The Forests of the Night - J P S Brown

by J P S Brown

  He found El Yoco's track and followed it down into Arroyo Hondo. El Yoco had walked on the buckskin mare's track until he got to the tree of the burro. El Yoco had lain within a breath of the burro to frighten him until he broke away. He had played with the burro and let him go. Adán followed the burro's track to the cordon of Carrizito. Manuelito could easily have been killed tracking the burro on the rampart of that mountain. Manuelito was not strong enough to climb safely in this country. The burro had passed over terrain that would have astonished the cimarrón, the wild mountain sheep. The burro had bled continuously on his track. Adán left the track when he saw the burro had probably gone down to water and shelter at Limón.

  He picked up El Yoco's track again and followed it to Las Animas. He examined the signs he had made in the battle with El Toro Buey. He marveled at the quantity of blood splashed on the sand and stone. He found where El Yoco had left the arroyo. Then he went to his house.

  Lucrecia was standing by the open fire in her hearth. She was patting tortillas. Her radio was silent. She was profiled to Adán, her eyes vacant. She must have seen Adán coming all the way from the arroyo, but when he stepped inside the house she did not turn to look at him or greet him. He walked to her side, embraced her, and kissed the back of her neck. She moved to shake him off and he bit her softly on the shoulder to hold her.

  "No!" she said and then she laughed. "No, Martinillo, no! You're giving me goose flesh. Is this all you can do?"

  Adán stepped back. "So? What would you rather have me do? Ah, yes, how is your son, my namesake?"

  "My son is he? You are correct. You leave us to the tigres and the devils and only come home when you feel like making goose flesh or babies. Yes, these are all my sons, not yours."

  Lucrecia poured warm water from her teakettle into an enamel washbasin and Adán quickly washed his hands and face and combed his hair. He walked into the boys' room. Adancito was sitting on the bed playing catch with Mariposa's smashed bullet with the Governor. His eyes shone happily when he saw his father, but he did not speak. Lucrecia stood in the doorway kneading dough.

  "He seemed to be well when he awoke this morning," Lucrecia said. "He is keeping quiet, though. He's not going to hunt tigres with his hondo today. Maybe tomorrow, but not today."

  Adancito turned back to play with the Governor. Adán held the boy's head and examined the cut around the eye. The cut was flat under the transparent deer hide strifling and would leave no welt. The Governor held the bullet with one hand and pointed to it with a wet, sticky finger of the other hand. 'Papá, a sea shell!" he proclaimed. Adán rubbed the crown of the Governor's head where he imagined a Governor's garland of leaves should be. He went to the kitchen.

  "Are you going to follow the tigre? " Lucrecia asked without looking at Adán.

  "I have to, don't I? Who else should do it?"

  "My father and brothers could help you."

  "Your father and brothers are three days from here and I imagine they have enough work to do keeping their herds alive."

  "Yes, and you go after the tigres because you have no herds. You have no herds because you go after tigres. "

  "You should ask if we have a burro," said Adán, "or if El Toro Buey will ever serve us again. Who knows? Once we had a filly colt and now we have the hide of a filly. How is El Toro Buey?"

  "I'm afraid he might lose an eye. Memín and Rolando took him out to graze. Outside is cleaner."

  "Everyone gets hit in the eye in this fight. Manuelito said Adancito told him he hit the tigre in the eye with a rock. An eye is a long way from the heart. A lot more than an eye will be lost before El Yoco quits."

  Lucrecia handed Adán a cup of coffee. She moved the sugar bowl close to the cup and chose a spoon for him.

  "When will you go?" she asked.

  "In the morning, early, with moonlight."

  "I can track by moonlight, not you. You are too much a yori, a white man. We Pesqueiras even track without moonlight. My brothers track at a run on a cloudy night. I track blindfolded at a gallop on a rainy night."

  Adán laughed. "Your crazy brothers don't care much about a track any more. They're all married, farming, milking cows, playing the guitar, and trying to drink all the beer in Chinipas. They might hunt with me if I furnish mariachi musicians to walk along with us and play while we drink my mezcal. "

  "Not mezcal," Lucrecia laughed. 'Mezcal is too serious stuff for my brothers. They don't have any fun getting their bellies full if they drink mezcal. The stuff they gobble like pigs is tezuino, the beer of fermented corn shoots. Give them tezuino, give crazy Neli a guitar, and turn them loose after the tigre. They'll dance him to death."

