by David Xavier
“A man outside the law is a curse to all who reside within.”
Vicente did not return to the Presidio de Loreto. Instead, he joined the policia in San Javier. He sat up nights, staring at the floor. When he rode, he kept his eyes locked in the distance, as though on some faraway destination. He stood in the office and stared at the names on the wall, but he could not read the names, he could not see the renderings. It was as if he looked past the wall.
Capitán Esparza led patrols to surrounding villages. He spoke with people who had been vandalized and stolen from; store owners, butcher shops, pottery makers, landowners, ranchers and farmers. Esparza’s ability to piece together information left the other officers nodding to each other behind him. He was also a seasoned tracker. The policia officers followed him through impossible tropical forests, coming upon hideouts of thieves and killers. He seized the land with both hands and shook plaguing criminals from its pockets.
They rode prisoners, cuffed and roped, to nearby stations. Esparza was authorized to reward his agents monetarily. He promoted them for their performance, their bravery, their steadfast commitment to uphold the law and bring those who broke it to justice.
Images of the outpost still crept before Vicente; how the other soldiers must have looked that night, the sounds they made. He stared straight ahead as Capitán Esparza paced the room with daily reminders of duty and loyalty, keeping silent until one day he could not hold himself still and he stepped forward.
“I know where the most wanted bandit in California is.”
Esparza stepped close. “Tell me.”
In the fall the villagers of Loreto held an annual celebration, the independence day of Mexico from Spain, fifty years prior. People stood on both sides of the street and waved sombreros and sashes as the village children held a parade. Small boys huddled in alleys and ran from short fuses. They tied bottles to dogs and chased the clatter through the alleys.
Salomon Pico stood with a drink in the cantina at Loreto. José Castro and Fabian de Avila stood on either side of him, and Ramiro Morelos joined them. Many faces filled the cantina, smiling and laughing, toasting full glasses to health and prosperity, to freedom. A few men stood close together with instruments in their arms and songs in their wide faces. Castro ordered more drinks and raised his glass to Salomon. He leaned close and shouted.
“Somebody told me you can dance the jarabe tapatio.”
“The what?”
Castro lifted a finger. “Ah, don’t pretend. I asked myself, where would a man like you learn the jarabe? And I answered myself a moment later, who cares as long as it is the jarabe?”
Salomon whirled his drink in small circles to take the foam from the edges. He took a long drink.
“Well, come on. I have not seen a man give a decent interpretation since I was a young man and watched my father dance around my mother. Where did you learn?”
“My father worked for the largest presidio in Alta California,” Salomon said, “It seemed every month another soldier was marrying a girl from Monterey. From Salinas. I had seen the dance so often, I earned extra money teaching the grooms the steps.”
“Show me.”
“It has been years, I could not hold up to your expectations, Colonel. I would ruin it.”
“Let me see.”
“You would wish you had not asked.”
“Nonsense.”
Castro stepped away from the bar, put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. The musicians looked his way, the music dropping one by one from their instruments. He spoke to them quickly that he had a man here who could dance if they could play the music. The musicians struck a few chords, and Castro smiled and clapped, the crowd cheered, but when Castro turned, Salomon was gone.
“Ah, what the hell.”
The song faded and changed into something else and the room turned its attention to a small boy who began to stomp his feet and clap his hands on one of the cantina tables. José Castro went back to his drink. He took a few swallows, then glanced both ways at Fabian and Ramiro beside him.
“Neither of you dance the jarabe tapatio, do you?”
Both men shook their heads and put their drinks to their faces. After several songs and another empty glass on the bartop, Salomon returned. Fabian de Avila nudged Castro and pointed to the door. Salomon was making his way through the celebration.
“Watch, watch,” Castro said with his head cocked toward Fabian. “He’s going to say, I have forgotten the steps.” Castro raised his glass when Salomon came close. “Sal. Why don’t you dance for us?”
“I could not dance it alone.”
