The Forests of the Night - J P S Brown

by J P S Brown

  The uncle finally died and Juanita came back to Chinipas to live in this house her mother had given her. She felt her father and brothers in Canelas had betrayed her by allowing the Martinillo to steal her sister. A stallion was a stallion, a mare a mare. But her own family's fences had been bad and they had known the stallion of a Martinillo was loose.

  Now she was an old aunt to the children of the age she and Adán Martinillo would have had. She had come back from Chihuahua when her mother died, and the whole family of men had wept on her bosom and waited around for her to make decisions and to be of service to them as her mother had been. The family had been surprised and hurt when she left Canelas to make her own home in Chinipas. The farther she slept away from her family the freer and happier she felt.

  Juanita might be called La Quedada, but she knew she was still a complete woman, and she was not going to marry anyone unless he was better than Martinillo. She would watch herself shrivel, dry, and turn black from want Erst.

  Neli had come to see her to take Luz del Carmen. He told her of the business the Pesqueiras had undertaken and the state of Martinillo. Thinking of it now made Juanita feel like weeping. She wanted to see her father and brothers and nieces and nephews, but she had exiled herself from her family when she refused to take her mother's place and when she had arranged herself so that she could see Martinillo when he wanted to see her. Now she was sick of waiting here to see Martinillo when the moon was right for him to come to her. She was sick of being La Quedada and a secret mistress too.

  The next move she made would take her away from Chinipas. While she was in Chihuahua with her uncle she had studied art and begun to paint. Now, for seven years she had been improving her art. People in Chihuahua, Mexico City, and Los Angeles were interested in her work. Her painting was going to be her way out of the Sierra to a full life of her own. All this hoping had been going on long enough. It was time to go.

  A young boy came out her back door and stood above her on the step.

  "The señor says to come and help him," the boy said.

  "What? What were you doing in my house, creature?" Juanita asked.

  "I don't know the señor. He says for you to help him."

  The boy jumped off the step. Juanita's tomcat, the one she called Martinillo, ran into the house before the door closed. She did not want him in there unless she was there to watch him. He upset her house. "What man? Where is he?" Juanita asked the boy. The boy ran away.

  Juanita stretched and went into the house. She walked through the kitchen into her front room. Martinillo was sitting on her couch. He was in pain, his head back, eyes closed. His hat had fallen behind the couch. He was bearded and filthy. New blood was flowing over a large spot of dried blood on his shirt front. His chest was heaving as though it was three breaths behind the breath he needed. Juanita opened his shirt, saw the well of blood on his chest.

  "Adán," she said, feeling his forehead and putting the back of her hand to his dry cheek. "Adán."

  "Yes," he answered in a spasm. He writhed to catch up with the vital rhythm of respiration again. When he caught it he said, "Just let me rest."

  "All right, be quiet, then," Juanita said. She went for her washbasin, filled it with warm water, and bathed his chest. She compressed the wound and bandaged it. She helped him to his feet and took him to her bed. She went back into the living room for her basin and more water. The smell of blood was thick and warm in there and when she picked up her basin she saw that the cushions of her couch were covered with a large jelly of blood. She ran to Martinillo and turned him on his side. His back, his belt, his trousers, were massed over with blood. Quickly, expertly, she stripped him and dressed the wounds on his back and ribs. When the wounds were staunched and clean she rolled him on towels and bathed him with hot water and alcohol. She shaved him and combed his hair. She covered him with clean linen and blankets and left him to go and wash his clothes. They came apart in her hands with the assault of lye soap and hot water. His cough sent her hurrying to the bedroom and she found him in distress. She held him and calmed him. His fever was high.

  "Where are we now, Juanita?" he asked her.

  "In our house, Adán," she said, kissing him gently. She resolved to keep him for herself this time. She could steal to keep him the same way her sister had stolen. "You are my husband, Adán. My husband."

  He slept. Juanita decided she could best warm him, comfort him, and keep her hand on his pulse by lying with him. She undressed and got under the covers beside him. She put her hand across his stomach. She listened to his heart and breath. She watched his face. She rose only to feed him broth and to give him the herb teas the Pesqueira women had always used for curing. She left him once to buy him mezcal.

