Mikey had a clear view of the spring. Clear water welled up from inside a pile of granite boulders and watered a draw that was shaded by the cottonwood and willow trees that hid Paul. For a long time Mikey could not hear any sound of the horsemen. He wondered how two vaqueros riding shod horses over rock and through thick brush could be so silent.
Paul had seen a toro lomo blanco, a linebacked bull, slip through the brush ahead of him. He hoped the bull would stop and drink at the spring so that he and Gato could snare him. The bull was enough of a bull to be unafraid of horsemen. He was a branded ladino who had slipped away and escaped Cabezon's crew for three seasons. He had escaped the first time during a bad screwworm season before Paul had been able to castrate him. Paul already knew he would never be caught in a waterlot trap. The only way to get him into a herd and make him merchantable was to rope him and lead him in. Paul would wait until the bull filled up with more water than he could carry comfortably, then put the run on him.
Paul moved up to get a good look but the bull saw him and moved to a higher place on the spring where Mikey could see him. The white slash along his black back looked wild enough to have been scarred on by a streak of lightning. He kept drinking even after Paul moved out into plain sight. His occupation as a sire made Lomo Blanco proud of himself as a real bull, but it also made him real thirsty. He was so thirsty that nothing mattered at that moment except the water.
Paul and Gato let the bull drink until he was so full that he sloshed, and then they crowded him to make him run. Gato moved first and drove the bull downhill toward Paul and Mikey lost sight of him. Paul would try to turn him back and run him uphill to slow him down, and then catch him in an open spot in the draw.
Mikey knew the bull had flushed away from the draw when he heard the brush crash in his thicket of tesota. He looked up and Lomo Blanco broke through the thicket straight toward him with his tail in the air like a scorpion's stinger, his horns ready as a scorpion's pincers, his eye full of fight, and his black muzzle shiny wet with spinning slobbers. He had beaten Paul out of the draw, but Fast Paul was close behind him and both tore a big hole through the brush.
The bull did not consider Mikey a threat. He came at the boy as though he weren't there. The mules and horses danced and snorted and looked for room to get out of his way. Mikey wanted to delay him for Paul and Gato, but when the mules were sure that what they saw was a bull with horns that charged straight at them, they wheeled and reared and rushed aside and tangled Mikey and the horse string in the thicket. Paul and the bull burst on through the thicket into the open and Mikey was able to watch the ongoing wreck.
Paul caught the bull on his reata on a ridge where random winds from all directions clashed with a constant wind from the west. The winds whipped the animals and turned their hair and blew Paul's hat away. The bull lost control of his momentum and fell into a stand of garambullo brush and the reata scorched the rawhide on Paul's saddlehorn. Chamaco the horse could not brace his feet and slide in the garambullo as he had on the ridge. He bucked through the brush, dove and wiped his head against the ground, and lunged to get rid of Paul. The bull regained his feet and lined out in the open again, jerked Chamaco in line, and began to tow and drag him at a dead run. Paul laughed and waited for something in the flesh and blood and hide of the wreck to come apart. Finally, his reata broke and Chamaco quit bucking. The line-backed bull raced on with his head high and six feet of the reata trailed from his horns like a plume of victory.
Paul did not pull up. He tied a new honda in the end of his reata on the run while he turned the bull back toward the spring. He caught him again, but Chamaco fell and the reata broke again.
Lomo Blanco ran on with two ribbons of Paul's reata trailing from his horns, but the load of water in his belly began to weigh him down. He had jammed his muzzle into the rock when he fell and his nose was bleeding. His muscles began to cramp.
Chamaco rolled and kicked on top of Mikey's dad, then stomped him when he got up. As Paul walked up to remount, Chamaco struck him on the foot with a shod front hoof. With that, the man voiced every obscenity in English and Spanish known by vaqueros all the way to Texas, a string of words that Mikey had never heard but certainly understood.
Paul remounted, caught up with soggy Lomo Blanco in the draw, and tied on again. He turned Chamaco to the opposite side of a willow tree from the bull. He dragged the bull's head into the tree, rode around, and wrapped his reata on the trunk and held him there.
