When they stopped, Rafo said, “Maybe they already see the truck.”
“Maybe so. But they won’t imagine it’s in here. How could it be?”
In fact, it couldn’t if it were an ordinary car and not a truck. The passengers wouldn’t be able to get out—there’d be no room to open the doors. But since the truck had rear doors, they could leave when they wanted to—if they wanted to. But where would they go? They just sat there, waiting, not knowing exactly what they were waiting for not knowing the measure of their danger, uncertain how to guard against it, or if they should try.
Rafo got restless. “I got to get out,” he said.
“Stay here.”
“No. We are more safe outside the truck than in it.”
Perhaps the boy was right. Since Mike was not convinced to the contrary, they climbed over the seat, out of the truck and started to walk.
As they got partly down the dark street they heard Macho complaining testily. With the loss of one of the back doors, Rafo had taken to keeping the rooster tied up—had made the choice willingly, without any suggestion from Mike. But Macho felt betrayed, especially right now since the cord had twisted and wrapped itself around both his legs. Rafo set him free and the rooster fluttered ahead of them in a dudgeon that said he was never coming back again. They could see him far in advance now, an outraged quiver of white in the dark street. Then he was gone.
Rafo ran ahead and softly, in case there might be someone to hear, made hissing sounds and called Macho’s name. Then Mike heard the bird, heard a chook-chook, a silence, then the chooking again. Close by.
It was so dark they hadn’t noticed the little arcade. As Mike entered it, Rafo behind him, the sound was louder. Then they saw him. He was behaving in a way Rafo had never seen before—crazily—walking circles in the dark, twisting his head this way, that way, pecking, trying to pluck something out of the air, a scent, a sound. Then they heard what Macho was hearing—a crowing noise. As it came clear to them, Macho twisted out of the circle he was walking in, fluttered into the air—a leap rather than a flight—then strutted off quickly into the depths of the passageway.
It was a cluttered, rubble-littered corridor, with old stone columns that made a colonnade of archways under which there might have been stores at one time—perhaps a marketplace of stalls. But now the passage was all fallen stone and ruin. They picked their way carefully in it, each step strewn with obstacles, until they came to where the columns stopped and the corridor became a cul de sac. Dead end or not, it seemed lighter here. Then, in little bursts, lighter still, with a restless unsteady flicker against the stone wall ahead of them.
The crowing sound again—and Macho answered it. The passage made a turn to the right—the cul de sac had been a false one—and they saw the source of the light. There was more than one source, a half dozen of them, thick church candles, flickering, illuminating a scene familiar to Rafo. A cockfight. Except that the fight was over. A huge gray rooster, badly mauled, lay bloody and dead in its feathers. Strutting in a circle around him, arrogant in victory, a black gamecock crowed and raged for recognition.
In the fitful flares of the candlelight, the ten or twelve spectators, all men, were too busy dividing the winnings to become immediately aware of Mike and Rafo. But Macho made a sound and one of the men turned, then the others. Finally a man half hidden in an old serape detached himself from the others. As he picked up one of the candles and brought it forward to light the faces of the intruders, it lighted his own face. It was Porfirio, the elderly Indian who had tried to sell them the mustang. He held the candle close to Mike, then to Rafo, and recognized them. Macho started to move toward the victorious black gamecock and Rafo bent swiftly and scooped his rooster off the ground.
Porfirio looked at the black one, then he pointed to Macho. “He is cock for fight?” he asked.
Rafo hesitated. “Yes.”
Porfirio held the candle within a few inches of the white gamecock and the boy stiffened, but he didn’t draw Macho away from the flame. The old man studied the bird a bit longer. “No, is not fight cock. His comb is not right—and too much feather.”
Mike was surprised to see Rafo even momentarily unsure of his rooster. He spoke for the boy. “We’ll put a hundred pesos on ours. What will you put on yours?”