  If Juanita had not stayed close, Martinillo would have died. On the third night he did die. The three days and nights had been an oblivion for him in which his breath and heartbeat barely functioned. He was never conscious. She often answered his delirious talk until it almost became a conversation between them, but she was sure he was not conscious of what he said.

  On the third day, while Juanita was sleeping, Martinillo stopped breathing. His body settled down toward the final relaxation of death. His flesh settled heavily against her and she awoke, aware he was dying, the grate of his breathing had been that necessary to her during the three days.

  She shouted at him and climbed over him, trying to press her own life into him. She rubbed the muscles of his breast. She straddled him and put her mouth on his and blew into his lungs. She breathed and pressed and spoke, wet his dry mouth with her tongue, and breathed again until he returned her breath to her and took it back of his own accord. As he began to breathe she began to cry and fell exhausted beside him. She cried until she slept.

  29

  The Martinillo boys were with E1 Toro Buey gathering wood. Lucrecia was closing the house and going out to gather uvalama and capulin. She swept her floor as she backed to her door. She liked to see her floor cleanly swept and undisturbed. Her broom marks were so slight they barely raised the damp earth of the floor. When she returned she would start her work again in a clean, well-swept house. She bolted the door and locked it with a padlock.

  She gathered all the fruit she could carry in two guari baskets. She wondered why she bothered to carry them home. They were short of juice and sugar. They were fruits of a year that had yielded little else but pain, but she would boil them with panocha and bring them to life.

  She went home with the fruit just as though this was the most bountiful, most fortunate year of her life. She walked across her patio and paused on her stoop, listening and watching for her sons. The boys had tarried again. They were probably detained by giggling and using El Toro Buey for some new adventure.

  Lucrecia saw that her padlock was unlocked. The door was not bolted as she had left it, but it was closed. She went in to put down her baskets. The Mariposa dog was inside. He wriggled humbly, unhappily. He was glad to see her, but he was quiet and subdued. Of course, she thought, the Martinillo is home. He's hiding and waiting to scare me. She stood inside the door. She was not going to let him scare her. She knew how he loved to slip up on her and bite her before she even knew he was in the region. She saw the track of his huaraches across the floor to the back room where the lechuguilla was kept. Very carefully she examined the floor for the tracks that would show he had returned from the back room. No, he had not. He was still in there. He was being so careful she could not hear his breathing.

  "Adán," she said. "Adán!" she demanded. "I know you are there. Don't scare me." She made herself go into the back room. He was not there. The dusty track of his huaraches went as far as the demijohns of mezcal and stopped. They did not return. They stopped where the man had squatted to lift the demijohn. Lucrecia had no way of knowing how much of the mezcal was gone. She was certain the track was Adán's. She had watched it seven years. She had not yet moistened and swept the back room as she did every day. The ground in there was beaten so har
d it showed no other tracks, not even the print of her own sandals. Yet Adán's track was plain. The dust under Adán's track was not the same color as the dust of the rooms, was not the dust of Las Animas. The soil of Las Animas was dark, bottom land soil. Adán's huaraches had tracked in a lighter, finer, tan dust. The dog had been let in by someone. The dog would never have left her husband and come home alone from a hunt. Lucrecia went into the room to see the dog. Mariposa was gone. He had been following Martinillo's spirit. He was going back to the place where he had last seen the whole man.

  30

  When he died, Martinillo's mind quit racing. Days after nights after days it had raced. Suddenly it quit and he began to settle peacefully into a black void, away from all necessity of breath and thought. The place into which he settled was fine and comfortable. He forgot to breathe. He did not need breath. His breathing, since the knifing, had been such a conscious effort, such a fight, that it had worn him out. In this new place he did not have to remember to breathe at all.

  Then the woman gushed him full of air and started the struggle again, and he realized he would die if he didn't wake up and do what people do to stay alive. When he was conscious again he looked down at her sleeping by his side with no veneer at all, and he saw that she had made a present of her life to keep him alive and the giving had been complete enough to almost kill her. How beautiful she was in the sleep she enjoyed. He recognized her as Juanita, the first woman he had loved. He kissed her sleeping face and she awakened.