Gato came on, caught Lomo Blanco by the heels, and stretched him out until he sloshed over on his side. The two men tied his horns against the tree trunk with manila rope. They left him there and gave him time to think. Left to himself overnight, he would lunge and twist until his horns became so sore he could be led back to camp.
While Paul and Gato rode back toward Mikey, Paul looked down and saw that half his ring finger was gone. His stopped to examine his hand. He remembered that the coils of his reata had whipped up in front of his face and caught his hand against the saddlehorn just before it broke the second time. If the reata had not come apart, it probably would have cut half his fingers off. As it was, his middle and little finger were flayed from the middle knuckle to the ends, all the nails were gone, and half his ring finger was gone as though sliced off with a knife.
On the way back to camp, Gato gathered a feed bag full of chicuru, the chicory weed that grew abundantly below the spring of La Morita. At camp he washed the broad leaves, seared them with a bundle of twigs until they oozed their sticky juice, and bandaged Paul's hand with them.
Paul laughed about his lost finger. He was not interested in looking for it, only in repairing what was left so he could work. Manuel Valenzuela and Gato knew every medicinal herb that could be found on that mountain. Manuel rode the brows of the canyons and found some yerba del pasimo to paste on Paul's hand under a new bandage of chicura. Gato went back and looked for Paul's finger that evening, found it, and buried it.
That year all the country's medicinal herbs could easily be found. Manuel found some oja de palvia, the leaf of a gray weed for Paul to chew to calm the pain. Paul could not get the boot off the foot that Chamaco had stomped and Gato loosened it by fractions until it came off. The knee and ribs upon which the horse had fallen were swollen and bruised.
Left alone in camp the next day, Paul hunted around the draw for other herbs to apply to his ailments. He stumbled upon hierba lu flecha, arrow weed, an herb that could cause laughter. The herb is called arrow weed because, like laurel, it has a long leaf with a sharp end that resembles an arrow. Dip a stem in your coffee and keep the back door open. Loosened by this tea, the bowels become an open spillway.
The crew returned early to camp that day and Paul put the coffee on to boil. He poured the first coffee for himself and Mikey, then dropped a stem of hierba la flecha into the coffee water, let it
boil another moment, took it out, and smiled. He winked at Mikey and put his finger to his lips.
For two hours after supper and
before bedtime Paul's companions kept him laughing, first at their expressions after their first sips of coffee, then at the jerky responses of their bodies to the messages of urgency from their bowels, then at the sight of the peculiar gallop for the bushes, and finally at the return to camp of relieved carcasses.
Paul was the first man up the next morning and this time he brewed a pot of pure coffee. He was solicitous of the crew and when they all agreed that they had rested well through the night, he grinned with pleasure. He told everyone he was sorry he had laughed at them, but mirth had been fine medicine for him. The crew could not understand how everyone but Paul and Mikey had been stricken with the spurts, for everybody had eaten the same food. Mikey had not laughed at anyone when they ran for the bushes. He was still young enough to have troubles from time to time in that department even without hierba la flecha. After much discussion, the crew decided that the water from a spring beside one of the traps must have been bad, for Paul and Mikey were the only ones who had not watered there.
Paul could not work, so he and Mikey rode down to El Mesquite, the ranch of Gato's uncle Plutarco Celaya. That night Paul came down with a fever that put him to bed and he did not laugh for five days. Mikey had never seen him so sick that he was unable to laugh.
Tio Plutarco was a widower and his camp was not graced by the care of a woman. He trimmed the torn flesh and bone from Paul's hand with a sharp knife and wire cutters so Paul could use it after it healed. He dosed him with good Bacanora, the Sonorans' best mezcal, to alleviate the pain of the surgery.
After a week of rest, Paul was ready to go back to work, but his horse was gone. When he asked Tio Plutarco where his horse was, the old man handed him fifty pesos.
"¿Y esto?" Paul asked. "And what is this for?"
"El Chamaco. Lo vendi. I sold El Chamaco,"Tio Plutarco said.
"But why?"
