The Forests of the Night - J P S Brown

by J P S Brown

"The egg boxes?" Adán asked. "They're intact. They're good for many more trips to San Bernardo. You must feed your burro, though, Manuelito. Let me keep him here until it rains. When you need to use him again he'll be strong."

  "You may have the boxes, Adán."

  "Thank you, Manuelito. I'm grateful."

  "They are good boxes. I'll make more before another trip is indicated by the chickens. Before the chickens have accumulated another hundred eggs. After all, I have a lot of pine wood cut in box length for more boxes. I'll make you a set of new boxes, too."

  "Thank you, Manuelito. You make good boxes. Do you want to lie down and rest before supper? We'll make your cot in the alto, the loft. We'll have supper when I've finished my evening chores."

  "I know how to work too. I can lead the burro with the bota for water."

  "No. I think you and your burro should rest. Tomorrow we'll find a way to explain your accident to Don Panchito. He'll understand."

  "Yes. He'll be angry. With good reason."

  Adán watched his friend's face awhile. The face looked intently confused. "Don't you feel rest is indicated, Manuel?"

  Adán persisted, prodding for truth in the confusion.

  "Yes," Manuelito said.

  "Come," Adán said. He helped Manuelito up steep stairs to the loft where Lucrecia was extending blankets, quilts and pillows over a wide cot. The days were hot and dry, the evenings, though dry were turning into cold nights causing grippe and distemper in men and animals. Manuelito's nose was emitting a torrent of mucus. The back of the sleeve he used to wipe his nose was receiving an abundance of irrigation on terrain that would yield him nothing. He looked feverish.

  The man lay down and was asleep. Adán took his hat and huaraches and stored them safely. The woman loosened the old man's clothes and wondered at the state of the buttons he fastened and the inner clothing he wore. She realized he had no one to care for him, but she had not realized no one cared at all. Adán removed all his clothes. She carried them downstairs to better light and sorted them, dropping the rotting garments into a fire she built in the patio. She heated a five-gallon can of water. Adán carried a bucket of cold water and a washtub to the loft. Lucrecia washed Manuelito with warm water and strong soap as he slept, exhausted by confusion. When she had dried and shaved him she covered him and went down to her kitchen to light lamps and prepare supper. They had no beef or pork this year. They had venison and javalina dried and salted into jerky. The Martinillo family was never without meat. Adán Martinillo was a hunter.

  Adán watched his wife. "I saw a full-grown jaguar," he said.

  "Where?" Lucrecia said.

  "At the pool of Tepochici."

  "Lucky. I saw my kitchen, my children go away on an adventure, and you come back from one."

  "The Mayos on the coast call them yocos. Those big jaguars are from the coast, not from here."

  "He's here because its cooler than the coast and he'll find better game, better water. He bathes and plays in water. He can eat fish on Friday if he wants to."

  "El Yoco. A handsome animal," Adán said thoughtfully.

  2

  El Yoco returned to his prey in the night. He had eaten its blood, brains, innards, and genitals while they were still hot from the excitement he had caused. Now, he fed on the quarters and loin. The doe was too small. He cleaned the ribs, found he had no more to eat, and was still hungry. He was cranky when he walked away from the bones. He walked without direction for a while in the darkness.

  A large, fat animal walked out in front of him. The animal was slow and plump. El Yoco loped to take it. He braked within reach of it. The animal bared its teeth at him. El Yoco recognized the small beast as El Solitario, an old cholugo, a raccoonlike animal who had separated himself from his tribe to rustle alone. He had aged and become too grouchy even for his own kind. El Solitario was a match for any predator and was not an easy morsel to take. He was hard to kill and dangerous to close with on a full stomach. El Yoco shook his head quickly and trotted away without looking back. He went on to the pool of the duck and the hawk. He climbed to a nest of dry leaves beneath a laurel tree above the pool and slept.

  The sounds of the hooves of a barefoot burro and the murmurings of a human awakened him. He knew the sounds and identified the scent. He moved so he could watch the trail. A man walked clumsily in front of a young, fat burro. The smell of the man and the used smell of the burro disgusted El Yoco. He was not hungry for a man or a used burro. He had seen men and burros before. He felt an enmity between himself and the man that he did not wish to awaken.

