The Forests of the Night - J P S Brown

by J P S Brown

  "I remember, rajón, you backing out cabrón. You bought her from Martinillo after we quit running the truck to Rancho Quemado."

  Martinillo knew the two men were going to retell the story about how La Bomba got her name. Both men were watching Martinillo to see if they could divert his thoughts from El Yoco.

  "When we were trying to keep a road open to Rancho Quemado, Juan and I brought all the provisions for our ranches in my old truck," El Gringo began as though he did not know Martinillo had heard the story fifty times. "We were the only ones to brave those high grades and switchbacks with the road disintegrating in the rains. We braved them together until Juan Vogel backed out. On our last trip we left San Bernardo after dark as usual. Drunk as usual. We were overloaded with lechuguilla in our bellies and cargo we had tied in the bed of the truck, in the cabin, on top of the cabin, the hood, and the bumpers. That which we could not tie we wedged, balanced, and teetered. We had no spare tire. We had a hand pump for air, a bamba, and plenty of patches. We had ten flat tires that night."

  "Two thousand five hundred bombazos, pumpings," said Juan Vogel seriously. "That's a lot of air to pump. Two hundred and fifty bambazos per blowout."

  "I jacked the truck each time and Juanito, since he is eleven years younger than I and twice as big, did the pumping. He is a good pumper. I praised his ability as a pumper continually, and he would swell his chest and pump faster. He snorted as much air through his nose as he pumped into the tires. But when we had the fifth flat, he fell out of the truck, built a fire, threw himself to the ground, and proclaimed, "Not one more bombazo!" I jacked the truck and blocked it. I goaded him about backing out on a friend halfway home and finally got him on his feet making bambazos again."

  Juan Vogel laughed. "We drove all night and I kept pumping air until we arrived and unloaded at the ranches. We drove on to Las Tunas to buy mezcal. We organized a dance and danced all night. About four o'clock in the morning El Gringo decided he was tired and wanted to go home. I was dancing with a little brown Tegueca. She was hugging me and I was not paying attention to his complaints about cold and lack of sleep. He ran off in the truck, grinding the gears. He had not finished with his gears when we heard his motor whine and crash. We found him wearing his truck for a hat. We rolled the truck back to its feet again and invited him back to the dance. He was blind because his eyeglasses and the trucks eyeglasses had been punched out. He was in no condition to drive on that road in the dark, but he said, "It's the mother!" and drove away without thanking us. He worried us so much we only danced another two or three hours."

  "Cabrones, " said El Gringo.

  "I decided then to go to Las Animas and make you sell me La Bomba, realizing air is indispensable in climbing the Sierra. I knew La Bomba would furnish the bambazos I needed. She already had a fine reputation as a farter. Once, I counted her farts, and sure enough, she used two thousand five hundred farts to get me to the ranch from San Bernardo. What did you call her before I bought her?"

  "Adancito called her Serenity," said Martinillo.

  "She farted with serenity," said Juan Vogel, yawning.

  "Poor, La Bomba."

  El Gringo and Martinillo, full of lechuguilla and warm supper, nodded and yawned as though they believed him.

  22

  The track of El Yoco was unmistakable. He always left distinct imprints with all four feet as though he wanted to make sure he left four signatures. He never stepped a hind paw into the track of a front paw.

  Martinillo was standing by a young cow down in a canyon called Tojiachic on El Yoco's track. He knew the cow. He had helped in the branding when she was weaned. She belonged to Don Domingo Flores and was the daughter of a white-faced bull and a corriente cow. She was a motley-faced brindle with a wide, tapering set of horns that curved downward. The tips of these horns had made long grooves in the sand on each side of her as straight and even in depth as any machine could have made them. The horns were buried in the sand before her. A bit of sand had flowed over the base of them onto her neck. He could count the grains of sand on top of her neck, they were so few. The sand under her face still showed moist beneath the dry crust she had broken. Her hindquarters had settled evenly between the two horn lines and the toes of the hooves of each hind foot showed beneath her belly pointing out at the same angle. She was dead, though she looked whole enough to jump up and run away. Martinillo was not surprised to see her dead. He knew his adversary better each day. He was not surprised that he could see no wounds on her. She had died instantly in full flight. The story of her death had been inscribed plainly by El Yoco on the sand. El Yoco was saying, "Look, pay attention, fools. This is what I can do. In case you don't believe in me, believe your eyes."