"He bucked with you and then fell on you and struck you when you needed him to be trustworthy. You were two hundred miles from a hospital. He cost you a finger. For that you will remember him the rest of your life, and that is enough to remember him by. For that experience and lesson, no one should have to pay more than the price of one bullet. I got you fifty pesos for him. Be happy."
"Where is he? I only need him a little longer."
"I know you need a horse, so I've decided to sell you my Cognac horse. Now, even more than before, you need a mount you can trust. You also need a smooth walking and generous horse. You won't have to do Cognac's thinking for him. He will do yours for you. All you will have to do is point him to the task and ride."
"I know, but he is worth more than three Chamacos. Keep the fifty pesos as my guarantee that I will buy him from you or return him in good condition. It's worth more for me, the way I feel, just to have a smooth horse to ride back to El Carrizal."
"I confess I don't want to sell him."
"Then, if I decide not to buy him, I'll rent him for the fifty pesos and call you a merciful man."
Mikey understood the reason for all the fuss over the loan of a horse. Paul and Tio Plutarco lived by the same creed. One of their main axioms was that a vaquero does not loan his horse, his pistol, or his woman. Tio Plutarco did not want to seem foolish, so he offered to sell a horse that he did not want to sell because, at that moment, his friend needed him more than Tio Plutarco did. He could allow the friend to try him out before he paid for him. Paul could give him a guarantee of fifty pesos as a down payment that he would forfeit if he returned the horse. That way, if the horse was injured while Paul used him, both men would be satisfied that Tio Plutarco had been compensated.
Now that Paul had the use of Cognac, he could return to La Morita, take the pack string back to El Carrizal, and put it out to pasture. Then he and Mikey would go home to Nogales to recuperate until after Christmas.
At La Morita, Gato and Manuel helped saddle the mules with the packsaddles. Mikey tied each rig's tarp on the crossbars of the saddle with its sling rope. The crew ate lunch together and Paul and Mikey said good-bye and left with the string. Darkness caught them before they could negotiate the trail above the San Juan Ravine, a canyon hundreds of feet deep with sheer walls.
A mentally deficient gray and white paint mule that the crew called Goo Goo was the weakest link in the string. Someone had beaten him over the head with a club before Cabezon bought him. One of the blows had crushed the bone over the top of one eye and caused the eye to bulge. The blows had also probably been the cause of his distraction. HaIf the time he did not know where he was or if he should walk, stand, or lie down.
Paul and Mikey needed to be careful of the length of rope with which they tied Goo Goo to the mule ahead of him, and they never tied him by the tail to a mule or horse behind him. Because of his distracted ways, he was even trouble when he was loose. The pack string was usually turned loose and driven ahead, but after dark it was tied head-to-tail and led.
Paul penned the string above the San Juan Ravine and tied it together head-to-tail. The only place for Goo Goo was last in line where he could only bother the mule ahead of him and he could be towed by the rest of the string when he forgot where he was. Paul only had one hand to work with, so Mikey helped him tie the string. Goo Goo had been known to stray off the trail far enough to poke his head around the wrong side of a tree. This always stopped the string dead and made it strain to go on. Then someone would find Goo Goo with both eyes about to pop out while the whole string used its weight to try to pull his head through the trunk of the tree.
Paul and Mikey had been living near this trail called Camino Real for three months and knew that people used it day and night. They did not see or talk to most of the people who used it by night. The travelers who came by their camps always had a long way to travel before they reached their next food and shelter, so people did not often stop to visit. The vaqueros liked to visit with people to find out what had happened elsewhere in the world, but they only greeted the travelers and got out of their way if they did not know them. They always invited people to rest and eat with them if they stopped to talk.
Mikey rode out ahead so Paul could keep track of him as they started across the rock above the ravine in the dark. Paul bragged that the boy could see better in the dark than he could see in day-light. Mikey knew that his dad wanted him close ahead and out of danger if something went wrong with the string.
Mikey trusted Pancho to see the trail. Paul laughed and told him not to worry about bumping his head on a tree in the dark on that stretch above the San Juan Ravine. On his right was an empty chasm three hundred feet deep. On his left was the canyon's rock wall and no place for a tree.