Salomon took one of the shots on the bartop. He tossed it back and reached for Fabian’s sombrero and put it on. He tugged at the lapel of Castro’s jacket, and Castro straightened, his face wide and happy. The Colonel whipped his arms from his decorated officer’s jacket and handed it to Salomon with a smile. Salomon put his arms in and jerked the lapels into place. He pulled at the extra room at the stomach and looked at Castro.
“You don’t push away from the table as early as I do.”
“Nevermind that.”
He brushed a hand down the front several times. He took a deep breath and a second shot, then faced the dance floor. “I may have forgotten the steps.”
Castro nudged Fabian de Avila and the two grinned.
“If I forget the steps and look like a fool…” Salomon looked back at Castro with a grin. “Just shoot me dead.”
José Castro nudged Fabian with his elbow and tapped Ramiro in the chest with his knuckles. The men came off the bar. Castro whistled again and the musicians looked to him and then to each other and started up, a simple plucking of the same two bass chords to set a rhythm. The crowd parted and Salomon came through with tuned steps, wearing the sombrero tilted forward, his chin raised, and the Colonel’s jacket over a proud chest.
A voice called out near the door and all heads turned. The people moved away and there alone stood a woman wearing the colored skirt of a dancer, her head lowered in a shawl. Marisela raised her green eyes. Salomon nodded to her, and a small smile appeared on her lips. The women in the crowd leaned to each other and pointed to the beauty. A few of them gave out in sighs, astonishment collected in exhale. The men whistled and joined the chords in a measured stomp.
Marisela came forward in small steps, her hands clasped before her like a girl in sacrament. The musicians joined together and sent Salomon into the dim center light. Castro and the others stood in a perimeter and shouted out as Salomon circled. Every time he came close to Marisela, she looked away. He came around and stood in front of her and she turned her back. The guitarist stomped twice and the music rose in tempo. Men called out and whistled. Salomon twisted and circled, raising his arms and lowering them in a bow. Marisela played coy, turning away in a whirl of colored skirts. He slipped an arm around her waist and brought her close. They danced together for a short count before she broke away and danced on her own as he stalked. Salomon removed his jacket in a flourish and tossed it aside like a matador. He dropped his sombrero in the center of the floor and Marisela circled it. She danced close. He took her hand and spun her to arm’s length, where she tossed her hair and spun back to meet him face to face. They did not fight their smiles away.
The musicians labored to keep up, glancing between each other and the dancers. Their fingers worked at the strings, and they each took the natural pauses in the song to shake them out while the other instruments played on. People in the cantina rolled their tongues and called out. They clapped the two dancers around the floor, past the cheering hands, the men never taking their eyes from Marisela, the women never glancing from Salomon.
Outside, children cleared the street and watched from behind crates as horsemen rode in and dismounted in the cantina windowlight. The horsemen stood in the music as one of them, the officer among the Mexican policia, spoke low.
They went inside and kept to the side, unnoticed as the music played on, dark faces floating
behind the cheering shoulders. The officer pulled his gloves by the fingers and slapped them on the countertop. He gestured to the barman, then turned his back and watched the spectacle. He tapped his foot in tune. One of the six stood beside him and leaned in close. His pointed and his lips moved beneath the music. The officer nodded.
Salomon continued chasing Marisela across the floor. He pulled her in close, her back against him, and she lifted a hand and brought his face close to hers. The crowd watched for a kiss, but she broke and spun away in a flurry of skirts. Salomon stepped in large strides, his arms raised high as Marisela spun. The audience continued to call out. The music played faster. And faster. The dancers chased and whirled, they flounced and sidestepped around the circle, close to the people. And when the music came to the two final closing notes, they clung to each other and stomped with the final note.
A voice called out above the cheers. Heads in the cantina began to turn. The officer stood by the dancefloor, toasting with a drink in hand and a wide grin. The two dancers stood breathing hard. Every face in the cantina was on the officer, Capitán Feliciano de Ruiz Esparza.