  31

  One day he was on his feet watching Juanita tie his huarache. He touched her warm hair and she turned her eyes toward his. Her eyes were ready to fill with tears. La Llorona was who she was. The Crying Woman of his life. Her tears dampened his dry, worn soul. She had healed him with herbs, hot water, lye soap, and loving tears. She had been so complete a woman for him that he would never need another.

  He wondered how he could have been such a fool to chase an animal until he collapsed. He went out and lay in the sun on Juanita's patio and dedicated himself completely to warm patio life. He was there sunning himself with his face on tan, packed soil when a voice said, "I knew you were here. You fooled everyone but me." He did not move. He did not have to move for Juan Vogel. The sun was just as warm on his back with Juan Vogel standing there.

  "I brought your rifle and bule. Whose mezcal is that in Juanita's kitchen, Felipe's? Man, that's good mezcal. What a great life you've been leading."

  Adán did not answer. Why should he? All questions got answered without him.

  "You look like the wounded lizard who barely escaped the town dogs. You lose your tail? Have they eaten your tail and finished you?"

  Adán, his lips gently brushing the ground, said, "Yes."

  He kissed the ground softly. Lately whenever he kissed, his kisses were largely appreciated. The kiss on the ground required hardly any movement, hardly any effort. "My life is this warm ground under the sun with me against it," he said.

  "What great satisfaction," said Juan Vogel quietly. "It gives me great satisfaction to see you so satisfied."

  "I think so too," said Adán. "This is why it is my life."

  His lips carried moisture that picked up small grains of soil, a good sign of good health. His lips were no longer dry and cracked from neglect.

  "And El Yoco? Every man in the region is chasing him while you sun yourself. Your in-laws have run him almost to death. They've seen him, but haven't been able to kill him."

  "My goodness."

  "You seem very interested."

  "Very interested."

  "Well, get up and have some coffee and stop lying around like a lizard."

  "Why do I have to? My love says I don't have to."

  Juan Vogel watched him and smoked. "Your love isn't here. I'm here. So get up from the ground and talk to me."

  Adán rolled over on his back. The healing wounds scratched themselves happily against the clean ground. The Mariposa dog dragged himself quietly to him and licked his cheek. He let the dog do that. He liked the dog. The only trouble with the Mariposa was he wanted to go home. The red ox of Celestino's ambled to him and smelled him. The ox began to lick his feet.

  "That old ox likes me," said Adán.

  "Looks like it," said Juan Vogel.

  "He's found a good home. Juanita won't let them sacrifice him."

  "These town houses are fine." Juan Vogel stood over him, ready to walk away on business. A vigorous man, Juan Vogel. Every place he went his hands went to work for him for money and accomplishment.

  "Why can't I have a town house like you. My love says this is my house," Adán said.

  "What about El Yoco? You assumed that responsibility, got everyone excited, and now you want a town house. Don't you care any more?"

  Adán looked Juan Vogel in the eye and said, "I hope they get him. I hope he doesn't hurt anyone. What more can I do? Why should I worry about him?"

  "You hope? Don't you do any work at all any more? Hoping is for salamanders."

  "I did my part. I'm the clown of the Sierra. I've performed to everyone's amusement. I'm tired from so much entertaining."

  "You quit."

  Adán was not inclined to answer, but he said. "Yes. The country the jaguar sees no longer interests me. The sight of his track is of no importance to me. I have no designs on him at all. I have become a spectator. From now on I'm going to be a listener of Juan Vogel's advice, the lover of Juanita Pesqueira, the digger of seed holes for com, the driver of a bull ox, the husband and father, and the seldom drinker on special occasions of mezcal. Not the vengeful hunter of demons. I'm not going to try to contain the demons of life for the givers of advice. I'm turning them loose and I'm going to let them run on by me. Adiós. Good-bye. Amen." Adán got up, walked by Juan Vogel, went to the bedroom, took off all his clothes, got under the covers of Juanita's bed, and slept.