“He is not mine,” Porfirio said, referring to the black one. “I am only the árbitro. I will ask the owner.”
He stepped away from them and moved back toward the men. He called the name. “Marta!”
The owner of the gamecock came out of the darkness. She wore black, the uncompromising black of widowhood. If Porfirio spoke protectively to her because she was husbandless, he need not have done so, for she had the face of a woman who can shield herself against others. Yet, it was a face both too strong and too weak, its bones too severe, its skin too delicate, its eyes and mouth too large, as if they had been scaled for a more voluptuous creature. Considering that she must have been well in her thirties, her eyes were wrong in another respect—they were too young, too woundably childlike.
Porfirio mumbled something to her. The childlike expression vanished. She turned a hard, appraising stare at the white rooster, then at the boy who held him, finally at the man.
It was only when she gazed at Mike that her manner faltered—as though she had done something wrong and he had caught her at it. Yet she didn’t turn away.
Taking one further look at the boy and his rooster, she nodded her head, accepting the challenge.
Preparations for the cockfight began. First, the bets were placed in the hands of Porfirio, the referee—not big bets, only coin pesos and centavos—but all the men were shouldering their way into the wager; nobody wanted to be excluded. Then the roosters were taken for hacer, as Porfirio called it, and “making” was the process of getting the animals ready, smoothing their feathers, talking soothingly to them, keeping one bird from seeing the other, so that they wouldn’t dissipate their rages.
Something, however, was going wrong with the preparations. The bettors were whispering agitatedly among themselves, then with the woman. Her rooster in her hands, she beckoned Porfirio to step back into the darkness with her. Neither Mike nor Rafo heard what they were murmuring.
Alone, Porfirio came back into the light and approached the challengers. “The black one has long spurs,” he said. “Which you prefer—long or short?”
Mike turned to Rafo and saw him lower his eyes. When the boy looked up again, he still had no answer for Porfirio and Mike sensed Rafo’s predicament and his apprehension. He said to the boy, in a whisper, “Did he ever fight with spurs?”
“No.”
Turning to Porfirio, “No spurs,” Mike said.
The old man was uncomfortable. He looked into the darkness where the woman was, then back to Mike. “The black cock will not fight without spurs.”
Rafo made the decision. “Long ones.”
“No—you’ll kill him,” Mike said.
Rafo spoke to Porfirio. By saying it in Spanish he took the decision out of Mike’s hands. “Largas!”
The old man worked quickly with expertise that wasted no movement. He tore the spurs off the fallen gamecock, disentangled the wires and, with a deft little patting of the steel claws, wiped the blood of the dead rooster onto his calzones. Bidding Rafo hold the white rooster’s legs forward, he attached the long spurs to Macho’s feet.
Meanwhile the cockpit was being cleared of blood and feathers and the dirt leveled. There was a buzz of excitement, a milling disorder.
Porfirio’s voice, in Spanish first, then English: “Everybody, move back. . . . Setters, to be ready.”
Rafo held Macho to the right of the improvised cock ring; Marta held the black one to the left. They shielded their animals so that neither could see the other.
Porfirio directed himself to the cock setters. “Talk to your birds,” he ordere
d.
Talking to the birds was a low muttering, voices pitched to annoy. Occasionally one of the owners plucked a feather to vex the bird still further and make him peck.
“Confront the fighters,” Porfirio said.
Marta turned, so did Rafo. The victorious rooster faced the challenger.
“Head to head.” As he uttered the command, Porfirio began to back away from the cock ring.
Marta and Rafo closed in so their roosters almost touched each other. They didn’t let the birds go but allowed them to threaten one another, tantalizingly. The cocks squawked angrily and pecked at each other; then, frustratedly far apart, they pecked at their handlers.
“Release!” Porfirio called.
