by B. TRAVEN
Cortes had left a horse with the natives. What he, that mean trader, hadn’t left with them was instructions on how to take care of that strange animal.
Now, every Indian the Spaniards met in peace or in battle since their arrival in America had always professed more fear of horses and horsemen than of cannons and muskets. The Spaniards were soon exploiting this fear and took the utmost care never to let Indians go near the horses in camp or at rest sites. Thus, Indians never got a chance to see horses fed. The Spaniards even spread the story that horses and horsemen were invulnerable. In those days horses and riders were heavily armored when in battle, and the Indians, with their primitive arms, couldn’t kill or wound the horses or their riders. For this reason the Indians came to believe horses were war gods of a kind they could never defeat. In the siege of Mexico City, however, this belief was badly shaken when Indians managed to kill several horses and their riders too.
The natives of Peten now had a horse. Word spread, and thousands came to see with their own eyes that strange creature the bearded white men had left behind in payment for services received. Because the exotic animal seemed related not only to the white men but also to the fire and thunder of cannons and muskets, the natives looked at the horse in constant awe. Soon they declared it a god.
They brought it the most beautiful flowers and the choicest fruit for gifts, just as they had brought offerings of flowers and fruit to their gods in the temples. The horse sniffed at the flowers in hopes of finding some fodder among them, for it had become very hungry since the conquerors’ army had left.
The Indians noted this gesture of the horse and believed that the animal had graciously accepted the offering. Yet, after sniffing the flowers, it turned around and stared longingly across the plain, where in the near distance a huge patch of the finest grass and fields rich with young green corn could be seen. But to these riches the horse couldn’t go because it was firmly tied to a big tree.
The natives grew very sad, thinking they had offended this divine creature who refused to accept the flowers and fruit and turned its head aside in open disgust.
The oldest medicine man of the tribe was now sent for. He came, looked the horse over, and said: “You stupid tribesmen, can’t you see that this godly being is very sick? Its leg is terribly wounded. See, it has a horrible looking lump there. Treat its ailments and it will be well again in no time, and then it will bless our lake, our fields, and our hunts.”
It was then a custom with Indians, as it still is today in remote regions, to feed a sick person only wild turkey, in the belief, based on ages of observation, that the meat of wild turkey has highly curative properties.
The horse’s leg was doctored with mashed herbs and it was bandaged. This done, heaps of roast turkey, spiced with the finest aromatic vegetables, were arranged on large native jícara trays, decorated with flowers and fruit, and placed before the starving horse.
The poor animal, plainly at a loss as to how it was possible for human beings to be so utterly ignorant of what a horse likes to eat, began to trample and shy about, trying harder and still harder to free itself from the rope so that it might reach the green pasture from where a light breeze brought the sweetest of odors to its quivering nostrils.
With every hour the horse grew more restless, started to dance about and neigh unceasingly until it tired itself out. Again the medicine man was called. Said he: “Well, you boneheads, don’t you see what he needs?”
The natives understood. A beautiful young maiden was chosen, adorned, and offered to the horse. The horse, though, had no interest in this sacrifice either, and didn’t even sniff at such a rare gift.
The poor natives by now couldn’t think of anything to do to make the horse happy. It dawned on them that this divine creature was sinking fast, and their gloom turned to terror.
Here was a situation where a horse might have led a life so sweet, so quiet, and so happy, a life such as no horse had ever enjoyed since the time horses were found useful to man. Since the natives had no domesticated animals except a species of dog, all the rich pastures in the whole region would have been at the disposal of that horse, to be shared only by an occasional antelope. But ill luck had it that this horse with the heavenly prospects around it was destined to perish by starvation amidst plenty.
There was no remedy for these misunderstandings between the horse and the Indians. The horse finally could do nothing but lie down and die miserably, with a last hopeless glance of its bursting eyes upon that huge crowd of humans, among whom there was not one individual with horse sense.