  "Come on at your own little pace, burrito, " was the shape of the murmurings of the man. "We'll go slow so you'll not tire like my poor burro. Maybe the washings Lucrecia did me will not cause me an ill effect. Imagine! Waking up and realizing I had been denuded! Knowing I had been bared, revealed! This could cause me a daño! The woman bathed my entire body! Who can tell the extent of the ill effects? Water on my back has always made me rabid! Luckily, I was asleep!"

  El Yoco watched and felt his enmity until the man walked on out of sight. El Yoco went to the pool and bathed, splashed, and played before he started for high pine woods to pass the day in coolness.

  * * *

  Lucrecia was sweeping the smooth ground of the patio in front of her house. She swept happily, and the clean, dark dust rose to shine in the light of the early sun. She swept briskly, making small strokes with her broom of foxtail grass. She missed no corner of her morning patio. She broke into a dance to the music of the radio in her kitchen, moving her bare feet briskly, smally, her hips largely, her head arrogantly in tune with her music. Her feet and toes caressed her ground. Her broom suddenly hugged close, she turned and turned and her dress swirled behind straight thighs that were creamy above her tanned knees and calves. She began to sing the words of the song on the radio with a clear voice.

  A big man sitting a mule in the shade of a nacapúl tree on the edge of the patio saw those fine thighs. He leaned forward with his elbows on the swells of his saddle to observe them better. Childbearing had not broken Lucrecia's figure. She had grown from slim and supple girlhood to handsome womanhood, a state he fully appreciated. He was Juan Vogel, owner of La Avena ranch.

  Lucrecia set aside her broom and picked up a water bucket with a gourd dipper floating on top of the water. She began sprinkling the patio to settle the dust. The water spilled from the gourd as she drew it from the bucket, wetting the cotton dress against her leg. Her upper lip and the hair on her temples and neck were moist with clean perspiration. She tossed the glistening water by snapping her wrist and causing the gourd to empty abruptly. The water sprayed evenly over the packed ground. She sang and sang.

  "The patio becomes wet, becomes wet. Lucrecia sings and sings and sweats and sweats," said Juan Vogel when he found himself watching the woman indecently long. A man did not want to be caught doing too much unseen spying or even friendly watching in these mountains.

  Lucrecia looked up and shaded her eyes with the dripping gourd to recognize Juan Vogel. She smiled. "Good morning. Step down, Juanito. Come in for coffee."

  Serranos referred to Juan Vogel as Little Juan, Juanito, even though he was fifty years old and a palron. His father had been Don Juan Vogel and would always be Don Juan, alive or dead. Juan Vogel was also known by many nicknames; El Guirote, the vine, because in his youth he had been tall and slim; Juanón, Big John, now that he was large and husky, standing over two meters in height and weighing one hundred kilos. He was also called Onza. The onza is a large feline of the Sierra that is said to be the cross between the cougar and the jaguar, or the mutation of a lion, or a mythical beast. The man was called Onza because of the clear, slanted, amber eyes with which he watched other men, and the smooth way in which he carried his one hundred kilos. He got the best of any trade in cattle or horseflesh. The serranos looked to him for aid and advice. He gave it freely. He exacted payment when payment was possible. He never failed to collect all he thought was his due, a
nd he charged extra for the privilege of association with him.

  "And the man?" Juan Vogel asked without changing his comfortable seat on the mule.

  "He's gone to burn the mauguechi, a clearing for this season."

  "What will he plant this year?"

  "He says corn, beans, potatoes, as usual."

  "And your sons?"

  "They went with Adán to ride El Toro Buey."

  "They are growing."

  "They ride El Toro Buey to drag brush and branches as Adán cuts them down. Get down and come in. They'll be back at midday. Adán isn't working El Toro Buey in the afternoons during this dry period."

  Vogel dismounted and led the mule to the stall. He unsaddled her and gave her a bundle of tasol. He walked stiffly to the house. His thick bowed legs were snug in leather leggings, his broad trunk in a canvas jumper, his big Chihuahua spurs dragged behind scuffed bootshoes. At the door he twisted his spurs around on his ankles so they rested on his instep out of the way. He went in and sat down to a cup of coffee.

  "Have you come to gather your cattle?" Lucrecia asked.

  "Yes. I'm taking them to the coast. If I leave them here they are bound to die. I'm moving my mules and horses to the Contreras Ranch. The Contreras has feed and water enough for them."