“Very good,” Esparza said. “Very good indeed. The best I’ve seen.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Esparza did not look away from Salomon. “Where did you learn to dance like that, my friend?”
Salomon’s collar was dark, his rising chest glistened. He glanced to Marisela and grinned. “I taught myself when I was young.”
“And the beautiful woman?”
Salomon smiled. “She retaught me. Without the mistakes.”
A few laughs drifted among the spectators.
“She did well. Your footwork is flawless.”
“Thank you, Capitán.”
“And who did you learn from as a boy?”
“I watched the soldiers at the presidio.”
“The presidio in Monterey?”
Salomon paused before speaking. “Yes.”
“Your name is Salomon Pico?”
“It is.”
“Salomon Pico from Monterey, Alta California.”
Esparza stood with amused eyes and a grin. Salomon remained silent. The faces around grew serious. Castro stepped forward. “Capitán Esparza, perhaps we can take this discussion to a table in the corner. You are disrupting a celebrati–”
“Quiet.”
“What did you say?”
“I said be quiet or I will have you arrested for harboring a wanted criminal.”
The other policia filed in on either side of Esparza, boots sounding hard atop the floor. Salomon held Marisela behind him. She called out.
“Vicente.”
He had emerged from behind the Capitán, his eyes held low.
“Vicente. What are you doing?”
“What is going on?” Castro said.
Esparza raised a hand and stopped him. Then he nodded. “Collect the wanted man.”
Vicente came forward. He did not raise his eyes to Salomon or his mother. He stood, hesitating for a moment under their eyes, then took Salomon by the wrist and cuffed him. Marisela cried out and hit her fists on Vicente’s shoulder and slapped his chest. She took his jaw in her hand and he did not resist. Esparza called out an order and one of the policia stepped forward, but it was Fabian de Avila who stepped in and pulled Marisela away.
Several people ran from the cantina doors and parted in the street. Children scattered to the shadows. The policia led Salomon out at a stumble, his hands cuffed behind him, and mounted him upon one of the horses. Esparza came out at a walk, pulling his gloves on and mounting with a grin. People gathered about and watched. Marisela cried out again from Fabian’s arms as they rode off with Salomon.
Vicente was the last to leave, looking down at his mother. He held steady and did not speak, though his mother pleaded to him. As he turned, he caught sight of Ramiro Morelos, standing among the people with a grin. Ramiro nodded to him. Vicente wheeled and kicked his horse and set into a run.
Two days later beneath a bright sun Ramiro Morelos stood tied to a stake near the back wall of the presidio with a gag knotted at the back of his head and the firing squad shot him six times. Capitán Feliciano de Ruiz Esparza stepped forward several paces as the fog of gunsmoke drifted away and the slumped body on the stake became visible through a squint, the lowered head still sweating, his ankles crossed beneath him. Ramiro Morelos still breathed, heaving several times, dark blood spilling from his chest like holes in a dam. Esparza, looking beneath a hand against the sun, pulled his pistola and cocked the hammer, but Ramiro hissed one last time and fell silent.
Esparza touched his upper lip with the top of his wrist and swallowed. He holstered his pistola and looked back at the squinting firing squad as two villagers in cloaks scurried past him with white linens. Beyond the squad watched the presidio soldiers, including Colonel José Castro, Major Felipe Ortivez, and Fabian de Avila. The firing squad stood about with rifles in hand, glancing to each other and to Esparza. Esparza cleared his throat.
“You missed his heart.”
That afternoon, while the gunsmoke from the execution still seemed to waft about the presidio’s bright walls and the crack of gunfire from six nearly synchronized rifles still rung in men’s ears, Mateo Santos, a soldier of the presidio under Colonel José Castro, sat in a little room with the policia guards over his shoulder and told Esparza that, yes, of course he had seen Vicente Valderez and Ramiro Morelos fight just days before.