Horror and consternation seized the natives when they found the horse stiff and cold and dead. Superstitious as they were, they naturally feared the revenge of that godly being.
What better could they do to protect themselves against the wrath of the foreign gods than to bestow upon the dead horse all the honors which a deity had a right to expect from frightened men?
With great ceremony, the horse was buried, and on top of its resting place a temple was built.
Ninety-three years later, in the year of Our Lord 1618, two monks of the Franciscan order came to Lake Peten carrying the gospel to the natives living there. Since Hernando Cortes had left the region no white man had visited Peten.
The two monks entered a temple with the intention of dethroning heathen gods and setting up in their place the image of the Holy Virgin.
Inside the temple their sight fell upon a huge sculpture in stone, very crudely shaped. No matter which way they looked at it, there wasn’t the slightest doubt that it was meant to be a horse. In the opinion of those monks the Indian artist had followed an inexplicable whim in making one of the horse’s legs imperfect, exposing an ugly protuberance. Yet, from an artistic point of view, that imperfect horse leg was well done.
The monks had seen, heard, and read about very strange gods, but never had they expected to find a horse elevated to the highest worship, as this one was by the Indians of Lake Peten. That piece of sculpture was not only the natives’ highest and most powerful creature god, but it was also their god of thunder and lightning, in whose honor, every year on a certain day, great celebrations took place.
The greatest surprise the monks received in their search of the temple, however, was a wooden cross so weather-beaten and decayed that they believed it to be easily a thousand years old. It was standing behind the stone horse and, according to the native folk tales, a white man with a long beard had either brought the cross or made it from a mahogany tree there in the area.
The monks’ report on this strange find reached Spain and the rest of Europe and caused immense excitement among scientists and historians. The most fantastic speculations arose to explain the origin of that cross in such strange connection with the stone image of a horse, on a continent where, to the best knowledge of scholars, no horses had existed and no Indians would know anything of the shape or appearance of horses.
Just as speculations and theories had reached the stage where learned men seriously began to maintain that one of the apostles had come in person to the Americas during the first century, a certain registrar to the crown who was studying the archives of former Spanish kings stumbled upon a short note in one of the letters which Hernando Cortes had written to his sovereign, Emperor Charles the Fifth.
This note, relating the episodes of the so-called Hibneras Expedition, cleared up the event of the horse-god and the cross. Without the note, it would have remained one of the greatest mysteries of mankind.
Friendship
One early afternoon the French owner of a restaurant located on Bolivar Street in Mexico City noticed a medium-sized black dog sitting on the sidewalk near the open door of his establishment. Looking in at the Frenchman with soft brown eyes which sparkled with a suggestion of making friends, the dog put on that good-natured, innocent, somewhat tragicomic expression found on some old tramps, who, no matter what happens to them, always have a humorous answer in store, even if they are kicked down the porch s
teps and a bucket of water is thrown into their face.
For a moment the Frenchman glanced at the dog. Interpreting that look in his own way, the dog wagged his tail, cocked his head, and gave his open mouth such a quizzical twist that he appeared to be grinning at the Frenchman.
So he couldn’t help but smile back, and for an instant he had the strange sensation that a little spark of the golden sun had crept into his heart as if to touch it and warm it.
His tail wagging faster now, the dog rose slightly, sat down again and, remaining in this sitting position, moved a few inches closer to the door, yet did not enter.
Considering this a very decent attitude for a hungry street dog, the Frenchman could resist no longer. From a half-empty plate, just taken from a table by a waitress walking past him toward the kitchen, he picked up a steak which the customer, obviously not hungry, had only nibbled.
Lifting that juicy steak with two fingers, holding it high for a few seconds, his eyes fixed on the dog, he waved it invitingly; and, by a move of his head, hinted at the dog to come inside and get it. The dog, wagging not only his tail but his whole hindquarters, closed and opened his mouth quickly, licking his lips with a rosy tongue. Still, he would not enter.