  "I know. Adán goes there to hunt deer. He goes to the country of the Agua Zarca on your range. Would you care for a taco of Agua Zarca venison?"

  "Surely. A taco of my own venison would not be bad. A taco of my beef would be bad." Juan Vogel laughed respectfully. He kept his eyes focused a few inches on his side of Lucrecia's figure at all times, as was fitting. When he looked at her he looked only at her face. He had ridden a long way today to see and talk to his cousin Martinillo, the vaquero, the hunter, the husbandman; only to find himself alone with the man's wife. A man could get killed if he showed any disrespect at all when alone in these mountains with another man's wife.

  "We'll make the roundup camp at Gilaremos, as usual," Juan Vogel said.

  "Here come Adán and the boys," Lucrecia said from her kitchen window.

  Juan Vogel turned to see them through the door. He sighed, relieved. The boys were riding El Toro Buey. The bull was also carrying a bota, a large canvas mantle which straddled his back and was full of water on both sides. El Toro Buey was careful of his burden but was not bothered by its weight. His black nose lifted rhythmically, his wide horns dipped and rose as he negotiated each step. He stopped in front of the door and the boys climbed down. Rolando used the bull's tail to get down and El Toro Buey nobly did not look back at him. Adán recognized the brown mare mule in the stall.

  When she saw Adancito, the mule, La Bomba, wrenched from herself the half bray, half whinny that is a mule's raspy, heaving sob of greeting. She longed for Adancito. Adancito ran to her, hung on her neck, and began to cry.

  "They don't forget each other," Adán said. "I should never have sold that mule to you."

  "I give her back to Adancito." Juan Vogel said from inside the house. "I can't stand emotion in a mule."

  Adán dropped the lead rope of El Toro Buey and walked into the house, removing his hat. He greeted his cousin formally by shaking his hand and patting him on the shoulder in a token embrace. Juan Vogel did not rise from his chair. Adán sat down at the table. Lucrecia brought a glass of mezcal.

  "God, what a dried and redried year this has been and the drouth is only beginning," Juan Vogel said. "We can't expect life until July. Wait until June if you want to see dying cattle."

  Adán handed the mezcal to Juan Vogel. "Take this, cousin, a sudden remedy, though temporary, for dryness," he said softly.

  Juan Vogel held the glass before him and formally swirled its contents. Small pearly bubbles formed in the center of the liquid and spiraled to the surface. He swallowed half the contents. "The best," he said. "The only remedy we, as humans, have in this time of the reredryness of the redryness."

  Adán said nothing. He had been living with absolute drouth for one year. Everyone complained about the drouth and Juan Vogel had just come from a place where beautiful poplar trees shaded beer gardens. He turned the glass on the table before him, careful not to agitate the alcohol.

  "I was not aware of how bad it is," Juan Vogel prodded Adán.

  "Lu sequedad, lu requeteresequedad, the dryness, the double redryness," Adán mused, looking at the mezcal.

  "How many cows died?" Juan Vogel asked.

  "Two that I know, but they are all beginning to die. I've worked the brush every day this month except yesterday and today. I expected you a month ago."

  "The bankers."

  Juan Vogel's excuse for not tending to his ranch was always "the bankers." He knew Adán knew little of bankers. Juan Vogel used the word "bankers" to stop his people in the Sierra from complaining. He used the word with Adán only out of habit. He knew Adán had never mothered up to money and would never ask him for any.

  "How many days will you need for plowing," Juan Vogel asked.

  "l won't plow. My mauguechi is on steep ground. I'll plant in holes in terraces if it rains."

  "Did you save the hides of the cows that died?"

  "They were too old and dry. The cows were so old they almost dried up and blew away before the buzzards found them. I've been cutting and feeding maguey and lechuguilla heads and burning the spines off cholla and tuna cactus for weak cattle."

  Juan Vogel dismissed this as his and the cattle's due. He would never thank a vaquero for any extra effort he put out to keep the livestock alive even if that vaquero had to bring a sick cow into his own house. No vaquero expected any thanks. Juan Vogel's eye fell on Lucrecia. He could joke familiarly with her now that her husband was home.

  "Have you been making clay pots, cousin?" he asked her.