  Martinillo carefully read each of El Yoco's kills. He approved El Yoco's mode of killing. He was living on the meat of El Yoco's kills. He was not bothering to cook it, salt it, or wash it. Mariposa slept a good distance away while Martinillo cut away the strips of the cow's loin and wrapped them with a large piece of her hide. Mariposa was grateful for a rest. Martinillo was moving all the time, and Mariposa seldom had time to rest or eat. Mariposa ate from the fresh carcasses El Yoco and Martinillo left. The Martinillo seldom carved meat for him any more. Mariposa slept away from the man because he no longer felt protective of him. Martinillo did not even smell like the Martinillo. He smelled like some beast Mariposa should fear.

  Now, since his encounter with El Yoco, Martinillo had shunned all settlements. He was ashamed of the marks on his face. He did not like people laughing at him. He knew that not even his best friends believed in him. He passed ranches in the night and listened to the stories people told about his meeting with the tigre. People were amusing themselves with stories about how Martinillo, instead of shooting El Yoco, had run away so furiously the brush had torn his face. The dog Mariposa had defended him long enough so he could save himself. He had not shot El Yoco because he did not have time, he was going away too fast. He should send for his wife to hunt the tigre. Everyone knew she was the one who should be hunting El Yoco. He should stay home with her boys. Lucrecia had been the one who taught Martinillo what he knew about hunting and she encouraged him to hunt. The truth was that she did all the hunting, stalking, tracking, and discovering, and Martinillo only did the shooting while he took the reputation of a successful hunter. Lucrecia wanted him to be known as a great hunter because he called himself one. Now he was pretending to be a hunter and on this first real encounter with a great animal--the dream of all hunters--he ran away so fast he scarred his face for life. The people were calling him El Bordado, the embroidered one, because of the stitchings on his face made by the needles of the brush.

  He bore no rancor toward the people who talked about him. He knew he seemed foolish to people. He had seen and felt how foolish he looked after El Yoco had brushed him aside. The knowledge of seeming foolish neither quickened nor slowed his purpose. He had gained so much momentum of purpose and physical adaptability to the hunt that he was becoming more like his quarry every day. Also, each moment of his day was filled with a fever of motion and concentration that was not caused only by his intent to catch El Yoco, but because he had the fever of pneumonia. Pneumonia magnified and intensified his every action.

  He knew he was too close to El Yoco for the jaguar not to know he was being pursued, El Yoco was unafraid of Martinillo, but he liked to show off and leave signs of his power for the man. He left examples of his prowess for Martinillo to witness. He left this brindle cow after killing her in full flight. He once completely leveled and shredded an immense growth of willow. Another time he killed five mule colts within a radius of two hundred paces and did not even stop to eat the brains. Martinillo was not frustrated because he could not keep up with El Yoco. He only hoped El Yoco would make a mistake so that Martinillo could end the hunt. Martinillo was not tired of the hunt, either. As a hunter, he knew the normal lives of Martinillo and El Yoco were suspended until the hunt was over. El Yoco now was as liable to kill a chi
ld as he was a chicken, wife, or pig; and Martinillo was becoming so feral he no longer thought or identified his instincts in words.

  Martinillo cut the loin off the cow, sorry to disturb the monument she made to the efficiency of El Yoco as a killer. All the people who laughed at Martinillo needed to see this monument so they would know the animal who was killing their stock. Martinillo carved meat, chewed it raw, and went on. He was unconcerned about the signs he saw that the cow had left a calf nearby.