The Frenchman, becoming more interested in the dog than in his patrons, left his place behind the counter and took the steak to the door, playing it before the dog’s nose for a few moments before he let it go to its final destination.
The dog caught it more gently than hastily, gave the donor a grateful look, stepped back from the door and lay down on the sidewalk close to the cafe. There he ate that big steak in the undisturbed manner that comes only from a clear conscience.
Done with his meal, the dog stood up, approached the cafe door, sat down and waited patiently until the Frenchman would once again notice him. As soon as the Frenchman granted him that hoped-for look, the dog rose, wagged his tail, put on his comical grin, shook his head as if in fun so that his ears fairly shook, turned and went on his way.
The Frenchman, naturally, thought that the dog had returned to face him hoping for another helping. But when he came to the door, holding between his fingers a chicken leg with lots of meat on it, the dog was gone. So he concluded that the dog had appeared a second time for no other reason than to say, “Thanks a lot, monsieur”; otherwise he would have waited until given another mouthful.
The Frenchman quickly forgot the incident, believing the animal to be only another street dog that visited cafe doors, searching for food, begging diners or a roll or a bone, until driven away by the waitresses.
Next day, however, about the same time, at half past three, the dog was sitting again at the same place by the open door. The Frenchman, seeing him seated there, smiled at him as if he were an old acquaintance. The dog smiled back, with a very funny expression of silent laughter. When he caught the Frenchman’s friendly smile of welcome, he got halfway up, just as he had done the day before, wagged his tail in greeting and widened his grin with his pink tongue dangling over his lower jaw.
With a backward jerk of his head, the Frenchman invited the dog to come inside and have his free lunch close to the counter. The dog, however, who clearly had grasped the meaning of that gesture, came only one short step nearer the door—but enter he would not. The Frenchman realized that the dog refrained from coming inside not so much out of fear as from the apparently inborn decency of intelligent dogs who sense that a room in which humans dwell is not the proper place for dogs living on and by the street.
The Frenchman raised his hand to the countertop, drummed his fingers, and looked at the dog, trying to make him understand that he should wait a few minutes for a plate with a tasty bone on it to come back from one of the tables. To the man’s great surprise, the dog understood this finger language perfectly. He stepped back a little from the door, as if not to molest patrons coming in or going out. He lay down on the sidewalk, his head between his forepaws; and, with eyes half closed, he watched the Frenchman attending customers at the counter and collecting money brought by the waitresses to the cash register.
Five minutes later, when a waitress carried a tray of dishes from the tables, the owner winked at her, picked up a huge leftover sirloin T-bone, took it out to the dog, played it before his nose and let go.
The dog took it from the man’s hand as gently as if it had been offered by a child. And as he had done the day before, he lay down on the sidewalk close to the cafe and there enjoyed his lunch without hurry.
Now, remembering the dog’s peculiar attitude of yesterday, the Frenchman was anxious to learn what the dog would do today, once he had finished his bone. He wished to know whether yesterday the dog had acted in that particular way only because of an occasional impulse or because of natural good manners or by some sort of training.
He was just about to bet a patron that the dog would come to the door to say “Thank you” when he noticed a shadow on the floor near the entrance. He watched the dog from one corner of his eye, purposely avoiding a full look at the animal now sitting by the door and patiently waiting to be noticed by the owner. But the Frenchman busied himself behind the counter and at the cash register, all the while watching the dog by stealth just to see how long he would remain sitting there hoping to get his chance to say, “Thank you very much, until tomorrow.”
Three or four minutes had passed before the Frenchman decided to look up and gaze straight at the dog’s face. Right away, and as if the dog had been ordered to do just that, he rose, wagged his tail, put on his quizzical grin, turned around and disappeared.
From that day on, the Frenchman always had a juicy piece of leftover meat ready for the dog. And he came every day, appearing at the door so punctually that one could set one’s watch by his arrival. Always at half past three the Frenchman would direct a glance towards the door and see the dog sitting there greeting the owner with his drollish grin.