About twenty steps before the lead mule would have been out of danger of falling and taking the whole string into the ravine, Mikey heard the string lunge, grunt, moan, squeal, and rattle rocks into the ravine. Paul cussed and told Mikey to stop. All the mules in the string were gentle except the dark brown mule named Negro, the first animal in the line, the one whose lead rope Paul held. When Negro was pulled to a stop by the mule on his tail, he bucked ahead with enough force to try every breakable fiber that held him. His shoes slipped and sparked on a slab of rock, he skated sideways toward the chasm, and almost pulled Paul off his horse when he spun to catch himself at the brink.
By the light of a sliver of moon Mikey watched Paul turn Cognac back and lunge him toward the brink, dally Negro's lead rope on his saddlehorn, and hold him before he disappeared over the edge. The mules settled down quickly, but Paul could not get loose from Negro to go back to find and remedy the trouble that had stopped the string.
"Son," Paul said quietly. "Don't try to turn your horse around. Just get off and walk back to me, please."
Mikey obeyed.
"Now, son, watch you don't goose my horse. Hold out your hand and feel for his butt. lt's awful narrow here, so come along next to the wall. I want you to go back and see what stopped the string."
Cognac vibrated when Mikey touched him. He knew the tight he was in. He might
have wanted to lose his head, but he knew he would probably lose his good old sensible life if he did.
Mikey tried to cram himself between the canyon wall and the horse's hips. He pushed the horse away, then moved ahead an inch. Cognac pushed back and squashed Mikey against the wall. Mikey could not get past the horse that way, so he slid to the ground between Cognac's legs and skinned out the downhill side. The horse lifted his feet and danced in place to give him room. Mikey picked his way back between the pack string and the wall and found Goo Goo on his side on the downhill side of the trail. His hind legs kicked over the edge of the cliff in space. His lead rope was still tied fast to the tail of the mule ahead of him and that was all that kept him from slipping away into the void.
Mikey told Paul that Goo Goo had fallen and had become the anchor of the pack string. Paul wanted to know if Mikey could help Goo Goo regain his feet. Mikey told him the mule's legs were way out in thin air and darkness. Paul said for him to be ready to cut Goo Goo loose if the mule ahead of him began to struggle and lose ground.
The mule who owned the tail from which Goo Goo was about to dangle was called Sarah, after the temperamental movie actress Sarah Bernhardt. Cabezon's Sarah liked to throw temperamental fits as a regular drill. Mikey opened his knife and stood ready to cut Goo Goo's lifeline.
Boulders crowded the space between Goo Goo and Sarah. Mikey climbed inside them to examine the position of Goo Goo's head and Sarah shifted her weight and pinned him against a boulder with her butt. Goo Goo grunted with every breath and Mikey was sure Sarah would not postpone her next fit for long. If she could have taken one step backward, Goo Goo would have gone into the well. Mikey at least was sure Sarah would not kick him. Goo Goo's weight anchored her hind legs to the ground.
Mikey tried to make Sarah move so he could get out, so she oozed caca all over him. The stuff ran like hot gravy down his neck and the front of his shirt and the gases sputtered in his face. Mikey knew that a little fresh manure would not kill a body, would not harm it, would barely inconvenience it, but he had always been more or less able to control the amount he got on him. Sarah just emptied her gut hot and fresh in his face and he could not move an inch to save himself. He poked her in the flank with a thumb to see if she would move. She only shifted enough to mash all the air out of him against the boulder. With the first breath that he was able to take back he inhaled a big gulp of her stuff and almost drowned. Goo Goo slipped and Sarah stomped on Mikey's foot, which hurt so much that he jerked free of her with all his might, fell, and landed facedown over another boulder. When Mikey recovered, Sarah's entire weight was against the back of his legs, but he was not hurt. Paul said something to him, but he could not understand him and could not answer. He could not move from the waist down, and he coughed and gagged on manure, but he could see that Goo Goo's head was still on the safe side of the cliff's edge. He rested his face on the boulder and coughed.