  Martinillo needed mezcal. The pneumonia worked on him so that he could not do without it. If he cut himself off the mezcal, the pneumonia would take hold of him and force him to rest. He was living solely on mezcal and raw meat. The evening after he found the cow at Tojiachic he headed for the high cold lights that shone through the night wind at Arechuyvo. He walked to the largest mercantile in the village to ask for mezcal. He had no money. He carried an empty half-gallon bule and his rifle. He had discarded his blanket, morral, and water. Martinillo hoped to trade half the loin for mezcal. The mercantile was open and lights of kerosene lamps shone from its doors into the black night. Martinillo stopped just out of the light at the corner of the building. He held his rifle and waited. He stood straight, still, and apart, his senses awake to the society in the town. He smelled the suppers cooling. He sensed the beds warming. He watched Jacobo Stosius, the Arab, while the man talked on the telephone six paces away from him and unaware of him. Martinillo was difficult to see even in the light. His clothes were no longer white and tan but camouflaged by earth, muddy water, sweat, and blood. Jacobo was also so intent on the world of the voices communicating with him he might not have seen Martinillo standing there in daylight. The disembodied society of the telephone occupied most of Jacobo's days and evenings. He spoke with a childish smile of pleasure on his face to another who belonged to the telephone society. He spoke in short staccato to a man on a far end of the line who could not hear him well. He accentuated his sentences by roundly howling the most important words of the sentences the way serranos speak to each other across the canyons.

  "You mean the Onzaaaaa and the Gringovooo? " Jacobo was asking the phone. "They've only been drunk two weeks--they're entitled to eight more days before they let the hangovers ruin them. That's how those two associate with each other, drunk all the time they are together!"

  He listened for a while, showing his little smile of enjoyment.

  "Mine are all fine, and your family? Ah, Gracias a Dias, Gracias a Dios--I say we are all well, Gracias a Dios, Graciaaaaas!"

  "Martinillo? No, how could he be this far away from his country? He's probably with the drunks at Contreras. He won't be far away from mezcal. They say he is tracking the tigre. No man can track a tigre. His wife, poor woman. He's probably drunk. How barbarous! He doesn't want to work."

  Martinillo's hopes for trading his meat for mezcal rose. Jacobo knew he needed mezcal. As soon as he finished talking, Martinillo would go in and deal with him. He waited, his knees locked and straight, resting his muscles like a sleeping horse. Don Domingo Flores, friend of Martinillo, fell into the store. He bounced off the counter and stopped. He was drunk. His eyes under their white brows sagged at the comers at the same angles with the corners of his white mustachios. He owned Rancho La Ventana at Tojiachic. He had lost the five mule colts and the brindle cow to El Yoco. He seldom drank. Martinillo had never seen him drunk. Martinillo loved and respected him.

  Don Domingo waited for the Arab to stop talking. He fixed a look of great want on the storekeeper. He approached the Arab humbly. The Arab watched him coming but continued his conversation.

  Don Domingo stopped, unsteady, but direct of stance and gaze, before Jacobo. "Jacobo," he began. Jacobo held up a hand for silence.

  "Wait a moment, Don Domingo. I have business."

  Don Domingo stepped back and looked miserably out into the night while Jacobo continued his telephoning.

  "I believe he has gone crazy," Jacobo was saying. "They say he wanders day and night bareheaded with no food or water. A shame. I always liked the poor man."

  Don Domingo stepped forward again. "Jacobo?" he offered. Jacobo held a hand over the mouthpiece of the phone.

  "What is it, Don Domingo?" he asked impatiently.

  "I need a remedy. I find myself with a boil on the very point of my buttock."

  "A moment," said Jacobo. He spoke into the phone again. "Eliseo, your compadre, Domingo Flores, is here. Yes. He wants to know a remedy for a boil on his nalga. " Jacobo listened and nodded. He put a hand on the mouthpiece again and turned to Don Domingo. "Your compadre, Eliseo Gomez, says for you to render the tail of a badger, and put the hot fat on the boil for a poultice."

  "Nooooo," said Don Domingo urgently. "I don't need tails of taquuchics. I don't hang from trees by my tail like an ape, either. I need mezcal, a man's remedy for pain, man, the pain in my tail."

  Jacobo saw the emergency. He saw he was needed. He rang off his telephone. He went behind his counter briskly and examined his shelves of medicines to see which new product he could sell the old man.

  "We have mejoral, vaselina, ferramicina, cream of Colgate, and Bell's pomade. All of these are good remedies for boils. I suggest you try each in turn until one of them works."

  "Nooooo," Don Domingo said. "Once a year I have boils and once a year I drink mezcal to cure them. I want mezcal, no Colgate, no Bell's . . . Mezcal!"

  "Very well, do you have an empty bottle?"

  "No empty bottle. Bring a whole demijohn. I have much pain."