And so it went for six or seven weeks without the slightest change in pattern. In fact, the Frenchman cafe to regard the black street dog as his most faithful customer, and he considered him a sort of mascot.
In spite of the fact that the dog by now felt positively assured of the Frenchman’s sincere friendship, he did not relax his formal manners. Never once had he come inside, no matter how often or how insistently the friendly owner invited him to enter.
The Frenchman grew very fond of the dog. He wanted him to hang around for good, make himself useful by chasing less decent dogs away, and guard the premises night and day—or just wait around and have a good time. He, of course, didn’t know whether the dog had a master or lived on his own. Lately he had begun to caress the dog for a few moments when he gave him his lunch. It seemed the dog had never in his life known what love was, so he liked that sign of true affection. Yes, he relished the caresses. While he was stroked and patted he would wait patiently, a steak in his mouth, until the Frenchman ceased petting him and returned to his counter. Only then, and not before, would the dog step back from the door, lie down in his accustomed place on the sidewalk and eat his meal. When finished, he would come back to the door to wag his tail, grin at the Frenchman, thereby telling him in his own way, “Merci beaucoup, monsieur, same time tomorrow, bye-bye,” and then turn and trot away.
Came a certain day when the Frenchman had a terrific argument with a patron who had been served a hard roll and who, setting his teeth into that roll for a hearty bite, had broken a tooth.
The Frenchman was angry with the waitress who, poor girl, was fired immediately and now crouched in a dark corner weeping bitterly. It hadn’t been her fault, entirely. Of course she ought to have noticed that the roll was hard like wood, but so should the customer have noticed it. Anyway, it wouldn’t be hygienic or mannerly for a waitress to take each roll into her hand and squeeze it to test its freshness before serving it. But she had served that roll and so she was blamed for what happened.
The real culprit, though, was the baker who had intentionally or carelessly thrown that hard old r
oll among the hot fresh ones. Anyhow, the damage was done.
The Frenchman, in a thundering rage, rang up the baker and told him that he was on his way, loaded gun in hand, to kill that careless dough-kneader like the rat that he was, for he never was anything else but a stinking sewer rat whose relationship to his father, to say the least, was questionable at all accounts; whereupon the baker told the Frenchman a few of those little mind-openers which, if uttered inside a church, would make its whitewashed walls turn deep red and stay red for keeps. This lively exchange of personal opinions ended with the Frenchman hanging up the receiver with such force that—had telephone engineers not foreseen attacks of this kind and calculated almost perfectly the force which a maddened telephone-user might employ—nothing of the apparatus would have been left intact. As it was, only the hook was bent and the wall plaster nicked.
His face red as a ripe tomato, two bluish veins protruding from his hot forehead, the Frenchman returned to the counter and, looking up, saw his friend the black street dog sitting by the door, grinning, amused as ever, patiently waiting for his lunch to be served.
Seeing that dog sitting there so quiet and innocent, apparently unbothered by any of the worries which make cafe owners appear to be twenty years older than their true age, gazing at the animal as if spying it for the first time in his life, seeing him eagerly wag his tail to greet his benefactor and put on his comical grin to please the friend who liked that doggy face so very much, the Frenchman—practically blinded with madness and driven by a sudden brutal impulse which he, who had no violent temper, later could never explain to himself—took that hard roll from the counter and threw it with all his force at the dog.
The dog had clearly observed the Frenchman’s move. He had watched the angry man pick up the roll and had no doubt about the roll being aimed at him. He had seen it shooting through the air towards him. He could easily have dodged that roll had he wished to, for he was a dog that lived entirely on what the street offered him and he was used to the hard life without a master or with a master so poor that he could give little else to his dog but love. Surely the dog had cleverly dodged, perhaps hundreds of times, the sticks and stones thrown at him, and he certainly was an expert at avoiding any sort of missile.