  32

  The cat yowling woke him up and for a moment he realized how strange this place was where his love had a yowling cat to care for, and cats didn't care for anyone but themselves. Cats played with lives. A cat had almost finished him playing with him. Those eyes of cat did not care for anyone but themselves. And now Juanita's tomcat yowled and where was Juanita? Gone painting pictures all day. I find sleep, and her cat yowls because he does not like me using his pillow. And Juanita is gone.

  A door slammed with the wind. "Prrrrrrrrrrr," he heard Juanita say. Prrrrr, my ass, Adán thought. The son of a night's yowling will eat now and defacate somewhere so I'll be sure to step in it. He began to wonder why Lucrecia had not come. Juanita was her sister. Juanita surely had told Lucrecia that Adán was here all knifed up. Or maybe Juanita thought somebody cared she was his mistress. Adán was not altogether a waif. He had Las Animas for a place to live. He had sons. He had a fine wife, as fine a woman as Juanita, though no finer. His family was sure forever. He could not possibly lose his sons, wife, and home. So why had not Juanita told his wife he was here?

  The tomcat leaped to his pillow and looked at him. Adán grinned at him and gave him the back of his hand so hard the cat cartwheeled through the air and struck a door jamb on his way out. Yes, you son of your cat mother and her brother, your uncle, you'll not pee on my pillow while I'm using it.

  Juanita came into the room scolding. "Why did you hit a poor cat?" she cried.

  "Because I pinchi wanted to hit him."

  Lovely as Juanita was, her loveliness then disappeared and she became the scolding woman he had noticed women sometimes became.

  "Love your cat then, woman," he said.

  "What?" Juanita asked, watching him rise like a monument and begin dressing himself. When she saw what he intended to do she struck him. He took her hair in a hand and slapped her, carefully so as not to mar her loveliness, only to sting her with his love once more in a different way.

  "Now, I'm going," he said. "I've been here too long."

  Juanita went out of the room while he tied on his huaraches. Her back still beckoned him. H
er movements still moved him. He loved her. He stood and decided that he would never be any more in this life than a barefoot. He would never go any faster than a barefoot man can travel. He walked into the kitchen and put his arms around Juanita. She smelled fresh from an errand in the sun. He stepped around to face her. She was crying again.

  "I'm only sorry that I hit you," he said. "I came out of it like a newborn baby, grouchy about facing work."

  "You came out of it like Lazarus to live again. Don't worry. You didn't hurt me. You struck me with culture in your hand." She laughed.

  Adán picked up his rifle and stepped out of doors again.

  33

  Adán Martinillo lounged on the trail. He was going home. He had heard the last bark of a town dog of Chinipas. The Mariposa dog walked with him and did not range ahead on the trail. Mariposa was afraid he would decide to take some trail that would not lead to Las Animas, but Adán knew he was headed home to his wife and sons and nothing could stop him. All heroic efforts could go waste somebody else. The trail to home was so even, so plain, he did not have to look down to follow it. He did not have to watch or listen for traps ahead of him. He did not have to worry about losing a trail that would lead him to his own bed that night. Dark was coming on, but dark did not matter to him. What did darkness mean to him on the way home?

  Then, El Yoco crossed the trail in front of him. When Adán did not believe what he had seen, El Yoco passed close before him again. El Yoco crossed close to him a third time before the Mariposa dog charged.

  Well, let them do what animals do, Adán thought. The field belonged to the animals. He went on with his feet finding the trail to Las Animas by themselves.

  Mariposa made a sound that would spur any hunter. He ran El Yoco against a bluff above Adán. El Yoco could only turn and fight through the little dog to get away. Adán did not lift his rifle. El Yoco was no longer his enemy. El Yoco was being pursued by fifty men. How sick and tired he must be now after so many weeks of infection, flight, and unrest. Adán had yielded the hunt. El Yoco could walk into the front room of Las Animas and Adán would give him a chair to rest in. Adán conceded he was the loser. He wanted no rematch.