  "Very well, Don Domingo." Jacobo went to a back room. Don Domingo gingerly lingered the point of his buttock. Martinillo licked his dry lips and shivered in the cold wind. Jacobo came back and hefted a five gallon demijohn onto the counter making sure Don Domingo was aware of how much five gallons of mezcal weighed. Don Domingo took it and turned away.

  "In whose name?" asked the Arab, picking up a ledger when he saw the old man was getting away without paying cash.

  "In whose name? In my name, of course. Domingo Flores. Whose pinchi name did you think? Who pinchi asked you for the stuff?" Don Domingo left the store. Outside he walked directly into Martinillo.

  "¿Quién eres?" Don Domingo asked.

  "Martinillo," softly.

  "¡Valgame, muchacha! What are you doing here in the cold night alone?"

  "I came for mezcal. I can pay with a loin. I have more than half a loin here." He showed the meat wrapped in the square of fresh brindle hide with Don Domingo's brand on it. "¡No, hombre!" Don Domingo said, recognizing the brand. "Keep your meat. Come inside while I fill your bule. Tell me about the luck you've been having. Have you killed El Yoco? No. I know you haven't. But tell me how you are feeling. Come home with me to eat and sleep tonight."

  "Just think, but I haven't got time," Martinillo said. "Can you believe me? I have business. Can you forgive me? But if you'll give me some mezcal I'll be grateful."

  Don Domingo pulled Martinillo into the light. He was sobered by Martinillo's appearance. He looked closely into Martinillo's eyes. "Of course, boy," he said. He took the bule from Martinillo and went into the store. "The funnel, Jacobo, please," he said. Jacobo, intent on his ledger, reached to a shelf behind him and handed over the funnel without looking up. Don Domingo smelled the funnel. "Kerosene," he said. He rinsed it with mezcal and wiped it clean with his shirttail. He smelled it again, and satisfied it would not taint the wine, he poured the bule full and carried it to Martinillo. Martinillo drank a swallow so the bule would not overflow when it was stoppered. Don Domingo went back into the store for his demijohn. Jacobo looked up from his ledger slowly, expecting to be amused by drunkards spilling their wine.

  "Don't spill it, Don Domingo, you have a great need for it," Jacobo smiled. "Who is your partner out there drinking his share?"

  "Another drunkard," Don Domingo said, turning with the demijohn and hurrying to catch up to Martinillo. "Wait a moment, son," he called into the darkness. He turned back into the store. "Give me that Mayo blanket
," he said to Jacobo. Jacobo, still amused, his eyes lingering on his ledger for a second, climbed a ladder and brought down a new woolen blanket.

  "This is the heaviest and best I have, expensive, handmade, pure wool," he said. "Are you sure this is what you want? You have the credit, of course."

  "Sure, didn't I tell you what I wanted?" Don Domingo pointed at the ledger with the finger of a hand that was clenched for life from work. "Domingo Flores," he said.

  "Domingo Flores, address: La Ventana," Jacobo said as he picked up his pen. Don Domingo carried the blanket outside. Martinillo was gone. Don Domingo held the blanket up in his arms and offered it to the darkness. He did not call for the man. He knew the man would not return. The man had business. He turned back into the store. He laid the blanket over his shoulder and picked up the demijohn.

  "Now you're going?" Jacobo asked, smiling indulgently and neglecting his ledger to see if Don Domingo would stumble to entertain him.

  "Of course," said Don Domingo. "I have business too. The business of curing a boil on the point of my nalga. " He pointed to the ledger. "Domingo Flores."

  Martinillo, hurrying across the air strip of Arechuyvo in the dark, the Mariposa dog at his heels, felt rich because of the full bule and because he had come away with all the loin for his supper. If he could have some salt! Never mind. El Yoco had no salt. El Yoco had no fire. Martinillo would build a fire and feast on roast loin. When Don Domingo had offered his home Martinillo's mouth had watered for roasted meat, salt, chile, potatoes. Never mind. El Yoco would be dead before Martinillo enjoyed "things" again.

  23

  The burro colt danced on strong legs. He whipped his tail elegantly. His dark eyes glinted with valor. His long ears stiffened in clean unison as he watched a hook of fur on the end of a tan stalk rising out of the brush. The hook swelled and rounded. The colt pranced toward it and snorted. The stalk shrank and disappeared beneath the brush, then reappeared closer to the colt. It frightened him and he sprang away. He stopped soon to watch for it to reappear.