  Lucrecia put the first tortilla on the fire and sat on Adán's lap while she watched the dough fill with heat. Adán rubbed the muscles along her spine from her seat to her neck. Lucrecia got up to turn her tortilla and did not come back. She broiled three sheets of jerky. Adán ate one with fried potatoes and beans for his supper. Lucrecia made burros of fried beans rolled in tortilla. She wrapped jerky and burros in a floursack and put them in Adán's morral with pinole, panocha, a bottle of coffee and a bottle of mezcal. She placed the morral on the table with the bule of fresh water. She went back to Adán's lap and kissed him. "Now rub me if you want to," she said. He rubbed her and they talked about their sons and their work while they watched the fire die.

  * * *

  A few hours later Adán swung his legs out of Lucrecia's warm bed without awakening her. He rubbed his head and eyes with both hands. He looked back at his wife's face in the moonlight and thought of how sweet her flank was. He dressed, shouldered his rifle, reata, morral, blanket, and bule and left the house.

  The morning was cold through Adán's thin shirt. He followed El Yoco's track away from the house where his wife and children slept and found the cold track poor occupation for a man with so warm a wife.

  El Yoco could be very poised if his closest pursuer was twenty-four hours away on cold rock and ready to give up and go home to his wife. Adán began the long and patient labor of acquainting himself with El Yoco. He concentrated on the track and left Las Animas without looking back.

  At First light an airplane landed and then went away from a strip on top of the mountain at Rancho Quemado. At noon Adán walked to Rancho Quemado to talk with Lico. He stopped in the patio while he listened to locate Lico or Ophelia. He heard the handles of water buckets strike their sides, heard a screen door slam, and he knew someone had just walked into the kitchen with water carried in buckets on the ends of a shoulder pole.

  "You had to go for water again?" Adán heard Lico ask Ophelia. Lico had been sitting very quietly in the kitchen by the fire. Lico was always cold.

  "Yes, we had no water," he heard Ophelia answer.

  "What happened to the water Julio Vogel carried from the reservoir this morning?"

  Julio Vogel, owner of Rancho Satebo, was another cousin of Adán's who lived in Rio Alamos. He probably had been the passenger on the plane that morning.

  "He used it in the toilet," Ophelia said, laughing.

  "You mean he walked all the way up to the lake and back for water to pour into the toilet?" Rancho Quemado was the only hacienda in this part of the Sierra Madre, Municipality of Chinipas, with indoor plumbing and indoor toilets."

  "Yes," laughed Ophelia.

  "He worked hard for his anus' sake," Lico grumbled. Adán laughed to himself. Julio had carried the water all that way to flush a mess he had made in the toilet so Lico would not have to do it, and Lico was cross. Why should Lico care? Ophelia carried all the water while Lico sat by the fire.

  "Your water is boiling over. Your kettle is too full and your fire too hot," Lico said. Adán laughed out loud. "Eh?" Lico said, hearing him.

  "¿Quehubo, Licooooooo?" Adán sang in a low voice. He did not look through the window at Lico when he spoke. He looked at a rock wall on the edge of the patio. He did not want Lico or Ophelia to think he had been spying on them.

  "Who are
you?" Lico demanded.

  "Martinillooooooo!" Adán answered softly.

  "Ah, Adán. Come in."

  Adán did not move or look through the kitchen window. Lico came out to the patio. Lico's hat was backward on his head, his shoes untied. He was a heavy-shouldered man with thick legs. He had short square lingers and thick gray whiskers, and he was too cross a man to be Martinillo's friend. He spoke badly of everyone he knew and everyone else in the Sierra was a "dumb Indian" to him. Anyone not an Indian was gente razonable, persons with reason, and he considered himself the only gente razonable who lived in that part of the Sierra except for his patrón, El Gringo Milligan, owner of Rancho Quemado. One of Lico's grandfathers had been a Spaniard, so Lico disdained huaraches

  and anyone who wore them because Lico considered himself a Spaniard too.