“Everybody in the mess hall saw it,” Mateo said. “Vicente jumped over the table at him.”
Soldiers dropped their forks halfway to their mouths and rushed to break up the fight before Vicente could raise his own fork against Ramiro. He would have punctured Ramiro a dozen times with it, until Ramiro bled to death through a hundred shallow holes. The soldiers would not have minded him dying then and there, “Ramiro was an ass,” Mateo said, but they had just sat down to eat, and also many of the soldiers still held loyalties to Vicente Valderez.
“Vicente is a nice kid. I don’t know why he turned Salomon in.”
“Because he is a protector of the law,” Esparza said.
The following day, however, after the argument in the cafeteria, Mateo alone broke up the fight between the two that would have ended with one of them spilling blood under the stable doors. The stableboy ran across the yard in the night to throw pebbles at Mateo’s window. “Quit throwing rocks or I will bury you neck deep in the horse stalls,” Mateo told the boy, one hand holding the window open. “I don’t care what you do,” the boy said. “There is a fight.”
“And he ran away just like that,” Mateo told Esparza. “I was going to ignore it, but I had not been sleeping well anyway.”
Mateo pulled his boots on and sat blinking on the edge of his cot for a moment before standing. He crossed the yard yawning half the way while pulling on his suspenders. The stableboy had a history of false alarms. He once stood in the yard at midnight, swinging what looked like a rope over his head and shouting until every eye in the presidio had opened, to announce he had found a rare, poisonous snake in the stables. It turned out to be a common garden snake. “It could have been poisonous,” the boy had said to the dozen blinking men huddled around him. “Then why did you pick it up?” they asked him.
When Mateo opened the stable doors, there was a fight just as the stableboy had said. Ramiro and Vicente traded positions under the straw, but instead of rushing forward Mateo stood blinking in the doorway.
“At first I did not know what I was looking at,” Mateo said. “Two lovers in the hay? Only when I saw flashes of their faces did I realize these were not the faces of pleasure, nor of lovers at all. It was Vicente and Ramiro.”
“And they were killing each other?”
“They would have had I not pulled them apart.”
“You clubbed Ramiro with a shovel pan.”
Mateo laughed but cut it short. “It was more like a slap. They did not stop when I shouted. And I am an amateur bariton
e. One of them stood and grabbed a pitchfork, and that’s when I stepped in with the shovel. I knew it was not a couple there for love.”
Esparza put both hands on the table. Mateo drew back as the Capitán leaned in. “I have never used a pitchfork in making love,” Mateo said.
Mateo’s rich voice muffled down the hallway to the few soldiers’ children who peeked around the presidio corners. They heard Esparza loud and clear when he said, “Bring me the stableboy,” and that sent them running.
The guards took Mateo Santos by the arms and led him out. The stableboy was much more difficult to get words from. He sat with a mad face in the same chair in the stuffy room and did not speak until Esparza threatened him. Esparza circled the room a dozen times, leaning against the wall and speaking calmly, leaning in close to yell, his face just inches from the boy’s, but still the stableboy did not speak or even change his expression. He just followed the Capitán with his eyes. That’s when Esparza gave up and told the guards to throw the boy into the snakepit did the boy take a deep breath and start speaking.
“I did not know who it was fighting,” the stableboy said. “They did not say anything to each other, they just came in and started throwing punches.”
The stableboy had never seen a snakepit at the presidio, but he had not seen behind every door yet.
Ramiro and Vicente came into the stables that night more like a pair of schoolchildren than a pair of gentlemen fighters, not giving each other the time to remove their hats and suspenders before the swinging and gouging commenced. The stableboy woke to the noise of the scuffling and leaned from the loft.
“The horses were stamping in place,” the stableboy said. “I thought an animal had gotten in during the night.”
The boy came down the ladder with a pitchfork in hand, but when he came to the stalls and saw in the moonlight from the stable windows that it was not a scavenging animal but two men fighting, he dropped the pitchfork and ran.