They let them go and the fight began. The birds had looked so tame just a few moments ago and now so savage. The ruffs at their necks, flared out in battle challenge, were no longer pretty but rampant, wild. They strutted proudly at the beginning, pecking at nothing, each one bragging how he would conquer the other. Then the first peck, a real one, but merely at feathers, then the squawk, the challenge. Another peck, a spur raised dangerously, a cry, a strike at the air. A flurry of feathers, white mixing with black, a petulant complaint, a shriek of anger.
They parted, no blood drawn. The real attack began almost by stealth, a quick short one, but deft, and there was blood. It was Macho’s—only wing blood, through feathers, but it was blood nonetheless and showed brilliant red on his whiteness. The spectators said olé softly, without any noise of victory, only expectation. Then the black cock went in fast and cannily struck the same wing, the same place, and the blood was now a spurt.
Suddenly Macho turned coward. When the black one came for him again, he twisted away and showed his tail. Again the attack, again the flight. One of the spectators laughed; somebody made a gesture to the árbitro who looked to Rafo. The boy seemed stricken. Mike wondered if he would pick up his rooster and concede the fight. But Rafo turned back to look at the ring, unable to watch, yet watching. It worsened now, for Macho had begun to limp and the black gamecock was starting to claw him at will.
Just as Rafo realized that one of Macho’s spurs had come undone, the white rooster was free of it. Awkwardly now, one spur on and one off, the white bird raised his spurless talon at the black cock. The fight, that quickly, was joined again. The black one screamed in rage—one spur, then the other, tearing for blood and more blood. For the first time Macho raised his spurred foot. It struck. All at once he seemed to realize the advantage the steel claw gave him; he struck with it again. Then again—bleeding, screaming in pain for vengeance, for more blood and more.
Each of them was now striking for the head. It didn’t matter anymore whether feathers flew; it was eyes they went for. And one of them, an eye of the black cock, was clutched now and held by the white cock, pulled from its socket, hanging by its bloody nerve. Now the blood flew as wide as feathers, spattering the spectators who crouched too close. The cocks shrieked and shrieked, then only one cock shrieked. The other was dead.
Limping and bloody, Macho crowed. He tried to get at the dead animal again, to claw him further. When they wouldn’t allow him near the black one any longer, he crowed louder, in rage more than victory.
It was the first time Mike had ever seen a cockfight and he promised himself never to see one again. He looked at the faces around him. They had witnessed many, these people, and knew a good fight when they saw one. They were congratulating Rafo on the valor of his rooster. They were, he was sure, telling him the animal had fought well, that he was a proud fighter, that he was quick, perhaps—and brave. They would be saying “macho.” Yes, they were indeed saying it: macho, macho.
Mike looked at the dead rooster, with the bloody, ugly eye trailing by the nerve string, and as he heard them say macho again, suddenly he loathed the word.
Yet it was the word, or its equivalent, he had ridden into every arena to hear. Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona—or Mexico—it always signified the same. Put two roosters in a ring and have one pull the other’s eyes out, put two men in a ring and have one beat the other senseless, wrangle the bull to the ground or stick a knife in its artery. Olé.
Macho the Hero.
Macho the Cruel.
Cruel? Well, he’d been that route in his mind many times; it wasn’t a new worry. What made him go into the arena, what made him want to be a hero? The fear that he was a coward—and he’d be found out, especially by himself? Was he proving he wasn’t a coward when he rode the horse down, dominated him? Was the matador doing the same when he killed the bull? Dominate, kill.
Yet, he refused to think of himself as a cruel man. He had read, in one of those handbooks of the soul, that people were cruel because they were lonely or wanted to avenge themselves. But maybe it was the other way around—people were lonely because they were cruel; it was the penalty. But what about revenge? Against what? The only time he’d ever really wanted to retaliate viciously against life was when Laurie died, and then—yes, he could have killed. Perhaps that was what it was about: we want revenge not against one another but against death itself. Maybe that’s what the hero’s after: to stare death in the face, to cry courage, cry I’m not afraid of you, death, I kill you every day, cry macho.