  Adán had never heard of Lico speaking badly of him. This was probably because he never came to Rancho Quemado to beg a favor, only to visit respectfully with Lico, for Lico was an old man in his seventies. Lico always spoke begrudgingly of an example of a serrano coming to him in need of help in some emergency. Lico gave help in a free manner, but he liked to speak begrudgingly of the recipient of his help.

  Adán stopped here now to find out if he owed Lico any favors because of Adancito. Adancito had also fallen on Lico in an emergency. Adán wanted to clear away any of Lico's tariff. He felt he owed Lico if the boy had frightened him, excited him from his slumber, his coffee, his mezcal, his fire, or his marriage bed. Any interruption of Lico's marriage bed would have been a drastic discourtesy. Ophelia was in her twenties. Lico managed annually to sire a child with her. Adán hoped his son had not been the cause of Ophelia's missing a year of pregnancy.

  Lico felt he had to sleep apart from Ophelia because he wasn't legally married to her. Hardly anyone was legally married or married in the church in the Sierra. The law and the churches were too far away. However, since Lico felt he was gente razonable and Ophelia was pure Guarijía Indian he did not feel obligated to marry her, and he didn't want her to be called his wife nor did he want to be caught in the same bed with her. All the little children around there hanging on Ophelia's skirts looked like Lico, but Lico slept in the main house and Ophelia slept in the servants' quarters. Ophelia was probably happy they slept apart. Lico wet his bed every night.

  "Adán, it makes me feel good to see you," Lico said, extending his hand and smiling through his crankiness. His teeth looked sour with crankiness.

  "Equally, Lico," Adán said.

  "I've been wanting to talk to you about your son."

  Adán waited.

  "I'm angry with the boy."

  Ah, the tariff, Adán thought.

  "Yes, angry," Lico said when Adán finally looked at him. "He came here jabbering about woods demons chasing him and then ran away without explaining himself. He was crazy. He had the mare crazy too. She acted as pajarera as though birds flew from under her hooves with each step. I almost didn't recognize the mare. The boy yelled something about devils or tigres and his uncle Pascual--something. I couldn't understand him and Ophelia wasn't here to tell me what he was saying. I don't understand the lengua, the Indian tongue."

  "Neither does Adancito. What do we owe you?"

  "No, nothing. I offered him lunch but he ran away. He worried me, that's all. You already know that he is welcome any time for a meal or a bed or for any service I can perform in any emergency. I treat him exactly as I treat you, no more, no less. How is he? Did he get home all right?"

  "Yes. Frightened. The mare was frightened in Arroyo Hondo, and he fell and cut his eye. Not badly, though."

  "Well, you can see why he worried me. However, Adán, he was not injured when he came here, only scared."

  "He cut his eye."

  "No, Adán! He didn't have any cuts on him when he stopped here."

  "He should have been stopped here. He cut his eye after he left you."

  "Yes, he should have stopped here, but as I said, he was crazy and he wouldn't let me help him.

  "I only wondered if he owed you for anything."

  "No, no, no, no, nothing. Forget it. What's a little worry to an old man like me? Any time I can serve you I'll do it with pleasure and good will."

  "Thank you."

  "Come in, Adán. Don't you want coffee?"

  "No. I have to go. I'm following an animal."

  "Ah, yes. I heard on the telephone that Juanito Vogel had arrived. It is time he is gathering his cattle and taking them out of here. At least for now. We have no animals up here and we are still very short of water, even for the house. And that Julio was here this morning and used good water to wash away his mierda in the toilet. Imagine!"

  "You imagine it," Adán said softly and started moving away.

  "Stop on your way home if you come by this way," Lico said, holding the screen door to the kitchen.

  "Until later," Adán said, moving on.

  "Until later, then," Lico answered and went inside.

  Adán went back to the track of El Yoco. He followed it through the pine forest of Rancho Quemado to the escarpments of Guasisaco. The track returned to within fifty varas of the carcass of the filly. El Yoco had gone on his way without pause. Vultures rose from the carcass and lifted out over the escarpment, an updraft sailing them out of danger with no effort from them. Adán stopped when the track led down through a chute in the escarpment. He sat on the cliff of Guasisaco and ate part of his lunch.