  "Only for my own house," Lucrecia said. She pointed to a fat olla sweating with moisture in the cool corner of the room. It sat full of sweet water on the peeled branches of a pine limb stuck in the dirt floor. "I just finished that olla. "

  "And the one on the stove?" The olla on the stove was new and brick-red and would contain three gallons. Its smooth, potbelly was symmetrical, its mouth flared open.

  "You like that one?" Lucrecia asked, pleased. She knew she was good at fashioning ollas. She was quicker and had better hands for it than any woman she knew in the Sierra.

  "That one will be the right size for beans for the vaqueros in camp," Adán said.

  "Precisely," Juan Vogel said. "How much do you charge for an olla of that size?"

  "Five pesos," Lucrecia said.

  Juan Vogel took a crumpled five-peso bill from his pocket and laid it on the table. "For one olla of that size."

  "You like the olla? Take this one. Adán will be eating at the camp. What is one olla? Put your money back. I don't want money. Don't make me responsible for money."

  "Ah, you're rich, Lucrecia," Juan Vogel teased.

  'Si. Very much a rich woman," Lucrecia laughed.

  "Will you cook for my vaqueros during the roundup?"

  "On the roundup?" Lucrecia stalled.

  "Yes."

  "¿ . . . sabe?" she said slowly, shyly. "Who knows?" She did not look up from her work. She would never consider any employment but her own, and Juan Vogel knew it.

  "Could you spare her, Adán?"

  Adán watched his wife pounding dried venison with a heavy rock on the melate, a stone slab with a wide trough worn the length of it. "¿ . . . saaaaaabe?" he growled, smiling slightly.

  "That business would be hers. She doesn't like to leave Las Animas."

  Lucrecia gave him a grateful look. Her steps took on a little bounce and she glanced cockily at Juan Vogel.

  "Is this true, Lucrecia?" Juan Vogel asked. "Don't you ever want to win a lot of money so you can leave these mountains, buy new dresses, learn to play cards, and drive automobiles?"

  "No!" Lucrecia said softly. The thought angered her but she did not wish to offend Juan Vogel. The women of the Sierra all knew Juan Vogel's wife bou
ght a new dress every day, played cards every day, and drove an automobile every day. The men who went to the town of Rio Alamos came back to the Sierra with tales of the extravagance of Alicia Vogel.

  "Wouldn't you like to see the motion pictures, eat in restaurants, go to the sulón de belleza, the beauty shop?"

  "The Martinillo has taken me to the restaurant and to the picture show. He took me to Rio Alamos in the airplane when I gave birth to Adancito. I was as big as El Toro Buey. I'll never go back."

  "I couldn't get her to go down to the hospital for the other three boys. The midwife, Lucia, has attended to her for the three."

  "And the beauty shop, Lucrecia, don't you ever want a beauty treatment?"

  "Beauty shop?" Lucrecia laughed. "Isn't that where they make pretty ones out of ugly ones? My sons and husband already like the way I look. I know the way I look, and I don't need anyone to change me so I won't recognize myself."

  Lucrecia served venison jerky fried with potatoes and eggs. She gave them corn tortillas, fat gordas of corn she had ground herself on the metate.

  "Do you want to sell El Toro Buey?" Juan Vogel asked Adán.

  "¿ . . . suuuuube?" Adán said, without looking up from his plate. Juan Vogel seemed interested in acquiring everything that belonged to the Martinillo. Yet Adán didn't want to deny the bull to Juan Vogel if he needed him.

  "What do you mean, you don't know? Do you or don't you? You said you wouldn't be plowing this year. Meat is scarce on the coast. I'll take him as a leader for my cattle on the drive to San Bernardo. I'll give you a thousand pesos for him."

  "I don't have any necessity to sell him. I can plow here by the house. He would be missed."

  This was enough for Juan Vogel to know Adán would not sell the animal. Adán laughed to himself. Juan Vogel could count on El Toro Buey again breeding all his cows on Las Parvas.

  Lucrecia served beans. She was doing her part by serving beans and clearing away the dishes the men had used. The Martinillo's part was to sell or not to sell El Toro Buey as he saw fit, but she would hate him if he did.

  Adancito and Memín had come in and were squatting on the floor behind Juan Vogel. They watched the broadness of his back and the bright shine through dust on the silver mounting of his spurs. They watched their father's face. Both thought of hiding places for El Toro Buey where they could sequester him if their father sold him.