But, looking at the dead rooster, he thought what a bloodthirsty cult comes of not directing the rage at death but at one another, and at the animals around us . . . and of all the arenas that are built as temples to the grand cruelty.
The terrifying thing was he had given the first half of his life to those arenas; more terrifying, he would gladly give his last half as well. It was grieving him, killing him that nobody wanted him anymore, that he was a dead gamecock in a mean little back alley of an inconsequential foreign town.
Well, not altogether dead. He would have his little machismo—even if that was a ridiculous contradiction—breaking a wild horse or two. A few of them, perhaps, to make enough money to get out of here.
He couldn’t take his eyes off the black heap in the red puddle. Others were looking at it too. But they were not, apparently, horrified by the bloody animal. They studied it closely, discoursing on the moves it had missed, the mistakes it had made. They discovered wounds they had not seen inflicted, the gash in the neck, a toe nearly severed by its own steel claw and the bloody eye socket. Not horrified, no. If they looked at a death ugly enough and gazed at it long enough, it would cease to exist.
Mike heard the word macho again. It was Porfirio who was saying it, and for a moment Mike thought he was referring to the dead rooster. But it was the live one he was talking about. The dead ones aren’t macho, Mike thought; the fact that they ever were is—because of guilt and by forgetfulness—denied.
“A brave bird,” Porfirio was saying of the white one, admiringly.
“Yes,” Mike answered.
The spectators were going now. The woman also went—quickly. She picked up her dead rooster and hurried away as guiltily as if she had done something heinous. Mike wondered what she would do with the animal—tacos de pollo? . . . What a wonderful face the woman had. . . .
Porfirio handed Mike the money, all the proceeds from the betting. Mike took only what he had put into the kitty, a hundred pesos, then pointed to Rafo. “His,” he said.
Rafo was taking the spur off Macho’s leg. As the boy let the rooster down, Porfirio approached him and, handing the money over, counted the winnings out to him, down to the last centavo, to show he was giving an honest reckoning. When Rafo had all the coins in his hands, Porfirio still didn’t go away.
“Is over four hundred pesos,” he said, “Much money.”
Rafo nodded and Mike thought Porfirio was hinting for a tip. Mike made a money gesture to Rafo and, when the latter opened his palm, selected some peso coins and handed them to the old man.
Porfirio shook his head.
Mike urged him. “Go on—take it.”
�
��No,” he answered. “Is blood money.”
Mike smiled wryly. “Chicken blood.”
“People blood.”
Rafo was putting the money in his trouser pockets, some in his left, some in his right. Hearing Porfirio, he stopped doing it.
Mike too was puzzled. “What people?”
“La Señora Marta,” Porfirio said. “She is widow. She have four children. On the night of Saturday she always come—for cockfight. They live from that animal.”
Something flared in Mike: the anger at being taken. He was on the verge of being conned and he hated it. “Tough titty,” he said. “Come on, Rafo.”
He started off, out of the cul de sac. He was about to turn into the arcade when he realized Rafo wasn’t following him. He heard the boy talking to Porfirio. It disquieted him. He called the boy again.
Rafo turned toward him. “He say she live down below. The valley. House of white adobe—with brown door.”
“So what? Come on.”
“He say is not far to walk.”
Mike’s disturbance grew. “Rafo . . .” he said warningly.
Without another word, Rafo grabbed Macho off the ground and started to run. He didn’t stop when he got to Mike but ran past him.
“Rafo!”
The boy was still running. Mike raced after him, through the colonnade and out onto the little street. He didn’t catch up with him until the boy was halfway down the hill. Then he grabbed him.
“Where the hell are you going?”
“To give her back her money.”
“It’s your money, you dumb bastard. Your rooster won it. It’s yours!”
“She is poor.”
“So are we!”
“She is widow—she have four children!”
“Rafo, for Christ sake! You mean you’re really going to give her—?”
Cry Macho Page 21