  He examined the bowl of the brush country of Limón below him. Adán was sitting under pines. He could see canyons below him that held good cattle feed but were inaccessible to all but the wildest, strongest cattle. Broad and small bamboo, large mesquite, laurel, and chapote trees, like wild persimmon, grew in canyons with water and cover enough to hide El Yoco forever. A man could hunt him remaining forever in those confines and never see him if he did not want to be seen. Adán could be seen from almost any point in a region ten leagues square. His scent was being sent out by the wind at his back. He hoped the updraft that lifted the vultures dissipated his scent. He could control his sound with his huaraches and by carrying worn, light accouterments, but not his scent. Before dark he found the cave on the cordon where El Yoco had rested after his fight with El Toro Buey. Adán stalked the place from above it. He squatted on an overhang of rock over the opening of the cave. He could not see inside. He wished the Mariposa dog was with him. The Mariposa could flit about and stir any tempers in the cave. Adán squatted patiently, resting quietly, immobile for a long while. Bees began to return to a hive in the overhang. The only sound in the place was the sound of their wings. Adán walked down by the cave, confident El Yoco was not there.

  The cave was small and easily warmed. Bees had been feasting on El Yoco's blood. The smell of his bloody hide mixed with the musty smell of the cave. Fire had been used here and the dust was ashen. The cave had been used by the antiguos, ancient Indians who had lived, hunted, and warred in the region; ancestors of Adán and Juan Vogel and all who lived there now. Caves in the region still housed the mummified remains of Indians folded in the fetal position and wrapped in straw mats. If any had been in this cave they had long since been pulverized by the hooves and paws of animals that sheltered themselves here.

  Adán did not move close to the mouth of the cave. He did not want to leave any sign that might discourage El Yoco from using it again. He left El Yoco's track and looked for a way off the mountain.

  He heard voices at the bottom of the mountain. Two men were awakening a ravine by shouting curses, whipping reatas, spurring their mounts, and slapping their chaps. Two long-tailed, redheaded loro parrots flew out of the ravine, climbed toward him, veered away from him, and climbed on much higher. Manuel Anaya rode his mule out of the ravine. He was leading a brown corriente bull. The bull stopped. Manuel loosened the dallies of his reata on his saddlehorn and rode back toward the bull. He turned the mule's rear end to the bull. He enticed the bull with the rump of the mule so the bull would charge and leave
the ravine. The mule was stumbling tiredly. Adán saw the mule had been ruined. He had been gored in the belly. His innards were slipping and tumbling out. The stumbling was caused by the mule's stepping on his own guts. The bull charged quickly and drove the mule into the trunk of a tree. He trapped the mule against the tree, his horns caught under the cinches of Manuel's saddle. He lunged again, lifting the mule off the ground and pinning him against the tree.

  Adán ran with all the momentum he could control off the mountain. He untied his blanket roll as he ran and he dropped his blanket, morral, and bule, freeing his reata. He unslung his rifle so he carried his reata and rifle in one hand.

  Juan Vogel came out of the ravine on a bay horse, charged in against the bull's side and whirled away, making the quite to attract the bull away from Manuel. He roped the bull as the bull chased him. He turned off at an angle and jerked the bull to stop him. His saddle slipped to one side with the jerk and he stood on one stirrup to keep from losing his seat. He rode around a tree so the pull would help him right his saddle.

  Adán ran in and roped the bull's heels to hold him. Juan Vogel dismounted. He straightened his saddle and tightened the cinches. Manuel Anaya took Adán's heel rope and dragged the bull down with the crippled mule. Adán fell on the bull's neck with his knees and held the bull down by a foreleg. Juan Vogel cut off the tips of the bull's horns with a machete and mounted his horse again. Adán let the bull up. He charged Adán, missed him, went on by, and caught Manuel's mule again. Juan Vogel's horse was dragged along by the bull, his feet braced and sliding on an apron of rock. The bull drove Manuel's mule over the brink of the ravine into the top of a tree. Manuel fell away from the mule and hung to the tree. The mule fell through the tree to the bottom of the ravine. Manuel tied him there and climbed out. Juan Vogel led the bull up the trail. Manuel and Adán walked well behind the bull so he wouldn't turn back to charge them.